“If I were King in America” attends a private/public NH EdSummit that refuses attendance to a pre-approved teacher | Reclaim Reform

“If I were King in America” attends a private/public NH Education Summit that refuses attendance to a pre-approved teacher | Reclaim Reform:

“If I were King in America” attends a private/public NH Education Summit that refuses attendance to a pre-approved teacher

John Kasich, the “moderate” candidate for president, hates teachers so much that he attended an Education Summit in New Hampshire that refused attendance to a pre-approved teacher who had a valid ticket. Private organization pretending to be pro-education do things like this.

Edushyster Jennifer Berkshire reports via twitter.

The Ohio governor (R), who wishes to be King, wouldn’t even allow teachers to speak to each other or be allowed a room to speak in. “If I were king in America, I would abolish all teachers’ lounges, where they sit together and worry about, ‘Woe is us.'”

It is also important to realize that Donald Trump is a distractor to make the other republican candidates, such as Kasich and Bush, appear moderate. Of course the latest North Carolina poll shows that Trump is running neck-to-neck against Deez Nuts. (No joke, though I wish it wasn’t.)

“The new PPP poll revealed independent candidate Deez Nuts is polling at 9 percent in the Tar Heel state. Running as an independent from Wallingford, Iowa; population 197, Deez Nuts has gone viral and has a large fan base.”

The scapegoating of career teachers continues with a degree of hate mongering that is mind boggling. There is nothing funny about this.

Teachers, parents and all who hope to see America’s children advance and succeed must educate people to this hate mongering and insane scapegoating that pretends that massive numbers of rotten teachers are destroying America even as corporations dismantle schools for their own private profit. Untaxed profits from American tax dollars. Profits shipped to foreign tax havens which are not even addressed by these corporate-paid politicos.

This has to end, or America as a world leader will end.“If I were King in America” attends a private/public NH Education Summit that refuses attendance to a pre-approved teacher | Reclaim Reform:

High school exit exam bill heads to Assembly on Thursday | EdSource

High school exit exam bill heads to Assembly on Thursday | EdSource:

High school exit exam bill heads to Assembly on Thursday

 The state Assembly Appropriations Committee on Wednesday unanimously approved SB 725, which would eliminate the requirement for class of 2015 seniors to pass the California High School Exit Exam.

Some seniors who were planning to take the exam in July are in limbo after the California Department of Education abruptly cancelled it.

The bill, which originally called for the development of new visual and performing arts content standards, this week was gutted and amended by its author, Sen. Loni Hancock, D-Oakland. The action will replace language in the original bill with new wording exempting the students from the requirement to pass the exam to receive a diploma.

“She wanted to put this forward because of the 5,000 students who can’t graduate because they can’t take a test that doesn’t exist anymore,” said Larry Levin, a spokesman for Hancock. “That’s why it was amended into another bill of hers.”High school exit exam bill heads to Assembly on Thursday | EdSource:

NPE Endorses Jason France, AKA Crazy Crawfish, for BESE – The Network For Public Education

NPE Endorses Jason France, AKA Crazy Crawfish, for BESE – The Network For Public Education:

NPE Endorses Jason France, AKA Crazy Crawfish, for BESE

The Network for Public Education is proud to endorse Jason France for Louisiana Board of Elementary and Secondary Education (BESE), District 6. Jason France, also know as the education blogger Crazy Crawfish, is a former Louisiana Department of Education employee, a public education activist, and the parent of two Baton Rouge public school students.

Jason is running for Louisiana BESE to “remove the outside influence of corporations and the federal government (and their phony education surrogates) to allow parents and educators the freedom and final say over the education of their children.”

France is running for the seat currently occupied by BESE President Chas Roemer. Roemer is the son of former Louisiana governor Buddy Roemer – he has never attended public school, and his children don’t attend public school. He has been a champion of “charter schools, Common Core, test-based evaluations for schools and teachers and Education Superintendent John White,”according to the Times-Picayune. Roemer is a classic example of the privileged few making decisions for other people’s children.

The next BESE Board will have a crucially important to role to play in the future of public education in Louisiana. The next board will decide to keep or fire controversial reformster State Superintendent John White, who has stated a desire to stay in the position. A flip in District 6 would mean the potential for real change for students and teachers in Louisiana.

NPE is certain Jason France is just the candidate to help bring about the kind of revolutionary change needed in Louisiana. Please visit Jason’s campaign website to learn more about his policy positions on issues such as Charters, Common Core, Testing, VAM, and Student Privacy. You can also read the most recent post on his blog, which is a direct appeal to the voters of Louisiana.

“Louisiana, if you really want to fix education, you need to examine the motivations of folks that are pitching their ideas to you and stay focused on your chief goal – fixing education outcomes and preparing children for a lifetime of learning – rather than being tied down by a single solution, candidate, or ally.”

Jason’s years of activism in his home state have won him the support of some of Louisiana’s most prominent voices in the fight for public education.

Career classroom teacher, researcher, and writer Mercedes Schneider says:

“Jason France is a committed and knowledgeable fighter for the community school. His experience as a former LDOE data manager continues to be invaluable as the Louisiana public seeks a level of transparency that current state superintendent John White and the current BESE majority fight to conceal. As a BESE board member, France will be in a position to truly hold White, LDOE, and BESE accountable to the Louisiana public they are supposed to serve. I wholeheartedly endorse France as the next representative for Louisiana BESE District 6.”

And indefatigable New Orleans Education Advocate Karran Harper Royal adds:

“Jason France is extremely knowledgeable about the issues facing public education in Louisiana.  As a public school parent, Jason will bring the kind of informed and invested voice that has been missing from education policy making in our state.”

Jason’s work has not only been on the local and state level, his advocacy has extended to the NPE Endorses Jason France, AKA Crazy Crawfish, for BESE – The Network For Public Education:

RECAP: GOP New Hampshire Education Infomercial 2015

The New Hampshire Education Summit 2015 - YouTube:



The New Hampshire Education Infomercial 2015

for the love of learning: How can parents and teachers help each other?

for the love of learning: How can parents and teachers help each other?:

How can parents and teachers help each other?

This post will be featured in Cathy Rubin's The Global Search for Education: Our Top 12 Teacher Blogs.

Here are 4 understandings that help parents and teachers to educate children.



1. Teach the whole-child. Ask any parents what their long-term concerns and goals are for their children, and seldom will you hear about test scores and world rankings. Their concerns are compelling, existential and heartfelt. Parents want their kids to be happy, hard-working, motivated, responsible, honest, empathetic, intelligent, collaborative, creative and courageous. Of course we want our children to grow academically, but we also want them to grow emotionally, socially and physically, and this requires a well-rounded education.



2. Teaching and parenting is about relationships, relationships, relationships. Parents and teachers know that children do not care what you know until they know that you care about them. Good teaching and parenting is less about doing things to children and more about working with them. Because rewards and punishments are by definition manipulative and coercive, they undermine our relationships and therefore need to be tempered or even abandoned. This means teachers would not use token economies or classroom management schemes that treat children like pets and parents wouldn't use time-outs or bribes.

3. Good parents and teachers are not born -- they are made. Parenting and teaching are the easiest jobs to get wrong and the hardest to get right. Regardless of experience and expertise, we are all human and are subject to impatience and ignorance.  The best parents and teachers don't waste their limited time, effort and resources on blaming and shaming -- instead, they see every problem as an opportunity to teach and learn.

4. Public education is not a private interest for an elite few -- it is a public good for all. Public education, like democracy, is reserved only for those who fight for it. First time parents don't realize how important sleep is until it is taken from them -- the same is true for our public schools.

The only thing that destructive education policies require to thrive is for good people to do nothing. Parents and teachers must work together as stewards for our public schools and demand that public education remain a public good for all. This requires parents and teachers to pay attention as much or more to their public schools as their favourite sports and celebrities.for the love of learning: How can parents and teachers help each other?:

Read my chapter on teaching without grades

 http://www.joebower.org/

CPS Slammed for Cuts That Hurt Special Ed While Funding Charter Schools - Irving Park - DNAinfo.com Chicago

CPS Slammed for Cuts That Hurt Special Ed While Funding Charter Schools - Irving Park - DNAinfo.com Chicago:

CPS Slammed for Cuts That Hurt Special Ed While Funding Charter Schools

IRVING PARK — Cindy Ok says she doesn't know how Chicago Public Schools will be able to educate its special needs students if the district's budget cuts go through.

Ok, of Ravenswood, is the mother of two sons who attend Jackie Vaughn Occupational High School, 4355 N. Linder Ave., for students with special needs. The children look forward to going to school and, with the help of an aide, take the CTA to and from classes.

That aide's job is now in jeopardy due to CPS' budget cuts, Ok said. About 1,400 people — most of them special education personnel and CPS Central Office employees — would be laid off as part of a $200 million cut to fix a budget hole.

"This is very disturbing," she said. "I've never seen anything like this."

Ok was one of about 20 speakers Tuesday night at a CPS budget hearing held at Schurz High School, 3601 N. Milwaukee Ave. in Irving Park. Afterward, she told DNAinfo that she fears CPS, by laying off personnel like aides who provide services to students with special needs, is making it so "no meaningful educational moments" can occur at Jackie Vaughn.

Vaughn faces more than $46,000 in cuts while its enrollment is projected to rise by seven students to 207 this year.

The hearing, attended by ranking CPS officials, including CEO Forrest Claypool, started with officials telling the crowd that the district faces declining state funding CPS Slammed for Cuts That Hurt Special Ed While Funding Charter Schools - Irving Park - DNAinfo.com Chicago:

New mutant lice resistant to common treatments in 25 states, including Texas | abc13.com

New mutant lice resistant to common treatments in 25 states, including Texas | abc13.com:

STUDY SHOWS LICE IN AT LEAST 25 STATES NOW RESISTANT TO COMMON TREATMENTS

BOSTON, MA (KTRK) --

New research suggests head lice are getting even harder to kill.

A study conducted by researchers at Southern Illinois University suggests there is a new species of mutant lice that are resistant to most over-the-counter treatments.

"What we found was that 104 out of the 109 lice populations we tested had high levels of gene mutations, which have been linked to resistance to pyrethroids," said Kyong Yoon, Ph.D., who conducted the research.

Pyrethroids are a type of insecticide used in many lice treatments.

Tips to keep lice out of your child's head.

Yoon said he gathered head lice from 30 states for his study, and he discovered lice in 25 of those states, including Texas, had development resistance to treatments such as RID Lice Killing Shampoo and Nix Cream Rinse.

"If you use a chemical over and over, these little creatures will eventually develop resistance," Yoon said. "So we have to think before we use a treatment. The good news is head lice don't carry disease. They're more a nuisance than anything else."

Yoon is presenting his findings this week at the 250th National Meeting & Exposition of the American Chemical Society.New mutant lice resistant to common treatments in 25 states, including Texas | abc13.com:







Mutant lice are probably coming! But first, the hype - CNN.com http://cnn.it/1JiV016

Jersey Jazzman: School "Turnaround": A Fool's Errand

Jersey Jazzman: School "Turnaround": A Fool's Errand:

School "Turnaround": A Fool's Errand

 Bob Braun tells us the Newark Public Schools are plowing ahead with their school "turnaround" plans as part of One Newark, all evidence to the contrary be damned:

The latest round of state-mandated school “reforms” imposed on the children, parents, and employees in the Newark public schools has created a bizarre situation in which virtually the entire staffs of so-called “turnaround” schools will be new and unknown to both neighborhood residents and to each other, many of these new teachers already have signaled their opposition to the changes mandated by the reform, and  faculty will be working two different schedules in the same schools.

That could hardly be a recipe for success. So, maybe it is a deliberate plan for failure.

[...]

The absurd set of circumstances was created when then state-imposed superintendent Cami Anderson announced that nine more schools would be added to the list of so-called “turnaround” schools that would–theoretically–operate on an extended day schedule with a staff of committed volunteers who had bought into the reform.

But it hasn’t turned out that way. Teachers had the right to opt out of the reform although they were warned they would be transferred to other schools, no matter how long they had worked at their home school. Many–if not most–teachers refused and they were transferred.

But here’s the kicker: Many were transferred from their home “turnaround”

- See more at: http://jerseyjazzman.blogspot.com/2015/08/school-turnaround-fools-errand.html#sthash.U3R1vdHO.dpuf

Blog Comment Spammers Making Me Nuts

I've been trying to block my comment spammers, but it's getting increasingly hard. I just called one particularly awful abuser -- a small company right here in NJ that apparently hired a hack to do their social media -- and told them I'd consider legal action if they don't knock it off.

I'm turning on comment moderation for a while. And I'm considering migrating over to Wordpress, which will likely cause a big drop in my traffic for a while. But it may be worth it just to stop the spam, and to have some better control over the design of the blog.

I've noticed that most of the commenting about my posts takes place on Facebook or Twitter anyway. That's fine; both seem to have much better control over spammers attaching themselves to my accounts than Blogspot.

For those who write real comments here regularly, thank you - I really do appreciate it.

- See more at: http://jerseyjazzman.blogspot.com/2015/08/blog-comment-spammers-making-me-nuts.html#sthash.3j8doQBN.dpuf

BustED Pencils Trending News: NAfMA Wins For ARTS; Ed In China; WISCAPE Vision | BustED Pencils

BustED Pencils Trending News: NAfMA Wins For ARTS; Ed In China; WISCAPE Vision | BustED Pencils:

Trending News: NAfMA Wins For ARTS; Ed In China; WISCAPE Vision 

  

NAfMA gets a win for the Arts.  HUGE step!!

SENATE PASSES ACT THAT THE ARTS ARE CONSIDERED CORE SUBJECTS

http://theodysseyonline.com/unr/senate-passes-act-that-the-arts-are-core-subjects/127337

America style Ed in China. WHAT?????

Made in America: China’s Importing Charter Schools

http://news.yahoo.com/made-america-chinas-importing-charter-schools-191817725.html

Our blogtalkradio show at Michelangelo’s with guests Jason Lee and Noel Radomski from WISCAPE – An amazing group of people -CHECK IT OUT! THEY have A vision!

Surviving the Republican assault on the University of Wisconsin.

http://www.blogtalkradio.com/bustedpencils/2015/07/30/surviving-the-republican-assault-on-the-university-of-wisconsin

Get BustED Pencils Trending News to come right to your in-box!

Enter your email under “SUBSCRIBE” on our Home or Trending News page atbustedpencils.com 

BustED Pencils Trending News: NAfMA Wins For ARTS; Ed In China; WISCAPE Vision | BustED Pencils:

State School Takeovers Steal Democracy, Ignore Poverty | janresseger

State School Takeovers Steal Democracy, Ignore Poverty | janresseger:

State School Takeovers Steal Democracy, Ignore Poverty

The takeover of the public schools in New Orleans followed a natural catastrophe, the destruction of the city by Hurricane Katrina and the failure of the levies.  The mass charterization of the city’s schools is said by its proponents to have improved education for the children who have returned, but the takeover remains controversial. What is less controversial is the impact of the imposition of the Recovery School District on democratic ownership and governance.  I will always remember the words of a New Orleans mother who cried out at a national meeting, “They stole our public schools and they stole our democracy all while we were out of town.”

Politicians are rather cavalier about state school takeovers and the imposition of “achievement school districts” and “recovery school districts” when the families served by the schools are poor.  While New Jersey‘s governor Chris Christie would be unlikely to dismiss the role of the local school board in Montclair or Princeton, he didn’t hesitate to disdain the citizens of Newark when he proclaimed on television, “And I don’t care about the community criticism.  We run the schools in Newark, not them.”

Tennessee‘s Achievement School District, created to seize the lowest-scoring 5 percent of that state’s schools, has been managing schools in Nashville and Memphis for some years without stunning success, despite the rhetoric on its website that says the state takeover is designed to “bust barriers” and “catapult” the low scoring schools “straight into the top 25 percent.”  Chris Barbic ran the Tennessee Achievement School District from May 2011 until late July, when he resigned after test scores had hardly risen and none of the schools reached the top 25 percent.

And in Michigan, Governor Rick Snyder issued an executive order in mid-March to transfer the state body that has been overseeing the state takeover of low-scoring schools from the Department of Education to the Department of Technology, Management and Budget, a department directly under Snyder’s control.  His executive order declared, “Despite not State School Takeovers Steal Democracy, Ignore Poverty | janresseger:

Malloy administration gives towns the Common Core SBAC test results but not the public - Wait What?

Malloy administration gives towns the Common Core SBAC test results but not the public - Wait What?:

Malloy administration gives towns the Common Core SBAC test results but not the public

Action violates Connecticut’s Freedom of Information Act.

This morning Governor Dannel Malloy’s Commissioner of Education, Diana Wentzell, held the state’s annual back-to-school meeting for Connecticut superintendents at Al Prince Vo-Tech High School in Hartford.

Considering his anti-public education agenda, it was not surprising that Malloy was a no-show at the meeting.  Instead, Lt. Governor Nancy Wyman attended the meeting, despite the fact that both Malloy and Wyman are attending a joint event at 10am in nearby Middletown.

State Department of Education staff informed school superintendents that starting today they could access their district’s 2015 SBAC test results via the State Department of Education’s website, but they could not share the information since the results were “embargoed.”

Embargoed?

Superintendents were warned that the state will not be making the test results public until the week of August 31^st, 2015.

Local school officials were told that they were not allowed to inform parents, teachers, their local Board of Education or the public about the SBAC results are released by the state.

In a companion memo provided to superintendents, the State Department of Education wrote;

“It is critical that districts do not make embargoed results public before the embargo is lifted.  Releasing results (including discussing with the press or sharing results at Board of Education meetings) prior to the lift of the 

Malloy administration gives towns the Common Core SBAC test results but not the public - Wait What?:

CURMUDGUCATION: Hunger Strike in Chicago

CURMUDGUCATION: Hunger Strike in Chicago:
Hunger Strike in Chicago

http://www.reclaimourschools.org/

Education reformsters have a selective deafness problem when it comes to not-white, not-wealthy citizens, and that is on display again in Chicago, where community activists are staging a hunger strike this week in an attempt to get Chicago Public Schools to actually pay attention to them.

Members of the Bronzeville community have been fighting for Dyett High School since it was marked for phaseout in 2012; CPS cited academic failure. CPS stretched the closing over four years to allow students already enrolled to finish their careers there; that resulted in just twelve seniors being enrolled last year. Supporters of the school say that CPS pressured those remaining students to transfer out; CPS says it was just "gauging interest." Certainly Dyett hasn't enjoyed a great deal of support from CPS-- no infusion of resources or attempt to actually fix the alleged academic shortcomings.

Instead of talking about how to revitalize the school, CPS has been entertaining proposals about what to replace it with, including a proposal from the principal brought in to shut the place down-- that particular proposal has been considered even though it was handed in late. But the school seems marked to be one more victim of the mayor's wholesale slashing of neighborhood schools.

But here's what you need to know about the community activists of Dyett High School-- they have done everything that you're supposed to do in such a situation. They put together a proposal for a school focusing on green and leadership studies, complete with partners and support, that would have allowed the area to keep its last open-enrollment high school. CPS has hemmed and hawed and at one point said, okay, you can keep the school under this plan as long as we still hire someone to run it.

Activist Jitu Brown had some thoughts about that, as reported by Edushyster:

"Why can’t we have public schools? Why do low-income minority students need to have their schools run by private contractors?" As Brown sees it, handing the school to a private operator isn’t much better than closing it. "We want this school to anchor the community for the next 75 years. We’re not interested in a short-term contract that can be broken."

So while CPS has twiddled their thumbs and stalled, the supporters of Dyett have organized and petitioned and called and done what people do when they are ignored-- steadily escalated. They CURMUDGUCATION: Hunger Strike in Chicago:

Campbell Brown's Edusummit AM

Today is Campbell Brown's education summit in New Hampshire, featuring six GOP candidates and some other filler. It's an all-day extravaganza. The live streaming had some trouble hitting its stride, so I missed the opener and the first part of Jeb Bush's turn in the soft, comfy chair (there are no hot seats anywhere at this summit.)

I had no intention of watching, but it's like netflixing a bad comedy series-- you just keep sticking around a little bit longer. So I have no super-coherent observations about the morning with Bush, Fiorina, and Kasich (Jennifer Berkshire is there for Edushyster, so I look forward to her write-up). But there are several things that jump out.

"God-given"

That's the preferred modifier for the talents and abilities of students. This not only lets candidates name-check God, but it also sidesteps any discussion about what effects poverty and environment might have on the talents and abilities that a student brings to school.

Local control is union control

Yeah, this is a new but already-beloved talking point. If you let people have local control, those damn unions will just buy the elections, just like they did in...well, somewhere. The problem with this talking point will be coming up with an actual example of a local school board that is run by the bought-and-paid-for tools of the teachers union.

Cognitive dissonance

Holy smokes but the candidates disagree with themselves. Kasich thinks local control is awesome, but the state takeover of Cleveland and Youngstown is also awesome. This is a sticking point for all three candidates, who love them some local control and decry the evils of top-down federal over-reachy policy-- but you can't privatize and get charters and choice unless you open up the market by shutting down local voters.

Also teachers unions are terrible and awful and a barrier to great things in education, but teachers 

Campbell Brown's Edusummit AM

Teacher Shortage? Or Teacher Pipeline Problem? : NPR Ed : NPR

Teacher Shortage? Or Teacher Pipeline Problem? : NPR Ed : NPR:
Teacher Shortage? Or Teacher Pipeline Problem?

Listen to the Story

Morning Edition

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Ah, back-to-school season in America: That means it's time for the annoyingly aggressive marketing of clothes, and for the annual warnings of a national teacher shortage.

But this year the cyclical problem is more real and less of a media creation. There are serious shortages of teachers in California, Oklahoma, Kentucky and places in between.

A big factor: Far fewer college students are enrolling in teacher training programs, as we reported this spring, exacerbating a long-standing shortage of instructors in special education, science and English as a second language. In California, enrollment in teaching programs is down more than 50 percent over the past five years. Enrollment is down sharply in Texas, North Carolina, New York and elsewhere.

Add to those enrollment numbers the stagnant pay, attrition, retirements, an improving economy and politicized fights over tenure, and you've got the makings of a genuine problem in some regions.

"All of those things together are creating a serious challenge for us," Troy Flint, spokesman for the Oakland Unified School District in California, tells NPR Ed. "The teacher shortage we're facing in Oakland is significantly more dire than in previous years. We just don't have as many teachers in the pipeline."

With the new school year set to begin Aug. 24, Oakland has some 50 classroom vacancies. "The biggest challenge this year has come from the nationwide teacher shortage impacting all education employers, especially California public schools," Antwan Wilson, the district's superintendent, wrote this week in an email to staff and parents.

California has more than 21,000 teaching positions to fill. Districts laid off or eliminated some 80,000 teaching jobs between 2008 and 2012 during the recession. And as the economy rebounds, more young people have more options.

The shortage areas tend to be worse in districts with budget woes, a concentration of high-poverty areas and systems that are experiencing strong population growth.

Take Nevada, for example. In some districts, such as Clark County, which is home to Las Vegas, population growth has meant the district can't build enough schools to meet demand or find enough teachers, especially when you can potentially make more money with tips as a card dealer in a casino.

Pay is clearly an issue, especially in cities with high housing and living costs like those in the Bay Area, one of the nation's costliest regions. The annual starting teacher in Oakland makes a little more than $42,000. The average monthly apartment rent in the area is $2,802, according to Forbes.Teacher Shortage? Or Teacher Pipeline Problem? : NPR Ed : NPR: