12-19-13 Fred Klonsky Daily posts from a retired public school teacher who is just looking at the data

Fred Klonsky | Daily posts from a retired public school teacher who is just looking at the data.:

The fight for pension justice is worldwide.

  Dear friends and colleagues, As you are aware, 500 elderly people from across the country have been on dharna at Jantar Mantar since 26th November. Their main demand is that pensions be universalized and revised to enable the elderly to live with dignity. Today is the 25th day of the dharna. Delegations have met Smt. Sonia Gandhi, Shri Rahul Gandhi, Shri Jairam Ramesh and K

3 by Fred Klonsky / 1h 

Ten minute drawing. Thank you President Obama for sending Billie Jean King to Sochi.

2 by Fred Klonsky / 10min 

Teachers Laugh (Ken Previti) is knocked of of Facebook.

From Ken Previti. ALL, I have been clobbered by Facebook – my account has been disabled due to the high number of shares and clicks. (One of my memes – attached – was shared 10,250 times. One of my blogs was shared over 1,000 times.) FB determined that Teachers Laugh was not my actual name, probably because the “about” section listed my actual name, blog, etc. My 2,600 Facebook friends (mostly t

by Fred Klonsky / 5min 

Season’s Greetings from Naperville and the Representative from ALEC.

  Illinois’ Darlene Senger represents Naperville and ALEC. Since I was first elected to the Illinois House, I have made it my priority to stabilize our pension system in order to guarantee retired teachers, state employees and their survivors that they will continue to receive a pension check each and every month. This summer was my third consecutive year of intense pension co

by Fred Klonsky / 12min 

Pension thieves.

  Keith Farnhum is a Democratic State Representative from the 43rd District representing Elgin. He targets older people, retired police, fire fighters, public service workers, public school teachers and state university employees. Approach with care. He should be considered a Republican and dangerous.

by Fred Klonsky / 0min 

Working people have no candidate for governor.

Republican Kirk Dillard. I’ve heard rumors that the IEA will not endorse Squeezy in the Democratic primary. I’ve also heard rumors that they will endorse somebody in the Republican primary. But who could that be. Working folks and teachers have candidate in the governor’s race. Take long-ago Republican moderate Kirk Dillard. He was all over the map on pensions. One day for SB1. The next day agai

by Fred Klonsky / 20min 

Gary Elmen. Pension are not gifts. They are earned.

  Out-going IRTA President Gary Elmen (left) and TRS trustee Bob Lyons. - Gary Elmen. IRTA President It’s true that education is the key to our future, but those who served the needs of our students in the past are also part of our future. For that reason, the Illinois Retired Teachers Association will join other public employee organizations in suing to stop enactment of illegal and radical chan

by Fred Klonsky / 1h 

12-18-13 Fred Klonsky Daily posts from a retired public school teacher who is just looking at the data

Fred Klonsky | Daily posts from a retired public school teacher who is just looking at the data.: Me and Nekritz on Al Jazeera America.I would like to think my media reach is constantly expanding. I have my blog, of course. It just got its 1.5 millionth site visit the other day. And my appearances on Chicago public access cable’s Ken Davis. His audience isn’t huge. But it’s always fun. Katy Hogan

by mike simpson / 8h 

12-19-13 Wait What?

Wait What?:

Yup, Capital Prep’s Steve Perry Tweets about the dangers of Social Media…

Dr. Steve Perry ‏@DrStevePerry Social media has had a net negative affect on schools. Kids & adults are free to tee off on each other & the schools are left to clean it up (December 18, 2013)   This from a man who has sent out 32,971 Tweets, many during school hours, costing Hartford and Connecticut […]The post Yup, Capital Prep’s Steve Perry Tweets about the dangers of Social Media… appea

3 by jonpelto / 1h   

12-18-13 Wait What?

Wait What?: Another Brick in the WallIt was called the Capital Prep Magnet School “Gift Brick” fundraiser.   But good luck trying to find your brick… According to the “Gift Brick” fundraiser cover letter that went out with the order form in 2010, “It is important that you carefully read and completely fill out the enclosed order form.  Each engraved brick […]The post Another Brick in the Wall (Not

by mike simpson / 8h 

12-19-13 Schools Matter

Schools Matter:

Report Testing Child Abuse in New York Kindergartens

If you suspect child abuse, you are required by law to report it Child Protective Services.  Call toll free in New York 800-342-3720.From NY Daily News:Goodbye Play-Doh, hello No. 2 pencils.Because of a tough new curriculum and teacher evaluations, 4- and 5-year-olds are learning how to fill in bubbles on standardized math tests to show how much they know about numbers, shapes and order.Teachers s

2 by Jim Horn / 42min 

Show us the evidence

Posted on State Impact: Ohio - Eye on Education - http://tinyurl.com/ltoc4xqIn the class described in "How the Common Core is Changing How Kids Learn in English Class," (Dec 16), the teacher urges students to "cite evidence" for their statements, part of the push for increased nonfiction in the schools. Ironically, there is no scientific evidence that anyone can cite that suppo

by skrashen / 3h 

Do other countries teach better?

Sent to the New York Times, Dec. 19, 2013The Times asks "Why Other Countries Teach Better?" (Dec. 18). But there is no clear evidence that they do. The most powerful factor in developing well-educated citizens, not mentioned by the Times, is poverty: When researchers control for the effects of poverty, our students score near the top on international tests. A survey from the Organization

by skrashen / 5min 

Weingarten Joins Union Enemy John Engler to Plead with Governors to Keep Common Core

On December 10 Randi Weingarten flew into Newark with her gold-plated bullhorn to protest the entirely predicted outcome to a teacher contract that she helped negotiate just over a year ago.  At the time the Newark agreement gave bragging rights to Republican governor Chris Christie for making New Jersey the first state in the Union to base teacher pay on student test scores and on a teacher evalu

2 by Jim Horn / 15min 

The Biggest Lies of "We Won't Back Down"

The movie "We Won't Back Down" was on television this week. It is a product of the corporate-sponsored Parent Revolution. With the help of financing by Walden Media and other business conservatives, the movie tells the fictionalized story of the California "Parent Trigger" law allowing the takeover of a failing school when 51% of parents file a petition. In their telling, howev

by John Thompson / 0min 

Excuses, Excuses...

In response to test scores for New York City:New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg's reign as head of the nation's largest school system resulted in greatly improved graduation rates, but test scores that lagged behind the pace of other large American cities. New York City students' scores on national math and reading tests released Wednesday didn't show significant change in 2013 from 2011, ticki

1 by P. L. Thomas / 3h hide  //  save

Doomed!

A clip from the Salon article:. . . . Few would dispute that we should hold our educators and the children they are entrusted with to a high bar of excellence, but evaluating performance on test scores has never been a viable strategy. As Common Core test results have started trickling in, the results aren’t pretty. In New York, they show a widening of the achievement gap between black and white s

1 by Jim Horn / 6h 

12-18-13 Schools Matter

Schools Matter: Accountability without Autonomy Is TyrannyAt The Answer Sheet, Valerie Strauss confronts What’s wrong with this headline?:What’s wrong with this headline speaks to what’s wrong with a lot of the debate about school reform today. The problem is the indiscriminate and inaccurate use of the word “accountability.”While politicians and the media continue to pound at one nail—teacher qua

by mike simpson / 8h 

12-19-13 Scathing Purple Musings | Color me purple in Florida, red in Washington, dark sky-blue in Israel and public school in Education

Scathing Purple Musings | Color me purple in Florida, red in Washington, dark sky-blue in Israel and public school in Education:

Deja Vu All Over Again: Charter Schools USA to Appeal Denial of Application to State Board

Baseball legend Yogi Berra’s yummy pleonasm seems appropriate when it comes to the manner that Charter Schools USA takes advantage of a system they helped game themselves. No for-profit charter school has appealed local school board more rejections than has Jonathan Hage’s CSUSA. Their appeals have always been granted by Hage’s cronies on the state board. Here we go again. From Tama Bay Times repo

11 by Bob Sikes / 3h hide  //  save

Bullying as a Misdemeanor in Florida?

SaintPetersblog sent this interesting little blurb out in his invaluable Sunburn email alert: An effort to fight bullying would go beyond school lines in Florida law, under a measure (SB 548) filed Wednesday by Sen. David Simmons. The proposal says the offense of bullying would involve “a person who willfully, maliciously, and repeatedly harasses or cyberbullies another.” The term excludes consti

7 by Bob Sikes / 4h 

 

12-18-13 Scathing Purple Musings | Color me purple in Florida, red in Washington, dark sky-blue in Israel and public school in Education

Scathing Purple Musings | Color me purple in Florida, red in Washington, dark sky-blue in Israel and public school in Education: Common Core’s Not the Problem; It’s the “Other Stuff”New York is a step ahead of Florida. They have implemented Common Core and  administered the state-wide tests that go with them. The roll-out proved to be a disaster. Politicians develop education policy after listenin

by mike simpson / 8h 

12-19-13 Larry Ferlazzo’s Websites of the Day… | …For Teaching ELL, ESL, & EFL

Larry Ferlazzo’s Websites of the Day… | …For Teaching ELL, ESL, & EFL:

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The Best Theory Of Knowledge Resources In 2013 – Part Two

As regular readers know, I teach an International Baccalaureate “Theory of Knowledge” class. Our school structures our IB program a bit differently from many others by having a whole lot of students take individual IB classes and we have relatively few who are taking all IB classes in order to get the IB diploma. I really like this set-up, and it opens up my TOK class to a lot more students. As I’ve said before, I can’t think of a high school class that would be more fun to teach or more fun to take… You might also be interested in: The Best Theory Of Knowledge Resources In 2013 – So Far The

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Find Out What Word Was First Used The Year You Were Born

The OED birthday word generator: which words originated in your birth year? is an interactive from the Oxford English Dictionary that does what its title says. Just because I don’t have any other place to put it, I’m adding it to The Best “Today In History” Sites.

10 16h hide  //  save

Winners Of 15 Second Vocabulary Video Contest Announced By NY Times

The New York Times Learning Network has just announced the winners of their 15 Second Vocabulary Contest. See the great videos at Words Gone Wild: The Student Winners of Our 15-Second Vocabulary Video Contest. They’re excellent examples to use with your own students. I’ve embedded one below and you can see the rest at their post. I’m adding this info to The Best Resources For Learning To Use The Video Apps “Vine” & Instagram (where you can also see examples from my ELL students).

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Find Out What Word Was First Used The Year You Were Born

The OED birthday word generator: which words originated in your birth year? is an interactive from the Oxford English Dictionary that does what its title says. Just because I don’t have any other place to put it, I’m adding it to The Best “Today In History” Sites.

8 by Larry Ferlazzo / 2h hide  //  save

YESTERDAY

Great Video Response From English Class In Italy To Our Questions

I’ve been posting about the series of videotaped questions we’ve been sending to various English classes around the world as we study them in our ELL Geography class (see Terrific New Videos: Using English “Sister Classes” From Throughout The World In Our ELL Geography Class). One of the countries is Italy, and you can see our videotaped questions here at our class blog. Alessandra Cannelli Aless

7 by Larry Ferlazzo / 9h 

12-17-13 Larry Ferlazzo’s Websites of the Day… | …For Teaching ELL, ESL, & EFL

Larry Ferlazzo’s Websites of the Day… | …For Teaching ELL, ESL, & EFL: Another Study Shows That Self-Affirmation Activities Help People Think More ClearlyI’ve previously posted here on the blog and also written in my books about research that shows the benefits of having students do simple self-affirmation activities. In Giving Students “Reflection Cards,” I describe its effect on developing s

by mike simpson / 8h