NYC Public School Parents: Video: my testimony before the Cuomo Commission

NYC Public School Parents: Video: my testimony before the Cuomo Commission:

Video: my testimony before the Cuomo Commission

by Leonie Haimson

Video of my testimony yesterday before the Cuomo Education Reform Commission, in a tiny crowded cafeteria room at Hostos College.

My written testimony, complete with charts and citations, is posted here, as well as a description of a disappointing day in which many parents, educators and advocates were shut out of the tiny room and/or excluded from speaking.

Also check out what Lauren Cohen, NYC teacher, of Change the Stakes would have said, if she had allowed been allowed to speak, and see GothamSchools' account of the morning's events. 

NYC has more than one third the students in the state and yet has been given only one tenth of the time by this Commission; simply unacceptable!  Write NYEducationReformCommission@exec.ny.gov to protest and demand 

Jersey Jazzman: A Matter Of Priorities in Newark

Jersey Jazzman: A Matter Of Priorities in Newark:

A Matter Of Priorities in Newark

by Duke

When it comes to helping Newark's kids, Cami Anderson is getting right to the heart of the problem!

Newark Superintendent Cami Anderson’s formula for boosting student achievement in struggling schools is built on a simple concept — allowing principals to select their teaching staff regardless of seniority.

The union representing Newark teachers, however, believes the practice invites favoritism and puts older, more experienced teachers at a disadvantage. It plans to file a labor-relations complaint with the state if schools are not staffed based on seniority this fall.

"Teachers with the most years of experience must be offered jobs in their area of 

Understanding the Unions' Internal Politics - Teacher Beat - Education Week

Understanding the Unions' Internal Politics - Teacher Beat - Education Week:

Understanding the Unions' Internal Politics

by Stephen Sawchuk

From Detroit
The American Federation of Teachers' convention begins this morning, and it's as good a time as any to review how the teachers' unions' internal politics govern what those of us attending these policymaking sessions see.
Each local AFT affiliate gets to send a number delegates to the national convention, allocated proportionally based on the size of its membership.
Here's where it gets complicated. The locals get to choose how the elections run, a process that is shaped by each local's internal political system. This matters most in the case of the United Federation of Teachers, AFT's New York City affiliate and the largest by far. It is heavily dominated by individuals belonging to one particular "caucus," or internal political party, called Unity. Nearly all, if not all, the UFT delegates belong to Unity.
Essentially, the combination of having lots of delegates, coupled with "caucus discipline"—toeing the party line in public is a condition of membership in Unity—means that much of the convention's direction is shaped largely 

Hechinger Report | Q & A with Lynn Darling: The early childhood education gap in Mississippi

Hechinger Report | Q & A with Lynn Darling: The early childhood education gap in Mississippi:

Q & A with Lynn Darling: The early childhood education gap in Mississippi

by Jackie Mader

Lynn Darling

The Hechinger Report  is taking a look at why the children of Mississippi often rank near the bottom in academic achievement. With increasing attention given to the nation’s achievement gap, education reformers and the government have started looking at early childhood education as part of a potential solution.
Mississippi State University’s Early Childhood Institute was created in 1999 to provide research-based practices and policy recommendations to improve the state’s accessibility and quality of early child care and education. The Institute has been at the forefront of the movement to create better early-learning opportunities for young children.  The Hechinger Report spoke with Lynn Darling, director of the Early Childhood Institute.
Q: Why is early childhood education is so important, especially for communities in Mississippi?
A: You know, we have a lot of challenges. About one-third of students living in Mississippi live in poverty. We’re

Without high-quality preschool, Mississippi’s kids risk being left behind

by Liz Willen

Kindergarteners at Lyon Elementary School in Lyon, Miss. (Photo by Jackie Mader)

CANTON, Miss.—When school begins next month in Mississippi, Akeeleon Lewis will head to kindergarten for the second time. He started school last fall not knowing his colors or numbers.
“He couldn’t even hold a pencil,” says Judy Packer, his kindergarten teacher at McNeal Elementary School in Canton, a city of 13,000 about 30 miles northeast of the state capital in Jackson.
Before he arrived at McNeal, he hadn’t played much with children his age or ever set foot in a classroom. As a 

Illinois pension cuts are a tax on seniors. But Motorola gets tax breaks. « Fred Klonsky

Illinois pension cuts are a tax on seniors. But Motorola gets tax breaks. « Fred Klonsky:

Illinois pension cuts are a tax on seniors. But Motorola gets tax breaks.

by Fred Klonsky

Eric Schmidt, of Google, which owns Motorola, and Chicago Mayor Rahm Emanuel.
When the he announced yesterday that Motorola was moving to downtown Chicago from suburban Libertyville, the Mayor had a big grin on his face.
Not me.
It cost the taxpayers $100 million dollars in tax breaks over the next ten years to keep the company from carrying out its threat to leave the state.
In case you wanted to know why Illinois is broke.
When the House votes in a few weeks to cut benefits to state workers, setting the stage for a similar proposal 

Missouri Education Watchdog: Common Core, Lattice Math Problems and a Parent's Frustration

Missouri Education Watchdog: Common Core, Lattice Math Problems and a Parent's Frustration:

Common Core, Lattice Math Problems and a Parent's Frustration

by stlgretchen

Just wait until you see the Math lattice problem.

I got a chuckle when I read this from e cards.  How many of you remember word problems in Math that didn't seem to make sense?

A blog on educational matters, Learning in Maine, had an article extolling Common Core math standards.  The readers took exception to some of the writer's praises about Common Core's strengths (according to the writer) in an extraordinary and thoughtful manner.  This comment on how math works, or doesn't, is worth pondering:

As a parent with a minor in Biology and dad who works remotely as an IT Security Consultant (and who 

Why the Racist History of the Charter School Movement Is Never Discussed Coalition for Public Education/Coalición por la Educación Pública: Racist Roots of Charter Schools

Coalition for Public Education/Coalición por la Educación Pública: Racist Roots of Charter Schools:

Racist Roots of Charter Schools

by Black Educator

Why the Racist History of the Charter School Movement Is Never Discussed 

Touted as the cure for what ails public education, charter schools have historical roots that are rarely discussed.

Christopher Bonastia 

 March 9, 2012  |  http://www.alternet.org  

Photo Credit: Shutterstock.com

As a parent I find it easy to understand the appeal of charter schools, especially for parents and students who feel that traditional public schools have failed them. As a historical sociologist who studies race and politics, however, I am disturbed both by the significant challenges that plague the contemporary charter school movement, and by the ugly history of segregationist tactics that link past educational practices to the troubling present.

The now-popular idea of offering public education dollars to private entrepreneurs has historical roots in white resistance to school desegregation after Brown v. Board of Education (1954). The desired outcome was few or, better yet, no black students in white schools. In Prince Edward County, Virginia, one of the five cases decided 

Another bite at the common core standards – will they make a difference? | Educating Ourselves

Another bite at the common core standards – will they make a difference? | Educating Ourselves:

Another bite at the common core standards – will they make a difference?

By Mary McConnell, Thursday, July 26, 2012 at 3:16 pm MST

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Supporters of the common core expressed dismay when education scholar and activist Diane Ravitch reserved judgment on the common core standards. A long time supporter of stronger, more specific core requirements, Ms. Ravitch explains on her education blog:

I have neither endorsed nor rejected the Common Core national standards, for one simple reason: They are being rolled out in 45 states without a field trial anywhere. How can I say that I love them or like them or hate them when I don’t know how they will work when they reach the nation’s classrooms?

In these times of austerity, I wonder how much money districts and states have 

UPDATE: LISTEN TO DIANE RAVITCH 7-27-12 Diane Ravitch's blog

Diane Ravitch's blog:

Privatization in Pennsylvania: Worth Your Attention

by dianerav

One of my most valuable sources of information is an email blast from the Keystone State Education Coalition, which reports on school-related news from Pennsylvania and links to articles in the Pennsylvania press.
I have been watching with fascination and horror the ongoing efforts of Governor Tom Corbett to undermine public education in his state.
One of his closest education advisors and campaign donors also owns the state’s largest charter school.
He now wants to take over and replace K-6 public education in Pottstown with a charter school owned and 

A Market Failure: Kids, Teachers, Tough Luck

by dianerav

A reader sent an article about a for-profit firm in Pennsylvania that runs four alternative schools for “disciplinary” students. It furloughed its 50 teachers and administrators and closed down without warning. What happens to the students? The teachers? No one knows.
The teachers are in the dark about whether they have jobs in a month. They are paid very low salaries: $31,000 if they have benefits, $36,000 without benefits.  The company is owned by the son of a Congressman. All calls are referred to a lawyer’s office, which has no information.
This is the sector that Republican governors want to expand. Government contracts with minimal or no oversigh

Do Leafy Suburbs Need Charter Schools?

by dianerav

Up until now, the argument for charter schools has been that they will “save” poor black and Hispanic children from their terrible public schools.
We have often heard the claim that the proponents of charter schools are leading the civil rights movement of our era.
But now it seems the civil rights leaders want to move to the suburbs.
Not to save black and brown and poor children, but to offer more consumer choice to the children trapped in 

Another Virtual Charter School Scandal

by dianerav

These scandals happen so often that at some point they won’t be newsworthy.
A virtual school in Ohio was put on a one-year probation because an audit showed it has a deficit of $800,000.
Hard to know how it ran at a deficit when virtual schools get full tuition and don’t have any of the expenses of brick-and-mortar schools.
And one minor detail was that the charter had hired the wife, brother and son of the superintendent in the district

Does the Public Have a Right to Know about Broad Academy?

by dianerav

We have visited the travails of the Huntsville, Alabama, schools before.
This is where a Broad-trained superintendent decided that recalcitrant kids should be sent off to live in a teepeeuntil they learned to behave.
Then we learned that he bought 22,000 laptops for the district.
And this district laid off 150 experienced teachers to save money, but has given a contract to Teach for America to bring in rookie teachers.
Now we hear from a parent about life for his child in the Huntsville schools, where change is a fact of life. .
A Broad-trained superintendent in North Carolina left Michelle Rhee’s team and was hired by a Tea Party majority of the local school board in Wake County, North Carolina that wanted to eliminate the district’s

No Consultant Left Behind

by dianerav

Over the past decade, since the adoption of No Child Left Behind and the introduction of Race to the Top, I have noticed an interesting phenomenon: a proliferation of businesses that “consult” with schools, school districts, and states.
It started slowly, and then it mushroomed. I remember when NCLB started, and overnight there were hundreds of tutoring firms created to offer supplementary services. Some of these firms had never tutored anyone before, but they got clients by offering prizes and cash inducements to principals to send them students. Some of them submitted inflated bills. Some of them should never have been approved in the first place. See here and here andhere and here and here.
Every time a new federal program was launched, a new bunch of private-sector consultants popped up to get a piece of the pie.
Race to the Top and the School Improvement Grants were a new jackpot or honeypot for consultants. In Denver,

Are You Offended If Someone Says “Hitler” or “Holocaust”?

by dianerav

A few days ago, I received an email from the Anti-Defamation League of New York City saying that it had received “several complaints regarding references and analogies to Adolf Hitler and the Holocaust that appear in the comments section of your blog.”
It went on:
“In researching the complaint, we see that  you defended the postings on free speech grounds. As a staunch supporter of free speech and the First Amendment, ADL has historically fought hate and offensive comments not by censoring, but by fighting bad speech with good speech. While you certainly have the right to leave the material up, we believe you have an opportunity here to address the insensitivity of the comments with your

What Went Wrong in Louisiana?

by dianerav

A reader posted the following comment.
As a public school teacher on the Northshore across the lake from New Orleans, educated in parochial schools for most of my elementary and high school years, I have been wanting to discuss the truth of education in the State of Louisiana for years, but it cannot be discussed publically, even though most people know the truth, a person could get killed or maimed at worst or at best, fired from a teaching position by openly speaking the unspeakable in today’s irrationally violent world. Under federal mandatory desegregation in 1969, I student taught English IV at a public high school in a Northshore Parish. Prior to this law, schools across the State were segregated into all black or all white public schools—“separate but equal” they called it. My senior high school 

The Debate Continues Re: Match-Relay Graduate Schools of Education

by dianerav

Readers of this blog are familiar with the continuing debate about two new “graduate schools of education,” created by charter schools to train charter school teachers. I put quote marks around the term for “graduate schools of education” inasmuch as I don’t see how anything can be called a graduate school that has no scholars, no curriculum, and no disputation.
Carol Burris received a copy of the training manual for the Match school from an anonymous student. In this post for Valerie Strauss’ Answer Sheet, Burris analyzes the program and the pedagogy. She seeks to answer the question: What are charter teachers taught in their custom graduate school?

“Ultimately we’re not done until there is educational justice in the city of Chicago.” « Fred Klonsky

“Ultimately we’re not done until there is educational justice in the city of Chicago.” « Fred Klonsky:

“Ultimately we’re not done until there is educational justice in the city of Chicago.”

by Fred Klonsky

CTU VP Jesse Sharkey speaks to the rally Wednesday at the CPS board offices. The rally came the day following an agreement between the CTU and CPS that teachers will not teach a longer school day.  500 additional teachers will be rehired from the pool of CTU displaced teachers. More bargaining remains before a final contract is agreed upon.
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All Education Matters: NPR Interview - The Story: "Suicide and Student Debt"

All Education Matters: NPR Interview - The Story: "Suicide and Student Debt":

NPR Interview - The Story: "Suicide and Student Debt"

by Cryn Johannsen

 

Guest Host Sean Cole spoke to John Koch and me, as the founder & executive director of All Education Matters, about suicide, student loan debt, and the student lending crisis.

Listen to the podcast here.

NYC Educator: If Diane Ravitch Were UFT, She Wouldn't Be at AFT Convention

NYC Educator: If Diane Ravitch Were UFT, She Wouldn't Be at AFT Convention:

If Diane Ravitch Were UFT, She Wouldn't Be at AFT Convention

by NYC Educator

This week we've been examining precisely what it takes to represent the UFT at a national or state convention. The prime requirement, of course, is to be an invited member of the elite Unity Caucus, and to do that you must agree to support all union positions in public. Ravitch, though I like her very much, fails to meet the standard. Here's why.

1. She publicly opposes mayoral control. UFT supports it, and this alone would disqualify her. It's a long tradition to expel Unity members for failure to conform. In fact, Albert Shanker used to expel people for opposing the Vietnam War. Mayoral control is what brought us the rubber-stamp PEP, and I've seen high-ranking UFT officials get just as frustrated with them as most of us are. Power corrupts, absolute power corrupts absolutely, and placing all that power in the hands of the richest man in New York was a huge error. We ought to stop pretending otherwise.

2. Ravitch vehemently opposes VAM, and has publicly labeled it for the junk science it is. She does not support 

Big Education Ape Nite Cap UPDATE 7-26-12 #SOSCHAT #EDCHAT #P2

UPDATE UPDATE UPDATE UPDATE

Does Uncle Mike and the DOE Know Make Shinola From Shit?

by noreply@blogger.com (Bronx Teacher)

Last week my wife and I went to register our son for his new middle school. He will be starting 6th grade, not only in a new school, but a new school district as well.

As we were waiting in the guidance office to meet with the guidance counselor, I picked up the school's 2012 yearbook and leafed through it. My eyes bugged out of their sockets like when Bugs Bunny fell for the female robot bunny that Elmer Fudd had created. Or was it Daffy Duck?

Aside from the color portraits of the stu

Boring Lessons? ReVamp with Videos!

by Lisa M

I wanted to spice up my lesson on fact and opinion, but I wanted to make sure I was in the upper echelon ofBloom's Taxonomy. At this point in their schooliverse, my students are well versed in writing F and O on a worksheet. Not because of me, because you know how I feel about worksheets. I wanted to step it up! What to do? What to do?

 Wellllll, now that we have access to Youtube, I decided to take advantage of it! I was already a big fan of using 

What Went Wrong in Louisiana?

by dianerav

A reader posted the following comment.
As a public school teacher on the Northshore across the lake from New Orleans, educated in parochial schools for most of my elementary and high school years, I have been wanting to discuss the truth of education in the State of Louisiana for years, but it cannot be discussed publically, even though most people know the truth, a person could get killed or maimed at worst or at best, fired from a teaching position by openly speaking the unspeakable in today’s irrationally violent world. Under federal mandatory desegregation in 1969, I student taught English IV at a public high school in a Northshore Parish. Prior to this law, schools across the State were segregated into all black or all white public schools—“separate but equal” they called it. My senior high school class was composed of 10 white students and 10 black students, as were all of the other classes in the school. My white students could all read and write at grade level able to do “A, B or C” work. Half of my black students 

Taking Care of Education

by noreply@blogger.com (Tim Furman)

Whenever there's an inaccurate statement about taxation in Illinois, the Illinois Policy Institute is nearby.

“The tax increase was supposed to take care of education…it didn’t,” Yelverton said


I suppose I could replay the tapes from the debate, but really, what would the point be? The tax increase was about generating enough revenue to keep the rating agencies from making it impossible to borrow money. It was also about 

Miss Laura Gets The Vapors Again!

by Duke

Heavens! When will these unseemly perturbations end?

Why, I do declare! It's time to get the fainting couch again for Miss Laura Waters!

Last week in this space, I wrote a rebuttal to Dr. Diane Ravitch's response to N.J. Education Commissioner Chris Cerf's charter school editorial. Dr. Ravitch, the leading conservative spokesperson in education today, contended that New Jersey is "beginning to revolt" against charters "because the state is trying to push them into suburbs that have great public schools and don't want them."

I tried to temper that argument, reinforce Comm. Cerf's definition of charters as "public schools, with public school students and public school teachers, funded with public dollars," and inject a little sanity into a debate that seems to polarize many people who otherwise share a passion for public education.

While I received some very supportive emails, the post ignited a host of negative comments, which

Strange Politics: Tracing Campaign Donations Part I

by jonpelto

Categories: Campaign Finance, Paul Vallas, Stefan Pryor, Steven Adamowski Tags: campaign donations Examining who someone gives political donations to will often tell you a fair amount about their relationships, ideology, politics or priorities. Now that the 2012 campaign season is kicking into high gear, we’ll begin a new semi-regular segment called… Wait, What?  They Gave to Whom? Somewhat tongue in cheek, we’ll start by examining the contributions [...] (Read more...)

 

Labor Beat: Jesse Sharkey Speech to Rally before CPS Board Meeting

A rally of several hundred teachers union members and community supporters took place on the street right before the July 25, 2012 Chicago Public Schools Board meeting. The big crowd breathed in the refreshing atmosphere of a new, successful offensive by the union that has opened up significant cracks in the Board's positions. 'We have met their attack arm-in-arm with our partners in the community." This counter-attack, Sharkey noted, "is what has caused the political powers that be and the Board [CPS] to climb out of their bulldozer...and they can no longer bulldoze us. Now they want to talk to us." But with these successes of the CTU and community, he added, "we should be under no illusions that the tiger has changed its stripes." Length - 4:59

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