Occupy The Department Of Education Ushers In America’s Angry Spring:

Occupy The Department Of Education Ushers In America’s Angry Spring

No offense, but the Lyndon Baines Johnson Department of Education building in Washington, DC is not a pretty sight.
Crossing the National Mall on 4th street, you pass between the glisteningly modern National Air and Space Museum and the sculpted brown stone of the National Museum of the American Indian to come face to face with what can only be described as a monument to bland austerity.
It was at the base of this concrete and glass slab that a band of public school teachers, university professors, librarians, parents, and students gathered to speak out against the nation’s current regime of testing students, firing teachers, and closing public schools.
For four straight days, speaker after speaker spoke, shouted, and sang into a microphone placed near the entry way of a building bearing the name of an American president who arguably did more to advance the well being of poor people than any other political leader in American history. The group railed at the building and its occupants – especially Secretary of Education Arne Duncan.
The speakers exhorted the audience to chant protestations to the building, turn their backs to it, shake their fists at it, and curse it.
Why so much anger thrown toward a very big, ugly building?
“You’re hurting children!” The crowd shouted. “You’re spreading injustice! You’re harming teachers! You’re ruining schools! You’re shredding democracy! You’re selling out the common good to private corporations!”
These are things, it would seem, worth getting upset about – if it weren’t happening in a capital city where getting upset is viewed as unseemly.
Of course, like most undernon-funded grassroots efforts, the speakers were not vetted through a PR staff that would normally 

LISTEN TO DIANE RAVITCH 4-8-13 Diane Ravitch's blog | A site to discuss better education for all

Diane Ravitch's blog | A site to discuss better education for all:

Who Put the State Education Departments in Charge?

by dianerav

American education has always been characterized by the principle of federalism–until now.
Federalism meant a careful balancing among districts, states, and the federal governments. Schools had a fair amount of autonomy within that framework.
The federal government role was to level the playing field by providing resources for the schools with large number of poor kids. The state set general guidelines and supported the work of the schools. The districts oversaw their schools.
All that changed with NCLB. Now the federal government controls every school, tells it how to “reform,” punishes 

How StudentsFirst Turns Facts into Myths

by dianerav

Matthew Di Carlo dissects the latest effort by Michelle Rhee’s StudentsFirst to sell the idea that evaluating teachers by test scores is accurate, unbiased, and necessary.
Di Carlo analyzes the “myths” and discovers that some of them are facts.
This is embarrassing. Rhee really needs to hire a competent research department.

California Charter Founders Convicted of Embezzlement

by dianerav

The founders of Ivy Academia in the San Fernando Valley in California were convicted of embezzlement and a variety of other charges stemming from their use of $200,000 in school funds for personal expenses.
From the LA Times:
“”This message is going to resonate throughout the charter school community,” said prosecutor Sandi Roth. “You can’t spend the charter school funds for anything you want. It has to be money spent on the kids and the 

A Dallas School Board Member Joins the Honor Roll

by dianerav

When I went to Austin for the Save Texas Schools rally, I also participated in a panel discussion about school reform at the LBJ School of Public Policy at the University of Texas. There I met Carla Ranger, a member of the Dallas school board.
As I listened to her speak, I was overwhelmed with admiration for this independent, smart, wise, courageous, and principled supporter of public education and children. At some point in the discussion, I said out loud, “Carla

Guess Who Knows How to Close the Achievement Gap?

by dianerav

This just arrived in my email. An advertisement for Pearson’s virtual charter business, Connections.

Proven Virtual and Blended Learning Do you need to close achievement gaps within your district?  Do you need to reduce costs on instructional and technology solutions?  Are you searching for a solution to help you meet the Common Core State Standards? CONNECTIONS LEARNING by Pearson can help. Let’s connect at the NSBA Conference so you can learn how Connections Learning can support your blended

The Educational Marketing Game

by dianerav

A reader offers this comment about the education marketplace:
Better and cheaper aren’t even issues in the disruptive Educational marketing game. Only profit matters. Especially if you capture regulatory control, you can degrade quality to reduce cost, then mandate public funding to maximize profits. There’s no public sector, and no free market, to stop you.
I’ll quote again from Farrell:
“Christensen’s theory of innovation showed how “true revolutions occur, creating new markets and wreaking havoc within industries. Think: the PC, the MP3, the transistor radio.”
The wheel is still spinning on applications of internet and satellite “technology” in education. I’m a visionary and 

Why Support Public Schools?

by dianerav

An excerpt from a comment by LG:

“Public schools are the last bastion of our American public culture. Without them, those with the privilege of being born into better economic situations will eventually be the only ones who would be educated. Taken to its end, that kind of trend would set us back to the days where a noble class enjoyed privileges and the peasants were kept ignorant. If you think our schools are broken, please tell me how they are without injecting the rhetoric of individuals vs. communities. We have individual choices in this country. We also have communities to 

New York Teacher: “I Quit”

by dianerav

Gerald J. Conti’s eloquent, passionate letter of resignation ignited public discussion in Syracuse about the toxic, malicious changes now imposed on our public schools by federal and state policy. Private schools treasure dedicated, experienced teachers like Mr. Conti. But reformers insist on taking all autonomy out of their hands; standardizing their work; giving them a script; making sure they are doing precisely what all other teachers in the same classes are doing. He thinks of himself as a professional, and he can no longer bear to work in an environment that demeans and diminishes his professionalism.
New York State cannot afford to lose teachers like Mr. Conti. Let us hope that the tide will turn before we lose more.
Help his letter go viral. Post it on Facebook. Tweet it. Send it to your superintendent. Send it to the Gates 

Diane in the Evening 4-7-13 Diane Ravitch's blog | A site to discuss better education for all

coopmike48 at Big Education Ape - 4 hours ago

Diane Ravitch's blog | A site to discuss better education for all: History Is Written by the Winners by dianerav As the adage goes, history is written by the winners. Today, in the United States, it is written by and for the 1%. Or is it the .0001 percent? How important is it for all fifth-graders in the state of Tennessee to know these names? A reader writes: “Bill Gates & Sam Walton just wrote themselves write Indiana: Stop Voucher Expansion by dianerav In Indiana, new legislation would offer vouchers to children who never attended a public school. This eliminates the ficti... more »

The Chicago Tribune’s Eric Zorn writes: “You are contemptible. You want to be taken seriously?” | Fred Klonsky

The Chicago Tribune’s Eric Zorn writes: “You are contemptible. You want to be taken seriously?” | Fred Klonsky:

The Chicago Tribune’s Eric Zorn writes: “You are contemptible. You want to be taken seriously?”

by Fred Klonsky

A week ago I criticized a recent post by Chicago Tribune writer Eric Zorn. He had written a pretty ugly piece mocking the suggestion that the Mayor’s school closings were racist.
More than 90% of the students affected are African-American in a school district where 42% of the enrollment is African-American.
Zorn responds instead to a post I wrote about his reporting, or lack of it, on the Persepolis book banning issue.

Fred,
Didn’t we straighten this out before, Fred? My daughter told me about this on Thursday night. I thought it sounded like a student rumor but thought I’d check it out the next morning. By that time 

The Florida Children Parent Trigger Leaves Behind | Scathing Purple Musings

The Florida Children Parent Trigger Leaves Behind | Scathing Purple Musings:

The Florida Children Parent Trigger Leaves Behind

by Bob Sikes

Lost amidst all the bloviating by Florida’s republican legislators that Parent Trigger will finally give parents  a seat at the table is the reality that some parents and children won’t. By Parent Trigger’s coercive petition,  they become disenfranchised. No provision in Florida’s Parent Trigger bill address gifted, special needs or children who receive free or reduced meals.
Florida’s for-profit charter school industry – who would be the primary beneficiary of Parent Trigger – haven’t been inclined to serve the most vulnerable of Florida’s students. A December 2011 Miami Herald story revealed “87  of charter schools don’t serve any students with the most intense support needs.” Director of school choice programs at the Florida Department of Education, Michael Kooi explained, “charter schools do not have the infrastructure and economies of scale to provide special programs to meet the needs of those children.
Kooi’s explanation is the simple reason why charter schools don’t get the same per pupil as do public schools. 

UPDATE Ron Paul launches his own home-school curriculum Daily Kos: < 3 %

Daily Kos: <3%:

Ron Paul launches his own home-school curriculum

by rss@dailykos.com (teacherken)

as you can read in this Daily Caller article.  If you want, you can go directly to RonPaulCurriculum.com where you will read

Welcome to the Ron Paul Curriculum
Here, you and your children can get an education in liberty like no other. I invite parents to take courses and participate on forums -- to get the education they never had. Parents do not pay for the individual courses that they purchase for their children.
Here, students learn the basics of Western Civilization and Western liberty -- how it was won, how it is being lost, and how it will be restored. (Not can . . . will.)
Students also learn the basics of American history, the United States Constitution, and American geography.
They get two courses on free market economics. They get two courses on government, including a 

by rss@dailykos.com (teacherken)

In the end of majority rule?, E. J. Dionne's column in today's Washington Post, we read

The filibuster makes matters worse. It’s theoretically possible for 41 senators representing less than 11 percent of the population to block pretty much anything.

 This is a product of the Constitutional provision of equal representation of the states in the U. S. Senate.  Only in theory, each of those Senators could have been elected with just over 50% of those who actually voted.  And the proportion of those age and otherwise elegible to vote is usually less than 60% (even in Presidential years it has rarely topped 60%), that would be less than 60% of 11%, and of that less than 1/2 in each state.In other words, Senators elected by less than 3% of the eligible voters in the United States have the power to prevent things from getting done.
All because of the filibuster.
In theory.
But let's raise the percentage but make it worse, at least in theory.

UPDATE: News Analysis: April taxes could ease passage of Brown’s school funding plan + UC, CSU systems revamping A-G criteria in advance of common core SI&A Cabinet Report – News & Resources

SI&A Cabinet Report – News & Resources:

News Analysis: April taxes could ease passage of Brown’s school funding plan

As has been the practice in recent years, state controller John Chiang has once again opened web access to his office’s daily tally of personal income tax collections.

While always popular – especially for government officials whose fiscal fate is so directly tied to the annual levy – the take this year may also inform developments in  the political arena  when it comes to reshaping how the state supports K-12 education.

So far, the numbers are promising – the controller reports collecting slightly more than $43.3 billion through March this fiscal year, about $10 billion more than this time last year. Gov. Jerry Brown’s administration has projected as part of its January budget that the state would receive a total of $12.75 billion in personal income taxes in April with a year-to-date total of $51.4 billion.

Because income taxes account for about 60 percent of the state’s general fund revenue – these numbers will be watched very carefully over the next few weeks.

One group that might not have always had the same interest in the daily tax numbers are the political advisers in and 

UC, CSU systems revamping A-G criteria in advance of common core
By Kimberly Beltran
Monday, April 08, 2013

As California’s K-12 schools move to new common core curriculum, the state’s public four-year university systems are also revising their entrance course guidelines to provide clearer direction for high schools developing new standards-aligned, college-required classes.

Known as “A-G” requirements, these high school courses that students must pass to be admitted to any of the state’s four-year, post-secondary institutions must meet certain specifications in order to be approved by a panel of collegiate subject-area experts.

“With the common core state standards coming online, schools are creating interesting new courses that don’t necessarily fit into our old A-to-G guidelines,” said George Johnson, a professor of mechanical engineering at UC Berkeley and chair of the UC Board of Admissions and Relations with Schools. “That’s why we’re reviewing our own guidelines and their alignment to common core – so A-to-G isn’t seen as a barrier to creating new courses.”

California’s State Board of Education in 2010 adopted new curriculum standards in English language arts and math 

Special Late Nite Cap UPDATE 4-7-13 #SOSCHAT #EDCHAT #P2

Nite Cap UPDATE

UPDATE UPDATE UPDATE UPDATE

CORPORATE ED REFORM

Does Unity-New Action Really Want to Talk?

by NYC Educator

I was a little surprised to receive mass emails from Unity chapter leaders, including one I happen to know and like. Ironically, the first one was written in protest of mass email. It complained MORE chapter leaders had acquired an email list of chapter leaders, and have used it to communicate with them. Oddly, the Unity chapter leaders appear to have used the very same list to communicate with the same group. Apparently that is not objectionable.

One point made in this note was that MORE was too vitriolic in their comments. I was surprised by this. Actually, I've run this blog for years and have regularly deleted meaningless and juvenile comments from supporters of Unity. They now seem to know better than to try this over here, preferring to focus on the ICE and MORE blogs.

I'm open to discussion with anyone. However, calling me or my friends idiots doesn't cut it for me. Comparing me to Rush Limbaugh because I don't present both sides doesn't much qualify either. This blog is entirely subjective, and has never claimed otherwise. If Unity-New Action representatives want serious debate, they are welcome to 

Principal warns parents: 'Don't buy the bunk' about new Common Core tests

by Valerie Strauss

I recently wrote a piece about why the standardized assessments that are being designed to align with the Common Core State Standards will not be as "game changing" as supporters, such as Education Secretary Arne Duncan, have promised. Here, an award-winning New York principal who was once a Common Core supporter writes about problems with the coming assessment. Carol Burris is principal of South Side High School in New York. She was named the 2010 New York State Outstanding Educator by the School Administrators Association of New York State. She is one of the co-authors of the principals' letter against evaluating teachers by student test scores, which has been signed by 1,535 New York principals.

Read full article >>

CONGRESSMAN VARGAS VISITS WITH “SAN DIEGO NINE” ON HUNGER STRIKE, CALLS FOR EMERGENCY AMNESTY MEASURE TO PROTECT THREATENED WORKERS

By Nadin Abbott

April 7, 2013 (San Diego)—East County residents and Congressman Juan Vargas (D-51), whose district includes the border areas in East County, turned out yesterday in support of low wage workers staging a hunger strike at the Mission Valley Hilton. Vargas spoke with ECM on immigration reform and how it applies to this situation.

The workers want the right to organize a union and collectively bargain for a labor contract. Employees contend that management is using immigration status to selectively threaten union organizers—while at the same time outsourcing housekeepers’ work to undocumented workers paid more than long-time employees.

According to Alma Romero, a resident of El Cajon and one of the organizers of the hunger striker, “we started the campaign to unionize the hotel a year ago.”

One reason for this was that the hotel management was offering workers three days of work, while hiring outside contractor workers who were working full time. “They are giving them up to six days,” said Romero (photo, right).

That’s not because outside workers are cheaper. In fact, that’s not the case, Romero said.  “Housekeeping staff from the agency make nine dollars an hour, and hotel employees make eight dollars an hour.”

None of the workers have any benefits, such as health care. Moreover, and why she decided to go on a five day hunger strike, the workers who come from the agency are undocumented workers, according to her.

The original company that this organizing campaign started with is HEI Hotels.  But HEI sold out to Evolution Hospitality recently.

Regardless, another thing that has been happening is that hotel management, 

Principal warns parents: ‘Don’t buy the bunk’ about new Common Core tests

by Valerie Strauss

I recently wrote a piece about why the standardized assessments that are being designed to align with the Common Core State Standards will not be as “game changing” as supporters, such as Education Secretary Arne Duncan, have promised. Here, an … Continue reading →

Education Finally Ripe for Radical Innovation by Social Entrepreneurs

Comment Now 

Editor’s Note: Debra Dunn is on the faculty at Stanford University’s Hasso Plattner Institute of Design (d.school), where she spearheads classroom and project work in Design for Sustainable Abundance and the application of user-centred design to service learning.

This article was published in advance of the2013 Skoll World Forum. Watch the live stream April 10-12 by clicking here.

From 2001-2003 as a Senior Executive at Hewlett Packard I chaired a working group of the UN Information and Communications Technology Task Force.  Our goal was getting technology into the hands of underserved populations around the world to improve education, health care and economic development.  NIIT’s Chief Scientist, Dr. Sugata Mitra had received international acclaim for his famous “hole-in-the-wall” experiment in the New Delhi slum of Kalkaji, fueling the belief that if kids had access to the internet they would essentially educate themselves.  Technology companies, foundations and development agencies invested heavily in computers and 

Bill of the Week: Beating a Dead Horse

Bill proves school vouchers still have no traction in the House

BY BRANDON WATSON, 10:30AM, SAT. APR. 6

You can lead a horse to water, but you can't make it drink. This week, some state Republicans wanted the House to lap up private school vouchers, touted as a panacea by Gov. Rick Perry, Lt. Gov. David Dewhurst, and Sen. Dan Patrick. But when it came time to vote, the house must not have been thirsty. Vouchers were shot down in a 103-43 vote.

The bill in question was a budgetary amendment filed by Corpus Christi Democrat Abel Herrero, that prohibits public money from being used for private schools. Although Herrero indicated on the floor that he believes the bill would apply to tax credits as well as vouchers, it is unclear if the bill itself supports his claims. The language seems to open a loophole, as long as the credits are not diverted from the Texas Education Agency.

That loophole, though, must have been cold comfort to school choice cheerleaders who had made vouchers a legislative priority. Adding insult to injury, Herrero introduced the bill with a shrug. His 

Frank Daniels III: School voucherfight sinks parental-choice options

The Tennessean

Frustrated by attempts to morph his limited school voucher program into a full-fledged platform for parental school choice, Gov. Bill Haslam pulled his proposal (Senate Bill 0196) on Wednesday, leaving proponents for the school choice movement contemplating — their options.

Haslam’s educational reform agenda has been a mixture of aggressive changes and experimental solutions, and Tennessee has seen progress with this approach, with student performance improving more rapidly than under previous administrations. For this year, the governor was pushing one of the experimental solutions, a school voucher program targeting families with children in failing schools. So, pulling this bill is a big blow to his legislative agenda, which reinforces how important it is to this governor to control the educational reform movement he has advocated.

Haslam proposed offering next fall as many as 5,000 vouchers to low

Our view: Limit big private charter schools to failing districts

Posted: April 7, 2013 - 12:08am

This is how we started an editorial in September:

“State Sen. John Thrasher, R-St. Augustine, asked the right question when he heard that three charter schools, two based in Miami and the other in Orlando, have applied to come to St. Johns County.

“‘Why fix or try to fix something that’s not broken,’ he asked. People in St. Johns County are ‘happy with their schools, they’re performing well and they do a good job.’

“He’s right, of course. The St. Johns County School District is the best in the state four years in a row for a reason. The schools are high performing and the educators are highly motivated and talented.

“And, most important, the students get a good education as they consistently show with their outstanding test scores.

“So, why would those downstate charter schools want to come here?

“The answer, we think, rests in a law that went into effect this year.

“That law, called the High-Performing Charter Schools law, gives special rights to charter 

Long Beach has jumpstart on transitional kindergarten - by Lillian Mongeau

by Lillian Mongeau

LONG BEACH – When California school districts were required by state law to start a new early kindergarten class for some 4-year-olds for the first time this year, Long Beach Unified had an easier task than most: to simply expand the existing “preppy kindergarten” program it started five years ago. The Long Beach program, originally the brainchild of kindergarten teachers Kris Damon and Michelle...