May 13 Rally at the US Supreme Court | National Opportunity to Learn Campaign | Education Reform for Equity and Opportunity

May 13 Rally at the US Supreme Court | National Opportunity to Learn Campaign | Education Reform for Equity and Opportunity:

May 13 Rally at the US Supreme Court

Posted on: Tuesday May 13th, 2014

May 13 – Rally at the U.S. Supreme CourtFulfilling the Promise of Brown v. Board:
Organizing for Educational Justice for All

Sixty years after Brown v. Board of Education, our nation's public schools are still separate and still unequal. Tomorrow, parents, students, educators and community members will rally at 12:30 p.m. outside the U.S. Supreme Court to demand that policymakers recommit to the vision of equity and opportunity embodied in theBrown decision. 

Among those speaking at the rally will be Congresswoman Eleanor Holmes Norton, Randi Weingarten, President of the American Federation of Teachers,Dennis Van Roekel, President of the National Education Association, and Judith Browne Dianis, Co-Director of the Advancement Project. (Click here to watch the livestream of the rally.)

The rally kicks off a National Week of Action organized by the Alliance to Reclaim Our Schools, which represents over 7 million parents, teachers and students nationwide who are fighting for equal opportunity and educational justice. (Click here to find a local event near you.)

At the rally, Alliance member organization Journey for Justice will release a report detailing the harm done to communities of color and low-income communities by corporate intervention policies like mass school closings, charter expansion, over-testing and harsh discipline. Because the answer to delivering on the promise of Brown v. Board lies in strengthening (not dismantling or privatizing) public education, the report details recommendations for an alternative, sustainable school transformation model.

WHAT CAN YOU DO? During the week of action, Alliance members will conduct voter outreach with "education voter pledge cards." Take a stand and tell the world you're an education voter.

Follow the Alliance to Reclaim our Schools on Twitter and Facebook, and tell us what you think needs to be done 60 years after Brown with hashtag #Brownat60. 

Learn more at www.reclaimourschools.org.

Building High Quality Early Childhood Education Support Systems for Children and Families

Publication Date:  Mon, 2014-05-05 Organization:  Opportunity to Learn Campaign and Broader Bolder Approach to Education Type:  Policy Category:  Early Care and Education ECE-guide-final.pdf This guide gives state policymakers and advocates a blueprint for developing better-coordinated, early support systems using a whole-child and whole-family approach. I

by jocelyn / 3d 

Partnerships, Not Pushouts: A Guide for School Board Members

Publication Date:  Tue, 2014-04-22 Organization:  Opportunity to Learn Campaign Category:  Equitable instructional materials and policies 2014-122_POPGuide_DIGITAL.PDF School boards play a key role in setting the vision and tone for their local school systems. This guide can serve as a blueprint for board members who wish to create a better-coordinated system of

by jocelyn / 3d 

MAY 09

You Can't Improve a Closed School: Infographic Series on Mass School Closures

Publication Date:  Fri, 2014-05-09 Organization:  Opportunity to Learn Campaign Type:  Graph/Visual Category:  Equitable instructional materials and policies School Closures Infographic Series In May 2013, the OTL Campaign launched a series of infographics exposing the harmful effects of mass school closures, including the disparate impact they have on und

by jocelyn / 3d 

Excellent Teachers for Each and Every Child: A Guide for State Policy

Publication Date:  Fri, 2014-05-09 Type:  Policy Category:  Highly Effective Teachers Excellent Teachers for Each and Every Child A groundbreaking new OTL Campaign policy guide provides state lawmakers and education advocates with a blueprint for practical changes to improve teaching quality in America — one of the most critical factors to support student succes

by jocelyn / 3d 

MAY 06

New OTL Policy Guide on Early Care and Education

A new state policy guide from the Broader Bolder Approach to Education, the National Opportunity to Learn Campaign and Opportunity Action gives state policymakers a blueprint for developing better-coordinated, early support systems. New OTL State Policy Guide: High Quality Early Education Systems for Children & Families read more

by jocelyn / 6d 

5-13-14 The Whole Child Blog — Symposium Focuses on Educating Young People for Their Future, Not Our Past — Whole Child Education

Symposium Focuses on Educating Young People for Their Future, Not Our Past — Whole Child Education:

The Missing Piece of Personalization: Passion and Engagement

Personalization is quickly becoming a buzzword in education, especially in terms of blended learning and educational technology. I joined a team of educators on a panel on the same subject on the Whole Child Podcast. We unpacked what it is and what it might look like in the classroom. We talked about its challenges and benefits and collaborated to explain its implications for education. Most impor

by Andrew Miller / 10min 

THE WHOLE CHILD BLOG

Symposium Focuses on Educating Young People for Their Future, Not Our Past

May 13, 2014 by Whole Child Symposium

The decisions we make today—for our systems, our schools, and our classrooms—will affect what all of our tomorrows will look like. This past week, ASCD hosted its inaugural Whole Child Symposium Liveevent at the Newseum in Washington, D.C. For three hours attendees—leading education leaders, U.S. congressional staff, and various ASCD constituents—listened to ASCD CEO and Executive Director Dr. Gene R. Carter and a panel of education experts discuss global education policies, processes, and practices and the influences on children, societies, and economies in the future. This discussion, led by ASCD Whole Child Programs Director Sean Slade, was focused more globally and on long-term problems, challenges, and solutions. Panelists addressed three key driving questions:

• How will decisions made by policymakers today determine what our youth and societies become?
• What do we as a society risk by abdicating the decision-making process or, at worst, not being aware that the wheels are in motion?
• At a fundamental level, what do we want our youth, our children, and our societies to become, and what decisions must be made to get us there?

Panelists included Charles Haynes, director of the Religious Freedom Education Project at the Newseum;David Osher, American Institutes for Research (AIR) vice president, AIR Institute fellow, and co-director of Symposium Focuses on Educating Young People for Their Future, Not Our Past — Whole Child Education:

5-12-14 The Whole Child Blog — Whole Child Education

Not Worried About the EOG — Whole Child Education: THE WHOLE CHILD BLOGNot Worried About the EOGMay 12, 2014 by Steven WeberAcross the United States, students have started test prep. Students march through test packet after test packet with the goal of increasing test scores on a standardized test. In North Carolina, all elementary schools administer the End-of-Grade (EOG) Test. The test is a stan

by mike simpson / 4h 

NYC Educator: What About the Kids?

NYC Educator: What About the Kids?:

What About the Kids?

With all this talk about how awful this contract is for us, it seems a good time to take a look at how it will benefit the students we serve. After all, the Daily News is interviewing legal expert Campbell Brown again. Of course, she and whoever pays for her to do whatever it is she does are only interested in firing as many teachers as possible. Will this contract do that?

Well, the city seems to be sending out signals it will divest itself of ATR teachers. Union says it won't happen, and that the one-day 3020a process will be "fast and fair." Only time will tell who's right, what with it never having been tested. It will be a tough day for those who get fined thousands of dollars, as are most, and an even tougher day for those who are fired. Since reformy folks are happy to fire teachers indiscriminately so as to cripple the last bastion of vibrant unionism in these United States, their ideas don't help anyone except those who line their pockets as a result.

So what about our students? Will the new PROSE feature, the one that lets teachers dump the contract in the trash and do whatever for a five-year stretch, help them? Will charter lite be the salvation of our young people? Honestly, I doubt it. Since the secret to all those schools who send 100% of their students to four-year colleges is to get rid of each and every student who wouldn't graduate, I don't see how they do that. Unless, of course, some school wishes to change its contract to take all the rejects from the school in the next town. Can public schools juke the stats as well as charters? Odds are they can't.

And what about class size? I teach two double-period classes right now. One has 14 students and the other has 32. Guess which kids I can give more time to. The NYC class size has been 34 since I started teaching in 1984. This contract continues our proud tradition of doing absolutely NYC Educator: What About the Kids?:

Separate and Unequal 60 Years After “Brown v. Board” | janresseger

Separate and Unequal 60 Years After “Brown v. Board” | janresseger:

Separate and Unequal 60 Years After “Brown v. Board”

Posted on May 13, 2014 by janresseger

ProPublica has published Segregation Now, an in-depth history of school integration and re-segregation in Tuscaloosa, Alabama.  The experience of Tuscaloosa is a microcosm of the history of the South’s experiment with school integration and the slippage from that goal when, in the 1990s, the U.S. Supreme Court released school districts from their court orders and accelerated its move away from support for voluntary school integration and affirmative action.

It is clear in Tuscaloosa’s story—and evident all across America this week, as on Saturday, May 17th, we mark the 60th anniversary of the U.S. Supreme Court’s decision in Brown v Board of Education—that once courts release communities in the South from their court orders, re-segregation becomes inevitable.  Deeply segregated northern cities and their rings of suburbs follow a similar path.  According to the Civil Rights Project at UCLA, the most segregated schools in the nation for black and Latino students are in New York.

In Tuscaloosa, according to ProPublica, since 2000, decisions have been made and deals cut to build new schools in white neighborhoods to attract families back from private schools, but the promises for greater investment in the schools of the black neighborhoods have been broken and abandoned.  “The night the Tuscaloosa school board voted to split up the old Central, board member Bryan Handler pledged that there would be no winners and losers.  Yet while Northridge (high school in the white neighborhood) offered students a dozen Separate and Unequal 60 Years After “Brown v. Board” | janresseger:

Help us, people of Newark | Bob Braun's Ledger

Help us, people of Newark | Bob Braun's Ledger:

Help us, people of Newark

                This is not a burden they asked for, or even want, but, today, the voters of Newark go to the polls to decide the possible future of both public education and democracy as we now know them both to be.  The race has become bigger than a contest between  Ras Baraka and Shavar Jeffries.  It has become a question of whether people or money count the most  in determining policy of any sort, especially education policy. It also is a turning point in considering just what it means to be a Democrat or a progressive or a liberal. No longer are the predominantly poor and minority residents in the cross-hairs of crazy, right-wing Republicans who are either hostile or indifferent.  Now the poor must worry more about those with “liberal” credentials who would pretend they care and they know better and, because they do (and have the money to prove it), they will tell the poor how to act, how to behave, what to believe.

            Two masterful pieces of writing appeared yesterday that proved the point. The New Yorker article by Dale Russakoff,  “A Test for School Reform in Newark,” demonstrated beyond doubt that the children of the city were unwillingly and unwittingly–and secretly– chosen for an experiment in school reform. The secret use of children as social engineering guinea pigs was a conscious and deliberate decision by Cory Booker—and whoever his backers are, because we don’t know—and a handful of other people, using tens of millions of dollars of private money. The greatest irony is that, while many of us blamed Gov. Chris Christie for the debacle in Newark, the blame really lies with Booker and his billionaire accomplices. Booker brought Christie into the mix and used old friends Christopher Cerf and Cami Anderson as the enforcers.

                The other piece has a more narrow scope but, in some ways, is even more Help us, people of Newark | Bob Braun's Ledger:

Shanker Blog » Can Early Language Development Promote Children's Psychological Wellbeing?

Shanker Blog » Can Early Language Development Promote Children's Psychological Wellbeing?:

Can Early Language Development Promote Children’s Psychological Wellbeing?

Posted by Esther Quintero on May 13, 2014

We know oral language is young children’s door into the world of knowledge and ideas, the foundation for reading, and the bedrock of all academic learning. But, can language also protect young kids against behavioral problems?

A number of studies have identified a co-occurrence of language delays and behavioral maladjustment, an association that remains after controlling for socio-demographic characteristics and academic achievement (here andhere). However, most research on the issue has been cross-sectional and correlational making it hard to establish whether behavioral issues cause language delays, language delays cause behavioral issues, or another factor is responsible for both.

A recent paper by Marc Bornstein, Chun-Shin Hahn, and Joan Suwalsky (2013) was able to shed some light on these questions concluding that “language competencies in early childhood keep behavioral adjustment problems at bay.” This is important given the fact that minority children raised in poverty tend to have smaller than average vocabularies and are also overrepresented in pre-K expulsions and suspensions.

Bornstein, Hahn, and Suwalsky examined several competing explanations using path analysis, a statistical method used to determine whether or not a data set fits well with a previously specified causal model. Path analysis is not intended to prove a causal relationship (although it can disprove one), but it illuminates chains of influence (or the sequence in which several dependent variables may shape a dependent measure).

The study analyzed two longitudinal cohorts of children looking at developmental pathways between children’s language skills and their behavioral adjustment in terms of internalizing (e.g., withdrawal, anxiety, self-consciousness, shyness) and externalizing (e.g., defiance, impulsivity, disruptiveness, aggression) behavior problems. The authors found strong evidence that weak early childhood language skills can predict later internalizing behavior problems.

The general cascading pattern observed in both cohorts indicated that language proficiency in early childhood affected behavioral adjustment in late childhood, which in turn contributed to behavioral adjustment in early adolescence. Framed in the positive, young children who are more competent verbally have fewer internalizing behavior problems later.

Links between language skills and behavior issues were documented, even after controlling for broad individual and Shanker Blog » Can Early Language Development Promote Children's Psychological Wellbeing?:

5-12-14 Education Opportunity Network

Education Opportunity Network:

5/13/2014 – Who Betrayed Brown?

May 13, 2014 Subscribe THIS WEEK: Scale Pre-K Legislation … Teaching Grit Is Wrong … Digital Reading Harms Comprehension … Pisa Harms Education … Deep Learning TOP STORY Who Betrayed The Legacy Of Brown V. Board? By Jeff Bryant “60 years after Brown v. Board, what passes for advancements in civil rights is often grand gestures of ‘progress’ … that amount to empty symbolism, while more direct ha

by Jeff Bryant / 59min 

YESTERDAY

Who Betrayed The Legacy Of Brown V. Board?

So this one’s personal for me. The day they bused the poor kids to my school was the first time I’d ever come face to face with children my age who were so poor they weren’t properly clothed. It was the first time – in a society where I saw separate water fountains for blacks and whites, and the black maid who helped my mom around the house explained to us she wasn’t allowed to use the dressing ro

2 by Jeff Bryant / 1d 

MAY 07

5/7/2014 – Charter Schools Fail

May 7, 2014 Subscribe THIS WEEK: US Teachers Lack Diversity … Scary Common Core Cut Scores… Common Core vs. Real Issues … Funding For Higher Ed Not Recovering … Young Workers Face Tough Climb TOP STORY Charter Schools Fail: New Reports Call Their ‘Magic’ Into Question By Jeff Bryant “In today’s climate of trumped up political truisms … the supposed necessity of charter schools is just the lates

10 by Jeff Bryant / 5d hide  //  save

Charter Schools Fail: New Reports Call Their ‘Magic’ Into Question

When members of the U.S. House of Representatives consider, beginning today, a bill to incentivize the expansion of charter schools, you can expect there to be a lot of heat but not very much light in their discussion of the need for more of these institutions. The bipartisan bill, HR 10, is “likely to pass,” according to the experienced observers at Education Week. And “amid lots of cross-aisle f

200+ by Jeff Bryant / 5d 

5-12-14 Ed Notes Online

Ed Notes Online:

UFT Contract: MORE Talks Business While Unity Goes Into Hiding

Since the Unity slugs aren't willing to hold a conversation about the contract, MORE is going to do so. Which would you rather attend? A one-way filibuster at a Unity/UFT sponsored borough meeting - while your school is getting a visitor from the UFT who will also filibuster in your school while leaving a few minutes for you to ask questions - or a MORE event?Really, you should check out some of t

by ed notes online / 2h 

5-11-14 Ed Notes Online

Ed Notes Online: UFT Contract: Secretaries Ask MORE for Help After Mulgrew Ignores PleasMulgrew being handed requestsDear Mr. Scott,The secretaries of the UFT have been working under a 1979 contract. Some of the secretaries put together an outline of requests to up date our duties, title and protections against out of license employees being put in our positions. They have not opened up the test o

by mike simpson / 7h 

Mother Crusader: A Look Inside What $2M DFER Dollars Is Buying In Newark

Mother Crusader: A Look Inside What $2M DFER Dollars Is Buying In Newark:

A Look Inside What $2M DFER Dollars Is Buying In Newark

As I detailed last week, Democrats for Education Reform(DFER) spawn Education Reform Now (ERN) dumped over 2 million dollars into the Super PAC called Newark First to defeat unabashed public education supporter, Ras Baraka.

I thought it would be interesting to see what kind of bang ERN is getting for their $2 million bucks, so let's look at how the money is being spent.

In the Election Law Enforcement Commission (ELEC) filings expenses are broken down as either 'Support Jeffries' or 'Oppose Baraka'. So here is a breakdown of the expenditures of the Newark First Super PAC, between April 1 and May 5.

It is no surprise that almost one-quarter of the money went to opposing Baraka, and that the vast majority of the money has gone to incessant TV ads. What did come as a bit of a surprise was that over $300,000 has been spent thus far on "field services."

All of the entries for "field services" are paid out to "Block by Block". Their website states they provide "safety, cleaning, hospitality and outreach solutions for Downtown Improvement Districts". 

Block by Block does indeed have a presence in Newark. 

Newark Downtown District

Block by Block is pleased to once again be working with the Newark Downtown District to be part of the great things happening in downtown Newark. Block by Block will be providing the organization, structure, and support toMother Crusader: A Look Inside What $2M DFER Dollars Is Buying In Newark:

 

Good teaching, poor test scores: Doubt cast on grading teachers by student performance - The Washington Post

Good teaching, poor test scores: Doubt cast on grading teachers by student performance - The Washington Post:

Good teaching, poor test scores: Doubt cast on grading teachers by student performance

In the first large-scale analysis of new systems that evaluate teachers based partly on student test scores, two researchers found little or no correlation between quality teaching and the appraisals teachers received.

The study, published Tuesday in Educational Evaluation and Policy Analysis, a peer-reviewed journal of the American Educational Research Association, is the latest in a growing body of research that has cast doubt on whether it is possible for states to use empirical data in identifying good and bad teachers.

“The concern is that these state tests and these measures of evaluating teachers don’t really seem to be associated with the things we think of as defining good teaching,” said Morgan S. Polikoff, an assistant professor of education at the Rossier School of Education at the University of Southern California. He worked on the analysis with Andrew C. Porter, dean and professor of education at the Graduate School of Education at the University of Pennsylvania.

The number of states using teacher-evaluation systems based in part on student test scores has surged during the past five years. Many states and school districts are using the evaluation systems to make personnel decisions about hirings, firings and compensation.

The rapid adoption has been propelled by the Obama administration, which made the teacher-evaluation systems a requirement for any state that wanted to compete for Race to the Top grant money or receive a waiver from the most onerous demands of No Child Left Behind, the 2002 federal education law.

Thirty-five states and the District of Columbia require student achievement to be a “significant” or the “most significant” factor in teacher evaluations. Just 10 states do not require student test scores to be used in teacher evaluations.

Most states are using “value-added models” — or VAMs — which are statistical algorithms designed to figure out how much teachers contribute to their students’ learning, holding constant factors such as demographics.

Polikoff and Porter analyzed a subsample of 327 fourth- and eighth-grade mathematics and English-language-arts teachers across six school districts in New York, Dallas, Denver, Good teaching, poor test scores: Doubt cast on grading teachers by student performance - The Washington Post: