Category: Lloyd Lofthouse

Originally posted on Diane Ravitch's blog: John Ogozokak, a high school teacher in upstate New York, ponders here which is the more meaningful task: to clean a septic tank or to grade a standardized test: About a half dozen years ago the septic tank lurking beside our old farmhouse went kerflooey. I dug out the top of the rusty thing…

Originally posted on Diane Ravitch's blog: Linda Darling-Hammond of Stanford University offers common-sense ideas about closing the achievement gap. She says that testing is less important than teaching. No surprise there. She reviews an OECD study about teachers. What it shows is that teachers in the U.S. work longer hours under more difficult conditions than teachers in many other nations.…

Originally posted on Crazy Normal – the Classroom Exposé: In a recent online discussion, it was argued by one voice that the public schools have failed, because they don’t teach independent thinking. However, I disagreed. Evidence that the public schools work well—just not the way the one percent wants—comes from several surveys where the opinions of the top one percent…

Originally posted on Diane Ravitch's blog: On June 7, Lyndsey Layton of the Washington Post wrote a blockbuster article about how Bill Gates pulled off the Common Core coup, which the headline calls “the swift Common Core revolution.” In a short period of time, less time than it takes a state to write standards in one subject, the U.S. suddenly…

Originally posted on Crazy Normal – the Classroom Exposé: Who is funding the war against public education, teachers and labor unions? Michael Dobie, an editorial writer at Long Island’s Newsday asked, “Who gets a 4 percent raise these days?” He was complaining about teacher pay—that teachers were paid too much. In this post I will answer Dobie’s question. Bill Gates,…

Originally posted on Crazy Normal – the Classroom Exposé: As you watch this video and roar in laughter as I did, ask yourself this question:  How many corporations and billionaires owns President Obama, the White House, the GOP, the Democratic Party and both houses of Congress? Anyone who doesn’t laugh profits off the cable companies in some way. Next: How…

Originally posted on Diane Ravitch's blog: The Florida League of Women Voters just released a bombshell study of charters across the state. The study shows that charter schools do not perform better than public schools; that charters are more segregated than public schools; that many charters funnel money to religious organizations; that a significant number of charters operate for profit;…