Tuesday, September 13, 2011
Big Education Ape - PostRank Today's 9
Big Education Ape - PostRank Today's 9
An independent, pro-teacher vote in the IL House? « Fred Klonsky's blog
The Honeymooners | The Jose Vilson
Schools Matter: Some NOLA KIPP Schools Lagging Behind State Average
Peg with Pen: United Opt Out: Action for Week of September 11th - Sharing Parent Flyer
NYC Public School Parents: Thursday's arguments in our charter co-location lawsuit, & what Tisch and Klein said to Brill about this issue
The Ticking Time Bomb in San Diego School Finances - voiceofsandiego.org: Pounding The Pavement
The Middle Class Is Dead
2012-13 Student Board Member Application - State Board of Education (CA Dept of Education)
What Happened to My Grade Book?: Essential Questions for Standards-Based #Edreform
An independent, pro-teacher vote in the IL House? « Fred Klonsky's blog
The Honeymooners | The Jose Vilson
Schools Matter: Some NOLA KIPP Schools Lagging Behind State Average
Peg with Pen: United Opt Out: Action for Week of September 11th - Sharing Parent Flyer
NYC Public School Parents: Thursday's arguments in our charter co-location lawsuit, & what Tisch and Klein said to Brill about this issue
The Ticking Time Bomb in San Diego School Finances - voiceofsandiego.org: Pounding The Pavement
The Middle Class Is Dead
2012-13 Student Board Member Application - State Board of Education (CA Dept of Education)
What Happened to My Grade Book?: Essential Questions for Standards-Based #Edreform
I’ve Got A Feeling… « City School Stories
I’ve Got A Feeling… « City School Stories:
I’ve Got A Feeling…
By Bobbie Cratchit, September 13, 2011
At least ten times a day this past summer I checked Twitter, Facebook and the Philadelphia news media awaiting the news that I suspected was coming since April. Dr. Ackerman would be leaving the School District of Philadelphia. In late August, early one morning, the announcement appeared on my Twitter feed. She was gone. I couldn’t help but feel excited and vindicated.
I began to wonder about the school year ahead. I read about teachers being reinstated. I read about the new West Philadelphia High School. I read about Dr. Nunery and his plan to focus on the new school year. What would this change of leadership mean to our students and staff? I wasn’t sure, so I
Vouchers, merit pay spice Dougco forum | EdNewsColorado
Vouchers, merit pay spice Dougco forum | EdNewsColorado:
Vouchers, performance pay spice Dougco forum
Anger on both sides of Douglas County’s controversial school voucher program, its equally controversial performance-pay plan for teachers, and the perceived politicizing of the school board drove debate at a candidates forum Monday night, as six of the eight people seeking a seat on the county school board came together at a Highlands Ranch elementary school to field questions submitted by voters.
Douglas County school board candidates share a laugh during Monday's forum. From left, challenger Kevin Reilly and incumbent Craig Richardson, who oppose each other in District A, and Gail Frances, running in District C.
Douglas County voters will be asked this fall not only to fill three of seven seats on the school board, but also to approve a $20 million mill levy increase and $200 million bond issue, Questions 3A and 3B on the Douglas
Cheating allegations invalidate two LA schools' test scores | California Watch
Cheating allegations invalidate two LA schools' test scores | California Watch:
Cheating allegations invalidate two LA schools' test scores
Renato Ganoza/Flickr
School board officials in Los Angeles will determine today whether a deeper look into cheating is needed at one of its top-ranked charter schools, a district official said.
Fred Navarro, superintendent of the Lennox School District, said officials will discuss cheating allegations at Animo Leadership Charter High School at today's district board meeting. Animo is operated by Green Dot Public Schools and is overseen by Lennox.
Navarro said Green Dot chief executive Marco Petruzzi contacted him personally the day the allegations
Bill to count more ethnic groups heads to governor
Sugar Pond/Flickr
Of the more than 57,000 Tongans in the United States, 40 percent – nearly 23,000 – live in California. But you won't find them identified in California data: The state does not require agencies to count them.
Under a bill awaiting Gov. Jerry Brown's approval, Tongans would be one of 10 additional Asian and Pacific Islander groups included in demographic data collected by two state agencies. Supporters say the expansion is an important first step in revealing disparities masked by aggregated ethnic data and in better targeting resources and services.
AB 1088, approved 57-22 by the state Assembly last week, would require the Department of Industrial Relations
Do we really need another NCLB hearing? - The Answer Sheet - The Washington Post
Do we really need another NCLB hearing? - The Answer Sheet - The Washington Post:
Do we really need another NCLB hearing?
Oh good. The U.S. House Committee on Education and the Workforce is holding a hearing on Wednesday morning to examine problems with No Child Left Behind’s accountability system. And if there is one thing we need, it is one more hearing during which witnesses can repeat the same complaints they have made for years about the fatal flaws of NCLB and its Adequate Yearly Progress accountability system.
Read full article >>A primer on navigating education claims
This was written by Paul Thomas, an associate professor of education at Furman University in South Carolina. A version of this post was published on the Daily Kos blog.
By Paul Thomas
Read full article >>
Mike Klonsky's SmallTalk Blog: My Twitter debate with Cornelia on basketball and the longer school day
Mike Klonsky's SmallTalk Blog: My Twitter debate with Cornelia on basketball and the longer school day:
Tweeting with @Corneliagracchi -- Historian, Teacher, Gardener, Traveler,Grandmother. Very Old, both Soul and Other Wise
Cornelia: You are a coach. Is it better to spend more time or less time practicing? Sorry for being a grouch. We owe our students good ed.
Me:
More time (than what?) practicing might be good for my players. But I
My Twitter debate with Cornelia on basketball and the longer school day
Cornelia: You are a coach. Is it better to spend more time or less time practicing? Sorry for being a grouch. We owe our students good ed.
Me:
More time (than what?) practicing might be good for my players. But I
Higher Education Standards and Less Education Resources = Lawsuit | Seattle Education
Higher Education Standards and Less Education Resources = Lawsuit | Seattle Education:
Higher Education Standards and Less Education Resources = Lawsuit
This needs to happen where the Federal and State governments are demanding more than the state coffers, cities, school districts or teachers can provide.
Dora
“Plaintiffs do not argue that resources equal student achievement. There is no guarantee. But not funding schools guarantees failure.”
Kenzo Kawanabe, plaintiffs’ attorney in closing.
By Lisa Weil, Policy Director, Great Education Colorado.
This political cartoon sums up the Lobato case: the state is failing its constitutional duty to provide a “thorough and uniform system of free public schools” because there is no rational connection between the standards and
Latest data: Racial gap widens under NCLB. « Fred Klonsky's blog
Latest data: Racial gap widens under NCLB. « Fred Klonsky's blog:
Latest data: Racial gap widens under NCLB.
It’s not like we didn’t say this would happen.
FairTest takes a look at what to anticipate from next week’s release of ACT scores.
What do SAT scores indicate about the effectiveness of “No Child Left Behind” in enhancing college readiness? Students in the high school class of 2011 have experienced the full scope of NCLB. They were in third grade, the first that must be tested, when the controversial federal law was signed. Its sponsors said
The Educated Reporter: Should Teachers “Friend” Students?
The Educated Reporter: Should Teachers “Friend” Students?:
Should Teachers “Friend” Students?
Missouri recently passed a law to severely limit online interactions between teachers and their students on social networking sites. It quickly became known as Missouri’s “Facebook Law,” and the state’s teachers union filed suit to block the new regulations from taking effect. A state judge has since struck the laww down as unconstitutional. On Monday, the St. Louis Post-Dispatch reports, the state's lawmakers were debating repealing the law and replacing it with requirements for school-based policies.
Meanwhile in Southern California, a school district is being sued after an assistant football coach sent sexually explicit texts and photographs to a 13-year-old girl. The coach pleaded guilty and was sentenced to 113 days in the county jail, according to the Los Angeles Times.
What these two stories have in common are issues of boundaries and common sense.There isn’t anyone who
Michelle Rhee’s Cynical Support of Obama’s New Jobs Plan | Scathing Purple Musings
Michelle Rhee’s Cynical Support of Obama’s New Jobs Plan | Scathing Purple Musings:
Michelle Rhee’s Cynical Support of Obama’s New Jobs Plan
In a bizarre press release, former DC chancellor and StudentsFirst founder Michelle Rhee endorsed President Obama’s new job’s bill today. In doing so she couldn’t help herself but take a cheap shot at the effective system which favors seniority when budget cuts are made:
With our nation’s education system failing far too many students, it is good news to hear that additional resources are being dedicated to our schools. The best jobs plan is to reform our broken school system, and we are glad to see that recognized in the President’s approach. We hope those funds will be allocated and spent wisely, where they are most needed.
Given what’s at stake, we cannot afford to waste any dollars on policies that don’t work. We at StudentsFirst believe that no matter where a student comes from, he or she deserves the
Florida Republican’s “Strategic Plan to Undermine Public Education”
In a weekend interview with GRADEBOOK, Democrat Rep. Rick Krisemen didn’t hold back when he characterized what Florida legislators have been up to as “a strategic plan to undermine public education.”
But what I have seen in my five years has been a strategic plan to undermine public education, to neuter it so they are not performing in the way we would like to see so as to push the agenda of expansion of vouchers and charter schools and destroying the teachers union. I think that is what the agenda has been. If you look at the past five years and the policies that have been put forth, that I think it pretty clearly what the agenda has been. And unfortunately to the negative impact on our state’s education, they have been successful
At some point, Florida’s bottom ten percent ranking on per pupil spending and a similar ranking for teacher
NYC Educator: From the Front Lines of the Overcrowding Problem
NYC Educator: From the Front Lines of the Overcrowding Problem:
You may have caught this article from the Daily Newstaking a look at school overcrowding in this age of population explosion and budget contraction. I thought I could provide a teacher's-eye view of what overcrowding looks like in my school, while admitting that we are lucky to not be at Cardozo-like levels of overcrowding.
From the Front Lines of the Overcrowding Problem
You may have caught this article from the Daily Newstaking a look at school overcrowding in this age of population explosion and budget contraction. I thought I could provide a teacher's-eye view of what overcrowding looks like in my school, while admitting that we are lucky to not be at Cardozo-like levels of overcrowding.Overcrowding in my school means that nobody has his or her own classroom. Some teachers (me, I will admit) are fortunate enough to have classrooms to themselves for more than 50% of the day, but no one has a room that she and only she occupies 100% of the day. This, as you can imagine, makes it harder to do classroom maintenance and decoration, since you can't exactly hang posters and change bulletin boards and schlep furniture while one of
The intersection of technology and test scores | Taking Note
The intersection of technology and test scores | Taking Note:
The intersection of technology and test scores
As always, remember that John’s book The Influence of Teachers is for sale at Amazon.
“In Classroom of the Future, Stagnant Scores” blared the headline in New York Times on September 4th. The paper’s editors decided that the top-of-the-fold story on Page 1 also warranted two full pages inside, plus four color photos and a graph. That’s a huge part of the news hole on any day, but particularly on Sunday, when circulation is at its highest.
The long piece is worth reading, but at the end of the day what stood out for me was what the articlefailed to take note of: the unimaginative uses of the technology, essentially digital versions of routine stuff: One teacher gave a true-false quiz but handed out wireless clickers for students to record their answers. In other classes, kids were playing a math game (“Alien Addition”) and an interactive spelling game, while other students were videotaping a skit that they could as easily have simply performed for
Monday, September 12, 2011
An independent, pro-teacher vote in the IL House? « Fred Klonsky's blog
An independent, pro-teacher vote in the IL House? « Fred Klonsky's blog:
An independent, pro-teacher vote in the IL House?
A crush of people at Cole’s for Will Guzzardi’s campaign for IL House.
I promised I would attend the opening of Will Guzzardi’s campaign for the state House seat from Logan Square’s 39th District. And I did.
I joined a crush of people at Cole’s bar on Milwaukee in the heart of Logan Square.
The incumbent is Toni Berrios, daughter
The Honeymooners | The Jose Vilson
The Honeymooners | The Jose Vilson:
The Honeymooners
Honeymooners
Everyone calls this period the “honeymoon” on purpose. We lay the ground rules for the first few periods we encounter each other, get to know each other a bit, and make connections based on things we might have already observed. From there, we play nice, engaging in a light display of tug-and-pull, a diluted version of tug-of-war, sure to appear sometime later in the episode. Now isn’t the time for that, though. Right now, we’re just understanding the rules of engagement and playing along with them. Some might prefer to stay focused on these rules for the whole first week, but I’m ballsy. Why waste time when I can just demonstrate the rules through actual content?
I’m months away from a real honeymoon. This honeymoon’s about my own students.
The leg up I have on most teachers is that I get a flavor for classes before they even get to push my door handle.While other teachers locked themselves up in their rooms (to plan lessons and grade papers, I assume), I learned some of these classes, their leaders, and some of the knuckleheads that lined up in front of the dean’s office frequently for small to large infractions. When I first found out about the class I’d have in the year, I relished the opportunity. Sure, they had a couple of kids from the previous year. They have a certain character I can’t
Schools Matter: Some NOLA KIPP Schools Lagging Behind State Average
Schools Matter: Some NOLA KIPP Schools Lagging Behind State Average:
Some NOLA KIPP Schools Lagging Behind State Average
KIPP, Inc. offers a draconian test factory model that specializes in its own patented varieties of behavioral sterilization and cultural neutering. KIPP's Madison Avenue advertising campaign focuses on KIPP test scores, which are often higher than public school scores. But then spending 60 percent more time in school drilling within a total compliance regime that regularly shoves out low performers has its own kinds of perverse rewards.
As a result of advertising, unlimited corporate cash (tax-deductible), and the Jay Mathews PR machine, KIPP is held up as the urban model to emulate, even though we know it can never be scaled up to a level that would be needed to educate the majority of American school children who reside in urban areas. What is scary, however, is that public schools are starting to take on the total compliance regime of KIPP, Inc., thus achieving the primary aim of corporate reform schoolers in cities like New Orleans, which is to supply an endless stream of work-hard-and-be-nice bellhops and laundry workers for the Disney version of New Orleans that the white men of
As a result of advertising, unlimited corporate cash (tax-deductible), and the Jay Mathews PR machine, KIPP is held up as the urban model to emulate, even though we know it can never be scaled up to a level that would be needed to educate the majority of American school children who reside in urban areas. What is scary, however, is that public schools are starting to take on the total compliance regime of KIPP, Inc., thus achieving the primary aim of corporate reform schoolers in cities like New Orleans, which is to supply an endless stream of work-hard-and-be-nice bellhops and laundry workers for the Disney version of New Orleans that the white men of
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