Portland teachers strike: Leaders cautiously optimistic, workload and salary among key unresolved issues

New Jersey’s Occupied School Districts » CounterPunch: Tells the Facts, Names the Names: New Jersey’s Occupied School Districtsby MICHELLE RENEE MATISONS and SETH SANDRONSKYWith globalization, the expansion of capitalist production has doubled the planetary work force, and U.S. elites in New Jersey and other “blue and red states” are defunding urban education services and then conveniently refundi

Broadcasting School Events | Connected Principals: Broadcasting School Eventsby jjohnson • February 14, 2014 • 0 CommentsA great new podcast that I love listening to is BrandEd hosted by Joe Sanfelippo and Tony Sinanis.  Each episode shares ways that schools can communicate and share their positive news with parents/community.  We all know that we can’t count on news reporters to share the positiv

With A Brooklyn Accent: The Romance Is Gone From Predatory School ReformDriving home from work today, I had an epiphany I wanted to share with you. And it is this. Even though terrible things are happening to teachers and students and families all over the nation, the Romance is gone from Predatory School Reform. It has been reduced to naked power, greed, and opportunism. And while this may bring

Strong Relationships Are Key — Whole Child Education: THE WHOLE CHILD BLOGStrong Relationships Are KeyFebruary 14, 2014 by Kristen PekarekRelationships have not only proven to be good for our physical health, but our spiritual and emotional health as well. It is through relationships with other human beings that we grow and evolve, as well as deepen and expand our love and meaning in life. As many

Live at CATE! | Gatsby In L.A.: Live at CATE! Things are heating up here—literally!  It’s Valentine’s Day but who needs romance when you can cram into a tiny side room at a seminar with 40 or so English teachers at the California Association of Teachers of English convention in San Diego?On the plus side, love may not be in the air (at least not for the four frazzled, middle-aged English teachers

School Improvement Grant Report Revised, Still Shows One-Third Of Schools' Scores Decreased: School Improvement Grant Report Revised, Still Shows One-Third Of Schools' Scores DecreasedRTTT Working?After an outside contractor bungled an analysis of a major federal school turnaround program, the U.S. Department of Education has issued corrected results -- and they're not much better.Like the previou

DAYLIGHT DISINFECTANT | “IT’S NOT ABOUT MONEY IT’S ABOUT POWER!” – INTERVIEW WITH TEACHER’S UNION CHEIF NEGOTIATOR: “IT’S NOT ABOUT MONEY IT’S ABOUT POWER!” – INTERVIEW WITH TEACHER’S UNION CHEIF NEGOTIATORPosted by Daylight DisinfectantYou would save the City money by allowing teachers to retire early with full medical. At least that’s what Marty Pavlik, the Portland Teacher’s Union Chief Negotia

Murdoch, Klein & Amplify: courting ed officials in search of sweetheart deals? - Integrity in Education: Murdoch, Klein & Amplify: courting ed officials in search of sweetheart deals?This week, after news broke that New Jersey Education Commissioner Chris Cerf would be leaving his position for an executive role at Amplify, we were immediately reminded of the scandal that erupted when Ampli

OPINION: An Open Education Not Ready to be Open | EdSurge News: OPINION: An Open Education Not Ready to be OpenTensions between 'open' and traditional schoolingCC BY 2.0 Flickr user kennymaticI am a tried-and-true supporter of open courseware. They enabled the first steps of my becoming a software engineer. So much of my knowledge today is indebted to people who have graciously shared theirs on th

Promise of CA’s New School Finance Law Hinges On Parents - New America Media: Promise of CA’s New School Finance Law Hinges On Parents New America Media, News Report, Peter Schurmann, Posted: Feb 14, 2014Above: From left to right, EdSource Executive Director Louis Freedberg, Children Now Senior Education Policy Director Samantha Tran and SFUSD Office of Family and Community Engagement Director Rut

Seattle Schools Community Forum: Saying GoodbyeI've been through a lot of changes in my personal and professional life in the past year or so. Actually, I'm still in a sort of transition period, but that period and those changes will be complete in April. Among other things, I'll be moving away from Seattle, which has been my home since 1987. For the past several months I have been splitting my ti

LA School Report - What's Really Going on Inside LAUSD (Los Angeles Unified School District): LA Unified’s education policy is upheld in US district court–Photo by Aaron BlevinsFrancis Blend and Van Ness elementary schools are merging. Via Park LaBrea News-Beverly Press | By Aaron Blevins U.S. District Court Judge Ronald Lew has ruled against two parent groups that sought to challenge the Los Ange

The Answer Sheet: Map: How much snow it takes to close U.S. schoolsHow much snow does it take to close schools? It depends on where you. Here’s a map put together by Reddit user Alexandr Trubetskoy which answers the question (with explanations).   Caveats: *The lightest green says “any snow” but also includes merely the prediction of snow. Also, this is snow accumulation over 24 hours/overnight. *

FCMAT » Fiscal Crisis & Management Assistance Team: The school standards rebellionEducation HeadlinesFriday, February 14, 2014FCMAT provides links to California K-12 news stories as a service to the industry. However, some stories may not be accessible because of newspapers' subscription policies.Fresno Unified says teacher contract talks are at impasse, teachers union disagreesOver the object

A Buffet of Excellence | EduShyster: A Buffet of Excellence Michelle Rhee and company serve up heaping helpings of some familiar fareBy Sarah LahmMichelle Rhee and her cavalry of status quo blasters recently braved the frigid Minnesota winter to present a veritable buffet of warmed-over ideas for boosting our sad, slumping schools and closing our many cavern-sized gaps. From *grit* and *rigor* to

BIG EDUCATION APE - MORNING WINK  AM POSTSLISTEN TO DIANE RAVITCH 2-14-14 Diane Ravitch's blog | A site to discuss better education for allDiane Ravitch's blog | A site to discuss better education for all: A Beautiful Poem for You Today (3)Another much loved poem is Christopher Marlowe’s “The Passionate Shepherd to His Love.” Marlowe lived from 1564-1593.   Come live with me and be my love, And we

Diane Ravitch's blog | A site to discuss better education for all: A Beautiful Poem for You Today (3)Another much loved poem is Christopher Marlowe’s “The Passionate Shepherd to His Love.” Marlowe lived from 1564-1593.   Come live with me and be my love, And we will all the pleasures prove That hills and valleys, dale and field, And all the craggy mountains yield. There will we sit upon the rocks,

Ed Notes Online: One of the Constants in Life: Chris Cerf is Still a CrookChris Cerf jumps around more than a bedbug. Now he is leaving as NJ State Ed Commissioner. And everywhere he goes he leaves scandalous doo-doo in his wake. After a  tenure working for fellow crook Chris Christie, Cerf is jumping the Christie ship and going back to work for his former crook boss, Joel Klein, to run Amplify in

Engaging Parents In School… | Going Beyond Parent "Involvement": The “Family Time Machine”February 14, 20141The Family Time Machine is a well-put-together interactive site that families can access to identify educational and fun activities that they can do together.It’s sponsored by The National Center for Families and Learning.You can learn more about it at an Education Week post titled

Larry Ferlazzo’s Websites of the Day… | …For Teaching ELL, ESL, & EFL: Photo Galleries Of The WeekObviously, photos can be great educational tools with English Language Learners and with any students (see The Best Ways To Use Photos In Lessons). I post about many photo galleries, also called slideshows. To do it in a little more organized way, though, I recently began this weekly feature calle

Fred Klonsky | Daily posts from a retired public school teacher who is just looking at the data.: IEA endorses Illinois state chairman of ALEC for governor.  Today the Illinois Education Association will announce its endorsement of Kirk Dillard in the Republican primary for governor of Illinois. Kirk Dillard is a current Republican Illinois State Senator who voted no on Senate Bill 1 – pension the

Wait What?: More than 500 New York State principals slam Common Core testing frenzyWhile Stefan Pryor, Governor Malloy’s Commissioner of Education, and the Connecticut State Department of Education are instructing Connecticut superintendents and principals to mislead and lie to parents in an attempt to scare parents from opting their children out of the standardized testing frenzy, a group of more

Schools Matter: Mark Weber on the Destructive NJ Ed Commish, Chris Cerf (Broad Academy '04)from NJ Spotlight: The state education chief’s so-called reforms may have stirred up something more powerful than frustration and resignation Chris Cerf says he’s not leaving his post as New Jersey’s Commissioner of Education because of Bridgegate, and I believe him. When Cerf departs at the end of March, he

Krugman: Inequality, Dignity and Freedom: Krugman: Inequality, Dignity and FreedombyteacherkenFollow    Email  16 Comments / 16 NewIn this New York Times column this morning the Nobel Laureate in Economics takes apart the one percent and the Republican party in how they view - and talk about - work.  Starting with remarks by Paul Ryan on "the dignity of work" Krugman lays out the framewo

@ THE CHALK FACE: Reformist @teachplus puts out some pretty thin gruel on the impact of testingTeacher leadership organization and reformist Teach Plus put out a recent study on the amount of time actually spent on testing in urban districts. It’s interesting that so much (relatively, speaking) fanfare surrounded this report because, well, it’s not really all that powerful. After reading through i

V.A.M.: Value Added Measure: The Dataman at Home, #1Happy Valentine's Day to all the intrepid Data Men and Data Women of the World, machine men and machine women.  They have "machine minds and machine hearts," sadly incapable of understanding anything that does not have some numerical value attached to it.by Adam Bergstein / 3h The Dataman at Home, #2by Adam Bergstein / 3h The Dataman at

the becoming radical | A Place for a Pedagogy of Kindness (the public and scholarly writing by P. L. Thomas, Furman University): remnant 53: “’God damn it, you’ve got to be kind.’”remnant 53: “’God damn it, you’ve got to be kind.’”.1 by plthomasedd / 19min hide  //  saveremnant 52: “I’ll be the cup if you should bleed”remnant 52: “I’ll be the cup if you should bleed”.1 by plthomasedd / 1h  2-13-14

GoPublicSchool.com « An open discussion of public school issues. GoPublicSchool.com: GPS Reader Viewpoint – Mike Weston…Hillsborough County, FL (Tampa) is home to the 8th largest district in the country with 15,000 teachers and a $3 billion budget. The Gates funded teacher evaluation system is an emotional nightmare for teachers… Here is Florida BAT Admin. Mike Weston with some note on what is com

Perdido Street School: Sheriff Andy Smiling TodayAfter de Blasio's self-inflicted school closure mess, Sheriff Andy is smiling wide:Gov. Cuomo on Thursday said  Mayor de Blasio’s city-centered plans for prekindergarten will not pass muster with state lawmakers. Cuomo, during a conference to update reporters on storm conditions, used some of his strongest language to date to criticize the mayor’s P

A Peek into How the Education Sector Works | janresseger: A Peek into How the Education Sector WorksPosted on February 14, 2014 by janressegerMany of us have the sense that profit has become increasingly involved in the world of education, but while the term “education sector” has come into our lexicon, we have only the vaguest idea about the many ways profit is driving privatization in and around

Correcting the Oklahoma Chamber’s False Claims About Common Core | Truth in American Education: Correcting the Oklahoma Chamber’s False Claims About Common CoreFiled in Common Core State Standards, Education at State Level by Jenni White on February 14, 2014 • 0 Comments2Recently, the Oklahoma State Chamber of Commerce produced a brochure called, "Preparing Students for Success"Please no

New professional standards for CA principals approved :: SI&A Cabinet Report :: The Essential Resource for Superintendents and the Cabinet: New professional standards for CA principals approvedby Tom Chorneau(Calif.) Setting a clear expectation that schools should be a place of safety and fairness, the Commission on Teacher Credentialing adopted Thursday new standards for school principals tha

John Thompson: Vergara Show Trial Highlights Gates Foundation Snake Oil - Living in Dialogue - Education Week Teacher: John Thompson: Vergara Show Trial Highlights Gates Foundation Snake OilBy Anthony Cody on February 13, 2014 10:57 PMGuest post by John Thompson.I hope the judge in Vergara v. California understands that the plaintiffs want to do more than strike down five laws that protect the rig

Reflections on My Common Core Debate for the West St. Tammany Chamber | deutsch29: Reflections on My Common Core Debate for the West St. Tammany ChamberFebruary 13, 2014Below is a post that I wrote for Brietbart regarding my February 4th debate on Common Core. The debate occurred in the Louisiana parish in which I both live and teach, St. Tammany. (The somewhat-edited version posted in Breitbart c

DIARY OF A PUBLIC SCHOOL TEACHER!: If You Tell Them They're Stupid: Our Kids Hear Every Word!: If You Tell Them They're Stupid: Our Kids Hear Every Word!Sometimes I get frustrated with my class when it seems as if they are not listening to me.You know. When 6 of them ask a question which had already been answered. Or when they ask you for directions after you have just given them.I have my methods

Make Teachers Your Valentines | Reclaim Reform: Make Teachers Your ValentinesPosted on February 13, 2014by Ken PrevitiTeachers deserve all the love and recognition they can receive. Make ALL of the teachers in your life your Valentines.Remember those teachers who influenced you, who met your needs? If you don’t know how to contact them, make the nearest teachers you meet your Valentines. Teachers

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 CAPLegislative Data Sheets - CalSTRS.comLegislative Data Sheets - CalSTRS.com:  Legislative Data SheetsSnapshots of CalSTRS members and benefit recipients sorted by Senate and Assembly districts.CalSTRS membership includes California public school e