This is the story of Gretchen Herrera, and her battle with her son’s charter school, to allow him to opt out standardized testing. Her son Anthony attended the South Carolina Virtual Charter School, a branch of K12 Inc., one of the nation’s largest chains of for-profit charter schools.
This was written Larry Ferlazzo, who teaches at Luther Burbank High School in Sacramento, California. He has written several books on education; writes a popular blog for teachers and a weekly teacher advice column for Education Week Teacher. He is a member of the Teacher Leaders Network.
By Larry Ferlazzo
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I went to an informational meeting for the parents of incoming special ed kindergartners and was struck by:
The thought of my already anxious boy taking inappropriate and stressful state tests is more than I can stomach, so I did a little research and found the following item in a state testing FAQ.
Can the IEP team exempt my child from participating in state or districtwide assessments?No. The role of the IEP team is to determine how your child can participate most appropriately in
Here is the hidden truth about school accountability: Civil rights groups are some of the strongest proponents of measuring students each year and holding schools responsible if their students aren't making progress.
This point came home again Wednesday, when a press release popped into my email basket announcing that civil rights groups could not back the Senate's proposed rewriting of the No Child Left Behind Act.
The organizations signing onto the release included the American Civil Liberties Union, the NAACP, the National Council of La Raza, the Poverty and Race Research Action Council, the National Urban League, the League of United Latin American Citizens, the Leadership Conference on Civil and Human Rights and the Mexican American Legal Defense Fund.
Those prominent civil rights groups were joined by a range of business organizations, such as the U.S. Chamber of Commerce and the Business Coalition for Student Achievement. And they were backed by a number of state
Occupy Wall Street is shining a useful spotlight on one of America’s central challenges, the inequality that leaves the richest 1 percent of Americans with a greater net worth than the entire bottom 90 [sic] percent.
Most of the proposed remedies involve changes in taxes and regulations, and they would help. But
Wednesday, Oct. 19, 2011 | 10:55 PM
The long-awaited Bullard High School Master Plan, which calls for an 85,000-square-foot classroom and library building along Palm Avenue, was approved by a divided Fresno Unified Board of Trustees on Wednesday night.
The vote was delayed well into the evening by Occupy Fresno protesters who blasted the district for its administrative salaries.
Board members Carol Mills, Michelle Asadoorian and Larry Moore voted against the master plan, saying the Bullard community had unresolved issues with it.
The district has had 17 community meetings on the plan, which has been under fire from some
Over the past week I have met with lots of teachers in groups at local schools about the upcoming veto session of the Illinois General Assembly. Dozens and dozens of teachers. Maybe a couple a hundred or so.
This is a tough time for our teachers to do political stuff. Some are in the middle of parent conferences. We’re heading for the end of the first trimester. We’re busy. Busier than the typical busy.
But still, every teacher must now go online each morning and act now.
“Who is this Civic Committee?”
They are Chicago’s corporate elite. Part of the top 1%.
“Why do they care about teacher pensions?”
Public employee pensions are worth billions of dollars. We teachers and other public employees have
GRAND BLANC, Michigan — Genesee County Clerk Michael Carr said the state’s Supreme Court has reversed a lower court’s ruling that the Nov. 8 recall election against Rep. Paul Scott, R-
Dear Diane,
I loved Nancy Creech's piece from Valerie Strauss's Washington Post blog last summer. Thanks, Diane, for sending it along. It's a vital reminder as the nation faces a new federal Race to the Top demand: Start testing at age 3. Or else.
Creech's detailed minute-by-minute counting of what it means to pursue the latest early-childhood "Reform Agenda" is mind-boggling! Thanks, Nancy, for writing it. I've done something similar to show the absurdity of most homework policies. Designing, assigning, reading, thinking about, and responding to 20 to 30 students' homework accounts for a staggering amount of teacher time—if it's taken seriously and conscientiously. Not to mention that one cannot observe how homework is actually "getting done," nor who is doing it!
For these reasons we decided, at Central Park East and Mission Hill, on a different approach—certainly for 3- to 7-year-olds. We made an agreement with our children's families: You don't tell us what to do during the hours a child is with us, and we won't tell you what to do during the hours the children are with you. But we can both
Vice President Joe Biden’s commitment to ending violence against women has been unwavering. The Violence Against Women Act (VAWA) that he authored has reshaped the way the United States responds to domestic violence and sexual assault by enhancing law enforcement practices, improving the criminal justice system, and creating a network of services for victims.
In response to the Vice President’s call to action and youth initiative, the Department of Health and Human Services, the Department of Education, and the Department of Housing and Urban Development are collaborating to hold ten regional town hall events throughout the country during the last week of October 2011 on the topic of Engaging Men in Ending Violence Against Women.
Find an event near you:
As Vice President Biden reminded us on the 17th Anniversary of the passage of the VAWA, “We can fight violence again women. But it can’t happen without all of you speaking up and acting; it can’t end until we make it completely clear that sexual assault and violence against women cannot, will not be tolerated anywhere, anytime for any reason, period.”
Cross-posted from womenshealth.gov.
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