4-30-14 Perdido Street School

Perdido Street School:

Raises In UFT Contract Delayed For Years

Perhaps you've been hearing in the news that teachers are receiving an 18% raise over the course of a nine year contract, with teachers receiving the 8% they are owed from the 2009/2010 pattern that every other city union got.Well, guess what, folks - those raises from 2009/2010 are actually delayed for YEARS - not just the retro owed on those raises from 2009-2014, but also the changes to your sa

by reality-based edu... / 1h 

NY Times: Other Unions Pissed At Mulgrew, UFT Over Teacher Contract Details

The NY Times has an interesting report on what's holding up the contract announcement between the UFT and the city - the other unions:Mayor Bill de Blasio and New York’s main teachers’ union are on the verge of announcing a deal to settle a nearly five-year labor dispute in which the union has sought more than $3 billion in back pay from the city.The agreement would include retroactive pay equival

by reality-based edu... / 41min 

NY Times: UFT, De Blasio Set To Announce 9 Year Contract For Teachers

Just in:Mayor Bill de Blasio and New York’s main teachers’ union are on the verge of announcing a deal to settle a nearly five-year-long labor dispute in which the teachers’ union has sought more than $3 billion in back pay from the city.Two officials said a deal could be announced at City Hall on Thursday, with one official involved in the talks saying the two sides would announce a nine-year con

by reality-based edu... / 14min 

More Evidence Cuomo Campaign Is Running Scared

They're moving early to try and smear opponent Rob Astorino as a right wing fringe candidate/bigot:Rob Astorino must have Andrew Cuomo more worried than we thought. How else to explain two just-released attack ads suggesting the Republican is a bigot?One is called “Contempt.” It describes Astorino as the only county executive found “in violation of anti-discrimination laws.” The other, called “Die

by reality-based edu... / 25min

Here's Part Of Mayor Bloomberg's Legacy

This is it, in a nutshell:The city's poverty rate sat at 21.4% in 2012, barely unchanged from a year earlier, according to a report released by Mayor de Blasio's office and the Center for Economic Opportunity on Wednesday.The rate increased across nearly every demographic group between 2008 and 2012, the report found.Notably, New Yorkers of Asian descent saw the rate rise 6.6% to 29% and non-U.S.

by reality-based edu... / 2min 

Eva Moskowitz Full Of Crap As Usual

Eva Moskowitz raised $7.75 million dollars from her Wall Street and corporate backers at the second annual spring fundraiser for Success Academies.Think about that number for a minute - $7.75 million.Then, as she was thanking the governor and the legislature at her spring fundraiser for forcing New York City to either co-locate her schools or pony up money for rent, she said this about the battle

by reality-based edu... / 36min hide  //  save

Cuomo Campaign Starting To Sound Desperate

What do you make of this story?A Chinatown civic leader claimed today that a member of Gov. Andrew Cuomo’s office interrogated him before Republican rival Rob Astorino made a campaign stop at his association’s headquarters this morning. Eddie Chiu, the senior director of the 114-year-old Lin Sing Association, told Mr. Astorino and reporters that a person from Mr. Cuomo’s office, whom he declined t

by reality-based edu... / 2h 

4-29-14 Perdido Street School

Perdido Street School: Clueless Elwood District Officials Double Down On Decision To Cancel Kindergarten ShowMore educrats who ought to be forcibly removed from office and hit with a restraining order to stay away from anyone under the age of 18:Elwood school officials Monday night stood behind the principal's decision to cancel a traditional Harley Avenue Primary School kindergarten event due to

by mike simpson / 8h 

4-30-14 The Whole Child Blog — Food for Thought: What the SNAP Cuts Mean for Students and Schools — Whole Child Education

Food for Thought: What the SNAP Cuts Mean for Students and Schools — Whole Child Education:

Be a Part of the Global Conversation

The 2013 Whole Child Virtual Conference reached educators across the globe. Building on its success, the 2014 Whole Child Symposium is another great opportunity for you to interact with leading education thinkers. Join ASCD for two free events in May: the Whole Child Symposium Live and the Whole Child Symposium Virtual, a series of discussions about effective education and education systems aroun

by Whole Child Sympo... / 0min 

THE WHOLE CHILD BLOG

Food for Thought: What the SNAP Cuts Mean for Students and Schools

April 30, 2014 by Melanie Olmstead

Research shows that students with access to good nutrition have higher school attendance records, are better able to focus, and are consistently more engaged than students with poor nutrition. Even so, Congress approved and President Obama signed a farm bill reauthorization that cuts funding to the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP), commonly known as food stamps.

ASCD's most recent issue of Policy Points (PDF) explores how the $8.6 billion cut to SNAP over 10 years could affect the nation's students and make them even more reliant on school meal programs. The publication also details nutrition's influence on learning, explains the farm bill provisions related to school nutrition programs, and includes an infographic of up-to-date SNAP statistics.

As the publication concludes, the federal government must recognize the clear relationship between income inequality and academic achievement, and consider how nutrition aid programs can be used to improve educational outcomes for low-income students. Read Policy Points and the corresponding SNAP By The Numbers infographic (PDF) for more information on this crucial issue.

ASCD Policy Points is an ASCD Educator Advocates resource that spotlights timely education policy issues of importance to all educators. Future editions may illuminate education issues on which you can take action and will include links to useful resources, infographics, and tips for increasing your influence with policymakers and other education stakeholders.

Sign up to receive the Capitol Connection e-newsletter and the most up-to-date information on federal education policy.

4-29-14 The Whole Child Blog — IED Pulse Poll Results: Which "Future of Schooling" Prediction Is Coming True? — Whole Child Education

ED Pulse Poll Results: Which "Future of Schooling" Prediction Is Coming True? — Whole Child Education: THE WHOLE CHILD BLOGED Pulse Poll Results: Which “Future of Schooling” Prediction Is Coming True?April 28, 2014 by Whole Child SymposiumPost written by Kit Harris, ASCD ResearchASCD continually seeks to provide solutions to the challenges that face educators of all levels. A recentASCD

by mike simpson / 4h 

Trouble ahead for local school bonds and parcel taxes? | EdSource Today

Trouble ahead for local school bonds and parcel taxes? | EdSource Today:

Trouble ahead for local school bonds and parcel taxes?

April 29th, 2014 | Add a Comment | 
By Mark Baldassare / commentary

11

Mark Baldassare

The elections this year offer the first statewide look at Californians’ willingness to raise revenue for their local schools since passage of Proposition 30, the tax initiative to benefit education that voters passed in November 2012. While it’s too early to know how many local school districts will test the waters by placing a construction bond or parcel tax on the ballot, there are undercurrents in our new survey that spell trouble ahead for local school ballot measures. In short, the public’s sense that schools are in crisis has diminished.

Our annual PPIC Statewide Survey on Californians and Education shows that likely voters view fiscal conditions in education as generally improving. The proportion who say that the state budget situation is a “big problem” for California’s K–12 public education has dropped by 10 points—from 72 percent to 62 percent—between April 2012 and today. More importantly, the proportion of likely voters saying that the level of current state funding for their local public schools is “not enough” has also dropped by 10 points between April 2012 and today—from 59 percent to 49 percent. In other words, the likely voters who currently view state funding of their local schools as problematic now make up less than a majority.

In our recent poll, 55 percent of likely voters would vote yes if there was a local school bond on the ballot—just barely meeting the minimum passage level. By contrast, 48 percent of likely voters would vote yes on a local school parcel tax—falling far short of the two-thirds needed to pass.

It is important to note that likely voters who are public-school parents are bucking these statewide trends: a majority of them view state funding for their local public school as inadequate, and over 60 percent say they would support a local school bond and a local school parcel tax this year. Bu

Commission reverses itself, authorizes military instructors to teach physical education - by Jane Meredith Adams

The California Commission on Teacher Credentialing reversed itself and voted earlier this month to offer military instructors a limited authorization to teach physical education. In the eyes of physical educators, respect for their field was ... [[ This is a content summary only. Visit the Edsource Today website for full links, other content, and more! ]]

by Jane Meredith Ada... / 8h 

NYC Educator: Arwen Receives a Common-Core Aligned Letter

NYC Educator: Arwen Receives a Common-Core Aligned Letter:

Arwen Receives a Common-Core Aligned Letter

I arrived home from work the other evening to find the following letter awaiting me in my mailbox.  I had heard about the cancellation of the Kindergarten play in Elwood, Long Island, but all that had seemed so far away.  As you might well imagine, as you read below, I was somewhat startled by the letter's contents.

April 27, 2014


Dear Ms. Evenstar:

It is with unabashed bravado that we wish to inform you that the Fellowship of the Ring Academy will be cancelling your scholar's childhood.  We hope this missive helps you better comprehend the manner in which the rigorous demands of the 21st century are metamorphosing educational institutes and, more preternaturally, to elucidate upon misapprehensions pertaining to your scholar's childhood.  It is incredibly salient and of paramount importance that you keep in your faculty of consciousness the fact that this issue is not unique to the Fellowship of the Ring Academy.  Although the crusade toward more stringent learning standards has been prevalent in the national news for more than a decade, the effervescent face of education is commencing to feel unsettling for some humanoids.  What and how we teach is ever in fluctuation to meet the prerequisites of a shape-shifting world.

The rationale for exterminating your scholar's childhood is simple.  We are entrusted with prepping preparing biological offspring for college and career with infinitely priceless lifelong skills and have the cognition to appreciate that we can only affirm such superlative attainments through molding your scholars into strong readers, exemplars of expository passages, coworkers, and problem solvers.  Please do not fault us for crafting professional decisions that we know will never be able to please any sentient entity.  But know that we are formulating these directives with the welfare of all children in mind.

Sincerely,


Mortimer Snerd                             Charlie McCarthy



Effie Klinker

p.s  During the 2014-2014 academic calendar, we have made some changes in the interests of your scholar:

1.  The Annual One-World-Many-Friends Multicultural Festival is canceled.
2.  Items other than #2 pencils and erasers will not be NYC Educator: Arwen Receives a Common-Core Aligned Letter:

Cry for Newark | Bob Braun's Ledger

Cry for Newark | Bob Braun's Ledger:

Cry for Newark

Grace Sergio: “What more do we need to do?”

Sad. There’s a word rarely heard in the context of the state’s war on Newark’s neighborhood public schools. Sad. Yet the story of how a cruelly tone-deaf state bureaucrat named Cami Anderson is singlehandedly destroying a community’s neighborhood schools is just that. Sad.  And nothing more illustrates that sadness than the brave but probably futile effort of one successful neighborhood school to remain alive despite Anderson’s promise to give it to privatized educational entrepreneurs who include former business partners of the recently resigned state education commissioner.

“What more do we need to do?” pleaded Grace Sergio, the outgoing president of the Hawthorne Avenue School parent organization. “What more do we need to do?” She was speaking to a –sadly—impotent Newark school board that Anderson, appointed by Gov. Chris Christie, has all but reduced to an irrelevance. Anderson is required to attend the board meetings but has refused. She goes to out-of-state conferences instead.

Sergio’s question is important,  not only in the limited context of the state’s efforts to strip Newark of its neighborhood schools—and this in a city with little intra-district busing—but also in the larger context of the war on public education statewide and nationally. As part of what Anderson calls the “One Newark” plan, Hawthorne Avenue will be closed and reopened as a hybrid charter (TEAM Academy, part of KIPP) and so-called “Brick academy,” a quasi-public school run by a school 

SBAC Offers Answers to My Queries About the Common Core Tests :: Frederick M. Hess

SBAC Offers Answers to My Queries About the Common Core Tests :: Frederick M. Hess:

SBAC Offers Answers to My Queries About the Common Core Tests

by Frederick M. Hess  •  Apr 30, 2014 at 8:47 am
Cross-posted from Education Week

A few weeks ago, I asked three questions about how confident we should be that the results of the new, quasi-national, computer-assisted Common Core tests will be valid and reliable enough to support stuff like teacher evaluation and school accountability. These are questions that I'd been publicly asking for several years with little result. I'm pleased to report that, in the last couple days, I've received serious responses from thoughtful executives at PARCC and Smarter Balanced. Today, I'm publishing the response from SBAC's Joe Wilhoft (yesterday I published the response from PARCC's Jeff Nellhaus). As I'll discuss briefly on Thursday, the responses don't fully satisfy me--I've follow-up questions and would like a few clarifications. But my primary aim was a more transparent discussion about how the Common Core effort is supposed to play out. As I've often said, we know vastly less than we should on this score. For that reason, I want to extend my appreciation to Joe and to Jeff for their constructive, reasoned responses. Here's what Joe Wilhoft, executive director at SBAC, had to say:

By Joe Wilhoft

Rick,

Your questions--along with many others--are well worth asking, and I'm providing some responses and commentary below. Before addressing your specific questions, however, I think a few general comments are in order.

At Smarter Balanced we recognize that the stakes for this project are quite high. Member states are counting on the assessments to play an integral role in their strategies to prepare all students to be college and career-ready. That's made it all the more important that our states work together to leverage their expertise in designing and implementing assessments. I believe that through our collaboration with hundreds of experts across the country, Smarter Balanced has been able to do what no single state could accomplish alone--and we are committed to getting it right.

On March 25 students in our member states began taking our Field Test. As of last Friday, we've had almost 2.4 million students complete a full mathematics and/or a full English language arts/Literacy test. Our Field Test design presents students with a fully blueprint-compliant form of an assessment, meaning schools and students can experience the full array of item types, testing time, and logistical demands.

From the beginning, Smarter Balanced has focused on creating an assessment system that provides valid, SBAC Offers Answers to My Queries About the Common Core Tests :: Frederick M. Hess:

Shanker Blog » We Can't Just Raise Expectations

Shanker Blog » We Can't Just Raise Expectations:

We Can’t Just Raise Expectations

Posted by Esther Quintero on April 30, 2014

What exactly is “a culture of high expectations” and how is it created? In fact, what are expectations? I ask these questions because I hear this catchphrase a lot, but it doesn’t seem like the real barriers to developing such a culture are well understood. If we are serious about raising expectations for all learners, we need to think seriously about what expectations are, how they work and what it might take to create environments that equalize high expectations for what students can achieve.

In this post I explain why I think the idea of “raising expectations” — when used carelessly and as a slogan — is meaningless. Expectations are not test-scores. They are related to standards but are not the same thing. Expectations are a complex and unobservable construct — succinctly, they are unconscious anticipations of performance. Changing expectations for competence is not easy, but it is possible — I get at some of that later.

Certain conditions, however, need to be in place — e.g., a broad conceptualization of ability, a cooperative environment etc. It is unclear that these conditions are present in many of our schools. In fact, many are worried that the opposite is happening. The research and theory I examine here suggest that extreme standardization and competition are incompatible with equalizing expectations in the classroom. They suggest, rather, that current reforms might be making it more difficult to develop and sustain high expectations for all students, and to create classrooms where all students experience similar opportunities to learn.

I get that we all care about the same fundamental issues here: Creating the conditions that support and lift all kids regardless of socioeconomic status, race or initial ability. But I think this goal is better served by understanding what expectations truly are — if we avoid this (somewhat tedious) task I am not sure how much real progress can be achieved. So, please bear with me.

***

In social psychology, expectations — particularly expectations for competence — are implicit, largely unconscious,anticipations of the relative quality someone’s future performance. In other words, expectations are “quick predictions” about how much value someone’s contributions will add to the goal or task at hand. Various theories of group processes and interpersonal relations (see here for a good overview) have established that if the value of someone’s contributions or ideas is predicted to be high, that person will in fact receive more opportunities to contribute (e.g., express an idea, make a suggestion), other group members will defer to this person more often Shanker Blog » We Can't Just Raise Expectations:

The Liberal Education Reform Revolt | Jacobin

The Liberal Education Reform Revolt | Jacobin:

The Liberal Education Reform Revolt

7.31.13

by Lois Weiner

Are liberals finally ready to oppose neoliberal education reform?

(Katrina Ohstrom / Jacobin)

An eloquent call to “reclaim the conversation” challenges leading liberal educators to repudiate their involvement in what’s being called “corporate school reform.” We finally see liberal activists opposing the bipartisan education project that has subjected school and teachers to “free market” policies. Liberals are starting to contest privatization, testing, and attacks on teacher unions, rather than accepting neoliberal assumptions and policies taken wholesale from right-wing think tanks and functions.

Since last fall’s Chicago teachers strike, we’ve seen an acceleration of critique in traditionally liberal media about school reform — from Teach for Americato charter schools and Michelle Rhee. There’s even been a whiff of real reporting in the New York Times on the common core curriculum. Why did liberals urge teachers unions to back down on contractual issues that protect kids and miss what the unions should have been doing, like mobilizing their members?

And why do liberals who expose what’s wrong with standardized testing, asJohn Merrow has, continue to propagandize for charter schools, ignoring compelling research about the educational devastation in New Orleans because of “charterization”?

To be fair, liberals have not been alone in their confusion about policies cloaked in the rhetoric used by the civil rights movement about equalizing educational opportunity. The pace of change in education has been breathtaking, schools and teachers battered by the speed and force of mandates. The most profound changes in education were made more enticing with the carrot of increased funding. Cash-strapped school districts and states couldn’t turn down extra money they received as a quid pro quo for adopting the stranglehold of testing and privatization required by “No Child Left Behind” and, more recently, “Race to the Top.”  Still, for way too long, liberals assumed that schools could be “fixed” without tackling social and economic inequality

Liberals couldn’t see this big picture, partly because as Bhaskar Sunkarawrites, “American liberalism is ineffective and analytically inadequate.” But why?  One reason is that they want to be non-ideological and practical, and without principles to guide them, they are pulled in the political direction exerting the most influence. David Steiner, currently Hunter College Dean and a former Commissioner of Education in New York State and Director of Arts Education at the National Endowment for the Arts, illustrates how liberals persuade themselves to support neoliberal policies. It’s essential, he argues, “to be non-aligned [ideologically]” and look at “policy recommendations, policy as executed based on its merits and not on whether it’s the darling child of the left or the right…”

When power relations are skewed, however, the “merits” are generally found in the right-hand column if one’s principles don’t configure theThe Liberal Education Reform Revolt | Jacobin:

4-29-14 Ed Notes Online: LA Dreamin: Alex Caputo-Pearl Wins Run-Off for Presidency with 80% Over Incumbent Warren Fletcher

Ed Notes Online: LA Dreamin: Alex Caputo-Pearl Wins Run-Off for Presidency with 80% Over Incumbent Warren Fletcher:

LA Dreamin: Alex Caputo-Pearl Wins Run-Off for Presidency with 80% Over Incumbent Warren Fletcher

Breaking: Alex Caputo-Pearl, the Union Power candidate for UTLA President, just defeated Warren Fletcher, the incumbent UTLA President, in the run-off election, winning 80% of the vote, completing a Union Power sweep. Alex won just short of 50% in round 1.Alex is well-known nationally:...half the teachers at Crenshaw High School in Los Angeles found out they had been dismissed from their jobs as p

by ed notes online / 43min 

4-26-14 Ed Notes Online Week

Ed Notes Online: Ed Notes OnlineParent Activists Expose Chalkbeat Bias in Letter to EditorWe are concerned that your inadequate and one-sided coverage of the forced privatization of our schools has been unduly influenced by the same forces that have biased the Governor – the huge pocketbooks of the organizations and financiers that back them.  ...Is Chalkbeat a wholly owned subsidiary of Walmart?C

by mike simpson / 8h 

Mike Klonsky's SmallTalk Blog: 20,000 homeless CPS students. Not an 'excuse' but a reality.

Mike Klonsky's SmallTalk Blog: 20,000 homeless CPS students. Not an 'excuse' but a reality.:

20,000 homeless CPS students. Not an 'excuse' but a reality.

Homeless Jesus statue unveiled in Chicago. But 20,000 homeless students remain invisible. 

I and many others have been trying to make the case for years, that children's lived experiences outside of school have as great, or even greater impact on measurable learning outcomes than anything that goes on in the classroom. Conditions of poverty, homelessness, poor medical care, pandemic violence, poor nutrition, etc.. all play major roles in shaping the student's connection to school.

Of course, great teachers, small classes and small, well-equipped schools, along with good school district, state and federal policies and leadership can do much to counter or soften the negative impact of poverty but nevertheless, today's widening poverty gap explains most of what is called, the "achievement gap."

In today's test-crazy school environment, the above statement is often attacked by corporate reformers as "making excuses" or "defending the status quo." But the facts are stubborn fellows and can't be dismissed so easily.

Take as a case in point Monday's public meeting by a state task force, which concluded that homelessness and transportation are two big reasons why so many Chicago Public Schools students are truant and that mass school closings in black and Latino neighborhoods have intensified the problem. The task force estimated that 20,000 CPS students do not have a stable place to live.

"Homelessness is not always those who live on the street or in shelters but also those staying Mike Klonsky's SmallTalk Blog: 20,000 homeless CPS students. Not an 'excuse' but a reality.:

The Table of Contents to My Book | deutsch29

The Table of Contents to My Book | deutsch29:

The Table of Contents to My Book

April 29, 2014

On April 27, 2014, I announced publication of my book, A Chronicle of Echoes: Who’s Who in the Implosion of American Public Education.

I realize that the Amazon.com listing of my book currently lacks the interactive component allowing shoppers the opportunity to “look inside” the book.

So, I have decided to offer some “peeks.”

In my post entitled, Bush and Rhee Endorse a Book– Fortunately, Not Mine, I included two excerpts, one from one of my Jeb Bush chapters, and one, from my Michelle Rhee chapter.

The excerpts are enlightening– all “reformer” polish removed.

Here, I wish to provide more of the book’s “big picture”: A viewing of the table of contents:

A Chronicle of Echoes: Who’s Who in the Implosion of American Public Education

Table of Contents

Acknowledgement: My Mentor, Diane Ravitch
Additional Acknowledgements
Introduction
1. Joel Klein: The Man From Whom Nothing Good Comes
2. Eva Moskowitz: Stage Mother of Charter School “Success”
3. Wendy Kopp, The Leader in Temp Agency Education: Teach for America (TFA)
4. Michelle Rhee: Sociopathy Finds a Home in Ed Reform
5. Erik Hanushek: Expert Witness for “Less Doing More” in the Classroom
6. The Chicago Connection: The Daley-Vallas Years
7. The Chicago Connection: Duncan (with Obama in the Mix)
8. The Chicago Connection: Emanuel (with Obama Still in the Mix)
9. Paul Vallas Beyond Chicago: Wrecking Philadelphia
10. Paul Vallas Beyond Chicago: No Good for New Orleans or Bridgeport
11. David Coleman and His Common Core State Standards
12. Chester Finn and Frederick Hess: Pushing Reforms “Just Because”
13. Jeb Bush and His Florida Miracle (Well, Most of It)
14. Jeb Bush and His Miracle Reforms (The Rest of It)
15. Jeb Bush’s Foundation for Excellence in Education and Chiefs for Change
16. Michelle Rhee’s TNTP and StudentsFirst
17. Democrats for Education Reform (DFER) and Education Reform Now (ERN)
18. National Council on Teacher Quality (NCTQ), or So They Say
19. Stand for Children (Crush Their Teachers)
20. Black Alliance for Education Options (BAEO) and Parent Revolution (PR)
21. Knowledge is Power Program (KIPP): What Money Cannot Seem to Do
22. The Aspen and Pahara Institutes: Advancing Privatization in Fine Style
23. The Big Three Foundations: Gates, Walton, and Broad
24. The American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC): Manipulating the Nation State by State
Conclusion: Where to from Here?
Endnotes

And where might one find such a book online?

Right here and right here.

Gerald Bracey: The Hatchet Job On Linda Darling-Hammond

Gerald Bracey: The Hatchet Job On Linda Darling-Hammond:

The Hatchet Job On Linda Darling-Hammond

When Senator Clinton was still a candidate for president, both she and Senator Obama sought counsel from an educator friend of mine. He told them both not to say anything about education. No matter what you say, he told me that he told them, you're going to make a lot of people mad (he made his point in more colorful language). Oh, man, how right can you be?

In the run-up to Obama's picking a secretary, two sides formed in a debate over the desiderata for a secretary and might have duked it out, but only one side was permitted to throw punches in public. It wasn't Dems vs. the GOP. Indeed, that huge sucking sound you hear is Republicans trying to control their laughter. The two groups are largely within the Democratic Party. They might duke it out still because some see secretary of education-designate, Arne Duncan, as the right man in the right place and others see him as evil incarnate (though not quite so incarnate as Joel Klein or Michelle Rhee). If not evil incarnate, a man to further the corporatization of education and the commodification of childhood.

The winners in the fight-that-wasn't were the people who managed to get themselves anointed by the mainstream media--or "corporate media" as some call them--as reformers. They thereby once again illustrated George Lakoff's powerful concept of "frame." This gang consisted of Mike Bloomberg, Joel Klein, Paul Vallas, Michelle Rhee, Arne Duncan and, weirdly enough, Al Sharpton. Really. It is useful to remember that "reform" means only to reshape, not necessarily improve.

The losers were actual educators in schools and universities who were mostly not permitted in the ring. The "reformers'" advocates managed to label their opposition candidate, Stanford's Linda Darling-Hammond, as an instrument of the "status quo" and as a teachers union tool. Ludicrous? Yes, but it happened.

In Newsweek, Jonathan Alter wrote that Obama knew "that if he chooses a union-backed candidate such as Linda Darling-Hammond...he'll have a revolt on his hands from the Gerald Bracey: The Hatchet Job On Linda Darling-Hammond: