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Sunday, June 11, 2017

Special Nite Cap: Catch Up on Today's Post 6/11/17


Special Nite Cap: Catch Up on Today's Post 6/11/17
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Corporate-Elite Totalitarianism: Are we Creeping or Leaping?





Impact Investing and Venture Philanthropy's Role in Sowing the Seeds of Financial Opportunity
by mike simpson / 1h
Impact Investing and Venture Philanthropy's Role in Sowing the Seeds of Financial Opportunity : Impact Investing and Venture Philanthropy's Role in Sowing the Seeds of Financial Opportunity "Gates and other venture philanthropist's have 'pioneered' and 'seeded' new education markets through direct funding and by shaping 'education reform' policies. Charter schools are an essential component of th
All Things Education: Perriello's ties to problematic education reformers
by mike simpson / 5h
All Things Education: Perriello's ties to problematic education reformers : Perriello's ties to problematic education reformers As I wrote a month ago , I am supporting Ralph Northam in the Democratic primary for the Virginia gubernatorial race. I agree with much of Tom Perriello's policy agenda and he is saying a lot things that resonate with me. If he wins the primary I will work hard to get hi
Graduation Not Incarceration: No to exit exams in Washington! | I AM AN EDUCATOR
by mike simpson / 5h
Graduation Not Incarceration: No to exit exams in Washington! | I AM AN EDUCATOR : Graduation Not Incarceration: No to exit exams in Washington! Some 6,000 high school seniors in Washington are at risk of not graduating because they haven’t passed one of the myriad of high-stakes tests, including the Smarter Balance Assessment Consortium (SBAC) Common Core aligned language arts and math exams, as
Corporate-Elite Totalitarianism: Are we Creeping or Leaping?
by mike simpson / 6h
Corporate-Elite Totalitarianism: Are we Creeping or Leaping? : Corporate-Elite Totalitarianism: Are we Creeping or Leaping? Pleas e join Internet radio host Dr. James Avington Miller Jr. and special guest Dr. Victoria M. Young for our second show on the Education Wars in American and Corporate-Elite Totalitarianism. Is American Creeping or Leaping Toward a Totalitarian State? Dr. Young's focus ha
CURMUDGUCATION: ICYMI: Baby baby edition + Catch up with CURMUDGUCATION
by mike simpson / 6h
CURMUDGUCATION: ICYMI: Baby baby edition : ICYMI: Baby baby edition I'm a little behind on reading and writing this week, but on the plus side, I'm way ahead on babies. Here's some reading from the week behind us. Read and pass it on. Some Unpopular Thoughts on Teacher Evaluation Mitchell Robinson with some interesting thoughts about how teacher evaluation ought to work. Linking Graduation to Hig
How diplomas based on skill acquisition, not credits earned, could change education - The Hechinger Report
by mike simpson / 7h
How diplomas based on skill acquisition, not credits earned, could change education - The Hechinger Report : How diplomas based on skill acquisition, not credits earned, could change education NEWPORT, Maine — Algebra was not Kylee Elderkin’s favorite subject at the beginning of the school year. “I was a little behind,” said Kylee, 14. “I wouldn’t understand.” The Nokomis Regional High School nin
The Sunday Times. | Fred Klonsky
by mike simpson / 7h
The Sunday Times. | Fred Klonsky : The Sunday Times Unionized teachers in 32 of the city’s charter schools voted to merge with the Chicago Teachers Union this week, officials announced Friday. Max Blumenthal ✔ @MaxBlumenthal The US hand in the Syrian and Libyan tragedies, no end in sight to the catastrophic effects of interventionism https:// consortiumnews.com/2017/06/09/the -us-hand-in-the-liby
Reign of Error Redux Diane Ravitch's blog | A site to discuss better education for all
by mike simpson / 8h
Diane Ravitch's blog | A site to discu ss better education for all : Reign of Error Redux Diane Ravitch's blog A site to discuss better education for all Jersey Jazzman: The Charter Fraud in New Jersey 3 by dianeravitch / 51min Mark Weber, veteran teacher in New Jersey now studying for his doctorate at Rutgers, has yet another revelation of Chris Christie’s determination to place charter schools
Saving Schools That Save Students: Alternative High Schools Are An Essential Element of School Districts | Ed In The Apple
by mike simpson / 8h
Saving Schools That Save Students: Alternative High Schools Are An Essential Element of School Districts | Ed In The Apple : Saving Schools That Save Students: Alternative High Schools Are An Essential Element of School Districts I guess we can call 2016-17 “The Year of ESSA,” the planning/crafting year of the federally required Every Student Succeeds Act that will submitted to the US Department
Seattle Schools Community Forum: Seattle School Board Elections 2017 - District IV
by mike simpson / 8h
Seattle Schools Community Forum: Seattle School Board Elections 2017 - District IV : Seattle School Board Elections 2017 - District IV Editor's Note: in writing up my thoughts, opinions and reflections on candidates for the Seattle School Board, I used interviews (my own and the 36th Dems recorded interviews), Google, Facebook and Twitter searches. The questions I asked were these: 1. What was yo
Think Tanks, Fake News, Astroturfing, and Lies in the Era of Trump and DeVos - The Crucial Voice of the PeopleThe Crucial Voice of the People
by mike simpson / 8h
Think Tanks, Fake News, Astroturfing, and Lies in the Era of Trump and DeVos - The Crucial Voice of the PeopleThe Crucial Voice of the People : Think Tanks, Fake News, Astroturfing, and Lies in the Era of Trump and DeVos The powerful influence of think tanks, fake news, astroturfing, and lies in our policymaking process is nothing new to us. In the past, the influence of lobbying was frequently d

YESTERDAY

To Understand Betsy DeVos’s Educational Views, View Her Education - The New York Times
by mike simpson / 21h
To Understand Betsy DeVos’s Educational Views, View Her Education - The New York Times : To Understand Betsy DeVos’s Educational Views, View Her Education HOLLAND, Mich. — The students formed a circle around the Rev. Ray Vanderlaan, who draped himself in a Jewish ceremonial prayer shawl to cap his final lesson to graduating seniors in his discipleship seminar at Holland Christian High School. “We
Special Nite Cap: Catch Up on Today's Post 6/10/17
by mike simpson / 23h
Special Nite Cap: Catch Up on Today's Post 6/10/17 Featured Post In Historic Move, Charter School Educators’ Union Vote Overwhelmingly to Unify with Chicago Teachers Union - eNews Park Forest Proof Your Teacher Evaluation is 

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Impact Investing and Venture Philanthropy's Role in Sowing the Seeds of Financial Opportunity

Impact Investing and Venture Philanthropy's Role in Sowing the Seeds of Financial Opportunity:

Impact Investing and Venture Philanthropy's Role in Sowing the Seeds of Financial Opportunity

Image result for big education ape Venture Philanthropy

"Gates and other venture philanthropist's have 'pioneered' and 'seeded' new education markets through direct funding and by shaping 'education reform' policies. Charter schools are an essential component of this mission… allowing impact investors to be the drivers of the education reform industry's final mission: to fully dismantle public education by way of 'anywhere, anytime learning' and 'personalized' technologies."
Image result for big education ape Venture Philanthropy
In the late 19th century many US industrialists -- Andrew Carnegie, John Pierpont Morgan, John D. Rockefeller and others -- who amassed immense wealth through the exploitation and degradation of workers (including children), began to establish philanthropic trusts and foundations. Oil monopolist John D. Rockefeller (senior) described this social mission as a divinely inspired "business of benevolence." Accordingly, historian Benjamin J. Soskis reports that Rockefeller declared in 1906:
I believe that the power of making money is a gift from God… I believe it is my duty to go on making money and still more money, and to use the money I make for the good of my fellow man according to the dictates of my conscience.
As such, philanthropists of this time channeled charitable gifts to civil society and aid-based organizations charged with facilitating the cultural reproduction of American values derived from the Protestant ethics that sustain US capitalism: individualism, self-reliance, hard work, meritocracy, discipline and obedience. In terms of the benevolent role of philanthropists during this period, Soskis frames it this way:
This conflation of the obligations of business and businessman was encouraged by the concept of stewardship, the dominant means by which Americans understood the responsibilities of wealth in the nineteenth century. By the dictates of stewardship, men could not claim ultimate ownership over their possessions, but held them only as trustees for some higher authority -- in the concept's Protestant manifestation… By bridging the realms of accumulation and redistribution, stewardship linked provisional property rights with the responsibilities that attended those rights. Stewardship provided a bridge between the imperatives of service and self-interest, a causeway over which proponents of corporate philanthropy would make their unsteady way in the decades to come.
Through this doctrine of divine providence, these charitable "Captains of Industry" advanced everything from universal public education, immigrant assimilation and poverty mitigation to the arts, public health and science and medical research. Naturally, this giving came with a social engineering agenda. For example, as documented in my article "The Despotic Origins of Public Secondary Education," their financial and political support for universal public education was intended to bolster US hegemony, by furthering US industrial capitalism's imperialist pursuits as tied to the nation's foundational structures of heteropatriarchy, white supremacy and settler colonialism. Relatedly, the article goes on to document how:
At the turn of the 20th century, capitalism's proclivity for crisis was fomenting rebellion within the US through massive labor strikes, struggles for universal suffrage and relief from poverty as a major depression gripped the nation due to overproduction. In response, the nation's political and economic elite 
Impact Investing and Venture Philanthropy's Role in Sowing the Seeds of Financial Opportunity:
Image result for big education ape Venture Philanthropy

Image result for big education ape Vulture

Image result for big education ape Venture Philanthropy 
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All Things Education: Perriello's ties to problematic education reformers

All Things Education: Perriello's ties to problematic education reformers:

Perriello's ties to problematic education reformers

As I wrote a month ago, I am supporting Ralph Northam in the Democratic primary for the Virginia gubernatorial race. I agree with much of Tom Perriello's policy agenda and he is saying a lot things that resonate with me. If he wins the primary I will work hard to get him elected. In the meantime, I am encouraging everyone to vote for Northam this Tuesday, June 13th.

I am concerned about Perriello's lack of leadership and political experience at the local and state levels. His connections to Wall Street and Silicon Valley Obama-era market-based, pro-privatization, neo-liberal education reformers trouble me. In general, I am not concerned that he is too liberal or too much of a populist; rather, my concern is that he is not the real deal, that he will not turn out to be a true progressive, especially on education. One of the main tenets of his platform is that he will stand up to Trump. Lots of folks are standing up to Trump right now. That's not so hard to do. What was hard is rolling up your sleeves and standing up to the Virginia GOP, as Northam did, year after year, before there was a Trump figure to rally against. It is both telling and concerning that most of Perriello's support comes from out of the state. As for public education, I was reassured by his statements about it in this recent Washington Post interview (scroll down to close to the end). But I can not ignore his ties to the DFER crowd (again, out of state) which I pointed out in my original post. More recently, Virginia public school parent and activist Michele Boyd found some further connections to the DFER crowd. Perriello supporters who would dismiss these ties maybe don't understand that for public education supporters, outfits like DFER and the Emerson Collective are like Dominion is for environmentalists.

Below is Michele's post.

(As a side note, I am told that Blue Virginia would not post this. I am a loyal subscriber to and occasional contributor to Blue Virginia. I find it it problematic that they would not run this post. I understand that they have endorsed Tom Perriello, but especially given the blog's collective nature, I believe that they should provide a space for Perriello and Northam supporters, and as they usually do, allow for skepticism, criticism, and independent thought.) 



Why Has a Corporate Education Reform Group Affiliated with Former U.S. Secretary of Education, Arne Duncan, Donated $25,000 to Tom Perriello’s Campaign?

by Michele Boyd, a parent to two children and a public education activist

          For those of us who care deeply about K-12 public education - whether we are students, parents, educators, or concerned citizens -  the stakes are high in Tuesday’s Democratic primary.  In the current anti-Trump environment, the odds are in our favor that who we nominate on June 13th will become the next Governor of the Commonwealth of All Things Education: Perriello's ties to problematic education reformers:


 Image result for big education ape dfer
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Graduation Not Incarceration: No to exit exams in Washington! | I AM AN EDUCATOR

Graduation Not Incarceration: No to exit exams in Washington! | I AM AN EDUCATOR:

Graduation Not Incarceration: No to exit exams in Washington!

Exit Exam
Some 6,000 high school seniors in Washington are at risk of not graduating because they haven’t passed one of the myriad of high-stakes tests, including the Smarter Balance Assessment Consortium (SBAC) Common Core aligned language arts and math exams, as well as a biology end-of-course exam. These students could have met all the other requirements, excelled social and academically in school, and yet be denied a diploma from a test-and-punish political system that is completely out of control.
However, because of the massive uprising of the opt-out movement in Seattle, Washington State, and around the country, politicians are being forced to reconsider the testing graduation requirements. There are currently two bills in the Washington State legislature that could help alleviate the pain.
House Bill 1046 would complete eliminate the requirement to pass any of the high-stakes exit exams for graduation. Proponents of corporate education reform, such as Stand for Children and the Business Roundtable, opposed the House bill and the Senate then drafted Bill 5891, which would only eliminate the biology end-of-course exam as a requirement for graduation—until the year 2021.
On Thursday, the Washington State Superintendent of Public Instruction, Chris Reykdal, announced he is asking the legislature to reach a compromise that would allow end all of the graduation test requirements until 2019. Then students who don’t pass one of the exams would have six alternative ways to graduate, including reaching a minimum score on college-entrance exams or taking a college-level course.


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Corporate-Elite Totalitarianism: Are we Creeping or Leaping?

Corporate-Elite Totalitarianism: Are we Creeping or Leaping?:

Corporate-Elite Totalitarianism: Are we Creeping or Leaping?
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 Pleas e join Internet radio host Dr. James Avington Miller Jr. and special guest Dr. Victoria M. Young for our second show on the Education Wars in American and Corporate-Elite Totalitarianism. Is American Creeping or Leaping Toward a Totalitarian State?

Dr. Young's focus has become education reform law because that is what the “transformers,” “deformers,” pseudo-reformers,” “privatizers” —whatever we want to call them— it is what they have done that has given them victories in the American Education Wars.

These people have taken the underlying tension about public education — the always-existing need to improve it — and used that platform of public frustration to present their transformational ideas but always, always, with the goal of getting their political agenda into law. That is how they have taken this country so far off the course envisioned by President Kennedy and put into law by President Johnson.

The only way we get this country back on track is to focus on the very same law the “privatizers” control.

Please read Dr. Young's latest articles:
http://thecrucialvoice.com/2017/06/03/corporate-elite-totalitarian-state/

http://thecrucialvoice.com/2017/05/28/education-lessons-jfk-left-behind/

Please listen this Sunday and learn how we can start a true Education Revolution that serves the children, not the “transformers,” “deformers,” pseudo-reformers,” and “privatizers”.

Knowledge is power !
RESISTANCE MATTERS
RESISTANCE IS NOT FUTILE
RESISTANCE IS THE HIGHEST FORM OF EXPRESSION OF DEMOCRACY
RESISTANCE IS SURVIVAL

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CURMUDGUCATION: ICYMI: Baby baby edition + Catch up with CURMUDGUCATION

CURMUDGUCATION: ICYMI: Baby baby edition:

ICYMI: Baby baby edition


 I'm a little behind on reading and writing this week, but on the plus side, I'm way ahead on babies. Here's some reading from the week behind us. Read and pass it on.

Some Unpopular Thoughts on Teacher Evaluation 

Mitchell Robinson with some interesting thoughts about how teacher evaluation ought to work.

Linking Graduation to High Stakes Testing Was a Mistake

An op-ed in the Seattle Times makes a strong case for not making diplomas dependent on the Big Standardized Test (PA legislators please note5).

Picturing Trump As the School Choice Guy

Rick Hess has some fun imagining what might happen if Trump puts his "adroit political skills, powerful rhetorical chops, and 39% approval to work" on school choice with an imaginary Trumpian speech on the policy.

The Histories of Personalization

Audrey Watters takes a long, detailed look at the history of the school personalization movement and the many ways in which it is not what it's cracked up to be.

Nothing Abstract about the Lessons of Play 

Wendy Lecker offers a great response to the NYT piece about rigorous pre-school.

New Jersey's Screwd up Charter System

Jersey Jazzman looks at why New Jersey's charter system is fundamentally flawed. 

When Philanthropists Rule

John Thompson offers a thoughtful review-in-parts of the Givers, the new book about the new kinmd of philanthropists.

School Readiness Fearmongering

Is your child behind? You don't know, and you don't need to care




 CURMUDGUCATION: ICYMI: Baby baby edition:


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How diplomas based on skill acquisition, not credits earned, could change education - The Hechinger Report

How diplomas based on skill acquisition, not credits earned, could change education - The Hechinger Report:

How diplomas based on skill acquisition, not credits earned, could change education



NEWPORT, Maine — Algebra was not Kylee Elderkin’s favorite subject at the beginning of the school year.
“I was a little behind,” said Kylee, 14. “I wouldn’t understand.”
The Nokomis Regional High School ninth grader said she used to routinely miss key skills and do poorly on tests. Struggling students like Kylee might not have made it through honors algebra in the past, said teacher Ellen Payne, who has taught high school math for 11 years. Payne said she used to “lose” four or five students a year from honors algebra; they’d have to drop down a level. In lower level classes, some would have to repeat the whole course.



This year Payne doesn’t expect to lose Kylee or anyone else.
That’s due to a new teaching approach here called “proficiency-based education,” that was inspired by a 2012 state law.
The law requires that by 2021, students graduating from Maine high schools must show they have mastered specific skills to earn a high school diploma. Maine is the first state to pass such a law, though the idea of valuing skills over credits is increasingly popular around the country. “Maine is the pioneer,” said Chris Sturgis, co-founder of CompetencyWorks, a national organization that advocates for the approach in K-12 schools.



This year’s nearly 13,500 eighth graders will be the first students required to meet the changed requirements, which are being phased in gradually. By 2021, schools must offer diplomas based students reaching proficiency in the four core academic subject areas: English, math, science and social studies. By 2025, four additional subject areas will be included: a second language, the arts, health and physical education.
When such a system works, it’s meant to offer students clarity about what they have to learn and how they are expected to demonstrate they’ve learned it. Students have more flexibility to learn at their own pace and teachers get time to provide extra help for students who need it. Ideally, every diploma in Maine would signify that students had mastered the state’s learning standards.
But the law grants local districts lots of leeway in determining what students must do to prove their proficiency, which means the value How diplomas based on skill acquisition, not credits earned, could change education - The Hechinger Report:

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The Sunday Times. | Fred Klonsky

The Sunday Times. | Fred Klonsky:

The Sunday Times


ct-charter-schools-potential-strike-photo-20170524
Unionized teachers in 32 of the city’s charter schools voted to merge with the Chicago Teachers Union this week, officials announced Friday.


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I was deeply saddened to hear Mayor Rahm Emanuel’s recent remarks criticizing efforts to create the first affordable housing for veterans and people with disabilities in Chicago’s Northwest Side neighborhood of Jefferson Park.
Residential segregation in Chicago has never been an accident. The corollary of this bitter truth is that today, intentional efforts by citizens and elected leaders to transcend our city’s segregation will not be free of contention, least of all when the deep fault lines of race and class are touched by a civic discussion. In this ongoing conversation, Emanuel’s recent words that anti-affordable housing activists “need to be heard” functions as an acquittal of racial animus, masquerading as a white-washed call for process.
I commend Ald. John Arena for his leadership and vision. The community process that he implemented was both rigorous and thoughtful. Hundreds of neighborhood residents attended informational meetings and some of them were contentious. What’s right is not always popular, and what’s popular is not always right. Arena isThe Sunday Times. | Fred Klonsky: 
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