A Néw York City parent organization has created a report card for Michelle Rhee. Good read.
Archives for category: Parents
The best group now organizing and mobilizing to strengthen public education is Parents Across America.
You don’t have to be a public school parent to join. PAA welcomes educators and everyone who supports public schools.
If you care about improving your public schools and fighting off corporate control and privatization, join Parents Across America.
PAA has chapters in many cities. If there is no PAA chapter in your city or town, start one.
Check out the website to learn about their activities and their mission.
In brief, it is to stop privatization, stop punitive high-stakes testing, stop the attacks on teachers, stop the school closings.
And it is to support policies like reducing class size, expanding early childhood education, expanding after-school programs and social services, and building collaboration among parents, teachers, and communities.
Parents want what is best for their children.
Did the Global Village School Zone in Newark have a chance?
Did it get enough time?
Did it spend enough money?
Does Superintendent Cami Anderson have better ideas?
Doesn’t reform take time?
Stay tuned.
Earlier this year, the William Penn Foundation commissioned a report from the Boston Consulting Group on the future of the Philadelphia public schools. BCG, as is customary, recommended closing dozens of public schools and opening dozens of privately managed charters.
Parents and community leaders were outraged.
One group, Parents United for Public Education, complained that the William Penn Foundation was engaged in lobbying, and it sought a legal opinion from the Public Interest Law Center of Philadelphia to support its claim.
Please read the linked article. It reveals an intent to privatize public schools, not to study their needs dispassionately.
The hard-charging president of the William Penn Foundation has suddenly resigned, in what appears to be an ouster by the board. Is this a mini-replay of the Ford Foundation’s ill-fated intervention into school politics in New York City in 1968-70? No one knows, for now. Perhaps the foundation did not enjoy being cast in the role of villain in the city’s struggles.
The interesting story here is that Philadelphia parents (and give credit here to the tireless Helen Gym) pressed the theory that the new muscular venture philanthropy crossed a clear line from philanthropy to political activism.
In the past decade, a handful of very wealthy foundations have used their funding to steer public schools, without regard to the wishes of parents or to the democratic process. Philadelphia parents just threw a wrench into the gears of the privatization machine.
Citizens of Ohio have launched a new organization to support strong public schools.
Is there an organization like this in your community or state?
Please let me know.
I will compile a list and circulate it to everyone.
From Ohio comes this good news:
Ohio’s Teachers, Parents, Superintendents, School Board members and Citizens have launched a new movement ~ Strong Schools / Strong Communities
Strong Schools Strong Communities is a non-partisan movement dedicated to informing and engaging Ohioans at the community level to understand, appreciate and support our system of common public schools.
Visit our website at http://www.strongschoolsohio.com
Friend us on Face Book at : http://www.strongschoolsohio.com
As I travel the country, I am often astonished to see how discouraged educators and parents are by the unproven schemes foisted on their schools by politicians.
The worst of these schemes come from radical politicians who think that government should get out of the business of providing public education.
They want education to be a commodity that you pick up whenever you want, wherever you want.
That is their ideal, though they are far from accomplishing it because it is fundamentally a very idiotic idea.
Governor Bobby Jindal is on that track in Louisiana.
Governor Rick Snyder is pushing hard in Michigan to ensure that education is available “any time, any place, anywhere, anyhow,” or words to that effect.
He doesn’t see to see any purpose or value in public education or public schools.
He recently got a report from a pretentiously named group of faithful right-wing operatives who call themselves the “Oxford Foundation,” even though they have nothing to do with Oxford University and they are not a foundation. They are Republican party wonks, cranking out what the governor wants.
The basic idea behind many of the radical deregulatory schemes is to strap the money to the child’s back (usually called either “fair student funding” or “weighted student funding” or some variation thereof) and then let the student take the money anywhere.
To a local public school; to a religious school; to a for-profit virtual charter; to a trade school; to anyone who hangs out a shingle or advertises on TV. In time, there would be no limits on what sort of institution fits the rubric of “any place, any time.”
Yes, there is pushback. I recently met with a group of superintendents in Michigan whose districts encompass nearly half the children in the state: They are not happy. They are discouraged. In private, one said this whole approach is “educational malpractice.”
And the parents are organizing.
I recently received this excellent post from Michigan Parents for Schools.
The parents understand that what is happening will destroy their schools and their communities.
They know more about their children and about education than Governor Snyder and the “Oxford Foundation.”
The best way to stop this madness is to educate the public. Educate parents.
Bottom line: Vote the rascals out.
People often ask me: How can parents and teachers hope to beat the big money that is buying elections in state and local races around the nation? What chance do we have when they can dump $100,000, $200,000, $500,000 into a race without breaking a sweat?
True, they have a lot of money. But they have no popular base. The only time they win votes is when they trick voters with false rhetoric and pie-in-the-sky promises. They call themselves “reformers,” when they are in fact privatizers.
They claim they know how to close the achievement gap but their standard-bearer, Michelle Rhee, left DC with the biggest achievement gap of all big cities in the nation.
They claim to be leading the “civil rights issue” of our day, but can you truly imagine a civil rights movement led by billionaires, Wall Street hedge fund managers, ALEC, and rightwing think tanks?
They say they love teachers even as they push legislation to cut teachers’ pensions and take away their job rights and their right to join a union.
There are two reasons they will fail:
First, none of their ideas has ever succeeded, whether it’s high-stakes testing, charters, vouchers, merit pay or test-based teacher evaluations.
But even more important, the public is getting wise. The public has figured out the corporate reform strategy. In state after state, parents are organizing.
Here is one great example in Texas, of all places.
Similar groups of parents are organizing in every state. Even students are getting active in the movement to protect the commons.
When the public gets wise, the privatization movement dies.
A reader wonders, when do we start assessing parents and caregivers?
http://www.sde.ct.gov/sde/lib/sde/PDF/CCSS/PreK_ELA_Crosswalk.pdf
Click to access PreK_ELA_Crosswalk.pdf
Let’s not laugh too hard. I posted the links above in response to Dr. Ravitch’s post called “What are we doing to the little ones?” The links take you to draft Connecticut documents relating to CCSS for preschoolers. The introduction states that the adoption of CCSS for K-12 “has naturally led to questions regarding standards for preschool and/or prekindergarten students.” The next section talks about a work group that has been charged with the task of creating comprehensive learning standards for birth to age 5.
I personally am interested in the learning standards for infants. What do you think? Should the first assessments be at 6 weeks or 3 months? We probably need both formative and summative assessments in math and language arts. Since Connecticut is launching new teacher evaluations, we should probably apply the same standards to parents and caregivers. A full 45 percent of a parent’s score should be based on the results of these assessments. If the baby naps during an assessment, we probably should wake him/her up. I’m not quite sure how to deal with the diapering issue though. Maybe Michelle Rhee or Jeb Bush have some thoughts on this.
I received this comment from a mother in North Carolina. Her daughter is in first grade, where the school is implementing the Common Core math curriculum. Her daughter is confused, and so is the mother.
I am reaching out to the teachers who read this blog. Can you help her? What advice do you have? What has been your experience?
I have found your page looking for more info. on the common core curriculum. My 1st grader goes to school in N.C. and they just switched over this year to the common core. I absolutely hate it. They are doing algebra in the 1st grade! What happened to teaching the basic’s first? Every night that we do her math homework she and I get so frustrated that we could both pull our hair out. She doe’s not understand it and I don’t even know how to explain it to her so she will understand.Because she is having a really hard time catching on I asked her Teacher what we could do at home to help. She gave me her envision’s math book, and told me that not all thing’s in the math book apply to the new curriculum. She marked the Chapters that did. Do you know that out of 20 chapters in the book only 4 were marked. So tell me how these children are supposed to learn anything at all when their text book’s don’t even teach the new curriculum in them. Doe’s anyone know if there is anyway that we can get this curriculum changed. I was told by another teacher that it would not be possible because within 10 years it will be nationwide.
Leonie Haimson has some excellent ideas about where to make budget cuts and how to raise revenues to protect children in the looming fiscal crisis.
Haimson is executive director of Class Size Matters in New York City and has long been the city’s leading parent activist. Her ability to analyze research and budgets is astounding. Her courage in fighting for students and parents is unmatched.
Leonie Haimson was among the first people to be placed on the honor roll as a champion of public education. She was one of the original founders of Parents Across America.
She is a tireless and effective advocate who makes a difference in improving the lives of children.
Diane Ravitch's blog 