Saturday Special: Savaging Common Core - New Content at SusanOhanian.Org!

Here is Susan with some weekend reading for your idle hands. Much better than watching the olympics or snow fall. She comments on an article in the Wall St. Journal by NYC High School teacher James Samuelson, who writes about the pleasure of teaching to the test. Has he tried it with 4 year-olds? Susan takes him to task.

Some appetizers from Susan O:

Feds Put Pre-K into Race to the Top

Tote that bookbag!
Learn those skills!
Learn to be compliant
And swallow Global Economy pills!

NCLB Cartoons

Training 4-year-olds For the Global Economy

On February 4, 2014, U.S. Secretary of Education Arne Duncan announced on a call with U.S. Secretary of Health and Human Services Kathleen Sebelius that . . . this year's Race to the Top funding will support President Obama's call to provide high-quality preschool for all 4-year-olds from low- and moderate-income families . . .--Press Release

The Eggplant is back. Actually there are 1 1/2 Eggplants in this mailing. Here's one.

Teachers Who Administer Common Core Tests to Receive Valentino Bags
http://susanohanian.org/show_nclb_news.php?id=907

The unintentional Eggplant is a Wall Street Journal opinion piece: The Pleasures of Teaching to the Test.


And some cartoons:
This one is special to me right now. I just read the 451-page Vermont RTTT Early Childhood Grant to which the Feds awarded $37 million, and I feel sick. Sick and very very angry. So I made this cartoon. And I'm working on an expose of what these people are up to but I've only read 64 pages of the grant's 693-page Appendix. My theory is they figured nobody would read the  Appendix. Anyway, here's a cartoon that is my reaction to Vermont's intentions:

Feds Put Pre-K into Race to the Top
http://susanohanian.org/cartoon_fetch.php?id=883

And more:

Pre-K Skills for the Global Economy
http://susanohanian.org/cartoon_fetch.php?id=882


Training 4-year-olds for the Global Economy
http://susanohanian.org/show_nclb_cartoons.php?id=1005

Rotten at the Core
http://susanohanian.org/cartoon_fetch.php?id=881

But the 1% will still get wrinkles
http://susanohanian.org/show_nclb_cartoons.php?id=1003

Rotten to the Core
http://susanohanian.org/cartoon_fetch.php?id=884

Teaching as a Career
http://susanohanian.org/cartoon_fetch.php?id=880

Susan

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The Pleasures Of 'Teaching To the Test'
Susan Ohanian

2014-02-13
http://susanohanian.org/core.php?id=668

Did the New York State Language Arts test really pose a question about the tone of Andrew Carnegie's writing? This teacher uses it as an example of how great the test is.

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 Colorado and PARCC. What will be left? Just the Students and the Chromebooks
Peggy
Peg with Pen blog
2014-02-07
http://susanohanian.org/core.php?id=667

I understand that the lack of pedagogical principle in the Common Core is beyond the grasp of most corporate politicos, but can't they grasp the destructive finances required by the technology?

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How Common Core Devalues Great Literature
Anthony Esolen
Crisis Magazine
2014-02-06
http://susanohanian.org/core.php?id=666

There is a necessary  alternative to Common Core, with its relentless, contemptible, soul-cramping, story-killing, pseudo-sophisticated, utilitarian focus.

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A Voice of New Mexico
Carol Singletary
press conference
2014-02-04
http://susanohanian.org/core.php?id=665

A New Mexico teacher speaks up--and does not hide her name.

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Remarks of U.S. Secretary of Education Arne Duncan: Seize the Day
Arne Duncan
speech at ASCD
2014-01-27
http://susanohanian.org/core.php?id=664

If  the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation sent me $100,000 for 'every English teacher who lamented the lack of close reading by students' before the arrival of the Common Core (as Arne claims), I'd still need to find $3.50 to buy a latte.

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Come read with me and be my Drone
Susan Ohanian

2014-02-06
http://susanohanian.org/show_commentary.php?id=1152


With apologies to Christopher Marlowe.

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To the editor
Stephen Krashen
Washington Post
2014-02-07
http://susanohanian.org/show_letter.php?id=1640

Stephen Krashen does it in two sentences.

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To the editor
Stephen Krashen, Professor Emeritus USC
Seattle Times
2014-02-05
http://susanohanian.org/show_letter.php?id=1638

Another Krashen letter published!

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To the editor
Stephen Krashen
New York Times
2014-02-03
http://susanohanian.org/show_letter.php?id=1638

As this letter points out, the distance between policy and profit is gone.

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 Educational Management Corporation: for-profit disaster school may soon give up the ghost
Danny Weil
Daily Censored
2014-02-07
http://susanohanian.org/outrage_fetch.php?id=1770

Education Management Corporation is one of the largest providers of post-secondary education in North America and they're being sued by the Feds. Take a look at who's connected with this for-profit education retail chain.

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Designed to Distract: Parsing the Unintelligible Corporatese
Colin McEnroe
Hartford Courant
2014-02-07
http://susanohanian.org/outrage_fetch.php?id=1769

If you can read this deconstruction of educationese without laughing out loud, I'll be surprised.

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Teachers Who Administer Common Core Tests to Receive Valentino Bags
Susan Ohanian
blog
2014-02-08
http://susanohanian.org/show_nclb_news.php?id=907

The Council of Chief State School Officers and the National Governors Association are pleased to announce that with the support of the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, Pearson,  inBloom, and the American Federation of Teachers, all teachers administering the PARCC and Smarter Balanced assessments as part of the Common Core Standards Initiative will receive a Valentino Crocodile Studded Tote from  the Spring/Summer 2014 collection.
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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