All Week @ THE CHALK FACE
NJ Governor Screams at Teacher: ‘Do Your Job!’
The New Jersey teacher in the photo below had just asked Chris Christie the following question: “Why do you continue to spread the myth that our schools and teachers are failing?” His reply? “You people! Just do your job!” What does he mean by “you people?” It’s been a full day for bullying educators. Want […]
To My Students: ‘I Love You and Believe in You’
The following is a guest post from my friend, Meg Norris, who has an important message for her students. (Grab a Kleenex. I did.) To My Students, I did not return to the classroom this year and I want to apologize. I am truly sorry for having left you. It was the hardest decision I […]
Outright hatred coming from 5th graders. This is urban school reform manifest.
I am familiar with a group of fifth graders who are in real crisis. This isn’t some manufactured, fake, phony crisis like A Nation at Risk or something. This is real. I see a classroom of children at ten and 11 years of age so filled with rage and hate and anger that their entire […]
Ninety-five Louisiana Department of Education (LDOE) Documents
There is more to a website than the information accessed by clicking its active links. This I learned years ago in my dealings with statistics software that utilizes both windows and code. Armed with such knowledge, yesterday I spent six hours combing the Louisiana Department of Education (LDOE) website searching for useful information “hidden in plain sight,” so to […]
An open letter to #AERA. No thank you.
Dearest American Education Research Association (AERA): This week, I received yet another solicitation to renew my membership to AERA. And once again, I will ignore this email and decline membership renewal. But this is the first time I’ve chosen to respond. In this message, AERA is being touted as the following: Your membership helps make a difference […]
Common Core and Text Complexity: “It’s a madhouse! A madhouse!”
Valerie Strauss’s The Answer Sheet has a discussion of Common Core and text complexity that you must read: Common Core: How are books judged? Strauss ends with: Appendix A of the English Language Arts Common Core State Standards has a long and complicated explanation of “text complexity,” which you can read here, that reviews research said […]
OCT 31
Surprise! I Try Again To Propose Some Sanity in the War Against the Core.
The Author Working at Home Over on one of the “secret” Facebook groups I’m on (I’d mention the name but then of course I would have to have my cats bury you in hairballs – and believe me, they could do it), there was some mild confusion today about whether we opposed the Common Core […]
NYSED: Cherry picking data.
Here is another example of education reformers cherry picking data. New York Education Commissioner John King and the Board of Regents have been under a tremendous amount of pressure from parents and educators across the Empire State about the Common Core implementation and the significant increase in mandated testing, along with the cancellation and rescheduling […]
OCT 30
On #edreform celebrity.
I can name more persons affiliated with education and the reform movement than I care to. Authors are our rock stars it seems. I found myself on whatever path I am on because of some unique circumstances, but above all that I’m an educator. I speak out because I’m oftentimes a stubborn person with a […]
#optout in Wisconsin
It’s official. We are now Wisconsin opt outers! Dear Principal: Michelle and I are requesting that Lacey not participate in state standardized testing during the current school year. Furthermore, we ask that no record of this testing be part of Lacey’s permanent file, as we do not wish for Lacey to participate in standardized achievement […]
Want a Trustworthy Word on Teach for America (TFA)? Listen to Former TFAer Gary Rubinstein
Below I have posted two youtube videos by Gary Rubinstein, who joined Teach for America (TFA) in 1991 and who later made the decision to become a career teacher. Gary now writes extensively about the problems associated with the temporary teaching TFA promotes as the “solution” to the complex issues faced in contemporary America public education. […]
AFT and ATF Respond to Locals: A Follow-Up
Recently, I posted an article about a story in the Albuquerque Journal about the New Mexico NEA and AFT putting pressure on the New Mexico Public Education Department (PED). I called the suggestions from the two state union groups an “appeasement.” Also included in my article was a statement from the Albuquerque Teachers Federation (ATF), […]
OCT 29
Those Were The Days (and are they B-A-A-A-CK?): A Lightning Tour of The Math Wars (sort of)
Someone commented recently that she maybe she was too young and naive at the time but she didn’t recall so much controversy resulting from the publication of the 1989 NCTM Curriculum and Evaluation Standards for School Mathematics. What follows is in part my reply and resulting reflections. No, there wasn’t so much controversy at first. It […]
Douglas County: The Cavalry is Coming!
Douglas County, Colorado is one to watch. For too long, an aggressively unprofessional school board has been playing politics with the schools, rather than concerning themselves with serving the community’s children. Now, an important election is coming up, and it can change the current destructive course with four board seats being contested. I had the […]
The Recovery School District (RSD) Optical Illusion
The charter-promoting organization, New Schools for New Orleans (NSNO) wants its charters to prosper. Its website proudly advertises a hefty $25 million grant from the Arnold Foundation– as in John Arnold, former Enron trader who made off with $3 billion while most employees lost their pensions. In order to sell the charter success image, NSNO offers the public “proof” […]
Orwellian Obama or Brocialite Brand? UPDATED
In late spring, I posted a video of Tupac Shakur because I was impressed with his clarity, especially against the sad state of public commentary by our elected officials concerning education. Now I ask a follow up question: Do you prefer Orwellian Obama or actor Russell Brand? Please watch and decide: — I then recommend […]
Bullying by Numbers: Value-Added Measures
If you’ve been paying attention, you know that the evaluation focus for public education has moved quickly away from students and rapidly towards teachers and schools. The propaganda is everywhere, and too many people are convinced by the mantra, “the greatest factor of student success is the teacher in the classroom.” I don’t know who […]
OCT 28
On a code of conduct and ethics for teachers
Some interesting interactions with a quickie I put up the other day on a practice sheet for Kindergarteners to teach them how to bubble properly. Our own Chris Cerrone made another contribution in this regard. I won’t say that having children fill in bubbles, or even test preparation, is akin to child abuse. That diminishes the […]
Of Babies and Bathwater: Can We Separate the Common Core, Various Materials, and Assessments?
Back in the ’90s, when the Math Wars raged (and they still do), I thought that if only the US Dept. of Ed was like the Ministry of Education in Japan, and could impose a national curriculum in mathematics, with a well-organized method of getting feedback on a lesson-by-lesson basis, fed through carefully-constructed local, state, […]
Where in the World is The Indignant Teacher???
I am in Dubai…in the middle of the Middle East – United Arab Emirates, to be exact. Communication with the western world has been difficult, at best, and this is not in any way helping the homesickness!! Not quite sure where to begin this post… Life here over the other side of the world […]
Political Cowardice Is Political Courage
In the opening pages of George Orwell’s 1984, readers are introduced to Oceania along with the work and world of Winston Smith: Winston kept his back turned to the telescreen. It was safer; though, as he well knew, even a back can be revealing. A kilometer away the Ministry of Truth, his place of work, […]
OCT 27
Is This Why AFT Leadership Sold Its Members Up The Common Core River?
It’s pretty widely known by now that American Federation of Teachers (AFT) received funding from the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, leading many to question the motives of AFT leadership in their silent acquiescence to the gods of Common Core. But apparently there may be more reasons as well. My friend and trusted colleague Bess Altwerger […]
NEA and AFT Offer Appeasements; Locals Prefer Democratic Response
An article appeared in the Albuquerque Journal recently, titled, Two Teacher Unions Step Up Actions Against PED. The article outlines how the national and state-level unions plan to put pressure on the New Mexico Public Education Department (NM PED) in order to treat teachers more fairly. Read the article here: http://www.abqjournal.com/288936/news/two-teacher-unions-step-up-action-against-ped.ht
Fill in those bubbles Kindergarteners- this is your future.
Not quite as horrible as the learn how to bubble for the sake of test taking skill as Shaun Johnson’s post today, but what the hell are we doing here people? From New York parent Heather: Kindergartners learning to be “college and career” ready by practicing filling in those bubbles? Common Core aligned too! From […]
Teacher Quality, Wiggins and Hattie: More Doing the Wrong Things the Right Ways
Teacher Quality, Wiggins and Hattie: More Doing the Wrong Things the Right Ways. via Teacher Quality, Wiggins and Hattie: More Doing the Wrong Things the Right Ways.
Kindergarten teachers have really abandoned their professional ethics in favor of…?
Can anyone explain this to me, as captured by a friend in Texas? Tagged: bubbles, teachers, testing
OCT 26
Can leaders be activists?
I have been very critical of just about every implementation facet of the common core standards and I have always but forth the reasons for my criticism. The standards were not developed with input from experts. Teachers, childhood development specialists and parents were supposedly “consulted” but the actual work was done by a secret panel—and […]
A great misunderstanding in the conversation on #edreform
A common talking point via social media from the reform minded seems to now be desperate calls for civility in debate. Civility? This is only anecdotal proof on my part, perhaps others have noticed. In any case, calling for civility is akin to a child playing tag, when cornered, immediately declaring “Base!” If only real […]
Deck the halls with No Excuses, Fa La lala, lala la la! #charterschools
‘Tis the season choosy with your students. I am told by reliable sources that many charter schools in our nation’s capital, Washington DC, enjoy very much acquiring valuable per pupil dollars at the start of the school year. Then, after those funds are locked in, PURGE their respective schools of unruly students. Traditional public schools […]