Latest News and Comment from Education

Thursday, January 23, 2014

Ms. Jablonski's Class Blog 1-23-14

Ms. Jablonski's Class Blog:








Kiev Protests
The Ukrainian government has been battling some protests for some time now. Recently the government had banned all sorts of protest, which they classified as masses any larger than five. With this new legislation in place, the government managed to take the riots and protests to violent levels, and the first three protesters were killed yesterday. The riots are taking place because of the current
Women's Rights Diminish in Afghanistan
As the Taliban regime ended in Afghanistan it slowly allowed women to rise from their once minuscule roles in society. Even though their is a law on "Elimination of Violence Against Women" enforcement is mediocre especially with the recent murder attempts of women in high authority positions. Another setback is the reduction of women representation in the Afghan parliament which went fro
South Korea's $1.5 billion investment into 5g network
South Korea is dropping $1.5 billion into upgrading mobile communications hoping to increase its speed by 1000 times.Although, 5G is as much a marketing advertisement as was 4G. Also, data communications will not be as quick as it sounds. All users interested in 5G would have to purchase a new device that could access it and also companies on 4G like Netflix would have to develop their own data sp

Major drought in the US
As we all know, winter of 2014 is far different form previous years. There is hardly any rain, the weather is much warmer than usual, and many places are experiences drought conditions. About 60% of the Western United States is experiencing this. Food prices are slowly increasing. Many cattles are being sold because farmers are unable to provide for them due to the lack of water, winds and dry con



41 Years After Roe
Today marked the 41st anniversary of the 1973 Roe v. Wade ruling. Tom Curry from NBC News correctly states, "it is a decision that continues to be a powerful motivator for voters 41 years later." Presidents are no longer elected based on economic issues but social and moral ones. Daniel Cox, research director at the Public Religion Research Institute in Washington mentions, "Abortio
From Peaceful Protests to Violent Protests-Ukraine
In the past three months there have been peaceful anti-government protests until this past week. It suddenly turned violent with 2 people dying during the violent protest. These protests started because of the Ukrainian government trying to forge closer ties with Moscow and because of human rights violation. The opposition leader on Wednesday urged the president to hold early elections within 24 h
Sexual Orientation is Not Grounds for Jury Exclusion
A federal court in San Francisco ruled that lawyers may not strike people from the jury based on their sexual orientation. The court ruled that it was violating peoples right to take part in the government. This case will likely have a significant impact on cases pertaining to gay rights in the future. To find out more click here
Egyptian Constitution of 2014
In July 2013, after the ouster of Morsi, the military announced the schedule for the development of the constitution with the vote to occur around the end of November, 2013. Two different committees were involved in amending the 2012 Constitution. The constitution replaces the Egyptian Constitution of 2012  which came into effect under former President Mohammed Morsi. Egyptians approved a new cons
Hash boat
A group of smugglers set fire to their cargo ship off the shore of Italy containing an estimated 30 tons of hashish as Italian police attempted to apprehend the vessel. Sailing under the Tanzanian flag, the MV Gold Star was monitored by police for three days before boats and aircraft were sent out to apprehend the ship. The ship’s nine-man crew then began to set fire to the cannabis concentrate be


Ms. Jablonski's Class Blog 1-22-14
Ms. Jablonski's Class Blog: North Carolina Gives Compensation for Forced Sterilization“A moron is a person whose mind never develops beyond that of a ten year old child.”In a yellowing 1950s pamphlet, being a moron seems to be the only apparent requirement for subjugation to North Carolina’s old sterilization program. Eerily, it entails the benefits and reasoning behind Eugenics, and its necessity




1-23-14 Larry Ferlazzo’s Websites of the Day… | …For Teaching ELL, ESL, & EFL

Larry Ferlazzo’s Websites of the Day… | …For Teaching ELL, ESL, & EFL:










It’s That Time Of Year Again: Here’s How My Ninth-Graders Evaluated The Class & Me
My ninth-grade English class last year was a tough one, as you can see from my report on how they evaluated me a year ago — which happened to be reprinted in The Washington Post. This year, happily, though my two mainstream ninth-grade English classes are not without their challenges, things are much better and similar to previous years. And you can see all of my previous year’s evaluations at Th


Teaching A Person To Fish, “Buying The Pond,” & Social Emotional Learning
I heard the above quote — or something similar to it — on Public Radio International yesterday in their story on squatters. A person with a group supporting squatters said it, but PRI only published a portion of the story on their site, so I can’t give proper attribution or the exact quote. But I was really struck by his take on the old saying “Give a person a fish, and feed him/her for a day. Te


My New BAM! Podcast: “Character, Grit, Perseverance: Magic Bullet?”
Character, Grit, Perseverance: Magic Bullet? is the latest episode of my BAM! Radio ten minute podcast. Debbie Silver and Jason Flom, who are contributors to my column next week in Education Week Teacher, participate in this interview.

Writing Prompt For “The Long March”
As regular readers know, My Best Posts On Writing Instruction contains, among other things, various writing prompts I use in my classes. One of the books we read in my ELL U.S. History class is The Long March: The Choctaw’s Gift to Irish Famine Relief. It tells the story of how some survivors of the Trail Of Tears raised money to help the Irish suffering from the Great Potato Famine. Here’s the w


New Hans Rosling Video: “Will saving poor children lead to overpopulation?”
I’m adding this new Hans Rosling video to The Best Hans Rosling Videos:

YESTERDAY

The Power Of A Phone Call Home
We’re finishing up the first semester this week, and, as usual, I’ll be sharing the results of anonymous student evaluations of our classes and of me. I’ll probably get to tabulating them over the weekend. I’ve also already shared many of the finals I’m giving to students this week. However, I haven’t shared all of the projects I have students do. One of their final semester projects is to write a
1-22-14 Larry Ferlazzo’s Websites of the Day… | …For Teaching ELL, ESL, & EFL
Larry Ferlazzo’s Websites of the Day… | …For Teaching ELL, ESL, & EFL: “Trove” Is A New Personalized Newsreader With PromiseTrove has just been launched by the previous owners of The Washington Post. I’m not sure that it’s radically different from the other sites on The Best Sites For Creating Personalized “Newspapers” Online list, but it seems like it’s worth trying out — especially since my






1-23-14 Fred Klonsky | Daily posts from a retired public school teacher

Fred Klonsky | Daily posts from a retired public school teacher who is just looking at the data.:



#3








The Über-Charter Commission.
  Graphic: Fred Klonsky The actions by the CPS board in considering 17 charter applications and rejecting 10 is the old Rahm bait-and-switch game. Prior to closing 50 neighborhood schools last summer, Rahm had the board draw up a list of 300 that he threatened to close. But even the seven approved charters are a mix of crony real estate deals and unneeded facilities at a time when existing charte


Chicago Teachers Union on the CPS charter vote.
CHICAGO – Today, Chicago Teachers Union President (CTU) Karen Lewis said the decision by the Chicago Board of Education to approve seven new charter schools is hypocritical in the face of recent school closings and only further illustrates the predatory corporate-led agenda currently waged on public schools. She said today’s vote to approve seven new publicly-funded, privately held charter operat
EdNext interview with Dan Biss. Annotated by Glen Brown.
  Glen Brown. EdNext is a right-wing journal from the Hoover Institute. They published an interview with State Senator Dan Biss, leader of the Illinois attack on public employee pensions. For those who think the attack on public employee (including teachers) is a local parochial issue for Illinois, or who somehow think it is not part of the corporate attack on public schools, the attention those


1-22-14 Fred Klonsky | Daily posts from a retired public school teacher
Fred Klonsky | Daily posts from a retired public school teacher who is just looking at the data.: Fighting Rahm and The Hawk to stop Chicago charters.  Sue Sadlowski Garza, Kristine Mayle, Sarah Chambers and Nathan Goldbaum pull an all-nighter outside CPS HQ. The Polar Vortex is rolling through Chicago again and the temperature dropped to minus four degrees last night. But that didn’t keep parents




Smart ALEC | EduShyster

Smart ALEC | EduShyster:



Smart ALEC



 What’s the Fordham Institute doing hooking up with ALEC?

Today’s topic is relationships— specifically the recent hook up between the dirty dogs at the American Legislative Exchange Council or ALEC and a certain think tank known for straight laces, Educational Excellence™ and some seriously questionable dance moves. So just what institute has been getting busy with ALEC even as a growing roster of corporations dumps the increasingly controversial network? I can keep it to myself no longer, reader: it’s none other than our gadflying friends at the Thomas B. Fordham Institute. But what brought this happy couple together? And is theirs a fling thing, or a ring thing? Inquiring minds most definitely want to know. 
2 hot 2 handle
So where were we??? Ah yes—la histoire d’amour. Our story starts with a bad break up, make that lots of bad breaks up, as in 91 of them (and that’s not including the more than 400 state legislators who’ve given ALEC the brush off). You see as consumers caught wind of what ALEC has been 

1-23-14 the becoming radical | A Place for a Pedagogy of Kindness by P. L. Thomas, EdD

the becoming radical | A Place for a Pedagogy of Kindness (the public and scholarly writing by P. L. Thomas, Furman University):








Masquerading (1931)
Masquerading (1931).
Differentiated Teaching of Literature (1931)
Differentiated Teaching of Literature (1931).
To Keep the Peace (1943)
To Keep the Peace (1943).



On Public Schools and Common Core: Graff’s Critique of Ravitch

Are U.S. public schools failing, and if so, will implementing Common Core and next-generation tests as part of school accountability correct those failures? At Valerie Strauss’s The Answer Sheet, Gerald Graff, an English professor at the University of Illinois at Chicago, has challenged Diane Ravitch’s stance on the both public schools and Common Core, which he characterizes as follows: “Public ed


1-22-14 the becoming radical | A Place for a Pedagogy of Kindness by P. L. Thomas, EdD
the becoming radical | A Place for a Pedagogy of Kindness (the public and scholarly writing by P. L. Thomas, Furman University): The Place of English in General Education (1940)The Place of English in General Education (1940).1 by plthomasedd / 32min hide  //  saveStudents Should Be Tested Less, Then Not at AllStudents Should Be Tested More, Not Less by Jessica Lahey is not a compelling case to te