Thursday, July 26, 2012

Big Education Ape Nite Cap UPDATE 7-26-12 #SOSCHAT #EDCHAT #P2




UPDATE UPDATE UPDATE UPDATE


Does Uncle Mike and the DOE Know Make Shinola From Shit?

Last week my wife and I went to register our son for his new middle school. He will be starting 6th grade, not only in a new school, but a new school district as well.

As we were waiting in the guidance office to meet with the guidance counselor, I picked up the school's 2012 yearbook and leafed through it. My eyes bugged out of their sockets like when Bugs Bunny fell for the female robot bunny that Elmer Fudd had created. Or was it Daffy Duck?

Aside from the color portraits of the stu






Boring Lessons? ReVamp with Videos!



I wanted to spice up my lesson on fact and opinion, but I wanted to make sure I was in the upper echelon ofBloom's Taxonomy. At this point in their schooliverse, my students are well versed in writing F and O on a worksheet. Not because of me, because you know how I feel about worksheets. I wanted to step it up! What to do? What to do?

 Wellllll, now that we have access to Youtube, I decided to take advantage of it! I was already a big fan of using 

What Went Wrong in Louisiana?

A reader posted the following comment.
As a public school teacher on the Northshore across the lake from New Orleans, educated in parochial schools for most of my elementary and high school years, I have been wanting to discuss the truth of education in the State of Louisiana for years, but it cannot be discussed publically, even though most people know the truth, a person could get killed or maimed at worst or at best, fired from a teaching position by openly speaking the unspeakable in today’s irrationally violent world. Under federal mandatory desegregation in 1969, I student taught English IV at a public high school in a Northshore Parish. Prior to this law, schools across the State were segregated into all black or all white public schools—“separate but equal” they called it. My senior high school class was composed of 10 white students and 10 black students, as were all of the other classes in the school. My white students could all read and write at grade level able to do “A, B or C” work. Half of my black students 



Taking Care of Education

Whenever there's an inaccurate statement about taxation in Illinois, the Illinois Policy Institute is nearby.

“The tax increase was supposed to take care of education…it didn’t,” Yelverton said


I suppose I could replay the tapes from the debate, but really, what would the point be? The tax increase was about generating enough revenue to keep the rating agencies from making it impossible to borrow money. It was also about 


Miss Laura Gets The Vapors Again!

Why, I do declare! It's time to get the fainting couch again for Miss Laura Waters!
Last week in this space, I wrote a rebuttal to Dr. Diane Ravitch's response to N.J. Education Commissioner Chris Cerf's charter school editorial. Dr. Ravitch, the leading conservative spokesperson in education today, contended that New Jersey is "beginning to revolt" against charters "because the state is trying to push them into suburbs that have great public schools and don't want them."
I tried to temper that argument, reinforce Comm. Cerf's definition of charters as "public schools, with public school students and public school teachers, funded with public dollars," and inject a little sanity into a debate that seems to polarize many people who otherwise share a passion for public education.
While I received some very supportive emails, the post ignited a host of negative comments, which


Strange Politics: Tracing Campaign Donations Part I

Categories: Campaign FinancePaul VallasStefan PryorSteven Adamowski
Tags: 
Examining who someone gives political donations to will often tell you a fair amount about their relationships, ideology, politics or priorities. Now that the 2012 campaign season is kicking into high gear, we’ll begin a new semi-regular segment called… Wait, What?  They Gave to Whom? Somewhat tongue in cheek, we’ll start by examining the contributions [...]
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