2-19-14 Larry Ferlazzo’s Websites of the Day… | …For Teaching ELL, ESL, & EFL

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

How My ELL Students Evaluated Me At The End Of First Semester

As regular readers know, at least twice each year I have students in all my classes anonymously evaluate the class and me (they also do a self-evaluation that, 95% of the time, turns into their grade. Here’s the form they usually use). In addition, they know ahead of time that I publish the results and also send them to my colleagues and administrators — warts and all. And believe, there have bee

by Larry Ferlazzo / 1h

“Reading Is a ‘Means to Bigger and Better Things’”

Reading Is a ‘Means to Bigger and Better Things’ is Part Two in my Education Week Teacher series on developing life-long readers. Today, educators Kristi Mraz, Marjorie Martinelli, Kathy Barclay and Cindi Rigsbee contribute their thoughts. Here’s are some excerpts:

by Larry Ferlazzo / 1h hide  //  save

Wednesday’s Sochi Resource Update

Here are today’s additions to The Best Sites For Learning About The Sochi 2014 Winter Olympic Games: The New York Times has finally gotten around to putting all their Olympics’ interactives in one place. 6 Olympians who became educators is from Education Dive. What’s the Most Dominant Country In Each Winter Olympic Sport? is from The Atlantic. 2 in Russian Protest Band Held, Then Freed, in Sochi

by Larry Ferlazzo / 8h 

Video: “I Am A Ukranian”

In light of what’s happening in Kiev right now, I thought readers might be interested in this English-language video that the protesters made to explain what they’re doing. For more information about what’s happening right now, you can check out this constantly update page from The New York Times and this updated Associated Press interactive. You might also be interested in The Best Sites For Lea

by Larry Ferlazzo / 9h

2-18-14 Larry Ferlazzo’s Websites of the Day… | …For Teaching ELL, ESL, & EFL

Larry Ferlazzo’s Websites of the Day… | …For Teaching ELL, ESL, & EFL: Well-Done Interactive: “The Cost Of Living In The United States”Produced By Online Accounting Degreesby Larry Ferlazzo / 1h hide  //  saveMusic Video: Jamaican Bobsled Team reggae songI’m adding this new official Jamaican Bobsled Team song to The Best Sites For Learning About The Sochi 2014 Winter Olympic Games:by Larry Fer

by mike simpson / 8h 

2-19-14 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.:

Jay Travis on the bus to Springfield for teacher pensions.

Walking into the Capitol building for the rally against Chicago public employee pension cuts I ran into Jay Travis, candidate for the 26th district State Representative seat in Springfield. A pension stalwart, Jay said she rode the bus with CTU members. Her opponent voted for Senate Bill 1. Any other questions. Here is her statement about todays pension lobby effort and rally in the rotunda of th

by Fred Klonsky / 11min hide  //  save

Photo essay. Chicago in the house. Springfield today.

  “They closed my school. They want me to teach science without a science room. Now they want to take my pension.”            

by Fred Klonsky / 24min 

Bruce Rauner: “I talk to Arne all the time.”

The Republican debate last night wasn’t all talk about Dan Rutherford’s crotch grabbing. In fact, nobody mentioned it. I would have mentioned it if I had been in the debate. But maybe that’s why I’m not a Republican. If somebody I know goes around grabbing guys’ crotches, I will mention it. There was a guy I knew in high school who did that. His gym locker was right next to mine and the guy had r

by Fred Klonsky / 31min hide  //  save

John Dillon. It’s a tough time to be in a public union in Illinois.

- John Dillon blogs at Pension Vocabulary. It’s a tough time to be in a public union in Illinois these daysThe primaries are coming up quickly, and we are sidelined…without anyone in the race.  Without anyone to advocate for the working class, or the middle class. It wasn’t always this way.  Public unions in Illinois were able to influence and affect political outcomes.  Legislators wanted to rep

by Fred Klonsky / 1h 

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.: 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

by mike simpson / 8h

Shanker Blog » Select Your Conclusions, Apply Data

Shanker Blog » Select Your Conclusions, Apply Data:

Select Your Conclusions, Apply Data

Posted by Matthew Di Carlo on February 19, 2014

The recent release of the National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP) and the companion Trial Urban District Assessment (TUDA) was predictably exploited by advocates to argue for their policy preferences. This is a blatant misuse of the data for many reasons that I have discussed here many times before, and I will not repeat them.

I do, however, want to very quickly illustrate the emptiness of this pseudo-empirical approach – finding cross-sectional cohort increases in states/districts that have recently acted policies you support, and then using the increases as evidence that the policies “work.” For example, the recent TUDA results for the District of Columbia Public Schools (DCPS), where scores increased in all four grade/subject combinations, were immediately seized upon supporters of the reforms that have been enacted by DCPS as clear-cut evidence of the policy triumph. The celebrators included the usual advocates, but also DCPS Chancellor Kaya Henderson and the U.S. Secretary of Education Arne Duncan (there was even a brief mention by President Obama in his State of The Union speech).

My immediate reaction to this bad evidence was simple (though perhaps slightly juvenile) – find a district that had similar results under a different policy environment. It was, as usual, pretty easy: Los Angeles Unified School District (LAUSD).

Like DCPS, LAUSD also saw increases in all four grade/subject combinations of TUDA (though one of them was not statistically significant). Moreover, the increases were large – 4-5 scale score points.

So, by the flawed logic of those who trumpet TUDA increases as policy evidence, LAUSD is clearly doing something correctly. One could argue, therefore, that not implementing new teacher evaluations, while maintaining traditional 

Q&A with San Antonio Mayor Julián Castro: Preschool initiative ‘a model for the nation’ | Hechinger Report

Q&A with San Antonio Mayor Julián Castro: Preschool initiative ‘a model for the nation’ | Hechinger Report:

Q&A with San Antonio Mayor Julián Castro: Preschool initiative ‘a model for the nation’

By Emily Richmond

Education Writers Association

A few years ago, San Antonio Mayor Julián Castro – the Democratic Party’s first Hispanic keynote convention speaker – decided his city needed to expand its preschool opportunities for young children. To pay for it, Castro built a coalition of public-private partnerships and bipartisan support and convinced voters in 2012 to approve a new tax that would fund expanded preschool opportunities throughout the city. Known as “Pre-K 4 San Antonio,” the program launched in the fall and is expected to expand in the coming years.  Castro was the keynote speaker at EWA’s recent seminar for journalists on early childhood education, held at Tulane University in New Orleans. I had the opportunity to sit down with him for a Q&A. (You can also watch the replay of his keynote here.)

In his State of the Union address, President Obama said that instead of waiting for Congress to take action on funding preschool, he would build a coalition of public-private partners to help states and communities add more seats. Is there some freedom that comes with having more local control over the programs you create?

San Antonio Mayor Julián Castro talks to Carolina Astrain of the Victoria Advocate at EWA’s Feb. 2014 conference on early childhood education. (Photo: EWA)

It’s always good to be able to craft a policy initiative at the local level without too many things attached. However, the benefit to state or federal funding is the expansion – the ability to reach more families — even if sometimes there are a few hoops you have to jump through. I’m proud that in SA we’ve crafted a unique initiative. And I’m confident that in any state or federal analysis, we would be able to jump through the hoops that those levels of govt. would want because it’s a well-crafted initiative.

Your wife is a math specialist, working with students in grades 3-5. What is she observing when it comes to student readiness for learning?

What I’ve heard from Erica over the years is that there’s unevenness among the children. Some come 

“Significant Flaws” with New York’s Teacher Evaluation Data |:

“Significant Flaws” with New York’s Teacher Evaluation Data

New York “State officials admit problems with new teacher ratings” is how the headline reads. More specifically, it seems that New York State Education Department officials are acknowledging “significant flaws” with their new system of rating more than 126,000 teachers statewide by their effectiveness, and these errors are causing the state to push back the public release of these data.

While the state did not disclose any details to help define with what types of “significant flaws” the state was dealing, anecdotal evidence suggests there may be rating errors across similar tests and scoring errors whereby teachers who score consistently across subject areas are scoring below par in their overall categorization/ranking.

In addition, this release is only to be pushed back until around March, even though the data to be released are about teacher performance from the 2012-13 school year. Yes, teachers will be getting their data this March from last year.

Here’s the deal on this one. One of the biggest drawbacks of such teacher evaluation systems is that they have literally no instrumental value; that is, no states across the country have yet figured out how to use these data for instrumental or change-based purposes, to inform the betterment of schools, teacher quality, and most importantly 

2-19-14 Perdido Street School

Perdido Street School:

My Take On Dennis Van Roekel's Common Core Backtrack

NEA President Dennis Van Roekel backtracked on Common Core today:The nation’s largest teachers union is pulling back on its once-enthusiastic support of the Common Core academic standards, labeling their rollout “completely botched.”National Education Association President Dennis Van Roekel said he still believes the standards can improve education. But he said they will not succeed without a majo

by reality-based edu... / 36min 

Mayor Fulop Continues To Screw Up Snow Removal In Jersey City

Jersey City Mayor Steven Fulop is so busy giving lectures at Rutgers and announcing an endorsement in the Newark mayor's race that he just can't seem to do his job as mayor of Jersey City.As I posted on Sunday, citizens of Jersey City have been irate over the city's poor snow removal program, bombarding the city's Facebook page with complaints like this one from yesterday:My street is so bad could

by reality-based edu... / 1h 

Bobby Jindal One Of The Least Popular Governors In The Country

Good luck running for president, Bobby:A new poll released Tuesday suggests Gov. Bobby Jindal is among the least popular governors in the U.S.Public Policy Polling, of North Carolina, which generally works with Democrats, drew that conclusion after surveying 635 Louisiana voters between Feb. 6 and Feb. 9. The margin of error is plus or minus 3.9 percent for the overall survey.Fifty-three percent s

by reality-based edu... / 4min 

Obama Should Apologize To ALL Teachers

In case you didn't hear, Obama slammed art history last week:WASHINGTON — President Obama issued an artful apology Tuesday, taking back a “glib” remark encouraging students to ditch art history for more lucrative pursuits. Playing to the lunchpail crowd at a General Electric plant in Wisconsin late last month, Obama took a swipe at art-history courses while trying to persuade young people to pursu

2 by reality-based edu... / 1h  

2-18-14 Perdido Street School

Perdido Street School: Note To Mulgrew: You Are Responsible For The Excessive Paperwork Problem TooA 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 to

by mike simpson / 8h

Students Last: Teacher Bashing: New Olympic Event?

Students Last: Teacher Bashing: New Olympic Event?:

Teacher Bashing: New Olympic Event?

Sochi, Russia - Even before the games have ended, officials are debating what events to include at the 2018 Olympics to be held in South Korea.

Olympic spokesman Vladmir Grasmoski offered the short list of potential events to reporters yesterday during a press conference in Sochi. The proposed events include: ice fishing, ballroom snowboarding and synchronized figure skiing. But it was teacher bashing that garnered the most attention.  

Governor Chris Christie of New Jersey, who cuts an atypical figure for an Olympian, is expected to serve as the team captain if the event is approved. "We have some Olympic quality players in our country with several of our athletes training for years for this opportunity," noted Christie. Though it would be premature to name team members before trial events, several names have been bandied about including, Michelle Rhee, Scott Brown and Tom Luna. "Our country is fortunate to have so many athletes at such an elite level," Christie smiled as he contemplated the possibilities. 

While teacher bashing enjoys wide appeal in America, representatives from other countries expressed doubts. "I don't think it will make it to the Olympics because the rest of the world doesn't want to play," said Luukos 

Grades predict college success more than test scores, study says | Education Lab Blog | Seattle Times

Grades predict college success more than test scores, study says | Education Lab Blog | Seattle Times:

Grades predict college success more than test scores, study says

Posted by Linda Shaw

When it comes to success in college, a  new study again raises questions about whether college-entrance exams such as the SAT predict how well students will do.

The study’s authors examined the records of 123,000 students at 33 colleges that don’t require students to submit test scores when they apply for admission.  They compared the 70 percent of students who chose to submit their scores to the 30 percent who did not, and found no significant differences in the college grade-point averages or graduation rates between the two groups.

Students’ high-school grades were much better predictors of performance, the study’s authors said.

The report was welcome news for those who support test-optional policies, including Washington State University in Pullman, which says it was one of the largest test-optional public universities in the study.

In a prepared release, John Fraire, WSU’s vice president for student affairs and enrollment, said that some students who score low on college-entrance  tests may get discouraged and not apply to college even if they have great potential for success.

But the study is unlikely to end the debate over the value of test scores in admissions.

In a report on NPR, an official of the College Board, which administers the SAT test, pointed toother research that concluded that grades and test scores together are a better predictor of college success than either alone.  The College Board sponsored that study.

William Hiss, the principal investigator of the latest report, is someone who has supported test-optional policies for years.  Hiss is the former dean of admissions at Bates College in Maine which, 

College English Prof: Common Core Will Make My Job Harder | Truth in American Education

College English Prof: Common Core Will Make My Job Harder | Truth in American Education:

College English Prof: Common Core Will Make My Job Harder

Filed in Common Core State Standards by Shane Vander Hart on February 19, 2014 • 0 Comments

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Aaron Barlow, an associate professor of English at the New York City College of Technology wrote a piece on the Academe Blog (of which he’s the Executive Editor) which is published by the American Association of University Professors.  He states that the Common Core English Language Arts standards are designed for failure.

Strong words and he makes a strong case.

He says the Common Core will make his job as a college English professor harder.

Will the CCSS adequately prepare students to succeed in my Composition and Literature classrooms?

If a student comes into my classroom with curiosity piqued by broad exposure to cultural, historical and scientific information and the ability to sit down and read a book with pleasurefor an hour at a time, that student will succeed in my class. That student is primed for the dynamic conversations at the heart of learning—especially in what CCSS, with its stultifying faux precision, calls English Language Arts (ELA).

Mastery of ELA is participatory, a dynamic and not a thing that can be broken down into 

NYC Educator: Who Does Your Chapter Leader Represent?

NYC Educator: Who Does Your Chapter Leader Represent?:

Who Does Your Chapter Leader Represent?

It should be clear that your UFT chapter leader needs to represent you when you have issues with administration. Sometimes, people tell me their chapter leader says things like, "I can't take sides," and that's inappropriate. Your chapter leader needs to take your side, particularly when there is a contractual violation.

Of course not everything is a contractual violation. If you're on a crusade to paint the walls hot pink, it will be tough to find language in the contract to back you up. Your CL may advise you against this grievance, but ultimately you can make it if you so desire.

In fact, you never know. If you can muster a particularly persuasive argument for the pink walls, if the principal agrees it's necessary at Step 1, and finds a way to manage the paint and labor, congratulations.

It's different when you're assigned to go to a meeting during your lunch period. There are some principals who'd just as soon let you starve rather than have you miss a lecture on how to execute a better bulletin board, and the contract protects you from such nonsense. In that case, things ought to be a lot easier. It's time for your chapter leader to take a side.

But what about when a contract shows up that eviscerates seniority rights? Let's say, for example, the contract, rather than placing teachers whose schools close, proposes to render you a substitute teacher without classes of your own? What if it makes you patrol lunchrooms and 

With a trial looming, here’s where things stand in the Atlanta school cheating scandal:

With a trial looming, here’s where things stand in the Atlanta school cheating scandal

• BY MARK BERMAN

• February 19 at 9:03 am

In this June 2011 file photo, former Atlanta schools superintendent Beverly Hall, center, arrives for her last Atlanta school board meeting (AP Photo/Atlanta Journal-Constitution, Curtis Compton)

A trial in the Atlanta Public Schools cheating scandal is just three months away, and this week a high-ranking former official in the school system pleaded guilty and became what the Fulton County District Attorney’s office calls “the state’s most valuable witness.”

First, in case you need a refresher on the scandal: An investigation concluded that widespread cheating occurred on standardized tests in the Atlanta school system. According to a report released in 2011 by Georgia Gov. Nathan Deal (R), the cheating harmed thousands of children, was found in dozens of schools and dated back several years. In March 2013, a grand jury indicted Beverly Hall, the former APS superintendent, and 34 other people for their roles in the scandal. You can read the entire indictment here to learn about how they were charged with racketeering (!), false statements and a host of other things.

This week, former APS human resources director Millicent Few pleaded guilty and has agreed to testify against Hall (who, it is always worth remembering, was the 2009 national superintendent of the year). Few, the first person listed in the indictment after Hall, was charged with racketeering and false swearing last year. She was a member of Hall’s executive cabinet and will testify against the former superintendent, according to the district attorney’s office.

An attorney for Hall told the Atlanta Journal-Constitution that Hall, who has pleaded not guilty, will “continue to fight the charges against her.”

Under her agreement, Few was sentenced to 12 months probation and 250 hours of community service and must give $800 in restitution to the school system. She also has

Opt-Out/Refusal Guides for each State | United Opt Out National

Opt-Out/Refusal Guides for each State | United Opt Out National: OPT-OUT/REFUSAL GUIDES FOR EACH STATEAll documents are for informational purposes only and do not substitute as legal advice or legal counsel. The information contained in these documents and this website may or may not reflect the most current developments in education policy within our nation or within each state. Information share

by mike simpson / 6h