Latest News and Comment from Education

Thursday, August 15, 2013

8-15-13 Perdido Street School

Perdido Street School:






New Marist Poll Out Tonight Shows Momentum For Bill De Blasio
The de Blasio momentum is for real:The topsy-turvy race for New York's Democratic mayoral nomination has shifted again, with Public Advocate Bill de Blasio surging to a statistical tie with City Council Speaker Christine Quinn and former comptroller Bill Thompson in striking distance, a new poll shows.Disgraced former New York Rep. Anthony Weiner, meanwhile, has been unable to stanch the fallout f
Free Hot Dogs From The Weiner Mobile
Story here.Alas, the Weiner Mobile is not giving out any vegetarian dogs...

Common Core Proponents Terrified Tea Party Right And Anti-Test Left Will Join Together To Kill The Common Core
The NY Times has an article about the "rocky debut" of the Common Core.The article takes a look at the opposition to the national standards that is coming from both the right and left that threatens to derail the standards movement.In the piece we get the following statement from a prominent education reformer:“The danger here is that you have two kinds of problems going on,” said Kati Haycock, pr


Is De Blasio's Momentum For Real?
Bill de Blasio vaulted from fourth place in the last Quinnipac poll to first place in the Q poll released this week.He had been generating some good press prior to the poll release and getting some good notice for his first campaign ad, which featured his 15 year old son, Dante.But there are some who are questioning the leap in support de Blasio made in the Quinnipiac poll and wondering if he real

NYSED Commissioner John King Looks To Take Total Control
It's John King's way or the highway - there's no other way to read this story:BUFFALO, NY - New York's Education Commissioner wants the state legislature to pass a bill, giving the Board of Regents the authority to take over school boards in districts failing academically and/or financially. Under the proposal, there would be benchmarks for state intervention, involving a three-step approach, with


 Why Is Obama So Desperate To Improve Internet Access In Schools?
President Obama has decided to tack on a $5 a year fee to every cell phone account for the next five years in order to raise funds to increase high speed internet access in schools around the country.The fees are expected to generate $6 billion dollars in three years and sunset in 2017.The move has generated a lot of criticism, but according to the NY Post, the Obama people just don't get why it h
Andrew Cuomo And His PAC Took $576,000 In Campaign Contributions From Real Estate Investors In Return For Tax Breaks
On top of the news from last week that Andrew Cuomo took $400,000 in campaign donations from a real estate develop and his affiliates in return for giving $35 million in tax breaks comes this new report from the Daily News: ALBANY — The deep-pocketed real estate investors who own a landmark former stock exchange building in lower Manhattan lavished Gov. Cuomo with $76,000 in campaign donations jus

8-14-13 Perdido Street School
Perdido Street School: Teen's Bad Grades Used As One Reason To Not Place Him On Heart Transplant ListThis doesn't seem like a real story, but it is:Doctors at Children’s Healthcare of Atlanta estimate that without a heart transplant, 15-year-old Anthony Stokes will die within three to six months from heart failure. Yet despite his prognosis, they refuse to put Anthony on the transplant list, telli