Thursday, February 16, 2012

Big Education Ape: 2-16-12 AM PARENTS CAN! #soschat #TEACHTALK

Big Education Ape: PARENTS CAN!:
Big Education Ape: PARENTS CAN!

Published by Coopmike48 – 8 news spotters today

Launching Project RESPECT | ED.gov Blog

ed.gov - “Our goal is to work with educators in rebuilding their profession—and to elevate the teacher voice in shaping federal, state and local education policy,” said Secretary Duncan today at the launch ...

arneduncan

What Is "Teachers Village"?

jerseyjazzman.blogspot.com - Remember the name: Teachers Village. It's a $150 million, mixed-use development that just broke ground with great fanfare in Newark. The idea is that teachers will live in the complex and teach at ...

DianeRavitch

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coopmike48 Education | UW students give Regents an earful on tuition woes | Seattle Times Newspaper - goo.gl/nnOS33 minutes ago · reply · retweet · favorite

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coopmike48 The blame game of personal responsibility | Being Latino Online Magazine - goo.gl/lb4iL2 minutes ago · reply · retweet · favorite

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coopmike48 Eduflack: Working with Unions on Reform - goo.gl/k5fU712 minutes ago · reply · retweet · favorite

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The Board of Education's Circus Act Doesn't Help Kids

huffingtonpost.com - I blogged about the December 14th takeover of the Chicago Board of Education meeting by parents and educators where I described the feeling of being dismissed by powerful people while presenting co...

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Spying on the Rev.

nypdconfidential.com - February 13, 2012 An NYPD informant spied on the Rev. Al Sharpton’s National Action Network [NAN] as the group was organizing large-scale protests of the Sean Bell case acquittals, a police documen...

leoniehaimson

Rick Santorum's Pincer Movement - New York Times (blog)

campaignstops.blogs.nytimes.com - New York Times (blog)Rick Santorum's Pincer MovementNew York Times (blog)It's been clear since Iowa that Rick Santorum, of all the Republican contenders, posed the most serious challenge to Mitt Ro...

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Why You Don't Have To Be 'More Like A Man' To Get Ahead

huffingtonpost.com - "Why can't a woman be more like a man?" sings Professor Higgins in the musical "My Fair Lady". Charming as the song is, I can't help but be offended. And in Higgins' misguided opinion, women fall f...

coopmike48

What to do when a teacher ignores bullying

ednewsparent.org - Q. What advice can you give when the children bullying your child do it quietly. My son is 11 years old. Tattling is frowned upon. He gets harassed one-on-one when the teacher is not looking. Then ...

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Google: One Privacy Policy to Rule Them All

insidehighered.com - Beginning on March 1st, Google will eliminate more than 60 separate privacy policies and replace them with a single privacy policy for all of their services. A shiver ran across my back when I watc...

coopmike48

This Week In Web 2.0

larryferlazzo.edublogs.org - In yet another attempt to get at the enormous backlog I have of sites worth sharing, I’ve recently begin a regular feature called “The Week In Web 2.0.” It’ll be a short compilation of new decent s...

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I CAN DIE A HAPPY MAN « Teachers Fight Back

I CAN DIE A HAPPY MAN « Teachers Fight Back:

I CAN DIE A HAPPY MAN

by alkleen

I can now officially die a happy man. One of my crazy ideas has actually been adopted by a group of charter schools. I wish it would now be implemented in our true public schools. The Noble Network of Charter Schools, which runs ten city high schools, has raised nearly $200,000 from disciplinary fees last year and almost $400,000 since the 2008-09 school year. The schools charge $5 for minor disciplinary infractions like having untied shoelaces or dozing off in class. The strict student code issues a detention for infractions such as chewing gum, possessing soft drinks, eating chips, not tucking in a shirt after being warned and carrying a permanent marker. The three-hour after-school detention comes with a $5 fee and can include a silent study period, behavior improvement work or chores. More than 12 detentions lands students in a $140 discipline class.

Of course the parents have been protesting and complaining about the excessive discipline code. Of course we will never see this in normal public schools, but at least it happened somewhere, and I can die a happy man.

The Noble Network CEO said that by focusing on smaller disciplinary issues, the charter operator keeps a lid on violence. “We maybe have one fight per year, per campus,” he said. “It’s an incredibly safe environment… and

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Phil Kovacs Responds to the Latest Research on Teach For America - Living in Dialogue - Education Week Teacher

Phil Kovacs Responds to the Latest Research on Teach For America - Living in Dialogue - Education Week Teacher:

Phil Kovacs Responds to the Latest Research on Teach For America

by Anthony Cody

A few days ago, I ran a guest post authored by science educator Jack Hassard; Cobb County, Georgia, Rejects Teach For America. One cogent comment came from Stuart (EdOutsider), who wrote the following:

Listen, all this slapping our own backs might be fun and good, but of all the states where TFA places its teachers, three (Tennessee, North Carolina, and Louisiana) conducted a study to determine which certification path produced the greatest collective student gains.

What did it find? TFA teachers (teaching in the poorest 20% of schools) outperformed all other certification routes, including residency master's programs.

Yes, on 5 weeks of training. So, on the whole, would you say we are recruiting the right applicants to the profession?


Here are the studies:

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The Innovative Educator: Death of a Democratic School in A Culture of Greed and Mistrust

The Innovative Educator: Death of a Democratic School in A Culture of Greed and Mistrust:

Death of a Democratic School in A Culture of Greed and Mistrust

by noreply@blogger.com (Lisa Nielsen)
Guest post by Shella R. Zelenz, M.A.Ed., Ed.D. Candidate

Iniabi = Osage for "The sun on which all life depends"

We will not be able to transform our education system if we remain comfortable. How can we? We can’t possibly be comfortable with genocide in Africa, slave labor practices in China, and other similar humanitarian abuses. Especially when we become aware that the only reason this occurs, is a direct result of the current consumerism-focused educational system that has now reached a crisis point. I no longer wish to hear other ways to tweak the current system to make people happy.

The system itself needs redesign and repurposed. No one is happy in this current paradigm. Even those who "succeed" according to the current educational system spend their entire lives in fear of losing what they have and are willing to abuse others to maintain their lifestyles. I'm seeking education with a TRUE purpose. Our kids deserve it. Our future needs it. We can no longer continue down the path our founding educational systems designed. A consumer focused
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School Tech Connect: As Ohio Goes..

School Tech Connect: As Ohio Goes..:

As Ohio Goes..

by noreply@blogger.com (Tim)
...so goes the nation..

This is one of the saddest stories I've read in a long time-- it's Diane Ravitch recapping the charter situation in Ohio, where I once worked. Really, read the whole thing, but here's part of the conclusion.

Ohio is pretty much a public education catastrophe, but it's not alone. This is the genie that Arne Duncan let out
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Louisiana Educator: Guest Essay on Education Reform

Louisiana Educator: Guest Essay on Education Reform:

Guest Essay on Education Reform

by Michael Deshotels
By: Bryan Alleman, M.Ed.
Puzzled by the all-of-a-sudden outside interest in Louisiana education politics, I decided to examine a few key metropolitan areas in the United States with pro charter school environments. Each has a suspiciously coincidental connection to the forces changing and profiting from Louisiana’s dramatically turbulent educational landscape. My goal is to determine the relevance of the current charter school movement in Louisiana and its feasibility as a method for improving student achievement in our state.

Before proceeding, it is important to note a phenomenon reported by the American Association of School Administrators called the 95/5 dilemma. The AASA describes how many school leaders have been seduced into abandoning common sense approaches due to an overwhelming emphasis on poor results on standardized tests by a tiny portion of the whole student body—roughly five percent. It is alarming that such a small portion of the
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The Priorities of DC Public Schools « A "Fuller" Look at Education Issues

The Priorities of DC Public Schools « A "Fuller" Look at Education Issues:

The Priorities of DC Public Schools

by Dr. Ed Fuller

Much has been written about the investigations into cheating in DC public schools. While the investigations are ongoing, the evidence suggests either cheating or some massive teaching to the test efforts. Neither cheating nor teaching to the test benefits children in any way. In his 2008 book entitled “Measuring Up: What Do Test Scores Really Tell Us?,” Koretz–a leading expert in testing–makes very clear that teaching to the test causes score inflation and limits rather than enhances students’ learning. Other testing experts concur with Koretz on this conclusion.

With respect to outright cheating and fraud, there is a clear ethical line–it is wrong. There is never any excuse.

In this case, the principal instigated a test prep plan in which teachers were told to instruct students on reading and math during science, social studies, and even music classes. The students were denied the opportunity to

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Struggling within the struggle. « Fred Klonsky

Struggling within the struggle. « Fred Klonsky:

Struggling within the struggle.

by Fred Klonsky

I am a great admirer of the writing of Maxine Green, Professor Emerita at Teachers College, Columbia University.

So when I was sent a request to put my name on a statement that was created as part of Social Imagination Projects, a project initiated by individuals who have also been inspired by Maxine Greene, I was interested.

The statement is a critique of the today’s standards and accountability-based “education reforms” that embrace corporate ideologies and advance privatization while undermining public education.

I received a response from a grad student who was working on the project. I have no interest in embarrassing anyone, so no names. But he suggested that although he didn’t want to reiterate the distinction between academics and K-12 school teachers, he thought it would be better for me to sign a different statement along

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Brown stretches switch to funding reform | Thoughts on Public Education

Brown stretches switch to funding reform | Thoughts on Public Education:

Brown stretches switch to funding reform - by John Fensterwald - Educated Guess

by John Fensterwald - Educated Guess
In the first of what will likely be multiple revisions – Finance Reform 1.01 – the Brown administration has scaled back the first year of phasing in its new school funding system and proposes to hold districts harmless from potential losses in revenue in that initial year. The administration also has significantly lowered the base revenue [...]

Vital student programs may be sacrified on the altar of flexibility - by Jim Aschwanden

by Jim Aschwanden
Over the past few weeks, several articles have appeared in TOP-Ed (here and here) identifying programs that have been threatened by the governor’s latest budget proposal. Gov. Brown would dramatically overhaul current funding for education in California by instituting a pupil-based formula prioritizing districts with high-poverty and English language learner populations, while eliminating virtually [...]
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Daily Kos: When is the profit motive wrong?

Daily Kos: When is the profit motive wrong?:

When is the profit motive wrong?

by rss@dailykos.com (teacherken)

This is a topic that often intrudes into my consciousness. Reading Meteor Blades' front page story on privatizing prisons thrust it forward to the point I decided to offer some mental ruminations.

Let's start with prisons. A prison is a place to which we send someone as punishment for having broken the social contract. Prisoners do not have the full rights of the rest of us - even the !3th Amendment banning slavery and involuntary servitude says of the ban

except as a punishment for crime whereof the party shall have been duly convicted
thus in theory there would be no Constitutional bar for the government committing people to private prisons as is already the case around too much of the nation. But while prisoners and ex-felons lose some rights, they are not subject to absolute authority of those controlling their confinement: a sentence even of life imprisonment
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Florida Can Look to Texas for Relief from Jeb Bush’s Testing Regime | Scathing Purple Musings

Florida Can Look to Texas for Relief from Jeb Bush’s Testing Regime | Scathing Purple Musings:

Florida Can Look to Texas for Relief from Jeb Bush’s Testing Regime

by Bob Sikes

Following the lead Texas Education Commissioner Robert Scott’s provided with his description of standardized testing as a “perversion of its original intent,” some North Texas superintendents joined in agreement. Writes Rodger Jones in the Dallas Morning News:

Saying high-stakes standardized testing is “strangling our public schools,” superintendents of several high-performing North Texas school districts have jointly signed a letter to top state officials and lawmakers warning about the deterioration of the education system.

Call it open rebellion against the 25-year-old testing regimen. Wow.

The letter goes out to back up Texas Education Commissioner Robert Scott, according to Coppell

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Jersey Jazzman: Every Reformy Politician Is Modeled on Bush

Jersey Jazzman: Every Reformy Politician Is Modeled on Bush:

Every Reformy Politician Is Modeled on Bush

by Duke
Doesn't matter if it's Christie or Cuomo or Scott or Walker or Emanuel or Bloomberg or Duncan or even Obama: all reformy politicians got their moves from studying the master himself:
The first to discover that teachers make perfect scapegoats was George W. Bush. When he ran for president for the first time twelve years ago, Bush had a problem. He wanted lower taxes to be his rallying cry, but while taxes in Texas, the state where he was governor, were indeed low, the schools in Texas were notoriously bad.
The numbers are no better today: Texas ranks 47th in the county in literacy, 49th in verbal SAT scores and 46th in math scores. To blind the public to the evidence of what low taxes do, Bush produced evidence of a miracle: When it
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Rocketship Schools and The Future: Part 2 | Larry Cuban on School Reform and Classroom Practice

Rocketship Schools and The Future: Part 2 | Larry Cuban on School Reform and Classroom Practice:

Rocketship Schools and The Future: Part 2

by larrycuban

Rocketship has three charter schools in San Jose (CA) in 2012. Mateo Sheedy elementary (K-5) has been described in various places. I visited Los Suenos elementary last week. And Rocketship schools are spreading.

Just recently, the Santa Clara County School Board (CA) granted 20 additional charters for K-5 elementary schools to Rocketship Schools. By 2016-2017, Rocketship will be operating charters in eight school districts, serving over 15,000 low-income Latino children. In addition, Rocketship received a nearly $2 million grant from the U.S. Department of Education to open charter schools in Oakland (CA), Milwaukee, New Orleans, and Chicago. The pace of opening new charters and growing Rocketship schools in the next five years puts John Danner and his organization on the national map alongside KIPP, Green Dot, and charter school models that promise success to low-income minority parents and students.

The features that distinguish Rocketship schools from its neighbors in San Jose school districts and elsewhere

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