CURMUDGUCATION: Pearson's Cyber-Kindergarten Sales Pitch

CURMUDGUCATION: Pearson's Cyber-Kindergarten Sales Pitch:

Pearson's Cyber-Kindergarten Sales Pitch

So I stumbled across the Connections Academy blog Virtual Learning Connections (a friendly resource supporting K-12 school from home). In particular, I stumbled across this post-- "5 Reasons Why Parents Choose Virtual School Kindergarten." The piece is written by Carrie Zopf, a teacher at one of the Conections Academies. Connection Academy is the virtual charter chain purchased by Pearson in 2011, and they would love to just hook your five year old up to a screen. And it is from way back in 2014, but it still gives me the heebie-jeebies.

 It's a great little listicle, combining the sales pitch with the "everybody's doing it and here's why" peer reinforcement. So what are these five great reasons to put your child in virtual kindergarten?

It's easy!! You can have breakfast and then walk into the next room and plunk your child down in front of the computer! Or go to the store and then plunk. More family time, more adaptability to your schedule. More like not actually sending your child to school at all. 

Frequent parent-teacher communication. Though Zopf says this is "much like in a traditional school," talking to your child's teachers is super-easy! And since all the learning is online, you can see everything right there. In fact, you can see everything the teacher can see. Plus you actually have the live child there with you. Actually, why would you even need to talk to the teacher. What is the teacher even doing?

Active participation. You can get right in there and help, because you can see every lesson, see every assignment. When your child is trying to work through worksheets assignments, you'll be right there. Right there. Boy, I hope you have some educational training. I also hope that you have the self-control and toughness not to just feed your child the answer when she gets frustrated. Zopf notes that being involved in the child's education is the primary reason that parents go this route.

Real world learning opportunities. Cyber-k still has field trips and stuff, so your child will still get CURMUDGUCATION: Pearson's Cyber-Kindergarten Sales Pitch:

California Becomes the First State to Require Teaching Consent in High School

California Becomes the First State to Require Teaching Consent in High School:

California Becomes the First State to Require Teaching Consent in High School

This is so important.

California will become the first state to require all high schools statewide to teach students about sexual consent, Governor Jerry Brown's office announced on Thursday.

The law requires that affirmative consent and sexual violence prevention must be taught in any high school that has made health class a graduation requirement, iSchoolGuide reports. The measure was supported nearly unanimously across party lines. 

Five of California's largest districts, including Los Angeles Unified, currently list health class as a graduation requirement. The new law will take effect on January 1. 

Here's what this means for California students: if your gym teacher is going to awkwardly show you how to unroll a condom onto a banana and lecture you about sexually transmitted diseases, they're also going to explain why it's so crucial to receive an affirmative yes from your partner before hooking up. 

"I strongly think consent should be taught in school, because a lot of young high school boys are unaware that sex without a female's permission isn't okay," Eliz Aquino, a 2016 grad of Jesse Bethel High School in Vallejo, whose school didn't offer sex ed, told Seventeen.com. "A lot of boys at my school would pressure their girlfriends into having sex, because they believe that just because you're in a relationship, you are entitled to their body. I really wish sexual consent was taught when I was a high school student." Eliz says she's happy the government is drawing attention to the issue of consent. 

"I think it's very important for students to learn about consent in school because it will prepare you for life," Taylor Silverstein, an incoming senior at Brentwood School in Los Angeles, who took sex ed and human development classes in seventh through ninth grades and was taught about consent, told Seventeen.com. "This kind of knowledge is extremely powerful and important."

Last year, California became the first state to require that colleges and universities adopt an affirmative consent policy known as "yes means yes." The policy states that sexual activity will only be considered consensual if both people involved clearly express that they're willing to participate. 

Of course, California has been in the news lately for a very different conversation around consent: the sexual assault case at Stanford that led to Brock Turner's six-month sentence in jail, which has since been shortened to just four months. 

The more students are educated about the importance of consent, the less we'll hopefully hear about sexual assault cases like the one at Stanford. California Becomes the First State to Require Teaching Consent in High School:

Experts warn of murky results from State Takeover charter schools

Experts warn of murky results from charter-driven schools:

Experts warn of murky results from charter-driven schools

RALEIGH, N.C. (AP) — North Carolina could hand over some of its lowest performing elementary schools to charter school operators in an effort to reverse dismal test scores in more than half the state's counties.

Similar aggressive reforms have taken hold in New Orleans and Tennessee, and states such as Mississippi, Arkansas and Georgia are considering prescribing charter management for their failing schools. But results have been mixed so far, with opponents saying researchers and educators have found little proof that the charter companies are the remedy.

North Carolina's proposal, which passed in the House earlier this month, would create a separate district for elementary schools that have fallen to the bottom 5 percent of the state's grading system for at least three consecutive years.

Thousands of North Carolina children attend schools the state has found nose-diving in both growth and achievement. Last year, 93 schools had less than 5 percent of students testing at grade level in more than one subject, according to North Carolina Department of Public Instruction data. The bill's supporters say rural locations and limited resources trap students at schools where they are doomed to fail.

The proposal would begin with a five-school, five-year pilot program, and a newly appointed Achievement School District superintendent would choose charter companies with successful histories to run the schools. That would allow them hiring and firing powers and exempt them from state requirements such as oversight and evaluations from local school boards.

"I am here to ring the alarm in this state that we have a crisis on our hands," said Rep. Cecil Brockman, a Democrat and bill sponsor. "We cannot afford to continue to do the same thing that we've always done, year after year, expecting a different result."

North Carolina's legislation closely resembles a Tennessee Achievement School District, which was established in 2012.

The experiment has so far fallen short of its transformative promise, said Joshua Glazer, the lead investigator in a four-year study of Tennessee's program. Student testing scores at the charter-operated schools have shown little to no comparative growth, said Glazer, an associated professor of education policy at George Washington University.

Glazer also noted that some Memphis communities, where the district is concentrated, have seen it as a threat to tradition and autonomy.

"There's a second narrative which many people hold and remain very committed to: that this is outsiders, white people coming in motivated by financial benefits to wrest political control away from Memphis," Glazer said. "They are highly skeptical the real motivation here is to help their kids. There's a long history here to support that interpretation."

Ron Zimmer, director of the Martin School of Public Policy at the University of Kentucky, Experts warn of murky results from charter-driven schools:

Why Are Mexican Teachers Being Jailed for Protesting Education Reform? | The Nation

Why Are Mexican Teachers Being Jailed for Protesting Education Reform? | The Nation:

Why Are Mexican Teachers Being Jailed for Protesting Education Reform?
They’re peacefully resisting US-style neoliberal measures intended to crush the unions—a backbone of Mexico’s social-justice movements.

On Sunday night, June 12, as Ruben Nuñez, head of Oaxaca’s teachers union, was leaving a meeting in Mexico City, his car was overtaken and stopped by several large king-cab pickup trucks. Heavily armed men in civilian clothes exited and pulled him, another teacher, and a taxi driver from their cab, and then drove them at high speed to the airport. Nuñez was immediately flown over a thousand miles north to Hermosillo, Sonora, and dumped into a high-security federal lockup.

Just hours earlier, unidentified armed agents did the same thing in Oaxaca itself, taking prisoner Francisco Villalobos, the union’s second-highest officer, and flying him to the Hermosillo prison as well. Villalobos was charged with having stolen textbooks a year ago. Nuñez’s charges are still unknown.

Both joined Aciel Sibaja, who’s been sitting in the same penitentiary since April 14. Sibaja’s crime? Accepting dues given voluntarily by teachers across Oaxaca. Sección 22, the state teachers union, has had to collect dues in cash since last July, when state authorities froze not only the union’s bank accounts but even the personal ones of its officers. Sibaja was responsible for keeping track of the money teachers paid voluntarily, which the government called “funds from illicit sources.”

The three are not the only leaders of Oaxaca’s union in jail. Four others have been imprisoned since last October. “The leaders of Sección 22 are hostages of the federal government,” says Luis Hernández Navarro, a former teacher and now opinion editor for the Mexico City daily La Jornada. “Their detention is simultaneously a warning of what can happen to other teachers who continue to reject the [federal government’s] ‘education reform,’ and a payback to force the movement to demobilize.”

The arrests are just one effort the Mexican government has made in recent months to stop protests. On May 19, Education Secretary Aurelio Nuño Mayer announced that he was firing 3,000 teachers from Oaxaca, Guerrero, and Michoacán for not having worked for three days.

All three states are strongholds of the independent teachers movement within the National Union of Education Workers–the National Coordination of Education Workers (the CNTE, or “Coordinadora”). CNTE teachers have been striking schools since earlier this spring to stop implementation of the government’s education reform program. While strikes in Mexico are hotly contested, there is no precedent for firing teachers in such massive numbers just for striking.

The night of the firings, federal police attacked and removed the encampment that teachers had organized outside Mexico City’s education secretariat. On June 11, the police in Oaxaca City moved to dismantle a similar encampment in front of the state’s education office. When 500 heavily armed police advanced shooting tear gas, confrontations spilled into the surrounding streets, reminiscent of the way a similar strike in 2006 was attacked, and then mushroomed into an insurrection that lasted for months.

One controversial provision of the federal government’s education reform requires teachers to take tests to evaluate their qualifications. Those not making good marks are subject to firing. This year, when the government tried to begin testing, teachers struck in protest.

In March, when Nuño tried to give awards to “distinguished and excellent teachers,” one of them, Lucero Navarette, a primary-school teacher in Why Are Mexican Teachers Being Jailed for Protesting Education Reform? | The Nation:

More Florida charter schools cutting ties with Newpoint Education Partners

More Florida charter schools cutting ties with target of 8 On Your Side investigation | WFLA.com:

More Florida charter schools cutting ties with target of 8 On Your Side investigation

PINELLAS COUNTY, FL (WFLA) – One week after an 8 on Your Side investigation uncovered $235,000 in bogus school loans, two charter schools funded with state tax dollars in Jacksonville have decided to sever ties with a for-profit management company we’ve been investigating for months because of the financial chaos it helped create in Pinellas charter schools.

The Jacksonville charter school loans by Newpoint Education Partners which are cited in a 2015 financial audit do not exist, something that caught even the treasurer of San Jose Preparatory High School and Academy by surprise after 8 on Your Side uncovered and reported it.

“I don’t know where that information came from but it’s incorrect and needs to be restated,” Jerry Jeakle said at a board meeting Thursday night.

RELATED: Windsor Prep parents betting on new partnership with Pinellas School District

By the time board members arrived at the San Jose charter school for a meeting Thursday it was clear they planned to dump Newpoint.

“It’s in the best interest of our school and our students, our staff, our community,” said San Jose Charter School Board Chairman Bonnie Arnold. She refused to elaborate.

At the last San Jose board meeting May 26,  Arnold was an enthusiastic supporter of Newpoint, the for-profit company that has managed the two schools since she became board chairman three years ago.  Arnold’s support was unwavering in May even after she learned that an Escambia County Grand Jury had indicted Newpoint for grand theft, money laundering and aggravated white collar crimes involving charter schools in Pensacola.

“They are doing an excellent job with us and we are proud of that,” Arnold said after the May 26 board meeting.

RELATED: 8 On Your Side uncovers more bogus charter school loans

Four charter schools in Pinellas County recently decided to sever ties with Newpoint after the company abandoned three of them amid financial chaos and mounting debt. Those troubles resulted in the imminent threat of closure by the Pinellas School District.

An 8 on Your Side investigation uncovered $1.8 million in bogus promissory notes that Newpoint claimed those Pinellas schools owed the company. Those loans—just like the loans in Jacksonville—turned out to be non-existent. Newpoint eventually agreed to part ways with the Pinellas schools and to “forgive” all of that “debt” owed by the charter schools.

Two of those Pinellas schools, Windsor Prep and Middle School Academy are currently negotiating with the Pinellas School District for a county takeover that would turn their charter schools into magnet programs in order to avoid closure.

The San Jose schools located on the outskirts of Jacksonville are the only two charter schools left in Florida still managed by Newpoint, the Florida subsidiary of an Ohio-based charter school conglomerate known as Cambridge that at one time or another has operated charter schools in six Florida counties including Pinellas, Hillsborough, Broward, Bay, Escambia and Duval.

Thursday night, the San Jose charter schools’ attorney outlined an exit proposal he’s been privately negotiating with Newpoint at least since Monday. Gary Wheeler insists the decision to terminate Newpoint’s contract was an extension of San Jose’s previous board meeting directive for him to investigate a “Plan B” in light of Newpoint’s grand jury indictment in Escambia.

“If you were listening to the meeting I said I wanted to provide the board with options,” Wheeler said.

RELATED: Indicted charter school company still collecting education tax dollars

By the time that San Jose board members stepped into Thursday night’s meeting it was clear they had decided to jettison Newpoint as the school’s manager even though no such motion had been made at the previous meeting May 26. After three years of paying Newpoint an annual fee of 18 percent amounting to more than $500,000 a year in public tax dollars paid to Newpoint, the San Jose charter board wants to end its five-year contract with the controversial company.

No one on Newpoint’s board would explain how, when or why the board unanimously decided to dump Newpoint or whether that question had been privately discussed by board members out of the Sunshine between public meetings.

“I don’t answer questions like that, sir,” said Jeakle.

One thing that became clear Thursday night is that Newpoint, for all of its legal and More Florida charter schools cutting ties with target of 8 On Your Side investigation | WFLA.com:

Big Education Ape: Charter schools want to sever ties with management company - http://go.shr.lc/1UfqR4F 

CURMUDGUCATION: A Reformster Manifesto

CURMUDGUCATION: A Reformster Manifesto:

A Reformster Manifesto

While they stump for all the usual suspects, the Center for Education Reform is not really a full on reformy group. They are first, last, foremost, and always, a group that pushes hard for charters.

Their founder, president, and chief spokesperson Jeanne Allen  graduated from Dickerson with a degree in political science, then moved on to study political philosophy at the Catholic University of America. She was the "youngest political appointee to serve at the pleasure of the president, Ronald Reagan, at the US Department of Education." She's currently working on an Educational Entrepreneurship masters at University of Pennsylvania in a program that offers what I once called "a degree in soulless profiteering." She announced her intention to step out of the president role in 2013, but no successor was named and apparently, she stayed right in place.

CER is packed with charter groups, charter operators, and investor groups from their board to theadvisors to their contributors. Oddly enough, the smallest group is The Team.  On her LinkedIN page, she describes her organization thus:

With well over 100 million media impressions annually and a national base of grassroots partners and agitators in every state, CER cultivates new reformers daily and cuts the learning curve for those entering reform and sustains strong, challenging advocates for real reforms that ensure choice CURMUDGUCATION: A Reformster Manifesto:

Schools Matter: Paul Tough: Directing Attention Away from "No Excuses" Pt. 1

Schools Matter: Paul Tough: Directing Attention Away from "No Excuses" Pt. 1:

Paul Tough: Directing Attention Away from "No Excuses" Pt. 1

Helping Children Succeed was reported and written with the generous support of five philanthropic organizations: the CityBridge Foundation, the Joyce Foundation, the Raikes Foundation, theBainum Family Foundation, and the S.D. Bechtel, Jr. Foundation.

 –Paul Tough

Paul Tough has written a new book that aspires to put into action a host of bad ideas that Tough advocated in his 2012 book, How Children Succeed: Grit, Curiosity, and the Hidden Power of Character.  In that book, Tough outlined the eugenics-inspired elitist dream to use schooling to alter poor children’s brains and nervous systems so that they, essentially, become academically immune to the effects of poverty—that corrosive malady that Tough’s wealthy patrons have no interest in doing anything about.  And why should they if the segregated urban poor can produce the test scores that are required to grow the wildly lucrative “no excuses” networks like KIPP, Achievement First, Uncommon Schools, Mastery, Green Dot, Rocketship, etc. 

Instead of suggesting that some part of the billions in philanthropic dollars be used to attack the problem of child poverty at its roots, Tough, in that 2012 book, focused, instead, on the virtues of the “no excuses” charter reform schools to develop “performance character,” which he claimed would provide enough grit, self-control, and gratitude to neutralize the damaging effects of poverty on poor children’s low test scores. 

Tough’s first book fantasized about exploiting the neural plasticity of children of the poor, and the KIPP schools were held up as models of successful programs that grind out gritty kids who excel in self-control, gratitude, zest, and the other corporate character virtues that allow for high productivity among students and workers, despite deplorable living and work conditions.  Like most fantasies, Tough’s 2012 book depended upon creating an alternate reality to match his dystopian pipe dream of dredging new neural pathways in children’s brains to improve their performance character, or work habits. 

In Tough’s gritty sci-fi fantasy, he falsely equated higher test scores that KIPP’s unpaid child workers generate under the soul-crushing tutelage of inexperienced teachers as an indication that improved character (grit and self-control) had been achieved.  Like other measures used in Schools Matter: Paul Tough: Directing Attention Away from "No Excuses" Pt. 1:

Mexican-American Studies Summit Takes on ‘Racist’ Textbook « NewsTaco

Mexican-American Studies Summit Takes on ‘Racist’ Textbook « NewsTaco:

Mexican-American Studies Summit Takes on ‘Racist’ Textbook

*It was only text submitted for approval for Texas Mexican-American studies, written by a one-time leader of the Texas conservative education movement.  Mexican-American leaders in Texas call it a racist book. VL

---

By Patrick Michaels, Texas Observer (3 minute read)

If you’ve read about Mexican-American studies in Texas the last month, it’s probably because of the textbook. You know the one: Mexican American Heritage, published by a one-time leader in Texas’ conservative education movement. It was the only book on the subject submitted for state approval, and since the Observer first reported on the controversial tome in May it has drawn intense ire from Mexican-American history scholars. Houston activistTony Diaz succinctly described it as “a racist textbook.”

The lack of options has frustrated Mexican-American studies advocates who spent months lobbying state officials to issue a call for textbooks. Meanwhile, Republican State Board of Education member David Bradley has found the textbook controversy — the book describes “many” Mexican-American migrants as “poor, undereducated, or illegal” — entertaining. “It’s really kind of amusing,” he told theAustin American-Statesman. “The left-leaning, radical Hispanic activists, having pounded the table for special treatment, get approval for a special course that nobody else wanted. Now they don’t like their special textbook?”

But the State Board of Education’s influence only goes so far. Teachers are under no obligation to use any book the SBOE approves, and as Mexican-American studies courses spread across Texas, educators have been writing and sharing new course materials and lesson plans of their own.

In San Antonio on Saturday, advocates and scholars of Mexican-American studies will gather to share what they’ve learned Mexican-American Studies Summit Takes on ‘Racist’ Textbook « NewsTaco:

The real choice lawsuits filed against the Educational Savings Accounts (ESA)Reno News & Review -

Reno News & Review - The real choice - Left Foot Forward - Opinions - June 16, 2016:

The real choice

The Nevada Supreme Court has announced it will hear oral arguments on at least one of the lawsuits filed against the Educational Savings Accounts (ESA), Nevada’s broadest-in-the-nation school voucher law, on July 8. The arguments relate to a lawsuit filed by parents of Nevada students who object to the voucher program because it violates the state’s constitutional provision of uniform funding. Carson City District Court Judge James Wilson agreed with the parents, but an appeal of his decision was filed, asking the Supreme Court to overturn it.

A district court judge in Las Vegas, Eric Johnson, dealt a harsher blow to advocates of public education when he recently ruled in favor of the ESA. Johnson ruled against a lawsuit filed by the American Civil Liberties Union and Americans United for the Separation of Church and State that argues the ESA violates Article 11, Section 10 of the state’s constitution because it takes publicly funded education dollars away from public schools, funneling it to private religious schools under the guise of parental choice.

It’s worth noting that Judge Johnson was appointed last year by Governor Sandoval, who signed the law creating the voucher program, a bill championed by Republicans that failed to attract even one Democratic vote. Johnson is currently running to retain his appointed seat after being chosen by Sandoval to fill a Reno News & Review - The real choice - Left Foot Forward - Opinions - June 16, 2016:

Witch Hunt Against Incoming Pittsburgh Public Schools Superintendent Escalates | gadflyonthewallblog

Witch Hunt Against Incoming Pittsburgh Public Schools Superintendent Escalates | gadflyonthewallblog:

Witch Hunt Against Incoming Pittsburgh Public Schools Superintendent Escalates

To be or not to be.

That is the question for incoming Pittsburgh Public Schools Superintendent Anthony Hamlet.

He is set to takeover the district on July 1, but a well financed public smear campaign is trying to stop him before he even begins.

Big money interests oppose him. The public supports him.

Meanwhile the media helps fuel corporate attacks on the 47-year-old African American because of criticisms leveled by a Political Action Committee (PAC) formed to disband the duly-elected school board.

It’s ironic.

Corporate school reformers criticize Hamlet for allegedly plagiarizing a single statement in his resume. Meanwhile they have plagiarizedWitch Hunt Against Incoming Pittsburgh Public Schools Superintendent Escalates | gadflyonthewallblog:

30+ Happy Famous Fathers Day Quotes - Messages - Wishes - Happy Father's day 2016

#30+ Happy Famous Fathers Day Quotes - Messages - Wishes - Greetings ~ Happy Father's day 2016 - # Wishes Quotes Messages #:

#30+ Happy Famous Fathers Day Quotes - Messages - Wishes - Greetings

Hey there are you looking for some of the best father's day quotes for your father on this father's day ? then you are at the right place, we Father's Day 2016 have published the best collection offather's day quotes specially for you.

Hi! Do you want to give your father surprise on the fathers day with the most charming fathers day quotes? then you are at the perfect place to get all the best of best fathers day quotes that will express your highest level of gratitude for your father who has made you the person today you are. As the Fathers day is approaching, We fathers day 2016 have compiled the list of images and quotes that you send or print on a card and show your feelings of love towards your dad. InternationalFathers day is celebrated every year on te third Sunday of June, In this year, Fathers day will be celebrated on 19th of June 2016.

Famous Fathers Day Quotes - Messages - Sayings

Famous Fathers Day Quotes - Messages - Sayings

There is an Indian saying "maata, pita, guru, prabhu", which means the first position in a man's life goes to his MOTHER- "MAATA" (in Sanskrit), as she is the one who gave birth to us and introduced us to this world and then FATHER - "PITA" (in Sanskrit), a person who has an equal share in getting us to this world and helping us to grow by supporting us at all the stages in life. Only after our parents the third place goes to "GURU" - TEACHER (in Sanskrit),  who taught us the subject and other values in life and then comes the GOD - "PRABHU" (in Sanskrit), who has a last position in this phrase since all the other three are god like people who guide us and show us the path to reach GOD. they are the living god's for a man's life.

Happy Father's Day 2016 Wishes Quotes Messages Sayings Greetings And Images

1. Happy Fathers Day Quotes
2. Happy Fathers Day Wishes
3. Happy Fathers Day Messages
4. Happy Fathers Day Greetings
5. Happy Fathers Day Poems
6. Happy Fathers Day SMS
7. Happy Fathers Day Sayings
8. Happy Fathers Day Images

Here are some famous quotes to wish him and make his face glitter :#30+ Happy Famous Fathers Day Quotes - Messages - Wishes - Greetings ~ Happy Father's day 2016 - # Wishes Quotes Messages #: