Mamie Till Mobley

"There was an important mission for me, to shape so many...young minds as a teacher. God took away one child but...(gave) me thousands. And I have been grateful for the blessing." Mamie Till Mobley

Friday, February 26, 2010

Arne Duncan, U.S. Secretary of Education, Race to the Top




Mr. Duncan is unable to articulate any role models influencing his perspective on education. I find this troubling for someone whose idea is to have a highly qualified teacher/principal in the classroom that he is unable to look at a framework that is informing his educational ideas. And he supports what happened in Rhode Island where teachers are being fired for not capitulating to working longer hours for no additional pay.

Wednesday, February 24, 2010

Board of Trustees Rhode Island School District firing all of the high school teachers, U.S. Secretary Duncan praise them for the move.

Wednesday, February 3, 2010

American Association of School Administrators urges Congress to maintain formula instead of competitive grants in Obama's 2011 budget proposal


“... AASA is concerned with the decision to shift a significantly larger proportion of dollars into competitive grant programs. While understanding the Obama Administration’s commitment to rewarding and duplicating successful programs and practices, AASA urges Congress to maintain formula grants to provide a more reliable stream of funding to local school districts. Formula-driven funding represents the dedicated funding stream that allows school districts to appropriately plan for and invest in innovation and reform. Our members are concerned that competitive grants will have a disproportionately negative impact on small and rural districts that do not have the capacity to prepare grant applications." 

Amy Vogt
703-875-0723
avogt@aasa.org

Obama announces more competitive grants through Race to the Top program

Jonathan Kozol on segregated schools

Some reasons why charter schools flourish is the awareness of  inner city urban parents that something is wrong with the public schools their children attend. Ironically, charter schools are more segregated and some have subtle admission policies that favor a certain group of students over others. And their disciplinary and suspension policies are not under  New York State Education law but federal, requiring some due process. That's is why there is the revolving door syndrome of students admitted to charters discipline suspended readmitted back to the public schools.

A comment on the Espada Charter School video

This video is an example of the havoc the policies of U.S. Secretary of Education Arne Duncan have caused in state government across the nation , requiring school districts across the country to create conditions for the development of charter schools in order to privatize and turn them over to investors who view them as a great "cash flow."  Ironically, charter schools were created by educators for experimentation and innovation and to bring back the ideas to the schools so all children benefit from the experiment. That is not what they have become today. Charter schools do have a role to play in the American public school system and as a wake up call to dysfunctional public schools or the so called diploma mills that graduate inner city students ill prepared for the work force or higher education.

Senator Pedro Espada, Jr. on Charter Schools




Whitney Tilson (3rd background)

Whitney Tilson (3rd background)
"Let’s be honest: we need a lot more well-off, well-educated white folks with a personal stake in both charter schools and education reform in general if we’re going to take reform to the next level, both politically and operationally.Whitney Tilson, hedge fund manager and major funding angel for the school privatizing Democrats for Education Reform, thinks there’s not enough rich, educated white folks.( Preaprez) click photo to his blog.

Arne Duncan

Arne Duncan
U.S. Secretary of Education, click photo