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Wednesday, December 15, 2010

Maritza Stanchich, Ph.D.: Puerto Rico Student Strike Intensifies, Public Education and Civil Rights at Stake

Maritza Stanchich, Ph.D.: Puerto Rico Student Strike Intensifies, Public Education and Civil Rights at Stake
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Read More: Higher Education , Privatization , Puerto Rico , Student Activism , College News

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Coincident with massive, at times explosive, student protests in Rome and London, University of Puerto Rico has again become a flashpoint with a student strike beginning Tuesday that turned the main campus into a militarized zone of police, riot squad, and SWAT teams, complete with low-flying helicopters and snipers. What began as a conflict over a steep student fee hike is now seen as a larger struggle to preserve public education against privatization.

Resistance to the imposed $800 student fee has triggered repressive state measures: police have occupied the main campus for the first time in 31 years and Monday the local Supreme Court, recently stacked by the pro-Statehood political party in power, outlawed student strikes and campus protests. More than 500 students defied the ruling by demonstrating on campus Tuesday, brandishing the slogan "They fear us because we don't fear them" ("Nos tienen miedo porque no

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The Legacy of Joel Klein: Part One « EdVox

The Legacy of Joel Klein: Part One « EdVox

The Legacy of Joel Klein: Part One

by edvoxny

A Four-part Series Assessing His Accomplishments: PART ONE

by Norm Fruchter

“We played big and we got big results,” Joel Klein told the NYC Education Reform Retrospective conference on November 10th, in a talk summing up his administration’s accomplishments after 8 1/2 years as Schools Chancellor. During those years he radically transformed the city school system. The 40-year-old foundations of decentralization, the citywide school board and the 32 elected community school boards and their appointed superintendents, are gone. The privileges of teacher seniority are much reduced; teacher hiring decisions (when not restricted by a hiring freeze) are now primarily a free-market school-level function. The high school landscape has been radically altered.

Since 2002, some 20 large, poorly performing high schools have been closed, some 200 new small high schools have been created, and the high school admissions/assignment process has been revised to expand student choice. More than 100 charter schools are currently operating in the city, and 100 more are being planned. The teaching force has been bolstered by a significant percentage of new teachers from non-traditional sources, and

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The Answer Sheet - Joel Klein's business model and the drowning of Nicole Suriel

The Answer Sheet - Joel Klein's business model and the drowning of Nicole Suriel

Joel Klein's business model and the drowning of Nicole Suriel

This was written by Marc Epstein, a history teacher at Jamaica High School in Queens, N.Y., for the past 15 years, and a former dean of students. His articles on school violence, curriculum, and testing, have appeared in numerous magazines and newspapers and he blogs for the Huffington Post. He also contributed to A Consumer's Guide To High School History Textbooks, edited by Diane Ravitch. Epstein earned a PhD in Japanese - American Diplomatic history. By Marc Epstein With New York City Schools Chancellor Joel Klein out the door of the Tweed Courthouse, having deployed his golden parachute successfully over Rupert Murdoch's News Corporation headquarters, a little bomblet was dropped by the Department of Education. For those of you with short memories, the news release resurrected the tragic drowning of sixth grader Nicole Suriel that occurred during the last week of school this past June. It seems that the principal
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Governor-elect Brown’s Budgetary Shock Doctrine Blows Up School Board Planning

Governor-elect Brown’s Budgetary Shock Doctrine Blows Up School Board Planning

Governor-elect Brown’s Budgetary Shock Doctrine Blows Up School Board Planning

by DOUG PORTER on DECEMBER 15, 2010

in: COLUMNS, ECONOMY, EDUCATION, ELECTION, SAN DIEGO, THE CHRONICLES OF EDUMACATION

Over the past few weeks education advocates have been getting some unexpected signals coming out of Sacramento. The word “No” is being bandied about in ways that could result in shocking cuts to education State-wide for the next school year.

Faced with yet another budget shortfall—this one to the tune of $28 billion over the next eighteen months—it’s common knowledge that the California legislature will have to make additional cuts to the state budget. A special legislative session called by Gov. Schwarzenegger to make immediate cuts a few days back passed the buck, making the funding crisis a top priority for incoming Gov. Jerry Brown. Education advocates knew this was likely, and the plan has been to focus lobbying and other resources on the next administration, hoping for a more favorable reception.

That hasn’t been the case. The incoming administration has apparently decided to immediately confront the State’s structural deficit head-on, rather than trying to patch shortfalls up with

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At Agassiz School, progress and a sense of betrayal - The Boston Globe

At Agassiz School, progress and a sense of betrayal - The Boston Globe

At Agassiz, progress and a sense of betrayal

Parents staged a demonstration in Jamaica Plain this month to protest plans to close the Agassiz School in a budget squeeze.Parents staged a demonstration in Jamaica Plain this month to protest plans to close the Agassiz School in a budget squeeze. (Essdras M Suarez/Globe Staff)
By James Vaznis
Globe Staff / December 15, 2010

By many accounts, the Agassiz Elementary School, one of 12 underperforming schools in Boston, appeared to be showing glimmers of a rebound.

Math scores on the MCAS exam shot up this past spring after the school offered more intensive tutoring. Student attendance rates improved as the school cracked down on tardiness and absenteeism.

And the school district spent about $900,000 last year to replace dozens of grimy, leaky windows, allowing sunlight once again to filter into this Jamaica Plain building where air quality and mold has long been a concern.

Yet instead of optimism brimming from every nook and cranny, a sense of

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Stunning video: Gunman fires at Fla. school board - NorthJersey.com

Stunning video: Gunman fires at Fla. school board - NorthJersey.com
Stunning video: Gunman fires at Fla. school board
Wednesday, December 15, 2010
LAST UPDATED: WEDNESDAY DECEMBER 15, 2010, 11:06 AM
THE RECORD
THE ASSOCIATED PRESS

Warning: Video might be inappropriate
for some viewers.

PANAMA CITY, Fla. — An ex-convict calmly held a school board at gunpoint, complaining about taxes and his wife being fired before shooting at close range as the superintendent begged, "Please don't."

Minutes earlier, the room had been filled with students accepting awards, but no one was hurt except the gunman, who shot himself Tuesday after exchanging fire with a security guard, police said.

"It could have been a monumental tragedy," Bay District Schools Superintendent Bill Husfelt said. "God was standing in front of me and I will go to my grave

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Students Riot in Italy as Government Teeters « Student Activism

Students Riot in Italy as Government Teeters « Student Activism

Students Riot in Italy as Government Teeters

by Angus Johnston

Students staged mass protests in Rome and throughout Italy yesterday as the Italian parliament voted on a confidence resolution that threatened the government of media tycoon Silvio Berlusconi.

Berlusconi, who has proposed huge cuts to higher education as part of a reform package condemned by many in Italy’s universities, prevailed by a mere three votes. As news of the result spread through the crowds, anger swelled — in all, more than a hundred protesters were injured.

Though Berlusconi, who has dominated Italian politics for more than a decade, survived yesterday’s vote, his

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Mike Klonsky's SmallTalk Blog: Thousands turn out in the cold for Chicago mayoral forum

Mike Klonsky's SmallTalk Blog: Thousands turn out in the cold for Chicago mayoral forum

Thousands turn out in the cold for Chicago mayoral forum

by Mike Klonsky
M. Klonsky photo
Rahm a no-show. Chico leaves early.

UIC's Forum was packed last night. Nearly 3,000 turned out, mainly from the city's community and social-service orgs, in the bitter cold, under the banner of New Chicago-201l. This poor frost-bitten soul was one of them. Big money candidate Rahm Emanuel wasn't, and his absence united the crowd with a round of boos.
The 2,800-strong crowd booed. They probably would have booed Emanuel if he had attended. The
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