Big Education Ape Nite Cap UPDATE 9-17-12 #SOSCHAT #CTUSTRIKE

Nite Cap UPDATE

UPDATE UPDATE UPDATE UPDATE

Today’s Update On The Chicago Teachers’ Strike

by Larry Ferlazzo

Here are the newest additions to The Best Resources On The Chicago Teachers’ Strike:
Hearing Set in Chicago’s Bid to End Teachers Strike is from The New York Times.
Rahm is suing to end the Chicago teachers’ strike. Does he have a case? is from The Washington Post.
Standing up for teachers is from The Washington Post.
The Chicago Teachers’ Balancing Act is from The American Prospect.

Will President Obama Speak Out Against Act 10?

by dianerav

Four years ago, candidate Obama promised to break out his walking shoes and join the picket line if anyone threatened the collective bargaining rights of workers.
He forgot that promise when Governor Scott Walker stripped most public sector workers of their collective bargaining rights two years ago. He did not join the people who protested Act 10 in Madison.
And most people understand his unwillingness to inject himself into the Chicago teachers’ strike (which does not 

How Are You Behaving?

by noreply@blogger.com (Tim Furman)

G'nite.

Grotesque

by noreply@blogger.com (Tim Furman)

Could the Republicans have chosen a more vile candidate?  The thing that really irks me about Romney is that he's so bound-to-lose that it makes it difficult to get the message to the President that this Arne Duncan guy is a base-suppressor, and that Rahm Emanuel should be exiled.

Popout

What's This Lying Around Shit?????

by noreply@blogger.com (Bronx Teacher)

In the fall of 1962 Faber College senior and pre-med student Eric "Otter"Stratton received a phone call to from Babs Jansen that Mandy Peperidge wished to meet him at the Rainbow Hotel late in the afternoon. Sadly, Doug Niedermyer, Greg Marmalard, and the rest of Omega House were waiting for him and subsequently beat him, and the dozen roses, to a pulp.

Meanwhile across town in Dean Wormer's office, Flounder, Bluto, D-Day, Hoover, and Larry were being told that they, and all of Delta House, were bei

Chicago Teachers Refuse to Return to Work

by Last Stand for Children

A funny thing happened on the way to ending the strike.  The Chicago Teachers Union refused to vote on a tentative agreement and instead demanded to be able to read the agreement before voting.  This unreasonable demand meant that school children would be unable to return until Wednesday and earned the ire of several Chicago alderman.  The alderman had set a great example for the untrusting teachers by agreeing to several contracts like selling off Chicago's parking meters without reading the contracts.

Obviously, the greedy teachers are striking over pay and their own cushy jobs.  Mayor Emanuel attempted to get an injunction today, because the greedy teachers refused to negotiate over pay and instead attempted to 

Harvard Education Newsletter Covers Opt Out Movement in Colorado

by Jim Horn

Read the story here in the Harvard Education Newsletter. 

Andrew Sullivan: Did Romney Just Lose the Election? ctd

by rss@dailykos.com (teacherken)

is the title of this blog post which has a lot of quotes from right wingers, and which went up before Romney's disastrous presser
.
Here's the beginning:

A consensus is forming. From the most right-wing columnist in the Tory paper, the Telegraph:

Romney video: I think Obama just won the election. When was the last time a president fighting for re-election was handed such a gift? Remind me, someone: how did the GOP end up with this idiot as their candidate?

In presser, Romney doubled down, tries to say he was talking about the political process about winning the 

Sneaky Evaluators: Who Sent You, and Why are You Disrupting My Class?

by educatedtodeath

Originally posted at educatedtodeath.com
There is a constant stream of evaluators and academic “coaches” streaming through the classrooms at my school. They come in driving unreasonably nice cars, and always look like they just came from a designer boutique and then a full service salon. They look like blooming movie star hopefuls or just well kept wives of the wealthy, noses pointed to the heavens and all. They’re interactions with us lowly teachers come in the form of a note in our box or a message through the principal that we need more of this or that or to put our objectives on a 

Harvard Education Letter: Opt-Out Movement Gains Steam

by admin

Opt Out coverage in The Harvard Education Letter.   The Coalition for Better Education is using billboards to encourage parents to opt-out of the Colorado state test, called the TCAP. Volume 28, Number 5 September/October 2012 Opt-Out Movement Gains Steam … MORE

Late Night: ‘You’re Not Supposed to Support the Strike’

by Allison Hantschel

Popout

Look, I see where Miller’s going with this:

My friend, a widely known pundit, wanted to tell me that he didn’t believe the poll, which was conducted by We Ask America.
After some back and forth about what the pollster could’ve or should’ve asked, I finally told him that as an older, white person with no kids in the public school system, he’s not supposed to support the strike.
The poll, taken after three full days of no school, found that a 52 percent majority of whites 

Arrogance, The Gates Foundation & The “Remembering Self” | Larry Ferlazzo’s Websites of the Day…

Arrogance, The Gates Foundation & The “Remembering Self” | Larry Ferlazzo’s Websites of the Day…:

Arrogance, The Gates Foundation & The “Remembering Self”

by Larry Ferlazzo

I’ve certainly been critical of the Gates Foundation and Bill Gates on many occasions. However, recently, I had been developing some response for both — Gates staff has been engaging in what appeared to me a productiveonline dialogue with my Education Week and Teacher Leaders Network colleague Anthony Cody and Bill Gates recently gave a surprisingly open-minded interview to The New York Times.
But in the last part of the dialogue with Anthony, Gates staff wrote an angry and ill-advised post that, at least for me — and I suspect for many other educators — lost them most, if not all, of the good will they had recently gained. If I were them, I’d go into damage control mode right away to ensure that their post is not what people 

Eugene Robinson: Standing up for teachers - The Washington Post

Eugene Robinson: Standing up for teachers - The Washington Post:

Eugene Robinson

Opinion Writer

Standing up for teachers

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By Eugene Robinson, Monday, September 17, 12:55 PM

Teachers are heroes, not villains, and it’s time to stop demonizing them.

It has become fashionable to blame all of society’s manifold sins and wickedness on “teachers unions,” as if it were possible to separate these supposedly evil organizations from the dedicated public servants who belong to them. News flash: Collective bargaining is not the problem, and taking that right away from teachers will not fix the schools.

It is true that teachers in Chicago have dug in their heels against Mayor Rahm Emanuel’s demands for “reform,” some of which are not unreasonable. I’d dig in, too, if I were constantly being lectured by self-righteous crusaders whose knowledge of the inner-city schools crisis comes from a Hollywood movie.

The problems that afflict public education go far beyond what George W. Bush memorably called “the soft bigotry of low expectations.” They go beyond whatever measure of institutional sclerosis may be attributed to tenure, beyond the inevitable cases of burnout, beyond the fact that 

Eugene Robinson: Standing up for teachers - The Washington Post:

FB RT: Randi Weingarten @rweingarten: Thank you @Eugene_Robinson for standing up for teachers&telling people to visit a school.".. http://t.co/DpIbWPHb"

Response: A Nobel Laureate Writes About Becoming A "Science Coach" - Classroom Q&A With Larry Ferlazzo - Education Week Teacher

Response: A Nobel Laureate Writes About Becoming A "Science Coach" - Classroom Q&A With Larry Ferlazzo - Education Week Teacher:

Response: A Nobel Laureate Writes About Becoming A "Science Coach"

By Larry Ferlazzo on September 16, 2012 1:01 PM

(Note: This is the first post in a several-part series on teaching science)

Last week's question was:

What is the best advice you would give to help an educator become better at teaching science?

I'll be posting a number of guest responses over the next two weeks, and invite readers to share their comments, too. I'll publish ideas from readers in the final post in this series.

Today, Dr. Carl Wieman, winner of the Nobel Prize in Physics in 2001 and well-known for his advocacy of cooperative and engaging methods for teaching science, has agreed to share his thoughts, and they are certainly applicable to subjects beyond science.

After reading his contribution, you might be interested in exploring the resources I've collected 

GOOD Education: Schools Don’t Need Reform, They Need Revolution « Cooperative Catalyst

GOOD Education: Schools Don’t Need Reform, They Need Revolution « Cooperative Catalyst:

GOOD Education: Schools Don’t Need Reform, They Need Revolution

by Nikhil Goyal

Nominated for the U.S. Secretary of Education by Diane Ravitch and lauded as an “emerging voice of his generation,” at age 17, Nikhil Goyal is the author of One Size Does Not Fit All: A Student’s Assessment of School by the Alternative Education Resource Organization.
This piece originally appeared on GOOD Education: Schools Don’t Need Reform, They Need Revolution  
In the summer of 2010 I took a three-week trip to India to visit family in Delhi and Calcutta. After I came back to the United States, I started to review the notes I’d jotted down from conversations I had with Indian students and parents on their frustrations with school. That September I started as a freshman at Syosset High School. For many years, my family and I had planned on moving into a community where there were high-ranking school

Daily Kos: "Whatever the cause, our society’s answer seems to be: Beat up the teachers."

Daily Kos: "Whatever the cause, our society’s answer seems to be: Beat up the teachers.":

"Whatever the cause, our society’s answer seems to be: Beat up the teachers."

by rss@dailykos.com (teacherken)

That is a line from Standing up for teachers, the new Washington Post column by Pulitzer Prize winner Eugene Robinson, who seems to be one of the few major columnists who gets it.
From the very beginning of his column, Robinson makes clear his viewpoint:

Teachers are heroes, not villains, and it’s time to stop demonizing them.

Mike Klonsky's SmallTalk Blog: Day 6

Mike Klonsky's SmallTalk Blog: Day 6:

Day 6

by Mike Klonsky

Out on the picket lines I saw teachers in small groups, reading the tentative contract, line-by-line and discussing it. Talk about your participatory democracy. Here it is, right on the mean streets of Chicago. No wonder Rahm and his corporate pals are horrified. No wonder he asking for an injunction. Reading a contract before you sign it is a concept so beyond anything that ever takes place in Rahm;s City Council or in Rahm's hand-picked Board of Education, it seems downright revolutionary. Or to quote Rahm, "a threat to public health and safety."

Best headline in the S-T today: Judge punts on forcing teachers back; no school likely Tuesday. Makes you 

This Week In Education: Thompson: Thin-Skinned Response From Gates

This Week In Education: Thompson: Thin-Skinned Response From Gates:

Thompson: Thin-Skinned Response From Gates

by john thompson

During the Anthony Cody's five-part exchange with the Gates Foundation atLiving in Dialogue, Cody presented a series of closely argued positions on school reform, while the foundation's representatives responded with sound bites.
Even so,  I was flabbergasted by the response in Impatient Optimistsby Irving Scott and Stacey Childress to Cody’s last post.  So, I reread their "The Role of the Marketplace in Education," and Cody’s post to see what I missed that made the foundation’s representatives so angry.   They seemed livid about his words regarding the Shared Learning Collaborative (SLC) and a contract involving the Wireless Generation.
I do not know enough to comment on their disagreement with Cody, so for all I know, they might have a point on 

Commit To Everything And All Things At Once (Or Rebel) [Future of Teaching] | The Jose Vilson

Commit To Everything And All Things At Once (Or Rebel) [Future of Teaching] | The Jose Vilson:

Commit To Everything And All Things At Once (Or Rebel) [Future of Teaching]

by Jose

Balloon’s Emotions

An excerpt from my latest:

It might be the best description of the first week of faculty meetings for schools nationwide. The Common Core State Standards (and multiple intelligences, the workshop model, and the host of other initiatives I’ve seen) have brought along their own set of pseudo-experts coming in to tell teachers what to teach, how to teach, and, inevitably why.
The last one is particularly insulting because I’d wager most educators know why they’re in their profession, but one of the first rallying speeches always alludes to a talking point used by another expert out there. “We have failed our kids …” and “We keep doing kids a disservice for as long as we have …” doesn’t inspire, much to the dismay of people from the outside. If anything, it 

Jersey Jazzman: Let's Tax Rhee's Dream Team

Jersey Jazzman: Let's Tax Rhee's Dream Team:

Let's Tax Rhee's Dream Team

by Duke

Michele Rhee's motto: If you're going to improve schools, get together a bunch of people who know nothing about how they are run.

At long last, the education advocacy group begun by former D.C. Chancellor Michelle Rhee has named a new, permanent board of directors.

In addition to Rhee herself, the board members include:

• comedian and school choice advocate Bill Cosby; 
• decorated television journalist Connie Chung;
• Jennifer Johnson, an executive vice president and CEO for Franklin Resources, an investment-management organization; 
• former New York City schools chancellor Joel Klein, now the CEO of News Corporation's Education Division; 

Occupy Wall Street? or Work There? « Deborah Meier on Education

Occupy Wall Street? or Work There? « Deborah Meier on Education:

Occupy Wall Street? or Work There?

by debmeier

Isn’t it amazing–the members of an organization devoted to small government, low taxes, etc etc would rather work on Wall Street for a lot of money rather than work with OCCUPY as a volunteer? Amazingly, more than a fourth opted for OCCUPY!! Inside moles? A new bizarre front group for Wl Street pops up every day.

From: Matthew Faraci
Subject: Occupy Wall Street? Millennials would rather work there
Occupy Wall Street? Millennials would rather work there

Contact: Matthew Faraci (202) 997-1636 | Email FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE September 17, 2012 Contact: David Pasch (202) 230-7947 | Email Nearly Twice as Many Young Adults Say They Would Rather Work on Wall Street Than Protest Against It76 percent say the lack of job opportunities is shrinking the middle class, as young adult unemployment remains at 12.7 percent Washington, DC – (9/17/12) – Generation Opportunity, the largest non-profit, non-partisan organization in the United States engaging and mobilizing young Americans (18-29 years old) on the important economic issues facing the nation, released new polling data today on Millennials on the one-year anniversary of the Occupy Wall Street movement. Since its launch in June of 2011, Generation Opportunity has amassed a following of over 4 million fans on Facebook and is actively organizing Millennials across the country through grassroots tactics, voter registration, and voter turnout efforts. Generation Opportunity operates on a strategy that combines advanced social media tactics with proven field tactics to reach Americans 18-29. The organization’s social media platforms – “Being American by GO,” “The Constitution by GO,” “Gas Prices Are Too Damn High,” “Lower Taxes by GO,” “Keep Texas Awesome,” “Jersey Proud,” and “We Like Small Government” on Facebook – have amassed a total fan base of more than 4 million. The pages post links to relevant articles and reports from sources ranging from the federal Government Accountability Office (GAO), to The New York Times, The Washington Post, The Brookings Institution, The Wall Street Journal, The Huffington Post, and The Heritage Foundation. Read about Generation Opportunity here; visit “Being American by GO” on Facebook here, “The Constitution by GO” on Facebook here, “Gas Prices Are Too Damn High” on Facebook here, “Lower Taxes by GO” on Facebook here, “Keep Texas Awesome” on Facebook here, “Jersey Proud” on Facebook here, and “We Like Small Government” on Facebook here. For our Spanish-language page – Generación Oportunidad – click here. # # #

If you would rather not receive future communications from Generation Opportunity, let us know by clicking here.
Generation Opportunity, 2020 North 14th Street Suite 660, Arlington, VA 22201 United States

Educators oppose test score-based teacher evaluation Parents United for Responsible Education

Parents United for Responsible Education » Blog Archive » Educators oppose test score-based teacher evaluation:

Educators oppose test score-based teacher evaluation

by admin

9/17/12

Media Release:
For Immediate Distribution

Contact information:
Isabel Nunez, Professor, Concordia University Chicago,
isabel.nunez@cuchicago.edu, 708-209-3518
Erica Meiners, Professor, Northeastern Illinois University,
e-meiners@neiu.edu, 773-816-6561

Chicago, IL.  As the Chicago Teachers Union begins the second week of
their strike, some political leaders and media commentators are quick to
blame teachers for resisting a system for evaluating teachers that other
states and school districts across the country have already adopted.
But the research is clear: student test scores and “value added measures”
are neither valid nor reliable for evaluating teachers.  Half a year ago, a
network of 88 education professors from 16 universities in the Chicago
area, called CReATE (Chicagoland Researchers and Advocates for
Transformative Education), issued (an) open letter, explaining
why this evaluation system is neither research-based nor beneficial to our
city’s children.  CReATE is re-releasing this open letter, and urges
public debate, policy decisions, and contract negotiations to draw on
such research expertise.

Jersey Jazzman: Merit Pay Fairy Sighted in Newark!

Jersey Jazzman: Merit Pay Fairy Sighted in Newark!:

Merit Pay Fairy Sighted in Newark!

by Duke

The Merit Pay Fairy has landed in Jersey!

New Jersey and the Newark Teachers Union are negotiating a form of merit pay in the state-run district that would block poorly rated teachers from receiving automatic annual salary bumps that are now based solely on years of experience, union officials said.

Only teachers evaluated as "effective" or "highly effective" on a new four-tier scale would be eligible for pay increases that are now tied to how many years they have worked, union President Joe Del Grosso said. Teachers rated "partially effective" and 

Mike Klonsky's SmallTalk Blog: Our hipster alderman

Mike Klonsky's SmallTalk Blog: Our hipster alderman:

Our hipster alderman

by Mike Klonsky

"All labor has dignity"

Just got this missive from CTU's Kenzo Shibata:


Good morning,

Chicago Teachers Union Delegates voted to extend the strike until Tuesday, giving members time to review the tentative agreement before voting on it.

Chicago is the city of the parking meter deal where aldermen voted to privatize parking meters before reading the