Update: 3 dozen protest against charter school in Providence - Projo 7 to 7 News Blog | Rhode Island news | The Providence Journal

Update: 3 dozen protest against charter school in Providence - Projo 7 to 7 News Blog | Rhode Island news | The Providence Journal:

Update: 3 dozen protest against charter school in Providence 5:02 PM Fri, Oct 07, 2011 | Permalink Bryan Rourke Email

PROVIDENCE, R.I. -- Late Friday afternoon, about three dozen people were protesting on Westminster Street outside the Shepard Building, home of the state's Board of Governors for Higher Education. They're opposed to the possibility of the Achievement First Charter School being invited to Providence.

There is no formal plan to do so. But after Cranston denied the school entry last week, following the objections of parents, teachers and union leaders, Governor Chafee said he was still interested in establishing the school in Providence.

Susan O'Connell, of Providence, a protest organizer and a parent of a Classical High School student, said Achievement First is "big. It's not local. It's corporate."

Re-Thinking School Design | Connected Principals

Re-Thinking School Design | Connected Principals:

Re-Thinking School Design

Posted by Eric Sheninger on 10/09/11 • Categorized as Best Educational Practices,Leadership Essentials,School Culture

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image cc by missha on flickr

The other day I was fortunate to attend a training session on the new Chromebook at Google’s New York City offices. The Chromebook itself turned about to be an intriguing device that clearly has an upside as an educational tool in schools. It boots up in 8 seconds, has a sleek user interface, is very light, and allows you to pick up right where you left off when you log onto another device. While engaging in professional development throughout the day I was amazed by the Google office and workspace structure as we had an opportunity to explore a little bit as me moved between sessions and lunch. I have heard many rumors about life at Google and was extremely surprised to see that most of them were true. Here is a quick snapshot:

• Use of scooters as a means of transportation. There were even racks throughout each floor for Google

Diane Ravitch : U.S. public education: A race to the bottom? – Your Bottom Line - CNN.com Blogs

U.S. public education: A race to the bottom? – Your Bottom Line - CNN.com Blogs:

October 8th, 2011

09:50 AM ET

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U.S. public education: A race to the bottom?

Education Historian Diane Ravitch tells Christine Romans that the U.S. should learn from top-ranked education systems and stop focusing on student testing.

Absence of Leadership? « My Island View

Absence of Leadership? « My Island View:

Absence of Leadership?

by tomwhitby

I recently posted another video of a Diane Ravitch interview with CNN. There are now several videotaped interviews of Diane Ravitch standing up for education reform on The Educator’s PLN. It was with this last post however, that I realized that aside from Diane Ravitch, I could think of few others who stand out on the National stage in support of Education reform beyond something more than supporting the status quo of additional standardized testing or increasing its influence in education.

It would seem that only leaders chosen by the national media or politicians are leading education reform. The “man on the street” interview also plays a huge roll in what is going in education today. The politicians who control the purse strings of education seem to depend on the businessmen who control the purse strings of politicians for advice on how to improve education. After ten years of increased dependence on standardized testing at a cost of billions of dollars with little improvement in the system, we must wonder why we continue down this path. The four companies benefiting most by these testing policies are: Harcourt Educational

#OWS Replaces #OccupyWallStreet as Default Twitter Hashtag « Student Activism

#OWS Replaces #OccupyWallStreet as Default Twitter Hashtag « Student Activism:

#OWS Replaces #OccupyWallStreet as Default Twitter Hashtag

by Angus Johnston

When the Occupy Wall Street protests began on September 16, #OccupyWallStreet was the only related hashtag used on Twitter. Soon some folks started using #OccupyWallSt too.

Shorter is better on Twitter, since you only have 140 characters to say your piece, so when the protests really started getting media traction with the arrests of Saturday, September 26 some folks started using #OWS as a zippier alternative. That tag didn’t really catch on until this last Wednesday, though, when the folks behind @OccupyWallSt tweeted this:

@OccupyWallSt: Let’s stop the hash tag soup and use #ows for OccupyWallStreet

That tweet had an immediate and powerful effect.

#OWS, represented in yellow on the chart

San Diego, Emblematic of the Nation, Sees Nearly 3% Poverty Spike

We Party Patriots » Blog Archive » San Diego, Emblematic of the Nation, Sees Nearly 3% Poverty Spike:

San Diego, Emblematic of the Nation, Sees Nearly 3% Poverty Spike

That is one in six in poverty, that means most of us see people in poverty in our neighborhoods and interact with them, which is really a new phenomenon for San Diego.

Occupy All Streets | Dissident Voice #ows #OCCUPYWALLSTREET

Occupy All Streets | Dissident Voice:

Occupy All Streets

by James Keye

You who want to know that the Occupy Wall Street protests are about and what the ‘demands’ are had best reflect on the old saw, “Be careful what you ask for; you just might get it.”; get it? And come on, you know what these people want; they want the banking/financial types (individual and collective royalty) to be made to stop using their power to dominate and control, for their own enrichment, the lives of the nation’s millions of citizens. Here are the possibilities in a nutshell:

1) The banking/financial community get it – that they have gone too far – and begin to listen to the masses along with making real changes in their behavior. The masses are empowered, and just possibly some balance could be struck that would hold for a time. This option has the variation that the financial powers attempt to appear to follow such a course while actually supporting the removal of protest leaders, various divide and conquer strategies and all while offering seeming concessions. This would lead to an optional version of the second possibility.

2) The banking/financial community use their influence to bring the media and enforcement communities down

Jefferson County school-board election could dramatically alter district, bring vouchers - The Denver Post

Jefferson County school-board election could dramatically alter district, bring vouchers - The Denver Post:

Jefferson County school-board election could dramatically alter district, bring vouchers

By Carlos Illescas
The Denver Post

POSTED: 10/09/2011 01:00:00 AM MDT

There's a major power play happening in the Jefferson County school-board race that could mean big changes in the near future, including a possible move, some say, to add vouchers to the slate of choices in the district.

At least that is what some in the state's largest school district fear about Republican candidates Jim Powers and Preston Branaugh, who are backed by conservative Republican and school-board member Laura Boggs. If Powers and Branaugh are elected, the trio would make up a majority on the five-member school board.

"(Boggs) said to the superintendent that she was going to destroy this district," Jefferson County school-board member Paula Noonan said. "Clearly she wants to fire the superintendent and have very aggressive negotiations with the teachers. It wouldn't surprise me if she wants a voucher system."

Boggs said she wants major reforms in Jefferson County, as does Powers, but neither said they support

Read more:Jefferson County school-board election could dramatically alter district, bring vouchers - The Denver Posthttp://www.denverpost.com/news/ci_19073694#ixzz1aIQAWThb
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The Corporate Cash Which Fuels Jeb Bush’s Education Empire | Scathing Purple Musings

The Corporate Cash Which Fuels Jeb Bush’s Education Empire | Scathing Purple Musings:

The Corporate Cash Which Fuels Jeb Bush’s Education Empire

by Bob Sikes

At least Jeb Bush isn’t trying to hide where and who he’s getting his money from. On the website of Foundation for Excellence in Education are the proud shields of the corporate and billionaire financiers who stake Bush’s school privatization takeovers. Two entities – Pearson and Charter Schools USA – have directly benefited in Florida from Bush’s education legislative pushes.

The Pearson Foundation – the philanthropic arm of Pearson’s huge publishing and education corporation drew scrutiny last month over news it had sponsored lavish trips to exotic locations for numerous state level education leaders for summits. Former Florida Ed Commissioner Eric Smith - a close Bush ally – was among them. Pearson has certainly benefitted worldwide from its education businesses as it recorded 31 percent profit gain in the first half of this year. Its not a stretch to see that Pearson’s FCAT administration failures weren’t somehow

Immigrants fearing deportation make plans for kids - Boston.com

Immigrants fearing deportation make plans for kids - Boston.com:

Immigrants fearing deportation make plans for kids

In this Oct. 6, 2011 photo taken from video, Jazmin Rivera, right, a case manager with the Hispanic Interest Coalition of Alabama, works with an unidentified immigrant in her office in Birmingham, Ala. Parents living in the country illegally are scared of deportation under Alabama's new immigration law, and Rivera has helped many with paperwork to provide care for their children in case the parents are arrested. (AP Photo/Jay Reeves)

By Jay Reeves

Associated Press / October 9, 2011

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BIRMINGHAM, Ala.—Terrified by Alabama's strict new immigration crackdown, parents living in the state illegally say they are doing something that was unthinkable just days ago -- asking friends, relatives, co-workers and acquaintances to take their children if they're arrested or deported.

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Many illegal immigrants signed documents in the past week allowing others to care for their children if needed, assistance groups say, and a couple living illegally in nearby Shelby County extracted a promise from the man's boss to send their three young children -- all U.S. citizens -- to Mexico should they be jailed under the law.

A key sponsor of the measure, state Sen. Scott Beason, said such concerns weren't raised when legislators were considering the bill, and he wonders if the

Personal Legend - Arlington, VA, United States, ASCD EDge Blog post

Personal Legend - Arlington, VA, United States, ASCD EDge Blog post:

Looking Ahead

Personal Legend

So things have settled down after several days of social media commiserating over the passing of Steve Jobs. When he stepped down at Apple I knew he wasn’t well, but I didn’t expect him to lose his life this quickly. All in all, however you assess Jobs in hindsight, it is obvious from the outpouring online that he affected many people just being the person he was...living his personal legend: realizing his full potential in his life.

Mourning Jobs’ death reminds me of so many other very public deaths in my lifetime: Unitas, Shakur, John Paul II, Cobain, McAuliffe, Lennon, Piaget, Picasso, Hoover, De Gaulle, King, RFK, Disney, Churchill, JFK. They come from all walks of life. And no matter the field in which they made their contribution, society stops to mark the moment and take account of a life that made a difference.

For me personally, public deaths are a different animal than our private, personal loss of loved

Time for Democracy for California Charter Schools

Current California charter school laws force elected School Boards to approve all charter school applications within 60 days.

Let the people decide: 

Every Charter application or Renewal of Existing Charter Shall Require a simple majority of the registered voters in the jurisdiction granting the charter. 

Return Democracy to California Education 

Daily Kos: The US Goverment killing in our name - SECRETLY

Daily Kos: The US Goverment killing in our name - SECRETLY:

The US Goverment killing in our name - SECRETLY

by rss@dailykos.com (teacherken)

By now most people who pay attention to the news of such things know that an American citizen, Anwar al-Awlaki, was targeted for death and killed by a CIA drone on in Yemen on September 30. Among the other three killed in the attack - not targeted and thus "collateral damage" - was another American citizen, Samir Khan. Today's New York Times has two pieces I consider a must-read for all of us that address this topic.

Charlie Savage, who when he worked for the Boston Globe did magnificent journalism in exposing the extensive use of signing statements by the Bush administration, has a piece on the front page titled Secret U.S. Memo Made Legal Case to Kill a Citizen. The public editor, Arthur Brisbane, devotes his Sunday column to the topic as well, under the title The Secrets of Government Killing.

There are several issues of importance in this matter. The first is that the administration has authorized the killing of American citizens not in ordinary acts of war and not even in a true combat zone, but in what can only be called a targeted assassination. The second, perhaps of even more significance, is that the authorization was granted by a memorandum that has even now not been disclosed to the American people, you know, the "We, the people of the United States" who are the legitimate sovereigns of this nation on whose behalf the government is supposed to be acting.

I do not propose to fully go through either piece - that is why I have provided the links. I do wish to explore a few aspects of the issue and fully intend to offer my own thoughts, which will be neither complimentary towards or supportive of this administration.

Charting the charter schools funding network Coalition for Public Education/Coalición por la Educación Pública

Coalition for Public Education/Coalición por la Educación Pública:

Charting the charter schools funding network
By Laurie Bennett

October 6, 2011

A map of the funders of the charter school movement looks much like a map of the funders of the conservative wing of the Republican Party.

To create the map below, we started with the Alliance for School Choice, an organization headed by Betsy DeVos, former chair of the Michigan Republican Party.

DeVos is the sister of Erik Prince, founder of Blackwater. Her mother, Elsa Prince Broekhuizen, is a big donor to conservative organizations such as Focus on the Family and the Media Research Center. Broekhuizen was also

Parents, activists debate school choice at education forum | NOLA.com

Parents, activists debate school choice at education forum | NOLA.com:

Parents, activists debate school choice at education forum

Published: Saturday, October 08, 2011, 6:00 PM

By Masako Hirsch, The Times-Picayune
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At an education event Saturday morning, parent Audrey Stewart lamented that her children have to catch the bus each morning at 6:30 a.m. near the families' 7th Ward house, but don't return home until after 5 p.m. -- a long workday for anyone, much less a school child. Stewart, who works as a teacher, sends her children to Samuel J. Green Charter School Uptown. She is disappointed that there aren't quality school programs throughout the city -- and not just in certain neighborhoods. "It really troubles me that so few of our kids have access to excellent public schools," she said.

View full sizeTed Jackson, The Times-PicayuneAbramson Science and Technology Charter School was photographed Aug. 10.

Stewart and several others debated the tension between citywide school choice and access to neighborhood schools in one component of a