School Tech Connect: Just Finished Watching Diane's Speech

School Tech Connect: Just Finished Watching Diane's Speech:

Just Finished Watching Diane's Speech

by noreply@blogger.com (Tim Furman)

In schools for the rich, children get taught. In schools for the poor, children get tested. -- Diane Ravitch

I just not got to watch the entire video of Diane Ravitch's recent talk at the City Club. I wish I had been there. Every moment of it is a devastating indictment of the status quo. I've seen people who can speak intelligently about many of these issues, but there is nobody that I know of who can speak about all of them in such clear terms.

Of course the danger is that people really aren't listening, as I've mentioned before. For example, I felt that 

Student Data Mining, How Much Data Is Enough? | Truth in American Education

Student Data Mining, How Much Data Is Enough? | Truth in American Education:

Student Data Mining, How Much Data Is Enough?

Posted on October 26, 2012 by Shane Vander Hart

Restoring Oklahoma Public Education released their report about Oklahoma’s P20 councilwhich is a follow-up to an earlier paper they wrote that analyzed recent education reforms and how they impacted student privacy (see below). 

How Much Data is Enough Data? What happens to privacy when bureaucracies exceed their scope?

Here is th

Anti-Socialist Greenwich Billionaire Targeting Democratic Connecticut State Senators? - Wait, What?

Anti-Socialist Greenwich Billionaire Targeting Democratic Connecticut State Senators? - Wait, What?:

Anti-Socialist Greenwich Billionaire Targeting Democratic Connecticut State Senators?

by jonpelto

Senators Cassano and Williams (Photo courtesy of Christine Stuart)

Following a press conference, yesterday, by State Senators Don Williams and Steve Cassano, the former chief of staff for the Connecticut Republican Party, and managing director of Voters for Good Government, admitted to Connecticut media outlets that television ads are going to be run against certain Democratic State Senators.  Liz Kurantowicz, the Voters for Good Government Political Action Committee’s staff person, told reporters that, “our goal is to try and bring to light bad policies and politicians that make bad decisions.”

The television advertisements are being produced by Cashman + Katz, an advertising and political consulting firm that has done work for the CT Dept. of Children and Families, the 

Board of Regents Newsflash: Let’s put in a chief of staff with no public higher education experience

by jonpelto

Categories: Board of Regents, Bridgeport, Malloy, State Politics Tags: Board of Regents, Bridgeport, Malloy, Phil Austin First Governor Malloy selected former UConn President Phil Austin to be the interim President of the Connecticut Board of Regents, despite the fact that he has no experience running community colleges. And today it has  become public that they will be adding a new Chief of Staff with NO EXPERIENCE with public higher education at [...]

UPDATE: Seattle Schools Community Forum: Google "charter Schools" and "financial scandal" - This is just the Tip of the Iceberg

Seattle Schools Community Forum: Google "charter Schools" and "financial scandal" - This is just the Tip of the Iceberg:

Google "charter Schools" and "financial scandal" - This is just the Tip of the Iceberg

by Melissa Westbrook

In the latest in how to lose public education dollars, this story from NBC News.   (I'll call out in red how this parallels I-1240.) 

A Florida state senator is calling for an investigation into the payout of more than $500,000 to the principal of a failed Orange County charter school.

A school board chairman blasted the payout of taxpayer money, which has sparked outrage in Orlando, as “immoral and unethical.” 

---

Kelly Young, principal of NorthStar High School in Orlando, received a check for $519,453.96 in June, about the same time the Orange County School Board accepted the school’s plan to close in lieu of being forced to shut 

Our Schools Coalition Wants Your Input

by Charlie Mas

The Our Schools Coalition, an Alliance for Education project funded by the Gates Foundation, wants to kibbitz once again on the negotiation between the teachers' union (SEA) and the District as they wrestle over the collective bargaining agreement. And they want you to tell them what they should agitate for. Provide your inputhere.

Just in case you question the propriety of their kibbitzing in the process, they have this blog post to justify it. Only that blog post doesn't give any reason that we need Our Schools Coalition to serve as the voice of the community in addition to the democratically elected board which has the duty to serve as the voice of the community to relay our priorities to the negotiators.

Kris Nielsen: I (Used to) Love Teaching - Living in Dialogue - Education Week Teacher

Kris Nielsen: I (Used to) Love Teaching - Living in Dialogue - Education Week Teacher:

Kris Nielsen: I (Used to) Love Teaching

by Anthony Cody

Guest post by Kris Nielsen.
This post was originally published here on his blog, Middle Grades Mastery.
I love teaching. Or, I did love teaching. I loved teaching when my job was to teach. Now, I don't love teaching, because my job is no longer teaching.
Was that introduction awkward enough? That's kind of how my job feels: awkward, frustrating, backwards, stifling, and redundant. Breaking away from the comparison to the introduction, I'd like to add demeaning, thankless, exhausting, fruitless, unappreciated, lonely, undemocratic, unfulfilling, and major energy drain.
But, please, let me explain my whining. I'm not generally a whiner, so I feel that when I do moan and complain, I should have some good reasons, and maybe even some solutions. (Before you get your hopes up, I'm not going 

Does Ingram still have a job? As of Friday morning, no word. « Fred Klonsky

Does Ingram still have a job? As of Friday morning, no word. « Fred Klonsky:

Does Ingram still have a job? As of Friday morning, no word.

by Fred Klonsky

The Illinois Teacher Retirement System board of trustees is wrapping up their meeting today.
Illinois Federation of Teachers President Dan Montgomery’s call for the firing of TRS Executive Director Richard Ingram has been met so far with silence.
It could happen today. I hear they will meet in executive session at some point to discuss Ingram.
You may recall that several weeks ago Ingram gave an interview to Crain’s where he strongly suggested action by the legislature cutting COLA benefits to retirees.
In addition to the fact that this is a bone-headed idea. It encourages the myth that retiree benefit cuts and not 

LISTEN TO DIANE RAVITCH 10-26-12 Diane Ravitch's blog

Diane Ravitch's blog:

Calling All Pro Bono Lawyers

by dianerav

A reader just raised an interesting question offline.
He lives in New Jersey, where the state constitution requires that the state provide a “thorough and efficient” public education.
New Jersey officials today are doing their best to dismantle and privatize the state’s public education system.
Are they violating their oath of office?
What does it say in other state constitutions where the privatizers are busy dismantling the public system for fun, power, profit and ideology?

Will Educators’ Disgust with Race to the Top Affect the Election?

by dianerav

Many of us have wondered whether President Obama hears the voices of teachers. Many have wondered whether he understands that educators–not only teachers, but principals and superintendents–despise Race to the Top and see it as a calculated effort to undermine professionalism and advance the privatization agenda. And many have wondered whether the President knows that he may be jeopardizing his re-election by turning off an 

Charter Fails, Principal Wins Big

by dianerav

A charter school in Orange County, Florida, closed its doors for the last time in June.
The principal took home a cash payout of more than $500,000 after the school failed.
The local public school board is outraged and says the taxpayers’ money should be returned to the district.
The principal’s customary salary was $305,000, almost triple the $116,000 typically paid to public school principals in the same district.
She is still on partial salary as she helps to close out the school.
As the song goes, “nice work if you can get it…”

Farewell, Kathy 1

by dianerav

I received a tweet tonight that said that one of our faithful readers, and a frequent commenter on this site, whom I knew only as Kathy 1, had died very unexpectedly.
Her name, I learned from the tweet, was Kathy DuPuis.
This was the tweet: “We lost a good friend and warrior for public education this week. She came home from a long trip, tired and worn out, logged onto her computer and commented on a Diane Ravitch blog.”
Her last comment was October 17 at 5:12 pm. She commented on  a post about President Obama’s Disappointing Response, a form letter written to one of us. She wrote: “President Obama can’t say teachers don’t care.”
Farewell, Kathy 1. Your voice will be missed. I hope President Obama heard you. We did

Michelle Rhee Gives $500,000 to beat Unions in Michigan

by dianerav

Michelle Rhee continues as the front group for corporations, right wing millionaires and billionaires who want to bust unions. She is joined in her opposition to Michigan’s Prop 2 by the deceptively named Democrats for Education Reform, the group founded by Wall Street hedge fund managers to advance privatization.

Diane in the Afternoon 10-25-12 Diane Ravitch's blog

coopmike48 at Big Education Ape - 4 hours ago

Diane Ravitch's blog: The Real Goal of Reformers: Re-Segregation? by dianerav Anthony Cody has a stunning article this week about what is happening in Louisiana. The expansion of vouchers and charters will facilitate the re-segregation of the schools, he predicts. Governor Jindal eliminated all funding for public libraries in his new budget. TFA Commissioner has put a young and unqualified TFA alum in charge of teacher evaluation. The freight train of reform (aka privatization) is running full blast in that unfortunate state. Arne Duncan will be there any day now to congratulate ... more »

LISTEN TO DIANE RAVITCH 10-25-12 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] Teachers Running for Office in Ohio by dianerav What’s the best way to stop the attack on teachers? Run for office. Many teachers in Ohio figured that out, and they are running for legislative seats. Some are taking on impossible tasks, but, hey, you never know. When the legislators refuse to listen, then run against them. Organize parents and others who care about public education. Run for office. On the list linked here A Student Activist and a Hero of Public Education by dianerav Zack Koppelin is a hero of... more »

FCMAT » Cali Education Headlines Friday, October 26, 2012

FCMAT » Fiscal Crisis & Management Assistance Team:

No On 32: Stop Special Exemptions

Education Headlines

Friday, October 26, 2012

Encinitas school district changes website following campaigning complaint

A San Diego man has complained to the Encinitas Union School District that its website has inappropriate campaign material supporting tax propositions on the November ballot.

Galt elementary school district board increases developer fees

Over the next five years, Galt Joint Union Elementary School District estimated it will need room for an additional 106 new students due to new housing projections — and officials there are asking developers to foot the bill.

Walters: Jerry Brown's tax boost is in trouble

The governor of California may not be toast – yet – but, one might say, he's turning browner by the moment in the heat of a political campaign he hoped would be his legacy achievement. Two new statewide polls confirm what political instincts – and Jerry Brown's body language – were already telling us: His tax increase measure, Proposition 30, is fading fast with scarcely a week remaining until Election Day.

Amid misconduct probe, O.C. charter school exonerates itself

A K-8 charter school accused of misconduct during state standardized testing has absolved itself of wrongdoing following an internal investigation, even as the Capistrano Unified School District continues to probe reports of testing violations.

School bonds crowd local ballot; What's at stake

Come Election Day, San Diego County voters will decide the fate of 11 local education bond measures — the most on a single ballot since 1996 — and two statewide tax initiatives meant to generate money for schools.

Fensterwald: Report says weighted student formula alone not enough

A new report reaffirms support in principle for the concept of a weighted student formula, but calls for the governor to include provisions that will assure that the extra money for disadvantaged students actually will be spent in the schools that those students attend ­– and isn’t diluted throughout a district.

Thursday, October 25, 2012

Marin school funding effort bears first fruits

After more than two years, Marin public schools Wednesday received the first payments — $220,000 in all — from a new countywide fundraising initiative, SchoolsRule-Marin. The initiative, a partnership between fundraising foundations of individual school districts, divided the funds among Marin school districts based on enrollment.

Fresno Unified seeks $40 million from 'Race to Top'

Fresno Unified trustees approved an application for $40 million in federal "Race to the Top" funds Wednesday night, but not without dissent. The application is the third try for federal education improvement funds in the past three years.

Chico school district and faculty union at impasse

The Chico Unified School District and the union that represents its faculty and other certificated professionals are officially at "impasse," but neither side seems terribly upset about it.

Wisconsin’s new school grading index: ‘a dog’s breakfast of numbers’:

Wisconsin’s new school grading index: ‘a dog’s breakfast of numbers’

Posted by Valerie Strauss on October 26, 2012 at 4:00 am

Wisconsin cows

Another day, another state comes up with another cockamamie way to grade schools for “accountability” purposes. In this post Gene V. Glass, Regents’ Professor Emeritus at Arizona State University and senior researcher at the University of Colorado-Boulder’s National Education Policy Center, looks at the very large problems with Wisconsin’s new Overall Accountability Index meant to grade public schools. (Read it to see why it is being accompanied by a picture of cows.)

By Gene V. Glass

To receive a waiver of No Child Left Behind sanctions, the State of Wisconsin took steps this year to bolster its accountability provisions by creating a complex system for grading public schools. Its new Overall Accountability Index (OAI) is supposed to reveal to the public 

Why MCPS Seven Keys to College Readiness should be tossed

by Valerie Strauss

Montgomery County Public Schools in Maryland is one of the most successful districts in the country. On its website you will find a page listing the Seven Keys to College Readiness, which are said to be a pathway for students to follow that will increase their chances of being ready for and successful in college. Here is a piece questioning whether the keys are a reasonable path for students to aspire to follow. It was written by David Bernstein, a nonprofit executive who lives in Gaithersburg, Md., and has two sons, ages 7 and 15. He haspreviously written about how even great schools fail students with Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder.
Read full article >>

SI&A Cabinet Report – News Analysis: Election fallout will claim many important, less visible projects

SI&A Cabinet Report – News & Resources:

News Analysis: Election fallout will claim many important, less visible projects
By Tom Chorneau
Friday, October 26, 2012

With everything else schools have riding on next month’s election, progress on many less obvious but still critical programs and projects will also be jeopardized if voters turn down tax measures on Nov. 6.

The work of updating California’s teacher performance assessment, for example, could be set back as education programs statewide brace for another round of big cuts.

The testing, designed to measure a new teacher candidate’s ability to carry out state professional standards, is overseen by the Commission on Teacher Credentialing whose budget is largely drawn from fees from credential applications and test administration – both activities that have crashed the past three years.

Officials say an update on the performance assessment is long overdue, with key components more than a decade old. There’s also a need to align the testing with the new common core curriculum standards that California adopted two years ago and is in the process of introducing into classrooms.

Even if the CTC can find the resources to press ahead with the TPA update, officials within the California State 

Daily Kos: Rubi at 100: still teaching

Daily Kos: Rubi at 100: still teaching:

Rubi at 100: still teaching

by rss@dailykos.com (teacherken)

Four years ago I mentioned in a diary the women who had first taught me cello more than half a century ago, and persuaded my sister and myself to go to what was then National Music Camp in Interlochen Michigan, which she herself had attended in 1929.  A few days later I got an email from her daughter, who happened to have googled her mom and found my post, and who informed me her mother, then 96, was still teaching.
On October 19 Rubi Wentzel turned 100.  Her daughter Leslie Krikorian, invited me to California for the celebration the next day, Saturday October 20.  I flew to Oakland, drove to Lafayette, and was there to honor this remarkable woman:

Please keep reading as I tell you about her, and share some photos from the event.

Three statistics from Virginia worth remembering

by rss@dailykos.com (teacherken)

1.  A 19% increase in the number of Latinos registered to vote since 2008
2.  A 7% increase of African-American registration
3.  Just shy of 60% of those registering to vote in the last two months are younger than 30
Unlike what likely voter screens say, where they may presume turnout will be only 70% of registered voters,

Eugene Robinson: What America will we pick?

by rss@dailykos.com (teacherken)

My title has the question Eugene Robinson asks as the title of his Friday Washington Post column, which I highly recommend.
He begins simply enough

This election is only tangentially a fight over policy. It is also a fight about meaning and identity — and that’s one reason voters are so polarized. It’s about who we are and who we aspire to 

Krugman: Mr. Romney doesn’t have an economic plan at all

by rss@dailykos.com (teacherken)

In his Friday column, Pointing Towards Prosperity?, the Nobel Laureate compares the economic plans of the two presidential candidates.

Well, as I’ve said before, Mr. Romney’s “plan” is a sham. It’s a list of things he claims will happen, with no description of the policies he would follow to make those things happen.

and  Krugman says he can come up with a one-point plan that trumps Romney's:  

Here it is: Every American will have a good job with good wages. Also, a blissfully 

Study Finds Relationship Between Education, Income and Brain Development | toteachornototeach

Study Finds Relationship Between Education, Income and Brain Development | toteachornototeach:

Study Finds Relationship Between Education, Income and Brain Development

by aristotlethewise

Study Finds Relationship Between Education, Income and Brain Development

A paper delivered at the annual Society for Neuroscientists meeting contended that there was a relationship between income and educational attainment of the parents and the development of their child’s brain – especially areas used in learning, memory and stress processing. The researchers studied brain scans of children whose parents ranged in levels of education of between 8 and 21 years and whose family income fell between below-poverty to $140,000.
Kimberly Noble, an assistant professor of pediatrics at Columbia University, was the lead author of the report who was assisted by Elizabeth Sowell of University of Southern California. Together they discovered that the hippocampus area of the brain, which controls memory and learning, was larger in children who came from families that enjoyed a higher income. Children of parents who had a high level of education had smaller 

Thomas Friedman Loooves "Race to the Top"... Should You? :: Frederick M. Hess

Thomas Friedman Loooves "Race to the Top"... Should You? :: Frederick M. Hess:

Thomas Friedman Loooves "Race to the Top"... Should You?

by Frederick M. Hess  •  Oct 26, 2012 at 7:03 am
Cross-posted from Education Week

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The NYT's Thomas Friedman is at it again. Last Sunday, with his customary humility, he opined in "Obama's Best-Kept Secrets," "While I don't know how Obamacare will come out, I'm certain that my two favorite Obama initiatives will be transformative." One of the two was Race to the Top (the other was the President's push to boost mileage standards for cars and trucks).

On the one hand, Friedman cheerleading for ambitious federal programs is no surprise. After all, he's the guy who has damned the frustrating, pluralistic, federal design of the American system, saying on Meet the Press in 2010, "It's why I have fantasized...what if we could just be China for a day?" On the other hand, Friedman treats dubious assertions as established fact. He suggests that 4,500 union affiliates signing meaningless pledges is a game-changer. He repeats, without qualification, Duncan's claims about miraculous results on school turnarounds and student discipline. Ignoring broken promises and eye-popping tales of implementation headaches and bureaucracy that a reporter could tackle, he blithely announces that "even states that did not win [RTT] have been implementing their proposals anyway."

As voters weigh President Obama's first term, it seems a good time to offer a slightly more acerbic take on