Recent Comments
Re: “If only the students at Lincoln Park High were on the school board”
We can hope Ben, we can hope, but when you have Arne Dunkin num-nuts going hyper-Orwellian ape poo in a speech, then all bets are off.
"On April 30, Arne Duncan, the Secretary of Education, gave what was billed as a Special Invited Address, at the annual meeting of the American Education Research Association (AERA) in San Francisco. This conference, attended by thousands of higher ed scholars in education departments, is for many, the high water mark of academe. Focused research and investigation from all over the world is shared and critically examined.
What we heard was breathtaking in its lack of awareness about the effects of Race to the Top (RTTT). Far from being chastened by what is going on in schools around the country, the Secretary doubled-down on his test-driven offensive. A look at some of the things he said is eye opening.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/arnold-dodge…
"If we hadn't been in the room to see and hear these remarks ourselves, we would not have believed that they came from the Secretary."
Re: “Springtime for poor people in Chicago”
OH SNAP! The CTU crunched the numbers on closing 54 schools by using CPS's own numbers from their own budget! Seems like closing those schools is where the 1 billion dollar deficit is coming from! http://www.dailykos.com/story/2013/03/26/1… Not only is the CPS emperor butt naked, it is hideously ugly. Keep it away from our kids Rahm! LOL
Re: “Springtime for poor people in Chicago”
CPS is far from being broke as their own budget on their own site clearly shows. They started out this fiscal year with 1.1 BILLION DOLLARS NET. In the past 2 years they missed their budget projections by about 1/2 BILLION DOLLARS each year, ending up with a surplus each year of just under 1/3 BILLION DOLLARS. Again, this is according to CPS own figures as found in the CAFR, comprehensive annual financial report. Naturally it's the CTU drawing attention to this, CPS would never step up and be held accountable for such lousy budget work, accountability is for the serfs, not the decadent overlords.
Re: “School-closing bravado from our fearless aldermen”
I'm just about certain that ivano's comment is pure Kafkaesque satire. If not it sure reads like it.
Re: “School-closing bravado from our fearless aldermen”
Just FYI for all on Burnett, he did stop the takeover of the newly renovated and quite nice Beidler grade school campus by an Urban Prep charter which would have resulted in the co location of Beidler and Cather in the same decrepit building. Maybe, just maybe if he remembers that fight and extrapolates out to the rest of Chicago he'll grow a spine when it comes to the hot mess of charters and school closings here. http://www.suntimes.com/news/metro/4642191…
Re: “Good luck finding the documents that explain CPS's longer school day”
The longer school day was nothing more than a smoke screen to cover up the amount of time that CPS and the corporate backers of 125 Clark St. knew would be spent on additional testing and other profit extracting mis-education schemes imposed on our schools. As it is now, even pre K & kindergarten spend about 1/3 of the year on tests, and the tests do nothing to improve the kids education or their teachers understanding of any individual kid. The fact that all that Pre K thru 3 testing, developmentally inappropriate testing, is considered to be tantamount to child abuse by experts in early childhood education and child psychology seems to not matter to CPS or the profiteers. The bottom line is that CPS couldn't afford to have parents see that a huge portion of the time that kids are supposed to be learning is being diverted to testing and had to manufacture a crisis to obfuscate the issue. Here's Pre-K -2 http://www.cps.edu/Performance/Documents/S… PLUS 3 - 8 http://www.cps.edu/Performance/Documents/S… This last is the link to the CPS 2012 - 2013 assessment calender. http://www.cps.edu/SchoolData/Pages/Assess…
Re: “Rahm's latest plan: Close the schools, build an arena”
BIG SNOW STORM - BILANDIC. BOGUS SCHOOL REFORM - RAHM. Too bad we don't have recall elections in Chicago.