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Saturday, July 1, 2017

Special Nite Cap: Catch Up on Today's Post 7/1/17


Special Nite Cap: Catch Up on Today's Post 7/1/17
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Today is Diane's Birthday Diane Ravitch's blog | A site to discuss better education for all





CURMUDGUCATION: Alternative Certification Paths
CURMUDGUCATION: Alternative Certification Paths : Alternative Certification Paths We need alternative paths to the classroom. Mind you, we don't need paths that are shortcuts. We don't need an alternative path that is just a five 

Meeting Needs Of Homeless Youth: Public Schools vs. Government | PopularResistance.Org

Meeting Needs Of Homeless Youth: Public Schools vs. Government | PopularResistance.Org : Meeting Needs Of Homeless Youth: Public Schools Are Doing What Government Won't Do Directly Above Photo: Food is served to students at Public School 397 in New York, November 21, 2013. (Photo: Joshua Bright / The New York Times) Dr. Art McCoy, superintendent of schools in Jennings, Missouri, is a humble man.
What Philanthropy and Community Learned in the Wake of the Pulse Nightclub Shooting | Schott Foundation for Public Education

What Philanthropy and Community Learned in the Wake of the Pulse Nightclub Shooting | Schott Foundation for Public Education : What Philanthropy and Community Learned in the Wake of the Pulse Nightclub Shooting This June marked the anniversary of a day that holds many titles: the deadliest mass shooting by a single shooter in the United States the deadliest incidence of violence against the LGBTQ
Why John Adams saw July 2 as America’s true Independence Day - The Washington Post

Why John Adams saw July 2 as America’s true Independence Day - The Washington Post : Why John Adams saw July 2 as America’s true Independence Day (This is a version of a post I have published previously around the Fourth of July) July 4, of course, is Independence Day, a federal holiday celebrated to commemorate the adoption in 1776 of the Declaration of Independence, which split the 13 American
Officials restore money to L.A. schools soon after making controversial funding cuts - LA Times

Officials restore money to L.A. schools soon after making controversial funding cuts - LA Times : Officials restore money to L.A. schools soon after making controversial funding cuts Barely a week after the Los Angeles Board of Education approved a budget based on reduced federal anti-poverty aid, schools officials have restored nearly all of the funding. The added dollars will help L.A. Unified
Keeping retirement weird. Charter schools at the NEA Representative Assembly. | Fred Klonsky

Keeping retirement weird. Charter schools at the NEA Representative Assembly. | Fred Klonsky : Keeping retirement weird. Charter schools at the NEA Representative Assembly. After 20 years, my last NEA RA was a couple of years ago in Orlando. For a couple of decades I celebrated the Fourth of July weekend in what ever town the National Education Association was holding their national Representativ
Mike Klonsky's SmallTalk Blog: Chicago in violation of state law on ELL. Charters worst violators.

Mike Klonsky's SmallTalk Blog: Chicago in violation of state law on ELL. Charters worst violators. : Chicago in violation of state law on ELL. Charters worst violators Most of the worst violators of state law were charter schools. Fifteen were run by the UNO Network of Charter Schools; nine were run by the Noble Network of Charter Schools. Source: Chicago Public Schools Congrats to Chicago Report
What should students know about religion? New guidance on teaching it in public schools. - The Washington Post

What should students know about religion? New guidance on teaching it in public schools. - The Washington Post : What should students know about religion? New guidance on teaching it in public schools Try to guess when this was written: “In this era of educational reform, the social studies curriculum has been a frequent target of critics representing every point on the political spectrum. While
Badass Teachers Association: The School Years Fly By Like Months by Dr. Michael Flanagan

Badass Teachers Association: The School Years Fly By Like Months by Dr. Michael Flanagan : The School Years Fly By Like Months by Dr. Michael Flanagan This week concludes my 31st year in education. It seems the school years fly by like months, each one faster than the last. I blink and another year has gone. Teachers crawl to summer break, and question if we are making a difference at all. Pack a
Today is Diane's Birthday Diane Ravitch's blog | A site to discuss better education for all

Diane Ravitch's blog | A site to discuss better education for all : Today is Diane's Birthday Diane Ravitch's blog A site to discuss better education for all Help wish Diane a Happy Birthday! July 1st is Diane’s birthday. She asks for only one gift: the hope that America’s public education system will thrive for the sake of our children – all of our children. The Network for Public Education, the
It's gonna be a Wowser: SBE Agenda for July 2017 - State Board of Education (CA Dept of Education)

SBE Agenda for July 2017 - State Board of Education (CA Dept of Education) : SBE Agenda for July 2017 Agenda for the California State Board of Education (SBE) meeting on July 12-13, 2017. State Board Members Michael W. Kirst, President Ilene W. Straus, Vice President Sue Burr Bruce Holaday Feliza I. Ortiz-Licon Patricia A. Rucker Niki Sandoval Ting L. Sun Karen Valdes Trish Williams Olivia Sison,

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Special Nite Cap: Catch Up on Today's Post 6/30/17

Special Nite Cap: Catch Up on Today's Post 6/30/17 Featured Post New school board member Kelly Gonez isn't as pro-charter as many donors to her campaign - LA Times NEA teachers' union nixes longtime gadfly's bid to cover convention


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CURMUDGUCATION: Alternative Certification Paths

CURMUDGUCATION: Alternative Certification Paths:

Alternative Certification Paths

Image result for alternative paths

We need alternative paths to the classroom. 

Mind you, we don't need paths that are shortcuts. We don't need an alternative path that is just a five week long truncated training that wouldn't prepare a camp counselor for a summer with jumpy ten year olds. We don't need alternative paths used by charter operators to train people to fill their own charter openings with not-too-qualified bodies. And we definitely don't need the alternative path, favored by more and more states, that is no path at all, but just dumping someone into a classroom when her only qualification is a college degree and a pulse.

Most of the alternative paths in use these days are intended to help businesses fill openings or to help politicians look like they are addressing the teacher "shortage" (a shortage that is really a lack of willingness to do what it takes to make teaching more appealing work).

These alternative paths are bad-- bad for the profession, bad for the people who follow them, bad for the schools where those "teachers" end up working.

But it would also be a mistake to suggest that if you didn't decide to pursue a teaching degree when you were nineteen or twenty, the window has closed and you can never choose teaching as a career.

Nor is it reasonable to expect a later-in-life career switcher to somehow navigate a traditional teacher education program while still supporting herself or her family.

So what would a real alternative certification path for career-changers need to look like?

* Some standard of content knowledge. Yes, even if you're a former astrophycisist who wants to teach first grade. Knowing content well enough to use it in your profession, and knowing it well 
CURMUDGUCATION: Alternative Certification Paths:

Meeting Needs Of Homeless Youth: Public Schools vs. Government | PopularResistance.Org

Meeting Needs Of Homeless Youth: Public Schools vs. Government | PopularResistance.Org:

Meeting Needs Of Homeless Youth: Public Schools Are Doing What Government Won't Do Directly

Food is served to students at Public School 397 in New York, November 21, 2013. (Photo: Joshua Bright / The New York Times)


Above Photo: Food is served to students at Public School 397 in New York, November 21, 2013. (Photo: Joshua Bright / The New York Times)
Dr. Art McCoy, superintendent of schools in Jennings, Missouri, is a humble man. But when he speaks of his school district as “a lighthouse for informed practices that respond to the needs of homeless and low-income kids,” his pride is obvious.
As a leader of the movement pushing public schools to address the overlapping emotional and material needs of impoverished students, Jennings is a model — stepping in to provide food, shelter, health care and consolation to students who need it. Not surprisingly, school districts throughout the US are looking to Jennings for inspiration, especially since federal and state governments have done very little to assist this population.
Jennings is adjacent to Ferguson, the small city that was catapulted to prominence in August 2014 after police murdered 18-year-old Michael Brown. Each of Jennings’ eight public schools — with an enrollment of 2,600 students, most of them poor and 160 of them homeless — have “comfort rooms”: private spaces where students can meet with counselors and address the obstacles they’re facing.
“The biggest issues for our students are domestic violence and the death of a loved one,” McCoy states. “About 2,000 of our 2,600 enrolled students see school-based therapists each academic year to address the multiple traumas in their lives.”
This alone would be a staggering achievement, but Jennings schools do far more: They distribute more than 8,000 pounds of free food every two weeks, and no-cost washers and Meeting Needs Of Homeless Youth: Public Schools vs. Government | PopularResistance.Org: