Thursday, August 18, 2011

SOUTH BRONX SCHOOL: Jackson Pollock Comes To The NYC DOE

Jackson Pollock Comes To The NYC DOE

by noreply@blogger.com (Bronx Teacher)

Years ago, I think around 1996, my wife and I were passing through Austerlitz NY on Labor Day weekend and came upon a yard sale. At this yard sale my wife, who happens to be an artist, noticed this watercolor of a beach seen. She wanted it really bad, and easily shelled out the $2 to purchase it.

A friend of mine that just proudly decorated his living room with an oil painting bought at the Galleria Mall in White Plains derided us for buying art at a yard sale. He said, "you need to be careful who you buy art from. You should know the name of the person to make sure it will have value."

Whenever my wife and I go to MoMA or to the Met, I am like a little kid when I see anything of Jackson Pollock's. It must be the neurons in my ADD mind that go off or something like that. I just stared and study

On The Future of Teaching: Evaluating the Evaluators, Part 1 | The Jose Vilson

On The Future of Teaching: Evaluating the Evaluators, Part 1

by Jose

Here’s an excerpt from The Future of Teaching:

Your choice of Renee Moore speaks volumes of what you believe about the profession. Yes, her voice demonstrates the awesome possibilities of having someone who understands the inner workings of teaching from a policy standpoint that’s ripe with depth about all types of children, not just the ones that stand to benefit from our current policy. She amalgamates the best from the past, present, and future of education, certainly. What we most appreciate about Renee is that she is a teacher’s teacher. I’ve never had a chance to traverse the Mississippi Delta, but I’ll put all my

Brill Book: Race to Top Scores Sparked 'Near-Panic' at Ed. Dept. - Politics K-12 - Education Week

Brill Book: Race to Top Scores Sparked 'Near-Panic' at Ed. Dept.

by Michele McNeil

Louisiana and Colorado take heart: Senior staff members at the U.S. Department of Education really wanted you to win the Race to the Top. So much, that when the round-two scores came in, and your states were inexplicably scored out of the winners' circle, the staff was in a "near-panic," while Education Secretary Arne Duncan was "surprised and upset."

"There are problems ... Big problems," then-Race to the Top Director Joanne Weiss told Duncan when the scores came in, writes journalist Steven Brill in his new book, Class Warfare: Inside the Fight to Fix America's Schools.

The Education Department staff chewed over whether Duncan should handpick the winners, choosing out of

State Special Schools Director Named - Year 2011 (CA Dept of Education)

State Schools Chief Tom Torlakson Announces New Director to
Head Department's State Special Schools and Services Division

SACRAMENTO — State Superintendent of Public Instruction Tom Torlakson today announced that Scott D. Kerby has been selected as Director of the California Department of Education's State Special Schools and Services Division.

"I am pleased that Scott is coming on board as our director of State Special Schools, bringing with him more than 30 years of teaching and administrative experience," said Torlakson. "Scott has already spent several years at the California School for the Deaf in Riverside so he is well-situated to understand and support the culture, issues, and structure of these vital communities."

In addition to the Riverside school, Kerby will be responsible for the California School for the Deaf in Fremont; the California School for the Blind in Fremont; and Diagnostic Centers located in Fremont, Fresno, and Los Angeles that provide a variety of direct services to individuals with special needs, their parents, and local educational agencies.

"I enthusiastically embrace this opportunity with an abiding faith in our State Special Schools and a confident conviction in the future of the students we serve," said Kerby. "I look forward to supporting the schools in their dedicated efforts in providing quality education and services to exceptional individuals."

Most recently, Kerby served as the Student Services Specialist at the School for the Deaf, Riverside; where from 1980 to 1989 at the beginning of his career he was the Athletic Director and Adapted Physical Education Specialist. For the past decade, he also has been an Adjunct Professor at the University of Redlands. Prior, he has served as principal or vice principal at several elementary and middle schools in San Bernardino.

Kerby received a Bachelor of Science degree from Cal Poly, Pomona, and a Masters of Education from Azusa Pacific University. He holds a Life Single Subject Teaching Credential in Physical Education, a Clear Adapted Physical Education Specialist Credential, and a Clear Administrative Services Credential.

He is succeeding Dr. Ron Kadish, who retired last year after serving 16 years as Director.

Subverting The National Conversation: A lesson on how it is done! - Perdaily.com

Subverting The National Conversation: A lesson on how it is done! by Susan lee Schwartz with thanks to Kevin Gosztola - Perdaily.com

Subverting The National Conversation: A lesson on how it is done! by Susan lee Schwartz with thanks to Kevin Gosztola

by Leonard Isenberg

(Mensaje se repite en Español)

(For a national view of public education reform see the end of this blog post)

"Media is the nervous system of a democracy" Jeff Cohen.

David Brock of Media Matters, concludes in "Outfoxed" that through the campaign cycle the American people are subjected to false, distorted caricatures that are echoed off cable and radio, and so the wrong pieces of information are repeated until no one knows the source-- where the information is coming from: "This is the environment we are living in, and it's fundamentally undermining democracy which is based on knowing some

Duncan: States Don't Need to Join Common Core for Waiver - Politics K-12 - Education Week

Duncan: States Don't Need to Join Common Core for Waiver

By Alyson Klein on August 18, 2011 5:05 PM | No comments |

If you were worried that the administration's plan to offer No Child Left Behind waivers to states that adopt college-and-career ready standards would somehow doom the Common Core State Initiative, you can rest easy.

Secretary of Education Arne Duncan said today in no uncertain terms that states absolutely do not have to participate in Common Core in order to qualify for one of the department's yet-to-be-determined NCLB waivers.

"I like common [standards], but what is most important to me is high standards," Duncan said during a taping of C-SPAN's Newsmakers program. If states that

Mike Klonsky's SmallTalk Blog: Shame of a nation

Shame of a nation

Millions of children growing up in poverty

A couple of new reports caught my eye yesterday. The first was a new study on child well-being put out by the Annie E. Casey Foundation. It found that child poverty is on the rise in the U.S. with as many as 1 in 5 children living in poverty. Of course, that figure represents a nationwide

How Can We "Motivate" The Unmotivated To Learn? - Classroom Q&A With Larry Ferlazzo - Education Week Teacher

How Can We "Motivate" The Unmotivated To Learn?

By Larry Ferlazzo on August 18, 2011 2:21 PM | No Comments |

This week's question comes from Cyndy Woods-Wilson, who asks:

How can we "motivate" the unmotivated to learn something new?
\
This is a question that I'm sure has crossed many educators' minds. Please leave your responses to Cyndy's question in the comments section of this post. I'll share a few of them next Wednesday, where I'll also publish my response and ideas from invited guests.

Anyone whose question is selected for this weekly column can choose one free

Democurmudgeon: Indiana Teachers Stop Law that would have changed their hours and days without adjusting pay. I’m not making this up.

Indiana Teachers Stop Law that would have changed their hours and days without adjusting pay. I’m not making this up.

by Democurmudgeon

Want to know what happens when you get rid of collective bargaining and take workers rights away?

We get amazing "new" third world stories like this:

Edweek: A judge on Wednesday blocked the Indiana Department of Education from using new teacher contract forms that would have allowed school districts to change the hours or days that teachers work without adjusting their pay. Marion County Superior Court Judge Patrick McCarty (said) "Contrary to IDOE's argument, nothing in Indiana law or the newly enacted statutes gives Dr. Bennett or IDOE the authority to contravene general contract principles and laws that have been established and govern in Indiana."

McCarty said the contract form drafted by

Dream Act students won't be deportation targets, officials say - latimes.com

Dream Act students won't be deportation targets, officials say

Demonstrator Ruben Bernal, who recently graduated from San Jose State University, rallies for the Dream Act in downtown San Jose on June 29.

The Obama administration announced Thursday that undocumented students and other low-priority immigration offenders will not be targeted for deportation under enforcement programs.

The announcement marks further steps to stop the deportation of people it considers "low-priority" immigrants like so-called Dream Act eligible students and those with long-standing family ties in the country. These eligible students are those who were illegally brought to the U.S. as children by their

Schools Matter: Chomsky on Education Privatization

Chomsky on Education Privatization

by Jim Horn

A clip from an article posted at AlterNet:

A couple of months ago, I went to Mexico to give talks at the National University in Mexico, UNAM. It's quite an impressive university — hundreds of thousands of students, high-quality and engaged students, excellent faculty. It's free. And the city — Mexico City — actually, the government ten years ago did try to add a little tuition, but there was a national student strike, and the government backed off. And, in fact, there's still an administrative building on campus that is still occupied by students and used as a center for activism throughout the city. There's also, in the city itself, another university, which is not only free but has open admissions. It has compensatory options for those who need them. I was there, too; it's also quite an impressive level, students, faculty, and so on. That's Mexico, a poor country.

Right after that I happened to go to California, maybe the richest place in the world. I was giving

LAUSD Is Not The ONLY PLAYER IN Public School Privatization & The War Against California Teachers - Fired CTC Staff Attorney Kathleen Carroll Speaks Out - Perdaily.com

LAUSD Is Not The ONLY PLAYER IN Public School Privatization & The War Against California Teachers - Fired CTC Staff Attorney Kathleen Carroll Speaks Out

by Leonard Isenberg

Pop some corn and have some friends over to the house to watch the following films noirs about the move to privatize public education and the blatant corruption that is being used to unjustly attack teacher in accomplishing it throughout this country.

Special thanks to Steve Zeltzer and the Labor Video Project

Homeland Security, Sham Universities Preying on Foreign Students - Hispanically Speaking News

Homeland Security Now Targeting Sham Universities Rather Than Foreign Students

The U.S. Department of Homeland Security (DHS) has been cracking down on the number of so-called “sham universities”, which have been using their status as schools accepting international students as a way to charge immigrant students of them thousands of dollars each in return for students

Schools like Tri-Valley University in California are suspected of preying on those willing to pay for a better life, trusting that school officials promising to provide them with student visas will do just that. However, these visas are usually illegally obtained, and by the time the students realize this their stuck, many afraid to go to law enforcement for fear of being punished for being in the country illegally.

Tri-Valley was shut down by federal authorities after an initial investigation led investigators to believe it was using foreign students to make millions of dollars, while falsifying documentation to provide them with

NYC Educator: PEP Rides Again

PEP Rides Again

by NYC Educator

I continually wonder what the purpose is of the PEP. They simply pass everything. Verizon is bullying its employees into all sorts of givebacks, despite great profits, and PEP approves a huge contract with them anyway. Massive demonstrations to the contrary, PEP simply does whatever Mayor Bloomberg wishes. Then they went and approved a bunch of contracts foroutside agencies to run schools.

“These contracts will be approved, but they will not be reviewed before hand,” said Paola de Kock, a member of the Citywide Council on High Schools, who spoke in between Communication Workers of America strikers. ”What you will be approving tonight is unethical for our children.”

Is that what "reform" is all about? Seems to me, yes. Let's improvise. Let's try this. Let's try that. If it doesn't

NCLB and waivers, what is going on? | Philadelphia Public School Notebook

NCLB and waivers, what is going on?

by Dale Mezzacappa

Last week, U.S. Secretary of Education Arne Duncan announced that states could apply for waivers from No Child Left Behind. What does this mean?

The law, which has yet to be reauthorized in Congress even though it expired in 2007, has long been controversial – especially its goal that all students would be proficient in math and reading by 2014. Schools that consistently failed to meet ever-escalating targets have been required to undertake drastic reform measures, including what we are now calling turnaround.

As the goals get higher, more and more schools are failing to meet them, even if large numbers of their students are reaching the proficiency levels.

Free Schools Revisited: Revolution vs. Transformation « Cooperative Catalyst

Free Schools Revisited: Revolution vs. Transformation

by daretheschool

“The public school exists to turn out manageable workers, obedient consumers, manipulable voters, and if need be willing killers” -Jonathan Kozol author of Free Schools

The most notable and recent movement for alternative education occurred in 1960’s to the early 1970’s, and was known as the “free school” movement. The free school movement was an effort to build small alternative schools where students participated equally in governance as well as enjoyed complete control over curriculum. Free

NYC Public School Parents: Last night's PEP meeting on Verizon contract and its "Norma Rae" moment

Last night's PEP meeting on Verizon contract and its "Norma Rae" moment

by Leonie Haimson

Last night's meeting of the Panel for Educational Policy meeting was exhilarating, stirring, and depressing all at once. Over a thousand parents, teachers, and striking Verizon workers showed up for the pre-meeting rally, and hundreds more filled the auditorium afterwards at Murry Bergtraum HS, chanting, booing Walcott and the DOE, and speaking up passionately for the need for more caring education priorities, and against the $120 million Verizon contract, which will steal even more resources from our children and the company's workers.

This contract had at least five strikes against it, each of which would have convinced any individual with a conscience to oppose it, but was nevertheless rubber-stamped by the eight mayoral appointees (known collectively as the Panel of Eight Puppets) plus the Staten Island rep, with the four other borough reps all voting

All Education Matters: Open Letter to Bill Gates: Help us Solve the Student Lending Crisis

Quick Post to the Google Viewers Dear Viewers at Google in Cali and NYC: Thanks so much for visiting my blog. It is nice to see you here! I received a prompt about using adsense last night, and I suspect that is why you've been viewing my work - you see that my blog is very, very ...

Open Letter to Bill Gates: Help us Solve the Student Lending Crisis Dear Mr. Gates: You obviously care a great deal about education. I applaud you for that. As you know, Mr. Buffett has recently urged Congress to stop coddling the rich. Salon.com has a new challenge, 'The Patriotic Billionaire Challenge' too. We're ...

Here's something to celebrate! For-profit enrollment plunges! Yippee! The for-profits have seen a sharp decline in enrollment, according to a recent piece in the Chronicle. Here's a great quote: New-student enrollment declined an average of 14.1 percent this quarter at 10 of the biggest for-profit educators, ...

Tests, cheating, and educational corruption

by admin

Education think-tank Fair Test’s excellent fact sheet on cheating and the harmful consequences of high stakes testing to students, parents, and teachers.
“Erasing errors and filling in correct test answers is just one of many ways to “cheat” on standardized tests. The scandals in Atlanta, Baltimore, Washington DC, Pennsylvania, New Jersey and many other jurisdictions are the tip of an iceberg. Across the nation, strategies that boost scores without improving learning, including narrow teaching to the test and pushing out low-scoring students, are spreading rapidly. Widespread corruption that undermines educational quality is an inevitable consequence of the overuse and misuse of high-stakes testing, just as Donald Campbell predicted. …

NCLB and related state and local high-stakes testing policies put intense pressure on teachers, principals and other educators. The Georgia investigation into the Atlanta cheating found, “The targets set by the district were often unreasonable, especially given their cumulative effect over the years. Additionally, the administration put