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Clay Burell's personal annotations on this page

cburell
Cburell bookmarked on 2009-05-20 closures obama duncan
  • President Obama needs to hear some noise from us here in Chicago because he has just about lost his natural mind with this idea. He's getting behind the destructive strategies of Renaissance 2010 in a way that may just destroy the heart and soul of hundreds of communities across the US.

    Obama wants to see 5,000 schools closed and "turned around." Yeah, you know, he wants to take what Fed Ed Head Arne Duncan has done here in Chicago

    ...which hasn't worked... 

    and multiply it about 100 times across the U.S.. 

    And he's going to use the precious stimulus money - you know, the money that's supposed to help create new jobs - to fire thousands of experienced teachers.   

    Duncan says that "The point is to take bold action in
    persistently low-achieving schools."

    Boldly go where?

    I disagree. I think the point should be to try to do something that works, not to BOLDLY go expand a program that doesn't work and actually creates worse problems.   

    • For example, William J. Mathis, adjunct associate professor of school finance at the
      University of Vermont and a superintendent of schools, reviewed the existing body of research on each of the five
      NCLB restructuring options (the final sanction for failure to meet adequate yearly progress) and found that



      • “there is little or no evidence to
        suggest that any of these options delivers the promised improvements in
        academic achievement”" and
      • “negative side effects are
        frequently recorded including increased segregation, substantial,
        short-term drops in achievement scores and organizational instability.” 
    • We agree with Dr. Mathis and will forward his recommendations on to Obama and Duncan:


      • stop expanding the number of charter schools and relying on
        takeovers, privatization and other restructuring efforts for school
        improvement, and
      • focus on making sure that all schools have adequate
        resources and support so that they can improve, and support such proven
        strategies such as early education, smaller class size, small school
        communities, intense personal intervention, and strong counseling and
        social support systems.

This link has been bookmarked by 1 people . It was first bookmarked on 20 May 2009, by Clay Burell.

  • 20 May 09
    • President Obama needs to hear some noise from us here in Chicago because he has just about lost his natural mind with this idea. He's getting behind the destructive strategies of Renaissance 2010 in a way that may just destroy the heart and soul of hundreds of communities across the US.

      Obama wants to see 5,000 schools closed and "turned around." Yeah, you know, he wants to take what Fed Ed Head Arne Duncan has done here in Chicago

      ...which hasn't worked... 

      and multiply it about 100 times across the U.S.. 

      And he's going to use the precious stimulus money - you know, the money that's supposed to help create new jobs - to fire thousands of experienced teachers.   

      Duncan says that "The point is to take bold action in
      persistently low-achieving schools."

      Boldly go where?

      I disagree. I think the point should be to try to do something that works, not to BOLDLY go expand a program that doesn't work and actually creates worse problems.   

      • For example, William J. Mathis, adjunct associate professor of school finance at the
        University of Vermont and a superintendent of schools, reviewed the existing body of research on each of the five
        NCLB restructuring options (the final sanction for failure to meet adequate yearly progress) and found that



        • “there is little or no evidence to
          suggest that any of these options delivers the promised improvements in
          academic achievement”" and
        • “negative side effects are
          frequently recorded including increased segregation, substantial,
          short-term drops in achievement scores and organizational instability.” 
    • 1 more annotations...