Monday, April 15, 2013

Special Late Nite Cap UPDATE 4-15-13 #SOSCHAT #EDCHAT #P2



Nite Cap UPDATE


UPDATE UPDATE UPDATE UPDATE


CORPORATE ED REFORM




Iconic L.A. teacher Sal Castro who led East L.A. Walkouts in the 1960s, dies

Sal Castro, the Lincoln High School social studies teacher who inspired students to stage mass walkouts from classes to demand better school in 1968, died in his Silver Lake home on Monday. He was 79.
Castro was an educator for decades -- and for years he ran an empowerment group for latino youth. A middle school is named after him. But few events were as important to him as the walkouts, said UC Santa Barbara historian Mario T. Garcia.
"He always believed that that was one of the highlights of his life. That he could help the students think for 

San Jose State and online education startup Udacity will offer for-credit, online-only courses in psychology and in programming for $150 this summer, the company announced Monday.  

Palo Alto High’s Verde magazine package is being hailed as thoughtful, sensitive — and disturbing. Students don’t clearly understand what constitutes rape, the story makes clear. Yet rape is not so rare, and sometimes the response of victims’ friends and families turn into a second assault.  

How To Create a Non-Existent Crisis: NJ's School Performance Reports

Andy Smarick, the reformy former #2 at the NJDOE, tells us we should be very, very worried about one of the best performing state-level school systems in the nation:
New Jersey just released new report cards for all schools in the state. The information now available, including indicators of college- and career-readiness and excellent “peer school” comparisons, is invaluable. And it is deeply discomfiting for many of the state’s complacent schools and districts.
While the reports reinforce just how tragically low-performing the state’s urban districts are, they also show that the preening of many leafy suburban communities is unwarranted. Said state commissioner 

Sal Castro, teacher who led '68 Chicano student walkouts, dies at 79

Salvador Castro, a social studies teacher who played a leading role in the historic 1968 Chicano student walkouts protesting rampant bias and inequalities in the Los Angeles Unified School District, died Monday, the district announced. He was 79

Simple Writing Exercise Said To “Narrow Achievement Gap”


Be seeing you
Creative Commons License Photo Credit: Oliver Hammond via Compfight
I’ve previously posted about a simple writing exercise that was shown to particularly help African American students increase their academic achievement (see Useful Writing Exercise For Helping Students Develop Self-Esteem) and expanded that into a full-fledged lesson plan in my book, Helping Students Motivate Themselves.
Two new studies have now shown that it can be equally effective with Latino students.
My previous blog post and the new studies (along with my lesson plan) do a good job explaining the process but, simply put, the idea is to have students write briefly about values that are important to them.
Here’s how one of the researchers behind the new studies describes why it’s effective:
“When you look at what the students write, you see that they are generally not boosting their egos or self-

New Titles Help Children Cope With The Common Core


As students around the country prepare to take and fail a battery of state exams based on the Common Core standards, Amazon.com has complied a list of books to help them and their parents cope.

I Used to Like School: A Parent’s Guide to Discussing the Common Core Standards With Your Child, "A Classic. Simply worded concepts with wonderfully colored pictures - that explain the changing nature of the school day from one of joy to one of pedantic exhaustion. It is one of those great books that feels written for adults as well as kids."

Helping Children Say Goodbye to Recess and Art: Coping Strategies for Testing Times, "Few books are able to explain the need to eliminate the 'extras' to children, let alone explain what happened to their fired teachers. This book does both and does it well!

Why Is Johnny Sad All The Time? Answers To Questions Posed During Standardized Testing Season, "This book will help children and their families move forward towards acceptance, understanding and hope as 

New Glen Cove Allegation on Handling of State Test

An inquiry into whether teachers in the Long Island district improperly coached elementary students now includes an accusation that administrators changed a Regents exam grade.

A D.C. charter school asked the D.C. Public Charter School Board on Monday night for permission to raise its enrollment for a rather unusual reason — but the request was denied. My colleague Emma Brown attended the meeting, and here’s … Continue reading →


Alternatively Certified Teachers Profile...Bonnie Kohler


Alternative certification routes are vital to attracting the best, brightest, and cheapest teachers to enter the classroom.  Just because you are willing to devote your whole life to educating our country's children, it does not mean you are willing to spend 2 years taking methods classes to learn to teach. Please read this great essay by Last Stand for Children First Fellow Bonnie Kohler as she explains what being alternatively certified means to her.

In 2008, I graduated from the University of Wisconsin, Baraboo with a double major in social work and sociology. After graduating, I soon realized that the market for sociologists was roughly the same size as the job market for interpretive dance majors.  I was hired by Starbucks corporation in the role of barista. I served in that position for 

Family fee for half-day state preschool likely to be rescinded - by Lillian Mongeau

A much-disputed daily fee for families with children in state-funded preschool programs will likely be removed from next year’s state budget. Assemblymember Susan Bonilla, D-Concord, who chairs the budget subcommittee on education finance, said the fee, which was added to the budget for the first time last year, was a mistake. “We did it for a year and it didn’t work,” she said. “We have the...

GoAnimate4Schools GIVEAWAY!!!!!! Animated Digital Storytelling!

How would you like to be the lucky winner of a one year subscription to GoAnimate for Schools? If you are not sure what GoAnimate is, and/or what it can do, check out the video created by one of my students! I asked them to use their Vocabulary words to create a story. No one begged to skip this assignment! You can't go wrong with GoAnimate for Schools! It is a safe environment. The videos can