Category Archives: Uncategorized

The Network for Public Education supports candidates who are dedicated to public education. We respond to requests for our support by sending questionnaires to all candidates in the race. We review their responses and endorse those who pledge to improve our public schools, not close or privatize them, and to those who are critical of the status quo of high-stakes testing.

Here are the candidates we endorsed in 2014:

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Tom Torlakson, State Superintendent of Public Instruction, California

Robert Garcia, Etiwanda School District, California

Michael Charney, Ohio State Board of Education, District 7

Dr. Randall Friese, Arizona House of Representatives, District 9

Sherry Gary Dagnogo, Michigan State Representative District 8

Anne Duff, Fort Wayne Community Schools Board, IN

Victoria Steele, Arizona House of Representatives, District 9

David Spring, Washington State House of Representatives, District 5

These are the only candidates NPE has endorsed.

In an earlier email, In an effort…

Paul Karrer, a veteran teacher in Castroville, explains why Californians should not vote for Marshall Tuck, who is a candidate for state superintendent. He represents the tiny but fabulously wealthy hedge fund managers who want to destroy public education. With backing from the powerful charter school industry, he has garnered endorsements from newspapers across the state, despite his lack of any accomplishment in education.

Karrer writes in The Herald of Monterrey:

I want to weep when noneducators use the destructive words and framing of those who would destroy public education. The Herald writes, “Tuck led Green Dot public schools in L.A., garners support from charter operators, and even tech companies along with wealthy backers who champion reform. He supports merit pay for teachers, and using student test scores as a means to evaluate teachers.”

None of those things are good!

He add, referring to Tuck’s experience at the Green…

Steve Zimmer is a member of the Los Angeles Unified School Board. He began his career in education with Teach for America, then stayed as a classroom teacher in Los Angeles for 17 years. When he ran for re-election, corporate reformers amassed a huge campaign chest to defeat him. He was outspent 4-1, but he won.

Zimmer is known as a thoughtful board member who cares about children, class size, and the quality of education for all children.

He posted the following on his Facebook page:

Friends,

It is less than 24 hours until Election Day.

I never imagined the right wing billionaires that tried to take me out of my school board seat in 2013 could donate more and distort the truth greater than they did against me. But that time has come. In tomorrow’s election for California State Superintendent of Public Instruction, the billionaires have outdone themselves, pouring…

In 2013-14, I was rated as a “highly effective” teacher.

The rating was based upon two classroom observations by one of our school administrators, an in-house semester “exam” (the quotes around the word exam are meant to convey a shoddy, last-minute delivery of an exam that if it were an assignment for a course I taught, it would surely have failed for its obviousness as an undisguised effort to “turn in something, anything”), and a more formal exam known as an End-of-Course (EOC) exam administered three weeks prior to the actual end of the course.

The “placing of my bet” was done via Student Learning Targets (SLT) focused on the outcomes of the in-house exam and the EOC. SLT isn’t value-added modeling (VAM), but it is still gambling.

My formal observation is the component over which I have the most control. The school administrator who observed me appreciated that I…

My Review of TIME’s Cover Story on Teacher Tenure

In the past four years, TIME and Newsweek have published three cover stories that were openly hostile to teachers.

On December 8, 2008, TIME published a cover story featuring a photograph of Michelle Rhee, dressed in black and holding a broom, with the implication that she had arrived to sweep out the Augean stables of American education. (Detractors thought she looked like a witch.) The title on the cover was “How to Fix America’s Schools,” suggesting that Rhee knew how to fix the nation’s schools. The subtitle was “Michelle Rhee is the head of Washington, D.C., schools. Her battle against bad teachers has earned her admirers and enemies—and could transform public education.” The story inside was written by Amanda Ripley. We now know that Michelle Rhee did not transform the public schools of the District of Columbia, although she fired hundreds…

In hundreds of races across the nation this weekend is GOTV – Get Out the Vote.

Back in July you’ve scrambled for signatures to get on the ballot, raised money, spent every waking hour running from meeting to meeting, shaking hands, hugging babies, mailers, printing palm cards, and now the final 72 hours.

How many supporters can you get out on the streets? How many doors can you knock?

Winning elections is pulling your voters, dragging your voters to the polls.

The TV attack ads diminished the “other guy,” the puff ads pumped up your guy. Sometime around midnight Tuesday you’ll find out whether you did your job.

Too many potential voters decide not to vote, politics is “dirty,” the Congress can’t get anything done, the Democrats act like Republicans and the Republicans are Tea Party nuts. All of which, to some extent is true.

Whether you decide to vote…

I am an opinionated blogger, and I blog here in my personal capacity. Unlike some other bloggers doing excellent work in the world of education policy and beyond, I do not claim to be a citizen journalist objectively reporting the news. I’m just a mom with a keyboard and opinions. I occasionally manage to put my thoughts into words as I explore education policy from my perspective as a public school parent. And although I am an attorney, I do not pretend to be blogging in my professional capacity, and I certainly do not intend any of my musings here as legal advice.

That being said.

That being said.

That being said, New Jersey’s Acting Commissioner of its Department of Education, David C. Hespe, appears to have declared war on parents and children who oppose his standardized testing policies.

Specifically, today the Acting Commissioner issued guidance to chief school administrators…

John Thompson reviews Anthony Cody’s néw book THE EDUCATOR AND THE OLIGARCH. The book recapitulates Cody’s five-part debate with the Gates Foundation. Thompson says Cody demolished their spokesmen.

Thompson writes that Cody won the debate, hands down:

“They probably didn’t expect a mere teacher to assemble and concisely present such an overwhelming case against their policies. But, who knows?, perhaps they were completely unaware of the vast body of social science that Cody drew upon, and they blamed the messenger for the education research he brought to the table. The Educator and the Oligarch explains how the failed Gates reforms could create an education dystopia.”

Best of all is Thompson’s summary of Cody’s proposal for how Gates ought to be evaluated.

Example:

“Since Bill Gates, more than any other person, is responsible for the absurd evaluations that are now being imposed on teachers, Cody wonders if Gates’ practice as a…

Yet another group has established itself as promoters of the Common Core State Standards (CCSS), and, of course, the group has a catchy, test-driven name: High Achievement New York (HANY).

HANY offered a press release on October 28, 2014. And marvel 0f all marvels, HANY has found that it is best for CCSS to stick around in New York State.

But who is this HANY, you ask?

HANY describes itself as “a broad-based coalition of teachers, parents, school administrators, civil rights advocates, community leaders, and some of NY’s biggest businesses….”

Let’s just stop right there.

In 2014, if “some of New York’s biggest businesses” are involved in advocating for their version of K12 education, then you must have stepped right into a steaming hot pile of corporate reform.

Indeed.

But let me not get ahead of myself.

Here is High Achievement New York’s mission statement, in full:

High Achievement New…

California blogger “RedQueeninLA” reviews the contest between Marshall Tuck and Tom Torlakson for state superintendent and concludes that Tuck is unfit for the office.

Tuck is the candidate of the power elite, the billionaires who cynically employ fake rhetoric about “it’s all for the kids,” when their real goal is to demonize teachers and invest in technology. They have zero commitment to public education as a civic responsibility.

Tuck comes from the world of investment banking. His education experience at Green Dot Charter Schools and at former Los Angeles Mayor Villaraigosa’s takeover schools was a failure. On that ground alone–his dismal experience–he should be disqualified.

But his greatest liability is his contempt for public education. With him at the helm, public school students would have no advocate in Sacramento. But the oligarchs would.

On behalf of the power elite, Marshall Tuck is running a:

“professionally organized, PR-driven, fact- and experience-free…