Testing reform bill poisoned with intrusions and prohibitions on bargaining

Testing reform bill poisoned with intrusions and prohibitions on bargaining:

SB 566 – Testing (Sen. Ryan Mishler, R-Bremen) was heard Wednesday in the Senate Education and Career Development Committee. The bill was voted out of committee and recommitted to the Senate Appropriations Committee due to its fiscal impact.

SB 566 is much more than a testing bill. It diminishes teachers' bargaining rights.

Four major items need to be removed from SB 566.

1)    A change in the definition of deficit financing by a school corporation

2)    Changes to the bargaining of performance pay bonuses and master's degrees

3)    Provisions for innovative school networks

4)    An expansion of IEERB (Indiana Education Employee Relations Board) and its role in individual teacher contracts and Collective Bargaining Agreements (CBAs)

Currently, deficit financing is determined by a certain date so that both the board and the association can negotiate and secure the terms of the agreement for a year. If passed, this provision would allow the administration to manipulate the definition of deficit financing. It would give the employer complete control over spending after the contract has been agreed to. Therefore, allowing board to trump the master agreement every time the district makes expenditures it could be argued that it places it in a deficit.

This bill prohibits the association to bargain performance pay and master’s degree supplements. IEERB has already determined that performance pay is a wage-related issue, making it a mandatory subject of bargaining. Removing these items from bargaining further reduces teachers' ability to have a say in how they are compensated.

SB 566 expands the Innovative Network Schools statewide. This mirrors the law that was enacted for IPS last year and enables local school boards to reconstitute an existing public school within the district or contract out a school to a special management team. Though this bill gives permission for employees to bargain collectively, they will be at-will employees since they are treated like charter school employees.

This bill increases bureaucratic control over CBAs and individual teacher contracts. It sets up a process through which IEERB has control not only over the content of CBAs, but also the laws dealing with individual teacher contracts. This is an unnecessary expansion of state control. IEERB is designed to be a neutral agency. This expansion of duties puts IEERB in both the judge and jury role.        

ACTION: Please contact every member of the Senate Appropriations Committee and urge them to limit SB 566 to reforming testing and not to poison it with intrusions and prohibitions on bargaining and association issues.

Testing reform bill poisoned with intrusions and prohibitions on bargaining:

Mike Klonsky's SmallTalk Blog: Eli Broad is bored with giving prizes. Moving on to new top-down strategies.

Mike Klonsky's SmallTalk Blog: Eli Broad is bored with giving prizes. Moving on to new top-down strategies.:

Eli Broad is bored with giving prizes. Moving on to new top-down strategies

"No more prizes", says billionaire Eli Broad. 

If your school district is hoping for a Broad Prize to carry it over the hump, you're S.O.L. Billionaire Eli Broad and his foundation have become bored with that strategy. The prize strategy is giving way to the new flavor of the month -- the "portfolio model"  in which different types of so-called "independent schools" compete for students and must demonstrate results.

Not enough bang for the bunk buck in prizes, says Eli. He says he gives, gives and gives some more. And your test score increases just aren't meeting his expectations. And besides, he dislikes traditional public schools with union teachers anyway and refuses to give them a nickel more. So there.

According to the L.A. Times:

Broad "has bypassed districts by promoting and funding charter schools, which have siphoned students from traditional schools. (Charters are publicly funded, and independently managed; most are non-union.) Broad recently established a $500,000 prize for charter organizations, an award that will continue.

The Times quotes Jeffrey Henig, professor of political science and education at Teachers College, Columbia University who says, the suspension of the prize could signal a "highly public step" toward the view that traditional districts "are incapable of reform."

I would say, it's more a indication that top-down reform strategies coming from Mike Klonsky's SmallTalk Blog: Eli Broad is bored with giving prizes. Moving on to new top-down strategies.:

solidaridad: Robert D. Skeels on Refugio "Ref" Rodriguez's hostile opposition to Ethnic Studies in LAUSD

solidaridad: Robert D. Skeels on Refugio "Ref" Rodriguez's hostile opposition to Ethnic Studies in LAUSD:

Robert D. Skeels on Refugio "Ref" Rodriguez's hostile opposition to Ethnic Studies in LAUSD

"Bennett Kayser of Board District 5 authored the historic LAUSD Ethnic Studies Resolution!" — the Honorable José Lara

The more we learn of Refugio "Ref" Rodriguez, the more we realize that he's far worse than just another charter profiteer. Whether discussing his schools using money for advertising instead of classrooms; the astonishing 50% remediation rate of his so-called college-ready graduates; he and his backers' vile ableism and mocking of people with disabilities; or even his cowardly act of pretending he had no connections to the California Charter Schools Association (CCSA) after they were called out on their reprehensible, scurrilous attacks on the Honorable Bennett Kayser, we're faced with the possibility that Rodriguez's compass is stuck somewhere between immoral and amoral.

Rodriguez's latest transgression? His outrageous attacks on the historic Ethnic Studies resolution just passed by the Los Angeles Unified School District (LAUSD). His diatribe against ethnic studies occurred during the LA32 Neighborhood Council forum. While Rodriguez has long dabbled in respectability politics, and seems to wear self colonization with pride (e.g. name change), the idea that a supposed "educator" of color would seemingly support a white supremacist stance against ethnic studies is disheartening and disappointing to say the least. I left the following commentary after a post in the Deasy (LA) School Report blog that contained Rodriguez's rant against Ethnic Studies.

The Los Angeles community has struggled mightily for years to win an Ethnic Studies requirement. This is especially important after bigots Tom Horne and John Huppenthal shut down Ethnic Studies in Arizona, and Marshall Tuck shuttered those selfsame programs locally at Partnership for Los Angeles Schools (PLAS). Our students have a right to study about their own languages, cultures, and histories! For Refugio "Ref" Rodriguez and Andrew Thomas to mock, and even belittle the importance of the historic Ethnic Studies resolution championed by Los Angeles Unified School District (LAUSD) Board Members Bennett Kayser, Steve Zimmer, and Dr. George McKenna speaks volumes about their politics and values. Rodriguez and Thomas' anti-ethnic studies statements above find them dangerously close to advocating the same book banning and cultural sterilization programs implemented in other states that should never be acceptable in California (or anywhere for that matter).

---

There is only one LAUSD District 5 candidate whose track record on Ethnic Studies sets the gold standard: the Honorable Bennett Kayser!

solidaridad: Robert D. Skeels on Refugio "Ref" Rodriguez's hostile opposition to Ethnic Studies in LAUSD:

Teacher Unions Default on the Fightback » CounterPunch: Tells the Facts, Names the Names

Teacher Unions Default on the Fightback » CounterPunch: Tells the Facts, Names the Names:

Education's Race to the Bottom

Teacher Unions Default on the Fightback

by ANN ROBERTSON and BILL LEUMER

Public education in the U.S. is facing what Diane Ravitch, former assistant in the Department of Education, has called “an unprecedented time in American history” where schools are facing “a radical, extreme break with the past” because of a “direct attack on public education.”

Many of these attacks have been directed specifically at teachers, and consequently one might assume that teacher unions, the preeminent instrument that was created to defend them, has executed its own break with the past by dramatically ratcheting up its weapons of defense in order to rise to the challenge. Remarkably, teacher unions for the most part have maintained a conservative posture, basically doing little more than the same old routine of electing Democrats to office – a routine that has resulted in one defeat after another since this historic attack has unfolded. Fortunately, parents and often teachers acting independently of their unions have stepped up and won some significant victories.

In order to understand why the response of the teacher unions has been so listless and self-defeating, one must understand the source of the attack and what is needed in order to launch an effective defense. At its core, government leaders and influential corporate heads have observed what New York Times columnist Thomas Friedman has called the flattening of the world, meaning that globalization has forced economic and information barriers to come crashing down so that now, in order to succeed, American students must compete with students all over the world. Not only can capital move easily from one country to another, many jobs can be outsourced around the world, thanks to the Internet.

In explaining the contours of this new world, Friedman quoted an entrepreneur from India who insisted that for Americans, “There is no time to rest. That is gone. There are dozens of people who are doing the same thing you are doing, and they are trying to do it better… If there is a skilled person in Timbuktu, he will get work if he knows how to access the rest of the world, which is quite easy today.”

Friedman concludes his article by noting that when he was a child, his parents told him, “Tom, finish your dinner – people in China are starving.” Friedman, on the other hand, tells his children, “Girls, finish your homework – people in China and India are starving for your jobs.”

Because of this intense global competition, policy makers of both parties have jumped on the bandwagon and insisted that our schools must be radically reconstituted in order for our students to compete effectively in the new economy. Hence, the Obama administration, for example, has promoted teacher accountability, tying their employment and salaries to improvement in their students’ standardized test scores; it has championed charter schools in order to force public schools to improve by requiring them to step up and compete for students; it has raised expectations by forcefully encouraging states to adopt the high Common Core standards – all to make U.S. students more competitive in the global economy. The goal of promoting international U.S. corporate success has transmuted into an adoption of the entire corporate mode of operating – the “corporatizing” of education – in order to promote this goal.

Yet, there can be no question that these radical reforms are undermining education, diluting its quality, and demoralizing both teachers and students. Because of the incessant recourse to high-stake standardized tests to measure the progress of both teachers and students, teachers have been forced to narrow the curriculum and “teach to the test,” while students have been forced to put aside the process of discovery, which is essential to any real learning, and focus on the limited and shallow skill of navigating multiple-choice tests.

Meanwhile there is powerful evidence that conclusively shows that students’ classroom performance is far more correlated with their socioeconomic background than the teachers’ performance in the classroom. To hold teachers responsible for their students’ standardized test scores to a large extent amounts to blaming teachers for their students’ poverty, which tragically is on the rise thanks to the policies of both Democrats and Republicans that are allowing inequalities in wealth to surge. It was just reported that for the first time more than half of U.S. public school children live in poverty. Judging teachers by their students’ test scores has no rational basis yet is being forcefully imposed on our schools by the federal government.

Because their traditional allies from the Democratic Party have obsessively embraced these corporate-motivated innovations, teacher unions seem paralyzed, unable to respond with a new strategy. They criticize the overuse of standardized tests, but they keep electing Democrats to office who, once elected, more often than not join the corporate attack on education. The National Educational Association, the largest teacher union in the country, for example, has called for Secretary of Education Arne Duncan’s resignation, but they supported Obama’s presidential campaigns both times, even though Arne Duncan is simply implementing Obama’s education policies. The American Federation of Teachers has also endorsed Obama’s campaigns and gone so far as to accept “merit pay,” another toxic ingredient in education but forcefully promoted by the Obama administration.

Meanwhile, parents, students and teachers who are often acting independently of the teacher unions have taken up the challenge to defend public education. For example, in 2014 thousands of Denver seniors refused to take the standardized test, “saying they’re a distraction as they work to get into college and a waste of time and money.” In Florida, where testing is rampant, parents have joined a national protest movement. “One father broke down as he said he planned to pull his second grader from school. ‘Teaching to a test is destroying out society,’ he said.”

Jesse Hagopian, who has edited the excellent book, “More Than a Score – The New Uprising Against High Stakes Testing,” identified the core of the problem. At an event celebrating the opening of a school his kindergarten-aged son was attending, all the children were assembled on the grass. The governor’s education aide came and, according to Mr. Hagopian, announced: “I want to congratulate you all for making the choice to come to this school because you are now getting ready to compete in the global economy.” In response, Mr. Hagopian noted: “Cheers did not erupt from the fourth-grade section.” Nor did anyone say, “Yes! My son can keep that kid down in China. My son will be ready to beat down that kid in Mexico.”

In a capitalist economy corporations compete with one another, and if the corporation does not compete successfully, it will not survive. But the logic that applies to corporations does not apply to the workers who are employed by them. When U.S. workers, for example, compete against Chinese workers, while it is admittedly important to have certain skills, the far more common factor that allows the Teacher Unions Default on the Fightback » CounterPunch: Tells the Facts, Names the Names:

Bruce Rauner Wants To Gut Unions In Illinois | The New Republic

Bruce Rauner Wants To Gut Unions In Illinois | The New Republic:



Republicans Think They've Finally Figured Out How to Kill Unions

 Remember unions? You know, those organizations that helped raise wages, made workplaces safer by pushing for laws that would punish employers for dangerous conditions, and gave us the 40-hour workweek?

You could be forgiven for forgetting them, considering that union membership has been on the decline for decades from its high of about 35 percent in the 1950s. That makes it all the more strange that in 2015—when union membership in the U.S. has fallen to a measly 11.1 percent—Republicans have cast unions as the ultimate economic villain, responsible for job loss, stagnating wages, and increased foreign competition for labor. The less power unions have, the more Republicans seem to fight against them.

This week, newly elected Illinois governor Bruce Rauner signed an executive order that will prevent public-sector unions in the state from collecting mandatory dues from employees who choose to decline union membership. Those fees, often called “fair share” dues, are unions’ guarantee that the people who benefit from union contracts will kick in their fair share for the cost of organizing and running the union, regardless of whether or not they choose to participate in it.

Fair share dues have been a feature of union organizing since their beginning; the movement against those dues seems to date back over 100 years. But it wasn’t until the 1940s, when a racist oil lobbyist named Vance Muse pushed for right-to-work bills, which allow people to opt-out of paying union dues and membership, even if a workplace is unionized and every employee benefits from a union-negotiated contract. It was an attempt to stop unions from pushing for integration and for the economic power of the working class (especially African Americans); the practice began to catch on. Now, 25 states have some form of right-to-work legislation on the books.

Before becoming governor, Rauner was one of the heads of GTCR, a private equity firm that specialized in finding smaller companies in local markets, merging them with similar companies, and giving them a star CEO—a process which often involved layoffs of workers. So perhaps it shouldn’t be surprising that, to hear Rauner tell it, the fair share fee is the only thing keeping the state’s unemployment rate above 6 percent. 

“Forced union dues are a critical cog in the corrupt bargain that is crushing taxpayers,” Rauner said. “An employee who is forced to pay unfair share dues is being forced to fund political activity with which they disagree. That is a clear violation of First Amendment rights—and something that, as governor, I am duty bound to correct.” 

Rauner’s executive order is unprecedented and possibly illegal: It essentially overrides the state’s Labor Relations Act, a law passed in 1984.

“It’s bizarre—lawless and bizarre,” said Martin Malin, the director of the Institute for Law and the Workplace at the Illinois Institute of Technology Kent College of Law. “But you need to view it in a broader context. It fits in with what’s going on nationally.” 

In Kentucky, several counties passed their own right-to-work legislation, giving the state a patchwork of laws governing union dues. In Pennsylvania,Republican state legislators last year tried to stop unions from automatically deducting dues from people’s paychecks. In California, there’s a lawsuit headed to the Supreme Court, Friedrichs v. California Teachers Association, which could turn it into a right-to-work state. This year, legislators in Wisconsin, New Mexico, West Virginia, and Missouri will all be considering right-to-work laws that would bar unions from charging fair share dues to non-members.

These pushes to quash unions could be seen as individual acts of anti-Bruce Rauner Wants To Gut Unions In Illinois | The New Republic:

No Child Left Behind Rewrite Heads to House Floor Despite Democrats' Objections - US News

No Child Left Behind Rewrite Heads to House Floor Despite Democrats' Objections - US News:

House Lawmakers Push 'No Child' Overhaul Forward

The bill would significantly reduce the federal government's footprint in public education.

Rep. John Kline, R-Minn., who leads the House Education and the Workforce Committee, would not back amendments that added federal programs or costs to the bill.
Big Education Ape: Student Success Act: Corporate Education Reform on Steroids | Education & the Workforce Committee http://bit.ly/1uFiMzf

By Allie BidwellFeb. 12, 2015 | 12:06 p.m. EST+ More

The House Education and the Workforce Committee has passed a bill to reauthorize the long-outdated No Child Left Behind Act, despite strong objections from Democratic committee members, the Obama administration and dozens of education advocacy groups.

The bill, dubbed the Student Success Act, passed on a party-line vote (21-16) Wednesday night. It would significantly scale back the role of the federal government in overseeing public education, give states more flexibility in designing accountability systems and consolidate dozens of federal education programs. Block grant funding also would allow states to distribute federal money to districts and schools as they see fit. The bill is expected to move to the House floor in less than two weeks.

[READ: No Child Left Behind Debate Moves From Testing to Federal Oversight]

"The Student Success Act helps provide American families the education system they deserve, not the one Washington wants," Rep. John Kline, the committee's chairman, said in a statement following the vote. "We have a lot of work ahead, and we will continue to move forward in a manner that is open, transparent and fair. America’s parents, teachers and students have waited long enough for a new law that helps every child in every school receive an excellent education."

In the days leading up to the committee markup, Kline, R-Minn., and his GOP colleagues were criticized by Democrats and others who said the chairman failed to include input from stakeholders like teachers, parents and students. The committee sent the bill, nearly identical to one the House passed in July 2013, to the House floor without holding any hearings, which Kline said would be unnecessary because the bill is so similar to the previous version and the committee heard from experts the last time around.

But Democrats on the committee said the refusal was a sign Kline wasn't willing to work in a bipartisan manner. Rep. Mark Pocan, D-Wis., said 37 percent of the current committee members – some of whom are new and others of whom were absent for hearings in 2013 – never had the opportunity to contribute to the bill.

The tension was also evident during Wednesday's markup session as Republican committee members blocked every amendment offered by a Democrat, based only on whether the amendment would create a new program or cost additional money.

Oregon Rep. Suzanne Bonamici, for example, introduced a bill to reduce testing (the SMART Act) as an amendment, and the proposal had garnered bipartisan support.

"I struggle to understand how this can be opposed," Rep. Susan Davis, D-Calif, said before the vote on the amendment.

[ALSO: Senators Debate Testing, Federal Role in No Child Left Behind Rewrite]

But Kline said that while he supported the idea behind the amendment, he couldn't back the proposal because it called for additional funding, and the amendment was withdrawn. Likewise, amendments to include funding for high-quality early childhood education – a topic popular among both Democrats and Republicans – and to establish dropout prevention programs failed to pass.

Another amendment from Rep. Jared Polis, D-Colo., would have established federal protections against the bullying and harassment of lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender students, but was ruled not germane.

Democratic members repeatedly said during the daylong hearing that they would have liked to see more collaboration between members, and that areas for compromise were possibly missed.

"I am extremely disappointed that this ill-advised legislation was approved and would have preferred the chairman work with Democrats to bring about a bipartisan bill that truly serves the students of this country," Rep. Alma Adams, D-N.C., said in a statement. "As a new member of the committee I felt completely left out of this rushed process and believe we owe it to the American people to have thoughtful [dialogues] about such overarching policies."

In the end, the only approved amendments came from four Republican members: Reps. Steve Russellof Oklahoma, Joe Heck of Nevada, Dave Brat of Virginia and Carlos Curbelo of Florida.

The Russell amendment strengthens student and teacher data privacy provisions; the Heck No Child Left Behind Rewrite Heads to House Floor Despite Democrats' Objections - US News:

No Child Left Behind’s test-based policies failed. Will Congress keep them anyway? - The Washington Post

No Child Left Behind’s test-based policies failed. Will Congress keep them anyway? - The Washington Post:

No Child Left Behind’s test-based policies failed. Will Congress keep them anyway?

Big Education Ape: Student Success Act: Corporate Education Reform on Steroids | Education & the Workforce Committee http://bit.ly/1uFiMzf

Education Secretary Arne Duncan wrote on the department’s website herethat “for more than a decade, states and schools throughout this country have worked within the narrow confines of the No Child Left Behind law,” and that “it’s long past time to move past that law, and replace it with one that expands opportunity, increases flexibility and gives schools and educators more of the resources they need.” He’s right about that; the severely flawed  NCLB was supposed to be rewritten in 2007 but Congress didn’t get around to doing it until now. But Duncan says he wants to retain the NCLB requirement of annual standardized testing that drove the law’s unworkable accountability system, and many Republicans in Congress agree. Indeed, the House education committee this week approved legislation to rewrite NCLB that includes an annual testing mandate.

The important policy memo below, written by Kevin Welner and William J. Mathis, explores how the debates in over the reauthorization of the Elementary and Secondary Education Act (which in its current version is NCLB), ignore the harm caused by NCLB’s test-based reforms. They write:

As a result, the proposals now on the table simply gild a demonstrably ineffective strategy, while crowding out policies with proven effectiveness. Deep-rooted trends of ever-increasing social and educational needs, as well as fewer or stagnant resources, will inevitably lead to larger opportunity gaps and achievement gaps. Testing will document this, but it will do nothing to change it. Instead, the gaps will only close with sustained investment and improvement based on proven strategies that directly increase children’s opportunities to learn.

Welner is the director of the National Education Policy Center, an attorney and a professor education policy at the University of Colorado Boulder. Mathis is the managing director of the center and a former Vermont superintendent.   You can find the fully annotated memo here, at the National Center of Education Policy website.

By Kevin Welner and William Mathis

Today’s 21-year-olds were in third grade in 2002, when the No Child Left Behind Act became law. For them and their younger siblings and neighbors, test-driven accountability policies are all they’ve known. The federal government entrusted their educations to an unproven but ambitious belief that if we test children and hold educators responsible for improving test scores, we would have almost everyone scoring as “proficient” by 2014. Thus, we would achieve “equality.” This approach has not worked.

Yet over the past 13 years, Presidents Bush and Obama remained steadfastly committed to test-based policies. These two administrations have offered federal grants through Race to the Top, so-called Flexibility Waivers under NCLB, School Improvement Grants, and various other No Child Left Behind’s test-based policies failed. Will Congress keep them anyway? - The Washington Post:

Georgia seeks a leader to oversee schools seized by the state | Get Schooled

Experts: Hire committed and visionary leaders for recovery school district. Hasn’t Atlanta already done that? | Get Schooled:





Experts: Hire committed and visionary leaders for recovery school district. Hasn’t Atlanta already done that?

 The experts yesterday at the joint House-Senate meeting on recovery school districts provided a clear summation of what Georgia needs to seek in a leader to oversee low-performing schools seized by the state: The candidate has to be committed to the tenet all students can learn, unwilling to accept excuses, inspirational and smart.

Gov. Nathan Deal is proposing to seize control of some of the 141 lowest-performing schools in Georgia by moving them into a new state-run Opportunity School District. (His plan calls for 20 schools a year to be added, capping his district at 100.)

Of those 141 struggling schools, 60 are in metro Atlanta. With 27 schools on the list, APS has the highest number eligible for Opportunity District takeover. DeKalb County is next with 26; Fulton has seven and Clayton three. No schools from Cobb or Gwinnett are on the list.

The plan would empower the state to run these struggling schools, close them, partner with local school districts or convert them into charter schools. (Georgia law already allows them to become charter schools. APS has 17 charter schools. )

The Opportunity School District would be overseen by a new education czar who would report to the governor.

Deal’s plan hinges on recruiting a charismatic leader to pilot these schools to success. But Atlanta has already done that.

Atlanta Public Schools Superintendent Meria Carstarphen waves to spectators during the parade at the homecoming festivities at Booker T. Washington High School. HYOSUB SHIN / HSHIN@AJC.COM

And the woman only just arrived. The state ought to give Dr. Meria Carstarphen time to prove her mettle before it starts gathering up APS schools for its Opportunity District.

It makes no sense to put another high-salaried education leader on the APS case when the system has already hired a nationally recognized wunderkind to do the job.

How many visionary, six-figure-salaried leaders does a system of 56,000 students need? Atlanta doesn’t need another school chief for its under performing schools.

So who does need the state’s help? Districts in the far reaches of Georgia without the resources or location appeal of an Atlanta or a DeKalb.

Unfortunately, those remote systems are the least likely to benefit from an Opportunity District.

Over the years, I’ve talked to a half dozen bright young teachers who moved to NOLA to work in or lead the charter schools that arose from the devastation of Hurricane Katrina.

Each of those teachers cited two factors in their decision, the urge to be part of an education experiment never Experts: Hire committed and visionary leaders for recovery school district. Hasn’t Atlanta already done that? | Get Schooled:

Georgia unveils statewide plan to take over failing schools

Gov. Nathan Deal would create a statewide school district and give his office broad new powers to take over failing schools, under a plan unveiled Wednesday ahead of a likely contentious battle toward approval.

The plan, which can be found here, would allow the state to take control of failing schools, close them, partner with local school districts to run them or convert them into charter schools.

It would for the first time ever create a statewide “Opportunity School District” to oversee the program — led by a superintendent who would report directly to the governor and not the state education department.

Georgia Sen. Butch Miller, R-Gainesville, talks with visiting students during a break in action Wednesday. BOB ANDRES / BANDRES@AJC.COM

“When we talk about helping failing schools, we’re talking about rescuing children,” Deal said. “I stand firm on the principle that every child can learn, and I stand equally firm in the belief that the status quo isn’t working.”

To determine which schools would be targeted, the plan defines “persistently failing schools” as those scoring below 60 for three years in a row on the College and Career Performance Index – which is essentially the state’s annual report card for school performance.

More than 140 schools, including at least a dozen in metro Atlanta, could be eligible — although annual enrollment would be limited to up to 20 schools a year.

“What is the definition of insanity? Continuing to do the same thing and expecting a different result,” said state Sen. Butch Miller, R-Gainesville, who will take a lead role carrying the legislation at the state Capitol. “It’s not a one-size-fits-all. You would have a different address, a different business plan for each individual school. And I would say to those educators who might push back and challenge this that, if they know what to do why aren’t they doing it?”

For Deal, it is his signature education proposal of the year, one that comes after weeks of quiet meetings with legislators who must overwhelming pass the initiative before it would be put to voters on the 2016 ballot.

That’s because Deal has framed it as a constitutional amendment, needing two-thirds support in each of the House and the Senate. Opposition, however, is already mounting.

“This is an educational mirage,” said Senate Minority Leader Steve Henson, D-Tucker. “Yes, we have a problem with failing schools and yes, we need to correct the problem.”

“But we don’t accomplish this by privatizing the public school system, denying equal education to all Georgia students and by refusing to address the fact that we have short-changed our state education system by $8 billion over the past 12 years,” Henson said.

Democrats are expected to unveil a counter-proposal as soon as next week.

The Opportunity School District would be capped at 100 overall. Schools would stay in the district for a minimum of five years and not more than 10 years. Those 

http://www.ajc.com/news/news/georgia-unveils-statewide-plan-to-take-over-failin/nj8ph/

The choice? Closer to the heart. | BustED Pencils

The choice? Closer to the heart. | BustED Pencils:

The choice? Closer to the heart.

Posted February 12, 2015 by Tim Slekar

“If you choose not to decide, you still have made a choice”

I remember listening to these lyrics for the first time when I was in middle school.  It was some time after that that I remember “hearing” the same lyrics.

For those of you that can place the lyrics with the song you know what I’m talking about.  If this is the first time you have ever seen these lyrics you need to know that the words come from a the song “Freewill” and were written and performed by the band Rush.  Here check it out.

Great song, I know.  But what about that simple line? What was Rush saying and why should educators care?  Because our system of education is under assault and I still find way too many educators that absolutely know what’s going on but “choose” to remain silent or focussed on the wrong things.

Think about it. Right here in Wisconsin our governor declared war on the idea of free inquiry and the search for truth.  He then went and also put forth a budget that cuts $300 million from the UW system.  When called on his blatant attack on the academic mission of higher education—specifically the Wisconsin Idea—his response was a simple dismissal and officially called it a “drafting error.”

According to Jonas Persson and Mary Botarri of the Center for Media and Democracy’s The choice? Closer to the heart. | BustED Pencils:

Teachers: Tell Me How You Feel About the Upcoming PARCC or SBAC - Education Under Attack

Education Under Attack | Attacks on public education system hurt America:

Teachers: Tell Me How You Feel About the Upcoming PARCC or SBAC

Dear Fellow Educator,

Since retiring I began a blog at educationunderattack.info because I am concerned about all the issues that are negatively affecting public education.  Recently I have been reading about the issue of parent (and as a result, legislator) concerns about the upcoming PARCC and SBAC assessments.  I think it's important to find out what teachers feel about these assessments so I designed an online survey just for teachers.  The survey is only 13 questions long and should take no more than 5 minutes to complete.  All responses are anonymous - there is no way to track a response back to the person who completed it.

I am asking your help in one of two ways:

1) If you are a classroom teacher, please take the survey and forward this message to your fellow teachers.

2) If you are not a classroom teacher but know some, please forward this to them and ask them to take it.  Before forwarding you can check out the survey by clicking the link below - just don't hit "Submit" at the end of the form.  It's just for current teachers.

Click below to take the survey:

Go To The Common Core Assessment Survey for Teachers

If you are interested in the results, please check my blog in late March.

Thanks, 

Mike Warner

education.under.attack@gmail.com

Education Under Attack | Attacks on public education system hurt America: