Modern School: Obama’s Crushing Student Debt Repayment Scam

Modern School: Obama’s Crushing Student Debt Repayment Scam:

Obama’s Crushing Student Debt Repayment Scam

by Michael Dunn

The Department of Education recently enacted new rules for Income-Based Repayment (IBR) of student loans. The hallmark of this “reform,” according to the WSWS, is that a small fraction of students will now be able to repay their loans in 20 years instead of 25 and their rates will go down from 15% of their discretionary income to 10%. The change will have no effect on undergraduates and may end up costing more for those who go on to earn graduate degrees if their starting salaries upon graduation are under $33,000 per year.

While tuition has been rising faster than the rate of inflation for the past decade the amount of student aid has been declining. Federal grants dropped 5% over the past year, the first decline in five years. Federal work study fell by 4% to $972 million—the first time it fell below $1 billion in over a decade. The Obama 

Articles: Education 'Change Agent' Failed DC Chancellor Michelle Rhee: The Left Connection

Articles: Education 'Change Agent' Failed DC Chancellor Michelle Rhee: The Left Connection:

Education 'Change Agent' Failed DC Chancellor Michelle Rhee: The Left Connection

By M. Catharine Evans and Ann Kane

Who would have thought the ubiquitous education superstar Michelle Rhee would be sitting next to Andy Stern on the board of the Broad Foundation?  Yes, that's right.  The Republican governors' siren and CEO of StudentsFirst works alongside the former SEIU leader, who's visited the White House more than anyone else in the past four years and who said "workers of the world, unite" back in 2007.

Stern is the same guy who called the left-leaning former KB Homes executive Eli Broad his "favorite billionaire" in 2005 when the union elites and progressive business owners got together to seriously implement their fundamental transformation of the educational system.  Broad is one of Rhee's major investors and once called her the newest exciting change agent.

But you see, no one (except us) on the conservative side appears to be getting the con game going on with Rhee and Broad and, of course, the Obama regime. At the 2008 Hofstra University presidential debate, then-Senator Obama gave a shout-out to newly appointed D.C. Chancellor Rhee as a "wonderful new superintendent who's working very hard."  Now, Rhee's name pops up on top of the list for possible replacements if Arne Duncan decides to step down.

Why have so few vetted a woman who has followed Obama's educational game plan to the letter?  Does no one care that her own non-

Read more: http://www.americanthinker.com/2012/11/education_change_agent_michelle_rhee_the_left_connection.html#ixzz2Cg9o0WQj

Loose ends, recurring partisan tensions to drive education agenda in Obama’s second term - The Washington Post

Loose ends, recurring partisan tensions to drive education agenda in Obama’s second term - The Washington Post:

Loose ends, recurring partisan tensions to drive education agenda in Obama’s second term

(Carolyn Kaster, File/ Associated Press ) - FILE - In this Dec. 2, 2011 file photo, President Barack Obama, accompanied by American Federation of Teachers President Randi Weingarten, gestures while speaking in a building under construction in Washington. Loose ends and thorny partisan tensions on education await the next Congress and President Barack Obama’s second term. First up is the fiscal cliff, which will slash billions from the Department of Education’s budget if lawmakers don’t act this year.

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By Associated Press, Updated: Monday, November 19, 12:18 AM

WASHINGTON — Loose ends and thorny partisan issues that have long dogged attempts to move forward on education await the next Congress as President Barack Obama’s second term begins.

Soaring campaign-year aspirations to close the achievement gap and boost college graduation rates to the highest in the world may have to fall back to earth — at least temporarily — as lawmakers and Obama tackle a number of gritty funding-related issues that just can’t wait.

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First up is sequestration, the automatic, government-wide spending cuts set to knock out 8.2 percent of the funding to almost all of the Education Department’s programs — unless Congress acts before the end of the year to avert the cuts.

Programs intended to reduce educational inequities will take a hit of $1.3 billion, according 

Schools Matter: Memphis Plans Big Cuts to Pay for Corporate Reform Schools

Schools Matter: Memphis Plans Big Cuts to Pay for Corporate Reform Schools:

Memphis Plans Big Cuts to Pay for Corporate Reform Schools

by Jim Horn

Someone reading the Memphis Commercial-Appeal on the corporate plan for privatizing Memphis Schools would hardly know there is a 212 million dollar problem in the plan, itself.  Stories about Memphis being among the top ten American cities to be overrun by the corporate reform school scammers make it to Page 1, while stories about the impending shuttering of public schools to pay for the $212 million deficit between over the next five years is not mentioned at all.

Also awaiting the families of custodians and bus drivers are plans to privatize these services.  Holiday Greetings from the Gates Foundation.

Below is a previously posted item from June 28 on the big merger plan.

Memphis District to Lose $212 Million to Charter Schools by 2016

The story unfolding in Memphis around the consolidation of Memphis and Shelby County Schools gets 

MORNING UPDATE: LISTEN TO DIANE RAVITCH 11-19-12 Diane Ravitch's blog

Diane Ravitch's blog:

Thank You, G.F. Brandenburg

by dianerav

One of the bloggers I admire most is G.F. Brandenburg. Compared to me, he is a veteran blogger. He has been chronicling the foibles of “reform” since 2009. His blog revealed that Michelle Rhee’s claims of having been a miracle teacher were bogus. He has followed her career since she left D.C.; do a search on his site and you will discover an interesting number of blogs about inflated claims in D.C.
I don’t know Brandenburg but I do know he is a retired math teacher, which means he insists on evidence. 

The False Proxy Trap

by dianerav

I confess I never heard about Seth Godin. Then I read these interesting reflections and concluded I have to learn more about him. He is an author and a high-tech entrepreneur. He wrote the following wise thoughts, which are a direct hit on our current obsession with test scores. The scores are a proxy for good education. Our policymakers are satisfied to get the scores, even if the students don’t get a good education.
Godin writes:
Avoiding the false proxy trap.
Sometimes, we can’t measure what we need to measure, so we invent a proxy, something that’s much easier to measure and stands in as an approximation.
TV advertisers, for example, could never tell which viewers would be impacted by an ad, so instead, they 

DC Voucher Schools: No Accountability

by dianerav

The Washington Post looked closely at the DC voucher program and found a shocking lack of oversight or accountability.
The reporters found that there was little or no oversight over curriculum, quality or standards, and parents got no information other than te schools’ advertising.
“…Washington Post review found that hundreds of students use their voucher dollars to attend schools that are 

Unmasking Michelle Rhee’s Right-Wing Agenda

by dianerav

Daniel Denvir has been tracking the political activities of Michelle Rhee’s StudentsFirst and learned that most of her support went to Republican candidates.
She pretends to be a Democrat but in state after state, she has given big money to candidates who support privatization and anti-teacher legislation..
Rhee “poured money into state-level campaigns nationwide, winning 86 of 105 races and flipping a net 33 seats to advocates of so-called “school reform,“ a movement that advocates expanding privately run public charter schools, weakening teachers unions, increasing the weight of high-stakes standardized tests and, in some cases, using taxpayer dollars to fund private tuition through vouchers as the keys to improving public education.
Rhee pretends to be bipartisan. But, as Denvir writes, “90 of the 105 candidates backed by StudentsFirst were 

Diane in the Evening 11-18-12 Diane Ravitch's blog

coopmike48 at Big Education Ape - 6 hours ago

Diane Ravitch's blog: Are Teachers Unions Bad for Education? by dianerav After several consecutive years of hearing that teachers’ unions are terrible, teachers’ unions are an obstacle to reform, teachers’ unions are greedy, it’s easy to cringe when the subject of unions comes up. I personally have gotten over that. I have come to realize that the war on unions is part of the larger war on public education. The unions are the strongest political ally for the public schools, which are the workplaces of their members, and they need make no apology to the far-right that wants to ... more »

Engaging Parents In School… » This Week’s #PTchat On Twitter

Engaging Parents In School… » This Week’s #PTchat On Twitter:

This Week’s #PTchat On Twitter

by Larry Ferlazzo

Guest Post by Joe Mazza

Image credit: Great read! “Beyond the Bakesale”

Join us on this week’s #PTchat as we take a look at the research on creating and building a home-school partnership, while sharing examples what this looks like in today’s schools.

According to Henderson & Mapp (2006), four core beliefs must be firmly in place to have a true home-school partnership:

Core Belief 1: All Parents Have Dreams for Their Children and Want the Best for Them

Core Belief 2: All Parents Have the Capacity to Support Their Children’s Learning

Core Belief 3: Parents and School Staff Should Be Equal Partners

Core Belief 3: Parents and School Staff Should Be Equal Partners

This Wednesday at 9PM EDT / 6PM PST, on Twitter, we will create a shared gDOC for parents, teachers & leaders to help us turn the Core Beliefs into actions within the school. We’ll discuss what takes to get to the point of “partnership.” A great pre-read to this #PTchat comes from Parent Involvement Matters entitled“How Do You Know If You’re Open To Partnership?”

New to Twitterchats?

After logging on to Twitter, visit Tweetchat and simply enter “ptchat” in the box at the top. Follow along, just watch and/or participate as you as much as you like to join others around the world in this weekly chat. We look forward to engaging your unique and important parent and/or educator perspective.

Beyond Proposition 30: California’s education future | EdSource Today

Beyond Proposition 30: California’s education future | EdSource Today:

Beyond Proposition 30: California’s education future

November 19th, 2012 | Add a Comment | 
By Louis Freedberg

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Louis Freedberg

The passage of Proposition 30 represents a major victory for schools – and for Gov. Jerry Brown. Barring a further erosion of state revenues, Prop. 30 should bring stability to school districts after five years of budget devastation. Yet Prop. 30, while representing the first major affirmation of the public’s support for schools in years, still leaves on the table a range of major education challenges. To meet all of them will cost the state much more than the approximately $3 billion that Prop. 30 is expected to provide in additional education spending.

Here are eight principal challenges:

1.  Bringing the state’s funding levels up to the U.S. average

Latest estimates rank California 46th in per capita spending compared to other states. Over the past decade, the gap between California spending per student and the national average has grown from $691 in 2001-02 to $2856 in 2010-11. According to the California Budget Project, just bringing California to the national average – let alone the highest-spending states like Massachusetts or New Jersey – would cost $17.3 billion, three times more than the amount raised by Prop. 30. The discrepancy raises a basic issue of fairness: Should California’s children be subjected to a less effective education than their peers in many others states just because they happened to be born here?

2.  Achieving funding equity among California school districts

Beyond California’s lagging behind other states, there are major discrepancies among school 

Daily Kos: A reminder from 149 years ago

Daily Kos: A reminder from 149 years ago:

A reminder from 149 years ago

by rss@dailykos.com (teacherken)

Four score and seven years ago our fathers brought forth on this continent a new nation, conceived in liberty, and dedicated to the proposition that all men are created equal.

Now we are engaged in a great civil war, testing whether that nation, or any nation, so conceived and so dedicated, can long endure. We are met on a great battle-field of that war. We have come to dedicate a portion of that field, as a final resting place for those who here gave their lives that that nation might live. It is altogether fitting and proper that we should do this.

But, in a larger sense, we can not dedicate, we can not consecrate, we can not hallow this ground. The brave men, living and dead, who struggled here, have consecrated it, far above our poor power to add or detract. The world will little note, nor long remember what we say here, but it can never forget what they did here. It is for us the living, rather, to be dedicated here to the unfinished work which they who fought here have thus far so nobly advanced. It is rather for us to be here dedicated to the great task remaining before us—that from these honored dead we take increased devotion to that cause for which they gave the last full measure of devotion—that we here highly resolve that these dead shall not have died in vain—that this nation, under God, shall have a new birth of freedom—and that government of the people, by the people, for the people, shall not perish from the earth.

271 words, spoken November 19, 1863, by Abraham Lincoln, at the dedication of the Battlefield at Gettysburg, where Lee's final sally North was turned back in 3 days of bloody fighting.

Worth taking time today to read through and ponder once again.

Peace.

School vouchers: Should there be more quality controls? | Get Schooled

School vouchers: Should there be more quality controls? | Get Schooled:

School vouchers: Should there be more quality controls?

by Maureen Downey

Georgia will likely see another legislative attempt at vouchers next session, something that thus far has failed to gain much traction in the General Assembly.
An investigation by the Washington Post will likely revive the debate over whether we should allow parents to receive tax dollars to pay for private schools, especially religious schools.
Most national discussions about vouchers assume that parents will use the vouchers for parochial schools. And, indeed, many of the families receiving vouchers in Washington send their kids to Catholic schools.
But what folks don’t consider is that once vouchers are approved for one religious school, they can’t legally be denied to others. Taxpayers could find their money going to schools run by cults equivalent to the Branch 

What's Wrong with Teacher Evaluation and How to Fix It: One Size Fits All — Whole Child Education

What's Wrong with Teacher Evaluation and How to Fix It: One Size Fits All — Whole Child Education:

THE WHOLE CHILD BLOG

What’s Wrong with Teacher Evaluation and How to Fix It: One Size Fits All

November 19, 2012 by James H. Stronge

Teachers matter. They have an extraordinary, positive, and lasting impact on their students. Students with high-performing teachers can progress three times as fast as students with low-performing teachers and each student deserves access to highly effective teachers in every subject.

So, how do we know which teachers are effective? All teachers deserve a fair and accurate assessment of their skills, how they perform in the classroom, and how they can improve. Teacher effectiveness is dependent on these accurate and fair evaluations, based on multiple measures, including—but not solely based around—their students' performance in the subjects they teach.

What can we do about the abysmal state of teacher evaluation? Firstly, we need to recognize what's wrong and, secondly, we need to fix it. So far in this series of blog posts, I've discussed how observation does not equal evaluation and purposeful, data-driven evaluation. Today I lay out the problems of and solutions to a one-size-fits-all evaluation framework.

The Problem: One Size Fits All

What's Wrong

In teacher evaluation, as with almost everything else, one size doesn't fit; it never did and it never will.

Attempting to apply the same dose of evaluation to all teachers leads to a host of problems. For instance, 

Myths Come From Values, Not From Ignorance « The Core Knowledge Blog

Myths Come From Values, Not From Ignorance « The Core Knowledge Blog:

Myths Come From Values, Not From Ignorance

by w3bd0g
November 19th, 2012

Tags: Cedar Reiner, cognitive science, neuromyths, Teaching
Posted in Education Theory, Literacy, Teaching | No Comments »

Today’s guest post is by Cedar Reiner, assistant professor of Psychology at Randolph-Macon College in Ashland, Virginia.  It originally appeared at Cedar’s Digest, Reiner’s blog about “education reform, college teaching, history and philosophy of science” and other subjects. 

Like many interested in how we apply basic cognitive science to education, I was interested in the recent finding that many teachers still endorse many myths and misconceptions about neuroscience and cognitive psychology. Here is the original paper, and an excellent op-ed by Chris Chabris and Dan Simons in the Wall Street Journal. One interesting element of the experiment was that teachers who knew the most were also the most misinformed (from Chabris and Simons):

Ironically, in the Dekker group’s study, the teachers who knew the most about neuroscience also believed in the most myths. Apparently, teachers 

How can they know? « Cooperative Catalyst

How can they know? « Cooperative Catalyst:

How can they know?

by techkim

Popout

How can they know,
how hard the burden?
How can they know,
how heavy the load?
Struggle finds a strong heart
and tears, rivers of love
and silence binds us all.
~ Susan Herrick

How can they know? That question has been an ongoing refrain in my head for some time now. Who are they? Students, all ages. What should they know? That is the question of our age, isn’t it?
How can they know? At the Making Connections conference earlier this month, Zoe Weil said the teaching profession has the most influence on our future, yet our current educational goals are not worthy of our students hearts and minds. Students aren’t learning about how our every day choices affect the world. We are not empowering them to investigate the impact of their own choices.
How can they know? At the Global Education Conference this past week, I had the privilege of moderating three 

Mike Klonsky's SmallTalk Blog: WEEKEND QUOTABLES

Mike Klonsky's SmallTalk Blog: WEEKEND QUOTABLES:

WEEKEND QUOTABLES

by Mike Klonsky

Duncan remains

"We came out of the gates flying" in the first term, he said, and he plans to "replicate that as much as we can." -- Edweek

Michelle Rhee on Duncan

"The signaling by Secretary Duncan that he will continue for another term is an enormous win for children." -- Huffington

Bobby Jindal says something stupid

Republicans "need to stop saying stupid things... We're not the party of big—big businesses, big banks, big Wall Street, big bailouts." -- The Hill

School districts brace for more cuts

“It in essence widens the gaps between the haves and have-nots,” said Daniel A. Domenech, executive director of the American Association of