LISTEN TO DIANE RAVITCH 7-25-13 Diane Ravitch's blog | A site to discuss better education for all

Diane Ravitch's blog | A site to discuss better education for all:

My Article on the Promise and Peril of Technology in Schools

I was invited to write an essay on technology for “Scientific American.” I have not yet seen the issue so am not sure who else contributed. When I was invited, I was told that there would be articles by Bill Gates and Arne Duncan. As you know, there are a few differences among us. One of them is that I write very singe word that is published under my name. No one else writes my books, articles, bl

by dianerav / 5min 

Do You Want a Cool Pseudonym Like Carlos Danger?

Slate.com has created a device that will generate a pseudonym for you. It is called the Carlos Danger Name Generator. Click here to go to the site. You too can have a really cool handle behind which you can do things that should remain secret. Just for the record, my alternate name is Antonio Hazard. What’s yours?

by dianerav / 2min 

Are You a Quantitative Learning Gains Facilitator?

In this post that appeared on Valerie Strauss’ “Answer Sheet” at the Washington Post, David Lee Finkle takes on what passes for education “reform” these days. Finkle is a cartoonist and middle school teacher in Florida. Finkle takes on the myth that American schools are failing and points out that they are far more rigorous than ever. The federal government’s obsession with test scores is not i

by dianerav / 4min mark as read  //  save

Ohio: Big GOP Donor Must Open Charters’ Financial Records

This is breaking news. The Ohio Supreme Court let stand lower court rulings that require the White Hat charter corporations to open its financial records to the board members of the charters. White Hat is owned by David Brennan, one of the state’s biggest contributors to GOP campaigns. It is the state’s largest charter chain. The boards of 10 White Hat charters sued the company to gain access to t

by dianerav / 4min 

Why Parents Should Oppose inBloom

In this post, New York City activist Leonie Haimson explains what inBloom is, how the U.S. Department of Education weakened privacy protections in 2009 and 2011, and why parents should demand the right to withhold their child’s confidential data from inBloom. The creators of inBloom talk about its benefits in creating customized learning tools, but Haimson warns that the real goal is to turn stud

by dianerav / 0min mark as read  //  save

Common Core: Is the Sky Falling?

As parent resistance to high-stakes testing rises, so does public rejection of the Common Core. Several states are considering debating whether to drop the standards, and two–Georgia and Oklahoma–are dropping the testing because of its cost. Stephanie Simon, who wrote many great investigative pieces for Reuters, has moved to Politico. There she questions whether Common Core is failing, a victim o

by dianerav / 0min

  How Do You Measure Dedication?

Recently the American School Counselors Association held a conference in Philadelphia. At one session, the NCAA representatives explained the requirements for young athletes to become eligible for scholarships. A woman stood in line to ask a specific question. The person who shared this story with me asked her what school or district she was from. She said I am at Martin Luther King Jr. High Schoo

by dianerav / 9min 

Please Help Marie Corfield Win a Seat in the New Jersey Assembly

Marie Corfield is a teacher who is running for the legislature in New Jersey. She will be a strong and effective voice for public education in a state where it is under attack by Chris Christie’s administration. Marie is having a “money bomb” on July 25. She needs our help. I will contribute to her campaign. I hope you will too. Here is Jersey Jazzman’s description of the Money Bomb with inform

by dianerav / 39min mark as read  //  save

Hucksters, Campaign Donors, Scam Artists: Open a Charter School in New Jersey!

The New Jersey Department of Education has approved six new charter schools to open this fall, and what a motley lot they are! Jersey Jazzman, with his habitual research skills, has assembled the cast of characters, and it is alarming, even by New Jersey’s low standards for charter authorizing. One, as described in a post by Mother Crusader, will be run by a man who was a major participant in a sp

by dianerav / 1h 

Diane in the Evening 7-24-13 Diane Ravitch's blog | A site to discuss better education for all

Diane Ravitch's blog | A site to discuss better education for all: Teacher: Predatory Uses of Data Endanger ChildrenThis teacher blogger takes issue with the opinion article written by Kerrie Dallman, the president of the Colorado Education Association, supporting inBloom, a project of Bill Gates and Rupert Murdoch. She writes: “Aside from your support of inBloom in Colorado and the glaring ethics

by mike simpson / 2h 

Advocates: Start spending new money now on high-needs students | EdSource Today

Advocates: Start spending new money now on high-needs students | EdSource Today:

Advocates: Start spending new money now on high-needs students

July 25th, 2013 | Add a Comment | 
By John Fensterwald

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Two dozen organizations advocating for disadvantaged students wrote county and school district superintendents and charter school administrators Wednesday, reminding them that the new funding formula directing more money to low-income kids and English learners is now the law even though the initial regulations for the system are months away. The message: Start spending money on your high-needs children this year; don’t make commitments that might encroach on future obligations to these students.

The organizations are concerned that, without clear directives from the state, districts will treat additional dollars however they want with the new flexibility that the Legislature has given them.

The letter is intended to grab districts’ attention as they make final revisions, by Aug. 15, to their 2013-14 budgets. Some districts passed budgets without including extra dollars under the Local 

Countering Florida GOP Leaders Defense of the Common Core | Truth in American Education

Countering Florida GOP Leaders Defense of the Common Core | Truth in American Education:

Countering Florida GOP Leaders Defense of the Common Core

Filed in Common Core State Standards, Education at State Level by Jane Robbins on July 25, 2013 • 0 Comments

This is American Principles Project’s response:

Five former Florida Republican Party leaders have urged the state GOP to ignore the parents and teachers who object to the centralization of education through the Common Core State (sic) Standards. Like other Common Core proponents, they repeat the talking points; like the others, they fail to produce evidence to support their statements. Below is a point-by-point response to their claims:

The nation’s Governors recognized this [education] problem almost 15 years ago and began a process that eventually led to states collaborating on the Common Core State (sic) Standards.

The claim that the Standards resulted from a “state-led” process is misleading at best. In 2007, the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation and the Eli Broad Foundation pledged $60 million to inject their education vision, including uniform “American standards,” into the 2008 campaigns. In May 2008, 

Schooling in the Ownership Society: Hedge-fund billionaire Cohen big player in charter schools. Fraud scandal could bring him down.

Schooling in the Ownership Society: Hedge-fund billionaire Cohen big player in charter schools. Fraud scandal could bring him down.:

Hedge-fund billionaire Cohen big player in charter schools. Fraud scandal could bring him down.

Whenever I read about some crooked hedge-fund billionaire mired in scandal, I always check to see if and how they're involved with charter schools. I rarely come up empty. The latest is possibly the biggest fish and the dirtiest one in the hedge-fund swamp.

Hedge-funder Steve Cohen

Steve Cohen, whose personal wealth is estimated at close to $10 billion, is the founder of the supposedly too-big- hedge fund,  SAC Capital Advisors. Cohen's firm, which once managed more than $15 billion in assets, is at the center of one of the biggest insider-trading fraud cases in history. Four employees have already been criminally charged with insider trading – two of whom have pleaded guilty. And an SAC affiliate has agreed to pay $615 million to settle SEC charges of insider trading.

Federal prosecutors have served grand jury subpoenas on Cohen and others at 

Missouri Education Watchdog: Kindergarten Hijacked Due to Common Core Standards? Early Educators Warned About This Three Years Ago.

Missouri Education Watchdog: Kindergarten Hijacked Due to Common Core Standards? Early Educators Warned About This Three Years Ago.:

Kindergarten Hijacked Due to Common Core Standards? Early Educators Warned About This Three Years Ago.

A mother made a youtube video showing the kindergarten work mandated by Common Core standards.  Watch this video "Kindergarten Hijacked" by Sara Wottawa:

Is this mother showing evidence of the meltdown of kindergarteners due to Common Core aligned curriculum?  Does this curriculum align to the Common Core standards that approximately 500 early childhood educators and experts determined were detrimental to young children three years ago?  

Here are documents and statements from allianceforchildhood.org which seem to bolster this mom's youtube video on her son's kindergarten experiences:

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 Why we object to the K–3 Core Standards  

The core standards address the fact that students are graduating from high school ill prepared for 

The cost of child poverty: $500 billion a year:

The cost of child poverty: $500 billion a year

By Valerie Strauss, Published: July 25 at 6:00 amE-mail the writer

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The United States has the second-highest child poverty rate among the world’s richest 35 nations, and the cost in economic and educational outcomes is half a trillion dollars a year, according to a new report by the Educational Testing Service.

The report, called “Poverty and Education, Finding the Way Forward,” says that 22 percent of the nation’s children live in relative poverty, with only Romania having a higher rate in the group of 35 nations. (Next are Latvia, Bulgaria, Spain, Greece, Italy, Lithuania, Japan and Portugal, it says; the country with the lowest child poverty rate is Iceland, and the second lowest is Finland.) The report notes, though, that the official U.S. poverty rate is incomplete, and that other data show that 48 percent of the population had incomes in 2011 that are considered inadequate or not livable. (Relative 

 National commission will review how colleges are governed, recommend changes

The Association of Governing Boards of Universities and Colleges plans to announce Thursday the formation of a national commission to review how schools are governed and make recommendations for change. Read full article >>    

by Jenna Johnson / 6h 

Why the student loan compromise compromises students

The problem with the compromise that the Obama administration and the Republicans struck over student loan rates is that it compromises students. The deal, which the Senate passed late Wednesday, would bring down student loan rates, which were 3.4 percent until they doubled on July 1 to 6.8 percent because Congress failed to meet a deadline to act on the issue. But it also will link student l

by Valerie Strauss / 2h

Reform Fairytales | Crazy Crawfish's Blog

Reform Fairytales | Crazy Crawfish's Blog:

Reform Fairytales

Posted on July 25, 2013

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The sheer audacity of John White’s Louisiana Department of Education never ceases to impress me. They are more than willing to make any argument that suits their purposes regardless of the facts or previous arguments they have made. They are not afraid to lie to the media, parents, and even judges believing that no one will ever question anything they claim, regardless of how ridiculous or contradictory.

Take this very recent case. St Helena has been under a desegregation order/suit for the past 50 years. The state decided to take over the middle school, the heart of the school district, in the 2010-2011 school year. The previous administration in St Helena allowed this to happen, believing they had little choice but to comply, and that the state and RSD (Recovery School System) might have a chance of improving their school system. St Helena is the poorest parish in the state, and since performance is most strongly correlated with poverty, they also are one of the lowest performing. Drastic, radical, and unproven education laws and policies are geared toward punishing and overwhelming poorer districts. Rather than providing supplemental support to help poor districts overcome the handicap of endemic poverty, the state and Reformers prefer to 

Democratizing the Public School System Coalition for Public Education/Coalición por la Educación Pública

Coalition for Public Education/Coalición por la Educación Pública:

Democratizing the Public School System

By Kathy Emery and Eric Mar-- http://urbanhabitat.org

Whenever popular education is mentioned, Paolo Freire is usually the first name that comes to mind.1 But students of democratic pedagogy in the United States have plenty of home grown examples of their own to study. 

John Dewey, for example, who saw the public school system as fundamentally authoritarian, reproducing a “superior class… [whose] culture tends to be sterile [and whose] actions tend to become… capricious, aimless, and explosive….”2 He wanted teachers to teach children not by force but by inducement; and growth itself had to be seen as an end.3 

Indeed, if American society was to become truly democratic, Dewey argued, the children had to be taught to “take a determining part in the making as well as obeying laws”4

In 1932, Miles Horton—taking democratic education to an activist level—founded the Highlander School in Tennessee, on the principle that people had the means to solve their own problems without relying on experts or institutions. Horton 

7-25-13 SCHOOLS MATTER @ THE CHALK FACE

SCHOOLS MATTER @ THE CHALK FACE:

A Snarky Letter for A Heartless Leader: My Response to TFA Chicago’s Josh Anderson

Dear Josh Anderson, Executive Director of Teach for America Chicago, After reading your piece entitled Q&A with Josh Anderson, TFA Chicago on the Teacher Layoffs, I felt the need to reach out to you.  Perhaps you’ve never actually been inside a CPS school because you seem to not understand the very basic realities of this […]

by Katie Osgood / 12min 

“The Deliberately Silenced, or the Preferably Unheard” | the becoming radical

“The Deliberately Silenced, or the Preferably Unheard” | the becoming radical.

by plthomasedd / 29min 

A year and two ago this month, how far we have/not come?

Posts from July 2012. This is What You Might Think When You’re Going Into #TFA Will #AFT Convention Draw a Line in the Sand? Why All the Khan-troversy? Talking with the Gates Foundation, or Seeking the Light and Buying the Hype Do those who like the #commoncore know the facts? (We miss you Stephen Krashen. Come back to us!) Posts from […]

by Chalk Face, PhD / 2h 

Education as the Great Equalizer: “More Myth than Reality”

“While education has been envisioned as the great equalizer, this promise has been more myth than reality,” conclude Coley and Baker in a new report, Poverty and Education: Finding the Way Forward (ETS, July 2013). This data-rich examination of the relationship between education and poverty, both in the US and how that compares internationally, is yet another […]

@ the chalk face / by plthomasedd / 3min 

Katie Osgood is killing it on #TFA! But how about across the “pond?”

I did not know this.  But there’s an organization called Teach First in the UK with the exact goals as TFA: The initiative took on 1,261 handpicked graduates this year, 80% from leading Russell Group universities. All will have six weeks of intensive training before being sent to schools in underprivileged areas where they will work for […]

by Chalk Face, PhD / 21min

Congress Set to Profit from Student Loan Rates Determined by Wall Street Swindlers

If you ever wonder how the Feds are going to pay for the new era of non-risk corporate welfare farming, charter schools, preschools, for-profit college subsidies, military contractors, corporate welfare spy firms, etc., Congress has a plan.  One drop in that national cash reserve for corporate non-emergencies was guaranteed yesterday, when the Senate passed student […]

by Jim Horn / 5min  

7-24-13 Schools Matter @ The Chalk Face

SCHOOLS MATTER @ THE CHALK FACE: No PARCCingHave your heard about the PARCC Asseesments?  The Partnership for Assessment for Readiness for College and Careers is a collection of 22 states that will be producing a series of Common Core aligned exams.  The PARCC Assessments are scheduled to begin in the 2014-15 school year. Promotion for the PARCC consortium has begun just as […]by Chris Cerrone / 3

by mike simpson / 8h