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April 30, 2007
Morning Shots
The Indypendent - Education As Commodity: Corporate Dollars Seek To Redefine Public Schools - Anyone care to respond? Email edspresso@edreform.com if you’d like to provide a Guest Commentary.
The latest 2006 commission report represents a broad bipartisan consensus of the U.S. corporate elite. It was funded by Bill Gates and the Gates, Hewlett, Casey and Lumina Foundations. The commission includes two former U.S. secretaries of education — Rod Paige and Richard Riley; a former U.S. Secretary of Labor; the heads of the New York City and Washington, D.C., public schools; the “president emeritus” of the Communications Workers of America; the president of the Urban League; the head of the National Association of Manufacturers; major corporate players (e.g., Henry Schatz, former CEO of Lucent); and other prominent politicians and academics.
According to the report, “we” (U.S. capital) need a highly skilled and creative work force to compete in the world market. The report admits that the emphasis on standards-based learning discouraged creativity in favor of rote learning. And, the new report says, the stress on educating for high skills is inadequate for the current global economy, where the only way to thrive will be to always be the first to come up with new technological breakthroughs.
This vision of a dog-eat-dog world is, unfortunately, an accurate portrayal of the dynamics of global capital. And, as the new report admits, automation and digitization have made it possible for U.S. companies to export almost all manufacturing and many service jobs, skilled and unskilled alike. But the folks behind the report are the very folks who shift capital around the globe to wherever labor is cheapest and profits are highest.
Washington Post - Top Teachers Issue Call for Revamped Pay Plans
Tired of reports by business executives and Cabinet officers on how to fix U.S. schools, 18 award-winning teachers produced their own recommendations this month, starting with a major overhaul of how teachers are paid.
The report, sponsored by the Hillsborough, N.C.-based Center for Teaching Quality, said teachers should be able to advance through three tiers -- novice, professional and expert -- and schools should stop paying teachers more just because they have more years on the job.
"If you don't have a career ladder that encourages teachers to advance in their profession -- and be paid accordingly as they advance -- tinkering around the edges by providing $2,000 bonuses for a handful of teachers will not secure the stable, high-quality professional workforce we need," the teachers said.
Houston Chronicle - HISD Examines Charter School Success -
It sounds like a simple formula to fix broken public schools: Require students to spend more time in class. Ask parents to sign contracts committing to be involved. Hire teachers who believe every child is college material.
Popular charter schools such as the Knowledge Is Power Program and YES Prep Public Schools follow such rules, and both have waiting lists of students who want to attend.
With enrollment declining in the Houston Independent School District, the impending expansion of successful charter schools here raises questions about whether traditional districts could — or should — play copycat.
"I don't think there's anything we're really doing that couldn't be replicated in a traditional ISD," said Chris Barbic, the founder of Houston-based YES Prep.
Yet even Barbic acknowledges it would be difficult for traditional districts, which have more students and more red tape, to make big changes. It also would require schools to spend their money differently, on teacher salaries instead of football, perhaps.
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