Saturday, December 18, 2010

Queens Teacher: Just sayin'

Queens Teacher: Just sayin'

Just sayin'

by Queens Teacher
I wonder when people are going to get it...

It's not about "bad" teachers. It's about doing away with unions, job protections, and providing cheapest labor possible. That's the business world. Work people to death for a few years and make them miserable so they quit. No pensions to pay. No high salaries. Win-win situation for employers. In the business world, many people don't stay at a job more than five to ten years. There's a high turnover for most employees.

Deformers have no regard for public education because their kids go to elite private schools. They couldn't care less about the quality of education at our public schools. Since they are rich and brilliant, regular folks don't count. Therefore, they need to be in charge so they can privatize our schools. Remember, their kids are unaffected by any deform policies. Just look at how expensive private schools and charters are run. NOT at all the way they propose public schools should be run. Books and movies will be made on this educational deform.
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Seattle Public Schools community blog: So Much News - Here's a Round-Up

Seattle Public Schools community blog: So Much News - Here's a Round-Up

So Much News - Here's a Round-Up

by Melissa Westbrook
A big shout-out to all of you who first posted about these items. I thought them important enough to start a news thread.

A lawsuit has been filed against the district and Board directors over the Teach for America contract. Here's astory from KOMO-news. Steve Sundquist certainly clear about the fact that TFA recruits are getting certification at the SAME time they are first-year teachers. He doesn't give a single reason to be doing this and claims there is no "obligation" to hire TFA recruits. (Yes, the claim is true but we didn't go to this trouble and cost to NOT hire them.)

Then, from the Huffington Post, a story by the lawyer, John Affeldt, representing the plaintiffs in the California case in the 9th Circuit over this issue. He found that in a Senate appropriations bill, there had been an amendment slipped in to allow novice teachers to be called "highly qualified" and to concentrate their numbers in
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Queens Teacher: Mayor Has Too Much Power

Queens Teacher: Mayor Has Too Much Power

Mayor Has Too Much Power

by Queens Teacher
Appointment of Black proves that mayor has too much power

We cannot win for losing! And that is not to say that the fight to have Cathie Black rejected as city schools chancellor is far from being over. What is disappointing to me is the crying out, or lack thereof, by our elected officials.

As educated, elected officials, they if anyone should know the importance of an education. I did not say good, better or best — just an education. I do not believe our black, Hispanic and few whites and Asians are receiving an education. If they were, our young would not be doing the things they do. And you know what they are. If it were possible that an independent educational agency could do a study on mayoral control in this city, I wonder what it would show.

With the crazy way this appointment took place, could this have been a friendly wager between two friends? Traveling in the same circles makes petty conversation and ends up with a wager that will have grave
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Schools Matter: Most important youtube video ever

Schools Matter: Most important youtube video ever

Most important youtube video ever

by skrashen
This is a FANTASTIC video.

Some high points, thanks to Susan Ohanian:

Nothing to Hide and No Excuses: Video Evaluation to Raise Teacher
Quality

School Reform Foundation and Charter Teachers for the Future of America have a
plan for teacher evaluation. Every reform cliche is turned on its head here,
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Todd Farley: Standardized Testing: The New Wild West

Todd Farley: Standardized Testing: The New Wild West
Amazing
Inspiring
Funny
Scary
Hot
Crazy
Important
Weird
Read More: Education Reform , No Child Left Behind , Standardized Testing , Education News

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Like the maddeningly successful author Diane Ravitch, I, too, have changed my mind about No Child Left Behind. Unlike the estimable Ravitch, however -- whose recent bestseller argues in exhausting detail against the very accountability measures that Ravitch long championed -- in the great testing debate I've gone from "con" to "pro."

Since 1994, when I first got hired as a lowly temp for measly wages to spend mere seconds glancing at and scoring standardized tests, until the release of my non‐bestselling book last fall, I had steadfastly believed that large‐scale assessment was a lame measure of student learning that really only benefitted the multi‐national corporations paid millions upon millions upon millions of dollars to write and score the tests. I began to see the error of my ways last Thanksgiving, however, just as soon as my huge son popped from his mother's womb, keening and wailing, demanding massive amounts of food, a closet full of clothing, and the assistance of various costly household staff (baby‐sitter, music teacher, test‐prep tutor,

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From the Intellectual center of CA:RALPH BAILEY: On charter schools, educators missing the big ... - Bakersfield.com

RALPH BAILEY: On charter schools, educators missing the big ... - Bakersfield.com

RALPH BAILEY: On charter schools, educators missing the big picture

BY RALPH BAILEY, Contributing columnist
rbailey@bakersfield.com | Saturday, Dec 18 2010 12:00 PM

Last Updated Saturday, Dec 18 2010 12:00 PM

We're considered to be one of the "dumbest" counties in the state, with graduation and dropout rates that would make "The Dead End Kids" look like Rhodes scholars and still many educators remain blind to the goal and vital role charter schools play in the future of our educational system.

It happened again Tuesday when the Kern County Board of Education said no to this newfangled idea and to folks in McFarland. However, logistics more than ideology more than likely failed folks in the north county and their bid for an online charter school.

And now Barbara Grimm-Marshall and the folks out at Grimmway Farms must wait and hope they've answered all the questions necessary to get their academy off the ground in Arvin.

While educators continue to pooh-pooh the idea of charter schools, many refuse to see the forest and continue to concentrate solely on test scores and money.

"What a lot of people fail to recognize is charter schools represent the

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4LAKids - some of the news that doesn't fit: CARROT FOR CHANGING TEACHER EVALUATIONS: Will districts respond to State Board's incentives?

4LAKids - some of the news that doesn't fit: CARROT FOR CHANGING TEACHER EVALUATIONS: Will districts respond to State Board's incentives?
THE YEAR 2010: High Expectations vs Wishful Thinking Themes in the News for the week of Dec. 13-17, 2010 By UCLA IDEA | http://bit.ly/glP9wy 12-17-2010 - Less money and diminished resources. Fewer instructional days. Summer school and after-school programs eliminated. Libraries and some school campuses ...
CARROT FOR CHANGING TEACHER EVALUATIONS: Will districts respond to State Board's incentives? By John Fensterwald - Educated Guess | http://bit.ly/fgHNSK Posted on 12/17/10 • Last month, State Board of Education President Ted Mitchell couldn’t get any votes for his plan to encourage districts to change the way they evaluate teachers and ...
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Quote of the Day « Student Activism

Quote of the Day « Student Activism

Quote of the Day

by Angus Johnston

The crops are all in and the peaches are rottening,
The oranges are piled in their creosote dumps;
They’re flying them back to the Mexican border
They’ll pay all their money to wade back again.

Goodbye to my Juan, goodbye, Rosalita,
Adios mis amigos, Jesus y Maria;
You won’t have a name when you ride the big airplane,
All they will call you will be “deportees.”

My father’s own father, he waded that river,
They took all the money he made in his life;
My brothers and sisters came working the fruit fields

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Teacher Effectiveness More Than A Number

Teacher Effectiveness More Than A Number

Teacher Effectiveness More Than A Number

Of course it is. How many of you practicing teachers have you seen people come in with splendid credentials who did not work out in the classroom? I recall us hiring a teacher with a Harvard undergrad and a Brown graduate degree who lasted one year with us. He was not an organized person and

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Report Card on School Dropouts: Progress Made; Challenges Ahead | The Defenders Online | A Civil Rights Blog

Report Card on School Dropouts: Progress Made; Challenges Ahead | The Defenders Online | A Civil Rights Blog

Report Card on School Dropouts: Progress Made; Challenges Ahead

Posted By The Editors | December 15th, 2010 | Category: Education | No Comments » Print This Post Print This Post

By The Editors

In the last decade, a coalition of public school educators, parents and civic activists across the country have charted substantial progress in deterring tens of thousands of students from dropping out of high school, according to a newly-published study.

Among other things, that produced 120,000 more high school graduates in 2008 than in 2001 (holding population constant) – a result fueled by overall graduation-rate increases in 29 states and significant graduation-rate increases among African-American, Latino-American and Native-American pupils.

It also resulted in the closing of more than 200 “dropout factories” – high schools that fail to graduate 40 percent or more of their students, giving the 400,000 students who would have attended them a better chance to earn a diploma.

These successes in pushing the national high school graduation rate from 72 percent in 2001 to 75 percent in 2008 show that the U.S. “is turning a corner on meeting the high school dropout epidemic,” write Colin and Alma Powell in introducing the report, Building a Grad Nation: Progress and Challenge in Ending the High School Dropout Epidemic.

The detailed, 88-page document is the latest in a series of studies from the Powell’s organization, America’s Promise Alliance, which has sought to build a broad-based coalition to eliminate the dropout crisis of American public high schools. Today, according to the report, more than a million public high

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DFER Midwest Director Fined « DFER Watch

DFER Midwest Director Fined « DFER Watch

DFER Midwest Director Fined

by kennethlibby
On Monday, DFER Midwest region director Rodney Hubbard was fined $322,000 by the Mississippi Ethics Commission for various violations relating to financial accounting and reporting during his 2008 campaign for a state Senate seat. The full text of the commission’s findings is available here. One section demands a bit of attention. From page 3: Rex Sinquefeld is … Read more
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Celebrating the Birth of a Child… Every Child | Lefty Parent

Celebrating the Birth of a Child… Every Child | Lefty Parent

Celebrating the Birth of a Child… Every Child

by Cooper Zale

It’s a rainy “winter” day (currently a bone-chilling 57f) here in the San Fernando Valley of Los Angeles as I sit cozily in my little Perks wi-fi cafe and look out the window at the gray sky and the drops of water making little splashes on the pavement of the strip-mall parking lot full of glistening wet cars. The owner Gayle has told her staff to regale their customers with a satellite radio channel that plays all Christmas songs all the time. Though I enjoy a lot of the songs (some bringing back fond memories

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Can Portland's Roosevelt High turn itself around? New focus on great teaching raises hopes | OregonLive.com

Can Portland's Roosevelt High turn itself around? New focus on great teaching raises hopes | OregonLive.com

Can Portland's Roosevelt High turn itself around? New focus on great teaching raises hopes

Published: Saturday, December 18, 2010, 10:15 AM
Betsy Hammond, The Oregonian By Betsy Hammond, The Oregonian

RoosefreshEnglish.jpgView full sizeMotoya Nakamura/ The OregonianRoosevelt High English teacher Jacque Dixon helps freshmen Mackenzie Castro (left) and Courtney Zerkel write poems full of metaphors as a holiday gift for someone they care about. Nine in 10 freshmen are passing English this year, an improvement from last fall, after the school doubled time spent teaching math and English and worked to improve teaching techniques.
In a little-traveled stretch of North Portland, educators at Roosevelt Highhave set out to answer an audacious question posed by the Obama administration: Given a big injection of money and a few new requirements, can the nation's very worst high schools pull off a turnaround in just three years?

The odds are stacked against them. A new study that tracked 2,000 low-performing elementary and middle schools found less than 1 percent transformed into above-average schools within five years. And, as a $2 billion Gates Foundation initiative proved, high schools' problems are more intractable than those for younger students.

All of which makes the newfound energy and hope at Roosevelt more noteworthy: Teachers say they're teaching better, students agree,
Roosevelt High by the numbers
700 enrollment
77% qualify for subsidized school meals
31% Latino
30% white
23% African American
9% Asian
4% Native American
$7.7 million federal turnaround grant
45% or more Class of 2009 dropout rate
40% sophomores reading at grade level, spring 2010 (state average, 77%)
32% sophomores doing math at grade level, spring 2010 (state average, 74%)
89% freshmen who got a C or better in English first quarter, up from 81% last year
80% freshmen who got a C or better in math first quarter, compared with 69% who got a C or better yearlong last year
30% decline in behavior referrals compared with first quarter last year
About 87% Students who attended school 90 percent of the time first quarter (goal was 90%)
About 30% Students earning a C or better in every class first quarter (goal was 90%)
Sources: Roosevelt High, Oregon Department of Education
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