Education propagandists: Do it for the children « @ the chalk face

Education propagandists: Do it for the children « @ the chalk face:

Education propagandists: Do it for the children

by Chris Cerrone

In New York, school districts across the state have been scrambling to complete and revise their agreements to a new teacher evaluation system.  New York Governor Andrew Cuomo, a wannabe Presidential Candidate, has used the now common carrot and stick approach to education policy by threatening to withhold a district’s state aid increase for this year unless a new teacher evaluation plan is approved by January 17th.  Of the approximately seven hundred districts in New York, only nine have not submitted their plans as of January 2nd.  A press release about the evaluation deadline which appeared on NYSED’s website and made print and television media reports contains so much nonsense that it shows the ignorance of state education officials or just proves the leaders have clear anti-teacher motives.

“Teacher evaluations are vital to help identify struggling teachers and provide them with the professional development they need.  And they help identify excellent teachers who can serve as mentors and role models. These plans are 

CT State Representative Tells Gabby Giffords to Stay Out of Newtown - Wait, What?

CT State Representative Tells Gabby Giffords to Stay Out of Newtown - Wait, What?:

CT State Representative Tells Gabby Giffords to Stay Out of Newtown

by jonpelto

Six days into 2013, 359 days to go in the New Year – and we already have a top contender for the nation’s “A**hole politician of the year” award.

No it is not some right-wing Arizona sheriff or an ultra-conservative right-wing tea-bag southern politician; it is a Connecticut State Representative who serves as one of the House Republican’s Assistant Minority Leaders.

According to a Hartford courant update this afternoon, Connecticut State Representative DebraLee Hovey responded to former Congresswoman Gabby Gifford’s visit Friday with Sandy Hook Elementary school families by getting on her Facebook page from her Florida Saint Pete Beach vacation to write

“Gabby Gifford stay out of my towns!

It appears that Republican State Representative Hovey may have since taken her post 

Seattle Schools Community Forum: Seattle Schools Week of Jan. 7-12, 2013

Seattle Schools Community Forum: Seattle Schools Week of Jan. 7-12, 2013:

Seattle Schools Week of Jan. 7-12, 2013

by Melissa Westbrook

Monday, January 7th
If you wish to speak at Wednesday's Board meeting (where the Transition Plan for 2013-2014 will be introduced), sign up today beginning at 8 am, either boardagenda@seattleschools.org or 252-0040.  

Tuesday, January 8th
Special Education Advocacy & Advisory Council Meeting from 6:30-9:00 p.m., JSCEE, second floor, room 2700.
The open forum part of the meeting is from 6:30-7:30 pm with a Working Group Session from 7:30-9:00 p.m.

Wednesday, January 9th
Executive Committee Meeting - 8:30-10 am.  Agenda

College Goal Sunday from 3-7 p.m. at Cleveland High School, to help students and families get information on applying for financial aid for college and helping them complete the FAFSA form.  

Additional information about College Goal Sunday can be found at www.collegegoalsundaywa.org or by emailing Krista Rillo, klrillo@seattleschools.org.

School Board Meeting starting at 4:15 pm at JSCEE.  Agenda 

- Annual disclosure of financial/conflict of interest for Board and Executive Administrators (nothing to report here).
- approval of a contract for software to track capital projects, nearly $1M.  I hope they chose wisely.
- approval of the Road Map Project (SPS is part of the group of districts to receive money under RTTT per this 

Have you called yet? « Fred Klonsky

Have you called yet? « Fred Klonsky:

Have you called yet?

by Fred Klonsky

The devil and his handmaiden. Democrats Madigan and Nekritz. 
The Daily Herald:

SPRINGFIELD — State Rep. Elaine Nekritz said Sunday she believes there is still time to get a pension deal done before a Wednesday deadline, and a hearing on one proposal she agreed to with House Republican Leader Tom Cross is set for Monday.

“I certainly, to my core, hope for a resolution to this,” Nekritz said. “As much as anybody, I hope to move on to different issues than this.”

Though a plan that would cut teachers’ and state workers’ retirement benefits is scheduled for a preliminary hearing before lawmakers Monday, the proposal could change before it’s final.

“There is enough time to get it done,” Nekritz said.

Supporters of cutting benefits are trying to hustle because when the next 

Ed Notes Online: NYC and DC Charters Expel Students at Higher Rates Than Public Schools --

Ed Notes Online: NYC and DC Charters Expel Students at Higher Rates Than Public Schools --:

NYC and DC Charters Expel Students at Higher Rates Than Public Schools --

by ed notes online

Wait a min -- pub schls can't expel kids.

Holy shit. Even the NY Post is reporting this:

Here it says in NYS, “charter schools set their own suspension rules and don't report expulsion data -- although experts believe thousands of difficult students are dumped every year to public schools.”
This is repeated here: http://insideschools.org/blog/item/1000359-vanishing-students-at-harlem-success
 
Harlem Success also has a high suspension rate -- 15 percent in the 2009-10 school year. (The state report cards do not list expulsions.)

http://www.nypost.com/p/news/local/charters_nix_of_kids_jXEEhJtQx9eQiGUiD3vInN

Charters 'nix 23%' of kids

 

Boys will be boys, but nonpublic schools are quick to expel average little rascals

• By ANNIE KARNI
• Last Updated: 7:32 AM, April 24, 2011
• Posted: 12:10 AM, April 24, 2011

He called a classmate a "spaghetti noodle" because she was skinny. And he led the "Rubberband Gang" that launched pellets of paper across the classroom. But now sixth-grader Tyrique Royal, 12, is facing expulsion from 

Ohio Third Graders Must Learn to Read or Repeat the Year

Ohio is one of 14 states to put in place a retention rule that holds back students who are not reading at grade level. Special correspondent John Tulenko reports on the "reading guarantee," which educators say puts enormous pressure on them, and may not actually ensure educational success or lower dropout rates in the future.

“Making History: The People Fight Back to Save San Francisco City College”

“Making History: The People Fight Back to Save San Francisco City College”:

“Making History: The People Fight Back to Save San Francisco City College”

by Danny Weil

NEWS MEDIA ADVISORY: Friday, January 11, 2013

Contact: Rodger Scott xgtel@prodigy.net

Wendy Kaufmyn (510) 714-8687 kaufmyn@aol.com

“Making History: The People Fight Back to Save City College”

San Francisco, CA – City College of San Francisco students, staff, teachers and department chairs will picket and boycott their interim chancellor’s welcome address which traditionally kicks off the new semester. Instead of listening to Dr. Thelma Scott-Skillman’s speech, entitled “History in the Making”, City College’s community will make its own history by conducting a press conference and rally addressing the people of San Francisco.

The people of San Francisco overwhelmingly showed a vote of confidence in CCSF by passing Proposition A, a parcel tax specifically dedicated to offset budget cuts, prevent worker layoffs, maintain essential classes, programs and student support services. However, the district is intending to use the funds for other purposes, namely paying high-priced consultants and bolstering 

Diane in the Evening 1-6-13 Diane Ravitch's blog

Diane Ravitch's blog:

Tennessee Governor and Legislature: Reformers All

by dianerav

Tennessee was one of the first two states to win a Race to the Top grant, so of course the governor and legislature are busy thinking of how to privatize their public schools. They heard glowing (if erroneous) reports about the parent trigger in California, so they want one too. They are thinking of vouchers and charters. The only awkward thing is the abject failure of the Tennessee Virtual Academy, a K12 school that is in the bottom 11% of

Is This the School-to-Prison Train?

by dianerav

A reader offers this comment, responding to the Washington Post article about the incredibly high expulsion rate from DC charter schools:
Bad kids need education too. The Good kids still in Public Non-Charter schools need education too. I am going to go out on a limb and suggest that it seems highly unlikely that you have a dog in either fight. I don’t either as I am here in Detroit area where they are doing the opposite, setting up a shadow state wide system to warehouse the “Worst and the Dumbest” as a separate but unequal system entirety in the name of reform but in reality to 

LISTEN TO DIANE RAVITCH 1-6-13 Diane Ravitch's blog

coopmike48 at Big Education Ape - 11 minutes ago

Diane Ravitch's blog: [image: Click on picture to Listen to Diane Ravitch] Can Rhee Still Pretend to Be Bipartisan? by dianerav Jersey Jazzman read Hari Sevugan’s comment on the blog last night and wondered if anyone still believes that StudentsFirst is bipartisan. JJ doesn’t think that any Democrat could sign on to Rhee’s anti-teacher, anti-union agenda. Would a bipartisan group pump money into Republican campaigns? Would a bipartisan group pump $500,000 into the anti-union campaign in Michigan? Not likely. Washington Post: DC Charters Expel Students at High Rate by dianerav ... more »

Texas Takes Tax Credit Voucher Plan From Jeb Bush’s Foundation | Scathing Purple Musings

Texas Takes Tax Credit Voucher Plan From Jeb Bush’s Foundation | Scathing Purple Musings:

Texas Takes Tax Credit Voucher Plan From Jeb Bush’s Foundation

by Bob Sikes

From  skeptical Fort Worth Star-Telegram columnist Bob Ray Sanders:

Texas Lt. Gov. David Dewhurst, while vowing to make the next legislative session “the most conservative session in history,” announced an education plan last month that includes “school choice.”
Using a Catholic elementary school near the state Capitol as a backdrop, Dewhurst joined with Senate Education Committee Chairman Dan Patrick, R-Houston, to unveil a thinly veiled attempt to get state money to private schools.
Trying to avoid being accused of promoting a “voucher system,” their plan calls for tax breaks for 

BILL GATES WANTS 3 POLITICAL PARTIES: REPUBLICANS, DEMOCRATS, AND ARITHMETIC

gates Technocracy education:

Bill Gates Wants 3 Political Parties: Republicans, Democrats, and Arithmetic

from Dailycensored.com by Susan Ohanian

In China all but one of the nine members of the Politburo Standing Committee are engineers.—-The Economist, Nov. 19, 2011

      I had to watch a video conversation between Bill Gates and Thomas Friedman twice because during the first viewing I focused on their  jockeying for the commandant general position. Then, I discovered there are two versions of this conversation, so I had to each each one of  those. At the New York Times website a short video conversation

(6:36) between “the Op-Ed columnist Thomas L. Friedman and Bill

Gates starts out with an ad and then goes to a full-screen close-up of Friedman. The video is introduced by this note: Bill recently read and reviewed “That Used to Be Us,” a new book on how to strengthen America’s economic competitiveness. Bill recently sat down with co-author Thomas Friedman for a probing conversation about the vitally important issues raised by the book.

     Gee, don’t you wonder who wrote that copy?

     Friedman announces, “We’re here talking about American competitiveness. . . .” Then he acknowledges Gates’ presence, saying, 

A Model T Education: Public Schooling on the Assembly Line

A Model T Education: Public Schooling on the Assembly Line:

A Model T Education: Public Schooling on the Assembly Line

Sunday, 06 January 2013 12:05By Adam Bessie, Daily Censored | News Analysis

 “Mass production is a problem the auto industry solved over 100 years ago,” veteran education reporter Jonn Merrow narrates over grainy images of Model Ts being rolled out of a factory in his most recent PBS NewsHour report. He observes that with the Model T, Henry Ford’s innovation was not in creating a quality car, but in constructing an assembly-line which could mass-produce them, providing this once cutting edge technology affordably to the public. “But it’s an issue our education system has yet to figure out. Nobody has figured out how to mass-produce high-quality, cost-effective schools,” Merrow mournfully concludes – public education has yet to discover its “Model T.”

In other words, Merrow – who has been reporting on education for forty years – is saying public education should aspire to the assembly line of the 1920s.

Perhaps the Mayans were right.

The last few years have felt like the beginning of the end of public education: it’s not just neo-con think tanks and billionaire industrialists calling for the end of public 

The witch hunt continues: Gannett Media inputs salaries of most Wisconsin public employees into online searchable databases : blue cheddar

The witch hunt continues: Gannett Media inputs salaries of most Wisconsin public employees into online searchable databases : blue cheddar:

The witch hunt continues: Gannett Media inputs salaries of most WI public employees into online searchable databases

January 6, 2013

By bluecheddar

Gannett Media has spent 7 months formally requesting, paying for, and in some cases manually entering information into online searchable databases so that you can see what most public employees in the State of Wisconsin made in the latest available fiscal year. Excluded from the results: those who made less than $25,000 in that time period.

From their site,
“The listing includes state, federal and U.S. Postal Service employees, as well as those who work in Wisconsin’s 72 counties; 91 cities, towns or villages with a population of 10,000 or more; 26 University of Wisconsin campuses; 16 technical colleges and 424 public school districts.”

Here’s the editor explaining the project:

This backup link will take you directly to the site.

According to that same site, this is a 6-part series with the public 

VIDEO. “It’s a revenue problem. Not a pension problem.” Tax the rich. « Fred Klonsky

VIDEO. “It’s a revenue problem. Not a pension problem.” Tax the rich. « Fred Klonsky:

VIDEO. “It’s a revenue problem. Not a pension problem.” Tax the rich.

by Fred Klonsky

Popout

Guest blog: The chutzpah of Illinois!

by Fred Klonsky

By Mark Stefanik, middle school teacher.

Mike Madigan – “They (teachers, cops, firemen, state employees of all kinds) are going to get less in retirement than they thought they would.”

 Didn’t Speaker Madigan contradict the Constitutional protections afforded the pension systems with these words?  If this is not a call for reduction of benefits, what is?  Don’t he get that our protected pensions were being protected from politicians like him?  Can’t he understand that our pension money was recognized as such a temptation that wiser, tougher, more democratic leaders of the state wished to place it outside the grasp of scheming, short-sighted politicos?

The very crisis this state faces is the very thing that the Illinois Legislature foresaw in the 1970s, pensions perceived as piggy banks subject to political exigencies.

Sure enough, the state couldn’t resist the lure of our savings. Like a broke and drunken father, it robbed the 

Reached 900,000 blog hits today. Thanks.

by Fred Klonsky

Thanks!

Charter schools: Public or private? Brian Jones in Portland, teachers rally in Illinois and a petition to Obama: Stop privatizing our schools! | Seattle Education

Charter schools: Public or private? Brian Jones in Portland, teachers rally in Illinois and a petition to Obama: Stop privatizing our schools! | Seattle Education:

Charter schools: Public or private? Brian Jones in Portland, teachers rally in Illinois and a petition to Obama: Stop privatizing our schools!

by seattleducation2011

The Weekly Update: For the news and views you might have missed

First up, more Facebook pages are popping up on the subject of education:

Our Village Our Schools

Public Education Crusaders

Long Island Chapter Save Our Schools March

350 This one is related to the climate crisis and I post it on this blog because it does affect our children.

Next up, a petition to be sent to President Obama. Maybe one of these days he’ll start to listen to the rest of us.

Stop education policies that promote massive closing of traditional public schools while expanding charter schools.

Mass school closings have proven to be disruptive to low-income 

Jersey Jazzman: Pension "Reform" = Legalized Welching

Jersey Jazzman: Pension "Reform" = Legalized Welching:

Pension "Reform" = Legalized Welching

by Duke

Meanwhile, in Illinois, the government is forced to confront a pension mess of their own making:

The prospects for solving Illinois' worst-in-the-nation pension crisis may have grown brighter Friday when powerful House Speaker Michael Madigan said he was open to deferring a contentious teacher retirement issue that has deadlocked lawmakers for almost a year.

Madigan's shift was announced by Gov. Pat Quinn, who is pushing to solve the $96 billion pension problem during a lame-duck legislative session that ends next week. The governor characterized the news as a breakthrough.

But many other pension issues remain unsettled. And whether Madigan's decision, 

Is Michelle Rhee About to Take a Lance Armstrong Like Fall From Grace? | Scathing Purple Musings

Is Michelle Rhee About to Take a Lance Armstrong Like Fall From Grace? | Scathing Purple Musings:

Is Michelle Rhee About to Take a Lance Armstrong Like Fall From Grace?

by Bob Sikes

On Tuesday America will find out if Michelle Rhee’s DC miracle was a fraud. From Washington Post reporter Emma Brown:

Student standardized-test scores at an award-winning D.C. school dropped dramatically in 2011 after the principal tightened security out of concern about possible cheating, according to a new “Frontline” television documentary to be broadcast Tuesday.
The hour-long program raises questions about whether District officials have adequately investigated persistent suspicions that public school employees may have tampered with tests during the tenure of former schools chancellor Michelle A. Rhee.
Adell Cothorne was principal of the District’s Noyes Education Campus for one year, in 2010-11. 

Founding Fathers on Universal Public Education

Founding Fathers on Universal Public Education

Washington to Franklin, Adams and Jefferson, every one offered his ideas about the state of education and the best ways to build an informed citizenry — from the lowliest mechanic's son to the most exalted Harvard grad. Each called at least implicitly for public education.

Jefferson wrote of his Virginia education plan in a letter to his friend George Wythe, "The tax which will be paid for the purpose of education is not more than the thousandth part of what will be paid to kings, priests and nobles who will rise up among us if we leave the people in ignorance."

George Washington called for a national university in his First Inaugural Address. 

John Adams asked his son in Europe to collect books and ideas for republican schools. He called for public schools as the great equalizer to secure democracy.

James Madison tracked the education efforts in Kentucky and praised innovations and challenging curricula there.

Noah Webster that, "Knowledge, joined with a keen sense of liberty and a watchful Jealousy, will guard our constitutions."

The Northwest Ordinance was written to govern United States territory north of the Ohio River. It read, in part: "Religion, morality, and knowledge being necessary to good government and the happiness of mankind, schools and the means of education shall forever be encouraged."

Below are a few specific quotes – In the terms they understood each was calling for public education – there is no alternative understanding of these ideas. It was commonly held and understood among all:

Benjamin Franklin:

The good Education of Youth has been esteemed by wise Men in all Ages, as the surest Foundation of the Happiness both of private Families and of Common-wealths. Almost all Governments have therefore made it a principal Object of their Attention, to establish and endow with proper Revenues, such Seminaries of Learning, as might supply the succeeding Age with Men qualified to serve the Publick with Honour to themselves, and to their Country. (roposals Relating to the Education of Youth in Pensilvania, 1749)

John Adams:

Liberty cannot be preserved without a general knowledge among the people, who have a right, from the frame of their nature, to knowledge, as their great Creator, who does nothing in vain, has given them understandings, and a desire to know; but besides this, they have a right, an indisputable, unalienable, indefeasible, divine right to that most dreaded and envied kind of knowledge; I mean, of the characters and conduct of their rulers. (Dissertation on the Canon and Feudal Law, 1756)

Laws for the liberal education of the youth, especially of the lower class of the people, are so extremely wise and useful, that, to a humane and generous mind, no expense for this purpose would be thought extravagant. (Thoughts on Government, 1776)

Wisdom and knowledge, as well as virtue, diffused generally among the body of the people, being necessary for the preservation of their rights and liberties, and as these depend on spreading the opportunities and advantages of education in the various parts of the country, and among the different orders of people, it shall be the duty of legislators and magistrates... to cherish the interest of literature and the sciences, and all seminaries of them. (Thoughts on Government, 1776)

Children should be educated and instructed in the principles of freedom. (Defense of the Constitutions, 1787)

Samuel Adams:
No people will tamely surrender their Liberties, nor can any be easily subdued, when knowledge is diffusd and Virtue is preservd. On the Contrary, when People are universally ignorant, and debauchd in their Manners, they will sink under their own weight without the Aid of foreign Invaders. (Letter to James Warren, Nov 4, 1775)


George Washington
The best means of forming a manly, virtuous, and happy people will be found in the right education of youth. Without this foundation, every other means, in my opinion, must fail. (Letter to George Chapman, December 15, 1784)
Knowledge is, in every country, the surest basis of public happiness. (First Inaugural Address)

[W]e ought to deprecate the hazard attending ardent and susceptible minds, from being too strongly, and too early prepossessed in favor of other political systems, before they are capable of appreciating their own. (Letter to the Commissioners of the District of Columbia, January 28, 1795)

Thomas Jefferson:
Cherish, therefore, the spirit of our people, and keep alive their attention. Do not be too severe upon their errors, but reclaim them by enlightening them. If once they become inattentive to the public affairs, you and I, and Congress, and Assemblies, Judges, and Governors, shall all become wolves. (Letter to Edward Carrington, January 16, 1787)

People generally have more feeling for canals and roads than education. However, I hope we can advance them with equal pace. (Letter to Joel Barlow, December 10, 1807)

No one more sincerely wishes the spread of information among mankind than I do, and none has greater confidence in its effect towards supporting free and good government. (Letter to Trustees for the Lottery of East Tennessee College, May 6, 1810)

Enlighten the people, generally, and tyranny and oppressions of body and mind will vanish like spirits at the dawn of day. (Letter to Dupont de Nemours, April 24, 1816)

If a nation expects to be ignorant - and free - in a state of civilization, it expects what never was and never will be. (Letter to Colonel Charles Yancey, January 6, 1816)

To all of which is added a selection from the elementary schools of subjects of the most promising genius, whose parents are too poor to give them further education, to be carried at the public expense through the college and university. The object is to bring into action that mass of talents which lies buried in poverty in every country, for want of the means of development, and thus give activity to a mass of mind, which, in proportion to our population, shall be double or treble of what it is in most countries. (Letter to Jose Correa de Serra, November 25, 1817)

To give to every citizen the information he needs for the transaction of his own business; To enable him to calculate for himself, and to express and preserve his ideas, his contracts and accounts, in writing; To improve, by reading, his morals and faculties; To understand his duties to his neighbors and country, and to discharge with competence the functions confided to him by either; To know his rights; to exercise with order and justice those he retains; to choose with discretion the fiduciary of those he delegates; and to notice their conduct with diligence, with candor, and judgment; And, in general, to observe with intelligence and faithfulness all the social relations under which he shall be placed. (Report of the Commissioners for the University of Virginia, August 4, 1818)

All the States but our own are sensible that knowledge is power. (Letter to Joseph C. Cabell, January 22, 1820) Side note: Cabell and his descendents certainly thought he meant public education – The Cabell have used their fortune to support education – two buildings at UVa are named Cabell, the main library at VCU is Cabell Library and similar efforts have been made elsewhere by the family)

The truth is that the want of common education with us is not from our poverty, but from the want of an orderly system. More money is now paid for the education of a part than would be paid for that of the whole if systematically arranged. (Letter to Joseph Cabell, November 28, 1820)
The Northwest Ordinance - July 23, 1787

Religion, morality and knowledge being necessary to good government and the happiness of mankind, schools and the means of education shall forever be encouraged.

Noah Webster - On Education of Youth in America (1790)
It is an object of vast magnitude that systems of education should be adopted and pursued which may not only diffuse a knowledge of the sciences but may implant in the minds of the American youth the principles of virtue and of liberty and inspire them with just and liberal ideas of government and with an inviolable attachment to their own country.

James Wilson - Of the Study of the Law in the United States (circa 1790)
Law and liberty cannot rationally become the objects of our love, unless they first become the objects of our knowledge.

Thomas Paine - Rights of Man, part 2 (1792)
A nation under a well regulated government, should permit none to remain uninstructed. It is monarchical and aristocratical government only that requires ignorance for its support.

James Madison 
A popular Government, without popular information, or the means of acquiring it, is but a Prologue to a Farce or a Tragedy; or, perhaps both. Knowledge will forever govern ignorance: And a people who mean to be their own Governors, must arm themselves with the power which knowledge gives. (Letter to W.T. Barry, August 4, 1822)

What spectacle can be more edifying or more seasonable, than that of Liberty and Learning, each leaning on the other for their mutual & surest support? (Letter to W.T. Barry, August 4, 1822)

The best service that can be rendered to a Country, next to that of giving it liberty, is in diffusing the mental improvement equally essential to the preservation, and the enjoyment of the blessing. (Letter to Littleton Dennis Teackle, March 29, 1826)

For more: http://www.cougaruteforum.com/showthread.php?t=22861