Crazy Normal – the Classroom Exposé

Two researchers at Teachers College, Columbia University, surveyed parents who opted their children out of state tests and confirmed what leaders of the test refusal movement have long asserted. Parents don’t opt out because they are controlled by unions. They don’t opt out because, as Arne Duncan once said, they are fearful that their child is not as smart as they thought.

“Teachers College unveiled the findings of Who Opts Out and Why?—the first national, independent survey of the “opt-out” movement—which reveals that supporters oppose the use of test scores to evaluate teachers and believe that high-stakes tests force teachers to “teach to the test” rather than employ strategies that promote deeper learning. The new survey also reports concern among supporters about the growing role of corporations and privatization of schools.

“For activists, the concerns are about more than the tests,” said Oren Pizmony-Levy, TC Assistant Professor of International and…

Melinda Gates, like her husband Bill, believes that the Gates Foundation has the answers for the problems of American education.

She has never taught. She never attended a public school. Neither did Bill. Their children do not attend public schools.

What is the source of their certainty? They are very rich, probably the richest people in the world (Carlos Slim of Mexico might be richer). They are so rich that they think they know what is best for everyone’s children.

Here are some questions that the Gates Foundation should answer:

Does the Lakeside Academy in Seattle use the Gates-funded Common Core standards?

Does it test all students every year with standardized tests?

Does it use either PARCC or SBAC?

Does it evaluate its teachers by the test scores of their students?

Just wondering.

Julia Fisher taught English at the Achievement First Amistad High School in New Haven, Connecticut. She is now earning a Ph.D. at the University of Virginia. In this article, which appeared in the Washington Post, she describes life in a “no excuses” charter school.

She begins:

When I taught at a charter school, I once gave out 37 demerits in a 50-minute period. This was the sort of achievement that earned a new teacher praise in faculty-wide emails at Achievement First Amistad High School, in New Haven, Conn.

Amistad is a No Excuses school, in the mold of high-profile charter networks such as KIPP and Success Academy. The programs are founded on the notion that there can be “no excuses” for the achievement gap between poor minorities and their more affluent, white counterparts. To bridge that gap, they set high expectations and strict behavioral codes. School days are long. Not…

Surely, you remember the negative ads against John Kerry when he ran for President against George W. Bush. Some veterans of the Vietnam War ran a multi-million ad campaign against him, coming close to calling him a traitor.

Interesting that the same advertising group that created the Swiftboat campaign against Kerry is now running the deceptive ad in Massachusetts promoting charter schools as “public schools.”

Peter Greene looks at the controversy and nails the lies.

Peter writes:

Massachusetts is heating up. Perhaps no state has better exemplified the fierce debate between public school advocates and fans of modern education reform. Ed reformers captured the governor’s seat, the mayoral position of Boston, commissioner of education, and the secretary of education offices, and yet have consistently run into trouble since the day they convinced the commonwealth to abandon its previous education standards in favor of the Common Core Standards– which were rated…

Vermont is the smartest state in the nation. Not because of test scores, but because the officials in charge of education actually care about children and about education. When they look at the state’s children, they see children with names and faces, not just data. When they think about their schools, they see them as places where children should experience the excitement and joy of learning.

Vermont did not apply for a Race to the Top grant, meaning that it never was compelled to adopt Arne Duncan’s ideas about how to reform schools (which he failed to do when he was superintendent in Chicago).

Vermont never enacted charter school legislation. Vermont has its own kind of school choice program. If a district or town does not offer a public elementary or high school, students may receive a voucher to attend a private (non-religious) school. Such vouchers (called “town tuitioning”) are…

Amy Frogge is a member of the Metro Nashville School board. She is a lawyer and a parent of children in the Nashville public schools. When she was first elected four years ago, the charter industry spent $125,000 in an effort to defeat her. At the time, she was running as a concerned parent who thought there was too much testing, and she was unaware of the battles behind the scene between privatizers and supporters of public schools. She was outspent 5-1, and yet she won. For the past four years, she has been an intrepid supporter of public schools and has helped to repel the rapacious charter movement. For her courage and dedication to children, she is on the honor roll of this blog.

In the election this past week, the “reformers” spent $150,000 to taker her out, and she won again, overwhelmingly.

She was attacked by the local…

At last, an article in the mainstream media that tries to understand why teachers are troubled! It’s not the New York Times or the Washington Post, but still…it’s in print.

Roger Williams of the Fort Meyers, Florida, Weekly titled “Troubled Teachers.” He dwells at length on the stresses that have changed the nature of teaching, not for the better.

Williams interviews many teachers, who tell him what is happening in their classrooms.

“At least one disturbing conclusion can be drawn from what they tell us: Teachers now face what is arguably the most difficult and demanding stampede of challenges in the contemporary history of public education. And that’s not good for students who face, in turn, a range of contemporary social challenges they might not have experienced en masse in previous generations.

“For teachers, there is less time than ever before to teach, they say. There is data crunching…

If you have ever wondered why so many elected officials support the privatization of public schools, there is a simple answer: Follow the money.

In state after state, hedge fund managers and other elites have decided that public schools must be privatized, and they have millions to back up their whims and hobbies.

Maurice Cunningham, professor of political science at the University of Massachusetts in Boston, has researched the dark money flowing into the school privatization movement in Massachusetts. It is an appalling story of a wealthy elite using their money to undermine democracy and to steal public Schools from the community that paid for them.

Millions of dollars have been funneled to Teach for America, Stand for Children, Education Reform Now (the political action arm of Democrats for Education Reform), Families for Excellent Schools, and other corporate reformers whose goal is privatization.

Watch the wealthy try to buy democracy…

https://andreagabor.com/remote-login.php?login=99995c3631b250a1e88a2a361708c854&id=17217480&u=4b02cca4a9dd7cab56c5a57171d726e0&h=

Massachusetts is considering lifting the cap on charter schools. This move is being pressed by Republican Governor Charlie Baker and the usual gang of hedge fund managers, entrepreneurs, and free-market ideologues.

Public school parents are rightfully alarmed. Massachusetts is renowned for having the best schools in the nation. It is the birthplace of public education. This is where Horace Mann, as the state’s first Secretary of Education, persuaded his fellow citizens that the entire community would benefit by supporting the education of the young in common schools.

Now, almost 200 years later, a coterie of faux reformers want to destroy the great public school system that Horace Mann built and that millions of taxpayers have sustained. These so-called reformers believe that Horace Mann was wrong. They want taxpayers to fund privately managed schools, chain schools run by corporate entities.

Andrea Gabor, professor of business journalism at Baruch College of…