How Billionaires rule our schools.




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Rick Scott insults all of Florida’s teachers... again.

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By placing a Teach for America hobbyist on the state board of education, Rick Scott thumbed his nose at all the hard working men and women who sacrifice so much for the state’s children. Teach for America in case you have been living under a rock takes non education majors, puts them through a five week access course and then puts them in our neediest classrooms or the exact opposite of what people call best practices.     In case you were wavering because of the pennies he recently threw the states teachers please also remember that under his watch the state stole 3 percent of teacher’s pay to balance the books, and a draconian and nonsensical teacher evaluation system was enacted.   This also continues the state's policy of not putting educators or experienced applicants in charge of education and then we wonder why we are in trouble. Shameful.
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What Do You Mean by "Shared Governance?"

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Whatever it actually means, "shared governance" seems awfully important to the faculty, staff, and students of UW-Madison. And so I want to bring to light an exchange that the Associated Students of Madison (ASM) had with Chancellor Martin about the New Badger Partnership at the end of January. I had heard about this conversation but neglected to read the text of it until now. I think it is something students should consider carefully, and discuss at great length. How do you feel about the process and how it's unfolded? How do you feel about the style of governance employed thus far, and what it means going forward? What follows is an excerpt from the ASM "live blog" of January 24 . Beth Huang: I’ve continually heard that the partnership is not a privatization, but a way to give the university more powers. But I don’t hear much about what powers will be given to students, staff and faculty at this university. Can you give me your vision for how other players...
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What Happens When You Remake Academia? Rick Hess Looks Your Way

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Rick Hess is an amusing guy-- witty banter, fun to have drinks with-- and always pushing buttons. I dig that, even though we rarely agree on policy issues. What I like most about him is that he takes seriously the idea that academics should bring their research to the public, and in an effort to prod that along, last year he began ranking us. He uses a set of metrics that even he admits are pretty darned flawed, but are at least an ATTEMPT in the right direction. I like it not because I'm ranked (ok, I like that too) but rather because Hess is a prominent guy doing whatever he can to provide incentives to professors to do more than what tenure requires of them. He wants us to use all 5 tools in our work--"disciplinary scholarship, policy analysis and popular writing, convening and quarterbacking collaborations, providing incisive media commentary, and speaking in the public square." And that I can appreciate. So here are the rankings this year. And here's the met...
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