Showing posts with label ALEC. Show all posts
Showing posts with label ALEC. Show all posts

Student Data Accessibility, Transparency, and Accountability Act -- All Student Data to be Accessable



Student Data Accessibility, Transparency, and Accountability Act
Summary
The Student Data Accessibility, Transparency, and Accountability Act would require the [State Board of Education/State Department of Education] to make publicly available an inventory and index of all data elements with definitions of individual student data fields currently in the statewide longitudinal data system

Razor Ready to Parse and Diagnose A Propaganda Message

This article that we are going to take apart and explore is a good sample of the propaganda currently being pushed out into the Internet. It was published back in October, and it is in reference to the College Board Advanced Placement US History course.

The AP History course has had a consistent single complaint. Every year the teachers have voiced this complaint. For the last 20 years, History teachers across the nation told the College Board that the course was too stringently defined. There was no room in the AP Course for "Teaching." 

The course was laid out completely, with nearly an hour-by-hour description. The teacher's felt that they were unable to explore or contribute. "You didn't even need to be a teacher. A recording would have done," said one teacher.

In 2013 the crew at the College Board working on the AP US History, came up with an idea to solve this problem. They defined a Framework, which had in it the main ideas, the concepts and levels of expectation needed for the students in order to take the test with a reasonable chance of passing. 
There was no curriculum
The teacher would choose the material, and events of history to cover, as well the people of that era to explore. Everything would be covered by the teacher. Obviously, in order to explain this "building of curriculum" some "sample" data was required as "place holders" in the course manual. Larry Krieger saw his chance, claimed that the Sample Data was the True data, and began a Big Lie campaign in an attempt to get the AP to return to the previous format. 
Since this campaign is now mute, and everyone now understands the swindle by Larry Krieger, Jane Robins, Sandra Stotsky and James Milgram we can explore without controversy.
So, before you go further into this, please read this Overview.
To Verify the overview the College Board has published this document to clearly debunk the confusion spread by Larry Krieger, Jane Robins, Sandra Stotsky and James Milgram.
Once done, let's get into one of the Articles, which was posted as an Editorial on the AP History Problem. Oct 4, 2014

Selling compliance to the unwilling requires Inovation

You might believe that that Corporate use of Aggressive Persuasion is something you don't need to be concerned about -- and that belief might be yours, or painstakingly inserted into your decision matrix for you. After all, you do want to be compliant, right? So you were eventually going arrive at that belief anyway, right? So, no problem then.
Corporations -- All about Convenience

From the strategy page of a Corporate Marketing Agency:
Compliant behaviour is associated with conformity to institutional rules, and so, when people choose not to comply they stand answerable to consequences, which in an institutional or legal framework, could result in penalties such as fines, community service or legal action  (cf. Harvey and McCrohan, 1988; May, 2005). Thus, the word voluntary must be used with some caution in the context of social marketing frameworks. 
Social marketers should encourage compliance by using message appeals (in this context not simply message framing) to link the socially desired behaviour to something that is of value to the individual. These appeals must be packaged or presented in a way that enables the individual to see the direct benefit (value) of their action.  
This value could be something which avoids negative consequences or which are positive incentives to behave in a certain way (Staub, 1997; Atkin, 2001). It could also be an empathetic motive rather than a personal one (Taute and McQuitty, 2004; Sturmer, Snyder and Omoto, 2005). Message appeals can be either positive or negative in nature, and they can additionally be divided into informational (or rational) appeals versus emotional appeals.   

These are not unique strategy descriptions, but I was a little surprised to find them stated with such brazen openness.


Koch Unhidden in Michigan

No Ninja Points for the Koch Brothers in Michigan ... and it looks like they are dead on the mark with the info as well. 




Wednesday reader's view: Imposing values

Wednesday, October 8, 2014, 10:00 am
To the editor:
The billionaire Koch brothers are bent upon imposing their values on the United States in general, and Michigan in particular. They want, among other things, to eliminate taxes on big corporations, dismantle public education, destroy unions, weaken environmental regulations, eliminate the middle class and restrict voting rights.
To accomplish their goals, they make “campaign contributions” to Michigan legislators through nonprofit front organizations such as “Americans for Prosperity” and the tea party. In order to have exactly the kind of laws they want, they created the American Legislative Exchange Council. ALEC creates templates so their lawmaking “members” can fill in the blanks, more or less, while they appear to have written the laws themselves.
Rep. Kevin Cotter’s voting record is closely aligned with the Koch brothers’ goals. Cotter has voted to defund public education, fought health care reform, gutted unions by voting for Right to Work (for less), given tax breaks to corporations while raising taxes on the middle class and restricted voting rights.
These are Koch and Cotter values, not Michigan values. Your vote on Nov. 4 will decide whether the Koch brothers continue to influence our laws through Kevin Cotter, or whether laws will be based on Michigan values. I’ll be voting for Michigan values, and I hope you will too.
Timothy Caldwell
Mount Pleasant

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