Sunday, October 20, 2013

Nite Cap 10-20-13 #BATsACT #RealEdTalk #EDCHAT #P2

James Baldwin said it best:

"For these are all our children, and we will profit by or pay for whatever they become."

Needs Improvement | EduShyster

Needs Improvement | EduShyster:

Needs Improvement

Posted on October 20, 2013

Former DC principal and whistle blower Adell Cothorne says don’t believe the hype about IMPACT.

The verdict is in and the results are unanimous: Washington DC’s IMPACT teacher evaluation system is a smashing success, successfully separating the highly effective wheat from the underperforming chaff—and sending the latter scrambling for the exits. But former DC principal Adell Cothorne warns the system’s cheerleaders to cool their jets, arguing that the system was deeply flawed from the outset, and that the most important lesson we can learn from IMPACT is not to repeat its mistakes. Here’s a look.

By Adell Cothorne
No doubt you’ve heard by now that Washington DC’s IMPACT teacher evaluation system is *highly effective.* Before we start popping the champagne corks though—or encouraging other districts to adopt IMPACT-like systems—allow me to tell you a few things about the system that you may not have heard.

1) IMPACT is a system that can easily be manipulated
I was a principal in a Washington DC public school when IMPACT was being rolled out. I knew of other principals who had their secretaries fill out the complex teacher

“Residential Segregation and School Closures” Choosing Democracy

Choosing Democracy:

The Black Parallel School Board

Southeast Village Neighborhood Association

Presents

A Community Forum featuring

Dr. Jesus Hernandez, sociology professor at UC Davis

“Residential Segregation and School Closures”

Free and open to the public!!!

Thursday, October 24, 2013 from 5:30pm -8:00pm

George Sim Community Center, 6207 Logan Street, Sacramento, CA 95824

Our Co-Sponsors: (partial list): Stephanie Francis, Parent, African Research Institute, Alpha Academy Program , Suzanne Brooks , Concerned African American Parents of Elk Grove, Democracy and Education Institute , Mexican American Digital History Project, Sacramento Progressive Alliance, DSA (Sacramento), Sac Cultural Hub, Sacramento Area Black Caucus, Order Of Olufunmi , Friends of Sabeel -- Sacramento Region, Chicano Consortium of Sacramento and Sacramento City Teachers Association, Avondale Glen Elders Neighborhood Association (AGENA), Hmong Innovating Politics (HIP), Bernard A. Goldberg, Capital Region Organizing Project (CROP), Sacramento ACLU Chapter of Northern California, Master Barber & Beauty Shop and The Talking Drums News.

Everything you think is important in college admissions is wrong

Everything you think is important in college admissions is wrong:

Everything you think is important in college admissions is wrong

BY VALERIE STRAUSS
October 20 at 3:37 pm

(Illustration by Hieronymus)

A number of recent articles have addressed the relative importance of some of the information used in the college application process. Taken as a group, these articles call into question just about every bit of data and writing students are asked to submit—a point not lost recently on Dennis Eller, College Counselor at Canterbury School in Fort Wayne, Ind., who offered this humorous summary on a counselors’ listserv. It is followed by a footnote from counselor Patrick O’Connor of Cranbrook Kingswood School in Bloomfield Hills, Mich.

“Class Rank — Bad — Hard on the child’s ego; eliminate

GPA — Not helpful — Too many varieties; throw them all out and recalculate, but DON’T TELL ANYONE!

SAT/ACT scores — Bad — not good

10-20-13 Schools Matter

Schools Matter:

Comrpehensible instruction AND peer-interaction

Re: "An English-plan outcry," October 20: Sent to the LA Times, Oct 20Both sides are right in the LAUSD debate over English development: Decades of research tells us that we acquire language when we understand what we hear and read. Our goal is thus to provide both comprehensible instruction and peer interaction.A solution is to provide ESL classes for beginners, while including these s

by skrashen / 6min

10-19-13 Schools Matter All Week

Schools Matter: Schools Matter All WeekAn EdWeak Interview with Melinda Gates?I have asked repeatedly a key question about Bill Gates and his hobby of education reform:If Bill Gates had no money, who would listen to him about education reform? No one–the same as who should listen to him now.Now we have an EdWeak interview with Melinda Gates, which forces an additional question:If Melinda Gates we

1 by mike simpson / 1d

NYC Educator: If Your Supervisor Isn't Crazy, Part 2

NYC Educator: If Your Supervisor Isn't Crazy, Part 2:

If Your Supervisor Isn't Crazy, Part 2

I wasn't intending to continue this, but it now occurs to me that if your supervisor isn't crazy, there's no need whatsoever for this wretched new evaluation system. Actually, if your supervisor isn't crazy, it won't necessarily take 4-6 observations to determine what goes on in your classroom. For one thing, if you're doing a truly abysmal job, there's likely to be a line of kids outside your department office complaining about you. If I were a supervisor, I'd probably make it my business to see firsthand whether or not these complaints were valid.

If there were no complaints, I'd still want to see what was going on. But I don't think I'd bother you very often if everything looked good. I believe a competent supervisor can make these judgments fairly quickly. But, you say, that's not always the case, and of course you're right.

So say you have a supervisor who's nuts. This supervisor wouldn't know a good lesson if one were beating him upside the head (which is of course precisely what he deserves). Do you honestly believe that a Danielson rubric will keep this guy from writing inane or hurtful crap about you? I don't. Do you believe this bad

K-12 News Network | LAUSD: Deasy’s iPads for All, At What Cost?

K-12 News Network | LAUSD: Deasy’s iPads for All, At What Cost?:

LAUSD: Deasy’s iPads for All, At What Cost?

admin October 20, 2013 Ed Tech, Los Angeles, School Boards, School Districts, The Testing Industry 0

Warning….coming soon to a school district near you: iPads for all – paid for by voter approved construction bonds!!!!

Yes, it’s true and it’s happening right now in Los Angeles. Los Angeles Unified School District Superintendent John Deasy decided that all students should be given their own iPad.

No matter that in January, 2012, he announced in an Apple commercial that “we had decided to adopt iPad technology as we were trying to provide ways for increasing student engagement.”

No matter that the iPads’ main use will be to facilitate standardized tests.

No matter that this announcement preceded by a year a vote for approval by the board of education

No matter that the final choice of a tablet was Apple’s iPad.

No matter that the final

NYC Public School Parents: Comments on the city's Contract for Excellence plan from CEC District 2

NYC Public School Parents: Comments on the city's Contract for Excellence plan from CEC District 2:

Comments on the city's Contract for Excellence plan from CEC District 2

Dear Chancellor Walcott,

We, the Community Education Council District 2, submit this letter to register, yet again, our objections on the Contracts for Excellence Proposed Plan FY14.

We remain firmly committed to the letter and the intent of the 2007-2008 Education Budget and Reform Act, arising out of the Campaign for Fiscal Equity v. State of New York litigation. We believe reducing class sizes is one of the most effective ways to improve instruction. Much has been said about the importance of the effectiveness of teachers but anyone who has spent any time teaching in the classroom knows even the most “effective” teacher teaches better in a smaller class. Today with the Special Education Reform that places more students with special needs in the least restrictive environment (i.e., general education classes), making individualized instruction even more critical, smaller classes are the key to successful classrooms.

We are therefore deeply concerned that not only have class sizes not been reduced as a result of the Contracts for Excellence plans of recent years, but the NYC Department of Education has seemingly abandoned efforts to reduce class sizes.

In District 2 despite several new elementary schools coming online in the past four years, many of our schools continue to have class sizes that are higher than the target class sizes of the City’s Class Size Reduction Plan. More alarmingly the trend appears to be upward, due largely to the series of budget cuts. It is a travesty that schools in District 2 now have the capacity to reduce class sizes at long last but are unable to do so for lack of resources. It is also difficult to simply blame the sluggish economy for lack of

Sunlight as disinfectant: Why the Common Core deserves a loud and untidy debate | Hechinger Report

Sunlight as disinfectant: Why the Common Core deserves a loud and untidy debate | Hechinger Report:

Sunlight as disinfectant: Why the Common Core deserves a loud and untidy debate

By Liz Willen

It isn’t always easy to hear complaints and misunderstandings about the Common Core, new standards meant to increase critical thinking and problem-solving skills in the nation’s 100,000 public elementary and secondary schools.

Changing the way teachers teach and test students has been anything but smooth in the 46 states that have initially adopted the standards.

Dr. John B. King, Jr.

It should come as no surprise for a major sea change in education to meet both criticism and cheers.

The Common Core has already seen its share of both at the local and national levels. And parents, teachers and students will continue to need more information and reassurance about new expectations, curricula and tests.

That’s why it was so disturbing when New York State Education Commissioner John King, Jr. abruptly canceled four town-hall style meetings about the new standards earlier this month after being heckled by angry parents in Poughkeepsie.

The decision did not go over well. Parent groups and politicians alike called for King to resign.

King’s explanation—that the meeting had been “co-opted by special interests”—rang hollow to many, and was seen as undermining the democratic process of debating new initiatives, particularly one as

Dear Gov. Tom Corbett, stop hurting Pennsylvaia schools | MSNBC

Dear Gov. Tom Corbett, stop hurting Pennsylvaia schools | MSNBC:

Dear Gov. Tom Corbett, stop hurting Pennsylvaia schools

Melissa Harris-Perry’s “Open Letter” goes out to Pennsylvania Gov. Tom Corbett. “You hurt some of the most vulnerable in your state and got nothing out of it.”

Wisconsin Professor Testifies Against Common Core | deutsch29

Wisconsin Professor Testifies Against Common Core | deutsch29:

Wisconsin Professor Testifies Against Common Core

October 20, 2013

In this 20-minute youtube video, Dr. Duke Pesta of the University of Wisconsin offers some informative background on the origins of Common Core (CCSS), including CCSS funding; on the lack of teacher and professor involvement in CCSS development; on the limited input of standards experts in developing CCSS; on the federal government’s role; on CCSS curriculum, and on his experience with university students who are products of CCSS English curriculum.

Pesta offers a list of states backing out of CCSS, “in whole or in part.” He lists Louisiana. We are not out yet, but there is resistance.

Feel free to comment on where your state is in regards to CCSS.

This video is an excellent compliment to my post on the CCSS Memorandum of Understanding as well as my series on Gates CCSS funding.

Latest News and Comment from Education

Sunday, October 20, 2013

Nite Cap 10-20-13 #BATsACT #RealEdTalk #EDCHAT #P2

James Baldwin said it best:

"For these are all our children, and we will profit by or pay for whatever they become."

TODAY

YESTERDAY

Nite Cap 10-16-13

Needs Improvement | EduShyster

Needs Improvement

“Residential Segregation and School Closures” Choosing Democracy

Everything you think is important in college admissions is wrong

Everything you think is important in college admissions is wrong

BY VALERIE STRAUSS

October 20 at 3:37 pm

10-20-13 Schools Matter

NYC Educator: If Your Supervisor Isn't Crazy, Part 2

If Your Supervisor Isn't Crazy, Part 2

K-12 News Network | LAUSD: Deasy’s iPads for All, At What Cost?

LAUSD: Deasy’s iPads for All, At What Cost?

NYC Public School Parents: Comments on the city's Contract for Excellence plan from CEC District 2

Comments on the city's Contract for Excellence plan from CEC District 2

Sunlight as disinfectant: Why the Common Core deserves a loud and untidy debate | Hechinger Report

Sunlight as disinfectant: Why the Common Core deserves a loud and untidy debate

Dear Gov. Tom Corbett, stop hurting Pennsylvaia schools | MSNBC

Wisconsin Professor Testifies Against Common Core | deutsch29

Wisconsin Professor Testifies Against Common Core

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