Who, besides Rahm Emanuel, started the madness and destruction of public schools in Chicago?
Who is pulling his strings?
Penny Pritzker, billionaire heiress to the Hyatt fortunes, was appointed by Rahm Emanuel to the Board of Education for the Chicago Public Schools. Appointed, not elected. She strongly supported and voted for school closings even as she proudly invested in the charter schools which benefit by the tax money taken from public schools and granted to the charter. She even has a charter school named after herself. There are, of course, other public tax incentives that provide additional profit for charters. Penny has since stepped down as a School Board member ever since her
NEW YORK -- Anthony Weiner, the son of a former public school teacher, said his views on education run "deep in my bones."
Fresh off the announcement of his campaign for New York City mayor and Tuesday's promising poll numbers, the disgraced former congressman spoke at the first mayoral debate of his 2013 run. The debate, hosted by the union-funded New Yorkers for Great Public Schools, focused on education in the nation's largest school district.
Weiner sought to situate education within his middle-class message. The "pillars of the middle class ... are under duress, and it starts in our schools," he said.
The debate format cut candidates off fairly quickly and allowed little depth. Still, it became clear that Weinerjoins other mayoral candidates who have articulated views counter to New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg's polarizing policies on education.
Bloomberg's administration has stressed hiring and firing teachers in accordance with test scores, expanding
The Biggest Misconceptions About Teachers’ Unions—Debunked
Douglas Hodum, the president of the Maine Science Teachers’ Association, says many Americans need to rethink how they view teachers’ unions.
Teachers’ unions don’t always get the best press. This was especially apparent during the Chicago teachers’ strike last year. (Photo: Getty Images)
Unions are professional organizations. They provide services for teachers that cover an incredible gamut of purposes. Yet, despite all the positive work teachers’ unions do for students, and education in general, some groups continue to criticize these organizations without really understanding their purpose and their function.
Here are a few of the biggest misconceptions:
1. Unions protect bad teachers
People who believe unions’ sole purpose is to protect teachers often vilify unions in the public eye. The argument is that bad teachers are protected once they earn the dreaded “T” word: tenure. This is a major
UFT President Mulgrew says about 7% of teachers will have bad ratings under the new evaluation system. If this is the case, a lot more teachers will be looking at early retirement, a push off the cliff, or whatever you want to call losing your job over junk science. Around the country, the new junk science systems have not really changed things very much. If Mulgrew is right, NY is going to be worse off than most of the country, despite the fact that we're only at 40% junk science rather than 50 or more.
Another source of mine suggested that 7% is not the anticipated figure for NYC, but rather for NY State. This person further stated that this was expected to be the average, that suburbs were expected to have fewer bad ratings, and that urban areas with more high-needs students were expected to have more. So if that's true, prepare to see even more of our members facing unemployment, surely the only thing Mayor4Life wants.
It's my understanding the union already negotiated a plan to appeal these much more serious bad ratings. First of all, the burden of proof will not necessarily be on the DOE anymore. Up until now, they needed to establish your incompetence before firing you. Now, a "validator" will observe you year two, after your bad rating. If the validator says thumbs up, you're fantastic, they will still need to establish your incompetence. However, if the validator says you stink, you will need to prove you are NOT incompetent, and your tenure will mean virtually nothing.
Sometimes I go to meetings and UFT reps find my concern over the new evaluation system so hilarious they
Nine California districts resubmitted their application Tuesday for a waiver from key provisions and sanctions of the No Child Left Behind law after spending weeks revising the application in response to dozens of questions by a panel of reviewers from the U.S. Department of Education.
If approved, the application by members of the umbrella organization California Office to Reform Education, or CORE, would be a first. Secretary of Education Arne Duncan has approved waivers for 37 states with eight more states under review. This would be the only waiver granted to a group of districts, albeit one serving more a million students, and the approach, based on collaboration among teachers and districts and an accountability system deemphasizing standardized test scores, would be distinct. The CORE applicants include some of the state’s largest unified districts – Los Angeles, Long Beach, Fresno, San Francisco, Sacramento City and Santa Ana – along with Clovis, Sanger and Oakland.
State Superintendent of Public Instruction Tom Torlakson announced last week that the state would not be submitting its request this year, eliminating a potential conflict with CORE – at least for next
Penny Pritzker, billionaire heiress to the Hyatt fortunes, was appointed by Rahm Emanuel to the Board of Education for the Chicago Public Schools. Appointed, not elected. She strongly supported and voted for school closings even as she proudly invested in the charter schools which benefit by the tax money taken from public schools and granted to the charter. She even has a charter school named after herself. There are, of course, other public tax incentives that provide additional profit for charters.
UFT President Mulgrew says about 7% of teachers will have bad ratings under the new evaluation system. If this is the case, a lot more teachers will be looking at early retirement, a push off the cliff, or whatever you want to call losing your job over junk science. Around the country, the new junk science systems have not really changed things very much. If Mulgrew is right, NY is going to be worse off than most of the country, despite the fact that we're only at 40% junk science rather than 50 or more.
