Tuesday, May 3, 2011

Big Education Ape: 5-3-11 AM The Letter Edition

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An Open Letter From Arne Duncan to America's Teachers

edweek.org - Published Online: May 2, 2011Commentary ByArne DuncanI have worked in education for much of my life. I have met with thousands of teachers in great schools and struggling schools, in big cities and...

leoniehaimson

Teachers, we honor and respect you! « Parents Across America

parentsacrossamerica.org - May 3, 2011 leoniehaimson It’s teacher appreciation week; and in an unconvincing letter in EdWeek published today, Arne Duncan attempts to convince teachers that his policies actually reflect res...

leoniehaimson

A Letter to Arne Duncan « Failing Schools

failingschools.wordpress.com - This morning, I read Education Secretary Arne Duncan’s Open Letter to America’s Teachers. There’s a part of me that would like to take his words at face value, and another part that is quite excite...

leoniehaimson

Here's to the Teachers! - Living in Dialogue

blogs.edweek.org - We celebrate Teacher Appreciation Week with the release of a video we created to honor teachers.It has been almost two months since I reported on a project we started, to create a series of short v...

DianeRavitch

Recalling 9/11? - Teacher in a Strange Land

blogs.edweek.org - Rick Hess thinks this would be a good day to recall the spirit of 9/11--agreed--and suggests we dial down the rhetoric over education reform, calling the dialogue "nasty, personal and petty." He th...

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Teachers, we honor and respect you! « Parents Across America

bigeducationape.blogspot.com - Teachers, we honor and respect you! « Parents Across AmericaTeachers, we honor and respect you!May 3, 2011 No Comments ›› leoniehaimsonIt’s teacher appreciation week; and in an unconvincing letter...

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Big Education Ape: 5-2-11 PM CHARTER SCHOOL SCANDALS (so many I lost count even with my shoes off) Edition

bigeducationape.blogspot.com - Big Education Ape: Ed News NowBig Education Ape: Ed News Now as shared by 7 people on Coopmike48’s Twitter listNext update in about 12 hoursSee all articlesHEADLINESEDUCATIONPOLITICSSTORIESART & EN...

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“What Can You Do To Stay Positive During The Last Seven Weeks Of School?” | Larry Ferlazzo's Websites of the Day...

bigeducationape.blogspot.com - “What Can You Do To Stay Positive During The Last Seven Weeks Of School?” | Larry Ferlazzo's Websites of the Day...A Few More Interesting bin Laden-Related Links Here are a few more interesting add...

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Education 107 MORE ARTICLES

Re-segregatng Florida's schools via charters

michaelklonsky.blogspot.com - Gov. Scott pushing for more charters, even though...Kids study algebra at mostly white Legacy Charter High School near Ocoee. (George Skene/Orlando S...

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An Open Letter from an American Teacher to Secretary Duncan - Living in Dialogue

blogs.edweek.org - Today, Secretary of Education Arne Duncan recognized Teacher Appreciation Day with another of his confusing tributes - a mixture of fulsome praise, acknowledgment of the errors of NCLB, and a reite...

leoniehaimson

HB 400: A strange Teacher Appreciation Week gift

tx.aft.org - HB 400: A strange Teacher Appreciation Week gift FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE May 2, 2011 CONTACT: Rob D'Amico Cell: 512-627-1343Memo from the State House to Teachers: In honor of Teacher Appreciation Wee...

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Politics 27 MORE ARTICLES

Letters to a future teacher | Taking Note

Letters to a future teacher

by JOHN MERROW on 03. MAY, 2011 in POLITICS, TESTING, INNOVATION, TEACHERS UNIONS, TEACHING

On Saturday I had the honor of being the commencement speaker at the University of Michigan’s School of Education. With an audience of 394 men and women who had earned their degrees and their families and friends, I focused on the opportunities — not the challenges — facing them. Here’s an excerpt.

‘For all the attacks on teachers and the bad news from Wisconsin, New Jersey, Florida, Ohio and elsewhere, something wonderful is happening here. Teaching is now front and center in the education reform debate. It used to be testing, but now it’s teaching. Everyone from the President to Bill Gates acknowledges that teachers matter.

Time was, there was no national dialogue because school was not about teaching, not even for teachers. Teaching was just what some people did to make a living. Today, it’s much more than that.

It’s a hard time to be a teacher. But I also think there’s never been a better time to bec

OUSD could cut 150 staff positions | The Education Report

OUSD could cut 150 staff positions

By Katy Murphy
Monday, May 2nd, 2011 at 5:28 pm in budget.

More bad news for Oakland’s public schools and the people who work in them: At least 150 clerks, school security officers, technicians and other support staff could soon lose their jobs.

A resolution detailing the layoff of school support staff was added to the agenda of a 6 p.m. special school board meeting (originally about Race to the Top grant applications for two middle schools: ROOTS and Alliance Academy) tonight at ROOTS International, a middle school on the Havenscourt campus.

You can find the resolution here.

These layoffs, of course, will have all kinds of ripple effects on schools and employees across the district — just like last year.

A teachable moment

By Katy Murphy
Monday, May 2nd, 2011 at 4:05 pm in high schools, history, middle schools,students, teachers
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Social studies classrooms were abuzz today with debate and analysis of Osama bin Laden’s death. (See Tribune story here.)

Some teachers asked students to compare media coverage of the development. Others supplied basic facts about the raid and the broader conflict with terrorist

“What Can You Do To Stay Positive During The Last Seven Weeks Of School?” | Larry Ferlazzo's Websites of the Day...

A Few More Interesting bin Laden-Related Links Here are a few more interesting additions to The Best Resources For Learning About Osama bin Laden: “USA! USA!” is the wrong response comes from Salon. Top 10 Notorious Fugitives is a slideshow from TIME Magazine. Iconic villains of the past 100 ...

“Hot Spot” Interview — Report From Egypt I recently began a new regular interview series. There are always lots of “hot spots” around the world — places where there are natural disasters, political upheavals, etc. And English teachers can be found in most of those places. If you are an ...

“What Can You Do To Stay Positive During The Last Seven Weeks Of School?” Tomorrow, Education Week/Teacher will be publishing an excerpt from my new book’s chapter on “What can I do to help keep my students – and me – focused at the end of the school year?” I hope people find the various ideas I share there helpful. Last ...

Most Popular Posts Of The Month I regularly share my picks for the most useful posts of each month. I also have tried publish a list of the month’s most popular posts, based on the number of times they are “clicked-on.” I’m very behind on that one, though. I also share a list of ...

Even More On bin Laden Here are more additions to The Best Resources For Learning About Osama bin Laden: Bin Laden’s terror legacy is a slideshow from The Christian Science Monitor. Celebrating Osama bin Laden’s death is anti-American … and not very biblicalis also from ...

4LAKids - some of the news that doesn't fit: THE HIGH COST OF LOW TEACHER SALARIES + A NEW MEASURE FOR CLASSROOM QUALITY

THE HIGH COST OF LOW TEACHER SALARIES + A NEW MEASURE FOR CLASSROOM QUALITY The High Cost of Low Teacher Salaries A New Measure for Classroom Quality By DAVE EGGERS and NÍNIVE CLEMENTS CALEGARI, Op-Ed Contributors, New York Times | http://nyti.ms/lKkv8l April 30, ...

TWO FAMILIES WEIGH IN ON PATHS TO ACADEMIC EXCELLENCE By Teresa Watanabe, Los Angeles Times | http://lat.ms/jB0uPq May 1, 2011, 6:07 p.m. - Summers for eighth-grader Jade Larriva-Latt are filled with soccer and backpacking, art galleries and museums, library volunteer work and sleep-away camp. There is no ...

New EdSource Q&A Publication – CALIFORNIA’S FISCAL CRISIS: WHAT DOES IT MEAN FOR SCHOOLS? from EdSource: http://bit.ly/jxBdn9 May 2011 2 pages Free PDF Download This EdSource Q&A provides clear, accurate answers to some of the most common questions about the ...

2011 Teacher of the Year talks about reform and more - The Answer Sheet - The Washington Post

2011 Teacher of the Year talks about reform and more

by Valerie Strauss

Maryland teacher Michelle Shearer, the newly named 2011 Teacher of the Year, will be honored on Tuesday by President Obama President Obama at the White House along with state winners of the annual contest.

Shearer is a 14-year teaching veteran who now teaches chemistry at http://uhsmd.org/Urbana High School in Frederick and who used to teach at the Maryland School for the Deaf. She was chosen for her passion for teaching and her ability to reach students, including many who have traditionally been underrepresented in the sciences, including minority students and those with special needs.

Read full article >>

Life lessons in preschool: A learning story

by Valerie Strauss

Here is a new installment in a series called “Faces of Learning,” a national campaign designed to explore what powerful learning environments and highly effective teachers really look like.

The Faces of Learning campaign is designed to answer the following questions: How do people learn? How do I learn? What does the ideal learning environment look like? And how can we create more of them?”

Everybody regardless of age or occupation is encouraged to go to the campaign’s website and share their story, said the creator, educator and author Sam Chaltain, who wrote a book entitled “Faces of Learning” that tells 50 stories of defining moments in education.

Read full article >>

Educating students in remote areas can be costly | California Watch

Educating students in remote areas can be costly

by Louis Freedberg

Louis Freedberg

Louis Freedberg/California WatchStudents eat lunch at Pacific Valley School, a "necessary small school" south of Carmel.

In some very small schools in remote parts of California, the state is paying about $200,000 per student to educate them.

That's according to a report released yesterday by the Legislative Analyst's Office.

The main thrust of the report is to throw cold water on the idea that consolidating some of the hundreds of small school districts in California – those with student enrollments of less than 1,000 – would result in substantial savings to the state. The report recommends that the state increase the minimum size of districts to 100

Modern School: Students Fight Union Corruption at UC, Occupy UAW Office

Students Fight Union Corruption at UC, Occupy UAW Office There are 12,000 graduate students working as teaching assistants at the University of California who are currently members of the United Auto Workers. It might seem odd for teaching assistants to affiliate with the UAW, and stupid in light of UAW’s ...

Cali's K-12 Hordes Typical California Class Size? (Image by EddieHosa) Class sizes have been growing in California for the past several years, due primarily to budget cuts. The state has slashed $20 billion from K-12 education over the last three years, and is set to ...

Cutting Full Day Kindergarten Is a Bad Idea « City School Stories

Notes From The Field « City School Stories

Notes From The Field

by fmurphy

Cutting Full Day Kindergarten Is a Bad Idea

Submitted by Frank Murphy, May 3. 2011

Typically when analyzing the struggles of schools to achieve No Child Left Behind’s “Adequate Yearly Progress”, the discussion focuses on student achievement scores. But failing to make sufficient test score gains in a given year isn’t the only way a school can fail to make AYP. A school whose average daily attendance rate is less than 90% for the year, will be considered a failure under the rules established by the No Child Left Behind Act. This will be so regardless of the test scores of its students.

On the face of it, this NCLB requirement appears to be reasonable. Students who attend school on a regular basis should have an increased likelihood of success in school. Creating an expectation that no more than 10% of the student body can be absent on any one day actually sounds like a fair way to track this important goal. But this is not necessarily the case. One or two low attendance days in a month can seriously skew the

LAO: Cut subsidies for small districts | Thoughts on Public Education

LAO: Cut subsidies for small districts
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Study didn't find huge efficiencies in consolidation

Posted on 5/03/11 • Categorized as Uncategorized

By John Fensterwald - Educated Guess

Forty percent of distrits enroll fewer than 1,000 students (LAO graph).

Forty percent of districts enroll fewer than 1,000 students (Click to enlarge LAO graph).

The Legislative Analyst’s Office is recommending that the Legislature stop giving thousands of extra dollars per student to small school districts and that it decertify the tiniest of them – those with fewer than 100 students. Enacting the combination of the two measures could spur more district consolidations.

With 40 percent of California’s nearly 1,000 districts serving fewer than 1,000 students, Californian has “an exceptional number” of small districts, the LAO said in a report** issued Monday. Nearly a quarter of the state’s districts have only one school. And one out of ten

School Tech Connect: It's Now Or Never

It's Now Or Never

by effacethefacade@yahoo.com (Tim)

Good luck to all the folks heading down to Springfield for IEA's Lobby Day. I won't be there but I'm working the phones and hope to post some audio of that later on. Meanwhile, have a look at what's on the table-- and then call your legislators. If you're not going to Springfield, and you're not making calls, and you're not even sending a letter (and it's getting late for that..), then seriously I'm really not sure what to do with you.

Meanwhile, if you're blogging an not aware of this phenomenon, you should have a gander. Pam Spaulding, who

United Teachers of Richmond Educators to Protest Tuesday To Highlight Local Impacts of Devastating State Budget Cuts « State of Emergency

United Teachers of Richmond Educators to Protest Tuesday To Highlight Local Impacts of Devastating State Budget Cuts The United Teachers of Richmond is mobilizing to highlight the destruction that is taking place in our schools and community by doing all-day picketing Tuesday, May 3, 2011, from 6:00 a.m. to 6:00 p.m., with parents and other labor groups on Tuesday ...

Great Santa Rosa Press Democrat Op-Ed Urges Tax Extensions to Aid Education Funding Read the great op-ed piece – http://bit.ly/jErEKC — written by Santa Rosa teacher and CTA State Council member Pat Sabo and California School Employee Association Director Linda Blanchard published in the Santa Rosa Press Democrat’s online blog. ...

Sen. Nielsen: We Can Get Budget Without Taxes Speaking to a bimonthly forum of the Asian Pacific Islander Public Affairs Association’s Monday night,

Love Is The Base, Not The Exponent (A Theorem Semi-Proven) | The Jose Vilson

Love Is The Base, Not The Exponent (A Theorem Semi-Proven)

by Jose

Recently, I’ve been going over exponents with my students for the big math state test next week. Not sure if it was the chalk hitting my nose or the positivity I’ve surrounded myself with, but I’ve been thinking lots about this idea of love. Thus, I was prompted to put out this thought a couple of days ago:

Love is the base, not the exponent.

Here’s my reasoning:

Let’s assume the value of love you have is greater than 1 (love being a variable), and that your exponent is the amount of people in your circle of influence (you can have positive or negative people, in character of course). I

Daily Kos: How not to spend your night

How not to spend your night

by rss@dailykos.com (teacherken)

is in the hospital emergency room because of a severe allergic reaction. This is the thrd time in 6 years. One year ago, the night before I was to have lunch with Steny Hoyer honoring me (and others) for awards in education, my face blew up. Yesterday I had a mild case of hives, but somehow during the late afternoon and evening one side of my face began to swell up. My wife came home around midnight, took one look at me and insisted that I call in to the on duty nurse for my health care plan. When she found out I was already on benadryl and still had serious swelling around my eye, I was instructed to go to the nearby hospital emergency room.

I got there around 1:30 this morning. I finally got home shortly after 5 - they were very busy last night, and I was not an acute case, so I got bumped down the queue several times. I was able to get a couple of hours of sleep.

The left eye has so much fluid under it that it is difficult to wear my glasses. I am on steroids - thereby being disqualified from the Olympics, he? - benadryl and Pepcid for the next 5 days or so. i can teach, although I look odd, which will perhaps ease the minds of my students who take their AP exam one week from this morning.

Here's the scary part: we do not know what caused this reaction. Six years ago it was the heavy sulfites in red wine. Last year? We never figured it out. Nor do I have a clue as to the cause this time. So I am going to have to be very careful what I eat and monitor for any possible additional reactions. I am now hypersensitive to all kinds of things - breathing the pollen walking home from the hospital was irritating.

I titled this how not to spend your night. But I am lucky, and I know it:

Weblogg-ed » What We’ve Always Known About Education

What We’ve Always Known About Education

by Will Richardson

So this morning it’s David Weinberger that’s got me thinking. No doubt, David has been one of my favorite Web philosophers for a long time, someone who almost always seems to open the window just a bit more for me. Today, it’s this:

…we knew all along that atoms were never up to the job. We knew that the world doesn’t boil down to even the best of newspapers, that it doesn’t fit into 65,000 articles in a printed encyclopedia, that there was more disagreement than the old channels let through. (What they called noise, we called the the world.) We knew that the crap pushed through the radio wasn’t really all that we cared about, or that we all cared about the same things within three tv channels of difference. The old institutions were the best fictions we could come up with given that atoms are way too big.

And I’m wondering, deep down, have we known all along that this idea of an “education” was really a fiction

Latest News and Comment from Education

Tuesday, May 3, 2011

Big Education Ape: 5-3-11 AM The Letter Edition

Live Twitter stream on

@coopmike48/big-edu-ape-news-11

CLICK HERE FOR MY BLUE DOG

Letters to a future teacher | Taking Note

Letters to a future teacher

OUSD could cut 150 staff positions | The Education Report

OUSD could cut 150 staff positions

A teachable moment

“What Can You Do To Stay Positive During The Last Seven Weeks Of School?” | Larry Ferlazzo's Websites of the Day...

4LAKids - some of the news that doesn't fit: THE HIGH COST OF LOW TEACHER SALARIES + A NEW MEASURE FOR CLASSROOM QUALITY

2011 Teacher of the Year talks about reform and more - The Answer Sheet - The Washington Post

2011 Teacher of the Year talks about reform and more

Life lessons in preschool: A learning story

Educating students in remote areas can be costly | California Watch

Educating students in remote areas can be costly

Modern School: Students Fight Union Corruption at UC, Occupy UAW Office

Cutting Full Day Kindergarten Is a Bad Idea « City School Stories

Notes From The Field

LAO: Cut subsidies for small districts | Thoughts on Public Education

LAO: Cut subsidies for small districts
Share

School Tech Connect: It's Now Or Never

It's Now Or Never

United Teachers of Richmond Educators to Protest Tuesday To Highlight Local Impacts of Devastating State Budget Cuts « State of Emergency

Love Is The Base, Not The Exponent (A Theorem Semi-Proven) | The Jose Vilson

Love Is The Base, Not The Exponent (A Theorem Semi-Proven)

Daily Kos: How not to spend your night

How not to spend your night

Weblogg-ed » What We’ve Always Known About Education

What We’ve Always Known About Education

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Latest News and Comment from Education

Tuesday, May 3, 2011

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LAO: Cut subsidies for small districtsShare

LAO: Cut subsidies for small districts
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