Thursday, September 27, 2012

How The NYC DOE and The NFL Are The Same, and Yet Different.southbronxschool.com

http://www.southbronxschool.com:


How The NYC DOE and The NFL Are The Same, and Yet Different

by noreply@blogger.com (Bronx Teacher)
Wow, what a week. We here at SBSB wish to welcome yet another guest blogger and honorary member of The Crack Team to these pages. This guest has guest blogged in the past, here and here. 

I must say this guest blogger is very insightful and intelligent. Qualities in which the DOE sorely lacks.

Anyway, sit back and enjoy the wise words of tonight's guest blogger.


I think there is much to be learned from the NFL Referee fiasco, and that it is quite comparable to the situation in our schools.
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Daily Kos: Eugene Robinson: Republicans deluded by ‘skewed’ polls

Daily Kos: Eugene Robinson: Republicans deluded by ‘skewed’ polls:


Eugene Robinson: Republicans deluded by ‘skewed’ polls

byteacherkenFollow
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Conservative activist circles are abuzz with a new conspiracy theory: Polls showing President Obama with a growing lead over Mitt Romney are deliberately being skewed by the Liberal Mainstream Media so Republicans will be disheartened and stay home on Election Day.
This is denial and self-delusion but not of the harmless kind. It’s a false narrative that encourages the Republican Party to take the wrong lessons from this election, no matter the outcome.
So begins this Washington Post column by the Pulitzer Prize winner. For people here, who have paid attention to both this issue and the nature of polling, most of what Robinson offers in 
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The Examiner Examines … Me (On Writing about Education) [Why We Write] | The Jose Vilson

The Examiner Examines … Me (On Writing about Education) [Why We Write] | The Jose Vilson:


The Examiner Examines … Me (On Writing about Education) [Why We Write]

by Jose

Calvin and Hobbes, On Writing
Recently, Wendy Coakley-Thompson interviewed me for the Washington, DC Publishing Industry Examinerabout education, writing, and how my passions intersect:
2. In what ways do both poetry and education writings satisfy your need for creative self-expression?
Poetry satisfies my more creative urges, where I get to play with the more ethereal, the emotional, 
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I SEE PROGRESS « Teachers Fight Back

I SEE PROGRESS « Teachers Fight Back:


I SEE PROGRESS

by alkleen


Wow!  More teachers strikes are popping up, more public workers are protesting, more unions in sports and entertainment areas are taking action. Even the Chicago Symphony musicians went on a brief strike. Workers everywhere are starting to fight back and demanding respect. It feels like the start of a new era for the working man. I didn’t see this coming, but I guess you can only push people so far before they start to fight back.
I’m proud of all the Chicago suburban teachers who seem to be using the Chicago teachers’ strike as an inspiration to demand some much-needed respect. That Chicago teachers’ strike was much more than a strike. I think it showed workers everywhere what a truly united body of workers can accomplish and what an old-time 
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Washington officials release first report for new school progress system | OregonLive.com

Washington officials release first report for new school progress system | OregonLive.com:


Washington officials release first report for new school progress system

Published: Thursday, September 27, 2012, 5:32 PM     Updated: Thursday, September 27, 2012, 5:40 PM
The Associated Press By The Associated Press 






SEATTLE -- State education officials on Thursday released their first report for a new way in looking at how Washington public schools are doing at teaching kids reading and math. 

The new school accountability system is designed to help local officials focus on closing the achievement gaps between kids of different ethnic and economic groups. It is Washington's answer to the federal education law known as "No Child Left Behind." Washington has been granted a waiver to take a different approach to identifying and helping failing schools. 

The old system labeled a school or a district as failing if they did not meet dozens of testing, attendance and graduation rate goals several years in a row. The national goal was to have every kid meet state academic standards in reading and math by 2014. 

The new system sets goals for increasing the number of kids in each group who meet state standards, with a new deadline of the 2017-18 school year. Individual goals have been set in every school for every subgroup, not just for the schools that are struggling. 

In exchange for the longer deadline, parents and concerned community members get several 


 This information is readily available, along with lots of other information about public schools, at theWashington State Report Card online. Click on AMO in the upper right hand section of the page and then choose your school using the dropdown menu on the left side of the page. 
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School Tech Connect: In Fact, I Asked...

School Tech Connect: In Fact, I Asked...:


In Fact, I Asked...

by noreply@blogger.com (Tim Furman)
What the heck-- I thought I'd ask Kelly Cassidy a question.



And I'm referring to this.

Seriously, the legislature doesn't have the grapes to tell the voters what it costs to run the state, year after year, and they run up a credit card bill disguised as a pension system, and then they turn around and blame it on out-of-control local boards? All of which have been paying their share and facing voters in a state where the schools lean on the property tax?

Shame on the legislature for puking up this ill-advised amendment to our Constitution. Honestly, they should all 

Fix The Actual Problems (Link Fixed)

by noreply@blogger.com (Tim Furman)
Fix the ramp. Fix the flat tax-created revenue problem.

All of these other little sneaky, fraught-with-peril sideshows are a distraction. 

I'd like to ask my great state representative, Kelly Cassidy, if she would have vote for Amendment 49 if it came up today. It's just such a dumb thing to put in a constitution.

Ixnay on the Arter-Chay

by noreply@blogger.com (Tim Furman)
Look for Heather Steans' state charter commission to overrule the Rockford school board, which has found what basically everyone else has found...

The administration said its approval would turn a private or nonpublic school into a charter school, officials couldn’t ensure the plan was “economically sound,” and officials couldn’t demonstrate that they were willing or able to provide services to students with disabilities or “meaningful, appropriate or adequate education for English-language learners.”
For the record, these concerns have not stopped Rahm Emanuel. I do not know how the economic model makes 
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Rahm’s attempt to split teachers from our union fails. But not all union leaders are the same. « Fred Klonsky

Rahm’s attempt to split teachers from our union fails. But not all union leaders are the same. « Fred Klonsky:


Rahm’s attempt to split teachers from our union fails. But not all union leaders are the same.

by Fred Klonsky
Educator and EdWeek blogger Anthony Cody writes about Rahm’s billionaire buddy Bruce Rauner’s attempt to split teachers from their unions.
Cody quotes Rauner,

The critical issue is to separate the union from the teachers. They’re not the same thing. … The union basically is a bunch of politicians elected to do certain things–get more pay, get more benefits, less work hours, more job security. That’s what they’re paid to do. They’re not about the students. They’re not about 

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New Insights on the Effects of Migration on Child Well-Being - Hispanically Speaking News

New Insights on the Effects of Migration on Child Well-Being - Hispanically Speaking News:


Princeton Study: New Insights on the Effects of Migration on Child Well-Being

Princeton Study: New Insights on the Effects of Migration on Child Well-Being
World Leaders Are Called on to Connect These Dots

As world leaders gather in New York for the United Nations General Assembly, women and children are certainly part of the discussions. Leaders routinely fail, however, to address how changing migration patterns have a profound effect on children. New research sheds light on the connection between immigration patterns and child well-being, and should be central to many of the U.N. policy discussions.
“Migrant Youths and Children of Migrants in a Globalized World,” the focus of the September volume of The Annals of the American Academy of Political and Social Science, looks at international child migration through the lens of child development. With the backdrop of changing migration patterns, the researchers seek to identify 
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NYC Public School Parents: Attention Parents - Get Ready for Another Surprise: More Field Tests in October

NYC Public School Parents: Attention Parents - Get Ready for Another Surprise: More Field Tests in October:


Attention Parents - Get Ready for Another Surprise: More Field Tests in October

by Leonie Haimson


The following was written by Fred Smith, former testing expert for the NYC Board of Education. The list of 169 NYC schools in which another round of field tests  will be imposed raises more questions, such as how were these schools chosen?  And why do certain districts, like District 1, have nearly twice as many schools required to give them than other districts such as District 2, which is much larger?

Did you know that the New York State Education Department has assigned 169 schools to administer stand-alone field tests next month?  Your child may be in one of these schools and you will not be notified beforehand. 
This is a repeat performance of the way SED handled the field tests that were given in June.  Most parents only learned about them at the last minute. While it was too late for them to ask questions, some of us found out, protested at several schools and boycotted the tests.
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Reaction to "Won't Back Down" Shows Critics Have Learned Something - Living in Dialogue - Education Week Teacher

Reaction to "Won't Back Down" Shows Critics Have Learned Something - Living in Dialogue - Education Week Teacher:


Reaction to "Won't Back Down" Shows Critics Have Learned Something

by Anthony Cody


Follow me on Twitter at @AnthonyCody
It is hard sometimes for advocates of public education to see our own movement, when we are active participants in it. But the critical and public reaction to the movie "Won't Back Down" is providing us with some evidence of how far we have come in the past two years.
It was two years ago that documentarian Davis Guggenheim released "Waiting For Superman," heavily loaded with the message that unions protect bad teachers, tenure provides jobs for life, and charter schools are the only hope for our children. The movie was a commercial failure in the theaters, but it was boosted by a $2 million grant from the Gates Foundation to pay for national publicity. It was also the centerpiece for the first Education Nation week hosted by NBC, which prominently featured its heroes, Michelle Rhee and Geoffrey Canada. Oprah even devoted two shows to promoting the movie.
Reviewers were mostly favorable towards "Waiting For Superman." The web site Rotten Tomatoes aggregates reviews, and also collects feedback from ordinary folks who have seen the movies. "Waiting For Superman" got 
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Common Core Standards for Learning Supports: Looking for Feedback from All Concerned about Equity of Opportunity — Whole Child Education

Common Core Standards for Learning Supports: Looking for Feedback from All Concerned about Equity of Opportunity — Whole Child Education:


ASCD Whole Child Bloggers

Common Core Standards for Learning Supports: Looking for Feedback from All Concerned about Equity of Opportunity

September 27, 2012 by ASCD Whole Child Bloggers
Post written by Howard Adelman, PhD, and Linda Taylor, PhD, codirectors of the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA) School Mental Health Project/Center for Mental Health in Schools. This post was originally featured on the James B. Hunt Jr. Institute blog, The Intersection.
When policymakers introduce another initiative for education reform, the press to implement the new initiative often draws attention away from other essential facets involved in improving and transforming schools. Currently, this is happening with the Common Core State Standards movement.
Efforts to revamp schools cannot afford to marginalize any primary and essential facet of what must take place at schools every day. As those who have followed the work of the Center for Mental Health in Schools know, we are moving efforts to improve schools from a two to a three component framework (PDF).
The prevailing two component framework mainly stresses (1) instruction (including curriculum and teaching) 
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Education leaders - chicagotribune.com

Education leaders - chicagotribune.com:


Education leaders

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September 27, 2012
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The strike may be over, but the fight for public education is not.
As a Chicago Public School teacher, I am elated to be back at work educating my students. I thank all the parents, community members and friends who supported us in our fight for a fair contract. By coming together, we were able to negotiate a contract that values arts schools, acknowledges the effects classroom size and conditions have on teaching, and recognizes the limits of standardized test scores as a way to evaluate teachers and assess their worth.
Although I am proud of what we achieved, I worry about what will happen in a few weeks, when the Chicago Teachers Union strike has become old news. Will the public realize that across Chicago, many schools will have to start a fight for their livelihood? As it stands now, 
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Zimbio Review - 'Won't Back Down' Has an Agenda, and It's Not to Make a Quality Film - Maggie Gyllenhaal - Zimbio

Zimbio Review - 'Won't Back Down' Has an Agenda, and It's Not to Make a Quality Film - Maggie Gyllenhaal - Zimbio:


Zimbio Review - 'Won't Back Down' Has an Agenda, and It's Not to Make a Quality Film

By Joe Robberson on September 26, 2012

(20th Century Fox | Getty Images)
The Bottom Line
Should you see it?
No.

Why?
Naive and predictable, the film takes a simplistic view of a hugely convoluted issue and makes mince meat of it for its own agenda.
If the point of Won't Back Down was to take a polarizing, immensely complicated issue and make it black and white, bravo! Success! Billed as a prospective Oscar contender (whatViola Davis film isn't?) Won't Back Down is barely suited for movie of the week status. Which by the way, used to be the platform for naive, topical issue films starring someone off the B-list. This film will be released nationwide due to an impressive cast, but don't be fooled, it's a TV movie at best.

Maggie Gyllenhaal keeps getting these roles as a hard luck mother because she's so good at it. She is again here, the film is fueled by her wide-eyed intensity in the face of injustice and 
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NAACP claims discriminatory admission practices at city's elite high schools - NY Daily News

NAACP claims discriminatory admission practices at city's elite high schools - NY Daily News:


NAACP claims discriminatory admission practices at city's elite high schools

Group accuses city of barring black and Latino students from 'best public schools'

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BY / NEW YORK DAILY NEWS

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Scene at Stuyvesant High School where another arson fire occurred this morning.There have been 11 other arson fires in the School..An note was left by the arsonist toiday.students returning after being evacuated.

MICHAEL SCHWARTZ FOR NEW YORK DAILY NEWS

The NAACP alleges schools like Stuyvesant High School have discriminatory admission practices. Only 1 percent of students at Stuy High are African American.

The NAACP has filed a bombshell complaint with the U.S. Department of Education, alleging discriminatory admission practices at the city’s elite high schools.
In a blistering document delivered to the feds Thursday morning, the NAACP accused the city of barring black and Latino students from eight of its “best public schools,” including Stuyvesant High School in Manhattan, where only 1% of students are black. “Black and Latino students don’t see opportunity at places like Stuyvesant because of the admissions process,” said NAACP attorney Rachel Kleinman. “It’s not fair and it’s bad policy.”
The city’s Specialized High Schools Admissions Test is the only method that is used to judge


Read more: http://www.nydailynews.com/new-york/education/naacp-claims-discriminatory-admission-practices-city-elite-high-schools-article-1.1169240#ixzz27hUbH7cO
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