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Wednesday, June 25, 2014

Rush-hour protest by teachers to target the Gates Foundation | Local News | The Seattle Times @EducatingGatesF

Rush-hour protest by teachers to target the Gates Foundation | Local News | The Seattle Times:



Rush-hour protest by teachers to target the Gates Foundation

Teachers who oppose the influence of the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation in education policy will hold a march and rally in Seattle starting at 5 p.m. Thursday at Westlake Park and proceeding to the foundation’s offices near Seattle Center.
 Seattle Demonstration vs Gates Foundation will be Livestreamed on http://t.co/QIQ77pw8Wy tomorrow at 5 pm @EducatingGatesF

We, the undersigned, demand the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation divest from corporate education reform. | Teacher... http://bit.ly/1qxriug

Facebook: Educating the Gates Foundation http://on.fb.me/1qxrrxT


Seattle Times education reporter
About 300 teachers and their supporters critical of the influence the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundationwields in U.S. education policy planned to march to the foundation’s Seattle offices late Thursday afternoon around rush hour.
The Washington state contingent of a Facebook group called Badass Teachers Association — which formed last June and now counts a national membership of more than 48,000 — is organizing the event.
Activists with another website, Teachers’ Letters to Bill Gates, which has provided an online forum for teachers to tell Gates how his policies affect their classrooms, will deliver those letters during the demonstration.
The event begins with a rally at 5 p.m. at Westlake Park, followed by a march to the foundation’s offices at the corner of Fifth Avenue North and Mercer Street at 5:45 p.m. Featured speakers include Seattle City Councilmember Kshama Sawant; University of Washington, Bothell education professor Wayne Au; and Anthony Cody, a former California teacher and blogger for the newsweekly Education Week.
It’s expected to finish by 7 p.m.
City officials expect significant congestion in the area and are urging drivers to plan accordingly.
Participating educators say the Gates Foundation, through its initiatives and the groups it funds, has blamed teachers and their unions for shortcomings in student performance while discounting the role of poverty.
They also are skeptical about the foundation’s influence in pushing one of the most sweeping changes in American education in decades — the new Common Core standards for English and math.
The Gates Foundation has spent $233 million since 2008 supporting the writing and promotion of the Common Core standards, which have been fully adopted by Washington and 44 other states, according to a Washington Post story earlier this month.
The foundation did not respond to a request to comment on the protest, but Bill Gates told The Washington Post that he’s supporting research into what can make education more effective.
“These are not political things,” Gates told The Post.
The Seattle Times Education Lab project, done in partnership with the Solutions Journalism Network (SJN), is funded in large part by a grant from the Gates Foundation to SJN.
Among the issues that most rankle the foundation’s critics is its support of using student test scores in judging teacher performance. Recently, though, the foundation sided with American Federation of Teachers President Randi Weingarten, who in April 2013 called for a moratorium on using Common Core tests for teacher evaluation.
“No evaluation system will work unless teachers believe it is fair and reliable, and it’s very hard to be fair in a time of transition,” Vicki Phillips, the foundation’s director of education, wrote in an open letter earlier this month calling for a two-year moratorium.
“The standards need time to work,” Phillips wrote. “Teachers need time to develop lessons, receive more training, get used to the new tests, and offer their feedback.”
Such statements are unlikely to blunt the criticism of the educators marching on Thursday.
Renton elementary-school teacher Julianna Dauble, a local organizer of the event, said that educators already are overwhelmed by the amount of work it takes to be a classroom teacher these days.
“Instead of improving education by supporting teachers and reducing the workload, Bill Gates has piled on a whole new level of anxiety-ridden workload with Common Core,” she said.
John Higgins: 206-464-3145 or jhiggins@seattletimes.com On Twitter @jhigginsST

UPDATE IEA-NEA is NOT all you need, but I sincerly wish it to be | Reclaim Reform

Education Defined by Bill Gates and Will Durant: also, please support the march on June 26 at the Gates Foundation in Seattle | Reclaim Reform:


IEA-NEA is NOT all you need, but I sincerly wish it to be.
In spite of being repeatedly told “IEA NEA: ALL YOU NEED” on its website, Senate Bill 1 updates have not been updated since January 29, 2014. Here is an IEA screen shot taken today. SBI1 cuts and diminishes pensions for active and retired Illinois teachers. Pensions are earned compensation, deferred earnings. SB1 is presently being challenged in court by the IEA and other unions, and one importa

Education Defined by Bill Gates and Will Durant: also, please support the march on June 26 at the Gates Foundation in Seattle

We all want our children to be well educated. However, how is a good education defined and explained?
Will Durant was, arguably, the greatest historian/philosopher of the 20th Century.
Bill Gates is one of the wealthiest men in the 21st Century. He is referred to as a philanthropist by some and as a villainthropist by others who point out that he makes immense profits from most of his philanthropic investments via his tax free foundation.
What does a good education mean?
Will Durant
Will Durant: Consider education not as the painful accumulation of facts and dates and reigns, nor merely the necessary preparation of the individual to earn his keep in the world, but as the transmission of our mental, moral, technical, and aesthetic heritage as fully as possible to as many as possible, for the enlargement of man’s understanding, control, embellishment, and enjoyment of life.
- from The Lessons of History (1968)
Gates - Bill the man1
Bill Gates:No, no the fifty [state-level] standards were never tested to see they’re excellent. They weren’t subject to rigorous design. The Common Core is the one that the most R and D has gone into to make sure that the progression is right. And so, you know, the, you should look at some, I mean, if you want to get into substance, you should look at the progression, where they talk to people about angles, without explaining triangles. Those fifty things (state standards) are not based on as much effort and energy and understanding as kids deserve. This one (CCSS) has gotten more. Now, you could say, ‘Hey, maybe it should get even more, and more and more. Fine. But this is the most serious effort to, on behalf of kids, make sure they go through math, and reading, and writing, that, that you’re building in a logical way that they will feel successful and they will do well.
Lyndsey Layton: Is this something that you would want for your own kids to, to, these standards, that you would want for your own kids to learn, too?
Bill Gates: We all want our, our own kids to exceed… remember what this is. This is six, what you should know in sixth grade, what you should know in seventh grade, eighth grade. It’s not how it’s taught or anything like that. Yes. I expect my kids to know a superset of the Common Core standards at every single grade involved. I expect them to have the reading skills, uhh, uh, above what the reading and writing skills are in the Common Core standards. So, absolutely. I don’t see who, who would not want that.
- from a Washington Post interview by Lyndsey Leighton (2014)
For a more complete explanation of the interview and a complete, accurate, written transcript, see Mercedes K. Schneider’s EduBlog.
Please decide for yourself and your child which of these two descriptions of a good education you want for your own child.
Finally, please support Diane Ravitch, the Network for Public Education, Anthony Cody and many, many more public education supporters, protestors, activists and advocates in Seattle at the Gates Foundation.
PROTEST
The Gates Foundation
When: June 26th 5PM
Where: Rally at Westlake Park (401 Pine St, Seattle)
March to Gates Foundation (440 5th Ave N, Seattle)
See details in Diane Ravitch’s blog.

LAUSD allots funds to schools with highest student need | EdSource

Highlighting Strategies for Student Success | EdSource:







San Diego Unified board members OK accountability plan
The San Diego Unified School District unanimously approved its spending and accountability plan Tuesday despite renewed calls from some community and parent advocates for more details about how the school system will spend state funds. California’s new funding formula requires each district to draft a Local Control and Accountability Plan to show how it will use state dollars to improve student...
Santa Ana Unified passes accountability plan
The Santa Ana Unified School District board unanimously approved its three-year spending and accountability plan to improve student achievement Tuesday. While the state-mandated plan outlines the district’s goals and expectations, Santa Ana Unified schools will play an integral role in shaping how those objectives will be met at their individual sites. Schools will have a total of $8.5 million in.
3 key budget moves favor teacher – not student – needs
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California special ed to get federal intervention
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Three districts rewrite rules for campus police
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LAUSD allots funds to schools with highest student need
The Los Angeles Unified School District will begin using a new student need index to direct additional funding to the neediest schools under a plan expected to be adopted by the school board today. The plan relies on counting students twice if they are low-income, English learners, foster or homeless students. [[ This is a content summary only. Visit the Edsource Today website for full links, oth
East Side Union board passes LCAP with a caveat
In passing the district's first Local Control and Accountability Plan, the trustees of the East Side Union High School District agreed that the LCAP needs more details to meet the commitment to improve the academic performance of African-American students. [[ This is a content summary only. Visit the Edsource Today website for full links, other content, and more! ]]
San Diego Unified works to clarify accountability plan for community, parents
The San Diego Unified School District appeared to face few challenges when it kicked off a comprehensive effort late last year to craft a state-mandated guide outlining the school system’s academic and financial future. [[ This is a content summary only. Visit the Edsource Today website for full links, other content, and more! ]]
San Jose district, teachers file bill seeking exception to tenure law
A Superior Court judge’s ruling last week in the Vergara case, striking down the state’s two-year teacher tenure law, has given new impetus to the San Jose Unified School District’s pursuit of a longer probationary period for teachers in some cases. [[ This is a content summary only. Visit the Edsource Today website for full links, other content, and more! ]]

Pando Daily fires David Sirota after hard-hitting stories on national pension thievery. | Reclaim Reform

Pando Daily fires David Sirota after hard-hitting stories on national pension thievery. | Reclaim Reform:



Pando Daily fires David Sirota after hard-hitting stories on national pension thievery.

David Sirota may be best known for his expose of Gov. Chris Christie, but active and retired teachers know him best for revealing the obscene profits made from pension theft and the wage theft forced upon teachers mandated to pay into pension funds they are assured will not be there if and when they retire. If this doesn’t prove that the power of hedge fund managers and corporations has control over even the “free press”, then nothing will. Sirota’s loss is a loss for us all.
Originally posted on Fred Klonsky:
783855604353728069
No journalist has done more to expose Wall Street designs on public pensions than David Sirota.
When I need to make the argument that the assault on public pensions is not just a local Illinois issue, I have Sirota’s work to point to.
He was a staff writer for the Silcon Valley internet web site called Pando Daily.
No longer.
He was fired over the weekend.
Today The Gawker reports:
Over the weekend, Pando fired two of its hardest-hitting editorial staffers, David Sirota and Ted Rall, both nationally syndicated veteran journalists. Sirota recently broke a big story about Chris Christie’s administration awarding pension 
Pando Daily fires David Sirota after hard-hitting stories on national pension thievery. | Reclaim Reform:

Nite Cap 6-25-14 #BATsACT #RealEdTalk #EDCHAT #P2



James Baldwin said it best: 

"For these are all our children, and we will profit by or pay for whatever they become."


A BIG EDUCATION APE NITE CAP




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Morning Wink 6-25-14 AM Posts #edchat #edreform
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Nite Cap 6-24-14 #BATsACT #RealEdTalk #EDCHAT #P2
James Baldwin said it best: "For these are all our children, and we will profit by or pay for whatever they become."A BIG EDUCATION APE NITE CAP6-24-14 With A Brooklyn Accent: Love Letters to the BATSWith A Brooklyn Accent: Getting Rid of The Bad Teachers: Discrimination in Berkeley, CA A Guest Post by Masha Albrecht and Brian Crowell Getting Rid of The Bad Teachers: Discrimination in Be