With A Brooklyn Accent: A Tennessee Teacher's Letter to President Obama

With A Brooklyn Accent: A Tennessee Teacher's Letter to President Obama:

A Tennessee Teacher's Letter to President Obama

November 29, 2013

Dear Mr. President,

I generally don't remember my dreams, and I generally don't dream about presidents, but this time, I did both. Go figure. Anyway, in my dream, I had the opportunity to meet you and talk to you face to face. You have to understand, in my dream, I am totally excited- this is a historic moment for me- since I voted for you twice, think you are an incredibly intelligent man with excellent morals and values, a true American and I am so proud to have a Democrat in the White House!!!!!

Anyway, you shook my hand ( no limp fish- Thank GOD- I was so worried you would have the Al Gore handshake- he was an excellent professor and VP but the man really needs to work on his handshake ) and as you looked into my eyes, you gave me your genuine 100 watt full-blown smile. It even reached your eyes. 

Then, as I introduced myself, as I asked you questions about the reform happening in our school systems....my dream changed. You changed, Mr. President. One minute you were all smiles and warmth then, in mid-sentence, I noticed that you were no longer smiling at me. Your eyes looked sad- so sad- and you shook your head at me and turned away from me- coldly-and you did not answer my questions.

Why were you sad, Mr. President? Because, you knew the answers to my questions, you knew that if you told me the truth, it would make me sad. You knew it would hurt me and you did not want to do that to me, Mr. President. Yet, you turned your back on me; you walked away from me, and in that moment, when you turned your back, I felt something inside me crack. I felt a fissure open up inside my heart. I felt betrayed. 

"What had happened?"

"What did I say wrong?" "

“Why did my President forsake me?" 

Mr. President, when you turned away from me, refused to answer me, your silence spoke louder than any words ever could. Suddenly, I knew ( you know how you just have that gut feeling? ) that "ed reform" was a cleverly worded phrase that really meant "corporate takeover of public schools." I knew that you wouldn't admit to it- you knew- yet you had already set the ball in motion- you knew- yet you felt it was too late to turn back- you knew- yet you refused to listen to me- instead- you chose to listen to Arne Duncan, Michelle Rhee, Bill Gates, ALEC, and you turned your back on me. 

The pattern I had been had been struggling to see for months was crystal clear: standardized testing was linked to Ed Reform and NCLB and RttT!!!! It was a money-making capitalist endeavor- and people were getting RICH by testing kids!!!!! I was in shock. What greed- what sin- what a REPUBLICAN thing to do!!!!! In my mind, you turned your back on a loyal voter- you turned your back on a loyal teacher- you turned your back on U.S. PUBLIC schools- you turned your back on OUR CHILDREN, in favor of Corporate Charter Schools and Capitalism and Teach for America. The knowledge I saw in your eyes- as you turned from me- withdrawing into your shell of denial, was gut-wrenching. I felt BETRAYED.

Mr. President, I am asking you to please Face the truth, rather than Race from the truth. I suggest you read Diane Ravitch's new book Reign of Error and educate yourself about what Common Core and RttT are actually doing to our Public schools, teachers, and students. I genuinely believe that your heart is in the right place with Ed Reform, but sir, with all due respect, you are NOT A TEACHER. Arne DUNCAN is NOT A TEACHER. 

I am a public school teacher and public school parent (from a small town in Tennessee- a RED state- where Haslam and Huffman and Rhee all play together in a game to bring the Charter School, or the Achieve School District, plan to fruition ) and I am DEEPLY CONCERNED about my schools, my students, my career, and my children’s future. 

I urge you to remove Arne Duncan and replace him with someone knowledgeable about public education- someone who has taught in the schools- someone who STILL teaches- I urge you to listen to teachers- to what we are saying- to see the dissent- to hear it- to RESPECT it. I worked long and hard for my honors degree from the University of the South- I am a professional educator and I work damn hard- everyday- to ensure my students are "College and Career" ready. I am not a complainer- I am a "doer" and I am a team player. 

Here are some suggestions to start putting things to rights and stop the deconstruction of our Public Schools:

1. Read Reign of Error by Diane Ravitch and make it required reading for ALL of your Department of Education Staff

2. Hire Diane Ravitch as Secretary of Education- Dump Duncan

3. Allow states to back out of Common Core, RttT, and NCLB with no repercussions- states deserve autonomy- let teachers create tests

4. Stop Pearson Publishing, Bill and Melinda Gates, Wendy Kopp, Michelle Rhee, the Koch Brothers, ALEC ( and any other major philanthropist or "donor" from turning public education into a corporate and business venture ( Charter Schools staffed by Teach for America recruits) 

5. Pay your teachers what they are worth- if you want real reform- you do it by giving money to Public Schools and Teachers. Imagine if teaching was one of the HIGHEST paid PROFESSIONS instead of the lowest? Suddenly, the BEST and BRIGHTEST are in the field- and the worst and do-nothings don't even make it in the doors of schools

6. STOP the testing madness ( it is ruining the passion for learning in our children ) accountability is one thing- TESTING TESTING TESTING makes companies rich financially but OBVIOUSLY it is NOT making our children better educated- so why are we implementing MORE OF IT with PARCC and CCSS?

7. FACE POVERTY- it is the HUGE elephant in the ROOM- let guidance counselors give counsel, NOT TESTs- Common Core is NOT a SOLUTION to POVERTY.

Sir, I do hope that this letter finds its way to you, and I hope that you read it and that you heed my words. I would very much like to meet the real YOU instead of the DREAM you--- therefore, I would like to extend an invitation for you to come visit Franklin County High School in Winchester, TN. Spend some time getting to know our teachers, admins, students, and school community. 

Regards,

Lucianna Sanson
English IV teacher
AP Literature teacher
TN BATs administrator

With A Brooklyn Accent Go BATs All Week 11-30-13

With A Brooklyn Accent: With A Brooklyn Accent Go BATs All Week mark as readLetter to President Obama on Education PolicyDear President Obama:As a scholar in African American History and a teacher and coach formore than 45 years- it is my unhappy duty to inform you that youreducation polcies have contributed to the lowest morale among teachers that I have seen in my lifetime, while failing to narr

by mike simpson / 29min 

A Fair Minimum Wage As a School Achievement Strategy? | janresseger

A Fair Minimum Wage As a School Achievement Strategy? | janresseger:

A Fair Minimum Wage As a School Achievement Strategy?

Posted on December 2, 2013 by janresseger

When advocates for justice and equity in public education suggest that our nation will have to address America’s outrageous 22 percent child poverty rate as one step to improve school achievement, critics of such strategies point out that schools and teachers alone will have to build achievement levels, because there is little society can do to eliminate child poverty.

Two articles posted over the Thanksgiving holiday weekend suggest that there are steps we can take to ameliorate poverty, with a first step rather obvious: increase the minimum wage and automatically index it to inflation.  If parents can earn a fair wage for the work they do, their children will be more secure.

Writing for the NY Times, Massachusetts economist Arindrajit Dube describes minimum wage reform as The Minimum We Can Do.  According to Dube, “inflation-adjusted minimum wages in the United States have declined in both absolute and relative terms for most of the past four decades.  The high-water mark for the minimum wage was 1968, when it stood at $10.60 an hour in today’s dollars, or 55 percent of the median full-time wage.  In contrast, the current federal minimum wage is $7.25 an hour, constituting 37 percent of the median full-time wage.”  Ideally Dube would suggest raising the federal minimum wage to $10.78 an hour, though he would settle for the $10.10 per hour that is part of legislation already proposed by Iowa Senator Tom Harkin and California Representative George Miller.

Writing for the New Yorker in Higher Calling, Steve Call presents a less technical but equally 

Giving 101: The Princeton Class That Teaches Students to Be Less Selfish - Christine Gross-Loh - The Atlantic

Giving 101: The Princeton Class That Teaches Students to Be Less Selfish - Christine Gross-Loh - The Atlantic:

Giving 101: The Princeton Class That Teaches Students to Be Less Selfish

Peter Singer's practical ethics course forces students to think carefully about donating to charity.

Aaron Favila/AP Photo

Imagine walking along a road past a pond, when out of the corner of your eye you see a toddler boy flailing about in the water. You quickly look around. There is no other adult in sight. If you don’t jump in to save him, no one else will. He will drown. You know what you have to do. You dive right in and drag the drowning toddler from the water.

But what if that little child were drowning—proverbially—half a world away? What would you do to save him then? 

This is one of many questions Peter Singer, an Australian professor of bioethics at Princeton University, asks undergraduates during his popular semester-long course on practical ethics. The lecture course covers euthanasia, animal rights, infanticide and abortion, effective altruism, and other weighty topics.

Singer puts a uniquely practical spin on how he gets his students to stretch their thinking. This semester, each discussion group in his course of almost 400 students was given $100 to donate to one of four organizations: the Future of Humanity Institute, the Fistula Foundation, GiveDirectly, and Princeton 

Schooling in the Ownership Society: Why doesn't Moskowitz pay rent?

Schooling in the Ownership Society: Why doesn't Moskowitz pay rent?:

Why doesn't Moskowitz pay rent?

From deutsch29, Mercedes Schneider's EduBlog:

Since 2006, Eva Moskowitz has been running a small charter empire that has at least $50 million in government per-pupil funding, at least $30.9 million in total, end-of-year assets, and the support of hedge fund millionaires. Why is it, then, that her Success Academies have never paid a dime in rent for the public school space occupied by her charter schools?

Recently-elected New York Mayor Bill de Blasio wants to put an end to the rent-free usage of public school space by charter schools.

Moskowitz’s response? Read the rest here

Mike Klonsky's SmallTalk Blog: WEEKEND QUOTABLES

Mike Klonsky's SmallTalk Blog: WEEKEND QUOTABLES:

WEEKEND QUOTABLES

Peter Buffett, son of billionaire investor Warren on the conflict between capitalism and humanism: "You can't have both." -- Big Philanthropy and Philanthro-Feudalism

Retired teacher, Randy Fritz

Hey General Assembly: your job was/is to return my money to me—you took it in the first place and promised to return it, under specific circumstances, in the form of a pension. You promised to match my contributions. In fact, you have a fiduciary responsibility to do so. That’s not just what you promised, it’s what the 1970 Illinois Constitution promises. -- Fred Klonsky Blog

IFT Pres. Dan Montgomery

“This is a grotesque taking of employees’ retirement security that seems both patently illegal and unfair. It’s a sharp jab in the eye — and the heart — of public 

December 9th –The Day for a Single Spark | United Opt Out National

December 9th –The Day for a Single Spark | United Opt Out National:

DECEMBER 9TH –THE DAY FOR A SINGLE SPARK

December 9th is a day for reclaiming public education through community vision and action

A Single Spark….ignites a fire of educational change. Because our children can’t wait.

One classroom at a time, one school at a time, we can alter the landscape of public education. By now, many of us are well versed in what is wrong with current education reform policies. We find national imposition of common core standards, infusion of corporate interests, and abuse of high stakes testing to be questionable practices that harm our children and our schools.

But what do we want?

As part of the National Day of Action(see www.otlcampaign.org/sites/default/files/Updated-List-of-Events.pdf for list of national event) United Opt Out invites local school communities all over the country to participate in The Single Spark campaign, an effort launched as part of the Dec. 9th National Day of Action and continuing into spring 2014 where UOO will be in Denver, CO working with local community advocates. A one-size-fits-all solution does not work! But we can begin with a shared vision or set of guidelines. We encourage parents, teachers, and community activists to bring these twelve ideas to their PTA, community organizations, or their elected officials and begin the work of reclaiming public education – now. Because our children cannot wait.

Twelve ideals we should demand – we should CREATE – for public education:

1) Revise how we fund public education. Serving children on the basis of whether they come from a rich or poor neighborhood based on taxes does not work. Neither does evading the difficult problems of poverty and segregation by closing schools and funneling money to charter schools outside of their communities. All communities should have full and equitable funding to provide the needed infrastructure to support all of its public schools. This includes additional support for community resources and wrap around services as determined by the needs of the community itself.

2) Size matters! Part of the funding issue (#1) includes having resources needed to maintain small class sizes for all grade levels, and additional staffing as needed.

3) Full staffing for all schools. All schools will be staffed with adequate numbers of highly qualified and unionized teachers (not TFA), teachers’ assistants, librarians, nurses, social workers, and other personnel deemed necessary by the community.

4) A fully inclusive range of creative subjects. Regular availability of art, music, PE, drama, dance, and other creative endeavors must be an integrated part of every school curricula.

5) The full funding for and inclusion of athletics, after-school programs, lunch, and recess. They are vital for the social, emotional, and physical development of children and must be built into their everyday routines. We must focus on building wrap-around programs and “in put” toward communities, health, recreation, and employment services and less on “out put” that is based on test scores.

6) Course content and teaching methods emphasizing a diverse range of perspectives, needs, and voices that embody the diverse fabric of our society. Such curricula include far more than the traditional narratives of dominant voices, but also includes stories, values, and perspectives of those who have historically been silenced or marginalized by the oppressive stream of history. Such content and methods not only encourage multiple learning styles that honor individual differences of each child but also engages students to be active citizens in a democratic society.

7) Demand that curriculum be selected based on the needs of the community. They must be shaped by children’s various and individual developmental, social, emotional, and intellectual needs. Let local and state entities decide on reasonable standards. We must demand that federal mandates about curricular decisions be eliminated. The goal is to meet children where they’re at and take them where they want to go.

8) Elimination of all high stakes standardized testing. Competition, punishment, and fear, driven by biased and unreliable tests reduce experience to over-simplified “right or wrong” factoids, and children to a number. Refuse to measure your child, or your child’s school by faulty numbers. Refuse to use tests as a way to eliminate great teachers who are faced with challenging classrooms. Refuse to punish children by forcing them into “test driven” instruction.

9) Include meaningful systems for assessment and evaluation such as portfolios and project-based learning. If we have smaller class sizes and meaningful instruction, teachers and schools will be able to create purposeful and useful assessments of the learning for EACH child. No one ever asks high priced private schools that do not use high stakes testing how THEY know what the children have learned. A model for evaluation used by $50,000- a- year- tuition private schools should be good enough for all our schools!

10) Elimination of corporate interests in “funding” their right to promote their agenda for public education. Our children cannot be bought and schools cannot be sold. Know any millionaires out there that want to donate to a new playground with no strings attached? Great. The rest of them must stay the hell out of policy including what and how we choose to teach our children.

11) Demand that your schools board be comprised of elected officials. And then be active in campaigning for them and know the election process for those people who SUPPORT your schools! Around the country, in larger cities, school boards are being bought by billionaires or handpicked through mayoral control and are populated by corporate CEO’s who have their own self-serving interests.

12) Be informed about the “choice” policies coming to your district! Vouchers and corporate-sponsored charter schools claim to provide “choice” to children, but the reality is that the monies going to these efforts are draining the resources that would otherwise go to building sustainable public schools. Many of these policies are aimed at eliminating a public school system in favor of a privatized one. If we make our public schools great, we won’t need vouchers and charters to replace them!

These ideas are not luxuries. They are necessities. If we continue to evade and deny our own children the fundamental rights to these opportunities, we will surely perish a divided, and intellectually, economically and emotionally impoverished people.

The Educated Reporter: Bracing for PISA: How Do America's Public Schools Compare Internationally?

The Educated Reporter: Bracing for PISA: How Do America's Public Schools Compare Internationally?:

THE EDUCATED REPORTER

COMMENTARY ON EDUCATION COVERAGE, WRITING AND A FEW OTHER THINGS

MONDAY, DECEMBER 2, 2013

Bracing for PISA: How Do America's Public Schools Compare Internationally?

The latest results of PISA -- an international assessment often used to compare the quality of the nation's public schools against other developed countries -- will be released Tuesday. That makes today the day to keep one particular word in mind: perspective.

My EWA colleague Mikhail Zinshteyn put together a useful primer on PISA, which is overseen by the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD). I encourage you to read it ahead of tomorrow's headlines. For more on PISA's limitations, and why broad-brush comparisons among countries don't contribute much to the conversation on America's educational equity and achievement gaps, check out Eduwonk Andy Rotherham's 2011 piece for Time.

We held a webinar a few weeks ago for reporters to talk more about PISA with Andreas Schleicher, the OECD's education director, as well as Mark Tucker of the 

12-1-13 Seattle Schools Community Forum

Seattle Schools Community Forum:

Seattle Schools This Week

A bit of an exciting week as the district welcomes two new Board members.Also FYI, the district is looking for members for its School Wellness Task Force.Seattle Public Schools is seeking members for a Task Force to review, revise, monitor, communicate and evaluate policies and procedures governing school food, competitive foods, nutrition education, physical education and physical activity. The T

by Melissa Westbrook / 2h 

11-30-13 Seattle Schools Community Forum Week

Seattle Schools Community Forum:Seattle Schools Community Forum mark as readThe Third Rail in Education; ParentsNow we come to that third rail of education - parents.  I have said this a lot in person but naturally, it's a dangerous subject.  Just like the first rule of Fight Club is not talking about Fight Club, the first rule of parenting is you don't criticize others' parenting.  Everyone has t

by mike simpson / 39min 

Teacher Pension Fund Non-Crisis: Draconian Cuts are NOT Necessary | Reclaim Reform

Teacher Pension Fund Non-Crisis: Draconian Cuts are NOT Necessary | Reclaim Reform:

Teacher Pension Fund Non-Crisis: Draconian Cuts are NOT Necessary

Posted on December 1, 2013by Ken Previti

Please email and call Monday, Dec. 2nd, to stop the political “final solution” to cut active and retired teacher pensions by Illinois legislators. (See the bottom of this page.) Other state employees are also targeted for cuts.

The teachers’ pensions in Illinois are depriving starving children from food, closing preschool programs and denying medical care for babies – according to the political propaganda by corporate financed bipartisan institutes, corporate media giants, and corporate owned politicos.
This is lunacy talk. Most people see through this savage farce.

Unfortunately, many people have been subjected to so much fear mongering that they believe “something should be done.” Well, first we all need to listen to what the legislative leaders themselves say about this entire destructive farce-crisis.

Illinois Senate President John Cullerton (recently) said that the state’s massive public employee pension debt is not a “crisis,” but instead an issue being pushed by business-backed groups seeking lower income taxes at the expense of retiree benefits.
People really misunderstand the nature of this whole problem. Quite frankly, I don’t 

Back in New York With the Same Passion, but to Less Fire and Smoke - NYTimes.com

Back in New York With the Same Passion, but to Less Fire and Smoke - NYTimes.com:

Back in New York With the Same Passion, but to Less Fire and Smoke

By CLYDE HABERMAN

Published: December 1, 2013

Rudy Crew, little seen in these parts since the turn of the century, blew back into town a few months ago with a desire, he said, to “stay below the radar.”

Enlarge This Image

Michael Kirby Smith for The New York Times

“There’s simply a quiet narrative. The drumbeat and suspicion and expectation and so forth are much more sublimated.”- Rudy Crew, president of Medgar Evers College in Brooklyn.

Connect With NYTMetro

Follow us on Twitterand like us onFacebook for news and conversation.

“I’m a quieter person,” Dr. Crew, the new president of Medgar Evers College in central Brooklyn, said recently over breakfast. “I don’t necessarily need all of the hoopla and fanfare that came with coming here in ’95.”

If hoopla and fanfare were a waterfall, the one that accompanied Dr. Crew in 1995 qualified as Niagara.

He arrived in New York City to run the public schools, with just about everyone wondering how he would get along with the other Rudy, the one in charge of City Hall,Rudolph W. Giuliani. Would they hit it off? Or would Dr. Crew become, as he put it, “another chancellor going to be run out of Dodge” by a my-way-or-the-highway mayor?

For a while, the two Rudys fared splendidly, sharing drinks and cigars. Then came the crash. The mayor Rudy avidly supported school vouchers. The chancellor Rudy found them an unwelcome diversion of public money. The split grew bitter, then irreparable. Just before Christmas 1999, Dr. Crew was sent packing.

It would not be his only brush with controversy. After leaving New York, he was the schools superintendent in Miami, from 2004 to 2008; there, he had successes but also 

 

For New York City’s Charter Schools, a Lesson on Paying Rent

The Bronx Community Charter School could be a model if Mayor-elect Bill de Blasio follows through on his proposal to charge charter schools for space.    

by By WINNIE HU / 26min 

Austin Journal: Closing a Fear Gap So Children Can Achieve

Montserrat Garibay, a teacher, is hoping to shrink the stark achievement gap in schools disproportionately populated by the children of immigrants by addressing fears of deportation.    

by By MICHAEL BRICK / 1h 

Reflections on Teaching » What’s going on behind the curtains in Sacramento City USD

Reflections on Teaching » Blog Archive » What’s going on behind the curtains in Sacramento City USD:

What’s going on behind the curtains in Sacramento City USD

News leaked out over the holiday week that locally our own Sacramento City Unified School District (SCUSD) outside counsel Lozano and Smith principal, Lou Lozano, will be doing a presentation with school board member Darrel Woo, and outgoing Superintendent Jonathan Raymond sharing how they subverted seniority rights during rounds of massive layoffs in recent years. The presentation will take place at the California School Boards Association conference where they will be teaching their tricks to other districts.

After sharing this on Facebook, Larry Ferlazzo, whose Luther Burbank High School was especially hard-hit by the skipping, left the following comment:

 Shades of Edelman’s workshop at Aspen bragging about their manipulation of the political process. Just as that came back to haunt Stand For Children, this workshop will haunt district/teacher relations….

Larry is referencing an event a few years back when the edublogosphere’s collective jaw dropped as a video showing Jonah Edelman at the Aspen Institute revealing “sausage-making secrets practiced in Illinois” to try to make it impossible for the Chicago Teachers Union from striking by requiring any strike authorization vote from union members pass by a 75% margin. You can see the video, and analysis from Anthony Cody here. It was a rare moment where we got to peek behind the curtain of so-called education “reform”.

In the case of Edelman, this brought him and his organization, a lot of harsh comments and scrutiny. It was also was resoundingly unsuccessful is stopping Chicago teachers from striking, as when they did hold a strike