1-16-14 @ The Chalk Face

@ THE CHALK FACE:

Twelve Embarrassing Years of NCLB and RTTT: Time for Arne to Blame USDOE

Ever notice that the “problem” with American education appears to be everywhere except with the US Department of Education (USDOE)? I find this rather remarkable given that American education has been subjected to twelve years of a combination of No Child Left Behind (NCLB) and Race to the Top (RTTT). Seems like it is time […]

by deutsch29 / 1h 

#CAEP strikes out.

As I have posted in the past I am no fan of CAEP (Council for the Accreditation of Educator Preparation) and I have criticized AACTE (American Association for Colleges of Teacher Education) for supporting the CAEP standards. Today I simply would like to present three reasons why opting out of CAEP is warranted. 1) Violates Academic Freedom and Research Ethics 1.4 Providers […]

by Timothy D. Slekar / 24min 

On Leaders and Teacher Responsibility

On Leaders and Teacher Responsibility. via On Leaders and Teacher Responsibility.

1 by plthomasedd / 22min

Comparing CC Support with Evidence Against

AFT president Randi Weingarten has recently changed positions on value-added methods (VAM) for teacher evaluation, but maintains support for Common Core (CC). With that shift to rejecting VAM, based on the solid evidence base that shows high-stakes implementation of VAM is at least complicated if not misleading, I would like to request that Weingarten and AFT apply […]

9 by plthomasedd / 1h hide  //  save

Teaching is the mother of innovation.

Promote Innovation Through Education, IStockPhoto.com It’s often said, “necessity is the mother of invention.” Although this statement is true, I firmly believe the teaching profession, itself, creates several “necessity” moments. Since teachers use their creativity, on a daily basis, they’re definitely “innovative” people. As a result, I often wonder why teachers aren’t the world’s best […]

1 by Angel Cintron Jr. / 4h 

1-15-14 @ The Chalk Face

@ THE CHALK FACE: The Triumph of Conscience, Martin Luther King Jr.The Triumph of Conscience, Martin Luther King Jr.. via The Triumph of Conscience, Martin Luther King Jr.. via The Triumph of Conscience, Martin Luther King Jr..1 by plthomasedd / 55min  1-14-14 @ The Chalk Face@ THE CHALK FACE: Smagorinsky on Authentic Teacher EvaluationSmagorinsky on Authentic Teacher Evaluation. via Smagorinsky o

by mike simpson / 9h 

1-16-14 the becoming radical | A Place for a Pedagogy of Kindness by P. L. Thomas, EdD

the becoming radical | A Place for a Pedagogy of Kindness (the public and scholarly writing by P. L. Thomas, Furman University):

We Teach English (1951)

We Teach English (1951).

by plthomasedd / 3min 

On Leaders and Teacher Responsibility

Political leaders and candidates are rightfully concerned about asserting their credibility as leaders; however, when political leaders and candidates emphasize their leadership skills in the education reform debate, the implication appears to be that leadership replaces the value of expertise and experience in education. Let me offer two examples. Rep. Andy Patrick, R-Hilton Head Island, SC, addr

5 by plthomasedd / 26min 

Social Context Reform: Publication 15 May 2014 Routledge

The edited volume Social Context Reform has an anticipated publication date from Routledge of 15 May 2014. I hope you’ll keep this work on your radar as an alternative to the current “No Excuses” Reform agenda.

1 by plthomasedd / 57min 

Writing Is More than Structure (1957)

Writing Is More than Structure (1957).

1 by plthomasedd / 2min hide  //  save

Walking and Talking with Secretary Duncan

Walking and Talking with Secretary Duncan

2 by plthomasedd / 57min 

Comparing CC Support with Evidence Against

Comparing CC Support with Evidence Against.

1 by plthomasedd / 1h 

1-15-14 the becoming radical | A Place for a Pedagogy of Kindness by P. L. Thomas, EdD

the becoming radical | A Place for a Pedagogy of Kindness (the public and scholarly writing by P. L. Thomas, Furman University): The Triumph of Conscience, Martin Luther King Jr.The Triumph of Conscience, Martin Luther King Jr. The Triumph of Conscience, Martin Luther King Jr. — Our freedom was not won a century ago, it is not won today; but some small part of it is in our hands, and we are marchi

by mike simpson / 9h 

1-16-14 Perdido Street School

Perdido Street School:

National Review: Common Core Rebellion Gaining Steam

Good piece at NRO from Lance T. Izumi, senior director of education studies at the Pacific Research Institute, on the Common Core rebellion:When federal and state-government elites quietly combined to enact the Common Core national education standards, they thought that the train had left the station and that this radical reordering of American public education was an over-and-done deal. They thou

by reality-based edu... / 2h 

Andrew Cuomo To Run For Re-Election As A Republican

Governor Andrew M. Cuomo stunned his audience at a speaking enggagement at the Harvard Club today when he announced he will be running for re-election as a Republican.Cuomo, speaking to a sparse group of financiers and GOP powerbrokers including John Catsimatidis, the supermarket magnate who ran for mayor in the NYC Republican primary last year, said that he has decided to dispense with the sham o

by reality-based edu... / 13min 

Sen. Lee Zelden: "Our Students Are Not Guinea Pigs...Delay The Common Core"

From Newsday:State Sen. Lee Zeldin (R-Shirley) wants to delay implementing tough, new academic standards known as the Common Core, calling its rollout "terribly executed."The education program, adopted by 45 states and the District of Columbia, was created with the goal of better preparing students for college and the workforce.But thousands of Long Island parents told state education le

by reality-based edu... / 3min 

Why The UFT Will Probably Back Cuomo

James Eterno at ICEUFT today:Michael Bloomberg, the anti-public education mayor, has left office after twelve years where he almost destroyed our public schools.  An anti-public education, anti-worker governor of New York State, Andrew Cuomo, is up for reelection later this year.  On Wednesday at the UFT Delegate Assembly, I introduced a resolution for the UFT to outright reject any possible Cuomo

by reality-based edu... / 17min hide  //  save

There Needs To Be A Moreland Commission To Investigate Andrew Cuomo

Sheriff Andy used the Moreland Commission as a bludgeon against the Legislature, saying in effect it is a cesspool of corruption where private interests hand over campaign donations (or bribes) and get favors and/or policies in return.But take a look at how much money Cuomo takes in, just where he takes it from and who gets favors in return:ALBANY – He may be promoting a taxpayer-funded campaign s

1 by reality-based edu... / 2h 

Governor Cuomo On The Take

Capital Confidential:Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo has filed its six-month report with the Board of Elections, which is due today. The raw numbers:Opening Balance: $27,811,546.11Total Receipts: $7,019,967.87Total Expenses: $1,507,972.95Total On Hand (End of Period): $33,323,541.03Whomp! By way of comparison, consider Cuomo’s previous five January filings:2009: $5.6 million2010: $16.1 million2011: $4.2 mill

by reality-based edu... / 6h

1-15-14 Perdido Street School

Perdido Street School: Bruce Springsteen Sings The "Governor Christie Traffic Jam"by reality-based edu... / 17min Eva Moskowitz's "Middle East War"Rachel Monahan and Ben Chapman in a piece about Eva Moskowitz and her charter school company have this doozy: For eight years, she’s been the lightning rod of the charter movement, raising millions from hedge funders and foundations

by mike simpson / 9h 

Pulling the Levers of Power - Bridging Differences - Education Week

Pulling the Levers of Power - Bridging Differences - Education Week:

Pulling the Levers of Power

By Guest Blogger on January 16, 2014 9:58 AM

Robert Pondiscio writes to Deborah Meier again today.

Dear Deborah,

Happy Martin Luther King Jr. Day!  Thank you for your latest thoughtful post. Let me pull on a couple of threads. 

You're against public funding for charter chains that are "accountable to their 'owners' not their public."  Well, isn't everyone? The whole point of charters is public accountability in exchange for operational freedom. I've never heard a soul in the charter school world refer to themselves as "owners" of schools.  And for the record, I harbor no "general aversion to public institutions," but neither do I sentimentalize them.  Public institutions serve public purposes.  The public interest is in a well-educated citizenry.  Traditional public schools are one way—only one way—to serve that public interest.  But why are we talking about this, Deb?  I thought we agreed that we both liked small schools, operational flexibility, and public accountability?  I thought we were supposed to be designing a school system that accommodates our respective visions and others of educating for democracy and liberty.  We're in danger of falling backwards.

You remain fixated on the question of "who decides what" in schools at large, but still cannot name even a single thing that all American children should know. This depresses me.  Fair-minded readers of our posts can satisfy themselves if I'm "pretending there's one right answer to what a good 

Will there be an actual election to replace retiring Sacramento County Supervisor Jimmie Yee? - Sacramento News & Review -

Sacramento News & Review - Will there be an actual election to replace retiring Sacramento County Supervisor Jimmie Yee? - Bites - Opinions - January 16, 2014:

Will there be an actual election to replace retiring Sacramento County Supervisor Jimmie Yee?

So far, candidate Patrick Kennedy is in a one-man race

By Cosmo Garvin 
cosmog@newsreview.com

Read 1 reader submitted comment

This article was published on 01.16.14.

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Sacramento County Supervisor Jimmie Yee is retiring, and we’re supposed to have an election this spring to replace him.
The right candidate could move the board in a much more progressive direction on sprawl, affordable housing, and transportation. The wrong candidate will only cement the developers’ hold on the board.
Yee’s District 2 seat represents the Pocket, Greenhaven, South Sacramento, Valley Hi and Vineyard. So far, the only person to declare candidacy is Sacramento City Unified School District board-member and attorney Patrick Kennedy.
Kennedy has rolled up a long list of Democratic endorsements. Funny since, a) the guy has never won a competitive election, and b) he seems to struggle quite a bit with the idea of democracy.
Let’s recap. Kennedy pushed to fast-trackschool closures in poor neighborhoods, short-circuiting the usual public process.
When SCUSD Area 1 member Ellyn Bell left the board suddenly, Kennedy voted to deny residents the chance to elect her replacement. He helped orchestrate the appointment of political player Jay Hansen to fill out Bell’s term. In good old-boy style, Hansen voted with Kennedy on the controversial closures.
Kennedy led the effort to pass school bond measures Q and R in 2012. But when asked, parents consistently listed class-size reduction as their first priority. There was support for a parcel tax, which would raise less money than bonds but which could be used to restore programs.
Kennedy knew better than his constituents. The bonds will be a boon to the building trades—to which Kennedy has close ties—and to the technology vendors and consultants. They won’t do anything to reduce class sizes, or stem the loss of students to charter schools and other districts.
Kennedy worked for the law office of Gregory D. Thatch, the go-to lawyer for Sacramento’s big developers and a powerful force for shaping county policy. Kennedy’s done political work for the building trades and they have funded his campaigns generously. He’s got the endorsements of 

Oregon Save Our Schools: When Students Speak, We Should Listen

Oregon Save Our Schools: When Students Speak, We Should Listen:

When Students Speak, We Should Listen

photo by Bette Lee

When it comes to public education, it seems no one ever asks those who know best: students and teachers.  Doing so would save our state a lot of grief, stress, and wasted time and money.

In Portland Public Schools, where the district is inching closer and closer to a strike as contract negotiations drag out, students express their voices over what they value in their education.  In the following article, "Portland Students Pack School Board Meeting, Back Teachers Union," Alexia Garcia shares insight regarding not only what our students think and want for their quality public education but also why they protested.

Oregon Save Our Schools founder and school board member, Steve Buel, was the only board member to stay and honor the voices of the students.  He and Oregon SOS are proud of Oregon students standing up for themselves, their teachers, and those 

Paul Horton: History Matters: The C3 Social Studies Standards are Fool's Gold - Living in Dialogue - Education Week Teacher

Paul Horton: History Matters: The C3 Social Studies Standards are Fool's Gold - Living in Dialogue - Education Week Teacher:

Paul Horton: History Matters: The C3 Social Studies Standards are Fool's Gold

By Anthony Cody on January 16, 2014 5:52 AM

Guest post by Paul Horton. 

I could not but help get a little hot around the collar the first time I read the National Council for the Social Studies (NCSS) C3 "Framework for Social Studies Standards": Social Studies for the Next Generation. Like most of us with history degrees who teach high school history and who take history seriously, we don't like to closely examine the very bright and glossy NCSS bulletins that we receive, typically from district level curriculum people who have degrees in Social Studies Education.

The fact is that somehow NCSS has a boatload of money, and we history scholar wannabes who have memberships in the American Historical Association (AHA), the Organization of American Historians (OAH), and the National Council for History Education (NCHE) saw money for History professional development dry up when the spigot for the Teaching American History Grants was turned off.

When I saw that the AHA and the NCHE endorsed the new standards on the inside cover, I saw red. This can't be, I told myself, are these two proud organizations selling out? When I copied an e-mail to the Director of NCHE that expressed my dismay, he was upset with me because I had 

V.A.M.: Value Added Measure: Rewriting History

V.A.M.: Value Added Measure: Rewriting History:

Rewriting History

Recently, the Center for Union "Facts" (an organization formed to bash unions and generously supported by wealthy, unnamed interests) placed a five-story billboard in N.Y.C., attacking the American Federation of Teachers.  It must be nice to have so much money to vilify teachers, especially when public schools, their employees, their students and their families are so strapped for funds. 

Unions help workers secure a living wage, health benefits, a pension, due-process and, in the case of education, academic freedom.  Unions also help teachers fight for improved learning environments for their students and more classroom resources.  I have sadly seen all of the above dwindle severely in the past decade.

Keeping the view of the current educational deformers in mind, I have created some images below.  They envision how the current educational deformers (who blame teachers for poverty in the United States) might reinterpret the history of the Great

  

"It's the Teachers, Stupid!"

The image below reflects the interpretation of educational deformers who would like to deflect attention from the root causes of poverty in America by blaming teachers.  In this way, they fail to address the root causes of poverty in America.  Instead, they bash teachers.  

by Adam Bergstein / 3h 

What’s In A Choice? – redqueeninla

What’s In A Choice? – redqueeninla:

What’s In A Choice?

Written by redqueeninla in Education

“Choice” has to be the most loaded word in the English lexicon.

“Loaded” in the sense that, when one person uses the term, associated with it is a special, private meaning used to communicate with a special, private group of people; others do not know the special meaning.  And so what happens is the word takes on separate meanings among different sets of folks.  Enormous confusion and subterfusion gets propagated.

Thus the word itself creates a “wedge” between groups of people because they proceed thinking they’re communicating with one another when in fact, they are not.  Even though the words of communication are common between them, the groups are wedged impermeably apart by virtue of the special, private meanings for loaded words.  Purportedly same language, supposedly same words, utterly different meanings.

We are all consumers of disingenuous language via marketing and advertisement.  Everyone knows we are being manipulated to want, to feel the “gimmes”, to buy-buy-buy.  And many of us claim veteran status in the more 

| CALIFORNIA STUDENT UNION : : Our struggles are one. Our victories are one

| CALIFORNIA STUDENT UNION : : Our struggles are one. Our victories are one. *** UNDER CONSTRUCTION ***:

Humboldt State University ASI President Resigns

Beating Rollin to the Punch, Student Body President Resigns Humboldt State University, Arcata, CA December, 2013 Reposted with the author’s permission Art by Jacob Bloom Effective immediately, I, Jacob Bloom, hereby resign from my position of Associated Students President, December 2, 2013. It was not an easy choice, but an obvious one that I have […]

by castudentunion / 5h hide  //  save

YESTERDAY

Judge Blocks CCSF Accreditation Revocation

Photo by Michael Short San Francisco Superior Court Judge Curtis Karnow has ruled that the City College of San Francisco cannot be stripped of its accreditation in July 2014, as previously scheduled, until a trial can determine whether the Accrediting Commission for Community and Junior Colleges (ACCJC) acted lawfully in evaluating the school. The injunction filed by San […]

by castudentunion / 7h

High turnover rates in high-poverty schools? Here’s the proof. | Ward 8 DC Teacher

High turnover rates in high-poverty schools? Here’s the proof. | Ward 8 DC Teacher:

High turnover rates in high-poverty schools? Here’s the proof.

• Leave a comment

For the life of me, I don’t know why education “experts” ignore the role of working conditions at high-poverty DC public schools. According to the data, high-poverty DC public schools lose almost one-third of its teaching staff. How’s that a sustainable model? As a teacher who works within such a DC public school, I’ve offered four reasons why this turnover rate is so high. But, is anyone listening?