I am not quite sure why it took me more than two months to send out this e-mailto my staff, but I thought I would share it with you and encourage you to send a similar one.
Good Morning,
I have spoken to a few people about some recent blog posts I have read about Flipping Instruction or Reverse Instruction. One of the best summaries of the whole idea is in a post from Jonathan Martin, a high school Principal in Tuscon, Arizona. Jonathan’s post was titled
Yesterday was the end of 1st semester. Before I collapsed around 10:30 last night I had all my grades in (except for four students out the last two days whose grades I will update on Tuesday). We are now on a four-day weekend - teachers are on unpaid furlough for Monday. And now, maybe now, I have some time to look back and reflect.
I said I collapsed. I went to bed, and did not finally get up until 8:30 this morning. I am exhausted, and with one brief 10 minute break to get up and feed the cats at 5:20 so they would let me go back to sleep, I was out. I am still tired, even with a cup of coffee and some bagels behind me.
That level of exhaustion, and its causes, are li9ke a flashing red light - I now realize that I must seriously consider whether this should be my last year in the classroom. That is part of this morning's reflection as well.
I invite you to continue reading as I sort through thoughts and feelings from half a year in the classroom.
Saturday, January 22nd 2011, 4:00 AM
The latest salvo in Harlem's space wars between charter schools and public schools is a stencilled poster comparing a charter school to the Nazis.
A misspelled sign on the wall of Public School/Middle School 149 in Harlem reads, "Charter schools are like Hitler, tyrents trying to take what's not thiers!"
Photos of that poster and others critical of Harlem Success Academy, provided to the Daily News by charter school officials, were hung up in advance of a hearing on the schools' space-sharing arrangement this week.
"It's shameful that 631 children who have done nothing wrong...have to be
It is inspiring to read that so many educators, inspired by the hard-driving KIPP schools, are pushing for a longer school day and school year ("Efforts to extend school day, year reignite debate" Jan. 20). Proposals to extend the school day by 30 minutes, however, fall far short of what is needed.
Let's push ahead and consider an even longer day.
A study published in the Journal of Irreproducible Results in 1991 concluded that a 21-hour school day is
View full sizeTatiyana Lewis, left, 4, plays with Brooklynn Keith, 4, during breakfast Friday at Applegate School Head Start in North Portland. R. Sargent Shriver, a founder of Head Start in 1965, died Tuesday; his funeral is today.
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| Retirement for Public Workers? (Image by Clemson) |
The Center for American Progress released its new Return on Investment (ROI) Index for K-12 public school districts of greater than 250 students this week. I should note in advance that I had the opportunity to provide advice on this project early on, and occasionally thereafter and I do believe that at least some involved had and still have the best intentions in coming up with a useful way to represent the information at hand. I’ll get back to the validity of the information at hand in a moment.
First, I need to point out that the policy implications and proposals, or even general findings presented in the report cannot be supported by the analysis (however well or poorly done). The suggestion that billions of dollars might be saved nationally (little more than a back-of-the-napkin extrapolation) at no loss to performance outcomes, based on the models estimated is a huge, unwarranted stretch and quite simply arrogant, ignoran
The Palmer Park Preparatory Academy
Whenever you hear a business executive or politician use the term “American competitiveness,” watch your wallet. Few terms in public discourse have gone so directly from obscurity to meaninglessness without any intervening period of coherence.
President Obama just appointed Jeffry Immelt, GE’s CEO, to head his outside panel of economic advisors, replacing Paul Volcker. According to White House spokesman Robert Gibbs, Immelt has “agreed to work thorugh what makes our country more competitive.”
In an opinion piece in the Washington Post announcing his acceptance, Immelt wrote “there is nothing inevitable about America’s declining manufacturing competitiveness if we work together to reverse it.”
But what’s American “competitiveness” and how do you measure it? Here are some different definitions:
Were he an idiot, his passing would not merit mention. But he was a real educator. Smart. Clever. Rumor made him a good principal, but that was ages ago. And he used his experience – not to help the system, but to tear it down.
His mass-produced mini-disaster schools (or rather, Nadelstern failure academies) captured Gates money for his cronies, while accelerating a downward spiral in the high schools in the Bronx. His role in structuring and restructuring and Empowering bureaucracy (while disempowering parents and educators and whole communities) allowed him to advance his own career by pushing around and punishing those who had the
