Monday, January 27, 2014

1-27-14 Engaging Parents In School… | Going Beyond Parent "Involvement"

Engaging Parents In School… | Going Beyond Parent "Involvement":

“Parents’ campaign leads to reforms at Cudahy elementary school”

Parents’ campaign leads to reforms at Cudahy elementary school is an article in the Los Angeles Time describing a successful effort by parents and teachers to replace an ineffective principal. Here’s an excerpt: United Teachers Los Angeles also worked with parents, organizing meetings to help plan strategies. Mario Andrade, the union’s representative at Teresa Hughes, said 25 of the school’s 40 te

2 by Larry Ferlazzo / 6h hide // save

Nice Wash. Post Article on Teachers Visiting Families, But Terrible Headline

Students won’t learn? Go visit their parents. is the terrible headline of a decent article in The Washington Post about teachers visiting families. As the article points out, the purpose of the visits is to build positive relationships with families, not to punish students. I’m still adding the article to The Best Resources For Learning About Teacher Home Visits.

2 by Larry Ferlazzo / 6h

“The Defiant Parents: Testing’s Discontents”

The Defiant Parents: Testing’s Discontents is an excellent piece in The New Yorker. Here’s an excerpt: Parents who complain about testing—particularly affluent, educated ones—are easily derided, as they were by Arne Duncan, President Obama’s Education Secretary, a few months ago, when he described critics of the Common Core as “white suburban moms who—all of a sudden—[find] their child isn’t as br

2 by Larry Ferlazzo / 6h

1-26-14 Engaging Parents In School… | Going Beyond Parent "Involvement"

Engaging Parents In School… | Going Beyond Parent "Involvement": PTA’s National Standards for Family-School PartnershipsThe PTA has developed National Standards for Family-School Partnerships, which you can find here (along with additional resources). There was also a recent #ptChat on Twitter about the Standards, which I think is particularly useful. You can find the transcript to it he

by mike simpson / 4h

Daily Kos: Living with cancer - one year anniversary

Daily Kos: Living with cancer - one year anniversary:

It was one year ago today that I posted Quakers ask people to hold them in the lightthrough which I informed people that my beloved wife, Leaves on the Current, had just been diagnosed with cancer.

At the time we were preparing to deal with the worst. The preliminary diagnosis was some kind of metastatic organ cancer, she was being sent to the Emergency room for a CT scan before she would be admitted to the hospital, and later that evening we were told to prepare for emergency surgery.

In many ways the night of January 27-28 2013 was the longest we have spent together, not knowing how much longer we might have together.

By the next morning it seemed clear that it was NOT a metastatic organ cancer, and within a few days we knew it was a treatable blood cancer.

In the twelve months since we have traveled a long road, grown together in ways we had not expected, become sobered both by the realization of how lucky we are in many ways and by the realization that despite how well my wife has responded to treatment, we still do not know how long we have together - after all, I am almost 11 years older, and had not done a good job in caring for myself until recently.

Along the way we had a crisis with one of our beloved rescued cats, Cielito, who died in my wife's arms as we were rushing him to the emergency vet clinic.

Yet despite all this, or perhaps because of it, we go forward with a positive attitude.

Sometimes it is with some humor. Although she does not recommend the method she used, Leaves has been able to lose a substantial amount of weight, which very much pleases her.

Sometimes it is by overcoming a certain amount of anxiety - we have come to accept that

1-27-14 Perdido Street School

Perdido Street School:

Was The Fix In On The ELA Regents Exam?

NYC Educator has a post up tonight about the outrage that was the ELA Regents exam.Here's a bit of what he said:Read the two passages and show a controlling idea about insights. That's what today's Regents exam asked my kids to do. The thing is, most of them have only been in the country a few years. And there are likely plenty of American-born kids who don't know what an insight is. Certainly ins

by reality-based edu... / 54min

Brutal ELA Regents Exam Grading Chart From NYSED

Okay, they're looking for a high failure rate at SED on the ELA Regents exam, that's for sure.Students need to get 20 out of 25 multiple choice questions right in order to get only a 6 on their writing component.Given how hard the passages were, I suspect we are going to see lots of 6's on the writing components.That means we're going to get lots of failures.The chart is even harder than last Augu

by reality-based edu... / 2h

Space Aliens, Yellow Dust And Stars On The ELA Regents...

Normally when I finish proctoring the ELA Regents and see some of my students outside the building after the test, they say that test wasn't so bad, here's what I wrote for this part, etc.Today when I saw students outside the building, they all said "What was up with that test?"I also heard:"What was up with those passages?""I wasn't sure about that quote..."And... &q

by reality-based edu... / 37min

Cuomo Lights $5 Million In Tax Money On Fire For The Super Bowl

The Daily News, Post and Times are always railing about how tax money shouldn't be wasted on municipal employees, that there are better things to spend the money on.They mean on stuff like this:New York taxpayers are underwriting several parties in the coming days, including picking up $500,000 of the bill for reporters to eat and drink at a Super Bowl media bash at Chelsea Piers in Manhattan on T

by reality-based edu... / 12min

Cuomo Rakes In Big Bucks From Eva Moskowitz's Success Charters

Gee, I wonder what they want for all this money?Supporters of a charter-school network in Mayor de Blasio’s cross hairs are pouring big bucks into the campaign coffers of Gov. Cuomo, a friend of charter schools. Records show board members at the growing Success Academy, which runs 22 charters in the city, have given $375,367 to Cuomo’s re-election campaign — including $90,000 since de Blasio won t

3 by reality-based edu... / 1h hide // save

Someone Should Sue Cuomo Over The Unfunded Mandates In NY State

From North Jersey.com:The Saddle Brook Schools may join with several other local school districts in a lawsuit appealing unfunded state education mandates.Superintendent Dr. Richard Katz at the Jan. 15 school board meeting said that school districts including Denville, Montville, Readington and Wayne have been making appeals either to the New Jersey Council of Local Mandates, or directly to the Co

by reality-based edu... / 5h

1-26-14 Perdido Street School Week

Perdido Street School: Rick Hess: Ed Reformers Overreached, Reform Backlash ResultedRick Hess in the Daily News today: Those who follow New York City schools have been witnessing a time-honored ritual — pro-testing school reformers have mightily overreached, inviting pushback that’s now poised to dismantle much of their useful handiwork. Mayor de Blasio has said that he and his new chancellor, Car

by mike simpson / 8h

Using Technology To Nail down What We Know and Don’t Know about Effects of High-Tech on People Today | Larry Cuban on School Reform and Classroom Practice

Using Technology To Nail down What We Know and Don’t Know about Effects of High-Tech on People Today | Larry Cuban on School Reform and Classroom Practice:

Using Technology To Nail down What We Know and Don’t Know about Effects of High-Tech on People Today

Do all the new devices around the world that we now use to get information and communicate separate or bring us together?

That either-or question has been debated since the telegraph, telephone, radio, and television became common technologies. The question pinches again with the swift spread of smart phones, social media, and dependence on the Internet.

Sherry Turkle’s recent book title, Alone Together, says it all. High-tech devices offer the fantasy of connection and companionship without personal intimacy, she says. Thus, people feel even more lonely after they “friended” someone on Facebook or texted 25 times in 10 minutes someone they just met.

What is missing from Turkle’s argument is a baseline for comparison of now and then. Has there been a “golden age” where most people felt connected to family, friends, and community? We do not know from Turkle’s book because she does not compare explicitly the present moment to an earlier time. She does implicitly compare, of course, since that it is the basis of her argument.

COMPARING THEN AND NOW PEOPLE USE OF PUBLIC SPACE

Rutgers sociologist Keith Hampton recently tried to answer the question of

Eight Problems with the Vergara Lawsuit | InterACT

Eight Problems with the Vergara Lawsuit | InterACT:

Eight Problems with the Vergara Lawsuit

JANUARY 27, 2014

tags: edreform, lawsuit, vergara

by David B. Cohen

Here’s a quick review of why I think Vergara et. al. v. California is a deeply flawed lawsuit and should be rejected at trial (beginning today). I’ve written about the case before, based on a presentation by the plaintiffs at the Stanford Law School. That prior post had a bit more in the way of citations and links, so if you want to deeper, give it a read.

1. Plaintiffs misunderstand the challenges facing California public schools. Our state’s spending on education is dismal – nearly the worst in the nation. Our students have disturbingly little access to nurses, libraries, librarians, and counselors, and our student-to-staff ratios are also rather high for both teaching and administrative staff. The measures used to argue school failure are also more apt to show the effects of poverty and language acquisition – and we are a state with high percentages of children living in poverty, and learning English as a new language. Even a key witness for the plaintiffs, Erik Hanushek, is among a group of researchers who have demonstrated that school and teacher effects are relatively small (15-20%) when analyzing test performance. If there are problems in California public schools that rise to the level requiring a constitutional challenge, those problems are not caused by ed. code provisions relating to teacher hiring, layoffs, and employment status.

2. Plaintiffs rely inappropriately on standardized tests to identify problem schools and supposedly inferior teachers. Wealth is the number one predictor of relative performance on standardized tests. Here and around the world. Period. See the graph in this recent article for the latest example, taken from the PISA test. The use of test scores and val

Tired Babysitters, Broken Windows, and the Common Core :: Frederick M. Hess

Tired Babysitters, Broken Windows, and the Common Core :: Frederick M. Hess:

Tired Babysitters, Broken Windows, and the Common Core

by Frederick M. Hess • Jan 23, 2014 at 8:37 am
Cross-posted from Education Week

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On Monday, I penned a column for National Review Online titled "What Ever Happened to 'State-Led'" that seemed to frustrate and puzzle a number of Common Core advocates. I heard from plenty of friends and acquaintances who thought I was unreasonable and unfair. I wrote, in part:

"I've written recently that the Common Core poses a slippery slope toward increased federal control of schools and schooling. This is a disconcerting prospect for those concerned that federal officials are too far removed from the daily realities of education and too prone to faddish enthusiasms to be helpful, and who fear federal efforts will yield more bureaucratization than school improvement.

It's especially troubling given how heavily Common Core proponents have relied on the table-pounding insistence that the enterprise was "state-led" and "voluntary." Indeed, U.S. Secretary of Education Arne Duncan spent 2013 ridiculing those who dared to question this orthodoxy as a narrow-minded, uninformed, radical "fringe" Since the debate began in 2009, we've been repeatedly reassured that we needn't make too much of federal "incentives" to adopt the Common Core through Race to the Top or No Child Left Behind waivers, because those didn't signal any larger federal role. And each time Duncan championed the Common Core, the proponents would insist that this was a one-time thing -- and even say they wanted Duncan and the feds to stay out.

But times change. As if to illustrate the point, Duncan opted last week to use a White House gathering of college presidents -- who depend on federal largesse -- to tell them that they needed to be out there

Two-Track Charter Expansion and More Cool Stuff From School Choice Week

This week is School Choice Week. I generally hate these designated "weeks," as they're mostly an occasion for p.r. extravaganzas and an opportunity for the faithful to bang the drum. And, for better or worse, that's not really my scene. That said, it...

27min hide // save

The Shriver Report – Single Mother in College: Willpower and a Lot of Help

The Shriver Report – Single Mother in College: Willpower and a Lot of Help:

Single Mother in College: Willpower and a Lot of Help

CARA CORTEZ | 01.27.2014

Going back to college at age 25 last year wasn’t an easy decision for me. I went to college at age 18, but took a break to work and earn a living. When I was 20, I became pregnant with my boyfriend’s child. As hard as we tried, the relationship didn’t work out, and we parted ways. That breakup was difficult. Except for some phone calls and emails, he had stopped being involved with us by the time my beautiful baby girl was born.

I moved back home to raise my daughter with supportive family and friends nearby. I enrolled in beauty school, worked as a waitress, and a year later, I had my cosmetology license and went to work doing hair. But I always had a second job—first at a restaurant and later at a home for Alzheimer’s patients. During the first three years after my child was born, I battled for my self-confidence. I can’t stress how lucky I was to be covered by my mother’s insurance so I could continue paying other bills. I was also extraordinarily lucky to know a day care provider who I trusted with my daughter, and even luckier that I could split the

What Women Need and How You Can Help Them Get It

© lunamarina – Fotolia.com Not long ago I was on my way into a subway station in Washington DC, right at the bottom of Capitol Hill. As I rode down the escalator, I noticed a small group huddled around a trash can in the corner of the entry. Between them was one of those Styrofoam to-go boxes, balanced precariously on the rim of the can. A young boy was eating from the tray, his eyes barely le

by Kathleen Fordyce / 6h hide // save

Woman Doing It All: Chrystal Thompson

The Shriver Report commissioned a team of award-winning photographers to crisscross the country, capturing a day in the life of women living on the brink. The team was led by photojournalist Barbara Kinney and included Melissa Farlow, Melissa Lyttle, Barbara Ries, Callie Shell, Jan Sonnenmair, and Ami Vitale.

by Cara Lemieux / 6h

If There’s A War On Teachers, It’s Not Working. Why Not? | Paul Bruno

If There’s A War On Teachers, It’s Not Working. Why Not? | Paul Bruno:

If There’s A War On Teachers, It’s Not Working. Why Not?

By PAUL BRUNO | Published: JANUARY 27, 2014

Last week at This Week in Ed I wrote that, contrary to some narratives, many people should still view teaching as an attractive profession:

Certainly, the last decade of education reform has substantially changed the work of many teachers, especially elementary, math, and English teachers in low-scoring schools. Many other teachers, however, have experienced education reform much less directly or intensely, and in any case many teachers are probably not as sensitive to those changes as Stephanie or Gary.
People also go into teaching much as they go into other professions: for a wide variety of often-complicated reasons. Some new teachers are looking to change or “defend” education, but

Will the President Say Something Meaningful in SOTU about Inequality and Public Education? | janresseger

Will the President Say Something Meaningful in SOTU about Inequality and Public Education? | janresseger:

Will the President Say Something Meaningful in SOTU about Inequality and Public Education?

Posted on January 27, 2014 by janresseger

Sean Reardon, the Stanford University sociologist has extensively documented the impact of neighborhood inequality on school achievement.

In a report released last fall, Residential Segregation by Income, 1970-2009, with Kendra Bischoff of Cornell University, Reardon describes residential segregation by income across our nation’s 117 largest metropolitan areas (those with populations of 500,000 in 2009). These metropolitan areas are, according to Bischoff and Reardon, “home to 197 million people.”

Bischoff and Reardon study the segregation of families, not households, because, “Segregation is likely more consequential for children than for adults for two reasons. First most children spend a great deal of time in their neighborhood, making that immediate context particularly salient for them, while adults generally work and socialize in a larger geographic area. Second, for children, income segregation can lead to disparities in crucial public amenities, like schools, parks, libraries, and recreation.”

Children are affected by “neighborhood composition effects” such as the poverty rate, the average educational attainment level and the proportion of single parent families in their neighborhood as well as by “resource distribution effects” that include investments in their schools and recreation facilities as well as the presence of public hazards like pollution or

empathyeducates – If Fewer or No Tests, Then What?

empathyeducates – If Fewer or No Tests, Then What?:

If Fewer or No Tests, Then What?

By Paul L. Thomas, Ed.D. | Originally Published at The Becoming Radical. January 25, 2014

When I responded to Students Should Be Tested More, Not Less by Jessica Lahey and the related target=new href=http://isites.harvard.edu/fs/docs/icb.topic951136.files/powerOfTestingMemory-roedigerKarpicke.pdf>study by Henry L. Roediger III and Jeffrey D. Karpicke, in the blog post Students Should Be Tested Less, Then Not at All, resulting comments and Tweets suggest that the topic of moving toward fewer and even no tests needs further discussion and clarification.

One aspect of debating the role of tests in education revolves around the term “test.” For the general public, Lahey’s headline, I am certain, triggers a relatively basic view of tests—students answering questions created by a teacher or a standardized testing company. For the general public, distinguishing between teacher-made tests and high-stakes standardized tests or between summative and formative assessments will likely not change that basic perception.

And thus, Lahey’s headline is certain to cause more problems than good in the public debate about accountability, education reform, teacher effectiveness, and student achievement.

Many have noted the headline problem, but quickly argue that Lahey’s article, and Roediger and Karpicke’s research make a valuable case for formative assessment, adding that the study also raises concerns about

NYC Educator: On Reviving Unionism

NYC Educator: On Reviving Unionism:

On Reviving Unionism

Note: I was asked to write this by the Port Jefferson Station Teachers Association, and it's cross-posted to their blog as well.

It's funny to hear people in NYSUT complaining about democracy. I'm chapter leader of one of the largest schools in NYC, and neither I nor anyone in my school gets to vote or participate at all in NYSUT or AFT. Though I've been elected twice, that means nothing. The only way a city teacher gets to be part of NYSUT is to be part of Unity, an invitation-only caucus that has run the union for over 50 years. I've never been invited.

The reason for that, I suppose, is my public point of view. I've been published in the Daily News, at Huffington Post, at Gotham Schools, on Schoolbook, on multiple blogs, and in local Queens newspapers taking positions contrary to those of UFT leadership. For example, I wrote a column labeling mayoral control mayoral dictatorship. Though giving Michael Bloomberg absolute power was a bad idea, the UFT supported it. After he used it to close schools all over the city, aiding no one but privatizers, we supported it again.

I also oppose value-added ratings for teachers, since they have no basis in science, and since great teachers have lost jobs as a result. I can't support Common Core, no matter how many millions of dollars Bill Gates pours into it, as I don't believe it helps the students we serve when we fail most of them and use said failure to label working teachers as defective. Brilliant

Mike Klonsky's SmallTalk Blog: WEEKEND QUOTALBES

Mike Klonsky's SmallTalk Blog: WEEKEND QUOTALBES:

WEEKEND QUOTALBES

For some reason, I read this as School Choke Week.

Maine's Republican Governor Paul LePage

“If you want a good education, go to private schools. If you can’t afford it, tough luck. You can go to the public school.” -- NPQ, Republican Gubernatorial Campaigns Play the Charter School Card

George Will

His latest column attacks Obama's calls for expanded early childhood education, an increase in the minimum wage, and the government's subsidies for college tuition.

Even “high-quality” universal preschool would not measurably reduce inequality. It would, however, efficiently convey funds from the federal treasury to a new cohort of unionized teachers, then through union dues to

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