Where Does Obama's Jobs Plan Leave the Teacher Quality Debate? - Dana Goldstein

Where Does Obama's Jobs Plan Leave the Teacher Quality Debate? - Dana Goldstein:

Where Does Obama's Jobs Plan Leave the Teacher Quality Debate?

by Dana Goldstein

The jobs plan President Obama unveiled to Congress last week calls for $30 billion to save public school teachers from layoffs. "While they’re adding teachers in places like South Korea, we’re laying them off in droves," Obama said in his speech to Congress. "It’s unfair to our kids. It undermines their future and ours. And it has to stop. Pass this bill, and put our teachers back in the classroom where they belong."

This may seem like an uncontroversial, conventional Democratic spending priority. Indeed, the 2009 stimulus also helped school districts avoid teacher layoffs.

But it's important to realize that on education, Obama has never been a conventional Democrat. During his years in the Senate, his presidential campaign, and after he entered the White House, Obama always framed his school reform agenda around the issue of teacher quality, not teacher job security. He has resisted seeing

Teach Troy Davis

Teach Troy Davis:

About Teach Troy

Georgia Death Row prisoner Troy Davis is scheduled to be executed on Wednesday, September 21 despite overwhelming doubts about his guilt. In light of this imminent execution date, Educators for Troy—a Chicago-based ad hoc group of educators, activists and artists—is calling on all educators to interrupt their regular teaching schedules this week to dedicate a class period to “Teach Troy.”

Please use this emergency “Teach Troy” curriculum to educate your students about the case of Troy Davis. We are providing links to readings and videos about Troy’s case in addition to suggestions for student projects and assignments. We have also included a page that allows your students to take some simple independent actions to help save Troy’s life.

Share your experiences here on the “Teach Troy” blog (on the Feedback page) and ask your students to do the same. Educators and students can also e-mail their work to us directly attroydaviseducation@gmail.com. We will keep an archive of all contributions here on this blog.

Important dates:

Friday, September 16 – International Day of Solidarity for Troy Davis

Monday, September 19 – Troy Davis’ clemency hearing before the Georgia Board of Pardons and Parole

Wednesday, September 21 – Troy Davis’ execution date

Visit Amnesty International’s Site for videos, information, and calls to action about Troy Davis’s case. You can also visit Troy Davis’s website to learn more about the case.

Back to School Supplies! (Classroom Project at DonorsChoose.org)

Back to School Supplies! (Classroom Project at DonorsChoose.org):

Back to School Supplies!

Classroom project requested by Ms. G. on Aug 27, 2011

Ms. G.Follow High Poverty PS 204 Morris Heights School New York City, NY My Students: Do you remember your first day of kindergarten? My new students will be excited, but with budget cuts, I might not have enough of even the most basic supplies for them. I w... My Project: Some of the resources I'm asking for are very basic--construction paper and glue sticks for art and literacy projects. My students will also benefit from some more auditory, t...more» My students need paper, glue sticks, and lots of auditory, tactile and kinesthetic activities to start the school year off right!details»

Breaking News: Judge Sets Troy Davis Execution Date for Sep. 21 | NAACP

Breaking News: Judge Sets Troy Davis Execution Date for Sep. 21 | NAACP:

Breaking News: Judge Sets Troy Davis Execution Date for Sep. 21 | NAACP.

Posted on September 07, 2011 by Benjamin Todd Jealous, President & CEO

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We’ve just received terrible news: the State of Georgia has set Troy Davis’s execution date for midnight on September 21, just two weeks from today.

This is our justice system at its very worst, and we are alive to witness it. There is just too much doubt.

Consider the situation: Seven out of nine witnesses have recanted their statements; several more have come forward to identify one of the two remaining witnesses as the actual killer; and, earlier this summer, the judge in his final hearing labeled the case against troy as “not ironclad.” Nonetheless, the

Leonie Haimson: Obama's Speech to Congress: So Why Am I Skeptical?

Leonie Haimson: Obama's Speech to Congress: So Why Am I Skeptical?:

Leonie Haimson

Executive Director, Class Size Matters

Obama's Speech to Congress: So Why Am I Skeptical?

Obama's speech last week to Congress has been described as a "wake up call" -- with its aggressive and ambitious proposals to boost spending on education-- including $30 billion to avoid further teacher layoffs, and $30 billion more to renovate school facilities. These funds that are desperately needed asmore than 2/3 of states and districts are suffering big cuts and increases in class size this fall -- with nearly a quarter million fewer school staff employed in June 2011 compared to two years before. As the Presidentsaid:

"Pass this jobs bill, and thousands of teachers in every state will go back to work. These are the men and women charged with preparing our children for a world where the competition has never been tougher. But while they're adding teachers in places like South Korea, we're laying them

Weekly Update…and it’s only Monday! | Seattle Education

Weekly Update…and it’s only Monday! | Seattle Education:

Weekly Update…and it’s only Monday.

by seattleducation2011

This just in.

First up, Diane Ravitch will be speaking at Town Hall on November 17th at 7:30 PM. The topic will be “Getting Our Schools Back on Track”. Advance tickets can be purchased through Town Hall.

Our very own Jesse Hagopian, a teacher in the Seattle Public School system and founding member of Seattle Equity Educators (SEE), had an article published in Common Dreams.org this week. Check out Shock Doctrine Schooling in Haiti: Neoliberalism Off the Richter Scale.

Another article relating to Naomi Klein’s book The Shock Doctrine by Salon writer David Sirota, describes how

Baker’s dozen ed bills before Brown | Thoughts on Public Education

Baker’s dozen ed bills before Brown | Thoughts on Public Education:

Baker’s dozen ed bills before Brown

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Dream Act among measures on Gov's desk.

Posted on 9/12/11 • Categorized as Assessments, Common Core standards, Community Colleges, Foster care, Jerry Brown, Standardized tests, State Board of Education, Teacher Development, Twenty-first Century Learning, Undocumented students, Unions, Workforce preparation

By Kathryn Baron

(Kathy and John combined efforts on this post.)

It all comes down to one person. Dozens of education bills passed in the final days of the legislative session are now in Gov. Brown’s hands. He has until October 9^th to sign or veto. Here are highlights of some of the most controversial and comprehensive measures.

SB 611 (Darrell Steinberg, D- Sacramento): The University of California has approved thousands of Career Technical Education courses as qualifying for admission to UC and CSU campuses under the A-G requirements. But nearly all of them have been approved only as electives, not as core subjects. This bill would authorize a new UC institute to work directly with high school teachers to develop dozens of CTE courses that would qualify as math, English, and science courses for UC and CSU admission – a big shift in UC’s approach to CTE and potentially a boost for partnership academies and programs that stress career and college readiness.

SB 547 (Darrell Steinberg, D-Sacramento): This bill would replace California’s long-standing school rating system, known as the Academic Performance Index, or API, with an Education

Student Communities and Technology Since 9/11 « Student Activism

Student Communities and Technology Since 9/11 « Student Activism:

Student Communities and Technology Since 9/11

by Angus Johnston

Ten years ago yesterday I was at the same place I was twenty years ago — on the Binghamton University campus in upstate New York. (In 1991 I was a student, in 2001 I was advising a statewide student organization.)

I woke up in Albany on the morning of September 11, and drove on empty highways to Binghamton for a scheduled meeting, listening to reports of the attacks on the radio. A few days later I wrote this summary of what I found when I arrived:

Binghamton was surprisingly subdued — much calmer than I’d seen it when the Gulf War started in January 1991. Lots more people have cable in their dorms now than did then, though, so I expect most of the students who were really worried were in their rooms by the phone.

In 1991, if you wanted to keep up with a breaking news story on a college campus, you usually had to go to the

Mike Klonsky's SmallTalk Blog: WEEKEND QUOTABLES

Mike Klonsky's SmallTalk Blog: WEEKEND QUOTABLES:

WEEKEND QUOTABLES

9/12

“We spent trillions on foreign wars and allowed our physical infrastructure to deteriorate and our technological infrastructure to fall behind that of the rest of the developed world. We ignored the increase in inequality and laughed off the decline in U.S. manufacturing. We fed a credit bubble that would eventually pop our economy and ran up the debt and eased monetary policy in ways that would make an effective countercyclical response

Shanker Blog » The Real Charter School Experiment

Shanker Blog » The Real Charter School Experiment:

The Real Charter School Experiment

by Matthew Di Carlo

The New York Times reports that there is a pilot program in Houston, called the “Apollo 20 Program” in which some of the district’s regular public schools are “mimicking” the practices of high-performing charter schools. According to the Times article, the group of pilot schools seek to replicate five of the practices commonly used by high-flying charters: extended school time; extensive tutoring; more selective hiring of principals and teachers; “data-driven” instruction, including frequent diagnostic quizzing; and a “no excuses” culture of high expectations.

In theory, this pilot program is a good idea, since a primary mission of charter schools should be as a testing ground for new policies and practices that could help to improve all schools. More than a decade of evidence has made it very clear that there’s nothing about “charterness” that makes a school successful – and indeed, only a handful get excellent results. So instead of arguing along the tired old pro-/anti-charter lines, we should, like Houston, be asking why these schools excel and working to see if we can use this information productively.

I’ll be watching to see how the pilot schools end up doing. I’m also hoping that the analysis (the program is being

Want a 3.8 GPA? Major in Education :: Frederick M. Hess

Want a 3.8 GPA? Major in Education :: Frederick M. Hess:

Want a 3.8 GPA? Major in Education

by Frederick M. Hess • Sep 12, 2011 at 8:05 am
Cross-posted from Education Week

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There are perennial concerns about the rigor and quality of teacher preparation. These have become so familiar that ed programs have taken to shrugging off the critiques as uninformed or anecdotal. Well, University of Missouri economist Cory Koedel has provided some new, clear, and pretty troubling evidence about the lack of rigor in teacher preparation. In "Grade Inflation for Education Majors and Low Standards for Teachers: When Everyone Makes the Grade," he compares grade distribution in education departments to that in twelve other university departments. Turns out that ed faculty are much more generous when it comes to grading (full disclosure: my shop at AEI published this "Outlook").

Koedel compares the distribution of course grades at two state flagship universities, Indiana University and the University of Missouri. At both universities, the average GPAs for the other twelve majors were roughly similar, while education stood as a stark outlier. Indeed, the average education GPA was 3.66 at Indiana University and 3.8 at U. Missouri. At Missouri, he reports that "every single student received an A (that is, 4.0) in one out of

Obama Jobs Legislation Includes $60 Billion for Education - High School Notes (usnews.com)

Obama Jobs Legislation Includes $60 Billion for Education - High School Notes (usnews.com):

Obama Jobs Legislation Includes $60 Billion for Education

By JASON KOEBLER

September 12, 2011 RSS Feed Print

President Obama's plan to create jobs includes up to $60 billion in new education funding to prevent teacher layoffs and to modernize and renovate more than 35,000 aging schools across the country.

The American Jobs Act, which Obama announced at a joint session of Congress last Thursday and will be introduced to both houses later this week, would stimulate the economy and save thousands of teaching jobs, according to the White House.

Due to budget cuts in many states and districts, the White House estimates that as many as 280,000 K-12 educators are in danger of being laid off sometime this year, which could impact some schools' class sizes, school day length, and class offerings. Obama wants to provide $30 billion to prevent

NYC Educator: The Voice of the People

NYC Educator: The Voice of the People:

The Voice of the People

by NYC Educator

This week, UFT chapter leaders and delegates received an extraordinary invite:

Vice President Joe Biden invites you and your colleagues in education to join him for a conference call on Monday, Sept. 12 to discuss the administration’s commitment to preventing teacher layoffs.

Wow. A chance to discuss what this administration has done to prevent teacher layoffs. A chance to ask why on earth they would praise a school for firing the entire staff. A chance to ask why on earth they would pick an Education Secretary with failed local program and replicate it for the entire country. A chance to ask