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Thursday, May 26, 2011

Big Education Ape: 5-26-11 AM another outrageous consultant scandal Edition

Big Education Ape: Ed News Now

Big Education Ape: Ed News Now

Published by Coopmike48 – 7 contributors today



Chicago Shopping

chicagotribune.com - The outgoing board of Chicago Public Schools approved the appointment of the city's newest schools chief for an initial annual salary of $250,000 on Wednesday at a meeting marked by farewells and h...
mikeklonsky

Students Lose When the Debate Is Polarized - Vicki Phillips

gatesfoundation.org - In a story published on May 22, 2011, the New York Times examined the foundation’s education advocacy grantmaking. This blog post helps provide context for that article. The reporting behind the st...
DianeRavitch

'Taxpayer Advocates' Shocking Public Schools

huffingtonpost.com - Please meet Ginger Claar.Ginger is a wife and loving mother of an 18-month-old son. Ginger played basketball professionally in Amsterdam and now coaches the girls' team at the local middle school. ...
DianeRavitch

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coopmike48 Big Education Ape: THE PERIMETER PRIMATE: BBC news story hot off the press - http://goo.gl/IGkEYabout 1 minute ago · reply · retweet · favorite
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coopmike48 Big Education Ape: House vote on Senate Bill 512 at 9AM Thursday morning. Call now. « Fred Klonsky's blog -http://goo.gl/XEPuW51 seconds ago · reply · retweet · favorite
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coopmike48 Big Education Ape: This Week In Education: Funders: Zuckerberg Wants To Educate K-8 Kids--On Facebook -http://goo.gl/sA5G030 seconds ago · reply · retweet · favorite

EducationSee all


Schools Can Get Stuck With Bad Teachers

radioboston.wbur.org - (super.heavy/Flickr) On Monday, we talked about what makes a great teacher. Wednesday, the flip-side: bad teachers, what impact they have and the challenge of removing them. As part of WBUR’s Makin...
DianeRavitch

PoliticsSee all


Rush Limbaugh Ratings Tumble

huffingtonpost.com - Rush Limbaugh's ratings have fallen sharply in recent months, according to a new report by Arbitron.Limbaugh still has the top-rated radio talk show in the country, but his audience has dropped by ...
mikeklonsky

EnvironmentSee all


Chicago Shopping

chicagobreakingnews.com - Greenpeace activists climb the smokestack at the Fisk power plant in the Pilsen neighborhood Tuesday. (Heather Charles, Chicago Tribune / May 24, 2011) Staff report 11:55 a.m. CDT, May 24, 2011 Eig...
fklonsky

Cesar Chavez Home Nominated in National Historic Registry

hispanicallyspeakingnews.com - Published at 12:23 am, May 26, 2011 Photo Credits: National Chavez Center as Historic Landmark The nine-member California Historic Resources Commission voted on May 19 to nominate the National Chav...
coopmike48

Art & EntertainmentSee all


'I woz 'ere and I failed' | Education

guardian.co.uk - Fielding doesn't fancy being an exam invigilator and having to see 'those tortured little faces'. Photograph: Antonio Olmos It's the dread exam season.Do I want to be an invigilator?To perk up the ...
mikeklonsky

BusinessSee all


Growth in Education Spending Slowed in 2009

nytimes.com - The nation’s overall education spending grew at a slower pace in 2009 than at any other time in more than a decade, amid deepening state fiscal woes and flatter tax revenues, according to new censu...
coopmike48

HealthSee all


Veterans committees to look at suicides - Brett Coughlin

politico.com - More active-duty soldiers and veterans have died from suicide than from combat wounds over the last two years — and Congress wants to know why the VA hasn’t done more to prevent it.The Senate Veter...
mikeklonsky

#eduRead this paperSee all


#ourworldSee all


Veterans committees to look at suicides - Brett Coughlin

politico.com - More active-duty soldiers and veterans have died from suicide than from combat wounds over the last two years — and Congress wants to know why the VA hasn’t done more to prevent it.The Senate Veter...
mikeklonsky

Media2

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    The “Springfield Way.” Dirty deals in the dark of night in the final ten minutes of the legislative session. « Fred Klonsky's blog

    The “Springfield Way.” Dirty deals in the dark of night in the final ten minutes of the legislative session. « Fred Klonsky's blog

    The “Springfield Way.” Dirty deals in the dark of night in the final ten minutes of the legislative session.

    by Fred Klonsky

    Last year they passed a two-tier pension plan in the Illinois legislature in 12 hours. No discussion. No debate. Teachers hired after January one of this year will need to work 44 years in order to receive 60% of what they would have received as a benefit.

    Note: Illinois teachers receive no Social Security benefits.

    The current legislative session ends May 31st.

    GOP House leader, Tom Cross, known as the “House member to the insurance industry,” has struck a deal with Democratic Party boss Mike Madigan. They have created, at the behest of the Civic Committee, a three-tier

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    A sensible way to rewrite No Child Left Behind - The Answer Sheet - The Washington Post

    A sensible way to rewrite No Child Left Behind - The Answer Sheet - The Washington Post

    A sensible way to rewrite No Child Left Behind

    by Valerie Strauss

    Here are recommendations made by a coalition of organizations called the Forum for Educational Accountabilityto help guide Congress — should it be willing to listen — in any rewrite of of the flawed law known as No Child Left Behind. The forum is chaired by the National Center for Fair and Open Testing, or FairTest, a nonprofit organization dedicated to stopping misuse of standardized tests.

    The forum’s recommendations are aimed at improving student learning, enhancing equity and giving educators support while establishing authentic assessment and accountability.

    Read full article >>

    Error in Congress leaves schools fully funded — unbelievable report

    by Valerie Strauss

    Did you know that a clerical error led Congress to fund public schools, accidentally, at a level that would be sufficient to properly educate all children? Both Republicans and Democrats were appalled by the mistake, with the Speaker of the House being quoted as saying, “It could take a whole generation to cancel out the effects of this.” Here is the exclusive story from The Onion, the hilarious satirical publication, which will give you a good laugh (amid all the gloomy education news).

    From The Onion

    Read full article >>
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    KOCH BREAK News | www.kochwatch.org

    News | www.kochwatch.org
    OpEd News: How the Koch Brothers Mess With the Texas Environment *-By Mary Bell Lockhart * *May 22, 2011-* Remember the old saying "What's good for business is good for Texas?" Well, maybe that old saw just won't cut it anymore. The "Billionaire Brothers Koch" apparently think not only what's good for business in ...
    Mother Jones: Waxman Targets the Koch Brothers *-By Kate Sheppard* *May 23, 2011-* What do the infamous Koch brothers have to do with the controversial Keystone XL pipeline, which, if approved, would run 1,661 miles from Alberta, Canada to Texas, carrying 900,000 barrels of oil from Canada's tar ...
    Koch Is Not It *-Originally blogged by Knute Rife on The Business Law Spot* *May 18, 2011*- I'm brewing up a series of entries over the next few days, but I'll start with this: Late last year, a group of merry pranksters issued a fake press release satirizing Koch ...
    Brave New Foundation: Tell Secretary Clinton to Say No to the Kochs Secretary of State Hillary Clinton has the ability to stop Koch Industries, Inc. from profiting off a pipeline that would carry the dirtiest oil on Earth through six states, one of America's most important aquifers and almost 2,000 miles of ...
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    4LAKids - : Charter Schools and New Market Tax Credits: EVIL ED, INC.

    4LAKids - some of the news that doesn't fit: Charter Schools and New Market Tax Credits: EVIL ED, INC.

    Charter Schools and New Market Tax Credits: EVIL ED, INC.

    by smf
    The Wall Street/Charter School Connection written+Posted by Paul Rosenberg , Article from speakeasy/alternet.org | http://bit.ly/knvbA9 This post first appeared on Open Left. | http://bit.ly/kLnaWc May 9, 2010 - In America, conservatives couldn’t kill the welfare state because it was too popular, so they decided to re-purpose it for conservative ends. These are their stories. If
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    Daily Kos: Do you want your tax dollars to fund right wing fundamentalism?

    Daily Kos: Do you want your tax dollars to fund right wing fundamentalism?

    Do you want your tax dollars to fund right wing fundamentalism?

    by rss@dailykos.com (teacherken)

    That may seem like an odd question. Perhaps you think I am talking about the tax deductible nature of contributions to religious organizations and schools. One could make the argument that such is a tax subsidization of religious views with which one disagreses, but we have a well established pattern of allowing such offsets without regard to the religious beliefs thus supported.

    But what about vouchers? What if we use tax dollars to give vouchers to families who then have complete freedom to pick a school for their children? Will not those vouchers help pay for textbooks whose contents might be objectionable to many?

    The operable Supreme Court decision, Zelman v. Simmons-Harris, 536 U.S. 639 (2002), comes from the voucher

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    Rocketship’s target: 29 charters in San Jose | Thoughts on Public Education

    Rocketship’s target: 29 charters in San Jose | Thoughts on Public Education

    Rocketship’s target: 29 charters in San Jose - by John Fensterwald - Educated Guess

    by John Fensterwald - Educated Guess
    Rocketship Education, the charter organization whose hybrid online/classroom model has drawn national attention and foundation dollars, wants the Santa Clara County Office of Education to let it open 20 more elementary schools, primarily in its hometown of San Jose, in the next seven years. Together with the three schools now operating and six already approved, Rocketship [...]

    Worth a second look - by Kathryn Baron

    by Kathryn Baron
    Thoughts from a Weis-man A few days after the May revise last week, we reported on a budget forum in San Jose sponsored by the Silicon Valley Education Foundation. In his opening remarks, Santa Clara County School Superintendent Chuck Weis delivered a blunt assessment of California’s public school financing over the past 40 years. He noted [...]
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    Colleges and universities transformed into mini-investment banks

    Colleges and universities transformed into mini-investment banks for private capital construction loans while students and faculty pay the socialized costs through higher tuition and lower wages and benefits | Dailycensored.com

    Colleges and universities transformed into mini-investment banks for private capital construction loans while students and faculty pay the socialized costs through higher tuition and lower wages and benefits

    by Danny Weil
    Picture of Harvard University Part One I have been following the cascading financial crisis with some interest especially as it pertains to the business of higher education — and what a business it is! The Wall Street ‘crisis’, or bankster fraud, has not only changed the economic geography of Wall Street, housing, credit, health [...]

    Revolt: an analogy of China as the US clearly shows the lies for war with Iran

    by Carl_Herman
    source: Carl Herman, Examiner.com I wrote an analogy in 2009 of what the world would look like to Americans if the relationship of the US to Iran were switched to the US having Iran’s position and China having the US position. I’m re-printing the article below to help Americans understand the Orwellian nature of US [...]
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    Los colegios Montessori: una alternativa a la educación tradicional | vivirlaeducacion

    Los colegios Montessori: una alternativa a la educación tradicional | vivirlaeducacion
    Terapia infantil: ¿Qué hacer con las rabietas? 4 mayo, 2011 por Psicólogos Bonnet Entre las conductas que más preocupan a los padres se encuentran las temidas rabietas: cuando el niño se tira al suelo y se pone a llorar, ya sea en casa, en la calle o en el supermercado. Para estos casos la ...
    Los colegios Montessori: una alternativa a la educación tradicional 29 abril, 2011 por Psicólogos Bonnet *El método educativo tradicional se muestra carente de atención hacia aspectos tan importantes en la vida de un niño como: su autoestima, autoconfianza, autocontrol, trabajo en grupo, resolución de problemas, ...
    Terapia infantil: La teoría de la coacción de Patterson: una forma de manipulación infantil 30 abril, 2011 por Psicólogos Bonnet Dicha teoría da cuenta del origen de los patrones disociales en los niños. Patterson, tras observar de forma natural a niños de poblaciones clínicas llegó a la conclusión de que la agresión aparecía asociada a ...
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    Half-Baked Teaching Analogy « InterACT

    Half-Baked Teaching Analogy « InterACT

    Half-Baked Teaching Analogy

    by David B. Cohen

    This blog has been following Education Nation quite closely, out of a great curiosity regarding this latest big-media venture into education coverage. We’ve run a few blog posts about the Teacher Town Hall meeting, and will soon run a guest blog post about a panel NBC called “Job One.”

    Education Nation also has a couple of guest blog posts on its site, and the difference between the two posts offers clear evidence of why educators look askance at some outside “experts” – people whose expertise in policy, politics, business or statistics has been taken as expertise in students, teachers, and classrooms – however unwarranted that assumption may be.

    I won’t spend too much time discussing what I consider the “good” post on teacher evaluation, authored by Linda

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    School Tech Connect: Illinois Is Going Down A Very Bad Road

    School Tech Connect: Illinois Is Going Down A Very Bad Road

    Illinois Is Going Down A Very Bad Road

    by effacethefacade@yahoo.com (Tim)
    I'd love to write about something else other than trouble, but we're now fighting for our lives here in Illinois. I don't have the backstory, but apparently they're going to get a pension-killing bill out of committee tomorrow.

    If you don't get back on the phone tomorrow morning--- at the start of the day--- then in my humble opinion you should go directly into a no-match 401k.

    Out where I'm working, we got organized, and faxed out 263 individual letters to our representatives and tomembers of the pension committee. This is from just one building, mind you. I expect to double that number tomorrow, and I'm going to recommend that we follow-up with phone messages, as well as a faxed, group-signed message to the governor.

    Somewhere on the pension committee, there's at least one Democrat who has flipped and is working with
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    LAUSD - The Making of a Trojan Horse by Mark Hemphill (LAUSD - La realización de un caballo de Troya por Mark Hemphill) - Perdaily.com

    LAUSD - The Making of a Trojan Horse by Mark Hemphill (LAUSD - La realización de un caballo de Troya por Mark Hemphill) - Perdaily.com

    LAUSD - The Making of a Trojan Horse by Mark Hemphill (LAUSD - La realización de un caballo de Troya por Mark Hemphill)

    by Leonard Isenberg
    (Mensaje se repite en Español)

    (For a national view of public education reform see the end of this blog post)

    If you're expecting a retelling of Homer's Iliad here, you're going to be disappointed. For that I'd suggest the local library where any number of translations are available to help you wade through all ten thousand ponderously repetitive lines. Or maybe you could rent that awful movie with Brad Pitt. No, this is all rather about supposed reformers in public education, the politicians who support such well publicized reformers, and the "liberal press" which stands behind them. But I promise you that we'll get back to that Trojan Horse before it's all over.

    Let's start briefly here with statement about the political party which always boasts of the need for reform in

    The Best Defense Against LAUSD Corruption Might Just Be The California False Claims Act (La mejor defensa contra la Corrupción del LAUSD podría ser la de California Ley de Reclamos Falsos)

    by Leonard Isenberg
    Fraud.jpg

    (Mensaje se repite en Español)

    (For a national view of public education reform see the end of this blog post)

    The problem with most opposition to the corrupt practices of the Los Angeles Unified School District (LAUSD) is that it exclusively manifests itself in responding to the latest outrageous behavior of LAUSD in a never ending series of improper action put forth by the district, instead of taking a more proactive approach that requires these brazen morally compromised folks who run the 2nd largest school district in the country to respond and be held accountable for their actions.

    - The new Belmont Learning Center was built on an irremediable $350 million toxic waste dump, where the O'Melveny and Meyers Law Firm represented both LAUSD and the developer in a clear conflict of interest that only avoided massive liability for the firm by former Mayor Riordan getting the damages element of the prima facie case knocked out by getting

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    Wednesday, May 25, 2011

    School Tech Connect: Illinois Is Going Down A Very Bad Road

    School Tech Connect: Illinois Is Going Down A Very Bad Road

    Illinois Is Going Down A Very Bad Road

    I'd love to write about something else other than trouble, but we're now fighting for our lives here in Illinois. I don't have the backstory, but apparently they're going to get a pension-killing bill out of committee tomorrow.

    If you don't get back on the phone tomorrow morning--- at the start of the day--- then in my humble opinion you should go directly into a no-match 401k.

    Out where I'm working, we got organized, and faxed out 263 individual letters to our representatives and to members of the pension committee. This is from just one building, mind you. I expect to double that number tomorrow, and I'm going to recommend that we follow-up with phone messages, as well as a faxed, group-signed message to the governor.

    Somewhere on the pension committee, there's at least one Democrat who has flipped and is working with Madigan to destroy public education. Whoever this person is, he or she is about to earn a very motivated, very organized, very socially networked campaigner who will work for almost anyone willing to primary the pension-busters.

    I'd really like to know what goes on down in a place like Plainfield, where Tom Cross is from (Cross is apparently the person pulling the strings here). I mean, at some point, there are almost certainly people in this organization that voted for Cross-- and that's their right. Are these people accepting the extra responsibility that comes
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    What happened to Texas math achievement and where will it go? « A "Fuller" Look at Education Issues

    What happened to Texas math achievement and where will it go? « A "Fuller" Look at Education Issues

    What happened to Texas math achievement and where will it go?

    by Dr. Ed Fuller

    The best indicator of a state’s progress in math and reading are the results of the National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP). This is considered the “gold-standard” of tests. The assessments include some multiple choice tests, but also include many open-response items that require students to show their work and arrive at the correct answer rather than eliminating choices on multiple-choice items.

    Texas made tremendous gains on the NAEP mathematics tests in the 1990s, especially the 4th grade mathematics test. Indeed, Texas was repeatedly singled out as a leader in education reform because of these large gains. Grissmer and Flanagan (1999) studied Texas and determined that reduced class sizes, business community support, and an accountability system that disaggregated scores by race/ethnicity and student socio-economic status were largely responsible for these gains. At the Brookings Institute symposium on statewide progress, Dr.Uri Treisman and I (2000) also argued that the increased equity in the school finance system also helped drive improvement.

    But what happened since then? Are we still making progress? Commissioner Robert Scott often touts that our students are ranked at or near the top of their peers when compared to other states in the nation. Indeed, this is

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    The Deep Pockets Behind Education Reform - E.D. Kain - American Times - Forbes

    The Deep Pockets Behind Education Reform - E.D. Kain - American Times - Forbes

    The Deep Pockets Behind Education Reform

    by E.D. Kain
    1 person liked this
    Betsy DeVos with supporter

    Betsy DeVos with supporter (Image via Wikipedia)

    Zaid Jilani has a long piece up on the deep pockets influencing education reform. Jilani argues that the money being spent by a host of billionaires and education reform philanthropic organizations is having a pernicious influence on the education reform debate, and is leading toward the privatization of public schools.

    This rapid expansion of voucher programs — which undermine and undercut public education by funnelling taxpayer money to private schools — is remarkable. After all, vouchers have been unpopular with the American public. Between 1966 and 2000, vouchers were put up for a vote in states 25 times, and voters rejected the program 24 of those times.

    Certainly vouchers remain unpopular across the American electorate, as Jilani points out, whereas charters have

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    Shanker Blog » The High Cost Of Caring

    Shanker Blog » The High Cost Of Caring

    The High Cost Of Caring

    by Esther Quintero

    The field of early childhood education (ECE) is riddled with contradictions. Bluntly, when those we love the most—our children—are at the most consequential stage of their cognitive, social, and emotional development, we leave them in the hands of the people we pay the least. According to the latest data from the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, for example, childcare workers earn about 4 percent less than animal caretakers—$20,940 and $21,830 per year, respectively.

    I am far from the first to make this embarrassing comparison; more than a decade ago, Marci Whitebookprovided an extensive overview. Unfortunately, the comparisons still hold.

    Over the intervening years, there have been many determined efforts to regulate and improve the working conditions of early childhood educators, including raising the qualifications and wages for the profession. Indeed, the demand for worthy salaries is often discussed in combination with workforce development efforts. In other words, we want early childhood workers to be both better trained and better paid. While this may seem to be a

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    House vote on Senate Bill 512 at 9AM Thursday morning. Call now. « Fred Klonsky's blog

    House vote on Senate Bill 512 at 9AM Thursday morning. Call now. « Fred Klonsky's blog

    House vote on Senate Bill 512 at 9AM Thursday morning. Call now.

    by Fred Klonsky

    Early Wednesday word was circulating that Tom Cross and Mike Madigan didn’t have the votes to move the pension bill out of committee. All committee meetings listed on the House schedule had been cancelled through Friday.

    Then by late afternoon everything had changed.

    According to Greg Hinz at Crains, a House vote is now scheduled for 9AM Thursday morning.

    Calls are urgently requested.

    Greg Hinz:

    Under the proposal as filed by House Republican Leader Tom Cross, workers covered by five state pension plans and various municipal retirement systems would keep all benefits they have earned to date but pay far more for benefits accrued in the future. Or they could pay less but get less than than they do today.

    A spokesman for House Speaker Michael Madigan, who has talked regularly to Mr. Cross about the bill, said he believes the bill has the speaker’s support.

    “I think we’ve made a lot of progress on pensions in the past couple of years,” the spokesman said. “We are going farther in that direction.”

    Specifically, workers who were on the payroll before this year would have one of three choices.

    1) Stay in the current system, but contribute 3.75% to 8% more as a share of salary, depending on the system. Judges would pay 23% more as a share of salary. The employer contribution generally would remain at 6% of salary. Employee figures would be adjusted after three years.

    2) Accept the same sort of reduced benefits and higher retirement ages that were mandated for new workers hired after Jan. 1. In exchange, workers would contribute about what they do now, generally 6% or 7% of pay.

    3) Enter a self-managed pension plan that would work much like a 401(k). Each side would contribute 6% of pay.

    Overall, the proposal resembles one first advanced by the Civic Committee of the Commercial Club, a big business group. In addition to the state workers and teachers statewide, it could cover non-sworn Chicago employees — not police or firefighters — plus most workers for Cook County, Chicago Public Schools and the Chicago Park District.

    Unions are strongly opposed.

    “Teachers, police and other public employees work hard and play by the rules, but now the politicians want to change those rules and tell public employees they lost the game,” said a statement from AFSCME. “It’s the politicians who for years recklessly neglected to make contributions required by law.”

    Proponents of the measure say that, rightly or not, the state no longer can afford to incur pension debt at the current rate, given the more than $60 billion in unfunded liability in the state’s employee pension funds.

    One big question that is unanswered so far is how much transition costs would be for switching to a new system. That has been a big concern of Chicago Mayor Rahm Emanuel. But the city is included in the bill, so I presume that matter has been resolved.

    With the support of Mr. Madigan and Mr. Cross, the bill seems likely to pass the House. But while Senate President John Cullerton reportedly has agreed to allow the bill to come for a vote in his chamber, he says reducing pensions for those already on the payroll would violate the Illinois Constitution.

    The measure, SB 512, is scheduled to come up for a vote in a House committee at 9 a.m. on Thursday.

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    An Urban Teacher's Education: Revisiting My Blogging Methods and Purpose

    An Urban Teacher's Education: Revisiting My Blogging Methods and Purpose

    Revisiting My Blogging Methods and Purpose

    by The Reflective Educator
    It has recently come to my attention that I may not be representing myself accurately on this blog. People who know me in real life have recently suggested that my writing here is significantly more angry and vitriolic than they'd expect. This concerns me.

    It is true that I am angry, disgusted, and horrified by a lot of what I learn about education politics. On the other hand, I try desperately to keep an open mind. I continually attack my own beliefs (in my head) and try to consider others' arguments. However, it may be the case that the tone I often take on this blog gives first-time readers the wrong impression about who I am and what I stand for.

    There seems to be something unique about the act of blogging in that the entirety blog (especially blogs that have any sort of personal tone to them) often provides necessary context for individual posts. There are some
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