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Monday, February 11, 2013

Diane in the Evening 2-11-13 Diane Ravitch's blog

Diane Ravitch's blog:





Vote for This Man for School Board!

I don’t know Michael Weston, but I love his comment below.
He is a teacher in Hillsborough County, Florida, which received many millions of dollars from the Gates Foundation to pilot a new teacher evaluation program.
Bill and Melinda visited the district and expressed great pleasure at the compliments directed their way. They don’t seem to realize that 1) educators are very polite (as a rule), and 2) people are starstruck in the presence of 



The Onion Finds a New Reason to Worry about US Students

Watch this, get a good laugh, and go to sleep!
We see similar nonsense in the mainstream media every day, but this one is funny.


Have You Been Calibrated Yet?

Carol Burris, principal of South Side High School in Rockville Center, New York, describes how New York is preparing principals and teachers for the new world order decreed by Arne Duncan and his Race to the Top.
She went to a training to learn how to evaluate teachers, something she had been doing successfully in her school for many years.
She learned which words were impermissible.
She was taught to think “out of the box” by conforming to the rules and

Gerald Coles Replies to Critics: Obama’s Second Term

I posted Gerald Coles’ predictions about President Obama’s second term. Many commenters responded. This is Coles’ response to those who raised questions:
With respect to the suggestion that the “federal govt. should get out of the classroom entirely,” I think that’s a complicated issue, given, for example, the federal government’s role in ending LEGAL segregation of schools. While issues of curriculum and what should and should not be discussed in the classroom do caution against a


A Reader Asks: Are There Any States That Are NOT Infested with Corporate Reform?

I am reposting this because the first version had a typo in the title. I wrote NOW instead of NOT, changing the meaning.
So here is the correct version!

A reader wrote to ask a question. Are there any states that have resisted the tidal wave of bad ideas? It is impossible to avoid high-stakes testing because it was imposed first by No Child Left Behind and then reinforced by Race to the Top.
Are there ANY states now that are not voucherizing and privatizing, doing high stakes standardized testing, institutiting abusive evaluations, refusing to use Teach for America and generally giving the schools over to the 

Fun and Games in Reporting about the New Orleans Non-Miracle

Our frequent contributor Mercedes Schneider sent the following news in response to a post about Bobby Jindal selling the New Orleans miracle in Virginia:

From Mary K. Bellisario, VP of St. Tammany Parish School Board (Louisiana) :
The Associated Press at least printed some of the truth about the RSD:
“However, New Orleans schools run by the Recovery School District still have a D grade on average while those 

LISTEN TO DIANE RAVITCH 2-11-13 Diane Ravitch's blog

coopmike48 at Big Education Ape - 2 hours ago
Diane Ravitch's blog: [image: Click on picture to Listen to Diane Ravitch] Everything You Wanted to Know About Michelle Rhee by dianerav Here is Michelle Rhee, as reviewed by Mercedes Schneider in part viii of her study of the board of the National Council of Teacher Quality. Mercedes Schneider is a teacher in Louisiana who holds a Ph.D. In statistics and research methods. Here she is at her best, doing a close examination of the life and work of Michelle Rhee. My Vacation in Cuba by dianerav I just returned from an amazing week in Cuba. I went there legally, from Miami to Hava... more »