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Dream of alli holland. My name is Allison and my son Asher suffers from the rare genetic condition Mecp2 Duplication Syndrome.In February of 2008 our world came crashing down when we lost Asher's precious older brother...

Obama: "If I had a son, he'd look like Trayvon" #trayvonmartin

Obama urges serious investigation of Florida teen killing - Reuters -:

 "You know, if I had a son, he'd look like Trayvon" 

Obama: "If I had a son, he'd look like Trayvon"

By

Stephanie Condon

Topics

In The News ,

Obama Administration

Updated at 11:05 a.m. ET

(CBS News) President Obama spoke out for the first time on Friday about the fatal shooting of an unarmed 17-year-old African-American boy in Florida named Trayvon Martin, calling it a "tragedy."

"I can only imagine what these parents are going through," Mr. Obama said from the White House Rose Garden, "and when I think about this boy, I think about my own kids, and I think every parent in America should be able to understand why it is absolutely imperative that we investigate every aspect of this and that everybody pulls together, federal, state 

Obama urges serious investigation of Florida teen killing

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - President Barack Obama said on Friday it was "absolutely imperative" that police investigate every aspect of the killing of an unarmed black teenager in Florida by a neighborhood watch captain.

Weighing into the controversial February 26 shooting of Trayvon Martin for the first time, Obama said the "tragedy" had made him think of his own two young daughters.

"My main message is to the parents of Trayvon Martin. You know, if I had a son, he'd look like Trayvon. I think they are right to expect that all of us as Americans are going to take this with the seriousness it deserves and that we are going to get to the bottom of exactly what happened."

(Reporting By Ross Colvin; Editing by Vicki Allen)

Can a National Student-Led Movement Catalyze Education Reform? - Education - GOOD

Can a National Student-Led Movement Catalyze Education Reform? - Education - GOOD:

Can a National Student-Led Movement Catalyze Education Reform?

by Liz Dwyer

Can a student-led movement get young people to become vocal agitators for education reform? That’s the goal ofEdMonth, a national student-led movement and discussion that seeks to catalyze college-age students and get them to drive the discussion on improving both K-12 schools and higher education in America.
"We are trying to bring as much national attention to education, making it the 'next big thing' for our nation's youth to rally behind," says one of the movement’s organizer’s, University of Southern California freshman Kevin Sanchez. He says that while education inequality has been described as the most important civil rights issue of 

Koch Brothers Say, "Don't Watch this Video"

This Week In Education: Thompson: The Teacher Accountability Pipe Dream

This Week In Education: Thompson: The Teacher Accountability Pipe Dream:

Thompson: The Teacher Accountability Pipe Dream

by john thompson

Stanford's Larry Cuban continues to present a historical view that illustrates the flaws inherent in data-driven "reform." In "The Puzzle of Student Responsibility for Learning,"Cuban writes "For more than a quarter-century, federal and state policymakers, major donors, and business leaders have built a reform-driven political machine that places responsibility for student learning squarely on teachers." Cuban notes that in all other helping professions, we assume a "two-way street." For instance, doctors and therapists share responsibility with their patients and clients for their outcomes; the failure of a patient to quit smoking is not dumped entirely at the door of his health care

Ideas: Stalemated School Debate (You're *Not* Winning)

by Alexander Russo

There's no shortage of polarizing figures in education today -- Michelle Rhee, Diane Ravitch, etc. And perhaps it will always be this way (fun!). Education is a polarizing issue, after all, and neither side is willing to tolerate much independence from its champions (seelout!).
But still I'm curious about those who are at least attempting to hold the middle ground.  NYU's Pedro Noguero took on at least some of this role, at least until he resigned from the charter authorizing committee last month. The Harlem Children's Zone's Geoff Canada could have been in this middle space, given his media presence and his commitment to social services, but seemed to have been co-opted by the charter school hedge fund crowd.  Linda Darling-Hammond has maintained ties with the Obama

AM News: Duncan Blasts Ryan Budget Plan

by Will Treece

Duncan Blasts Ryan Budget Plan Politics K12: Secretary of Education Arne Duncan warned lawmakers today of potentially dire ramifications if the budget blueprint put forth earlier this week by Rep. Paul Ryan, R-Wisc., were to become law.
Lawsuit targets bogus online GED tests TODAY:  The GED Testing Service has filed a lawsuit against what it says is a network of 13 websites that allegedly used the GED trademark to offer fake tests and diplomas.
Learning Disabilities and the Arts PBS: It's minutes before the curtain is set to rise for this year's production of the Black History Month play at Henderson Inclusion Elementary School on a late February morning. Students are excitedly tending to last-

Weekly Update: A teacher on unions, a tribute to a Parents Across America member and Mis-Education Nation | Seattle Education

Weekly Update: A teacher on unions, a tribute to a Parents Across America member and Mis-Education Nation | Seattle Education:

Weekly Update: A teacher on unions, a tribute to a Parents Across America member and Mis-Education Nation

by seattleducation2011

With all of the anti-union rhetoric that I have been hearing  particularly in reference to our teachers and their professional unions, I wanted to begin this weekly update with a post from a teacher in Wisconsin on the importance of unions. It’s a reminder of what conditions were like for workers and because of unions and demands made by workers, how life has changed for all of us. There is much that we take for granted in our daily lives that originated with union demands.
From One’s Teacher’s Perspective, Collective Bargaining is Vital to Public Education:

A study of history reveals that the development of teachers unions in Wisconsin gave rise to professionalism in education and, consequently, improved the quality of public schools. Before union growth, sexism was rampant in public schools, pay inequity was common for female and 

Schools Matter: Why Students Call KIPP the Kids In Prison Program

Schools Matter: Why Students Call KIPP the Kids In Prison Program:

Why Students Call KIPP the Kids In Prison Program

by Jim Horn

This morning the Vanderbilt Press Office issued a press release announcing a speech by KIPP's chief child abuser, Mike Feinberg, who recently relinquished his Superintendency of KIPP Houston to go on the road full time to promote the penal pedagogy system of KIPP, which represents the second coming of eugenics in America: segregate, contain, culturally neuter, psychologically sterilize, and behaviorally program the children of the urban defectives.

This firsthand account below was posted this morning at NYC Public School Parents.  This account mirrors some of the same themes that emerge from the interviews I am doing with former teachers of KIPP.  Note that special education students are regularly treated with the identical disrespect and test prep 

Close but no cigar

Close but no cigar:

Close but no cigar

by Sam

Once again, David Brooks has written an important column about education. And once again, he offers a vision of modern schooling that is almost perfect — but not quite.
In November 2010, I wrote a piece in response to a Brooks column in which he wrote passionately about our “emotional education” – the elusive, nonlinear and transformative nature of what all learning should look like (knowing that some days we will succeed, and some days we will not). Yet in the same space he wrote uncritically about a “normal schoolroom” in which it is taken as a given that scholastic learning must always be direct, described, and discrete.
This is an important disconnect, and in a column this morning, he makes a similar mistake — this time whiledescribing a remarkable elementary school in Brooklyn that is, as he describes it, “less like a factory for learning 

Friday thoughs: A Comment on the “I pay your salary” and “I pay twice for schools” arguments « School Finance 101

Friday thoughs: A Comment on the “I pay your salary” and “I pay twice for schools” arguments « School Finance 101:

Friday thoughs: A Comment on the “I pay your salary” and “I pay twice for schools” arguments

by schoolfinance101

Taxpayer outrage arguments are in style these days (as if they ever really go out of style). Two particular taxpayer outrage arguments that have existed for some time seem to be making a bit of resurgence of late. Or, at least I think I’ve been seeing these arguments a bit more lately in the blogosphere and on twitter.  First, since now is the era of crapping on public school teachers and arguing for increased accountability specifically on teachers for improving student outcomes, there’s the “I pay your salary so you should cower to my every demand”argument (I’ve heard only a few warped individuals take this argument this far, but sadly I have!).  Second, there’s the persistent I pay for those schools and don’t even use them argument, or the variant on that argument that I pay twice for schools because I send my kids to private schools.
I (the taxpayer) pay your (the teacher) salary
This is a strange, obnoxious and easily diminished argument. Not that it’s not important to be sensitive to the 

Ed Rosenthal for IEA Retired Chair. « Fred Klonsky

Ed Rosenthal for IEA Retired Chair. « Fred Klonsky:

Ed Rosenthal for IEA Retired Chair.

by Fred Klonsky

Ed Rosenthal for IEA Retired Chair.
I have known Ed Rosenthal for about seven years.
We first met when he was running for IEA President against Ken Swanson. Swanson won and the IEA was the worse for it.
Most of Ed’s friends and colleagues have known him for far longer. I tried having a conversation with Ed while walking the lobby of the Hilton at last week’s IEA RA and it was impossible. We were constantly interrupted by folks who knew Ed, waned to say hi or engage in one issue or another.
And he’s a long-time Bull’s fan. Consider this an endorsement.

ED ROSENTHAL for IEA RETIRED CHAIR
Why should you vote for Ed Rosenthal for IEA Retired Council Chair? Your Pension!
1. Issues
a) Our pensions are under attack! Our health insurance has become a political football! We need to widen our focus in IEA Retired. As important as current IEA Retired programs are and should continue,, at this point in our history we need to change our focus to political action and to save our pensions and insurance. We need to mobilize all our 

Failed DC Chancellor Michelle Rhee Still Pushing Divisive Education Reform | News from southeastern Connecticut

The Day - No backsliding on education reform | News from southeastern Connecticut:

No backsliding on education reform

Published 03/23/2012 12:00 AM

Updated 03/22/2012 06:04 PM

 COMMENTS (2)

Gov. Dannel P. Malloy's proposed education reform package is not without its problems. The legislation calls for more aggressive intervention by the state in turning around troubled school systems, but the details of exactly how that would work remain a bit murky. And many of the proposals are underfunded, the result of a lack of political will to set priorities and sacrifice other budgetary sacred cows to invest in education.

But on balance, the administration has it right. These reform proposals go well beyond any attempt by prior administrations. They would mean a fundamental change in direction, setting the foundation for more change to come.

Conversely, if the legislature surrenders to political pressure by watering down these reforms and refusing to tie teacher performance to tenure and compensation, it will be a major setback. We don't think Michelle Rhee, director of the national student 

Charter schools aren't solving education's ills:

Charter schools aren't solving education's ills

David Sirota, © 2011 Creators.com

Friday, March 23, 2012

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DAVID SIROTA

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Talk K-12 education for more than five minutes, and inevitably, the conversation turns to charter schools - those publicly funded, privately administered institutions that now educate more than 2 million American children. Parents wonder if they are better than the neighborhood public school. Politicians tout them as a silver-bullet solution to the education crisis. Education technology companies promote them for their profit potential.
But are charter schools living up to their original mission as experimental schools pioneering better education outcomes and reducing segregation? That was the vision of the late American Federation of Teachers President Albert Shanker when he proposed charters a quarter-century ago. According to new data, it looks as if those objectives are not being realized.
In recent years, major studies suggest that, on the whole, charter schools are producing

Read more: http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2012/03/22/EDCB1NOSSG.DTL#ixzz1pwTavOjg