The NEA is Confused - Most Teachers Distrust Common Core

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Thursday September 19, 2013 · 4:04 AM PDT

2013/09/19 · 04:04

The NEA released a survey yesterday purporting to show that the vast major it of educators support the Gates/Broad/Pearson test-fest that is the Common Core State Standards Initiative.

According to a new poll by the National Education Association, the Common Core State Standards are strongly supported by its members. Roughly two-thirds of educators are either wholeheartedly in favor of the standards (26 percent) or support them with “some reservations” (50 percent). Only 11 percent of those surveyed expressed opposition. Thirteen percent didn’t know enough about the CCSS to form an opinion. Overall, 98 percent of NEA members have heard of the standards. In addition, 79 percent of respondents said they were well or somewhat prepared to implement the new standards. The survey questioned 1200 NEA members and was conducted in July by Greenberg Quinlan Rosner Research.

Wait, what? Read More

End Game for Education in NC

Balachan

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Thursday July 25, 2013 · 6:17 AM PDT

2013/07/25 · 06:17

North Carolina, my adopted state, has passed a budget that deprofessionalizes teachers (eliminating tenure, establishing 'pay for excellence,' removing stepped increases for experience and advanced degrees), outright removes 4,000 teachers and nearly 4,000 TAs from the workforce, raises tuition at our public universities, cuts money to public schools directly, and then cuts it again by allowing some 1,400 kids to move $4,500 each from the public coffers and spend it on private school tuition. All this while establishing a flat-tax and giving tax-breaks to big business.

I have to admit that I thought we'd be talking about Kansas, Florida or Texas.
For reform-minded Democrats, this should be a wake-up call. The situation in North Carolina is the logical outcome of the policies you promote. It is not an accident, an unintended consequence of the accountability fetish or an unexpected result of 'putting students first.' The destruction of the teaching profession and the dismantling of public schools in North Carolina is exactly what the reformers (or at least the money and power behind them) have been pushing for for thirty years.

Balachan

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Friday October 26, 2012 · 4:44 PM PDT

2012/10/26 · 16:44

Big surprise.

Vice has a video up (here) purporting to be show the birth of Obama in Kenya. This is so much better than his gay-married muslim wedding ring. I mean, it shows everything you could ever need to be convinced. A white woman. A black nurse. A black doctor even. And a gigantic baby with an umbilical cord held in place by the doctor. And Ann Dunham's name in bold sharpie on the clipboard. Oooh, and a calendar that proves it was 1961.

And one more thing:

Balachan

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Monday August 20, 2012 · 6:17 AM PDT

2012/08/20 · 06:17

In keeping with the FP piece on Joe Romm, I thought I’d have a go at turning something of our political discourse into a metaphor (metty-for in redneck-ese). Technically, I suppose it would actually be a conceit (a whut?), though I’m not really willing to slap the poem label on this. Anyhow. We begin beneath the typographically ornamental dingbat (squiggle):

Balachan

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Wednesday June 06, 2012 · 5:56 AM PDT

2012/06/06 · 05:56

I haven't written much (and certainly haven't hit publish) in a great while, mainly due to fear. I cannot afford to become embroiled in politics when I don't have a job. With the legislature in my state set to take away tenure, even if I land a teaching position tomorrow I may well never have enough job security to be able to speak my mind in any forum at all, much less a public space like this. But the events in Wisconsin (my childhood home and where I once longed to return) have unsettled me to the point that I feel the need to say something.

That independents (who tend not, alas, to actually be independent) and conservatives backed Walker was not a surprise in any way. Neither was the far too neat analog of the first Barrett-Walker matchup to the latest results. No, what bothers me most is why so many people, Democrats included, have a raging hate-on for public sector workers like teachers, postal workers and the ‘old biddies’ at the DMV.

Balachan

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Friday July 22, 2011 · 11:30 AM PDT

2011/07/22 · 11:30

Over the past couple of weeks it's been getting worse. Everyday it seems like there's a new pair of competing diaries from the usual suspects doing the rhetorical equivalent of beating each other about the head and shoulders with an inflated bladder and pouring whitewash down unsuspecting trousers. They seem to range from the hyperbolic disaffected to the outright condescending. We all need to calm the f*ck down, stop beating our chests and think for a d@mn minute.

Balachan

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Wednesday April 27, 2011 · 5:51 PM PDT

2011/04/27 · 17:51

According to a vituperative old woman— I'll not disclose who, sorry—, I'm a "disappointment to the profession and the professionals who work every day for students." Ouch. This despite acing the Praxis II I took when I started teaching and scoring in the 99th percentile on the Miller's Analogy Test I took to enter grad school. But wait, you say, those are silly little tests that don't prove anything. Well, actually that's my point. Yes, I got those scores. No, I'm not bragging. Because I recognize that those tests, like all the standardized exams we force down our students throats, mean absolutely nothing.

Balachan

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Sunday April 10, 2011 · 5:22 AM PDT

2011/04/10 · 05:22

Up in Wisconsin, there’s more going on to undercut public education than Governor Walker’s budget cuts or the stalled-for-now union busting. There’s also the Value-Added Research Center. The wonderful folks at VARC think they’re on to something. If they’re right, they’ve stumbled onto the perfect way to show how good a teacher is from year to year. Once we know that, we can pay them what they’re worth. Treat them like professionals. It’s a laudable goal, right?

Except it isn’t. It’s a lie. VARC's work is a complex-looking bit of mathematical trickery wrapped up in demagoguery and based on a series of erroneous assumptions. In other words: a lie.

Balachan

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Thursday March 31, 2011 · 1:19 PM PDT

2011/03/31 · 13:19

Just got an alert from the Classroom Teachers Association of NC. A bill has been introduced by Republican Majority Whip, State Rep Ruth Samuelson that would take away what little rights teachers have in North Carolina. It's designated as a pilot program, and only applies to Charlotte-Mecklenburg Schools, but don't let that fool you. This is the proverbial foot in the door for the wholseale destruction of public schooling in North Carolina.

Balachan

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Tuesday January 25, 2011 · 7:49 PM PST

2011/01/25 · 19:49

I am tired, damn tired, of people not thinking.

As a teacher I don't have a problem with ignorance; ignorance can be fixed. As my first mentor teacher said, however, "You can't fix stupid."

I am going to try and be as positive as I can and assume that President Obama acted out of ignorance tonight rather than purposeful stupidity. Obama's reference to Sputnik might sound good to someone who has no idea what the history really is, but to an educator? Let me put it this way: the SOTU tonight was the first speech I've heard since Bush was in office that made me too angry to sit through. And even though I should be retiring for the night, I feel I need to make some things plain to those who haven't taken courses in education history.

I'll even be brief (compared to an ed-history class at least).

Balachan

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Thursday January 06, 2011 · 5:44 AM PST

2011/01/06 · 05:44

After teacherken's excellent diary on the Wake County, NC decision to hire DC crony and educational neophyte General Tata to run its schools, I thought it might be time to share some of the information I have collected and to share my personal theory on why, exactly, these people™ are trying to destroy public education in the United States.

I believe that we have a perfect storm of reform-minded idiocy coupled with a complete lack of understanding about education's purpose. As a result, there isn't one reason that they™ would want to destroy education. There are three.

Poll

89 votes Show Results

Why do you think they™ are trying to destroy education?

89 votes Vote Now!

Why do you think they™ are trying to destroy education?

Greed.

32 votes

Lack of empathy.

2 votes

Inexperience.

2 votes

Stupidity.

6 votes

To breed an entire generation of mindless zombies.

44 votes

Pie.

3 votes

How to Negotiate with Terrorists... er, Republicans

Balachan

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Sunday December 19, 2010 · 6:35 AM PST

2010/12/19 · 06:35

Daniele Varé - "Diplomacy is the art of letting the other guy have your way."

There has been a lot of hand wringing in the past few weeks (tempered by our 'victory' on DADT) about how Obama was never a liberal and how we should become disengaged from the political process since we're obviously not taken seriously. This is bullpucky. So I thought I'd set down some rules for negotiating with 'the enemy.'

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The NEA is Confused - Most Teachers Distrust Common Core

End Game for Education in NC

Fake Birth Video is a Fake!

Persuasion: The Two Mechanics

Why Do They** Hate Us?*

Tired of the Bull$hit about the Bull$hit

I'm a Disappointment

The Value of a Teacher

BREAKING: Republicans to Take Away Teacher Rights in NC

The Myth of Sputnik

Why are they™ trying to destroy education?

How to Negotiate with Terrorists... er, Republicans