Other People’s Children | EduShyster

Other People’s Children | EduShyster:

Other People’s Children

Posted on July 11, 2013

Why are white people so eager to advocate for the sort of schools to which they would never send their own children?

Reader: more and more white people agree that strict, “no excuses” style charter schools provide an ideal learning environment for poor minority kids. As proof of this surging enthusiasm I give you exhibit A: a glowing report about Harlem’s Democracy Prep charter school featured in the current issue of theNew Yorker, one of America’s whitest magazines. (Full disclosure: I am white and also a New Yorker subscriber). Which brings us to today’s fiercely urgent question: why are white people so eager to advocate for the sort of schools to which they would never send their own children?

Through the Gauntlet
The New Yorker piece, by writer Ian Frazier, is subtitled ‘Up Life’s Ladder’—but ’gauntlet’ might be a more accurate metaphor. Frazier is dazzled by the spectacle of the 44 

Shanker Blog » Data-Driven Instruction Can't Work If Instructors Don't Use The Data

Shanker Blog » Data-Driven Instruction Can't Work If Instructors Don't Use The Data:

Data-Driven Instruction Can’t Work If Instructors Don’t Use The Data

Posted by Matthew Di Carlo on July 11, 2013

In education today, data, particularly testing data, are everywhere. One of many potentially valuable uses of these data is helping teachers improve instruction – e.g., identifying students’ strengths and weaknesses, etc. Of course, this positive impact depends on the quality of the data and how it is presented to educators, among other factors. But there’s an even more basic requirement – teachers actually have to use it.

In an article published in the latest issue of the journal Education Finance and Policy, economist John Tyler takes a thorough look at teachers’ use of an online data system in a mid-sized urban district between 2008 and 2010. A few years prior, this district invested heavily in benchmark formative assessments (four per year) for students in grades 3-8, and an online “dashboard” system to go along with them. The assessments’ results are fed into the system in a timely manner. The basic idea is to give these teachers a continual stream of information, past and present, about their students’ performance.

Tyler uses weblogs from the district, as well as focus groups with teachers, to examine the extent and nature of teachers’ data usage (as well as a few other things, such as the relationship between usage and value-added). What 

Mike Klonsky's SmallTalk Blog: Yes it's 2013 and prisoners can finally talk with their families in languages other tan English

Mike Klonsky's SmallTalk Blog: Yes it's 2013 and prisoners can finally talk with their families in languages other tan English:

Yes it's 2013 and prisoners can finally talk with their families in languages other tan English

Chesa Boudin

I'm immensely proud to know Chesa Boudin, a young (damn, he's not a kid any more) super-hero without cape, who seems to pop up whenever the powerless need a voice. 

AP --  Utah prisoners will be allowed to talk with visitors in Spanish or any other language now that a long-standing English-only rule has been scrapped. By Aug. 1, signs in the Utah state prison saying, "All visits will be conducted in English," will be taken down in a policy change ordered by Utah's new prison boss, Rollin Cook.

That will put an end to the nation's only written rule from a state prison system forbidding foreign languages during visits, said Chesa Boudin, a federal public defender in San Francisco and one of three authors of a Yale University law school study that reviewed prison rules across the United States.

"I was shocked," Boudin said  when he learned of the rule. "This is a country that prides itself on its diversity: racially, ethnically, linguistically. Utah, while not the epicenter of immigration in this country, has many language groups."

InBloom is wilting thanks to privacy concerns–but they don’t stop with InBloom | Digital

InBloom is wilting thanks to privacy concerns–but they don’t stop with InBloom | Digital:

InBloom is wilting thanks to privacy concerns–but they don’t stop with InBloom

In my first post for this blog I covered the splashy debut ofInBloom at the SXSWEdu conference in Texas in March. I noted that it’s tough to explain exactly what the company does (essentially, they provide the infrastructure for a variety of smaller applications to harness the data generated by students to make their offerings more efficient and personalized). I also highlighted privacy concerns that are starting to surface about the collecting, repackaging and re-selling of student data for the benefit of for-profit companies.

Several months later it seems that both the inability to explain for the layperson what the company does, and the panic over privacy and security (underlined by the recent upheaval over NSA data mining), are dogging InBloom and may doom it. The number of partner and pilot states for the organization, initially listed at seven, is now down to five according to the website. And in at least two of those states, New York and Colorado, the idea faces vociferous local opposition. The American Federation of Teachers has stepped in, issuing a statement citing a 

LA Unified's historical collection: from Mesopotamian artifacts to report cards | Pass / Fail | 89.3 KPCC

LA Unified's historical collection: from Mesopotamian artifacts to report cards | Pass / Fail | 89.3 KPCC:

LA Unified's historical collection: from Mesopotamian artifacts to report cards

Jed Kim | July 11th, 2013, 6:00am

@LASchools

A report card from 1896 is just one of more than 30,000 items archived within LA Unified's Art and Artifact Collection.

If you've ever wanted to check whether your great-great-grandmother really was a straight-A student, you may be in luck.

The Los Angeles Unified School District has a public archive of more than 30,000 historical items that date back to 1855, when the district's first school opened. And it includes some report cards.

The Art and Artifact Collection contains a wide variety of items gathered throughout L.A. Unified's history: paintings, sculptures, photographs, antique furniture and even ancient Greek, Roman, Etruscan and Mesopotamian artifacts. 

The collection also includes old academic records, including a report card from 1896-1897. It's for then-fifth grader Grace Sutherland, whose best subject seems to have 

7-11-13 SCHOOLS MATTER @ THE CHALK FACE

SCHOOLS MATTER @ THE CHALK FACE:

Opt Out or Cop Out?

The Thomas B. Fordham Foundation has caught on to the fact that students, parents, teachers and the general public are as fed up with this education scam as are the people in North Carolina and Texas who are fed up with the misogyny coming from their Republican state legislators. To discuss ways to discredit the […]

by freetoteach / 55min 

The Christie Mirage

Well, well, once again we see the facts trump the propaganda here in New Jersey. It’s been a while since President Obama’s visit to the Jersey Shore. Business owners in Point Pleasant beach say Obama’s visit held up traffic and hurt business. To add insult to injury, businesses can not get funds but can borrow […]

by freetoteach / 14min 

Buy stock in tin-foil immediately

This could be the next Apple, Microsoft, or Google. I commented yesterday on the sense of relief I experienced when cleaning out my Facebook group and admin memberships. It felt as if I had moved on in my own thoughts and ideas and here I was being dragged back into some of the very early […]

by Chalk Face, PhD / 11min 

The Charter Real Estate Mob

The long Team Obama continues to pour hundreds of millions each year down the segregated corporate charter school rabbit hole, the deeper and more entrenched will the network of corporate charter gangsters get.  Jersey Jazzman has a must read here.  Photo below from his post (enlarge by clicking):  

by Jim Horn / 13min

7-10-13 Schools Matter @ The Chalk Face

SCHOOLS MATTER @ THE CHALK FACE: The Not-so-Hidden Path to School ImprovementClosing the Opportunity Gap, edited by Prudence Carter and Kevin Welner, shows how accountability-driven, competition-driven “reform” has failed educationally. On the other hand, it recounts the political advantages that corporate “reform” enjoys as it seeks to use competition to improve schools. Carter and Welner submit

by mike simpson / 10h 

LISTEN TO DIANE RAVITCH 7-11-13 Diane Ravitch's blog | A site to discuss better education for all

Diane Ravitch's blog | A site to discuss better education for all:

Eva Moskowitz Charter Pushes Out Harlem Special Ed School

Eva Moskowitz’s Success Academy charter schools (originally called Harlem Success Academy) have been ruthless in grabbing public school space from existing schools and crowding their “hosts” out. Currently they are involved in taking space from a Harlem public school dedicated to children with special needs. Moskowitz has several fabulously wealthy hedge fund managers on her board. It is a shame

by dianerav / 6min 

Connecticut’s Privatization Manager Moves On

Jonathan Pelto reports that Debra Kurshan, the state’s “Chief Turnaround Officer” is leaving for another position after eight months on the job. What a close and cozy world these corporate reformers inhabit! As Pelto writes: “Commissioner Pryor has announced that Kurshan, who previously served as the head of School Portfolio Development for Mayor Bloomberg’s school privatization efforts and also

by dianerav / 32min 

Is Time Running Out for the Reformers?

The public is beginning to awaken to the realities of what is deceptively called “school reform.” Read David Sirota’s terrific piece on how they are unraveling, here. First, what is happening in state after state, in direct response to federal policy, is school destruction, not reform. Second, the end game for the so-called “reformers” is privatization, not reform. Everything the “reformers” advoc

by dianerav / 54min 

Gary Rubinstein Gives Good Advice to Teach for America

Gary Rubinstein is a former member of Teach for America, and he is now one of its toughest critics. He is also its best friend, but TFA doesn’t know it. His criticism is always fair and insightful, never angry or mean spirited. If TFA would listen to him, it could reclaim its original mission and goals. Because it does not listen, it does not learn. Instead, it cements its image as a narcissistic

by dianerav / 1h 

How Charter Entrepreneurs Make Millions with Taxpayer Dollars

This is a stunning research job by Jersey Jazzman about the money tree that is turning canny businessmen into multimillionaires by investing in charter schools. They package financing from the U.S. Treasury Department, the U.S. Department of Education, the Walton Family Foundation, and they spin it into gold–for themselves. The family charter group he describes controls over $100 million in real

by dianerav / 1h mark as read  //  save

Minneapolis Public Schools: Will They Survive?

It is not news to readers of this blog that public education is under attack in cities across the nation by a politically powerful and heavily funded privatization movement. In some states, this movement has moved into the suburbs as well. This video pulls away the mask of reform and explains in clear detail the nexus of connections behind the privatization movement in Minneapolis. This district w

by dianerav / 1h 

Diane in the Evening 7-10-13 Diane Ravitch's blog | A site to discuss better education for all

Diane Ravitch's blog | A site to discuss better education for all: Sorry, You Missed Today’s Symposium about Cashing in on the Charter SectorIf only I had known sooner, I would have posted the announcement of today’s symposium. Yes! There is money to be made by investing in charter schools! It’s all about the children! It’s the civil rights issue of our time! And a great investment too!! “Bonds an

by mike simpson / 1h 

Five lousy lessons Congress is giving to kids:

Five lousy lessons Congress is giving to kids

By Valerie Strauss, Published: July 11 at 5:00 amE-mail the writer

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(Associated Press)

Congress has had a hard time lately getting work done on major education issues (and in this case, lately means years). Here are five lousy lessons that Congress is sending to kids in this regard:

1. It’s okay to blow deadlines.

Legislators let pass a July 1 deadline for preventing student college loans from doubling even though they had plenty of warning about what would happen if they didn’t take action. Meanwhile, the No Child Left Behind law was supposed to be reauthorized in 2007. SIX YEARS AGO. NCLB went into effect in 2002 and was supposed to be reauthorized by  Sept. 30, 2007. Congress passes laws with the intent that they will expire after a certain period of time, most often five years, at which time lawmakers can update and/or fix a law, with some history of implementation to back it up. But even if Congress doesn’t take up the law again, its authority stays intact until a new law is passed. There are now competing Democratic and Republican bills in Congress to rewrite it but nobody is expecting much movement on it anytime soon. Why? Look at Lesson No. 2.

2. It’s okay to refuse to compromise (even when doing so sometimes 

Organizing Resistance to Teach for America | Seattle Education

Organizing Resistance to Teach for America | Seattle Education:

Organizing Resistance to Teach for America

Free Minds, Free People Conference

Organizing resistance to Teach for America and its role in privatization

Calling critical Teach For America (TFA) alumni, those impacted by TFA in their communities, and students of TFA teachers: Lets organize!

Free Minds, Free People is a national conference convened by the Education for Liberation Network that brings together teachers, high school and college students, researchers, parents and community-based activists/educators from across the country to build a movement to develop and promote education as a tool for liberation.

The 2013 conference will take place in Chicago, July 11-14. In the aftermath of a strike that brought teachers and community together to successfully challenge corporate education reform, we are excited to offer people who care about education justice the 

Principaling in a Rural School (Gerald Carter, Larry Lee, and Owen Sweatt) | Larry Cuban on School Reform and Classroom Practice

Principaling in a Rural School (Gerald Carter, Larry Lee, and Owen Sweatt) | Larry Cuban on School Reform and Classroom Practice:

Principaling in a Rural School (Gerald Carter, Larry Lee, and Owen Sweatt)

With all of the focus on principal leadership, attrition, and staying power, here’s a picture of an administrator who had an unlikely career path to the principalship and has stayed the course while becoming integral to the school and community. Richard Bryant performs all three core roles of the job (instructional, managerial, and political) and, according to those who are in the town and who have watched him  in action, he does them well.

This post is an excerpt from “Lessons Learned from Rural Schools,” May, 2009. The full report is at:LessonsLearnedRuralSchools2009-1

When Richard Bryant got his diploma from Camden Academy High School in 1971, he had one thing on his mind: heading to Arizona. But there was one problem. “I didn’t have any money,” he laughs.

So that fall he began working as a teacher’s aide and in 1973 became both an aide 

Daily Kos: Charles M. Blow has some questions for us to consider

Daily Kos: Charles M. Blow has some questions for us to consider:

Charles M. Blow has some questions for us to consider

byteacherkenFollow

There is an African proverb that goes something like this: Until the lions have their historians, tales of the hunt shall always glorify the hunter.

  That line jumped out at me as I read the column Charles M. Blow has up for the Thursday New York Times.  It is titled Beyond the Courtroom, and should provoke some thinking.

I said he had some questions for us to consider.  He suggests that the trial of George Zimmerman in the killing of Trayvon Martin - for it is not in doubt that Zimmerman did kill Martin -

has produced a valuable and profound dialogue in America about some important issues surrounding race and justice, fear and aggression, and legal guilt and moral culpability.

And we can only examine those issue by asking questions.   Perhaps we might consider matters of race, of gender, of age.   For example, consider this from the op-ed:

...as a thought experiment, reverse the race and ethnicities of Trayvon Martin and 

A rare day in education when we can say something's working | Get Schooled | www.ajc.com

A rare day in education when we can say something's working | Get Schooled | www.ajc.com:

Posted: 2:00 a.m. Thursday, July 11, 2013

A rare day in education when we can say something's working 

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Previous Posts

• EOCT results: New higher math standards present challenge to Georgia students
  July 10, 2013
• Cutting Georgia's dropout rate would save millions in health-care costs
  July 10, 2013
• They're mad and they're bad. America's teachers raise the volume and the roof
  July 9, 2013

By Maureen Downey

Several recent high-profile reportss give rise to a seldom-heard statement in the education community: Something's working.

The preferred narrative today --- especially in state legislatures --- is that public education is hopelessly broken, and the only recourse is to provide parents with escape routes through vouchers or private school tax credits, which Georgia has done. Many members of the Georgia General Assembly have been on a public education death watch for years.

Another common theme is that raising the performance of low-income children is a near-impossible goal, that the burdens of poverty are too onerous and beyond the reach of any reform efforts.

A new federal update on the long-term performance of American students contradicts both those narratives.

Assessing U.S. students on a set of benchmarks that have essentially remained unchanged fo

Feds search Oakland charter school in criminal investigation - Inside Bay Area

Feds search Oakland charter school in criminal investigation - Inside Bay Area:

Feds search Oakland charter school in criminal investigation

By Doug Oakley Oakland Tribune

Posted:   07/10/2013 07:07:33 PM PDT

Updated:   07/10/2013 10:00:32 PM PDT

OAKLAND -- The FBI and IRS have opened a criminal investigation into a charter school whose former director allegedly funneled $3.8 million from the school to companies he owns for construction and classroom rental spaces, and they were executing search warrants at three locations Wednesday afternoon.

"These are sealed search warrants and they are part of an ongoing criminal investigation," said FBI spokeswoman Julie Sohn.

Sohn would not say when the investigation into American Indian Model Schools started or what it entails.

A state audit last year found that former school director Ben Chavis, who now lives in North Carolina, broke state laws including the Political Reform Act, when he directed the

Gui Yu, of Oakland, who has a child attending the American Indian Model Schools, holds a sign as well as a large banner during a Oakland Unified School District special meeting to pull the charter of the AIM Schools in Oakland, Calif., on Wednesday, March 20, 2013. ( Doug Duran )

school to hire his companies.

Chavis did not immediately return phone calls Wednesday. Current school director Nabeehah Shakir also was not available for comment.

In June, Chavis said the money he got from the school for renovation and construction was money he donated to the