Schools Matter: Adding Value to the Worthless?

Schools Matter: Adding Value to the Worthless?:

Adding Value to the Worthless?

by Jim Horn

Why Embrace 19^th Century Assessments for the 21^stCentury?

Guest Commentary by Stephen Stollmack

Public education is part of the conceptual framework of this country. Most accept the basic format of a homeroom teacher keeping the younger children all or most of the day, phasing into different teachers, each one responsible for one of the menu of subjects laid out for every child based on his or her age.  Most probably recognize that their children are facing an environment much different from the one they grew up – with ‘high-stakes testing, on-line classes, entirely new Standards for developing classroom modules based on significant advances in the knowledge-base for most every subject and increases in class sizes due to budget cuts and the list goes on and on.  At the same time, college costs are going through the roof while we are hearing that approximately 25% of college graduates can’t find full-time jobs. Even parents who are aware of these changes 

LISTEN TO DIANE RAVITCH 1-5-13 Diane Ravitch's blog

Diane Ravitch's blog:

Carl Cohn: The “Parent Trigger” Is Obscene Verbiage

by dianerav

Carl Cohn is one of our nation’s most distinguished educators. He had led many school districts, received innumerable awards, and now serves as a member of the California State Board of Education. Like many people, Dr. Cohn finds the imagery of the “parent trigger” unseemly. Why suggest that parents take up arms and shoot someone, even metaphorically? Violence, whether real or metaphorical, is not the path to education or knowledge or wisdom.
Dr. Cohn writes:
“Given the horrific events at Newtown, isn’t it time for the
media and the proponents of this so-called reform to abandon the

The Problem with Choice

by dianerav

A reader from Oregon explains the destructive consequences of choice. School choice has been a goal of the right for decades and is now embraced by the Obama administration:
“For US education to thrive, charters must go.
“Some Win, Some Lose with Open Enrollment”. The headline in the Eugene, Oregon Register-Guard may seem like an occasion for joy to the winning school districts but, really, it is just terribly sad for all of us. Open enrollment across district lines is the latest and most extreme version of a school choice movement that is on a trajectory to split public education in two – one set of schools for the haves and the other for those left behind.
School choice is probably the most popular of the signature elements of the current school reform movement – 

Learning from Kansas City

by dianerav

A reader writes to describe what happened in Kansas City as a warning to other cities (John Covington left the superintendency of Kansas City on short notice to head the Michigan Education Achievement Authority, which was created to oversee low-performing districts across the state):
Learn from Kansas City’s mistakes. You spoke – in another blog, that the superintendent of a southern system fired teachers and replaced them with 150 from Teach For America. The same happened in Kansas City – we fired 150 teachers without cause and replaced them with (drumroll) 150 Teach for America teachers at a cost of $3,000 per head. So it was with dismay that I discovered that a Teach for America sits on the board of Broad 

California Parent Trigger Leaders Sue for Money

by dianerav

Readers may recall that an organization called Parent Revolution led the battle for a “parent trigger” law in California in 2010. Parent Revolution is funded by Gates, Broad and Walton foundations.
Earlier this year, Parent Revolution worked with parents in Adelanto, California, to take over low-performing Desert Trails elementary school. Some parents wanted to rescind their signatures from the petition to take over the school, but the judge would not permit them to do so. The parents who did not sign the petition were not allowed to vote on choosing a charter operator.
When it was time to select a charter school, only 53 parents in a school of more than 600 children cast a ballot.

EduShyster Explains the “No Excuses” Model

by dianerav

EduShyster is upset. She doesn’t understand why our nation’s leaders have embraced the idea that “success=compliance.”
She is concerned that white philanthropists and  white teachers are imposing strict discipline on black and brown children.
This phenomenon is known as “no excuses.”
As she mentions, the origin of ”No Excuses” may be traced to a book of that name by Samuel Casey Carter, written in 2000 about 21 “high-performing, high-poverty schools” and released by the far-right Heritage 

A Call for Political Leadership

by dianerav

Where are our leaders? Where are the political leaders with the courage and independence to support the commons against the power of Big Money?
This reader read Gary Rubinstein’s brilliant Letters to “Reformers” and wrote this comment:
“Thanks for making this series more widely known– it is so well done and important for people to see. And as noted in the notes on the Tillson piece, their collective silence is deafening. Rarely is that crowd quiet about 

Diane in the Evening 1-4-12 Diane Ravitch's blog

coopmike48 at Big Education Ape - 5 hours ago

Diane Ravitch's blog: How to Live with an Outrage by dianerav Chancellor Kaya Henderson is closing 20 public schools in DC, displacing 3,000 children. She has abdicated her responsibilty to improve the schools and is instead following the corporate reform script: close public schools while opening more privately managed charters. The Washington Post has an article advising parents and students how to accept the destruction of their Jersey Jazzman Deconstructs Klein Record: Part 2 by dianerav Jersey Jazzman has decided to analyze Joel Klein’s record, since he is now one of ... more »

Great News DC Students: You’ve Got Choice™ | EduShyster

Great News DC Students: You’ve Got Choice™ | EduShyster:

Great News DC Students: You’ve Got Choice™

by edushyster2012

Dear Washington DC student:
Great news! Your union-stifled public school is closing its doors due to low expectations. That means that you are now on the road to excellence and innovation, a path that proceeds directly to college and onto an outstanding 21st century job. In other words, you are about to enter an exciting new world of choice™. Did you know that The Brookings Institution recently ranked Washington, DC third in the country for school choice on itsEducation Choice and Competition Index? No? You’ve obviously got a lot to learn—we’d better get started.
Choosing your choice™
Washington DC is home to 130 charter schools, which means that you’ll have plenty of choice™ to choose from. Scratch that—five new academies of excellence and innovation have opened just while I was typing this. I’d 

Modern School: Today in Labor History--1-5-13

Modern School: Today in Labor History--January 5:

Today in Labor History--January 5

Michael Dunn at Modern School - 1 hour ago

First Negro Labor Convention (From Harpers) *January 5, 1869* -- The First U.S. Negro Labor Convention was held on this date. (From the Daily Bleed) *January 5, 1914* - Ford raised its basic wage from $2.40 for a nine-hour day to $5 for an eight-hour day. (From Workday Minnesota) Rosa Luxemburg Karl Liebknecht *January 5, 1919* – The Spartacists, led by Karl Liebknecht & Rosa Luxemburg, led a revolt to renew the November revolution lasting 6 days (in Berlin). Both Liebknecht and Luxemburg were murdered by the so-called "democratic" left on January 15th. (From the Daily Blee... more »

Labor History Timeline--Insurrection, Palmer Raids and WWI

Michael Dunn at Modern School - 1 day ago

*1918 Ginger Goodwin Assassination: *A hired private policeman shot United Mine Workers Organizer Ginger Goodwin outside Cumberland, B.C. (Source: AFGE) * * *1919* *Fannie Sellins Assassination*: Company guards gunned down United Mine Worker organizer Fannie Sellins in Brackenridge, Pennsylvania. (Source: AFGE) Chaos during Boston police strike and riot *1919* *Boston Police Strike and Riot:* On September 19, looting, rioting, and sporadic violence broke out in downtown and South Boston after 1,117 policemen declared a work stoppage. Governor Calvin Coolidge brought ... more »

Today in Labor History—January 4

Michael Dunn at Modern School - 1 day ago

*January 4, 1909* – The ITGWU was founded on this date in Dublin. Many of the founding members came from the socialist movement or from the IWW.(From the Daily Bleed) *January 4, 1932* – At the height of the Great Depression, a U.S. Senate subcommittee considered providing unemployment relief after hearing speakers describe people living in the street, starving, and foraging through garbage dumps for scraps. One speaker, the director of the Children’s Bureau of Philadelphia told the committee, "They do not die quickly. You can starve for a long time without dying." (From Workda... more »

Labor History Timeline--Rise of IWW, Garment Workers and State/Employer Violence

Michael Dunn at Modern School - 2 days ago

Lucy Parsons *1905* *The Industrial Workers of the World* (IWW or Wobblies) was founded on June 27, 1905, by Big Bill Hayward, Daniel De Leon, Eugene Debs, Lucy Parsons, Father Haggarty, Mother Jones, Ralph Chaplin and others, in part in response to the defeats of the WFM in Colorado, Utah and Idaho and in opposition to the conservative AFL. The IWW was not just a labor union fighting for better conditions for working people, but a revolutionary organization out to abolish the wage system and employer class completely. Like the Knights of Labor, they organized all workers in... more »

Today in Labor History—January 3

Michael Dunn at Modern School - 2 days ago

Propaganda Film on the Preparedness Day Bombing, Hearst-Pathe Film Tom Mooney, 1910 *January 3, 1917* – The trial of labor organizer Tom Mooney began in San Francisco on this date. Mooney was framed by Martin Swanson, a detective with a long history of interfering in San Francisco strikes, for the Preparedness Day bombing. Swanson maintained constant surveillance and harassment of Mooney and Warren Billings, as well as Alexander Berkman & Emma Goldman. Billings and Mooney were still convicted and imprisoned for the bombing, with Mooney serving over 22 years for a crime he di... more »

Labor History Timeline: Early Industrial Capitalism, Abolition and the Nascent Labor Movement

Michael Dunn at Modern School - 3 days ago

*1800 Gabriel Prosser Uprising:* Prosser was a literate, enslaved blacksmith who planned a large slave uprising in Richmond, Virginia but was betrayed and executed before the revolt was launched. At the time, 39% of Virginia’s population was enslaved, thus the potential damage from a slave revolt was significant. It is estimated that 100 co-conspirators were involved in Gabriel’s Uprising, including several whites who he likely met working in the foundries. (Sources: Wikipedia) Denmark Vessey *1822 The Vessey Conspiracy*: Denmark Vessey, a Caribbean slave inspired by the... more »

Today in Labor History—January 2

Michael Dunn at Modern School - 3 days ago

Portrait of Absalom Jones by Raphaelle Peale (1774–1825), Delaware Art Museum *January 2, 1800 *– The free black community of Philadelphia, led by Absalom Jones, petitioned Congress to abolish slavery and to end the fugitive slave act of 1793. (From the Daily Bleed and USHistory.org) *January 2, 1873 -- *Anton Pannekoek (1873-1960) was born on this date. Pannekoek was a Dutch astronomer, mathematician and radical left-communist. Among other works, he published the pamphlet Darwinism and Marxism, 1916, which strongly attacked the social Darwinists, like Spencer. He also wrot... more »

Labor History Timeline--The Colonial and Revolutionary Eras

Michael Dunn at Modern School - 4 days ago

*The Colonial and Revolutionary Eras* *1619 First slaves brought to American colonies: *They were brought to Jamestown by Dutch traders who had stolen them from a Spanish ship. Because the Spanish usually baptized captured Africans and the English exempted baptized people from chattel slavery, these first African Americans joined around 1,000 English indentured servants in the colony. (Source:Wikipedia) Bacon's Rebellion-The Burning of Jamestown *1676 Bacon’s Rebellion: *Nathanial Bacon led Virginia settlers in a rebellion by against the rule of William Berkeley an... more »

Today in Labor History—January 1

Michael Dunn at Modern School - 4 days ago

Haitian revolution Toussaint L'Ouverture *January 1, 1804* – Haitian slaves, led by Jean Jacques Desalines, declared independence from France, making Haiti the first free black republic in the world. The U.S. refused to recognize Haiti for the next 70 and France extracted millions in restitution, destroying any hope of ever moving out of deep poverty. The slave revolt against the French began in 1791 with the call by Dutty Boukman, a vodou priest and was led by Toussaint L'Ouverture. (From theDaily Bleed and Wikipedia; For a really great history of the Haitian revolution, plea... more »

Today in Labor History—December 31

Michael Dunn at Modern School - 5 days ago

*December 31, 1890* - Ellis Island opened on this date in New York City, where millions of immigrants to the United States first set foot in the land of the free. (From Workday Minnesota) *December 31, 1931* – 60,000 unemployed workers rallied at Pitt Stadium in Pittsburgh, near Father Cox's Shantytown. The shantytown lasted from 1929 to 1932 and was the staging base for the Reverend James Cox's unemployed army. (From the Daily Bleed) *December 31, 1982*--Martial law was declared in Poland in 1981 in an attempt to suppress the anti-communist Solidarnosc labor movement. It w... more »

Today in Labor History—December 30

Michael Dunn at Modern School - 6 days ago

*December 30, 1883* - *John Swinton's Paper* described the abuse of immigrants conned by job sharks lured to the U.S. with tales of high wages and dream jobs, only to get stuck in terrible jobs with rotten wages. (From Workday Minnesota) Bonnot Gang-First Use of Get Away Car Victor Serge * December 30, 1890* – Victor Serge was born on this date in Brussels. Serge was a novelist, poet, historian, & militant activist, most well-known as a member of the Bonnot Gang (see here, here, here and here) and for his novel *The Birth of Our Power*. (From theDaily Bleed) * * ... more »

Today in Labor History—December 29

Michael Dunn at Modern School - 1 week ago

Sitting Bul l*December 29, 1890* - U.S. Army troops slaughtered 150 Sioux men, women and children at Wounded Knee, South Dakota. Days earlier, they had killed Sitting Bull. (From Workday Minnesota) *December 29, 1970 *– Congress passed the Occupational Safety and Health Act. (From the TWU) ------------------------------ Modern School

Dockworkers Threaten East Coast Strike, Reject West Coast Deal

Michael Dunn at Modern School - 1 week ago

Bloody Thursday, San Francisco, West Cost Ports Strike, 1934 Dockworkers from Massachusetts to Texas are threatening to strike on Sunday, in what would be the first East Coast port shut down since 1977, a two-month work stoppage that cost retailers billions of dollars (see New York Times). The threat has so worried the corporate bosses that they are demanding Obama block the strike by invoking the Taft-Hartley Act, as Bush did in 2002 to end a West Coast port strike. The anti-labor Taft-Hartley Act, which passed in 1947, banned the General Strike, solidarity or sympathy strike... more »

Oregon charter school founders accused in $20 million racketeering lawsuit | OregonLive.com

Oregon charter school founders accused in $20 million racketeering lawsuit | OregonLive.com:

Oregon charter school founders accused in $20 million racketeering lawsuit

By Betsy Hammond, The Oregonian 
on January 04, 2013 at 7:21 PM, updated January 04, 2013 at 10:16 PM

Tim King and Norm Donohoe, who ran a chain of taxpayer-funded charter schools across small-town Oregonfrom their headquarters in Clackamas, scammed the state out of $17 million and must repay that plus $2.7 million more, the state said in a court filing this week.

The legal claim, brought Thursday by the Oregon Department of Justice in Marion County Circuit Court, accuses the pair of racketeering, money laundering and other fraud from 2007 to 2010.

King and Donohoe, who were the director and president, respectively, of a nonprofit they named EdChoices, submitted false, incomplete and misleading records about how many students were enrolled in the schools and how they were spending the state's money, state prosecutors say in the complaint.

"It's not true," Donohoe said when reached after 5 p.m. Friday. He said EdChoices' attorney would need to speak for him but was not available after hours. King could not 

Documentary examines Failed DC Chancellor Michelle Rhee’s legacy in D.C. - The Washington Post

Documentary examines Failed DC Chancellor Michelle Rhee’s legacy in D.C. - The Washington Post:

‘Frontline’ raises questions about test-score tampering under Failed DC Chancellor Michelle Rhee

Sarah L. Voisin/TWP - The “Frontline” examines Rhee’s record in Washington, where her aggressive reforms between 2007 and 2010 turned her from a relative unknown into a polarizing edu-celebrity.

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By Emma Brown, Published: January 4

Student standardized-test scores at an award-winning D.C. school dropped dramatically in 2011 after the principal tightened security out of concern about possible cheating, according to a new “Frontline” television documentary to be broadcast Tuesday.

The hour-long program raises questions about whether District officials have adequately investigated persistent suspicions that public school employees may have tampered with 

The dangers of ‘outsourcing’ public education:

The dangers of ‘outsourcing’ public education

Posted by Valerie Strauss on January 5, 2013 at 9:00 am

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The privatization of public education is becoming perhaps the biggest controversy in public education. Here’s a different look at the subject from Larry Cuban, a former superintendent of Arlington Public Schools. Cuban was superintendent for seven years and a former high school social studies teacher for 14 years. He is professor emeritus of education at Stanford University, where he has taught for more than 20 years.

By Larry Cuban

Readers over a certain age may recall reforms that cascaded through corporations in each decade since the 1960s. They might recall “zero-based budgeting,” “management by objectives,” “restructuring,” “management by walking about,” and “Quality  Circles.” Sure, I could name more but that is enough.

Opinion leaders beat the drums for each one as they rapidly spread through The Financial Times, Forbes, The Economist, and other media as CEOs wrapped their tongues around the inevitable acronyms surrounding these reforms.  They were immensely popular for a few 

Educational school gardens are cropping up all over Page 1 of 2 | UTSanDiego.com

Educational school gardens are cropping up all over Page 1 of 2 | UTSanDiego.com:

Educational school gardens are cropping up all over

Want to grow a school garden?

San Diego Master Gardeners have been helping start and sustain school gardens since 1998. Today more than 150 Master Gardeners volunteer in schools around the county.

Over the years, the group has compiled an extensive resource guide on its website that is available at no charge to interested parents, teachers and community groups. Included is “Plant a Seed, Watch It Grow,” a web guide on how to start school gardens. Also available are grant calendars, resources and curriculum ideas, as well as how to request a Master Gardener school consultant and find school gardens to visit.

To learn more, visitmastergardenerssandiego.org/schools/schools.php.

When gardens are classrooms, lessons are abundant — the life cycle of caterpillars, Native American foods, plant anatomy, mapping, math, journal writing and more.

But academic growth isn’t all that blossoms as seeds sprout, compost “cooks” and pumpkins swell. Social skills, nature appreciation and cultural understanding grow there, too.

All help explain why school gardens are enjoying a renaissance here. More than half of the county’s 600 elementary and secondary schools have gardens in what were weedy landscapes, barren asphalt or neglected parts of playground. Some are new, while others are rejuvenated plots that originated years and even decades ago in the wake of World War II Victory Gardens.

School gardens generally survive on minuscule budgets — a few hundred 

Are Some Indiana Legislators Looking to Scrap FAILED Indiana Superintendent Tony Bennett ’s School Grade System? | Scathing Purple Musings

Are Some Indiana Legislators Looking to Scrap FAILED Indiana Superintendent Tony Bennett ’s School Grade System? | Scathing Purple Musings:

Are Some Indiana Legislators Looking to Scrap FAILED Indiana Superintendent Tony Bennett ’s School Grade System?

by Bob Sikes

Incoming Florida education commissioner said in an interview with Gradebook’s Jeff Solochek, “I was the person who was described as bringing the Florida reforms to Indiana.”  Well it appears one of those reforms isn’t seen as so great to some Indiana legislators. Jeff Schultz of the Chesterton Tribune writes:

Her lips are sealed for now but Indiana State Sen. Karen Tallian, D-Ogden Dunes, told theChesterton Tribune she is authoring a “major” bill dealing with education that she will reveal next week as the Indiana General Assembly gets underway starting Monday afternoon.

Tallian, who represents all of Duneland, said she will hold a press conference to introduce the bill. All state legislators have until Jan. 11 to introduce legislation they have authored or co-authored.