A Chicago Alderman has proposed drones in Rahm Emanuel’s Safe Passage routes. I kid you not. If you continue with the next blog of Fred Klonsky, he questions the “none of your business” attitude of CPS on emergency preparedness plans. At the end, there is another link “continuing the story” which has this:
In a written statement, CPS officials insisted that every school in the district does, in fact, have a plan but said they were limited to “management level staff within the Office of Safety and Security,” building principals and assistant principals, and officials of the Chicago Police and Fire Departments.
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This is ridiculous. The schools that I have taught at had plans the teachers knew and the children went through drills so they would know what to do. It is important because their teacher may be incapacitated, so the children all the way up to the principals need to know the plan. I found it highly ironic one year when we had a small earthquake while I was teaching. I asked the kids if they knew what to do in case of an earthquake, which they didn’t, so I told them to stay under their desks until the shaking stopped, and then we would leave the building in the usual emergency route. One of the regular instructors thought that I had needlessly worried the children….all the while they have been put in “lockdowns” for some terrorist going to attack the school. <sigh>
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The Indignant Teacher has a
post up on a petition to remove David Koch from the board of WGBH Boston’s PBS station. I have always admired WGBH and WTTW PBS stations, and now that Kochs are trying to control the media, it is even more imperative to get them out.
More moneyed influence on campaigns of the anti-public school crowd. Good God, this guy is a liar. A bold-faced one at that.
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More
here on John Pelto’s blog that
Diane links to:
The evidence is clear that income inequality is a major factor in educational inequality. Children living in poverty experience prolonged stress that affects their brain development in the regions associated with learning. There is a strong correlation between socioeconomic status and standardized test scores. As proven by Stanford’s Sean Reardon, the widening of the achievement gap results from additional opportunities affluent parents provide their children out of the K-12 environment: high-quality pre-K, tutoring, and after-school and summer enrichment. Reardon demonstrated that the test score disparity between low-income and high-income children is not the result of schools.
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See, the pro-Charter $$ folks would prefer to ignore this important fact that impacts learning….it’s much more fun to blame unionized teachers…and watch them scramble to put out fires the Charter proponents deliberately set.
This is pretty powerful. He puts it so well–that every child develops in different ways and at different speeds and those differences should be honored, not ridiculed by failure of a “skills” test. (hat tip to
Diane Ravitch)
Finally, a wonderful history lesson
here by Diane. She was there on the March on Washington.
Eagle 
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