All Week @ THE CHALK FACE
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About the radio show
Join Drs. Shaun Johnson and Tim Slekar
LIVE Sundays at 6PM EST and Wednesdays at 7PM EST
on Blog Talk Radio for progressive, pro-public education talk radio.
Call in to speak live with Tim and Shaun during the show, (805) 727-7111.
You can also listen to our Monday "Sunday-Replay" at 7PM EST, and re-broadcasts of the archives every Tuesday and Thursday at 7PM EST.
Visit the @ the Chalk Face radio main page for more information on the show and syndication.
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Video: Is Lafayette Parish Schools Selling a “Visual Strategy” or Common Core?
Let’s examine a program known as Visual Thinking Strategies (VTS). They’ve been around for a while. It is important to note that VTS predates test-driven education “reform,” both the Common Core State Standards (CCSS) and No Child Left Behind (NCLB): VTS is a well-known program developed by Abigail Housen and Philip Yenawine more than twenty years ago, […]
Ravitch Warms to Tuckerism: Can Randi Be Far Ahead?
Posted September 4 at Schools Matter. I posted the other day on the new (old) Tuckerism that Joe Nocera was promoting (again) in the New York Times. Obviously, Tucker’s THL (Testing Hysteria Lite) has resonated with the neolibs as a way to stave off the revolution against testing, while preserving its worst features and maintaining […]
SEP 02
Education Post: A Sorry Attempt to Repackage Privatization as “Conversation”
There is a test-score-driven, privatizing war on public schools and on the teaching profession. It is no secret that those chiefly financing the war stand above the chaos they create via their “philanthropy.” In short, they use their billions in order to promote their own ideal of American education privatization. And it seems that they […]
Lessons To Be Learned from Elizabeth Green’s Building a Better Teacher
Elizabeth Green’s Building a Better Teacher contributes explicitly and implicitly to two key school reform debates. Although I’m not fully convinced by her main argument, she makes a great case that we can build a better teacher. The implicit issue is whether a concerted effort to improve teacher quality could drive reforms in high-poverty schools […]
SEP 01
Gates Grant to “Further Hardwire the Common Core Curriculum” ??
One way to ensure permanence in the field of electronics is to “hardwire”– which means to “permanently connect.” In electronics, “hardwiring” refers to circuitry. For billionaire public education purchaser Bill Gates, circuitry and mass education, it’s all the same. Bill Gates has already likened the Common Core State Standards (CCSS) to circuitry, with the moronic […]
A Tale of Two Students
This is a guest post from Loy Gross, upstate New York parent and advocate. Proponents of Common Core State Standards and the New York tests associated with them try to convince us they are necessary. They say the standards make students college and career ready, and the New York tests provide an accurate measure […]
The practice of lesson plan review
Beginning my second year back in the classroom, I am once again becoming aware of the obligatory lesson plan review by administration. I have no problem with this in theory, but I am curious as to the overall value of this practice. In many cases, schools are staffed by a lot of people who teach […]
Dear PTA,
Dear ___________________ (Insert District/School PTA President’s name), Please accept my donation of $_____ to our school Parent Teacher Association. I/We truly appreciate the dedication and time that our local PTA devotes to enhancing the educational and social opportunities for our children and their school. I/We are choosing to donate money to our school’s PTA as […]
AUG 31
EdNext and the “Promise” of “Charter Choice”–But Let’s Not Mention the FBI
I have written a couple of posts of late regarding the results of Education Next’s 2014 public opinion survey, especially as concerns EdNext’s and its editor-in-chief Paul Peterson’s attempts to sell the Common Core State Standards (CCSS) to a public that is only half aware of CCSS– and with the half who are aware increasingly rejecting those […]
The Soap Opera of Teacher “Tenure” in Louisiana and New York
I am a tenured, career public school teacher. As such, I realize I am Public Enemy Number One to the fiscally-well-backed, non-teaching finger-pointers who call themselves “education reformers.” If only I could be fired without recourse, American education would no longer be “failing”; the security of my country would be certain, and we would once […]
A Respectful Revolution: Questioning Union Practice as an Act of Loyalty
The most revolutionary act one can engage in is to tell the truth. -Howard Zinn Does loyalty to one’s union require blind faith? Must one eschew raising questions and concerns to demonstrate solidarity? Over the past few weeks, I have asked myself these questions. Certainly, any organization worth protecting is worth holding up to […]
To all the cynics out there about the “ice bucket challenge”
Yes, I’ve read the critiques. I get it. I actually never thought I’d actually do one, especially since I wasn’t nominated. But then school started, and I thought that this would set an interesting example for students. So, I did it, with a nomination of another staff member and a promise of a $100 donation […]