Thursday, April 28, 2011
solidaridad: GRITtv: The F Word: Top Secret: Privatizing Fails
solidaridad: GRITtv: The F Word: Top Secret: Privatizing Fails
GRITtv: The F Word: Top Secret: Privatizing Fails
Laura Flanders asks why there's plenty of money for espionage, but none for public schools.
[Click here if you can't view this video]
[Click here if you can't view this video]
Shrinking the Liberal Tent - E.D. Kain - American Times - Forbes
Shrinking the Liberal Tent - E.D. Kain - American Times - Forbes
Shrinking the Liberal Tent
I have gone back and forth on whether I could support Gary Johnson in 2012 over Barack Obama. His stance on warfare and the drug wars is much better and I think much more progressive than Obama’s. But his positions on many other items are not, and I worry that support for Johnson would mean default support for a lot of other policies I disagree with.
But let me say one thing – claiming that people can’t be considered liberals or progressives just because they decide that supporting Johnson for his good policies on war and drugs is a stupid and pernicious thing to do.
Glenn Greenwald is a consistent, stalwart defender of progressive ideals. To claim that he is neither a liberal or a progressive because he votes his conscious is ludicrous and small-minded. Greenwald was a critic of the security state when Bush was in power and he remains one now that Obama has carried on many of Bush’s uglier policies. And good for him. Just as important as his consistency on these issues is the fact that he’s ri
My stalker, EAG and Whitney Tilson. « Fred Klonsky's blog
My stalker, EAG and Whitney Tilson. « Fred Klonsky's blog
God, I love it when I get to publish a picture of my stalker, Ben Velderman. I keep a jpeg of him on my desktop just for convenience.
Today’s justification is a post a EdWize, a blog of the NY teachers union.
Leo Casey, a UFT VP, posts about how he got blasted by hedge fund manager and billionaire boys club member, Whitney Tilson.
What was Casey’s crime?
He was video taped at a forum suggesting that it was not a good thing that the number of Black and Latino
My stalker, EAG and Whitney Tilson.
God, I love it when I get to publish a picture of my stalker, Ben Velderman. I keep a jpeg of him on my desktop just for convenience.
Today’s justification is a post a EdWize, a blog of the NY teachers union.
Leo Casey, a UFT VP, posts about how he got blasted by hedge fund manager and billionaire boys club member, Whitney Tilson.
What was Casey’s crime?
He was video taped at a forum suggesting that it was not a good thing that the number of Black and Latino
Fred Klonsky’s right.
From the blog: Perdido Street School.
Fred Klonsky’s Right
Really, really right.End the co-dependency.
Only support politicians who support working people.
Queens Teacher: An Open Letter to City Schools Chancellor Dennis Walcott
Queens Teacher: An Open Letter to City Schools Chancellor Dennis Walcott
An Open Letter to City Schools Chancellor Dennis Walcott
An open letter to city Schools Chancellor Dennis Walcott
For the past nine years, our schools have been run by a top-down bureaucracy that too often alienates public school parents. To your credit, you have said you want to engage parents and communities more than in the past.
But you have also said you plan to stay the course on the Bloomberg administration’s education policies and practices. I believe you have the background and experience to bring parents into our school system, but I know you will not be able to do it by maintaining the status quo.
I am a public school parent and I have spoken with parents all over our city who are tired of the city Department of Education treating them like problems instead of partners. They are looking for a chancellor who has the independence to bring real change to our school system. To accomplish this goal, I believe you must take on
For the past nine years, our schools have been run by a top-down bureaucracy that too often alienates public school parents. To your credit, you have said you want to engage parents and communities more than in the past.
But you have also said you plan to stay the course on the Bloomberg administration’s education policies and practices. I believe you have the background and experience to bring parents into our school system, but I know you will not be able to do it by maintaining the status quo.
I am a public school parent and I have spoken with parents all over our city who are tired of the city Department of Education treating them like problems instead of partners. They are looking for a chancellor who has the independence to bring real change to our school system. To accomplish this goal, I believe you must take on
SIG Grants and the Charter School Bargain
SIG Grants and the Charter School Bargain
SIG Grants and the Charter School Bargain
Continuing our week-long look at who is getting federal School Improvement Grants and what they’re doing with the money, the map below shows all of the charter schools across the country that are receiving federal SIG grants:
Dashboard 3
Hold on a minute…charter schools are receiving SIG dollars? Indeed.
Of the 843 schools currently chosen to receive federal School Improvement Grants, 58—almost 7 percent—are charter schools.* And the vast majority, 76 percent, are using the ‘transformation’ model, which requires changes that one would hope to see these charter schools (given their operational flexibility) doing anyway, such as extending the school day or instituting rigorous staff evaluations. Only three of the charter school SIG grants
Quick Hits (4.28.2011)
Michael Agger of Slate asks: “Does a player’s speech predict how he’ll perform in the NFL?” (Slate)
Jay P. Greene on Diane Ravitch’s scholarship as an education historian: “All of this raises the same question that I raised before about whether Ravitch is really a great scholar. She hardly seems like a serious person. And it seems perfectly possible to me that her current horde of devoted followers are just as delusional as were her previous horde. They just like her for saying things that they want to hear and have no ability to judge the substance behind her various claims.” (Jay P. Greene’s Blog)
Professor Mark Biggs’ reaction to faculty members objecting to online journalism courses at Missouri State University: “It digs down to the real issue, which is, as a department, are you going to be student-centric
Road Trip With Alfie Kohn « The Core Knowledge Blog
Road Trip With Alfie Kohn « The Core Knowledge Blog
April 28th, 2011
Road Trip With Alfie Kohn
by Robert PondiscioApril 28th, 2011
OK, teachers. Raise your hand if Alfie Kohn has ever set foot in your classroom and witnessed you drilling your students with rote memorization or handing out worksheets all day.
Anyone?
One of the very first pieces I wrote for this blog concerned Alfie Kohn and his insistence that Core Knowledge is rote memorization and a “bunch o’ facts” while never to my knowledge having actually darkened the doorway of a single Core Knowledge school. He’s at it again in Education Week, wringing his hands over the “pedagogy of poverty” and how urban children endure a curriculum that “consists of a series of separate skills, with more worksheets than real books, more rote practice than exploration of ideas, more
Diane Ravitch asks: which side are you on
"Don't scab for the bosses/don't listen to their lies/Us poor folks haven't got a chance/Unless we organize." ("Which Side Are You On?")
Education Week: This Teacher Is 'Mad as Hell'
Education Week: This Teacher Is 'Mad as Hell'
This Teacher Is 'Mad as Hell'
Peter Finch portrays the angry Howard Beale in the 1976 movie “Network.”
—MGM Studios/Getty images
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I am a public school teacher and a member of a union. Contrary to popular political rhetoric at play in Wisconsin and elsewhere, I amnot, however, a leech on society, nor am I a lazy incompetent who shows up to collect a paycheck, not caring whether my students learn. I am a teacher and, in the words of Howard Beale in the film “Network”: “I’m as mad as hell, and I’m not going to take this anymore!”
I am an English teacher who wakes up in the middle of th
Indiana School Voucher Bill Passes | FDL News Desk
Indiana School Voucher Bill Passes | FDL News Desk
Indiana School Voucher Bill Passes
Indiana state capitol building, Indianapolis. (photo: jimmywayne)
Indiana Democrats fled the state for five weeks to protest, among other things, a bill that would revamp education in the state, a top priority of Mitch Daniels. Having won some concessions, they returned. And as part of the deal, yesterday Indiana passed the education bill, which still includes a very wide-reaching school voucher program.
The Republican-controlled state legislature handed Daniels a huge victory Wednesday when the
Food for thought about the 2012 Election | Reflections on Teaching
Food for thought about the 2012 Election | Reflections on Teaching
Food for thought about the 2012 Election
Many educators are not happy with President Obama, most especially his education policy, and Secretary of Education Arnie Duncan. The conventional wisdom is they will “triangulating” (moving to the center) for the 2012 re-election campaign. Daily Kos has a piece analyzing the numbers, and arguing that he would do better to shore up his base of support, Daily Kos: 2012: Why President Obama needs to cover his base to win re-election.
As we know, there were many educators who were active in Obama’s last campaign, that are no longer
Teachers Aren’t the Enemy - E.D. Kain - American Times - Forbes
Teachers Aren’t the Enemy - E.D. Kain - American Times - Forbes
Teachers Aren’t the Enemy
Pedro Noguera and Michelle Fine have a good piece up at The Nation defending teachers from the demonization they face across the country:
In 2010 Michelle Rhee, former Washington, DC, schools chancellor, announced the creation of a multimillion-dollar lobbying organization for the explicit purpose of undermining teachers unions. She has charged that “bad teachers” are the primary cause of the problems that beset America’s schools. New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg has asserted that effective teachers need no experience. Romanticizing the young, energetic, passionate (read: cheap) teacher, he has made eliminating seniority preferences in layoffs (aka, last in, first out—or LIFO) his pet cause (it has been stymied for the time being by the state legislature).
New Jersey Governor Chris Christie has slashed school aid by $1.2 billion while refusing to comply with a court-mandated formula for school funding equity. He has become a right-wing hero by demonizing teachers, lambasting unions, challenging tenure rights and introducing a crude teacher-evaluation process based on student test scores. Christie is also pushing what he calls a “final solution”—$360 million in tax credits for a tuition voucher system that would permit any child in New Jersey go to any school, public or private, and would include state subsidies for some students already attending parochial schools and yeshivas.
Florida has made similar drastic cuts to public education, and Wisconsin governor Scott Walker is attempting to broaden the Wisconsin voucher program, while allowing voucher schools to opt-out of standardized tests. I’m no fan of the testing regime, but it hardly seems fair to force public schools to meet accountability standards while
Did you know that California ranks 49th in the nation in its staff-per-student ratio?
EdSource | Staff-Per-Pupil Ratios in California 2008-09
DATA: National Center for Education Statistics (NCES) Common Core of Data, 2008–09, 1/24/11
Staff-Per-Pupil Ratios in California 2008-09
April 2011
In 2008–09, California ranked 36th in the country in per-pupil expenditures. The state’s modest per-pupil expenditures combined with high labor costs (for example, average teacher salaries in California were the third highest in the country in 2008–09) result in schools not being able to hire as many people.
Ratio of Staff to 1,000 Pupils by Position, Fall 2008-09
| California Rank in U.S. | U.S. Ratio | California Ratio | % of U.S. Ratio |
Total Staff to Students | 49
| 128.4
| 93.3
| 73%
|
All Professional (certified) Staff to Students | 50 | 73.2 | 52.4 | 72% |
Total District Staff (including classified staff) | 36 | 6.6 | 5.5 | 83% |
District Officials/Administrators Only | 45 | 1.3 | 0.6 | 50%* |
Total School Staff (including classified staff) | 49 | 97.8 | 71.3 | 73% |
Certified School Staff Only | 50 | 73.7 | 54.6 | 74% |
School Principals & Asst. Principals | 48 | 3.2 | 2.3 | 71% |
Guidance Counselors | 51 | 2.2 | 1.2 | 56% |
Librarians | 51 | 1.1 | 0.2 | 17% |
All Teachers | 50 | 65.4† | 48.0† | 73% |
Elementary Teachers (grades 1-8) | 34 | 52.1 | 48.3 | 93% |
Secondary Teachers (grades 9-12) | 51 | 82.9 | 43.8 | 53% |
* Because unrounded numbers were used to calculate percentages, they might not match calculations based on the rounded numbers above. Using rounded numbers can particularly skew the results when the numbers are relatively small, such as for “district officials/administrators.”
† These numbers translate into a student/teacher ratio of 20.8 students to 1 teacher for California and 15.3 to 1 for the entire United States. Only Utah has a higher student/teacher ratio than California.
Notes: (1) The District of Columbia is included. (2) The numbers in this table are based on fall enrollment data and include pre-K public school students and their teachers. NCES estimated that there were 70,497 pre-K students and 3,749 pre-K teachers in California in 2008–09. If the pre-K students and teachers are not included, California’s student/teacher ratio is still 20.8. (3) The “total staff to students” row includes all district and school staff plus those who fall under the NCES category “All Other Support Staff.”
† These numbers translate into a student/teacher ratio of 20.8 students to 1 teacher for California and 15.3 to 1 for the entire United States. Only Utah has a higher student/teacher ratio than California.
Notes: (1) The District of Columbia is included. (2) The numbers in this table are based on fall enrollment data and include pre-K public school students and their teachers. NCES estimated that there were 70,497 pre-K students and 3,749 pre-K teachers in California in 2008–09. If the pre-K students and teachers are not included, California’s student/teacher ratio is still 20.8. (3) The “total staff to students” row includes all district and school staff plus those who fall under the NCES category “All Other Support Staff.”
DATA: National Center for Education Statistics (NCES) Common Core of Data, 2008–09, 1/24/11
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