From the Orlando Sentinel's Central Florida blogwatch. This really boggles the mind. Somehow I missed this in January. I've been leafing through the state's application for federal Race to the Top funds and have come to a quick conclusion: This might be a good time to add the word "consultant" to your business card ..."Florida has asked for $1.1 billion of the $4.35 billion available nationwide in Race to the Top grants. What immediately became clear when I scrolled through the state's ...

The Indypendent has a summary of those involved in "reform" of the schools. It is like the free market system which , and which he is finally seeing come to pass. We should apply the free enterprise system to our education system by introducing competition among schools, administrators, and teachers. Our educators should be paid based on their performance and held accountable based on clear standards with real consequences. These ideas are designed to stimulate thinking beyond the timid “let’...

with our party leaders. I should have known better than to expect any Democratic leader to say of course women should make their own health care decisions. Howard Dean used to say things like that, but tonight he did not. Tonight hearing saying that recruiting those to run who are against abortion is okay as long as they are with us on other issues....was a huge disappointment. I do not agree with his stance at all. When he was DNC chairman he stayed out of primaries, but the committee ...

From the Ft. Wayne Journal Gazette, which has done a great job of covering the new education "reform" efforts...we find that Imagine MASTer Academy has been placed on probation. The Imagine MASTer Academy board must take a number of corrective action steps this year, otherwise the school’s charter will be revoked, said John Jacobson, dean of Ball State’s Teachers College, which oversees the university’s charter school office. If the school meets the goals set forth by Ball State, it will be ...

Glad a newspaper is noticing that the Los Angeles area is in the forefront in the movement to give over the schools there to outside bidders, to have them no longer run by the school district. The editorial makes a very important point as well about technical high schools once privatized required all to take college bound courses. Change is not necessarily reform. Genuine reform produces lasting, beneficial improvements and isn't concocted by editors or frustrated school boards willing t...

One time education reformer and now outspoken opponent, Diane Ravitch, finds it odd that those in charge of schools are not ashamed that they failed to fix them instead of closing them. I agree. Last week, the New York City Department of Education pushed through a decision to close 19 high schools. With the encouragement of the "Race to the Top," we will surely see similar closings across the nation, hundreds or perhaps thousands of them. Entrepreneurs cheer when public schools close, as ne...

 
From the Schools Matter blog..some comments and a video from the NYT website. In 2008, 2.3 million AP exams were given in the U. S., which put $190,900,000 into the coffers of the College Board. And as family budgets shrink, along with the amount that colleges have to offer the needed number of classes for undergraduates, the AP exam seems poised to, indeed, replace many college freshman courses that offer real learning to students. Trading real coursework for cram courses that prepare stude...

Good point. Florida was meant to lead the way for the rest of the country with Jeb as their leader....notice he is getting more attention again. Also TX under George was showing the country the direction to go. Meeks is a good man, but I almost forget he is running. He is not visible enough. And when he has a chance to take a stand for women's rights....he gets called out by the GOP for pandering to the right. "Meek, who is running for Senate against Charlie Crist, sent a letter to Nan...

Good comment.

The Orlando Sentinel has a good grasp on the problems this group poses to candidates. Crist feels the pain for sure, and even Marco Rubio is having to take some distancing steps. Getting your arms around Florida's Tea Party movement is like trying to hug a jellyfish: There's no good place to grab on, and if there were, you'd probably get stung. Heh heh. More from the article: Ask U.S. Rep. Adam Putnam, a conservative Republican from Bartow who sees potential in the movement's amorphous ...

Very true. And it is amazing how well it all worked for them. We needed to start fighting back decades ago. Not playing so nice.

(Link) "Campus Reform: What did you take away from your student publication experience that really made the difference in your career? O'Keefe: It's the year 2010 now. We've really got to start using multimedia. Videos and audio and YouTube. I mean, I started out doing a publication, but, I started taking videos of my professors, and that's what got me into being a videographer and a filmmaker. So, I would suggest just take photos, take video, take audio of your professors' classes. You know...

And they do a very good job of it. Here are some of the accomplishments of that group formed by Morton Blackwell. Their goal is "controlled controversy", guaranteed to anger. First about O'Keefe. (Image) James O’Keefe, middle, and two of his alleged co-conspirators – Stan Dai and Joe Basel. | AP Photos Photo: AP photo composite by POLITICO Founded in 1979 by veteran Republican activist Morton Blackwell, the Leadership Institute has worked with Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, Kar...

That disturbs me. Private companies are benefiting from taxpayer money, in many cases getting housing in public buildings and shoving public school students aside. When the public is paying there should be openness and accountability.

One company, Imagine Charters, calls itself a non-profit. Yet for 5 years it has not been able to prove it. They use the words "public charter" to get approval from a confused public. Even the "public" charters are usually controlled and run by Charter Management Corporations.

That first is a puff piece, the kind we see to glorify what teachers in public schools are not allowed to do and probably wouldn't. It is like many we see in the media praising humiliating tactics to accomplish good test scores.

There is no way in the world any of these things could have been acceptable in the classroom in public schools where I taught. They might have been done, but there would be severe consequences for the teacher. These are actions from a charter school. From March of last year. In April, May, and June 2008, parents of children attending KIPP Academy Fresno Charter School filed multiple complaints with the Fresno Unified School District about practices at the school. Even though the District...

They simply will argue that it is ok rather than admit that our party is following through on the education policy of the Bush family. (Link)

From the NYC Educator, a great comment: "As a former high school teacher, some of my students had after-school jobs. If a teenager didn't show up to his afterschool job on time, didn't wear the work uniform, and didn't act appropriately at work, the blame would fall on the teenager if he got fired. No one would blame his boss. On the other hand, if the same kid didn't show up to class on time, didn't pay attention in class, and didn't do homework, somehow the TEACHER is considered to be respons...

And that's a shame.

Talk about a way to set up tensions between administrators and unions and the ill-informed public. Parents don't understand what is happening, teachers are just beginning to catch on....and Arne Duncan is setting up unions as scapegoats to take the blame if the district doesn't get part of his money. I can't believe this is happening in a country that has been known for its public education. Using unions as scapegoats. From Labor Notes: (Image) Education Secretary Arne Duncan stands r...

I guess it was intolerable for a columnist to be that critical of Rhee, so it had to be changed. "That's what editorial boards do. They form opinions and write about them. People can buy in. Or not. Where this gets complicated is that board's stance, and the chancellor's obvious rapport with Jo-Ann, also means that DCPS has a guaranteed soft landing spot for uncomfortable or inconvenient disclosures--kind of a print version of the Larry King Show. This happened last September during the flap ...

She even goes out of her way to stain the reputation of a few others. But she does not apologize for harming the reputation of 266 teachers with her careless remarks. From educator Susan Ohanian's site: D.C. Schools Chancellor Michelle A. Rhee said Tuesday that she should have moved faster to quell controversy over comments about laid-off teachers she made to a magazine, and she said only one of the 266 employees the school system dismissed last fall had been accused of sexual misconduc...

Plus in schools it appears they might get to set the agenda for teaching eventually, though local districts now hope to hold on to some modicum of control over charters. They might have control over some for a while, but some are already directed from a distance by CEOs of the charter schools management companies.

(Link) The reporter received an award for this report: California Newspaper Publishers Association has awarded Byrne for Investigative / Enterprise Reporting. As chairperson and ranking member of the Military Construction Appropriations subcommittee (MILCON) from 2001 through the end of 2005, Feinstein supervised the appropriation of billions of dollars a year for specific military construction projects. Two defense contractors whose interests were largely controlled by her husband, financier ...

to people at all. Interesting comments from the blogger: "Quite cooperatively, federal, state and local governments are getting out of the business of providing any people services at all. They are abdicating their responsibility to the public. Politicians, rich with corporate money, regularly trumpet the line that private corporations can do a better job of handling the business of the public than the public itself can. How does this make any sense at all? The seizure of public power is no...

The author is a guest blogger at the education blog called The Perimeter Primate. He begins by talking about the way the Oakland, CA schools were taken over and used as a "virtual laboratory for the corporate concept of schools". He points out what many of us are seeing in the new Democratic policy toward education. It is indeed a scary thought to me. Oakland teachers have had to face the hard lessons of Privatization earlier than most. The state took over the public schools in 2003 and th...

I don't know the story about him. But that is something there should be no allegations about. In fact most districts way over-react and fire the teacher without much proof...or at lease not let them back in the classroom. Not familiar with his story.

"misbehaving" teachers??? Really? Having sex with students and hitting them is not "misbehaving"....it is supposed to be reported to the police at once. You are dead wrong. If a tenured teacher does those things she/he will go to jail. Period, bottom line. You are really off base here trying to defend her actions in any way.

(Link) The mayor stammers for fear of offending Michelle Rhee. Does she rule the whole DC area?