A virtual debate is raging in Newark, New Jersey between a newspaper columnist and three blogger educators. The newspaper columnist clearly supports private-sector, for-profit corporate Charter schools, and he resorts to name calling instead of facts because there are no facts—without cherry picking—to support the privatization and destruction of democratically run public education in the United States and replacing them with corporate run schools that are opaque and are controlled by a small number of billionaire oligarchs. If the oligarchs win, democracy will lose.
Tom Moran, chief editorial writer for the Star-Ledger of New Jersey, responds here to the open letter written by three New Jersey bloggers, posted on their sites, and at blue jersey.com.
Moran was offended by the tone of the bloggers’ letter to him. The bloggers are offended by Cami Anderson’s One Newark” plan, which seeks to charterize large numbers of Newark’s public schools without consulting the Newark community.
Dana Goldstein’s book—“The Teacher Wars: A History of America’s Most Embattled Profession”—was released today. Anyone who is passionate about what’s happening to public education in the United States today should read this book.
In addition, Goldstein was interviewed on September 2 [today], on the Majority Report.
“Journalist Dana Goldstein author of the new book The Teacher Wars, explains why teachers are held responsible for the American inequality crisis, if we want teachers to make a broader impact why we need structural policy solutions, the gendered dynamics of teaching, why we can’t support teaching in the age of austerity, the policy implications of merit pay, how the Obama Administration helped create the standardized test hysteria, what tests are meant for, the historical roots of the Teach For America model, what we can do to support teachers and what really harms inner city schools.”
After the interview with Dana Goldstein, the Majority Report discussed why poverty is always the [real] issue in education—[the one ignored by President Obama, Bill Gates, and Arne Duncan and a few other fake education reformers who think bubble tests will solve poverty].
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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).
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Education policymakers in the U.S. seem to think that more tests will produce higher achievement, but there is no evidence for this assumption. As this article from the Center on International Education Benchmarking shows, the U.S. tests more frequently than any of the world’s high-performing nations.
Jackie Kraemer writes:
“Unlike the top-performing countries on the 2012 PISA, the United States stands out for the amount of external testing it requires for all students. As the chart below shows, the United States is the only country among this set to require annual testing in primary and middle schools in reading and mathematics. A more typical pattern among the top-performers is a required gateway exam, or an exam that allows a student to move on to the next phase of education, at the end of primary school, the end of lower secondary school and the end of upper secondary school. This…
The parents of Newark are boycotting Superintendent Cami Anderson’s disastrous One Newark plan. Tom Moran, the editorial director of NJ’s largest Newspaper, The Star Ledger, has backed her 100% despite our best efforts to educate him in numerous blog posts and Twitter arguments.
This man is a disgrace to journalism, and has actually done more to promulgate the myth of reform than Christie because he writes a column every day.
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.
I have written a couple of posts of late regarding the results of Education Next’s 2014 public opinion survey, especially as concerns EdNext’s and its editor-in-chief Paul Peterson’s attempts to sell the Common Core State Standards (CCSS) to a public that is only half aware of CCSS– and with the half who are aware increasingly rejecting those “common standards in English and math.”
(The New York Times will be sponsoring a CCSS debate on September 9, 2014. It has entitled its debate, “Embrace the Common Core,” and yet its own polling result shows overwhelming rejection of CCSS. As of this writing, the survey has approximately 41,500 responses– 89 percent of which are cast against CCSS. Apparently America is not too keen on the NYT-encouraged CCSS “”embrace.”)
Given the length of the EdNext survey, I have chosen to examine it– and Peterson’s cultivation of the education-privatization message– in a number…
“Over the past 15 years, a dangerous hijacking of public education has taken place. Some of the catchphrases used to justify this are “accountability,” “failing schools,” “school choice,” “fire the ‘bad teachers’,” “the teachers unions,” ad nauseum. In reality, these have all misleadingly been used to promote one ultimate agenda: privatization of public education.”
Mark J. Castellano, president of the Lee County Teachers Association, explains in this post that the Lee County school board defended a love of learning when it took a stand against the testing frenzy that has engulfed our schools.
He writes:
“Our state and our nation have become obsessed with standardized testing of students in public schools. Obsessed to the point it has changed what our public schools should be: strongholds of learning.
“Schools are places where children are meant to learn that reading, writing, math, science, music, art, and all fields of study are valued. These are the roads they can safely travel to achieve what they dream of becoming, of doing. They should be able to discover the outlet that will allow them to become more than “productive citizens,” but people with a passion, and contributors to our communities, our nation, and our world.
Peg Robertson, a mother and teacher, responds to those who tell the Lee County Board of Education to be reasonable and to rescind their historic vote to opt out of testing. Peg wants them to stand strong and defend the children. She is one of the founders of United Opt Out.
She writes:
“As this common core and high stakes testing war comes to a head I am watching lots of folks trying to mediate and ask folks to be reasonable. They want to talk about all the harm that could come to our schools should we refuse these tests or refuse test prep common core curriculum. When I hear this my hair stands on end. Number one. Don’t flipping tell me to be reasonable. Don’t insult me – as a professional – my first job is to do NO HARM. THAT IS REASONABLE.
Crazy Normal - the Classroom Exposé 