Big Education Ape

Monday, May 6, 2019

Angry teachers slap down praise from Betsy DeVos: ‘You can thank us by resigning’

Angry teachers slap down praise from Betsy DeVos: ‘You can thank us by resigning’
Angry teachers slap down praise from Betsy DeVos: ‘You can thank us by resigning’

Education Secretary Betsy DeVos marked Teacher Appreciation Week with a social media video thanking educators — who then demanded her resignation in tweet after tweet.

The education secretary urged Americans to show their appreciation by thanking a teacher, but her efforts backfired.

DeVos was met with furious anger by teachers and their supporters who believe she’s undermining public education with her policies.

avalon'slaw + PROTEST MAKES AMERICA GREAT@LaceyWilson4

Replying to @BetsyDeVosED @usedgov

If you think teachers wants less support for public schools and the end of resources for students who deal with sexual assault, discrimination and options to pay off student debt then I’ll find some teachers for you to meet who strongly disagree with that assessment. #resigndevos

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4:58 AM - May 6, 2019

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Angry teachers slap down praise from Betsy DeVos: ‘You can thank us by resigning’

CURMUDGUCATION: The Problem With Tax Credit Scholarships

CURMUDGUCATION: The Problem With Tax Credit Scholarships

The Problem With Tax Credit Scholarships

The classic talking point for tax credit scholarships (yet another type of voucher) is that they don't actually take money away from public education. This is technically correct because the money never actually gets into the government's hands; instead of paying taxes, the contributor hands the money to their favorite charter or private school and gets credit for paying taxes.

So does that take money away from education? Of course.

Let's imagine a neighborhood in North Egg with ten households. Out of those households, there are five children who spend every Saturday cleaning up the neighborhood. The families, many of whom include folks who work on Saturday, decide that the kids need something to eat for lunch, so the ten households create a Saturday Lunch Fund, and every family commits to chip in two bucks to the fund. Mrs. McSam handles the collecting of the money, and uses it to buy the workers a couple of pizza, some drinks, and a few extras to go with.

This system works for a while. Some Saturdays the pizza's not very good, and sometimes the dessert item is some pretty good ice cream and other times it's some kind of packaged processed junk. But for the most part, the basic needs of the workers are met.

Then one of the families says, "We actually take our nephew from a South Egg out to lunch every Saturday. Could you just count the money we spend on him toward our contribution for the Saturday Lunch Fund?"

"I don't see why not," says Mrs. McSam. "It's not like you're taking money out of the fund."

Two other families say, "We don't actually have any kids. But we do buy organic kelp for our church CONTINUE READING: CURMUDGUCATION: The Problem With Tax Credit Scholarships

Diane Ravitch’s Education “Wisdom and Wit” is Critical at this Time

Diane Ravitch’s Education “Wisdom and Wit” is Critical at this Time

Diane Ravitch’s Education “Wisdom and Wit” is Critical at this Time

We will someday view this era as one in which the nation turned its back on its public schools, its children, and its educators. We will wonder why so many journalists and policymakers rejected the nation’s obligation to support public education as a social responsibility, and accepted the unrealistic, unsustainable promises of entrepreneurs and billionaires. And we will, with sorrow and regret, think of this as an era when an obsession with testing and data obliterated any concept or definition of good education. Some perhaps may recall this as a time when the nation forgot that education has a greater purpose than preparing our children to compete in the global economy.

~”Flunking Arne Duncan.” The Wisdom and Wit of Diane Ravitch, p.47.

Diane Ravitch’s new book enables us to further understand the lies and deception behind the current push to privatize public education. This is a book that both Republicans and Democrats should find interesting. It would make an interesting and welcome gift for teachers during Teacher Appreciation Week.

Diane’s focus is on public schools. It provides a history surrounding the fight for public education since 2010. She does not hold back from telling us about those who have worked to destroy free public education, no matter their political party. Some of those CONTINUE READING: Diane Ravitch’s Education “Wisdom and Wit” is Critical at this Time

Today Is Dedicated to Gary Rubinstein’s Review of Success Academy Podcasts | Diane Ravitch's blog

Today Is Dedicated to Gary Rubinstein’s Review of Success Academy Podcasts | Diane Ravitch's blog

Today Is Dedicated to Gary Rubinstein’s Review of Success Academy Podcasts

Teacher Appreciation Week begins today. How better to launch it than by devoting the day to Gary Rubinstein’s review of podcasts about Success Academy?

Gary began his teaching career in TFA, but turned into a sharp critic of TFA and a dedicated career teacher.

Gary Rubinstein came across a trove of podcasts about Success Academy, and he suspected theyheld the key to the “success” of Success Academy in New York City. SA is the quintessential “no excuses” charter chain. It’s rules are strict, even draconian. The chain is driven by a philosophy that black and brown children must be disciplined and surveilled closely. No error must go uncorrected. Every infraction must be swiftly punished.

I debated whether to publish Gary’s posts as they appeared or all at once. I decided on the latter course of action. So today is devoted to podcasts about Success Academy. Though it is based in New York City, its impact is national. The chain presents itself as a model for American education. Nonsense.

Here is Gary’s first report.

Of all the charter school networks in the country, there is none that is more controversial or more secretive than Success Academy. If ‘success’ is defined as high 3-8 state test scores, then Success Academy has earned its name. But critics charge that this ‘success’ comes at the expense of other, more important measures of success.

This past November, a seven part podcast was published by a production company called startup. Soon after it was released, there were some excerpts of some of the most negative parts of the podcast printed on some blogs, but generally it seems to have came and went.

I was very interested in this podcast for a lot of reasons. I’ve been following Success Academy for years and have been piecing together evidence about all the different CONTINUE READING: Today Is Dedicated to Gary Rubinstein’s Review of Success Academy Podcasts | Diane Ravitch's blog

Challenging the Grammar of Schooling (Part 2) | Larry Cuban on School Reform and Classroom Practice

Challenging the Grammar of Schooling (Part 2) | Larry Cuban on School Reform and Classroom Practice

Challenging the Grammar of Schooling (Part 2)

At the recent annual meeting of the American Educational Research Association, I participated in a symposium entitled “Changing the Grammar of Schooling? An Examination of Reform.” The chair, Jal Mehta (Harvard University) invited Michael Fullan (University of Toronto) and me to comment on four researchers’ papers. The papers were:

Making the Periphery the Core: Possibilities and Challenges in Public Eduation

Jal David Mehta, (Harvard University); Sarah M. Fine, (University of California, San Diego)

Design Thinking, Leadership, and the Grammar of Schooling Implications for Educational Change Lea Hubbard, (University of San Diego); Amanda Datnow, (University of California, San Diego);

College for All and the Grammar of Schooling Karen Quartz, (University of California, Los Angeles)

The Rise and the Fall of New Schools in New York City and Singapore Thomas Hatch, (Teachers College, Columbia University); Jordan Corson, ( Teachers College, Columbia University); Sara M. Gerth van den Berg, (Teachers College, Columbia University).

Here are my comments on these papers.

I want to thank Jal for inviting me to comment on the four papers presented here….

These four papers examine the concept of the “grammar of schooling”—I still put the phrase in quote marks—that David Tyack and I grounded our history of CONTINUE READING: Challenging the Grammar of Schooling (Part 2) | Larry Cuban on School Reform and Classroom Practice

Latest News and Comment from Education

Monday, May 6, 2019

Angry teachers slap down praise from Betsy DeVos: ‘You can thank us by resigning’

CURMUDGUCATION: The Problem With Tax Credit Scholarships

Diane Ravitch’s Education “Wisdom and Wit” is Critical at this Time

Today Is Dedicated to Gary Rubinstein’s Review of Success Academy Podcasts | Diane Ravitch's blog

Challenging the Grammar of Schooling (Part 2) | Larry Cuban on School Reform and Classroom Practice

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