The Folly of a Preemptive & Deceptive Attack on Diane Ravitch's New Book | Kevin Welner

The Folly of a Preemptive & Deceptive Attack on Diane Ravitch's New Book | Kevin Welner:

The Folly of a Preemptive & Deceptive Attack on Diane Ravitch's New Book

Posted: 08/19/2013 10:09 am

Writing here in The Huffington Post, the former press secretary for Education Secretary Arne Duncan launched a pre-emptive attack on the forthcoming book from Diane Ravitch -- a book he hasn't read. One particular part of that post caught my eye.

The author, Peter Cunningham, first chastises Ravitch for criticizing "alternative educational approaches such as charter schools... well-meaning and hard-working organizations like Teach for America..." He then writes this:

"What she will not do [in her new book] is offer a realistic alternative that will ensure that poor and low-income children receive a high quality education. She will say that a big part of the problem is poverty -- which no one disagrees with. She will call on America to invest more in fighting poverty, as if we have not spent tens of trillions of dollars fighting poverty since the New Deal and the Great Society and will spend tens of trillions more."

Yes, the total spent in the U.S. since the 1940s in "fighting poverty" (all social programs?) is very high. And it seems reasonable, given the rising levels of inequality in the U.S., to assume that the future will indeed see a much more such spending. But why is a former press secretary in a Democratic administration parroting deceptive poverty talking points straight from the right-wing Heritage Foundation? (See here, for one of many Heritage 

NYC Educator: Arne Duncan Approved NY Times Column

NYC Educator: Arne Duncan Approved NY Times Column:

Arne Duncan Approved NY Times Column

I continue to be amazed at precisely how low the bar is for professional writers. Maybe they, rather than we, should be compelled to prove added value with some ridiculous mathematical formula. Even as teachers are under assault nationwide for the egregious offense of devoting their lives to helping children, NY Times writers continue to make many times our salaries without even the most cursory research.

Exhibit A is this column from Bill Keller. While it's ostensibly directed against far right critics of Common Core, and while I agree with his criticisms of their tactics, it's remarkably weak on the actual issues.

...the Common Core was created with a broad, nonpartisan consensus of educators, convinced that after decades of embarrassing decline in K-12 education, the country had to come together on a way to hold our public schools accountable.

I'm not precisely persuaded by that. Take a gander at this and you too may wonder who these "educators" are. I'd also question the "embarrassing decline" of education. In fact, if this supposed decline is correlated with test scores, it's fairly easy to see that the lower scores are precisely aligned with high concentrations of impoverished and special needs students. Poverty, of course, is something Bill Gates has determined he can't change, so we're therefore supposed to ignore it.

Keller continues with the Duncan-approved talking points that Common Core is not a federal program, and that there is no 

8-19-13 Missouri Education Watchdog

Missouri Education Watchdog:

My Common Core Conversation with KHQA in Quincy, Illinois

Maggie's Notebook published an article about an interview I did in Quincy, Illinois where Anne and I appeared at a Common Core presentation.  Maggie did an excellent job with the transcription and we want to thank her for spreading the word about CCSS. From  Common Core: Mandated Not Law, Not Funded, Not Evidence-Based, Not Field-Tested, No Pilot Program:  ***********************************

10 by stlgretchen / 6min 

My Common Core Conversation with Phyllis Schlafly

I was invited to speak with Phyllis Schlafly on her radio show yesterday and we had a great conversation.  Many thanks to Phyllis for her invitation to talk about Common Core.  Thanks to the listeners for their call in questions, particularly the teacher who questioned the need for standards for music instruction!  He believes music is a creative process and I agree. I hope you enjoy the int

96 by stlgretchen / 6min 

The EPA and its Support/Development/Direction of Environmental Education in Public Schools

Will environmental education be administered through the Next Generation Science Standards? From the Federal Register comes a notice of teleconference calls on Environmental Education: Under the Federal Advisory Committee Act, EPA gives notice of a series of teleconference meetings of the National Environmental Education Advisory Council (NEEAC). The NEEAC was created by Congres

51 by stlgretchen / 6min 

NY Superintendent Hates Common Core

Is this where the Common Core implosion began with a brave superintendent? Below is a voice message you must listen to from an exasperated and concerned superintendent.  He is relaying the news to parents with children from the 3rd through 8th grades that only 30% of the students passed the new assessments.  This is a significant change from 90% of students being ranked proficient the earlier

55 by stlgretchen / 6min 

What Happens if the System Knows Everything About Your Child

At a hearing this spring on Common Core, Representative Margo McNeil (D-MO69) asked what opponents of data gathering were so worried about with the schools collecting and sharing data. Her question demonstrates the left's lack of imagination, and frankly lack of historical knowledge, about what could go wrong with data collected and held by the government. The Freedom Outpost recently exposed a l

300+ by Anngie / 6min 

Public Approval in the Face of Poverty | LFA: Join The Conversation - Public School Insights

Public Approval in the Face of Poverty | LFA: Join The Conversation - Public School Insights:

Public Approval in the Face of Poverty

By AASA, The School Superintendents Association on August 19, 2013

By Daniel A. Domenech, Executive Director, AASA: The Superintendents' Association
A new school year is about to start. For the past five years, school systems have suffered the worst economic decline since the Great Depression and, to add insult to injury, the effects of sequestration this year will add to the economic malaise.
Nevertheless, public education in America is the best that it has ever been. How can that be, you say? Media accounts abound as to how our schools are failing with privatization, vouchers, charter schools and choice offered as our only salvation. Not true.
According to the U.S. Department of Education, the number of students attending schools considered “dropout factories” has declined by 41 percent since 2002. The number of dropout factories has declined by 29 percent since 2007. A total of 1.1 million fewer students are attending such schools. Today, the dropout rate, which has been declining steadily since 1972, is the lowest it has ever been. Conversely, high school completion rates have been trending up, and we have the highest high school graduation rate in decades (78.2 percent during 2009-10).
College enrollment is at a high point, and more Hispanic students are pursuing postsecondary education than ever, 31.9 percent in 2010. As a matter of fact, minority college enrollment has increased for all groups. The educational attainment for all 25- to 29-year-olds is up. Ninety 

College-for-all vs. career education? Moving beyond a false debate | Hechinger Report

College-for-all vs. career education? Moving beyond a false debate | Hechinger Report:

College-for-all vs. career education? Moving beyond a false debate

By Sarah Carr

This piece was originally published in the Wilson Quarterly.

At New Orleans charter schools, even students in the primary grades sometimes start the day with rousing chants professing their commitment to college. “This is the way, hey!/ We start the day, hey!/ We get the knowledge, hey!/To go to college!” kids shout. During several years writing about the remaking of the school system since Hurricane Katrina, I have heard high school teachers remind students to wash their hands before leaving the restroom because otherwise they might get sick, which might cause them to miss class, which would leave them less prepared for college. College flags and banners coat the walls and ceilings of schools across the city. College talk infuses the lessons of even the youngest learners. College trips expose older kids to campuses around the country.

While particularly strong in New Orleans, the “college-for-all” movement has swept the nation over the past decade, with education reformers in different cities embracing the notion that sending more low-income students to and through college should be America’s primary antipoverty strategy. In his first address to a joint session of Congress, President Barack Obama echoed that theme when he asked every American to pledge to attend at least one year of college. “We will provide the support necessary for you to complete college and meet a new goal: By 2020, America will once again have the highest proportion of college graduates in the world.”

Students study at Akili Academy, one of dozens of charter schools in New Orleans. (Photo: Sarah Garland)

At schools that have embraced the college-for-all aspiration, career and technical education is seen as being as outdated as chalkboards and cursive handwriting. Instead, the (mostly poor and mostly 

Education Research Report: Survey: Parents’ Attitudes on the Quality of Education in the United States

Education Research Report: Survey: Parents’ Attitudes on the Quality of Education in the United States:

Survey: Parents’ Attitudes on the Quality of Education in the United States

The Associated Press-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research conducted a national survey of 1,025 parents or guardians of children who completed a grade between kindergarten and 12th grade during the 2012 - 2013 school year.

Key findings of the survey include:

• Parents believe that people—teachers and parents—play a bigger part in school quality than the amount of money spent for education. Two-thirds of parents report volunteering or donating to their child’s school in the past year, with engagement going down as a child gets older.

• Homework support is significant, with 80 percent of parents saying they help on at least a weekly basis and only six percent saying they never do.

• More than 90 percent of parents believe that it is important for a teacher to be passionate about teaching and caring for the children while fewer than half say that having a lot of teaching experience is vital.

• More than three-quarters of respondents favor a plan to use public funds to make preschool available to all four-year-olds with 80 percent believing preschool programs improve performance in later years.

• Less than half of parents believe that their local schools are doing a good job preparing students for the workforce or giving them the practical skills they will need as adults. Just over half believe their local schools are doing a good job of preparing students for college and to be good 

Math teacher: Inherent flaws in how Georgia and Common Core... | Get Schooled | www.ajc.com

Math teacher: Inherent flaws in how Georgia and Common Core... | Get Schooled | www.ajc.com:

Math teacher: Inherent flaws in how Georgia and Common Core teach math 

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By Maureen Downey

Georgia math teacher Trevor Thomas writes about the controversial integrated math curriculum that has been a subject of frequent Get Schooled blogs over the last five years. (If you search on "math," you will find many pros and cons on the program introduced by former school chief Kathy Cox.)

Thomas has taught high school mathematics  for 20 years (public and private). He holds two graduate degrees (one from UGA) in math ed and has been writing opinion columns for about 10 years. This is his first piece for the Get Schooled blog

Here is what Thomas, who has his own web site on politics,has to say about math education:

 By Trevor Thomas

One of my favorite moments in C.S. Lewis's The Chronicles of Narnia series occurs in book two, The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe.  Peter and Susan, the older Pevensie children, are confused and troubled by Lucy (the youngest sibling, though very honest)'s insistence of a seemingly impossible tale of entering another world, and the contrary account of malicious and mean-spirited Edmund.

Peter and Susan take their concerns to the eccentric Professor Kirk, in whose house 

8-19-13 Perdido Street School

Perdido Street School:

Photos From Port Jefferson "StudentNotScores" Rally

Via the Port Jefferson Station Teachers Association site, here are some great photos from Saturday's rally at Comsewogue High School against the Common Core testing regime: PJSTA posted the following:An estimated 2,000 people converged on Comsewogue High School yesterday to tell the powers that be what they should do with the Common Core State Standards.  The crowd, a mixture of teachers, administ

by reality-based edu... / 1h 

UFT Sends Out Deceptive Bill Thompson Mailer

Daily Politics reports that the UFT has sent out a Bill Thompson mailer using the tragic deaths of Trayvon Martin, Amadou Diallo, Ramarley Graham and Patrick Dorismond to sell voters on Thompson's candidacy:“We know the Trayvon tragedy here in New York. We’ve lived it, over and over again, from Amadou Diallo to Patrick Dorismond to Ramarley Graham,” reads the piece from United for the Future, a po

by reality-based edu... / 39min 

Here's Why Christine Quinn Won't Be Mayor

Christine Quinn has a dedicated cadre of protesters who follow her and her supporters around the city to illuminate New Yorkers on how Quinn has sold her constituents down the river to real estate and corporate interests.Quinn's campaign embargoes her schedule to try and keep those protesters from finding her at her campaign funcations and appearances.Here's why:A rally to highlight Christine Quin

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 Education Reformers Are Trying To Smear Common Core Critics As Know-Nothings And Cretins

Former NY Times editor and current columnist Bill Keller attacked opponents to the Common Core standards as a "very loud, often paranoid, if-that-Kenyan-socialist-in-the-White-House-is-for-it-I’m-against-it crowd." Keller acknowledges that there are opponents to the standards on the left "but overwhelmingly the animus against the standards comes from the right."While the Michelle Malking-Glenn Bec

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8-18-13 Perdido Street School

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8-19-13 SCHOOLS MATTER @ THE CHALK FACE

SCHOOLS MATTER @ THE CHALK FACE:

What We Know Now (and How It Doesn’t Matter) | the becoming radical

What We Know Now (and How It Doesn’t Matter) | the becoming radical.

by plthomasedd / 20min 

“The key to school performance is diversity of socioeconomic classes.”

The quote above is from Richard Kahlenberg’s latest study for Little Rock schools. Here is a clip from the Arkansas Times blog about the study.  Here’s the full report: . . . .Kahlenberg concludes that the magnet schools and transfer program have been successful in producing both racial and socio-economic integration. But he said that […]

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How YOU Doin’?

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8-18-13 Schools Matter @ The Chalk Face

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by mike simpson / 9h

Citywide Parents Meeting: Back to school updates | Parents United for Public Education

Citywide Parents Meeting: Back to school updates | Parents United for Public Education:

Citywide Parents Meeting: Back to school updates

Posted on August 19, 2013 by PARENTSUNITEDPHILALeave a comment

What can parents expect for the first day of school? What are our best strategies to change school resources before school starts?

The last 10 days have been a rollercoaster of school ultimatums, dueling press conferences, and protests and actions. Get the latest updates on the schools situation, work with other parents citywide to address school resources, and determine strategies and actions to make change citywide.

Parents United for Public Education

Special Parents Meeting on School Opening

Tuesday August 20th, 7-8:30 p.m.

Mother Bethel A.M.E.

419 S. 6th Street btwn Pine and Lombard

limited parking available

RSVP: parentsunitedphila@gmail.com