Here's the NY Post's (natch) account: "The Post's Dave Seifman forward some pretty choice quotes from Mayor Bloomberg going off on state Sen. Bill Perkins, a major opponent of charter schools, on his weekly WOR radio show this morning. Bloomberg jabs at the pol for attending "elite private schools" and says he's been "violently" against choice for parents."
Now's not the right time to interject a tired pot and kettle analogy, but it does take a certain amount of chutzpah to attack Perkins when the mayor probably hadn't set foot inside a public school-his kids went elsewhere obviously-until he was elected mayor. And the same goes for Chancellor Klein who, along with Bloomberg, brought absolutely zero knowledge of public education to the job?when he was elevated to his supreme commander post. And this from a man who spends all of his weekends in Bermuda!
But what's even more egregious in our view is the mayor's failure to see with any clarity what?the charter phenomenon says about his own educational effort-a point that we have already made before. Here's the Post again: "Bill Perkins is a guy who went to elite private schools, and he represents a district where most people can?t afford elite private schools, and charter schools are their opportunity to get their kids a great education," said Bloomberg. "I think the numbers are something - there?s 10,000 places this year - more places for charter schools, and there?s something like 50 or 60,000 applicants for the 10,000 places."
Now, after eight years of so-called reform-along with reams of flack touting miraculous advance-we have stampedes in poor neighborhoods to flee the public school system as fast as possible. The Post's Seifman continues to spotlight the mayor's views in a follow up story: "Bloomberg argued that charter schools promote competition, which is one reason public schools in the city are improving. "Competition is great for everybody, and it's one of those things we want to encourage, and Perkins has been violently against it, while the educators and the public and the parents want more of [it]," the mayor said."
If the Harlem clamor for choice is any indication, this kind of a competition can best be described in sports language as a blowout-and as an indictment of the failure of the overall?Bloomberg effort. Diane Ravitch's hearing testimony sheds light on the true nature of this far from healthy competition: "Some charters are as idealistic as the original vision, but many others now see themselves as competition for public schools. They want to take over public school space and replace public schools. They revel in stories about beating public schools, not helping them."
But as far as Bloomberg's observation that the charter competition is in some way aiding public school improvement, where's the evidence of that? Which brings us back to the point that we made last week: "So there is obviously a perception of failure at the grass roots level. Whether this is a reality or not-and studies indicate that the charter exploits are exaggerated in the aggregate-doesn't matter. And the clamoring for, "choice," is an indictment of the current system that the media did so much to tout when it was all about mayoral control."
So what's missing from all of this trumped up outrage, is a concomitant genuine outrage at the three card monte game that the Bloombergistas have played-with Rupert and Morticia acting as the audience shills-with a gullible public. It is time to bring in the forensic accountants, and Perkins and his state senate crew should hold follow up hearings on testing fraud, unmerited teacher and administrator bonuses, and a profligate expansion of an educational bureaucracy that has failed to deliver real success even with an 80% increase in its allocation.
But that might not even be necessary if what they think is going to happen next spring actually does-new school tests that expose the naked emperor's false positives. As the NY Post reports: "Criticized for having steadily dumbed down standardized tests -- and trumpeted phantom gains -- the state Education Department says students in grades 3 to 8 taking required math and English exams starting tomorrow won't pass as easily this year. "Students are going to have to know more and do more to demonstrate proficiency on the exams," said John King, senior deputy state education commissioner."
And it will be more difficult to teach to the test: "A rising number of pupils have passed in recent years as cut scores dipped so low that some kids could randomly guess enough right answers to squeak by, experts found. State Board of Regents Chancellor Merryl Tisch and Education Commissioner David Steiner "are committed to ending the annual debate about whether our state tests have become harder or easier," King told The Post. "Doing that will require us to ensure that our tests become both less predictable and more comprehensive in terms of the number of items they test."
But, once the test fraud is exposed will it finally become clear that, as far as NYC's master of the house is concerned, "there's not much there?" Here's the Post's observation: "The sliding standards weren't revealed when Mayor Bloomberg touted dramatic spikes in state scores as a triumph of his stewardship. But the lid was blown off when federal officials found reading and math scores for New York students had remained flat on a national benchmark exam since 2007, while their scores on the state tests skyrocketed over the same period."
Education Secretary Arne Duncan, cited in Sol Stern's upcoming City Journal article, makes this telling point: ?We have to stop lying to children,? education secretary Arne Duncan said recently at a meeting of the National Governors Association (NGA).?We have to look them in the eye and tell them the truth at every stage of their educational trajectory.?
If Mike Bloomberg really wants to advance the interests of NYC school kids, he can begin by laying off the glass house?ad hominen attacks on Bill Perkins; and he can follow Duncan's advice by starting to?tell the truth-to those with an actual stake in public education-about how all of his extra funding and top down control of the educational bureaucracy has yielded a truly lackluster result. Don't expect this anytime soon, because mea culpas are conspicuously absent in the Bloomberg personality profile.
Source: http://economics-reference-cell.blogspot.com/2012/11/an-education-in-classlessness.html
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Source: http://velacevak.posterous.com/an-education-in-classlessness-economics-refer
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Source: http://kevincheatwood.typepad.com/blog/2012/11/an-education-in-classlessness-economics-reference-cell.html
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Source: http://imitoki.posterous.com/an-education-in-classlessness-economics-refer
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Source: http://how-to-write-a-nursing-case-study.blogspot.com/2012/11/the-official-language-movement.html
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BEIRUT???Internet and telephone service were restored across much of Syria on Saturday following a two-day, nationwide communications blackout that came during some of the worst fighting to hit the capital since July.
Experts say the shutdown was likely caused by President Bashar Assad's regime, raising fears that the government is taking increasingly bold measures to cut off the country from the outside world as it tries to crush a relentless rebellion.
Renesys, a U.S.-based network monitoring firm that studies Internet disruptions, said in a statement Saturday that service went back up around 4:32 p.m. local time in Syria, describing it as a "largely complete restoration of the Syrian Internet."
Mobile telephone networks also appeared to be mostly back up Saturday. A Britain-based activist group, the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, said it was receiving dispatches from many parts of the country. Many land lines had remained in working order.
The SANA state news agency said technical teams brought both Internet and telephone services back online Saturday in Damascus and its suburbs ? the flashpoints of recent fighting between government soldiers and rebels.
Fears of fighting outside public eye
The communications blackout began Thursday, raising fears of a burst of fighting outside the public eye. The government and rebels have blamed each other for cutting the lines.
Syrian rebels are fighting a 20-month-old revolt against the Assad regime. Activists say 40,000 people have been killed in the crisis, which began with pro-democracy protests but has morphed into a civil war.?
On Saturday, Syrian troops backed by helicopter gunships clashed with rebels as government forces pushed a major offensive on villages and towns near the capital's international airport, activists said.?SANA reported a car bomb exploded in the Damascus neighborhood of Ish Alwarwar. There was no immediate word on casualties.
Most serious fighting in months
The fighting over the past few weeks in Damascus is the most serious the capital has seen since July, when rebels captured several neighborhoods before a swift government counteroffensive swept out the opposition fighters.
Activists said forces loyal to Assad were battling rebels in towns just south of the capital, including Aqraba, Beit Saham and Yalda near the airport. The Observatory said many were feared killed in government shelling of Beit Saham.
Syrian state TV said that?troops were battling fighters from the al-Qaida-inspired Jabhat al-Nusra group in areas around the airport and that many of the rebels were killed, including two Iraqi citizens.
Syria's Information Ministry said the airport was operating as usual and that the road leading to the facility is "totally secure." The road was closed Thursday because of heavy fighting, but authorities reopened it Friday after troops secured the area, activists said.
The Observatory reported clashes in the southern Damascus neighborhoods of Tadamon and Hajar Aswad, which have been hit by heavy fighting for weeks as the rebels try to push back into the city.
Government troops were also heavily shelling the Damascus suburb of Douma, local activist Mohammed Saeed said via Skype.
Saeed and other activists bypassed the communications blackout by using satellite telephones to connect to the Internet.?In the past, the regime has cut telephone lines and cellular networks in areas where military operations are under way, but the latest blackout was the first to cover the whole country since Syrian uprising began in March 2011.
Tensions in Lebanon
In neighboring Lebanon, tensions were running high Saturday in the northern city of Tripoli between supporters and opponents of Assad's regime, which is dominated by the president's Alawite sect, an offshoot of Shiite Islam. Lebanese troops deployed to potential flashpoints in the city ? home to significant Sunni and Alawite populations and the site of deadly violence in recent months between the two communities ? to prevent possible clashes.
The army dispatched troops to Tripoli as a precautionary measure after an announcement Friday that 20 Lebanese Sunnis had been killed inside Syria while fighting alongside rebels, who are predominantly Sunnis as well.?It was not clear when the funerals would be held because the bodies of the dead are still in Syria, Lebanese security officials said on condition of anonymity in line with regulations.?Tripoli was calm Saturday.
Lebanon is particularly vulnerable to getting sucked into the conflict in Syria. The countries share a complex web of political and sectarian ties and rivalries that are easily inflamed. Lebanon, a country plagued by decades of strife, has been on edge since the uprising in Syria began, and deadly clashes between pro- and anti-Assad Lebanese groups have erupted on several occasions.
In Turkey, Foreign Minister Ahmet Davutoglu said the Syrian regime has degenerated into an "armed militia" that resorts to brutality in an attempt to stay in power. Davutoglu spoke Saturday at an Istanbul meeting attended by Arab foreign ministers who expressed opposition to the Syrian government.
Davutoglu and other delegates at the one-day conference say the Syrian regime is a threat not only to its people but also to peace and security in the region.
Turkey was an ally of Syria before the crisis began, but has turned into one of its harshest critics because of Assad's crackdown.
AP writers Elizabeth A. Kennedy in Beirut and Peter Svensson in New York contributed to this report.
Copyright 2012 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.?
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The deal shows how important e-commerce is becoming to Google's strategy.
Amazon.com offers a similar locker program for deliveries in certain urban areas, including San Francisco. Goods get delivered to one-time-use lockers, which the buyer opens with a code. After that, the locker can be reused for other deliveries.
Put it together with other moves Google's making, like testing same-day delivery of online orders in San Francisco, expanding its Google Wallet payments program, and?buying Incentive Targeting, a Cambridge, Mass.-based online-coupons startup, and you get a pretty clear picture: Google is targeting its acquisition and innovation efforts solidly at Amazon.
It makes sense when you consider that Google makes most of its money off of searches which express "commercial intent"?the desire to buy something.
Amazon, of course, makes its money the same way?by satisfying its customers' shopping desires.
E-commerce is still a small portion of the entire retail business. Both Amazon and Google see the way to elevate that as getting goods into shoppers' hands faster and faster. Lockers are one strategy that gets them part of the way there.
Source: http://www.businessinsider.com/google-bufferbox-e-commerce-2012-11
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I have crafty kids. It's just what we do.
This time of year especially. For weeks leading up to Brienne's birthday C?line sequestered herself away in our bedroom - one of the few rooms in our home with a door - to sew.
And now with the Christmas gift giving season upon us there will be a lot more secret sewing and crafting going on.
Recently, when we went to our friend's farm for the weekend the kids took a small bin of supplies and their favorite new craft book (mailed to us from the Netherlands by a FIMBY reader). Along the way, we bought felt at the fabric store, and the kids arrived ready to get on their crafting groove.
The kids were worried they wouldn't be able to speak to their French-speaking friends but we knew crafting could be the common language.
Ever since that visit C?line has been e-mailing back and forth with her friends en Fran?ais et en Anglais photos of the craft projects they are doing.
People have asked me how to encourage their own children to be creative and I have shared those ideas already here on my blog: have good supplies, be willing to make the time for it, be ok with the mess it will create (teaching your kids to clean up their mess will help with this).
(It's interesting to note that even though I don't do as many crafty things, especially sewing and paper memory keeping, as I used to when my children were younger, our kids continue to craft on their own initiative.)
I wrote a little book about how you can nurture creativity in your own life, and honestly, the same advice I give to moms' applies to kids and people in general. The advantage kids have is that when they start creating from the time they are little they don't have the same hang-ups adults do - fear of failure and perfectionism being too biggies.
Encouraging creativity is near and dear to my heart and it's something that comes up in most of my coaching and online teaching. I think it's one of my core life messages right now.
Based on your suggestions during the teleconference, I've even started doing my own art again - which is my life's passion, but I thought I had to put it on hold until my kids were older. Instead, now we're doing it together. Yes, our house is much more peaceful and I'm even getting my own "battery recharged".
As an educator, I believe creativity is an important part of learning. As a human being and a mother, I believe creativity is simply a part of joyful and wholehearted living (see Bren? Brown's book The Gifts of Imperfection for more on this).
I was asked the following question in a recent interview:
There is always a lot of discussion about the need for creativity in our lives, but not as much on the subject of why. What do you believe mothers gain, both as individuals and as parents, from fostering their own creative spirit.
Here's my answer:
Joy. When you tap into that creative activity (or activities) that both challenge you and help you express yourself you have access to a sweet spring of joy.
Not all moments are joy of course (writing ebooks is NOT all joy). But the main reason I both nurture creativity and tune into the creativity in my days, e.g. arranging pottery just so on the table and taking a picture to share on my blog, is for the pure joy of it. The joy of beauty. The joy of being alive and having a gift to share.
My children also get immense pleasure from their creativity. The actual making of things brings them joy. Showing and giving their art to family and friends. Playing with their handmade toys. They do it because it brings them joy.
I believe we were created for joy and pleasure. For relationship and beauty. Nurturing creativity puts us back in touch with this.
There are so many things that can bring creativity, joy, pleasure and beauty into our lives.
Music is one of those things. Did you know that none of our children play a musical instrument?
Some people might think this is a shame but our children haven't expressed an interest to learn an instrument and we decided this wasn't going to be one of the requirements of their home education.
Did you also know that learning never stops and people can learn new things all the time?
What this means is that if our kids one day want to learn how to play a musical instrument they can! If they want to learn to speak Japanese they can! I don't have to teach them all these things when they are knee high, nor do I have to hire someone to do so.
I don't have to carry the burden of exposing our children to every good thing before they are eighteen, training their young minds to speak three languages and play two instruments. They have their whole lives.
It may be sacrilege to say this but you don't have to give your children the perfectly well balanced and well rounded upbringing. In fact, trying to do so would be impossible because none of us are perfect.
You can build your family life and home learning environment on your family values, your children's interests and natural talents, your interests and talents, and your overall goals for your children's education. Yes. You. Can.
When your children leave your home they will build on this foundation, carrying forward some of the values and teaching you instilled and then add entirely new pieces according to their own desires and life mission. And won't that be fun. For them and for us.
Damien and I have already talked about the twists and turns our family life will take when our children come of age and choose their own path. We're excited about it! We're going to learn so much.
I think the reason parents, especially homeschooling parents, feel we have to teach it all when our kids are young is because we must carry a belief deep-down (so deep it's hard to acknowledge) that learning stops when kids reach a certain age. Or if not learning, the ability to study something you're interested in and pursue your dreams.
That freedom stops when you are an adult and if you haven't learned how to sew or haven't wrapped your brain around Newton's Laws by the time your eighteen, well that's just too bad. It's all over. Because now real life starts, and don't you know "in real life you don't get to determine your own course of action, you have responsibilities". And if you want to learn Latin, well too bad. If your homeschool mom didn't teach it to you when you were twelve, it's all over for you.
Do you hear what I'm saying?
We create because it brings us joy. We make useful things, and some not so useful things, and we learn important skills. We make time for creativity in our homeschool curriculum because it is one of our family's core values.
Does this mean you have to craft with your kids? Not at all. Maybe you bake with them instead, or play musical instruments together, take dance classes, or spin wool from your own sheep. Maybe you speak Japanese in the morning and conjugate Latin verbs in the afternoon.
If this is what you love, what brings your family joy, and is inline with your family values - then do it! And do it with gusto. Do it well, do it often. Do it to the glory of your creator.
And teach your kids this with your example - we never stop learning. The door is always open. We never graduate, though we may pass some exams along the way to show certain proficiencies (trust me, I want that surgeon to have passed their medical school exams).
Our children's childhood, foundational as it may be, it not "it" in terms of their learning window of opportunity.
Release yourself from that burden. Release them.
And then go make something. Just for the fun of it.
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Source: http://fimby.tougas.net/raising-kids-that-craft-or-not
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