Jordan and Kenneth Anhalt were recognized and presented with certificates by the mayor and council for their establishment of the student-initiated program, Students Act Together, at a meeting on June 28. Pictured from left to right: Councilman Jack Drakeford, Mayor Frank Huttle, Kenneth Anhalt, Jordan Anhalt, Councilman Michael Cohen, Councilman Scott Reddin, Councilman Ken Rosenzweig and Councilwoman Lynne Algrant.
ENGLEWOOD - For the brothers Kenneth and Jordan Anhalt, being a team means looking out for others, and that was what was behind their establishing Students Act Together, a student-initiated program they started in 2007 to share standardized-test preparation books with needy students.
"When we began, it was about 10 books in the library that were shared among the school, and they were only allowed to take them out for an hour at a time,"
Billy Bragg debuted a new song on stage this weekend, a throwback to the topical political tunes of his youth. Titled “Never Buy the Sun,” it’s a commentary on the scandals currently engulfing the British tabloids owned by Rupert Murdoch’s News International.
If you haven’t been following that story, it’s a doozy. For several years now, it’s been known that the weekly News of the World tabloid had illegally hacked into certain celebrities’ voicemail messages as part of its newsgathering operations. But in the last few weeks that story has been completely transformed, as the full
The National Education Association (NEA) honored Ms. Kennedy during its annual Human and Civil Rights Awards dinner in Chicago, on Friday, July 1, 2011. The H. Councill Trenholm Memorial Award recognizes her work, through the Speak Truth To Power human rights curriculum, to free the education profession from inequities based on race or ethnicity, while also helping to improve intergroup relations and understanding among racial and ethnic groups.
In my last post, I discussed the many factor that make the SOS March attractive and pull me towards this movement and event. Now for the things that are pushing me towards the march. The things I want to get away from as a both a parent and an education professional.
How did I get here? I keep seeing the administration, the Department of Education, and their media apologistssaying they don’t want a system based solely on test scores, and how they want to “move away” from NCLB which is bad. But all they seem to be offering is, a system based on test scores. Granted they haven’t replaced NCLB yet, but what they’ve done with Race to the Top makes it clear, schools will be judged on test scores.
Welcome to Lake Wobegone where all the women are strong, all the men are good-looking and all the children are above average.
– Garrison Keillor
National media recently reported two major stories regarding education under the weight of No Child Left Behind without drawing the obvious connection between them.
First came the revelation that an estimated 200 administrators and teachers in the Atlanta school district were engaged in cheating to achieve higher scores on standardized testing. Second came a projection by the Department of Education that an astonishing 82% of public schools could fail to meet proficiency targets for the coming year.
The standards of NCLB are constantly moving. To avoid failure a school must record improved test results in reading and math for all its students and in eight subgroups until all students (100%) are considered proficient by
Now that the school year has ended, the research and writing season can begin for those of us who study charters. This summer, we’ll be working on updating our 2010 report on student demographics in charterscompared to their local district schools, including our analysis of charters’ proportions of special education students and their levels of need (once that data arrives from the state and city.)
In the meantime, though, a few other bloggers have been posting some cautionary essays about the importance of acknowledging the different demographics of students in charters compared to the schools in their neighborhoods. Like charters’ academic performance, those demographics can vary widely across the sector — but given the new charter law’s requirement that all charters in New York State must recruit and retain proportions of high needs students similar to those of their local district schools, it’s worth a reminder of what the research has shown so far.
For example, Matt diCarlo recently revisited Caroline Hoxby’s influential study on NYC charters, which used comparisons of students who won and lost charter admissions lotteries from 2000-2008 to conclude that
The IEA leadership that appears to have been snookered or worse by Stand For Children’s Jonah Edelman has responded to the video and the Edelman apology to this blog’s readers.
Despite building the state’s largest political war chest and suggesting his organization had the power to “potentially jam this proposal down [the education unions’] throats,” SfC failed to get its bill passed. Instead, SfC was forced to collaborate with a coalition of education employee unions, lawmakers, school administrators and other education stakeholders who had been working together for years, on comprehensive reform package that puts students first.
Senate Bill 7 (SB7), the bill that emerged from the talks, differed greatly from the
Posted by Rena Pederson, NMSI Communications Director:
This timely comparison of how well all the states are doing in teaching science shows who is leading the way and how far some have to go. Here is the link where you can see how your state measures up:
http://www.livescience.com/14950-state-science-education-ranks-announced.html
It left children mostly out of the equation when helping children succeed is my mission in life...
It could cause viewers to wrongly conclude that I’m against unions...
One of my great privileges is that I have many smart friends. Les Perelman is Director of Writing Across the Curriculum in the Program in Writing and Humanistic Studies at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Here he responds to the recent testing scandal in Atlanta and talks about the tests involved in it.
First, let me state explicitly that I in no way condone the cheating that has gone on in Atlanta. Second, I am limiting my remarks to the English Language Arts because that is the only area in which I have expertise.
With those reservations, the Georgia State Criterion Reference Competency Testing program, at least in its English Language Arts Component, is a perfect example of mass-market testing run amok. The teachers and administrators should not have erased incorrect answers and replaced them with correct ones. The core problem, however, is that multiple choice mass-market tests do not assess what good teachers teach; they
Acting education commissioner Christopher Cerf, left, speaks during a 2010 press conference while Gov. Chris Christie looks on.Do supporters of privatized schooling — including Gov. Chris Christie — really want to destroy public schools? Is even asking the question an exercise in political hyperventilating?
It’s a charge frequently made by NJEA President Barbara Keshishian who said, "Chris Christie has one objective: to destroy New Jersey’s public schools in order to pave the way for their privatization.’’ He declined to comment for this article, but Christie — through spokesman Michael Drewniak — has insisted he likes public schools, just not their unions.
"The Governor’s issue is with a union that opposes reform,’" Drewniak said.
There was a time when advocating the elimination of public schools was so politically toxic that even those who harbored the desire stayed in the closet. That may be changing.
"We think public schools should go away,’’ says Teri Adams, the head of the Independence Hall Tea Party and a leading advocate — both in New Jersey and Pennsylvania — of passage of school
Jake Boyd, photographed on the campus of Macomb Community College in Warren, MI on Wednesday, June 22, 2011. Boyd took five years to finish a criminal-justice degree while working two jobs at the same time he was going to classes. (Photo by Rob Widdis/McClatchy Tribune)
WARREN, Mich.—Estranged from his family at 17, Jake Boyd put himself through Macomb Community College
In recent post, I discussed the questionable value of student survey data to inform teacher evaluation models. Not only is there little research support for such surveys, but the very framing of the idea often reflects faulty reasoning.
A quote from a recent Educators 4 Excellence white paper helps to illustrate the point:
For a system that aims to serve students, young people’s interests are far too often pushed aside. Students’ voices should be at the forefront of the education debate today, especially when it comes to determining the
When President Obama promised 100,000 new science, technology, engineering, and math (STEM) teachers over the next 10 years during his State of the Union address in January, it may have seemed like an unrealistic goal. However, officials at several nonprofits, businesses, and universities saw it as a call to action.
Dozens of organizations, led by the nonprofit Carnegie Corporation of New York, have banded together to form 100kin10, a coalition that hopes to increase the number of qualified teachers, retain top performing teachers, and build a movement to improve STEM education in the U.S., which has fallen to the middle of the pack globally.
"We thought if we don't take action to respond to that call, then no one will," says Talia Milgrom-Elcott, program officer for urban education at the Carnegie Corporation. "In a few
When you read the apology it sure sounded like Jonah Edelman of Stand for Children got taken to the woodshed.
By whom?
Maybe by his esteemed parents who might have been embarrassed by the tone of his prideful and boasting presentation at the corporate funded Aspen Ideas Festival.
Maybe by some of the billionaire boys club funders of Stand for Children who didn’t want their tactics for public
