10-2-13 @ THE CHALK FACE

@ THE CHALK FACE:

Why Is the Secretary of Education Doing a Rush/Beck Routine?

A sure sign someone doesn’t have a valid point is demonstrated nearly every day in right-wing media—notably by Rush Limbaugh and Glenn Beck. Here is how it works: (1) Identify the person or event you want to argue against or discredit, (2) misrepresent the position of that person or the details of the event, and […]

3 by plthomasedd / 12min 

Dear Secretary Mister Duncan, Sir

My name is Jill O’Malley Conroy, and five months ago today I became one of those “arm chair pundits” you described to our fellow Americans yesterday. My alternate name in this “alternate universe”, or “blogosphere”, as you also dubbed it, is The Indignant Teacher. My goal as such right now is to make sure our […]

by jillconroy / 51min 

10-1-13 @ The Chalk Face

@ THE CHALK FACE: The Assault on Public Education in SC Continues: More Innovation!How much education innovation can a high-poverty state take? Apparently, according to former-general-without-a-second-of-experience-as-a-teacher Superintendent Mick Zais, just a little more. As reported by Patrick Hayes at EdFirstSC (and not reported at the Charleston Post and Courier because the P&C is all abou

by mike simpson / 10h 

More Than One-Third of Preschoolers “Chronically Absent”, Chicago Study Finds |

More Than One-Third of Preschoolers “Chronically Absent”, Chicago Study Finds |:

More Than One-Third of Preschoolers “Chronically Absent”, Chicago Study Finds

October 2, 2013 by Alyssa Haywoode

Photo: Alessandra Hartkopf for Strategies for Children

Recent research points to troubling absenteeism in the early grades; and a new report from Chicago looks at the specific problem of preschool absenteeism.

As the report – “Preschool Attendance in Chicago Public Schools: Relationships with Learning Outcomes and Reasons for Absences” – says, “Significant attention is currently focused on ensuring that children are enrolled in preschool. However, regular attendance is also critically important. Children with better preschool attendance have higher kindergarten readiness scores; this is especially true for students entering with low skills.” (Of course, preschool is still voluntary – state laws do not require children to attend.)

Unfortunately though, many children who are enrolled in programs are “chronically absent.” Children with numerous absences often miss preschool for a variety of reasons, including health-related issues and “a range of logistical 

10-2-13 Schools Matter

Schools Matter:

Billboards That Matter

From Don Perl:Dear Colleagues:I have randomly gone through the names of those who have been strong activists in the past for our billboard campaign to inform parents of their rights to exempt their children from the fraud of high stakes standardized testing.  As most of you know, we have advertised on Colorado highways since 2005 to raise awareness of the boondoggle of CSAP (now TCAP) and eac

2 by Jim Horn / 33min 

Options PCS Featured in Today's Charter School Crime Log

A clip from WaPo:In the court complaint, D.C. officials allege that the managers’ salaries were far out of line with what public officials make, especially given the size of the school.Montgomery’s “salary and bonuses from Options PCS during a one-year period — at least $425,000 combined — totaled more than the salary of the President of the United States and more than twice the salary of the

2 by Jim Horn / 1h 

Arne Duncan, Extortionist

extortion |ikˈstôrSHən|nounthe practice of obtaining something, esp. money, through force or threats.In California, where corporate legislators have decided to suspend NCLB testing for one year while they implement a new generation of racist tests using the new testing delivery system, the Common Core, Arne Duncan is on the scene, threatening to withhold Title I money if California moves forward:

2 by Jim Horn / 1h 

Options PCS Featured in Today's Charter School Crime Log

A clip from WaPo:In the court complaint, D.C. officials allege that the managers’ salaries were far out of line with what public officials make, especially given the size of the school.Montgomery’s “salary and bonuses from Options PCS during a one-year period — at least $425,000 combined — totaled more than the salary of the President of the United States and more than twice the salary of the

2 by Jim Horn / 1h 

Arne Duncan, Extortionist

extortion |ikˈstôrSHən|nounthe practice of obtaining something, esp. money, through force or threats.In California, where corporate legislators have decided to suspend NCLB testing for one year while they implement a new generation of racist tests using the new testing delivery system, the Common Core, Arne Duncan is on the scene, threatening to withhold Title I money if California moves forward:

2 by Jim Horn / 1h 

10-1-13 Schools Matter

Schools Matter: The Assault on Public Education in SC Continues: More Innovation!How much education innovation can a high-poverty state take?Apparently, according to former-general-without-a-second-of-experience-as-a-teacher Superintendent Mick Zais, just a little more.As reported by Patrick Hayes at EdFirstSC (and not reported at the Charleston Post and Courier because the P&C is all about en

by mike simpson / 9h 

Educators Take Stand Against Bullying During National Bullying Prevention Month | NEA Today

Educators Take Stand Against Bullying During National Bullying Prevention Month | NEA Today:

Educators Take Stand Against Bullying During National Bullying Prevention Month

October 2, 2013 by twalker  
Filed under Featured News, Top Stories

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By Sara Robertson and Edward Graham

October marks the observance of National Bullying Prevention Month, an annual campaign that brings educators, schools, and communities together to combat the damaging impact that bullying can have on students. With nearly one-third of students reporting being bullied in school and nearly half of adolescents and teens saying they have been bullied online, bullying has reached epidemic levels, especially as some studies connect bullying with suicidal thoughts.

At the first ever White House Conference on Bullying Prevention in 2011, President Obama discussed the scope of the bullying epidemic in schools across the country.

“Almost 3 million students have said they were pushed, shoved, tripped, even spit on,” Obama said. “It’s also more likely to affect kids that are seen as different, whether it’s because of the color of their skin, the clothes they wear, the disability they may have, or sexual orientation.”

National Bullying Prevention Month was started in 2006 by PACER’s National Center for Bullying Prevention, and since its conception the National Education Association and other education-oriented organizations have partnered up to provide schools with bullying prevention tools and resources. All across the country this month, hundreds of schools and organizations are recognizing the harmful affects of 

 

Head Start Preschoolers Sent Home Thanks to Shutdown

For 770 preschool-aged children in eastern Alabama, school is out indefinitely. Thanks to the government shutdown which began Tuesday morning, Cheaha Regional Head Start (CRHS) has had to close all 16 of its locations, furlough its 240 employees without pay, and tell parents to keep all of the program’s students at home. “There’s nothing that we can do, and there’s no way to head it off,” said CRH

by twalker / 19min 

Do We Really Need Connected Educators? | My Island View

Do We Really Need Connected Educators? | My Island View:

Do We Really Need Connected Educators?

October 2, 2013 by tomwhitby

To answer this question in the very month that the United States Department of Education has set aside to recognize as Connected Educator Month, we need to first examine what a connected educator is. We also need to understand to what it is that educators are connected.

The way information and content is housed and disseminated today has little resemblance to the housing and disseminating of a few short decades ago. Information then was stored in a manner that required some form of physical media. Text was stored in print on paper, and film. Movies were stored on both film, and videotape. Sound was stored on audiotape.  All of this media needed to be stored somewhere until someone needed access to learn from it, or to share it with others. Colleges, schools, and libraries served as hubs of information to give access to specific people for that purpose. That was the model for centuries. Access to information was limited to few, and that often came at a price. There has always been a cost for education and access to information.

The speed at which technology has changed this dynamic is mind-boggling. The conversion of all information and content spanning centuries of history in any form to a digital version took less than 50 years. Access to the Internet is now almost seamless using many different devices. Access is no longer limited to a 

John White warns that school reforms movement won't survive unless it reforms itself | NOLA.com

John White warns that school reforms movement won't survive unless it reforms itself | NOLA.com:

John White warns that school reforms movement won't survive unless it reforms itself

State Superintendent John White, a prominent figure in the education movement that turned New Orleans into a city of choice and charter schools, warned Tuesday that the movement is under attack and won't survive unless it reforms itself.

His companions "risk becoming part of the establishment" they once resisted, as they gain more power and charter schools become more mainstream, White told a crowd at the pro-charter American Enterprise Institute in Washington, D.C.

New education leaders are also now ripe for attack from what White characterized as an anti-authoritarian populist movement in American that goes after whoever's in charge. And he urged advocates of change to move beyond a focus on urban education and failing schools.

He said inequity in education "has fueled the reform movement," but school choice proponents would become irrelevant if they remain focused only on poor students in inner cities, because inequity is complex and many people live in surburban or rural areas.

White ascended to the state's top education job as Gov. Bobby Jindal pushed a 2012 

Diane Ravitch’s new book criticizes ‘reform’ movement | EdSource Today

Diane Ravitch’s new book criticizes ‘reform’ movement | EdSource Today:

Diane Ravitch’s new book criticizes ‘reform’ movement

October 1st, 2013 | Comments Off | 
By Lillian Mongeau

Diane Ravitch discussing her book, “Reign of Error,” on stage in Stanford’s Memorial Hall. Credit: Barbara McKenna, SCOPE

Diane Ravitch was at Stanford University on Monday to discuss her most recent book,“Reign of Error,” which argues that American schools are doing better than public discourse suggests.

Ravitch told a standing-room-only crowd at Stanford’s Memorial Auditorium that what she called the “privatization movement,” which includes reforms such as charter schools run by private companies, is a “hoax.”

“Somehow reform has turned into a process that includes … closing public schools, turning public dollars over to private entrepreneurs and pretending test scores are the most important part of public schooling,” Ravitch said.

See Jonathan Kozol’s New York Times review  of “Reign of Error” here. 

After a career as a distinguished education historian, Ravitch emerged as a prominent figure in education policy in the early ’90s when she worked as an assistant secretary of education under then-President George H.W. Bush. At the time, she thought charter schools could be a useful laboratory for trying out new ideas that could then be incorporated into public schools. That has 

10-2-13 LISTEN TO DIANE RAVITCH Diane Ravitch's blog | A site to discuss better education for all

Diane Ravitch's blog | A site to discuss better education for all:

An Interview in San Francisco

Michael Krasny is one of the best book interviewers in the nation. I love to appear on his show because he asks good questions. And that brings out the best in me. This reader thinks you should listen: “This might not be news to Diane’s readers, but I wanted to mention that her September 30 interview on KQED’s Forum with Michael Krasny is well worth a listen. You can find it on the NPR smart phone

by dianerav / 13min mark as read  //  save

David Sirota: Who Does Obamacare Benefit? What Is the Fight About?

David Sirota says that the big winners under Obamacare are the big insurance companies. Read this fast, as it will be online only for 20 hours, then goes behind a paywall. Or copy it and save it. Here is a sample from one of our great investigative journalists: “In this made-for-TV cartoon series, the battle over the new law has been depicted as a fight between competing small guys. Bam! Democra

3 by dianerav / 45min 

Matthew Di Carlo Deciphers Latest DC Test Scores

Given that D.C. has become a Petri dish for Rhee-style reform, every test score release is treated as earth-shattering. Matthew Di Carlo of the Shanker Institute says not so fast. Reporting on test scores is far more complicated than it seems, and the public never understands that the setting of the cut scores is a decision made by humans, not a matter of scientific weights and measures. He wri

by dianerav / 20min 

The Right-Wing Agenda of MinnCAN

Here is a summary of a recent mayoral forum in Minneapolis, sponsored by MinnCAN. MinnCAN is a spinoff of ConnCAN and 50CAN, organizations that promote school choice and look askance at public education. To be fair, they are quite happy to take public dollars, but to run their schools with rules that are very different from those that govern public schools, which are not allowed to pick their stud

by dianerav / 8min 

A Good Book about the Attacks on Teachers

Ken K. Kumashiro’s Bad Teacher! How Blaming Teachers Distorts the Bigger Picture should be on your reading list. He has written a thoughtful critique of the current fad in which it is fashionable to blame teachers for the ills of society and for low test scores and student misbehavior. The current fad eliminates any accountability for those who make the laws, write the regulations, decide the poli

5 by dianerav / 54min 

Accountable Talk Blogger Reviews “Reign of Error”

Accountable Talk, a popular education blogger, here reviews Reign of Error. He or she writes: The book is a thorough excoriation of the reform movement. Starting with who the major players are and how they stand to benefit financially from their “reforms”, Ms. Ravitch unravels, one by one, all the myths spun by the corporate raiders looking to cash in on public education dollars. She lays bare the

by dianerav / 12min 

EduShyster: Adell Cothorne Speaks!

Adell Cothorne is the brave principal in Washington, D.C., who reported to her headquarters that she saw cheating going on. She was featured on a PBS Frontline special about the uncertain legacy of Michelle Rhee. What happened after she reported cheating by a group of staff? Nothing. Nothing except she became persona non grata for blowing the whistle. For a long time, her lawyer told her to remain

by dianerav / 23min 

Louisiana Educator Reviews “Reign of Error”

Louisiana Educator is a blog written by one of that state’s finest educators, now retired, Mike Deshotels. He reviews Reign of Error here. It is hard to pick a single excerpt from his review because every paragraph is compelling. (I tried but was not very successful.) Deshotels writes: In this, her latest meticulously researched book, Ravitch describes the myths upon which the current corporate re

3 by dianerav / 1h 

LISTEN TO DIANE RAVITCH 10-1-13 Diane Ravitch's blog | A site to discuss better education for all

Diane Ravitch's  blog | A site to discuss better education for all: Why VAM Is a ShamAudrey Amrein-Beardsley of Arizona State University is one of the nation’s leading authorities on teacher evaluation. She has the advantage of having taught middle school math for several years. She understands better than almost any other researcher just how flawed value-added measurement is. Next year, her book

by mike simpson / 10h 

10-2-13 Ed Notes Online

Ed Notes Online:

Video- Inspiring Brooklyn New School Principal Anna Allanbrook: BNS Principal's weekly letter 10.1.13

How come so many progressive principals like Anna Allanbrook and Carol Burris have become heroes to so many teachers while we look at our union leadership with disdain? I was inspired last night when I taped the panel at Anna Allanbrook's remarkable statement with Shael Polokow-Suransky, not only one of the chief Tweedies but second in command to Walcott standing a few feet away.Many were asking w

1 by ed notes online / 7h mark as read  //  save

Borowitz: Panicstricken Tea Party Supporters Flee U.S.

October 1, 2013Millions Flee ObamacarePosted by Andy Borowitz at the New Yorkerhttp://www.newyorker.com/online/blogs/borowitzreport/2013/10/millions-flee-obamacare.html?utm_source=tny&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=borowitz&mbid=nl_Borowitz%20%28176%29 UNITED STATES (The Borowitz Report)—Millions of Tea Party loyalists fled the United States in the early morning hours today, seeking wha

1 by ed notes online / 7h 

Vote James for Public Advocate Today

All out for James. I don't have much time so check my blogroll for all the other bloggers supporting her. I also don't have time to republish the video I made of her at a PEP -- check the archives.Here is James Eterno at the ICE blog:VOTE FOR LETITIA JAMES IN TUESDAY'S RUNOFF (My View Only)  Get out the Vote for Tish James on Tuesday in the Democratic Runoff! Letitia James fought the mayor's repre

2 by ed notes online / 7h

9-30-13 Ed Notes Online

Ed Notes Online: TODAY: Portelos Hearing, Protest Eva Invasion of Seth Low, High Stakes Test Forum at PS 51KOy! On a beautiful day that I would love to be spending in my backyard contemplating my little garden construction project that has become my obsession (contemplate, not do actual work on it -- but look for a photo soon to show where I am at with it) I am about to leave for the Portelos hear

by mike simpson / 3h