NYC Educator: No Comparison

NYC Educator: No Comparison:

It's Rating Time!

For several years now I've been writing about the junk science ratings to which we've been subject. I've gotten in shouting matches with people who thought it was a great thing that the principal's judgment would no longer dictate how we'd be rated. They gave examples of how the junk science could contradict the principal's opinion. I'm with another chapter leader who got a rating almost identical

2 7min 

No Comparison

When I was very young, my mom decided to cook a tongue. I'm not sure what possessed her. I saw it, and said, "That looks like a tongue."

My mom said, "It is a tongue. It's a cow's tongue."

I said, "Well, I'm not gonna eat that." And I didn't.

The next day, my mom gave me a sandwich. "Is that good?" she asked. "Yeah, it is," I told her. "It's the tongue," she informed me, and I spit it out onto the plate. Afterward, we had a long discussion about it being the principle of the thing, and how I was on a strict no-tongue diet. Somehow we never saw eye to eye on this particular topic.

Last week, I was in Port Stanley, Ontario with my daughter. We were in a diner, and she ordered a grilled cheese sandwich. My wife had one too, and she gave me half. It was really very good. It was cheddar and Swiss cheese, and better than any grilled cheese sandwich I'd ever had before. I was fascinated because my daughter would never, ever order anything but American cheese. You know, it comes in that cellophane, and it has enough chemicals in it so it'll still be around when only cockroaches and Rudy Giuliani roam the post-apocolyptic world.

I can imagine Rudy and the cockroach army living forever on a diet of American cheese and Twinkies.

Anyway, only after my daughter ate the whole sandwich, commenting on how good it was, did I reveal the awful secret. I had learned from my mom's mistake. She was horrified, and had the audacity to compare this incident with that of the tongue. While I understand the parallels, it seemed a lot different to me.

I mean, the notion of eating tongue is far more gross than that of eatingNYC Educator: No Comparison:

The Testing Obsession and the Disappearing Curriculum | NEA Today

The Testing Obsession and the Disappearing Curriculum | NEA Today:

The Testing Obsession and the Disappearing Curriculum

September 2, 2014 by twalker  
Filed under ESEA/NCLB Reform, Featured News, Top Stories

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By Tim Walker

Not that long ago, elementary schools were places where students could discover what they were good at, explore the subjects that appealed to them, or maybe just be content with enjoying school.

But for many elementary school teachers who joined the profession during the last decade, and especially those who work in high-poverty schools, classrooms that provide vigorous learning opportunities to all students never existed—thanks, in large part, to the No Child Left Behind Act (NCLB).

Today, more than a decade later, the law is uniformly blamed for stripping curriculum opportunities, including art, music, physical education and more, and imposing a brutal testing regime that has forced educators to focus their time and energy on preparing for tests in a narrow range of subjects:  namely, English/language arts and math.  For students in low-income communities, the impact has been devastating.

“Shouldn’t these early grades be a time to discover, play, and explore?” asks Los Angeles art teacher Ginger Rose Fox. “We talk all the time about making our kids ‘college and career ready’—even at such a young age. Let’s make them ‘life ready’ first. But I guess that doesn’t fit into our testing obsession.”

Like countless educators across the U.S., Fox has witnessed the way critical subjects have been crowded out of schools or even eliminated entirely by the lethal one-two punch of deep budget cuts and the singular focus on improving reading and math. In Los Angeles alone, one-third of the 345 arts teachers were given pink slips between 2008 and 2012 and arts programs for elementary students dwindled to practically zero.

The good news is that money has begun to trickle back in—to California, at least. But slowly improving state The Testing Obsession and the Disappearing Curriculum | NEA Today:

Why One School System is Dropping Teach For America

The school board in Durham, N.C., has voted 6-1 to end its relationship with Teach For America after the 2015-16 school year, when all of the 12 TFA teachers hired in the past few years will have completed the two years of service they promise to make when joining the organization. several board members said they did not want to continue a relationship with the organization because TFA corps membe

by twalker / 3h hide  //  save

Reviving the Teaching of Cursive

The trend around the United States is to emphasize keyboarding – a skill that is included in the Common Core education standards adopted by most states. But Tennessee lawmakers, concerned that some children do not have a signature and struggle to read their teachers’ handwriting, overwhelmingly passed a bill making cursive a mandatory subject in grades two through four. Keyboarding and print writi

by twalker / 3h 

Poaching Students the Publishers Clearing House Way - Teacher in a Strange Land - Education Week Teacher

Poaching Students the Publishers Clearing House Way - Teacher in a Strange Land - Education Week Teacher:

Poaching Students the Publishers Clearing House Way

By Nancy Flanagan on September 1, 2014 10:04 PM

When our daughter, Christine, was ready to start kindergarten, we were not convinced that the K-12 public school in the district where we lived, a tiny farming community in mid-Michigan, was a good choice for her. I knew quite a bit about the district, because I subbed there for year--and while I greatly respected the teachers and the work they were doing, there were things missing. While the school had two full-time agriculture teachers, there were no four-year foreign languages offered, no AP classes, and only a handful of basic arts and humanities courses.

In addition, Christine and her younger brother were in day care in the district where I worked, and if she were in half-day kindergarten 30 miles away, in the district where we lived, I didn't have an after-school care option for her. My district was willing to enroll her as a tuition student--but we had to get a release from our home district. We visited the superintendent, taking pains to express our support for the district as voters and citizens. They would still be getting our tax dollars, after all. But he was unfriendly, and adamant: the district did not give releases for "parent convenience." Either we enrolled Christine in kindergarten there, or--irony--find a private school.

What we ended up doing is moving. Suddenly. As emotionally hard as it was to leave our beloved 100-year old restored farmhouse, the financial hit was greater. We moved to a district with top-notch, comprehensive schools (mine)--because kids' needs are more important than original crown moldings and an apple orchard. Believe me--I know how fortunate were to be able to scrape together the resources to get what we wanted.

A few years after this, I was having dinner with the education advisor for the Michigan Chamber of Commerce, which was promoting a statewide cross-district choice initiative. I told him my story. He wanted me to share it widely--maybe a radio spot--but I declined. It's coming, he asserted--the day Poaching Students the Publishers Clearing House Way - Teacher in a Strange Land - Education Week Teacher:

The Pain and Isolation of an ATR southbronxschool

http://www.southbronxschool.com:

The Pain and Isolation of an ATR

One of the first people I thought of yesterday when I read the Daily News article with Chancellor Farina's hopes for the upcoming year was blogger Fidgety Teach.

Fidgety was a highly regarded and loved pre-K teacher in Brooklyn when she got caught up in the evilness of her principal, Kristine Mustillo. One mistake, forever altered the course of Fidgety's career. One mistake, cost the children of Brooklyn a caring and loving teacher.

So what made me think of Fidgety when I read that article? I guess it would be this;

Fariña pledged to announce in the next two weeks a big reduction in the number of teachers getting paid despite not having steady classroom jobs. Earlier this month 114 of the roughly 1,100 teachers — known as the Absent Teacher Reserve — accepted $16,000 buyouts.

Fariña said the numbers would dwindle further as principals are taught best practices for writing up teachers and beginning the arduous termination process.

Just an aside, should not someone at the UFT come out and say something about this? Should not someone from the UFT file a complaint with the NLRB?  Shouldn't someone from the UFT just act pissed to placate the ATR's?

But back to Fidgety. I know how much she wants to teach. I know how much she wants to love what she is doing. I know how much she is hurting inside.

Fidgety wrote the following on her blog today. It will truly tear at your heart. It is very sad. You literally can feel her pain, her hurt, and her anger, anger at how the DOE has been enabled to allow this to happen.

You see an ATR in your school this week, say hi and ask what you can do.

Oh, and Fidgety really needs to blog more often. She is great!

After 20 years of teaching in the NYC schools, I have spent the last three years rotating on a weekly basis to and from 52 different school locations.  While most professionals change jobs an average of 3 times at most in a lifetime, an ‘ATR’, aka a teacher belonging to the ‘Absent Teacher Reserve’http://www.southbronxschool.com:

Gates Grant to “Further Hardwire the Common Core Curriculum” ?? | deutsch29

Gates Grant to “Further Hardwire the Common Core Curriculum” ?? | deutsch29:

Gates Grant to “Further Hardwire the Common Core Curriculum” ??

September 1, 2014

One way to ensure permanence in the field of electronics is to “hardwire”– which means to “permanently connect.”

In electronics, “hardwiring” refers to circuitry.

For billionaire public education purchaser Bill Gates, circuitry and mass education, it’s all the same.

Bill Gates has already likened the Common Core State Standards (CCSS) to circuitry, with the moronic assertion that standardization of an American education from which he and his children are exempt will surely lead to “innovation” in this March 2014Washington Post appeal to teachers to “defend” CCSS:

Gates said common standards could transform U.S. education, reduce the number of students taking remedial courses in college and enable American students to better compete globally.

Standardization is especially important to allow for innovation in the classroom, said Gates, who used an analogy of electrical outlets.

“If you have 50 different plug types, appliances wouldn’t be available and would be very expensive,” he said. But once an electric outlet becomes standardized, many companies can design appliances and competition ensues, creating variety and better prices for consumers, he said.

If states use common academic standards, the quality of classroom materials and professional development will improve, Gates said. Much of that material will be digital tools that are personalized to the student, he said. “To get this innovation out, common standards will be helpful,” he said. [Emphasis added.]

Gates said, Gates said, Gates said. Got that?

Making all US classrooms “the same” will somehow (only the fairies really know how) *transform US education.* He assumes that since appliances operate via the same “plug,” CCSS is suitable for the American classroom for the masses.

Just plug in the children of the masses, and creativity will bloom. Standardization will lead to *digital solutions*, which apparently are the solutions for all kids of the masses, no matter their capabilities, personalities, tendencies, interests, or preferences.

Just plug ‘em in.

Gates doesn’t address the fact that not everything inserted into an outlet is beneficial.

I could “innovatively” design a gadget, plug it in, and get electrocuted.

But back to that “hardwiring.”

Hardwiring is not “innovative.” It is permanent and set.

In that March 2014 Washington Post article, Gates appealed to teachers to “defend” Gates Grant to “Further Hardwire the Common Core Curriculum” ?? | deutsch29:

BETRAYAL | Bob Braun's Ledger

BETRAYAL | Bob Braun's Ledger:

BETRAYAL

NTU President Joe Del Grosso–”Say it ain’t so, Joe!”

On Labor Day, the day we celebrate working men and women and their unions, the Newark Teachers Union said this to the anxious parents of New Jersey’s largest city: “We cannot be seen as aiding or abetting anything that would disrupt the operation of the Newark Public Schools. ”

In short, the NTU told Newark’s parents that,  as they face the anxieties of an opening day in a school system in which an inept megalomaniac named Cami Anderson holds the system’s rudder, they are on their own. The one organization that might have brought down the whole rotten infrastructure of state control of the city schools decided to bail.  It did offer these, well, not so encouraging words:”We are in solidarity with the organizers”–of the boycott.

In some ways, I understand and sympathize with the letter sent to “Brothers and Sisters” by John Abeigon, the NTU’s director of organization. He warned that a strike in behalf of the boycotting parents could be seen as “conduct unbecoming” a licensed teaching professional and NTU members might be fired, maybe even face the loss of their licenses.

The way Newark teachers did more than 40 years ago. At that time, teachers were jailed, some for up to six months. They faced dismissal and loss of their licenses. They were beaten. For two months they struck.

Two months. It was rough but they didn’t lose their licenses.

I also know the NTU faced a practical as well as a legal problem. If it sought a strike vote and failed, or if the vote passed but the strike failed, then the union’s leadership certainly would have to resign and the union itself might collapse. I was presenBETRAYAL | Bob Braun's Ledger:

A Florida County opts out of ALL state tests | Seattle Education

A Florida County opts out of ALL state tests | Seattle Education:

A Florida County opts out of ALL state tests

Another good piece of news from Valerie Strauss.

Florida county opts out of all state-mandated testing in ‘act of civil disobedience’

Florida’s Lee County became  on Wednesday night the first school district in the state to vote to opt out of all state-mandated testing, including exams that are being designed to assess student knowledge of new state standards based on the Common Core.

The Board of Education voted 3 to 2 in favor of opting out — despite the fact that the state can penalize the county for the decision — as anti-testing activists in the audience cheered. Board member Don Armstrong, who supported the testing boycott, said the vote was meant to send “a strong message” to state education officials in Tallahassee that county officials are tired of being told how to run their school system. He said:

“It’s an act of civil disobedience. We stood up for what we thought was right.”

The district’s superintendent, Nancy Graham, was  unenthusiastic, saying she believes the decision will “hurt children,” the News-Press reported. But Armstrong said it was Graham’s job to implement policy as set by the board. “Now it is up to her to adhere to it,” he said.

The pushback from Lee County — the ninth-largest district in the state and the 37th largest in the country, with more than 85,000 students –  is striking in a state that has been at the forefront of standardized test-based “accountability” systems that use student test scores to evaluate not only kids but their teachers, principals, schools and districts. Former Florida governor Jeb Bush was a pioneer in test-based accountability and he continues to support it around the country, even amid a growing revoltaround the country by parents and educators against test-based school reform, which has led to narrowed curriculum, obsessive test preparation and other negative consequences. Reformers have insisted that test scores are a legitimate high-stakes evaluation tool, even though assessment experts have repeatedly said otherwise.

The Lee County school board voted to opt public schools out of all state-mandated testing. That includes standardized tests that will assess the new Sunshine State A Florida County opts out of ALL state tests | Seattle Education:

Another one bites the dust: Durham is dropping Teach for America

Recently I posted Listen up Seattle: Teach for America was kicked out of Pittsburgh. Now it looks like the domino effect is beginning to happen. Seattle needs to be next. From Valerie Strauss’ blog the Answer Sheet: Why One School System is Dropping Teach for America The school board in Durham, N.C., has voted 6-1 to […]

19 by seattleducation20... / 3h hide  //  save

“Pre-School for All” in Seattle, student information sharing, Jump Start and more

  I have written two posts on Universal pre-K which in Seattle is now termed “Preschool for All”; Race to the Tots: Universal (for profit) Pre-K, DFER and the suits and  Universal Pre-K in Seattle: Reasons to be cautious.Now it’s time to look more closely at the two initiatives that will be on the ballot in November […]

9 by seattleducation20... / 4h 

Kimble's Corner: The History of Labor Day

Kimble's Corner: The History of Labor Day:



The History of Labor Day

            One of the most misunderstood days on the American calendar is Labor Day.  Labor Day is perhaps the only sarcastic holiday in the entire world.  The day traces its roots back to New York City in 1882.  At that time there was a benevolent factory owner named John Fitzpatrick.   Fitzpatrick had been an Irish immigrant himself, but through his own blood and sweat, he had managed to purchase a soap factory.  It wasn't glamorous, but he made a good living for himself and for his family with the soaps he produced.

            Like a lot of the business leaders of the 19th century, Fitzpatrick wanted to make a profit, but he cared first and foremost for his workers.  If they had a problem they not only knew they could always come to John, they knew he'd probably come to him first.  The Fitzpatrick Soap Factory was like one big family with 60 members. The workers enjoyed their jobs and John had loyal workers.

            Then the International Brotherhood of Soap Factory Workers came to town.   At first, John's employees resisted joining the union, but a couple of his men got greedy and before long union membership had spread through the factory like venereal disease through a Parisian brothel.  Now, when it was time to discuss money or working conditions, instead of seeing one of his loyal workers sitting across the table from him, John had to deal with a suit wearing thug from the IBSFW. 

            John paid his workers 8 cents and hour, but once the union was running things, they demanded 14 cents an hour.   This was more money than John could afford.  Even though he wanted to pay his workers well, he knew this would bankrupt him.   John offered to pay 10 cents an hour, which was a 25% raise and all the money that he could afford.  The IBSFW didn't care and they immediately took the workers out on strike.

            For weeks the strike raged.   The union hired thugs and they smashed the windows on the factory and broke the lock on the front gate.   Things began to get violent and John was worried that Kimble's Corner: The History of Labor Day:

School Absence Can Set Students Back Between 1 And 2 Years: Report:

School Absence Can Set Students Back Between 1 And 2 Years: Report

An installation of 857 empty school desks, representing the number of students nationwide who are dropping out every hour of every school day, is on display at the National Mall June 20, 2012 in Washington, D.C. (Photo by Alex Wong/Getty Images) | Alex Wong via Getty Images

 As the debate rages about the best way to fix America's public schools -- from heated rhetoric on the role of standardized testing to wonkier discussions about the intricacies of curricula -- a new report is arguing that reformers have overlooked a game-changing solution: addressing absenteeism.

While it may seem obvious that students who miss more school would not perform as well as other students, a new report released Tuesday shows just how much of a difference attendance can make. According to the report, written by nonprofit advocacy group Attendance Works, about 1 in 5 American students -- between 5 million and 7.5 million of them -- misses a month of school per year. The report suggests that missing three or more days of school per month can set a student back from one to two full years of learning behind his or her peers.

"All our investment in instruction and Common Core and curriculum development will be lost unless kids are in school to benefit from it," said Hedy Chang, the group's director and co-author of the report.

And for the many American students who have disabilities, the stakes are higher. In fourth-grade reading, the scores of students with disabilities showed more sensitivity than those of students without disabilities who had an equivalent number of absences, according to data the group analyzed exclusively for The Huffington Post. That population also registers more absences than their peers overall, despite needing more attention.

"Nobody likes to publicize this stuff unless they're doing well," said lead author Alan Ginsburg, a former director of Policy and Program Studies with the U.S. Education Department, "but these are big differences, and it should be on the front burner."

The new study used survey data from the 2013 National Assessment for Education Progress, a standardized test administered by the federal government, to compare students' absence rates with their performance. Students who took NAEP were asked whether they missed no days, one to two, three to four, five to 10, or more than 10 days of school over the last month.

Predictably, the students who missed the most school -- particularly those absent for three or more days in the last month, the report's definition of poor attendance -- had the lowest test scores. "This is true at every age, in every subject, in every racial and ethnic group and in every state and city examined," according to the report. "While students from low-income families are more likely to be chronically absent, the ill effects of missing too much school hold true for all socio-economic groups."

The report also examined absenteeism at the state level, finding that in the two states with the highest rate of absenteeism, Montana and New Mexico, a quarter of fourth-grade public school students reported missing three or more days in the previous month. Among large urban school districts, rates of absenteeism were highest in Detroit, Milwaukee and Washington, D.C.

In fourth-grade reading, students who missed three or more days per month scored School Absence Can Set Students Back Between 1 And 2 Years: Report: 

The Poor Pay the Highest Price for Charter School Experiments — Part 3 — Newark | Life at the Intersections

The Poor Pay the Highest Price for Charter School Experiments — Part 3 — Newark | Life at the Intersections:



THE POOR PAY THE HIGHEST PRICE FOR CHARTER SCHOOL EXPERIMENTS — PART 3 — NEWARK

Newark parents and students wait in long lines to find out their school assignment. Next, they stand in line at another location to actually enroll. Credit: myfoxtampabay.com

This is the 3rd in a series of three posts pointing out how corporate, investor-owned charter school organizations have chosen to experiment at the expense of children who are mostly from poor families.

The first focused on New Orleans and the slick transformation of a “recovery” school situation into a permanent reduction of publicly controlled schools to zero. That’s right, zero. This school year all schooling for New Orleans will be investor-controlled and owned charters.

In the second of this series about Detroit we saw once again how problems with a public school administration in a city with high poverty and high percentages of black and brown children led toinvestor-controlled and owned charters taking over. Like in New Orleans, Detroit Public Schools were taken over by the state, not to correct problems, but to turn them over to unaccountable edu-corporations.

We have seen that  these edu-corporations choose training over inquiry precisely because the investor class of people running them don’t want poor, black, and brown children to think — just comply with orders from mostly white teachers and administrators.

Newark, New Jersey is yet another example of this corporate cynicism of the entitled class who invest in and run these corporation “schools”.

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The traditional mainstream media outside of New Jersey has been largely silent about a complete fiasco now under way in Newark, New Jersey. Needless to say, if this happened in any predominantly white, The Poor Pay the Highest Price for Charter School Experiments — Part 3 — Newark | Life at the Intersections:

9-1-14 Wait What?

Wait What?:

To blog or not to blog?

That is the question… In these difficult times, many of us are grappling with the question – How can one be useful and relevant in what increasingly appears to be a new dystopian age.  (Look up the word dystopian if you don’t know what it means). Coming off my recent “campaign” for governor, I find […] The post To blog or not to blog? appeared first on Wait What?.

14 by jonpelto / 54min 

8-30-14 Wait What? - Jonathan Pelto: Supporter of Public Education and A Really Nice Guy

Wait What?:  Wait What? All Week Pelto/Murphy 2014 Pelto Statement on falling short of the 7,500 signatures needed to get on the ballotLater today, the Connecticut Secretary of State’s Office is expected to officially announce that the Jonathan Pelto/Ebony Murphy ticket did not collect the 7,500 certified signatures needed to qualify for a position on the 2014 gubernatorial ballot. On behalf of th

by mike simpson / 8h 

Why is Teaching the Most Controversial Profession in America? | Dana Goldstein

Why is Teaching the Most Controversial Profession in America? | Dana Goldstein:

Why is Teaching the Most Controversial Profession in America?

Vox’s fabulous education reporter, Libby Nelson, was one of the first people to read The Teacher Wars, and was kind enough to publish this Q&A with me about the book.

Libby Nelson: We spend a lot of time talking about who should be a teacher, or why good teachers are important, in a way we don’t about other professions — even professions that play critical roles, such as doctors. Why are teachers so central?

Dana Goldstein: The first reason has to do with the role that we expect teachers to play in our inequality debate. We’re having this huge national conversation about socioeconomic inequality and, to somewhat of a lesser extent, about poverty, especially childhood poverty. And really we see teachers held up as people who can help us solve this problem.

Because we have a relatively weak social safety net, we’re asking them to close these gaps between life outcomes for middle-class kids and life outcomes for poor kids. We are, in a way, setting ourselves up to be somewhat disappointed. That’s not to say that teachers don’t make an impact. We know from the latest economic research that teachers do have a big impact on kids. But as big as the impact is, it is a secondary impact. The home, the parenting, the neighborhood and the socioeconomic status of the family are still the primary impact.

So that’s one reason why teaching is controversial and embattled.

The second reason has to do with the fact that teaching is a unionized profession. It really comes down to what [American Federation of Teachers President] Randi Weingarten says to me, that America looks at teachers as “islands of privilege.” Only 7 percent of [private sector] workers are in unions. So the fact that teachers have this strong body representing their interests, they have generous pensions they can look forward to, that they enjoy strong due process — these are things that make teachers unlike most workers. And it’s totally natural that Americans look at that and say, what’s going on? Why do teachers have so much more protection than the rest of us?

Much more here.

Why is Teaching the Most Controversial Profession in America? | Dana Goldstein: