The War On Teachers

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Re: The War On Teachers

Postby JackRiddler » Fri Jun 10, 2011 12:49 pm

.

Read at link for hyperlinks to various reports cited...


http://www.danagoldstein.net/dana_golds ... genda.html

June 06, 2011

A Glut of New Reports Raise Doubts About Obama's Teacher Agenda

Although much of the Obama administration's education reform agenda promotes test score-based teacher evaluation and pay, the tide seems to be significantly turning against such policies, at least among wonks and academics.

Last week the National Academies of Science published a synthesis of 10 years worth of research on 15 American test-based incentive programs, finding they demonstrated few good results and a lot of negative unintended consequences.

Meanwhile, the National Center on Education and the Economy reported that high-achieving nations have focused on reforming their teacher education and professional development pipelines, not on efforts to measure student "growth" and tie such numbers to individual teachers.

Today, a paper coauthored by the Asia Society and the Department of Education itself calls Singapore a model for teacher evaluation. That nation's teachers are assessed on four "holistic" qualities, including the "character development of their students" and "their relationship to community organizations and to parents." There is no attempt to create a mathematical formula to tie student test scores to teacher evaluation or pay.


Excerpt from that report, at http://asiasociety.org/files/lwtw-teach ... report.pdf

Over time, Singapore has created one
of the top-performing education systems in the world by 1) recruiting prospective
teachers from the top 30 percent of academic performance; 2) providing financial
support during training; 3) benchmarking the entry-level salary to those of other
colleges graduates
; 4) providing 100 hours of extensive professional development
per year to every teacher; and 5) providing a systematic set of career paths (master
teacher, curriculum specialist, and principal). Evaluation and compensation
are part and parcel of this broader framework, and professional development and
advancement are tied to performance evaluations.

Singapore’s Advanced Performance Management System is not intended to
calibrate teacher ability digitally or to rank teachers. It is intended as a holistic
appraisal, devised at the national level but implemented and customized at the
school level. It assesses key competencies, including 1) the role of teachers in
the academic and character development of their students; 2) the pedagogic
initiatives and innovations teachers have developed; 3) the professional development
they have undertaken; 4) their contribution to their colleagues and the
school; and 5) their relationship to community organizations and to parents.
Learning outcomes are defined broadly, not just by examination results. The evaluation is conducted
by several professionals in the school, including
department heads and the principal. The standards
for the evaluation were developed as a pilot ten
years ago, with cooperation and input from teachers,
and have been refined over time as new issues
and conditions develop.


The purpose of the evaluation process is to create
a regular dialogue between teacher and supervisor
that is frequent, clear, and detailed regarding
ways the teacher can improve. Teachers create a
plan at the beginning of a year, which is reviewed
and followed by mid-year and end-of-year reviews.
The evaluation process is intended primarily as a
development tool. Areas of weakness become the
focus of the teacher’s professional-development
plan for the following year. It is also intended to
help teachers keep up with change. High-quality
implementation and open dialogue are key to the
evaluation system. The process is time-consuming,
but it takes a lot of effort to get people into the
profession, and developing a competent teacher is
seen as a lifelong undertaking
.



What does it mean when Singapore is less simplistic and authoritarian and less reliant on meaningless bean-counting formulas than the USA? Call it rhetoric, but the above rhetoric differs radically on pretty much every point from the US "school reform" rhetoric of Obama-Duncan, NCLB and the Billionaire Boys Club. There are clear acknowledgements that teachers should be respected, given educational aid, paid very well, retained for decades, and evaluated by other educators including teachers. A numerical ranking based on year-to-year student test scores is by implication understood as a disastrous short-cut.

Back to Dana Goldstein wrote:
Lastly, even the free-market American Enterprise Institute has a new paper, by Fairfax County, Virginia Superintendent Jack Dale, arguing that the path forward should be differentiated pay based on teams of teachers taking on additional mentoring, curriculum development, and planning responsibilities. Test-based merit pay plans "miss a crucial point: teaching must be a collaborative team effort, and incentivizing individual teachers will not accomplish our ambitious goal," Dale writes.

Yes, there's a lot there to digest. The good news is, there are also some exciting policy alternatives.

After The American Prospect published, "The Test Generation," my feature story about different models for teacher evaluation in Colorado, a number of readers challenged my suggestion that policy makers have more to learn from Denver's Math and Science Leadership Academy, which practices teacher peer-review, than from Harrison District 2 in Colorado Springs, which runs a merit pay program tied to student test scores.

MSLA, they said, is a small school in which it's easy to build trust among peers. It can practice extreme disretion in hiring, so it's less likely there will be bad teachers to weed out later on.

All that is true in the case of MSLA, although we also know peer-review has also worked in some large American school districts, most notably Columbus and Toledo Ohio, both of which weeded out a significant number of poor-performing teachers using such systems. Now the New York Times' Michael Winerip profiles PAR, the teacher peer-review plan in Montgomery County, Maryland, which has fired 200 poor-performing teachers and encouraged another 300 to quit since its inception 11 years ago.

Unfortunately, federal dollars from the Obama administration’s Race to the Top program are not going where Dr. Weast and the PAR program need to go. Montgomery County schools were entitled to $12 million from Race to the Top, but Dr. Weast said he would not take the money because the grant required districts to include students’ state test results as a measure of teacher quality. “We don’t believe the tests are reliable,” he said. “You don’t want to turn your system into a test factory.”


Weast, Montgomery's superintendent, is a visionary guy who speaks frequently about the need to build relationships of trust between communities, school administrators, and teachers--and actually follows up on the rhetoric with great policy-making. I'll give him the last word, from an April interview with the Washington Post:

You have close relations with labor.

I have close relations with people who work in the school business. They happen to be unionized, and I find that good, because it’s easier to actually visit with them because they have an organized structure. We have 22,000 employees. It’s just hard to have a sit-down conversation with all 22,000 of them.

Is there a downside to working with unions?

None.




From the comments:

The NCEE paper accused the US of just dumping too much money aimlessly. Given that many of the top education 'reformers' have gone through programs sponsored by Broad and Gates, does it seem like this emphasis on incentivizing teachers is just the work of well-intentioned private money forcing policy makers to abandon more targeted and collaborative education improvement models you've outlined?

And also, while it's encouraging to see a superintendent like Dr. Weast turndown education dollars that will force him to grade his teachers by a highly volatile system of measurement, Montgomery County is wealthy. Do poorer districts have that option?

Posted by: Mikhail Zinshteyn | June 06, 2011 at 04:53 PM


Well isn't that the point?

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Re: The War On Teachers

Postby JackRiddler » Thu Jun 30, 2011 7:53 pm


http://counterpunch.org/sustar06302011.html

June 30, 2011
Rahm's Attack on Teachers
Showdown in Chicago


By LEE SUSTAR


Chicago takes center stage for teachers' struggles in July amid the annual convention of the National Education Association (NEA), a gathering of reform activists and the battle with Chicago's new mayor over cancellation of teachers' raises.

Chicago Mayor Rahm Emanuel added to the latest wave of attacks on teachers' unions when his handpicked school board, dominated by business executives and billionaires like Penny Pritzker, voted June 22 to cancel the scheduled 4 percent raise for members of the Chicago Teachers Union (CTU). The move--justified by a school budget deficit put at more than $700 million--could trigger early contract talks that could result in a strike.

"Our children got the shaft," Emanuel said of scheduled teachers' raise.

A week later, more than 1,000 CTU members and supporters answered Emanuel with an angry picket line that circled the block and culminated in a rally at the Chicago Board of Trade--a recipient of tax money diverted from schools, where Chicago School Board President David Vitale was once the boss.

As Marcy Hardaloupas, an elementary school teacher for 20 years on the city's Southwest Side, said as she walked the picket line:

The situation has become horrendous. Teachers are being blamed for what [politicians and school officials] are doing. They're the ones who are increasing class sizes, who don't want to pay teachers, who are firing teachers, and passing kids at the 24th percentile, and then blaming the teachers the next year and asking, "Why aren't your students at the 80th percentile."


Jennifer Johnson, a high school teacher and member of the CTU executive board, added:

We're drawing the line in the sand. All of these unions that have made concessions have been under the gun, and they feel like the only way to get public support is taking these hits. But as we're seeing, it's only going to keep hitting and hitting.

They're not actually keeping their promises not to cut jobs. CPS said last year that if you give up the 4 percent raise, we still won't guarantee that we're not cutting jobs. We've been given no promises here. If we just keep giving, they're going to keep taking.

That demonstration came a week after hundreds of members of the CTU marched on the Hyatt Hotel, along with members of Service Employees International Union and the Stand Up Chicago coalition to protest the CFO Executive Summit, a meeting of chief financial officers top businesses in the U.S.

The unions held the protest to target corporations that fail to pay taxes, which could help avoid education budget cuts, as well as to point the finger at Hyatt Hotels, an anti-union company run by the Pritzker family, which is deeply involved in corporate school "reform" efforts.

* * *

AT THE June 22 meeting, the board heard a lengthy report from Jean-Claude Brizard, the new CEO of Chicago Public Schools (CPS).

Brizard, a product of the New York City Department of Education and billionaire-run Broad Institute that trains school chiefs, was brought to Chicago after a stint running schools in Rochester, N.Y. There, 95 percent of teachers voting expressed no confidence in his leadership.

Brizard, a Haitian-American, strikes a different image than his technocrat predecessor, Ron Huberman, the ex-cop who ran Chicago's transit system before taking over at CPS. During Brizard's report to the board on his visits to Chicago schools, he even quoted Martin Luther King in support of his proposals to reduce violence affecting Chicago school students.

But later in the meeting, the board made its priorities all too clear: While the CTU members' raises would be cancelled, Brizard and other top officials would get pay increases.

The school CEO will be paid $250,000, a $20,000 raise over his predecessor and a higher salary than Emanuel gets. Even bigger raises have gone to Chief Administrative Officer Tim Cawley, who will get $215,000 compared to $179,167 for his predecessor. Even the school system's PR chief, Becky Carroll, will bring home $165,000, nearly $35,000 more than her person she replaces.

The board's arrogance in raising pay for administrative hacks while freezing teachers' pay will make it harder to make teachers out to be the greedy villains in Emanuel's unfolding political struggle with the union. "This is a real gift to us," one CTU official said.

If Emanuel is cocky about taking on the CTU, it's in part because he's armed with a new anti-union state law known as SB 7, which, among other things, requires 75 percent of CTU bargaining unit members to vote to approve a strike, and mandates a protracted negotiation and mediation process that makes a legal strike almost impossible to achieve.

CTU President Karen Lewis initially joined the two state teachers' union federations in endorsing the legislation until she was reversed by the CTU's executive board and House of Delegates.

The debate on SB 7 has reinvigorated the Caucus of Rank and File Educators (CORE) caucus, which won office a year ago. CORE activists have responded to the CTU's call for an activist campaign to fight for the $250 million diverted from schools and into tax increment financing (TIF) districts, which hand out development money to politically connected business.

Now, the CTU is calling for four financial institutions--including Bank of America and Goldman Sachs--to return $120 million that they have made off CPS through an interest rate swap deal, thanks to super-low interest rates set by the Federal Reserve.

With Emanuel threatening the CTU--he's also trying to bully other city unions to take another round of concessions, this time worth $20 million--the lines are being drawn. CTU is expected to sit down with the board to try to negotiate over the pay issue.

"This action that the board takes--and they knew it very well---could lead to a strike, so that's what that's about," Karen Lewis told reporters [5]. "This is not about, 'We're going to strike.' I did not say that. I did say these are actions that could lead to a strike."

* * *

THE SHOWDOWN in Chicago takes place as ongoing attacks on teachers' unions nationwide shift into high gear.

The budget crises that affect almost every urban school district are being used to gain greater leverage for "school reform."

In Detroit, for example, Republican Gov. Rick Snyder and the Detroit Public Schools emergency manager, Roy Roberts, will oversee a new Education Achievement System (EAS) that will become a statewide school district, covering the bottom 5 percent of performing schools in Michigan.

It isn't clear where the EAS, set to begin in the 2012-2013 school year, will leave members of the Detroit Federation of Teachers (DFT). The union is already reeling under a contract deal that "loaned" the district $500 per month in teachers' pay until they leave the district, and another 10 percent pay cut for the coming school year. The DFT is also in the throes of a struggle in which union president Keith Johnson is accused of manipulating contract vote outcomes and union election results.

A similar scorched-earth strategy is being pursued by Providence, R.I., Mayor Angel Taveras, who sent layoff notices to all 1,934 Providence teachers earlier this year. This was a follow-up to the mass firing of teachers at Central Falls High School last year, which was reversed after a union campaign.

These dramatic frontal assaults on teachers' unions get the attention, and for good reason. But teachers in most states are under growing pressure from state lawmakers, both because of the general legislative assault on public-sector unions, as well as laws passed to compete for $4.3 billion in federal money under the Race to the Top competitive grant program.

Only a handful of states secured funds from the program, but school reformers were big winners in every case, as legislators followed their script and imposed "reforms," like rigid evaluation systems and merit pay, while opening the door to nonunion charter schools.

Now, U.S. Secretary of Education Arne Duncan plans to use a Race to the Top-style competition once again, this time offering waivers to states that fail to meet the unattainable student achievement requirements of the federal No Child Left Behind law --but only if states agree to yet further reforms.

* * *

THE RESPONSE of national teachers' union leaders to this onslaught has been to try to avoid direct confrontation, retreat on long-held positions, and search for "partners" who will allow the unions to participate in corporate-driven school reform--even at the cost of major concessions.

Thus, American Federation of Teachers (AFT) President Randi Weingarten has argued that the union must "lead and propose" when it comes to reform. To that end, she's personally intervened in contract negotiations [8] in cities like Pittsburgh, Baltimore, New Haven, Conn., Washington, D.C., and Tampa Fla. to push deals that undermine, if not fully abandon, traditional tenure protections for teachers.

Weingarten's latest gambit: an AFT "groundbreaking partnership" with the American Association of School Administrators [9] to "to continuously improve the nation's teaching force, revamp teacher development and evaluation systems, and provide teachers and schools the tools and support they need."

In other words, the AFT wants teachers to give their bosses in the schools even more say-so over evaluation systems that will determine whether they can keep their jobs.

For his part, NEA President Dennis Van Roekel has been more critical of the school reform gang. In a recent opinion piece for union members, he wrote:

Isn't it time we quit fads in education and went after what works? Education reform fashionistas don't think so. They've embraced the glossy new fad of "value-added" systems for measuring teacher performance as the answer to school improvement. Based on value-added statistical models, standardized test scores are used to track the growth of individual students as they progress through the grades and see how much "value" a teacher has added...


But what these fad reformers fail to see is the value-added system's potential to do more harm than good. A recent study prepared for the Department of Education shows that these systems tend to be wrong 35 percent of the time evaluating a teacher after one year, and still wrong 25 percent of the time after three years. It's fundamentally wrong to end someone's career--or decide pay and promotion--based on a statistical model that's incorrect one-quarter to one-third of the time.

At last year's NEA Representative Assembly, the keynote speaker was Diane Ravitch, the former assistant Secretary of Education-turned-scourge of corporate school reformers like Microsoft billionaire Bill Gates. By contrast, the main speaker at the AFT convention was...Bill Gates.

But it turns out that on school reform issues, there are fewer differences between the NEA and AFT than meet the eye.

Despite his criticism of "value-added" models for teacher performance, van Roekel is seeking delegate approval for a union policy that gives a lot of ground to school reformers on teacher evaluation issues--too much, in the eyes of many NEA activists. The policy calls for "valid, reliable, high quality standardized tests that provide meaningful information regarding student learning and growth"--that is, it puts the NEA on record as tying teacher evaluation to student test results.

According to Steve Sawchuk of Education Week, the statement will provoke a debate at this year's NEA Representative Assembly, set for June 30-July 5 in Chicago.

Illinois Education Association activist and blogger Fred Klonsky made a similar prediction: "In the current atmosphere of teacher bashing, the difficulty of doing teacher evaluation right is not going to get settled by a policy statement coming out of the RA. The statement on test scores ought to be deleted. Look for a spirited floor fight."

Another key issue at the NEA gathering will be the union leadership's proposal to give an early endorsement to President Barack Obama for his reelection campaign, despite the administration's role in accelerating attacks on teachers' union. And this year, the keynote speech won't be delivered by an opponent of corporate school reform, but one of its chief enforcers: Vice President Joe Biden.

* * *

WITH union leaders failing to provide a strategy for resisting the carve-up of public education, a network of genuine school reformers--teacher union militants from across the U.S.--will meet in Chicago July 6 following the NEA convention to hold a National Conference to Fight Back for Public Education . Sponsored by CORE, the meeting is aimed at assessing the results of reform leaderships of teachers' unions and developing a strategy for the months and years ahead.

The meeting is timely. The most high profile reform leadership of a major teachers' union local, United Teachers Los Angeles (UTLA), recently suffered an election defeat after failing to stop a series of concessionary agreements. The union's lame-duck president, A.J. Duffy, then reached an agreement for continued pay cuts in exchange for a partial rollback of layoffs, even though the district is scheduled to receive tax money that would make layoffs and pay cuts unnecessary.

The key reform group in UTLA, Professional Educators for Action (PEAC), supported the concession as a means to preserve member's jobs. But it isn't clear that the agreement will bring back all the jobs that were promised: Many LA school principals are refusing to spend the money at their disposal to "buy back" teachers' jobs.

Beyond the Chicago meeting, other efforts are underway to build an active campaign to defend public education by uniting teachers, students and their families. To that end, a national meeting and Save our Schools march has been called for July 28-31 in Washington, D.C.

These efforts are vital. The attempts to carve up and privatize public education will only continue until unions, parents and communities are organized enough to put forward their own agenda of free, quality public education available for all--with full union rights for teachers.


Lee Sustar writes for the Socialist Worker.

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Re: The War On Teachers

Postby elfismiles » Sat Jul 02, 2011 10:10 am


Second round of TEA layoffs in the offing
By Kate Alexander | Tuesday, June 28, 2011, 12:24 PM

The Texas Education Agency expects a second round of layoffs in the coming weeks, a spokeswoman confirmed Tuesday.

It is not yet clear how many jobs will be eliminated or what the exact timing is, said DeEtta Culbertson, the agency spokeswoman.

But two people outside the agency who have been briefed on the layoff said the number exceeds 100 people.

The agency lost about 200 positions in the upcoming two-year budget, which begins on Sept. 1, but that does not necessarily translate to another 200 people being gone. Some of those positions were attached to grant programs that were eliminated or reduced by the Legislature in the 2012-13 budget.

Culbertson said the layoffs were coming now so that the agency could reorganize with its lighter workforce before the next fiscal year begins.

The first round of agency layoffs came in February when more than 100 people were let go.

http://www.statesman.com/blogs/content/ ... ff_in.html


Education fireworks: Two El Paso districts give minimal teacher raises despite ...
El Paso Times - Caylor Ballinger - ‎8 hours ago‎
District officials maintain that no teachers have lost jobs and that student-teacher ratios remained about the same. Most of the layoffs were in the administrative offices in Central El Paso, officials said. Parker said the EPISD is being helped by ...
http://www.elpasotimes.com/news/ci_18396516

Spending on education is a business investment
Houston Chronicle - Daniel Seymour - ‎Jun 30, 2011‎
School closings, teacher layoffs and larger class sizes loom large across the plains of Texas. Although higher education did not fare much better here in Texas, current budget cuts were not as dire as originally feared. After threatening to close four ...
http://www.chron.com/disp/story.mpl/edi ... 34881.html

Texas Budget Shorts Education By $4 Billion
KERA - ‎Jun 29, 2011‎
Honea called Perry's praise of the budget arrogant especially after diminished state education dollars forced layoffs and other cuts to school district budgets statewide. The Texas State Teachers Association expects a lawsuit challenging the education ...
http://www.publicbroadcasting.net/kera/ ... $4.Billion
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Re: The War On Teachers

Postby The Consul » Sat Jul 02, 2011 12:58 pm

Kudos to Jack. Privatize and monetize everything whether its the Minnesota grain exchange or the the public school system. Classrooms too big? Answer: close more schools. Social fabric sending kids to school who have never seen a book before? Answer: bust the teacher's union. The real problem is there simply isn't enough profit being extracted from education and it is an opportunity waiting to be exploited. What passes for history or science in the future will be determined by people who don't have a passion or understanding for either, and if they do, they will be fired without cause, like any at will employee of any corporation.

Welcome to the new Reich.

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Re: The War On Teachers

Postby The Consul » Sun Jul 03, 2011 7:02 pm

Jack has so thoroughly kicked ass on this thread it deserves a good bump.
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Re: The War On Teachers

Postby Feilan » Wed Jul 06, 2011 1:02 am

Many people will sleep for a hundred years, but when they awake, it will be the artists who give them their spirit back. ~ Louis David Riel
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Re: The War On Teachers

Postby Feilan » Wed Jul 06, 2011 1:53 am

^^^ I'm sorry in advance that this will be a somewhat personal and anecdotal release of stress and fury that clearly hasn't read the last few posts and isn't responding directly to any of them in particular - rather I am responding to the title of the thread and how that war plays out for me ... excuse me or ignore me as you see fit and are so inclined :partyhat

So anyway ...:wallhead: well... I'm doing my best to believe it may even be true (results of my google fight, I mean). I'm also seriously considering throwing that particular fucking towel back in and buying a used kiln. Break my nails. Get my hands dirty again ... ye olde drawing board and all that...

After today's tremendous workplace fuckery... ( :microphone: told I am ineligible for an x hour supply contract - one time only - because this lurches dangerously into some murky human resources interpretation of the moment of the term 'partial load' ... meanwhile - hired on for a measley y hours but assured there was every likelihood there would be more classes/hours offered in a week or so when more students turned up to join the summer program, I waited with baited breath ... but no. hours were nearly on offer - an email arrived asking was I interested? Then? The hours were not offered. Others got some, but I got none. okay. This happened twice and then - "Hey! How about some x hours supply for the teacher who is teaching(mon. wed. fri.) the same group of students you have (tue. thurs.)? "Sure! Delighted! :bigsmile", I reply. Four hours later ... oh so sorry ... the same human resources functionary who earlier determined that as contract faculty you are in fact eligible for far more than the x weekly hours/single course load you were initially offered has also decreed that you are simaultaneously INeligible for a ragged scrap of that amount in the form of a short term supply contract to cover a teacher's absence for two days. but, BUT, shit, you've got time on yer hands, so ... if you wouldn't mind just rearranging your schedule and covering that partial load teacher's hours for no extra money - meaning in exchange for most of the very inadequate number of hours we've dribbled on you thus far - that would be great. Thanks, doormat.
---- Yours, Management.) --

-- yah, well -- let's just say I feel more like the google fight is fixed, which of course it actually is.

I watched Angela's Ashes yesterday ... I remember early on in the story the mom, Angela, says something to the effect of [We must have been the only Irish family who left America to go back to Limerick/Ireland] ... I left a long term, fairly committed kick at an art can to teach language studies a few years back. I was really happy with that decision and discovered a whole new environment in which to put creative industry to work in the service of greater communication between humans. Planning lessons and delivering them have provided a tremendous source of challenge, intrigue and engagement for me. I hesitate to say that I'm 'pretty good at it', but as far as I can tell from my interactions with students and what goes on in the classroom - I'm pretty good at it. The thing is, it's not a meritocracy. Dedication and the satisfaction+achievement of students in your 'care' are the two things least likely to matter to anyone who has the power to give you work or not, or so it is in my experience. I feel done with this human resourced hyper managed business modeling of education and its various 'steak' holders.

We'll see. I don't know ... I'm tired and a little bit drunk. Probably should have posted this in the saloon. :smallviolin:
Many people will sleep for a hundred years, but when they awake, it will be the artists who give them their spirit back. ~ Louis David Riel
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Re: The War On Teachers

Postby Allegro » Sun Jul 10, 2011 2:04 am

Image

The Center for Public Integrity | iwatch
— By Rita Beamish | 3:00 am, May 2, 2011

    Back to School for the Billionaires
    Business titans find reforming schools harder than just writing checks

      The richest man in America stepped to the podium and declared war on the nation's school system. High schools had become "obsolete," and were "limiting — even ruining — the lives of millions of Americans every year." The situation had become "almost shameful."

      Bill Gates, prep school grad and college dropout, had come before the National Governors Association seeking converts to his plan to do something about it — a plan that would be backed by $2 billion of his own cash.

      Gates' speech, in February 2005, was a signature moment in what has become a decade-long campaign battle to improve test scores and graduation rates, waged by a handful of wealthy CEOs who arrived with no particular background in education policy — a fact that has led critics to dismiss them as "the billionaire boys' club."

      Their bets have been as big as their egos and their bank accounts. Microsoft chairman Gates, computer magnate Michael Dell, investor Eli Broad, and the Walton family of Wal-Mart fame have collectively poured some $4.4 billion into school reform in the last decade through their private foundations.

      Has this big money made the big impact that they — as well as teachers, administrators, parents and students — hoped for?

      In a first-of-its-kind computer analysis, iWatch News analyzed the graduation rates and test scores in 10 major urban districts — from New York City to Oakland — which collectively took in almost one-fourth of the total money poured in by these top four education philanthropists.

      The results, though mixed, provide dispiriting proof that the billionaires have not found a one-size-fits-all solution to education reform and that money alone can’t repair the desperate state of urban education.

      For all the millions spent on reforms, nine of the 10 school districts studied substantially trailed their state's proficiency and graduation rates — often by 10 points or more, the analysis found. And while the urban districts made some gains, they managed only 60 percent of the time to improve at a rate faster than their states. Those spikes weren't enough to materially reduce persistent gulfs between poor, inner-city schools, where the big givers focused, and their suburban and rural counterparts.

      "A lot of things we do don't work out," acknowledged Broad, a product of Detroit public schools and Michigan State who made a fortune in homebuilding and financial services. "But we can take the criticism."

      The bottom line? The billionaires aspired to A-plus impact, and came away with B-minus to C-minus results, according to iWatch News’ investigation, which was based on specially commissioned data, internal numbers shared by the philanthropists’ foundations, as well as the billionaires’ own statements.

      The analysis examined what happened in the target districts to high-school graduation rates between 2002 and 2007, the most recent year for which data was available from the nationally recognized Editorial Projects in Education Research Center.

      iWatch News also looked at the holy grail of the education reform movement — standardized test scores in reading and math for kindergarten through 12th grade — and compared the proficiency rates in the urban districts that benefited from billionaire bucks against the average for the rest of the schools in their states over the last five years. (That data was provided by MPR Associates, Inc., a respected education statistics agency based in Berkeley, Calif.)

      No yardstick is a perfect measure. And the billionaires' gifts are a drop in the bucket when compared with the $600 billion spent annually on America's schools. But the city-to-state comparison is one that Broad's own foundation uses to help determine his annual award for the most-improved school district.

      Despite the money, graduation rates in Oakland actually fell by 6 percentage points, beating the rest of California’s schools which fell by 9 points. In Houston, graduation rates dropped about 6 percentage points while the remainder of Texas fell only 2. Graduation rates in New York City on the other hand, while still trailing state averages significantly, improved markedly — up 18 points, compared to the state’s 10 point rise. Washington, D.C.’s elementary and high school math scores improved somewhat (not being part of a state, its reading and math performance was measured against the district's independent charter schools).

      But DC’s education achievements, which have helped fuel a national debate over education reform captured in the hit documentary “Waiting for Superman,” have lately come under investigation, amid suspicions of cheating, a charge former D.C. schools Chancellor Michelle Rhee denies.

      Oakland also fared poorly in high school -- with reading scores that trailed California by 18 percentage points in 2010. Los Angeles underperformed the rest of California by 6 percentage points in elementary school math. Both cities, however, more often than not improved overall at a faster rate than the state.

      The confidence that marked Gates' landmark speech to the governors' association in 2005 has given way to humility. The billionaires have not retreated. But they have retooled and learned a valuable lesson about their limitations.

      "It's so hard in this country to spread good practice. When we started funding, we hoped it would spread more readily," acknowledged Vicki Phillips, the director of K through 12 education at Bill and Melinda Gates' foundation. "What we learned is that the only things that spread well in school are kids' viruses."

      Gates has abandoned his $2 billion high-school campaign focused largely on shrinking the overall size of schools, in favor of a new effort to encourage effective teaching, saying he’d learned small schools alone can’t boost student academic performance.

      And Broad put an initiative aimed at improving the training given school principals on pause and focused instead on charter schools, training for school district administrators and improving teacher performance.

      Meanwhile, on the ground in some of the districts these billionaires selected, the excitement of being chosen for philanthropic funding — the feeling of having won the education lottery — has all too often given way to a sober sense of diminished expectations and feeling of being abandoned too soon.

      [RESUME.]
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Re: The War On Teachers

Postby Allegro » Sun Jul 10, 2011 2:05 am

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The Center for Public Integrity | iwatch
— By Kristen Lombardi | 3:06 am, June 27, 2011

    The military children left behind: Decrepit schools, broken promises
    While parents make sacrifices, sons and daughters endure overcrowding, disrepair and budgetary neglect at school

      Catie Hunter is only 11 years old. Her father, an Army platoon sergeant, has spent five of those years away from her, serving his country in Korea, Iraq and Afghanistan. At her elementary school on an Oklahoma military post, ceiling tiles are removed so that when a Great Plains storm rumbles in, rain can cascade from the rotting roof into large trash cans underneath. To get to class, Catie must dodge what she calls “Niagara Falls.”

      Each day as the fifth grader enters Geronimo Road Elementary School, she walks beneath the tiles, bent and browned, some dangling by threads of glue. In her classroom, an archaic air conditioning unit at times drowns out her teacher’s voice. Signs of disrepair abound: chipped floors, termite-infested walls, cracks the size of the principal’s finger along brick halls. A bucket, strapped by a bungee cord, hangs over the gym door — another makeshift fix for leaks.

      “I’m really proud of the fact that the school is still standing,” said Catie, a pixie of a girl who twitches her nose when she talks."Sometimes, I wonder if it's going to fall in."

      Catie’s Fort Sill schoolhouse, built before Gen. Dwight D. Eisenhower ran for president, isn’t the only one in poor shape. Tens of thousands of children — from Georgia to Kansas, Virginia to Washington state — attend schools on military bases that are falling apart from age and neglect, and fail to meet even the military’s own standards. Some schools have tainted water and fouled air; others are so overcrowded teachers improvise, holding class in hallways, supply closets, and in one instance, working in a boiler room. Outdated? One school in Germany was built by the Nazis.

      The strains only add to the emotional pressures on the sons and daughters of U.S. military personnel after 10 years of war and long, frequent absences. The average military parent is deployed three times, each lasting 15 to 18 months. Stresses on families routinely bubble up where soldiers’ children attend class. At Catie’s Geronimo Road school, students have burst into tears after getting a phone call from Iraq. Or screamed, “I want to kill you.” Or picked up a desk and thrown it across the floor. Other effects at the schools of military sons and daughters are less pronounced yet unmistakable: Modest declines in test scores; individual grades that falter; rising student absenteeism.

      Catie has been separated from her father four times since her birth. “I wish he were here,” she said. “I miss him a lot.” Her 16-year-old sister, Amanda, an honor roll student, received her first “F” shortly after the start of her father’s latest extended trip overseas. “It can be overwhelming,” said Amanda, her hazel eyes welling with sadness.

      Such sacrifices, increasingly commonplace during the last decade, have gone unnoticed by many Americans. The nation’s reliance on a limited pool of volunteers to safeguard U.S. interests and wage two wars has had ripple effects on the home front. Altogether, parents of 220,000 children — including 116,000 of school-age — are currently doing the work the nation expects of them and that sends them far from home.

      Those mothers and fathers might have expected schools with better conditions than these.

      “I would feel disrespected if I were on my second or third tour of duty and then my kids were in a school that was dilapidated and too small or falling apart,” said Chet Edwards, a former congressman who chaired a House appropriations military construction subcommittee before losing reelection last year. “If there is one school in the world military children are attending that is dilapidated and undersized, that’s wrong. But the fact is there are a lot of serious problems out there.”
      A broken promise

      When America’s warfighters enter military service, sometimes putting their lives on the line, the government makes a promise: It will care for those left behind. There’s an explicit understanding that the nation will nurture and enrich soldiers’ children in safe and secure educational environments — they are assured, in the words of a U.S. Army recruiting vow, “the best possible education and experience.”

      The 1978 Defense Dependents Education Act requires the military to provide “academic services of a high quality” to the children of soldiers on active duty. A 1988 Defense Department directive goes further, broadly guaranteeing military families “a quality of life that reflects the high standards and pride of the nation they defend” — including education. First Lady Michelle Obama touts the administration’s vision of “an America where every military child has the support they need to grow and learn and realize their dreams.” The White House, joining history’s chorus of voices of support for sons and daughters of soldiers, is pledging to “ensure excellence in military children’s education.”

      But an array of substandard conditions at many of the 353 schools for military children around the world undercuts such assurances. Three in four Defense Department-run schools on military installations are either beyond repair or would require extensive renovation to meet minimum standards for safety, quality, accessibility and design, an investigation by the Center for Public Integrity’s iWatch News has found. Those schools do not meet the military’s own expectations, and – for lack of money from Washington – aren’t likely to improve greatly any time soon.

      Other priorities — including spending on wars at a rate of around $2 billion each week — have overshadowed the needs of students from military families. All told, the mounting number of fixes and new schools would cost nearly $4 billion — around the same amount being spent this year just on drone aircraft, or, measured another way, half the cost of NASA’s Hubble Telescope, which observes distant galaxies from earth’s orbit.

      [RESUME.]
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Re: The War On Teachers

Postby jfshade » Wed Jul 13, 2011 2:22 pm

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Wombaticus Rex alluded to the Discovery Institute's "Wedge Document" in another thread. It outlines a lavishly funded right wing fundamentalist Christian PR campaign that has as one of its principal goals the elimination of scientific materialism from school curricula, and its replacement with creationist folklore in the garb of so-called "intelligent design."

From rationalwiki.org, (see original for footnotes and more coherent formatting):

The Wedge Document is a publication of the Discovery Institute which outlines their goal to bring the "controversy" over "evolution" versus "intelligent design" into the public arena, in a way politically contrived to get less informed members of the public to side with the idea of "teach both sides" (one side being science, the other religion). It is the smoking gun that demonstrates that "intelligent design" is "creationism" in a thin disguise.

Rather than give an interpretation of the Wedge Document which gave rise to the Discovery Institute's 1998 wedge strategy, it has been reproduced here in full so that people can reach their own conclusions. A small amount of emphasis has been added.

Because of the nature of this document some have claimed that it must be a hoax. This is not the case. The Discovery Institute has not only acknowledged authorship of the document but also defended its content.[1] A scan of the original document is also available in PDF format.[2] The introduction to this document also appeared on their website in 1996, as archived by archive.org.[3]

The story of how it came into the public domain can be found in this Seattle Weekly newspaper article.[4]

Although it acknowledges the document's authenticity, the Discovery Institute wants to dismiss the supposed Wedge Document "conspiracy theory" as a "pseudo-intellectual urban legend":
“ It is in the context of our concern about the world-view implications of certain scientific theories that our wedge strategy must be understood. Far from attacking science (as has been claimed), we are instead challenging scientific materialism -- the simplistic philosophy or world-view that claims that all of reality can be reduced to, or derived from, matter and energy alone. We believe that this is a defense of sound science.[5] ”

However, many of those who use the Wedge Document to criticize the Discovery Institute maintain that it demonstrates the existence of no conspiracy beyond that which the document itself clearly spells out. They further maintain that reading the document is the best way to understand what it says. The full document can be found below:

CENTER FOR THE RENEWAL OF SCIENCE & CULTURE
INTRODUCTION

The proposition that human beings are created in the image of God is one of the bedrock principles on which Western civilization was built. Its influence can be detected in most, if not all, of the West's greatest achievements, including representative democracy, human rights, free enterprise, and progress in the arts and sciences.

Yet a little over a century ago, this cardinal idea came under wholesale attack by intellectuals drawing on the discoveries of modern science. Debunking the traditional conceptions of both God and man, thinkers such as Charles Darwin, Karl Marx, and Sigmund Freud portrayed humans not as moral and spiritual beings, but as animals or machines who inhabited a universe ruled by purely impersonal forces and whose behavior and very thoughts were dictated by the unbending forces of biology, chemistry, and environment. This materialistic conception of reality eventually infected virtually every area of our culture, from politics and economics to literature and art

The cultural consequences of this triumph of materialism were devastating. Materialists denied the existence of objective moral standards, claiming that environment dictates our behavior and beliefs. Such moral relativism was uncritically adopted by much of the social sciences, and it still undergirds much of modern economics, political science, psychology and sociology.

Materialists also undermined personal responsibility by asserting that human thoughts and behaviors are dictated by our biology and environment. The results can be seen in modern approaches to criminal justice, product liability, and welfare. In the materialist scheme of things, everyone is a victim and no one can be held accountable for his or her actions.

Finally, materialism spawned a virulent strain of utopianism. Thinking they could engineer the perfect society through the application of scientific knowledge, materialist reformers advocated coercive government programs that falsely promised to create heaven on earth.

Discovery Institutes's Center for the Renewal of Science and Culture seeks nothing less than the overthrow of materialism and its cultural legacies. Bringing together leading scholars from the natural sciences and those from the humanities and social sciences, the Center explores how new developments in biology, physics and cognitive science raise serious doubts about scientific materialism and have re-opened the case for a broadly theistic understanding of nature. The Center awards fellowships for original research, holds conferences, and briefs policymakers about the opportunities for life after materialism.

The Center is directed by Discovery Senior Fellow Dr. Stephen Meyer. An Associate Professor of Philosophy at Whitworth College, Dr. Meyer holds a Ph.D. in the History and Philosophy of Science from Cambridge University. He formerly worked as a geophysicist for the Atlantic Richfield Company.
THE WEDGE STRATEGY

Phase I.

Scientific Research, Writing & Publicity

Phase II.

Publicity & Opinion-making

Phase III.

Cultural Confrontation & Renewal

THE WEDGE PROJECTS

Phase I. Scientific Research, Writing & Publication

Individual Research Fellowship Program
Paleontology Research program (Dr. Paul Chien et al.)
Molecular Biology Research Program (Dr. Douglas Axe et al.)

Phase II. Publicity & Opinion-making

Book Publicity
Opinion-Maker Conferences
Apologetics Seminars
Teacher Training Program
Op-ed Fellow
PBS (or other TV) Co-production
Publicity Materials / Publications

Phase III. Cultural Confrontation & Renewal

Academic and Scientific Challenge Conferences
Potential Legal Action for Teacher Training
Research Fellowship Program: shift to social sciences and humanities

FIVE YEAR STRATEGIC PLAN SUMMARY

The social consequences of materialism have been devastating. As symptoms, those consequences are certainly worth treating. However, we are convinced that in order to defeat materialism, we must cut it off at its source. That source is scientific materialism. This is precisely our strategy. If we view the predominant materialistic science as a giant tree, our strategy is intended to function as a "wedge" that, while relatively small, can split the trunk when applied at its weakest points. The very beginning of this strategy, the "thin edge of the wedge," was Phillip Johnson's critique of Darwinism begun in 1991 in Darwinism on Trial, and continued in Reason in the Balance and Defeating Darwinism by Opening Minds. Michael Behe's highly successful Darwin's Black Box followed Johnson's work. We are building on this momentum, broadening the wedge with a positive scientific alternative to materialistic scientific theories, which has come to be called the theory of intelligent design (ID). Design theory promises to reverse the stifling dominance of the materialist worldview, and to replace it with a science consonant with Christian and theistic convictions.

The Wedge strategy can be divided into three distinct but interdependent phases, which are roughly but not strictly chronological. We believe that, with adequate support, we can accomplish many of the objectives of Phases I and II in the next five years (1999-2003), and begin Phase III (See "Goals/ Five Year Objectives/Activities").


Phase I: Research, Writing and Publication

Phase II: Publicity and Opinion-making

Phase III: Cultural Confrontation and Renewal


Phase I is the essential component of everything that comes afterward. Without solid scholarship, research and argument, the project would be just another attempt to indoctrinate instead of persuade. A lesson we have learned from the history of science is that it is unnecessary to outnumber the opposing establishment. Scientific revolutions are usually staged by an initially small and relatively young group of scientists who are not blinded by the prevailing prejudices and who are able to do creative work at the pressure points, that is, on those critical issues upon which whole systems of thought hinge. So, in Phase I we are supporting vital witting and research at the sites most likely to crack the materialist edifice.

Phase II. The primary purpose of Phase II is to prepare the popular reception of our ideas. The best and truest research can languish unread and unused unless it is properly publicized. For this reason we seek to cultivate and convince influential individuals in print and broadcast media, as well as think tank leaders, scientists and academics, congressional staff, talk show hosts, college and seminary presidents and faculty, future talent and potential academic allies. Because of his long tenure in politics, journalism and public policy, Discovery President Bruce Chapman brings to the project rare knowledge and acquaintance of key op-ed writers, journalists, and political leaders. This combination of scientific and scholarly expertise and media and political connections makes the Wedge unique, and also prevents it from being "merely academic." Other activities include production of a PBS documentary on intelligent design and its implications, and popular op-ed publishing. Alongside a focus on influential opinion-makers, we also seek to build up a popular base of support among our natural constituency, namely, Christians. We will do this primarily through apologetics seminars. We intend these to encourage and equip believers with new scientific evidence's that support the faith, as well as to "popularize" our ideas in the broader culture.

Phase III. Once our research and writing have had time to mature, and the public prepared for the reception of design theory, we will move toward direct confrontation with the advocates of materialist science through challenge conferences in significant academic settings. We will also pursue possible legal assistance in response to resistance to the integration of design theory into public school science curricula. The attention, publicity, and influence of design theory should draw scientific materialists into open debate with design theorists, and we will be ready. With an added emphasis to the social sciences and humanities, we will begin to address the specific social consequences of materialism and the Darwinist theory that supports it in the sciences.
GOALS
Governing Goals

To defeat scientific materialism and its destructive moral, cultural and political legacies.
To replace materialistic explanations with the theistic understanding that nature and human beings are created by God.

Five Year Goals

To see intelligent design theory as an accepted alternative in the sciences and scientific research being done from the perspective of design theory.
To see the beginning of the influence of design theory in spheres other than natural science.
To see major new debates in education, life issues, legal and personal responsibility pushed to the front of the national agenda.

Twenty Year Goals

To see intelligent design theory as the dominant perspective in science.
To see design theory application in specific fields, including molecular biology, biochemistry, paleontology, physics and cosmology in the natural sciences, psychology, ethics, politics, theology and philosophy in the humanities; to see its influence in the fine arts.
To see design theory permeate our religious, cultural, moral and political life.


FIVE YEAR OBJECTIVES

A major public debate between design theorists and Darwinists (by 2003)
Thirty published books on design and its cultural implications (sex, gender issues, medicine, law, and religion)
One hundred scientific, academic and technical articles by our fellows
Significant coverage in national media:
Cover story on major news magazine such as Time or Newsweek
PBS show such as Nova treating design theory fairly
Regular press coverage on developments in design theory
Favorable op-ed pieces and columns on the design movement by 3rd party media
Spiritual & cultural renewal:
Mainline renewal movements begin to appropriate insights from design theory, and to repudiate theologies influenced by materialism
Major Christian denomination(s) defend(s) traditional doctrine of creation & repudiate(s)
Darwinism Seminaries increasingly recognize & repudiate naturalistic presuppositions
Positive uptake in public opinion polls on issues such as sexuality, abortion and belief in God
Ten states begin to rectify ideological imbalance in their science curricula & include design theory
Scientific achievements:
An active design movement in Israel, the UK and other influential countries outside the US
Ten CRSC Fellows teaching at major universities
Two universities where design theory has become the dominant view
Design becomes a key concept in the social sciences
Legal reform movements base legislative proposals on design theory

ACTIVITIES

Research Fellowship Program (for writing and publishing)
Front line research funding at the "pressure points" (e.g., Daul Chien's Chengjiang Cambrian Fossil Find in paleontology, and Doug Axe's research laboratory in molecular biology)
Teacher training
Academic Conferences
Opinion-maker Events & Conferences
Alliance-building, recruitment of future scientists and leaders, and strategic partnerships with think tanks, social advocacy groups, educational organizations and institutions, churches, religious groups, foundations and media outlets
Apologetics seminars and public speaking
Op-ed and popular writing
Documentaries and other media productions
Academic debates
Fund Raising and Development
General Administrative support

THE WEDGE STRATEGY PROGRESS SUMMARY
Books

William Dembski and Paul Nelson, two CRSC Fellows, will very soon have books published by major secular university publishers, Cambridge University Press and The University of Chicago Press, respectively. (One critiques Darwinian materialism; the other offers a powerful alternative.)

Nelson's book, On Common Descent, is the seventeenth book in the prestigious University of Chicago "Evolutionary Monographs" series and the first to critique neo-Darwinism. Dembski's book, The Design Inference, was back-ordered in June, two months prior to its release date.

These books follow hard on the heals (sic) of Michael Behe's Darwin's Black Box (The Free Press) which is now in paperback after nine print runs in hard cover. So far it has been translated into six foreign languages. The success of his book has led to other secular publishers such as McGraw Hill requesting future titles from us. This is a breakthrough.

InterVarsity will publish our large anthology, Mere Creation (based upon the Mere Creation conference) this fall, and Zondervan is publishing Maker of Heaven and Earth: Three Views of the Creation-Evolution Controversy, edited by fellows John Mark Reynolds and J.P. Moreland.

McGraw Hill solicited an expedited proposal from Meyer, Dembski and Nelson on their book Uncommon Descent. Finally, Discovery Fellow Ed Larson has won the Pulitzer Prize for Summer for the Gods, his retelling of the Scopes Trial, and InterVarsity has just published his co-authored attack on assisted suicide, A Different Death.

Academic Articles

Our fellows recently have been featured or published articles in major scientific and academic journals in The Proceedings to the National Academy of Sciences, Nature, The Scientist, The American Biology Teacher, Biochemical and Biophysical Research Communications, Biochemistry, Philosophy and Biology, Faith & Philosophy, American Philosophical Quarterly, Rhetoric & Public Affairs, Analysis, Book & Culture, Ethics & Medicine, Zygon, Perspectives on Science and the Christian Faith, Religious Studies, Christian Scholars' Review, The Southern Journal of Philosophy, and the Journal of Psychology and Theology. Many more such articles are now in press or awaiting review at major secular journals as a result of our first round of research fellowships. Our own journal, Origins & Design, continues to feature scholarly contributions from CRSC Fellows and other scientists.

Television and Radio Appearances

During 1997 our fellows appeared on numerous radio programs (both Christian and secular) and five nationally televised programs, TechnoPolitics, Hardball with Chris Matthews, Inside the Law, Freedom Speaks, and Firing Line. The special edition of TechnoPolitics that we produced with PBS in November elicited such an unprecedented audience response that the producer Neil Freeman decided to air a second episode from the "out takes." His enthusiasm for our intellectual agenda helped stimulate a special edition of William F. Buckley's Firing Line, featuring Phillip Johnson and two of our fellows, Michael Behe and David Berlinski. At Ed Atsinger's invitation, Phil Johnson and Steve Meyer addressed Salem Communications' Talk Show Host conference in Dallas last November. As a result, Phil and Steve have been interviewed several times on Salem talk shows across the country. For example, in ]uly Steve Meyer and Mike Behe were interviewed for two hours on the nationally broadcast radio show ]anet Parshall's America. Canadian Public Radio (CBC) recently featured Steve Meyer on their Tapestry program. The episode, "God & the Scientists," has aired all across Canada. And in April, William Craig debated Oxford atheist Peter Atkins in Atlanta before a large audience (moderated by William F. Buckley), which was broadcast live via satellite link, local radio, and internet "webcast."

Newspaper and Magazine Articles

The Firing Line debate generated positive press coverage for our movement in, of all places, The New York Times, as well as a column by Bill Buckley. In addition, our fellows have published recent articles & op-eds in both the secular and Christian press, including, for example, The Wall Street Journal, The New York Times, The Washington Times, National Review, Commentary, Touchstone, The Detroit News, The Boston Review, The Seattle Post-lntelligenter, Christianity Toady, Cosmic Pursuits and World. An op-ed piece by Jonathan Wells and Steve Meyer is awaiting publication in the Washington Post. Their article criticizes the National Academy of Science book Teaching about Evolution for its selective and ideological presentation of scientific evidence. Similar articles are in the works.
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Re: The War On Teachers

Postby JackRiddler » Sun Jul 24, 2011 11:02 am

.

Beautiful cross-post from the Murdoch thread... the dirt is hitting Joel Klein, the businessman-education chancellor from New York where so much of the destructive policy of the last decades was pioneered. In best power elite revolving door fashion, he took his ass straight to Murdoch after the end of his term, so that he could sell Murdoch's junk "education" products back to New York City as a contractor.

The thing is, much as the bad often get a visible comeuppance in the eyes of those who follow these things (and potentially of that thing we call "history"), it's more rare that they really get punished (mere business failure would hardly punish), and of course, the most important thing remains that the damage they've done, in this case a continuing damage to children and youth, is almost never undone.

Thanks to seemslikeadream for the find.

Calls grow for scrutiny of Murdoch’s education division
By Valerie Strauss

Calls are growing in New York for government officials to review and reject multimillion-dollar no-bid contracts let by the state and New York City education departments to Rupert Murdoch’s beleaguered News Corp.

The contracts either have gone or are set to go to Wireless Generation, an education technology company that became a subsidiary of News Corp. last November when Murdoch’s firm purchased 90 percent of it for about $360 million. The sale made news in part because Wireless Generation had financial ties to the New York City public school system, and just a few weeks earlier, the school system’s chancellor, Joel Klein, had resigned to become executive vice president at News Corps.

Murdoch recently appointed Klein, once the country’s chief antitrust enforcer at the Justice Department, to serve as his adviser on the scandal over alleged phone hacking and other illegal newsgathering at the now-closed News of the World tabloid.

On Tuesday, Klein sat next to Murdoch’s wife, Wendi Deng, as Murdoch and his son, James, testified about the scandal before a British parliamentary committee.

Klein, who was New York City schools chancellor for eight years, signed on to News Corp to advise Murdoch on building a business in the education marketplace, company officials said at the time. Murdoch had said in a Nov. 2010 statement about the Wireless Generation purchase that “we see a $500 billion sector in the U.S. alone that is waiting desperately to be transformed by big breakthroughs that extend the reach of great teaching.”

When Klein announced that he was moving to News Corp., he said, according to a statement released by the company: “I’ve long admired News Corporation’s entrepreneurial spirit and Rupert Murdoch’s fearless commitment to innovation. I am excited for the opportunity to be part of this team — and to have the chance to bring the same spirit of innovation to the burgeoning education marketplace.”

The Huffington Post quoted a Wireless Generation spokeswoman, Joan Lebow, as saying:

“Wireless Generation has absolutely no involvement in the events in question — which took place years before the transaction with News Corp. Wireless Generation is an independent subsidiary and does not share student data with News Corp. or any other News Corp. subsidiary or entity. As for our own business, especially as it relates to data security and personal privacy, we have a long and successful track record of safeguarding user data, in accordance with the highest standards and industry regulations, in New York and nationwide.”

In New York, critics are urging state and city officials to stop contracts from going to Wireless Generation, which, among other things, builds large-scale data systems that centralize student data.

Before it was sold, Wireless Generation had partnered with New York City’s Education Department to build the Achievement Reporting and Innovation System (ARIS) and for work on another project, the online School of One.

The New York City Comptroller’s office recently approved a $2.7 million extension of the School of One contract between the state Education Department and Wireless Generation, the Huffington Post reported. According to the Daily News, the contract was initially rejected in June by the comptroller because the application package did not include basic information, including a letter from Klein saying he had recused himself from any involvement. Once the letter was received, the contract was approved.

The state education department has also awarded a $27-million contract for student data systems to Wireless Generation, but the state comptroller has until this fall to decide whether to approve it.

The New York Daily News, in a story about how the media scandal could affect News Corp.’s new education division, quoted Patrick Sullivan, a parent leader on the city’s Panel for Educational Policy, as saying that it was “really disturbing” that education officials had “hired a Murdoch company to work on our children's data.”

And now, Class Size Matters, a New York-based education advocacy nonprofit organization, has organized a petition drive asking the state and the New York City comptroller to reject no-bid contracts with Wireless Generation. [Correction: The original version of this post gave the incorrect name of the advocacy organization. Class Size Matters is correct.]

The petition says that its signers have concerns about a number of issues regarding the contracts, including the fact that they were no-bid, and questions whether there were any “troubling conflict of interest” issues concerning the timing of Klein’s move to News Corp. and the purchase of Wireless Generation.

Tim Knowles, director of the University of Chicago's Urban Education Institute, told the Huffington Post that he couldn’t say whether News Corp’s. education division would be financially affected by the scandal in the company’s media division, but he predicted that Murdoch’s reputation would be harmed in the education world.

“There will be fewer people who want to hear from Rupert Murdoch on questions that run right to the heart of student learning,” he was quoted as saying.
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Re: The War On Teachers

Postby Hugh Manatee Wins » Sun Jul 24, 2011 9:21 pm

...coincidence theorists, read something else....

CIA-Hollywood at work, negative framing of political adversaries, just like 'Nurse Jackie'-
If you don't get that this is psyops, you're hopelessly naive and a danger to your species.

released 6/24/2011
Image

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bad_Teacher
....
Plot summary

Elizabeth Halsey (Cameron Diaz) is a Chicago area teacher who curses at her students, consumes lots of alcohol and drugs, and only shows movies while she sleeps through class. She plans to quit teaching and marry her wealthy fiancé, but when he dumps her, she must resume her job as a teacher. She tries to win over substitute teacher Scott Delacorte (Justin Timberlake), who is also wealthy. Amy Squirrel (Lucy Punch), a dedicated teacher and colleague of Elizabeth, also pursues Scott, while the school's gym teacher Russell Gettis (Jason Segel) makes advances on Elizabeth, which she rejects.[3]
Elizabeth plans to get plastic surgery to enhance her breasts, but she cannot afford the $10,000 procedure. To make matters worse, Scott admits that he has a crush on Amy, only viewing Elizabeth as a friend. Elizabeth attempts to raise money for the surgery by participating in her 7th grade class car wash in provocative clothing and by manipulating parents to give her money for more school supplies and tutoring, but her efforts are not enough.
She later learns that the teacher of the class with the highest test scores on the state test will receive a hefty bonus. With this knowledge, Elizabeth decides to change her style of teaching, forcing the class to study intensely for the upcoming test. However, the change is not enough and the students have low scores on their quizzes, frustrating her even more. Meanwhile, she befriends Russell the gym teacher, and Amy and Scott start dating.
Elizabeth decides to steal the answers for the state test by impersonating a journalist and interviewing Carl Halabi, who is in charge of the exam. Carl explains he cannot give her the exam due to protocol, and Elizabeth resorts to seducing him, drugging him in his office, and stealing the test herself. She also takes nude pictures of him as insurance in case she gets caught. A month later, Elizabeth wins the bonus and pays for the appointment to get her breasts enlarged.
.....
CIA runs mainstream media since WWII:
news rooms, movies/TV, publishing
...
Disney is CIA for kidz!
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Re: The War On Teachers

Postby JackRiddler » Sun Aug 07, 2011 3:07 pm


http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/ans ... _blog.html

Posted at 11:28 AM ET, 08/07/2011
How many testing scandals do we need as a wake-up call?

By Valerie Strauss

--

This was written by Lisa Guisbond, a policy analyst for the National Center for Fair & Open Testing, or FairTest, a nonprofit organization that aims to improve standardized testing practices and evaluations of students, teachers and schools.

By Lisa Guisbond

It is not surprising that the recent Atlanta school cheating scandal earned so much attention. Its massive scope and details of corruption, including pizza parties for erasing students’ incorrect answers, shocked the nation.

Focusing solely on Atlanta, or even other recent cheating cases around the nation, including our nation’s capital, is a mistake. These are not isolated incidents. Rather, they are episodes in a series of unfortunate events spawned by the nation’s government-mandated testing obsession. Considered in light of a recent National Research Council (NRC) report confirming other negative impacts of high-stakes testing, they should be a giant wake-up call for policymakers.

The report from the Georgia Office of Special Investigators makes clear the link between high-stakes testing and the “culture of fear, intimidation and retaliation” in the district. The report, said school leaders, often set unreasonable impossible test score targets and “put unreasonable pressure on teachers and principals to achieve targets.”

Atlanta school leaders were taking their cue from the federal No Child Left Behind law, which mandates 100% “proficiency” on state tests by 2014. That goal is now widely understood to be unattainable.

The epidemic of cheating from Los Angeles to New York City and Orlando is rooted in this irrational mandate. Rather than address the problem, U.S. Secretary of Education Arne Duncan has raised the stakes ever higher. His Race to the Top program’s incentives link teacher evaluations to student test results and expand the amount of testing. This can only intensify the pressure to “do whatever it takes” to boost test scores, a problem the Atlanta investigators clearly identified.

The recent NRC report puts the cheating epidemic into context by reviewing research on the impact of high stakes testing on teaching and learning.

“Incentives and Test Based Accountability in Education ” concluded that the various forms of high-stakes testing —including NCLB, judging teachers based on student scores, and high school graduation tests --have resulted in few if any positive effects. The negative consequences are large and clear:

· High stakes tests “have not increased student achievement enough to bring the United States close to the levels of the highest achieving countries” and “the overall effects on achievement tend to be small and are effectively zero for a number of programs.”

· High school exit exam programs decrease the rate of high school graduation without increasing achievement.

· Educators facing sanctions tend to focus on actions that improve test scores, such as teaching test-taking strategies or drilling students closest to meeting proficiency cutoffs, rather than improving learning.

When schooling is reduced to test preparation, children are cheated out of a good education. Teaching to the test also inflates scores, so that the public receives misleading information about their schools.

As a mother of public school children, it troubles me that students are living and breathing in this atmosphere of “fear, intimidation and retaliation,” not to mention corruption, from the top down.

Duncan has taken the easy way out, dismissing scandals like Atlanta as aberrations, blaming teachers, and demanding more test security. His proposals ignore the root causes of the problem, as documented by the Georgia and NRC studies.

It makes much more sense to hear repeated reports of test cheating as a loud wakeup call. America’s education policymakers should acknowledge that we’re on the wrong track. A serious course correction is needed immediately.

Countries like Finland that are universally praised for their educational excellence have steered clear of high-stakes testing, with enviable improvements in real learning and no headlines about cheating and other forms of corruption.

If we don’t want to helplessly await the next scandal, let’s recognize the damage being done by NCLB, Race to the Top and other misuses of testing, and adopt better approaches to school assessment and accountability.

-0-

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By Valerie Strauss | 11:28 AM ET, 08/07/2011


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Re: The War On Teachers

Postby Pele'sDaughter » Thu Aug 18, 2011 6:47 pm

http://www.commercialappeal.com/news/20 ... te-at-mcs/

When Memphis City Schools accepted millions of dollars from The Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation to improve teacher effectiveness, it agreed to tap new pipelines for attracting teachers.

But after at least 190 teachers with no experience were hired over 100 teachers with lots of it, school board members wanted to know Monday if jobs were earmarked for some of the new teachers -- and what they are supposed to tell angry constituents.

"Out of North Memphis, I'm getting this phone call: 'How can you let the teacher of the year last year go when you're hiring people who don't have experience?'" board member Sara Lewis said after the meeting. "That needs to be explained to people. People don't understand. Our issues are (getting) accurate and adequate information."

While Supt. Kriner Cash did not say whether some positions were intentionally left open for Teach for America and other talent partners, he said the process for filling positions was "open and transparent," and he reminded board members that he has said if any highly qualified teacher is not permanently placed, he will see to it himself that he or she will be.

When the district applied for $90million from the Gates Foundation in 2009, its proposal said that 30-35 percent of new hires would come from talent pipelines that produce high-quality teacher applicants. In 2009, the district expected it would hire 190 teachers from those sources this year alone. Next year, the number jumps to 235.

With only 5 percent of MCS graduates ready to succeed in college, Cash said the district has to do something different.

"We are trying to change and improve that rate," he said. "We also have some of the highest numbers of students who are not proficient. ... We have to do everything we can to give principals a choice -- that is what research shows -- give them the latitude to hire staff they need to move the needle."

The issue boiled over after weekend media reports that the board would be voting on a $1.4 million contract Monday to hire more teachers from an outside group, Memphis Teacher Residency.

This year, MCS signed a contract to place 100 TFA corpsmen, paying their salary plus $4,000 per person to cover training and recruiting costs.

Since 2009, MTR has placed 45 teachers in public and private schools in the area. The residents complete a one-year master's degree in urban education through Union University and work four days a week in the city schools in supervised mentorship. They also receive a living stipend.

"MTR does not have a contract that requires MCS to hire our residents," said director David Montague. "What I would like to think is that our teachers are attractive enough that principals hire them because they want them in the building. I would love for them all to get hired in Memphis City Schools, but they are not going to get hired because they have to be hired."

Memphis Education Association president Keith Williams told board members that displaced teachers had been upstaged by "outsourced labor," reminding them that new teachers have no record of their success in the classroom. Williams went further, saying they also have no relationships in the city.

Cash said MEA has been part of the discussions, saying, "We are working together on this issue."

But he was clear that he has little power over anecdotal evidence, and board member Rev. Kenneth Whalum agreed, saying he could do nothing for teachers who say they are being mistreated but insist on anonymity.
Don't believe anything they say.
And at the same time,
Don't believe that they say anything without a reason.
---Immanuel Kant
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Re: The War On Teachers

Postby ShinShinKid » Sat Aug 20, 2011 3:41 pm

I surrender!

I officially had to tender my resignation a few days ago...
I don't want to hate teaching; but if I stay, I will end up doing so.
Well played, God. Well played".
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