The Answer Sheet - School Survival Guide for parents (and everyone else). - The Washington Post:
Why people look down on teachers
The Chicago teachers strike has raised a lot of passions about teachers and their unions, the issue taken up here by Corey Robin, an associate professor of political science at Brooklyn College and the CUNY Graduate Center. Read full article >> [image: Add to Facebook] [image: Add to Twitter] [image: Add to Reddit] [image: Add to StumbleUpon]
The ‘human touch’ in computer-based learning
Here’s an interesting look at research on the impact of technology. This was written by cognitive scientist Daniel Willingham, professor and director of graduate studies in psychology at the University of Virginia and author of “Why Don’t Students Like School?” His newly published book is “When Can You Trust The Experts? How to tell good science from bad in education.” This appeared on his Science and Education blog. Read full article >> [image: Add to Facebook] [image: Add to Twitter] [image: Add to Reddit] [image: Add to StumbleUpon]
Meet Ashley, a great teacher with a bad ‘value-added’ score
How teachers are evaluated has become one of the big issues in the ongoing strike by Chicago public school teachers as well as in the many debates on school reform being conducted around the country. Assessment experts say that the method of using student standardized scores to gauge a teacher’s effectiveness is unreliable, but reformers still insist on using this “value-added” method of evaluation. Some reformers, such as Chicago Mayor Rahm Emanuel, want as much as half of a teacher’s evaluation to be linked to student test scores. Read full article >> [image: Add to Facebook] [...more »
How things look to a returning Chicago teacher
With the Chicago teachers strike continuing for a fourth day, it makes sense to hear how things look in the Windy City to an actual Chicago teacher. So here’s a piece by Gregory Michie, a new public school teacher in Chicago and senior research sssociate at the Center for Policy Studies and Social Justice at Concordia University Chicago. His new book, “We Don’t Need Another Hero: Struggle, Hope, and Possibilty in the Age of High-Stakes Schooling,” will be published in November by Teachers College Press. Read full article >> [image: Add to Facebook] [image: Add to Twitter] [image: A... more »
How things look to a returning Chicago teacher
With the Chicago teachers strike continuing for a fourth day, it makes sense to hear how things look in the Windy City to an actual Chicago teacher. So here’s a piece by Gregory Michie, a new public school teacher in Chicago and senior research sssociate at the Center for Policy Studies and Social Justice at Concordia University Chicago. His new book, “We Don’t Need Another Hero: Struggle, Hope, and Possibilty in the Age of High-Stakes Schooling,” will be published in November by Teachers College Press. Read full article >> [image: Add to Facebook] [image: Add to Twitter] [image: A... more »
Is technology sapping children’s creativity?
The technology revolution has sparked a new debate about just how much parents should allow their young children to play with iPads, iPhones and other devices. Here’s a smart look at the issue by early childhood development expert Nancy Carlsson-Paige, a professor emerita of education at Lesley University in Cambridge, Ma., when she won the Embracing the Legacy Award from the Robert F. Kennedy Children’s Action Corps for work over several decades on behalf of children and families. Carlsson-Paige is author of “* Taking Back Childhood” *and the mother of two artist sons, Matt and K... more »
Why Rahm Emanuel and The New York Times are wrong about teacher evaluation
You know things are going very badly for public school teachers when The New York Times editorial board calls a bad teacher evaluation system a “sensible policy change.” The Times ran an editorial on Wednesday that smacked Chicago teachers for striking against a school reform package pushed by Mayor Rahm Emanuel, a former chief of staff of President Obama. It says in part: Read full article >> [image: Add to Facebook] [image: Add to Twitter] [image: Add to Reddit] [image: Add to StumbleUpon]
Obama between a rock and a hard place with Chicago teachers strike
Among the signs that striking Chicago teachers are carrying are ones that say, “Obama don’t ignore us.” Actually, the Chicago teachers, who began their first strike in 25 years on Monday, shouldn’t expect President Obama to do much more than ignore them. Their strike is at best highly inconvenient and could actually work against him, though how much isn’t clear. Read full article >> [image: Add to Facebook] [image: Add to Twitter] [image: Add to Reddit] [image: Add to StumbleUpon]
Why shouldn’t Chicago teachers ask for air- conditioned schools?
One of the seemingly smaller issues that striking Chicago teachers are asking for is air-conditioning in schools where there isn’t any. One can almost hear folks in St. Louis or Birmingham or Miami, saying: “It’s hotter here. What’s their problem in Chicago?” Read full article >> [image: Add to Facebook] [image: Add to Twitter] [image: Add to Reddit] [image: Add to StumbleUpon]
Did prof go too far by breast-feeding sick baby while lecturing?
An assistant anthropology professor at American University in the nation’s capital is saying that students who criticized her for breast-feeding her sick child while she was lecturing created a “hostile work environment” for her. Read full article >> [image: Add to Facebook] [image: Add to Twitter] [image: Add to Reddit] [image: Add to StumbleUpon]
Bullying at school?
Should somebody get fired for this? Watch what happens to a student — with a teacher’s involvement — at Kopachuck Middle School in the Peninsula School District in Washington state last February. The video was taken by other students and recently posted by King5News.com. Read full article >> [image: Add to Facebook] [image: Add to Twitter] [image: Add to Reddit] [image: Add to StumbleUpon]
‘Tis true: Virginia kids don’t have to go to school
Here’s a unique peculiarity to the great state of Virginia: Kids don’t really have to go school. The state has a compulsory education law requiring children ages 5 to 18 to attend school, with some pretty standard exceptions, such as health reasons. But one exception can be found only in Virginia: religious opposition to going to school, as explained in this story by my colleague Susan Svrluga . Read full article >> [image: Add to Facebook] [image: Add to Twitter] [image: Add to Reddit] [image: Add to StumbleUpon]
The real problem with Rahm’s school reforms in Chicago
Chicago Mayor Rahm Emanuel has been pushing a school reform agenda backed by the Obama administration that is at the center of the strike that the Chicago Teachers Union is now waging in the third largest school district in the country. Read full article >> [image: Add to Facebook] [image: Add to Twitter] [image: Add to Reddit] [image: Add to StumbleUpon]
On school reform: Broad’s misleading response to critics
The Chicago teachers strike has made school reform national news, and here’s a piece that helps explain some of the controvery. This is a follow-up to a post I published last month about plans by the California-based foundation of billionaire Eli Broad to expand its influence in school reform initiatives that include charter schools, merit pay and other market-based reforms. The original piece and the following one were written by Ken Libby, a doctoral student at the University of Colorado at Boulder, and Stan Karp, director of the Secondary Reform Project for New Jersey’s Educati... more »
Chicago teachers strike: The issues
The teachers strike in Chicago, the third largest public school district in the country with some 350,000 students, is about more than money. For the first time, teachers in a major school district have walked off the job in part to challenge some of the key tenets of modern school reform that have been advanced by the Obama administration and by Chicago Mayor Rahm Emanuel, who was once President Obama’s chief of staff. Read full article >> [image: Add to Facebook] [image: Add to Twitter] [image: Add to Reddit] [image: Add to StumbleUpon]
The achievement gap: By the numbers
There are few things education researchers say they know with certainty. But virtually nobody disputes that socioeconomic status and the educational level of parents, especially mothers, are linked to the stubborn achievement gap between students of different races and ethnicities. Read full article >> [image: Add to Facebook] [image: Add to Twitter] [image: Add to Reddit] [image: Add to StumbleUpon]
Why are Chicago teachers on strike?
They couldn’t make a deal in Chicago so more than 350,000 public school kids won’t have class on Monday. Why are teachers in the third largest school district in the country going on strike for the first time since 1987, when a walkout lasted 19 days? Read full article >> [image: Add to Facebook] [image: Add to Twitter] [image: Add to Reddit] [image: Add to StumbleUpon]
Chicago increases offer but teachers may still strike
Rumor has it that Chicago officials who have been feverishly negotiating with the Chicago Teachers Union to avert a Monday strike have significantly increased their offer, but union leaders may not bring the offer to members because it doesn’t go as far as they want. Read full article >> [image: Add to Facebook] [image: Add to Twitter] [image: Add to Reddit] [image: Add to StumbleUpon]
Is Michelle Rhee taking over the Democratic Party?
An Atlantic magazine article is entitled, “How Michelle Rhee Is Taking Over the Democratic Party.” Is she really? The story says that “there are signs that Rhee’s persona non grata status in her party is beginning to wane.” Read full article >> [image: Add to Facebook] [image: Add to Twitter] [image: Add to Reddit] [image: Add to StumbleUpon]
10 things never to do to students
Here’s a list of things that parents, teachers and others should not do to students — assembled with the help of kids and young adults. Of course, a broader list would start with: “Don’t give children useless standardized tests.” Read full article >> [image: Add to Facebook] [image: Add to Twitter] [image: Add to Reddit] [image: Add to StumbleUpon]
Did Malia, Sasha go to school on day after convention?
President Obama started his speech at the Democratic National Convention this way: Michelle, I love you. The other night, I think the entire country saw just how lucky I am. Malia and Sasha, you make me so proud. But don’t get any ideas, you’re still going to class tomorrow. Read full article >> [image: Add to Facebook] [image: Add to Twitter] [image: Add to Reddit] [image: Add to StumbleUpon]