Bush Foundation “staff acted to promote their corporate funders’ priorities” | Scathing Purple Musings

Bush Foundation “staff acted to promote their corporate funders’ priorities” | Scathing Purple Musings:

Bush Foundation “staff acted to promote their corporate funders’ priorities”

by Bob Sikes

Florida’s mainstream media have been poking around the embers of the relationship between Jeb Bush’s Foundation for Excellence in Education and it’s corporate sponsors. Orlando Sentinel  reporter Leslie Postal reports that a government watchdog group will releasing emails which “paint a graphic picture of corporate money distorting democracy.”

The group In the Public Interest plans to detail tomorrow how former Gov. Jeb Bush’s influential educational foundation is “writing state education laws and regulations in ways that could benefit its corporate funders.”
The group is to detail its findings to reporters Wednesday, with two Orlando mothers from the group Fund Education Now taking part in the press call. A Louisiana parent from the national group 

Uncertainty in School Reform: The Untold Story | Larry Cuban on School Reform and Classroom Practice

Uncertainty in School Reform: The Untold Story | Larry Cuban on School Reform and Classroom Practice:

Uncertainty in School Reform: The Untold Story

by larrycuban

Listen to Michael Mann, a climatolgist at Penn State University who talked about the science behind global warming and rising sea levels.
Any honest assessment of the science is going to recognize that there are things we understand pretty darn well and things that we sort of know. But there are things that are uncertain and there are things we just have no idea about whatsoever. (Nate Silver, The Signal and the Noise, 2012, p. 409).
Ah, if only federal and state policymakers, researchers, and reform-minded educators would see the “science” of school reform in K-12 and higher education in similar terms. “Science” is in quote marks because there is no reliable, much less valid, theory of school reform that can predict events or improvements in schools and 

UPDATE: Fred Klonsky CPS under federal investigation for civil rights violations + John Dillon: Perhaps there are other voices besides the extremists. « Fred Klonsky

John Dillon: Perhaps there are other voices besides the extremists. « Fred Klonsky:

Chicago Public Schools under federal investigation for civil rights violations in school closings.

by Fred Klonsky

From WBEZ:

National education officials are investigating how Chicago Public Schools has handled closing schools in recent years.
A spokesman for the U.S. Department of Education confirmed Tuesday that CPS is one of six urban school districts being investigated by the department’s Office of Civil Rights. School 

John Dillon: Perhaps there are other voices besides the extremists.

by Fred Klonsky

From John Dillon’s blog:

What We Are One and what the petition desires are not so very different: to call attention to serious long-term answers to the revenue crisis in Illinois, and to demand that the General Assembly address the problem without breaking the contractual agreements made to all in the public sector who have given what was asked – in work and in payment.  In the last week, proposals by Representative Naomi Jakobsson and Representative  Linda Chapa La Via for a graduated income tax (HJRCA0002) may perhaps demonstrate a first legislative recognition that revenue is both the problem and the answer.  Last spring, I listened to the Representative Bill Cunningham, Representative Kelly Burke, and Representative Mary Flowers endorse their own beliefs that a graduated income tax was necessary in the near future to help Illinois move forward 

Ten minute drawing. Jerry Garcia.

by Fred Klonsky

Click on image to enlarge.

My old stalker pal Ben Velderman. Still looking weird after all these years.

New readers to this blog may not know about my stalker Ben Velderman.

Let me do a quick recap.

A couple of years ago when I was still employed as a teacher in Park Ridge District 64 – back before my days as a retiree pension activist – a little cult of right-wing yahoos in Western Michigan called the Education Action Group filed a Freedom of Information Act request for all my work emails and my personnel file.

Why? Because I was an activist, unionist and widely read education blogger and they wanted to shut me up.

The EAG is grandly misnamed. They have little to do with Education. Their action 

Gates-Financed Common Core Standards Turn Kindergarten into Global Economy Zone - DailyCensored.com - Breaking Censored News, World, Independent, Liberal News

Gates-Financed Common Core Standards Turn Kindergarten into Global Economy Zone - DailyCensored.com - Breaking Censored News, World, Independent, Liberal News:

Gates-Financed Common Core Standards Turn Kindergarten into Global Economy Zone

by Susan Ohanian

The  Council of Great City Schools (CGCS) promotes a video From the Page to the Classroom: Implementing the Common Core State Standards (CCSS) in English Language Arts and Literacythat purports to supply the background for the Common Core State (sic) Standards.  There’s no mention that The Council of Great City Schools has, so far, received $8,496,854 from the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation to promote these standards.

In delivering on its mission, the 52-minute CGCS video features the usual suspects—Common Core architect and now head of the College Board David Coleman, David Liben  and Sandra Alberti of Student Achievement Partners, a group co-founded by David Coleman and heftily funded by  the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation ($6,533,350) and the General Electric Foundation ($18,000,000) , and Michael Casserly, Executive Director of CGCS. Professor of education at the Graduate School of Education, University of California, Berkeley,  Lily Wong Filmore makes a brief appearance to explain the rationale for a kindergarten on complex text. More about this later.

The film is narrated by Frederick Secrease, who, in an audience-ingratiating move, starts out by saying, “Like you, I am an educator” 

Teaching Career Pathways: Peer Evaluation « InterACT

Teaching Career Pathways: Peer Evaluation « InterACT:

Teaching Career Pathways: Peer Evaluation

by David B. Cohen

Note: in November 2012, Accomplished California Teachers (ACT) released the policy report “Promoting Quality Teaching: New Approaches to Compensation and Career Pathways.”  The following post is the third in a series of profiles showing how California teacher leaders are beginning to develop and follow diversified career pathways.  California teachers, and our peers around the nation, are looking for opportunities to innovate and lead in our field, but without having to leave the classroom.  Our argument is that educational leadership will improve the more its carried out by those still in the classroom, and that students will benefit from having more accomplished educators remaining the in classroom rather than taking on entirely non-teaching positions.
This profile focuses on the peer evaluation program at San Juan Unified School District.  Similar to the Algebra Success Project described in a prior blog post, this program has already been recognized as an exemplary 

LAUSD'S "RESPONSIBLE" ADMINISTRATORS AND THEIR TOADY TEACHER PERVERTS GET A PASS, WHILE INNOCENT TEACHERS GET SCREWED - Perdaily.com

LAUSD'S "RESPONSIBLE" ADMINISTRATORS AND THEIR TOADY TEACHER PERVERTS GET A PASS, WHILE INNOCENT TEACHERS GET SCREWED - Perdaily.com:

LAUSD'S "RESPONSIBLE" ADMINISTRATORS AND THEIR TOADY TEACHER PERVERTS GET A PASS, WHILE INNOCENT TEACHERS GET SCREWED

by Leonard Isenberg

(Mensaje se repite en Español)

Robert Pimental was arrested Wednesday, January 23, 2013 for sexual abuse of up to 20 children while he served as a teacher at George De La Torre Jr. Elementary School in Wilmington, CA. Authorities allege that Pimental inappropriately touched the children over and underneath their clothing. Authorities began their investigation last March after several children complained of his inappropriate touching. Pimental is also accused of touching an adult co-worker at the school in Wilmington.

Superintendent John Deasy removed the teacher from the school around the same time in March, 2012 after 

10 Executive Actions "to our posterity" Dear Mr. President: Thinking About Schools

Thinking About Schools:

10 Executive Actions "to our posterity"

JHSTL

Mt. Kisco, New York, United States

Superintendent of the Bedford Central School District, NY. Lifetime public school teacher, principal, and superintendent. Blog is solely my opinion.

View my complete profile

Dear Mr. President:

re: Education, please...

1.      Read the Constitution and Declaration of Independence and note  the word “education” does not appear; whereas words like life, liberty, pursuit of happiness, created equal, unalienable rights, general welfare, blessings of liberty, justice, and domestic tranquility do.  That pretty well covers education (so you can skip right to #4)

2.      Grasp Supreme Court decisions and legislative action of Brown v. Board of Education, PL 94-142 (IDEA), Title IX, Plyler vs. Doe, and the core values of your Inaugural speech that (finally) launched the 21st century "to our posterity"

3.      Make a statement revising every-year testing to testing only English and mathematics in grades 3, 6, 8, and 11 (transition years as benchmarks of school and district progress), dismantle remnants of NCLB, eliminate RTTT; and then…

4.      Shut down the Department of Education and resuscitate the Department of Health, Education, and Welfare (HEW)

5.      Maintain departments that monitor and protect Civil Rights, IDEA, and the Supreme Court rulings and legislation noted above and collaborate with content professional organizations (NCTE, NCTM, and others) to lead educational development

6.      Focus HEW on health and welfare (root factors in student achievement), research, convening and educating state leaders, and using its bully pulpit to advocate for Parents As Teachers and other birth to five readiness programs, addressing poverty, knocking down real impediments of every student achieving.

7.      Confront every corporate CEO with their academically demeaning and counter-productive tactics which make money off the backs of kids

8.      Leave teaching to career professionals (not teach for awhilers) and collaborate with every union to formulate professional 21st century contracts

9.      Call out every self-proclaimed quick fix reformer and politician to let them know the '50s called and wants their factory model of education back; to encourage them to spend days (not a photo op) in rural, urban, and suburban kindergarten classrooms and maybe give them 125 junior English essays to grade in one weekend. 

10.  Re-establish the WPA (Federal Works Project Administration) that built our parents, grandparents and some of our schools, provided opportunities in the arts, built highways and bridges, and created jobs.

Special Late Nite Cap UPDATE 1-29-13 #SOSCHAT #EDCHAT #P2

Nite Cap UPDATE

UPDATE UPDATE UPDATE UPDATE

Teacher-led PD on Tech Tuesday

by Joe Mazza

Teacher-led PD = the most meaningful and collaborative PD available in education today.

This morning, we held our bi-weekly Tech Tuesday for staff. The topic was on Skype in the Classroom. Two local district educators, Glenn Yetter (@CoachYetter) and Brett Baker (@Bakerbg), Skyped into our before school meeting to teach us about the benefits of Skyping across the school, out to a nearby school or even a country 7 timezones away. We discussed #MysterySkype, Skype bookchats, Skype cultural chats and ways to make the setting come to life in our literature.
We have these meetings scheduled every other Tuesday and topics are chosen based upon what the teachers wanted to learn more about. Future topics include Twitter, Edmodo, Study Island, Google Voice, KidBlogs, 

What If She Wants to Be a Teacher? Or Worse, a Professor?

by Lee Bessette

Blog: 

College Ready Writing

You want you kids to be happy, successful, fulfilled. You want them to make good choices. You try to help them avoid the same mistakes you made when you were younger.
And then you hear them teaching their younger brother. And panic sets in.
My daughter just started kindergarten this year. She is (quantifiably) the smartest kid in her class. And not just by a little. She has a wonderful teacher and we are working to make sure that she remains challenged by what she is learning, to avoid getting bored, but also so she learns some perseverance and how to “work” hard. These were two things that both my husband and I regret about our schooling; because school was easy, we didn’t try, 

Bill Introduced: S.3 Strengthen our Schools and Students Act

A bill to improve education and provide all students in the United States with the opportunity to succeed.

Teachers opposed to tests get a warning

by aristotlethewise

Teachers opposed to tests get a warning

Seattle Public Schools officials have told teachers boycotting the 
MAP tests that they must administer the tests or face suspension.
By Linda Shaw
Seattle school officials sent a letter Wednesday asking principals to inform all their teachers by day’s end that they will be disciplined if they refuse to give district-required tests.
But at a rally Wednesday afternoon at Seattle Public Schools headquarters, teachers boycotting the Measures of Academic Progress, or MAP, said they would not back down because the tests are an unreliable measure 

Common Core Wars Heating up in Indiana from the Chamber of Commerce

by stlgretchen

Indiana will face a vote in the Senate to advance a bill to rid itself of Common Core.  Anngie and I were there for the testimony and rally a couple of weeks ago.  Five hundred citizens showed up at the Capitol to show their support for stopping Common Core in their state.

The reformers might be getting worried.  Below is an editorial insinuating taxpayers frankly don't understand why private corporations should be given the authority to own the copyright to the standards and assessments used in teaching their children...and if a parent or a school district 

The Best Resources About The New Push For Immigration Reform

by Larry Ferlazzo

My oh my, the tone about immigration reform and the idea of providing a path to citizenship to the undocumented sure seems to have changed recently!
I thought it would be useful for readers, my students and me to start bringing together useful resources.
By the way, be sure to check out my post on citizenship at The New York Times next week — I think people will 

PEW Report :A Nation of Immigrants A Portrait of the 40 Million, Including 11 Million Unauthorized

The nation’s immigrant population reached a record 40.4 million in 2011, including an estimated 11.1 million who are unauthorized, according to a new analysis of Census Bureau data by the Pew Hispanic Center, a project of the Pew Research Center.

The overall number of immigrants in the U.S. continues to grow steadily; it is up by more than 9 million since 2000. By contrast, the number of unauthorized immigrants living in the U.S. grew for decades before peaking at 

Governor praises teaching profession in state of state address

Governor praises teaching profession in state of state address

In his address, Gov. Brown is right that we have to move beyond obsessing about standardized tests to focus on a well-rounded education. Governor praises our profession in state of state address

• CTA President's statement
• Read Governor's State of the State address

Endorse the National Resolution on High Stakes Testing!

January 2013

With more and more states recognizing the flaws of high stakes testing, a National Resolution is online and gathering steam! CTA has officially signed the Resolution. Please endorse the resolution today – and ask your colleagues to do the same.

ENDORSE THE RESOLUTION TODAY!

CTA supports districts that refuse to give flawed standardized test

January 2013

CTA and NEA support Seattle boycott of district-mandated Measures of Academic Progress (MAP) standardized test that is not aligned with state standards or the district curriculum.

CTA PRESIDENT LETTER SEATTLE EA PRESIDENT NEA SUPPORTS BOYCOTT

Mulgrew faces legislators, as Walcott promises to revisit sunset

by Geoff Decker

ALBANY — Assemblywoman Catherine Nolan kept her promise to question UFT President Michael Mulgrew with the same tenacity as when she interrogated Mayor Bloomberg on Monday.

Nolan chastised Bloomberg for his role in New York City’s failure to reach a teacher evaluation deal, which will likely cost the city $240 million in state school aid.
Today, she told Mulgrew, “This is the fault of labor and management together.” Nolan chairs the Assembly’s 

Remainders: Making more out of the Regents Week break

by Philissa Cramer

• A parent wonders if Regents Week could mean more than letting students stay home. (Insideschools)
• Attendance in District 75 schools was 73 percent today, the highest during the bus strike. (GS Twitter)
• The UFT’s MORE caucus wants teachers to share their experiences with new observations. (MORE)
• Two teachers were censured for using school email accounts to run for union chapter leader. (GS Scribd)
• Reporters and advocates live-Tweeted a discussion in Washington, D.C., on school closures. (Twitter)
• The feds say all school closure complaints get looked into, but not necessarily resolved. (Politics K-12)
• Here’s a look at “teacher voice” organizations, which have some teachers unions concerned. (Ed Next)
• A new study provides additional ammunition for opponents of helicopter parenting. (Atlantic)
• Kids these days should probably be making videos to advertise books like these from 1983. (Hairpin)

Bloomberg lists central budget cuts to accompany schools’ hit

by Emma Sokoloff-Rubin

Following up on his promise to detail school budget cuts required by the collapse of a teacher evaluation deal earlier this month, Mayor Bloomberg today described how he plans to reduce costs in the Department of 

Bloomberg Outlines Tight Education Budget

by Beth Fertig

With the city losing nearly $250 million in state school aid this year for failing to negotiate a new teacher evaluation system, Mayor Michael Bloomberg presented a fiscal year 2014 budget with deep cuts to education.
His proposed budget includes the elimination of 700 teaching and counseling jobs in the current school year, 

Anti-abortion Group Files Lawsuit Against OSU

by cmaadmin

STILLWATER Okla. — An anti-abortion group has filed a federal lawsuit against Oklahoma State University after officials said the group couldn’t distribute leaflets with graphic images on campus.
Cowboys for Life filed the lawsuit Friday. The group is asking a federal judge to declare invalid OSU’s facility use 

Bill Introduced: S.3 Strengthen our Schools and Students Act

A bill to improve education and provide all students in the United States with the opportunity to succeed.

Bill Introduced: S.4 Rebuild America Act

A bill to create jobs and strengthen our economy by rebuilding our Nation's infrastructure.

PPB: Mission Hill School: The kind of learning, the kind of caring we want for all kids

PPB: Mission Hill School: The kind of learning, the kind of caring we want for all kids:

Mission Hill School: The kind of learning, the kind of caring we want for all kids

by Anne Geiger

Popout


Mission Hill School

Thanks, Deborah Meier for sharing this on Facebook--- Mission Hill School contains... "the ingredients for transformational learning itself: A richly diverse community. An integrated approach to academic study. A clearly defined set of aspirational habits of mind. A skilled, trusted and empowered community of adults. And a recognition that, in the end, school must be about more than reading and math. It must prepare young people to successfully navigate a world of rapid change, equipping them with skills to: Listen and empathize. Collaborate