Thursday, June 30, 2011

Roger Ailes’ Secret Nixon-Era Blueprint for Fox News- Gawker

EXCLUSIVE

Roger Ailes’ Secret Nixon-Era Blueprint for Fox News

John Cook — Republican media strategist Roger Ailes launched Fox News Channel in 1996, ostensibly as a "fair and balanced" counterpoint to what he regarded as the liberal establishment media. But according to a remarkable document buried deep within the Richard Nixon Presidential Library, the intellectual forerunner for Fox News was a nakedly partisan 1970 plot by Ailes and other Nixon aides to circumvent the "prejudices of network news" and deliver "pro-administration" stories to heartland television viewers.

The memo—called, simply enough, "A Plan For Putting the GOP on TV News"— is included

Milwaukee Today: NAACP’s Report on the City’s African Americans « Larry Miller's Blog

Milwaukee Today: NAACP’s Report on the City’s African Americans

by millerlf

By Lisa Kaiser Express Milwaukee 5/29/2011

“Grim.”

That’s what R.L. McNeely called the findings of a new NAACP study on the status of African Americans in Milwaukee.

Take, for example, some of these facts presented in “Milwaukee Today: An Occasional Report of the NAACP” by McNeely with UW-Milwaukee’s David Pate and Lisa Ann Johnson:

Milwaukee remains one of the most segregated cities in the nation and has lost 38% of its white population since 1985.

“Milwaukee’s African-American married-couple family is an endangered institution,” the report states. Only 28% of Milwaukee’s black families had two parents in 2000, down from 64% in 1970.

The median income of families headed by single mothers—regardless of race—is $18,800, about one-third of the $61,300 income earned by married-couple families in Milwaukee County. But, according to

Governor Signs Budget, Makes No Vetoes of Education Funding « State of Emergency

Governor Signs Budget; Makes No Vetoes of Education Funding

by Leonard Feldman

(SACRAMENTO) 30 June 2011 — Gov. Jerry Brown on Thursday signed the new 2011-2012 state budget, a day before the start of California’s new fiscal year.

In announcing the action, the governor’s office also released a list of the line item vetoes (reductions or cuts in appropriations) the governor made before penning the spending plan into law.

Below is the news release announcing the budget enactment. A link will take you to the list of the governor’s vetoes.

Governor Brown Signs Honest, Balanced and On-Time Budget

6-30-2011

SACRAMENTO – Governor Edmund G. Brown Jr. today signed the 2011-12 California State Budget (SB 87), dropping General Fund spending to the lowest level in decades, returning authority to local government and closing the state’s $26.6 billion deficit.

The budget makes substantial cuts to government programs and reduces state spending by $15 billion. As a

Rick Scott and Michelle Rhee praise charter that just got an 'F'

by admin

Photo Credit:AP Photo/Alan Diaz

Written by Kathleen McGrory, for the Miami Herald. Read the original here.

“When Gov. Rick Scott unveiled some of his education policy proposals with school-choice celeb Michelle Rhee this January, they paid a visit to a second-grade class at Florida International Academy in Opa-Locka to showcase the successes of school choice.

Oops.

The school rankings are out. And the academy’s new elementary school just got an F.

The middle school, though, earned a B. Last year the middle school was an A. Before then

Shanker Blog » What Do State And Local Governments Do?

What Do State And Local Governments Do?

Posted by Matthew Di Carlo on June 30, 2011

Those who wish to dismantle public services in the U.S. seem to share a general belief – accepted, to some extent, even by people who generally support public sector spending – that government is a massive, incompetent blob. At the federal level, I have always found this somewhat strange, since around two-thirds of federal spending goes towards Social Security, Medicare/Medicaid and national defense, programs that are generally popular and widely regarded as successful.

Survey data indicate that people do trust state and local government more than they do federal government, but the level of confidence is still not particularly high. Americans also appear generally unwilling to pay higher taxes to preserve public services (except for education), and most accept that state and local government is too large and much of it is superfluous. But when people are asked about specific programs, they tend to

Mike Klonsky's SmallTalk Blog: This is a stick-up. Your pension or your job.

This is a stick-up. Your pension or your job.

by Mike Klonsky

Mugging in Milwaukee

Supt. Thornton just fired 519 city teachers. Now he is threatening massive lay-offs unless the 5,600 members of the Milwaukee Teachers' Education Association would agree to pay $20 million more into their own pension fund. Of course there is no guarantee that a pension give-back, once surrendered, would prevent more firings.

MTEA President Bob Peterson released a statement Wednesday night defending the union's refusal to make pension concessions. He also criticized Gov. Scott Walker and the Legislature's Republican leadership.

Instead of creating jobs, Peterson said,

"Gov. Walker and his Republican supporters have forced the

Secretary Duncan's Data Integrity Warning Misses the Point - Living in Dialogue - Education Week Teacher

Secretary Duncan's Data Integrity Warning Misses the Point

By Anthony Cody on June 30, 2011 11:42 AM | No Comments |

Secretary of Education Arne Duncan has issued a warning to state-level school leaders telling them:

I am writing to urge you to do everything you can to ensure the integrity of the data used to measure student achievement and ensure meaningful educational accountability in your State. As I'm sure you know, even the hint of testing irregularities and misconduct in the test administration process could call into question school reform efforts and undermine the State accountability systems that you have painstakingly built over the past decade.

He goes on to say,

The successful implementation of Title I and other key programs administered by the U.S. Department of Education (Department) relies heavily on using data that are valid, reliable, and consistent with professional and technical standards.

The letter then describes a series of steps the Department of Ed wishes states to take to ensure the integrity and security of test data.

Unfortunately, Mr. Duncan is missing the biggest threat to the validity of the data being secured. It is the very high stakes that his policies place on these

Lee Sustar: Showdown in Chicago #NEARA11

Lee Sustar: Showdown in Chicago

Showdown in Chicago

By LEE SUSTAR

Chicago takes center stage for teachers' struggles in July amid the annual convention of the National Education Association (NEA), a gathering of reform activists and the battle with Chicago's new mayor over cancellation of teachers' raises.

Chicago Mayor Rahm Emanuel added to the latest wave of attacks on teachers' unions when his handpicked school board, dominated by business executives and billionaires like Penny Pritzker, voted June 22 to cancel the scheduled 4 percent raise for members of the Chicago Teachers Union (CTU). The move--justified by a school budget deficit put at more than $700 million--could trigger early contract talks that could result in a strike.

"Our children got the shaft," Emanuel said of scheduled teachers' raise.

A week later, more than 1,000 CTU members and supporters answered Emanuel with an angry picket line that circled the block and culminated in a rally at the Chicago Board of Trade--a recipient of tax money diverted from schools, where Chicago School Board President David Vitale was once the boss.

As Marcy Hardaloupas, an elementary school teacher for 20 years on the city's Southwest Side, said as she walked the picket line:

The situation has become horrendous. Teachers are being blamed

Education is the new abortion: The battle over school reform has turned dangerously vitriolic

BY RICHARD WHITMIRE

Thursday, June 30th 2011, 4:00 AM

Wexler/Bergen Record

For years, education politics were noteworthy mostly for their earnestness. Today, that's mostly gone.

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Less than a year ago, as I was finishing a book on Michelle Rhee, the combative former chancellor of schools in Washington, D.C., the time arrived to set up a website for the book. The website designer asked if I wanted to include reader comments. It was a sensible suggestion, but I said, no, thanks.

While reporting the book, I had monitored the comment sections in other publications as reporters wrote about hot-button education topics, including Rhee. These commentators were nasty; I'm talking abortion-debate-level nastiness.

How did that happen? For years, education politics were noteworthy mostly for their earnestness. Sure, there were flareups between "reformers" and teachers unions, but generally the tone of the discourse was civil and there was genuine curiosity in understanding opposing views. Today, that's mostly gone.

As an author writing about the polarizing Rhee, one might expect I would experience this vitriol. But I'm hardly alone. Time

Education Leaders Urge Assessment Innovation, Not Super Test - Michael Horn - Disrupting Class - Forbes

Jun. 30 2011 - 9:59 am | 1 views | 1 recommendation | 0 comments

A diverse group of over 60 educational leaders representing a variety of organizations, from academic institutions to state boards of education and from foundations to education providers, released an open letter today calling for the states and the assessment consortia designing the next generation of assessments aligned to the Common Core to move with all haste to deploy an assessment system that not only explicitly accommodates emerging models of innovative schooling, but also supports them.

This is an important time for our country’s education system, as the potential exists to not merely tinker with it, but to transform it. The next-generation assessments currently

The trouble with professional development for teachers - The Answer Sheet - The Washington Post

The trouble with professional development for teachers

By Valerie Strauss

This was written by Yvette Jackson, chief executive officer of theNational Urban Alliance for Effective Education, and author of The Pedagogy of Confidence, Teachers College Press of Columbia University.

By Yvette Jackson

The way we provide professional learning experiences and support our nation’s teachers is a running source of debate and, unfortunately, disappointment. Policymakers grumble at the costs. Teachers complain they don’t get what they need while parents and the public wait for our schools to get it right for our students.

According to a recent report by the Washington-based National Council on Teacher Quality, the Los Angeles Unified School District

When We End Up Defending, Not Proposing - Bridging Differences - Education Week

When We End Up Defending, Not Proposing

by Deborah Meier

Dear Diane,

Money maybe can't buy everything, but it can buy influence. (Which is why some semblance of financial equity is so crucial to democracy.) For example, it can buy the terms of the debate in a way that gives one side a leg up.

Part of that staging is capturing the right words. Example: "Choice" is such a nice word that the Right grabbed onto it re. schooling—although it's object was privatized schooling, just as the Left did on abortion when they were stronger. Defining "our" side of the education debates has been difficult as a result. We end up defending rather than proposing. It's been additionally difficult because the "other side" has co-opted a lot of the language that my side "invented," while moving fast in the opposite direction. Examples: Empowering schools, one of Joel Klein's favorite claims for his New York City reforms, means only that principals have more power over teachers (and less power in relationship to city and state). Similarly, knowing kids well has been turned into having reams of computer data—mostly test scores—on kids.

To avoid endless semantic and historical debates, Al Shanker once told me that he had given up arguing about

Shame on you!” —-> US Secretary of Education Arne Duncan

Shame on you!” —-> US Secretary of Education Arne Duncan labeled Detroit “ground zero” in education reform by video conference.” great article by Detroit attorney Tom Stephens « Continuing Change

Shame on you!” —-> US Secretary of Education Arne Duncan labeled Detroit “ground zero” in education reform by video conference.” great article by Detroit attorney Tom Stephens

by gatorbonbc

I stumbled across this article today. It is written by a Detroit attorney, Tom Stephens:

“Until now no one has publicly claimed that a community could be condemned to “no viable future” by poor test results. Shame on you!” —-> US Secretary of Education Arne Duncan labeled Detroit “ground zero” in education reform by video conference.”

The article continues: “

“Permit me to explain this harsh judgment.

Many studies and competent professional educators have by now concluded that the infamous “No Child Left Behind” Act model of education has failed our children. Indeed, longstanding opponents of these “reforms” have

For those considering accountability, evaluation and assessment reforms. « Fred Klonsky's blog

For those considering accountability, evaluation and assessment reforms.

by Fred Klonsky

For those considering accountability, evaluation and assessment reforms, it might be worth taking a a look at this report from the National Education Policy Center on the case of Florida.

Former Florida Governor Jeb Bush and the Foundation for Excellence in Education have embarked on a well-funded campaign to spread selected Florida education reforms to other states. These reforms include assigning letter grades to schools, high-stakes testing, promotion and graduation requirements, bonus pay, a wide variety of alternative teacher credentialing policies, and

An Exclusive Look Inside IMPACT

by Susan Headden

Today Education Sector releases a paper on IMPACT, the District of Columbia’s controversial teacher evaluation system that rates teachers primarily on classroom observations and student test scores. As one of the first in the nation to link teacher performance, pay, and job security to such measures, IMPACT is the most polarizing of the bold reforms initiated by ex-schools chancellor Michele Rhee. In the two years since this high-stakes report card was launched, it has led to the firing of scores of educators, put hundreds more on notice, and left the rest either encouraged and re-energized, or frustrated and scared.

IMPACT sets clear expectations for effective teaching, from probing students’ understanding to coming to work on time. Many teachers in the district welcome these standards and are motivated by salary bonuses of up to $25,000 to prove they can meet them. Others complain of being judged on elements of a craft that they insist

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Thursday, June 30, 2011