UPDATE: As Ed Deform Failures Mount, Mid-Course Correction for Former Cheerleaders Merrow, Goldstein, Weingarten Ed Notes Online

Ed Notes Online: Dana Goldstein on L.A. Teacher Alex Caputo-Pearl and the Real Deal Behind Closing Schools:

As Ed Deform Failures Mount, Mid-Course Correction for Former Cheerleaders Merrow, Goldstein, Weingarten

by ed notes online

Cheating is not the problem that must be addressed. It is the most visible and disturbing symptom of the disease, but the disease itself is our excessive reliance on high stakes testing... John Merrow

Dana Goldstein has done a lot of credulous and awful reporting on so-called ed reform, accepting many of its premises and lies. She's also a fellow at the neoliberal New America Foundation. I gave up my subscription to The Nation after many years because she and Noguera were the main voices on the topic... Michael Fiorillo

Michael was commenting on my last post covering Dana Goldstein's piece (Dana Goldstein on L.A. Teacher Alex Caputo-Pearl and the Real Deal Behind Closing Schools).Alex Caputo-Pearl, a 22-year TFA vet still teaching, has been a major freedom fighter opposing ed deform.


I woke up this morning to find this excellent post from John Merrow:

Arne Duncan’s Moment of Truth
As two powerful forces collide at this moment in educational history, Secretary of Education Arne Duncan has an opportunity to make a mid-course correction that could save public education.

Merrow had a mid-course correction of his own after helping push Michelle Rhee to star status. Maybe 

Dana Goldstein on L.A. Teacher Alex Caputo-Pearl and the Real Deal Behind Closing Schools

by ed notes online

On Monday, half the teachers at Crenshaw High School in Los Angeles found out they had been dismissed from their jobs as part of a "conversion" process. Among them was Alex Caputo-Pearl, who I first met two years ago when I reported on Crenshaw. This isn't the first time the district has attempted to remove Caputo-Pearl, an outspoken activist, from Crenshaw. In 2006, as he was organizing neighborhood parents to fight for better school resources, such as up-to-date computers, he was forcibly transfered to a more affluent school across town. Parents complained and he was eventually reinstated. Caputo-Pearl is part of a dissident, left caucus within the L.A. teachers' union, and he has written in the New York Times about why he has become a critic of Teach for America. He opposes tying teacher evaluation and pay to student test scores, and is critical of the expansion of the charter school sector. 

---- Dana Goldstein,  "An Activist Teacher, a Struggling School, and the School Closure Movement: A Story from L.A."

I met Alex Caputo-Pearl in July 2009 at a conference in L.A. of education activists from around the nation, including 5 members of Chicago's fairly new CORE Caucus which would win the Chicago Teachers union