tagged w/ Charter Schools
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A Confederacy of Reformers.
Excerpt: "I'd be lying if I told you I wasn't feeling overwhelmed by all the rapid changes happening in the education sphere. I'm positive I'm not alone in feeling this way - based on the feedback, articles and correspondence I've been receiving from local and national groups and individuals. As I struggled to zero in on a topic where I could help or enlighten the most, something else even more screwed up would be sent to me. I've started and stopped work on several pieces, which may make their appearances later, but I feel the need to get my bearings again. All this crazy 'stuff' (not my first word choice) needs to be sorted out and organized before I can make any more forward progress. I think the mistake I was making, and many others are probably making, is not connecting all the dots and figuring out what kind of picture they reveal.
"Right now hundreds (and probably thousands) of disparate groups are polishing their individual pieces of the puzzle and identifying a few corners and straight edges here and there ... maybe the occasional face piece. All of us are focusing on our own small pieces of what is actually a very complex puzzle. If we could put them all together, it would surely show a grand scheme, but we're all convinced we're holding the key. I can't solve this puzzle on my own, but what I can do is show you the pieces I've managed to put together, and what I think I'm starting to see. These are my pieces..."A Confederacy of Reformers.
Excerpt: "I'd be lying if I told you I... more
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Cabal
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1 month ago
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Every election cycle, teachers vote for their extremely limited choices in the usually vain hope that some NEW face in officialdom turn back the tide of fundamentally unjustified criticism of teachers and install needed reforms. It never happens.Every election cycle, teachers vote for their extremely limited choices in the usually... more
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According a recent article in The Arizona Republic, board members and administrators from more than a dozen state-funded charter schools are profiting from their affiliations by doing business with schools they oversee. This practice is not limited to Arizona charter schools.
http://www.azcentral.com/news/articles/20121016insiders-benefiting-charter-deals.htmlAccording a recent article in The Arizona Republic, board members and administrators... more
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The socio-economic status of a student’s
family is by FAR (on orders of magnitude) the largest determinant in the
achievement of ANY student on the standardized exams which more and
more determine success in school.The socio-economic status of a student’s
family is by FAR (on orders of... more
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WWH/CJE – John Konopak,PHD (LSU 1989,education) Education editor. presents each week a digest of education articles and cretiques.WWH/CJE – John Konopak,PHD (LSU 1989,education) Education editor. presents each... more
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Romney has proved once again that he has little grasp on reality or sound educational policy. While funds are being cut from education programs across the nation, Mr. 1% called for expanding charter schools (privately run but paid for by taxpayers), and creating a voucher system so that poor and disabled students can attend private schools, also using public money.
Aside from getting a government handout for wealthy people to send little Skip or Bitzy to a better school, it's hard to understand the logic of abandoning the public school system in favor of creating a new school system funded by taxpayers. While people love the myth that Charter Schools outperform their public school counterparts, research shows otherwise.
http://veracitystew.com/?p=36602Romney has proved once again that he has little grasp on reality or sound educational... more
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This is a link to one of Pittsburgh’s news stations. It’s a story on local charter schools that have just mind bogglingly bad scores. These for profit, government funded schools have been cropping up like toadstools thanks to the underfunding and deliberate (to me) sabotaging and demonization of our nation’s public school system.This is a link to one of Pittsburgh’s news stations. It’s a story on local... more
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In keeping with the long and ignoble tradition of plastering the Lord's Prayer on every flat surface in creation, Christians in the Indiana legislature have introduced a bill to require reciting the Lord's Prayer at the beginning of every school day.In keeping with the long and ignoble tradition of plastering the Lord's Prayer on... more
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"A fund called The Michael R. Bloomberg Revocable Trust, of which the principal trustee is New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg, donated $100,000 to a Baton Rouge-based political action committee just days before a pivotal Louisiana election that decided the make-up of the state’s main K-12 board of education.
The PAC in question, Alliance for Better Classrooms, spent at least $300,000 in contributions on behalf of generally pro-charter, anti-teacher-tenure and anti-union candidates running for positions on the state Board of Elementary and Secondary Education (BESE).
The elections were this past Saturday, and though a couple of races are still inconclusive, state campaign finance reports show the business lobby, buttressed by Bloomberg dollars, far outspent groups aligned with teacher union positions.
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Is anybody surprised about the pro charter (read as CORPORATE) schools, anti-teachers union?
Folks, too many of us have made fun of home schooling. But we might want to give some serious consideration to the fact of corporate takeovers of public schools and what sort of mind warping wraps that means for young minds."A fund called The Michael R. Bloomberg Revocable Trust, of which the principal... more
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a magnet for fraud. Between 2005 and 2011, the US Department of Education opened 53 investigations into charter school fraud, resulting in 21 indictments and 17 convictions. Twenty-seven investigations are pending. Let’s just say the following schools didn’t make it into Waiting for “Superman”:a magnet for fraud. Between 2005 and 2011, the US Department of Education opened 53... more
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Karen Lewis: Obama's "Race to the top" means a lot of students will be losersKaren Lewis: Obama's "Race to the top" means a lot of students will be... more
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by Zach Carter, Media Consortium blogger
Last week, the U.S. Senate rejected a plan that would have broken up the nation’s six largest banks firms into firms that could fail without wreaking havoc on the economy. Even though the defeat reinforces Wall Street’s political dominance, there is still room for a handful of other useful reforms, like banning banks from gambling with taxpayer money and protecting consumers from banker abuses. After looting our houses, banks are now pushing for the ability to bet on movie box-office receipts, and will keep trying to financialize anything they can unless Congress acts.
Wall Street calls the shots
Writing for The Nation, John Nichols details last week’s Capitol Hill damage. Today’s financial oligarchy, in which a handful of bigwig bankers and their lobbyists are able to write regulations and evade rules they don’t like, will still be in place after the Wall Street reform bill is passed. The lesson is clear, as Nichols notes:
Whatever the final form of federal financial services reform legislation, one thing is now certain: The biggest of the big banks will still be calling the shots.
Still worth fighting for
As I emphasize for AlterNet, Congress has made a terrible mistake here, but there is still room for reform. It took President Franklin Delano Roosevelt seven years to enact his New Deal banking laws. It took even longer to reshape public opinion of monopolies when President Theodore Roosevelt took on Corporate America in the early 1900s.
What’s still worth fighting for? We have to curb the derivatives market—the multi-trillion-dollar casino that destroyed AIG. We have to impose a strong version of the Volcker Rule, which would ban banks from engaging in speculative trading for their own accounts. We have to change the way the Federal Reserve does business and force the government’s most secretive bailout engine to operate in the open. And we have to establish a strong, independent Consumer Financial Protection Agency to ensure that the horrific subprime mortgage abuses are not repeated.
As Nomi Prins details for The American Prospect, the current reform bill will not effectively deal with the dangers posed by hedge funds and private equity firms—companies that partnered with banks to blow up the economy through investments in subprime mortgages. That means that whatever happens with the current bill, Congress must again take action next year to rein in other financial sector excesses.
The derivatives casino at the movies
As Nick Baumann demonstrates for Mother Jones, banks are doing everything they can to gobble up other productive elements of the economy. The economy crashed in 2008 in large part because banks had used the derivatives market to place trillions of dollars in speculative bets on the housing market. This wasn’t lending, it was pure gambling: Instead of using poker chips, bankers placed their bets with derivatives. But, as Baumann emphasizes, banks are now looking to expand the sort of thing they can make derivatives gambles with. The latest proposal is to allow banks to bet on the box office success of movies. That’s right, banks would be gambling on movies.
Hollywood may be shallow, but it isn’t stupid. It doesn’t want to see the banking industry repeat its destructive looting of the housing industry on the movie business, and is pushing hard to ban banks from betting on movies. But we can’t count on every industry having a powerful lobby group to counter every assault from the banking system.
Taking stock in schools
Consider the unsettling report by Juan Gonzales of Democracy Now!. Gonzales details how big banks gamed the charter school system to score huge profits while simultaneously saddling taxpayers with massive debts that make teaching kids supremely difficult. By exploiting multiple federal tax credits, banks that invest in charter schools have been able to double their money in seven years—no small feat in the investing world—while schools have seen their rents skyrocket. One school in Albany, N.Y. saw its rent jump from $170,000 to $500,000 in a single year.
About that unemployment rate…
It’s not like public schools are flush with cash right now. The $330,000 increase in rent could pay the salaries of more than a few teachers. As the recession sparked by big bank excess grinds on, even the good news is pretty hard to swallow. As David Moberg emphasizes for Working In These Times, the economy added 290,000 jobs in April, but the unemployment rate actually climbed from 9.7 percent to 9.9 percent in March. That’s because the unemployment rate only counts workers who are actively seeking a job—if you want a job but haven’t found one for so long that you give up, you’re not technically “unemployed.” All of those “new” workers are driving the official figures up.
In other words, it’s still rough out there. And likely to stay rough as state governments try to deal with the lost tax revenue from plunging home values and mass layoffs. Nearly half of all unemployed people in the U.S. have been out of a job for six months or more. And while we’d be much worse off without Obama’s economic stimulus package, that percentage is likely to grow this year, Moberg notes.
This is what unrestrained banking behemoths do. They book big profits and bonuses for themselves, regardless of the consequences for the rest of the economy. Congress absolutely must impose serious financial reform this year. After the November election, breaking up the banks must once again be on the agenda when Congress considers the future fate of hedge funds, private equity firms, Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac. If we don’t rein in Wall Street, banks will continue to wreak havoc on our homes, our jobs and even our schools. Congress must act.
This post features links to the best independent, progressive reporting about the economy by members of The Media Consortium. It is free to reprint. Visit the Audit for a complete list of articles on economic issues, or follow us on Twitter. And for the best progressive reporting on critical economy, environment, health care and immigration issues, check out The Mulch, The Pulse and The Diaspora. This is a project of The Media Consortium, a network of leading independent media outlets.by Zach Carter, Media Consortium blogger
Last week, the U.S. Senate rejected a plan... more
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April 22 is Earth Day. This provides many opportunities to learn. Along with attending special events, encourage your child to interact with nature. Here are a few inexpensive and easy-to-use items to teach about ecology, gardening and nutrition.April 22 is Earth Day. This provides many opportunities to learn. Along with... more
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Charter schools have come into vogue as an attractive alternative for parents and kids looking for innovative learning environments and higher test scores.
They've also become a priority in President Barack Obama's plan to overhaul the nation's education system.
And California legislators have pushed through laws that simplify charter funding and lift a cap on how many can operate in the state.
A new report by the California Charter Schools Association shows that more charters have opened this school year than in any year since 1992, when legislation first made them possible. The addition of 88 charter schools this year brings the total to 809 schools in California. Collectively, they enroll 341,000 students – about 5 percent of the state's student population.
Charters are part of the public school system and receive public money based on how many students they enroll. They don't have to comply with all the rules and regulations of traditional public schools but must meet student performance goals. Some, like the Performing and Fine Arts Academy at Natomas Charter School, offer a specialized curriculum. Others bill themselves as more- efficient alternatives to public schools.
More @ linkCharter schools have come into vogue as an attractive alternative for parents and kids... more
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To charter school or not to charter school? As the new school year kicks off, we talk to Brian Jones, a NYC public school teacher, James Merriman, CEO of NYC Center for Charter School Excellence, and Christian Roselund, a New Orleans-based writer and education advocate about the choice.To charter school or not to charter school? As the new school year kicks off, we talk... more
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GRITtv
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3 years ago
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A new study by a Stanford University research center determined that Arizona charter schools as a whole don't perform as well as their traditional K-8 counterparts.
In an effort to evaluate whether charter school students would have done better if they'd stayed in a more mainstream setting, The Center for Research on Education Outcomes followed more than 65,000 grade-school students in charter schools over four years, and compared them with peers in conventional public schools.A new study by a Stanford University research center determined that Arizona charter... more
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My 11-year-old stars in this pod about his charter school, which we all love. Step inside this amazing environment of only 100 kids to see and understand how a charter school works, and how Three Rivers has done such a fantastic job in just eight short years.My 11-year-old stars in this pod about his charter school, which we all love. Step... more
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