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CODE stands for Communities Organized for Democracy in Education is a coalition of 11 community groups working to bring an elected and representative school board to the Chicago Public Schools. The CPS Board—appointed by the mayor— is not accountable to the people it serves.
The Board is failing our children. Help Win an Elected Representative School Board
CPS’s privatization policies—school closings, turnarounds and charters—do NOT improve education. They have been devastating to all children, especially those in African American and Latino communities.
Class size has increased. Art, music, recess, PE & after school activities have been cut, while high-stakes testing eats up more classroom and learning time.
CPS has expanded an unequal system: A top tier of selective schools for a few students and a bottom tier of resource-starved neighborhood schools for everyone else.
CPS makes decisions, like an unfunded longer school day, without public input.
CPS blames teachers, parents, and students for the problems THEY have created.
Teacher morale is at an all-time low. Real Grassroots effort to take back public education from the Corporate led CPS!
Stop Bitching Start a revolution!
Documents expose the flow of money and influence from corporations that stand to profit from state leaders' efforts to expand and deregulate digital education.
In our concluding episode, we take readers to Finland, in an extensive original interview with world-renowned education expert Pasi Sahlberg, director general of Centre of International Mobility and Cooperation in Helsinki.
There's another major problem with García's expansion of Gülen charter schools in LAUSD. Part of the Gülenist modus operandi is to staff their schools with teachers lacking credentials (part and parcel the standard in the charter school industry), many of whom have never taught before at all. Gülen schools bring in Turkish businessmen and professionals on 1HB visas to teach, yet there is currently a glut of highly qualified, credentialed, unemployed teachers in LAUSD. Gülen supporters claim a lack of educators versed in Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics (STEM), but the reality is that there's neither a shortage of STEM workers nor teachers in the United States. Instead, Gülen movement watchdogs have demonstrated a pattern of abuse in regards to H1B visas.
A charter school mogul was charged today in a multimillion-dollar fraud case by the U.S. Attorney's Office. Dorothy June Hairston Brown, who received accolades for students' test scores and gained notoriety for collecting large salaries and suing parents who questioned her actions, was indicted on multiple counts of wire fraud, obstruction of justice, and witness tampering.
A recent post noted a story in the New York Times that described a design flaw in the Texas tests created by Pearson (at $100 million per year). It reported that the state tests did not reflect the...
Although Pennsylvania charter schools are independently managed, they are publicly funded and therefore legally forbidden from using discriminatory enrollment policies and practices.
"Assuming the facts of this report are true, this is a black eye for the charter movement as a whole, and brings down the credibility of all of us," wrote Marc Mannella, CEO of KIPP Philadelphia, which operates four city charters.
…nothing prepared me for the level of nastiness and vitriol that descended upon me when I took this job and began to vocally advocate for policies that put students first.
Citizens shouldn't be seen as merely consumers choosing from an array of options, but active participants in collective decision-making.
The Chicago Teachers Union bargaining committee today accepted an interim agreement that many thought impossible: The Chicago Public Schools has finally backed off the unworkable seven-hour 40 minute teacher work day and instead will make only modest increases in the length of teacher work days. CPS thus reverses its publicly-announced policy that the CTU has consistently criticized as bad for both students and teachers. CPS will staff the longer student day by hiring nearly 500 new teaching positions, and it has finally agreed to recall rights for teachers. Tenured teachers displaced in 2010, 2011 and 2012 will constitute the pool from which principals must hire the new teachers.
In a letter to Change.org's founder, labor leaders demand the petition site to recognize workers' rights as a progressive & necessary issue.
Bill and journalist Chris Hedges talk about parts of America "that have been destroyed for quarterly profit."... A must view by all Americans! Time for America to take back America from the corporate goons!
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Maine’s State Commissioner of Education Stephen Bowen went to San Francisco to hear Jeb Bush tout the glories of for-profit online charter schools. Jeb Bush’s foundation paid for the tr...
As a taxpayer and a public school parent, I want to believe that some thoughtful analysis went into the decision to turn Roberto Clemente High School into a so-called International Baccalaureate high school. I thought Rahm promised more transparency when we was elected mayor. A lie! Mayor fail! CPS Fail!
The Weekly Update for the news you might have missed Check out their Facebook page. Action Alert: Rally at the DNC! Parents Across America founding member, Pamela Grundy, is one of the organizers o...
As I heard Tim say about a hundred times during a weekend in DC, the misuse of high-stakes test scores ...
If Chavous had checked with the KIPP home office or even done a Google search, he would have found this from KIPP’s own research: As of March 2011, 33 percent of students who completed a KIPP middle school 10 or more years ago have graduated from a four-year college. Now this figure would be more impressive if 33 percent of KIPP students who started at KIPP in 5th grade ended up graduating from college, especially since the completion rate for low-income children is less than 9 percent. However, consider these facts: From 40 to 60 percent of children who begin KIPP in 5th grade leave before completing 8th grade, with the largest percentage of leavers being low-test performers and students who do not conform to KIPP’s total compliance demands. From a 2011 study headed by Gary Miron: . . . .The departure of low-performing students helps KIPP improve its aggregate results. Unlike local school districts, KIPP is not replacing the students who are leaving. When a student returns to a traditional public school after the autumn head count, KIPP retains most or all of the money (the amount depends on the particular state) allocated for educating that student during that school year. . . . KIPP schools enrolled a lower percentage of students with disabilities (5.9%) than did their local school districts (12.1%). . . . KIPP enrolled a lower percentage of students classified as English Language Learners (11.5%) than did their local school districts (19.2%). . . . Combining public and private sources of revenue, KIPP received, on average, $18,491 per pupil in 2007-08. This is $6,500 more per pupil than what the local school districts received.
The U.S. Department of Education is trying to compel institutions of higher education to accept regulations that judge the quality of teacher-training institutions by the test scores of students ta...
We don't need another generation of workers simply enduring their lives. Robinson—who is known for speaking out against our highly standardized, one-size-fits-all education system that follows a "linear mode of production" and steers workers toward filling slots at companies so our economy can "beat China"—says the problem with this system is that humans are hard wired to use our imaginations and produce new things. When we find ourselves doing things we aren't passionate about, we are, unsurprisingly, pretty miserable.
The owner of the company misused millions of dollars in public money, employing 11 family members and paying a son’s living expenses in California, an audit charged.
We have had animated discussions on this blog about whether the market model works for public education, whether parents should be smart shoppers, when business practices make sense (and don’...
The Center for Media and Democracy has EXPOSED over 800 "model" bills and resolutions secretly voted on by corporations and politicians through the American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC).
County Clerk David Orr's annual TIF report is filled with all sorts of fun facts about Mayor Emanuel's favorite economic development program... Guess which areas of Chicago got the Benjamin's
Ten years ago — against all odds — Finland was ranked as the world’s top education nation. It was strange because in Finland education is seen as a public good accessible to all free of charge without standardized testing or competitive private schools. When I look around the world, I see competition, choice, and measuring of students and teachers as the main means to improve education. This market-based global movement has put many public schools at risk in the United States and many other countries, as well. Must Read folks!!!
More Charter School Shenanigans in Pennsylvania. They arrested the owner of this shady business! Why do politicians drag their feet when we ask for more accountability of these charter schools? Politicians need a back bone and make laws that require true accountability! Stand up and organize!
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