Surviving "no excuses" teaching in KIPP charter schools, part 2
[Editor's note: The following report is the second feature for Substance by School's Matter editor Jim Horn of an on-the-record teacher sharing her experience in a KIPP (Knowledge is Power Program) charter school. While . . .
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Surviving "no excuses" teaching
Today the "no excuses" KIPP Model remains the paternalist billionaires' charter school choice for segregating and indoctrinating urban children whose parents relinquish their children's childhoods and suffer years of repeated indignities for a chance at . . .
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Getting fire from KIPP was the best thing that ever happened to me, says Jessica Marks, a former KIPP teacher...
Good morning, Yesterday (March 30, 2018) I posted an article (Scribd download available) at Schools Matter that I hope you will share with your readers. Full permission granted to embed the Scribd copy at your . . .
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Some critical notes on the NPE... NPE and the coalition of dissemblers...
[Editor's Note: The editors of Substance were not invited to make any presentations or participate in the recent conference of the "Network for Public Education" (NPE) in Chicago. This is despite the fact that long . . .
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AFT joins in reforming 'Reform'?... An ESEA only corporations should love... and a Quiz for those who want to know more....
The original Elementary and Secondary Education Act (ESEA) of 1965 provided a huge financial carrot for Southern education apartheid states to finally desegregate their schools, which was to finally come over a decade after the . . .
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MARTIN LUTHER KING DAY: 'Dr. King Left Behind'... Would Dr. King agree with the ruling class's version of 'No Child Left Behind'?
As Washington's corporate jet is filling up on both sides of the aisle in preparation for a new flight of educational fancy, it seems appropriate to suggest a name for the new flight plan for . . .
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CHARTER SCHOOL NEWS: KIPP puts 'problem' student in dungeon while guests tour their school
KIPP Puts Up to 30 Problem Students in Empty Basement When Visitors Are in the Building
You have heard about KIPP's padded cells for kindergartners and KIPP school leaders putting garbage cans on children's heads . . .
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KIPP -- 'It's almost like a cult...'...'Well, yeah, the kids have nowhere to go but up... And through rote memorization, you can turn a kid into a robot...'
[Editor's Note: The following interview was published by Jim Horn at Schools Matter on May 26, 2014 as one of the ongoing interviews jim is doing about KIPP. Readers can get more of Schools Matter . . .
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'After 12 years of No Child Left Behind, we know that ratcheting up high stakes testing does little to close achievement gaps...' Arguments for Common Core don't stand up to scrutiny
The implementation of Common Core State Standards (CCSS) represents the most grand curriculum experiment in educational history with the least amount of evidence to back it up. Even so, Common Core enthusiasts often ridicule detractors . . .
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MEDIA WATCH: Corporate 'reform' pundit Alexander Russo tries to trash Opt Out movement with the help of The Atlantic
The poodle of corporate education reformers, Alex Russo, has a fluff piece in the Atlantic aimed to disparage the Opt Out movement. Doing his best to present the growing opposition to psychometric insanity as a . . .
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Rob Lytle and the Parthenon group... Edu Industry profit scams are facilitated by NCLB, RTTT and the push for Common Core
The billions of ready cash from No Child Left Behind provided a dollar-powered incubator for the birth of the modern day education industry. State and local education agencies in search of quick solutions to meet . . .
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Randi Weingarten Is a Sham in saying 'VAM is a Sham'
Randi Weingarten told Politico on January 6, 2014 that she is beginning a national campaign called �VAM is a Sham.� That's one year after she declared VAM "junk science" -- and then promoted contracts that . . .
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Skepticism greets Diane Ravitch's praise for Randi Weingarten's criticism of Common Core
With light diminishing between Diane Ravitch and Randi Weingarten's positions, Dr. Ravitch posted on the morning of January 12, 2014, that Randi Weingarten was worth trusting in her recent critique of Common Core. My comment . . .
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COMMON CORE WATCH: Common Core without Testing is like a Vampire without blood
Not many people remember that Diane Ravitch was for Common Core before she was against it, and what turned her against it was the certainty that any benefit of second graders all learning to write . . .
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One Hundred KIPP 5th Graders in a Single Classroom on the Floor for a Week Until They 'Earned' Their Desks
KIPP spends a great deal of money promoting their brand of total compliance segregated charter schools as the tough love, no excuses solution for schooling in urban communities disabled by poverty and the lack of . . .
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Randi's sellout record catching up to her... 'Weingarten... knows more about betrayal than she is willing to admit...'
On December 10 Randi Weingarten flew into Newark with her gold-plated bullhorn to protest the entirely predicted outcome to a teacher contract that she helped negotiate just over a year ago. | Article |
Corporate reform goes down by 65 - 35 margin... Colorado voters reject referendum
With support from major plutocrats who own the U. S. Department of Education and most state departments of education, the plan to turn Colorado�s PreK-12 urban schools into segregated corporate reform schools has gone down . . .
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REIGN REVIEWS: Jim Horn's review of 'Reign of Error' welcomes Diane Ravitch to the ranks of The Resistance... America's Education Whistleblower... Diane Ravitch and the Reign of Error... other reviews....
In 2007 when Diane Ravitch descended from her 20,000-foot view of the education reform landscape to examine what was going on at ground level, she did not like what she saw: | Article |
'...I'm horrified that anyone would consider testing K through 2 kids...' says Principal Julie Zuckerman, 'that's been off-limits for all these years...' New York school parents end testing of younger children through massive boycott
Recent news reports that the vast majority of parents at Castle Bridge Elementary School in New York City have vowed to boycott testing of their youngest children have been filtering out of the city for . . .
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On Diane Ravitch and The Reign of Error: A Brief Essay
On September 18, 2013, Joe Bowers listed 33 reviews of Diane Ravitch�s new book, Reign of Error: The Hoax of the Privatization Movement and the Danger to America�s Public Schools. Since then, many other reviews . . .
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Common Core and Charter propagandist... Arne Duncan, the civil rights visionary of our era, called 'Waiting for Superman' a 'Rosa Parks moment' and Common Core the diversity savior
When he attended the star-studded premiere in 2010 for Davis Guggenheim’s slick propaganda film, Waiting for Superman, Arne Duncan called it a “Rosa Parks moment.” In making this stunning analogy, it became clear that corporate . . .
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New CREDO report from Stanford University... Charter Schools Are No Better, and Don't Expect Them to Change
A new analysis of charter schools in the U. S. is out from CREDO, the Stanford-based outfit that found in 2009, when there were 4,700 charters across 40 states, that 17 percent of the nation’s . . .
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Poor history and poor policy... The compromisers tout 'Lincoln' as a model for tolerating the testing tyrants
Where Comparisons Between the Movie "Lincoln" and Education Reform Go Haywire... I was at a meeting last evening (December 3, 2012) where three panelists and a moderator had some things to say on the subject . . .
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BOOK REVIEW: Paul Tough, KIPP, and the Character Con: A Review of 'How Children Succeed: Grit, Curiosity, and the Hidden Power of Character'
"When we look a these kids and their behavior, it can all seem so mysterious. But at some point, what you are seeing is just a complex series of chemical reactions. It is the folding . . .
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Obama support for charter schools swayed vote in Georgia
It was the voice and support of President Barack Obama in Georgia that ensured the victory of a recent measure to permit the state to create a "commission" that will directly license charter schools, no . . .
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Stand on Children's Exec. Dir. Responds to Critique of Memphis Debacle... Stand On Children pushes massive segregation plan for Memphis
Diane Ravitch mentioned an earlier post I did on the resegregation
> plan that the corporate ed boys have put together for the
> unsuspecting citizens of Memphis and Shelby County, TN; it . . .
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Like cigarettes, 'Common Core' is simply a delivery system for a poison... Common Core, High-Stakes Testing, and 'Field Testing' poison
Diane Ravitch, for whom I have a great deal of respect for leading the charge against the Billionaire Boys’ Club in recent years, has written on her blog that she is agnostic on the national . . .
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Is Gates money buying SOS support for 'Common Core'? Serious discussion breaks out after revelation that SOS leadership is talking with the Gates Foundation and some are buying the Common Core hype
Some weeks back I prompted a series of liberal conniption fits among the SOS upper ranks (are there any other ranks among attendees of the upcoming "People's Convention"?), when I had the gall . . .
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Corporate Party Continues Propaganda Campaign Against Chicago Teachers Union and Chicago's real public school teachers... Who is Rebecca Nieves-Huffman, Chicago's latest teacher bashing pundit?
Back in the old days of the Bush Administration, the Bushies paid hacks like Kate Walsh, who were receiving federal discretionary grants from the Education Department, to seed the op-ed pages of America's newspapers with . . .
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Charles Murray and the Second Coming of Eugenics
The old school eugenics of the previous century was aimed to eradicate all sorts of unfit and anti-social behavior, from theft to laziness to wandering to sexual deviance. The source of these problems was thought . . .
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What if they gave the tests and nobody came? It Texas secedes from the TestNation, who will follow? Parents are increasingly opting their children out of the testing frenzies... While our classrooms become 'test prep' distribution centers?
Wild Dreams about Anonymous and Testing...
Last night I was re-reading a terrific little book from 1976 by D Martin, George Overholt, and Wayne Urban: Accountability in American Education: A Critique. The book brings . . .
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Thinking about Dr. King's legacy and the current state of the public schools of America's cities... It's the Socioeconomic Segregation, Stupid
In a piece for The Nation by a few days ago, Linda Darling-Hammond demolishes most of the remaining chunks of any size within the crumbling structure of corporate education’s most ironically-titled reform ever — No . . .
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Education Policy Stuck Between Coddling the Rich and Containing the Poor
The New York Times reports that Obama's Justice and Education Departments have jointly offered new guidance for interpreting recent racist decisions by conservative federal courts in ways that give colleges and universities wiggle room for . . .
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Corporate Education Reform's Slime Machine Goes After NRC Report... Media again tout right-wing attacks on public education researchers, facts about teacher evaluations
Hoover Institution economist, Eric Hanushek, is one of the chief think tank hacks for corporate education reform and the testing-industrial complex. His work consistently reminds us of the definition of "ecomomist" as "an expert who . . .
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Heritage Foundation and American Enterprise Institute prove... American economy is in crisis because teachers are paid too much, have too many benefits
When I heard that the American Enterprise Institute and the Heritage Foundation were about to release a report by two of their PhD staffers, I thought, here we go again. After all, it was just . . .
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Another national study — this one paid for by Gates and others — again proves failure of charter schools to improve over real public schools
New Charter Study by Mathematica With More Bad News for Corporate Ed Reform... The first national charter school study was conducted in 2009 by CREDO at Stanford, and the co-funders of the study (the Walton . . .
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MEDIA WATCH: New York Times loves 'value added' and continues attack on public schools... NY Times Continues to Blame Schools and Teachers for Poverty and Penury
The Business Roundtable's Rube Goldberg plan for evaluating teachers in Tennessee (and other venues with RTTT money) has met with almost universal disdain, a response that has brought CEOs running out of their penthouses to . . .
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Accountability's End, or the Beginning of a Real Accounting?... Fordham Foundation hacks stuck ... in 'Flypaper'?
I have often wondered about FLYPAPER as a name for an education policy publication, as it clearly brings to mind the irresistible final destination for winged carrion eaters who get stuck for life. Disgusting, but . . .
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The Real Truth About Testing Costs... Phony 'study' on testing costs misattributed to Stanford University
Bill Tucker, who heads up the corporate education PR firm, Education Sector, has an op-ed in Ed Week that is being plastered around by the hedge fund crowd while "thought leaders" like Rotherham and Finn . . .
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NCLB 2.0 and the New Feuderalism... While AFT and NEA chiefs still play footsy with crazy teacher evaluation schemes... NPR blows the whistle on Tennessee's crazy 'value added' teacher evaluation system
Everybody connected to Washington's corporate legislative process badly needs some good PR. With approval numbers for Congress in or near single digits, and with both high-rolling presidents of the "teachers' unions" implicated in the destruction . . .
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Will Barack Obama show up on the wrong side of history?... Obama/Duncan policies promoting increasing segregation through charter schools
[Editor's Note from Substance. Jim Horn is blogging regularly at Schools Matter, and readers will hopefully visit his site regularly. Along with New York's Norm Scott, Vermont's Susan Ohanian and a handful of other reporters, . . .
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MEDIA WATCH: Brizard and Tribune's editors bring back memories of Booker T. Washington and the last Gilded Age
Just as Booker T. Washington was groomed by white philanthropists during the first Gilded Age to advance the cause of segregation, containment, and indoctrination of African-Americans, the philanthrocapitalists of our Gilded Age 2.0 have a . . .
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MEDIA WATCH: Duncan and Bloomberg news products go after Diane Ravitch... Billionaire Boys Club getting desperate?
[Editor's Note at Substance. The following was first posted by Jim Horn at Schools Matter and comes to Substance from Jim, who is considered a part of our staff. We hope that all Substance readers . . .
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Teachers elected Barack Obama in 2008, and Obama's betrayal of America's teachers has already cost him one election... To begin recovering former supporters, Obama must dump Duncan and eliminate Race To The Top
[Editor's Note: The following materials were posted by Jim Horn at Schools Matter on June 14, 2011. They are here with the permission of School Matter. During the coming months, as more and more of . . .
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KIPP-type school teacher survivor tells all
The total compliance schooling model of KIPP, Inc. has inspired a number of high-flying charter school knock-offs that make a virtue of torturing test scores from children through behavioral and psychological treatments more suited to . . .
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The problem with promoting school segregation at the beginning of Black History Month...
[Editor's Note: The following was posted on February 2, 2011 at Schools Matter, Jim Horn's site, and is being posted today at www.substancenews.net. Readers who wish to follow Schools Matter on a regular basis . . .
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Most charter schools in Chicago and elsewhere are viciously segregated... Charter Schools: What Would Dr. King Say?
It is unfortunate that the charter school industry now finds itself on the wrong side of educational progress and civil rights history, even as industry spokesmen like Nelson Smith engage in a public relations campaign . . .
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The State of the Union’s Schools: That Part of Mr. Obama’s Speech We Would Like to Hear But Won’t
While everyone knows that Barack Obama's State of the Union speech is likely to continue to push for the agenda that we've been facing in Race to the Top — privatization, more testing and test . . .
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A primer on KIPP and KIPP Segregation: A Single School Choice Without a Voice
KIPP's Mike Feinberg has a reputation as an impulsive brat and bully in a china shop (even as documented by the worshipful Jay Mathews), and the Feinberg op-ed in the Houston Chronicle today (December 4, . . .
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Another charter school scam?... 'Parent Revolution' charged with misleading parents about signatures on 'close this school' petition
[Editor's Note: The following story from Jim Horn's Schools Matter blog is called 'Compton Parents Charge Barr and Austin's "Parent Revolution" With Deception, Manipulation, and Lies'. Some media have been reporting that under a new . . .
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Lies about high schools' 'ready for college' rate helped end desegregation plan! Seattle scandal: Broad Foundation guy in Seattle falsified data, caused scandal
A Broad Foundation "leaders" alumnus has been busted in Seattle Public School scandal for lying about the city's high schools to advance Broad's corporate agenda. Brad Bernatek began his Broad Residency in Urban Education Cohort . . .
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Bloomberg's Lesson for Schoolchildren Everywhere: Democracy Is Embarrassing
School boards have been seen as stumbling blocks to social efficiency engineers for a hundred years now, and Prince Bloomberg, Mayor of New York City, is just the latest and most visible representative of those . . .
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The Corrupt Collapse of Education Reform's Wall Street Model
[Editor's note: The following article appeared on October 11, 2010, at Schools Matter, Jim Horn's blog, and is reprinted here. As readers here know, a Substance Media Watch noted the same New York Times story . . .
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The hypocrisy of Arne Duncan's 'Rosa Parks Moment' shilling for 'Waiting for Superman'
Having often declared segregated corporate school reform as the "civil rights issue of this generation," Arne Duncan just placed himself on a whole new circle of Orwellian doublespeak hell by declaring last evening's extended commercial . . .
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The Audacity of Arne Duncan... Massive racial segregation is OK under Duncan's 'new civil rights' version of history
Arne Duncan stood before the NAACP convention last week [JULY 14, 2010] to repeat his claim that “education is the civil rights issue of our generation.” He also declared that “the only way to equality . . .
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MEDIA WATCH: How big a lie did Arne Duncan tell The New York Times? Ask 13 state education commissioners
[Editor's Note: More than a century ago, a British politician uttered the famous saying: "There are lies, damned lies, and statistics" (or something like that). Five years ago, Substance ran a major story under the . . .
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Estimated 300,000 will not be taking the test!... Test Boycott in Great Britain reduces tests today by 50 percent!
[Editor's Note: The following was Posted By Jim Horn to Schools Matterat 5/09/2010 08:15:00 PM. Some Chicago students will not be taking tests this week, but until Chicago teachers — and teachers elsewhere in the . . .
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Test boycott in Great Britain successful... Infamous 'league tables' rendered meaningless
The British love their traditions, but this Spring's naming and shaming ritual based on standardized test scores has finally been interrupted. The infamous "league tables" are being thrown into disarray, and if Brits want to . . .
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How Bill Gates Won the Race to the Top, and Why Every Parent Should Boycott Microsoft
Every so often we glimpse small stories stuck into the back pages of the corporate press on the continuing payouts by Microsoft for settlements to years-old State claims that Gates "had stifled competition and broken . . .
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CHARTER SCHOOL NEWS: IMAGINE charter schools seems to be more interested in profit and real estate as part of their charter business model
Is this legal to sell a school that has students in it?
Net Lease Investment with 5 years left on lease.
It seems from this posting that the students are included in a for . . .
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MEDIA WATCH: More corporate propaganda from the pages of the Sunday New York Times magazine
[Editor's Note: The following went up on March 7 at Jim Horn's Schools Matter blog and is reprinted here with premission. George N. Schmidt, Editor, Subtstance, Monday, March 8, 2010].
SUNDAY, MARCH . . .
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If Arne Duncan were serious about Civil Rights... Chicago's Mr. Segregation takes another piece of the Chicago Plan national
Yesterday, March 8, 2010, corporate foundation stooge, Arne Duncan, was marched out to declare a commitment to civil rights enforcement that was absent during the reign of Bush II. And yet Duncan seems intent to . . .
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SUBSCRIPT: 'Tough Choices' attack on democracy and public high schools makes another comeback thanks to $$ millions from Bill and Melinda Gates
[Editor's Note: Not all the bad ideas to destroy public schools in the USA were hatched and field tested in Chicago, although an awful lot of them were. Most days lately, Chicago school news has . . .
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KIPP... Behind the hype, just another corrupt charter school?... KIPP San Antonio leader stole
[Editor's Note: The following was originally published at Schools Matter by Jim Horn. George N. Schmidt, Editor, Substance, January 15, 2010].
There are a number of reasons why KIPP has become that shining schoolhouse . . .
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Charter schools 'innovation' adds more segregation... Massachusetts adds more segregated charter schools as attack on public schools escalates
It is ironic at least, that today, on Martin Luther King Day, the Governor of Massachusetts, an African-American himself, signed an education bill that assures the continued intensification of resegregation of American schoolsand the renewed . . .
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MEDIA WATCH: Charter schools debates continue as Washington Post compares apples (CREDO study) and rotten apples (Hoxby study)
[Editor's Note: The following was posted to Schools Matter by Jim Horn to Schools Matter on December 1, 2009 09:46:00 AM].
Better late than never, I guess. But too bad, really too bad, . . .
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What Korea's 'Race to the Top' does to Korean children
[Editor's Note: The following essay by an Indiana professor who just spent a year in Korea was posted by Jim Horn to Schools Matterat 12/08/2009 08:54:00 AM. George N. Schmidt, Editor, Substance.
Introduction by . . .
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How the Skillman Foundation funds 'parent' front groups... Detroit 'parent' group says "Jail teachers for low test scores!"
Posted By Jim Horn to Schools
[Matterat 12/14/2009 09:42:00 AM]
Detroit's official unemployment rate is at 17 percent —, and the poverty rate in 2007 before the 2008 Wall Street heist was . . .
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Duncan's BTTF (Bribe to the Flop)... All peer reviewed research debunks every major program in 'Race to the Top'
Duncan's BTTF (Bribe To The Flop)
Since last Fall, Bush and Obama have handed over $3 trillion (give or take a few hundred billion) in taxpayer money to save American business from . . .
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Editorial commentary: In the 'No Excuses' bubble, is death a valid excuse?
[Editor's Note: The following was submitted to Substance on October 7,2009, but we didn't get to post it until October 13, 2009, because of the business here and about this topic. We're sorry for the . . .
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Corporate abuse begins in kindergarten
I knew a brilliant guy when I was in school who did not learn to read until
he was 8 years old. You probably know someone, too, who was a late bloomer.
If the oligarchs . . .
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Editorial: The Reagan Legacy and the Obama Agenda, or A Race at Risk
Soon after Ronald Reagan came to Washington, he began wondering aloud in prepared speeches if the push for civil rights had damaged American institutions such as schools during the previous two decades. In 1983, the . . .
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What is left behind by No Child Left Behind
What IS Left Behind?
We have reached a critical crossroads in our educational and national history. As No Child Left Behind’s (NCLB’s) reauthorization or expiration takes center stage in Washington, American citizens who care . . .
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