Power To The People (c/o artbackwash.blogspot)
John T. Spencer is quickly becoming one of my favorite people to quote. Observe:
Whether it’s exponents or square roots, you can’t deny that it’s powers to the people. #andthathastocountforsomething
Classic stuff. He said this when I revealed my current unit, exponents, to Twitter. I’ve been more focused on pedagogy lately because that stuff matters. Further, I’m finding that, as I’m growing into this educator business, I see the benefits of sharing stuff more than keeping my practice to myself.
For instance, two weeks ago, I decided to give a reflection sheet to my students to end the unit on percents. I tried “journaling” and found myself with far too many papers and not enough feedback from students about their actual learning. Thus, I created a one-pager with questions from some of the discussions we’ve had in class. Then, I ended it with a metacognitive piece asking students what they thought they could do to improve the
By Katy Murphy
Tuesday, October 18th, 2011 at 11:42 am in budget, local control.
smf: At today’s abbreviated school board meeting - while the 99% were marching, the co-opted representatives of the 1% – in matching “Don’t Hold Us Back” T shirts - took all but two or three of the speakers cards.
If you need a score card, see smf’s 2¢ here.
Occupy LAUSD Aligns With Local Occupy Movement, Will March TodayBY LINDSAY WILLIAM-ROSS, LASIST.COM | HTTP://BIT.LY/NAAHOF | Bringing a Third Chair to the Bargaining Table
BY CHARLES KERCHNER - RESEARCH PROFESSOR, CLAREMONT GRADUATE UNIVERSITY IN THE HUFF POST |HTTP://HUFF.TO/QAWNMR |
10/18/11 06:02 PM ET - Sometimes the most interesting political commentary is found in the comics... or in the ads. Monday's editions of the Los Angeles Times, Daily News and La Opinion carried a full-page ad from a coalition of civic and community organizations aimed at influencing the negotiations between the Los Angeles Unified School District and its teachers, represented by United Teachers Los Angeles. The ad itself is pretty bland. "Don't hold us back," is not exactly a searing catch phrase. But the underlying issues are explosive: teacher evaluation, employment security, and school-site determination of work rules. Essentially, the ad's sponsors are drawing up a third chair to the bargaining table. They are attempting to influence both labor and management, but clearly they are in line with the positions and issues articulated bySuperintendent John Deasy last summer. The increasingly bold and strident parent and community voice, |
This letter is available as a pdf here.
October 18, 2011
Re: Reauthorization of ESEA
Dear Senator Harkin:
Your proposed revisions to the Elementary and Secondary Education Act show that you and the HELP Committee have listened to some of the concerns voiced by parents and others about the problems with No Child Left Behind. For example, we strongly support doing away with the adequate yearly progress measurement, and agree that requiring states to adopt unreliable test-based principal and teacher evaluation will only lead to an overemphasis on standardized tests and the further narrowing of the curriculum. Thank you from Parents Across America!
However, we believe that
The other day I posted a status on FB, “They are sucking the joy out of teaching!” You know who “they” are. I have taught for 27 years, and never have I felt this way. It’s not the new principal. It’s all the next “new” things that have been lobbed at me from one day to the next. After I duck one, or get hit, depending on what innovative thing they have come up with, something new is thrown at me.
I sat at our last meeting, completely overwhelmed, when our principal told us that she wanted us to use data to develop carousel workshops, every week, for reading and math. My first thought was, in order to gather this data to use every week, I would have to test the heck out of my kids. My second thought, when am I supposed to teach? Teach! Remember when we used to be able to do that? My
October 18, 2011 by rethinkingschoolsblog
A successful learner is a child who enters school emotionally and physically healthy; feels safe and is ready to learn; is connected to the school and the community; and has access to challenging and engaging academic programs. A successful learner is prepared for further education, work, and civic life. When schools implement this whole child approach to education, they make healthy development, student learning, and academic achievement cornerstones of comprehensive, systematic, and collaborative school improvement.
So, we need to talk. The adults at the school need to talk about how students are learning and what and how teachers are teaching. Effective professional learning communities (PLCs) provide opportunities for adults to
I was driving to my public library today to return some materials when I just happened to hear a few minutes of “Marketplace” on my local NPR affiliate. One of my favorite features, “Freakonomics Radio”, came on the air, and wouldn’t you know it, today they were dealing with education – specifically, teachers cheating on standardized tests. You can see the transcript or listen to the segment at the Marketplace website. Naturally, I took out my laptop and composed this blog post right away in the library.
There are some fine insights that can be applied to education when we listen to some of the more interesting voices in economics and business. I’m thinking not only of Freakonomics co-authors Stephen Dubner and Steven Levitt, but also Dan Ariely, Bob Sutton, Dan Pink, and Samuel Culbertson. However, on this occasion, I found Dubner and Levitt a bit off their game, along with host Kai Ryssdal.
What did they get wrong?
DUBNER: “…[T]he fact is if you’re a teacher and all of a sudden there’s a new incentive in place for you to not do poorly in your class, then teachers all of a sudden have the kind of incentive that students used to have. And so
Have you thought about the future? Public school teachers in Illinois are ineligible to receive social security. If the pension system is killed off, what will happen to the hundreds of thousands of people who do now or will rely on that system for retirement stability? They have no social security to fall back upon.
Then what? Then what will the Trib and the Civic Committee do?
You act as if public employees are the enemy of this state. We are not. We are representatives of
I spent a lot of time in New Orleans, and this is a tough thing to say, but let me be really honest. I think the best thing that happened to the education system in New Orleans was Hurricane Katrina. That education system was a disaster, and it took Hurricane Katrina to wake up the community to say that 'we have to do better.' And the progress that they've made in four years since the hurricane is unbelievable.
Many of the structural changes occurred because the hurricane essentially destroyed the old system, allowing the city to begin fresh. Charter schools, while a foundation of the system now, did not by themselves improve achievement. And finally, New Orleans has done the hard work of changing the school culture while embracing new instructional methods.
