TENTATIVE LAUSD/UTLA AGREEMENT IS A DISASTER Part 2TENTATIVA LAUSD / UTLA acuerdo es una DESASTRE Parte 2 - Perdaily.com

TENTATIVE LAUSD/UTLA AGREEMENT IS A DISASTER Part 2TENTATIVA LAUSD / UTLA acuerdo es una DESASTRE Parte 2 - Perdaily.com:

TENTATIVE LAUSD/UTLA AGREEMENT IS A DISASTER Part 2TENTATIVA LAUSD / UTLA acuerdo es una DESASTRE Parte 2

by Leonard Isenberg

D

(Mensaje se repite en Español) (For a national view of public education reform see the end of this blog post)

Probably the greatest irony of purposefully failed public education at the Los Angeles Unified School District (LAUSD) - with the active longstanding complicity of United Teachers Los Angeles (UTLA) leadership - is the complete lack of imagination exhibited by these two entities in carrying on self-serving business as usual to the ongoing determent of predominantly Latino and Black students who have been and continue to be sold short on the public education that is their right. A testament to just how long this pernicious system has been in place is that most educators - whatever their ethnicity - have no real expectation that minority children can learn.

In an old television police show, the intro would always say, "The names have been changed to protect the innocent." At LAUSD, the names of their latest "education reform" scam are always

Principals union chief lambastes city’s school closure strategy | GothamSchools

Principals union chief lambastes city’s school closure strategy | GothamSchools:

Principals union chief lambastes city’s school closure strategy

by Philissa Cramer, at 5:08 pm

Among the press releases that went flying after the city announced its first set of school closures earlier today, the one from principals union president Ernest Logan stood out for its stridency.

In a statement the length of a short essay, Logan decried school closures as “a losing strategy” that traumatizes needy students, shuts out educators, and prevents scrutiny of the city’s reform efforts. Adding eight months to mayoral control’s age, he said twice that the Bloomberg administration has had a decade to fix all schools but has not.

Nine of the 15 schools whose closures or truncations were announced today have opened since Mayor Bloomberg took control of the schools; one replaced a failing elementary school just three years ago. Logan

Parents Gather from Across NYC to Protest Rapid, Unregulated Expansion of Politically Connected Success Charter Network « EdVox

Parents Gather from Across NYC to Protest Rapid, Unregulated Expansion of Politically Connected Success Charter Network « EdVox:

Parents Gather from Across NYC to Protest Rapid, Unregulated Expansion of Politically Connected Success Charter Network

by edvoxny

Karen Sprowal, speaks about how her child with special-needs child was pushed out of HSA

Communities, education advocates, including AQE, charge DOE looking out for well-connected CEO, not students; cite excessive public resources going to Network schools, charter group’s record of excluding special needs and English Language Learners

Parents and education advocates from across New York City protested today outside the Success Charter Network headquarters in West Harlem. They protested and spoke out against what they say is the rapid, unregulated expansion of the politically connected Success Charter Network into traditional public school buildings—a growth far out-pacing other charter school organizations that has led to contentious school sitings

Investing in Great Teachers - A Union Leads the Way | LFA: Join The Conversation - Public School Insights

Investing in Great Teachers - A Union Leads the Way | LFA: Join The Conversation - Public School Insights:

Investing in Great Teachers - A Union Leads the Way

by Cheryl S. Williams

Today the largest teachers’ union in the US, the National Education Association (NEA), announced an action plan to strengthen the teaching profession and invest in the development of teacher leaders whose advocacy for and support of effective classroom practitioners will result in improved student learning and stronger public schools. The recommendations made today are based on the work of an independent Commission on Effective Teachers and Teachingmade up of accomplished teachers and educational leaders that looked at best practices from effective teachers across the

Illinois tax breaks for giant corporations. What happened to “Illinois is broke?” Tell ‘em no. « Fred Klonsky

Illinois tax breaks for giant corporations. What happened to “Illinois is broke?” Tell ‘em no. « Fred Klonsky:

Illinois tax breaks for giant corporations. What happened to “Illinois is broke?” Tell ‘em no.

by Fred Klonsky

Grassroots opposition is building to the Emanuel-Madigan plan to give tax breaks to the Board of Trade, Chicago Mercantile Exchange and Sears.

A vote in the House is expected Monday.

The SEIU website, Progress Illinois reports:

The growing protests against corporate tax break legislation in Springfield are clearly taking place in the context of a larger issue: a national movement against

Support PURE! » Former principal steps up to the plate

Parents United for Responsible Education » Blog Archive » Former principal steps up to the plate:

Former principal steps up to the plate

by admin

My PSAT homage to principals this week was not misplaced. Retired Simeon Principal Ned McCray sent me a couple of excellent essays which, with his permission, I’m proud to share here. The one today concerns the unfair resource gap between charter schools and the rest of the system.
I recognized Mr. McCray’s name from his letters to the editor – this one was actually published this past May in the Tribune.
Wouldn’t it be great if other retired principals joined him in speaking out?
CHARTER SCHOOLS-- THE UNTOLD STORY
by Ned L. McCray, retired principal, Simeon High School, Chicago
The proliferation of charter schools and other selective enrollment schools in urban areas of the country has created a dilemma for society. On the one hand, they provide for the aspirations of the middle class and those who aspire to the middle class, for exclusiveness, selectivity and privilege, and on the other hand create a brain-drain on the schools that remain.
Public school systems throughout the country are being eroded and decimated by this development. The very system that produced past generations of Americans who made this great country prosperous, is being deprived of scarce

Charter best practices – this is new?

by admin

In yesterday’s coverage of the next Gates-funded must-have program, here’s the example that was given of a “best practice” of a charter school that should be shared with neighborhood schools:

“CPS officials… are taking a look at the Noble Street Charter School‘s leadership development program that identifies, recruits and trains homegrown talent for principal posts within the network.”

Wow. What a ground-breaking idea.
Except that when LSCs do that – when, for example, they select their current assistant principal to step up to the principalship – they have been criticized.
For example, a 2008 report funded by (oh, yes) the Gates Foundation says this about LSC hiring from within:

Sac City trustee: Take West Campus High's swap off the table -| Sacramento Bee

Sac City trustee: Take West Campus High's swap off the table - Sacramento News - Local and Breaking Sacramento News | Sacramento Bee:

Sac City trustee: Take West Campus High's swap off the table

Share

By Melody Gutierrez
mgutierrez@sacbee.com

Published: Thursday, Dec. 8, 2011 - 12:18 pm

A controversial proposal to co-locate West Campus High School at Sacramento Charter High or swap their campuses could be scrapped at tonight's school board meeting.

Patrick Kennedy, vice president of the Sacramento City Unified School District school board, said it has become clear that the proposal is not what the community wants or needs.

Kennedy said he still wants to have talks with the charter school's operator, St. HOPE, about how to best utilized the Sacramento High facility.

"But, clearly, West Campus isn't apart of that solution," Kennedy said this morning.

Read more: http://www.sacbee.com/2011/12/08/4109567/sac-city-trustee-take-west-campus.html#ixzz1fyse7rEt

In Post-Rhee DC, Achievement Gaps Remain Staggeringly Wide | The Nation

In Post-Rhee DC, Achievement Gaps Remain Staggeringly Wide | The Nation:

In Post-Rhee DC, Achievement Gaps Remain Staggeringly Wide

Dana Goldstein on December 8, 2011 - 1:29pm ET

On Sunday, the New York Times published an op-ed critical of school choice policies in Washington, D.C. As Matt Yglesias very fairly pointed out, the author, Natalie Hopkinson, failed to cite student achievement data to back her claim that residential segregation and the expansion of the charter school sector have left many D.C. families with only "mediocre" public school options. Thankfully, on Wednesday the federal government dumped a mass of new NAEP test score data from the nation's largest cities, including D.C. NAEP, the National Assessment of Educational Progress, is the gold-standard in education research: the only exam overseen by the federal government and adminstered to a random selection of schoolchildren annually, with no rewards or punishments attached to corrupt the scores.

I spent this morning diving into the new NAEP numbers in an effort to paint a more complete picture of student achievement in D.C. over the past decade, which included the three tumultous years of Michelle Rhee's chancellorship. While white, black, and Hispanic children all made modest test score gains in D.C. since 2003, the Rhee agenda has not significantly narrowed achievement gaps between the various demographic groups, nor has it brought disadvantaged D.C. youth up to the national average scores for

Today's Big Education Ape - PostRank Top Early Afternoon Posts #ows #edreform

Americans Split Over In-State Tuition for Undocumented Students - Hispanically Speaking News

Big Education Ape - PostRank (PostRank: All) - 1 minute ago

Americans Split Over In-State Tuition for Undocumented Students - Hispanically Speaking News:STUDY: Americans Split Over In-State Tuition for Undocumented StudentsAmericans are evenly split over whether illegal immigrants who graduate from high school in their state should be eligible for in-state college tuition: 48% say they should be eligible for the in-state tuition rate, while 46% say they should not.The national survey by the Pew Research Center for the People the Press, conducted Nov. 9-14 among 2,001 adults finds continuing partisan ... more »

School Tech Connect: Chicago's Miracle Workers

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School Tech Connect: Chicago's Miracle Workers:Chicago's Miracle Workersby noreply@blogger.com (Tim)Well, the NAEP Urban District Assessment is out, and it pretty much re-confirms everything that everyone has already known. I don't think you can make conclusions beyond the executive summary of any high-quality study, and here's the thrust of it for the reading portion.Scores for some groups are creeping a little higher since 2002, after a decade of test-centric reforms and all

Countdown to Dec 15th: A CALL TO ACTION FROM SCHOOL BOARD PRESIDENT MÓNICA GARCÍA AND THE CALIFORNIA SCHOOL EMPLOYEES ASSOCIATION

Big Education Ape - PostRank (PostRank: All) - 1 minute ago

4LAKids - some of the news that doesn't fit: Countdown to Dec 15th: A CALL TO ACTION FROM SCHOOL BOARD PRESIDENT MÓNICA GARCÍA AND THE CALIFORNIA SCHOOL EMPLOYEES ASSOCIATION:Countdown to Dec 15th: A CALL TO ACTION FROM SCHOOL BOARD PRESIDENT MÓNICA GARCÍA AND THE CALIFORNIA SCHOOL EMPLOYEES ASSOCIATIONAN EMAIL FROM MÓNICA GARCÍA, PRESIDENT – LOS ANGELES BOARD OF EDUCATIONsmf: 4LAKids disagrees with Ms. García much of the time. CSEA’s support of this and of Mónica is an awful lot about ... more »

Seattle Schools Community Forum: Lacking a Sensitivity Chip

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Seattle Schools Community Forum: Lacking a Sensitivity Chip:Lacking a Sensitivity Chipby Melissa WestbrookIf you've been following the local news, there's a couple in our region, living in a $1.2M lakefront home, and the woman has been collecting welfare for a couple of years. She claimed she and her two children lived on $5,000 a year and her husband was the "landlord." They've collected over $100,000 and, of course, live pretty well. (To her credit, she did put down their real ...more »

Brother of VP Biden promotes charters, invoking family name - The Answer Sheet - The Washington Post

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Brother of VP Biden promotes charters, invoking family name - The Answer Sheet - The Washington Post:Brother of VP Biden promotes charters, invoking family nameby Valerie StraussFrancis W. “Frank” Biden, a younger brother of Vice President Joe Biden, is a real estate developer in Florida. He also is helping a for-profit company open charter schools in the state by employing a major asset: his last name.In February, Frank Biden urged the Palm Beach County School Board to approve a charter ... more »

When a School Board Member Takes a Test, the World Listens - Living in Dialogue - Education Week Teacher

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When a School Board Member Takes a Test, the World Listens - Living in Dialogue - Education Week Teacher:When a School Board Member Takes a Test, the World Listensby Anthony CodyThree days ago, Valerie Strauss' Answer Sheet blog in the Washington Post published the hardest-hitting critique of testing of the year. Before discussing that, I want to take a moment to recognize her work. Ms. Strauss is the ONLY blogger in the mainstream media to consistently address education issues from ... more »

Joining Forces to Build a Better Future | The Forum for Education and Democracy

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Joining Forces to Build a Better Future | The Forum for Education and Democracy:Joining Forces to Build a Better Futureby Tony MonfilettoAt ACE Leadership High School we’re determined to transform career and technical education, and we’re not going it alone. Partnerships with industry are key to our mission of preparing students to be leaders on any path they choose.ACE stands for architecture, construction and engineering and it’s a place where kids get their hands dirty in a purposeful--if sometimes a ... more »

Art in the real world. A plaything for the 1%. « Fred Klonsky

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Art in the real world. A plaything for the 1%. « Fred Klonsky:Art in the real world. A plaything for the 1%.by Fred KlonskyBy one of my fifth grade students.I’m sitting over my morning coffee, preparing myself for another day with kids making art.It won’t be art with a capital A.Much of Art in the real world is not much more than a plaything for the 1%.In fact, what feels so good about the Occupy Wall Street movement is the ... more »

Teacher from Pro-Walker Ad Among Those Who Gave Standing Ovation to White Pride Speech |

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Teacher from Pro-Walker Ad Among Those Who Gave Standing Ovation to White Pride Speech |:Teacher from Pro-Walker Ad Joined in Standing Ovation to White Pride Speechby bluecheddarAccording to the Politiscoop blogger, a key Walker advocate, Kristi LaCroix, was present at a Kenosha event when a woman stood up to deliver what I would call a ‘white pride speech’, and at the conclusion of said speech, Ms. LaCroix stood with others to deliver a standing ovation. Ms. LaCroix is the Lakeview ... more »

Study details societal ramifications for high school dropouts - chicagotribune.com

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Study details societal ramifications for high school dropouts - chicagotribune.com:Study details societal ramifications for high school dropoutsAt policy forum, group calls out CPS chief, others, to address issueComments8Share56By Noreen S. Ahmed-Ullah, Chicago Tribune reporter9:09 p.m. CST, December 7, 2011Teens who drop out of high school have a greater likelihood of ending up in jail, being unemployed, relying on food stamps and becoming a fiscal drain on society than those who graduate, according to a new study commissioned by the Chicago ... more »

And Now, About Those Mega-Rich Alleged Job Creators… - Lily's Blackboard – Lily's Blackboard

Big Education Ape - PostRank (PostRank: All) - 1 day ago

And Now, About Those Mega-Rich Alleged Job Creators… - Lily's Blackboard – Lily's Blackboard:And Now, About Those Mega-Rich Alleged Job Creators…Dec 6th, 2011 by Lily.I’m sorry. I’m not normally a violent person. But how can you not want to slap the next clown that routinely and without an pinky fingernail-size of evidence continues to characterize the mega-wealthiest amongst us as “Job Creators”?A bona-fide mega-wealthy rich guy is Nick Hanauer. He’s got millions and millions and says he wants politicians and ... more »

Blue Jersey:: Education Reform: For Profit, Not For Progress

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Blue Jersey:: Education Reform: For Profit, Not For Progress:Education Reform: For Profit, Not For Progressby Marie CorfieldBefore the end of the year Governor Christie wants the legislature to pass the remainder of his property tax ‘tool kit’ including his education ‘reform’ agenda. And the fate of one of the nation’s best public education systems and thousands of its students hang in the balance.Out of over twenty four hundred schools in this state, about two hundred are not doing a good ... more »

UPDATE: Today's Big Education Ape - PostRank Top AM Posts #ows #edreform

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John Thompson: Diane Ravitch and the History That "Reformers" Do Not KnowBig Education Ape - PostRank (PostRank: All)-6 minutes agoJohn Thompson: Diane Ravitch and the History That "Reformers" Do Not Know:John ThompsonAward-winning Historian, Lobbyist and Guerilla-gardener, and Inner City TeacherGET UPDATES FROM JOHN THOMPSON Like134Diane Ravitch and the History That "Reformers" Do Not KnowDiane Ravitch has again done the seemingly impossible. She prompted Education Sector's Kevin Carey to take a glance at the history of education. Even so, Carey's piece ... more »

Shanker Blog » Education Advocacy Organizations: An Overview

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Shanker Blog » Education Advocacy Organizations: An Overview:Education Advocacy Organizations: An Overviewby Ken LibbyOur guest author today is Ken Libby, a graduate student studying educational foundations, policy and practice at the University of Colorado at Boulder.Education advocacy organizations (EAOs) come in a variety of shapes and sizes. Some focus on specific issues (e.g. human capital decisions, forms of school choice, class size) while others approach policy more broadly (e.g. changing policy environments, membership decisions). Proponents of these organizations claim the...more »

Both Sides of the Classroom « The Whole Child Blog « Whole Child Education

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Both Sides of the Classroom « The Whole Child Blog « Whole Child Education:Both Sides of the Classroomby ASCD Whole Child BloggersPost submitted by Whole Child Blogger Carole HaywardAdora Svitak, ASCD’s youngest member at 14 years old, became involved in classroom teaching when her first book was published at age 7. As a current high school student, Svitak has a truly unique perspective of seeing both sides of the classroom.At a general session at ASCD’s Fall Conference in October, Svitak ... more »

National charter school enrollment now tops two million students | Get Schooled

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National charter school enrollment now tops two million students | Get Schooled:National charter school enrollment now tops two million students8:00 am December 7, 2011, by Maureen DowneyAs Georgia has shown, there is a great deal of parental interest in charter schools. The National Alliance for Public Charter Schools announced today enrollment in charter schools, which are public schools that operate with autonomy in exchange for contractual performance goals, has surpassed two million. (There are 46 million students in the public ... more »

Recess Has Some New Competition – SchoolBook

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Recess Has Some New Competition – SchoolBook:Recess Has Some New Competitionby Mary Ann GiordanoOne of SchoolBook’s prolific commenters is Vicki Zunich, who is passionate about the need for young children to have more play and unstructured time during the school day.Wednesday’s New York Times offers plenty of fodder for discussion in an article by Kyle Spencer that looks at how recess and lunch time are being turned into structured club and enrichment time for children at some of the city’s ... more »

Americans Re-Occupy Their Homes | OccupyWallSt.org #ows

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Americans Re-Occupy Their Homes | OccupyWallSt.org:Americans Re-Occupy Their Homesby OccupyWallStToday, Americans stood up and said, "We have a right to shelter. No one can take that right from us." Today we re-occupied our homes.In East New York, Brooklyn - a foreclosed home is being reclaimed today by a local homeless family. #OWS, along with local neighbors and community groups, has pledged to stay with the family and defend them from eviction. Kendall Jacklman from Picture The Homeless spoke to the ...more »

Tony Bennett, It’s Better for Educrats to Dictate Standards? | Truth in American Education

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Tony Bennett, It’s Better for Educrats to Dictate Standards? | Truth in American Education:Tony Bennett, It’s Better for Educrats to Dictate Standards?by Shane Vander HartI had to shake my head at comments made by Tony Bennett, the Indiana Superintendent of Public Schools, to EdWeek in their coverage of ALEC passing anti-common core model legislation:Indiana’s Bennett defended the common standards during a couple of sessions at the ALEC convening, including one at the education task force. He told me after the ... more »

John Thompson: Diane Ravitch and the History That "Reformers" Do Not Know

Big Education Ape - PostRank (PostRank: All) - 1 day ago

John Thompson: Diane Ravitch and the History That "Reformers" Do Not Know:John ThompsonAward-winning Historian, Lobbyist and Guerilla-gardener, and Inner City TeacherGET UPDATES FROM JOHN THOMPSON Like134Diane Ravitch and the History That "Reformers" Do Not KnowDiane Ravitch has again done the seemingly impossible. She prompted Education Sector's Kevin Carey to take a glance at the history of education. Even so, Carey's piece in The New Republic, "The Dissenter," indicates that he did not read carefully.Carey wrote that Ravitch "left a polarized ... more »