Category Archives: EDUCATION

Brunswick Superintendent Terminated

Posted on November 13, 2014 by A.P. Dillon

Brunswick County School Superintendent Edward Pruden has been terminated by the Brunswick school board in a 3-2 vote in a closed-door session this week.

The reason has not been given to the public and apparently not given to Pruden either.

See part of the report from WECT:

READ THE REPORT – SEE THE CONTRACT Continue reading →

Posted in A.P. Dillon (LL1885), EDUCATION | Comments Off

Common Core Aligned: iTunes Apps

Posted on November 12, 2014 by A.P. Dillon

“…to create just these kinds of tests—next-generation assessments aligned to the common core. When the tests are aligned to the common standards, the curriculum will line up as well—and that will unleash powerful market forces in the service of better teaching.” – Bill Gates, 2009 Speech To Natl. Conference of State Legislatures

The goal is to align everything so that students and the money have nowhere to go but Common Core.

Everyone and their brother is cashing in on online learning. There’s good and bad with that. That includes those rushing to get in on apps and courses for the fundamentally flawed and experimental Common Core.

At Apple’s iTunes, there are 23 “free” Common Core courses: “Your lessons. Your materials. Together on iPad.”

More of the ‘personalized learning’ theme that has been attempted to be promulgated by Common Core advocates.

Of course, these course are tied to PARCC, which multiple states have dumped:

KEEP READING – HIT THE TIP JAR! Continue reading →

Posted in A.P. Dillon (LL1885), Common Core | Tagged Common Core Aligned, PARCC | Comments Off

Pearson’s Powerschool Redefines Epic Fail In NC

Posted on November 11, 2014 by A.P. Dillon

Without argument, Pearson’s Powerschool has been riddled with issues, bugs and complaints. A year later, I am still weeding through the four giant boxes of documents NC DPI sent me on Powerschool after I put in a Freedom of Information Act request.

In my weeding through these documents so far, I’ve got a pile probably 100 pages worth of issues and complaints from education officials, charter schools, superintendents and more. Mind you, I still have one more box to get through.

I don’t have a lot of free time, but this little project just got moved up on the priority scale for me after I had a conversation with my child’s teacher where I learned something rather horrifying things about Powerschool.

Little warning here – you are entering a snark heavy zone.

KEEP READING!! Continue reading →

Posted in Common Core, EDUCATION, Wake County School Board | Tagged Powerschool | 2 Comments

Hey, Remember NCAE’s ‘Member-Led’ Group? Organize 2020?

Posted on November 10, 2014 by A.P. Dillon

From time to time, I check back on certain stories to see what’s going on. I’ve been documenting a lot of politicking in our public schools in NC lately, so I thought I’d take a peek at Organize 2020 again.

The NCAE has claimed that Organize 2020 is their ‘member-led’ group, which the NCAE made into a caucus last year. I checked out their website. Most of it was the same, a few things changed:

One now can see the dues for their caucus which range from $5 to $35.
Mission statement is no longer front and center, but it’s still there.
NCAE is no longer hiding as their backer on petitions as they did on the Walk-In fiasco.
I noticed something on their “Actions” page that I hadn’t seen before. It probably had been there a while, but somehow I didn’t spot it before now. Under the ‘Find more information’ section on the “Actions” page the first link is: “What is Neo-liberalism?”

Uh, say what?

KEEP READING…. Continue reading →

Posted in EDUCATION, NCAE, Organize2020 | Comments Off

Spit-Take Of The Week: NC Superintendent’s “Vision” For NC Education

Posted on November 8, 2014 by A.P. Dillon

Is the romance of Common Core fading?

“In her remarks, she described a vision for moving away from a “one-size-fits-all” to a more personalized approach to teaching, to a strategy of awarding credit based on “mastery” learning rather than seat time, and the use of project-based learning.”
-Herald Sun, 11/6/14,N.C. Superintendent Describes Vision For Education

No, given the rewrite of the standards going on in NC, it more likely we’ve entered cover your ass meets obfuscation mode.

Wonka CommonCoreStandardsWHAT A JOKE.
Dr. Atkinson has rammed the one-size-fits-all Common Core down the throat of this state’s children and parents for four years.

This isn’t a ‘vision’.

KEEP READING – HIT THE TIP JAR! Continue reading →