Catch up with CURMUDGUCATION: TX: Education Savings Accounts & Vouchers 2.0 + Reading Reformsters

CURMUDGUCATION:

Catch up with CURMUDGUCATION

TX: Education Savings Accounts & Vouchers 2.0

63by Peter Greene / 1d

Yesterday the Dallas News gave Mack Morris "Special Contributor" some space to plug Education Savings Accounts. ESAs are often called another way to do vouchers, but they are actually worse. Still, folks can be excused for misunderstanding-- the Dallas News includes headline art of a cap-and-gowned woman holding a giant $100 bill, suggesting that even the Dallas News has confused vouchery ESAs wit

DEC 29

Reading Reformsters

13by Peter Greene / 1d

Earlier this week I created a big ol' reading list of edubloggers . Today, I'm going to offer a supplement-- a list of recommendations to read from the Other Side. Not all reformsters can be taken seriously. Some are simply PR hacks, doing their best to sell a product and doing it badly. Some are blindly attached to their product, either because they have limited vision, because they don't bother

Life Is Too Short

100+by Peter Greene / 1d

2016 is not winning any kind of popularity contest lately. The list of celebrity deaths is staggering; I thought maybe we were all just over-reacting so I looked at lists from previous years and, no, this year really does carry an extra celebrity death punch. But of course, people die every day. This week, while we were reeling form the loss of Carrie Fisher and Debbie Reynolds, two of my old frie

Just Say It

100+by Peter Greene / 1d

Fox News suggests that we might want to get rid of the food stamp program because fraud is at an " all time high ." Never mind that this amounts to 0.09% of the food stamp program , that there are far greater money-wasters in DC, or that this isn't even close to an all-time high (or actually fraud). It's at moments like this that I just want to holler at my screen, "For the love of God, just say i

DEC 28

Dear Doug1943

70by Peter Greene / 2d

A commenter at Diane Ravitch's asked a question which I think, if nothing else, probably represents the thinking of a lot of folks out there. Ravitch who is "taking a break" (which generally means she's only posting a dozen times a day instead of a hundred) asked for replies, so here's mine. First, Doug1943's question: I think the problem is this: the people opposing allowing people to escape from

Summit- Zuckerberg's Bad CBE Idea

24by Peter Greene / 2d

Mark Zuckerberg was still stinging from his experience wasting $100 million on Newark's bad reform ideas, but three years ago he decided to throw some more money at education-- only this time he would supposedly pick something that was already working. So for three years, Zuckerberg has been using his mountain of money to pump up Summit Public [sic] Schools [sic] . When Zuckerberg toured the Bay-a

Understanding or Winning?

24by Peter Greene / 3d

You've had that student in class. You're going over the answers to some simple quiz, and the hand goes up, and you hear something like, "But what could have happened is that Della actually hit her head and had temporary amnesia, so she didn't know that she was a girl and she got her hair cut short because she thought she was a man and she actually bought the watch strap for herself because she tho

DEC 27

Read These Writers

100+by Peter Greene / 3d

There are a lot of good people in the edublogosphere, and if you've made it to this blog, you probably know many of them already. But for those of you just getting into the business, here's a quick reference list of some of my favorites with a capsule over-simplified explanation. Do sample and read and share-- amplifying voices is one way to make your point in the world. I could try to organize th

Vouchers-- The Religious School Windfall

100+by Peter Greene / 3d

School vouchers are one of the great zombie ideas of education, a shambling mess that simply won't die. Some attempts have even been ruled unconstitutional (see the privatizing heaven of Florida and North Carolina, America's Armpit), but that does not stop some folks from dreaming of more voucher programs, and we should probably pay attention, because one of those folks is Education Secretary-in-W

DEC 26

Is Common Core Gaining Ground with Teachers?

28by Peter Greene / 4d

In October, a bit over 500 registered readers of the EdWeek website took a survey about the Core . The results from these elementary, middle and high school teachers are not earth-shattering, but we might tease a few conclusions out. You want me to do what??!! First, it's worth noting that using EdWeek registered readers means a certain amount of self-selected bias. While I'm not particularly put

Privatized Freedom

53by Peter Greene / 5d

Joseph Natoli has a piece at Truth-Out has a piece that's well worth reading, but for all the explication and coverage of the deliberate destruction of Detroit school " The Great Unwinding of Public Education: Detroit and DeVos " has some keen insights into the underlying pathologies fueling the privatization movement. Here's the line that reached out and whacked me right between the eyes: We have

DEC 25

ICYMI: Christmas Digestion Edition

6by Peter Greene / 5d

Yes, it's Christmas day, but I am a creature of habit, so for those of you who, for whatever reason, have some time on your hands, here's this week's list of read-worthy writing. Have an excellent day! When It Comes to Charter Schools, Facts Matter Wendy Lecker's interview with Robert Cotto, Jr. about some of the claims being made by charters in Connecticut (and elsewhere) Anatomy of a Failure: Ho

For Your Christmas Listening

6by Peter Greene / 6d

Here's hoping today is a great day for you and yours. For your listening pleasure, here's an assortment of traditional and not-so-traditional holiday music. May today be an excellent day!

 CURMUDGUCATION:

Diane Ravitch - please give to Class Size Matters!

NYC Public School Parents: From Diane Ravitch - please give to Class Size Matters!:

From Diane Ravitch - please give to Class Size Matters!

To My Friends,



Please consider giving to Class Size Matters; a remarkably streamlined and effective non-profit on whose board I serve, that relies on the contributions of parents, teachers and concerned citizens just like you.

Your support will help the organization continue its work to ensure that all public school students in this city, state and nation are provided with small classes in uncrowded buildings, with sufficient individual attention from their teachers, and that parents can protect their children’s education data from breach and misuse.

This year the organization accomplished several important goals:

First on privacy: In 2014, Class Size Matters spearheaded a successful state and national effort to defeat inBloom, the $100 million Gates-funded corporation designed to collect and share the personal data of students in nine states and districts. inBloom closed its doors in 2014 when NY State passed a law against it – the last state to pull out.

The Parent Coalition for Student Privacy, which Class Size Matters helped start after inBloom’s demise, is now leading the national effort to oppose the dangerous, Gates-funded campaign to overturn the federal ban against the US Department of Education collecting the personal data of public school students, from birth to preK through high school and beyond. If this ban were overturned, it could allow the federal government to track and create a dossier of sensitive information on nearly every American family – a dangerous threat to the privacy and civil liberties of us all.

As part of the 2014 law that caused inBloom to close, the NY State Education Department was required to appoint a Chief Privacy Officer who would create a comprehensive Parent Bill of Privacy Rights with input from parents and other stakeholders. This fall, Class Size Matters helped convince the NY State Education Department to finally appoint a Chief Privacy Officer as the law requires. The group also persuaded NYSED to rescind their decision to send all the personal data of the state’s public school students into the NY state archives, where it would have remained for up to a hundred years, vulnerable to being publicly released or misused.

Class Size Matters is also continuing to advocate for smaller classes and less overcrowding in our public schools. NYC added nearly a billion dollars to the school capital plan last spring to build more schools, in part because of their advocacy. The organization’s analysis revealed that the DOE had hugely underestimated the need for new seats. New reports and strategies to address the class size and overcrowding crisis in our public schools will be released this year.

In October, the NY Appellate Court ruled unanimously that the DOE must open School Leadership Team meetings to members of the public in a lawsuit in which Class Size Matters intervened. These teams, composed of half parents, are an essential part of the school governance system and have an important role in decision-making, and thus full transparency must be required. (A fact sheet that you can post in your schools or forward to parents and teachers is here.)

In November, the organization held a very successful citywide parent conference, including guest speakers Comptroller Scott Stringer, Council Member Danny Dromm and education advocate Robert Jackson. Workshops were offered on fighting privatization, parent organizing on school overcrowding, perspectives on diversity, and more.

At the national level, given the priorities of Donald Trump and his pick of Betsy DeVos as Education Secretary, we must all work together to protect our public schools from privateers and profiteers who want to defund and dismantle our public schools. Supporting Class Size Matters is more critical than ever before, in the fight for adequate, equitable and well-funded public schools.

Please contribute to Class Size Matters. Your donation is fully tax-deductible.  You can send a check to Class Size Matters/124 Waverly Pl./ NY NY 10011 or click on the link here.  If you’d like the donation to go to the organization’s efforts to protect student privacy, please note that on the check or in the comment box online.

Yours,

Diane Ravitch



 NYC Public School Parents: From Diane Ravitch - please give to Class Size Matters!:

Education is a Trust: Carl Paladino Must Go | Daniel Katz, Ph.D.

Education is a Trust: Carl Paladino Must Go | Daniel Katz, Ph.D.:

Education is a Trust: Carl Paladino Must Go

On Thursday night, the school board for Buffalo Public Schools sent a clear and scathing message to one of its own:  resign or we will find a way to force you off our council.  The member in question is upstate real estate developer, former Republican candidate for Governor of New York, co-chair of Donald Trump’s New York state campaign, and all around dumpster fire of vulgarity and bigotry, Carl Paladino.  Mr. Paladino earned national attention and scorn when he was asked to reply to a Buffalo weekly about his wishes for the upcoming year.  In a fashion familiar to those who have observed his public antics over the years, Mr. Paladino wished for the death of President Obama from mad cow disease contracted by bestiality.  He further wished for the death of White House adviser Valerie Jarrett by beheading after conviction for treason.  He piled on with a hope that the First Lady “return to being a male” and that she would “return” to Africa to live with a gorilla.

Condemnation of his remarks were swift and pretty much total.  While Donald Trump has not yet spoken on the issue, the Trump transition team issued a rebuke calling Paladino’s words “absolutely reprehensible,” and his own son took to the family company’s Facebook page to distance the business from his father’s words.  The Chancellor of the New York Board of Regents announced a blistering rejection of Paladino’s bigotry on Twitter:

View image on Twitter

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NYS Education Dept 

✔@NYSEDNews

A personal statement from Betty A. Rosa on remarks today by Carl Paladino:

1:44 PM - 23 Dec 2016

 
•  9292 Retweets
 
•  9797 likes

Further denunciations came from sitting Governor Andrew Cuomo, Mr. Paladino’s alma mater, St. Bonaventure University, and parent groups in Buffalo while official calls for his removal from the school board grew.

In his typical fashion, Mr. Paladino defied his detractors, insisting he was not racist and that his remarks were a form of “deprecating humor.” On his own Facebook page, he insisted that his comments had “nothing to do with race,” and proceeded to go on a lengthy rant about his alleged grievances against the Obamas, including numerous accusations that source from fake news and debunked rumors from the dredges of the Internet…or from emails forwarded by your racist uncle (Ms. Jarrett is an American by birth, Mr. Paladino).  He also casually referred to the President as a “lazy ass” and signed off by saying “tough luck if you don’t like my answer.”

Considering the long history of dehumanizing African Americans by comparing them to gorillas and the body shaming African American women endure,  Mr. Paladino’s comments were blatantly racist.  However, to be fair – his comments were not merely racist.  They were also obscene, misogynist, homophobic, and immoral.  None of this is that much of a surprise.  During his catastrophic run for governor in 2010, Mr. Paladino’s personal email habits became public and let’s just say what he offered to Artvoice is in line with his penchant for racist and sexually obscene material.  What was not expected was a revised statement as the controversy deepened where Mr. Paladino said that he had not intended to make those “wishes” public, apologized to the “minority community,” and Education is a Trust: Carl Paladino Must Go | Daniel Katz, Ph.D.:

Jersey Jazzman: The Attacks on Teacher Tenure Still Don't Make Sense

Jersey Jazzman: The Attacks on Teacher Tenure Still Don't Make Sense:

The Attacks on Teacher Tenure Still Don't Make Sense

The attacks on teacher tenure keep on coming -- and they're as illogical as ever. From the Partnership for Educational Justice:

Newark, NJ—Earlier this month, the New Jersey State Department of Education released state and district level educator evaluation data from the 2014-15 school year. The data revealed that Newark employs more ineffective teachers than any other district in the state and more than five times the number of ineffective teachers in Camden, the district with the second highest number. In the 2014-15 school year, 2.4 percent of New Jersey teachers taught in Newark, but in the same year:

• More than half (53.3 percent) of the state’s ineffective teachers were in Newark
• Less than one percent (0.9 percent) of the state’s highly-effective teachers were in Newark
• Additionally, 12.4 percent of Newark’s teachers received a less-than-effective rating, which was nearly eight times the statewide average (1.6 percent)

If we're going to buy into these numbers, we have to make a whole bunch of assumptions: that data suppression isn't a factor in the skew, that Newark's teacher evaluations are equivalent to other districts', that the unmistakable bias in Student Growth Percentiles isn't affecting these outcomes, etc.

But let's set all that aside for the sake of argument and agree that Newark has an inordinately high percentage of ineffective teachers compared to other districts. What's the Jersey Jazzman: The Attacks on Teacher Tenure Still Don't Make Sense:

Goodbye, 2016, and Good Riddance – Top 10 Blog Post by Me From a Crappy Year | gadflyonthewallblog

Goodbye, 2016, and Good Riddance – Top 10 Blog Post by Me From a Crappy Year | gadflyonthewallblog:

Goodbye, 2016, and Good Riddance – Top 10 Blog Post by Me From a Crappy Year

Is it just me or did 2016 really stink?

Both personally and publicly, it was a year I’d rather not revisit. I lost family. I lost idols (RIP, David Bowie and Prince). And we lost a horrible, protracted Presidential election.

But as has become a tradition, I find myself in front of the computer compelled to compile this list of the best of my own writings.

It would be easy to just say nothing much of value happened in 2016 so let’s just move on. But that wouldn’t be true.

There were good things. I’m just stumped to remember many of them right now. Perhaps as time goes on we’ll look back fondly on a smattering of events from this year that was. Bob Dylan won the Nobel Prize for Literature. That was kinda cool. There were some decent movies and a heck of a lot of good TV shows. The Arrival, Star Trek Beyond, Deadpool… Game of Thrones, American Horror Story, two excellent series about O. J. Simpson. We got a Harry Potter sequel of sorts – and another movie! I thought “Underground Airlines” by Ben H. Winters was quite good. We got an amazing musical in Lin-Manuel Miranda’s “Hamilton.” Technically it opened in 2015, but it swept the Tonys this year. And hey! We stopped the Dakota Access Pipeline – for now.

It was certainly a productive year for blogging.

There was so much to write about.

This little education and civil rights blog went into overtime. I almost doubled traffic to the Website and got 2,145 more followers for a total of 11,335.

Gadflyonthewallblog, or if you prefer Gadfly on the Wall Blog, has been going strong since July 2014. In those two and a half years, I’ve gotten 849,000 hits – 363,000 just this year, alone. I also increased the number of posts I write a year. Last year, I only managed about 90 posts. This year it was 120 posts – a full 30 additional articles.

I hope you’ve enjoyed them. I hope you’ve found them valuable.

Sometimes readers send me a note saying that they’re going to share this post or that post with their school board or their representative in the House or Senate. I’m always very flattered to hear that something I wrote is helping someone else fight for what’s right. Of course, I do get a lot of hate mail, too. No death threats yet, but it’s getting awfully close. Readers have wished I was dead, but no one has offered to give me that little push to the other side.

I hope that no matter what your reaction, you’ll remember these are just the writings of a humble public school teacher and father. No one pays me, though sometimes I do get donations for the right to reprint something elsewhere. I write all this stuff because I have to. So few people seem to care what people like me have to say – even in my own profession. Like many others, I’ve stopped waiting to be asked.

So for your end of the year amusement, I offer this top ten list of my most popular writing from 2016. And here’s to a better 2017.

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10) F is for Friedrichs… and Freeloader: A Supreme Court Nightmare

Published: January

Views: 5,550

Description: Some crazy lady didn’t want to pay the union for benefits that she got as a member and didn’t want to give them up. And rich folks everywhere had her back. They slobbered all over and pushed forward a bull crap case through the Supreme Court that probably would have made it much more difficult for labor unions everywhere had not Justice Antonin Scalia died deadlocking the vote. This article was my attempt to show how absolutely absurd the argument was against being forced to pay for something that benefits you.

Fun Fact: Now that Congress blocked President Obama’s Constitutional right to appoint a replacement for Scalia, and Donald Trump will probably get to pick a replacement, look for a similar case to come down the pike and win! Oh, 2016, will you ever truly leave?

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9) The Charter School Swindle – Selling Segregation to Blacks and Latinos

Published: June

Views: 6,489

Description: Charter school promoters often sell these institutions to minorities as being “Separate but Equal.” Hm. Didn’t Brown v. Board outlaw that kind of practice because if schools were separate, they usually were anything but equal? This article is my attempt to explain how charter marketers are really selling minorities Goodbye, 2016, and Good Riddance – Top 10 Blog Post by Me From a Crappy Year | gadflyonthewallblog:

Buffalo Board Of Education Demands Carl Paladino's Resignation After His Racist Anti-Obama Rant: Gothamist

Buffalo Board Of Education Demands Carl Paladino's Resignation After His Racist Anti-Obama Rant: Gothamist:

Buffalo Board Of Education Demands Carl Paladino's Resignation After His Racist Anti-Obama Rant

The Buffalo Board of Education is demanding that your racist uncle board member, real estate bigwig, and Trump adviser Carl Paladino resign for a lengthy, unhinged anti-Obama screed in a local paper.

On Thursday, board members voted 6-2 to give Paladino 24 hours to resign his seat after his racist remarks about President Obama and the First Lady were published in a local paper. The resolution, which according to the Times was read aloud by board members to a room that "exploded in applause," states that the board will ask the state education commissioner to remove Paladino if he refuses to resign.

"Words matter, Mr. Paladino," Barbara Seals Nevergold, the board's president, said yesterday. "The impact on children of color, especially African-American children is incalculable.....They would like me to tell you, 'You're fired.'"

On December 23rd, a local alt weekly called Artvoice published a questionnaire that had been sent to prominent local figures, including Paladino, asking what they'd like to see happen in the new year and what they'd like to see go away. Paladino's answers weren't just political—they were also incredibly racist and sexist towards the current President and First Lady. He wrote:

1. Obama catches mad cow disease after being caught having relations with a Herford. He dies before his trial and is buried in a cow pasture next to Valerie Jarret, who died weeks prior, after being convicted of sedition and treason, when a Jihady cell mate mistook her for being a nice person and decapitated her. 2. Michelle Obama. I’d like her to return to being a male and let loose in the outback of Zimbabwe where she lives comfortably in a cave with Maxie, the gorilla.

Some board members believed Paladino's statement reflected poorly on the Buffalo school board. Member Paulette Woods, pointed out his comments violated the public school code of conduct and New York State's anti-bullying law, "If any of our Buffalo Public School children said any one of these offensive remarks ... the student would be suspended. We should also be held accountable for our words and our actions."

The two members who voted against Paladino's resignation suggested that he should have been required to deliver a formal apology to the board and all students in the district instead. Patti Pierce emphasized forgiveness at the meeting, adding that Buffalo residents should "take a page out of the horrific massacre that happened in Charleston, South Carolina, where nine innocent people in a house of worship were slain by a hateful, hate-filled man." (One audience member reportedly left, shouting that it was offensive to compare Paladino's racist comments to the murdered members of the Mother Emmanuel African Methodist Church, all of whom were black.)

Earlier this week, Paladino had issued a (non)apology, also through Artvoice. "I never intended to hurt the minority community who I spent years trying to help out of the cycle of poverty in our inner cities," he wrote. Also, he was... hacked? Sort of?

"I publicly took responsibility for what I said and confirmed those were my answers, but believe it or not, I did not mean to send those answers to Artvoice," he wrote.

And then:

Not that it makes any difference because what I wrote was inappropriate under any circumstance. I filled out the survey to send to a couple friends and forwarded it to them not realizing that I didn’t hit “forward” I hit “reply.” All men make mistakes. What is horrible is explaining to my 17 year old daughter how her hero could be so stupid.

Surprisingly, Paladino's humbling, sincere apology wasn't enough for the board—which, by the way, he referred to as "those timid souls who sit unbloodied in the gallery always prepared to criticize."

In a statement on Thursday, Paladino referred to the board's resolution as retaliatory, because he's been looking into teachers' contract and alleged corruption issues, "The Board of Education's action today is certainly not an illustration of a profile in courage or leadership."

We've asked the Trump campaign for comment. Buffalo Board Of Education Demands Carl Paladino's Resignation After His Racist Anti-Obama Rant: Gothamist: