Every once in a while, someone sends me a video that is very funny, and I want to share it.
I don’t recommend that anyone try what is shown in this HP commercial.
But I recommend it for some smiles, laughs and a catchy tune.
Archives for the month of: August, 2012
Sara Stevenson, the librarian of O. Henry Middle School in Austin, Texas, is on a roll.
Two days ago, she had a letter printed in the New York Times refuting its editorial about the need for “carrots and sticks” in dealing with teachers and principals.
Today she has a letter in the Wall Street Journal, taking issue with computer scientist David Gelernter’s claim that children learn best online. Gelernter, by the way, was the chief computer scientist for the for-profit online charter corporation K12 (founded by Michael Milken, current CEO Ron Packard of Goldman Sachs and McKinsey, and former Secretary of Education Bill Bennett).
Sara Stevenson is a model activist for children and the education profession.
If every teacher, librarian, social worker and principal was equally active in telling the public what they do and why it matters and speaking out against bad ideas, we could turn the national education debate.
The question of ownership arises because the “parent trigger” idea enables 51% of parents to “seize control” of their public school and turn it over to a private corporation to manage.
But do the parents “own” the school? Is it theirs to give away?
My view is that it belongs to the public. The public created it. The public paid for it. It belongs to the public. It belongs to those who attended it in the past and to those who will attend it in the future. Next year’s parents and students have the same interest as this year’s. And so do those who will be parents and students in the school five years from now.
If the school is unsatisfactory, if the principal is incompetent, take your concerns to the superintendent and the school board. If most parents speak up, they will not be ignored (unless you happen to live in a city with mayoral control, like New York City or Chicago, where the mayor doesn’t care about parent opinion).
This reader has similar concerns.
What exactly does “taking back a school” mean? Are you suggesting that we allow a group of people (whether it’s 51% of parents or some other group) to take over a public school and “give” it to a private corporation or organization? If so, then I disagree completely.
On the other hand, if you mean, changing the publicly elected school board then I would agree completely. If you mean working with the teachers and parents to improve the educational program, then I agree. If you mean changing the legislature, governor, or other elected officials who are killing public education then I agree — completely.
As Diane has said many times, public schools belong to the public, not 51% of the current parents. You can prove that for yourself by going to a high school basketball or football game. The “alumni” are often there in great numbers. Public schools belong to the community. They are centers for community pride and memories. They are (and should be) a stable influence in a community.
If 51% of parents decide that a school is no longer meeting the needs of their children and give it away to a private company, what happens next year if 51% of the parents decide that they want to convert it back to a traditional public school? The parent trigger laws do not allow that. Once the public school is gone…it’s gone.
I’m a retired teacher…and I would LOVE to “take back” public schools from the “reformers.” That’s why I write to my legislators. That’s why I belong to a community group which works for public education (neifpe@blogspot.com). That’s why I blog. That’s why I try to inform as many people as I can about what’s happening to public education.
It’s kind of funny when a blog talks to a blog, which then talks back to the other blog.
I wrote today about how the State Superintendent of Schools in Georgia came out in opposition to a constitutional amendment on the ballot in November that would allow a commission appointed by the governor to override the decisions of local school boards that reject charter schools.
The news story about him said:
“I cannot support the creation of a new and costly state bureaucracy that takes away local control of schools and unnecessarily duplicates the good work already being done by local districts, the Georgia Department of Education, and the state Board of Education,” Barge said in a prepared statement. “What’s more, this constitutional amendment would direct taxpayer dollars into the pockets of out-of-state, for-profit charter school companies whose schools perform no better than traditional public schools and locally approved charter schools (and worse, in some cases).”
Then, in response to my post, Jonathan Pelto wrote that Democratic Governor Dannel Malloy pushed for the same authority in Connecticut, to allow his Commissioner of Education Stefan Pryor (who founded a charter school and is a strong proponent of charters) to intervene in low-income districts with almost unlimited authority to impose the changes he prefers.
And here is the funny part: The idea is promoted by the conservative group called ALEC, which advocates for vouchers, charters, the parent trigger and opposes unions, tenure, and certification. As an organization of some 2,000 conservative legislators, ALEC would normally be in favor of small government and local control. But ALEC advocates that governors should be able to appoint a commission with the power to overturn local decisions about charter schools, so that more charters will be created despite local opposition. This is a case where ideology trumps ideology.
ALEC (the American Legislative Exchange Council) supports privatization and promotes a free-market ideology. It gained some unwanted attention this spring for its model “stand your ground” legislation, which figured in the shooting of Trayvon Martin in Florida by George Zimmerman.
Strange world we live in.
Larry Ferlazzo notes that the latest requirements for Race to the Top is just more lipstick on a pig.
By which, he means that when RTTT refers to “personalized learning,” what it really means is using online learning for adaptive testing.
That’s pretty much what the hawkers of technology mean too.
But teachers had something else in mind, something that would encourage students to explore and think and make their own decisions, not just answer test questions.
According to the state of Pennsylvania, the Hazleton Area High School is a low performing school.
One day its staff may be fired and the school may be closed and replaced by privately managed charter schools, or who knows, its students may be sent to register for online homeschooling.
But a Pennsylvania reader says that a member of the Mars rover team is a graduate of this high school. What gives?
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A reader writes that Change.org continues to offer deceptive petitions to recruit members for StudentsFirst (petitions like “do you support great teachers?” “are you against bullying?”). Frankly, I don’t think any of the organization’s membership claims are meaningful because no one pays dues, and no one knows how many names were added by deceptive petitions on websites like Change.org. I am still a member of StudentsFirst, even though I never knowingly joined. How many hundreds of thousands of others are there listed as members who are in the same boat? I was a “member” for over a year and never knew it. I was informed by a spokesman for Change. org when I complained about the same deception described here:
| Diane, you’ve written a lot about how Michelle Rhee’s group StudentsFirst recruits most of their members from Change.org. Two months ago, on June 19th (acc. to HuffPo article about it) Change.org very publicly said they were dropping StudentsFirst as their client, and would stop recruiting new supporters for StudentsFirst. Now it turns out that they were lying hypocrites of the most cynical kind. In fact, for anyone like me who has been paying attention, it seems that Change.org (which is a for-profit company, by the way) has actually DRAMATICALLY INCREASED how many people they are signing up to be members of StudentsFirst. Back on June 19th, the number of Change.org “supporters” for StudentsFirst was listed here… http://www.change.org/groups/studentsfirst …as about 1,100,000 people. I remember thinking that was a lot of people already. But if you check that same page today, you will see that it has increased over the past two months to 1.6 million people. That’s an extra 500,000 people that Change.org has recruited for Michelle Rhee’s group in only two months. (And some of us have noticed how many times when we sign a Change.org petition we are “invited” to sign up for Michelle Rhee’s email list). So instead of dropping StudentsFirst, as they so publicly said they were doing, Change.org has actually “stepped on the gas” to accelerate their work for Michelle Rhee over the past two months and earn a ton more money from her. I looked into Change.org’s pricing and was told they charge their clients $1.50 for each person who signs up. So that means that those extra 500,000 “recruits” were worth $750,000 to Change.org, in payments from Michelle Rhee over the past two months. Where is the outrage? Change.org should be held accountable for lying to progressives like this. They don’t deserve support from any progressive organizations if they are going to lie like this in a baldface way. Notice that none of this is insider knowledge. It isn’t necessary. It’s all out in the open for anyone to see. Again: Where is the outrage? The news coverage? The boycotts of Change.org? Let them go work for Romney if that’s the kind of people they are. |
In Georgia, the Republican party has lined up to support a constitutional amendment this fall that would give the governor power to override the decisions of local school boards and open charters whether the local boards like it or not.
Obviously, such a law would eviscerate local control and also raid the local school budget to fund the charters.
Where did this idea come from? Not surprisingly, from the rightwing organization called ALEC, which values privatization over local control.
But here is the amazing news: the state superintendent of education, a loyal Republican named John Barge, has come out in opposition to the measure, which will be on the ballot in November.
This is from Maureen Downey’s blog in the Atlanta Journal-Constitution:
“I cannot support the creation of a new and costly state bureaucracy that takes away local control of schools and unnecessarily duplicates the good work already being done by local districts, the Georgia Department of Education, and the state Board of Education,” Barge said in a prepared statement. “What’s more, this constitutional amendment would direct taxpayer dollars into the pockets of out-of-state, for-profit charter school companies whose schools perform no better than traditional public schools and locally approved charter schools (and worse, in some cases).”
Barge said the passage of the amendment, the restoration of the Georgia Charter Schools Commission and state funding for the charter schools it approves would be too costly for the state.
“Until all of our public school students are in school for a full 180-day school year, until essential services like student transportation and student support can return to effective levels, and until teachers regain jobs with full pay for a full school year, we should not redirect one more dollar away from Georgia’s local school districts — much less an additional $430 million in state funds, which is what it would cost to add seven new state charter schools per year over the next five years (the annual average of the Charter Commission that would be revived if the amendment passes),” Barge’s statement read.
The Arizona Daily Star reviewed the charter sector and came up with some amazing and disturbing findings.
The state has 500 plus charter schools, and provides next to no oversight.
A new charter may get a visit in the first year or two, but seldom after that.
They are on their own.
There are only 7 people in the state department of education to oversee the charters, but five of the positions are vacant.
Charter schools are now one-quarter of all schools in the state, and the federal government (thanks, Arne) is offering the state $53 million to open 100 more of them.
Some do excellent work, some don’t, as is true throughout this sector.
Some charter leaders pay themselves handsomely, some keep their finances obscure.
What a strange way to spend the public’s money.
By now, after 15 years of free-market education policy, Arizona ought to be the top scoring state in the nation.
But it’s not.
This teacher wrote a dissent to the letter that caused a ruckus. She wrote it immediately. I posted her dissent. Now she writes again. Will any of the angry homeschooling parents read what she writes? Obviously, they did not read her previous comment defending parents.
The lesson. Be informed. Don’t rush to judgment. Stop, look, and listen.
The letter you posted actually offended me, too. I didn’t think it was respectful to the disabled children in that teacher’s care, or to their parents. I tried to reframe the question, but I don’t think anybody can undo the breach of trust when a teacher denounces the families she serves with such contempt.
I know the teachers who took care of my son had to “clean dried feces off his butt.” I am so thankful that his teacher, Lillian, never flung it at me like that. She didn’t stay with severely impaired children because she could “do whatever I want”.
I hope the parents who are spitting and cursing understand that most teachers don’t agree with those statements. I apologize to them.
Diane Ravitch's blog 