Saturday, April 21, 2012
Daily Kos: A Saturday reflection as the school year heads to its conclusion
Daily Kos: A Saturday reflection as the school year heads to its conclusion:
A Saturday reflection as the school year heads to its conclusion
Sometimes as teachers we find that no matter how much we may have planned, we have to throw it out the window and improvise according to the situation at hand.
Normally I pace my instruction for Advanced Placement government to finish all the material about two weeks before the AP exam, and then have the students do semi-guided reviews for two weeks. For several reasons, that is not the case this year. For one thing, rather than being the test on the first morning of the several weeks of AP testing, this year we are on the morning of the 2nd week, May 15. Several of my students will be taking other AP exams earlier, which will (a) have them out of classes, and (b) interrupt the continuity of preparation.
Of greater importance, this year's students came in with far less background, and have struggled far more with some concepts than any previous year.
I had already implemented a change I made in the middle of last year. Instead of curving multiple choice tests (because the score on the AP exam is itself curved around the median), I would let students look up and correct their mistakes for partial credit to raise their grades. That is helping them correctas well their mistaken
Normally I pace my instruction for Advanced Placement government to finish all the material about two weeks before the AP exam, and then have the students do semi-guided reviews for two weeks. For several reasons, that is not the case this year. For one thing, rather than being the test on the first morning of the several weeks of AP testing, this year we are on the morning of the 2nd week, May 15. Several of my students will be taking other AP exams earlier, which will (a) have them out of classes, and (b) interrupt the continuity of preparation.
Of greater importance, this year's students came in with far less background, and have struggled far more with some concepts than any previous year.
I had already implemented a change I made in the middle of last year. Instead of curving multiple choice tests (because the score on the AP exam is itself curved around the median), I would let students look up and correct their mistakes for partial credit to raise their grades. That is helping them correctas well their mistaken
School Tech Connect: The Surveillance State
School Tech Connect: The Surveillance State:
The Surveillance State
Democracy Now had an excellent, lengthy report on extent to which our surveillance state has shut down many of the basic freedoms that people keep telling us we have. I think those freedoms are gone; they don't exist any more. It's like believing people can buy health insurance on the open market-- it's a nice belief, but it isn't true; they won't issue you a policy if you've ever been to a doctor. But the ads are comforting.
Let me see if I've got this right. The rich are getting richer; poverty is galloping. The already-robbed pension systems are about to be shut down, Constitutional protections be damned. Our national government, through a bribe and blackmail scheme called
Let me see if I've got this right. The rich are getting richer; poverty is galloping. The already-robbed pension systems are about to be shut down, Constitutional protections be damned. Our national government, through a bribe and blackmail scheme called
PAA to USDE: Listen to parents, change your policies « Parents Across America
PAA to USDE: Listen to parents, change your policies « Parents Across America:
Parents Across America members meet with USDE, saying:
PAA to USDE: Listen to parents, change your policies
Press Release – April 20, 2012
Robin Hiller (Tucson AZ)
rhiller@voicesforeducation.org
520-668-4634
520-668-4634
Lorie Barzano (Austin TX)
(512)694-9747 or 447-5577
PAA member Karrran Harper Royal to USDE: "This is not reform."
Parents Across America members meet with USDE, saying:
“Listen to parents, change your policy direction.”
WASHINGTON, D. C. – Several members of Parents Across America (PAA), a national network of activist parents, participated in a Parent Leaders meeting today hosted by the U. S. Department of Education’s Office of Communications and Outreach. Attending the USDE meeting were PAA members from New York City, Chicago, Florida, New Orleans, Arizona and Austin TX.
Frustration over the way parent voices are ignored in education policy debates led the parents to form PAA just over a year ago. Since then, they have published position papers and opeds, and fought hard and won against proposed “parent trigger” legislation, school budget cuts, and privatization in many states across the nation. They have met with scores of Congressional representatives both in Washington and in their home states, but they have yet to be heard where key decisions about federal education policy are made, and were disappointed to be refused a meeting with Secretary Duncan today.
“When federal education authorities like Secretary Duncan, don’t recognize the importance of having parents at the table for making policy decisions that affect their children, it sets a precedent and validates a protocol where local education authorities feel no need to consult with parents, either. It makes it that much harder for parents to have a voice, even at the local level,” said Lorie Barzano, of PAA’s Texas affiliate, Coalition Saving Austin Urban Schools.
PAA challenges Duncan policies
Early on in the meeting, PAA co-founder Julie Woestehoff, of Chicago’s Parents United for Responsible Education, challenged speaker Anna Hinton, director of Parental Options and Information, USDE’s Office of Innovation and Improvement, who stated that parental involvement in decision making meant helping parents make good choices about what schools their children should attend.
Woestehoff objected to the implication that the only decision parents should be involved in is “school choice” using charter schools and vouchers, programs that most parents do not want or support.
Later, during a question and answer period, PAA co-founder Leonie Haimson of Class Size Matters in New York noted, “Things are very bad in New York City, where we are closing schools rather than improving them. The city is obsessed with testing and parents are sick of it. This has not been an improvement over No Child Left Behind, but simply more of the same from this administration. Parents are not listened to or respected. We object to the Race to the Top program, competitive funding, and a budget that cuts money from key programs that work such as class size reduction. The law needs to be changed so that parents are really listened to.”
PAA members skeptical, determined to be heard
Karran Harper Royal, a New Orleans parent and founding PAA member, said “At today's event we saw some real on-the-ground parent organizations with a vast amounts of knowledge. It is my hope that our concerns and feedback will lead to strengthening groups like ours and not to utilizing parent engagement money to fund groups that push privatizing public education. Many parents here want to help improve schools, not close them. We want to define what parent involvement looks like. It's time for the federal government to support policies that strengthen every neighborhood school so that every child gets a top quality education.”
Rita M. Solnet of Florida's Testing is Not Teaching, and a PAA founding member, said “I appreciate the opportunity to network with several education advocacy organizations targeting special needs and minority populations. I was disappointed, however, in the lack of serious dialogue about the federal education policies that parents are so opposed to, such as the over-reliance on high stakes tests and the expansion of privatization under NCLB and Race to the Top which has created the detrimental data driven system that is undermining our children's education today.”
Robin Hiller, a PAA member from Tucson and executive director of Voices for Education, said, “Despite the fact that we were not able to get a meeting with Secretary Duncan, we were pleased to be invited today and we hope that this is the beginning of a real dialogue between federal policy makers and parents, not just another attempt to add window-dressing to policies that are already decided. In our experience, public officials are too prone to announce that they have ‘met with’ parents despite having completely ignored parent concerns. We will know that our ideas are respected only when we see the necessary changes in the administration’s policies and budget.”
PAA will continue to reach out to Arne Duncan as well as our Senators and Congressmen to share our views about the reforms needed to improve our children’s schools (summary points here: http://pureparents.org/wp-content/uploads/2012/04/ESEAsummary1-pg.pdf). We will continue to try to open up a positive dialogue between lawmakers and parents, who have the most at stake in stronger, more effective federal education policies.
*
Parents Across America (PAA) is a grassroots organization that connects parents and activists from across the U.S. to share ideas and work together on improving our nation’s public schools. We advocate for proven, progressive measures such as reducing class size and increasing parent involvement, and oppose high-stakes testing and corporate-style efforts to privatize our schools. PAA is committed to bringing the voice of public school parents – and common sense – to local, state, and national education debates.
Visit: www.parentsacrossamerica.org & our PAA Facebook page:http://www.facebook.com/group.php?gid=123352677681840&ref=ts
Visit: www.parentsacrossamerica.org & our PAA Facebook page:http://www.facebook.com/group.php?gid=123352677681840&ref=ts
Rick Scott’s “Phony” and “Hollow” Education Policies | Scathing Purple Musings
Rick Scott’s “Phony” and “Hollow” Education Policies | Scathing Purple Musings:
Rick Scott’s “Phony” and “Hollow” Education Policies
In a blistering take-down of Rick Scott’s last-call signature on JD Alexander’s Polytechnic takeover, the editors of the Tampa Bay Times let the Florida governor have it in an editorial this morning:
Gov. Rick Scott’s commitment to cost-efficient government is as phony as his pledge to produce more math and engineering students. If the governor were sincere in those pursuits, he would have vetoed an expensive new university and endorsed a modest $2 million investment in a proven program to teach algebra to middle school students. Instead, the governor signed into law late Friday the creation of Florida Polytechnic University, just three days after vetoing the money to expand the innovative digital math effort. It adds up to just another calculating politician who says one thing and does another.
The new university will soak generations of taxpayers for untold millions, while the expanded algebra program could have bred generations of new engineers. Florida Polytech has no faculty, no
Jersey Jazzman: Reformy Tentacles Everywhere
Jersey Jazzman: Reformy Tentacles Everywhere:
Reformy Tentacles Everywhere
Oh, my:
For months, Leeds Global Partners, a New York-based firm specializing in educational issues as "attractive investment opportunities," has been closely involved in developing Gov. Dannel P. Malloy's proposed school reforms.
And while the governor's major proposals, including teacher evaluations, changes to tenure and the expansion of charter schools are meeting opposition in the General Assembly and the state's educational community, Leeds Global's school-privatization agenda has been front and center in a variety of closed-door negotiations.
Unionized teachers and a leading state lawmaker take the privatization proposals -- including plans to circumvent teacher contracts and public bidding procedures -- as major threats, underscored by the
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