Yesterday it was Facebook. Today it's YouTube. Here's an email exchange between two district technology coordinators...
TC1: I have recently completely blocked youtube in our network. Does everyone block youtube? As soon as I blocked it, teachers started complaining. What other websites can they go to that will serve the same purpose as youtube?
TC2: It is blocked here as well!!! I know there is some good to it BUT it is my responsibility to monitor, block, etc. I do not have time to monitor students all day long every day of every week. We have a product called LanSchool and it is awesome. You can view every student that is logged on at any given time and can take over their computer and shut it down as well BUT I cannot do that every day all day long. The teachers
LETTER FROM AN ANONYMOUS FRIEND
AFTER THE ATTACK ON THE OAKLAND COMMUNE
We knew that it would happen.
If you live with others in a public space in a city, if you set up shelters in which people can live without owning or renting property, if you set up an outdoor kitchen with which to feed anyone who wants food, if you establish a free school at which anyone can read and learn, if you set up bathroom facilities provided by organizations supporting your activities, if you show solidarity with struggles against police killings and police violence against people of color, against the poor, against women, against queers and transpeople, if you state your determination to defend the space you have created against the threat of eviction, in short—if you work toward organizing ways of living and relating to one another that might challenge those mandated by capitalism, your efforts will eventually be crushed by the police.
We know this because we know that the question is not whether the police are “part of the 99%,” on the basis of
A bit delayed due to the #OccupyOakland raid, here is a letter we received from some folks in Cairo, Egypt:
To all those in the United States currently occupying parks, squares and other spaces, your comrades in Cairo are watching you in solidarity. Having received so much advice from you about transitioning to democracy, we thought it’s our turn to pass on some advice.
Indeed, we are now in many ways involved in the same struggle. What most pundits call “The Arab Spring” has its roots in the demonstrations, riots, strikes and occupations taking place all around the world, its foundations lie in years-long struggles by people and popular movements. The moment that we find ourselves in is nothing new, as we in Egypt and others have been fighting against systems of repression, disenfranchisement and the
As I posted previously about Stand for Children (SFC) and their support of school board candidates in the articleStand for Children, School Board Elections, Washington State PTA and Charter Schools, Jonah Edelman, co-founder of Stand for Children, states in regards to school board and legislative candidates that SFC supports:
I’m being quite blunt here, the individual candidates were essentially a vehicle to execute a political objective…
Later in the post I write:
By the way, during my information search, I came across this on the Stand for Children website. Three of our very own school board incumbents are receiving financial assistance and on-the-ground support from SFC. Buyers beware. From the Stand for Children website:
A number of our chapters have developed endorsement committees to support education champions running for school board this fall. These committees created an endorsement process, developed questionnaires, and interviewed candidates for these important public service positions. Check out the profiles of our education champions below:
Seattle Announcement:
Sherry Carr
Harium Martin-Morris
Steve Sundquist
And now more information on the financing
Photo: Anna Philips
The Occupy Wall street movement expanded to classroom politics, as a group disrupted a special meeting of the panel for education policy in Manhattan on Tuesday night.
The public meeting at Seward Park High School at 350 Grand Street was supposed to be a meeting for parents to learn about new curriculum standards.
But as soon as Schools Chancellor Dennis Walcott began speaking through his
TWIN FALLS, Idaho (AP) — Teacher bonuses will hinge on how well they engage parents in some south-central Idaho schools.
Districts in the rural farming communities of Wendell, Jerome and Gooding have adopted merit pay plans for some employees that tie bonuses to the level of participation in parent-teacher conferences, the The Time-News reports .
[...]
The Wendell district decided to base merit pay bonuses on parental involvement at high school conferences because participation has been a problem in the past, Superintende
Jacobs listed what the NCTQ considers the key "early lessons" for states embarking on these sorts of policy changes. Among other things, she said:• "Teacher effectiveness measures don't have to be perfect to be useful. Some people are concerned that not every i is dotted and they're rolling out these systems. But keep in mind how unsatisfactory the [previous] systems have been." She added that an evaluation system "doesn't have to grind to a halt to be fine-tuned." (See my recent story on Tennessee's teacher-evaluation system, which is causing an uproar among teachers
This was written by education historian Diane Ravitch for her Bridging Differences blog, which she co-authors with Deborah Meier on the Education Week website. Ravitch and Meier exchange letters about what matters most in education. Ravitch, a research professor at New York University, is the author of the bestselling “The Death and Life of the Great American School System,” an important critique of the flaws in the modern school reform movement.
Dear Deborah,
Have you been following the evolving story of the reauthorization of No Child Left Behind? I have, and it is disheartening. Instead
