This is a powerful video that has been making the circuit among teachers for several years. It captures the passion it takes to teach, and the essence of why it matters so much more than almost anything else.
Twelve years ago when Taylor Mali (of National Poetry Slam fame) first wrote this “poem” (which appears in full
Ditch Testing: Lessons from the Atlanta Scandal (Part 3): No Technical Fix: Human Nature?
Chester E. Finn says cheating on test scores “is about human nature.” Assuming cheating is human nature, then it would be logical to accept one of two assumptions: a) everyone cheats or has the tendency to cheat or b) some people are more likely to cheat than others by nature. But applying either one to the Atlanta situation raises more questions.
Fact 1: 80% of schools, nearly 200 educators, and 1,508 classes participated in cheating that had been ongoing for almost a decade in APS.
Fact 2: “Ninety percent of Georgia schools raised minimal or no concern [of cheating]. Of the schools that raised “severe” concern, half were in Atlanta Public Schools even though the system has less than 5% of the state’s schools and students.”
Question 1: If everyone cheats or has the tendency to do so by nature, why didn’t educators in other Georgia schools participate in cheating?
Question 2: If some people are more likely to cheat than others by nature, can it be true that Atlanta just has
Every three years I force myself to do something that, although it is geared to save me money and provide for my safety, I dread it more than the possibility of Kidney Stones. New York State Department of Motor Vehicles, the DMV provides a Defensive Driving Course for drivers to complete and earn a reduction on their insurance premium, or a reduction on points on their license as a result of traffic infractions. Not wanting to suffer alone, and needing to get the highest reduction possible on my insurance premium, I enlisted my wife and daughter to attend the SIX hour course with me. Misery loves company. We did have a choice of two, three-hour sessions, or one, SIX hour course. Our choice was to not prolong the agony over two sessions. We opted for the SIX hour course
I do not know for sure, but I imagine other states offer such courses for their drivers. The entire SIX hour course was developed by the DMV. The instructors are all certified by the DMV. The 56 page workbook was developed
I’ve written a fair amount about the importance of being “Data-Informed” and not “Data-Driven.” In fact, I’ve posted The Best Resources Showing Why We Need To Be “Data-Informed” & Not “Data-Driven.”
The newest addition to that list is a short article, which includes a video, titled You Are Not An Equation. It’s about Emanuel Derman, who the article describes as “a Quant, one of the shadowy legion of mathematicians on whose models Wall Street relies to make trading decisions.”
Derman has become highly critical of the use of these kinds of mathematical models — not just for Wall Street,
The Notebook has compiled a summary of recent coverage of the unfolding investigations of possible cheating in Pennsylvania.
Written by Rachel Levy for her All Things Education blog. Read the entire post here.
“So affluent people’s dedication to improving education for poor children is measured by the amount of money they fork over to people like Michelle Rhee and organizations like Students First? Really? First of all, where’s the evidence that Michelle Rhee is “fixing the schools” of anybody’s children? And wasn’t it the affluent DC residents who overwhelmingly supported her while the ones who didn’t were the poorer people whose schools she was supposedly fixing? I have no tolerance, either, for Richard Whitmire’s cringe-worthy thesis that the poorer, black
In my last post, “Sit Your A** Down…” I used the expression, “Excuse My French“. A reader took me to task for the use of this expression because she took offense to it. After reading her comment, and looking up the origin of the term, I realized that it could be considered offensive and changed the word “French” to “Language.”. I also posted a reply to her comment. I am aware that I am the author of this post, and can write what I like, but I also realize that I have a global audience, so I should be careful of the terms I use.
In the classroom, we also have to be aware of what we say, or allow to be said, to, and around, our students. Our classrooms are populated with children from different backgrounds, religion, cultures, etc… What may be harmless or funny to us, may not be to a student or a colleague. How many students are willing to
A year ago, Adrian Fenty was the mayor of Washington, DC and Michelle Rhee was the chancellor of DC Public Schools. Rhee had made overhauling the DC system of teacher evaluation the centerpiece of her controversial and widely noted reforms. Instead of the standard system of seniority-based raises and nobody ever being fired for bad teaching, Rhee wanted to give the best teachers big raises and show the worst teachers the door.
The American Federation of Teachers was so alarmed by the prospect of the DC teachers union acceding to this plan that AFT President Randi Weingarten shoved aside local leadership and forced Rhee into a protracted series of negotiations. But because teacher evaluation is legally excluded from collective bargaining in DC, Rhee was able to put her system in place unilaterally. After a year of evaluations under the new IMPACT evaluation system, she made good on her promise: big raises for the highest performers in a time when teacher salaries
07.14.2011 - RETHINKING LA
- Only in LA can a developer come to town with a $20 Billion budget, go to work on a construction campaign that impacts literally every neighborhood in the city, and not take responsibility for traffic mitigation, pedestrian and cyclist access, ADA compliance, roadway improvements, signalization enhancements, or simply adhering to LA’s municipal code.This cavalier behavior is the work of the LAUSD, they’re LA’s largest developer, [link] and they are above the law.
When the LAUSD’s building program gets implemented in a neighborhood, it doesn’t come with the expected community benefits that would demonstrate a partnership, it comes with an expectation that the local municipal authority will take responsibility for any street improvements and traffic mitigation.
The LAUSD spent $228 million on Central Los Angeles High School #9, [link] aka the Visual and Performing Arts High School, and failed to deliver an ADA accessible
The NYC School Survey helps school leaders understand what key members of the school community say about the learning environment at each school. The information captured by the survey is designed to support a dialogue among all members of the school community about how to make the school a better place to learn.
New York City parents, students, and teachers reached new all-time participation highs on the 2011 School Survey. 960,191 surveys were submitted. Feedback gathered by the survey is aggregated at the citywide level and also summarized and reported for each individual school.
Find a school's 2011 School Survey report
View the citywide analysis of survey results.
View the citywide report of survey responses from community schools.
View the citywide report of survey responses from District 75 schools.
Every year, all parents, all teachers, and students in grades 6 - 12 take the NYC School Survey. The survey ranks among the largest surveys of any kind ever conducted nationally.
Survey results provide insight into a school's learning environment and contribute a measure of diversification that goes beyond test scores on the Progress Report. NYC School Survey results contribute 10% - 15% of a school's Progress Report grade (the exact contribution to the Progress Report is dependant on school type). Survey questions assess the community's opinions on academic expectations, communication, engagement, and safety and respect. School leaders can use survey results to better understand their own school's strengths and target areas for improvement.
On Thursday I shared an interview with education historian Diane Ravitch on the controversy surrounding the video of Jonah Edelman, CEO of the non-profit advocacy group Stand For Children. She discussed how a number of supposedly grassroots groups like this have cropped up and had a significant impact on education policy. She listed several groups, including one called Teach Plus.
I did a bit of digging to find out more about the role Teach Plus played supporting Senate Bill 1, passed this spring in Indiana. I found out that Stand For Children was responsible for active support of the law, including sponsoring polls that showed public support for the idea of basing teacher pay and layoffs primarily on "student academic growth."
So there is the big footprint of Jonah Edelman's Stand For Children. But what was the role of Teach Plus? In this New York Times article in May, Behind Grass-Roots (sic) Advocacy, Bill Gates the story leads off by describing
FILE - In a July 13, 2011 file photo, students at Emma Hutchinson School in Atlanta leave after the day's classes. Hutchinson has been identified as one of forty four schools involved in a test cheating scandal. A new state report reveals how far some Atlanta public schools went to raise test scores in the nation’s largest-ever cheating scandal. The scandal first came to light two years ago. Now, investigators have concluded that nearly half the city’s schools allowed cheating to go unchecked for as long as a decade, beginning in 2001. (AP Photo/John Bazemore, File)ATLANTA—Teachers spent nights huddled in a back room, erasing wrong answers on students' test sheets and filling in the correct bubbles. At another school, struggling students were seated next to higher-performing classmates so they could copy answers.
Those and other confessions are contained in a new state report that reveals how far some Atlanta public schools went to raise test scores in the nation's largest-ever cheating scandal. Investigators concluded that nearly half the city's schools allowed the cheating to go unchecked for as long as a decade, beginning in 2001.
Administrators -- pressured to maintain high scores under the federal No Child Left Behind law -- punished or fired those who reported anything
For the second year in a row, a disproportionate number of "highly effective" teachers are employed in affluent, white areas of the District, school officials confirmed."We're continuing to look at that, and it's a trend we saw this year as well," said Jason Kamras, chief of human capital for D.C. Public Schools.In 2010, nearly one-quarter of top-performing teachers were in Ward 3 schools, while only 5 percent taught in Ward 8 — even though affluent Ward 3 has 60 percent the enrollment
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Murdoch isn't a philanthropist in the mold of a Bill Gates or Eli Broad, but like members of the Billionaire Boys' Club – as Diane Ravitch describes them – he believes he knows the key to improving education. In Murdoch's case, it's the software produced by Wireless
One often hears from right-leaning political pundits that most Americans would find repugnant the idea of living in a social order patterned after the West European social democracies. According to this view, typical Americans have instead a deep value-based attachment to opposing free-market principles. These include limited government, low taxes, entrepreneurship, corporate deregulation and growth, capital expansion, and the make-or-break imperatives of unfettered competition in the labor and capital markets, and the consumer marketplace.
In light of the 2010 mid-term election results and the current cultural “noise” – talk radio, cable talk and news, Tea Party gatherings, web postings, polls, etc. – it would seem that the pundits have at least one thing right. It is clear that a very large body of Americans, whether or not they understand the functioning of free markets, or even believe in their efficacy, opposes any meaningful role for the federal government in shaping their outcomes. They roundly condemn the near-trillion-dollar bank bailouts of 2008, to which the current administration is heir,
