The Weekly Update: More on Initiative 1240, the Honorable Arne and do we really want Wal-Mart schools in our state? | Seattle Education

The Weekly Update: More on Initiative 1240, the Honorable Arne and do we really want Wal-Mart schools in our state? | Seattle Education:

The Weekly Update: More on Initiative 1240, the Honorable Arne and do we really want Wal-Mart schools in our state?

from Seattle Education 2010 by seattleducation2011

The Weekly Update for the news and views you might have missed.

First, a little business.
From the No on 1240 campaign:

We need *you* to provide the people power we need to counter the massive resources of the Yes campaign ($4.7 M and counting. It’s Gates and the Walton’s versus the rest of us.).
Please join People for Our Public Schools this coming Wednesday October 10th for phone banking to defeat Initiative 1240. We need to fund proven solutions for all children first before unproven ideas for just a few!
Alternatively, RSVP via Facebook!

Be there or be square.
And from our friends Down Under, their view on the privatization of our schools:

Charter school Initiative 1240, which is the push to privatize our schools, is described in detail in the post The inconvenient truth about charter school Initiative 1240. Please read it to understand all of the ways this 

Education in the Age of Globalization » Blog Archive » Is There Evidence to Support the Common Core: My Questions to New York Education Commissioner King

Education in the Age of Globalization » Blog Archive » Is There Evidence to Support the Common Core: My Questions to New York Education Commissioner King:

Is There Evidence to Support the Common Core: My Questions to New York Education Commissioner King

by YongZhao

A number of people have asked me about my brief encounter with New York Commissioner John King at the NYSCOSS Fall Leadership Summit on September 24, 2012. Here is my recollection. A couple of weeks ago, I had the honor to listen to New York Education Commissioner Dr. John B. King, Jr. at the 2012 Fall Leadership Summit New York State Council of School Superintendents(NYSCOSS) in Saratoga Springs. Addressing a standing-room only audience of NY school leaders, Dr. King covered a wide range of topics from the Common Core to APPR ...

Schools Matter: It's Not You, It's Them

Schools Matter: It's Not You, It's Them:

It's Not You, It's Them

by Judy Rabin

In today's New York Times Sunday Week in Review, there's an article titled, It's Not Me It's You,

However, when it comes to the clear message of this academic research on education reform and the need to end high stakes testing, what is comes across loud and clear is it's not you, it's them.

 It's just another fact-based research study that shows how the social implications of racism and poverty or gender bias can impact students' performance on standardized test scores. To all the teachers and students across the country who are suffering under the reign of terror inflicted by politicians and business leaders who 

Daily Kos: Bus tour with teacherken: Pittsburgh and African-American heritage

Daily Kos: Bus tour with teacherken: Pittsburgh and African-American heritage:

Bus tour with teacherken: Pittsburgh and African-American heritage

Posted October 7, 2012

 

 No comments

TAG ALEC, Pittsburgh, Stop the Greed Agenda, teacherken, voter id, voter protection

Ken Bernstein is a recently retired National Board Certified Social Studies Teacher who was a 2010 Washington Post Agnes Meyer Outstanding Teacher. Nationally known for hisblogging as teacherken at Daily Kos and elsewhere, he served until his retirement as the lead building representative (NEA) at Eleanor Roosevelt High School in Greenbelt MD.

Saturday Oct. 6 was a day to spread the message of the “Stop the Greed Agenda Bus Tour” as part of the celebration of African-American Heritage in Pittsburgh. We began the day by participating in the 25th Annual African-American Heritage Parade.

Here you see Patriot Majority’s Mariah Hatta getting the driver of the care for WAMO, the 

Bus tour with teacherken: Pittsburgh and African-American heritage

by rss@dailykos.com (teacherken)

I am still on the Bus for the "Stop the Greed Agenda Bus tour."  Yesterday we were in Pittsburgh.  I am crossposting this from Education Votes.  I ask that you consider going over there and "liking" the post as well as any response you might make here.
Saturday Oct. 6 was a day to spread the message of the “Stop the Greed Agenda Bus Tour” as part of the celebration of African-American Heritage in Pittsburgh.  We began the day by participating in the 25th Annual African-American Heritage Parade.
Here you see Patriot Majority’s Mariah Hatta getting the driver of the care for WAMO, the local hip-hop station, to sign up for Patriot Majority:

and here are Mariah and Paul Freeman carrying our banner in front of our bus during the parade:

Education chief defends PR hire | Shreveporttimes | shreveporttimes.com

Education chief defends PR hire | Shreveporttimes | shreveporttimes.com:

Education chief defends PR hire

Purchase Image

State Superintendent of Education John White sits with students in Brandi Rivers' seventh-grade class recently at North DeSoto Middle School during a visit to the area. / Jim Hudelson/The Times

State Superintendent of Education John White drew criticism last month when media outlets and education groups caught wind of the department’s newest communications manager. However, White continues to defend the hire as a larger part of the department’s new direction.
For $12,000 per month, White contracted Floridian Diedre Finn to temporarily fill the role vacated this summer by former Department of Education director of communications Rene Greer. Finn’s contract, which runs from July through November, is set to total $48,000. 
Finn said questions about her contract turn attention away from the real concerns facing Louisiana’s students and teachers.
“It’s just a distraction,” she said. “We have so much work to do in bettering education in Louisiana, and my role 

MORNING UPDATE: LISTEN TO DIANE RAVITCH 10-7-12 Diane Ravitch's blog

Diane Ravitch's blog:

Helping Kids or Helping Charters?

by dianerav

Wendy Lecker, advocate for public education in Connecticut, raises important questions.
Why was Hartford’s low-performing Milner School handed over to charter operator Jumoke Academy? Why did Hartford officials do nothing to help Milner until the charter school took over? Why did Jumoke get $2 million to fix Milner but no help was available to Milner before the takeover?
Lecker asks: is the responsibility of the state to help the kids or to help grow the charter sector?
Since State Commissiomer of Education Stefan Pryor comes from the charter sector, she suspects it is the latter.

Corporatization of Public Education?

by dianerav

An interesting article at open.salon.com speculates about the current drive to privatize American public education.
Inevitably, the author makes the US/Finland comparison. What is missing? He or she never mentions that Finland does not have any standardized testing. Not until students apply to college (which is tuition-free, by the way).
Teachers are respected not only because it is tough to become a teacher–the selection process is rigorous–but 

Washington State Should Vote NO on 1240

by dianerav

Brendan Williams, a parent in Washington State and former legislator, wrote an article to explain why initiative 1240 should be defeated.
Initiative 1240 would authorize charter schools in a state where voters have turned them down three times previously.
This initiative is generously funded by billionaires such as the Walton family, which donated $600,000. By 

Guess Who Is in Charge of Hiring in Dallas?

by dianerav

A teacher sent the following comment in a discussion about why teachers are demoralized. In Dallas, a 29-year-old TFA alum, with two years of teaching experience, has been put in charge of teacher recruitment:
A much better thing to publicize is the recent appointment of a TFA alumni to be the new Chief Talent Officer (HR manager I believe in OldSpeak) for DISD. This individual, responsible for reforming how Dallas ISD hires 

Should Students Rate Teachers?

by dianerav

Larry Ferlazzo reports on an interesting exchange about student ratings of teachers. Amanda Ripley, who is a cheerleader for corporate reform, loves the idea of trusting students to tell us which teachers are great and which stink.
Felix Salmon points out where she is wrong.
The Gates Foundation loves the idea of student surveys, of course, and several districts are already using the

Best Post of the Day!

by dianerav

Edushyster has done it again.
He or she has identified the schools in Massachusetts with the highest suspension rates. Almost all are charters.
This is not what you would normally think was a funny topic, but read it to the end and see what you think.
Frankly, no one is better at puncturing charter school myths and pomposity than Edushyster.

Write Your Letter Today to President Obama

by dianerav

Consider spending a few minutes this weekend writing a letter for the October 17 Campaign for Our Public Schools.
Tell the President how Race to the Top has affected your life as a parent, a teacher, a principal, a student, a school board ember or a concerned citizen.
Tell him how important the public schools are to your community and our democracy. Tell him what you know.
Share your ideas about how to improve the schools and the lives of children and families.
Here are the instructions to join the Campaign for Our Public Schools.

A Conversation about the Goal of Reformers

by dianerav

I wrote a post about the attacks on teachers, which got some interesting responses.
Reader A wrote:
This has absolutely nothing to do with teacher quality. This has everything to do with:
1. Destroying unions;
2. Destroying public education;
3. Hijacking tax funding for

College board: Students who take core curriculum score higher | Get Schooled

College board: Students who take core curriculum score higher | Get Schooled:

College board: Students who take core curriculum score higher

by Maureen Downey

Here is an op-ed  by Kathryn Juric of the College Board on the coursework that students ought to be taking in high school. Juric is vice president of the College Board’s SAT Program and leads global program strategy for the SAT, which is administered annually to nearly three million students worldwide.

By Kathryn Juric
When it comes to education policy in the United States today, one thing is becoming increasingly clear: coursework matters.
As states move to implement the Common Core State Standards, the positive impact core course 

Labor's Edge Blog : “Stop the Greed Agenda” Bus Tour Exposes Koch Brothers’ Link to Prop 32

Labor's Edge Blog : “Stop the Greed Agenda” Bus Tour Exposes Koch Brothers’ Link to Prop 32:

“Stop the Greed Agenda” Bus Tour Exposes Koch Brothers’ Link to Prop 32

By Danielle Tipton, California Labor Federation

The notorious right-wing ideologues David and Charles Koch are some of the biggest spenders in American politics, dropping millions upon millions to buy elections and influence politicians all across the country. So why would they suddenly throw $4 million into Prop 32, a proposition that claims to “stop special interest money” from flooding politics?

Simple -- because they know it’s a sham and that will silence the voice of workers while giving more power to corporate special interests. And this is exactly what the Koch brothers want. If they succeed in silencing our voice, the floodgates will open up even wider for billionaires like them to spend without limits and push their “greed agenda”-- with the sole purpose of putting even more money into their loaded bank accounts, at the expense of our education, our jobs, our communities and our economy.

That’s precisely what brought the “Stop the Greed Agenda” bus tour to California this week. Sponsored by Patriot Majority USA, the 23-state tour aims to educate communities around the nation about the Koch Brothers and other corporate special interests that spend billions pursuing their “greed agenda,” which centers around more tax breaks for billionaires and corporations that outsource our jobs, while cutting vital protections and programs for working-class Americans.

The greed agenda bus tour arrived in Oakland yesterday, where San Francisco State University Professor John Logan, teacher and Oakland Education 

Daily Kos: Bus tour with teacherken: A day fighting the Greed Agenda in Ohio

coopmike48 at Big Education Ape - 6 hours ago

Daily Kos: Bus tour with teacherken: A day fighting the Greed Agenda in Ohio: Bus tour with teacherken: A day fighting the Greed Agenda in Ohio by rss@dailykos.com (teacherken) *I am continuing as an embedded blogger on the "Stop the Greed Agenda Bus Tour" organized by Patriot Majority USA. The National Education Association is paying me to post on their Education Votes website, and have now given me permission to crosspost the entire pieces I do here. I do ask that you follow this link and visit their website, perhaps leaving a comment on the post over there as well*. Thursda... more »

DIARY OF A PUBLIC SCHOOL TEACHER!: Morning Meeting Moments Create Critical Thinkers!

DIARY OF A PUBLIC SCHOOL TEACHER!: Morning Meeting Moments Create Critical Thinkers!:

Morning Meeting Moments Create Critical Thinkers!

by Lisa M

I use two sites that promote critical thinking: BrainPop and Wonderopolis. 

Every morning we begin our day with Morning Meeting. I have really come to enjoy Morning Meeting, it gives me a chance to bond with my students.
This year, I've added two elements, Brainpop and Wonderopolis. Their widgets are embedded on our class web page.
  
After the greeting and sharing of the message, we begin with the

The Perennial Reform: Fixing School Time (Part 1) | Larry Cuban on School Reform and Classroom Practice

The Perennial Reform: Fixing School Time (Part 1) | Larry Cuban on School Reform and Classroom Practice:

The Perennial Reform: Fixing School Time (Part 1)

by larrycuban

In the past quarter century, fixing school time has been a popular solution reform-minded policymakers have promoted to improve U.S. schools yet one that is least connected to what happens in classrooms or what Americans want from tax-supported schools.
Since A Nation at Risk was published in 1983, Prisoners of Time in 1994, blue-ribbon commission recommendations in Tough Choices, Tough Times in 2007, and in 2012 high profile leaders formed a new national coalition to add time to the school day and year, reformers have criticized no end how long and how well students spend time in school.
Criticism of school schedules comes from business and civic leaders who see the United States stuck in the 

Daily Kos: Faux Education Reform or Improved Education

Daily Kos: Faux Education Reform or Improved Education:

Faux Education Reform or Improved Education

bytulticanFollow

Two years ago, I had the opportunity to share my thoughts about education policy with Congresswomen, Susan Davis (Democrat CA-53). Like many high government office holders, Davis got her start in the 1980’s as a member of the local school board. I immediately launched into my heartfelt belief that standardized testing was destroying public education and leading to the privatizing of public schools. She almost immediately asked me what I find a peculiar and telling question, “How are we going to monitor schools without testing?” This question implies that standards and standardized testing do indeed present a way of evaluating quality of teaching or schools. They do not. It also implies that monitoring schools is the job of the 

Back to School Night: Part II | Mr. Teachbad

Back to School Night: Part II | Mr. Teachbad:

Back to School Night: Part II

by teachbad

In Back to School Night: Part I, I sketched out dif­fer­ences between two schools.

School #1 is a pub­lic char­ter school, has pretty poor facil­i­ties, test scores are high, par­ent engage­ment is high, and the teach­ers appear to have a rel­a­tively high degree of free­dom in the class­room and seem to be happy.

School #2 is a reg­u­lar pub­lic school, has amaz­ing facil­i­ties, test scores are low, par­ent engage­ment is low, and the teach­ers are strictly reg­i­mented and mostly unhappy.

What I left out, inten­tion­ally, is that School #1 has a stu­dent pop­u­la­tion that skews heavy to the mid­dle– and upper middle-incomes while School #2 skews just as heavy to low-income students.

At the end of the post I posed the fol­low­ing provoca­tive ques­tion: What’s going on here?

I want to talk about the require­ments placed on teach­ers in these two schools. At School #1, my son’s school, it appears to me that teach­ers have a great deal of free­dom in decid­ing how they want to begin their classes, pace them, sched­ule assess­ments, choose texts, cre­ate projects and other assess­ments, etc. They are trusted to do these 

Teachers Launch Odyssey Initiative « InterACT

Teachers Launch Odyssey Initiative « InterACT:

Teachers Launch Odyssey Initiative

by David B. Cohen

In a recent post I wrote about the Education Department’s bus tour of the nation.  It was quite the production, with high ranking department staffers, teacher ambassador fellows, public relations, media and logistics.  But on the same afternoon, following the ED events, I also had the opportunity to learn about a smaller but more interesting project.

Teachers Brooke Peters, Michelle Healy, and Todd Sutler have launched a project they call the Odyssey Initiative.  Working together at Community Roots Charter School in Brooklyn, the trio began kicking around ideas of opening their own school.  To approach such a serious challenge, they began to wonder how they might learn more about what makes various schools effective and successful.  Rather than rush headlong into the work of opening a school, they’ve raised money to travel around the entire country this year to visit a variety of schools to see what they can learn, what they can share, and what they can apply to their own efforts in New York City.

Popout

Todd Sutler is the executive director of the project, and the afternoon I met him he was in Palo Alto, CA, to 

Diane in the Evening 10-6-12 Diane Ravitch's blog

Diane Ravitch's blog:

A Union Member Refutes the Propaganda

by dianerav

A teacher writes:
I am a union member (AFT affiliate) and nothing in our union contract requires that I teach a certain way or limits the extent to which I stay late, come in early, or take work home. We do have limits on class size (28). Doesn’t this seem like a good idea for children as well as teachers? The only people who seem interested in constricting my work are the occasional administrators/suits who appear now and then with a stack of tests which I have to foist on my students.

Instructions for the October 17 Campaign for Our Public Schools « Diane Ravitch's blog

coopmike48 at Big Education Ape - 21 hours ago

Instructions for the October 17 Campaign for Our Public Schools « Diane Ravitch's blog: Instructions for the October 17 Campaign for Our Public Schools by dianerav Great news! Anthony Cody, experienced middle school science teacher and fabulous blogger, has offered to coordinate our campaign to write President Obama on October 17. We call it the Campaign for Our Public Schools. Anthony previously ran his own campaign called “Teachers’ Letters to Obama.” He is a champion for teachers, kids, and public education. Our campaign is meant to include everyone who cares about public educat... more »

LISTEN TO DIANE RAVITCH 10-6-12 Diane Ravitch's blog

coopmike48 at Big Education Ape - 9 hours ago

Diane Ravitch's blog: [image: Click on picture to Listen to Diane Ravitch] Eliminating Libraries Is Reform? by dianerav I posted earlier about Romney’s pledge to eliminate federal support for the arts and humanities (PBS and “Big Bird”). A reader from Louisiana–which is the absolute acme of education reform–says that the defunding has already started in that state. Earlier this year, state lawmakers eliminated support for libraries. It was less than $1 million, hardly a crumb on the public table, but it sent a significant message: If you want to read books, buy them yourself. Or r... more »

LISTEN TO DIANE RAVITCH ALL WEEK LONG Diane Ravitch's blog 10-6-12 

LISTEN TO DIANE RAVITCH ALL WEEK LONG 

Diane Ravitch's blog

The in box. Jon Bauman, former TRS Director comments. « Fred Klonsky

The in box. Jon Bauman, former TRS Director comments. « Fred Klonsky:

The in box. Jon Bauman, former TRS Director comments.

by Fred Klonsky

Fred,
At the outset, I would like to send my thanks and compliments to you on a very informative and thought-provoking blog. I recently stumbled across your site via Capitol Fax.
The wise man that tought me about PR and “messaging” often said “Short statements convey powerful messages.” For example, TRS’ Statement of Purpose-Retirement Security for Illinois Educators. Short, to the point, and words to live by for all TRS staff.
I’m loathe to critique my successor, but I think at least part of the problem here is how things are being said as much as what is being said.
It seems to me that any effort that requires multiple explanations of intent is doomed to fail. It is