LISTEN TO DIANE RAVITCH 7-23-13 Diane Ravitch's blog | A site to discuss better education for all

Diane Ravitch's blog | A site to discuss better education for all:

Before Detroit’s Fire Sale Begins, Call the Experts

With bankruptcy looming, buzzards are flying by to pick meat off the Motor City’s bones. Before they do, someone should talk to experts on the dangers of privatization: Contact: Richard Allen Smith July 23, 2013 rasmith@inthepublicinterest.org **** MEDIA AVAILABILITY**** As Detroit Contemplates a “Fire Sale” of its Assets, Privatization Experts are Available to Discuss the Dangers of Selling Pub

by dianerav / 11min 

How Enron $till Put$ Student$ Fir$t

Enron may have gone bankrupt, and its employees may have lost their life savings, but it left some people very rich. Here EduShyster tells the story of Texas billionaire John Arnold. He is one of the lucky few who managed to walk away from the Enron debacle with more than $3 billion. Some former Enron execs are doing time. Not Arnold. You know he must be smart because he got out before the roof f

by dianerav / 34min 

NYC Educator: Making Big $$ in Bloomberg’s NYC

Arthur Goldstein, who teaches English language learners in a high school in Néw York City, realized he is missing out on the way to get very rich in Mayor Bloomberg’s education system. Certainly not by teaching because the mayor doesn’t care for teachers. It is not by teaching in a charter but by operating a charter like Eva and Geoffrey. The teachers turn over rapidly but the CEOs do very well

by dianerav / 0min 

Kevin Huffman and the Mind of a Reformer

Kevin Huffman, Tennessee state education commissioner, has decided that children with disabilities need to take the same standardized state tests as other children. For many years, children with severe disabilities took an alternative test, but Huffman wants to put an end to that. He says it is time to stop lying to these children. “For years, the state has been hiding children with disabilities

by dianerav / 46min 

Bruce Baker: One of the Dumbest Ways to Evaluate Teachers

Bruce Baker here examines a “graduate school” created by charter schools where their inexperienced teachers train new teachers how to produce high test scores. The model is a charter in New Jersey called North Star that gets great “growth scores” but has remarkably high attrition rates, especially among black boys. Baker writes: “But is a school really successful if 50 enter 5th grade, 1/3 are g

by dianerav / 0min 

How Many Times Can Charter Operators Fail and Still Survive?

Darcie Cimarusti—aka Mother Crusader—has done some heavy duty investigation and research. She was trying to figure out who were the movers and shakers behind the Jersey City Global Charter School. She knew that New Jersey Commissioner of Education Chris Cerf boasted about the care with which he selected new charter schools and their operators. But she was not convinced. It didn’t take much digging

by dianerav / 45min mark as read  //  save

Daniel Denvir: Pennsylvania Covering Up Major Cheating Scandal

Daniel Denvir, crack investigative journalist in Philadelphia, reports that the state has dragged its feet on an investigation of a major cheating scandal. Despite evidence of high rates of erasures, the state has done nothing and refuses reporters’ requests for information. Denvir writes: “Over the last two years, inquiries were closed or altered with little explanation, and state and school ad

by dianerav / 1h  

Diane in the Evening 7-22-13 Diane Ravitch's blog | A site to discuss better education for all

Diane Ravitch's blog | A site to discuss better education for all: Connecticut Teacher On Vallas’ RecordA Connecticut teacher named Linda who comments frequently on the blog decided to research the record of Paul Vallas. This is her summary: “I have been keeping track for a while now…easy to goggle Vallas and Pelto, Ravitch, Mercedes Schneider, Philly Notebook, George Schmidt, substance news. http

by mike simpson / 11h mark as read  //  save

Missouri Education Watchdog: Education - It's A Funding Problem

Missouri Education Watchdog: Education - It's A Funding Problem:

Education - It's A Funding Problem

By now most people are familiar with the Melissa Harris-Perry video where she accused us of having an old fashioned notion of our children belonging to us, when in fact they belong to the collective.

I believe MS. Harris-Perry has it wrong.  We have been treating our children as belonging to the collective for a long time and that is one of the biggest problems with education.

We collectively pay for education. Ever since it was mandated in our country (and our state) we signed the social contract that says we will all pay for education because ultimately we will all benefit from preparing future generations.

While this payment was handled at the local level there were fewer problems.  If the locals didn’t like the school teacher they chose, they replaced her.  She was accountable to them because they paid her salary directly.

As we have expanded the means by which we pay for education, we have expanded the number of people who feel entitled to a say in what we at the local level are doing with their money.  Government has a responsibility to the taxpayer to be responsible stewards of our money and to demand accountability. That is what has led us to our current predicament with education - the concept that we are accountable to the federal government for the goals that they have set for the money they send us. The 

UPDATE: When in doubt, make sh*t up… - Wait, What?

When in doubt, make sh*t up… - Wait, What?:


Divine intervention in Bridgeport….

Categories: Bridgeport Kenneth Moales Malloy Mayor Bill Finch Paul VallasTags: BridgeportKenneth Moales Jr.MalloyMayor Bill FinchPaul VallasKenneth Moales’ church “Miraculously” gets certificate of occupancy and Board of Education votes to pay for Vallas’ legal fees. According to the Connecticut Post, “Just hours after city officials conceded that the Rev. Kenneth Moales Jr. had been operating hi

by jonpelto / 43min 

We don’t need no stinkin Certificate of Occupancy…. Laws don’t apply to Rev. Moales

Categories: Budget Cuts Kenneth Moales Mayor Bill Finch Paul VallasTags: BridgeportKenneth Moales Jr.Mayor Bill FinchPaul VallasThe strange twisted tale of Reverend Kenneth Moales, Jr. the Paul Vallas defender, Mayor Bill Finch campaign treasurer and Chairman of the Bridgeport Board of Education took another strange turn yesterday when the Connecticut Post reported that Moales’ 1500-seat church,

by jonpelto / 0min 

When in doubt, make sh*t up…

The Hartford Courant editorial writers weighed in on the Paul Vallas debacle today with an editorial entitled, “Why Make It So Hard For Paul Vallas To Help Bridgeport Schools?”

The most cursory review of their position reveals that they either failed to take the time to check the facts or worse, made up their own facts to fit their conclusion.

The Hartford Courant Editorial claimed, “Mr. Vallas may not meet every certification requirement to the letter. But in the larger sense, to say that he is unqualified or ineligible to be superintendent in Bridgeport is a bad joke…The experienced administrator has served 15 years in Chicago, Philadelphia and New Orleans school districts. This record doesn’t qualify him to run Bridgeport’s schools?”

How Common Core could affect every state — even those that reject it:

How Common Core could affect every state — even those that reject it

By Valerie Strauss, Published: July 23 at 7:00 amE-mail the writer

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Not all states approved the Common Core State Standards, and some of those that did are now reconsidering whether to implement them. But it turns out that  the standards could wind up affecting students in every state — even if their legislatures reject the initiative.

How?

Students in every state take the high-stakes college admissions exams, the SAT and the ACT, as well as the newly designed GED, the high school equivalency test used as an alternative way to get a high school diploma. And all of those exams are going to be aligned to the Common Core standards, at least that is what their respective owners say.

David Coleman, one of the co-authors of the Common Core English Language Arts Standards and now the head of the College Board, which owns the SAT, has said that theexam will be Core-aligned, though when is not known. ACT, the organization that owns the ACT test, is an “active partner” with the Core initiative and says that the exam is  

What keeps good teachers teaching?

What kind of teacher training program keeps good teachers teaching? Here’s a post that answers that question, written by Karen Hammerness, associate professor and director of program research for Bard College’s Master of Arts in Teaching Program. By Karen Hammerness … Continue reading →    

by Valerie Strauss / 2h 

Local math, science teachers up for Presidential Awards - LA Daily News

Local math, science teachers up for Presidential Awards - LA Daily News:

Local math, science teachers up for Presidential Awards

By Barbara Jones, Staff Writer

Posted:   07/22/2013 08:20:47 PM PDT

Updated:   07/22/2013 08:24:18 PM PDT

Michelle Katz

Two local educators are among five chosen statewide as California's finalists for the Presidential Awards for Excellence in Mathematics and Science Teaching, officials said Monday.
Michelle Katz, who teaches Advanced Placement calculus at Northridge Academy High School, was chosen as a math finalist, and Scott Holloway, a physics instructor at Westlake High School in the Conejo Valley, is a finalist in the science category.
"These remarkable teachers and their colleagues around the state play a central role in preparing students for college or career," said state schools Superintendent Tom Torlakson. "Science and math education is crucial not only to our students' futures but to California's future as a leader in 

Mike Klonsky's SmallTalk Blog: With Tim Tyson on Moral Monday in N.C.

Mike Klonsky's SmallTalk Blog: With Tim Tyson on Moral Monday in N.C.:

With Tim Tyson on Moral Monday in N.C.

Tim Tyson

Susan and I stopped in and paid a visit with old friend Tim Tyson in Durham, N.C. yesterday. A professor at Duke University, Tim was on his way over to the Moral Monday protest in Raliegh. 

Susan Klonsky reports from Durham:

Tim is a historian with a long view of the current wave of retrograde legislation and its connection to the history of race in North Carolina. He is one of the organizers of Moral Monday and has been arrested numerous times in the sit-ins. His 83-year-old father, Rev. Vernon Tyson, was recently arrested, as have been pretty much all the members of the Tyson family.

At yesterday's protest

Yesterday at the North Carolina Statehouse in Raleigh more than a thousand protestors convened the12th weekly "Moral Monday" wheremore than 70 people were 

Health Education: Building Knowledge and Skills for a Healthy Life | LFA: Join The Conversation - Public School Insights

Health Education: Building Knowledge and Skills for a Healthy Life | LFA: Join The Conversation - Public School Insights:

Health Education: Building Knowledge and Skills for a Healthy Life

By NEA Health Information Network on July 23, 2013

By Nora Howley, Manager of Programs, NEA-Health Information Network
It is hard not to turn on the television, flip through the paper, or open the news app on your smart phone without coming across concerns about the health of children around everything from obesity (one third of children are overweight or obese) to prescription drug misuse (almost 21% of high school students report they have taken a prescription drug without a doctor’s script).
Schools can do a number of things to address these concerns. They can provide healthier food, offer more opportunities for physical activity, and create community events to help parents better understand the risks associated with prescription drug misuse and abuse.  But regardless of the health problem, one of the most important things that schools can undertake is to have a strong, standards-basedhealth education program.
Health education is a curricular area with voluntary national standards (to which most states align their standards) and a robust system of curricular alignment and assessment tools.  The health education standards address both knowledge and skills.  Many of the skills taught in 

A Dilemma for the Historian Who Gets Personal: Reconstructing Classroom Lessons (Part 2) | Larry Cuban on School Reform and Classroom Practice

A Dilemma for the Historian Who Gets Personal: Reconstructing Classroom Lessons (Part 2) | Larry Cuban on School Reform and Classroom Practice:

A Dilemma for the Historian Who Gets Personal: Reconstructing Classroom Lessons (Part 2)

I was nervous that journalist Martin Mayer was coming to watch me teach (SeePart 1, “A Journalist Describes a History Lesson”). I had read his book The Schools when it came out in 1961.  I had just returned from a year at Yale University on a John Hay Whitney Fellowship, an opportunity then given only to high school teachers. The director of the Fellowship had given Mayer my name. I was 26, in my fourth year of teaching at Glenville and I had never been observed by a journalist.

How can I remember this one lesson out of thousands that I have taught in high school history classes? One reason is that he had his version published and simply reading it in print nearly fifty years later jogged my memory so that I could even recall some  students’ names.  A second reason that this summary lesson on the causes of the Civil War stayed in mind for years was the way that I had brought together conflicting historical interpretations and recall how they had resonated strongly with students.

Mayer’s crisp description of the community and students was accurate. When he caught some students correcting my mispronunciation of the “The Mar-see-yay

7-23-13 teacherken at Daily Kos

teacherken at Daily Kos:

The effects of Windsor decision spread to Ohio

a state which not only bans same sex marriage but also recognition of same sex marriages legally performed in other states. As you can read in this BuzzFeed story, A federal judge in Ohio ordered state officials Monday to recognize the marriage of two men that was performed in Maryland on the death certificate of an Ohio resident in hospice care who the judge says “is certain to die soon.” Judge T

by rss@dailykos.com ... / 28min mark as read  //  save

You might want to read Eugene Robinson this morning

How often does a noted pundit admit being wrong?  Here's his first paragraph:   Sometimes it’s good to be proved wrong. Last week, I wrote a column doubting that President Obama could speak powerfully and effectively about the racial issues raised by the Trayvon Martin case. Well, the president did just that. There is more in Obama's race challenge - and ours, which is why I think you should read

by rss@dailykos.com ... / 28min 

TUE JUL 23, 2013 AT 04:05 AM PDT

Asking you to listen for 3:40 or so

byteacherken

• To this:

Some words of explanation from Jasiri X, whose work this is:

I chose to remix Kanye’s song “Blood on the Leaves” because I felt like the sample he used from Billie Holiday’s “Strange Fruit” is even more relevant today. Whether it’s the over 500 murders last year in Chicago or the 313 Black people killed last year by the police, security guards, and people like Zimmerman. Our blood is on the leaves, and it seems like it’s in best interest of America and these corporations.

Posted here with the blessing of Jasiri X

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MON JUL 22, 2013 AT 06:53 AM PDT

Dionne: After Trayvon, leading with love

byteacherken

 
 
• 5 Comments / 5 New

“In the jewelry store, they lock the case when I walk in,” the young African American man wrote. “In the shoe store, they help the white man who walks in after me. In the shopping mall they follow me. . . . Black male: Guilty until proven innocent.”

“I have lost control of my emotions,” he declared. “Rage, Frustration, Anguish, Despondency, Fatigue, Bitterness, Animosity, Exasperation, Sadness. Emotions once suppressed, emotions once channeled, now are let loose. Why?”

That is how E. J. Dionne begins this Washington Post column this morning    The words were offered by Cory Booker, on May 6, 1992, in the Stanford University paper, in response to the acquittal of the police officers in the Rodney King beating  in which despite the videotape showing the brutal beating, jurors from Ventura County refused to find the officers gulity.  Booker pointed Dionne at those words when the two at down last week.

This is an interesting column to read.  Booker, as the mayor of a decaying city, is more than familiar with crime, including black on black violence.  He also understands that there are times when police must resort to using their weapons.  He has held a dying young man in his arms, 

7-22-13 teacherken at Daily Kos

teacherken at Daily Kos: Dionne: After Trayvon, leading with love“In the jewelry store, they lock the case when I walk in,” the young African American man wrote. “In the shoe store, they help the white man who walks in after me. In the shopping mall they follow me. . . . Black male: Guilty until proven innocent.” “I have lost control of my emotions,” he declared. “Rage, Frustration, Anguish, Despo

by mike simpson / 6h 

7-23-13 SCHOOLS MATTER @ THE CHALK FACE

SCHOOLS MATTER @ THE CHALK FACE:

NC Republican Taliban Gone Wild: Kills Voter Awareness HS Program to Pre-Register Students

The Koch Brothers’ chief henchman in North Carolina is Art Pope, who led the effort in Wake County to kill socioeconomic school integration.  Wake County awoke from its slumber and ousted the racist school board members, and now things are starting to get back to normal. Now Pope is in charge of the State’s efforts […]

by Jim Horn / 1h 

What is malicious re-assignment? by Michelle Gunderson. proud member of the Chicago Teachers’Union

It is a conversation educators dread. An administrator calls you for a “chat”. “By the way,” they say, “Instead of teaching 8th grade next year, it best suits our needs for you to teach kindergarten.” Every educator knows what this means. While the teacher in the scenario still has a job and is teaching a […]

by Timothy D. Slekar / 11min 

The #commoncore is the #royalbaby of #edreform…

That is, born of tremendous hype to parents of outrageous privilege whose credentials as human beings are that they were themselves born of privilege and so on for completely arbitrary and manufactured reasons, generally without merit, yet painfully, painfully average in almost every way. We plebes, we add meaning to it all, behave as if […]

by Chalk Face, PhD / 19min mark as read  //  save

Your survey once again used incorrectly, we told you so. @rweingarten @AFTunion #teach13

In discussions on the Common Core, regardless of the available critiques, I always seem to get this idea that there is overwhelming and strong support for the CCSS from ALL teachers. You read that, ALL TEACHERS! To wit: @thechalkface AFT: 75% of teachers support CCSS but say haven’t had enough time 2 understand & put […]

by Chalk Face, PhD / 25min 

Get Your Common Corporate Test for Just $29.95, or Wait for the Fire Sale

One of the two ginormous Common Corp consortia, PARCC, finally priced their product line yesterday.  The $29.95 per student does not include costs for professional development, diagnostic tests, formative tests, interim tests, speaking and listening tests (required), or any of the necessary technology infrastructure costs for installation, training, security, and repairs resulting from unplanned b

by Jim Horn / 36min 

#PARCC releases cost assessments. Even $1.00 is too much on this nonsense

The counters of beans can rejoice: PARCC will “only” cost states on average of $29.95 per student for both ELA and math. Good thing they kept it under $30, or like the special at Wal-Mart on the Hal Leonard Play Guitar Today! kit, I wouldn’t have bought it. Does this $29.95 include a volume discount? I’m not […]

by Chalk Face, PhD / 5min 

Dear North Carolina Colleagues

You know what I miss about North Carolina?  Go on, guess.  It’s what every former transplant says. I miss the ability to order sweet tea in any restaurant I go to and I miss BBQ pulled pork that actually has a smoky taste.  Syracuse just hasn’t found the charm in those two things yet. I […]

by Kris Nielsen / 5h  

7-22-13 Schools Matter @ The Chalk Face

SCHOOLS MATTER @ THE CHALK FACE: The impact of #commoncore in KindergartenA good friend and parent posted a video, which is embedded below, about her son’s experience in Kindergarten. It’s important to remember that accountability in public education is for now one single definition. Not all accountability is created equal. We can be held accountable in numerous ways and to very different things.

by mike simpson / 20h