Oakland Teachers Struggle to Get Help for Kids Fleeing Violence | The California Report | KQED News

Oakland Teachers Struggle to Get Help for Kids Fleeing Violence | The California Report | KQED News:

Oakland Teachers Struggle to Get Help for Kids Fleeing Violence

Unaccompanied minors fleeing violence in Central America are still arriving to live with family members or guardians in communities across California, while they wait for their court dates to find out if they can stay in this country. In fact, the numbers of children being detained at the U.S.-Mexico border has more than doubled in October and November compared with a year ago.

In California, Los Angeles County has the largest number of these kids, and Alameda County is next. A steady stream of newcomers in Oakland has now filled all four of the school district’s high school newcomer programs to capacity.

In her first-period ethnic studies class for newcomers, Castlemont High School teacher Carrie Haslanger goes over how to communicate feelings in English.

“Scared. Repítelo: scared,” she says. The class repeats the word. “Very good. ¿Y cómo se dice poderoso en ingles? Powerful.”

Of the 10 students in this class, eight arrived just last week, from Guatemala, El Salvador and Honduras. For the other two, it’s their very first day. Then, halfway through the class, three more students show up. Haslanger receives them with a smile.

“Yes, more students, great! Bienvenidos,” she says.

Close to 500 Central American students seeking refuge enrolled in Oakland schools since the district started tracking them in June 2013. The newcomer program at Castlemont High School was set up just this year, because three other high schools with newcomer programs were full. The district expected 100 new arrivals to enroll at Castlemont throughout the year, but the program was at capacity before winter break. Oakland Unified just announced four new teacher positions for newcomers and is looking at where to enroll new high school students Oakland Teachers Struggle to Get Help for Kids Fleeing Violence | The California Report | KQED News:

Teacher: Why I burned out and what I did about it - The Washington Post

Teacher: Why I burned out and what I did about it - The Washington Post:

Teacher: Why I burned out and what I did about it

Jackie Parrish is a retired teacher who spent 30 years in the same inner-city school in Philadelphia. She has certification in elementary education, secondary mathematics and is a reading specialist. She wrote in the following post about her two episodes with burnout — a not infrequent condition for teachers, especially today when they are under new pressures. This post, which I am publishing with permission, appeared on The Educator’s Room website.

By Jackie Parrish

Burnout occurs often in the field of teaching. Rarely does it have anything to do with the children that we teach. Usually, it has to do with decisions made by non-teachers and the ever-increasing paperwork that comes with those decisions.

I went through two burnouts during my teaching career. I survived one and continued teaching for many years afterward. The second burnout resulted in my early retirement. I am sharing them with you so that you know that you are not alone.

My first burnout occurred at the beginning of my 10th year of teaching. My district was headed into the second major strike of my career and I was my sole support. The strike was about the same old thing – benefits, pay increases, and class size. My district had the highest class size in my part of the state and they wanted to increase it to 35 students. We never had enough supplies or books for the class size we already had so an increase would have been a nightmare. I felt that I couldn’t continue teaching much longer under these circumstances, but I also knew that I couldn’t just up and quit. I needed a plan.

[Why teachers can’t have ‘normal’ lives]

Phase 1 of my plan was to find ways to reduce my stress while teaching. I began walking every work day until I was up to almost two miles a day. I decided that a new hobby might help so I enrolled in a Czech beading class at a local junior college. Creating jewelry using seed beads got my creative juices Teacher: Why I burned out and what I did about it - The Washington Post:

CURMUDGUCATION: CAP: More Silly CCSS PR Polling

CURMUDGUCATION: CAP: More Silly CCSS PR Polling:

CAP: More Silly CCSS PR Polling

In an era in which even Jeb Bush has stopped saying the name out loud, no group has cheered harder for the Common Core than the Center for American Progress (theoretically left-leaning holding pen for interregnum Clinton staffers). No argument is too dumb, no data set too ridiculous. If that dog won't hunt, CAP ties a rope around its neck and drags it.

So it's no surprise that CAP is back with yet another Pubic Policy Polling poll announced with the breathless headline "NEW POLL: WHEN NEW YORKERS SEE SPECIFIC COMMON CORE STANDARDS, THEY SUPPORT THE COMMON CORE." Partnering up on this raft of ridiculousness is High Achievement New York, a coalition of business groups like the Business Council of New York State and reformster groups like StudentsFirstNY.

The poll, found here in its entirety, is as fine an example of scrambled thinking used to fuel PR as you'll find anywhere. In the world of polling, there are two types of polls-- a poll that seeks to find out what people are really thinking, and a poll that tries to make it look like people are thinking what I want them to think. This would be the second type of poll.

There are twenty-two questions that cover basically three areas.

Math and ELA Standards

This is the basis for the headline, and it would make an excellent exercise in critical thinking for sixth graders. Here's the format. The pollster says, "I'm going to read you a list of possible language arts standards for 4th grade students, and then ask if you support or oppose students learning that 

Plunderbund: Takeover of the Youngstown City Schools

Plunderbund:

Youngstown Cabinet Kept Meetings Secret While ODE Superintendent Dick Ross Developed Takeover Plan

by Greg on December 22, 2015 · 0 Comments

Over the past two days, we’ve revealed how emails and documents released by the Ohio Department of Education (ODE) directly link outgoing State Superintendent Dick Ross to the creation of a Youngstown Cabinet that worked to enact a takeover of the Youngstown City Schools via the hijacking of House Bill 70.

The Youngstown Cabinet intentionally kept their membership a secret while Ross and ODE crafted the plans.  Not until after the bill was swiftly passed (in a single day) did they finally reveal their existence.  Minutes from the April and May meetings were released months ago that […]

Full Story... →

Evidence Directly Links ODE Superintendent Dick Ross To Creation Of Youngstown Schools “Cabinet”

on December 21, 2015 by Greg

We reported yesterday that emails and documents released by ODE tie Dick Ross directly to the formation of the Youngstown Schools “cabinet” that eventually led to the takeover of the Youngstown City Schools, despite his testimony to the State Board of Education that the committee merely came to him for advice.  More emails and documents continue to defy those claims, showing that Dick Ross was part of a very small group that began the process and initiated the formation of the cabinet and its members.

A follow-up phone call occurred on September 27 with even fewer individuals than […]

Full Story... →

EXCLUSIVE: Emails & Documents Show Kasich, Ross Led Plan To Takeover Youngstown

on December 20, 2015 by Greg

In July, after the state legislature passed a bill to change the process for Academic Distress Commissions, leading to a state takeover of the Youngstown City School District, Dick Ross told the State Board of Education that the plan was not his, was not led by the Ohio Department of Education (ODE), and that “It came from Youngstown.  I provided assistance.”

Recently released emails and documents from ODE show that Ross actually did substantially more than that, collaborating with Governor Kasich’s office on a plan to overtake Youngstown and being intimately involved in the crafting of plans since […]

Full Story... →

Education Pendulum? No, Meat Grinder | the becoming radical

Education Pendulum? No, Meat Grinder | the becoming radical:

Education Pendulum? No, Meat Grinder

The irony of apt analogy is that when a comparison works it becomes overused, and thus, tossed eventually like so much waste in the cliché bin.

In education, possibly the most enduring metaphor is the education pendulum that represents the swings in educational policy since at least the beginning of the twentieth century.

However, the education pendulum metaphor represents the analogy that is enduring while also being horribly misleading; its power comes from the political and public misconceptions about education, in fact.

The education pendulum suggests relatively wide swings along a fixed continuum, one that implies an ideological left and right.

From historical examinations of education—such as Kliebard and Callahan—the evidence is overwhelming that U.S. public education committed in the first decades of the 1900s to efficiency and core knowledge, and schools have been governed within those ideologies (traditional, conservative) unto this day.

Progressivism, associated with John Dewey and vilified at mid-twentieth century, has only held weight in academia, but as Alfie Kohn carefully details, progressivism has never garnered any real value in official educational policy. Even when inklings of progressivism (such as whole language) have occurred, we have been left with “progressive in name only”; for example, when whole language was the official reading policy of California, the system failed whole language, but whole language did not fail students.

The only way to make the education pendulum analogy work is to envision the swing as minuscule, barely ticking back and forth along a technocratic continuum. Consider, for example, the pendulum swinging back and forth in fruitless pursuit of better tests between the SAT and ACT or between any state’s old high-stakes test and the new high-stakes test.

Here, then, in my home state of South Carolina, as I have documented before, educators in the state have been informed that due to the passing of new federal legislation, ESSA, State Education Pendulum? No, Meat Grinder | the becoming radical:

Educator and Education Blogger Steven Singer’s MUST READ commentary piece - Wait What?

Educator and Education Blogger Steven Singer’s MUST READ commentary piece - Wait What?:

Educator and Education Blogger Steven Singer’s MUST READ commentary piece

Pennsylvania educator and public school advocate Steven Singer is one of the most powerful voices in the nation when it comes to speaking out for students, parents, teachers and our public schools.

The tag line for Steven Singer’s blog is – “To sting people and whip them into a fury, all in the service of truth.”  In his latest commentary piece, Don’t Blame My Students For Society’s Ills, Singer provides a stunning assessment of the Corporate Education Reform Industry’s assault on public education.

Re-posted in its entirety below to ensure it is read by a broad audience,  you can also read and comment on the article at Singer’s blog: https://gadflyonthewallblog.wordpress.com/

Don’t Blame My Students For Society’s Ills

As a public school teacher, I see many things – a multiplicity of the untold and obscure.

On a daily basis, I see the effects of rampant poverty, ignorance and child abuse. I see prejudice, racism and classism. I see sexism, homophobia and religious intolerance.

And hardly any of it comes from my students.

Despite what some people might say in the media, on Facebook or at the local watering hole, the kids are all right. It’s what we, the adults, are doing to them that’s messed up.

It’s always been in fashion for grown-ups to trash the next generation. At least since Hesiod bemoaned the loss of the Golden Age, we’ve been looking at the current crop of youngsters waiting in the wings to replace us and found 

Educator and Education Blogger Steven Singer’s MUST READ commentary piece - Wait What?:

Cartoons about Winter Holidays–Families, Children, and Schools | Larry Cuban on School Reform and Classroom Practice

Cartoons about Winter Holidays–Families, Children, and Schools | Larry Cuban on School Reform and Classroom Practice:

Cartoons about Winter Holidays–Families, Children, and Schools

For this month with winter holidays upon the nation, I have gathered some cartoons that poke fun at what transpires in homes, schools, and Santa’s place. Enjoy!

See More @ Cartoons about Winter Holidays–Families, Children, and Schools | Larry Cuban on School Reform and Classroom Practice:

In Case You Missed It...(because yes, educators also work summers) - Lily's Blackboard

In Case You Missed It...(because yes, educators also work summers) - Lily's Blackboard:

In Case You Missed It...(because yes, educators also work summers)

In Case You Missed It…

Educators are busy people. Hard as we try to stay current with the latest education news and trends, we can’t keep track of everything. With 2015 coming to an end, here’s your chance to review this year’s most widely read items from NEA.org, NEAToday.org, and Lily’s Blackboard.

Of course it includes my favorite news item from 2015: the Every Student Succeeds Act, ending more than a decade of No Child Left Untested. It represents a huge victory for students, educators, and parents, and an opportunity for a new golden age in education. But now we must make sure the law is implemented in a way that places students and learning at the center of everything we do.

Don’t think of this reading list as a homework assignment. This is your time to reflect on the wonderful profession we’ve chosen and prepare for the year ahead. And don’t worry. There won’t be a test.

Happy holidays, NEA!

From NEA.org

Tools and Ideas for Classroom Teachers

These lessons, activities & resources target seasonal changes and animal adaptations.

Issues and Action  

Issues we should focus on as educators and actions we can take to ensure student success.

Grants and Awards 

Links to grants and awards to enhance teaching and learning.

Shopping Discounts

Make your money go further with these members-only discounts.

From NEAToday.org

 U.S. Senate Passes Every Child Achieves Act, End of NCLB Era Draws Closer

Good things are worth waiting for – even if they take 13 years. After countless false starts and delays, the U.S. Senate stepped up on Thursday and passed the Every Child Achieves Act (ECAA).

As Schools Lift Bans on Cell Phones, Educators Weigh Pros and Cons

Although students have been using cell phones consistently in their daily lives for almost a decade, many public schools continue to resist allowing the devices into the classroom.

8 Ways to Make Students Feel Welcome on First Day of School

First impressions matter – especially on the first day of school. Students arrive with a mix of emotions. However, teachers can do a lot to ensure their classrooms are safe and welcoming on the first day of school.

Should Schools Be Done With Homework? 

Across the country, parents, teachers, and students are voicing their opinions in the homework debate.

Want to Reduce the Teacher Shortage? Treat Teachers Like Professionals

Richard Ingersoll, professor of education and sociology at the University of Pennsylvania, spoke with NEA Today about the nuances behind the teacher shortage narrative and why we need to turn the spotlight on keeping good teachers in the classroom.

From Lily’s Blackboard

Is this School Heaven? No, it’s Finland

I have been to the mountaintop. I have trodden sacred ground. I have seen the light. I have been to Finland.It’s the place where teachers go after they die if they’ve been good and taught the Whole Blessed Child; if they’ve rejected the hell of Obsessive Standardized Testing.

Save the plane fare to Finland. Go to Montana! 

Yes, I am a fanatic for Finland, the Land of Common Sense and Good Schools that rejects Toxic Testing, privatization and de-professionalism. But it’s expensive to visit. And you need a passport. And time to fly over the Atlantic Ocean. And it’s really cold. I have a suggestion. Drive to Helena, Montana.

Normal People Don’t Work in a Public School

I think I just need to say this. I mean it in a respectful way. Kind of. But Normal People don’t work in a public school.

When will Toxic Testing End? When a Child is Dying? Not Always

What happened to Andrea Rediske and her son Ethan will break your heart, and illustrate the callous absurdity of high stakes toxic testing.

The Opt Out End Game

I’ve got a friend in New York who wants me to call on every parent in America to Opt Out of state mandated standardized tests which are, of course, the mother’s milk of the No Child Left Untested federal testing feeding frenzy.

In Case You Missed It...(because yes, educators also work summers) - Lily's Blackboard:

Advice for My Students: DON'T "Teach For America" | Daniel Katz

Advice for My Students: DON'T "Teach For America" | Daniel Katz:

Advice for My Students: DON'T "Teach For America"

As fall semester slides into the holidays, most of my senior students turn their attention to full time student teaching. They also begin to think very seriously about how to enter the job market for new teachers beginning their careers in the Fall. It can be a harrowing time. In addition to being responsible for teaching a full load of students full time and engaging in deep capstone projects based on that teaching, they have to plan how they will seek out and apply for jobs. Adulthood and difficult choices lie directly on the other side of the most challenging work they have ever done. I certainly cannot find fault if any of them approach it all with at least some trepidation mingled with their excitement.

So it is unsurprising that I occasionally have students who apply for and are selected to join Teach For America. Their reasons are varied. TFA publicly espouses many values that are congruent with my students' sense of vocationalism in service of their future students. TFA offers to take the confusion out of the job application process by helping them find a classroom somewhere they may have never considered on their own. TFA carries with it an aura of selectivity and prestige, and certainly by this point in its history, the organization has connections and influence among the powerful in education policy.

However, I have advice for my students regarding applying for or accepting a position with Teach For America: Don't do it.

I don't come to this advice lightly, and while I respect that my students might be excited to join an organization that says it is dedicated to getting young and talented people into classrooms with our most needy students, there is literally nothing positive that Teach For America offers my students that they cannot do for themselves. And what they package with those positives is entirely negative for our profession. There are a number of truths about TFA that my students should consider before seeking an application.

First, Teach For America needs my students far more than they need TFA. TFA may be influential, and the competitive nature of their system may seem prestigious, but my students do not need Teacher For America anywhere nearly as much as TFA needs them. Anyone willing to join TFA is making two positive commitments: 1) I will go anywhere and 2) I will teach students from vulnerable families and communities. Well, if you are willing to do that, and you hold a valid teaching certificate, there are precious few barriers keeping you from doing just that on your own. Many states practice reciprocal certification with other states, and in other cases, fairly minor additional requirements are all that is necessary. For already credentialed teachers, TFA is just a middleman that makes the process of finding a job in another state less stressful, but it is hardly necessary. I know a great many of my students are deeply committed to working with students in poverty, and I applaud them for that. They don't need TFA.

On the other hand, TFA does need them, or, perhaps more accurately, TFA looks Advice for My Students: DON'T "Teach For America" | Daniel Katz:

Ex-Detroit principal arraigned on multiple charges

Ex-Detroit principal arraigned on multiple charges:

Ex-Detroit principal arraigned on multiple charges

Detroit — A former Detroit high school principal accused of stealing school funds to enrich herself made her first appearance in federal court on Monday for her arraignment on charges including conspiracy to commit bribery and money laundering.

Kenyetta Wilbourn-Snapp, former principal of Mumford and Denby high schools in the Education Achievement Authority, was indicted by a federal grand jury in Detroit earlier this month on charges that from 2012 to 2014 she conspired to commit bribery and money laundering, committed federal tax evasion and failed to file an income tax return.

Wilbourn-Snapp, 40, stood mute to the charges, only answering “yes ma’am” to questions by U.S. Magistrate Judge Elizabeth Stafford as to her rights to counsel and to remain silent and whether she understood the charges against her.

Stafford entered a not-guilty plea on Wilbourn-Snapp’s behalf and ordered her to surrender her passport and report to pretrial services.

Wilbourn-Snapp was released on a $10,000 unsecured bond. She must get permission to travel outside Michigan, which her attorney said she might need for her son, who is applying to college.

Wilbourn-Snapp faces up to 20 years in prison if convicted of the charges. The case has been assigned to U.S. District Judge David Lawson.

She left the courtroom with her attorney, William Mitchell III, who said he had no comment on the case.

Wilbourn-Snapp was seen as a rising star, a 4-foot, 11-inch turnaround specialist at Denby High with a 2007 Maserati and a “GUCCI1” personalized license plate. She later joined Mumford and abruptly resigned last fall after FBI agents searched her home.

Also charged in the indictment are Glynis Thornton, whose company, Making a Difference Everyday (“M.A.D.E.”), provided afterschool tutoring services at Mumford and Denby; and Paulette Horton, who was an independent contractor working for M.A.D.E.

According to the grand jury indictment, unsealed Dec. 10, Wilbourn-Snapp selected M.A.D.E. as the afterschool tutoring vendor for both high schools. In exchange, Thornton paid Wilbourn-Snapp kickbacks as a reward for selecting and retaining M.A.D.E. as a vendor, investigators said.

Thornton allegedly disguised payments to Wilbourn-Snapp by having checks issued payable to Horton’s company, rather than paying Wilbourn-Snapp directly. Horton would then deposit and withdraw the money and give it to Wilbourn-Snapp, according to the indictment.

The indictment alleges Wilbourn-Snapp, hired by the EAA in 2012, received 90 percent of the amount of the checks, which totaled more than $58,000 in cash kickbacks.

Wilbourn-Snapp also is charged with tax evasion for failing to report $26,233 in Ex-Detroit principal arraigned on multiple charges:

Arne Duncan: ESSA embodies the "core of our agenda" | Truth in American Education

Arne Duncan: ESSA embodies the "core of our agenda" | Truth in American Education:

Arne Duncan: ESSA embodies the “core of our agenda”

Politico Pro just released an interview with outgoing U.S. Secretary of Education Arne Duncan that is pretty damning of Congressional Republican leadership.

They asked about the Every Student Succeeds Act (ESSA).

I’m stunned. at how much better it ended up than either [House or Senate] bill going into conference. I had a Democratic congressman say to me that it’s a miracle — he’s literally never seen anything like it…

…if you look at the substance of what is there . . . embedded in the law are the values that we’ve promoted and proposed forever. The core of our agenda from Day One, that’s all in there – early childhood, high standards [i.e.,Common Core], not turning a blind eye when things are bad. For the first time in our nation’s history, that’s the letter of the law.

U.S. Senator Lamar Alexander (R-TN) and Congressman John Kline (R-MN) fed this bill to their colleagues with talking points that it returns local control, provides more flexibility for states, and “ends Common Core.”  Over and over and over we heard about how this bill will end the “national school board.”

Yet Duncan on his way out says that what they’ve “promoted and proposed forever” is embedded in their bill.

Had members of Congress actually read the bill they would have seen that. We knew, we warned, and our warnings fell on deaf ears.  We’ll remember.Arne Duncan: ESSA embodies the "core of our agenda" | Truth in American Education: