Not With My Child: Diane Ravitch on Opting Out

Here's a nice conversation on The Chalk Face. Diane Ravitch is the guest, and she's talking about parents opting their children out of the coming round of standardized tests.

She points out the the recent collapse of test scores in New York is going to be duplicated around the nation, which is all part of the plan.

Ravitch gives an excellent primer on the political context in which all of this testing drama is taking place. It's worth a listen.

[I'm a fan of the hosts of this show, but for some reason they have a full minute of awful noise and then lots of meandering commentary before the meat of the show begins. They also had technical difficulties. The portion worth listening to starts at 8:42, so please skip the section before that, unless you have a lot of tolerance and almost nine minutes to burn.]

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Timothy Meegan: CPS Starving Its Schools To Justify Privatization

Here's a nice follow-up interview of Timothy Meegan, the Roosevelt HS teacher who wrote this tremendous op-ed in the Sun-Times. You know an op-ed is going to be good when it starts with something like this:

On Wednesday July 24, I was physically removed from a Chicago Board of Education meeting after I waited four hours to speak for two minutes. I timed it at two minutes and five seconds, but I was not allowed to finish. While board member Henry Bienen nodded off, I tried to say what I had to say.

If you haven't been paying attention to what's actually happening in public education, Meegan puts it all together for you. It's a good piece.

A Lesson On Blight: Karen Zaccor At The Thompson Center

Our Uptown neighbor, Karen Zaccor, spoke yesterday at the Thompson Center. A coalition of groups, including Northside Action For Justice, which Karen facilitates.

One of the things we work on is making sure the TIFs get used for what they're supposed to be use for, and that is encouraging development in blighted areas.  

I looked up what "blight" means in the dictionary. It is "something that impairs growth, withers hopes and ambitions, or impedes progress and prosperity." 

This is exactly what Mayor Emanuel is doing to our schools with all these cuts and closings. He is turning our schools into blighted areas. So our schools are entitled to this TIF money.  

So, Attorney General Madigan, we need you to do the right thing and intervene on behalf of our children to make the information about the TIF surplus available to the public.  

Mayor Emanuel, we need you to do the right thing. Release the money to our schools. Make our children the number one priority. 

Check out all the other speakers here. 

This is the sort of work we're doing at RPNPS. Won't you consider consider joining us this fall? Get in touch: info@rpnps.org

Incidentally, who else is interested in asking our 49th ward alderman why he's not yet signed on to the TIF surplus ordinance sponsored by the Progressive Coalition, and which has been signed onto by at least 32 other aldermen? We haven't set up a meeting yet. 

Can We Get A Follow-Up Here?

I didn't attend the budget hearing at Truman College tonight. I hear it laid an egg, as the governor might say. But after it was over, I saw this comment over at Diane Ravitch's place.

Mike Klonsky has been covering the $20m no-bid consulting crony contract story, here and here, a story which hasn't gotten a ton of traction yet, but I would love for someone with press credentials to scare an answer out of CPS about the four institutions involved in the $3.6m.

It might be legit, but we're living in boondoggle times, and this one should be explained before in goes down the memory hole.

Btw, I haven't yet written the piece about how much money our local  neighborhood schools have lost in this budget, but I'm hearing really, really high numbers. Nor have I pieced together the net gain for the charters, but I'm sure someone's on it.

More Bennett Coverage

Chris Hayes does a pretty interesting overview here. It's a pleasure to see this issue getting some sunlight. For the past several years, you've pretty much had to be involved in the ed-reform subculture to hear even an ounce of criticism.

I'm posting it because I've been watching these issues here in Illinois for a while now, and I wouldn't be surprised if this level of mendacity eventually comes to light here. And I mean way, way beyond just UNO.

And now, the money quote from Tony Bennett's emails:

"The problem isn't with the school; it's with the metrics."

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Melissa Harris-Perry Coverage of Charter Corruption

If you're not an ed policy junkie, you may not have heard about Tony Bennett in Indiana.  Yesterday, Melissa Harris-Perry did a pretty good explanation about Bennett's shenanigans, and I'm posting it here because it's just another example of the opacity and reckless disregard for ethics that in my opinion are endemic in the charter universe.

There are some white knights to be sure, but just look around at what we've already seen.

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This Is A Crisis. Return The Money.

From GEM.