Ed Notes Online: Susan Ohanian Reports, November 26, 2013

Tuesday, November 26, 2013

Susan Ohanian Reports, November 26, 2013

Ten Top Reasons the U. S. Congress Would Be a Good Place to Field Test the Common Core Tests
Susan Ohanian blog 2013-11-23 http://susanohanian.org/core.php?id=626

I usually post Susan's stuff on Saturday morning but call this a Thanksgiving special. Susan's point about Bill Clinton joining hands with Lou Gerstner should be amended with the 3rd party - Al Shanker, who led the UFT/AFT into the entire neo-liberal ed deform morass from the early 80s right through today. The Richard Kahlenberg Shanker bio has lots of stuff about the alliance between him and the Clinton's and the business community -- that sucked the AFT/UFT into this entire nonsense. Those chapters of the book about the 80s and early 90s are chilling.

Someone told me a story that when the Business Roundtable "A Nation at Risk" report came out in 1982, people in the UFT, including Sandy Feldman, reacted against it -- and were shocked when Shanker supported it -- but of course, Unity followed along like sheep. If the UFT were a vibrant democratic organization we could have put a stop to the madness well before the ball got rolling.

From here on it's all Susan -- even if you don't get to all the links -- we at least have them recorded for research purposes.

As noted for years, the Common Core exists to deliver the national test that business interests have pushed for ever Arkansas governor Bill Clinton joined hands with Lou Gerstner to spearhead the Business Roundtable version of ed deform. President Clinton tried to get a national test. Now Obama has two tests but opposition is skyrocketing. If the Common Core tests collapse, the curriculum will crumble.
Let's listen to 'Joe Hill' again. And remember that we are all in this together--one class against Ed Deform, working for equity in the schools.
Susan
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More states delay Common Core testing as concerns grow
Valerie Strauss
Washington Post Answer Sheet
2013-11-24 http://susanohanian.org/core.php?id=631
A national test was the goal of the Common Core and may now bring it down.
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Note to New York Times Columnists: Shut Up!
Susan Ohanian
New York Times
2013-11-24 http://susanohanian.org/core.php?id=629
Once again a New York Times columnist exhibits total ignorance of the topic, and no it isn't Thomas Friedman this time.
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Where Is the Students' Lobbyist?
Senator Jack M. Martins
letter
2013-11-21 http://susanohanian.org/core.php?id=628
New York Senator Jack Martins has a few words to say about the Common Core, with a link to a forum he called on the topic.
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Stop This Train: The Common Core and the Uncommon Student
Paul V. Hogan, with Ohanian notes
blog
2013-11-19 http://susanohanian.org/core.php?id=627
Read this and you'll know that we'd better start rolling on the Revolution today.
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Ten Top Reasons the U. S. Congress Would Be a Good Place to Field Test the Common Core Tests
Susan Ohanian
blog
2013-11-23 http://susanohanian.org/core.php?id=626
Yes, there are 10 reasons.
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PARRC Task Prototype: Turning Literature Into Pedagogical Chop Suey and Cyanide
Susan Ohanian
blog
2013-11-22 http://susanohanian.org/core.php?id=625
Sample PARCC questions. How long will educators, their unions, and their professional organizations keep their silence about this?
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Complicated, Imported Solutions Do Not Work
Jason Kass
New York Times
2013-11-19 http://susanohanian.org/core.php?id=624
You'll see why my letter about this article did not get published.
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N.Y. school principals write letter of concern about Common Core tests
Valerie Strauss and NY principals
Washington Post Answer Sheet
2013-11-21 http://susanohanian.org/core.php?id=623
I applaud this letter even as I worry that it seems to imply that what is needed is a better test.
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Education reform backed by the wealthy
James M. Odato, with Ohanian notes
Albany Times Union
2013-11-24 http://susanohanian.org/outrage_fetch.php?id=1737
New York Regents show us that you'd better look a gift horse in the mouth.
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LAUSD iPad program gets mixed review from committee
Pasadena Star-News
2013-11-21 http://susanohanian.org/outrage_fetch.php?id=1736
Lots of controversy, not much sense.
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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

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"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, November 26, 2013

Susan Ohanian Reports, November 26, 2013

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