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Friday, June 12, 2015

Special Nite Cap: Catch Up on Today's Post 6/12/15



SPECIAL NITE CAP 

CORPORATE ED REFORM





Union-backed group calls for pause in federal money for charter schools - The Washington Post
Union-backed group calls for pause in federal money for charter schools - The Washington Post: Union-backed group calls for pause in federal money for charter schoolsA labor-backed group is objecting to an U.S. Education Department proposal to expand federal funding for public charter schools, after the agency’s inspector general issued a scathing report that found deficiencies in how the departme
by mike simpson / 3h 
Summit (Sierra) charter school: The skinny on the Gates-backed school set for Seattle, Brad Bernatek (remember him?) and a host of others | Seattle Education
Summit (Sierra) charter school: The skinny on the Gates-backed school set for Seattle, Brad Bernatek (remember him?) and a host of others | Seattle Education: Summit (Sierra) charter school: The skinny on the Gates-backed school set for Seattle, Brad Bernatek (remember him?) and a host of othersBill Gates will be bringing yet another grand experiment onto public school children in Seattle soon in
by mike simpson / 3h 
Governor Cuomo and Public Education: Wall Street, Conservatism, Milton Friedman, and the ‘Third Way’ of Governance | Public Schools Central
Governor Cuomo and Public Education: Wall Street, Conservatism, Milton Friedman, and the ‘Third Way’ of Governance | Public Schools Central: Governor Cuomo and Public Education: Wall Street, Conservatism, Milton Friedman, and the ‘Third Way’ of GovernanceBy Thomas J. FialaI think America, and in particular New Yorkers, need a more exact definition of New York Governor Cuomo when it comes to public
by mike simpson / 4h 
Troubled Ohio charter schools have become a joke — literally - The Washington Post
Troubled Ohio charter schools have become a joke — literally - The Washington Post: Troubled Ohio charter schools have become a joke — literallyYes, some charter schools are great, but others are a mess — especially in Ohio, where academic results across the sector are far worse than in traditional public schools and financial and ethical scandals are more than common. How bad is the problem? The 
by mike simpson / 4h 
Editorial: Who should pay for charter schools? | The Salt Lake Tribune
Editorial: Who should pay for charter schools? | The Salt Lake Tribune: Editorial: Who should pay for charter schools?In public education, charter schools are the disrupters. Designed to be autonomous, charters are public schools overseen by their own boards and the State Office of Education, not local school boards. Free from the constraints of school districts, charters have blazed new trails.No
by mike simpson / 4h 
Happy Loving Day Or, Glad-Not-to-Get-Arrested Day
Happy Loving Day Or, Glad-Not-to-Get-Arrested Day: HAPPY LOVING DAY OR, GLAD-NOT-TO-GET-ARRESTED DAYJune 12 is the anniversary of the day in 1967 that the Supreme Court handed down it’s ruling in Loving vs. Virginia. The ruling declared Virginia’s law prohibiting living with or marrying someone of a different race to be unconstitutional.It’s a great day for my daughter and son-in-law. It’s a great
by mike simpson / 5h 
Kevin Johnson Promotes His Brand By Releasing Personal Logo
Kevin Johnson Promotes His Brand By Releasing Personal Logo: Kevin Johnson Promotes His Brand By Releasing Personal LogoDeadspin recently published a couple of stories alleging that Kevin Johnson’s actions show how eager he is to promote his brand. The latest one actually used the phrase “promote his brand” in the lede. We meant it figuratively. But yesterday, the Sacramento mayor and former NBA s
by mike simpson / 5h 
Class of 2015 Announcement « The National Teacher Hall of Fame
Current News « The National Teacher Hall of Fame: Class of 2015 AnnouncementPosted on March 27, 2015 by admin | Leave a replyCongratulations to the class of 2015 in the National Teachers Hall of Fame!!!!Dr. Patricia Jordan is a retired 9th-12th grade Math teacher with 29 years in Roslyn High School in Roslyn, New York. Click this link to watch a clip of Pat’s Announcement Ceremony!Richard T. Ognib
by mike simpson / 6h 
Q&A: Helen Gym on Vision Zero, Council politics, and how the school funding debate ties into planning | Philadelphia Public School Notebook
Q&A: Helen Gym on Vision Zero, Council politics, and how the school funding debate ties into planning | Philadelphia Public School Notebook: Q&A: Helen Gym on Vision Zero, Council politics, and how the school funding debate ties into planningContinuing the Agenda 2015 series, PlanPhilly will be publishing Q&A's with potential City Council newcomers talking about their views on a range
by mike simpson / 7h 
Arne Duncan’s False Promise To Forgive Debts At For-Profit Schools | PopularResistance.Org
Arne Duncan’s False Promise To Forgive Debts At For-Profit Schools | PopularResistance.Org: Arne Duncan’s False Promise To Forgive Debts At For-Profit Schools“Enforcers for loan sharks don’t give debt holidays to the masses of victims.”Nine state attorneys general urged Education Secretary Arne Duncan to forgive federal loans to students who attended schools currently or formerly owned by Corinthi
by mike simpson / 7h 
Data Smokescreen Covers Up Real Problems in Public Education
Data Smokescreen Covers Up Real Problems in Public Education: Data Smokescreen Covers Up Real Problems in Public EducationLast week, a very distinguished panel convened by the National Research Council published an Evaluation of the Public Schools of the District of Columbia. The report is 341 pages long and cost millions of dollars to produce. What’s most impressive about this evaluation is how v
by mike simpson / 7h 
Why a child poverty target is good education policy - First Focus
Why a child poverty target is good education policy - First Focus: Why a child poverty target is good education policyWhile both the House and Senate continue work on the Elementary and Secondary Education Act (ESEA, the primary federal education legislation), Congressman Danny Davis (D-IL), Congressman Gerry Connolly (D-VA), Congresswoman Barbara Lee (D-CA), and Congressman Elijah Cummings (D-MD)
by mike simpson / 8h 
Common Core Dilemma - Who Owns Our Schools?: Mercedes K. Schneider: 9780807756492: Amazon.com: Books
Common Core Dilemma - Who Owns Our Schools?: Mercedes K. Schneider: 9780807756492: Amazon.com: Books: Common Core Dilemma - Who Owns Our Schools? In her new book, bestselling author Mercedes Schneider provides little-known details about the history of the Common Core State Standards. She lifts the veil on how the Common Core was developed, who was present in the back room, the push to copyright it
by mike simpson / 8h 
Robert Reich Sounds Off On How America Has Failed Its Students
Robert Reich Sounds Off On How America Has Failed Its Students: Robert Reich Sounds Off On How America Has Failed Its StudentsThis story originally appeared on Capital & Main.It’s no secret that former U.S. Labor Secretary Robert Reich has some misgivings about the direction of the American economy. But the prolific writer, radio commentator and longtime University of California, Berkeley prof
by mike simpson / 8h 
Chris Christie Suggests College Students Should Sell Themselves To Investors To Pay Tuition
Chris Christie Suggests College Students Should Sell Themselves To Investors To Pay Tuition: Chris Christie Suggests College Students Should Sell Themselves To Investors To Pay TuitionNew Jersey Gov. Chris Christie (R) spoke about student debt, school choice and teacher accountability at Iowa State University in Ames, Iowa, on Thursday. Christie is expected to announce a presidential run soon.Read
by mike simpson / 8h 
Aiming to set the record straight about 'the Common Core lie' : News
Aiming to set the record straight about 'the Common Core lie' : News: Aiming to set the record straight about 'the Common Core lie'Editorial: Republicans continue to peddle the Common Core lieA conservative Republican might understandably have been confused in reading Post-Dispatch reporter Elisa Crouch’s Thursday story about how Mi… Read moreIn “Republicans continue to peddle the Common Core lie”
by mike simpson / 8h 
The Story Behind The Record-High Graduation Rate : NPR Ed : NPR
The Story Behind The Record-High Graduation Rate : NPR Ed : NPR: The Story Behind The Record-High Graduation RateThe U.S. high school graduation rate was 81 percent in 2013, the most recent year in which federal data are available.In his State of the Union address in January, President Obama had some sure-fire applause lines: "More of our kids are graduating than ever before" and "O
by mike simpson / 9h 
Three wrong-headed ideas driving reform of U.S. teaching force - The Washington Post
Three wrong-headed ideas driving reform of U.S. teaching force - The Washington Post: Three wrong-headed ideas driving reform of U.S. teaching forcePresident Obama and Education Secretary Arne Duncan in 2012. (REUTERS/Yuri Gripas)“When the going gets tough in our wealthy societies, the powers-that-be often choose quick fixes. In search of a silver bullet instead of sustained systemic improvement,
by mike simpson / 9h 
Mayor Bill de Blasio and the American Federation of Teachers hatch new initiative for tech education | Crain's New York Business
Mayor Bill de Blasio and the American Federation of Teachers hatch new initiative for tech education | Crain's New York Business: De Blasio and teachers' union launch tech education initiativeFunded by the American Federation of Teachers' Innovation Fund, the program will support career and technical education in New York and four cities.The American Federation of Teachers is announcing an initiat
by mike simpson / 9h 
Jesse Turner: Still Walking, Five Years Later - Living in Dialogue
Jesse Turner: Still Walking, Five Years Later - Living in Dialogue: Jesse Turner: Still Walking, Five Years LaterBy Anthony Cody.It is a bit hard to recall where we were five years ago, but this re-post might help jog your memory, as it did mine. At the time, my blog had been running for a little less than two years at Education Week, and I had started a project called “Teachers Letters to Obama.”
by mike simpson / 9h 
Accountability of Administration - The Crucial VoiceThe Crucial Voice
Accountability of Administration - The Crucial VoiceThe Crucial Voice: Accountability of AdministrationEach layer of administration in our education system — in schools, on school boards, at the district level, in state’s departments of education and the United States Department of Education — exists for a reason and to serve a purpose. As institutions designed to serve the public need, how are th
by mike simpson / 9h 

YESTERDAY

NEWS: Info on New Orleans Graduation Rates Pre-Katrina | deutsch29
NEWS: Info on New Orleans Graduation Rates Pre-Katrina | deutsch29: NEWS: Info on New Orleans Graduation Rates Pre-KatrinaToday I read a May 2014 post, Charter Schools’ Memory Hole, written by Adam Hubbard Johnson.His piece opens as follows:Pre-Katrina New Orleans graduation numbers are charter school advocates’ exhibit A for reform. One problem: The U.S. and Louisiana Departments of Education say
by mike simpson / 20h 
Special Nite Cap: Catch Up on Today's Post 6/11/15
SPECIAL NITE CAP CORPORATE ED REFORMNewark school leaders seeking indictment of teacher union leader | Bob Braun's LedgerNewark school leaders seeking indictment of teacher union leader | Bob Braun's Ledger: Newark school leaders seeking indictment of teacher union leaderNewark public school officials are seeking the indictment of a top officer of the Newark Teachers Union. They are charging John
by mike simpson / 22h 










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Union-backed group calls for pause in federal money for charter schools - The Washington Post

Union-backed group calls for pause in federal money for charter schools - The Washington Post:

Union-backed group calls for pause in federal money for charter schools






A labor-backed group is objecting to an U.S. Education Department proposal to expand federal funding for public charter schools, after the agency’s inspector general issued a scathing report that found deficiencies in how the department handled federal grants to charter schools between 2008 and 2011.
Among other things, the inspector general discovered some charter schools received federal dollars but never opened their doors to students, and the agency could not say where the money went.
The U.S. Department of Education has given $1.7 billion in grants to charter schools since fiscal 2009, according to an agency spokeswoman. In its budget request for 2016, the administration is seeking $375 million for the program — a 48 percent increase over current funding levels.
[Read the inspector general’s report]
Public charter schools are funded by tax dollars but managed privately and are often not unionized. Duncan has been a strong advocate for charter schools, a position that puts him at odds with teachers unions.
The Alliance to Reclaim Our Schools, which includes the National Education Association, the American Federation of Teachers and the Service Employees International Union, wrote to Duncan on Monday, asking how his agency could seek to expand the charter schools program “despite mounting evidence of significant fraud, waste and abuse within the charter sector, and despite the warnings of your own office of inspector general that federal charter start-up and expansion funds are not adequately monitored or accounted for.”
The inspector general found that the department had been lax in making sure federal dollars were spent in accordance with the law and failed to follow up when others flagged problems. For example, state officials in Florida found “serious deficiencies” in 2008, but it took the federal agency 29 months to react. And when it did, it deemed the Florida problems “resolved,” but the inspector general later found those same problems persisted.
Federal dollars find their way to charter schools through two routes. In most cases, the federal government awards money to a state, and the state hands out grants to charter schools. In some instances, the federal government Union-backed group calls for pause in federal money for charter schools - The Washington Post:
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Summit (Sierra) charter school: The skinny on the Gates-backed school set for Seattle, Brad Bernatek (remember him?) and a host of others | Seattle Education

Summit (Sierra) charter school: The skinny on the Gates-backed school set for Seattle, Brad Bernatek (remember him?) and a host of others | Seattle Education:

Summit (Sierra) charter school: The skinny on the Gates-backed school set for Seattle, Brad Bernatek (remember him?) and a host of others

bill-gates-thinking
Bill Gates will be bringing yet another grand experiment onto public school children in Seattle soon in the form of a charter school “Sierra” which is part of the Summit charter school chain.
The Common Core Standards? On the brink of a major fail.
Merit pay? Bad idea from the beginning. It didn’t work at Microsoft, why should it work with teachers?
Charter schools? Every time we hear the trumpets blow about a charter school that is successful, we find out that there was a lot of behind the scenes shenanigans going on…students being counseled out or expelled if they can’t make the grade, a demand of cash or an inordinate amount of volunteer time required of the parents (see below re: Summit), long application forms that weed out those parents who might not know English, ELL students need not apply, and other parents who don’t have the bandwidth, for whatever reason, to fill out the form.
So let’s look at Summit.
What caught my attention about Summit initially was an article in the Philanthropy News Digest that was sent to me. Here’s an excerpt:
The (Gates) foundation also awarded $4 million to Summit Public Schools and $4.2 million to Green Dot Public Schools, both California-based charter management organizations looking to expand into Washington. Both organizations have been engaging with communities in the western part of the state, where they hope to adapt their existing models to the needs of local communities.
Green Dot Public Schools, both California-based charter management organizations looking to expand into Washington. Both organizations have been engaging with communities in the western part of the state, where they hope to adapt their existing models to the needs of local communities.
So I got on the horn with my fellow edu advocates, writers, activists and educators and received a plethora of information.
These are some of the responses I received.
Regarding Bill Gates and Summit:



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Governor Cuomo and Public Education: Wall Street, Conservatism, Milton Friedman, and the ‘Third Way’ of Governance | Public Schools Central

Governor Cuomo and Public Education: Wall Street, Conservatism, Milton Friedman, and the ‘Third Way’ of Governance | Public Schools Central:

Governor Cuomo and Public Education: Wall Street, Conservatism, Milton Friedman, and the ‘Third Way’ of Governance






By Thomas J. Fiala
I think America, and in particular New Yorkers, need a more exact definition of New York Governor Cuomo when it comes to public schools and education reform. I think that in spite of his supposed political mantle seen by many as a champion of liberal thought and action, when it comes to America’s democratic institution of locally controlled public schools, he is certainly a neoliberal conservative loyalist.   Clearly, Governor Cuomo loves the conservative neoliberal ideas of Milton Friedman when it comes to dismantling America’s democratic institution of public education.   What might even be scarier for those who support locally controlled democratic public schools, is that Cuomo is continuing the tradition of “third way governance” by Democrats begun by the Bill Clinton Administration. As Diane Ravitch stated in a speech in 2014 , “I am absolutely furious that the Democratic Party has merged with the Republican Party around a bipartisan agenda that is actually a Republican agenda.”
Four years earlier in her book The Death and Life of the Great American School System: How Testing and Choice are Undermining Education, Ravitch had explained how “Bill Clinton and the New Democrats championed a ‘third way’ between orthodox politics of the left and the right.” So what is this ‘third way’ of governance, and how does Governor Cuomo, a political clone of this Clintonesque approach to running society and who seems intent on proceeding along the neoliberal path of education reform, go about making his pact with Milton Friedman and the billionaires of corporate Wall Street when it comes to privatizing America’s democratic institution of public education at the expense of Main Street?
If you want to begin to get a simple handle on his notion of the ‘third way’ check out the writing of William Black. As Black explains “Third Way is not a liberal think tank. It’s not even a ‘think tank.’ Third Way (at least in America) is a creature of Wall Governor Cuomo and Public Education: Wall Street, Conservatism, Milton Friedman, and the ‘Third Way’ of Governance | Public Schools Central:
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Troubled Ohio charter schools have become a joke — literally - The Washington Post

Troubled Ohio charter schools have become a joke — literally - The Washington Post:

Troubled Ohio charter schools have become a joke — literally






Yes, some charter schools are great, but others are a mess — especially in Ohio, where academic results across the sector are far worse than in traditional public schools and financial and ethical scandals are more than common. How bad is the problem? The Plain Dealer ran a story this year that started like this:
Ohio, the charter school world is making fun of you.
Ohio’s $1 billion charter school system was the butt of jokes at a conference for reporters on school choice in Denver late last week, as well as the target of sharp criticism of charter school failures across the state.
The shots came from expected critics like teachers unions, but also from pro-charter voices, as the state considers ways to improve how it handles charters …
An example of a joke from the conference: “Be very glad that you have Nevada, so you are not the worst,” charter researcher Margaret “Macke” Raymond said of Ohio. Raymond, from the Hoover Institute at Stanford University, conducts research on charter schools and issued a report late last year that said  Ohio  charter school students learn 36 days less math and 14 days less reading than traditional public school students — conclusions she drew from crunching data obtained from student standardized test scores.
And the bad news just keeps on coming for Ohio charters, also called “community” schools, which in 2013-14 educated more than 120,000 students, or 7 percent of the total public school enrollment in the state. Consider this:
No sector — not local governments, school districts, court systems, public universities or hospitals — misspends tax dollars like charter schools in Ohio.
That’s the first paragraph of a story this month in the Akron Beacon Journalabout the newspaper’s review of 4,263 audits released last year by the state, which says that Ohio  charter schools appear to have misspent public money “nearly four times more often than any other type of taxpayer-funded agency.” It says that “since 2001, state auditors have uncovered $27.3 million improperly spent by charter schools, many run by for-profit companies, enrolling thousands of children and producing academic results that rival the Troubled Ohio charter schools have become a joke — literally - The Washington Post:
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Editorial: Who should pay for charter schools? | The Salt Lake Tribune

Editorial: Who should pay for charter schools? | The Salt Lake Tribune:

Editorial: Who should pay for charter schools?




In public education, charter schools are the disrupters. Designed to be autonomous, charters are public schools overseen by their own boards and the State Office of Education, not local school boards. Free from the constraints of school districts, charters have blazed new trails.
Not all of those trails have led to success, but enough have succeeded that there are 100 charter schools with roughly 10 percent of Utah public-school students. They are now hitting a scale that makes it more difficult to fly under the radar as experimentalists. It seems the disrupters are becoming part of the mainstream, and that is putting charter-school funding on a crash course.
Charter schools receive most of their funding directly from the state, but part of their money comes from the local school districts where their students reside. That makes sense in that it takes away some of the money that would have gone to educate the students in public schools and sends it to the charters that actually do educate them.
But that has set up a taxation-without-representation dynamic. The districts collect the money without any say in how it's spent by charters. That issue is getting new attention because of a legislative change in the funding formula that has some Utah school districts looking at property-tax increases to fund new charter-school expenses. Those increases are sure to bring complaints from property owners.
Charter schools are here to stay. Utah legislators have nurtured them as a challenge to the public-education establishment, and they gave them wide freedom to try out their models. Many have succeeded in cultivating niches and delivering quality educations. Others have failed or fallen victim to for-profit vendors who see opportunity in charters' lack of regulation and some parents' desperation.
There are proposals to fund the schools through a statewide tax. It would be like a 42nd school district (and one of the largest) scattered across the state with 100 or more separate governing boards. Its only accountability to the public would be the state school board, whose members are elected from candidates chosen by the governor. The statewide tax would solve the school districts' taxation problem, but it's not a recipe for responsible government.
The charters have made valuable contributions, but they haven't shifted the paradigm like true disrupters. Public schools also are here to stay, and they operate on a system overseen by locally elected leaders who know the students and the taxpayers. We shouldn't undermine that on the hope something better will emerge.Editorial: Who should pay for charter schools? | The Salt Lake Tribune:



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Happy Loving Day Or, Glad-Not-to-Get-Arrested Day

Happy Loving Day Or, Glad-Not-to-Get-Arrested Day:

HAPPY LOVING DAY OR, GLAD-NOT-TO-GET-ARRESTED DAY

my family


June 12 is the anniversary of the day in 1967 that the Supreme Court handed down it’s ruling in Loving vs. Virginia. The ruling declared Virginia’s law prohibiting living with or marrying someone of a different race to be unconstitutional.
It’s a great day for my daughter and son-in-law. It’s a great day for my wife and me. 
inter-racial marriage
Mildred and Richard Loving, arrested in Virginia in 1958 for being married.
We are reminded once again that not long ago there were several states that had laws that would have made it illegal for us to be married. In fact, if those laws were still in effect, we could have been jailed the day of our marriage.
So, for us, it’s glad-not-to-get-arrested day.
Virginia was not the only state with such a law. The decision forced a whole swath of the U.S. to stop the massive hypocrisy of dominant white culture that outlawed the commitment of marriage, but looked the other way when it came to sex between races on the down-low.
Here is the description from the Encyclopedia Virginia:
In Loving v. Virginia, decided on June 12, 1967, the U.S. Supreme Court unanimously struck down Virginia’s law prohibiting interracial marriages as a violation of the Fourteenth Amendment. The appellants, Richard and Mildred Loving, of Caroline County, had married in Washington, D.C., in June 1958 and then returned to Virginia, where they were arrested. After pleading guilty, they were forced to leave the state. The American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) filed motions and appeals on their behalf beginning in 1963, and after the Virginia Supreme Court of Appeals ruled against the Lovings in 1966, the U.S. Supreme Court heard their arguments.
Virginia’s laws were especially detailed since the state, once a colony, and one of the first to start importing African slaves, had compiled laws regulating racial definitions and marriage for nearly 300 years.
That’s why the ACLU decided to use the situation of Richard and Happy Loving Day Or, Glad-Not-to-Get-Arrested Day:

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Kevin Johnson Promotes His Brand By Releasing Personal Logo

Kevin Johnson Promotes His Brand By Releasing Personal Logo:

Kevin Johnson Promotes His Brand By Releasing Personal Logo




Deadspin recently published a couple of stories alleging that Kevin Johnson’s actions show how eager he is to promote his brand. The latest one actually used the phrase “promote his brand” in the lede. We meant it figuratively. 
But yesterday, the Sacramento mayor and former NBA star made us look smarter than we deserve. Artistic Liquid, a California-based design outfit that boasts having built brands for clients including Justin Bieber, Teen Mania Ministries, and the Specimen Specialists of America, unveiled a series of logos it produced for and with Johnson.
“We worked with Sacramento’s Mayor & former NBA All-Star Kevin Johnson to build an identity mark for his personal brand recognition,” Artistic Liquid announced. The featured graphic of the group of eight designs is a royal blue K next to a slightly larger royal blue J. There’s also a design with “Kevin Johnson” over the catchphrase he uses in speeches (“A City That Works for Everyone”) and several showing a silhouette of the state capitol building. 

There is no mention of Sacramento anywhere in the designs. 
Sacramento spokesman Ben Sosenko did not respond immediately to questions about whether taxpayer funds were used to help with Johnson’s “personal brand recognition.” As Artistic Liquid was introducing his logos, Johnson was in Hartford, Conn., talking up charter schools.Kevin Johnson Promotes His Brand By Releasing Personal Logo:
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Class of 2015 Announcement « The National Teacher Hall of Fame

Current News « The National Teacher Hall of Fame:



Class of 2015 Announcement

Posted on March 27, 2015 by  | Leave a reply
Congratulations to the class of 2015 in the National Teachers Hall of Fame!!!!
Jordan
Dr. Patricia Jordan is a retired 9th-12th grade Math teacher with 29 years in Roslyn High School in Roslyn, New York. Click this link to watch a clip of Pat’s Announcement Ceremony!

Ognibene
Richard T. Ognibene is a 10th-12th grade Regents Chemistry and Physics teacher with 28 years in Fairport High School in Fairport, New York. Click this link to watch Rich’s Announcement Ceremony!

Rippe
Susan M. Rippe is a 11-12th Grade Science teacher with 24 years experience in the Olathe Northwest High School in Olathe, Kansas.  Click this link to watch a clip of Sue’s Announcement Ceremony!

Ben Talley
Ben Talley is a 4th-5th grade Science teacher with 24 years experience in the Van Pelt Elementary School in Bristol, Virginia. Click this link to read some of the press coverage of Ben’s Big day!


Tennis
Brigitte Tennis is a 7th-10th grade all subjects teacher with 32 years in the Stella Schola Middle School in Redmond, Washington.

We are proud to welcome these five outstanding educators into the the elite group of educators. We are honored to have you.Current News « The National Teacher Hall of Fame:

NEA Congratulates 2015 National Teacher Hall of Fame Inductees
NEA President Lily Eskelsen García: Inductees “have made student learning their top priority”

WASHINGTON—The National Teachers Hall of Fame will induct five teachers into its class of 2015 during its 24th annual induction celebration today in Emporia, Kansas.

“Theseimpressive inductees represent the exceptional educators who inspire a love of learning in our nation’s children,” said NEA President Lily EskelsenGarcía. “They have made student learning their top priority by finding creative and effective ways to engage their students.”
The 2015 National Teachers Hall of Fame inductees are:
·         Dr. Patricia Jordan is a retired teacher from Roslyn High School in Roslyn, New York. With 29 years of classroom experience, she taught 9th-12th grade mathematics.
·         Richard Ognibene teaches 10th-12th grade Regents Chemistry and Physics at Fairport High School in Fairport, New York. Now in his 28th year of teaching, Ognibene  received the 2002 American Chemical Society Teacher of the Year Award and the 2006 Fairport High School Crystal Apple Award for excellence in teaching.
·         Susan Rippe is a college biology teacher at Olathe Northwest High School in Olathe, Kansas. With 32 years of teaching experience, Rippe also taught 10th grade students in aerospace and engineering chemistry. In 2000 she received the Kansas Teacher of the Year award.
·         Ben Talley teaches science at Van Pelt Elementary School in Bristol, Virginia. With 24 years of teaching experience, Talley is also an author of several books, including “The Game My Father Taught Me”.
·         Brigitte Tennis teaches 7th-10th graders in all subjects at Stella Schola Middle School in Redmond, Washington. With 32 years of teaching experience, Tennis is the founder and head teacher of Stella Schola. She has been acknowledged as a distinguished educator in Who’s Who For American Teachers in 1998, 2002, 2004, 2005 and 2006.
The NTHF was founded in 1989. The organization is dedicated to promoting education and drawing public attention to amazing educators in the U.S. through the induction program, a museum, and resource center. Located on the Emporia State University campus, the Hall of Fame includes a gallery of honored teachers, a Wall of Fame, teacher contracts, old school desks, antique textbooks and a display of classroom miniatures among other fascinating artifacts.
The first NTHF induction took place in 1992. Since then, 75 educators from 32 states and the District of Columbia have been inducted into the Hall of Fame.
“Congratulations, and thank you, to these amazing educators,” said Eskelsen García.

For more information on the National Teacher Hall of Fame and this year’s inductees visit www.nthf.org

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Q&A: Helen Gym on Vision Zero, Council politics, and how the school funding debate ties into planning | Philadelphia Public School Notebook

Q&A: Helen Gym on Vision Zero, Council politics, and how the school funding debate ties into planning | Philadelphia Public School Notebook:

Q&A: Helen Gym on Vision Zero, Council politics, and how the school funding debate ties into planning





Continuing the Agenda 2015 series, PlanPhilly will be publishing Q&A's with potential City Council newcomers talking about their views on a range of city planning and built environment topics. For the first interview, we spoke with Helen Gym about her thoughts on tax reform, the 10-year tax abatement, and the politics of street safety.
PlanPhilly: It was surprising to see how different the Council challengers were who ended up breaking through this year. How was your path to victory different from some of the others?
Helen Gym: For each of the At-Large races, knowing the electorate was going to be the same as it usually is, you could pull out your own path to victory. And so just because Allan Domb got elected, that doesn't have anything to do with my race. For Derek Green and I, I think someone did an analysis of our races and we got completely different voters. Every place that Derek did really well, I did not do that well. Everywhere that I did well, he did very poorly. I think it shows you that you can actually win if you understand your own path. In the at-large races, I think you can do something a little bit different. I find it interesting how this race did and didn't reinforce some of the traditional conceptions of how people win. Derek Green won with the number one ballot position, and I won with number seventeen. Allan Domb won with sick amounts of money, but I ran a grassroots campaign and won my first time at this.
PP: You had some interesting points about Vision Zero during the campaign, particularly the opportunities for political movement-building around that from your position on Council. Why is that issue important to you?.
HG: For me, I relate to Vision Zero because of how I look at issues of immigration, poverty and connecting folks. And I think that the more the Vision Zero concept [a cross-agency education, enforcement, and design effort to cut traffic deaths in half over 4 years] moves off paper and moves into the lived experiences of people who need to have a safe and connected city, the more powerful it's going to be. There’s 33% of Philadelphians who don’t own a car for example. And there are more young people biking, and immigrants who use bikes. Especially in a city in which many undocumented people don’t have driver’s licenses, it matters to have a policy that overlaps and engages with a diverse range of communities and fits within their experiences. That’s how policies come to life, and I try to look at Vision Zero from that perspective.
PP: So the policy change feeds back into the politics. The groups you mentioned--younger voters and immigrants--seem to be on the upswing over time, in terms of their share of the population, but they also tend to vote at lower rates.
HG: Well I know there’s been a concerted effort to change that - to engage and to continue to politically mobilize our communities. And the challenge now that we’re past Election Day is making sure that people aren't just voting. I see opportunities for political engagement of communities that have been long marginalized and silenced within the city going well beyond electoral politics. It’s really got to be about broader political civic engagement, and that’s just a different level than getting people to come out for an election.
I really appreciated Vision Zero because there was the potential to have a solid policy rooted in data and analysis. And the really exciting aspect of it is connecting it with the experiences of communities that can make that effort take off, and take off within diverse communities. So Vision Zero can be an anti-poverty initiative. It can be an immigrant Q&A: Helen Gym on Vision Zero, Council politics, and how the school funding debate ties into planning | Philadelphia Public School Notebook:
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Arne Duncan’s False Promise To Forgive Debts At For-Profit Schools | PopularResistance.Org

Arne Duncan’s False Promise To Forgive Debts At For-Profit Schools | PopularResistance.Org:

Arne Duncan’s False Promise To Forgive Debts At For-Profit Schools






“Enforcers for loan sharks don’t give debt holidays to the masses of victims.”

Nine state attorneys general urged Education Secretary Arne Duncan to forgive federal loans to students who attended schools currently or formerly owned by Corinthian Colleges. | Andrew Burton via Getty Images
Arne Duncan, President Obama’s Secretary of Education, claims his department is prepared to forgive the debts of thousands of students who attended the Corinthian Colleges, the for-profit rip-off conglomerate that filed for bankruptcy last month. Duncan chose his words carefully, claiming that the federal government is putting together a process that would forgive the loans of any student who can show that she had been defrauded by any college – Coriinthian or some other school.
Duncan is, of course, lying. His own department estimates it would cost as much as $3.5 billion to provide debt relief to the 350,000 students that have had the misfortune to attend Corinthian schools over the past five years. And Corinthian wasn’t the top dog in the for-profit education scam. Phoenix University, owned by the huge Apollo chain of con artists, had an enrollment of 600,000 five years ago, and still processes the checks of a quarter million victims a year. Forgiving the debts of all the students that have been victimized by the for-profit college industry would cost many tens of billions of dollars – far more than what’s left of the nation’s welfare program. We know that Arne Duncan was making no such commitment on behalf of an administration that loves austerity just as much as the Republicans do.
Arne Duncan is lying when he says the administration will hold for-profit colleges “accountable.” These criminal enterprises are creatures of the federal government. The for-profit school industry has no reason to exist except to suck up federal education moneys while destroying the hopes and credit of desperate, largely Black and brown people. The Education Department acts as the bill collector for the industry, enforcing the terms of student debt. Enforcers for loan sharks don’t give debt holidays to the masses of victims.
“The for-profit education industry will be protected.”
Arne Duncan’s boss, President Obama, knows that the $1.2 trillion national student debt looms as a huge campaign issue, and that his political soul-mate, Hillary Clinton, will need every Black and brown vote to win in 2016. They know that a new movement is emerging, energized by young people who are especially outraged at the astronomical cost of Arne Duncan’s False Promise To Forgive Debts At For-Profit Schools | PopularResistance.Org:
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