4LAKids - some of the news that doesn't fit 9-1-14

4LAKids - some of the news that doesn't fit:

‘Principally’: SINGLE WORD AT HEART OF LCFF/LCAP REGULATORY DEBATE

By John Fensterwald | EdSource Today | http://bit.ly/W5bZhr Credit: John Fensterwald/EdSource Today - Surrounded by other members of the student group Californians For Justice, Karla Rodriguez, a junior at James Lick High in San Jose, asks the East Side Union High School District school board to include students in the LCAP process during a meeting in May. The State Board of Education will

1 by smf / 1min 

California Attorney General Harris Announces Package Of Truancy Legislation Passes State Legislature + The Costs Of Chronic Absences

  Reposted from the SI&A  Newsroom | http://bit.ly/1x3YHmK Attorney General Kamala D. Harris Announces Package of Truancy Legislation Passes State Legislature State of California Department of Justice Office of the Attorney General Kamala D. Harris ~ Attorney General Posted: Thursday, August 28, 2014 SACRAMENTO – California Attorney General Kamala D. Harris today

2 by smf / 18min 

DEADLINE L.A.: Howard Blume explains iPadGate/The iPad Kerfuffle …whatever it is.

Deadline L.A. with Barbara Osborn & Howard Blume on KPFK 90.7 FM  |  http://bit.ly/1qwCV4Q Deadline LA Mondays, 3:00 PM (pst) CO-HOSTS: Barbara Osborn and Howard Blume,  Producer: Laurie Kaufman DESCRIPTION: Deadline L.A. is KPFK's roving eye on the media. We praise and pummel the news media for how it is - or isn't - covering stories. BIO AND OTHER INFO: Host Barbara Osborn is a

1 by smf / 1h 

Librarians Are A Luxury Chicago Public Schools Can’T Afford

by Becky Vevea | fromWBEZ | Morning Edition | National Public Radio | http://n.pr/W4aFvF Listen to the Story | 3 min 53 sec Playlist Download Transcript i There aren't mass layoffs of librarians; they're just doing different jobs.  - Robyn Mackenzie/iStockphoto September 01, 2014 4:22 AM ET  ::  Two years ago, the Chicago Public Schools budgeted for 454 librarians. Last year, the

3 by smf / 1h 

California Legislature Passes Stiffest Law In Nation To Protect K-12 Students Online Data

By Sharon Noguchi, San Jose Mercury News | http://bit.ly/1q5gG7q 8/31/2014 03:39:02 PM PDT  ::  SACRAMENTO -- Trying to protect children from marketers, identity thieves and predators, California could establish the nation's toughest protections of student privacy and forbid the sale and disclosure of schools' online student data. "It's a big win for kids," said James Steyer, whose

2 by smf / 2h 

iFail: WHY JOHN DEASY’S RISKY iPAD GAMBIT CRASHED+BURNED AT LAUSD

By Hillel Aron | The Informer || LA Weekly | http://bit.ly/1A11jxW Flavio~ / Flickr Wed, Aug 27, 2014 at 6:30 AM  ::  In a surprising reversal, L.A. Unified Superintendent John Deasy has abruptly halted the district's billion-dollar technology program, which aimed to put an iPad into the hands of every student and teacher by the end of, yes, this year. It's a rare retreat for the

1 by smf / 2h 

Investor Update: APPLE INC. ON WATCH OVER LAUSD ISSUES

by Ed Palmer| Financial Wired | http://bit.ly/1nQ647K August 26, 2014  ::  by Apple Inc. (NASDAQ:AAPL) is on watch after Los Angeles schools Superintendent John Deasy says he is suspending a $1 billion iPad initiative with AAPL amid scrutiny over Deasy’s close ties with AAPL and Pearson Plc (PSO) and the integrity of the bidding process. An initial $30 million contract with Apple Inc. (

by smf / 26min hide  //  save

Vergara: GOV. BROWN APPEALS RULING THAT STRUCK DOWN TEACHER JOB PROTECTIONS

By Howard Blume , LA Times | http://lat.ms/1nQ9uak California's governor takes opposing view from reelection opponent in lawsuit over teacher protections An appeals court will now decide such issues as whether tenure laws should be declared unconstitutional Gov. Jerry Brown addresses the American Federation of Teachers convention in June in Los Angeles. (Damian Dovarganes, AP) Aug 30,

by smf / 27min 

4LAKids - some of the news that doesn't fit 8-31-14

4LAKids - some of the news that doesn't fit: Editorial: CLASSROOMS KEY BATTLEFIELDS IN THE WAR ON POVERTYLA Daily News Editorial | http://bit.ly/1ufrfUM ●●: This slipped through the 4LAKids cracks two weeks ago. It is no less timely. 8/15/14, 2:44 PM PDT   ::  Of the many battlefields where the half-century-old War on Poverty has been fought, there may be none so important — or difficult to conque

by mike simpson / 17min 

Changing The Narrative, Right From My Classroom | The Jose Vilson

Changing The Narrative, Right From My Classroom | The Jose Vilson:

Changing The Narrative, Right From My Classroom

 SEPTEMBER 1, 2014 MR. VILSON LEAVE A COMMENT

Tomorrow, New York City teachers go for their first day back from vacation. With no kids and two weeks to clean out their caches (well, some of us), we’ll hopefully come back refreshed and ready to take on the relentless energies of the burgeoning young minds in front of us.

Or whatever it is we choose to believe.

This year, I’ve never been as excited to hop in and do great work with my students. With three classes (a full math program in middle school), I’ll have plenty of opportunity to refine my teaching skills, get students ready for high school, and create and sharpen these amateur mathematicians. I came in a week early to get my classroom in order, scrub down desks, and organize the mounds of boxes that some of us moved from upstairs to this classroom, bopping along to Jay Z and Onyx in the interim.

Which should make everyone wonder how the hell I’m going to change the narrative right from my classroom.

That’s the thing: I haven’t figured it out, either. What I do know is that I will continue to rebuke the nonsense that comes across my plate as a teacher, starting from the data reports due to us this week (teachers, check your DOE inboxes) to the mad rush to cover everything under the sun before their big exams and everything in between. I’ll resist professional development folk trying to push their product or influence me into doing something unless they’ve done it themselves. I’ll keep my energy high throughout the year, even when students that look like mine. I’ll evenChanging The Narrative, Right From My Classroom | The Jose Vilson: 

My debut solo book, This Is Not A Test: A New Narrative on Race, Class, and Education already has endorsements from Karen Lewis, Pedro Noguera, Raquel Cepeda, Gregory Michie, Chris Lehmann, Randi Weingarten, Dennis van Roekel, Diane Ravitch, Barnett Berry, Renee Moore, Cindi Rigsbee, and many more ...

Order Here!

Common Core: What Bill Gates and Walmart Have in Common

Common Core: What Bill Gates and Walmart Have in Common:



Common Core: What Bill Gates and Walmart Have in Common

 Education is the most powerful weapon which you can use to change the world. -Nelson Mandela

In America, under the guise of education reform, an initiative called Common Core acts as an insurance policy issued by some of the most powerful think tanks and foundations of both the left and right to mega-corporations, such as Walmart. Ultimately, Common Core, through its behaviorist methods, will provide legions of workers educated-in-name-only, ready to accept low-wages inside union-less quasi-sweatshop service jobs.

Walmart, along with many any other big-box retailers in the service industry, welcome the poor and uneducated. Free trade and de-industrialization are nothing more than a handout from the government to corporations. Under this model, profits will continue to roll in while goods are produced in foreign countries by cheap labor. An educated workforce means more consumer spending, happier families, and a population of highly-skilled, well-paid workers.

Common Core is the method by which mega-corporations acquire unskilled workers forced to work for low wages in poor conditions. The proliferation of charter schools and vouchers contribute to the detriment of our schools and our society. As Diane Ravitch, NYU Research Professor of Education, puts it,

Charters and vouchers are not only privatization, but they promote greater segregation and social stratification.

Common Core (CC) standards in math and English have been written under the direction of two authors: David Coleman and Susan Pimental, who work for Achieve, an organization founded in 1996 by governors and Fortune 500 CEOs for the sole purpose of writing these standards. The development of science and social studies/history are yet to be developed. Here are a few of the major funders of Common Core:

 Jeb Bush’s Foundation for Excellence in Education (touts education reform while using donations from for-profit companies to lobby for state education laws that could benefit those companies)(3)

 Bradley Foundation (funded conservative think-tanks with $1.4 million since 2001 to skew the results of public survey regarding the support of privatization)(4)

 The Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation (granddaddy of them all, the Gates’ have committed $76 million to CC plus at least $150 million in grants to push privatization)(5)(6)

 The Walton Family Foundation (richest family in America worth $93 billion; spent $3.8 million alone opening charter schools just in Chicago)(1)(2)Common Core: What Bill Gates and Walmart Have in Common:

9-1-14 Living in Dialogue - Edu-Politics 101, Part Two: The High Cost of Pleasing the Powerful

Home - Living in Dialogue:

Deborah Meier: On Leisure This Labor Day

Deborah Meier from Schoolhouse Live on Vimeo. This Labor Day small schools founder Deborah Meier reminds us of the need for leisure time to practice the art of democracy. Learn more about Deborah here. The post Deborah Meier: On Leisure This Labor Day appeared first on Living in Dialogue.

1 by Vincent Precht / 5min

Do Our Schools Need a New Accountability System?

By Anthony Cody. A new report from Marc Tucker is gaining some support for its supposedly new approach to holding schools accountable. But I am afraid his plan makes many of the mistakes that previous such systems have made. Here is the core of his proposal: Instead of testing all of our students every year with low-level, cheap tests, our students would take high stakes tests only three times in

3 by Anthony Cody / 16min 

Edu-Politics 101, Part Two: The High Cost of Pleasing the Powerful

By John Thompson. I twice supported Barack Obama for president. Throughout President Obama’s first term, I asked what we teachers might have done to provoke him so. Were his anti-teacher policies the avoidable result of teachers and unions being too slow to address conditions in Chicago schools? By now, it is clear that teachers were in the wrong place at the wrong time. President Obama was search

1 by Anthony Cody / 3min 

8-31-14 All NEW Living in Dialogue

Home - Living in Dialogue: Politicizing the Common Core as Candidates Plan Their Next MovesAcross the country, politicians are reacting to the Common Core debate. Some are sinking and others are swimming in their support or condemnation of the national standards. The post Politicizing the Common Core as Candidates Plan Their Next Moves appeared first on Living in Dialogue.7 by Robert Perry / 40min

2 by mike simpson / 19h 

Mike Klonsky's SmallTalk Blog: Labor Day Thoughts

Mike Klonsky's SmallTalk Blog: Labor Day Thoughts:

Labor Day Thoughts

Labour cannot emancipate itself in the white skin where in the black it is branded. -- Karl Marx

The Wall St. Journal Reports...The White House and union leaders are using Labor Day to reinvigorate efforts to raise the minimum wage. “Raising the minimum wage would be one of the best ways to give a boost to working families,” President Barack Obama said Saturday in his weekly radio address. He pointed to stronger job creation gains this year but noted many workers are in low-paying jobs.

Raising the federal minimum wage “would help around 28 million Americans from all walks of life pay the bills, provide for their kids, and spend that money at local businesses,” he said.   “And that grows the economy for everyone.”

Congress has not heeded the president’s call. A bill that would have lifted the minimum wage to $10.10 an hour failed to pass the Senate earlier this year. And Republican House Speaker John Boehner indicated a similar measure wouldn’t be introduced in his chamber, arguing raising the wage will cost the country jobs.



A Labor Sec. sighting...Yes it's Thomas Perez (Who he?) speaking to business leaders, asking them do do a little more to help our downtrodden laborers. Please? Pretty Please??

Powerful statement from Emory Univ. Prof. Carol Anderson

Protests and looting naturally capture attention. But the real rage smolders in meetings where officials redraw precincts to dilute African American voting strength or seek to slash the government payrolls that have long served as sources of black employment. It goes virtually unnoticed, however, Mike Klonsky's SmallTalk Blog: Labor Day Thoughts:

Mike Klonsky's SmallTalk Blog: WEEKEND QUOTABLES

Mike Klonsky's SmallTalk Blog: WEEKEND QUOTABLES: WEEKEND QUOTABLESBruce Rauner "I've worked with Rahm Emanuel and (former Mayor) Rich Daley because they control the schools," Rauner told the Tribune earlier this year. "And we've talked about school reform fairly extensively. We disagree on many things ... but on school reform we see things the same way. He believes in charter schoo

by mike simpson / 6h 

9-1-14 Connected Principals | Sharing. Learning. Leading.

Connected Principals | Sharing. Learning. Leading.:

Digital Parent Volunteers

Recently, I had the opportunity to visit schools in Sydney, Australia and on one of these days, I was asked a few questions about where schools are going, and specifically, about getting parents more involved in school. I shared a wonderful idea that I first heard from the brilliant Tracey Kracht, on the idea of “Digital Parent Volunteers”. It is simple, but could be extremely powerful and hopeful

1 by George Couros / 25min 

8-31-14 Connected Principals | Sharing. Learning. Leading.

Connected Principals | Sharing. Learning. Leading.: New BeginningsSo this past Friday I had the opportunity to meet dozens of new students and their families who have just recently arrived new from all over the world to our amazing school, and it got me thinking about new beginnings. There is not much in the world that I love more than a fresh start and a clean slate, as they always come dripping

1 by mike simpson / 20h 

9-1-14 the becoming radical | A Place for a Pedagogy of Kindness

the becoming radical | A Place for a Pedagogy of Kindness (the public and scholarly writing by P. L. Thomas, Furman University):

remnant 62: “I was a worker”

remnant 62: “I was a worker”.

2 by plthomasedd / 36min 

8-31-14 the becoming radical | A Place for a Pedagogy of Kindness

the becoming radical | A Place for a Pedagogy of Kindness (the public and scholarly writing by P. L. Thomas, Furman University): On Labor Day 2014On Labor Day 2014: “Click, Clack, Moo”: Why the 1% Always Wins http://t.co/vkJDHFRzll via @plthomasEdD — Paul Thomas (@plthomasEdD) August 31, 2014 On Labor Day 2014: Meditating on Teacher Unions and Tenure Post-Vergara http://t.co/iPaFC6dJ4E via @plthom

1 by mike simpson / 13h 

This is our fight - AFT - A Union of Professionals

AFT - A Union of Professionals - This is our fight:

This is our fight

The very first Labor Day was created to acknowledge and honor working people who aspired to the American dream and fought for a better life for themselves and their families.

Together, each and every day, we build on the work they began decades ago. As a union that is 1.6 million members strong, we are immensely proud of who we are, and we thank you for the work you do. Our union is at the intersection of two vital societal movements—creating educational opportunity through strong public schools, and advancing economic opportunity through the labor movement and sound economic policies. We not only teach our kids, heal our families, and keep our communities strong, we engage, mobilize and challenge ourselves and our communities to fight for a better nation.

As a union, we are fighting back against the relentless attacks on our jobs, our families and our communities. We are fighting back—whether it’s against Campbell Brown’s efforts to strip teachers of their due process rights and pit teachers against parents; corporate hospital chains seeking to enrich themselves at the expense of patients and healthcare professionals; politicians like Kansas Gov. Sam Brownback, who never met a public school, public service or public employee he didn’t want to eliminate; or those saddling students with debt, ripping them off and “Wal-Martizing” the higher education workforce.

The austerity hawks, the privatizers and the deprofessionalizers know that there’s a growing disconnect between what they are peddling and what the American people want. And the only way they can keep their power is by demonizing and marginalizing us.

There’s no doubt they will outspend us—as they will in this coming election. But our strength and the strength of the labor movement has never been our dollar power—it’s been our people power.

This is our fight. But fighting back only gets you so far; we must fight forward to move forward, and that means never being afraid to both engage in conflict and find common ground, particularly with our communities, those we serve and one another. Together, by being member-mobilized, community-engaged, solution-driven and, yes, a little bad ass, we can reclaim the promise of America. We can create a nation fueled by democracy, justice and opportunity for all, instead of for the very few.

These are uncertain times—at home and abroad. Right now, Randi is in Israel, where she’s on a study mission committed to seeking peace and security for this region of the world. On this Labor Day, let’s remember what this day is really about and recommit ourselves to the task before us—creating a more just world.

And to achieve a more just world, we must stand together against injustice everywhere, starting in our workplaces, our neighborhoods and the communities we serve. Pledge to stand with us. 

In unity, 

Randi Weingarten

Lorretta Johnson 

Mary Cathryn Ricker

Editorial: Banda needs to suck up to the mayor right away - Opinion - The Sacramento Bee

Editorial: Banda needs to hit ground running as school opens - Opinion - The Sacramento Bee:

Editorial: Banda needs to hit ground running as school opens

By the Editorial Board

Published: Sunday, Aug. 31, 2014 - 12:00 am

SacBee Priority: Banda needs to suck up
to the mayor right away

José L. Banda faces his first big challenge as the leader of Sacramento City Unified schools on Tuesday when the district welcomes back students for a new school year.

First days back are always chaotic and hectic, but this will be old hat to Banda. He’s spent more than three decades in California school districts as a teacher, principal, administrator or superintendent. Banda was chief of Seattle’s schools until he was lured back to his home state earlier this summer to replace Jonathan Raymond.

Disappointingly, though, Banda said when he was hired that he took the job to get back to California’s generous retirement system. Nothing about kids or education. Admittedly, it was quite an enticement for a 57-year-old nearing retirement age. This stint could boost his annual retirement pay by $61,400 a year.

The Bee’s editorial board sat down with Banda last week to give him an opportunity to disabuse us of the notion that he’s in town mostly for the money, looking for an easy ride into retirement.

We didn’t hear the excitement or vision we hoped for from someone so exceptionally well-compensated. His annual salary is $290,000.

Yet we remain hopeful. Banda is intelligent, experienced and capable. He can rise to the challenge in Sacramento and instill confidence in parents that their children will receive excellent education in Sacramento’s public schools.

It won’t be easy. To help, we offer five suggestions.

1. Meet the mayor right away.

It’s a bit puzzling that Banda has been in town for nearly a month and has not met with other local school district leaders, with parent groups or Mayor Kevin Johnson. Perhaps the latter is not actually a surprise; Banda dislikes charter schools and Johnson is a big fan. He even founded one – St. Hope in Oak Park, which was challenged by the Sacramento teachers union.

Johnson’s wife is Michelle Rhee, formerly head of D.C. schools and founder and former president of Students First. She is considered one of the foremost advocates of charter schools and educational reform in the country and recently became board chairwoman of St. Hope.

If Banda wants to do well in this job, he’s going to have to make the effort to have a relationship with the city’s celebrity mayor and his wife.

2. Start a teacher advisory council.

Banda hasn’t met with teachers in any real way, either, as school has been in recess. But he has managed to take three meetings with the Sacramento City Teachers Association leaders and one with the classified staff union.

Reaching out to SCTA makes sense; the union may well have control of the Sac City school board after November’s election. But three times in three weeks?

He clearly has orders to repair the damage between the unions and the administration right away, but he can’t continue to Editorial: Banda needs to hit ground running as school opens - Opinion - The Sacramento Bee:

SacBEE Demands a Broad Clone

Read more here: http://www.sacbee.com/2014/08/31/6665241/editorial-banda-needs-to-hit-ground.html#storylink=cpy

9-1-14 Jersey Jazzman

Jersey Jazzman:

Sinatra, Carlin, Inequality, Education, and America: Happy Labor Day

Frank Sinatra held his fair share of self-contradictions. For a guy who espoused such working-class sentiments, his endorsement of Ronald Reagan was more than a little incongruous. And JFK, the one politician Sinatra really went to bat for, was such a neo-lib that he would have felt right at home in the Obama White House.That said, Sinatra had his truly progressive moments: Boing Boing reminds us

24 by Duke / 34min 

8-31-14 Jersey Jazzman

Jersey Jazzman: Correcting the Education Punditry of @jonathanalterJonathan Alter and Bob Braun went man-to-man a few weeks ago in the pages of NJ Monthly over the subject of education reform. From my perspective, Braun cleaned Alter's clock, and I said so on Twitter. The sad fact is Alter got many things wrong in his piece, but that's understandable: the conventional wisdom he traffics in is larg

1 by mike simpson / 9h

Alliance for Childhood’s Joint Statement of Early Childhood Health and Education Professionals « Empowered by Play

Alliance for Childhood’s Joint Statement of Early Childhood Health and Education Professionals « Empowered by Play:

Alliance for Childhood’s Joint Statement of Early Childhood Health and Education Professionals

You know something is wrong when a kindergartner asks: “Mom, can I retire from school?”

Kindergarten has traditionally been a wonderful world of discovery and playful learning. It has been a place where young children grow in their independence, form relationships outside the family circle, and learn about the world around them in a thoughtful and inviting environment.

If you are a regular reader of Empowered by Play, if you have a child in kindergarten right now, or if you are an early childhood educator, you know about the current crisis in early childhood education. The pressures of our high-stakes testing world has encroached dramatically on early childhood classrooms, taking away playful learning and replacing it with incessant assessments and developmentally inappropriate expectations.  I’ve heard from experienced teachers who are leaving the classroom because they can no longer, in good conscience, be a part of a system that is harmful to children. This weekend I heard about a mom whose son is struggling in public preschool. She isn’t sure what is going on, though he has been sent home from school a few times. When the mom asked the teacher what exactly is going on with her son, the teacher admitted that she just didn’t know since she doesn’t have time to talk to her students. The teacher is too busy trying to “get through” all the lessons and assessments she is mandated to keep up with, and revealed that she has a conversation with each child about once a week. Once a week!!!

It truly is time to stop the madness. Read below the recent statement signed by hundreds of early childhood health and education professionals. A deep thanks to the incredible folks at Alliance for Childhood, Ed Miller and Joan Almon, for making this happen. Please check out the Alliance for Childhood website, where a complete list of signers will be available soon. I urge you to help spread the word to parents, teachers, the press and politicians.

Joint Statement of Early Childhood Health and Education Professionals on the Common Core Standards Initiative

Issued by the Alliance for Childhood

March 2, 2010

www.allianceforchildhood.org

We have grave concerns about the core standards for young children now being written by the National Governors Association and the Council of Chief State School Officers. The draft standards made public in January conflict with compelling new research in cognitive science, neuroscience, child development, and early childhood education about how young children learn, what they need to learn, and how best to teach them in kindergarten and the early grades.

We have no doubt that promoting language and mathematics is crucial to closing the achievement gap. As written, however, the proposed standards raise the following concerns:

• Such standards will lead to long hours of instruction in literacy and math. Young children learn best in active, hands-on ways and in the context of meaningful real-life experiences. New research shows that didactic instruction of discrete reading and math skills has already pushed play-based learning out of many kindergartens. But the current proposal goes well beyond most existing state standards in requiring, for example, that every kindergartner be able to write “all upper- and lowercase letters” and “read with sufficient accuracy and fluency to support comprehension.”

• They will lead to inappropriate standardized testing. Current state standards for young children have led to the heavy use of standardized tests in kindergarten and the lower grades, despite their unreliability for assessing children under age eight. The proposed core standards will intensify inappropriate testing in place of broader observational assessments that better serve young children’s needs.

• Didactic instruction and testing will crowd out other important areas of learning. Young children’s learning must go beyond literacy and math. They need to learn about families and communities, to take on challenges, and to develop social, emotional, problem-solving, self-regulation, and perspective-taking skills. Overuse of didactic instruction and testing cuts off children’s initiative, curiosity, and imagination, limiting their later engagement in school and the workplace, not to mention responsible citizenship. And it interferes with the growth of healthy bodies and essential sensory and motor skills—all best developed through playful and active hands-on learning.

• There is little evidence that such standards for young children lead to later success. While an introduction to books in early childhood is vital, research on the links between the intensive teaching of discrete reading skills in kindergarten and later success is inconclusive at best. Many of the countries with top-performing high-school students do not begin formal schooling until age six or seven. We must test these ideas more thoroughly before establishing nationwide policies and practices.

We therefore call on the National Governors Association and the Council of Chief State School Officers to suspend their current drafting of standards for children in kindergarten through grade three.

We further call for the creation of a consortium of early childhood researchers, developmental psychologists, pediatricians, cognitive scientists, master teachers, and school leaders to develop comprehensive guidelines for effective early care and teaching that recognize the right of every child to a healthy start in life and a developmentally appropriate education.

Defne Apul, Assistant Professor of Civil Engineering, University of Toledo, Toledo, OH

Cara Armstrong, Curator of Education, Fallingwater, Mill Run, PA

Ray Bacchetti, Vice President, Planning and Management, Emeritus, Stanford University, Palo Alto, CA

Lyda Beardsley, Director, Child Development Programs, College of Marin, Kentfield, CA

Laura M. Bennett-Murphy, Associate Professor, Psychology, Westminster College, Salt Lake City, UTAlliance for Childhood’s Joint Statement of Early Childhood Health and Education Professionals « Empowered by Play:

Gene V Glass: Education in Two Worlds: "50 Myths" & the Two Worlds of Public Education

Gene V Glass: Education in Two Worlds: "50 Myths" & the Two Worlds of Public Education:

"50 Myths" & the Two Worlds of Public Education

A few people have asked me recently why this blog is called Education in Two Worlds. The reason is because K-12 public education is caught in a political struggle between progressives and conservatives — the "two worlds" — as never before. There are reasons why this is so, and they are the same reasons why Congress is strung up between two worlds and is unable to act, to the chagrin of the vast majority of American voters. In particular, the advent of huge capacity high speed computers and the ready availability of detailed Census data have made the gerrymandering of legislative districts a nightmare for those who believe that politics is the art of compromise. No more: politics has become the art of feeding raw meat to your base so that you can hold onto your seat.Never was the political struggle in education brought home to me more clearly in a personal way than when Peter Smagorinsky published a review of the book that David Berliner and I and our young Associates wrote this year. We are most grateful to Smagorinsky for the care and insight that went into his look at our book.

It was the comments from the public at the Atlanta Journal Constitution web site that provide the stunning example of how far apart the public is on the major policy issues facing K-12 public education. Below, I present a sample:

• So it's all just in our minds. A myth, or a series of them, says Smagorinsky. The stories of dysfunctional classrooms your own children bring to the dinner table, the dumbing down of the curriculum and the second rate test results our nation produces ... are just myths. I think most parents wish the organized resistance to reforms such as charter schools was a myth.
• Thanks for the tip about this book. I will be one who will read it.
• So in your opinion, we should dumb down our standards so that anyone from anywhere can drop into any Georgia school and graduate. I know of a specific case in our hometown where a student was not going to graduate from the public high school. Solution, he transferred to the local private school and surprise, surprise, surprise, he graduated! One size does not fit all. Our community has rampant welfare "participation", the primary growth industry is EBT card acquisition. Our teachers struggle everyday to overcome apathy towards education yet you believe we should be doing the same things as say, Gwinnett County or how about Washington D.C.? Before you jump on the Common Core bandwagon, you might want to investigate where it is heading. I know, you didn't mention Common Core, but that is the matra of the Grand High Socialist and his administration.
• Once again, Dr. Smagorinsky hammers it. Thanks, Dr. S. I've just requested the book through interlibrary loan. I so wish that all who are quick to jump on the charter bandwagon and other such regressive, corporate "reforms" would really search the available literature for Gene V Glass: Education in Two Worlds: "50 Myths" & the Two Worlds of Public Education: