Tuesday, December 7, 2010

Shael Polakow-Suransky reiterates Bloomberg party line - Cathie Black is in charge

BY RACHEL MONAHAN
DAILY NEWS STAFF WRITER

Tuesday, December 7th 2010, 4:00 AM

Seth Wenig

Cathie Black agreed to an appointment of a deputy in a compromise to secure her state waiver, but there's no doubt about who's calling the shots.

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The new top deputy to incoming Schools Chancellor Cathie Black says he's not completely clear on what his new job entails.

"We're going to start Jan. 1, so we have some time to work those things out," Shael Polakow-Suransky said Monday night after addressing the Staten Island Community Education Council.

Polakow-Suransky, currently a deputy chancellor, was named last month to the new post of chief academic officer - part of a deal to win a state waiver for Black, who has no education background.

Queens Teacher: The Downside of Mayoral Control of Schools

The Downside of Mayoral Control of Schools

by Queens Teacher

The Downside of Mayoral Control of Schools
By Walt Gardner

Faced with the daunting task of turning around failing schools, a number of cities over the past 20 years put their mayors in charge of the job. Although this strategy ran counter to a long tradition of school board independence, it was seen as the most effective way to speed up the pace of reform.

The most dramatic example was New York City, home of the nation's largest school district. In 2002, Mayor Michael Bloomberg convinced the state Legislature to grant him the power he sought. Whether he has been successful depends largely on who is queried. What is undeniable, however, is the controversy surrounding Bloomberg's recent appointment of Cathleen Black to be the new chancellor, replacing Joel Klein, who will take a post with News Corp.

The problem for Bloomberg was that New York State requires a waiver for anyone who lacks education qualifications. The mayor succeeded in getting the waiver by agreeing to allow Shael Polakow-Suransky to be

The Answer Sheet - Assessing teachers without fetishizing test-based reforms

Assessing teachers without fetishizing test-based reforms

This was written by Kevin Welner, a professor of education policy and program evaluation in the School of Education at the University of Colorado at Boulder, and director of the National Education Policy Center. He can be reached at welner@colorado.edu. By Kevin G. Welner Remember how “the soft bigotry of low expectations” beautifully encapsulated a serious equity issue and then led to a destructive No Child Left Behind law that has narrowed the curriculum and forced educators to over-test students and teach to tests? We are, I fear, now at the same point with teacher quality. Lost within the ongoing craziness of leaders using teacher and principal dismissal as a primary strategy to fix public schools (along with the echo chamber of irresponsible punditry and filmmaking) are some important truths about teacher quality.

The Robert Bobb Sad Saga Continues: Part 2 | Seattle Education 2010

The Robert Bobb Sad Saga Continues: Part 2

by seattleducation2010

This just in.

Robert Bobb

Remember Robert Bobb, the Emergency Financial Manager in Detroit who made a mess of things in the Detroit Public Schools? The person who I wrote about in, Robert Bobb: The Sad Saga Continues? The one who Eli Broad still thinks would make a great DC Chancellor of Schools? The one who I wrote about on the Huffington Post ? That Bob Bobb? Well, BAMN came through and was victorious along with the Detroit School Board ontaking back their schools.

Here is the press release:

COURT DECLARES EMERGENCY FINANCIAL MANAGER’S TAKEOVER OF DETROIT PUBLIC SCHOOLS ILLEGAL

BAMN (By Any Means Necessary) and Detroit School Board Score Major Legal Victory Against Market-Based Corporate Education Models.

Mike Klonsky's SmallTalk Blog: New report: The right way to evaluate teachers

New report: The right way to evaluate teachers

by Mike Klonsky

What is presently being pawned of by corporate reformers as a reform of teacher evaluation has little grounding in education research and makes for bad policy. This according to a policy brief

School Tech Connect: Pearson Education-- Always Learning

Pearson Education-- Always Learning

by effacethefacade@yahoo.com (Tim)

Back to this fabulous expose of the life of a test-scorer, by Dan DiMaggio.

What? A corporation

DPS, Gates to announce charter compacts | EdNewsColorado

DPS, Gates to announce charter compacts

by Nancy Mitchell

Officials from the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation today are scheduled to announce district-charter partnerships in nine key city school districts, including New York, Los Angeles and Denver.

The partnerships differ by district but in Denver, elements of a compact signed by 25 charter school leaders include locating schools in the city’s highest-needs areas and providing quality programs for all students, including English language learners and those with special needs.

The charters also agree to open their doors to students moving in the middle of the school year. This fall, 11

Monday, December 6, 2010

Michelle Rhee, Ex-Schools Chief in Washington, Re-emerges - NYTimes.com

A Former Schools Chief Shapes Her Comeback

By TRIP GABRIEL

Published: December 6, 2010

REPRINTS

Ever since Michelle Rhee resigned under pressure as chancellor of the Washington, D.C., schools in October, rumors have flown about her next move.

Enlarge This Image

Susan Walsh/Associated Press

Michelle Rhee

Would she relocate to Newark to spend the $100 million gift from Mark Zuckerberg of Facebook to fix its troubled schools? Would she become education commissioner of New Jersey or Florida?

Ms. Rhee, one of the best recognized, and most polarizing, figures in public education, answered Monday with timed appearances on “Oprah” and the cover of Newsweek. The media splash said as much about her ability to market herself and her brand of school reform as the details of her next chapter.

She announced she would lead a new advocacy group,StudentsFirst, setting a highly ambitious target of raising

Education reform: Michelle Rhee to raise $1 billion to fight teachers' unions - CSMonitor.com

Education reform: Michelle Rhee to raise $1 billion to fight teachers' unions

Former D.C. schools chancellor Michelle Rhee, famous for battling teachers' unions, creates Students First to forward her education reform priorities.

D.C. Schools Chancellor Michelle Rhee (l.) walks away from the podium after announcing that she is resigning, Oct. 13, during a news conference in Washington. She announced Monday that she will start a new organization, Students First, to further her education reform agenda, which has been criticized by teachers' unions.

Pablo Martinez Monsivais/AP

Enlarge

By Amanda Paulson, Staff Writer / December 6, 2010

Michelle Rhee made a splash Monday with her announcement of a new organization – Students First – to push her education reform priorities.

Lobbying Spending Database Education, 2010 | OpenSecrets

LOBBYING

Education

Issue Profile, 2010

Total Number of Clients: 1,075
Number of reports listing issue area: 3,033

Records are displayed 50 at a time

School Tech Connect: The Fanfare of the Wounded Brand

The Fanfare of the Wounded Brand

by effacethefacade@yahoo.com (Tim)

Stolen from The Atlantic.

Oh, I don't know. This all looks like the concoction of a PR firm to me. It looks like wounded brand-rebuilding. Michelle Rhee isn't going to be the the Sarah Palin of education reform; Rhee gives off way too many negatives, whether that's fair or not. If I were an urban ~~autocrat~~ mayor or the president of a democratic school

PostPartisan - What Michelle Rhee is doing next

What Michelle Rhee is doing next

By Jo-Ann Armao

Anyone who watched Michelle Rhee these last three and a half years as she upended Washington's troubled public schools shouldn't be surprised by her decision to start up a new national organization dedicated to school reform. From the get-go -- when she was first named D.C. schools chancellor by Mayor Adrian Fenty -- she said she was no career bureaucrat; Washington would be her first and last stint as school superintendent. Then there's the fact she hates being bossed around, so it was clear she needed a job where she was in charge. Add in her passionate belief that student interests are often overlooked in the debate over education reform and her clear antagonism toward teacher unions and StudentsFirst was not surprising.

Rhee is announcing today -- in a column in Newsweek and an appearance on Oprah! -- that she is starting a new national movement aimed at transforming public education in America. She aims to raise a boatload of money and members -- $1 billion and one million members is the goal for the first year -- to reshape education. That means trying

Federal Documents -- Likely Erroneous -- Say Michelle Rhee Lobbied for Obscure 'Fighting Apartheid' Organization - OpenSecrets Blog | OpenSecrets

Federal Documents -- Likely Erroneous -- Say Michelle Rhee Lobbied for Obscure 'Fighting Apartheid' Organization

By Dave Levinthal on December 6, 2010 5:38 PM

|More

Michelle Rhee, the former District of Columbia Public Schools chancellor and education reformer to the stars, was a registered federal lobbyist for an organization called Fighting Apartheid Confrontation Transformation Systems.

At least, that's according to federal lobbying documents that are almost certainly incorrect.

Rhee, who today announced that she's launching a nonprofit education reform group that aims to raise $1 billion and in part lobby governments, is listed as a lobbyist in the obscure, Washington, D.C.-based organization's lobbying report for the first quarter of 2008.

Filed with the Clerk of the House of Representatives and Secretary of the Senate, the report

Cartoon Facebook Campaign No Laughing Matter

Written by Robert Waddell

looneytunes

It's been said that fairy tales from childhood reveal much about the person identifying with the childhood story. The same could be said of anyone who identifies with Homer Simpson, Scooby-Doo or Sponge Bob. Great memories of George Jetson or The Flintstones after school; of course, for sarcasm and bitchiness: Bugs Bunny.

The screwy wabbit who spoke like he was from the Bronx and Brooklyn at the same time, and made Elmer Fudd's life miserable especially during hunting season. Remember "What's Opera Doc?" where a Broom Hilda

New York City Schools News: Ross Global Academy Charter School Slated to Close - WSJ.com

High-Profile Charter Becomes Non-Starter

By BARBARA MARTINEZ

A prominent charter school made the list of underperforming schools that the Department of Education plans to close, and the school said it intends to fight for its survival.

The Ross Global Academy Charter School on the Lower East Side was founded in 2006 by Courtney Sale Ross, the widow of Steven J. Ross, former chief executive of Time Warner.

The school's test scores for 2009 show it's one of the city's three worst-performing charter schools. Only about 30% of its students were proficient in math or English. It has had four principals in five years, and 77% of its teachers and 25% of its students left last year.

In an interview before the DOE's decision, Ms. Ross, 62 years old, said last year's test scores were an aberration and that some of the contributing factors were beyond the school's control. "This was a start-up riddled with turbulence," she said, pointing to the DOE's decisions to relocate the school three times. She added that the school had already begun a process of turnaround with a new principal.

On Monday, the DOE dismissed Ms. Ross's version of the school's tenure. "This was not a one-year problem," the agency said in a statement. "The school has received four notices of concern

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