Kevin Johnson: It's All Over But The Crying - Recalling KJ’s reign of error as mayor

Mayor Kevin Johnson Gets Brisk Farewell From Sacramento Kings
Kevin Johnson: It's All Over But The Crying Recalling KJ’s reign of error as mayor

SACRAMENTO (CBS13) — It was a grand finale moment that seemed more awkward than an honor.

In a brand new arena that could have housed a spectacular farewell for Mayor Kevin Johnson, the mayor got an autographed basketball from Kings owner Vivek Ranadive. And after the two-minute time out ended, the ceremony was over. Johnson left without speaking to reporters.

It was a surprise for fans watching the brief tribute at center court.

“I wasn’t expecting it,” Kings fan Ramon Rivera said. ”I wasn’t expecting the time. I don’t know how long it should have been.”

Kings fan Mary Rost believes PR surrounding resurfacing allegations of Johnson’s sexual misconduct that led ESPN to shelve a planned Sacramento Kings “30 For 30” documentary is playing a role in the mayor’s unceremonious farewell.

RELATED: Accusations Against Sacramento Mayor Kevin Johnson Back In Spotlight On HBO’s Real Sports

“We all have things in our past that we’ve done, and we’ve all grown, and matured and become better people for it and that’s what happened to him,” Rost said.

The Kings’ tribute to Johnson followed last week’s request by Sacramento council members to have the Kings raise a Mayor KJ jersey In the Golden 1 Center, to hang with past Kings greats whose numbers are retired.

“I think they should name the court after him,” Kings fan Danny Beckham said.

ALSO READ: Source: Security Footage Reveals Little From Matt Barnes Nightclub Incident

A new building. A new owner. But the old Sacramento kings saga is never-ending.

City of Sacramento Vice Mayor Rick Jennings says he’ll continue working with the Kings in hopes of a bigger tribute in the future.

Mayor Johnson will hand over mayoral powers to Mayor-Elect Daryl Steinberg on Tuesday.Mayor Kevin Johnson Gets Brisk Farewell From Sacramento Kings

Kevin Johnson Shamed By The Team He Saved On Last Night As Mayor - http://deadspin.com/kevin-johnson-shamed-by-the-team-he-saved-on-last-night-1790059673 on @deadspin

Ed Goldman: Recalling KJ’s reign as mayor - Sacramento Business Journal - http://www.bizjournals.com/sacramento/news/2016/12/15/ed-goldman-recalling-kj-s-reign-as-mayor.html on @Sacbiz

Donald Trump Keeps Meeting With Sports Figures Who Have Physically Abused Other People | The Big Lead - http://wp.me/p3LRnW-2kaf by @sportsrapport on @thebiglead

Kevin Johnson: A Retrospective On Eight Years As Sacramento Mayor - capradio.org - http://www.capradio.org/news/insight/2016/12/15/insight-121516a/

Kevin Johnson had an awkward moment with Kings CEO Vivek Ranadive - http://wp.me/p7ShJJ-hBxc on @mercnews

New Sacramento Mayor Steinberg swaps fancy SUV for used Ford sedan | The Sacramento Bee - http://www.sacbee.com/news/local/news-columns-blogs/city-beat/article120940738.html on sacbee_news

Darrell Steinberg Hits the Streets on First Official Day as Mayor | FOX40 - http://via.fox40.com/VWAhf via @FOX40

Big Education Ape: SacBee Last Dance with KJ: Johnson leaves Sacramento on upswing | The Sacramento Bee - http://bigeducationape.blogspot.com/2016/12/sacbee-last-dance-with-kj-johnson.html

Big Education Ape: Timeline of Mayor Kevin Johnson's life in Sacramento | The Sacramento Bee - http://bigeducationape.blogspot.com/2016/12/timeline-of-mayor-kevin-johnsons-life.html

Protecting more than privacy in K-12 sector | CSO Online

Protecting more than privacy in K-12 sector | CSO Online:

Protecting more than privacy in K-12 sector

Regulations protect privacy, but what about the overall cybersecurity of public schools that already function on limited resources

Parent Coalition for Student Privacy -http://www.studentprivacymatters.org/

 Larger enterprises have the resources to not only afford the technology needed to grow in the digital age, but they also have the budget and manpower to build security into their overall ecosystems.

Does the K-12 education sector have the means to do the same? As the use of technology becomes more prevalent in public schools, will collecting more data potentially increase the cybersecurity risks for the K-12 sector?

Earlier this fall, the Center for Data Innovation released a report, Building a Data-Driven Education System in the United States, in which they said 93 percent of teachers are regularly using digital tools to assist classroom instruction in some capacity.

Researchers want to leverage that data to transform education; however, these escalating plans for using data collection to advance public education raise questions about the risks to schools.

MORE ON CSO:Lost in the clouds: Your private data has been indexed by Google

Keith Lowry, senior vice president, Nuix USG, a global security intelligence firm, said, "K-12 runs at the state and local level, and they are individually going to be responsible for the protection of those infrastructures."

Who then, at the state and local level, is thinking about security in education? "In general terms," said Lowry, "most people and organizations including government agencies are either turning a blind eye or are not technologically tuned in to the tremendous threat that happens to be at our doorstep in ourProtecting more than privacy in K-12 sector | CSO Online:

 Big Education Ape: Nearly half of education-vendor websites tested had security problems, audit reveals - The Hechinger Report - http://bigeducationape.blogspot.com/2016/12/nearly-half-of-education-vendor.html

Are the H-1B-Using Gulen Charter Schools About to Face Hard Times? | Center for Immigration Studies

Are the H-1B-Using Gulen Charter Schools About to Face Hard Times? | Center for Immigration Studies:

Are the H-1B-Using Gulen Charter Schools About to Face Hard Times?

Off in a small corner of the immigration policy world there is an intriguing side-show – it is a battle which pits one group of conservatives against another in a fascinating contest that the mainstream media has all but ignored.

In one corner there is a player as reactionary as they come, the Islamic president/dictator of Turkey; in the other is a conservative Islamic religious leader, another Turk, and his allies in the American charter school movement.

Turkey's authoritarian's ruler is Recep Erdogan; he is at loggerheads with his former ally, Fethullah Gulen, the self-exiled leader of an Islamic cult that is devoted to undoing the reforms of modern Turkey's George Washington, Kamal Ataturk. Gulen's followers in the U.S. have created a series of charter schools which use public school moneys, via staff extortions, to support the cult's activities. The Gulen schools, which have also used political contributions to shore up their position, are charters, and, as such, are sheltered by conservatives promoting charters generally. Erdogan has said that he wants Gulen extradited from Pennsylvania to Turkey because of his alleged ties to the failed coup in Turkey.

Why is this of any interest to immigration policy types?

In spite of the presence of tens, perhaps hundreds, of thousands of unemployed U.S.-trained teachers, Gulen's schools continue to use local tax funds to secure H-1B visas for, and to provide wages for, teachers from Turkey, including in a few cases English teachers, as we have reported previously.

Why are the Gulen schools so interested in recruiting Turkish teachers (and often paying them more than U.S. teachers in the same schools)? To some extent it is a Tammany Hall sort of nepotism – let's use public funds to help our landsmen – but there is another apparent motive. According to a long, detailed, and stinging report by LA Weekly, there is a highly organized, systematic shake-down of Turkish teachers to benefit Gulen cult organizations. The name of one of Gulen's collectors in one of his school systems, the amounts raised, and their transportation, in cash, to cult meetings are all spelled out in detail.

While efforts have been made in Georgia and in southern California to shut down some of the Gulen schools (for their hiring and financing malpractices), no one has been indicted, at least not yet.

Meanwhile, the Gulen schools have been investigated by the FBI for years, newspapers have printed multiple exposes, a state auditor caught a Gulen operation in Oklahoma obtaining more than $4 million via grossly inflated rent charges from public funds, and an excellent documentary film, "Killing Ed," has been produced on all this corruption.

Why, with all this evidence, has no one been charged with anything?

I asked this question of Robert Amsterdam, a Canadian lawyer retained by the government of Turkey to look into these matters; he said he was puzzled too, and suggested that (1) charter schools have a lot of support, particularly from conservatives, and (2) maybe the CIA was discouraging any federal action.

In addition, I think there may be a hesitation in some journalistic circles (a whiff of political correctness, if you will) to examine a system which relates to a particular nationality, that of the Turks.

Further, I think the facts are so hard to believe -- U.S. public school moneys being used to fund intra-Islamic Are the H-1B-Using Gulen Charter Schools About to Face Hard Times? | Center for Immigration Studies:

 

Betsy DeVos and the Plan to Break Public Schools - The New Yorker

Betsy DeVos and the Plan to Break Public Schools - The New Yorker:

BETSY DEVOS AND THE PLAN TO BREAK PUBLIC SCHOOLS

Among the points that can be made in favor of Betsy DeVos, Donald Trump’s billionaire nominee for the position of Secretary of Education, are the following: She has no known ties to President Vladimir Putin, unlike Trump’s nominee to head the State Department, Rex Tillerson, who was decorated with Russia’s Order of Friendship medal a few years ago. She hasn’t demonstrated any outward propensity for propagating dark, radical-right-leaning conspiracy theories, unlike Michael T. Flynn, Trump’s designated national-security adviser. She has not actively called for the dismantling of the department she is slated to head, as have Rick Perry, Trump’s nominee for Energy Secretary, and Scott Pruitt, the nominee to head the Environmental Protection Agency.

That the absence of such characteristics should bear noting only underlines the dystopian scope of Trump’s quest to complete his cabinet of cronies. On the other hand, DeVos has never taught in a public school, nor administered one, nor sent her children to one. She is a graduate of Holland Christian High School, a private school in her home town of Holland, Michigan, which characterizes its mission thus: “to equip minds and nurture hearts to transform the world for Jesus Christ.”

How might DeVos seek to transform the educational landscape of the United States in her position at the head of a department that has a role in overseeing the schooling of more than fifty million American children? As it happens, she does have a long track record in the field. Since the early nineteen-nineties, she and her husband, Dick DeVos, have been very active in supporting the charter-school movement. They worked to pass Michigan’s first charter-school bill, in 1993, which opened the door in their state for public money to be funnelled to quasi-independent educational institutions, sometimes targeted toward specific demographic groups, which operate outside of the strictures that govern more traditional public schools. (Dick DeVos, a keen pilot, founded one of his own: the West Michigan Aviation Academy, located at Gerald Ford International Betsy DeVos and the Plan to Break Public Schools - The New Yorker:

 

Federal And State Officials Demand Expansion Of Low Performing, Corruption-Laced Charter Schools

Federal And State Officials Demand Expansion Of Low Performing, Corruption-Laced Charter Schools:

Federal And State Officials Demand Expansion Of Low Performing, Corruption-Laced Charter Schools

When traditional public schools are low performing, federal and state officials demand alternatives-when charter schools are low performing and laced with corruption, they demand charter expansion

What is it about charter schools that gain the favor of public officials regardless of their performance, proneness to fraud and corruption and lack of inclusiveness?

Why do some parents transfer their children from a high-performing public school to a low-performing charter?

Are some public officials so enamored with the notion of choice and/or privatization that it blinds them to the failure of chartering?

Low performance and fiscal fraud in the charter industry is common knowledge. There is less public awareness that charter enrollment typically doesn’t reflect the demographics of the area. Charters often exclude certain students and counsel-out others; whereas the authentic public school turns away no students. Student selectivity in the charter industry is counter to the common school ideal.

Charters can select students without regard to due process. A relevant example of this is in a December 9 New York Times article-New York Charters Enroll Fewer Homeless Pupils Than City Schools. A traditional public school has an enrollment with 42% homeless while a Success Academy charter school has a homeless enrollment of 10%. These two schools operate in the very same building.

There are signs that infatuation with choice and privately-operated charters is beginning to decline, particularly at the local level. But the appointment of choice warrior Betsy DeVos for U.S. Secretary of Education and President-Elect Trump’s pre-election announcement of intent to divert $20 billion of federal funds from the education budget to charter school expansion does not bode well for the great American common school.

Intervention to the privatization craze is essential by school district leaders, employees and patrons.

—–

William L. Phillis, Ohio Coalition for Equity & Adequacy of School Funding

ohioeanda@sbcglobal.net

Federal And State Officials Demand Expansion Of Low Performing, Corruption-Laced Charter Schools:

Trump. Hangin’ with the Emanuel bros. | Fred Klonsky

Trump. Hangin’ with the Emanuel bros. | Fred Klonsky:

Trump. Hangin’ with the Emanuel bros.

Rahm’s deportation memo to President Bill Clinton.

Donald Trump seems to have a major jones for the Emanuel brothers.

That would be Zeke, Ari and, of course, Rahm.

Trump has met with all three of them during the transition.

Dr. Zeke Emanuel, you might recall, wrote a piece for Atlantic, in which he suggested that life after 75 sucks and no medical efforts should be taken to extend it.

Trump is 70, by the way.

Trump has also met with Ari.

Ari is a Hollywood agent. It is generally accepted that he is the model for the overheated character played by Jeremy Piven on the tv show, Entourage.

Ari Emanuel is (or was) DT’s Hollywood agent.

And then there is Mayor Rahm.

Trump and Rahm are not strangers. Trump donated $50,000 to Rahm’s 

Trump. Hangin’ with the Emanuel bros. | Fred Klonsky:

TROUBLED SCHOOLS ON TRIAL: The MUST READ series by the CT Mirror - Wait What?

TROUBLED SCHOOLS ON TRIAL: The MUST READ series by the CT Mirror - Wait What?:

TROUBLED SCHOOLS ON TRIAL: The MUST READ series by the CT Mirror

CT Mirror reporter Jacqueline Rabe has written a MUST READ series of seven stories about the controversies surrounding Connecticut’s public school system.

As her CT Mirror biography notes,

Rabe has won two first prizes from the national Education Writers Association for her work in 2012 – one in beat reporting for her overall education coverage, and the other, with Keith Phaneuf, in investigative reporting on a series of stories revealing questionable monetary and personnel actions taken by the Board of Regents for Higher Education. Before coming to The Mirror, Jacqueline was a reporter, online editor and website developer for The Washington Post Co.’s Maryland newspaper chains. She has also worked for Congressional Quarterly and the Toledo Free Press. A graduate of Bowling Green State University, Jacqueline is in the public policy master’s program at Trinity College.

Here are links to Rabe’s recent series on education in Connecticut.

WHEN POVERTY PERMEATES THE CLASSROOM (Part 1)
http://ctmirror.org/2016/12/07/troubled-schools-on-trial-when-poverty-perme…

THE BROKEN FORMULA FOR STATE SCHOOL AID (Part 2)
http://ctmirror.org/2016/12/08/troubled-schools-on-trial-a-broken-formula-f…

A BUILDING BOOM, PENSIONS LOCK IN BIG COSTS (Part 3)
http://ctmirror.org/2016/12/09/troubled-schools-on-trial-a-building-boom-pe…

WHO’S IN CHARGE? STATE VS. LOCAL CONTROL (Part 4)
http://ctmirror.org/2016/12/12/troubled-schools-on-trial-whos-in-charge-state-vs-local-control/

WHAT DOES A HIGH SCHOOL DIPLOMA PROVE? (Part 5)
http://ctmirror.org/2016/12/13/troubled-schools-on-trial-what-does-a-high-s…

SPECIAL EDUCATION DRIVING COSTS AND CONTROVERSIES (Part 6)
http://ctmirror.org/2016/12/14/troubled-schools-on-trial-special-education-…

WILL A SCATHING COURT DECISION LEAD TO ACTION? (Part 7)
http://ctmirror.org/2016/12/15/troubled-schools-on-trial-will-a-scathing-co…

TROUBLED SCHOOLS ON TRIAL: The MUST READ series by the CT Mirror - Wait What?:

OKCPS principals' conflict borne of legacy problems - NonDoc

OKCPS principals' conflict borne of legacy problems - NonDoc:

OKCPS principals’ conflict borne of legacy problems

I have been dreading this post.

I had hoped to sidestep the questions raised by Tim Willert’s article Monday regarding the criticism OKCPS principals and vice principals have aimed at district leadership. Willert cited charges by principals that I had hoped to avoid, but his article also described issues that clearly merit more discussion. So, I am timidly tackling this controversy with the hope that I can contribute constructively and not complicate matters.

Willert reported that 113 principals and assistant principals signed a letter, stating, in part:

Our collective lack of confidence in the district’s direction results, in significant part, from the culture that the administration has created over the last two years.

I have nothing to contribute to the question of whether the current administration has made things worse, but I can wholeheartedly concur with the letter that, over the decades, “The district has created an environment that undermines the morale of the school administrators and is detrimental to the morale and welfare of the organization.”OKCPS principals' conflict borne of legacy problems - NonDoc:

CURMUDGUCATION: OH: Turn Schools Over To Businessmen

CURMUDGUCATION: OH: Turn Schools Over To Businessmen:

OH: Turn Schools Over To Businessmen

Back in September, Ohio's Governor (and lonely failed Presidential candidate) John Kasich decided to unravel a puzzle-- the mismatch between Ohio's open jobs and unemployed workers.

One might think that a possible answer might be that the hundreds of thousands of blue collar workers whose jobs have been outsourced or robo-sourced do not match up with the new jobs available in the state. But Kasich decided to focus on the idea that schools were not cranking out the kind of meat widgets and cogs required by corporate leaders.

So Kasich sicced his Executive Workforce Board on the problem. The EWB is usually billed as "made up of legislators, business leaders, labor leaders, educators and others." If we break down the actual list of twenty-eight members, we get one governor, four legislators (state and fed), one county commissioner, one union guy (IUOE), one superintendent of a CTO, one emeritus community college president, the Ohio higher ed chancellor, and eighteen business and investment guys. Also, zero representatives of any sort from the K-12 public education system.

The board's recommendations include these four "top" items:

* Establish stronger connections between schools and businesses so that schools produce grads with the skills businesses want
* Fill in the skills gap so that schools produce grads with the skills businesses wantCURMUDGUCATION: OH: Turn Schools Over To Businessmen:

LA Unified schools: hubs for education — and social services? | 89.3 KPCC

LA Unified schools: hubs for education — and social services? | 89.3 KPCC:

LA Unified schools: hubs for education — and social services?

Los Angeles schools shouldn't only be places where students go to learn; they should also be community centers, after-school gathering spots and hubs for social services.

That principle is better known nationally as the "community schools" model — and it's about to get the endorsement of a newly-formed, powerhouse coalition of labor unions, faith-based groups and social justice organizations who see it as a new organizing principle for the Los Angeles Unified School District.

The coalition, known as "Reclaim Our Schools L.A.," envisions replicating the "wraparound services" already in place at some L.A. Unified schools — like at Garfield High's "Wellness Center," where a non-profit provider offers physical exams, family planning and mental health services — on campuses across the sprawling district.

"We want to build the schools to be the hub of those communities," said Patricia Castellanos, deputy director of the labor-aligned Los Angeles Alliance for a New Economy (LAANE), which is part of the coalition. "They're, in most cases, right down the street from us. Unless you have kids, the schools' neighbors don’t really engage otherwise. That [school] should be an anchor for those communities and for those parents."

The idea is far from new; as early as 1889, Chicago's Hull House brought educational and social services for immigrant families under one roof. But in the last decade, the New York City, Philadelphia, Oakland and Cincinnati school districts have rolled out reform initiatives under the banner of "community schools."

Reclaim Our Schools wants to add Los Angeles to that list. How exactly coalition members plan to do it is not yet clear; their vision document is more an outline of principles than a concrete action plan. Coalition members do plan to meet with L.A. Unified leaders and hold a community forum in the coming months.

"This group actually has a vision for, over a period of some time, moving the entire district to being a community school district," said Alex Caputo-Pearl, president of the United Teachers Los Angeles (UTLA) teachers union, which is part of the coalition.

It's not only wraparound services that Reclaim Our Schools coalition hopes to bring to L.A. schools. To them, according to the vision document, a true "community school" also teaches using a "culturally-relevant" curriculum, sets progressive student discipline policies, cares more about experienced teachers than test scores and attempts to create "authentic" relationships with parents.

Castellanos and Caputo-Pearl said the coalition's primary focus is on district-run schools in L.A. Unified. But what about charter schools operating in the district?

Reclaim Our Schools L.A.'s visioning document criticizes the "simplistic narrative forc[ing] all stakeholders in the public education system to take sides in an increasingly acrimonious debate."

But the document also makes it clear the coalition's primary aim is to address L.A. Unified's shortcomings and bolster the district's attempts to boost its enrollment amid increasing competition from charters.

"Could a charter school fit under this model? I think so," Castellanos said. "I don’t LA Unified schools: hubs for education — and social services? | 89.3 KPCC:

 

Recent Important Coverage of Betsy DeVos, Part 1 | janresseger

Recent Important Coverage of Betsy DeVos, Part 1 | janresseger:

Recent Important Coverage of Betsy DeVos, Part 1

Here begins a two-part post—today and tomorrow—to summarize recent news coverage about Betsy DeVos.

You may feel you already know enough about Betsy DeVos, President-elect Donald Trump’s nominee for Secretary of Education. You may be disgusted that a one-cause activist and philanthropist has been appointed for an important federal position that oversees, for example, civil rights protection for children across America’s public schools, especially as her one cause has been the expansion of school vouchers—public dollars children can carry to private and parochial schools. Maybe you’ve already learned enough to be furious that yet another billionaire from the One Percent will be shaping federal policy for the schools that serve the 99 Percent. Maybe you are angry about DeVos’s lack of experience in education—and especially the schools operated by and for the public. Betsy DeVos graduated from Holland Christian High School and, as columnist Wendy Lecker has explained: “(S)he is wholly unqualified to be Secretary of Education. She has no education degree or background, and has never worked in, attended or sent her children to public school.”

But this two-part blog will help fill in any gaps in your understanding.  During DeVos’s confirmation hearing, and later, if she is confirmed and as her policy proposals roll out, you’ll have the facts at your fingertips as contributions to any and every conversation.  News reporting on DeVos this week has been particularly interesting, as newspapers have been assigning reporters to investigate in depth DeVos’s advocacy to reduce regulation of marketplace school choice, the influence of her religious beliefs, her partners and allies in the sphere of school choice advocacy, and the way in which DeVos’s ideologically driven philanthropy fits right in to the work of the Waltons, the Broads, and the Gates, although DeVos is far more driven by far-right anti-government, pro-voucher ideology.

Kate Zernike’s investigative piece for the NY Times, How Trump’s Education Nominee Bent Detroit to Her Will on Charter Schools, is a must read. Zernike has interviewed the people in Michigan who were involved in the intense legislative fight last spring and summer about the inclusion of a “Detroit Education Commission” to provide some regulation of what has become an out-of-control charter school sector in that city: “Few disagreed that schools in Detroit were a mess: a chaotic mix of charters and traditional public schools, the worst-performing in the nation. So city leaders across the political spectrum agreed on a fix, with legislation to provide oversight and set standards on how to open schools and close bad ones. But the bill died without even getting a final vote. And the person most influential in killing it is now President-elect Donald J. Trump’s nominee to oversee the nation’s public schools Betsy DeVos…”

Zernike continues: “The bill’s proposals are common in many states and accepted by many Recent Important Coverage of Betsy DeVos, Part 1 | janresseger:

Personalized Learning at Pomeroy Elementary School (Milpitas, CA) | Larry Cuban on School Reform and Classroom Practice

Personalized Learning at Pomeroy Elementary School (Milpitas, CA) | Larry Cuban on School Reform and Classroom Practice:

Personalized Learning at Pomeroy Elementary School (Milpitas, CA)



The recently built Learning Lab at Pomeroy Elementary School is a large room with multi-colored chairs, cubbies for students to sit in, and tables where students work together. Part of the previous Superintendent’s plan for staff to redesign their schools for blended learning (see here), Pomeroy’s Learning Lab the morning of October 21, 2016 was filled with 28 sixth graders working on different tasks. “We are,” their teacher Deanna Sainten said,”doing blended learning to the max.”

After listening to the veteran teacher who has spent ten years at Pomeroy, I walked around and spoke to students sitting in pairs, trios, and alone. Three students told me that they were looking at a Scholastic News article called “Vote for Me,” about the Clinton/Trump campaign for president. They were reading the article and moving back-and-forth from the text to the worksheet with questions to answer. Another boy was writing in his notebook as he paged through his math text.

Two other 6th graders were working on their Personal Learning Plan checking which items they had “mastered,” (these show up in green on their screens) and ones that they have yet to complete (they show up in red). I asked them whether they had set goals for themselves–the PLP helps students acquire skills of self-assessment–and one showed me a screen shot of his goal labeled “Going to College.” The other boy still was at sea in figuring out how to use that part of the PLP.*

Elsewhere in the Learning Lab, I saw a line of about five students waiting to see Sainten sitting at a small desk. The students wanted the teacher to check their work  or were asking questions about the task they were working on.

I walked over to other students to see what they were doing. One boy was writing out answers on a worksheet about Ron Jones’ Acorn People and then transferring his answers to his Chromebook.  I asked him why he was doing that. He said: “It’s neater.” Two girls were working on the Scholastic News article on the presidential campaign and Googling on their tablets for information to answer questions. A boy and girl at a table were working on the Paleothic unit on their Chromebooks. Both were taking notes on their tablets from the readings Personalized Learning at Pomeroy Elementary School (Milpitas, CA) | Larry Cuban on School Reform and Classroom Practice:

The College Board and Its Doomed Agilix Connection | deutsch29

The College Board and Its Doomed Agilix Connection | deutsch29:

The College Board and Its Doomed Agilix Connection

On December 12, 2016, Reuters published an extensive article about David Coleman’s botch job in trying to fast-track a “new” SAT that was supposed to be aligned with the Common Core State Standards (CCSS). Based upon a number of College Board internal documents, the Reuters article notes that a number of College Board execs and legal advisors tried to get Coleman to slow down and rethink some components of his “vision”; such is true of the excerpt featured in this post involving online test delivery using the ed tech company, Agilix:

Before Coleman arrived, the College Board had been developing digital testing for more than two years, internal memos show. Offering tests online was complex, veterans warned Coleman. It would require extra research and logistical chores, such as arranging computers for exam-takers. Moreover, creating a digital SAT by March 2015 “is almost certainly not achievable,” [College Board Senior VP Hal] Higginbotham wrote in his note to Coleman, “and definitely not in a responsible manner adhering to good measurement practice.”

Coleman pressed on. In early 2013, he scuttled the College Board’s internal digital project and brought in an outsider to lead the effort: Mark Luetzelschwab, who had helped run an education technology company called Agilix.

That July, Luetzelschwab touted how his former company would help execute the digital undertaking, documents show. Using Agilix software, the College Board would meet its goals “faster, cheaper, and (with) less risk than building” a digital platform internally, he wrote in an email to Jeremy Singer, Coleman’s new chief operating officer.

Coleman’s team worked out a deal with Luetzelschwab’s old firm: a no-bid contract for as much as $30 million, documents show. Other top College Board officials protested.

Three College Board technical specialists warned in detailed memos that Agilix lacked the expertise to deliver the technology it promised. Lawyers didn’t like the deal, either.

General counsel Neil Lane urged Singer to abandon talks with Agilix; Lane 

The College Board and Its Doomed Agilix Connection | deutsch29:

IT'S IMPOSSIBLE TO REFORM THE DEMOCRATIC PARTY WITHOUT ADDRESSING THE "5TH COLUMN" - Perdaily

IT'S IMPOSSIBLE TO REFORM THE DEMOCRATIC PARTY WITHOUT ADDRESSING THE "5TH COLUMN" - Perdaily.com:

IT'S IMPOSSIBLE TO REFORM THE DEMOCRATIC PARTY WITHOUT ADDRESSING THE "5TH COLUMN"

In watching the Our Revolution online event tonight supporting Keith Ellison, who is being put forward to head and implement past due reform in the Democratic Party, there remained the proverbial 800 lbs gorilla on stage with Ellson in the person of AFT President Randi Weingarten.

Weingarten, whose career heading AFT exemplifies the same contradictions in supposed values versus actions that now plagues the Democratic Party, while continuing to remain unaddressed even after the recent drubbing at the poles.

Weingarten and AFT have systematically abandon falsely targeted teachers and cooperated with their removal on false charges and the premeditated dismemberment of public education without objection, while tacitly supporting the 1% corporate agenda of the exclusively profit motivated corporations in their incessant move to privatize public education for profit and the further dumbing of America.

Tonight at the AFT sponsored event, no notice was ever taken by Sanders, Ellison, or any other person of good will, who truly wants to fix the Democratic Party, but seems inexplicably blind to the open and obvious corruption that a Randi Weingarten or other members of the traditional Democratic establishment's leadership that has continued unabated, while selling out the supposed Democratic Party's core values enumerated by Sander in his speech tonight.

This has gone on for so long now that the Democrats core constituencies- those who voted for Obama twice- have now seen too many cross over in disgust and support Trump and a Republican agenda, which in reality is completely antithetical to their true interests. And none of these "reformers" wonders why, when the Weingarten answer is standing next to them?

Although Bernie Sanders eloquently laid out what the IT'S IMPOSSIBLE TO REFORM THE DEMOCRATIC PARTY WITHOUT ADDRESSING THE "5TH COLUMN" - Perdaily.com: