Wednesday, October 24, 2012

Diane in the Afternoon 10-24-12 Diane Ravitch's blog

Diane Ravitch's blog:







What Happened When I Spoke in Chicago

An astute observer in Chicago reports on my appearance at the Chicago City Club.
As usual, I did not pull punches.
I don’t have time for that.
The amazing thing is that even though everything I said contradicted the axioms of Chicago-style “reform,” I got a standing ovation from a warm and friendly crowd of civic leaders at the City Club.


Yong Zhao to Commissioner King in NY: There Is No Evidence to Support Common Core

As readers of this blog know, I am agnostic about the Common Core standards, because they have never been tried anywhere.
We don’t know whether they will improve academic learning, whether they will increase the achievement gap, whether they will make any difference.
Recently the renowned scholar faced off with New York Commissioner of Education John King.
Commissioner King comes out of the charter sector and has very limited experience as a teacher or an 


What Will Happen to DFER Should Romney Win?

EduShyster is worried that Democrats for Education Reform might lose a friend in the White House if Romney wins.
After all, they are Democrats, right?
But it turns out that Ann Romney has a passion for both horses and charter schools, so DFER and SFER and all the other little -FERs should be OK.
At the end of this item, EduShyster invites readers: After what education reformer should Ann Romney name her next horse?
I don’t think there is a prize attached to the winning entry, but since we don’t work for bonuses, give serious thought to nominating your favorite reformer.


A Puzzlement

The Louisiana Constitution says that the state’s Minimum Foundation Budget must be used solely for public schools.
Governor Bobby Jindal is diverting portions of that budget to pay for students to go to religious and other private schools.
The budget for public schools has seen no increase for four years.
Every student who gets a vouchers reduces the funding dedicated to public schools.
Is this a problem?
Is there an inconsistency?
What part of “public” does Governor Jindal 


Change.Org Sells Out

Many people with liberal causes have used change.org to launch petitions drives.
In its founding, change.org declared its dedication to progressive values.
Many people were upset when change.org allowed Michelle Rhee to surreptitiously gather signatures on its site. You might sign a petition saying you want great teachers or you think teachers should be paid more, and without your knowledge or consent, you were a member of StudentsFirst. You would never get a notice informing that you had unknowingly “joined.” But you would be counted as a member.
Many were also upset that change.org hosted Stand for Children, which is anti-union, anti-teacher, anti-public education, and pro-corporate.
We thought those lapses were aberrations. But now we find that change.org is opening its doors to anti-union,


A Bad Week for John White, Jindal’s Superintendent

A nice summary of a bad week for John White, who was hired to implement Governor Bobby Jindal’s plan to privatize public education in Louisiana.
The blogger has an apt title for the week, referring to a delightful children’s book: John White and the Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Bad Week
Last spring, Jindal pushed through the legislature the nation’s most sweeping voucher plan, hoping to undermine public education.
The legislation encourages charters and enacts a teacher evaluation plan that is tied to test scores and 

APPLY NOW AND GET YOUR VERY OWN CHARTER SCHOOL SCANDALS

CHARTER SCHOOL SCANDALS:

No on 1240 (click on picture)
Charter Schools - Dividing Communities since 1991

Adelanto Charter Academy



“Adelanto Charter School’s Demise Involved Postmus & DeFazio.” San Bernardino County Sentinel (CA), 5/27/2011

ADELANTO—The Adelanto School District has revoked the Adelanto Charter Academy’s charter, based on a laundry list of operational shortcomings...

While charter schools are by law non-profit entities, it appears that those involved with the school 

Horizon Charter School




ROCKLIN (CBS13) – Six weeks into the school year a charter school in Rocklin is closing its doors. Four hundred kids were told Friday that their school would close, and Tuesday was their last day.

But many parents say the Horizon CEO is making up false excuses for why he’s closing the doors at Horizon’s Accelerated Learning Academy campus. Fired up families were fuming even more 

WayPoint Academy




MUSKEGON, MI -- Barbara Stellard, the former director of WayPoint Academy in Muskegon Township, will face trial on multiple felony counts after waiving her preliminary examination on charges she obtained state school aid under false pretenses and falsified school records...

Because she waived the hearing, Stellard's case was bound over to 14th Circuit Court for trial.

"Build a charter school, get a green card"




It's been a turbulent period for charter schools in the United States, with financial analysts raising concerns about their stability and regulators in several states shutting down schools for poor performance.

The volatility has made it tough for startup schools to get financing.

But an unlikely source of new capital has emerged to fill the gap:

Advantage Academy of Hillsborough




TAMPA -- A charter school principal with a history of drunken driving arrests has resigned, and the operators of the school will change a key part of their hiring process in the wake of a Tampa 


Manatee School of Arts & Sciences




Sure, most kids love video games, but you don't see many schools encouraging them, much less buying them for students.

But that's just what a charter school in Manatee County is doing. Over the last two years, enrollment at the Manatee School of Arts and Sciences has dropped by nearly 40 percent.



CHARTER SCHOOL SCANDALS
A compilation of news articles about charter schools which have been charged with, or are highly suspected of, tampering with admissions, grades, attendance and testing; misuse of funds and embezzlement; engaging in nepotism and conflicts of interest; engaging in complicated and shady real estate deals; and/or have been engaging in other questionable, unethical, borderline-legal, or illegal activities. This is also a record of charter school instability and other unsavory tidbits.

Couldn't Find Your Own Special Charter School Scandal
Just Type the name of your city or charter school in the box below


  
If you don't find yours today
Keep checking

CHARTER SCHOOL SCANDALS

Be sure to check out two other Great blogs:



Shanker Blog » Who Has Confidence In U.S. Schools?

Shanker Blog » Who Has Confidence In U.S. Schools?:


Who Has Confidence In U.S. Schools?

For many years, national survey and polling data have shown that Americans tend to like their own local schools, but are considerably less sanguine about the nation’s education system as a whole. This somewhat paradoxical finding – in which most people seem to think the problem is with “other people’s schools” – is difficult to interpret, especially since it seems to vary a bit when people are given basic information about schools, such as funding levels.
In any case, I couldn’t resist taking a very quick, superficial look at how people’s views of education vary by important characteristics, such as age and education. I used the General Social Survey (pooled 2006-2010), which queries respondents about their confidence in education, asking them to specify whether they have “hardly any,” “only some” or “a great deal” of confidence in the system.*
This question doesn’t differentiate explicitly between respondents’ local schools and the system as a whole, and respondents may consider different factors when assessing their confidence, but I think it’s a decent measure of their disposition toward the education system.
First, let’s see the distribution of responses overall, as presented in the graph (I limited the sample to respondents 25 years or older).

Missouri Education Watchdog: The Architect of Your Future - Data Quality Campaign

Missouri Education Watchdog: The Architect of Your Future - Data Quality Campaign:


The Architect of Your Future - Data Quality Campaign

We all remember the Life of Julia, where the Obama Administration laid out how government programs were going to affect someone's entire life. But in order for those programs and policies to be there to ferry Julia from one life stage to another, some government agency had to design and implement them. Someone had to anticipate future problems and create programs that would address them. In today's world you only do that with data which is collected, crunched, analyzed and finally used to justify policy. That data collection begins at birth and ends at death. A social security number is applied for at birth which creates a permanent record for that individual. A death certificate is registered at the end of that life.  In the middle other data are collected: a student ID, a driver's license, a mortgage account, a credit report, a criminal record, a health record, etc. All this data tells the story of us. Or it would if it were all easily accessible in one place which up until now has not been possible.

Enter the Data Quality Campaign, whose goal is "to ensure that every citizen is prepared for the knowledge 

Can you pick out your Corporate Democrat ?


DFER Fake Democrats for Education Privatization (click on Picture) 
IT IS A RULE: YOU CAN'T BE AGAINST PEOPLE AND FOR CORPORATIONS AND CALL YOURSELF A DEMOCRAT...EVER!

The DFER WTF Bunch

Can you pick out your
Corporate Democrat (alleged) ?

3 Things to Do During Your Student Loan Grace Period | ED.gov Blog

3 Things to Do During Your Student Loan Grace Period | ED.gov Blog:


3 Things to Do During Your Student Loan Grace Period

Student Loan Grace PeriodYour student loan grace period is a set amount of time after you graduate, leave school, or drop below half-time enrollment, but before you must begin repayment on your loan. The grace period gives you time to get financially settled and to select your repayment plan. Not all federal student loans have a grace period. Note that for many loans, interest will accrue during your grace period.
Here are three things you can do during your grace period to prepare for repayment:
1. Get Organized
Start by tracking down all of your student loans. There is a website that allows you to view all your federalstudent loans in one place. You can log in to www.nslds.ed.gov using your Federal Student Aid PIN to view your loan balances, information about your loan servicer(s), and more.
Note: Don’t forget to check to see if you have private student loans. The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau has a great Student Debt Repayment Assistant to help you learn about the repayment process, whether you have federal loans, private loans or both.
2. Contact Your Loan Servicer
A loan servicer is a company that handles the billing and other services on your federal student loan. Your loan servicer can help you choose a repayment plan, understand loan consolidation, and complete other tasks related to your federal student loan, so it is important to maintain contact with your loan servicer. If your circumstances change at any time during your repayment period, your loan servicer will be able to help.
To find out who your loan servicer is, visit nslds.ed.gov. You may have more than one loan servicer, so it is important that you look at each loan individually.
3. Explore Your Repayment Plan Options
Although you may select or be assigned a repayment plan when you first begin repaying your student loan, you can change repayment plans at any time. Flexible repayment options are one of the greatest benefits of federal student loans. There are options to tie your monthly payments to your income and even ways you can have your loans forgiven if you are a teacher or employed in certain public service jobs. Work with yourloan servicer to determine which repayment plan is right for you.

Tribune rails against a fair income tax. It must be a good idea. « Fred Klonsky

Tribune rails against a fair income tax. It must be a good idea. « Fred Klonsky:


Tribune rails against a fair income tax. It must be a good idea.


The Chicago Tribune goes bonkers over the idea of a state graduated income tax.

It is no secret that Governor Pat Quinn and the people who helped him land the governorship in 2010 and raise income taxes in 2011 are laying the groundwork for a progressive Illinois tax initiative. This will require a constitutional amendment in 2014 because a graduated income tax is illegal in Illinois. They want to make the temporary 2011 tax hike permanent at five percent and tax certain individuals at ever-higher marginal rates. A progressive income tax will 



Watch the Town Hall on a Chicago elected school board. VIDEO.

Ann Coulter crosses line with parents of special needs students with her “retard” tweet during presidential debate | Get Schooled

Ann Coulter crosses line with parents of special needs students with her “retard” tweet during presidential debate | Get Schooled:


Ann Coulter crosses line with parents of special needs students with her “retard” tweet during presidential debate

Bad girl pundit Ann Coulter has turned offensive and cutting remarks into her signature brand and, based on how often I see her on TV, it seems to be paying off for her.
But one of her tweets this week set off a group of parents who already have it hard enough in my book: Parents of children with special needs who must navigate a dizzying array of state and federal mazes to get their children vital services. And never mind their battle to get their children respect.
In response to the presidential debate Monday between President Obama and Gov. Romney, Coulter tweeted: “I 

FCMAT » Cali Education Headlines Wednesday, October 24, 2012

FCMAT » Fiscal Crisis & Management Assistance Team:

CA Public Education Death by 1065 Cuts
California Charter Schools
 unprecedented 109 charter schools opened throughout the state for the 2012-13 academic year, 

bringing the total number of charter schools to 1,065.



Education Headlines

Wednesday, October 24, 2012

Indio High work bids $8M overbudget

Plans for the rebuild of Indio High School will need to be scaled back slightly after bids for the first phase came in $8 million over budget. The district identified about $2 million to $3 million in changes to the first phase — which includes the performing arts center, administration building, gymnasium and some classrooms — and plans to cut the number of classrooms in future phases to the same level as Palm Desert and Shadow Hills high schools.

Irvine Unified superintendent, president solicit cash

Irvine Unified School District's superintendent and education board president made a joint plea to parents and others in the district community for a $365 donation to Irvine Public Schools Foundation by Dec. 31. The city will match donations dollar for dollar up to $1 million because of a ballot measure passed a few years ago.

California sees record number of new charter schools

California's charter schools continue to grow at a rapid clip with more new schools opening than ever before, an industry association said Wednesday. The California Charter Schools Association said an unprecedented 109 charter schools opened throughout the state for the 2012-13 academic year, bringing the total number of charter schools to 1,065.

In search of quality teachers, charter network trains its own

Danny Shapiro is one of 34 new teachers in Aspire’s 3-year-old intensive residency program, aimed at training incoming teachers like him for positions in one of the network’s nearly three dozen schools. Founded in California in 1998, Aspire currently serves 12,000 mostly low-income students in grades K-12 and will expand out of state for the first time next year with two new schools in Memphis, Tenn.

Kids support, but don't always eat, new school lunches

A new statewide survey shows that while students overwhelmingly support the new nutrition standards, most are tossing the foods they don't like. About 40 percent of students say they eat school lunches in their entirety, according to the survey commissioned by The California Endowment, which provides funding to a number of media organizations, including California Watch.

AP Interview: Brown says schools' future at stake

As he makes a last-minute push for his November tax initiative, Gov. Jerry Brown said Tuesday that he wants to make sure voters "know the stakes" for California's K-12 schools and colleges before they cast their ballots.
Tuesday, October 23, 2012

Hanson asks community to help Fresno Unified

Fresno Unified Superintendent Michael Hanson gave a personal and sometimes emotional state-of-the district address Monday, calling on education, community and business leaders to stay connected for the future of the city's children.

Measure E tax plan figures into Davis school board race

The candidates voters choose for the two open seats this November will have a daunting task ahead of them: how to preserve programs, maintain class sizes and keep the school day intact under a cloud of budgetary uncertainty.

Davis school board accused of illegally pushing Measure E

In a complaint filed with the Fair Political Practices Commission, a Davis political action committee contends that the city's school board and its president are illegally using taxpayer dollars to stump for a school funding measure on the November ballot.