Don’t forget to RSVP! :: Save Our Schools March and National Call to Action

Don’t forget to RSVP! :: Save Our Schools March and National Call to Action

Don’t forget to RSVP!

by TeacherSabrina

Just in case you need a formal invitation, here it is. (We can’t help you decide between the chicken or the fish, but we’re happy to help you choose between top-down education reform and real reform!)

We’re just two and a half months away from the main event! As we start making final plans for things like Port-o-Potties, audio/visual equipment, and the like, we need to get a sense of who’s coming. Help us get a head count by taking 30 seconds to send in your RSVP as soon as you can. When you’re finished, tweet or share it on Facebook (and consider making a tax-deductible donation to help defray some of the costs of the event– we really appreciate it).

In Solidarity,
The Save Our Schools March Organizing Committee

Charter Schools: detriment to thriving school systems - Livingston, NJ Patch

Charter Schools: Councils Talk Tough - Livingston, NJ Patch

Charter Schools: Councils Talk Tough

Millburn sends its opposition to NJ Dept. of Ed. Livingston officials urged to take a stand.

By Phil Hoops | Email the author | 8:38am

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Millburn Mayor Sandy Haimoff is sending a letter to the Commissioner of Education on Wednesday, calling charter schools a detriment to thriving school systems like Millburn’s.

“It is my understanding that charter schools were established to help districts that have failing schools,” the letter states. “Millburn is not such a district and drawing from its student pool is the beginning of the erosion of public education.”

In Livingston, charters schools played a prominent role during the public comment portion of the town council’s meeting on Monday night.

Earlier, the five council members attended a special 5-on-5 meeting with the Board of Education on charter schools.

The debate continued at the township meeting when Anita Gordon, a Livingston resident and former educator, urged the council as a governing body, to make their voices heard and take an official position on charter schools.

"I think we need to let our state government know that this law must be rewritten and changed,”

We Do, In Fact, Need Some (Non-Stinking) Badges

We Do, In Fact, Need Some (Non-Stinking) Badges

by KEVIN CAREY on MAY 18, 2011

in UNCATEGORIZED

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My latest Chronicle of Higher Education column is about an interesting but little-noticed program run by the U.S. Departments of Labor and Education that aims to create hundreds of millions of dollars worth of free online educational resources that will be available under a Creative Commons license for anyone to use, modify, and resell. Of course, such Open Educational Resources (OER) are only half of the equation:

That still leaves the problem of credit. Public libraries were the original OER, yet people can’t demand a diploma just because they’ve learned from a book. But here, too, new developments are under way. The latest and most sophisticated open educational resources have tests embedded within them because assessment is a fundamental element of learning. Feedback-based,

No, don't judge teachers using tests: Data is flawed and unreliable

No, don't judge teachers using tests: Data is flawed and unreliable

BY ARTHUR GOLDSTEIN

Wednesday, May 18th 2011, 4:00 AM

Monaster/News

Eighth grade students study math in preparation for the New York State exams.

When my daughter was 6, she announced, "I'm so lucky to have a smart daddy who's a teacher and can help me with my homework."

I hung a whiteboard in her room, which she began arranging after the fashion of her first-grade teacher. She made her friends sit in a semicircle while she explained whatever it was she had posted on her whiteboard. When they squirmed, she chided them.

Although I tried vainly to push books and music on her, she declared she wanted to become a math teacher. That threw me for a loop, but I was happy because teaching is the best job there is. When one of my beleaguered English-as-a-second-language

Read more: http://www.nydailynews.com/opinions/2011/05/18/2011-05-18_no_dont_judge_teachers_using_tests_data_is_flawed_and_unreliable.html#ixzz1MiJY9vwt

4LAKids LAUSD LIBRARIAN FIASCO IN THE WASHINGTON POST AND ON PATT MORRISON’S RADIO SHOW THIS AFTERNOON

4LAKids - some of the news that doesn't fit: LAUSD LIBRARIAN FIASCO IN THE WASHINGTON POST AND ON PATT MORRISON’S RADIO SHOW THIS AFTERNOON

LAUSD LIBRARIAN FIASCO IN THE WASHINGTON POST AND ON PATT MORRISON’S RADIO SHOW THIS AFTERNOON Teacher: 'My employer has become my enemy' Washington Post (blog) - Valerie Strauss - ‎ A library media educator in Los Angeles who blogs under the name Mizz Murphy wrote a powerful, first-person account of hearings being held by the Los Angeles ...

BENNETT KAYSER WINS IN CLOSE SCHOOL BOARD RACE, UNOFFICIAL TALLY SHOWS by Jason Song | L.A. Times/L.A. Now | http://lat.ms/ktIAX0 May 18, 2011 | 12:47 am - Bennett Kayser, the candidate supported by the teachers union, narrowly beat out Luis Sánchez, who had been endorsed by the mayor, for the open seat on the Los ...

CHARTERS, LAUSD AGREE TO SHARE CAMPUSES: Some schools not happy with arrangements + smf’s 2¢By Connie Llanos, Staff Writer | L,A, Daily News | http://bit.ly/lHnT02 5/18/2011 - After battling for years over facilities and resources, 43 charter schools will share space this fall with 52 traditional Los Angeles Unified campuses under a plan ...

..

Only Diane? Full List - School of Thought: 11 Education Activists for 2011 - TIME

Full List - School of Thought: 11 Education Activists for 2011 - TIME

School of Thought: 11 Education Activists for 2011

With budget cuts looming, a look at the key players who are poised to shake things up even more in what already promises to be a tumultuous year

Full List

KEY PLAYERS

• Shaking Schools Up in an Already Tumultuous Year
• Michael Bennet: The Senator
• Steven Brill: The Writer
• Jeb Bush: The Adviser
• David Coleman: The Architect
• John Deasy: The Superintendent
• Jonah Edelman: The Activist
• Kristin Richmond and Kirsten Tobey: The Foodies
• Wendy Kopp: The Teacher Trainer
• Diane Ravitch: The Convert
• Michelle Rhee: The Radical

Read more:http://www.time.com/time/specials/packages/completelist/0,29569,2040867,00.html#ixzz1MiHHDmSZ

Shanker Blog » What Do Teachers Really Think About Education Reform?

Shanker Blog » What Do Teachers Really Think About Education Reform?

What Do Teachers Really Think About Education Reform?

by Matthew Di Carlo

There has recently been a lot of talk about teachers’ views on education policy. Many teachers have been quite vocal in their opposition to certain policies (also here) and many more have expressed their views democratically – through their unions – especially in states where teachers have collective bargaining rights.

We should listen carefully to these views, but it’s also important to bear in mind that there are millions of public school teachers out there, with a wide variety of opinions on any particular education policy, and not all of their voices might be getting through.

So, the question remains: How do most teachers feel about the current wave of education policy reforms spreading throughout states and districts, including (but not at all limited to) merit pay, eliminating tenure and incorporating test-based measures into teacher evaluations?

The logical mechanism by which we might learn more about teachers’ views on these policies is, of course, a

This Week In Education: NSVF 2011: Reformy Summit Returns To Silicon Valley

This Week In Education: NSVF 2011: Reformy Summit Returns To Silicon Valley

NSVF 2011: Reformy Summit Returns To Silicon Valley

by Alexander Russo

Last night's NSVF summit reception featured Target-branded cocktails and bass-heavy lounge music provided by a live DJ. Today the San Francisco (adjacent) hotel where the event is being held will be swarming with sharply-dressed reformers and funders (but usually very few teachers or administrators). Fill your day with long-distance scorn or envy by following along. Send me email or tweets to let me know what I'm missing or what sessions I should go to:

Video: Dysfunction, Mis-Spending, & Despair In Detroit

by Alexander Russo

Here's part one of Dan Rather's report on Detroit Public Schools that first aired last week-- available for free this week according to the folks from HDnet who are trying to make sure the show gets noticed:

I watched the first part and it's ponderous and predictable albeit with some great footage (including interviews with a former DPS employee who belatedly decided to blow the whistle on mis-spending at the central office.) Does Rather add anything to the story we don't already know, or provide a useful reminder of realities we may have forgotten? Here's a favorable review of the two hour report -- I didn't see many other responses -- and a link to the other two parts.

McTeaching: Online Instruction | Larry Cuban on School Reform and Classroom Practice

McTeaching: Online Instruction | Larry Cuban on School Reform and Classroom Practice

McTeaching: Online Instruction

by larrycuban

McJobs has come to mean low-paying jobs with limited skill requirements where turnover is high, workers’ activities are programmed, and the work is supervised closely by managers.

McTeaching or online instruction is where tightly sequenced software with accompanying worksheets and quizzes especially in credit recovery courses become the meat-and-potatoes curriculum. Other online courses with live teachers lecturing in a studio have step-by-step rules of face-to-face engagement with distant learners are higher-level McJobs. Both forms of online instruction have lower prestige among teachers (many of whom

ASCD Inservice: More Learning Time Without More Money?

ASCD Inservice: More Learning Time Without More Money?

More Learning Time Without More Money?

Lengthen the school day! Shorten the summer break! Keep U.S. students in school longer to make them more competitive with their international counterparts! To realistic educators, enthusiastic calls for expanded learning time may seem like pie in the sky. In tight fiscal times when schools are scrambling just to maintain current programs and staffing, how can we possibly afford to expand instructional time?

More learning time doesn't necessarily require more resources--just flexible use of the resources we have, according to Ben Lummis, Vice President of the National Center on Time and Learning. In a May 12 webinar sponsored by Schools Moving Up, Lummis described how some schools are using creative staffing, flexible scheduling, community partners, and technology to expand learning time without adding cost or asking teachers to work a longer day. Some examples:

• Rocketship Mateo Sheedy Elementary School in Palo Alto, California, incorporates a 100-minute learning lab into each school day. Students engaged in computer-based math and reading lessons, supervised by

English vs. Spanish: A case for bilingualism/biculturalism. | Being Latino Online Magazine

English vs. Spanish: A case for bilingualism/biculturalism. | Being Latino Online Magazine

English vs. Spanish: A case for bilingualism/biculturalism.

by beinglatino

by Charlie Vázquez

I write this upon the closing of Festival de la Palabra, Puerto Rico’s leading literary festival, which puts Latin-American and Latino writers in the spotlight. Tracing the symbolic Boricua migratory route from San Juan to Nueva York, it’s also the only festival of its kind that begins in one city and ends in another. I was asked last year to help coordinate its first ever landing in The Big Apple and took the project on.

(For the record: I grew up in a bilingual household and was educated in English in the New York City public school system. My earliest years were bilingual, but English eventually took over, and it was in junior high school that I made the decision to reclaim Spanish as a foreign language—what irony.)

I participated in a panel with the Nuyorican musician/poet extraordinaire Bonafide Rojas and Karen Jaime, who hosted the Nuyorican Poets Café Friday Night Slam for many years. We are New Yorkers and bilingual in varying degrees. The program before us featured writers from Latin America and was conducted in Spanish.

Vouchers? A bad idea and here is several reasons why. « A "Fuller" Look at Education Issues

Vouchers? A bad idea and here is several reasons why. « A "Fuller" Look at Education Issues

Vouchers? A bad idea and here is several reasons why.

by Dr. Ed Fuller

This post reviews a short paper by Dr. John Merrifield and Joseph Blast as well as research on vouchers in peer-reviewed journal articles and books. The paper by Merrifield and Blast has not been peer-reviewed or published in any manner other than a policy brief.

For those of you who don’t have the time to read the entire post, here is a summary of the points, most of which are detailed n the post and ALL of which are supported by evidence or research:

1) SERIOUS FLAWS IN THE MERRIFIELD AND BLAST STUDY.

The paper by Merrifield and Blast has serious flaws that make their conclusions difficult to accept. These flaws include reliance on ONE STUDY that they fail to adequately describe, faulty data (that easily could have been corrected with a few hours of work), and assumption laid upon assumption that is not supported by any research or by apples-to-oranges comparisons that don’t provide support for a statewide program. Thus, the quality of the paper is low and should be read with extreme caution given the errors and assumptions inherent in the paper.

2) THE AUTHORS UNDERESTIMATE THE TRUE COST OF TUITION IN PRIVATE SCHOOLS BY AT LEAST $1,000 PER YEAR.

Private school tuition is far greater than what the authors claim to the point that the voucher would not cover most of the urban area tuition costs for private schools and certainly not all of the associated costs with enro