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Friday, November 19, 2010

Stanton Peele: Sputnik and Charter Schools: Neither Has Moved American Education Off Center

Stanton Peele: Sputnik and Charter Schools: Neither Has Moved American Education Off Center
Stanton Peele

Stanton Peele

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Posted: November 18, 2010 02:18 PM
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Read More: Bob Herbert , Charter Schools , Education , Gail Collins , Geoffrey Canada , Joel Klein , Michael Bloomberg , Science Education , Waiting For Superman , Living News

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American leaders have been concerned to improve education since the 1950s, when the Soviet launching of Sputnik in 1957 prompted endless soul-searching about deficiencies in American scientific education. It is now hard to recall the political and social turmoil Sputnik spawned. James Rutherford, a member of the American Association for the Advancement of Science,compared two seismic events that focused Americans on the country's unpreparedness in an overseas enemy -- Pearl Harbor and Sputnik:

"The military and the politicians received the blame for Pearl Harbor, not educators; in the Sputnik instance, the finger of blame quickly and sternly pointed at the schools."

Among the educational concerns Rutherford identified in the aftermath of Sputnik were these:

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Bloomberg speaks on education reform at CU

Bloomberg speaks on education reform at CU

Bloomberg speaks on education reform at CU

The mayor spoke Thursday morning at Columbia as part of a three-day conference held by New York City Global Partners.

By Carrie Montgomery

Published November 19, 2010

Zara Castany / Staff photographer

Mayor Michael Bloomberg’s childhood teachers would never have imagined him making a speech on education reform.

“I was the student who made the top half possible,” Bloomberg joked, referring to his academic performance.

The mayor spoke Thursday morning at Columbia as part of a three-day conference held by New York City Global Partners. A slew of high-level education officials gathered in Low Library to propose reform strategies and programmatic solutions to

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Higher education anti-bullying bill is presented to U.S. House, Senate in memory of Tyler Clementi | NJ.com

Higher education anti-bullying bill is presented to U.S. House, Senate in memory of Tyler Clementi | NJ.com

Higher education anti-bullying bill is presented to U.S. House, Senate in memory of Tyler Clementi

Published: Thursday, November 18, 2010, 5:39 PM Updated: Thursday, November 18, 2010, 5:39 PM
Kelly Heyboer/ The Star-Ledger Kelly Heyboer/ The Star-Ledger
lautenberg-holt-clementi.jpgStar-Ledger file photosU.S. Senator Frank Lautenberg, left, and Congressman Rush Holt, center, today introduced anti-bullying legislation to their respective houses. The bill was named in honor of Rutgers student Tyler Clementi, right, who committed suicide after his roommate broadcast a sexual encounter over webcam.
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Colleges and universities across the nation would be required to have anti-harassment policies and recognize cyber-bullying as a threat to students under federal legislation introduced today in memory of a Rutgers University student who committed suicide.

The Tyler Clementi Higher Education Anti-Harassment Act was introduced in the U.S. House and Senate by Rep. Rush Holt (D-12th Dist.) and Sen. Frank Lautenberg (D-NJ). In addition to requiring all colleges that receive federal aid to amend their harassment policies, the new law would provide funding to help schools start anti-bullying programs on campus.

"The tragic impact of bullying on college campuses has damaged too many young adults and it is time for our colleges to put policies on the books tha

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Ed Panel Emphasizes Reform | The Harvard Crimson

Ed Panel Emphasizes Reform | The Harvard Crimson

Ed Panel Emphasizes Reform

By MONIKA L. S. ROBBINS, CRIMSON STAFF WRITER
Published: Friday, November 19, 2010

pictureJANE SEO

Margarent Spellings, John Podesta, Jeb Bush, and Michelle Rhee speak at the forum "Strange Bedfellows: The Politics of Education and the Future of Reform" in front of a packed crowd at the Institute of Politics.

Former Florida Governor Jeb Bush, former White House Chief of Staff John Podesta, and former DC Public Schools Chancellor Michelle Rhee called for scalable solutions to reform the public education system last night in a discussion moderated by a former U.S. Secretary of Education at the John F. Kennedy Jr. Forum at the Institute of Politics.

The discussion marked the end of Bush’s week as a Visiting Fellow at the IOP

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Queens Teacher: Testing-Gate: The Case for Reparations

Queens Teacher: Testing-Gate: The Case for Reparations

Testing-Gate: The Case for Reparations

by Queens Teacher

Leadership, Law, and Policy

Testing-Gate: The Case for Reparations
Posted By David Bloomfield


Consequences are an essential component of accountability. Recent revelations of inflated state test scores require consequences, not just for those public officials responsible for false claims of math and reading
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Jerry Brown’s ed plan reflects realism toward school reform | Thoughts on Public Education

Jerry Brown’s ed plan reflects realism toward school reform | Thoughts on Public Education

Jerry Brown’s ed plan reflects realism toward school reform

Posted on 11/19/10 • Categorized as 2010 elections

By Charles Taylor Kerchner

Gov.-elect Jerry Brown’s education plan is smart, pragmatic, and, in one respect, a little bit pregnant.

Brown’s adviser and Stanford professor Mike Kirst suggested I reexamine the governor-elect’s plan, this with the assurance that the governor-elect means to do what he said. A close reread opens the eyes to possibilities for substantial reform that can be accomplished, or at least begun, in these tough budgetary times. Smart. Pragmatic.

(My comments follow with page and paragraph references to Brown’s plan for those who want to follow along with the original.)

In a world where “you campaign in poetry, but govern in prose,” Brown didn’t get the poetry part, but the prose is good. He and Kirst have moved well beyond the simplistic I’ll-be-an-

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Mike Klonsky's SmallTalk Blog: Cathie Black's "common touch"

Mike Klonsky's SmallTalk Blog: Cathie Black's "common touch"

Cathie Black's "common touch"

by Mike Klonsky
Michael Appleton for The New York Times
Cathleen P. Black, the mayor’s pick to lead New York schools, waiting for a taxi outside her Park Avenue apartment.
She grew up sheltered and privileged, in a middle-class Irish enclave of Chicago at midcentury, attending Catholic schools and riding horses at a country club where blacks and Jews were not allowed...She was the newspaper industry’s chief lobbyist in the 1990s, fighting a ban on tobacco advertising, and she occasionally

The puppeteer

by Mike Klonsky
OK, now at least we know where Duncan's "do more with less" crap is coming from.

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The Washington Teacher: Precarious Predicament for DCPS Instructional Coaches

The Washington Teacher: Precarious Predicament for DCPS Instructional Coaches

Precarious Predicament for DCPS Instructional Coaches

by The Wash. Teacher
Featuring Candi Peterson, blogger in residence and candidate for WTU General Vice President

DCPS Instructional Coaches (IC's) find themselves in a precarious predicament being government employees manipulated at taxpayer's expense. The Washington Teacher has confirmed that Instructional Coaches are required to attend a mandatory November 19 afternoon meeting with"Holdover" president George Parker during instructional time instead of their previously scheduled training. This is the second hastily called Friday meeting for IC's with Parker at taxpayer's expense and has some IC's feeling miffed about the misuse of instructional time and directive to meet with Parker.

In a November 18 email to Jason Kamras, one IC wrote: "In all my years as DCPS employee, I have never worked under administrators who disregarded the sanctity of instructional time. The last such meeting was a total sham! George Parker and Mary Collins presented nothing of educational, or professional value to teachers. Needless to
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Mayors Appointing Non-Educator Managers as Superintendents, Part 1 | Larry Cuban on School Reform and Classroom Practice

Mayors Appointing Non-Educator Managers as Superintendents, Part 1 | Larry Cuban on School Reform and Classroom Practice

Mayors Appointing Non-Educator Managers as Superintendents, Part 1

by larrycuban

Many readers probably never heard of Benjamin Demps, Jr.

He is the son of a laborer who grew up in Manhattan and joined the Air Force after high school in 1951. He eventually worked as an air traffic controller becoming a manager of operations. As a married man with two daughters, he returned to school and got a bachelor’s degree at the age of 32 and a law degree at the age of 48. He served as a high-ranking federal civil aviation official for six years. After leaving the FAA, he served as Oklahoma’s secretary of health and human services. In 1999, he was appointed superintendent of the Kansas City (MO) public schools and walked into a firestorm of criticism about failing city schools.

“Some people are skeptical because I’m not from Kansas City…. Who is this guy? [ they ask. He had never

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“Parent trigger” policy and a model for disguise « Failing Schools

“Parent trigger” policy and a model for disguise « Failing Schools

“Parent trigger” policy and a model for disguise

NOVEMBER 18, 2010
by markfriedman1

I received an article from a list server a few days ago that goes a little something like this:

The Radical School Reform You’ve Never Heard Of With ‘parent trigger,’ families can forcibly change failing schools.

By David Feith

Debates about education these days tend to center on familiar terms like charter schools and merit pay. Now a new fault line is emerging: “parent trigger.”

Like many radical ideas, parent trigger originated in California, as an innovation of a liberal activist group called Parent Revolution. The average student in Los Angeles has only a 50% chance of graduating high school and a 10% chance of attending college. It’s a crisis, says Parent Revolution leader Ben Austin, that calls for “an

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