Latest News and Comment from Education

Thursday, September 27, 2012

Missouri Education Watchdog: What to Ask Your Child's Teacher on "Meet the Teacher Night"

Missouri Education Watchdog: What to Ask Your Child's Teacher on "Meet the Teacher Night":


What to Ask Your Child's Teacher on "Meet the Teacher Night"

Ask your child's teacher how this letter might fit into the common core standards assessment at "Meet the Teacher Night".




If you don't have enough time to specifically ask questions about Common Core standards in your child's classroom on "meet the teacher" night, make an appointment with the teacher and/or principal to talk about exactly what these mandates will mean to your child's education.  Your school board probably 

Brown signs bill moving API away from standardized tests | EdSource Today

Brown signs bill moving API away from standardized tests | EdSource Today:


Senate Bill 1458, which will shift California’s chief measure of a high school’s performance, from a near exclusive reliance on state test scores to a broader gauge of student accomplishment and preparation for college and the world of work, is now law.
After Gov. Jerry Brown signed the bill Wednesday, its sponsor, Senate President pro Tem Darrell Steinberg, predicted in a press release that the bill “will prove to be one of the most significant education reform bills of the decade.”
Starting in 2016, test results of the California Standards Tests will comprise no more than 60 percent of a high school’s Academic Performance Index, or API, the three-digit score that, next to a school’s mascot, has become its identity. Less prescriptive than last year’s version of the bill, which Brown vetoed with a caustic 

Education Nation: Year Three | Taking Note

Education Nation: Year Three | Taking Note:




Education Nation: Year Three

More on Democrats and education. And the importance of the CTU. « Fred Klonsky

More on Democrats and education. And the importance of the CTU. « Fred Klonsky:


More on Democrats and education. And the importance of the CTU.

I want to continue the conversation about why the Democratic Party seems to have distanced itself and in some cases abandoned its traditional alliance with unions and particularly teacher unions.
Nowhere has this abandonment been played out more starkly than in Illinois, a dark blue state, where the Democrats control both chambers of the General Assembly, the governor’s mansion and the office of the mayor of its major city, Chicago.
The assault on teachers and teacher unions has been relentless. It has been funded by deep pocketed 

School Tech Connect: Ixnay on the Arter-Chay

School Tech Connect: Ixnay on the Arter-Chay:


Ixnay on the Arter-Chay

Look for Heather Steans' state charter commission to overrule the Rockford school board, which has found what basically everyone else has found...

The administration said its approval would turn a private or nonpublic school into a charter school, officials couldn’t ensure the plan was “economically sound,” and officials couldn’t demonstrate that they were willing or able to provide services to students with disabilities or “meaningful, appropriate or adequate education for English-language learners.”
For the record, these concerns have not stopped Rahm Emanuel. I do not know how the economic model makes sense anywhere, honestly. It seems like a complex, opaque way to spread public resources so thinly that they can't possibly be effective anywhere.

NYC Educator: Whether or Not They Back Down, Billionaires Don't Care About Our Kids

NYC Educator: Whether or Not They Back Down, Billionaires Don't Care About Our Kids:


Whether or Not They Back Down, Billionaires Don't Care About Our Kids

There's a great piece by Texas superintendent John Kuhn suggesting that schools reflect our communities, for better or worse.  Can we improve our schools and communities? Of course we can. Should we close them and turn them over to billionaires who wouldn't want to live there? Probably not. Yet that's precisely what we're doing with our schools, as we follow programs more aligned to the druthers of Bill Gates, Eli Broad and the Walton family rather than anything based on research or demonstrated practice.

Now there have a second major Hollywood production, demonizing teachers as the source of all that afflicts our communities. There aregreat reasons to be suspicious of its motives, even if we ignore its 

Dear Black Teenagers of 2012, « Cooperative Catalyst

Dear Black Teenagers of 2012, « Cooperative Catalyst:


Dear Black Teenagers of 2012,

Earlier this evening I was browsing through my Facebook and I came across this post a former schoolmate made which I must say… surprised me. The post which said: 
“You have no room to judge what is prejudice and what is not”

That line is the line that raises the most cause for concern. The line disregards the current socioeconomic and educational climate in the US and across the globe. It disregards the struggles of the past and the struggles of the current in an attempt to undermine the notion that today people do not find themselves being denied access 

Jersey Jazzman: StudentsFirst: Astroturfing Movie Reviewers

Jersey Jazzman: StudentsFirst: Astroturfing Movie Reviewers:


StudentsFirst: Astroturfing Movie Reviewers

When Leonie Haimson sent this tweet, at first I thought she was joking:
Stealing Schools = Won't Back Down (click Picture)Students first sending staff to write reviews to try to save stinker film #wbd on rotten tomatoeshttp://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/wont_back_down_2012/reviews/#type=user 
StudentsFirst is, of course, Michelle Rhee's corporate reform shop, famous for their astroturfing. "#wbd" is Won't Back Down, a piece of anti-union propaganda disguised as a movie; it's getting trashed by the critics.

Sure enough, SF is now using Eli Broad and David Tepper's money to pay their staff to write glowing reviews and put them on the Rotten Tomatoes website:

Mike Klonsky's SmallTalk Blog: Good riddance, Gen. Tata

Mike Klonsky's SmallTalk Blog: Good riddance, Gen. Tata:


Good riddance, Gen. Tata

Sara Palin and Gen. Tata hawking their books. 
If there was ever a guy you would never want to run your public schools, it was Brigadier General Anthony J. Tata. But after a brief stint at Eli Broad's training camp for school superintendents, Michelle Rhee brought him in as her second in command in D.C.

Then Tata became fast friends with Sarah Palin, and wrote a glowing review of her book, "Going Rogue," on theBig Hollywood site operated by the late wing-nut journo-goofball Andrew Breitbart. Tata wrote that Palin "is far 

Seattle Schools Community Forum: Meany Challenges

Seattle Schools Community Forum: Meany Challenges:


Meany Challenges

There are a number of challenges around the District's plan for a middle school at Meany. I choose to call them challenges instead of problems in the hope that it will make me sound less pessimistic, but they amount to the same thing.



The first challenge is the question about whether we even need the school in the first place. We had a middle school at Meany just four years ago and the District decided that we did not need it. Now they say that we do. Pardon me if I don't have a lot of confidence in their conclusion. How is it that we need another middle school in the Central Region but we don't need any more elementary school space there? T T Minor was closed at the same time as Meany and I don't see the District saying that we need to bring T T Minor back. So where are 

Wednesday, September 26, 2012

Big Education Ape Nite Cap UPDATE 9-26-12 #SOSCHAT #CTUSTRIKE


Nite Cap UPDATE

UPDATE UPDATE UPDATE UPDATE



CA Governor Jerry Brown Deemphasizes State Tests in Revised School Rating System


Mitt Romney Supports High-Stakes Standardized Testing




Bill Introduced: S.3578 An original bill to amend the Elementary and Secondary Education Act of 1965.

An original bill to amend the Elementary and Secondary Education Act of 1965.

“Engaging Every Secondary School Family”

Engaging Every Secondary School Family is a useful post by Steve Constantino. Here’s an excerpt:
At the secondary school level, the plan to engage families should emanate from the families themselves. Understanding their perspectives and needs and then crafting a plan based on that information helps to make engagement efforts more meaningful and relevant to individual parents. It is important to respect families as equal partners in the education of their children and to recognize the potential in their contributions to the process of learning. Most importantly, welcoming them to the school goes a long way to creating a culture where every family feels accepted and is engaged.


My Stance on “Ed Reform”

(I was asked a few questions on my involvement with the Student Voice movement and my opinions on edreform for a documentary. Here’s what I said)
I think education is extremely important, but that the definition of what education entails, is changing as we speak. To me, getting an education is still the means of acquiring the knowledge to succeed and survive once you leave school and enter the “real world” with all the “big kids.” education, in countries less fortunate than the U.S, is a ticket up and out if you take advantage of it. Education can, and should continue to, be revolutionary.
Initially, I simply focused on using technology to maximize our learning potential. This interest on maximizing learning in school evolved into thinking about an ideal school containing a mix of elements picked up from my 

A look at KIPP, Michael Feinberg, NCTQ and Bill Gates



KIPP is in a rush to now dumb down education in New Zealand even though New Zealand and Australia have higher international test scores than the US and the majority of other nations.
KIPP is trying to worm their way into New Zealand using the same old phrasing such as “failing schools” and “ineffective teachers” and pushing the idea of hiring “unregistered” (cheap) staff to populate charter schools.
PAA member Karran Harper-Royal
See the TV New Zealand’s program The Hard Sell of Charter Schools featuring Parents Across America board member Karran Harper-Royal and Mike Feinberg, co-founder of KIPP.
Fortunately in New Zealand they are having an open national debate on charter schools something that never 

Back on the KeyTrain Gang

At The Common Errant, I have frequently offered detailed reports on the fraudulent nature of the corporate reforms in "education."  Shining a bright light (unfortunately lacking the sterilizing power of the sun) on human malfeasance and corruption is a worthy endeavor if, in the end, it is only a human truth in the age characterized by mechanical tyranny and bureaucratic death squads.  It is our current "ground of being." It is because of this that I have come to feel a futility in opposition.  But...

Saying NO to the technological horror so mindlessly accepted and promulgated as a kind of pinnacled position 

George Norcross Isn't Gonna Like This...

Oh, my:
The Camden Board of Education, in a move that surprised everyone including its own members, rejected all four proposals to build renaissance schools in the city.
The early morning decision (just after midnight) came after a closed session meeting in which the board discussed the four applications.
The proposals for Ben Franklin Academy, Camden Center for Youth Development and Universal Company were voted down by every member.
The Kipp Cooper Norcross Academy, which scored highest on the rubric and was rumored to be the chosen one, was rejected by a lack of majority vote. Board members Felicia Reyes-Morton an

Perth Amboy Update

Because we just can't get enough news from the soap opera that is Perth Amboy's schools:
A number of ethics complaints filed against city Board of Education members appear headed to hearings before a state administrative law judge following decisions announced Tuesday by the state School Ethics Commission.
Some of the ethics complaints brought by Superintendent of Schools Janine Walker Caffrey against Board President Samuel Lebreault, Vice President Kenneth Puccio and 

electoral votes counts courtesy of Nate Silver

Let's set the stage
Obama won 365 EVs in '08.  Those states currently have 359.
Subtract 12   IN with 11 and for now the 2nd CD of NE
that gives a baseline of 347 electoral votes.
What I am going to do is list the battlegrounds of the states that Obama won in increasing probability of Obama winning, in each case showing the percentage that Nate Silver now shows and the electoral vote and giving a running total of EVs switched to Romney and the EV O v R
STATE    O%     EVs       Running EVS         O         R
NC        35        15         15                   332       206
FL         67        29         44                   303       235
CO        72         9          53                   294       244
VA        74        13         66                   281       257
IA         77         6          72                  275        263
NH        79         4          76                  271       267
NOTE -  those are ALL of the battleground states where currently Obama's


Board Of Ed Boot Licker

It occurs to me that some of you reading this site lately might think (or have been told by others to think) that I am a reliable union critic who regularly takes City Hall's side -- an Emanuel defender, a Board of Education boot licker. (No one's actually said that, but I like the sound of it.) For those of you who are new to the site, that would be somewhat understandable. But the site's been around a long time, and filled a variety of useful functions over the years.  Read on for my thoughts, then share your own. (Or read on but pretend you didn't, so that nobody thinks you're soft.) I've made no real attempt to hide the fact that I thought the strike was unnecessary and 


Editorial Blasts VAM


From the Lake Charles “American Press,” Tuesday, 9-25-12


State superintendent of Education John White. (Donna Price / American Press)

Editorial: Value-added model rating system unfair to teachers

Last Modified: Tuesday, September 25, 2012 8:59 PM

Contemplate this scenario: The CEO of the company you work for decides to implement an employee evaluation system in which only about 10 percent of the total employees will receive 


“Hubble captures extraordinary view of Universe”

Hubble captures extraordinary view of Universe is an article from the BBC. Here’s an excerpt, and a video:
The Hubble Space Telescope (HST) has produced one of its most extraordinary views of the Universe to date.
Called the eXtreme Deep Field, the picture captures a mass of galaxies stretching back almost to the time when the first stars began to shine.
But this was no simple point and snap – some of the objects in this image are too distant and too faint for that.




Pallets for Pedagogues

Georgia - "It's not good for my back," winced forty-two-year-old Sara Freeman of Mason, GA as she pulled herself up from her cot. "But at least I can get some sleep."  For the second time this week, Sara slept at her school.

Sara teaches third graders at a Power Is Power (PIP) charter school, one of a growing number of schools offering cots for teachers who want to sleep in the building so they don't waste time going home.  "I would rather be home in my own bed but that's not always possible. By the time I'm done grading homework and tests and updating my bulletin boards and reviewing student data and writing my lesson plans and individualized education plans, it can be very late.  So I just pull the cot out of the closet and try to catch a few winks."

Sara is not alone.  Teachers in Arizona began sleeping at their schools last year after their districts began 

NYC Public School Parents: Arne Duncan makes a startling admission: online learning doesn't work

NYC Public School Parents: Arne Duncan makes a startling admission: online learning doesn't work:


Arne Duncan makes a startling admission: online learning doesn't work

At the conclusion of the NBC Education Nation conference in New York today, writer William Doyle (co-author with James Meredith of  A MISSION FROM GOD) asked U.S. Secretary of Education Arne Duncan a question involving billions of dollars of taxpayer funds.

The video below is hard to hear, but here is a transcript of the substance of the conversation, which began before the video rolled:

Doyle: "Are you aware of the fact that your own What Works Clearinghouse [U.S. Department of Education research department] has found virtually no [K-8] technology interventions with solid evidence of academic benefit [exception: special needs and distance learners]?"

Secretary Duncan: "We're nuts on that. We've gotta fix it. It's a big problem. John Easton runs the IESD, have