Latest News and Comment from Education

Tuesday, September 9, 2014

Mike Klonsky's SmallTalk Blog: A real-estate and hedge-fund concern that happens to have a college attached

Mike Klonsky's SmallTalk Blog: A real-estate and hedge-fund concern that happens to have a college attached:



A real-estate and hedge-fund concern that happens to have a college attached


Annie Lowrey writes in NY Mag:
There's an old line about how the United States government is an insurance conglomerate protected by an army. Harvard is a real-estate and hedge-fund concern that happens to have a college attached. It has a $32 billion endowment. It charges its rich students — and they are mostly from rich families, with many destined to be rich themselves — hundreds of millions of dollars in tuition and fees. It recently embarked on a $6.5 billion capital campaign. It is devoted to its own richness. And, as such, it is swimming in cash.
If it wanted to maximize its $32 billion worth of utility, it could, say, admit more students, especially poor ones, reduce its focus on property development, and double down on its focus on research, which currently makes up $800 million of its $4.2 billion in annual operating expenses.
Harvard alum include a gaggle of current corporate school "reformers" and ed profiteers, including Arne DuncanMichelle Rhee, TFA's Wendy Kopp,John Schnur, Geoffrey Canada and Joel Klein. This group alone may be reason enough to yank Harvard's non-profit status.

But it has also produced some of our best old (W.E.B. DuBois, Ted Sizer...) and current thinkers, researchers and progressive ed activists like... Well, I'm sure there are some (just kidding). There are some great and distinguished education faculty in the Graduate School of Education. Sara Lawrence-Lightfoot comes to mind as does Linda Nathan, Eleanor Duckworth, Marshall Ganz, Howard Gardner, Patricia Graham and others too numerous to mention.

Susan Moore Johnson
Here's a good one. Harvard GSE Prof. Susan Moore Johnson has produced several studies showing the Mike Klonsky's SmallTalk Blog: A real-estate and hedge-fund concern that happens to have a college attached:

PARCC and SBAC States Agree to Deliver Student-level Data to USDOE | deutsch29

PARCC and SBAC States Agree to Deliver Student-level Data to USDOE | deutsch29:



PARCC and SBAC States Agree to Deliver Student-level Data to USDOE

September 9, 2014


In September 2010, two assessment consortia “won” federal Race to the Top (RTTT) money for the “design, development, and evaluation of the assessment system” known as Race to the Top Assessment (RTTA): The Smarter Balanced Assessment Consortium (SBAC) and the Partnership for Assessment of Readiness for College and Careers (PARCC).
PARCC received $170 million, and SBAC, $160 million, plus an additional $16 million to each consortium to “support efforts to help participating States successfully transition to common standards and assessments.”
Their award letters can be found here for PARCC and here for SBAC.
In the award letters, both PARCC and SBAC were expected by January 7, 2011, to “negotiate and complete a final cooperative agreement” with the federal government regarding the usage of the “common standards” assessments.
The fine print for taking college-and-career-ready dough from the feds.
Both cooperative agreements can be found here for PARCC and here for SBAC.
I have heard individuals ask about whether one of the requirements of the Common Core State Standards (CCSS) is the release of student-level data to the federal government. I have heard pro-CCSS officials dismiss this idea as unfounded.
Not so.
PARCC and SBAC are the federally-funded, CCSS-assessment consortia. In order to receive those federal millions for CCSS assessment development, both consortia had to agree to deliver student-level data to USDOE.
Data is control, and USDOE wants control over state education affairs. (If you doubt USDOE’s desire for control over states, google “Arne Duncan NCLB waivers” and do a bit of reading.)
Don’t let the pro-CCSS crowd corner you with semantics: CCSS is wed to the USDOE-funded, consortia-developed CCSS assessments, and both federally-funded PARCC and SBAC States Agree to Deliver Student-level Data to USDOE | deutsch29:

Does Bill Gates Think Teachers are All Miss Trunchbulls?

Does Bill Gates Think Teachers are All Miss Trunchbulls?:



trunchbull3p

Does Bill Gates Think Teachers are All Miss Trunchbulls?

At school there’s Miss Trunchbull, two hundred menacing pounds of kid-hating headmistress. Get rid of the Trunchbull and Matilda would be a hero. But that would take a superhuman genius, wouldn’t it?
From Matilda by Roald Dahl
Does Bill Gates hold a vendetta towards teachers? Does he see them as Trunchbulls and is he planning on being the superhuman genius to eventually get rid of them? Is this why he wants virtual learning, because computers are easier, in his mind, to get along with than teachers?
I revisited the darkly funny children’s story Matilda where two extreme teacher types are on display. There is the “tyrannical monster” Miss Trunchbull who’d throw you in the cupboard “Chokey” in an instant (a cement walled closet with glass and nails too narrow for you to sit), as compared to the lovingly, adored Miss Honey who treasured everything sunshiny and joyful, which included taking children outside to the playground! RECESS!
I got to thinking about this  when I read CNBC’s Andrew Ross Sorkin’s piece in The New York Time’s about Bill Gates and his “Great History Project.” The whole plan to take over history in public schools unfolded in Gates’s mind as he walked on his treadmill listening to a DVD “Great Course’s” tape. Everyone better read it if you care about history instruction, because it will be coming to a high school near you, whether you like it or not, if it isn’t there already.
But Sorkin’s piece really hits me with a particular passage and what Gates says about teachers he once had and grades. Gates is talking with David Christian, the fascinating history professor from Australia whose DVD about history enthralled Gates so much he knew it had to be what public schools taught.
The reporter says:
But his [Gates] curiosity about education is innate and at times obsessive. Without Does Bill Gates Think Teachers are All Miss Trunchbulls?:

Pedagogy First (A Note on Elizabeth Green's Building A Better Teacher) | The Jose Vilson

Pedagogy First (A Note on Elizabeth Green's Building A Better Teacher) | The Jose Vilson:



Building A Better Teacher by Elizabeth Green






Pedagogy First (A Note on Elizabeth Green’s Building A Better Teacher)

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Every so often, I love reading other folks talk about standards without any current teachers present in their conversation. Even a cursory read of education history in this country shows how intellectual [white] men throw their moral and scholarly swag about what teachers should and shouldn’t be focused on. On the other hand, the teachers I eavesdrop on try to out-intellectual the folks imposing their “thought leadership” onto those of us in schools. Over and again, I see templates and talking points, and less about the day-to-day events and adjustments we as teachers have to make to make school work when other adults can’t.
Thankfully, Elizabeth Green’s book Building A Better Teacher does quite a bit of this.
As an urban middle school math teacher going into my 10th year, I valued getting a different perspective about teaching. Hearing things about Finland, Singapore, and Japan are nice, and all the cool kids who get to travel over there and tell us how their talking points matched with their experience over there is all well and good, but on more than one occasion found myself saying, “So what does that have to do with me?”
Green’s book, in sharp contrast, expounds on ideas I’ve only heard in passing, like the heavily-touted Japanese model of lesson study or Magdalene Lampert’s TKOT. I appreciated hearing the trials and failures of these pedagogical movements as well. It’s great to hear that teachers want to observe each other, come together, and make observations about how they can improve their pedagogy and assessments. It’s great to hear that people had the time and resources to work with each other and feel vested in this intellectually challenging work. It’s great to hear that, at some point, a group of folks actually wanted to disband the “ed-schools from afar” approach.
It also felt weird that, simultaneously, article after article came out disputing some of the claims in the book, which I found odd. For instance, Reiko Watanabe came out with an article Pedagogy First (A Note on Elizabeth Green's Building A Better Teacher) | The Jose Vilson:

This Is Not A Test

"Out of this cacophony rises a beautiful, lyrical voice—one that is uncompromisingly self-aware, reflective, and analytical. That transcendent voice belongs to “The” JosĂ© Luis Vilson."
Karen Lewis, President of the Chicago Teachers Union
My debut solo book, This Is Not A Test: A New Narrative on Race, Class, and Education already has endorsements from Karen Lewis, Pedro Noguera, Raquel Cepeda, Gregory Michie, Chris Lehmann, Randi Weingarten, Dennis van Roekel, Diane Ravitch, Barnett Berry, Renee Moore, Cindi Rigsbee, and many more ...

Our leaders, the kids | Bob Braun's Ledger

Our leaders, the kids | Bob Braun's Ledger:



Our leaders, the kids

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Students rally around the statue of Lincoln outside the Essex County Courthouse
Students rally around the statue of Lincoln outside the Essex County Courthouse
Newark’s political and organizational leaders will, I know, scoff at this but, right now, the leaders of the struggle against “One Newark” and the privatization of public education are the hundreds of high school students who early this morning marched from three high schools to Military Park and who, tomorrow, are expected to take even bolder action against the policies of Cami Anderson, her puppet master Chris Christie and Christie’s privatization guru, Cory Booker.
The stduents were peaceful and the police made good on the mayor's promise to protect dissent
The stduents were peaceful and the police made good on the mayor’s promise to protect dissent
That doesn’t mean a few hundred high school students from Science Park, Arts, and Central will bring down Anderson but what it does mean is this: For now, they are keeping the fight alive, they are serving as the conscience of the Newark community, and they are reminding everyone that real people–mothers and fathers and children–are hurt every day by the disruption caused by this mindless reorganization plan.
No one listens to poor parents when they can suck up to Anderson, Hespe, and Christie. Poor parents can do nothing for anyone’s career.
The students–and the students alone– are making personal sacrifices for a righteous cause –and that cannot be said of any other group. Not the ministers. Not the unions. Not the politicians.
NU President Kristn Towkaniuk speaks  while Chris Christie scowls
NU President Kristn Towkaniuk speaks while Chris Christie scowls
This morning I spoke with a courageous 15-year-old young woman, a sophomore at Arts High School, who knew precisely why she was Our leaders, the kids | Bob Braun's Ledger:

Foundation still determined to eliminate future pension plans for Oklahoma teachers | Red Dirt Report

Foundation still determined to eliminate future pension plans for Oklahoma teachers | Red Dirt Report:



Foundation still determined to eliminate future pension plans for Oklahoma teachers

Brett Dickerson / Red Dirt Report
Bobby Stem (at the end of the table) leads the conversation while struggling to gain support.
OKLAHOMA CITY -- An informal meeting Friday night, September 5th, between several education officials and Bobby Stem, a long-time lobbyist in Oklahoma, did not turn out the way that he wanted it to.
Stem's business card identifies him as the Executive Director of the Association of Oklahoma General Contractors. Those are the companies who build the big projects around the state, very often for the State of Oklahoma in the form of roads and bridges.
The original invitees to the meeting were some of the Oklahoma Education Association's board of directors and other officials of certain locals. The OEA, sometimes called a “teachers union,” is the primary organization that advocates for public teachers.
As the meeting developed, it was obvious that most around the table, especially those who are in decision-making positions with the OEA, were strongly opposed to his ideas. At least the people there just wouldn't budge. The meeting ended abruptly as those closely associated with the OEA stood up, thanked Mr. Stem for inviting them, and walked out. His proposal was not far off from what the Arnold Foundation has been promoting nationwide, which is to reduce the costs of public employee pensions by converting them to "defined contribution" plans from the current "defined benefit" plans that have been in place for years.
It was also a repeat of what was successfully pushed through the Oklahoma Legislature this last session for other state employees. The Arnold Foundation argument strongly resists any idea that tax subsidies for corporations should be reduced to pay for obligations to state and municipality employees. In their approach, the cost of reform, should be carried solely by the employees.
This year, Stem's idea is to get teachers to agree to the same kind of conversion of their pension plan. The proposal was to develop an “8-year plan”: to fund roads and bridges and to convert pensions for new teacher hires onto a defined contribution pension plan that would be similar to current 401(k) plans.
The difference is that the older public employee defined benefit plans make a commitment to the public employee that if they commit to so many years of service, they will be guaranteed a certain level of benefits -- thus, “defined benefits.” Any kind of “defined contribution” plan is structured so that they employee is required to invest a
- See more at: http://www.reddirtreport.com/red-dirt-news/foundation-still-determined-eliminate-future-pension-plans-oklahoma-teachers#sthash.kLeTx1DB.dpuf

State Board of Education Appeals - Resources (CA Dept of Education)

State Board of Education Appeals - Resources (CA Dept of Education):



State Board of Education Appeals

Resources for submitting an appeal to the California State Board of Education.



If the governing board of a school district denies a petition for the establishment of a charter school, the petitioner may elect to submit the petition for the establishment of a charter school to the county board of education. If the petitioner elects to submit a petition for establishment of a charter school to the county board of education and the county board of education denies the petition, the petitioner may file a petition for establishment of a charter school with the State Board of Education (SBE). An appeal for the establishment of a charter school should include:
  • A complete copy of the petition as denied, including the signatures required by California Education Code 47605 External link opens in new window or tab.; and
  • Evidence of the school district governing board’s action to deny the petition (e.g. meeting minutes) and the governing board’s written factual findings specific to the particular petition, when available, setting forth specific facts to support one or more of the grounds for denial set forth in Education Code 47605(b) External link opens in new window or tab.; and
  • A signed certification stating that petitioner(s) will comply with all applicable laws; and
  • A description of any changes to the petition necessary to reflect the county board of education or the SBE as the chartering entity, as applicable.
Please refer to 5 California Code of Regulations sections 11967, 19967.5 and 11967.51, which can be found by searching theCalifornia Code of Regulations External link opens in new window or tab., for the documentation required for an appeal of the establishment of a charter.
If either a school district governing board or a county board of education, as a chartering agency, does not grant a renewal to an existing charter school, the charter school may submit its petition for renewal with the SBE. An appeal for the renewal of a charter school should include:
  • Documentation that the charter school met at least one of the criteria specified in Education Code Section 47607(b) External link opens in new window or tab.; and
  • A copy of the renewal charter petition, as denied, including a reasonably comprehensive description of how the charter school has met all new charter school requirements enacted into law after the charter was originally granted or last renewed; and
  • A copy of the school district governing board’s written factual findings denying the petition for renewal, and evidence of the county governing board’s denial or, if the county board of education failed to act, evidence that the timeline set forth in 5CCR Section 11966.5(d), which can be found by searching the California Code of Regulations External link opens in new window or tab., has expired; and
  • A description of any changes to the renewal petition necessary to reflect the SBE as the chartering entity.
Please refer to Education Code 47607 External link opens in new window or tab. and 5 CCR Section 11966.6, which can be found by searching the California Code of Regulations External link opens in new window or tab., for the documentation that is required for the submission of an appeal of the denial for the renewal of a charter.
Timeline for Submitting an Appeal to the State Board of Education
To provide sufficient time for Charter Schools Division staff to thoroughly review and analyze all appeal documents it is suggested that all appeal documentation be submitted to the Charter Schools Division three months before the SBE meeting at which the petitioner wishes to be heard, thereby allowing the petition to be heard first at the Advisory Commission on Charter Schools meeting occurring the month before each SBE meeting. The following table of dates reflects the suggested submission for appeals.
State Board MeetingSubmission Due
November 2014
August 2014
January 2015
October 2014
March 2015
December 2014
May 2015
February 2015
July 2015
April 2015
September 2015
June 2015
November 2015
August 2015
Appeal documentation must be in Word format. Please send one hard copy and one CD-ROM to:
Charter Schools Division
California Department of Education
1430 N Street, Suite 5401
Sacramento, CA 95814-5901

Nite Cap 9-9-14 #BATsACT #RealEdTalk #EDCHAT



James Baldwin said it best: 

"For these are all our children, and we will profit by or pay for whatever they become."


A BIG EDUCATION APE NITE CAP



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NYC Educator: Stay Out of the Teacher Lounge, New Teachers
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Teachers Wearing Hate on Their Sleeves BY YOHURU WILLIAMS
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The Conspiracy at PS 154 in the Bronx .southbronxschool
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NYC Public School Parents: Egregious distortions in NYT article on Success Charters, say parents, teachers & journalist
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State sides with fired Teachers Union President | WWLP.com
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9-8-14 @ The Chalk Face
@ THE CHALK FACE: About the radio showJoin Drs. Shaun Johnson and Tim Slekar LIVE Sundays at 6PM EST and Wednesdays at 7PM EST on Blog Talk Radio for progressive, pro-public education talk radio. Call in to speak live with Tim and Shaun during the show, (805) 727-7111. You can also listen to our Monday "Sunday-Replay" at 7PM EST, and re-broadcasts of the archives every Tuesday and Thursd
Schools must report sports equity data :: SI&A Cabinet Report
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What do we do to our superb retired teachers? Lies, insults and slow starvation seem politically popular today. | Reclaim Reform
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Nite Cap 9-8-14 #BATsACT #RealEdTalk #EDCHAT
James Baldwin said it best: "For these are all our children, and we will profit by or pay for whatever they become."A BIG EDUCATION APE NITE CAP9-8-14 Engaging Parents In School… | Going Beyond Parent "Involvement"Engaging Parents In School… | Going Beyond Parent "Involvement": Good Parent Engagement Idea From Donalyn MillerI’m adding this tweet to The Best Sources Of