Year: 2010


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Dropout Nation on Twitter for 2010-09-15


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RT @ClaytonMuhammad: RT @CoryBooker: Sometimes u have to leap out of bed and roar a bit. . . its only sporting (cont) http://tl.gd/61i7g7 # RT @PIEnetwork: Suzanne Kubach talks to…

  • RT @ClaytonMuhammad: RT @CoryBooker: Sometimes u have to leap out of bed and roar a bit. . . its only sporting (cont) http://tl.gd/61i7g7 #
  • RT @PIEnetwork: Suzanne Kubach talks to edReformer about growth of #edreform advocacy movement #
  • Off-edu RT @armcomm: Pres. Clinton making Primary Day calls for ethically challenged Charlie Rangel. Ugh. Some standards would be nice. #
  • RT @TheRebull: WAKE UP, DC! It's Primary Day – whether Michelle Rhee stays or goes, and edreform along with (cont) http://tl.gd/61jbpt #
  • At Dropout Nation: Disrupting the Structure of Education: New Orleans and the Hollywood Model #edreform #RSD #
  • RT @coopmike48: Education Week: Race to Top Winners Face Data System Challenges #edu #parents #edreform #eddata #
  • In U.K., more than 40 percent of kids labeled special needs were likely just poorly taught. #sped #spedabuse #edreform #
  • We'd likely find the same levels of overlabeling due to poor teaching, poor reading skills, in the states. #edreform #sped #spedabuse #
  • RT @MBAENews: Research finds #teacher turnover a disadvantaged school, not #charterschools problem from CRPE http://is.gd/fac1P #edreform #
  • RT @AnnieECaseyFndn Building Neighborhoods features interview withloRalph Smith: Bridging Silos in Philanthropy http://unca-acf.org/?p=3509 #
  • The Dropout Nation Podcast: Embracing a New Vision of Parents in Education https://dropoutnation.net/?p=2677 #edreform #FamilyEngagement #
  • RT @hechingerreport: Around the world, educators are discussing how to do more with less: #edreform #
  • At Quick & the Ed: Quick Hits #edreform #
  • RT @daveweigel: RT @cjoh: I'm voting for Fenty today. The jerk got things done these 4 years. Gray doesn't want (cont) http://tl.gd/61kq5k #
  • Off-edu: RT @bridgettwagner: RT @Liberty4pa Medicaid May Bust State Budgets Next Year http://fb.me/uQn5u2ba #healthcare #
  • RT @ChitownStu: RT @irasocol: Liberation Day in DC? Vote to oust Fenty/Rhee and white colonialism #edreform (cont) http://tl.gd/61o6n1 #
  • Today's Maxim: RT @misternaite: RT @oh_my_josh85: my mentor told me today "Do not complain about things you tolerate" [Stop tolerating them] #
  • @ChitownStu don't bother responding to Ira on this one. It's all white colonialism to him. in reply to ChitownStu #
  • At Dropout Nation: Disrupting the Structure of Education: New Orleans and the Hollywood Model #edreform #NOLA #
  • @irasocol Sure. If you really believe it. in reply to irasocol #
  • RT @mikedebonis: Lawyers for @grayformayor are now discussing allegations with BOEE atty Ken McGhie, trying to (cont) http://tl.gd/61pkg8 #
  • RT @ivangosorio: From @benpolitico, NJ Gov Christie's plan to tackle his state's public pension crisis. http://politi.co/cUo2cv #edreform #
  • RT @mikedebonis RT @dcist_martin: Fenty does not think polls should stay open, but will leave decision to BOEE. #votedc #ElectionFoolishness #
  • Note: When someone uses "collaborators" and "white power" in a statement that doesn't reference either "WWII" or "KKK", say nothing… #
  • The lack of coherence in the entire statement is speaks for itself. Especially in #edreform conversations. #
  • RT @MZHemingway: Indpt. voters such as myself are not allowed to affiliate with a party and vote in DC today. #disenfranchised #edreform #
  • RT @ivangosorio @mattyglesias: Actual #DCPS parents support Fenty 62-36. Presumably not all…yuppies: #edreform #
  • @kausmickey And the problem with that is? Seriously, Mickey, those immigrant kids become the men and women who keep this nation dynamic. in reply to kausmickey #
  • RT @BarackObama Education is about more than getting into college…It’s about giving each of us the chance to fulfill our promise #edreform #
  • @kausmickey Agreed. It should be legal. The solution is to actually create a rational immigration system not based on quotas, race choices in reply to kausmickey #
  • @kausmickey If they can work? Let them in. If they are disease free, no criminal rap sheets? Let them in. Skilled labor? Let them in. in reply to kausmickey #
  • Back to ed: Jay P. Greene takes more shots at Checker Finn on #CommonCore #CCSSI #edreform #
  • @Daniel_Luzer That's a question for Obama's speechwriter and Twitter guru. I would have written something different. in reply to Daniel_Luzer #
  • RT @mikedebonis: #Fenty lawyer Mark Elias now attacking #Gray request as 'wildly overbroad', says small delays are normal. #dcvote #hshaker #
  • @mikedebonis Which means he shouldn't be allowing the testimony in the first place. Criminal Law 101. in reply to mikedebonis #
  • @mikedebonis And, in this case, Civil Law 101 as well. in reply to mikedebonis #
  • @irasocol And you are teaching some of our aspiring teachers. God save our kids! in reply to irasocol #
  • We can say this for sure: Young blacks will have to do some real hard work to push aside some of our elders #BlackEd #
  • There is no reason why Charles Rangel or Edolphus Towns, none of whom have done anything in years, are still in office #BlackEd #JustSaying #
  • @irasocol Seriously. At some point, you will have to accept the reality that most people are not automatons. They think for themselves in reply to irasocol #
  • @irasocol Sometimes they have positions with which I disagree. But they aren't all "paid propagandists" or "collaborators". Try more logic in reply to irasocol #
  • The time to wait our turn, as the old folks like to say, is over. Push them aside. Push them aside. Push them aside. They must go. #BlackEd #
  • And don't give me this stuff about them "marching in Selma in 1966". Most of those guys weren't marching on anything… #
  • And don't give me this stuff about them "marching in Selma in 1966". Most of those guys weren't marching on anything… #BlackEd #
  • The guys marching in Selma were either assassinated or died in the 1980s. Bayard Rustin? Gone. Medger? Gone. Roy Wilkins? Gone. #
  • Many of these guys are just the clerks to the nephews of the sons of great men. #BlackEd #
  • The guys marching in Selma were either assassinated or died in the 1980s. Bayard Rustin? Gone. Medger? Gone. Roy Wilkins? Gone. #BlackEd #
  • RT @ChitownStu: #Blacked the only people we anoint as next have the same last names as the generation before. DO BETTER!! #
  • @irasocol So, you don't think some folks in D.C. with which you agree and want power don't also have a decision process? Again, try harder. in reply to irasocol #
  • @ileducprof: Don't blame this on the media. It isn't as if the 'hood is celebrating Benjamin Carson or Ken Chenault. #
  • @bobbycupp It's both. Race, class and politics, along w/governmental competence are all intertwined. in reply to bobbycupp #
  • @irasocol Actually, I live in Virginia. I'm a New York native. I have cousins in the Garden State. in reply to irasocol #
  • @irasocol And Ira, you are no different than any so-called "hired propagandist". A lot of folks actually believe what they espouse. in reply to irasocol #
  • @irasocol People look at what they see, what they know and then make decisions. I don't always agree with them… in reply to irasocol #
  • @irasocol but it doesn't make them dupes or propagandists or collaborators. Again, try harder. Use more sensible language. You sound silly. in reply to irasocol #
  • @irasocol Note: I always try to be respectful. But if a use of language is silly, then it is. in reply to irasocol #
  • Folks: D.C. had a choice between a decent mayor w/a bad demeanor and a woeful machine candidate w/a more-amenable personality. #edreform #
  • The latter may win. Now, one may argue that the former had a Churchillian manner befiitting what D.C. needed, especially in #edreform #
  • Perhaps. But Churchill, as we must remember, was leading a country during wartime. And he lost office after the war was over #edreform #
  • And, in a city in which being "authentically black" (whatever that means) is critical, the former was considered, umm, inauthentic #edreform #
  • More importantly, in beating back the ancien regime, you must also win over people who want to be wooed and want a city to work #edreform #
  • And the mayor, didn't do the proper wooing. #edreform #
  • The good news for Fenty supporters is that the night isn't over. The bad news for the citizens is that they may end up with #edreform #
  • the kind of corruption and systemic educational and political failure they don't see so much of anymore. That's how it works. #edreform #
  • Only the kids may suffer. #edreform #

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Dropout Nation on Twitter for 2010-09-14


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RT @EdEquality: RT @dropoutnation The Dropout Nation Podcast: Embracing a New Vision of Parents in Education #edreform # RT @markydsr RT @NewYorkPost: Charter-Schools Chief Eva Moskowitz Launches PAC to Challenge…

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Disrupting the Structure of Education: New Orleans and the Hollywood Model


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As much as defenders of traditional public education complain about additional funding and efforts to expand charter schools, the vast amount of attention and funding in school reform is focused…

What if every school was a charter school? Or a private school? It should happen in the Big Easy -- and elsewhere. (Photo courtesy of colorlines.com)

As much as defenders of traditional public education complain about additional funding and efforts to expand charter schools, the vast amount of attention and funding in school reform is focused on overhauling traditional school districts. reforming traditional school districts. From the $3.5 billion in funding from the federal School Improvement Grant (SIG) program to much of the funding for Race to the Top, the real action remains in saving a model of providing public education that have proven to be inefficient, allows opponents of reform to stubbornly resist any change and captured by political and regulatory structures that benefit the National Education Association and the American Federation of Teachers over the kids that are supposed to be educated.

But what if the traditional school district model was abandoned altogether? This could be a possibility in New Orleans, where the state-controlled Recovery School District — which took over schools once ran by the woeful Orleans Parish school district after Hurricane Katrina — is putting itself out of business. What could happen in the next few years could serve as the first step in developing a form of what I call the Hollywood Model — essentially getting rid of school district bureaucracies and allowing individual schools to operate akin to Hollywood producers, actually handling actual classroom instruction.

The official plan, according to Louisiana’s school superintendent, Paul Pastorek is to allow the 33 schools to go back under the Orleans Parish school district (which ran most schools in the Big Easy until Katrina) or choose to be under the watchful eye of the state. But there is a catch: New Orleans Parish can only gain oversight over the soon-to-be-former Recovery district schools if they govern in a “21st century manner”, that is, the district will only serve in an oversight role similar to what the state would do instead of operating schools. The Recovery District schools, on the other hand, will operate on their own. Essentially, the Orleans Parish wouldn’t be able to go back to its old ways, poorly managing schools, tolerating internal corruption and failing students and taxpayers alike.

It isn’t that Orleans Parish would be in any position to do any more damage or take on operation of these schools. The district, once a sprawling bureaucracy of 103 schools, now operates just seven; given that it authorizes and regulates seven charter schools on its own, it doesn’t have the capacity to oversee the Recovery District schools. So it is more than likely that the schools will end up becoming charters and fall under state oversight.

NOLA is already several steps in the midst of the Hollywood model. After all, public charter schools (which operate independently of any central district) enroll 57 percent of all students and account for 75 percent of all schools in the Big Easy. Converting another 33 traditional schools into charters wouldn’t exactly put a strain on the system. But it would force Louisiana officials to consider its own capacity for regulating so many schools from Baton Rouge. The biggest obstacle in abandoning the school district model remains the reality that most state education agencies are ill-equipped to manage their own operations, much less provide wide oversight over tens and hundreds (much less thousands) of individual schools. The lack of strong governance is one complaint lodged against the Recovery District by those New Orleans residents who remain skeptical of a school choice model of education.

For the schools themselves, the question is how to provide those very services — transportation, school lunches and building maintenance — that would otherwise be provided by a central district — especially since Orleans Parish (which would otherwise handle those functions under my original thesis) wouldn’t be able to do so. Once possibility: Groups of schools teaming up and contracting out those services to outside vendors, something that think tanks such as the Reason Foundation (with help from Deloitte Consulting’s Bill Eggers) have floated in discussing how to improve traditional district operations. Another is to bring in more charter school operators such as the Knowledge is Power Program and Green Dot Public Schools; but that would also lead to complaints that public education is becoming a private business (even though education has always been as much a business as a means of building the minds of people).

What happens in New Orleans may actually reshape what happens in federal policy. The Obama could abandon the emphasis on school turnarounds — which like those in the private sector, succeed only a fifth of the time (at best) — and focus on developing new structures for educational governance and foster charters, vouchers and other kinds of schools. The administration could even take some Title I funding and actually put it into efforts that will elevate families to their proper roles as kings and lead decision-makers in education.

Ultimately, what will happen in New Orleans with the end of the Recovery District will be interesting to watch. After all, we already know that the traditional public school district is obsolete and not worth preserving as a model for educating our children. Now, we must replace it with a model that works for all children.

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Dropout Nation on Twitter for 2010-09-13


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At Dropout Nation: Watch: Little Rock 9… #edreform #BlackEd #edgap #LRCHS # RT @bestcopydotnet: The Dropout Nation Podcast: The Dropout Crisis Beyond Cities and # The Dropout Nation Podcast: Embracing…

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Dropout Nation on Twitter for 2010-09-12


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RT @DrStevePerry: I’m so impressed w/ how much our community cares about education reform. #edreform #BlackEd # RT @DrStevePerry: My concern is that we don’t always turn our concerns about…

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