collaborate: to cooperate, usually willingly, with an enemy nation, especially with an enemy occupying one's country--Dictionary.com
I can't get behind AFT's resolution on Common Core Standards. To me it contradicts their resolution on testing. http://lockerz.com/s/223095221 --Mike Klonsky @mikeklonsky
Mike Klonsky's tweet hit the nail on the head on the tactics being used by Randi Weingarten on the national level at the AFT and her henchman Michael Mulgrew and the rest of Unity Caucus on the local level to divide and conquer opponents of their policy, a policy decided in the halls of power where the classroom teacher has no say.
Hold out the carrot of what appears to be on the surface, a strong resolution on testing while at the same time offering up slavish support for the Bill Gates/corporate deform common core, disguised as a sheep but really a testing wolf, with lots of money to be made by the testing/publishing (often one and the same) companies.
Given that Bloomberg/Walcott/Tweed back the Common Core 1000% as does the UFT, doesn't that give you some pause? I mean this is not about agreeing on some program to feed starving children -- unless we are talking about children starving from lack of testing.
Here are some links from the Susan Ohanian piece I posted last night on the CCS.
And I'll close this blog with something else from Susan on the NEA which really blows out how teacher unions are selling out their rank and file.
Hold out the carrot of what appears to be on the surface, a strong resolution on testing while at the same time offering up slavish support for the Bill Gates/corporate deform common core, disguised as a sheep but really a testing wolf, with lots of money to be made by the testing/publishing (often one and the same) companies.
Given that Bloomberg/Walcott/Tweed back the Common Core 1000% as does the UFT, doesn't that give you some pause? I mean this is not about agreeing on some program to feed starving children -- unless we are talking about children starving from lack of testing.
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| A pic of the AFT CCS reso from Klonsky |
Here are some links from the Susan Ohanian piece I posted last night on the CCS.
Please Allow Me to Introduce Myself
Francine Prose
New York Times Book Review
2012-07-07
http://susanohanian.org/core.php?id=296
The loony Common Core prejudice against fiction pops up in a book review by Fancine Prose. She wonderfully refutes any claims that fiction isn't critical to our lives.
Ohanian Comment: Here is a quite wonderful refutation of David Coleman's goofy insistence that fiction reading is of much lesser importance than non-fiction. He says it's non-fiction that teaches children what they need to know about the world. I sent this letter to the New York Times:
I would like to make a correction to Francine Prose's excellent review "Please Allow Me to Introduce Myself: 'True Believers,' by Kurt Andersen." Prose mentions "an upsetting segment about school systems around the country deciding that elementary-grade students are reading way too much fiction." School systems didn't decide anything. This assault on fiction was dreamt up by Common Core State (sic) Standards impresario David Coleman and is being hawked in teacher professional development films distributed by by the James B. Hunt, Jr. Institute for Educational Leadership and Policy Foundation, Inc. (paid for by the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation. The Foundation paid a bucket of money to develop the Common Core State (sic) Standards in which school systems had no say. The Foundation paid another bucket to organizations ranging from the American Federation of Teachers to the PTA to the Hunt Institute to promote the Common Core message, which does, indeed, diminish and degrade the importance of fiction in children's lives.
I'd just hate for Ms Prose or anyone else to think that it was any teacher's idea to dump Amelia Bedelia or any of the other characters who so enrich our children's lives--and do despite the Common Core proclamations to the contrary, teach them about the world.
And I'll close this blog with something else from Susan on the NEA which really blows out how teacher unions are selling out their rank and file.
Really, who will oppose the takeover of public education if the teacher unions don't lead that opposition but collaborate, Randi's favorite word?
AFTERBURN; MORE FROM SUSAN ON CCS FROM LAST WEEK
Are the new national academic standards rotten to the (Common) Core?
Maureen Downey/
Atlantic Journal-Constitution Get Schooled Blog
2012-07-01
http://susanohanian.org/core.
A Georgia superintendent takes on the Common Core
------
To the editor
Laura N. Arneson
New York Times
2012-06-27
http://susanohanian.org/show_
I am so glad that someone answered the outrageous opinion piece about the books necessary to gain 'world knowledge.' The author of that revealed only that she's drunk way too much Common Core Kool-Aid.
3 comments:
Norm,
Before you go using my tweet to go off batshit crazy on the AFT, please get your facts straight. First of all, this is just a resolution being proposed by a local in Oklahoma of non-instructional staff, asking the AFT for support and training around Common Core, same as instructional staff gets. The AFT exec board hasn't endorsed it and the AFT convention hasn't even been held yet.
Yes, I have been openly critical of Common Core Standards and find CCS at odds with the AFT's anti-testing resolution. But I am even more at odds with those who use every disagreement to launch broadsides against the union.
The picture you posted with the title cut off is misleading and the conclusions you draw are way out of proportion to the issue you are referring to here. You need to make some corrections
Mike
I will do a follow-up on this. I am not launching broadsides against the union but against the narrow oligarchy running the union where decisions to support CCS are made at the top level and misinformation is given to members. I admit to being crude but unless some of us launch broadsides against a leadership that has shut out the voices of the members we will never be able to put up a fight as a union.
Good. Thanks for the follow up.
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