10-22-13 Ed Notes Online

Ed Notes Online:

Video, PS 196 Colocation Hearing: Brian De Vale Castigates DOE Office of Portfolio Planning

Are you proud of yourselves? Is this what you went into education for? To take things away from children? ... I guess if you are black or brown you don't need science labs ...  Brian De Vale comments on Office of Portfolio declaring school science labs in poor communities "a luxury."An enormous turnout with standing room only last night. Lots of video to come. Again an anti-coloco rally

1 by ed notes online / 1h 

PS 196k: Another SRO anti-colocation rally/hearing not being covered by nyc ed press

... Which gush over charter school artificial rallies but ignore the massive outpouring at hearings all over the city by public school parents. Truly one of the most impressive organizing efforts, esp in a poor under resourced community. Hearing hasn't started yet and they're still pouring in. And lots of doe security in the room in case a kindergarten kid gets out of line - hi Jay, we miss you to

1 by ed notes online / 6h mark as read  //  save

Parents Accuse DOE of Racist Co-locations

NEWS RELEASE Contacts: Williamsburg and Greenpoint Parents: Our Public Schools! (WAGPOPS!), williamsburggreenpointschools@gmail.com, Brooke Parker, 917/251-1596  Parents Accuse DOE of Racist Co-locations Parents, Students, and Teachers Rally to Oppose 3rd School Being ‘Shoehorned’ Into Williamsburg School  Hundreds of parents, along with their children and their children’s teachers, will rall

1 by ed notes online / 6h 

10-21-13 Ed Notes Online

Ed Notes Online: PEP Video: Community Says "No MORE Charters"Panel for Educational Policy October 15, 2013:NYCDOE votes to cram 23 co-locations and charters into existing schools despite large protests, mostly unreported by the press which gave extensive coverage when charters closed schools for half a day and told parents they had to attend.Members of MORE help lead protest at PEP as pa

1 by mike simpson / 10h 

10-22-13 @ THE CHALK FACE

@ THE CHALK FACE:

@ASCD forgets some “facts” about #commoncore

Yesterday this PDF produced by the Association for Supervision and Curriculum Development (ASCD) was printed and I found it in my mailbox. I’m not sure how it got there but my sense is that since I have been critical of the Common Core’s mandated high stakes assessments someone was trying to help me see that Common […]

3 by Timothy D. Slekar / 16min 

Medicating ADHD in the Brave New World of High-Stakes Accountability

Medicating ADHD in the Brave New World of High-Stakes Accountability. via Medicating ADHD in the Brave New World of High-Stakes Accountability.

by plthomasedd / 27min 

FedEd Celebrating Holidays with TFA Donations

FedEx has a thing for Teach for America: 2009 2008 And now for the holidays in 2013: Starting Nov. 1, FedEx will kick off the “FedEx One Rate, Countless Possibilities Through Education” promotion, giving customers across the United States a simple way to give the gift of education. Through Dec. 23, $1 from every FedEx […]

4 by plthomasedd / 1h 

  

10-21-13 @ The Chalk Face

@ THE CHALK FACE: An Industry of Mediocrity?: How about Journalism?Careless, shoddy, flippant, thoughtless—these are the words that come to mind when I think about most journalism addressing education. There are a few shining examples of journalists doing their work (Valerie Strauss comes to mind), but mostly, those are the words. So when I saw  ‘An Industry of Mediocrity’ at The New York Times, a

by mike simpson / 6h 

10-22-13 Perdido Street School

Perdido Street School:

Regents Chancellor Tisch Lectures Her Critics

Merryl Tisch told the citizens of this state that they had better tone the rhetoric against SED, the Regents and the Common Core down or she is going to turn this car right around:“We're in the middle of a large reform effort,” Tisch told Capital Tuesday, responding to the criticisms. “People are feeling really unsettled. My admonition to everyone is: 'Let's tone it down, and let's focus on the wo

by reality-based edu... / 24min 

NY State Teacher Evaluation System Results Reflect Political Decisions, Not "Objective" Reality

The message from the SED and Regents today as they released the results of teacher evaluations from around the state was "Relax...this is not a 'gotcha system'...most teachers were rated effective and highly effective..."And indeed, the top numbers released seem to reflect that - 92% of teachers around the state were given effective or highly effective ratings, only 1% were rated "i

by reality-based edu... / 8min 

Parents Upset At Start Time For Commissioner King's First Common Core Forum

From FOX23 News:ALBANY, N.Y. – On Thursday a forum will be held in Albany to address concerns about the states implementation of new common core standards in schools, but many parents are upset that the event is set to begin at 4 p.m.  The meeting will take place at Stephen and Harriet Myers Middle School, which can hold 600 people inside its auditorium along with an overflow room.But the number o

by reality-based edu... / 4min 

Compare And Contrast the DN Treatment of John King To Newsday's Treatment

The Daily News ran with a pro-King editorial entitled "Lomg Live The King!" yesterday.The title tells you everything you need to know about what tack they took in the King/Common Core meeting controversy.Leaving aside that it took them 11 days to come out and defend him (though we will note that they waited for the announcement of new parent forums before they finally took a public stanc

by reality-based edu... / 13min

Changing The Parent Forums To Almost All Q&A Doesn't Matter If You Have NO Intention To Change The Policies

Newsday reports the NYSED and Regents are aware they have a big p.r. problem over their radical education reform agenda and they're looking for ways to "relieve" it:Top state education officials, stung by rising public anger over testing, declared Monday that they will seek ways to relieve some pressures on students and will reach out to parents and teachers who have mobilized against th

by reality-based edu... / 19min mark as read  //  save

Daily News Only Likes Teachers Were They're Trying To Stop People With Guns

Did you ever notice how the coverage of teachers and the teaching profession in the New York Daily News is overwhelmingly negative - unless the story is about a teacher trying to stop somebody with a gun?Take this story of a tragedy in Nevada from yesterday:A teacher died heroically in Nevada on Monday, using his body as a human shield to protect students after a middle-schooler opened fire with a

by reality-based edu... / 3h 

10-21-13 Perdido Street School

Perdido Street School: Siena Poll: Public Does Not Approve Of Cuomo's Handling Of Public EducationLatest Siena poll released this morning finds 29% of New Yorkers think Andrew Cuomo is doing an excellent or good job handling public education issues while 66% think he is doing a fair or poor job handing those issues.You can see the crosstabs from that poll here.Regionally the break down goes like t

by mike simpson / 10h 

Six principles for using data to hold people accountable:

Six principles for using data to hold people accountable

• BY VALERIE STRAUSS

• October 22 at 4:00 am

(By Alan Brandt – AP)

A new policy brief  being released today by National Education Policy Center at the University of Colorado at Boulder examines the linkage between data-driven improvement and accountability in education. It was written by Andy Hargreaves and Henry Braun, professors in the Lynch School of Education at Boston College, who in this post introduce the brief, which you can read in full here.

By Andy Hargreaves and Henry Braun

One of the most unlikely bestselling books and blockbuster movies of the past decade is a story about how baseball statistics turned from being a nerdy preoccupation of obsessive fans into a powerful tool for dramatically improving team performance. Michael Lewis’s Moneyball showed how insightful use of a range of performance statistics to select and deploy players boosted the underfunded Oakland Athletics to World Series standard, where they faced and often defeated teams with triple their 

Khan Academy using contractors to check Web site’s videos

The high-flying online Khan Academy is using contractors to review the accuracy of many of its videos and to sort through complaints about specific videos that come through its Web site. Sal Khan, the academy’s founder, said in an e-mail that it became clear to him that “more process” was needed as his online enterprise has […]    

6 by Valerie Strauss / 1h 

Shanker Blog » Innovating To Strengthen Youth Employment

Shanker Blog » Innovating To Strengthen Youth Employment:

Innovating To Strengthen Youth Employment

Posted by Stan Litow on October 22, 2013

Our guest author today is Stan Litow, Vice President of Corporate Citizenship and Corporate Affairs at IBM, President of the IBM Foundation, and a member of the Shanker Institute’s board of directors. This essay was originally published in innovations, an MIT press journal.

The financial crisis of 2008 exposed serious weaknesses in the world’s economic infrastructure. As a former aide to a mayor of New York and as deputy chancellor of the New York City Public Schools (the largest public school system in the United States), my chief concern—and a significant concern to IBM and other companies interested in global economic stability—has been the impact of global economic forces on youth employment.

Across the United States and around the world, youth unemployment is a staggering problem, and one that is difficult to gauge with precision. One factor that makes it difficult to judge accurately is that many members of the youth population have yet to enter the workforce, making it hard to count those who are unable to get jobs. What we do know is that the scope of the problem is overwhelming. Youth unemployment in countries such as Greece and Spain is estimated at over 50 percent, while in the United States the rate may be 20 percent, 30 percent, or higher in some cities and states. Why is this problem so daunting? Why does it persist? And, most important, how can communities, educators, and employers work together to address it?

The Roots of Youth Unemployment

While we can take some solace in the fact that U.S. high school graduation rates are higher than they were 10 or 20 years ago, this good news is tempered by the reality that the high school diploma alone is no longer adequate preparation for a middle-class career. Young people who enter the workforce with only a high school diploma are expected to earn no more than $15 per hour, and many will earn less. The foundation of the problem is that 

A vote for Sue Peters is a vote for the rest of us | Seattle Education

A vote for Sue Peters is a vote for the rest of us | Seattle Education:

A vote for Sue Peters is a vote for the rest of us

Suzanne Estey’s claim to fame, as she has stated during her campaign, is her involvement as a board member of Community Center for Education Results (CCER), an “organization” that was created out of thin air by Bill Gates to the tune of over $4Mto go after Race to the Top funding. This was a three-year push for funds that allow any interested third party to access not only the basic information of name, address and social security number of our students, but now lots more, more than any parent would want to see made public. And all for a pittance. For more on the subject, see CCER, the Road Map Project and the loss of student privacy.

The accumulation of student information is a nationwide effort by Bill Gates, Rupert Murdoch and former New York Mayor Bloomberg to have a national database calledinBloom.

Sue Peters, always tracking the school district’s actions, was the first to catch the leak of our students’ information three years ago during 

Sequestration Cuts Lead To Bigger Classes, Shuttered Arts Programs In Schools:

Sequestration Cuts Lead To Bigger Classes, Shuttered Arts Programs In Schools

Posted: 10/22/2013 7:29 am EDT

Every time the sky opens up and rain pours onto the strawberry fields of rural Stilwell, Okla., Rocky Mountain Public School can count on getting soaked.

It rains through the leaky cafeteria roof. Sometimes, water gets in through the door.

The school was built around 1965. Because of the federal government's so-called sequestration budget cuts, much-needed building updates have been delayed indefinitely. The principal, Margaret Carlile, said replacing the roof is too expensive. So when the clouds come out, teachers scramble for buckets. The ceiling tiles inevitably turn brown and saggy and have to be replaced -- a job still cheaper than a new roof.

Ninety percent of Carlile's students come from low-income families, and 90 percent of them identify themselves as Native American. That means that the school has a tax base, Carlile said, that "is pretty much non-existent." Meanwhile, Oklahoma has cut state funding to her school by 22 percent since 2009, she said. So the local education 

Building an Ecosystem | InterACT

Building an Ecosystem | InterACT:

Building an Ecosystem

OCTOBER 21, 2013

by David B. Cohen

Reblogged from Gatsby In L.A.:

“I think at a certain point we have to be honest,” says Valerie Braimah.  She’s  currently the Executive Director of City Charter Schools, but that’s not why I’m dying to talk to her.   I’m dying to talk to her because a couple of years ago she was the Vice President of Instruction at the Alliance for College Ready Public schools, the largest non-profit charter system in Los Angeles. 

Read more… 1,307 more words

Teacher Ellie Herman has an interesting post about teacher evaluation, offering a useful blend of both teacher and evaluator perspectives about what we might lose in a prescriptive evaluation system. Here's a quote from Valerie Braimah, Executive Director of City Charter Schools: “We 

Purpose Motivated Leadership | Connected Principals

Purpose Motivated Leadership | Connected Principals:

Purpose Motivated Leadership

October 22, 2013

By William Parker

We have a student who is an orphan at my school.
She struggles with so many emotions and doesn’t always make the best decisions–even though she still makes me proud and is passing all her classes.
One day she skipped school, and I assigned her to our ISP room (one teacher/no social interaction for the day) for discipline.
When she caught up on her work, she asked if she could read something, so I sent her the book Chicken Soup for the Teenager’s Soul.
Later in the day, she asked to see me.
When she came into my office, she told me that she had read the entire book and wanted more. So our librarian sent over a copy of Chicken Soup for the Woman’s Soul. She asked if she could take it home. When I told her the librarian said she could keep it for two weeks, she clutched it to her chest and beamed.
“Awesome!” she shouted.
You would have thought it was a Christmas present.
Sometimes I have days when I don’t enjoy what I do. Keeping track of all the demands–dealing with discipline decisions, for instance, can be wearing. But in moments like these, I remember why I am

 

YESTERDAY

Staff Learning & Capturing Voice

Learning alongside is powerful and builds collective efficacy that nutures relationships, trust and risk-taking. On April 9th, 2013, the @AncasterSrPS Grade 8 teaching staff and I spent time learning together with @bloggucation and @mrjarbenne. The day’s theme focussed on sharing their wonderings and questions about our Grade 8 students transitioning to highschool. The how was what was different b

3 by Lisa Neale / 7h 

Reflections on Teaching » Blog Archive » What if we reduced testing, and focused on teacher created assessments?

Reflections on Teaching » Blog Archive » What if we reduced testing, and focused on teacher created assessments?:

What if we reduced testing, and focused on teacher created assessments?

The case for this (from three testing experts:

MT: What is your advice on the right balance between validity and reliability, especially if we want to embrace the goals implicit in the Common Core?
HE: I think the importance of reliability has been overblown.
BL: I agree it is less important than comparability and validity and fairness.  It would be highly desirable to go where the two state testing consortia want to go. They want to include, in addition to multiple-choice items, items where kids are required to do things, solve problems and show how they come up with solutions to the problems they are given.  But the realities of timing and cost are pushing them in a direction that will likely force them to come up short.
MT: Is this country getting ready to make a profound mistake?  We use grade-by-grade testing in grades 3-8 but no other country is doing it this way for accountability; instead they test 2 or 3 times in a 

10-22-13 Ms. Jablonski's Class Blog

Ms. Jablonski's Class Blog:

Another school shooting....

Well another just happened school shooting has happened at Sparks Middle School in Sparks, Nevada. This happened early in the morning and was only a few brutal minutes. Apparently some middle school student opened fire at two student and wounding them. A teacher was trying to get the gun from the student, but apparently shot the teacher instead after telling him to back up. After all the havoc has

by Sunny Wong / 7h 

 

10-21-13 Ms. Jablonski's Class Blog

Ms. Jablonski's Class Blog: New SealandPopulation: 27 (2002)Area: 1.544 sq miles (4 km²)Founded: September 2, 1967Sealand, an old British radar platform from World War 2, is a self-declared micronation that is unfortunately not recognized by the world’s countries. This ship “was a Maunsell Sea Fort constructed by the British military in 1943, and originally given the name HM Fort Roughs. Later it

3 by mike simpson / 11h 

Mike Klonsky's SmallTalk Blog: Defeating Rahm, Taking back Chicago. Tough, but It can be done.

Mike Klonsky's SmallTalk Blog: Defeating Rahm, Taking back Chicago. Tough, but It can be done.:

Defeating Rahm, Taking back Chicago. Tough, but It can be done.

Community groups rally to Take Back Chicago.

Sun-Times columnist Laura Washington paints a pretty grim, if not discouraging picture of Chicago's political future ("Despite woes, Rahm tough to beat"). She's right, of course. When it comes to elections in the Citizens United era, money doesn't just talk, it swears, to paraphrase Dylan.

Washington does a service by sizing Rahm up from a two-Chicago's perspective.

In one Chicago, they say Emanuel inherited and then revived an ailing city. He is an incorruptible, whirling dervish of government efficiency and accountability, single-minded about making Chicago a world-class city. Many in that Chicago dwell in the city’s prosperous inner core and are the wealthy and corporate interests Emanuel assiduously courts. 

The “other” Chicago — in the ’hoods — retorts that Emanuel disrespects those who disagree with him, governs by fiat and spin, and wields power to benefit his elite cronies, at their expense. 

She also could have mentioned the chaos and instability that have come along with Rahm's control of the city's public schools, his assault on the unions, especially those of teachers