Modern School: Cut Class, Lose Welfare—MI’s Latest Attempt to Bail Itself Out on the Backs of the Poor

Modern School: Cut Class, Lose Welfare—MI’s Latest Attempt to Bail Itself Out on the Backs of the Poor:

Cut Class, Lose Welfare—MI’s Latest Attempt to Bail Itself Out on the Backs of the Poor

by Michael Dunn

Get to Class, Punk (Image from Flickr, by DonkeyHotey)

A new Michigan law (effective October 1) requires all children to be in school full time or the entire family will become ineligible to receive welfare benefits, the Detroit News reports. Furthermore, all new cash-assistance applicants will now be required to prove school enrollment for their children and good attendance in order to receive aid, while families that have lost benefits due to truancy will have to prove their child has attended school for 21 consecutive days before they can regain eligibility.

Of course it is difficult to succeed in school if you do not go to class and truancy certainly hurts 

Romney’s Plan to Put More Cash In His Pockets

by Michael Dunn

In a desperate (and cynical) attempt to buy last minute votes at the presidential debates last night, presidential hopeful Mitt Romney proposed an across the board income tax cut of 20% for everyone. To sweeten the deal, he said he would balance the cuts by eliminating deductions and loopholes so there would be no net loss in federal revenues.

What could be fairer or more generous?

20% might seem like a lot, and it is if you are rich. Even after the loopholes are closed, it is 

Presidential Debates and Education

by Michael Dunn

In a nutshell: both presidential contenders want more sticks and fewer carrots. Both want more testing and less thinking for students, more privatization,  and more work and weaker unions for teachers.

Obama wants more Race to the Top (RttT), which he has mischaracterized as a grassroots initiative since states write their own grants, with their own reform proposals. However, the Obama administration has made it abundantly clear that states will not receive a penny unless they adopt the Common Core Standards (CCS), continue using high stakes exams for students and make their scores on these exams a major part of teacher evaluations, and 

Missouri Education Watchdog: The Numbers Game In Education

Missouri Education Watchdog: The Numbers Game In Education:

The Numbers Game In Education

by Anngie

Thomas Friedman, author of The World is Flat and most recently That Used To Be Us, was interviewed by Jim Fleming on NPR's All Things Considered recently and had this to say about American education,

"Well, if you take the PISA test, which is the best kind of international comparative test on writing, math and science for 15-year-olds, we're right there in the middle of the pack with Slovenia.  We are not leaders in these math and science competitions or in the writing competitions.  We quote the latest sort of statistic, there's an annual kind of you know, math genius competition for college 

Race to the Top Frozen Out in Fresno - Living in Dialogue - Education Week Teacher

Race to the Top Frozen Out in Fresno - Living in Dialogue - Education Week Teacher:

Race to the Top Frozen Out in Fresno

by Anthony Cody

Follow me on Twitter at @AnthonyCody
Both President Obama and his debate challenger Mitt Romney took time Wednesday night to praise the controversial Race to the Top program, but down where the rubber meets the road, the program is hitting some obstacles. The Department of Education now requires school districts to get formal buy-in from teachers when they apply for Race to the Top funds. This is proving to be a problem as some teachers have become skeptical about the changes the program requires.
About a month ago the Executive Board of the Sacramento City Teachers Association, representing 2600 teachers in the state's capital, voted to reject participation in Race to the Top. They cited concerns that the timeline would require them to rush to complete a teacher evaluation plan, and that the effort would interfere with urgent work to ensure passage of Prop 30, which they hope will provide essential funding. They also pointed out 

Mike Klonsky's SmallTalk Blog: Testing madness, stress driving good teachers out of public schools

Mike Klonsky's SmallTalk Blog: Testing madness, stress driving good teachers out of public schools:

Testing madness, stress driving good teachers out of public schools

by Mike Klonsky

There's an excellent piece in yesterday's Texas Trib (NYT), "Strain for Teachers Runs Deeper Than Budget Cuts," which gets to the heart of the matter for my pre-service, college of ed students. It's not just massive ed budget cuts, nor the inequities in funding that are driving the best and the brightest away from teaching in urban public schools -- although that helps.

Ms. Peterson taught for 10 years in the Houston Independent School District at Johnston Middle School, which serves primarily economically disadvantaged, black and Hispanic students. For 

Ratification of Chicago teachers contract sets stage for assault on public education

Ratification of Chicago teachers contract sets stage for assault on public education:

Ratification of Chicago teachers contract sets stage for assault on public education

By Joseph Kishore 
5 October 2012

Chicago teachers have voted to accept a contract supported by both the administration of Democratic Party Mayor Rahm Emanuel and the Chicago Teachers Union. The vote on the contract came two weeks after a CTU delegates meeting ended the seven-day-long strike of 26,000 teachers.

The new contract includes all the essential demands of Emanuel, including the expansion of the school day and year without increased pay, the establishment of a test-based evaluation system and broad powers of principals to hire and fire teachers regardless of seniority. These measures are aimed at victimizing teachers for the crisis of public education. They are 

LISTEN TO DIANE RAVITCH 10-5-12 Diane Ravitch's blog

Diane Ravitch's blog:

Remember When Teachers Crashed the Economy?

by dianerav

Do you remember when teachers and principals brought the economy down in the fall of 2008? Remember how they caused the stock market to collapse?
You don’t? Neither do I.
No matter. States are busily figuring out how to take away teachers’ pensions to right the economy, and reformers are blaming “bad” teachers for the outsourcing of jobs to China and India. The reformers say that the jobs are being outsourced because Americans aren’t skilled enough to do the work, but it seems more plausible to believe that they are being outsourced because educated workers are cheaper in China and India than in the U.S. Know any engineers willing to work for 1/3 (or less) their current salary? Know any workers willing to sleep 

ALEC Triumphant in Louisiana

by dianerav

I wrote a post about radical legislation in Pennsylvania that will authorize the Governor to create a charter commission with power to overturn local decisions. This legislation was written by the corporate-funded organization ALEC.
The Louisiana legislature passed the radical ALEC agenda last spring. Teachers lost tenure; unqualified people can become teachers. Test scores determine teachers’ careers. More than half the state’s students are eligible for vouchers, with some going to fundamentalist schools. Charters will pop up everywhere. Students can take their tuition money to online schools that get poor results, or to any snake-oil salesman that hangs out a shingle 

How to Raise Test Scores Easily and Quickly

by dianerav

This comes from Students Last. Satire alert!

PSBA Joins Oct 17 Protest

by dianerav

I just learned that one of the exhibitors at the Pennsylvania School Boards Association/Pennsylvania Association of School Administrator’s annual conference will offer stamped envelopes to encourage attendees to write a letter or send an email to the President on October 17, calling for new policies in education. Please call for an end to high-stakes testing, to privatization, to punishing teachers, principals and schools based on test scores. Please call for positive measures to support our students, teachers, principals, and schools.

The Evil Spawn of NCLB in Ohio

by dianerav

The state auditor in Ohio found 10 schools in Columbus where thousands of students had mysteriously been removed from the school’s rolls to inflate the scores.
This is the predictable result of high-stakes testing, which has incentivized cheating, score inflation, and gaming the system. This is not the first instance where a district or a state has tried to puff up its results to meet its 

No Excuses? Read This.

by dianerav

When President Obama visited Memphis, he was introduced by a handsome, articulate teen, Chris Dean.
Read what Chris wrote about his life after the President left town. Read about the details that the “no excuses” reformers dismiss.

Chicago Public Schools Outperform Chicago Charters!

by dianerav

This is a smart, funny article that demolishes the claim that charters are better than public schools.
The writer, Ben Joravsky, did something almost unprecedented after he read denunciations of unionized public schools: he checked the facts. This is a little-used, old-fashioned skill that seems to have been abandoned by the editorial board of the Chicago Tribune, as well as the major broadcast media.

Ideas for an archive?

by dianerav

Looks like we will get a sizable number of people to write letters to President Obama on October 17.
Tim Furman suggests we set up a place to collect copies and share them.
I don’t know how to do this. Anyone have an idea?

Two important points about test-based accountability:

The new Answer Sheet

by Valerie Strauss

If The Answer Sheet looks different than it did yesterday, you are right. We’ve moved to a new publishing platform, which, hopefully, will make it easier for you to read and see more written and multimedia material. Engaging in an online discussion should be simpler too. At least that’s the hope.
Read full article >>

Two important points about test-based accountability

Posted by Valerie Strauss on October 5, 2012 at 6:30 am

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This post is an excellent look at the consequences to society of using standardized tests scores to evaluate students and educators. It was written by Matthew Di Carlo, senior fellow at the non-profit Albert Shanker Institute, located in Washington, D.C. , and it originallyappeared on the institute’s blog.

 By Matthew Di Carlo

I have two points to make. The first is something that I think everyone knows: Educational outcomes, such as graduation and test scores, are signals of or proxies for the traits that lead to success in life, not the cause of that success.

For example, it is well-documented that high school graduates earn more, on average, than non-graduates. Thus, one often hears arguments that increasing graduation rates will drastically improve students’ future prospects, and the performance of the economy overall. Well, not exactly.

The piece of paper, of course, only goes so far. Rather, the benefits of graduation arise 

Beating ‘Compliance Acquiescence Disorder’ in school

by Valerie Strauss

The first piece I published by David Bernstein, in which he talked about how schools fail kids with Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder, obviously tapped a nerve out there because it got a lot of response. Here’s another post from Bernstein, a nonprofit executive who lives in Gaithersburg, Md., and has two sons, ages 7 and 15, who have ADHD.
Read full article >>

Modern School: Let Them Eat Bed Pans! Jerry Brown Vetoes Domestic Workers Bill of Rights

Modern School: Let Them Eat Bed Pans! Jerry Brown Vetoes Domestic Workers Bill of Rights:

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Let Them Eat Bed Pans! Jerry Brown Vetoes Domestic Workers Bill of Rights

by Michael Dunn

Jerry Brown's Buffet for Domestic Workers (Image from Flickr, by dirty black chucks)

California’s “pro-labor” governor Jerry Brown has vetoed the Domestic Workers Bill of Rights (AB 889), authored by Tom Ammiano (San Francisco) and Fiona Ma (Oakland). The law would have allowed nannies, maids, home health care workers and other full-time domestic workers to cook their own meals in their employers’ kitchens and entitled them to the same overtime pay, guaranteed breaks, sick leave and workers compensation privileges already granted to most other workers.

According to a report by the UCLA Institute for Research on Labor and Employment, 90% of 

Students Last: Invisibility Cloak For All Your Testing Needs

Students Last: Invisibility Cloak For All Your Testing Needs:

Invisibility Cloak For All Your Testing Needs

by Students Last

Need to hide a few students for upcoming exams? Afraid your school's test scores will be dragged down by low-performing special education students? Certain the English Language Learners will fail to make annual yearly progress?  Will students with poor attendance impact your whole school with their lousy test performance?

Invisibility Cloak (IC) can help.

IC uses a two-prong approach to optimize your student testing population. With our first approach, undesirable test-takers will be encouraged through a series of pre-written letters, engaging videos and scripted counseling sessions to leave your school. Package A urges students to pursue their GED; Package B gently suggests 

Must See TV « PWC Education Reform Blog

Must See TV « PWC Education Reform Blog:

Must See TV

by pwceducationreform

School Board Report for October 3, 2012 Meeting

In case you were otherwise occupied, last night the PWC School Board had a meeting and it was rather interesting.  If you only want to watch the exciting parts,  you can fast forward to the last 15 minutes for the board member comments.   As an administrative note, we are scrambling to catch up on our work and will be issuing reports on the school board meetings on September 5 and 19 as soon as possible.  We understand those meetings were long, but highly entertaining.

Here is a link to the Agenda for the Oct 3 2012 school board meeting from the PWCS web site.  The agenda is a useful guide when watching or attending board meetings as many of the line items are links that will take you to explanations of the item.

The meeting began a little late but

Louisiana Educator: Serious Flaws in VAM

Louisiana Educator: Serious Flaws in VAM:

Serious Flaws in VAM

by Michael Deshotels

I really hate to post this story because it is so negative. What we need most of all in Louisiana education today is some good news for a change. But it seems like our education hierarchy at the state level comprised as it is of rank amateurs, is destined to make one blunder after another. For now we will just need to keep exposing the truth and keep insisting on accountability at the top so the experienced and qualified professionals in the trenches can do their jobs of educating children without this constant harassment and demoralization.

I mentioned in one of my recent emails that there was ample evidence coming directly from Dr George Noell (the father of VAM in Louisiana) that the value added model is erratic and unreliable in measuring good and bad 

Do Schools Reform Society? | Larry Cuban on School Reform and Classroom Practice

Do Schools Reform Society? | Larry Cuban on School Reform and Classroom Practice:

Do Schools Reform Society?

by larrycuban

In an article on Joe Giradi (nyer-jgirardi), manager of the New York Yankees baseball team, Gay Talese said: “Like religion, the game of baseball is founded on aspirations rarely met. It generates far more failure than fulfillment” (p.41). Insert “public schools” in place of “the game of baseball” and you have concisely summarized the history of school reform in the U.S.
The similarity between religion, baseball, and public schooling of “aspirations rarely met” is apt since in the U.S. going to school and acquiring credentials is, indeed, a secular catechism invoked daily by parents with their children, teachers with students, and reform-minded U.S. Presidents in debates with opponents.
And “aspirations rarely met” also applies to school reform. Here i

UPDATE: IEA rewards pension killers with massive campaign contributions. « Fred Klonsky

IEA rewards pension killers with massive campaign contributions. « Fred Klonsky:

If TRS Director Ingram went rogue on COLAs, why has their been silence from the TRS board?

by Fred Klonsky

Several days ago I reported on the interview that TRS Director Richard Ingram gave to Crain’s. He called for an end or reduction to retiree cost of living adjustments.
This is the second time Ingram seems to have gone rogue in his role as an employee of the Teacher Retirement System. He is work for the TRS Board of Trustees.
It is not Ingram’s job to involve himself in specific solutions to a crisis, which even he says in not an immediate one.
And in any case, we have said time and time again that cutting benefits, including cost of living adjustments, will not make up for the billions of dollars that the system is owed nor can it solve the problem of future funding.

IEA rewards pension killers with massive campaign contributions.

by Fred Klonsky

No Illinois legislator who was not running for higher office received more money from IPACE over the past decade than GOP Leader Tom Cross.
I recently encouraged IEA members to send a letter asking for an IPACE rebate. IPACE is the political action committee of the IEA.
This followed receipt of this year’s IPACE recommendations for the November 6th election.
The emails have not stopped coming in on member outrage over a number of the legislative recommendations.

Ten minute drawing. Rahm’s approval ratings sink.

by Fred Klonsky

Click on drawing to enlarge.

Oakland, Alameda teachers named Alameda County Teacher of the Year - The Education Report - Katy Murphy's blog on Oakland schools

Oakland, Alameda teachers named Alameda County Teacher of the Year - The Education Report - Katy Murphy's blog on Oakland schools:

Oakland, Alameda teachers named Alameda County Teacher of the Year

Friday, October 5th, 2012 at 12:02 am in No Comments

Congratulations to the two Alameda County teachers of the year: I’Asha Warfield, from Oakland’s Frick Middle School, and Chris Hansen, from Alameda’s Lincoln Middle School.
They learned of the distinction last night, at an awards night organized by the Alameda County Office of Education. Now, they go on to compete for California Teacher of the Year.
In this video of Warfield, she talks about the conversations and debates that take place in her classroom. “I

Report: School turnarounds are based on faulty evidence

Thursday, October 4th, 2012 at 1:06 pm in No Comments

A policy brief on school turnarounds published this week — authored by Tina Trujillo of UC Berkeley’s Graduate School of Education and Michelle Renée of the Annenberg Institute for School Reform at Brown University — sharply criticizes a federal approach to improving schools, used in a number of Bay Area schools, that’s based on principles of competition and accountability.
It notes that School Improvement Grants, a program designed to “turn around” 5,000 of the nation’s lowest-scoring schools, offers schools only short-term financial support.
I’d love to hear what employees and families at Oakland’s four School Improvement Grant schools — Roots International, United for Success, Alliance Academy and Elmhurst Community School — think about the report, and the SIG program, itself.
Another excerpt: Read the rest of this entry »

NYC Educator: No Good Deed Goes Unpunished.

NYC Educator: No Good Deed Goes Unpunished.:

No Good Deed Goes Unpunished.

by NYC Educator

Actually, in the case of unions, it probably doesn't matter whether the deed was good, bad or otherwise. The editorial pages made up their minds long ago.

UFT President Michael Mulgrew wrote an opinion piecein the Daily News, explaining that it is, in fact, Bloomberg who's blocking the much-vaunted evaluation system that we've all been reading about. Mulgrew correctly points out that there is a framework, and that he was instrumental in establishing it.

UFT sources have told me that Bloomberg is still angry