Monday, June 1, 2009

Weekend Quotables

State Rep. Cynthia Soto's bill was an attempt to pull in the reins on Chicago's Renaissance 2010 school closings. It passed the Senate with unanimous support, despite vocal opposition from Mayor Daley's lobbyists and CPS administrators. In a May 28th press release, Soto spelled out the reasoning behind House Bill 363:
"The Act will lead to a framework of fair standards and procedures for building, repairing, and closing Chicago schools," said Soto. "To this point, Chicago's lack of clear standards has created two different worlds in which are children are educated, which are grossly unequal." (Designs for Change)
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The same
Newt Gingrich who once said that bilingual education was like teaching “the language of living in a ghetto” tweeted that Sotomayor is a “Latina woman racist.” (NYT columnist Charles Blow)
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This may be an oppressive, even fascistic charter school, the model of what neo-con George Will lovingly calls, "the new paternalism," but the misnamed American Indian school, does succeed in raising test scores. And after all, isn't this what public education for poor kids is all about?
Reporting from Oakland -- Not many schools in California recruit teachers with language like this: "We are looking for hard working people who believe in free market capitalism. . . . Multicultural specialists, ultra liberal zealots and college-tainted oppression liberators need not apply." (LA TIMES)

1 comment:

  1. Hi Mike-

    I assume you have the same info on what when on at the IAS from Caroline Grumman that I used in a charter school fact sheet a couple of years ago- http://pureparents.org/data/files/Chartermythssum.pdf

    ''In December, 2006, the San Francisco Chronicle published an article by U.S. Secretary of Education Margaret Spellings' praising NCLB, and using some real tricky data to claim that charter schools close the achievement gap.

    "Spellings praised Oakland's American Indian Public Charter School and uses it as an example of NCLB success. “The law put American resolve behind the revolutionary idea that ‘every child can learn,’ setting a goal of 2014 for all students to be able to read and do math at grade level.

    "'This has proven especially beneficial to disadvantaged and minority students. The results can be seen in schools such as the American Indian Public Charter School in Oakland. More than half of the student body demonstrates limited proficiency in English, while 83 percent qualify for free lunch. In 2004-05, 70 percent of sixth-graders scored proficient or better in the English-Language Arts portion of the California Standards Test, up from 36 percent two years earlier.'

    "A miracle??

    "Problem is, it’s unlikely that the American Indian students benefitted. Here’s what happened, according to blogger Caroline Gramman: The "before" class was zero percent Asian and 28% American Indian. The "after" class was 45% Asian and less than 10% American Indian.

    "So, the American Indian Charter School improved not by the grace of NCLB and 'choice and competition' but by replacing most of the American Indian students and some African-American and Latino students with Asian students who tend to score better on standardized tests despite low income and English Language Learner status."

    You know, kind of like "how we won the West."

    Julie Woestehoff
    Executive Director
    Parents United for Responsible Education (PURE)

    100 S. Morgan Street
    Chicago, IL 60607
    tel. 312-491-9101
    fax. 312-491-9404

    www.pureparents.org

    ReplyDelete

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