CURMUDGUCATION: David Coleman Messes Up Again

CURMUDGUCATION: David Coleman Messes Up Again:

David Coleman Messes Up Again

I have spent entirely much time over the past few years reading about David Coleman, the magical and super-powered wizard who manufactured the Common Core and convinced Bill Gates to become the Core's greatest patron. Coleman needed to set the Core up with a foster parent because as soon as the little tyke's wings had begun to spread, Coleman was out the door to his next gig-- a well-paying gig running the College Board and remaking the infamous SAT test.

And now Renee Dudley at Reuters brings us a detailed account of how badly Coleman screwed up that job.

None of what Dudley reports will come as a surprise to long-time Coleman watchers. The Core architect has several key characteristics that shine through.

First and foremost, Coleman is soaked in hubris. It's not just that he somehow came to believe that he should personally redefine what it means to be an educated person in this country. When you read him in interview after interview, you notice that he never gives credit to anyone. No "I depended heavily on the work of Scholar McWisdom" or "I certainly didn't do this alone. The help of Worky McColleague was invaluable." Interviewers address him as if he wrote the whole damn thing single-handedly, and he doesn't correct them. Coleman believes that he can fix the American education system, K-16, all by himself and eradicate social injustice in the process. He believes he is CURMUDGUCATION: David Coleman Messes Up Again:


CURMUDGUCATION: School Choice Won't Save Education - http://curmudgucation.blogspot.com/2016/12/school-choice-wont-save-education.html

Illinois Education Association is organizing buses to the Women’s March in Washington. Info here. | Fred Klonsky

Illinois Education Association is organizing buses to the Women’s March in Washington. Info here. | Fred Klonsky:

Illinois Education Association is organizing buses to the Women’s March in Washington. Info here.

From: Crawford, Tim
Sent: Friday, December 09, 2016 11:01 PM
To: AllField; AllHQ
Subject: Women’s March on Washington
Importance: High

Dear Colleagues,

IEA is looking into booking two buses to transport members, IEA staff, friends and family to Washington, DC for the Women’s March on Washington set for Saturday January 21, 2017. This is an opportunity for those who are interested. One bus would leave from Lombard on Friday, January 20, 2017 and the other would leave from Springfield (PDC) at 6:30 PM. We need to gauge your interest in “getting on the bus” for this event. The cost per seat is $150. If there, is sufficient interest, we will book the buses. Use the “yes/no” buttons or reply (please do NOT hit “Reply All”) to this email to show interest. Please respond on or before Thursday, December 15, 2016.

Here are the details of the plan as we know them at the moment:

Departures and Arrivals for both buses

OUTBOUND TRIPS DEPART: Friday, January 20, 2017 6:30 PM

OUTBOUND TRIPS ARRIVE: Saturday, January 21, 10:00 AM

ARRIVES AT: Union Station, DC

RETURN TRIPS DEPART: Saturday, January 21, 6:30 PM*

*BUSES DEPART 45 MINUTES AFTER EVENT ENDS or 6:30 PM, whichever is earlier

BUSES DEPART FROM: Union Station, Washington, DC

RETURN TRIPS ARRIVE LOMBARD OR SPRINGFIELD: Sunday, January 22, 10:00 AM

CAPACITY: 53 seats

COST PER SEAT: $150

For each bus we would need:

COORDINATOR: To coordinate with bus company, bus captains, and Women’s March on Washington organizers

BUS CAPTAINS: We need a Captain for each bus. The Captain would be responsible for taking tickets from riders, maintaining a list of riders, and making sure that all riders are accounted for.

Other information for bus riders:

WE WILL SLEEP ON THE BUS. No hotel rooms.

WHAT TO BRING ON THE BUS: You can bring bags and small coolers on the bus with food, drinks and snacks, no glass bottles and food that isn’t “drippy” (no ice cream, etc.). We suggest a small backpack for the march with food and water. Food vendors may be overwhelmed in Washington, DC so it is best to be prepared with your own food. Bring a pillow and blanket if you wish. There is a space under the bus for larger items. Your stuff will be locked up on the bus while it is parked, but take purses and valuables just in case.

WHAT TO WEAR: Layers are recommended. January is usually cold and sometimes snowy in DC. Gloves, mittens, hats, ear muffs, scarves, long undies, whatever will keep you warm, dry and comfortable.Illinois Education Association is organizing buses to the Women’s March in Washington. Info here. | Fred Klonsky:

Show me the data! Government restrictions hamper attempts to see how NOLA kids really fare - The Hechinger Report

Show me the data! Government restrictions hamper attempts to see how NOLA kids really fare - The Hechinger Report:

Show me the data! Government restrictions hamper attempts to see how NOLA kids really fare

re are some key recent findings about the youth of New Orleans during the last year: Their numbers are up five percent from 2014 to 2015 — but the number of black children living in the city during the same period dropped.

More are graduating from high school, but the average price of college is higher for low-income students. While the city’s youth poverty rate dropped six percentage points to 37 percent from 2014 to 2015, it still surpasses the state and national rates of 28 percent and 20 percent respectively.

These findings come from the Data Center’s newly released New Orleans Youth Index 2016, of which I am the lead author. The report provides a statistical snapshot of New Orleans children and youth. Borne out of the efforts of youth-centered service providers, the Index publishes baseline tools using data that help advocates develop strategies for improving academic, social, and behavioral outcomes of children and youth up to age 24.

But there’s a problem: Basic data that might inform ways of solving pressing education problems weren’t included in the final document because the state did not make the data available.

And when government agencies don’t make data widely accessible – as in the case of Louisiana – research organizations, educators and parents don’t have information they need to help and inform the public.

Related: Do black students really need college to get high paying jobs?

“We spent months trying to get basic aggregated demographic data from the Louisiana Department of Education and we were met with long delays or unjustifiable denials,” said Allison Plyer, executive Show me the data! Government restrictions hamper attempts to see how NOLA kids really fare - The Hechinger Report:

Why so many teachers need a second job to make ends meet - The Washington Post

Why so many teachers need a second job to make ends meet - The Washington Post:

Why so many teachers need a second job to make ends meet

Teachers have it easy, right? They get summers off, go home in the middle of the afternoon when students leave campus, and are paid well. Actually, for most teachers, those are all myths, especially the last one.

Many teachers are paid so poorly, in fact, that they have to take second jobs to pay their bills. A study released earlier this year found that in 2015, the weekly wages of public school teachers in the United States were 17 percent lower than comparable college-educated professionals — and those most hurt were veteran teachers and male teachers.

[Think teachers aren’t paid enough? It’s worse than you think.]

This is a post about what teachers face when it comes to making an adequate living. It was written by Nínive Calegari, a former classroom teacher who is the founder of  The Teacher Salary Project, a nonpartisan organization whose mission is to raise awareness about the effects on the country of underpaying and under-valuing teachers. She is also co-founder of 826 Valencia/National, a nonprofit organization that provides support to seven writing and tutoring centers around the country.

Calegari recently co-authored a brief entitled “Improving Teacher Pay to Ensure Good Teachers For All Students” with Ellen Sherratt and Hannah Kraus. She is the co-author (along with Daniel Moulthrop and Dave Eggers) of “Teachers Have it Easy,” and she is the co-producer (along with Dave Eggers, Vanessa Roth, and Brian McGinn) of the film “American Teacher.”

[‘All these teachers do is whine’ — and other myths about educators]

By Nínive Calegari

Kory O’Rourke teaches English at a public high school in San Francisco. She has 125 students spread over 5 classes. She starts her days at 6 a.m. and works without stopping — not for a lunch date, not for Internet shopping. She works at full speed, all day and then grades and preps at night. This week, she’s teaching her classes, helping her students turn in missing work, Why so many teachers need a second job to make ends meet - The Washington Post:

U.S. Officially Trapped in High School | the becoming radical

U.S. Officially Trapped in High School | the becoming radical:

U.S. Officially Trapped in High School

Electing Donald Trump verifies that the U.S. is officially trapped in high school.

The bravado and superficial qualities that made people popular in high school—but for most of us wore thin by early adulthood—are all that Trump has, but it earned him the White House because enough people in the U.S. suffer from arrested development, permanent adolescence.

As a nerdy, self-conscious, and insecure teen, I knew this process well. My brief stinks into the popular came from my bold profanities (stolen mostly from George Carlin and Richard Pryor) and beer guzzling at rates that outdid my friends.

All that cool was idiotic, embarrassing—and effective among my high school peers.

By the time most of us are well into our 20s, that “cool” becomes “adolescent”—in other words, a way of being we put well behind us.

Like my first-year writing students, you may think from the above comments that I dislike adolescence, but that isn’t true.

I loved teaching high school because I love adolescents; however, my affection for teens is that it is a phase, a transition from childhood to adulthood.

Teens live and view the world in a sort of constant hyperbole that is infectious—as long as it eventually evolves into a somewhat tempered joy grounded in reality. Too often, we swing from the wild idealism of youth to the fatalistic cynicism of adulthood without finding a healthy balance.

But the U.S., alas, is stuck in adolescence; we think the biggest and most hollow jerk in the country is cool.

Among the pundits, this adolescent thinking is being framed as post-truth, and it isn’t anything new as evidenced by the ways in which my first-year students write; for example, consider these passages:

Racism is a trending topic in America today. The topic makes many people uncomfortable, so it is not so much spoke about. Racism exists in numerous different type of environments in numerous places. Although there are many different places racism exists, the place that I believe racism should be eliminated the most is the business environment.

Growing up in today’s culture promotes a fascination with being skinny. Today there may be body positive movements and love yourself movements, but back the late 90’s early 2000’s, we, the people of my generation, learned that skinny was beautiful.

American history is filled with examples of pain and suffering as a result of drug usage. Arguments regarding the legalization of habit-forming substances are not new.

Adolescent thinking is ofU.S. Officially Trapped in High School | the becoming radical:ten characterized by overstatement, a lack of evidence, and a paradoxical vagueness 

What The Hillsdale College Connection Reveals About Donald Trump’s Extremist Education Agenda

What The Hillsdale College Connection Reveals About Donald Trump’s Extremist Education Agenda:

What The Hillsdale College Connection Reveals About Donald Trump’s Extremist Education Agenda

Donald Trump’s election to the US Presidency left education policy experts at a complete loss to explain what this would mean for the nation’s schools. During his campaign, Trump had given few clues about what would inform his education leadership, only that he had some antipathy for the US Department of Education, that he was no fan of Common Core, and that he would advocate for more “school choice.”

After his election, experienced education journalists at Education Week predicted Trump would embrace conservative Beltway think tanks and state education policy leaders who had bristled under the rule of Obama’s education department, and he would reject the influence of teachers unions, civil rights groups, and politically centrist education “reform” groups.

Many who pointed out “personnel is policy,” speculated Trump would pick an Education Secretary from the ranks of his transition advisers who came mostly from the above mentioned DC-based circles and state government centers. Other knowledgeable sources predicted Trump might draw education policy knowhow from “outsider” sources, such as the military, big business, or the charter school industry.

No one – not a single source I can find – anticipated Trump would look for education expertise in the deep, dark well he repeatedly seems to draw from – the extremist, rightwing evangelical community.

The DeVos Nomination

The first clue that Trump would embed the extremist views of radical Christian orthodoxy in the White House’s education policy apparatus was his nomination of Betsy DeVos to be the nation’s next Secretary of Education.

As Politico reports, DeVos is a “billionaire philanthropist” who “once compared her work in education reform to a biblical battleground where she wants to ‘advance God’s Kingdom.'”

Politico reporters point to numerous recordings and interviews in which Betsy DeVos and her husband Dick, a billionaire heir to the Amway fortune, promote education policies as avenues to “greater Kingdom gain … lament that public schools have ‘displaced’ the Church as the center of communities, and refer to their efforts to advance private, religious schools as a “‘Shephelah,’ an area where battles – including between David and Goliath – were fought in the Old Testament.

In an op-ed for the New York Times, Katherine Stewart, an expert observer What The Hillsdale College Connection Reveals About Donald Trump’s Extremist Education Agenda:

Alert: @NAACP Holding Charter School Hearings Across Nation – Cloaking Inequity

Alert: @NAACP Holding Charter School Hearings Across Nation – Cloaking Inequity:

Alert: @NAACP Holding Charter School Hearings Across Nation

The NAACP’s most recent national resolution on charter schools has elicited a vigorous discourse about charter schools in the United States. The nation’s largest and oldest civil right organization is also a democratic, community-based organization. The National Board of the NAACP after its vote to support a charter moratorium (See Breaking News: Charter Resolution Ratified by @NAACP National Board) announced the National Task Force for Quality Education on October 15. This new group is charged with studying education quality, “until safeguards are in place to provide better transparency regarding accountability, and to prevent cases of fraud and mismanagement.”

The task force will be taking input from advocates, teachers, parents, and policy experts across the nation. The task force will focus primarily on issues surrounding “inadequate school funding, charter school accountability and its impact on school funding for under-funded districts.”

Alice Huffman is the chairman of the task force and president of the California NAACP State Conference. This task force also includes Hazel Dukes, Michael Curry, Gloria Sweet-Love, Derrick Johnson, Scot Esdaile, Da’Quan Love, Robin Williams, Peter Rose, Adora Obi Nweze, James Gallman and Philip Murphy. Ms. Huffman stated,

[New Haven is the] first of several hearings around the nation taking a deep look at the issues facing public schools, as well as the pros and cons of charter schools… By bringing people from our community together from both sides, we can bridge the gap in the issue of accountability between public schools and charters.

The task force hosted the first of seven public hearings about issues involving public education and charter school oversight in New Haven, CT.  The event was located to draw individuals from the Tri-state area and throughout New England. It was the first public session for the task force of National NAACP officials charged with studying and recommending education policy. Key participants included:

• James Comer, Yale University
• Steve Perry, Capital Preparatory Magnet School
• Edward Joyner, New Haven Board of Education
• Jeremiah Grace, Director, North East Charter School Network
• Gary Highsmith, HR Director, Hamden Board of Education
• Tenicka Boyd of Students First NY

The New Haven hearing lasted for about 4 hours. So it requires some patience to make it all the way to the end.

(In some cases, you might want to throw tomatoes at presenters. That’s not possible on a YouTube video.)

here will be future hearings across the United States. Task force members will invite policy experts to present at the hearing in 15 minute segments. Members of the public can also sign up to speak. Visitors seeking to speak are asked to register one hour before the session begins. To accommodate the public, individual speakers may be asked to adhere to a time limit or appoint a representative to speak on behalf of a group.

The current hearings are:

Memphis, TN January 7 or 10, 2017

Orlando, FL January 27, 2017

Los Angeles, CA February 9, 2017

Detroit, MI TBD

New Orleans, LA TBD

This is the opportunity for members of communities of color to have voice about their experiences in charter schools and provide input for the reform of a reform to provide more transparency and accountability to ensure the civil rights of students are not being violated in charter schools.

For all of Cloaking Inequity’s about the NAACP and charters click here.

For all of Cloaking Inequity’s posts about charters click here.

Founded in 1909, the NAACP is the nation’s oldest and largest nonpartisan civil rights organization. Its members throughout the United States and the world are the premier advocates for civil rights in their communities. You can read more about the NAACP’s work and our six “Game Changer” issue areas here.

Special thanks to NAACP communications for verbiage paraphrased and used verbatim in this post.

p.s. Check out our conversation about charters on Alert: @NAACP Holding Charter School Hearings Across Nation – Cloaking Inequity:

Kevin Johnson: It's All Over But The Crying - Recalling KJ’s reign of error as mayor

Mayor Kevin Johnson Gets Brisk Farewell From Sacramento Kings
Kevin Johnson: It's All Over But The Crying Recalling KJ’s reign of error as mayor

SACRAMENTO (CBS13) — It was a grand finale moment that seemed more awkward than an honor.

In a brand new arena that could have housed a spectacular farewell for Mayor Kevin Johnson, the mayor got an autographed basketball from Kings owner Vivek Ranadive. And after the two-minute time out ended, the ceremony was over. Johnson left without speaking to reporters.

It was a surprise for fans watching the brief tribute at center court.

“I wasn’t expecting it,” Kings fan Ramon Rivera said. ”I wasn’t expecting the time. I don’t know how long it should have been.”

Kings fan Mary Rost believes PR surrounding resurfacing allegations of Johnson’s sexual misconduct that led ESPN to shelve a planned Sacramento Kings “30 For 30” documentary is playing a role in the mayor’s unceremonious farewell.

RELATED: Accusations Against Sacramento Mayor Kevin Johnson Back In Spotlight On HBO’s Real Sports

“We all have things in our past that we’ve done, and we’ve all grown, and matured and become better people for it and that’s what happened to him,” Rost said.

The Kings’ tribute to Johnson followed last week’s request by Sacramento council members to have the Kings raise a Mayor KJ jersey In the Golden 1 Center, to hang with past Kings greats whose numbers are retired.

“I think they should name the court after him,” Kings fan Danny Beckham said.

ALSO READ: Source: Security Footage Reveals Little From Matt Barnes Nightclub Incident

A new building. A new owner. But the old Sacramento kings saga is never-ending.

City of Sacramento Vice Mayor Rick Jennings says he’ll continue working with the Kings in hopes of a bigger tribute in the future.

Mayor Johnson will hand over mayoral powers to Mayor-Elect Daryl Steinberg on Tuesday.Mayor Kevin Johnson Gets Brisk Farewell From Sacramento Kings

Kevin Johnson Shamed By The Team He Saved On Last Night As Mayor - http://deadspin.com/kevin-johnson-shamed-by-the-team-he-saved-on-last-night-1790059673 on @deadspin

Ed Goldman: Recalling KJ’s reign as mayor - Sacramento Business Journal - http://www.bizjournals.com/sacramento/news/2016/12/15/ed-goldman-recalling-kj-s-reign-as-mayor.html on @Sacbiz

Donald Trump Keeps Meeting With Sports Figures Who Have Physically Abused Other People | The Big Lead - http://wp.me/p3LRnW-2kaf by @sportsrapport on @thebiglead

Kevin Johnson: A Retrospective On Eight Years As Sacramento Mayor - capradio.org - http://www.capradio.org/news/insight/2016/12/15/insight-121516a/

Kevin Johnson had an awkward moment with Kings CEO Vivek Ranadive - http://wp.me/p7ShJJ-hBxc on @mercnews

New Sacramento Mayor Steinberg swaps fancy SUV for used Ford sedan | The Sacramento Bee - http://www.sacbee.com/news/local/news-columns-blogs/city-beat/article120940738.html on sacbee_news

Darrell Steinberg Hits the Streets on First Official Day as Mayor | FOX40 - http://via.fox40.com/VWAhf via @FOX40

Big Education Ape: SacBee Last Dance with KJ: Johnson leaves Sacramento on upswing | The Sacramento Bee - http://bigeducationape.blogspot.com/2016/12/sacbee-last-dance-with-kj-johnson.html

Big Education Ape: Timeline of Mayor Kevin Johnson's life in Sacramento | The Sacramento Bee - http://bigeducationape.blogspot.com/2016/12/timeline-of-mayor-kevin-johnsons-life.html

Protecting more than privacy in K-12 sector | CSO Online

Protecting more than privacy in K-12 sector | CSO Online:

Protecting more than privacy in K-12 sector

Regulations protect privacy, but what about the overall cybersecurity of public schools that already function on limited resources

Parent Coalition for Student Privacy -http://www.studentprivacymatters.org/

 Larger enterprises have the resources to not only afford the technology needed to grow in the digital age, but they also have the budget and manpower to build security into their overall ecosystems.

Does the K-12 education sector have the means to do the same? As the use of technology becomes more prevalent in public schools, will collecting more data potentially increase the cybersecurity risks for the K-12 sector?

Earlier this fall, the Center for Data Innovation released a report, Building a Data-Driven Education System in the United States, in which they said 93 percent of teachers are regularly using digital tools to assist classroom instruction in some capacity.

Researchers want to leverage that data to transform education; however, these escalating plans for using data collection to advance public education raise questions about the risks to schools.

MORE ON CSO:Lost in the clouds: Your private data has been indexed by Google

Keith Lowry, senior vice president, Nuix USG, a global security intelligence firm, said, "K-12 runs at the state and local level, and they are individually going to be responsible for the protection of those infrastructures."

Who then, at the state and local level, is thinking about security in education? "In general terms," said Lowry, "most people and organizations including government agencies are either turning a blind eye or are not technologically tuned in to the tremendous threat that happens to be at our doorstep in ourProtecting more than privacy in K-12 sector | CSO Online:

 Big Education Ape: Nearly half of education-vendor websites tested had security problems, audit reveals - The Hechinger Report - http://bigeducationape.blogspot.com/2016/12/nearly-half-of-education-vendor.html

Are the H-1B-Using Gulen Charter Schools About to Face Hard Times? | Center for Immigration Studies

Are the H-1B-Using Gulen Charter Schools About to Face Hard Times? | Center for Immigration Studies:

Are the H-1B-Using Gulen Charter Schools About to Face Hard Times?

Off in a small corner of the immigration policy world there is an intriguing side-show – it is a battle which pits one group of conservatives against another in a fascinating contest that the mainstream media has all but ignored.

In one corner there is a player as reactionary as they come, the Islamic president/dictator of Turkey; in the other is a conservative Islamic religious leader, another Turk, and his allies in the American charter school movement.

Turkey's authoritarian's ruler is Recep Erdogan; he is at loggerheads with his former ally, Fethullah Gulen, the self-exiled leader of an Islamic cult that is devoted to undoing the reforms of modern Turkey's George Washington, Kamal Ataturk. Gulen's followers in the U.S. have created a series of charter schools which use public school moneys, via staff extortions, to support the cult's activities. The Gulen schools, which have also used political contributions to shore up their position, are charters, and, as such, are sheltered by conservatives promoting charters generally. Erdogan has said that he wants Gulen extradited from Pennsylvania to Turkey because of his alleged ties to the failed coup in Turkey.

Why is this of any interest to immigration policy types?

In spite of the presence of tens, perhaps hundreds, of thousands of unemployed U.S.-trained teachers, Gulen's schools continue to use local tax funds to secure H-1B visas for, and to provide wages for, teachers from Turkey, including in a few cases English teachers, as we have reported previously.

Why are the Gulen schools so interested in recruiting Turkish teachers (and often paying them more than U.S. teachers in the same schools)? To some extent it is a Tammany Hall sort of nepotism – let's use public funds to help our landsmen – but there is another apparent motive. According to a long, detailed, and stinging report by LA Weekly, there is a highly organized, systematic shake-down of Turkish teachers to benefit Gulen cult organizations. The name of one of Gulen's collectors in one of his school systems, the amounts raised, and their transportation, in cash, to cult meetings are all spelled out in detail.

While efforts have been made in Georgia and in southern California to shut down some of the Gulen schools (for their hiring and financing malpractices), no one has been indicted, at least not yet.

Meanwhile, the Gulen schools have been investigated by the FBI for years, newspapers have printed multiple exposes, a state auditor caught a Gulen operation in Oklahoma obtaining more than $4 million via grossly inflated rent charges from public funds, and an excellent documentary film, "Killing Ed," has been produced on all this corruption.

Why, with all this evidence, has no one been charged with anything?

I asked this question of Robert Amsterdam, a Canadian lawyer retained by the government of Turkey to look into these matters; he said he was puzzled too, and suggested that (1) charter schools have a lot of support, particularly from conservatives, and (2) maybe the CIA was discouraging any federal action.

In addition, I think there may be a hesitation in some journalistic circles (a whiff of political correctness, if you will) to examine a system which relates to a particular nationality, that of the Turks.

Further, I think the facts are so hard to believe -- U.S. public school moneys being used to fund intra-Islamic Are the H-1B-Using Gulen Charter Schools About to Face Hard Times? | Center for Immigration Studies: