Category: Education

Least Surprising News of the Day

No Comments

Analysts at the University of Pennsylvania have shown that black students are expelled from school at a disproportionate rate:

With the Obama administration focused on reducing the number of suspensions, expulsions and arrests in public schools, a new analysis of federal data identifies districts in 13 Southern states where black students are suspended or expelled at rates overwhelmingly higher than white children.

The analysis, which will be formally released Tuesday by the Graduate School of Education at the University of Pennsylvania, focused on states where more than half of all the suspensions and expulsions of black students nationwide occurred. While black students represented just under a quarter of public school students in these states, they made up nearly half of all suspensions and expulsions.

In some districts, the gaps were even more striking: in 132 Southern school districts, for example, black students were suspended at rates five times their representation in the student population, or higher.

………

Still, “I am actually shocked that there is not more outrage,” said Shaun R. Harper, associate professor of education at the University of Pennsylvania and the executive director of the Center for the Study of Race and Equity in Education who was a co-author of the analysis.

………

“This is at least partly attributed to people having these racist assumptions about black kids,” Mr. Harper said. “We argue that too little happens in schools of education to raise consciousness about that.”

This is an outrage, and it is also not even a little surprise.

We have already had the story of the three year old son of an upper middle class black woman who has been suspended 5 times, while her white friends at the preschool noted that their kids had done worse with no consequences.

We are still a deeply racist society.

If You Cannot Make Charter Schools in Sweden, You Cannot Make Them Work at All

No Comments

It turns out that when you take well funded and competently run public schools, and decide to sh%$ can that and throw public monies at privately run schools, it all turns into crap:

Sweden’s education system has often been cited by Michael Gove as a role model, especially for its policy of state-sponsored free schools providing increased choice for parents. In 2008 Gove told the Conservative party conference that Sweden’s school reforms would be introduced if he was in government – and in 2010 promptly did so, with the advent of free schools.

A few years later and Sweden’s star has dimmed. The 2012 Pisa results show Sweden’s exam results falling abruptly across all three measures of reading, maths and science – with the country recording the largest drop in maths performance over 10 years. Anna Ekström, head of Sweden’s National Education Agency, said in response: “The bleak picture has become bleaker with the Pisa review that was presented today.”

………

In recent months a number of for-profit companies running free schools in Sweden have been in financial difficulties, while a recent TV exposé revealed that the state-funded privately-run schools were prepared to bend selection rules to admit bright pupils.

Sweden’s education minister, Jan Björklund, said the Pisa results were “the final nail in the coffin for the old school reform,” and speculated that the central government could take over running schools from Sweden’s municipalities.

This is not a surprise.

The way to fix public schools is to actually fix public schools.

The charter school movement is based on the twin goals of destroying teachers’ unions and transferring public funds to the parasites on Wall Street.

Charters have not, nor has they ever been about our kids learning.

H/T Angry Bear.

Modern American Business Stupidity Writ Kansas Size

No Comments

Rather unsurprisingly, after a campaign of wage cuts, benefit cuts, and demonization, teachers are fleeing the sinking ship that is Kansas:

Teachers can’t hotfoot it out of Kansas fast enough, creating a substantial shortage expected only to get much worse. Why?

Well, there’s the low pay. According to the National Center for Education Statistics, the average teaching salary in 2012-2013 (the latest year for which data were available, in constant 2012-2013 dollars), was $47,464, lower than the pay in all but seven states (Arkansas, Florida, Mississippi, North Dakota, Oklahoma, South Dakota and West Virginia), though not by much in most of them.

Last year, job protections were cut by state lawmakers, who have also sought to reduce collective-bargaining rights for public employees.

Then there’s the severe underfunding for public education by the administration of Republican Gov. Sam Brownback, so much of a problem that some school districts closed early this past school year because they didn’t have the cash to keep operating. This story by Huffington Post, quoted Tim Hallacy, superintendent of Silver Lake Schools, as saying:

“I find it increasingly difficult to convince young people that education is a profession worth considering, and I have some veterans who think about leaving. In the next three years I think we’ll have maybe the worst teacher shortage in the country — I think most of that is self-inflicted.”


………

And there’s more. According to the Topeka Capital-Journal,  the Kansas Board of Education decided in July to allow six school systems — including two of the largest in the state — to hire unlicensed teachers to ease the shortage. (Let the irony sink in for a minute.)  Specifically, the newspaper reported:

The measure will waive the state’s licensure regulations for a group of districts called the Coalition of Innovative Districts, a program that the Legislature established in 2013 based on model legislation from the American Legislative Exchange Council.


………

Peter Greene, a teacher who writes the Curmudgucation blog, described it this way:

Kansas has taken a bold new step in making their schools Even Worse…. Kansas has entered the Chase Teachers Out of The State derby, joining states like North Carolina and Arizona in the attempt to make teaching unappealing as a career and untenable as a way for grown-ups to support a family. Kansas favors the two-pronged technique. With one prong, you strip teachers of job protections and bargaining rights, so that you can fire them at any time for any reason and pay them as little as you like. With the other prong, you strip funding from schools, so that teachers have to accomplish more and more on a budget of $1.95 (and if they can’t get it done, see prong number one). The result is predictable. Kansas is solidly settled onto the list of Places Teachers Work As Their Very Last Choice. It’s working out great for Missouri; their school districts have teacher recruitment billboards up in Kansas. But in Kansas, there’s a teacher shortage.

Obviously, Sam Brownback is, for lack of a better term, bat sh%$ insane, and he is determined to turn the state of Kansas into Mogadishu, and even by the standards of Republicans, this is rather exceptional.

However, there is a bigger picture, because this reflects a crucial part of American business culture.

Specifically, it is an article of faith in American business these days that managing any sort of endeavor these days must necessarily involve making your employees as miserable as possible.

It’s destroying the country, not just Kansas.

H/t Atrios.

Sanity Wins in California

No Comments

California, in response to a measles outbreak in California, the state legislature passed , and now Governor Jerry Brown has singed into law, what is one of the most aggressive vaccine mandates in the nation:

Adopting one of the most far-reaching vaccination laws in the nation, California on Tuesday barred religious and other personal-belief exemptions for schoolchildren, a move that could affect tens of thousands of students and sets up a potential court battle with opponents of immunization.

California’s weakened public health defenses against measles and other preventable diseases led to the adoption of the measure, signed Tuesday by Gov. Jerry Brown, intended to stem the rising number of parents who opt not to inoculate their children.

Public health officials said a proliferation of waivers, many sought because of unfounded concerns about the safety of vaccines, helped fuel a measles outbreak that started at Disneyland in December and quickly spread across the West, infecting 150 people.

………

California joins Mississippi and West Virginia as the only states to ban vaccination waivers based on religion. All 50 states require immunization of children starting school, although about 20 allow exemptions based on personal beliefs.

Beginning with the 2016 school year, the new law could affect more than 80,000 California students who annually claim personal belief exemptions.

Only medical exceptions will be allowed for those entering day care and kindergarten. Children with physician-certified allergies and immune-system deficiencies, for example, will be exempted.

I will mix my victory toast with the tears of anti-vaxxers.

These anti-science ratf%$#s have a lot of blood on their hands.

What Are the Limits of Political Activism by an Employee?

1 Comment

A few days ago, I wrote of a Texas elementary school teacher, who, in response to the police officer abusing black teens in McKinney, suggested that the reinstitution of segregation might be a good thing.

I just learned that this teacher, Karen Fitzgibbons, has been fired.

Good news everyone!


I invented a device that makes you read this in your head using my voice!

My first reaction is that the Professor Farnsworth quote, “Good News, Everyone.”

Certainly, I don’t want any children taught by an open racist, which Ms. Fitzgibbons post clearly indicates.

On the other hand, it is profoundly worrying when a public employee is fired for expressing their political views as a private citizen, no matter how abhorrent.

In this case, I think that the firing is justified, I think that she no longer had the credibility required to deal with students and their parents, and any decision made regarding minorities in her class would naturally be suspect.

I do hope that the school district is reviewing any disciplinary actions involving minorities.

Skepticism of her entire career as an educator is justified.

What’s Wrong with Charter Schools in One Story

No Comments

Every time that someone looks at a charter school’s operation we find repeated instances of corruption, self dealing, and dodgy accounting:

Dennis Mope’s dream of running a network of military-themed charter schools for at-risk students ended quickly and with little warning this month in Jacksonville and Orlando.

Two of Mope’s Acclaim Academy charter schools closed abruptly, displacing hundreds of students just three weeks before the end of the school year.

A third school in Kissimmee was supposed to close in March but Osceola County’s school district took it over last month and will keep it open until the school year ends in June.

Five other of Mope’s planned Acclaim Academies never got off the ground.

Although one received district approval to open in Palm Beach next August, the plan was scrapped. Four other charter school applications in Pinellas, Hillsborough, Volusia and Lee counties were all withdrawn, some before they were rejected by the school districts involved.

In Jacksonville, the fallout was immediate and unexpected.

Parents of 229 students scrambled over three days to find new schools for their children. Some students still had to take final tests or state-mandated exams at new schools.

Duval County School Board members said they are not sure why the school “ran out of money” and had to close, saying the children were hurt most.

“They should be focused on passing their exams; they shouldn’t have to worry about what school they’re going to go to,” said Becki Couch, a School Board member, “all because their charter school [operator] didn’t have its act together.”

Scott Shine, another Duval County School Board member wrote that “The actions of Acclaim are, at minimum, irresponsible and reckless. This could go much deeper,” in an email.

Acclaim’s teachers were shocked to find out that their last paycheck, issued late April or early May, was to be their last. Some teachers, who had arranged for the school to save parts of their paycheck to repay them over the summer, were told not to expect it.

Some Duval School Board members questioned what the school district knew, and when, about Acclaim Academy’s troubles.

“We knew they were beginning the school year under a deficit,” Couch wrote in an email to Duval Superintendent Nikolai Vitti.

“Do you think the Board should have been notified of the declining financial status of the school so we could make the determination how we wanted to proceed so as not to disrupt student academic learning during this pivotal time of the year? I am disturbed that we have been completely blind-sided by this when according to state statute the Charter School is required to provide an annual audit report and monthly financial statements.”

………

Through it all, Acclaim Academy’s founder has yet to answer questions.

Dennis Mope, an Orlando-area businessman, said “no comment” to news crews on the scene of the Orlando school closure, and he did not return phone calls or emails about Duval’s closure.

Public documents, including a Chapter 13 bankruptcy he filed in 2009, reveal some information about him.

………

Of the three Acclaim charter schools that operated in the past two years, the oldest was in Osceola County. Since the school opened in 2012, it had two consecutive F grades on its state report cards, triggering a law that caused the state to begin the process of shutting down the school.

Acclaim’s parent company applied for a waiver of the state law but, when it was denied, it made plans to close the school at the end of March.

………

The school started last fall with 416 students, but that fell to 332 by February. In March enrollment was down to 310 prompting Orange County administrators to request an amended school budget showing how the school could survive with fewer students than expected.

But, upon closer inspection, the district noted other irregularities in the school’s operations and finances:

  • Some teachers listed as heading classes left the school and others have become assistant principals and deans. Too many substitutes were teaching classes.
  • School reading teachers weren’t qualified for the subject, the county said, possibly violating federal Title 1 poverty funding rules.
  • The school did not employ the required instructors to serve its students with disabilities.
  • A student who missed 51 days had changes to her records to make it appear she had attended and had passed classes for that period.


………

There were financial irregularities, too.

In its April letter, Orange County said Acclaim violated state law by borrowing $350,000 when its school was already $151,061 in the hole Feb. 28.

The school also cut a deal to transfer future per-pupil state funding to a charter asset management fund. The deal promised $150,000 in April and May and $222,000 in June, though the school would likely face “severe reductions” in state funding because of enrollment declines and misrepresentations, Orange County said, adding that the deal’s promise to turn over other school assets may violate state law.

Orange County also questioned how Acclaim’s four “corporate” positions, including Mope’s, were being funded, saying it’s improper to use students’ money from the three charter schools for non-education functions.

Those salaries and some loans among the Acclaim schools amounted to commingling funds in a way that may violate state law, the district wrote.

………

That explanation wasn’t good enough for Heyta Diaz, whose two freshman daughters were placed at Ed White High and were told they might have to take a virtual course to catch up.

Diaz said she wants to confront Acclaim’s founder and ask him and the district some questions about why the Duval Acclaim closed.

“This guy opens and closes schools like its a day care,” she said. “This is our future. This is our kids.”

Charter schools are petri dishes for corruption and looting, and they need to be regulated accordingly.

H/t Atrios

Deliberate Destruction of Public Schools in East Ramapo by Orthodox Jewish Community Hits the New York Times

No Comments
The NPR program This American Life covered this a few months ago, but it is nice that the concerted effort to destroy and asset strip the public schools in East Ramapo has found its way into an editorial in the New York Times: (Full disclosure, Sharon* graduated from a public high school in the East Ramapo school district)

New York State has a proud tradition of local decision making in public education. However, students in the public schools in East Ramapo, about 30 miles north of Manhattan, in Rockland County, are being denied their state constitutional right to a sound basic education by a board that has grossly mismanaged the district’s finances and educational programs.

When there is overwhelming evidence that a local school board has persistently failed to act in the best interests of its public school students, the state must act. The Legislature will adjourn on June 17, so time is running out.

East Ramapo is a divided community. Of the roughly 32,000 school-age children enrolled in schools in the district, about 24,000 attend private schools, nearly all of them Orthodox Jewish yeshivas. Of the more than 8,000 children in the public schools, 43 percent are African-American and 46 percent are Latino; 83 percent are poor and 27 percent are English-language learners.

The East Ramapo school board, dominated by private-school parents since 2005, has utterly failed them. Faced with a fiscal and educational crisis, the State Education Department last June appointed a former federal prosecutor, Henry M. Greenberg, to investigate the district’s finances.

Mr. Greenberg’s report, released in November, documented the impact of the board’s gross mismanagement and neglect. Since 2009, the board has eliminated hundreds of staff members, including over 100 teachers, dozens of teaching assistants, guidance counselors and social workers, and many key administrators. Full-day kindergarten, and high-school electives have been eliminated or scaled back. Music, athletics, professional development and extracurricular activities were cut.

………

While slashing resources in its public schools, the school board vastly increased public spending on private schools. The cost of transporting children, including gender-segregated busing, rose to $27.3 million in 2013-14 from $22 million in 2009-10, a 24 percent increase. Public spending on private school placement for special education students grew by 33 percent between 2010-11 and 2013-14, and the district placed students in private schools when appropriate spaces were available in public ones.

The report also exposed disturbing practices by board members. The board conducts 60 to 70 percent of its meetings in closed-door executive session. It does not tolerate, and is overtly hostile to, the complaints of public school parents, students and community members. Public protests against the board are now commonplace.

The report proposed the appointment of a state fiscal monitor, who would oversee all of the board’s financial and educational decisions and have the authority to override the board, when necessary, to protect the interests of the public-school community and improve education outcomes for public-school students. The report also recommended additional state funding to restore essential staff and services, but only if a monitor was in place to make certain the money was used effectively and efficiently to benefit all of the students.

A bill in Albany — introduced in the Assembly by Ellen C. Jaffee and Kenneth P. Zebrowski and in the Senate by David Carlucci, who all represent parts of the school district — would implement a fiscal monitor for at least five years. It is a crucial step toward reversing the district’s disastrous decline and repairing the deep rifts in the community. The New York State School Boards Association has found that the measure “respects the democratic electoral process by leaving the elected board of education in place.”

………

In recent weeks, in response to a lobbying campaign by the school board, momentum for the bill appears to have slowed. Advocates for the local school board and some leaders in the Orthodox community have accused supporters of state oversight of having anti-Semitic motives.

Nothing could be further from the truth. The legislation is not about punishing one group because of its religious beliefs; it is about acting to make sure that the civil rights of a community of overwhelmingly low-income minority children are not denied and that their constitutional right to a sound basic education is enforced.

Note that, in response to claims of antisemitism, the ADL has come out in favor of appointing a state monitor.

The context here, particularly when reviewing the This American Life coverage, is that the  East Ramapo school board (יש”ו) is attempting a genteel form of ethnic cleansing directed at the poorest and least powerful amongst them, with the board chairman literally telling non-Jews to leave town.

It is disgusting, and it is against Halacha.†

The members of the school school board are both miserable excuses for human beings, and bad Jews.

As an aside, this also is not, “Good for the Jews.”

Any plans to expand or build a Yeshiva in any other town will likely be viewed with the same enthusiasm as constructing a toxic waste dump next to a town reservoir, and the longer that this goes on, the worse this will get.

One reform that is not mentioned, and should be considered, is to move the dates of the school board elections to the same time as the Congressional elections. (Currently they are held in the spring of odd numbered years).

Higher turnout would mitigate against sh%$ like this.

*Love of my life, light of the cosmos, she who must be obeyed, my wife.
†Jewish religious law.

Stupid Lawyer Tricks………

No Comments

A lawyer for the sorority Phi Sigma Sigma has sent a DMCA take-down notice to the Penny Arcade forums alleging misappropriation of trade secrets. (See also here)

They have also apparently sued the poster.

There, are of course any number of problems with this:

  • The Digital Millennium Copyright Act applies to copyright, not trade secrets.
  • The idea that the oaths, robes, secret handshakes, secret knocks, and seating arrangements are trade secrets is kind of laughable.
  • The post was made 3½ years ago, and has been publicly available since then, so the idea that it is a secret any more is ludicrous.
  • The Streisand Effect, wherein an attempt to censor information results in its wider dissemination.

In any case, this makes the description of rituals on Penny Arcade a legitimate topic for discussion.

Phi Sigma Sigma (PSS) secretly stands for Philanthropic Social Society. However, this is never written down or recorded (until now) because it is so “sacred”. The Handshake consists of a series of motions. Member A first begins with the pointer finger and the thumb surrounding Member B’s pointer finger and thumb. This is the “Phi”. Then Member A wraps the remaining fingers, middle, ring and pinky around the hand as a symbol of the “Sigma”. Depending on who is the senior member, the pinky finger is wrapped around the older member’s hand. Next is the hand knock. It goes Knock. Pause. Knock. Pause. Knock, knock, knock. The meetings are set up usually with the President, VP and other officers sitting at the front. The President wears a yellow or gold robe and the officers wear royal blue robes. The remaining members sit across from the officers in a pyramid formation with the base closest to the officers and the apex farthest from the officers. Members are seated by class order, then by alphabetical order. The table at which the President and Vice President are seated consists of candles on each side. Two gold candles and one blue at each corner of the table. Members usually recite an oath, “We, the members of Phi Sigma Sigma, promise to keep secret and sacred all of our proceedings.” The way to enter the pyramid is by using the hand knock to notify the members you are wanting to enter the room. The President will respond back with her gavel by repeating the knock. The person will enter then travel to the apex of the pyramid formation. The President will say the secret and sacred words “Remove the Veil” and then the member will respond back with the Chapter’s name, example, “Zeta Eta.” The Gold and King Blue symbolize “Perpetuity” and “Sincerity”. At initiation, blue “veils” (tulle from the local fabric store) are placed on the heads of the potential new members and are later removed to symbolize some sort of occult transformation and that they are full-fledged members.

This story has made it to the ΦΣΣ Wikipedia page I think that it’s time to understand that it’s game over, and any additional attempt to suppress this information serves neither the public nor the sorority.

Bullsh%$ Bingo, Education Edition

No Comments

I understand that there are a number of different views on how education might change over the next few decades, but this melange of incomprehensible argle bargle that serves as a justification for paying slave wages and breaking teachers unions.

Basically, he is describing the private equity wet dream for charter schools:

Whenever a college student asks me, a veteran high-school English educator, about the prospects of becoming a public-school teacher, I never think it’s enough to say that the role is shifting from “content expert” to “curriculum facilitator.” Instead, I describe what I think the public-school classroom will look like in 20 years, with a large, fantastic computer screen at the front, streaming one of the nation’s most engaging, informative lessons available on a particular topic. The “virtual class” will be introduced, guided, and curated by one of the country’s best teachers (a.k.a. a “super-teacher”), and it will include professionally produced footage of current events, relevant excerpts from powerful TedTalks, interactive games students can play against other students nationwide, and a formal assessment that the computer will immediately score and record.

I tell this college student that in each classroom, there will be a local teacher-facilitator (called a “tech”) to make sure that the equipment works and the students behave. Since the “tech” won’t require the extensive education and training of today’s teachers, the teacher’s union will fall apart, and that “tech” will earn about $15 an hour to facilitate a class of what could include over 50 students. This new progressive system will be justified and supported by the American public for several reasons: Each lesson will be among the most interesting and efficient lessons in the world; millions of dollars will be saved in reduced teacher salaries; the “techs” can specialize in classroom management; performance data will be standardized and immediately produced (and therefore “individualized”); and the country will finally achieve equity in its public school system.

………

I’ve started recognizing a common thread to the latest trends in teaching. Flipped learning, blending learning, student-centered learning, project-based learning, and even self-organized learning—they all marginalize the teacher’s expertise. Or, to put it more euphemistically, they all transform the teacher into a more facilitative role.

I believe that a good adjective to describe this vision is, “Dystopian“.

A good adjective to describe the article is, “Incomprehensible”.

A good summary is, “Education changes ……… Because ……… Internet.”

My Daughter is Over the F%$#ing Moon!

No Comments

Yesterday, I was kvetching about being in New York City because I was in the culinary center of the Hemisphere, but because it was Passover, and day 7, one of the 4 Yom Tovim of Pesach, so by the time we got to the City, even those few Kosher restaurants that were serving over Passover, were shutting down.

We were there for an audition for Natalie with the American Academy of Dramatic Arts, a prestigious acting school (in fact the oldest acting school in the English speaking world).

It has a 2 year conservatory program.

Well, she got a call from them today, and she’s in!

Much happiness all around.

Here is a video of her reaction.

Note, however, that this is about 10 minutes after the call, so she had already calmed down by at least a factor of 10:

In the immediate aftermath of the call, she was way more euphoric.

It was actually a bit scary.

Least Surprising Education News of the Year

1 Comment

In the New York Times, Paul Campos notes that much of the increase in the cost of a college education comes from an explosion of spending in administrators:

By contrast, a major factor driving increasing costs is the constant expansion of university administration. According to the Department of Education data, administrative positions at colleges and universities grew by 60 percent between 1993 and 2009, which Bloomberg reported was 10 times the rate of growth of tenured faculty positions.

He also notes that university presidents are now getting 7 figure salaries.

I am not sure how to fix this, but with a 17 year old daughter, I’d love to find a fix.

Back from Elmira

No Comments

Natalie was most impressed with Elmira College.

She spent the night in a dorm and hung with some current students.

The area around there is lovely as well.

After the tour, we went to Corning, and saw the glass museum.

That being said, the trip was a little bit over 4 hours each way, and I did most of the driving.

At this point, I need an air pump to inflate my butt cheeks.

Posted via mobile.

Charter Schools and Common Core in a Nut Shell

No Comments

I can do no more than quote America’s Finest News Source, “Department Of Education Study Finds Teaching These Little Sh%$s No Longer Worth It:

WASHINGTON—The U.S. Department of Education released a comprehensive, nationwide evaluation of American schools Monday indicating that attempts to teach absolutely anything to these little shits is just a huge waste of everybody’s time.

“We remain committed to providing every student in the country with access to a high-quality education,” said Education Secretary Arne Duncan, adding that good schools are a key component to the success of American democracy. “But to be honest, none of that matters. We’re not talking about promising young scholars here—we’re talking about a bunch of f%$#ing animals.”

“We’ve basically flushed $11,000 down the toilet for every single one of these little bastards,” Duncan continued. “Not to mention 18 years of my life.”

This is perhaps the most prescient article that The Onion has published since January, 2001, when it wrote, “Bush: ‘Our Long National Nightmare Of Peace And Prosperity Is Finally Over’.

In Addition to Everything Else, Benjaman Netanyahu Could Not find his Ass with both Hands

No Comments

Netanyahu decided on some political meddling on the judging panel for the Israel prize for Literature, and in response, the judging panel resigned en mass:

The Education Ministry fears the Israel Prize in literature may not be granted this year, after the entire judges panel resigned this week to protest efforts by the Prime Minister’s Office to intervene in its composition.

Now literary lions are likely to shun the panel, making it hard to establish a replacement, ministry sources warned.

In an unusual move, the Prime Minister’s Office vetoed two people originally nominated as judges for the prize – professors Avner Holtzman and Ariel Hirschfeld. After Haaretz reported this on Sunday, all five of the people ultimately appointed to the panel resigned, to protest “the clear politicization of the prize and the vote of no confidence in the professionals’ professional judgment,” as one of the five, Prof. Nissim Calderon, put it.

Moreover, Prof. Yigal Schwartz, who was one of the candidates for the prize in the field of literary research, announced Tuesday night that he is withdrawing his candidacy in protest.

“This is an unparalleled scandal,” said Schwartz, a professor of literature at Ben-Gurion University of the Negev and editor-in-chief of the Kinneret Zmora-Bitan Dvir publishing house. “I’m withdrawing my candidacy and urge other candidates to do the same. This isn’t a mistake; it’s a continuation of Prime Minister [Benjamin] Netanyahu’s deliberate policy of undermining Israel’s elites to gain votes from other groups. This is sabotage that it’s impossible not to oppose. Even this institution, the Israel Prize, which had remained untainted, they have sabotaged.”

“No such thing has ever happened before,” Calderon agreed.

Tuesday, it emerged that Netanyahu’s office had also vetoed a nominee to the judges’ panel for the Israel Prize in film – producer Chayim Sharir. Another member of that panel, producer Ram Loevy, has also resigned in protest.

Over the past few weeks, Education Ministry staffers had repeatedly warned Netanyahu’s aides against intervening in the panel’s composition, but the bureau dismissed these warnings, they said.

Now, the ministry is awaiting “instructions from the prime minister’s bureau” on how to fill the judges’ panel, they said.

Aside from Calderon, the other judges who resigned were Prof. Nurith Gertz, Prof. Ziva Ben-Porat, Prof. Ephraim Hazan and Dr. Uri Hollander. Author Gail Hareven had resigned earlier, after learning independently of the veto imposed on Hirschfeld and Holtzman.

In their resignation letter, the five scholars said the intervention by Netanyahu’s bureau constituted “politicization of Israel’s most important prize, which is supposed to be granted solely on the basis of professional and artistic considerations,” and raised fear that extraneous considerations would taint the award.

At first, the bureau declined to say why it suddenly decided to veto Hirschfeld and Holtzman after the two had already begun work. Tuesday, it said in a statement that it “decided to review the panel’s composition” after discovering that Hirschfeld supported refusal to do army service. The statement did not say why Holtzman was nixed.

Note that Bibi is minister of education in addition to being PM.

He took the portfolio when the previous minister, and his party, left the coalition government.

Netanyahu is claiming that the panel contains, “Too many anti-Zionist extremists.”

I call bullsh%$ on this.

If Netanyahu really had issues, they could have been presented 2-3 months ago, at the start of the process.

This is not a firm stand on his principles (as if he had any), this is yet another case of him fomenting conflict for political gain:   He is going for the Nixonian option of campaigning against academics to create the illusion that he cares for the ordinary Israeli.

Or, to quote Spiro Agnew, he is playing the, “Effete intellectual snob,” card.

Because People Don’t Want to be Tricked into Being Scabs

No Comments

It looks like Teach for America is having problems recruiting, because potential recruits now realize that this is not an innovation in education, but rather a way to get young dupes to act as scabs in the war against teachers’ unions:

Teach for America, the education powerhouse that has sent thousands of handpicked college graduates to teach in some of the nation’s most troubled schools, is suddenly having recruitment problems.

For the second year in a row, applicants for the elite program have dropped, breaking a 15-year growth trend. Applications are down by about 10 percent from a year earlier on college campuses around the country as of the end of last month.

The group, which has sought to transform education in close alignment with the charter school movement, has advised schools that the size of its teacher corps this fall could be down by as much as a quarter and has closed two of its eight national summer training sites, in New York City and Los Angeles.

“I want the numbers to be higher, because the demand from districts is extremely high and we’re not going to meet it this year,” said Matt Kramer, a co-chief executive of Teach for America. But, he added, “it is not existentially concerning.”

………

A mention of how fewer people are going into education generally might be the trend driving this.

Of course, the reason that teaching has become less attractive is because ratf%$#s like Teach for America have waged a war on job security, benefits, due process, and professionalism.

But there is another reason that TFA cannot get recruits, even if the New York Times buries this below the fold:

But Teach for America’s belief that new college graduates can jump into teaching without much training, as well as its ties through prominent alumni to the testing and standards movement, may also be taking a toll, driving away the kind of students the program once attracted.

When Haleigh Duncan, a junior at Macalester College in St. Paul, first came across Teach for America recruiters on campus during her freshman year in 2012, she was captivated by the group’s mission to address educational inequality.

Ms. Duncan, an English major, went back to her dormitory room and pinned the group’s pamphlet on a bulletin board. She was also attracted by the fact that it would be a fast route into teaching. “I felt like I didn’t want to waste time and wanted to jump into the field,” she said.

But as she learned more about the organization, Ms. Duncan lost faith in its short training and grew skeptical of its ties to certain donors, including the Walton Family Foundation, a philanthropic group governed by the family that founded Walmart. She decided she needed to go to a teachers’ college after graduation. “I had a little too much confidence in my ability to override my lack of experience through sheer good will,” she said.

The Times spends a lot of time ignoring the elephant in the room, the fact that TFA is, at is core, a weapon in the war against the teaching profession

Can We Please Give them back to Mexico?

No Comments

In Texas, boy was suspended for bringing the “one ring to rule them all” to school to make a classmate vanish:

Tolkien lore led a Texas boy to suspension after he brought his “one ring” to school.

Kermit Elementary School officials called it a threat when the 9-year-old boy, Aiden Steward, in a playful act of make-believe, told a classmate he could make him disappear with a ring forged in fictional Middle Earth’s Mount Doom.

“It sounded unbelievable,” the boy’s father, Jason Steward, told the Daily News. He insists his son “didn’t mean anything by it.”

The Stewards had just watched “The Hobbit: The Battle of Five Armies” days earlier, inspiring Aiden’s imagination and leading him to proclaim that he had in his possession the one ring to rule them all.

“Kids act out movies that they see. When I watched Superman as a kid, I went outside and tried to fly,” Steward said.

Aiden claimed Thursday he could put a ring on his friend’s head and make him invisible like Bilbo Baggins, who stole Gollum’s “precious” in J.R.R. Tolkien’s fantasy series “The Lord of the Rings.”

“I assure you my son lacks the magical powers necessary to threaten his friend’s existence,” the boy’s father later wrote in an email. “If he did, I’m sure he’d bring him right back.”

It gets better.

This kid has been suspended for referring to another student as “Black”, and for the 2nd suspension, it was for bringing a science book to school:

Two of the disciplinary actions this year were in-school suspensions for referring to a classmate as black and bringing his favorite book to school: “The Big Book of Knowledge.”

“He loves that book. They were studying the solar system and he took it to school. He thought his teacher would be impressed,” Steward said.

But the teacher learned the popular children’s encyclopedia had a section on pregnancy, depicting a pregnant woman in an illustration, he explained.

They suspended a kid from school for bringing a science book.

Can we please give the whole state back to Mexico?

One Can only Hope that California will foll of the Example of ……… Mississippi

No Comments

H/t Neo at Stellar Parthenon for the Pic

In California, a state with one of the highest rates of unvaccinated children in the nation, multiple schools have been sending non-inoculated children home in the wake of the Measles outbreak:

A California high school barred dozens of non-vaccinated students from school on Wednesday over concern that a classmate may have contracted measles in a rare outbreak of the highly contagious disease that began at a Disneyland resort last month.

 The order, which affects 66 students at Palm Desert High School near the resort community of Palm Springs, marks at least the second time a California school has prohibited non-vaccinated students from classes since the outbreak began.

 Earlier this month, a school in the Los Angeles suburb of Huntington Beach ordered non-vaccinated children to stay home until this Thursday. And in nearby Arizona, officials in Maricopa County asked non-vaccinated students who were potentially exposed to the disease to stay home.

 “We are simply responding, being very careful and making sure we’re taking the best care of students and staff,” said Mary Perry, a spokeswoman for the Desert Sands Unified School District, which overseas Palm Desert High. She said the non-vaccinated students have been ordered to stay home until Feb. 9.

All the while, Mississippi has the best child vaccination rate in the nation:

It’s tough being a child in Mississippi. The state has the nation’s worst rates for infant mortality and low-weight newborns. Its childhood poverty rate ranks as the nation’s second worst. Overall, the residents of Mississippi are the unhealthiest in the country.

 But there is one notable exception to these dour health stats: Mississippi has the highest vaccination rate for school-age children. It’s not even close. Last year, 99.7 percent of the state’s kindergartners were fully vaccinated. Just 140 students in Mississippi entered school without all of their required shots.

 Compare that with California, epicenter of the ongoing Disney measles outbreak, where last year almost 8 percent of kindergartners — totaling 41,000 children — failed to get the required immunizations against mumps, measles and rubella. In Oregon, that number was 6.8 percent. In Pennsylvania, it was nearly 15 percent, or 22,700 kindergartners. And each of these states has suffered measles outbreaks in the last two years.

 “It’s nice not having measles in Mississippi,” said Mary Currier, Mississippi state health officer.

 The secret of Mississippi’s success stems from a strong public health program and — most importantly — a strict mandatory vaccination law that lacks the loopholes found in almost every other state.

I am not quite sure just why Mississippi has the best policy in the nation, no exemption except for real medical issues, things like compromised immune systems.

The antivaxxers endanger all the rest of us on the basis of myths promulgated by a doctor who was paid off by lawyers who wanted a ready pool of rubes plaintiffs.

The final word of the day has to come from Nigerian writer and lawyer Elnathan John:

Our thoughts are also with the measles-ravaged country America. I hope we are screening them before they come to Africa.
— Elnathan John (@elnathan) February 1, 2015