Saturday, December 11, 2010
California settles constitutional suit: no more fees in public schools | CAIVN
California settles constitutional suit: no more fees in public schools | CAIVN
Some lining pockets in name of school ‘reform’ | The Salt Lake Tribune
Some lining pockets in name of school ‘reform’ | The Salt Lake Tribune
Some lining pockets in name of school ‘reform’
As an educator, I am appalled at the rhetoric that is being aimed at our public schools. Those who are critical of our schools couch their language by saying they are in support of the public schools when, in reality, they would like to see them degraded or destroyed altogether.
The most appalling part of this may be the real motivation behind this misguided and malevolent movement: money.
There have always been businesses that benefit from education and for a long time they have been partners in the educational process. Now some business interests want a bigger share of the educational dollar and would build charter schools (still public). Then, by appealing to some parent’s vanity or desperation, take students from their neighborhood school.
When a school system cannot maintain a two-tiered system any more, these schools can be privatized. We will then have two separate school systems: one for the haves and one for the have-nots. Dehumanizing students in No Child Left Behind legislation and their teachers in a number of so-called educational reform campaigns is an important step in this process.
The insidious manner in which some organizations are clamoring for
'Parent Trigger' Supporters Face Intimidation Tactics in School Reform Battle in Compton, Antonio Villaraigosa Jumps into Fray - Los Angeles News - The Informer
'Parent Trigger' Supporters Face Intimidation Tactics in School Reform Battle in Compton, Antonio Villaraigosa Jumps into Fray - Los Angeles News - The Informer
UPDATE: L.A. Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa says school reform in Compton "isn't about pointing fingers or dragging our feet." More comments from Villaraigosa after break. First reported at 7 a.m.
Parent Trigger' Supporters Face Intimidation Tactics in School Reform Battle in Compton, Antonio Villaraigosa Jumps into Fray
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| Ted Soqui |
| McKinley Elementary School in Compton |
As expected, the battle over control of McKinley Elementary at Compton Unified School District, which was ignited this Tuesday when parents made historic use of a new school reform law called the Parent Trigger, has started to get ugly, with Los Angeles Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa jumping into the fray.
Villaraigosa, along with former California State Senator Gloria Romero, Rev. Eric Lee of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference of Greater Los Angeles, and Rev. K.W. Tulloss of the National Action Network Los Angeles, is holding a morning press conference today in front of McKinley Elementary to show his support for the parents
Are No Child Left Behind-Funded Tutors Ripping Off Students and Taxpayers? Or, You Don't Need To Be In Washington To Be A Watchdog - The Project On Government Oversight (POGO) Blog
Are No Child Left Behind-Funded Tutors Ripping Off Students and Taxpayers? Or, You Don't Need To Be In Washington To Be A Watchdog - The Project On Government Oversight (POGO) Blog
Are No Child Left Behind-Funded Tutors Ripping Off Students and Taxpayers? Or, You Don't Need To Be In Washington To Be A Watchdog
“Third-party evaluations of these services are finding small, if any, statistically significant effects of the program in improving student acfhievement,” wrote Heinrich Mintrop and Gail L. Sunderman in a peer-reviewed journal article in Educational Researcher published in summer 2009.
This is surprising. After all, some tutoring should do some good.
Some education activists in Columbus, Ohio, think they know partly why SES has been such
Baltimore Teacher Union signs performance-pay pact
Baltimore Teacher Union signs performance-pay pact
Baltimore Teacher Union signs performance-pay pact
BALTIMORE (AP) — The Baltimore Teachers Union and school system leaders have signed the new teachers contract that links pay increases to student performance.
The school board voted unanimously Wednesday night to approve the contract. Now, planning and implementation of the new agreement kicks into high gear.
Under the pact, teachers will no longer receive automatic raises based on tenure and degrees. Instead, they will climb a career ladder based on their performance in the
U.S. is average — except in inequality — Joanne Jacobs
U.S. is average — except in inequality — Joanne Jacobs
U.S. is average — except in inequality
The U.S. education system is ahead of the pack in one category — inequality — notes Education Trust in its analysis of the Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA) results.
Compared to other developed countries, the United States has the fifth largest gap between low-income students and their more affluent classmates. In reading, for example, students attending our high-poverty high schools performed 24 percent below those from higher income schools.
. . . Many of the countries at the top of the performance rankings – Canada, Finland, and Korea, for example – rank noticeably at the bottom of the list measuring the size of socioeconomic-status
How Twitter Stopped Wikileaks From Trending, and Why « Student Activism
How Twitter Stopped Wikileaks From Trending, and Why « Student Activism
How Twitter Stopped Wikileaks From Trending, and Why
On Wednesday Twitter finally released an official statement on the controversy over Wikileaks’ failure to appear on trending topics lists in the last few weeks. They answer the question of whether they’ve blocked Wikileaks from the lists with an “absolutely not,” then go on to provide an overview of what trending is and how it works.
What they have to say will be familiar to those who followed my back-and-forth with company representative Josh Elman on my blog last week, but here are the bullet points:
- “Twitter Trends are automatically generated by an algorithm that attempts to identify topics that are being talked about more right now than they were previously.”
- “Put another way, Twitter favors novelty over popularity.”
- “Sometimes a topic doesn’t break into the Trends list because its popularity isn’t as widespread as
Saturday coffee. « Fred Klonsky's blog
Saturday coffee. « Fred Klonsky's blog
Saturday coffee.
Anne made the coffee hot and strong this morning. We will get a breather from the week’s freeze today as the temperature will get into the 30s.
A teacher conversation this week turned, as it will do now and then, to how little acknowledgement we get for our work. Apart from some hoppla and congratulatory emails if our dibel scores should go up a few points, administration rarely offers much in the way of positive feedback.
I pointed out that in all my years of teaching, no principal (and I have had 11, I think) has ever said a word to me
Old school.
Luther Van Dross.
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Daily Kos: on perceptions and assumptions
Daily Kos: on perceptions and assumptions
on perceptions and assumptions
Yesterday as I read kos's front page piece DK4 open beta just days away, and why we did it I was surprised to find myself mentioned:
. . .you may follow Teacherken, but without the one-a-day limit, you may find that his interests run much further than education and he might introduce you to random stuff you might've never seen otherwise.
I was honored, and also pleased that he acknowledged how broad my interests are - I do write about music, politics, the environment, human rights, and whatever might capture my fancy. In the past when kos solicited nominations for the front page I remember that some would criticize nominations of me on the grounds I was too narrow, that I only wrote about education.
Also yesterday, I discovered that several people had nominated me for the Edublogs 2010 Awards,
The Answer Sheet - 'If you find yourself in a hole, stop digging'
The Answer Sheet - 'If you find yourself in a hole, stop digging'
'If you find yourself in a hole, stop digging'
This was written by Kevin Welner, a professor of education policy and program evaluation in the School of Education at the University of Colorado at Boulder, and director of the National Education Policy Center. He can be reached at welner@colorado.edu. This also appeared on Huffington Post. By Kevin G. Welner According to Education Secretary Arne Duncan, the PISA scores released this past Tuesday were "a massive wake-up call." The scores show American students holding relatively steady in the middle of the pack of the developed nations taking the international exam. I can't figure out what to make of Duncan's response. Certainly he knows that the 15-year-old Americans taking this exam grew up in schools dominated by the high-stakes testing of No Child Left Behind. He must also know that the other main trend in education during these students' schooling was a great increase in charter schools and other forms of
Queens Teacher: Parents Sue To Stop Cathie Black's Waiver
Queens Teacher: Parents Sue To Stop Cathie Black's Waiver
Parents Sue To Stop Cathie Black's Waiver
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Favorite line:
"Ms. Black is not equipped, in a finger nail, to support these (special needs)children."
Favorite line:
"Ms. Black is not equipped, in a finger nail, to support these (special needs)children."
Video of My Feminist Students at TEDxYouth 2010 « Feminist Teacher
Video of My Feminist Students at TEDxYouth 2010 « Feminist Teacher
Video of My Feminist Students at TEDxYouth 2010
Several weeks ago, the students in my feminism class, Fierce and Fabulous: Feminist Women Writers, Artists, and Activists, spoke at TEDxYouth at the Hewitt School. We shared our various stories about how we found our feminist voice. The video of our talk has been picked up by nist.tv, one of my favorite new websites that features feminist videos.
During the first half of the talk, I shared stories about how I came to my feminism as a queer Latina high school
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