ASCD Inservice: Framing Finland Visit Through Key Questions

ASCD Inservice: Framing Finland Visit Through Key Questions

Framing Finland Visit Through Key Questions

by ASCD Bloggers

From January 15–22, a diverse group of professionals from fields in education advocacy, communications, leadership, and research travels to Finland to study the education system firsthand. Study group participants will occasionally post reflections on this blog. Teachers know, simply copying...

Raise Your Voice

by ASCD Bloggers

I'm not one for musts when it comes to using social media. No one will die if they don't use a Ning. Great teachers will continue to be great, even if they never Tweet. An educator can be a passionate...

I'm not one for musts when it comes to using social media. No one will die if they don't use a Ning. Great teachers will continue to be great, even if they never Tweet. An educator can be a passionate and competent leader without a blog or Facebook presence.

There are plenty of pundits out there who will tell you that you must use online tools, and they will set down rules about how to use them. I'm sure that these well-meaning experts believe they're providing a service for those new to participation in an online space, but in doing so, they've forgotten the most important piece: the user. They have neglected to ask, "What do you want to do with the opportunities to create and share on the Internet?"

My alter ego is a doyenne of edublogging. For a little over six years, we have occupied a small branch of the Web. We cling as tenaciously as we can to a variety of other educators who blog. But six years is a very long time in the age of Internet. Fifteen edubloggers were interviewed by USA Today in 2006. Today, less than half of us are still standing. Surely

Assemblyman Kellner Needs to Check His Facts! « EdVox

Assemblyman Kellner Needs to Check His Facts! « EdVox

Assemblyman Kellner Needs to Check His Facts!

by edvoxny

Recently Assemblymember Kellner wrote an editorial column in the NY Post, calling to Let the Millionaires Tax Die, which would essentially leave our children wide open to education cuts. Billy Easton, the Executive Director of the Alliance for Quality Education responds below. TO TAKE ACTION PLEASE VISIT www.aqeny.org !!

Dear Assemblymember Kellner,

In your recent opinion editorial column in the New York Post entitled Let the Millionaires Tax Die you assert that the millionaire’s tax “hasn’t even raised the revenue it was supposed to — falling well short of the projected $4 billion a year.”

However, the New York State Division of Budget’s Enacted Budget Report of August 2010 reported that high-income tax provisions actually generated $3.83 billion in 2009–just shy of the initial $3.9 billion projection. The

Quik Update: Top Reads on Parents 4 democratic Schools

Analysis criticizes Boston teacher pay system - The Boston Globe

This Week In Education: AM News: Cutting Costs Without Cutting Quality

Oprah Interview on CNN & Toni Morrison/Market Driven Kids – Not Waiting for Superman « Continuing Change

Bloomberg sticks up for Cathie Black after foot-in-morth 'birth control' joke; says she'll learn

Success! One Step Closer to the First Fast Food Union | Poverty in America | Change.org

Study: Many college students not learning to think critically | McClatchy

Quote of the Day « Student Activism

Internet Archive: About IA

David Brooks Says Superior Chinese Mom is "Coddling" her Children - THE DAILY RIFF - Be Smarter. About Education.

Sacramentan peels off Colorado tuition in one-dollar bills - Sacramento News - Local and Breaking Sacramento News | Sacramento Bee

Henry Bienen: In Defense of For-Profit Colleges - WSJ.com

As complaints mount, anemic state agency overwhelmed by job of policing for-profit schools

US Schools Are Still Ahead - Way Ahead

Tim knocks on north side doors for MDV. « Fred Klonsky's blog

Tim knocks on north side doors for MDV. « Fred Klonsky's blog

Tim knocks on north side doors for MDV.

by Fred Klonsky

Walking the precinct for MDV.

Why does Chicago have its elections in February?

Because it’s so frickin’ cold and that tends to keep the voters home. That helps the Machine stay in power.

So all praise is due to my blogging pal Tim.

Tim hit a north side precinct this bitter cold weekend with Miguel del Valle window signs and a canvass sheet to

Shanker Blog » Treating Teachers Like Professionals

Shanker Blog » Treating Teachers Like Professionals

Treating Teachers Like Professionals

by Matthew Di Carlo

I was very interested to see, in a post by my colleague last month, that elementary school teachers were again voted among the top five most “honest and ethical” occupations in America, by respondents to a November 2010 Gallup Poll.

According to Gallup, 67 percent of respondents rated the honesty/ethics of teachers as “high/very high,” 24 percent rated it “average,” and 6 percent rated it as “low/very low” (the error margin is +/- 4 percentage points). Only nurses, military officers, and pharmacists ranked higher (with doctors, who ranked 5th, in a statistical tie with teachers).

I found this interesting because it contradicts a key underlying feature of much of our public education debate. I’ve heard many thousands of teachers speaking out against the market-based reforms that are currently in vogue among opinion leaders, and seen them effectively ignored. I’ve heard everyone from Oprah to big-city

NYC Public School Parents: CNN debate on class size on MLK's birthday

NYC Public School Parents: CNN debate on class size on MLK's birthday

CNN debate on class size on MLK's birthday

My debate with Matthew Chingos on CNN yesterday.

Marking Martin Luther King's Birthday

Parent-Led Campaign Wins $10 Million for Struggling Students « EdVox

Parent-Led Campaign Wins $10 Million for Struggling Students « EdVox

Parent-Led Campaign Wins $10 Million for Struggling Students

by edvoxny

Last July, parents and education advocates were alarmed when recalibration of state test scores revealed that 239,000 NYC students are not meeting state standards and are not on track for success in college – an increase of more than 100,000 students. The NYC Coalition for Educational Justice (CEJ) spearheaded a four-month long “Save Our Schools” campaign with elected officials and leading advocacy organizations to secure immediate intervention services for these students. That effort saw a major victory today in Mayor Bloomberg’s announcement of a $10 million initiative to support 532 schools in providing additional tutoring services to the most struggling students, including small group and individual instruction during the school day, afterschool and on weekends, and supplemental instructional materials.

CEJ parent leader Zakiyah Ansari spoke as part of the announcement today at the Department of Education headquarters in Manhattan. Her remarks are below.

CEJ’s remarks at Press Conference Announcing AIS Initiative for Struggling Students

Zakiyah Ansari, Parent Leader, CEJ

1/18/11

It’s fitting that we stand here

NCTQ, U.S. News Announce Joint Teacher Education Review - Teacher Beat - Education Week

NCTQ, & U.S. News; Announce Joint Teacher Education Review - Teacher Beat - Education Week

NCTQ, U.S. News Announce Joint Teacher Education Review

by Stephen Sawchuk

The Washington-based National Council on Teacher Quality and U.S. News and World Report, the publisher of the famous and much-debated college ratings, announced today that they are embarking on an ambitious project to review—and rate—teacher education offerings in all the nation's 1,400 schools of education.

Each school will be reviewed against 19 standards and graded on 17 of them. These standards have been revised and reduced in number since NCTQ did its review of Illinois and Texas education schools, essentially a "field test" for this larger project.

Alternative routes housed at institutions of higher education will be included in the review, but it won't include Teach For America or district-created programs that operate independently of ed. schools.

The groups are sending out letters to deans at all the schools seeking their participation in the review process.

No, Estados Unidos no son el número Uno | Blog Vecindad Gráfica Diseño Gráfico

No, Estados Unidos no son el número Uno | Blog Vecindad Gráfica Diseño Gráfico

No, Estados Unidos no son el número Uno

from Blog Vecindad Gráfica Diseño Gráfico by Adan Avelar

74 people liked this

Shared by Galen Bennett

Infografía que muestra algunos hechos importantes en relación a Estados Unidos.

Schools Matter: DC Mayor Says Oligarchs' VAM Has "a long way to go to be a fair evaluation of our teachers."

Schools Matter: DC Mayor Says Oligarchs' VAM Has "a long way to go to be a fair evaluation of our teachers."

DC Mayor Says Oligarchs' VAM Has "a long way to go to be a fair evaluation of our teachers."

by Jim Horn

From WaPo:

By Bill Turque

As a candidate, Mayor Vincent C. Gray treaded cautiously when it came to questions about theIMPACT teacher evaluation system, arguably former Chancellor Michelle A. Rhee's signature initiative. The Washington Teachers' Union, a major financial supporter, has big issues with the system, which uses growth in student test scores as part of the basis for assessing some educators. Rhee supporters -- including the philanthropic community that is investing tens of millions of dollars in DC schools -- see it as the heart of her program because it holds teachers more accountable than ever for what their students learn. Low IMPACT scores led to the dismissalof 126 teachers last year.

But on Saturday, at a panel on school reform and poverty at Adas Israel synagogue, Gray offered

Larry Strauss: Hail to the Incoming Superintendent

Larry Strauss: Hail to the Incoming Superintendent

Hail to the Incoming Superintendent

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In New York City, where I grew up, the superintendent was the guy who fixed the plumbing or the boiler and twisted his face when you told him there was a dead rat inside your radiator. In my building, it was a surly guy named Eddie who had six children and sometimes argued with the oldest ones in the lobby or stood by himself in front of the rusty iron front door of the building puffing a cigar and drinking out of a brown paper bag.

In L.A. where I now live, the superintendent runs the school district. Those of us who teach the students of this city don't see very much of our super in person. We see his name on all the letters and memos and fax cover sheets and emails he may or may not actually write himself. He has a television show on the LAUSD channel that not many people watch (a colleague of mine used to make students watch it while they served detention--until some parents complained that it was unreasonably harsh punishment).

When I joined LAUSD back in the last century, the super was a guy named Sid Thompson. The only

Schools Matter: Christie and Rhee: A Match Made in Hell

Schools Matter: Christie and Rhee: A Match Made in Hell

Christie and Rhee: A Match Made in Hell

by Jim Horn

Can you imagine the sulphurous vapors in the room last Tuesday, with the broomless ex-chancellor of DC schools cheering on the morbidly-obese bully governor of NJ as he announced plans turn back the education clock in his state by a hundred years. Fromthe Times:

Mr. Christie already has fans, both in New Jersey and in education circles across the country. Michelle Rhee, the former Washington schools chancellor, who sat beside Mr. Christie’s wife during Tuesday’s speech in Trenton, has committed her new organization, StudentsFirst, to providing policy support for Mr. Christie’s education initiatives. “I think it’s incredibly courageous of the governor to take these issues on,” Ms. Rhee said Wednesday. “These are ones that have long been considered sacred cows.”

Then on Thursday, Beelzeblob cost his state a half-billion dollars when he chose to amp up his disaster rhetoric