7-2-14 Perdido Street School

Perdido Street School:

Zephyr Teachout Says She Has 25,000+ Ballot Signatures To Take On Cuomo In Dem Primary

From Buffalo News:ALBANY – A Fordham law professor seeking to challenge Gov. Andrew Cuomo in a Democratic primary says she has obtained 25,100 signatures as of today in her bid to get on the Sept. 9 ballot – nearly double the minimum amount needed.Zephyr Teachout said an army of volunteers and paid canvassers have been working the state the past month gathering signatures from Democrats at public

by reality-based edu... / 32min 

Great News - New Walcott Health Data Coming!

Earlier this week, former NYCDOE chancellor Dennis Walcott released the results of his latest physical in the Daily News - an event that I covered in a post called Dennis Walcott Needs To Just Go The ---- Away!Here's a bit of Walcott's piece:My annual physical checkup — I just got the results — yielded the following comparisons to last year’s findings: Weight down from 152 to 148 lbs.; HDL (“good

by reality-based edu... / 11min 

Quinnipiac Poll: Obama Worst President Since WWII

Heckuva job, Barry;A new Quinnipiac poll finds President Obama is the worst president since World War II.Key findings: 33% of American voters say Obama is the worst while another 28% pick George W. BushCongratulations, dude  - you've beaten out George W., ht eman who brought us the Katrina response and the Iraq war mess, as worst president since WWII.That's a heckuva an accomplishment.

by reality-based edu... / 27min 

Michael Rebell On The Irony Of Campbell Brown

From State of Politics:Michael Rebell, a veteran education advocate, expressed doubt during an interview on CapTon last night that an effort to duplicate the results of a California lawsuit that overturned teacher tenure laws in that state will be equally successful here in New York.... Rebell was co-counsel for the plaintiffs in the Campaign for Fiscal Equity case, which successfully maintained t

by reality-based edu... / 43min hide  //  save

De Blasio Signs Bill Requiring Charter Schools To Report Data

From Daily Politics: Mayor de Blasio signed a bill Tuesday to require the city to publish reports detailing the demographics and academic records of all charter schools co-located with traditional public schools. Officials will have to spell out the number of kids who get free lunch, proportion of kids learning English and special education students, racial breakdown, and test scores at the school

by reality-based edu... / 2h 

7-1-14 Perdido Street School

Perdido Street School: RIP: Frank CashenFrom the Daily News:Frank Cashen, a one-time Baltimore sportswriter-turned-baseball man who presided over championship Oriole teams in the ’60s and ’70s and then, as general manager of the Mets, was the architect of their 1986 world championship team with a series of inspired trades for Keith Hernandez, Gary Carter, Ron Darling and Bobby Ojeda, among others,

by mike simpson / 8h 

Why schools’ efforts to block the Internet are so laughably lame | Hechinger Report

Why schools’ efforts to block the Internet are so laughably lame | Hechinger Report:

Why schools’ efforts to block the Internet are so laughably lame

By Annie Murphy Paul

This story also appeared at:

As schools around the country have rolled out one-to-one computer initiatives, handing out tablets and laptops to their students, a sour note has often intruded on the triumphant fanfare heralding these programs. Within days, even hours, of the devices’ distribution, their young users have figured out how to circumvent the filters meant to block access to games, social networking, and other non-educational activities (not to mention offensive or inappropriate content).

In Greenwood, Ind., hundreds of students managed to reprogram their school-issued tablets on the same day they received them. In Los Angeles, where the school district has begun giving out a planned 600,000 i-Pads, entrepreneurial students sold a workaround to classmates for $2 a pop. And in Cherry Hill, N.J., a middle school pupil had a ready answer when his father, Thom McKay, asked him how he got on Facebook even though his school had banned it. ”Pretty easy, Dad,” his son replied, as quoted in The New York Times. ”Don’t be an idiot. We know more about computers than the teachers do.”

Even as students are reveling in their ability to evade their schools’ Internet blocks, teachers are growing frustrated that they can’t get around those same firewalls (perhaps confirming the middle schooler’s acerbic observation). Educators’ online forums and Twitter accounts are filled with complaints that inflexible filters prevent them from using computers in creative and innovative ways in their classrooms. YouTube videos of famous speeches, Skype conversations with experts outside the school, collaborative tools that would allow students to annotate a shared text: access to such resources is cut off, teachers lament, by heavy-handed Internet controls.

School librarians, too, have joined the fray, mounting a moral crusade against the filters. The American Association of School Librarians (AASL) has named an annual “Banned Websites Why schools’ efforts to block the Internet are so laughably lame | Hechinger Report:

Stiglitz: Inequality Is Not Inevitable | janresseger

Stiglitz: Inequality Is Not Inevitable | janresseger:

Stiglitz: Inequality Is Not Inevitable

Posted on July 2, 2014 by janresseger

The NY Times just ended an eighteen month series of commentaries on its opinion pages about economic inequality,  The Great Divide, moderated by the Nobel prize-winning economist, Joseph Stiglitz.  I urge you to read the final column in this series, in which Stiglitz declares,Inequality is Not Inevitable.

That economic inequality matters to educational outcomes in public schools has been conclusively demonstrated in research by Stanford University’s Sean Reardon, who has shown that in America we are increasingly raising our children in schools where all the children are poor or schools where all the children are rich, with fewer economically diverse communities where children from a range of incomes are educated together.  School achievement has come to track this growing residential segregation by economics, with poor children lagging farther behind as wealthy children leap ahead.  Here is a summary of Reardon’s research:

1. By 2009 the proportion of families in major metropolitan areas living in either very poor or very affluent neighborhoods had increased—to 33 percent (from 15 percent in 1970) and the proportion of families living in middle income neighborhoods had declined to 42 percent in 2009 (from 65 percent in 1970), with increased segregation at both ends of the income distribution.  Both high-and low-income families became increasingly residentially isolated in the 2000s, resulting in greater polarization of neighborhoods by income.
2. Income segregation has grown significantly over four decades for black and Hispanic families, but particularly in the years since 2000.  While income inequality among black families did not grow significantly Stiglitz: Inequality Is Not Inevitable | janresseger:

NYC Educator: My Final Adventure at the Prestigious Private School

NYC Educator: My Final Adventure at the Prestigious Private School:

My Final Adventure at the Prestigious Private School

 By special guest blogger Nouveaux Pauvres


One afternoon the very troubled boy who had butlers and drivers and also had the disturbing habit of throwing himself on the floor I guess got bored with the pizza and the movies. So he took a plastic bag, put it over his head, and then started tying a knot. Two other adults were in the room with me while this happened. Neither of them blinked an eye. I freaked out, screamed and ripped the bag off his head. I then suggested that his parents know about this. “Oh no we can’t tell them.” Then the owner said I needed to “calm down.” “He’s just playing,” she said. I pointed out that this “playing” could have killed him, and had he gotten hurt, I would have been responsible. “Well, that’s why you’re here,” she said cheerfully.

The owner had a very relaxed attitude towards everything but teachers talking to parents. If we even hinted we wanted that, she freaked out. But about other things, she was blasé. One day I was working on the SAT course and I walked upstairs. A girl was crying hysterically on the floor. What happened? Two boys had picked her up and smashed her head into the wall. The secretary sighed. “We can’t tell the parents about this,” she said.

Anyway as the week wore on I worked more and more on the SAT online course. The person who worked with me on it told me flatly that he was leaving at the end of the month. Finally by the end of last week I had worked enough that there was a semblance of an online SAT course. The owner thanked me, then sheepishly told me some “bad news.” “We had very low enrollment so … “ She didn’t have to say any more. I knew that NYC Educator: My Final Adventure at the Prestigious Private School:

Louisiana Educator: BESE Fails

Louisiana Educator: BESE Fails:

BESE Fails

I and many other educators and parents attended the BESE meeting Tuesday to watch BESE members and Superintendent White attempt to deal with the combination of curve balls and spit balls thrown at them by Governor Jindal. Instead of a ball game, it turned out to be a circus that lasted 6 hours and it was not entertaining. If our public education classrooms were run this way, teachers would all be fired. Thank goodness the education of our children does not really depend on the erratic behavior of BESE, White and Jindal. For a somewhat salacious and entertaining account of the meeting read the Crazy Crawfish blog here. Also, Mercedes Schneider gives you the big picture pointing out that a legal decision in New Mexico may affect PARCC in Louisiana.

After the meeting, I spoke to a long time educator, local superintendent, and legislator (Mr Rogers Pope from Livingston Parish) who also attended the entire punishing meeting. He said that it is fortunate that no matter what BESE, White, and Jindal do, our teachers will be hard at work in a few weeks teaching their students in an effective manner and helping to prepare their students for life and careers just as they have always done. . . . . despite the higher powers over education who think they are soooooo important.

Bill Gates, Arne Duncan, BESE and John White have the grandiose belief that all the silly rules they make, and all the hoops they devise for teachers and school principals to jump through really make a difference in the education of young people. They believe that if they can just fine tune and standardize the curriculum for public schools, give parents "choice" with our tax dollars for sending their children to any private enterprise calling itself a school, and if they can make every teacher and every principal's job dependent on the standardized test scores of the students they teach, that magically all students will achieve above average on the tests and the battle will be won. What the architects of all Louisiana Educator: BESE Fails:

Russ on Reading: SCOTUS Sticks It to the Union

Russ on Reading: SCOTUS Sticks It to the Union:

SCOTUS Sticks It to the Union

We must all hang together, or assuredly we will all hang separately - Ben Franklin

The Supreme Court Ruling Monday inHarris v. Quinn played second fiddle to the ruling in the Hobby Lobby case in the media. While the Hobby Lobby contraceptive case was front page news in the New York Times, Harris v. Quinn didn't get a mention until page 12. The Harris case dealt with a few home health care workers insistence that they not be required to pay fees to their union. In 1977 the Court's ruling in Abood v. Detroit Board of Education established that public employees who benefit from the services of a union, such as collective bargaining agreements that improve their working conditions and salaries, must pay their "fair share" for such services even if they choose not to belong to the union. This "fair share" is typically known as an agency fee.

The Supreme Court struck down the 1977 law as it applies to these workers, citing their first amendment rights. According to the New York Times, "Justice Alito wrote that home health care workers who typically work for an ill or disabled person should be classified as partial public employees and should not be treated the same way as public schoolteachers..."

At first blush the ruling may appear to be a victory of sorts for teachers unions. Anti-labor groups were hoping the Court would strike down the 1977Abood ruling in its entirety, crippling all public employee unions by greatly Russ on Reading: SCOTUS Sticks It to the Union:

UPDATE: Complexities of Measuring Effectiveness | Connected Principals

Complexities of Measuring Effectiveness | Connected Principals:

Show Them Your Lighter Side

By Doug Hasler I was glancing through my Twitter feed this morning (yes, I am still around just not as loud) and a title caught my eye. “Principals are People 2” by Tony Sinanis.  His words soon had me reflecting about the evolution of my leadership style. At the start of my career I was very much the serious, cool demeanored, maybe even cold and stiff administrator.  Always solumn, never off guar

2 by Dave Meister / 36min 

Complexities of Measuring Effectiveness

by John Marschhausen • July 2, 2014 • 0 Comments

“What are the real 3rd grade guarantee numbers?”

“Why do the Ohio Department of Education and the district report different percentages? Are you trying to hide something?”

These are all quotes that have been directed in my direction –either in person or on social media –from community members about the reporting of 3rd grade reading assessments. These questions provide a great opportunity for conversations –meaningful, honest communications about accountability.

We need to talk about the multiple pathways to meet the requirements; one media outlet may report only OAA results while another takes into account alternative pathways to meet state requirements. As we look at raw data – data just released within the week – in our district we are looking at individual students. We have transient students that may, or may not, still reside in our district. We have ELL and special needs data to check and cross-check. Our students aren’t simply numbers; our data represents your children. While expedience is great for a story . . . we’re not in this business for the story. We are in the business of preparing students for success; this is complicated stuff. It can’t be summarized in a story, sound bite, or single post.

We all seek an easy to understand table, chart, or graph to show our school district’s performance. The media wants an info-graphic to show on the screen or post in the story. We want it to be simple, easy to understand, and straightforward.

Here is the problem . . . education is complex, challenging to measure, and impossible to show with a single measure. Each child in our care, every single student in our classrooms, is a unique person with different strengths, needs, and passions. Socioeconomic challenges, such as poverty, can greatly impact education – we partner, support, and engage our families to maximize educational opportunities. There is no single test to measure every student; there is no single instructional Complexities of Measuring Effectiveness | Connected Principals:

Roemer, White, and BESE Majority Positioning to Sue Jindal | deutsch29

Roemer, White, and BESE Majority Positioning to Sue Jindal | deutsch29:

Roemer, White, and BESE Majority Positioning to Sue Jindal

July 1, 2014

On July 01, 2014, I attended the Louisiana State Board of Elementary and Secondary Education (BESE) Special Board Meeting initiated by three members: Lottie Beebe, Carolyn Hill, and Jane Smith.

These three members wanted a primary focus of the meeting to include discussion of a plan for Louisiana’s school districts for the 2014-15 school year given Louisiana Governor Bobby Jindal’s June 18, 2014, decision to– among other issues– suspend Louisiana Department of Education (LDOE) purchase of the Partnership for Assessment of Readiness for College and Careers (PARCC) assessments. (To read the backstory, click  here, and here, and here, and here.)

It was clear from the adopted  BESE meeting agenda that BESE President Chas Roemer and sidekick State Superintendent John White were “exploring the option” to file suit against the governor:

Items for Consideration

1. Consideration of an update report regarding Executive Order 
No. BJ 2014-6, Executive Order No. BJ 2014-7, and related 
implementation

2. Consideration of the potential retention of special legal 
counsel regarding Executive Order No. BJ 2014-6, Executive 
Order No. BJ 2014-7, and related implementation

3. Consideration of an Executive Session to consult with counsel 
regarding Executive Order No. BJ 2014-6, Executive Order 
No. BJ 2014-7, related implementation, and potential retention 
of special legal counsel

While no item specifically mentioned the “Plan B” agenda item requested by Beebe, Hill, and Smith, Roemer allowed broad discussion for item one. Beebe openly Roemer, White, and BESE Majority Positioning to Sue Jindal | deutsch29:

Plan B: One-Step for Addressing PARCC and Common Core | Crazy Crawfish's Blog

Plan B: One-Step for Addressing PARCC and Common Core | Crazy Crawfish's Blog:

Crazy Crawfish's Blog

Zesty Louisiana Education Politics

Plan B: One-Step for Addressing PARCC and Common Core

Posted on July 1, 2014

0

Today was an interesting day at the Claiborne building in downtown Baton Rouge. Today was the much anticipated climax of significant back and forth politicking between Governor Jindal and his mail ordered State Superintendent of Education, John White. Today was the day Louisiana got a front row seat to the attempted abortion of the illegitimate Education Love Child known as Common Core and the testing consortium known as PARCC, conceived in back room deals and between these two star-crossed (and now double-crossing) education reformers.

Of course John White insisted on boring and dubious analysis of the situation that everyone who was there already knew all too well. Usually this is simply annoying and infuriating, but today was a little different since he didn’t have a trusty and redundant PowerPoint to stall over and guide him through the highlights. It appeared White was talking somewhat off the cuff. When you talk for hours on end you eventually make some mistakes. When you lie about everything to everyone, it is inevitable that you will contradict yourself and your previous statements.

Let’s discuss some of them.

John White confirmed that the test questions for next year will be different than this year and that test questions always change every year, regardless of who cast the testing contract and regardless of the test containing PARCC questions or not. This contradicts John White’s earlier testimony and assertions to the legislature related to disclosing previously administered tests to parents to review. White claimed this would cause a lot of unnecessary expense and force the department to create new questions. When White testified before the legislature this spring he claimed if test questions were released the tests would need to be reworked because those questions could never be used again. However today, before BESE, John White confessed these questions are changed every year. They are not used every year anyways so releasing these tests should not be a Plan B: One-Step for Addressing PARCC and Common Core | Crazy Crawfish's Blog:

Private viewing of “Standardized: Lies, Money & Civil Rights: How Testing Is Ruining Public Education” | Seattle Education

Private viewing of “Standardized: Lies, Money & Civil Rights: How Testing Is Ruining Public Education” | Seattle Education:

Private viewing of “Standardized: Lies, Money & Civil Rights: How Testing Is Ruining Public Education”

I will be showing the movie STANDARDIZED: Lies, Money & Civil Rights: How Testing Is Ruining Public Education in my home on Thursday, July 10th at 7:00 PM.

There will be plenty of time for discussion after the movie.

Please RSVP to seattled@icloud.com.

Beverages will be provided. Potluck on the snacks.

Here is the trailerPrivate viewing of “Standardized: Lies, Money & Civil Rights: How Testing Is Ruining Public Education” | Seattle Education:

empathyeducates – Black and Hispanic Kindergartners Are Disproportionately in High-Poverty Schools

empathyeducates – Black and Hispanic Kindergartners Are Disproportionately in High-Poverty Schools:

• 

Black and Hispanic Kindergartners Are Disproportionately in High-Poverty Schools

By Elaine Weiss and Emma García | Originally Published at Economic Policy Institute. June 25, 2014

Growing up black or Hispanic in the United States today means high odds of living in concentrated poverty: in neighborhoods in which at least 40 percent of the residents are poor. This connection between minority status and being surrounded by poor peers is true, as well, in the school setting. Not only do most U.S. kids begin school in classrooms that are heavily segregated—white kids in heavily white classrooms, minority kids in heavily black and Hispanic classrooms—black and Hispanic kindergartners are also disproportionately surrounded by poor peers.

Nationwide, 25 percent of kindergartners are from low-income households. If schools reflected this makeup regardless of the racial composition of classrooms, students would be in classes in which about one in four of their peers were low-income. Yet most white students (three in five) are in classrooms in which just a little more than one in ten of their classmates are poor. Only 11 percent of Hispanic and only 7 percent of black students enter school into such low-poverty classrooms.

By contrast, most Hispanic and black students are in classrooms in which at least two thirds of their peers are also minorities, and virtually half are poor: 56.5 percent of black students and 55.2 percent of Hispanic empathyeducates – Black and Hispanic Kindergartners Are Disproportionately in High-Poverty Schools:

An Activist Handbook for the Education Revolution: United Opt Out’s Test of Courage - UNITED OPT OUT: The Movement to End Corporate Education Reform

An Activist Handbook for the Education Revolution: United Opt Out’s Test of Courage - UNITED OPT OUT: The Movement to End Corporate Education Reform:

An Activist Handbook for the Education Revolution: United Opt Out’s Test of Courage

BY PEGWPEN · JULY 1, 2014

In the summer of 2013, United Opt Out spent all of June writing 50 state opt out/refusal guides to arm everyone with an essential tool, specific to their state, in order to halt corporate education reform via opt out. This summer we have taken it a step further. We have documented our activist journey in an effort to share a broader understanding of “opt out” – “opt out” is much more than simply refusing high stakes tests. As we reclaim the conversation on public education with An Activist Handbook for the Education Revolution we share with you our UOO personal journey, detailed actions, and research to support you in 2014-2015. All proceeds from our book will be used to further our efforts at United Opt Out to educate, take action and allow all children to have the following – as stated in our demand:

United Opt Out National serves as a focused point of unyielding resistance to corporate ed. reform. We demand an equitably funded, democratically based, anti-racist, desegregated public school system for all Americans that prepares students to exercise compassionate and critical decision making with civic virtue.

We also ask that you sign up as a member of UOO to receive updates. We lost all of our contacts when our website was hacked this past March. So, in order to keep up with our work in 2014-2015 it is necessary to sign up as a member here.   We are now organized by regions and we will be sharing national as well as local information to keep folks up to date.

Our book is currently available via pre-order using the flyer below or you can simply wait until we send information to our membersonce we receive notice that it is in print and ready to go.

Many thanks to everyone who has supported our work.  Join the revolution in 2014-2015 - UOO, as always, pushes forward, with a focus on truth and action.

- United Opt Out Team

An Activist Handbook for the Education Revolution: United Opt Out's Test of Courage

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Architects of a Brave New World | United Opt Out National

Architects of a Brave New World NATIONAL COMMON CORE CURRICULUM WAS DEVELOPED AND FUNDED BY THE FOLLOWING: 1) NCEE (Natl Center for Education and the Economy) NCEE is funded by WALTON FOUNDATION, BROAD FOUNDATION, GATES FOUNDATION NCEE is funded by the New Schools Venture connected to America’s Choice. New Schools Venture supports business model charter schools like KIPP and EDISON NCEE is a prog

by pegwpen / 42min 

Do Teachers' Unions Have Any Friends in the Obama Administration? | Diane Ravitch

Do Teachers' Unions Have Any Friends in the Obama Administration? | Diane Ravitch:

Do Teachers' Unions Have Any Friends in the Obama Administration?

Posted: 07/01/2014 6:33 pm EDT Updated: 2 hours ago

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We are living in an era when the very idea of public education is under attack, as are teachers' unions and the teaching profession. Let's be clear: these attacks and the power amassed behind them are unprecedented in American history. Sure, there have always been critics of public schools, of teachers, and of unions. But never before has there been a serious and sustained effort to defund public education, to turn public money over to unaccountable private hands, and to weaken and eliminate collective bargaining wherever it still exists. And this effort is not only well-coordinated but funded by billionaires who have grown wealthy in a free market and can't see any need for regulation or unions or public schools.

In the past, Democratic administrations and Democratic members of Congress could be counted on to support public education and to fight privatization. In the past, Democrats supported unions, which they saw as a dependable and significant part of their base.

This is no longer the case. Congress is about to pass legislation to expand funding of charter schools, despite the fact that they get no better results than public schools and despite the scandalous misuse of public funds by charter operators in many states.

The Obama administration strongly supports privatization via charters; one condition of Race to the Top was that states had to increase the number of charters. The administration is no friend of teachers or of teacher unions. Secretary Duncan applauded the lamentable Vergara decision, as he has applauded privatization and evaluating teachers by the test scores of their students. There are never too many tests for this administration. Although the president recentlytalked about the importance of unions, he has done nothing to support them when they are under attack. Former members of his administration are leading the war against teachers and their unions.

Think Rahm Emanuel, who apparently wants to be known as the mayor who privatized Chicago and broke the teachers' union. Or think Robert Gibbs, the former White House press secretary who is now leading the public relations Do Teachers' Unions Have Any Friends in the Obama Administration? | Diane Ravitch:

Is It Time to Escort Bill Gates Out of Our Schools? | John Thompson

Is It Time to Escort Bill Gates Out of Our Schools? | John Thompson:

Is It Time to Escort Bill Gates Out of Our Schools?

American constitutional democracy seeks a balance between the empowerment of individuals and the checks and balances necessary to protect the rights of the community. Bill Gates, like so many other billionaires, does not seem to respect the wisdom of poet Robert Frost. "Good fences make good neighbors."

Post-World War II prosperity and freedom was based in no small part on "firewalls." Unbreachable barriers were supposed to separate the investment side of banks and their customers' savings accounts. The wall between the newsroom and the business operations of newspapers was sacrosanct. Labor earned many protections separating the Human Resources departments' agendas and workers' rights to their personal opinions and for asserting their democratic rights. Medical regulations protect personal privacy.

And, medical ethics prevent health providers from experimenting on children without informed and explicit permission by parents. Corporate reformers have been unique in their propensity to roll the dice and gamble on policies that often cause severe damage to children. No other institution would be as dismissive as school reformers have been of the principle of First Do No Harm.

It is not just in education where corporations seek to tear down those fences. Checks on the flow of information are also checks on their cash flow. Whether they are opposed by Paul Volker, Elizabeth Warren or teachers, elites are notoriously impatient with efforts to regulate the flow of their data, their capital, or their political power.

When the Gates Foundation first became involved in education, it could be argued, they were not necessarily unneighborly. They should have taken the time to communicate with educators before jumping into their expensive small schools initiative. But, many of its first contributions were beneficial.

The Billionaires Boys Club was notoriously impatient, however. They were not willing to earn a seat at the head of the table. Corporate reformers quickly concluded that it was necessary to break eggs, as they saw it, to make omelets. They called it "disruptive innovation." Destroy local school boards, university education departments, and the power of unions, and "transformational change" would presumably occur.

So, before long, Gates and the other elites replaced win-win policies, that teachers would have welcomed, with metrics for reward and punishment. For their policy preferences to win, others had to lose.

Gates and Arne Duncan were at the forefront of tearing down the walls that Is It Time to Escort Bill Gates Out of Our Schools? | John Thompson: