1-29-14 Larry Ferlazzo’s Websites of the Day… | …For Teaching ELL, ESL, & EFL

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

This Week’s “Round-Up” Of Useful Posts & Articles On Education Policy

Here are a few recent useful posts on educational policy issues: L.A. Unified unprepared for computerized state test is from The Los Angeles Times. I’m adding it to The Best Resources For Learning About The “Next Generation” Of State Testing. Houston Launches Ambitious 1-to-1 Computing Initiative is from Education Week. The hype and reality of ‘school choice’ is by Valerie Strauss. I’m adding it

by Larry Ferlazzo / 35min hide  //  save

Two New Sochi Interactives

Here are two new additions to The Best Sites For Learning About The Sochi 2014 Winter Olympic Games: The Associated Press has an interactive on the Olympic Medals. The Guardian has an interactive on the different Olympic venues.

by Larry Ferlazzo / 35min 

More Engaging State Of The Union Resources

Here are a few more engaging resources on The State Of The Union address that I’m adding to The Best (& Most Intriguing) Resources For Learning About The State Of The Union Message: New words and old words:Forty years of evolving State of the Union themes is an interactive from The Washington Post. Use of Inequality of Language in State of the Union speeches is also from The Washington Post.

by Larry Ferlazzo / 35min 

Video: “Puppy Love” – The First Of Many Super Bowl Commercials That Might Be Useful For Language-Learning

There are lots of great Super Bowl commercials from past years that are great for English Language Learners to watch and describe, and you can see all of them at The Best Sites Where ELL’s Can Learn About The Super Bowl. The first ones for the game on Sunday are coming out, and this one from Budweiser called “Puppy Love” tells a neat story. I don’t use beer commercials in my class (there are plent

by Larry Ferlazzo / 1h 

Two Nice Visual Collections Of Infographic-Creation Tools

Photo Credit: Ernesto Lago via Compfight If you want to create an infographic, I have just about the most exhaustive collection you’re going to find of useful web tools at The Best Resources For Creating Infographics. However, it’s not a particularly “visual” post. Two sites have recently published posts sharing lists of infographic-creation tools that aren’t as complete as my list is, but do sh

by Larry Ferlazzo / 16min 

‘Teaching Character Is Not A Program Or Curriculum’

‘Teaching Character Is Not A Program Or Curriculum’ is Part Two in my Ed Week Teacher series on teaching character. Here are some excerpts:

by Larry Ferlazzo / 1h 

  

1-28-14 Larry Ferlazzo’s Websites of the Day… | …For Teaching ELL, ESL, & EFL

Larry Ferlazzo’s Websites of the Day… | …For Teaching ELL, ESL, & EFL: This Week In Web 2.0In yet another attempt to get at the enormous backlog I have of sites worth , I’ve recently begin a regular feature called “The Week In Web 2.0.” (you might also be interested in The Best Web 2.0 Applications For Education In 2013): Curriculet lets teachers assign what appears to be books in the public d

by mike simpson / 6h 

1-29-14 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.:

CTU answers Squeezy.

CHICAGO – In today’s State of the State address, Illinois Governor Pat Quinn made multiple references to “getting the job done” and also claimed to have ended the culture of instability that existed in Illinois government. He highlighted the strides that the state has made in working with women and minority-owned businesses. The problem is that his claims about the benefits of education reform and

by Fred Klonsky / 2h

Another challenge to an incumbent pension thief.

I asked Bob Galhotra to respond to John Cullerton’s statement that cutting Chicago public employee pensions would be the General Assembly’s job one. Bob is running in the 40th Senate district on the north west side and suburbs.

by Fred Klonsky / 6min 

40th House District candidate Aaron Goldstein on the threat to city pensions.

  House candidate Aaron Goldstein. Aaron Goldstein is a candidate for the 40th State Representative District on the north west side of Chicago. In the wake of Senate President John Cullerton’s declaration that cutting Chicago public employee pension was job one for the next General Assembly, I asked Aaron for a reaction. He told me this: Senate President Cullerton recently stated on Chicago Tonig

5 by Fred Klonsky / 1h 

Breaking. Chicago CPS CEO Barbara Byrd-Bennett threatens teachers and parents on opt-out.

  Dear Teachers, As a former teacher and principal, I understand how important it is to maximize our instructional time with students. But I also know that rigorous, high-quality assessments are valuable in measuring student progress. Our challenge, then, is to strike a balance between the two. This year we reduced our number of required assessments from 25 to 10, allowing schools to focus on th

by Fred Klonsky / 25min 

Rob Schwartz. A word to my followers. Be happy? Shut up? Hell no.

A word to my followers. Raise hell. Fred, Been following you for quite awhile and I’m happy with you fighting the fight, but not with any indications of you encouraging others to be proactive when it comes to $$$. Our pensions got “jacked.” No question. Unfair? Certainly. But what do you expect immoral, unconscionable, felonious lawmakers to do? They do what’s in their best interest. No one else

by Fred Klonsky / 9min 

Ten minute drawing. Racing to the top in pre-K?

by Fred Klonsky / 10min

The President on education. Waist deep in the big muddy.

“Mr. Speaker, Mr. Vice President, members of Congress, my fellow Americans, today in America, a teacher spent extra time with a student who needed it and did her part to lift America’s graduation rate to its highest levels in more than three decades.” That’s how the President began his State of the Union Address last night. On education, it was brief and downhill from there. I couldn’t help but t

by Fred Klonsky / 1h  

1-28-14 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.: Soup Kitchen and half a cola at Robyn Gabel’s office.This afternoon our chapter of IEA Retired, the Skokie Organization of Retired Educators (SORE) had planned another pension protest outside the Evanston district office of State Representative Robyn Gabel. We had planned to set up a soup kitchen and

by mike simpson / 6h 

1-29-14 Perdido Street School

Perdido Street School:

Surrender Is Victory In The AFT/NYSUT/UFT World

Two points to make in the world of AFT/NYSUT/UFT politics:First a tweet from one of the UFT cronies who launched the challenge against NYSUT President Dick IannuzziMake some noise to save our services! Save our schools! pic.twitter.com/CLF6wjTPi1— Andy Pallotta (@AndyPallotta) January 29, 2014This was at the Public Employees Federation, Civil Service Employees Association and NYSCOPBA union rally

by reality-based edu... / 58min

Another Randi Weingarten Dog And Pony Show

Just got home from a wonderful day of Regents grading to see this news:Union leaders as well as some lawmakers took turns bashing Gov. Andrew Cuomo for “privatizing” and “downsizing” human services while at the same time calling for him to throttle back plans to continue closing disability centers, psychiatric hospitals and prisons. “Keep your hands off our state workers,” Saratoga-area GOP Assemb

by reality-based edu... / 22min 

Two State of the Union Tweets

Because I knew there would @#$% like this: Not just how well they can fill in a bubble on a test...wait whose policy was Race to the TOp? #SOTU— Liza Featherstone (@lfeatherz) January 29, 2014I decided this:Couldn't decide - watch the SOTU or paint dry? Decided to go w/ the paint. Drying paint doesn't lie or bull@#$% you...— realitybasededucator (@perdidostschool) January 29, 2014

by reality-based edu... / 24min 

NYSED, Regents Squeeze The ELA Regents Exam Scores

A comment Pogue left on a post here at Perdido Street School about the outrage that is this year's ELA Regents exam:January 2012 English Regents = 45 conversion opportunities for a 75+ August 2013 English Regents = 35 conversion box opportunities for a 75+January 2014 English Regents = 30 conversion box opportunities for a 75+"The Squeeze" created by corrupt/lazy Regents personnel whose

1 by reality-based edu... / 5h 

1-28-14 Perdido Street School

Perdido Street School: Regents Grading HellIf you're reading this post anytime around 7:30 AM when I had it scheduled to be posted, then you're reading it long after I left for my ELA Regents exam grading assignment.You see, the NYCDOE sent the teachers in my department to a school almost as far away from our school on the island of Manhattan as you can get without being:a) in the Bronxb) in the E

by mike simpson / 6h 

1-29-14 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):

An Open Apology, with Explanations: Math, Behaviorism, and “Grit”

An Open Apology, with Explanations: Math, Behaviorism, and “Grit”.

1 by plthomasedd / 5min 

A Child’s Story: “Because she’s older and the teacher, she’s right and I’m not”

A child’s birthday should be a ritual of joy, a celebration of living as well as of being a child. Rachel sits in class on her eleventh birthday in Sandra Cisneros‘s “Eleven,” however, feeling many things except joy: Only today I wish I didn’t have only eleven years rattling inside me like pennies in a tin Band-Aid box. Today I wish I was one hundred and two instead of eleven because if I was one

1 by plthomasedd / 4min 

SOTU 2014: Orwellian Educational Change under Obama Continues

Orwellian Educational Change under Obama: Crisis Discourse, Utopian Expectations, and Accountability Failures Paul L. Thomas Furman University “It is rather the same thing that is happening to the English language. . . .[T]he slovenliness of our language makes it easier for us to have foolish thoughts,” Orwell (1946) warns in “Politics and the English Language.” Few examples are better for proving

13 by plthomasedd / 1h 

1-28-14 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): What We Know (and Ignore) about Standards, Achievement, and EquityCalling for, establishing, and implementing high (or higher) standards has been a part of U.S. public education at least since the 1890s when the Committee of Ten called for higher standards for high schoo

by mike simpson / 6h 

How California’s Growing Income Gap Affects Our Schools | California Progress Report

How California’s Growing Income Gap Affects Our Schools | California Progress Report:

How California’s Growing Income Gap Affects Our Schools

Posted on 29 January 2014

By Peter Mathews

An American child’s chance of acquiring a quality education depends more on the parents’ income than on almost anything else, including ethnicity.

Because property taxes are a key source for K-12 funding, affluent districts have more to spend on education. Low-income districts don’t have the resources and facilities necessary to help most of their students achieve their potential. Governor Jerry Brown’s Local Control Funding Formula is a small step in the right direction. But even with it, the affluent Shoreline Unified School District in Marin County will spend around $18,000 per pupil, while less affluent Long Beach Unified will spend around $9,000. Lynwood Unified School District will spend even less. Money isn’t everything, but an adequate amount is necessary.

That’s why the growing income gap between the super rich and the average worker in America (40 to 1 in 1980, 400 to 1 today) is devastating to our schools and society. Let’s compare two Long Beach high schools.

The higher income levels of Wilson High School parents produce an environment which enables their children to do better in school. It helps a lot when your parents have more income to put you in private music, ballet and tutoring classes, and more time to help with your homework. Jordan High School parents love their kids just as much and want the best for them, yet their generally lower incomes and tougher work schedules make it harder for their children to climb the educational and economic ladder. Of course there are exceptions: a low income child may occasionally succeed by overcoming major hurdles because one parent stays home and is able to tutor and mentor her or him, while the other parent works grueling hours at two or three jobs to make ends meet. Or one grandparent is still at home to help. This is increasingly difficult because, with the outsourcing of jobs 

The Shriver Report – The Gender Wage Gap: What To Do If You Think You Aren’t Being Paid Fairly

The Shriver Report – The Gender Wage Gap: What To Do If You Think You Aren’t Being Paid Fairly:

The Gender Wage Gap: What To Do If You Think You Aren’t Being Paid Fairly

CARA P. LEMIEUX | 01.29.2014

Credit: © fotomek – Fotolia.com

We have read the stories and statistics about the gender wage gap, and that despite the many strides women have made in the workforce,women only make 77 cents for every dollar a man makes (and the gap is even larger among women of color and single mothers).  Unfortunately, there isn’t a quick fix to this issue, but we had a very enlightening conversation with employment attorney Christopher Davis, partner at Stoll, Glickman & Bellina, to find out what you can do if you think you aren’t being paid fairly – with or without the assistance of an attorney.

TSR: In 1963 women were earning 59 cents for every dollar a man made and President Kennedy signed the Equal Pay Act. 5 years ago today, in 2009, President Obama signed the Equal Pay for Equal Work Bill (the Lilly Ledbetter Fair Pay Restoration Act). What do these two bills really amount to for working women?

Christopher Davis: The issue of equal pay is one that we, as employment attorneys, see often. Unequal pay is endemic, you see it in every industry, and every person that comes through our door has a story.

The 1963 bill establishes, that if you have same qualifications or better and were not getting compensated appropriately, you could get damages for the differences. There were problems with enforceability and the statute of limitations, so if you have an ongoing pay-gap, the issue was when the clock started ticking. So Lilly Ledbetter brought a case against Goodyear and she lost, in appeal, because the law said the employer’s original discriminatory pay decision had to have occurred 

 

5 Barriers Women Face When Negotiating Compensation

© Andres Rodriguez – Fotolia.com   It’s no secret that men are often paid more than women. However, each year women leave millions of potential earnings on the table due to lack of negotiation. Many reasons why women avoid negotiations are rooted in societal expectations. Here are some of the barriers we face and how to get around them to get paid what you’re worth. 1. Fear of rejection. Women are

by Kathleen Fordyce / 6h 

School Choice Undermines Urban School Districts | janresseger

School Choice Undermines Urban School Districts | janresseger:

School Choice Undermines Urban School Districts

Posted on January 29, 2014 by janresseger

Proponents of school choice have dubbed this week School Choice Week.  In honor of  School Choice Week, Tennessee Senator Lamar Alexander, the Secretary of Education under the first George Bush and today the top Republican on the Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee, announced a new bill to provide a kind of federal school voucher program.

According to the NY Times,  Alexander’s bill would re-purpose $24 billion federal education dollars, 41 percent of all federal education spending.  Alexander’s bill  would allow states to choose “whether to give the lowest-income families the money as individual scholarships to pay for private school tuition, or to attend a pubic school outside the child’s traditional neighborhood zone, or a charter school.”

He claims the money would provide a voucher for 11 million low-income children with an average per-child grant of $2,100.  The NY Times explains, “Under Mr. Alexander’s bill, states would be allowed to opt in to the voucher program.  States could also continue to distribute federal funds to public schools rather than individual students.”  While there is little chance vouchers will be adopted by today’s U.S. Senate, the introduction of such a bill illustrates the dogged persistence of those who support this old, old idea.

Voucher programs have never been popular.  When proposed as ballot issues across the states, voucher plans have never been adopted by the voters.  Not ever.  The oldest voucher plans in Cleveland and in Milwaukee have neither significantly demonstrated higher academic 

What Could Be Wrong With ‘School Choice’?

What Could Be Wrong With ‘School Choice’?:

What Could Be Wrong With ‘School Choice’?

How to Steal Public Schools for Dummies (excerpts)

 Everyone loves “choice,” right?

In a country where in a single year there are more than 100 new choices for what to use to brush your teeth, it stands to reason that maximizing “choice” might be a goal for all kinds of enterprises.

With that in mind, this week brought us “National School Choice Week” with its recurring theme that “parents should be empowered to choose the best educational environments for their children.”

In their reporting of a School Choice Week kickoff event in Houston, libertarians at Reason noted that Rep. Sheila Jackson Lee (D-TX) and Sen. Ted Cruz (R-TX) headed up the speakers. “The liberal Jackson Lee and the conservative Cruz may not have much in common,” Reason noted, but both seemed intent on pressing the case for school choice.

A blogger for the Houston Chronicle also highlighted the coming together of political right and left, crowing, “Who said Republicans and Democrats can’t come together?”

For sure, Republicans and free market enthusiasts of all kinds are going to continue to press for anything under the umbrella of “school choice.” But civil rights advocates – whether Democratic or not – need to ask, if school choice is about “empowering parents,” who is doing 

UPDATE: Mike Klonsky's SmallTalk Blog: Obama calls for even more testing madness

Mike Klonsky's SmallTalk Blog: Obama calls for even more testing madness:


Ctu Responds To Gov. Quinn'S State Of The State Address

STATEMENT FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE CONTACT:                                        Stephanie Gadlin 312/329-6250 January 29, 2014 CHICAGO - In today’s State of the State address, Illinois Governor Pat Quinn made multiple references to “getting the job done” and also claimed to have ended the culture of instability that existed in Illinois government. He highlighted the strides that the state has made

1 by Mike Klonsky / 45min 

Obama calls for even more testing madness

The maddening Race To The Top continues

Not much for educators to get excited about in last night's speech. It's that time again when Dems give us a slight head-fake to the left-center to keep their base in line. I did like the focus on income inequality and the promise to raise the minimum wage for fed-contracted workers by executive order. That alone has the Republican wing-nuts in a frenzy. They're already crying "coup d'etat" over Obama's tepid moves. I'm also glad about his shift towards diplomacy, rather than saber-rattling on Iran and Syria, but fear it's like promises to end the war in Afghanistan -- lots of talk, lots of wavering, more winks to the generals and the M/I Complex.

I also liked his call for universal pre-K for all 4-year-olds. But there's little chance of that, or much else positive (gun control, immigration reform, etc...) going anywhere with this Congress. 

You write the caption for this one. (NYT photo)

The worst of it was Obama's call for even more standardized testing -- an obvious reassuring bone thrown to his Common Core pals at Pearson, N.Y. Gov. Cuomo, and  the state’s education commissioner, John King who's facing a rank-and-file teacher revolt against CC in N.Y.. That