Tuesday, August 9, 2011

Arne Duncan’s “Backdoor Blueprint Strategy” based on “Behavior Bucks” is “Coerced Voluntarism” | Scathing Purple Musings

Arne Duncan’s “Backdoor Blueprint Strategy” based on “Behavior Bucks” is “Coerced Voluntarism”

by Bob Sikes

SOS March Organizer Anthony Cody takes issue with Arne Duncan’s brazen takeover of the nation’s schools in a clever, poignant way:

Our Department of Education is still making rookie mistakes by trying to drive reform with Behavior Bucks. Perhaps they should be called “Duncan Dollars.” Yesterday we learned that the latest application of this principle will be applied to turn the dismally failed No Child Left Behind law into yet another set of rewards and punishments to promote the behaviors the administration has decided are good for us. The exact guidelines have not been spelled out, but all indications are we

SACRAMENTO PROGRESSIVE ALLIANCE: Progressive Groups Unveil 'Contract For The American Dream'

Progressive Groups Unveil 'Contract For The American Dream'

by Paul B

Sam Stein, Huffington Post.com
8/8/11

WASHINGTON -- In the wake of the deal to raise the nation's debt ceiling, widely viewed as yet another setback for the progressive community, advocacy groups on the left are redoubling efforts to change the political narrative.

S&P's decision to downgrade the United States' debt and the market selloff that followed has only emboldened those voices who believe the main structural problem plaguing the economy has less to do with debt and more to do with a lack of economic growth.

On Monday afternoon, MoveOn.org and Rebuild the Dream announced a campaign to build up a popular movement that could match (if not surpass) the debt reduction crowd in both size and energy. And they have

Leonie Haimson: Gates, In Alliance with Murdoch's News Corp, Builds a New App for Corporate Education Reform?

Gates, In Alliance with Murdoch's News Corp, Builds a New App for Corporate Education Reform?

Leonie Haimson

On Aug. 3, Vicki Phillips of the the Gates Foundationannounced the creation of an "amazing" new software program that will be like a "huge app store -- just for teachers -- with the Netflix and Facebook capabilities we love the most."

"There are few times in life when we are fortunate enough to be part of something amazing," she wrote. "I believe this is one of those times, and I am especially excited because the 'something amazing' is

4LAKids - TITLE I AND Pre-K WEBINAR: “Made for Each Other” - Wednesday August 17

4LAKids - some of the news that doesn't fit: TITLE I AND Pre-K WEBINAR: “Made for Each Other” - Wednesday August 17

TITLE I AND Pre-K WEBINAR: “Made for Each Other” - Wednesday August 17 forwarded by a 4LAKids Reader from the National Title I Association The National Title I Association in partnership with the National Association of Early Childhood Specialists in State Departments of Education will be hosting a webinar discussing and ...

VERDUGO HILLS HIGH SCHOOL PARENTS AND TEACHERS FOILED IN NAMING NEW PRINCIPAL: Supt. John Deasy overrules Ramon Cortines, the former superintendent, and appoints an interim administrator. By Jason Song, Los Angeles Times | http://lat.ms/p6N4ls John Deasy says he wants to be involved in the selection of school principals. (Irfan Khan, Los Angeles Times) August 9, 2011 - Former Los Angeles schools Supt. Ramon C. Cortines agreed last year ...

Education Research Report: Achievement Gaps between Title I participants and non-participants have narrowed

Achievement Gaps between Title I participants and non-participants have narrowed

by Jonathan Kantrowitz

Ω

Students Served by Title I Make Test Score Gains

Achievement on state reading and math tests has improved in recent years for students participating in the Title I program in most of the states analyzed in a new study by the Center on Education Policy (CEP). For some grades and subjects, more than 90 percent of the 19 states showed gains for Title I students.

The largest of the federal aid programs for K-12 schools, Title I of the Elementary and Secondary Education Act of 1965 supports extra instructional services for low-performing students at schools with high rates of poverty and for all students at schools with the highest poverty rates. Gaps between Title I participants and other students have also narrowed more often than they have widened since 2002, according to the CEP study, although trends

HechingerEd Blog | Obama Orders Revamp of ‘No Child Left Behind’

Obama Orders Revamp of ‘No Child Left Behind’

by Hechinger Report

Education Secretary Arne Duncan announced Monday that President Obama would sign an executive order to allow schools who are falling short of No Child Left Behind to circumvent the law. PBS NewsHour’s Gwen Ifill discusses the policy shift with Justin Snider of The Hechinger Report.

Visit HechingerEd for the full video and transcript.

Say No Duncan Dollars: Rookie Reform has Run its Course - Living in Dialogue - Education Week Teacher

Say No Duncan Dollars: Rookie Reform has Run its Course

by Anthony Cody

Over the past decade I have served as a mentor teacher to more than a dozen beginning teachers in the challenging schools of Oakland. Most of them have been interns, fresh out of college, with just a few weeks of summer training, and a "bag of tricks" that they were given by their only slightly more experienced trainers. They are trained to focus on the data. Start testing early, and make sure the students understand how important those scores are. Set BIG goals, such as that 80% of your students will score well. Track progress using big graphs on the wall with each student's name or number. Develop reward systems to manage behavior. Step into one of these classrooms, and you will find elaborate systems that are designed to "incent" good behavior, and impose costs on bad. You may even find a whole economy, complete with currency - the "behavior bucks," handed out in $100 bills prepared on the school photocopier.

But as my mentees near the end of their first year, many of them have begun to question this approach. They

All Education Matters: Re-Launching Conversations with Candidates

Re-Launching Conversations with Candidates

by C. Cryn Johannsen

If you are a candidate running for office (city, state, or at the national level) and would like to be promoted by AEM, please contact me at ccrynjohannsen@gmail.com. All candidates will have the opportunity to review the material I publish about them, so none of your words will be misconstrued. I'm happy to be of assistance in spreading the word about your candidacy, your values, and what you intend to do once elected. Last year, I interviewed Kevin Bradley (who ran as a Democrat for the House of Representatives, Rick Staggenborg,, andJim Holbert.

AEM launched conversations with candidates in August of 2010. While I still believe much of what I wrote then,

Bad news. Good news. Bad news. « Fred Klonsky's blog

Bad news. Good news. Bad news.

by Fred Klonsky

Watching the Dow drop more than 1,000 points since the Tea Party assumed control of the country’s finances last week makes me glad that my teacher retirement account is part of a defined benefit system.

At least it is for now.

Keeping it that way will require another fight when the Illinois General Assembly starts up business again in October. Republican Leader Tom Cross, Democratic Speaker Michael Madigan and unelected (by the people) corporate mouthpiece Ty Fahner who heads the Civic Committee of the Commercial Club of Chicago have all signed a letter promising another go at teacher pensions.

The person who is charged with leading the fight to defend teacher interests is IEA Executive Director Audrey

#sosmarch Mike Klonsky's SmallTalk Blog: SOS follow up -- More protests, boycotts needed

Mike Klonsky's SmallTalk Blog: SOS follow up -- More protests, boycotts needed

SOS follow up -- More protests, boycotts needed

Fair Test's Monty Neill offers some suggestions to states trying to deal with Duncan's Law. In a column posted today at WaPo's Answer Sheet, Neill calls on states to refuse Arne Duncan's self-legislated waivers.

If they accept the deal, states will lock in ever more counter-productive educational practices based on the misuse of test scores, including linking teacher evaluation to student scores. Those policies could be hard to dislodge should Congress decide not to endorse Duncan’s “Blueprint” when it eventually does reauthorize the

After the Debt Deal: It Gets Tougher From Here :: Frederick M. Hess

After the Debt Deal: It Gets Tougher From Here

by Frederick M. Hess • Aug 9, 2011 at 7:57 am
Cross-posted from Education Week

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Last week, while I was on blog hiatus, the President and Congress topped off months of increasing rancor by cobbling together a last minute debt deal. There are several key edu-world takeaways that can too easily get lost amidst the languid summer heat. So, let's take a moment to flag them.

After all, edu-advocates don't seem to have a clue as to what's ahead. As the debt deal was getting resolved, the Committee for Education Funding--a decades-old alliance of 80-odd trough-snuffling universities, education associations, and assorted hangers-on--issued a hand-wringing letter that said, "We fear that education programs will face multiple rounds of cuts under the initial reduction in appropriated funds proposed in the [debt reduction] bill and from the joint committee's plan or from sequestration." No fear about it, gang, that's exactly what's ahead. Moreover, newsflash: Pre-K, K-12, and higher ed are in for years of tough sledding when it comes

Education Czar Arne Duncan | Scathing Purple Musings

Education Czar Arne Duncan

by Bob Sikes

Its here.

And it’s finally time to call it something else.

Arne Duncan’s announcement that he – and he alone – would be deciding which states get waivers from the albatross that is No Child Left Behind effectively moved what was once known as the “school reform movement to “public ed policy”. Oh, sure. As Duncan says he will have a committee or board which looks at the waiver application but he’s not fooling anyone. And those details are coming next month, by-the-way. Duncan appointed himself Education Czar yesterday.

The only one as happy as Duncan is this week is former governor, turned-test-based ed reformer, Jeb Bush who

Jersey Jazzman: Legion of Doom

Legion of Doom

by Duke

Lex Luthor meets Catwoman:

The New Brunswick-based school reform group Better Education for Kids announced today it partnered with StudentsFirst, a national nonprofit started by former Washington D.C. School Chancellor Michelle Rhee, which supports expanding charter schools and merit-based pay for teachers.
Begun in March by two New Jersey financiers, Better Education for Kids has promoted teacher evaluations based on student test scores and restrictions on tenure. It has praised Gov. Chris Christie’s school reform efforts, and has raised the ire of the New

This Week In Education: NCLB: Look At "Race" To See How Waivers Will Turn Out

NCLB: Look At "Race" To See How Waivers Will Turn Out

by Alexander Russo

#nclb #waiver Despite the lack of details and the fact that they made pretty much the same announcement a couple of months ago, here's a steady flow of news coverage and analysis of the Duncan waiver plan (see lots of links below the fold). Never underestimate Team Duncan's ability to pull things out of nowhere, I guess. Still, it remains pretty unclear whether the waiver notion can go forward and if it will do any good. CEP just released a study showing that low-income kids have been making strong progress during the NCLB era. Opponents and cautioners remain numerous and powerful (House Republicans, Jeb Bush, NEA, Ed Trust, US Chamber). Everybody wants a waiver, sure, but not everybody wants NCLB rolled back or diluted. (Where are the reformers on this, I wonder? I'm calling around to see what the accountability hawks and "by any means necessary" types are saying about rolling back accountability.) And - this is perhaps most important -- we know from the RTTT process over the past two years

Gates and The Zombie Elites, Devouring Equity and Integration « Living Behind the Gates

Gates and The Zombie Elites, Devouring Equity and Integration

By livingbehindthegates

My last posts tied the Charter Schools of Louisiana and across the country, whether they be private, public, or foundation funded, voucher funded, etc. to the re-segregation of America’s schools.

While at the Save Our Schools March and National Call to Actionon July 28-30, 2011, I spoke with 100′s of teachers, parents, administrators,

Obama Administration Announces Plan to Grant Waivers to No Child Left Behind In Exchange for “Reform” | FDL News Desk

Obama Administration Announces Plan to Grant Waivers to No Child Left Behind In Exchange for “Reform”

by David Dayen

waiver by neverfeltbetter,

The Education Department plans to grant waivers for the No Child Left Behind law to states and school districts that “embrace reform.” This bypasses Congressional reauthorization of the No Child Left Behind law, and allows states and districts to get out from under the onerous burdens of the law, which has a deadline for 100% proficiency in reading and math by 2013-14, and which would close down schools that did not comply.

States can avoid the No Child Left Behind law’s 2014 deadline for achieving 100 percent proficiency

Jersey Jazzman: Rhee LOVES Layoffs

Rhee LOVES Layoffs

Over at the studentfirst.org, St. Rhee is using the millions of dollars she's collected from billionaires to tug at our heartstrings:

First of all, I want to be clear that I am not criticizing any of the teachers in this video. They probably all deserve to be on the job, and students are probably missing out because they have been laid off.

Which begs the question: WHY have they been laid off? Well...

CARSON CITY -- The Clark County School District might be able to avoid mass teacher layoffs, even with the 6.9 percent reduction in state support that came out of the Legislature's special session on Sunday, an administrator said.
Joyce Haldeman, the district's associate superintendent of government relations, could not provide

Where is Barack Obama the teacher? - The Answer Sheet - The Washington Post

Where is Barack Obama the teacher?

by Valerie Strauss

This was written by Mike Rose, who is on the faculty of the UCLA Graduate School of Education and Information Studies and is the author of " Why School?: Reclaiming Education for All of Us ” and " Possible Lives: The Promise of Public Education in America. "

By Mike Rose

I’ve been a teacher for 40 years, so I tend to look at the world with teaching in mind. I’m interested in the way so many activities – from parenting to police work to physical therapy – involve teaching. There is an instructional dimension to them. I look at politics through this lens. Though it may be hard to imagine right now, politics provides the occasion to teach, to inform, to frame an issue, to present an argument, to provide illustration, to move to action.

Read full article >>

States Are Suddenly Redefining Expectations for Their Teachers - US News and World Report

States Are Suddenly Redefining Expectations for Their Teachers

The public school revolution Michelle Rhee helped start is quietly taking root across the country.

By RICHARD WHITMIRE

Posted: August 8, 2011

Richard Whitmire is author of The Bee Eater: Michelle Rhee Takes On The Nation's Worst School District.

Something extraordinary played out recently after D.C. schools Chancellor Kaya Henderson announced she was firing roughly 200 teachers for poor performance. Nothing...mostly silence.

In this situation, silence truly is extraordinary. When Michelle Rhee was chancellor of D.C. schools, her teacher firings triggered street demonstrations organized by multiple unions and contributed greatly to the defeat of the mayor, Adrian Fenty, who appointed Rhee. The

Ledesma: Duncan and Ravitch.Join the education policy debate | Richmond Times-Dispatch

Ledesma: Join the education policy debate | Richmond Times-Dispatch

Ledesma: Join the education policy debate

By: PATRICK LEDESMA
Published: August 09, 2011

» 0 Comments | Post a Comment

FAIRFAX --

This is a busy summer for education policy. The U.S. Department of Education moves forward with the Elementary and Secondary Education Act to make changes to No Child Left Behind, an act concerning the education of children in public schools. And the National Board for Professional Teaching Standards held its biannual conference in the nation's capital at the end of July, where speakers includedSecretary of Education Arne Duncan and research professor Diane Ravitch.

This is also a critical time for the direction of public education.

As a National Board Certified Teacher working in Fairfax County as a middle school special-education

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