El Paso Rattled by Scandal of ‘Disappeared’ Students - NYTimes.com

El Paso Rattled by Scandal of ‘Disappeared’ Students - NYTimes.com: "EL PASO — It sounded at first like a familiar story: school administrators, seeking to meet state and federal standards, fraudulently raised students’ scores on crucial exams.

But in the cheating scandal that has shaken the 64,000-student school district in this border city, administrators manipulated more than numbers. They are accused of keeping low-performing students out of classrooms altogether by improperly holding some back, accelerating others and preventing many from showing up for the tests or enrolling in school at all."

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Want to Ruin Teaching? Give Ratings - NYTimes.com

Want to Ruin Teaching? Give Ratings - NYTimes.com: "But the solution being considered by many states — having the government evaluate individual teachers — is a terrible idea that undermines principals and is demeaning to teachers. If our schools had been required to use a state-run teacher evaluation system, the teacher we let go would have been rated at the top of the scale.

Education and political leaders across the country are currently trying to decide how to evaluate teachers. Some states are pushing for legislation to sort teachers into categories using unreliable mathematical calculations based on student test scores. Others have hired external evaluators who pop into classrooms with checklists to monitor and rate teachers. In all these scenarios, principals have only partial authority, with their judgments factored into a formula."

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The High Inequality of U.S. Metro Areas Compared to Countries - Jobs & Economy - The Atlantic Cities

The High Inequality of U.S. Metro Areas Compared to Countries - Jobs & Economy - The Atlantic Cities: "The Bridgeport-Stamford-Norwalk (.537) metro — which includes not just the gritty factory town that gives it its name, but stately Westport and über-affluent Greenwich — shares a Gini ranking with Thailand (.536). “The richest Thais earn 14.7 times more than the poorest,” said Gwi-Yeop Son, an United Nations Development Programme representative, a few years ago. “The bottom 60 percent of the population's share of the income is only 25 percent.”"

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Hugh Bailey: Mistrust of reformers is well-earned - Connecticut Post
the online magazine Salon about the school-reform movie "Won't Back Down," screened last week at a Bridgeport theater, and it's one of the kinder reviews out there.
Quality aside, the movie is a clear attempt by the right-wing billionaire who funded it to turn public opinion even further against teacher unions. The message is that organized labor, not poverty, is what's holding back our schools.
Local advocates chose this story, one that turns school reform into a morality play with unions as the villain, as something to emulate.

Read more: http://www.ctpost.com/news/article/Hugh-Bailey-Mistrust-of-reformers-is-well-earned-3903354.php#ixzz297qdW2B3

Bridgeport Charter Vote Their Fight is Our Fight!

Bridgeport Charter Vote Their Fight is Our Fight!: "As we start the school year, our colleagues in Bridgeport are fighting against a charter revision vote which is at the core of the privatization reform agenda."

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Don’t Mess With Big Bird - NYTimes.com

Don’t Mess With Big Bird - NYTimes.com: "I know that you told Fox News this week that you were “completely wrong” for making that now infamous 47 percent comment, but probably only after you realized that it was a drag on your poll numbers. Your initial response was to defend it as “inelegantly stated” but essentially correct. That’s not good, sir. Character matters. Big Bird wouldn’t have played it that way. Do you really believe that Pennsylvania Avenue is that far away from Sesame Street? It shouldn’t be."

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5/4/12 Education Update #1: “No Comment” - Wait, What?

Leeds Equity has a stated goal of breaking into the public education market, a market that was estimated by Rupert Murdoch to be $50B a year.

5/4/12 Education Update #1: “No Comment” - Wait, What?: "Jonathan Gyurko, a principal at Leeds Equity, the firm being paid $195,000 through SERC, also declined to comment when Dixon asked about the situation.  Gyurko had previously served as the Director of Charter Schools for the City of New York.  Achievement First, Inc. the charter school management company that Stefan Pryor helped create and lead as one of its Directors for eight years until he resigned to become Malloy’s education commissioner, runs ten schools in New York City and ten schools in Connecticut.

Adding to the confusion is the fact that emails between the various players indicates that the contract with Leeds Equity was originally written to run through an organization called the Council of Chief State School Officers.  It now appears that some other organization or individual may have transferred $195,000 to CCCSSO to pay for that contract, but a decision was made, at the last moment, to switch strategies and run the Leeds Equity contract through SERC instead."

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News Flash: Michelle Rhee had co-conspirators in the attempt to buy this week’s Democratic Primary. - Wait, What?

News Flash: Michelle Rhee had co-conspirators in the attempt to buy this week’s Democratic Primary. - Wait, What?: "Both organizations are directed by Patrick Riccards, ConnCAN’s CEO, and both organizations were created by the very same people who created and have been funding Achievement First, Inc., the Charter School Management company that was actually co-founded by Stefan Pryor, Malloy’s Commissioner of Education.

ConnAD and ConnCAN’s effort to influence public policy is extensive.  Even before Governor Malloy’s “education reform” bill was proposed, these two organizations spent more than half a million dollars lobbying on behalf of charter schools.

The two organizations ramped up their lobbying after Governor Malloy and Commissioner Pryor introduced Malloy’s “education reform” bill.  Although their ethics reports appear to be filled out incorrectly, in violation of Connecticut’s ethics laws, it appears that ConnAD, the Connecticut Coalition for Achievement Advocacy, Inc., spent nearly $825,000 in their effort to pressure legislators to support Malloy’s bill."

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The Charter School Achievement First - Hartford and their “Reorientation Room” - Wait, What?

The Charter School Achievement First - Hartford and their “Reorientation Room” - Wait, What?: "According to a September Hartford Courant story about Achievement First –Hartford’s newly opened high school, “Rolling one’s eyes at a teacher will get a freshman sent to the school’s Reorientation Room, where Dean of School Culture Peter Uwalaka said “’they get the extra culture they need.’”

The Achievement First Family Handbook goes into far more detail about the school’s discipline policy.

Having spoken with parents who have had students attending an Achievement First school, the “Reorientation Room” is a place that students go to work on improving unacceptable behaviors.  Students temporarily lose the privilege of wearing the school uniform. Instead, they wear a practice shirt. Students are not allowed to communicate with their peers. Students must stay after school to reflect on their behavior issue and to write apology letters to their teammates. Because students lose transportation privileges (they have lost the trust to take a bus unsupervised), parents need to pick their child up from school. Students remain in this room until they have shown dramatic behavior improvement."

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