Bloomberg Says Obama's Democratic Base Should `Suck It Up' on Tax-Cut Deal - Bloomberg

Bloomberg Says Obama's Democratic Base Should `Suck It Up' on Tax-Cut Deal - Bloomberg

Bloomberg Says Obama's Democratic Base Should `Suck It Up' on Tax-Cut Deal

By Molly Peterson and Gopal Ratnam - Dec 12, 2010 6:00 AM PT

• inShare
• More
• Print
• Email

President Barack Obama should tell Democrats angered by his compromises with Republicans on extending tax cuts to “suck it up,” New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg said.

Obama “can’t just sit there and depend on ideology” because “leadership is about doing the possible, not sitting around and waiting for the perfect,” Bloomberg said in an interview on NBC’s “Meet the Press.”

Bloomberg told business executives in Brooklyn last week that the U.S. economy will stagnate if Congress remains mired in partisan gridlock. Obama should tell Democratic critics his bipartisan tax-cut deal won’t be the only tough vote of his presidency, Bloomberg said on NBC.

“He says, ‘Look, this is what I did, this is the best I can do. Suck it up,’” Bloomberg said, when

Green Dot revolution targets school that outperforms current Green Dotters - San Francisco Education | Examiner.com

Green Dot revolution targets school that outperforms current Green Dotters - San Francisco Education | Examiner.com

Green Dot revolution targets school that outperforms current Green Dotters

• June 11th, 2009 6:07 pm PT

The in-your-face organizer of Green Dot charter schools, Steve Barr, is putting together what’s basically a fake parents’ movement down in Los Angeles – or at least it’s a top-down alleged parents’ movement, created by Barr and run by paid organizer Ben Austin. The common term for a fake grassroots organization like this is “Astroturf.”

“Barr envisioned” the Astroturf organization “as an independent, assertive alternative to the PTA,” according to the L.A. Times.

“The plan,” says the Times, “is for parents to form chapters all over town and improve schools, one by one, using the growing leverage of the charter school movement. The goal is to unite a city of overworked and isolated parents with a brash promise:

“If more than half of the parents at a school sign up, Barr's organizers say they will guarantee an excellent campus within three years. They call it the Parent Revolution.

14 of 15 Green Dot schools are "failing," by Parent Revolution’s definition - San Francisco Education | Examiner.com

14 of 15 Green Dot schools are "failing," by Parent Revolution’s definition - San Francisco Education | Examiner.com

14 of 15 Green Dot schools are "failing," by Parent Revolution's definition

• January 14th, 2010 8:32 pm PT

Ben Austin of Los Angeles-based Parent Revolution contacted me privately today to object to myrepeating rumors that his organization had paid parents at L.A.’s Garfield High School to sign the petition allowing the school to be turned over to charter operators -- and to dispute the rumors.

Fair enough. As I said, they were indeed only rumors, though I felt that even the rumors call into question the purity of these petition campaigns. Austin, by the way, is a paid organizer for this group, which is an “Astroturf” organization (fake grassroots) started by a group of charter school operators, not an actual parent group. The sponsors of Parent Revolution are led by the charter operator Green Dot.

My post was about the “parent trigger” portion of new California legislation designed to make our state eligible for the Obama administration’s “Race to the Top” education money. The parent trigger allows parents in a school and in its feeder schools to petition for dismantling the school entirely – firing the administration and staff, turning the school over to a charter operator or

Schools Matter: Poem by Former KIPP Teacher

Schools Matter: Poem by Former KIPP Teacher

Poem by Former KIPP Teacher

by Jim Horn

by "Jennifer Liden"


marooned in a sea of
KIPPsters
monotonous morning meetings
punctuated by an unenthusiastic
We. Are. Proud. Of. You.
I say
weareproudof
you.

clap clap clap

SLANTing against a wall
to keep from fainting
from exhaustion.

Sunday links. « Fred Klonsky's blog

Sunday links. « Fred Klonsky's blog

Sunday links.

by Fred Klonsky

Further adventures in mayoral control. NY’s DOE hired John Alford to direct turn around schools at $130,000 a year. Last year he left New Orleans after he took responsibility for his business manager who was fired for embezzlement. Maybe that’s is what Arne means by turn around after all: Take responsibility for

The Wall.

by Fred Klonsky

Hyde Park, Chicago.

Schools Matter: Arne Duncan Has His Sputnik and Rosa Parks Moments Mixed Up

Schools Matter: Arne Duncan Has His Sputnik and Rosa Parks Moments Mixed Up

Arne Duncan Has His Sputnik and Rosa Parks Moments Mixed Up

by Jim Horn

Historians now tell us that Sputnik was much more a propaganda and public relations gimmick than it was an indication of Soviet technological and educational superiority. The American Vanguard 1, in fact, could have launched first, and our former Nazi rocket brain trust in Huntsville was furious that Eisenhower didn't launch first.

But if you don't believe the historians, look at what happened 13 years after Sputnik: I believe that was the Stars and Stripes planted in the Sea of Tranquility, rather than the Hammer & Sickle. The facts, however, didn't stop conservatives like Arthur Bestor and Admiral Hyman Rickover and Milton Friedman from using the incident to bludgeon schools into another of the recurring back to basics movements that keep American kids through the

The Answer Sheet - What international test scores really tell us: Lessons buried in PISA report

The Answer Sheet - What international test scores really tell us: Lessons buried in PISA report

What international test scores really tell us: Lessons buried in PISA report

By Valerie Strauss

This was written by William J. Mathis of Goshen, Vermont. He is the managing director of the National Education Policy Center.. and a former Vermont superintendent. The views expressed are his own.

By William J. Mathis
For the 27th, government officials have yet again been surprised, shocked and dismayed over the latest international test score rankings. Secretary of Education Arne Duncan said, “We have to see this as a very serious wake-up call.” Former Reagan education official Chester E. Finn Jr. reported that he was “kind of stunned” by the results of the

Damn Good Education Daily

Damn Good Education Daily

Damn Good Education Daily

Board of R.I.’s first Democracy Prep school splits with its operator over money | Rhode Island news projo.com

projo.com - School founder Seth Andrew peaks at the February 2009 news conference announcing the Mayoral Academies. The Providence Journal / Bob Breidenbach For the past two years, Brown graduate Seth Andrew —...

DianeRavitch

How Do Successful School Systems Treat Teachers?

huffingtonpost.com - The recent release of two important reports led me to ask this question.The National Education Policy Center shared a brief that reviews available research on several different aspects of teacher e...

TeacherSabrina

December’s Best Tweets — Part One

larryferlazzo.edublogs.org - Dec 12 2010 Larry Ferlazzo Every month I make a short list highlighting my choices of the best resources I shared through (and learned from) Twitter, but didn’t necessarily include them in posts he...

Larryferlazzo

Adults blame parents for education problems

washingtonpost.com - SEATTLE -- Blaming teachers for low test scores, poor graduation rates and the other ills of American schools has been popular lately, but a new survey wags a finger closer to home.An Associated Pr...

OklaBrett

Effort to convert Compton school to charter draws fire

latimes.com - Tempers flared Friday over the fate of a low-performing Compton elementary school that has become the first target of a new law allowing parents to mandate school shutdowns or charter-school conver...