Bill Maher Takes On The Rhode Island Firings (Video)
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Tuesday, March 16, 2010
Bill Maher Takes On The Rhode Island Firings (Video) Perdaily.com
Perdaily.com
It is the simplistic thinking of poorly educated bureaucrats that seems incapable of the intellectual rigor necessary to analyze and propose a well thought out program that has even the remotest chance of being successful. Bill Maher, somebody who does not suffer from these infirmities of thought process, trained his wit on the absurdity of just one aspect of what these intellectually challenged education reform wannabes saw as the reason for failing public education and annihilated them. For him, the thought of laying all the responsibility at the foot of the teaching profession is a "comprehensive education solution from completely ignorant people."
Obama’s blueprint for California The Educated Guess
Obama’s blueprint for California
Posted in No Child Left BehindThe utopian demand that all children be proficient in math and English language arts by 2014 would be replaced by the goal that all students be on track for a career or college by 2020.
The unyielding pass or fail grade for a school based on collective test scores would be replaced by measurements of individual students’ growth and broader gauges of school progress, such as school climate and student attendance.
As its antidote to the excesses of the No Child Left Behind law, the Obama administration has released a 41-page outline for its as yet-unnamed reauthorization of NCLB, officially known as the Elementary and Secondary Education Act.
(Read more and comment on this post)
The unyielding pass or fail grade for a school based on collective test scores would be replaced by measurements of individual students’ growth and broader gauges of school progress, such as school climate and student attendance.
As its antidote to the excesses of the No Child Left Behind law, the Obama administration has released a 41-page outline for its as yet-unnamed reauthorization of NCLB, officially known as the Elementary and Secondary Education Act.
(Read more and comment on this post)
Education - Everything you need to know about the world of education.
Education- Everything you need to know about the world of education.
President Obama (AP).
Schools Chancellor Michelle Rhee has been called many things. But it was likely a first Monday afternoon when a student from Hardy Middle School compared Rhee to the pernicious Harry Potter character, Dolores Umbridge, a cruel teacher at Hogwarts Academy.
NCLB revamp would affect schools differently
Officials would take a 'largely hands-off' approach with most schools
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- Obama outlines NCLB revamp
- Still no transparency for D.C. program
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President Obama (AP).
Former Bush administration official backs student loan reform bill
A former Bush administration official whose job it was to implement No Child Left Behind is urging her fellow Republicans to pass legislation for student loan reform that also supports community colleges and provides funding to promote impvementsin early childhod education.
Susan B. Neuman, assistant secretary of elementary and secondary education from 2002-04 and now a professor in educational studies at the University of Michigan, uses stark language in this Roll Call pieceabout the legislation now in the Senate. It starts:
Continue reading this post »
Valerie Strauss v. me on tests
I didn't intend to pick a fight with my blogging wonder of a colleague Valerie Strauss, but she wouldn't let go of the issue. (I least that is what I would tell my mom if this were the playground and not the world's finest Web site.) Valerie says the standardized tests we use now are too unreliable to tolerate. I don't like them that much myself, but I still think they are useful, and don't see Valerie providing any evidence on her side.
The standardized test results I have seen over the last 30 years seem to conform with what I would expect from what I know of the quality of the teaching and the socio-economic level of the students being tested. McLean High in that wealthy community has higher test scores than Annandale High, which is in a less expensive part of Fairfax County with fewer parents who have graduated from college. Banneker High in D.C., which has a selective student body, does better on tests than Ballou, which does not.
Schools that have taken unusual measures to deepen and invigorate the learning of impoverished children, such as Achievement First,Uncommon schools and KIPP, show significantly better scores than schools that have not.
Those examples, and hundreds more, convince me that the tests we are using are much better than nothing, and shouldn't be dismissed as not
Student compares Rhee to Harry Potter villain
Schools Chancellor Michelle Rhee has been called many things. But it was likely a first Monday afternoon when a student from Hardy Middle School compared Rhee to the pernicious Harry Potter character, Dolores Umbridge, a cruel teacher at Hogwarts Academy.
One by one, middle school students lined up in the D.C. Council chamber this afternoon during an oversight hearing to protest Rhee's decision to reassign their popular principal, Patrick Pope.
Rhee's actions, said seventh-grader Angela Marsh, "say she doesn't really care about the people affected by her unreasonable decisions. She is breaking the heart and soul of the school."
The students got some backup from Council Chairman Vincent Gray (D), who said he agrees that "a mistake has been made."
"For the life of me, I do not understand why this is being done," he said.
Before the testimony this afternoon, Rhee said she was sticking by her decision and moving Pope to start a new arts-centered magnet middle school. "I've been clear with the community and at this point it's not
Rise & Shine: L.A. teachers back tying test scores to evaluations | GothamSchools
Rise & Shine: L.A. teachers back tying test scores to evaluations
- Implementing Obama’s education law plan will be politically and logistically difficult. (Times)
- The plan will ease consequences for most schools but toughen them for some. (Washington Post)
- The city and the teachers union could change rules for teachers in the “rubber room.” (GothamSchools)
- A Los Angeles panel that includes teachers wants test scores used in teacher evaluations. (L.A. Times)
- The Post says the city is to blame for the Khalil Gibran debacle, because it created a “separatist” school.
- Choice fan Paul Peterson says students do better when their schools compete. (Wall Street Journal)
Local News | Cleveland High plan is revised, goes back to the board | Seattle Times Newspaper
Cleveland High plan is revised, goes back to the board
An $800,000 contract to help Cleveland High open a new science, technology, engineering and math (STEM) program is back before the Seattle School Board for a second time.
Seattle Times education reporter
An $800,000 contract to help Cleveland High open a new science, technology, engineering and math (STEM) program is back before the Seattle School Board for approval of revisions.
In early February, the board voted 4-2 to approve the 3 ½-year contract with the New Technology Network, a national association of 41 schools.
By becoming part of the Network, Cleveland would receive materials, training and other assistance as it phases in its STEM program starting this fall. But after the vote, some district activists complained that certain provisions in the contract differed from what district staff had said publicly.
In particular, the staff had said that Cleveland would remain one school with one principal, but with two academies — one focused on engineering and design, one on life sciences. Staff members also said the two academies would eventually have a total of 1,000 students.
The original contract, in contrast, indicated that the district would have to create two separate schools in Cleveland's building, each with its own principal. It also said that enrollment must be capped at 450 students per school, and that teachers in one academy couldn't teach any classes in the other.
In response to those questions, officials from Seattle Public Schools and the New Technology Network have said that they had verbal agreements that matched the staff's description of the program.
Why Teachers Unions Matter
Why Teachers Unions Matter
Nowadays a newspaper cannot be opened — or a TV turned on — without one being subjected to anti-teacher misinformation. The anti-teacher hysteria looks diverse on the surface, but underneath, this public controversy seeks to dislodge teachers unions: the right-wing trashes teachers’ unions outright, while the “liberal” media takes a more subtle, sophisticated approach, blaming the state of public education on “bad teachers” who must be fired and replaced. Both styles are the same in essence.
Nowadays a newspaper cannot be opened — or a TV turned on — without one being subjected to anti-teacher misinformation. The anti-teacher hysteria looks diverse on the surface, but underneath, this public controversy seeks to dislodge teachers unions: the right-wing trashes teachers’ unions outright, while the “liberal” media takes a more subtle, sophisticated approach, blaming the state of public education on “bad teachers” who must be fired and replaced. Both styles are the same in essence. The bi-partisan goal is to undermine and dismember public education, so that public funds may be instead channeled into paying debts racked up by multiple wars and corporate bailouts. Also, as public education is gutted, rich investors parasitically benefit from it by opening for-profit “charter schools,” curriculum corporations, or the bevy of new companies that "certify" teachers for a fraction of the cost or time of universities, ready to serve at the new corporate McEducation institutes.
Obama’s Race to the Top campaign enshrines these odious goals into governmental policy, picking up where Bush’s anti-teacher union policies left off, and racing frantically in the same direction, to the bottom.
The schools that Bush’s No Child Left Behind labeled as “failures” are to be shut down under Obama’s Race to the Top. These schools are almost entirely in poor neighborhoods, where the social disease of poverty is an easy predictor of a child’s poor test scores.
But Obama ignores this obvious fact and blames poor grades and test scores on the teachers, exclusively.
Thus, Obama cheered when every teacher at a Rhode Island “failing” high school was fired. He praised the past closures of dozens of public schools in both Chicago and New Orleans as examples for others to follow. Indeed, Detroit and Kansas City each have plans to close dozens of schools, while California is set to fire thousands of teachers. Under Obama’s plan, federal money is awarded to states that fire the most "bad" teachers and close the most “failing” public schools.
Charter schools are to fill the void, where the rich will have access to all the amenities offered at public schools, while the poor will be warehoused in a drab environment lacking resources - without sports and other extracurricular activities, no art or music, no counseling or psychological services, etc. The two-party system envisions education “reform” to mirror free market ideology, where services once deemed “essential” are now to be sold as commodities to those who can afford them.
The right-wing has made it clear — for years — that teachers’ unions are the biggest “obstacle” to this education “reform,” and they are right. Consequently, the very existence of teachers’ unions are in jeopardy with Obama’s Race to the Top.
If teachers’ unions cannot keep schools open, or teachers from being fired, their power is undermined. If any teacher can be fired when they are labeled “bad,” then one of the fundamental concepts of unionism, seniority, is crushed. If teachers cannot be protected by seniority, then pro-union teachers will be targeted and fired, and the union will evolve into a paper tiger. And if union-protected teachers can suddenly be fired arbitrarily, then union-protected workers in other fields will soon find their seniority destroyed, and with it their unions. The struggle of the teachers is thus the struggle of all union workers. But unions benefit more than just union workers.
Anyone involved in politics — from the rank and file “activist” to those working for liberal-minded causes — understands that unions are the ONLY source of consistent resources for progressive campaigns, from money donations, TV advertisement, to door knockers and phone bankers, etc.
UC students stand up to be counted
UC students stand up to be counted
University of California campuses have planned a number of strategies to raise awareness of the 2010 census and maximize the response rate of students: sending targeted e-mails to students living on and off campus, distributing fliers and fact sheets, giving presentations to residence halls, Greek chapters and co-ops, running articles in student newspapers and holding drawings for up to $5,000 in prizes donated by local vendors.
With billions of dollars in federal funds at stake, not to mention the size of California's legislative delegation, state and local governments want to ensure every resident of the state — even college students — be counted.
Census data are used to locate hospitals, roads and community service centers, and the federal government allocates more than $400 billion a year to state and local governments based on the count. The Census Bureau estimates that each person counted is worth $10,000 to his or her community.
While the census is mandated by the Constitution, only 45 percent of Americans between the ages of 18 and 29 consider it very important, according to the Pew Research Center for People and the Press, compared with 60 percent of the population at large.
Students who live in on-campus residence halls, sororities and fraternities will receive individual census forms from their campus housing office between April 1 and May 21. Those who live off campus with roommates will receive the forms by mail in mid-March and should fill out one form for the entire household. Students who live at home should be included on their parents' form.
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