2-18-14 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.:

NEA RA retired delegate sample ballot. I’m #19. IEA Retired members get the ballot in March.

by Fred Klonsky / 1h 

Soup kitchen and half a cola draws attention to pension theft.

I’m just back from the Evanston district office of State Representative Robyn Gabel. Gabel is one of the Democratic politicians in our state that votes consistently, even enthusiastically some say, for pension theft. Teachers, both active members of IEA and retired members of the Skokie Organization of Retired Educators, a north suburban chapter of IEA Retired, held a mock soup kitchen and served

by Fred Klonsky / 2min 

The CTU is not looking kindly on a 4th year extension of the contract.

Catalyst is reporting that the Chicago Teachers Union is not looking kindly on a 4th year extension to the current contract. CTU VP Jesse Sharkey: “If both sides wanted to do an extra year, we could. If both sides wanted to do an extra four years, we could,” Sharkey said. “But there’s a name for that, and it’s called bargaining a new contract. I think it’s extremely unlikely that our members are g

by Fred Klonsky / 4min hide  //  save

University of Illinois at Chicago faculty on strike. Photos from today’s picket line.

  “ “Wait. Don’t show me smiling. I’m mad!”            

by Fred Klonsky / 8min 

Kirk Dillard and ALEC. Stand Your Ground wasn’t about education?

  ALEC’s Stand Your Ground bill and Trayvon Martin. I totally understand why many of my teacher colleagues are so terrified by Bruce Rauner that they will hold their nose and pull a Republican ballot and vote for someone like Kirk Dillard. I won’t. But I understand why many will. It won’t be enough to elect Dillard. Rauner will be running against Quinn in November. But that’s a discussion for ano

by Fred Klonsky / 53min

2-17-14 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.: Some IEA – Rauner history. A history of being pragmatic.. The Illinois Education Association and the Illinois Retired Teachers Association have a long and rocky history together. But since I have become active in both, I have argued for reconciliation and common efforts where our interests converge. A

1 by mike simpson / 8h 

2-18-14 Engaging Parents In School All Week… | Going Beyond Parent "Involvement"

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

Infographic: “Tips For Teachers On Family Engagement”

The National PTA has created a nice infographic titled “Tips For Teachers On Family Engagement.” You can download the entire infographic here. Here’s a partial screenshot: I’m adding it to The Best Infographics About Parent Involvement In Schools.

by Larry Ferlazzo / 7h hide  //  save

Good Summary Of “Power Of Parents” Report

Last week, I posted about a new, and good, report by Ed Source titled “The Power Of Parents.” Sheila Stewart has done us all a big favor by writing up a short and sweet summary of the report. Check out Parent Engagement By Association.

by Larry Ferlazzo / 7h 

St. Paul Federation Of Teachers Is National Model For Engaging Parents

St. Paul’s teacher talks have been a public affair is the headline of a Minnesota newspaper article that shows why the work of the St. Paul Federation of Teachers, led by Mary Ricker, is a national model for parent engagement. Here’s are some excerpts: The St. Paul district and teachers union negotiating teams have huddled behind closed doors in increasingly tense contract talks. But some of the m

by Larry Ferlazzo / 7h 

“Parents Should Opt Out – And Teachers Should Help”

Parents Should Opt Out – And Teachers Should Help is a post by Dr. John Thompson. Here’s an excerpt: I plead guilty to not being militant enough in resisting NCLB-type testing.  Had teachers put up a real fight, including “sick-outs” on testing day, they could not have fired us all, and our students would not have had to endure more than a decade of bubble-in malpractice.  The Tulsa World’s Kim Ar

by Larry Ferlazzo / 7h 

2-15-14 Engaging Parents In School All Week… | Going Beyond Parent "Involvement"

Engaging Parents In School… | Going Beyond Parent "Involvement":Intriguing Early Ed Program Focuses On Latino Parents In ChicagoI’ve previously written several posts about the excellent parent engagement efforts by the Logan Square Neighborhood Association in Chicago. I’ve also written posts about a program for Latino parents of very young children called Abriendo Puertas/Opening Doors.

by mike simpson / 

Mike Klonsky's SmallTalk Blog: Lesser-of-two-evils theory on crack

Mike Klonsky's SmallTalk Blog: Lesser-of-two-evils theory on crack:

Lesser-of-two-evils theory on crack

Lesser-of-evils theory on crack. IEA Pres. Klickna endorses ALEC leader Dillard for governor.

The union is understandably worried about a Rauner victory. But still... The union gave Dillard’s campaign $250,000 along with a cadre of political foot soldiers. "These are dark days for active and retired Illinois teachers. Sad, dark days," says blogger Ken Previti. 

Brother Fred writes:

I truly don’t get why the IEA leadership wants to throw away a quarter million bucks on Dillard. And worse, prettify his putrid record, including his chairmanship of Illinois ALEC.
They say they have a letter that says he resigned “last year.” But it turns out that “last year” was four months ago. I have asked for a copy of the letter but have not received one. And a Google search comes up blank on his resignation as head of ALEC in Illinois. I’d be interested in reading why he was Chairman of this group for so long and why he quit only four months ago.

UIC Strike...
Today  tenure track and non-tenure track faculty who make up the University of Illinois-Chicago faculty union UICUF Local 6456 will walk out of the classroom and onto the picket 

2-18-14 Perdido Street School

Perdido Street School:

Note To Mulgrew: You Are Responsible For The Excessive Paperwork Problem Too

A teacher called into a WNYC with UFT President Michael Mulgrew yesterday to complain about all the excessive paperwork teachers are dealing with.James Eterno posted about these excessive mandates last week:The list below was sent to me from a NYC public school teacher. Do you want to be a teacher today? Then understand that in many schools you will spend most of the day meeting multiple mandates

by reality-based edu... / 1h  

2-17-14 Perdido Street School Week

Perdido Street School: Andrew Cuomo's Hypocrisy Over SUNYGovernor Cuomo announced the following plan yesterday: ALBANY -- Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo said Sunday the state will expand the opportunity for inmates to get college degrees as a way to keep them from returning to prison and save tax dollars. Cuomo said the state pays $60,000 a year to keep a prisoner incarcerated and 40 percent return to priso

1 by mike simpson / 8h 

2-18-14 With A Brooklyn Accent Go BATs All Week

With A Brooklyn Accent:

Why I Will Never Raise My Voice Against Funding Prisoner Education

If any of you wonder why I will never raise my voice against funding Prisoner Education, even if the politician supporting it is someone I despise, here's one good reason:I teach on the Bronx campus of Fordham University. In side the campus, there are as many people selling and using drugs as there are outside the campus gates Yet in the 40 plus years I have been teaching there, I have never heard

by Mark Naison / 5h  

2-15-14 With A Brooklyn Accent Go BATs All Week

With A Brooklyn Accent:With A Brooklyn Accent Go BATs All WeekThe Romance Is Gone From Predatory School ReformDriving home from work today, I had an epiphany I wanted to share with you. And it is this. Even though terrible things are happening to teachers and students and families all over the nation, the Romance is gone from Predatory School Reform. It has been reduced to naked power, greed, and

by mike simpson / 

2-18-14 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 Analogy, Hyperbole Problem: “With explanation kind” (Tone, pt. 5)

Prologue I am a child of literature, more specifically of science fiction. As a result, I am also a child of allegory, metaphor, and the richness of layered language. Smitten as a reader, I eventually—and predictably—looked in the mirror and saw a writer. For almost four decades now, I have been chasing that image in the mirror, that writer I hope to be. So when I write—mostly non-fiction, mostly

1 by plthomasedd / 2min hide  //  save

Scholars Speak Out: On Leaders and Teacher Responsibility

On Leaders and Teacher Responsibility

1 by plthomasedd / 30min   

2-17-14 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): Professors as Public Intellectuals: A ReaderWith Professors, We Need You!, Nicholas Kristof makes a case for professors as public intellectuals: Professors today have a growing number of tools available to educate the public, from online courses to blogs to social media.

by mike simpson / 8h 

The Personal Side of Superintending (Part 3) | Larry Cuban on School Reform and Classroom Practice

The Personal Side of Superintending (Part 3) | Larry Cuban on School Reform and Classroom Practice:

The Personal Side of Superintending (Part 3)

In The Managerial Imperative: The Practice of Leadership in Schools (1988), I wrote of my experiences as a superintendent, husband, and father and how the job intersected with my life during and after the workday. In the post here, my wife is Barbara and my daughters are Sondra and Janice. All of what follows occurred between 1974-1981.

The superintendency was both exhilarating and exhausting. As a line from a song put it “Some days were diamonds; some days were stones.” What values I prized about public service and helping people were enacted daily; what skills I had were tapped frequently, and the post pushed me into learning new skills and plumbing hidden reserves of energy. In short, being superintendent stretched me in ways I keenly felt were worthwhile. I enjoyed the job immensely. But–there has to be a but–there were a number of job-related issues that arose over the years, softening my rosy assessment, forcing me to face the inevitable trade-offs that accompany the top executive post in a school district.

What initially turned our lives topsy-turvy was the time I had to spend on the job after two years as a graduate student and, before that, as a teacher. The days usually began at 8:00 A.M. in the office and ended at 11:00 P.M. about two to three nights a week (and even more nights out during budget season). On those long days, I would race home for dinner at 5:00 P.M. and leave two hours later for a board meeting, work session, or some other community event. During the 

Philanthropic Plutocrats Pushing the Levers and Pulling the Strings | janresseger

Philanthropic Plutocrats Pushing the Levers and Pulling the Strings | janresseger:

Philanthropic Plutocrats Pushing the Levers and Pulling the Strings

Posted on February 18, 2014 by janresseger

Over the weekend, here and here,  this blog covered last week’s pieces by David Sirota, hereand here, that exposed the $3.5 million grant the Public Broadcasting Service solicited from the Laura and John Arnold Foundation to pay for a PBS series, The Pension Peril, that has been portraying the advocacy position of the Laura and John Arnold Foundation that opposes public pensions.  PBS agreed to return the grant and put the series on hiatus when the conflict of interest was exposed.

It used to be that nonprofits brought ideas to foundations when they submitted proposals for funding.  These days it is far more common for the foundation to set an agenda and then seek organizations who can be granted funds to implement the foundation’s priorities.   Joanne Barkan describes the shift in grant making: “The roles of grantor and grantee have… changed.  Once upon a time, the mega-foundations established a goal and sought experts to do independent research on how to achieve it.  Today many donors and program officers have preconceived notions about social problems and solutions.  They fund researchers who are likely to design studies that will support their ideas.  Instead of reviewing proposals from outside the foundation, they hire existing nonprofits or set up new ones to implement projects they’ve designed themselves.  The mode of operation is top-down; grantees serve their funders.  Mega-foundations also devote substantial resources to advocacy—selling their ideas to the media, to government at every level, and to the public.  They also directly fund journalism and media programming in their fields of interest.  All this marks a cultural 

NYC Educator: On Junk Science Evaluation--Garbage In, Garbage Out

NYC Educator: On Junk Science Evaluation--Garbage In, Garbage Out:

On Junk Science Evaluation--Garbage In, Garbage Out

Shockingly, NY State is encountering problems with its new evaluation system. According to Newsday, teachers can rate effective in test passing percentages, yet rate developing overall. Alas, such are the exigencies of a system that is created based on wishful thinking and a desire to fire teachers for no particular reason.

Actually, what is shocking about this story is not that there are problems with APPR, but rather that the state admitted it. It's been pretty much standard fare for Reformy John King and Silent Merryl Tisch to nod their wooden heads, offer minor and insubstantial tweaks, and then go on their merry way. Governor Andrew Cuomo has staked his educational reputation on junk science, and believes in it deeply. Teachers must be rated by untested Common Core tests and judged by junk science, or he will have forsaken his self-appointed post as student lobbyist.

After all, Cuomo is doing his part to make sure we don't raise taxes on the rich or fritter away money paying teachers, and he'd rather assign the death penalty to schools with low test scores than fund them adequately. It makes for good sound bites on the news, and it makes Governor Andy popular with deep-pocketed folks like DFER, but it doesn't help our kids.

Sadly, demagogues like Andy Cuomo earn support not only from astroturfers and would-be robber barons, but also top faux-Democrats like Barack Obama, who happily allow their subordinates to cheer baseless school closings and ignore blatant misdeeds on Wall Street. This is the new Democratic Party, the one that leaves working people 

Strengthening Home, School, & Community Partnership: Improving Discipline Policies in American Schools | LFA: Join The Conversation - Public School Insights

Strengthening Home, School, & Community Partnership: Improving Discipline Policies in American Schools | LFA: Join The Conversation - Public School Insights:

Strengthening Home, School, & Community Partnership: Improving Discipline Policies in American Schools

By National PTA on February 18, 2014

By Joshua McIntosh, for the National PTA

In a recent address to parent leaders, U.S. Secretary of Education Arne Duncan called on parents to take education more seriously and be active in partnering with schools as we seek to raise expectations for students. The week prior, the Department of Education released new guidelines around improving climate and discipline policies in schools showing how suspensions, arrests, and expulsions can lead to negative outcomes for students and contribute to the phenomenon known as the school- to–prison pipeline. Given this, the high prevalence of out-of-school suspensions in our schools -- even for non-violent behaviors – is a serious concern.

As a teacher leader in New York City, I believe school discipline policy is the perfect example of an issue that allows parents and teachers to work together and prompt systemic change that can improve our schools.

The federal guidance package presents a solid argument for a long-known fact in educational communities around the country: school discipline policies and practices are in drastic need of reform - particularly in the way we work with minority students and students who receive special education services, like the students at my school. .  The task of improving school discipline policies and school climates provides new opportunities for parents and teachers to work together.

The guidance package outlines three guiding principles of reform and related action steps that states and districts can consider as they undertake local reform efforts.  Several of those action steps speak directly to the critical role of parents as partners in the discipline process, including the needs for:

1. Regular communication between parents and educators.
2. Parent involvement in school climate based teams.
3. Parent and teacher involvement in developing school discipline procedures, codes of conduct, and positive support roles

Considering the complexity of navigating the home-school-community, there are a few noticings 

Measures of the heart: non-cognitive skills tests | Digital

Measures of the heart: non-cognitive skills tests | Digital:

Measures of the heart: non-cognitive skills tests

Being smart isn’t all you need to succeed.

Non-cognitive or meta-cognitive skills such as self-awareness, self-control, empathy, communication and cooperation are as important or even more important to long-term success than cognitive factors like math and reading ability. The evidence is undeniable, but US school assessment and accountability systems are currently limited to measures of cognitive skills alone. If schools don’t measure non-cognitive skills, it is difficult to prioritize them.

There are several emerging attempts to measure non-cognitive skills, aka Mindsets & Essential Skills and Habits (MESH) in schools. Most use the simplest instrument available: self-reporting surveys.

• The OECD gives the Program in International Assessment or PISA to about half a million students around the world. It’s widely publicized for its rankings on math and language achievement. But in addition to the two hours of word problems or essay questions, PISA students also complete a 30-minute questionnaire asking about things like self-efficacy, self-esteem, student-teacher relationships, and the school climate, making it one of the largest attempts to measure non-cognitive skills in the world. An infographic published on the website Buzzfeed based on PISA data sorted countries about evenly into four quadrants: happiest and least happy kids, and high and low test scores. Korea stands out for its miserable kids and high scores, Singapore has the happiest kids with the highest scores, Qatar and Argentina have sad, low-scoring kids and Peru and Indonesia are whistling away their weak scores. (The US falls into the unhappy, low-scoring bottom left quadrant.)

School leaders around the world are using PISA findings on the emotional health of their students. In Korea, in February 2013 the new president Park Geun-hye announced that the happiness of citizens would become a national priority, and the Ministry of Education has taken this up as a goal.

•  In 2012 almost 500,000 students across the US in grades 5-12 completed the Gallup Student Poll, 

Nation’s top science teachers culling NGSS resources :: SI&A Cabinet Report :: The Essential Resource for Superintendents and the Cabinet

Nation’s top science teachers culling NGSS resources :: SI&A Cabinet Report :: The Essential Resource for Superintendents and the Cabinet:

FEBRUARY 18, 2014

Nation’s top science teachers culling NGSS resources

by Kimberly Beltran

(Va.) A team of expert instructors from all over the country are preparing to release soon an online gallery of educational resources that can be used to help teach new incoming science standards.

The subject virtuosos are each in the midst of tracking down various topic-area supports for teachers who will need to make significant changes in instruction based on the Next Generation Science Standards.

Once compiled, the resource collection will be included on an interactive NGSS website to be launched this spring by the National Science Teachers Association.

“There’s not much out there at the moment,” said Wisconsin’s Karen Mesmer, one of 55 K-12 science teachers selected by the NSTA to serve as a curator for the project. “The resources that we're finding may not all totally meet the new standards, but the website will be a place for teachers to look to find the best lessons that we have at the moment with suggestions on how to 

 

Bill would open apprenticeship pathways

(Calif.) As schools across the state consider how they might use some of the $250 million set aside to provide link-learning programs, one lawmaker has proposed taking a share of that money to close a critical gap in the program – building apprenticeship opportunities.

by Tom Chorneau / 6h