Big Education Ape

Tuesday, January 28, 2020

The Responsibilty of Teaching Students to Become “Engaged Capable Voters”and the Slippery Slope | Ed In The Apple

The Responsibilty of Teaching Students to Become “Engaged Capable Voters”and the Slippery Slope | Ed In The Apple

The Responsibilty of Teaching Students to Become “Engaged Capable Voters”and the Slippery Slope

The Campaign for Fiscal Equity (CFE) decision requires New York State to provide a “sound basic education,” and, goes on to define the term;

… sound basic education should consist of skills necessary to enable children to eventually function productively as civic participants capable of voting and serving on a jury. Productive citizenship means more than just being qualified to vote or serve as a juror, but to do so capably and knowledgeably. It connotes civic engagement. An engaged, capable voter needs the intellectual tools to evaluate complex issues, such as campaign finance reform, tax policy, and global warming, to name only a few. Ballot propositions in New York City, … can require a close reading and a familiarity with the structure of local government

Are we working towards enabling our students to become “engaged, capable voters” and provide them with the “intellectual tools to evaluate complex issues?”

If we stay within the confines of required courses and examination preparation, the answer isprobably not. We should set aside time to use the presidential election process as a teaching tool.

The nation is currently engaged in the candidate selection process, a primary CONTINUE READING: The Responsibilty of Teaching Students to Become “Engaged Capable Voters”and the Slippery Slope | Ed In The Apple

CURMUDGUCATION: McKinsey's New Baloney Sales Pitch For Computerized Classroom

CURMUDGUCATION: McKinsey's New Baloney Sales Pitch For Computerized Classroom

McKinsey's New Baloney Sales Pitch For Computerized Classroom

McKinsey is the 800 pound gorilla of consulting, a behemoth with their own set of values about how to drag everything into MarketWorld (I recommend Anand Giridharadas's Winners Take All for a closer look at how that world looks). They have occasionally dipped their toes into the world of education because, hey, there's a lot of money in that pool. One notable adventure was their plan for re-structuring the Boston school system, which was mostly about cutting all manner of expenses, like, you know, food for the students. They also like to make the occasional bad argument for heavy duty data analytics.

Of course, the Hot New market in education is computerizing the classroom. It's got everything-- more opportunities to sell both hardware and software as well as cutting back the money spent on those classroom meat widgets with their expensive teaching degrees. The main thrust of the computerized classroom has been Personalized [sic] Learning (powered by super-duper AI), but Jill Barshay at Hechinger Report captures in one neat, understated paragraph why that is not living up to entrepreneurial expectations:

For much of the previous decade, advocates of education technology imagined a classroom where computer algorithms would differentiate instruction for each student, delivering just the right lessons at the right time, like a personal tutor. The evidence that students learn better this way has not been strong and, instead, we’re reading reports that technology use at school sometimes hurts student achievement.

God bless Barshay for writing "computer algorithm" instead of Artificial Intelligence.

But you see the problem-- it's going to be hard to market this stuff if it doesn't really work. What's a CONTINUE READING: CURMUDGUCATION: McKinsey's New Baloney Sales Pitch For Computerized Classroom

LAUSD District 3 Election: The Hunter Becomes the Hunted

LAUSD District 3 Election: The Hunter Becomes the Hunted

LAUSD District 3 Election: The Hunter Becomes the Hunted

What we accept as normal today with regard to education, I want your grandchildren to tell you that you were crazy to accept.”– Bernie Sanders

It has been over five years since my wife, Nicole, and I sat in a conference room in Eli Broad’s LAUSD headquarters and decided to take on the district’s bureaucracy. To be honest, I did not even know who my school board member was at the time. We just knew that fighting the district to make sure that my two daughters received services that their teachers agreed that they needed was an untenable situation and we wanted to do our part to Change the LAUSD. My first campaign for the LAUSD School Board was born.

Former LAUSD Board Member Tamar Galatzan (from LAUSD archives)

It did not take long to realize how deeply entrenched the problems were at the district or that my representative on the school board was part of the reason the LAUSD was headed straight towards catastrophe. Tamar Galatzan was a Los Angeles Deputy City Attorney moonlighting as a school board member. She was a strong supporter of the then-superintendent John Deasy and his $1.3 billion iPad debacle. Too busy with her day job, she was missing in action as Deasy flubbed the implementation of MiSiS and had to spend over $133.6-million in an attempt to fix the resulting problems. She promised a school additional funding if it converted to a pilot school even as the source of those funds dried up.

The Author and “Tamar Antoinette” during the 2015 campaign (Nicole Petersen)

Even with all of these problems, Galatzan was considered invincible. Her campaign’s bank account was heavily padded by those promoting charter schools and she enjoyed the support of Los Angeles’ privatizer in chief, former mayor Antonio Villaraigosa. Even so, five candidates lined up to challenge her in the March 2015 primary election.

Elizabeth Badger and I were the first competitors to declare and met soon afterward at a town hall hosted by the incumbent. We exchanged contact information after a debate during George McKenna’s special CONTINUE READING: LAUSD District 3 Election: The Hunter Becomes the Hunted

Monday, January 27, 2020

enrique baloyra: Should taxpayers have to fund private schools? - YouTube

Should taxpayers have to fund private schools? - YouTube
Should taxpayers have to fund private schools?

enrique baloyra

This week the Supreme Court heard a case over whether states must fund religious schools. In Espinoza v. Montana Department of Revenue, the plaintiffs argue that their religious liberty is being violated after the Montana Supreme Court struck down a program that provides tax credits for donations to private school vouchers.
In their ruling, the state court cited a clause in the Montana constitution prohibiting “any direct or indirect appropriation or payment from any public fund or monies […] to aid any church” or religious school.
Justice Kavanaugh argued this provision advances “grotesque anti-Catholic bigotry,” citing 19th century Blaine amendments.

But Montana’s constitution was rewritten in 1972.
It’s worth noting here that Stillwater Christian School, where the plaintiffs send their children, advances anti-LGBTQ ideology. Another school that participates in the program expels students for “lesbian, gay, bisexual, and/or transgender conduct” and forces employees to sign an agreement that they “will not engage in such behaviors.”
Now, nobody is denying these private entities the right to teach whatever hate and bigotry they choose . And that dinosaurs and humans lived together.
And it’s perfectly within a parent’s right to protect their children from learning “Arabic numerals,”commonly referred to as “numbers.”
“But shouldn’t […] taxpayers also have a right not to subsidize these teachings, which may violate their own religious beliefs or freedom of conscience?” https://slate.com/news-and-politics/2...
What’s missing from the argument is the underlying reason why parents send their children to private school. It’s called Polite White Supremacy.
That’s why some parents choose to take their kids out of their neighborhood public school, even when they learn it outperforms their “school of choice.”
And it’s why school segregation is worse today than it was before Brown v. Board.
Also missing from the discussion is how fourteen states — including Utah, North Carolina, Arizona, Indiana, and Florida — have provisions in their constitutions requiring a uniform system of schools. https://www.ecs.org/wp-content/upload...
But a separate and unequal system of unaccountable private schools is the antithetical to a uniform system.
Legal scholars say the ruling — expected in June — could fundamentally undermine the way the Founding Fathers established the separation between church and state.

Should taxpayers have to fund private schools? - YouTube

Fact-checking Phonics, NRP, and NCTQ – radical eyes for equity

Fact-checking Phonics, NRP, and NCTQ – radical eyes for equity

Fact-checking Phonics, NRP, and NCTQ

The “science of reading” movement often claims that a systematic intensive phonics-first approach to teaching reading is endorsed by science that is settled, that the National Reading Panel (NRP) is a key element of that settled science, and that teacher education is mostly absent of that “science of reading” (a message that has been central to NCTQ for many years).

These claims, however, misrepresent what evidence actually shows. Here, then, are some evidence-based fact-checks of phonics, NRP, and NCTQ.

Phonics

Reconsidering the Evidence That Systematic Phonics Is More Effective Than Alternative Methods of Reading Instruction, Jeffrey S. Bowers (2020)

Abstract

There is a widespread consensus in the research community that reading instruction in English should first focus on teaching letter (grapheme) to sound (phoneme) correspondences rather than adopt meaning-based reading approaches such as whole language instruction. That is, initial reading instruction should emphasize systematic phonics. In this systematic review, I show that this CONTINUE READING: Fact-checking Phonics, NRP, and NCTQ – radical eyes for equity

Blue Cereal "Share The Love!" Month! | Blue Cereal Education

Blue Cereal "Share The Love!" Month! | Blue Cereal Education

Blue Cereal "Share The Love!" Month!

Candy Hearts & Saccharine Souls

As you know from the rapid replacement of holiday displays which began at midnight on December 26th, Valentine’s Day is coming. February, it turns out, is the month of love.

Well, not REAL love... but exploitative, crass, commercialized love, packed with artificial ingredients – cultural pressure to overspend, unnecessary emotional theatrics, and the obligatory scarlet flora whose lifespan will fall WELL short of the concomitant credit card payments.

In other words, it’s the most American holiday this side of the 4th of July!

Blue Cereal would like to SHARE the love this year throughout the month of February. Initially I thought I might stick with the tried-and-true... Daily lingerie pics of myself in lacy garments of the sort which inevitably SCREAM, “I’m trying WAY too hard.” Whitney Houston (or whoever the kids are listening to these days) belting out that “Eye...hee-eye... will always love youuuuu...hee-oooouuuu!” Maybe even some of those little candy hearts with wacky messages like “Diabetes turns me on!” or “It's OK – I'm #11FF!”

But it all seemed too obvious. Too crass. Too commercial and not at all useful. (Well, except for the lingerie shots. I may still do those. Viewership has been down and I could use the clicks.)

Instead, February will see the return of a few things I’ve enjoyed doing in the past.

Killer Blue Serials

Our first “Share The Love” feature will be a weekly installment of “Blue Serials” – summaries and commentary on the best CONTINUE READING: Blue Cereal "Share The Love!" Month! | Blue Cereal Education

Mitchell Robinson: Thought Adam Schiff's impeachment presentation was good? Public school teachers do that every day | Eclectablog

Thought Adam Schiff's impeachment presentation was good? Public school teachers do that every day | Eclectablog

Thought Adam Schiff’s impeachment presentation was good? Public school teachers do that every day

While I absolutely agree that Adam Schiff did a wonderful job presenting the impeachment case against the president, I must confess that I’m a little surprised at how amazed so many seem to be at how smoothly he delivered his information, the quality of his argument, and his use of audio/visual materials.

Because if you were impressed with Mr. Schiff’s performance, then I encourage you to consider the fact that thousands of public school teachers and college instructors are doing what Rep. Schiff did every, single day in their classrooms across the country. In elementary schools, middle schools, high schools, and college classrooms, the nation’s teachers are researching, organizing, audio-visualizing, and testifying their tails off on a daily basis to the 90+% of the school-aged children in our country.

They are speaking extemporaneously, without written notes, using thoughtfully designed slide decks and visual materials, and weaving together research, evidence, anecdotes, and personal experiences to craft compelling lessons about their course material and the topics of the day.

Just imagine how much more those teachers could do if they, like Mr. Schiff, had dozens of highly- CONTINUE READING: Thought Adam Schiff's impeachment presentation was good? Public school teachers do that every day | Eclectablog

Larry Ferlazzo's Websites of the Day... | The latest news and resources in education since 2007

It's Larry Ferlazzo's Websites of the Day...

A VERY BUSY DAY

The latest news and resources in education since 2007