Web Roundup: KIPP-Union War, Eli Broad Smackdown, Madoff and AIG Edu-Connections, SUMO Math

I'm too zonked to put two thoughts together, but there's plenty of good reads to share from around the web:

• KIPP and teachers union conflict enters a new stage: Two NYC KIPP schools with union affiliations are talking quitting the UFT, while some teachers at the KIPP AMP schools that are moving to join the UFT are having second thoughts. Elizabeth Green tells the story at Gotham Schools. Eduwonk Andrew Rotherham writes more at Total War? David and Goliath? Dana Goldstein at the American Prospect adds more, and promises a feature article about it later this week.
• Not one union contract, but a portfolio of contracts for differing local contexts: Another Rotherham article, an op-ed in the March 2008 NYTimes, entertains an idea beyond one-size-fits-all unionization.
• UFT President Randi Weingarten responds to Obama's first major education speech we discussed last week in The President's Education Agenda. Is she selling out to the reformers edupreneurs, or constructively engaging them?
• What do KIPP students lose when they make the much-touted gains from their hyper-regimented lives? Teacher in a Strange Land gives an account based on her first-hand observations in Loose Talk and Charter Schools.
• If you got a kick out of Jon Stewart's smackdown of CNBC charlatans Rick Santelli and Jim Cramer, you'll love Michael Klonsky's dust-up with Billionaire Edupreneur Eli Broad: Klonsky exposed some inconvenient truths about Broad's role in helping shape AIG's "current disastrous policies" (how come "disastrous" seems an understatement here?), and Broad's communications secretary took umbrage and issued denials. Michael's response probably made her wish she'd taken a golden parachute to some golden silence instead. It's a piece of citizen journalism that would do Stewart proud.
• Michael also deconstructs the recent study touting charters over traditional public schools in "Another Day, Another Study on Charters."
• Michelle Rhee promises she can afford to pay teachers six-figures for opting out of their union contracts because she's got "philanthropic backers." But what happens now that those "philanthropists" are scaling back their donations due to their recession-shrunk pockets?
• What does Bernie Madoff have to teach us about the "accountability" education reformers? Dr. Walter Stroup gives us four cautionary arguments about the high-stakes testing fetish. M u s t  r e a d.
• Why is it not okay to reveal the AIG bonus recipients' names, when it was okay to reveal teacher salaries, by name, online in Chicago? Fred Klonsky nails the damning double-standard in "AIG: Name the Schmucks!"
• "We teach them to think; we don't want to explain anything," says the founder of the Russian School of Mathematics - that teaches algebra . . . to five-year-olds. That's SUMO ("shut up and move over") instruction I can get behind.

Enjoy. I'm going to bed.

Image by williac on Flickr.