New Content at SusanOhanian.Org!

[Susan Ohanian <susano@gmavt.net>]

Don't miss the new cartoons. Also news in Children with Special Needs.

Susan

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Boycott of FCAT Threatened
Steve Harrison
Miami Herald
2003-12-09
http://susanohanian.org/show_atrocities.php?id=1476

Some parents at a Fort Lauderdale elementary school say having their children skip the FCAT might be the best way to maintain their Montessori curriculum.



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Arizona Politicos Want State Control of Textbooks
Elvia Díaz and Mel Meléndez
Arizona Republic
2003-12-09
http://susanohanian.org/show_atrocities.php?id=1477

Local school districts in Arizona would lose the authority to choose their own textbooks under a plan promoted by a state senator and endorsed by the state superintendent of public instruction.



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Doing the Math on the School Tax-credit Program
Richard Rueles
Arizona Republic
2003-12-10
http://susanohanian.org/show_atrocities.php?id=1478

An Arizona Republic columnist says that the education tax credit program is set up to benefit schools with wealthy students. It is specifically designed to ignore schools in areas of high poverty.



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 Learning from Leontyne Price
Matthew Gurewitsch
Wall Street Journal
2003-12-10
http://susanohanian.org/show_atrocities.php?id=1479

Leontyne Price teaches a master class. Can teachers learn anything from her methods?

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Some in HISD Shun Data Responsibilities, Dropout Monitor Says
Jo Ann Zuniga
Houston Chronicle
2003-12-10
http://susanohanian.org/show_atrocities.php?id=1480

Halfway into his six-month review of how HISD documents its dropouts, a state auditor said some principals and superintendents are still not accepting responsibility for potentially bad record keeping.

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Teachers Underprepared and Well Done
Beth Barrett
Los Angeles Daily News
2003-12-10
http://susanohanian.org/show_atrocities.php?id=1481

This article leads off with the  information that new teacher recruiting methods and a slower economy have sharply cut the number of underprepared teachers throughout the Los Angeles Unified School District. Do you see a red flag in this statement?





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Audit Finds D.C. Grades Altered
Justin Blum
Washington Post
2003-12-10
http://susanohanian.org/show_atrocities.php?id=1482

A review of hundreds of student files at 16 D.C. public high schools found that student transcripts were in disarray and that in some cases students received a higher grade than teachers had originally recorded. 



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The Texas Mess

St Petersburg Times
2003-12-07
http://susanohanian.org/show_atrocities.php?id=1483

The St. Petersburg Times draws parallels between Texas exaggerations-and worse--and what's happening in Florida.

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Texas Wants to Profit from Dead Teachers
Cary Clack
San Antionio Express-News
2003-12-10
http://susanohanian.org/show_atrocities.php?id=1484

U.S. Sen. Phil Gramm is floating a plan in which the state will buy life insurance policies on thousands of retired teachers and use the death benefits to fund the Teacher Retirement System of Texas.

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School Reform: RIP?

New York Post
2003-12-09
http://susanohanian.org/show_atrocities.php?id=1485

The New York Post calls Mayor Bloomberg's takeover of the schools a freeing of public education from the corrosive effects of political influence in all its forms. This piece is worth reading for its use of jingoism.

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To the editor
Stephen Krashen

2003-12-10
http://susanohanian.org/show_letters.html?id=214

Krashen's letter in Education Week cites the relationship between libraries and test scores.

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To the editor
Ann Cook, Chair, Time Out from Testing
New York Times
2003-12-10
http://susanohanian.org/show_letters.html?id=215

Ann Cook warns that as long as the country is looking for quick fixes, kids will continue to be damaged by phantom miracles. 

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MCAS Cheating Inquiry Launched
Anand Vaishnav
Boston Globe
2003-12-10
http://susanohanian.org/show_nclb_atrocities.html?id=271

The Massachusetts state Department of Education is investigating possible schoolwide cheating at an elementary school whose test scores skyrocketed in 2003 after years of mediocre performance.

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The Hunt for Disability: The New Eugenics and the Normalization of School Children
  Bernadette Baker

2003-12-10
http://susanohanian.org/show_special_commentaries.html?id=10

This paper reconsiders the everyday dividing, sorting, and classifying practices of schooling through an analysis of old and new discourses of eugenics as quality control of national populations.