RheeFirst! » StudentsFirst staff spam comments to promote tanking propaganda film

RheeFirst! » StudentsFirst staff spam comments to promote tanking propaganda film:

StudentsFirst staff spam comments to promote tanking propaganda film

by admin

Michelle Rhee, frantic that “Won’t Back Down” opened to overwhelmingly negative reviews, has been desperately trying to inflate the movie’s scores on movie rating sites.
As Progressive Change Campaign Committee originally reported, StudentsFirst staffer Matt David (a former Republican spin doctor) got caught spamming positive reviews for “Won’t Back Down.”  StudentsFirst regional director Catherine “Cheesecake Factory Giftcards” Robinson tweeted at her followers urging them to inflate the films ratings.
Those who have followed Rhee’s career will immediately recognize a parallel.  Before the DC mayoral primary in the fall of 2010, when everyone realized that Rhee was an albatross around the neck of Mayor Adrian Fenty, who 

Planes de trabajo de padres españoles a las artes básicas de lenguaje común en estándares ingleses Parent Roadmaps to Common Core Standards / Spanish Parent Roadmaps- English language arts

Parent Roadmaps to Common Core Standards / Spanish Parent Roadmaps- English language arts:

Spanish Parent Roadmaps to the Common Core Standards- English language arts

The Council of the Great City Schools' parent roadmaps in English language arts/literacy provide guidance to parents about what their children will be learning and how they can support that learning in grades K-8. These parent roadmaps for each grade level also provide  three-year snapshots showing how selected standards progress from year to year so that students will be college and career ready upon their graduation from high school.

Please click on the bold link below to access the publications.

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  Guía Para Los Padres: Apoyando A Su Hijo En Quinto Grado, Artes Del Lenguaje En Inglés

  Publication date: August 2012
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  Guía Para Los Padres: Apoyando A Su Hijo En Cuarto Grado, Artes Del Lenguaje En Inglés

  Publication date: August 2012
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  Guía Para Los Padres: Apoyando A Su Hijo En Tercer Grado, Artes Del Lenguaje En Inglés

  Publication date: August 2012
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  Guía Para Los Padres: Apoyando A Su Hijo En Segundo Grado, Artes Del Lenguaje En Inglés

  Publication date: August 2012
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  Guía Para Los Padres: Apoyando A Su Hijo En Primer Grado, Artes Del Lenguaje En Inglés

  Publication Date: August 2012
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  Guía Para Los Padres: Apoyando A Su Hijo En Kindergarten, Artes Del Lenguaje En Inglés

  Publication date: August 2012

Diane in the Afternoon 9-28-12 Diane Ravitch's blog

Diane Ravitch's blog:

More Bad Reviews for Anti-Union Movie

by dianerav

I will see “Won’t Back Down” soon, I promise.
I don’t want to, but I will do it because I have to.
Meanwhile, movie reviewers are rendering their judgment.
They say it is a lousy movie.
The best lines so far are in the review in the Los Angeles Times:
That’s because unions turn out to be the most pernicious of all the obstacles to healthy schools, worse even than the stick-in-the-mud school board. While no one, not even unions themselves these days, denies that there are things that must be changed about how they operate, the notion of them as total evil only makes perfect 

Mr. Barnz, Please Read the New York Times Review

by dianerav

Daniel Barnz, the director of “Won’t Back Down,” continues to insist in various forums, most recently in an articlehe wrote for Huffington Post, that the movie is not anti-union. It’s just a good story. It has no political agenda. It has nothing to do with the rightwing sponsored “parent trigger” law that it celebrates. It is not a vehicle for union-bashing and privatization of public education. It is nothing like the anti-union documentary (“Waiting for ‘Superman’”) that his producer sponsored two years ago.
The review of the film in the New York Times, written by a regular movie reviewer, not a union shill or an angry 

How a Smart Tech Guy Got Duped

by dianerav

Gary Stager knows more about educational technology than almost anyone I can think of. He is one smart guy. Read this and learn how he got taken in by Amplify, the company run by Joel Klein and owned by Rupert Murdoch.
This is how he begins his article on Huffington Post:
Anyone the least bit familiar with my work over the past 30 years knows that I oppose standardized testing, Teach-for-America, school privatization, merit pay, Common Core Content Standards, mayoral control and get-

The IEA and the fight against Constitutional Amendment 49. « Fred Klonsky

The IEA and the fight against Constitutional Amendment 49. « Fred Klonsky:

The IEA and the fight against Constitutional Amendment 49.

by Fred Klonsky

The General Assembly voted to put House Joint Resolution Constitutional Amendment 49 (HJRCA49) on the November ballot.
If approved by 60% of those voting it will be part of the Illinois Constitution. This is not advisory. It will be law.
It is a sloppy piece of work pushed through by Michael Madigan. There are different legal views on what the impact of HJRCA49 will be. Every House member voted for it. Every single one.
It requires that every governing body in the state is required to have a 3/5 vote on financial issues not including 

Morning UPDATE: LISTEN TO DIANE RAVITCH 9-28-12 Diane Ravitch's blog

Diane Ravitch's blog:

A Hero Principal: Every Principal Should Be This Honest

by dianerav

Several readers, including parents in this district, have sent me a copy of this letter written by Don Sternberg of Wantagh Elementary School in Long Island, New York.
Sternberg wrote a letter to the school’s parents at the start of the school year telling them about how the politicians and bureaucrats at Albany were messing up their child’s education.
He wrote:
What we will be teaching students is to be effective test takers; a skill that does not necessarily translate into critical thinking – a skill set that is necessary at the college level and beyond. This will inevitably conflict with 

Waiver Madness

by dianerav

Washington, D.C., has announced that it will set different testing targets for children of different racial groups.According to a story in the Washington Post, this is now common practice among the states that have obtained waivers from No Child Left Behind.
The District and the states are acknowledging that children of color are so far behind their white and Asian peers that they will need more time to catch up. Actually, in D.C., black students will be expected more progress than white students so they can catch up with white students.
The story says:
Officials say the new targets account for differences in current performance and demand the fastest progress from students who are furthest behind. The goals vary across much of the country by race, family income and 

How Testing Reduces Instructional Time

by dianerav

A veteran teacher explains how the testing process affects kindergarten students:
I taught Kindergarten for 23 years. In addition to using imbedded assessment practices during instruction (listening, watching, asking, redirecting, challenging, etc.) I also conducted individual interviews with kids, when needed, to find out what they knew so that I could diagnose problems and plan individual instruction. In recent years my assessment practices became less and less valued by people in charge. Everyone wanted standardized test results that spawned digital graphs about kids. This did not bother me until I found out how much instructional time was lost.
Here’s the reality: You begin the year by testing to obtain baseline scores. One might think this is useful because by testing again at the end of the year you could have a nice graph showing growth. But unfortunately 

Bugs in Tech Heaven

by dianerav

The Broad-trained superintendent decided to go all-digital in Huntsville, Alabama.
So he purchased 22,000 laptops and a Pearson online curriculum.
The going has been rough.
Students, teachers and parents are complaining about glitches. A student says that it takes her longer to do her 

The Absurdity of the “Parent Trigger” Idea

by dianerav

The movie “Won’t Back Down” is being heavily promoted by its backers.
But there is lots of pushback from parents and teachers. And the reviews have been almost uniformly bad, including those from non-educational sources.
This article, by a retired teacher, cites many of those reviews and asks a fundamental question: If taxpayers support the school as a public benefit, why should parents have the power to privatize it?

More on Charters in Ohio

by dianerav

A reader writes in response to an earlier post about Ohio charters:
This is sooooooo true. One charter Academy in Toledo is a good example of this. It is run out of Lansing MI and is housed in a closed Catholic school building. There are little people cutouts hanging from a chart high in every classroom. Most are red. Red denotes did not pass the test. Yellow almost passed. Green passed. In the classroom I saw, the math people were all red. For reading, there were three yellow and one green; the rest were 

More Standardized Testing for Kindergarten

by dianerav

Testing children in kindergarten is becoming common practice. Oregon will begin testing all 5-year-olds next fall to assess their “readiness” for kindergarten. It is never too soon to test children, and some states have drafted standards for pre-schoolers.
How did this happen? An article by Stephanie Simon in Reuters explains it all.
“Testing young children is not a new concept. In the 1980s, many states assessed children to determine whether they were ready to enter kindergarten or first grade. Experts in child development denounced the 

Get Involved in Saving Public Education in Indiana

by dianerav

A group of concerned parents, retired teachers, and friends of public education in Indiana created a website,which is here.
They are the Northeast Indiana Friends of Public Education.
To lend a hand, read their materials and join them in the battle to stop privatization of public education and 

A Student Reports on Education Nation

by dianerav

Stephanie Rivera is preparing to be a teacher at Rutgers University, where she is a junior. Stephanie has her own blog. But what’s special about Stephanie is that she has strong values, she has guts, and she is articulate. As an activist devoted to educational equity, she rightly is suspicious of faux reforms sponsored by billionaires and corporations.
Stephanie attended Education Nation. This is her report on te various panels and town halls. It is well worth 

A Naive Film Director? UPDATE!

by dianerav

How could the director of this film not know that he was promoting an idea dear to the agendas of rightwing think tanks and ALEC?

What Happened at Elite High Schools in NYC?

by dianerav

Juan Gonzalez of the New York Daily News is appalled at the steadily shrinking proportion of black and Hispanic students in the city’s elite exam high schools:
He writes:
In 1999, three years before Michael Bloomberg became mayor, black students comprised 24% of the student body at Brooklyn Tech. This year, the percentage of black students has plummeted to 10%.
Stuyvesant’s student body was nearly 13% black in 1979; it then dropped to 4.8% by 1994; this year it’s an 

Cool Greeting for KIPP Founder in New Zealand

by dianerav

Mike Feinberg is visiting New Zealand to talk about KIPP, and some of the New Zealanders are none too happy about it.
From the attached article, it is clear that they are not thrilled with the “no excuses” doctrine. As one writer says, “If you wouldn’t do this to your own child, why would you do it to other people’s children.”

NYC School Reform Ignores Diversity

by dianerav

Admission to New York City’s elite high schools is determined by one test and one test only. As a result of this policy, few black or Hispanic students are admitted to these schools. Diversity has dropped sharply in the past several years.
Civil rights groups are suing the city.
Consider these startling facts:
“Although 70 percent of the city’s public school students are black and Hispanic, a far smaller percentage have scored high enough to receive offers from one of the schools. According to the complaint, 733 of the 12,525 black and Hispanic students who took the exam were offered seats this year. For whites, 1,253 of the 4,101 tes

Fact-Checking Jeb Bush and the Florida Miracle

by dianerav

We have often heard of the Florida miracle, as recounted by former Governor Jeb Bush.
Remember the Tezas miracle?
I know there was no Texas miracle.
This reader says there was no Florida miracle.

A Clueless Review of Anti-Union, Anti-Public Education Film: UPDATE WITH LINK!

by dianerav

The Los Angeles Times published a review–maybe it is an article, not a review, it is hard to tell–of the anti-union, anti-public education film “Won’t Back Down.” The article reaches no judgments about anything, other than the opening box office, which does not look good.
It says that critics claim the film is anti-union, but its director and writer don’t agree. Critics say that the producer is a rightwing zealot, but the director and writer say it doesn’t matter. Presumably the conservative billionaire 

Missouri Education Watchdog: Cracking the Code of Inner City School Troubles

Missouri Education Watchdog: Cracking the Code of Inner City School Troubles:

Cracking the Code of Inner City School Troubles

by Anngie

Did you know that ninety three percent of Missouri schools are performing adequately or above expectations? It may be surprising to some that that number is so high.  You would think, with all we are changing in our public education, that the number would be much lower, say around twenty five percent. But the fact is, we have been trying to "fix" the seven percent that aren't doing so well, and those seven percent are, by and large, in our urban areas in St. Louis and Kansas City. Just look where the schools have lost accreditation and you will see what areas we are trying hardest to fix. Both those cities could exist in any state. The inner city school seems to be ground zero for academic failure and many in the education intelligentsia have proffered their reforms to change the student scores in those schools. Because we no longer believe in targeted strategies, but have preferred to aim for education equity, we find ourselves in teh situation we are in today where we are changing what schools do everywhere to fix the problem in our inner cities.

John Kuhn, in a stunning frank but well written article, explains why most of the reform efforts aimed at inner 

SI&A Cabinet Report – CTC’s audit nightmare ends, attention turns to implementing quality plan

SI&A Cabinet Report – News & Resources:

CTC’s audit nightmare ends, attention turns to implementing quality plan

The Commission on Teacher Credentialing closed the book Thursday on one of its most troubling episodes and then quickly pivoted to consideration of a plan for improving teacher quality decades into the future.

The CTC, mandated under state law to serve as the arbiter of professional integrity and quality for California’s teachers, was the subject of a critical audit released in early 2011 that found a backlog of thousands of unprocessed teacher misconduct complaints that state officials said may have exposed some students to unsafe classroom conditions.

The shakeup that followed led to the retirements of top agency leaders, unwanted media attention and scrutiny from the Legislature’s oversight committees.

After months of restructuring and revision of internal controls, the agency board got official word Thursday from California State Auditor Elaine Howle that the CTC had finally emerged with a clean bill of health.

Howle, who addressed the board in person and praised the effort of the past 16 months, was no sooner out of the room than the commission began looking at its next big agenda – implementing some 80 recommendations from a blue ribbon panel on improving teacher quality.

The report from the blue ribbon panel, jointly sponsored by state schools chief Tom Torlakson and the CTC, is 

Education Research Report: Learning from the Successes and Failures of Charter Schools

Education Research Report: Learning from the Successes and Failures of Charter Schools:

Learning from the Successes and Failures of Charter Schools

by Jonathan Kantrowitz

The authors of these reports examined charter schools across the quality spectrum in order to learn which practices separate high-achieving from low-achieving schools. An expansive data collection and analysis project in New York City charter schools yielded an index of five educational practices that explains nearly half of the difference between high- and low-performing schools. 

They then looked at preliminary evidence from demonstration projects in Houston and Denver and find the effects on student achievement to be strikingly similar to those of many high-performing charter schools and networks. 

They assert that this preliminary evidence points to a path forward to save the 3 million students in our nation’s worst-performing schools, for a price of about $6 billion, or less than $2,000 per student.



Learning from the Successes and Failures of Charter Schools - Full Discussion Paper

Learning from the Successes and Failures of Charter Schools - Full Policy Brief

Union teachers play ukuleles too. « Fred Klonsky

Union teachers play ukuleles too. « Fred Klonsky:

Union teachers play ukuleles too.

by Fred Klonsky

Union teachers play the ukulele. The Carpenter Ukulele Society in concert.
That movie is opening this weekend.
If you follow progressive education bloggers or teachers on Facebook, you know which one I’m talking about.
It was produced by the same union haters that paid for last year’s box office dud, Waiting for Superman. 
Listen. Never underestimate the common sense of the movie going public.
Imagine this couple has one night when they have a baby sitter. What’s the going rate now? $10 an hour? $12? I 

Teachers Don't Suck !: Cerf Says "Notion of School Privatization is Ridiculous" - Really??

Teachers Don't Suck !: Cerf Says "Notion of School Privatization is Ridiculous" - Really??:

Cerf Says "Notion of School Privatization is Ridiculous" - Really??

by Walt S.

Popout

A comment from a viewer: "I do not know if he actually can tell the difference between a lie and a truth. Remember, it was at this meeting that he said that it is a lie that he wants to privatize public education, and called the notion ridiculous - while just months before approving a K12Inc managed school?!"
******
Cerf's statement about no interest in school privatization brought to mind an 

FCMAT » Cali Education Headlines Friday, September 28, 2012

FCMAT » Fiscal Crisis & Management Assistance Team:

Mount Diablo State Park

Education Headlines

Friday, September 28, 2012

New superintendent wants to make a difference

Pat Kelley admits he's not an exciting guy. There's no heavy metal music on the radio in his car or real housewives of anywhere on his DVR.

Coach vulgarity complaint shines light on sports culture

Sixteen-year-old Grant Sims says he's never been one to complain about expletives and vulgar language he hears daily at baseball practice. It's to be expected, he says, including from his coaches at Fullerton Union High School. But at a June baseball game, Sims said, head coach Marc Patino went too far.

Marin school district to remove 'heterosexual marriage' policy

The Rev. Lou Sheldon called the Tamalpais Union High School District board to task after learning it plans to remove a policy written 24 years ago by his group, the Traditional Values Coalition. The group's policy, which was adopted in a 1988 state law, requires sex education to emphasize abstinence and teach, among other things, "honor and respect for monogamous heterosexual marriage."

Fensterwald: Once castigated, Commission on Teacher Credentialing is praised

Eighteen months ago, State Auditor Elaine Howle called the California Commission on Teacher Credentialing one of the “worst-run” agencies she had investigated in a comment to the Sacramento Bee. On Thursday, returning to the Commission to close the books on her audit, Howle praised the Commission and staff.

State reported inflated rate of teachers lacking credentials

The rate was startling: Nearly six in 10 teachers at California's lowest-performing schools were not properly credentialed for the classes they led. It's a rate California has worked to shrink for the past six years. It's also a rate that was wrong.

LAUSD, charters win $98 million in grants to boost teacher, administrator pay

Los Angeles Unified and three local charter school networks were among 35 recipients of $290 million in federal grants awarded to boost the pay of effective teachers and administrators, officials said today.

Fensterwald: State Board gets authority to pare back 8th grade math standards

Gov. Jerry Brown evidently agrees that California’s math standards should align more closely with the national Common Core standards. On Thursday, he signed SB 1200, which will allow the State Board to weed out the dozens of California state Algebra standards that were inserted two years ago with the adoption of Common Core as part of an ongoing, unresolved debate over what students should learn in eighth grade.

Oakland schools to get suspension monitor

Facing a civil rights investigation for disciplining black students more harshly than their white peers, the Oakland school board voted Thursday to accept five years of federal monitoring as the district attempts to address the problem.

Thursday, September 27, 2012

Mesa Union names new superintendent

Three weeks after students got back from summer break, Michael Babb, 52, started his first week of school Monday as the superintendent of the Mesa Union School District.

Jittery board cancels arts center plans

The 500-seat performing arts center long promised for the Calaveras High School campus in San Andreas isn't dead - exactly. But following a decision this week by the Calaveras Unified School District Board of Trustees, the chances of the arts center project being built are slim.

County's deputy education chief to retire

Deputy Superintendent Gary Dei Rossi will retire in March, the San Joaquin County Office of Education announced Wednesday.