Tuesday, August 11, 2015

A Funders’ Guide to the Common Core State Standards | deutsch29

A Funders’ Guide to the Common Core State Standards | deutsch29:

A Funders’ Guide to the Common Core State Standards



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In fall 2012, three philanthropic mega-organizations, Education Funder Strategy GroupGrantmakers for Education, and Growth Philanthropy Network, united to form the Common Core Funders Working Group (CCFWG).
The goal of this mega-mega philanthropic machine is to cement Common Core into American public education.
Here is a description of the purpose of CCFWG as noted in December 2013:
Recognizing the unique possibilities provided by Common Core standards, committed foundations are planning, learning, and acting together in a concerted way over the next two years as the “Common Core Funders Working Group.” A collaborative effort between the Education Funder Strategy Group, Growth Philanthropy Network and Grantmakers for Education, the Working Group seeks to leverage and organize the unique contributions of philanthropy——including resources, leadership, nimbleness, and independence——to support states and schools districts in successfully transitioning to the new Common Core standards.
The Working Group organizes funder interests and leadership on Common Core implementation issues at the national, state, and local levels. To learn more about getting involved——or simply to get added to the Working Group’s regular e-newsletter summarizing reports, research, and development with the standards——contact Grantmakers for Education.
In July 2015, CCFWG published a nine-page report summarizing what it “had learned” in its efforts over three years, from 2012 to 2015– as well as its decision to continue those efforts. Here are excerpts from the beginning of their July 2015 report, including their take on Common Core– and their assumption that they should promote it in schools that their own children are highly unlikely to attend– public schools:
The Common Core State Standards–finalized in 2009 and adopted by 46 states and D.C.—define a 21st century vision for what young people need for success in college and careers in mathematics and English language arts. As such, their authors and many advocates believe the standards present an unprecedented opportunity to elevate the quality and effectiveness of teaching and learning in America’s schools—and to tackle persistent problems in new ways.
With their emphasis on problem-solving, critical thinking and writing, the Common Core standards can usher sweeping changes in schools, districts and states. And the transition to these higher expectations has shone a new light on many problems (such as allocation of resources towards ineffective professional development activities, and lack of scrutiny in the adoption of quality teaching materials) that have hampered effective teaching and world-class education in U.S. schools. Education funders interested in supporting the success of Common Core standards have therefore been pushed to consider solutions to deeper challenges and to consider more powerful ways of exerting influence and encouraging change. [Emphasis added.]
Two notes: First, these CC mega-funders considered Common Core “finalized in 2009,” when Common Core was not officially released until June 02, 2010. Second, A Funders’ Guide to the Common Core State Standards | deutsch29:

Scrap the “Newark Education Success Board”–it will only impede local control | Bob Braun's Ledger

Scrap the “Newark Education Success Board”–it will only impede local control | Bob Braun's Ledger:

Scrap the “Newark Education Success Board”–it will only impede local control





The so-called “Newark Education Success Board”–a governmental fiction with no legal standing–was created as a consequence of the same deal cut between Gov. Chris Christie and Newark Mayor Ras Baraka that brought former state Education Commissioner  Christopher Cerf to Newark as the school system’s superintendent to replace the disgraced Cami Anderson. The board, dominated by Christie appointees, most with charter school ties, has met only once since its creation more than a month ago–and the result of that meeting did  not bring good news for those opposed to state control. A ” report” outlining a “roadmap” for a return to local control won’t even be ready for another year–and the district may even be farther away from local control than it was last year.
State Education Commissioner David Hespe–once Cerf’s chief of staff–ran the meeting and made it clear he would act as a 10th member of the “success board,” given even greater weight to the Christie appointees who dominate the panel.
But that wasn’t the worst of what happened. The committee members were given data showing that Newark’s score on the scale of the state’s judgment of the district’s readiness to return to local control had actually dropped, suggesting the local school system was even less prepared–at least in the eyes of its state masters–than it had been a year ago.
A legislative source who asked  not to be identified called the downgrading of Newark’s score on the “governance”   scale from 76 to 72 “raised a lot of questions about the state’s sincerity.”
The score appears on a complicated scale known as the “Quality Single Accountability Continuum,” or QSAC. There are five measures of local district readiness imposed on a district and it must reach a score of 80 on each to “pass” the accountability system.
Newark actually reached a passing years ago but the state education Scrap the “Newark Education Success Board”–it will only impede local control | Bob Braun's Ledger:

Are you and your family being threatened by a governor who wants to cut funding? | Reclaim Reform

Are you and your family being threatened by a governor who wants to cut funding? | Reclaim Reform:

Are you and your family being threatened by a governor who wants to cut funding?






 Gov. Bruce Rauner,

Your attacks on my hard-earned teacher pension personally threaten me and my wife.
You are also unwittingly (?) threatening a degree of social unrest that frightens even your fellow conservative billionaires and yourself. The article in today’s Salon Magazine about fears of social unrest quotes billionaires Kenneth Langone, Johann Rupert, Peter Georgescu, Paul Tudor and others.
Even though I presently live in Florida, I have immediate family members and dear friends who live in Illinois.
Wake up before you hurt yourself and all the people around you.
Ken Previti
My long-time friend and education activist, Kate Singletary, has a simple and straightforward way to let individual billionaires, governors and billionaire governors know that this must end soon for the sake of all involved. Hand write a personal letter and snail-mail it. Personal letters humanize you and the message better than emails or petitions do. Here is her message via Glen Brown’s blog and the addresses for Illinois Gov. Bruce Rauner. (Since he has nine personal mansions, it seems best to write him at his governor’s state mansion and office.)
Rauner sake
What is this about? What does this have to do with you in your state? What can be done to help your family and yourself?
Billionaire Gov. Bruce Rauner threatened to shut-down the the state government in Illinois even before he was elected. His threats and intimidation have now reached the hostage taking phase if he doesn’t get his financial way. Similar to foreign and domestic terrorists, he openly plans to destroy needed services for crippled children, seriously ill senior citizens, sufferers from PTSD and mental illnesses, etc. He continues to pretend that the created pension crisis involving the scapegoated victims (teachers and other public employees) of legislative pillage is his reason for his planned draconian public service cuts and government shut-down.
This self-destructive behavior pattern is being carried out in state after state. It is not some crazy conspiracy theory. It is openly being carried out in the wealthiest country in the word, and it is backed by immense corporate wealth and the individual billionaires who control it.
Wherever you live, please humanize yourself with a personal letter to one or more of the unwitting (?) governors who threaten you, your family and themselves.Are you and your family being threatened by a governor who wants to cut funding? | Reclaim Reform: 

Special Nite Cap: Catch Up on Today's Post 8/11/15


SPECIAL NITE CAP 

CORPORATE ED REFORM


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An Open Letter to the Louisiana Standards Review Committee | deutsch29
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Special Nite Cap: Catch Up on Today's Post 8/10/15
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