7-2-14 Wait What? - Jonathan Pelto: Gubernatorial Candidate and A Really Nice Guy

Wait What?:

Wait What? 

Pelto to Union Leaders: Do the Ends Justify the Means?

Released to the media earlier today…. TheService Employees International Union has issued a press advisory that they “will make an important announcement at noon at SEIU 1199 New England Headquarters, 77 Huyshope Avenue, Hartford Malloy and Wyman are listed as attending. Although the SEIU’s leadership informed Jonathan Pelto, the gubernatorial candidate for the Education and Democracy […] The post

by jonpelto / 13min 

CT Post Editorial: A long-overdue step on charters

The Connecticut Post has published a powerful editorial about the Jumoke/FUSE charter school debacle and the Malloy Administration’s failure to properly oversee the growing charter school industry in Connecticut. Governor Dannel “Dan” Malloy, his Commissioner of Education, Stefan Pryor, and Pryor’s minions of charter school allies are diverting tens of millions of taxpayer dollars to […] The post

13 by jonpelto / 2h 

7-1-14 Wait What? - Jonathan Pelto: Gubernatorial Candidate and A Really Nice Guy

Wait What?: Wait What? The battle against the corporate education reform industry takes center stageCharter School Scandal Continues to Rock Malloy Administration… However, rather than conduct a truly independent investigation into the fall of the Jumoke/FUSE charter school management company, Governor Malloy’s Commissioner of Education and his political appointees on the State Board of Education

by mike simpson / 6h 

7-2-14 Answer Sheet

Answer Sheet:

What you know about July 4th is wrong

You learned in school about what happened in July 1776, and think you have a good handle on events surrounding American independence from Great Britain. Right? Well, if you think that was the day that America’s independence was declared by the Continental Congress meeting in Philadelphia, you are wrong. And if you think that that […]

by Valerie Strauss / 3h 

7-1-14 Answer Sheet

Answer Sheet: How to increase socioeconomic diversity in collegeLeaders in higher education have known for many years that low-income students are underrepresented at top institutions. How to change that? Catharine B. Hill, the president of Vassar College in New York, writes in this post about the only way that colleges and universities can expand socioeconomic diversity. By Catharine B. Hill As c

by mike simpson / 6h 

7-2-14 Schools Matter All Week

Schools Matter:

Join Me at the Rise Above The Mark Kokomo Show, July 17th

By Doug MartinI will be in Kokomo on the Rise Above the Mark after-movie panel on July 17 at the South Branch of the Kokomo library.  I will be signing copies of Hoosier School Heist from 4:30 to 5:30pm.  Here is the press release.  Please share this far and wide and follow me on twitter: FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE, July 1, 2014 RISE ABOVE THE MARK, DOCUMENTARY FILM DETAILING THE ATTACK ON INDIANA'S P

51 by Doug Martin / 3h 

7-1-14 Schools Matter All Week

Schools Matter: A bad way to rate teachersSent to the Wall Street Journal, July 1, 2014Contrary to Eric Hanushek's statement ("How Teachers Unions Use 'Common Core' to Undermine Reform," June 30), there is no movement by anybody to "eliminate school accountability and teacher evaluations." There is a movement to eliminate the use of standardized test score gains to evaluate tea

by mike simpson / 8h 

7-2-14 @ The Chalk Face

@ THE CHALK FACE:

White, BESE “Special Counsel” Subject to Attorney General Approval

If I learned anything from the July 01, 2014 BESE meeting, it is that Louisiana State Superintendent John White has latched onto the word clarity. Not that he offers any. Just that he spewed the word numerous times in the meeting. What is “clear” is that White is situating a lawsuit against Governor Bobby Jindal. To do […]

1 by deutsch29 / 1h 

My Children, and Their Teachers, are Guilty

The following is a guest post from New Mexico parent, Wendy Small. Let me start by telling you that my children are guilty. Guilty of being born to middle class–not wealthy–parents, guilty of having special needs, guilty of being the kind of poor test takers who falsely convict their teachers of being bad at their […]

1 by Kris Nielsen / 4min 

Fred Klonsky is correct about the #NEARA14

Says the retired teacher on his website: Yesterday NEA Board of Director from Illinois, Jim Grimes, told us that the leadership would present two New Business Items (NBIs) to the delegates.   One addresses the issue of the use and misuse of standardized testing.   The other one will call on local and state affiliates […]

by Shaun Johnson / 24min 

7-1-14 @ The Chalk Face

@ THE CHALK FACE: A Lovely Review of David Greene’s Néw BookA Lovely Review of David Greene’s Néw Book.1 by David Greene / 6min 6-30-14 @ The Chalk Face@ THE CHALK FACE: Media Has No Idea What Special Education Is (Guest Post)Guest Post by Jessica S. Martinez, in response to a recent editorial in the Albuquerque Journal. Once again, the Albuquerque Journal Editorial Board has placed its ignorance

by mike simpson / 7h 

7-2-14 the becoming radical | A Place for a Pedagogy of Kindness (the public and scholarly writing by P. L. Thomas, Furman University)

the becoming radical | A Place for a Pedagogy of Kindness (the public and scholarly writing by P. L. Thomas, Furman University):

Schneider’s Ten Reform Claims: A Reader

Jack Schneider’s Ten Reform Claims That Teachers Should Know How to Challenge provides a powerful framework for educators to mobilize our much needed roles as teachers for the wider public. I want here to use his ten claims as a basis for providing support for anticipating and then challenging the flawed claims and policies coming from the reform movement, primarily driven by political leadership

1 by plthomasedd / 22min 

7-1-14 the becoming radical | A Place for a Pedagogy of Kindness (the public and scholarly writing by P. L. Thomas, Furman University)

the becoming radical | A Place for a Pedagogy of Kindness (the public and scholarly writing by P. L. Thomas, Furman University): Welcome to the Oligarchy: The U.S. Needs a New MythologyAn oligarchy exists when power rests with a very few. The U.S. was founded as a rejection of the sort of oligarchy in which royalty (the accident of birth) determined power—although that movement was driven mostly b

by mike simpson / 4h 

7-2-14 Curmudgucation

CURMUDGUCATION:

To Tim Elmore: Here's What You're Missing

At Growing Leaders, Tim Elmore ends his column "The Cost of Bad Teachers," with a question: "Am I missing something here?"Yes, Tim, you are. I will, as you request, try to talk to you.You lead off with a pair of questions:Can you imagine a world where doctors, who are simply pitiful at practicing medicine, get to keep their jobs as physicians? Or where CEO's, who can't lead a c

11 by Peter Greene / 42min 

PARCC Is in Trouble

This story has been emerging in bits and pieces and being reported on as parts of other stories, but it deserves to be mentioned many places, because it has the potential to wreak some serious havoc in this coming school year.Last year, Pearson won the contract to develop the PARCC test. This may have been because Pearson was the only bidder, and that may have been the case because the contract wa

36 by Peter Greene / 2h 

7-1-14 Curmudgucation

CURMUDGUCATION: Brown Presents NY Lawsuit Talking PointsIn the June 24 NY Daily News, Campbell Brown presented the basic talking points for the newly-manufactured NY road show version of the Vergara trial. Here we go.A Stirring AnecdoteHer story centers on the Williams familyOne of their children... felt so strongly about the lack of instruction she was getting at her Rochester school that she wro

by mike simpson / 8h 

7-2-14 Perdido Street School

Perdido Street School:

Zephyr Teachout Says She Has 25,000+ Ballot Signatures To Take On Cuomo In Dem Primary

From Buffalo News:ALBANY – A Fordham law professor seeking to challenge Gov. Andrew Cuomo in a Democratic primary says she has obtained 25,100 signatures as of today in her bid to get on the Sept. 9 ballot – nearly double the minimum amount needed.Zephyr Teachout said an army of volunteers and paid canvassers have been working the state the past month gathering signatures from Democrats at public

by reality-based edu... / 32min 

Great News - New Walcott Health Data Coming!

Earlier this week, former NYCDOE chancellor Dennis Walcott released the results of his latest physical in the Daily News - an event that I covered in a post called Dennis Walcott Needs To Just Go The ---- Away!Here's a bit of Walcott's piece:My annual physical checkup — I just got the results — yielded the following comparisons to last year’s findings: Weight down from 152 to 148 lbs.; HDL (“good

by reality-based edu... / 11min 

Quinnipiac Poll: Obama Worst President Since WWII

Heckuva job, Barry;A new Quinnipiac poll finds President Obama is the worst president since World War II.Key findings: 33% of American voters say Obama is the worst while another 28% pick George W. BushCongratulations, dude  - you've beaten out George W., ht eman who brought us the Katrina response and the Iraq war mess, as worst president since WWII.That's a heckuva an accomplishment.

by reality-based edu... / 27min 

Michael Rebell On The Irony Of Campbell Brown

From State of Politics:Michael Rebell, a veteran education advocate, expressed doubt during an interview on CapTon last night that an effort to duplicate the results of a California lawsuit that overturned teacher tenure laws in that state will be equally successful here in New York.... Rebell was co-counsel for the plaintiffs in the Campaign for Fiscal Equity case, which successfully maintained t

by reality-based edu... / 43min hide  //  save

De Blasio Signs Bill Requiring Charter Schools To Report Data

From Daily Politics: Mayor de Blasio signed a bill Tuesday to require the city to publish reports detailing the demographics and academic records of all charter schools co-located with traditional public schools. Officials will have to spell out the number of kids who get free lunch, proportion of kids learning English and special education students, racial breakdown, and test scores at the school

by reality-based edu... / 2h 

7-1-14 Perdido Street School

Perdido Street School: RIP: Frank CashenFrom the Daily News:Frank Cashen, a one-time Baltimore sportswriter-turned-baseball man who presided over championship Oriole teams in the ’60s and ’70s and then, as general manager of the Mets, was the architect of their 1986 world championship team with a series of inspired trades for Keith Hernandez, Gary Carter, Ron Darling and Bobby Ojeda, among others,

by mike simpson / 8h 

Why schools’ efforts to block the Internet are so laughably lame | Hechinger Report

Why schools’ efforts to block the Internet are so laughably lame | Hechinger Report:

Why schools’ efforts to block the Internet are so laughably lame

By Annie Murphy Paul

This story also appeared at:

As schools around the country have rolled out one-to-one computer initiatives, handing out tablets and laptops to their students, a sour note has often intruded on the triumphant fanfare heralding these programs. Within days, even hours, of the devices’ distribution, their young users have figured out how to circumvent the filters meant to block access to games, social networking, and other non-educational activities (not to mention offensive or inappropriate content).

In Greenwood, Ind., hundreds of students managed to reprogram their school-issued tablets on the same day they received them. In Los Angeles, where the school district has begun giving out a planned 600,000 i-Pads, entrepreneurial students sold a workaround to classmates for $2 a pop. And in Cherry Hill, N.J., a middle school pupil had a ready answer when his father, Thom McKay, asked him how he got on Facebook even though his school had banned it. ”Pretty easy, Dad,” his son replied, as quoted in The New York Times. ”Don’t be an idiot. We know more about computers than the teachers do.”

Even as students are reveling in their ability to evade their schools’ Internet blocks, teachers are growing frustrated that they can’t get around those same firewalls (perhaps confirming the middle schooler’s acerbic observation). Educators’ online forums and Twitter accounts are filled with complaints that inflexible filters prevent them from using computers in creative and innovative ways in their classrooms. YouTube videos of famous speeches, Skype conversations with experts outside the school, collaborative tools that would allow students to annotate a shared text: access to such resources is cut off, teachers lament, by heavy-handed Internet controls.

School librarians, too, have joined the fray, mounting a moral crusade against the filters. The American Association of School Librarians (AASL) has named an annual “Banned Websites Why schools’ efforts to block the Internet are so laughably lame | Hechinger Report:

Stiglitz: Inequality Is Not Inevitable | janresseger

Stiglitz: Inequality Is Not Inevitable | janresseger:

Stiglitz: Inequality Is Not Inevitable

Posted on July 2, 2014 by janresseger

The NY Times just ended an eighteen month series of commentaries on its opinion pages about economic inequality,  The Great Divide, moderated by the Nobel prize-winning economist, Joseph Stiglitz.  I urge you to read the final column in this series, in which Stiglitz declares,Inequality is Not Inevitable.

That economic inequality matters to educational outcomes in public schools has been conclusively demonstrated in research by Stanford University’s Sean Reardon, who has shown that in America we are increasingly raising our children in schools where all the children are poor or schools where all the children are rich, with fewer economically diverse communities where children from a range of incomes are educated together.  School achievement has come to track this growing residential segregation by economics, with poor children lagging farther behind as wealthy children leap ahead.  Here is a summary of Reardon’s research:

1. By 2009 the proportion of families in major metropolitan areas living in either very poor or very affluent neighborhoods had increased—to 33 percent (from 15 percent in 1970) and the proportion of families living in middle income neighborhoods had declined to 42 percent in 2009 (from 65 percent in 1970), with increased segregation at both ends of the income distribution.  Both high-and low-income families became increasingly residentially isolated in the 2000s, resulting in greater polarization of neighborhoods by income.
2. Income segregation has grown significantly over four decades for black and Hispanic families, but particularly in the years since 2000.  While income inequality among black families did not grow significantly Stiglitz: Inequality Is Not Inevitable | janresseger:

NYC Educator: My Final Adventure at the Prestigious Private School

NYC Educator: My Final Adventure at the Prestigious Private School:

My Final Adventure at the Prestigious Private School

 By special guest blogger Nouveaux Pauvres


One afternoon the very troubled boy who had butlers and drivers and also had the disturbing habit of throwing himself on the floor I guess got bored with the pizza and the movies. So he took a plastic bag, put it over his head, and then started tying a knot. Two other adults were in the room with me while this happened. Neither of them blinked an eye. I freaked out, screamed and ripped the bag off his head. I then suggested that his parents know about this. “Oh no we can’t tell them.” Then the owner said I needed to “calm down.” “He’s just playing,” she said. I pointed out that this “playing” could have killed him, and had he gotten hurt, I would have been responsible. “Well, that’s why you’re here,” she said cheerfully.

The owner had a very relaxed attitude towards everything but teachers talking to parents. If we even hinted we wanted that, she freaked out. But about other things, she was blasé. One day I was working on the SAT course and I walked upstairs. A girl was crying hysterically on the floor. What happened? Two boys had picked her up and smashed her head into the wall. The secretary sighed. “We can’t tell the parents about this,” she said.

Anyway as the week wore on I worked more and more on the SAT online course. The person who worked with me on it told me flatly that he was leaving at the end of the month. Finally by the end of last week I had worked enough that there was a semblance of an online SAT course. The owner thanked me, then sheepishly told me some “bad news.” “We had very low enrollment so … “ She didn’t have to say any more. I knew that NYC Educator: My Final Adventure at the Prestigious Private School:

Louisiana Educator: BESE Fails

Louisiana Educator: BESE Fails:

BESE Fails

I and many other educators and parents attended the BESE meeting Tuesday to watch BESE members and Superintendent White attempt to deal with the combination of curve balls and spit balls thrown at them by Governor Jindal. Instead of a ball game, it turned out to be a circus that lasted 6 hours and it was not entertaining. If our public education classrooms were run this way, teachers would all be fired. Thank goodness the education of our children does not really depend on the erratic behavior of BESE, White and Jindal. For a somewhat salacious and entertaining account of the meeting read the Crazy Crawfish blog here. Also, Mercedes Schneider gives you the big picture pointing out that a legal decision in New Mexico may affect PARCC in Louisiana.

After the meeting, I spoke to a long time educator, local superintendent, and legislator (Mr Rogers Pope from Livingston Parish) who also attended the entire punishing meeting. He said that it is fortunate that no matter what BESE, White, and Jindal do, our teachers will be hard at work in a few weeks teaching their students in an effective manner and helping to prepare their students for life and careers just as they have always done. . . . . despite the higher powers over education who think they are soooooo important.

Bill Gates, Arne Duncan, BESE and John White have the grandiose belief that all the silly rules they make, and all the hoops they devise for teachers and school principals to jump through really make a difference in the education of young people. They believe that if they can just fine tune and standardize the curriculum for public schools, give parents "choice" with our tax dollars for sending their children to any private enterprise calling itself a school, and if they can make every teacher and every principal's job dependent on the standardized test scores of the students they teach, that magically all students will achieve above average on the tests and the battle will be won. What the architects of all Louisiana Educator: BESE Fails:

Russ on Reading: SCOTUS Sticks It to the Union

Russ on Reading: SCOTUS Sticks It to the Union:

SCOTUS Sticks It to the Union

We must all hang together, or assuredly we will all hang separately - Ben Franklin

The Supreme Court Ruling Monday inHarris v. Quinn played second fiddle to the ruling in the Hobby Lobby case in the media. While the Hobby Lobby contraceptive case was front page news in the New York Times, Harris v. Quinn didn't get a mention until page 12. The Harris case dealt with a few home health care workers insistence that they not be required to pay fees to their union. In 1977 the Court's ruling in Abood v. Detroit Board of Education established that public employees who benefit from the services of a union, such as collective bargaining agreements that improve their working conditions and salaries, must pay their "fair share" for such services even if they choose not to belong to the union. This "fair share" is typically known as an agency fee.

The Supreme Court struck down the 1977 law as it applies to these workers, citing their first amendment rights. According to the New York Times, "Justice Alito wrote that home health care workers who typically work for an ill or disabled person should be classified as partial public employees and should not be treated the same way as public schoolteachers..."

At first blush the ruling may appear to be a victory of sorts for teachers unions. Anti-labor groups were hoping the Court would strike down the 1977Abood ruling in its entirety, crippling all public employee unions by greatly Russ on Reading: SCOTUS Sticks It to the Union:

UPDATE: Complexities of Measuring Effectiveness | Connected Principals

Complexities of Measuring Effectiveness | Connected Principals:

Show Them Your Lighter Side

By Doug Hasler I was glancing through my Twitter feed this morning (yes, I am still around just not as loud) and a title caught my eye. “Principals are People 2” by Tony Sinanis.  His words soon had me reflecting about the evolution of my leadership style. At the start of my career I was very much the serious, cool demeanored, maybe even cold and stiff administrator.  Always solumn, never off guar

2 by Dave Meister / 36min 

Complexities of Measuring Effectiveness

by John Marschhausen • July 2, 2014 • 0 Comments

“What are the real 3rd grade guarantee numbers?”

“Why do the Ohio Department of Education and the district report different percentages? Are you trying to hide something?”

These are all quotes that have been directed in my direction –either in person or on social media –from community members about the reporting of 3rd grade reading assessments. These questions provide a great opportunity for conversations –meaningful, honest communications about accountability.

We need to talk about the multiple pathways to meet the requirements; one media outlet may report only OAA results while another takes into account alternative pathways to meet state requirements. As we look at raw data – data just released within the week – in our district we are looking at individual students. We have transient students that may, or may not, still reside in our district. We have ELL and special needs data to check and cross-check. Our students aren’t simply numbers; our data represents your children. While expedience is great for a story . . . we’re not in this business for the story. We are in the business of preparing students for success; this is complicated stuff. It can’t be summarized in a story, sound bite, or single post.

We all seek an easy to understand table, chart, or graph to show our school district’s performance. The media wants an info-graphic to show on the screen or post in the story. We want it to be simple, easy to understand, and straightforward.

Here is the problem . . . education is complex, challenging to measure, and impossible to show with a single measure. Each child in our care, every single student in our classrooms, is a unique person with different strengths, needs, and passions. Socioeconomic challenges, such as poverty, can greatly impact education – we partner, support, and engage our families to maximize educational opportunities. There is no single test to measure every student; there is no single instructional Complexities of Measuring Effectiveness | Connected Principals: