Education
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Background on “Won’t Back Down”
The film about intrepid parents fighting a corrupt teachers union stars Maggie Gyllenhall, Viola Davis, and Helen Hunt. It's propaganda along the lines of Waiting for Superman. From the Center for Media and Democracy: "Won't Back Down," is a production of Walden Media, owned by billionaire investor and right-wing extremist Philip Anschutz. Anschutz participates in the Koch
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Quote of the Day: Joe Nocera
The Chicago teachers’ strike exemplifies, in stark terms, how misguided the battle over education has become. The teachers are fighting for the things industrial unions have always fought for: seniority, favorable work rules and fierce resistance to performance measures. City Hall is fighting to institute reforms no top-performing country has ever seen fit to use,
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How the Technocratic Mind Works
It has little to do with common sense. If you're familiar with Value Added Teacher Evaluations, no need to watch this video, but if not, it tells you what public school teachers are up against and why GERM is driving the good teachers out. Someone said that linking teacher effectiveness to student scores is like
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This American Life: Back to School
One of the most frustrating things about the corporate reform, aka GERM (Global Education Reform Movement) is its glib attitude toward the impacts of poverty on a child's learning. "Poverty isn't destiny", its proponents proclaim. And for some kids, surely it's not. But the GERM strategy to focus almost exlusively on improving teacher quality measured
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Are Teachers Obama’s Sister Souljah?
From an Audie Cornish interview with EdWeek editor Stephen Sawchuck on NPR: CORNISH: Stephen, one interesting thing about Chicago is that its former schools chief Arne Duncan was tapped President Obama to be the U.S. secretary of Education. And of course, prior to being Chicago mayor, Rahm Emanuel was White House chief of staff. So,
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Chris Hedges on the Chicago Teachers’ Strike
Hedges points to the obvious, but it's not something you hear discussed a lot: This is Obama's guy, Rahm Emmanuel, taking on the teachers' union. It tells you precisely where the Democrats are in relationship to what used to be their base. In the same way mainstream Democrats have supported and in some cases
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Governing Principles for the Development of Local Humanistic Learning Communities
Jonathan in an interesting response to my post last week about Humanistic vs. Technocratic Education suggests that I might be surreptitiously introducing my own social engineering scheme. I don't think so, but I'm willing to get more specific about the guiding principles that I think will make easier–no guarantees–a more humanistic approach. And always when
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Video of the Day: Jamie Vollmer
Next time you hear someone say schools should be run like a business, show them this video: For more of this talk, here's the link.
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Technocratic v. Humanistic Education 1
The growing rush and the disappearance of contemplation and simplicity from modern life [are] the symptoms of a complete uprooting of culture. The waters of religion retreat and leave behind pools and bogs. The sciences . . . atomize old beliefs. The civilized classes and nations are swept away by the grand rush for contemptible