Category Archives: schools

The Education Show

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Seriously, these folks are running schools by script.  Unbelievable. (from Diane Ravitch’s blog)

As Diane says, it’s dangerous to speak out….but this has been going on in the private sector for quite some time–somehow, one’s right to Freedom of Speech stops at the corporate door.

So now it has reached the Education doors….and that is why Bill Clinton, Bill Gates, et al, have tried to destroy teacher’s unions.  It’s much harder to fire a teacher who speaks out against corruption when that teacher belongs to a strong union that stands behind her or him.  That’s kind of the bully playbook—separate people into aloneness, and attack.  It’s much easier to take one down than a group.

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More on Education--this post is just sickening.  Depressing as hell that Pearson has now monopolized the United States Education system.

This post from Mom of Five is alarming:

My daughter’s principal just informed me that she doubts any California district will ever order a textbook again: Everything bought in the future will be digital. Her school has pretty much phased out textbooks already and at my mom’s high school the district just got rid of over 4,000 books from the library. Even though the high school has just been built (3 weeks ago) I find it sad that the library is very small. Instead, there are numerous “student lounges” where kids go to hang out.

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Really disturbing.  Of course, the technology terrorists will wrap this in a “progress” blanket to quash any objections to it.  We’ve been sold this line of garbage that anything new in technology is automatically a good thing and means we are “progressing”.  What does that mean, exactly?  They don’t really say.  All it is is something “new”.  They know that marketers put “new” and “improved” on can labels so that consumers will buy it…doesn’t matter that it’s the same stuff as before and “improved” is a subjective word.

And if you notice the comment of teachingeconomist, the resident troll, he uses the word “nostalgic” as a code word for “you’re so far behind the times clinging to the past…”  to shut people up…

I see farther down the comments that Mom of Five had the same sentiment:

Momoffive

February 8, 2014 at 9:56 am

Oh yeah, I forgot the best part…she let me know that the reason I’m having a problem with all this is because “us older parents” have a difficult time with change and moving into the global 21st century.”

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Diane has probably blogged on this, but with all the information out there, I have trouble keeping up–Valerie Strauss (God love her) has this up on the Bush connection to this education fiasco.

More here from an old post at dailykos.  I think I may have posted this before–but doesn’t hurt to repost…easier to keep up with the octopus of education $$.

 

McSchools

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Diane Ravitch has a great blog up today on one family’s monopoly on charters in Minnesota and the resulting segregation.

A great comment by Reteach for America explains just how charters actually give parents less choice…and less power…when it comes to their child’s education:

Charter schools have no civic responsibility.

[…]

Many parents don’t realize this lack of democratic representation or really any say whatsoever in their children’s school is a serious issue until they have a concern about the charter and the charter tells them they are welcome to shop for another school. When they turn to the district for help, they’re often told the same thing. You don’t like McDonalds? Go to Burger King.

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So, imagine that your town no longer has independent restaurants, but only McDonald’s, Burger King, or any other national chain….you dislike the fast food and wish for a home-cooked meal that fits your diet…none of these chains have decent food, so you no longer have a choice.  You either eat the stuff that resembles food, or you stay home.  They don’t care about you, as an individual, but only YOU as a collective group to profit off of…

….this is essentially what charters like the ones in Minnesota are doing.  McSchools.

When ridiculous turns to cruelty

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Indignant Teacher has a story up on the ridiculous test, test, test, mentality of the Department of Education…which turns to cruelty when a child who is dying and a child with only a brain stem must.be.tested.  Good God.

Apparently, my communication through her that he was in hospice wasn’t enough: they required a letter from the hospice company to say that he was dying. Every day that she comes to visit, she is required to do paperwork to document his “progress.” Seriously? Why is Ethan Rediske not meeting his 6th-grade hospital homebound curriculum requirements? BECAUSE HE IS IN A MORPHINE COMA. We expect him to go any day. He is tenaciously clinging to life.

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This just makes me angry.  How utterly insane and cold and unfeeling to put this additional burden upon this mother whom is going through the most horrible thing a mother should ever have to endure–the death of her child.

 

Bob Braun: Newark school closings may be illegal

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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.

 

ALEC hard at work in Indiana; HB1321

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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.

 

Tennessee Teachers: You don’t speak for us

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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…

U.S. Dept. of Ed. receiving money from Gates

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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.

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(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.

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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:

Terry Kath, another talented musician

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I remember hearing of Terry Kath’s death on the radio.  He was a soulful vocalist and guitar player for the band Chicago, born January 31, 1946.  The news announcer said he was playing “russian roullette” with a gun when it went off.  That was not true–he didn’t realize the gun was loaded.  What a terrible loss.

Someone put together a pretty decent video of Terry:

He touched so many lives and he lives on…

Want to know a surprising thing?  Terry couldn’t read music.

If today’s education gurus were to judge little Terry Kath by his inability to read music, he would be forever labeled “stupid” and put into a black hole, never to realize his potential because some hedge fund manager/education profiteer decided he had no potential because he couldn’t identify musical notes on paper.  And we all know how powerful his musical ability was—what a waste that would have been to deny him that by labeling him.

Terry’s daughter, Michelle, is putting together a documentary on her father.

She was on a radio show last night to talk about her dad.

And the adult school bullies continue…

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…to foster the culture of cold, unethical treatment of children.  Salt Lake Tribune story on it here.

And Olsen seems to not understand how callous his actions were!

If a child’s account is past due, the school I work at will give the child a peanut butter sandwich Or if allergic, something else.  But they would not throw the child’s lunch in the trash.  Good God.

No doubt the school administration will go to church this Sunday with their noses stuck up in the air proclaiming what good Christians they are…while doing exactly the opposite of what Jesus would do…

…and the war on the poor continues…

More bullying by public officials

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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.