Archives for the year of: 2014
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Alan Singer Visits a Maximum Security Prison

By dianeravitch
November 8, 2014 //
12

Alan Singer visited Green Haven Correctional Facility, north of Néw York City, which is a maximum security prison for people who have committed serious felonies. He and a colleague went to teach a course on the history of slavery. They found the men eager to learn, but they discovered that federal and state policies have withdrawn funding of educational programs in prison.

He writes:

“Until the mid-1990s, access to college classes was much more available to prison inmates. However, President Clinton signed legislation that denied prisoners federal Pell grants they could use to pay college tuition expenses and New York State Governor George Pataki made prison inmates ineligible for New York’s Tuition Assistance Program.

“The Federal Bureau of Prisons currently has a program known as the Trust Fund Limited Inmate Computer (TRULINCS) that allows prisoners in the federal system access to e-mail and facilitates online education. However nearly all states prohibit Internet use by inmates. Limiting access to technology severely blocks educational opportunity. According to the 2013 “Handbook for Families and Friends of New York State DOCCS Offenders,” prisoners in New York State Correctional Institutions do not have access to either email or the Internet, which locks them out of online college classes.

“New York State now provides remedial programs such as preparation for high school equivalency exams and English language instruction but college degree programs are only available at selected facilities through privately funded partnerships with local colleges. The largest and one of the most successful is the Bard (College) Prison Initiative (BPI), which is part of the national Consortium for the Liberal Arts in Prison. However, BPI offers only 60 courses a semester enrolling about 275 male and female prisoners in six New York State prisons and there are over 50,000 men and women in New York State prisons.

“In February 2014, New York State Governor Andrew Cuomo announced a new statewide initiative to give incarcerated individuals the opportunity to earn a college degree through state funded college classes at ten state prisons. The Governor’s office estimated the college program would cost only $1 million, a tiny fraction of the corrections agency’s operating budget of $2.8 billion. However six weeks later when the state budget was approved, Cuomo announced that the initiative had been dropped. Cuomo backed off even though a recent RAND Corporation found that inmates who participated in education programs while incarcerated had much lower odds of returning to prison and a Siena College poll found that 53 percent of voters supported the governor’s proposal. The Rand study also documented the benefits of computer-assisted learning and showed that inmates who participated in correctional education programs had a 43 percent lower odds of returning to prison after release than those who did not.

“The euphemistically named Green Haven Correctional Facility that is not really designed to “correct” anybody is the last stop on the school-to-prison pipeline for most of these men. Many of them were warehoused in failing schools and crime-ridden housing projects until they were ready to be incarcerated. These men made bad decisions and they did very bad things when they were young, but they are no longer the men that they were.

“They were thoughtful and intelligent during our discussions and should be treated as human being, not “tucked away into a corner of obscurity” with little hope for their rest of their lives. Andrew Cuomo, who is seeking reelection as Governor of New York and places political considerations above all else should be publicly chastised for offering the possibility of a higher education and then squashing it.”

Categories Education Reform

Alan Singer: A Brief History of the School-to-Prison Pipeline

By dianeravitch
November 8, 2014 //
46

Alan Singer, professor of teacher education at Hofstra University in Néw Tork, has written a stunning brief history of the school-to-prison pipeline. He looks at the role of schools in this process.

He writes:

“Since the early 1970s, the United States prison population has quadrupled to 2.2 million. It is the largest prison population in the world. According to the International Centre for Prison Studies, China is number two at 1.7 million people, Iran is number 8 at 217,000 people, and the United Kingdom is number 17 at 85,000. Fourteen million people are arrested every year and over two million are sent to jail. Approximately 65 million people in the United States, or more than twenty-five percent of the adults population, has a criminal record.

“The U.S. incarceration rate is five to ten times the size of other democratic countries. It is over 700 prisoners for every 100,000 people compared to 149 for England and Wales, 143 for Spain, 102 for France, 90 for Italy, 81 for Germany, and 57 for Sweden.

“Meanwhile, more than half of state prisoners are in jail for nonviolent crimes. Mass incarceration has destructive impact on families, communities, and state and local budgets. It cost $80 billion a year to keep all these people in prison and more than $250 billion to pay for all the additional police and court expenses. According to the human rights group Human Rights Watch, while prison should be a last resort, in the United States “it has been treated as the medicine that cures all ills.”

“In 2000, over two million American children had a parent in prison. I saw the impact of this on young people at a conference at the City University of New York. Eight students who attend a school for teenagers already involved in the criminal justice system discussed how they grew up in families where parents were incarcerated and its impact on them as children.”

What role do schools play? He writes:

“There is a lot of talk about how schools can transform society. The Bush administration’s education policy declared “No Child Left Behind,” but of course many children are still left behind. Barack Obama demanded that schools lead his “Race to the Top,” but it is not clear what direction he wants the schools and students to run. The reality is that schools reflect and reinforce society; they do not transform it. In the United States dating back to the 1920s high schools were organized on factory models to prepare working class immigrant youth for the tedium of factory work and harsh discipline.

“Since the 1970s factory jobs in the United States have been shipped overseas. Companies do not need students prepared for factory work, so schools have evolved to perform a new social role. In inner city minority neighborhoods especially Black and Latino young people attend schools organized on the prison model where they are treated as if they were criminals.

“Students enter buildings through metal detectors. If the device goes off they are bodily searched. Armed police stand guard. Uniformed security crews that report to the police sweep the halls. Students are forced to sit in overcrowded uncomfortable classrooms doing rote assignments geared to high-stakes Common Core assessments. Stressed out teachers, fearful that they will be judged by poor student performance on these tests, use boredom and humiliation to maintain control of the classroom.”

This is a thoughtful and disturbing article. You should read it.

Categories Economy, Poverty, Segregation , Racial Isolation and Integration

Jonathan Lovell Offers Advice to President Obama

By dianeravitch
November 8, 2014 //
46

Jonathan Lovell, a teacher educator in California, received many messages after the election urging him to “keep your chin up ,” “don’t be discouraged,” that he decided to reply to one of them, the one that came from President Obama.

Here is his message to the President, followed by the President’s message to him.

Dear Mr President,

Thanks very much for this email. It has given me a lift during a period in which I’ll admit to experiencing “post mid-term blues.”

As a teacher educator who has spent the last 35 years visiting middle and high school English classrooms — about 2500 of them — helping beginning teachers reflect on their teaching practices, I cannot say that I am a supporter of the present RTTT-inspired direction of the USDOE.
I am, however, a strong supporter of your presidency and the overall direction, educational policy excepted, in which you have helped to steer our nation over the past six years.

I hope these next two years will provide you an opportunity to review and eventually approve an overhaul and eventual reauthorization of the ESEA.

As you know better than most, this piece of legislation has had unintended but easily anticipated consequences. Right now, it is leaving most children, and virtually all teachers, not only “behind,” but demoralized and frustrated.

I hope your next two years will give you a chance to publicly celebrate the public school teaching profession for the great contributions it has made to the strength and promise of our unique democracy.

And in the spirit of Bob Herbert’s magnificent new book Losing Our Way, I hope these next two years will also provide you with opportunities to celebrate the true mission of American public education, and to clarify for the nation, as well as to personally and politically confront, those powerful forces that threaten to undermine its fundamental importance.

My best,

Jonathan Lovell
Professor of English and Director of the San Jose Area Writing Project
San Jose State University

On Nov 7, 2014, at 2:00 PM, Barack Obama wrote:

Jonathan, the hardest thing in politics is changing the status quo. The easiest thing is to get cynical.

The Republicans had a good night on Tuesday, Jonathan — but believe me when I tell you that our results were better because you stepped up, talked to your family and friends, and cast your ballot.

I want you to remember that we’re making progress. There are workers who have jobs today who didn’t have them before. There are millions of families who have health insurance today who didn’t have it before. There are kids going to college today who didn’t have the opportunity to go to college before.

So don’t get cynical, Jonathan. Cynicism didn’t put a man on the moon. Cynicism has never won a war, or cured a disease, or built a business, or fed a young mind. Cynicism is a choice. And hope will always be a better choice.

I have hope for the next few years, and I have hope for what we’re going to accomplish together.

Thank you so much, Jonathan.

Barack Obama

Paid for by the Democratic National Committee, 430 South Capitol Street SE, Washington DC 20003 and not authorized by any candidate or candidate’s committee.

Dear Diane,

I’ve been receiving so many “keep your chin up” emails over the past few days, primarily from democratic organizations and individuals to whom I’d sent donations during the past several months, that I decided to respond to one of them: the President’s.

What I wrote is below, with the President’s email below that.

Ever fondly,
Jonathan Lovell

On Nov 7, 2014, at 3:21 PM, Jonathan Lovell wrote:

Dear Mr President,

Thanks very much for this email. It has given me a lift during a period in which I’ll admit to experiencing “post mid-term blues.”

As a teacher educator who has spent the last 35 years visiting middle and high school English classrooms — about 2500 of them — helping beginning teachers reflect on their teaching practices, I cannot say that I am a supporter of the present RTTT-inspired direction of the USDOE.

I am, however, a strong supporter of your presidency and the overall direction, educational policy excepted, in which you have helped to steer our nation over the past six years.

I hope these next two years will provide you an opportunity to review and eventually approve an overhaul and eventual reauthorization of the ESEA.

As you know better than most, this piece of legislation has had unintended but easily anticipated consequences. Right now, it is leaving most children, and virtually all teachers, not only “behind,” but demoralized and frustrated.

I hope your next two years will give you a chance to publicly celebrate the public school teaching profession for the great contributions it has made to the strength and promise of our unique democracy.

And in the spirit of Bob Herbert’s magnificent new book Losing Our Way, I hope these next two years will also provide you with opportunities to celebrate the true mission of American public education, and to clarify for the nation, as well as to personally and politically confront, those powerful forces that threaten to undermine its fundamental importance.

My best,
Jonathan Lovell
Professor of English and Director of the San Jose Area Writing Project
San Jose State University

On Nov 7, 2014, at 2:00 PM, Barack Obama wrote:

Jonathan, the hardest thing in politics is changing the status quo. The easiest thing is to get cynical.

The Republicans had a good night on Tuesday, Jonathan — but believe me when I tell you that our results were better because you stepped up, talked to your family and friends, and cast your ballot.

I want you to remember that we’re making progress. There are workers who have jobs today who didn’t have them before. There are millions of families who have health insurance today who didn’t have it before. There are kids going to college today who didn’t have the opportunity to go to college before.

So don’t get cynical, Jonathan. Cynicism didn’t put a man on the moon. Cynicism has never won a war, or cured a disease, or built a business, or fed a young mind. Cynicism is a choice. And hope will always be a better choice.

I have hope for the next few years, and I have hope for what we’re going to accomplish together.

Thank you so much, Jonathan.

Barack Obama

Paid for by the Democratic National Committee, 430 South Capitol Street SE, Washington DC 20003 and not authorized by any candidate or candidate’s committee.

Categories Democrats, Obama, Race to the Top, Teachers

Louisiana Charter Fires Star Kindergarten Teacher

By dianeravitch
November 7, 2014 //
38

Remember the post called “Two Bonuses”? It actually described three bonuses: one went to Mercedes Schneider, who received a bonus of $427.76 after she was rated a “highly effective teacher”; she gave her bonus away to a friend raising an autistic child. The second bonus went to a charter school teacher who raised scores by 88%; her bonus was $43,000! The third bonus went to a kindergarten teacher at the same charter school who had raised scores even more, but her bonus was $4,086 because her class’s scores did not “count” toward state ratings. The kindergarten scores went  up by 165%! The teacher was Ashleigh Pelafigue.

 

Of course, the bonus plan is completely unsustainable because it is funded by a one-time federal grant of $2.3 million that went to a charter chain called New Beginnings with four schools.

 

I learned from a comment left on the post that Ashleigh Pelafigue, who had the highest gains in the school (not sure how kindergarten children were tested!), was fired. She now teaches in a public school.

 

And then Ashleigh herself wrote a comment on the blog:

 

I AM the (former) kindergarten teacher referenced in this story and the above comment about me is true [that she was fired]. As far as teacher to pupil ratios, never did I have a class of less than 25 students. I also had no aide or interventionist to pull my students. My students were not serviced for special needs nor were they appropriately designated for ESL. Despite countless hours of hard work, hours upon hours of self-directed professional development, and even continuing my own education to ensure I was providing the most up-to-date instructional strategies, it is true, I was fired without just cause, with no warning, and given only hours to clean out my classroom. My email was wiped out within three hours of receiving my termination letter and I was denied the bonus that I had earned because I was not returning to the school. I was not actively looking for a new job; completely blindsided does not even accurately express my shock. As the above comment states I did in fact find employment in a new parish, only three days after being terminated. I applied, was interviewed and hired in a matter of 24 hours. My resume and data speaks for itself.I have never been happier. Although the situation I was dealt was wrong and disgraceful to the New Beginnings Charter School Network, it was the best thing they ever did for me. An adequate bonus would have been nice, a word of thanks or gratitude would have been appreciated, but letting me go opened my eyes. I would have faithfully gone down with a sinking ship. Instead, I am flourishing and becoming even better in a supportive, appreciative and engaging environment that is well on its way to becoming an A school and leading the way to our parish’s continued success.

 

 

Categories Charter Schools, Merit pay, Testing

The Anti-Testing Movement is Bipartisan and Continues to Grow Stronger

By dianeravitch
November 7, 2014 //
12

The following was written and compiled by Bob Schaeffer of Fairtest:

 

 

 

The Rise of the Testing Resistance
http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/answer-sheet/wp/2014/10/30/the-rise-of-the-anti-standardized-testing-movement/

 

National Education, Civil Rights Groups Offer “New Framework” for Accountability
http://www.usnews.com/news/articles/2014/10/28/teachers-unions-education-advocacy-groups-call-for-new-accountability-system

 

Many California Schools Lack Internet Capacity to Administer New Computer Tests

Many schools lack Internet capacity for tests

 

Bursting the Standardized Test Bubble in Colorado
http://www.denverpost.com/opinion/ci_26823097/bursting-standardized-testing-bubble-colorado
More Colorado School Boards Seek Testing Waivers
http://co.chalkbeat.org/2014/10/31/school-board-testing-discontent-rumbles-louder-as-more-districts-ask-for-waivers/#.VFPu_nvvcZw

 

Districts Across Florida Take Action to Reduce Over-Testing
http://www.tampabay.com/news/education/testing/school-districts-take-action-at-home-to-ease-over-testing/2204734
Florida Parents, Students and Teachers Hold “I Am More Than A Score” Rally
http://www.gainesville.com/article/20141028/ARTICLES/141029626/1002/news?Title=Parents-teachers-gather-for-rally-about-standardized-tests

 

Hawaii May Delay Test-Based Teacher Rating System
http://thegardenisland.com/news/state-and-regional/hawaii-may-delay-test-based-teacher-rating-system/article_831397f1-5568-5cbc-9c4a-1cdc39241dca.html

 

Grassroots Groups Organize to Delay Illinois Common Core Tests
http://www.dnainfo.com/chicago/20141029/bridgeport/grassroots-groups-seminars-aim-delay-new-cps-tests

 

Local Super Says New Indiana Test Is “Train Wreck Waiting to Happen”
http://www.jconline.com/story/news/education/2014/11/03/new-istep-train-wreck-waiting-happen/18443223/

 

Kansas Students Stress Test Computerized Exam Infrastructure
http://www.kansas.com/news/local/education/article3414989.html

 

Louisiana Postpones Computer-Based Common Core Administration
http://blogs.edweek.org/edweek/curriculum/2014/11/louisiana_scraps_plan_for_computer_based_PARCC_testing.html

 

Maryland Delays New Common Core Grad Testing Requirement By Two Years
http://www.washingtonpost.com/local/education/marylands-new-test-requirement-for-graduation-to-be-delayed-two-years/2014/10/28/b18690a6-5edd-11e4-9f3a-7e28799e0549_story.html

 

Testing Fixation Has Not Helped Improve Minnesota Education
http://www.sctimes.com/story/opinion/2014/11/01/shuster-column-test-scores-fail-improve-education/18336209/

 

Over-Testing Has Hurt New Hampshire Students
http://www.nhbr.com/October-31-2014/Over-testing-students-has-done-more-harm-than-good/

 

This Means War: Mom Responds to New Jersey Education Commissioner
http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/answer-sheet/wp/2014/11/01/this-means-war-mom-sends-message-to-education-commissioner/

 

New Mexico School Boards Pass Resolutions to Postpone PARCC Exam Introduction
http://www.abqjournal.com/487823/news/aps-may-seek-delay-of-new-test-use.html

 

Top Performing New York Teacher Sues State After VAM Scores Says She Is “Ineffective”

http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/answer-sheet/wp/2014/10/31/high-achieving-teacher-sues-state-over-evaluation-labeling-her-ineffective/

 

High-Stakes Testing Raises Issues in North Dakota
http://www.thepiercecountytribune.com/page/content.detail/id/510182/Beyond-the-Classroom–High-stakes-testing-raises-issues.html?nav=5005

 

Ohio Community Forum Decries State’s Over-Emphasis on Testing
http://chronicle.northcoastnow.com/2014/10/28/forum-critiques-states-emphasis-testing/

 

Withholding of Pennsylvania Test Scores As Political Tool
http://thenotebook.org/blog/147882/election-near-still-no-pa-test-results-2013-scores-show-downward-trend

 

Ever-Changing Formula Undermines South Carolina School Report Card
http://savannahnow.com/hardeeville/2014-11-01/jasper-county-school-district-questions-federal-report-card-data

 

Knoxville Tennessee Schools to Discontinue Kindergarten Testing
http://www.knoxnews.com/news/my-kid-my-school/knox-county-schools-to-discontinue-sat-10-test-for-kindergartners_49523111

 

Texas Standardized Tests in Trouble: Districts Not Showing Gains
http://www.dallasnews.com/news/education/headlines/20141025-special-report-texas-standardized-tests-in-trouble-districts-not-showing-gains.ece

 

Most Teachers Concerned Schools Not Ready for Common Core Computerized Testing
http://www.gallup.com/poll/179102/teachers-concerned-common-core-computer-testing.aspx

 

 

 

Bob Schaeffer, Public Education Director
FairTest: National Center for Fair & Open Testing
office- (239) 395-6773 fax- (239) 395-6779
mobile- (239) 699-0468
web- http://www.fairtest.org

Categories Testing

NYC: What Lessons Are Charters Teaching to Public Schools?

By dianeravitch
November 7, 2014 //
69

In New York City, there is an effort to bring together teachers and principals in public schools to learn from high-performing charter schools. What are the secrets of their success?

 

Apparently the lessons from charter schools were taken to heart by the new principal of troubled Boys and Girls High School in Bedford-Stuyvesant in Brooklyn. He has asked low-performing students, students who don’t have enough credits, to transfer out. Is this one of the secrets of charter success that should be used by public schools? In the few weeks that the new principal has been in charge, 30 students have been pushed out. One was a boy who had literally turned his life around and was elected junior class president:

 

Calvin Brown, Jr. enrolled at Boys and Girls High School midway through his sophomore year after falling behind at a nearby charter school. Though the Bedford-Stuyvesant high school is considered one of the city’s worst, Brown thrived there.
He became the junior class president last year and the captain of the debate team, which is set to travel to South Africa next month for a competition. He had entered the school with just seven credits, but as he started his senior year this September he had three times that amount — still half as many as he needs to graduate, but he was catching up.

 

Then, after the school’s outspoken principal resigned last month, the city installed a new leader to turn around the troubled school. Under new principal Michael Wiltshire, students who are missing many credits or otherwise unlikely to graduate this year have been encouraged to transfer out, according to Brown and staffers at the school. Brown was one of the students urged to leave.
“They made me transfer,” said Brown, 17. “They don’t want me on the Boys and Girls roster.”

 

The principal must have realized that the secret to having a high-performing school is to get rid of the low-performing students. Is this equality of educational opportunity? Is this public education?

Categories Charter Schools, New York City

Harold Meyerson: Why Democrats Lost

By dianeravitch
November 7, 2014 //
307

Harold Meyerson, editor of “The American Prospect,” takes a close look at the election results and concludes that the Democrats lost because they failed to govern as Democrats. They did not take action to increase economic prosperity, and consequently, did not turn out their base of voters. Republicans are even less likely to produce policies to increase economic prosperity, but in a contest to turn out your base, the Democrats had nothing to offer their base, and a sizable chunk of the base didn’t bother to vote.

 

It would be wrong, he writes, to conclude that the electorate turned more conservative, because wherever offered the chance to raise the minimum wage, the voters did.

 

He writes:

 

Sixty-three percent of respondents told pollsters they believed that the U.S. economic system generally favors the wealthy, while just 32 percent said that it is fair to most. And a wave of ballot measures to raise state or city minimum wages carried wherever they were put before voters — from deepest-blue San Francisco and Oakland to solid-red Nebraska, South Dakota, Arkansas and Alaska…..

 

Tuesday’s verdict makes clear that the Democrats cannot win by demographics alone. Republicans failed to improve their dismal performance among Latino and African American voters or among the young, but these groups’ low turnout helped doom Democrats in blue states particularly. Voters ages 18 to 29 constituted just 13 percent of the electorate, down from 19 percent in 2012. Latinos favored Democrats by 62 percent to 36 percent, but they constituted just 8 percent of voters, the same level as in 2010, despite their growing share of the population. Tuesday’s electorate tilted white and old — which is to say, Republican….

 

Yet the same factors that lowered the turnout of the Democratic base also cost the party votes among whites: the failure of government to remedy, or even address, the downward mobility of most Americans. Democrats who touted the nation’s economic growth did so at their own peril: When 95 percent of the income growth since the recession ended goes to the wealthiest 1 percent, as economist Emmanuel Saez has documented, voters view reports of a recovery as they would news from a distant land. Even though it was the Republicans who blocked Democrats’ efforts to raise the federal minimum wage or authorize job-generating infrastructure projects or diminish student debt, it was Democrats — the party generally perceived as controlling the government — who paid the price for that government’s failure to act.

 

But with the exception of Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.), who has been plenty outspoken about diminishing the power of Wall Street, the Democrats have had precious little to say about how to re-create the kind of widely shared prosperity that emerged from the New Deal. The regulated and more equitable capitalism of the mid-20th century has morphed into a far harsher system, just as Americans told the exit pollsters, and the Democrats, whose calling card to generations of voters was their ability to foster good economies, are at a loss for how to proceed.

 

Educators had little reason to come out to vote; in many states, the Democratic candidate was indistinguishable from the Republican candidate, and both took campaign contributions from the same Wall Street sources. Education should have been the Democrats’ strong suit, given that there are at least five million professional educators, and many millions of public school candidates. But this was an issue that the Obama administration gave to the Republicans by acting like Republicans, by embracing the Republican education agenda of testing, punitive accountability, and choice.

 

The lesson of this election should be clear: Democrats can’t win by acting like Republicans.

 

 

Categories Democrats, Republicans

Why Did Obama Alienate an Important Part of the Democratic Base?

By dianeravitch
November 7, 2014 //
57

Edward F. Berger explains one reason why Democrats got hammered on Election Day. President Obama alienated teachers by walking in the footsteps of George W. Bush. He and Arne Duncan wreaked havoc on public schools. They outraged and demoralized teachers.

 

The Democratic party adopted the Republican agenda, and they turned off a day part of their base:

 

“The Obama administration, and especially Arne Duncan, dealt a blow to educators, parents and educated citizens when they sided with corporations like Pearson, and those who believe a punishing blow to teachers and public community schools will improve American education.

 

“The USDOE is now an agency without credibility, driven by ideologies that are not based in reality. For example, pushing the false belief that bad teachers are responsible for troubled schools. The Obama administration discounted the real factors that hold children back – poverty, fear, instability, and futility generated by a failed economic system, not teachers or bad parents. In doing this, President Obama has lost the confidence of our educated leaders and shamed his largest support base.

 

“By systematically destroying the nations confidence in educators and public schools, and following unqualified, self-appointed change agents like Bill Gates, Eli Broad, Michelle Rhee, Mike Bloomberg, and a few dozen other profiteers, this administration undermined confidence in educators and fact-based education. To do this they develop tests to prove that bad teachers are exposed by student tests. They do this by whatever means Pearson can profit by selling tests, and more tests, that are made mandatory for all school districts to buy and force into place. To do this, they overlook what schools really do for children and for the future.

 

“President Obama ignored votes of no confidence in Arne Duncan and the present course of the USDOE. He totally discounts scholars and experienced education leaders. In doing so, he destroyed his base. He has let stand the false charges that teachers and teachers associations are the problem, and he has allowed the re-segregation of schools in many states. He has supported access to public tax dollars by religious schools. He has provided wealth from our education tax dollars to profit-driven corporations, not to kids.”

Categories Democrats, Obama, Teachers

A Student’s View of Common Core: Hey, Pearson, Leave Them Kids Alone!

By dianeravitch
November 7, 2014 //
26

An Ohio teacher sent this YouTube video made by a student, John Prusak, who started an anti-Common Core club, with tee-shirts and this video. You will be amazed.

Categories Common Core, Corporate Reformers, Ohio, Pearson, Testing

Lily: We Never Give Up on Our Kids!

By dianeravitch
November 6, 2014 //
59

Lily Eskelsen Garcia reacts to the election: We never give up on our kids!

 

Her determination is reminiscent of what Winston Churchill said in 1941, when the days were dark indeed and the future appeared bleak:

 

“Never give in. Never give in. Never, never, never, never—in nothing, great or small, large or petty—never give in, except to convictions of honour and good sense. Never yield to force. Never yield to the apparently overwhelming might of the enemy.”

Categories Resistance
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