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Tuesday, April 24, 2012

Big Education Ape: 4-24-12 AM Facing a Robo-Grader on Pineapple Test EDition #PINEAPPLEGATE #TURNAROUNDARTS

Big Education Ape: PARENTS CAN!:
Big Education Ape: PARENTS CAN!

Published by Coopmike48 – 7 news spotters today

Adopted Board Resolutions

tasanet.org - The following is a list of school districts that have adopted the Resolution Concerning High Stakes, Standardized Testing of Texas Public School Students. As of March 27, 2012, 192 districts have n...
DianeRavitch

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EducationSee all

Shanker Blog » The Allure Of Teacher Quality

shankerblog.org - Those following education know that policy focused on “teacher quality” is by far the dominant paradigm for improving  schools over the past few years. Some (but not nearly all) components of this ...
DianeRavitch

A Tale of Two School Districts

theassailedteacher.com - What do you know? A school that does not look like a jail. To teachers in New York City, schools in the “suburbs” are mythical places. They have parking lots, swimming pools, computer labs, debate ...
DianeRavitch

SocietySee all

Progressives: Yank ALEC's Nonprofit Status!

motherjones.com - Portland Action LabAfter pressuring dues-paying corporations to ditch the American Legislative Exchange Council, the good-government group Common Cause has launched a new attack on the American Leg...
mikeklonsky

Controversial Policy Group Casts Long K-12 Shadow

edweek.org - Published Online: April 20, 2012In nearly 40 years of legislative advocacy, the American Legislative Exchange Council—a free-market, limited-government group now drawing intense scrutiny for its su...
leoniehaimson

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Scott Walker is a "whack job"? |

bluecheddar.net - from urban dictionary – whack job: A crazy person It seems Governor Scott Walker got called a “whack job” in an AP article by Scott Bauer entitled, “Wisconsin Republicans hope crossover voting affe...
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Acting Education Commissioner Christopher Cerf

bluejersey.com - Today's hearing of the Assembly Budget Committee was a demonstration of how ineffective the Democratic Party has become. The subject was Education and the star witness was Acting Education Commissi...
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Presenting the First Green Ribbon Schools

ed.gov - Cross-posted from the White House Blog. Today I had the honor to name 78 schools as the first-ever U.S. Department of Education Green Ribbon Schools. When we set out a year ago to recognize compreh...
coopmike48

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Adopted Board Resolutions by ESC Regions

tasanet.org - The following is a list of school districts that have adopted the Resolution Concerning High Stakes, Standardized Testing of Texas Public School Students. As of April 23, 2012, 380 districts repres...
DianeRavitch

Judge unseals file in Trayvon Martin murder case

democraticunderground.com - Source: Chicogo Tribune/Orlando Sentinel12:37 p.m. CDT, April 23, 2012 George Zimmerman was released early Monday morning from the Seminole County jail. And hours later, the judge in the case unsea...
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Controversial Policy Group Casts Long K-12 Shadow

edweek.org - Published Online: April 20, 2012In nearly 40 years of legislative advocacy, the American Legislative Exchange Council—a free-market, limited-government group now drawing intense scrutiny for its su...
leoniehaimson

Pearson | Always Learning

pearsoned.com - September 15, 2011.  Pearson, the world’s leading learning company, is announcing today the acquisition of Connections Education from an investor group led by Apollo Management, L.P. Through its Co...
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PSAT for 4-24-12: Sign the National Resolution on High Stakes Testing

Parents United for Responsible Education » Blog Archive » PSAT for 4-24-12: Sign the National Resolution on High Stakes Testing:


PSAT for 4-24-12: Sign the National Resolution on High Stakes Testing

by admin

Please sign on here (as individuals and, where appropriate, as organizations such as Local School Councils, etc.) Here’s what and why:
Advancement Project – Asian American Legal Defense and Education Fund – FairTest – Forum for Education and Democracy – NAACP Legal Defense and Educational Fund – National Education Association – Parents Across America – United Church of Christ Justice and Witness Ministries
for further information:
Monty Neill (617) 477-9792
Pamela Grundy (704) 375-4222
Matt Cregor (646) 515-5284
for immediate release, Tuesday, April 24, 2012
MAJOR EDUCATION, CIVIL RIGHTS, PARENTS, AND RELIGIOUS GROUPS LAUNCH NATIONWIDE RESOLUTION TO ROLL BACK HIGH-STAKES TESTING;
SEEK SIGN-ONS FROM ORGANIZATIONS, INDIVIDUALS
Inspired by a statement adopted by more than 360 Texas school boards, major national education, civil rights and parents groups have launched a resolution calling on federal and state policymakers to reduce standardized test mandates and, instead, base school accountability on multiple forms of measurement.
The initial signers include the NAACP Legal Defense Fund, Parents Across America, National Education Association, United Church of Christ Justice and Witness Ministries, Advancement Project, National Center for Fair & Open Testing (FairTest), Asian American Legal Defense and Education Fund, and Forum for Education and Democracy. Other supporters include educators such as Deborah Meier and Diane Ravitch as well as community-based education groups in New York, Chicago and Charlotte.
The groups are seeking endorsements from other local, state and national organizations as well as individuals concerned with the rapid increase in time, money and energy devoted to exams used to make major decisions about students, educators and schools. Supporters can sign on at http://www.timeoutfromtesting.org/nationalresolution,
Dr. Monty Neill, Executive Director of FairTest who helped coordinate drafting the resolution, explained, “The overreliance on high-stakes standardized testing is undermining educational quality and equity across the U.S. The collateral damage includes narrowed curriculum, low-scoring students pushed out of school, and teaching to the test.”
““By teaching to the test, we are depriving a generation of youth, particularly youth of color growing up in low-income communities, from developing the critical thinking skills they need, and our country needs, to be competitive in this global economy,” added Matt Cregor, Assistant Counsel at the NAACP Legal Defense and Education Fund.
“Parents are fed up with constant testing,” concluded Pamela Grundy from Parents Across America, who helped lead a community revolt against expanding testing in Charlotte, North Carolina last year. “We want our elected leaders to support real learning, not endless evaluation.”
The resolution urges state officials to “reexamine school accountability” and develop a system “which does not require extensive standardized testing, more accurately reflects the broad range of student learning, and is used to support students and improve schools.” At the federal level, it calls on the U.S. Congress and Obama Administration to overhaul “No Child Left Behind” and “to reduce the testing mandates, promote multiple forms of evidence of student learning and school quality in accountability, and not mandate any fixed role for the use of student test scores in evaluating educators.” The full text is online at http://www.timeoutfromtesting.org/nationalresolution



Parent forum at DePaul May 2

by admin
Please plan to attend a great parent forum put together by the DePaul College of Education featuring yours truly and several other local parent leaders:
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The Innovative Educator: Inform Others of the Harm of Standardized Tests with This Flyer

The Innovative Educator: Inform Others of the Harm of Standardized Tests with This Flyer:


Inform Others of the Harm of Standardized Tests with This Flyer

by noreply@blogger.com (Lisa Nielsen)
We are finally reaching a time when parents are standing up for the rights of their children and opting out of tests. Social media has played a great role in this where parents are able to find others from their state who are doing the same thing they are and also discover and share information and resources at sites like the Opt Out of Standardized Tests wiki. They are uniting and getting smarter about their parental right to decide what is best for their children.

Many even are stepping up and spreading the word. To that end, I have created the following double-sided, informational flyer that can be customized and simply printed out from any printer.  Hand it out in front of your school. To your school's principal, teachers etc. Sadly, many teachers and administrators know what they are being forced to do is hurting children, but if they speak up they risk losing their jobs.  They need parents and community members to do this work!

You can see the flyer below and visit and download it here.

Popout
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A new teacher evaluation system being tested at two OUSD schools - The Education Report - Katy Murphy's blog on Oakland schools

A new teacher evaluation system being tested at two OUSD schools - The Education Report - Katy Murphy's blog on Oakland schools:


A new teacher evaluation system being tested at two OUSD schools

Monday, April 23rd, 2012 at 4:04 pm in teachersNo Comments
Dave Orphal, a teacher at Skyline High School in Oakland, will write a series of blog posts for The Education Report about teacher evaluations — including a pilot program that two middle schools are using this year. He serves as a veteran teacher leader for the Bay Area New Millennium Initiative and works with the California Teachers Association’s Institute for Teaching. You can read more of Dave’s thoughts on teaching and educational reform at TransformED.
In the last session of the OEA/OUSD teacher conference last Saturday, I sat in a session about a new teacher-evaluation system piloted by two Oakland schools. Like my own school, these two are 
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