Charter Schools

The following is from a 1-6-11 email from NY Green Party:

Green Party Says Cuomo Fiscal Plan Recycles Failed Policies

The Green Party blasted the Emergency Fiscal Plan outlined by Andrew Cuomo in his State of the State Message as a continuation of the failed policies of previous administrations of both major parties.

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(The title is inspired by Historiann's excellent post. Also a note: unlike most of the things I blog about, teaching is what I've done professionally for decades. I taught in universities, not schools, but the two aren't totally unrelated.) Fair warning: kind of longish....

Every time you turn around, there's a new front opened in the war on teachers. They don't work hard enough. They get paid too much They're not accountable. They can't be fired. Their unions protect dead wood. Read below the fold...

UPDATE: Corrente Wire, the boldly shrill blog that everybody hates and nobody reads. Hey Paul, would it kill you to throw us a via link? Your analysis is much more thorough than mine, but could you spare a link?

Via Education Notes Online and Democracy Now!: Read below the fold...

Even before Bush's Secretary of Education pronounced teachers unions "terrorist organizatins" teachers have been deprecated and demonized in the crosshairs of top-down corporate 'school reform'.

For some reason they are now allowing me to drop an occasional (no more than weekly) item at Huffington Post. Go figger. Read below the fold...

Charter schools and the attack on public education

According to U.S. Census data, well over $800 billion is spent on education, public and private, at all levels in the United States each year.20 This makes it roughly the same size as the U.S. trade deficit with China. The private sector wants to get its hands on this money. Along with politicians, it is determined to break the power of the teachers’ unions and to attack one of the last bastions of decently paid American workers. The budget problems resulting from the current recession will provide them cover in doing this.

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St HOPE is one of private companies Michelle Rhee wants to have take over some DC public schools. She was formerly on the board of St HOPE:

SACRAMENTO BEEAfter a Sacramento High School teacher's report last year that a 17-year-old student told him she was inappropriately touched by Kevin Johnson, Johnson's personal attorney and business partner investigated the complaint for the campus.

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