Lloyd's Anything Blog

Originally posted on WordPress.com News: “Net Neutrality” is the simple but powerful principle that cable and broadband providers must treat all internet traffic equally. Whether you’re loading a blog post on WordPress.com, streaming House of Cards on Netflix, or browsing handcrafted tea cozies on Etsy, your internet provider can’t degrade your connection speed, block sites, or charge a toll based…

Originally posted on Diane Ravitch's blog: This report from the Pew Charitable Trusts says that many states are reconsidering the costs of Common Core testing, and a small number have withdrawn from participation in the two federally-funded tests, PARCC or Smarter Balanced Assessment Consortium. “But as controversy over the Common Core has challenged some states’ commitment to the standards, a…

Originally posted on The Soulful Veteran's Blog: Yellow journalism is based upon sensationalism and crude exaggeration, and a yellow journalist dressed up as an ISIS jihadi was videotaped as he walked across the border to Texas from Mexico with a fake severed head in hand, and the story made the news on September 5, 2014, at Inquisitor.com. Then Senator Rand…

Originally posted on Crazy Normal – the Classroom Exposé: My wife and I watched an award winning documentary Thursday night (September 4, 2014). It was called “Hot Coffee: Is Justice Being Served?” The DVD for the documentary was released November 1, 2011, and Amazon sells the DVD for more than $24.00, but you may be able to watch it free…

Originally posted on educationalchemy: Most folks are versed in (or at least have heard of) terms like “military industrial complex,” “factory farms” or even “education industrial complex” (a phrase used by educator Troy Grant and others). I believe these terms are still useful for a qualitative description of some of the facets of what we are witnessing education reform today.…

Originally posted on Diane Ravitch's blog: Jeff Bryant of the Education Opportunity Network notes that the charter industry has launched an advertising campaign to sell the charter idea to the public. But, writes Bryant, there have been so many revelations of corruption, self-dealing, and rogiterring by charter schools in recent months that the public should be wary of their self-promotion.…

Originally posted on dr. p.l. (paul) thomas: It was bad enough when NPR whitewashed the “grit” narrative, but now NPR is whitewashing charter schools and disaster capitalism in New Orleans. Framed as “remarkable changes,” erasing public schools and firing all public school faculty (a significant percentage of the black middle class in New Orleans) are whitewashed beneath a masking narrative embracing all…

Originally posted on Diane Ravitch's blog: Last May, Ruth Conniff, editor of “The Progressive,” joined a group of other women on a tour of voucher schools in Milwaukee. The others included another journalist, a state legislator, and Milwaukee grandmothers Gail Hicks and Marva Herndon. “Herndon and Hicks formed a group called Women Committed to an Informed Community, also known as…

Originally posted on the EARTH ABIDES project: After several months, the Earth Abides Project weblog is back. The long “vacation” was necessary as this writer wandered for a time, then settled in to a summer of volunteering as a Camp Host in an isolated Forest Service Campground. But the volunteer summer is ending, so there’s time to write more about…