My Year Volunteering As A Teacher Helped Educate A New Generation Of Underprivileged Kids vs. Can We Please, Just Once, Have A Real Teacher

My Year Volunteering As A Teacher Helped Educate A New Generation Of Underprivileged Kids vs. Can We Please, Just Once, Have A Real Teacher:

My Year Volunteering As A Teacher Helped Educate A New Generation Of Underprivileged Kids vs. Can We Please, Just Once, Have A Real Teacher

My Year Volunteering As A Teacher Helped Educate A New Generation Of Underprivileged Kids

Megan Richmond

Volunteer Teacher

When I graduated college last year, I was certain I wanted to make a real difference in the world. After 17 years of education, I felt an obligation to share my knowledge and skills with those who needed it most.

After this past year, I believe I did just that. Working as a volunteer teacher helped me reach out to a new generation of underprivileged children in dire need of real guidance and care. Most of these kids had been abandoned by the system and, in some cases, even by their families, making me the only person who could really lead them through the turmoil.

Was it always easy? Of course not. But with my spirit and determination, we were all able to move forward. 

Those first few months were the most difficult of my life. Still, I pushed through each day knowing that these kids really needed the knowledge and life experience I had to offer them. In the end, it changed all of our lives.

In some ways, it's almost like I was more than just a teacher to those children. I was a real mentor who was able to connect with them and fully understand their backgrounds and help them become the leaders of tomorrow.

Ultimately, I suppose I can never know exactly how much of an impact I had on my students, but I do know that for me it was a fundamentally eye-opening experience and one I will never forget.

Can We Please, Just Once, Have A Real Teacher?

Brandon Mendez

James Miller Elementary School Student

You've got to be kidding me. How does this keep happening? I realize that as a fourth-grader I probably don't have the best handle on the financial situation of my school district, but dealing with a new fresh-faced college graduate who doesn't know what he or she is doing year after year is growing just a little bit tiresome. Seriously, can we get an actual teacher in here sometime in the next decade, please? That would be terrific.

Just once, it would be nice to walk into a classroom and see a teacher who has a real, honest-to-God degree in education and not a twentysomething English graduate trying to bolster a middling GPA and a sparse law school application. I don't think it's too much to ask for a qualified educator who has experience standing up in front of a classroom and isn't desperately trying to prove to herself that she's a good person.

I'm not some sort of stepping stone to a larger career, okay? I'm an actual child with a single working mother, and I need to be educated by someone who actually wants to be a teacher, actually comprehends the mechanics of teaching, and won't get completely eaten alive by a classroom full of 10-year-olds within the first two months on the job.

How about a person who can actually teach me math for a change? Boy, wouldn't that be a novel concept!

I fully understand that our nation is currently facing an extreme shortage of teachers and that we all have to make do with what we can get. But does that really mean we have to be stuck with some privileged college grad who completed a five-week training program and now wants to document every single moment of her life-changing year on a Tumblr?

For crying out loud, we're not adopted puppies you can show off to your friends.

Look, we all get it. Underprivileged children occasionally say some really sad things that open your eyes and make you feel as though you've grown as a person, but this is my actual education we're talking about here. Graduating high school is the only way for me to get out of the malignant cycle of poverty endemic to my neighborhood and to many other impoverished neighborhoods throughout the United States. I can't afford to spend these vital few years of my cognitive development becoming a small thread in someone's inspirational narrative.

But hey, how much can I really know, anyway? I haven't had an actual teacher in three years.My Year Volunteering As A Teacher Helped Educate A New Generation Of Underprivileged Kids vs. Can We Please, Just Once, Have A Real Teacher:

Peltier: ‘My Forty Years In Prison’ | PopularResistance.Org

Peltier: ‘My Forty Years In Prison’ | PopularResistance.Org:

Peltier: ‘My Forty Years In Prison’

Coleman, FL – What can I say that I have not said before? I guess I can start by saying see you later to all of those who have passed in the last year. We Natives don’t like to mention their names. We believe that if we speak their names it disrupts their journey. They may lose their way and their spirits wander forever. If too many call out to them, they will try to come back. But their spirits know we are thinking about them, so all I will say is safe journey and I hope to see you soon.

On February 6th, I will have been imprisoned for 40 years! I’m 71 years old and still in a maximum security penitentiary. At my age, I’m not sure I have much time left.

I have earned about 4-5 years good time that no one seems to want to recognize. It doesn’t count, I guess? And when I was indicted the average time served on a life sentence before being given parole was 7 years. So that means I’ve served nearly 6 life sentences and I should have been released on parole a very long time ago. Then there’s mandatory release after serving 30 years. I’m 10 years past that. The government isn’t supposed to change the laws to keep you in prison — EXCEPT if you’re Leonard Peltier, it seems.

Now, I’m told I’ll be kept at USP Coleman I until 2017 when they’ll decide if I can go to a medium security facility — or NOT. But, check this out, I have been classified as a medium security prisoner now for at least 15 years, and BOP regulations say elders shall be kept in a less dangerous facility/environment. But NOT if you’re Leonard Peltier, I guess.

As you’ll remember, the history of my bid for clemency is long. My first app was with Jimmy Carter. He denied it. Ronald Reagan promised President Mikhail Gorbachev that he would release me if the Soviet Union released a prisoner, but Reagan reneged. George H.W. Bush did nothing. The next app was with Bill Clinton. He left office without taking action even though the Pardon Attorney did an 11-month investigation (it usually takes 9 months) and we were told she had recommended clemency. George W. Bush denied that petition in 2009. And in all of the applications for clemency, the FBI has interfered with an executive order. That’s illegal as hell!

Today, I’m facing another dilemma — an abdominal aortic aneurysm (AAA). It’s the size of an AAA battery. The doctor told me if it bursts, I can bleed to death. It’s also close to my spine and I could end up paralyzed. The good news is that it’s treatable and the operation has a 96-98 percent success rate. BUT I’m in a max security prison. We don’t get sent for treatment until it is terminal.

As President Obama completes the final year of his term, I hope that he will continue to fight to fulfill his promises, and further the progress his Administration has made towards working in partnership with First Peoples. It gives me hope that this President has worked hard to affirm the trust relationship with the Tribal Nations. With YOUR encouragement, I believe Obama will have the courage and conviction to commute my sentence and send me home to my family.

Looking back on the 40 years of efforts on my behalf, I am overwhelmed and humbled. I Peltier: ‘My Forty Years In Prison’ | PopularResistance.Org:

Seattle Schools Community Forum: Of Legislative Matters

Seattle Schools Community Forum: Of Legislative Matters:

Of Legislative Matters

Feb. 5th was one of the key dates in the 60-day legislative session.  It was the policy cut-off in the House of Origin.

Here are the next key dates:

Feb. 9th: Fiscal Cut-off in the House of Origin
Feb. 17: House of Origin Cut-off
Feb. 26th: Policy Cut-off in the Opposite House
Feb. 29th: Fiscal Cut-off in the Opposite House
March 4th: Opposite House Cut-off
March 10th: Last Day of Session

To note, Feb. 9th is this Tuesday.  By then, that leaves about one month left in the session.  I wouldn't say the legislature has set out a particularly ambitious session (except from their own viewpoints) but there are good things in there for public education.

These include:
- simple majority for school bond measures
- financing school facilities
- levy cliff
- high school graduation assessments requirements (SHB 2214 and HB 1855)
- of special interest to me and other public ed activists, a bill, HB 2576, to limit the amount of time any agency has to devote to fulfilling public disclosure requests
- both bills on raising the amount for school district directors compensation both passed out of committees. (SB 6459 and HB 2851)

However, that does not - in any way, despite the posturing of some - negate the lack of any real work on McCleary.  That some Republicans can't even agree to the terms of the one bill (HB 2366) (SB 6195) that came out of the Governor's work group (they want to push the timeline further out), should tell you something about their commitment to the work.

My belief is that there are those who want to dally and delay as long as possible.  Both sides agree it will be a heavy lift and there is no single source of existing money for McCleary. We all get that but honestly, where's there's a will, there's a way.  It would appear that some are quite myopic on this point.

Here's a great legislative wrap-up from WSSDA (Washington State School Seattle Schools Community Forum: Of Legislative Matters:

Teachers For Social Justice: Get on the BUS! Thurs Feb 18 TSJ ERSB Field Trip to Springfield!

Teachers For Social Justice: Get on the BUS! Thurs Feb 18 TSJ ERSB Field Trip to Springfield!:

Get on the BUS! Thurs Feb 18 TSJ ERSB Field Trip to Springfield!

Springfield Rally and Lobby Day for Elected Representative School Board

Thursday, February 18th

6:00 AM till 6:00 PM

The TSJ Bus will be at 1100 S. Hamilton.

Parking is available, $2-3 for the day

We're taking our fight for an Elected Representative School Board(ERSB)to Springfield!! Sign up to get on the TSJ bus to join hundreds of other parents, teachers, community members, and students in Springfield. Feb. 18, to let legislators know we want an elected representative school board in Chicago-now!! We will have a rally in the capital and talk to legislators.

We have 60 pledged "yes" votes in the State Assembly for House Bill 4682 for an elected school board. The time is now! This is our alternative to Rauner's state take over and Rahm's racist corporate agenda to break the CTU, cut resources to neighborhood schools, and privatize. When parents and grandparents have to go on a 34 day hunber strike to get a quality neighborhood high school (Dyett HS), it's time for an elected school board that represents the people who actually attend and teach in cps schools.

Food-We will provide breakfast for the bus (e.g., fruit, pan dulce), but please bring your own coffee! We also will get box lunches which cost $8-10. Please be prepared to pay IF you are able-everyone will get lunch, but TSJ is an all-volunteer organization and we all chip in what we can. 

* Space is limited!! Reserve your spot on the TSJ bus TODAY! Fill out the form, click here now! And please-we want to accommodate everyone who can go, so please do not commit unless you are sure that you can make it (to the best of your knowledge, of course!).

Email us if you have any questions!

You can learn more about this fight and TSJ's role in it on our ERSB Resource Page.Teachers For Social Justice: Get on the BUS! Thurs Feb 18 TSJ ERSB Field Trip to Springfield!:

Schools Matter: Big Data Needs Your Personalized Data Points

Schools Matter: Big Data Needs Your Personalized Data Points:

Schools Matter: Big Data Needs Your Personalized Data Points

As you take a few moments to listen to this super snail oil salesman, think about the implications of this technology in the hands of Zuckerberg and the Wall Street crime bosses who want to control the worldwide education industry. 

The battle to preserve student autonomy and anonymity from the efficiency zealots running Big Data will be the next great battle for teachers, parents, civil libertarians, and all freedom-loving people. 

The war against high stakes testing is now even more critical than before.  The expansion of opt out options will be required for parents who will need to have other alternatives to this kind of "schooling."  

While middle class parents will find options and, thus, be in positions to refuse this kind of dystopian plan for their schools, urban parents face socioeconomic obstacles that could allow for the imposition of fine-grained paternalistic treatments that will make the present-day "no excuses" chain gangs seem primitive by comparison.
 

The video above is from 2012, and since then Knewton has moved aggressively to partner with more textbook companies like Harcourt, technology giants like Microsoft (surprise!), gaming companies, online Schools Matter: Big Data Needs Your Personalized Data Points:

An astonishing admission from a controversial school reformer - The Washington Post

An astonishing admission from a controversial school reformer - The Washington Post:

An astonishing admission from a controversial school reformer

Cami Anderson is the former schools superintendent in Newark who was relentless in pushing highly controversial education reforms from 2011 through 2015 and became one of the faces of the corporate school reform movement. She abruptly left the job last summer after her “One Newark” program sparked serious community unrest. As I wrote last June:

One Newark, which eliminated neighborhood schools in favor of a citywide lottery that ostensibly gave parents more school choices, wound up leading to the closure of numerous schools, mass firings of teachers and principals and a rise in charter schools. At least seven complaints of civil rights violations have been investigated by the U.S. Education Department. Last year, dozens of clergy in Newark warned [N.J. Gov. Chris] Christie that school reform was causing so much “unnecessary instability” that they were “concerned about the level of public anger” over the issue.

Anderson is also an alumna of Teach For America, the organization that has made itself a star in the school reform constellation and that is holding its star-studded 25th anniversary summit in Washington this weekend. President Obama even sent a welcoming video to the thousands of TFA alums attending the event, declaring, “There are even TFA alumni working for me in the White House.”

According to this story by my Post colleague Emma Brown, Anderson made some remarks at one popular summit session Saturday about the school reform movement in which she was prominent. In fact, her comments — at a session to discuss the school-to-prison pipeline — were essentially a tough critique:

“Here is the inconvenient truth: Education, including education reform, is part of the problem,” said Cami Anderson, the 

An astonishing admission from a controversial school reformer - The Washington Post:

“COMMON” Goal: Corporate Ownership of Public Education and Our Childrens’ Futures | educationalchemy

“COMMON” Goal: Corporate Ownership of Public Education and Our Childrens’ Futures | educationalchemy:

“COMMON” Goal: Corporate Ownership of Public Education and Our Childrens’ Futures

Common Goal. Part I.

Lamar Alexander and Patti Murray didn’t (really) write the new Every Child Succeeds Act (ESSA). The Business Roundtable (BRT) did. Let me break this down for you:

By now, those of us who are fighting for public schools are pretty aware of how the Common Core state standards (CCSS) were crafted behind the scenes by corporate interests (via ALEC and The Business Roundtable. If you need a primer on that first, see HERE and HERE.

For a full list of education reform organizations associated with ALEC click here.

The final culmination of all their efforts is the control of both the content (what is taught) and method (how it’s delivered). CONTENT is covered in PART I of this blog. METHOD is covered in Part II.

It started (circa 1984 when UNESCO first coined the term Common Core) in a document called “A Methodological Guide to the Application of the Notion of Common Core in the Training of Various Categories of Educational Personnel.” It will end (post 2016) with the “disruptive, innovative, personalized, career and college ready” ELIMINATION of public education. The passing of ESSA has delivered everything the Business Roundtable wanted on a silver platter: Control of educational content, methods of privatization (charters and outsourcing services) and alternative assessments for teacher and teacher education “accountability.” They say this in their own words. One Business Roundtable (BRT) spokesperson says: “We are particularly pleased that the final legislation includes challenging academic standards; annual testing; increased transparency of school “COMMON” Goal: Corporate Ownership of Public Education and Our Childrens’ Futures | educationalchemy:

CURMUDGUCATION: NCTQ: Terrible Teacher Prep and Headline Research

CURMUDGUCATION: NCTQ: Terrible Teacher Prep and Headline Research:

NCTQ: Terrible Teacher Prep and Headline Research

The National Council on Teacher Quality is one of the great mysteries of the education biz. They have no particular credentials and are truly the laziest "researchers" on the planet, but I think I may have cracked the code. Let me show you their latest piece of "research," and then we can talk about how they really work.

Their new report-- "Learning about Learning: What Every New Teacher Needs To Know" (which is a curious title-- do other teachers NOT need to know these things?)-- is yet another NCTQ indictment of current teacher education programs. The broad stroke of their finding is that teacher education programs are not teaching the proven strategies that work in education.

That's the broad stroke. As always with NCTQ, the devil is in the details. After all, that sounds like a huge research undertaking. First, you would have to identify teaching strategies that are clearly and widely supported by all manner of research. Then you would have to carefully examine a whooooooole lot of teacher education programs-- college visits, professor and student interviews, sit in classes, extensive study of syllabi-- it would be a huge undertaking.

Or you could just flip through a bunch of educational methods textbooks.

What Every Teacher Needs To Know 

First, NCTQ had to select those methods that "every new teacher needs to know." Here's the methodology for that piece of research-based heavy lifting:

In Organizing Instruction and Study to Improve Student Learning: A Practice Guide, the Institute of CURMUDGUCATION: NCTQ: Terrible Teacher Prep and Headline Research:

Education Research Report: Has implementation of the Common Core State Standards (CCSS) affected NAEP performance?

Education Research Report: Has implementation of the Common Core State Standards (CCSS) affected NAEP performance?:

Has implementation of the Common Core State Standards (CCSS) affected NAEP performance?

 The 2015 results of the National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP) for grades 4 and 8 were greeted with both disappointment and frustration. Despite years of reform strategies and millions of dollars in public and private investment, average student performance in math slumped at both grades for the first time in 25 years

Although the 2015 scores for both grades and subjects were still higher than in the early 1990s, the declines since 2013 stirred immediate speculation about causes.  How has implementation of the Common Core State Standards (CCSS) affected NAEP performance? 

The American Institutes for Research (AIR) studied the alignment between the mathematics test items on the 2015 NAEP at grades 4 and 8 and the content of the CCSS. A panel of mathematicians, classroom teachers, math supervisors, and math educators reviewed all of math test items in the 2015 NAEP item pool for these grades and attempted to match each item to an appropriate standard in the CCSS. The items were classified as matched, not matched, or uncertain, according to the majority of the review panel. Presumably, students in CCSS-adopting states would have a reasonable likelihood of being taught the content in the NAEP items that were included in the Common Core for the tested grade or a lower grade. If a particular NAEP item was not represented in the CCSS or was included in the standards for a higher grade, then students most likely would not have received instruction in that content. 

The AIR alignment study reported several interesting findings: 

• • Overall, the alignment between NAEP and the CCSS was reasonable at grade 4 and strong at grade 8. The percentage of NAEP items represented in the CCSS for the same grade or a lower grade was 79% at grade 4 and 87% at grade 8.
  • However, the alignment between NAEP items and the CCSS was much lower for certain math content areas. NAEP categorizes the content of its math test by “subscales,” including number properties and operations; measurement; geometry; data analysis, statistics, and probability; and algebra. The lowest rate of alignment was in the area of data analysis, 
  • However, the alignment between NAEP items and the CCSS was much lower for certain math content areas. NAEP categorizes the content of its math test by “subscales,” including number properties and operations; measurement; geometry; data analysis, statistics, and probability; and algebra. The lowest rate of alignment was in the area of data analysis,
  • statistics, and probability—47% of the items in this area were matched at grade 4 and 74% at grade 8. The match rates at grade 4 were also low for algebra (62%) and geometry (68%).
  • • Most of the NAEP items that were not matched to the CCSS were covered by the Common Core standards at a higher grade than the tested grade in NAEP. The exception was in data analysis, statistics, and probability at grade 8, where a substantial majority of the items did not match the CCSS at all.

• 
  

The AIR study also looked at alignment from the other direction—what percentage of the Common Core standards in math through grade 4 or grade 8 can be matched to at least one NAEP item? Since the CCSS are intended to guide instruction, students may not have an opportunity to learn the content assessed by NAEP if it is not represented in the standards for their grade or a lower grade. 

• The extent to which standards in the Common Core are represented on NAEP items was reasonably high at grade 4 but much lower at grade 8. The percentage of Common Core standards through grade 4 that could be matched to at least one NAEP item was 77%; the comparable figure through grade 8 was just 58%. 
• Some content areas of the Common Core are not well represented in NAEP. At grade 4, the Common Core content area with the lowest percentage match (57%) between the standards and NAEP items was operations and algebraic thinking—an area of knowledge that is central to the progression from arithmetic to algebra, according to the AIR authors. At grade 8, the areas with the lowest match were ratios and proportional relationships (50%) and statistics and probability (41%). 
• A closer look at NAEP math results by subscales reveals a reasonably consistent pattern of greater score declines in content areas that are less well aligned with the Common Core. Of the four content area/grade level combinations that had match rates lower than 75% in the AIR analysis, three showed a drop in average NAEP scores of 4 or 5 points from 2013 to 2015. These included data analysis, probability and statistics at grades 4 and 8, and geometry at grade 8; the exception was algebra at grade 4. 
  
  These findings about alignment between NAEP and the Common Core in math suggest that many students may not have had an opportunity to learn important subsets of knowledge and skills before taking the NAEP test. This could help to account for the lower scores on some subscales. No similar current study has been done for reading and English language arts, however. 
  
  Full report 
  

With A Brooklyn Accent: Time to Chuck the Small Schools Movement- A Commentary by Bronx Teacher Aixa Rodriguez

With A Brooklyn Accent: Time to Chuck the Small Schools Movement- A Commentary by Bronx Teacher Aixa Rodriguez:

Time to Chuck the Small Schools Movement

 A Commentary by Bronx Teacher Aixa Rodriguez

 The small schools movement in NYCDOE high schools has got to go. It has run its course and enough students have been experimented on, enough veteran teachers have been pushed out via institutional ageism and the UFT high school divisions have been broken. It is time for this lie to end. We need a restoration movement. These boutique schools based on half-baked themes, were really “charter lite” and allowed for many a despotic principal to burn their small faculty out. I could go on and on on about how these “small” schools have impacted the teaching profession, but I first, let us focus on what this 99cents bargain store attempt at education reform has done to the students of the Bronx. They have suffered under the lie of “school choice” and endured a narrowed curriculum, less services and supports, less electives and less variety of sports and after school extra-curricular activities. The very existence of small schools has impacted the remaining large comprehensive schools and the education of those students in those schools.


The students at the small schools have been sold the illusion of “choice”. Once committed to one of the many schools that have all types of colors, logos, themes, designs, uniforms etc., it becomes painfully evident that your choices end there. Hoodwinked and bamboozled: the kids soon learn they were sold an idea in a glossy brochure that was not fully developed.  Students are subject to taking courses based on what the school offers, and if your schedule permits it. Small schools do not have the funding to have a variety of languages, electives, or even levels of classes. Small schools do not have the ability to have flexibility in which teacher a student can choose to learn from. Have a personality conflict? Too bad, you won’t have options to choose from. Small schools most often don’t have “departments” larger than four teachers and they are usually committed to one grade. If you have an IEP that is an entire other set of problems, because you will be limited to the classes that fit your needs, ICT and SETTS, your therapies etc. It complicates your schedule, and you might find yourself having to take SETTS during lunch, or come to gym 0 period. Not exactly an attractive choice for a teen with a commute since local schools have died the slow death. No choice in classes. No choice in teachers. No wonder credit accumulation is a problem for many of these vulnerable students.

Let’s face it small schools do not, and will never have the supports that a large comprehensive school does. Even at year 4, small schools will not have the arts, music and drama faculty, the social services, the college counseling, the variety of sports and teams, the librarians, the With A Brooklyn Accent: Time to Chuck the Small Schools Movement- A Commentary by Bronx Teacher Aixa Rodriguez:

Louisiana Educator: Push Poll Used to Try to Sabotage Governor's Budget Proposals

Louisiana Educator: Push Poll Used to Try to Sabotage Governor's Budget Proposals:

Push Poll Used to Try to Sabotage Governor's Budget Proposals

I was one of the targets of a very aggressive telephone "push poll" Saturday afternoon. A push poll is really a fake public opinion poll where a political group hires a fake polling company to influence voters to support their point of view on one or more issues. This so called poll was designed to turn public support against any attempts by Governor John Bel Edwards to raise tax revenues to balance the Louisiana state budget. Certain (mostly big business) groups have made a decision to sabotage all efforts by the new governor to tackle the huge deficit in the budget by reducing tax exemptions for various businesses and individuals. For example, during the Jindal administration, income taxes that were part of the previously negotiated and approved Stelly Plan were reduced and many big businesses received tax exemptions setting the stage for a huge shortfall in state revenues and resulting draconian cuts to funding for our state colleges.

I really get tired of hearing politicians claim that there is plenty of fat that could be cut from state government without curtailing valuable state services and school funding. So why was it that as revenues fell over the last few years of the Jindal administration, with conservatives in full control of all branches of state government, the biggest cuts were to our state colleges, pushing the opportunity for a college education out of reach for many Louisiana students? Where was the "fat cutting" as we watched our roads and bridges fall apart and medical services curtailed to the point that children and disabled people lost basic medical care? So now that the budget hole has deepened to the size of the Grand Canyon, the greedy corporations are financing "push polls" to once again convince voters that we don't need to pay taxes for government to function. So now we are supposed to help kill any attempt to fill the budget gap. Now that Jindal has sold off public property, crippled higher education (while preaching the need to prepare our kids for high tech careers) and privatized medical care and K-12 schools, the same politicians who crippled our Louisiana Educator: Push Poll Used to Try to Sabotage Governor's Budget Proposals:

CURMUDGUCATION: ICYMI: Your Sunday Halftime Reading

CURMUDGUCATION: ICYMI: Your Sunday Halftime Reading:

ICYMI: Your Sunday Halftime Reading

ust kidding. At my house, the game will not even be on, and I'm pretty sure life will go on. But here are a few pieces to read today.

The Real Issue with Teacher Pay

The North Carolina 2015 Teacher of the Year has a few things to say about respect for the profession (and if you've been paying attention to North Carolina, you know why)

Alice's Adventures in Public Education

Turns out Lewis Carroll was writing about the future, and here we are. 

The Classroom Door Is Always Open


A visit to one of the few old-style schools of choice still operating out there. This is what it should be about.

Reforminess IS the Status Quo 

Jersey Jazzman continues his frustrated attempts to ground the education discussion in reality.

Why Aren't Public Schools Too Big To Fail? 

Stephen Singer wonders why our response to failing schools is to abandon them, rather than attempt a rescue.

Cook for 17 minutes at 350 degrees

Frozen pizza instructions prompt a reflection on teaching skills in the English classroom. 

Special education class sizes are the target (again). | Fred Klonsky

Special education class sizes are the target (again). | Fred Klonsky:

Special education class sizes are the target (again).

By Bev Johns

“The most burdensome aspects of special education mandates identified in the survey were underfunding from state government and class sizes, especially concerning the required ratio of students with special needs to those without.” [the regulation that students with disabilities shall not constitute more than 30 percent of a general education classroom, known as the 70/30 regulation] 

The Governor’s Office, working with the leadership of the Illinois State Board of Education, is working on a package of Educational Mandates to be eliminated in any Grand Bargain or Grand Compromise or as a stand-alone Mandate Relief Bill.

The number one special ed target: Special Education Class Size Regulations.

Governor Rauner has been pushing the recommendations of the Lt. Governor Task Force on Local Government Consolidation and Unfunded Mandates.

The Final Report of that Task Force shows that Special Education mandate relief is the highest priority for local school districts – Burden Ranking of 2.3 where 1 is the most burdensome. (Table 15. Prioritization of Mandates for Illinois School Districts)[the next highest is Instructional Mandates, 3.5, then Prevailing Wage, 4.5, Workers Compensation, 4.8, Physical Education, 4.9, etc.]

Special Education was the most mentioned mandate in the survey of local school districts, discussed by 19.7 percent. (Figure 8. Frequency of Mandates Discussed  – By Category)[next highest is Physical Education, 16.7 percent, then Prevailing [Wage, 15.2 percent, Instructional Mandates, 13.6 Special education class sizes are the target (again). | Fred Klonsky:

A Community of Writing Teachers – the becoming radical

A Community of Writing Teachers – the becoming radical:

A Community of Writing Teachers

The purposeful teaching of writing that led to and then sprang from the formation of theNational Writing Project (NWP) and its affiliated sites has always emphasized the importance of a community of writers.

And while the summer institutes offered through NWP sites—where I was saved as a writing teacher and then fortunate to be a co-lead instructor for two summers years later—create over several weeks for teachers writing workshop experiences that include forming communities of writing teachers, I fear that in the high-stakes environment of most K-12 public schools and then in the departmentalized environments of higher education the existence of those communities of writing teachers are rare, if not entirely absent.

I entered full-time teaching in the fall of 1984 as a beginning teacher and want-to-be writer. On that first day, I saw my job as a public school English teacher primarily focusing on the teaching of writing.

While my students over the next 18 years would be quick to admit I had high expectations, possibly too high, for them—demanding a great deal of writing as well as significant growth as writers and thinkers—I also had high expectations for me as a writing teacher.

Every day, I feared I was doing that work less effectively than I could, and I was constantly evolving, growing, changing—notably after attending the Spartanburg Writing Project (SWP) summer institute.

Several years after I entered higher education as a teacher educator, my university moved to a first year seminar format, opening the door for professors from any discipline to teach first-A Community of Writing Teachers – the becoming radical:

Why the Supreme Court Should Leave Well Enough Alone and Let Workers Build Unions | Alternet

Why the Supreme Court Should Leave Well Enough Alone and Let Workers Build Unions | Alternet:

Why the Supreme Court Should Leave Well Enough Alone and Let Workers Build Unions

A decision against the California Teachers Association is a decision in favor of greed.

Current discussions regarding theFriedrichs v. California Teachers Association case now before the U.S. Supreme Court are missing the critical implication of this debate. The case revolves around whether a public sector union employer negotiated collective bargaining agreement can include a provision for what is known as “agency fee.” Agency fee refers to a payment that employees who choose not to join a labor union pay the union for purposes of representation. It is not, contrary to some statements in the media, union dues. It is something very different.

News reports regarding the Friedrichs case suggest that the main threat to unions and workers posed by the elimination of agency fee is the draining of union resources that can be used for political action, a major objective of the political right. Yet that threat, while real, is secondary to the more fundamental threat: the elimination of resources badly needed in order to represent workers in their work lives.

Central to the National Labor Relations Act, which has guided labor relations since its passage in 1935, and the subsequent Supreme Court decision upholding it in 1937, are two notions: first, that the public policy of the United States was to support collective bargaining and industrial peace, both of which were seen as crucial cornerstones to labor/employer relations in the USA. Second, that a union selected by a vote of eligible workers is the exclusive representative of the workers of the particular bargaining unit.

The Court has been very clear, especially since its seminal ruling in Steele v. Louisville Railroad (1944), that a labor union must represent the collective interests of the workforce and must also represent the interests of individual workers who are threatened by actions on the part of management that allegedly violate the collective bargaining agreement. The Court has maintained that the union must represent such workers irrespective of union membership.

What does this mean concretely? It means that an individual worker who chooses not to join the union that represents his or her bargaining unit will benefit by what the union negotiates and can go to the union and demand representation in the face of any contract violation. Thus, a non-union worker can gain all of the benefits of representation yet pay nothing. This defines “right to work,” the clear intent of which is to make it exceedingly difficult for a labor Why the Supreme Court Should Leave Well Enough Alone and Let Workers Build Unions | Alternet:

Chicago Teachers Union & Supporters March and Occupy Bank of America for Fair Contract | The Chicago Monitor

Chicago Teachers Union & Supporters March and Occupy Bank of America for Fair Contract | The Chicago Monitor:

Chicago Teachers Union & Supporters March and Occupy Bank of America for Fair Contract

 

More than three thousand teachers, staff, parents, students, and their supporters marched in Chicago yesterday for a fair contract for the Chicago Teachers Union (CTU). The protest was in response to the threat of $100 million in cuts by CPS the day before. The protest centered on the Bank of America office on LaSalle Street to highlight the CTU demand for CPS to renegotiate toxic interest swap agreements with the bank. The day before members of the CTU visited the bank and withdrew $726 million of union funds deposited there. While protestors circled the building, sixteen union members sat down in the bank lobby and chanted. All were arrested and charged with misdemeanor trespassing and detained for six hours at CPD District One headquarters. One local media station suggested “The union is trying to broaden its contract argument by going after the banks, not just CPS” but then don’t explain why the CTU is “going after the banks.” At the very end of the Chicago Tribune coverage it said “At one point Thursday, demonstrators staged a sit-in at the Bank of America building to protest financial deals engineered by CPS administrators” without any further explanation. It’s the approach of the local media to suggest that this is just another union going after bankers. So why did CTU do a sit-in at the Bank of America?

In a CTU press release yesterday, the union explained its rational for the march and the sit-in of the Bank of America office.

The march came two days after Mayor Rahm Emanuel’s handpicked Chicago Public Schools (CPS) CEO Forrest Claypool declared war on public school educators by threatening $100 million in classroom cuts—roughly 1,000 layoffs—and just one day after the CTU withdrew nearly $1 million from Bank of America [BOA]. The CTU closed its BOA savings account in protest of that bank and other financial institutions that sold CPS toxic interest rate swaps, and are demanding a payout of at least $228 million—almost the exact same amount as cuts enacted by the Chicago Board of Education to schools and special education.

(Photo by Bill Chambers)

In response to the CTU’s rejection of the CPS proposed contract that would have insured continued instability for the Chicago Public School system and to the CTU’s concrete recommendations to improve CPS financials, CPS immediately ignored the recommendations and called for the elimination of up to 2200 positions – teachers and support staff – as well as cuts in funding used for anti-poverty and special education programs. What were the concrete recommendations President Karen Lewis and other union officers called for? For the mayor to put the surplus TIF funds into the public schools (Tax Increment Financing (TIF) is a special funding tool used by the City of Chicago to promote public and private investment across the city); support the TIF funds bill for public schools in Springfield; and renegotiate the toxic interest swap deals with the banks that are costing the district millions of dollars. So in response to the CTU Chicago Teachers Union & Supporters March and Occupy Bank of America for Fair Contract | The Chicago Monitor:

The speech that could help Hillary Clinton or Bernie Sanders seal the deal - The Washington Post

The speech that could help Hillary Clinton or Bernie Sanders seal the deal - The Washington Post:

The speech that could help Hillary Clinton or Bernie Sanders seal the deal

Democratic presidential candidates Hillary Clinton and Bernie Sanders shakes hands as they greet the audience before Thursday’s Democratic presidential primary debate in Durham, N.H. (David Goldman/AP)

 As former secretary of state Hillary Clinton and Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) battle it out for the Democratic presidential nomination, it is fair to say that neither has devoted a great deal of attention to K-12 school reform. Education activist Bertis Downs believes he can help one of them seal the nomination with the right speech on this topic by winning over the millions of teachers, parents and other people for whom public education is vitally important.

How is this done? By showing a clear understanding of the issues facing public education today and the toll that corporate school reform has taken on schools, teachers and students.  Downs, the parent of two daughters, was legal counselor and manager of the now disbanded band R.E.M., and he spends a great deal of time advocating for public education in Clarke County, Georgia, where he lives, as well as around the country. This appeared in Salon, and I’m publishing it with permission.

By Bertis Downs

Both Hillary Clinton and Bernie Sanders have decided to start talking about the state of K-12 public education in recent weeks. This is a very positive, if overdue, development, with both of them questioning the efficacy and priority of charter schools in the national dialogue on educating our children; and Sanders recently proposing a new, equity-focused approach to funding education in the United States.

Still, the candidates’ words don’t seem to resonate with many of the largely untapped public education parents and teachers who are in search of a candidate. Neither candidate really has a grasp on the varied and complex issues that have to be addressed when considering the changes and reforms our schools and children truly need. Let’s help their campaigns by outlining The speech that could help Hillary Clinton or Bernie Sanders seal the deal - The Washington Post: