Monday, November 11, 2013
An Urban Teacher's Education: Cultural Competency: Not Just Lame PD
An Urban Teacher's Education: Cultural Competency: Not Just Lame PD:
Cultural Competency: Not Just Lame PD
This past weekend, I went to the CES conference in San Francisco with my principal and two other colleagues. It helped me articulate some of my thoughts on cultural competency for teachers in multicultural classrooms.
I'd like to share one characteristic of cultural competency I think is crucial for teachers to have: understanding what you're teaching and why it's important.
It seems to me that there is a body of knowledge and skills that is appropriate to teach any student regardless of culture. In this category I would include: knowledge of the human body, world geography, mathematics, skills related to reflection and critical thinking.
There is also a body of knowledge and skills that is appropriate to teach so that students of diverse backgrounds know how to interact with the social customs and habits of the dominant culture. In this category I think of: social skills, body language, grammar, history, and leadership.
When educators don't understand this or don't take the time to distinguish between the knowledge and skills of the two, it often leads to problems. Learning to do this falls under the very important category of cultural competency. And I think all of us could use ongoing professional development for it.
Often when I hear my students call one of their peers "whitewashed," or refer to hobbies I enjoy in my
I'd like to share one characteristic of cultural competency I think is crucial for teachers to have: understanding what you're teaching and why it's important.
It seems to me that there is a body of knowledge and skills that is appropriate to teach any student regardless of culture. In this category I would include: knowledge of the human body, world geography, mathematics, skills related to reflection and critical thinking.
There is also a body of knowledge and skills that is appropriate to teach so that students of diverse backgrounds know how to interact with the social customs and habits of the dominant culture. In this category I think of: social skills, body language, grammar, history, and leadership.
When educators don't understand this or don't take the time to distinguish between the knowledge and skills of the two, it often leads to problems. Learning to do this falls under the very important category of cultural competency. And I think all of us could use ongoing professional development for it.
Often when I hear my students call one of their peers "whitewashed," or refer to hobbies I enjoy in my
Attorney to court: Wis. union plan is burden - SFGate
Attorney to court: Wis. union plan is burden - SFGate:
MADISON, Wis. (AP) — Labor attorneys pushed the state Supreme Court on Monday to strike down portions of Republican Gov. Scott Walker's public union restrictions, arguing the prohibitions are designed to force school district and municipal workers to abandon their unions.
Attorney to court: Wis. union plan is burden
By TODD RICHMOND, Associated Press
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| Wisconsin Attorney General J.B. Van Hollen presents arguments in Madison Teachers Inc. vs. Scott Walker, in the Wisconsin Supreme Court at the state Capitol in Madison, Wis., Monday, Nov. 11, 2013. Van Hollen argued that portions of Gov. Scott Walker's union restrictions are constitutional. Photo: M.P. KING, AP |
MADISON, Wis. (AP) — Labor attorneys pushed the state Supreme Court on Monday to strike down portions of Republican Gov. Scott Walker's public union restrictions, arguing the prohibitions are designed to force school district and municipal workers to abandon their unions.
The court's decision could bring to an end one of the last unresolved legal challenges to the contentious restrictions that stripped almost all public workers of nearly all their union rights. Union supporters face an uphill fight, though, because conservative justices control the court.
Lester Pines, an attorney for a Madison teachers union, pressed ahead during oral arguments Monday, telling the justices that Walker's restrictions penalize local public workers who exercise their constitutional right to freely associate with a union. Their organizations can't collectively bargain for anything beyond base wage increases based on inflation or automatically withdraw dues from members' paychecks and must hold annual
My review of ‘Test and Punish’ | Gary Rubinstein's Blog
My review of ‘Test and Punish’ | Gary Rubinstein's Blog:
by Gary Rubinstein 
My review of ‘Test and Punish’
If ‘Reign of Error’ were to meet ‘The DaVinci Code’ the result would John Kuhn’s ‘Test-and-Punish: How the Texas Education Model Gave America Accountability Without Equity’
. Kuhn is the superintendent of the Perrin-Whitt school district in Texas. I first learned of him when I marveled at his show-stealing speech at the Save Our Schools rally back in July of 2011.
. Kuhn is the superintendent of the Perrin-Whitt school district in Texas. I first learned of him when I marveled at his show-stealing speech at the Save Our Schools rally back in July of 2011.In addition to being an incredible orator, John Kuhn proves to be one heck of a writer. His text flows with punchy wit and turns of phrase to keep this narrative constantly moving.
The book traces forty years the history of education reform in Texas, beginning with the first of a series of trials about equitable finance in 1971 in the Edgewood district. Throughout the book, Kuhn demonstrates the key moments that led to the concept of using standardized tests as the measure of a school’s quality. This eventually led to the ‘Texas Miracle’ and the rise of Pearson as an education empire. The cast of characters included people who I had known a little about, like Sandy Kress, an architect of No Child Left Behind, and also key people who I had never heard of before, like the former CEO of Pearson Marjorie Scardino. And for all the Diane Ravitch fans
New Face of Homelessness in America - FOX 35 News Orlando
New Face of Homelessness in America - FOX 35 News Orlando:
New Face of Homelessness in America
Posted: Nov 04, 2013 7:37 AM PSTUpdated: Nov 11, 2013 7:37 AM PST
Failed DC Chancellor Michelle Rhee’s new spawn: Dem governor taps top charter-lover for ticket - Salon.com
Failed DC Chancellor Michelle Rhee’s new spawn: Dem governor taps top charter-lover for ticket - Salon.com:
Failed DC Chancellor Michelle Rhee’s new spawn: Dem governor taps top charter-lover for ticket
Superintendent who spurred charter explosion in New Orleans and got spurned by CT voters is now an IL Dem nominee
The nation’s largest union panned the Friday afternoon announcement that Illinois’ Democratic governor is tapping an education reform lightning rod to join his reelection ticket.
“We are less than thrilled by the selection of Mr. Vallas,” Illinois Education Association president Cinda Klickna told Salon in a Friday email. “As head of the Chicago Public School System, he was known as a top-down administrator who routinely chose confrontation with the Chicago Teachers Union over collaboration.” Klickna’s comments came in response to an inquiry to the IEA’s parent union, the National Education Association. American Federation of Teachers president Randi Weingarten, who leads the country’s other top teachers’ union, sent Salon a three-word comment on Vallas’ selection: “We were surprised.”
As I’ve reported, Vallas is currently serving as superintendent of Bridgeport, Conn., schools, following past stints helming school districts in Philadelphia, New Orleans and Chicago – each marked by conflict with critics of the bipartisan education reform consensus. The Philadelphia
Cooper Union Trustees Renege on Promise to Seat Student Trustee |
Cooper Union Trustees Renege on Promise to Seat Student Trustee |:
This is kind of incredible.
You’ll recall that back in the summer the Cooper Union administration negotiated the end to a student occupation of the college president’s office by agreeing, among other things, to place an elected student on Cooper’s board of trustees. In October the trustees announced the framework under which that student trustee would be chosen, and the process has been moving forward since then.
Today it was announced that the winner of the campus-wide election to select the student trustee will not be seated as previously agreed. No student, in fact, will be seated on the board until at least March. Why? Mostly because the process the students followed to select their representative was too democratic.
I should probably back up.
The process for choosing the student trustee that was announced in October was pretty complicated. In it, the student body would elect a pool of three candidates from which the trustees’ membership committee would choose a winner. Despite the fact that this setup violated the trustees’ summer agreement to establish a mechanism “for the election of a student representative,” the Joint Student Council, which had been given responsibility for implementing the procedure, chose not to boycott. They took nominations,