Thursday, February 16, 2012

by Fred Klonsky

Alderman Dick Mell is sponsoring legislation calling for more decorum in the city council.

Mayor Daley the elder was famous for turning off the microphone of any alderman who rose to oppose him. There were never very many. So, he didn’t have to do it very often.

Faced with Occupy Chicago and the upcoming NATO and G8 protests, the current mayor and aldermen are planning to make the old Mayor Daley sound like the head of the ACLU.

Chicago News Cooperative:

Ahead of this spring’s NATO and G8 summits, four influential aldermen on Wednesday proposed prohibiting audience members from waving signs or engaging in any “demonstration of approval or disapproval” during City Council

I May be Wrong ... But I Doubt It* - Bridging Differences - Education Week

I May be Wrong ... But I Doubt It* - Bridging Differences - Education Week:

I May be Wrong ... But I Doubt It*

by Deborah Meier

Dear Diane,

I do believe we are in that portion of the Roman Empire in which horses were considered "persons." Or was that just a mad movie I once saw about the fall of the Roman Empire?

Some of the madness is being conducted by very sane people with a very bad agenda. Yes, I do believe that, especially after reading your account about Cleveland, Diane.

Some are under a belief, genuinely held, that only when everything is private will human beings live as they should—in a libertarian dream world. They are risking our collective futures on their idealistic theory, much as radical leftists once did on a totalitarian dream that they hoped would lead to human liberation. We can't afford to

Schools Matter: Discourse Analysis of NYTimes Piece on Poverty and Achievement

Schools Matter: Discourse Analysis of NYTimes Piece on Poverty and Achievement:

Discourse Analysis of NYTimes Piece on Poverty and Achievement

by Jim Horn

I have been reading Gerald Coles for a long time, and I am glad to see Anthony Cody hosting him here to get underneath the neoliberal rhetoric of the Times to see its real influences:

Gerald Coles: The Growing Educational Achievement Gap: Don't Think What You Might Think You Should Think
By Anthony Cody on February 15, 2012 5:51 AM
Guest post by Gerald Coles

Last week the New York Times provided valuable, disturbing information by reporting recent research on the growing educational achievement gap between rich and poor students, which has

Noble charter discipline - chicagotribune.com

Noble charter discipline - chicagotribune.com:

The Noble rules

Why discipline matters

All of that is "dehumanizing" to students, says Julie Woestehoff, executive director of Parents United for Responsible Education (PURE). "It's nickel-and-diming kids for literally nothing that really matters."

February 16, 2012

Thousands of kids line up every year for a chance to attend one of the excellent high schools run by Chicago's Noble Network of Charter Schools. There's a long waiting list for those schools because they have dedicated teachers and safe, orderly environments and they prepare their students to go to college.

There are a lot of reasons for Noble's success. One is its

NYC Educator: Honk If You Like to Honk

NYC Educator: Honk If You Like to Honk:

Honk If You Like to Honk

by Miss Eyre

This morning, on my way to work, I passed a school that has been slated for...well, clearly it's been slated for something. Not closure, I don't think. Maybe turnaround. Anyway, a lot of people are unhappy about it, as you can imagine. They had a pretty sizable demonstration going on the busy street alongside the school.

"HONK IF YOU WON'T LET BLOOMBERG DESTROY ANOTHER SCHOOL," read one poster. Well, I like honking and I don't like destroying schools. I

California Education Budget Deficits Balanced on Teacher's Backs - Yahoo! News

California Education Budget Deficits Balanced on Teacher's Backs - Yahoo! News:

California Education Budget Deficits Balanced on Teacher's Backs

By Jennifer Wolfe | Yahoo! Contributor Network – 19 hrs ago

COMMENTARY | Education is looking anything but golden in the state of California. As Obama fights to reform higher education, and California Governor Jerry Brown struggles to balance a deficit budget, school districts, teachers, parents and voters face some very tough decisions in the next month.

In communities all across California education is in a crisis. With the state sending IOUs for the last several years to attempt to correct the downward spiraling budget mess, school districts have been scrambling to create 'Band-Aid' plans to close their budget gaps. Retirement incentives, teacher and employee concessions, property taxes, and fundraising donations have all helped keep schools afloat,

New review of Georgia charter schools finds they don’t outperform traditional public schools | Get Schooled

New review of Georgia charter schools finds they don’t outperform traditional public schools | Get Schooled:

New review of Georgia charter schools finds they don’t outperform traditional public schools

12:46 am February 16, 2012, by Maureen Downey

A new report released Wednesday by the state Department of Education shows that charter schools in Georgia trail the performance of traditional public school on the critical AYP measure.

The report will likely tone down the praise being heaped on charter schools in the Legislature, which is considering a constitutional amendment to allow the state to approve charters over the objections of local school boards.

In promoting the amendment to wary colleagues, some lawmakers have contended that charter schools outperform traditional public schools in the state. Not so, according to the in-depth annual review of charter school achievement by DOE.

According to DOE, 70 percent of charter schools made AYP or adequate yearly progress last

BeyondChron: Failed DC Chancellor Michelle Rhee’s False Dichotomies

BeyondChron: San Francisco's Alternative Online Daily News » School Beat: Michelle Rhee’s False Dichotomies:

School Beat: Michelle Rhee’s False Dichotomies
by Kelley Leathers & Maggie Terry ‚ Feb. 16‚ 2012
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In the AP Language course I teach, we recently studied logical fallacies, including the “either-or” fallacy, also known as a “false dichotomy.” A perfect real-life example of this fallacy presented itself to me at the Michelle Rhee protest in Oakland last week. Most elements of the corporate education reform agenda, of which Rhee is the leading proponent, rest on this kind of black-and-white thinking; the specific agenda element that I was reflecting on at this event was charter schools.

Charters are presented as the silver bullet that will fix all that ails our public education system. In Rhee’s rhetoric and in much of the media, we are

Robert Glaser, Cognitive Psychologist and Expert on Student Testing, Dies at 91 - NYTimes.com

Robert Glaser, Cognitive Psychologist and Expert on Student Testing, Dies at 91 - NYTimes.com:

Robert Glaser, Who Shaped the Science of Student Testing, Dies at 91

By PAUL VITELLO

Published: February 15, 2012

REPRINTS

Robert Glaser, a cognitive psychologist who helped define the terms of the national debate over student testing, and who pioneered ways of measuring not only how students learn but how teachers teach, died on Feb. 4 in Pittsburgh. He was 91.

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Robert Glaser

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The cause was complications of Alzheimer’s disease, said a spokesman for the University of Pittsburgh Learning Research and Development Center, which Dr. Glaser helped found in 1963.

Dr. Glaser was probably best known for promoting a kind of standardized test that became the norm for the federal government’s National Assessment of Educational Progress, the state-by-state evaluation commonly known as The Nation’s Report Card.

The method, which he did not invent but championed

Open rebellion against standardized school tests in Texas | Opinion Blog | dallasnews.com

Open rebellion against standardized school tests in Texas | Opinion Blog | dallasnews.com:

Open rebellion against standardized school tests in Texas

By

Rodger Jones/Editorial Writer

rmjones@dallasnews.com | Bio

1:31 AM on Tue., Feb. 14, 2012 | Permalink

Saying high-stakes standardized testing is "strangling our public schools," superintendents of several high-performing North Texas school districts have jointly signed a letter to top state officials and lawmakers warning about the deterioration of the education system.

Call it open rebellion against the 25-year-old testing regimen. Wow.

The letter goes out to back up Texas Education Commissioner Robert Scott, according to Coppell Superintendent Jeff Turner. Scott asserted recently that emphasis on high-stakes testing in some places had become a "perversion" of the system that lawmakers had in mind. Scott's comments about testing inflamed Texas Association of Business chief Bill Hammond and put the governor's office on edge.