Category: Privatization

In the news: teachers take on “Race to the Top” nation-wide; PPS staff recommend hip hop charter

Teachers and their unions are gearing up to take on the Obama administration’s pro-charter, pro-merit pay “Race to the Top” initiative. Paul Abowd writes in Labor Notes reports that teachers from New York, Chicago, San Francisco and Los Angeles met recently in LA “to bring a vision of education reform that puts educators, not ‘education management organizations,’ in the driver’s seat.”

Kim Melton reports on OregonLive.com that PPS staff are recommending the school board approve a charter high school with a focus on hip hop, modeled on the High School for Recording Arts in Minneapolis.

Steve Rawley published PPS Equity from 2008 to 2010, when he moved his family out of the district.

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In the news

Jennifer Anderson reports in the Tribune that Portland Public Schools is hiring a private investigator to probe one of its charter school operators. The contract for this PI is costing the district $75 an hour and runs through the end of the school year. Jack Bogdanski asks the $64,000 question: Isn’t this the kind of thing that we have detectives, DA’s, and a labor commissioner for? To which I would add: Doesn’t the school board employ an independent auditor?

Steve Rawley published PPS Equity from 2008 to 2010, when he moved his family out of the district.

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Secretary of Ed. Joel Klein?

Word is that President-elect Obama is considering notorious union-busting, test-obsessed, NCLB-defending, school-privatizer Joel I. Klein (New York City’s public school boss) for Secretary of Education.

While Obama’s election may provide a new attitude and sense of comity, his actual administration may do just the opposite if it includes divisive figures like Klein.

I’ve been concerned that Obama would tap our old friend Vicki Phillips, but Chicago school reform activist Michael Klonsky (no fan of Phillips) thinks Klein would be the worst possible choice for Secretary of Education.

Steve Rawley published PPS Equity from 2008 to 2010, when he moved his family out of the district.

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