Endangered Species: In Defense of Cursive Writing | Technology on GOOD

Endangered Species: In Defense of Cursive Writing | Technology on GOOD:

Endangered Species: In Defense of Cursive Writing

from GOOD

On the second day of fourth grade, my teacher—Sister Paula—called me up to the front of the class. She had a piece of notebook paper in her hand, which I quickly realized was the homework I'd just turned in—three paragraphs on a topic I can't recall (but I'm sure was quite important at the time.)
"Elizabeth Dwyer," she intoned severely, "do you know how to write?" The question confused me because, well, I'd obviously completed the assignment. My mom had even reviewed it to make sure I'd done an excellent job.
"Yes," I answered. "No, you do not," she replied. "This is printing and I do not accept printing in my class." With a flick of her wrist, she tossed my paper into the trashcan next to her desk. "Write your assignments or the rest of them will end up there, too."
By writing, of course, she meant cursive writing. I can't help but wonder what Sister Paula—who went on to rank in my personal Top Five Meanest Teachers Ever list—would do with the Kansas State Board of Education. 

Pass / Fail : L.A. Unified restores cut classroom days and rescinds teacher furloughs for this year | 89.3 KPCC

Pass / Fail : L.A. Unified restores cut classroom days and rescinds teacher furloughs for this year | 89.3 KPCC:

L.A. Unified restores cut classroom days and rescinds teacher furloughs for this year

by By Adolfo Guzman-Lopez

The L.A. Unified school board voted Tuesday to restore five instructional days to the district's calendar and to rescind 10 unpaid days off teachers had agreed to earlier this year. These actions didn't  surprise observers. L.A. Unified and ever other district in the state avoided mid-year state funding cuts after last week’s ballot box victory of Proposition 30.
Prop. 30 hikes state sales and income taxes to raise about $6 billion in revenue for public education. Its failure would have triggered about the same amount in cuts to public schools in the middle of this school year. L.A. Unified, and many other school districts, had  approved cuts just in case.
“To say that people held their breath last week is an understatement,” L.A. Unified Superintendent Deasy said during Tuesday's school board meeting as he briefed administrators.
By restoring the instructional days, L.A. Unified returned its classroom calendar to the standard 180 days for the 

Diverse Charter Schools : Education Next

Diverse Charter Schools : Education Next:

Diverse Charter Schools

Popular, controversial, and a challenge to run successfully

By Alexander Russo

Attention Bootlicker ALERT!

0 COMMENTS | PRINT | NO PDF | SHARE

WINTER 2013 / VOL. 13, NO. 1

In February 2009, newly elected President Barack Obama and First Lady Michelle Obama visited Capital City Public Charter School in northwest Washington, D.C. They were greeted at the front entrance of the school by 5th-grade students and given a brief tour before taking a seat in the library to read The Moon Over Star to a group of 2nd graders.

This was the First Family’s first official public-school visit, just a few short weeks after President Obama was sworn into office. Obama’s enthusiastic support for charter schools was one of the things that set him apart from his Democratic predecessors and marked him as a “pro-reform” Democrat.

Even accounting for the usual political exaggeration, the president seemed

Engaging Parents In School… » This Week’s #PTchat On Twitter

Engaging Parents In School… » This Week’s #PTchat On Twitter:

This Week’s #PTchat On Twitter

by Larry Ferlazzo

Guest post by Gwen Pescatore
This week’s Parent-Teacher Chat (#ptchat) on Twitter – Creating a Positive Learning Environment at Home & at School
Maxine Shaw, Head of Hazelwood School in Surrey, England said in an article for the autumn issue of Attain Magazine, “The very best schools will set children on a journey.” She continues on to say, “…each child sees themselves as an octopus, in a string bag, on a zip wire. As the child travels along the zip wire they will be able to swing away from the central line, grabbing every opportunity that is offered to them.”
Learning is not limited to school. Children are in school for only a fraction of the day, meaning, in the best of situations, this statement carries over to the home. There is no secret formula to how children learn best, but do some techniques and situations set kids up to maximize the learning experience and leave them wanting to know more? How do parents and educators together create a positive learning environment and encourage kids to be lifelong learners?
Questions we’ll discuss this Wed., 11/14/12 at 9PM EDT/6 PM PST
• How do we balance allowing children the freedom to “swing away” while also protecting them from potential harm? Do we stifle their learning in the process of protecting them?
• What inspires students to learn about a subject they don’t consider their “favorite”?
• How can technology and social media play a role?
• What can we learn from the students who are creating companies that solve some of the world’s largest problems or being a regular contributor to the local newspaper?
• Does there need to be structure to maximize learning?
• Does a positive learning environment have to mean “fun”?
• Does socio-economic status play a role? If so, what are ways to overcome them?
• Does class/school size make a difference?
New to Twitterchats?
After logging on to Twitter, visit Tweetchat and simply enter “ptchat” in the box at the top. Follow along, just watch and/or participate as you as much as you like to join others around the world in this weekly chat. We look forward to engaging your unique and important parent and/or educator perspective.

Nominations Open – The 2012 Edublog Awards are here! | The Edublog Awards

Nominations Open – The 2012 Edublog Awards are here! | The Edublog Awards:

Nominations Open – The 2012 Edublog Awards are here!

November 13, 2012 by Ronnie Burt | 0 comments

3

It is that time of year again!

The 2012 Edublog Awards are a go!

The Edublog Awards is a community based initiative started in 2004 in response to community concerns relating to how schools, districts and educational institutions were blocking access of learner and teacher blog sites for educational purposes.  The purpose of the Edublog awards is promote and demonstrate the educational values of these social media.

Working together, we create an invaluable resource of the best-of-the-best on the web!

How Does It Work?

There are 3 parts to the awards:

1. Nominations – NOW through November 26th
2. Voting – TBA
3. The Live Awards Ceremony – TBA

How To Nominate

To nominate your favorites, we’re following the same approach as the last four years, namely asking you to:

• Write a post with your nominations for the different categories on your own blog (or a website – anywhere public)
•  Send us the link to your nomination post via the form at the bottom of the Nominations Page

Here are the categories in full – nominations are open from now until Monday, November 26th!

So go nominate your favorite blogs, twitterers, community sites, videos, podcasts and more… for 2012:

• Best individual blog
• Best group blog
• Best new blog
• Best class blog
• Best student blog
• Best ed tech / resource sharing blog
• Best teacher blog
• Best library / librarian blog
• Best administrator blog
• Most influential blog post
• Best individual tweeter
• Best twitter hashtag
• Best free web tool
• Best educational use of audio / video / visual / podcast
• Best educational wiki
• Best open PD / unconference / webinar series
• Best educational use of a social network
• Best mobile app
• Lifetime achievement

How To Nominate

• Write a post with your nominations on your blog, link to them and link to this site
• Use the form at the bottom of the Nominations Page to send us a link to your nominations

(Yes, we put that in there twice just so it was uber clear!)

Let us know if you have any questions in the comments below or use the Contact form 

NYC Public School Parents: What should be done instead of pushing our kids off the "fiscal cliff"

NYC Public School Parents: What should be done instead of pushing our kids off the "fiscal cliff":

What should be done instead of pushing our kids off the "fiscal cliff"

by Leonie Haimson

I know; the words “fiscal cliff” probably fills you with the same mixture of dread and ennui as it does me.  But let’s take a moment and focus on the decisions the President and Congress have to make in the next few weeks to address the yawning deficit. Unless they make the right choices by January 2, huge across-the-board cuts to education and other critical domestic programs will be automatically triggered, causing irreversible harm to our nation’s children, and putting our slowly recovering economy into a massive tailspin.

What would these automatic cuts mean for our public schools?  $5 billion would be slashed from the federal education budget; which would plunge to pre-2003 levels, despite the fact that there are now 5.4 million more public school students.   This would lead to sharply 

Phony school “reform” agenda takes a beating - Salon.com

Phony school “reform” agenda takes a beating - Salon.com:

Phony school “reform” agenda takes a beating

The media barely noticed, but voters in three states rejected the profit-driven fraud that is education "reform"

BY DAVID SIROTA

 
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TOPICS: 2012 ELECTIONS, EDUCATION, EDUCATION REFORM, SCHOOL REFORM, POLITICS NEWS

(Credit: AP Photo/Ed Andrieski)

If your only source of news about American education came from docu-propaganda like “Waiting for Superman,” Hollywood politi-schlock like “Won’t Back Down” and elite-focused national news outlets in Washington, D.C., and New York City, you might think that the so-called education “reform” (read: privatization) movement was a spontaneous grass-roots uprising of good-old-fashioned heartlanders generating ever more mass support throughout the country. You would have no reason to believe it was a top-down, corporate-driven coalition of conservative coastal elites trying to both generally undermine organized labor and specifically wring private profit out of public schools, and you would similarly have no reason to believe it was anything but wildly popular in an America clamoring for a better education system.

In other words, you would be utterly misinformed — especially after 

Family Engagement in Student Learning: A Conversation with Dr. Maria C. Paredes | LFA: Join The Conversation - Public School Insights

Family Engagement in Student Learning: A Conversation with Dr. Maria C. Paredes | LFA: Join The Conversation - Public School Insights:

Family Engagement in Student Learning: A Conversation with Dr. Maria C. Paredes

by Tarsi Dunlop

Parent and family engagement is a critical component when it comes to ensuring student achievement and success in school. However, traditional models of parent-teacher interaction (for example, conventional parent-teacher conferences) do not necessarily have a substantial effect on student performance. Maria C. Paredes noticed that although parents in the Creighton Elementary School District did have high levels of engagement, student performance levels were static. Through surveys, Dr. Paredes redesigned the parent-teacher engagement model to better serve both parents and teachers. The result - Academic Parent-Teacher Teams (APTT (C)*) - is proving effective, and the model is spreading across classrooms and districts. Dr. Paredes recently took time to discuss the model with Public School Insights. 

Public School Insights (PSI): Tell us a little about the program at Creighton and the APTT Model. What are some of the key components?

Dr. Paredes: Academic Parent-Teacher Teams (APTT)* is an intentional, systematic means of increasing student academic learning and performance by enhancing the quality of parent-teacher communication and collaboration. APTT was designed using the lessons learned from 

What's Wrong with Teacher Evaluation and How to Fix It: Observation Equals Evaluation — Whole Child Education

What's Wrong with Teacher Evaluation and How to Fix It: Observation Equals Evaluation — Whole Child Education:

THE WHOLE CHILD BLOG

What’s Wrong with Teacher Evaluation and How to Fix It: Observation Equals Evaluation

November 13, 2012 by James H. Stronge

So, where do we begin?

Teacher evaluation, throughout most of our recent history, has been practiced religiously with the intent—or, at least, hope—that it will improve performance. The assumption underlying much of teacher evaluation practice goes something like this:

Teacher Observation = Teacher Evaluation = Teacher Improvement

We know that this system does not work. A picture of educator skill and practice cannot be gained through observation alone and not all evaluation processes promote professional growth and affect student achievement. In this series of blog posts, I attempt to offer an analysis of three contemporary teacher evaluation practices within a problem/solution framework.

What can we do about the abysmal state of teacher evaluation? Firstly, we need to recognize what's wrong 

CTU protest marches to downtown Hyatt - chicagotribune.com

CTU protest marches to downtown Hyatt - chicagotribune.com:

Teachers union marches against school closings

Protesters target board's Penny Pritzker in demonstration at Hyatt hotel

 By Noreen S. Ahmed-Ullah, Chicago Tribune reporter

November 13, 2012

As it girds for a battle over school closings, the Chicago Teachers Union is adhering to the strategy it employed during the September strike by framing the fight as one pitting regular Joes from the neighborhood against elitist big-money interests.

On Tuesday, school board member Penny Pritzker bore the brunt of the ire of protesters who marched along North Michigan Avenue, banging drums and blowing whistles before filling the lobby of the Hyatt Chicago Magnificent Mile on North St. Clair Street.

"We have fat cats like Penny Pritzker who take money from our schools and put them into the Hyatt," a CTU official yelled to the overflow crowd, which responded with enthusiasm.

The CTU and its allies charged that Pritzker, who sits on the board of Hyatt Hotels Corp., has taken tax increment financing development money to develop a new hotel in the city's Hyde Park neighborhood. Protesters attached an oversized sign made to look like a library overdue notice onto a pillar outside the Hyatt, demanding that Pritzker return the money to CPS.

A spokeswoman for Hyatt said in an email that the company has not received any money from the city for the construction of the Hyde Park hotel, which is being developed by outside 

Diane in the Evening 11-13-12 Diane Ravitch's blog

Diane Ravitch's blog:

Sirota Exposes the Big Lie Technique

by dianerav

David Sirota, an author and talk-show host, here analyzes the election results and says they exposed the Big Lie of the corporate reform movement.
The public is not hankering to privatize their public schools.
The corporate leaders and rightwing establishment dropped millions of dollars to push their agenda of 

LISTEN TO DIANE RAVITCH 11-13-12 Diane Ravitch's blog

coopmike48 at Big Education Ape - 2 hours ago

Diane Ravitch's blog: [image: Click on picture to Listen to Diane Ravitch] Testing Toddlers in Louisiana? by dianerav Louisiana plans to test 3- and 4-year- olds. This is out-of-control testing fanaticism. We have come to expect extremism in Louisiana. The state is placing its bets on high-stakes testing and privatization. Andrea Gabor, who writes about business and education, interviewed early childhood specialists in Louisiana. They think the people making the new laws and policies have no idea about child development. As one says, they think that there is no difference between... more »

Checking-In on the Legacy of Failed DC Chancellor Michelle Rhee's Teacher Reforms in Washington, D.C. - Dana Goldstein

Checking-In on the Legacy of Failed DC Chancellor Michelle Rhee's Teacher Reforms in Washington, D.C. - Dana Goldstein:

Checking-In on the Legacy of Failed DC Chancellor Michelle Rhee's Teacher Reforms in Washington, D.C.

by Dana Goldstein

A new report from The New Teacher Project, "Keeping Irreplacables in D.C. Public Schools," takes a look at how Michelle Rhee's controversial IMPACT teacher evaluation program has fared since she left the district in 2010. Under IMPACT, teachers are rated according to a number of measures, including multiple annual classroom observations by administrators, as well as teachers' individual students' growth as measured by district and classroom-level tests. Those who agree to forgo certain job security protections, and who rate in the top category, "highly-effective," are eligible for annual bonuses between $2,000 and $25,000, as well as eventual raises in their base pay and promotions to "distinguised" and "expert" teacher status.
There have been some significant changes to IMPACT under Chancellor Kaya Henderson, such as bonuses for effective teachers who agree to teach at the lowest-performing, highest-poverty schools; a renewed focus on holistic measures of teaching excellence, including "commitment to school community;" and fewer classroom observations throughout the year for teachers whose fall observations earn high scores. So is IMPACT working? Are great teachers staying in DC, and are bad teachers being replaced by better ones?
According to TNTP's anlysis, DC retains about the same percentage of its top-fifth-rated teachers--88 percent--as 

PSAT for 11-13-12: Tell new/re-elected state legislators to deny 3B’s extension Parents United for Responsible Education

Parents United for Responsible Education » Blog Archive » PSAT for 11-13-12: Tell new/re-elected state legislators to deny 3B’s extension:

PSAT for 11-13-12: Tell new/re-elected state legislators to deny 3B’s extension

by admin

First, we want to take a moment to congratulate all of our new and re-elected state senators and representatives. Then we want to remind them why they were elected – to representus in Springfield.
So, for today’s Public Schools Action Tuesday, please take  a moment to send a message to those senatorsand representatives still in the legislature who will attend the upcoming veto session and may be considering the request of new CPS CEO Barbara Byrd-Bennett’s for an extension of the state-mandated December 1 deadline for announcing school actions including school closures.
We say NO!
Here’s the letter I’m sending now:
Dear State Senator/Representative:

We oppose the request by Chicago Public Schools (CPS) Chief Executive Officer Beverly Byrd- Bennett for an 

Students For Education Reform? Not the Change We Need | Education on GOOD

Students For Education Reform? Not the Change We Need | Education on GOOD:

Students For Education Reform? Not the Change We Need

from GOOD

It all began in early August of this year. Stephanie Rivera, a student at Rutgers University and future teacher, published a gutsy, investigative piece uncovering the lunacy behind Students for Education Reform, an organization founded by two Princeton students, Catharine Bellinger and Alexis Morin. I highly suggest you read it yourself, but the commentary struck a profound chord with me for a number of reasons.
SFER has rolled out its corporate reform agenda onto over a hundred college campuses across the nation, which includes defending the takeover of public schools by charters and teacher evaluation systems that tie salaries to test scores. Don't believe me? Bellinger and Morin, marionettes of the likes of Joel Klein, Michelle Rhee, Wendy Kopp, and Eli Broad, are now forcing some chapters to sign onto agreements that they carry out the mission of 

Team Vallas increases spending on Bridgeport’s 64 principals and assistant principals by 22.4% - Wait, What?

Team Vallas increases spending on Bridgeport’s 64 principals and assistant principals by 22.4% - Wait, What?:

Team Vallas increases spending on Bridgeport’s 64 principals and assistant principals by 22.4%

by jonpelto

According to a new budget document that has been added to the Bridgeport School System’s website, Paul Vallas, and his “Education Reform” efficiency team, have increased spending on Bridgeport’s 64 school principals, assistant principals and management supervisors by $1,696,054 million over the amount spent on these senior school administrators last year.

During the 2011-2012 school year, the Bridgeport education budget allocated $7,572,512 to pay the top 64 Bridgeport school administrators.

But this year, according to a new Financial Condition Report released by Superintendent Paul Vallas, the taxpayers of Bridgeport and Connecticut will be shelling out $9,268,566 to cover the salaries of the 64 principals, assistant principals and management supervisors.

This $1.8 million increase means that the total being spent on these positions has 

Washington to allow charter schools after billionaire-backed initiative squeaks through:

Washington to allow charter schools after billionaire-backed initiative squeaks through

Posted by Valerie Strauss on November 13, 2012 at 1:03 pm

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Washington becomes the 42nd state to allow public charter schools to open now that  ballot Initiative 1240 has passed, apparently by about 1 percentage point — this after a group of billionaires, including Bill Gates, donated more than $10 million to get it pushed through.

Under the initiative, as many as 40 charter schools will be permitted to open across the state over the next five years.

Because Washington state voters had rejected  the idea of opening charter schools three times since 2004, supporters of the initiative did everything they could this year to make