WEEKEND QUOTABLES

Marcus Yam for The New York Times

A sign at 168th St. and Broadway in Manhattan announcing enrollment for KIPP Star Elementary, a charter school.

Educator Takes On Charter Chain

"There is a quiet but fierce battle going on in education today, between the unions that represent the public school teachers and the hedge-fund managers who finance the big charter chains, between those who trust teachers to assess a child’s progress and those who trust standardized tests, and occasionally it flares out into the open over something as seemingly minor as the location of a school." -- Michael Winerip, NYT

Biden visits Delaware high school

Biden acknowledged that “beating up unions” had become en vogue for some, but credited the key role unions were playing in improving Howard High. “Do you know what these guys did?” Biden asked. “They said, ‘We’ll take a chance.’" -- Education Votes

Experience makes teachers better

"Having $40 billion or $50 billion does not mean you know how to engage, entertain, inspire, motivate and educate a classroom of 25 10- and 11-year-olds for 6½ hours each day. Have any of these people even set foot in a classroom in the last 20 or 30 years, other than for the occasional photo-op?" -- Edward Johnson, teacher at West Elementary School in Sycamore, Il 

Al L.A. rally

"This is a direct attack" on all unions and the entire middle class, Mitchell shouted, warning that similar policies could soon be introduced by politicians in California, which is grappling with an estimated $26-billion deficit. "An injury to one is an injury to us all!" -- Mahlon Mitchell, president of the Professional Fire Fighters of Wisconsin.

Florida for sale

"The Florida Legislature proved this past week, once and for all, that it is the utter Whore of Babylon." -- St. Pete Times columnist, Howard Trolxer

A New Poem for Chicago by Luis J. Rodriguez

 

A Hungry Song in the Shadows

When I think about Chicago’s first settlers, migrants, jobseekers,

who sought haven or the hope of one,

I think about a place fierce with wails, noises in all decibels,

tongues from all reaches, and how this is not just a city,

but a dream state of brick and chain-link fences, where poetry clatters

along with the El train on iron rails, where temples hold every

belief and street corners every color, a city that nourishes all palates,

holds all thoughts, and still contains the seed of this vital idea:

In accord with nature, all is possible. This is a city that steam built.

That muscle and sweat solidified into a church

of organized labor. Where a swampy onion field in a few generations

could become home to the brightest and most jagged skyline,

where fossil fuels are holy water and smokestacks and silos remain

as soot-stained monuments to industry—from horse-drawn plows,

to the foulest stockyards, the roar of combustion engines, the rattle

of metal-tipped tools, and smoke-curling big rigs streaming along

cluttered expressways and upturned streets. I came to this city on my knees,

laden with heartaches, bitter in the shadows, seeking a thousand voices

that spoke in one voice, where steel no longer reigned, but where open mics

and poetry slams kept the steel in our verses, lamenting a life of work,

in a time of no work, and where the inventive and inspiring

could finally burst through the cement viaducts and snowy terrains.

Now we are artists or we die. From the fractured neighborhoods where

bootblacks and news hawking boys once held sway, to this daunting

gentrified metropolis of ghosts, toxic waste, and countless poor ripped

from their housing projects, three-flat graystones, or trash-lined

bungalows, yet nothing can truly uproot the uprooted. The energy for what

Chicago can become is buried inside people, in callings, passions,

and technologies, but only if this manufactured garden aligns

with real nature, no longer limited, finite, fixed on scarcity, but abundant,

cooperative, regenerative, like a song across the lakeshore, blooming

with lights, music, dance, banners, and words into a cornucopia

of potentials, possibilities, even the impossible. It’s an imagination

for the intrinsic beauty and bounty in all things.

Chicago. Clean. Just. Free. It’s the city we’ve wept and bled to see.

c/s
www.luisjrodriguez.com

Spring training and the death of small schools

I was in Ft. Myers Wednesday, where we had a chance to meet fantastic teacher/parent/activist and tweeter Bonnie Cunard, a leader in Florida's Save Our Schools movement. After that, we decided to head over a few blocks to City of Palms Park, the spring training home of the Boston Red Sox.

It's a beautiful night and the Sox are hosting Tampa Bay. But on our way, I have to pull the car over when the cell phone rings. It's Linda Lutton from WBEZ radio telling me that Chicago's interim schools CEO, Terry Mazany is going to announce up to 20 school closings the next day, including the remaining small schools at Bowen High, which we -- the Small Schools Workshop -- helped start. Linda wanted to know what I thought about all that and I told her in the most direct way I could.

******

The small schools at Bowen were originally conceived, organized and led by teachers with lots of support from the school's principal and its Local School Council, headed by Neil Bosanko. They were trying to deal with rising dropout rates and endemic violence in and around the school, by building smaller learning communities that would hopefully make students more visible through personalization. They would also try to give teachers greater responsibility, autonomy and control of their classroom environments while helping them organize into collaborative teams.

The small schools initially showed great potential. TAP scores in reading and math rose steadily for four years and by 1999 were above the level required to lift Bowen off of academic probation. Then, in 2000, TAP scores fell back a few points in reading and math.

Schools CEO Paul Vallas moved immediately to put the entire school under his failed intervention plan  and essentially liquidated Bowen's small schools, putting the entire high school on a test-prep regimen. Demoralization set in, dozens of teachers resigned in protest and Principal Alejandra Alvarez was fired. Things soon turned chaotic. Vallas' intervention was a disaster, and not just for Bowen. The whole story was told in a 2001 Catalyst piece by Jody Temkin, "Bowen High: School's fledgling progress 'destroyed' by intervention."
.

A year later, the Gates Foundation came to town and decided to invest in its own version of small schools. Local foundations, including the Chicago Community Trust, with Terry Mazany in the lead, joined in. The Trust received most of the Gates money and became the home of the new Chicago High School Redesign Initiative (CHSRI). A meeting at Bowen was soon called by CHSRI leaders who informed a group of remaining teacher leaders that small schools were back in vogue and that they would be expected to submit new proposals for reconstructing the small schools if Bowen was to receive any Gates money.

This top-down approach was doomed from the start, as was Gates' entire small-schools strategy. Today's announcement by Mazany was simply the final nail in the coffin. As my brother pointed out today in a blog post-- how ironic it was that Mazany was now closing the small schools simply because they were small.

As for the school's continued decline in test scores---well, just look at the deteriorating conditions around the school community where jobs were once plentiful and local steel mills used to produce 1/6 of the world's steel. Now Bowen sits amid a post-industrial wasteland, high in unemployment, poverty, crime and gang violence. As I explained to Linda Lutton, until something is done to relieve these conditions, no single school reform could be expected to produce high test scores. Small schools were never posed by us as a panacea, a singular cure for the so-called achievement gap, the way charters are currently being promoted.

******

So that was my response to Lutton. Here's the quote of mine WBEZ went with today.

"All the ideas that were the foundation of the small schools movement--like personalization, like kids staying together with teachers a long time so teachers could get to know them and connect curriculum with kids' own experiences—all those ideas are kind of being washed away to save money," says Michael Klonsky, director of the Small Schools Workshop and a faculty member in DePaul University's School of Education... Klonsky says the experiment shows kids need more than good schools. Their living conditions and the state of their neighborhoods must be improved as well, he said. 

 ******

Not a bad sound-byte. And if I would have left it at that during my phone interview with Linda, we probably could have made it to the game on time. But by the second inning, we were met with a SOLD OUT sign (how appropriate!) on the ticket window, and even the scalpers had retired for the night. At least I got to take a picture with the statue of the "Splendid Splinter," Ted Williams.

Lessons from the International Summit on Teaching

The great WaPo columnist Valerie Strauss has been reporting on the first ever International Summit on Teaching, convened last week in New York City. She takes note of the key difference between current U.S. ed policies and politics and those countries that are leading the world, like Finland and South Korea. The difference being that in those countries, teachers are "well-respected, well-paid, well-supported with resources and development, unionized, and considered capable of designing curriculum and lesson plans themselves without interference from non-educators.'

Strauss follows up with a commentary on the Summit by Stanford's Linda Darling-Hammond, who President Obama rightfully should have chosen to be our secretary of education over the corporate toadie who currently sits atop the DOE. Writes LDH:

For contrast, wade through Arne Duncan's (DOE's) murky, bureaucratic report on the Summit and see how all the meeting's important lessons sailed right past them.

"How poignant for Americans to listen to this account while nearly every successful program developed to support teachers’ learning in the United States is proposed for termination by the Obama administration or the Congress... These small programs total less than $1 billion annually, the cost of half a week in Afghanistan."

The view from Florida

More testing madness

I've been in Florida all week, trying to get a handle on Gov. Scott's train wreck of a school reform. The latest fiasco has to do with the state's testing madness and a new law that forces schools to evaluate and pay teachers on the basis of students' FCAT scores. The last time the legislature passed such a bill, it had to be repealed when the state ran out of money and couldn't afford "merit " pay.

The latest problem is that, for the second year in a row, the state can't get test scores back in time to enter student grades, allow seniors to graduate or figure teachers' pay into their budgets. What a mess!

Florida law requires test results be available within a week, but the state says it won't have them ready until after schools have closed for the summer in many districts. Last spring's late FCAT scores forced the Lee district to recall staff from summer vacations to process the data.

This year they're not blaming vendor, Minnesota-based NCS Pearson. Pearson was fined $14.7 million by the state for last spring's six-week delay in releasing Florida Comprehensive Assessment Test scores. Instead they say, the tests are just tied up in bureaucracy.
 
Among the repercussions for "merit pay" -- how is a teacher supposed to budget and plan things when they may not learn a student's peformance until June?

The civil rights revolution in the South never really arrived in Southern California,

Gary Orfield on failed L.A. deseg

Southern California is home to what is by far the nation's largest population of Latinos, the second largest Asian population and the West's largest population of African Americans but... 

"If one compares the outcomes in the "dropout factory" schools, where the major product is dropouts or students totally unprepared for college, with the kind of opportunities that exist in schools serving affluent communities, it seems they could be serving different countries. The fact that California's level of public funding for schools has become one of the worst in the U.S. makes the private resources more affluent communities can give their schools all the more important."  -- Huffington

WEEKEND QUOTABLES

David Orr -- "Chicago ain't broke..."

Chicago mayor's TIF slush fund

“There’s a giant myth being spread all across this land ... that local governments have no money, they need to take it out of the backs of teachers, take away their pensions. Chicago ain’t broke. Chicago has put $2 billion tax dollars that the public doesn’t know about into these TIFs and there’s another $500 million being added every year. There needs to be a moratorium on these TIFs because there has been enormous abuse. They are supposed to go to blighted areas. It’s gone to Willis Towers. It’s gone to Grossinger. It’s gone to other major corporations. As we uncover the mayor’s slush fund, which this is, we’re going to discover that money can go to help the schools.” -- Cook County Clerk David Orr

New study: NCLB is a total bust

"These methods satisfy the adults because you can walk away and say, 'I really kicked ass - I made them abolish their school,' " said Jennings, president of the group that conducted the study. "But instead of shaking up the school, it may be that we need to improve instruction."-- S.F. Chronicle

Bloomberg's parent liaisons

We're looking for "Happy Harrys,” and not “Angry Sallys." -- New York Times

Paying Florida's teachers based on test scores

"Currently, annual teacher evaluations are subjective and very few teachers receive negative reviews. For the first time, an objective measure of teacher effectiveness — based on standardized tests that measure student learning — will be part of annual evaluations." -- Jeb Bush in the Chicago Tribune

At my old high school

This morning, 3,400 students from Hamilton High School in Los Angeles (my alma mater) are walking out of school.

This is not a school wide "Ditch Day." We are walking out not to avoid our classrooms, but to save them. To protest the terrible budget cuts our school could face. To protest the 22 pink slips handed out to our beloved teachers, to protest the potential closure of our school library. We are walking out to protest the increase of class sizes by 50% or more. And we will walk out to stop our magnets from facing a 90% loss in funding. LAUSD stands to lose $500 million in funding.

In the aftermath of Obama's embrace of Jeb Bush

I'm back in Florida this week where Gov. Scott is set to sign the bill that would make state’s public school teachers lose their job security and work for "merit pay" based on student's FCAT scores. Of course this can only apply to teachers teaching in subjects tested on the FCAT. T-bagger Scott , encouraged by his chief ed consultant Michelle Rhee, is behind the teacher-bashing bill.

It creates a statewide teacher evaluation and merit pay system in 2014. New teachers hired after July 1 will have no tenure. At the same time teachers lose their right to collective bargaining and due process. The legislation is the first one that was sent to the Republican governor after he took office in January. A similar bill by his more moderate predecessor, Charlie Christ, was vetoed in the face of widespread opposition from teachers and the union.

These changes were initiated by former Governor Jeb Bush who was embraced earlier this month by President Obama--a signal for Scott and the legislature that the new bill met with administration approval.

TWITTER FIGHT!

I don't think so.

Somehow Diane Ravitch and I ended up in a Twitter skirmish today with the Fordham Institute's Mike Petrilli. Petrilli is claiming that there's no privatization of public schools going on. Being a protege of conservative think-tank guru Checker Finn, he has learned the art of defining his way out of arguments, playing word games instead of getting to the heart of the matter. I already knew this going in, but bit anyway.

Petrilli fires the first shot at Ravitch:

Diane, name me one "reformer" who wants to privatize public schools.  

Ravitch quickly names not one, but 6, before she runs out of Tweet space:  George W. Bush, Barack Obama, Margaret Spellings, Michelle Rhee, Bill Gates, Arne Duncan=Corporate education reform.

 

I simply retweet Ravitch's answer, which draws Petrilli's fire towards me, narrowly nicking my Tweet finger. 

Michael Petrilli: None of those folks want to "privatize" public education.

 

I whirl and fire back:

Mike, what else would you call closing thousands of public schools & handing them over to private operators?

 

And again: 

Not to mention after-school programs, food services, security, curric. devlp., special ed, sports programs...

 

Oh, I ran out of space before I could mention tax-free real estate ownership of land including the ability of charter companies to leverage low-interest loans and pay execs huge compensation packages. Don't worry, Ravitch will bring that one up.

 

OK, so it's not a fatal blow. Petrilli ducks and fires with both barrels using the old re-definition gambit:

Michael Petrilli If the schools are open to the public, supported by public $$ and accountable to the public, they are public.

 

Uggh, I'm hit. He's got a point. But it's a weak one. It barely grazes me. Diane comes to my aid:

Diane Ravitch When charter schools pay $400,000 to CEO, when they fight public audits, when they kick kids out...not public.

 

I double-team: CMOs aren't accountable to the public, even admit they're private when it comes to NLRB and unions.

Then Petrilli goes where you knew he would:

Your definition of a public school seems to be "Staffed by members of public employee unions."

 

Now, I admit, I'm getting pissed: 

Save the union-baiting Mike. Not a question of who staffs them. It's who controls them, profits, signs pay checks

Nuts, I let him off too easy on that one. It takes a privatizer to ban unions when the public system is based on collective bargaining rights for teachers. It's precisely this union hating which puts Petrilli in league with the worst of the privatizers. Oh well, it was in the heat of battle. I'll get him next time. 

Diane Ravitch chimes in:  Privately managed deregulated charters are privatization. Decimates public sector. Nepotism ok.

 

I'm beginning to realize that this debate isn't moving anybody. It's an argument over the definition of the word privatization, and Petrilli won't move past that. He doesn't want to say he supports privatization and therefore is an enemy of public schools. It's only their union-free management he's after. Fordham is involved in the operation and authorization of privately-run charter schools in Ohio. 

 

But before signing off, I call on the old guy, Sun Tzu. Remember-- my enemy's enemy is my friend:

If u don't think they're private, Mike, your argument is with them--not me.

A Chicago charter school that has received more than $23 million in public money since opening in 2004 is arguing that it is a private institution, a move teachers say is designed to block them from forming a union. In papers filed with the National Labor Relations Board, attorneys for the Chicago Math and Science Academy on the city's North Side say the school should be exempt from an Illinois law that grants employees of all public schools the right to form unions for contract negotiations.-- Chicago Tribune, "Charter school says it's private"

Take that, Petrilli.  So far no response.

Quotables

La Cucaracha

"In Madison a new governor, Scott Walker, is applying the Rahm Emanuel axiom that a crisis is a terrible thing to waste." -- Michael Miner, Chicago Reader

******

David Brooks on Obama: "we were sitting on his couches, and I was looking at his pant leg and his perfectly creased pants." -- TNR 

******

"There is something deeply shameful about continuing to use 9/11 as a justification for remaining in Afghanistan." -- Jeremy Scahill

******

"Walker kicked the hornet’s nest..." Victor Kamber, The Hill

Close to meltdown at Fukushima Dai-ichi plant

A destroyed landscape in Otsuchi village, Iwate Prefecture in northern Japan.

WEEKEND QUOTABLES

Unions a Civil rights issue

"Dr. King lost his life struggling to help sanitation workers – public sector employees – achieve their goals for a dignified existence as workers. We think that's an extraordinary backdrop in which to frame the debate over what's taking place in the country today." -- Wade Henderson, president of the NAACP Leadership Conference.

Power shift

"This is a fight for workers, this is a fight for the middle class, this is a fight to try to stave off the shift in power and wealth that is starting to become gross." -- Harold Schaitberger, president of the International Association of Fire Fighters.

Obama keeps his distance

Rose Ann DeMoro, executive director of National Nurses United, the nation's largest nurses union, called Obama "largely a bystander" in the debate over collective bargaining. "I think we're feeling a sense of betrayal from him and not liking it much," she said. -- Huffington

Destroit

"Bobb has set off a vicious cycle undermining even good schools." NYT's Michael Winerip Detroit -- Hope for the Hopeless

IN THE MAILBOX

 Mike,

This is Wisconsin State Senator Chris Larson -- and today, I'm heading home to Wisconsin to join the fight in person.

The last three weeks have shown what progressive strength and worker solidarity look like.
My fellow senators and I know that thousands of PCCC members in Wisconsin and across the nation have been fighting right alongside us -- attending rallies, making phone calls, donating to some great TV ads, and telling your friends about the Republican war on workers.

I want to say thank you. I also want to let you know that the fight's not over.

Republicans need to learn what accountability feels like. It's time for Republican senators to be recalled from office.

The PCCC just opened up an official Recall Committee in Wisconsin -- which will mobilize volunteers and run new ads against vulnerable Republicans. Please chip in $3 to help fund this vital work.

Wisconsin Republicans brazenly stampeded over the will of the people as they engaged in their right-wing attack on workers.

They shut down the public hearings, they shut down the legislative hotline, they shut down debate in the Assembly in the middle of the night, and they tried to lock citizens out of the Capitol. And on Wednesday night, when they had their last chance at redemption, Republican senators chose to bend the rules and join Governor Walker's war on working families.

The citizens of Wisconsin are rising up and engaging in the democratic process like never before. Recalls of the Republicans are kicking into high gear as clipboards begin to replace protest signs in neighborhoods across the state.

Governor Walker and Republican senators refused to listen to the public -- but now the people will be heard all across the state at the ballot box. 

Please help us win this fight by chipping in $3 to the PCCC's Recall Committee. Click here.
Thanks again for standing with us in solidarity, and for being a bold progressive.

-- Senator Chris Larson, Wisconsin's 7th District (Twitter.com/ChrisJLarson)

Maddow was right--just a little early, that's all

Palm trees have become an increasingly common site at the demonstrations at the Capitol to deride the Fox News channel, which during a discussion of the events in Madison aired footage in which palm trees were seen in background. John Hart — Wisconsin State Journal

I'm writing this post about an hour before thousands of Wisconsin high school students are planning to walk out of classes in support of their teachers and other public employees and their unions. Here's wishing them success. Courage is contagious. 

Rachel Maddow was a bit premature in declaring victory in Wisconsin Tuesday night. 

As I pointed out at the time, it was way too early to celebrate. Maddow had assumed that polls showing the mounting and overwhelming opposition to Gov. Walker's assault on the state's teachers and public employees unions had forced Walker to compromise and negotiate. She must not have listened closely to his phone conversation with the Koch impostor where he candidly admitted to using the bait of a compromise only to trick the 14 Dems into returning to Wisconsin. He never had any intention of compromising his attack on the unions.  In fact it was one day after Maddow's "we won" declaration, that the Republicans went into an illegal secret session and passed a bill which essentially eliminates collective bargaining rights for teachers and all public workers.

The period ahead will be a tough one for teachers with massive layoffs on the horizon and swelled class sizes facing those teachers who are still working. On top of that, many will lose their benefits, including health care coverage for their families and possibly, their pensions.

This new gaggle of T-Party Republicans, unlike their more right-centrist counterparts, are ideologically driven and couldn't care less what the voters think. It all reminds me of former vice-president Cheney's response to a reporter who told him that polls showed two-thirds of Americans opposed the war in Iraq. Cheney replied, "So!"

To give her her due, Maddow had it essentially right in that the Republican tactical victory on Wednesday is likely to turn into a strategic defeat for them in the upcoming elections. AFL-CIO Pres. Richard Trumka has even thanked the gov for overreaching and waking up the movement:

"We should have invited him here today to receive the Mobilizer of the Year award! Because Gov. Walker's over-reaching has brought us to this moment to talk about jobs. This is the debate we've wanted to have. Well, guess what? Suddenly the debate came to us, and we're winning."

Yes, thank you Gov. Walker for waking us up. Now it's up to us to get organized for the long haul. In Wisconsin it means continuing the protests which have sparked more resistance in Indiana, Ohio and Michigan and to get the recall process started. 

The Republican coup d'etat apparently also awoke President Obama.

According to an AP story in today's papers, the White House is denouncing the Wisconsin Senate vote, calling it an assault on public employees. White House spokesman Jay Carney said President Obama believes it is wrong for Wisconsin to use its budget troubles “to denigrate or vilify public sector employees.” 

Pretty daring for the Great Triangulator. 

Also: Student walkouts are spreading to Illinois

After a decade of No Child Left Behind

We're approaching 100% "failure"

Arne Duncan said Wednesday, that 82% of all schools could now be labeled as "failing" under NCLB rules. The DOE estimates the number of schools not meeting targets will skyrocket from 37 to 82 percent in 2011 since states have "raised standards" to meet the requirements of the law. Yes, we're truly racing towards the top.

The latest news has forced Duncan to re-triangulate. He has been pushing, so far unsuccessfully, for NCLB re-authorization for the past two years. He still praises NCLB for supposedly "shining a light on achievement gaps among minority and low-income students," but now admits, ""No Child Left Behind is broken" and needs to be fixed.

"This law has created a thousand ways for schools to fail and very few ways to help them succeed."  

That's all  true. The law is all about test-and-punish. "Fixing" it, could only mean easing the standards or allowing waivers for charter school or other Duncan favorites. But when we first made this point, he labeled us a "proponents of the status quo." Remember?

Finally, says Duncan,

"We should get out of the business of labeling schools as failures and create a new law that is fair and flexible, and focused on the schools and students most at risk."

Yes, yes. What a great idea! But isn't that exactly what NCLB is all about--"shining the light" on failing schools?

By the way, who are these people who've "been in the business" of labeling schools as failures, anyway? They should definitely get out of the business.

See: 

• "Obama wants to see 5,000 failing schools closed."--MSNBC 

• "Eventually, he [Duncan] said, he hopes to see 1,000 failing schools turned around each year.--NYT

• "In the first round [of Race To The Top] there will be “a lot more losers than winners,” Duncan said, "and the department plans to offer two subsequent rounds of funding for improving failing schools."-- Harvard Magazine  
• Arne Duncan's $3.5 Billion Lever for Turning Around Failing Schools--Edweek

I could go on. But you get the point.

NCLB's stated goal is to reach 100% proficiency in reading and math by 2014.  But the way things are going, if we stay the course, we should reach 100% failure rate some time within the next three years.

Congratulations are in order, I suppose.

The road to Madison

The drive from Chicago up to Madison is about 150-miles, a little over 2 hours each way. Maybe a little longer coming back because of the late afternoon traffic or if you stop for dinner. It's a straight, boring shot up I-90, past Rockford and the Clock Tower Inn, where the Fab 14 Democratic senators have been holding up for the past 23 days. But if you drive it with friends, there's time to catch up on politics and personal stuff. Or just plug in some good sounds, stop at the Oasis for cheaper gas and coffee fill-up. Before you know it you're heading down John Nolen Drive towards the Capitol. You can usually park on the street or in a lot, a block or 2 from the protest march.

I got used to the drive back in the '60s, then again when my daughter was an undergrad at UW. It was also fun making the trek up to Camp Randall for Badger football games when our friend's son was a freshman fullback. Looks like we're headed back up tomorrow to let Gov. Walker and the Koch brothers know what we think about yesterday's fascistic, union-busting coup d'etat.

"You are cowards!" spectators in the Senate gallery screamed as lawmakers voted. Within hours, a crowd of a few hundred protesters inside the Capitol had grown to an estimated 7,000, more than had been in the building at any point during weeks of protests. -- This morning's Detroit Free Press

Duncan does his best John Lennon

Arne Duncan--“Imagine if we could have a digital tutor that could allow a student to catch up two grade levels in a year." -- FOX Newws

Did you watch Maddow last night?

If you didn't, you can watch her here. She's at her very best, with great interviews with Shock Doctrine author, Naomi Klein and former GOP chairman, Michael Steele.

First, Maddow declares a victory for the people of Wisconsin in their 22-day struggle to defend the collective-bargaining rights of teachers and other public employees. Maddow says that Gov. Scott Walker, "has started to crumble," that at least 3 Republican senators are breaking ranks from his caucus, and that the whole Republican union-busting strategy is coming apart at the seams. The GOP national "disaster capitalism" strategy of using the budget crisis as an excuse for outlawing unions is galvanizing massive opposition nationwide, with all polls showing growing and overwhelming opposition to Walker's "no negotiations" strategy. Even the most conservative papers in Wisconsin are raking Walker over the coals for his divisiveness.

I hope Maddow is right. But it's way to early to celebrate.

In another segment for example, Maddow lays out the disaster-capitalism scenario, already playing out in Michigan, where the house has already passed legislation and a Republican senate will likely pass it today, whereby state officials can declare a budget "state of emergency" and turn whole municipalities, deemed "insolvent" over to private management companies (much like we are doing now with public schools) and removing elected public officials. It's an ownership society dream come true -- a nightmare for democracy.

Reforms with no merit

If you need any more evidence that so-called "merit pay" is a crappy idea, here it is, right from the horse's mouth:

New York City’s heralded $75 million experiment in teacher incentive pay — deemed “transcendent” when it was announced in 2007 — did not increase student achievement at all, a new study by the Harvard economist Roland Fryer concludes.“If anything,” Fryer writes of schools that participated in the program, “student achievement declined.”-- Gotham Schools

Teacher evaluation

Over at the teacher-free National Journal, a panel of experts rehashes test score-baed teacher evaluation and the B.S. continues to pile up. Here's more on the continuing saga of Bill Gates, the man who nobody would listen to if he wasn't rich. EPI's Rich Rothstein looks into Bill Gates' claims and finds them to be "misleading" and "demagogic."

"It is remarkable that someone associated with technology and progress should have such a careless disregard for accuracy when it comes to the education policy in which he is now so deeply involved." -- National Journal

Michael Winerip's NYT headline sums it up best: Evaluating New York Teachers, Perhaps the Numbers Do Lie  Ah, So it's not just Bill Gates.

Why blame teachers?

A much better discussion--"Why blame the teachers?"-- is taking place at, NYT's Room For Debate featuring some bright lights like Pedro Noguera, Jeff Mirel, and Diane Ravitch, to name but a few. And to offer the view from far right field is AEI's hired gun Rick Hess who's basically arguing -- teacher bashing? Where? What? I don't see any teacher bashing.

Ravitch says, "It all started with No Child Left Behind" and she ought to know. Noguera warns: "If measures are not taken quickly to slow down the push toward sweeping, ill-conceived reforms, the damage could have long-term consequences for American education."

Michigan prof, Mirel, who anticipated Ravitch's book some 20 years ago, with "The Rise and Fall of an Urban School System: Detroit, 1907-81, sums it up nicely:

"Recent right-wing attacks have described teaching as a “part-time job” or a glorified form of “baby-sitting.” This characterization of teaching is simply wrong, and the initiatives that it supports -- cutting salaries, benefits, tenure and collective bargaining -- are maliciously wrong."