Throughout December and January: Whole Child and Common Core — Whole Child Education

Throughout December and January: Whole Child and Common Core — Whole Child Education:

THE WHOLE CHILD BLOG

Throughout December and January: Whole Child and Common Core

December 13, 2012 by Klea Scharberg

Educators have a unique opportunity to reset the playing field and make the Common Core State Standards work for them. We can implement the standards, align them to a whole child approach to education, and ensure that both support and enhance each other. The Common Core standards and a whole child approach are not opposites, and they do not and should not have to be in opposition.

Join us throughout December and January as we investigate how the standards integrate and align within a whole child approach and how a strong framework can support a well-rounded education that prepares students for college, career, and citizenship success. Overall, we will highlight how now is the time for educators to take control and become empowered in the process. The outcomes will depend on what you decide to do for the Common Core standards within a whole child approach and how you decide to do it.

The Whole Child Blog

Check out the Whole Child Blog for contributions from experts and practitioners in the fiel; whole child partners; and ASCD staff, who will share free resources, provide examples of integrating and aligning the Common Core standards and a whole child approach, and answer your questions. Be sure to leave your questions, ideas, and stories in the comments.

What Works in the Common Core Standards

Visit the What Works section for a one-stop (free!) shop to explore issues that must be transformed for us to successfully educate the whole child. Our topic pages are a collection of resources on the topics we address each month. This month, we'll add resources to the Common Core topic page. Tell us what has worked in your school and with your students. E-mail us and share resources, research, and examples.

Social Networking

Connect (if you haven't already) with the Whole Child Initiative on Facebook and Twitter to be part of changing the conversation about the importance of a whole child approach to education with more than 15,000 people from around the globe.

Modern School: Explicable School Massacres—Violence is American as Apple Pie

Modern School: Explicable School Massacres—Violence is American as Apple Pie:

Explicable School Massacres—Violence is American as Apple Pie

by Michael Dunn

The tragedy at Connecticut’s Sandy Hook Elementary School last week was particularly appalling, as most of its victims were between the ages of 5 and 10. AFL-CIO Boss Richard Trumka lamented the “inexplicable horror” of the massacre, while President Obama called for “meaningful action” to stop the seemingly endless wave of violence (e.g., Milwaukee Sihk temple and California’s Oikos University massacres earlier this year).

Even though the shooter’s motives are not yet known, there is much that is explicable about the incident, contrary to Trumka’s claims to the contrary. For example, it is probably safe to generalize that a person who walks into an elementary school and slaughters twenty young children is disturbed, if not insane. Apparently, there is some indication that family members 

Chicago Teachers Tell the Rich to Back Off

by Michael Dunn

The Chicago Teachers Union (CTU) is calling for a march and protest on December 18 to “Tell the Fat Cats:  Get Your Paws Off Our Public Schools.”

While I could make many of the same criticisms of this that I have of the Occupy Movement (see here and here), I would rather call this a step in the right direction. (Plus, I really like their graphic for the protest).

(From the CTU website)

Certainly this is a reformist demand that lacks a meaningful critique of capitalism or public education’s role in bolstering it. Yet a mainstream craft union is unlikely to ever do this anyway. At least the CTU is placing some of the responsibility for their district’s crumbling infrastructure and their members’ declining working conditions directly on the backs of the rich—who have been tripping all over themselves and Chicago’s children in the race to convert CPS school 

Missouri Education Watchdog: Is it Now Time to Tackle the Issue of Mental Illness?

Missouri Education Watchdog: Is it Now Time to Tackle the Issue of Mental Illness?:

Is it Now Time to Tackle the Issue of Mental Illness?

by stlgretchen

What does mental illness look like and what can we do as a society to address the issue?

Here is a parent's heartbreaking account of living with a mentally ill child and navigating the educational and mental health system.  From The Anarchist Soccer Mom and Thinking the Unthinkable.

The Blue Review had the article entitled, "I am Adam Lanza's Mother". 

******************************************************************************

In the wake of another horrific national tragedy, it’s easy to talk about guns. But it’s time to talk about mental illness.
Three days before 20 year-old Adam Lanza killed his mother, then opened fire on a classroom full of Connecticut kindergartners, my 13-year old son Michael (name changed) missed his bus because he was wearing the wrong color pants.

“I can wear these pants,” he said, his tone increasingly belligerent, the black-hole pupils of his eyes 

Ed Notes Online: Robert Rendo Blog: All Images Free

Ed Notes Online: Robert Rendo Blog: All Images Free:

Robert Rendo Blog: All Images Free

by ed notes online

A colleague of mine, Robert Rendo, is a teacher and illustrator and is now offering free license to use images from his blog, which you can now access at

http://thetruthoneducationreform.blogspot.com/?view=snapshot

The name of the blog is "The Truth About Education Reform: a Blog of Cartoons . . .  Images with a Voice!"

Users can literally enlarge and grab the image to incorporate into their own literature. All they have to do is click on the image, and it enlarges to be grabbed or saved as a 

Why I Joined Unity Caucus

by ed notes online

I gotta be on the side that's going to get me out of this lousy teaching position.... A new chapter leader who recently was recruited to Unity Caucus.

This same person would not support the MORE petition calling for a membership vote on any evaluation deal.

Who does this person now represent?

The people who elected this person or the Unity Caucus masters who hold out the carrot of a possible job in exchange for selling out colleagues?

At the DA last Wednesday, a MORE member was sitting with a group of chapter leaders from one district who 

Teachers are True First Responders… (While State’s fiscal problems remain all too real) - Wait, What?

Teachers are True First Responders… (While State’s fiscal problems remain all too real) - Wait, What?:

Teachers are True First Responders… (While State’s fiscal problems remain all too real)

by jonpelto

As our state and nation work to process the incomprehensible, the first thing that stands out when we look back on the Newtown tragedy, and the many other school shootings that have plagued our nation over the fourteen years since Columbine, is that time after time, faced with unimaginable horror and fear, teachers and other school personnel have inevitably stepped forward to protect their students.

We may never fully know the details about the events that took place in Newtown on Friday, but one thing is absolutely clear and that is that teachers and school personnel gave their lives to save their children.

At times of great tragedy, our elected officials lose their partisan standing and become a voice for the People.  As President Obama shed tears and spoke of his personal 

UPDATE: From the former IEA President who gave us Senate Bill 7 come words of advice: “Shared sacrifice.” Is he working for the Civic Committee now? « Fred Klonsky

From the former IEA President who gave us Senate Bill 7 come words of advice: “Shared sacrifice.” Is he working for the Civic Committee now? « Fred Klonsky:

From the former IEA President who gave us Senate Bill 7 come words of advice: “Shared sacrifice.” Is he working for the Civic Committee now?

by Fred Klonsky

Retired IEA President Ken Swanson. The guy who, with Jonah Edelman, gave us SB7, now has words of advice on pensions. Did we ask him?
Ken Swanson was the IEA President who worked with Jonah Edelman and Stand for Children to bring the state Senate Bill 7.
Senate Bill 7 ended teacher tenure and seniority as we know it. It undermined collective bargaining rights and

Representative Kelly Cassidy hawks the Nekritz pension killer. I get equal time.

by Fred Klonsky

State Representative Kelly Cassidy is one of the sponsors of HB6258, one the worst of the pension bills.
Cassidy appeared on the Live From the Heartland radio show last Saturday morning. Live from the Heartland is on WLUW, 88.7 FM. It broadcasts live from one of my favorite Chicago restaurants, The Heartland Cafe.
Readers know that The Heartland is around the corner from the Red Line Tap, where my conversations with Tony 

The Tragedy at Sandy Hook Elementary | Lily's Blackboard

The Tragedy at Sandy Hook Elementary | Lily's Blackboard:

Our Babies…The Tragedy at Sandy Hook

by Lily

I have been busy. I like writing this blog, but when I get busy with meetings and reports and such, I put off writing. Today I have been busy not watching the news. I have been very busy finding anything, any little thing to keep me too busy to watch the news coming out of Newtown, Connecticut and hearing the voices of screaming parents and frightened little ones. I am so busy not wanting to think, that I will not put off writing what I do not want to write.

Because there are no words to comfort. Our babies died Friday. Their teachers died trying to save them. The school custodian took his life in his hands running through the hall shouting a warning about the shooter in the building. There are no words that will comfort the families of those who went to school giggling 

TO LISTEN TO DIANE RAVITCH 12-17-12 Diane Ravitch's blog

Diane Ravitch's blog:

A Brief Conversation with John Thompson

by dianerav

John Thompson wonders if I overstate my concern about the current direction of the education reform movement.
He is not convinced that the end game is privatization.
Perhaps I sat through too many closed-door meetings of conservative think tanks to think otherwise.
As I read and listen to the leading lights of the movement (Jeb Bush; Tony Bennett; ALEC; DFER; Stand for Children; Michelle Rhee), I hear no liking for the public schools. I hear promises of the golden age to come when public schools have been replaced by charters and vouchers and virtual schools, when teachers have no unions or tenure or job protections whatever, when teachers need no more than a few weeks of training to be considered “highly qualified,” when schools are regularly closed if their test scores don’t improve, and teachers fired if their 

Dawn Hochsprung: A Hero of Public Education

by dianerav

Dawn Hochsprung was beloved by her family, her staff and her students.
Now she is beloved by the nation and beyond.
Here is an interview with her husband and five of her six daughters.
She gave her life to save others.
She loved teaching and learning and wanted her students to love learning.
She kept abreast of current national issues.
We know that from her Twitter feed.
She retweeted articles about Joshua Starr, the Montgomery County (Md.) superintendent who opposed high-

Does the Average TFA Teacher Stay for 8 Years?

by dianerav

Wendy Kopp stated in a recent interview that the average TFA corps member remains in the classroom for eight years.
This caused quite a blowback because most independent surveys say that the 85% of TFA are gone at the end of three years.
Gary Rubinstein was a member of the first corps of TFA who decided to become a career teacher. He teaches 

Common Core Tests Likely to Cause Passing Rates to Plummet

by dianerav

New York officials are warning parents and the public to be prepared for a big drop in the proportion of students who are proficient on new tests aligned with the Common Core.

The English language arts tests contain vocabulary that most children are not likely to know and the math tests contain concepts that may not have been taught.

Members of the Board of Regents express concern that neither students nor teachers are prepared for the tests or the standards. Some worry that the tests will have a devastating effect in schools that enroll poor and minority students.

The linked article gives examples of test questions.

When Common Core Test results were recently released in Kentucky, passing rates fell and the gaps widened.

IDEA Charters Make Claims That Are “Demonstrably False”

by dianerav

Tonight the Austin school board will deliberate the future of the IDEA charter school chain.
The chain claims to offer a “rigorous” college preparatory program. It claims that 100% of its graduates enter four-year colleges and universities and that 92% are either still in college or have graduated.
As researcher Ed Fuller shows, none of these claims is true.
71.4% of the IDEA graduates–not 100%–enrolled in a four-year institution of higher education.
Nearly half of them–43%–are failing in college. They were not well prepared.
Each year, the failure rate has gotten larger.
Despite these unimpressive statistics, the U.S. Department o

More Good News from Latest International Tests

by dianerav

GF Brandenburg, retired math teacher, analyzed the latest international reading test, and it is chock full of good news.
Good news that it is for American children, parents, teachers, principals, administrators and school board members.
Not so good news for all the prophets of gloom and doom who have been prophesying the imminent collapse of the American economic and national security, while offering to sell snake oil to make it all better.

Diane in the Evening 12-16-12 Diane Ravitch's blog

Diane in the Afternoon 12-16-12 Diane Ravitch's blog

coopmike48 at Big Education Ape - 5 hours ago

Diane Ravitch's blog: Reflections from Readers, 40 by dianerav Aside from an overly permissive gun culture and underfunded mental healthcare system, I can’t help but wonder if this climate of teacher-bashing and public school bashing in which many of our political leaders partake regularly, is to some degree a variable in the aggression, hatred and violence that have been directed at our schools’ students and staff. Can we get a moratorium from our politicians to stop bashing public schools and teachers? (Amen to that! Diane) Reflections from Readers, 39 by dianerav Diane, I d... more »

LISTEN TO DIANE RAVITCH 12-16-12 Diane Ravitch's blog

coopmike48 at Big Education Ape - 6 hours ago

Diane Ravitch's blog: [image: Click on picture to Listen to Diane Ravitch] A Heroic Educator at Sandy Hook by dianerav According to the Facebook entry at the end of this post, 27-year-old teacher Victoria Soto hid her students in closets and cabinets; she told the killer the children were in the gym. Her first thought was to protect her children. He killed her. The Wall Street Journal said this about her on a blog: *First-grade teacher Vicki Leigh Soto, 27 years old, died trying to protect the children she loved, her cousin Jim Wiltsie said.* *When the gunfire started on Friday ... more »

Daily Kos: Failing Children: "They're All Our Children"

Daily Kos: Failing Children: "They're All Our Children":

Failing Children: "They're All Our Children"

byplthomasEdDFollow

It should not have taken the killing of 20 innocent children and 6 dedicated educators in a school, but I will not belabor that point.

At a prayer vigil in Newtown, CT, on the evening of December 16, 2012, President Barack Obama asked and answered his own question about America's children:

"And in that way, we come to realize that we bear a responsibility for every child because we're counting on everybody else to help look after ours; that we're all parents; that they're all our children.

"This is our first task — caring for our children. It's our first job. If we don't get that right, we don't get anything right. That's how, as a society, we will be judged.
And by that measure, can we truly say, as a nation, that we are meeting our obligations? Can we honestly say that we're doing enough to keep our children — all of them — safe from harm? Can we claim, as a nation, that we're all together there, letting them know that they are loved, and teaching them to love in return? Can we say that we're truly 

ED Ranks 18th... on the Wrong Question :: Frederick M. Hess

ED Ranks 18th... on the Wrong Question :: Frederick M. Hess:

ED Ranks 18th... on the Wrong Question

by Frederick M. Hess  •  Dec 17, 2012 at 6:40 am
Cross-posted from Education Week

 U.S. Department of Education

Last week, the Partnership for Public Service released its annual Best Places to Work in the federal government rankings. The survey polled nearly 700,000 civil servants in 10 workplace categories including leadership, teamwork, and work/life balance. The U.S. Department of Education ranked 18th out of 22 mid-side agencies. ED fared similarly last year, ranking 29th out of 33 (when it was classified as a "large" agency).

The results have occasioned some sniggering. After all, Ed Week's invaluable Michele McNeil reminds us that, when ED fared similarly poorly in 2009 (ranking 27th out of 30 large agencies), Secretary of Education Arne Duncan pledged that, if it didn't rise in the rankings, "You can hold me accountable." In fact, in a missive to his new staff once the 2009 numbers were released, Duncan wrote, "People don't feel they are being listened to, and I expect our leadership and our managers to take responsibility for changing that. We need to make sure management understands your concerns and works to address them."

A frustrated response to the results would be understandable. We all get tired of public officials asking to be held accountable and then failing to deliver. But the larger issue is that the ratings themselves are off-base. Call me an SOB, but I really don't care about the morale of all ED employees--I care about the morale of 

Fiscal Cliff May Force Some High Schools to Close - High School Notes (usnews.com)

Fiscal Cliff May Force Some High Schools to Close - High School Notes (usnews.com):

Fiscal Cliff May Force Some High Schools to Close

By KELSEY SHEEHY

December 17, 2012 RSS Feed Print

Rural, low-income districts would be hardest hit by automatic spending cuts.

If Congress goes off the so-called fiscal cliff, federal funding for K-12 education programs will go along with it—buthigh schools in some districts will see their budgets fall further than others.

Technically called sequestration, the cliff refers to a package of mandatory spending cuts and expiring tax credits totaling $1.2 trillion. Those cuts will kick in on January 1 if an alternative deal is not reached, resulting in an 8.2 percent decrease in federal education spending.

[Learn how some districts are saving with a four-day week.]

But rural districts and those serving low-income students will 

Back to class: the tightrope teachers must walk:

Back to class: the tightrope teachers must walk

Posted by Valerie Strauss on December 17, 2012 at 5:00 am

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Flag flies at half staff in Newtown. (AP Photo/David Goldman)

From the Exasperated Teacher blog is a post about returning to class on Monday, the first day back to school after the killings of 20 children and six adults at a Newtown, Connecticut school on Friday. Exasperated Teachers writes anonymously and offers this by way of biography: “Urban-based teacher. Adore my students, admire my colleagues. Frustrated by well-meaning (or not) educational interlopers.”

Here’s part of the post (you can see the whole thing here):

…. I will need to fully focus on my students’ emotional well-being and nurture them through this tragedy.

A tightrope, that is what I will walk:  needing to stress the importance of safety drills without frightening the kids; growing compassion without instilling depression; engendering political action without taking sides.

I will give them a chance to journal and draw, talk and cry.
I will give them the opportunity to angrily discuss how the daily violence in their own community is often ignored by the media.

The real problem(s)

by Valerie Strauss

This was written by George Wood, superintendent and secondary school principal at the Federal Hocking Local School District in Stewart, Ohio. He is also the executive director of the Forum for Education and Democracyand chair of the board for the Coalition of Essential Schools.
Read full article >>

State Chiefs to Examine Teacher Prep, Licensing | toteachornototeach

State Chiefs to Examine Teacher Prep, Licensing | toteachornototeach:

State Chiefs to Examine Teacher Prep, Licensing

by aristotlethewise

State Chiefs to Examine Teacher Prep, Licensing

By Stephen Sawchuk
Twenty-five state schools chiefs are vowing to take action to update their systems of teacher preparation and licensing, with an eye to ensuring teachers are ready the minute they take charge of their own classrooms.
The announcement Friday morning from the Council of Chief State School Officers is probably state officials’ most explicit promise to engage in changes to teacher preparation, and it comes as the latest sign that the topic is likely be a major focus of K-12 policymakers in 2013.
“Attention to teacher preparation is definitely growing at the state level,” said Sandi Jacobs, the managing director of state policy for the Washington-based National Council on Teacher Quality, a group that tracks 

Mike Klonsky's SmallTalk Blog: WEEKEND QUOTABLES

Mike Klonsky's SmallTalk Blog: WEEKEND QUOTABLES:

WEEKEND QUOTABLES

by Mike Klonsky

A man plays violin along Church Rd. in Newton.

Stephen Landman (Global Research)

US civilian gun ownership is the highest worldwide. Yemen ranks second. America doubles the Yemeni level.  Gun related violence follows. In America it’s endemic. In Chicago alone, gun-related deaths exceed one a day. More Chicagoans are shot and killed than US forces in Afghanistan by any means.  -- Gun violence in America

Rev. Jesse Jackson

What more "do we require?" before something is done to stop such events from occurring again. "We are the most violent nation on earth. We make the most guns and we shoot them, we make