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Saturday, November 10, 2012

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What Grades Do You Give to a First Grader?

This rural teacher says his head is about to explode.
The state says he has to give test after test after test to his first graders.
Then he has to convert those scores into a letter grade.
This doesn’t make any sense to him.
The children are just beginning to make sense of letters and words.



Rhee’s Organization Vindicates Rhee’s Reforms

Michelle Rhee founded The New Teacher Project. Rhee, of course, was then chancellor of the DC school system for four tumultuous years. One of the people who worked for Rhee at The New Teacher Project was Kaya Henderson, who is now chancellor of the DC schools.
So if you want to get a truly rigorous, definitely independent study of Rhee’s reforms, what group should be hired to do the review? Obvious: The New Teacher Project!
Here is the not surmising conclusion of the study: Rhee’s reforms are working! Great teachers are retained, bad 



A Local School Board Member in Pennsylvania Is a Hero of Public Education

Lawrence A. Feinberg is a member of the Haverford Township school board in Pennsylvania.
He is a hero of public education and a model for parents, educators and activists across the nation.
He is a businessman who cares passionately about public education.
Feinberg runs an outstanding website that keeps parents and educators (and people like me who don’t live in Pennsylvania) informed about the events in the state.
Here is a great example of the information that mobilizes parents and activists. In this post, Feinberg and fellow volunteers follow the money and the legislation that affect the future of public education. This one shows how $4 



A Teacher Describes Parents’ Reaction to Privatization in Memphis

A teacher in Memphis writes about how parents in her school reacted to the announcement that it would be taken over by the Achievement School District and turned into a charter school. Her school is poor but it has made steady growth and is not one of the lowest performing schools in the city. The media in Memphis, she says, is not reporting the genuine rage of the local black community:
First, see this article in my local paper about the state takeover of 10 more schools and the meetings about that takeover:



Privatization Picks Up Steam in Memphis

A teacher writes to report that the privatization movement plans to take over her school and several others in Memphis.
The schools slated for privatization are not the district’s lowest performing.
She is not pleased and feels sure that the charter operators picked her school because it is doing well, not failing.
Tennessee now has a solid rightwing majority in the state legislature, a rightwing governor, and a TFA state 



EduShyster Has Discovered an Entire Family of Rephormers

Who knew? An entire family in the reform/privatization business.
The pater familias is a major publisher in Minneapolis. And all the offspring are busily closing the gaps. They are paving the way for a dramatic expansion of the charter sector.
If you read the link in the post by EduShyster, be sure to read the comments that follow.
I find these stories about miracle schools really annoying. The implicit assumption is that if we can do it, why 



Who Bought the Charter Initiative in Washington State?

Is democracy for sale?
Apparently it is in Washington State.
Three times the voters turned down a charter amendment.
In this election, a small number of extremely rich people decided they really wanted charters.
So they raised $10 million to beat back the parents and educators of the state, who could not match their 


What Will Obama Do Now?

Will anything change in Obama’s second term?
More testing, more charter schools, more school closings?
Joy Resmovits asks around for Huffington Post.
She says that if Duncan should leave–which is unllikely–he might be replaced by Rhee



“Brooklyn Castle” on the Jon Stewart “Daily Show”

Jon Stewart is public education’s best friend in the media.
Maybe because his mother was a public school teacher.
Of course.
He interviewed the director/producer of the wonderful film “Brooklyn Castle” and one of the lead students on the school’s chess team.
It will be  your heart good to hear the student, Pobo, talk about how great his teachers were and why people