Bad Teacherist [Reading Roxane Gay] | The Jose Vilson

Bad Teacherist [Reading Roxane Gay] | The Jose Vilson:

Bad Teacherist [Reading Roxane Gay]

I’m not the perfect teacher.

At my best, I have a meticulously thought-out lesson plan with activities that access multiple pathways, and I can get an active discussion going even with the least engaged students in class. At my worst, I can barely put my thoughts together, and little that I set out to do translates to the students in class. I’ve been told I’m a great teacher by my former and current students, and in many cases, their parents, but I’m also not cocky enough to think that I got it together.

If I can achieve good teacher-ness 90% of the time, I’m happy, but I recognize that I haven’t even reached that peak yet. Or so I think.The education debate we’re having right now, complete with frameworks for either compliance or resistance, don’t take into account the humanity of the subjects left in its wake. I do believe that most teachers are doing their best given the circumstances they’re given, but I also believe we need adults from top to bottom, including myself, willing to rethink the ways they approach teaching all of our children, especially those most disenfranchised by this country. I vehemently oppose the use of test scores for assessing teachers as it’s mostly invalid for individual teachers in the short and long-term, and I am in favor of subjectifying (yes, I made that word) teacher evaluations so we can get it as right as possible.

I don’t like or appreciate the framework that our current set of reformers have for fixing our nation’s education system and would dump it in a heartbeat if I could. However, it also means that I ought toBad Teacherist [Reading Roxane Gay] | The Jose Vilson:

NYC’s Jake Jacobs: Get ready for #TeachStrong’s Corporate Ed Raid | deutsch29

NYC’s Jake Jacobs: Get ready for #TeachStrong’s Corporate Ed Raid | deutsch29:

NYC’s Jake Jacobs: Get ready for #TeachStrong’s Corporate Ed Raid

The following is a guest post by New York art teacher Jake Jacobs. In it, he discusses TeachStrong, yet another restyling of corporate reform that appears to have been designed to offer Democratic presidential hopeful Hillary Clinton a convenient education platform, complete with national teacher union involvement.

On November 20, 2015, I read a brief FB post by Jacobs on TeachStrong, Clinton, and AFT President Randi Weingarten. I asked Jacobs if he would expand his thoughts into a blog post.

He said yes.

I give you Jake Jacobs.

***

Get Ready for #TeachStrong, the Latest Plan by Clinton-linked Corporate Education Raiders

Jake Jacobs

Recent shifts in Hillary Clinton’s education platform coincide with the news of a new alliance forged between lobbyist groups and high ranking leaders of the nation’s two biggest teacher unions, but their priorities are sharply at odds with grassroots parent and teachers unwaveringly opposed to the proliferation of high stakes standardized tests.

Hillary’s sudden pronouncement that there is “no evidence” showing test scores should be linked to teacher evaluations is bittersweet for actual educators – not because it’s so late, but because the very same body of research tells us that NYC’s Jake Jacobs: Get ready for #TeachStrong’s Corporate Ed Raid | deutsch29:

An open letter to Patty Murray on the ESEA rewrite: We need funding, NOT charter schools. | Seattle Education

An open letter to Patty Murray on the ESEA rewrite: We need funding, NOT charter schools. | Seattle Education:
An open letter to Patty Murray on the ESEA rewrite: We need funding, NOT charter schools.

Dear Senator Patty Murray,

I saw on Twitter that you got into politics because of school funding cuts.

Your tweet explains how after going to Olympia, you were dismissed by a state legislator because you just didn’t seem important. Instead of giving up, you went home and organized.

“He dismissed me because I didn’t look like what they thought everybody important should look like. So, I drove home and started calling all the other moms, and they called the moms they knew – all were mad – and we were back at the State Legislature.” The resulting grassroots campaign restored the cuts.

This year I’ve had a similar experience.

One month into the school year, both of my kids’ schools were faced with devastating staff cuts. Instead of getting on the phone – like you did – I took to Facebook and connected with other moms who were angry about their schools losing staff.

Together we organized a Half-Baked Bake Sale on the lawn of district headquarters to highlight the absurdity of trying to fund education – and offset staff cuts – with carwashes and bake sales.

This month, right after the district pleaded no money to save school staff, the school board decided to give our Superintendent a raise. As you can imagine, this move really upset parents.

This lead to the Thirteen Thousand Dollar Question, where my new activist friends and I, asked parents across the district what problems their schools could solve with the Superintendent’s proposed raise.

Through this action, we learned how desperately underfunded our public schools really An open letter to Patty Murray on the ESEA rewrite: We need funding, NOT charter schools. | Seattle Education:

CURMUDGUCATION: ICYMI: Some Sunday Edureads

CURMUDGUCATION: ICYMI: Some Sunday Edureads:

ICYMI: Some Sunday Edureads

It will be a quickie this week-- I have both of my children home and a grandson's birthday party to attend!

Eva Moskowitz Cannot Help Herself

Daniel Katz provides one of the best overviews of Moskowitz's ongoing meltdown. A study in how privilege, money and power can make you blind to how you're behavior is playing in the real world.

How Twisted Early Childhood Education Has Become

Early childhood ed has arguably been more badly damaged by reformsters than any other segment of the education biz. Sometimes it helps to have someone take a step back, show how far off track we have gotten, and help you realize you're not crazy for thinking we're getting early childhood ed completely wrong at this point.

Competency Based Ed: The Culmination of the Common Core Agenda

A good collection of the many pieces and points of view springing up as CBE becomes the newest topic of the education debates.

Five Perspectives on Student Fragility

At Psychology Today, Peter Gray has been running a series about the increasing fragile nature of our students, including theories about the source. This latest installment is interesting because it includes the many, many reactions from various stakeholders in that discussion.

Are You Being Served?

Nobody combines humor and actual journalism better than Jennifer Berkshire at Edushyster. Here's a look at the facts of which students Boston charter schools are actually serving.

The War Path to School Priivatization and the Rising Public Resistance

War Report on the Road - Buffalo New York Part 2 - The War Path to School Privatization and the Rising Public Resistance

Please join Internet radio host Dr. James Avington Miller Jr. as he reports live in the seventh of his reports about “The People’s Story". Joining Dr. Miller this week will be education activists Dr. Barbara A. Nevergold andEve Shippens from Buffalo NY.

This week we will continue our discussion about the devastation of the Buffalo school system by privatization. Dr. Miller will expose the war path to school privatization and the rising public resistance in Buffalo and connect this to what is happening in our nation's schools.

We will look a the who, why, how, when, where, and what of both sides. We wlll expose the game plan of the Broad Foundation and alert our listeners to the signs that this plan is alive and active in your own school districts.

As a co-founder of the Uncrowned Queens Institute, Dr. Nevergold has worked to create a model for the reclamation, collection, preservation and dissemination of the biographic histories of African American women and men. Please check out her work at www.uncrownedcommunitybuilders.com.

Buffalo is ground zero in this war against public education and is set up to be the next all charter school district. This show will highlight the Buffalo parent- teacher organized resistance to the privatization of their schools.

Here is a link to the Broad School Takeover Plan - http://dianeravitch.net/2013/04/07/how-to-close-public-schools-a-guide/

This show will show you the power of a small resistance to overcome the neo-liberal ag enda to destroy public schools and privatize the education of the children of Buffalo.

RESISTANCE MATTERS

RESISTANCE IS NOT FUTILE

RESISTANCE IS THE HIGHEST FORM OF EXPRESSION OF DEMOCRACY

Dr. Miller will also spend the last 10 minutes of the show reporting on his activities last week in gathering interviews for The People's Story.

Here is the link to The People’s Story - Please support our GoFundMe for this project - https://www.gofundme.com/thewarreport

On Sunday, please click on the website below to listen live:
http://bbsradio.com/thewarreport
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A direct listen-in line only
Station 1 - 716-748-0150
To call-in and interact live
Station 1 888-627-6008 toll free

Julian Vasquez Heilig: Students call for meaningful diversity on campuses - Melissa Harris-Perry on MSNBC

Melissa Harris-Perry on MSNBC:
Julian Vasquez Heilig: Students call for meaningful diversity on campuses

Students call for meaningful diversity on campuses
For more than a year, many American college campuses have been the sites of student organizing and direct action protest. Julian Vasquez Heilig, Allyson Hobbs, Joshua Guild and Khalil Gibran Muhammad join to discuss.
Duration: 13:01 Melissa Harris-Perry on MSNBC:

• Julian Vasquez Heilig, Professor, Educational Leadership and Policy Studies,  California State Sacramento, California NAACP Education Chair

Rethinking ‘ultra-safe’ playgrounds: Why it’s time to bring back ‘thrill-provoking’ equipment for kids - The Washington Post

Rethinking ‘ultra-safe’ playgrounds: Why it’s time to bring back ‘thrill-provoking’ equipment for kids - The Washington Post:

Rethinking ‘ultra-safe’ playgrounds: Why it’s time to bring back ‘thrill-provoking’ equipment for kids

Angela Hanscom is a pediatric occupational therapist and founder ofTimberNook, a nature-based development program designed to foster creativity and independent play outdoors in New England. She has written a number of popular posts on this blog, including “Why so many kids can’t sit still in school today,” as well as “The right — and surprisingly wrong — ways to get kids to sit still in class” and “How schools ruined recess.” And here is her newest post, which adds to her exploration of the effects on children of limited movement. Her book, “Balanced and Barefoot: How Unrestricted Outdoor Play Makes for Strong, Confident, and Capable Children,” will be published in April 2016.

By Angela Hanscom

I’m sitting at the lake’s edge of our campsite reading a good book, when my 9-year-old and 6-year-old come running to my side.

“Mom,” my oldest daughter yells. “You have to come see what we did at the playground!”

“Yeah,” my youngest chimes in. “We got bored, so we made up our own ways to use the swings and stuff.”

As I watch my daughters climb up a tunnel slide together (on the outside!), I make a mental note that the playground equipment, which looks pretty standard today, isn’t challenging enough for my daughters.

[The decline of play in preschoolers — the rise in sensory issues]

Playgrounds have drastically changed over the years. Most no longer offer the same sensory and motor challenges as the playgrounds of yesteryear. Due toincreasing liability and safety concerns over the years, we’ve replaced the metal playground equipment that towered over us as young children with brightly colored ultra-safe alternatives.

We’ve taken away merry-go-rounds and teeter-totters. Swing spans have decreased and slides and climbing structures are surprisingly close to the Rethinking ‘ultra-safe’ playgrounds: Why it’s time to bring back ‘thrill-provoking’ equipment for kids - The Washington Post:

Schools Matter: ESEA Will Mean 50 Fronts in the War Against Corporate Education Reform

Schools Matter: ESEA Will Mean 50 Fronts in the War Against Corporate Education Reform:

ESEA Will Mean 50 Fronts in the War Against Corporate Education Reform

Under consideration for passage in DC this coming week is the new states rights version of NCLB, which, if passed, will spawn education policies more racist even than the ones developed under Bush II and the same ones promulgated by Obama.  And with federal regulation and oversight by ED smashed by the new bill, the Feds will be unable act to stop any of it, even if they had the will to do so.

This sets the nation up for the proliferation of a federally-funded corporate welfare reform school system that adheres to the "broken windows" no excuses chain gang schooling model for the poor, the black, the brown.  

Who will have the advantage in the war to keep public education and the idea of democratic schooling alive?  The states, of course, where ALEC has a portfolio of corporate model legislation to pass out among the states, which are ever more hungry to attract the Gates, Broad, and Walton education dollars that come as payoffs for passage of ALEC's model bills. 

In opposition will be a tiny underfunded testing and corporate education abolition movement that will be required to organize in each state to fight 50 guerrilla wars against the billionaire Borg.  Required will be new levels of civil disobedience and an unwavering willingness to risk arrest and jail.  

Parents, students, and teachers must mobilize to fight and to act and to defy, rather than to be coopted, subverted, and subdued by endless talk from pretenders and stooges.

Call Washington tomorrow morning and let them know what's coming if this corporate charter funding bill passes. Schools Matter: ESEA Will Mean 50 Fronts in the War Against Corporate Education Reform:

Struggling to completely understand the impact of poverty | @ THE CHALKFACE

Struggling to completely understand the impact of poverty | @ THE CHALKFACE:

Struggling to completely understand the impact of poverty

Before I returned to the classroom, and when I was a college professor, I was completely convinced by the infallible innocence of those in poverty. They are the victims of an insatiable capitalism and every accommodation should be made to help them succeed, and every allowance should be made to help their children succeed as well.

In that aforementioned position, I was somewhat detached from it all. I was surrounded by largely white colleagues whose sympathy and guilt about persons in poverty overflowed. It felt as if no metric or measurement of academic success was valid until all differentiation based on income was eradicated.

I still possess a great many of these beliefs about poverty and education. I don’t fall anywhere near the reformist camps who still refuse to recognize that poverty has more influence on educational outcomes than the best teacher or curriculum could possibly provide. But my views are more complicated now by actually doing the hard work of teaching in a low-income community of color.

Contrary to some of the more vague conversations on education and poverty that I’ve encountered in policy and activist circles, as a teacher, I have specific problems that I/we need to solve. Across the board, participation in parent conferences is very low. I think I had six of 18 this year, despite phone calls and several notices and reminders.

We had one parent show for our PTA elections, despite a slate of potential candidates. The candidates Struggling to completely understand the impact of poverty | @ THE CHALKFACE:

Alarming info about TNREADY testing bomb - Momma Bears

Momma Bears Blog - Momma Bears:

Alarming info about TNREADY testing bomb

Tick-tick-tick... is your child READY?  Because they are about to bomb a major high-stakes test called TNREADY.  When we say, "bomb," we mean fail. 

This year, the state of TN is spending more money than they've ever spent before on a brand new test.  Well, it isn’t actually a newtest, but more like a recycled test since TN leased the test questions from Utah’s old SAGE test.  Anyway, they stuck these expensive questions from Utah in a confusing test platform created by a company in North Carolina, and are now rebranding it as homegrown in TN.  This test is called TNREADY.  

Teachers across Tennessee kept alerting Momma Bears to concerns about the new TNREADY test.  They said TNREADY is intentionally confusing for students, way too advanced for each grade level by several years, they said their schools have been and will continue to be disrupted by the testing schedules and lack of adequate technology, the teachers worry that higher numbers of students are predicted to fail it, and they complained that TNREADY requires even more precious class time to prepare for and administer than previous tests. 

​So, some of our Momma Bears bloggers spent a precious Saturday taking the sample TNREADY tests and trying to get answers.  Here is what we observed on the Sample TNREADY computerized tests:

• Difficult to read passages: A tiny 4-inch scroll window to read long passages of text.  This requires good mouse skills and eye tracking. (see pic below)  Students with knowledge of how to expand the reading pane using the little tab in the middle, and collapse it again to get to the test questions, will fare better.  This format isn't like any of the internet sites or reading apps that most children are accustomed to; they will need to be taught how to navigate those tools for the sole purpose of taking this test. 
• Tiny window for the test questions:  It was barely large enough to show all the answer options, and not large enough to show the “RESET/UNDO” buttons at the bottom of the question unless the student scrolled lower.  See the photo below to understand how students are supposed to write an entire essay response in a text box that is about 4" square.  Typing, mind you, which elementary students aren't fluent in doing; their hands aren't even large enough to reach all the keys properly.  So, they will be hunting and Momma Bears Blog - Momma Bears:

Russ on Reading: Do We Really Need Gifted Education?

Russ on Reading: Do We Really Need Gifted Education?:

Do We Really Need Gifted Education?

A new book by Chester Finn and Brandon Wright of the education reform loving Thomas B. Fordham Institute entitled, Failing Our Brightest Kids: The Global Challenge of Educating High-Ability Students, argues that we need to rededicate ourselves to gifted education if our country is to remain economically competitive and a producer of scientific/technological leaders. How do we know that we are not going to remain competitive? Why "alarming" international standardized tests scores, of course. But also, Finn and Wright fear, because the focus on Common Core and the aligned tests may lead to an overly homogenized, lowest common denominator curriculum and instruction.

I have said in an earlier post that education reformers don't seem to see the irony in their arguments, so I will just let this one stand for now. To their credit, Finn and Wright also say that opportunities for advanced achievement are very narrow for students from disadvantaged backgrounds and that this is a national problem.

Is the answer to any of these problems gifted education? My answer would be no. Philosophically, I am of the mind that all children are gifted in some way, but school is not a very good place to discover the gifts of every child. As Howard Gardner has shown us, children may have many intelligences: linguistic, logical-mathematical, visual-spatial, bodily-kinesthetic, Russ on Reading: Do We Really Need Gifted Education?:

California schools suspend students at a lower rate, but there's still a racial gap - LA Times

California schools suspend students at a lower rate, but there's still a racial gap - LA Times:

California schools suspend students at a lower rate, but there's still a racial gap

lifornia's public schools suspended students of all ethnic backgrounds at a lower rate in the 2013-14 school year than the previous school year, and the gap between the rates of suspension for black and white students narrowed — though black students were still disciplined at a much higher rate than whites, according to a UCLA report released Monday.

The report examined data that the state has collected since the 2011-2012 school year. Comparable data aren't available for earlier years, said report author Dan Losen, director of UCLA's Center for Civil Rights Remedies. 

Tracking who gets disciplined, how often and for what offenses has become more prominent in education research in recent years, in part because understanding those issues can offer insight into other aspects of student performance, researchers say.

------------

FOR THE RECORD

7:31 a.m.: An earlier version of this article stated that California’s schools are suspending fewer students, but the UCLA study measured the number of suspensions per 100 students -- not the total number of students who were suspended. According to the study, the number of suspensions per 100 students in California decreased.

------------

By removing students from a classroom setting, suspensions contribute to lower graduation rates and increased incarceration, affecting how students do in other areas of life, some studies have found.

For every 100 black students, there were 25.6 suspensions compared to 6.5 suspensions for every 100 white students, according to the UCLA study.

The number of suspensions statewide declined from 709,580 for the 2011-2012 school year to 503,101 for the 2013-2014 school year. Most of that decline stems from schools using suspension less frequently to address “disruption or defiance.” That catchall category includes acts of “willful defiance,” such as purposely interrupting a teacher or distracting a class.

Those offenses, Losen said, are the most subjective and lead to the most racial disparity in suspensions.

Racial disparities are much lower for the most objective and serious categories — violence with injury and possession of weapons or illicit drugs, Losen found.

The Los Angeles Unified School District led the statewide move to reduce suspensions by banning “willful defiance” suspensions in 2013.

That change affected the 2013-2014 school year, but suspensions were already on the California schools suspend students at a lower rate, but there's still a racial gap - LA Times:

Provide financial incentives to alleviate teacher shortage | The Sacramento Bee

Provide financial incentives to alleviate teacher shortage | The Sacramento Bee:

Provide financial incentives to alleviate teacher shortage

Kevin McCarty 

California schools are in the midst of a quiet crisis.

An estimated one-third of the state’s teaching work force is nearing retirement age, and school districts increasingly are having a hard time replacing them.

1 of 2

Fran Pavley

Enrollments in teacher-preparation programs have been free-falling for a dozen years: down from 77,700 in 2001 to 19,933 in 2013, a drop of 74 percent.

New teaching credential totals declined by a quarter for the five fiscal years preceding 2013-14. It’s time for the governor and lawmakers to stem the looming shortage by giving potential teachers modest financial incentives to offset some of the costs of five-plus years of training.

Parents across California are well aware that the shortage is already affecting their children’s classrooms. A Field Poll conducted for EdSource in November shows 64 percent of registered voters believe the shortage is a “very serious” problem, and 85 percent support financial incentives to attract new teachers.

Experts point to a number of reasons why teaching is losing its allure: high college tuition costs, low starting salaries and elimination of financial incentives to enter the profession.

The shortage is severe in math, science and special education, and is starting to impact English, history, social sciences and computer education.

“It’s a five-alarm fire,” warns Linda Darling Hammond, chair of the California Commission on Teacher Credentialing.

The Legislature and state government need to do something and soon because California’s 1,000-plus school districts already can’t find enough professionally trained teachers to staff every kindergarten-through-12th-grade classroom.

Consequently, district administrators have been forced to waive legal credential requirements and hire interns and other less-prepared teachers. Los Angeles County schools issued 1,188 intern credentials, permits and waivers in 2013-14, according to a credentialing commission report.

The problem is no less acute in other areas of the state. Alameda County schools granted 402 exceptions; Sacramento County 379; Riverside County 255; and Fresno County 225.

Fixing the problem isn’t easy. Recognizing the potential shortage, in this year’s budget the state invested $490 million in teacher professional development programs such as theProvide financial incentives to alleviate teacher shortage | The Sacramento Bee:

Read more here: http://www.sacbee.com/opinion/op-ed/soapbox/article46588575.html#storylink=cpy

A Wealthy Governor and His Friends Are Mugging Illinois - The New York Times

A Wealthy Governor and His Friends Are Remaking Illinois - The New York Times:

A Wealthy Governor and His Friends Are Remaking Illinois
Unprecedented political spending helped elect Bruce Rauner, a fresh-faced financier. But his ideological vision has unsettled many in the state.

The richest man in Illinois does not often give speeches. But on a warm spring day two years ago, Kenneth C. Griffin, the billionaire founder of one of the world’s largest hedge funds, rose before a black-tie dinner of the Economic Club of Chicago to deliver an urgent plea to the city’s elite.

They had stood silently, Mr. Griffin told them, as politicians taxed too much, spent too much and drove businesses and jobs from the state. They had refused to help those who would take on the reigning powers in the Illinois Capitol. “It is time for us to do something,” he implored.

Their response came quickly. In the months since, Mr. Griffin and a small group of rich supporters — not just from Chicago, but also from New York City and Los Angeles, southern Florida and Texas — have poured tens of millions of dollars into the state, a concentration of political money without precedent in Illinois history.

Their wealth has forcefully shifted the state’s balance of power. Last year, the families helped elect as governor Bruce Rauner, a Griffin friend and former private equity executive from the Chicago suburbs, who estimates his own fortune at more than $500 million. Now they are rallying behind Mr. Rauner’s agenda: to cut spending and overhaul the state’s pension system, impose term limits and weaken public employee unions.

“It was clear that they wanted to change the power structure, change the way business was conducted and change the status quo,” said Andy Shaw, an acquaintance of Mr. Rauner’s and the president of the Better Government Association, a nonpartisan state watchdog group.

The families remaking Illinois are among a small group around the country who have channeled their extraordinary wealth into political power, taking advantage of regulatory, legal and cultural shifts that have carved new paths for infusing money into campaigns. Economic winners in an age of rising inequality, operating largely out of public view, they are reshaping government with fortunes so large as to defy the ordinary financial scale of politics. In the 2016 presidential race, a New York Times analysis found last month, just 158 families had provided nearly half of the early campaign money.

Many of those giving, like Mr. Griffin, come from the world of finance, an industry that has yielded more of the new political wealth than any other. The Florida-based leveraged-buyout pioneer John Childs, the private equity investor Sam Zell and Paul Singer, a prominent New York hedge fund manager, all helped elect Mr. Rauner, as did Richard Uihlein, a conservative businessman from the Chicago suburbs.

Most of them lean Republican; some are Democrats. But to a remarkable degree, their philosophies are becoming part of a widely adopted blueprint for public officials around the country: Critical of the power of unions, many are also determined to reduce spending and taxation, and are skeptical of government-led efforts to mitigate the growing gap betweenA Wealthy Governor and His Friends Are Remaking Illinois - The New York Times: 

You’re wrong about Common Core math: Sorry, parents, but it makes more sense than you think - Salon.com

You’re wrong about Common Core math: Sorry, parents, but it makes more sense than you think - Salon.com:

You’re wrong about Common Core math: Sorry, parents, but it makes more sense than you think

When Common Core problems go viral, the steps seem complicated, unnecessary. But it actually teaches a real skill

By now everyone has seen the outrage-inducing image of a third grader’s paper in which he is marked down for stating that 5 x 3 = 5 + 5 + 5 = 15. In case you missed it, here are videos and stories from several groups ripping Common Core for it:Business Insider, IFLScience, Huffington Post and mom.me — and I’m sure you can find many more as the photo of this kid’s paper has gone viral.

You might also remember the photo of a check that went viral not that long ago — a man filled out a check to his son’s school by attempting to write the check amount in ten frames. There have been countless other similar photos with accompanying derision that have gone viral via social media and email (more on these examples in a moment).

In the national discussion on America’s perceived educational woes, the Common Core Standards have become a bit of a unifying punching bag, especially with respect to elementary school math. Everyone seems to love a photo of a test question, homework problem or corrected work that vilifies the Common Core. You know the type — the question asks the students to show a seemingly straightforward elementary math topic, but it requires the answer to be given in what seems to be an overly complicated way. We look at it and say, “Why can’t they just do it the normal way?!?” We are alarmed at the representation of something that we see as so basic and elementary in a new and unfamiliar arrangement, and we are outraged when we see a student’s work marked down when it appears to be correct.

The vast majority of the comments and coverage of these viral images and stories has been highly critical of the Common Core. Here’s the thing though — all of these You’re wrong about Common Core math: Sorry, parents, but it makes more sense than you think - Salon.com:

Murdoch: Tribune Papers Likely to be Sold, LA Times Split off

Murdoch: Tribune Papers Likely to be Sold, LA Times Split off:

Rupert Murdoch Fuels New Speculation About Eli Broad Acquiring LA Times

Is the Los Angeles Times about to change hands?

Days after the LA Times endured another round of staff cuts, rumors are starting anew that newspaper could be acquired by an investor group led by philanthropist Eli Broad. None other than News Corp. CEO Rupert Murdoch tweeted the scuttlebutt on Friday.

"Strong word Tribune newspaper group to be bought by big Wall St firm, LA Times to go to philanthropist Eli Broad and local group," Murdoch wrote.

Strong word Tribune newspaper group to be bought by big Wall St firm, LA Times to go to philanthropist Eli Broad and local group.

— Rupert Murdoch (@rupertmurdoch) November 27, 2015

Tribune sources disputed that there were any active negotiations at present to sell any of its newspapers. Meanwhile, Politico reported private equity giant Apollo Global Management is preparing to take a run at the newspapers owned by Tribune Publishing with an eye toward selling its two California dailies, the Times and San Diego Union-Tribune, to a group led by Broad. A representative for Broad declined to comment on the speculation.

Murdoch's media and entertainment company, 21st Century Fox, is in business with Apollo through the Endemol Shine Group production joint venture established last year.

News Corp. was rumored to be mounting a bid for the Times and several other Tribune Publishing-owned papers in 2014, but it never materialized, with Murdoch citing FCC cross-ownership rules that would conflict with Fox's ownership of Los Angeles TV stations KTTV and KCOP.

"Sorry can't buy Trib group or LA Times - cross-ownership laws from another age still in place," Murdoch tweeted at the time.

Broad, the 82-year old billionaire philanthropist and developer, first partnered with a group of investors two years ago to buy the Times but the deal never came to fruition. In September, he told the L.A. Business Journal that he had recently tried again. "At the request of the chairman of the board of the Tribune Co., I did make an offer ... which they ultimately rejected," he told the paper. "I've always believed that the Los Angeles Times and the San Diego papers ought to be owned by Californians."

After LA Times publisher Austin Beutner was fired by Tribune Publishing in September and replaced with Baltimore Sun Media Group Publisher and CEO Tim Ryan, the L.A. Country Board of Supervisors passed a resolution recommending local leadership for the paper. A group of civic leaders also signed a letter to the Tribune Publishing. About 80 editors and reporters



Read more: Murdoch: Tribune Papers Likely to be Sold, LA Times Split off
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