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Monday, December 27, 2010

Damn Good Education Daily

Damn Good Education Daily
Damn Good Education Daily
jeffthomastech.com - It’s certainly been a busy week! The holidays are always a great time of year for me and my family. Although I achieved my goal of “disconnecting” yesterday for Christmas, I did find time during ...

tomwhitby



huffingtonpost.com - A whopping 46.3 percent of federal loans distributed to students at for-profit colleges in 2008 would go into default, according to new Education Department data.This figure is significantly larger...

EDPressSec
failingschools.wordpress.com - An insightful group of students from Jamaica High School and Queens Collegiate recently wrote a play about school reform in New York City, inspired by the Greek tragedy “Antigone.” The students wer...

TeacherSabrina





tomwhitby.wordpress.com - Shelly Terrell and Ken Royal are two friends who encouraged me to blog. Both are bloggers and saw something in me and my ability to communicate that I didn’t recognize. Through their encouragement,...

tomwhitby






epaa.asu.edu - Bruce Baker, Kevin G. Welner Abstract Two interlocking claims are being increasing made around school finance: that states have largely met their obligations to resolve disparities between local pu...

SchlFinance101
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Musings of a teacher and school board member - Rocklin

Musings of a teacher and school board member - Rocklin
Musings of a teacher and school board member
By Jerandall

I have a question. Why does California have both a State Superintendent elected by the voters, AND a Secretary of Education appointed by the Governor? It seems simple, but I have asked a lot of very smart people this very question, and not one had a good answer.

Governor-elect Brown hinted that Education cuts will make up a major part of his plan to fix the state’s budget shortfall.

I would like to add some perspective to this. I see our Education budget from many angles- as a parent of 2 school age kids (9th and 5th grade) as a teacher, (16 years teaching middle school mathematics) and from the perspective of a School Board Member.

As much as the California Teacher’s Association might not want to hear this, I do understand that Prop. 98 has not necessarily been a good thing for our state. In good times, California is required to spend a minimum percentage of the money it takes in on Public Education. Don’t get me wrong; I would love to see schools have

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L.A. Mayor Villaraigosa on school-reform fallout: 'No one buys that turncoat stuff' | L.A. NOW | Los Angeles Times

L.A. Mayor Villaraigosa on school-reform fallout: 'No one buys that turncoat stuff' | L.A. NOW | Los Angeles Times

L.A. Mayor Villaraigosa on school-reform fallout: 'No one buys that turncoat stuff'

December 26, 2010 | 7:07 pm

A mayor with deep roots in the labor movement now finds himself denounced in some quarters as a turncoat — a description he calls absurd. "No one buys that turncoat stuff," Los Angeles MayorAntonio Villaraigosa said at a recent union-sponsored event in Watts. "But I am challenging orthodoxies in a way that we have to."

The mayor's recent branding of United Teachers Los Angeles, the L.A. teachers union, as "one

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NYC Educator: Caution--Principals at Work

NYC Educator: Caution--Principals at Work

Caution--Principals at Work

by NYC Educator
Kids can be annoyingly perceptive. This can often be disturbing, forcing us to confront issues we'd rather avoid. Some pedantic sorts cannot deal with such things at all. Thus, kids are reprimanded, disciplined, shut up, put off and made to express themselves in different ways. Potentially worse for said pedants, though, is when others find out what's been done to the kids and act on their behalf.

At Jamaica High School a group of students representing not only Jamaica but also Queens Collegiate, one of the push-in schools designed to help kill one of New York City's most historic and impressive institutions, got together and wrote a play, a take-off on Antigone that criticized Bloomberg's corporate agenda, and the separate and unequal treatment resulting from it. Their principals, being very smart fellas, forbade the play's performance. As a result, the play
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Linking evaluation to MCAS a mistake - The Boston Globe

Linking evaluation to MCAS a mistake - The Boston Globe

Linking evaluation to MCAS a mistake

December 27, 2010

MY JAW dropped on reading that a teachers union was agreeing to use standardized testing, such as MCAS, to evaluate teachers for promotion and retention (“Teachers would tie own rating to MCAS,’’ Page A1, Dec. 21). Do the policy makers of the Massachusetts Teachers Association think this is a tactic in a larger grand strategy? Were I a member of that union, I would advocate firing the leadership.

Then came the Dec. 22 editorial “A teachers union steps up’’ to pile on.

Subpar academic performance is mostly a socioeconomic ill. It will not be corrected by restrictive teaching to the test. Subpar teaching, though infrequent, is nearly always apparent soon after a teacher is hired, well within a teacher’s probationary period. An eye, an ear, and a little courage are all

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The Best Resources To Learn About Finland’s Education System | Larry Ferlazzo's Websites of the Day...

The Best Resources To Learn About Finland’s Education System | Larry Ferlazzo's Websites of the Day...
The Best Resources To Learn About Finland’s Education System Finland’s education system is touted by many as one of the best, if not the best, in the world, and its students consistently score at or neat the top of international tests (you might also be interested in The Best Sites For Getting Some Perspective ...
NY Times Article On “Value-Added” Teacher Assessment Hurdles Emerge in Rising Effort to Rate Teachers is the headline of a New York Times article that gives a fair-to-middlin’ overview on the issue of using the value-added approach in teacher assessment. It does have some good info, though, which is ...
“Tallest Buildings In The World” “Tallest Buildings In The World” is an Associated Press interactive about…tall buildings. I’m adding it to The Best Sites To Learn About The World’s Tallest Buildings .
December’s “The Best…” Lists Here’s my monthly round-up of new “The Best…” lists I posted in December: The Best From “Interviews Of The Month” — 2010 The Best Articles & Posts On Education Policy — 2010 Best “Tweets” Of 2010 The Best “The Best…” Lists Related To Science — 2010 ...
“10 Most Incredible Volcanic Eruptions Ever Captured on Camera” 10 Most Incredible Volcanic Eruptions Ever Captured on Camera is a series of some pretty amazing photographs. Eventually, I’ll get around to posting a “The Best…” list about volcanoes. But, for now, I’m adding the best resources about volcanoes, ...
Even More iPhone Apps Mashable has just published The Ultimate iPhone Guide: 60+ Essential Resources. Out of that massive list, here are the resources I’m adding to The Best Sites For Beginning iPhone Users Like Me: Free Books is an app with 24,000 free classic. Open ...
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Daily Kos: Imagine a nation with excellent schools

Daily Kos: Imagine a nation with excellent schools

Imagine a nation with excellent schools

by teacherken

Imagine that 25 years ago that nation's schools were below international averages in math and sciences

Imagine that nation had large differences between schools with affluent students versus those with poorer students

Imagine that nation now has almost no difference in performance between schools with affluent students and those with poorer students

Imagine in that nation teachers are so respected

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City officials continue to point students toward doomed high schools

City officials continue to point students toward doomed high schools

City officials continue to point students toward doomed high schools

BY RACHEL MONAHAN
DAILY NEWS STAFF WRITER

Monday, December 27th 2010, 4:00 AM

Shariful Islam with his niece Ruthna Nasir, 17.
Chu for News
Shariful Islam with his niece Ruthna Nasir, 17.

RELATED NEWS

When Shariful Islam went to enroll his immigrant niece in 10th grade, city officials directed him to the soon-to-close Columbus High School in the Bronx.

The 17-year-old from Bangladesh, who doesn't speak English, had unsuccessfully tried for a spot at two smaller schools.

So earlier this month Ruthna Nasir began attending Columbus - becoming one of the more than 1,300 students to enroll since August at schools the city intends to shut down for poor performance, records show.

The majority of these students - more than 1,100 - were placed in 15 schools that officials announced more than a year ago were failing students.

A lawsuit by the teachers union and the NAACP kept these schools open another year,



Read more: http://www.nydailynews.com/ny_local/education/2010/12/27/2010-12-27_kids_pointed_toward_doomed_high_schools.html#ixzz19JgUguM1
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Chapter Four: December « City School Stories

Chapter Four: December « City School Stories

Chapter Four: December

by fmurphy

Confessions of an Urban Principal

by Frank Murphy

In this book I offer my own story of school reform. It is a first hand account of the life of an urban elementary school principal in the era of No Child Left Behind. The text is organized into ten chapters that represent each month of the school year. On Monday and Wednesday, I post an installment of the current month’s chapter. The complete text for previous chapters can be found listed under Categories.

The names of all students and parents who are described in this story have been altered in order to protect their privacy. This is not a fictional account. The observations I share were not made from a distance. They are derived

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The Answer Sheet - Who in education says 'oops'?

The Answer Sheet - Who in education says 'oops'?

Who in education says 'oops'?

This was written by Larry Cuban, a former high school social studies teacher (14 years, including seven at Cardozo and Roosevelt high schools in the District), district superintendent (seven years in Arlington, Virginia) and professor emeritus of education at Stanford University, where he has taught for 20 years. His latest book is "As Good As It Gets: What School Reform Brought to Austin." This appeared on his blog. By Larry Cuban The Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation and top policymakers have promoted and funded small urban high schools for nearly a decade. Then Bill Gates said in his 2009 Annual Letter that while these small urban high schools had accomplished much for students they had largely failed to improve academic achievement. No more big bucks for this initiative. No other foundation executives or federal/state officials, all of whom had tripped over themselves in hailing small urban high schools, said
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Mike Klonsky's SmallTalk Blog: WEEKEND QUOTABLES

Mike Klonsky's SmallTalk Blog: WEEKEND QUOTABLES

WEEKEND QUOTABLES

by Mike Klonsky
He's dreaming of a white Christmas
"You heard of the Citizens Councils? Up north they think it was like the KKK. Where I come from it was an organization of town leaders." (Miss. Gov. and 2012 presidential candidate, Haley Barbour)
The spirit of giving
"From Gates, to Broad, to Bloomberg, edu-philanthropists have been pouring their time, talent and treasure into education. They tout themselves as education reformers, but, largely, their dollars are not simply good deeds. Instead,

Gray's choices

by Mike Klonsky
Broom Lady gone from D.C. but mayor's new picks don't reflect any new thinking on ed reform.
In Chicago, Mahaley, 42, led Mayor Richard M. Daley's initiative to close low-performing schools and replace them with charter-like schools...Mahaley has most recently been an executive director
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