Teachers or ‘Quantitative Learning Gains Facilitators?’:

Teachers or ‘Quantitative Learning Gains Facilitators?’

By Valerie Strauss, Published: July 16 at 4:00 amE-mail the writer

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Mr. Fitz
(By David Lee Finkle)

David Lee Finkle is a middle-school teacher in Florida who draws the comic strip “Mr. Fitz” for the Daytona Beach News-Journal. He is also the author of books for teachers on student writing and of three young adult novels: “Making My Escape” as well as “Portents” and “Portals” (co-authored with his son, Christopher). The comic strip can be found online at www.mrfitz.com and at the Facebook page Mr. Fitz Comic Strips, and you can follow him on Twitter @DLFinkle. He blogs at The Real Mr. Fitz, where a version of this appeared.

By David Lee Finkle

There is a myth going around our country that goes something like this: American schools have been dumbed down, bad teachers have been given free reign, our educational system is failing, and we will fail to be competitive in the new global economy.

Actually, American schools are more rigorous than they have ever been. What used to

The world’s most famous teacher blasts school reform

By Valerie Strauss, Published: July 16 at 8:00 amE-mail the writer

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The most famous teacher in the world is not a fan of high-stakes standardized tests,  Teach For America or the Common Core State Standards. But he loves teaching and teachers, and he has written a new book giving advice to colleagues at all stages of their careers.

He is fifth-grade teacher Rafe Esquith of Room 56 at Hobart Elementary School in Los Angeles. I feel comfortable calling him the world’s most famous teacher given the following about the father of four and grandfather of two, who has taught at Hobart  for nearly 30 years and written several best-selling books:

*When he goes to China he is so popular he needs security guards to protect him from the crush of the crowds.
*He is the only K-12 teacher to be awarded the president’s National Medal of the Arts.
*Queen Elizabeth made him a member of the British Empire.
*The Dalai Lama gave him the Compassion in Action Award.

UPDATE: Education Research Report: CREDO’s Significantly Insignificant Charter Schools Findings

Education Research Report: CREDO’s Significantly Insignificant Charter Schools Findings:

EDUCATION RESEARCH REPORT

Young children with autism benefit regardless of high-quality treatment model

Researchers at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill have found that preschoolers with Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD) who receive high-quality early intervention benefit developmentally regardless of the treatment model used—a surprising result that may have important implications for special-education programs and school classrooms across the country.“This is the first study designed to

by Jonathan Kantrowi... / 13min 

Revenues and expenditures for public elementary and secondary education for School Year 2010-11

Current expenditures per pupil for public elementary and secondary education were $10,658 on a national level in FY 11. Current expenditures per pupil ranged from $6,326 in Utah to $20,793 in the District of Columbia. Expenditures per pupil were next highest in New York ($18,834); New Jersey ($16,855); Alaska ($16,663); Connecticut ($16,224); and Wyoming ($15,815). Adjusting for inflation, per pup

by Jonathan Kantrowi... / 12min 

This Week's Education Research Report 7-13-13 #SOSCHAT #EDCHAT #P2

Education Research ReportTHIS WEEK'S EDUCATION RESEARCH REPORTYESTERDAYThe Effect of Grade Placement on English Language Learners’ Academic AchievementMany English Language Learners (ELLs) migrate to the United States at older ages and administrators must choose a grade in which to place these new entrants as soon as they register for school. This study estimates the effect of grade placement on t

by mike simpson / 9h 

Developing Socially Just Teachers

This interpretive study investigated how 12 graduates from a justice-oriented teacher preparation program described their teaching goals, practices, and influences on those practices after their 1st year of teaching in an urban school. Relationships among these teachers’ orientations toward socially just teaching, self-reported socially just teaching practices, and self-reported preprogram, progra

by Jonathan Kantrowi... / 22min mark as read  //  save

Early Spatial Reasoning Predicts Later Creativity and Innovation, Especially in STEM Fields

Exceptional spatial ability at age 13 predicts creative and scholarly achievements more than 30 years later, according to results from a Vanderbilt University longitudinal study, published today in Psychological Science, a journal of the Association for Psychological Science.The study, conducted by David Lubinski and colleagues at Vanderbilt University Peabody College of education and human develo

by Jonathan Kantrowi... / 46min 

CREDO’s Significantly Insignificant Charter Schools Findings

Even Setting Aside Its Analytical Flaws, Study Merely Confirms that Charter Schools Perform on Par with Traditional Public SchoolsThe Center for Research on Education Outcomes (CREDO) at Stanford University announced in a June 25th press release that “charter school students now have greater learning gains in reading than their peers in traditional public schools.” This conclusion was repeated in

by Jonathan Kantrowi... / 1h 

CORE districts to make final personal pitch for No Child Left Behind waiver | EdSource Today

CORE districts to make final personal pitch for No Child Left Behind waiver | EdSource Today:

CORE districts to make final personal pitch for No Child Left Behind waiver

July 16th, 2013 | Add a Comment | 
By John Fensterwald

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Quickly running out of time, a delegation from nine California school districts will go to Washington this week to make a last pitch to federal officials for a waiver from the No Child Left Behind law.

Officials from the California Office to Reform Education (CORE), the umbrella organization that the nine districts created, remain optimistic that Secretary of Education Arne Duncan will grant them a unique districtwide waiver from significant penalties and requirements under NCLB. The immediate obstacle facing them, for the waiver to take effect in the upcoming school year, is time. Districts are up against deadlines for contracts with companies that provide services, such as tutoring, in schools that have failed to meet NCLB’s academic targets. Especially for Los Angeles Unified, a CORE district, these must be signed within a week or so, said Rick Miller, executive director of CORE.

Fresno Unified Superintendent Michael Hanson is in the delegation traveling to Washington to make the case for a nine-district waiver.

If the 3-year waiver is approved, such contracts won’t be required. Instead, the nine districts altogether will have flexibility to spend $100 million in Title I dollars funded for low-income children. The districts plan to use some of that money for teachers and administrators to work collaboratively. Sharing best practices among districts is a key element of the CORE application and offers “absolutely the best chance for districts to improve,” said Fresno 

California should embrace new national teacher preparation standards - by Benjamin Riley / commentary

Are we finally about to get serious about improving the professional training of school teachers and principals in this country? And will California be a leader or laggard in this effort? Earlier this week, a special blue-ribbon commission convened by the Council for the Accreditation of Educator Preparation (CAEP) – the new national accreditation organization – issued its final report with... [[

by Benjamin Riley / ... / 5h

Fixing our schools: "We know what needs to be done." We are... | Get Schooled | www.ajc.com

Fixing our schools: "We know what needs to be done." We are... | Get Schooled | www.ajc.com:

Fixing our schools: "We know what needs to be done." We are unwilling to do it.  

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Mike Ritter, AJC

Education illustration by Mike Ritter

Previous Posts

• Some happier Cherokee news: Teens win duct tape prom contest including $5,000 for school
  July 15, 2013
• Cherokee County Schools: Should Kelly Marlow resign her board seat after her arrest? 
  July 14, 2013
• A high school athlete learns the value of strength, personal and physical
  July 13, 2013

By Maureen Downey

A highlight of my job is opening my email to thoughtful notes like this one from Dr. Stan Bernknopf, who was director of the Division on Research, Evaluation and Assessment for the state Department of Education.

With his permission, I am sharing his letter:

By Dr. Stan Bernknopf

For 20 years, from 1975 to 1995, I worked for the Georgia Department of Education. When I retired, I was the Director of the Division of Assessment, Evaluation and Research.

During my tenure with the department, I had the opportunity to work for three state school superintendents, three Georgia governors, various members of the Legislature, and several state boards of education. While the major part of my 20-year DOE tenure can be described as exiting, rewarding and professionally fulfilling, the job also had its frustrations, disappointments and, in too many cases, it highlighted the naivetés and/ or ingenuousness of our 

The Trayvon Martins, The Marissa Alexanders, The Danroy Henrys, The Emmett Tills - The Jose Vilson

The Trayvon Martins, The Marissa Alexanders, The Danroy Henrys, The Emmett Tills - The Jose Vilson:

The Trayvon Martins, The Marissa Alexanders, The Danroy Henrys, The Emmett Tills

Posted by Jose Vilson

I started out the morning with this …

Morning. Still in mourning.
Saddened by the situation that we were born in
People playing God with our kids’ lives,
It’s hard to see where the God is,
Or where your guard is,
Or where your heart is …
So now I mourn for all our Trayvons,
Searching for peace from here to now on,
How do we start this?
Start with our kids,
The Marissas, the Danroys, the Emmetts, the Yusufs …

But I let my thoughts swim a little more. I ache. I lose words easily. I disconnect readily. I rather not say. But here’s this:

To live in America as a Black person is often …

To live in perpetual anger as a result of society’s perception of you.

To see yourself misunderstood before you even step firmly into your environment.

To be assumed criminal, even when in expensive cloths and foreign wingtips.

To have your entire existence truncated to a supposition that, yes, you can

- See more at: http://thejosevilson.com/quick-rhyme-for-trayvons-mourning/?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+TheJoseVilson+%28The+Jose+Vilson%29#sthash.wCDBpzYT.dpuf

Kimble's Corner: Congressman Kimble Needs Your Help

Kimble's Corner: Congressman Kimble Needs Your Help:

Congressman Kimble Needs Your Help

According to Amazon, the paperback version of Profiles in Courageousness came out July 2nd, but that's not really true.  For a print on demand book like mine, things move a bit slower.  They haven't even uploaded the cover to Amazon yet and I am anxiously awaiting holding my very own copy of Profiles in Courageousness in my hands.

Creating my online persona has been a labor of love and I am very appreciative of the support that I have received.  If it wasn't for it, I would have stopped doing this sometime in 2009.  However, 267 days ago when my eBook came out, I soon realized that when it comes to promoting books, I'm clueless.   For that reason, I'm really calling on those of you enjoying what I do on Twitter and in this blog to help 

Bill Gates on education, patents, Microsoft Bob, and disease | Microsoft - CNET News

Bill Gates on education, patents, Microsoft Bob, and disease | Microsoft - CNET News:

Bill Gates on education, patents, Microsoft Bob, and disease

Speaking at Microsoft's Faculty Summit Monday, Gates took questions from an audience of researchers about the work of his foundation and other topics.

Education
The Gates Foundation is investing in education, even in rich countries like the U.S. He is a big fan and funder of MOOCs (Massive Open Online Courses), such as the Khan Academy, and other digital tools that personalize, gamify and quantify teaching and learning as ways to help solve a worldwide education crisis, including the U.S., which suffers from the highest drop out of any "rich" country.

He discussed how educational institutions, such as the big lecture hall, need to adapt. "Just sticking a camera in front of someone with a captive audience doesn't measure up to what is needed," Gates said. The big lecture will be more akin to recorded music, with rock stars lecturers who are extremely good at presenting specific information and with the budget to edit and create richer experiences for students.

"If want to learn about oceanography, meteorology, game theory or knot theory, in 24 hours I know more about those topics and can test my knowledge. That's where a lot of deep innovation is going to come," Gates said. "It's only the beginning of something quite profound, even though the temptation to oversimplify is quite great."

Gates doesn't believe that education should be treated like a menu without restrictions. He mentioned how some of the universities his college-age daughter visited allow students to design their own majors and don't force any courses on them. "I'm a big believer that there should be one or two subjects that you should know something about in a pretty deep way. Everybody should know machine language, of course," he joked.

Blaming teachers for the school closures--Breton is just doing his job | The Sacramento Coalition to Save Public Education

Blaming teachers for the school closures--Breton is just doing his job | The Sacramento Coalition to Save Public Education:

Blaming teachers for the school closures--Breton is just doing his job

published by Kate_Lenox on Mon, 07/15/2013 - 11:52am

Once again I am amazed by the Sacramento Bee's reporters. I sat behind Marcos Breton at the hearing on the Sacramento City USD school closers, yet evidently we heard different things. Like education reporter Loretta Kalb, he failed to get the facts straight, so his column in the Sunday Bee was riddled with inaccuracies. Since the public has no other source for information on this trail, that's a shame.

Dr. Hernandez was only disqualified as an expert witness on school finance. Therefore he could not give his evidence that SCUSD did not need to close schools because the district had unspent money that would have improved the schools' bottom lines. Hernandez also collected data on two schools, C.B. Wire and Maple, that showed when the district based created its "right-sizing" capacity report, it counted spaces as class rooms that were being used for other purposes or were too small for the current student teacher ratio of 33-1 and so were vacant.  This would have showed that the district's methodology for arriving at which schools to place on the list was flawed. However, The district's lawyers succeeded in preventing him from drawing the same conclusions for the other schools, since he didn't visit them all in the short timeframe he had.

Dr. Hernandez was eminently qualified to testify on the socio-economic data the data he collected on the schools considered for closure. It revealed that while all the schools on the list had significant minority students populations, only those in minority neighborhoods were closed.  Even using the district's data, four schools in majority white neighborhoods had lower enrollment to capacity numbers than two of the schools in minority neighborhoods that were closed. Those four schools were left open. That conclusion has been ignored by the Bee. The real issue behind the lawsuit is not the methodology used. It's the decisions that were made.

Wanting to have it both ways,  the district's lawyer's then attempted on cross examination to get Dr. Hernandez to conclude that if he had visited all the schools, he would have found that using his own methodology would have resulted in a list similar to the district's. Dr. Hernandez smartly refused to draw that conclusion. Oddly enough, the  lawyers attempted to bring in the teachers union, making references to prior union support for school 

Coping with Wonderkid Syndrome Student Voice

Student Voice:

Coping with Wonderkid Syndrome

 We’re all familiar with The Wonderkid. The walking definition of overcommitted, he or she enters the room cool as a cucumber and, regardless of physical appearance, commands attention. They’re the kid who scored a 36 on the ACT without even studying. The kid who not only won last year’s talent show for their original spoken word poetry, but would have won this year’s too had they not refused to enter, satisfied with one win and eager to see others shine instead.

That’s the kicker with The Wonderkid–not only are they involved in everything, they involve everyone. The value they put into the achievements of others is the same that turns the goal you made at last week’s soccer match into winning the World cup. Their self-deprecating sense of humor makes them relatable, makes their

- See more at: http://www.stuvoice.org/2013/07/13/coping-with-wonderkid-syndrome/?utm_source=feedly#sthash.xcz2lYbG.dpuf

About the Author: Jilly Dos Santos is a junior at Rock Bridge Senior High in Columbia, Missouri. She has worked within her community to expand the student voice in district-wide issues through Students’ Say, a student advocacy group created by her and her peers. The group has been featured in Education Week, as well as several local news magazines. Students’ Say works closely with administrators and students from every high school to ensure that everyone has a say, and that decisions are made through research and student opinion. In April she attended Student Voice Live! and more recently has begun working as an editor for stuvoice.org. She enjoys volunteering at various places around Columbia, and was featured in the Columbia Missourian for her service and leadership skills.

Teachers unions urge federal action against George Zimmerman:

Teachers unions urge federal action against George Zimmerman

By Valerie Strauss, Published: July 15 at 6:24 pmE-mail the writer

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George Zimmerman (Gary W. Green/Orlando Sentinel via AP)

The National Education Association and the Federation of Teachers, which together represent some 4.5 million teachers and others, both are urging the Department of Justice to investigate George Zimmerman, who was acquitted by a jury of second-degree murder in the Florida killing of teenager Trayvon Martin.

The presidents of both organizations urged their members to sign petitions to the Justice Department, saying that Zimmerman must face the consequences of his actions. The NEA is supporting an NAACP call for federal civil rights charges to be filed against Zimmerman.

Here is the letter that NEA President Dennis Van Roekel sent to members Monday:

To the NEA family,

Trayvon Martin was a teenage boy with a full life ahead of him. Our job as educators is to nurture our students, to give them a sense of safety and normalcy, to provide a foundation of knowledge and never-ending inspiration to each and every child. We teach our students about perseverance. We tell them not to give up on their dreams. We as a society must not give up; we must respect the rule of law and never abandon the search for truth. While the criminal trial of George Zimmerman has concluded, our search for the truth must continue. NEA stands with the NAACP in calling for a full investigation by the Department of Justice. A full federal civil rights investigation is essential. As educators, it is our responsibility to our students to set the example by acting to seek justice, to teach fairness, and to provide comfort to students and families who grieve.

For Trayvon Martin, for his family, for all parents and educators committed to ensuring all children grow up knowing their individual worth “will not be judged by the color of their skin, but by the content of their character,” we urge you to sign the NAACP petition to the Department of Justice: http://www.naacp.org/sign-the-DOJ-petition.

Thank you,

Dennis Van Roekel

NEA President

And here is the letter that AFT President Randi Weingarten sent to AFT members:

 Last night, a Florida jury acquitted George Zimmerman, a man who killed an unarmed teenager in cold blood. While we believe in the rule of law and while the jury has spoken, the implications of the acquittal are profound. It is disappointing that a racially profiled, unarmed African-American young man can be shot dead with no consequences for the perpetrator.

Urge Attorney General Eric Holder and the U.S. Justice Department to continue their investigation.

This case reminds us that the path to racial justice is still a long one, and that our legal and moral systems do not always mesh. The proceedings in the Sanford, Fla., courtroom may well have dealt with the criminal aspects of the case, as defined by Florida law, but we will continue to deal with the moral ones.

Sign the petition. George Zimmerman must face the consequences of his actions.

The disposition of this case is the antithesis of what we teach our children in school—that the law protects innocent victims, and that no one has the right to take the law into his or her own hands. Everyone’s child matters.

As the AFT pledged in a resolution passed at our 2012 convention, we remain steadfast in our commitment to fight for laws, policies and practices that will prohibit racial profiling at the federal, state and local levels.

We pray for the strength of Trayvon’s parents and loved ones in this difficult time. Please take a moment to sign the petition.

In unity,

Randi Weingarten

AFT President