If you can read this statement by Florida's Senate President Don Gaetz and not be alarmed, then the anti-public school propagandists have done their job too well. It looks like the state will pass the new law that is far more charter school friendly, and thus public schools will be deprived of even more resources. Gaetz's statement that if a teacher chooses to work in a traditional public school, they should not expect to be treated the same as a charter school teacher.....appalling. Right ...

This was in Harper's in 2004. It is still in Information Clearing House. Considering the privatization of everything now, including education, it makes so much sense. Klein said they wanted to see how giving corporations free rein would work in a way it that it could not work in this country because all us liberals and environmentalists got in the way. Iraq was going to change all that. In one place on Earth, the theory would finally be put into practice in its most perfect and uncompr...

I am so thankful that Rachel Maddow is going have the special, Hubris, next week. Those of us here at DU in 2002 were in shock what our country was doing. I posted this article years ago. I have wondered how in the world they could have been any kind of threat to us after all those years of sanctions and daily bombings. From the Guardian UK March 2004: Wherever you go in Iraq's southern city of Basra, there is dust. It gets in your eyes and nose and throat. It swirls in school playground...

There is a video at the link as well. At the center of the controversy is the Tennessee Virtual Academy -- a for-profit, online public school that Republican lawmakers touted as a way to improve education in Tennessee. Two years ago, state lawmakers voted to let K12 Inc. open the school, using millions of taxpayer dollars. ...The email -- labeled "important -- was written in December by the Tennessee Virtual Academy's vice principal to middle school teachers. "After ... looking at so many ...

and others. Chris Hayes says we face "stark choice between the war we are now fighting" and the law. He recommends choosing the law "which we all at least pretend is the bedrock of our republic." He was speaking of the targeted killings. He believes they need to be brought out from behind the "veil of secrecy." People in the administration have told reporters that they have implemented an extremely rigorous screening process inside the White House to decide who ends up on the list, that t...

I have been unable to find the link to the original Newsday article, but I had saved the complete column. It speaks to what happens when a nation like ours invades another country of no threat based on lies. It eats away at the soul of our morality. I don't post a lot about Howard Dean anymore though I did at one time. We were quite active in his campaign, met with Jim Dean a number of times. I just felt he could have truly been a leader of the lefter progressives in the party in spite o...

Don't know who is holding the transvaginal ultrasound instrument. He looks pretty serious about it. Just goes to show you the lack of respect these men have for women's rights. (Image) Michigan Republicans have introduced a bill requiring all women to undergo a transvaginal ultrasound before obtaining an abortion, a move that rekindles last year’s firestorm when other GOP-led states were considering similar measures. The legislation introduced Tuesday in the state House ensures the “perfo...

Edushyster does herself proud with the story of the whistleblower about the DC testing scandal. And a few words from Jersey Jazzman as well. Today Michelle Rhee's book comes out, so the article is well-timed. In case you’ve somehow managed to miss it, today marks the release of Michelle Rhee’s new advertorial, Radical: Fighting to Put Students First. So to mark this special occasion I’d like to propose a toast, although not to Rhee, whose ghastly edu-celebrity may at last be waning (see boo...

because they did not perform well on the tests. There are so many truths in this piece of satire. From It begins with a shouting match between teacher and parents. The teacher says she deserved the bonus of $5000. What was the hullabaloo about? Several parents had discovered that they and their children were being sued by fourth grade teacher Sandra Wettfeld. In a legal maneuver widely acknowledged to be the first of its kind, the New Jersey educator filed suit against five of her former ...

 
From the You Tube link for Democracy Now: Published on Jan 29, 2013 DemocracyNow.org - Earlier this month, teachers at Garfield High School in Seattle, Washington, voted unanimously to stop administering a widely used standardized test, calling them wasteful and unfairly used to grade their performance. They are now facing threats of 10-day suspension without pay if they continue their boycott. We go to Seattle to speak with two guests: Jesse Hagopian, a high school history teacher and...

The same thing happened last year, but the amount given charter schools was then $55 million. Zero for public schools. The charter school operated for children of employees of The Villages, the Republican stronghold in north Lake County frequented by Scott and former President George W. Bush, is expected to receive about $1 million. School district officials across Florida are bemoaning the Legislature's decision to cut traditional public schools out of PECO — the Public Education Capital ...

Can you imagine a school management company hiring a financial officer with a recent history of bank theft? Maybe these schools do need some oversight. (Image) The Brighter Choice Charter Middle Schools in Albany Friday Jan. 25, 2013. (John Carl D'Annibale / Times Union) ALBANY — The former chief financial officer for the Brighter Choice Foundation, which provides funding and support to 10 public charter schools in Albany, has been charged with embezzling $202,837 from the organization. Th...

I do not think it is a good idea to present choice that way. Many believe the charter schools and voucher programs are working toward resegregation of schools. I have never heard anyone say it so openly. It's about 1:35 into the video. This also featured the use of the two of the most obvious talking points of the education "reformers": 1. We can no longer have the "status quo". That means no more traditional public schools. 2. No child should be discriminated against on the basis of zip...

They are standing up for the right of students to be tested on what they are taught in the classroom. The MAP test (Measure of Academic Progress) is not based on their curriculum. Teachers have no idea what is on it until test time. First Chicago, now Seattle...teachers are making their voices heard. The courageous action taken by teachers at Seattle's Garfield High School has won growing support and admiration, not only from the city's teachers, parents and students, but from teachers na...

Some charter schools admit sending students back to public schools. How they "counsel out" kids. They get public money for their students. Therefore they should be required to keep the students who are low-performing or have problems....and provide for them. Public schools do that. It's easy to claim higher test scores when you have counseled out those who might not test as well. This post is by Gary Rubinstein, a TFA blogger. Up until very recently, most charter schools simply den...

New York is going "to share confidential NYC student and teacher data" with the I don't understand how they can do this without notifying the parents. We had to let parents know about anything we did concerning their children. From Parents Across America: Parents beware NY and eight other states plan to share your child’s confidential school records The data to be shared will include the names of students, their grades, test scores, disciplinary and attendance records, and likely...

One of my objections to charter schools is that they get public taxpayer money, but they do not have to undergo close scrutiny like public schools do. Another objection is that they make claims to be private when it suits their purpose, like preventing unions from forming. They make claims to be public when they need that extra financing. All the thousands that go with the student to charter schools are no longer available for the public schools. These are just the Pennsylvania charter ...

He made $1.4 million dollars, much of which was public taxpayer money. He did not pay taxes he owed. A sticky-fingered founder of three Brooklyn charter schools pleaded guilty Friday to cheating the state out of taxes for six years, while pulling in a half-million dollar salary. Eddie Calderon-Melendez admitted to bringing in some $1.4 million in compensation, but skipping on filing tax returns between 2005 and 2010, which would have amounted to $70,000. "While earning a six-figure salary...

This is a parent who got fed up with the way reformers are taking over New Jersey public education. She speaks of the "sheer hubris and arrogance" of the reformers. I was dragged into this ed reform cesspool almost 2 years ago now, when a group of people with little to no connection to the schools of my community attempted to open a charter school. Despite the lack of community support, they were able to get the backing of a demi-billionaire, the NJDOE and the USDOE. We had to fight lik...

This is a pathetic editorial. The editorial board seems unaware of all the controversies surrounding Rhee and her fellow education "reformers". Many who write about this rush to "reform" are now calling it privatization...reform is too mild a word. This kind of puff piece is why Michelle Rhee has had such an impact when she should not even be on the radar at all. They do not even seem to know that the two states receiving the highest grade of B- were Florida and Louisiana, whose test sc...

 
That's seems to be what's happening in Texas right now. That's what Eleanor Fairchild was doing in October when she was arrested on her own property for protesting TransCanada’s construction of its Gulf Coast tar-sands pipeline. But she had been fighting this intrusion on her property for a while. This video was uploaded March 2011. Here is more from October this year when she and Darryl Hannah were arrested. (Image) Who’s Eleanor Fairchild? No one you’ve heard of. The important part is...

The education reform efforts of Michelle Rhee are finally getting attention in some media, and it is not always the glowing praise she is used to receiving. And Frontline tonight. Hope they are fair and honest. The author speaks of the problem with the education "reform" movement...."it is shot through root and branch with patent-medicine remedies pitched by for-profit grifters and hustlers." They have their own genre of richly financed propaganda, like 2010's Waiting for Superman and thi...

Teachers scoring a 2.77 out of 5.0 on the new evaluation schemes proliferating across the U.S. would face some extra "professional development" to grind out some higher scores next year. If you are MA superintendent getting that score, however, and if you have been one of Eli Broad's "chosen" rock stars for the past decade, then you could find yourself selected by the governor to become the chief ed official in your state. Such is the fate of Matt Malone (Broad Class of 2003), who recently ...

A few quotes from the article. The lack of access to Al Jazeera English on cable TV makes me wonder what kind of sheep we are as media consumers -- and what kind of mice we have as media critics that cable companies can get away with not offering this option even as they they offer a sea of channels devoted to shopping and reruns of lame network shows from previous decades. Philip Seib, author of "The Al Jazeera Effect: How the New Global Media Are Reshaping World Politics," had a one-word ...

I just read this thoughtful article from The Hollywood Reporter. The picture of Keith Olbermann caught my eye. (Image) In 2005, Al Gore and his business partner Joel Hyatt announced in San Francisco that their new cable channel, Current, was going to be revolutionary. Gore made lots of pronouncements about youth and modern media, and it seemed, if you cut through all the spin, that Current was going to be a cable channel dedicated to something different: It was going to be about social ch...

I think this is wrong. I think public schools are losing great amounts of money as not only federal money but local taxpayer money as well are going to charter schools. This 29 plus million is going to these schools that appear to be connected to the Turkish Gulen movement. Here is a brief summary from Education Week. The first federal Race to the Top competition that reaches down to the local level leaves most large, urban districts out of the winners’ circle in favor of charter schools...

I am assuming they will still get public taxpayer money. Yet they will not be subject to any regulation by elected school boards or local districts. Jersey Jazzman caught the implications of the ruling right away. Reformers like Michelle Rhee et al have repeated over and over that charter schools are public schools. Now it has been ruled that these charters in Chicago are not. There will be many educators waiting on all the implications of this ruling. I don't see how they can claim to be ...

There is no doubt that it is on the table being negotiated as part of fiscal cliff talks. Jay Carney was quite clear about that, and here are his words from the White House trancript. Q Yes, Jay, a lot of top Democrats on the Hill, and I think President Obama, spent the campaign season saying, let’s not touch Social Security -- it doesn’t add to the deficit; we can resolve this issue without going to that entitlement program. What is the President’s message to those lawmakers who promised co...

From NPR: Every year Congress has stopped a huge cut at the last minute. I don't feel confident about this year. Included in the fiscal cliff is a 30 percent pay cut to doctors who treat Medicare patients. It's set to kick in on Jan. 1. Lawmakers from both parties say they want to prevent the cut. But the cut is part of a plan Congress put in place 15 years ago to contain healthcare costs, then proceeded to postpone again and again. ..."So instead, Congress passed a bill to ignore the fo...

A nonprofit company that holds two dozen state contracts to care for troubled juveniles in Florida pays its chief executive more than $1.2 million a year in salary and benefits, most of it courtesy of taxpayers. Outraged, the state Department of Juvenile Justice says the money paid to William Schossler is excessive and should be spent to help kids. ...“This is a hell of a way to do business, throwing me under the bus,” Schossler said of Walters’ criticism. The foundation opposes the elimin...