Big Education Ape

Wednesday, June 7, 2017

There’s More to Teaching Than Telling – Live Long and Prosper

There’s More to Teaching Than Telling – Live Long and Prosper:

There’s More to Teaching Than Telling

It’s important for teachers to have content knowledge before they try to teach. Peter Greene – Curmudgucation – wrote,

Yes, teaching is both a skill and an art and to do a good job, you have to know the skill and the art of teaching. But just as you can’t have waves without water or air, you cannot have “teaching skills” without content knowledge– and all the teaching skills in the world will not make up for lacking knowledge. You cannot make an awesome lesson about adding two plus two if you do not know that the result is four. You cannot lead your students through an illuminating and inspiring study of Hamlet if you have never read the play yourself.

This is true, absolutely.

It’s also true for teachers of young children. Early childhood educators and elementary teachers need to understand the reading, math, social studies, and There’s More to Teaching Than Telling – Live Long and Prosper:

Republicans Reverse Tax Cuts in Kansas - The Atlantic

Republicans Reverse Tax Cuts in Kansas - The Atlantic:

The Death of Kansas's Conservative Experiment

Republicans in the state legislature on Tuesday voted to reverse Governor Sam Brownback’s signature tax cuts, dealing a blow to the kind of fiscal policy the Trump administration wants to enact nationally.

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The nation’s most aggressive experiment in conservative economic policy is dead.

Republican majorities in the Kansas legislature on Tuesday night voted to reverse the deep tax cuts engineered by Governor Sam Brownback five years ago, blaming them for blowing a hole in the state’s budget that threatened the viability of its schools and infrastructure. Brownback, a conservative first elected in 2010 on a platform of phasing out Kansas’s income tax entirely, stood by his vision even in spite of an electoral backlash last year. But a coalition of Democrats and newly-elected Republicans overrode his veto of legislation to raise $1.2 billion in revenue by hiking personal income taxes and repealing a widely-criticized exemption for small-business owners. Tax rates will now go up to levels near where they were before Brownback took office.

The stark shift in policy was months, if not years, in the making. Lawmakers in the GOP-controlled House and Senate came within a few votes of undoing the tax cuts in February as lawmakers searched for revenue to plug a nearly $900 million two-year budget gap and meet a court order demanding more funding for education.

For Brownback, a former senator and one-time presidential hopeful, the vote was nothing less than a humiliation. He had hailed his tax cuts as “a real live experiment” in conservative governance and offered them up as a model for other states and the Trump administration. Instead, they left him as the most unpopular governor in the country, who was reportedly casting about for a federal posting that would allow him to escape Topeka before the legislature could eviscerate his legacy. “The Brownback experiment didn’t work. We saw that loud and clear,” said Heidi Holliday, executive director of the Kansas Center for Economic Growth.

The move will reverberate in Washington, where the Trump administration is Republicans Reverse Tax Cuts in Kansas - The Atlantic:

Read James Comey's prepared testimony for Senate Intel

Read James Comey's prepared testimony for Senate Intel:

'I need loyalty, I expect loyalty' — read James Comey’s explosive statement about Donald Trump

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Former FBI Director James Comey is scheduled to testify before the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence on Thursday.

His opening remarks were published on Wednesday.

In his statement, Comey recounts a January 27 dinner with President Donald Trump, who said "I need loyalty, I expect loyalty."

Comey said, "I didn't move, speak, or change my facial expression in any way during the awkward silence that followed. We simply looked at each other in silence."

While the conversation moved on, Comey said that Trump returned to the topic later in the evening. The FBI director said he tried to explain the importance of the Department of Justice's independence from the White House.

"Throughout history, some Presidents have decided that because 'problems' come from Justice, they should try to hold the Department close. But blurring those boundaries ultimately makes the problems worse by undermining public trust in the institutions and their work," Comey said in his prepared remarks.

Last month, Trump terminated Comey. The president said in a letter addressed to the fired FBI director, "It is essential that we find new leadership for the FBI that restores public trust and confidence in its vital law enforcement mission."

Earlier Wednesday, Trump announced that he had picked Christopher A. Wray to succeed Comey as FBI director.

Read Comey's full statement below:

James Comey's testimony as prepared for delivery by CNBC.com on Scribd

This is breaking news. Please check back for updatesRead James Comey's prepared testimony for Senate Intel:

Buying Influence – Have You Heard

Buying Influence – Have You Heard:

Buying Influence

Have You Heard Episode #19: Big Money and School Board Elections

Today’s $17 million question: how did school boards become the must-have accessory for the donor who has everything? That’s the question that Jack Schneider and I put to researcher Rebecca Jacobsen, who has been studying the role of big donors in school board races across the country. Jacobsen walks us through the emergence of a certifiable trend: big money influencers *nationalizing* school board elections in an effort to force through a familiar bundle of education reforms, often crowding out local priorities and candidates. You’ll recognize plenty of familiar names on the donor list—and they certainly recognize one another. As Jacobsen and her colleagues demonstrate in this handy image of their findings, these big spenders are a tight knit club. It’s Have You Heard #19! Full transcript below.

Jennifer:	Welcome to another edition of Have You Heard. I’m Jennifer Berkshire.
Jack:	And I’m Jack Schneider.
Jennifer:	And Jack, I’m going to assume that when listeners hear the topic of today’s episode, school boards …
Jack:	They’re going to fall asleep.
Jennifer:	They are, people thinkBuying Influence – Have You Heard:

Kaffer: The broken promises of school choice

Kaffer: The broken promises of school choice:

Nancy Kaffer: The broken promises of school choice

Video: http://on.freep.com/2rDuQ6V

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Paul Robeson Malcolm X Academy, according to the ideology of charter school advocates, shouldn't exist.

Twenty-four years ago, that was the promise of Michigan's charter school movement, helmed by Betsy DeVos, now U.S. Secretary of Education: The market can solve the deficiencies of the public school system; the competition provided by charter schools will force struggling or failing traditional public schools to improve or shut down.

So perhaps DeVos, whose plans to expand school choice even further, can explain Paul Robeson Malcolm X. Academy.

The Detroit elementary school, subject of a Chalkbeat Detroit article published Tuesday, recounts significant troubles: Because Detroit is experiencing a 100-plus teacher shortage, with another 260 vacancies filled permanently by substitute teachers, a staff absence means no subs are available. So classes double up — on the day in question, teacher Rynell Sturkey's class comprised 37 first-graders crammed so tightly into a classroom that Sturkey could barely move around the room. It happens, Sturkey told Chalkbeat, three or four times a month.

Day of the Spy Diane Ravitch's blog | A site to discuss better education for all

Diane Ravitch's blog | A site to discuss better education for all:

Day of the Spy Diane Ravitch's blog

A site to discuss better education for all

Valerie Strauss Recaps Betsy DeVos’s Testimony about the Budget and Civil Rights

by dianeravitch / 11min

I confess. I didn’t watch Betsy DeVos testify. I didn’t want to. No one pays me to blog every day, so I have some discretion in how I use my time. What I did instead, which was very taxing, was to watch preview DVDs on the PBS special

An Open Letter to the Education Minister of Liberia

2by dianeravitch / 41min

Education International, which represents teachers unions around the world, issued a bulletin about disturbing developments in Liberia, which threaten freedom of research about the performance of corporate outsourced schools. EI wrote in a letter I received: “As you would be aware, just over 12 months ago, in an unprecedented move, the Government of Liberia announced its intention to out-source i

Sources of Innovation: Our Public Schools, Honoring Outstanding Student Broadcast Journalism

1by dianeravitch / 41min

Looking for innovation? Check out your public schools, where the entire district can collaborate to develop new ideas and sustain them, and where districts can exchange and incubate good ideas and practices. On June 5, the Southold Independent School District honored high school students engaged in broadcast journalism. Representatives of schools from across Long Island gathered for the inaugural

Chan-Zuckerberg Put Their Money on Depersonalized Learning

4by dianeravitch / 41min

Boy wonder Billionaire Mark Zuckerberg and his wife Dr. Priscilla Chan are placing their bets on technology to teach children better than humans. https://www.insidephilanthropy.com/home/2017/6/6/chan-zuckerbergs-

Georgia Reviews Low-Performing Charter Schools

2by dianeravitch / 22min

Charter schools were supposed to “save poor children from low-performing public schools.” But some of them are low-performing schools , worse than the public schools the children leave. The State Charter School Conmission is

New York: NYSAPE Blasts State ESSA Plan

2by dianeravitch / 35min

New York State Allies for Public Education represents more than 50 parent and teacher organizations. It has led the Opt Out movement, in which 20% of the eligible children have refused the state tests year after year, including 50% on Long Island. Their members regularly attend legislative hearings in Albany and meet with legislators. They attend meetings of the Board of Regents. They follow the

Audrey Watters: Education Technology as “The New Normal”

2by dianeravitch / 1h

Audrey Watters blogs about technology. This post was recommended by a reader. This is a speech posted on her blog that she delivered at an ed-tech conference in Mexico. Here is a brief excerpt: “When I hear the phrase “the new normal,” I cannot help but think of the ways in which those same words were used in the US to describe the economy during and since the financial crisis of 2007–2008 and su

Nevada Rejects ESA Vouchers, But Funds Tax Credit Voucher

3by dianeravitch / 1h

A voucher is a voucher is a voucher. It means shifting public tax money to private schools. The Democrat-controlled Nevada Legislature rejected Education Savings Accounts vouchers, which would have allowed every family to have a debit card for education. It was hailed by conservatives as the best universal voucher program in the nation. But it will not be funded. However, the Democrats did alloca

Alan Singer: Pearson and the Neo-Liberal Global Assault on Public Education

8by dianeravitch / 2h

Alan Singer writes here about the global ambitions and activities of Pearson, the giant British corporation that seeks to dominate education. He writes: “Powerful forces are at work shaping global education in both the North Atlantic core capitalist nations and regions historically referred to as the Third World. Neoliberal business philosophies and practices promoted by corporations and their pa

YESTERDAY

Congratulations, Peter Greene!

2by dianeravitch / 11h

Today, Mr. and Mrs. Peter Greene welcomed Walter and William into the world. Congratulations to the family! Thank you for giving these two beautiful gifts to this troubled world to bring you and all who know them great joy!

Fake News about the Saudi Arms Deal

6by dianeravitch / 19h

Bill Moyers’ website reports: Showmanship –> On returning from his first foreign trip, Donald Trump touted the $110 billion weapons deal he’d cut with the Saudi government. But Bruce Riedel, director of the Brookings Intelligence Project, writes that “there is no deal. It’s fake news.” According to Riedel, “there are a bunch of letters of interest or intent, but not contracts. Many are offers tha

CNN on NSA Leaker

4by dianeravitch / 20h

CNN reported that Realty Winner, the woman accused of leaking a top-secret document about Russian interference in the 2016 election, called Trump the “orange fascist” on a social media account. Now we know why she leaked that document and why she will never be pardoned. Ten years in jail.

URGENT: Why NSA Contractor Leaked Top-Secret Evidence of Russian Interference in 2016 Election

12by dianeravitch / 21h

A woman working for an NSA contractor heard a podcast by The Intercept in which Glenn Greenwald and others expressed skepticism about Russian hacking of the 2016 election. According to news reports, she copied top-secret evidence and sent it to The Intercept to prove that Russians hacked into election software before the 2016 election. “On March 22, The Intercept hosted a podcast online looking a

NY Times: The Tech Billionaires Who Are Remaking America’s Schools

17by dianeravitch / 22h

This is an important article about the Silicon Valley billionaires who want to remake America’s schools, although none has any deep knowledge of children or cognition or the multiple social issues that affect children and families. Being tech entrepreneurs, most of them think there is a technological fix for every problem. The article focuses on several billionaires and what they aim to achieve.

Jan Resseger: Meet the National Lobbyists Who Have Pushed a Far-Right Wing Agenda into the States

23by dianeravitch / 23h

Jan Resseger read Gordon Lafer’s new book, “The One Percent Solution: How Corporations Are Remaking America One State at a Time,” and she understood the pattern on the rug. “Gordon Lafer explains that in the November 2010 election, “Eleven state governments switched from Democratic or divided control to unified Republican control of the governorship and both houses of the legislature. Since these

Nancy E. Bailey: Pre-School Rigor Is Child Abuse

87by dianeravitch / 1d

Well, she didn’t exactly use that term, but I did. Bailey reviews a study that calls for more “rigor” in preschool and the New York Times’ shameless endorsent of this finding. What if someone did a study and concluded that leeches are the best curative and every hospital should order a supply? Just because someone does a “study” doesn’t mean that it is just or reasonable. Suppose a study found th

Take One Minute to Learn Why TFA Is a Problem

32by dianeravitch / 1d

This is a very brief video about Teach for America. It demonstrates the saying that a picture is worth a thousand words. It needs to be updated: a one minute video is worth a 10,000 word essay of the video is well done. Salute the arrival of a brilliant new film production company. It won’t make anyone rich because it gives away its product for free. It is the BadAss Teachers Association and Stev

“The Demolition of American Education,” By Trump and DeVos

12by dianeravitch / 1d

I wrote an article for the New York Review of Books about the proposed Trump-DeVos budget. The whole world needs to know what Trump and DeVos want to do to limit access to college and to undermine public education.