Sunday, December 16, 2012

'SNL' Opens With 'Silent Night' in Honor of Shooting Victims


SIGN the Sandy Hook Elementary School National Sympathy Card | causes.com

coopmike48 at Big Education Ape - 30 minutes ago
SIGN the Sandy Hook Elementary School National Sympathy Card | causes.com: PETITION: SIGN the Sandy Hook Elementary School National Sympathy Card December 15 · Started by David Paine · Invite Friends · Reposts 41 To: Community of Newtown, Connecticut, including the families of the victims and the survivors and their families. Our Sincere Condolences. We wish to express our deepest sympathies to all of the families of those lost, to the survivors and their families, and to the others impacted by the senseless and unthinkable tragedy that unfolded at Sandy Hook Elementary School. We c... more »

Seattle Schools Community Forum: What would you have to say to the superintendent?

Seattle Schools Community Forum: What would you have to say to the superintendent?:


What would you have to say to the superintendent?

I don't make a habit of asking the staff to do things so much as asking them for information. That's because they don't work for me and they aren't accountable to me. I don't hesitate to offer suggestions for action to the Board because they are accountable to the public and they are supposed to represent the public.

So if I had the opportunity to speak with the superintendent, I wouldn't so much have suggestions for him as questions. They are big questions and perhaps some of them will be answered in the Strategic Plan. Perhaps not. The previous Strategic Plan was a management plan more than an academic plan. Is that what it's supposed to be? The new Strategic Plan is shaping up to be more of an academic plan.


  1. When does he think he will have a program placement framework in place and why is it taking so long? What's so hard about it?
  2. How does he think the division between governance and management works when it comes to enforcing 

George Will: ‘Unparented’ boys from single-parent homes causing ‘epidemic of violence’ | The Raw Story

George Will: ‘Unparented’ boys from single-parent homes causing ‘epidemic of violence’ | The Raw Story:


George Will: ‘Unparented’ boys from single-parent homes causing ‘epidemic of violence’

By David Edwards
Sunday, December 16, 2012 13:38 EST
George Will speaks to ABC News
 
Rep. Jason Chaffetz (R-UT) and conservative columnist George Will told a Sunday panel on ABC News that gun violence in the United States was caused by mental illness, video games, violence in the media and even “unparented” boys from single-parent homes — but they refused to accept that gun control was part of the problem.
“Look, I’m a concealed-carry permit holder,” Chaffetz explained. “I own a Glock 23. I’ve got a shotgun. I’m not the person you need to worry about. And there are millions of Americans who deal with this properly. It’s our Second Amendment right to do so. But we have to look at the mental health access that these people have.”
“The gun rules are very stringent. There’s a lot conjecture out there that I don’t think would

Raw Story (http://s.tt/1x5Nq)

SIGN the Sandy Hook Elementary School National Sympathy Card | causes.com

SIGN the Sandy Hook Elementary School National Sympathy Card | causes.com:


PETITION: SIGN the Sandy Hook Elementary School National Sympathy Card


To: Community of Newtown, Connecticut, including the families of the victims and the survivors and their families.

Our Sincere Condolences.
We wish to express our deepest sympathies to all of the families of those lost, to the survivors and their families, and to the others impacted by the senseless and unthinkable tragedy that unfolded at Sandy Hook Elementary School. We cannot begin to comprehend the...
SEE MORE

On the Teacher Evaluation Resolution from the December 2012 Delegate Assembly « JD2718

On the Teacher Evaluation Resolution from the December 2012 Delegate Assembly « JD2718:


On the Teacher Evaluation Resolution from the December 2012 Delegate Assembly

MORE brought a resolution to last week’s UFT delegate assembly, calling for discussion of any teacher evaluation agreement to occur in the schools, and calling for a referendum to be taken among the membership in the event a proposed agreement is reached. The reason they offered for sending an evaluation deal to the membership is both technical, and political. In the technical sense, they argued that this would be an agreement that while not in the contract, would control what goes in the contract, and contracts are voted on by the membership. In the political sense, I believe the leaders of MORE would prefer that most major items were sent to the membership for discussion, independent of contractual implications, starting with the “biggest” and this certainly would be big. The resolution made a stronger argument in the technical sense.
Did you know that the word “vaccination” is derived from the word “vacca” – which means “cow”? I worked both words into this post.
 MORE tried to bring this to the November Delegate Assembly, and was blocked (time ran out). Evidently they  complained directly to the leadership: Mulgrew this time called on Kit Wainer, Chapter Leader at Leon Goldstein HS in Brooklyn and a leading member of MORE, and suggested the delegates support a suspension of the rules 

Monday morning I will return to my classroom. I teach ... it is what I do. Continuing Change

Continuing Change:


The Things I Have Seen

 Reblogged from An Antique Teacher:
I have spent more than half my life teaching Primary grades. In those years, I have seen more school shootings than I care to remember, two Space Shuttles explode killing everyone, the attacks on 9-11, and local events that didn’t make national news, but affected me as a teacher just the same.
There are no words that I have to comfort anyone, because I can’t comfort myself over yesterday’s mass shooting of small children in Newtown, CT.
Read more… 321 more words
My sentiments exactly. Sometimes, we have to let go and let God. Monday morning I will return to my classroom. I teach ... it is what I do.

Minority-Rule America - Mass Destruction - Ohio

Minority-Rule America - Mass Destruction - Ohio:

Blog of Mass Destruction

Minority-Rule America

By THE REVEREND Published: December 12, 2012

By our readiness to allow arms to be purchased at will and fired at whim… we have created an atmosphere in which violence and hatred have become popular pastimes. 
Martin Luther King, Jr. 

In a legitimate democracy, the majority rules. But not in America.
Blame the Framers, blame whoever you want to blame....but the majority in the U.S. do not have final say. In fact, truth be told, the minority....if they have a mind to....can almost always have their way.
I pointed out during the Bush administration, when the polarization of America was deepening, that as long as Republicans hold the presidency and a minimum of 34 senators who will vote in lockstep, the majority could never have it's way. 34 senators are all that are needed to stop Congress from overriding a presidential veto. Democrats could hold the Senate with over 60 senators, but unless Democrats held over 66 seats, Republicans could block any attempt to override a GOP presidential veto.
Consider this past election.... Democrats gained more seats in the Senate and now have a 55-45 advantage over Republicans. Democrats hold a significant majority in the Senate....but as you know, in modern polarized America....it always takes 60 votes to pass anything. Which translates into the minority actually having control in the Senate. Odd for a democratic republic....but true.
Furthermore, I did a little arithmetic, and this is what I came up with...
Only tabulating the population of the states which have either 2 Democratic senators or 2 Republicans senators, I came up with 123.9 million in total population for states with two Democratic senators. 78 million in total population for states with two Republican senators. The remainder of the states have one Democratic senator and one Republican senator.
States with two Democratic senators have total populations outnumbering 

NYC Educator: I’m Not a Hero.

NYC Educator: I’m Not a Hero.:


I’m Not a Hero.


Like most people, I don’t particularly want to be one, either. I can’t express my awe and admiration the teachers who protected their students in Newtown, and like anyone, I have no idea what I would do in their circumstances.
The closest I ever came to having students in danger was about 25 years ago. I was a very green teacher, teaching English in summer school. I had already angered administration by demanding use of the sole and sacred school copying machine after they informed me there would be no books for my reading class. They were very upset when I informed them I would not teach the class without materials, and had no choice but to capitulate.
One day, rocks, or BBs, or something very fast, 

Newtown, CT Patch - Police: Misinformation About Sandy Hook Elementary Shootings on Social Media

Newtown, CT Patch - News, Sports, Events, Businesses & Deals:


Police: Misinformation About Sandy Hook Elementary Shootings on Social Media

Connecticut State Police Lt. Vance said there have been instances of people posing as the shooter on Facebook pages, with "threatening and inaccurate" information.

Updated, 12:22 p.m.
Lt. Vance told reporters that although there is nothing new to report, the investigation is "moving forward" and that evidence has been collected is currently being analyzed.
Vance said that the weaponry recovered from the scene is being traced all the way "back to the work bench when they were being assembled."
He added that autopsy results from the Chief Medical Examiner's Office of the last two victims of the shooting could possibly be released Sunday afternoon.
Updated, 12:03 p.m.
Police said Sunday morning warned that misinformation about Friday's deadly shootings at Sandy Hook Elementary is being posted on social media web sites.
Vance said there have been instances of people posing as the shooter on Facebook pages, with "threatening and inaccurate" information.
Vance said these actions are a possible violation of state and federal laws, and people behind these 

The Sunday Mail. « Fred Klonsky

The Sunday Mail. « Fred Klonsky:


The Sunday Mail.

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Ella Fitzgerald and Dizzy Gillespie await arrest for performing before an integrated audience in Houston, Texas. 1955.
Jersey Jazz Man on heroes.
The Anarchist Soccer Mom asks for a national conversation about mental health.
Arming teachers in the classroom? No thanks. I knew this teacher who couldn’t figure out how to use the walkie-talkie we used for fire drills. I can’t imagine her handling a 38.
ALEC. The folks who brought you guns and school reform.
David Sirota. “The issue with it will be, politically, I think; the profile is white men,” Sirota said. “That’s a profile that’s not, essentially, in America allowed to be profiled. That’s the one profile in America that’s not allowed to be profiled.”
Witnessing how jazz had the potential to change racial attitudes, Jacquet told Granz that he would not play for a segre- gated audience in his hometown. “I didn’t want to come to my hometown after playing all around the 

Daily Kos: Life among the Ruins

Daily Kos: Life among the Ruins:


"Rich cited another catalyst for 'The School Among the Ruins' in an e-mail interview from her Santa Cruz home -- the school, in Brooklyn, where her son teaches.
"'I knew his love for the school, for those children,' she said.
[The volume is s]et during a nonspecific wartime in which children and their teachers are hostages to horror."
We are now faced again with the incomprehensible intersection of children, teachers, schools, and unspeakable violence. It is ours to honor those taken from us by seeking the rational among the irrational.
Seeking the Rational among the Irrational
Let us commit ourselves to a vigilance, to protecting this moment against the petty, against the call to heap irrational upon irrational, against allowing the needed confrontations and