UPDATE: Failed DC Chancellor Michelle Rhee uses StudentsFirst to sell memoir

Failed DC Chancellor Michelle Rhee  uses StudentsFirst to sell memoir:

Failed DC Chancellor Michelle Rhee  uses StudentsFirst to sell memoir

Posted by Valerie Strauss on January 31, 2013 at 6:00 am

Is this putting students first? Michelle Rhee’s new memoir is set to go on sale Tuesday and she is already trying to hawk it, using the website of her school reform organization, StudentsFirst, to attract buyers. The site has a free excerpt, which I found out about when I received the letter below from Rhee.

For my review of the book, click here, and for a review by Bill Turque, my colleague who covered her tenure as D.C. schools chancellor, click here.

Here’s the letter I (and no doubt many others) received from Rhee selling her book:

Dear Valerie –

When I first started out in education, I had no idea just how challenging — and how rewarding — my path would be.

The road from a second-grade classroom at an inner-city Baltimore school to founding 

Charter schools that start bad stay bad, study finds

by Valerie Strauss

Charter schools that start out doing poorly aren’t likely to improve, and charters that are successful from the beginning most often stay that way, according to a new study by researchers at Stanford University. The report, done by Stanford’s Center … Continue reading →

A Common Core Standards defense

by Valerie Strauss

Earlier this week I published a tough critique on the Common Core State Standards in regards to early childhood education by educators Nancy Carlsson-Paige and Ed Miller, who said the standards are “a threat” to young students. Here is a … Continue reading →

A Different Story About Public Education

A Different Story About Public Education:

A Different Story About Public Education

by Sam

I know we’re already one month into 2013, but think back to last year for a second:

What were the most talked about education stories of 2012?

I’m guessing your list looks something like this – Common Core. The Chicago Teacher Strike. Newtown. And what worries me is that no matter what other stories you recalled – from Michelle Rhee to the Dropout Crisis to Race to the Top – they’re all likely to fit into one of the following categories: content, conflict, or catastrophe.

Continue reading . . .

UPDATE: We built it. + Madigan to We Are One’s offer of a pension summit: “Drop dead.” « Fred Klonsky

Madigan to We Are One’s offer of a pension summit: “Drop dead.” « Fred Klonsky:

We built it.

by Fred Klonsky

“j” writes and asks, “I still want to see a list of projects that my pension money funded….”we built it list”….maybe I can get a share of revenue from these venues…Soldier Field Bear’s ticket revenue….or a cut of Michigan Avenue store sales after I funded the flowers in the median garden beds.”
Of course, “j” is being rhetorical.
Our pensions were used to pay for it it all.
Remember Representative Elaine Nekritz’s answer to a question at the community forum in Aurora? A teacher  asked her about the General Assembly taking money out of the state public employee pension system’s to pay for the state’s expenses that couldn’t be paid for based on the current flat income tax combined with corporate 

Madigan to We Are One’s offer of a pension summit: “Drop dead.”

by Fred Klonsky

Michael T. Carrigan, President
AFL-CIO / We Are One Illinois
534 S. 2nd Street, Ste. 200
Springfield, IL 62701
Dear Mr. Carrigan:
I’d like to respond to your January 22, 2013 letter regarding the need to develop legislative solutions to address the underfunding of the state’s pension systems. Your interest in taking a more active role on this issue is welcome.
However, your suggestion of a meeting in Burr Ridge is not timely. A summit on this topic could have been

Bizarro World. Mike Madigan.

by Fred Klonsky

Click on image to enlarge.

In the Bizarro World of “Htrae” (“Earth” spelled backwards), society is ruled by the Bizarro 

The Educated Reporter: New Study Finds Early Predictors of Charter School Success

The Educated Reporter: New Study Finds Early Predictors of Charter School Success:

New Study Finds Early Predictors of Charter School Success

by Emily Richmond

A charter school’s performance in its first three years of operation is a solid predictor of the program’s long-term chances of success, a new study by Stanford University researchers concludes.

On Wednesday Stanford's  Center for Research on Education Outcomes (CREDO) published Charter School Growth and Replication, which focuses on what can be learned from the track records of  more than 1,300 independently managed public schools and nearly 170 Charter Management Organizations (CMOs).

From the study’s lead author and CREDO director Margaret Raymond:

This report’s findings challenge the conventional wisdom that a young underperforming school will improve if given time. Our research shows that if you start wobbly, chances are you’ll stay wobbly. Similarly, if a school is successful in producing strong academic progress from the start, our 

Video: The Trolley Car Dilemma | Larry Ferlazzo’s Websites of the Day…

Video: The Trolley Car Dilemma | Larry Ferlazzo’s Websites of the Day…:

Video: The Trolley Car Dilemma

by Larry Ferlazzo

The Trolley Car Dilemma is a famous ethical question, and used in many IB Theory of Knowledge classes. Here’s a useful video on it (in class, I’d periodically stop it to have students say what they would do):

Popout

Infographic: “The Top 10 Happiest Cities”

Larry Ferlazzo at Larry Ferlazzo's Websites of the Day... - 6 hours ago

I’m adding this infographic to The Best Lists Of “Best Places To Live”: Find A Happy Place: The Top 10 Happiest Cities infographic by spacechimpmedia.

Video: A Bird Ballet

Larry Ferlazzo at Larry Ferlazzo's Websites of the Day... - 7 hours ago

“Black History Month” Resources

Larry Ferlazzo at Larry Ferlazzo's Websites of the Day... - 7 hours ago

February is Black History Month in the United States. You might find The Best Websites To Teach & Learn About African-American History useful. I haven’t gotten a chance to confirm this year that all the links there are still live, … Continue reading →

Read Aloud Day Resources

Larry Ferlazzo at Larry Ferlazzo's Websites of the Day... - 7 hours ago

March 6th is World Read Aloud Day this year, and I’ve just updated The Best Resources For World Read Aloud Day. Additional suggestions are always welcome.

One New Activity I’m Doing To Help ELLs Learn Academic Vocabulary – & Practice Speaking It

Larry Ferlazzo at Larry Ferlazzo's Websites of the Day... - 10 hours ago

One of my students’ favorite activities, and one that I believe is very effective, is several times a week getting together in assigned small groups to practice conversational English. They all have a “cheat sheet” of about seventy different questions … Continue reading →

“What Is Peer Assistance & Review (PAR) & How Does It Work?”

Larry Ferlazzo at Larry Ferlazzo's Websites of the Day... - 12 hours ago

What Is Peer Assistance & Review (PAR) & How Does It Work? is the new “question of the week” at my Education Week Teacher blog. Comments are welcome there or here.

CALIFORNIA STATE WHISTLEBLOWER'S LAWSUITE EXPOSES WEB OF CORRUPTION AND DECEIT AT THE COMMISSION ON TEACHER CREDENTIALING (CTC) PART 1 By Steve Zeltzer - Perdaily.com

CALIFORNIA STATE WHISTLEBLOWER'S LAWSUITE EXPOSES WEB OF CORRUPTION AND DECEIT AT THE COMMISSION ON TEACHER CREDENTIALING (CTC) PART 1 By Steve Zeltzer - Perdaily.com:

CALIFORNIA STATE WHISTLEBLOWER'S LAWSUITE EXPOSES WEB OF CORRUPTION AND DECEIT AT THE COMMISSION ON TEACHER CREDENTIALING (CTC) PART 1 By Steve Zeltzer

by Leonard Isenberg

Mensaje se repite en Español)

Kathleen Carroll, a former government lawyer turned whistleblower at the California Commission On Teacher Credentialing CTC has filed a potentially explosive suit against CTC officials and the state government that charges that the Commission attorneys and management of the commission were engaged in numerous illegal acts possibly resulting in thousands of improperly sanctioned teachers in the state of California. Some of the charges in Carroll's charged the commission with tampering with the selection and composition of the Committee of credential members, CTC attorneys improperly tampering with case outcomes, acting outside their legal 

UPDATE: Our Overlords School Tech Connect: I Feel A Protest Coming On

School Tech Connect: I Feel A Protest Coming On:

Our Overlords

by noreply@blogger.com (Tim Furman)

I'm late on this one. 

District officials have said they don’t want to link the volatile issue of school closings with the equally volatile issue of charter school openings. But a major pro-charter foundation is providing financial backing for the current crop of school closing meetings taking place around the city this month.

The Waltons own CPS and they're determined to dismantle the thing. What's the name for a society that has long since surpassed banana republic status?

Stick together, people. Walmart is spending a pretty penny to set you at each other's throats with these bogus 

I Feel A Protest Coming On

by noreply@blogger.com (Tim Furman)

My keyboard has been dodging a lot of vomit lately. I just read this.

In a nutshell, a guy wants to open an "arts-based" charter in Rogers Park. Really.  Can we just stop the f*cking madness already?

Dude, start a private school, start a community arts program,  or support your public schools. This opening up of charter after charter after charter? It has to stop.  I railed at him in the comments over at DNA, although I had to post it through a friend because of the Facebook comment system.

This man needs to start a private school, not a publicly funded charter school that will do damage to Rogers Park, in spite of his good intentions. The charter school model has become a taxpayers’ gift to people without a sustainable business model, like Mr. Frede. If he were trying to start a nonprofit private arts program for the children of Rogers Park,

A Whole Child Deserves a Whole Teacher — Whole Child Education

A Whole Child Deserves a Whole Teacher — Whole Child Education:

THE WHOLE CHILD BLOG

A Whole Child Deserves a Whole Teacher

January 30, 2013 by ASCD Whole Child Bloggers

Post written by Arthur L. Costa and Bena Kallick

A lot is said and written about the whole child. We often forget, however, that we should be considering the whole adult as well. A teacher's performance in the classroom, and the resulting performances of the students, depend on a cluster of ingredients not the least of which are the teacher's attitudes and dispositions which we refer to as Habits of Mind, which concern not only what teachers can do (abilities) but what they are likely to do. For example,

What is the likelihood that:	Habit of Mind
they will persevere through disappointment and challenge in their teaching, spending additional time, consulting others, reviewing and revising their decisions when hoped for results have not occurred?	Persisting
in the process of teaching and concentrating on the responses of an individual student, they use an eagle view of the classroom to monitor the entire class?	Metacognition (Thinking about Thinking)
faced with stubborn problems they can perceive them flexibly from various perspectives of the disappointed mother, the ambitious father, or the anxious child?	Thinking Flexibly
they will take disappointments in

One New Activity I’m Doing To Help ELLs Learn Academic Vocabulary – & Practice Speaking It | Larry Ferlazzo’s Websites of the Day…

One New Activity I’m Doing To Help ELLs Learn Academic Vocabulary – & Practice Speaking It | Larry Ferlazzo’s Websites of the Day…:

One New Activity I’m Doing To Help ELLs Learn Academic Vocabulary – & Practice Speaking It

by Larry Ferlazzo

One of my students’ favorite activities, and one that I believe is very effective, is several times a week getting together in assigned small groups to practice conversational English. They all have a “cheat sheet” of about seventy different questions and answers that is in our book, The ESL/ELL Teacher’s Survival Guide and practice asking and answering each others questions. Of course, if you don’t have our book, you can easily come up with your own “cheat sheet.”
Periodically, I ask students what other kinds of topics they want to practice, they come up with more questions, and I put them together on additional sheets — which they all glue into their notebooks.
My combination Beginners/Intermediate class has a wide enough range that the groups can work on their own with me just walking around between them.
This semester, however, I gained several excellent twelfth-graders who work as peer tutors during one of my class’ periods. I’ve assigned each one to a small group, and have given each of my students and them copies of 

Letter from Seattle School Librarians to Superintendent Banda: Scrap the MAP « Seattle Education

Letter from Seattle School Librarians to Superintendent Banda: Scrap the MAP « Seattle Education:

Letter from Seattle School Librarians to Superintendent Banda: Scrap the MAP

by seattleducation2011

Dear Superintendent Banda and Members of the School Board,

Since MAP testing was imposed in Seattle Schools in 2009, Seattle school librarians have continually expressed concern about the loss of library resources for students. School libraries are a proven tool to improve student learning. With the onset of MAP testing, however, the libraries in many schools have been closed for weeks at a time while the space is devoted to testing. Librarians, whose role is to teach information skills and support reading instruction, have been required in many schools to spend weeks and weeks as testing clerks. In many schools the first time a student visits the library is not to check out a book or research a topic, but to take a test—a test that is not aligned to curriculum and covers material that they have not learned.

Scarce computer resources in schools are devoted to testing, and are unavailable for teaching and learning. Scarce technical support—the Department of Technology Services has been cut in recent years—is devoted to shoring up the MAP test, while student and teacher computers sit “Out of Order” for months because no one is available to fix them. These issues and many others were raised by librarians and teachers to district administrators over the years, but no major changes have been made.

On January 11 the teachers of Garfield High School announced that they will no longer 

Does the FLDOE Work for Jeb Bush’s Foundation? | Scathing Purple Musings

Does the FLDOE Work for Jeb Bush’s Foundation? | Scathing Purple Musings:

Does the FLDOE Work for Jeb Bush’s Foundation?

by Bob Sikes

Today’s release of emails from a DC watchdog indeed provided some troubling revelations. Among these were arranging travel and reimbursements for FLDOE staffers and examples of clear advocacies for their corporate donors. But more than anything else, the sheer volume of emails between multiple Foundation for Excellence in Education staffers and state employees at the Florida Department of Education made the two appear almost co-dependent. But so many policy questions and requests for data were made by FEE staffers to numerous FLDOE staff that one would more likely be left with the impression that the later worked for the former.
Most disturbing of these involved attempts to dictate policy and legislation. This from In the Public Interest:

In addition to sending an invitation to the state board of education to attend a press conference in support of parent trigger legislation, FEE staff was very much involved in legislation affecting the state’s school turnaround procedures, which include converting some neighborhood schools to charter schools. (Education Commissioner Gerard) Robinson emailed (CEO Patricia )Levesque in 

Proximity beats ratings in DPS school choice | EdNewsColorado

Proximity beats ratings in DPS school choice | EdNewsColorado:

Proximity beats ratings in DPS school choice

by Julie Poppen

Proximity to schools matters more than the school district’s rating system when families choose schools in Denver.

Image from the school choice page on the DPS website

That’s among the findings of two recently released reports, conclusions that could spark debate about some of the assumptions education reformers have about school choice.
“Almost every family we talked to – even though they are getting through SchoolChoice, they were not accessing any of these beautiful tools that have been created,” said Mike Kromrey, executive director of Together Colorado, which conducted a small study focused on low-income Latino families in Denver. “A lot of money has been 

Daily Kos: What we know and what happens next

Daily Kos: What we know and what happens next:

What we know and what happens next

by rss@dailykos.com (teacherken)

First, we will be eternally grateful for all the support and kind wishes.  I am sorry I cannot respond to each of you individually, but know that we read and appreciate every comment, kosmail, email, etc.  This community is at its best in moments like this when we support one another.
Second, don't worry, I am taking care of myself.  I get enough rest, sometimes napping during the day.  I take walks around the hospital to burn off energy.  I have things I can do (book reviews, school-related stuff) so that I feel productive while remaining fully available to anything Leaves needs.
We do not have a final diagnosis, although we expect that on Friday.   We know this much.
- it is apparently a blood-based cancer
- that has caused several lesions in her spine
- the doctors are already addressing those lesions with radiation (1st treatment today)
- chemo is down the road
- she has to wear a supportive back brace any time she is not lying down
- this is not immediately life-threatening
Again, thank you for your support and especially your prayers and holding her (us) in the Light.  We know has made a difference.
Peace.

Letter from Seattle School Librarians to Superintendent Banda | Scrap the MAP!

Letter from Seattle School Librarians to Superintendent Banda | Scrap the MAP!:

Letter from Seattle School Librarians to Superintendent Banda

January 18, 2013

Dear Superintendent Banda and Members of the School Board,

Since MAP testing was imposed in Seattle Schools in 2009, Seattle school librarians have continually expressed concern about the loss of library resources for students. School libraries are a proven tool to improve student learning. With the onset of MAP testing, however, the libraries in many schools have been closed for weeks at a time while the space is devoted to testing. Librarians, whose role is to teach information skills and support reading instruction, have been required in many schools to spend weeks and weeks as testing clerks. In many schools the first time a student visits the library is not to check out a book or research a topic, but to take a test—a test that is not aligned to curriculum and covers material that they have not learned.

Scarce computer resources in schools are devoted to testing, and are unavailable for teaching and learning. Scarce technical support—the Department of Technology Services has been cut in recent years—is devoted to shoring up the MAP test, while student and teacher computers sit “Out of Order” for months because no one is available to fix them. These issues and many others were raised by librarians and teachers to district administrators over the years, but no major changes have been made.

On January 11 the teachers of Garfield High School announced that they will no longer administer the MAP test because of its negative impact on students. We, librarians in Seattle Public Schools, agree that MAP wastes resources in our schools without 

Why, as a parent, I support Garfield teachers’ opposition to excessive and inaccurate testing | Edvoices

Why, as a parent, I support Garfield teachers’ opposition to excessive and inaccurate testing | Edvoices:

Why, as a parent, I support Garfield teachers’ opposition to excessive and inaccurate testing

By Sue Peters January 30, 2013 1:16 pm

For his first school-library experience in kindergarten, my five-year-old son was not allowed to check out a book. Instead he was placed in front of a computer with a set of headphones and told to take a test for an hour.

That was my family’s introduction to the Measures of Academic Progress (MAP®), a computerized, adaptive test for math and English, administered to Seattle public school children in grades K-9, three times a year since 2009.

Seattle parents were told the test would help teachers inform instruction and lead to personalized teaching for our children. Instead, it has cost our schools weeks in lost class-time and library access, reams of administrative busy work, and as much as $11 million in scarce district funding. It has also proven to be an unreliable tool, and one which our district is seriously misusing.

Seattle public school children are already fed a veritable alphabet soup of tests, beginning in kindergarten – MAP®, MSP, EOC, HSPE, SAT, ACT, and now, tests tied to the Common Core State Standards.

So when the teachers at one of Seattle’s most highly respected schools, Garfield High School, made national news on 

A quick take on just-released STAAR results | Education Blog

A quick take on just-released STAAR results | Education Blog:

A quick take on just-released STAAR results

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comments (2)

By Bill McKenzie / Editorial Columnist
wmckenzie@dallasnews.com
4:51 pm on January 30, 2013 | Permalink

New STAAR data is out, allowing us to see how Texas students fared on the state’s new achievement test. Here’s my quick take:

*Passing rates on most end-of-course exams for ninth-graders, who were the first to take these EOC tests, were around 80 percent or more. Algebra I. English I Reading. Biology. World Geography. The passing rates for all ninth-graders, including those who took the test more than once, was at least 80 percent. For biology, it was 91 percent. These numbers are good, and that last one for biology is really good.

But the passing rate for English I writing in the ninth grade was disturbingly low. Only 72 percent passed it then, including after multiple tries. That’s not good, especially when you consider that only 54 percent of ninth-graders passed the writing end-of-course exam on the first try.

*Eighth graders are tanking in social studies, which is something I don’t get. Only 59 percent of eighth