Rocketship Education and Urinary Tract Infection | deutsch29

Rocketship Education and Urinary Tract Infection | deutsch29:

Rocketship Education and Urinary Tract Infection

 Rocketship charter schools get high test scores. By Rocketship’s corporate reform standards, those high test scores are what matters.

However, there is a cost, and that cost has crossed paths with the inhumane.

At Rocketship’s 13 schools, students spend long periods of time (amounting to a 25 percent of the school day) working on computers. It’s part of a cost-saving measure; hundreds of students and only a handful of “instructional lab specialists.”

As NPR notes, the reality is that Rocketship has high turnover for staff put in charge of those labs– which apparently results in staff shortages and larger groups of students being watched by one person.

Despite high turnover in the limited staff watching large groups of students, Rocketship supposedly tracks the minutes that students are on the computer– which leads to the bathroom issue.

As NPR reports:

That drive to maximize instructional time and monitor data is a tenet of Rocketship culture, said the former principal, Sarratore. “We are trying to teach kids responsibility on how to use their time the most wisely.”

Several former staffers, plus a parent and a doctor, said that this zeal extended to limiting bathroom breaks. At his school, Sarratore said, there was 

Rocketship Education and Urinary Tract Infection | deutsch29:

A teacher protest in Oaxaca, Mexico, turned deadly. The U.S. education debate should take note.

A teacher protest in Oaxaca, Mexico, turned deadly. The U.S. education debate should take note.:

The Tragedy in Oaxaca Really Puts America’s Squabbles Over Education Reform in Perspective

Mexican federal police clash with teachers during a protest against education reform and the arrest of two of its leaders in Oaxaca on Sunday. Patricia Castellanos/AFP/Getty Images

There’s a nastiness to conversations about U.S. education reform, which are characterized by the kind of stark taking-of-sides that’s usually reserved for debates over guns or abortion rights. One side often sees the other as union-busting corporate reformers who’ve never been inside an actual classroom yet are hell-bent on reducing all learning to meaningless, time-destroying tests and evaluations. The other, at its worst, portrays its opponents as parasitic, lazy, abusive teachers who care more about their benefits package than the children they’re supposed to be educating. Both are dangerous, inaccurate distortions that keep divisions within the education community fresh and festering.

But however rancorous the debate gets, the U.S. has never seen anything like what happened in Oaxaca, in southern Mexico, over the weekend, when a massive strike organized by a radical wing of the country’s largest teachers union turned into a violent confrontation with police. At last (disputed) count, nine people, including one journalist, have been killed, about 100 (a combination of civilians and police officers) have been injured, and at least 20 arrested. It’s a tragic culmination of what should’ve been a peaceful dispute over what the future of education in Mexico should look like.

First, some glancing background, since this was by no means an out-of-thin-air showdown: For decades, the left-leaning Oaxaca teachers union, the National Coordinator of Education Workers (or CNTE), has gone on annual strikes that usually yielded modest pay raises. In 2006, the state governor sent in 750 police officers to break up the strikes, upping the ante considerably. In the end, the ceremonial strikes became a full-scale civic rebellion that lasted more than six months and led to more than a dozen deaths. More than a million kids were out of school for the duration.

Over the past several years, the strikes of Sección 22, as the Oaxaca chapter of CNTE is known, have had a different focus: the education reforms pushed by President Enrique Peña Nieto, passed the year after he entered office in 2013. The reforms, an attempt to modernize Mexico’s flailing education system and therefore the country as a whole, mandate a test given to teachers as well as a performance review. If teachers fail three times in a row, they could be fired, stripped of the job securityA teacher protest in Oaxaca, Mexico, turned deadly. The U.S. education debate should take note.:

Chris Christie’s shockingly regressive education plan.

Chris Christie’s shockingly regressive education plan.:

Chris Christie’s Education Plan Is Shocking

n Tuesday, New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie made a speech that sounded commonsensical. “No child in this state is worth more state aid than another,” he said. He suggested equalizing per-student education funding across New Jersey so every public school, whether in a suburb or city, receives $6,599 in state aid per child. “Every child has potential. Every child has goals. Every child has dreams. No child’s dreams are less worthy than any others,” Christie said.

This might sound like a civil rights speech—a plea to provide more opportunities to the neediest kids. In fact, if enacted, Christie’s proposal would amount to a huge giveaway to the children and families who are already thriving in New Jersey while hurting the kids who most need a leg up. With this plan, the governor hopes to lower taxes and end a state program that sends extra money to schools that educate at-risk children. Lest you have any doubt about whom Christie is trying to protect with his “equalization” plan, consider the fact that although his proposal would cut supplemental funding for poor children and English language learners, it would continue to send extra money to children with learning disabilities—a group, unlike the other two, that is majority white.

Here’s how Christie’s proposal would work in practice: Hillsborough Township, the leafy suburb where he delivered his speech, is 78 percent white, 8 percent Latino, and 5 percent black. Its education funding would increase by 86 percent under Christie’s plan. In high-poverty Newark, which is 84 percent black and Latino, funding would decrease by a devastating 69 percent.

That a member of the Republican presidential nominee’s inner circle has made such a proposal is frankly terrifying. Christie’s plan is a deeply regressive one that would overturn a half-century of bipartisan consensus that poor children need extra educational resources.

American public schools are funded in a few different ways. Nationwide, the federalChris Christie’s shockingly regressive education plan.:

Jersey Jazzman: Once Again, @GovChristie Treats Education Policy Like a Joke

Jersey Jazzman: Once Again, @GovChristie Treats Education Policy Like a Joke:

Once Again, @GovChristie Treats Education Policy Like a Joke

I have a piece over at NJ Spotlight about Chris Christie's insane school funding proposal. If there is an upside to this madness, it's that we just might finally have a serious discussion about how education funding really works in this state. Obviously, I'm going to have a lot more to say about this, so stand by.

But before I do, I want to remind everyone of one immutable truth: Chris Christie has never been serious abut education policy. If you doubt me, just look at the very first piece of propaganda he's put out in support of his "Fairness Formula."

Christie went to the home of a South Plainfield family and literally sat at their kitchen table and pitched his scheme. Toward the end, Christie spoke to the family's 10-year-old son:

Governor Christie:  Aiden how you doing man? You’ve been hanging in there during all this, is it all right? What are you doing over the summer? 

Aiden Carlisle: Summer baseball and summer soccer. 

Governor Christie: Great. Have fun this summer. You’ve earned it. You worked hard in school, earn your summer. It’s good. Enjoy it. [emphasis mine]

Really? Young Aiden here has "earned" his summer off? I seem to remember almost exactly Jersey Jazzman: Once Again, @GovChristie Treats Education Policy Like a Joke:

Schools Matter: Do ESSA Regulations Reflect ESSA Statute? Short Answer--Yes

Schools Matter: Do ESSA Regulations Reflect ESSA Statute? Short Answer--Yes:

Do ESSA Regulations Reflect ESSA Statute? Short Answer--Yes

Since the 192 pages of ESSA regulations were posted recently for public comment, FairTest, AFT/NEA, and Diane Ravitch have been pretending that the regulations do not uphold and, otherwise, overstep the intent of the 1000+ page federal statute that comprises ESSA.   No doubt all these parties who are complicit in supporting this awful legislation would like to pretend that the awful regulations somehow disguise the good intent of ESSA.  Nothing could be further from the truth.  The regulations are remarkably consistent with what the ESSA demands. 

FairTest is presently posting on numerous groups to urge individuals and organizations to comment on the ESSA regulations.  And if you don’t have time to read the regs, just use their comments. Right?

Well, I took the time to read the Regulations AND the ESSA, upon which the regs are based.  FairTest is simply trying to cover their ass for supporting ESSA’s continued assault on public schools. 

But, hey, what could they do?  After all, the corporate Democrats knew what kind of education policy they would support—the same one that Wall Street supports and that the Republicans support.  FairTest’s analysis is all smoke and mirrors.  See below FairTest recommendations in italics with my responses following.

The DoE must remove or thoroughly revise five draft regulations:

_DoE draft regulation 200.15_ would require states to lower the ranking of any school that does not test 95% of its students or to identify it as needing “targeted support.” No such mandate exists in ESSA. This provision violates statutory language that ESSA does not override “a State or local law regarding the decision of a parent to not have the parent’s child participate in the academic assessments.” This regulation appears designed primarily to undermine resistance to Schools Matter: Do ESSA Regulations Reflect ESSA Statute? Short Answer--Yes:

 Big Education Ape: John King Gets Grilled By John Kline Over ESSA Regulations – Exceptional Delaware - http://bigeducationape.blogspot.com/2016/06/john-king-gets-grilled-by-john-kline.html



Big Education Ape: As US DOE Releases Proposed Rules For ESSA, Kline & Alexander Threaten To Pull The Plug – Exceptional Delaware - http://bigeducationape.blogspot.com/2016/05/as-us-doe-releases-proposed-rules-for.html

Principal: ‘The truth is that many Americans do not see value in investing in boys of color’ - The Washington Post

Principal: ‘The truth is that many Americans do not see value in investing in boys of color’ - The Washington Post:

Principal: ‘The truth is that many Americans do not see value in investing in boys of color’

Nikkia Rowe,  principal at Renaissance Academy in West Baltimore. (Jahi Chikwendiu/The Washington Post)

Khalil Bridges is an extraordinary young man. My Post colleague Theresa Vargas wrote about his struggles graduating from the Renaissance Academy High School, one of Baltimore’s most troubled and violence-wracked schools where three young men lost their lives this past school year. After the story’s publication, hundreds of people donated to a GoFundMe account set up for him.

[Coming of age in a city coming apart]

Nikkia Rowe is the principal of Renaissance. She arrived there nearly three years ago, and knew immediately that the students there needed for more than academics. Vargas writes:

“These kids don’t look like kids,” she told her staff at the time. “They look like vets coming home from foreign wars. At any given moment, something can trigger them.”

In the following post, Rowe writes movingly about her school and the challenges she, her staff and her students face every day, a situation common in many schools around the country. She also writes about what she believes policymakers must do to help these students.

By Nikkia Rowe

Renaissance Academy is a traditional high school (grades 9 through 12) situated in the West Baltimore community of Upton/Druid Heights. The school is a second home to 287 students who come from the poorest, most violent and blighted neighborhoods in the city.

Our students walk through the doors of the schoolhouse each day carrying a crushing and ever-evolving emotional load that interferes with learning readiness. On any given day, one student may have been kicked out of the house after a fight with mom and slept outside, one could have witnessed a stabbing in the housing development courtyard, and one could be experiencing a week-long headache caused by a tooth desperately in need of dental attention.

At Renaissance, this is our everyday.

And at Renaissance, every single day, we work to triage the trauma and to meet the basic needs of our students so that they are able to learn. We love our students fiercely in the face of life-or-Principal: ‘The truth is that many Americans do not see value in investing in boys of color’ - The Washington Post:

Cartoon gravity and reform logic | The Patiently Impatient Teacher

Cartoon gravity and reform logic | The Patiently Impatient Teacher:

Cartoon gravity and reform logic

Most people who don’t work with them see teenagers as moody, impulsive, and unpredictable. Actually, the opposite is true. Teenagers are completely predictable—that is once you understand teenage logic. Teenage logic is sort of like cartoon gravity; it has its on set of strict rules, that just don’t always happen to align with reality. As a new kid on the block of the education policy blogosphere and twitterverse (really, did I just use those words?) I am beginning to see that education reformers seem to have their own form of cartoon gravity logic. So here we go in no particular order, the most head scratching logical fallacies I have seen so far (this is likely to be a reoccurring series).

1. “The public school system is broken because it is horrible bureaucratic and inefficient…lets make that same system give secure high stakes standardized tests…!” Seriously? You give a bureaucratic system a bureaucratic task to do and then try to deflect blame when ridiculousness ensues?
2. “Democracy is not working and communities of poverty and color are disenfranchised…so lets break democracy even more and give those folks charter schools with unelected boards and start pumping money into local school board elections to impact the outcome…” So exactly how are those disenfranchised people now empowered? How exactly to they have a voice in their children’s education? Why do you trust their decision-making skills when it Cartoon gravity and reform logic | The Patiently Impatient Teacher:

John Thompson: Who Is Supporting the Original Vergara Decision? | Diane Ravitch's blog - Linkis.com

John Thompson: Who Is Supporting the Original Vergara Decision? | Diane Ravitch's blog - Linkis.com:

John Thompson: Who Is Supporting the Original Vergara Decision?

John Thompson, teacher and historian in Oklahoma, decided to check out what the supporters of the original Vergara decision were up to. They have appealed the reversal of the original decision. The original decision struck down California statutes that protect tenure and seniority. On appeal, that lower court decision was reversed by a unanimous court. Now the plaintiffs have filed an appeal, seeking to restore the original decision. Thompson wrote a direct letter to two distinguished legal scholars who filed amicus briefs, asking them to explain why they support a decision that was anti-tenure, anti-seniority, anti-teacher, and anti-union.

After reading the names of eminent scholars who signed an amicus brief in support of the plaintiff of Vergara v California, I sent a “say it ain’t so” email to a couple of them. I appreciate the responses that I received, but I must admit that they reinforced my fears about the continuing corporate reform, anti-teacher public relations campaign. As Jal Mehta explains, teaching is treated like a “semi-profession.” It’s bad enough that school reformers seek to silence our hard-earned insights, as they move us around like chess pieces, in the hopes that they can someday-over-the-rainbow devise a system of rewards and punishments that will transform our schools. It is sadder still that eminent jurists would agree that the noneducators in the Billionaires Boys Club have virtually no burden of proving that their hunches about school improvement would cause more good than harm to poor children of color.

Two legal scholars replied that they aren’t anti-teacher, and their brief is limited to a specific aspect of California constitutional law. I wonder if they would follow the same logic and write an amicus brief in support of a narrow point in the Citizens United case. After all, Vergara is just one part of a corporate assault on unions, collective bargaining and traditional public education governance; Citizens United was a similar attack on traditional electoral politics. But here is the vexing problem: legal scholars would never come out in support for Citizens United without conducting a careful review of the facts as well as the legal logic of the case. I wonder how many Vergara supporters have even read the evidence presented by the plaintiffs at trial. Had they done so, I wonder if they would see the disconnect between the experts’ narrow research John Thompson: Who Is Supporting the Original Vergara Decision? | Diane Ravitch's blog - Linkis.com:

Schools Matter: Bill Gates Filthy Wealth, Bolivian Chickens, and Victimized Schoolkids

Schools Matter: Bill Gates Filthy Wealth, Bolivian Chickens, and Victimized Schoolkids:

Bill Gates Filthy Wealth, Bolivian Chickens, and Victimized Schoolkids

NOTE: By now, I suppose this is old news. I tried to publish it in more general venues--reaching beyond our rather narrow education audience. Of course general audiences just don't give a damn about our plight. But I regard myself as a unique commentator on this particular issue. . . . I have, after all, actually laid hands on a Bolivian chicken.

by Susan Ohanian 

Buckets of money give Bill Gates the singular notion that he knows what it means to stand in other peoples' shoes. In his June 7 blog, Gates pronounced, “It's pretty clear to me that just about anyone who's living in extreme poverty is better off if they have chickens. In fact, if I were in their shoes, that's what I would do--I would raise chickens." Gates goes on to give lessons in chicken husbandry and economics, including the fecundity of chickens and how chicken ownership can bring empowerment to women.

In keeping with the Gates gospel that he knows what people need, Gates announced a gift of 100,000 chickens to impoverished nations worldwide, including sub-Saharan Africa and Bolivia. The Financial Times reported  that Cesar Cocarico, Bolivia's minister of land and rural development, was insulted. "[Gates] does not know Bolivia's reality to think we are living 500 years ago, in the middle of the jungle not knowing how to produce. Respectfully, he should stop talking about Bolivia, and once he knows more, apologize to us." As it happens,  Bolivia’s economy has been steadily growing for the last decade, with per-capita gross domestic product jumping from roughly $1,200 to $3,100. The Guardian stepped up with the information that Bolivia produces 197 million chickens a year. 

US media, who come  to praise Gates, showed no interest in his missteps regarding what Bolivians need. 

 For decades I have stood in shoes that would give Gates bunions. Since my first job at Grover Cleveland High School in New York City to twenty years of teaching disaffected students to studying schools in twenty-six states as prep for writing about how teachers teach and kids learn, my close contact with public schools shows me the harm Gates money has wrought. What's Schools Matter: Bill Gates Filthy Wealth, Bolivian Chickens, and Victimized Schoolkids:

Stand With Oaxaca Teacher's Strike | BustED Pencils

Stand With Oaxaca Teacher's Strike | BustED Pencils:

Stand With Oaxaca Teacher’s Strike

Mexican teachers in the poor, heavily indigenous states of Oaxaca, Guerrero, and Michoacan have bravely stood up in the face of government attempts to smash one of the last bastions of unionized workers in Mexico, education. The Oaxaca teacher’s strike is in response to the so-called educational reforms being pushed by the Enrique Pena Nieto government. These are not educational reforms at all but labor reforms. One of the more controversial elements of these reforms is that teachers will be subject to evaluations upon which their jobs depend. The teacher training schools or normals are also being threatened, especially since the disappearance of 43 students from the Ayotzinapa Normal school.

The normal have been a pathway to employment for the impoverished as well as a source of political activity and community involvement in rural societies. In response, the teacher’s union, Coordinadora Nacional de Trabajadores de la Educación went on strike in Oaxaca. The ensuing crackdown on the Oaxaca teacher’s strike and imprisonment of  (CNTE) leaders Aciel Sibaja, Ruben Nunez and Francisco Villalobos and brutal slaying of at least 4 demonstrators on June 19th illustrates the desperation of the Mexican government to contain and silence the teacher’s union.

American teachers should stand in solidarity with the CNTE and the Oaxaca teacher’s strike, as we are fighting the same set of neoliberal, corporate, interests in our system of education here in America. Our government is an ally of Pena Nieto. They have stood by and supported him in the face of his government’s violence, repression and human rights violations. There has been relative silence about the latest atrocities because they support the same vision of education. If faced with the same political clarity and courage exhibited by the Mexican teachers, our ruling class may respond in kind with repression. American teacher’s unions should demand an end to aid to the Mexican government until the CNTE confirms that the repression has stopped. Our struggle is the same.

We educators, here in the US are facing the same agenda, top down reforms in which our voices have not been included, increased, arbitrary accountability and job insecurity to fit a business model of education. The CNTE should inspire us all to stand up. We do not honor their example and their struggle by simply well wishing and liking facebook statuses. We should support them by supporting ourselves, standing up to the corporate education Stand With Oaxaca Teacher's Strike | BustED Pencils:

Turtle Learning: JUNE - where has it gone? National Caribbean American Heritage Month. LGBT Pride Month. PTSD Awareness Month? African-American Music Appreciation Month.

Turtle Learning: JUNE - where has it gone? National Caribbean American Heritage Month. LGBT Pride Month. PTSD Awareness Month? African-American Music Appreciation Month.:

JUNE - where has it gone? National Caribbean American Heritage Month. LGBT Pride Month. PTSD Awareness Month? African-American Music Appreciation Month.

Perhaps I haven't written all this month - despite the many issues and causes -- because I've had my mind on my cancers.  I admit I am somewhat absorbed by the process, as well as the side effects. The way I look has also been somewhat absorbing - although I find selfies aren't the best way to capture the process.  I havetwo cancers - - ovarian and endometrial.  Most of it was removed by way of an operation ( non-invasive luckily ) but they feel they have to try to kill anything that might remain. 

Here is one photo I took to show my red face and wounded chest sores,  as well as using a wonderful cap I bought through the Internet and a beautiful turtle scarf given to me by my friend Jim.   The redness is from Dexamethasone a steroid.   I am not sure why the sores form on my skin. A type of burning perhaps.  Why I take a steroid isn't totally clear to me. I do remember my mother's Bell's Palsy -- the first time around the time of the Rosenberg's execution when there were no steroids and she had to sit in a dark room for days and months I think to heal.  The second time was much later but unfortunately my father was dying of horrendously painful bone cancer. My mother was his caretaker - impossible for an 83 year-old woman to care for an 83 year-old man who couldn't move.  But this second time she was cured rather quickly with steroids.

This one I took at my first chemo.  I had three chemo treatments with 3 weeks in between, starting in March.
That took me up to May when I had 3 radiation treatments -- one each week for 3 weeks. Radiation seems less intrusive in my case. Don't think it's true for others. One finds out that no one else is going to be able to tell you what you will experience.CANCER IS DIFFERENT FOR EVERYONE!  

 My hair started to fall out after the second treatment I think. Or maybe the third.  This shows areas of thinning.

So I decided to get a professional hair cut from Don Morand who has been Turtle Learning: JUNE - where has it gone? National Caribbean American Heritage Month. LGBT Pride Month. PTSD Awareness Month? African-American Music Appreciation Month.:

CBE and ALEC Preparing Students for the Gig Economy | educationalchemy

CBE and ALEC Preparing Students for the Gig Economy | educationalchemy:

CBE and ALEC Preparing Students for the Gig Economy

“Career and College Ready?” (image link)

Pearson of course was ahead of the pack as usual developing a school to labor pipeline that suites the corporate masters.  As this blog explains, Competency Based Education becomes the framework for “badges” instead of credit hours and prepare students for career and college which is code for the new “gig” economy. According to Pearson: “Alternative learning credentials including college coursework, self-directed learning experiences, career training, and continuing education programs can play a powerful role in defining and articulating solo workers’ capabilities. Already badges that represent these credentials are serving an important purpose in fostering trust between solo workers, employers, and project teams because they convey skill transparency and deliver seamless verification of capabilities.”http://www.pearsoned.com/education-blog/the-rise-of-the-solo-economy-what-it-means-for-workers-and-credentials/

I could -at this point -just say ’nuff said.

But I won’t.

CBE 101

First, a brief background: Competency based education (or CBE) has been a rapidly developing alternative to traditional public education. While proponents tout it as “disruptive innovation” critics examine how disruptive translates into “dismantle”, meaning that CBE is a system by which public schools can, and will be, dismantled. This is not ancillary. It was designed to create a new privately-run profiteering model by which education can be delivered to “the masses.” Think: Outsourcing.

CBE delivers curriculum, instruction and assessments through online programming owned by third-party (corporate) organizations that are paid for with your tax dollars. Proponents of CBE use catchy language like “personalized” and “individualized” learning. Translation? Children seated alone interfacing with a computer, which monitors and adjusts the materials according to the inputs keyed in by the child. See Newton’s Datapalooza here.

So gone are the days of “credit hours” earned by spending a certain amount of hours in a classroom. Instead, children move at an individual pace detached from the larger group or collaborative learning experiences which CBE pimps try to warn us are ‘keeping certain kids back” from their “true potential.”

The immediate advantages of control and profits for the neoliberal privatizers is quite evident and well documented. SeeTalmage for more on CBE history and my own summary here.

Let’s summarize what the outcomes of the CBE paradigm of public schools will be:CBE and ALEC Preparing Students for the Gig Economy | educationalchemy:

CURMUDGUCATION Baloney Emporium Hot Dogs On Sale!

CURMUDGUCATION:

CURMUDGUCATION Baloney Emporium Hot Dogs On Sale!

PA: Cybers Are Delusional

It's been little more than a week since the bricks and mortar portion of the charter school industry took a big, hard swipe at their cyber-siblings. As you may recall, three major charter school groups released a "report" that was basically a blueprint for how to slap the cyber-schools with enough regulation to make them finally behave. The report was rough, noting all of the worst findi

4 by Peter Greene / 2h hide  //  save

MD: State Super Gets Writing Lesson

Les Perelman is one of my heroes. For years he has poked holes in the junk science that is computer-graded writing, bringing some sanity and clarity to a field clogged with silly puffery.We are all indebted to Fred Klonsky for publishing an exchange between Perelman (retired Director of Writing Across the Curriculum at MIT) and Jack Smith, the Maryland State Superintendent of Schools. Maryland is

11 by Peter Greene / 3h 

YESTERDAY

OK: An Example for All of Us

Oklahoma has taken its share of lumps in the ed debates. Their legislature is not quite as determined to burn public education to the ground as are the legislatures of North Carolina or Florida. It's not quite as committed to cashing in on the charter revolution as Ohio. But Oklahoma remains in the grip of reformster baloney, and teachers are tired and frustrated. The word 'frustrated" comes

54 by Peter Greene / 18h 

School Accountability Camps

Now that ESSA has opened the door (maybe, kind of) to new approaches to school accountability. What are the possibilities? Mike Petrilli of the Fordham Institute has outlinbed four possibilities in a list calculated to help us all conclude that only one of the possibilities is really legit. The list apparently grows out of the Fordham contest to design a compatibility system; I entered that compet

12 by Peter Greene / 19h 

 CURMUDGUCATION:

The Dangers of Eliminating Teacher Preparation

The Dangers of Eliminating Teacher Preparation:

The Dangers of Eliminating Teacher Preparation

Wisconsin is thinking about letting anyone teach. No degree will be required to enter the classroom and work with students. Isn’t it bizarre to encourage young people to go to college but claim their teachers don’t need a college degree? Surely this is quackery.

But I thought it would be a good time to do a reality check, and provide a refresher course, as to what the role of teacher preparation should demand.

For anyone who loves groups like Teach for America, this is for you too. Five weeks of training and a degree in anything is also not sufficient to teach America’s children.

Becoming a real teacher takes long-term preparation. Here is what’s involved.

Child Development

Unless teachers understand appropriate milestones, or steps for each age and developmental level including middle and high school, children will become frustrated. We already see problems with school reform that places an unreasonable burden on children in the early years.

Increasingly, despite pleas for restraint by child specialists, very young children are being pushed to learn more before they are developmentally ready.

Good teacher education includes serious study about timing for appropriate instruction The Dangers of Eliminating Teacher Preparation:

Boston Latin's racial problems reflect US school resegregation - CSMonitor.com

Boston Latin's racial problems reflect US school resegregation - CSMonitor.com:

Boston Latin's racial problems reflect US school resegregation

FINDING THE PATTERNS The resignation this week of the principal is the latest twist in a federal investigation of racism at one of America's most prestigious public schools. 

 BOSTON — When the principal of America’s oldest school announced her surprise resignation, it was a reminder of a problem far bigger than one school – the growing resegregation of American education.

After months of pressure over the institution’s handling of racially charged incidents, Boston Latin School’s (BLS) Lynne Mooney Teta stepped down on Tuesday after nine years at the helm.

The incident that garnered the heaviest media attention and which is currently under investigation by the United States Attorney General’s office, involved a student who was not black threatening to lynch a black female student and using a racial slur.

Recommended: Four campuses where many low-income students are graduating

What followed exacerbated the situation, bringing to the surface deeper issues at the school. The administration didn't inform the girl’s parents. The parents found out much later. Multiple civil-rights groups complained racism was being soft-pedaled at the school. A black student-activist group, BLS Black, made a splash when it released a YouTube video saying some classrooms had racially insensitive dynamics and racial slurs were used in the hallways.

Four campuses where many low-income students are graduating

PHOTOS OF THE DAY Photos of the day 06/24

Ms. Teta sent a resignation letter to the school noting her encouragement at the school community’s efforts to combat “racism and discrimination,” but also acknowledging more had to be done. In a more pointed letter to Superintendent Tommy Chang on Wednesday, she expressed frustration at the way the school and its efforts had been “unfairly judged.”

Overblown or not, how Boston Latin, a prestigious public exam school once known for its racial diversity, reached this point in many ways reflects the broader decline of racial diversity across the American school system and the problems that come with it. By 2009-10, some 38 percent of black students attended schools where 90 percent or more of the students were nonwhite, according to the National Center for Education Statistics. That's up from 33 percent in 1980-81. The numbers are more dramatic for Latinos: 29 percent then; 43 percent by 2009-10. At Boston Latin's racial problems reflect US school resegregation - CSMonitor.com: