Special Nite Cap: Catch Up on Today's Post 12/20/15

CORPORATE ED REFORM

Seattle Schools Community Forum: Washington State Fight between Fully-Funding Public Ed and Charter Schools

Seattle Schools Community Forum: Washington State Fight between Fully-Funding Public Ed and Charter Schools: Washington State Fight between Fully-Funding Public Ed and Charter SchoolsBeware of AstroTurf Ed Reformers Just Like Michelle Rhee's Students first only BETTERAstroturf lobbying refers to political organizations or campaigns that appear to be made up of grassroots activists but are actually

by mike simpson / 20min 

Teacher reminds presidential hopefuls that hate speech and holidays don’t mix « Education Votes

Teacher reminds presidential hopefuls that hate speech and holidays don’t mix « Education Votes: Teacher reminds presidential hopefuls that hate speech and holidays don’t mixAs a middle school language arts teacher, Steven Singer understands the power of words. This holiday season, says Singer, the nasty and divisive language coming out of the 2016 presidential election about Muslims, refugees, an

by mike simpson / 3h 

The Northern Student Movement | PopularResistance.Org

The Northern Student Movement | PopularResistance.Org: The Northern Student MovementAbove photo: From Portside.New Haven, CT – College students were an integral part of the popular upheaval of the 1960’s. Beginning with the lunch counter sit-ins one month into the decade and continuing on through 1969 and beyond, college students around the country rallied to the cause of justice and freedom. The

by mike simpson / 4h 

Inside the Billion-Dollar Battle for Puerto Rico’s Future - The New York Times

Inside the Billion-Dollar Battle for Puerto Rico’s Future - The New York Times: Inside the Billion-Dollar Battle for Puerto Rico’s FutureThe money poured in by the millions, then by the hundreds of millions, and finally by the billions. Over weak coffee in a conference room in Midtown Manhattan last year, a half-dozen Puerto Rican officials exhaled: Their cash-starved island had persuaded some of

by mike simpson / 4h 

Facebook 'Selfie' Provokes Debate On Online Civility, Teacher Diversity - Courant Community

Facebook 'Selfie' Provokes Debate On Online Civility, Teacher Diversity - Courant Community: Facebook 'Selfie' Provokes Debate On Online Civility, Teacher DiversityHartford teacher Heather Zottolla, left, took a Facebook post by Shelley Best, right, personally, saying it insinuated "that because I'm white, I can't teach children in Hartford."HARTFORD — Teacher Heather Zottola was at a tr

by mike simpson / 5h 

Weird Words and Phrases about Schools and Common Core

Weird Words and Phrases about Schools and Common Core: Weird Words and Phrases about Schools and Common CoreOmit needless words.EB White The Elements of Style (p.23)It is time to revisit my list of weird education terminology. I have added some new words and phrases from Common Core State Standards, and provide links to other lists and explanations.Education jargon has always been confusing, but i

by mike simpson / 6h 

‘It’s hard to educate a kid that’s dead’ — Education Secretary Arne Duncan - The Washington Post

‘It’s hard to educate a kid that’s dead’ — Education Secretary Arne Duncan - The Washington Post: ‘It’s hard to educate a kid that’s dead’ — Education Secretary Arne Duncan“It’s hard to educate a kid that’s dead.” — Arne DuncanI point out this quote, from an interview that Education Secretary Arne Duncan gave to my Post colleague Emma Brown, not for any profound insight that it offers but as a sug

by mike simpson / 7h 

Worst and Dumbest, the Sequel | accountabaloney

Worst and Dumbest, the Sequel | accountabaloney: Worst and Dumbest, the SequelRepresentative Eric Fresen’s (District 114, Miami) much maligned “Best and Brightest Scholarship” program, which snuck into Florida statute during last summer’s extra budget session, is back and it is apparently worse than we originally knew and it’s about to get a whole lot dumber. It is the perfect example of Accountab

by mike simpson / 8h 

CURMUDGUCATION: ICYMI: December 20

CURMUDGUCATION: ICYMI: December 20: ICYMI: December 20This week was a full assortment of rehearsals for a local performance of The Messiah, and this weekend is the first time my entire family has gathered in one place for a long time, so if I've seemed a little distant and busy, dear reader, that's why. But I do have a whole stack of things for you to check out today while my family is opening pre

by mike simpson / 8h 

Juvenile injustice?: Kids in San Bernardino County pay the price with overzealous school cops - Salon.com

Juvenile injustice?: Kids in San Bernardino County pay the price with overzealous school cops - Salon.com: San Bernardino County pay the price with overzealous school copsSan Bernardino school police arrested more kids than cops in Sacramento, Oakland or San Francisco. What gives?SAN BERNARDINO, Calif. — Josue “Josh” Muniz admits that he embraced his girlfriend during lunch, while the pair was out

by mike simpson / 8h 

How the Movement to Teach Creationism in Public Schools Has Lived On and Evolved - The Atlantic

How the Movement to Teach Creationism in Public Schools Has Lived On and Evolved - The Atlantic: The Evolution of Teaching Creationism in Public SchoolsA new study shows that anti-evolution lessons have become more stealthily integrated into curricula.Some 90 years out from the Scopes Monkey Trial, and a full decade after the legal defeat of “intelligent design” in Kitzmiller v. Dover, the fight t

by mike simpson / 8h 

L.A. Unified officials unable to finish work of picking next schools leader after marathon session - LA Times

L.A. Unified officials unable to finish work of picking next schools leader after marathon session - LA Times: Marathon session yields no pick for L.A. Unified chief; next meeting in 2016The Los Angeles Board of Education met behind closed doors for 13 hours Saturday but did not announce a new superintendent for the nation’s second-largest school system.Instead, the seven-member board scheduled an

by mike simpson / 9h 

BESE President Chas Roemer Pulls a Bill Clinton | Crazy Crawfish

BESE President Chas Roemer Pulls a Bill Clinton | Crazy Crawfish: BESE President Chas Roemer Pulls a Bill ClintonI was not able to attend the December 1st BESE meeting, but I have been able to review some of the footage.  Had I been elected to BESE this fall I might have had a chance to respond to some of the inane/insane comments nonchalantly being spewed from the mouths of raving idiots, like BE

by mike simpson / 9h 

Education Policies Worthy of the Name 'Reform' | Randi Weingarten

Education Policies Worthy of the Name 'Reform' | Randi Weingarten: Education Policies Worthy of the Name 'Reform'The month before standardized tests begin each school year, Stephen Lazar, a National Board-certified history and English teacher at Harvest Collegiate High School in New York City, tells his students that he is going to "turn into a bad teacher. ... No more research, no more discu

by mike simpson / 9h 

So far, none of the presidential debates have asked about K-12 education - Vox

The debate moderators missed the opportunity to ask about a real Democratic divide - Vox: The debate moderators missed the opportunity to ask about a real Democratic divideSo far, none of the presidential debates — Democratic or Republican — have asked about K-12 education. That's a huge missed opportunity.Education really is a divisive issue within the Democratic Party, and one where Hillary Clin

by mike simpson / 9h 

State's charter schools struggle to meet targets for serving high-needs students - News - telegram.com - Worcester, MA

State's charter schools struggle to meet targets for serving high-needs students - News - telegram.com - Worcester, MA:State's charter schools struggle to meet targets for serving high-needs studentsCharter schools in Massachusetts are having mixed success meeting the state’s expectations for admitting English language learners and students with disabilities, an area where most charters have long

by mike simpson / 9h 

Chris Fitzsimon: What's wrong with virtual charter schools - Winston-Salem Journal

Chris Fitzsimon: What's wrong with virtual charter schools - Winston-Salem Journal: Columnists:  What's wrong with virtual charter schoolsThe education of thousands of North Carolina students and millions of taxpayer dollars are currently at risk in the latest school privatization scheme that continues to draw far too little attention from the media and even many education advocates.Two online cha

by mike simpson / 10h 

In at least one huge deal in L.A., Trump got schooled - LA Times

In at least one huge deal in L.A., Trump got schooled - LA Times: In at least one huge deal in L.A., Trump got schooledThe Ambassador Hotel site, more than 23 acres near downtown Los Angeles, was bought by Trump Wilshire Associates in 1989. Now it's an LAUSD campus. (Damon Winter / Los Angeles Times) one side was the alpha male of New York developers who burst into town with pockets full of money,

by mike simpson / 10h 

YESTERDAY

Louisiana’s Standards Review: Common Core Writers and Eureka Math Developers Invited | deutsch29

Louisiana’s Standards Review: Common Core Writers and Eureka Math Developers Invited | deutsch29: Louisiana’s Standards Review: Common Core Writers and Eureka Math Developers InvitedThe Common Core in Louisiana is supposedly under review based on legislation passed in the 2015 session.However, the alleged review is Common-Core-centered and is transpiring at warp speed.Practically speaking, the res

by mike simpson / 23h 

Special Nite Cap: Catch Up on Today's Post 12/19/15

CORPORATE ED REFORMBy our apathy, we’ve killed our kids - The Crucial VoiceThe Crucial VoiceBy our apathy, we’ve killed our kids - The Crucial VoiceThe Crucial Voice: By our apathy, we’ve killed our kids Guest Opinion By Timothy Coman (originally published in December of 1999)Tonight my heart hangs extremely heavy. I know the holidays are upon us, but this year has brought so much pain and agony f

by mike simpson / 1d 

Seattle Schools Community Forum: Washington State Fight between Fully-Funding Public Ed and Charter Schools

Seattle Schools Community Forum: Washington State Fight between Fully-Funding Public Ed and Charter Schools:

Washington State Fight between Fully-Funding Public Ed and Charter Schools

Beware of AstroTurf Ed Reformers 

Just Like Michelle Rhee's Students first only BETTER

Astroturf lobbying refers to political organizations or campaigns that appear to be made up of grassroots activists but are actually organized and run by corporate interests seeking to further their own agendas. Such groups are often typified by innocent-sounding names that have been chosen specifically to disguise the group's true backers

Let's start with charters.

You may recall the "yet another faux ed reform group" called Act Now for Washington Students.  This group is organized by the usual suspects - LEV, Stand for Children, DFER and the Washington State Charter Schools Association.  All these get money from the Gates Foundation. 

They have formed a PAC that hopes to raise (and presumably spend) $500,000 just for this legislative session to influence legislators on charter schools.  They have already spent $20K on 13 House members (each got $1,000) including Seattle's charter cheerleader, Eric Pettigrew.  This is in addition to the number of print and tv ads running.  It is not cheap to run a local ad during football Sunday.  


Oddly, ANWS doesn't mention this PAC at their website or their Facebook page.  Now if you wanted parents to be all in, wouldn't you tell them this and be asking them for money?  (WSCSA does have a Save Washington Charter Seattle Schools Community Forum: Washington State Fight between Fully-Funding Public Ed and Charter Schools:

Teacher reminds presidential hopefuls that hate speech and holidays don’t mix « Education Votes

Teacher reminds presidential hopefuls that hate speech and holidays don’t mix « Education Votes:

Teacher reminds presidential hopefuls that hate speech and holidays don’t mix

As a middle school language arts teacher, Steven Singer understands the power of words. This holiday season, says Singer, the nasty and divisive language coming out of the 2016 presidential election about Muslims, refugees, and immigrants is getting the attention of the kids in his school, 60 percent of whom are students of color.

TAKE ACTION ›

Change your Facebook and Twitter profile to “Love Trumps Hate.” CLICK HERE ›

So Singer countered the hate speech with love speech in a“give me all your refugees” blog that left hard-hearted cynics teary-eyed. That was before the San Bernadino attack. Now, inflammatory anti-Muslim rhetoric from presidential wannabes is helping fuel and legitimize a sharp rise in the bullying of Muslim students, and Singer’s blog about welcoming all students is even more relevant.

We asked the Pennsylvania educator if he has some special inspiration for educators who are trying to live up to the spirit of the season by helping all their students feel loved.

In your blog, you said public schools are places of refuge for many kids and that school provides the only stability and love they get all day. What’s been the reaction to your post?

When I published it, I wasn’t sure if anyone was going to care. But it felt good to have said it. Now it’s had over 45,000 hits. On Facebook and Twitter, so many people told me they loved it, that they agreed and that this was what a teacher should be. I replied that in my experience this is just what teachers do. I’m no different than 95 percent of educators out there. I just wrote it down. Of course, I got some hate, too. Every day I get at least a message or two calling me all kinds of horrible things. It just goes with the territory.

How does hate speech during this Presidential campaign infiltrate the classroom?

Kids have a reputation for being uninformed, but when it comes to dealing with prejudice and racism, they could teach all of us a masterclass on the subject. Michael Brown, Freddie Gray, LaQuan Mcdonald—my 8th grade students know who each of these people are. Each of them could have been their classmate, older brother, dad, or uncle. They know what’s happening out there better than we do because they’re living it. And when someone running for president like Donald Trump denigrates Muslims and Latinos, they might not be able to tell you exactly who he is, but they know what he said. Because they know how people look at them and judge them because of the color of their skin, their gender, their nationality, their religion.

I remember when Michael Brown was killed, a student asked me, “How could they do that, Mr. Singer?” I got choked up. So I threw out my lesson plans and we spent the period talking about it. Not me talking to them. Them talking to me and to each other. It wasn’t about me telling them the right answer. It was about us trying to find the answer together. I think that’s the teacher’s responsibility. We need to help kids find their own answers. We need to give them the space to talk—to let them know it’s okay and that we love them.

Change your Facebook and Twitter profile picture to “Love Trumps Hate.”

Why is it so important for educators to speak up outside of their school community?

All teachers know the job doesn’t end at dismissal. We’re all staying late grading papers, planning lessons, making phone calls. But there’s more to it than even that. In an age where the powerful think our students aren’t worth the time and effort, aren’t worth fair funding, aren’t worth sensible education policy, it’s up to us to advocate for them. Dr. Cornell West said “Justice is what love looks like in public.” I love my students so I want them to have justice. They deserve a good education and all the resources rich kids get. But if someone like me doesn’t fight for it, they’re not going to get it. So I’ll take the lack of sleep and the hate mail and anything else that comes with it. Because to me, that’s what teachers do.

Join us to tell our students “Love Trumps Hate.”

As thinking, caring citizens, we can’t be silent in the face of bigotry, and as educators, we have even more of a responsibility to say something. It would be traumatic for my students to hear someone say something bigoted and not have me respond. I don’t want to work in an environment where that’s okay.

– Steven Singer
NEA Member and Activist

Change your Facebook and Twitter profile to Love Trumps Hate

The Northern Student Movement | PopularResistance.Org

The Northern Student Movement | PopularResistance.Org:

The Northern Student Movement

Above photo: From Portside.

New Haven, CT – College students were an integral part of the popular upheaval of the 1960’s. Beginning with the lunch counter sit-ins one month into the decade and continuing on through 1969 and beyond, college students around the country rallied to the cause of justice and freedom. The two best known student organizations of that time were the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC) and Students for Student a Democratic Society (SDS). Another important group, though less well known, was the Northern Student Movement (NSM) and it was founded in Connecticut on the campus of Yale University.

Tens of thousands of young Americans were inspired by the lunch counter sit-ins that began in Greensboro, North Carolina and spread throughout the South. The lie that many knew was a lie — that the United States is based on freedom, justice and equality – was exposed by the incredible bravery of young black people. It was as though a dam had broken and a tidal wave of  people, led by college students, were suddenly passionately committed to making the world a better place and not so concerned about forging comfortable careers for themselves.

Students at Yale University were no exception and some of them got together in the Fall of 1961 to form the NSM. One of the two projects they initiated was support of SNCC, which by then had branched out from the lunch counter sit-ins to spearheading the Freedom Rides, a concerted effort to end segregation and discrimination on the nation’s bus and train systems. The other project the NSM undertook was to challenge racial discrimination in the North. To that end, the group organized an action a month after it was formed with the New Haven chapter of the Congress for Racial Equality (CORE) to protest local housing discrimination.

Like SNCC, the NSM had struck a chord and there were soon dozens of chapters on campuses throughout the Northeast. Initially, its membership was primarily white, though it worked closely with organizations like CORE whose memberships were mainly or exclusively black. Within several years, NSM had recruited a large number of blacks from both college campuses and from the communities where it established programs. NSM also began publishing a publication, Freedom North, with articles about its work and that of the Black Freedom Movement as a whole.

Peter Countryman, a Yale undergraduate from Chicago, was elected as the group’s first executive director.  Only 19 at the time, Countryman had already been active in civil rights work through the New England Student Christian Movement. He was instrumental in establishing a tutoring program in which students and recent graduates from Yale and other local colleges worked with young people enrolled in New Haven’s public schools. The effort proved a success and NSM established similar programs in several dozen cities in the Northeast. By 1963, the group had enlisted over 2,000 students from a number of colleges to tutor an estimated 3,500 children. Countryman eventually left New Haven to spearhead NSM’s tutoring program in Philadelphia.

In June of 1963, NSM members primarily from Trinity College established a tutorial program in Hartford with a staff of 25 and over 200 volunteers. The tutoring sessions were held in churches and other public facilities in or near the communities where the tutees lived and were so popular that the Hartford chapter grew to be one of the NSM’s largest. Soon the group was holding classes on Black history and the arts and regular forums on police brutality and civil rights activities in the South. The NSM publicized these activities and news of the Freedom Movement through a newspaper, the North End Voice, which members distributed throughout Hartford. Simultaneously, NSM members in Hartford established the North End Community Action Project (NECAP) that organized sit-ins and other protests against discriminatory hiring practices around the city.

As the Freedom Rides continued through 1962 and into 1963, NSM members from college campuses in Connecticut travelled to the South to participate. They were also actively involved in a voter registration drive that SNCC launched in Mississippi in 1963 as well as, aThe Northern Student Movement | PopularResistance.Org: 

Inside the Billion-Dollar Battle for Puerto Rico’s Future - The New York Times

Inside the Billion-Dollar Battle for Puerto Rico’s Future - The New York Times:

Inside the Billion-Dollar Battle for Puerto Rico’s Future

The money poured in by the millions, then by the hundreds of millions, and finally by the billions. Over weak coffee in a conference room in Midtown Manhattan last year, a half-dozen Puerto Rican officials exhaled: Their cash-starved island had persuaded some of the country’s biggest hedge funds to lend them more than $3 billion to keep the government afloat.

There were plenty of reasons for the hedge funds to like the deal: They would be earning, in effect, a 20 percent return. And under the island’s Constitution, Puerto Rico was required to pay back its debt before almost any other bills, whether for retirees’ health care or teachers’ salaries.

But within months, Puerto Rico was saying it had run out of money, and the relationship between the impoverished United States territory and its unlikely saviors fell apart, setting up an extraordinary political and financial fight over Puerto Rico’s future.

On the surface, it is a battle over whether Puerto Rico should be granted bankruptcy protections, putting at risk tens of billions of dollars from investors around the country. But it is also testing the power of an ascendant class of ultrarich Americans to steer the fate of a territory that is home to more than three million fellow citizens.

The investors with a stake in the outcome are some of the wealthiest people in America. Many of them have also taken on an outsize role in financing political campaigns in the aftermath of the Supreme Court’s 2010 Citizens United decision. They have put millions of dollars behind candidates of both parties, including Hillary Clinton and Jeb Bush. Some belong to a small circle of 158 families that provided half of the early money for the 2016 presidential race.

To block proposals that would put their investments at risk, a coalition of hedge funds and financial firms has hired dozens of lobbyists, forged alliances with Tea Partyactivists and recruited so-called AstroTurf groups on the island to make their case. This approach — aggressive legal maneuvering, lobbying and the deployment of prodigious wealth — has proved successful overseas, in countries like Argentina and Greece, yielding billions in profit amid economic collapse.

The pressure has been widely felt. Senator Marco Rubio, whose state, Florida, has a large Puerto Rican population, expressed interest this year in sponsoring bankruptcy legislation for the island, says Senator Richard Blumenthal, Democrat of Connecticut. Mr. Rubio’s staff even joined in drafting the bill. But this summer, three weeks after a fund-raiser hosted by a hedge-fund founder, Mr. Rubio broke with those backing the measure. Bankruptcy, he said, should be considered only as a “last resort.”

And this past week, House Republican leaders said any financial rescue for Puerto Rico may not come until the end of March.

The fight over the island’s future is stretching from the oceanside neighborhoods of San Juan, where a growing number of wealthy investors and financial professionals have migrated in recent years to exploit generous tax breaks, to Capitol Hill. Their efforts are being closely watched by financial institutions, labor unions and policy makers on the mainland, where many ordinary investors own Puerto Rican bonds through mutual funds.

Some warn that Puerto Rico could be a test case for the rest of the country, Inside the Billion-Dollar Battle for Puerto Rico’s Future - The New York Times:

Facebook 'Selfie' Provokes Debate On Online Civility, Teacher Diversity - Courant Community

Facebook 'Selfie' Provokes Debate On Online Civility, Teacher Diversity - Courant Community:

Facebook 'Selfie' Provokes Debate On Online Civility, Teacher Diversity

Hartford teacher Heather Zottolla, left, took a Facebook post by Shelley Best, right, personally, saying it insinuated "that because I'm white, I can't teach children in Hartford."

HARTFORD — Teacher Heather Zottola was at a training session for city educators on the evening of Sept. 2, hearing about ways they can better serve students of color — the bulk of Hartford's students — when she noticed one of the attendees angling a cellphone camera in her direction.

"I remember thinking, at first, 'Oh, she's taking a selfie.' Then I was like, 'Oh, look it, I'm in her picture,'" Zottola recalled this month. The woman, city board of education member Shelley Best, was seated only a few feet away in a downtown banquet room.

"What I should have said to her that night, what I thought to say to her, was, 'How did our selfie come out?' And just kind of get a feel for why she was taking it," said Zottola, 45, who did not know or recognize Best, an A.M.E. Zion minister, a social justice commentator, and one of two African Americans on Hartford's nine-member school board.

Back home that night, Zottola mentioned to her husband that a woman attending the dinner presentation had taken selfies — photos of herself — but that she seemed to intentionally include Zottola in the frame, "and I wonder why."

Hundreds, if not thousands, of people in Best's social media network had already learned the reason in real time as Best raised a blunt question about who was in the room that evening.

The head of the Hartford teachers' union, Andrea Johnson, would later say that she was "appalled" when she saw the Facebook post that would trigger pained conversations over teacher diversity and online civility.

All Zottola knew was that she felt uneasy when she went to bed that night.

The next morning, she asked one of the consultants at the multi-day training if he knew the woman who was taking photos. The man pulled up Best's Facebook page and showed it to Zottola, a magnet theme coach who has spent her 23-year teaching career at Noah Webster, a prekindergarten-to-grade 8 school in Hartford's West End.

Zottola had to leave the room to collect herself.

'Don't Look Like Us'

Hartford school board member Shelley Best’s “selfie” posted on Facebook ignited conversations on teacher diversity and online civility. This screenshot was included in a letter to Hartford school leaders complaining about the Sept. 2 post.

Best, 53, said she grew up in northwestern Connecticut in the 1960s, in Norfolk, where her father was an activist and Best was the only black child in her Facebook 'Selfie' Provokes Debate On Online Civility, Teacher Diversity - Courant Community: