Missouri Education Watchdog: The "Stop Common Core" Movement Consists of Right Wing Whackos and Third Party Whackos. It's All Good.

Missouri Education Watchdog: The "Stop Common Core" Movement Consists of Right Wing Whackos and Third Party Whackos. It's All Good.:

The "Stop Common Core" Movement Consists of Right Wing Whackos and Third Party Whackos. It's All Good.

by stlgretchen

The growing displeasure about the adoption/implementation of Common Core has united disparate groups of folks concerned about the privatization and centralization of education.  Edweek.com featuredA Progressive and a Conservative Find Common Ground Opposing the Common Core and how different political philosophies are set aside by two folks working together to defeat CCSS. 

Susan Ohanian (a self proclaimed "third party whacko") writes she agrees with the "right wing whackos" on their opposition to Common Core and explains why.  She ties it in nicely with an article she wrote 13 years ago on Goals 2000, another educational reform model that attempted to implement national standards and increase centralized education.   From Republican National Committee passes resolution to shut down Common Core curriculum:

******************************************************************************* 


Ohanian Comment: Finding myself in agreement with the Republican National Committee, Glenn Beck, Michelle Malkin, and a host of other right wing whackos comes as no surprise. Been there. Done that. Here's an excerpt from a cover story I wrote for Phi Delta Kappan, January 2000: Goals 2000: What's in a Name? 

Liberals and Conservatives Join Hands 
"Are you a Republican yet?" My husband asked me that question a couple of months ago. 

» AFT Report Highlights Hedge Fund Managers Who Secretely Work to Undermine Pensions

» AFT Report Highlights Hedge Fund Managers Who Secretely Work to Undermine Pensions:

AFT Report Highlights Hedge Fund Managers Who Secretely Work to Undermine Pensions

by Chaz Bolte

AFT President Randi Weingarten

A new report from the American Federation of Teachers (AFT) lists 34 executives at hedge funds and investment firms who help make contributions to or are leaders of organizations with a negative view on traditional pensions. In naming these executives the union is hoping to persuade other unions to stop investing the flow of pension funds to groups with close ties to those who want to radically change pensions.
Among the more notable figures listed is “financial whiz” Dan Loeb. Loeb is currently being accused of playing both sides of the teacher pensions game, courting pension systems while simultaneously being involved with Students First, an extreme anti-union group. Now, unions want action in stopping this vicious cycle of greed.
Michael Powell, an assistant to AFT President Randi Weingarten told the Wall Street Journal:
“Does the American Federation of Teachers think they should divest [from firms named in the report?] The answer would be yes.”
The combined assets of the American Federation of Teachers nationwide is around $800 million. Pension 

MORNING UPDATE LISTEN TO DIANE RAVITCH 4-19-13 Diane Ravitch's blog | A site to discuss better education for all

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

Handwriting Expert to NC and SC: Don’t Mandate Cursive Writing

by dianerav

In their eagerness to drag the schools and children of their states back to the early 20th century, legislators in North Carolina and South Carolina want to mandate the teaching of cursive writing. (North Carolina Los wants to pass a law mandating that all children memorize the multiplication tables.) these legislators usually spend their time coming up with ways to privatize public schools.
In this comment, handwriting expert Kate Gladstone explains why the cursive mandate is a bad idea.
Kate Gladstone writes:
The NC cursive bill is ill-advised and ill-motivated. Below are the most explainable reasons it is so: and all 

Secret Group in Michigan Plans Voucher-Style “Reform”

by dianerav

A secret group commissioned by reactionary elements in Michigan crafted a plan to voucherize education funding. The plan will be submitted to Governor Snyder. Note that the purpose of the plan is not to provide better education, but to cut costs.
The article describes the plan as “reform,” but as usual, the real intent of this treat eggy is to abandon public education. When the privatizers say “the money should follow the child,” what tpthey mean is that the funding 

DC City Council Will Hire Law Firm to Reform Schools

by dianerav

Every once in a while, I read an article that convinces me that education policymaking in this country is insane.
This is one of those articles.
The head of the DC City Council education committee has found the answer to fixing the city’s still troubled school system: He will hire a law firm to find the solutions! A law firm!
The law firm will help figure out how to improve achievement and more:
“Major targets for Catania include streamlining enrollment lotteries for parents, adjusting how schools are funded and allocating more dollars for poor children, setting performance targets for schools and consequences when they consistently fall short, and outlining a way to decide the fate of vacant school buildings.”

Michigan Debates Common Core

by dianerav

Michigan is debating the Common Core, which it already agreed to adopt.
The curious thing in the debate and in the article is the repeated claim by “experts” that the Common Core will fix all the disparities and problems in American education. It will close the gap between low-perming and high-performing students and lift the performance of American students to the top on international tests.
What is the evidence for their views? How do they know? The standards have been imposed without any test of their value, their feasibility, or their consequences for real-live students. No one actually knows how they will work. What we do know is that full implementation will cost billions of dollars. States are buying new technology 

How Ordinary People Get Good Results

by dianerav

David Kirp recently led a discussion of his new book “Improbable Scholars” at the Center for American Progress in Washington.
One of his findings is that schools can be improved by collaboration and sound ideas. No charters. No school closings. No TFA.
Here Esther Quintero of the Shanker Institute explores the social science that supports collaboration rather than the disruption favored by the reform crowd.

Will TFA Be Able to Meet California’s High Standards?

by dianerav

The California Commission on Teacher Credentialing has raised the standards for those who teach English language learners. Noon get will uncertified interns be allowed to teach these students who need well-prepared teachers.
This is a problem for Teach for America because California has

Teacher: Report from Inside a Cyber Charter

by dianerav

A reader sent this comment:
“I work at a cyber charter. It is ironic that the administrators at these charters make us work twelve hours a day doing inane busy work, and yet the quality of education is much worse than in public schools.
I just got home from doing state testing. At one point during the day one of the third graders raised his hand to get my attention, he had just finished the multiple choice section and was stuck on the first open-ended question. He asked me what he was supposed to do. I just told him to answer the question, we are not allowed to do much more.
After he stared at the page for fifteen minutes one of the other teachers went over to give him some 

Diane in the Evening 4-18-13 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: Karen Lewis Teaches Torah in Evanston by dianerav Karen Lewis taught a powerful lesson from the Torah at a synagogue in Evanston. This is the rabbi’s account of her moving reading of Numbers, in which she connects the Biblical story to recent events in Chicago. “Her portion, Shelach Lecha (Numbers 13:1-15:41) relates, among other things, the story of the twelve scouts send by by Moses to report on the Promised Land. Ten of them return with words of discouragement – they reported that they saw giants in the land.... more »

Louisiana Educator: Jindal Tries to Resurrect Act 1

Louisiana Educator: Jindal Tries to Resurrect Act 1:

Jindal Tries to Resurrect Act 1

by Michael Deshotels

Dear Educator:

Next Wednesday April 24 at 1:00 PM could be the most important day of the legislative session for teacher issues.  If you care about the future of the Education profession, you should contact the members of the House Education Committee about several important bills that are scheduled to be heard, especially if you live and vote in any of their districts!  (Click here to go to the Ed Committee web site where you can get the email address of members by clicking on each name.) This committee determines what bills will go to the full House of Representatives. The membership of this committee was carefully stacked in favor of Governor Jindal when it was formed last year. But things have changed for the Goverrnor (Approval rating down to 38%) and educators may have a chance to talk sense to their legislators who serve on this critical committee. Do not write any of them off yet!

The following bills are very bad for teachers and one is bad for school boards. I hope you will ask them to defeat the following bills which will mandate most of the legislation passed by Jindal as part of Act 1, last year. These were all ruled unconstitutional by district court because the legislature is only allowed to have one subject in a bill. So now, by putting these issues in different bills, they may succeed in making these new laws constitutional. Here they are:

HB 478 by Champagne takes away all teacher seniority in the event of a layoff and ranks teachers according to 

Daily Kos: Boston Police Commissioner announces Black Hat dead (Updates below fold)

Daily Kos: Boston Police Commissioner announces Black Hat dead (Updates below fold):

Boston Police Commissioner announces Black Hat dead (Updates below fold)

by rss@dailykos.com (teacherken)

5:58:  I will no longer update this diary.   Someone else can keep up with the ongoing news.
Now 5:29.  I will put future updates below this line in pushdown fashion, LIFO
5:47basically now a lockdown of much of the area just west of Boston -  Newton, Waltham, Cambridge, Allston, Brighton, as well as Watertown.  Watertown on total lockdown.   Situation is described as "Grave."
5:45 The Boston Globe ‏@BostonGlobe 30s
BREAKING: All #MBTA service currently cancelled - @GlobeMetro
Expand
 Boston Police Dept. ‏@Boston_Police 1m
All MBTA service has been suspended until further notice
Expand
5:41 - MS-NBC and other outlets saying that there are multiple possible explosive devices on the street.   MS_NBC saying officials know who the perpetrators are -  I think Mika said they know their names.  Not clear.
5:37  MS-NBC  reporting (Isikoff) that police are concentrating on one office building.  

Common Core Standards attacked by Republicans:

Common Core Standards attacked by Republicans

Posted by Valerie Strauss on April 19, 2013 at 4:00 am

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Republicans have launched an attack on the Common Core State Standards, an initiative that more than 45 states and the District of Columbia signed onto but that has been facing increasing opposition in recent months from both right and left.

This new effort could undermine what has largely been bipartisan cooperation on the Core and is coming even as some states are already implementing the Common Core Standards in English Language Arts and math, and giving students high-stakes Core-aligned standardized tests.

Sen. Charles Grassley, a Republican from Iowa, has just started a bid to to eliminate federal funding for the effort, which has come out of the Education Department budget. Education Secretary Arne Duncan has supported the standards, and gave $360 million to two multi-state consortia to develop standardized tests.

Grassley’s Wednesday letter to colleagues comes a few days after the Republican National Committee passed a resolution bashing the standards, calling them an “inappropriate 

Ed Notes Online: MORE's Patrick Walsh: Fear and Loathing and the Common Core

Ed Notes Online: MORE's Patrick Walsh: Fear and Loathing and the Common Core:

MORE's Patrick Walsh: Fear and Loathing and the Common Core

by ed notes online

... everything about the Common Core State Standards 

Initiative, beginning with its name, stinks to high heaven. Everything about this privately funded, privately owned, secretly created scheme, sponsored by the un-elected National Governors Association and given pseudo academic legitimacy by the equally unelected but lofty sounding Council Of Chief State School Officers, is meant to obscure or hide altogether what the Common Core is, why it exists and how it came — ready or not –  to be rammed down the throat of almost every school kid in American — including the ten year olds I saw pointlessly suffer through  it the  past three days. --- Patrick Walsh

While MORE as an organization has not delved into the common core waters, most MOREs like Patrick are strongly against it. I for one am against it because people like Susan Ohanian and Leonie Haimson are against it 

Special Late Nite Cap UPDATE 4-18-13 #SOSCHAT #EDCHAT #P2

Nite Cap UPDATE

UPDATE UPDATE UPDATE UPDATE

CORPORATE ED REFORM

Chicago Students Organizing to Save Our Schools

Like This Page · about an hour ago 

Now is the time to fight for what is right. It's never to late to go back to the times of building- NOT destroying! Support the Chicago Students Organizing to Save our Schools on a student-led city-wide Boycott on April 24TH (2ND Day of PSAE) to send the message to Rahm Emanuel and CPS Board of Education- that CPS students are Under-resourced, Over Tested, and Fed UP! Now is the time to fight for what is right! CSOSOS is calling on all Chicago Students to fight for our schools!

To find out more, please email them csosos.chicago@gmail.com

P.S. Please share with all your friends!

The Stakes Is High For Assessment [Collaborateurs]

by Jose Vilson

De La Soul’s Stakes Is High

In my latest post at the new Collaborateurs blog (formerly known as Future of Teaching), I bring up a small group of people (including Executive Director of the White House Initiative on Educational Excellence for African Americans, David Johns) to task about assessment:

It’s not that I disagreed with him per se. While the argument he made was generic enough that everyone could agree, I felt the general tenor of his argument made it seem like teachers aren’t “in” on what he’s talking about. His argument hinges on the idea that the resistance to the current political climate stems from teachers not wanting to assess children. It’s a weird argument since I 

The Brave and the Frightened Cowards

by Democurmudgeon

Sal Castro: Inspiration to a Generation

by Dr. Roberto Rodrigeuz

It feels like we have entered an era of turbulence.
On a personal level, my thoughts are about life-long Los Angeles educator Sal Castro. He passed away a few days ago. How do you explain who he was to someone who never knew him?
In a way, he was like LA Times journalist Ruben Salazar, who was killed in 1970 in East Los Angeles. Castro had a similar impact, but he did not die then. He inspired a generation. Most people know of him through the 

Good and Bad Behavior in the School Building

by Kris Nielsen

Short post tonight.  I’m a little weary, as are the thousands of students and parents and teachers who have successfully gotten through the refusal of ELA part of the New York State tests.
Even more tired are the students who took that test.  As my fellow writers (coworkers?) at The Chalk Face have shown many times, these tests are the definition of chaos and poorly managed advertising.  The worst we’ve seen in years.  Our kids are being beaten down by this mess.
And you know something?  I don’t think that’s an accident.  I think it’s a glimpse into the future.
Anyway.  That’s not why I’m writing this post.  I want to share with you the way that we feel about many of the 

To Jesse Owens, all children were champions, the famed Olympian

To Jesse Owens, all children were champions, the famed Olympian’s daughter said Tuesday evening, trying to save the West Pullman school named for her father from the Chicago Public Schools’ closing list. Jesse Owens Community Academy is one of 54 schools proposed for closing, and …

NYSED: We want your vomit laced test.

by Chris Cerrone

To follow up on Tim Slekar’s post: State test puke policy trumps parents refusal attempt,  listen to a teacher describe how the New York State Education Department handles a student’s sudden illness.

Popout

Follow the author on twitter: https://twitter.com/Stoptesting15

Actual “puke procedures” obtained by @the chalkface

by Timothy D. Slekar

We looked and looked and looked.  And look what we found.  Real “puke procedures.”

Well, we really didn’t find them.  The “puke procedures” below were sent to us by a REAL teacher from a REAL school.

Teachers administering or proctoring the STATE exams are to do the following in the event of a 

Walcott’s ‘Poem in Your Pocket’ pick echoes boss’s 2010 verse

by Geoff Decker

Unlike his boss three years ago, Chancellor Dennis Walcott stuck to Emily Dickinson’s original script today while reading to a crowd on national Poem in Your Pocket Day.

Mayor Michael Bloomberg brought the springtime literary event to New York City in 2002 in conjunction with National Poetry Month. He has made a tradition out of plastering his own verses all over the city in celebration of the event — at awards ceremonies (2011), on Times Square billboards (2012), and, this year, in the pages of Metro New York.

In 2010, Bloomberg again read a poem of his own creation, but drew inspiration from Dickinson’s “‘Hope’ is The

Remainders: Chicago union chief refines her bat mitzvah speech

by Philissa Cramer

• Chicago union chief Karen Lewis’s bat mitzvah speech ties education politics into Torah. (Shalom Rav)
• A Swiss school’s lesson in technology use: Focus on what goes into the iPad, not what comes out. (Slate)
• The first version of the test that later became the SAT included a section on “artificial language.” (Atlantic)
• Across the country, day care programs are basically unregulated, sometimes dangerous. (New Republic)
• Haimson and Ravitch present the education view in a review of Mayor Bloomberg’s New York. (Nation)
• The UFT endorsed Corey Johnson to fill the City Council seat Christine Quinn is leaving. (Daily Politics)
• The Republican National Committee is taking a stand against the Common Core standards. (Slate)
• A city teacher gets why a teacher might ask students to write like they were Nazis. (View from the Bronx)
• Who created Michelle Rhee? Was it Rhee, we, they, or U? John Merrow wants to know. (Taking Note)
• David Coleman, Common Core creator, is among the 100 most influential people in the world. (TIME)
• Sol Stern questions if New York’s education leaders even understands the Common Core. (City Journal)

MichelleRhee is the fault of the teacher unions. Just ask John Merrow. | Fred Klonsky

MichelleRhee is the fault of the teacher unions. Just ask John Merrow. | Fred Klonsky:

Michelle Rhee is the fault of the teacher unions. Just ask John Merrow.

by Fred Klonsky

John Merrow is freakin’ unbelievable.
The guy once was in love with MichelleRhee.*

While I don’t think my reporting for the NewsHour was puffery, we did produce twelve (!) pieces about her efforts over the 40 months — about two hours of primetime coverage. That’s an awful lot of attention.
Did anyone else get that much air time from us? Well, yes, we also produced twelve reports about Paul Vallas in New Orleans. But Vallas never received the positive treatment (or even the coverage) from the Wall Street Journal, the Washington Post, the