I have a Man Crush on NEPC | Cloaking Inequity

I have a Man Crush on NEPC | Cloaking Inequity:

I have a Man Crush on NEPC

I don’t know if you know this… but I have a shirtless man-crush on the National Education Policy Center (NEPC). I really do. It is embarrassing. Perhaps I mention their/our work in every single public talk that I do? I learned today about some great news that was announced at the 2014 American Educational Research Association (AERA) conference. Congratulations to NEPC on winning the Society of Professors of Education Wisniewski Award!!!!

Dear Dr. Welner,

I am pleased to inform you that the Society of Professors of Education has selected NEPC as this year’s winner of the Wisniewski Award. The award is given annually to an institution which has made a significant contribution to the theory and practice of teacher education.

As professors of education we in the SPE are well aware of the need for change in teacher preparation, but we are dismayed at the direction that some alternative routes have taken. While we believe all of NEPC’s work addresses concerns of the the Society, we see recent NEPC publications such as those by Milner (2013) and Heilig and Jez (2014) as exemplifying critical contributions to the field of teacher education. We consider the work of the Center to be vitally important, and we have chosen to formally recognize it by the presentation of this award at our meeting in conjunction with AERA in April.

The Society of Professors of Education was founded in 1902 by members such as John Dewey and Charles De Garmo. If you are not already familiar with the Society, information is available at our website:  http://societyofprofessorsofeducation.wordpress.com

If at all possible, we would like for you or another representative of NEPC to be present to receive the award. The ceremony will be Saturday, April 5 between 11:00 and 11:30 a.m. at the Philadelphia Marriott Downtown, Independence III, Third Level.

Please let us know if you or another will be able to attend, and do not hesitate to let me know if you have any questions.

All the best,

Nancy Brooks

SPE Wisniewski Award Chair, 2014

Director, PhD in Educational Studies

Adviser, Director of C&I License

Department of Educational Studies

Ball State University

If you don’t already follow NEPC’s work, I highly recommend you subscribed to their timely and informative updateshere. Also follow @NEPCtweet on Twitter.

Please Facebook Like, Tweet, etc below and/or reblog to share this discussion with others.

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Twitter: @ProfessorJVH

Click here for Vitae.

Please blame Siri for any typos.

Something In Me Snapped Today: No More ‘Education Reform’ CityWatch

CityWatch:

Something In Me Snapped Today: No More ‘Education Reform’

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Written by Julie Vassilatos

08 Apr 2014

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EDUCATION POLITICS-Something in me snapped today and I realized that I am finished using the phrase "education reform." 

That's how folks refer to the constellation of ideas firmly entrenched in the White House right now, upheld by almost every governor of every state, red and blue, and most mayors, notably our own. It includes the tenets that privatizing our schools will improve them, that the Common Core State Standards are the fix for all that ails our failing schools, and that testing our students more and more will raise test scores.  

But this, truly, is not "reform." Some of these are ideas that have been implemented for 25 years all over the country to little effect. 

This is the status quo. 

So I'm not going to call it reform anymore. 

I'm going to call it what it is. Corporate control of education. 

And here's why. In every instance, every plank in the platform, every element of this effort can be traced back to cash--flowing into the coffers of very rich corporate entities and individuals. 

Like Pearson, one of the testing companies that is creating the tests and the test prep materials, all new and improved and Common Core aligned, and who lobbies Congress to mandate more tests. 

Like Reed Hastings, Netflix CEO, a huge proponent of charters and innovative uses of technology in schools. What kind of technology does he advocate as the best fix for students today? In Learning Lab modules at his Rocketship Charters kids sit at a computer monitor, streaming video content for 100 minutes per day.  

Or Rupert Murdoch. He is a cheerleader for what he calls a $500 billion industry of education technology including content and assessment.   

Or Bill Gates. His push for the Common Core, the inBloom initiative to harness students' big data, and his vision for the classrooms of the future, which will be heavily dependent on his own technologies. 

The proponents of this snake oil have managed to control the rhetoric for so long that we don't even blink when they say that their education plan is "the civil rights issue o

Revoked Rights For Educators | My Island View

Revoked Rights For Educators | My Island View:

Revoked Rights For Educators

April 9, 2014 by tomwhitby

At what point in time did schools obtain the power to suspend a teacher’s constitutional right to free speech? I know that social media is relatively new to our modern history, which is reason to give some institutions a little breathing space to catch up to all of social media’s ramifications on our society, but it doesn’t give any institution the power to suspend the constitutional rights of an individual, or to punish in any way an individual who exercises a constitutionally guaranteed right.

I read a post today about a teacher in a New Hampshire school district who was forced into retirement for refusing to unfriend students on Facebook. This is not an isolated incident. As a connected educator I have had many discussions with educators from all over the United States who are fearful of retaliation from their districts for involving themselves openly in social media communities.

I lived in the community in which I taught for 25 years. This is not unlike many educators in our country. At no time during my tenure in that district did anyone call me into an office and instruct me on how to interact with the children of the community. No one told me I could not be friends with children in the community. I was never told where I could, or could not go in that community. I don’t think any administrator would have even considered such a discussion. Yet, these are the discussions some administrators are having with teachers today about their social media communities.

I understand the need to protect children from a range of inappropriate adult behavior even to the extreme, contact with pedophiles. This however is not a reason to suspend every teacher’s right to free speech. Just because there are some inappropriate adults on the Internet, we can’t jump to a conclusion that all adults on the Internet are inappropriate, especially, those who have been Revoked Rights For Educators | My Island View:

Data sampling | Deborah Meier on Education

Data sampling | Deborah Meier on Education:

Data sampling

Posted on April 9, 2014 by debmeier

Dear friends and readers,

Why is it that these experts on collecting data seem so ignorant about the science of data collection? If we want “objective” data then the cheapest and most honest results can be gathered by sampling the population rather than gathering data on everyone. Most data in this world has been collected in that way for a very long time. So I was delighted to read in the latest Ed Week (April 2, p 30) that James Pellegrino who is an advisor to the development of the new Smarter Balanced CCSS tests and a distinguished expert in the field had this to say: “If we want to monitor the system as a whole we could use more effective strategies, like student sampling and matrix sampling of task. There are ways to do it that are more efficient to answer the kinds of questions that we want to have answers to…without requiring every kid…”

Yes, so why does this simple truth still not been tried when it comes to large-scale student testing? There must be a reason. Obviously some test makers make money on this, as well as text publishers, coaches, advisors, etc. But, like the NY State agents, who go in classrooms to monitor teachers, the main purpose may be to control teaching and schooling. I was amazed to discover in the early 1980s when I was planning a new secondary school that the NY Regent exams had a mythic   Data sampling | Deborah Meier on Education:

Report: Part-time, fractured LA school board unacceptable | Pass / Fail | 89.3 KPCC

Report: Part-time, fractured LA school board unacceptable | Pass / Fail | 89.3 KPCC:

Report: Part-time, fractured LA school board unacceptable

Annie Gilbertson | April 9th, 2014, 10:41am

Mary Plummer/KPCC

Los Angeles 2020 Commission is criticizing the part-time status of the Los Angeles Unified school board.  In its report released Wednesday, the commission called the current approach "unacceptable."

"LAUSD’s current governance structure is prone to crisis, turnover and inconsistency; and provides little accountability," states the report.

The authors championed the work of L.A. Unified Superintendent John Deasy as "progress," focusing their critique on the school board. The board has at times pushed against Deasy's recommendations of reform, including using students' test scores to evaluate teachers and expanding charter schools.

"Cities in other regions across the country have either moved to mayoral control or clarified and strengthened the role of the Board and improved their Board’s working relationship with school administrators to try and establish accountability," the report points out.

Neither Deasy nor the school board members were immediately available for comment Wednesday morning.

The commission was established last year by Los Angeles City Council President Herb Wesson, and endorsed by then mayor Antonio Villaraigosa to study the fiscal stability of the city.

The report points to L.A. Unified's struggles with academic achievement and Report: Part-time, fractured LA school board unacceptable | Pass / Fail | 89.3 KPCC:

4-9-14 @ The Chalk Face

@ THE CHALK FACE:

The Three La. Common Core Development “Teachers” Work for LDOE

This is the story of two press releases and three Louisiana “mystery” teachers involved in “developing” CCSS. The first is the July 2009 National Governors Association (NGA) press release for the Common Core State Standards (CCSS) English Language Arts (ELA) and mathematics work groups– the “inner circle” that is the only group identified as “developing” CCSS based […]

by deutsch29 / 1h 

@NPR @WHYY does #optout story. Cuts United Opt Out’s voice of truth, ME!

On Monday morning when I got to my desk I noticed that the voice mail light was blinking on my phone.  I picked up the receiver and went through the steps to retrieve my messages.  There was only one and it was a producer from NPR the WHYY affiliate (Philadelphia, New Jersey, Delaware) inquiring about my […]

28 by Timothy D. Slekar / 1h 

Jeb Bush Fact-Challenged Visit to Oklahoma City’s KIPP Charter School

Republican presidential candidate Jeb Bush joined Republican Governor Mary Fallin at Oklahoma City’s KIPP Academy. They chanted the same old magical incantations and repeated the standard slander about teachers in schools serving every child who comes into their building. Given the way that Bush and Fallin are caught in the Common Core bind, it was […]

3 by John Thompson / 9min 

Behind the CCSS Corporate Curtain: Gates, TURN, and the AFT Innovation Fund

I know it doesn’t seem healthy to continue to speak of the roles that national teacher union groups are playing in our current corporate education reform takeover, but this is kind of important, for three big reasons: (1) Most teachers have never heard of what I’ll be writing about here, because it’s not advertised. (2) The organizers who are a […]

by Kris Nielsen / 13min 

4-8-14 @ The Chalk Face

@ THE CHALK FACE: Video: Which Louisiana Teachers Wrote Common Core?When I debated Stephanie Deselles of the Council for a Better Louisiana (CABL) in November 2013, she mentioned “three Louisiana teachers” who were involved in writing the Common Core State Standards (CCSS). Never mind that “three” is an embarrassingly low number. Deselles provided no names. During testimony on the writing of CCSS

by mike simpson / 26min 

Common Core State Standards Not Nevada’s Creation | Truth in American Education

Common Core State Standards Not Nevada’s Creation | Truth in American Education:

Common Core State Standards Not Nevada’s Creation

Filed in Common Core State Standards, Education at State Level by truthed on April 9, 2014 • 0 Comments

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By Karen Briske & Christina Leventis

State-led, state-led, no really it was state-led! How many times have “We the People” been told the Common Core State Standards c. 2010 was a state-led process? How many times have “We the People” been told the adoption of the standards were voluntary (which, of course, begs the question why would the federal government need to tell sovereign states they have the right to adopt something they created – but we digress)?

For the past year-and-a-half we, along with many other parents and concerned citizens, have been pondering this state-led initiative suddenly and coincidentally under-taken, voluntarily, by 45 states all at the same time. Why has the federal government and state leaders waved this blood red flag at us? We heard you the first time and we heard you the one thousandth time. We hear you still. We hear you, but we don’t believe you.

Without recreating the full narrative on the development of the standards by the five or six businessmen, under Achieve, commissioned by the NGA and CCSSO (who are heavily funded by the federal government and who currently hold the copyright to CCSS), we are simply going to lay out the chronological order of how our great state of Nevada came to be saddled with the Common Core State Standards c. 2010 that our teachers and parents played no role in:

• May 20, 2009, Dr. Keith Rheault, Superintendent of Public Instruction, signed a Memorandum of Agreement with the NGA and CCSSO, “On behalf of Governor Jim Gibbons and the Nevada Department of Education…” (https://docs.google.com/file/d/0B_qGS09FFbRuWDhkaV9wbHRkaU0/edit?pli=1)

Dr. Rheault did not have Legislative approval to sign for Nevada. It is doubtful many, if any at all, members of Nevada’s Legislature were even aware of what was at work behind the scenes, in secret, with Secretary of Education, Arne Duncan, and the individual states at the time of this signing. (See Laurie H. Rogers Education News story on July 14, 2009: (http://www.educationnews.org/articles/common-core-standards-secretive-expensive-and-wrong.html

• June 25, 2009, Dr. Keith Rheault, introduced the fact that the MOA had been executed on 

 

Hoosier Moms Discuss Common Core on Patriot Voices Radio

Erin Tuttle and Heather Crossin of Hoosiers Against Common Core were guests on Patriot Voices Radio yesterday to discuss the Common Core State Standards.  You can listen in below:Check Out Politics Conservative Podcasts at Blog Talk Radio with Patriot Voices Radio on BlogTalkRadio The post Hoosier Moms Discuss Common Core on Patriot Voices Radio appeared first on Truth in American Education.

by Shane Vander Hart / 32min 

4-9-14 Seattle Schools Community Forum

Seattle Schools Community Forum:

Charter Schools - What is Really Happening

The first thing to understand is that Congress is considering a bill to support and expand charter schools.   The other, a charter school bill, is aimed at growing more high-quality charters and encouraging them to better serve students with disabilities and English-language learners. That bill also won swift approval, but not before a number of committee Democrats lambasted charter schools for si

by Melissa Westbrook / 1h 

Washington State Waiting for Washington, D.C. on Waiver

From Education Week:All eyes have been on Washington state since lawmakers there adjourned last month without making a key change to their teacher-evaluation system that would have enabled the state to hang on to its flexibility from the mandates of the much-maligned No Child Left Behind Act.And now, U.S. Secretary of Education Arne Duncan is on the verge of yanking Washington state's waiver, seve

by Melissa Westbrook / 0min 

Puget Sound Education Meetings of Interest

Meeting on Wilson-Pacific on May 13thFrom the district: To address growing enrollment and capacity needs, Seattle voters passed the 2013 Seattle Public Schools Building Excellence IV (BEX IV) Capital Levy. As a result, a new middle school and new elementary school are scheduled to open in time for the 2017-18 school year. A newly renovated play field will be located between the two new buildings o

by Melissa Westbrook / 18min 

Something is Well and Truly Screwed Up in Special Education

I want to fill in some details about the Curriculum and Instruction Policy Committee meeting on Monday. Three members of the Special Education staff, including the chief of that department, Ms McWilliams, presented the Board with the program placements for Special Ed for 2014-2015. At that time they described the status of the implementation of the new Special Education system. Their presentation

by Charlie Mas / 38min 

Seattle Schools Work Session/Committee Meeting Updates

The Work Sessions scheduled for today now have their agendas available.One is the Risk Management; Insurance Coverage Review.   On the face of it, this department seems to be doing a good job.  I only say "seems" because insurance is not my area so it's hard to discern any issues. Two items of note:Page 6 about Liability Coverage Seattle Public Schools’ experience – One claim in exces

by Melissa Westbrook / 21min 

4-8-14 Seattle Schools Community Forum

Seattle Schools Community Forum: Curriculum and Instruction Policy Committee meeting notesThe Board Curriculum and Instruction Policy Committee met yesterday (Monday, April 7). The agenda included an update on Creative Approach Schools, information on the application for a SIG grant by Rainier Beach High School, an update on Special Education program placement, and an update and further discussion

by mike simpson / 23h 

4-9-14 LA School Report - What's Really Going on Inside LAUSD

LA School Report - What's Really Going on Inside LAUSD (Los Angeles Unified School District):

Youth asks LAUSD, ‘Where does all the money go?’ in song

Song Lyrics composed by youth at BHC Boyle Heights (Photo by Gaby, age 15, from the Las Fotos Project) Community groups big and small, have responded collectively to the extra $332 million coming into the district via the Local Control Funding Formula (LCFF), Governor Jerry Brown‘s signature K-through-12 education initiative. For now, only a few schools have complete autonomy in deciding how the m

by Aaron Stella / 16min hide  //  save

UTLA raises may be on the horizon but not negotiations

Vivian Ekchian, LA Unifie’d chief labor negotiator Within LA Unified’s proposed budget for 2014-2015, Superintendent John Deasy includes a line item for teacher raises. However, in the absence of a contract for the last three years between the district and the teachers union, United Teachers of Los Angeles, labor talks remain at a complete standstill, raising questions about just much remains “TBD

1 by Vanessa Romo / 46min 

LA 2020 Commission calls for ‘bold steps’ to improve LAUSD

An LA City Council commission charged with providing a blueprint for the future of the city released its second report today, this one offering recommendations to move Los Angeles toward fiscal solvency and greater job creation. The Los Angeles 2020 Commission’s report, “A Time for Action,” largely focuses on issues related to jobs, budgets and transportation. But it also has a few critical words

1 by Michael Janofsky / 46min 

Morning Read: LAUSD to spend $837M on low-income students

LAUSD plans to spend $837 million on disadvantaged students Disadvantaged students in L.A. Unified stand to benefit from a multimillion-dollar infusion for more tutoring, counselors, English language coaches, nurses, librarians and other support under a budget plan presented Tuesday. In the opening salvo in a two-month process under the state’s new school finance system, L.A. schools Supt. John De

1 20min 

4-8-14 LA School Report - What's Really Going on Inside LAUSD

LA School Report - What's Really Going on Inside LAUSD (Los Angeles Unified School District): Groups stage a rally to show impact of LAUSD drop outsThe sound of classroom silence. As part of a rally by parents, education advocates and civil rights groups who represent Communities for Los Angeles Student Success, or CLASS, 375 desks were set up this morning at the LAUSD headquarters in downtown Los

by mike simpson / 20h