5-5-14 Perdido Street School Week

Perdido Street School:

Citizens For Responsibility & Ethics In Washington Names Andrew Cuomo One Of The Worst Governors In The Country

From the CREW website:The only thing transparent about Gov. Cuomo’s administration is his obvious attempt to avoid disclosure. Gov. Cuomo has faced criticism for his transparency record, stemming from his efforts as governor to block access to records from his tenure as governor and state attorney general. Gov. Cuomo and his administration have largely forgone the use of email for official busines

by reality-based edu... / 38min 

Cuomo Tried To Talk Teachers Union Local Out Of Anti-Cuomo Protest On Long Island

So many stories today about Governor Cuomo's increasing political desperation.First he cancelled his appearance at an Education Reform Now-sponsored conference at which he had been named "honorary chair" after the the meeting of wealthy edu-entrepreneurs and hedge fund managers became a flash point for parents and teachers around the state.Then we got word from Fred Dicker in the NY Post

by reality-based edu... / 10min 

Another Saham From Andrew Cuomo

Remember when Cuomo parachuted in to save the TWU/MTA contract deal?Turns out the whole thing was orchestrated by Cuomo's office to make him look the "hero":If the latest episode of the MTA-TWU drama seemed a bit scripted, it’s for good reason. It was scripted. In what might be dubbed the “Fairy Tale of Albany” or the “White Knight from Mount Kisco,” the hero who saved the day was Gov. C

by reality-based edu... / 16min hide  //  save

More Signs Of Political Weakness For Andrew Cuomo

Fred Dicker in the NY Post:Republican strategists are crowing that Gov. Cuomo made a major political blunder last week when, joining with the Rev. Al Sharpton, he attacked GOP gubernatorial hopeful Rob Astorino for allegedly supporting racial discrimination in Westchester County. The explosive charge, in Democratic TV ads and party statements, focuses on claims by HUD, the federal housing agency C

by reality-based edu... / 3h 

5-4-14 Perdido Street School Week

Perdido Street School: UFT Contract - What Will The Rank And File Do?Most of the bloggers in the New York City education blogosphere have been critical or outright contemptuous of the contract proposal between the UFT and the city that was announced on Thursday.Once it became apparent that no more than 2% compensation would hit the salary step ladder this calendar year if the contract is passed, i

by mike simpson / 6h 

Common Core is latest front in decades-long education wars | EdSource Today

Common Core is latest front in decades-long education wars | EdSource Today:

Common Core is latest front in decades-long education wars

May 4th, 2014 | 1 Comment | 
By Peter Schrag / commentary

16

It’s déjà vu all over again.

Peter Schrag

Nearly 20 years ago, after the Clinton administration proposed a program of voluntary national student testing, Chester Finn, then a senior fellow at the conservative Hudson Institute, warned that if it failed it would be because “liberals hate the word ‘testing’ and conservatives hate the word ‘national.’” He was right.

The growing national backlash this spring against theCommon Core State Standards and the testing programs linked to them – in California, the testing program has the clumsy name of Smarter Balanced – fits not only Checker Finn’s diagnosis but belongs in a longer national history of controversies and uncertainties about what and how to teach our children, and who should decide.

In the decades before and right after World War II, the battles centered largely on progressive education, which in the eyes of some on the right during the Cold War was a communist plot.

In 1962 our own Max Rafferty was elected state superintendent of public instruction with his attacks on progressivism and his call for a return to “the fundamentals.” His recipe was phonics, memorization, drill and patriotism.

At nearly the same time schools around the country were buffeted by battles over the “new math,” the “new physics” and the “new biology,” school curricula that were themselves responses to the launching of Sputnik in 1957 and the resulting national panic that the Russians were about to beat our technological brains out.

The new curricula brought their own backlash, some from conservatives, some from parents who couldn’t understand what their kids were being asked to do. All that fancy new stuff, but my child Common Core is latest front in decades-long education wars | EdSource Today:

The 2008 Common Core Sales Job: Part Two | deutsch29

The 2008 Common Core Sales Job: Part Two | deutsch29:

The 2008 Common Core Sales Job: Part Two

May 5, 2014

In 2008, the National Governors Association (NGA), the Council of Chief State School Officers (CCSSO), and Achieve, Inc., released a report, Benchmarking for Success: Ensuring U.S. Students Receive a World-class Education.

The report promotes a now all-too-familiar spectrum of so-called “reforms,” including establishing the Common Core State Standards (CCSS), CCSS-aligned curriculum and assessment, alter teacher recruitment and retention to reflect those of “successful nations,” “hold schools accountable” for “high performance,” and make international comparisons based upon standardized test scores in order to “ensure global competition.”

Sigh.

In Part One of my series on this report, I focused on the report’s absence of discussions of national debt in promoting the faulty goal of  “global competition” via nationally standardized education.

In this second post, I consider the individuals authoring, “advising on,” and financially supporting the report.

I realize that the overlap among corporate reformer involvements poses a challenge to readers. Thus, I will offer a measured dose of the 2008 Benchmarking report as it overlaps with select other events of its time and notable dealings of key individuals.

Fasten your seat belts. Here we go.

First, some context on the timing of the report: 2008. One year earlier, in 2007, No The 2008 Common Core Sales Job: Part Two | deutsch29:

NGA Chair Gov. Mary Fallin Target of Campaign to End Common Core | Truth in American Education

NGA Chair Gov. Mary Fallin Target of Campaign to End Common Core | Truth in American Education:

NGA Chair Gov. Mary Fallin Target of Campaign to End Common Core

Filed in Common Core State Standards by Shane Vander Hart on May 5, 2014 • 0 Comments

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American Principles Project, Eagle Forum, Concerned Women for America, Home School Legal Defense Association and several other grassroots conservative groups launched a campaign urging the Chair of the National Governors Association, Governor Mary Fallin (R-OK), to end the Common Core State Standards Initiative.  The NGA, along with theCouncil of Chief State School Officers, are co-owners of the copyright to the Common Core.

Fallin is facing a Common Core repeal bill that has passed both chambers of the Oklahoma Legislature with an amended version that will need to be considered.  Governor Fallin has indicated that she is keeping an open mind about the bill, but it would put her in a strange position being chair of the NGA.

The letter has been signed by some of the leading figures in the fight to stop the Common Core State Standards such as Emmett McGroarty and Jane Robbins of American Principles Project, Phyllis Schlafly the Founder and President of Eagle Forum, Jamie Gass and Jim Stergois of thePioneer Institute, syndicated columnist Michelle Malkin, Joy Pullmann of the Heartland Institute, Michael Farris of ParentalRights.org  and Stacy Mott the Founder and President of Smart Girl Politics Action.

The letter to Fallin states in part:

NGA’s activities, including its ownership, development and propagation of the Common Core,have caused profound harm to our constitutional structure.  NGA has enabled corporations and other private interests to drive education policy and, concomitantly, compromised the power of parents.  It has enlisted the power of the federal government to bring about these changes and, in so doing, has weakened the power of states to defend the authority and rights of parents and other citizens.

More specifically, NGA has assisted the federal government in employing a strategy against 

NGA Chair Gov. Mary Fallin Target of Campaign to End Common Core | Truth in American Education:

Piketty in the Pines Going camping with the 1% | EduShyster

Piketty in the Pines | EduShyster:

Piketty in the Pines

Going camping with the 1%

Reader: even upon today’s comically overpopulated education reform landscape, the men of Democrats for Education Reform or DFER (say it with me; Dee Furr) stand alone. That’s because, with thier unapologetic ties to all things hedge fundy, DFER man’s net worth towers above even his well-off reform-minded peers. Also, that master of the universe quality, so handy for picking winners and dumping losers, isn’t always so pleasant when viewed from close up. In other words, DFER man is a type a-hole. Let’s get to know him, shall we?

Some very good years
First, a toast: to the remarkable success of DFER’s hedge fund friends. Jus how successful have they been of late? Tres, tressuccessful, reader. Here’s a little perspective. In 2008, like you, DFER man *lost a bit of ground.* But whereas you remain mired in mediocrity and are compensated accordingly, the incomes of the top 1% have soared. And within this economic elite, the hedgies with whom DFER hangs have done best of all. Between 2002 and 20012, the average pay for the top 25 highest pay hedge fund managers climbed from Piketty in the Pines | EduShyster:

Failing Schools: Conflicts over How to Write, Talk, and Make Films about Them | Larry Cuban on School Reform and Classroom Practice

Failing Schools: Conflicts over How to Write, Talk, and Make Films about Them | Larry Cuban on School Reform and Classroom Practice:

Failing Schools: Conflicts over How to Write, Talk, and Make Films about Them

I have been a social studies teacher for 14 years in schools that were black and poor. Even before test scores determined whether a school was failing, the three urban schools I taught in were viewed as ____ (choose your favorite word: losers, basket cases, lousy, failures) because of the neighborhood in which the school was located and the color of the students’ skin. And that was over a half-century ago.

When I would read newspaper articles about where I taught then, the school often had the adjective “ghetto” or “slum” in front of it. Both were accurate insofar as characterizing students’ color of skin, family income and residential segregation that kept families where they lived but was far too simplistic in overlooking the many men and women in these neighborhoods who took pride in their homes, brought back weekly paychecks, and urged police officials to rid their streets of muggings, gangs, and drug-related crime.

Here is where my values come into conflict in writing about failing schools. I prized, then and now, the honest portrayal of unassailable facts of any low-performing school including the ones I worked in more than a half-century ago. By all academic criteria, they were doing poorly. The numbers graduating high school, dropouts, suspensions–name any school-wide metric–and they would have registered on the failing side of the ledger. The schools were in the center of neighborhoods that were different from the rest of the city as a result of Failing Schools: Conflicts over How to Write, Talk, and Make Films about Them | Larry Cuban on School Reform and Classroom Practice:

GUEST: Christie aims at unions | Bob Braun's Ledger

GUEST: Christie aims at unions | Bob Braun's Ledger:

GUEST: Christie aims at unions

Will he eat unions now?

By Becca Fields

A budget crisis—that’s what the main-stream media are calling it. A shortfall of $800 million in THIS year’s state budget that has to be resolved by June 30, a matter of weeks.  But the real crisis isn’t simply a collection of numbers on a ledger book. The real crisis is the opportunity  this creates for Gov. Chris Christie’s—an opportunity for a dangerous attack on public employee unions. 

Just as he did four years ago—with the help of cynical Democratic legislators—Christie will try to make unions and their members bear the brunt of the political maneuverings to try to fill that hole when most of the money available this year has been spent—or already cut to fill a hole discovered in February.

Christie cites the changes to federal government tax rates for the very wealthy resulting in much lower revenue for New Jersey than he estimated a year ago.  That is the excuse for this latest revenue shortfall, but ultimately we know he will blame the costs of pensions and benefits of our public sector employees.

Christie owns responsibility for this crisis.  He consistently overestimated revenues for every budget he proposed since taking office.  He refuses to consider rational revenue increases. Already this year, he acknowledged a $700 million “adjustment” in revenues – that was in addition to the new shortfall of $800 million. And the changed federal tax collection that resulted in a windfall last year as people paid early would GUEST: Christie aims at unions | Bob Braun's Ledger:

New York City’s New Teachers’ Contract Matters—To All of Us | janresseger

New York City’s New Teachers’ Contract Matters—To All of Us | janresseger:

New York City’s New Teachers’ Contract Matters—To All of Us

Posted on May 5, 2014 by janresseger

The Rev. John Thomas, former General Minister and President of the United Church of Christ, is now a professor and administrator at Chicago Theological Seminary, where he writes a blog.  Last Thursday, the 1st of May, the Rev. Thomas posted the following:  “May Day commemorates the Haymarket uprising in Chicago in 1886 that began as a march by workers in support of the eight hour workday.  It continues to be celebrated in many places as a day to honor workers and to rally workers to the labor movement.  But these days May Day is perhaps more aptly described as a collective “Mayday!” on behalf of workers who have been under assault for decades—lost jobs, suppressed wages, broken unions, attacks on collective bargaining, reduced benefits, and on and on it goes.”

It is therefore particularly fitting that last week on Thursday, May 1, 2014, New York City’s new mayor, Bill de Blasio and the United Federation of Teachers agreed on a contract that will end a bitter, long running dispute.  The NY Times covered the agreement, noting that “The teachers’ union has been without a contract for four and a half years…. The retroactive pay granted in the deal is the same pair of 4 percent raises that most other municipal unions received in 2009 and 2010.” In an earlier article, the NY Times reported that New York City’s 100,000 school teachers and other school employees represented by the United Federation of Teachers had been without a contract since 2009.  (Members of the United Federation of Teachers will be taking a vote soon on the agreement.)

Many of you who read this blog may live far from New York City and may wonder if New York City’s new labor agreement with its teachers is relevant to you.  Consider that New York’s previous mayor, Michael Bloomberg, was a leader in the national wave of hostility toward teachers and their unions. The NY Times editorial board, which has not always been complimentary to the new Mayor de Blasio, praised him this past Saturday in an editorial: “Dispensing with the unproductive tension that tarnished the Bloomberg administration, the New York City’s New Teachers’ Contract Matters—To All of Us | janresseger:

Release: New Report On Charter Industry Exposes $100 Million in Taxpayer Funds Meant For Children Instead Lost To Fraud, Waste & Abuse - Integrity in Education

Blog - Integrity in Education:

Release: New Report On Charter Industry Exposes $100 Million in Taxpayer Funds Meant For Children Instead Lost To Fraud, Waste & Abuse

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE: May 5, 2014
CONTACT:
Kyle Serrette: KSerrette@populardemocracy.org, 202-304-8027
Sabrina Stevens: media@integrityineducation.org, 720-295-0238

A new report released today reveals that fraudulent charter operators in 15 states are responsible for losing, misusing or wasting over $100 million in taxpayer money.

“Charter School Vulnerabilities to Waste, Fraud And Abuse,” authored by the Center for Popular Democracy and Integrity in Education, echoes a warning from the U.S. Department of Education’s Office of the Inspector General. The report draws upon news reports, criminal complaints and more to detail how, in just 15 of the 42 states that have charter schools, charter operators have used school funds illegally to buy personal luxuries for themselves, support their other businesses, and more.

The report also includes recommendations for policymakers on how they can address the problem of rampant fraud, waste and abuse in the charter school industry. Both organizations recommend pausing charter expansion until these problems are addressed.

“We expected to find a fair amount of fraud when we began this project, but we did not expect to find over $100 million in taxpayer dollars lost. That’s just in 15 states. And that figure fails to capture the real harm to children. Clearly, we should hit the pause button on charter expansion until there is a better oversight system in place to protect our children and our communities,” said Kyle Serrette, the Director of Education Justice at the Center for Popular Democracy.”

“Our school system exists to serve students and enrich communities,” added Sabrina Stevens, Executive Director of Integrity in Education. “School funding is too scarce as it is; we can hardly afford to waste the resources we do have on people who would prioritize exotic vacations over school supplies or food for children. We also can’t continue to rely on the media or isolated whistleblowers to identify these problems. We need to have rules in place that can systematically weed out incompetent or unscrupulous charter operators before they pose a risk to students and taxpayers.”

The report can be found at www.populardemocracy.org and www.integrityineducation.org.

April 8, 2014

This Tax Day, tell the USDOE to #ShowTheDocs

This coming Tax Day, we’re re-submitting our request, with updated questions about how this administration’s signature education policies came to be. We believe it is unconscionable for the government officials, paid through our tax dollars, to create barriers between us and the information we need to make policies that work for our children and our communities. We will continue to fight to hold public officials accountable to all of us, not just a few powerful corporate interests.

March 26, 2014

Truthiness and Lies

We all make mistakes. When honest people make a mistake, they own up to it and make the needed corrections. So far, Jeb Bush’s foundation has done the exact opposite.

March 21, 2014

Take Action: Don’t let Jeb Bush deceive parents on TV!

Click here to ask Animal Planet, HGTV and The Family Channel to pull this misleading ad! Yesterday, we started looking into a new ad campaign, a website and TV campaign that promotes testing and the Common Core. Jeb Bush, his education foundation (FEE), and Chiefs for Change have a history of playing fast and loose with the facts while pushing

March 20, 2014

Pay Pearson, Go Further?

Bush’s group offers no links or citations to back up any of their claims about Florida’s education turnaround. But a quick glance at Florida’s most recent NAEP data reveals that their students’ score either statistically no different or worse than the national average on seven out of ten points of comparison.

Act 22 made the financial crisis facing the Philadelphia School District inevitable. Government actions, unintended outcomes with S&Ls, schools

Government actions, unintended outcomes with S&Ls, schools:




Government actions, unintended outcomes with S&Ls, schools

Fast-forward to 1997 and the passage of the Pennsylvania Charter School Law: Act 22. This effectively deregulated the public educational system. Act 22 made the financial crisis facing the Philadelphia School District inevitable.

If you want to see how seemingly logical government actions can create massive problems, all you have to do is look at two outwardly different crises: the collapse of the savings and loan industry and the Philadelphia School District financial mess.

Changes in regulations and laws that allowed interest rates to move freely eventually led to the bankruptcy of many S&Ls, while the passage of the charter-school law set in motion events that ultimately bankrupted the School District.



Actions have consequences, especially when they alter the fundamental manner in which business is conducted. Consider the S&L crisis. The root cause was the repeal of Regulation Q, which had set a ceiling on what banks could pay for deposits. That decision was inevitable given the rapid innovation in the finance sector.



How did a needed market-based action lead to massive bank failures? Simple. Before deregulation, bankers operated under what was amusingly called the 3-6-3 Rule: Pay 3 percent for deposits, lend at 6 percent, and be golfing by 3 p.m.



Largely mortgage lenders, savings and loan associations used short-term, Regulation Q-limited cost deposits and lent them out long term at fixed rates to households who wanted to buy homes. Then the market for short-term deposits changed.

Repealing the limits on interest rates created what economists



Read more at http://www.philly.com/philly/business/20140504_Government_actions__unintended_outcomes_with_S_Ls__schools.html#IbuDF5hrGPpyE5mV.99

School officials heading back to Council with aid plea

PHILADELPHIA The leaders of the School District of Philadelphia plan to go to City Council on Monday and, for the fourth year in a row, ask for tens of millions of dollars to keep the system afloat.

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Yearning for knowledge

Homeless and out of work, Quaris Carter feared he'd never escape the poverty that engulfed him as a child and young man - not without an education.

8h 

Reflections on Teaching » Blog Archive » Week in Class Week 31: Is WYSWIG?

Reflections on Teaching » Blog Archive » Week in Class Week 31: Is WYSWIG?:

Week in Class Week 31: Is WYSWIG?

This was the second week back from Spring Break. I didn’t write after the first week (Week 30) because as things were “sub-optimal” that week, and I really wasn’t in the mood to voluntarily call up memories of what had happened, let alone reflect on it. This week started off much better. How much better? Like my class had a personality transplant. Based on that, I’m chalking it up to a rough transition back to classroom routines after a week off.

Some that went right the week before last, and didn’t work so well this week…

While Week 30 would try the nerves of teachers of lesser experience, the kids did a heck of a job on their end of week assessment. I have the students write those. In this case, due to SBAC testing, we did not have computers available to work on, so they had to hand-write their Reflections on Teaching » Blog Archive » Week in Class Week 31: Is WYSWIG?:

NYC Educator: How Much Does This Contract Cost?

NYC Educator: How Much Does This Contract Cost?:

How Much Does This Contract Cost?

There were no givebacks in the 2008-2010 round of contract bargaining for FDNY, NYPD, or DSNY. They got 4% one year, and 4% the next. That was pretty much it.

UFT, on the other hand, went to Albany to help write a draconian junk science law that makes every teacher in the state subject to VAM, which AFT President Randi Weingarten now refers to as a sham. Would that we had known that before agreeing to it. In any case, we were told, the system would have to be negotiated, and we would get a say, and that's why the system was so incredibly wonderful.

Of course we got the evaluation system without the contract, nothing was negotiated, and fanatical ideologue John King unilaterally decided on our system. Though neither the DOE nor the UFT wanted 4-6 annual evaluations, King did, so that was it. Now supervisors had to spend as much time observing teachers doing a great job as those who needed help, so less help was available for teachers in need. Yet another stroke of brilliance from the man who deems Common Core a panacea for our children (but not his own).

A UFT rep came to my school and told my members that the UFT was very smart, and that we would get our contract. After all, he said, there could be no evaluation system without a modification to contract. Alas, we did, in fact, get the evaluation system without the contract. Members routinely ask me to invite this rep back so they can scream at him. I've thus far declined.

Did FDNY, NYPD, or DSNY get a new junk-science based evaluation system for their relatively great increases? I think not. Yet our leadership not only enabled it, but placed it in the hands of a three-year charter school teacher who sees fit to fail 70% of our children. I suppose you could NYC Educator: How Much Does This Contract Cost?:

Mike Klonsky's SmallTalk Blog: WEEKEND QUOTABLES

Mike Klonsky's SmallTalk Blog: WEEKEND QUOTABLES:

WEEKEND QUOTABLES

Louis C.K.

"Well, the way I understand it, if a school’s kids don’t test well, they burn the school down. It’s pretty high-pressure." -- Actually, Louis C.K. was right about Common Core — Ravitch

Washington school board member tells Arne Duncan...

"You can keep the waiver. And regarding your failure letter – I have little interest in using our Lake Stevens letterhead to tell our students and educators they’re failures, because they are not." --Answer Sheet

Baraka

Ras Baraka

“Some people believe we have to eradicate crime altogether and then do economic development. I tend to believe that economic development is a lever to help us reduce crime, as are art and literacy and all kinds of other things.” -- New Jersey Jewish News

James Mason, PARCC state leader

...the contract with Pearson [is] one of "unprecedented Mike Klonsky's SmallTalk Blog: WEEKEND QUOTABLES: