Latest News and Comment from Education

Monday, January 20, 2014

1-20-14 Perdido Street School

Perdido Street School:







Starting To Look Like A Major Storm
National Weather Service now calling for 6-10 inches Tuesday afternoon into Wednesday morning, than plunging temperatures into the teens.Given the forecast, we should see school go off as normal tomorrow, then see after school activities cancelled for tomorrow afternoon.Wednesday starts to look dicey, depending on when the storm ends and snow stops falling.My guess is, we have school, but attendan

NYSED Commissioner King: Opponents To Common Core Are Opposed To MLK's Dream
You knew someone prominent in the corporate education reform movement would trot out the "If Dr. King were alive today, he would be a huge proponent of the Common Core State Standards to drive racial and economic justice..." meme.That prominent someone was NYSED Commissioner John King.The underlying theme to his piece is that the Common Core will help bring about Dr. King's dream of raci

Saying No To The Snow God
The ELA Regents exam is next Monday.We have four class days left before the exam.We have three days of after school tutoring, since Friday tutoring is always a no-go.Ever since they had to cancel school a day after we gave the ELA Regents back during the 2000's, I start scouting the weather reports a few weeks in advance before the actual test date.See, the last thing we want to do is spend all th


Cuomo "Sitting Pretty" For Re-Election - Time To Make That Re-Election A Little Less "Pretty"
From the Daily Politics blog at the Daily News:Democratic Gov. Cuomo is viewed favorably by 66% of New York voters and 57% are ready to give him a second term, a Siena poll released Monday finds. But Bridgegate has eroded the Garden State gov's image among his neighbors -- including when it comes to his presidential prospects.Republican Christie's favorability rating stands at 49% -- a precipitous

Mulgrew, UFT Leadership Worried About Office Bugging
Your UFT dues money at work:Something’s bugging teachers-union boss Michael Mulgrew — or, at least, he thinks so. The United Federation of Teachers president blew a huge wad of union cash to play out a paranoid James Bond fantasy when he paid $17,849 for a security team to sweep his headquarters for bugs, documents show. A crew from Protective Countermeasures & Consulting Inc. was hired to swe


Hey Governor Cuomo, Where's The Merit Pay Money Coming From?

The Jamestown Post-Journal wants to know:Danielle O'Connor, superintendent of Frewsburg Central School, said the logic of promising bonus pay to teachers while her district is still struggling with a $1.2 million gap elimination adjustment is less than sound. "We would certainly be able to strengthen our district and our performance if we had that $1.2 million, as opposed to giving it to indi


1-19-14 Perdido Street School
Perdido Street School: BridgeGate, Hoboken/Sandy Relief Funds Scandal May Cost Chris Christie His Chairmanship Of The GOP Governor's AssociationThe scandals are starting to mount for Chris Christie and they're taking their toll.He might have survived BridgeGate, especially after he proved to be so adept at his press conference explaining away the particulars of the scandal and how he had nothing t