Latest News and Comment from Education

Monday, March 18, 2013

Lane student protest blocked this morning. UPDATED INSIDE PHOTO. | Fred Klonsky

Lane student protest blocked this morning. UPDATED INSIDE PHOTO. | Fred Klonsky


Lane student protest blocked this morning. UPDATED INSIDE PHOTO.

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Photo: John Kugler
Word is coming from contacts inside Lane that the student sit-in that was planned this morning for the school library has been blocked.
lane_tech_student_protestThe protest was organized in response to the banning of the book, Persepolis.
What I am hearing is that the principal Dr. Dignam, was not present as promised. CPS district Network officials were on site. The library was locked.
Books banned.
Peaceful protest blocked.
What they call a teachable moment?
More to come.


Stopping K-12 Inc. sleazy charter’s move into west suburban schools.

From Northern Illinois Jobs with Justice:
K12 Inc.’s education track record is under growing fire – and we can stop their scheme to siphon tens of millions of tax dollars for public education from more than a dozen Fox Valley local school districts!
Local residents and school district members packed a Geneva church on March 18 to learn more about – and organize against – a rapidly breaking scheme by a for-profit charter school company to siphon thousands of students and millions in funds from school districts that serve Cook, Kane and DuPage County communities. The company, K12 Inc., has come under fire in other states for shoddy management practices that range from misleading investors to covering up poor student performance.
We can stop K12 Inc.’s attempt to establish a “virtual” charter school in 18 Fox River Valley school districts – but we need to mobilize! Local school districts are holding public hearings on this scheme from March 18-20 – and we need you there to ask hard questions of the company’s representatives and challenge this profit-taking scheme.
K12’s dubious track record includes charges from dozens of former K12 employees that management manipulated data on enrollment, student performance and attendance to cover up shoddy education and high student turnover in Pennsylvania and other states. InFlorida, teachers charged that K12 Inc. tried to force them to falsify attendance records. The company has been accused of assigning hundreds of students to a single teacher, and last year Georgia officials threatened to close K12 Inc.’s online school over issues with special education students – a state where K12 students fall in the bottom 11% of student performance.
 K12 Inc. has one agenda – to take public tax dollars out of our publicly accountable schools and feed its executive salaries at the expense of quality education standards. Our kids, our parents and our taxpayers deserve better. Please spread the word about these critical public hearings among your friends, neighbors and family members – and be there to defend public dollars for accountable public education.

Upcoming public school district hearings on K12 virtual charter high school application:


Political cowardice and calling their bluff.

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Senator Mike Noland danced around questions from retirees.
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Teacher Retirement System Executive Director Richard Ingram.
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TRS Annuitant Trustee Bob Lyons.

It was a long drive in the slushy morning rush hour traffic to an Illinois Retired Teacher Association Area meeting in Randall Oaks. That’s past Elgin.
But by pension-issue standards it was star-studded.
Local Democratic State Senator Michael Noland of the 22nd Senatorial District. That’s Elgin.
Richard Ingram, Executive Director of the Teacher Retirement System.
And Bob Lyons, Annuitant (that’s me) Trustee of TRS.
On the pension issue, Noland represents political cowardice.
He admits that he believes the current pension cutting proposals are unconstitutional. Yet he will vote for them


Almost a million a little earlier than expected.


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I didn’t expect to hit a million site visits until the end of the month.
Thanks to the CPS idiocracy it will happen in the next 24 hours. Traffic over the weekend has been busy.
As I write this I have about 600 more site visits to go
To celebrate one million site visits I have been sponsoring a contest.
Submit a tweet, haiku or limerick on a topic covered by this blog.
The winner gets the orange t-shirt.
The decision of the judges (that’s me) is final.
600 to go. A couple of hours.
Still time to submit an entry.