Ann Cronin: Why Do State Officials in Connecticut Favor Charter Schools?

Diane Ravitch's blog

Ann Cronin is puzzled by the stance that Connecticut officials take toward charter schools. They consider charter schools to be the salvation for children of color. They ignore the public schools, which enroll 98% of the state’s public school children, compared to 1.5% in charter schools.

Bear in mind that Connecticut has long been recognized as one of the best state systems in the country. Yet Governor Malloy and the legislature keep cutting funding for their excellent public schools in order to increase funding for privately managed charter schools. This despite the huge charter scandal in the state, when the governor’s favorite chain (Jumoke) imploded after the revelations of nepotism, misspent funds, and a lack of accountability. This despite the fact that most charters do not outperform public schools. This despite the fact that Connecticut is still bound by a court order to integrate its schools and charters are…

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Author Spotlight – Stephen Morris

Writer's Treasure Chest

Welcome!

 

1. When did you start writing?

I started telling stories when I was in grade school and began to write them down shortly thereafter. I wrote my first books – one was a story involving time travel using a “timeract,” similar to the tesseract from “Wrinkle in Time” and another with characters similar to those on “Bewitched,” my favorite television series — in middle school. I wrote an epic poem similar to “Paradise Lost” in high school.

 

 

1. What motivates you to write?

I love to tell stories. I love it when people catch a glimpse of a larger world outside themselves when they are listening to or reading something of mine.

 

1. What genre do you write in and what made you chose this particular genre?

I write fantasy novels for adults, both historical fantasy and contemporary fantasy.

I first became interested in the occult and magic when I…

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In politics size is important. Taller people are more politically conservative

Never gave it a thought in that direction

Aunque todo lo dicho no sea cierto, todo lo cierto no está dicho.

Study finds taller people are more politically conservative. By  Jeff GrabmeierNewswise. Aug. 16, 2016

Hey, Tall Guy! What’s The Politics Like Up There? In politics size is important. Taller people are more politically conservative

Columbus, Ohio – If you want to predict which political party someone will support, take note of the person’s height. The taller a person is, the more likely he or she is to support conservative political positions, support a conservative party and actually vote for conservative politicians, according to a new study using data from Britain.

“If you take two people with nearly identical characteristics – except one is taller than the other – on average the taller person will be more politically conservative,” said Sara Watson, co-author of the study and assistant professor of political science at The Ohio State University.

The researchers found that a one-inch increase in height increased support…

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Audit: Finances at Tennessee’s Achievement School District Are “Chaotic”

Diane Ravitch's blog

An outside auditor of Tennessee’s famed-but-failed Achievement School District found that the group’s finances were a mess.

The Achievement School District was created to prove that ASD could take control of the state’s lowest scoring schools (in the bottom 5% of the state) and move them to the top 25% in only five years. The clock began ticking in 2012, when ASD took over half a dozen schools. An independent study by researchers at Vanderbilt University found no evidence that ASD was on track to meet that goal. Gary Rubinstein analyzed the numbers and concluded that the original schools turned over to charters were still in the bottom 5% (although one rose to the bottom 7%). Of course, they still have a year to go, so let’s not rush to judgment! (Georgia, North Carolina, and Nevada are all planning to create special districts modeled on Tennessee’s ASD, which supposedly knows…

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Kristina Rizga: Why Did Black Lives Matter and the NAACP Call for a Moratorium on Charter Schools?

Diane Ravitch's blog

Kristina Rizga, staff writer at Mother Jones, wrote about the decision by Black Lives Matter and the NAACP to call for a moratorium on new charter schools. Their statements agitated Democrats for Education Reform, and its executive director Shavar Jeffries expressed his disappointment, as did the Black Alliance for Educational Options, which supports both charters and vouchers. US News & World Report treated the disagreement as a fissure among communities of color and asked (in the link, if not in the article), “who speaks for communities of color?” A provocative question since DFER is comprised of white hedge-fund managers, who hired Shavar Jeffries–an African-American lawyer, as its spokesmen. It would be a reach, if not a bad joke, to say that the hedge fund managers of DFER speak for communities of color. BAEO is headed by Howard Fuller, an articulate African American who was trained as a social worker…

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[PHOTO STORIES] #SMARTKIDS: OBAMA SUPPORTS HIS DAUGHTER IN THE RESTAURANT WHERE SHE WORKS. TAKE A LOOK:

the BRAND RADIO.

Following the recent viral video of Obama’s daughter smoking a stoner that surfaced online, Obama has visited the restaurant where his younger daughter is working. He decided to support her in doing some of her duties.
©thebrandradio 2016. All rights reserved.

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[BRAND UPDATES] #BLOGS: AUTOMATTIC LAUNCHES WORDPRESS 4.6.

the BRAND RADIO.

​WordPress is prioritizing speed with version 4.6 of its uber-popular content management software, which is now available for download from WordPress.org or via existing dashboards.
This version speeds up the management of both themes and plugins by allowing both to be added, updated or deleted from a single page — no need to click back and forth between the main Themes page and a separate “Add Theme” page, for example.

WordPress says the admin dashboard will also load faster because it uses the native fonts that are already installed on your operating system.

There are also small updates to the editor, such as easier content recovery if you lose your internet connection and an inline link checker that alerts you if you’re about to add a link to a URL that doesn’t exist. Beyond that, the 4.6 announcement also details a number of “under the hood” updates.

©thebrandradio 2016. All…

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Baby born on Cebu Pacific airplane gets one million air miles

The Muslim Times

Source: CNN

Here’s one kid who’ll probably learn to fly before she can crawl. After being born four hours into a flight from Dubai to Manila, baby girl Haven has been gifted one million air mile points. Haven’s mom went into labor more than five weeks early while flying on an aircraft operated by Philippines carrier Cebu Pacific on August 14.Two nurses among the plane’s passengers helped with the delivery alongside cabin crew as the pilot diverted to Hyderabad, India to seek further medical assistance.The budget airline said it’s the first time a baby has been born on one of its aircraft.Airline CEO Lance Gokongwei said Haven would be awarded one million points on the airline’s GetGo rewards program to celebrate the birth. The points have no expiry date and can be shared with her family.

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Do you know how to develop memorable characters in a story

Jean's Writing

Hope you’re not tired of character development yet.

Because I’m still learning and my characters aren’t quite where I want them.

So y’all be sure and send me all the help you can. I need it.

The tips I learned today are:

• Don’t write characters that blend into the background.

Whether fictional or real-life they must be three dimensional. What lead up to specific actions and life choices in the story?  By understanding their beliefs, education, values, background, and physical attributes the reader will understand their behavior.

By understanding their beliefs, education, values, background, and physical attributes the reader will understand their behavior.

• Reveal their character.

In other words, reveal the character of your character. Does your character cheat, steal, or are they a giver, helper and lover. Show the reader their traits. What makes them tick. Let those traits develop over the course of the story. A person’s character is developed when…

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Improving…

Write of Passage

So I drew what I call a “coloring book” drawing of a pansy on a artist tile. Next, I stared at it for several minutes, waiting for inspiration to come–which patterns to select for which part of the flower. Nothing. Zip. Nada, rien, nichevo. I reached for my box of mini-tiles and pulled about a dozen patterns that could be used for filling in spaces. The inner dark pseudo-leaves were easy enough to decide on–Printemps and the berries of the Bronx Cherry pattern are nice, dark, “small space” fillers. But the lighter outer leaves still made me pause for a while; because how could I use the full patterns and still maintain the fluttery dimensions of the petals? For the first petal, I chose wrongly, attempting to force Echoism into the envisioned curves–which of course did not work. The other petal patterns worked better, but I was already a bit…

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