Thursday, April 7, 2011

Modern School: Michigan Gearing Up to Fire All Teachers

Michigan Gearing Up to Fire All Teachers

by Michael Dunn

The Michigan Education Association has been quietly holding votes on a resolution to authorize a series of job actions including informational picketing, contacting representatives and a state-wide work stoppage, according to mlive.com. Naked Empire reports that MEA President Iris Salters sent out a letter requesting locals to delay major purchases and to start saving enough to have reserves for at least two months. The resolution is in response to funding cuts of $715 per student and the financial martial law bill that would allow the governor to shred teacher contracts and place districts under the control of CEOs.

Teacher strikes are illegal under Michigan law. Public Act 112, enacted in 1994, stipulates that teachers be fined a day’s pay for each day they refuse to work. However, state representative Paul Scott has introduced additional legislation that would fine the union if it were to go on strike and potentially strip teachers of their credentials. The latter, of course, is a moronic threat since, if it were carried out, Michigan would have virtually no qualified

Dr. Cornel West:"Obama becoming puppet of Wall St Oligarchs"

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Democurmudgeon: in the Morning

Democurmudgeon: Walker's not making Republicans look good for 2012.

Walker's not making Republicans look good for 2012. Rachel Maddow points out the Walker spawned Democratic movement back sanity in this piece about Kloppenburg and Chris Abele's big win over conservative extremist Jeff Stone. I love Gov. Walker's excuses for the Republican losses.

Rep. Ryan's Lying Again, with the Courage and Conviction that has captured the Imagination of a Nation. Rachel Maddow takes a look at all the things I missed after I got hopelessly lost in the details of Paul Ryan's outrageously irresponsible inhumane plan.

Kloppenburg Squeaker Big News. State Sen. Chris Larson chimes in... Cenk Uygur talk's the Kloppenburg win with State Sen. Chris Larson:

Democrats can't survive as a party with messaging this bad!! *Really Bad Messaging* * * * * * * * * Here's MSNBC's Cenk Uygur on the totally clueless beltway Democrats. I wouldn't be surprised if they weren't unaware of the labor movement and the middle class's fight to stay alive?

Non-partisan judicial election? A lie. Take the following unintended admission of politicizing the judicial branch by Conservatives. We've got an activist conservative judge problem...big time. If this last Supreme Court election didn’t make if perfectly clear how partisan the judicial branch is now, hell Justice David Prosser was a former Republican speaker of the assembly, then ...

Taxing The Richest 1% An Additional 1% Could Mean $2.5 billion For Education, Services | California Progress Report

Taxing The Richest 1% An Additional 1% Could Mean $2.5 billion For Education, Services

by megan

By Josh Pechthalt
California Federation of Teachers

The California Federation of Teachers (CFT) recently released new polling results showing 78% of voters support increasing income taxes on the top 1% of Californians by 1%. Such a tax would return the richest Californians close to the rate they paid in the mid-1990s, when Pete Wilson was Governor. CFT is calling for the progressive tax to be part of a package to resolve California’s budget crisis.

Union thugs. « Fred Klonsky's blog

Union thugs.

by Fred Klonsky

Headline: New Jersey Governor Chris Christie Calls His State’s Teachers Union ‘Political Thugs’

Daily Kos: Why Pay Congress?

Why Pay Congress?

by rss@dailykos.com (teacherken)

If a high school student council refused to approve a budget so that student activities had to be canceled — even as student leaders continued to pay themselves stipends — a school board would probably cancel the entire experiment in student democracy. But I can’t imagine high school students acting so immature.

The quote, and the title for this post I have appropriated, are both from Nicholas Kristof and this New York Times column In a sense the quote encapsulates what many Americans will be feeling if Congress shuts down the government - and thus more of the nation than most people realize - come the end of the day Friday. Kristof also uses the words of someone else to put this in perspective:

As the humorist Andy Borowitz wrote in a Twitter message: “That’s like eliminating the fire dept & sending checks to the arsonists.”

Kristof's is one of two important columns on the budget issue in today's papers that people should read. The other, by Matt Miller of the Center for American Progress, is called Ryan v. Obama - Is that all there is?

LAUSD and the Office of Administrative Hearings - Just Us Without Justice ( LAUSD y la Audiencia Administrativa - Sólo nosotros sin Justicia) - Perdaily.com

LAUSD and the Office of Administrative Hearings - Just Us Without Justice ( LAUSD y la Audiencia Administrativa - Sólo nosotros sin Justicia)

by Leonard Isenberg

(Mensaje se repite en Español)

(For a national view of public education reform see the end of this blog post)

From the first day of this farce, the judge and two retired teacher were given LAUSD's book of "evidence" against Ms. Jackson, even before the judge decided as to whether it was admissible or not. Even after the judge had ruled that some document could not come in or other documents of questionable origin could, there was no attempt made to limit what access these two retired teachers would have to "the evidence" presented by LAUSD. While a professional judge might be able to limit his ultimate deliberation to admissible evidence, one

Caught in the Whirlwind « InterACT

Caught in the Whirlwind

by Martha Infante

A teacher living in the era of education reform may survive, but it will not be unscathed. The current school year has unleashed a barrage of attacks on everything a classroom teacher values and stands for. This blitzkrieg has caused me to hunker down and get centered before daring to pick up the pen (hit the keyboard?) again.

Budget Cuts-A dramatic reduction in counseling, clerical, and custodial staff has left my school with a skeleton crew of employees to meet the needs of our 2,100 students. Classrooms go unswept, hallways and stairwells are acquiring an odd smell, teachers are hoarding supplies, and to top it off, hot food in the cafeteria is a rarity. It’s not safe to have 10 people monitoring

Accountable for What? « Failing Schools

Accountable for What?

APRIL 7, 2011

by Sabrina

Recently, I had a chance to catch up with a former colleague of mine after school, in her classroom. As often happens when teachers chat, we tried valiantly not to talk about school, but gave up after about five minutes.

“I just saw that movie, Waiting for ‘Superman’. I’d been so excited about it, thinking that it was such a great opportunity for education to finally going to get the attention it deserves. I left with a stomachache.”

(I’m sure you can picture me nodding in agreement.)

She continued, “It was just so clueless.” I followed her eyes around her classroom, as she glanced over the different areas of her classroom– visually tallying her to-do list, as I often do. “I mean

NYC Educator: We Can't Help You If You're Not Here

We Can't Help You If You're Not Here

by Miss Eyre

I wish that this article from WNYC about New York's large (and possibly growing) drop-out population had been more detailed, and that it had addressed the problem it discusses more deeply. The issue, as I see it, is not only school drop-outs; rather, it's also the difficulty of working with kids who only pop into school once or twice a week. Chronic absenteeism that doesn't quite reach the definition of truancy is one of the biggest challenges we face as urban teachers.

My school stresses the importance of trying to get these kids into school regularly and then catching them up as quickly as possible. Fine advice, but for children and families who have not internalized the urgency that the situation entails, anything we can do as teachers feels like a Band-Aid on a gunshot wound. These are not children

Wednesday, April 6, 2011

Bloggers Challenge President on Standardized Testing - NYTimes.com

Bloggers Challenge President on Standardized Testing

By TRIP GABRIEL

Published: April 6, 2011

REPRINTS

Does President Obama believe standardized testing has gone too far?

Obama Takes Aim at Inequality in Education (April 7, 2011)

Mr. Obama criticized “high-stakes” tests last week at a town-hall-style meeting, contrasting them with less-pressured tests his daughters took in their Washington private school. Those remarks, which did not receive wide coverage at the time, have since prompted close followers of education policy to wonder whether the president opposes his own Education Department.

In the public forum, hosted by the Spanish broadcaster Univision on March 28, a high school student, Luis Zeyala, asked the president if there could be less testing in schools.

Mr. Obama agreed that “we have piled on a lot of standardized tests” under federal education law, meaning the annual proficiency tests in reading and math given to Grades 3 through 8 as well as once in high school.

“Now, there’s nothing wrong with a standardized test being given occasionally just to giv

Time is on my side - The Rolling Stones

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NYC Public School Parents: Marc Ribot on HS admissions and the failure of "choice"

Marc Ribot on HS admissions and the failure of "choice"

by Leonie Haimson

It is ironic that as the number of high school "choices" have multiplied under this administraion, more and more students fail to be admitted to any of them. Ten percent, or more than 8,000 NYC 8th graders, got none of their top ten choices for high school next year. Marc Ribot, NYC parent, comments:

Ten percent is an unconscionable number: but I’d like to share a few reflections on how this system has failed all of us- not just those who have not been placed.

My own daughter got into Frank Sinatra, and is happy with her choice. But what will she find when she’s there? How many to a class in the face of budget cuts and teacher lay-offs? This isn’t only the result of ‘the economy’, but of bad political choices: of gradual privatization through a shift to ‘charter schools’, de-unionization , a program of breaking up larger schools into smaller ones which has multiplied administrative costs without producing any measurable benefits

Remainders: A parent-activist says good riddance to John White | GothamSchools

Remainders: A parent-activist says good riddance to John White

by Philissa Cramer

Leonie Haimson: John White has consistently ignored parents’ concerns. (NYC Public School Parents)
Gov. Cuomo: Mayor Bloomberg is peddling “propaganda” by threatening teacher layoffs. (Daily Politics)
It’s not clear how the impending government shutdown will affect the education dep’t. (Politics K-12)
Mike Petrilli suggestions that suddenly idle government workers volunteer-mob D.C. schools. (Flypaper)
An assessment of charter school management organizations finds they range in quality. (ProPublica)
The report about EMOs overstates how many charter schools are run by for-profit groups. (Eduwonk)
Seth Andrew explains why his charter school network is taking over Harlem Day Charter. (HuffPo)
A fight over Finland is at the heart of tensions threatening a national standards coalition. (Rick Hess)
Chicago Mayor-elect Rahm Emanuel is starting to signal where he stands on schools. (Russo)
Once again, the city has extended the deadline for parents to run for district councils. (Insideschools)

Teachers union silent on state voting | MLive.com

Teachers union silent on state voting

Published: Wednesday, April 06, 2011, 3:54 PM Updated: Wednesday, April 06, 2011, 3:58 PM

By Blake Thorne | Flint Journal
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GENESEE COUNTY, Michigan — Teachers in Genesee County and throughout the state have beenvoting quietly on a Michigan Education Association resolution asking its 155,000 members to OK “crisis activities,” which could include an illegal teachers strike.

MEA officials say they will not reveal the results of the votes or other information on the matter.

Carman-Ainsworth Education Association President Frank Burger, a member of the MEA Board of Directors, said teachers in many districts already have voted on the resolution, though he wouldn’t reveal results.

“I would say that a majority (of MEA locals) in Genesee County have held their meetings and taken their votes,” Burger said.

The union has set an April 14 deadline for local chapters to

D.C. school officials wary of test security - USATODAY.com

D.C. school officials wary of test security

By Jack Gillum, USA TODAY

Updated 23m ago |

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WASHINGTON — As public school students in the nation's capital began a new round of standardized testing this week, school board officials here Wednesday worried that a security seal on test booklets might not be enough to ensure that no one tampers with the answer sheets.

By Alex Wong, Getty Images
Former D.C. Public Schools chancellor Michelle Rhee says she supports a broader investigation of standardized test erasures.

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By Alex Wong, Getty Images

Former D.C. Public Schools chancellor Michelle Rhee says she supports a broader investigation of standardized test erasures.

The concerns come in the wake of a USA TODAY investigation that found high rates of erasures — from wrong answers to right ones — on standardized tests in the D.C. public school system during the previous three years. In some cases, the rate was so statistically rare that experts say it could indicate cheating.

INVESTIGATION: Ga. gives D.C. pointers in probe
RHEE: 100% behind test scores probe

The former head of D.C. Public Schools, Michelle Rhee, has said she does not believe there was widespread cheating in the district during her tenure. But Rhee, now a national figure for education reform, has said she favors a new investigation into the anomalies USA TODAY identified.

On Wednesday, board members questioned why student answer sheets are sealed by a principal or school test coordinator — rather than by the teacher immediately following

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