Latest News and Comment from Education

Show All

Sunday, March 18, 2012

Big Education Ape: 3-18-12 PM ACLU Complaint to be Filed – #Parents Please Read EDition

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

Published by Coopmike48 – 5 news spotters today

ACLU Complaint to be Filed – Parents Please Read

unitedoptout.com - We were threatened using the the letter signed by Jo Obrien dated January 20 2012 and no phone call back from her. Let me know i want to join the ACLU complaint January 20, 2012 Dear Superintendent...
Diane Ravitch

Live Twitter stream on

@coopmike48/big-edu-ape-news-11

coopmike48 profile
coopmike48 Hail, rain, snow at 1,500 feet elevation -- and the coldest day downtown in 98 years - Weather Report - The Sacrame... bit.ly/Alexnu4 minutes ago · reply · retweet · favorite
DianeRavitch profile
DianeRavitch I will be on Charlie Rose on March 29.about 1 minute ago · reply · retweet · favorite
coopmike48 profile
coopmike48 Foreign Investors Purchasing U.S. Homes - Hispanically Speaking Newsbit.ly/yVxiUL21 minutes ago · reply · retweet · favorite

EducationSee all

Sunday links. « Fred Klonsky

preaprez.wordpress.com - Park Ridge Education Association IEA RA delegate Jerry Mulvihill at the mic, wearing orange to make sure he’s seen by the chair. They are smuggling books by Latino authors into Arizona. The Arizona...
fklonsky

BusinessSee all

Big Education Ape: Jersey Jazzman: NOLA: Charter Nirvana

bigeducationape.blogspot.com - Jersey Jazzman: NOLA: Charter Nirvana Jersey Jazzman: NOLA: Charter Nirvana: Rick Hess took the week off and left the keys to his blog with Neerav Kingsland, the chief strategy officer for New Scho...
Coopmike48

SocietySee all

StoriesSee all

The Rules Of Human Nature - StopStressingNow.com

stopstressingnow.com - December 17, 2009 by Steven Diamond   Filed under Daily Blog, Uncategorized Recently I came across something I felt is truly worth sharing. I had never seen or read it before. “The 10 Rules For Bei...
Coopmike48

Big Education Ape: School Tech Connect: Baby Steps...

bigeducationape.blogspot.com - It's hard to see how this language Due to the actual negative effects that SB7 is currently having on many teachers, especially veteran teachers, we need to be proactive in its revision. is anythin...
Coopmike48

PoliticsSee all

Blue Jersey:: Purple Jersey?

bluejersey.com - The title question is, perhaps, overly provocative. As any presidential map since 1992 illustrates, New Jersey is a blue state. But as someone who has spent the past year away, serving merely as an...
Coopmike48

Maine gov talks up school reforms - Boston.com

boston.com - AUGUSTA, Maine—Gov. Paul LePage says Maine's 21 percent rate of students who fail to get their high school diplomas is better than the national 25 percent rate. But in his weekly radio address, LeP...
Coopmike48

HealthSee all

My son is a leukemia survivor « MomsRising Blog

momsrising.org - My 8 year old son is a leukemia survivor.  He was diagnosed with leukemia when he was 3 years old.  He underwent 3 years of chemotherapy and has been off treatment since June, 2010.  My husband was...
Coopmike48

#eduSee all

#soschatSee all


Posted by at

Civic Engagement | Inside Higher Ed

Civic Engagement | Inside Higher Ed:


Civic Engagement

by Herman Berliner
We have a very active and respected Center for Civic Engagement on our campus.  The Center has undertaken many worthwhile initiatives including the development of “a brief workshop for students who will be working with off campus communities.”  This workshop, which is slightly over an hour in length, examines how students feel about working with off-campus communities and how these communities feel about working with students.  The attitudes stressed to the students include “being open minded,” “being respectful and appreciative,” “being humble,” “being responsible –sticking to commitments.”  Civic Engagement is fostering civility as a prime objective, and values articulated in the workshop are values we should be able to agree on.
More and more, however, these values have under assault.  For example the recent comments by Rush 
Posted by at

Early Learning: Changing The Rules of Engagement « Cooperative Catalyst

Early Learning: Changing The Rules of Engagement « Cooperative Catalyst:


Early Learning: Changing The Rules of Engagement

by Stephen Hurley
This is a cross-post of a piece that I submitted to the newly-established website voicEd.ca. Inspired by the work that the Cooperative Catalyst has been doing, and dismayed by the polarization that sometimes characterizes online conversations about education, we had the idea that the time might be right for a  collaborative working space dedicated to schooling in Canada. Please know just how much your efforts here have been an inspiration for the voicEd.ca initiative. I hope that we might be able to engage in some cross-collaboration over the years!
In our first “writing prompt”, we were asked to consider a practical, do-able change that we would like to see in the near future. Many of our provinces are now involved in taking a serious look at their early learning strategies and this post is based on some thinking around the importance of this.
Two years from now, I want to be looking at an education system in Canada that has made a true commitment 
Posted by at

Real World Business Advice Applied to Education « InterACT

Real World Business Advice Applied to Education « InterACT:


Real World Business Advice Applied to Education

by David B. Cohen
Teachers, how many times have we heard that we don’t work “in the real world”?  We finish work at 3:00 p.m. every day, we have summers off, and schools are not results-oriented like businesses.  Never mind that we take our work home with us (average teacher works 53 hours per week), or that we work on the weekends and in the summer, or that we earn less than people with similar educational attainment.  But they’ve got us on that last point, right?
For our students, there's nothing "unreal" about school.
Wrong.  Now first of all, we know that school-to-business comparisons fail because schools don’t have customers or products, because schools are not free to choose their mission or control key conditions for their work.  They are not – and shouldn’t be – designed to divert profits away from core operations.  That doesn’t 
Posted by at

School Tech Connect: Reflections on Not Teaching

School Tech Connect: Reflections on Not Teaching:


Reflections on Not Teaching

by noreply@blogger.com (Tim)
I have been out of the classroom now for a few years. I taught English 7th, 8th, and 9th grade English for 23 years.

 For me, going into a regular line of work has given me my life back. As an English teacher, I graded and planned every evening and most of every Sunday during the school year. There were also the after-school meetings, the committees, the curriculum mapping, the club sponsorships, the union work,  and the myriad stresses of having to be on stage with fresh material every day. And the calls to parents, the calls from parents. The angry emails. The recommendation letters. The record-keeping. The toll that teenagers take, and they take a toll.

I feel like I missed most of my 20's and 30's and part of my 40's.

Now I read the books I want to read, like a normal person. I spend Sundays with my friends, rather than hunched over a stack of papers. And the best part is that when I'm at my job, I have the distinct feeling that the job is 
Posted by at

Seattle Schools Community Forum: Lastest Gates Foundation Research Asked the Teachers

Seattle Schools Community Forum: Lastest Gates Foundation Research Asked the Teachers:


Lastest Gates Foundation Research Asked the Teachers

by Melissa Westbrook
A new Gates Foundation report (with Scholastic) has just come out called Primary Sources: 2012 - America's Teachers on the Teaching Profession. They surveyed about 10,000 teachers via e-mail and in person about schools, their classrooms, student and teacher performance and assessment, tenure, family involvement, job satisfaction and digital content.  It was not revealed to the teachers who was sponsoring the survey. 

One chart that jumped out at me is on page 12 called "Impact that various effects would have on improving academic achievement".

Will you look at that - Family involvement and support was picked to be "very strong" or "strong" by 98% of the teachers.  High expectations was second at 96%.  Principals was the third choice at 91%.  And coming in fourth (Earth to Bill) - lower class sizes at 90%. Interestingly, lower class size was more important to teachers of older students. 

What came in low on the scale for teachers?  A longer school year, monetary awards for teachers and a longer 
Posted by at

Callahan: 'Double-speak' on charter schools | Online Athens

Callahan: 'Double-speak' on charter schools | Online Athens:


Callahan: 'Double-speak' on charter schools



 ‘Double-speak’ on charter schools
A couple of passages in a Wednesday Banner-Herald column by Tony Roberts, CEO of the Georgia Charter Schools Association, headlined “No private charter schools in Georgia,” need a closer look.
Last summer, the Georgia Supreme Court ruled as unconstitutional the authorization of charter schools by a state charter school commission. Also ruled unconstitutional was the funneling of local taxpayer education dollars to charters that had not been approved locally. Currently, legislation under consideration in the Georgia General Assembly —­ House Resolution 1162 — would put on the ballot statewide a constitutional amendment which, if approved by voters, would permit the state to both authorize and fund charter schools that had not received local approval. Many groups and individuals are opposing this move as a trampling of local school board control of local tax dollars and a siphoning of funds from already strapped local schools.
You would expect Roberts would put the best gloss on his case, but he goes well beyond, writing that “(f)or some reason, they (opponents of HR 1162) do not want loca
Posted by at

SES: No Child Left Behind tutoring costs Tulsa Public Schools millions | Tulsa World

No Child Left Behind tutoring costs Tulsa Public Schools millions | Tulsa World: "
"


No Child Left Behind tutoring costs Tulsa Public Schools millions

By ANDREA EGER AND AMANDA BLAND World Staff Writers
Published: 3/18/2012  4:26 PM
Last Modified: 3/18/2012  4:26 PM

The federal No Child Left Behind Act’s requirement for low-performing schools to offer tutoring services by outside companies is coming to an end, but not before it costs Tulsa Public Schools a record amount of money.
The number of Tulsa students being served by tutoring vendors has increased 55 percent this school year, meaning the school district could pay out as much as $2.73 million of its federal funding if vendors bill the maximum $1,360 per child for all 2,008 current participants.

“We have very little say-so or control over these vendors,” said Tracy Bayles, executive director of federal programs and special projects at TPS.

“We have no information about who is doing the tutoring, and some of it is done in students’ homes. We have had concerns about safety in the past. Some even transport our students, but

Read more from this Tulsa World article at http://www.tulsaworld.com/news/article.aspx?subjectid=11&articleid=20120318_11_0_Thefed527350
Posted by at

Say NO to NATO: Chicago, May 2012 « Bill Ayers

Say NO to NATO: Chicago, May 2012 « Bill Ayers:


Say NO to NATO: Chicago, May 2012

by billayers

http://www.truthout.org/resistance-builds-natos-threat-permanent-war-and-nuclear-dominance/1332077096


Sunday 18 March 2012
by: Bernardine Dohrn and Bill Ayers,
Truthout | Op-Ed
 
The leaders of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO), the gently named but dangerous behemoth dominated by the United States – and history’s largest global military cohort – plan to meet in Chicago on May 20 and 21.
The tiny fraternity of concentrated wealth and power that calls itself the Group of Eight (G8) was to have met in Chicago in mid-May as well, overlapping with NATO. Fearing massive protests, the G8 cancelled, retreating to 
Posted by at

Mother Crusader: The Real Story Behind The Eviction Proceedings Against Regis Academy

Mother Crusader: The Real Story Behind The Eviction Proceedings Against Regis Academy:


The Real Story Behind The Eviction Proceedings Against Regis Academy

by darciecima
This seems to be yet another example of how Amir Khan spins a good yarn, but his version of events just doesn't hold water.  Here's a letter that went out today to parishioners at the Holy Eucharist Parish, which is "seeking possession of the property" from Khan.

Holy Eucharist Letter
This is a pretty cut and dried version of events.  Solid Rock fell behind in rent so the Parish sought court action for possession of the property.  The court said Solid Rock had to pay the back rent AND pony up the full purchase price by January 3, 2012.  If not, the Parish was entitled to a "Judgement of Possession", ie. they get the property back and Khan gets evicted.  So Solid Rock had between June and January to make it right, and they failed to do so.

But to hear Amir Khan's version of events you would think that all is well with the world!  Give him just a couple 
Posted by at

Louisiana Educator: You Can Make a Difference!

Louisiana Educator: You Can Make a Difference!:


You Can Make a Difference!

Many legislators will probably be in their home districts until Monday afternoon. Both the House and Senate are scheduled to go back into session at 4:00 p. m. Monday.

I am suggesting that you go to the LAE website for critical information on how to contact your legislators. Contact them early and often. Always be courteous. Be bold.  Ask for your legislator's cell number so you can text or call him/her while the Governor's bills are being debated. Take the time to inform yourself. Read the bills because legislators will try to tell you that this is not so bad, and that it will not affect "good" teachers or good schools.

Suggested project: A teacher by the name of Sharon Hebert has created the Red Card Initiative inspired by the shortage of red opposition cards at the capitol last week. Just click on the following links to get the project description and the postcard template. Be sure to use your return address on all postcards so the legislators know you are a unique person.

Look, I'm not going to lie to you. The odds are stacked in the Governor's favor. Right now he is the most powerful governor I have seen in my 40 years of observing the legislature! We have all seen him willing to punish any legislator who has the nerve to buck him in any way. But that can change! Those legislators are elected by the people, not the Governor! Teachers work miracles with their students every day because of their creativity and dedication. For once, please use that creativity and dedication to save your profession.

If you click on the bill numbers listed here you can view the bills going to the House and Senate floor this week. The Senate will be debating SB 597 and SB 603. The House will be debating HB 974and 976.

You need to read this blog at Teacher in A Strange Land,  (this article was recommended by one of my readers) so you can see how easily things can go wrong with value-added evaluation. The more accounts I read about this nutty scheme, the more I realize that it is a travesty that legislators would blindly mandate this as a way of destroying teacher tenure and for firing a certain percentage of teachers each year. What's shocking is that in certain instances it can result in firing some really good teachers! There is a case of a highly acclaimed teacher in Washington DCwho was fired because the school administrator had allowed or encouraged cheating on the test the year before, and therefore her students' beginning scores were inflated and her value-added score was unsatisfactory! This was only learned after she was fired and fortunately was able to get a job in another system. By the way, this scenario was set in motion during the administration of Michelle Rhee as Superintendent of Washington DC schools.

For your information: A new group was formed in Louisiana a few weeks ago, for the purpose of trying to get teachers to support and testify in favor Governor Jindal's reform package. Governor Jindal highly recommended Rayne Martin, a non-educator administrator from the LDOE who left her post there to become the director of Stand For Children Louisiana. A principal told me that Rayne Martin had trained a group of principals in using the new COMPASS evaluation system for the Act 54 evaluation. Imagine that! A non-educator with absolutely no education credentials and no teaching experience training highly experienced principals about how to evaluate teachers. That would be like sending in a history teacher to train doctors on how to use a new surgical method! This is who has been developing the new evaluation plan for you this coming year. What an insult to professional educators. Why didn't our local superintendents object to this? Are we so used to being treating like cattle that we have no pride?

The CEO of the national office of Stand For Children is Emma Bloomberg, the daughter of billionaire Mayor of New York, Michael Bloomberg. I think Bloomberg should give Rayne Martin an "ineffective" evaluation because she was only able to get two Louisiana teachers to testify in favor of the reforms during the debate in both committees last week. (One of the teachers said she was in favor of HB 974 because it did away with seniority in RIF and she was only a second year teacher in danger of being laid off using the present system) Maybe Martin should be placed on an "intensive assistance" program because she did not produce the "value-added goals" in her new job.
Posted by 
Posted by at

Recess…for teachers « Cooperative Catalyst

Recess…for teachers « Cooperative Catalyst:



Recess…for teachers








by Elisa Waingort









I distributed report cards to my students on Friday.  And although I didn’t keep track of how long it took me to write report cards, it wasn’t a quick and dirty activity.  In fact, writing report cards begins weeks before they are actually due.  And, I’m referring to the act of writing comments and/or determining student marks on the various descriptors for all the elementary subjects that I teach – English and Spanish language arts, science, math, social studies, health, and art.  And, for the last two years we have had to report on three “ends statements” – character in learning, citizenship in learning, and personal development through learning.  So, that’s seven marks and seven comments this marking period.  I have 24 students, which means I wrote 168 distinctly, meaningful comments (or at least I was supposed to) and gave 168 marks.  That boggles my mind!
Before I go any further, though, I need to confess that while I have wanted to write this blog post since November 2011, I have hesitated numerous times because I feel nervous about going public on this topic; it is a touchy issue at our school.  I finally decided I needed to say something because I need to get some perspective on this issue from the readers of this blog.  Maybe I’m making too much out of this and I should just buckle down and 



Posted by at

Leaders of Milwaukee teachers union push for pay cut to reduce class sizes | Defend Wisconsin

Leaders of Milwaukee teachers union push for pay cut to reduce class sizes | Defend Wisconsin:
Leaders of Milwaukee teachers union push for pay cut to reduce class sizes

by Itay

Leaders of the Milwaukee teachers union are campaigning for members to sacrifice a week’s worth of their pay to help reduce class sizes next year in Milwaukee Public Schools. The MPS Children’s Week Campaign is asking educators to give up 2.6% of their salary next year to allow for class-size relief.
The campaign is also requesting higher-paid MPS employees as well as community members and businesses in Milwaukee to consider contributing some of their wages or profits to a nonprofit district fund.
“The Milwaukee metropolitan area has to start taking some financial responsibility for the 




Posted by at

Missouri Education Watchdog: Cheating in Missouri Schools! But it's Not from the Students! The Sunday Education Weekly Reader 3.18.12

Missouri Education Watchdog: Cheating in Missouri Schools! But it's Not from the Students! The Sunday Education Weekly Reader 3.18.12:


Cheating in Missouri Schools! But it's Not from the Students! The Sunday Education Weekly Reader 3.18.12

by stlgretchen
Welcome to the Sunday Education Weekly Reader for 03.18.12.  Instead of twitter tidbits, we are linking a story (Missouri Fails to Check for Standardized Cheating) published this morning in the St. Louis Post Dispatch.

Missouri has its own version of teacher cheating recently discovered in other states...tests being changed, students given answers by teachers before the tests were given, etc.  The state spends $8.4 Million to administer the MAP test to schools, however, none of that money is spend on test fraud detection services.  A familiar refrain is in this article....Missouri conducts no such investigations (fraud detection), giving school districts that sole responsibility.  

In other words, it's not DESE's fault.  Nope.  It's the fault of the school district.  If the district doesn't catch 
Posted by at

The Moms Who Defeated the Jeb Bush-Michelle Rhee Machine | Scathing Purple Musings

The Moms Who Defeated the Jeb Bush-Michelle Rhee Machine | Scathing Purple Musings:


The Moms Who Defeated the Jeb Bush-Michelle Rhee Machine

by Bob Sikes
Writes Kathleen McGrory in the Miami Herald:
It was one of the session’s hardest-fought battles.
On one side: a coalition of disparate, but determined parent groups.
On the other: former Gov. Jeb Bush and the powerful school-choice lobby.
With the clock about to run out, the parents overcame some of the most entrenched powers in Tallahassee and won just enough votes to kill one of Bush’s priority proposals.
“They had all of that influence and millions of dollars,” said Colleen Wood, a parent activist from St. Johns County. “We were just a bunch of moms.”
The fight was a case study in grass-roots activism fueled by astute citizens and sites like Twitter and Facebook. Some said it was an affirmation that the little guy can sometimes win, even in Tallahassee, with social media serving as the great equalizer.
“Every parent group in the state was here, or was emailing and calling legislators,” said Sen. Nan 
Posted by at

Schools Matter: Speaking truth to Eva Moskovitz and Gideon Stein's wealth and power

Schools Matter: Speaking truth to Eva Moskovitz and Gideon Stein's wealth and power:


Speaking truth to Eva Moskovitz and Gideon Stein's wealth and power

by Robert D. Skeels * rdsathene
What is really, really outrageous to me — as a thirty year...forty years in this community, of advocacy — is that there has been a systematic exclusion of the leadership of this community. — Frances Lucerna (El Puente Leaders for Peace and Justice)

The illustrious Brian Jones narrates this brilliant short documentary showing the community of Los Sures' principled resistance against the vile privatizers running the lucrative Harlem Success Academy.

Popout

Pay close attention to hedge fund backed Moskovitz's advertising budget. That huge amount alone would provide 
Posted by at

NYC Public School Parents: Video: Hit the Road, Jack! Students visit PEP members who voted to closetheir schools & post wanted posters

NYC Public School Parents: Video: Hit the Road, Jack! Students visit PEP members who voted to closetheir schools & post wanted posters:


Video: Hit the Road, Jack! Visit to PEP members

by Leonie Haimson

photo credit: GothamSchools
On March 7, students visited three members of the Panel for Educational Policy who have voted to close their schools, and find they are apparently not in their offices: mayoral appointees Eduardo Marti, who is Vice Chancellor of CUNY,  Linda Lausell Bryant of Inwood House, and Judy Bergtraum of Facilities Planning at CUNY.

They did not leave before taping "wanted for crimes against NYC students" posters on their buildings. For more on these visits, see GothamSchools.
Posted by at

“Above Us Only Sky”: A Writing Teacher’s Manifesto « Cooperative Catalyst

“Above Us Only Sky”: A Writing Teacher’s Manifesto « Cooperative Catalyst:


“Above Us Only Sky”: A Writing Teacher’s Manifesto

by jaimerwood
“You may say I’m a dreamer, but I’m not the only one.” John Lennon is right. From the time I was a small girl, people have told me that I’m idealistic, which always came across as a nice way of calling me naïve. But when it comes to teaching, I am one of Lennon’s dreamers. I really do believe that education should have meaning, and I believe students should, at least on occasion, feel the excitement of epiphany in a classroom setting.
Just the other day, one of my college-level writing classes experienced just that. We sat together in a conference room that had been reserved for our fish bowl discussion around this question “Is college necessary to be successful?” and for a time I felt like we were a group of ancient Roman philosophers analyzing the important questions of life.
You might be thinking that this was a tricky question that I came up with to get my students to think critically about why they’re there or to persuade them to reflect on what an education means to them, but you’d be wrong. I didn’t devise this activity at all. Sure, I reserved the room, but the students did everything else. All I had to do 
Posted by at

If You Give a Kid a Cupcake, or Is Baltimore the New Brooklyn? | Re:education in Baltimore

If You Give a Kid a Cupcake, or Is Baltimore the New Brooklyn? | Re:education in Baltimore:


If You Give a Kid a Cupcake, or Is Baltimore the New Brooklyn?

by Edit Barry

If You Give a Kid a Cupcake, or Is Baltimore the New Brooklyn?

Yes, moms and dads, I was thinking of this book when I wrote this post!
The New York Times reported on March 16 on the cupcake wars at a Brooklyn public school. There’s some class conflict stirring up in the gentrifying neighborhood of Sunset Park, where the median income has gone from the mid-$30Ks to around $60K in the last decade. Other neighborhood schools in Brooklyn have similar stories, with some P.T.A.s running auctions that bring in thousands of dollars. Inequality is no good for community relations, even inside public schools. (The idea that P.T.A.s have to raise that kind of money at all is another issue.)
A few months ago on this blog I mentioned a book that changed my thinking about starting a charter school – sociologist Judith de Sena’s Gentrification and Inequality in Brooklyn. In it she reveals some bitterness about the new middle class’ rejection of neighborhood public schools in Greenpoint in favor of charters. What she seems not to appreciate is the resistance of longtime immigrant and working class communities to gentrifiers. The reasons to resist are many, not least of which is the rising costs of living that the gentry bring in their wake. An important site of resistance is the neighborhood 

Posted by at
Subscribe to: Posts (Atom)