Evergreene Digest A Journal of Progress for the Rest of Us

• The choice today is clear: to recognize and secure the right to education as a human right in the US or abandon the education of America's children to the vagaries of free market economics -- an option that will lead to greater inequality and hasten the decline of democracy in the USA.
• Many Nations Passing U.S. in Education

Richard D. Vogel, Axis of Logic

A top priority on the neoconservative agenda for America is the privatization of social services, and their education initiatives have succeeded in gutting many public schools across the nation.  As a result, the US has lost the education advantage that it enjoyed in the post-World War II era.  According to a recent study conducted by the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development, many O.E.C.D. countries are surpassing educational achievement levels in the US, and only New Zealand, Spain, Turkey, and Mexico have lower high school completion rates.  The US rate now stands at a dismal 70 percent.

The impact of neoconservative education reform has been extremely uneven -- while many suburban school districts have managed to expand and maintain high performing schools, scores of urban districts have deteriorated and countless inner-city schools have been reduced to run-down warehouses for marginalized children or demolished to make way for gentrification projects.
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Realizing the Potential of Peer Assistance and Review

Susan Moore Johnson, John P. Papay, Sarah E. Fiarman, Mindy Sick Munger, Emily Kalejs Qazilbash, American Progress

Peer Assistance and Review has gained national attention as a central component of an effective strategy for developing a school district’s human capital. Under the program expert teachers mentor and evaluate their peers—typically all novice teachers and veteran teachers whose work has been judged to fall below the district’s standards.

Peer Assistance and Review, or PAR, is a promising program to improve the teacher evaluation system and teaching quality more broadly. Under PAR, an innovative approach that uses expert teachers to conduct regular evaluations for novice teachers and underperforming veterans, districts can focus attention on instructional quality, retain the most effective teachers, and dismiss teachers who are not contributing to student learning.

Because PAR places some evaluation responsibility on peers and requires a team of teachers and administrators to manage the process, the program is challenging to implement. It holds great potential, however, for improving teacher quality, as we’ll explain in this report.

• U.S. Education Secretary Arne Duncan warned Congress of a "catastrophe unfolding across this country" in the form of stripped-down state budgets that imperil 100,000 to 300,000 education jobs.
• Emergency funding urged to prevent worst school cuts in 50 years
• Hundreds of thousands of teachers around the country are being told that their jobs may be eliminated in June

Rita Giordano and Edward Colimore, Philadelphia Enquirer, in Axis of Logic

Heather Bastio, 16, carries a sign in support of striking teachers in Aliso Viejo, Calif. The majority of the district's teachers struck after the school board slashed their pay 10.1 percent last month. (Orange County Register)

The New Jersey taxpayer revolt that led to the defeat of almost 59 percent of the school district budgets before voters attracted nationwide attention last week.

In most states, including Pennsylvania, school budgets are not put to a popular vote. But the fiscal tsunami that has swamped New Jersey - state-aid cuts, a bad economy, the end of federal stimulus aid - has rocked districts, threatening greater education cutbacks and job losses than most have ever seen.

Less than a week before residents here went to the polls, U.S. Education Secretary Arne Duncan warned Congress of a "catastrophe unfolding across this country" in the form of stripped-down state budgets that imperil 100,000 to 300,000 education jobs.

by Carol Warner, EducationTechNews

The ultimate school disruption: When state budget cuts started affecting New Jersey schools, students took action their way — with Facebook and Jersey fist pumps.

More than 17,000 students pledged to participate in a walkout planned in a Facebook group: “Protest NJ Education Cuts – State Wide School Walk Out.”

According to Newark’s The Star Ledger, 18-year-old Michelle Ryan Lauto organized the walkout to protest reductions in state aid for NJ schools announced by Gov. Chris Christie.

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