Back to blogging?
Perhaps. We’ll see. I mean to be, but…
These things happen to some of us.
If I manage to get back in the swing, expect:
- tales of my senior class
- teaching for mastery (me? yes)
- teaching math
- puzzles
- school closings
- lous
Sunday, December 5, 2010
Back to blogging? « JD2718
Back to blogging? « JD2718
BOE Member: Excitement Got Better of Me in Exchange with Governor - Chatham, NJ Patch
BOE Member: Excitement Got Better of Me in Exchange with Governor - Chatham, NJ Patch
BOE Member: Excitement Got Better of Me in Exchange with Governor
Chatinover 'mortified' by his portrayal in the media following town hall meeting.
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Marin Voice: Parents march on Sacramento to fight for child care - Marin Independent Journal
Marin Voice: Parents march on Sacramento to fight for child care - Marin Independent Journal
Marin Voice: Parents march on Sacramento to fight for child care
Posted: 12/05/2010 01:09:00 AM PST
PARENTS FROM Marin County are traveling to Sacramento on Monday to stand outside the State Capitol building and tell anyone who will listen: "Working parents cannot be reliable employees without reliable child care."
We are Parent Voices, a group of concerned parents who are learning to be active and vocal. Parent Voices is a parent-led, parent-run grassroots organization fighting to make quality child care accessible and affordable to all families.
There are chapters in 18 counties across California, and Parent Voices Marin has been particularly active in legislative advocacy for change.
On Monday, our message will be about Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger's veto of CalWORKs Stage 3 Child Care.
When we arrive, we will gather on the steps of the Capitol as people walk by and ignore us. We
New round in school power struggle - The Daily Breeze
New round in school power struggle - The Daily Breeze
New round in school power struggle
Posted: 12/04/2010 11:14:26 PM PST
Updated: 12/04/2010 11:17:46 PM PST
Teacher Martha Barnes, who'd been at Hawthorne High seven years, said she was upset when the Centinela Valley district transferred her to Lawndale, but she's making the best of it. (Scott Varley Staff Photographer)
When Martha Barnes was told she'd be among about 45 teachers to be shuffled against their will to another school in the Centinela Valley Union High School District, she was furious.
But several months after her move to Lawndale High, she doesn't want to return to her alma mater Hawthorne High, where she taught for seven years.
"I hate the way the district handled that," she said of the transfers. "But now that I'm here, I don't have a choice. Since I have no choice, I choose to be happy where I am."
Barnes - who says she loves working with her new colleagues - is not alone in her unexpected contentment. Half a year after the controversial move - which triggered a spasm of public protests from teachers and students alike - two-thirds of the teachers who were plucked from one campus and sent to another don't want to move back, union and district officials say.
Detroit teachers union election fails to name president | detnews.com | The Detroit News
Detroit teachers union election fails to name president | detnews.com | The Detroit News
From The Detroit News: http://detnews.com/article/20101204/SCHOOLS/12040395/Detroit-teachers-union-election-fails-to-name-president#ixzz17Fder63i
Detroit teachers union election fails to name president
Micki Steele / The Detroit News
Officials of the Detroit Federation of Teachers had hoped to announce election results today, but no single candidate for any of the six offices received a majority of the vote.
Runoff elections are planned in early January, said Cass Technical High School math teacher and union representative Steve Conn, who is running against Keith Johnson, the union's incumbent president. Results are expected to be announced Jan. 15.
Voting in the bi-annual fall election took place in Detroit public schools during the past two weeks and was meant to decide the fate of incumbent officers, Mark O'Keefe, the union's executive vice president, two vice presidents, the treasurer and the recording secretary, along with Johnson. But the vote count failed to yield a majority for any one of the four or five candidates running for each office, as required by union bylaws.
From The Detroit News: http://detnews.com/article/20101204/SCHOOLS/12040395/Detroit-teachers-union-election-fails-to-name-president#ixzz17Fder63i
Charter schools set their own hiring rules - Hawaii News - Staradvertiser.com
Charter schools set their own hiring rules - Hawaii News - Staradvertiser.com
Charter schools set their own hiring rules
POSTED: 01:30 a.m. HST, Dec 05, 2010
Charter schools are often started by passionate leaders, and having a relative or two on staff is not uncommon in Hawaii.
"If the best person is hired for the position, then the school's children are well served," said Ruth Tschumy, chairwoman of the state Charter School Review Panel, which approves and revokes charters. "If the person is hired not on his or her merits or qualifications, but rather on kinship or affiliation with the hirer, then the school's children are not well served."
Unlike a family business, charter schools are publicly funded. But they enjoy greater freedom from state regulations than the typical public school. Each charter school reports to its own local school board, not to the state Board of Education. The charter school's board typically hires the principal, and the principal chooses the staff.
"Each local school board is in charge of the charter school's policies and their hiring practices," said Maunalei Love, executive director of the Charter School Administrative Office. "We do not have a policy on nepotism because we're not trying to tell them what to do."
After being contacted by the Star-Advertiser about the number of family members on the payroll at
An educated guess on Texas students in the U.S. illegally | News for Dallas, Texas | Dallas Morning News | Latest News
An educated guess on Texas students in the U.S. illegally | News for Dallas, Texas | Dallas Morning News | Latest News
An educated guess on Texas students in the U.S. illegally
11:31 PM CST on Saturday, December 4, 2010
In Texas, nobody asks, nobody tells, but a whole lot of people would sure like to know.
How many illegal immigrants attend the state's public schools, supported by taxpayer money?
While the answer is unknown because schools do not track students' legal status, estimates from top researchers and a Dallas Morning News analysis of little-known state data provide a range that is lower than many people might expect.
Also Online
•At the lower end, researchers estimate between 125,000 and 150,000 illegal immigrants attended Texas public schools in 2009, making up 3 percent of Texas students and costing taxpayers more than $1 billion a year.
•At the top end, the analysis provides a solid ceiling. State records
Schools Matter: KIPP Segregation: A Single School Choice Without a Voice
Schools Matter: KIPP Segregation: A Single School Choice Without a Voice
KIPP Segregation: A Single School Choice Without a Voice
Mike Feinberg has a reputation as an impulsive brat and bully in a china shop (even as documented by the worshipful Jay Mathews), and the Feinberg op-ed in the Houston Chronicle today shows there is no reason to doubt it. Not only is he audaciously reckless in calling for public funding of property and buildings for all corporate charter schools in Texas, even as KIPP sits atop a pile of several hundred million dollars from thephilanthrocapitalists, but he also demands that all of Texas' "parental choice" charters, the ones with black and brown and poor kids anyway, be converted to the psychologically-sterilizing, apartheid KIPPs or KIPP knock-offs such as the YES College Preps.
The other segregated charters, the lily-white-flight ones with family incomes to match their soaring test scores, will be left untouched, except of course, their building will be paid for by the state and theirprincipals CEOs will be given unconditional authority (like the rest of the charters in Feinberg's fantasy) to hire, fire, and promote
The other segregated charters, the lily-white-flight ones with family incomes to match their soaring test scores, will be left untouched, except of course, their building will be paid for by the state and their
Parents blindsided as stellar students are now failing state exams, as funding for tutoring slashed
Parents blindsided as stellar students are now failing state exams, as funding for tutoring slashed
Read more: http://www.nydailynews.com/ny_local/education/2010/12/05/2010-12-05_parents_blindsided_as_stellar_students_are_now_failing_state_exams_as_funding_fo.html#ixzz17FUwKiqo
Parents blindsided as stellar students are now failing state exams, as funding for tutoring slashed
Sunday, December 5th 2010, 4:00 AM
Lanzilote for News
Yanette Rojas sits with her daughter Judith who failed the state exams after years of good grades. Many parents have been blindsided by poor test scores.After years of good grades, Makelah Elliott and her family were shocked to find out she failed the fifth-grade state reading exam this summer.
Determined not to let Makelah, 11, fall farther behind in her first year of middle school, her mom is shelling out $120 a month for private tutoring.
"I'm trying my best to find any other ways to help her," said her mom, Marsha Elliott. "I don't think the school was providing enough. I had to go on the outside to put her in the program to get her the help she needed."
More than 100,000 extra children failed state exams this year after the state acknowledged the tests were too easy and raised the bar. At 369 schools, two out of three students are not reading at grade level, up from just five schools in 2009, stats
Read more: http://www.nydailynews.com/ny_local/education/2010/12/05/2010-12-05_parents_blindsided_as_stellar_students_are_now_failing_state_exams_as_funding_fo.html#ixzz17FUwKiqo
To all of you TFAer’s, Don Nielson’s, Broadies and Gates’ backers and Wannabes | Seattle Education 2010
To all of you TFAer’s, Don Nielson’s, Broadies and Gates’ backers and Wannabes | Seattle Education 2010
New Congresspeople Indoctrinated
Rita Solnet
The meeting I attended today was for newly elected Congressmen
run by the JFK School of Government at Harvard. There were approx
22 newly elected Congressmen (4 women). The conference room was
small--there was approximately 15 members in the ...audience, primarily
Harvard Fellows, Harvard faculty, 3 members from the British Parliament(observing!- aye!), a retired Senator and a Senator.
Panelists included in order of their speeches:
1) Harvard Dean of Education, Kathleen McCartney
2) Margaret Spellings, former Secretary of Education, Harvard IOP Fellow
3) Michelle Rhee, former DC Chancellor, Education Consultant
4) Pedro Noguera, NYU Professor of Education
The audience was told in the beginning of the meeting that Secretary Duncan may be attending. Later the
The meeting I attended today was for newly elected Congressmen
run by the JFK School of Government at Harvard. There were approx
22 newly elected Congressmen (4 women). The conference room was
small--there was approximately 15 members in the ...audience, primarily
Harvard Fellows, Harvard faculty, 3 members from the British Parliament(observing!- aye!), a retired Senator and a Senator.
Panelists included in order of their speeches:
1) Harvard Dean of Education, Kathleen McCartney
2) Margaret Spellings, former Secretary of Education, Harvard IOP Fellow
3) Michelle Rhee, former DC Chancellor, Education Consultant
4) Pedro Noguera, NYU Professor of Education
The audience was told in the beginning of the meeting that Secretary Duncan may be attending. Later the
Queens Teacher: New Congresspeople Indoctrinated
Queens Teacher: New Congresspeople Indoctrinated
New Congresspeople Indoctrinated
Rita Solnet
The meeting I attended today was for newly elected Congressmen
run by the JFK School of Government at Harvard. There were approx
22 newly elected Congressmen (4 women). The conference room was
small--there was approximately 15 members in the ...audience, primarily
Harvard Fellows, Harvard faculty, 3 members from the British Parliament(observing!- aye!), a retired Senator and a Senator.
Panelists included in order of their speeches:
1) Harvard Dean of Education, Kathleen McCartney
2) Margaret Spellings, former Secretary of Education, Harvard IOP Fellow
3) Michelle Rhee, former DC Chancellor, Education Consultant
4) Pedro Noguera, NYU Professor of Education
The audience was told in the beginning of the meeting that Secretary Duncan may be attending. Later the
The meeting I attended today was for newly elected Congressmen
run by the JFK School of Government at Harvard. There were approx
22 newly elected Congressmen (4 women). The conference room was
small--there was approximately 15 members in the ...audience, primarily
Harvard Fellows, Harvard faculty, 3 members from the British Parliament(observing!- aye!), a retired Senator and a Senator.
Panelists included in order of their speeches:
1) Harvard Dean of Education, Kathleen McCartney
2) Margaret Spellings, former Secretary of Education, Harvard IOP Fellow
3) Michelle Rhee, former DC Chancellor, Education Consultant
4) Pedro Noguera, NYU Professor of Education
The audience was told in the beginning of the meeting that Secretary Duncan may be attending. Later the
Saturday, December 4, 2010
Schools Matter: NAACP to Make Wake County a Test Case for Ending Resegregation Efforts
Schools Matter: NAACP to Make Wake County a Test Case for Ending Resegregation Efforts
NAACP to Make Wake County a Test Case for Ending Resegregation Efforts
The next few months will be critical for the Gang of Five who are the pawns of the social antiquarians, neocons, and John Birchers who are behind the movement to kill socioeconomic integration and school diversity in Wake County.
Little John Tedesco and Co. are facing a federal civil rights investigation, a review by the Schools' accrediting body, and increasing pressure from the NAACP and other civil rights organizations. It is time to bring all available pressure to bear, from talking to walking to civil disobedience.
From the News-Observer:
Little John Tedesco and Co. are facing a federal civil rights investigation, a review by the Schools' accrediting body, and increasing pressure from the NAACP and other civil rights organizations. It is time to bring all available pressure to bear, from talking to walking to civil disobedience.
From the News-Observer:
RALEIGH NAACP officials capped their organization's
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