Newark Students Occupy School Board Meeting | National Opportunity to Learn Campaign | Education Reform for Equity and Opportunity

Newark Students Occupy School Board Meeting | National Opportunity to Learn Campaign | Education Reform for Equity and Opportunity:

Newark Students Occupy School Board Meeting

Posted on: Thursday May 22nd, 2014

Newark, NJ, is a city at a crossroads. For the past several years under the direction of state-appointed Superintendent Cami Anderson, the school district has followed the national trend of requiring schools to make do with fewer resources and closing (or turning into charters) those that struggle. Anderson's "One Newark" reorganization plan for the district has gotten push back from every corner of the city, including from students, parents, teachers and even the clergy.

But with the recent election of City Councilmember Ras Baraka as Newark's next mayor, all that might be about to change. Baraka and many of the parents, students and educators whose voices have been ignored by the state-run district are calling for Anderson to abandon the "One Newark" plan in favor of Baraka's "Newark Promise" plan. 

Rather than closing struggling schools, the Newark Promise plan would involve turning local schools into community schools that provide the wraparound academic, social and health supports that all children need to succeed. 

One of the most vocal opponents to the One Newark plan (and propponant of the Newark Promise plan) has been the Newark Student Union. Earlier this week the student organizers shut down a school board meeting by holding a sit-in and refusing to leave the district building. They are demanding that the district adopt the Newark Promise plan. 

Watch the below video from their inspiring action at the meeting. And download the Newark Promise plan here.

http://www.otlcampaign.org/

Glenn Beck's Angry and Ignorant Book About Common Core | Diane Ravitch

Glenn Beck's Angry and Ignorant Book About Common Core | Diane Ravitch:

Glenn Beck's Angry and Ignorant Book About Common Core

Posted: 05/21/2014 5:16 pm EDT Updated: 05/21/2014 5:59 pm EDT

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Over the years, we have seen a steady dumbing down of American culture, especially in the mass media. Whether newspapers, radio, or television, we have lost many of our well-educated, cultured, well-informed thinkers. Often they have been replaced by shock jocks, ranting talk show hosts, and an entire cable channel devoted to trashing liberals, liberal social programs, and labor unions.

I miss Walter Cronkite, Dan Rather, and dozens of other smart journalists who brought more than their opinions to their journalism. Bill Moyers is one of that breed. We need more.

Another thing I don't understand is why people on the far right like to paint their own country in the most negative tones while pretending to be patriots. I used to see a lot of this in right-wing think tanks, where people seized gleefully on every negative statistic to prove what a bad country this is; how horrible our public schools are; how dumb our teachers are; how we are doomed. Michelle Rhee's advertisements often make me think she really hates this country, that no one is smart enough or good enough for her. .

All of this is a long-winded way of disassociating myself from Glenn Beck's screed against Common Core and public education. It is called Conform: Exposing the Truth about Common Core and Public Education.

Here is a review by Hilary Tone of Media Matters that gives you an idea of how false and hysterical this book is. It is clear that Beck did not read Reign of Error. I won't be reviewing Conform. I am not interested in reading or writing about crazy right-wing attacks on our great American tradition of public education or on our nation.

In the same vein as the one now being mined by Glenn Beck is a video about a Florida legislator denouncing the Common Core because it will make all children gay. Seriously.

This is crazy stuff, and it makes it difficult if not impossible to have a reasonable Glenn Beck's Angry and Ignorant Book About Common Core | Diane Ravitch:

5-22-14 The Whole Child Blog — Creating a Better Tomorrow Today in the Middle Level: Lessons from Donald Sterling and the Los Angeles Clippers — Whole Child Education

Creating a Better Tomorrow Today in the Middle Level: Lessons from Donald Sterling and the Los Angeles Clippers — Whole Child Education:

THE WHOLE CHILD BLOG

Creating a Better Tomorrow Today in the Middle Level: Lessons from Donald Sterling and the Los Angeles Clippers

May 22, 2014 by Dru Tomlin

Most of us know the story by now. Donald Sterling, the former owner of the Los Angeles Clippers, was recently caught making inflammatory racial comments that stoked the cinders of hatred, burning through the NBA and creating a firestorm in the media and the nation.

When I heard about this story, I recoiled and surged with anger. And then, as a middle school teacher and administrator, I looked for the lessons. What could we learn from Mr. Sterling? What could we learn from the team? How could this experience inform middle level education as we reach and teach young adolescents who are creating their tomorrows today?

Donald Sterling can teach us about the curriculum of financial literacy. He clearly wielded the tools of money to gain power and accrue wealth, so it could be argued that he was financially literate.

But is that enough?

If Donald Sterling was a young adolescent walking the halls in your school house, what else would you want him to learn about financial literacy? Because we value young adolescents, it is critical that we help them understand the value of money and how it works. Students ages 10–15 years old need to know how to manage the tools of personal finance so they can be secure, engaged, and empowered. However, it is also vital that we help them understand how to build relationships, how to create teams, and how to serve within the curriculum of financial literacy.

For example, while our students gain insights into the world of wealth, shouldn't they also know how to use language (verbal and non-verbal) to bring people together and forge strong teams that are built on trust, Creating a Better Tomorrow Today in the Middle Level: Lessons from Donald Sterling and the Los Angeles Clippers — Whole Child Education:

5-20-14 The Whole Child Blog — ED Pulse Poll Results: What's the Best Part About Being a Teacher?

ED Pulse Poll Results: What's the Best Part About Being a Teacher? — Whole Child Education: THE WHOLE CHILD BLOGED Pulse Poll Results: What’s the Best Part About Being a Teacher?May 20, 2014 by Kit Harris, ASCD ResearchIn honor of Teacher Appreciation Week earlier this month and ASCD's ongoing efforts to celebrate, support, and recognize teachers, a recent ASCD SmartBrief ED Pulse poll asked educa

by mike simpson / 23h 

5-22-14 Curmudgucation Week

CURMUDGUCATION:

Did President Obama Ruin CCSS?

It's Obama's fault.The state-led initiative was chugging right along, moving forward without any interference from the feds, when somehow, they decided to leap in. Or as Kentucky Education Commissioner Terry Holliday recently put it, things were fine "until the President and secretary of education took credit for the Common Core."This is part of the current conservative CCSS support narr

by Peter Greene / 1h 

Happy Birthday, CCSS

It seems like just yesterday that the Common Core shambled out of its cave, wearing a tissue-paper cape emblazoned with "State Led" and flexing its big rigorous baby muscles.But it has been four years, give or take a bit (because gauging its birthday is hard, depending on which backroom deal, which protean form, which lunch meeting between Achieve and its buddies, or which Memorandum of

3 by Peter Greene / 37min 

Flunking Geography

If you want to find the grubby handprints of Rich People on education, look at the issue of geography.It has become fashionable for Reformsters to decry the influence of geography, to say that students should not be stuck with a school based on zip code, that community schools are quaint and all, but their time has passed. From Denver to Newark, Reformsters are taking deliberate aim at community s

7 by Peter Greene / 57min 

5-21-14 Curmudgucation Week

CURMUDGUCATION: EWA Holds Common Core Pep RallyThe Education Writer's Association has carried lots of water for the pro-test, pro-corporate, pro-Core, anti-public ed crowd, so there's no real surprise when it was time for a discussion about the state of CCSS, their convention panel of "experts" includes six CCSS shills and one actual voice for public education.Monday's panel included Den

by mike simpson / 13min 

5-22-14 Schools Matter

Schools Matter:

Responding to Meghan Daum's reactionary attack on the Class of 2014 social justice movements

‎"Washing one's hands of the conflict between the powerful and the powerless means to side with the powerful, not to be neutral. " — Paulo Freire LA Times columnist Meghan Daum takes issue with the Class of 2014's nationwide activism to resist and reject neoliberal reactionaries like Christine Lagarde and Condoleezza Rice as their commencement speakers. Her offensive College grads: With

2 by Robert D. Skeels ... / 51min 

A Prelude to TN Bonus Pay Report

From a clip in the Memphis Commercial Appeal:The retention bonusTennessee offered last year to keep strong teachers in low-performing schools likely was a factor for more than 70 teachers who signed on for another year in inner-city schools, most of them in Memphis.Of the 365 teachers that took the state up on the offer, 20 percent of them are more likely to have stayed compared to other high-perf

by Jim Horn / 51min 

Marshall Tuck's Legacy of Bigotry and Failure

First submitted May 21, 2014 to LA Progressive Portions of this article were contributed by Cheryl Ortega and Dr. John Fernandez. "Tuck will most likely have a huge pot of money in his war chest coming from the likes billionaire boys clubbers like Broad, DFER and other corporate reformers." — Professor Mike Klonsky Los Angeles Parents and Community Protesting Marshall Tuck. Photo by R

100+ by Robert D. Skeels ... / 1d 

5-19-14 Schools Matter

Schools Matter: Madeloni Beats TURNcoat Paul Toner for MTA PresidentAmazing and wonderful!  From CPS: Congratulations to Barbara Madeloni, president-elect, and Janet Anderson, vice president-elect of the Massachusetts Teachers Association. Madeloni, the former director of the Secondary Teacher Education Program at the University of Massachusetts Amherst, was elected at the MTA's annual meeting of

by mike simpson / 11min

Sweeping New Bill Seeks To Help Students With Disabilities, But It May Not Go Far Enough:

Sweeping New Bill Seeks To Help Students With Disabilities, But It May Not Go Far Enough

Sen. Tom Harkin (D-Iowa) speaks at an event in the Capitol Visitor Center to call on the minimum wage to be increased to $10.10 per hour. (Photo By Tom Williams/CQ Roll Call) | Tom Williams via Getty Images

 The bipartisan overhaul of the Workforce Innovation and Opportunity Act trumpeted in Washington, D.C. Wednesday includes provisions aimed to help students with disabilities find well-paying work, but some say the deal doesn't go far enough.

On Wednesday, Sens. Tom Harkin (D-Iowa), Patty Murray (D-Wash.) and Lamar Alexander (R-Tenn.), along with Reps. John Kline (R-Minn.), Virginia Foxx (R-N.C.) and George Miller (D-Calif.), announced the sweeping "bipartisan, bicameral" deal long in the making. The bill aims to modernize the 1998 law, which oversees $3 billion in job training programs, by eliminating 15 programs and creating universal performance metrics. Many expect it to advance.

For students with special needs in particular, the bill aims to make states more responsible for making sure those students graduate into jobs that allow them to make minimum wage and work alongside adults who have no disabilities. This move extends the often-controversial concept of inclusion in public schools into the workforce. Under the 1975 Individuals with Disabilities Education Act, another Harkin initiative, students with special needs must be given a "free and appropriate public education" in the "least restrictive environment."

But unlike IDEA, which covers students with special needs until they turn 21, workforce training programs for individuals with disabilities aren't entitlements, meaning that there are far more students who are eligible than receive the service, known as Vocational Rehabilitation.

The changes, Harkin said, "will raise prospects and expectations for Americans with disabilities, many of whom, under current law, are shunted to segregated, sub-Sweeping New Bill Seeks To Help Students With Disabilities, But It May Not Go Far Enough:

Tennessee Commissioner Huffman’s Accountability Immunity |:

Tennessee Commissioner Huffman’s Accountability Immunity

 

Following up on my most recent post, about the video capturing Tennessee’s Education Commissioner Kevin Huffman’s “Inspiring” TEDxNashville Talk, a VAMboozled! follower sent me a follow-up article linked here, “about the nightmare schools here in Tennessee have had with big testing/data [over] the past two days.”

Here’s the summary of the situation, although as captured in a different article written inThe Tennessean linked here and titled: “Tennessee to Let Schools [emphasis added] Out of TCAP [Tennessee Comprehensive Assessment Program] Requirement Due to Score Delay.”

It seems that “A move by [Huffman and his Tennessee] Department of Education to make exams better aligned to Common Core standards has delayed the release of [its TCAP] test scores…[T]he unexpected 10-day postponement will mean a four-year-old law designed to give more meaning to [the state's TCAP] standardized tests won’t be applied to many students, “as these test scores are to “account for 15 to 25 percent of Tennessee students’ final grades.”

“State officials first alerted Tennessee’s school directors of the delay on Tuesday afternoon, explaining that the state had narrowed assessments this year to eliminate factors not aligned with state standards and needed 10 more days to thoroughly review the results.” That is, state officials narrowed the test to (simply) remove items/portions from the tests that didn’t align with Common Core. As they are now figuring out, this was not as simple as it first may have seemed. Likewise, this should have been done with much more care and many more at the table (e.g., teachers for content validity) while doing so. It also seems that the state made these changes without keeping districts informed about the Tennessee Commissioner Huffman’s Accountability Immunity |:

empathyeducates – Enforcing School Dress Codes Teaches Girls to be Ashamed, Not ‘Modest’

empathyeducates – Enforcing School Dress Codes Teaches Girls to be Ashamed, Not ‘Modest’:

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Enforcing School Dress Codes Teaches Girls to be Ashamed, Not ‘Modest’

We need to stop telling girls that their existence is problematic to men. Photograph: Alamy
By Jessica Valenti | Originally Published at The Guardian. May 21, 2014

Dress codes assume that male students’ education needs to be protected. What girls need doesn’t rate

Now that the warm weather is here, everyone is happily boxing away sweaters and breaking out their summer clothes. But as students across the country are bringing out their t-shirts and dresses, school administrators are ramping up their efforts to quash cleavage and “risqué” outfits.

According to educators and even some parents, young women’s outfits – their bodies, really – are too distracting for men to be expected to comport themselves with dignity and respect. It’s the season of the dress code – so instead of teaching girls math or literature, schools are enforcing arbitrary and sexist rules that teach them to be ashamed of their bodies.

Take the example of a young woman in Virginia who was kicked out of her prom this month because fathers attending the event though her dress was giving rise to “impure thoughts”. Clare, 17, says her dress was well within guidelines for the event’s dress code – it was “fingertip length”. She wrote on her sister’s blog, “I even tried it on with my shoes, just to be sure.”

Still, she was asked to leave – thanks to a group of ogling dads perched on a balcony above the dance floor. “I am so tired of people who abuse their power to make women feel violated and ashamed because she has an ass, or has breasts, or has long legs,” she wrote

It’s not just proms that make for problematic interactions for young women. Everyday school dress codes disproportionately target, shame, and punish girls – especially girls who are more developed than their peers. In 2012, students at Stuyvesant High School in New York (my old school) protested the biased empathyeducates – Enforcing School Dress Codes Teaches Girls to be Ashamed, Not ‘Modest’:

Test Score Gate – for John White, Failure was not an option | Crazy Crawfish's Blog

Test Score Gate – for John White, Failure was not an option | Crazy Crawfish's Blog:

Crazy Crawfish's Blog

Zesty Louisiana Education Politics

Test Score Gate – for John White, Failure was not an option

Posted on May 22, 2014

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I first learned about the Test Score Gate Friday May 16^th while I was investigating some LODE payroll fraud, textbook kickback, using grants to reward allies and as bribes, and additional irresponsible data collection stories. I’m still pursuing those leads but this story has leapt to the fore in the collective consciousness in the meantime.

To give some background and context, May 16^th was a date LDOE had listed on their calendar as the date they would release how students did on standardized iLEAP and LEAP tests. These days, test performance has become hyped as the end-all-be-all in education. This year I have received numerous reports of school districts neglecting all other coursework and studies, for months prior to testing, to drill and kill students on test questions. These scores are used to determine SPS scores for schools (which determine which schools get closed or handed over to charter operators by the state), which teachers get fired or receive bonuses, and which student get promoted or retained or have to take summer school. Test scores have been made into a big deal and big business in Louisiana thanks to the efforts of John White and Paul Pastorek before him.

At the very first meeting John White had with the Louisiana Department of Education he told us if we were not directly involved with raising student’s math scores or English scores, we would not be working there much longer. Suffice it to say, John White has really made a big deal and placed a great amount of emphasis on testing and test scores. This is his primary focus and the measure of how he wants us to determine the success or failure of our teachers, schools and students. It’s how he wants to be measured as well. To not be prepared to release these scores on time would have been unthinkable with such a mindset.

My investigation confirmed that John White has all the reports and numbers run more than a week before the scheduled release date. However there was one thing he still wanted LDOE staff to do. He wanted them to get more directly involved in improving student test scores – than I thought they had been in the past. He wanted them to manually alter the test scores to make charters and RSD look good and traditional public schools look bad. I had no idea this was what he meant by having us (LDOE staff) directly involved with improving test scores in our state. Apparently, somehow, Test Score Gate – for John White, Failure was not an option | Crazy Crawfish's Blog:

5-22-14 The Answer Sheet

Answer Sheet:

Two Nigerian girls tell a different story

  It isn’t easy for a girl to get an education in Nigeria. The world’s attention has been focused for over a month on the kidnappings of a schoolful of girls in Nigeria by an Islamic extremist group called Boko Haram that doesn’t believe in Western education and or in education for girls. The fate […]

by Valerie Strauss / 10min 

Guess how many memos USDA sent to schools about healthy school lunches?

Federally funded school lunches have been in the news because Republicans in the U.S. House just voted to allow some schools to get a waiver from a law that requires lunches served to students to meet new health standards. Why? Apparently some schools can’t make enough money serving healthy foods because kids don’t want to […]

by Valerie Strauss / 23min 

5-21-14 The Answer Sheet

The Answer Sheet: Chicago principal publicly slams Mayor Emanuel and says he is ‘insulting’ educatorsA scathing letter (see below) by a Chicago school principal charging  Mayor Rahm Emanuel and his administration with ignoring and disrespecting teachers and principals has sparked a discussion in the city about school reform and how it is being implemented. The principal is Troy A. LaRaviere of Bla

by mike simpson / 21min 

Massachusetts Teachers Association Takes On High Stakes Tests, School Takeovers - Living in Dialogue - Education Week Teacher

Massachusetts Teachers Association Takes On High Stakes Tests, School Takeovers - Living in Dialogue - Education Week Teacher:

Massachusetts Teachers Association Takes On High Stakes Tests, School Takeovers

By Anthony Cody on May 22, 2014 10:45 AM

On Tuesday I shared news from Connecticut teachers who had succeeded in passing resolutions pushing back on high stakes testing and the Common Core. This came on the heels of a report from Michelle Gunderson of similar efforts by which members of the Chicago Teachers Union approved a resolution expressing their rejection of the Common Core State Standards. Today, we have a third report, this time from an activist named Mary Porter in Massachusetts. A single swallow may not make a spring, but here is the third one!  These stories reflect the experiences and viewpoints of the teachers who wrote them. Change seems to be in the air in our teacher unions.

Guest post by Mary Porter.

Activist rank-and-file movements are ramping up teachers unions' fight for justice, reason, and community solidarity by passing resolutions and winning offices across the country.  These are my personal observations on some of the historic changes at my own state's annual meeting. 

Five hundred first-time delegates attended the 2014 Massachusetts Teachers Association Annual Meeting May 9th and 10th, and I was among them.    I'd long been aware of the work of the Educators for a Democratic Union (EDU) caucus, which had worked tirelessly to organizein the past.     Nonetheless, I didn't imagine it was possible to change the actual course of my state's union until I picked up an EDU flyer on October 24, while attending a talk by Diane Ravitch about her book The Reign of Error at Memorial Church in the Harvard Yard. 

I went to the EDU caucus meeting with my husband, who teaches at University of Massachusetts at Massachusetts Teachers Association Takes On High Stakes Tests, School Takeovers - Living in Dialogue - Education Week Teacher:

5-22-14 LA School Report - What's Really Going on Inside LAUSD

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

Just the threat of ‘Parent Trigger’ helps parents get what they want

West Athens Elementary School It now appears that just the specter of a “Parent Trigger” action is enough for parents to get what they want. Lerina Cordero, mother of a first grade boy at West Athens Elementary in south Los Angeles, says parents there had been trying for years to get the school’s leadership to stop rampant bullying and to change an overall attitude of complacency with the school’s

by Vanessa Romo / 4min 

In new LAUSD policy, ‘jailed’ teachers to serve time at home

* UPDATED LA Unified’s so-called teacher jails get a whole new look, starting Tuesday. In a major policy shift, the district will no longer require teachers awaiting results of an investigation into charges against them to report to a district regional center or the downtown headquarters building. Instead, teachers will be allowed to spend their leave time at home, with the understanding that the

by Michael Janofsky / 31min 

Polls suggest McKenna, Johnson heading for LAUSD election runoff

From left: George McKenna and Alex Johnson With less than two weeks before the special election to fill a vacant seat on the Los Angeles Unified school board, two candidates appear to be leading the field of seven, suggesting the probability of an August runoff. People familiar with two separate but consistent polls of likely voters conducted by professional firms said the two leading candidates a

4min 

Morning Read: Racial tensions rise at Watts middle school

Racial tensions are rising at Watts middle school Fanning racial tensions at a Watts middle school, several African American parents asserted Wednesday that Latino administrators are unfairly targeting their children and unofficially suspending them from classes. The practices at Markham Middle School, parents said, contradict directives by the Los Angeles Board of Education and L.A. schools chief

28min  

5-21-14 LA School Report - What's Really Going on Inside LAUSD

LA School Report - What's Really Going on Inside LAUSD (Los Angeles Unified School District): Teacher at Kennedy High School is back after district removed herA librarian and teacher at John F. Kennedy High School, Leslie Garcia, is back at school shortly after being removed over allegations that she mishandled and manipulated the record-keeping of an after school provider, ARC. Garcia said she ha

by mike simpson / 21h