I have to hand it to Bob Braun–the hits just keep coming. He has yet another great report up on how the Christie/Anderson plan of trashing public education via closing public schools and pushing children into charters may be illegal, according to New Jersey law.
I am so happy that at least someone is fighting for them. I wish we had them here….Indiana’s public schools will close before Hoosiers wake up to what is really happening…
**note that the 5 principals that were fired…er, put on indefinite layoff…were reinstated. Woot.
Diane Ravitch has this up on the destructive policies designed to push for charter schools that will ultimately mean the demise of public schools through siphoning funding away.
By the way, HB1320, has passed. By the legiscan link, it’s hard to tell whether it passed in the legislature or just the committee. Either way, it doesn’t look good.
Diane Ravitch has this up on Tennessee teacher Laura Hopson speaking out on what teachers really want–funny thing is they don’t want what the self-appointed education gurus say they want…
What a bombshell…the United States Department of Education is taking dirty money from Bill and Melinda Gates.
For a “collaboration conference” April 2012
Another “collaborative” effort to implement Common Core, December 2013
Note the “shared responsibility” white paper….and the focus is on labor collaboration…nothing about a well-rounded education as a robust part of democracy….the focus is on labor and business.
Note the paper states that the Dept. of Ed. is under “immense pressure” to implement labor-management collaborative…um, yeah, I don’t remember asking for more corporate involvement in public schools, have you…?
This sentence is telling:
To advance this collaborative theory of change the Department has been using both its convening and
grant making powers.
~~~~~~~~~~
(I have no idea why the font changed to smaller size…must be the pdf.)
…in other words, the Dept. of Ed. has been coercing schools to adopt the policy through grants and legislation…
n February 2012, the Department
announced the launch of the RESPECT Project.
RESPECT stands for Recognizing Educational Success, Professional Excellence, and Collaborative Teaching.
The project’s purpose is to directly engage with teachers across America in a national conversation about transforming the teaching profession by
dramatically changing the way teachers are recruited,
credentialed, supported, compensated, promoted,
and retained in the profession.
The near-term aim of the RESPECT Project is to elevate teachers’ voices in shaping federal,
state, and local policy, with a long-
term goal of making teaching one of America’s most respected professions.
~~~~~~~~~~
This is such a joke. Respect means you pay teachers a decent wage that reflects their professional education and their experience. Respect means you do not bash teachers and teacher’s unions.
“…the…aim of RESPECT Project is to elevate teachers’ voices…” Unless, of course, those voices are in passionate disagreement with you:
Finally, I found this wonderful video that takes on “Waiting for Superman” and all the false claims made by the education profiteers and their allies:
She addresses the situation in Canada and how the indigenous’ rights outlined in the law have not been honorably enforced. She speaks with heartfelt passion towards the land. She sees this as a fight for her children.
We are all borrowing this land while we are here–no one owns the land, truly. One cannot own what one did not create…and one cannot take without giving equally in return…
Fred Klonsky has this up on Barbara Byrd-Bennett’s threatening letter to parents who wish to opt-out of the testing, testing, testing of their children.
Again, it seeks to usurp parents’ ultimate responsibility towards the welfare of their children.
I would put it back in her lap– show us that these tests are provable measures of one’s intelligence. They can’t. Because they’re not. There is no test that can measure potential. And the kinds of questions being asked–whether a first grader knows the Code of Hammurabi shows a complete lack of understanding of child development.
Well, I wish I could say I’m surprised, but no…nobody is going to design a game and give it away for free…ain’t gonna happen without some benefit for themselves. No free lunches, folks.
Here we have another case of taxation without representation…since a majority of people want this invasion of privacy to stop.
Update on this post on the power grab/information grab by Pence and his henchmen.
I found this summary of the bill– as you can see, it does not outline what information is being gathered. It does not say who is receiving this information. It does not outline how this benefits children and education. And why does the state need to provide backup when schools routinely backup their own records??
As I wrote on Diane’s blog–
It looks like Gates has his dirty little fingers in this–gathering more information for…what? or perhaps I should say…who? What kind of information are they gathering? Who will benefit from gathering this information?
The bill does not tell us. Highly suspicious.
I also found this excellent blog by Doug Martin (you might recall he posted on firedoglake).
If passed into law, HB1320 will probably hand another $3.7 million of our tax dollars to a private company which will sell off personal and confidential information of students and families to companies out to market their products and agenda to them.
~~~~~~~~~
This new move is not a new one.In fact, HB1320 was probably inspired by a model billdrafted for various states by the American Legislative Exchange Council, the corporate sponsored bill-mill behind the scenes in Indiana and across the country bringing us school privatization, attacks on the postal service and unions, and the infamous Stand Your Ground Law.
Diane Ravitch has an account of a teacher’s experience in a Gulen charter school. Unreal.
No books. And teachers with 100 students limited to 25 copies per day. Money missing from their paychecks unaccounted for. Seriously?
All of this is flying under the radar because the mainstream media is not only not covering the Newark 5, they’re not covering the criminal and unethical activities of people running charter schools.
…but they’ll be more than happy to run story after story of bad teachers in public schools…
Mi’kmaq Warriors will begin a speaking tour on the environmental protests against fracking, but also pipelines and tar sands.
“We are all being systematically displaced within our own traditional territories,” Patles explained. “Once they destroy our territories and these resource companies are gone, we will be the ones left with destroyed land and poisoned water.”
~~~~~
Again, we have the disaster capitalism…take the resources without even paying for them, and then leave poisoned land and water. And no, I don’t think the Mi’kmaq would take money even if it were offered to them. Their spirituality cannot be bought…and the Earth is seen as connected to the Creator…
You can’t buy clean air, clean water, nor clean land after it’s been poisoned. This point seems to always be lost on politicians and energy companies who couldn’t care less what happens to people after the fact…
Eagle 
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