Damn Good Education Daily

Damn Good Education Daily

Damn Good Education Daily

Inside The Times

latimes.com - School Board President Monica Garcia hugs John Deasy, who was named to succeed Ramon Cortines as superintendent of L.A. Unified. (Luis Sinco / Los Angeles Times / January 11, 2011) By Howard Blume,...

mikeklonsky

Inside The Times

latimes.com - School Board President Monica Garcia hugs John Deasy, who was named to succeed Ramon Cortines as superintendent of L.A. Unified. (Luis Sinco / Los Angeles Times / January 11, 2011) By Howard Blume,...

mikeklonsky

'Huckleberry Finn' and 'The Wire' - Bridging Differences

blogs.edweek.org - Dear Deborah,Words can wound, words can heal, words can inflame. Given the Constitution's First Amendment, we invariably support maximum freedom of expression, knowing that we are often extending p...

DianeRavitch

Class Struggle - Does KIPP shed too many low

pheedcontent.com - My colleague Valerie Strauss, creator and proprietor of the fabulous The Answer Sheet blog on this Web site, recently encouraged a spirited debate over attrition rates at KIPP schools. I wrote my l...

alexanderrusso

Sounding the Alarm on Human Trafficking

mariashriver.com - January 11, 2011 Sounding the Alarm on Human Trafficking By Emma Brownell Kathryn Bolkovac was working as a police offer in Nebraska when she accepted a position with private military contractor Dy...

mariashrive

'No Child' change has bipartisan support

'No Child' change has bipartisan support

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By Nick Anderson

Washington Post Staff Writer
Wednesday, January 12, 2011

President Obama will mount a fresh attempt this year to rewrite the No Child Left Behind education law, a top administration official said this week, and key congressional Republicans said they are ready to deal.

"The president is ready to move on this," Education Secretary Arne Duncan told The Washington Post.

Rep. Duncan Hunter (R-Calif.), chairman of a subcommittee on elementary and secondary education, said there is bipartisan consensus that the 2002 law should be overhauled.

"We have a lot of common ground," Hunter said. "We also see a major need. It's time to

Michelle Rhee Wants to Spend $1 Billion Fixing Education | Fast Company

Michelle Rhee Wants to Spend $1 Billion Fixing Education | Fast Company

Michelle Rhee Wants to Spend $1 Billion Fixing Education

BY: JEFF CHUFebruary 1, 2010

AFTER THE FALL: Rhee is going national with her new lobbying group, Students First. | Photograph by Michael Kelley

How -- and why -- she created her new interest group, students first.

Enlarge

Day One: Rhee spent Students First's launch day in Sacramento. Clockwise from top left, she visited her fiance, Mayor Kevin Johnson, at city hall and taped a segment for NBC Nihgtly News. Johnson gathered about 100 friends, family, staff, and supporters for an Oprah viewing party at Sacramento's old city hall. Rhee in the makeup chair before a TV appearance. | Photographs by Michael Kelley

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How to Spend $100 Million to Really Save Education

The day after Washington, D.C., Mayor Adrian Fenty lost his reelection bid last September, Michelle Rhee, the city's schools chancellor and No. 1 lightning rod, had an OMG moment. For three years, Fenty had constantly spent political capital defending Rhee as she fired hundreds of teachers and principals, closed schools, and earned both education reformers' adoration and teachers' unions' wrath. He eventually paid with his job -- and she knew she'd soon pay with hers. What am I going to do? she

Democurmudgeon: Private Voucher Schools asking for Higher Taxpayer funding. Be Careful When Republicans Dole out Taxpayer money to Private Sector.

Democurmudgeon: Private Voucher Schools asking for Higher Taxpayer funding. Be Careful When Republicans Dole out Taxpayer money to Private Sector.

Private Voucher Schools asking for Higher Taxpayer funding. Be Careful When Republicans Dole out Taxpayer money to Private Sector.

by Democurmudgeon

First, the good news (kind of):

JSonline: High school graduation rates increased for both Milwaukee Public Schools students and low-income city children using vouchers (went up 5 percentage points) to attend private schools in 2008-'09, but voucher students are still more likely to graduate than their public school peers, according to data released Monday.

MPS officials continue to question the accuracy of "Graduation Rates for Choice and Public School Students in Milwaukee," funded by School Choice Wisconsin, a voucher advocacy group. They point out that the names of

Modern School: Violence and Repression of Puerto Rican Students

Modern School: Violence and Repression of Puerto Rican Students

Violence and Repression of Puerto Rican Students

by noreply@blogger.com (Michael Dunn)

Students went on strike again today at Rio Piedras, the main campus of the University of Puerto Rico, in a continuation of the ongoing protests against fee hikes and to keep public education from being privatized. Some protesters tried to occupy buildings and smashed windows, eventually leaving campus when riot police arrived. There have been no report of injuries or arrests so far.

"They fear us because we don't fear them" (Nos tienen miedo porque no tenemos miedo).

William Francisco Ayala beaten by private guards

While not receiving the same media attention as those in London and Rome, there have

Republican school board in N.C. backed by tea party abolishes integration policy

Republican school board in N.C. backed by tea party abolishes integration policy

By Stephanie McCrummen

Washington Post Staff Writer
Tuesday, January 11, 2011; 10:43 PM

IN RALEIGH, N.C. The sprawling Wake County School District has long been a rarity. Some of its best, most diverse schools are in the poorest sections of this capital city. And its suburban schools, rather than being exclusive enclaves, include children whose parents cannot afford a house in the neighborhood.

But over the past year, a new majority-Republican school board backed by national tea party conservatives has set the district on a strikingly different course. Pledging to "say no to the social engineers!" it has abolished the policy behind one of the nation's most celebrated integration efforts.

And as the board moves toward a system in which students attend neighborhood schools, some members are embracing the provocative idea that concentrating poor children, who are usually minorities, in a few schools could have merits - logic thatcritics are blasting as a 21st-century case for segregation.

The situation unfolding here in some ways represents a first foray of tea party

Now 43rd in per-student spending | Thoughts on Public Education

Now 43rd in per-student spending | Thoughts on Public Education

Now 43rd in per-student spending - by John Fensterwald - Educated Guess

by John Fensterwald - Educated Guess

Praised for its high academic standards and accountability measures, dinged for its low scores on the national standardized tests, low high school graduation rates, and disadvantages of high rates of poverty and non-English speaking households, California fell squarely in a crowded, mediocre middle – 30th among the states, in this year’s annual ratings by Education Week’s [...]

The Answer Sheet - A critical shortage of school counselors

The Answer Sheet - A critical shortage of school counselors

A critical shortage of school counselors

Look at these statistics on the number of students that counselors in American public schools are expected to help: Though the recommended number per counselor is 250 students, the American School Counselor Associations shows that the national average is actually one counselor for every 457 students. And those figures were from 2008-09, the latest available, but before many states slashed school budgets last year. Some states have much higher ratios than the national average, including Arizona, the home state of Jared Lee Loughner, the 22-year-old charged with killing 6 and wounding 14, including Rep. Gabrielle Giffords.

How to talk to kids about violence

The saturation media coverage of the Tucson shooting rampage that left six people dead, including a 9-year-old girl born on Sept. 11, 2011, makes it vital for parents and teachers to talk to young people about what happened. Here, from the National Association of School Psychologists, is advice on how to talk to children about violence:

Facebook, Friends, and Online Schooling | Larry Cuban on School Reform and Classroom Practice

Facebook, Friends, and Online Schooling | Larry Cuban on School Reform and Classroom Practice

Facebook, Friends, and Online Schooling

by larrycuban

Image by evalottchen via Flickr

QUESTION: What does Facebook and maintaining important relationships have to do with online instruction?

ANSWER: Facebook promises something it cannot deliver just as many promoters promise that online instruction will transform schooling as we know it. Both are over-hyped social media.

Consider that Facebook promises to transcend the limitations of face-to-face contact that have confined us to a

From LAUSD to New York City Public School and everything in between: A NATIONAL SCANDAL OF EPIC PROPORTIONS by Susan Lee Schwartz Part 1 - Perdaily.com

From LAUSD to New York City Public School and everything in between: A NATIONAL SCANDAL OF EPIC PROPORTIONS by Susan Lee Schwartz Part 1 - Perdaily.com

From LAUSD to New York City Public School and everything in between: A NATIONAL SCANDAL OF EPIC PROPORTIONS by Susan Lee Schwartz Part 1

by Leonard Isenberg

FOR NATIONAL VIEWS OF PUBLIC EDUCATION REFORM, SEE THE END OF THIS BLOG POST (Mensaje se repite en Español) Just when LAUSD thought it was safe to violate teacher and students rights - I'm back!.

What follows is ex-NYC school teacher Susan Lee Schwartz's article on just how pervasive the corruption is throughout the United States in a public education system where you have "NO CONSTITUTIONAL RIGHTS." Get in touch if you would like to be involved with a national alternative movement for Alternative Public Education Restructuring and the non-mainstream media campaign we are in the process of putting together to make people around this country aware of their silenced majority status in

Is Washington State government trying to jump on the ed reform bandwagon of failure? | Seattle Education 2010

Is Washington State government trying to jump on the ed reform bandwagon of failure? | Seattle Education 2010

Is Washington State government trying to jump on the ed reform bandwagon of failure?

by seattleducation2010

Two recent attempts by WA state government to subvert democracy in order to push an ed reform agenda are cause for alarm.

Two eyebrow-raising news items out of Olympia strongly imply that Governor Gregoire and Co. may be positioning our state to turn some tricks yet again for “Race to the Top” bribery funding.

Both involve bypassing the democratic process. This is the M.O. of many corporate ed reformers. Mayoral control of school districts is the desired scenario of top-down, anti-democratic ed reformers like Eli Broad, Michael Bloomberg and others. [See sidebar: Power grabs: the M.O. of Ed Reformers]

In the first example, Gov. Gregoire recently proposed eliminating the democratically elected State

Sic Transit Civility « InterACT

Sic Transit Civility « InterACT

Sic Transit Civility

by Kelly A. Kovacic

At nine years old, Christina Green’s political career was just starting. An elected member of the student council at her elementary school, she was eager to see government in action. It was an innocent trip with a family friend to meet her local Congresswoman at the neighborhood grocery store that cut short her life too soon. As the youngest victim killed in Tucson, Arizona by gunman Jared L. Loughner, this loss is particularly tragic as we look for answers to explain the atrocity that unfolded this past Saturday.

Unfortunately, the events at the Safeway shopping center did not come as a complete surprise to many, both those who knew the shooter and those who did not know him but know about the state of affairs in our nation. Any student or teacher of American History or Government need look no further than the Soldier Readiness Center at Fort Hood in Texas, Norris Hall on the Virginia Tech campus, the Alfred P. Murrah Federal Building in Oklahoma City, the Ambassador Hotel in Los Angeles, the Lorraine Motel in Memphis, or Dealey Plaza in Dallas to know about our history of violence. And all of us need look no further than the incendiary rhetoric of political campaigns, the blogosphere, and the 24/7 shout-fest offered by talk radio and TV, often with violent references