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Wednesday, June 1, 2011

Big Education Ape: 6-1-11 AM City teachers tell of "mandated" cheating Edition

Big Education Ape: Ed News Now
Big Education Ape: Ed News Now

Published by Coopmike48 – 5 contributors today



City teachers tell of "mandated" cheating

nypost.com - The e-mail box runneth over with bad tidings. Teachers are reporting that cheating is rampant in New York City schools -- and they claim principals are the culprits. The reports are responding to m...
leoniehaimson

A Dark Day in New York State - Bridging Differences

blogs.edweek.org - Dear Deborah,May 16, 2011, was a dark day in the history of New York state. On that date, the New York State Board of Regents, once known for careful deliberation and the integrity of its standards...
mikeklonsky

Waiting for a School Miracle

nytimes.com - TEN years ago, Congress adopted the No Child Left Behind legislation, mandating that all students must be proficient in reading or mathematics by 2014 or their school would be punished. ...
DianeRavitch

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EducationSee all


SRC passes budget despite public outcry

thenotebook.org - The School Reform Commission passed a budget that was roundly criticized by a roomful of students, parents, advocates and others for cutting essential services like full-day kindergarten and most f...
coopmike48

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Teacher pension grab bill killed -- for now

michaelklonsky.blogspot.com - How do we know? Ty Fahner told us soFahnerUnder pressure from hundreds of thousands of people (including me) who made phone calls and sent emails, IL legislators pulled the plug on a bill that woul...
mikeklonsky

capac commends president obama on apa judicial nominations

blog.angryasianman.com - Today, U.S. Rep. Judy Chu, Chair of the Congressional Asian Pacific American Caucus, issued a statement commending President Obama on his success in confirming Asian Pacific Americans to the federa...
coopmike48

Art & EntertainmentSee all


Why Are Some Words So Hard? : NPR

npr.org - Enlarge Alex Wong/Getty Images When Words Go Wild: Nathan J. Marcisz of Marion, Ind., thinks about an answer during last year's Scripps National Spelling Bee. Contestants often stumble over foreign...
coopmike48

BusinessSee all


Daley Lands Job With Parking Meter Lawyers

nbcchicago.com - Richard Daley, Ex-Mayor, (Another) New Job Former Mayor Richard Daley has landed a job with the firm that helped negotiate Chicago's parking meter deal. Daley will be "of counsel" to Katten Muchin ...
fklonsky

Congressional Voting Record

bigeducationape.blogspot.com - Congressional Voting RecordClick here to download the 2010 Voting Record This past year the nation continued to see unprecedented economic and fiscal challenges the likes of which had not been seen...
coopmike48

Housing Prices at Record Low Since Bubble Popped

news.firedoglake.com - The Case-Shiller home price index sits at its lowest level since the housing bubble popped in 2006. Prices continue to spiral downward and there’s not much hope that they will stabilize anytime soo...
coopmike48

EnvironmentSee all


Gov. Christie Abandons a Good Idea

nytimes.com - Running for governor in 2009, Chris Christie vowed to become “New Jersey’s No. 1 clean-energy advocate.” That was a hollow promise. As governor, Mr. Christie proceeded to cut all the money for the ...
mikeklonsky

The California Majority Report // One World, One Ocean

camajorityreport.com - By Kaitilin Gaffney Two weeks ago, I was in Victoria, British Columbia, standing in line on a historic downtown dock, waiting for an order of fish and chips. In the rain. For a long time. It was...
coopmike48

Blog posts on this issue

whitehouse.gov - The White House Office of the Press Secretary For Immediate Release May 31, 2011 Today, President Obama will announce his intent to nominate John Bryson as the Secretary of U.S. Department of Comme...
coopmike48

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#pepsirefreshRead this paperSee all


Is Teach for America Becoming 'Too Big to Fail?'

huffingtonpost.com - When it comes to reforming America's schools, is bigger always better?I've been wondering about that question since watching a recent episode of Treme, the HBO series set in post-Katrina New Orlean...
mikeklonsky

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    A big box store at Lazear? | The Education Report

    A big box store at Lazear? | The Education Report

    A big box store at Lazear?

    By Katy Murphy
    Tuesday, May 31st, 2011 at 6:47 pm in buildings, elementary schools, enrollment,families.

    3245396820_ecde5a5748_mThis spring, I wrote about the changes at Oakland’s Lazear Elementary School under its new principal, Kareem Weaver.

    Lest the year end without controversy, rumors have been circulating that the school (see below map) could be closed down to make way for a big box store.

    More than 100 people came to a recent meeting at Lazear with Oakland school board member Noel Gallo. Gallo said he called the meeting to quell rumors of an imminent closure and to assure parents that a deal wasn’t going to be cut behind the closed doors of the mayor’s office or the superintendent’s office.

    But the rumors aren’t entirely off-base. Gallo said he had “an informal meeting

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    Use the Brain's Resilience to Teach Beyond Poverty « Whole Child Education

    The Whole Child Blog « Whole Child Education

    Use the Brain's Resilience to Teach Beyond Poverty

    May 31st, 2011 by ASCD Whole Child Bloggers

    Post written by Clare Struck, a 2011 ASCD Conference Scholar, is an elementary counselor at the Malcolm Price Laboratory School (PLS) in Cedar Falls, Iowa, and an instructor for the school counseling practicum at the University of Northern Iowa. PLS is the 2010 Vision in Action: The ASCD Whole Child Award recipient. Originally featured in ASCD Express.

    “Teaching with Poverty in Mind,” an ASCD Annual Conference session by Eric Jensen, had a strong influence on me and encouraged me to take actions to support the students I work with as an elementary school counselor, as well as the school counseling graduate students I supervise.

    Much of the data on brain-related research and kids in poverty that Jensen shared in his session was

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    Interview Of The Month On The Save Our Schools March | Larry Ferlazzo's Websites of the Day...

    Interview Of The Month On The Save Our Schools March | Larry Ferlazzo's Websites of the Day...
    “Carrots and sticks: Procrastination fix?” Carrots and sticks: Procrastination fix? is an excellent post by Daniel Pink that shows, once again, the perils of extrinsic motivation. I’m adding this short post with the link to his article to My Best Posts On “Motivating” Students. There are a ...
    Interview Of The Month On The Save Our Schools March As regular readers know, each month I interview people in the education world about whom I want to learn more. You can see read those past interviews here. Today, I genuinely feel honored that two educators I have long admired have agreed to answer ...
    Most Popular Posts Of The Month I regularly share my picks for the most useful posts of each month. I also have tried publish a list of the month’s most popular posts, based on the number of times they are “clicked-on.” I’m very behind on that one, though. I also share a list of ...
    “Carrots and sticks: Procrastination fix?” Carrots and sticks: Procrastination fix? is an excellent post by Daniel Pink that shows, once again, the perils of extrinsic motivation. I’m adding this short post with the link to his article to My Best Posts On “Motivating” Students. There are a ...
    Amazing Photos Of The Freedom Riders The Denver Post has just published a great collection of photos of the Freedom Riders: The 50th Anniversary of the Freedom Riders. I’m adding the link to The Best Resources For Learning About The “Freedom Riders”.
    EFL Classroom 2.0 Is Now A Public Site EFL Classroom 2.0, clearly the number one support site for ESL/EFL teachers from around the world, is now a public site. In other words, you don’t have to log-on to access many of the great resources it has available. There are some resources, ...
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    Continuing the dialogue: Latino parental involvement in education | Being Latino Online Magazine

    Continuing the dialogue: Latino parental involvement in education | Being Latino Online Magazine

    Continuing the dialogue: Latino parental involvement in education

    by beinglatino

    by Jen M.D. Matos

    Last week’s contribution, Parents: The Latino Secret Weapon in Education, generated a great deal of engaging discussion. This week, I thought I would provide some further insight. Several main themes on this subject emerged from you, the readers. One theme cautioned me against making this dialogue about White vs. Latino parental involvement, and another theme was that Latino parents should just be seen as parents. One reader also suggested that Latino parental involvement means more than checking book bags and homework and that there are other ways to be involved.

    You are all right.

    This is not, nor should it be, a conversation about White parents vs. Latino parents. Nor should it be a statement on my part that generalizes what all of the White or all of the Latino parents are about, can do, are interested in, etc.

    Instead, what I am introducing is a phenomenon in education where Latino parents are an asset. The research I have done on parental involvement traces the history of parental involvement to demonstrate that this concept was originally intended for White, middle-class parents.

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    Experiments in evaluating teachers | Thoughts on Public Education

    Experiments in evaluating teachers | Thoughts on Public Education

    Experiments in evaluating teachers

    Districts and charters breaking new ground

    Posted on 6/01/11 • Categorized as Pay, Teacher Development, Tenure, Unions

    By John Fensterwald - Educated Guess

    Teachers of Lucia Mar Unified, near Pismo Beach, are a crack in the wall of resistance to overhauling how teachers are evaluated and rewarded for their performance. This year, teachers in seven of the district’s 17 schools voted overwhelmingly to begin using an evaluation system that combines individual and school test scores and multiple classroom evaluations by teachers and administrators, along with regular discussions about teacher effectiveness.

    The system they’ll be using, TAP: The System for Teacher and Student Advancement,was developed in Santa Monica a dozen years ago by the Milken Institute and has been expanded in a number of states and districts nationwide through funding from the federa

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    Chart of the Day: Texas Private Sector Growth Edition - E.D. Kain - American Times - Forbes

    Chart of the Day: Texas Private Sector Growth Edition - E.D. Kain - American Times - Forbes

    Chart of the Day: Texas Private Sector Growth Edition

    by E.D. Kain

    Very interesting chart:

    Texas may have strong pro-growth policies that other states should emulate, but they’ve gone in a pretty disturbing direction regarding education. Texas can’t maintain its edge with an education system that embraces creationism and disregards actual science.

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    NYC Educator: Rethinking Teacher Contracts

    NYC Educator: Rethinking Teacher Contracts

    Rethinking Teacher Contracts

    by NYC Educator
    The geniuses at Education Sector have come up with ways to economize on those wasteful teacher contracts. If only we could eliminate raises, sick days, pensions, class size restrictions, and those awful health and pension benefits, we'd have more money to lavish on the children we love.

    Thanks to Education Sector, our children can look forward to even more opportunities to get jobs without raises, sick days, pensions, workload limits, and those awful health and pension benefits. This is a great way to sustain tax breaks for those who really need them, like Bill Gates and Eli Broad. But why should we limit such great ideas to teachers?

    Couldn't we save money on restaurant bills if we got rid of this whole tipping nonsense? I mean, if an entree costs 18 bucks, shouldn't it cost 18 bucks? And are we
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    Schools Matter: Tennesseeans Undergo Propaganda Barrage from Corporate Charter Industry

    Schools Matter: Tennesseeans Undergo Propaganda Barrage from Corporate Charter Industry

    Tennesseeans Undergo Propaganda Barrage from Corporate Charter Industry

    by Jim Horn

    A Tennessee teacher, James Gifford, has an op-ed in The Tennesseean (May 25) entitled Closer look shows charter schools' 'success' is deceiving. It did not take long for the KIPP PR machine to swing into action, with its own piece today by KIPP Nashville’s CEO, Randy Dowell.

    While Dowell certainly did not mean to do so, his piece today proves Gifford’s point exactly. A few quotes from Dowell will show his deception writ large:

    . . . Mr. Gifford asserts that some charter schools nationwide “do not even enroll many of the neediest students.” This is simply untrue for charter schools in Tennessee, all of which serve the neediest students.

    Like the rest of the schools in the national network of KIPP schools, KIPP Nashville is an open-enrollment, public charter school explicitly designed to serve the need
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    Mike Klonsky's SmallTalk Blog: Ravitch does her homework, explodes "miracle" myths

    Mike Klonsky's SmallTalk Blog: Ravitch does her homework, explodes "miracle" myths

    Ravitch does her homework, explodes "miracle" myths

    by Mike Klonsky
    School turnaround "miracle" myth makers, including Jeb Bush, Arne Duncan and Pres. Obama, are no match for Diane Ravitch. In a NYT op-ed piece, "Waiting for a School Miracle," Diane shows she has done her homework as she debunks several of the claims of miraculous quick school fixes in Chicago, Miami, Denver and N.Y., all of which ignored the impact of poverty on measurable learning outcomes.
    Families are children’s most important educators. Our society must invest in parental education, prenatal care and preschool. Of course, schools must improve; every one should have a stable, experienced staff, adequate resources and a balanced curriculum including the arts, foreign languages, history and science. If every child arrived in school well-nourished, healthy and ready to learn, from a family with a stable home and a
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    The Final Approach « City School Stories

    Chapter Ten: June « City School Stories

    Chapter Ten: June

    by fmurphy

    Confessions of an Urban Principal/ The Final Approach

    by Frank Murphy

    This book provides a first hand account of the life of an urban elementary school principal in the era of No Child Left Behind. On Monday and Wednesday, I post an installment of the current month’s chapter. The complete text for previous chapters can be found listed under Categories.

    The names of all students and parents who are described in this story have been altered in order to protect their privacy.

    Installment 1 of 8

    The director of the Temple Educational Management Organization has developed his own appraisal system for the principals of the Partnership Schools. There are nine broad leadership objectives and a host of sub-goals described in the appraisal rubric. Each of the participating principals has been asked to submit a portfolio of work samples and other evidence to document the ways that they’ve met these objectives.

    The portfolio I constructed consists of two binders filled with documents and artifacts that present a picture of my


    Chapter Nine-Complete (Installments 1 to 9)

    by fmurphy

    Chapter Nine—May

    Confessions of an Urban Principal

    by Frank Murphy

    This book provides a first hand account of the life of an urban elementary school principal in the era of No Child Left Behind. On Monday and Wednesday, I post an installment of the current month’s chapter. The complete text for previous chapters can be found listed under Categories.

    The names of all students and parents who are described in this story have been altered in order to protect their privacy.

    Installment 1 of 9/ Well, We Sure Have a Lot of Feelings

    Monday mornings aren’t as frantic now that spring is here. The fast and furious waves of transient children entering and exiting the school have begun to ebb. At last the tide has turned. Though problems still confound me, at least I don’t feel as overwhelmed by them.

    Paul Vallas has endured his own storm of stressful events in the last week. A fourth grade child in one of our city’s schools attempted to hang himself on a hook in the coat closet. In a different neighborhood, some

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    Tuesday, May 31, 2011

    Before Writing A Protest Poem [Peace to Gil] | The Jose Vilson

    Before Writing A Protest Poem [Peace to Gil] | The Jose Vilson

    Before Writing A Protest Poem [Peace to Gil]

    by Jose

    Gil Scott-Heron

    Beautiful Sunday. Driving with my family back to NYC after my brother graduated a couple of weeks back. Before I knew Gil was on his last legs.

    [taps pencil on Moleskine repeatedly]

    “What to write, what to write …”

    [taps knee with pencil, taps front car seat with pencil, bites eraser, gets tired of tapping]

    “Ahhh! What the hell!”

    [scratches head]

    “Monuments shake and graves roll …”

    [nods to a beat in his head]

    “OK, what next, Vilson?”

    “I told them the title of the poem is called ‘This Is Not A Test.’ What does it mean to

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    City teachers tell of "mandated" cheating - NYPOST.com

    City teachers tell of "mandated" cheating - NYPOST.com

    Teachers hostage to 'success'

    Last Updated: 6:52 AM, May 29, 2011

    Posted: 11:15 PM, May 28, 2011

    More Print
    headshotMichael Goodwin

    The e-mail box runneth over with bad tidings. Teachers are reporting that cheating is rampant in New York City schools -- and they claim principals are the culprits.

    The reports are responding to my column that many schools are denying students the freedom to fail in a misguided bid to help them. To judge from the response, the problem is worse than I feared. Much worse.

    First, a professional in a Manhattan high school wrote to say that teachers in her school are "encouraged" to pass 80 percent of students, no matter their grades or attendance. She offered student writing samples filled with glaring errors of spelling and grammar to prove that "social promotion is alive and well."

    GETTY IMAGES

    Now others are revealing shocking examples from their schools about how unprepared kids are being pushed along to the next grade and out the door with a sham diploma. Their disheartening tales deserve attention.

    "Our mandated passing rate is 60 percent," one wrote. "We need to explain in detail why this student failed, what methods were used to get him to pass, how much home contact was made.

    "The one group that is not called in for interrogation is the students themselves. No blame falls on them . . . The students know what is going on. It has empowered them to feel that they can work less or not at all and still pass the class."

    Another, from a Brooklyn high school, says the principal fudges attendance and grades with a warning that unless the school improves, the Department of Education will close it and



    Read more: http://www.nypost.com/p/news/local/teachers_hostage_to_success_dmR2TxGjD85oGWJ3UCzp0O#ixzz1Nz6thsOB
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    Dear Seniors: Please, Just Go | Mr. Teachbad's Blog of Teacher Disgruntlement

    Dear Seniors: Please, Just Go | Mr. Teachbad's Blog of Teacher Disgruntlement

    Dear Seniors: Please, Just Go

    by mrteachbad

    Holy shit…you guys are the cat’s meow…let me tell you. You seniors…

    But you don’t need me to tell you. Am I right? You already know just exactly how goddamn fucking awesome you are. And some of you really are. But others, not so much.

    You come in late, or nor at all. You complain about how stressful your life is. You sleep in class…because you are sooo stressed.

    What’s with you guys? I know you are stressed. The stress is maybe a little like alcohol. They say it enhances your personality. But what if you are a lazy douche bag? Then what?

    I think the alcohol comparison is pretty good. This is the end of the road for everybody. I just got a text message from a senior I had taught in American Government who was all mad that I didn’t explain to her that Animal Farmwas really about the Russian Revoluion and Stalin’s rise to power. That’s above and beyond the call for somebody who’s really got it quite made and is about to get out of high school very soon unless she ran screaming up the steps of the capitol with a metal box tapped to her head.

    The great, swollen middle is the people who mostly don’t give a shit, but will climb out of their holes every so

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    Librarian Positions Cut In Schools Across The Country

    Librarian Positions Cut In Schools Across The Country

    The Questionable Future Of School Librarians

    by The Huffington Post News Team
    Tracey Weiss Suits, a 25-year teacher who worked for the last six years as a media specialist in a Land O' Lakes, Fla., school, had a feeling her job was going to end. She just didn't know when.

    Over time this spring, it became clear at Pasco County budget meetings that a slew of education programs and positions could be scrapped.

    "I had a sense that media specialists weren’t one of the priorities, but I hoped they were cutting other programs," she recalled.

    One day earlier this month, Weiss Suits' principal called her into a meeting, and she had her answer. The first thing she noticed was, she said, "the obligatory Kleenex box." Her principal told her she did an excellent job, but that her position -- a media specialist who helped implement the school’s technology from the library -- was being eliminated.

    "I’m still in an anger phase right now," she told The Huffington Post a few hours afterwards.

    Two weeks later, the district placed her in a language-arts teaching position in a different middle school. But
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