Common Core for Teachers- Education Experts

- Education Experts:

Common Core for Teachers

By Fawn Johnson

December 10, 2012 | 8:30 a.m.

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The American Federation of Teachers proposed a universal "bar exam" for teachers last week, arguing that the profession deserves to be associated with high standards and the rigorous training needed to meet them.

"There's this one universal assessment that would be available for adaptation. ...It would be so aligned with what new teachers need to know and be able to do. Just like the Common Core, many, many states would adopt it," said AFT President Randi Weingarten.

The association with the Common Core State Standards Initiative is no accident. The Common Core skirts the third rail of education politics--national standards--because its achievement standards for K-12 students were negotiated by state governors and voluntarily adopted by states. The standards may blanket the country, but there is no "education czar." Under AFT's vision for teachers, there 

» STUDY: Rigged ALEC Research “Provides a Recipe for Economic Inequality, Wage Suppression”

» STUDY: Rigged ALEC Research “Provides a Recipe for Economic Inequality, Wage Suppression”:

STUDY: Rigged ALEC Research “Provides a Recipe for Economic Inequality, Wage Suppression”

by Chaz Bolte

A new study suggests that proposed American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC) policies do more harm to state economies than good. Selling Snake Oil to the States, from Good Jobs First and the Iowa Policy Project, shows that states ranked high on ALEC’s annual “Rich States, Poor States” list actually do worse than those ranked low, especially in terms of economic inequality.
Claims made by ALEC’s lead researcher Arthur Laffer are tested by Peter Fisher, Greg LeRoy, and Philip Mattera. According to their study:
“We tested ALEC’s claims against actual economic results,” said Dr. Peter Fisher, primary author of the Good Jobs First study. “We conclude that eliminating progressive taxes, suppressing wages and cutting public services are actually a recipe for economic inequality, declining incomes and undermining public infrastructure 

Op-Ed: CREDO’s Study of Charter Schools in NJ Leaves Many Unanswered Questions - East Windsor, NJ Patch

Op-Ed: CREDO’s Study of Charter Schools in NJ Leaves Many Unanswered Questions - East Windsor, NJ Patch:

Op-Ed: CREDO’s Study of Charter Schools in NJ Leaves Many Unanswered Questions

Julia Sass Rubin, Ph.D., is an associate professor of public policy at the Edward J. Bloustein School of Planning and Public Policy and a member of Save Our Schools NJ.

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By Julia Sass Rubin, Ph.D.

Last week, with much fanfare, a study comparing standardized test scores of New Jersey’s charter school students to those of their public school peers was released by the Center for Research on Education Outcomes (CREDO). As a professor of public policy, a supporter of public education, and a parent of a charter school student, I have four questions that I would like to ask the authors.

Question #1: Why does the CREDO press release misrepresent the study’s findings?

The CREDO press release claimed that “New Jersey charter public schools significantly outperform their district school peers.” However, this is no

What High School Parents Should Know About Common Core - High School Notes (usnews.com)

What High School Parents Should Know About Common Core - High School Notes (usnews.com):

What High School Parents Should Know About Common Core

By KELSEY SHEEHY

December 10, 2012 RSS Feed Print

The Common Core standards require high school students to collaborate to solve problems.

When the Common Core State Standards take full effect in 2014, they will impact more than 42 million K-12 students. While some schools and districts are holding information sessions to educate parents on the new standards, most still know very little about what the Common Core entails.

Only 7 percent of adults say they know "a lot" about the standards, and 60 percent say they know "nothing" about the standards, according to a July report by Achieve, an education nonprofit. The following cheat sheet can help parents of high 

Missouri Education Watchdog: WHY Can't Students Read "Catcher in the Rye" in School? Meet David Coleman.

Missouri Education Watchdog: WHY Can't Students Read "Catcher in the Rye" in School? Meet David Coleman.:

WHY Can't Students Read "Catcher in the Rye" in School? Meet David Coleman.

by stlgretchen

The only item David Coleman requires now is a crown.

The big news in education last week was the reduction of fiction reading in schools thanks to Common Core State standards.  Many writers bemoaned the fact that Catcher in the Rye was being pulled from the approved list of literature by the centralized education system present in the United States.  So much for local control.

Under reported was the story on who is issuing these edicts on educational content and delivery.  It's not Obama and it's not Arne Duncan.  It's David Coleman, who in our new centralized educational framework, should go by the title "Prince David Coleman" for being the lead architect in the crafting of the standards.  He has been endowed with special powers and seems to be untouchable in his pronouncements on how 

The Education Advocates' Battle Cry: "Let's Push the Kids Off the Fiscal Cliff!" :: Frederick M. Hess

The Education Advocates' Battle Cry: "Let's Push the Kids Off the Fiscal Cliff!" :: Frederick M. Hess:

The Education Advocates' Battle Cry: "Let's Push the Kids Off the Fiscal Cliff!"

by Frederick M. Hess  •  Dec 10, 2012 at 6:22 am

Look, let's keep this simple. As a nation, we're spending vast sums we don't have. In every year of President Obama's first term, we borrowed more than a $1 trillion. Today, the federal debt stands at $16.4 trillion (we spend $220 billion a year just paying interest on the debt.) If we extend the Bush tax cuts, once again prolong unfunded "patches" to avoid pain associated with the alternative minimum tax and Medicare physician payments, and fail to make the cuts dictated by sequestration, the debt is expected to rise to more than $22 trillion by 2020. (I'm okay with going over the dreaded "fiscal cliff," even though the tax increases and spending cuts are expected to trim next year's GDP growth by a half-point, largely because doing so would cut that projected debt down to only $14 trillion in 2020.) Who's to blame? All of us. We're enjoying services that we don't want to pay for--which means we borrow the money, then leave the bill for our kids (that's right, to the same children we claim to love so much). Our profligacy is not just an economic concern; it's a vast, 

DeKalb parents gird for battle tonight: Redistricting redux | Get Schooled

DeKalb parents gird for battle tonight: Redistricting redux | Get Schooled:

DeKalb parents gird for battle tonight: Redistricting redux

by Maureen Downey

The DeKalb Board of Education votes tonight on a controversial draft five-year facilities plan from Superintendent Cheryl Atkinson.
You can read the AJC story about today’s 6 p.m. meeting here. The story quotes a parent from Midway Elementary School who was shocked that her south DeKalb school is slated to close in the plan. And the story talks about unhappy parents at Evansdale Elementary in north DeKalb whose children shift from Lakeside High to Tucker under the plan.
The public has until mid January to comment on the plan, which goes to a final vote later that month.
The plan has alarmed many parents, although one of the more controversial aspects — closing three south DeKalb middle schools to save money and sending the students to high school campuses — has already been

A divided APS school board decides today whether to dump embattled school chief Erroll Davis

by Maureen Downey

Should Erroll B. Davis Jr. stay or go?

DeKalb is not the only metro school district with a consequential decision pending today.
While the DeKalb school board will vote on a controversial five year plan that includes school closings and redistricting, the Atlanta Board of Education will take up superintendent Erroll B. Davis’ contract extension.
And the stage is set for a close vote.
At a meeting last week, the nine-member APS board changed its policy, now requiring a super majority of seven votes to extend the school chief’s contract rather than a majority of five votes. At that Dec. 3  session, the board 

New Jersey charter schools: What’s real and not real:

New Jersey charter schools: What’s real and not real

Posted by Valerie Strauss on December 10, 2012 at 5:00 am

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A new report on charter schools in New Jersey was hailed as proof that charters in the state on average produce better standardized test scores than traditional public schools. Which would be fine, if that’s what the report really said.

It turns out that it shows something far less. Julia Sass Rubin, an associate professor of public policy at the Edward J. Bloustein School of Planning and Public Policy at Rutgers University wrote here on the N.J. Spotlight Web site, about big problems with the report, which was done by the Center for Research on Education Outcomes at Stanford University’s Hoover Institution. For example, she said:

The CREDO press release claimed that “New Jersey charter public schools significantly outperform their district school peers.” However, this is not even remotely what the CREDO study found.

First, the CREDO study looked at only about half of New Jersey’s charter schools (46 

Big questions about proposed Loudoun charter school

by Valerie Strauss

The Loudoun County School Board is getting close to deciding whether to approve its (and possibly Northern Virginia's) first charter school, a proposed math-science academy that critics allege has ties to a Turkish Islamic preacher and a network of like-minded charters across the United States. But, it turns out, questions about ties to the influential preacher, Fethullah Gulen, are not the most immediate issue facing the board with this application.
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Can an SB 736 Compromise Be Found in Los Angeles? | Scathing Purple Musings

Can an SB 736 Compromise Be Found in Los Angeles? | Scathing Purple Musings:

Can an SB 736 Compromise Be Found in Los Angeles?

by Bob Sikes

From the Los Angeles Times:

The recent groundbreaking agreement over evaluations for educators in the Los Angeles school district is a major victory for the teachers union because it limits the use of a controversial — but increasingly widespread — measurement of teacher effectiveness.
The tentative pact puts the nation’s second-largest school system at odds with a national trend to gauge the effect of teachers on student achievement by using a value-added analysis. That method, known in Los Angeles Unified as Academic Growth Over Time, is opposed by many teacher unions as unreliable; but it is being used in Illinois, New York, Texas, Florida, Washington, D.C., and elsewhere.
The restrictions on using that method will force L.A. Unified to alter its new teacher evaluation system, which every principal and one volunteer instructor in all of the district’s 1,300 schools were 

Darling-Hammond elected new chair of Credentialing Commission | EdSource Today

Darling-Hammond elected new chair of Credentialing Commission | EdSource Today:

Darling-Hammond elected new chair of Credentialing Commission

December 10th, 2012 | Add a Comment | 
By John Fensterwald

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Linda Darling-Hammond

The California Commission on Teacher Credentialing has elected Linda Darling-Hammond as its chair, placing one of the nation’s foremost authorities on education in a position to shape the state’s policies affecting the recruitment and training of teachers and principals in a year where major changes are in the works.

Darling-Hammond is a professor at the Stanford University School of Education and author of 300 publications. Appointed by Gov. Jerry Brown to the Commission last year, she has been the vice chair and was in line to succeed English teacher Charles Gahagan. The only question was whether she would have time for the job.

She was voted chair on Friday, the same day that the Commission voted to ask staff to pursue an idea she has pushed: requiring candidates for a 

Credentialing commission imposes tougher test to become school administrator - by John Fensterwald

by John Fensterwald

Alone among states, California has permitted passing a primarily multiple-choice exam as one path to become a school or district administrator. That will change. The California Commission on Teacher Credentialing (CTC) on Friday voted to require aspiring administrators to pass a more challenging “performance-based assessment,” showing how they’d handle complex situations that administrators face...

Mike Klonsky's SmallTalk Blog: WEEKEND QUOTABLES

Mike Klonsky's SmallTalk Blog: WEEKEND QUOTABLES:

WEEKEND QUOTABLES

by Mike Klonsky

Sen. Jacqueline Collins

"I voted against restoring Tamms' funding, and I urge the governor to proceed in closing this troubled and controversial facility, transferring its inmates to other prisons and respecting their human rights through responsible correctional practices." -- Chicago Reporter

Chicago teacher Michael Doyle

“I’m a teacher. I’m a parent. So I understand this game. When I hear this word utilization, I’ve never heard that word used before in education.”  -- Sun-Times

 Kelly High School parent Anita Caballero

“I keep hearing about more charters. How about us not closing schools? How about keeping 

Daily Kos: Today is International Human Rights Day

Daily Kos: Today is International Human Rights Day:

Today is International Human Rights Day

by rss@dailykos.com (teacherken)

because on this date in 1948, at the Palais de Chaillot in Paris, the UN General Assembly adopted the Universal Declaration of Human Rights.  The history is well covered in this Wikipedia article, so I will not recapitulate it.  This page at the UN website provides the text and other information, including the history and the drafters.  As Americans, it is worth our remembering that the chair of the committee that did the drafting was Eleanor Roosevelt.
As today is a school day, I do not have time to offer as thorough a post on the subject as it warrants.  I am even with my very much at risk 7th graders probably going to take a few minutes to explore the document in class, so I thought I might take just a little time to remind us all of a few of its 30 articles.
For example,

Article 1.All human beings are born free and equal in dignity and rights.They are endowed with reason and 

Schooling in the Ownership Society: Chicago's version of 'choice'

Schooling in the Ownership Society: Chicago's version of 'choice':

Chicago's version of 'choice'

by Mike Klonsky

Excelon CEO John Rowe, former COMED CEO Frank Clark, Senator Dick Durbin, and  Senate Pres. John J. Cullerton, celebrate the grand opening of Excelon Gymnasium on the campus of Rowe-Clark charter school.

A CPS-promoted school fair featuring "some of Chicago's great public school options, including charter schools," advertised almost no traditional schools -- but still found space for dozens of charter schools with the district's lowest ranking. -- Gapers Block

To Rahm's crew at CPS. a "great" school is any school that bans the teachers union.

CPS announced Friday that  it plans to add four more privately-run charter schools to the nine non-union charters previously approved for the coming year, despite its plan to close more than 100 neighborhood, "underutilized"