School addresses Charlie Sheen's Twitter rant, threats - latimes.com

School addresses Charlie Sheen's Twitter rant, threats - latimes.com:

School addresses Charlie Sheen's Twitter rant, threats

March 14, 2013 |  4:13 pm

 

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A Calabasas school on Thursday said actor Charlie Sheen may have placed it at risk by posting a message on Twitter encouraging his fans to leave rotten eggs, toilet paper and dog excrement at campus where his daughter once attended.

Charlie Sheen, known for his Twitter message rants, wrote that his daughter was bullied and called a liar.

"It's on!," Sheen tweeted.

He urged anyone with "rotted eggs, a roll of toilet paper" or dog waste to deliver it with "extreme prejudice" to Viewpoint School.

On Twitter, he encouraged his followers to make him proud and not tolerate the disrespect to his daughter. He encouraged them to smear the excrement in the name of the child he apparently 

Pass / Fail : Preschool teachers need schooling in health and nutrition facts -- and practices | 89.3 KPCC

Pass / Fail : Preschool teachers need schooling in health and nutrition facts -- and practices | 89.3 KPCC:

Preschool teachers need schooling in health and nutrition facts -- and practices

by Deepa Fernandes

Credit: Larry Crowe/AP
Digging into the concept of whether you can teach what you don't know, a recent survey by researchers at the University of Texas School of Public Health sought to uncover the health and nutrition knowledge --and practices-- of a group of teachers.
Two of the questions asked of almost 200 Head Start teachers in Texas:

• Do you know how many servings of fruits and vegetables we should eat each day? What about which of the five food groups we should be consuming most?
• Now stop and think about your diet yesterday. Did you eat enough fruit and vegetables, and consume 

California Teacher Layoffs Decline Because Of Prop 30

California Teacher Layoffs Decline Because Of Prop 30:

California Teacher Layoffs Decline Because Of Prop 30

by Joy Resmovits

After years of threatening to lay off tens of thousands of teachers due to budget shortfalls, California has some relatively good news: less than one-eighth of the number of teachers who got pink-slipped last year will be out of work next year.

After sending out 20,000 reduction In force notices to teachers last year, school districts in California have only sent out about 2,400 such letters so far this year, Dean Vogel, the president of the California Teachers Association union, told The Huffington Post. California educates one-eighth of the nation's students, and Friday is the last day school districts can let teachers know they may not have jobs next year.

The change follows California voters' passage in November of Proposition 30, which permanently raises income taxes on the wealthy while temporarily increasing the sales tax by a quarter of a penny in order to raise $6 billion in school and university funding.

"Had that not passed, we would have seen layoffs from the same category," Vogel said. "With the passage of 

Revolution or Sequestration? – @ the chalk face

Revolution or Sequestration? – @ the chalk face:

Revolution or Sequestration?

by Timothy D. Slekar

Someone has to say it.
Where the hell is the main stream media?
Look!
https://www.facebook.com/events/538840062805733/
http://www.oregonlive.com/portland/index.ssf/2013/02/portland_public_schools_studen_1.html
http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/answer-sheet/wp/2013/03/04/principal-i-was-naive-about-common-core/
http://www.texastribune.org/2013/02/23/capitol-education-rally-tough-words-legislature/
http://seattletimes.com/html/opinion/2020158085_jessehagopianopedxml.html
http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/answer-sheet/wp/2013/02/22/massachusetts-professors-protest-high-stakes-standardized-tests/
http://blogs.edweek.org/teachers/living-in-dialogue/2013/03/chicago_students_boycott_the_n.html
Jesse Hagopian, Alexcia Gracia, John Kuhn, Carol Burris, Alex Kasch, Professors in Massachusetts.  Students in Chicago.
Of course readers of @the chalkface recognize the stories and people listed above.  But what about the rest of

He aha te mea nui? He tangata. He tangata. He tangata. (Maori proverb)

by Activism in paradise - Voices from down under

What is the most important thing? 
It is people.
It is people
It is people.
I am reminded of this each time I see spin from New Zealand’s National government assuring us that charter schools are about the kids, about bolstering their achievement, raising their grades, helping them learn better.  And that they are in particular for our neediest communities.
Because, for all the hours I spend researching this and asking people to show me how charters will improve 

Action for 3-14-13: Share this parent trigger video | Parents Across America

Action for 3-14-13: Share this parent trigger video | Parents Across America:

Action for 3-14-13: Share this parent trigger video

by pureparents

Here’s a four minute video from the Education Opportunity Network. “Another Reform Misfires” features a parent, Lori Yuan, who opposed the trigger at her children’s elementary school in Adelanto, CA and John Rogers a professor from UCLA who has described the parent trigger as “a misguided approach to improving educational improvement and enhancing parental engagement.”

Parent triggers have been introduced in 14 states this year (see map below) and may be introduced in Pennsylvania this session as well.

UPDATE: Late breaking news: Penny Pritzker, bah bye. And two pension bills get through the Illinois House. | Fred Klonsky

Late breaking news: Penny Pritzker, bah bye. And two pension bills get through the Illinois House. | Fred Klonsky:

The in box. Can the SOIL enact no law that compensates these accounts from the assets of the crooks that knowingly misrepresented them?

by Fred Klonsky

Fred,
Why, in the name of all that’s fair and lawful do Illinois politicians insist that INNOCENT retirees sacrifice what they were PROMISED by politicians, who not only and utterly failed to live up to their responsibility to fund pensions but who BROKE U.S. law by knowingly misrepresenting the state of the pensions systems to equally innocent investors.
Where is the justice that the crooks who conceived & who enacted these illegalities get to keep assets and PENSIONS that SHOULD BE transferred to the very pension accounts these crooks misrepresented?
Can the SOIL enact no law that compensates these accounts from the assets of the crooks that 

Late breaking news: Penny Pritzker, bah bye. And two pension bills get through the Illinois House.

by Fred Klonsky

The only question is what millionaire heiress will Rahm choose to replace her.
Replace who?
Why the heir to the Hyatt Hotel fortune, Penny Pritzker. She resigned today from the CPS school board.
Rumors are she’s going  DC to head up the Commerce Department. Given her union-busting record, I’m surprised Obama didn’t pick her to head up the Labor Department.
Anyway, bah bye.
And bad news from Springfield.

SPRINGFIELD-The Illinois House passed pension reform measures Thursday that would cap “pensionable” salaries at Social Security wages and would 

Two more entries.

MARCH 14, 2013

To celebrate one million site visits I am sponsoring a contest.

As of today, you have less than 22,000 site visits to go.

Submit a tweet, haiku or limerick on a topic covered by this blog.

The deadline is March 31 or the millionth visit.

The winner gets the orange t-shirt.

The decision of the judges (that’s me) is final.

From anonymous:

There was a webmaster McBarron
The site-he didn’t like sharin’
He said to Fred Klonsky
You’re out-G’Bye-Goneski
A new one Fred began a-tearin’

This from Cori:

I was once so sad
Until I was led
To a guy named Fred.
He offered hope
So I could cope
With all the mopes.
(Administrators, politicians and etc; basically all those who are not teachers and trying to tell teachers how to do their job.)
His only schema
Is to reveal our dilemma
That we need an education utopia to review all the data!

Where are We Going and Why? — Whole Child Education

Where are We Going and Why? — Whole Child Education:

THE WHOLE CHILD BLOG

Where are We Going and Why?

March 14, 2013 by ASCD Whole Child Bloggers

Post submitted by Andy Hargreaves and Pasi Sahlberg.

We are entering an age of post-standardization in education. It may not look, smell, or feel like it, but the augurs of the new age have already arrived and are advancing with increasing speed. [This] Fourth Way pushes beyond standardization, data-driven decision making, and target-obsessed distractions to forge an equal and interactive partnership among the people, the profession, and their government.
- Andy Hargreaves, The Fourth Way, 2012

Educational systems across the globe are under pressure to change. Many countries are focusing attention on additional accountability, school choice and competition, short-term outcomes, and data-driven decision-making (what have been called the Second and Third Ways). Many high performing countries and systems, however, are reexamining their structures and policies to move towards greater collective professional autonomy from bureaucratic control, stronger active involvement of local communities and diversified teaching to respond to today’s widely varying populations of learners. This Fourth Way of educational reform heralds the next stage for educational improvement – a movement which reverts educational authority back from 

SPECIAL Mid Day Banana Break 3-14-13 #soschat #edreform

Big Education Ape - Mid Day Banana Break

Part Two Of My ASCD Article On Using Ed Tech In The Classroom

by Larry Ferlazzo

ASCD just published my article, Giving Teachers the Opportunity to Say “Yes” to Ed Tech, which is basically the second part of an article I wrote for ASCD Educational Leadership earlier this month.
Here’s a quote from it:

Seattle School District Announcements

by Melissa Westbrook

 From SPS Communications regarding the Strategic Plan, SE Region and Hiring/Spending Freeze:

Strategic Plan

Seattle Public Schools will host five community meetings to share information and ask for public comments about updating the District’s current Strategic Plan, Excellence for All. 

The updated plan will guide academic and operational priorities for the next three to five years and include ongoing benchmarking to measure the District’s performance.

The community meetings will be held:

· Monday, April 1, 6:30-8:30 p.m., at Eckstein Middle School auditorium, 3003 N.E. 75th St. (Interpreters available in Spanish, Somali, Vietnamese, Amharic and Tigrigna) 

Living in Numbers and Inequities

by Kuhio Kane

[Prompted by a blog comment from a parent regarding his children’s privacy and the law (See: dianeravitch.net) and while heading into the city to join other educators, parents, students, people, assembling to give greater voice to the conditions of public education.]
The takeover of public education is a picture of a contrived perfect storm.  Starving the beast.  Creating poverty and disruption in communities throughout our cities and states, the world, through the works of reactionary forces funded with limitless means.  The privatization of a country.  A recherche of finality.  An ascendancy  of governance as leveraged as the most toxic of derivatives,
Supremacy of markets designed to consummate the aggregation of wealth for the few,  while expelling the civil rights, the rights to equality of opportunity of at least the 47% who serve no economic viability, who are only seemingly considered an unconscionable approach on capital accumulation.  That half a country’s population 

Tom Kean: America's Most Confused Ex-Governor

by Duke

Make it stop! Make it stop!

Q: There has been some criticism that it is bringing in more private interests and privatization of public schools.

A [Tom Kean, former NJ Governor]: I have never been for private school vouchers. I have always felt public money should be in public schools, but that doesn’t mean you shouldn’t have good charter schools, which are public schools, or that you shouldn’t have good public school choice.

It doesn’t mean that money doesn’t matter, but it needs to be targeted money and targeted reform. More money into a failing system is just a more expensive failing system. I used to 

Parents Worry Over New Online Database of Student Information

by Ilya Marritz

Public school parents are criticizing a new program that puts students’ information in an enormous online database.
Since December, the New York City Department of Education has uploaded student information, such as home addresses and test scores, to a cloud-based database shared with seven other states.
The database is maintained by an Atlanta nonprofit called inBloom. InBloom says it does not share information without permission from the school district. But parents said they were wary.
A recent story by Reuters raised possibilities that were disturbing to many parents: that their children’s data

Quick Hits: Pi Day Edition

by Gabriella Berman

Happy Pi Day! In honor of this mathematical day, take a look at these nine amazing charts. (The Washington Post)
The best way to celebrate Pi. Whether you are eating pie today or not, here are some of the best ways tocelebrate National Pi Day. (USA Today)
From homeless to Stanford. A teenager who spent part of his life going from one homeless shelter to another is now college bound! Lane Gunderman will attend Stanford University for free thanks to a full scholarship from the school. (Huffington Post)
Technology to improve learning outcomes. The trend of online learning in K-12 is continuing to grow. Research shows that technology mixed with face-to-face learning, or blended learning, is often extremely beneficial to students. ES’s Susan Headden recently profiled one such success story in The Right Mix.

What happened when a Rhode Island state senator took a student standardized test?

by Valerie Strauss

A Rhode Island state senator was one of the first of some 50 adults who have agreed to take a version of the state’s standardized test, part of an action aimed at protesting a new high school testing graduation requirement … Continue reading →

In the News: CPS gets more than fair share, GOP says

Illinois Senate Republican leader Christine Radogno said at a press conference Wednesday that Chicago "receives a disproportionate share of the state's education resources" thanks to "outdated (funding) formulas, a de-emphasis on the foundation level which equalizes school districts' property wealth and a shift to special grant(s)," Crain's Grez Hinz reports.

This week, CPS officials posted a Request For Proposals for logistics management services, including inventorying equipment, putting locks on doors, hiring movers and making sure that records get to the schools where the displaced students end up. CPS asked companies bidding on the job to give prices for 20, 40, 60, 80, 100 and 129 schools.

Mayor promises better city tax collections, defends decision to close schools

by thenotebook

Mayor Nutter's annual budget address on Thursday, which was initially shouted down by protesters in City Council chambers, called for better collection of taxes and advocacy for increased funding in Harrisburg, but made no promises of additional city revenues for schools this year. Nutter also explained his advocacy of school closings and promised to provide safe transit for students to their new schools.
Here is the prepared text of the portion of his speech devoted to the school system:
read more

Boston Schools Adopt New Placement Plan for Students

by By KATHARINE Q. SEELYE

Instead of busing children across the city to achieve racial integration, the Boston School Committee approved a plan designed to allow students to attend schools closer to home.

News of Press conference and Assembly bill to block privacy violations of children

by Molly

Great news!  Yesterday, Assemblymember Daniel O'Donnell introduced a bill that would block the NY State Education Department and DOE from sharing our children's confidential data with the Gates-funded corporation called inBloom Inc., and would block inBloom from disclosing it with for-profit vendors without parental consent.  The bill is A6059, please call your Assemblymembers today and ask them to co-sponsor.  Your Assembly member can be found here.

Here is an article in the Daily News about this outrageous plan; here is my accompanying oped. Other relevant newsclips are from the Washington Post, the Denver Post and CBS News, AP , Politics 365,  with more to come. Check back soon.

Our press conference on the steps of Tweed this morning was terrific.  Among those who spoke out against this 

Grant High students protest standardized testing with walkout

by Dana Tims, The Oregonian

A little more than a dozen students participate, saying that standardized testing is a waste of time and money that should be better spent on classroom instruction.

Original enclosure (grantprotest1jpg-2ddda0937b063136.jpg)

Weekly LegFax: Too much testing!

by pureparents

Parent Voices Weekly Education Fax

March 13, 2013

 Replace massive standardized testing with meaningful assessment

 The story: Parents and students across the U.S. are opting out of standardized tests

A Texas mother and her son share outdoor learning while his schoolmates are indoors taking the state test (http://tinyurl.com/axwmhgq). Teachers and students in Seattle boycotted the state high school test (http://tinyurl.com/a4zmrqs). Chicago parents are passing petitions to stop the explosion of tests (http://tinyurl.com/a7pwkx9). Oregon parents are standing behind their high school students’ test boycott (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1hu447OLLHk). This week, students at one Chicago high school refused to take a national standardized test to protest the emphasis on test scores over student safety (http://tinyurl.com/bbqkqpg).

PAA’s position: PAA believes that excessive reliance on standardized exams narrows the curriculum, promotes teaching to the test and leads to unfair and unreliable evaluations of students, teachers, and schools. We support high-quality accountability measures and reliable assessments including true multiple measures.

PAA recommends:

•  Use of multiple factors in the evaluation of schools, teachers and students. This should include a variety of evidence of learning gathered at different points in time, within and across subject areas.

• Any evaluation system must have meaningful input from administrators, teachers and parents.

• Assessment transparency – require that all standardized tests be made public and available for review in a timely manner after they have been given.

• Less standardized testing overall. Utilizing tests as diagnostic tools, not as a way to punish students, teachers and schools.

• Right of parents to opt their child out of any standardized test.

For more detail, please see PAA’s position statement on NCLB, “What Parents Want in a New Federal Education Law,” http://parentsacrossamerica.org/paa-reforming-esea/