Mayor Mike Bloomberg of NYC with Mayor Boris Johnson of London
This afternoon, I posted the following joke on my Facebook:
If school was in session, Bloomberg wouldn’t close schools. Around lunchtime, he’d say, “Let them have shakes.”
I jest. Well, for the most part. Surprisingly, there was no announcement from our mayor on anything. NYC Educator might quip here that he’s probably having lunch somewhere in Bermuda, to which I’d laugh with my mouth agape. Then again, this earthquake business struck me in more ways than one. While I’m able to find a little levity in earth-shaking situations where no one really gets hurt, the earthquake came right after another jarring moment for me. After cleaning every crevice of my bathroom, I looked in my fiancee’s eyes and said, “I
SB 547 improves on California's current yardstick for measuring improvement in schools in important ways.
SB 547, which has passed the Senate, would use test scores as one of the major yardsticks for improving California schools, but it would also add other important factors including graduation rates. Shown here: Berkeley High School in Berkeley, Calif. (Robert Durell/ For The Times)
California's system for measuring improvement in schools was always better than the federal government's, and a bill by state Senate leader Darrell Steinberg (D-Sacramento) would enhance it in some long-overdue ways, perhaps providing a national model for school accountability.
SB 547, which has passed the Senate and deserves to become law, would still use test scores as one of the major yardsticks for improving schools, but it would add other important factors: graduation rates and the readying of students for college or careers.If implemented correctly, the bill also couldencourage schools to shift away from what has become an overemphasis on test-oriented "drill and kill" in basic subjects.
The lack of emphasis on dropout rates has been the shame of school accountability systems. The single-minded focus on testing actually gives schools an incentive to encourage their
I'm far too old and crabby to go on blogging late every evening. If I'm not in bed by nine, there's hell to pay at five in the morning. Three things:
1. @TFTeacher is going to be talking to Stephen Krashen Wednesday at 3:30 (Eastern? I forget) on BTR. Follow the link and listen on your computer thingy. Krashen is one of the smartest, funniest guys in academia, and he's also been out of the tower and in the trenches, fighting the good fight for over 100 years. Ok, I exaggerated the time frame. I'm going to steal the interview and embed it here for those of you can't make it in the middle of the day. That way I can basically claim the glory of the interview for myself.
The thing I like about Krashen is that he's articulate on the impact of poverty, the importance of libraries, and real take-aways from PISA and TIMSS, which everyone is always tut-tutting over. Arne Duncan has never once,
Mayor Kevin Johnson announced Tuesday at his weekly press conference that the Third Grade Reading Campaign to bring up Sacramento’s standard reading level will kick off Wednesday with a community resource fair and a press conference.
Sacramento County third grade reading proficiency rates are well below California standards, according to Stand Up, a nonprofit education program that is a featured initiative of Johnson. Statewide, 44 percent of third graders are reading at grade level, while Sacramento County is at 37 percent, based on the 2011 education statistics.
“When we think about Sacramento, our literacy rates are not what they need to be. We have far too many of our
I’m with you on this one, Fred. What if you pick a legislator to call each Tuesday? Provide the phone number, while you’re at it. I think we should also call the Editor in Chief at the Tribune, whose education coverage lately is an extension of the mayor’s pr dept.
Representative Kevin A. McCarthy (D) – Previous General Assembly (96th)
37th District
Springfield Office:
271-S Stratton Office Building
Springfield, IL 62706
(217) 782-3316
(217) 789-6250 FAX
District Office:
8951 W. 151st St.
Orland Park, IL 60462
(708) 226-1999
(708) 226-9068 FAX
Cook County
Struggling to hang on to its businesses, sports teams and even the lives of its young children, Oakland is now set to lose the daily newspaper that bears its name. In November, the Oakland Tribune, founded 137 years ago, will become the East Bay Tribune, the Bay Area News Group announced Tuesday. The group described the name change as a "rebranding." The Fremont Argus, the Alameda Times-Star, the Hayward Daily Review and the West County Times — which are also owned by BANG — will also be called the East Bay Tribune. As part of the rebranding, the Contra Costa Times, the Valley Times, the San Ramon Valley Times, the Tri-Valley Herald, the San Joaquin Herald and the East County Times will simply be called The Times. The San Mateo Times "will be branded under the San Jose Mercury News[...]
(This is part one of a four-part series on the ethics and political theory of Ayn Rand, written exclusively for The Daily Censored, by Dr. Robert Abele, professor of philosophy at Diablo Valley College in the San Francisco Bay Area.)
Ayn Rand has become the darling of both neoliberals and, unfortunately, many young people today. The latter phenomenon has been due in large part to the intense promotion of her writings by the well-organized and well-funded Ayn Rand Institute.
Re: "Warning as children shun books in favour of Facebook," August 22
Since 1840, newspapers have been reporting on the decline of literacy among young people. It wasn't true 170 years ago, and there is no reason to believe it is true now.
The Telegraph notes that pleasure reading declines as children get older. This has been reported in every study of this kind ever done and there is widespread agreement among scholars that increasing demands of school play a large role.
The Telegraph reports that that technology-based reading is more popular. This is not a cause for alarm. My
The plaintiffs in the Lobato v. State school funding lawsuit ended presentation of their case with another story of a struggling school district, just hours before lawyers for the state will begin presenting their case with testimony from Lt. Gov. Joe Garcia.
Mapleton Superintendent Charlotte Ciancio was the final witness presented by the plaintiff-intervenors in the case, a group of parents from four districts, including Greeley, Mapleton, Rocky Ford and Sheridan. The districts aren’t plaintiffs.
The larger original group of plaintiffs in the case includes parents and several school districts, including Aurora and Jefferson County. Both sets of plaintiffs share the central claim that the state’s school funding system
Did you know it was illegal for teachers to negotiate with school boards over the new “hand books” districts are replacing union contracts with?
In the big picture, those on the front lines in classrooms around our state apparently don’t know enough about teaching to help guide dictatorial school boards to do the right thing and improve education.
If parents weren’t concerned about the ins and outs of collective bargaining, then maybe they should be real concerned about our schools being taken over by politicians and special interests who’ll soon be stuffing their
Two years after IEA Executive Director Aurdrey Soglin led the team that proposed legislation that made linking teacher performance reviews and evaluation to student performance (legislation that was passed by the General Assembly) a mandatory part of local bargaining, the leadership is getting around to explaining it to the membership.
And they’re working to consolidate local leaders around Senate Bill 7, the bill that took away seniority and tenure rights from teachers in Illinois.
Part of the problem is that local leaders are heading into collective bargaining with no clue about how this sellout by the state leadership is going to impact their negotiations.
The other part of the problem is that many members are just now realizing what our leadership has done, and
nytimes.com - New York State education officials released a new set of graduation statistics on Monday that show fewer than half of students in the state are leaving high school prepared for college and well-pay...
mvgazette.com - By MIKE SECCOMBEProf. Henry Louis Gates: “What happened to our people?” Since 1968, the black middle class in America has quadrupled, Henry Louis (Skip) Gates told a packed house at the Edgartown W...
nydailynews.com - Martin Shields/Getty As the Bloomberg Administration increases the stakes on standardized tests, reports that teachers and administrators are cheating on exams has tripled, according to city data. ...
blogs.edweek.org - It is a truism that when an attorney does not have the evidence, he or she argues the law. When lawyers do not have the facts or the law on their side, they tell a good story. Steve Brill's new boo...
icehousegang.com - As Hubert Humphrey might have said, the Ice House Gang is just pleased as punch to give a shout-out to a couple members whose writing dazzled in The New York Times this past Sunday. That is, our ow...
miller-mccune.com - Opinion: The widening circle of cheating scandals on standardized tests should fuel the movement to reduce the stakes these exams have on public education in the U.S.As the list of states and citie...
garyrubinstein.teachforus.org - A few weeks ago, I wrote about how I did my own analysis of the 1997 study which is always quoted by Rhee about how 3 effective teachers in a row vs. 3 ineffective teachers in a row is life changin...
educationgadfly.net - It’s silly season again, and I’m not referring to the Republican primaries. No, I’m thinking about the all-out battle for proponents and opponents of “reform” to stick a nasty label on the other si...
nytimes.com - Annual allegations of test-tampering and grade-changing by educators have more than tripled since Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg took control of New York City’s school system, outpacing a broader incre...
tpmmuckraker.talkingpointsmemo.com - Attorney General Eric Holder is sending poll watchers into a Mississippi county where white voters were previously found to have been intimidated by a Democratic official who is African-American.Th...
blog.angryasianman.com - Remember that story out of Baltimore about the Filipina nurses who were fired for speaking Tagalog? Corina Capunitan-Yap, Anna Rowena Rosales, Jazziel Granada and Hachelle Natano said they were fir...
preaprez.wordpress.com - Speaker Michael Madigan, Chairman of the Illinois Democratic Party and teacher pension killer. Two weeks before Labor Day and I’m back at work. Friday was an in-service Institute Day. Yesterday the...
hispanicallyspeakingnews.com - Published at 4:45 pm, August 23, 2011 Photo Credits: Uribe and the Wiretapping Scandal The Washington Post published over the weekend a very comprehensive article providing significant information ...
democraticunderground.com - Source: ReutersLabor power AFL-CIO to form super PAC to engage beyond unions By Molly O'Toole Molly O'toole – 21 mins agoWASHINGTON (Reuters) – Powerful labor group AFL-CIO is forming a super PAC t...
dnainfo.com - MANHATTAN— Actor Ryan Gosling played the role of real-life superhero while helping break up a street fight in Astor Place.The Academy Award-nominated star is purportedly seen in a video intervening...
theatlanticwire.com - J.K. Rowling will be making money off of the Harry Potter books until the 23rd-century thanks to the twisted history of intellectual property law in the United States. Unfamiliar with how and why c...
blog.angryasianman.com - Yahoo! Movies just dropped the new teaser trailer for The Lady, the upcoming movie biopic based on the life of Burmese democracy leader, political prisoner and Nobel Peace Prize winner Aung San Suu...
nytimes.com - Even before Libyan rebels could take full control of Tripoli, Foreign Minister Franco Frattini of Italy said on state television Monday that the Italian oil company Eni “will have a No. 1 role in t...
nypost.com - Department of Education officials are attempting to whitewash missteps that allowed students to stew inside a toxic Bronx school for months, parents charged yesterday.Despite finding levels of the ...
mediaite.com - video Since news of the Virginia earthquake felt along the Eastern Seaboard broke earlier today, one thing that’s the media has watched rather closely is the safety and integrity of the North Anna ...
nytimes.com - ALBANY — The Cuomo administration is continuing to pursue a two-year-old disciplinary case against Jeffrey Monsour, a state employee at the Office for People With Developmental Disabilities who has...
washingtonpost.com - RICHMOND, Va. — Gov. Bob McDonnell has appointed Laura W. Fornash as Virginia’s new secretary of education. McDonnell’s office announced Fornash’s appointment Tuesday. Fornash had been interim secr...
northjersey.com - TRENTON -- Governor Christie signed legislation Monday that will make it a crime to posses, manufacture or sell "bath salts," a designer drug that was being sold in convenience stores, gas stations...
dailymail.co.uk - By Daniel BatesLast updated at 11:15 PM on 11th April 2011It was supposed to be a generous gift to finally sort out some of the nation’s worst performing schools.But six months after Mark Zuckerber...
nypost.com - Department of Education officials are attempting to whitewash missteps that allowed students to stew inside a toxic Bronx school for months, parents charged yesterday.Despite finding levels of the ...
Ayn Rand has become the darling of both neoliberals and, unfortunately, many young people today. The latter phenomenon has been due in large part to the intense promotion of her writings by the well-organized and well-funded Ayn Rand Institute. 
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