Friday, August 3, 2012

Common Core: A Bonanza for E-Corps « Diane Ravitch's blog

Common Core: A Bonanza for E-Corps « Diane Ravitch's blog:


Common Core: A Bonanza for E-Corps

A story in the New York Times says that the e-corporations are salivating over the Common Core State Standards.
They foresee the opening up of a multi-billion industry, with more tests, more online resources, more stuff to sell to schools complying with the Common Core.
The standards are indeed a boon for the edu-biz entrepreneurs.
It turns out that Joanne Weiss, chief of staff to Secretary Arne Duncan, was right when she predicted that the standards would open up vast new markets. She wrote:
The development of common standards and shared assessments radically alters the market for innovation in 



Michigan Court OKs Referendum on Emergency Manager Law

Opponents of Michigan’s emergency manager law want the law repealed as anti-democratic.
Well, it does allow an appointed person to overrule any decisions made by elected bodies, which does seem anti-democratic on its face.
They gathered 200,000 signatures, 40,000 more than the law requires to get a referendum on the ballot.
Supporters of the emergency manager law argued that the petitions were in the wrong font size and should be


A Teacher Explains It All to Campbell Brown

Campbell Brown, as we have recently learned, doesn’t like the teachers’ union.
She wrote an opinion piece in the Wall Street Journal asserting that the union protects sexual predators in the classroom.
She thinks that the arbitration process, by which an accused teacher gets a chance to defend against accusations, is rigged to favor the union.
She thinks that when the union and the New York City Department of Education jointly agree on the name of an arbitrator, the arbitrator will be biased in favor of the union and will seek to please the union by protecting sexual