The AP and Gallup Polls: A Commentary | deutsch29

The AP and Gallup Polls: A Commentary | deutsch29:

The AP and Gallup Polls: A Commentary

August 21, 2013

The theme of this past several days appears to be the national education poll and how much one should (or should not) trust the results. On August 17, the Associated Press (AP) released a twisted version of what they would like for parents to want for their children– high-stakes tests– except that the term “high stakes” does not appear once on AP’s 45-page survey results. I challenged AP on August 18 in this post for both its selective reporting and shaping of survey outcomes.

On August 19, Valerie Strauss of the Washington Post blog, the Answer Sheet, contacted AP for a response to my post. Here is what she received, as reported on her blog on August 21:

I asked the Associated Press to respond to her (Mercedes Schneider’s) analysis, andspokesman Paul Colford said that the AP stands by its poll and accompanying story. He said the AP “had editorial control over the design of the survey and ultimately the interpretation of the results.” [Emphasis added.]

Let’s promote a colossal lie to satisfy the AP poll “major funding” Joyce Foundation and stand by the lie in the face of indisputable truth.

In refusing an explanation, AP spokesman Paul Colford advances the opinion that the 

Elder Activist Educator, Dr Donald H Smith, Recalls His Participation in the 1963 March On Washington Coalition for Public Education/Coalición por la Educación Pública

Coalition for Public Education/Coalición por la Educación Pública:

Elder Activist Educator, Dr Donald H Smith, Recalls His Participation in the 1963 March On Washington

<<I was among the "Foot Soldiers" who marched in the nation's capitol August 28, 1963 to demand Freedom and Justice for Black Americans. It was a day I shall never forget.

I had driven to New York City from Chicago with my good friend and Kappa Brother, William J. Brown II. We parked the car and took a flight to Washington D.C. where we joined my good friend Caroline "Dash" Davis for breakfast, and the three of us set off together marching. It was joyous and almost overwhelming - - over 200,000 other foot soldiers of all races and socio-economic strata marching to the Lincoln Memorial, responding to the call for justice conceived and issued by A. Phillip Randolph and organized by Bayard Rustin.

By chance a few years before, I had had the honor of sitting next to the great Mr. Randolph, the founder and leader of the Brotherhood of Sleeping Car Porters and having an historic conversation on a flight from Chicago to New York.

Mr. Randolph had previously led movements which convinced President Franklin D. Roosevelt to end discrimination in defense industries and Presided Harry Truman to end discrimination in the armed services.

The March was on a very warm, but not too hot, August day.

We marchers were serious but celebratory. Some Black Greek organizations displayed their banners, as did 

The Real Number Of Hours Teachers Work In One Eye-Opening Graphic

When you look at the time teachers actually spend working, you can see that it's not a cakewalk — at all. The next time your city or state wants to cut back on teacher salaries or hammer their pensions, here's something to show around to folks before they make a decision. 

Math professor: Common Core “will set our children back one to... | Get Schooled | www.ajc.com

Math professor: Common Core “will set our children back one to... | Get Schooled | www.ajc.com:

Math professor: Common Core “will set our children back one to two years.” Governor in retreat. 

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By Maureen Downey

Those thundering footsteps of late are the governor and Legislature beating a hasty retreat from Common Core State Standards, which have come under fire from both the left and the right.

Gov. Nathan Deal had been in full support of Common Core, but that seems to have changed. It is unclear whether his doubts grew out of political or policy concerns.

According to the AJC:

Gov. Nathan Deal has ordered a sweeping review of the Common Core national guidelines and asked the State Board of Education to “formally un-adopt” a part of the program that includes sample English test selections that infuriated some parents.

Deal also asked the board to develop a new social studies curriculum that emphasizes, among other aspects, civic and fiscal responsibility; and urged members to come up with a model reading list for school boards across the state. The governor’s order signals his flagging support for Common 

On the phony Kings arena outrage, strong-mayor freshness and city school district accountability -Sacramento News & Review

Sacramento News & Review - On the phony Kings arena outrage, strong-mayor freshness and city school district accountability - Bites - Opinions - August 22, 2013:

On the phony Kings arena outrage, strong-mayor freshness and city school district accountability

Rich guys are always trying to jam each other up and steer the public process, and public money, toward their own interests

By Cosmo Garvin 
cosmog@newsreview.com

Read 1 reader submitted comment

This article was published on 08.22.13.

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Bites did a double take when charter-school advocate Penny Schwinn resigned her elected post on the Sacramento County Board of Education last month in order to take a high-paying job in the bureaucracy of the Sacramento City Unified School District.
She’s now SCUSD’s new assistant superintendent of performance management—which comes with a$133,617 salary. The job is one of many, many six-figure gigs in the administration, and is described as being “the accountability leader” for the district, which is also the job description of the district’s chief accountability officer ($149,914).
Schwinn is qualified for the big bucks because she was at Teach for America for three years, a St. Hope administrator for two years and, of course, she founded her own charter school,
Schwinn was executive director of the school. It was her baby. But she had to give it up to take the Sac city job.
Sort of. Perhaps as an added perk, the district is appointing Schwinn to Capitol Collegiate’s governing board. According to district policy, Schwinn will be the district’s “eyes and ears” and help provide oversight of the school she founded.
Who better to be the public’s watchdogover a charter school than the person who started that charter school, hired its staff and created its culture? Surely, if there were anything wrong over at Capitol Collegiate, Schwinn will let us know, pronto. Right?
Nevertheless, Bites asked district spokesman Gabe Ross, “Couldn’t there be a conflict of interest there?”
“The role on the board is not a conflict of interest,” he replied. So, there you go.

Sacramento Tomorrow was supposed to be a new, fresh look at Sacramento’s governance. But every time Bites checks in, up pops another crony from the old Boss Johnson brigade.
Here’s an excerpt from the fundraising email for Sacramento Tomorrow sent out by developer Jon Bagatelos—or “The Bag Man,” as he’s sometimes called (in this column). Bagatelos is a big Kevin Johnson fundraiser and one of the money guys behind previous strong-mayor plans.
“In the past few years we have made a lot of changes to the City Council for the betterment 

D.C. charter schools to give standardized tests to young children:

D.C. charter schools to give standardized tests to young children

By Valerie Strauss, Published: August 22 at 4:00 amE-mail the writer

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(By Matt McClain / FOR THE WASHINGTON POST)

The use of standardized tests to measure very young students  keeps expanding. Now public charter schools in Washington D.C. will soon be giving new standardized tests to very young children — aged 3, 4 and 5 — for the purposes of assessing their academic progress and ranking schools according to the results. What will be optional for each school is whether to evaluate students in social-emotional learning, which early childhood experts say should be at the center of education for the youngest students.This move in D.C. charters is part of a disturbing shift in early childhood classrooms around the country, as they increasingly mimic what older students do academically. (Here’s a post on that.)

The following post explains the D.C. charter plan. It was written by educator and author Sam Chaltain, who began his career as an English teacher in New York City and who now writes about the intersection of education and democracy at www.samchaltain.com. Previously, he was national director of the Forum for Education & Democracy, an education advocacy organization, and the founding director of the Five Freedoms Project, a national program that helps K-12 educators create more democratic learning 

New York State and EngageNY Advocate Child Abuse southbronxschool.com

http://www.southbronxschool.com:

New York State and EngageNY Advocate Child Abuse

From the files of "You Can't Make This Shit Up!" comes the new 1st grade ELA Learning and Listeningstrands.

Yeah, I know that there is supposed to be literacy used with this, but we are not sharing the books The Crack Team shared with the students while attempting to make some type of rhyme and reason with

this crap.

Our first student comes to us from Scotia NY. His name is Barry Rosenberg. Barry is in 1st grade and loved Kindergarten. The Crack Team at SBSB recorded and transcribed Barry's responses.


18. Compare and contrast (orally or in writing) similarities and differences within a single fiction read-aloud or between two or more fiction read-alouds;  

 My book that Ms Smith had is big, the two books, bigger

19. Write opinion pieces in which they introduce the topic or name the book they are writing about, state an opinion, supply a reason for the opinion, and provide some sense of closure;  

I poop my pants.

20. Plan, draft, and edit a narrative retelling of a fiction read-aloud, with a title, characters, some details regarding the plot, the use of temporal words to signal event order, and some sense of closure;  

My daddy uses temporal words when he see Obama on TV and another time when he burned his hand

21. With guidance and support from adults, focus on a topic, respond to questions and 

NYC Educator: Charles M. Blow Joins the NY Times Common Core Lovefest

NYC Educator: Charles M. Blow Joins the NY Times Common Core Lovefest:

Charles M. Blow Joins the NY Times Common Core Lovefest

It looks like, in the space of a week, three NY Times columnists have come out swinging in favor of the Common Core. The latest is Charles M. Blow, who I'd previously found thoughtful and worthwhile. His opening salvo informs us we are not keeping up with other countries, yet our lower test scores align precisely with our disgraceful higher poverty levels. As if that were not enough, Broad's source for this proclamation is the Broad Foundation. One wonders why he doesn't just go to the Walmart family, with his particular standard for objective sources.

It's ironic that Common Core is supposed to teach our children to think critically, and its prominent proponents appear incapable of doing so. Blow's second source, right out of the gate, is Amanda Ripley, who he describes as a journalist. One of Ripley's journalistic specialties is ad hominem attacks against real-live education expert Diane Ravitch, accused by Ripley of living in an "alternate universe."

Blow then explains it is endorsed by the Obama administration, and he's apparently unaware or uninterested that this administration has endorsed demonstrably nonsensical things like merit pay, which has worked nowhere, ever, value-added evaluations, which have worked nowhere ever, higher class sizes, which have worked nowhere, ever, and Hurricane Katrina, which Arne Duncan declared the best thing to happen to education in New Orleans, despite 

solidaridad: José Lara for El Rancho Unified School District

solidaridad: José Lara for El Rancho Unified School District:

Wednesday, August 21, 2013

José Lara for El Rancho Unified School District

José Lara for El Rancho Unified School District by Robert D. Skeels

“EDUCATION REFORM” EFFORTS HAVE US GOING BACKWARDS – I HAVE A SOLUTION | Teachers Fight Back

“EDUCATION REFORM” EFFORTS HAVE US GOING BACKWARDS – I HAVE A SOLUTION | Teachers Fight Back:

“EDUCATION REFORM” EFFORTS HAVE US GOING BACKWARDS – I HAVE A SOLUTION

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The average ACT score for this year’s graduates dropped to 20.6, the biggest drop in a decade for Illinois.  In addition, the national average dropped below 21 for the first time in eight years.  ACT and state officials attribute the drop in Illinois to a change in who is included in test results. For the first time, ACT included students who take the test with extra time, (those with various disabilities).  Illinois had the highest percentage of students getting accommodations – 10 percent of test takers – in the country.  Nationwide only 4% of students got extra time.

I understand why the drop in Illinois, but what about in the nation ?  Test scores of “extra time” students had been included for a while in much of the nation. Why the drop nationwide ?  Could “education reform” be failing, or are the tests just getting more difficult ?

If we are going backwards, I have a radical solution to turn things around. I suggest we allow TEACHERS to decide how the curriculum should be implemented. We should let TEACHERS decide how best to motivate their students. We should let TEACHERS decide on their own student discipline plans. We should let TEACHERS 

Hoping for a visit from the money fairy Southern California charter school leader running for state superintendent | Pass / Fail | 89.3 KPCC

Southern California charter school leader running for state superintendent | Pass / Fail | 89.3 KPCC:

Southern California charter school leader running for state superintendent

Adolfo Guzman-Lopez | August 21st, 2013, 7:10pm

Waiting on Eli

OR

Hoping for a visit from the money fairy

Marshall Tuck, a leader of Southern California’s charter school and reform movements, launched his campaign Wednesday to become State Superintendent of Public Instruction.

Tuck’s calling himself an innovator – pointing to his years running the Green Dot group of charter schools, and nearly two dozen L.A. Unified schools in former Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa’s Partnership for Los Angeles Schools.

“If we don’t create the right conditions - which really start in Sacramento - for superintendents, principals, and teachers locally, we’ll never be able to educate our kids. And that’s at the core of why I got into education,” he said.

The state superintendent heads the California Department of Education, which enforces policy for California’s K-12 public schools. Education policy is created by the State Board of Education.

Tuck is seeking support for his candidacy from philanthropist Eli Broad, and another former city mayor, Richard Riordan. Both have made big donations to grow charter 

The Common Core and the Common Good - NYTimes.com

The Common Core and the Common Good - NYTimes.com:

The Common Core and the Common Good

By CHARLES M. BLOW

Published: August 21, 2013 2 Comments

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America, we have a problem.

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Damon Winter/The New York Times

Charles M. Blow

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Our educational system is not keeping up with that of many other industrialized countries, even as the job market becomes more global and international competition for jobs becomes steeper.

We have gone from the leader to a laggard.

According to the Broad Foundation, an educational reform group, “American students rank 25th in math, 17th in science and 14th in reading compared to students in 27 industrialized countries.”

And we have gone from No. 1 in high school graduation to 22nd among industrialized countries, according to a reportlast year by the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development.

That same report found that fewer than half of our students finished college. This ranked us 14th among O.E.C.D. countries, below the O.E.C.D. average. In 1995 we were among the Top 5.

Some rightly point to the high levels of poverty in our public schools to adjust for our lagging performance, but poverty — and affluence — can’t explain all the results away.

As Amanda Ripley, an investigative journalist, explains in her new book, “The Smartest Kids in the World and How They Got That Way,” American students are not 

Claiming and Teaching the 1963 March on Washington | Common Dreams

Claiming and Teaching the 1963 March on Washington | Common Dreams:

Claiming and Teaching the 1963 March on Washington

by Bill Fletcher Jr.

(Photo: Zinn Education Project)August 28 will mark the 50th anniversary of the historic March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom. Publicly associated with Dr. King’s famous “I Have a Dream” speech, this march brought more than 250,000 people to the nation’s capital. The day went down in history as a powerful show of force against Jim Crow segregation. Over time this great event has risen to levels of near mythology. The powerful speech by Dr. King, replayed, in part, for us every January on Martin Luther King Day, has eclipsed all else—so much so that too many people believe that the March on Washington was entirely the work of Dr. King. It is also barely remembered that the March on Washington was for freedom and jobs.

In fact, The Americans, a high school history text by publishing giant Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, tells students that the march was called simply “to persuade Congress to pass the [1963 civil rights] bill.” In reality, the demand for jobs was not a throwaway line designed to get trade union support. Instead it reflected the growing economic crisis affecting black workers.

Indeed, while Dr. King was a major player, the March on Washington did not begin as a classic civil rights march and was not initiated by him. There is one constituency that can legitimately claim the legacy of the march—one that has been eclipsed in both history as well as in much of the lead-up to the August 2013 commemorations: black labor.

Initiated by A. Philip Randolph, president of the Brotherhood of Sleeping Car Porters, the march became a joint project with the Southern Christian Leadership Conference. Randolph and other black labor leaders, particularly those grouped around the Negro American Labor Council, were responding to the fact that the black worker was largely being ignored in the discussions about civil rights. In addition, the economic situation was becoming complicated terrain for black workers.

As historian Nancy MacLean has pointed out, the elements of what came to be known as deindustrialization—which was really part of a reorganization of global capitalism—were 

School vouchers aren’t just bad policy—they’re unpopular, too | American Civil Liberties Union

School vouchers aren’t just bad policy—they’re unpopular, too | American Civil Liberties Union:

School vouchers aren’t just bad policy—they’re unpopular, too

By Dena Sher, ACLU Washington Legislative Office at 4:50pm

Year after year, PDK/Gallup releases an annual poll of public attitudes toward public schools, and it consistently finds that a majority of those polled oppose allowing students and parents to use taxpayer-funded vouchers to attend private schools. This year's poll, released today, found that 70 percent of Americans oppose funneling taxpayer dollars to private schools for tuition, the highest level of opposition to vouchers ever recorded.

We've long advocated against taxpayer funds being used for private and religious school. Here's why.

Vouchers harm religious liberty. Religious schools, which receive the overwhelming majority of taxpayer-funded vouchers, not only require all students to receive religious instruction and attend religious services, but also integrate their religious beliefs in everything they teach students (just one alarming example: a science textbook, in order to support creationist beliefs, claims the Loch Ness Monster is a living, breathing dinosaur). Thomas Jefferson and James Madison knew it was wrong to use taxpayer money—even three pence—to support religious education, because doing so amounts to 

Keep Your 'Disruption' Out of Our Schools | Diane Ravitch

Keep Your 'Disruption' Out of Our Schools | Diane Ravitch:

Keep Your 'Disruption' Out of Our Schools

Posted: 08/21/2013 3:08 pm

 Judith Shulevitz recently wrote a brilliant essay on "disruption" as a business strategy.

As we know, mega-corporations believe they must continually reinvent themselves in order to have the latest, best thing and beat their competitors, who are about to overtake them in the market.

They believe in disruption as a fundamental rule of the marketplace.

By some sloppy logic or sleight-of-hand, the financial types and corporate leaders who think they should reform the nation's schools have concluded that the schools should also be subject to "creative disruption" or just plain "disruption."

And so we have the unaccredited Broad Superintendents Academy, underwritten by billionaire Eli Broad, sending out superintendents who are determined to "disrupt" schools by closing them and handing them over to private management.

Unfortunately, Secretary Arne Duncan agrees that disruption is wonderful, so he applauds the idea of closing schools, opening new schools, inviting the for-profit sector to compete for scarce funds, and any other scheme that might disrupt schools as we know them.

He does this believing that U.S. education is a failed enterprise and needs a mighty shaking-up.

First, he is wrong to believe that U.S. public education is failing. That is untrue. I document that he is wrong in my new book, Reign of Error: The Hoax of the Privatization Movement and The Danger to America's Public Schools, using graphs from the U.S. Department of Education website.

Second, "disruption" is a disaster for children, families, schools, and communities.

Think of little children. They need continuity and stability, not disruption. They need adults