Revenue. The gorilla in the room. | Fred Klonsky

Revenue. The gorilla in the room. | Fred Klonsky:

Linda Darling-Hammond at the NEA RA.

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 Short day.

Day two of the RA is a short one. At least in terms of formal meetings. I’m just back from the two-hour Illinois Caucus meeting. And that’s it for the day. The first general session isn’t until tomorrow at 10:30 AM. Apparently the big dogs have met to revisit what Dennis Van Roekel speechwriter Melinda Anderson calls the “intended messaging.” When the NEA Board of Directors’ member from New Jersey

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Revenue. The gorilla in the room.

Subscriptions to Jim Broadway’s Update can be found here. Broadway wrote this as part of his report on last week’s Illinois General Assembly Pension Committee public meeting: Which brings us to the unspoken idea – the revenue side of the equation. Rep. Lou Lange (D-Chicago) broached the topic at last week’s committee meeting, suggesting that the temporary income tax increase of 2011 should be mad

by Fred Klonsky / 59min 

Differences emerging on the Common Core at the NEA RA.

I will be heading down to the second state caucus meeting of the Illinois delegation in a few minutes. NEA Board of Director Rainy Kaplan reminded me that when I said Bylaw Amendment #1 was presented to the caucus yesterday, that wasn’t precisely true. It was distributed, but the presentation of it will be today. So far the IEA steering committee takes no position on it and the caucus has yet to h

by Fred Klonsky / 4h 

Fire all the teachers.

  Which one is John Tillman, CEO of the Illinois Policy Institute? - By Todd Mertz Yes–fire all Illonois teachers and public employees.  I am not kidding.  More on that in a minute. The Illinois Policy Institute (IPI) calls themselves a “leading independent research organization.” Far from the truth. They are a right-wing, conservative group with very serious agendas to influence Illinois law and

by Fred Klonsky / 4h 

TRS board of trustee Bob Lyons on the first meeting of the Committee of Ten.

“As other reports on the first meeting of the conference committee on pensions have already been circulated, I will only add some personal observations.  First, I will agree with all of those that have said there is no reason to expect they will have a well thought-out bill to be introduced for possible passage on July 9, the date the Governor expects a special session to “at long last to solve th

by Fred Klonsky / 5h

NYC Educator: Breaking News: Legal Expert Campbell Brown Says Same Thing

NYC Educator: Breaking News: Legal Expert Campbell Brown Says Same Thing:

Breaking News: Legal Expert Campbell Brown Says Same Thing

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Today, according the the crack reporters of the Daily News, legal expert Campbell Brown once again demanded that all pervy, sicko, sex creep teachers be fired.

Because Brown is a legal expert, she would not be put off by nonsensical claims by the awful UFT that teachers accused of misconduct are immediately removed from the classroom. It's clear to legal expert Brown that anyone Dennis Walcott says is guilty should be fired. It makes no difference whether or not they've actually been declared guilty by the arbitrators selected jointly bu the UFT and the DOE.

"We will ride this thing as far as we can take it," said legal expert Brown. "As long as we can run our commercial, and the Daily News will keep running the same story three times a 

Mike Klonsky's SmallTalk Blog: Animal Farm -- The Bloomberg/Daley Alliance

Mike Klonsky's SmallTalk Blog: Animal Farm -- The Bloomberg/Daley Alliance:

Animal Farm -- The Bloomberg/Daley Alliance

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Moreno: "I just want to be a pig."

One of the reasons I love Chicago politics so much is that our politicians are so out there.  For example, here's my quote of the day. It comes from former Cook County CommissionerJoe Moreno, who is about to be sentenced for taking bribes, but who refuses to roll over on his machine/mob pals.

“I don’t want to be a hog, I just want to be a pig,” Moreno famously said in the course of trying to negotiate a bribe from FBI mole Michael DiFoggio. “Hogs get slaughtered, pigs get fat.”

A real stand-up guy.

Speaking of hogs, most of my political-junkie expert pals write off Billy Daley in the IL gov's 

Deeper Dialogue On Teacher Leader Certification | InterACT

Deeper Dialogue On Teacher Leader Certification | InterACT:

Deeper Dialogue On Teacher Leader Certification

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Do we want teacher leader certification to run through Sacramento? (State Capitol Building, photo by the author)

Two weeks ago I posted a poll about the idea of certifying teacher leaders through formal programs at the state or district level. At this point, a majority of people responding to the poll agreed that “States should develop formal/official pathways to leadership certification.” A distant second in the poll was “While we need teacher leadership, we don’t need formal certification of teacher leaders.” Still further behind, surprisingly to me, was “Any leadership certification program should be developed at the local level.” I would have expected a little less interest in the state-level option and a more desire to see innovations led at the local level – as Riverside County has done. Maybe it depends how much faith or trust you have in your county or district, or whether you even thought a local educational agency could develop such a 

Infusion of money for career education in new state budget | EdSource Today

Infusion of money for career education in new state budget | EdSource Today:

Infusion of money for career education in new state budget

July 2nd, 2013 | Add a Comment | 
By John Fensterwald

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Photo from Flickr.

Programs that prepare students for college and careers are about to get a jolt of one-time state money that supporters are counting on to lead to a permanent and sustainable expansion of programs.

The state budget that took effect Monday includes an extra $250 million in grants for a variety of programs, collectively known as career technical education, for K-12 districts, charter schools and community colleges. State leaders are hoping that business leaders will see the extra money as an incentive to step up their involvement through internships and donations of time, money and equipment.

The money was added in the final budget negotiations at the insistence of Senate President pro Tem Darrell Steinberg, D-Sacramento, who has led efforts to inject career-oriented programs into high school curricula and to give more credit to districts that offer them through the state’s 

Minority Students Make Big Gains on NAEP but Gaps Remain | LFA: Join The Conversation - Public School Insights

Minority Students Make Big Gains on NAEP but Gaps Remain | LFA: Join The Conversation - Public School Insights:

Minority Students Make Big Gains on NAEP but Gaps Remain

By National School Boards Association on July 2, 2013

By Jim Hull, Senior Policy Analyst, National School Boards Association’s Center for Public Education (CPE)
Minority students have made significant gains over the past four decades in both math and reading, according to the 2012 long-term NAEP results. While most white students made significant gains as well, achievement gaps narrowed considerably since minority students made much larger gains than their white peers. However, large achievement gaps still remain.

Reading Results

9 Year Olds

• U.S. 9 year old have made significant gains.
  • Since the first year of NAEP in 1971, student achievement in reading has increased significantly from 208 to 221 (13 points, or just over a year’s worth of learning).

• Racial achievement gaps have narrowed significantly over the past four decades.
  • The Black-White achievement gap narrowed from 44 points in 1971 to 23 points in 2012.
    • Black students increased their scores 36 points over this time period, while White students improved their scores 15 points.

President of NEA: No more closing the classroom door | Get Schooled | www.ajc.com

President of NEA: No more closing the classroom door | Get Schooled | www.ajc.com:

Get Schooled: President of NEA: No more closing the classroom door

NEA President Dennis Van Roekel is in Atlanta this week.

Previous Posts

• Race in Georgia: Have we repented and reformed? Do our colleges reflect that?
  July 1, 2013
• Many opinions on DeKalb school board but only one matters
  July 1, 2013
• State rolls out ratings for child care centers. How did your center fare? 
  July 1, 2013

By Maureen Downey

Dennis Van Roekel often sounds more like a math teacher  – which he was for 25 years in Arizona after growing up in Iowa – than president of a 3.2 million-member union, the National Education Association.

In Atlanta for the NEA’s Annual Meeting and Representative Assembly being held at the Georgia World Congress Center, Van Roekel met Friday with AJC reporters and editors. Today, he will lead 1,000 educators in kicking off  the NEA’s new “Raise Your Hand for Public Education” campaign.

At the AJC, he discussed the national push for more alternative and expedited routes to teaching that bypass traditional classes on classroom management and teaching methods. “I don’t believe everyone who has a degree in math can do what I do in the classroom. And I can’t do every job in math,” he said.

He believes education needs to build a better recruitment