Tuesday, December 6, 2011

Big Education Ape: 12-6-11 AM Bloomberg's stance on education near-sighted EDition #OWS #EDREFORM

Big Education Ape: Ed News Now:

Published by Coopmike48 – 6 news spotters today

Bloomberg's stance on education near-sighted

nyunews.com - by WSN Editorial Board Published December 5, 2011 Last Friday, Mayor Michael Bloomberg asserted that, "double the class size with a better teacher is a good deal for students." While NYU students l...

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coopmike48 Education Research Report: State Standards, the SAT, and Admission to the University of California bit.ly/ujuDlTvia @addthis3 minutes ago · reply · retweet · favorite

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EducationSee all

Bloomberg: 62 in a class is OK... for other people's children

schoolingintheownershipsociety.blogspot.com - The mayor's daughters went to Spence, where class size hovers between 10 and 15. “Double the class size with a better teacher is a good deal for students.” -- Mayor BloombergMayor Bloomberg told a...

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wbez.org - Walter Dyett is one of two high schools that could be phased out under that shake-up announced last week by school officials.But what happens to the school buildings once the students are gone?The ...

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SocietySee all

N.Y.C. Police Maligned Paradegoers on Facebook

nytimes.com - They called people “animals” and “savages.” One comment said, “Drop a bomb and wipe them all out.” Hearing New York police officers speak publicly but candidly about one another and the...

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PoliticsSee all

WEEKEND QUOTABLES

michaelklonsky.blogspot.com - Visiting a wealthy suburban school "This is a school? I thought it was a museum." -- Terence Lewis, 17, a senior at Furness High in South PhiladelphiaChicago Rep. Cynthia Soto“We need explanations,...

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Send in the Clueless

nytimes.com - There are two crucial things you need to understand about the current state of American politics. First, given the still dire economic situation, 2012 should be a year of Republican triumph. Second...

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CrimeSee all

Students and Principal Pepper-Sprayed at Bronx High School

cityroom.blogs.nytimes.com - December 5, 2011, 2:09 pm By ALICE SPERIUpdated, 2:33 p.m. | A student at a Bronx public high school pepper-sprayed at least 14 people, including students and the principal, in the cafeteria and ha...

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ScienceSee all

Newly discovered planet in habitable zone

mercurynews.com - Click photo to enlargeThis artist's conception illustrates Kepler-22b, a planet known to comfortably circle in the habitable zone of a sun-like star. It is the first planet that NASA's Kepler missi...

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BusinessSee all

Audit Faults Parks Agency on Revenue

online.wsj.com - BY SUMATHI REDDY New York City's Department of Parks & Recreation lost nearly $9 million in potential concession revenue due to a poor solicitation and awarding system, according to an audit releas...

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#owsSee all

Bikeswarm: Modern urban guerilla tactic

dailycensored.com - e pluribus unumI had no idea what the Bikeswarm was until I was suddenly, unexpectedly part of it.After having been rousted from their initial occupation site on Nov. 13, Occupy Portland announced ...

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Seattle Schools Community Forum: Innovation Schools, Er, "Creative Approach Schools"

Seattle Schools Community Forum: Innovation Schools, Er, "Creative Approach Schools":

Innovation Schools, Er, "Creative Approach Schools"

by Melissa Westbrook
The initial draft of the MOU between the district and the SEA about innovation schools (now renamed "Creative Approach Schools") is clearly a work in progress. But it is promising.

It's interesting because I think some fear this as an intro into charters; I see it as a way to strong-arm off charters. Why do you need charters if districts and unions are willing to work together to provide innovative ways to close the achievement gap? I think this kind of forward motion is what we need to see more of and could be a model for the rest of the country. (I do know that there are innovation-type schools as well as charters as well as magnets in some districts in the country. I don't get have a huge hodge-podge of types of schools. What a lot of confusion for parents and oversight costs for the state.)

Back to the MOU.

It would only cover the current CBA which runs from 2010-2013. It would provide for "broad exemptions" from
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What ‘multiple measures’ really means in evaluation - The Answer Sheet - The Washington Post

What ‘multiple measures’ really means in evaluation - The Answer Sheet - The Washington Post:

What ‘multiple measures’ really means in evaluation

by Valerie Strauss

This was written by Lisa Guisbond and Monty Neill of FairTest, the nonprofit National Center for Fair and Open Testing, which is dedicated to eliminating the misuse of standardized testing. Guisbond is a policy analyst and Neill is the executive director.

By Lisa Guisbond and Monty Neill

Like the same old laundry detergent with a “new and improved” sticker, sometimes the only real change in U.S. education policy is the language used to describe it.

Read full article >>
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Put The FOIL In The Recycle Bin, Please | The Jose Vilson

Put The FOIL In The Recycle Bin, Please | The Jose Vilson:

Put The FOIL In The Recycle Bin, Please

by Jose

That’s it. I’m done with FOIL. Now and possibly forever, unless someone like Alfie Kohn or JD tells me otherwise.

At first I didn’t have a horse in the race. I mean, who cares so long as kids can multiply binomials right? If they get it one way or another way, then they’ll get it and that’s great. So what prompted me to dump it altogether? After school, two of my best students decided to annoy me about their grades after school. They got on my case so much that I said, “You know what? Fine! I’m gonna see if you can do this!” After having taught them how to multiply monomials and binomials in any order, I gave them a product of two binomials like this: (3x² + 5x)(14x³ – 17x + 12).

One of the kids said in her sweet voice: “Mr. V, we’re just KIDS!” I cracked up and said, “Try it!”

Sure enough, they got to plugging away. They started to multiply the binomial with the trinomial as if they had seen the problem before. I couldn’t believe the gall. Then, they saw the FOIL instructions written on the board

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Daily Kos: How to Rescue Education Reform

Daily Kos: How to Rescue Education Reform:

How to Rescue Education Reform

by rss@dailykos.com (teacherken)

is the title of this interesting New York Times op ed. It is interesting, and unusual, in the pair of authors, because they are normally not seen as allies on matters educational, disagreeing strongly on things like merit pay for teachers, to cite only one example.

Linda Darling-Hammond is one of the most notable figure in education, having been a professor at Teachers College Columbia and now at Stanford, a prolific author, on numerous commissions and boards, and serving as the director of the Obama administration's transition team on education. Rick Hess is equally notable in the think tank world, being a key voice on education based at the American Enterprise Institute.

In examining the pending reauthorization of the current iteration of the Elementary and Secondary Education Act, commonly known as No Child Left Behind, they find 4 key things that the Federal government can and should do in education upon which they agree.

I will explore those four things below the fold, but will not be upset if you are already convinced and choose instead to stop reading here and go directly to the piece in the Times.

Full disclosure: I have reviewed books by both of these notables, worked in conjunction with Darling-Hammond on a number of educational issues. My own orientation is more in her direction than that of Hess, and I consider her a friend as well as a colleague. But I also respect a good deal of Hess's work.

I hope you will keep reading.

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Jersey Jazzman: It's A Wonderfully Stupid Life

Jersey Jazzman: It's A Wonderfully Stupid Life:

It's A Wonderfully Stupid Life

by Duke


Less than a month before the deadline, we have a sure winner in the "Stoopidest Conversation On Cable News TeeVee" category:



Damn you, Muppets, with your anti-capitalism propaganda and indoctrination! Why can't we return to the good old days of Hollywood celebrating the wealthy? Like when they would destroy small towns?

Every time a wacko says something stoopid on Fox, and
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LAUSD's Employee Relations Director Ira Berman - The Banality of Evil Part 1 - Perdaily.com

LAUSD's Employee Relations Director Ira Berman - The Banality of Evil Part 1 - Perdaily.com:

LAUSD's Employee Relations Director Ira Berman - The Banality of Evil Part 1

by Leonard Isenberg
We were only following orders.jpeg
(Mensaje se repite en Espaรฑol)

(For a national view of public education reform see the end of this blog post)

During the last several weeks I have been inundated with phone calls from Los Angeles Unified School District (LAUSD) rubber room teachers and others who the new regime of Superintendent John Deasy is moving to dismiss in an expedited manner, Finally many of these long targeted and completely innocent teachers are starting to realize that LAUSD's actions against them - and not against teachers and administrators who are in fact guilty of what they have been accused - have nothing do do with culpability, but rather getting rid of as many high priced teachers as possible - along with the expensive benefits they have accrued for a lifetime of professional career service.

It is only recently that these teachers have become aware that once their own dismissal proceedings start, they never stop irrespective of whether there is any

LAUSD's Director of Employee Relations Ira Berman- The Banality of Evil Part 2

by Leonard Isenberg
We were only following orders.jpeg
(Mensaje se repite en Espaรฑol)

(For a national view of public education reform see the end of this blog post)

After listening to the incoherent charade that Ira Berman had been laying out to my teacher friend in much the same manner that I am sure he has used to con other less informed teachers into resigning from LAUSD, I now start to lay out why I really came to this meeting. LAUSD administrators have "maliciously" and mercilessly destroyed the lives of teachers and other certificated and classified employees without the slightest fear of being
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How to Rescue Education Reform - NYTimes.com

How to Rescue Education Reform - NYTimes.com:

How to Rescue Education Reform

Gracรญa Lam
By FREDERICK M. HESS and LINDA DARLING-HAMMOND
Published: December 5, 2011

THE debate over renewing No Child Left Behind, the education reform act that will be 10 years old in January, has fallen along partisan lines even though school improvement is one of the few examples of bipartisan cooperation over the last decade.

Related in Opinion

Though the law was initiated and signed by a Republican president, presidential candidates like Mitt Romney and Rick Perry, who once supported it, now talk about getting the federal government out of education, echoing Tea Party members who deem federal involvement a

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A Multi Year Evaluation of the Philadelphia School Turn Around Model is Necessary Before Considering any Further Expansion « City School Stories

A Multi Year Evaluation of the Philadelphia School Turn Around Model is Necessary Before Considering any Further Expansion « City School Stories:

A Multi Year Evaluation of the Philadelphia School Turn Around Model is Necessary Before Considering any Further Expansion

by fmurphy

Notes from the Field
Submitted by Frank Murphy on December 6, 2011

In the last two years, several Philadelphia District schools have either been converted to charter schools operated by outside providers, or have been converted to Promise Academies, the District’s internally-managed school turnaround strategy. As a result of this reorganization, the overall operation of the school district has been significantly impacted. Yet little public scrutiny has been given to the consequences of these changes.

Media attention during the last year has targeted the financial woes, leadership turmoil and businesses dealingsof the School District of Philadelphia. The resulting news coverage narrowly focused on the shortcomings of the

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