There is no room for compromise in the Milton Friedman economic corporate war being waged against the U.S. public schools. The fake education reformers supported by billionaires and corporations must be defeated.
This article in Jacobin magazine describes the astonishing victory of the Massachusetts Teachers Association in a recent confrontation with the state board of education and the state commissioner. The state commissioner floated a proposal to remove teachers’ licenses if they failed their evaluation, a draconian step that would bar the teacher from teaching in the state in the future. The MTA, under the leadership of recently elected president Barbara Madeloni, informed its members, mobilized the membership, and refused to negotiate this draconian and punitive plan. The MTA did not want a seat at the table; they knew the members were on the menu.
It was not always this way. Not long ago, the union negotiated with the anti-union “reform” group called Stand for Children and bargained away some of their rights to avoid something worse. They dared not be militant.
This time, the teachers of Massachusetts under bold leadership were…
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Crazy Normal - the Classroom Exposé 
jprealini
December 4, 2014 at 07:34
FAQ from the FALL UPDATE from our friendly Common Core State-led Consortium:
What will happen when Smarter Balanced assessments are implemented in the 2014-15 school year?
Smarter Balanced is a consortium of states initially financed through Race to the Top funding and housed under the State of Washington’s Office of Superintendent of Public Instruction (OSPI). In fall 2014, Smarter Balanced transitioned to University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA), becoming an independent operating unit of the Graduate School of Education and Information Studies. UCLA will provide access to faculty expertise and research support and offer a full array of administrative services that the Consortium requires after the conclusion of the federal grant in 2014.
Smarter Balanced will continue to be a state-led organization committed to providing high-quality assessment tools and information to educators and policymakers in member states. The Consortium will not seek any additional U.S. Department of Education funding for development work. Rather, ongoing development and continuous improvement will be funded and governed by the member states and territories.
http://smarterbalanced.createsend1.com/t/ViewEmail/r/73C33E22C3A6DD572540EF23F30FEDED
So the “state-led” consortium will be run from UCLA?
and who is paying UCLA for this opportunity?
Lloyd Lofthouse
December 4, 2014 at 08:34
I wonder who they pay to come up with the names of these programs that are designed to mislead and fool people.
It seems all they have to do is put a fancy name that promises improvement, and it’s a done deal—similar to the man who is attracted to the Victoria Secret Model—or Playboy Bunny—a woman who is a drug addict that cheats often on the fool with other men while she is bleeding his bank account dry, but the fool can’t forget that with her skin deep beauty comes the title of a Victoria Secret Model.
Beauty is only skin deep in both men and women, and these reform packages with the fancy names that promise roads made of gold leading to the American dream of wealth and power are only paper thin.
jprealini
December 4, 2014 at 08:53
All media exist to invest our lives with artificial perceptions and arbitrary values.
Marshall McLuhan
Societies have always been shaped more by the nature of the media by which men communicate than by the content of the communication.
Marshall McLuhan
Lloyd Lofthouse
December 4, 2014 at 09:15
The neo-conservative and I think the neo-liberals think they have the right to lie to fool people so they will achieve their goals. They think they are smarter than everyone else and non one else should be included in the decision making process.