Beverley Holden Johns, a nationally recognized expert in the field of disabilities, strongly disagrees with Arne Duncan. Duncan wants children with disabilities to be able to perform on the highest level of NAEP tests. She points out that NAEP was not designed for this purpose. Duncan unilaterally changed the requirements of the IDEA act, without Congressional authorization. Having changed NCLB without Congressional authorization, he must think that ignoring the law is routine. In Néw York, we learned how students with disabilities do when they took the Common Core test: 95% failed.
Beverley Holden Johns writes:
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NCLB required all students to be proficient on State tests by 2014.
Failure of the public schools to reach that goal has been widely
viewed as the failure of public education, requiring movement
to Charter Schools and even increasing the talk of Vouchers in the name of Choice.
As you may know, many states permit the formation of charter schools, which are publicly funded but are not managed by the local school board and are exempt from many state regulations.
In addition, Charter schools are prone to scandal, as evidenced by a recent nationwide, FBI investigation.
Do you support or oppose the formation of charter schools?
Mercedes Schneider decided to analyze how the conservative journal “Ednext” gauges public opinion about one of its favorite reforms, charter schools.
She reviews the wording of the questions asked over several years.
She notes that Ednext never mentions charter school scandals, which are a hot topic in states like Michigan, Ohio, and Forida.
“There’s a lot of unregulated money to be made in “school choice”– so much so that the FBI is conducting investigations nationwide on criminal behavior rampant in America’s charter schools.
“That the gross negligence of states to regulate “choice” has yielded fertile ground for criminal activity appears to have escaped any survey question posed by EdNext.
“The hidden component of “choice” is the systematic dissolution of the traditional, local-school-board-run public school system. Indeed, EdNext is a corporate-reform-promoting nest that is especially fond of defunding traditional public education via under-regulated charter schools.”
Discover the truth about Michelle Rhee’s fraud and lies through the facts that do not lie when every fact is revealed—something the corporate owned and controlled media is ignoring.
Rhee promised one thing and did not deliver on the VAST majority of those promises. Along the way, while Rhee was a wrecking ball in Washing DC’s public schools with blessings and lots of cash from the manufactured, for-profit, corporate, fake education reform movement, and support from two U.S. Presidents [G.W. Bush and Obama], she hurt and damaged many teachers and children besides wrecking some of those lives.
You may recall that Michelle Rhee promised that she would produce miracles in Washington DC’s public schools if she got the money from various foundations and the freedom to fire teachers as she pleased.
She and her hand-picked acolyte and successor, Kaya Henderson, certainly received all the money they asked for, and they stripped DCPS teachers of almost all protections from random firing.
But did those achievement gains actually work?
I’ll let you decide, by first letting you see the spreadsheet where Rhee et al. promised, in writing, what they would accomplish. Here is thelink to the original, so you can see I’m not making this up. It’s on page 22.
That’s a lot of promises!!
Notice the very last goal: for DCPS to be in the top half of all urban districts whose scores are included in something called the NAEP TUDA by 2012-13. (National Assessment of…
When Benjamin Franklin was asked at the close of the Constitutional Convention of 1787, “Well, Doctor, what have we got—a Republic or a Monarchy?” Benjamin replied, “A Republic, if you can keep it.”
To save that Republic that the Founding Fathers gave to the citizens of the United States, there is something that can be done, and it only costs a little time—as little as a half hour a day or less.
First, visit Diane Ravitch’s Blog daily and “Like” as many of her daily posts as possible. Then ReTweet them before sharing on Facebook, Google+, LinkedIn and any other site where you might have your own page.
In addition, Diane’s Blog is a WordPress Blog, so do as I do, and Reblog some of her posts to your WordPress blog if you have one, but not all of her posts. You have to make a choice. If you Reblog all of her posts, you will probably overwhelm your blog’s readers. Pick out the best each day.
Second, if time permits after visiting Diane’s Blog, help spread the word and educate as many Americans as possible about what is going on to subvert the U.S. democracy by a handful of billionaire oligarchs that includes—for instance—Bill Gates, the Koch brother, Eli broad, the Walton Family, etc.—I suggest you familiarize yourself with the Education Bloggers Network, and support a few or all of those Blogs too. You may sign up for these Blogs to send you an e-mail when they publish something new.
To become more knowledgeable on this issue so you may hold your own in a debate and possibly enlighten the fools who are proving Abraham Lincoln right—who said, “You can fool all the people some of the time, and some of the people all the time, but you cannot fool all the people all the time.”—I highly suggest that you read these four nonfiction books that have come out recently on this issue.
We are in a propaganda war. The billionaires have money. We have numbers. There are 3.3+ million, public school teachers in the United States, and these teachers can win this war along with their parent and student allies, but only if they continue to mobilize and organize to spread the information that will counter the lies and propaganda of the manufactured, corporate-driven, fake-education reform movement.
Here are the four books I recommend. Read them to become an info-warrior in the democratic army that is spreading the truth through facts that are not cherry picked.
“Ms. Goldstein’s book is meticulously fair and disarmingly balanced, serving up historical commentary instead of a searing philippic … The book skips nimbly from history to on-the-ground reporting to policy prescription, never falling on its face. If I were still teaching, I’d leave my tattered copy by the sputtering Xerox machine. I’d also recommend it to the average citizen who wants to know why Robert can’t read, and Allison can’t add.” —New York Times
Diane Silvers Ravitch is a historian of education, an educational policy analyst, and a research professor at New York University’s Steinhardt School of Culture, Education and Human Development. Previously, she was a U.S. Assistant Secretary of Education under President G. W. Bush. She was appointed to public office by Presidents H. W. Bush and Bill Clinton.
A Chronicle of Echoes: Who’s Who in the Implosion of American Public Education
By Mercedes K. Schneider http://deutsch29.wordpress.com/
Schneider says, “Corporate reform” is not reform at all. Instead, it is the systematic destruction of the foundational American institution of public education. The primary motivation behind this destruction is greed. Public education in America is worth almost a trillion dollars a year. Whereas American public education is a democratic institution, its destruction is being choreographed by a few wealthy, well-positioned individuals and organizations. This book investigates and exposes the handful of people and institutions that are often working together to become the driving force behind destroying the community public school.
David C. Berliner is an educational psychologist and bestselling author. He was professor and Dean of the Mary Lou Fulton Institute and Graduate School of Education. Gene V Glass is a senior researcher at the National Education Policy Center and a research professor in the School of Education at the University of Colorado Boulder.
NOTE: All it will take is an army of informed and dedicated American citizens doing a little bit every day to defeat the oligarchs and their corporations from stealing the people’s democracy that the U.S. Founding Fathers gave us.
It’s up to us to keep our republic/democracy. If we are unwilling to sacrifice the time to educate ourselves and do it, then we deserve to lose this war to these oligarchs who will become members of a U.S. Monarchy that their children will inherit just like Kim Jong-un inherited North Korea from his father and grandfather.
_______________________
Lloyd Lofthouse is a former U.S. Marine and Vietnam Veteran,
who taught in the public schools for thirty years (1975 – 2005).
His third book is Crazy is Normal, a classroom exposé, a memoir. “Lofthouse presents us with grungy classrooms, kids who don’t want to be in school, and the consequences of growing up in a hardscrabble world. While some parents support his efforts, many sabotage them—and isolated administrators make the work of Lofthouse and his peers even more difficult.” – Bruce Reeves
Lofthouse’s first novel was the award winning historical fiction My Splendid Concubine [3rd edition]. His second novel was the award winning thriller Running with the Enemy. His short story A Night at the “Well of Purity” was named a finalist of the 2007 Chicago Literary Awards. His wife is Anchee Min, the international, best-selling, award winning author of Red Azalea, a New York Times Notable Book of the Year (1992).
To follow this Blog via E-mail see upper right-hand column and click on “Sign me up!”
Are you curious how Bill Gates manages the media to promote his agenda to destroy the democratic public schools. If you are, you will want to read this.
What did surprise me is the discovery that he meets with the media he funds (and others) regularly behind closed doors.
Yep.
Gates Briefs a Media He Pays For (And Then Some)
In February 2013, journalist Tom Paulson wrote a piece on Gates’ private meetings with the media he funds. Paulson was not invited.
Notice some of the names:
I (Paulson) wasn’t actually allowed behind the scenes at the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation’s recent meeting in Seattle entitled “Strategic Media Partnerships.”
The Gates Foundation funds a lot of media – more than $25 million in media grants for 2012 (but still less than 1% of the budget).
I’m media but I wasn’t invited. I asked if I could come and report on it, but was told the meeting was off the record. Those attending…
My wife and I watched an award winning documentary Thursday night (September 4, 2014). It was called “Hot Coffee: Is Justice Being Served?” The DVD for the documentary was released November 1, 2011, and Amazon sells the DVD for more than $24.00, but you may be able to watch it free on YouTube or from HBO for a lot less.
This is what I learned: if you don’t want Bill Gates, the Walton family or the Koch brothers—for instance—ruling America instead of the elected representative of the people, I urge you not to make the mistake that capitalism is the same as democracy. It isn’t.
Marriam-Webster.com defines capitalism as “an economic system characterized by private or corporate ownership of capital goods, by investments that are determined by private decision and by prices, production, and the distribution of goods that are determined mainly by competition in a free market”
By contrast, democracy is defined as “a form of government in which people choose leaders by voting and an organization or situation in which everyone is treated equally and has equal rights”
Under capitalism, everyone isn’t treated equally, and I’ve never heard of a corporate CEO elected by the people who work for the corporation the CEO rules over.
A member of the U.S. Congress is an elected—by the people—representative. The president is elected by the 538 electors of the Electoral College. Most states have a “winner-take-all” system—based on the popular vote of the people—that awards all electors to the winning presidential candidate. However, Maine and Nebraska each have a variation of “proportional representation.”
In fact, there have been four Presidential elections where the winner lost the popular vote of the people but won through the Electoral College: John Quincy Adams in 1824, Rutherford B. Hayes in 1876, Benjamin Harrison in 1888, and George W. Bush in 2000—yes, Al Gore had 540,000 more votes from the people than Bush, but G. W. won the electoral vote, 271 to 266. FactCheck.org
I’m going to copy the product description on Amazon here: “Everyone knows the case of the woman who sued McDonald s over spilled coffee. Or do they? More than 15 years after making international news, the case continues to be cited as an example of citizens who use frivolous lawsuits to take unfair advantage of the American legal system. But is that an accurate portrayal of the facts?
“An eye-opening documentary with jaw-dropping revelations, HOT COFFEE exposes how corporations spend millions on propaganda campaigns to distort Americans’ view of lawsuits forever changing the civil justice system. By examining the impact of tort reform on the lives of ordinary citizens, the film shows how Americans give up their Constitutional rights in all sorts of ways without knowing it for example, by voting for caps on damages or signing away your rights in contracts. Through interviews with politicians, judges, lawyers and ordinary citizens, first-time filmmaker and former public-interest lawyer Susan Saladoff delves into the facts of four cases to tear apart the conventional wisdom about jackpot justice.”
Watching this film, I discovered that the propaganda campaigns that were used to manipulate the justice system in the United States are also being used to distort Americans’ view of democratic public education.
Americans are literally being fooled—out of ignorance and laziness—to surrender their Constitutional Rights, vote out democracy, and replace democracy with a profit-driven, corporate oligarchy that doesn’t answer to the Constitution or the U.S. justice system. Watch the next video at your own peril.
_______________________
Lloyd Lofthouse is a former U.S. Marine and Vietnam Veteran,
who taught in the public schools for thirty years (1975 – 2005).
His third book is Crazy is Normal, a classroom exposé, a memoir. “Lofthouse presents us with grungy classrooms, kids who don’t want to be in school, and the consequences of growing up in a hardscrabble world. While some parents support his efforts, many sabotage them—and isolated administrators make the work of Lofthouse and his peers even more difficult.” – Bruce Reeves
Lofthouse’s first novel was the award winning historical fiction My Splendid Concubine [3rd edition]. His second novel was the award winning thriller Running with the Enemy. His short story A Night at the “Well of Purity” was named a finalist of the 2007 Chicago Literary Awards. His wife is Anchee Min, the international, best-selling, award winning author of Red Azalea, a New York Times Notable Book of the Year (1992).
To follow this Blog via E-mail see upper right-hand column and click on “Sign me up!”
The Ohio blogger Plunderbund here lays out the astonishing record of William Lager and the Electronic Classroom of Tomorrow.(ECOT). This online charter school is the largest charter in the state. It receives almost $100 million a year from the state.
“On the latest report cards released by the Ohio Department of Education, ECOT continues to rank below all of the 8 large urban schools that are often-criticized by legislators and in the media for their “sub-par” performance.
“That hasn’t stopped ECOT’s founder, William Lager, from continuing to get paid. And getting paid he is.”
“Lager is also the owner of two privately-held companies that provide both the management services (Altair Learning Management) and curriculum (IQ Innovations) to the online school.” Those two companies will collect another $22 million for their services.
Plunderbund shows that Lager is a major campaign contributor. He has donated $2 million to political campaigns since he…
“Teachout is hoping to capitalize on the left’s disappointment in Cuomo’s right-leaning positions and leadership, which had promised an end to corruption in Albany but has instead highlighted just how entrenched that corruption is. She’s been hammering Cuomo on these and many other topics while swinging through communities across the state on a recent “Whistleblower Tour,” attempting to chip away at the giant lead his monumental advertising budget, incumbency, and name recognition provides.”
More evidence that the corporate supported, for-profit, fake-education reform movement is failing and doesn’t work. Instead, it will destroy public schools that do work. It’s obvious that for-profit, private-sector Charter schools suck money out of the classroom and they cut every corner possible to turn a profit for their investors while paying higher salaries to the Charter school managers and lower salaries, on average, for teachers who end up moving on causing a revolving door and less stability.
Troy A. LaRaviere is principal at Blaine Elementary School. In this article in the Chicago Sun-Times, he explains how the city’s public schools got higher test scores than the city’s well-funded, politically favored charter schools. To my knowledge, the Chicago Tribune–a cheerleader for charters– has not reported this story, nor has Mayor Rahm Emanuel acknowledged it. Please let me know if I am wrong.
LaRiviere writes:
“In terms of assessing the effectiveness of charter schools, I believe the most accurate comparison is to public magnet schools since both charters and magnets have lottery admissions processes that increase the likelihood of enrolling students with involved parents. In essence, charters are privately run magnet schools and therefore should be measured against publicly run magnet schools. I believe that turnaround schools should be compared to neighborhood schools since they both must accept students within their attendance boundaries. Using the Sun-Times results, the…
The chart that compares testing in the public schools of top rated, developed countries is worth seeing. And evidence is pouring in that shows testing and then ranking teachers and firing them achieves and improves nothing.
“The ideas outlined by Marc Tucker in Fixing Our National Accountability System signify a departure from conventional thinking on the issue of accountability. Rather than focus on punishing teachers for the results of a system that others designed, the core components of this report rest on three fundamental principles:
1) Testing: Instead of testing all of our students every year with low-quality tests, students would take high-quality accountability tests, covering a full core curriculum, only three times in their school career. In some off years, tests in math and ELA would be administered only to samples of students by computer…
Crazy Normal - the Classroom Exposé 
