Friday, December 17, 2010

'Parent Trigger' Petitioners Fend Off Accusations From Compton Unified, McKinley PTA -- Not California Board Of Education - Los Angeles News - The Informer

Parent Trigger' Petitioners Fend Off Accusations From Compton Unified, McKinley PTA -- Not California Board Of Education

By Simone Wilson, Fri., Dec. 17 2010 @ 6:19AM

Over the last few days, a lightning storm of hear-say and hyperbole has lit up the sky over two groups of Compton parents. Major media outlets reporting the conflict have tended toward one side or the other, creating a tug-of-war effect beneath the mass confusion.

One group supports the Parent Trigger petition, which -- unless over 50 parents retract their signatures -- willtake McKinley Elementary from the Compton Unified School District and convert it to a Celerity charter school (still state-funded, but independently run). The other insists that McKinley is better off in the familiar hands of the district.

Both sides are claiming the other lied and used intimidation tactics to recruit supporters.

Yesterday morning, Los Angeles Times reporter Teresa Watanabe wrote that the California Board of Education had stepped in, asking the attorney general to "examine

Fire Teachers, Reappoint Rhee!: Legend of the Fall, pt. III | Dailycensored.com

Fire Teachers, Reappoint Rhee!: Legend of the Fall, pt. III

Written by Paul ThomasEducationDec 17, 2010

0digg

After announcing that U.S. education is a complete failure, unlike the Golden Era of the 1950s, on The Colbert Report , former DC chancellor Michelle Rhee has brought her celebrity crisis tour to CNN where she charged, once again, that public education is a failure based on recent PISA scores, ranked internationally.

Since I recently clarified Rhee’s historical incompetence (or bold dishonesty) concerning education in 1950s America, before desegregation and civil rights legislation that changed this country, let’s turn to the claims she made on CNN.

Is U.S. education in crisis? If it is, then we either need to changed the definition of the word or admit that a crisis can last more than a century because every single claim made by Rhee has been tossed at education since the mid-1800s.

About a year ago, a jet crash-landed in the Hudson River. That’s a crisis. The pilot, crew, passengers, and rescue personnel had to take quick and

Was Lisa Hudson's Son Flunked By The System? | Education | Change.org

Was Lisa Hudson's Son Flunked By The System?

by Megan Cottrell

Lisa Hudson says no one ever told her she could appeal the decision. Her son's teacher at Black Magnet Elementary School in Chicago had decided to flunk her son from summer school reading, making him repeat sixth grade.

She never even knew he was having trouble in reading. He had been sent to summer school for low math scores.

Hudson is a part of a group of Chicago parents called PURE - Parents United for Responsible Education - that'slodging a civil rights complaint against the Chicago Public Schools because they say the system overwhelmingly flunks children of color.

PURE executive director Julie Woestehoff says CPS has continued to flunk students by the thousands despite research that shows holding kids back doesn't help them academically and often leads to them dropping out of school at an early age.

TEA confirms cheating allegations in HISD | School Zone | Chron.com - Houston Chronicle

TEA confirms cheating allegations in HISD

Investigators with the Texas Education Agency confirmed allegations of staff-led cheating on the TAKS test at Key Middle School last year, according to a TEA memo [pdf].

The agency's letter, sent to the Houston Independent School District late Thursday, said that state officials found "significant evidence" that Key students were helped on the June 2009 eighth-grade TAKS retest in math and/or that some answers had been changed. Agency officials also said they verified other allegations in HISD's own investigative report that found evidence of cheating on other TAKS exams given at Key.

The TEA downgraded Key's accountability rating to "academically unacceptable," but the findings did not lead Texas Education Commissioner Robert Scott to downgrade HISD's

This Week In Education: Thompson: If The Gates Report Met Research Standards

Thompson: If The Gates Report Met Research Standards

by john thompson

I wonder how the Gates Foundation's "Learning About Teaching" would be different if the report was required to meet the standards of traditional social science before being peddled to reporters and the public. It would begin with an introduction that objectively provided background information. An early paragraph in the report would explain something like this: "Youth (in grades one through three) are improving their reading comprehension MORE during the months they are in school. However,

Quote: Union "Not The Villains"

by Alexander Russo

We are not the villains of education. We are the solution.

UK Occupations Holding it Down Over Break « occupy california

UK Occupations Holding it Down Over Break

by *

UNITED KINGDOM – Almost 50 university and college occupations have taken place since November 10th. The vast majority of them have now been suspended, or have made plans to leave this weekend. But two of them, that we know of, are planning to stay in over the holiday period: University of Kent Canterbury and Camberwell College of Art (South-East London).

These will need all our solidarity! We encourage all our supporters to get in touch with the occupations or just to go along and show some support.
(via EducationActivistNetwork)

Kent:

NYC Public School Parents: Gates-funded charter school "compact" vs. the real thing

Gates-funded charter school "compact" vs. the real thing

by Leonie Haimson

Bob Hughes of New Visions and James Merriman of the NYC Charter Center, beneficiaries of gobs of Gates money, join together in the Daily News to praise the one-sided Gates-designed “compact” signed by Chancellor Klein as well as the leaders of other districts around the country who receive Gates money. Nice little self-appreciation club, guys.

Real parents and other stakeholders were as usual left out of the discussion.

Not mentioned in the “feel-good” oped is how the actual “compact” requires that NYC continue to provide charters space in district buildings – which has sparked controversy and bitter battles as district public school children are increasingly squeezed out of their own schools, into basement rooms or even hallways.

As usual, the heedless charter lobby continues to be their own worst enemy, as resentment against charter

Mike Klonsky's SmallTalk Blog: Miguel del Valle: "Agenda must be a neighborhood agenda."

Miguel del Valle: "Agenda must be a neighborhood agenda."

by Mike Klonsky

New Chicago 2011 UIC Forum, December 14, 2010

Popout

Queens Teacher: The Real Problem With Cathie Black

The Real Problem With Cathie Black

by Queens Teacher

The Real Problem With Cathie Black

by Steve Nelson
Head of Calhoun School in Manhattan

The recent appointment of Catherine Black as Chancellor of New York City schools has ignited a firestorm of protest.

Black's appointment is just the latest expression of the surrender of America's educational system to corporate interests and mores. Educational policy is increasingly affected by the heavy purses of folks like Bill Gates and Eli Broad, both of whom use philanthropy as a sledgehammer to weaken unions, privatize schools and further advance the culture of data-driven pedagogy.

Broad, in a recent Huffington Post column, defended Black's appointment by citing the alleged successes of non-educators in superintendent roles. Most were prominent business managers, although Broad included two-star Air Force general, John Barry. Among those cited was Education Secretary Arne Duncan, who presided

How To Quantify Culture? Explore 500 Billion Published Words - Copy / Paste by Peter Pappas

How To Quantify Culture? Explore 500 Billion Published Words

by Peter Pappas

My "how-to" for using Google's "Books Ngram Viewer" - a free online research tool that allows you to quickly analyze the frequency of 500 billion names, words and phrases as they appeared in the digitized books contained in scanned books published between 1500 and 2008 in English, French, Spanish, German, Chinese and Russian.

School Tech Connect: Citizen-Lobbyists

Citizen-Lobbyists

by effacethefacade@yahoo.com (Tim)

If you're following the ed "reform" situation in Illinois right now, you'll note that there's a bizarre, suddenly-salad committee meeting out in the Borealis right now with a hugely right-wing agenda on collective bargaining, tenure, evaluations, etc. It's like Michelle Rhee scribbled for an hour on a tablecloth at Chucky Cheese, and then Michael Madigan used the tablecloth as the agenda for this committee.

Anyway, I've been following @IEANEA from the scene; it's quite informative. If people wonder where their dues dollars go, I can tell you. They go toward representation like we're getting today in front of this committee. And I'm not even a member!

Anyhoo, you should also contact your state representative about this committee, because it's going to rubber

D.C. students have few good choices — Joanne Jacobs

D.C. students have few good choices

by Joanne

In 2009-10, 12,000 Washington, D.C. students transferred from a school that failed to make Adequate Yearly Progress. But only 29 percent found an opening at a “higher-proficiency” charter or district-run school, concludes Choice Without Options, an American Enterprise Institute study. Almost three-fourths of transfers “made a school choice that can be described as choosing the bad over the worse or the unknown over the known.”

Washington, D.C., has an environment that, on the surface, is ripe with school choice. Last year, 70 percent of all public school students attended a school other than their zoned neighborhood school; nearly 40 percent attended public charter schools and another 30 percent attended selective magnet schools or traditional public schools using the out-of-boundary application process. Residents of D.C. can apply to more than ninety public charter schools and more than

This Week In Education: Reform: Nine Reasons "Everyone" Hates The Parent Trigger

Reform: Nine Reasons "Everyone" Hates The Parent Trigger

by Alexander Russo

Here are some of the reasons why the coverage of the parent trigger in Compton is skewing against the petitioners who want to do a conversion turnaround and hand the building over to Celerity: (1) Turnarounds of any kind are high-risk, uncertain propositions that cause a lot of displacement and collateral damage. (2) People -- educators -- are really angry and feel scapegoated by the recent reform trends (value added, removing charter caps, etc). (3) Current reforms haven't (yet?) proven to be any more

The Educated Reporter: Center for Education Reform attempts to flood the zone.

Center for Education Reform attempts to flood the zone.

by Linda Perlstein

If comments to your news articles become flooded by a new, probably articulate commenter who really, really loves charters and vouchers, the new managing editor of the Center for Education Reform’s “Media Bullpen” is probably doing his or her job. I am not clear on what exactly this endeavor is going to look like, but the one thing

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Friday, December 17, 2010