School Board Election Results May 13 2013

Nominating District “D” – Term expires June 30, 2019

Building	Martin W. Nicholson	John M. Young
Total	133	207

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Nominating District “G – Term expires June 30, 2019

Building	John C. Megahan, Sr	Melodie A. Spotts
Total	40	197

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Nominating District “E” – Term expires June 30, 2019

Building	Dennis C. Cini, Sr.	Michael J. Piccio
Total	198	372
A. I. duPont High School	14	13
Baltz Elementary School	7	16
Brandywine Springs School	12	23
Cab Calloway School of the Arts	12	13
Conrad Schools of Science	12	16
Dickinson High School	12	54
Forest Oak Elementary School	14	46
H. B. duPont Middle School	12	16
Highlands Elementary School	14	43
Hilltop Lutheran Community Center	4	3
Lewis Elementary School	8	10
Linden Hill Elementary School	8	21
Marbrook Elementary School	9	24
McKean High School	15	19
North Star Elementary School	14	29
Stanton Middle School	27	10
Warner Elementary School	2	15
Absemtee	2	1

But Why Do I HAVE To Vote In Today (Tuesday May 13th’s) School Board Elections?

Because son, in this world, if you don’t make your own decisions,… someone else will make them for you…..

 

The following candidates support We, The People, and not Corporate America, being the ones to make our own decisions for our own kids…..

 

John Young —  Christina School District

Michael J. Piccio —  Red Clay School District

Melodie Spotts —  Colonial School District

 

Hmmm…  There is no clearer way to have put that…..

 

Good News For Us; Bad News For JYAKWRAL

It goes to show why if you believe in something you should never give up.  You never know who is listening… Despite the doubling down by our Chief of Change (pennies on the dollar, get it?) here in Delaware, in a land far, far away, (believe me it is far removed from the real world), a budget gets passed and signed that all but does in Race To The Top and the former Common Core, now called JYAKWRAL

And as touted here and other blogs, the real area that does so much to improve education in poverty areas, is  Head Start’s early childhood.education.

It won big, with a billion increase over their past record… That is wise. That is good.

But, wiser and better, are who lost….

Drumroll please…. xxxx—xxx—-xx-x-x-x—-xxxx—xxx—x-x-x-x—-x-x-x-

Two initiatives high on the Obama administration’s wish list—a Race to the Top for higher education and $750 million in new grants to help states improve their preschool programs—won’t receive funding in the fiscal year ending Sept. 30 of this year.…..

Before one gets upset over the $750 cut in pre-school programs, that was all signed off to go to think tanks developing early learning Common Core (I mean JYAKWRAL) standards for children too small to fill in bubble tests properly enough to assess their teachers. That money was earmarked to be used teaching 3-5 year olds how to mark tests adequately enough so scanners could read them….

Good thing it’s gone!

So while Arne Duncun and Jack Markell and Dave Coleman and Mark Murphy and Dave Sokola and the Rodel Foundation all turned a tin ear towards parents, students, and teachers, Congress was listening…

Congress chose to put money into students, instead of corporate pockets….  It’s a small victory, but it does show, that the fight against Common Core (JYAKWRAL) is indeed the right fight to be having….

The true fixes for poverty laden schools are:

• Early preschool education to build up word vocabulary.
• 11:1 Student teacher ratio
• Standardized tests used to track educational development; not as a firing tool for teachers
• Rank students by their abilities on those tests; not their ages.

Simple, simple, actions, which if followed, would again give the promise of America’s dream back to 80% of the American population.

Further good news out of the Federal education budget…..

Under the spending bill, schools would no longer have to choose one of the administration’s four controversial turnaround models, which call for dramatic actions such as extending the school day, putting in place merit pay programs for educators, and replacing school leadership. Instead, the measure offers schools and states two new choices, including the chance to try out any school improvement strategy that’s been proposed by the state and gotten a green light from the U.S. Secretary of Education. On top of that, the measure adds a fifth model, known as “whole school reform,” which would allow schools to partner with an outside organization that has proven track record in turnarounds.  And the bill would allow schools to receive the grants for five years, not just three as under current law…

Christina School District comes out smelling like a rose; not so much for Markell and Murphy who appear to have been undercut by the unusual politics of compromise in Washington….

 

Delaware Follows Lowery; Drops Common Core Moniker For JYAKWRAL

It is a really odd name, isn’t it?  But seeing it in writing barely makes up for the fun one has in having it roll off one’s tongue. The easiest way to explain it’s pronunciation, is to mention it sounds a lot like ‘jackel”  The first syllable is pronounce like “yak” but with an audible J pronounced in front of it.

Jyak

Jyak

Jyak

(Don’t talk back….)

(Sorry, 50’s song reference….)

The second syllable is pronounced as it looks… wral… and should be said with a similar snarl as does a cat when it takes a swipe with claws fully extended….

Wral

Wral

Wral….

Put the two together and you have it….

Jyak wral

Jyak wral

Jyak wral….

Pretty good you all.  You are good learners…  So this is the new Common Core. Why change the name?  Isn’t an Edsel still and Edsel even if you call it a Ford Fairlane?

The answer is flat no… It is not an Edsel, even though it once was.  When you change the name of things, you open up new possibilities.  It becomes a chance to suspend ones momentary grasp on reality and grab a tether to a dream emanating from the next world…. It IS a Ford Fairlane, because you say it is a Ford Fairlane… Ford Fairlanes are really cool, so this former Edsel, is now really cool…

It works like magic.  If you don’t like the Edsel because it was an Edsel, and someone says… “Hey, that is no longer an Edsel, It’s a Ford Fairlane”,… then you had better like it, because Ford Fairlanes are really cool.  You don’t want to be considered a real square now, do you?

And that is why Governor Markel overruled Mark Murphy and changed the name…  Common Core just wasn’t cool enough… With our new Chief Of Change, we had to have a name that was different, cool, slides off the tongue so well one can’t stop saying it….  and so now, Delaware, the Small Wonder, The First State, The Diamond State, teaches JYAKWRAL to its students….

Imagine the reactions of friends and family… “Where do you live.”  “Uhhhhhhhhhh, it’s a little state on the East Coast, across the river from Chris Christie’s New Jersey, and at the end of the Philadelphia Airport …..”  OH MY GOODNESS! YOU DON’T MEAN DELAWARE, DO YOU?  YOU HAVE JYAKWRAL.  WE LOVE JYAKWRAL.  WE WISH OUR STATE WOULD GET JYAKWRAL TOO. JYAKWRAL IS SOOOOOOOOOOO COOOOOOLLLLLL……..YOU GUYS IN DELAWARE ARE SO LUCKY….

It is possible since we are now so cool, other problems will go away.  We won’t need a 248 MW power plant in Newark to be cool, we have JYAKWRAL  We won’t need to gut the Coastal Zone Protection Act, because we are so cool for JYAKWRAL, people will flock here and bring jobs.  We won’t need to sell the Port, for the same reason.  We have JYAKWRAL…..

It will probably turn Goveernor Markell’s future around… Jobs go up, Tax revenue goes up, House construction goes up. Transfer taxes go up. District funding goes up. Test scores go up. Teacher’s moral goes up. Racino income goes up.  WDEL advertising revenues go up…

So!. let’s get this show on the road, turn things around and bring our little Delaware back out of the doldrums… Cause… nobody puts “Baby” in the Core-ner…..

No more Common Core… Starting tomorrow!  Onward with JYAKWRAL

Attention Pastors Everywhere: Common Core Is Evil

Just last summer an consortium of  Catholic educators appealed to their ruling body, the Bishops, to eliminate Common Core from Catholic Schools…  Their reason:  it was evil…

Recently reported is a letter from a Utah Mom.  I am going to presume she is Morman.  Here is her case for Common Core being evil… Although some secularists may think evil is a strong word and silly, I ask you to read through their reasoning and see if you think, that description is appropriate…. As some have mentioned, based solely upon the percentages and numbers of children affected, Common Core may be more destructive to tomorrow’s society than child porn.

A.  Common Core is evil because it is based on political power-grabbing that snuffed the voice of the people,

B. Common Core was a move that was based on dollar $ign$ and not academic honesty. It was agreed to, in exchange for federal cash.

C. It cannot back up its lies of “being an improvement” academically, since it’s totally experimental and untested..

D. it cannot back up its lie of being “internationally benchmarked” because it’s not internationally benchmarked.

E.  It cannot back up its lie of being unattached to the federal government since it is tied like an umbilical cord to the Department of Education.

F.  The Dept. of Ed is officially partnered with the very group that created it (CCSSO) both in the standards and in common data technologies. The Department of Ed has contracts that mandate micromanagement of Common Core testing…

G.  By law the Federal Department of Education is NOT ALLOWED any dictation of curriculum, and the tests micromanaged by the Federal Department of Education, are solely what will drive the curriculum.  Common Core then is a violation of Federal Law, but being so newly and partly implimented , no lawsuit against it has yet reached an upper court.

H.  Common Core diminishes teachers’ autonomy  through federally supervised testing that drives curriculum.

I.  Common Core’s federally funded SLDS data mining amounts to “unreasonable search and seizure” of private effects.

J.  Common Core diminishes the standards of classic literature especially for high schoolers.

K. Common Core marginalizes narrative writing, and dumbs down high school math –as has been admitted even by its creators.

L. COMMON CORE LACKS A REPRESENTATIVE AMENDMENT PROCESS.  It was never explored, debated, looked through, or passed by any legislative body anywhere.

M.  Common Core is only amendable by the NGA/CCSSO, according to their own words on their own website.  They own the copyright and no one can use the material, or make changes.

N.  Common Core hurts kids.

Reminder: Charter Schools Ruin High Poverty Districts

A quick reminder of what happened in Philly.

In last Spring’s study, it was shown that charter schools dropped test scores in Philly by a considerable amount.

Some Charter schools do better, but they do so at the expense of all those other students who remain behind.  As Charter’s suck off the top layer, more costly investment is needed to move the bottom layers higher.

The study determined the average scores before charters were allowed into the city, and then determined the average scores based on both public and charter school test score totals across the former district.

Better results happened before Charters.

When the sales pitches come forward… Remember to ask, … what happens to all those students left behind?

If you ran a business that cleared $100,000 and brought on a partner to help you, and then only made $80,000 to be split between you,  you’d fire that partner, wouldn’t you?   That is what charter schools do to a district….