Saturday, September 3, 2011

by rss@dailykos.com (teacherken)

this is a reposting of a diary from more than 4 years ago that I just encountered while looking for something else I wrote about the same time. I found value in rereading it and thought it might speak to some here, especially at a time when the level of internal conflict seems fairly intense. Make of it what you will

o, this is not a GBCW posting, let’s be clear about that. And the title is not directed specifically at dailykos, although this site is included in its intent. So if you reading this because you want to see how I am going to flame the site or the people here, or justify my taking my ball and going home, you can stop reading right now.

Similarly if what you expect is that I will now offer claims of moral or intellectual or spiritual superiority, and that

School Tech Connect: More Chicago Nonsense

School Tech Connect: More Chicago Nonsense:

More Chicago Nonsense

by noreply@blogger.com (Tim)

He Who Raises The Bar

I know there are people for whom the Common Core Standards are the ultimate in fantastic wonderfulness--in my experience, when a new curriculum comes along, there are any number of people not teaching it who are ecstatic about it. I've long been predicting that the adoption of the CCS will have zero impact on the nation's achievement profile because it has been pushed by people who are dishonest about the importance of the other factors that affect achievement.

Nevertheless, this is a very good piece. It's basically about the

How Will We Ever Know If They're Good?

by noreply@blogger.com (Tim)

Good for DePaul.

The question is, if DePaul education graduates go to work in Chicago Public Schools, how will Jim Crown ever assess their quality? As everyone knows, teacher quality-- particularly in urban poverty centers-- is determined by ACT scores. It is further enhanced by teacher poverty-in-retirement.

DePaul's decision will make it utterly impossible for humans to tell if a teacher is effective--- unless there is a convoluted algorithm available to make these kinds of judgments for us.

From the archives:

Back to school: How parent involvement affects student achievement (At a glance)

Back to school: How parent involvement affects student achievement (At a glance):

Back to school: How parent involvement affects student achievement (At a glance)

It may be one of the least controversial statements in American education: Parent involvement can make a difference in a child’s education. The conflict can come, though, on how to define that involvement. Do all the PTA meetings, take-home flyers and Back to School nights actually generate increases in student achievement? The Center for Public Education examined the research and found that creating a partnership between parents and schools focused on academics truly does have significant impact on student achievement.

The six types of parent involvement

Joyce Epstein of the Johns Hopkins University, Center on School, Family and Community Partnerships, one of the nation’s leading experts on parent involvement, divided school parent involvement programs into six broad categories:

Parenting, in which schools help families with their parenting skills by providing information on children’s developmental stages and offering advice on learning-friendly home environments;
Communicating, or working to educate families about their child’s progress and school services and providing opportunities for parents to communicate with the school;
Volunteering, which ranges from offering opportunities for parents to visit their child’s school to finding ways to recruit and train them to work in the school or classroom;
Learning at home, in which schools and educators share ideas to promote at-home learning through high expectations and strategies so parents can monitor and help with homework.
Decision-making, in which schools include families as partners in school organizations, advisory panels, and similar committees.
Community collaboration, a two-way outreach strategy in which community or business groups are involved in education and schools encourage family participation in the community.

Who is involved?

National survey data from

Obama's White House is a Harvard Frat House - HUMAN EVENTS

Obama's White House is a Harvard Frat House - HUMAN EVENTS:

Obama's White House is a Harvard Frat House

by Michael Prell

09/03/2011

34
Comments

William F. Buckley famously said “I would rather be governed by the first 2,000 names in the Boston phone book than by the 2,000 members of the faculty of Harvard University.”

By contrast, President Obama would rather America be governed by the faculty of Harvard University than by the first 2,000 people in any American phone book. Least of all; the business pages.

Case in point: the President’s much-anticipated “jobs plan.”

While most Americans struggle to find a job, let alone take a vacation, President Obama crafted his

Support UCI 19 « occupy california

Support UCI 19 « occupy california:

Support UCI 19

by *

from reclaimuc:

http://www.facebook.com/event.php?eid=213859005334089

On February 24, 2010, 17 UCI students and community supporters sat in outside Chancellor Drake’s office, issuing demands for workers rights on campus, increased access for underrepresented students, and amnesty for the Irvine 11. They were quickly arrested and evicted from the building by dozens of police without a single administrator offering to hear their demands.

Nine months later, those 17, along with 2 students who were outside Aldrich Hall during the action, received criminal charges by mail. After months of hearings and attempts at reaching a plea, the UCI 19 are headed to

School Tech Connect: Everyone Has A Price

School Tech Connect: Everyone Has A Price:

Everyone Has A Price

by noreply@blogger.com (Tim)

And in some Chicago Public Schools, it's pretty low.

So many questions. Are all of the schools where the teachers have no self esteem going to get the $150k? Or is it just a limited bribe pot for union busting? Where's it coming from? If it doesn't materialize, or if the teachers can't spend it as freely as they were told, how will they grieve that? When they see that their lump-sum payment is basically invisible on their paychecks, will they be happy with that?

This whole business of tacking 90 minutes onto the day without even having a plan for what they're going to do with the 90 minutes--- it's absurd.

And did that principal seriously suggest that spending $150k on iPads would be

Balere Charter Academy of Party Science? - Fred Grimm - MiamiHerald.com

Balere Charter Academy of Party Science? - Fred Grimm - MiamiHerald.com:

Balere Charter Academy of Party Science?

BY FRED GRIMM

FGRIMM@MIAMIHERALD.COM

Strip away the bureaucratic constraints suffered by conventional public schools.

Strip away most of the clothes.

And then, as they say down at the Balere Language Academy charter school, “push it to da limmit.”

Balere has certainly pushed the notion of charter schools beyond the usual limits. It requires no more than a cursory examination of material promoting Labor Day doings at the Cutler Ridge kindergarten-through-middle charter to realize no conventional public school would dare attempt this novel, after hours approach to education.

But a brave innovator associated with Balere, with help from those noted educational think tanks Hygh Lyfe Entertainment and Snake Eye Promotions, has created a kind of night school, reaching out to a segment of the community long ignored by traditional educators. “All hustlers, ballers and divas roll out.” (College students get in for half-price. Women are admitted free “B4 12.”)

The school had previously been the venue for at least two other notable all-nighters, billed as the

Daily Kos: Cheating scandals spreading to LA-area charter schools

Daily Kos: Cheating scandals spreading to LA-area charter schools:

Cheating scandals spreading to LA-area charter schools

bySteve SingiserforDaily Kos Labor

8 4

PERMALINK	14 COMMENTS

In this year of pervasive teacher-bashing and general assaults on public education, two things have generally been hailed by "reform" advocates as the cure for all schooling ills: charter schools and basing just about everything on "performance," a term defined (of course) solely by high-stakes testing.

In southern California this week, where statewide test results for the 2010-2011 school year were released, charter schools and high-stakes testing came together to create a story which underscored exactly how neither of these "reform" planks are necessarily a silver bullet for education:

By most measures, Green Dot Public Schools, a well-regarded group of a dozen public charter schools in Greater Los Angeles, had a great year on test scores.
But that success has been tempered by a black spot: One of its high schools, Animo Leadership - which has an Inglewood address but is chartered by the Lennox School District - was disqualified from receiving an official Academic

Big Education Ape: 9-3-11 PM Charter School Raunchy Adult Club NO Pole Tax Edition

Big Education Ape: Ed News Now:

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In Honor of Teachers

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In Honor of Teachers

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Daily Kos: In Honor of Teachers

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Parents Say South Florida Charter School Morphs Into Raunchy Adult Club At Night

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The 40% solution? NYT editors parrot the Billionaire Boys Club and ignore the research

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FWCS signs make the grade | The Journal Gazette

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In Honor of Teachers

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Julio Casas, Cuban defense minister and longtime revolutionary, dies of heart failure

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Obama Administration Abandons Stricter Air-Quality Rules

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Saturday, September 3, 2011

Obama's White House is a Harvard Frat House

Balere Charter Academy of Party Science?

BY FRED GRIMM

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