Sunday, February 10, 2019

What Rydell High School Can Teach Us about the LA Teachers Strike | The Nation

What Rydell High School Can Teach Us about the LA Teachers Strike | The Nation

What Rydell High School Can Teach Us about the LA Teachers Strike
As teachers in Denver and Oakland head toward their own strikes, it’s worth doubling down on the lessons from LA.

arly on the morning of January 10, the sun bathed Venice High School—famous for its appearance as Rydell High in the film version of Grease—in a cinematic glow of light and mist, a statue of Myrna Loy providing a dramatic backdrop for the teachers, parents, and students who had shown up with hand-painted signs. The crowd had gathered for what was supposed to have been the first day of the United Teachers Los Angeles (UTLA) strike but, after the strike was pushed back, turned out instead to be a thrilling preview. “I don’t know, but it’s been said, billionaires run the Board of Ed!” the people in the crowd chanted. A student took the microphone and declared support for the teachers. Homemade signs proclaimed: “You can’t put kids first if we put teachers last” and “‘Random’ searches criminalize students of color.”

Longtime educator Monica Studer carried a sign that read: “I walked the line in 1989.” That was the year of the last UTLA strike, and Studer still wore buttons from that struggle—“I don’t want to strike but… I will!” and “1989 we walked, we won, WE’RE STILL NOT DONE 1991”—on a lanyard around her neck. Back then, Studer said, the issues were similar to the ones pushing UTLA toward the picket lines today—wages and teacher input on how schools were run—but there were no charter schools in the picture. “Charter schools are underregulated, and the district charges them the minimum amount that they can to be on our campuses,” she said.

Back then, the classes were smaller, too. These days, Studer told me, the teachers at Venice High regularly have as many as 44 students in a room built for a class half that size. “There is no more room in a classroom for desks,” she added—let alone the additional time necessary to read and assess the work of each student. “Because of the large class sizes, that allows students to slip through the cracks, which should not happen.” CONTINUE READING: What Rydell High School Can Teach Us about the LA Teachers Strike | The Nation

Eric Blanc: Cory Booker Hates Public Schools | Diane Ravitch's blog

Eric Blanc: Cory Booker Hates Public Schools | Diane Ravitch's blog

Eric Blanc: Cory Booker Hates Public Schools

Cory Booker has launched his campaign for the Democratic presidential nomination. The stories in the mainstream media focus on his charm, his charisma, his theme of “love” and bipartisanship.

But they all miss one point, which Eric Blanc stresses: Cory Booker hates public schools.

Sen. Cory Booker (NJ–D) announced his presidential campaign last week. There’s plenty about Booker’s record worth examining, from his extremely cozy relationship with pharmaceutical companies to his bizarre public defense of Wall Street. But nothing in Booker’s past is as damning as his record on schools.

For close to two decades, Cory Booker has been at the forefront of a nationwide push to dismantle public education.

According to Booker, the education system is the main cause of our society’s fundamental problems, rather than, say, inequality and unchecked corporate power. As he explained in a 2011 speech, “disparities in income in America are not because of some ‘greedy capitalist’ — no! It’s because of a failing education system.”

Public schools, Booker continued, are also responsible for mass incarceration and racial injustice. To combat such evils, Booker has openly praised Republican leader Betsy DeVos’s organization American Federation for Children for fighting to win the final battle of the civil rights’ movement.

Scapegoating underfunded public schools for deeply rooted racial and economic problems makes little sense. But it’s been a ticket to the top for Cory Booker. In fact, it was by hitching his star to the corporate-backed “education reform” movement that Booker first rose to prominence.

The son of wealthy parents who were among IBM’s first black executives, Booker’s big political break came in September 2000, when he was tapped to give a keynote speech to the archconservative Manhattan Institute. Calling the Newark school system “repugnant,” Booker claimed there was “great evidence” that large groups of children “cannot succeed in the public school system.”

Yet rather than improving this system by increasing school funding or building public “community schools,”Booker made a hard case for charter schools as well as school vouchers, i.e., state funding for parents to pay for private schools. To give this pitch a social justice veneer, he quoted Frederick Douglas — “power concedes nothing without force” — and steeped his arguments in the language of racial justice.

Booker’s eloquent advocacy of corporate antiracismquickly caught the eye of wealthy hedge-fund investorsinterested in pushing privatization. In Dale Russakoff’s The Prize, a detailed account of philanthropic efforts to reform Newark’s public schools, Booker notes that though he “became a pariah in Democratic circles for taking on the Party orthodoxy on education,” his 2002 mayoral bid was boosted by “all these Republican donors and donors from outside Newark, many of them motivated because we have an African-American urban Democrat telling the truth about education.”

One of Booker’s main financial backers, Whitney Tilson, was honest about the profit motivations for large hedge-fund investors like himself. Charter schools, he explainedto the New York Times, are the ideal philanthropic opportunity for such business leaders because “[h]edge funds are always looking for ways to turn a small amount of capital into a large amount of capital.”

While the over $3 million in campaign contributions Booker received from his school reform sponsors was not quite enough to buy him the 2002 election, Booker’s 2006 mayoral bid was victorious. Due in large part to his zealous commitment to privatization, Newark has gone from having less than 10 percent of students in charters in 2008, to over 33 percent today; by 2022, 44 percent of the city’s students are set to be schooled in these publicly financed but privately run institutions.

If you blame public schools for all of the ills of our unjust society, Cory Booker is your guy.

Eric Blanc: Cory Booker Hates Public Schools | Diane Ravitch's blog

Chaz's School Daze: Michael Bloomberg's Failed Education Record

Chaz's School Daze: Michael Bloomberg's Failed Education Record

Michael Bloomberg's Failed Education Record

I read with humor that PolitiFact found that Mayor Michael Bloomberg's educational record of improvement was mostly true. However, a closer look at the data finds that Mr. Bloomberg's education policy was a failure.

The only real improvement was the bogus graduation rate. However, every educator knows that the improved graduation rates were because of "credit recovery" courses, administrative pressure to pass failing students, scholarship requirements, and linking teacher tenure to student grades. This is known as academic fraud.

Moreover, the Bloomberg claim that he reduced the racial/income achievement gap is bogus, even PolitiFact questioned the claim.

What PolitiFact failed to investigate was the increasing class sizesunder Michael Bloomberg, the bloated DOE Bureaucracy, the underfunded public school budgets, where most schools received only 82% to 86% of fair funding and the rise of charter schools at the expense of the public schools.

Just as important was Mayor Bloomberg's attempt to eliminate teacher tenure by bribing the Republican controlled State Senate by donating almost a million dollars to their campaign and CONTINUE READING: Chaz's School Daze: Michael Bloomberg's Failed Education Record

2018 Year in Review – The K-12 Cybersecurity Resource Center

The State of K-12 Cybersecurity

Year in Review

Schools are increasingly relying on technology for teaching, learning, and school operations. What do we know about the cybersecurity risks this may introduce?

A first-of-its-kind report on cyber incidents affecting U.S. public elementary and secondary (K-12) education institutions during 2018:

An abridged version of the report is also available for direct download.

Suggested citation:

Levin, Douglas A. (2019). “The State of K-12 Cybersecurity: 2018 Year in Review.” Arlington, VA: EdTech Strategies, LLC/The K-12 Cybersecurity Resource Center. Available online at: https://k12cybersecure.com/year-in-review/

The publication of the 2018 report was made possible with the generous support of Core BTS, Managed Methods, and PC Matic PRO.

On the Map:

The K-12 Cyber Incident Map

419 The number of cybersecurity-related incidents involving U.S. public schools since 2016.

K-12 Cybersecurity In the News:

NEW REPORT CARD GRADING EACH STATE ON HOW WELL IT PROTECTS STUDENT PRIVACY

In the first of its kind, the Parent Coalition for Student Privacy and the Network for Public Education have released a report card that grades all fifty states on how well their laws protect student privacy.

The State Student Privacy Report Card analyses 99 laws passed in 39 states plus DC between 2013 and 2018, and awards points in each of the following five categories, aligned with the core principlesput forward by PCSP: Transparency; Parental and Student Rights; Limitations on Commercial Use of Data; Data Security Requirements; and Oversight, Enforcement, and Penalties for Violations.

Two more categories were added to the evaluation: Parties Covered and Regulated and Other, a catch-all for provisions that did not fit into any of the above categories, such as prohibiting school employees from receiving compensation for recommending the use of specific technology products and services in their schools.

No state earned an “A” overall, as no state sufficiently protects student privacy to the degree necessary in each of these areas. Colorado earned the highest average grade of “B.” Three states – New York, Tennessee and New Hampshire– received the second highest average grade of “B-“. Eleven states received the lowest grades of “F” because they have no laws protecting student privacy: Alabama, Alaska, Massachusetts, Minnesota, Mississippi, Montana, New Jersey, New Mexico, South Carolina, Vermont and Wisconsin.

The report tracks specific versions of state laws over time. For example, many of the state privacy laws enacted since 2013 were modeled after the California’s 2014 law known as the Student Online Personal Information Protection Act (SOPIPA). While California barred all school vendors from selling student data, eight states subsequently passed laws that allowed the College Board and the ACT to do so. Laws with specific loopholes to allow these companies to sell student data were enacted in Arizona, Colorado, District of Columbia, Nebraska, North Carolina, Texas, Utah and Virginia –presumably because of lobbying efforts.

The issue of data security is also critical. The primary federal student privacy law known as FERPA requires no specific protections against data breaches and hacking, nor does it require families be notified when inadvertent disclosures occur. In recent years, the number of data breaches from schools and vendors have skyrocketed, and some districts have even been targeted by hackers with attempted blackmail and extortion. A recent report rated the education industry last in terms of cybersecurity compared to all other major industries. As a result, this fall the FBI put out an advisory, warning of the risks represented by the rapid growth of education tech tools and their collection of sensitive student data, saying that this could “result in social engineering, bullying, tracking, identity theft, or other means for targeting children.”

“The inBloom debacle in 2013 exposed the longstanding culture of fast and loose student data sharing among government agencies, schools and companies,” said Rachael Stickland, co-chair of the Parent Coalition for Student Privacy, parent of two public school children in Colorado and the primary author of the report. “Consequently, parents across the nation began urging their state legislators to address the problem, resulting in a complex web of state privacy laws that are difficult to untangle and understand. Our hope is to bring attention to state laws that make a reasonable effort to protect student privacy and identify those that need improvement. Parents and advocacy groups can use our findings to advocate for even stronger measures to protect their children.”

NPE Executive Director Carol Burris noted, “This report card provides not only critical information regarding the existing laws, but also serves a blueprint for parents to use for lobbying for better protections for their children.”

As Leonie Haimson, co-chair of the Parent Coalition for Student Privacy, pointed out, “FERPA was passed over forty-five years ago and has been weakened by regulation over time to allow for the sharing of personal student data by schools and vendors without parent knowledge or consent. State legislators have stepped up to the plate to try to fill in some of its many gaps and to require more transparency, security protections, enforcement, and the ability of parents and students to control their own data. Yet none of these laws are robust enough in each of these areas. Congress must strengthen and update FERPA, but meanwhile, this report card can serve as a guide to parents and advocates as to which state laws should be strengthened and in which specific ways.”

An interactive map that shows the grades of each state, both overall and in each of the categories is posted here. The report is posted here ; here is a technical appendix with a more detailed account of how each law was evaluated. There is also a downloadable matrixwith links to all of the state laws, as well as specifying how many points were awarded in every category. CONTINUE READING: Press Release: New Report Card Grading Each State On How Well it Protects Student Privacy | Parent Coalition for Student Privacy

Saturday, February 9, 2019

Oakland Teachers Are on the Verge of a Strike #Unite4OaklandKids #WeAreOEA #WeAreCTA #strikeready

Oakland Teachers Are on the Verge of a Strike

Oakland Teachers Are on the Verge of a Strike
After two wildcat strikes in recent months, Oakland teachers are now on the verge of a district-wide strike. Like other recent teacher walkouts, Oakland educators are up against a school-reform agenda pushed by billionaires.

Wherever there’s a battle over public education lately, a billionaire is somehow involved. Los Angeles, Newark, the “education reform” project as a whole — the ultrarich always have their hands in efforts to antagonize teachers.

One city they’ve now set their sights on: Oakland, where teachers are in the middle of union contract negotiations and just authorized a strike. Some teachers stayed out of school in one-day wildcat strikes in December and January, joined by many of their students. According to posts circulating on Facebook and Instagram, Oakland students have planned to call out sick in solidarity with teachers today.

Just like other teachers’ union battles these days, the contract fight pits students and working people against billionaire pro-corporate school reformers and the politicians backing them.

Big Education Ape: Hundreds of OUSD Students Walked Out of Class Today: Student Organizers tell us what’s next for their movement. | East Bay Majority #Unite4OaklandKids #WeAreOEA #WeAreCTA #strikeready - http://bigeducationape.blogspot.com/2019/02/hundreds-of-ousd-students-walked-out-of.html

The superintendent of the Oakland Unified School District (OUSD), Kyla Johnson-Trammell, wants to cut teachers’ already low pay and expand class sizes. Independent of the contract fight, she also intends to replace public schools with more unaccountable charter schools.

Johnson-Trammell claims a budget crisis is forcing these moves. But the district’s “crisis,” like so many other claimed budgetary crises around the country, comes after school privatization advocates helped drain the district’s funds through previous charter expansions; their allies in the superintendent’s seat and on the school board have overspent wildly on administrative salaries and corporate consultants.

Charter schools are the thin wedge of the privatization movement. They open opportunities for profiteering, weaken teachers’ unions, and expand the control of the wealthy over the public school system. The superintendent’s plan to further expand charter enrollment would drain more resources from Oakland public schools, which would be used to justify more privatization. But the Oakland Education Association (OEA), the teachers’ union, is demanding that the district adequately fund its schools. They are asking for higher teacher pay, smaller class sizes, and lower workloads for staff.

Who caused OUSD’s budget woes? What political circumstances have enabled the school privatization movement to flourish in Oakland? And why do billionaires care so much about charter schools?

The OEA Contract Fight and the OUSD Budget

Oakland schools are currently experiencing a series of crises. OUSD has a severe problem keeping teachers in classrooms: about one in five teachers leave the district each year. High teacher turnover results in disruptions to student learning and a reliance on untrained teachers with emergency credentials. (In 2017–18, at least 15 percent of new OUSD teachers had emergency credentials, and at least 30 percent of teacher applicants did.)

The cause of the teacher retention crisis isn’t a mystery. As the cost of living in Oakland skyrockets, CONTINUE READING: Oakland Teachers Are on the Verge of a Strike

Top Posts This Week 2/9/19 #REDFORED

Top Posts This Week 2/9/19

CURMUDGUCATION: The Truth About Davos, AI, and Firing All the Humans

Challenging the myths about teachers – Live Long and Prosper

Dress code discrimination: When OK attire depends on your skin color

Pittsburgh Christian Academy Tries to Become a Charter School to Cash in on Taxpayer Funding | gadflyonthewallblog

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The myth of de facto segregation - kappanonlineorg #BlackLivesMatterAtSchool #CounselorsNotCops #blackhistorymonth

by mike simpson / 17h

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Behind The Lens episode 18: A preview of reporter Marta Jewson’s work on the tricky question of when to close failing schools in New Orleans. | The Lens

by mike simpson / 18h

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Hundreds of OUSD Students Walked Out of Class Today: Student Organizers tell us what’s next for their movement. | East Bay Majority #Unite4OaklandKids #WeAreOEA #WeAreCTA #strikeready

by mike simpson / 22h

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by mike simpson / 1d

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Sacramento teachers union requests investigation into school district

by mike simpson / 1d

Portfolio School Governance Creates Unstable Charter Sector with Too Many School Closures | janresseger

by mike simpson / 1d

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Charter Schools Are Pushing Public Education to the Brink

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by mike simpson / 2d

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by mike simpson / 2d

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by mike simpson / 2d

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by mike simpson / 3d

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by mike simpson / 3d

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Governor Orders Study on Charter School Impacts – California Educator

by mike simpson / 3d

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The Kind Of Policy We Must Never Make Again | Current Affairs

by mike simpson / 3d

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by mike simpson / 4d

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by mike simpson / 4d

Policy Makers Need a New Path to Education Reform - The Atlantic I Used to Preach the Gospel of Education Reform. Then I Became the Mayor. Policy makers need to question their assumptions about what makes a good school. During my first campaign to be Chicago’s mayor in 2011, I promised to put education reform at the forefront of my agenda. Having participated in Washington policy debates for the

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by mike simpson / 4d

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by mike simpson / 4d

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by mike simpson / 4d

Dress code discrimination: When OK attire depends on your skin color When acceptable attire depends on the color of your skin Parental dress codes are a thing in some educational institutions Every day educators teach students the adage, “Don’t judge a book by its cover.” Many are familiar with the biblical verse, “Judge not, that ye be not judged.” Martin Luther King, Jr. dreamed that one day we

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by mike simpson / 4d

Sacramento school district threatens bankruptcy to extort concessions from teachers - World Socialist Web Site Sacramento school district threatens bankruptcy to extort concessions from teachers As school districts in Oakland and Los Angeles, California prepare for new spending cuts in the face of widespread teacher and working class opposition, the Sacramento City Unified School District (SCUSD)

Long-Time School Privatizer, Cory Booker Enters 2020 Race as Democratic Presidential Contender | janresseger

by mike simpson / 4d

Long-Time School Privatizer, Cory Booker Enters 2020 Race as Democratic Presidential Contender | janresseger Long-Time School Privatizer, Cory Booker Enters 2020 Race as Democratic Presidential Contender Public education policy is not usually something on which Presidential candidates have a solid record. They make their cases on foreign, economic, and environmental policy. The future of public s

It’s ‘Black Lives Matter at School Week': Why that matters, and how classrooms are taking part - The Washington Post

by mike simpson / 4d

It’s ‘Black Lives Matter at School Week': Why that matters, and how classrooms are taking part - The Washington Post It’s ‘Black Lives Matter at School Week': Why that matters, and how classrooms are taking part It speaks to our times that this year’s Black Lives Matter at School Week of Action starts when the Democratic governor of Virginia, Ralph Northam, is under intense pressure to resign. Th

Pittsburgh Christian Academy Tries to Become a Charter School to Cash in on Taxpayer Funding | gadflyonthewallblog

by mike simpson / 4d

Pittsburgh Christian Academy Tries to Become a Charter School to Cash in on Taxpayer Funding | gadflyonthewallblog Pittsburgh Christian Academy Tries to Become a Charter School to Cash in on Taxpayer Funding The line between public and private school is getting awfully thin in Pittsburgh. City public school directors received a request from Imani Christian Academy , a religious school in the East

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Tipping Points: Are Charter Schools Oversaturating Their Markets? | Capital & Main

by mike simpson / 4d

Tipping Points: Are Charter Schools Oversaturating Their Markets? | Capital & Main Tipping Points: Are Charter Schools Oversaturating Their Markets? Studies have found charter school glut and hyper-competition in many neighborhoods. Evidence suggests that beyond challenging traditional schools, charters are also a growing threat to other charter schools. Charter school supporters maintain that th

Enrique Baloyra: Thoughts and prayers for Fla public schools - YouTube

by mike simpson / 4d

Thoughts and prayers for Fla public schools - YouTube enrique baloyra @nenebalo YouTube Once more for anyone who still hasn’t gotten the memo: Evolution and climate change are settled science. I know, evolution is called a “theory.” But it’s not. No matter what the wingnuts on talk radio say. Evolution is a fact. And climate change is caused by humans. But now a Florida politician who says school

Sentencing guideline offered for teacher misconduct :: K-12 Daily

by mike simpson / 5d

Sentencing guideline offered for teacher misconduct :: K-12 Daily :: The Essential Resource for Superintendents and the Cabinet Sentencing guideline offered for teacher misconduct (Calif.) New penalty instructions for educator misconduct will be considered this week by the state’s Commission on Teacher Credentialing. The guidelines are intended to help standardize outcomes in malpractice cases ge

Black Lives Matter At School week of action begins today. Here’s what you need to know to be ready. – Black Lives Matter At School

by mike simpson / 5d

Black Lives Matter At School week of action begins today. Here’s what you need to know to be ready. – Black Lives Matter At School Black Lives Matter At School week of action begins today. Here’s what you need to know to be ready. oday, Monday, February 4th officially marks the launch of the second annual national Black Lives Matter At School week of action. Supporters will be posting their photo

Democrats for Education Reform was behind text campaign seeking to prevent teacher strike

by mike simpson / 5d

Democrats for Education Reform was behind text campaign seeking to prevent teacher strike Democrats for Education Reform was behind text campaign seeking to prevent teacher strike Democrats for Education Reform was behind a text message campaign urging Denver residents to write Gov. Jared Polis and Denver school board members in support of a key aspect of the district’s pay proposal and in opposi

Teachers For Social Justice: Black Lives Matter at Schools National week of Action: Feb 4 - Feb 8

by mike simpson / 5d

Teachers For Social Justice: Black Lives Matter at Schools National week of Action: Feb 4 - Feb 8 Black Lives Matter at Schools National week of Action: Feb 4 - Feb 8 Join the National Week of Actions for Black Lives Matter at Schools. Starting Monday, February 4 th educators in cities across the country will draw closer attention to four national demands An end of zero tolerance policies Black s

Badass Teachers Association: BAT member highlight: Increase the number of school counselors in our schools!

by mike simpson / 5d

Badass Teachers Association: BAT member highlight: Increase the number of school counselors in our schools! Badass Teachers Association: BAT member highlight: Increase the number of school counselors in our schools! Heather Marcus has been a member of Badass Teachers Association for four years. As a member that joins in on our conversations often, she began to have that moment of realization that

Week of Action: Black Lives Matter at School - Lily's Blackboard #BlackLivesMatterAtSchool

by mike simpson / 5d

Week of Action: Black Lives Matter at School - Lily's Blackboard Week of Action: Black Lives Matter at School This is Black Lives Matter at School Week , and the NEA is proud to support a movement that is all about sparking conversations that will protect our students and ensure that no matter their racial or ethnic background, they have the support and tools they need in schools. What this week—

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Mississippi lawmakers propose ‘license to harass’ for transphobic teachers – ThinkProgress

by mike simpson / 5d

Mississippi lawmakers propose ‘license to harass’ for transphobic teachers – ThinkProgress Mississippi lawmakers propose ‘license to harass’ for transphobic teachers It's the first bill of its kind in the country. Mississippi lawmakers have proposed new legislation that would ensure teachers cannot be disciplined if they refuse to respect a transgender student’s gender identity. This “license to

How Los Angeles Teachers Organized and What They Won - Progressive.org

by mike simpson / 5d

How Los Angeles Teachers Organized and What They Won - Progressive.org How Los Angeles Teachers Organized and What They Won “It’s really hard to overstate the incredible feeling of empowerment, solidarity, and joy that you saw in school site picket lines and at the massive rallies that we held every single day.” Los Angeles, the nation’s second largest school district, was rocked by a six-day str

Marie Corfield: Super "Bowling For Dollars" — How Politicians & The @NFL Screw Taxpayers

by mike simpson / 5d

Marie Corfield: Super "Bowling For Dollars" — How Politicians & The @NFL Screw Taxpayers Super "Bowling For Dollars" — How Politicians & The @NFL Screw Taxpayers Happy Super Bowl LIII! Today is Georgia taxpayers' day to get screwed! During the NFC & AFC playoffs, I wrote about the financial train wreck that was Super Bowl XLVIII, played in New Jersey in 2014, and how the NFL and its teams reap al

Have You Been Blocked Form Commenting On Your School District'S Social Media Account

by mike simpson / 6d

HAVE YOU BEEN BLOCKED FORM COMMENTING ON YOUR SCHOOL DISTRICT'S SOCIAL MEDIA ACCOUNT Threat of SCTA first amendment lawsuit forces Superintendent Aguilar to unblock posters to Sac City social media accounts. Facing a threat of a first amendment lawsuit from SCTA, Superintendent Jorge Aguilar unblocked posters to the District’s social media accounts. In a Friday evening letter to SCTA, Mr. Aguilar

School Reform for Social Justice?* | Larry Cuban on School Reform and Classroom Practice

by mike simpson / 6d

School Reform for Social Justice?* | Larry Cuban on School Reform and Classroom Practice School Reform for Social Justice?* Should public schools in a democracy prepare students for what is or what should be? This question about the fundamental role of public schools in a democracy has been asked repeatedly by reformers since John Dewey’s “ Pedagogic Creed ” appeared in 1897. The question continu

Deborah Gist Used to Fight Teachers Unions. Now She’s Marching With Them. - POLITICO Magazine

by mike simpson / 6d

Deborah Gist Used to Fight Teachers Unions. Now She’s Marching With Them. - POLITICO Magazine Deborah Gist Used to Fight Teachers Unions. Now She’s Marching With Them. How a hardcore education reformer switched sides in the teacher wars. TULSA, Oklahoma — On a fall morning in 2018, veteran technology teacher Abraham Kamara was working with his robotics team at Memorial Junior High School when Tul

How Teachers in Baton Rouge Beat ExxonMobil | Diane Ravitch's blog

by mike simpson / 6d

How Teachers in Baton Rouge Beat ExxonMobil | Diane Ravitch's blog How Teachers in Baton Rouge Beat ExxonMobil In the Public Interest, a nonpartisan organization that fights privatization of public assets, reports good news from Louisiana: ExxonMobil is the world’s largest publicly traded oil and gas corporation , often cutting deals with authoritarian leaders in countries like Angola and Equator

CURMUDGUCATION: ICYMI: Really Big List Edition (2/3)

by mike simpson / 6d

CURMUDGUCATION: ICYMI: Really Big List Edition (2/3) ICYMI: Really Big List Edition (2/3) Was it the cold? Did we all just have more time to wander the internet? I don't know, but it's a huge list this week. Remember to share-- that's how the word gets out. LA Strike: Charters Are An Existential Threat To Public Education The LA strike was extraordinary in that it addressed so much more than wage

Charter/Community Schools & Partnerships: Privatization Ending Public Education

by mike simpson / 6d

Charter/Community Schools & Partnerships: Privatization Ending Public Education Charter/Community Schools & Partnerships: Privatization Ending Public Education A charter school can be a community school, and vice versa. ~ National Center for Community Schools There’s new school management these days that might seem nice, but scratch beneath the service and it is privatization and the theft of Ame

Lycée Français de la Nouvelle-Orléans: Still Too White. | deutsch29

by mike simpson / 6d

Lycée Français de la Nouvelle-Orléans: Still Too White. | deutsch29 Lycée Français de la Nouvelle-Orléans: Still Too White. Lycée Français de la Nouvelle-Orléans is a French immersion charter school located in New Orleans. According to Louisiana Department of Education (LDOE) October 2018 enrollment data (see here and here ), Lycée Français’s enrollment included 824 students in grades K-8. Lycée

Texas Hangs Sword of Damocles Over Houston Schools | tultican

by mike simpson / 6d

Texas Hangs Sword of Damocles Over Houston Schools | tultican Texas Hangs Sword of Damocles Over Houston Schools When the Houston Independent School District (HISD) Board refused to privatize four schools , state takeover of the district became likely. States taking over school districts have an awful track record. Takeovers in Philadelphia, Newark, Detroit and Tennessee have been long running di

Los Angeles Asks For a Charter School Pause

by mike simpson / 6d

Los Angeles Asks For a Charter School Pause Los Angeles Asks For a Charter School Pause “ This resolution does not impact a single LAUSD charter school or charter school student. It does not create a cap…and it doesn’t create a ban. ” – LAUSD Board Member Scott Schmerelson “ Vote NO on the charter ban! #NoCharterBan ” – California Charter School Association The resolution before the Los Angeles U

FEB 02

Sinclair brings Betsy DeVos and the education privatization echo chamber to local news

by mike simpson / 6d

Sinclair brings Betsy DeVos and the education privatization echo chamber to local news Sinclair brings Betsy DeVos and the education privatization echo chamber to local news DeVos’ softball interview with Sinclair’s Boris Epshteyn promotes an extreme agenda, and it’s airing on local news stations across the country Secretary of Education Betsy DeVos is the latest member of President Donald Trump’

Peter Greene: Charter Schools Are Not Public Schools

by mike simpson / 6d

Charter Schools Are Not Public Schools Charter Schools Are Not Public Schools Modern charter schools prefer to attach the word "public" to their descriptions. Many of the charter advocacy groups include "public charter" in their title. And truthfully, there are no regulations attached to the term--any school can attach the word "public" to its title without having to worry about any sort of penal

Ed Notes Online: School Scope: Teachers Go Wild with Strikes in Virginia, Denver, Los Angeles, and a Wildcat in Oakland

by mike simpson / 6d

Ed Notes Online: School Scope: Teachers Go Wild with Strikes in Virginia, Denver, Los Angeles, and a Wildcat in Oakland School Scope: Teachers Go Wild with Strikes in Virginia, Denver, Los Angeles, and a Wildcat in Oakland Published in The WAVE print edition, Feb. 1, 2019. www.rockawave.com School Scope: Teachers Go Wild with Strikes in Virginia, Denver, Los Angeles, and a Wildcat in Oakland By N

Professors for Black Lives: An outpouring of support for BLM@School week in higher education! – Black Lives Matter At School

by mike simpson / 6d

Professors for Black Lives: An outpouring of support for BLM@School week in higher education! – Black Lives Matter At School Professors for Black Lives: An outpouring of support for BLM@School week in higher education! Citing the need to “promote equity; the value of human life; and educational, political, and social justice,” scores of professors from institutions of higher education from around

Latest News and Comment from Education

Sunday, February 10, 2019

What Rydell High School Can Teach Us about the LA Teachers Strike | The Nation

Eric Blanc: Cory Booker Hates Public Schools | Diane Ravitch's blog

Chaz's School Daze: Michael Bloomberg's Failed Education Record

2018 Year in Review – The K-12 Cybersecurity Resource Center

On the Map:

419

The number of cybersecurity-related incidents involving U.S. public schools since 2016.

K-12 Cybersecurity In the News:

Saturday, February 9, 2019

Oakland Teachers Are on the Verge of a Strike #Unite4OaklandKids #WeAreOEA #WeAreCTA #strikeready

The OEA Contract Fight and the OUSD Budget

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