Common Core as a brand name. Who is making money off the new... | Get Schooled | www.ajc.com

Common Core as a brand name. Who is making money off the new... | Get Schooled | www.ajc.com:

Common Core as a brand name. Who is making money off the new standards? 

Previous Posts

• School chief on McNair ordeal: A day when good overwhelmed evil.
  August 24, 2013
• Obama: 'Higher education cannot be a luxury." 
  August 24, 2013
• Was there any silver lining to segregated schools? 
  August 23, 2013

By Maureen Downey

A lot of you have asked, “Who benefits financially from the new Common Core State Standards?”

The AJC examines that question in the Sunday AJC, and finds that it is not easy to separate out school system spending on Common Core.

The story by AJC education reporter Wayne Washington is subscriber only on MyAJC.com, but here is a snippet. (Check out the MyAJC site today as it has a lot of good education stuff, including a piece on school security in the wake of the McNair drama in DeKalb.)

 Millions are being made on Common Core, but it’s not likely parents can figure who’s making that money, or how much a particular school system is spending specifically because of the new standards, since instructional material has always cost plenty and a lot of the “new” stuff isn’t necessarily new.

There is a long list of companies selling what school districts in Georgia and the rest of the country are buying. Education officials in Georgia say most of the money spent on Common Core would have been spent anyway. Teachers participated in professional 

LISTEN TO DIANE RAVITCH 8-25-13 Diane Ravitch's blog | A site to discuss better education for all

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

Larry Lee Writes to Checker Finn and Mike Petrilli about Alabama Accountability Act

Larry Lee is a native of Alabama who has taken a great interest in community schools. A few years ago, he was the lead author of a report about ten outstanding rural schools in Alabama. If you read it, you may find yourself crying when you learn how hard parents, teachers, principals, and communities are struggling to educate the children of poor rural communities. He wrote about the importance of

2 by dianerav / 13min 

Why Microsoft Declined: A Rotten Employee Evaluation Rating System

An article by Will Oremus in Slate blames the decline of Microsoft on its poisonous stack-ranking system for evaluating employees. This system involves ranking employees in each unit from best to worst, then firing those with the lowest rating. This is demoralizing and causes bitter rivalries and office politics. Jack Welch is credited with devising this system of internal competition. It sets em

by dianerav / 6min 

The Onion on TFA

What does The Onion think about Teach for America? This article provides the young corps member’s view, and the reaction of a student. I posted this when it first appeared, but it up is such a funny satire that I had to post it again.

6 by dianerav / 28min 

Civil Rights Groups Call for Duncan’s Ouster

A large national alliance of civil rights organizations has joined under the umbrella heading of “Journey for Justice.” This coalition has called for the resignation of Secretary of Education Arne Duncan. To understand why, read the flyer it distributed. Anyone who thinks that closing public schools and replacing them with privately managed charters and with vouchers is somehow part of the civil r

22 by dianerav / 1h mark as read  //  save

Gesell Institute: The Common Core Standards are Wrong for Young Children

The Gesell Institute of Human Development issued a statement in 2010 that was completely ignored, but its warning bears hearing. In March 2010, the Gesell Institute released this statement. It fell on deaf ears.   The core standards being proposed by the National Governors Association and the Council of Chief State School Officers are off the mark for our youngest learners. We at Gesell Institute

100+ by dianerav / 2h 

Diane in the Evening 8-24-13 Diane Ravitch's blog | A site to discuss better education for all

Diane Ravitch's blog | A site to discuss better education for all: Virginia School Boards Fight State TakeoversIt is a curious fact that there has never been a successful,state takeover of a local school district. Correct me if I am wrong. Maybe there is one somewhere but I don’t know of any. Pennsylvania took control of Philadelphia in 2001, and Philadelphia is near bankruptcy. New York took cont

by mike simpson / 4h 

Mexican Teachers Begin talks with Government, End Road-Blocking Protest | HispanicallySpeakingNews.com

Mexican Teachers Begin talks with Government, End Road-Blocking Protest | HispanicallySpeakingNews.com:

Mexican Teachers Begin talks with Government, End Road-Blocking Protest

Published at 7:04 am EST, August 25, 2013

Photo: Teacher protests in Mexico

Click Here to Enlarge Photo

Mexican teachers have lifted a road-blocking protest that cut off access to the Mexico City airport for several hours, and were due to meet Saturday with government representatives to air their grievances over a recent overhaul of the nation’s schools.

Mexico City Mayor Miguel Angel Mancera said on Twitter that his administration would host a meeting “among teachers, senators and the federal government” aimed at reaching a solution.

Earlier this week, protesting teachers forced lawmakers to decamp to a nearby convention center to conclude this week’s special legislative session.

The agenda for the special session included bills to implement the educational overhaul promulgated in February by President Enrique Peña Nieto, but lawmakers decided earlier this week to delay consideration of those measures pending talks with the disgruntled teachers.

On Friday, teachers blocked the main access road leading to the Mexico City International 

Top 10 Ways to Make This School Year Your Most Productive Yet | toteachornototeach

Top 10 Ways to Make This School Year Your Most Productive Yet | toteachornototeach:

Top 10 Ways to Make This School 
  Year Your Most Productive Yet

The summer is drawing to a close and school is here once again. Instead of dreading your return, start preparing now for your most productive semester yet. Here are 10 tricks for doing just that.

10. START OFF ON THE RIGHT FOOT

Transitioning your brain from “summer fun” mode to “productive work” mode can seem like a daunting task. If you want to set the stage for a good semester, though, you need to start off on the right foot: hit the ground running on day one (or even before). Get good rest, eat right, but most importantly, get to your classes early and plan your week before the year kicks off. The more organized you are on day one, the better off you’ll be the rest of the semester. 

9. STOCK UP ON (QUALITY) SUPPLIES

August is the best time to stock up on school supplies, but what do you really need? Check out Lifehacker‘s guide to tech essentials for your first year, Gizmodo’s back-to-

Advice to Students and Authors: Submitting Your Work | the becoming radical

Advice to Students and Authors: Submitting Your Work | the becoming radical:

Advice to Students and Authors: Submitting Your Work

Posted on August 25, 2013 by plthomasedd

If someone asks me what I do, without hesitation, I can always offer, “I am a teacher and a writer.”

I am extremely fortunate because I am able to make my living as both a teacher and a writer, something afforded me as a university professor. Being a writer and a teacher, also, are not vocations I have chosen, but who I am at my core. In other words, I did not choose to be a teacher and a writer, but I did come to recognize and embrace both ways of being.

Over the past thirty years, I have taught writing to a wide range of students (from high school through graduate courses), addressing all types of writing from poetry and fiction to personal and scholarly essays. For more than thirty years, I have been a serious writer, working on my own original poetry, fiction, essays, blogs, and academic books. Also part of life as a writer has included working as an editor—co-editing a state journal, editing a column inEnglish Journal, editing two series at two different publishers (Peter Lang USA and Sense), and editing/co-editing three volumes (with two other edited volumes in progress).

All of these experiences with being a student, a teacher, a writer, and an editor have provided me with a great deal of experience that has taught m

Education programs funding - U.S. Congress - OpenCongress

Education programs funding - U.S. Congress - OpenCongress:

 Bill Introduced: S.1383 Pathways Back to Work Act of 2013

A bill to provide subsidized employment for unemployed, low-income adults, provide summer employment and year-round employment opportunities for low-income youth, and carry out work-related and educational strategies and activities of demonstrated effectiveness, and for other purposes.

7h 

Bill Introduced: S.1371 Judiciary Appropriations Act, 2014

An original bill making appropriations for financial services and general government for the fiscal year ending September 30, 2014, and for other purposes.

7h 

Bill Introduced: S.1356 Adult Education and Family Literacy Act

A bill to amend the Workforce Investment Act of 1998 to strengthen the United States workforce development system through innovation in, and alignment and improvement of, employment, training, and education programs in the United States, and to promote individual and national economic growth, and for other purposes.

7h 

Bill Introduced: H.R.2770 Pathways Back to Work Act of 2013

To provide subsidized employment for unemployed, low-income adults, provide summer employment and year-round employment opportunities for low-income youth, and carry out work-related and educational strategies and activities of demonstrated effectiveness, and for other purposes.

7h mark as read  //  save

Bill Introduced: H.R.2721 Pathways Back to Work Act of 2013

To provide subsidized employment for unemployed, low-income adults, provide summer employment and year-round employment opportunities for low-income youth, and carry out work-related and educational strategies and activities of demonstrated effectiveness, and for other purposes.

7h 

Louisiana Educator: Indiana Retired Teacher on A-F School Grading

Louisiana Educator: Indiana Retired Teacher on A-F School Grading:

Indiana Retired Teacher on A-F School Grading

I believe this article applies perfectly to Louisiana and our dysfunctional school grading system

This week, the Fort Wayne Community School Board passed a resolution 6-1 stating the board would, “no longer publicly recognize schools based on the letter grade assigned to a school based on the A-F grading system.” This system was put in place by former superintendent Tony Bennett, who has been accused of rigging grades to help GOP donors. 

Phyllis Bush is a retired educator who has written an open letterto parents and educators about Indiana’s flawed rating system to encourage other local school boards to accept a similar resolution. 

Lately I have grown so weary of all of the labeling and grading of children that when I drive down the road and see a car proudly sporting a bumper sticker which proclaims,”My child is an HONOR student at “X” school or when I see a school sign board boldly proclaiming, “We are an A school,” I wonder if the purpose is to 

Higher Standards and Santino (Michele Kerr) | Larry Cuban on School Reform and Classroom Practice

Higher Standards and Santino (Michele Kerr) | Larry Cuban on School Reform and Classroom Practice:

Higher Standards and Santino (Michele Kerr)

Michele Kerr is a math teacher at Kennedy High School in Fremont, CA. She also wrote about teaching English in an previous guest post. This post comes from her blog.

A couple years ago, an administrative vice principal (AVP) walked into my classroom and asked, “I’m checking up on previously ELL [English Language Learners] students who were reclassified English proficient (RFEPed) to be sure they are getting enough support. What can you tell me about Santino?”

“Santino? He’s doing well. He’s gotten either a high F or a solid D on every test so far, which is a big step up for him.”

“Really. I guess we have different notions of what ‘doing well’ is.” She raised her eyebrow, refrained from sneering, made a check on her clipboard form, and walked back out before I could respond, which was probably a good thing.

Santino, a junior in my geometry class, was passing all of his classes at that time. He had finished his sophomore year with a sub-2.0 GPA, still higher than his freshman year. Ultimately, that AVP would determine that Santino’s upward 

Chicago Teachers Union Organizer, Brandon Johnson, Reminds Us that Our Fight for Free Quality Public Education Has to Build and Thrive! Coalition for Public Education/Coalición por la Educación Pública

Coalition for Public Education/Coalición por la Educación Pública:

Chicago Teachers Union Organizer, Brandon Johnson, Reminds Us that Our Fight for Free Quality Public Education Has to Build and Thrive!

Hear how fiscal "crisis," manufactured and otherwise, is used on the national, state, and local levels to eliminate jobs and services, with a disproportionate impact on women and people of color.

The National Association of Letter Carriers (NALC) Branch 11, the Chicago Teachers Union Black Caucus, 

Calling All Tales from the Opt Out Trenches | United Opt Out National

Calling All Tales from the Opt Out Trenches | United Opt Out National:

CALLING ALL TALES FROM THE OPT OUT TRENCHES

Posted on August 25, 2013

Let your voice be heard!

Aggie Sung Tang, the producer of Education Roundtable (an amazing blog and public access TV show in Princeton NJ) has invited the administrators of United Opt Out to contribute a series of stories from parents, teachers, and students who are opting out of corporate reform in public education. We invite members of our FB site and website to tell their “opt out stories” to be posted at the Education Roundtable. The these stories aim to challenge the existing dominant mainstream media “reform” narrative that includes high stakes testing, Common Core, and other education destructive policies. The goal is to allow our stories to become part of the public narrative — to share our experiences with others who seek to know the truth about what’s happening to our schools, and to bring real solutions, strength, and solidarity to the broader opt out community.

Submissions should be approximately 1000 words in length and sent as a Word doc.  Stories can be about a wide variety of opt-out related experiences including: 1) tales from the trenches- what happened when you opted your child (or yourself as a student) out from high stakes standardized testing?, 2) the struggles, challenges and fears that you face(d) in making the choice to opt out, 3) experiences from teachers or students facing high-stakes pressures, dehumanizing policies, or bully tactics, 4) stories of hope in communities, schools, and classrooms that include solutions and alternatives to current corporate-dominated policies or practices. UOO stories will support democratically-driven public education as a civil right for all children and reflect the mission and vision of United Opt Out. We are seeking stories that provoke emotion, truth about “what is” and a vision for what education “can be.” All submissions will be reviewed by the UOO editorial team prior to being published. Please send all stories to unitedoptoutnational@gmail.com . We hope to hear from ALL of you out there!!!

SBSB Calls for Campbell Brown to Advocate for the Arrest, Prosecution, and Conviction of Husband Dan Senor southbronxschool.com

http://www.southbronxschool.com:

SBSB Calls for Campbell Brown to Advocate for the Arrest, Prosecution, and Conviction of Husband Dan Senor

It was good to see Mike Mulgrew totally p3wn Campbell the other day. Sadly, this is the one true time that I actually wither saw Mike truly outraged. Who knows how things would be if he actually acted like this other times. But enough about Mike.

So Campbell (should I just refer to her as the "Shicksa From The Bayou"?) is outraged that out of 128 school employees over the last year that were accused of sexual dalliances with students, only 33 were fired. To Campbell Brown, all 128 should have been fired even if the charges against them were, how shall we say, false.

She did ask Mike to make a pledge to her that he will seek to fire all teachers that engage in sexual misconduct. Mike p3wned her again by telling her that he will not make any pledges to her at all. That the system in place works, and that is the system that we will live by.

What Campbell fails to realize is we live in a country of laws and one of the laws of the land are due process. That whether or not you are a private citizen or a government employee, you are entitled to 

School chief on McNair ordeal: A day when good overwhelmed evil. | Get Schooled | www.ajc.com

School chief on McNair ordeal: A day when good overwhelmed evil. | Get Schooled | www.ajc.com:

School chief on McNair ordeal: A day when good overwhelmed evil. 

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John Spink

Students from Ronald E. McNair Discovery Learning Academy are welcomed at McNair High School by DeKalb superintendent Michael Thurmond (left).

Previous Posts

• Obama: 'Higher education cannot be a luxury." 
  August 24, 2013
• Was there any silver lining to segregated schools? 
  August 23, 2013
• US Ed Secretary to DeKalb Schools: Nation is in awe of what you did.
  August 23, 2013

By Maureen Downey

Michael Thurmond is interim school superintendent in DeKalb County.

By Michael Thurmond

What could have been one of our worst days was miraculously transformed into one of our best days. A day that could have borne witness to yet another senseless school rampage turned into an inspiring day that spotlighted the heroics of our school personnel, the calmness and resilience of our schoolchildren, the patience of our parents, the courage and tenacity of our police officers, and the effectiveness of our press.

Among the many lessons I have learned, the most important one is to be thankful. Thankful that our students, administrators, faculty and staff were not injured. Thankful that a wonderful lady named Antoinette Tuff took the initiative to courageously talk a deranged gunman literally to the ground. She not only saved her own life, but the lives of countless others, and quite possibly the