Archive for March, 2013
by John Laesch, posted on Sunday, March 31st, 2013 at 7:29 pm
Reflections from Newark Community High School, March 31st 2013
Driving by I stopped to stare and remember…
The squeak of gym shoes on polished hardwood floors
Rolled jeans and clanking metal locker doors
My older brother and friends thinking they were cool
Sneaking a smoke behind the brick school
The first Apple IIe with green letters blinking
Learning code, tabbing, no clicking
My first psych paper questioned corporate advertising in school
Sociology, I learned I was part of a class – bottom of the economic pool
A solitary study hall in the librarians’ backroom, studying or sleeping
The Librarian knew no 17-year old should be full-time working
I know she was proud when I got my ACT scores and acceptance letter
Teachers dug deep, earning their scholarship – a shot at something better…
Now I know why I spend so much time fighting for this beautiful relic
Opportunities, our schools – keep them strong, keep them public
Tags: Newark Community High School
Posted in The Union List | Comments Off on A Poor Kid Deserves Opportunity Too (Poem)
by John Laesch, posted on Friday, March 29th, 2013 at 9:16 pm
State Senator Heather Steans and Stand for Children are ultimately responsible for Chicago school closings and the recent increase of charter school applications like the 18-district virtual charter initiated by K12 Inc. in the Chicago suburbs.
Rahm Emanuel, Barb Byrd-Bennett, Heather Steans, Jonah Edelman
I started researching SB79 and HB 5825, the legislation that created and gave the Illinois Charter Commission super “override powers” and autonomy from the Illinois State Board of Education (ISBE). If SB7 gave education activists concern, SB79 and HB 5825 should have started a five-alarm fire.
Because of SB79, K12 Inc., a for-profit, Wall Street-traded company applied for a virtual charter scam in 18 suburban school districts. Why are they doing this? K12 Inc. anticipates that the state charter commission will override local rejections of their taxpayer rip-off scheme and approve the charter despite overwhelming local opposition.
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Tags: Bob Pritchard, charter schools, Chicago IL, Chicago Public Schools, Cook County, CPS, education, HB 5825, Heather Steans, Illinois, Illinois Charter Commission, Illinois General Assembly, Illinois State Board of Education, Jean Pierce, K12 Inc, legislation, Leo Smith, Linda Chapa LaVia, Mike Madigan, Monique Davis, Rahm Emanuel, SB 79, school closings, Stand for Children
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by John Laesch, posted on Saturday, March 23rd, 2013 at 5:52 pm
K12 Inc., a for-profit virtual learning company is pitching their services to 18 Illinois school districts, attempting to exploit Illinois’ weak charter laws. K12 Inc. executives have handled presentations at 16 of the 18 schools in which they have submitted an application for a virtual charter. Geneva’s school district 304 held a hearing on March 11th and the applicant did not show. The final hearing is in District 365U (Romeoville and Bolingbrook).
Please join Northern Illinois Jobs with Justice (RSVP via this link) at the final public hearing to express your opposition to K12 Inc’s taxpayer rip-off scheme. This Wall Street company is trying to rip-off taxpayers in the amount of $8,000 per customer (students that they sign up).
When: Wednesday, March 27th @ 6:30 p.m.
Where: Valley View D365U School Service Center (755 Dalhart Ave., Romeoville, IL 60446)
The first vote for or against K12’s virtual charter scam is going to be held in East Aurora, District 131. Please join NIJwJ (RSVP via this link) and encourage the board to vote “no.”
When: April 1st @ 7:00 p.m.
Where: School Services Center (417 Fifth St., Aurora, IL 60505)
Tags: Aurora IL, Batavia IL, Bolingbrook IL, Carpentersville IL, charter schools, education, Elgin IL, Geneva IL, Illinois, Illinois Charter Commission, K12 Inc, Kane County, Kendall County, Oswego IL, Randall Greenway, Romeoville IL, School Privatization, Sharnell Jackson, St Charles IL, Yorkville IL
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by John Laesch, posted on Saturday, March 23rd, 2013 at 7:33 am
When the K12 Inc. executive stammered, Dean Fisher, a Yorkville School Board member repeated his question, “defend your profit model.” The questions came after the K12 Inc. corporate executive had made a 20-minute presentation to the board and administrators of Yorkville District 115.
The real world questions kept coming like a series of body blows to K12 Inc., the for-profit virtual education provider that has come under fire nationally for low test scores, scandals, lawsuits and cover-ups.
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Tags: Aurora IL, Batavia IL, Carpentersville IL, district 115, district 204, Elgin IL, Geneva IL, K12 Inc, Naperville IL, Oswego IL, Randall Greenway, Sharnell Jackson, St Charles IL, Yorkville IL
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by John Laesch, posted on Sunday, March 17th, 2013 at 8:26 am
We will have some exciting news at the informational meeting on K12 Inc. that is scheduled for Sunday, March 17th from 2-5 p.m. at the Geneva First Congregational Church (321 Hamilton St.) in Geneva, IL!
In addition to hearing from Tennessee State Representative, Gloria Johnson about how k12 Inc. has hurt students and taxpayers in her home state of Tennessee, we will have a charter school expert by the name of Sharon Teefey to share knowledge on Illinois’ Charter Commission.
Teefey will be reporting that State Rep. Chapa LaVia (IL 83rd District) intends to initiate an amendment to address virtual charter schools. According to an e-mail from Rep. Chapa Lavia, she intends to file the following amendment in the house when they return to session.
(l) From April 1, 2013 through April 1, 2016 there shall be a moratorium on the expansion of charter schools with virtual schooling components which includes but is not limited to full-time online virtual schools and virtual blended schools. For the purposes of this subsection (l) virtual blended schools means a virtual school with in-person components.
This moratorium will give Illinois parents and lawmakers more time to study K12 Inc. and their questionable track record of performance.
An amendment is progress, and it shows that organizing works and we need to keep doing more of it!
If you want to support the fight against K12 Inc. and want to see this fight continue, please consider supporting NIJwJ financially.
Tags: charter school, education, Fox Valley, Illinois, K12 Inc, Linda Chapa LaVia, Northern Illinois Jobs with Justice, ron packard, virtual charter
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by John Laesch, posted on Wednesday, March 13th, 2013 at 9:03 pm
K12 Incorporated, a for-profit charter business has a track record of poor academic performance, misleading investors, and deliberately telling teachers to “delete bad grades.” Now, as many Illinois school districts are struggling with shrinking budgets, K12 Inc wants to milk our schools of $8,000 – $11,000 per pupil with a new, “virtual charter school.” In my first piece on this subject, I listed the public hearings for all 18 schools that K12 Virtual Learning Solutions is targeting in the Chicago Suburbs.
K12 Inc. has a Record of Poor Academic Performance and Deletes Grades to Boost Scores.
When I learned that K12 Inc was trying to get their hand in the pocket books of Aurora taxpayers, I started researching the company. One story by investigative reporter, Phil Williams, with Tennessee Channel 5 News exposes an e-mail from the Tennessee Virtual Academy’s vice principal to middle school teachers titled, “important.” The e-mail reads:
“After … looking at so many failing grades, we need to make some changes before the holidays,” the email begins.
Among the changes: Each teacher “needs to take out the October and September progress [reports]; delete it so that all that is showing is November progress.”
“Does it talk about we need to make changes in curriculum? Does it talk about we need to make changes in our teaching strategy? No,” Rep. Johnson observed. “Those changes we need to make are deleting grades from the computer system.”
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Tags: charter school, COVA, Illinois General Assembly, K12 Inc, Northern Illinois Jobs with Justice, privatization, Rep. Gloria Johnson, ron packard, virtual, virtual charter school fox river valley
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by John Laesch, posted on Wednesday, March 13th, 2013 at 7:26 am
New rules allow an Illinois charter school to apply for a charter from a local school district and appeal any rejections to the Illinois Charter Commission.
As of this blog post writing, I am aware that K12 Inc. has applied for charter schools in 18 school districts in the Chicago Suburbs. Please plan on attending these hearings (listed below) to ask the board to reject this scandalous business.
In addressing local school boards we need to let them know that K12 Inc. is a business that pays their CEO $3.9 million dollars per year and offers returns to investors. It is not a school. Our tax money is being diverted from the classroom to the pockets of the wealthy. K12 Inc. may perform well on Wall Street, but they don’t perform well in the virtual learning environment. And, according to Channel 5 News in Tennessee, when K12 Inc. fails to perform, they instruct teachers to “delete grades.”
These are the public hearings that we know about:
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Tags: charter schools, DeKalb County, DuPage County, education, Illinois, Illinois Charter Commission, K12 Inc, Kane County, Kendall County, McHenry County, Will County
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by n0madic, posted on Sunday, March 3rd, 2013 at 6:23 pm
In the maneuvering to affix blame for the mess that is sequestration, the Republicans in Congress would have us believe this was all the President’s idea to begin with,
while the Obama Administration would have us believe that it was a deal that was never supposed to take effect. Not really. And yet, both sides voted for it. Both sides agreed to play this dangerous game.
And that’s the problem. The debate has never been a question of whether or not we should even be pursuing a politics of austerity in the first place, it has merely been a question of the precise balance of pain that was to be exacted upon those less fortunate than those who will determine our fate.
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Tags: austerity, budget, legislation, Obama Administration, Republicans, sequestration, U. S. Congress
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