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Dan Malloy is saying - you better get your legislators to cave in and vote for my version of the bill because if they don't your towns don't get the money.  If your towns don't get the money, you either don't provide the education services or you have to raise your local property taxes to meet those costs.. $40 million dollars to help 200,000 kids in return in return for what I want (or you get nothing).

This outburst of anti-public school, anti-teacher legislation is no accident. It is the work of a shadowy group called the American Legislative Exchange Council, or ALEC. Founded in 1973, ALEC is an organization of nearly 2,000 conservative state legislators. Its hallmark is promotion of privatization and corporate interests in every sphere, not only education, but healthcare, the environment, the economy, voting laws, public safety, etc. It drafts model legislation that conservative legislators take back to their states and introduce as their own "reform" ideas. ALEC is the guiding force behind state-level efforts to privatize public education and to turn teachers into at-will employees who may be fired for any reason. The ALEC agenda is today the "reform" agenda for education.

Quietly marching to its own drummer, Washington State has mostly turned its back on the education reform movement that is sweeping much of the rest of the country.  Washington is one of nine states that does not have a charter school law.  Our state has defeated charter laws three times at the ballot box - two were citizen initiatives and one was a referendum to repeal a charter law passed by our legislature.  In between those votes, five more bills were introduced and rejected in our Legislature. 

Education reformers place great emphasis on the importance of parental choice. But they recently revealed their hypocrisy in a way that is infuriating to all those who support the strategy. Despite protests from thousands of parents, the Panel for Education Policy voted to close 18 schools in the New York City system and shrink five more ("Thousands Gather in Brooklyn to Fight School Closures," In These Times, Feb. 10). The justification was that the schools were not providing a quality education. Presumably, the evidence used for making this determination were standardized test scores. Another 33 schools are on the list, with a decision expected by March or April.

The New York Times online indexes the article "$5 Billion in Grants Offered to Revisit Teacher Policies" as education. It probably should have been listed under politics. After three years of demonizing teachers as the problem with American education with its Race to the Top program, the Obama administration apparently now realizes it will need teacher union support and teacher and public school parent votes to be reelected. Suddenly, Education Secretary Arne Duncan wants to "work with teachers in rebuilding their profession and to elevate the teacher voice in federal, state and local education policy." Other than promising respect, the proposal is called the RESPECT (Recognizing Educational Success, Professional Excellence and Collaborative Teaching) Project, the Obama-Duncan team is offering teachers very little. The title of the program is apparently taken from a top of the pop charts song sung by Aretha Franklin in the 1960s. What Duncan seems to have missed is that the song is actually a complaint because as a woman she is not receiving any respect.

Most teachers in the US not only voted for President Obama, they spent considerable time and money campaigning for him. Like many other Americans, they thought the Obama presidency would bring new initiatives to help working families and help people rise out of poverty after 8 years of policieswhich favored large corporations and concentrated wealth among top earners. However, they were shocked when President Obama appointed Arne Duncan, a man who had never been a teacher, as Secretary of Education,and when policies began emanating from the new administration favoring charter schools over public schools, requiring student test scores as a basis of teacher evaluation, and encouraging "school turnaround"strategies which led to mass firing of teachers. Worse yet, the rhetoric emanating from Mr Duncan often portrayed "bad teachers" ratherthan deeply entrenched poverty, as the reason for race and class inequities in educational achievement, and for poor US performance globally on standardized tests, a concern heightened when Mr Duncan praised the mass firing of teachers in Central Falls Rhode Island and called Hurricane Katrina " the best thing that had happened to education in New Orleans" because it allowed local officials to replace public schools with charter schools

When revisions to the state's teacher evaluation law came before the State Senate late Wednesday night, not a single senator cast a "no" vote. That's because nearly all of the Senate Democrats had walked out of the Senate chambers to protest a controversial redistricting deal. While they were out, Senate Republicans made quick work of bills that had already been approved by the Assembly. That included the teacher and principal evaluation bill.

Scowling at a lengthy document from the city detailing its proposal to close John Adams High School in Ozone Park, and reopen it with about half the teachers replaced next fall, student Symone Simon gives the packet of papers a dismissive flick of her wrist and issues a harsh verdict of Mayor Bloomberg - he has failed her and her classmates, who want their instructors to remain put. "The mayor says 50 percent of the staff that works here is not doing their job, but there has been a 17 percent increase in graduation rates to 64 percent over the last three years," said Simon, a senior and one of the editors at John Adams' school newspaper. "I've seen people grow so much here - that's what our teachers do for us. They're like our other parents." John Adams High School is one of 33 that the mayor wants to close in the city, including eight in Queens. First proposed in his State of the City address in January, the plan to close the schools will be voted on April 26 by the city Panel for Educational Policy - often known as a rubber stamp for all the mayor's schools plans because it has never rejected anything Bloomberg proposed. Queens Borough President Helen Marshall's appointee to the PEP, Dmytro Fedkowskyj, has repeatedly voiced his opposition to the school closures, as have other borough presidents' appointees.

As Blue Jersey reported, Chris Christie's nominee to the state Supreme Court, Phillip Kwon, was voted down by the Senate Judiciary Committee along party lines. This is a very big deal in the NJ education debate, because Christie has made it clear he wants to overturn the court's ruling that mandated adequate funding for the poorest districts in the state. These are the famous "Abbott Districts," named for the landmark case brought by the Education Law Center. The original ruling has since been superceeded by the School Funding Reform Act (SFRA). Christie has made no secret that he wants to stack the court with nominees that will overturn SFRA; that would mean a huge cut in school funding for the poorest districts, and big tax cuts for Christie's wealthy base. This is in addition to the changes he has proposed to SFRA, which ELC estimates will be a $400 million cut to at-risk children across the state.

On the board are some of the most well-known and polarizing figures in public education, including Ms. Rhee; Mr. Klein, now a News Corporation executive; and Eva S. Moskowitz, the former councilwoman who now runs a chain of charter schools. Also on the board are former Mayor Edward I. Koch; Geoffrey Canada, the founder of the Harlem Children's Zone organization, a network of charter schools; and a number of venture capitalists and hedge fund managers, who have served as the movement's financial backers. Aside from promoting changes throughout the state, members of the group hope to neutralize the might of the teachers' unions, whose money, endorsements and get-out-the-vote efforts have swung many close elections.

Educators at Academy of the City Charter School in Queens announced on May 21 that they have organized a union at the school and intend to join the UFT. Teachers and staff at the school believe that unionization will help them better support their students' needs.

State University of New York officials on Monday granted a hefty fee increase to the charter school company run by former City Councilwoman Eva Moskowitz. The SUNY Board's Charter Schools Committee decided - without a vote - to allow Harlem Success Academy Charter Schools to increase its per-pupil fee from $1,350 to $2,000 to run charter schools in Harlem, the Bronx and Brooklyn.

Even in public education, the rich keep getting richer. That's the message the trustees of the State University of New York will send Monday when they vote to approve a huge 50% increase in the per-pupil management fee of one of the city's wealthiest, biggest-spending and most controversial charter school operators. The Success Academy Charter Schools Inc., run by former City Councilwoman Eva Moskowitz, applied in April for an increase from $1,350 to $2,000 in the annual per student payment it receives from the state to run 10 of its charter schools.

In the case of the trigger, all the heated rhetoric about the merits of the trigger mechanism seems to be ignoring a critical issue: Whether replacing regular public schools with charters will produce better outcomes for its (current and future) students. This is, to say the least, an open question, especially in the case of conversion schools, and it's in many respects at the heart of the matter. Yet it often gets lost in the trigger controversy (and, I would argue, in the debate about charters schools in general, but that's a different issue). Conversely, and more importantly, whether or not current parents should be allowed, by majority vote, to fundamentally alter a public school is a very serious question, one that would seem to carry implications for public policy, both in education and maybe even in other areas as well.

Just now the Supreme Court voted 5-4 to uphold the Affordable Care Act, President Obama's signature health-care initiative-including a controversial provision that would require individuals to buy health-care insurance. But what does this provision mean for schools? It could be more connected than you'd think, as research shows health-care disparities help drive achievement gaps among students.

This is a 20 minute mini-documentary about the Rochester City School District Board of Education contracting with Ray & Associates, Inc.--an expensive, corporate superintendent search firm with ties to the Eli Broad Superintendents Academy--and the community's struggle and response to such attacks on public education. The piece begins with an explanation of the vote last month on October 27, 2011 and shows what happened this month at the November 28, 2011 Ad Hoc Superintendent Search Committee. Enjoy!

In our present economic climate, where it seems that politicians are completely disconnected from the people who voted for them, schools have a serious issue with poverty. It doesn't matter whether it is a rural, urban or suburban school district; the number of students living in poverty is rising, which can be devastating to their education.

The Los Angeles Unified School District and its teachers union have agreed to a new pact granting local schools more autonomy over hiring, curriculum and work conditions and virtually ending a 2-year-old policy that allowed charter operators and others to take over low-performing and new campuses. The agreement, tentative until union members vote on it, doesn't resolve key contract disputes, including whether teacher evaluations should include students' standardized test scores, a provision L.A. schools Supt. John Deasy is seeking. And teachers will continue to work under the terms of the larger labor contract that expired July 1.

Gov. Tom Corbett wanted a school voucher program in his Christmas stocking this year, but the legislators decided against giving it to him. In a last-ditch effort on Wednesday to deliver vouchers this fall, state House Republican leaders failed to get majority support for this centerpiece of Corbett's education-reform package. This could push any chance of another voucher vote until after next year's legislative election.

A Palo Alto-based charter school network recognized for its innovative teaching of low-income students won approval late tonight to open 20 additional K-5 schools in the San Jose area within five years. Culminating a seven-hour meeting at which dozens of public speakers were sharply divided, the Santa Clara County Board of Education voted 5-2 to approve Rocketship Education's dramatic expansion. The decision positions the not-for-profit to become one of California's largest charter school operators. Speakers included San Jose Mayor Chuck Reed, who was in favor of the expansion, and several school district superintendents, who were not.