Finally!

AFT's reform initiative

Tired of conceding the mantle of school reform to top-down “market-based education reformers” the AFT is launching a teacher-led reform initiative of its own. The union's new Innovation Fund will likely support projects like:

…community schools, which take a holistic approach to students’ academic, personal and social development; union-partnered charter schools, such as the UFT’s charter schools in New York and other charter schools across the country where teachers have chosen to join the AFT; differentiated pay, such as the plans in Douglas County, Colo., New York City and elsewhere, where union involvement established fair measures and incentivized cooperation; and school-based teacher contracts, in which teachers have flexibility to meet their students’ needs, and professionalism is enhanced through fair pay, respectful treatment and workplace voice.

One of the initiatives propelling the union’s reform plan is the newly-opened Green Dot Charter School in N.Y., by, in Edwize's words, a “labor-friendly charter school operator and educational reform organization.”

On the other hand...

Andy Rotherham, is at odds with Berkeley prof, Bruce Fuller who, on his NYT blog, correctly tied McCain’s pro-voucher ed policies to those of George Bush.

Republicrat Rotherham, who turned his Eduwonk blog over to the Republican campaign a few weeks ago, now envisions a bright future for education in a McCain victory.

For all the bellyaching you hear today, an Education Department focused on using federal authority in education may look pretty good in hindsight a few years into a McCain Administration…

Rudy Crew toast OF IN Miami

He keynoted our Small Schools Conference two years ago and was leading a move to restructure all of Miami-Dade’s high schools. But Supt. Crew was constantly under fire from ultra-racist factions in Little Havana and repeatedly called the N-word by one state senator.

From Edweek:

“I didn’t pay homage to what they call ‘the community,’ meaning the Cuban community,” he said. “I was too busy trying to pay attention to the children of the larger community. ...In my book, it’s the Haitian community, the African-American community, the Jamaican community, and it is in fact the Hispanic community, but not just Cubans; there are Nicaraguans, Puerto Ricans, and lots of other people here. “There is a racial tension that exists here in Miami that they defined me as being against the Cuban community.”

Does this mean Miami-Dade doesn't get the Broad Prize?