Louisiana Educator: Teachers Show They Can Speak Truth to Power

Louisiana Educator: Teachers Show They Can Speak Truth to Power:

Teachers Show They Can Speak Truth to Power

by Michael Deshotels

Please click on this link to read the letter from Abby Breaux that was printed in the Washington Post over the weekend. It is getting rave reviews from educators all over the country. Take a look at the many comments from teachers in other parts of the country that are facing the same impossible challenges as Ms Breaux that are being ignored by our "reformer" power structure. People like Jindal and White have no idea what teachers go through, yet they want to run education. Finally, teachers have decided to speak truth to power! God bless you Abby!

I am reprinting the following from the Lafayette Advertiser:
(click here to see the video provided by the Advertiser)

A group of Lafayette teachers calling themselves the "Fearless Foursome" launched a Facebook page to spark continued discussion about education issues.

Abby Breaux, Andrea Thibodeaux, Linda Rhoads and Jennifer Guillory started the page "Teachers Standing for Solutions" over the weekend. By late Monday afternoon, the page had more than 1,000 "likes."

Guillory said her children encouraged her to start the page after she and the other teachers spoke out last week about the challenges of education. Their concerns include the district's discipline system, a large amount of 

UPDATE: The Expertise Gap + So, is Direct and Purposeful Teaching Anti-Constructivist? – @ the chalk face

So, is Direct and Purposeful Teaching Anti-Constructivist? – @ the chalk face:

Argue with Some of the Logic?: The Expertise Gap

by plthomasedd

While not above criticism himself, Malcolm Gladwell (Time, 20 October 2009) has argued an important point about the importance of topic expertise for journalists:

The issue is not writing. It’s what you write about. One of my favorite columnists is Jonathan Weil, who writes for Bloomberg. He broke the Enron story, and he broke it because he’s one of the very few mainstream journalists in America who really knows how to read a balance sheet. That means Jonathan Weil will always have a job, and will always be read, and will always have something interesting to say. He’s unique. Most accountants don’t write articles, and most journalists don’t know anything about accounting. Aspiring journalists should stop going to journalism programs and go to some other kind of grad school. If I was studying today, I would go get a master’s in statistics, and maybe do a bunch of accounting courses and then write from that perspective. I think that’s the way to survive. The role of the generalist is diminishing. Journalism has to get smarter.

The education debate, specifically the education reform debate, currently confirms Gladwell’s concern because politicians with little or no educational expertise or experience control education policy and journalists with little or 

So, is Direct and Purposeful Teaching Anti-Constructivist?

by Kuhio Kane

“When it is agreed that all students must know the same things at the same times in order to move on to the next thing that all students must know at the same time, you have killed constructivism.  And, as Sir Ken Robinson has virally said, you’ve also killed creativity.” (Quote from Sir Ken Robinson as displayed in Kris Nielsen’s recent blog regarding constructivism and teaching).
Clearly, students move on in their learning, the great hope.  Also, just as clearly, there will never come a time when all students will know all the same thing all at the same time.  Nor move on to know the same things all at the same time. Such a claim is absurd.  I’m sure this quote came with a bit of sarcasm from Robinson.  If not, then I’m confident that what is meant is that schools have been beating the crap out of creativity for some time.  It’s just that now it is becoming that which is levied with an increasing and insidious. fictitious quantitative analysis.  For the metrics to be manipulated to expand a war as specious and phony as the war on drugs.

Beware the Reform-y Types in Constructivist’s Clothing

by Kris Nielsen

There’s been a great way to teach out there in school-o-sphere for quite some time, which we know leads to authentic learning and happy kids.  It’s not lecture.  It’s not worksheets. It’s not even “hands-on.”  (“Hands-on” doesn’t always mean that kids are learning or even engaged.)

Put that away and get back to hands-on learning!

It’s called constructivism, and it is totally awesome.  Seriously, though, it is!  When we hear the buzzwords, like “child-centered,” “inquiry-based,” “student-led,” etc., what we are hearing is an attempt to get kids to lead their own learning path and construct their own understanding.  You know what happens when people construct meaning from their own learning?  They remember.  They transfer.  They apply.
There have been critics along the way, just like there are with everything.  Some suggest that if you allow kids t

UPDATE: 1% + Prejudice Daily Kos: What we need to remember about our students

Daily Kos: What we need to remember about our students:

1 %

by rss@dailykos.com (teacherken)

no, I am not writing about those with incomes in the hundreds of thousands of dollars.
Instead I want to remind people of two other groups of people who represent 1% or less of the population of the United States.
1) those who have served in Afghanistan or Iraq since 9-11.  As of Veterans Day 2011, according to this ABC news story, that number was  2,333,972.  Even with the additional who have served in the 16 months since, that number remains well below 3 million, and thus well below 1% who have borne the direct costs of the stupidity of the Bush administration's military policies
2) those who teach in public k-12 schools, which according to this table from the Census Bureau was in 2009 3,167,000, or just about 1% of our total population.
Two very important roles.
Neither properly respected the way they should be.
I fell in the latter category until I retired.
Make of this what you will.  As a teacher I know that 1% of us cannot fix the problems of society with which students arrive at our schools.  As a former  Marine I know that less than 1% of us should not be required to bear the burdens we imposed through badly executed wars of choice.
Not when the other 1% continues to accumulate obscene amounts of wealth and fails to pay appropriately for the support of the governments at all levels which make their wealth possible.

Prejudice

by rss@dailykos.com (teacherken)

I cannot claim I am or ever have been completely free of prejudice, but perhaps I am lucky in the family I lived in and in how I have lived my life.
I just read The Price of Hate: $85 + ? (which if you have not read I strongly recommend that you do) and it got me thinking.
When I was growing up in Larchmont New York it was a period of time where gifted women like my mother rarely worked - when she went back to work as a lawyer when I was around 8 or 9, and then became an Assistant Attorney General for NY State when I was 13, it marked her as very different from the mothers of my friends.  I remember when Michael Mermey's mother Faye became President of Larchmont Temple - not the Sisterhood, but the whole congregration - she was apparently the first such synagogue president in the US.
Perhaps it was our Jewish background that made us more sensitive towards prejudice and discrimination.
As I look at my life, I realize how different are my expectations now than they would have been when I was a child.

What we need to remember about our students

by rss@dailykos.com (teacherken)

is how absolutely unique each one is, which is why we need to stop attempting to impose a standardized education on each one.
Allow me to share two brief quotations from Vilayanur S. Ramachandran, from his famous 2007 TED talk, "3 clues to understanding your brain."

Here is this three-pound mass of jelly you can hold in the palm of your
hand, and it can contemplate the vastness of interstellar space. It can
contemplate the meaning of infinity and it can contemplate itself
contemplating on the meaning of infinity.

There are 100 billion neurons in the adult human brain, and each neuron

Perfection

by rss@dailykos.com (teacherken)

Torvill and Dean
they had already won Olympic Gold earlier in 1984, at Sarajevo, with perfect scores for artistic performance
on this day day the same year in Ottawa, in the World Championship, in what was then believed to be their final performance, they against scored 9 perfect sixes on artistics performance, and with the four for technical performance on this free dance, became the first to ever score 13 sixes in one competition.
It is arguable that they should have had all 6s for technical, although some judges did not like the one lift.  It may be arguable that their Olympic performance was better.
Be that as it may.   This is style perfection.
Simply watch - Jayne Torvill and Christopher Dean, the greatest ice dancers ever:
Pop

Parent Trigger Would Only Apply to “Small, Narrow Universe” of Schools | Scathing Purple Musings

Parent Trigger Would Only Apply to “Small, Narrow Universe” of Schools | Scathing Purple Musings:

Parent Trigger Would Only Apply to “Small, Narrow Universe” of Schools

by Bob Sikes

Orlando Sentinel education reporter Leslie Postal doesn’t attribute the quote in the title to this blog post to anyone, but it was a point of emphasis that the two top advocates for HB 867 were making at the March 7th hearing.

The bills would give parents a say in the “turnaround” option selected for an F-graded school (there were 34 last year, including Wheatley Elementary in Apopka). The options include closing the school, turning it into a charter or turning it over to an outside management company.
One of the bill’s sponsors said the legislation would apply only to a “small narrow universe” of schools. But that doesn’t mean it won’t be a hotly debated bill during the Florida Legislature’s current session.
Proponents say the bill would give parents more power and a voice in how to improve struggling 

The Disempowerment Of Public School Parents - Jeff Bryant

The Disempowerment Of Public School Parents - Jeff Bryant:

The Disempowerment Of Public School Parents

by Jeff Bryant

This post is republished from the Education Opportunity Network, a new online publication edited by Jeff Bryant.

For years, policy initiatives stemming from right wing belief tanks have been wrapped in the rhetoric of positive outcomes that are, in fact, the complete opposite of what the measures are really intended to do.

A bill called Clear Skies that called for more pollution. Another called Healthy Forestsincentivized cutting down valuable trees. No Child Left Behind, perhaps the crowning glory of duplicity, worsened the education of disadvantaged children it was purported to magically improve.

But without a doubt the most enduring of these wolf-wrapped-in-sheep’s-clothing ideas is the promise of “school choice” that’s been promoted to parents since the presidencies ofNixon and Reagan.

Sold as a way to “empower” parents to improve the education attainment of their 

Anybody out there want to rethink middle schools? | Get Schooled

Anybody out there want to rethink middle schools? | Get Schooled:

Anybody out there want to rethink middle schools?

by Maureen Downey

Regular Get Schooled readers know that I have doubts about the efficacy of the middle school model.
Despite decades of experimentation and refinement, middle school still doesn’t work in most places, leading me to conclude that the problem is not with the execution of the concept but with the concept itself.
In 2011, a Harvard study found that students moving from fifth grade to a middle school setting suffer a sharp drop in academic performance in reading and math, compared to peers who attend k-8 schools. The findings of the Harvard study confirmed an earlier Columbia University study.
Writing in Education Next, Harvard researchers Martin West and Guido Schwerdt explained:

Our results cast serious doubt on the wisdom of the middle-school experiment that has become 

Schooling in the Ownership Society: Charters grease corporate contracts

Schooling in the Ownership Society: Charters grease corporate contracts:

Charters grease corporate contracts

by Mike Klonsky

Rupert Murdoch (AP photo)

Writing in Salon.com, David Sirota warns us to stop pretending wealthy CEOs pushing for charter schools are altruistic "reformers." They're raking in billions.

 Citing a fact sheet from the for-profit education industry itself, the Washington Post recently reported that “the education sector now represents nearly 9 percent of the country’s gross domestic product” while the “for-profit education is valued at $1.3 trillion, and is one of the largest U.S. investment markets.” Likewise, NPR reports that as he’s launched an education technology division, Rupert Murdoch “has described education as a market worth hundreds of billions of dollars.” This is why the tech site Geekwire predicts another full-scale tech industry bubble, thanks to “K-12 and other education segments now being chased by a mob of investment capitalists.”

According to Sirot, contracts are much easier to land in privately run charter schools because such schools are 

A Veteran’s View of Choices Facing Teachers in Implementing Common Core Standards (David B. Cohen) | Larry Cuban on School Reform and Classroom Practice

A Veteran’s View of Choices Facing Teachers in Implementing Common Core Standards (David B. Cohen) | Larry Cuban on School Reform and Classroom Practice:

A Veteran’s View of Choices Facing Teachers in Implementing Common Core Standards (David B. Cohen)

by larrycuban

David Cohen has been teaching since 1993. He completed a B.A. in English at U.C. Berkeley (’91) with Phi Beta Kappa honors, and earned a Master’s degree in Education through the Stanford Teacher Education Program (’95).  After achieving National Board Certification in 2004, David served for two years as a support provider for National Board candidates.  As one of the founding members of Accomplished California Teachers (ACT), he helped author the group’s first two policy reports.This post appeared in the ACT group blog on January 24, 2013.
The implementation of the Common Core State Standards is underway, and the imminent transition that will affect most American public schools is sparking a wide variety of reactions among educators I know and interact with, or whose writing I read online.  At the extremes are the enthusiastic adopters and the active resistors, and in between, a wide swath of teachers who are still sorting out their reactions as they learn more about the content of the standards and the implications of their adoption.
In my blog, I haven’t focused on the Common Core at length, but the posts I have written remain some of the 

Mike Klonsky's SmallTalk Blog: Black, Latino legislators step up to the plate

Mike Klonsky's SmallTalk Blog: Black, Latino legislators step up to the plate:

Black, Latino legislators step up to the plate

by Mike Klonsky

Tribune photo

Leaders of the Illinois Legislature’s black and Latino caucuses on Monday accused CPS of preparing to close schools without having a comprehensive plan in place and called for a moratorium on closings for the 2013-2014 school year. They were joined by several member of the City Council's Progressive Caucus

“We’re not gonna sit back and say, ‘OK, Mayor Rahm Emanuel do what you want to do, how you want to do it, when you want to do it at our 

NYC Educator: Sweet Sixteen

NYC Educator: Sweet Sixteen:

Sweet Sixteen

by NYC Educator

As of today, our esteemed Mayor4Life was to finally get his wish--soft drinks over 16 ounces would be banned in much of the city. Alas, a state court has declared the law arbitrary and capricious (ironically, the very same standard he wanted to use to fire teachers).

Mike Bloomberg had determined that 17 ounces is just too much, and since he's the richest guy in the city, the man who'd bought Gracie Mansion fair and square (except for that third term), he figured he had the right to tell you just how much Sprite you can have in one sitting.

The problem, of course, is that if you want another Sprite badly enough, you could just leave that restaurant and go next door to the 7-11, which for some reason wasn't covered.  I suppose, if that were too much effort, you could even buy a second one in the same place.

I didn't envision black market Big Gulp Sprites popping up around the 

Daily Kos: Back to work!

Daily Kos: Back to work!:

Back to work!

by rss@dailykos.com (teacherken)

At least part time.  This afternoon/evening Leaves on the Current went into her office for a half-day, that is, five hours - she normally work 4 10 hour days/week, three in the office and one telecommuting.
While she had been in her office for a meeting more than a week ago, and had telecommuted once, this was both her longest time working and her longest time on her own without me.  A positive sign, with the hope that within two weeks perhaps she will be back to full-time work.
This past week has been difficult. The cumulative effect of two weeks of chemo overlapping with the second round of radiation actually caught up with her.  We had to cancel several social engagements we had planned as she adjusted to the differences in how she was feeling.  We saw her oncologist on Friday, there have been some minor modifications in meds, and after a very rough few days, she is getting her appetite back and starting to feel more comfortable.
And so far, she still has her hair!

Mike Klonsky's SmallTalk Blog: CTU says, it's time to fight back...

Mike Klonsky's SmallTalk Blog: CTU says, it's time to fight back...:

CTU says, it's time to fight back...

by Mike Klonsky

The Board of Education insists the only way to fix schools is to close them.  We disagree.  The Board won't listen to reason. It is time to organize and fight back together.  Join the Grassroots Education Movement (GEM) for a non-violent civil disobedience training session. Choose one session: Westside: Thursday, March 14th at 6:30 PM St. Agatha's Church, 3151 W. Douglas Blvd. Southside: Saturday, March 16th at 10:00 AM Pleasant Gift Missionary Baptist Church, 4526 S. Greenwood Let's fight for our kids, schools, and our communities.  Learn to fight back: Peaceful, Non-violent Protest Tactics Neighborhood Organizing Techniques How to Build Alliances If you have questions, contact CTU's Organizing Director Norine Gutekanst at 312-329-6226.

Beware the Reform-y Types in Constructivist’s Clothing – @ the chalk face

Beware the Reform-y Types in Constructivist’s Clothing – @ the chalk face:

Beware the Reform-y Types in Constructivist’s Clothing

by Kris Nielsen

There’s been a great way to teach out there in school-o-sphere for quite some time, which we know leads to authentic learning and happy kids.  It’s not lecture.  It’s not worksheets. It’s not even “hands-on.”  (“Hands-on” doesn’t always mean that kids are learning or even engaged.)

Put that away and get back to hands-on learning!

It’s called constructivism, and it is totally awesome.  Seriously, though, it is!  When we hear the buzzwords, like “child-centered,” “inquiry-based,” “student-led,” etc., what we are hearing is an attempt to get kids to lead their own learning path and construct their own understanding.  You know what happens when people construct meaning from their own learning?  They remember.  They transfer.  They apply.
There have been critics along the way, just like there are with everything.  Some suggest that if you allow kids to construct meaning, they’ll come up with outlandish ideas that don’t fit the scenarios or problems.  I say, fine!  Let them make up silly ideas!  It helps start the thinking process towards more logical ones.  And–and this is a big AND–it keeps the creativity in tact, without adults knocking it down before 5th grade.
The education reform we’re seeing now, sitting on top of the trash heap we call the Common Core State 

If You Smell What I’m Cooking, Read This. [Future of Teaching] | The Jose Vilson

If You Smell What I’m Cooking, Read This. [Future of Teaching] | The Jose Vilson:

If You Smell What I’m Cooking, Read This. [Future of Teaching]

by Jose Vilson

Clearly, we need to define what “teacher” means a little more, and “educator,” for that matter. We also need to understand what that means for teacher voice. I spark a discussion here:

The term “celebrity teacher” is such a difficult one too, because it presumes that the spotlight should focus strictly on the teacher and not on the ways in which that teacher helps students. The profession doesn’t lend itself to alpha dogs and sunbathers of the egoistic type. Yet, I have a hard time with the idea that, in a landscape with people so replete with opinions about our profession, that we shouldn’t have the same viability when we speak about it ourselves.

Please read the rest. Chime in. Like. Share. Thanks.

Group Calls for Radical Changes to Standardized Tests - Higher Education

Group Calls for Radical Changes to Standardized Tests - Higher Education:

Group Calls for Radical Changes to Standardized Tests

from Diverse by cmaadmin

Washington – Educational assessments should be revamped to help educators improve teaching and learning instead of being narrowly used—and in some cases misused—for purposes of accountability.
That is one of the key ideas that an independent commission proffered Monday as the commission released a new report on what its members envision as a radically transformed “assessment enterprise.”
“We certainly recognize and endorse the use of some type of assessment for accountability,” said Dr. Edmund Gordon, a psychology professor at Yale and Teachers College at Columbia University who serves as chairman of the Gordon Commission on the Future of Assessment in Education.
“But on our commission,” Gordon said of the commission that is named in his honor, “we most often talked about the possibility that another purpose may be superior, and this is informing and improving teaching and learning, both the processes by which we learn and teach and the outcomes.”

Pass / Fail : LAUSD Budget forecast is getting brighter | 89.3 KPCC

Pass / Fail : LAUSD Budget forecast is getting brighter | 89.3 KPCC

LAUSD Budget forecast is getting brighter

by Vanessa Romo

Credit: Robyn Beck/AFP/Getty Images
LA Unified’s Budget, Facilities and Audit Committee is convening Tuesday morning. The proposedagenda shows financial improvement at the district after five years of devastating cuts -- due to a boost from Prop. 30 funds.

According to the district, the Governor’s proposed budget would provide $1.6 billion to begin implementation of a new funding model that benefits district with large numbers of poor and English-learning students, like LAUSD. L.A. Unified is also expecting the state to pay the district $1.8 billion in "deferrals" -- money it already owed the district from past budgets. It also stands to gain $400.5 million in Prop 39 energy efficiency projects
However, LAUSD funding won’t get back to 2007-08 levels until the start of the 2014-2015 school year. And, despite revenues generated by Prop 30, the impact of the federal sequester remains an issue.

Another bright spot: the partnership between LAUSD and FilmLA, a nonprofit group that coordinates filming 

That “Girls” Rape Scene |

That “Girls” Rape Scene |:

That “Girls” Rape Scene

by Angus Johnston

Last night on Girls there was a scene in which Hannah’s ex-boyfriend Adam sexually abuses his new girlfriend Nat.
The scene was clearly written and directed in such a way as to create ambiguity as to whether what Adam — a generally sympathetic, if deeply creepy, character — did was actually rape. Amanda Hess has a particularly good rundown, in which she describes the scene as illustrating “what happens when a person you want to have sex with ‘has sex with you’ in a way that you do not want them to.”
But such equivocation, it seems to me, is focused on the question of whether Nat can properly say that she’s been raped. But that’s not the only way of framing the issue at hand, and it seems to me that if we ask instead whether we can say that he raped her, it gets a lot simpler.
Because we know that he didn’t have Nat’s consent. We know that she wasn’t liking what was happening, and 

Response: Teachers & Superintendents Must "Work To Understand Each Other" - Classroom Q&A With Larry Ferlazzo - Education Week Teacher

Response: Teachers & Superintendents Must "Work To Understand Each Other" - Classroom Q&A With Larry Ferlazzo - Education Week Teacher:

Response: Teachers & Superintendents Must "Work To Understand Each Other"

By Larry Ferlazzo on March 11, 2013 10:35 PM

(This is Part Two of a two-part series. You can see Part One here)

Last week's question was:

How can teachers best relate to Superintendents -- and vice versa?

A few days ago, we heard responses from a teacher perspective: Randi Weingarten, President of the American Federation of Teachers; Dean Vogel, President of the California Teachers Association, and Barnett Berry of the Center For Teaching Quality contributed to that post.

Today, we'll hear from three Superintendents (along with comments from readers): Joshua Starr, Pamela Moran, and John Kuhn.

Response From Joshua Starr

Joshua Starr is the superintendent of Montgomery County Public Schools:

In my first Superintendent position I was 35 years old and had been brought in to rapidly reform a system that was failing a significant number of children. I was serious, focused and determined to be a relentless advocate for great instruction for every child. During my first few months I spent as 

Is reading at risk? - California Teachers Association:

Is reading at risk?

By Sherry Posnick-Goodwin

Emily Hager, Mia Gonzales, Najeeb Darwish

Growing up, Michelle Albaugh spent lazy afternoons on her couch, nose buried in a book. But that’s not the case with many of her students today.

“Teens don’t do that much anymore,” says the Sowers Middle School teacher. “Not long ago, kids could read The Yearling by Marjorie Kinnan Rawlings, and now they struggle with it. Some can’t read anything of great length and struggle to read a 10-page short story. Students toil reading anything that’s a novel if it isn’t popular literature like Twilight. It’s frustrating.”

While young children enjoy reading, enthusiasm frequently fades as they get older, say teachers worried about the trend. Reading becomes work, and reading for pleasure takes a back seat. Because older students don’t like reading as much, they don’t read as well, Albaugh observes.

Older youths are reading less in their free time than a generation ago, according to a report by the National Endowment for the Arts. The report said:

• Teens read less often and for shorter amounts of time compared with other age groups and with Americans of previous years.
• Less than one-third of 13-year-olds are daily readers, a 14 percent decline from 20 years earlier. Among 17-year-olds, the percentage of nonreaders doubled over a 20-year period.
• Those ages 15-24 spend two hours a day on TV, and only seven minutes of daily leisure time reading.

Kelly Gallagher, an English teacher at Magnolia High School in Anaheim, worries about a decline in reading he’s seen in students over the past decade.

“It’s not a California issue, it’s a national issue,” says the author of Readicide: How Schools are Killing 

NYC Public School Parents: Glass Size Matters

NYC Public School Parents: Glass Size Matters:

Glass Size Matters

by Gary Babad

March 11, 2013 (GBN News): Mayor Michael Bloomberg has a plan to deal with those unused supersize drink containers that city eateries can no longer sell because of his ban on oversized drinks. He’s going to turn them into classrooms.

Ever the environmentalist, the Mayor told reporters today that the Sanitation Department will immediately begin collecting the containers and turning them over to the NYC School Construction Authority. The SCA will in turn recycle them into prefabricated classrooms, to replace many of the controversial trailers which are currently used to alleviate student overcrowding.

Schools Chancellor Dennis Walcott was enthusiastic about the plan. Standing by the Mayor’s side at City Hall, Mr. Walcott noted the innovative round design of the new classrooms,