Eight months after negotiating “performance bonuses” funded by a Facebook fortune, Newark Teachers Union President Joseph Del Grosso was re-elected Tuesday by a margin of nine votes. A challenger slate that’s drawn inspiration from the Chicago Teachers Union captured seventeen of the twenty-nine seats on the NTU’s executive board, while barely falling short in its bid to oust Del Grosso. The new and old union officers will be sworn in together this afternoon, setting the stage for further conflict over the union’s orientation towards a nationally ascendant education reform agenda.“There was no overwhelming mandate for either slate,” Del Grosso told The Nation Thursday. He charged that his opponents “gave out a lot of bad erroneous information to the members” during the campaign, and said that having captured a majority of the board, “they’ll learn about unionism from the
"He's not going to teach in our system," --Paul VallasHow come Ed Notes was able to report the Chicago ed deform story that was to spread around the nation as far back as the late 90's - which we did to all the UFT delegates and leadership on a regular basis (leading me to a ---DUHHHHH moment)? Because of George Schmidt and Substance, where I began to read Susan Ohanian for the first time.
"What kind of people would do this?" -- Mayor Daley
The district has brought in university professors to review questions, recruited graduate students to take tests before they are administered and hired a testing-research concern to evaluate its exams. Mr. Vallas says the Substance case hasn't influenced such moves. "We have always ignored Schmidt," he says. ..... Wall Street Journal, May 25, 2001
Ohanian Comment: It occurs to me that since this website was not launched until a year after George Schmidt's courageous Act of Principle, many readers of this site don't know exactly what he did.
Substance cannot survive without the support of people who claim to believe in resistance. We all owe George--big time. Subscribe--and donate--now. Today.
Page One Feature
A Chicago Teacher's Action Inspires Antitest Crusaders
By Robert Tomsho, Wall Street Journal
2001-05-25
CHICAGO -- When copies of the citywide Chicago Academic Standards Examinations came into teacher George Schmidt's possession in 1999, he did something unusual: He published them in his newspaper.
Although the tests, completed by students earlier that year, were still being given on a no-stakes trial basis at that point, the act got Mr. Schmidt denounced, fired and sued for $1 million. But as President Bush pushes a
Hello! Happy Independence Day!
My name is Katie Osgood and I am a teacher. I teach at a psychiatric hospital here in the city, working with students from all over the Chicagoland area and of all ages including hundreds of CPS students. And in my hospital, I have seen directly the impact of Rahm Emanuel’s terrible school policies. We are seeing higher rates of depression, suicide attempts, school refusal, family conflict, anxiety, and aggressive behaviors all directly related to current school policies in this city.
To put it bluntly, CPS’s policies are hurting children. When you viciously close schools, slash budgets-including taking money for social workers, smaller
Duncan and National Football League Commissioner Roger Goodell announced plans to improve NFL performance in coming seasons.
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| The 1318 transnational corporations that form the core of the economy. Superconnected companies are red, very connected companies are yellow. The size of the dot represents revenue (Image: PLoS One) |
The idea that a few bankers control a large chunk of the global economy might not seem like news to New York's Occupy Wall Street movement and protesters elsewhere. But the study, by a trio of complex systems theorists at the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology in Zurich, is the first to go beyond ideology to empirically identify such a network of power. It combines the mathematics long used to model natural systems with comprehensive corporate data to map ownership among the world's transnational corporations (TNCs).-- New ScientistBut we're scientists, not ideologues, says one of the scientists.
"Reality is so complex, we must move away from dogma, whether it's
New Jersey Governor Chris Christie and Rahm Emanuel (Credit: AP/Reuters)
Today the NY Times editors returned to their status quo ante position when it comes to the city’s public schools, and sternly warned the mayoral candidates to stick to the dreadful Bloomberg dysfunctional and autocratic policies of school closings and privatization.
