Wednesday, April 27, 2011

solidaridad: Poor Teaching for Poor Children... in the Name of Reform

Poor Teaching for Poor Children... in the Name of Reform

by Robert D. Skeels * rdsathene

By Alfie Kohn
[This is a slightly expanded version of the published article.]

Love them or hate them, the proposals collectively known as "school reform" are mostly top-down policies: divert public money to quasi-private charter schools, pit states against one another in a race for federal education dollars, offer rewards when test scores go up, fire the teachers or close the schools when they don't.

Policy makers and the general public have paid much less attention to what happens inside classrooms — the particulars of teaching and learning — especially in low-income neighborhoods. The news here has been discouraging for quite some time, but, in a painfully ironic twist, things seem to be getting worse as a direct result of the "reform" strategies pursued by the Bush administration, then intensified under President Obama,

Five Factual Articles on Corporate Candidate Luis Sanchez

by Robert D. Skeels * rdsathene

Luis Sanchez...paid for by the Coalition for School Reform. Major funding by Jerry Perenchio and Reed Hastings. — From the website of the corporate and plutocrat funded Coalition for School Reform

It doesn't take much to realize that Villaraigosa's Luiz Sanchez, whose backers and politics are identical to Flores, will treat our community with the same arrogant disdain.

It doesn't take much to realize that Villaraigosa's Luiz Sanchez, whose backers and politics are identical to Flores, will treat our community with the same arrogant disdain.

Here are some great quotes on Sanchez. First, from a community activist and educator in District 5:

Luis Sanchez candidate for LAUSD school board has accepted over half million from GOP Bush supporters. One of them is billionaire Phil Anschutz who has also supported anti-gay and lesbian measures (Colorado's Amendment 2), the FreedomWorks foundation that organizes the Tea Party and anti-immigration campaigns, the Discovery institute which promotes teaching creationism instead of science and other regressive efforts

Next, from non-other than Los Angeles Times, who in fact, endorse Sanchez:

"Luis Sanchez...worked the room at a posh Beverly Hills condo...The nearly 50 guests drank Au Bon Climat chardonnay and Piper Sonoma sparkling wine as Sanchez's backers, including school

Teaching and Learning in Large Classes: 10 Action Principles« Whole Child Education

The Whole Child Blog « Whole Child Education

Teaching and Learning in Large Classes: 10 Action Principles

April 27th, 2011 by ASCD Whole Child Bloggers

Post submitted by Whole Child Blogger Tymeesa Rutledge

A small group of dedicated teachers and professionals gathered at ASCD’s Annual Conference to hear Greg Rouault speak about principles for teaching large classes. Rouault, a professor at Konan University, Hirao School of Management in western Japan, was honest about teaching large classes: “There isn’t going to be an answer at the end.”

Rouault acknowledged that teaching large classes can be challenging. He emphasized that teachers should look past physical constraints of the classroom, focusing instead on getting students to learn despite the size of a class.

“Take on the challenge and focus on what you can change instead of what you can’t,” said Rouault to the

Cal Hunger Strike for Ethnic Studies « occupy california

Cal Hunger Strike for Ethnic Studies

by *

BERKELEY, California – Students at UC Berkeley began a hunger strike yesterday, April 26th, to save Ethnic Studies from being consolidated with Gender and Women’s Studies and African American studies into a single department as a part of the UC’s plan for Operational Excellence. This follows a hunger strike from last yeardemanding a public denouncement of SB1070 by the chancellor, among a list of 5 other demands. Their demands:

1. Reinstate the FTE staff positions in Ethnic Studies cut by organizational simplification under Operational Excellence
2. End the current process of Operational Excellence
3. Publicly support the Legislative Resolution ACR 34, co-authored by Ricardo Lara and Luis A. Alejo in

AWDU’s Message to UC TAs

by *

from AWDU:

The union that houses all of the University of California’s 12,000 TAs – the UAW – will be holding statewide elections from April 26-28 (next Tuesday-Thursday). The current leaders of the UAW local have displayed a consistently conservative and accomdationalist approach towards working the UC administration and an undemocratic and highly centralized, bureaucratic relationship towards its own members – determining from afar what campus campaigns will look like. The UAW has actively worked to disenfranchise members both overtly – illegal vote counting tactics – and subtly through years of bureaucratic management that has hidden the leadership from accountability. In response to a flurry of anti-democratic actions in the wake of a contentious contract ratification earlier this year – wherein the current UAW leadership negotiated a terrible contract that

This Week In Education: Politics: Mitch Daniels (R-IN) Poised To Take Education Mantle

Politics: Mitch Daniels (R-IN) Poised To Take Education Mantle [image: image from images.rcp.realclearpolitics.com] Call it the second coming of Jeb Bush. Indiana's Mitch Daniels has just passed four education bills that RealClearPolitics describes glowingly as "some of the most sweeping education changes in ...

Ratings: Clothing Labels Show Dangers Of Unreliable Measures [image: image from graphics8.nytimes.com] Before anyone starts letting states or districts make up their own school rating systems again, let's take a look at the always-informative world of fashion. There, as noted in this recent NYT story ...

Thompson: Pay Kids To Take Advanced Placement [image: Top-one-percent]Retired Advanced Placement teacher Junia Yearwood recently described in the Boston Globe the rage felt by a student who had earned a "D" as a junior but who was put in a senior A.P. class. He and other students weren't ...

Against Tiny School Districts - Dana Goldstein

Against Tiny School Districts

by Dana Goldstein

One of Governor Andrew Cuomo's contentious budget cutting ideas is to consolidate very small school districts. I'm generally a tax-and-spend liberal, but this is a great idea. I was reminded why today by the New York Times, which reported on a controversy engulfing the tiny Westchester village of Katonah, NY, not far from where I grew up. Katonah's school board would like to hire a superintendent named Paul Kreutzer, who happens to be the only superintendent in Wisconsin to have publicly support Gov. Scott Walker's attempt to ban teacher collective bargaining.

Unsurprisingly, hundreds of Katonah teachers, parents, and students are loudly protesting Kreutzer's appointment.

But what really caught my eye was that if he does get the job, the 39-year old Kreutzer is set to earn $245,000 annually to oversee a district of just six schools and 3,800 students. Ninety-three percent of these kids are

Equity and Excellence, Part Two « InterACT

Equity and Excellence, Part Two

by David B. Cohen

San Jose City Hall. (Photo: Paul Robert Lloyd)

The following post is the continuation of my prepared remarks for the U.S. Department of Education’s Commission on Equity and Excellence, which convened in San Jose, California, April 21, 2011. As in my prior post, I’m publishing a prior draft of my comments, since the version I actually delivered for the Commission had been edited down to fit time constraints. My colleague, Martha Infante, addressed the Commissioners and the larger Town Hall audience later that evening.

Near the beginning of my remarks, I laid out four elements that allow learners to thrive – whether the learning is happening in a classroom, home, church, gymnasium, or anywhere else I’ve observed. Those elements areexpectations, relationships, access and support. This post covers the latter two elements.

The next essential element in a thriving learning environment is access. By access I mean ensuring that

Parents Take the Lead! Upcoming Webinar, 5/7 :: Save Our Schools March and National Call to Action

Parents Take the Lead! Upcoming Webinar, 5/7

by TeacherSabrina

Parent activists will be front and center at the next Save Our Schools Webinar, scheduled for the evening of Saturday, May 7th, at 8PM Eastern.

Tim Slekar and Michele Gray have been leading a movement in Pennsylvania to have parents like themselves “opt out” of the state’s standardized tests. They were recently featured on CNN, and Tim has written about their work on his blog.

Rita Solnet is a founding member of Parents Across America, and a member of the Save Our Schools March Organizing Committee. She is a tireless activist who has been especially effective at organizing parents and teachers to speak out at events like this recent town hall meeting with Florida Congressman Ted Deutch.

The Save Our Schools March Organizing Committee also voted this week to endorse the new

Michelle Rhee: Making Evaluations Work for Students and Teachers

Making Evaluations Work for Students and Teachers

Posted: 04/27/11 11:45 AM ET

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Michelle Rhee , Education Reform , Standardized Testing , Teachers , Teachers Union , Aspen Institute , Dc-Schools-Chancellor , Teacher Evaluations ,Teacher Quality , Washington Dc Schools , Education News

School districts across the country are considering important changes to how teachers are evaluated, a change that is going to lead to better teaching and learning. That's critical. U.S. students are doing mediocre at best on international tests. We can and must do better.

There is not a single school factor that has more of an effect on student learning than teacher quality. It's more important than shrinking class sizes or building state-of-the-art science labs. Sure, those are nice. But having a highly effective teacher is essential.

So how do we get there? When I was chancellor of District of Columbia Public Schools from 2007 until late last year, we put a robust teacher evaluation system in place. However, before we got started

Being a Parent can be the hard job you ever do! #parents

Homeless Mother Faces Jail Time for Sending Her Kid to an “Out of District” School - TIME NewsFeed

Homeless Mother Faces Jail Time for Sending Her Kid to an “Out of District” School

By: ERICA HO (2 hours ago)

Topics: COURT, CRIME, EDUCATION, FINES, HOMELESS, HOMELESS MOTHER FACES JAIL, HOMELESSNESS, INJUSTICE, SCHOOL, SOCIAL ISSUES, WRONG SCHOOL

Peter Macdiarmid / Getty Images

Tanya McDowell is facing a possible 20-year jail sentence for sending her kid to the “wrong” school. Even, though, technically, she has no fixed address.

In addition to sending her kid to school in Norwalk, Conn., McDowell will also have to pay $15,000 to the city for “stealing her son's education.” She initially used the address of a babysitter to enroll him in the school.

(More on TIME.com: See how America's homeless are living in cars and campers.)

The Stamford Advocate says that McDowell herself “divides her time

GOP is now mostly about how to spell "democratic" -- Big D versus small d | Uppity Wisconsin

GOP is now mostly about how to spell "democratic" -- Big D versus small d

by Man MKE

Given the radical initiatives being offered up by Republicans in many so-called red states and in D.C., it has now become easy to reduce the GOP's motive and strategy to a single sentence:

Republicans are anti-Democratic, so they've increasingly become anti-democratic.

Yes, it's democracy with a capital D, and here's what we mean:

As the past decade has shown, the Republican Party nationally and at the state level has been faced with an ever-more difficult electoral landscape. Minorities are gaining in the US population and they tend to vote against the GOP. Meanwhile, GOP policies -- re-jiggered in the Nixon era, engineered big time in the Reagan era and pursued with a vengeance since then -- have become increasingly unpopular among voters.

What's that, you say? How can this be true if Republicans remain soi obviously competitive, winning more than their share of presidential and gubernatorial and legislative races and judicial races?

Half a decade ago, Democratic pollster Rudy Texiera predicted the "rising donkey" of a new Democratic Party

Firefighters union says “enough” to the spineless Dems. Me too. « Fred Klonsky's blog

Firefighters union says “enough” to the spineless Dems. Me too.

by Fred Klonsky

Word today that the International Association of Firefighters is halting all financial contributions to the National Democrats should establish a model.

It has for me.

“The attacks launched at our members since the November 2010 elections have changed the landscape,” Harold Schaitberger, the association’s president, said in the statement. “Extreme, right-wing-conservative and so-called Tea Party politicians are coming after firefighters, paramedics and all public workers with a

Research Warning Label: Analysis contains inadequate measurement of student poverty « School Finance 101

Research Warning Label: Analysis contains inadequate measurement of student poverty

Posted on April 27, 2011 by schoolfinance101

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I’ll likely regret writing this post at some point. But this is a really, really important issue and one that undermines a very large number of prominent research studies on the effectiveness of various school reforms, especially when evaluated in high poverty contexts.

I blogged about this a few weeks back – the problems of poverty measurement in educational research. But this issue continues to come up in e-mails and other conversations. And it’s a critically important issue that so many researchers callously overlook. My sensitivity to this issue is heightened by the potential problems emergent from using bad poverty measurement in models