Local News | Islamic school in Seattle opens door to non-Muslim leader, teachers | Seattle Times Newspaper

Local News | Islamic school in Seattle opens door to non-Muslim leader, teachers | Seattle Times Newspaper:

Islamic school in Seattle opens door to non-Muslim leader, teachers

For the first time, the Islamic School of Seattle has hired a non-Muslim leader. The small prekindergarten through sixth-grade school also will have two non-Muslims among its five teachers.

By Lornet Turnbull

Seattle Times staff reporter

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STEVE RINGMAN / THE SEATTLE TIMES

Luis Tornillo, the new non-Muslim director of the Islamic School of Seattle, sits in one of the school's classrooms.

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OMG! (Whichever one you like.) That's my old 1955 classroom! I used to melt crayons on...(September 4, 2011, by 3Chord Monty) Read more

What a feel good bit of pablum.- yuck . All private "religious " schools... (September 4, 2011, by et69) Read more

With the Times' web-edition, it seems they're following the NYTimes' credo: "All... (September 4, 2011, by samuelson is dead) Read more

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A year ago, during the holy month of Ramadan, a group of Muslims gathered for dinner at a home in Burien.

A single item dominated the night's agenda: the Islamic School of Seattle.

The private Montessori school in the Central Area that integrates Islamic teaching into every aspect of its curriculum was started 30 years earlier by five female Muslim converts.

Now, it was in trouble.

Enrollment at the prekindergarten through sixth-grade school had fallen to about 10 students, and with an earlier annual fundraising dinner yielding so little, there was a real possibility the school might close.

Conversations that night would continue for months

Larry Ferlazzo’s Websites of the Day… - The Best Resources On ESL/EFL/ELL Error Correction

Larry Ferlazzo’s Websites of the Day… - The Best Resources On ESL/EFL/ELL Error Correction:

The Best Resources On ESL/EFL/ELL Error Correction

by Larry Ferlazzo

1 person liked this

I’ve been doing some research on the controversial issue of error correction (primarily grammar-related) and English Language Learners. In my book, English Language Learners: Teaching Strategies That Work, I talk about some of the research. In it, I share my belief in using little overt correction with individual students and, instead, collect examples of student errors and use them in regular classwide inductive learning and game activities (without identifying who made the errors). In addition, I talk about the use of Dialogue Journals and “recasting” student errors.

In my upcoming ELL book, I talk a bit more about the topic, too.

I thought readers might find it useful to see links to some of the research on the topic that’s available online,

Technology in Schools Faces Questions on Value - NYTimes.com

Technology in Schools Faces Questions on Value - NYTimes.com:

In Classroom of Future, Stagnant Scores

Jim Wilson/The New York Times

Students using an interactive whiteboard, part of an ambitious technology plan in the Kyrene School District in Arizona.

By MATT RICHTEL

Published: September 3, 2011

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CHANDLER, Ariz. — Amy Furman, a seventh-grade English teacher here, roams among 31 students sitting at their desks or in clumps on the floor. They’re studying Shakespeare’s “As You Like It” — but not in any traditional way.

Grading the Digital School

The High-Tech Gamble

Articles in this series will look at the intersection of education, technology and business as schools embrace digital learning.

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To hear from more experts, and to share your own predictions for the future of technology in the classroom, visit the Bits blog.

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Jim Wilson/The New York Times

Molly Siegel and Christian Dedman, both 7, worked together with a laptop during a class in the Kyrene School District in Arizona.

In this technology-centric classroom, students are bent over laptops, some blogging or building Facebook pages from the perspective of Shakespeare’s characters. One student compiles a

The Single Best Idea to Come Out of Business in Years - Living in Dialogue - Education Week Teacher

The Single Best Idea to Come Out of Business in Years - Living in Dialogue - Education Week Teacher:

The Single Best Idea to Come Out of Business in Years

by Anthony Cody

Usually when business magazines like Forbes offer advice on education reform, I prepare to cringe. But this week we got a surprise. Management guru Steve Denning offers us "The Single Best Idea for Reforming Education," and it actually makes a great deal of sense.

Denning starts with a critique of the status quo.

...the biggest problem is a preoccupation with, and the application of, the factory model of management to education, where everything is arranged for the scalability and efficiency of "the

Sunday links. « Fred Klonsky's blog

Sunday links. « Fred Klonsky's blog:

Sunday links.

by Fred Klonsky

Amalgamated Clothing Workers. Chicago Labor Day Parade.

If you haven’t read my brother’s post on why Rahm’s longer school day proposal is full of holes, you should.

Some GOP members of the Michigan legislature want to out source teaching through private contractors. Mother Jones gives the scoop. H/T: Shutterbug.

By the way, if you haven’t stopped by the web site of the

School Tech Connect: The Current Weirdness of Ed Tech

School Tech Connect: The Current Weirdness of Ed Tech:

The Current Weirdness of Ed Tech

by noreply@blogger.com (Tim)

I suppose much will be said about this NYT piece on ed tech, but let's just clarify the one thing that's on everyone's mind: yes, I once lived in Chandler, Arizona, but no, Amy Furman is not a relative-- at least as far as I know.

Having cleared that up, let me just say that there are more than enough opinions to go around about the merits of huge investments in ed tech. This idea that kids are going to do better on standardized reading

Daily Kos: American Schools in Crisis

Daily Kos: American Schools in Crisis:

American Schools in Crisis

by rss@dailykos.com (teacherken)

If you read the news magazines or watch TV, you might get the impression that American education is deep in a crisis of historic proportions. The media tell you that other nations have higher test scores than ours and that they are shooting past us in the race for global competitiveness. The pundits say it’s because our public schools are overrun with incompetent, lazy teachers who can’t be fired and have a soft job for life.

Don’t believe it. It’s not true.

So begins one of the most important pieces on education written recently. It appears in The Saturday Evening Post, which according to their circulation statement has 350,000 paid subscribers, and with a pass-along rate of

“My death was inevitable,” he said, “but I am alive thanks to God and NATO.”

by rss@dailykos.com (teacherken)

That is the final line of a remarkable column in the Sunday New York Times by Nicholas Kristof, with the title A Libyan Prisoner Lives to Tell His Story. It is about Salem al-Madhoun, a Naval officer who was a key source for Kristof, a man who was prepared to defect, to take his ship to Malta rather than obey orders.

There is too much richness to fairly represent the column with a few selections. It is a must read.

Al-Madhoun and his family represent some of the best among those who opposed the regime. He was captured by the regime's forces, and had his torture overseen by one of Qadaffi's sons. Kristof assumed he had been

A Teacher’s Manifesto on Technology (Doug Johnson) | Larry Cuban on School Reform and Classroom Practice

A Teacher’s Manifesto on Technology (Doug Johnson) | Larry Cuban on School Reform and Classroom Practice:

A Teacher’s Manifesto on Technology (Doug Johnson)

by larrycuban

I first met Doug Johnson in the mid-1990s when I was teaching a seminar on school reform for the Bush Fellows program in Minnesota. He had extensive teaching experience in many districts and, by then, was director of technology for the Mankato (MN) public schools. In that seminar and since, we have had many feisty exchanges over technology in school reform and teacher responses to high-tech devices in schools. He has written often about technology and other subjects. His Blue Skunk blog (http://doug-johnson.squarespace.com/) attracts thousands of readers. One of his postings I had particularly liked because it captures so well how policymakers who decide to buy and deploy technology have little sense of the teacher’s perspective, including those teachers who are enthused about integrating high-tech into daily lessons. Few policymakers who push online instruction, blended schools, and other so-called “disruptive innovations” would applaud this manifesto.

Doug wrote this on December 11, 2005.

Dear Technology Director:

I will enthusiastically embrace technology only when the following conditions have been met:

1. Teaching students technology skills is a priority. Until the high-stakes tests and state standards

Daily Kos: I don't belong here

Daily Kos: I don't belong here:

I don't belong here

by rss@dailykos.com (teacherken)

this is a reposting of a diary from more than 4 years ago that I just encountered while looking for something else I wrote about the same time. I found value in rereading it and thought it might speak to some here, especially at a time when the level of internal conflict seems fairly intense. Make of it what you will

o, this is not a GBCW posting, let’s be clear about that. And the title is not directed specifically at dailykos, although this site is included in its intent. So if you reading this because you want to see how I am going to flame the site or the people here, or justify my taking my ball and going home, you can stop reading right now.

Similarly if what you expect is that I will now offer claims of moral or intellectual or spiritual superiority, and that

School Tech Connect: More Chicago Nonsense

School Tech Connect: More Chicago Nonsense:

More Chicago Nonsense

by noreply@blogger.com (Tim)

He Who Raises The Bar

I know there are people for whom the Common Core Standards are the ultimate in fantastic wonderfulness--in my experience, when a new curriculum comes along, there are any number of people not teaching it who are ecstatic about it. I've long been predicting that the adoption of the CCS will have zero impact on the nation's achievement profile because it has been pushed by people who are dishonest about the importance of the other factors that affect achievement.

Nevertheless, this is a very good piece. It's basically about the

How Will We Ever Know If They're Good?

by noreply@blogger.com (Tim)

Good for DePaul.

The question is, if DePaul education graduates go to work in Chicago Public Schools, how will Jim Crown ever assess their quality? As everyone knows, teacher quality-- particularly in urban poverty centers-- is determined by ACT scores. It is further enhanced by teacher poverty-in-retirement.

DePaul's decision will make it utterly impossible for humans to tell if a teacher is effective--- unless there is a convoluted algorithm available to make these kinds of judgments for us.

From the archives:

Back to school: How parent involvement affects student achievement (At a glance)

Back to school: How parent involvement affects student achievement (At a glance):

Back to school: How parent involvement affects student achievement (At a glance)

It may be one of the least controversial statements in American education: Parent involvement can make a difference in a child’s education. The conflict can come, though, on how to define that involvement. Do all the PTA meetings, take-home flyers and Back to School nights actually generate increases in student achievement? The Center for Public Education examined the research and found that creating a partnership between parents and schools focused on academics truly does have significant impact on student achievement.

The six types of parent involvement

Joyce Epstein of the Johns Hopkins University, Center on School, Family and Community Partnerships, one of the nation’s leading experts on parent involvement, divided school parent involvement programs into six broad categories:

1. Parenting, in which schools help families with their parenting skills by providing information on children’s developmental stages and offering advice on learning-friendly home environments;
2. Communicating, or working to educate families about their child’s progress and school services and providing opportunities for parents to communicate with the school;
3. Volunteering, which ranges from offering opportunities for parents to visit their child’s school to finding ways to recruit and train them to work in the school or classroom;
4. Learning at home, in which schools and educators share ideas to promote at-home learning through high expectations and strategies so parents can monitor and help with homework.
5. Decision-making, in which schools include families as partners in school organizations, advisory panels, and similar committees.
6. Community collaboration, a two-way outreach strategy in which community or business groups are involved in education and schools encourage family participation in the community.

Who is involved?

• National survey data from

Obama's White House is a Harvard Frat House - HUMAN EVENTS

Obama's White House is a Harvard Frat House - HUMAN EVENTS:

Obama's White House is a Harvard Frat House

by Michael Prell

09/03/2011

34
Comments

William F. Buckley famously said “I would rather be governed by the first 2,000 names in the Boston phone book than by the 2,000 members of the faculty of Harvard University.”

By contrast, President Obama would rather America be governed by the faculty of Harvard University than by the first 2,000 people in any American phone book. Least of all; the business pages.

Case in point: the President’s much-anticipated “jobs plan.”

While most Americans struggle to find a job, let alone take a vacation, President Obama crafted his

Support UCI 19 « occupy california

Support UCI 19 « occupy california:

Support UCI 19

by *

from reclaimuc:

http://www.facebook.com/event.php?eid=213859005334089

On February 24, 2010, 17 UCI students and community supporters sat in outside Chancellor Drake’s office, issuing demands for workers rights on campus, increased access for underrepresented students, and amnesty for the Irvine 11. They were quickly arrested and evicted from the building by dozens of police without a single administrator offering to hear their demands.

Nine months later, those 17, along with 2 students who were outside Aldrich Hall during the action, received criminal charges by mail. After months of hearings and attempts at reaching a plea, the UCI 19 are headed to

School Tech Connect: Everyone Has A Price

School Tech Connect: Everyone Has A Price:

Everyone Has A Price

by noreply@blogger.com (Tim)

And in some Chicago Public Schools, it's pretty low.

So many questions. Are all of the schools where the teachers have no self esteem going to get the $150k? Or is it just a limited bribe pot for union busting? Where's it coming from? If it doesn't materialize, or if the teachers can't spend it as freely as they were told, how will they grieve that? When they see that their lump-sum payment is basically invisible on their paychecks, will they be happy with that?

This whole business of tacking 90 minutes onto the day without even having a plan for what they're going to do with the 90 minutes--- it's absurd.



And did that principal seriously suggest that spending $150k on iPads would be

Balere Charter Academy of Party Science? - Fred Grimm - MiamiHerald.com

Balere Charter Academy of Party Science? - Fred Grimm - MiamiHerald.com:

Balere Charter Academy of Party Science?

BY FRED GRIMM

FGRIMM@MIAMIHERALD.COM

Strip away the bureaucratic constraints suffered by conventional public schools.

Strip away most of the clothes.

And then, as they say down at the Balere Language Academy charter school, “push it to da limmit.”

Balere has certainly pushed the notion of charter schools beyond the usual limits. It requires no more than a cursory examination of material promoting Labor Day doings at the Cutler Ridge kindergarten-through-middle charter to realize no conventional public school would dare attempt this novel, after hours approach to education.

But a brave innovator associated with Balere, with help from those noted educational think tanks Hygh Lyfe Entertainment and Snake Eye Promotions, has created a kind of night school, reaching out to a segment of the community long ignored by traditional educators. “All hustlers, ballers and divas roll out.” (College students get in for half-price. Women are admitted free “B4 12.”)

The school had previously been the venue for at least two other notable all-nighters, billed as the

Read more: http://www.miamiherald.com/2011/09/03/2389350/balere-charter-academy-of-party.html#ixzz1Ww3LJYRx

Daily Kos: Cheating scandals spreading to LA-area charter schools

Daily Kos: Cheating scandals spreading to LA-area charter schools:

Cheating scandals spreading to LA-area charter schools

bySteve SingiserforDaily Kos Labor

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In this year of pervasive teacher-bashing and general assaults on public education, two things have generally been hailed by "reform" advocates as the cure for all schooling ills: charter schools and basing just about everything on "performance," a term defined (of course) solely by high-stakes testing.

In southern California this week, where statewide test results for the 2010-2011 school year were released, charter schools and high-stakes testing came together to create a story which underscored exactly how neither of these "reform" planks are necessarily a silver bullet for education:

By most measures, Green Dot Public Schools, a well-regarded group of a dozen public charter schools in Greater Los Angeles, had a great year on test scores.

But that success has been tempered by a black spot: One of its high schools, Animo Leadership - which has an Inglewood address but is chartered by the Lennox School District - was disqualified from receiving an official Academic