Treehorn Express in Australia posted this. NYC Educator reposted so you could see it too.
Look here.
Archives for the month of: February, 2013
A reader posts the following comment.
Thought you might be interested in Gates latest “Request for Proposal: Literacy Courseware Challenge.” More teacher-less, computerized learning to support his Common Core [National] Standards. “Adaptive digital learning tools” are his robo-teachers, because apparently the standards [read: curriculum, no matter how many people say that the CC are not a curriculum] are teacher-proof. Just create a huge quonset hut, or even better, a stadium, full of computer cubicles, sit the kids down, and, voila! A perfect Gates-ian school. Disgusting.
http://www.gatesfoundation.org/learning/Pages/rfp-literacy-courseware-challenge.aspx
I just heard from a new blogger who has spent years quietly investigating the money trail behind the privatization movement.
He has decided to be silent no more.
It is called “Charter School Finance Footnoted.” Its subtitle is: “Public funds lining private pockets.”
And he adds, as a descriptor:
“Keeping an eye on what charter schools tell their investors but not the rest of us.”
This should be interesting.
Glenda Ritz walloped uber-reformer Tony Bennett in the race for State Superintendent of Indiana schools.
Now the Indiana state board of education is trying to strip her of all powers, thus nullifying her election and the will of the voters. The board wants to protect Bennett’s efforts to privatize public education and to lower standards for teachers and principals.
Please sign this petition to support Glenda. Always be careful on change.org website. Do not sign other petitions to support “great teachers” or you may unwittingly be joining Rhee’s StudentsFirst.
Hey,
I just signed the petition “Indiana General Assembly: Stop the attempts to dilute the authority of Supt. Glenda Ritz’s office.” and wanted to see if you could help by adding your name.
Our goal is to reach 1,500 signatures and we need more support. You can read more and sign the petition here:
Thanks!
Jenny
Robert Scott, who recently stepped down as State Commissioner of Education in Texas, told Georgia legislators that he was pressured to adopt the Common Core standards before they were written.
He said, in the video that appears in the linked article:
“My experience with the Common Core actually started when I was asked to sign on to them before they were written. … I was told I needed to sign a letter agreeing to the Common Core, and I asked if I might read them first, which is, I think, appropriate. I was told they hadn’t been written, but they still wanted my signature on the letter. And I said, ‘That’s absurd; first of all, I don’t have the legal authority to do that because our [Texas] law requires our elected state board of education to adopt curriculum standards with the direct input of Texas teachers, parents and business. So adopting something that was written behind closed doors in another state would not meet my state law.’ … I said, ‘Let me take a wait–and–see approach.‘ If something remarkable was in there that I found that we did not have in ours that I would work with our board … and try to incorporate into our state curriculum …
“Then I was told, ‘Oh no no, a state that adopts Common Core must adopt in its totality the Common Core and can only add 15 percent.’ It was then that I realized that this initiative which had been constantly portrayed as state-led and voluntary was really about control. It was about control. Then it got co-opted by the Department of Education later. And it was about control totality from some education reform groups who candidly admit their real goal here is to create a national marketplace for education products and services.”
Supporters of the Common Core dispute his claim.
Scott made national headlines when he was State Commissioner because he spoke candidly against the excessive testing of students in Texas. He said testing had become “the heart of the vampire” and had perverted the purpose of education. He didn’t last long in his job after being so brutally frank. Texas has long been obsessed with testing and accountability, and Scott spoke from the heart. He also helped to ignite the national anti-testing movement.
The National Council on Teacher Quality holds an important position in the public arena, passing judgment on the quality of teacher education programs across the nation.
Mercedes Schneider, who holds a Ph.D. In statistics and research methods, is reviewing the board of NCTQ to determine its qualification to do its job. Among its members are Michelle Rhee, Wendy Kopp, Joel Klein, and quite a few more. How many have classroom experience? How many understand how teachers are or should be prepared?
Do you want to help support those who are supporting public education against the corporate onslaught?
A new group is forming to lead the resistance and is looking for a website designer.
Needless to say, it has no money.
If you have the skills, here is a chance to volunteer.
Please contact Anthony Cody at anthony_cody@hotmail.com
A reader in Florida gives the answer to this important question: how do we stop the tidal wave of bad legislation?
The problem is with whom we send to represent us in Tallahassee!
There is no longer a Teapublican supermajority to bulldoze terrible legislation through the Florida House and Senate.
The FEA, wuth the help of other Labor and Parent groups blocked bad leguslation last year, and will have to do so again this year.
FEA supported 21 candidates in the last election and elected 18 of them.
There are more teachers in the state legislature than ever before. We must continue to organize teachers and SRP/ESP to vote for EDUCATION friendly candidates and their economic well-being.
The anti-teacher, anti-public school movie “Won’t Back Down” was released into 2,500 movie theaters (owned by its producer Walden Media) and died a quick and ignominious death. Despite massive advance publicity at NBC’s “Education Nation” and a CBS promotion, despite Michelle Rhee hosting screenings at both national political conventions, despite attention on the “Ellen” show, the film had one of the worst opening weekends in recent history. The critics ridiculed it, and within four weeks, the film had disappeared.
It became a dead film, but it lives on as a zombie film. Its producers Philip Anschutz and Rupert Murdoch never expected to make money. They are billionaires, and they didn’t care about the box office receipts. They wanted their propaganda film to persuade people that teachers are lazy, that unions are evil, and that parents must seize control of their school and hand it over to a charter corporation.
Their goal was nothing short of privatization of public education.
So now they have taken their dud and, with the help of the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, are showing it to legislators in conservative states, hoping to keep their campaign alive with a zombie film that died months ago.
Call it the ALEC road show.
You know who Rupert Murdoch is. He is the man who owns Fox News and many publications and is now embroiled in a scandal in Great Britain, where his reporters hacked into the telephones of scores of people, including a dead teenage girl.
Maybe you don’t know much about Philip Anschutz, who owns Walden Media. He has been a successful movie producer (“Chronicles of Narnia,” among others). His energy company is very involved in the controversial practice of hydrofracking in many parts of he nation, which environmentalists oppose. He contributes generously to libertarian, anti-government think tanks. He supported anti-gay campaigns in Colorado and California.
If you can make sense of this editorial in the Los Angeles Times, you are a whole lot smarter than me. It speaks disparagingly of the board president, then endorses her.
It chastises the school board for failing to exercise oversight of the city’s booming charter sector, but then rejects Steve Zimmer, the only school board member who had the courage to propose responsible supervision of the charter sector. The Times is flabbergasted that Zimmer called for a moratorium on new charters until the board developed a policy for determining whether they were meeting their obligations to students and the public. L.A. already has more charters than any other city in the nation, so it would hardly have been a burden to delay adding more until the board figured out how to manage its portfolio.
The Times cares not a whit that Eli Broad, Michael Bloomberg, and their allies came up with $2.5 million to choose the next board. In their eyes, it’s okay for big money to overwhelm the political process. They worry not at all about the corruption of democracy.
They pay lip service to “reform.” But what do they mean by “reform.” More private entrepreneurs taking public dollars without supervision? More deregulation of the monied interests? More teachers fired because they teach students with disabilities or English language learners? More destabilization?
In 2010, the L.A. Times covered itself with shame when it concocted its own value-added methodology, rated thousands of teachers, and then published their names. The president of Math for America,, John Ewing, described this farce as “mathematical intimidation,” in an article in the journal of the American Mathematical Society.
The paper’s present indifference to the corporate purchase of the local school board multiplies its shame.
Diane Ravitch's blog 