Jersey Jazzman: Priorities

Jersey Jazzman: Priorities:

Priorities

by Duke

On the one hand:

At least 23 states have made huge cuts to public education spending this year, and school districts are scrambling to find ways to cope. School foundations, parent-teacher organizations and local education funds supported by business groups and residents contribute at least $4 billion per year to help public schools throughout the country.

On the other:

The 400 richest Americans used to pay 30% of their income on the average to Uncle

Schools Matter: On Democracy Now! "Poverty Is the Problem": Efforts to Cut Education Funding, Expand Standardized Testing Assailed

Schools Matter: On Democracy Now! "Poverty Is the Problem": Efforts to Cut Education Funding, Expand Standardized Testing Assailed:

On Democracy Now! "Poverty Is the Problem": Efforts to Cut Education Funding, Expand Standardized Testing Assailed

by Robert D. Skeels * rdsathene

The Democracy Now! team discusses recent developments in New York's assessment plans, the U.S. Department of Education's controversial No Child Left Behind waiver extortion scheme, and other topics with celebrated education professor and author Dr. Diane Ravitch and New York City schoolteacher and Brian Jones(The Inconvenient Truth Behind Waiting for Superman).



[click here if can't view this video]

Statement by the President on Preparations for Hurricane Irene | The White House

Statement by the President on Preparations for Hurricane Irene | The White House:

Statement by the President on Preparations for Hurricane Irene

by The White House

Release Time:

For Immediate Release

Location:

Fisher House at Blue Heron Farm, Martha's Vineyard, Massachusetts

11:28 A.M. EDT

THE PRESIDENT: Good morning, everybody. I want to say a few words about Hurricane Irene, urge Americans to take it seriously, and provide an overview of our ongoing federal preparations for what's likely to be an extremely dangerous and costly storm.

I’ve just convened a conference call with senior members of my emergency response team and directed them to make sure that we are bringing all federal resources to bear and deploying them properly to cope not only with the storm but also its aftermath. I’ve also spoken this morning with governors and mayors of major metropolitan areas along the Eastern Seaboard to let them know that this administration is in full support of their efforts to prepare for this storm and stands ready to fully support their response efforts. And we will continue to stay in close contact with them.

I cannot stress this highly enough: If you are in the projected path of this hurricane, you have to take precautions now. Don’t wait. Don’t delay. We all hope for the best, but we have to be prepared for the worst. All of us have to take this storm seriously. You need to listen to your state and local officials, and if you are given an evacuation order, please follow it. Just to underscore this point: We ordered an aircraft carrier group out to sea to avoid this storm yesterday. So if you’re in the way of this hurricane, you should be preparing now.

If you aren’t sure how to prepare your families or your home or your business for a hurricane or any other emergency, then you can visit Ready.gov -- that's Ready.gov -- or Listo.gov. That's Listo.gov.

Now, since last weekend, FEMA has been deploying its Incident Management Assistance Teams to staging areas in communities up and down the coast. FEMA has millions of liters of water, millions of meals, and tens of thousands of cots and blankets, along with other supplies, pre-positioned along the Eastern Seaboard. And the American Red Cross has already begun preparing shelters in North Carolina and other states.

These resources are all being coordinated with our state and local partners, and they stand ready to be deployed as necessary. But, again, if you are instructed to evacuate, please do so. It's going to take time for first responders to begin rescue operations and to get the resources we've pre-positioned to people in need. So the more you can do to be prepared now -- making a plan, make a supply kit, know your evacuation route, follow instructions of your local officials -- the quicker we can focus our resources after the storm on those who need help the most.

To sum up, all indications point to this being a historic hurricane. Although we can’t predict with perfect certainty the impact of Irene over the next few days, the federal government has spent the better part of last week working closely with officials in communities that could be affected by this storm to see to it that we are prepared. So now is the time for residents of these communities -- in the hours that remain -- to do the same. And FEMA and Craig Fugate, the director of FEMA, will be keeping people closely posted in the next 24, 48 hours.

Thank you very much.

Blood Money (Or How Pearson is a Vampire on the Neck of Education)

Blood Money (Or How Pearson is a Vampire on the Neck of Education):

Blood Money (Or How Pearson is a Vampire on the Neck of Education)

by admin

We are being asked (key word “asked”) to be trained (key word “trained”, like dogs,) by Pearson “Learning” August 29^th and 30^th. Pearson is going to pay us. Make no mistake, ladies and gentlemen, the money they are going to pay us is blood money. And the blood money they are going to pay us with is our own blood. It is the blood we bled when LAUSD cut our pay. It is the blood we will bleed every day when we struggle with larger and larger class sizes. It is the blood Jenny, Isabel, Jared, River, Susan, Summer and all the rest are bleeding right now as they sit home BLEEDING because they no longer have jobs.

It is blood money.

Pearson “Learning” was once a nice publishing house. They printed books under names like Penguin and a

CEA responds to PACE op-ed | EdNewsColorado

CEA responds to PACE op-ed | EdNewsColorado:

CEA responds to PACE op-ed

by Alan Gottlieb

The following was submitted by Mike Wetzel, public relations director for the Colorado Education Association. (Discosure: CEA is a sponsor of Education News Colorado)

The Colorado Education Association has no problems and much praise for the title of Tim Farmer’s editorial, “Professional associations are the future of teaching.” Nearly 40,000 education professionals have voluntarily chosen to join CEA because they believe membership in this organization advances the teaching profession in Colorado. That phrase would’ve made a great CEA bumper sticker, had we thought of it first.

After the title, though, Mr. Farmer launches into a false argument that an organization with a union component – one that advances the teaching profession by advocating for fair salaries, decent working conditions and legal protections – cannot also have a robust, even larger, professional component.

Our recent work on the state council to define educator effectiveness for a new statewide evaluation system, in accordance with Senate Bill 191, is a great example of CEA’s professional achievements. CEA had three members on the State Council for Educator Effectiveness who pushed for statewide accountability measure

Schools Matter: KIPP Indianapolis: Too Connected to Corporate Power to Fail

Schools Matter: KIPP Indianapolis: Too Connected to Corporate Power to Fail:

KIPP Indianapolis: Too Connected to Corporate Power to Fail

by Jim Horn

If you don't know who Whitney Tilson is, he is to KIPP corporate fundraising what Jay Mathews is to KIPP media coverage: he is the go-to guy, connected at every cash-sensitive orifice to the philanthro-oligarchs who are always looking to avoid paying federal and state taxes by giving huge bundles of cash to the segregated and corporatized reform schooling movement, i. e. charter schools.

In December 2009, Tilson had this to say about his recent visit to KIPP Indianapolis:

. . . a small percentage of our schools don't live up to KIPP's high standards (and they are VERY high). KIPP Indianapolis was one such school.

What would the typical school district do with an underperforming

John Thompson: Steve Brill's Destructive Morality Play

John Thompson: Steve Brill's Destructive Morality Play:

John Thompson

Award-winning historian, lobbyist and guerilla-gardener, and inner city teacher

GET UPDATES FROM JOHN THOMPSON

Like

109

Steve Brill's Destructive Morality Play

Posted: 8/24/11 05:06 PM ET

Steve Brill's Class Warfare is a morality play. In Act I, Brill asks us to ignore social science and believe that improved classroom instruction in neighborhood schools can close the achievement gap. Like so many elites who have only seen a tiny slice of urban life, Brill remains unaware of the reasons why "truly effective teaching," by itself, can save individuals, but why it can not systemically "overcome student indifference, parental disengagement and poverty."

Brill then seeks even more suspension of judgment as he introduces true believers in "No Excuses!" charter schools who deny that they exclude the most difficult-to-educate students. This fiction was exposed, again, in the New York Times' coverage of Success charter schools that push out challenging students.

Brill, however, cites a memo from Success charter schools founder Eva Moskowitz complaining that her entire school (of 250 students) has "ten kids with non-trivial psychiatric problems," and

Women’s Equality Day – What the heck do I tell my daughter? « MomsRising Blog

Women’s Equality Day – What the heck do I tell my daughter? « MomsRising Blog:

Women’s Equality Day – What the heck do I tell my daughter?

Posted August 26th, 2011 by Kristin Rowe-Finkbeiner

Today is Women’s Equality Day. At the center of my mind today is:

What the heck do I tell my daughter?

- How do I tell my daughter about the fact that despite many gains made for women’s (and mothers’) equality, women still don’t earn equal pay for equal work? Women now make, on average, only 77 cents for every dollar that men make for full-time work.

Not equal.

- How do I tell my daughter that there’s rampant hiring and pay discrimination against mothers? While overall women make 77 cents to every man’s dollar, women without children make 90 cents to a man’s dollar, mothers make 73 cents, and single mothers make only 60 cents to a man’s dollar. Women of color experience increased wage hits

Read more: http://www.momsrising.org/blog/womens-equality-day-what-the-heck-do-i-tell-my-daughter/#ixzz1W9H1MAfX

Let's Say You're a Teacher - Teacher in a Strange Land - Education Week Teacher

Let's Say You're a Teacher - Teacher in a Strange Land - Education Week Teacher:

Let's Say You're a Teacher

By Nancy Flanagan on March 30, 2010 1:10 PM | 23 Comments | Recommend

So--let's say you're a teacher.

Not "just a teacher," but one of those special teachers we hear about in news and policy discussions-- the supposedly rare educator who has passionate disciplinary expertise, a toolbag full of teaching strategies and genuine caring for their students. You're in education because you want to make a difference, change the world, raise the bar. You actually love teaching, finding it endlessly variable and challenging. You plan to spend a long time in the classroom.

So you begin pursuing a graduate degree in education. You notice that getting a masters degree in education is scorned in policy world as having little impact on student learning. A few of your classes are tedious. But some of them are genuinely interesting and valuable, pushing you to think more deeply about the work you do and increasing your content knowledge. Even though pundits declare your advanced degree does not correlate with increased student

The When, Whether & Who of Worthless Wonky Studies: School Finance Reform Edition « School Finance 101

The When, Whether & Who of Worthless Wonky Studies: School Finance Reform Edition « School Finance 101:

The When, Whether & Who of Worthless Wonky Studies: School Finance Reform Edition

by schoolfinance101

I’ve previously written about the growing number of rigorous peer reviewed and other studies which tend to show positive effects of state school finance reforms. But what about all of those accounts to the contrary? The accounts that seem so dominant in the policy conversations on the topic. What is that vast body of research that suggests that school finance reforms don’t matter? That it’s all money down the rat-hole. That in fact, judicial orders to increase funding for schools actually hurt children?

Beyond utterly absurd graphs and tables like Bill Gates’ “turn the curve upside down” graph, and Dropout Nation’s even more absurd graph, there have been a handful of recent studies and entire books dedicated to proving that court ordered school finance reforms simply have no positive effect on children. Some do appear in peer reviewed journals, despite egregious (and really obvious) methodological flaws. And yes, some really do go so far as to claim that court ordered school finance reforms “harm our children.”[1]

The premise that additional funding for schools often leveraged toward class size reduction, additional course

Teachers' union behind anti-Rhee site - Ben Smith - POLITICO.com

Teachers' union behind anti-Rhee site - Ben Smith - POLITICO.com:

Teachers' union behind anti-Rhee site

Rheefirst.com, the anonymous website bashing former D.C. schools chancellor Michelle Rhee, was created by a computer registered to the American Federation of Teachers.

The site, which refers to Rhee as “the Sarah Palin of education” among other things and is the main online source of attacks on Rhee, was launched in February. An tracking tool traces the IP address back to the AFT’s offices in D.C. The site has since jumped to several other IP addresses.

It’s not a huge surprise that the AFT doesn’t like Rhee, but both Rhee and the

Schools | Mich. names 'lowest achieving': Check rankings of public, charter schools | The Detroit News

Schools | Mich. names 'lowest achieving': Check rankings of public, charter schools | The Detroit News:

Mich. names 'lowest achieving': Check rankings of public, charter schools

By Mike WilkinsonThe Detroit News

More schools in Michigan must develop improvement plans after a new state education model identified them as the worst in the state based on test scores, graduation rates and gaps between demographic groups, according to data released Friday morning by the Michigan Department of Education.

More schools in Michigan must develop improvement plans after a new state education model identified them as the worst in the state based on test scores, graduation rates and gaps between demographic groups, according to data released Friday morning by the Michigan Department of Education.

Detroit had the most, with 38 schools, down from 40 in 2010. The rankings will be used to determine which Detroit Public Schools are placed into a new state-run system called the Education Achievement System that will give autonomy from DPS to individual schools. It was announced in July as a way to aid the estimated three dozen failing schools in Detroit in the 2012-13 school year. Other failing schools statewide could be

From The Detroit News: http://detnews.com/article/20110826/SCHOOLS/110825001/Mich.-names-‘lowest-achieving’--Check-rankings-of-public--charter-schools#ixzz1W96c3lE3

The Liberal Education offered by the Americans is truly a gift to mankind." | Education

The Liberal Education offered by the Americans is truly a gift to mankind." | Education:

The Liberal Education offered by the Americans is truly a gift to mankind."

FRIDAY, 26 AUGUST 2011 16:25

---

---

Never have there been so many choices in the field of international Higher Education than at present. One is faced with questions of affordability and language, both of which can be tackled with guidance in the right direction. To my mind, USA provides the best all round education I can think of. Buckminster Fuller, one of the best known academic personalities of this time said that in his study of many scientists he found most of them had their first Degrees from a Liberal Arts College. "The Liberal Education offered by the Americans is truly a gift to mankind." A Sri Lankan Professor when speaking in the USA last year at one of the better known Liberal Arts colleges said pretty much the same thing namely that the American Universities offer the finest education in the many disciplines students choose today.

The generosity of the American world of Higher Education cannot be bettered. From Ivy League Universities down

Democurmudgeon: Majority of New Voucher Users already in Private Schools. So much for helping the needy.

Democurmudgeon: Majority of New Voucher Users already in Private Schools. So much for helping the needy.:

Majority of New Voucher Users already in Private Schools. So much for helping the needy.

by Democurmudgeon

And here I thought I knew almost everything there was to know about vouchers. The following revelation explains a lot about why Gov. Scott Walker wanted to lift the cap completely on family incomes in the voucher program. As it stands now, the program is scheduled to expand across the state.

Post Crescent: The stated goal of Milwaukee's school voucher program has always been to provide children from low-income families a chance to go to a private school instead of the troubled Milwaukee Public Schools.

As the voucher program expands this year — the enrollment cap has been lifted, the income cap for a married-couple family has been raised to $74,000 and a program is starting in Racine.

A nonpartisan research organization in Milwaukee, Public Policy Forum, did a count of all Milwaukee voucher school students in the 2006-07 school year, the last time the enrollment cap was raised. It found that 60 percent of the students new to the program that year came not from

Smart Teachers in Stupid Schools | Truth in American Education

Smart Teachers in Stupid Schools | Truth in American Education:

Smart Teachers in Stupid Schools

by chascherrie

Smart Teachers in Stupid Schools
By Christine D’Amico, MA Elementary Ed August 25, 2011 Rant Rave

American education in the early 1900′s was designed to teach students academics: phonics, reading, writing, math, American history, world history, world geography, American geography, science, grammar, art, art history, literature, poetry, students were taught directly and systematically and they were assigned memorization and recitation of important documents. Students in the early 1900′s had a course load that was full and diverse. High school graduates during this time had a broad education which was well grounded in academics.

We are now down to basically teaching three subjects in school, reading, writing and math. The methods employed in the classroom are so inefficient that we have to spend lots of time on these

All Education Matters: Leaving DC, And Already Planning A Return Trip

All Education Matters: Leaving DC, And Already Planning A Return Trip:

Leaving DC, And Already Planning A Return Trip

by C. Cryn Johannsen

As many of you know, this trip to D.C. has been enormously productive. I will be providing a detailed report on what I accomplished, whom I met with, where I was when the earthquake hit (ha!), and so forth. This trip has made me realize that I need to return for another one in October or thereabouts (What I really need to do is relocate to the East Coast. It's going to happen. I will get out of exile in Texas, but I am not sure when).

As for this next trip to D.C., I don't want it to be solo. I get lonely in those long, marble corridors, so having company would be very much appreciated - a Blackberry is no substitute for human interaction. That means we have to come up with a strategic plan that will enable people to join me and walk the halls on the House and Senate side to meet with our leaders and demand change.

One of the things I am going to bring up on my return trip is this: why not go after these schools for