Ed Notes Online: New Content at SusanOhanian.Org!

Saturday, November 9, 2013

New Content at SusanOhanian.Org!

Nothing like starting the weekend with a batch of stuff compiled by Susan with a focus on the common core. I am so far from having been a teacher I can't focus on the educational reasons for opposing CC. I'm more interested in the politics. Like when every enemy of public education and teacher unions unite with these unions to push something down everyone's throats that's all it takes for me to say "Whoa." Yes, Virginia, I am suspicious and also a conspiracy theorist.

I'm working on a piece I'm calling "The Politics Behind the Common Core" and there should be a lot of meat in these links.

From here on it's all Susan -- and send her a donation.

I worked hard on two Common Core items--Common Porn and If You Lie Down with Dogs... I hope you'll read them. I have another piece in this mix--about progressive politicos who don't have time for a Teacher of the Year--but it's good news despite them.

There are new cartoons:
Say It
http://susanohanian.org/cartoon_fetch.php?id=839

Meet Your New Teacher
http://susanohanian.org/cartoon_fetch.php?id=838

Question of the Day
http://susanohanian.org/cartoon_fetch.php?id=837

Tom Toles cartoon
http://susanohanian.org/show_nclb_cartoons.php?id=971

Kindergarten Test Prep
http://susanohanian.org/show_nclb_cartoons.php?id=970

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COMMON PORN: Another school district pulls a raunchy Common Core-approved book
Susan Ohanian
blog
2013-11-08
http://susanohanian.org/core.php?id=615

A school district rejects a Common Core book, but should we rejoice when nobody seems to have read it?

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If You Lie Down With Dogs. . .
Susan Ohanian
blog
2013-11-08
http://susanohanian.org/core.php?id=614

Ed Week provides framework to look at Gates funding in education. I dig a bit deeper, showing how circular Gates grant-making is, and how members of the circle are devouring teacher professionalism and obliterating any notion of education for equality, justice, innovation, or. . . fun.

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The biggest weakness of the Common Core Standards
Valerie Strauss and Marion Brady
Washington Post Answer Sheet
2013-11-07
http://susanohanian.org/core.php?id=613

Marion Brady offers a radical and reasonable view of the Common Core. What are the chances that anybody is listening?

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Catholic scholars blast Common Core in letter to U.S. bishops
Valerie Strauss
Washington Post Answer Sheet
2013-11-02
http://susanohanian.org/core.php?id=612

130 Catholic scholars around the country have signed a hard-hitting letter to U.S. Catholic bishops denouncing the Common Core State Standards

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A Serious Flaw in Common Core
Alan Singer
Huffington Post
2013-11-04
http://susanohanian.org/core.php?id=611

Referring to the way two very different Supreme Court justices read texts, Alan Singer offers a new and important look at the Common Core requirements as presented by David Coleman.

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Should Literature Be Useful?
Lee Siegel

2013-11-08
http://susanohanian.org/show_commentary.php?id=1137

Warning us not to put too much stock in fiction's ability to deliver empathy, Lee Siegel notes that 'Fiction's lack of practical usefulness is what gives it its special freedom.'

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University Researchers Are Seen as Enablers in Latest Major Drug Fraud
Paul Basken
Chronicle of Higher Education
2013-11-08
http://susanohanian.org/outrage_fetch.php?id=1730

There seem to be some parallels with the Johnson & Johnson case and Common Core producers, but the latter will never be prosecuted. The sound of one child vomiting just doesn't reach the Attorney General. . . or even the local school board

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Money Follows Values
Susan Ohanian
blog
2013-11-08
http://susanohanian.org/outrage_fetch.php?id=1729

Where the values are among some Alabama legislators.

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Investigators Confirm Test-Tampering At Hartford School
Kathleen Megan and Vanessa De La Torre
Hartford Courant
2013-11-06
http://susanohanian.org/outrage_fetch.php?id=1728

Very bad policy in Hartford schools comes home to roost.

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Wristbands provide incentives for better performance at Land O'Lakes High School

Tampa Bay Times
2013-11-04
http://susanohanian.org/outrage_fetch.php?id=1727

What next, tattoos on the forehead?

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Chris Christie's demented 'you people' movement:
David Sirota
Salon.com
2013-11-04
http://susanohanian.org/outrage_fetch.php?id=1726

David Sirota does a rare thing: He actually researches education issues before writing about them.

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Poverty in America Is Mainstream
Mark R. Rank
New York Times
2013-11-02
http://susanohanian.org/outrage_fetch.php?id=1725

Contrary to popular belief, the percentage of the population that directly encounters poverty is exceedingly high. Poverty is a mainstream event experienced by a majority of Americans. For most of us, the question is not whether we will experience poverty, but when.

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Teachers Can Be Bullied Too
anonymous blog/Teaching Tolerance Staff
Teaching Tolerance
2013-11-01
http://susanohanian.org/outrage_fetch.php?id=1724

Certainly, now is the time to identify teacher bullying when it appears. Stand up. Speak out. Don't allow yourself to be bullied.

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A Major University and How It Works
Stephen Holden
New York Times
2013-11-08
http://susanohanian.org/show_yahoo.php?id=846

The New York Times film critic applauds documentarian Frederick Wiseman's magisterial examination of the University of California, Berkeley.

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What Happens When Parents Stand Up and Say No to Testing?
Elizabeth G. Hines
AlterNet
0000-00-00
http://susanohanian.org/show_yahoo.php?id=845

Parents in one New York City school have decided to do more than complain about the perils of testing young children. They're taking action, en masse, and getting results.

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Ohanian: Where was the governor? Where was Bernie? Where was the press?
Susan Ohanian
VT Digger
0000-00-00
http://susanohanian.org/show_yahoo.php?id=844

I post this in Good News because I'm very happy that a teacher in alternative ed was named Vermont Teacher of the year. But the absence of the governor, our senator who sits on the Education Committee, and press was both typical and disgusting.

Nov. 3, 2013
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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

Saturday, November 9, 2013

New Content at SusanOhanian.Org!

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