Norm Scott, retired New York City teacher and inveterate blogger, notes the mid-course corrections of some of the corporate reform cheerleaders. He is especially impressed by John Merrow’s change of views about Rhee. He wonders whether Duncan too will change course, though he doubts that he can do so.
Scott, by the way, refers to the present misguided education movement not as corporate reform but as education deform. Scott was the film-maker for the film made by teachers and parents called “The Inconvenient Truth Behind Waiting for Superman.”
Diane Ravitch's blog 
Clearly Duncan will not change course. Nor will Obama. Presidents do not pronounce that their own signature pieces of reform legislation to be failures. So my no-brainer prediction: NCLB/RTTT will exist at least through 2016. Look to state and local officials instead.
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To answer your question: Absolutely Not! He knows who butters his bread! (and it ain’t the run of the mill LIFO union thug teacher.)
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Ms. Ravitch,
From your home state: http://www.dallasnews.com/news/20130501-low-performing-schools-would-be-placed-in-new-statewide-district-under-senate-bill.ece
I don’t know if you are aware of this, but it could spell disaster. ”
The worst schools in Texas could be placed in a special statewide school district to help turn those campuses around under legislation approved by the Senate on Wednesday. The measure by Sen. Royce West, D-Dallas, would establish the Texas Achievement School District to operate schools that have been rated low-performing for two consecutive years. The campuses would be removed from the jurisdiction of their regular school districts and placed in the new ASD by the state education commissioner, who would also appoint the superintendent for the statewide district.
West emphasized that low-performing schools would not have to be placed in the Achievement School District, calling it one of multiple options that could be used to handle the campuses. Asked how many campuses could be in the ASD if it were now in existence, West said as many as 15 from across the state could be under the management of the district. The ASD superintendent would be empowered with a range of options to improve achievement at the schools, including replacing staff or contracting with an alternative management group. The campus would return to its regular school district once student performance was back on track.
“Studies in other states have shown promise with this approach,” West explained. “This is the right thing to do for children that are trapped in low-performing schools.” Senate Education Committee Chairman Dan Patrick said the state must find new ways to address schools that are “perennial failures,” and he asserted that the legislation would support that goal. One senator questioned whether moving failing schools to the new Achievement School District would artificially inflate the performance ratings of their regular school districts, who would no longer have the low-achievement campuses. But West responded that the small number of schools involved would not have much impact on district ratings. Passed on a 26-5 vote, the Senate measure now goes to the House. And also, The Johns Hopkins University (of which I am an alum), is now offering an online MFA for TFA Corps members.
Regards,
Meghan Brannon-Reese
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OMG look no further than Detroit and Muskegon Heights. They’ve done that in Michigan and the districts are a total junk.
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see also from SCOPE at Stanford starting in 3 hours today: Live Webcast
Arne Duncan’s address to U.S. education writers to be webcast live
Who: Arne Duncan
When: Thursday, May 2, 11:45 a.m. – 1:15 p.m.
Webcast: edpolicy.stanford.edu/multimedia/video/
You’re invited to tune in to a live webcast by U.S. Secretary of Education Arne Duncan. Duncan is a keynote speaker for the Education Writers Association’s (EWA’s) 66th National Seminar. He will be addressing conference participants and the speech will available via live webcast to a national audience.
Secretary Duncan will discuss the future of federal education reform and the new directions the Department of Education will take during President Obama’s second term. Topics include federal No Child Left Behind Act waivers for states and the outlook for congressional reauthorization of that law. Following his speech, reporters attending the event will participate in a Q&A with the secretary.
This year’s EWA National Seminar is being held on the Stanford campus. Titled “Creativity Counts: Innovation in Education and the Media,” the event is hosted by the Stanford Graduate School of Edcuation, SCOPE, and the American Educational Research Association.
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In his response to a question after his “speech” to a standing room only crowd at AERA (American Educational Research Association) on May Day Duncan, though acknowledging that presently existing tests were flawed and promising that tests 2.1, and 3.1 would be better, made it clear even a temporary moratorium on testing was unlikely. He did acknowledge that the next few years would be chaotic while getting rid of the glitches in the system. He also spent quite a few words telling us that there has always been cheating on tests and that more effort (money) needs to be spent on preventing cheating.
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Here’s the thing:
No matter what happens, teachers will always be punching bags until they have the POWER to make people think twice about punching them.
I am becoming more and more convinced that one of the things that needs to happen for teachers to seize the power needed to avoid abuse is that they need to get more involved with their unions.
Another is that there needs to be a change in union leadership.
Until then, no matter who is in charge and what permutation of the privatization movement is on deck, teachers will be punching bags.
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Thank you Diane for this most informative post on Crenshaw HS IN Los Angeles and an exemplary teacher who suffered the loss of his job there. This is happening rapidly and widely in LAUSD under the auspices of Broad-trained Supt. Deasy.
Our pending School Board election later this month will be a game changer if the billionaires/Rhee candidate, Sanchez, is elected. Out-of-state money continues to pour into the campaign of this non-educator who blatantly advertises his modus to shut down public schools in favor of charters. Ratliff, his opponent and the true and excellent educator, a Columbia Law School trained public service lawyer who chose to teach in the inner city, is scraping by in her campaign with only a few thousand dollars.
I hope all of your readers go to the links of this post, particularly the one showing the Stanford Credo report on charters which show their data. They say 17% of the charters in their study are doing very well, about 50% are doing no better than public schools, and a whopping 37% are doing very poorly, and tells the story we know well about how they can pick and choose their students from the top applicants.
I have just put this in a letter to the editor at the LA Times and would hope other educators will also help the public to understand the gravity of this ersatz reform and privatize push, by using the well respected Stanford outcomes, in letters to editors of papers across the country.
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The US dept of Ed is too big and bloated to change course, which is exactly the problem of creating it in the first place…or granting power to it in the first place…power=money of course
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I read teachers’ comments posted at this blog. I am blown away at the intelligence, care, and professionalism of teachers.
How do we shout out to others that we are not the problem, but instead others who see $$$$$ from feds and control of what we do. The policies are repressive and politicians work for the BIG MONEY, which funds campaigns. Then when anyone in Congress leaves office, s/he can take all unspent campaign contributions as personal income. Then think of the health and dental care, retirement benefits Congress votes in for themselves. It’s all really creepy.
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No way Duncan and Obama will change as it is in their DNA to be the puppets for their masters with the money who cannot get enough. Barack and Michelle believe they will make Clinton’s income look like a pauper when they get out of office. Since at least 1995 both of them have made their living doing corporatization and privatization. How do you expect them to change?
Great job doing a video on the failures of Superman. We have just started a movie about “School Fraud.” It will be fully documented and when it comes out we will have a website with all the documents in full and all the uncut video. No one will ever be able to say “Taken out of Context.” Start recording these criminals in public meetings and posting onto You Tube or wherever for all to see. Then there is also no “Heresay.”
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No way Duncan changes. The gravy train is running and there’s a payday to be had in a couple of years when he bails out.
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You know it
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Today Obama announced the nomination of Penny Pritzker for Commerce Secretary. Ms. Pritzker recently resigned from the Chicago Board of Education. Check online to see what sort of transparency she pushed there. The neoliberal Chicago Way agenda continues as planned. Duncan, and the corporate-state education reform agenda, will not waiver unless the signs of divestment, boycotts, etc. show themselves on the scene. Just look at the track record: http://www.scribd.com/doc/106337306/THE-CHICAGO-PUBLIC-SCHOOLS-ALLERGIC-TO-ACTIVISM
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One more billionaire to run Commerce. He is shameless in his support of the greed merchants. The best appointment he made was Huntsman as Ambassador to China…and that was to get him out of the public eye as a good potential Repub Prez. All the rest, from Geithner to Immelt, are the worst of the corporatists. It is amazing some still try to paint O a socialist.
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I really like Huntsman (he was governor of my state), but, in fairness, he’s a billionaire, too.
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Wow…fantastic recommendation to read this article. Hope everyone reads and forwards it. The links took a long time but were worth it since it is all factual and shows the corruption of Chicago, schools and politicians. Those poor teachers! No longer shall be fooled by a belief in HOPE and CHANGE.
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If the WH is changing course, why didn’t this make the front pages of every newspaper????
http://www.edsource.org/today/2013/duncan-admits-flaws-in-current-standardized-testing/31379#.UYMxbxXD85t
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