Thursday, March 24, 2011

Sobering New Report on California High Schools | NBC Los Angeles

Sobering New Report on California High Schools

Getty Images / Joe Corrigan/Stringer

A new survey of high school principals by a UCLA institute opens up a window on the impact of the recession and budget cuts. The key findings, as described on the web site of theSilicon ValleyEducation Foundation.

California high schools are providing less time, attention and quality programs. As a consequence, student engagement and achievement and progress to college are suffering,
School reform has all but sputtered to a halt due to staff cutbacks and the elimination of time for professional development,
California high schools’ growing demand from families experiencing economic crisis at a time when the state is also considering cuts to its social welfare budgets,
Even as all high schools across the state are impacted by declining budgets, inequality is growing across and within schools.

More details here.

A Modest Proposal: Fire the Students - E.D. Kain - American Times - Forbes

A Modest Proposal: Fire the Students

Mar. 23 2011 - 3:00 pm | 246 views | 0 recommendations | 2 comments

Jack Stuef, over at Wonkette, has an excellent rant:

Not too long ago, certain young people, like former D.C. child baron Michelle Rhee, were picked up from their Ivy League graduations in Teach for America warplanes and parachuted onto schools in low-income areas, which, according to them, suddenly made them experts on the “education crisis.”What is the education crisis? The education crisis is that America’s children, on the whole, do not score as well on certain standardized tests as children in many other countries. How embarrassing! Thankfully, these young people were available to take our school administrator jobs and make documentaries about themselves so we could all learn the real facts about education: Teachers will stop at nothing to harm each and every one of our children unles

Spending By Americans For Prosperity Would Be Disclosed Under Bill Advanced By Lawmakers - NE StatePaper.com #wiunion

Spending By Americans For Prosperity Would Be Disclosed Under Bill Advanced By Lawmakers - NE StatePaper.com

Spending By Americans For Prosperity Would Be Disclosed Under Bill Advanced By Lawmakers

Updated: 3-24-11

March 22, 2011

Avery.

It might not make a lot of difference, but it definitely makes a statement.

The Legislature gave 31-0 first-round approval Wednesday to a bill that would force Americans for Prosperity and other organizations to tell the world how much they spend to influence elections in Nebraska.

Americans for Prosperity, a conservative outfit launched by multi-billionaire Dave Koch, spent sums guesstimated at tens of thousands of dollars in the 2010 Nebraska elections. The tea-party related organization is headquartered in Virginia, from where it spends millions of

Support Workers’ Mobilization with We Are One Pins and Buttons | #iunion #wisolidarity #notmywi #union #wiunion #wi

Support Workers’ Mobilization with We Are One Pins and Buttons | AFL-CIO NOW BLOG

Support Workers’ Mobilization with We Are One Pins and Buttons

by Mike Hall, Mar 24, 2011


3Share

You can show your support for working families and help mobilize against the attacks on collective bargaining rights and middle class jobs now underway in more than a dozen states with a We Are One lapel pin or button. The proceeds from these union-made-in- America pins and will help support the workers’ mobilization efforts.

If you order by midnight Friday, you can have your We Are One pin or button in time for the April 4 national day of solidarity when working families across the country will be organizing numerous solidarity actions for the working people in Wisconsin and dozens of other states where corporate-bought politicians are trying to take away the rights and destroy middle class jobs.

Click here to help working families mobilize and purchase one of the pins. For orders of 100 or more buttons or pins—or should you have any problems with your order—call 1-800-408-2388. All but the actual cost of your pin or button will be a donation to support worker-driven mobilization efforts across the country

Don’t forget you can also show you solidarity with a Stand with Wisconsin T-Shirt. Clickhere for the t-shirt.

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Jersey Jazzman: More 50 Insane States

More 50 Insane States

by Duke

You could almost cut-paste this and run it in the Star-Ledger - from Alabama:

t's almost certain that the Legislature will require teachers and other public employees to pay more into their pension funds when the next budget year begins Oct. 1. It is a change that has been in the making for a long time.
Even before the recession began draining tax revenues from the education and General Fund budgets, the state's pension funds were on an unsustainable course. Employee contributions and investment income haven't been keeping pace with benefits paid to more and more retirees. As a result, lawmakers have had to take money that would have otherwise gone to the classroom and put it into pension funds run by the Retirement Systems of Alabama.
It has been clear for some time that the Legislature some day would have to

Why Teachers Like Me Support Unions | Edvoices #edusolidarity

Why Teachers Like Me Support Unions | Edvoices

Why Teachers Like Me Support Unions

By Chris Janotta March 22, 2011 11:21 am

So I was recently asked the question, “Why do teachers like you, a supposedly ‘good’ teacher, support unions?”

I needed no time to think as I quickly replied, “Two words: Bill and Gates.” I could have easily answered that same question with two other words, Michelle and Rhee. Or Jeb and Bush. Or Scott and Walker. I could go on, but you get the idea.

All of these people I’ve mentioned–and many, many more–have the money, the power, the clout, or the connections to make themselves and their ideas heard. Furthermore, most of them are able to get people to believe in and act upon those ideas. Not because they are good ideas, but they have presented the illusion, over and over and over again–that they are good ideas. They have framed their words in a friendly tone that “puts children first,” and “rewards great teachers.” They have had their ideas published in the most prominent newspapers and magazines. They have spread their word through various television and radio shows. Some have even communicated their ideas directly to the president or his staff. I, unfortunately, cannot do any of these.

I often blog about my ideas, but the percentage of people exposed to my blogs is minuscule in comparison to those

http://edusolidarity.us/

Jersey Jazzman: Charter Sexism?

Charter Sexism?

by Duke

Gordon MacInnes makes a good point:

The Department of Education is correct to assert that the poverty rates in charter schools are significant enough to take nothing away from those that perform dramatically well, such as Robert Treat Academy (45 percent free lunch), TEAM (60 percent), and North Star (52.9 percent) in Newark. Nevertheless, that does not justify the claim that charter schools should replace district schools to improve educational outcomes or that anyone should expect similar results in schools with much more concentrated poverty.
NAEP draws one-to-one comparisons for another subgroup, girls and boys. In 1992, girls scored 8 points better than boys on the fourth grade reading test (221 vs. 213). Seventeen years later the gap had closed by a single point. The gap on the eighth grade reading test was nine points in 2009 test (down from 13 in 1992). Incidentally, New Jersey

CUNY Students, Staff Arrested During Protest in Albany - DNAinfo.com

CUNY Students, Staff Arrested During Protest in Albany

March 23, 2011 7:43pmcommentprint

The group traveled to Albany to protest budget cuts.

CUNY Students, Staff Arrested During Protest in Albany

New York State Police arrest demonstrators outside Gov. Andrew Cuomo's office during a rally against proposed budget cuts to education and the state public university system at the Capitol in Albany, N.Y., on Wednesday, March 23, 2011. (AP Photo/Mike Groll)

By Jill Colvin

DNAinfo Reporter/Producer

MANHATTAN — Several dozen college students and faculty members were arrested by state troopers in Albany Wednesday while protesting the governor's proposed budget cuts.

About 200 City University of New York faculty and staff descended on the capitol Wednesday to push lawmakers to reconsider cutting their funding as enrollment climbs.

Activists argued that Gov. Andrew Cuomo's proposed budget plan harms low-income New Yorkers while

Schools Matter: The Most Effective, Efficient, and Fair Way to Raise Achievement For Which Duncan Has No Interest

The Most Effective, Efficient, and Fair Way to Raise Achievement For Which Duncan Has No Interest

by Jim Horn

All the international test score comparisons show that it is our poorest quintile of children that keeping the US from claiming a top seat among other Western nations in the test score derby. Socioeconomic integration has been demonstrated to raise achievement among these poorest children while having no negative testing effect on the high performers. And it is affordable and offers a moral bonus and the pragmatic benefits that accrue from diverse social environments. The only downside for the Oligarchs: it is democratic and it does not treat social advantage as a zero-sum game that can be exploited by a fetid form of consumer capitalism.

From Bob Herbert at the NYTimes:

One of the most powerful tools for improving the educational achievement of poor black and Hispanic public school students is, regrettably, seldom even considered. It has become a political no-no.

Teaching the Taboo, by my brother Rick and me « Bill Ayers

Teaching the Taboo, by my brother Rick and me

by billayers

The challenging work of teaching pivots on our ability to see the world as it is, without blinders or limits, and simultaneously to see our students as three-dimensional creatures—each a work-in-progress making his or her twisty way through a propulsive, uncertain history-in-the-making. As they enter our classrooms we must reach out and recognize our students as full human beings with hopes and dreams, aspirations, skills, and capacities; with minds and hearts and spirits; with embodied experiences, histories, and stories to tell of a past and a possible future; with families, neighborhoods, cultural surrounds, and language communities all interacting, dynamic, and entangled. And with a couple of basic questions: who am I in the world (or who in the world am I)? What are my choices and what are my chances?

This is the knotty, complicated challenge of teaching, and it’s the intellectual and ethical heart of teaching the taboo: it demands sustained focus, intelligent judgment, fearless inquiry and investigation. It calls forth within us an open heart and an inquiring mind, and it reminds us that every one of our judgments is necessarily contingent, every view partial, and each conclusion tentative. It requires that we refuse to simply pass on the

Margaret's Musings: Is this really ‘What democracy is all about?’ | Hudson Star-Observer | Hudson, Wisconsin #wiunion

Margaret's Musings: Is this really ‘What democracy is all about?’ | Hudson Star-Observer | Hudson, Wisconsin

Margaret's Musings: Is this really ‘What democracy is all about?’

A lot of things have shocked me in the last month. One of the most disturbing is the fact that people I know and have known for 20 years seem to think that mob action, verbal abuse and the death threats that have been hurling around the state and Hudson are OK.

By: Margaret Ontl, Hudson Star-Observer

In fact, one friend scoffed when I asked her how she would like it if the threat was made against her and her children. The response basically insinuated that somehow it was a joke or that the threat was self generated by the victims. In this particular case we were talking about Senator Sheila Harsdorf.

Knowing it was my turn to write a column this week, everything that came to mind seemed like I would be preaching or condemning someone’s actions. Believe me it is a higher power than me that will offer that judgment.

The truth is that I have spent most of my life trying to be apolitical. While I laud those who choose to run for any public office, the bellicose nature of politics is simply revolting to me and the vehement

Education Department in hot water again over parent council election bungle

BY MEREDITH KOLODNER
DAILY NEWS STAFF WRITER

Thursday, March 24th 2011, 4:00 AM

powertotheparents.org

An Education Department unit is in hot water again for bungling parent council elections, not informing interested parents that a website, www.powertotheparents.org, was set up for the elections.

The same Education Department unit that improperly organized staff for political lobbying

More Villainous Than Hypocrisy - Bridging Differences - Education Week

More Villainous Than Hypocrisy

by Deborah Meier

Dear Diane,

It's summer in Argentina, and up here in Hillsdale, it has snowed again!!

On hypocrisy: I used to complain/explain to my left-wing friends that we should honor hypocrisy, because it's the only hope we have. It's precisely in the gap between our good intentions and our less worthy actions that we must negotiate the future.

I'm not sure it's hypocrisy that distorts the good sense of the new de-formers. What galls me most is that they have a very clearly different standard for themselves than for the rest of us. They know perfectly well that their advantages are advantages for their children and will fight to the death to preserve them. No matter how fast we line up after recess, there will be the same number at the end of the line. And the rich think they deserve to be at

Editorial: Actions speak louder than tweets, blogs - NorthJersey.com #wiunion

Editorial: Actions speak louder than tweets, blogs - NorthJersey.com

Editorial: Actions speak louder than tweets, blogs

Thursday, March 24, 2011

SOUTH BERGENITE

We read the news and the analysis pieces concerning the recent unrest in Egypt, and on the other end of the spectrum-the role of the social media in it. Social media can help organize protestors and report what is happening on the street.

The operative word here is street. Throngs of people were on it, protesting, demanding change. Tweeting won't change much, and a million people on Facebook doesn't constitute as much of a force for change as thousands of people manning the barricades ready to be battered by tear gas in order to make their point. Tweeting and Facebooking may have spread the news, but the point is the people didn't stop there and personally reacted to what they felt was an unjust government.

Perhaps after the Wall Street meltdown and the mortgage crisis, if Americans turned out and besieged their Congressional representative offices, demanding campaign reform and better oversight of the financial companies, we'd see better and bipartisan results. If 50,000 parents of school-age children took a couple of

Union election mess is the GOP's M.O.: Cause chaos, blame your opponents | Uppity Wisconsin #wiunion

Union election mess is the GOP's M.O.: Cause chaos, blame your opponents | Uppity Wisconsin

Union election mess is the GOP's M.O.: Cause chaos, blame your opponents So here's another Republican frak-up that can be blamed on unions and recalcitrant districts attorney and Democrats: The Wisconsin Employment Relations Commission (WERC) says it is unlikely to meet a May 1 deadline -- created in Gov. Walker's ...

Flashback: What WI Republicans Had to Say When Doyle Aide Hired Without Applying For Job Rep. Steve Nass: “It’s immoral and unethical to give somebody a job that cost taxpayers and students about $345,000 annually in salary and benefits without having them compete against other qualified candidates,” said Nass. “Frankly, giving away a ...

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Thursday, March 24, 2011