Ed Notes Online: Ohanian Does Tennyson, Schmidt Does Ravitch

Tuesday, April 6, 2010

Ohanian Does Tennyson, Schmidt Does Ravitch

In the middle of the night I got a poetic inspiration: Tennyson's Charge of the Light Brigade." I scribbled it on a scrap of paper in the dark. And this morning I wrote a parody for our times. Some lines do not change:

Theirs not to make reply,
Theirs not to reason why,
Theirs but to do and die.
http://susanohanian.org/outrage_fetch.php?id=667

Maybe I should have stopped there, but I decided to read the Appendix for the Delaware RTTT grant submission. This has just about done me in. I mean this quite literally. In the middle of writing this I went to the doctor for asthma relief. I could not breathe. Turns out I have bronchitis too.

I hope you'll read the Commentary. Delaware is being rewarded for a horrifying plan. And considering April 15 is near, we should all stop and think about the fact that they are doing it with OUR TAX DOLLARS.
http://susanohanian.org/show_commentaries.php?id=794

Miracle of modern medicine: I'm already better. No thanks to Delaware.
Susan

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Broad Alumni Making It Big in Corporate Takeover of American Education
Jim Horn
Schools Matter
2010-04-04
http://susanohanian.org/show_atrocities.php?id=9266

It is critical that people who care about public schools, people who know the importance of public schools, see the links here. What is happening in large urban districts today has been carefully orchestrated by vulture philanthropists. Here's the tip of the proverbial iceberg.

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Race to the Top: Delaware's Application for Initial Funding
Susan Ohanian

2010-04-05
http://susanohanian.org/show_commentary.php?id=794

Whew. Ohanian takes you through Appendix A of the Delaware application. Appendix a goes from Appendix A-1 to A-123. And then there are Appendices B through F.

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MORE THAN A BOOK REVIEW NEEDED: A closer look at Diane Ravitch's book 'The Death
and Life of the Great American School System'
George N. Schmidt

2010-04-04
http://susanohanian.org/show_commentary.php?id=792

In his review of the Ravitch book, George Schmidt acknowledges that it's an important book but also insists that we not forget history.

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To the editor
Alan Ettman
New York Times
0000-00-00
http://susanohanian.org/show_letter.php?id=1195

This letter breaks the myth that The Times never prints criticism of editorials. In this fine letter a teacher effectively shows the odds facing a high school teacher for influencing students.

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To the editor
Jane Watson
Time Magazine
2010-04-01
http://susanohanian.org/show_letter.php?id=1194

Jane Watson notes the lack of transparency, something that letter writers should continue to note, as they point out that Race to the Top is even worse than NCLB.

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To the editor
Stephen Krashen
Newsweek
2010-04-03
http://susanohanian.org/show_letter.php?id=1193

We must follow Stephen Krashen's lead in describing the Obama plan as radical.

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The Charge of the Obama/Duncan Plan
Susan Ohanian
with some apologies to Alfred, Lord Tennyson
2010-04-05
http://susanohanian.org/outrage_fetch.php?id=667

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Mass Closures of Public Schools, Promotion of Charters Raise Fears of Privatized
Detroit Education System
Amy Goodman and Nate Walker
Democracy Now!
2010-04-03
http://susanohanian.org/outrage_fetch.php?id=666

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States Skeptical About ‘Race to Top’ School Aid Contest
Sam Dillon
New York Times
2010-04-05
http://susanohanian.org/show_nclb_atrocities.php?id=3942

Governors of states not receiving Race to the Top funds in the first round whine. Some claim to be reconsidering joining the second round. None admit the error of their ways. Ohanian comments on the way quoted people are identified.

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Why Obama's education reform plan can't work
Jim Horn
Washington Post: The Answer Sheet
2010-04-04
http://susanohanian.org/show_nclb_atrocities.php?id=3941

In a letter to President Obama, Jim Horn points out that teachers will work no harder when their tenure or their salary depends upon their students' test scores, but the kind of work they do, if such plans are adopted, will not resemble the work of the attentive gardener tending these tender tendrils of humanity that constitute our future.
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Order the CD of the resistance:
"No Child Left Behind? Bring Back the Joy."
To order online (and hear samples from the songs)
http://www.cdbaby.com/cd/dhbdrake4
Other orders: Send $15 to
Susan Ohanian
P. O. Box 26
Charlotte, VT 05445

No comments:

"A Black Agenda Radio commentary by Glen Ford

What media call "philanthropy" for the public schools are actually seed monies to establish a private "market" in publicly-financed education - an enterprise worth trillions if successfully penetrated by corporate America. Cory Booker, one of the "New Black Leaders" financed by the filthy rich, is key to creating a "nationwide corporate-managed schools network paid for by public funds but run by private managers.

"Ed Reformers" want to cash in on public education and to control its content and outcome, not improve it. Provide great education? Baby boomers had as close as this country has ever gotten to it when we were growing up. The Ed Reform Movement has no interest in seeing such a well-educated, democratically astute population ever again.

http://blackagendareport.com/content/cory-booker-clear-and-present-threat-public-education

History of the UFT Pre-Weingarten Years

This award-winning series of articles by Jack Schierenbeck originally appeared in the New York Teacher in 1996 and 1997.

Naturally, from a certain point of view. But, despite certain biases, Schierenbeck, a great guy, was one of the best NY Teacher reporters so this is worth reading. Jack suffered a debilitating stroke many years ago (I used to get secret donations to ed notes from him through a 3rd source.)

This chapter looks interesting:

Class struggles: The UFT story, part 3

“The schism in the union over radical politics [is] a major reason for stalling the growth of a teacher union for decades.” Revolutionary politics and ideology take center stage, as the original Teachers Union becomes a battlefield, pitting leftist against leftist and splitting the union.

Clarence Taylor's "Reds at the Blackboard" focused on the old Teachers Union which disbanded in 1964 after suffering from anti-left attacks.

Of course for another view, check out the review at New Politics of the Kahlenberg Bio on Shanker by Vera Pavone and me: Albert Shanker: Ruthless Neocon

Effective Union Organizing

A video series put together by Jason Mann from the British Columbia Federation of Teachers about social media and how to use it for effective union organizing.

The first series was called New Media For Union Activists Roadmap and it's still available on-line at:
http://www.newmediabootcamp.ca/welcome/
I watched some of them and need to rewatch as they are loaded with information.

The second series started last week and it's called "Online Campaigning for Union Activists"

You can sign up for this free series at :
http://act.bcfed.ca/online-campaigning-for-union-activists/

You Don't Have A Choice - Join the Revolt

Ex-Harlem Success Teacher Comments on Eva the Diva

Ex-HSA Teacher has left a new comment on your post "Fear and Loathing at Evil's Harlem Success Empire ...":

I am a former Harlem Success teacher. Not many people who work/worked for her like her very much. I once made the comment that she is very nice when I first was hired. Two of her closest colleague responded immediately almost in unison, "Eve is not nice!" Over time I realized that there was a lot of political games going on. Another colleague once said to me that he was tired of "being part of a political campaign." Sending out 15,000 applications for only 400 seats in a school is reprehensible. The money that paid for those mass mailings could have paid the yearly salary of another teacher not to mention the heartache of all those parents who applied but did not get a spot. She does good work trying to give disadvantaged students a quality public school education but at a great cost to staff AND the school's educational budget! school budget.

Davis Guggenheim Compared to Riefenstahl

“Waiting for Superman" is the second most intellectually dishonest piece of documentary work I have seen. It is surpassed only by Leni Riefenstahl's "Triumph of the Will," the pro-Hitler propaganda classic, in that regard. Uses personal narratives of adorable children to create narrative suspense that overrides public policy discussion with pure emotion in unscrupulous attack on teachers and their unions, among others

Timothy Tyson
Professor of African American Studies and History
Duke University

How Teaching Experience Makes a Difference

Even as New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg, Michelle Rhee and others around the nation are arguing for experienced teachers to be laid off regardless of seniority, every single study shows teaching experience matters. In fact, the only two observable factors that have been found consistently to lead to higher student achievement are class size and teacher experience, so that it’s ironic that these same individuals are trying to undermine both.
- Leonie Haimson on Parents Across America web site

Full article with charts here.

Weingarten/Gates Foundation announce drone-driven teacher evaluation

According to a press release issued by the Gates Foundation, the AFT and the Thomas B. Fordham Institute, these three have entered a ground-breaking partnership to evaluate teachers utilizing the drone technology that has revolutionized warfare in Iraq, Afghanistan, and Pakistan. A bird-size device floats up to 400 feet above a classroom and instantly beams live video of teachers in action to agents at desks at Teacher Quality Inspection Stations established by the AFT and the Thomas B. Fordham Institute.

When asked if the drones were authorized to drop bombs on teachers who exhibit inadequacy, Chester E. Finn, Jr., president of the Thomas B. Fordham Foundation, replied, "Don't be ridiculous. Gates money puts other methods at our disposal."

Randi Weingarten, president of the 1.5-million-member American Federation of Teachers said the powerful union has signed on to the drone project...

More at Substance

The Real Reason Behind Push for Standardized Tests: It's All About the Adults

On standardized testing in our schools

A must read article about the standardized test industry.
Written by an insider who has worked as a test scorer, the article outlines a multinational industry based on an army of temporary workers paid by the piece at $0.30 to $0.70 per test, translated in the need to grade 40 tests per hour to make a $12 salary. The article goes on to show how the companies gauge the grading "results" based on the need to ensure new contracts to continue profiting off of our youth. The original article is from Monthly Review. Here it is on Schools Matter blog.

http://www.schoolsmatter.info/2010/12/on-growing-use-of-corporate-test.html

Parallels between America today and Germany in the 1920's and early 30's

"Resentment and obstruction are all the right wing in America have to peddle. Their policies are utterly discredited. Their ideology - even by its own standards - is a sham. They are so bereft of leaders, their de facto leader is a former drug addicted, thrice-divorced radio talk show host. That is literally the best they can muster. But they have built a national franchise inciting the downwardly mobile to blame the government, not the right, for their problems, exactly as Hitler did in the 1920s."

The US Is Facing a Weimar Moment

Published on Sunday, March 15, 2009 by CommonDreams.org

Chicago View of Unity/UFT on Charters

After many meetings and debates, the Chicago delegation succeeded in working with the New York United Federation of Teachers, Local 2 (UFT) to push the AFT to take stronger stands on charter school accountability and school closings — though many delegates from Chicago would have liked the language to have been even stronger.

Generally speaking, the New York delegation represented organizing charters as the best model for handling their role in reshaping unions, despite the fact that according to many reports few charter schools in New York have been organized as is the case in Chicago. This logic is the same touted by the Progressive Caucus of the AFT. The few that have been organized are a part of the UFT local though they have separate contracts negotiated with the help of UFT. The Chicago delegation reflection the mindset that allowing new charters to continue to proliferate while attempting to organize existing charters is an end game in which public schools and the union lose.

Jen Johnson, CTU, Local 1 in Substance

Ed Notes Greatest Hits: HSA Rally and Founding of GEM

SEE MY VIDEO ON HARLEM SUCCESS RALLY 2009:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fEp7rg_L5JI

Angel Gonzalez and I attended that rally and used the footage to promote our conference on Mar. 28, 2009, which is where the concept of a group like GEM emerged. Until then we had basically been a committee of ICE working with the NYCORE high stakes testing group. The actions of Eva and crew helped spawn GEM. Mommie Dearest!!

I have more video somewhere. I was hoping to get Leni Riefenstahl to edit it but she died. We would have called it "Triumph of the Hedge Fund Operators."

Ed Notes Extended

Tuesday, April 6, 2010

Ohanian Does Tennyson, Schmidt Does Ravitch

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