Christians, Can We Drop This ‘Creationism’ Thing Already? | toteachornototeach

Christians, Can We Drop This ‘Creationism’ Thing Already? | toteachornototeach:

Christians, Can We Drop This ‘Creationism’ Thing Already? 

by David Michael McFarlane

Earlier this week, the Texas Board of Education held a public
hearing about the choice and use of textbooks in the classroom.

Boring stuff, right? Riveting for textbook publishers and educators, maybe, but for most Americans and even Texpats like me, this isn’t news.

It became news, of course, because the hearing resulted in a clash between proponents of evolution and young-earth creationists. Scientists argued to keep the same curriculum. A hodgepodge of Christians and Republicans demanded biology textbooks that taught a biblical creation perspective. And so CNN and every political blog in the country brandished photos and quotes from politicians, presenting the event as a real affront to education.

Whether or not anything comes of this, whether or not we’re just witnessing the last creationists in their death throes, I’m tired. This fight is old, older than the 1925 Scopes Trial. As a Christian and a Texan, I grew up on the front-line of the battle, and I’m ready fo

Seattle Schools Community Forum: Ravitch versus Rhee; a Solid Comparison of Books and Views

Seattle Schools Community Forum: Ravitch versus Rhee; a Solid Comparison of Books and Views:

Ravitch versus Rhee; a Solid Comparison of Books and Views

From the New York Review of Books comes a comparison review of Diane Ravitch's new book, Reign of Error: The Hoax of the Privatization Movement and the Danger to America's Public Schools and Michelle Rhee's book, Radical: Fighting to Put Students First.  (Ravitch's book just came out and is now #1 in sales at Amazon.  Ravitch will be speaking this week, Thursday the 26th, at UW's Kane Hall  from 7-8:30 p.m.)            
             
What is striking about this review comes almost at the end when the reviewer, Andrew Delbanco, gives them each a fair pro/con assessment.

You would think it possible to take ideas from both sides and put them to work together. In order to agree that America’s schools ought to be better (Ravitch), we don’t have to believe that they are worse than ever (Rhee). We don’t have to think, as Rhee does, that “great” teaching is a magic bullet in order to agree with Ravitch that the training of teachers ought to be more rigorous and that our nation needs “a stable workforce of experienced professional educators” who 

Neoliberalism Plays Key Role in Economically Forced Mexican Migration to US - Online University of the Left

Neoliberalism Plays Key Role in Economically Forced Mexican Migration to US - Online University of the Left:

Neoliberalism Plays Key Role in Economically Forced Mexican Migration to US

Posted by carl4davidson

Immigration Struggle: Interview with David Bacon

By Mark Karlin

Truthout

• Migrants are being forced by global corporate forces and governments to leave Mexico to survive. Read The Right to Stay Home with a contribution of $35 or more to Truthout. Become informed and support corporate-free journalism at the same time. Click here for the book.

Sept 20, 2013 – (Photo: Beacon Press)Noam Chomsky succinctly articulates the importance of David’s Bacon new book on Mexican (and Central American) migration to the United States for economic survival: “Combining evocative personal narratives with penetrating geopolitical analysis, this compelling study vividly reveals the devastating effects on Mexico of the global class war of the past decades, and their impact on the United States. Perhaps the most striking demand of the victims is “the right to not migrate,” the right to live with dignity and hope, bitterly attacked under the neoliberal version of globalization.”

Truthout talked with David Bacon, author ofThe Right to Stay Home, about how much of the Mexican migration to the United States comes about in dire response to profiteering economic and nation-state strategies.

Mark Karlin: When people become economic pawns instead of looked upon as human beings with dignity, they often lose their “right to stay home,” you argue.  Given the massive government, corporate and global trade forces that create dire economic circumstances in Mexico and Central America – particularly with indigenous populations – where does resistance begin as you discuss in your last 

The Diane Ravitch interview: Director's Cut | Blogh

The Diane Ravitch interview: Director's Cut | Blogh:

The Diane Ravitch interview: Director's Cut

Posted by Chris Potter on Wed, Sep 18, 2013 at 9:07 AM

This is the extended version of our print-edition interview with education advocate and historian Diane Ravitch.

As your book notes, a few decades ago, many proposed education changes -- like charter schools and vouchers -- barely resonated outside a few right-wing think tanks. Today, they are conventional wisdom in both parties. How did that happen?

I think it's about campaign contributions. The driving force behind a lot of this movement is money. Wall Street got very intrigued with charter schools: It got to be the thing to do, to say, "I'm on the board of the Harlem Children's Zone." It was a status thing: You could say "I'm saving poor kids," and then go off to your weekend home in the Hamptons.

[And] we're at a time when income inequality is the worst it has been in 100 years. We're basically back in the robber-baron age. So instead of talking about why we have a tax structure where some people can accumulate billions while others barely survive, we're talking about charter schools. This is the great distraction.

How would you compare Pennsylvania's situation to that of other states?

Pennsylvania has more cyber charters than any other state. And if you were to ask me, what's the biggest scam in education today, I would say it's cyber charter schools. There's probably some small number of kids who need them ... but these schools have become raiders. They raid the public-school budget and provide a bad education, and have high drop-out rates.

The CEO of K-12 [the country's largest cyber-charter program] is from Goldman Sachs and McKinsey [a prominent corporate consultant] -- he doesn't have a background in education. His compensation in 2011 was $5 million, and it was tied not to academic performance but enrollment.

Last year, I met a guy who was one of the original administrators of K12. At a certain point, he realized that the whole company had been overtaken by a corporate mentality that said to recruiters "you'll get a bonus for the number of kids you recruit." So they no longer talked about education, they talked about recruitment.

In the 2010 book I was saying "I can't go to my grave without clearing my conscience of saying "all the things I used to support don't work. … I can't die with people thinking, 'She believed in all these terrible ideas.' I've got to clear myself and do the Paul Revere thing."

One big surprise in your book is that over the years, when kids have been tested on the same standardized questions, scores are actually improving, not getting worse.

I have to say it was a surprise to me too. In my book three years ago, I didn't say, "Guess what, the scores are up." I was just going along with the conventional wisdom. There's a very finely honed narrative: The schools are failing, failing, failing. But if you rank test scores by poverty and income, our low-poverty kids get incredible scores -- higher than Finland and Japan and Korea ... I began looking at long-trend test scores and the picture is up, up, up. There has been dramatic improvement, especially for black and Hispanic kids. Graduation rates are the highest they've ever been. [But saying that] would fly in the face of this narrative.

But there are schools that are failing, right?

You don't need standardized tests to tell you which schools they are. They're the ones with high concentrations of poverty and segregation. That's what the tests tell us every year, and then we say the way to fix the schools is to close them. That doesn't fix them; it just scatters the kids, and whatever problems they had. ... It's not that schools are failing. It's that America is failing to address poverty.

9-21-13 Seattle Schools Community Forum

Seattle Schools Community Forum:

Laugh of the Week Courtesy of DFER

You remember DFER, right?   Democrats for Education Reform, a small outlier of Dems who love ed reform.  Well, they valiantly trudge on, trying to seem relevant.I'm on their Twitter feed and I noticed an op-ed at their website authored by a young "progressive" Dem, a student at Harvard named Colin Diersing.  He was decrying the education view of the winner of the Democrat race for mayor

by Melissa Westbrook / 18min 

Thoughts on Homework?

From The Atlantic magazine, one father's account of doing - not for his children but to understand their workload - his daughters' homework for a week.  Crazy amount of work.It turns out that there is no correlation between homework and achievement. According to a 2005 study by the Penn State professors Gerald K. LeTendre and David P. Baker, some of the countries that score higher than the U.S. on

by Melissa Westbrook / 6min 

Free Day of Music Tomorrow at Benaroya Hall

From the Seattle Symphony:The Seattle Symphony and Music Director Ludovic Morlot invite the public to experience the thrill of live music at Benaroya Hall with a FREE Day of Music on Sunday, September 22, from 11 a.m. to 5 p.m. More than 35 musical acts representing a wide array of styles — from rock and hip hop to jazz, classical and folk — will appear on multiple stages throughout Benaroya Hall,

by Melissa Westbrook / 1h mark as read  //  save

One Day Volunteer Opportunity to Help a Kid Get into College

From my friends at 826 Seattle:COLLEGE ENTRANCE ESSAY MARATHONSDo you remember writing your college application essays? The fear? The frustration? The complete distrust of your parents' unsolicited opinions? We here at 826 Seattle are committed to assuaging all of these rather unpleasant feelings by way of our Fourth Annual College Entrance Essay Marathon! We've expanded our offerings this year to

by Melissa Westbrook / 1h 

Ravitch versus Rhee; a Solid Comparison of Books and Views

From the New York Review of Books comes a comparison review of Diane Ravitch's new book, Reign of Error: The Hoax of the Privatization Movement and the Danger to America's Public Schools and Michelle Rhee's book, Radical: Fighting to Put Students First.  (Ravitch's book just came out and is now #1 in sales at Amazon.  Ravitch will be speaking this week, Thursday the 26th, at UW's Kane Hall  from 7

by Melissa Westbrook / 19min 

Program Placement - yes, again

This is going to be yet another rant of mine about program placement. I know that I go on about this, but it continues to be a sore point for me. I imagine that some folks must be really tired of reading about this topic, so I will put everything after the jump.One of the primary directives for program placement is to place the programs close to where the students live. That's written into the pol

by Charlie Mas / 6min 

YESTERDAY

For (Hopefully) the Last Time - No Name Calling

I feel like a teacher with some 5th graders.What part of "no name-calling allowed at this blog" is not understood?That means no name-calling of:- administrators- teachers- staff- students- schoolsIf you had a bad experience with a teacher or school, you are welcome to tell us about it but you cannot label a person or place with an unsavory name.You can certainly say  - as I have - that I

1 by Melissa Westbrook / 22h 

OSPI Interested in Thoughts on Late Starts for High Schools

OSPI is apparently interested in your thoughts on a later start for high schools.  I don't believe they have the authority to order this to happen but that they are interested in finding out the depth of interest is a good sign.Weigh in at their Facebook page.

by Melissa Westbrook / 1d 

Seattle Schools on Saturday

 UPDATE: SPS let me know that this workshop has been cancelled due to lack of participants.From SPS:Seattle Public Schools has teamed with the Washington Association of School Business Officials (WASBO) to bring to you a workshop specifically crafted for booster club members, parent group members, athletic and activity directors, principals and school administrators. The PTSAs and booster clubs th

by Melissa Westbrook / 1d 

Seattle Schools News and Updates

From SPS Communications:Symetra and the Seattle Seahawks honored Nathan Hale High School teacher Doug Edelstein as a “Symetra Hero in the Classroom” on Sept. 18, during a classroom presentation. Edelstein is a Social Studies instructor for Grades 10–11. “Doug Edelstein is a remarkable individual and educator, who is celebrating his 20th year as a teacher. He has given his heart and soul to student

by Melissa Westbrook / 1d 

SEP 19

Friday Open Thread

Well hello there. Back from hiatus and a big thank you (and good job) to Charlie who kept this thing going quite nicely.  I did read from afar a couple of times but true to my word to myself, I did not comment or post. (And by the way, a BIG thank you to all our readers.  Our numbers continue to soar and it's quite amazing.  I like to think that parents are offering this site up as a place for inf

by Melissa Westbrook / 1d 

What is the deal with Spectrum?

Thirteen years ago, when I first became an activist in Seattle Public Schools, there were problems with Spectrum. There were three problems:Qualified students could not gain access to the program because the classes were full.There was lively discussion about the student identification process including issues of under-representation of minority students and students from low-income homes.There we

by Charlie Mas / 1d 

SEP 18

District Email on Growth Boundaries

Subject: Growth Boundaries: Please provide feedbackDear Seattle Public Schools families:At a School Board work session today, draft attendance area boundaries revisions (Growth Boundaries) for elementary and middle schools will be presented to School Board directors.Student enrollment has increased from 46,000 in 2009-10 to about 51,000 this year, and we project nearly 60,000 students by 2020. We

1 by Charlie Mas / 3d 

Growth Boundaries Plan

First, the headlines:The big winner is K-5 at Boren, soon to be K-8 STEM at Boren.The big loser is Pinehurst K-8, soon to be closed and clearly treated with bad faith.APP breaks even, getting everything expected, most of it where expected, some of it in difficult spaces but with an extraordinary accommodation that should prove very beneficial in the long term.There isn't likely to be much fighting

9 by Charlie Mas / 3d 

SEP 17

Applications for Advanced Learning due October 3

Eligibility testing begins in October for accelerated learning programsSeattle Public Schools provides opportunities for academically advanced students in grades K-8 to qualify for accelerated learning programs. Additional information and application forms for eligibility testing can be found here. Applications are also be available in school offices and in the lobby of the John Stanford Center,

1 by Charlie Mas / 4d 

Want More Horace Mann news?

Here's a link to a blog with more information on the activity around Horace Mann, including Twitter feeds you can follow and a Facebook page you can like.

by Charlie Mas / 4d 

Tuesday Open Thread

Have at it.

by Charlie Mas / 4d 

SEP 16

PowerSchool roll out

The District migrated to a new enterprise software, PowerSchool. When this was pitched to the Board, they were pretty much told that they had no choice. The company that made the software they were using was bought by Pearson and Pearson stopped support of that program. They offered to help districts making the migration to Pearson's software, PowerSchool, but districts would be on their own if th

1 by Charlie Mas / 5d 

This Week in Seattle Public Schools

Tuesday, September 17Board Work Session on Growth Boundaries, 4:30-6:30pmNOTE: This will be the first look at the likely plan. Any changes from this plan will only come with great difficultly. No agenda available yet.Standardized Testing in Our Public Schools: A Discussion,Town Hall, 7:30pmWednesday, September 18Regular Legislative Board Meeting, 4:15 - 8:00pmAgendaThursday, September 19Board Oper

by Charlie Mas / 5d 

Why Arne Duncan is threatening to withhold funds for poor kids:

Why Arne Duncan is threatening to withhold funds for poor kids

By Valerie Strauss, Published: September 21 at 10:58 am

It’s hard to decide  which of the following aspects of the U.S. Education Department’s fight with the state of California over standardized testing is worse:

* Education Secretary Arne Duncan is threatening to withhold some of the approximately $1.5 billion that California receives annually from the federal Title 1 program — funds intended to help poor children receive an education — if state officials don’t agree to implement a standardized-testing regime that he likes.

* He would rather have the state give students standardized tests that California officials say no longer reflect the curriculum than to allow kids to go a year without being tested.

* He is trying to come down hard on California as a way of warning other states not to try to defy the Education Department.

* He is selectively enforcing No Child Left Behind, a law that he admits is fatally flawed and should be scrapped.

What’s this all about?

California passed a law (AB 484) to abandon the standardized tests that have been given to students for years because the state adopted the Common Core standards and is revamping its curriculum. The old tests don’t reflect the new curriculum, so it would 

A panel on Common Core. An irate parent. An arrest. Who went... | Get Schooled | www.ajc.com

A panel on Common Core. An irate parent. An arrest. Who went... | Get Schooled | www.ajc.com:

A panel on Common Core. An irate parent. An arrest. Who went too far?

Previous Posts

• Sororities at University of Alabama offer bids to black women
  September 21, 2013
• All eyes on pre-k when Arne Duncan and U.S. business leaders converge here Monday
  September 20, 2013
• Banning an American classic in a NC district: "Invisible Man" disappears from school libraries 
  September 20, 2013

By Maureen Downey

 A reader asked that we discuss the incident at a Baltimore County Schools parent meeting this week in which a police officer arrested a parent who interrupted the presentation to ask a question about Common Core State Standards and refused to back down.

I have watched the video twice and think the parent went too far.  As a beat reporter, I covered more than 200 meetings of school boards, city councils, county commissions, planning and zoning boards and library boards. And there was often a citizen just like this one who stood up to ask a question but whose intent was to give a speech. While there were always people in the audience who applauded these fiery speakers, there were others who resented the hijacking of the meeting.

Those citizens complained that they had come to hear the featured speaker -- in this case the state schools superintendent for the state of Maryland -- and not an irate parent. As a moderator of a lot of panels, I dread the Q&A sessions in which someone approaches the microphone and announces, “I don't have a question but I would like to make a comment."  That often leads to a rambling speech that eats up most of the Q&A time and irks the audience.