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Saturday, August 10, 2013

Education - U.S. Congress - OpenCongress

Education - U.S. Congress - OpenCongress:


Bill Introduced: H.R.2930 Transition-to-Success Mentoring Act
To amend the Elementary and Secondary Education Act of 1965 to award grants to eligible entities to establish, expand, or support school-based mentoring programs to assist at-risk middle school students with the transition from middle school to high school.
Bill Introduced: H.R.2943 Schoolchildren's Health Protection Act
To amend the General Education Provisions Act to prohibit Federal education funding for elementary or secondary schools that provide access to emergency postcoital contraception.
Bill Introduced: H.R.2878 Keep Teachers Teaching Act of 2013
To amend the Elementary and Secondary Education Act of 1965 to provide grants for innovative teacher retention programs.
Bill Introduced: S.1370 Promoting Innovations to 21st Century Careers Act
A bill to establish partnerships to create or enhance educational and skills development pathways to 21st century careers, and for other purposes.
Bill Introduced: H.R.2592 STEM Innovation Networks Act of 2013
To authorize the Secretary of Education to make grants for the establishment of State Networks on Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics Education.

Jersey Jazzman: Scoring NY Tests With the Triple Lindy!

Jersey Jazzman: Scoring NY Tests With the Triple Lindy!:

Scoring NY Tests With the Triple Lindy!One of my guilty pleasures is screwball comedies, and one of my favorites stars the great Rodney Dangerfield: Back To School. In the climatic scene of the movie, Rodney wins the big diving meet ("Hey gang, forget about the football game; let's get pumped for the big diving meet!") by flawlessly executing a dive that defies all known laws of physics: the Triple Lindy!

What makes the Triple Lindy so difficult is that Rodney starts out on the high platform, then has to bounce from board to board over and over again before he finally slices through the water. It's one massive leap after another...

Just like the scoring on the New York State exams.

By now, you've undoubtedly heard about the 
huge dive test scores took this year in New York, thanks to new exams and new scoring methods that supporters claim are much more "realistic." This year, 31 percent of students were deemed "proficient" in reading and math; last year, 55 percent passed reading, and 65 percent passed math. I've argued that this was a deliberate ploy to make New York's schools look as bad as possible; reformies hope to usher in an era of privatization and deunionization on the "evidence" of these scores.

But how did NYSED come up with their definition of "proficient"? How did they determine the cut scores - the scores students would have to earn to be deemed to have achieved one of the four levels of "proficiency"?

Leonie Haimson pointed me to a fascinating document from NYSED that shows the method to this madness.Just like Rodney in the diving meet, NYSED bounced around from one external benchmark to another, taking massive leaps each time to justify where it placed its cut scores. By  executing its own Triple Lindy, NYSED moved from its goal of defining "proficiency" as "college and career ready" to cut scores on the tests for levels as low as 3rd grade.

How about we play Greg Louganis for a bit and break down exactly how NYSED pulls off their Triple Lindy:

Starting Platform: "College and Career Ready." As I blogged before, this is a phony and useless phrase meant to conflate the education necessary to obtain a four-year bachelor's degree with the education needed for a job that that should pay well but often doesn't. Reformy NYSED Commissioner John King, reformy SecEd Arne Duncan, reformy Regents Chancellor Merryl Tisch, and many other reformy stalwarts say this is the goal for all children, which means, right off the platform, we have to make a massive leap:

Springboard #1: First Year Grade Point Average at a Four-Year College. As the NYSED document clearly shows, the benchmark used for "proficiency" on the state test is earning a B- or better in a freshman English course, or earning at least a C+ in a math course, at a four-year college or university.

For this benchmarking, NYSED relied on the College Board, the folks in charge of the SAT. Demonstrating 

A Democratic Alternative Legacy within Command & Control Public Education | Lefty Parent

A Democratic Alternative Legacy within Command & Control Public Education | Lefty Parent:

A Democratic Alternative Legacy within Command & Control Public Education

August 10th, 2013 at 15:47
Alpha IIPublic education in the U.S. has featured state control of human development since Horace Mann and other educational “reformers” within the New England Protestant elite brought this novel approach of Prussian state-run universal compulsory schooling to America in the 1830s. Canadian educational policy followed a similar “melting pot” social engineering of immigrants path while accepting a greater role for Protestant and Catholic education in the mix with secular public schools. Today in both countries the bulk of public schools chart their course in sync with (or under the yoke of) continuing state efforts at high-stakes OSFA (one size fits all) standardization, though more so in the U.S. than in Canada.
I find this top-down “command and control” approach to public education at best boring and at worst very depressing, based on how I believe it diminishes the human imagination in particular and the human spirit in general. So as an advocate for what I call “many educational paths”, I celebrate and take heart from those rare educational alternatives that manage to find a way to exist within the leviathan of standardized public education. Sure there are a fair amount of private schools (for the more economically privileged among us) that 

Want to be successful? Be a sponge. | Connected Principals

Want to be successful? Be a sponge. | Connected Principals:

Want to be successful? Be a sponge.

August 10, 2013
By 

cc licensed ( BY NC SA ) flickr photo shared by George Couros
I have worked with some brilliant leaders and educators and I have noticed the same things about all of them.
They listen.
No matter their position, they are successful because they see every opportunity as an opportunity to learn.  Even when they are in a higher position than myself, they see an interaction with myself and others as an opportunity for them to always stay on top of their game.  The other things that I notice is that although they know they do not have all of the answer, they sure have a lot of questions.  
Leaders continue to ask questions.
When I think of thought leaders in my school district, I think of people like Jesse McLean and Travis McNaughton, and the amazing ability they have as well as their insights regarding education.  They are leaders that make a huge difference in their communities and the one word that I think of when I think of either one of them is “sponge”.  They soak in everything they can, but eventually they release they learn and share it with others.  They also do not learn only from people that are “above” them in the organizational hierarchy, but they learn from every person they interact with.  They focus not only on the knowledge of that person, but they soak in the characteristics of that person and learn about them as people, which is imperative in the change process.
“Every change requires effort, and the decision to make that effort is a social process…human interaction is the key force in overcoming resistance and 

Nite Cap 8-10-13 #BATsACT #thankateacher #EDCHAT #P2 #Cheats4Change


James Baldwin said it best: 

"For these are all our children, and we will profit by or pay for whatever they become."


A BIG EDUCATION APE NITE CAP

TODAY

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YESTERDAY

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Nite Cap 8-9-13 #BATsACT #thankateacher #EDCHAT #P2 #Cheats4Change
James Baldwin said it best: "For these are all our children, and we will profit by or pay for whatever they become."A BIG EDUCATION APE NITE CAPTODAYPhilly school principals are appealing directly to parents for cash | Philadelphia Public School NotebookPhilly school principals are appealing directly to parents for cash | Philadelphia Public School Notebook: Philly school principals are appealing