Nite Cap UPDATE
UPDATE UPDATE UPDATE UPDATE
Chicago Students Boycott the NAEP to Demand Safety
Guest post by Leslie Leon with Yoseling Cueto.
Hello my name is Leslie Leon. I am an 18 year old senior at Gage Park High School on Chicago Southwest side. I was born in Chicago, Illinois but raised in Imlay city, Michigan. My parents only wanted the best for my family, therefore we moved to Michigan for a safer life. My parents decided to move back to my hometown in 2010. My life took a whole "U" turn. Everything was different, I couldn't adjust to it. Before Gage Park I used to love going to school eager to learn and make the most out of my high school life. Coming to Gage Park I slowly started to feel fear to go to school because of the surroundings.
It wasn't until this year that I began to feel alarmed being inside the school. I don't like this feeling. When I walk through the halls I have to constantly watch my back. This is something I shouldn't be feeling and this problem
Hello my name is Leslie Leon. I am an 18 year old senior at Gage Park High School on Chicago Southwest side. I was born in Chicago, Illinois but raised in Imlay city, Michigan. My parents only wanted the best for my family, therefore we moved to Michigan for a safer life. My parents decided to move back to my hometown in 2010. My life took a whole "U" turn. Everything was different, I couldn't adjust to it. Before Gage Park I used to love going to school eager to learn and make the most out of my high school life. Coming to Gage Park I slowly started to feel fear to go to school because of the surroundings.
It wasn't until this year that I began to feel alarmed being inside the school. I don't like this feeling. When I walk through the halls I have to constantly watch my back. This is something I shouldn't be feeling and this problem
Diane Ravitch Joins Group to Monitor Public Schools
The Network for Public Education will call for curriculums that include arts and foreign languages, as well as better financing for schools and more respect for teachers.
The Dilemma of the Language Teacher
It may not be the principal's fault that he neglects foreign language, hurtful to students though it is. It may not be our fault next year when we drill students for the tests that will determine whether or not we'll be joining the principal at Best Buy. Satisfying though it may be to jump up to assistant manager, make two extra bucks an hour and order the
NJ Teacher Evaluation: Operation Hindenberg
And so, after a three year war on teachers, it has finally come to this: Chris Christie's administration - through his Commissioner of Education, Chris Cerf - has released their proposed changes to New Jersey's administrative code, rewriting the rules for teacher evaluation throughout the state.I've now had some time to review these proposals. My assessment?
Folks, it's going to take a series of posts over several days to fully unpack how spectacularly bad this proposal is. The failure of policy here is so vast, so varied, and so destructive that a single post just can't do justice to a fiasco of this magnitude.
But allow me, as an introduction, to outline the fundamental problems with this nightmare of hubris and ignorance:
- The proposed evaluation system relies on Student Growth Percentiles (SGPs), based on standardized tests, to evaluate teachers. Yet the very man who is the "inventor" of SGPs has said that they cannot be used to determine a teacher's effect on student learning!
In other words - and it seems incredible to say this, but it is absolutely true - the NJ Department of Education
This Week’s “Links I Should Have Posted About, But Didn’t”
I have a huge backlog of resources that I’ve been planning to post about in this blog but, just because of time constraints, have not gotten around to doing. Instead of letting that backlog grow bigger, I regularly grab a few and list them here with a minimal description. It forces me to look through these older links, and help me organize them for my own use. I hope others will find them helpful, too. These are resources that I didn’t include
“Short Bouts of Exercise Boost Self Control” — Is That Your Experience With Students?
Short Bouts of Exercise Boost Self Control is the title of an article about a new study.
Here’s an excerpt:
Short bouts of moderately intense exercise seem to boost self control, indicates an analysis of the published evidence in the British Journal of Sports Medicine.
The resulting increased blood and oxygen flow to the pre-frontal cortex may explain the effects, suggest the researchers.
They trawled medical research databases for studies looking at the impact of physical exercise on higher brain
Here’s an excerpt:
Short bouts of moderately intense exercise seem to boost self control, indicates an analysis of the published evidence in the British Journal of Sports Medicine.
The resulting increased blood and oxygen flow to the pre-frontal cortex may explain the effects, suggest the researchers.
They trawled medical research databases for studies looking at the impact of physical exercise on higher brain
Students Initiate Inquiry Into Harassment Reports
An investigation into whether the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill routinely botched sexual assault and harassment complaints is the latest in a series of such allegations against other schools.
Philadelphia Officials Vote to Close 23 Schools
The closings are part of a plan by the school district to erase a huge budget deficit and reduce the number of underused schools.
Joseph Kelner, 98, Dies; Led Kent State Lawsuit
Besides Kent State, other high-profile cases included those of Bernhard Goetz, the subway vigilante, and a pair of fired baseball umpires.
City Apologizes for Not Informing Parents of School PCB Leak
A mother of a child at an Upper West Side elementary school learned of the December episode while perusing a Department of Education report about PCBs posted online.
The Happy Good Time Emotion Response Place and School Part VI: The Doody Has Hit the Fan
With what metaphor do I use to describe the state of The Happy Good Time Emotion Response Place and School? The proverbial shit has hit the proverbial fan? The wheels of The Happy Good Time Emotion Response Place and School are coming off? Turn off the lights, The Happy Good Time Emotion Response Place and School is over, all good things must end?
The first sign on the poop hitting the fan came several months ago when students were kept away from the room in which they can hit and kick the Bobo doll so they can feel better about themselves instead of owning
Common Core Math Taught to an 8 Year Old.
House Bill 616 was heard early today in Jefferson City and pro CCSS folks testified how wonderful and clear and concise the new standards are. Missouri is beginning to implement them in classrooms so the results of using the new standards are difficult to measure. Since a big attraction for some teachers and administrators is that the standards/assessments are all the same across state lines, maybe those proponents might just want to read the story below about an actual CCSS math problem encountered by a third grader in New York and think if this wonderful and clear and concise set of standards will actually raise student achievement. Such standards
Gotham Schools Covers Insightful Social Studies
City teachers are waging a campaign against the state’s proposed high school social studies standards, before a Friday deadline to give feedback.
On Tuesday, Harvest Collegiate High School history teacher Stephen Lazar argued in the GothamSchools Community section that the standards undermine their own goals by overwhelming focuses on skills and historical thinking with an immense amount of content.
