Sunday, March 30, 2014

3-30-14 Ed Notes Online Week

The Work of Change the Stakes: Some History and How Organizing Bears Fruit

YES, word is spreading in Bed Stuy!... The teacher said the parent had the Change the Stakes refusal form!... Teacher in Bed-Stuy I left this as a comment on the Diane Ravitch bloggers network when the issue of Who is Our Audience came up.Organizational building: Blogging is a tool, not an end.After over 40 years of educational activism I've gone through many stages and have learned something (I h

by ed notes online / 0min

3-29-14 Ed Notes Online Week

Ed Notes Online: Ed Notes OnlineDe Blasio Rolled - Say no to this budget deal; call the Speaker & your Assemblymember NOW!I hate to tell you I told you so, but I told you so. That Eva would never pay a dime in rent.Not only that but now de Blasio will have to pay her rent. Here's the lesson boys and girls. We can't beat the 1% in the political arena. Massive grassroots organizing is what it wo

by mike simpson / 7h

3-30-14 Larry Ferlazzo’s Websites of the Day… | …For Teaching ELL, ESL, & EFL

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

Video: “Beeline World Music Mix”

This has got to be one of the more unusual international music mashups around. I’m adding it to The Best Sites For Learning About The World’s Different Cultures:

by Larry Ferlazzo / 59min hide // save

“You Really Need To Get A Life, Mr. Ferlazzo”

I had this dialogue in class on Friday and shared it on Facebook. It got such a positive reaction there, I thought readers here might enjoy it, too: Me to class: “Email your outlines to me and I’ll send you back comments.” Student: “When are you going to read them?” Me: “Over the weekend” Student: “You really need to get a life, Mr. Ferlazzo.”

by Larry Ferlazzo / 59min

Just Sent-Out Free Monthly Email Newsletter

I’ve just mailed out the March issue of my simple free monthly email newsletter. It has about 2,000 subscribers, and you can subscribe here.

by Larry Ferlazzo / 43min

March’s “The Best” Lists — There Are Now 1,284 Of Them!

Here’s my monthly round-up of new “The Best…” lists I posted this month (you can see all 1,284 of them categorized here): The “All-Time” Best Resources, Articles & Blog Posts For Teachers Of EnglishLanguage Learners The “All-Time” Best Science Sites The Best Resources For Learning About Mudslides The Best Sites For Learning About Japan The Best Sites For Learning About India The Best Sites Fo

by Larry Ferlazzo / 43min

Video: Colorado Fire Tornado

I’m adding this video to The Best Resources For Learning About Tornadoes:

by Larry Ferlazzo / 37min hide // save

Video: “This Is a Generic Brand Video”

If you teach a lesson on advertising, or if you teach Perception in an IB Theory of Knowledge class, you’ll want to use this video:

by Larry Ferlazzo / 37min

This Week’s “Round-Up” Of Good Posts, Articles & Videos On Education Policy

Here are some recent useful resources on educational policy issues: Teachers union fights new plan by Sacramento and other school districts to address low-performing schools is from The Sacramento Bee. I’m adding it to The Best Posts & Articles On The NCLB Waiver Given To Eight California School Districts (Including Ours). New York Schools: The Roar of the Charters is by Diane Ravitch at The

by Larry Ferlazzo / 29min

Around The Web In ESL/EFL/ELL

I’ve started a somewhat regular feature where I share a few posts and resources from around the Web related to ESL/EFL or to language in general that have caught my attention: What kind of teacher are you? is a fun little Facebook quiz that the British Council has developed for ESL/EFL Teachers. TEFL Reflections has a nice post listing different ways teachers can check for student understandin

by Larry Ferlazzo / 7h hide // save

This Week In Web 2.0

In yet another attempt to get at the enormous backlog I have of sites worth , I’ve recently begin a regular feature called “The Week In Web 2.0.” (you might also be interested in The Best Web 2.0 Applications For Education In 2013). I also sometimes include tech tools that might not exactly fit the definition of Web 2.0: Sketch Toy is a simple and useful online drawing tool. You can learn more ab

by Larry Ferlazzo / 8h

Larry Ferlazzo’s Websites of the Week… 3-29-14 …For Teaching ELL, ESL, & EF

Larry Ferlazzo’s Websites of the Day… | …For Teaching ELL, ESL, & EFLLARRY FERLAZZO’S WEBSITES OF THE DAYGreat Interactive Video: “Sounds Of GREAT Britain”Sounds of GREAT Britain is a very cool series of interactive videos that allow viewers to take a customized audio and visual tour of…Great Britain. It’s very creative. I’ve embedded the first video below… The creators of the video also have

by mike simpson / 8h

3-30-13 Curmudgucation Week

CURMUDGUCATION:

Results! Right!! Now!!!

There has been a great deal written about the content of the current testing regime, concentrating on what The Test covers, and how little depth of complexity can be measured. But there's another dimension of The Test that deserves the same sort of attention and criticism.Time.The obvious issue is the time spent on the test itself. The weakness of writing components is often noted and the clearest

by Peter A. Greene / 12min

A Message from Andrea Rediske

It's a tough contest these days to determine which state legislature is most hostile to public education, but Florida legislators (motto "Finding New Ways To Make Things Worse") has been giving it the old college and career ready try.Nobody knows that better than the family of Ethan Rediske. His mother Andrea has been working tirelessly to insure that extraordinarily challenged children

10 by Peter A. Greene / 2h

3-29-13 Curmudgucation Week

CURMUDGUCATION:Van Roekel/NEA CCSS UpdateIt's been almost six whole weeks since Dennis Van Roekel stepped up to make the announcement that CCSS implementation has been botched, and to suggest some startling ideas for correcting course. It' a month and two days since he took to the US News debate club to issue a rewritten version of his statement about the botch that walked back most of the excitin

by mike simpson / 7h

Standing Up to Testing - NYTimes.com

Standing Up to Testing - NYTimes.com:

Standing Up to Testing

David Rapheal, Brooklyn borough assessment implementation director for New York schools, at a meeting on the opt-out movement on Tuesday. Anthony Lanzilote for The New York Times

In the coming weeks, children in New York City and across the state will begin taking annual standardized tests in math and language that will run over the course of many hours and days, assuming a kind of onerousness once exclusive to the bar exam. Last year, the first in which the tests were aligned with the Common Core, a set of standards intended to determine whether a child is on track to becoming prepared for college, a number of parents, here and nationally, maintained an activist stance against them. About 270 children in the city’s public school system did not sit for the tests, their parents believing that the burdens imposed were hardly offset by the tests’ highly debatable value.

This movement of refusal does not evolve out of antipathy toward rigor and seriousness, as critics enjoy suggesting, but rather out of advocacy for more comprehensive forms of assessment and a depth of intellectual experience that test-driven pedagogy rarely allows. In the past year, the movement has grown considerably among parents and educators, across political classifications and demographics.

At the Brooklyn New School, a highly regarded elementary school in Carroll Gardens that prides itself on academic independence, over 210 students in third through fifth grades — two-thirds of the relevant students — will not take the state-mandated tests this year. This figure includes children in fourth grade for whom state test scores are typically used for middle-school admission. When parents called those schools to which B.N.S. graduates typically go, they were told that opting out of the tests would not damage

Shame on Chicago Board of Ed Members for Mocking / Bullying a Parent: Caught. Picture. #SHAME | Continuing Change

Shame on Chicago Board of Ed Members for Mocking / Bullying a Parent: Caught. Picture. #SHAME | Continuing Change:

Frustrated with Too Much Testing in Schools? Here is What YOU Can Do !

Frustrated with Too Much Testing in Schools? Here is What YOU Can Do ! Check out this storify about high stakes testing in schools … and take action today. #ForTheKids

by gatorbonbc / 13min

Shame on Chicago Board of Ed Members for Mocking / Bullying a Parent: Caught. Picture. #SHAME

Say it isn’t so … ?

Say I didn’t just read that Chicago Board of Education Members, Henry Bienen and Mahalia Hines, were making fun of an impassioned parent who chose to speak up for her children and their teachers … ?

Really ? Really ?

So, while Rousemary Vega, Chicago parent, is pleading for her children in the space of under two minutes, while she is fighting for the rights of students and teachers everywhere, the right to speak up and be heard … they mock her? They turn and ridicule her? I am a teacher. When we see that in the classroom, we are obligated to address it. If it continues, prolonged, it is an indicator of bullying.

Yes … bullying. And do you know what they teach us to do when we see bullying? Stand up to it … recognize it … report it.

So, Chicago Board of Ed Members Bienen and Hines … shame on you. Consider yourself Shame on Chicago Board of Ed Members for Mocking / Bullying a Parent: Caught. Picture. #SHAME | Continuing Change:

Data: Education’s New “Dirty” Word | Connected Principals

Data: Education’s New “Dirty” Word | Connected Principals:

Data: Education’s New “Dirty” Word

by Tom Martellone • March 30, 2014 • 0 Comments

It seems that in some circles, data has come to be one of education’s “dirty” words. I suspect I know why, and unfortunately, it is difficult to convince those people who think that way otherwise.

Many professions, such as medicine, law, finance, and even construction use data on a regular basis to inform their work. If you were to go to the doctor’s office and get on the scale, the doctor would use that data to draw some conclusions and make some recommendations. The doctor does not only use the scale and the number it gives however. The doctor may also check your cholesterol, your blood pressure, and may make other observations that inform her of what it is you need to do or not do to preserve or improve your health.

Like other professions, education also benefits from using data. When a teacher administers a formative assessment to her class, she reviews the results of the assessment and then determines if students need further instruction, or if they have demonstrated an understanding of the content taught, thereby, letting her move more deeply into the content or beyond. Additionally, teams of teachers use time together as PLCs to look at student work and make determinations about units they’ve taught and content they’ve covered. The team’s review of data and student work helps them decide how they proceed with their instruction.

Sadly, data has been given a bad connotation through the use of accountability measures, where often times, student performance is “boiled down” to a spreadsheet full of scores, or an accountability report that attempts to show a profile around school performance.

Shared via CIOKorea.com

This very narrow and limited view of student performance has led many to believe that school administrators are only concerned with number and scores, and that the faces of the students attached to those scores are null and void.

I believe that data is not a dirty word when used correctly and in the

The Inner Work of Transforming Whiteness | educarenow

The Inner Work of Transforming Whiteness | educarenow:

The Inner Work of Transforming Whiteness

Posted on March 30, 2014 | Leave a comment

My biggest concern with talk about the achievement gap is that it is used as one more code for blaming people of color.

Gary Howard, in We Can’t Teach What We Don’t Know, suggests a different approach:

“I am convinced there is a prior and equally compelling need for White people, particularly White educators in the United States and other nations of the West, to look within themselves and realign our deepest assumptions and perceptions regarding the racial marker that we carry, namely Whiteness. We need to understand the dynamic of past and present dominance, face how we have been shaped by myths of superiority, and begin to sort out or thoughts, emotions, and behaviors relative to race and other dimensions of human diversity.

It is essential in this inner work of multicultural growth that we listen carefully to the perceptions others have of us, particularly students, parents and colleagues from other racial and cultural groups. They can help us see ourselves in a clearer and truer light. We cannot fully and fruitfully engage in meaningful dialogue across the differences of race and culture without doing the work of personal transformation. If we as White educators are not deeply moved and transformed, there is little hope that anything else will significantly shift…Over the years I have come to the conclusion that there will be no

Teaches union fights new plan by Sacramento and other school districts to address low-performing schools - Education - The Sacramento Bee

Teaches union fights new plan by Sacramento and other school districts to address low-performing schools - Education - The Sacramento Bee:

Teaches union fights new plan by Sacramento and other school districts to address low-performing schools

By Loretta Kalb
lkalb@sacbee.com

Published: Sunday, Mar. 30, 2014 - 12:00 am

In the seven months since Sacramento City Unified School District won unprecedented federal permission to use new methods at low-performing schools, the urban district has begun ranking campuses and sending educators to other schools to coach their colleagues.

These were among the early steps in plans to improve performance among 43,175 students, many of whom live in poverty and are learning English along with their everyday studies.

Even as the district rolls out the plan, the teachers union – which never signed on – is fighting to stop it. The Sacramento City Teachers Association, in particular, objects to a promise that Sacramento City Unified and seven other districts made to link student test scores to teacher evaluations.

“We have been really, really clear in California ever since (federal grant competition) Race to the Top that we did not believe using student test scores to evaluate teachers was a good idea,” said Dean Vogel, president of the California Teachers Association, which has been providing support to the SCTA.

Sacramento City Unified is part of a consortium that represents more than 1 million students in school districts in Fresno, Long Beach, Los Angeles, Oakland, San Francisco, Sanger and Santa

Community Forum on the CORE Waiver's Urges Public Action | The Sacramento Coalition to Save Public Education

Community Forum on the CORE Waiver's Urges Public Action | The Sacramento Coalition to Save Public Education: Community Forum on the CORE Waiver's Urges Public Actionpublished by Kate_Lenox on Thu, 03/20/2014 - 1:36pm The takeaway from last night's Community Forum on the California Office to Reform Education NCLB Waiver was that this waiver, and the commission that oversees it, str

by mike simpson / 2min

Unions Say CORE Waiver Creates 'Privatized Shadow' Education System - Politics K-12 - Education Week

Unions Say CORE Waiver Creates 'Privatized Shadow' Education System - Politics K-12 - Education Week: Unions Say CORE Waiver Creates 'Privatized Shadow' Education SystemBy Michele McNeil on July 19, 2013 8:22 AMThis week, the nine California districts that are applying for their own tailor-made No Child Left Behind waiver met with officials from the U.S. Department of Education to try to seal the

by mike simpson / 8h

CORE waiver is bad idea | Letters to the Editor | FresnoBee.com

CORE waiver is bad idea | Letters to the Editor | FresnoBee.comCORE waiver is bad ideaThe Fresno Unified CORE waiver hurts kids. Superintendent Michael Hanson characterizes the waiver as a plan to improve education, but in reality the waiver is a business model designed to privatize education, which ultimately harms Fresno Unified children.The California Office to Reform Education waiver is a plan

by mike simpson / 5h

Community Forum on Sac City Schools' NCLB CORE Waiver http://on.fb.me/1h8xlxp

The Darker Side of the CORE waiverwww.sacbee.com/2014/03/30/6279356/teaches-union-fights-new-plan.html#mi_rss=Education#storylink=cpy