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Monday, May 7, 2012

Big Education Ape: 5-7-12 AM Failed DC Chancellor Michelle Rhee Buys Herself Some Legislators EDition

Big Education Ape: PARENTS CAN!:
Big Education Ape: PARENTS CAN!

Published by Coopmike48 – 5 news spotters today

Are Test Scores the Point? « Diane Ravitch's blog

dianeravitch.net - We have reached a point in our public life where the only way to demonstrate the success of a school is to say it has higher test scores than some other school. But we all know–or should know–that ...
DianeRavitch

Board denies renewal of school charter

articles.latimes.com - One of the city's highest scoring middle schools was denied its charter renewal Tuesday from the Los Angeles school board, meaning that the school must seek a reprieve from the state to stay in bus...
DianeRavitch

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EducationSee all

PENCILS DOWN - End High Stake Testing

us2.campaign-archive1.com - Hello all,   Testing Season is at hand.  We’re fighting back. Our slogan for the campaign is "Pencils Down! End High Stakes Testing."  We have events on Tuesday and Friday this week. Please join us...
leoniehaimson

Opportunity Knocks - Teacher in a Strange Land

blogs.edweek.org - Here's a new one for the ol' Reformy Thesaurus: the "Opportunity Culture" in education.Sure sounds good, doesn't it? Who doesn't want our American kids to have more opportunities in life? Except--o...
leoniehaimson

SocietySee all

Sunday links. « Fred Klonsky

preaprez.wordpress.com - Cairo, Egypt. May 4th. John Dillon’s Pension Vocabulary Word of the Week: Misinformation. “Working as a hand puppet for the Illinois Policy Institute, ABC’s Chuck Goudie, the crack investigative re...
fklonsky

The Party of Chris Christie's.

democurmudgeon.blogspot.com - The blog, "The Way I See It" at South Milwaukee Now, brought to my attention this fine example of authoritarian leadership, Republican style. It the new, out in the open, more frightening conservat...
coopmike48

PoliticsSee all

Austerity Faces Sharper Debate After European Elections

nytimes.com - PARIS — After elections in France and Greece punished leaders advocating austerity, Europeans on Monday contemplated a new and untested political landscape shaped by competing demands for austerity...
fklonsky

After War Room, Heading Ivy League Classroom

nytimes.com - NEW HAVEN — On a recent evening in a classroom at Yale, Gen. Stanley A. McChrystal held forth for two animated hours on the conflicts in Northern Ireland and South Africa, with bits of his own hist...
coopmike48

StoriesSee all

Learning That Works - TIME

time.com - Mark Peterman / Getty Images for TIME Clyde McBride is one of those everyday saints who, without much fanfare, go about the work of changing, and sometimes saving, the lives of children. He teaches...
leoniehaimson

Children First…..Always? | Protect Portelos

protectportelos.wordpress.com - The NYC Department of Education is my employer and I do not consider that entity an enemy as many others do. I truly believe that it is a flawed entity, but feel that there is some glimmer of hope ...
leoniehaimson

CrimeSee all

Miramonte: L.A. UNIFIED IS NAMED IN NEGLIGENCE LAWSUIT

4lakidsnews.blogspot.com - Twenty former Miramonte Elementary students say they were victims of abuse and that the district did not do enough to protect students who lodged complaints. By Nicole Santa Cruz, Los Angeles Time...
coopmike48

DeKalb must take an unflinching look at cronyism

blogs.ajc.com - A DeKalb grand jury reindicted former school Superintendent Crawford Lewis last week. There are new developments in the criminal case against former DeKalb school chief Crawford Lewis and construct...
coopmike48

LeisureSee all

our MAY FESTIVAL OF PROTEST !

campaign.r20.constantcontact.com - Saturday May 19th @ the Metro   THIS LAND IS OUR LAND   a  Centennial Concert tribute to Woody Guthrie featuring:   Tom Morello; the Nightwatchman The Klezmatics Holly Near Toshi Reagon   Jon Langf...
mikeklonsky

Around the World with the Supermoon - Global

theatlanticwire.com - On Friday we reported that there's no reason to be afraid of the supermoon. It wouldn't make you crazy. It wasn't going to sink any ships. It wasn't going to signal the end of the world. If any of ...
coopmike48

#corpreformersSee all

Opportunity Knocks - Teacher in a Strange Land

blogs.edweek.org - Here's a new one for the ol' Reformy Thesaurus: the "Opportunity Culture" in education.Sure sounds good, doesn't it? Who doesn't want our American kids to have more opportunities in life? Except--o...
leoniehaimson

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Guess when this warning about testing was written - The Answer Sheet - The Washington Post

Guess when this warning about testing was written - The Answer Sheet - The Washington Post:


Guess when this warning about testing was written

By 
The following, published in an American newspaper, warns about the dangers of attaching high stakes to standardized test results and about the growing dependence on these assessments in public education.
The piece was written by Fred Smith, who was a research analyst in testing for the New York Public Schools for many years.
This sounds like it was written this year, but it wasn’t. Read it and at the end you’ll see when and where it was published.
Here’s the piece:
New York City needs a testing ombudsman.
The reasons for this need grow out of larger concerns: the educational 
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“Fighting for the children while the shrapnel seems only to be killing teacher after teacher.” | Get Schooled

“Fighting for the children while the shrapnel seems only to be killing teacher after teacher.” | Get Schooled:


“Fighting for the children while the shrapnel seems only to be killing teacher after teacher.”

by Maureen Downey
over (Medium)I wrote a column for the print AJC on national Teacher Appreciation Week, which I will post later today. I decided to post this essay first to kick off the week. This was written by a local teacher who asked me to withhold her name.
Here is her piece:
It’s teacher appreciation week, again, and the fact the fact that teacher morale is at the lowest its probably ever been shows that our nation is ignoring the reason that the week was started in the 
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Jersey Jazzman: King Christie

Jersey Jazzman: King Christie:


King Christie

by Duke
Chris Christie will take as much power as he can grab:
But on his education agenda at least, the governor is also finding he can move on some key issues without the legislature’s full consent, creating tensions along the way but with, so far, no one stopping him.
An example came last week when Christie announced a new plan for high school testing that would effectively do away with the current High School Proficient Assessment and replace it with yearly exams in language arts and math, as well as possibly other subjects. 
When asked whether it would need approval of the legislature, Christie said Monday that most could be done through state code and the State Board of Education, of which he will have appointed its majority by the end of his term.
“I think most of it we can do regulatory,” Christie said on Monday. “If it needs some clean up, we can talk to [the legislature] about it, but nothing that will be a foundation of the policy.”
However, overlooked was the fact that the state’s current high school testing is indeed written into state law, providing some wiggle room for the administration but still a benchmark that will need to be addressed.
The law requires a high school test in 11th grade, as is now administered in the HSPA. Another provision also requires a similar test in 8th grade.
See, if Chris Christie wants more useless tests, all he has to do is say so. He doesn't have to justify his position; he can just do what he wants. Who does this remind you of?


The tensions were on display when Christie’s acting education commissioner, Chris Cerf, 
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Break Up UC? | California Progress Report

Break Up UC? | California Progress Report:


Break Up UC?

by megan
By Peter Schrag
There was no great surprise in last month’s proposal to devolve more control of the University of California’s ten campuses – and thus more autonomy -- to the campuses themselves. And it’s even less surprising that it came from Berkeley Chancellor Robert Birgeneau, former Provost C. Judson King and other Berkeley officials.
All ten are supposedly equal, but it’s no secret that Berkeley, possibly with UCLA and San Diego, are more equal than others. Similar proposals have come from Berkeley administrators and some outside critics for twenty years or more.
But neither is it a secret that UC, in trying to re-create every new campus – from Davis to Riverside to Merced – in Berkeley’s image, has locked itself into an arteriosclerotic governance and policy structure that’s become ever more unwieldy.
read more


Immigrants’ Greatest Potential Ally -- American Women

by megan
By Elena Shore 
New America Media
A new report by the Pew Hispanic Center documents a trend that reporters have been covering anecdotally for several years: we are now seeing net-zero immigration from Mexico to the United States.
The factors that may have contributed to this change – high U.S. unemployment, a Mexican economy that is recovering more rapidly, a low Mexican birthrate, and increased immigration enforcement – all point in one direction: The number of people moving to Mexico from the United States is equal to -- or greater than -- the number of people coming into the country from Mexico.
But with a record number of state and local laws cracking down on undocumented immigrants, this hardly means an end to the anti-immigrant sentiment that has taken root in America.
read more
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LAUSD'S MIRAMONTE SCANDAL- HOW DOES IT HAPPEN? (VIDEO #5) - Perdaily.com

LAUSD'S MIRAMONTE SCANDAL- HOW DOES IT HAPPEN? (VIDEO #5) - Perdaily.com:


LAUSD'S MIRAMONTE SCANDAL- HOW DOES IT HAPPEN? (VIDEO #5)

by Leonard Isenberg
Top-down.jpg
(Mensaje se repite en Español)

(For a national view of public education reform see the end of this blog post)

The Miramonte Child Abuse Scandal shows a disquieting picture of the Los Angeles Unified School District's (LAUSD) top-down model of school administration, where the defensive mechanisms that should have been in place to protect students were sabotaged by a culture where nobody dares contradict the principal and where blind support of the principal sanitizes even the most reprehensible individuals.

While the isolated behavior of a few teachers was allowed to go on by LAUSD administration for years in the Miramonte and other cases, the magnitude of harm done to a greater number of students, teachers, and others involved in LAUSD is far greater because of this culture where you move up by not questioning anything the principal does or doesn't do. What allowed the exploitation of students was a 
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NYC Educator: The Emperor Speaks

NYC Educator: The Emperor Speaks:


The Emperor Speaks

by NYC Educator
To kick off teacher appreciation week, Mayor Bloomberg has unilaterally declared that there will be no retroactive pay for teachers. In Mayor Bloomberg's New York, as in much of the country, putting "children first" means teachers, alone among city employees, get nothing. They should be happy they get paid at all. Billionaire Bloomberg takes a dollar a year to run his fiefdom and thinks that ought to be enough for anyone, except cops, firefighters, clerks, and everyone else but educators.

This is a remarkable position for several reasons, and particularly so if you've followed the contract history of the United Federation of Teachers. There were many of us who opposed the 2005 contract, viewing its draconian givebacks as highly detrimental to the profession. If you doubt that, ask any ATR teacher who hasn't received a permanent assignment anywhere. Think about it while you patrol the halls, or 
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Deep Inside Whitney Tilson and His Future Issues With the SEC

http://www.southbronxschool.com:


Deep Inside Whitney Tilson and His Future Issues With the SEC

by noreply@blogger.com (Bronx Teacher)
Sometimes you create your own luck, sometimes it just falls right on your lap. Today, it fell on our lap. A person deep inside Whitney Tilson's organization contacted the SBSB newsroom to share some of of what Whitney Tilson truly is. We here at SBSB wish to applaud this deep background source on his feeling the need to expose Whitney for what he truly is.

We vetted this person and all checks out that he is quite familiar with Whitney and his antics. In fact, the source's first words to us here at SBSB were,
"Whitney is such a blow hard, and always felt he was so full of shit, elitist, and a self proclaimed expert on everything" 
Hey, who can argue with this?

Our source seems like a stand up person. He had no issue with sending his children to NYC public schools, whilst on the other hand Whitney sends his children to one of the most exclusive private schools on the Upper 
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Schooling in the Ownership Society: Protesting Pearson's latest move on teacher licensing

Schooling in the Ownership Society: Protesting Pearson's latest move on teacher licensing:

Protesting Pearson's latest move on teacher licensing
by Mike Klonsky



Ilana Panich-Linsman for The New York Times


Barbara Madeloni, front right, who runs the high school teacher training program at the University of Massachusetts, Amherst, with some of her students, who have refused to participate in a pilot program for a new licensing procedure being developed by the education company Pearson and Stanford University to be marketed to states nationwide.


Education students are refusing to send Pearson two 10-minute videos of themselves teaching, as well as a 40-page take-home test, requirements of an assessment that will soon be necessary for licensure in several states. 



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Sunday, May 6, 2012

YESTERDAY’S TEACHING METHODS WOULD BE CHILD ABUSE TODAY « Teachers Fight Back

YESTERDAY’S TEACHING METHODS WOULD BE CHILD ABUSE TODAY « Teachers Fight Back:


YESTERDAY’S TEACHING METHODS WOULD BE CHILD ABUSE TODAY

by alkleen



The following story was taken from Dawn Turner Trice’s column in the Tribune.
One day in the early 1960s, when Marilyn Johnson was a first-grader at a Chicago Catholic school, her teacher announced that she would call the “good readers” to the front of the class.
One by one, students left their seats and stood proudly by the chalkboard.  When the nun finished calling names, only Johnson and a little boy remained at their desks.
“I ran home and told my mother, and she went out and bought a bunch of flash cards,” said Johnson, 57.  “And I went from the nun telling my mother that I was going to be ‘slow’, to reading everything that wasn’t moving, including the Kellogg’s cereal box.”
Johnson is now a Cook County Circuit Court judge.
I can’t imagine a teacher today that would leave only two students to be seated while all others were rewarded. Today that borders on child abuse. What about the two unfortunate children’s embarrassment? What about their 
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Jersey Jazzman: Failed DC Chancellor Michelle Rhee Buys Herself Some Legislators

Jersey Jazzman: Rhee Buys Herself Some Legislators:


Rhee Buys Herself Some Legislators

by Duke
Teachers, Missouri shows you the future - pay heed:
Two Democratic legislators, including Minority Leader Mike Talboy, D-Kansas City, who received campaign contributions from Michelle Rhee's Students Firsthelped give the organization its first legislative victory in Missouri Thursday.

A watered down HB 1526 eliminating the use of seniority in determining teacher layoffs passed by an 83-78 margin, one vote more than necessary, with Talboy, who received a $1,000 contribution from Students First on March 27, and Penny Hubbard, D-St. Louis, who banked a $500 check the same day, voting on the winning side. 
How the winning majority was obtained was described in a legislative report issued 


Useless Vouchers

by Duke
So Cory Booker, George Norcross, and Chris Christie spent the week going on and on about how vouchers will "save" our failing children schools. The facts seem to matter little to these three, so rather than go over them yet again, let's see if what they are saying makes any sense whatsoever.

Booker:
"We have created a system that chokes out potential of millions of children trapped in schools that deny the beauty of their genius," Booker said. "We need to get the Opportunity Scholarship Act passed because we need to lift the bar higher."
Mr. Mayor, there are a scant few parochial schools left in your city or elsewhere in New Jersey. The very elite private schools are pretty much full. How will putting a very few children into the few seats available "lift the bar 





Just Like Michelle Rhee's Students first only BETTER


Astroturf lobbying refers to political organizations or campaigns that appear to be made up of grassroots activists but are actually organized and run by corporate interests seeking to further their own agendas. Such groups are often typified by innocent-sounding names that have been chosen specifically to disguise the group's true backers


Other Astroturf lobbying groups






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Founding Fathers Appalled At Attacks On Public Education - The Winning Words Project

Founding Fathers Appalled At Attacks On Public Education - The Winning Words Project:


Founding Fathers Appalled At Attacks On Public Education

POSTED BY KAROLI 73PC ON MAY 06, 2012 · FLAG
by Karoli
As I prepare to send my youngest child off to a state university, recent Congressional kerfuffles over student loan interest rates have left me wondering when our nation abandoned our core values. When conservative pundits like George Will actually call student loans "entitlements" and Cal Thomas of the Baltimore Sun says student debt problems are simply a failure of the students themselves, something distinctly un-American is happening. Here's a dose of truth for those so-called conservative values types: Public education paid for by all citizens was one of the core values our Founding Fathers named as fundamental to a free, democratic society.
In April 1776, John Adams put his Thoughts on Government in writing in response to a resolution by the North Carolina Provincial Congress. He begins by making a case for the purpose of government, writing "the happiness of society is the end of all government" which naturally follows his belief that "the happiness of the individual is the end of man." Using these as guiding principles, Adams then sketches an outline of what he believes good government should be.
After outlining a legislative framework, Adams moves on to specifics. After a well-armed militia, Adams wrote, "Laws for the liberal education of youth, especially of the lower class of people, are so extremely wise and useful, that, to a human and generous mind, no expense for this purpose would be thought 
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No education reform without tackling poverty, experts say

Education Votes:


No education reform without tackling poverty, experts say


 
If many so-called education reformers really want to close the student achievement gap, they should direct their fire away from public school educators and take aim at the real issue—poverty. This was the consensus of a panel of policy advocates and academics that convened recently on Capitol Hill in Washington D.C. to discuss the impact of poverty on student learning over the past 40 years. The panelists presented data that showed the current state of student achievement and discussed what changes needed to be made to address the needs of students and schools in low socio-economic areas.
“It’s time to stop arguing whether schools prepare students for the future and launch a full scale attack on poverty,” said panelist Peter Edelman of the Center on Poverty, Inequality, and Public Policy.
Joining Edelman on the panel were Sean Reardon, Professor of Education and 
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