Big Education Ape: Special Nite Cap: Catch Up on Today's Post 4/20/15

Special Nite Cap - Catch Up on Today's Post 4/20/15

Special Nite Cap 

CORPORATE ED REFORM

Teachers’ Unions Reasserting Themselves With Push Against Standardized Testing - NYTimes.com

Teachers’ Unions Reasserting Themselves With Push Against Standardized Testing - NYTimes.com: Teachers’ Unions Reasserting Themselves With Push Against Standardized Testing In Florida, the teachers’ union has lobbied to limit the use of standardized tests, and the governor last week signed a bill that limits the number of hours students can spend taking them.The union in New Jersey financed an adv

1 by mike simpson / 1h 

Union-backed report looks at Success Academy donors | Capital New York

Union-backed report looks at Success Academy donors | Capital New York: Union-backed report looks at Success Academy donors An advocacy group affiliated with the Alliance for Quality Education, a teachers' union-backed organization, has released a report on the donors and board members of the Success Academy charter school network.The report, released by the group HedgeClippers, details the well-d

1 by mike simpson / 2h 

The Day I Met Jeb Bush, and Why He Earns an F in Education

The Day I Met Jeb Bush, and Why He Earns an F in Education: The Day I Met Jeb Bush, and Why He Earns an F in EducationAPRIL 20, 2015 BY NANCY BAILEY LEAVE A COMMENTYears ago I met Jeb Bush under rather unusual circumstances. It was before he was governor and during the time his father was running for President. When I met him I liked him. He struck me as a genuine person. Unfortunately, today, lik

1 by mike simpson / 3h 

City Council candidates' views on education: Helen Gym | Philadelphia Public School Notebook

City Council candidates' views on education: Helen Gym | Philadelphia Public School Notebook:City Council candidates' views on education: Helen GymOn May 19, Philadelphians will hit the polls to winnow the field of City Council at-large candidates. Out of 28 declared candidates, only seven will be elected in November (including at least two from a minority party). Each party can run five candidate

1 by mike simpson / 4h 

No opt out: Are schools forgetting it is parents who are in charge? | Wisconsin Daily Independent

No opt out: Are schools forgetting it is parents who are in charge? | Wisconsin Daily Independent: No opt out: Are schools forgetting it is parents who are in charge?  Common Core has rightfully started becoming a hot topic of discussion around the water cooler among many parents across the state. For those who might not hang out at the water cooler, Common Core is a set of language arts (reading,

1 by mike simpson / 4h 

Garfield High School Teacher Heather Robison’s Conscientious Test Objector Declaration | I AM AN EDUCATOR

Garfield High School Teacher Heather Robison’s Conscientious Test Objector Declaration | I AM AN EDUCATOR: Garfield High School Teacher Heather Robison’s Conscientious Test Objector DeclarationBy I AM AN EDUCATOR on April 20, 2015Today marks the first day scheduled for Common Core testing, such as it is, at Seattle’s Garfield High School. As I reported last week, Garfield educators were debating a

1 by mike simpson / 4h 

What Hillary Clinton said about the Common Core State Standards - The Washington Post

What Hillary Clinton said about the Common Core State Standards - The Washington Post: What Hillary Clinton said about the Common Core State StandardsHillary Clinton arrives for a roundtable discussion with students and educators at the Kirkwood Community College Jones County Regional Center on April 14 in Monticello, Iowa.  (Justin Sullivan/Getty Images)Hillary Clinton, the only declared Democrat

1 by mike simpson / 4h 

How is CCSA’s Ref Rodriguez hiding his billionaire and ideologue contributors?

How is CCSA’s Ref Rodriguez hiding his billionaire and ideologue contributors?:How is CCSA’s Ref Rodriguez hiding his billionaire and ideologue contributors?APRIL 20, 2015 BY ROBERT D. SKEELS * RDSATHENE LEAVE A COMMENT“In the long run, charter schools are being strategically used to pave the way for vouchers. The voucher advocates, who are very powerful and funded by right-wing foundations and fa

1 by mike simpson / 4h 

It's all about the tests to "It's All About The Bass" by Meghan Trainor - YouTube

It's all about the tests to "It's All About The Bass" by Meghan Trainor - YouTube: It's all about the tests to "It's All About The Bass" by Meghan Trainor What's a little civil disobedience without a protest song. I'm not anti-testing. I'm against poor assessments. Hope you enjoy!LyricsBecause it's all about the tests, bout the testsNot Students.It's all about the tests, bout t

3 by mike simpson / 4h 

Feds eye CPS records on education group backed by state's, city's elites - Chicago Tribune

Feds eye CPS records on education group backed by state's, city's elites - Chicago Tribune:Feds eye CPS records on education group backed by state's, city's elites Federal corruption investigators looking into a $20.5 million no-bid contract at Chicago Public Schools also have asked for any records related to an elite nonprofit education group that has long been at the center of city school reform

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Louisiana Educator: Pink Unicorn Gimmick Backfiring

Louisiana Educator: Pink Unicorn Gimmick Backfiring: Pink Unicorn Gimmick BackfiringLast week a big business PAC, called Alliance for Better Classrooms, chaired by Dan Juneau, the former president of LABI and funded primarily by businessman Lane Grigsby and out of state donors delivered stuffed pink unicorns to the desks of all legislators. The message included a note to legislators that purported

1 by mike simpson / 4h 

NYC Educator: Standardized Testing Your Way to Equality

NYC Educator: Standardized Testing Your Way to Equality: Standardized Testing Your Way to EqualityStandardized testing is the Civil Rights issue of our time.  How do I know?  I heard it from Kati Haycock, president of the Education Trust and Wade Henderson, chief executive of the Leadership Conference on Civil and Human Rights.  Henderson conveniently lobbies for tests as he sits on the board of t

1 by mike simpson / 4h 

Some Dissection of the Latest Credo Study on Charter Schools | Educate All Students

Larry Miller's Blog: Educate All Students! | Educate All Students: Some Dissection of the Latest Credo Study on Charter SchoolsFiled under: Charter Schools — millerlf @ 5:13 pm The recent CREDO (Center for Research on Educational Outcomes) report comparing charter schools and traditional public schools has been described by charter proponents as deciding proof of charter superiority. Blogger Derek

1 by mike simpson / 4h 

New interactive game puts you in the shoes of today’s educators

New interactive game puts you in the shoes of today’s educators: New interactive game puts you in the shoes of today’s educatorsMONDAY, APRIL 20TH, 2015 AT 8:37 AMIn conjunction with the PBS film 180 Days: Hartsville, Black Public Media is sharing an interactive game in which players can become either a teacher, a parent or a principal, and assume responsibility for a class full of 5th graders (or

1 by mike simpson / 4h 

Schools Matter: Husband of John Deasy confidant, Jamie Alter Lynton, cashed in big on Pearson PLC's LAUSD iPad Deal

Schools Matter: Husband of John Deasy confidant, Jamie Alter Lynton, cashed in big on Pearson PLC's LAUSD iPad Deal: Husband of John Deasy confidant, Jamie Alter Lynton, cashed in big on Pearson PLC's LAUSD iPad DealFrom: "Robert D. Skeels" <***@ucla.edu>Subject: RepairsNOTiPad's alert: Husband of Deasy confidant, Jamie Alter Lynton, cashed in big on Pearson PLCDate: April 19, 2015 at

1 by mike simpson / 4h 

Teach students to care about others instead of measuring how they compare to each other | WagTheDog

Teach students to care about others instead of measuring how they compare to each other | WagTheDog: Teach students to care about others instead of measuring how they compare to each otherIf you just learn a single trick, Scout, you’ll get along a lot better with all kinds of folks. You never really understand a person until you consider things from his point of view…Until you climb inside of his

by mike simpson / 4h 

Way out of touch and also out of their minds - Times Union

Way out of touch and also out of their minds - Times Union: Way out of touch and also out of their minds  New York politicians beware. A revolution is in progress.This past week angry and frustrated parents across the state kept their third- through eighth-graders in astounding numbers from taking required but despised standardized English tests. While the final count awaits a State Education Depa

by mike simpson / 4h 

Why the iPad Is Not Working for the School Classroom

Why the iPad Is Not Working for the School Classroom: Why the iPad Is Not Working for the School ClassroomThe Los Angeles Unified School District is looking to recoup millions of dollars that it spent on iPads and the curriculum provided with them, according to Howard Blume reporting for The Los Angeles Times. The Board of Education authorized its attorneys to explore possible litigation against A

1 by mike simpson / 4h 

Can Los Angeles Teachers Push Back the Corporate Education Reform Movement? - In These Times

Can Los Angeles Teachers Push Back the Corporate Education Reform Movement? - In These Times: Can Los Angeles Teachers Push Back the Corporate Education Reform Movement?LA teachers seem to be taking a page from the Chicago Teachers Union—including potentially building towards a strike.In July 2014, two weeks after Alex Caputo-Pearl took over the presidency of United Teachers Los Angeles (UTLA), he

1 by mike simpson / 4h 

Mayoral control of schools worked for New York City, but other poor districts haven’t been so lucky - City & Region - The Buffalo News

Mayoral control of schools worked for New York City, but other poor districts haven’t been so lucky - City & Region - The Buffalo News: Mayoral control of schools worked for New York City, but other poor districts haven’t been so luckySince New York City’s mayor took control over public schools in 2002:On-time graduation rates have risen to the highest point in a decade.Dropout rates have fall

1 by mike simpson / 4h 

Atlanta teachers should have been cut some slack - The Ada News: Columns

Atlanta teachers should have been cut some slack - The Ada News: Columns: Atlanta teachers should have been cut some slackBy Loné Beasley, publisher, The Ada NewsEight teachers in Atlanta, Georgia’s school system were sentenced last week to one to seven years in prison. One got off easier with what amounts to a year of in-home detention and five years’ probation, according to National Public Radio

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YESTERDAY

New Orleans Recovery School District (RSD) Proponents Now Offer a Disclaimer | deutsch29

New Orleans Recovery School District (RSD) Proponents Now Offer a Disclaimer | deutsch29: New Orleans Recovery School District (RSD) Proponents Now Offer a DisclaimerCorporate-reform-supporting proponents of the state-run Recovery School District (RSD) in New Orleans are not known for delivering messages of “caution” regarding the success of the now-100-percent charter district.What they have mana

1 by mike simpson / 23h 

Big Education Ape: Special Nite Cap: Catch Up on Today's Post 4/19/15

Special Nite Cap - Catch Up on Today's Post 4/19/15Special Nite Cap CORPORATE ED REFORMIs it too late to shut Cami down and save Newark public schools? | Bob Braun's LedgerIs it too late to shut Cami down and save Newark public schools? | Bob Braun's Ledger: Is it too late to shut Cami down and save Newark public schools? The state-operated Newark public school system faces a deficit of from $50 m

2 by mike simpson / 23h 

2015 National Conference – Chicago

The Countdown to Chicago Has Begun!

The Network For Public Education | 2015 National Conference – Chicago 

http://bit.ly/1FQFcQM

Teachers’ Unions Reasserting Themselves With Push Against Standardized Testing - NYTimes.com

Teachers’ Unions Reasserting Themselves With Push Against Standardized Testing - NYTimes.com:

Teachers’ Unions Reasserting Themselves With Push Against Standardized Testing

 In Florida, the teachers’ union has lobbied to limit the use of standardized tests, and the governor last week signed a bill that limits the number of hours students can spend taking them.

The union in New Jersey financed an advertising campaign in which a grim-faced father talks about his son crying because of tests.

And in New York, where local unions have worked closely with parent groups that oppose testing, the president of the state union went so far as to urge parents to opt out of the annual tests, which began last week.

After several years in which teachers’ unions have been hammered on the issue of tenure, have lost collective bargaining rights in some states and have seen their evaluations increasingly tied to student scores, they have begun, with some success, to reassert themselves using a bread-and-butter issue: the annual tests given to elementary and middle school students in every state.

The teachers’ push on testing comes as Congress is debating how to revise the 2001 No Child Left Behind law, which requires that schools demonstrate annual progress on test scores and prescribed measures for schools deemed failing, from mandatory tutoring to closing. Lawmakersare considering a bill that removes the most punitive consequences for schools and makes clear that states do not have to use test scores to evaluate teachers.

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Karen E. Magee, president of New York State United Teachers, has urged parents to opt out of annual testing for their children. CreditNathaniel Brooks for The New York Times

rallies; petition drives; showings of “Standardized,” a documentary critical of testing; and sessions telling parents they have a right to keep their children from taking tests, as tens of thousands of parents around the country have done.

“Does it give us a platform?” said Karen E. Magee, the president of the New York State United Teachers. “Absolutely.”

Her union began agitating more vocally against testing after Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo, denouncing an evaluation system in which 96 percent of teachers received good ratings, proposed increasing the weight of test scores in teacher evaluations. The union argued that it was not fair to make test scores so big a part of a teacher’s rating because many factors outside the classroom can influence scores.

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In an anti-testing ad paid for by the New Jersey Education Association, a teachers union, a father talks about his son crying because of tests.

Although the State Legislature ultimately settled on a compromise, the union seemed to win the public relations battle. Polls found that more voters sided with the teachers’ union over education policies than with Mr. Cuomo.

Ms. Magee urged parents to opt out of the tests to subvert the rating system, though state education officials said districts would have to come up with alternative methods of evaluating teachers who did not have enough test scores.

The union followed up with robocalls to its members, encouraging those with children in the grades that take the tests, third through eighth, to keep their own children out of the exams.

Although official numbers have not yet been released, it is likely that many more parents in New York State are keeping their children out of the tests than did last year, particularly in wealthy suburbs and neighborhoods of New York City. One advocacy group estimated, based on news and parent reports and information from local officials, that more than 150,000 students, or more than 15 percent of the testing grades, sat out the English exams last week. The math exams are being given this week.

Some education officials have tried to rein in teachers who have advocated for opting out. In Rochester, a district official asked principals to identify teachers who had sent emails or made phone calls to parents encouraging them to opt out, or who “you have evidence as utilizing their classrooms as ‘political soapboxes.’” The Florida education commissioner warned that “certain willful opt-out behaviors may warrant disciplinary action” against teachers.

Around the country, individual union leaders are approaching the issue with varying levels of fervor. Lily Eskelsen Garcia, president of the National Education Association, and Randi Weingarten, president of the other major teachers’ group, the American Federation of Teachers, say they support parents’ right to opt their children out of standardized tests but have not gone as far as Ms. Magee and some local chapters in encouraging parents to do so.

In Kentucky, where the education commissioner has said parents do not Teachers’ Unions Reasserting Themselves With Push Against Standardized Testing - NYTimes.com:

Union-backed report looks at Success Academy donors | Capital New York

Union-backed report looks at Success Academy donors | Capital New York:

Union-backed report looks at Success Academy donors

 An advocacy group affiliated with the Alliance for Quality Education, a teachers' union-backed organization, has released a report on the donors and board members of the Success Academy charter school network.

The report, released by the group HedgeClippers, details the well-documented support the controversial network has received from hedge fund managers in particular. HedgeClippers describes itself as "dark money's newest nightmare" and is backed by the Strong Economy for all Coalition, which is, in turn, partially funded by teachers' unions, including the United Federation of Teachers and New York State United Teachers. 

The report argues that "many of Success Academy’s hedge fund board members contribute to political causes that harm the population that Success claims to serve" by supporting various conservative causes.

The report singles out Success board member Charles Strauch, who has served as chairman of several technology companies, and runs a blog called "America's Greatness Under Attack from Within." The blog is highly critical of the Obama administration and bills itself as a forum for discussing America's greatness, including "politically conservative views represented here by a growing segment of blacks who dislike being portrayed as victims by their fellow blacks."

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The report also includes a list of 50 hedge fund managers, spouses, affiliates who are associated with Success. 

A spokeswoman for Success did not respond to requests for comment on the report. 

Teachers' unions and their affiliates have focused much of their criticism about large charter networks on the network's wealthy donors. 

Success C.E.O. Eva Moskowitz has responded to criticism about the network's donors by pointing to the long history of philanthropic giving to education causes, and noting that hedge fund managers also give to organizations that support parks, museums and domestic violence centers.

"To make a whole issue and a whole conspiracy theory around people who are generous and feel that education should be a human right and a civil right is most unfortunate," Moskowitz said during an appearance on the "Brian Lehrer Show" last month. 

Success is holding its fourth annual spring benefit at Cipriani in Midtown on Monday night. Last year, the network raised $7.75 million at the event, which is closed to press.

Read the full report here: http://bit.ly/1bdzv3C

Union-backed report looks at Success Academy donors | Capital New York:

The Day I Met Jeb Bush, and Why He Earns an F in Education:

The Day I Met Jeb Bush, and Why He Earns an F in Education

APRIL 20, 2015 BY NANCY BAILEY LEAVE A COMMENT

Years ago I met Jeb Bush under rather unusual circumstances. It was before he was governor and during the time his father was running for President. When I met him I liked him. He struck me as a genuine person. Unfortunately, today, like he grades public schools, I’d give him an F in education. There are other concerns I would have with him being President, but I will stick with education.

At the time, my husband and I were looking for a place to live in Tallahassee. We spotted a modest house for sale in a quiet section of a nice neighborhood. We met the realtor and began our walk through the house. Everything seemed normal, until we entered the living room. There were many lovely pictures of the Bush family, and I said, “These folks must really like the Bushes.” The realtor replied, “The house belongs to Jeb Bush.”

This struck me as unique. The house was nice but not fancy. I felt like I was trespassing. My husband was not fazed and proceeded to turn faucets on and off and look for leaks et cetera. Unlike other houses we’d looked at, I didn’t peek in closets. I didn’t think it polite.

After going through the house, the realtor guided us into a homey family room. Jeb was watching, golf, I think, and he jumped up and shook our hands. He wasn’t at all pretentious. I remember telling him my grandmother was Republican and would be voting for his father. He laughed and said “GOOD!” Then my husband talked with him more about the house, and Jeb said that he’d include a rider lawn mower. I thought that was nice of him.

Well, we didn’t buy the house, not that it wasn’t nice or that we didn’t appreciate the possibility of a rider lawn mower. It didn’t have the right floorplan for us and it was a bit too expensive.

A few years later, Jeb became Governor. I would have liked to cheer him on, but little by little I realized I didn’t like his education ideas. By then, as a teacher, I had pretty good insight into school problems. And I had developed research skills as a graduate student in education at FSU.

Why would I give him an F? Well first and foremost, Mr. Bush and his Foundation of Education Excellence and Chiefs for Change base reforms on ideology and not legitimate research.

For everything from Common Core State Standards, to grading schools, to retention, to The Day I Met Jeb Bush, and Why He Earns an F in Education: