Big Education Ape

Sunday, July 23, 2017

The Future Diane Ravitch's blog | A site to discuss better education for all

Diane Ravitch's blog | A site to discuss better education for all:

The Future Diane Ravitch's blog

A site to discuss better education for all

Would the Cross-Dressing Royal Drug Runner from Burma be Barred from a Texas Bathroom?

1by dianeravitch / 25min

Please indulge me. I usually read the New York Times every day, and yesterday I could not resist juxtaposing two interesting and weird stories. This one is a Ripley “Believe It or Not” story about a woman born to a royal family in Burma

The Kids from Burundi Are O.K.

1by dianeravitch / 16min

Six teens from Burundi competed recently in the international robotics contest in Washington, D.C. None had ever built a robot before but they learned to do it online and Skyping. They did well, coming in 73rd of 160 teams. When the three-day tournament was over, the entire team disappeared. Two are safel

Phyllis Bush Teaches Us What It Means to Face Life with Humor and Courage

1by dianeravitch / 50min

Here is the latest bulletin from Phyllis Bush on her battle against what she calls “cancer schmanzer.”

New York City: Parents Threaten to Sue City Over Failure to Reduce Class Size

2by dianeravitch / 17min

Watch this 2-minute clip, in which New York City parents and activists explain why class size in the public schools is far too large and how this hurts children and reduces educational opportunity. After a legal challenge, a judge ten years

A MUST READ! Think National, Fight Local: The Story of Indianapolis and the DPE (Destroy Public Education) Movement

by dianeravitch / 1min

This very important post was written for this blog by Jim Scheurich on behalf of himself, Gayle Cosby, and Nathanial Williams, who are identified in the text. They are experienced in the school politics of Indianapolis, a city whose school

Jeff Bryant: How Are Public School Parents Like Criminals?

by dianeravitch / 6min

Jeff Bryant is doing an article about the St. Louis public schools. As he has delved into the issues, he learned how the state of Missouri has underfunded the schools for years. And he learned something more. The city is gentrifying. It wants young childless couples. Parents of school age children are a burden to the budget. “As a local St. Louis reporter tells it, during a public meeting about a

Florida: The Corruption and Conflicts of Interest Behind the Charter Industry

4by dianeravitch / 1h

In some states, like Ohio, New York, and Pennsylvania, charter operators get what they want by making campaign contributions to state legislators and the governor. Florida is different. The charter operators and members of their families are members of the legislature. They shamelessly engage in self-dealing. You may well wonder: How can this be legal? I don’t know. This article in the Miami Hera

Education in Florida–Betsy DeVos’s Model for the Nation–is in Chaos

21by dianeravitch / 2h

Valerie Strauss summarizes here the mess created in Florida by former Governor Jeb Bush’s harsh accountability policies and the legislation passed recently to enrich the charter industry at the expense of public schools across the state. She begins: “The K-12 education system in Florida — the one that Education Secretary Betsy DeVos likes to praise as a model for the nation — is in chaos. “Tradit

YESTERDAY

Mike Klonsky: AFT Twitter War with DeVos

13by dianeravitch / 12h

Mike Klonsky writes tonight about the Twitter war between AFT and Betsy DeVos. http://michaelklonsky.blogspot.com/2017/07/devos-in-twitter-war-with-aft.html?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=Feed:+mikeklonsky+(SmallTalk)&m=1 Betsy has the nutty idea that a public education system somehow is bad for individual children. She favors individual children. Right, so do we all. But for

Why Is DeVos Hiding from the Press?

7by dianeravitch / 21h

James Warren wonders why Betsy DeVos is steering clear of the media . Typically, the Secretary of Education speaks to the annual meeting of the Education Writers Association. But she declined. She had something better to do, something more important than meeting with education writers. “Instead, she surfaced at a session of National Institute for Automotive Service Excellence. “A long way from ho

Utah: Should Charters Be Allowed to Seize Private Property by Eminent Domain

16by dianeravitch / 23h

We have seen how privately managed charter schools are exempt from transparency and accountability, thanks to the big bucks that pave their way. But Utah is considering a new low for preferential treatment of charters. Utah legislators are discussing whether charters should have the power of eminent domain, to seize private properties for their own use. Two conservative principles are at odds on

Arizona: The State Where Anything Goes for Charter Schools

9by dianeravitch / 23h

The Phoenix New Times has an long, in-depth article about one of the state’s nearly 600 charter schools. It is possibly the weirdest and proud of it. Nepotism abounds because it is not against the law for charters (only for public schools). The founder of the school has a free hand to do whatever he wants. State laws don’t matter much at Metro Arts Institute. It begins: “The photograph is hard to

Trump’s Tweets This Morning: His Hillary Obsession

4by dianeravitch / 23h

Politico posted Trump’s tweets. Here you see what he is fixated on. The big obsession is Hillary. I think she keeps a very low profile because at any moment, he could direct the Justice Department to open an investigation of her emails (again) and “lock her up.” The only way to stand up to this guy is if you have nothing to lose. “WHAT’S ON THE PRESIDENT’S MIND — at 6:33 a.m.: “A new INTELLIGENCE

New Orleans: Students Punished for Being Poor

17by dianeravitch / 1d

Astana Bigard, parent activist in New Orleans, reports that poor children are regularly suspended and expelled from charter schools because they can’t afford to pay for a uniform. “When a New Orleans charter school made headlines

Diane Ravitch's blog | A site to discuss better education for all:

NYC Educator: A Lesson for Neil deGrasse Tyson

NYC Educator: A Lesson for Neil deGrasse Tyson:

A Lesson for Neil deGrasse Tyson

I've had great respect for Neil deGrasse Tyson ever since the first time I saw him on Bill Maher's show. I mean, here's a guy, smarter than me, smarter than you, an astrophysicist, an acknowledged expert in his field, speaking the unvarnished truth. Climate change is science, and science is real. Disagreeing with it is like disagreeing with gravity. Then one day, he posts this:

Now there are certainly better interpretations of this statement. After all, there's no context here whatsoever. Is he targeting teachers? Is he targeting the system? Is he questioning Common Core, which claims to create critical thinkers but actually gets kids so accustomed to tedium they might spend several decades working at Walmart without killing themselves?

Frankly, those aren't the first thoughts that came into my mind.

How long have we been reading nonsense from Bill Gates? Does it precede the nonsense from Donald Trump? It's hard to say, but for me it's like stereo. Gates nonsense in the right ear and Trump in the left. A frustrating cacophony of garbage, spread through the entire United States. And not by teachers, but rather by a strangely incurious press. In a country where Fox passes as news and millions view it voluntarily, we have issues. But were they taught that in schools? Aren't teachers regularly vilified for being too "liberal?"

Teachers in the United States are expected to singlehandedly overcome impossible home issues. Gates pretty much gave up on poverty, saying he couldn't fix that, but rather he could fix education. Of course he couldn't do that either. And what he's left us with is a junk science system under which we are judged by standardized test scores, a system deemed invalid by Tyson-level experts like Diane Ravitch and the American Statistical Association. Of course, Tyson himself doesn't seem to know that.

Hey, everyone else does. Go ahead. Put out that statement, offer no context, and let everyone see it. You're an expert so you must be right. Never NYC Educator: A Lesson for Neil deGrasse Tyson:

NEWS FLASH: FOUNDING FATHERS USE NEW TECHNOLOGY | DCGEducator: Doing The Right Thing

NEWS FLASH: FOUNDING FATHERS USE NEW TECHNOLOGY | DCGEducator: Doing The Right Thing:

NEWS FLASH: FOUNDING FATHERS USE NEW TECHNOLOGY

Members of both major political parties attacking each other. Fake News. Name-calling. Wild tweeting? Today’s world? Of course, but it is not the first time in our history.

Any informed and well-read turn of the 19th century citizen could have easily either been excited or disgusted by what went on in the press and in published letters during our first three Presidential administrations. Each side had it’s own newspapers that not only supported their own agendas but also threw bombshells at their opponents. The records are there and well recorded for all to see.

But for fun, just suppose, that our Founding Fathers, the men who wrote our Declaration of Independence, our Constitution, set precedents for our great Republic, and created our earliest newspapers, had “quiller accounts. Lets see how things might have gone. Each of the following “quills” is an actual quote. However because of the wordiness of language in that era the “quills” were not limited to 140 characters

CAST OF CHARACTERS:

George Washington @twash

Alexander Hamilton @aham

Thomas Jefferson @tjeff

John Adams @jadams

James Madison @jmad

Aaron Burr @aburr (Third VP of the U.S. and killer of Alexander Hamilton in their famous duel)

Oliver Wolcott, Jr. 2owalcott (Sec. of the Treasury following Hamilton’s resignation)

Senator William Plumer @senatorplumer (U.S. Senator from New Hampshire

Robert Troupe @rtroupe (friend of Alexander Hamilton)

Aristides @Aristides (probably Noah Webster. Yes, that Noah Webster.)

Philip Frenau @pfrenau (editor of the National Gazette while hired by Thomas Jefferson as a translator at the State Department for an annual salary of $250.)

The National Gazette @Natgaz (a partisan newspaper founded at the urging of James Madison and Thomas Jefferson – the leaders of the Democratic-Republican Party. Many prominent Republicans contributed articles, often pseudonymously, including Madison and Jefferson. It is unique for being NEWS FLASH: FOUNDING FATHERS USE NEW TECHNOLOGY | DCGEducator: Doing The Right Thing:

Please take five minutes to help stop the privatization of NY schools! | Class Size Matters

Please take five minutes to help stop the privatization of NY schools! | Class Size Matters | A clearinghouse for information on class size & the proven benefits of smaller classes:

Please take five minutes to help stop the privatization of NY schools!

Only a few days are left in the NY legislative term, and the NY State Senate leadership and now Gov. Cuomo are pushing a deal to exchange the extension of Mayoral control in NYC for more charter schools and/or a tuition tax credit for religious and private schools statewide.

One of the bills introduced in the Senate would extend mayoral control for five years while expanding charters & tax credits for private and religious schools. The other bills would offer one- or two-yearextensions for more charters statewide and in NYC.

Please take five minutes to call your Assemblymember and your State Senator TODAY, and tell them do not make any trade that would allow the further privatization of our schools and the diversion of precious education funds to private schools and charters.

Message to your Assemblymember: As your constituent, I want to thank you for holding tough against a deal to trade mayoral control in NYC for more charters or tuition tax credits – and please continue to do so. Can I count on your support? You can find his or her phone no. by filling in your info here.

Message to your State Senator: As a constituent, I want to strongly urge you to vote against any deal that would allow for the expansion of charters or a tuition tax credit for private and religious schools in exchange for extending mayoral control in NYC. Can I count on your support? You can find his or her phone no. here.

You can call either their Albany or district offices if the other phone is busy or not answering. Please also let me know how they or their staff responds by replying to this email.

Thanks so much, Leonie

PS A few seats are still available for our annual Skinny dinner on Tuesday night– but the room is now almost full. If you want to come, please be sure to reserve your seat now!

Leonie Haimson
Executive Director
Class Size Matters
124 Waverly Pl.
New York, NY 10011
212-529-3539

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Please take five minutes to help stop the privatization of NY schools! | Class Size Matters | A clearinghouse for information on class size & the proven benefits of smaller classes:

CHATT TOWN, BIG EASY TRIPS AND WHAT’S THAT STAND FOR? « Dad Gone Wild

CHATT TOWN, BIG EASY TRIPS AND WHAT’S THAT STAND FOR? « Dad Gone Wild:

CHATT TOWN, BIG EASY TRIPS AND WHAT’S THAT STAND FOR?

I must apologize for this this installment being late. Dad had to take a catering gig yesterday that translated to a 5:30 AM to 2pm work day and a new appreciation for people who work in the service industry on a regular basis. Y’all work hard. As always, we have a lot of ground to cover. So lets get after it.

FUN TIMES IN RIVER CITY

Bruised by years of doing battle with Memphis and Nashville, the Tennessee Department of Education is now turning it’s attention to Chattanooga to try and implement some of it’s not so cutting edge plans. At the forefront of this focus is the creation of a “partnership zone” made up of 5 chronically under-performing schools. As part of the “partnership zone” these schools would be governed by their own school board and receive additional resources. This wouldn’t be a state takeover as Chattanooga and the state would work as partners.

Of course the state has an interesting definition of partner. They have given Chattanooga till the end of August to decide if they want to be partners or else they’ll give one or more of the schools to the state Achievement School District. They’ve also failed to share a proposed budget or test scores for the schools from this past year. It’s also worth noting that all of these schools suffer from high poverty levels and this past year the state changed its method of counting Title 1 qualification to including only those children who receive direct services. That means a drop in the official poverty numbers, though not real poverty numbers, and therefore less Title 1 funding for schools with high concentrations of poverty. Somewhere Don Corleone is smiling.

Chattanooga has a brand spanking new Superintendent and it appears that he is not in a hurry to join this budding partnership. Not surprisingly he’d like an opportunity to develop his own strategy.

The “Partnership zone” is not the only potentially new district coming to Chattanooga. Signal Mountain is looking to exit Hamilton County School District and form their own school district. Signal Mountain is home to 3 of the districts highest performing schools and their exit would have a profound effect on HCSD. Last month town leaders visited Shelby County Schools to get some insight on how the exit could be executed.

Watching these developments in Chattanooga is important because I think you’ll see emulation in the rest of the state. Remember in order to do the “Partnership District” legislation permitting schools to be overseen by an appointed board would have to be passed. That legislation alone could have dire consequence for schools across the state. Always be wary of laws that are puportedly designed to help someone because seldom are the unexpected consequences considered. Just look at the ASD. That was never meant to be a charter school zone.

Speaking of our friends over at the Tennessee ASD, they’ve got a new leadership team heading into a new school year. Well kinda. Malika Anderson will remain in charge and two of those promoted have been a part of the work since 2011, but there are 2 new lieutenants who are completely new to the district. The leadership change is a shift away from outside education “reformers” and towards people more entrenched in the Tennessee education community. Schools also now won’t suffer the abrupt takeover actions that were the previous hallmark of the ASD. Going forward struggling schools will have three years to apply their own turn CHATT TOWN, BIG EASY TRIPS AND WHAT’S THAT STAND FOR? « Dad Gone Wild:

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