Why all high school courses should be elective:

Why all high school courses should be elective

Posted by Valerie Strauss on January 22, 2013 at 6:00 am

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(by Sarah L. Voisin / The Washington Post)

The rise of the Common Core State Standards has fueled a long national debate about what courses students should be required to take and when. Here’s an unconventional look on the subject, from Marion Brady, a classroom teacher for years who has written history and world culture textbooks (Prentice-Hall),  professional books, numerous  nationally distributed columns (many areavailable here), and courses of study. His 2011 book, “What’s Worth Learning,” asks and answer this question: What knowledge is absolutely essential for every learner? His course of study for secondary-level students, called Connections: Investigating Reality, is free for downloading here. Brady’s website is www.marionbrady.com.

By Marion Brady

Both my late mother’s and my father’s right foot tended to be heavy when in contact with car accelerators. Their brothers and sisters shared the tendency, suggesting some sort of genetic propensity — which I, unfortunately, seem to have inherited.

The last time it got me in trouble I was given a choice. I could either have the evidence of 

Top 10 skills children learn from the arts

by Valerie Strauss

You don't find school reformers talking much about how we need to train more teachers in the arts, given the current obsession with science, math, technology and engineering (STEM), but here's a list of skills that young people learn from studying the arts. They serve as a reminder that the arts -- while important to study for their intrinsic value -- also promote skills seen as important in academic and life success. (That's why some people talk about changing the current national emphasis on STEM to STEAM.) This was written by Lisa Phillips is an author, blog journalist, arts and leadership educator, speaker and business owner. To learn about Lisa's book,"The Artistic Edge: 7 Skills Children Need to Succeed in an Increasingly Right Brain World," click here. This appeared on the ARTSblog.

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NYC Educator: No Two Troublemakers Are the Same

NYC Educator: No Two Troublemakers Are the Same:

No Two Troublemakers Are the Same

by NYC Educator

by Recovering ATR 

You know how sometimes it seems as if 99% of your problems whittle down to two students? That's the case this year with a Terrible Twosome that I'll call Johnny and Bobby, for the sake of anonymity. On the surface, Johnny and Bobby are very similar in personality and behavior. They're streetwise, and probably could be very successful if they ever directed their energies towards something positive. As it stands now, they spend all their time being disrespectful, racist bullies. Johnny and Bobby have made racist, sexist remarks in class all year long, they both are awesome liars, and their very presence unnerves the other students. And to be honest, they were unnerving me as well.

Yesterday was a particularly bad day for the Terrible Twosome. Bobby's mother actually came to the school insisting that I had said something I hadn't said. I showed Bobby's mother a letter Bobby had written me apologizing for his rude, disrespectful behavior in class and Bobby's mother looked embarrassed but started with a litany of excuses about why Bobby would make such comments. I also told his mother that once in class 

How $1.9 Million From the Race to the Top Grant Was Used as a Propaganda Tool For the Florida Model | Scathing Purple Musings

How $1.9 Million From the Race to the Top Grant Was Used as a Propaganda Tool For the Florida Model | Scathing Purple Musings:

How $1.9 Million From the Race to the Top Grant Was Used as a Propaganda Tool For the Florida Model

by Bob Sikes

Jeff Solochek of Gradebook calls attention to those reading scores everyone’s been bragging about for the last month.

Florida’s fourth graders are the second-best readers in the world, Gov. Rick Scott claimed during a recent discussion with black lawmakers.
That’s pretty great news, right? Well, hold on just a second.
Our friends at PolitiFact Florida investigated the claim to determine just how accurate it actually is.
While they deemed the facts of his claim are mostly correct, they said Scott stretched the truth a bit because the study doesn’t include every country – or even every state.

The Educated Reporter: States Push Ahead With Plans to Arm Teachers

The Educated Reporter: States Push Ahead With Plans to Arm Teachers:

States Push Ahead With Plans to Arm Teachers

by Emily Richmond

In the wake of the Sandy Hook tragedy, lawmakers are moving quickly to respond to the public outcry to do more to ensure schools are safe. But will arming teachers – or putting an armed guard at every school in the nation, as the NRA has suggested – make a meaningful difference? Or would it actually increase the risk of harm, as some gun control advocates contend?

Republican Sen. Rand Paul of Kentucky recently addressed those concerns with a degree of candor that might not help advance his crusade to allow educators to pack heat. At an event with business leaders in Oldham County (as recorded by the Louisville Courier-Journal), Rand said the following: “Is it perfect? No. Would they always get the killer? No. Would an accident sometimes happen in a melee? Maybe."

Labor groups and associations representing the nation’s school teachers and principals have already said that asking educators to be prepared to respond to an armed intruder with similar firepower is an unreasonable burden. At the same time there’s also been a reported spike in interest among some teachers who say they 

Teachers’ test boycott draws growing support | Education | The Seattle Times

Teachers’ test boycott draws growing support | Education | The Seattle Times:

Teachers’ test boycott draws growing support

Support is growing for Garfield High teachers in their boycott of a district-required test. Seattle Public Schools officials, while saying the test has value, also are acknowledging that some of the teachers’ concerns have merit.

By Linda Shaw

Seattle Times education reporter

THE SEATTLE TIMES

Rachel Eells is among Garfield High School teachers who are refusing to administer the school district-required MAP test to their students. Eells, who teaches language arts, says the test fails to provide enough useful information to make it worth students’ and teachers’ time.

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Eleven years ago, Rachel Eells saw value in the tests that she and other teachers at Seattle’s Garfield High School are now refusing to give their students.

Back then, she was a new middle-school teacher in the Highline School District, and the Measures of Academic Progress (MAP) helped her identify the strengths and weaknesses of her students in reading.

But Eells grew disenchanted with the MAP, saying it was, at best, a rough diagnostic tool that often left her with more questions than answers, especially with her older students. She couldn’t tell why, for example, a student would do well on literary terms one time, then poorly the next.

So when a Garfield colleague asked Eells last month whether she would consider boycotting the MAP, she said yes so quickly the colleague paused, a little taken aback.

But Eells didn’t need time to weigh the pros and cons.

“I don’t want to spend my time or my students’ time 

UPDATE: Emboldened Mischief Makers Schools Matter: Young People of the World: Adults Will Not Save You

Schools Matter: Young People of the World: Adults Will Not Save You:

Emboldened Mischief Makers, Part One

by Storm

Part One

There is a post today in Slate about "Creationism" in Colorado--that is, the Colorado legislature is proposing a bill which will

direct teachers to create an environment that encourages students to intelligently and respectfully explore scientific questions and learn about scientific evidence related to biological and chemical evolution, global warming, and human cloning.

The author of this post, an astronomer and writer, says

The antiscience bill HB 13-1089 is one of the Orwellian-named “Academic Freedom” thrusts by creationists, where legislators claim they just want teachers to have freedom about what they can teach, but is in fact a clear and obvious attack on scientific fields that disagree with the beliefs of 

Emboldened Mischief-Makers, Part Two

by Storm

Part Two of "Emboldened Mischief-Makers" (Here is Part One.)

Concerning those "advocating" "Academic Freedom" via state legislatures across the country, that is to say, concerning those pushing "freedom" in legalese devised to create the opportunity for the dissemination of ideologies via a process that codifies action into law.

Here is an example of the way legislative "mischief" is made.  It is important to note that this is indeed the very meat and effect of the process we hold so much stock in--that is to say, the system of representative government in which we profess to believe a good and noble and democratic system.

What follows is from the Lord Charnwood biography of Lincoln.


Stephen Douglas, who was four years younger than Lincoln, had come to Illinois from the Eastern States just about the time when Lincoln entered the Legislature. He had neither money nor friends to start with, but almost immediately secured, by his extraordinary address in pushing himself, a clerkship in the Assembly. He soon 

Emboldened Mischief-Makers, Part Three

by Storm

Part Three of "Emboldened Mischief-Makers"

Part One
Part Two

Concerning "the why" of Creationism and such.

The two primary "books" for Lincoln, nearly committed to memory, The Bible and Shakespeare.  So too, primarily, for Melville.

If one is to "suffer" the discipline of only a few books then they'd better be good ones!  They'd better foster imagination, creativity, and linguistic virtuosity.  I wonder if one gets that in the "informational text" heavy "common core"?

Concerning the spate of states proposing to legislate educators "to create an environment that encourages students to intelligently and respectfully explore scientific questions and learn about scientific evidence related to 

Emboldened Mischief-Makers, Part Four

by Storm

And lastly, Part Four of "Emboldened Mischief-Makers."

Part One
Part Two
Part Three

It may be hard to believe but I started all of this (the first shall be the last) because I wanted to share a little bit of mischief from a student's pen who attended the Dixwell Preparatory School in Cambridge, MA, graduating in 1855.  (The student is 16-years-old.)

Question:
"What is your favorite virtue? Do you select it, because you delight to practice it, or  because you think you need it, or because you have seen it beautifully exemplified in a Friend?"

(No scantron question this!)

Answer:
"Here the simple question is put to me.  No prevarication, no equivocation will do.  I am not asked to state what 

Young People of the World: Adults Will Not Save You

by Jim Horn

From Mike Martin: 

It was interesting to watch the inauguration of President Obama on 

Martin Luther King Jr. Day but I still say people need to understand 

what really brought about the Civil Rights Act. What really allowed 

Barack Obama to win the Presidency in the United States of America.

People want to publicize the Tuskogee Airmen, and their history is 

important and dramatic, but mostly as an illustration of the stupidity 

of racism. The Tuskogee Airmen themselves had little effect on people in 

the Jim Crow south. It had an influence in the banning segregation in 

the U.S. military, but not much effect on civil society. The same is 

Fools rush in, where wise men never go: SFCC and the destruction of the public commons through accreditation hustlers

Fools rush in, where wise men never go: SFCC and the destruction of the public commons through accreditation hustlers:

Fools rush in, where wise men never go: SFCC and the destruction of the public commons

by Danny Weil

A Letter from Tom Brown to California Elected Officials

Leader Pelosi’s office has already been contacted by “Save CCSF” activists and reports are that the staff response revealed a lack of understanding of what’s happening at CCSF. We’re told that someone in
the Leader’s office responded by saying “City College tries to do too much” (with its limited resources). I, in fact, agree with that sentiment. But right now the Federally-sanctioned ACCJC for our Western Region is taking a meat cleaver approach to CCSF faculty and staff. They are operating under the assumption that in order to make City College more “productive” it is necessary to drastically slash faculty and staff salaries and diminish the ability of the faculty to participate in academic decision making. (Please read the Lumina productivity report referenced below.)

I have always had great respect for Speaker Pelosi since I first met her as a candidate for Congress with the slogan “a voice that will be 

Georgia-Backed Scholarships Benefit Schools Barring Gays - NYTimes.com

Georgia-Backed Scholarships Benefit Schools Barring Gays - NYTimes.com:

Backed by State Money, Georgia Scholarships Go to Schools Barring Gays

By KIM SEVERSON

Published: January 20, 2013

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ATLANTA — As the nation works its way through the debate over vouchers and other alternatives to traditional public education funding, a quieter battle over homosexuality, religious education and school tax money is under way in Georgia.

Enlarge This Image

Rich Addicks for The New York Times

Steve Suitts of the Southern Education Foundation wrote a report on a Georgia tax credit program’s use at religious-based schools.

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Gregory Smith/Associated Press

State Representative Earl Ehrhart, right, in 2003. He runs one of the nonprofit conduits for donors in the scholarship program.

At issue is an increasingly popular tax credit program that transforms state money into private school scholarships, some of them used at religious-based schools that prohibit gay, lesbian or bisexual students from attending.

The policies at more than 100 such schools are explicit.

The 400 students at a private school in Woodstock, for example, must adhere to a policy that states, “Homosexual behavior, whether an ‘immoral act’ or ‘identifying statement,’ is incompatible with enrollment at Cherokee Christian Schools and is a basis for dismissal.”

A male student at the Shiloh Hills Christian School in Kennesaw, who utters “I like boys” or “I am a homosexual” will be expelled.

And at the 800-student Providence Christian Academy 20 miles north of Atlanta, a student who is gay, lesbian or bisexual or supports people who are could be kicked out.

At least 115 religious-based schools in Georgia have severe antigay policies, according to a

Engaging Parents In School… » This Week’s #PTchat On Twitter

Engaging Parents In School… » This Week’s #PTchat On Twitter:

This Week’s #PTchat On Twitter

by Larry Ferlazzo

Guest Post by Joe Mazza

Image credit: vle.bexley.ac.uk

1/23/13 #ptchat hosted by Dana Sirotiak

In order to monitor and scaffold a student’s growth progress, regular communication between the home and school is imperative to assure that students are appropriately developing academically, socially, and emotionally. Student Learning Plans (SLPs) should ensure strong adult-student relationships within the school whereby each student should have an adult mentor to assist them with accomplishing their goals.  Personalized Student Learning Plan is defined by the proposed New Jersey Administrative Code (N.J.A.C. 6A:8 – Standards and Assessment for Student Achievement) as “a formalized plan and process that involves students setting learning goals based on personal, academic and career interests, beginning in the middle school grades and continuing throughout high school with the close support of adult mentors that include teachers, counselors and parents”.  

What are the benefits of schools implementing individualized student learning plans for each student earlier in their academic careers?  What role does the child’s family plan in the development process?  

Join us this Wednesday, 1/23/13 on #PTchat at 9pm EDT as we discuss Student Learning Plans. Not on Twitter? Watch the LIVE Tweetchat link here. 

Jersey Jazzman: National Research Council Should Investigate DC Cheating

Jersey Jazzman: National Research Council Should Investigate DC Cheating:

National Research Council Should Investigate DC Cheating

by Duke

Last we checked in on Michelle Rhee, she had lawyered up in response to a request for documents related to the Washington, D.C. cheating scandal that unfolded on her watch. This request came from journalist John Merrow, who has conjectured that Rhee is in possession of a memo that shows, contrary to her claims, that she was well-aware of the potential for widespread cheating across the district.

At this point, it's quite clear that the cheating scandal has not been thoroughly investigated. But here's an interesting twist: there is already a national group charged with evaluating the progress of Washington D.C.'s schools, the National Research Council.

The committee on the Independent Evaluation of DC Public Schools issued its report, A Plan for Evaluating the District of Columbia’s Public Schools, in 2011.   ► More information about the report

The report outlined the structure for an ongoing program of independent and objective evaluation, 

Happy MLK Day!

by Duke

What a day, huh? I've got problems with my president when it come to education polices, but I have to admit: an inaugural on MLK Day of the second term of our first African-American president? That gives me a lot of hope.

So, for today, something a little different: Dr. King tells a joke.

Popout

And a little of the great Mahalia:

Popout

I played that song at my Grandmother's funeral.

God bless you all.

Oregon Save Our Schools: Dartmouth v. College Board

Oregon Save Our Schools: Dartmouth v. College Board:

Dartmouth v. College Board

by Kris Alman

This duel may not have registered a spark of interest, but leave it to Dartmouth to shoot down the College Board! (No worries! Corporations don't suffer mortal blows.)

Beginning with the class of 2018, Dartmouth will no longer offer college credit for good Advanced Placement (AP) scores, claiming these courses aren’t as rigorous as their college courses.

Dartmouth, you see, is not for commoners.  In 1819, their trustees won a landmark Supreme Court decision over the New Hampshire legislature. In trying to repeal the original corporate charter (a relic of King George III), to remake Dartmouth as a public institution, the Court proclaimed business first!

Certainly, College Board’s invisible hand leaves an imprint on Dartmouth when it comes to “college readiness.” This highly selective non-profit, private school (~$58,000 for undergraduate tuition, room, board, and fees this academic year) boasts an acceptance rate of 10.1%. Dartmouth’s exclusivity depends on weeding out applicants with lower SAT scores to 

Pension. A correction. « Fred Klonsky

Pension. A correction. « Fred Klonsky:

Pension. A correction.

by Fred Klonsky

In a post addressing what would happen if the Illinois General Assembly passed a bill impacting retiree COLAs and any anticipated court action that would arise from that, I wrote that TRS would freeze COLAs in place.
I was wrong.
Here is the paragraph from a letter to all TRS members which is in question:

TRS cannot predict if, or when, the General Assembly may alter the state law regarding the COLA. It is certain, however, that if the laws governing the TRS COLA are changed, the matter will be