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nightcap
November 10, 2009
Remainders: Randi Weingarten for D.C. schools chancellor?
- Jay Mathews nominates Randi Weingarten to replace Michelle Rhee in D.C., if Rhee must go.
- It’s now legal to evaluate Wisconsin teachers based on their students’ test scores.
- The four-word explanation: Race to the Top, which has states everywhere changing their laws.
- Richard Kessler explains why it’s a no-brainer to partner with the UFT.
- The final edition of the Bracey Report finds that mayoral control hurt democracy in New York.
- A school turnaround story in the White House’s backyard (and my hometown!).
- States are about to apply for Phase 2 of the stimulus’s stop-school-cuts fund.
- Rotherham is betting that “special interest groups” (ahem, teacher unions) will squash an NCLB rewrite.
- Rick Hess thinks Arne Duncan should not have lobbied for health care reform.
- Duncan visited Harlem Children’s Zone today, but the investment in replication is small.
- Weeding out bad teachers won’t be enough to improve teacher quality across the board, a report argues.
- A view from Sunset Park Prep is featured at The Quick and the Ed today.
- A push to raise the bar on what constitutes “evidence” when judging I3 innovation grant submissions.
- Ask Judy suggests an alternative to taking your daughter out to lunch during the school day.
- And teachers and parents say PS 204 in Morris Heights is falling apart.
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November 10th, 2009 10:16 pm
Item 5, the final edition of the Bracey Report is most highly recommended.
“A close look at the two most visible exemplars of mayoral control, Chicago and New York, yields results that counter the image created by those in control. “Reforms” that are supposed to help children do better are primarily used to make the adults who control the schools look good.”
– http://www.scribd.com/doc/22379384/BRACEY-2009, page 14 of 24Lots of props to Haimson, Kjellberg, Ravitch, Pallas, Jennings, and.. GothamSchools.
Lots more from Mr. Bracey: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/gerald-bracey
R.I.P. Gerald Bracey, 1940-2009
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November 11th, 2009 11:12 am
MM,
I want to thank you for your ever-present insights and information with respect to the bringing attention to NYC’s education issues, mayoral control, and the travesty of those empowered to dupe the public with their fuzzy stat.
I read page 14 of the Bracey Report and found Bracey’s perceptives of the two mayors (Chicago and New York City) on target. This report should be a reading requirement for all those individuals who enter college to study urban politics and government. I would like to share another section from the Bracey Report that is also a reality which I read on page 15.
“Kirst’s comments lead to another concern about mayoral control: mayors don’t last forever. The current crop of mayors running the schools wanted control. Their successors might not evince such motivation. At the moment, both cities are in the hands of people holding the position l’etat c’est moi. That is not a condition that will likely last forever, but the end definitely is not in sight. Theoretically, of course, mayoral control need not look like those discussed here, but it is disturbing that the two most visible models appear to be simultaneously undemocratic and ineffectual. Benjamin Barber once referred to public schools as “workshops of our democracy.”
It does not seem that they are furthering democratic goals in New York and Chicago—nor improving achievement.”
http://epicpolicy.org/publication/Bracey-Report
http://www.scribd.com/doc/22379384/BRACEY-2009
Bloomberg publicly stated that he would not run for a 4th term. Does this mean that end is **finally** in sight? I hope in 2013 that Kirst is right!
Once again, thanks for the info.
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November 11th, 2009 3:50 pm
INT…
You are too kind.
But the more pertinent quote, and excerpt from the Bracey Report may be:
“In the first place, God made idiots. That was for practice. Then he made school boards.”
– Mark TwainOf course that was before Mayoral Control reset the bar.
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