School choice bill robs from the poor and gives to the rich - phillyBurbs.com : Guest Opinions: guest opinion, school choice, senate bill 1, vouchers,

School choice bill robs from the poor and gives to the rich - phillyBurbs.com : Guest Opinions: guest opinion, school choice, senate bill 1, vouchers,:

School choice bill robs from the poor and gives to the rich

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Posted: Wednesday, November 30, 2011 6:00 am | Updated: 8:50 pm, Thu Dec 1, 2011.

By GARY PAPAZIAN, JR. | 14 comments

As a teacher in the Council Rock School District, I have seen the effects first hand from the $860 million in state budget cuts. Speaking with my colleagues in Pennsylvania, I continuously hear how these cuts have forced school districts to increase class sizes, cut courses, and eliminate tutoring programs that help our students learn. I am certainly not against parochial or non-sacred private schools, as they provide options for families that want a specialized education. I have family members who sent their children to elite private schools and are very successful. Of course, they paid for the choice and option to send their children to private schools. A recent public opinion poll shows that 65 percent of Pennsylvanians oppose tuition voucher initiatives and that 69 percent oppose the public school funding cuts.

Instead of passing unaccountable, unproven initiatives that drain even more funding from our public schools — like tuition vouchers — please encourage our legislators and governor to support programs that provide more individualized instruction, reduce class sizes, and offer pre-kindergarten and full-day kindergarten. Pennsylvania’s public schools are among the best in the nation. Our students’ performance on the National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP) is among the nation’s best and seven of 10 public school students go on to college or higher education.

I feel this is a slippery slope, and if Senate Bill 1 passes, public schools will be forced to make further cuts, such as remove kindergarten courses, and further curtailment of arts courses. Class sizes will continue to increase,

Seattle Schools Community Forum: Lowell Lockdown Incident Raises Some Questions

Seattle Schools Community Forum: Lowell Lockdown Incident Raises Some Questions:

Lowell Lockdown Incident Raises Some Questions

by Melissa Westbrook

Earlier today this happened (this from SPS Office of Public Affairs):

Today, a group of fourth-grade students from Lowell Elementary on Capitol Hill went on a field trip that involved walking to and from Cal Anderson Park, where they went ice skating. The students were accompanied by teachers and parents. As the group was returning from the field trip, at approximately 3 p.m., Lowell staff learned that one of the parents might be a criminal suspect wanted by police. A teacher at the school called 9-1-1.

When the students returned from the field trip, they were escorted inside the school and the Lowell Elementary principal placed the school on lockdown to ensure the safety of all Lowell students. The suspect did not enter the school. When police arrived, the suspect fled the scene.

Students were allowed to leave the school after being escorted onto buses, or if they were picked up by their

More student unrest likely, California college officials tell legislative panel - Sacramento News - Local and Breaking Sacramento News | Sacramento Bee

More student unrest likely, California college officials tell legislative panel - Sacramento News - Local and Breaking Sacramento News | Sacramento Bee:

More student unrest likely, California college officials tell legislative panel

by sstanton@sacbee.com (Sam Stanton)

One month after the pepper-spraying of student protesters at the University of California, Davis, officials are struggling with how to move forward, even as they prepare for the possibility of new protests and building takeovers when students return next month.

UC Davis Chancellor Linda P.B. Katehi speaks at a joint Assembly-Senate committee hearing Wednesday.

UC Berkeley moves to ease tuition burden for some

by kyamamura@sacbee.com (Kevin Yamamura)

The University of California, Berkeley, will cap attendance costs for families earning between $80,000 and $140,000 in a new attempt to relieve middle-class parents squeezed by tuition hikes.

UC Berkeley Chancellor Robert Birgeneau on Wednesday announces cost curbs for families earning $80,000 to $140,000.

Mike Klonsky's SmallTalk Blog: An "astonishing number..."

Mike Klonsky's SmallTalk Blog: An "astonishing number...":

An "astonishing number..."

by Mike Klonsky

Remember last spring when Arne Duncan was pushing for reauthorization of NCLB, heclaimed that 82 percent of public schools were "failing"? Three days later, President Obama repeated Duncan's foolish claim in a speech at Kenmore Middle School in Arlington, Va. “Four out of five schools will be labeled as failing,” Obama said , in March. “That’s an astonishing number.”

Astonishing indeed. The only thing "failing" was NCLB itself.

As Duncan himself admitted yesterday while brushing aside his horrible, demoralizing

NYC Educator: Digging in His Heels

NYC Educator: Digging in His Heels:

Digging in His Heels

by Miss Eyre

"Ronny" is a senior at my school. Ronny is universally regarded as, on one hand, bright and capable; on the other, as stubborn, strong-willed, and difficult to get to know. As you can imagine, working with Ronny is not an easy task as the seniors wrap up their college applications.

Ronny does not want to go to college. Period. No ifs, ands, or buts. Four years at an ostensibly college-prep school have not changed his mind. He wants to be an auto mechanic, he says. He has applied to a technical school in New Jersey. He has an uncle in the garage business. That's it, Ronny says. He's done. No college applications and certainly none of this bee-ess paper-writing that his peers are dragging themselves through at the behest of their teachers, anxious to make them college-ready by June.

Ronny's attendance is fairly regular. His teachers say, exhausted from arguing with him, that he simply refuses to write papers. He'll do everything else, he says. And he will. His grades on other

Jerry Brown’s cagily worded initiative | Thoughts on Public Education

Jerry Brown’s cagily worded initiative | Thoughts on Public Education:

Jerry Brown’s cagily worded initiative - by John Fensterwald - Educated Guess

by John Fensterwald - Educated Guess

Californians like the shorthand explanation of the tax increase that Gov. Jerry Brown is proposing for November. Seventy percent in a recent poll said they’d favor the initiative if the money would go to K-12 schools. But this would be true only in a narrow, technical sense. Schools will likely get billions of dollars less. That’s because, [...]

Once more around the track of school reforms in Los Angeles Unified - by Charles Taylor Kerchner

by Charles Taylor Kerchner

In a new labor agreement that embraces local school autonomy, Los Angeles Unified School District Superintendent John Deasy has jumped from one school reform horse to another. He dismounted the Public School Choice horse, thus ending the era when the school district sought to improve schools through robust competition among district-run school management teams, charters, and [...]

Why strong afterschool programs matter - The Answer Sheet - The Washington Post

Why strong afterschool programs matter - The Answer Sheet - The Washington Post:

Why strong afterschool programs matter

by Valerie Strauss

This was written by Jodi Grant, executive director of the nonprofit Afterschool Alliance, a nonprofit organization that works to ensure that all children have access to affordable, quality afterschool programs.

By Jodi Grant

The National School Boards Association recently released a report comparing the time U.S. students spend in school to the time spent in school in other countries — questioning the trendy notion that our schools would improve if we merely added time to the school day. As executive director of the Afterschool Alliance, I’ve spent the past two years fighting efforts to divert federal support for already underfunded afterschool programs to instead provide a small number of failing schools with money to add an hour or two to their school day. This would not only add to the 15 million children currently unsupervised each afternoon, but could deny more than a million children the engaged learning and building blocks of healthy development provided by afterschool programs. Like many experts, I’m fearful that simply adding more time to our least successful schools is not the right answer.

Read full article >>

7 key questions to ask about ed technology, online learning

by Valerie Strauss

This was written by Cathy N. Davidson, a Duke professor and author of Now You See It: How the Brain Science of Attention Will Transform the Way We Live, Work, and Learn.

By Cathy N. Davidson

Read full article >>

Ravitch: What Scrooge might think of modern school reform

by Valerie Strauss

This was written by education historian Diane Ravitch for her Bridging Differences blog, which she co-authors with Deborah Meier on the Education Week website. Ravitch and Meier exchange letters about what matters most in education. Ravitch, a research professor at New York University, is the author of the bestselling “The Death and Life of the Great American School System,” an important critique of the flaws in the modern school reform movement that she just updated.

Read full article >>

Daily Kos: Some thoughts on teaching (redux)

Daily Kos: Some thoughts on teaching (redux):

Some thoughts on teaching (redux)

by rss@dailykos.com (teacherken)

which were occasioned by a recent conversation where i was asked if I thought teaching more of an art rather than a science. I responded that the question was a false frame, and was asked to explain.

My explanation comes in part from my background and formal education in music.

I think what we are seeing in education is neither art nor science, but the attempt to turn education into an engineering problem. In engineering, it is of course important to have rigorous standards. In manufacturing the ideal of exactly the same interchangeable parts is an important component of mass production, which provides consistency, and may even save on cost.

But students are not, and should not be, widgets or other manufactured outputs. They are absolutely unique

IA-04 Vilsack v King - a quick update

by rss@dailykos.com (teacherken)

Christie Vilsack had small fundraising get-together in DC on Wed evening, upstairs at the Mad Hatter on Connecticut Avenue. About 40 people gathered to see the candidate, probably most with some prior Iowa connections - in my case, a friendship with the Vilsacks going back to 2005. The crowd was predominantly younger (at least compared to this sixty-plus denizen) and quite enthusiatic. People were encouraged to sign up for ongoing contributions, and to use their social networks to encourage friends, even those without Iowa

the affirmation of the Daily Kos community

by rss@dailykos.com (teacherken)

is something I have experienced many times. Perhaps it was Meteor Blades sending me an email encouraging me to keep at it when I was struggling to find my voice. It was Las Vegas in 2006, the reaction (which as a shy person I was not sure how to handle) when I said I was teacherken. It has been the emails from people thanking me for things I have written, or the wonderful comments on my posts, where people get inspired to take an idea I have offered and take it further.

Perhaps my greatest experience of this came in the Spring of 2010, when I offered a diary titled simply Some new about me . . . where I explained to the community something I had known for a month - that I was a winner of the Washington Post Agnes Meyer Outstanding Teacher Award. It was not just the more than 1500

Jersey Jazzman: Hypocrisy One

Jersey Jazzman: Hypocrisy One:

Hypocrisy One

by Duke

Chris Christie, 12/14/11:

Gov. Chris Christie deflected a question today on whether he used his power this week to extract revenge on State Sen. Richard Codey — but not before taking another jab at the former governor.

“What I’ve learned about legislators over time, and particularly about Sen. Codey, is that they seem to be much more worried about the perks of the job than they are about actually getting the job done,” Christie said today at news conference in

School Tech Connect: Krashen Reviews The Evidence, Again

School Tech Connect: Krashen Reviews The Evidence, Again:

Krashen Reviews The Evidence, Again

by noreply@blogger.com (Tim)

TFT has posted a CTU video of Stephen Krashen. Go watch it.

I'm making it my goal to get this information before the eyes of my elected people. All of us in the resistance know these things already, but our lawmakers get their information from Arne Duncan, who is where he is basically because he plays basketball with the President.

I love this: "International tests are reliable. They're good tests; they're not

$$$ CONTRIBUTE TO PERDAILY ADVOCACY ON YOUR BEHALF $$$ ($ $ $ CONTRIBUIR A LA DEFENSA EN SU NOMBRE PERDAILY $ $ $) - Perdaily.com

$$$ CONTRIBUTE TO PERDAILY ADVOCACY ON YOUR BEHALF $$$ ($ $ $ CONTRIBUIR A LA DEFENSA EN SU NOMBRE PERDAILY $ $ $) - Perdaily.com:

$$$ CONTRIBUTE TO PERDAILY ADVOCACY ON YOUR BEHALF $$$ ($ $ $ CONTRIBUIR A LA DEFENSA EN SU NOMBRE PERDAILY $ $ $)

by Leonard Isenberg

(Mensaje se repite en Español)

As the number of teachers still working for the Los Angeles Unified School District (LAUSD) continues to plummet precipitously to approximately 35,000 - down close to 8,000 in about a year - have you asked yourself what your exclusive bargaining agent United Teachers Los Angeles (UTLA) is doing for the $57.42 a month it takes from you?:

1. Grievances go through the motions and are invariably dropped.
2. Arbitration is rarely asked for by UTLA's Legal Committee and when it is denied, there is no justification given, no matter how compelling the case.
3. LAUSD administrators are empowered in their ceaseless attack on teachers and other LAUSD employees in clearly violating applicable state and federal law, the UTLA/LAUSD Collective Bargaining Agreement, and LAUSD's own bulletin regulations, which LAUSD is only

A Teacher’s Christmas Wish « City School Stories

A Teacher’s Christmas Wish « City School Stories:

A Teacher’s Christmas Wish

by fmurphy

Teacher Stories

Submitted by: Joy of Teaching on December 15,2011

The holiday season is upon us. I know because the local radio station jolted me into it with the round-the-clock Christmas music a week before Thanksgiving. The other day, I heard a song by Amy Grant titled “My Grown Up Christmas List”. The lyrics express an adult’s wish for a peaceful world, long lasting friendships and healing. This song has me thinking of what a Teacher’s Christmas List would look like. So here is my version.

Dear Santa,

I am a teacher with the School district of Philadelphia. I don’t know if you have paid attention to the many changes that our students, teachers and staff have endured this past year, but let me say they have been painful, shocking and at times disheartening. So, this year I am writing to you with my teacher’s wish for this

Will Big Charter Schools Poor Record in Florida Be Protected by Political Patronage? | Scathing Purple Musings

Will Big Charter Schools Poor Record in Florida Be Protected by Political Patronage? | Scathing Purple Musings:

Will Big Charter Schools Poor Record in Florida Be Protected by Political Patronage?

by Bob Sikes

From Lisa Rab of the New Times:

A Homestead charter school run by a for-profit company that promises to help at-risk kids graduate issued standard diplomas to only 18 students in the past two years, according to the Miami-Dade school district.

.Mavericks High of South Miami-Dade had 52 seniors enrolled during the 2009-2010 school year. Only two of them — or 3.8 percent of the class — graduated with a standard diploma.The next year, district records show 16 Mavericks students received standard diplomas and six earned certificates of completion, meaning they had finished their coursework but didn’t pass the FCAT, or