Susan Spicka is a public school parent in Central Pennsylvania and a strong advocate for high-quality public education. She wrote this post after her daughters finished their NINTH days of state testing in elementary school. The sentence that bowled me over was when she said her fifth grade daughter was crying for fear that if she didn’t do well, her school might not meet AYP. Why should this burden be placed on the backs of little children? Should they be afraid that their poor performance will cause their teachers to be fired and their school to be closed? There is a touch of sadism in these federal policies, as well as child abuse.
Please join this important discussion about the corporate attempt to trick parents into handing their public schools over to private corporations:
The Parent Trigger from California to Florida
Sunday, May 26, 2013 from 12:30 PM to 1:30 PM Pacific Time
We will be hearing from Lori Yuan, a parent in Adelanto who fought the Parent Trigger at her school, and Parents Across America Founding Member Rita Solnet who, along with other organizations, defeated the Parent Trigger bill in the Florida State Senate on March 9, 2013.
To reserve your ticket, go to eventbrite.
This event is free.
This event is organized by Parents Across America.
Now that Commissioner Pryor has the go-ahead from Governor Malloy to apply the principles of corporate education reform, he has loaded up the payroll of the state education department with his fellow reformers. Here comes the privatization movement, prepared to bust unions, demoralize teachers, and generate profits for friends of the movement.
Naturally, there is a Talent Officer, a Turnaround Officer, a Performance Manager, and a bevy of Broad interns. This in one of the nation’s top performing states.
Monica Ratliff won by the same margin of victory as Steve Zimmer, 52-48.
Zimmer had the full support of the UTLA.
Ratliff did not.
UTLA gave her a contribution of $1,000, but endorsed both candidates.
On election night, UTLA leaders were seen at Sanchez headquarters.
What gives?
How do you spell “egg on your face?”
Monica Ratliff just emailed to thank all of us for our help. She was rushing off to teach her fifth grade class. She never stopped teaching while running for office.
Dear friends, your contributions made a difference. Together we will turn the tide and restore American education to focus on children and learning and collaboration, not data and profits and budget cuts.
Thank you, Monica, for the lessons you taught us all: people matter more than money. Experience and knowledge count. Courage in the face of overwhelming odds is essential. Teaching is an honorable profession, and teachers must be heard and involved in decisions about schooling.
For your courage and Integrity, I add you to our honor roll as a champion of American education. And a Giant Slayer.
Anthony Cody has an excellent post that explains what you need to know about the massive data-collection program called inBloom.
The database will contain detailed personal information about students and teachers. The corporation cannot guarantee the security of this data.
Arne Duncan made inBloom possible by loosening the regulations of FERPA, the federal law that is supposed to protect student privacy.
Let’s just say that this whole project is an outrage. It is a massive invasion of privacy. As the grandparent of a public school student, I am furious! I don’t want Bill Gates, Rupert Murdoch, and Joel Klein to have my family’s personal information.
Monica Ratliff won a historic upset in Los Angeles!
She won with 52% of the vote!
She had less than $50,000 in small contributions.
Her opponent Antonio Sanchez had the support of billionaire Eli Broad, billionaire Michael Bloomberg, and organized labor groups.
People power beat money power!!!
The Laura and John Arnold Foundation in Houston made a gift of $25 million to a group called New Schools for New Orleans to create and expand more high performing charter schools in that much touted city.
John Arnold made a fortune as a trader at Enron.
The hype surrounding New Orleans is so commonplace that many struggling urban districts are told that they should switch to an all-charter model so they could be as successful as New Orleans.
Mercedes Schneider looked at the latest publication of New Schools for New Orleans and recognized the presentation as a slick PR document, with colorful graphs and dramatic claims. But, she writes, none of it is true. New Orleans is a low-performing district in a low-performing state.
New Orleans has a higher proportion of students in privately-managed charters than any other district in the nation. Most get poor ratings. Research on Reforms says that 79% of the charters in the Recovery School District were graded D or F by the state. The Cowen Institute, a big supporter of charters, reported that 66% of the charters were rated D or F (see p. 7 of this report).
But New Orleans will get more. Major national chains want to get in or get more.
New Orleans will be our first city with fully privatized schools.
I am holding my breath. In the early returns in the Los Angeles school board race, underdog Monica Ratliff is slightly ahead of Antonio Sanchez.
With only one-quarter of the precincts reporting, Monica had about 51% of the vote to Sanchez’ 49%. This could easily go the other way.
Monica is a teacher. Sanchez is launching his political career.
Monica raised about $42,000. Sanchez collected about $3 million from the usual gang of billionaires and millionaires who want more charter schools and test-based teacher evaluations.
UTLA endorsed both candidates, which means it stayed neutral (to their shame).
If Monica’s lead holds, it would be the biggest upset of the year.
I am holding my breath.
UPDATE: with 42% of the precincts counted, midnight in LA:
| LA UNIFIED SCHOOL DISTRICT | |||||
| District 6 | 23,046 | ||||
| Monica Ratliff | 11,859 | 51.46% | |||
| Antonio Sanchez | 11,187 | 48.54% |
UPDATE:
With 30,000 votes counted, Monica retains her slim lead with 51.58% of the vote.
