Red for Ed Action Day: Teacher pay driving thousands to Statehouse

Red for Ed Action Day: Teacher pay driving thousands to Statehouse

Red for Ed Action Day: Teacher pay driving thousands to Statehouse -

Half of Indiana’s public school students will be out of classrooms Tuesday while thousands of teachers from across the state rally at the Statehouse to demand better pay.

It’s an unprecedented move from Indiana’s teachers, who have spent the last several years watching their counterparts in other states and cities striking, walking out and marching their way toward higher salaries and better working and learning conditions.

Earlier this year, the Indiana State Teachers Association organized a rally that attracted several thousand teachers – but it was on a Saturday, so there were no disruptions to schools, students and families.

Organizers of Tuesday’s event said they’ve tried every other way to get their message across and still feel unheard. So, ISTA is holding the Red for Ed Action Day on Tuesday to coincide with the day lawmakers return to the Statehouse and kickoff the 2020 legislative session.

Still have questions? We’ve got answers.

What is Red for Ed?

Red for Ed stands for Red for Education. It’s a national movement that encourages teachers, families and communities to show their support for public education by wearing the color red,  which is why the teacher protests across the country over the last two years have generally been marked by masses of marchers in red t-shirts.

What day is Red for Ed?

Indiana’s Red for Ed Action Day is Tuesday, Nov. 19. It’s also Organization Day, the ceremonial start of the 2020 legislative session, when lawmakers return to the Statehouse and promote their legislative agendas.

Why are teachers marching? CONTINUE READING: Red for Ed Action Day: Teacher pay driving thousands to Statehouse

Peter Greene: Can Rich Content Improve Education?

Can Rich Content Improve Education?

Can Rich Content Improve Education?

Modern high-stakes testing really kicked into gear with No Child Left Behind, and then got another huge boost with the advent of Common Core. All through that era, teachers pushed back against the fracturing of reading instruction, the idea that reading is a suite of discrete skills that can be taught independent of any particular content.

The pendulum has begun its swing back. Content knowledge is coming back into vogue, and while there are plenty of cognitive science-heavy explanations out there, the basic idea is easy to grasp. If you know a lot about dinosaurs, you have an easier time reading and comprehending a book about dinosaurs. If you are trying to sound out an unfamiliar word on the page, it’s easier if you already know the word by sound. If you learn and store new information by connecting it to information you already have banked, that process is easier if you actually have plenty of information already stored away.

Classroom teachers have known this. Some have argued that the Common Core acknowledged this (but did so in the appendix, none of which is tested material). And while much of the education reform crowd joined the “skills” push (one attempted catchphrase of the new SAT created under Common Core creator David Coleman was “skilled it”), some reformers never lost faith in the work of Ed Hirsch, Jr., who has himself stayed committed to the idea through his Core Knowledge Foundation.

So if we restore rich content to education and provide students with a wealth of background knowledge, will that revitalize education and fix some of the issues that have plagued us? Or will this, like the great skills revolution at the beginning of the century, turn out to be a terribly misguided idea?

Well, both. Hirsch’s 1983 book, Cultural Literacy: What Every American Needs To Know, underlines two of the potential pitfalls of rich content in education CONTINUE READING: Can Rich Content Improve Education?

CURMUDGUCATION: Pondiscio: Success Academy Is Better And Worse Than You Think

CURMUDGUCATION: Pondiscio: Success Academy Is Better And Worse Than You Think

Pondiscio: Success Academy Is Better And Worse Than You Think

Robert Pondiscio is a senior fellow at the Thomas B. Fordham Institute, a thinky tank steeped in conservative ed reform and staunch advocates of school choice, so one might expect that his book about Success Academy, the famous/infamous charter chain in New York City would be something of a puff piece, one more example of founder Eva Moskowitz’s broad and endless PR campaign. Indeed, the title How The Other Half Learns, seems like a bad sign-- Success Academy is not and does not represent half of anything, and to present it that way might suggest that Pondiscio is setting out a case for SA as an elite solution to education's problems.

It’s not that simple (which could be a subtitle for the book). Pondiscio brings a unique skill set to this work; he was a journalist for his first career and, in a real rarity for Reformsters, he taught in an actual classroom (five years in the South Bronx, not far from where the school that is the subject of this book now stands). Pondiscio enters this project as a fan of choice, and he leaves the same way, but along the way he gives a fairly unflinching look at his year inside the Success chain. Much of the books is commendably objective and reportorial, to the point that it can serve, as Pondiscio suggests, as a kind of Rorschach Test. If you are a supporter of charters and SA, you will find much here to confirm your beliefs; if you are an opponent, you will find many of your critiques confirmed as well. In fact, there isn't a bad thing you've heard about Success Academy that is not here in this book. If I had to pick a bottom line for the book, it would be this:

Success Academy schools are both better and worse than you think. Here are some things I learned from this book.

Success Academy Does, In Fact, Cream

But not the way they’re usually accused of. As Pondiscio details in considerable detail throughout the book, the charter chain doesn’t cream students, but families. From a demanding application process, through repeated meetings that lay out the demands of the charter, even through CONTINUE READING: CURMUDGUCATION: Pondiscio: Success Academy Is Better And Worse Than You Think

Gov. Wolf calls for constraints on Pennsylvania charter schools at school administrator meeting | News | mdjonline.com

Gov. Wolf calls for constraints on Pennsylvania charter schools at school administrator meeting | News | mdjonline.com

Gov. Wolf calls for constraints on Pennsylvania charter schools at school administrator meeting

Pennsylvania Gov. Tom Wolf said Friday that the state’s charter and cyber charter schools are overfunded at the expense of traditional public schools and largely immune from public scrutiny – accusations that he intends to address through what he calls a “charter school accountability plan.”

Speaking at a meeting of the Pennsylvania Association of School Administrators, the governor renewed his claims that Pennsylvania’s charter school law is one of the worst in the country and argued that reforms are needed to put traditional public schools on more solid footing and to avoid the annual drumbeat of property tax increases

Wolf, a Democrat in his second term in office, insists that implementing his accountability plan will result in $280 million being redirected annually from charters to traditional public schools. To justify such a move, Wolf pointed to a Stanford study that showed that some cyber charter schools are underperforming.

“Every student deserves a great education, whether in a traditional public school or a charter school, but the state’s flawed and outdated charter school law is failing children, parents, and taxpayers,” Wolf said in a statement. “Pennsylvania has a history of school choice, which I support, but there is widespread agreement that we must change the law to prioritize quality and align funding to actual costs.”

The Pennsylvania Coalition of Public Charter Schools, in a news release following Wolf’s remarks, noted that many traditional public schools have a track record of underperforming, too, which has been one of the drivers of interest in charter school options.

“The families of more than 143,000 students have chosen to send their children to a public charter school,” Ana Meyers, executive director of the coalition, said in the news release. “There are more than 30,000 students waiting to get into a charter school in Philadelphia alone. Why? Because their school district was not meeting their child’s needs. If Governor Wolf gets his way, these students will be trapped in a school district building based on their zip code – not based on the educational needs of the students.”

Among the deficiencies that Wolf sees in the existing charter school system are the fact that charters do not have an elected school board, that the companies that run them aren’t CONTINUE READING: Gov. Wolf calls for constraints on Pennsylvania charter schools at school administrator meeting | News | mdjonline.com

What is a teacher? Tennessee lawmakers call for specific definition, cite ambiguity with pay raises | Chattanooga Times Free Press

What is a teacher? Tennessee lawmakers call for specific definition, cite ambiguity with pay raises | Chattanooga Times Free Press

What is a teacher? Tennessee lawmakers call for specific definition, cite ambiguity with pay raises

Throughout Hamilton County's contentious debate this year over public education funding and whether or not Hamilton County Schools or its teachers deserve more funding, one question has continuously been asked by elected officials, state lawmakers and taxpayers — who exactly is a teacher?

And who gets a raise when "teachers" are promised one?

State Sen. Todd Gardenhire, R-Chattanooga, and state Rep. Mike Carter, R-Ooltewah, have long called for one official definition of what a "teacher" is that school districts and the state can stick to, and they have again been raising the issue with Hamilton County's school leaders and lawmakers.

"For a couple years, Mike and I have been trying to define what a teacher is. Everyone likes to use them as an excuse to do whatever they want to do. All we want to do is pick a definition and stick with it," Gardenhire said during a recent meeting at the Times Free Press with reporters and editors. "In our view, and for most people in Hamilton County, it's a person in a classroom in front of students working in the discipline they were trained in."

Now, when money is allocated for "teacher pay raises" at the state or local level, the people who spend all day in classrooms with students aren't the only ones who receive that raise.

The state's Basic Education Program (BEP) funding formula — how the state calculates how much money to give to Tennessee's 146 school districts — groups teachers with all "instructional staff."

Regular classroom teachers, special education teachers, vocational education, music or art teachers, school counselors, guidance counselors, social workers, librarians, principals, assistant principals, and even supervisors such as instructional coaches, teacher supervisors and staff who complete special education assessments for students all fall into the same category.

This way of allocating funding has led to controversy when governors, such as former Gov. Bill Haslam and CONTINUE READING: What is a teacher? Tennessee lawmakers call for specific definition, cite ambiguity with pay raises | Chattanooga Times Free Press

Australian Study: Is Digital Literacy Undercutting Literacy? | Diane Ravitch's blog

Australian Study: Is Digital Literacy Undercutting Literacy? | Diane Ravitch's blog

Australian Study: Is Digital Literacy Undercutting Literacy?

A newly released study in Australia raises questions about whether digital literacy is actually undermining children’s ability and interest in reading.

A Four Corners investigation has found there are growing fears among education experts that screen time is contributing to a generation of skim readers with poor literacy, who may struggle to gain employment later in life as low-skilled jobs disappear.

By the age of 12 or 13, up to 30 per cent of Australian children’s waking hours are spent in front of a screen, according to the Longitudinal Study of Australian Children.

Robyn Ewing, a Professor of Teacher Education at the University of Sydney, said this was having a tangible impact on vocabulary and literacy.

“Children who have been sat in front of a screen from a very early age start school with thousands and thousands of words less, vocabulary-wise, than those who have been meaningfully communicated with,” Professor Ewing said.

Four Corners gained exclusive access to the initial results of a national survey of 1,000 teachers and principals conducted by the Gonski Institute.

The survey found excessive screen time had a profound CONTINUE READING: Australian Study: Is Digital Literacy Undercutting Literacy? | Diane Ravitch's blog

Should all remedial classes in college be eliminated?

Should all remedial classes in college be eliminated?

States are testing unproven ways to eliminate remedial ed — on their students
Florida study argues for restoring placement tests but lowering pass scores

Community colleges and nonselective universities that enroll everyone are at a crossroads. Helping less-prepared students make the jump to college-level work is a big part of their mission. In recent history, roughly half of first-year college students have been sent to remedial classes in math, English or both, according a 2016 Center for American Progress report. At the same time, remedial classes have been a giant bottleneck for students in getting their college degrees. For some, remedial requirements are an expensive waste of time that they don’t need. For others, they become a trap: Unable to progress to college-credit courses, many get discouraged and drop out, often with debt. 

Policymakers have been trying to fix the system. Florida made remedial classes optional in 2014, letting students decide for themselves whether to take them. California took the bold step of ending required remedial classes in its community college system in 2018, allowing most students who had passed their high school classes to start with college-credit classes. North Carolina, Virginia and Minnesota have moved forward with big changes too. (A November 2019 report from the Center for the Analysis of Postsecondary Readiness (CAPR) surveys many of the changes in remedial classes around the nation.)

Meanwhile, researchers are scrambling to keep up with the fast pace of policy change. “A lot of these ideas were thrown out there by the research world, and we need to go in and evaluate what has happened,” said Federick Ngo, an assistant professor at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas, who is a national expert in community college students and remedial education. “It’s a ‘who knows what’s going to happen’ kind of time.”

There are things we do know. In the places that are sending more students directly to college courses, bypassing remedial education, pass rates have fallen a bit, by a few percentage points, but not a lot. Roughly speaking, 60 percent of California college students are still CONTINUE READING: Should all remedial classes in college be eliminated?

Yes, Something Stinks about the State Takeover of the Houston Independent School District | Diane Ravitch's blog

Yes, Something Stinks about the State Takeover of the Houston Independent School District | Diane Ravitch's blog

Yes, Something Stinks about the State Takeover of the Houston Independent School District

A trio of activists on behalf of public schools wrote a blistering critique of the pending state takeover of the Houston Independent School District, based on the failure of ONE high school that has an unusually high proportion of students who are poor and have disabilities.

Zeph Capo is president of the Houston Federation of Teachers and Texas AFT, James Dixon is pastor of the Community of Faith Church in Houston and a vice president of the Houston Branch of the NAACP, and Hugo Mojica is president of LULAC Education Council #402.

They write:

Residents of this community are increasingly frustrated with the upheaval in the Houston Independent School District. As Houstonians who work directly with the educators, parents and students in the district, we don’t blame them. But something doesn’t add up in the state’s decision to take over HISD.

Houston schools have been on an improvement track for years — the district recently earned a B grade from the state — just two points away from an A. After years of struggle among legislators, administrators and educators to figure out how best to serve our kids, HISD should be CONTINUE READING: Yes, Something Stinks about the State Takeover of the Houston Independent School District | Diane Ravitch's blog

Seattle Schools Community Forum: Timeline for Decisions on HCC Dismantle

Seattle Schools Community Forum: Timeline for Decisions on HCC Dismantle

Timeline for Decisions on HCC Dismantle

Update:

Here's wording from a parent group coalescing  around the topic of revision of HCC.

We need to continue to make our case, and press the Directors directly on our points. In our letter, we asked for two things:

that the Directors decouple the discussion of the HCC program and the Technology Access Foundation, to be considered separately on their own merits; 

and: "..to review the fiscal and organizational risks of a[n HC] plan and receive public input before making changes, in order for the District to continue to meet its obligation to these students and families receiving HC services."

Please attend a meeting, and reiterate our request, tell your story, and advocate as a parent and as a constituent. Our goal is to create understanding with each board member, and our respectful dialogue will help reach them.

end of update 

A parent group put together a timeline and ways to talk to Board members about changes to the HCC program.  I urge everyone with an opinion - pro or con - to let the Board and the Superintendent know what you think.
I see that the timeline for this issue will roll into 2020.  I'd find it hard to believe that the district could enact a new plan - with all the needs for said plan like professional development/resources - in time for 2020-2021 but I think that's the plan.

The district’s next proposal to provide HC services in a “blended” model will go CONTINUE READING: Seattle Schools Community Forum: Timeline for Decisions on HCC Dismantle

OPINION: A diverse teaching force helps black male students succeed

OPINION: A diverse teaching force helps black male students succeed

TEACHER VOICE: The black men who proved that a student like me could be a teacher like them
Three ways we can begin to reimagine, reinvent the U.S. teaching force

I became a teacher because of the influence and mentorship of Mr. Murray and Mr. Simms, two elementary-school teachers in Detroit.

They were excellent and ensured that I engaged in learning every day. They persevered when at first I did not understand a concept, and they had stern but caring dispositions. Mr. Murray and Mr. Simms took an interest in who I was as a student. They also looked like me: They were black men.

Seeing a diverse teaching force at the helm of the classroom showed me that teaching was a viable career for a black student in Detroit, and they inspired me to follow my dream of becoming a teacher.

Today, more than half of K-12 students in the United States are students of color, yet four out of five teachers are white. More than 75 percent of teachers are women. Having a diverse teaching force isn’t a “nice-to-have”: It’s integral to the success of all students, and especially students of color and students like me.

We have a diversity problem across our teaching force, and we must do more to ensure that people of color can see themselves as teachers and are welcomed into the teaching profession. We must implement CONTINUE READING: OPINION: A diverse teaching force helps black male students succeed

Ruth Asawa. Anni Albers. Black Mountain College and recovering progressive education history. – Fred Klonsky

Ruth Asawa. Anni Albers. Black Mountain College and recovering progressive education history. – Fred Klonsky

RUTH ASAWA. ANNI ALBERS. BLACK MOUNTAIN COLLEGE AND RECOVERING PROGRESSIVE EDUCATION HISTORY

Two recent exhibits at the Art Institute of Chicago included women who had spent time at Black Mountain College in North Carolina.

Weaving Beyond the Bauhaus features the work of woman textile artists from the German art school, founded by Walter Gropius, that that existed from 1919 to 1933 when it was shuttered by the Nazis. The school combined crafts and the fine arts.

Among the women featured in the AIC exhibit was Anni Albers who spent time at Black Mountain College. The exhibit runs until February.

Last week I went to see the another show at the AIC. In a Cloud, in a Wall, in a Chair: Modernists in Mexico at Midcentury.

This show also features the work of women and and textiles, including the work of Anni Albers of the Bauhaus.

One of the things that I was aware of was that with the rise of fascism in Germany and the closing of the Bauhaus, many of its faculty, along with other refugees, fled to the United States as immigrants.

One of the institutions where they found a home at was Mies van der Rohe’s Institute CONTINUE READING: 

An Urgent Issue in Troubled Times: Building the Will to Support Public Education | janresseger

An Urgent Issue in Troubled Times: Building the Will to Support Public Education | janresseger

An Urgent Issue in Troubled Times: Building the Will to Support Public Education

For this blog, I’ve been tracking the explosion of new vouchers in Ohio, a similar expansion of the cost of school vouchers in Wisconsin, the proposed closure of the storied Collinwood High School by Cleveland’s mayoral-appointed school board, and the protracted negotiations in Lorain, Ohio to get rid of the state’s appointed school district CEO, a man who has brought chaos to the city’s public schools and the entire community. Then, last week, I spent time reviewing the history of corporate, accountability-based school reform as a twelve-year experiment imposed by Mayor Michael Bloomberg and his appointed schools chancellor, Joel Klein, in New York City.  It is all pretty discouraging.  And an added worry is the absence so far of any talk about our public schools, arguably our most important civic institution, in the 2020 Democratic candidates’ debates.

At the impeachment hearings last week, I was struck by the importance of people like William Taylor and Marie Yovanovitch, experienced career professionals who clearly articulate the institutional norms and goals of international diplomacy. What educator could I feature in this blog, someone who would remind us of the educational policies and institutional norms worth fighting for as a way to protect in our public schools during troubled times?

After an extensive search across shelves of books, I remembered School Reform Fails the Test, an article in which, five years ago, Mike Rose, the education writer and UCLA professor of education, examined America’s long journey into corporate, test-and-punish school reform.  Even if you read this article five years ago when it was published in The American Scholar, and even if you’ve read Rose’s inspiring books, I encourage you to read Rose’s article from 2014 again. Rose identifies important norms and practices in our public schools and explains why, in the midst of all the news swirling around us, we must continue to advocate for CONTINUE READING: An Urgent Issue in Troubled Times: Building the Will to Support Public Education | janresseger

FL teacher speaks: Ed Tech & the dystopia of individualized learning | The Edvocate Blog

FL teacher speaks: Ed Tech & the dystopia of individualized learning | The Edvocate Blog

FL teacher speaks: Ed Tech & the dystopia of individualized learning

Editor’s note: This post was submitted by a veteran Florida teacher whose identity must be protected for obvious reasons but whose insight, knowledge and willingness to speak out is heroic in these times.  Here’s to the truth that must be told and the insiders who step up to tell it.  Here’s to this teacher for sounding the alarm on the risks of “replacing humans with laptops” and “harming students in our zeal to elevate metrics.” 

I work in one of the largest school districts in North America, in one of the battleground states over public education.  While most of the conflict I’ve seen in my career has been political (vouchers, charters, “choice” as a euphemism, school grades, pay-for-performance, anything else elected officials can dream up to get their fingers into the financial prize of the public education tax trough) a fair amount comes from within.  It’s hard to defend public education when the stakeholders who are supposed to support classroom instruction suck just as badly as the clowns in the Legislature.

Not to paint too broad a stroke on it, but often as individuals elevate out of classroom roles, they lose sight utterly of what instruction should mean.  I’ve seen two major shifts in the past fifteen years, both of which had promise, both of which have caused me deep concern:  first, the transition from “administrator” to “curriculum expert/teacher manager” in our leadership, which I will discuss further elsewhere, and second, and more insidiously, the embracing of educational technology.  The effects on children (and employees) CONTINUE READING: FL teacher speaks: Ed Tech & the dystopia of individualized learning | The Edvocate Blog

Our Own Practice | The Jose Vilson

Our Own Practice | The Jose Vilson

OUR OWN PRACTICE

This weekend, Colin Kaepernick practiced in front of NFL scouts. One version of the practice story is that the ball seemed to float out of his hands as if carried by pigeon and dropped off to his pro athlete friends for short and long yardage. The more complicated story is that Kaepernick dismissed the heavily anticipated practice quickly arranged by the NFL and assembled his own dozens of miles away at a high school practice field. Donning the words “Kunta Kinte” on his all black outfit and an afro that moves as freely as he did in the virtual pocket, he showed with ease that he was ready to re-join a league that implicitly blackballed him from competing for the last two years. Contrary to some sportscasters’ opinions, his social justice interests sit alongside his football interests, which is why he has garnered attention for both. With an escalation in quarterback injuries this season, Kap seems a natural choice who still has enough of an arm to fit into a willing system.

But he openly questioned the overarching system and was blackballed for doing so.

To casual observers, Kaepernick’s story may have felt like just another instance of the pitfalls of not falling in line with the Shield. For others, the story of an ostensible star speaking up about systemic change in a profession that benefits from the proliferation of that exploitation rings a 2000-pound bell in us. When we take a longitudinal approach to discussing teachers of color – specifically Black CONTINUE READING: Our Own Practice | The Jose Vilson