Schools Matter:
Schools Matter All Week
We need to remember that the impediments to self-directed learning are by design
"When teachers are told exactly what and how to teach, when they feel pressured to produce results, they in turn tend to pressure their students. That is exactly what another study found: teachers who felt controlled became more controlling, removing virtually any opportunities for students to direct their own learning." — Alfie Kohn As always the wonderful Alfie Kohn is right on target
Toxic Culture of Education
Orlando SentinelFrustrated Orange teacher decries 'toxic culture of education'By Leslie Postal, Orlando Sentinel6:26 PM EDT, June 12, 2014Fed up and fired up, algebra teacher Josh Katz this spring took to the stage for a 17-minute denouncement of what he called the "toxic culture of education" in Florida's public schools.Since then, nearly 30,000 people on YouTube have viewed the Univers
JUN 12
Karen Lewis on the Vergara Decision and What It Means
Karen Lewis points to the corporate boot-licking study by Raj Chetty that speculates on how much income would be added if the worst teachers (based on VAM, hah!) were replaced by average teachers. The Chetty study was used as the principal documentation to support the court decision in California to roll back teacher tenure. Read here excerpts from Bruce Baker's takedown of the Chetty study.
Brian Jones: "If teacher tenure prevented achievement, Mississippi would have stellar schools. . ."
from NYTimes:Brian Jones, a former New York City public school teacher, is the Green Party's candidate for lieutenant governor of New York. He blogs at "No Struggle, No Progress." He is on Twitter.UPDATED JUNE 12, 2014, 12:55 PMAmerica is the land of misdirected anger. This time, teachers in California are on the receiving end.That is not to say that public school parents in the state sh
Brian Jones: "If tenure prevented achievement, Mississippi would have stellar schools..."
From the NYTimes:Brian Jones, a former New York City public school teacher, is the Green Party's candidate for lieutenant governor of New York. He blogs at "No Struggle, No Progress." He is on Twitter.UPDATED JUNE 12, 2014, 12:55 PMAmerica is the land of misdirected anger. This time, teachers in California are on the receiving end.That is not to say that public school parents in the stat
JUN 11
Diane Ravitch's Mutating Common Core Positions
As the opposition to Common Core has spread and deepened, Diane Ravitch's position has undergone a strange metamorphosis. She had this to say at Huffington Post on March 24 in a piece entitled "The Fatal Flaw of the Common Core Standards:". . . .The complaints are coming from all sides: from Tea Party activists who worry about a federal takeover of education and from educators, parents,
JUN 10
Why Defeat of the Common Core Would Represent a Major Victory for Education
A post by Diane Ravitch yesterday leaves the soured impression that beating back the Common Core would be no major victory for those opposed to corporate education reform. Her reasoning? By ending Common Core, we would still have a terribly flawed system based on test and punish and ignoring poverty, so Common Core or local core--who cares. How wrong can Diane be: let me count the ways. 1) Witho
Is Tom Corbett the Most Hated Governor in PA's History?
ht to Ken Derstine:As many as 1,000 protesters, many angry about school funding, blocked traffic and waved signs in Center City on Monday afternoon, hoping to disrupt or at least deflect attention from a fund-raising stop by Govs. Corbett and Christie."Our members are here because they're being mistreated," said Jerry Jordan, president of the Philadelphia Federation of Teachers.Six peopl
JUN 09
Reporter Visits NOLA Charter Cult Where Parents Filed Civil Rights Complaint
A clip from the story, followed by part of my email to the reporter, Andrew Vanacore:. . . . Its campuses have never been outwardly impressive. Its first, Sci Academy, opened in 2008 in a set of trailers near what used to be Abramson High School. The group began a phased takeover of Carver High School, in the Desire neighborhood, in 2012, splitting it into two separate programs with a combined foo
Fighting the Common Core is Everyone's Fight
Mark Naison nails it here: The greatest threat to democracy in the United States is the excessive concentration of wealth in a small number of hands. It is because of this that one single extremely wealthy individual- Bill Gates- was able to leap on a relatively obscure proposal for a national curriculum and get 45 states to adopt it at breakneck speed, with little scrutiny and no field testin
JUN 08
Bill Gates Steps from Behind the Curtain in Hopes of Saving Common Core
The Gates Foundation has provided Lindsay Layton of the Washington Post a story that is intended put a band-aid on the bleeding out of the Common Core Standards. It's worth reading for an appreciation of how desperate Gates is to save his billion dollar baby from going down the drain, like his other self-serving educational thought disorders.With access to Gates and a bit of polished skullduggery
Chicago Teacher Adam Heehan On How Common Core Threatens Good Teaching
from Chicago SunTimes:I teach Financial Literacy as a semester-long social studies course in a Chicago public high school. This quarter we focused on professional skills. My students must find living arrangements on a fixed salary, then explain their plan to the class.Students must calculate their biweekly net pay (based on last quarter’s grades, e.g. an “A” earns you $42,000 a year), and living e
JUN 07
Only 43 to Go: Oklahoma Becomes Second State to Ditch Common Core
http://www.newsok.com/article/4888114
Union Leadership that Teachers and Children Can Believe In--Really!
from the Globe, where the editorial board's head is about to explode:NORTHAMPTON — Don’t make the mistake of talking about “teacher training” to Barbara Madeloni.“Oh, please don’t use the word training,” she chided a reporter. “We educate teachers. We don’t train them. We train dogs. And I love dogs.”Beacon Hill better get used to that sharply pointed, confrontational style. The 57-year-old for
Inigo Montoya challenges common core testing program
Comment on Ed Week blog, ELLs Test-Drive New English-Language Proficiency AssessmentsPosted at: http://blogs.edweek.org/edweek/learning-thelanguage/2014/06/wida_field_testing_new_english.htmlInigo Montoya: You keep using that word.I do not think it means what you think it means. ... (from: The Princess Bride). We are told that ELLs are about to "test drive" the "New English-Langu
Authentic reforms from Dr. Krashen. Address poverty, and ensure access to books to preempt summer learning loss!
Providing more access to interesting reading material by investing in public libraries and librarians is an excellent way to deal with summer learning loss. — Dr. Stephen D. Krashen Yesterday morning at teacher sent me a Dr. Edward Haertel paper discussing the unreliability of Value Added Measures. I saw an interesting figure in the paper regarding "summer learning loss" that started me