Thursday, March 31, 2011

THE PERIMETER PRIMATE: A true patriot in charge of Perrin-Whitt CISD

A true patriot in charge of Perrin-Whitt CISD

by The Perimeter Primate

John Kuhn, superintendent of Perrin-Whitt Consolodated Independent School District, speaking at the Save Texas Schools rally on March 21, 2011.

@ 3:30

I will never follow the lead of those who exclude the kids who need eduction the most so that my precious scores will rise. I will never line up with those whose idea of reform is a subtle segregation of the poor and desperate. I want no part of the American caste system.

Look around you. Public school teachers, you are the saviours of our society and always have

ThinkProgress » Exclusive: Koch Operative May Have Deceived Officials To Take $2.7M In Taxpayer Money For Governor’s Race #wiunion

ThinkProgress » Exclusive: Koch Operative May Have Deceived Officials To Take $2.7M In Taxpayer Money For Governor’s Race

Exclusive: Koch Operative May Have Deceived Officials To Take $2.7M In Taxpayer Money For Governor’s Race

Our guest blogger is Steve Lebowitz, a researcher and blogger based in Maryland. With additional reporting from Lee Fang.

In 2008, Steve Lonegan, the New Jersey state director for David Koch’s Americans for Prosperity group, announced a campaign to run for governor. Running as a Republican, Lonegan lost to Chris Christie (R-NJ) in the Republican primary, and Christie went on to win the general election later in 2009. But recent tax disclosures examined by ThinkProgress reveal that Lonegan, who used $2.7 million in taxpayer matching funds for his gubernatorial campaign, may have deceived public officials in order to collect the public money used for his campaign.

According to New Jersey state clean election law, recipients of public campaign fundscannot be “involved in any way in the management of” a political advocacy 501(c)(4) organization “unless the organization agrees to disclose the name of each of its contributors and the amount of each contribution and expenditure.” Americans for Prosperity has never disclosed its donors. Lonegan, who has served as the New Jersey Americans for Prosperity executive director for years, said the disclosure la

At Ford Foundation, a harsh critique of urban school closures | Philadelphia Public School Notebook

At Ford Foundation, a harsh critique of urban school closures

by Benjamin Herold on Mar 31 2011 Posted in Latest news

Photo: Benjamin Herold

"This process is illegal and immoral," said Chicago Teachers Union President Karen Lewis during an event Monday at the Ford Foundation in New York City, discussing closed-door plans to shut down or consolidate public schools .

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For many, the growing push to close underutilized and chronically low-performing urban schools sounds like a common sense plan.

But not Chicago's Jitu Brown.

“School closings actually harm us in our communities,” said Brown, speaking Monday at the Ford Foundation in New York City.

As a longtime organizer for the Kenwood Oakland Community Organization, Brown was speaking from experience. Between 2001 and 2009, Chicago Public Schools (CPS) closed 44 schools, decisions Brown argued were driven more by real estate prices in the surrounding communities than the educational needs of students. The results, he said, were a spike in school violence, the destabilization of schools receiving displaced

Mike Klonsky's SmallTalk Blog: IN MY MAILBOX

IN MY MAILBOX

by Mike Klonsky

We have a great department chair. Here's what she sent us this morning:

Hello EPSR Faculty,

I am forwarding the email below and attached flyer for your information.

Thank you.

Dr. Proweller

Amira Proweller, Ph.D.
Associate Professor and Chair
Department of Educational Policy Studies and Research School

NYC Public School Parents: Update on rally, news from Albany, and video of my encounter with the mayor

Update on rally, news from Albany, and video of my encounter with the mayor

by Leonie Haimson

Yesterday’s press conference/rally was terrific; here is my account with some photos; more photos are available on our Facebook page. NY1 ran some video of the rally last night, and to my surprise, captured at least part of my unexpected debate with the mayor; I have also now posted that video below.

Erin Einhorn ran a piece on the Daily News blog about our encounter, which the mayor’s spokesperson responded to , as did I; you can see we went back and forth several times.

Thanks again to all who came; and soon we will have petitions you can download from our website to get signatures at your school for your Councilmembers, urging them to oppose the mayor's plan to eliminate 6,000 teaching positions.

One small but important piece of good news: the Legislature did not approve a reduction or cap in building aid for NYC, so the mayor has no excuse to cut back on the number of new seats, as he threatened to do.

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How Far Are We From A Revolution? | Dailycensored.com

How Far Are We From A Revolution?

Written by Ken_SayersDaily Journal (Opinion)Mar 31, 2011

0digg

Bahrain, Egypt, and Libya, all have one thing in common. A huge percentage of their population has been oppressed by a minuscule elite. Beyond high unemployment opportunities and low wages, I readily admit to knowing little of their plight. However, if it includes policies that produce prodigious numbers of homeless, reduced or impossible access to education, wanton disregard for their health and well being, and ever increasing food and energy costs then their conditions cannot be much different than what we are facing here at home.

I actually heard a woman call into NPR yesterday, who labeled herself a conservative Republican, who called Social Security a welfare program and said it should be eliminated. That is what the Tea Party wants to do. All of their so called budget cuts will only cut programs that help the poor while making millions more

Questions of Possible Cheating in DCPS :: Frederick M. Hess

Questions of Possible Cheating in DCPS

by Frederick M. Hess • Mar 31, 2011 at 10:50 am
Cross-posted from Education Week

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DC Schools chief Kaya Henderson has asked DC's inspector general to investigate in response to Monday'sUSA Today front-page story suggesting that some big DCPS test score gains may have been the product of cheating. Henderson's move was the right one, because the questions raised by the USA Today analysis are real, legitimate, and serious ones. RHSU readers know that I'm unapologetic about defending Henderson's efforts in DCPS (and those of her predecessor, Michelle Rhee) against cheap shots, but the questions raised here are more substantial--and absolutely deserve the kind of careful evaluation that Henderson has endorsed.

As the Washington Post's Bill Turque reported, "[Henderson] made the request after a USA Today investigation found unusually high rates of erasures in which students apparently corrected their answer sheets for standardized tests between 2008 and 2010."

Turque summed the situation up nicely, explaining, "More than 100 D.C. public schools had the unusual rates of erasures, in which wrong answers were replaced by correct ones. One seventh grade classroom, at Noyes Education Campus in Northeast Washington, averaged 12.7 wrong-to-right erasures per student on the 2009

Cheating on the Hard Work of School Reform - TIME

Cheating on the Hard Work of School Reform

By Andrew J. Rotherham Thursday, Mar. 31, 2011

Cheating in school became education topic number one this week, except this time it wasn't students cheating on tests — it was adults cheating for them. As part of a series, USA Today published an article strongly suggesting that teachers or administrators goosed student test score gains at an elementary and middle school in Washington, D.C. Since it was a school former D.C. chancellor Michelle Rhee had singled out for praise, the news created yet another battleground for Rhee combatants. The distraction is too bad because the focus on cheating offers — pardon the cliché — a teachable moment for parents and policymakers.

Even assuming that teachers and administrators at the school at the center of this week's controversy didn't do anything improper, too much cheating by adults does go on in too many schools

Rhee acknowledges possible cheating on school tests - The Washington Post

Rhee now concedes students’ test answers may have been erased

By Bill Turque, Wednesday, March 30, 3:17 PM

Former D.C. schools chancellor Michelle A. Rhee backed away Wednesday from her vehement criticism of aUSA Today story on concerns about standardized tests during her tenure, acknowledging that some cheating may have occurred.

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Alan Diaz / AP - Michelle Rhee, shown in January, has become a major national figure in education reform since her resignation last October.

In an interview with Washington Post education columnist Jay Mathews, Rhee said that some of her initial comments were “stupid.”

“You have got to have really strong test-security protocols at the district level and at the state level,” said Rhee, who contacted Mathews. “The vast majority of people will not cheat, but there will be exceptions here and there.”

Rhee, who was chancellor from 2007 to 2010, said the school system should ensure that after students complete D.C. Comprehensive Assessment System tests, answer sheets are not left in school offices where they may be vulnerable to tampering.

The issue emerged Monday when USA Today reported unusually high rates of erasures on answer sheets in more than 100 D.C. public schools from 2008 to 2010. At some schools, wrong answers were replaced by correct ones at rates too high to be random, according to statisticians consulted by the paper.

Rhee said in a statement Monday evening that USA

Democrats for Neoliberal Education Reform | Dissident Voice

Democrats for Neoliberal Education Reform

by Robert D. Skeels

Like special interests, our constituents deserve some consideration also.
– Marguerite Poindexter LaMotte (Los Angeles Unified School District Board — LAUSD).

At least someone was thinking of parents and community before corporations and privatizers at LAUSD.
If we ever needed more insight into just how manipulative and insidious Democrats for Education Reform (DFER) is as an agent of the corporate and neoliberal agenda, they’ve published a white paper discussing how they managed to railroad the anti-community, anti-teacher, pro-corporate SB-191 through the Colorado Legislature. The bill, which further disenfranchised communities in favor of corporate “ed-reformers,” and stripped Colorado teachers of nearly any protections whatsoever is a prime example of how it isn’t only teabagging darlings like Florida’s Rick Scott and Wisconsin’s Scott Walker that want to destroy public education and bust all unions.
Using a systematic methodology of guile, deception, and select co-opting of various other entities, DFER politicians were able to pass a pernicious bill that all but turns the teaching profession into a career path akin to working as a fast food fry cook. Of course, that’s how the well heeled hedge fund managers that founded DFER

Synecdoche Wisconsin: Neoliberalism and Economic Inequities in America | Dissident Voice #wiunion

Synecdoche Wisconsin: Neoliberalism and Economic Inequities in America | Dissident Voice

Synecdoche Wisconsin: Neoliberalism and Economic Inequities in America

by Bo Winegard

A brief history of the battle for Wisconsin

The whole aim of practical politics is to keep the populace alarmed…by menacing it with an endless series of hobgoblins, all of them imaginary.
– H.L. Mencken

In January, Wisconsin swore in Scott Walker, an ambitious and opportunistic politician. Using traditional neoliberal rhetoric, Walker denigrated expansive governments and bloated bureaucracies and vowed to restore the economic vitality of Wisconsin by cutting business taxes, reigning in cumbersome regulations, and shrinking the state government. In February, he moved beyond these traditional neoliberal encomia to free markets and small governments, and proposed a budget repair bill that included provisions that would drastically reduce public unions’ bargaining power and force public sector pay cuts. (The pay cuts were cleverly described as forcing public employees to contribute more to their health insurance and pensions; however, as noted by David Cay Johnston, employees already pay for the entirety of their insurance plans and pensions through deferred wages.)

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