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Roger Mancastroppa

State jobs directed to private companies to remedy budget shortfall | HeraldTribune.com - 0 views

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    So Florida is privatizing its public sector jobs to private industry which has not proven reliable in the past. Go figure.
Georggetta Howie

Online Public/Private High School Courses - 0 views

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    This site is powerhouse site for online public and private education for K-12. There are 30 states participating including Virgnia and Washington, DC. Public online course are FREE, while private online course vary in tuition.
Roger Mancastroppa

Republican Ohio Gov. Bars 360,000 Ohio Workers from Bargaining and Striking -- How Will... - 0 views

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    How to create a corporate plutocracy: eliminate the power of the unions, destroy their Democratic rivals creating a one-party system, sell off all services (including education) to the private sector, and watch the rise of fascism.
REL N

Charles Kolb: Educational Success: America's New Industrial Policy - 1 views

  • And we need to approach our education investment as we approach infrastructure or industrial policy.
    • REL N
       
      NOOOO! We need to better define the type of success we can achieve given that individuals are in different places at different times in their lives. We need to support people where they are and help them move forward in areas and at a pace that is right for them. If a 16-year old is able to perform well in a college program then that is where s/he should be. If a student is gifted in math and abhors and does poorly in history, then we should nurture her/his strengths and stop holding them to their social grade level in math and wasting their time and their passion drilling them in history. Ultimately, they will be happier, more productive, and more willing to contribute to society in a math-related endeavor.
  • "define success up." Our new industrial and competitiveness policy as a nation should be focused relentlessly on those talented young children and adolescents who show educational promise. We should double, perhaps triple, federal, state, and private sector resources that support gifted-and-talented programs in our schools. We should nurture this talent the same way some institutions nurture athletic talent. This approach is not elitism; it is smart commonsense.
    • REL N
       
      Yeah... I think we all saw what happened when we had a leader who was proud of getting "C's" in college. And, then we are not really sure if a "C" actually meant a "D-" but was given to ensure social promotion. I would not go to a surgeon who either did not want to go to medical school or was not able to succeed in her/his training. That is not elitism. It is more than simply common sense. It is effective data-driven/evidence-based decision-making. A person might be terrific and funny and caring (and perhaps rich and attractive too) but they should not be given a role beyond their knowledge and capabilities.
  • If such an exam cannot be developed within six months, then perhaps we really have wasted a lot of time over the last 30 years. Algebra in New Hampshire is not different from algebra in California. Reading skills and reading-level assessments should be the same in each state. Grammar doesn't vary across state borders, and gravity tends to work the same way everywhere. The governors are well-positioned to lead a national discussion about what our high school graduates should know and be able to do -- and then devise a test that measures the success of our young people in mastering what they need to know to be successful. The National Governors Association is already doing excellent work in this area -- but it has to move faster.
    • REL N
       
      f we stopped the gaming in elementary and middle school testing and relied on the teachers and administrators to implement effective local testing and take appropriate actions to ensure learning, we would have more resources (time, money, people) to develop appropriate and resonable assessments at the high school level. These must be based on higher order thinking and include essays, video-taped dialogues/presentations, and some simple answer tests. The evaluation should be done by humans outside the local area and care must be taken to ensure inter-rater reliability. This is done in other countries as well as in the states with the IB diploma programme. It is do-able and the graduates will be well prepared and confident that they can move forward. Our initial pass rates may not be as high as we would like, and we need to be prepared to accept that some students may take more than 12 years or choose to take a less rigorous set of exams; however, we will have a higher level of success overall and our students will be much better prepared as citizens and workers.
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  • We need to change our approach from preventing failure to promoting success.
  • In late December 2010, the Education Trust reported that nearly 25 percent of high school graduates taking the U.S. Army entrance exam cannot answer basic questions in math, science, and reading. Some of the questions were pretty basic: "If 2 plus x equals 4, what is the value of x?"
  • all children can learn, not all children are ready to learn at the same time. If some of our classrooms have disruptive students, these students should attend other classes until they become serious about learning.
  • And finally, we should learn from the French, who for decades have had a baccalaureate exam that is a prerequisite for advancing to post-secondary education. In France, the "bac" exam is typically taken by 17- and 18-year-olds, but if a student fails the exam, he or she can take it again -- even later in life. The "bac" serves two purposes: it sets a standard for what French high school graduates know and can do, and it serves as a moment of consequence for French young people: they cannot move forward until they have proved their proficiency.
  • In several states, where testing has been adopted, we find large discrepancies between how the states report their children's performance on "No Child Left Behind" tests and the often much lower performance found by the objective National Assessment of Educational Progress.
  • resources we've squandered. We need a more tough-minded and focused approach that identifies, nurtures, and rewards success
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    I'm not sure how I feel about this blog. Part of me says "Oh no!" while the other part says that we need to make education accessible but we would be better served to go with a more individualized approach. Right now it feels as though we often cater to the lowest common denominator which is not fair to anyone. Can we learn something from the operations concept of mass customization? Educators--feedback please!! I'd love to hear what your experience tells you r.e. these issues.
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    I am intrigued if not in full agreement with this piece by Kolb. He makes good points about a national baccaulaureate exam...it's true, algebra is algebra, grammar is grammar, in all 50 states. Some of our colleagues would disagree that we need primarily focus on the best and the brightest and that those who are not ready to learn should be sequestered until they are (paraphrasing here). He says, "We really aren't serious as a nation when it comes to education," but I think that we are fast approaching a time when (I hope) it becomes a primary focus of our political debate (from Candy).
Phil Riddle

Temporary Segregation - 1 views

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    For me, the most interesting aspect of this article is the continuing segregation of students in our schools by income. It also have a brief summary of what has happened in the Wake County Schools
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    Not entirely opposed, we might need to try it to see if it works...I recall reading how Justice Clarence Thomas chose to support public funding to private relgious schools (some might say unconstitutional) in order to create a way for African Americans to leave poorly performing urban public schools. Sometimes, you have to make a choice between a rock and a hard place.
REL N

Jack Jennings: Get the Federal Government Out of Education? That Wasn't the Founding Fa... - 0 views

  • the answer isn't to eliminate federal involvement in education. That would be a wrong-headed move that ignores our country's history and would contribute to the decline of the United States. It's also a battle that has been fought and lost before because the stakes are simply too high.
  • Federal involvement began more than 225 years ago, even before George Washington was president, when Congress passed two laws -- the Land Ordinance of 1785 and the Northwest Ordinance of 1787 -- to create and maintain public schools in the expanding United States.
  • The specifics of federal land grants were outlined in each of the federal acts for admitting these states.
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  • the achievement gap narrowed between adolescent white and black students. And the percentage of children with disabilities who attended public school rose from only 20 percent in 1970 to 95 percent in 2007.
  • three-fourths of all college student aid comes from federal sources, whether through the tax code, direct grants or subsidized loans.
  • These indirect subsidies of education through the federal tax code total at least $21 billion for post-secondary education, and at least $17 billion for elementary and secondary education. These amounts are almost as significant as the direct grants made by the federal government to support education.
  • "Getting the federal government out of education" would endanger the progress made by -- among others -- children with disabilities, African-American children, and women and girls
  • The achievement gap between U.S. students and their international peers deprived the national economy of as much as $2.3 trillion in 2008, according to the McKinsey Quarterly.
  • How can the country raise academic achievement if 14,000 local school districts are each making their own decisions on most key aspects of education?
  • Over the course of American history, the national government has aimed to better educate the citizenry as a basis for democracy and economic prosperity. Today, our nation must act with greater, not less, unity to improve schools.
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    Those who can afford to pay for all private K-12 and college expenses for their children may not care if the Federal government is involved in our education system. All the rest of the country needs to take heed and acknowledge the need for continued and expanded federal involvement. Without sounding flippant... do you suppose that those who might be leading the charge to get the Federal government out of education and make draconian cuts in social programs under the guise that tax burdens are too high and individualism trumps social justice are the same millionaires and billionaires who fund the tea party et al.? Sadly, the "regular folk" who are falling for that rhetoric do not recognize that they are paving their own way to..... [let's just say poverty].
Victoria Schnettler

Hawaii Governor Replaces Elected School Board - 0 views

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    Mad power hungry movements towards monopolizing and privatizing education under one person's torch.
Roger Mancastroppa

Wisconsin Progressive/Labor Alliance Gears Up for Major Electoral Test Tomorrow | FDL N... - 0 views

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    "Judge Maryann Sumi delayed the implementation of the anti-union law in Wisconsin that would strip most collective bargaining rights from public employees. Sumi is ruling on whether the conference committee for the bill violated state open meetings requirements. In addition, Madison-area unions have filed suit over whether or not the bill passed had fiscal elements, meaning it would require a quorum of state Senators to consider it, which it did not receive. And a third lawsuit, filed late last week, alleges that the legislation is unconstitutional, "infringing on employees' equal protection rights and their rights to freedom of speech and association."
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