A LIST competition expands and grows more intense as Substance broadens criteria for the award... 'Not all Network Chiefs are A_______ -- just the majority'Within two days after Substance published the first of our monthly recognitions of self-important semi-competents at the top levels of administrative power in CPS, the A LIST, we began hearing that we had been unfair . . . | Article | |  |
Testimony against 'Turnaround' of Dvorak[Editor's Note: The following is the complete testimony prepared and presented to the hearing on the proposed "Turnaround" of Chicago's Dvorak elementary school. Additional material pertaining to the failures of AUSL's so-called "turnaround" work is . . . | Article | |  |
BOARDWATCH: 'All advance registration speaker slots are filled...' nine days before the Board of Education meeting even begins, Rahm's Board members continue attack on democracy and decencyIt was a full nine days until the April 23, 2014 meeting of the Chicago Board of Education, but when I went to the sign in screens at cps.edu on April 14, 2014, the registration . . . | Article | |  |
TURNAROUND WORLD: In CPS turnaround world, 2 + 2 equals 6, or 66, or WTF as Babara Byrd Bennett and Rahm's minions vote to do whatever they want, and 'independent hearing officers' can remain on the gravy train for two decades -- as long as they rubber stamp what CPS wantsAs students of CPS history know, the first hearings on "reconstitution" (now called "turnaround" but legally still "reconstitution") were held back in 1997 -- nearly two decades ago -- and the first hearing officer to . . . | Article | |  |
'Chief' Saegert tops 'A LIST' for April 2014... Micro managing classroom instruction while still learning her way around her new home city, Rhonda Saegert brings crazed bureaucratization of teaching the little ones to a new gritty peak of inanityThe competition was still for the first monthly "A LIST" award to CPS bureaucrats, but after reviewing the entries for April 2014, the judges found that Rhonda Saegert, the "Chief" for "Network 10," had won . . . | Article | |  |
Labor Notes conference was a big success... On privatization of public services -- 'Before you can destroy it, and move in for the kill, you have to undermine it and degrade it.'Speech excerpts from the Friday evening and Saturday morning plenaries of the April 4-6, 2014 Labor Notes Conference in Chicago are now available in a Labor Notes video. And before the speeches begin, a . . . | Article | |
Gresham challenges 'turnaround' verdictMore than 100 (three bus loads and others) determined, angry, community members, staff and students of Gresham Elementary School attended the hearing on the turnaround of Gresham Elementary School. The Gresham school community is telling . . . | Article | |  |
Data-- The Devil is in the Overview AND the DetailsElsewhere [and see below], I've deconstructed Arne Duncan's presentation of the 2015 Education Budget to the House Subcommittee on Appropriations. Here, I bring notice to the phraseology Duncan uses to present the numbers. . . . . | Article | |
Huge outpouring of opposition to 'turnaround' at Dvorak Elementary SchoolAngry parents, staff, community members and students greeted Chicago Public Schools officials at the hearing on the proposed reconstitution of Dvorak School of Technology, on Wednesday, April 9, 2014. at 125 North Clark. The hearing . . . | Article | |  |
Arne Duncan comes out publicly against Common Core... Duncan tells Congress 'I'm just a big proponent of high standards. Whether they're common or not is sort of secondary...'Has the U.S. Secretary of Education whose two signature policies have been "Race To The Top" and "Common Core" changed his mind? In two days in April 2014, it began to sound like Arne Duncan . . . | Article | |  |
MEDIA WATCH: 'Chicagoland makes a kind of neoliberal action hero out of Rahm Emanuel...' Black Agenda Report takes on the crude propaganda of 'Chicagoland'... CNN's Chicagoland: An 8 Part Miniseries Campaign Commercial For Rahm Emanuel and Urban Neoliberalism[Editor's Note: I know that it was a British Prime Minister at the height of the racism of the British Raj and the Empire who proclaimed "There are lies, damned lies, and statistics..." But for . . . | Article | |  |
CPS launches massive privatization of custodial work during Spring Break... 'Rest assured that any new employees will be trained on Aramark’s world-class cleaning standards. The program is rigorous, and you should have every expectation it will deliver immediate results...'The massive continuation of privatization of CPS custodial services under contract with Aramark corporate is being pushed with fiercesome speed by CPS officials. On April 8, 2014, CPS principals received the following email from Aramark . . . | Article | |
Caught in the CPS 'Matrix', schools facing threat of turnaround can't figure out what the rules areFor more than a decade, Chicago mayors and school officials have proudly proclaimed that their strategy of "turnaround" for so-called "failing" schools was just what was needed to promote true education reform for the nation's . . . | Article | |
MEDIA WATCH: Opt Out news begins to hit 'mainstream' of corporate media as New York opt outs reach at least 33,000 as testing season beginsDiane Ravitch notes: "Preliminary figures indicate that at least 33,000 students opted out of state tests in New York. This is a huge increase from last year, when only a few hundred students refused to . . . | Article | |
Drones and teacher unions... How far willthe AFT and NEA go in supporting Common Core?[Editor's Note: Susan Ohanian's recent report -- “On 21st Century Drones, Destroyers and Teachers” compares the collaboration of the leaders of the National Education Association and the American Federation of Teachers with the national expansion . . . | Article | |  |
Philadelphia tries 'portfolio model' treating schools as if they were stock holdings... Just as Chicago dumps the notion and fires its 'Chief Portfolio Officer'!It's been more than a year since the disappearance of Chicago's "Chief Portfolio Officer" and an end to that bit of corporate terminology, it was something of a surprise that Philadelphia has been adopting the . . . | Article | |  |
Philadelphia school chiefs proudly describe corporate 'Portfolio' model at AERA... 'The great example of portfolio is in New Orleans... New Orleans after Katrina went almost completely to a portfolio system. Almost all of the schools in New Orleans are charters now...'The leaders of Philadelphia's public schools, which have been under a corporate dictatorship for more than a decade, proudly described the "portfolio model" for managing the city's public school buildings at the annual meeting of . . . | Article | |  |
'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 scrutinyThe 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 . . . | Article | |  |
OPT OUT FREAK OUTS: Michelle Rhee gets free space in The Washington Post to preach against the Opt Out movement... Anyone for reducing Amazon's business now that Bezos owns the Washington Post?Without having offered any of the major spokesmen and women of the growing national Opt Out movement an inch, the Washington Post newspapers, now owned by Amazon billionaire Jeff Bezos, have given a major space . . . | Article | |  |
Common Core content decried as more and more examples become available from various places in the USANow that the Common Core is being implemented, even in a test phase, across the United States, teachers, principals and school administrators are finally getting a close look at the actual content of the tests. . . . | Article | |
