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Wednesday, May 28, 2014

GUEST: Top Newark student says time to speak is now | Bob Braun's Ledger

GUEST: Top Newark student says time to speak is now | Bob Braun's Ledger:



GUEST: Top Newark student says time to speak is now

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Jordan Thomas
Jordan Thomas
Today’s guest blog was written by Jordan Thomas, a senior at Newark’s University High School where he is valedictorian and earned a 4.5 GPA. He was admitted to Princeton, Harvard, Yale, and Rutgers and will attend Princeton in the fall. He plans to go to law school and become a Constitutional lawyer. He was  the student member of the Newark School Advisory Board for this school year. He delivered these remarks at Tuesday night’s board meeting.
“Prudence, indeed, will dictate that Governments long established should not be changed for light and transient causes; and accordingly all experience hath shewn, that mankind are more disposed to suffer, while evils are sufferable, than to right themselves by abolishing the forms to which they are accustomed. But when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same Object evinces a design to reduce them under absolute Despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such Government, and to provide new Guards for their future security.” 
This passage, derived from our nation’s founding text, the Declaration of Independence, details an individual’s natural propensity to tolerate, or, in some cases, suffer, rather than to excite disruption, engage in public denunciation, or demand absolute reformation in times of hardship and deficient leadership. Candidly, I admit that I have been one so guilty of remaining reserved and civil in both action and speech through the duration of the struggle that has occurred in the Newark Public Schools system these months past, blinded by a false sense of hope, a chimerical sense of promise, and a foolish belief that my words and GUEST: Top Newark student says time to speak is now | Bob Braun's Ledger:

The Weekly Update: More on the Common Core, push back and opting out of high stakes testing, the FTC steps in to protect student privacy, a gag order on teachers and more | Seattle Education

The Weekly Update: More on the Common Core, push back and opting out of high stakes testing, the FTC steps in to protect student privacy, a gag order on teachers and more | Seattle Education:



The Weekly Update: More on the Common Core, push back and opting out of high stakes testing, the FTC steps in to protect student privacy, a gag order on teachers and more

Let’s start off with this gem:
A beloved annual kindergarten show at a New York school was canceled this week by administrators in an apparent effort to prepare the five-year-olds for college, probably by teaching them that you can’t trust anyone.
Administrators at the Harley Avenue Primary School in Elwood, New York, recently sent out a series of letters alerting parents that the annual song-and-dance show their children had been preparing for wasn’t good enough for their looming college applications.
“The reason for eliminating the Kindergarten show is simple. We are responsible for preparing children for college and career with valuable lifelong skills,” the letter says.
The administrators further explain that the five-year-olds would be better off learning to become “strong readers, writers, coworkers, and problem solvers,” all of which, ironically, are skills required to put on a show.
Yep, that’s education today.
Besides cancelling kindergarten performances and placing children in front of computers instead to take their tests, a lot has been happening in the wide world of education.
CCS in a nutshell
We’ll start in Chicago:

5-28-14 Larry Ferlazzo’s Websites of the Day… | …For Teaching ELL, ESL, & EFL

Larry Ferlazzo’s Websites of the Day… | …For Teaching ELL, ESL, & EFL:






How Can History Teachers Make the Curriculum More Engaging?
How Can History Teachers Make the Curriculum More Engaging? is the latest “question of the week” at my Education Week Teacher column. Feel free to leave responses there or here…
Fun Short Video For ELLs: “If It Fits, I Sits”
Here’s a fun short video that English Language Learners could watch and then describe what they saw verbally and in writing:

The Best Resources About Maya Angelou
I’m sure we are all saddened by Maya Angelou’s death today. I thought I’d share some useful resources and tweets to help remember her, and that might also help our students develop a connection to her work, if they don’t have one already. Feel free to suggestion your own favorites… [View the story "Good Resources About Maya Angelou" on Storify]
The Best Posts & Articles Highlighting Why We Need To Be Very Careful Around Ed Tech
Most readers know that I’m a big proponent of using technology to help students in their learning process. In fact, you can see a collection of applicable articles and related “Best” lists at The Best Advice On Using Education Technology. Most readers also know I’ve got a lot of misgivings about how tech is being used in education, particularly in ways that seem to prioritize profit over learning
Star Trek “Universal Translator,” Here We Come?
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“What Are We Losing By Eliminating Arts From the Curriculum?” Is Topic Of My Latest BAM! Radio Program
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Videos: Using Art As A Language-Learning Activity
Creating art can be a great language-learning activity for English Language Learners! We’re lucky to have an extraordinarily talented and caring art teacher — Mr. Johnny Doolittle — at our school. Every year he gives up his free period for many days to lead our English Language Learners in many different activities, including origami when we are studying Japan in Geography class; drawing when we
5-27-14 Larry Ferlazzo’s Websites of the Day… | …For Teaching ELL, ESL, & EFL
Larry Ferlazzo’s Websites of the Day… | …For Teaching ELL, ESL, & EFL: “A Teacher-Counselor Partnership Is ‘Essential’ For Student Success”A Teacher-Counselor Partnership Is ‘Essential’ For Student Success is Part Two in my Ed Week Teacher series on teacher-counselor partnerships. Today’s post includes responses from Julie Hartline, the 2009 National Counselor Of The Year; and educator/authors

Charles M. Blow offers a tribute to Maya Angelou

Charles M. Blow offers a tribute to Maya Angelou:







The news of Maya Angelou’s death arrived with the abruptness of a great twister — violent, without warning, tearing things up and flipping things over.
I ached the way the soul aches in the world when a great soul is lost from it.
So begins a magnificent column which describes the ability of Angelou to speak to and inflame the souls of others, and which demonstrates the power of beauty of the writing of Blow.
You need to read Maya & Me & Maya, subtitled "What Maya Angelou Meant to Me" from which I have just shared the opening.
Blow will explain connections - how part of his youth was spent one county over from where Angelou was raised.
He places her in a pantheon of writers whom he calls his literary fathers and mothers, people like Alice Walker and Langston Hughes, and others, and says of them
They helped me to see myself and love myself when I felt least seen and least loved.
They saved me.
By now you have a sense of the power - and yes, beauty - of this column.
You should read it.
Let me add a few observations if I may.
Like too many Americans I was woefully unaware of Angelou's work until January 20, 1993, when Bill Clinton, emulating John F. Kennedy's having had Robert Frost read a poem at his own inaugural some 32 years earlier, had Angelou read a poem for the occasion.
That led me to read more of her work.
Later her life would intersect mine in a different way, when as a teacher I spent several months teaching at a non-profit charter middle school part of a complex dedicated to Maya Angelou, Charles M. Blow offers a tribute to Maya Angelou:

Will Governor Cuomo Come in and Save the UFT Contract? southbronxschool.com

http://www.southbronxschool.com:



Will Governor Cuomo Come in and Save the UFT Contract?

So today is the day all the votes for the new contract must be in. The ballots have been checked, the envelopes licked and sealed, and the UFT telling us the sky will fall if we don't ratify this contract.

Yes, we'll have to get to the back of the line if we fail to ratify this contract. Well, if it means getting behind the NYPD's Sergeants Benevolent Association (Which is claiming the city has a $4.1 billion surplus!) then we here at SBSB are all for being at the end of the line. Seems the SBA has some guts.

But there is another reality that just might be plausible enough if the contract does not get ratified.

Is it possible that if the contract does not get ratified that Governor Andy swoops in and saves the day with the money to pay the retro immediately (or at least a big chunk of it) and to give us that 8% raise now instead of five years from now?

If you think about it this might not seem to far fetched.

Andy has aspirations on becoming president in 2016. For that too happen he needs two things (among many others but most importantly) to get the nomination. One, Hilary mustn't run, and secondly, he needs some sort of a mandate. Pundits have said if he gets 55% or less of the vote this year his dreams are done.

Western New York and Long Island are up in arms about what Andy has done for education and add
to that the economy of upstate and we can see Andy not doing well there. Astorino has been elected twice in Westchester County and that just might take the county off the chart for Andy. Andy will need Albany County and the Five Boroughs which have always gone Democrat, but Queens and Staten http://www.southbronxschool.com:

empathyeducates – Do Drivers Discriminate Against Minorities at Crosswalks?

empathyeducates – Do Drivers Discriminate Against Minorities at Crosswalks?:





    Do Drivers Discriminate Against Minorities at Crosswalks?

    Perhaps, if we are to truly understand what we see in our schools, we must learn from the streets. We know that societal norms enter the classroom. What is implicit can often be seen. Witness what occurs at crosswalks and ask yourself, is education policy borne out of our biases. We invite your thoughts. What do you think?

    Do Drivers Discriminate Against Minorities at Crosswalks?
    In an initial study, researchers found a large disparity

    By Sarah Goodyear @buttermilk | The Atlantic – CityLab. May 28, 2014 9:25 AM ET
    One of the most blatant and insulting manifestations of racism in the days of Jim Crow was the expectation that a black person in the South would have to step off the sidewalk to allow a white person to pass. As documented in the book American Nightmare: The History of Jim Crow, this was just one of many indignities and restrictions, some of them life-threatening, that African Americans had to endure as they used the basic transportation infrastructure of 19th and 20th century America. (You can read many more examples of transportation discrimination in the Jim Crow era on the Federal Highway Administration’s website.)
    Jim Crow is in the past. But now a pilot study conducted by researchers in Portland, Oregon, suggests that black people may still be treated unequally by their fellow citizens when crossing the street. The findings are preliminary, but troubling.
    The researchers looked at whether drivers treated pedestrians waiting to cross in a crosswalk differently according to their race. Their findings: black men in the study were passed by almost twice as many cars as white men before a driver would yield, and their wait times for safe crossing were nearly a third longer.empathyeducates – Do Drivers Discriminate Against Minorities at Crosswalks?:

    Nite Cap 5-28-14 #BATsACT #RealEdTalk #EDCHAT #P2



    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 CAP




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    YESTERDAY

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