A Dress Code for Teachers? Or Anything Goes? | toteachornototeach

A Dress Code for Teachers? Or Anything Goes? | toteachornototeach:

A Dress Code for Teachers? Or Anything Goes?

by aristotlethewise

 

A Dress Code for Teachers? Or Anything Goes?

by Rae Pica
Who could have imagined that the issue of teacher attire would be such a hot-button topic? But, then, who could have imagined that the day would come when teachers sported too-tight clothes and showed too much skin? And, no, I’m not talking about just the female teachers. This is not an issue merely because it’s a female-dominated profession, as one tweeter suggested to me. As far as I’m concerned, flip-flops expose too much skin.
Admittedly, I haven’t been a public school student for a long, long time. So it came as an enormous surprise when I saw a proliferation of newspaper reports and blogs describing midriff-baring, sweatpants- and pajama-

PAA Mass affiliate writes letter of support for Seattle teachers | Parents Across America

PAA Mass affiliate writes letter of support for Seattle teachers | Parents Across America:

PAA Mass affiliate writes letter of support for Seattle teachers

by pureparents

CPS supports Seattle’s Garfield High Teachers: Test Boycott is Courageous Stand for Students, Against Test Abuse Citizens for Public Schools Issues Statement Supporting Seattle’s Garfield High Teachers: “Test Boycott is Courageous Stand for Students, Against Test Abuse” We, the members of Citizens for Public Schools, stand with the teachers at Garfield High School in Seattle for their courageous move to boycott district-mandated Measures of Academic Progress (MAP) tests. We respect the Garfield teachers for saying no to the escalating use … →

PAA’s Wendy Lecker finds a superintendent to speak out

by pureparents

We have a winner! In my last column, I made a simple plea for one Connecticut superintendent to speak out about the dangers of Connecticut’s over-emphasis on high-stakes standardized testing. Diane Ravitch, the nationally noted author, education historian and former Assistant Secretary of Education, posted my column on her blog and one courageous superintendent stood up — Thomas Scarice, of Madison. The story of how Superintendent Scarice and his community crafted the district’s recommendations for its teacher evaluation plan is … →

The Evaluation: schooling at the end of teaching, unions, & care « Cooperative Catalyst

The Evaluation: schooling at the end of teaching, unions, & care « Cooperative Catalyst:

The Evaluation: schooling at the end of teaching, unions, & care

by Chad Sansing

Nearly sixth months ago, I posted “The Evaluation,” a near-future science fiction short story imagining public school teaching as day-labor inside a techno-bureaucratic panopticon.
Since then, I’ve tried to hold myself accountable for posting about the work that my kids and I do together, which I love and in which I believe. I want to take the energy I’ve put into criticizing “what is” and channel it instead into documenting and sharing “what (I think) should be.”
At the same time, I’ve been writing more of “The Evaluation.” It’s the piece of writing that has most sustained my interest and attention.
Sometimes, I try to be clever just to be clever; it’s a flaw (one of many). I had this big plan to gamify a release of the story at EduCon 2.5. Interoffice mail envelopes addressed to

Racism in America Today « Larry Miller's Blog: Educate All Students!

Racism in America Today « Larry Miller's Blog: Educate All Students!:

Racism in America Today

by millerlf

I recently read Michelle Alexander’s book, The New Jim Crow: Mass Incarceration in the Age of Colorblindness. It takes head-on the “elephant in the room” concerning race in America. I feel it is a must read for anyone interested in equality and social justice.
According to Alexander, more black men are behind bars or under the watch of the criminal justice system in the US than there were enslaved in 1850…and more African-American men are disenfranchised now because of felon disenfranchisement laws than in 1870. She constructs a formidable argument that the “war on drugs,” declared in 1982, had every intention of creating a new form of discrimination largely against black men.
Alexander’s book establishes that the war on drugs is truly meant to reinstate legalized discrimination that 

Scarcity at the Table of Abundance | Connected Principals

Scarcity at the Table of Abundance | Connected Principals:

Scarcity at the Table of Abundance

by Johnny Bevacqua

This was originally posted at Figuring It Out by J. Bevacqua  @jvbevacqua

Thanks to the Internet and the technologies we use to access it, we’ve move from a world where all of these (information, knowledge, teachers, learning, getting an education) were relatively scarce to one where they’re absolutely abundant…
if we have an Internet connection, we have fingertip, on-demand access to an amazing library that holds close to the sum of human knowledge and, equally important, to more than two billion people with whom we can potentially learn…..

Will Richardson, Why School

I like what Will Richardson has to say about the future of schools, teaching and learning.  We are living in a time of abundance in terms of information availability  The information we seek is potentially at our our fingertips at anytime at any place.Yet despite this “abundance” and its revolutionary impact on schooling, teaching and 

Hunger Strike Saves PS 154 in the Bronx!!!.southbronxschool.com

http://www.southbronxschool.com:

Hunger Strike Saves PS 154 in the Bronx!!!

by noreply@blogger.com (Bronx Teacher)

The first post of the New Year and the first post since a hunger strike had been announced. Lots to tell, lots to explain.

The hunger strike was in support of PS 154 to keep it from closing and The Crack Team here at SBSB won.PS 154 is not closing thanks to the hunger strike, even an abbreviated one at that.

I have learned that when one announces a hunger strike, one should notify one's spouse, or at least talk it over with said spouse. Last Wednesday, the 2nd, when I got home I got quite an earful from my wife and just as importantly, from my doctor. My doctor informed me that in my condition the lack of food will kill me much sooner than a normal hunger strike 

Seattle Education Association backs Garfield teachers in opposition to MAP testing. « Fred Klonsky

Seattle Education Association backs Garfield teachers in opposition to MAP testing. « Fred Klonsky:

Seattle Education Association backs Garfield teachers in opposition to MAP testing.

by Fred Klonsky

PopoutNovember, 2011. Garfield High School students occupy Seattle city hall demanding an end to budget cuts.
Seattle Times:

In the statement, SEA President Jonathan Knapp said he wants the district to set a date to stop using the MAP exams.  He also said that concerns over those tests are part of larger questions about the costs of testing, and how much time schools devote to it.

The union listed its concerns as follows:

• The test does not line up with state standards.

• The test does not line up with district curriculum.

• The test takes

Diane in the Evening 1-12-13 Diane Ravitch's blog

Diane Ravitch's blog:

You Are the Leaders

Washington Post Reviews Rhee

by dianerav

Lyndsey Layton of the Washington Post has written a comprehensive review of Michelle Rhee’s moment on the national stage, presenting a balanced portrait.
Rhee is still pretending to be a liberal Democrat, even though–as Layton points out–she has allied herself with the nation’s most rightwing governors and advocates for the privatization of public education.
The only thing I read that I had not seen before is that StudentsFirst has raised only $7.6 million, despite the 

Seattle Writer Challenges Bill Gates to Be Consistent

by dianerav

A reader sent the following observation:
Here’s a devastating article that points up Bill Gates’ hypocrisy when it comes to the variation between what he demands for his own children, and what he subjects children from lower income communities:
THE SEATTLE TIMES’ Danny Weastneat takes Gates to task for promoting policy all over the country that jacks class size sky high, with Gates using the common-sense-defying logic that kids will fare better in larger classes.

You Are the Leaders

by dianerav

Spring is coming.
People are standing up and speaking up.
Teachers at Garfield High in Seattle say “no more.”
Teachers at Ballard High School support their colleagues at Garfield.
The Seattle Education Association and the AFT support the Garfield and Ballard teachers.
Superintendents, one after another, are saying the testing obsession is out of control.
The principals of New York State stand together to demand professional evaluation, not trial by testing.
Parents are defending their children by supporting their teachers and their community schools.
The PTA of Niagara County in New York say hands off our public schools.
Communities are opposing school closings and corporate takeovers.
Students are speaking out because they know what is happening to them is not right.
Journalists are starting to recognize that the “reformers” are not real reformers but privatizers.
It is starting to happen.
We will put education back into the hands of educators and parents and communities.
We will work to make our schools better than ever, not by competition, but by collaboration.
Last year, someone emailed and asked me to create and lead the movement to stop the corporate reformers, and I said I couldn’t do it, that all I can do is write and speak.
That truly is all I can do, but when I started this blog in late April, it turned into a platform for the movement, and leaders are emerging all over the country, and learning about each other. They are communicating.
I am not the leader, I am the facilitator. You are the leaders.

Add Carnegie Corporation to Billionaire Boys Club

by dianerav

The Carnegie Corporation doesn’t have as much money to throw into the corporate reform movement as the Walton Foundation, the Broad Foundation, and the Gates Foundation but it is definitely on the same page as the big guys. Here is its report on 2011 spending. The education grants begin on p. 24. And there they are: charter schools, Jeb Bush’s favorite “digital learning,” Common Core, Race to the Top policies, and the usual reformy organizations.

LISTEN TO DIANE RAVITCH 1-12-12 Diane Ravitch's blog

coopmike48 at Big Education Ape - 4 minutes ago

Diane Ravitch's blog: [image: Click on picture to Listen to Diane Ravitch] Kudos to the Teachers of Hamburg Central School District! by dianerav When teachers stand together and refuse to be bullied by the powerful, they deserve our commendation. The teachers in the Hamburg Central School District in New York voted overwhelmingly to reject a bad deal on teacher evaluation. In the plan at issue, the school superintendent would have been the sole arbiter on any appeals of a teacher’s rating. The teachers held out for an independent arbiter. They voted 217-82 not to accept EduSh... more »

Ray Glass, Student Governments, and Student Unionism «

Ray Glass, Student Governments, and Student Unionism «:

Ray Glass, Student Governments, and Student Unionism

by Angus Johnston

“Are Student Governments Obsolete?”, an early-70s essay by New York student activist Ray Glass, has enjoyed a boomlet of attention in recent months. A couple of people put the text up online, and it’s been getting passed around quite a bit — I keep seeing it pop up on Facebook and Twitter and various blogs.
Ray Glass was one of the founders of SASU, the statewide student association for SUNY, New York’s upstate university system. He was the engine behind SASU’s successful campaign to get an elected student representative on the SUNY system’s board of trustees (and on those of all the individual campuses), and was completing a stint as the organization’s legislative director when he was struck and killed by a drunk driver in 

Grumpy Educators: The Garfield Stand and the Common Core: Will They Both Come to a School Near You?

Grumpy Educators: The Garfield Stand and the Common Core: Will They Both Come to a School Near You?:

The Garfield Stand and the Common Core: Will They Both Come to a School Near You?

--> 

 The “Garfield Stand” may eventually come to a school near you following the roll out of the Common Core State Standards (CCSS) and related assessment implementation across the country.  What is the Garfield Stand?  It is what the teachers at Seattle’s Garfield High School are doing---they are taking a stand on important issues related to student assessment.  You can 

The Garfield Stand and the Common Core: Will They Both Come to a School Near You? | Truth in American Education

The Garfield Stand and the Common Core: Will They Both Come to a School Near You? | Truth in American Education:

The Garfield Stand and the Common Core: Will They Both Come to a School Near You?

by chascherrie

The “Garfield Stand” may eventually come to a school near you following the roll out of the Common Core State Standards (CCSS) and related assessment implementation across the country.  What is the Garfield Stand?  It is what the teachers at Seattle’s Garfield High School are doing—they are taking a stand on important issues related to student assessment.  You can read about it in the letter from teachers at Garfield High School and at additional links provided below.  Teachers at another school, Ballard High School, are not just in sympathy with their Garfield colleagues; they are taking the same stand.
This may be the start of our seeing the hundredth monkey phenomenon related to the CCSS and other education reform issues. Individual teachers may not be comfortable or may even be fearful of speaking out on these issues 

Common Core’s David Coleman on How We Think and Feel | California Father

Common Core’s David Coleman on How We Think and Feel | California Father:

Common Core’s David Coleman on How We Think and Feel

by California Father

Popout

This past week, I learned more about what’s in store for public schools. I was dismayed to find out, at our Tuesday faculty meeting, that Common Core, a new set of learning standards mandated in 46 states, deemphasizes the importance of fiction as well as the experiences in a child’s life that make stories (fables, 

No Teachers With Guns, No Police In Schools | K-12 News Network

No Teachers With Guns, No Police In Schools | K-12 News Network:

No Teachers With Guns, No Police In Schools

Posted on January 11, 2013 by admin

On December 30, 2012, President Obama said he doubted arming school police with guns will prevent future school shootings, but then January 11, 2013′s EdWeek hints that he may yield to local law enforcement officers and communities if it has “bipartisan” support.

While President Barack Obama said recently that he would be skeptical that more guns would be an answer to school safety, his administration is considering paying to add police officers to secure public schools, in part because it may be an area of agreement among lawmakers of all stripes.

In that same EdWeek article, my own Senator, Barbara Boxer, presented such a plan to Vice President Joe Biden:

California Sen. Barbara Boxer, a Democrat, told the Washington Post she presented the plan to Vice President Joe Biden and he was “very, very interested” and may include it policy recommendations he makes to President Obama.

“If a school district wants to have a community policing presence, I think it’s very important they have it,” Boxer said in an interview Thursday. “If they want uniformed officers, they can do it. If they want plainclothed officers, they can do it.”

…

Boxer’s initiative would provide federal dollars to schools that want to hire police officers and install surveillance equipment. It wouldn’t go as far as the National Rifle Association’s proposal to provide armed guards at every public school.

In Texas, Lt. Governor David Dewhurst calls for teachers to be trained in gun use:

Dewhurst said school districts would nominate who they wanted to carry weapons on campus. The training would be more extensive than what is currently required for Texas concealed handgun license and include how to react technically and emotionally in an active shooter situation on a school campus.

President Obama, Senator Boxer (!), Lt. Governor Dewhurst — are you INSANE? Have you lost your mind?

Do I need to surgically implant a spine in your back?

SIGN THE K12NN PETITION TO DROP THIS VERY BAD IDEA NOW.

For shame, I never would’ve thought my own “liberal” Senator would cave to the gun sales pitches of the NRA masquerading as policy. We do not need guns on campus. NCLB provides for expulsion of students who bring weapons, including guns, on campus. Then why do we invite adults to bring guns on campus in the name of “safety”? Do as we say, not as we do?

No Teachers With Guns, No Police In Schools

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Seattle Schools Community Forum: Guns for our Teachers

Seattle Schools Community Forum: Guns for our Teachers:

Guns for our Teachers

by Melissa Westbrook

There are few people in the Legislature who do not seem to represent the best thinking.

To whit:

• Newly-elected Rep Liz Pike, R-Camas wants "trained" teachers to carry guns in their classrooms.

From the Times:

GOP state Rep. Liz Pike helped to kick off the state gun-laws conversation last month with a widely read Facebook post that floated the idea of allowing teachers to carry guns in the classroom if they undergo training and pass a psychological evaluation. The program, modeled after one in place for airline pilots, would be 

ChoppEd: The Artistry of Teaching « Cooperative Catalyst

ChoppEd: The Artistry of Teaching « Cooperative Catalyst:

ChoppEd: The Artistry of Teaching

by Stephen Hurley

For most of my friends, it’s the high-energy music that gets them through their regular gym workouts. For me, its the podcasts and, specifically, the podcasts about education. Lately, I’ve been filling my iPod with the recordings that having been coming out Stanford University over the past couple of years. I find them to be engaging, relevant and even entertaining.

Today, I was listening to a talk given by Lee Schulman to teachers gathered at the 2011 Stanford Summer Teaching Institute (SSTI). As part of his introduction, Schulman referenced the popular reality-style cooking show, Chopped, which provides competing chefs with a basket full of ingredients and challenges them to create something fantastic. Here’s the program description from the Chopped website:

Chopped is a cooking competition show that is all about skill, speed and ingenuity. Each week, 

Robert F. Kennedy Jr. says he’s convinced his uncle’s assassination wasn’t work of 1 person - The Washington Post

Robert F. Kennedy Jr. says he’s convinced his uncle’s assassination wasn’t work of 1 person - The Washington Post:

Robert F. Kennedy Jr. says he’s convinced his uncle’s assassination wasn’t work of 1 person

(Tony Gutierrez/ Associated Press ) - Robert F. Kennedy Jr., left, makes comments during the opening minutes of a interview with journalist Charlie Rose in front of a full audience at the AT&T Performing Arts Center Friday, Jan. 11, 2013, in Dallas, Texas. The Kennedys are in Dallas as a year of observances begins for the 50th anniversary of President John F. Kennedy’s assassination.

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By Associated Press, Published: January 11 | Updated: Saturday, January 12, 12:26 AM

DALLAS — Robert F. Kennedy Jr. is convinced that a lone gunman wasn’t solely responsible for the assassination of his uncle, President John F. Kennedy, and said his father believed the Warren Commission report was a “shoddy piece of craftsmanship.”

Kennedy and his sister, Rory, spoke about their family Friday night while being interviewed in front of an audience by Charlie Rose at the Winspear Opera House in Dallas. The event comes as a year of observances begins for the 50th anniversary of the president’s death.

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Their uncle was killed on Nov. 22, 1963, while riding in a motorcade through Dallas. Five years later, their father was assassinated in a Los Angeles hotel while celebrating his win in the California Democratic presidential primary.

Robert F. Kennedy Jr. said his father spent a year trying to come to grips with his brother’s death, reading the work of Greek philosophers, Catholic scholars, Henry David Thoreau, poets and others “trying to figure out kind of the existential implications of why a just God would allow injustice to happen of the magnitude he was seeing.”

He said his father thought the Warren Commission, which concluded Lee Harvey Oswald acted alone in killing the president, was a “shoddy piece of craftsmanship.” He said that he,