Lessons from the Lakeview Sit-In « Classroom Struggle

Lessons from the Lakeview Sit-In « Classroom Struggle:

Here we are almost 6 months on from the Lakeview Sit-In.  The school has now been turned into offices and at least one-fifth of the former students of the 5 closed elementary schools have left the district.  Many of the ones that have stayed are now being taught in portables.  Clearly we did not achieve our major goals, even though now the Administration will think twice about closing more schools.  This article tries to capture some of the positives and negatives of the school closure struggle in order to glean lessons for us today and going forward.  They are just the reflections of one person.  So please contribute your thoughts too. It is imperative that we all collectively reflect, struggle, and keep our schools open for students.

Lessons from the Lakeview Sit-In

By N. Finch

Editor’s Note: This was written by a member of the Education Committee of Occupy Oakland which co-organized the Sit-In with parents and teachers of the 5 schools.

We sat-in at Lakeview Elementary June 15th but the seeds for our People’s School had been planted much earlier. Beginning in September, 2011, parents, teachers, and students from the 5 schools slated for closure fought to keep their schools open. Clearly the main surge of struggle was leading up to the October 26th vote, but beyond then 

Lakeview Teaches

by ClassroomStruggle

Sometimes deep and poignant struggle is hard to capture in words.  But when someone is able to it helps keep the transformative moment alive in our hearts and pushes us on to the next upsurge.  Thankfully this reflection by a key participant of the Lakeview Sit-In truly revives what we felt during the 18 whirlwind [...]

Reply to OUSD from the Lakeview Sit-In and People’s School

by ClassroomStruggle

The Lakeview Sit-in lasted for 18 days from June 15th to July 3rd, ending in an arrest of a parent and a former student. The school board published a statement regarding the sit-in on June 22nd in an attempt to subdue the negative public attention they were receiving from the Oakland community in support of [...]

Fast track to STEM teaching in state with federal grants | EdSource Today

Fast track to STEM teaching in state with federal grants | EdSource Today:

Fast track to STEM teaching in state with federal grants

December 4th, 2012 | Add a Comment | 
By Kathryn Baron

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Five alternative teacher certification programs in California that won millions in federal grants are on track to train nearly 800 math and science teachers and place them in high-poverty, hard-to-staff schools.

The California Teacher Corps, which represents more than 70 of the state’s alternative certification programs, said the projects, which began with planning grants in 2011-12, will receive a total of about $18 million over five years from Transition to Teaching, a competitive grant program run by the U.S. Department of Education.  Its goal to recruit and train teachers in science, technology, engineering and math (known as STEM fields). The winning projects are based in one school district and four universities.

Cal State Dominguez Hills Transition to Teaching student. (photo: CSU Dominguez Hills). click to enlarge.

• Cal State Dominguez Hills’ Transition to Teaching Project plans to enroll 225 students over five years who will take online classes while putting those lessons into practice working side by side with master teachers in Saturday and summer laboratory schools for students from more than a dozen southern California districts.

• Cal State Fullerton is partnering with nine southern 

5 Ways To Use 300 More Instructional Hours In A Year (THIS IS AMERICA!) | The Jose Vilson

5 Ways To Use 300 More Instructional Hours In A Year (THIS IS AMERICA!) | The Jose Vilson:

5 Ways To Use 300 More Instructional Hours In A Year (THIS IS AMERICA!)

by Jose

A Scene Left In The Cutting Room of the Film 300

This morning, I woke up to the news that a pilot program starting in a few states, including Connecticut and New York, would add 300 more instructional hours to the school year starting in 2013. I don’t know about you, but I have yet to see a real study showing a positive correlation between classroom time (teacher-student face-to-face for a designated class) and student achievement. If you’re not as informed with the research, your natural inclination is to say “Yes! More schooling sounds great.” What it usually means, however, is that those 300 hours get used for test prep and, well, more test prep.
No recess, no extracurriculars, no special electives.
What’s more, some of us (:: ahem ::) can do lots more with less periods a week. Currently, I teach two classes 

UPDATE: School Tech Connect: An Intelligent Conversation and I'm In

School Tech Connect: I'm In:

An Intelligent Conversation

by noreply@blogger.com (Tim Furman)

I'm not in the CTU, but it is striking to me how many really, really dynamic people have come together to lead that organization. This video is up on the CTU site; it's a charter vs. traditional school debate, and it's pretty good. I'm running it because Jackson Potter is amazing.

The whole CTU Board is amazing. This during a time when the president of the AFT is running around calling for a bar exam for teachers.

Popout

I'm in this conversation all the time, and I think I'll simply refer people to the above video in the future. I'm just glad I've worked in a place where parents all send their kids to the community high school--- the kids who will go to MIT as well as the kids in deep trouble; kids of every race, color, and creed, all in one building, which has 

I'm In

by noreply@blogger.com (Tim Furman)

I've been off the pension beat for a while, but there's no way I'm missing  this We Are One event in Springfield. In a better world, we'd all be like Wisconsin, and tens of thousands of people would descend on the capitol.

But we're Illinois. People will drive around the parking lot at Woodfield Mall all week before they do something to fight for their future.

Still, one can hope. The clarion whisper of the state's teachers' unions might eventually get picked up on ham radio. Word could spread...

There's no way I'm missing it---- the coerced choice legislation that they're going to be regurgitating is such obvious bullshit. If they thought they could come after the COLAs, they'd just do it. But no, they're framing it as a "choice" like everyone's a moron.

It makes me ill. The constitution is too important. You remember the convoluted amendment that failed? You know what would have passed? A graduated income tax amendment.

I'll have my cameras. Let's get some people on film telling their stories.

January 3 and 4.

Mike Klonsky's SmallTalk Blog: Duncan's spinning wheel stuck

Mike Klonsky's SmallTalk Blog: Duncan's spinning wheel stuck:

Duncan's spinning wheel stuck

by Mike Klonsky

Cunningham's gone.  Hamilton's gone. Who's left at the DOE to hold Arne Duncan's hand? Daren Briscoe?

Duncan buys in to the Bush model

Somebody needs to step in and help Arne move beyond his rat-a-tat-tat speed rapping and engage in some serious media discussion. After keynoting Jeb Bush's D.C. ed summit, along with a gaggle of other T-Party'ers, privatizers, "parent-trigger" pullers, and charter and voucher pushers like Mitch Daniels,  Condi Rice and Rupert Murdoch flack, Joel Klein, Duncan refused to answer any questions from the media. VaPo'sValerie Strauss offers some possible reasons why, straight out of the Onion.

Maybe without Cunningham or Hamilton to do feed Duncan his lines, Obama's folks are afraid of being embarrassed when the obvious question is asked: Why have current administration ed policies found such a comfortable home among the Bush neo-cons when they can't get the time 

7 apply to be Seattle district's first Creative Approach Schools | Local News | The Seattle Times

7 apply to be Seattle district's first Creative Approach Schools | Local News | The Seattle Times:

7 apply to be Seattle district's first Creative Approach Schools

Throughout the campaign over this year's charter-school initiative, a number of Seattle's school leaders argued that Seattle didn't need charters to build and nurture innovative teaching. By giving a number of schools new flexibility next fall, they hope to prove it.

By Linda Shaw

Seattle Times education reporter

Throughout the campaign over this year's charter-school initiative, a number of Seattle's education leaders argued that Seattle didn't need charters to build and nurture innovative schools.

Now they hope to prove it.

In the next few weeks, a district-union committee will recommend which Seattle schools should become Creative Approach Schools next fall — schools that, like charters, will have the flexibility to try new ways to raise the achievement of students, especially those from poor families.

Seven schools submitted final applications Friday. They include NOVA, an alternative high school that wants to expand into the middle-school grades, and Hawthorne Elementary, which hopes to become a feeder school for nearby Cleveland High's science, math and technology program.

Cleveland has applied, too, one of several schools that simply want to strengthen and expand programs they started years — or decades — 

UPDATE: A Florida charter school scandal gets worse Common Core reading pros and cons - A warning ed policymakers should heed

A warning ed policymakers should heed:

A Florida charter school scandal gets worse

by Valerie Strauss

In the you-can't-make-up-this-stuff category: Do you remember the case of the charter school in central Florida that gave its founding principal a $519,453 payout in taxpayer money when it was forced to close because of academic failure? Well, it turns out, the school also paid more than $460,000 over five years to her husband, who resigned from its board in 2008 about the same time he was charged with soliciting prostitutes while serving as a sheriff's commander. Really.
Read full article >>

Common Core reading pros and cons

by Valerie Strauss

My colleague Lyndsey Layton wrote this Washington Post story about confusion at many schools about how to properly implement the Common Core State Standards in English. The trouble surrounds the standards' call for students to read more non-fiction; exactly how much and by when is at issue. Here's a related post about the pros and cons of Common Core standards for reading by a teacher, John T. Spencer, a sixth-grade ELL teacher in an urban, Title One School. He has written five books, including "Pencil Me In," an allegory for educational technology; "Teaching Unmasked," about the impact paradox; "Sages and Lunatics," a memoir and critique on factory education; and "A Sustainable Start," a realistic look at the first year of teaching. This appeared on a blog he co-authors called Education Rethink.
Read full article >>

A warning ed policymakers should heed

Posted by Valerie Strauss on December 4, 2012 at 7:30 am

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Here Carol Burris, the award-winning principal of South Side High School in Rockville Centre, New York, writes about a proposal by Tulane University’s Douglas Harris on how to fairly use “value added models” for teacher assessment (you can read it in the post below.) Burris is the co-author of the New York Principals letter of concern regarding the evaluation of teachers by student test scores, which has been signed by thousands of people from different walks of life. You can read the letter by clicking here.

By Carol Burris

In the fall of 2011, over 500 principals from Long Island, signed a letter that stated their concerns regarding New York’s newly enacted teacher evaluation system. Although the evaluation system was hailed by the New York State Education Department as a reform that would improve teaching and learning, the principals strongly, and very publicly 

A valid way to use value added' in teacher evaluation

by Valerie Strauss

Whether and how value-added models for teacher evaluation -- which use student standardized test scores to assess teachers -- only becomes more controversial in education as time goes on. Here is a new approach on the subject from Douglas N. Harris, associate professor of economics and University Endowed Chair in Public Education at Tulane University in New Orleans. His latest book, "Value-Added Measures in Education," provides an accessible review of the technical and practical issues surrounding these models. This appeared on the blogof the non-profit Albert Shanker Institute.
Read full article >>

300 HOURS « Teachers Fight Back

300 HOURS « Teachers Fight Back:

300 HOURS

by alkleen

I saw a news report about several states passing laws that would require 300 more hours of school for each student.  That would figure out to be about an extra month of attendance days. Most teachers already are in school from mid August until mid June.  If you throw in another 300 hours, that would make most schools virtually year round, at least for the teachers who need to add more prep time at the beginning and end of the school year. I hope the teachers in those situations are going to be adequately compensated and have access to good mental health facilities, they’ll need it.
It’s just amazing how people continue to look for the magic bullet to increase student achievement. If only the students had more hours in school. If only every teacher was an excellent one. If we just had the right curriculum and used the right methods in our schools. If we could make all of our schools to be year round schools. If we just put more emphasis on science and math in the classroom.  If we could make sure our students all receive 

Tony Bennett’s Florida Bid Pits Bush Versus Scott | Scathing Purple Musings

Tony Bennett’s Florida Bid Pits Bush Versus Scott | Scathing Purple Musings:

Tony Bennett’s Florida Bid Pits Bush Versus Scott

by Bob Sikes

Just off his defeat at the ballot box in a red state, Tony Bennett waited until the last second to throw his hat in the ring for Florida’s education commissioner post. Why it took so long is anyone’s guess and I won’t be speculating on that here. But Bennett’s entry into the picture will be a showdown between current governor Rick Scott and former governor Jeb Bush. Lets explore why.
Rick Scott completely bought into the school reform model that Bush and others were selling when he became governor. He walked the talk and showed Waiting for Superman to legislators during his transition. Controversial reform icon Michelle Rhee co-chaired his education transition team with Bush top operative Patricia Levesque. Three top charter school executives joined them in crafting a legislative plan that likely gave Bush a Chris Mathews thrill up his leg. But the Rick Scott who took office in January 2011 is not the Rick Scott who’s traveled  Bush Way as governor for two years.
For starters, he’s been embarrassed a number of times. He signed the Rhee inspired SB736 at the Jacksonville 

Democurmudgeon: ALEC's Education Task Force vs Actual Teacher. Teacher Wins.

Democurmudgeon: ALEC's Education Task Force vs Actual Teacher. Teacher Wins.:

ALEC's Education Task Force vs Actual Teacher. Teacher Wins.

by Democurmudgeon

Check out this inside look at ALEC, and the cowards working behind the scenes trying to destroy public education for profit. When they had to confront an actual teacher during policy talks, they had nothing. In fact, they were annoyed by the teachers lack of how their down-the-rabbit hole process works. Diane Ravitch has the story, she's an historian of education and Research Professor of Education at New York University:

Sabrina Stevens somehow got herself into a closed-door meeting of the ALEC education task force, and she told the task force how disturbed she was by what she saw. They told her that she does not “understand the process,” and it is clear in the video that they were shocked to find a real live teacher and advocate for public education in their midst.

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Jersey Jazzman: Triumph Of the Incompetent

Jersey Jazzman: Triumph Of the Incompetent:

Triumph Of the Incompetent

by Duke

New Jersey teacher Marie Corfield, who dared to stand up for teachers and parents, had over $100,000 "dropped on her head" this past fall when she ran for the state Assembly. The dropper was none other than B4K, a super-PAC powered by hedge fund money and run by a professional schmoozer of the rich, Derrell Bradford.

Considering the money B4K spent to buy the defeat of Corfield, I think it's worth going back and giving a listen to what these guys are all about. To paraphrase Bradford: "The problem with our country today is that we spend too much time listening to the opinions of people who know what they are talking about!"

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"1.0 is an era that is like a hundred years long. Where only the sort of like - you know, Rick mentioned earlier - only the sort of experts, only the accredited, all those people, those are the only people who are sort of allowed to talk about schools, right?"

Of course, unaccredited non-experts have been talking about what's wrong with schools since forever. But let's put Bradford's ignorant version of history aside...

Does Derrell Bradford really think it's so great that people who have no expertise in education now 

LAUSD TEACHER TELLS THE SAME STORY OF BEING TARGETED - Perdaily.com

LAUSD TEACHER TELLS THE SAME STORY OF BEING TARGETED - Perdaily.com:

LAUSD TEACHER TELLS THE SAME STORY OF BEING TARGETED

by Leonard Isenberg

(Mensaje se repite en Español) 

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

As Superintendent John Deasy and the Los Angeles Unified School District (LAUSD) receive no real opposition from United Teachers Los Angeles (UTLA) nor the city, state, or federal authorities, the war against teachers continues, not only unabated, but increasing in intensity. This past Sunday I received 5 calls from terrified teachers who were telling the now all too familiar story of being targeted by their LAUSD administrator on completely fabricated charges. I must confess a strange curiosity to see how long LAUSD will be allowed to savage its teachers before anybody in authority will do something about it. I have taken the liberty of removing the teacher's name from the following post to assure that she does not suffer more harassment from LAUSD for speaking out. I will do the same for others who 

Special Late Nite Cap UPDATE 12-3-12 #SOSCHAT #EDCHAT #P2

Nite Cap UPDATE

UPDATE UPDATE UPDATE UPDATE

Great Reading

by debmeier

I’d like a moratorium on publishing any more good books—so I could catch up.  Even if restricted to books on current educational dilemmas from my viewpoint, I can’t catch up.  So over the next week I plan to share four books I’ve been eading about schools and reform, and one “booklet”.  .   There are at least a dozen others that I probably also should read—and will soon.
In no particular order, I’ll start with:

Mrs. Cook: Teacher of the Year, “Unsatisfactory”

by dianerav

I published a post with a photo of a teacher who was named Teacher of the Year by her colleagues but found “unsatisfactory” or “ineffective” by the value-added methods of her state. I knew her name–Mrs. Cook–but nothing more.

Through a Child’s Eyes

by John Marschhausen

I had the distinct pleasure to spend some time earlier this week as the guest reader in a second grade classroom. The night before, I took time to carefully select my two books to share with the class. When I read to primary students I always grab a Dr. Seuss book – I simply love reading Dr. Seuss. I also grabbed a seasonal book – this time I brought What Snowmen do at Night. As the district’s educational leader I spent some time talking about the importance of reading – not just reading books . . . simply reading.
Talking with six-year-old students is a rare treat for a superintendent. I love hearing their experiences, listening to 

Louisiana Voucher Program’s Financing Is Ruled Unconstitutional

by By CAMPBELL ROBERTSON

A state district judge ruled that the way in which Louisiana finances the new program is unconstitutional. Gov. Bobby Jindal called the decision “wrongheaded” and vowed to appeal.

School cooks, supervisors steamed at new federal food law

by The Associated Press

Along with added paperwork, some school districts don’t like the requirement that lunchroom employees put at least half a cup of fruits or vegetable on every student’s plate.

School districts in Portland metro area look to Legislature for local option levy fix

by Findley Merritt, The Oregonian

The result is exactly what parents such as Kittelson hoped to avoid: The Tigard-Tualatin School District drained the district's rainy day fund and cut more than 23 teaching positions.

Original enclosure (gs31taxx104-02jpg-1edba19dcfd909cd.jpg)

Bill to speed up teacher dismissals is revived

A state senator has reintroduced legislation intended to speed the dismissal of teachers for gross misconduct.
Sen. Alex Padilla (D-Pacoima) acted in the wake of a state audit concluding that current laws added excessive cost and time to the firing process.
“The state auditor confirms that the dismissal process established in state law is inconsistent, too lengthy, too costly and delays the timely resolution of child-abuse cases,” Padilla said in a statement. “I believe strongly that