KIPP is a taxpayer-subsidized school franchise that pays no taxes on its revenue and provides a tax-deductible vehicle for uber-wealthy families to promote the school “choice” agenda. KIPP charter schools have been touted in Washington State as the savior of … Continue reading The grifters of corporate ed reform: KIPP charter schools with the aid of the DOE
This post was originally published on December 19, 2012 and titled A Race to the Top Winner, Really? The Community Center for Education Results (CCER) was responsible for creating the proposal to collect an extensive amount of student data on our children. This pertains to Bill Gates’ desire to collect student information for each child in this country that can be accessed by those producing and profiting from products to be sold to school districts. For more on this, see Will the Data Warehouse Become Every Student and Teacher’s “Permanent Record”? Here’s an excerpt: inBloom, the non-profit started with a … Continue reading CCER, the Road Map Project and the loss of student privacy
The Weekly Update for the news and views you might have missed We definitely had a better time outside than the audience did inside on Tuesday evening at the Rhee event. In fact, some members of the audience, after Rhee’s performance, came out and told protesters that they were on our side after hearing Rhee. I guess Rhee needs to work on her message. It could be that Rhee’s message fell flat because what she is professing doesn’t work…really. From Democracy Now: DEPT OF EDUCATION PANEL SAYS SCHOOL SYSTEM BURDENING LOW-INCOME CHILDREN: A federal commission has found U.S. education policies … Continue reading The Weekly Update: NPEC gives out the Bunkum Awards for bogus studies, Duncan gets an “F” on education equity, Edushyter’s Eduttantes and much, much more
National Movement Forms In Wake Of Mass School Closings & Turnarounds That Violate Civil Rights & Promote Divestment In Low-Income Communities Of Color WHAT: Students, parents and advocacy representatives from 18 major United States cities will testify at a hearing before the U.S. Department of Education in Washington, D.C. on the devastating impact and civil rights violations resulting from the unchecked closing and turnaround of schools serving predominantly low-income, minority students across the country. More than 10 cities have filed, or are in the process of filing, Title VI Civil Rights complaints with the U.S. Department of Education Office of … Continue reading 18 CITIES CONVERGE IN WASHINGTON D.C ON “JOURNEY FOR JUSTICE,” CALLING ON DEPARTMENT OF EDUCATION TO END DISCRIMINATORY CLOSINGS OF PUBLIC SCHOOLS
This is a very real issue. We saw a horrifying hand off of student data in Seattle two years ago. See: Should the School District Be Allowed to Give Our Kids’ Phone numbers, Addresses and Photos to Every Tom, Dick and Pollster? An excerpt: A number of Seattle Public Schools parents and teachers were recently shocked to read that the private contact information of 10,700 SPS children and 1,400 teachers had been given to a political marketing and polling firm by the school district. In March, Seattle-based Strategies 360/DMA Marketing used the information to conduct a telephone poll for the Our … Continue reading Your Student’s Privacy
In 2009, Teach for America, Inc. (TFA, Inc.) had over $300M in net assets. In 2010, Wendy Kopp received a $50M grant from the government to send unqualified college recruits into the inner city schools to teach our most vulnerable. This money is on top of the fee that she charges a school district for each recruit that is hired. Now Ms. Kopp is shilling for more by lobbying our legislators to cut back on money that would go to decrease class sizes and instead go into her coffers. Please contact Senator Patty Murray, our representative from the great state … Continue reading A call to action: No more public funding for Teach for America!
As a reminder that Teach for America, Inc. recruits should not be teaching our children, it is illegal under the law to have unqualified individuals hired as “teachers” in public schools. From Public Advocates: A federal appeals panel yesterday re-affirmed its September 2010 ruling that the U.S. Department of Education unlawfully diluted the standard of teacher owed every student in the country under the No Child Left Behind Act (NCLB) when it issued a 2002 regulation classifying teachers in training as “highly qualified.” The court proceeded to dismiss the Renee v. Duncan case, however, on the grounds that Congress passed … Continue reading Ninth Circuit Reaffirms Ruling That Trainee Teachers Not Intended as “Highly Qualified” Under NCLB eg: Teach for America
The founders of the organization Parents Across America, sent the letter below to our state representatives. We are asking that each parent, student, teacher and community member who is concerned about the direction that President Obama and Secretary of Education, Arne Duncan, are taking in terms of the education of our children, please contact your representatives and let them know what you think. You can use this letter as a starting point for your communication to your members of Congress. Dora Parents Across America August 26, 2010 Dear Members of Congress, Several weeks ago, we wrote to you about our … Continue reading An Action Item
