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    Dear Commons Community,

    The Graduate Center’s own David Bloomfield has an article in The Hechinger Report on the possible departure of Los Angeles Schools’ Superintendent John Deasy.   According to news sources,   terms of a possible exit from that post have been discussed ahead of his Oct. 21 performance review. As reported by Bloomfield:

    “Deasy was appointed in 2011 and his current contract runs to June, 2016. Despite this, LAUSD’s Deasy bio says he’s “a man on a mission” who’s “championed rigorous and ambitious learning opportunities for youth, fair teacher and administrator evaluations, pay‐for-performance, staff development and training, and data‐based decision‐making.” In short, he is another high-profile accountability-side casualty of the nation’s school wars.

    Didn’t Tolstoy say that all failed superintendents fail in their own way? Here, Deasy’s immediate problem is a $1.3 billion debacle over a controversial iPads-for-all program in which he reportedly engaged in contact with software and test vendor Pearson PLC. deemed to be inappropriate before the contract was opened for competitive bidding.

    But Deasy’s departure, should it come, will also be the result of the policies that brought him to LAUSD in the first place: the corporate-type school reform agenda, backed by the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation and Broad Foundations. Deasy is the former deputy director of Education at Gates and was a Broad fellow. (The Eli and Edythe Broad Foundation is a funder of The Hechinger Report).”

    Bloomfield also comments:

    “In addition to Deasy’s likely membership [departure], others in the ousted leaders club include Michelle Rhee from D.C., Paul Vallas from Bridgeport, Alan Bersin from San Diego, and Jean Claude Brizard from Chicago. Rejection of harsh accountability policies was an important factor in New York’s recent election of Mayor Bill de Blasio after the mayoralty of Michael Bloomberg and, next door in Connecticut, State Superintendent Stefan Pryor just called it quits over similar issues to free Democrat Daniel Malloy from that yoke.”

    The entire piece is very well done and worth  a read.

    Tony

     

     

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    Dear Commons Community,

    The Times Higher Education World University Rankings 2014-2015 were released on Wednesday and there is good news and not-so-good news for American higher education. […]

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    Dear Commons Community,

    In his column today, Nicholas Kristoph focuses on ISIS and other extremists who indoctrinate young people and use them in their fights against civilized societies. Specifically, he calls […]

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    CUNY Academic Commons Development Blog

    I’ve just released version 1.6.17 of the CUNY Academic Commons. This maintenance release contains a fix for SSL content on mapped domains, a fix for the broken “Create a Site” button on the Blogs directory, and […]

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    Dear Commons Community,

    MOOC fever is cooling among campus information-technology leaders, according to the 2014 edition of the Campus Computing Survey, an annual report on technology in higher education. As […]

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    Dear Commons Community,

    Wyoming is the best state overall for teachers, while North Carolina is the worst, according to a new list from personal finance website Wallethub. Wallethub ranked the best and worst […]

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    Dear Commons Community,

    The Chronicle of Higher Education has an article cautioning colleges and universities when entering into relationships with companies that provide online learning services.

    The growth […]

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    Dear Commons Community,

    The Chronicle of Higher Education has three articles today covering the “Yes Means Yes” legislation signed by Governor Jerry Brown of California that explicitly requires colleges and […]

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    Dear Commons Community,

    Paul Krugman’s column in today’s New York Times posits that political balance rests on a foundation of ignorance, in which the public has no idea on how the superrich live and manipulate […]

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    Anthony Picciano commented on the post, Derek Jeter’s Last Game at Yankee Stadium!

    Reposted for L.A. Gabay:

    The farewell tour was seeming overly contrived and obnoxiously merchandised…but Thursday night in the Bronx and Sunday in Boston was sublime.
    So glad that we all had the opportunity […]

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    Dear Commons Community,

    Protests took place in nine cities yesterday as Hong Kong awoke Sunday to the news that the long-awaited disobedience movement, Occupy Central, was officially underway. Occupy […]

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    Anthony Picciano commented on the post, Jefferson County, Colorado: Students Protest Anti-Protest Curriculum!

    A few days after this protest, The College Board publicly supported the students.

    The organization that oversees the Advanced Placement curriculum, whose history course is being defended by massive, ongoing […]

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    Dear Commons Community,

    Charter schools — which are publicly funded but can be privately run — present an issue that is of significant importance in large urban school systems. Even supporters have argued that such schools are not sufficiently regulated, and various studies show that they are rarely shuttered for low academic performance. Former President Bill Clinton weighed in earlier this week saying that charter schools have great potential, but they aren’t living up to their promise.” As reported in The Huffington Post:

    “If you’re going to get into education, I think it’s really important that you invest in what works,” Clinton said. “For example, New Orleans has better schools than it had before Hurricane Katrina, and it’s the only public school [district] in America where 100 percent of the schools are charter schools.” But the reforms shouldn’t stop there, he added. “They still haven’t done what no state has really done adequately, which is to set up a review system to keep the original bargain of charter schools, which was if they weren’t outperforming the public model, they weren’t supposed to get their charter renewed,” he said.

    After his speech, Clinton told The Huffington Post that he had been a backer of charter schools when their use first expanded in the 1990s. He said the deal was that in exchange for being “unfettered,” they were supposed to do a better job of educating students — or they would be closed. The former president made his remarks during an unannounced appearance at a dinner hosted by the Clinton Global Initiative and the Varkey GEMS Foundation, a philanthropic organization based in the United Arab Emirates that runs private schools around the globe and produces education research. The dinner was held to mark the launch of Business Backs Education, a new UNESCO-supported campaign that aims to make education the recipient of 20 percent of global corporate philanthropy aimed at matters of social responsibility by 2020, up from 7 percent now. (There was a panel discussion about it led by CNN host Fareed Zakaria.)

    The campaign suggests that such increased investment would enable three million more children to attend school annually. Clinton briefly praised New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio for his work on regulating charter schools. Rhode Island also earned a thumbs up for “rigorously enforc[ing] the second part of the grand bargain, which was any charter school that was doing better than public schools was supposed to systematically work with the public schools to institute the practices that work.” But business leaders need to contribute more to education, he said.

    “We can do this; this isn’t rocket science. We just have to sort of saddle up and do it,” Clinton said. “And the thing is, sometimes we overthink it and I’m pretty positive we overtest it,” he said, garnering applause. Clinton said he’s “not opposed” to student testing, but he thinks it should be limited. “I think doing one in elementary school, one in the end of middle school and one before the end of high school is quite enough if you do it right.” He stressed the importance of good teachers, adding that trimming the number of state tests could give teachers more time to collaborate.”

    Clinton is on the same wave length of many educators, however, he does not go far enough in his comments about charter schools. Many charter schools “skim” to get better students by restricting admissions or counseling academically poorer students out. They generally have much lower percentages of children who are English language learners or who require special education services. In addition, charter schools tend to be the recipients of significant external funding from corporate entities and their corporate-affiliated foundations. Charter schools have a place in American education but many of them have abused the system and while some (not all) look good when measured by test scores, they also game the system to their advantage. It will be interesting to see what Hillary Clinton’s position will be on charter schools should she decide to run for president.

    Tony

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    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xfgS1lvqX8I

     

    Dear Commons Community,

    It was a sad but incredible night for baseball and New York last night as almost 50,000 fans watched Derek Jeter play his last game at Yankee Stadium. There were tears everywhere (players, the manager, family, and Derek Jeter) as he concluded his twentieth season as a player.

    Yankee fans have been dreading this moment for much of this season. My grandson, Michael, and I attended a, game in July at the Stadium with my colleague here at the Graduate Center, Steve Brier. In August, I attended a game to watch No. 2 again. This time it was with one of my doctoral students, Lee Gabay, his father and girlfriend. Earlier, this week Lee sent me the youtube video above which captures much of the emotion that New York Yankee fans feel for the greatest player of this era.  I especially like the scenes where he is walking in the South Bronx talking to children and young people.

    The Yankees have meant a lot to me throughout my life. Earlier this year I posted on this blog:

    “I have been a Yankee fan my entire life and was born and raised several blocks from Yankee Stadium in the South Bronx.  With my brothers, I saw all the great teams and players of the 1950s, the down years in the late 1960s and early 1970s, and the comeback years under the ownership of George Steinbrenner.  I have to put Derek Jeter as the best all-around Yankee that I have ever seen.  Hitting, fielding, running the bases, and making clutch plays – he could do it all! Tyler Kepner, the New York Times sports correspondent, has an article today entitled:   Derek Jeter Lived a Dream, and Never Disappointed!  How true!”

    I will surely miss the voice of Yankee announcer, Bob Sheppard, who died in 2010. Nicknamed “The Voice of God” for his stylish introductions, Sheppard was the ballpark’s public address announcer from April 1951 until September 2007. Before Sheppard took ill, Jeter asked Sheppard to record his introduction, which has been used when the Yankees’ captain walks to the plate for home games. Yankee fans will never forget Sheppard’s elegant:

    “Now batting for the Yankees – Number 2 – Derek Jeter – Number 2!”

    I can go on but as the game last night concluded with Derek Jeter getting the winning hit in the bottom of the ninth inning I thought about Tina Turner’s classic lyrics: “Simply the best. Better than all the rest. Better than everyone”

    The Yankees will have a new shortstop next year but Derek Jeter will never be replaced.

    Tony

     

     

     

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