Larry Hirsch: The Lie in Ending LIFO

Larry Hirsch: The Lie in Ending LIFO

The Lie in Ending LIFO

Posted: 04/25/11 02:32 PM ET

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Mayor Bloomberg , Michelle Rhee , Teach For America , Last In First Out , Lifo ,Education News

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Mayor Bloomberg, Michelle Rhee and the other "education reformers" feel that ending the policy of Last In First Out (LIFO) when it comes to teacher layoffs is the crucial piece to improving public education. LIFO is the practice of having junior teachers be the first to face the ax when jobs are cut, while those with the most seniority are kept. They claim that LIFO will force cities to lay off good young teachers, while those with more experience remain even if they don't deserve to. Therefore they are pressuring legislatures that ending LIFO is the absolute and only answer to seniority reform. However, there are some holes in their argument that should be pointed out.

First, at least in New York, many young teachers come from programs like Teach For America

solidaridad: ¡Marcha a Primero de Mayo! May Day 2011 March

solidaridad: ¡Marcha a Primero de Mayo! May Day 2011 March

¡Marcha a Primero de Mayo! May Day 2011 March

by Robert D. Skeels * rdsathene

¡La Marcha esta para derrechos de todos trabajadores. Ven con nosotros a Primero de Mayo!

As a social justice candidate for the District 2 Board seat of Los Angeles Unified School District, I'll be marching in support of teachers and communities with the Educators Contingent. See you there.

Sunday, May 1, 2011 from 10:00am — 1:00pm
Starting at Olympic and Broadway, Los Angeles, CA 90015



ARE-LA Endorsement of SCIC May Day March

Dear Members of the Southern California I

The disadvantages that indie charter schools do and don’t face | GothamSchools

The disadvantages that indie charter schools do and don’t face | GothamSchools

The disadvantages that indie charter schools do and don’t face

by Anna Phillips

Do mom-and-pop charter schools get a raw deal when it comes to finding rent-free public space in New York City?

For many charter schools, the fight for space in public schools is a bruising one. In a column in the Sunday Times, writer Michael Winerip suggests that it’s that much worse for start-up charter schools that aren’t tied to charter networks or wealthy backers. The latter type, he argues, are able to open dozens of charter schools in public space all over the city. Meanwhile, a mom-and-pop charter school in Queens has to spend hundreds of thousands of dollars on a privately-owned building when the city doesn’t give it space.

Is it a universal truth that the public school real estate hunt discriminates against start-ups? It’s not clear. The charter school Winerip mentions, Growing Up Green Charter, is one of only nine charter schools in all of Queens. Almost all of them are independent charter schools started by teachers or religious groups and most of them are in private space.

Home to some of the best traditional public schools in the city, Queens also has some of the most

Michelle Rhee uses Care2 to astroturf edu-privatizers

Michelle Rhee uses Care2 to astroturf edu-privatizers

Michelle Rhee uses Care2 to astroturf edu-privatizers

by admin

What Michelle Rhee’s billionaire dollars buy…

The following post originally appeared on the DailyKos.com, on April 17, 2011.

Michelle Rhee, tool of corporate edu-privatizers, is using Care2 to astroturf her anti-teacher, anti-union, Students First Foundation with a petition entitled “Save Great Teachers”. (The foundation title itself is propaganda. For someone who is all about accountability, she should change the name to Profitsfirst.org, it would be more accurate.) Studentsfirst.org is well financed by the Billionaires Boys Club, Diane Ravitch’s apt descriptor of the wealthy edu-privatizers who are crawling all over DoE, congress and state legislatures to lobby for laws to break teachers unions and teachers employment safeguards.
According to Ken Libby at http://www.schoolsmatter.info/… Rhee intends to raise $1billion through her Students First Foundation. Her sugar daddies are putting serious money behind initiatives to sell public schools to Wall

In the wake of Michelle Rhee's damage

by admin

Originally posted on Conducting the Inner Light, April 17, 2011.

Michelle Rhee has a new piece on Huffington Post, Why I’m Proud of Student Achievement in D.C. (and Why We Need National Reforms, in which she trots out all her euphemistic (to put a nice word to lies) language about her “achievements” in Washington. It never ceases to amaze me the way in which Rhee and her advocates, especially Richard Whitmire, dredge up the same horse manure, over and over again, and try to pass it off as oats. Here is a video I stumbled across on The Teachers Leader Network in a piece written by Dan Brown (not Davinci Code Brown but a local teacher) that demonstrates loud and clear how damaging Michelle Rhee’s management was for our schools.

Isn’t it astonishing to hear what went on? Especially since we saw none of this in the news! How do you think opening day would have looked as a scene in Waiting for Superman? But it is exactly this kind of management that Michelle Rhee should get press for – autocratic, despotic, and damaging. Instead, she is managing to influence major decisions in education around the country.

Let’s take for example, Georgia. Rhee was able to get 7,000 members of her Students First organization to send out 12,000 emails and calls to legislatures around the state advocating the hiring of teachers on the basis of

Recall organizers question Denver Elections Division findings, vow to continue fight | DeFENSE

Recall organizers question Denver Elections Division findings, vow to continue fight | DeFENSE

Recall organizers question Denver Elections Division findings, vow to continue fight

by analyst

Below is a statement issued by John McBride, chair of the Northeast Community Congress for Education and spokesman for the Nate Easley recall effort:

Considering that Nate Easley had over $60,000 in campaign contributions from wealthy donors who didn’t even live in his district, our unfunded volunteer effort signals the beginning of the end for DPS officials who are tone-deaf to the needs of their constituents.

While we do have significant concerns about the Denver Elections Division’s process regarding fairness, accuracy, professional conflicts of interest and alleged leaking of information to Nate Easley’s operatives, the

Right-Wing Moguls | Republican Party Billionaires | Mogulite

Right-Wing Moguls | Republican Party Billionaires | Mogulite

THE TOP 10 CONSERVATIVE MOGULS WHO CONTROL YOUR LIFE

12:34 pm, April 25th | by Hillary Reinsberg

President Obama has Mark Zuckerberg, Warren Buffett and Steve Jobs — so who are the Republicans’ friends? Yes, they do have some. For the country’s wealthiest and most influential, partisan politics can make the claws — and the checkbooks — come out. Luckily for the GOP, right-wing partisans have more than a few billionaire defenders, each willing to shell out big bucks to see his or her side win. With that in mind, we’ve ranked the top 10 moguls most likely to release the hounds on some hippie Democrats.

Schools Matter: The New Voucher Reality, Brought to You by Those Who View Public Public Institutions as the New Red Menace

Schools Matter: The New Voucher Reality, Brought to You by Those Who View Public Public Institutions as the New Red Menace

The New Voucher Reality, Brought to You by Those Who View Public Public Institutions as the New Red Menace

by Jim Horn

By Troutfishing at DailyKos (ht to Ken Bernstein):

"It's being marketed as a solution to save public schools, but the big donors are tied to right-wing think tanks that openly advocate, and strategize, the end of public education. How can vouchers improve public schools if the people mobilizing the movement intend to eradicate public education? Regardless of your personal stance on "school choice," it's important to know who is behind the voucher movement and the agenda they don't share with the public or advertise in their media campaigns." - Rachel Tabachnick

Eric Prince has become widely known as founder of the private mercenary army formerly known as Blackwater. Prince's sister, Betsy DeVos, is leading an astroturfing war on public schools. Last Thursday, April 21, Indiana passed a DeVos astroturf entity-backed, sweeping voucher bill. Indiana was part of a national pattern. As early as tomorrow the Pennsylvania state legislature will vote on a similar, DeVos-backed astroturf voucher bill. At stake is the future of public education and even

Equity and Excellence, Part One « InterACT

Equity and Excellence, Part One « InterACT

Equity and Excellence, Part One

by David B. Cohen

On Thursday, April 21, 2011, I delivered prepared remarks for a meeting of the U.S. Department of Education’s Equity and Excellence Commission, convened in San Jose. Some of the Commissioners heard from speakers and engaged with us in a question and answer session in the afternoon, prior to a larger, public Town Hall event held later in the evening. My colleague in Accomplished California Teachers, Martha Infante, was one of the speakers in the public portion of the event that evening, and her remarks can be seen and heard online (see thisprior InterACT blog post for more).

My own remarks, as delivered, can be found here (PDF). However, in this blog post, I am publishing a prior draft that includes much of what I wanted to say but had to cut due to time constraints. Today’s post covers the first half of my planned remarks, and a subsequent post will pick up the second half.

I very much appreciate the invitation to speak to you this afternoon. I would like to start by thanking to

The Student Loan Bubble « Student Activism

The Student Loan Bubble « Student Activism

The Student Loan Bubble

by Angus Johnston

Is student lending a speculative bubble? Is higher education a scam now? Malcolm Harris makes the case. The whole thing — a cogent, thorough analysis — is well worth reading, but here’s the money quote:

If tuition has increased astronomically and the portion of money spent on instruction and student services has fallen, if the (at very least comparative) market value of a degree has dipped and most students can no longer afford to enjoy college as a period of intellectual adventure, then at least one more thing is clear: higher education, for-profit or not, has increasingly become a scam.

Seriously. Go read.

Health Care and Education | Tran|Script

Health Care and Education | Tran|Script

Health Care and Education

When thinking about Higher Education, I find thinking about health care as a parallel instructive.

Consumers don’t know always know what’s best for them in health care — studies show that they’ll rate inept doctors who are nice to them and give them what they ask for much better than doctors who actually cure them.

To the extent that health care gives consumers what they want and “acts like a business” prices skyrocket. The cure for high prices is actually anti-market solutions (e.g. single payer medicine) where the government only reimburses evidence-based practice.

So to some extent, I think the people that say “Why can’t you act more like a business?” are paddling the wrong direction. It’s acting like a business that *got* us here, via the system of subsidization that killed direct funding to public institutions and put consumers in control.

We have to compete in small class size, though we can’t discern the benefit in many cases, because that’s what consumers are asking for. We have difficulty pitching blended learning to some populations because parents see it as subpar. Take almost anything we do that is questionably expensive, and you’ll

Save Seattle Schools Community Blog: The Future - Education Reform Version

Save Seattle Schools Community Blog: The Future - Education Reform Version

The Future - Education Reform Version

by Charlie Mas

It seems to me that the goals of Education Reform are primarily to bring the increases in productivity (and cost reductions) seen in other industries to the education industry. The greatest obstacle to the effort to cut the cost of education is teacher salaries. The cost of education cannot be cut until the cost of teaching is cut. The Education Reform movement seeks paths to cutting the cost of teaching.

While technology has allowed for amazing radical increases in productivity in nearly every other industry, teaching is still, for the most part, done exactly as it was done in pre-industrial times: face-to-face with a personal relationship between a professional teacher and a limited number of students. For there to be any improvement in productivity (and reduction in cost), this model must be broken.

Education Reform is pursuing four paths to increase productivity (and thereby reduce costs).

1. The de-professionalization of teaching. Teachers are professionals. They are expected to work with minimal supervision and direction. They are expected to use their expertise, judgement, and talent to respond improvisationally to student needs. In the Education Reform model, however, teachers are expected to deliver

Queens Teacher: Parents Across America

Queens Teacher: Parents Across America

Parents Across America

by Queens Teacher

It's true, parents are the sleeping giant. Why have most of them been asleep?

I think because most parents can't imagine that their child's school could be offering them a dismal education. Most parents don't want to hear their child's school may not be doing the right thing. So imagine when it's the

This Week In Education: Thompson: Parents Protest Test Testing In Charlotte-Mecklenberg

This Week In Education: Thompson: Parents Protest Test Testing In Charlotte-Mecklenberg

Thompson: Parents Protest Test Testing In Charlotte-Mecklenberg

by john thompson

As a part of a continuing, seemingly endless, stream of reports on testing insanity, "School District Field-Tests 52 (Yes, 52) New Tests on Kids," byValerie Strauss, describes the Charlotte-Mecklenberg district's testing of their standardized assessments on students. Kids will have to take those 52 tests again in May. A massive protest by parents prompted the district

Quote: Making Teachers "The Heroes"

by Alexander Russo

We have got to reward excellence, have consequences for nonperformance, but really make teachers the heroesand not lock them into an assembly-line mode. -- Joel Klein in Reason

Cartoon: What Next For Cathie Black & Charlie Sheen?

by Alexander Russo

Illustrator Barry Blitt imagines a sort of musical chairs game for the recently-deposed (including Katie Couric, Glenn Beck, Manny Ramirez, and Gilbert Gottfried). From the April 25 New Yorker