10-14-13 @ THE CHALK FACE

@ THE CHALK FACE:

The Common Core Memorandum of Understanding: What a Story

The question of who, exactly, is truly responsible for writing the Common Core State Standards (CCSS) has been a matter for debate. Here is how the CCSS website describes CCSS development: Building on the excellent foundation of standards states have laid, the Common Core State Standards are the first step in providing our young people […]

by deutsch29 / 0min 

The Kinder Chronicles, Part Two #DCPS

I was somewhat recently a guest on the new Al Jazeera America show The Stream to discuss the common core. When hearing about my appearance, my grandfather asked, “Well, what did they introduce him as?” I think my grandfather, who’s been a dominant fixture in my life, comes from a time, a generation, maybe a […]

by Shaun Johnson / 7min 

Our show with the inescapable Mercedes Schneider.

Here it is. VAM. Teacher preparation. CCR.

by Shaun Johnson / 13min 

Some click bait on @huffingtonpost, insight into #TFA

I suppose many think TFA’ers are blindingly insufferable. Clicked some random piece on Huffington Post about the most insufferable people on Facebook, or perhaps the seven insufferable sins, something like that. I can’t remember where I put the link. But I did catch a screenshot of the most interesting part. So, as an example of […]

by Shaun Johnson / 6min 

The Common Core Public License: Guess Who Wins?

On October 10, 2013, I published a post, The Fight to Save Common Core: Count Me Out, in which I briefly discuss the Common Core State Standards (CCSS) public license. In this post, I more closely examine the CCSS license in order to offer a more detailed account of both its contents and the implications of those […]

2 by deutsch29 / 7h 

10-13-13 @ The Chalk Face

@ THE CHALK FACE: Teaching Reading and Children: Reading Programs as “Costume Parties”Teaching Reading and Children: Reading Programs as \”Costume Parties\”. via Teaching Reading and Children: Reading Programs as “Costume Parties”.by plthomasedd / 13min All Week 10-12-13 @ THE CHALK FACE@ THE CHALK FACE knows SCHOOLS MATTER: All Week @ THE CHALK FACE Reformy NY Education Commish gets taken to the

by mike simpson / 8h 

UPDATE: Daily Kos: The impact of sequester upon USDA - real people, real problems + Krugman on fire again

Daily Kos: Krugman on fire again:

Krugman on fire again

byteacherkenFollow

The impact of sequester upon USDA - real people, real problems

let's consider just one department, the U S Dept of Agriculture, where the Secretary Tom Vilsack has done what he can to try to keep programs going. Let's start with the school lunch program:  at the end of the month the schools will be relying on their own resources to fund the lunch and breakfast programs with the understanding that when and if the budget gets funded they will be reimbursed for

3 by rss@dailykos.com ... / 20min 

So you have this neighbor who has been making your life hell. First he tied you up with a spurious lawsuit; you’re both suffering from huge legal bills. Then he threatened bodily harm to your family. Now, however, he says he’s willing to compromise: He’ll call off the lawsuit, which is to his advantage as well as yours. But in return you must give him your car. Oh, and he’ll stop threatening your family — but only for a week, after which the threats will resume.

 Not much of an offer, is it? But here’s the kicker: Your neighbor’s relatives, who have been egging him on, are furious that he didn’t also demand that you kill your dog.

And now you understand the current state of budget negotiations.

That is the beginning of The Dixiecrat Solution, Krugman's Monday New York Times  column.

The current US political crisis has serious world-wide financial implications, as those meeting in DC for the IMF and the World Bank made clear.

Krugman takes us back to the New Deal, when the Democrats had nominal control of the Congress, but still had to deal with their Dixiecrats, a situation I might note that Lyndon Johnson also had to face.  As Krugman points out, it was a combination of Dixiecrats and 

Upcoming Common Core Fight in Louisiana Legislature | Truth in American Education

Upcoming Common Core Fight in Louisiana Legislature | Truth in American Education:

Upcoming Common Core Fight in Louisiana Legislature

Filed in Common Core State Standards, Education at State Level by Shane Vander Hart on October 13, 2013• 0 Comments

There will be a fight brewing in Baton Rogue this upcoming session on the Common Core State Standards.  The Town Talk reports on the upcoming opposition they standards will face in the Louisiana Legislature:

State Rep. Cameron Henry, a Republican from Metairie, said recently he plans to file legislation to stop Common Core from being implemented.

Rep. Terry Brown, I-Colfax, Sen. Bob Kostelka, R-Monroe, and Sen. Neil Riser, R-Columbia, said they would support Henry’s legislation.

“I’m very much in favor of blocking it,” Brown said. “We live in a representative democracy. When the majority of the people are opposed to it, we should do what they want.”

“I think we need to at least delay implementation of Common Core,” Kostelka said. “The so-called standards have not been set or even agreed on. Several other states have already delayed implementation, and the governor and Superintendent (John) White, I understand, are having second thoughts and are saying it’s up to the individual school districts to design a curricula. Thus it can’t be a ‘common’ core.”

Read the rest.

The “King” Gets Questioned, Suspends New York Common Core Forums

Apparently New York State’s Education Commissioner John B. King thinks he’s above being questioned.  After holding two Common Core public forum’s he decided he really didn’t want to hear questions from the parents after all.  You see he made the mistake of not taking questions ahead of time and screening out the hard questions.  Parents in New York State were not treated to the Delphi technique an

4 by Shane Vander Hart / 4h 

‘A Teacher’s Cry for Help’ | toteachornototeach

‘A Teacher’s Cry for Help’ | toteachornototeach:

‘A Teacher’s Cry for Help’ 

by Eric Cooper

American education is at a crossroads. In developing standards that ensure our children are learning what they need to know to thrive in an increasingly competitive and global society and workplace, we must balance that imperative with the need to give teachers the space to use creative strategies to reach and teach all children.

Forty-five states have adopted Common Core State Standards (CCSS), which are designed to boost critical and creative thinking and other higher-order skills students need to more actively and positively engage in their communities.

These skills are critical if schools are to be responsible for “shaping character, developing sound minds in healthy bodies … and forming citizens for our democracy, not just for teaching basic skills,” Diane Ravitch writes in The Death and Life of the Great American School System: How Testing and Choice Are Undermining Education (2010, p. 167).

Yet the gap between the creation and successful implementation of CCSS — and 

Brown’s school funding formula claims funds for key training of new teachers SI&A Cabinet Report – News & Resources

SI&A Cabinet Report – News & Resources:

Print this article

Brown’s school funding formula claims funds for key training of new teachers
By Carrie Marovich
Monday, October 14, 2013

Challenged by crowded college classes and saddled by spiking tuition fees, newly-minted teachers in California have a new adversary to confront – a potential fee of up to $2,500 some employers are charging for induction training that is required for most incoming classroom educators.

Induction programs are generally operated by school districts, county offices of education and some universities. They provide mentoring, support and critical feedback to beginning teachers during their first years in the profession. 

The state has in the past provided districts as much as $4,000 per participating teacher to provide the service – but that money has been absorbed into the new Local Control Funding Formula and cash-strapped districts are struggling to find ways to cover the expense.

Sean McCarthy, Instructional Support Coordinator for Murrieta Valley Unified, said his district is committed to teacher induction  and so far, wants to keep the expense off the new teachers -- but there’s growing concern about the impact 

Federal shutdown could cause LEAs to pony up millions for meal program

Even as President Obama and GOP House leaders appear to edge closer to a deal on the federal shutdown – schools across the country and in California face the unhappy likelihood of having to dip into their general fund money to pay for subsidized meals soon if the standoff continues.

7h 

Schooling in the Ownership Society: Militarism passes for 'school reform' in L.A. charter

Schooling in the Ownership Society: Militarism passes for 'school reform' in L.A. charter:

Militarism passes for 'school reform' in L.A. charter

The bugler lifts the brass instrument to his mouth and waits. A short delay betrays the illusion, but then a recording of "Reveille" blares out from stereo speakers as the flag moves up the pole.

That's how the day starts at North Valley Military Institute, a Los Angeles Unified School District charter school that this year transformed from a traditional campus into a military-style boot camp for mainly low-income, Latino children. 25% are classified as special ed.

Each morning, four students — one representing each company: Alpha, Bravo, Charlie and Delta — stand watch over the front entrance of the school. They eye the students, searching for flaws in uniforms, for closely cropped hair on the boys and tightly pinned-

Parents run a co-op school in Deptford - Philly.com

Parents run a co-op school in Deptford - Philly.com:

Parents run a co-op school in Deptford

 By Andrew Seidman, Inquirer Staff Writer

POSTED: October 13, 2013

DEPTFORD TOWNSHIP Loren Dann began class Tuesday the way many children would like school to start: by handing out candy.

Before her students could unwrap the treats, though, they found out they had been baited into an ethics lesson. Should the 7- and 8-year-olds keep the candy or give it to a sick friend, who could surely use a pick-me-up? Perhaps more important, do they have a duty to do so?

"Today," Dann declared, "we are going to talk about charity."

Soon, the students were debating whether people had a right to health care, an education, home ownership.

Dann's philosophy and ethics class is not a traditional subject for a 7- and 8-year-old age group in most schools. But then, not much about the Academic Cooperative Community in Deptford Township, where Dann teaches, is traditional.

The secular home-school cooperative began this year and meets once a week from 10:30 a.m. to 2:30 p.m. Thirty-two children ranging in age from 3 to 13 participate, and a parent in each of the 19 families is required to provide some sort of assistance. The co-op's six teachers are volunteer parents.

The co-op formed after a similar group in Pitman broke apart. The new group rents a building in Deptford that used to house a 

Christopher Columbus: 3 things you think he did that he didn’t:

Christopher Columbus: 3 things you think he did that he didn’t

• BY VALERIE STRAUSS

• October 14 at 4:00 am

Christopher Columbus                             (The Ocean Blues. THE WASHINGTON POST LIBRARY)

So you think that Christopher Columbus discovered America in the Niña, the Pinta  and the Santa Maria and also, while he was at it, proved the Earth wasn’t flat?

Wrong, wrong and wrong. Given that the European explorer has a U.S. federal holiday to his name — and is honored by holidays in other countries as well — let’s look at the disturbing truth about the fearless but brutal Columbus.

*He didn’t prove that the Earth is round. 

Kids in school have long been taught that when Columbus set sail in 1492 to find a new route to the East Indies, it was feared he would fall off the edge of the Earth because people then thought the planet was flat. Nope.  As early as the sixth century B.C., Pythagoras — later followed by Aristotle and Euclid — wrote about Earth as a sphere, and historians say there is no doubt that the educated in Columbus’s day knew quite well that the Earth was round. Columbus in fact owned a copy of Ptolemy’s Geography, written at the height of the Roman Empire, 1,300 years before Chris Columbus set sail. Several books published in Europe between 1200 and 1500 discussed the Earth’s shape, including “The Sphere,” written in the early 1200s, which was required reading in European universities in the 1300s and beyond.  The big

Going to school hungry: A child and his mom tell their story

If there is one video that every school reformer should watch from this month’s “Education Nation” broadcasts (which were heavy with school reformers, celebrities and business people and light on reform critics),  it’s the interview that Melissa Harris-Perry, MSNBC commentator and Tulane political science professor, conducted with a young boy who talks about going to school […]    

2 by Valerie Strauss / 32min 

New funding formula revives push for smaller class sizes | EdSource Today

New funding formula revives push for smaller class sizes | EdSource Today:

New funding formula revives push for smaller class sizes

October 13th, 2013 | Add a Comment | 
By Lillian Mongeau

Just weeks into the school year, some districts are struggling with a provision in California’s dramatic revision of its school financing system that calls for smaller class sizes in grades K-3.

First grade teacher Jenny Aguirre crouches next to a student in the front row of her 24-student class at Robinson Elementary School in Fresno. Credit: Lillian Mongeau, EdSource Today

The new funding formula, signed into law by Gov. Jerry Brown in July, gives school districts additional funds if they can keep the average class size for kindergarten though 3^rd grade to 24 at all of their schools, or work toward achieving that goal. At full funding under the new formula in 2021, districts that meet the target will receive $712, on top of the K-3 per-student base rate of $6,845. (These figures do not account for cost-of-living increases that will be factored annually into the new formula.)

Because full funding isn’t expected to occur for eight years, districts will receive only a portion of the new funding under the class size reduction program this year. Districts will have eight years to get their class sizes in K-3 down to an average of 24. As long as districts with large K-3 classes show steady, annual progress toward the goal they can receive their portion of the bonus funding.

But under the tight prescriptions in the new law, if average class size is above 24 in even one school, the district will lose all of its class-size funding.

“It’s difficult,” said Fremont Unified School District Superintendent Jim Morris. “In our community, it’s caused a few challenges.”

It took a three-day meeting at the district’s main office to figure out how to shift students between 

The Common Core Public License: Guess Who Wins? | deutsch29

The Common Core Public License: Guess Who Wins? | deutsch29:

The Common Core Public License: Guess Who Wins?

October 13, 2013

On October 10, 2013, I published a post, The Fight to Save Common Core: Count Me Out, in which I briefly discuss the Common Core State Standards (CCSS) public license. In this post, I more closely examine the CCSS license in order to offer a more detailed account of both its contents and the implications of those contents.  The CCSS license betrays the business of CCSS– one where profit potential abounds as those with power excuse themselves from responsibility.

Garnering profits and forsaking responsibility: Cornerstones of corporate reform.

Defining Key Terms

Copyright law is complex. I am not a lawyer; I am a teacher and researcher. As such, I approach this post from the perspective of a researcher attempting to better educate herself (and by extension, my readers) on what exactly this CCSS license includes. In order to foster a clear understanding of this post, I offer now the following definitions of key terminology:

Copyright:  the exclusive legal right, given to an originator or an assignee to print, 

Excluding “Over-the-Counter Children” to Protect Elite High Schools | janresseger

Excluding “Over-the-Counter Children” to Protect Elite High Schools | janresseger:

Excluding “Over-the-Counter Children” to Protect Elite High Schools

Posted on October 14, 2013 by janresseger

The first time I heard the term “over-the-counter” children, I was with a group visiting New York City, where we were listening to a presentation on school choice in New York from a researcher who used the term in an off-hand way.  We visitors looked at each other and someone asked, “What are over-the-counter children?”  “They are the children who don’t participate in school choice,” we were told.  “Their parents don’t fill out the high school application, or they arrive after the school year begins, or they are homeless.  They just come to the school and try to register.”

My mind jumped immediately back to January of 1960, when my family moved to Havre, Montana on a day that I clearly remember was 35 degrees below zero.  We spent our first night in the Siesta Motel because our furniture had not arrived.  In the morning my mother took me to the Havre Junior High School to register me for the second semester of the seventh grade.  I was sent immediately to class while my mother went off to get us settled.

I was an over-the-counter child.  So were most of the members of the group at our meeting that afternoon in New York City.  We talked about that term, “over-the-counter children,” 

Mike Klonsky's SmallTalk Blog: WEEKEND QUOTABLES

Mike Klonsky's SmallTalk Blog: WEEKEND QUOTABLES:

WEEKEND QUOTABLES

Karen Lewis

"I believe there's this notion that if you have a lot of money that you can overwhelm your opponents and we don't believe that. We believe that the number of people going to vote is what's going to be important. His polling is what it is. He hasn't released the polls, but I think other people have been doing them, and we know what the numbers look like and they're not good for him." --Sun-Times

Chicago Tribune Editorial

 In 1995, when many of this

Daily Kos: Stiglitz argues that "Inequality is a Choice"

Daily Kos: Stiglitz argues that "Inequality is a Choice":

Stiglitz argues that "Inequality is a Choice"

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not by those at the bottom of the inverted pyramid of income, but of policies of governments.

In this Opinionator blog piece from the New York Times, the Nobel economic laureate takes us through the numbers.

He is exploring the work of World Bank economist Branko Milanovic and others, and starts with the development of the industrial revolution to provide historical context.

Consider this paragraph, focusing on the work of Milanovic:  

From 1988 to 2008, Mr. Milanovic found, people in the world’s top 1 percent saw their incomes increase by 60 percent, while those in the bottom 5 percent had no change in their income. And while median incomes have greatly improved in recent decades, there are still enormous imbalances: 8 percent of humanity takes home 50 percent of global income; the top 1 percent alone takes home 15 percent. Income gains have been greatest among the global elite — financial and corporate executives in rich countries — and the great “emerging middle classes” of China, India, Indonesia and Brazil. Who lost out? Africans, some Latin Americans, and people in post-Communist Eastern Europe and the former Soviet Union, Mr. Milanovic found.

Please keep reading.

Ed Notes Online: Oct. 15: LET’S MARCH TOGETHER TO THE PEP TO FIGHT FOR OUR SCHOOLS AND TO MAKE OUR VOICES HEARD!

Ed Notes Online: Oct. 15: LET’S MARCH TOGETHER TO THE PEP TO FIGHT FOR OUR SCHOOLS AND TO MAKE OUR VOICES HEARD!:

Oct. 15: LET’S MARCH TOGETHER TO THE PEP TO FIGHT FOR OUR SCHOOLS AND TO MAKE OUR VOICES HEARD!

MARCH TO CLOSE THE BLOOMBERG ERA AND CALL ON OUR NEXT MAYOR TO IMPLEMENT A REAL PLAN TO MAKE SURE EVERY STUDENT IS COLLEGE-READY!

BLOOMBERG’S PANEL FOR FAILED EDUCATIONAL POLICY PLANS TO “RUBBER STAMP” MORE CO-LOCATIONS!

LET’S MARCH TOGETHER TO THE PEP TO FIGHT FOR OUR SCHOOLS AND TO MAKE OUR VOICES HEARD!

The Educated Reporter: The College Admissions 'Match' Game: Should Preference Play Role in the Process?

The Educated Reporter: The College Admissions 'Match' Game: Should Preference Play Role in the Process?:

The College Admissions 'Match' Game: Should Preference Play Role in the Process?

EWA held its annual Higher Education Seminar recently at Boston's Northeastern University. We invited some of the education journalists in attendance to contribute posts from the sessions. Today's guest blogger is Brian McVicar of the Grand Rapids Press. For more content from the seminar, including stories, podcasts, video, check out EdMedia Commons. 

As demographic shifts change the size – and racial profile – of high school graduation classes, one debate in higher education will continue to swirl: Do the admission processes at colleges and universities promote diversity?

It was a question tackled during “Getting In: The Debate Continues,” one of several panels at EWA’s 2013 Higher Education Seminar last month at Northeastern University which examined what demographic