Education Improvement Thwarted by “Reform” | tultican

Education Improvement Thwarted by “Reform” | tultican

Education Improvement Thwarted by “Reform”

By Thomas Ultican 10/1/2020

For more than two decades, bureaucratic style top down education “reform” has undermined improvement efforts by professional educators. For budding teachers, beginning in college with the study of education and their own personal experience as students, an innate need to better education develops. However, in the modern era, that teacher energy to improve education has been sapped by the desperate fight to save public education from “reformers,” to protect their profession from amateurs and to defend the children in their classrooms from profiteers. 

Genuine advancements in educational practices come from the classroom. Those edicts emanating from government offices or those lavishly financed and promoted by philanthropies are doomed to failure.

The writer Kristina Rizga conducted a four years’ study of Mission High in San Francisco. She discovered a great school whose students do not test especially well. One of her clarion observations that almost all teachers would hardily CONTINUE READING: Education Improvement Thwarted by “Reform” | tultican

Jersey Jazzman: Trump and Christie: Everything Teachers Stand Against

Jersey Jazzman: Trump and Christie: Everything Teachers Stand Against

Trump and Christie: Everything Teachers Stand Against

Most of what needs to be said about Donald Trump’s appalling performance last night has been said. But I want to quickly add two thoughts. 

First, as an educator, I want to make sure we acknowledge that the massive damage Trump has done to our country includes his corrupting influence on American children. Every day, teachers go into our schools and try to instill important values in our students: respect, honesty, integrity, civility, modesty, empathy. Donald Trump’s whole life, however, has been a wholesale rejection of every personal characteristic a citizen in a democracy should strive to embody.

Donald Trump can't even lift himself to the level of behavior expected in an elementary school.  His preening, whining, blustering foolishness would never be tolerated in a second grader. His inability to accept responsibility for his actions would earn him a conference in the principal’s office with his parents. His casual disregard for the truth would result in a string of Ns ("Needs Improvement") on his report card.

We’ve had many bad presidents in my lifetime; not one, however, has been so craven, so boorish, so full of contempt for others that they didn't have some positive attribute that a teacher could point to. But not this man -- there isn’t a single quality in the leader of our nation that an American student should emulate. 

The fact that a man of such low character holds high office makes it that much more difficult for teachers to convince their students that the hard work of making yourself into a CONTINUE READING: Jersey Jazzman: Trump and Christie: Everything Teachers Stand Against

CURMUDGUCATION: DeVos and the Problem of the "Right Fit"

CURMUDGUCATION: DeVos and the Problem of the "Right Fit"

DeVos and the Problem of the "Right Fit"

Betsy DeVos has been talking about the “right fit” for a while now.

In 2017: “It shouldn’t matter what type of school a student attends, so long as the school is the right fit for that student.”

During Charter Schools Week this year: “... to celebrate the millions of students who have found the right fit for their education...”

In her recent letter to parents: “...we believe families need more options than ever to find the right fit.”

In the rhetoric of school choice, “right fit” has become a replacement for the “rescue from failing schools” and “trapped by their zip code.” 

The “right fit” rhetoric has some advantages for school choice proponents. In particular, it lets them target a much broader “market,” pitching school choice to students whose school is well-rated and generally successful. “It’s a great school,” the pitch goes, “but it still might not be the right fit for your child.” Voila—instant expanded choice customer landscape.

But there are reasons to be extremely wary of this language.

First of all, while DeVos likes to suggest that parents know what the “right fit” for their child will be, it is the private and charter schools that will ultimately decide whether or not the child is the “right fit” for their school. Charter schools have a history of pushing out students who are too CONTINUE READING: CURMUDGUCATION: DeVos and the Problem of the "Right Fit"

Audrey Watters: Hack Education: Selling the Future of Ed-Tech (& Shaping Our Imaginations) | National Education Policy Center

Hack Education: Selling the Future of Ed-Tech (& Shaping Our Imaginations) | National Education Policy Center

Hack Education: Selling the Future of Ed-Tech (& Shaping Our Imaginations)

 I have volunteered to be a guest speaker in classes this Fall. It's really the least I can do to help teachers and students through another tough term. I spoke briefly tonight in Anna Smith's class on critical approaches to education technology (before a really excellent discussion with her students). I should note that I talked through my copy of  The Kids' Whole Future Catalog rather than, as this transcript suggests, using slides. Sorry, that means you don't get to see all the pictures...

Thank you very much for inviting me here today. (And thank you for offering a class on critical perspectives on education and technology!)

In the last few classes I've visited, I've talked a lot about surveillance technologies and ed-tech. I think it's one of the most important and most horrifying trends in ed-tech — one that extends beyond test-proctoring software, even though, since the pandemic and the move online, test-proctoring software has been the focus of a lot of discussions. Even though test-proctoring companies like to sell themselves as providing an exciting, new, and necessary technology, this software has a long history that's deeply intertwined with pedagogical practices and beliefs about students' dishonesty. In these class talks, I've wanted to sound the alarm about what I consider to be an invasive and extractive and harmful technology but I've also wanted to discuss the beliefs and practices — and the history of those beliefs and practices — that might prompt someone to compel their students to use this technology in the first place. If nothing else, I've wanted to encourage students to ask better questions about the promises that technology companies make. Not just "can the tech fulfill these promises?", but "why would we want them to?"

In my work, I write a lot about the "ed-tech imaginary" — that is, the ways in which our beliefs in ed-tech's promises and capabilities tend to be governed as much by fantasy as by science or CONTINUE READING: Hack Education: Selling the Future of Ed-Tech (& Shaping Our Imaginations) | National Education Policy Center

Teacher Tom: What If We Raised A Generation That Could Recapture Childhood at Will?

Teacher Tom: What If We Raised A Generation That Could Recapture Childhood at Will?

What If We Raised A Generation That Could Recapture Childhood at Will?

Genius is no more than childhood recaptured at will.  ~Charles Baudelaire

According to the Torrance Test of Creative Thinking, 98 percent of kindergarteners qualify as "creative geniuses." By age 25, only three percent can make that claim.

To me, that 98 percent seems a bit low. I have never met a preschool aged child who is not, in her or his own way, a genius. The three percent rate for adults, however, seems about right. Until I read about the Torrance Test, I figured that my observation and interpretation of this phenomenon likely had more to do with my own prejudices than anything else. I mean, certainly there is genius within each adult as well, left over from childhood, but now simply hidden beneath the layers of normalcy and averageness that come to form the shell of what we call being "grown up."

Every parent of every preschooler I have ever met knows that her child is a genius. Sometimes they are proud of early-onset "academic" skills, but more often they are astonished by genius of the creative, social, emotional, or physical variety. "She can climb to the top of anything!" they might enthuse or, "He cries when another child gets hurt!" or, "She makes friends everywhere we go!" You hear genuine astonishment in their voices, the way one always does when one is discussing genius.

Cynics might say that I'm not writing about genius as much as the doting adoration of parental love, but from my perch CONTINUE READING: Teacher Tom: What If We Raised A Generation That Could Recapture Childhood at Will?

Co-Teaching For Emerging Bilingual Learners: Theory And Practice | Shanker Institute

Co-Teaching For Emerging Bilingual Learners: Theory And Practice | Shanker Institute

Co-Teaching For Emerging Bilingual Learners: Theory And Practice

by Lauren Schneider -- September 30, 2020

Co-teaching is an education buzzword frequently used in the context of instruction for students with special needs or English Language Learners (ELLs). When implemented thoughtfully and intentionally, co-teaching can be highly effective at meeting the unique needs of all learners. In this post, I will focus on co-teaching for English Language Learners, to whom I will refer to as “Emerging Bilingual Learners (EBLs), a more accurate label that highlights the assets these learners bring to the classroom. 

My argument, which is supported by research and my own professional experience, is that co-teaching is a particularly effective method for EBLs when one teacher is trained to meet the language needs of EBLs (and all learners) and the other focuses on grade level standards. Using co-teaching models, language is not the end goal, but rather a vehicle that enables EBLs to gain understanding of grade level content. The focus is not solely on the language that students are developing but rather on the academic content all students must acquire. This is important because it does not stigmatize students and it levels the playing field for each learner.

Not only does this inclusive model of teaching focus on the assets of every child, but it provides a more diverse learning environment while building trusting relationships amongst students' peers and teachers. The co-teaching model can be instrumental to fostering a greater sense of community within the classroom. Gloria Ladson-Billings (1995) stresses the importance of instilling community pride into a CONTINUE READING: Co-Teaching For Emerging Bilingual Learners: Theory And Practice | Shanker Institute

A VERY BUSY DAY Larry Ferlazzo's Websites of the Day... The latest news and resources in education since 2007

   Larry Ferlazzo's Websites of the Day... | The latest news and resources in education since 2007

A VERY BUSY DAY

Larry Ferlazzo's Websites of the Day...

The latest news and resources in education since 2007

 

 

Big Education Ape: THIS WEEK IN EDUCATION Larry Ferlazzo's Websites of the Day... The latest news and resources in education since 2007 - http://bigeducationape.blogspot.com/2020/09/this-week-in-education-larry-ferlazzos_26.html

“Give Me Your Tired, Your Poor, Your Huddled Masses Yearning To Breathe Free” – Never Mind

by Larry Ferlazzo / 6h

Trump plans to slash refugee admissions to US to record low is a new Associated Press article about a decision The Trump Administration made last night. Honestly, how can these folks look at themselves in the mirror? I’m adding this post – somewhat ironically – to The Best Sites For Learning About World Refugee Day .

A Video Worth Watching: “Active Learning: Bets, Discussions and Hard Work in Classrooms of Champions”

by Larry Ferlazzo / 7h

harishs / Pixabay Dr. Carl Wieman is a Stanford professor and a Nobel Prize winner, and he’s also done important work over the years trying to shake up the antiquated lecture style of so many college courses. Much of that work is also applicable to K-12 settings. He also helped establish PhET Interactive Simulations , which are well-known among science teachers. You can see a guest piece he wrote

Ed Tech Digest

by Larry Ferlazzo / 14h

Nine years ago, in another somewhat futile attempt to reduce the backlog of resources I want to share, I began this occasional “” post where I share three or four links I think are particularly useful and related to…ed tech, including some Web 2.0 apps. You might also be interested in THE BEST ED TECH RESOURCES OF 2020 – PART ONE , as well as checking out all my edtech resources . Here are this w

“‘More Than Aladdin’: Dismantling Common Misconceptions About Arab and Muslim Students”

by Larry Ferlazzo / 14h

‘More Than Aladdin’: Dismantling Common Misconceptions About Arab and Muslim Students is the headline of my latest Education Week Teacher column. Teachers have the power to help students view their Middle Eastern peers as individuals with rich cultures who defy the stereotypes, say four educators who offer guidance. Here are some excerpts:

Everything You Wanted To Know About Education Research But Were Afraid To Ask

by Larry Ferlazzo / 14h

Pexels / Pixabay I have over 2,100 frequently revised and updated “Best” lists on just about every subject imaginable, and you can find them listed three different ways in three different places (see Three Accessible Ways To Search For & Find My “Best” Lists ). I’m starting to publish a series where each day I will highlight the “Best” lists in a separate category. Today, it’s on Education Resear

Great News: Odds Are Increasing That Schools May Get Billions In Next Stimulus!

by Larry Ferlazzo / 16h

On Monday, the Democratic House leadership announced a new bill that would provide $175 billion to schools (yes I know that total is different from what’s in the text box and I’m not sure why there’s the discrepancy), along with billions more to help other needed sectors. Tonight, Roll Call reported the details of a counter-offer from the White House: Mnuchin coronavirus relief plan includes more

Here Are Student Responses To Surveys I Used One-Month Into Full-Time Virtual Learning

by Larry Ferlazzo / 17h

I”ve written A LOT about the value of having students anonymously evaluate classes ( My Best Posts On Students Evaluating Classes (And Teachers) ) and, more specifically, the importance of doing it a lot more often in virtual learning (see THIS EDUTOPIA VIDEO OFFERS A CRITICAL POINT ABOUT 

   Larry Ferlazzo's Websites of the Day... | The latest news and resources in education since 2007