Eli Broad, make amends! - Network For Public Education

Eli Broad, make amends! - Network For Public Education:

Eli Broad, make amends!

Below is a letter from United Teachers Los Angeles President Alex Caputo-Pearl to Eli Broad, in response to his letter to the United States Senate opposing the nomination of Betsy DeVos.

Eli Broad, make amends! - Network For Public Education:

Summer Meal Programs - Nutrition (CA Dept of Education)

Summer Meal Programs - Nutrition (CA Dept of Education):

Summer Meal Programs

Federal meal programs for children from low-income areas during vacation and off-track periods

Summer Meal Locations

Provides parents and referral agencies with a list of locations where children may receive free nutritious meals during school vacation and off-track periods.

Summer Meal Service Sites
California state map with county by county listings of sponsors and serving sites.

Summer Food Service Program Information
Administrative and operational information and guidance for public and private nonprofit organizations that participate in the SFSP.

Seamless Summer Option
Information about the federal seamless option opportunity that allows public schools to combine features of the School Nutrition Programs and the Summer Food Service Program (SFSP) along with reduced paperwork requirements.

California Western Region Summer Sunshine Award Recipients 
The annual Summer Sunshine Awards recognize the outstanding achievements of individuals and groups that administer the U.S. Department of Agriculture Summer Meal Programs.

Questions:   Nutrition Services Division | 800-952-5609

 Summer Meal Programs - Nutrition (CA Dept of Education):

Schools Matter: Help Wanted, or Will Work of Real Results

Schools Matter: Help Wanted, or Will Work of Real Results:

Help Wanted, or Will Work of Real Results

I am looking to become aligned with a group, a band, or a cell, of individuals interested in acting to achieve the three goals below by any non-violent means necessary.  

A group of ten souls will constitute a quorum, and upon reaching this number, the group will meet to elect officers, develop by-laws, and priortize a course of action to achieve these goals:

• adequately and fairly funded public schools for every parent who wants them;

• safe public schools administered and staffed by professionally prepared educators and support services professionals who are committed to supportive, challenging, economically-integrated, and humane schools that are open to all;

• curricular, instructional, and assessment methods and content that reflect local values and priorities and that are enacted by elected school boards.

In order to achieve these three goals, basic changes are required as to the present conceptualization, prioritizing, and operations of schools that receive public dollars to operate:

• all charter school expansion will be halted, and existing charter schools, whether non-profit or for-profit, will be closed as public schools re-integrate these students;

• grouping of students in segregated classrooms, whether by ability, ethnicity, religion, sex, or sexual preference, will be discontinued;

• all school voucher programs, regardless of the name used to disguise the intent of such programs to fund private or parochial schools, will be discontinued.

• Standardized assessment of any kind whose results can be identified with individual students or teachers will no longer be required of school personnel or public school students;

• All student educational or demographic data will remain the property of students and Schools Matter: Help Wanted, or Will Work of Real Results:

Betsy DeVos, Democrats, and Good Theater

Betsy DeVos, Democrats, and Good Theater:

Betsy DeVos, Democrats, and Good Theater

You may encounter many defeats, but you must not be defeated. In fact, it may be necessary to encounter the defeats, so you can know who you are, what you can rise from, how you can still come out of it.

—Maya Angelou

Betsy DeVos

I think one thing Betsy DeVos has done is wake America up to what’s happening to our public schools. Now Americans will either fight for public schools, or they will go back to sleep.

I am an optimist, and I think this whole mess will keep people watching her. And they will watch the bought-off Republicans who thought more about themselves than they did about America’s children.

I have a friend who doesn’t like public schools. He and I have gotten along throughout the years by pretty much staying off topic or only discussing schools lightly. He is a good person and has volunteered as a tutor in public schools and charters.

But he sent me several articles about Betsy DeVos recently in the mail—mostly positive about her. One was from the Wall Street Journal, which hates public schools.

When I emailed him and asked if he saw the DeVos confirmation hearing, he replied Betsy DeVos, Democrats, and Good Theater:

Is Teaching a Team Sport? | The Merrow Report

Is Teaching a Team Sport? | The Merrow Report:

Is Teaching a Team Sport?

The bitter and contentious debate over Betsy DeVos means she is taking office as Secretary of Education with severely diminished influence. So, what might lie ahead?  Surely there will be charter school wars, because the movement is badly split between supporters of wide-open chartering and those who favor restrictions on for-profit  and virtual charter schools.  I will explore that in a subsequent post.  Today, because the world of teaching seems unified in its opposition to the new Secretary and because I believe that real change will only come from the bottom up, I want to explore what teachers might be FOR, going forward. Thus, I am reprinting “Is Teaching a Team Sport?” (originally posted November 2011).

I had an interesting conversation with Barnett Berry, the lead author of Teaching 2030, earlier this week. We covered the waterfront: how teaching has changed and is changing, whether schools of education were up the the challenges facing them, why so many teachers leave, and so on. You will have to wait for our PBS NewsHour piece — it’s in a quiz format, by the way — and the accompanying podcast to find out what the brilliant Mr. Berry believes, because right now I want to explore his final comment, over coffee after the cameras had been turned off.

“Teaching is a team sport,” he opined before rushing off to a meeting, leaving me wondering.

Is it? Who says so? And if it is, why are so many politicians and state governments rushing to support ways of measuring individual teachers?

And what’s a ‘team sport’ anyway?

Well, baseball is a team sport. We watched the Cardinals perform the near-impossible, and we saw that nearly everyone in a Cardinal uniform contributed to Is Teaching a Team Sport? | The Merrow Report:

Betsy DeVos and the Cowardice of Republicans | gadflyonthewallblog

Betsy DeVos and the Cowardice of Republicans | gadflyonthewallblog:

Betsy DeVos and the Cowardice of Republicans

“If all your friends jumped off a bridge, would you, too?”

If you’re a Senate Republican, the answer is apparently “YES!”

Otherwise, why would all but two such lawmakers vote to confirm Betsy DeVos, the most unqualified candidate for Education Secretary in U.S. history?

During a hearing of the Senate Committee on Health, Education, Labor and Pensions (HELP), DeVos showed herself to be hopelessly out of her depth.

She wouldn’t commit to protecting students with special needs.

She wouldn’t commit to keeping guns out of school campuses (because of rampaging Grizzlies).

She wouldn’t commit to holding charter and voucher schools to the same standards as traditional public schools.

She didn’t know the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA) was a federal law.

And she couldn’t explain the difference between proficiency and growth, two extremely common education terms.

Yet only Republican Sens. Lisa Murkowski (Alaska) and Susan Collins (Maine) joined all Democrats to vote against her. It took Vice President Mike Pence to cast the deciding vote and break the 50-50 tie – the first time that has happened for a Cabinet position.

This is a classic example of money speaking louder than people.

DeVos is a Republican mega-donor. She’s given $200 million to GOP candidates over the years – including many of the Senators who voted to confirm her.

Constituents flooded Senator’s phone lines in the past week, demanding they vote Betsy DeVos and the Cowardice of Republicans | gadflyonthewallblog: