Teachers' Letters to Bill Gates | Educators from the US and beyond: please share your teaching stories with Mr. Bill Gates.

Teachers' Letters to Bill Gates | Educators from the US and beyond: please share your teaching stories with Mr. Bill Gates. How have the policies of the Gates Foundation influenced your classroom, your students, your teaching, your schools, and your communities?:

NYC teacher: “THIS is what the Common Core is doing to our children; it’s heartbreaking and wrong”

Posted on March 19, 2014by Teachers'LettersToBillGates

Bill,

You yourself said the authoritative voice is that of the teachers. Read what this Brooklyn, NY teacher – whom I hold in high regard – has to say about your Common Core package. – Katie Lapham

“Today after school the 3rd grade sister of a student of mine joined the debate team for our practice, as she sometimes does. Afterwards I asked her how 3rd grade was going, and she replied “terribly!” I asked why and she told me that the (New York) state ELA test was coming up in a few weeks and she was afraid she would fail. Her eyes teared up when I asked her why she thought she would fail. “Because I’m an idiot!,” she replied. She was careful to stress that it wasn’t her teacher’s fault, but her very own that she didn’t feel ready. It was heartbreaking. This sweet girl was taking on the entire weight of the testing regime and trying to protect her teacher by blaming herself for what she views as inevitable failure. THIS is what the Common Core is doing to our children. It’s heartbreaking and it’s wrong.”

- Devon Whitham, teacher

Posted in Bill Gates, Common Core, Common Core High Stakes Testing, Corporate Education Reform, End High Stakes Testing, High Stakes Testing, Standardized Testing, Testing, Uncategorized | Leave a comment

This Teacher Can No Longer Tolerate Bill Gates’ Ignorance and Apathy

Posted on March 19, 2014by Teachers'LettersToBillGates

Dear Bill Gates,

This is now the third letter I am publishing on teachersletterstobillgates.com, a website that, by now, you surely must be well aware exists. There have been over 150 heartfelt and emotional posts published in the nine or so months since its inception, yet you have chosen, thus far, to ignore them all.

And that is the reason for my third letter to you today. I don’t know how I can tolerate your ignorance – your apathy – for much longer. Especially when I read “news” that quotes you as saying, “Maybe we can’t answer every tweet or post, but the authoritative voice on this is teachers.” Do you REALLY believe this, Bill? I doubt it.

Because if you had, you certainly would have at least taken a moment to address its existence.  But you can’t. Why? Because you’re too busy touting your claims of all-knowing excellence to the world and selling your products to fix the public education system in America.

I try to see the good in others; I TRY to believe that you really do think you are doing what 

3-19-14 empathyeducates

empathyeducates:

Liberals and Tea Party Find Common Ground with Common Core

By Karen Wolfe | Originally Published at LA Progressive. March 19, 2014 Few if any political issues have brought together liberals and the tea party to the extent that the Common Core State Standards have. How can something be equally objectionable to political opposites? Tea partiers ideologically […]

by empathy / 45min hide  //  save

New Extremists In The Education Debate

By Jeff Bryant | Education Opportunity Network. March 19, 2014 For people who like to think of themselves as being “exceptional,” Americans can sometimes abandon the very principles their exceptionality is founded on. Nowhere is this more apparent than in the current debate of education policy. A […]

by empathy / 45min 

NPR Whitewashes “Grit” Narrative

By Paul L. Thomas, Ed.D. | Originally Published at The Becoming Radical. March 17, 2014 Albeit from different ideologies, NPR and Fox News have something really disturbing in common: Bias masked as, to use the Fox slogan, “fair and balanced.” In fact, the breezy tone of NPR […]

by empathy / 45min 

Photo Essay: This Charter School is Lovely | Cloaking Inequity

Photo Essay: This Charter School is Lovely | Cloaking Inequity:

Photo Essay: This Charter School is Lovely

A student recently asked me in class if there was a charter school I would recommend in Austin besides the UT-Austin Elementary Charter School. This afternoon I visited one such school. There are some “reformers” in Austin that have criticized the Austin Independent School District for ending a partnership with the corporate charter chain IDEA. It turns out that Austinites are not opposed to charters, they just believe that charters should promote access and equity and should be led by the communities in which they are placed instead of by corporate-types and outsiders (Stay tuned for a new post coming soon to Cloaking Inequity on post-colonialism and charter schools in New Orleans) The Austin American-Statesman reported:

Prior to ending the IDEA partnership, trustees voted unanimously Monday night to approve a full-scale charter partnership for Travis Heights Elementary.

The charter will be managed by a board representing teachers, community members, the district’s labor group Education Austin, and Austin Interfaith.

But unlike IDEA, school leaders agreed not to move forward on the charter unless it had the support of a majority of its teachers and the neighboring community. The school’s leaders will have greater power 

Seattle Education Meetup: An Opt Out Workshop with Jesse Hagopian | Seattle Education

Seattle Education Meetup: An Opt Out Workshop with Jesse Hagopian | Seattle Education:

Seattle Education Meetup: An Opt Out Workshop with Jesse Hagopian

First No Child Left Behind, then Race to the Top and now the Common Core Standards.

Unsure what the Common Core Standards are?

Want to know more about the term “high stakes testing”?

Have you heard about parents, students and teachers opting out of standardized testing and the Common Core Standards around the country?

Do you know why so many are opting out?

If you have these questions or others pertaining to the testing regime that has gripped our school system or why and how the Common Core Standards are being rolled out in Seattle, join us for an evening of discussion with Jesse Hagopian and me, Dora Taylor, on standardized testing, Common Core Standards and the opt out option.

Seattle Education Meetup

The Common Core Standards, High Stakes Testing and Opting Out

An evening of discussion and information

Wednesday, March 26, 2014 at 6:30 PM

RSVP seattled@icloud.com

This Meetup will be held in a private home so if you would like to join us, please send an RSVP e-mail to seattled@icloud.com. We will respond with the address and any additional information that you require.

For more on the Common Core Standards, high stakes testing and opting out, see:

Stop Common Core in Washington State

Rethinking Schools: The Trouble with the Common Core

Seattle pushes back on Common Core Standards and high-stakes testing

Truth in American Education

Rethinking Schools: Testing Our Limits

What’s wrong with standardized tests?

The Opt Out Update with a Parent “Get Tough Guide”

Post Script:

This just in from New York:

Dear neighbor:

On behalf of the thousands of frustrated parents, students and teachers that I 

Choosing Democracy: Vergara Lawsuit would take away teacher rights

Choosing Democracy: Vergara Lawsuit would take away teacher rights:

Vergara Lawsuit would take away teacher rights

"It would be very scary to me, if this lawsuit succeeds, to think that I might not have a job next year, not for anything I'd done in the classroom, but because my principal didn't like me, or my clothing, or something I'd said." —Laura Lacar, Gahr High School, ABC Unified School District

Last year a group calling itself “Students Matter,” funded by David Welch, a conservative Silicon Valley millionaire, filed a lawsuit, Vergara v. the State of California. The lawsuit challenges a number of constitutional rights for California’s teachers, including “tenure,” due process rights, and seniority rights during layoffs. The suit, hiding behind a group of students, alleges that these teacher workplace rights infringe the constitutional right of students to an equal education. [See what Gary Ravani has to say about the civil rights rhetoric used by Students Matter; and see CFT president Joshua Pechthalt's op-ed piece in the San Jose Mercury News] CFT and CTA joined the defense last year, challenging Vergara as a “…meritless lawsuit by corporate special interests attacking teacher professional rights.”

The trial opened on Monday, January 27.

The lawsuit ignores the real problems of public education

Education Code rules to protect teacher rights from administrative mismanagement are not "unfair" to either students or new teachers. What harms students? Economic inequality, poverty, their parents' joblessness, and underfunding are unfair to students. But this lawsuit ignores these barriers to educational success. The premise of "Vergara" is that public schools are failing, and bad teachers are the reason why. Get rid of the “bad teachers,” and the schools will succeed. This simplistic idea is wrong in a number of ways. Most public schools are successes, by most reasonable measures; and while the role of the teacher is always an important in-school factor, external factors like poverty and underfunding have the greatest impact.

Stripping teachers of their workplace professional rights will harm, not improve, student learning

Anti-public education “reformers” are forever repeating that rules and regulations make it impossible to fire "bad teachers." Here are the facts. During the first two years of a teacher's career, a lengthy probation period, administrators can fire them for any reason, or for no reason at all. After that, the requirements are for the administrator to document the problem necessitating the teacher's dismissal, and convince two out of three people on a panel of experts to agree. That's it. A teacher's simple right to a hearing before 

Public School Defenders Launch Movement in Austin | Larry Miller's Blog: Educate All Students!

Public School Defenders Launch Movement in Austin | Larry Miller's Blog: Educate All Students!:

Public School Defenders Launch Movement in Austin

Filed under: Public Education — millerlf @ 2:36 pm 

The Progressive March 2014

Deep in the heart of Texas, in the very center of what public-school advocate Diane Ravitch called the “education-industrial complex,” public-school activists from every corner of the United States met last weekend to launch a nationwide movement to defend public education against corporate takeover and phony, test-driven “reform.”

The Network for Public Education: http://www.networkforpubliceducation.org/

founded by Diane Ravitch and Anthony Cody, met for the first time in Austin on March 1 and 2 to sound the alarm about high-stakes testing, mass school closures, and the corporate take-over of public education, and to rally a nationwide movement to resist.

Karen Lewis, the dynamic president of the Chicago Teachers Union joined Texas school superintendent John Kuhn on stage at the Lyndon Johnson museum at the University of Texas, to give a barn-burning joint keynote address:

“There could not be two more different people on the planet,” Lewis said. “John Kuhn is a white male. I am a black woman. John Kuhn has worked as a Christian missionary, and I am a recently bat mitzvahed Jew. John Kuhn is management. Karen Lewis is labor. But I am going to tell you that what we have in common are the values [that] make this country great.”

Those values, Kuhn said, are what led the Chicago teachers out on strike to fight not for themselves or even for their schools, but “to keep the fading light of democracy burning, and to fend off a new generation of robber barons.”

School closings, a “test-and-punish” model of education reform that labels high-poverty districts as “failing” and invites their takeover by private companies, and the replacement of democratically elected school boards with “CEO’s” are among the threats to the basic, democratic institution of public education, Kuhn and Lewis pointed out.

“Where do we go for redress of our grievances once we’ve surrendered our elected school boards and our constitutional guarantees?” Kuhn asked. “Do we march into the board room of a charter management 

Listen to a Superintedent That Stands Up for Public Education and Our Kids

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by millerlf / 18min 

Two Massachusetts Schools Approve PARCC Opt-Out | Truth in American Education

Two Massachusetts Schools Approve PARCC Opt-Out | Truth in American Education:

Two Massachusetts Schools Approve PARCC Opt-Out

Filed in Common Core Assessments by Shane Vander Hart on March 19, 2014 • 0 Comments

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Educational officials in Massachusetts have been telling parents who desire to opt-out that it is mandatory that their students participate in the PARCC field testing that is occurring, despite not really having legal authority to do so.

Two school committees have bucked that trend.  The Worchester School Committee gave parents permission to opt-out, and now the Tantasqua Regional School Committee has done the same.

From the Telegram & Gazzette:

Tantasqua Regional School Committee member William J. Gillmeister of Brookfield made the motion asking for the school’s administration to develop protocol to allow parents of students scheduled to take the PARCC field test to opt out of the testing.

The motion passed with an 8-7 vote.

“I’m opposed to the Common Core and I’m certainly opposed to the PARCC test,” Mr. Gillmeister said. “Students have to take the MCAS (Massachusetts Comprehensive 

 

solidaridad: Students. Tired of corporate reformers making choices about YOUR education? Fight back!

solidaridad: Students. Tired of corporate reformers making choices about YOUR education? Fight back!:

Students. Tired of corporate reformers making choices about YOUR education? Fight back!

REGISTER HERE: http://empowerED2014.com"If you had the power to change the education system, what would you do?"

Here's your chance.

On March 29, at the University of Southern California, through the EmpowerED: Los Angeles Student Power 2014 conference, YOU will be given the opportunity to answer that question AND learn how you can make that answer a reality.

Students all over the country are tired of feeling powerless when it comes to decisions that affect their education. That's why they're standing up and fighting back against things like high stakes testing, school closings, and budget cuts. At EmpowerED 2014, you will:

• Have a chance to hear the powerful stories of high school student activists from all over the US who've made history in their communities.
• Engage in a unique opportunity where your vision for education will be featured in "Collective Voice: The Wisdom of Young People on Education," a national exhibition in Washington DC in 2015.
• Participate in interactive workshops where you'll have the chance to share your ideas on education and learn how YOU can make that vision come true through the Student Power Movement.
• Be a part of the first ever youth-led event that engages students in a local community in a conversation about their education.

EmpowerED's Featured Speakers:

• Israel Munoz, Chicago Students Union
• Tre Murphy, Alliance for Educational Justice
• Sekai Edwards, Portland Student Union
• Cauldierre McKay, Providence Student Union
• Kristin Towkaniuk, Newark Students Union
• Kate Barnes, Portland Student Union
• Zoe Marie Foster-La Du, Portland Student Union
• Mariam Khan, San Jose Youth Commission

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This event is now open to USC students and other college students in the LA area. There are only a few spots left, so please register today to reserve your spot!

For those who cannot make the event, it will be livestreamed by Vincent Precht and Jamelle Anthony Nelson on schoolhouselive.org. Stay tuned for more info!

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EmpowerED is hosted by USC Program Board, Academic Culture Assembly, EdMonth, and Students United for Public Education.

Videos: Voucher groups admitting to squeezing Democrats and using low-income children as the “face” of program for political purposes | The Florida Squeeze

Videos: Voucher groups admitting to squeezing Democrats and using low-income children as the “face” of program for political purposes | The Florida Squeeze:



Videos: Voucher groups admitting to squeezing Democrats and using low-income children as the “face” of program for political purposes

KARTIK KRISHNAIYER ♦ MARCH 18, 2014 ♦ 4 COMMENTS

HB 7099, the largest potential expansion to date of school vouchers in Florida will pass the House Choice and Innovation Committee today (aka the voucher committee).

The Florida Squeeze obtained two videos where Florida pro-voucher leader Doug Tuthill, himself a one-time liberal Democrat talking about how political contributions and playing in Democratic primaries has moved support for vouchers from a lone Democrat in 2001 to half the caucus by 2011.

Watch the first video in his own words on using political contributions to move Democrats on the issue.

In the following clip Tuthill  in a Q and A talks about using lower income children and families as the face of the program thus building corporate support and boxing in some Democrats politically .

Videos: Voucher groups admitting to squeezing Democrats and using low-income children as the “face” of program for political purposes | The Florida Squeeze:

The Answer Sheet 3-19-14 School reformers love ‘choice,’ except when …

School reformers love ‘choice,’ except when …:

A different way to give college admissions tests

Now that the announcement about big SAT changes is behind us, it’s time to look at what it all means. Not so much, apparently. To explain why, and suggest a better way to give a college admissions test is John Kaztman, founder of Princeton Review, a test prep and college admissions services company; 2u, which […]    

4 by Valerie Strauss / 37min 

School reformers love ‘choice,’ except when …

School “reformers” love to promote “choice.” Charters. Vouchers. Tuition tax credits. It’s all about giving parents choices, right? Well, not always. Reformers don’t actually like choice quite so much when: * Parents decide they want to opt their children out of taking a high-stakes standardized test that has little or no value. – In many […]    

by Valerie Strauss / 3min   

The Answer Sheet 3-18-14

The Answer Sheet: 50 terrible ideas for improving schoolsA valuable new book called “50 Myths &  Lies That Threaten America’s Public Schools”  takes a stark look at some of the worst ideas being promoted by school reformers around the country as ways to improve the public education.   The book — from which I am going to run a series of excerpts — […]    31 by Valerie Strauss / 5hThe Answer She

by mike simpson / 7min