Over the past several months, Claudio Sanchez – NPR’s longtime education reporter – has been hard at work assembling a set of stories about dropouts that's going to run all week. As long a project as he’s ever worked on, Sanchez’s quintet of segments comes out of the economic reporting that NPR has already been doing on "Planet Money" – stories that focus on the real-world impact of the recession. In five segments ranging from five to seven minutes each, Sanchez wanted to look at those who were most likely to have been laid off first (or never employed in the first place), and to be unemployed longest (unless jail counts as a form of employment these
Roslyn M. Brock, chairwoman of the NAACP, took on recent voting laws, the "tea party" and the nation’s troubled economic, health and education systems in her keynote address Sunday at the group’s 102nd annual convention in Los Angeles.
“After decades of progress to open up access and make it easier for all Americans to vote, state legislatures in Wisconsin, Ohio, Kansas and Florida are putting into place a web of suppressive and restrictive laws to make it harder, if not impossible, for many to vote,” Brock said, according to a transcript of the address provided by the National Assn. for the Advancement of Colored People.
“We must redouble our efforts to reverse this pernicious trend,” she said.
Brock later said that “the country is on the precipice of economic collapse” and targeted tea party Republicans
A few days ago, I was chatting with a new manicurist at the beauty salon about my job. (This is a Miss Eyre post, by the way. I'm sure NYC Educator's nails are always very nice, though, too.) I said that I wasn't teaching summer school, though summer
Very little. But a few things.
There are now on the New Action website Bronx high school teacher responses to questions about howtrustworthy, competent, supportive, and collaborative our principals are. Just looking at them, three things stand out:
1. Raw scores. Some principals consistently hit very high, some high, some are very low, and some low. It could be argued that these are just the measure of how likable a principal is, but I would argue otherwise. OTOH, I would not use these numbers to distinguish between an 8.1 and a 7.7 principal – obviously the scale is somewhat personal and somewhat school-based.
Consistently at the top: Gary Eisinger, Bronx Academy HS (being closed!); Rex Bobbish, the Cinema School; Nancy Mann, Fannie Lou Hamer Freedom HS; Anthony Harris, Crotona Academy HS; Maria Herrera,
OUT OF THE BOX DOLL PROJECT
WHERE: THE DEPARTMENT OF EDUCATION. IN THE PLAZA ALONG MARYLAND AVENUE BY THE BOG SCHOOL BELL
DATE: WEDNESDAY July 27th
TIME: 12:00-2:00
The purpose of this event is to call attention to educators, students, parents and community members who have been facing increasing restrictions on their rights to a meaningful and democratic education due to policies over the last ten years going back to No Child Left Behind.
While it is students, teachers, and parents who have the greatest stake in the decisions being made in educational policy, they have the least voice and visibility. The purpose of the Out of the Box Doll project is to create a visible public space for these grass roots stake holders, usually marginalized from the decision making, to be seen and heard. The dolls in boxes are a visual representation of a collective stand in opposition to
After reading a previous post, I’m not sure I agree with the distinction between progressive and populist with regards to the reform movement. I don’t see myself as either populist, if populism means class warfare and an outright rejection of all “the elite.” We’re in a dangerous place when we define ourselves by being different than others (which I suppose I’m doing right now) and attempt, even for a moment, to speak for “the people.”
I can’t speak for the oppressed – not loudly at least. I’m still learning from my students, trying to understand their culture and trying to make sense out of our community. If populism means attempting to speak “for the people” rather than “alongside the people,” that’s not where I want to be.
I can’t call myself progressive, either. Political progressivism and the belief in a utopian paradise got us into two world wars. If we define progressive educationally, I’m still a skeptic. Yes, it’s the tradition of Dewey and authenticity, but it’s progressive education had its share of “white man’s burden” and well-intentioned
there are many terrific diaries here the past few days, and now. There is thoughtful commentary, some of it in response to diaries that perhaps are not that well crafted, but were sufficiently cogent to provoke a thoughtful response.
I wish I could read them.
I cannot.
It is not just that I am tired from my time volunteering in Wise, about which this year I wrote only one diary.
It is also that this week is the Save Our Schools March and National Call to Action. As some know, I am on the executive committee. I will be picking people up at airports. There is a film festival starting tomorrow evening (and click on my user name to find the diary about that). I need to ask people to come prepared for extreme heat - it could be 99 degrees next Saturday when we gather at the Ellipse. I will be asking for support, sharing the thoughts of others, asking for money - the extreme heat will mean we need to spend money to make sure w
My local newspaper had a bold headline today that read, “Teachers’ Perk Costing the District Millions”. The story went on to explain that unlike many districts, the teachers here contributed only a small amount of their pay towards their pension. In many districts teachers contribute around 10% of their pay to their pension fund.
There is a good reason why teachers in this district don’t contribute much to their pension fund. Several years ago, rather than give teachers a certain raise in pay, the school district opted to pay the teacher portion of the pension payment. The district concluded they would save more money by covering the teachers’ pension contribution instead of giving the teachers a raise.
I don’t understand how the pension payment can be considered a “perk”, since it was a substitute for a pay
Jonah Edelman
It was Horace Mann and his lesser known comrades in the 1830s that launched the United States into the mode of top-down education “reform” initiatives by the meritocratic and entrepreneurial elite. The legacy today is perhaps our continuing and stubbornly OSFA (one size fits all) public school system. Frederick Taylor carried that torch in the late 19th Century applying his “Scientific Management” principles to public schools. His legacy is timed classes, bells and forms in triplicate. John Dewey continued the “reform” tradition in the early 20th
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