LISTEN TO DIANE RAVITCH 8-1-14 Diane Ravitch's blog | A site to discuss better education for all

Diane Ravitch's blog | A site to discuss better education for all:

Reader: Who Wrote the Infamous TIME Cover Story About Michelle Rhee?

A reader whoe nom de plume is Democracy posted this comment: “Time magazine infamously posted Michelle Rhee on its cover, with a broom, with the title, “How To Fix America’s Schools.” The subtitle of that cover story stated that Rhee was engaged in a “battle against bad teachers” that could “transform public education.” The cover story was written by the oh-so-talented (wink) Amanda Ripley, who

by dianeravitch / 10:31 AM UTC-7 

Jeannie Kaplan: In Denver, Some Charters Are More Equal Than Others

Jeannie Kaplan, who was an elected member of the Denver school board, has done an amazing job of investigative research on the money that Denver lavishes on two charter chains: Denver School of Science and Technology and Strive. These two chains get the lion’s share of charter funding. Their charters get the best space; other charters are poor relations. These two chains together have 20 of Denve

by dianeravitch / 15min 

The Failure of Test and Test and Test Some More

This teacher expresses frustration with the policymakers’ obsession with testing, thinking of it as a form of instruction and a measure of instruction, and as a measure of teacher quality and school quality. In New York, for example, State Commissiomer Zjohn King recently a bounced that he would release more questions and more results earlier. But he steadfastly refuses to tell teachers how studen

4 by dianeravitch / 14min hide  //  save

Who Is “Weeding” Thousands of Books in Racine School Libraries?

This is a very disturbing story. Approximately 8,000 books were removed from the shelves of Mitchell Middle School in Racine, Wisconsin. Initially, librarians expected that 2,000 books would be “weeded,” but the number grew to 8,000, including “books on the Holocaust, Hiroshima, the Bible, the Koran, and Beowulf. In the end, over 8000 books were removed from library shelves.” The Racine Education

14 by dianeravitch / 1h 

Peter Greene: David Coleman Is Superman!

Peter Green watched a 30-minute interview of David Coleman at the Aspen Ideas Festival. The big news from the interview is that Coleman doesn’t demonized critics of the CCSS and thinks it’s a big mistake to treat all critics as crazies and/or liars. But what fascinates Green is Coleman’s self-regard, and also his strange idea that it is up to certain special people to fix our institutions. Cole

2 by dianeravitch / 2h 

Gary Rubinstein on Tennessee’s Pathetic Lies About Its Underachievement District

Poor Tennessee! It is locked in the embrace of fake reformers who promise miracles, and a far-right legislature that wants to believe them. Worse, having won a Race to the Top grant, it has to produce miracles, even if they are fabricated out of whole cloth. One of the alleged miracles-to-be is the Achievement School District, led by Chris Barbic of TFA and YES Prep. Barbic came to Tennessee to t

11 by dianeravitch / 3h 

LISTEN TO DIANE RAVITCH 7-31-14 Diane Ravitch's blog | A site to discuss better education for all

Diane Ravitch's blog | A site to discuss better education for all: Jersey Jazzman: What Does Campbell Brown Want?Jersey Jazzman writes that we know what Campbell Brown is against: bad teachers. She says teachers should have due process protections. So does Arne Duncan. Unions would agree with them that termination hearings should not be expensive and endless. So what does she want? Jersey Jazzman

by mike simpson / 9h 

8-1-14 Fred Klonsky | Daily posts from a retired public school teacher

Fred Klonsky | Daily posts from a retired public school teacher who is just looking at the data.:

Guest ten minute drawing. Arthur Goldstein.

As you may know, my drawing arm is presently in a cast. I have invited guest Ten Minute Drawers to fill in. All submissions are welcome. - Arthur Goldstein is a NY city teacher and UFT activist.  Arthur’s art. Text by Fred Klonsky.

3 by Fred Klonsky / 38min hide  //  save

Guest ten minute drawing. H.D. Worth.

As you may know, my drawing arm is presently in a cast. I have invited guest Ten Minute Drawers to fill in. All submissions are welcome. - H.D. Worth is the pseudonym of a Chicago suburban teacher and IEA union activist. “An H.D. Worth original. Done in exactly ten minutes!” he writes.

2 by Fred Klonsky / 1h 

Hinsdale’s town bully is Dr. Richard Skoda. Union has an hour to surrender or they’re locked out.

From the Darien Patch: The Hinsdale High School Teachers Association claims that bargaining team members were given an hour to decide whether or not to rescind a strike authorization vote in exchange for the school board’s assurance to forego its right to a union lockout. Both sides have been meeting with a federal mediator to negotiate a new contract for the professional educators at Hinsdale Ce

by Fred Klonsky / 2min 

Guest ten minute drawing. Leigh Klonsky.

As you may know, my drawing arm is presently in a cast. I have invited guest Ten Minute Drawers to fill in. All submissions are welcome. - Leigh Klonsky is a NYC public high school art teacher and artist.

by Fred Klonsky / 12min

New problems for “Dr.” Carter in New London. His tenure at CPS and AUSL? Anyone? Anyone?

. The troubles for “Dr.” Terrence P. Carter keeping mounting up. He was a slam-dunk choice for New London, Connecticut’s superintendent of schools until his resume turned out to be phonier than a World Wrestling Federation match. The board put the hiring on hold until they could investigate whether he really got a Ph.D. from Stanford. I’m not sure what there is to investigate since Stanford says

1 by Fred Klonsky / 35min 

David Brooks argues for grit. I hate grit. Seniors are poor because they desire immediate gratification? No grit.

There are few people writing in major media today that are dumber than David Brooks in the New York Times. In yesterday’s column he said we should be focused more on teaching poor folks character development and grit. Remember that Mary Tyler Moore episode where Ed Asner and Lou Grant tells Mary she has spunk. “I hate spunk,” he says. Well, I hate grit. At the core of the concept of grit is that

10 by Fred Klonsky / 3h hide  //  save

Words that can get teachers fired.

Until very recently, Timothy Torkildson blogged for the Nomen Global Language Center — an ESL school in Provo, Utah. Earlier this month, Mr. Torkildson wrote a blog post explaining why homophones can be a difficult concept for new English speakers to grasp. Then, he was fired. In his original post entitled “Help with Homophones,” Torkildson wrote, “In English a homophone is a word that has sever

16 by Fred Klonsky / 4h 

7-31-14 Fred Klonsky | Daily posts from a retired public school teacher

Fred Klonsky | Daily posts from a retired public school teacher who is just looking at the data.: No ten minute drawings for the next few days.President Eskelsen Garcia. Meet Senate Bill 7.This blogger and NEA President-elect Lily Eskelsen Garcia at the NEA RA in Denver. If you go back and read my report from the Representative Assembly of the NEA – I was a retired delegate – you will see that I t

by mike simpson / 9h 

8-1-14 Larry Ferlazzo’s Websites of the Day… | …For Teaching ELL, ESL, & EFL

Larry Ferlazzo’s Websites of the Day… | …For Teaching ELL, ESL, & EFL:

TIME Chooses Its 50 Best Websites Of The Year & There Is One Gem On The List

TIME has just selected their 50 Best Websites of the Year. You’ll know most of them, and most of the others that you don’t know you don’t really need to know. However, usually I find one or two gems on their annual lists, and today is no exception. Quotacle is that gem, and here’s its description: It’s early days for this site, which lets you search for classic movie quotes along with the relevan

by Larry Ferlazzo / 19min hide  //  save

McKinsey & Company Projects That Common Core Implementation Will Result In 15% Increase In Dropout Rate

Thanks to Lori Jablonski and Tom Hoffman (I’ve embedded Lori’s tweets below), I learned about a report from the Carnegie Corporation that includes charts created by big-time consultants McKinsey & Company. First, the chart: So, based on my quick reading of the Carnegie report, titled Opportunity by Design: New High School Models for Student Success, unless we create small schools and do blend

by Larry Ferlazzo / 19min 

Four Very Good Additional Resources On “Flow”

© 2006 Wesley Fryer, Flickr | CC-BY-SA | via Wylio Boy, there sure are a lot of materials about “Flow” online, and there sure is a dearth of good resources among them. However, there are a few good ones that I’m adding to The Best Resources For Learning About “Flow”: Thoughts About Education: Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi is from the John Hopkins School of Education. Here’s an excellent video interview

by Larry Ferlazzo / 15min

Around The Web In ESL/EFL/ELL

© 2010 RTLibrary, Flickr | CC-BY | via Wylio   I’ve started a somewhat regular feature where I share a few posts and resources from around the Web related to ESL/EFL or to language in general that have caught my attention: Try, try again? Study says no: Trying harder makes it more difficult to learn some aspects of language, neuroscientists find is the headline of a Science Daily article about a s

by Larry Ferlazzo / 9min 

Video: Stephen Colbert Does A GREAT Job Interviewing Campbell Brown

Campbell Brown, leading the latest Son of Vergara lawsuit attacking teachers, was a guest on The Colbert Show last night. And, boy, did Colbert do a great job. Check out the video below:

by Larry Ferlazzo / 28min hide  //  save

More Resources On The Ebola Virus Crisis

© 2014 NIAID, Flickr | CC-BY | via Wylio Here are new additions to The Best Resources For Learning About The Ebola Virus: Doctor Infected with Ebola Asks That Experimental Serum Go to Sick Colleague Instead is from The Atlantic. What would happen if Ebola came to the United States? is from Vox. Ebola: Liberia shuts schools to tackle outbreak is from The BBC. Daily chart: Ebola’s spread is from The

by Larry Ferlazzo / 6h 

With Friends Like David Brooks, Social Emotional Learning Doesn’t Need Any Enemies

New York Times columnist David Brooks is at it again, demonstrating the rapidly growing public face of Social Emotional Learning as a “Let Them Eat Character” strategy (which I wrote about in The Washington Post — The manipulation of Social Emotional Learning). His column today, The Character Factory, quickly dismisses the effectiveness of programs that provide economic assistance to low-income p

by Larry Ferlazzo / 7h 

7-31-14 Larry Ferlazzo’s Websites of the Day… | …For Teaching ELL, ESL, & EFL

Larry Ferlazzo’s Websites of the Day… | …For Teaching ELL, ESL, & EFL: July’s (2014) Best Tweets — Part FiveEvery month I make a few short lists highlighting my choices of the best resources I through (and learned from) Twitter, but didn’t necessarily include them in posts here on my blog. I’ve already shared in earlier posts several new resources I found on Twitter — and where I gave credit t

by mike simpson / 9h 

Answer Sheet 8-1-14

Answer Sheet:

Stephen Colbert to Campbell Brown: ‘Why are we blaming the teachers? Maybe it’s the dumb kids.’

Stephen Colbert welcomed Campbell Brown to “The Colbert Report” (see video below) on Thursday night to talk about her support for a lawsuit just filed in New York that seeks to eliminate tenure and other job protections for teachers. The Comedy Central host didn’t give the former CNN anchor turned anti-union activist a free pass, asking […]

by Valerie Strauss / 7min

What do standardized tests actually test?

What exactly do standardized tests test? In this post veteran educator Marion Brady  answers that question and its consequences for teaching and learning. Brady has written history and world culture textbooks (Prentice-Hall),  professional books, numerous  nationally distributed columns (many are available here), and courses of study. His 2011 book, “What’s Worth Learning,” asks and answers this q

by Valerie Strauss / 6h 

Answer Sheet 7-31-14

Answer Sheet: A teacher asks Arne Duncan a gutsy question. Here’s the answer.What question would you ask to Education Secretary Arne Duncan if you had the chance? Patrick Hayes, a fifth-grade teacher in Charleston, S.C., and director of EdFirstSC, a nonprofit, nonpartisan advocacy group working to empower people who care about public schools, got that opportunity recently when Duncan had a video c

by mike simpson / 9h