Betsy DeVos: the billionaire Republican destroying public education | US news | The Guardian

Betsy DeVos: the billionaire Republican destroying public education | US news | The Guardian

Betsy DeVos: the billionaire Republican destroying public education
Cuts, attacks, rollbacks – the education secretary’s campaign to dismantle America’s public system has continued unabated

Betsy DeVos has become accustomed to hostile audiences. The House of Representatives’ education committee earlier this month was no exception.

“When you approach a public school, you are protested,” the Democratic congresswoman Frederica Wilson told the education secretary. “When you enter, you are booed. You are the most unpopular person in our government. Millions will register to vote in 2020. Many will vote to remove you more than to remove the president.”

It was a rare moment of clarity in the constant swirl of drama in Washington – border wall, Russia, partisan warfare, media bashing, tweets, impeachment – that seems to provide cover for Donald Trump’s cabinet secretaries to escape scrutiny. Chief among them is DeVos who, critics say, is quietly and insidiously destroying public education in America.

DeVos’s record is proof, they argue, that when the smoke of the Trump presidency finally clears, the substance of his legacy on policy, deregulation and stacking the courts will remain – and take far longer to repair.

“We’ve had plenty of Republican as well as Democratic secretaries of education but none of them, even those who believed in alternatives to public education, actually tried to eviscerate public education,” said Randi Weingarten, the president of the American Federation of Teachers. “Here is someone who in her first budget tried to eliminate every single summer school programme, every single after-school programme, and who has done everything in her power to try to make it harder for us to strengthen public [sector] schools.”

A billionaire philanthropist, DeVos, 61, attended a private Christian school in Michigan and sent most of her children to private Christian schools; she has CONTINUE READING: Betsy DeVos: the billionaire Republican destroying public education | US news | The Guardian

Teacher Tom: That Older Me Is A Real Jerk

Teacher Tom: That Older Me Is A Real Jerk

That Older Me Is A Real Jerk

As a boy, I dreamt of being a super hero, Batman in particular. I suppose I would have rather been Superman with his flying and extraordinary strength, but I understood enough about reality to know that those powers were impossible, whereas the more mortal abilities of Batman actually seemed attainable. Children dream all kinds of things, but even then, even as I planned my future as a costumed crusader, I limited myself according to what I knew about how the world worked. It would be several years before I came to realize that even the abilities of Batman were beyond mere mortals.

I wonder sometimes if that dream of being a force for good in the world didn't in some way inform my choice to become a teacher. I mean, after all, I'm still the same human being who wanted to be Batman, just older and wiser. Of course, that boy me might look at things quite differently. If he were able to see the man I've become, he might well feel that I've sold out my younger self. Not only am I not Batman, but I'm not a professional baseball player, I'm not a hippie living in a free CONTINUE READING: Teacher Tom: That Older Me Is A Real Jerk

CURMUDGUCATION: Big Brother U & The Surveillance State

CURMUDGUCATION: Big Brother U  The Surveillance State

Big Brother U & The Surveillance State

If you missed this article at Washington Post about on campus surveillance of students-- well, congratulations on having one less troubling thought in your head over the past week. Because the surveillance is continuing its slow, steady advance. Now technology lets colleges monitor their students 24/7. Yay.

This particular article focuses on a company called SpotterEDU, and they are creepy as hell. The main part of their is a quick, easy technofix for taking attendance. Students are required to download the app (this also means, though the article is so tech forward it doesn't even address these issues, that students are also required to carry an up-to-date cellphone and keep it fully charged at all times) which then "checks in" with Bluetooth beacons in classrooms on campus (or anywhere else the beacons are planted).

Bluetooth beacons were supposed to be the Thing Of The Year in 2016, the tech that was going to put coupons on our phones when we approached a certain product and which would unlock doors as we walked closer. As with virtually every big tech promise of the last twenty years, it hasn't exactly arrived yet. If the function of Bluetooth in my home is any indicator, I'm guessing we have a few bugs to work out yet.

That seems to be the case for some students, who report in the article that they get in fights with the tech about whether or not they were really absent or late to class. yay, computer technology-- usually almost doing of what it's supposed to do, sort of. As the SpotterEDU Terms of Service say, its CONTINUE READING: CURMUDGUCATION: Big Brother U & The Surveillance State

A teacher assesses the past decade in K-12 education — and makes 9 predictions for the 2020s - The Washington Post

A teacher assesses the past decade in K-12 education — and makes 9 predictions for the 2020s - The Washington Post

A teacher assesses the past decade in K-12 education — and makes 9 predictions for the 2020s

Veteran educator Larry Ferlazzo writes annual lists of what he considers the best and worst education news — for which you can find links below — as well as predictions for the year ahead. This piece is something new.

Here, Ferlazzo, who teaches English and social studies at Luther Burbank High School in Sacramento, looks back on the past 10 years in the world of education and evaluates what happened, for, in his view, good or ill — plus one event he can’t yet categorize. Following this assessment are predictions he is making for the 2020s.

His lists are not in any order of priority.

Ferlazzo is well-known in the education world, having written or edited 12 books on education, and authoring a teacher advice blog for Education Week Teacher and his popular resource-sharing blog.

He encourages readers to leave their own reactions and thoughts in the comments. Ferlazzo is sure he has missed a lot!

BEST EDUCATION NEWS OF THE DECADE

Grass-roots teacher organizing became energized

Beginning with the Chicago Teachers Union strike, led by then-union leader Karen Lewis in 2012, to the 2018 West Virginia teacher strike which, in turn, led to strikes across the country, teachers and their unions successfully fought for fair compensation and increased resources for students and their families.

Effective Social Emotional Learning took hold in many of the nation’s schools

Through research and practice, educators have recognized the importance of supporting the social and emotional growth of students, and acknowledging that they are intertwined with academic growth. Concepts and strategies such as a growth mind-set, goal-setting and encouraging intrinsic motivation are being integrated in curriculums throughout the country. Importantly, some unhelpful efforts seem CONTINUE READING: A teacher assesses the past decade in K-12 education — and makes 9 predictions for the 2020s - The Washington Post

Sights and Sounds of the Season and The Importance of the Arts in Public Schools

Sights and Sounds of the Season and The Importance of the Arts in Public Schools

Sights and Sounds of the Season and The Importance of the Arts in Public Schools

This is a good time to think about the arts. The visuals and sounds of the holidays, art, music, and drama, surround us. It’s a reminder that children need access to learning about the arts in public schools.

The arts help children learn in academic areas. They keep children interested in school. The arts alone are important to learning and might lead to a career. Here’s a list of art jobs.

I recently watched the movie Elf. Afterwards, they showed how they made the movie. Those involved in creating the unusual set, the props, and ambience described how they created illusion on the set. From designers and make-up artists, to the music and the sounds that make the movie unique, everyone had special preparation.

Set designers understood the importance of color. They knew how to calculate the CONTINUE READING: Sights and Sounds of the Season and The Importance of the Arts in Public Schools

The Best Book of 2019 – Kochland | tultican

The Best Book of 2019 – Kochland | tultican

The Best Book of 2019 – Kochland

By Thomas Ultican 12/26/2019

This may be the finest book thus far in the twenty-first century. Kochland; The Secret History of Koch Industries and Corporate Power in America is the second book by former agribusiness reporter for the Associated Press, Christopher Leonard. His first book, The Meat Racket; The Secret Takeover of America’s Food Business received rave reviews; however, Kochland is uniquely special. It is an economic history of America since 1967 that shows the deep changes in our economy that have given rise to a new kind of capitalism. Kochland is told through the lens of Koch Industries whose “annual revenue is larger than that of Facebook, Goldman Sachs, and US Steel combined.”

Leonard weaves an epic tale of brilliance, philosophical intransigence, greed and ruthlessness. Over almost 600 pages, this enjoyable read clearly elucidates many of the troubling outcomes from the last 50 years like the rolling blackouts in California and the destruction of the labor movement.

Fred Koch, the family patriarch, graduated in Chemical Engineering from Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) in 1922. In 1927, he won a patent for an improved petroleum refining process. Do to legal issues surrounding his patent, Fred ended up working in Stalin’s Russia between 1929 and 1932. This experience informed his extreme anti-communist views. He later joined with Robert Welch and a group of businessmen to form the virulently anti-communist John Birch Society. In 1960, he published the pamphlet “A Businessman Looks at Communism” in which he claimed that the National Education Association CONTINUE READING: The Best Book of 2019 – Kochland | tultican

"Two North" – A true Christmas story | Eclectablog

"Two North" – A true Christmas story | Eclectablog

“Two North” – A true Christmas story

“Two North” is a story about a Christmas when I was in grade school during a period when my mom was spending time on the psychiatric ward of our town’s hospital after trying to commit suicide to escape a physically-abusive husband. I was thirteen. It was a cataclysmic event in our lives but it brought us together into a two-person tribe like no other event ever has in my life.

I offer this story each year to my friends here at Eclectablog on Christmas as a tribute to my mother, a woman who went from being a pregnant sixteen-year old to retiring as an executive for the Chrysler Corporation in the short span of twenty years.

Much of who I am today is because of her and the lessons she taught me.

This may be read as a sad story, one full of tragedy and unhappiness. But, at the end, it’s story about the power of love to fill our lives in the midst of unhappiness and the unbreakable bonds between family members, whether it’s your biological family or, as Armistead Maupin calls it, your logical family.

Merry Christmas to all of you.

“Two North”It was Christmas night and I was warm and felt very comfortable. Maybe the most comfortable I had felt in a long time. I wasn’t in my own bed but that was okay because my mom was there and I hadn’t seen her in awhile and it was nice to be with her. I was only thirteen but when I look back on it, it seems like I was older and I guess I was in some ways. Older than I should have needed to be, I suppose.
I was laying in the darkness, mesmerized by a spacey lamp, the kind you find in head shops or at Spencer’s Gifts, designed especially for moments like this. Christmas was over and, although my memory of the day itself is lost in the fog of time, I have a vivid and distinct memory of the little bits of colored light going up and down and around and around the lamp.
We had spent the day with my aunts and uncles at my grandparents’ house. My mom, Jacki, was pretty fragile and, although she was glad to be there with her mother and father and brothers and sister, she was just as glad when they all left and she could escape to the safety of the upstairs bedroom. We had gone up together and tucked into our beds, just single mattresses on the floor. My grandparents kept their house a sweaty 75 degrees and upstairs it was more like 80. But that night, the warmth felt good and comforting and safe. We laid there in the dark, unable to see each other in the dim light coming from the spacey lamp in the corner, and talked for what seemed like hours.
It had been a crazy few months leading up to this night, for sure. That summer she had gotten married to John, her fourth husband. Shortly after the wedding, he proved that his tendency to CONTINUE READING "Two North" – A true Christmas story | Eclectablog

NEPC Review on Academic Progress of Children of Color | Diane Ravitch's blog

NEPC Review on Academic Progress of Children of Color | Diane Ravitch's blog

NEPC Review on Academic Progress of Children of Color

The National Education Policy Center publishes reviews of research and reports from think tanks and advocacy groups.

In this post, Professor Jaekyung Lee of SUNY, Buffalo, reviews a report from the Thomas B. Fordham Institute on the academic progress of children of color. To the surprise and delight of many, including me, TBF concluded that poverty reduction played a role in the academic gains in the past two decades.

Reviewed

by:

Jaekyung Lee

University at Buffalo, SUNY

November 2019

Executive Summary

A recent Fordham report highlights the historic academic progress of Black and Hispanic

groups over the past two decades at the elementary school level on the NAEP exam. From

this, the report offers the major claim, based on its author’s eyeball test, that the academic

progress of students of color is attributable “mostly” to poverty reduction. The report, how-

ever, also acknowledges that correlation is not causation and calls for systematic statistical

analysis to test the author’s proposition. This review responds to that call by examining the

validity of the report’s arguments around progress and causes, looking to expanded data

sources, including both family income and school expenditures. The review notes uneven CONTINUE READING: NEPC Review on Academic Progress of Children of Color | Diane Ravitch's blog

The Dilemma of the Xmas Tree in Mixed Marriages (Hannah Ingber) | Larry Cuban on School Reform and Classroom Practice

The Dilemma of the Xmas Tree in Mixed Marriages (Hannah Ingber) | Larry Cuban on School Reform and Classroom Practice

The Dilemma of the Xmas Tree in Mixed Marriages (Hannah Ingber)

Hannah Ingber works at the New York Times. This appeared December 24, 2019.

The first time I had a Christmas tree was 1987, the one year my father was married to Susan. I was 6 and remember my father having to climb a ladder to decorate it.

The second time was last year. This tree was much smaller and looked a bit sad. It tapered off at the end and didn’t stand straight. My husband bought it, loaded it into our Honda CRV and put it in the corner of the dining room when I wasn’t home because he knew I would object to it. I kept the room’s pocket doors closed as much as possible all that December, but he would come downstairs and open them. The smell of the tree would linger outside the room. I won’t lie — it was a really nice smell.

Growing up, I considered not having a Christmas tree (except in the Year of Susan), not wearing red and green in December, and not decorating our front lawn in lights as much a part of my Jewish identity as celebrating Passover and going to Hebrew school on Thursdays.

My husband and I began to fight regularly over having a tree after our children arrived. Though he was raised in California as a Hindu, he said that decorating a tree was among his happiest childhood memories, that it symbolized home and family. I countered that a tree in our living room felt so unsettling, so out of place, so unbearable.

Couldn’t we just have a shrine to Krishna instead?

You would think that such a disagreement would have been settled before we CONTINUE READING: The Dilemma of the Xmas Tree in Mixed Marriages (Hannah Ingber) | Larry Cuban on School Reform and Classroom Practice

New Podcast Episode! All About Kwanzaa – Parenting for Liberation

New Podcast Episode! All About Kwanzaa – Parenting for Liberation

New Podcast Episode! All About Kwanzaa

Habari Gani?! Our first annual Pre-Kwanzaa Celebration, in partnership with Dior Sunset Foundation, was an amazing community gathering bringing together 150 Black families in Los Angeles. Kwanzaa is a 7-day African-American & Pan-African holiday created to celebrate our culture, heritage, & foster unity, beginning on December 26-January 1.

This episode features a snippet from our keynote presenter, Bro. David Love, sharing about the 7 Principles of Kwanzaa and the 7 Symbols of Kwanzaa.

There are a multitude of ways to celebrate Kwanzaa such as pouring libations to honor your ancestors, getting together with family with song, dance, African drums, storytelling, and poetry reading. However you celebrate, just remember to practice the 7 principles of Kwanzaa: Umoja (unity), Kujichagulia (self-determination), Ujima (collective work and responsibility), Ujamaa (cooperative economics), Nia (purpose), Kuumba (creativity), & Imani (faith).

Check out our tools online (www.parentingforliberation.org) and on our social media channels.

Please share your Kwanzaa celebrations with us using the hashtag #P4LKwanzaa

“May the light of the kinara fill your home with peace and light your new year with love!”

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New Podcast Episode! All About Kwanzaa – Parenting for Liberation

 Pre-Kwanzaa Celebration – Parenting for Liberation 

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CONTINUE READING: Pre-Kwanzaa Celebration – Parenting for Liberation

Do You Hear What I Hear? | Teacher in a strange land

Do You Hear What I Hear? | Teacher in a strange land

Do You Hear What I Hear?

Many years ago, in December, we were having burgers and beer in a local pub, with friends. The sound system was pumping out Burl Ives, Bing Crosby and Mariah Carey, all the ‘classic’ Christmas tunes. One of our dinner companions remarked that I must be happy, surrounded by the Christmas music he was sure I loved.

But no.

I do have a thing for Christmas music—always have, dating way back to the LPs my parents got for ‘free’ when they had their snow tires put on. (In super-snowy western Michigan, it’s either snow tires or a winter spent digging yourself out of those scary, two -story snowbanks.) The LPs featured the likes of Eugene Ormandy, Dinah Shore, Steve and Edie, maybe Elvis. A little drummer boy, a little Jesus, a little rock and roll.

My affection for seasonal music has less to do with ‘getting in the spirit’ than seeing what artists and arrangers do with familiar tunes. Over five decades, I’ve performed in or conducted hundreds of Christmas concerts and programs, and there’s always something delicious to sing or play–and just as often, something really banal or obnoxious (lookin’ at you, Frosty the Snowman).

When I finally had my own collection of Christmas LPs and tapes, in the 1970s, I began making Christmas mix cassettes for friends, an excuse to buy more tasty holiday tunes CONTINUE READING: Do You Hear What I Hear? | Teacher in a strange land

Garrison Keillor: Harper Lee’s Best Christmas Present Ever | Diane Ravitch's blog

Garrison Keillor: Harper Lee’s Best Christmas Present Ever | Diane Ravitch's blog

Garrison Keillor: Harper Lee’s Best Christmas Present Ever

I recently subscribed to Garrison Keillor’s free website called”A Writer’s Almanac.”

He told this wonderful Christmas story today:

It was on this day in 1956 that novelist Harper Lee (books by this author) spent Christmas in New York City with friends, and received a gift that changed her life. In 1949, Lee had dropped out of a law program at the University of Alabama and moved to New York City, the home of her childhood friend Truman Capote. Capote had just published his first novel, Other Voices, Other Rooms (1948) — which featured a character based on Lee, and he was a literary star. In New York, Lee found a job as a ticket agent at an airline. For seven years, she wrote on the weekends, but she never published anything.

She rarely got time off from work, so she wasn’t able to get home to Alabama for Christmas. That Christmas of 1956, she was homesick. Lee wrote: “What I really missed was a memory, an old memory of people long since gone, of my grandparents’ house bursting with CONTINUE READING: Garrison Keillor: Harper Lee’s Best Christmas Present Ever | Diane Ravitch's blog

NYC Educator: On Academic Language

NYC Educator: On Academic Language

On Academic Language

When I was a grad student, there weren't enough courses for me to complete my MA in Applied Linguistics. I'd been offered a choice between that and an MS in Education in TESOL.

Most people went for the latter, because it led to certification in teaching. However, I already had a certification in English. I didn't need the MS, and I thought Applied Linguistics sounded marginally more impressive. Essentially it made me a language teacher, but I liked the title.

I was missing two courses. For one, my grade advisor said he'd let me take student teaching. This was convenient for me. I already had a full-time job teaching ESL at John Adams High School. All I had to do was go to work, be observed by some guy at Queens College, and my supervisor would get a free college course. It was a WIN-WIN for sure. My classmates told me the magical observation formula--you show a picture, you use five vocabulary words, and do other things I've since forgotten. I only used it when the guy observed me, but he thought I was a genius for following directions.

For my other course, I had to find something. One of my professors approached me about editing the opening chapters of a textbook she'd prepared. It was essentially a life manual for ELLs. What do you do at interviews? How do you get a job? How do you get into college? I read the book and didn't see great commercial potential. I told her I would do it only if she got me credit for independent study.

This professor was great at academic English. She was so good at it, in fact, that most people who picked up the book would likely put it down very quickly. I know that was my inclination. I sat and translated the chapters into comprehensible and accessible English. It was a lot easier to follow, and I hadn't diluted the ideas. The thing is, though, that if you happened to be up on rudimentary culture in your native language, you didn't need this guide. I didn't know anyone who needed this guide. I needed the credits though. I got an A and it was worth my time.

So here's my take on academic English--it likely as not entails language no one wants to read. It might mean you use big words whether or not they are necessary. It might mean you make ideas more complicated than they need be. It might not, of course. There's always the possibility that you need to use big words. Maybe you need to express ideas with such absolute precision that this is the only way to do it. Diane Ravitch writes books full of facts that are compelling as novels. That's not simply because she knows a lot of CONTINUE READING: NYC Educator: On Academic Language

Slaying Goliath: The Passionate Resistance to Privatization and the Fight to Save America's Public Schools

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Transcending “College and Career Ready” on Christmas | deutsch29

Transcending “College and Career Ready” on Christmas | deutsch29

Transcending “College and Career Ready” on Christmas

I had a wonderful Christmas.

One of the events that I treasure is the errand I needed to make to one of the few open stores in order to buy hamburger buns. (My brother grilled burgers, and what? No buns!)

I invited one of my young relatives to take the ride with me. It gave us a chance to talk.

Three years ago, this young man graduated from high school by ed-reform accounts “college and career ready.” His test scores and grades were top notch. He even graduated a year early and was accepted into multiple universities.

The only problem (and a huge one, at that) was that he was rebellious and sported an entitlement complex. He longed for the day when he would be free of his parents– free of their rules and restrictions– free to completely call the shots in his life.

In fact, he was not willing to wait until 18. He pushed for emancipation at 17, which his parents reluctantly granted.

He did attend the university but dropped out before completing a semester. He had freedom but lacked discipline or direction.

For the next three years, this young man received an education that no school could teach him.

He learned the very hard way that freedom must be coupled with responsibility.

His arrogance landed him in seedy, scary, unsafe, unstable situations. Nothing in CONTINUE READING: Transcending “College and Career Ready” on Christmas | deutsch29