3-28-13 Curmudgucation

CURMUDGUCATION:

Jeb Bush's Shiny Campaign

If you wanted to find all of the bullshit talking points about the CCSS Reformy Complex, you'd be hard pressed to do better than clicking on over to Learn More. Go Further.It takes a little clicking to learn that LMGF is brought to you by the Foundation for Excellence in Education (and I'm sure I'll be neither the first nor last person to point out how appropriate it is that these champions of pri

by Peter A. Greene / 2h 

3-27-13 Curmudgucation

CURMUDGUCATION: Poop SandwichIf you wanted to trick someone into eating poop, you would not just hand them a bowl of poop unless you also had a gun to point at the person's head.No, it would be easier to trick them by hiding the poop inside something yummy like soup or a casserole. Or you could make a poop sandwich. Just hide the poop between two perfectly good slices of tasty bread (white, rye, p

by mike simpson / 9h 

3-28-14 Perdido Street School Week

Perdido Street School:

Another Bridgegate Resignation

More Bridgegate fun:Gov. Chris Christie announced today that David Samson, whose chairmanship of the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey has come under fire in recent months, has resigned.Samson, a close ally of Christie and a former attorney general of New Jersey, is reportedly under investigation by the U.S. Attorney of New Jersey in the face of accusations that his law firm, Wolff & S

by reality-based edu... / 20min

Sheldon Silver Says Budget Talks "Have Slowed"

From State of Politics:Assembly Speaker Sheldon made his second impromptu visit down the hallway of the Legislative Correspondence Association Friday morning, confirming to reporters that he is indeed still in Albany and no final agreement had been reached on a spending plan....Talks have apparently stalled on the budget, Silver said. “Leaders meetings have not been quite as productive,” Silver sa

by reality-based edu... / 14min 

Rev Up Those State And City Financial Audits Of The Charter Networks

As I posted this morning, the charter operators got pretty much everything they wanted in budget negotiations - higher per pupil state aid, free rent, and a guaranteed right to space.But there is one interesting item in the deal according to Ben Chapman at the Daily News:It will also for the first time allow the city and state controller to audit charter schools.If the state and city comptrollers

by reality-based edu... / 29min 

Will Cuomo Allow Any Changes To NYC Teacher Evaluations?

I've posted the past few days about how much Andrew Cuomo likes to stick it to his "friend," Bill de Blasio, on issue after issue.Anthony Weiner and Michael Powell of the NY Times both wrote about this earlier in the week, with "jerk" Anthony Weiner going so far as to call Cuomo a "jerk" over it.Yesterday Cuomo got everything he wanted in the budget deal on the charte

by reality-based edu... / 21min 

Cuomo Sticks It To De Basio

That's the Post's takeaway this morning:Charter schools will be big winners in the new state budget under a tentative deal hammered out by Gov. Cuomo and legislative leaders Thursday night, sources close to the talks said. For the first time the privately operated schools will be eligible for government funds to cover the costs of leasing classroom space in private buildings, Albany sources said.

4 by reality-based edu... / 3h hide  //  save

New York City May Have $2 Billion Surplus At End Of Fiscal Year

From Crains:The city could end this year with a $2 billion budget surplus, or about $244 million more than Mayor Bill de Blasio has been anticipating, according to an analysis of the mayor’s preliminary budget by the Independent Budget Office released Wednesday.Assuming most of that surplus is used to pay down next year’s expenses, the IBO predicts that the city will also end next year with a surp

by reality-based edu... / 5h 

YESTERDAY

Isn't It Time For Bridget Anne Kelly To Throw Christie Under The Bus?

From the NY Times:Gov. Chris Christie, seeking to stanch the damage the scandal had caused to his political fortunes, fired her as his deputy chief of staff after that, calling her “stupid.” But the report commissioned by Mr. Christie and released Thursday doubles down on a strategy of portraying Ms. Kelly as duplicitous, weeping frequently and dependent on men for approval and stability....Ms. Ke

by reality-based edu... / 10h 

3-27-14 Perdido Street School Week

Perdido Street School: Call Sheldon Silver And Ask Why Tests Only Count For TeachersI am glad that they are taking the high stakes from the CCSS tests away for two years for children.But they are keeping those stakes for teachers, so if you are a teacher in the New York State public school system, you may have 40% of your evaluation based upon a battery of performance assessments and state Common

by mike simpson / 9h 

Governor Cuomo Puts The Needs of Eva Moskowitz First and Foremost southbronxschool.com

http://www.southbronxschool.com:

Governor Cuomo Puts The Needs of Eva Moskowitz First and Foremost

This looks like good news, but Newsday is reporting that; 

"A proposal to allow charter schools to receive state funds for building has been dropped."

 Yippee!!

The above was what I was in the process of writing until I saw what Reality-Based Educator wrote and what I read in the New York Rag, er, Post. 

I have had many a thought on all this shrillness brought on by Eva and her minions of the last few weeks. I just never could find the right words or right structure to share here on the blog. Still just can't, but will try using an old writer's trick. I'm just going to write whatever pops into my mind. Kind of like a stream of consciousness.

First, charters are not public schools. I don't care how you slice it, and you dice it, and what spin one puts on it, but charters in no way are public schools. A public school is accountable to the public. Charters are accountable only to their boards and their moneyed sugar daddy's.

Let's see a public school pull what Eva pulls. Let's see any public school in NYC ask parents to pull 

NYC Educator: Are Electronic Gradebooks Changing the World?

NYC Educator: Are Electronic Gradebooks Changing the World?:

Are Electronic Gradebooks Changing the World?

So I was sitting in the library with my laptop. I don't usually bring it, but the fact is Skedula works abysmally on my iPad. We won't even discuss their iPad app.

The laptop version is hard to scroll, does all sorts of unpredictable things, and requires multiple extra steps to get pretty much anywhere. That's okay for me, but I figured the parents of my students deserve better. So I brought the 15-inch laptop I'm using now, ran around early in the morning to ask the tech guys to get me online, and I was all ready.

This was be the first time I could pull all the grades up on my computer rather than inside my grungy gradebook. And I had two trusty monitors to help me, except they kept running out of the room to take care of some important business entailing I have no idea what. (They got very excited when one of their friend's parents showed up, sat very close for the discussion, and were sorely disappointed when I told them to take a walk.)

But none of that mattered because I had this electronic gradebook, and everything was going to be calculated to the hundredth of a point. No more guesswork or wild estimations. The parents would be dazzled by my incredible efficiency.

The only issue, as far as I could determine, is that the parents were not actually coming. There I was, watching my colleagues converse rapidly with all sorts of people, but there was no one here to see me. Had I done all this electronic grading stuff in vain?

After about a half-hour, I had no more time for reflection, as I got quite a few visitors. Here's my takeaway. The electronic gradebook looks a little better, but doesn't make a whole lot of difference. Parents are happy when they see good grades, and not quite so happy when they see 

Spend an evening with Diane Ravitch | Larry Miller's Blog: Educate All Students!

Spend an evening with Diane Ravitch | Larry Miller's Blog: Educate All Students!:

Spend an evening with Diane Ravitch

Filed under: Ravitch — millerlf @ 8:38 am 

Spend an evening with Diane Ravitch, author of Reign of Error: The Hoax of the Privatization Movement and the Danger to America’s Public Schools

Wednesday, April 30, 2014

MATC Cooley Auditorium, 700 W. State, Milwaukee

Doors open at 5:30 p.m. Presentation at 6:30 p.m.

Drawing on her over 40 years of research and experience, Diane Ravitch has become a champion for public schools across the country. Ravitch takes sharp aim at the mythology of so-called educational reformers and makes the case for real changes that will mean equitable, high quality public education for all children.

Presenting Sponsors: Milwaukee Teachers’ Education Association, Wisconsin Education Association Council, National Education Association, American Federation of Teachers-Wisconsin, AFT Local 212.

Community Sponsors: Southeast United Educators, UWM Urban Studies, MATC Latino Student Organization. Sponsoring Friends: Parents for Public Schools, Opt Out Milwaukee, Wisconsin Jobs Now, American Civil Liberties Union, Educators Network for Social Justice, Leigh Wallace, Racine Education Association, Schools and Communities United, Administrators’ and Supervisors’ Council.

Tickets: $5 in advance; $8 at the door.

Tickets can be purchased through MTEA (414-259-1990), AFT Local 212 (414-765-0910) and other sponsors.

Troubled Youth, Troubled Learning (Dave Reid) | Larry Cuban on School Reform and Classroom Practice

Troubled Youth, Troubled Learning (Dave Reid) | Larry Cuban on School Reform and Classroom Practice:

Troubled Youth, Troubled Learning (Dave Reid)

Dave Reid is a high school mathematics teacher in his third year of teaching.   He received his MA in Education and credential in secondary mathematics and physics from Stanford University in 2011.  Dave spent a quarter of a century in high-tech primarily in the wireless and Global Positioning System (GPS) industries.  He earned a BS degree in electrical engineering from George Mason University, and an MBA in finance and marketing from Santa Clara University.  He also attended the U.S. Military Academy at West Point. He blogs as Mr. Math Teacher and tweets as @mathequality.

While the title for this post does not always ring true, in my few years teaching at Title I schools, it often reflects reality.  In fact, rarely does a day go by where no student disrupts the classroom learning environment for one reason or another.  As a fifty-something, I knew this going into teaching; what I did not know was how deleterious these disruptions are to continuity, sanity, and in the limit: opportunity, for my students, not me.  As someone in the classroom every day, hoping above all hope that my students can break out of their behavioral binds, it challenges my every fiber of existence to keep the class focused on our learning objective(s) for the day.

Troubled youth make for troubled learning, not only for themselves, but also 

K-12 News Network | The Vergera v. California Trial: More Double Standards From the 1%

K-12 News Network | The Vergera v. California Trial: More Double Standards From the 1%:

The Vergera v. California Trial: More Double Standards From the 1%

admin March 16, 2014 Los Angeles, Orange County, Sacramento, San Francisco, State Education Law 0

We know that two epicenters of the funding for profiteering from public schools are Silicon Valley and Wall Street. And in looking at some of the major players pushing privatization of public schools, such as the ones based in Northern California detailed in this Crooks and Liars report, I can see a pattern that emerges again and again among the entitled 1%. They have one standard of expectations regarding the quality of life for themselves and their families, and another one for “the rabble” — everyday people.

Do they think we don’t notice the hypocrisy laced with contempt?

Peter Thiel, billionaire libertarian, thinks kids should drop out of college to see if they’re holding a winning lottery ticket with a “20 under 20″ startup, but he himself attended San Mateo High School (public), then Stanford University as an undergraduate and Stanford University Law School.

Some Silicon Valley executives think it’s fine for everybody else’s kids to be tethered to a computer screen (a “learning lab) from kindergarten onwards, butsend their own kids to Waldorf schools where no artificial light is allowed, children play with natural materials, and the arts and music and artisanal crafts like knitting are encouraged. (Wouldn’t it be nice if all kids could experience the arts in the school day?)

This extends to the kinds of rules they should be subject to as opposed to rules for the rest of us.

Take for example Ted Schlein’s sexual harassment lawsuit and what it tells us about the importance of teacher tenure. Ted Schlein is a managing partner at Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers, and is on the board of Students Matter, the organization suing to remove due process protections for teachers. One of 

Schools are doling out suspensions “like Tic Tacs,” here are some ways to keep kids in the classroom | Hechinger Report

Schools are doling out suspensions “like Tic Tacs,” here are some ways to keep kids in the classroom | Hechinger Report:

Schools are doling out suspensions “like Tic Tacs,” here are some ways to keep kids in the classroom

By Tanya E. Coke

As a recent school board member in a racially and economically diverse district, I know there has never been a tougher time for educators.

Tanya E. Coke

Schools are being asked to raise achievement and meet tougher standards, with fewer resources and diminishing paychecks. But in the midst of worrying about the Common Core and testing metrics, we need also to consider whether an issue too long seen as marginal – school discipline – is hampering our efforts to close the achievement gap.

The rate of suspensions has doubled since the 1970s to 3.45 million students in grades K-12 during the 2011-12 academic year, according to theCivil Rights Data Collection just released by the U.S. Department of Education. On March 13, a group of 26 education and behavioral health experts known as the Research-to-Practice Collaborative on School Discipline Disparities announced the results of a three-year research project, concluding that zero-tolerance discipline is neither effective nor fairly applied.  (I am a co-founder and member of the group.) Here are details of our findings:

While bouncing disruptive students from the classroom can give exasperated teachers and classmates a needed breather, the end result is actually more misbehavior. Comparing schools with similar demographic characteristics, suspended students are more likely to reoffend, and schools with higher suspension rates do worse academically overall.

Most troubling, an overreliance on suspension excludes from instruction those children who can least afford to miss school. Black boys are four times as likely as their white peers to be suspended from school. Black and Latino children with learning disabilities are at highest risk of all for school removal. “Contrary to assumptions, this yawning disparity is not explained by poverty or more serious misbehavior by black students,” 

A VAM Shame, again, from Florida |:

A VAM Shame, again, from Florida

 Another teacher from Florida wrote a blog post for Diane Ravitch, and I just came across it and am re-posting it here. Be sure to give it a good read as you will see that what is happening in her state right now and why it is a VAM shame!

She writes:

I conducted a very unscientific study and concluded that I might possibly have the worst VAM score at my school. Today I conducted a slightly more scientific analysis and now I can confidently proclaim myself to be the worst teacher at my school, the 14th worst teacher in Dade County, and the 146th worst (out of 120,000) in the state of Florida! There were 4,800 pages of teachers ranked highest to lowest on the Florida Times Union website and my VAM was on page 4,795. Gosh damn! That’s a bad VAM!  I always feared I might end up at the low end of the spectrum due to the fact that I teach gifted students that score high already and have no room to grow, but 146th out of 120,000?!?! That’s not “needs improvement.” That’s “you really stink and should immediately have your teaching license revoked before you do anymore harm to innocent children” bad. That’s, “your odds are so bad you better hope you don’t get eaten by a shark or struck by lightening” bad.  This is the reason I don’t play the lotto or gamble in Vegas. And to think some other Florida teacher had the nerve to write a blog post declaring herself to be one of the worst teachers in the state and her VAM was only -3%! Negative 3 percent is the best you got honey? I’ll meet your negative 3 percent and raise you another negative 146 percentage points! (Actually I enjoyed her blog post [see also our coverage of this teacher's story here] and I 

Missouri Senator Excoriates Gates Funded Fordham Institute Witness on Common Core | Missouri Education Watchdog

Missouri Senator Excoriates Gates Funded Fordham Institute Witness on Common Core | Missouri Education Watchdog:

Missouri Senator Excoriates Gates Funded Fordham Institute Witness on Common Core

inShare

Fordham witness needs to be reminded by Missouri Senator how much Gates Foundation gave Fordham for its Common Core support.

The Missouri Torch provides video of Michael Brickman’s testimony in Missouri yesterday in support of Common Core.  Bless Mr. Brickman’s heart, he cares so much about us in Missouri, he came to testify to help us save Common Core standards so we won’t have the worst educational results in the United States:

Sen. Brian Nieves will be missed in the Senate. This pit bull couldn’t understand why Michael Brickman would get on a plane and fly from Washington, DC to Jefferson City, Missouri to  Missouri Senator Excoriates Gates Funded Fordham Institute Witness on Common Core | Missouri Education Watchdog:

Teacher job protections attacked, defended in landmark trial’s closing arguments | Pass / Fail | 89.3 KPCC

Teacher job protections attacked, defended in landmark trial’s closing arguments | Pass / Fail | 89.3 KPCC:

Teacher job protections attacked, defended in landmark trial’s closing arguments

Adolfo Guzman-Lopez | March 27th, 2014, 4:32pm

Adolfo Guzman Lopez

Plaintiff Elizabeth Vergara speaks during a lunch break news conference during the closing arguments of the trial in Los Angeles.

The closing arguments of the Vergara vs. California trial on Thursday painted two vastly different pictures of whether students are harmed by the job protections enjoyed by public school teachers.

“The statutes have a real and appreciable impact on the exercise of a fundamental right. And here that fundamental right is an equal shot at an education that will prepare one for life,” lawyer Ted Boutrous said to Judge Rolf Treu.

Boutrous is one of the lawyers representing nine California public school students who alleged in the lawsuit that led to the trial that their exposure to ineffective teachers denied them the state’s guarantee of an adequate education.

Boutrous reminded Judge Treu that his side questioned 30 witnesses over two months, including public school superintendents, teachers, parents, researchers and the student plaintiffs. Testimony showed, Boutrous said, that bad teachers aren’t fired early in their careers because the state’s seniority-based layoffs allow them to stay on the job. The granting of tenure and a complicated, costly firing process also keep bad teachers on the job, he said.  Boutrous played a video of witness Raj Chetty, a Harvard economist.

“Having a highly effective teacher significantly improves children’s outcomes and having a highly ineffective teacher conversely does substantial harm,” Chetty said in 

Weeks of Testimony Demonstrate Empty Premises of ‘Vergara v. State of California’ Suit as Closing Arguments Wrap Up Trial - California Teachers Association

Weeks of Testimony Demonstrate Empty Premises of ‘Vergara v. State of California’ Suit as Closing Arguments Wrap Up Trial - California Teachers Association:

Weeks of Testimony Demonstrate Empty Premises of ‘Vergara v. State of California’ Suit as Closing Arguments Wrap Up Trial

For CFT: Fred Glass 510-579-3343
For CTA: Frank Wells 562-708-5425

Students stand to win or lose based on Judge’s decision

LA School Report 

LOS ANGELES — Arguments in the misguided, two-month-long Vergara v. State of California trial challenging due process rights for teachers will come to a close today. Educators and attorneys speaking at a morning news conference in front of the Los Angeles Superior Court said that the costly trial clearly showed that these laws provide important support not simply for teachers, but for students and quality public education. They also told reporters that the premises of the lawsuit were false, and the plaintiffs had utterly failed to make a convincing case.

Speakers at the press conference included Jim Finberg, attorney for CFT and CTA; Joshua Pechthalt, California Federation of Teachers President; Dean E. Vogel, California Teachers Association President; Gloria Martinez, a special education and National Board Certified teacher at Rowan Avenue Elementary in Los Angeles Unified School District; Erika Jones, a kindergarten teacher at Angeles Mesa Elementary in LAUSD; Casey Carlson, a special education high school teacher from Santa Cruz Unified School District; and Jeff Seymour, former superintendent of the El Monte City School District, and a defense witness in the trial.

Jim Finberg, attorney for CFT and CTA, said, “The evidence has established that the tenure, dismissal, and reverse seniority layoff provisions serve important interests. They help school districts recruit and retain qualified teachers, which is critical to student learning. Plaintiffs present a false dichotomy. They assert that one has to choose between teacher rights and student learning. In fact, the interests of