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Thursday, May 26, 2011

Big Education Ape: 5-26-11 AM another outrageous consultant scandal Edition

Big Education Ape: Ed News Now

Big Education Ape: Ed News Now

Published by Coopmike48 – 7 contributors today



Chicago Shopping

chicagotribune.com - The outgoing board of Chicago Public Schools approved the appointment of the city's newest schools chief for an initial annual salary of $250,000 on Wednesday at a meeting marked by farewells and h...
mikeklonsky

Students Lose When the Debate Is Polarized - Vicki Phillips

gatesfoundation.org - In a story published on May 22, 2011, the New York Times examined the foundation’s education advocacy grantmaking. This blog post helps provide context for that article. The reporting behind the st...
DianeRavitch

'Taxpayer Advocates' Shocking Public Schools

huffingtonpost.com - Please meet Ginger Claar.Ginger is a wife and loving mother of an 18-month-old son. Ginger played basketball professionally in Amsterdam and now coaches the girls' team at the local middle school. ...
DianeRavitch

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coopmike48 Big Education Ape: THE PERIMETER PRIMATE: BBC news story hot off the press - http://goo.gl/IGkEYabout 1 minute ago · reply · retweet · favorite
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coopmike48 Big Education Ape: House vote on Senate Bill 512 at 9AM Thursday morning. Call now. « Fred Klonsky's blog -http://goo.gl/XEPuW51 seconds ago · reply · retweet · favorite
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coopmike48 Big Education Ape: This Week In Education: Funders: Zuckerberg Wants To Educate K-8 Kids--On Facebook -http://goo.gl/sA5G030 seconds ago · reply · retweet · favorite

EducationSee all


Schools Can Get Stuck With Bad Teachers

radioboston.wbur.org - (super.heavy/Flickr) On Monday, we talked about what makes a great teacher. Wednesday, the flip-side: bad teachers, what impact they have and the challenge of removing them. As part of WBUR’s Makin...
DianeRavitch

PoliticsSee all


Rush Limbaugh Ratings Tumble

huffingtonpost.com - Rush Limbaugh's ratings have fallen sharply in recent months, according to a new report by Arbitron.Limbaugh still has the top-rated radio talk show in the country, but his audience has dropped by ...
mikeklonsky

EnvironmentSee all


Chicago Shopping

chicagobreakingnews.com - Greenpeace activists climb the smokestack at the Fisk power plant in the Pilsen neighborhood Tuesday. (Heather Charles, Chicago Tribune / May 24, 2011) Staff report 11:55 a.m. CDT, May 24, 2011 Eig...
fklonsky

Cesar Chavez Home Nominated in National Historic Registry

hispanicallyspeakingnews.com - Published at 12:23 am, May 26, 2011 Photo Credits: National Chavez Center as Historic Landmark The nine-member California Historic Resources Commission voted on May 19 to nominate the National Chav...
coopmike48

Art & EntertainmentSee all


'I woz 'ere and I failed' | Education

guardian.co.uk - Fielding doesn't fancy being an exam invigilator and having to see 'those tortured little faces'. Photograph: Antonio Olmos It's the dread exam season.Do I want to be an invigilator?To perk up the ...
mikeklonsky

BusinessSee all


Growth in Education Spending Slowed in 2009

nytimes.com - The nation’s overall education spending grew at a slower pace in 2009 than at any other time in more than a decade, amid deepening state fiscal woes and flatter tax revenues, according to new censu...
coopmike48

HealthSee all


Veterans committees to look at suicides - Brett Coughlin

politico.com - More active-duty soldiers and veterans have died from suicide than from combat wounds over the last two years — and Congress wants to know why the VA hasn’t done more to prevent it.The Senate Veter...
mikeklonsky

#eduRead this paperSee all


#ourworldSee all


Veterans committees to look at suicides - Brett Coughlin

politico.com - More active-duty soldiers and veterans have died from suicide than from combat wounds over the last two years — and Congress wants to know why the VA hasn’t done more to prevent it.The Senate Veter...
mikeklonsky

Media2

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    The “Springfield Way.” Dirty deals in the dark of night in the final ten minutes of the legislative session. « Fred Klonsky's blog

    The “Springfield Way.” Dirty deals in the dark of night in the final ten minutes of the legislative session. « Fred Klonsky's blog

    The “Springfield Way.” Dirty deals in the dark of night in the final ten minutes of the legislative session.

    Last year they passed a two-tier pension plan in the Illinois legislature in 12 hours. No discussion. No debate. Teachers hired after January one of this year will need to work 44 years in order to receive 60% of what they would have received as a benefit.

    Note: Illinois teachers receive no Social Security benefits.

    The current legislative session ends May 31st.

    GOP House leader, Tom Cross, known as the “House member to the insurance industry,” has struck a deal with Democratic Party boss Mike Madigan. They have created, at the behest of the Civic Committee, a three-tier

    A sensible way to rewrite No Child Left Behind - The Answer Sheet - The Washington Post

    A sensible way to rewrite No Child Left Behind - The Answer Sheet - The Washington Post

    A sensible way to rewrite No Child Left Behind

    Here are recommendations made by a coalition of organizations called the Forum for Educational Accountabilityto help guide Congress — should it be willing to listen — in any rewrite of of the flawed law known as No Child Left Behind. The forum is chaired by the National Center for Fair and Open Testing, or FairTest, a nonprofit organization dedicated to stopping misuse of standardized tests.

    The forum’s recommendations are aimed at improving student learning, enhancing equity and giving educators support while establishing authentic assessment and accountability.

    Read full article >>

    Error in Congress leaves schools fully funded — unbelievable report

    Did you know that a clerical error led Congress to fund public schools, accidentally, at a level that would be sufficient to properly educate all children? Both Republicans and Democrats were appalled by the mistake, with the Speaker of the House being quoted as saying, “It could take a whole generation to cancel out the effects of this.” Here is the exclusive story from The Onion, the hilarious satirical publication, which will give you a good laugh (amid all the gloomy education news).

    From The Onion

    Read full article >>

    KOCH BREAK News | www.kochwatch.org

    News | www.kochwatch.org

    4LAKids - : Charter Schools and New Market Tax Credits: EVIL ED, INC.

    4LAKids - some of the news that doesn't fit: Charter Schools and New Market Tax Credits: EVIL ED, INC.

    Charter Schools and New Market Tax Credits: EVIL ED, INC.

    The Wall Street/Charter School Connection written+Posted by Paul Rosenberg , Article from speakeasy/alternet.org | http://bit.ly/knvbA9 This post first appeared on Open Left. | http://bit.ly/kLnaWc May 9, 2010 - In America, conservatives couldn’t kill the welfare state because it was too popular, so they decided to re-purpose it for conservative ends. These are their stories. If

    Daily Kos: Do you want your tax dollars to fund right wing fundamentalism?

    Daily Kos: Do you want your tax dollars to fund right wing fundamentalism?

    Do you want your tax dollars to fund right wing fundamentalism?

    That may seem like an odd question. Perhaps you think I am talking about the tax deductible nature of contributions to religious organizations and schools. One could make the argument that such is a tax subsidization of religious views with which one disagreses, but we have a well established pattern of allowing such offsets without regard to the religious beliefs thus supported.

    But what about vouchers? What if we use tax dollars to give vouchers to families who then have complete freedom to pick a school for their children? Will not those vouchers help pay for textbooks whose contents might be objectionable to many?

    The operable Supreme Court decision, Zelman v. Simmons-Harris, 536 U.S. 639 (2002), comes from the voucher

    Rocketship’s target: 29 charters in San Jose | Thoughts on Public Education

    Rocketship’s target: 29 charters in San Jose | Thoughts on Public Education

    Rocketship’s target: 29 charters in San Jose - by John Fensterwald - Educated Guess

    Rocketship Education, the charter organization whose hybrid online/classroom model has drawn national attention and foundation dollars, wants the Santa Clara County Office of Education to let it open 20 more elementary schools, primarily in its hometown of San Jose, in the next seven years. Together with the three schools now operating and six already approved, Rocketship [...]

    Worth a second look - by Kathryn Baron

    Thoughts from a Weis-man A few days after the May revise last week, we reported on a budget forum in San Jose sponsored by the Silicon Valley Education Foundation. In his opening remarks, Santa Clara County School Superintendent Chuck Weis delivered a blunt assessment of California’s public school financing over the past 40 years. He noted [...]

    Colleges and universities transformed into mini-investment banks

    Colleges and universities transformed into mini-investment banks for private capital construction loans while students and faculty pay the socialized costs through higher tuition and lower wages and benefits | Dailycensored.com

    Colleges and universities transformed into mini-investment banks for private capital construction loans while students and faculty pay the socialized costs through higher tuition and lower wages and benefits

    Picture of Harvard University Part One I have been following the cascading financial crisis with some interest especially as it pertains to the business of higher education — and what a business it is! The Wall Street ‘crisis’, or bankster fraud, has not only changed the economic geography of Wall Street, housing, credit, health [...]

    Revolt: an analogy of China as the US clearly shows the lies for war with Iran

    source: Carl Herman, Examiner.com I wrote an analogy in 2009 of what the world would look like to Americans if the relationship of the US to Iran were switched to the US having Iran’s position and China having the US position. I’m re-printing the article below to help Americans understand the Orwellian nature of US [...]

    Los colegios Montessori: una alternativa a la educación tradicional | vivirlaeducacion

    Los colegios Montessori: una alternativa a la educación tradicional | vivirlaeducacion

    Half-Baked Teaching Analogy « InterACT

    Half-Baked Teaching Analogy « InterACT

    Half-Baked Teaching Analogy

    This blog has been following Education Nation quite closely, out of a great curiosity regarding this latest big-media venture into education coverage. We’ve run a few blog posts about the Teacher Town Hall meeting, and will soon run a guest blog post about a panel NBC called “Job One.”

    Education Nation also has a couple of guest blog posts on its site, and the difference between the two posts offers clear evidence of why educators look askance at some outside “experts” – people whose expertise in policy, politics, business or statistics has been taken as expertise in students, teachers, and classrooms – however unwarranted that assumption may be.

    I won’t spend too much time discussing what I consider the “good” post on teacher evaluation, authored by Linda

    School Tech Connect: Illinois Is Going Down A Very Bad Road

    School Tech Connect: Illinois Is Going Down A Very Bad Road

    Illinois Is Going Down A Very Bad Road

    I'd love to write about something else other than trouble, but we're now fighting for our lives here in Illinois. I don't have the backstory, but apparently they're going to get a pension-killing bill out of committee tomorrow.

    If you don't get back on the phone tomorrow morning--- at the start of the day--- then in my humble opinion you should go directly into a no-match 401k.

    Out where I'm working, we got organized, and faxed out 263 individual letters to our representatives and tomembers of the pension committee. This is from just one building, mind you. I expect to double that number tomorrow, and I'm going to recommend that we follow-up with phone messages, as well as a faxed, group-signed message to the governor.

    Somewhere on the pension committee, there's at least one Democrat who has flipped and is working with

    LAUSD - The Making of a Trojan Horse by Mark Hemphill (LAUSD - La realización de un caballo de Troya por Mark Hemphill) - Perdaily.com

    LAUSD - The Making of a Trojan Horse by Mark Hemphill (LAUSD - La realización de un caballo de Troya por Mark Hemphill) - Perdaily.com

    LAUSD - The Making of a Trojan Horse by Mark Hemphill (LAUSD - La realización de un caballo de Troya por Mark Hemphill)

    (Mensaje se repite en EspaƱol)

    (For a national view of public education reform see the end of this blog post)

    If you're expecting a retelling of Homer's Iliad here, you're going to be disappointed. For that I'd suggest the local library where any number of translations are available to help you wade through all ten thousand ponderously repetitive lines. Or maybe you could rent that awful movie with Brad Pitt. No, this is all rather about supposed reformers in public education, the politicians who support such well publicized reformers, and the "liberal press" which stands behind them. But I promise you that we'll get back to that Trojan Horse before it's all over.

    Let's start briefly here with statement about the political party which always boasts of the need for reform in

    The Best Defense Against LAUSD Corruption Might Just Be The California False Claims Act (La mejor defensa contra la Corrupción del LAUSD podría ser la de California Ley de Reclamos Falsos)

    Fraud.jpg

    (Mensaje se repite en EspaƱol)

    (For a national view of public education reform see the end of this blog post)

    The problem with most opposition to the corrupt practices of the Los Angeles Unified School District (LAUSD) is that it exclusively manifests itself in responding to the latest outrageous behavior of LAUSD in a never ending series of improper action put forth by the district, instead of taking a more proactive approach that requires these brazen morally compromised folks who run the 2nd largest school district in the country to respond and be held accountable for their actions.

    - The new Belmont Learning Center was built on an irremediable $350 million toxic waste dump, where the O'Melveny and Meyers Law Firm represented both LAUSD and the developer in a clear conflict of interest that only avoided massive liability for the firm by former Mayor Riordan getting the damages element of the prima facie case knocked out by getting