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Saturday, March 10, 2012

Big Education Ape: 3-10-12 PM voucher plan unconstitutional EDition

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

Published by Coopmike48 – 5 news spotters today

for the love of learning: Fraser Institute: Data mongers

joebower.org - Fraser Institute: Data mongers I was reading Student awards cut to foster teamwork in B.C., Alberta when I came across this: “Competition is a mechanism by which to encourage excellence among stude...
Diane Ravitch

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coopmike48 #EDU School Tech Connect: IFT Primary Outreach: Kelly Cassidy: School Tech Connect: IFT Primary Outreach: Kelly ... bit.ly/wvODWm4 minutes ago · reply · retweet · favorite
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coopmike48 Scientists say America is too dumb for democracy to thrive | Politics Blog | an SFGate.com blog bit.ly/yFsXxz3 minutes ago · reply · retweet · favorite
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DianeRavitch NYC teacher data reports: junk science invented by data-crunchers who never taught:garyrubinstein.teachforus.org/2012/03/10/ana…48 minutes ago · reply · retweet · favorite

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Activists Seek To Curtail Restraining Students

foxnews.com - WASHINGTON –  Tens of thousands of students, most of them disabled, are strapped down or physically restrained in school, and disability advocates hope that a new Education Department report detail...
Coopmike48

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WEEKLY ADDRESS: Investing in a Clean Energy Future

whitehouse.gov - WASHINGTON, DC— In his weekly address, President Obama spoke to the American people from a factory in Petersburg, Virginia about the growing trend of companies creating more jobs in the United Stat...
Coopmike48

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Six Reasons Rewards Don't Work

edutopia.org - Dr. Richard Curwin is the director of the Master's program in Behavior Disorder at David Yellin College in Jerusalem and the author of 20 books related to motivation and behavior, includingDiscipli...
Diane Ravitch

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An Urban Teacher's Education: Somebody's Unplugging My Computer

An Urban Teacher's Education: Somebody's Unplugging My Computer:


Somebody's Unplugging My Computer

by James Boutin
Yesterday, for the third day in a row, I sat down at my computer during third period to find somebody had pulled its plug out of the socket.

The first two days it happened, I chalked it up to an accident. The outlet is in sort of an awkward place, and its possible that a student may have bumped into the cord or moved a chair into it to knock it out of place.

Noticing this problem, on Thursday I rearranged my desk so that the outlet would be completely covered with no possibility of students accidentally knocking the cord out of the outlet. But when I sat down to my computer on Friday, I found that it had happened again

I cannot express in words how frustrating this is. If I had a pillow in the classroom, I may have made a display of 
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School Tech Connect: IFT Primary Outreach: Kelly Cassidy

School Tech Connect: IFT Primary Outreach: Kelly Cassidy:


IFT Primary Outreach: Kelly Cassidy

I just got the nicest letter from IFT president Dan Montgomery, advising me to vote for Kelly Cassidy, who  was endorsed early on byIFT and then later on by IPACE.

Evidently there are people who still haven't voted. It's been a long time since I was in the IEA but I don't remember getting an endorsement letter like this ever from IPACE. Maybe I just missed them.  It's a pretty nice feature, I must say. When I was a local officer in IEA, I'd wager to say that 50% of my members didn't have the foggiest about who IPACE endorsed or didn't endorse.

Anyway, hats off to IFT. And Kelly Cassidy.
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Seattle Schools Community Forum: The Legislature and Education Bills; Here's Where They Stand

Seattle Schools Community Forum: The Legislature and Education Bills; Here's Where They Stand:


The Legislature and Education Bills; Here's Where They Stand

by Melissa Westbrook
Thank goodness for The Olympian; they really keep up-to-date on the Legislature.   Here's the latest on education measures:

Passed and gone to the Governor for her signature:

Collaborative schools: A proposal for universities to work with school districts to assist low-performing schools cleared the Legislature. The pilot project would implement instruction models and other strategies in chosen elementary schools.

This is a bill I supported - HB2799 - in place of the charter school bill.  I think it's a great start to helping low-
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Undocumented students begin cross-country trek - latimes.com

Undocumented students begin cross-country trek - latimes.com:


Undocumented students begin cross-country trek

A group of undocumented students and their supporters Saturday began a cross-country walking journey from San Francisco to Washington, D.C., to advocate for the passage of the Dream Act.
The eight-month walk began just before 1 p.m. with marchers crossing the Golden Gate Bridge. The trek is meant to draw attention during the election season to the proposed federal legislation, which would create a path to citizenship for illegal immigrants who are college students or military service members.
The marchers are expected to arrive in Washington shortly before the presidential election.
One marcher, Lucas Da Silva, 23, a student at Valencia College in Orlando, Fla., said he came to the U.S. from Brazil as a 1-year-old.
“We really wanted to [do the cross-country walk] during the election year, and try to reinvigorate and advocate,” he said. “We wanted to  launch our own campaign based on love and opportunity.”
Jose Gonzalez, a student at San Diego Mesa College who came to the U.S. from Mexico when he was 5 
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Daily Kos: Our fight for public schooling is a fight for democracy

Daily Kos: Our fight for public schooling is a fight for democracy:


Our fight for public schooling is a fight for democracy

by rss@dailykos.com (teacherken)
Our fight for public schooling is a fight for democracy, for one-for-all-and-all-for-one solutions to our problems. But what is this democracy idea? Or as the Occupiers say: "What does democracy look like"? We need to use schools to sell democracy—even to explain it! It doesn't just live on neglected and compromised. Even many of our parental allies seem content to view public education as a private concern for their kids' futures. Period. In such a world the only thing that matters is rank order and, as I used to remind colleagues, no matter how fast kids line up, there's always just one in the front all the way back to one at the end. We're fighting each other these days to see if by hook or crook we can get "ours" nearer the front. (And "cutting" the line is allowed.) We live, too many of us, in a climate that makes us all compete for the shortage of private goods rather than tackling the "shortage" issue.
The words are those of MacArthur Genius Award winner Deborah Meier, in the Bridging Differences blog she shares with Diane Ravitch.  Her most recent post, from which these words are taken,  is titled Phony Stories About Schools, and I urge you to read it and pass it on.Let me offer one more paragraph:
How to overcome the tendency to pull into our private well-armored tanks, fending off enemies everywhere once the barbarian within us all has been set loose? That is the question. Schools that can belong to all of "us" are too few, even among public schools. So we have a dual fight—to prevent privatization and to shore up public ownership.
Read the post.Pass it on.
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Parents Across America hails defeat of Florida’s Parent Trigger bill | Seattle Education

Parents Across America hails defeat of Florida’s Parent Trigger bill | Seattle Education:


Parents Across America hails defeat of Florida’s Parent Trigger bill

by seattleducation2011
Parents Across America hails defeat of Florida’s Parent Trigger bill:
A victory of parents over forces that would privatize and profit from our public schools
 Public education and true parent empowerment were the winners after a “Parent Trigger” law died on the floor of the Florida State Senate on March 9, said Rita Solnet, a Florida parent activist and a founding member of the national organization Parents Across America, who worked with other parent groups from the state to defeat the bill. Solnet hailed the outcome as a triumph of parents over the forces that would privatize and profit from our public schools.
“I pray this defeat helps other states to avoid a similar attack on our public schools,” said Solnet, a Boca Raton businesswoman and a co-founder of PAA. “This was a victory for true parent empowerment. By working together with my colleagues in PAA and other grassroots parent groups, including Save Duval Schools, 50th No More, the Florida state PTA, Fund Education Now, and Testing is Not Teaching, we managed to beat the richly funded corporate reformers.”
The so-called Parent Empowerment in Education Act (SB 1718) was framed as allowing parents at a public 
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LDF ON 2009-10 School Year “Civil Rights Data Collection” | The Defenders Online | A Civil Rights Blog

LDF ON 2009-10 School Year “Civil Rights Data Collection” | The Defenders Online | A Civil Rights Blog:


LDF ON 2009-10 School Year “Civil Rights Data Collection”

by The Editors

Posted By  | March 6th, 2012 | Category: Education | No Comments » Print This Post Print This Post
The NAACP Legal Defense and Educational Fund, Inc. (“LDF”) applauds the U.S. Department of Education on the release of its most recent “Civil Rights Data Collection” ? and is deeply alarmed by the data therein.
Compared to prior data releases, this year’s data collection for the 2009-2010 school year reflects an expanded set of information, including factors such as school-based arrests, referrals to law enforcement and students receiving multiple suspensions. LDF and other civil rights and education advocates have urged inclusion of these reporting categories and have also asked the Department of Education to collect these data annually from all schools, including all charter schools that receive federal funds.
The data confirms what many civil rights and education advocates have feared. Stark racial disparities across various indicators are hampering educational access and opportunity. According to the Department of Education, black students are more than three-and-a-half times as likely to be suspended or expelled compared to their white peers. Black and Hispanic students are far more likely than white students to be forced to repeat a grade, especially in the elementary and middle grades. And fewer schools with high concentrations of minority students had access to either advanced curriculum or reasonably experienced teachers who can prepare them to compete in today’s global economy.
This data release reflects a continuing trend of racial disparities in education, particularly with respect to school discipline.
African American boy doing schoolworkEach year, more and more students are suspended and expelled from schools, and some are even arrested on 
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