Friday, August 30, 2013
You don't miss your water, 'till you well runs dry
You don't miss your water, clean air,
good schools, open space, safe streets, easy lifestyle until it's gone.
Say "no" to the urbanization of Marin.
Video: In CA schools, 3 X 4 = 11 in the Common Core Curriculum
see article Video: In CA schools, 3 X 4 = 11
August 20, 2013
By John Seiler
Back in the early 1990s, California schools adopted “New New Math” and “Whole Language” to dumb down the kids. Parents revolted. In the late 1990s and early 2000s, the state reformed the curriculum and adopted some decent standards.
But in California, no bad idea stays down for long. This time, it’s adopting President Obama’s Common Core, which brings back “conceptual math” from the New New Math. Instead of just learning the multiplication tables by rote, which people have been doing for centuries, students instead are instructed to “think through” the answer, and that there really is no wrong answer. So, the answer to 3 X 4 can be 11. Really.
There’s a trick involved here. Of course, it’s good to teach kids about concepts. Until the Deweyite reforms of a century ago, students learned critical thinking as a separate subject. That was dumped in John Dewey’s earlier dumbing down. But critical thinking of the real type isn’t involved here, only muddy thinking.
Here’s a YouTube that explains the Common Core approach to math. It’s serious. As the teacher says, “The emphasis is more toward the explanation.”
Development in Marinwood Development Area won't require rigorous environmental review
Our precious Marin land and our health is being threatened by the "gutting" of CEQA regulations
Transit oriented projects like Marinwood Plaza will be exempt from CEQA environmental review
in the Marinwood Priority Development Area
Do you know that in an effort to "streamline" development, politicians have gutted rigorous environmental standards for development in the Marinwood Priority Development Area and other "transit oriented development"?
Exemption from Environmental Review "Transit-priority projects" (transit-based development), as defined by California law S.B. 375 is supposed to help achieve the carbon emissions reduction targets mandated by A.B 32. However, rather than strengthen environmental protections and facilitate emission reductions, S.B. 375 provides loopholes that allows Transit-based projects to be fast-tracked by developers and avoid compliance with the California Environmental Quality Act (CEQA).
From S.B. 375, page 3: "This bill would exempt from CEQA a transit priority project, as defined, that meets certain requirements and that is declared by the legislative body of a local jurisdiction to be a sustainable communities project. The bill would provide for limited CEQA review of various other transit priority projects."
SEC. 15. (page 37)
(a) If a residential or mixed-use residential project is consistent with the use designation, density, building intensity, and applicable policies specified for the project area in either a sustainable communities strategy or an alternative planning strategy, for which the State Air Resources Board pursuant to subparagraph (I) of paragraph (2) of subdivision (b) of Section 65080 of the Government Code has accepted the metropolitan planning organization’s determination that the sustainable communities strategy or the alternative planning strategy would, if implemented, achieve the greenhouse gas emission reduction targets and if the project incorporates the mitigation measures required by an applicable prior environmental document, then any findings or other determinations for an exemption, a negative declaration, a mitigated negative declaration, a sustainable communities environmental assessment, an environmental impact report, or addenda prepared or adopted for the project pursuant to this division shall not be required to reference, describe, or discuss
(1) growth inducing impacts; or
(2) any project specific or cumulative impacts from cars and light-duty truck trips generated by the project on global warming or the regional transportation network.
(b) Any environmental impact report prepared for a project described in subdivision (a) shall not be required to reference, describe, or discuss a reduced residential density alternative to address the effects of car and light-duty truck trips generated by the project.
For example, a 200-unit residential development a half mile from [Golden Gate Transit Buslines or SMART] might be exempted entirely from CEQA review. The surrounding community would be unable to petition for additional greenhouse gas reduction measures, such as solar panels, car-sharing, construction and exhaust emissions reduction, asbestos mitigation from demolition of existing buildings, voicing site contamination issues, or issues related to aesthetic concerns when proposed development is out of scale with surrounding homes and businesses.
Thursday, August 29, 2013
Motivational Song for Common Core (not Satire)
For more fun songs see: Common Core Open Mic Night.
Who says our education dollars are not well spent!?
Martin Niemöller: "First they came for the Socialists..."
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| Martin Niemöller, a prominent Protestant pastor who opposed the Nazi regime. He spent the last seven years of Nazi rule in concentration camps. Germany, 1937. |
First they came for the Socialists, and I did not speak out--
Because I was not a Socialist.
Then they came for the Trade Unionists, and I did not speak out--
Because I was not a Trade Unionist.
Then they came for the Jews, and I did not speak out--
Because I was not a Jew.
Then they came for me--and there was no one left to speak for me.
Please Sign the Petition to Stop the Strawberry PDA
Big Business Supports the Common Core
Yesterday, 72 business corporations published a full-page advertisement in the New York Times supporting the Common Core State Standards.
The ad asserts that the CCSS will prepare all children “to be successful in a competitive global economy.” How do they know that since the standards are only now being implemented and have never been demonstrated to be successful?
The ad says that “the need for a strong employer voice is greater than ever.” Why would that be? Is it because so many educators are concerned that the Common Core standards will bust the budgets of their district?
The ad says that the big corporations support “these new, tougher academic standards that are currently being rolled out in classrooms across the country.” Are they concerned that tougher standards might widen the achievement gap?
The ad gives no indication that any of its signatories has ever read the CCSS.
This ad is very curious.
Why would business leaders take out a full-page ad to urge support for something that 46 states and the District of Columbia have already agreed to do?
I am reminded of the wacky report from a task force of the Council on Foreign Relations a year ago (co-chaired by Joel Klein and Condoleeza Rice), which claimed that the public schools posed a “very grave threat to national security.” Its three recommendations: 1) open more charters and vouchers; 2) adopt the Common Core standards; and 3) create a “national security readiness audit” for every school. Thus: privatization and the Common Core are necessary for our survival as a nation.
All very puzzling. How will the Common Core standards protect our national security?
Why are 72 corporations lined up to pledge support for standards that are already adopted but never field-tested?
Do they sell products that have never had a trial?
What gives?
Tuesday, August 27, 2013
The Biggest Fallacy of the Common Core Standards
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| Not Everybody is joining the Common Core Parade of Dunces |
Diane Ravitch
Historian, NYU professor
from the Huffington Post: The Biggest Fallacy of the Common Core Standards
Posted: 08/24/2013 8:08 am
Boosters of the Common Core national standards have acclaimed them as the most revolutionary advance in the history of American education.
As a historian of American education, I do not agree.
Forty-five states have adopted the Common Core national standards, and they are being implemented this year.
Why did 45 states agree to do this? Because the Obama administration had $4.35 billion of Race to the Top federal funds, and states had to adopt "college-and-career ready standards" if they wanted to be eligible to compete for those funds. Some states, like Massachusetts, dropped their own well-tested and successful standards and replaced them with the Common Core, in order to win millions in new federal funds.
Is this a good development or not?
If you listen to the promoters of the Common Core standards, you will hear them say that the Common Core is absolutely necessary to prepare students for careers and college.
They say, if we don't have the Common Core, students won't be college-ready or career-ready.
Major corporations have published full-page advertisements in the New York Times and paid for television commercials, warning that our economy will be in serious trouble unless every school and every district and every state adopts the Common Core standards.
A report from the Council on Foreign Relations last year (chaired by Joel Klein and Condoleeza Rice) warned that our national security was at risk unless we adopt the Common Core standards.
The Common Core standards, its boosters insist, are all that stand between us and economic and military catastrophe.
All of this is simply nonsense.
How does anyone know that the Common Core standards will prepare everyone for college and careers since they are now being adopted for the very first time?
How can anyone predict that they will do what their boosters claim?
There is no evidence for any of these claims.
There is no evidence that the Common Core standards will enhance equity. Indeed, the Common Core tests in New York caused a collapse in test scores, causing test scores across the state to plummet. Only 31 percent "passed" the Common Core tests. The failure rates were dramatic among the neediest students. Only 3.2 percent of English language learned were able to pass the new tests, along with only 5 percent of students with disabilities, and 17 percent of black students. Faced with tests that are so far beyond their reach, many of these students may give up instead of trying harder.
There is no evidence that those who study these standards will be prepared for careers, because there is nothing in them that bears any relationship to careers.
There is no evidence that the Common Core standards will enhance our national security.
How do we know that it will cause many more students to study math and science? With the collapse in test scores that Common Core brings, maybe students will doubt their ability and opt for less demanding courses.
Why so many promises and ungrounded predictions? It is a mystery.
Even more mysterious is why the nation's major corporations and chambers of commerce now swear by standards that they have very likely never read.
Don't get me wrong. I am all for high standards. I am opposed to standards that are beyond reach. They discourage, they do not encourage.
But the odd thing about these standards is that they seem to be written in stone. Who is in charge of revising them? No one knows.
When I testified by Skype to the Michigan legislative committee debating the Common Core a couple of weeks ago, I told them to listen to their teachers and be prepared to revise the standards to make them better. Someone asked if states were "allowed" to change the standards. I asked, why not? Michigan is a sovereign state. If they rewrite the standards to fit the needs of their students, who can stop them? The federal government says it doesn't "own" the standards. And that is true. The federal government is forbidden by law from interfering with curriculum and instruction.
States should do what works best for them. I also urged Michigan legislators to delay any Common Core testing until they were confident that teachers had the professional development and resources to teach them and students had had adequate time to learn what would be tested.
Do we need national standards to compare the performance of children in Mississippi to children in New York and Iowa? We already have the National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP), which has been making these comparisons for 20 years.
Maybe I am missing something. Can anyone explain how the nation can adopt national standards without any evidence whatever that they will improve achievement, enrich education, and actually help to prepare young people -- not for the jobs of the future, which are unknown and unknowable -- but for the challenges of citizenship and life? Thebiggest fallacy of the Common Core standards is that they have been sold to the nation without any evidence that they will accomplish what their boosters claim.
Across the nation, our schools are suffering from budget cuts.
Because of budget cuts, there are larger class sizes and fewer guidance counselors, social workers, teachers' assistants, and librarians.
Because of budget cuts, many schools have less time and resources for the arts, physical education, foreign languages, and other subjects crucial for a real education.
As more money is allocated to testing and accountability, less money is available for the essential programs and services that all schools should provide.
Our priorities are confused.
Decoding Planner Speak
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| Planners are easy to understand |
by Robb Caldwell
In hopes of promoting understanding I’m providing a translation to standardized English for use with Agenda 21 vocabulary. Certain words just go together and any article involving any issues ecological written since the beginning of this decade just has to have the word “stakeholder” in it. I challenge anyone to pen a story on Plan Bay Area without using it . Kind of like describing Buddhist monks without saying “saffron”. It should also be noted it’s not paranoia if they really are out to “get ya”.
Vision: My ideas and people who think as I do.
Sustainable: If this type of thing went on for a long time I wouldn’t agitate against it.
Inter-disciplinary: If I don’t agree with the science I’ll get someone on board who will, preferably a sociologist from Berkeley who is good at public relations.
Common Good: I know what’s best for you.
Best Management Practices: Don’t blame me because things went wrong, I covered my butt with a long paper trail.
Restoration: I want things to look just like they do on modern Hollywood westerns.
Public/Private partnerships: My friends are going to get a piece of this thing and if you go along you can too.
Watershed: Catch and release fly fishermen.
Preserve: Preserved for bird watchers only.
Endangered species: Not a vegetable or mineral, amended to include any plant except those sold in Whole Foods.
Historic Preservation: I want cute looking houses to drive past and I’m going to make you keep your house cute by law.
Benefit of all: I know what’s best for you in the long run even if you don’t.
Consensus: We might pretend to listen to you, but at the end of the day we’ll simply outlast you at the meeting and vote later after you’ve gone home.
Traffic Calming: We’re going to put in traffic circles so you and your doggone horse trailers don’t drive in my neighborhood. Can also mean raised beds with annuals.
Landscape: Used with words like “wide” or “level” meaning someone wants to impose something over hundreds of square miles. Something pretty enough to be photographed. A tell that the user has origins in the burbs of one coast or another where landscaping is what you pay people much poorer than yourself to do to your yard.
Facilitator: Someone to calm the crazies without committing to anything.
Affordable Housing: We don’t want trailers so we’ll build some condos school teachers can afford but please, no poor people.
Smart Growth: Sprawl with bike paths.
Livable Communities: Cul de sacs with bike paths all the way to Starbucks.
Stakeholder: blood sucking vampire that can only be put to rest with a wooden stake through the heart. If someone calls you a stakeholder consider yourself officially “undead”.
Smart Growth: My ideas are smart, yours are dumb.
Editor's Note: This comment was sourced from an article in High Country News, that attacked people opposed to smart growth plans as anti government conspiracy extremists.
Monday, August 26, 2013
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