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Monday, September 24, 2012

Diane in the Afternoon 9-24-12 Diane Ravitch's blog

Diane Ravitch's blog:






Why Great Hearts Appeals to Affluent Parents

A reader sent a blog post from Arizona, where the Great Hearts charter school chain is based.
This is the charter that Tennessee Commissioner Kevin Huffman wants to bring to Nashville, over the opposition of the local school board.
It is expensive to go to Great Hearts. The school asks parents for an upfront contribution (voluntary, of course), of $1200-1500. Then there are extra costs for books, supplies, physical education.
But it is still less costly than paying for private school tuition. So it is entirely understandable that white, affluent parents would want to bring Great Hearts to their neighborhood in Nashville.


With Friends Like These, Who Needs Enemies?

Joel Shatzky taught English for many years at the State University of New York at Cortlandt.
He sent the following reflections about the political quandary of teachers:

What has become increasingly baffling to me amidst the many controversies engendered by the misnamed “school reform movement” is that the one most reliable union group to back and help Democratic candidates get elected is being savaged by Democrats. The teachers strike in Chicago was waged against a Democratic mayor who had been President Obama’s chief of staff and a principal fund raiser for Obama’s re-election. The strike illustrates the point: with friends like that, who needs enemies? In New York the “progressive” Bloomberg 


This Parent Is Opting Out Tonight

Good luck to the parent who wrote to say that she is opting her children out of the standardized testing. More such courage and the reign of error will collapse.
I’m a parent. I will inform the Pittsburgh Public School Board at a Public Hearing tonight of my intention to exercise my right to OPT my children OUT. I will let them know that I refuse to stand by and watch diminished funds spent on more standardized testing (Pittsburgh Public Schools has added standardized tests for students 


What is the Mind Trust (part 2)

I wrote a post about the Mind Trust the other day, having realized that it is part of the faux reform movement intent on privatizing public education in Indiana.
Quite by coincidence, the great education writer Karen Francisco at the Fort Wayne Journal-Gazette wrote a piece about the Mind Trust on exactly the same day.
She points out that their modus operandi–right out of the ALEC playbook–is to bypass democracy and local