@ THE CHALK FACE knows SCHOOLS MATTER:
YESTERDAY
Attended the @educationgadfly event on #optorcop yesterday. Nice people, here’s my rant
Here’s a link to video of the event at the Fordham Institute on a debate about opting out of test-based accountability in education reform. I’ll have to watch the video to see if my question/comment was recorded. I’m still kicking myself because I feel like I botched it. I was a little nervous and my […]
JUL 25
A Snarky Letter for A Heartless Leader: My Response to TFA Chicago’s Josh Anderson
Dear Josh Anderson, Executive Director of Teach for America Chicago, After reading your piece entitled Q&A with Josh Anderson, TFA Chicago on the Teacher Layoffs, I felt the need to reach out to you. Perhaps you’ve never actually been inside a CPS school because you seem to not understand the very basic realities of this […]
“The Deliberately Silenced, or the Preferably Unheard” | the becoming radical
“The Deliberately Silenced, or the Preferably Unheard” | the becoming radical.
A year and two ago this month, how far we have/not come?
Posts from July 2012. This is What You Might Think When You’re Going Into #TFA Will #AFT Convention Draw a Line in the Sand? Why All the Khan-troversy? Talking with the Gates Foundation, or Seeking the Light and Buying the Hype Do those who like the #commoncore know the facts? (We miss you Stephen Krashen. Come back to us!) Posts from […]
Education as the Great Equalizer: “More Myth than Reality”
“While education has been envisioned as the great equalizer, this promise has been more myth than reality,” conclude Coley and Baker in a new report, Poverty and Education: Finding the Way Forward (ETS, July 2013). This data-rich examination of the relationship between education and poverty, both in the US and how that compares internationally, is yet another […]
Katie Osgood is killing it on #TFA! But how about across the “pond?”
I did not know this. But there’s an organization called Teach First in the UK with the exact goals as TFA: The initiative took on 1,261 handpicked graduates this year, 80% from leading Russell Group universities. All will have six weeks of intensive training before being sent to schools in underprivileged areas where they will work for […]
Congress Set to Profit from Student Loan Rates Determined by Wall Street Swindlers
If you ever wonder how the Feds are going to pay for the new era of non-risk corporate welfare farming, charter schools, preschools, for-profit college subsidies, military contractors, corporate welfare spy firms, etc., Congress has a plan. One drop in that national cash reserve for corporate non-emergencies was guaranteed yesterday, when the Senate passed student […]
JUL 24
Meet the new “controversial” Dean.
I have almost finished my 4th week as the Dean of the School of Education at Edgewood College in Madison, WI. Today I did my first television appearance. I was interviewed by Wisconsin Eye. I went into the interview feeling pretty good. I knew I was going to be interviewed for 30 minutes by Steve […]
Why My Students Do Not Need Teach for America
Wow, there has been such a flurry of stories and discussions in regards to Teach for America and its destructive role in education today. I suppose my letter to new recruits played an important part in calling into question this organization, striking a chord of truth. TFA has gone into full-time PR mode with a […]
Just as we expected? Modules = test prep skills.
I have been looking through the new Common Core aligned modules on the New York State Education Department’s EngageNY website as the folks in Albany have been constantly promoting the new curriculum. I have produced two reactions recently to my suspicions that these high priced modules are nothing more than a scripted curriculum. Today as […]
Why TEAC (CAEP) Accreditation Means Less than Zero
In May TEAC provided the for- profit American College of Education (ACE) the official stamp of approval to prey on the poor and the unsuspecting who want to be teachers. ACE has a sordid history of exploitation and grandiose scheming, some of which is documented here. ACE is a subsidiary of Higher Ed Holdings, LLC, which […]
A new Hart sponsored AFT survey, this time with parents #teach13
The AFT released a new HART survey of parental attitudes towards prevailing education policies. Here’s your sample: This national survey consisted of interviews with 1,003 public school parents (parents with children who attend a regular public school and/or a charter public school), with a margin of error on survey results at ±3.1 percentage points. The […]
No PARCCing
Have your heard about the PARCC Asseesments? The Partnership for Assessment for Readiness for College and Careers is a collection of 22 states that will be producing a series of Common Core aligned exams. The PARCC Assessments are scheduled to begin in the 2014-15 school year. Promotion for the PARCC consortium has begun just as […]
JUL 23
NC Republican Taliban Gone Wild: Kills Voter Awareness HS Program to Pre-Register Students
The Koch Brothers’ chief henchman in North Carolina is Art Pope, who led the effort in Wake County to kill socioeconomic school integration. Wake County awoke from its slumber and ousted the racist school board members, and now things are starting to get back to normal. Now Pope is in charge of the State’s efforts […]
What is malicious re-assignment? by Michelle Gunderson. proud member of the Chicago Teachers’Union
It is a conversation educators dread. An administrator calls you for a “chat”. “By the way,” they say, “Instead of teaching 8th grade next year, it best suits our needs for you to teach kindergarten.” Every educator knows what this means. While the teacher in the scenario still has a job and is teaching a […]
The #commoncore is the #royalbaby of #edreform…
That is, born of tremendous hype to parents of outrageous privilege whose credentials as human beings are that they were themselves born of privilege and so on for completely arbitrary and manufactured reasons, generally without merit, yet painfully, painfully average in almost every way. We plebes, we add meaning to it all, behave as if […]
Your survey once again used incorrectly, we told you so. @rweingarten @AFTunion #teach13
In discussions on the Common Core, regardless of the available critiques, I always seem to get this idea that there is overwhelming and strong support for the CCSS from ALL teachers. You read that, ALL TEACHERS! To wit: @thechalkface AFT: 75% of teachers support CCSS but say haven’t had enough time 2 understand & put […]
Get Your Common Corporate Test for Just $29.95, or Wait for the Fire Sale
One of the two ginormous Common Corp consortia, PARCC, finally priced their product line yesterday. The $29.95 per student does not include costs for professional development, diagnostic tests, formative tests, interim tests, speaking and listening tests (required), or any of the necessary technology infrastructure costs for installation, training, security, and repairs resulting from unplanned b
#PARCC releases cost assessments. Even $1.00 is too much on this nonsense
The counters of beans can rejoice: PARCC will “only” cost states on average of $29.95 per student for both ELA and math. Good thing they kept it under $30, or like the special at Wal-Mart on the Hal Leonard Play Guitar Today! kit, I wouldn’t have bought it. Does this $29.95 include a volume discount? I’m not […]
JUL 22
Dear North Carolina Colleagues
You know what I miss about North Carolina? Go on, guess. It’s what every former transplant says. I miss the ability to order sweet tea in any restaurant I go to and I miss BBQ pulled pork that actually has a smoky taste. Syracuse just hasn’t found the charm in those two things yet. I […]
Poverty Matters Redux
The “poverty is not destiny” mantra is wearing thin as a cousin to the “no excuses” movement in education that demonizes teachers and schools serving high-poverty and minority children. The ugly truth is that both slogans are simply rhetorical strategies for facing inequity, for avoiding confronting the privileged who tend to be the ones spouting […]
A fantastic chunk of info from @NEPCTweet and @stephrrivera on @xianb8. And an anecdote
Don’t take my word for it. Go here and learn. But I also want to share an anecdote if I may. I met Xian in person at UOO’s Occupy 2.0 event in DC this last April. There was one individual in particular who sort of wandered into our event and was making some folks uncomfortable. […]
Our interview with Peter DeWitt #freetobe
Check out our interview with Education Week blogger and principal Peter DeWitt. We discussed some intersections between education leadership, anti-bullying, and the common core. Seems a tad contradictory doesn’t it, at least the last two. And since he mentioned it, a clip for you all to enjoy of Free to be You and Me. Watching […]
Yelp reviews as an action strategy in education? #edreform #edchat
Just a quick idea if you have the time: Yelp reviews of major reform organizations. I posted mine on the Gates Foundation. Are there others? I personally would like to see more done. Link to them in the comments.
The impact of #commoncore in Kindergarten
A good friend and parent posted a video, which is embedded below, about her son’s experience in Kindergarten. It’s important to remember that accountability in public education is for now one single definition. Not all accountability is created equal. We can be held accountable in numerous ways and to very different things. In addition to […]
JUL 21
#nctq pitching their propaganda to higher education leaders
Last week I posted a blog in the form of a letter to College and University leaders. I asked them to think about teacher education programs and the importance of these programs to the overall success of their institutions. I also warned them to beware of NCTQ masquerading as a legitimate “national council” conducting research […]
How Obama Can Help Young Black Boys
A few days ago, President Obama gave an emotional speech to calm the outrage over the decision in the Trayvon Martin case. President Obama expressed his own personal insights into the realities of racism on everyday life for black men in the United States and acknowledged the problems we still face when it comes to […]
Did you know that Michelle Rhee has 93 civil actions against her?
I know. Maybe some of these are trumped up cases. I’d have to look at them in detail. This is perhaps what you get for being in charge of people and making decisions. You make some enemies. But still, 93 cases in all? Are you serious? If I had one, I’d never work in this […]
Come one, come all, #AERA14 proposal deadline is upon us! #highered
Graduate students and faculty members from all corners of education are in a panic today, and will be a panic tomorrow. Why? But of course, the proposal deadline to speak for ten minutes at the nation’s premiere education research association closes on the 22nd at 11:59PM. Blimey, I better… well… nah. I think I’ll pass. […]
JUL 20
Rahm the Raptor and the TFA Solution: No Retirement, No Retirement Problem
Since 1995, the City of Chicago has been on holiday during most of those years. On holiday, that is, from putting in the annual payments to keep the Chicago Teacher Retirement Fund solvent. The dwindling fund has been no secret to anyone for a long time, but after the CTU showed the small, vicious Mayor […]
Do teachers wonder why @michellerhee …?
Watch video #1 and then video #2. Any connections between the two? Video #1 Video #2 Follow Tim Slekar on Twitter: @slekar
Colorado Education Association President Promotes inBloom – without the Facts
Yesterday I read an opinion piece in the Denver Post by Kerrie Dallman, teacher and president of the Colorado Education Association, the state affiliate of the NEA. I am a Colorado public school teacher, a parent with a child in the public schools and finally, I am a member of the NEA. Ms. Dallman is […]
Colorado Educators Alert: TURNcoat, Kerrie Dalman, Promotes InBloom Student Data Mining and Storage
Kerrie Dalman is President of the Colorado Education Association, the state affiliate of the NEA. She is a head honcho of Southwest TURN, a branch of the metastasizing cancer eating away at the NEA and AFT. Yesterday, Kerrie had a guest commentary in the Denver Post, pumping the virtues of CorpEd’s commercial surveillance and storage of […]
Saturday Math Facts
Born rich + no college > born poor + college = inequity Bad educational reform policies + billions of $$$ > credible education policies + no $$$ = accountability era in US education