Meryl Streep on Donald Trump: A Powerful Statement

Meryl Streep on Donald Trump: A Powerful Statement
by dianeravitch

Meryl Streep won the Golden Globes Lifetime Achievement Award last night. Her acceptance speech was powerful. (Please note that she emphasizes the fact that she went to the public schools of New Jersey.)

READ WHAT SHE SAID HERE: https://dianeravitch.net/2017/01/09/meryl-streep-on-donald-trump-a-powerful-statement/

Diane Ravitch's blog

Meryl Streep won the Golden Globes Lifetime Achievement Award last night. Her acceptance speech was powerful. (Please note that she emphasizes the fact that she went to the public schools of New Jersey.)

She said:

Please sit down. Thank you. I love you all. You’ll have to forgive me. I’ve lost my voice in screaming and lamentation this weekend. And I have lost my mind sometime earlier this year, so I have to read.

Thank you, Hollywood Foreign Press. Just to pick up on what Hugh Laurie said: You and all of us in this room really belong to the most vilified segments in American society right now. Think about it: Hollywood, foreigners and the press.

But who are we, and what is Hollywood anyway? It’s just a bunch of people from other places. I was born and raised and educated in the public schools of New Jersey…

View original post 557 more words

Guess What? The FBI Is Now Reporting Background Checks on Private Sales!

Guess What? The FBI Is Now Reporting Background Checks on Private Sales!
by mikethegunguy
I’m not one to go around patting government bureaucracies on the back, but I have to admit that one such bureaucracy of which I have been less than positive in the past has made an important change in the way it conducts its regulatory activity, and it’s a change that’s positive in every respect. I am referring to the new 4473 background check form which the ATF released in 2016 but it now required for every FFL-transaction beginning January 1st of the current year. And what this change amounts to is an additional data field on the form that describes the transaction as a sale, a pawn redemption or – and here’s the dooda – a transaction to ‘facilitate a private transfer.’

atf What this means is that, for the first time, the FBI-NICS data, which is published monthly on a state-by-state basis, will be able to show how many private transactions are now going through the same background-check process that is required for all dealer sales. According to the Law Center, there are 10 states (plus DC) that currently require background checks on all private sales. There’s also an additional eight states that require background checks on handguns or transactions conducted at gun shows, so we still have a long way to go.

READ THE FULL BLOG POST HERE: https://mikethegunguy.com/2017/01/06/guess-what-the-fbi-is-now-reporting-background-checks-on-private-sales/

I’m not one to go around patting government bureaucracies on the back, but I have to admit that one such bureaucracy of which I have been less than positive in the past has made an important change in the way it conducts its regulatory activity, and it’s a change that’s positive in every respect.  I am referring to the new 4473 background check form which the ATF released in 2016 but it now required for every FFL-transaction beginning January 1st of the current year. And what this change amounts to is an additional data field on the form that describes the transaction as a sale, a pawn redemption or – and here’s the dooda – a transaction to ‘facilitate a private transfer.’

            What this means is that, for the first time, the FBI-NICS data, which is published monthly on a state-by-state basis, will be able to show how…

View original post 523 more words

Small Local Group Uncovers Widespread Opposition to Confirmation of DeVos as U.S. Education Secretary

Small Local Group Uncovers Widespread Opposition to Confirmation of DeVos as U.S. Education Secretary
by janresseger
On Tuesday, January 3, as everybody crawled out from under holiday cooking, gifting and celebrating, leaders of our local Heights Coalition for Public Education met to consider mounting some kind of local response to the existential threat of a Betsy DeVos-led U.S. Department of Education. President-elect Donald Trump’s nomination of Betsy Devos alarms us because her only connection with public schools has been a lifelong commitment to using her billionaire philanthropy to privatize education. We’ve all personally sent letters or signed petitions to protest Trump’s nomination of Devos to be our next education secretary, and we looked for a way to expand our advocacy to include our broader community.

We crafted a sign-on letter for organizations and assigned different people to reach out to leaders they knew to see of their organizations would consider signing on. On Wednesday, we learned there was some time pressure: DeVos’s hearing before the Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions (Senate HELP) Committee had now been scheduled for January 11.

READ MORE OF THIS POST… https://janresseger.wordpress.com/2017/01/06/small-local-group-uncovers-widespread-opposition-to-confirmation-of-devos-as-u-s-ed-sec/

janresseger

On Tuesday, January 3, as everybody crawled out from under holiday cooking, gifting and celebrating, leaders of our local Heights Coalition for Public Education met to consider mounting some kind of local response to the existential threat of a Betsy DeVos-led U.S. Department of Education. President-elect Donald Trump’s nomination of Betsy Devos alarms us because her only connection with public schools has been a lifelong commitment to using her billionaire philanthropy to privatize education. We’ve all personally sent letters or signed petitions to protest Trump’s nomination of Devos to be our next education secretary, and we looked for a way to expand our advocacy to include our broader community.

We crafted a sign-on letter for organizations and assigned different people to reach out to leaders they knew to see of their organizations would consider signing on. On Wednesday, we learned there was some time pressure: DeVos’s hearing before the Senate…

View original post 973 more words

What’s the End Game? Watch this 4-minute video NOW.

What’s the End Game? Watch this 4-minute video NOW.
by Emily Talmage
Alison McDowell, author of the blog Wrench in the Gears , has put together a short 4-minute video that spells out exactly what will happen to our public schools if people don’t start waking up now. Please watch and share. If you find yourself feeling skeptical of any of Alison’s claims, follow the many hyperlinks in her blog posts and see the evidence for yourself. This is happening.
READ MORE OF THIS POST —

Objects in Mirror are Closer Than They Appear | BustED Pencils

Objects in Mirror are… As lightning struck closer and closer, I looked to other parents who chatted casually on the sidelines. I felt almost embarrassed to be the one to raise the alarm as I sheepishly approached by daughter’s soccer coach and exclaimed as calmly as I could, “Coach, I think we need to get… Read more »

Source: Objects in Mirror are Closer Than They Appear | BustED Pencils

The Ugly Facts About Ed-Reform, Partisan Bickering and the Resistance

The Ugly Facts About Ed-Reform, Partisan Bickering and the Resistance
by seattleducation2010
I find it disturbing how quickly basic facts are flushed down the memory hole. Yes, Betsy Devos is the extreme example of the type of privatizer destroying public education, but the Democrats – with Obama at the helm – opened the door. Don’t believe me? Take a look at Obama’s Digital Promise Initiative, whose purpose […]

Read more of this post

Seattle Education

I find it disturbing how quickly basic facts are flushed down the memory hole.

Yes, Betsy Devos is the extreme example of the type of privatizer destroying public education, but the Democrats – with Obama at the helm – opened the door.

Don’t believe me?

Take a look at Obama’s Digital Promise Initiative, whose purpose was to break open the education market for companies to sell personalized learning products to school districts. Why employ actual teachers, when computers and software can do the job.

How about the ESSA’s inclusion of “innovative assessments” – which edutech predators like iNACOL can’t wait to leverage into more online learning software and continuous testing in the classroom.

The ESSA also gave the charter lobby everything they wanted, and then some.

How can financially stressed public schools, always under the threat of being labeled “failures” based on test scores, compete with flush and…

View original post 1,033 more words

Getting Back in Gear After the Holidays

Jamie Lee Wallace Hi. I’m Jamie. I am a content writer and branding consultant, columnist, sometime feature writer, prolific blogger, and aspiring fiction writer. I’m a mom, a student of equestrian arts, and a nature lover. I believe in small kindnesses, daily chocolate, and happy endings. Introduce yourself on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, or Pinterest. I don’t bite … usually.

This post originally appeared on the Live to Write – Write to Live blog.
.

Suddenly Jamie (@suddenlyjamie) | January 8, 2017 at 6:40 am | Categories: Saturday Edition | URL: http://wp.me/pUTUc-4C9

Live to Write - Write to Live

It’s snowing today – many, many, MANY of these falling from the sky and making me feel SO cozy. Love it!

How long does it take you to get back into the swing of things after the holidays? How much time do you need to find your usual groove and get all the gears turning smoothly again? We are seven days into the New Year, and I’m only just starting to ease fully back in to my usual routines.

I was fortunate enough to be able to take the week between Christmas and New Year’s off. I didn’t turn my computer on once. I spent time with my family, especially my daughter and my beau. We watched a LOT of movies (mostly chosen by  my daughter, so there were many superhero movies in the mix). On the Thursday after Christmas, I had the loveliest day, all to myself. I had…

View original post 959 more words

Cutting Our (Financial) Losses in the Public Realm: Running Schools Like a Business

Cutting Our (Financial) Losses in the Public Realm: Running Schools Like a Business
by wboyler
Well, it’s beginning.

Well, actually, it had already begun.

So it continues.

And the pace of it just might be picking up.

School closings that is.

Detroit Public Schools Community District has just announced that it will be closing Durfee Middle School.

If you follow Michigan’s education scene, you know that the State School Reform Office (tellingly located under the Michigan Department of Technology/Management and Budget department rather than the Department of Education- it’s complicated) is looking to close schools that perform in the lowest 5% across the state for 3 consecutive years. (You also know that over 100 public schools have closed in Detroit since 2005.) The Detroit Free Press explains,”More than 120 schools were on the state’s 2015 list of Michigan’s bottom 5% of schools, including 47 schools in the Detroit district. Durfee has been on the list since 2014.

The 2016 bottom 5% list — and an announcement about school closures or reforms — is expected to be publicly released within weeks. The Michigan Department of Education compiles the bottom 5% list based on state test data. Officials warned in August that some schools that have been on the list for three consecutive years could be shut down.”

I’ve previously addressed this cruel nonsense of determining the success or failure of a school by using “achievement data.” (See here, here and here.) However, in order to establish some context it is worth repeating Paul Gorksi’s incisive criticism of “deficit ideology” as the means through we view “school failure.” Gorski writes, “The function of deficit ideology…is to justify existing social conditions by identifying the problem of inequality as located within, rather than as pressing upon, disenfranchised communities so that efforts to redress inequalities focus on ‘fixing’ disenfranchised people rather than the conditions which disenfranchise them.”

In short, closing schools hides and replicates conditions of inequity.

I wish our State School Reform Office understood that.
(Read the full post here: https://educarenow.wordpress.com/2017/01/06/4450/)

educarenow

Well, it’s beginning.

Well, actually, it had already begun.

So it continues.

And the pace of it just might be picking up.

School closings that is.

Detroit Public Schools Community District has just announced that it will be closing Durfee Middle School.

If you follow Michigan’s education scene, you know that the State School Reform Office (tellingly located under the Michigan Department of Technology/Management and Budget department rather than the Department of Education- it’s complicated) is looking to close schools that perform in the lowest 5% across the state for 3 consecutive years. (You also know that over 100 public schools have closed in Detroit since 2005.) The Detroit Free Press explains,“More than 120 schools were on the state’s 2015 list of Michigan’s bottom 5% of schools, including 47 schools in the Detroit district. Durfee has been on the list since 2014.

The 2016 bottom 5% list — and an announcement…

View original post 722 more words

Betsy DeVos’ qualifications to guard the chicken coop.

Fred Klonsky

View original post

Mother Crusader: DeVos Family Gave Money to 8 Members of the Committee That Will Vote on Her

Diane Ravitch's blog

Mother Crusader, aka Darcie Cimarusti of New Jersey, knows how to read federal campaign contribution reports. She knows that it has been widely reported that four members of the Senate Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions Committee have received DeVos money. After digging, she shows that EIGHT members of the committee have received DeVos campaign contributions. They should recuse themselves to avoid the appearance of pay-to-play.

http://mothercrusader.blogspot.com/2017/01/demand-that-senators-who-have-received.html

View original post