Schools Matter:
Schools Matter All Week
From the Gothamist:Schools Chancellor Carmen Fariña made the announcement yesterday, noting that the diversion of funds "will help us create high-quality, full-day pre-Kindergarten seats citywide that will deliver strong instruction"; the DOE also hopes to reduce class sizes citywide.The move is a big one one for the de Blasio administration, as the mayor has been openly critical of char
Sent to the Wall Street Journal, Feb. 1, 2014The WSJ's enthusiasm for the Sgt. Marcus Lutheran school, and for charters in general, is not supported by the data ("The 'Progressive' War on Kids," February 1-2).An article in the Milwaukee Courier (October 12, 2013) revealed that St. Marcus Lutheran students perform well below the Wisconsin state average on state tests, with between 18 and
Yesterday we witnessed the beginning of the end for value-added testing for high stakes purposes. If Commissioner Kevin Huffman is, indeed, flummoxed that the Tennessee Board of Education has canned attempts to value-added test results to determine teacher licensure renewal, and if he doesn't have to read the book, he should begin here and here to understand what's going on. Story in the Tenness
A better way to deal with summer loss in reading
Sent to the Seattle Times, Jan 31, 2014There is a much cheaper and much more effective way to deal with summer learning loss than adding 20 days of school to the school year ("How to solve summer learning loss and close the opportunity gap," January 30): Provide more access to interesting reading material. Research tells us that those living in poverty have the least access to books and
YESTERDAY
Classroom Video Camera Project Spending Millions to Extend Teacher and Student Surveillance, Part 2
In Part 1 of this story, we shared how a little-known Gates Foundation grant pumped over $3 million into the Tennessee Department of Education to create a classroom video collection and sharing project, with video data and notes stored on a server owned by the camera company, thereNow.net.From talking with the camera project director, Courtney Seiler, the TDOE never had a plan for how children’s i
Obama's Suicide Pact with the Death Worshippers of Capitalism
It's time to drink your kool-aid or turn over the tub. We can't wait for our grandchildren to act, as they are being cognitively disabled to make resistance impossible. From Alternet:Are there any self-respecting environmental organizations out there that are still behind President Obama? After his State of the Union on Tuesday it's hard to imagine there could be. In his address, Obama proudly d
KIPP Teacher's Nude Photos Shared by Students
Something that is not in the Doug Lemov miracle book of behaviors to make you a great teacher is the admonition to leave your phone home, at least the one with your nude pics. Perhaps this KIPP high school teacher did not have time to download her nudies to a personal phone after another evening of being on call to 10 PM. Anyway, the phone was on the desk, she was not in the room, and some KIPPs
JAN 30
Kaya Henderson Implicated in Rhee Cheating Scandal that Will Not Die
From CBS WASHINGTON — An elementary school principal’s claim that she saw teachers erasing answers on students’ test sheets had reached District of Columbia Schools Chancellor Kaya Henderson’s desk within 24 hours of the alleged incident in late 2010, according to emails obtained by The Associated Press through a public records request.Henderson was notified about the alleged cheating by two offic
Why This Connecticut Teacher Wants to Give Up Teaching
"My value as a teacher is now reduced to how successful I am in getting a student who has eaten no breakfast and is a pawn in her parents' divorce to score well enough to meet my teacher evaluation goals."Why This Connecticut teacher wants to give up teaching.Unfortunately, government attempts to improve education are stripping the joy out of teaching and doing nothing to help children.
Tennessee Classroom Video Camera Project Spending Millions to Extend Teacher and Student Surveillance
Tennessee Classroom Video Camera Project Spending Millions to Extend Teacher and Student SurveillanceJim Horn and Denise WilburnIn a move to quell growing concern among parents over security issues related to new Common Core testing and the collection of student data, Tennessee Commissioner of Education Kevin Huffman recently assured skeptical lawmakers and parents that “the federal government
Philadelphia Ritz East Theater Feb. 6th, 6 PM
STANDARDIZED Lies, Money & Civil Rights: How Testing Is Ruining Public Education: A DocumentaryBy Daniel HornbergerJanuary 28, 2014Philadelphia, PA – Reading-based Rockfish Productions’ documentary STANDARDIZED will make its Philadelphia debut at 6PM onThursday, February 6th at The Ritz East Theater (S. 2nd Street). STANDARDIZED opens with a brief synopsis of the history of standardiz
JAN 29
A "New Master Idea" for a Religious and Militaristic Society
It became clear last night that the national nod to income inequality has conservatives and neoliberals on the search for new educational interventions that promise to bring an end to the effects of poverty without spending any money to end poverty. David Brooks, with his kinder and gentler form of fascist educational eugenics in mind, limply chastised the President following his SOTU speech last
JAN 27
SKrashen: The Common Core: A Disaster for Libraries, A Disaster for Language Arts, a Disaster for American Education
SKrashen: The Common Core: A Disaster for Libraries, A Disaster for Language Arts, a Disaster for American Education: Stephen Krashen Knowledge Quest 42(3): 37-45 (2014). There never has been a need for the common core and there is no evidence ...
Rewards for reading outloud to children?
To be published in the School Library JournalShould we provide rewards if parents read 1000 books aloud to their children ("Vivacious vocabulary," Jan. 2014)? Read-alouds are very pleasant for both parents and children. The vast majority of children say that they enjoy being read to: 97% in Walker and Kuerbitz (1979), 95% in Mason and Blanton (1971), and parents agree: Eighy-nine percent
KIPP's Open Bar Night at Houston's Hard Rock Cafe, and Other Tales from Las Vegas
The stories of twenty former KIPP teachers will be compiled in a book available later this year, but here is another tiny clip that relates to news reported this morning in the Times-Picayune (below). This bombshell was dropped near the end of one of those twenty interviews when this participant offered one final concern about KIPP:. . . . I think there is a lot of danger, too, in the fact that t
Abusive Cornerstone Prep Attempts PR Comeback
The Achievement School District (ASD), which was formed in Tennessee to charterize the state’s poorest schools in the same fashion that the Recovery School District has done to New Orleans, had their point person for the Memphis Corporate Appeal, Jane Roberts, to do a PR piece to help in the recovery of the abusive and scandal-ridden Cornerstone Prep in Memphis. Marching to Cornerstone DrumIn 201
Misreading Florida
The headline appears simple enough:Fla. Pushes Longer Day, More Reading in Some SchoolsGewertz explains:Two years ago, Florida took a step no other state has taken to improve students' reading skills: It required its 100 lowest-performing elementary schools to add an extra hour to their school day and to use that time for reading instruction. Early results suggest the new initiative may be paying
JAN 26
Corporate Education Losers Dust Off Antiquarian "Reforms," Again
Op-Ed published January 25 in The Tennessean:Tennessee Education Commissioner Kevin Huffman continues a series of victory laps that began in the fall, when results from the National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP) showed improvement in reading and math scores for Tennessee’s fourth- and eighth-graders. Tennessee, however, remains far from the finish line in the federal Race to the Top t
Indiana HB1320: The ALEC, Bill Gates, Rupert Murdoch Plan for Student Data
By Doug MartinYou would think with many more Hoosiers finding out each and every day about the complete scam known as Indiana school reform, the legislators in Indianapolis would be smart enough to give it a rest. But no, instead of doing damage control on the eve of the release of my book Hoosier School Heist—which spills the beans on the out-of-state money, the handing over of charter schools t
The never-ending common core boondoggle
Sent to USA Today, January 25, 2014.I was happy to read that "Some states get cold feet as Common Core testing draws near," (Jan. 24). As Theodor Rebarber noted, estimates of costs should include technology. All common core tests must be delivered online, on up-to-date computers, which many schools do not have. This will cost billions, and we can be sure that as soon as the system is fun
JAN 25
Is increasing reading instruction a good idea?
Sent to Education Week, January 25, 2014We need to take a much closer look at claims that increased time spent in reading instruction results in improvement in reading achievement ("Fla. Pushes Longer School Day, More Reading in Some Schools," Jan. 22). According the Ed Week article, scores were higher than comparison schools in only 20 of the 100 schools observed. In other words, in 80
Shooting Ourselves in the Foot
No one, myself included, expects a profession to hold lockstep to only one voice—including teachers.But Help teachers improve their craft, an Op-Ed by a public school teacher, calls for helping teachers become better educators, but in fact, perpetuates the worst aspects of the education reform movement.In the end, this piece repeats misguided claims about school and teacher quality as well as stud