Saturday, September 19, 2015

Arne Duncan in Pittsburgh, Selling Low Common Core Test Scores | deutsch29

Arne Duncan in Pittsburgh, Selling Low Common Core Test Scores | deutsch29:

Arne Duncan in Pittsburgh, Selling Low Common Core Test Scores






On September 18, 2015, US Secretary of Education Arne Duncan stopped in Pittsburgh at private university, Carnegie Mellon, to promote Common Core and its tests.
During that visit, Duncan said that the signature low scores on Common Core tests did not mean that students were “less smart than they were six months ago or a year ago.”
However, two years ago, in November 2013, Duncan said some mothers were indeed realizing that their kids weren’t so smart:
It’s fascinating to me that some of the pushback [toward Common Core] is coming from, sort of, white suburban moms who — all of a sudden — their child isn’t as brilliant as they thought they were and their school isn’t quite as good as they thought they were….
Nevertheless, both in November 2013 and in September 2015, Duncan assures the public that the problem is with states’ former, “lower” standards.
Yet Duncan offers no empirical evidence to support this statement to his Carnegie Mellon audience, as reported in the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette:
The secretary said children and parents “were lied to and told they were on the track to be successful” when they weren’t. He called that “one of the most insidious things that happened in education.”
And yet, Duncan’s own legacy as Chicago Public Schools CEO left test score results that show that Chicago students under him might have already been “lied to” by a Duncan who by 2009 had moved on to the White House–and to actively promotingCommon Core and its tests. As the December 2009 Washington Post reports:
Soon after Arne Duncan left his job as schools chief here to become one of 
Arne Duncan in Pittsburgh, Selling Low Common Core Test Scores | deutsch29:

Seattle Teachers’ Strike A Win For Social Justice | Common Dreams

Seattle Teachers’ Strike A Win For Social Justice | Common Dreams | Breaking News & Views for the Progressive Community:

Seattle Teachers’ Strike A Win For Social Justice

byJeff Bryant

Now that a tentative settlement is in place (to be approved by the teachers on Sunday), and it appears teachers have been victorious in getting most of their demands met, it’s apparent what teachers were fighting for were issues that are in the best interests of their students. (Photo: Reuters)


Teachers unions are routinely vilified by pundits and politicians on the right and left these days. So when schoolteachers in Seattle began the school year by going on strike, the editorial board of The Seattle Times was quick to accuse the teachers of “demanding too much.”
The editors called the strike “illegal,” “disruptive,” and “a symbol of excess for those who oppose more school spending.”
What seemed to bother this august body most was that teachers’ demands would “have a negative effect on broader efforts to reform the state education system.”
Now that a tentative settlement is in place (to be approved by the teachers on Sunday), and it appears teachers have been victorious in getting most of their demands met, it’s apparent what teachers were fighting for were issues that are in the best interests of their students.
“It’s a win for public education in many ways,” says Jesse Hagopian, a prominent spokesperson for the striking teachers. In a phone conversation, Hagopian – a Garfield High School teacher, editor of the book “More Than a Score: The New Uprising Against High-Stakes Testing,” and recipient of the 2013 “Secondary School Teacher of Year” award – tells me in a phone conversation, “For the first time, our union was able to make social justice the center of the debate. We took a huge step forward.”
For sure, the Seattle teachers were demanding an increase in their pay. After all, as the local Fox News affiliate reports, teachers in one of America’s most expensive cities to live in have gone six years without a cost-of-living increase and have received, over that time, a mere 8 percent increase in base salary from the district.
However, the pay increase – a bargaining position the teachers ultimately greatly compromised on – was just one item in a much more extensive list of demands that Seattle Teachers’ Strike A Win For Social Justice | Common Dreams | Breaking News & Views for the Progressive Community:

Special Nite Cap: Catch Up on Today's Post 9/19/15 #FightForDyett


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Special Nite Cap: Catch Up on Today's Post 9/18/15 #FightForDyett
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