4LAKids - some of the news that doesn't fit 4-23-14

4LAKids - some of the news that doesn't fit:

THE COMMON CORE MAKES MATH MORE COMPLICATED. HERE’S WHY. + Stephen Colbert explains it all for you

by Libby Nelson | Vox.com |  http://bit.ly/1f5FY1O A teacher goes over fractions in a fourth grade math class in Takoma Park, Maryland. Fourth and fifth grade math teachers in the state are training themselves to teach to Common Core standards.Linda Davidson / The Washington Post via Getty Images April 20, 2014, 8:30 a.m. ET  ::  You might not know what a number sentence is. Neither does

by smf / 18min hide  //  save

Lawmakers Reject Brown’S Online Learning Proposal

by Kimberly Beltran, SI&A Cabinet Report :: The Essential Resource for Superintendents and the Cabinet |  http://bit.ly/1lEB2PQ APRIL 23, 2014   (Calif.)  ::  A key budget panel on Tuesday rejected Gov. Jerry Brown’s latest plan to revamped the K-12 independent study program and create more opportunities for students to use modern technology as part of their academic day. The Assembly Budget

by smf / 37min 

Republican Governor Hopeful Neel Kashkari Proposes Major Education Overhaul

The GOP candidate for governor would throw out much of the education code, send funds directly to schools rather than to districts and let most public schools run like charters. By Seema Mehta, LA Times | http://lat.ms/1ifabpE April 22, 2014  ::  Saying that better schools are critical for California's prosperity, GOP gubernatorial candidate Neel Kashkari proposes changing the way education

by smf / 46min 

L.A. ETHICS COMMISSION SUSPENDS AGGREGATE CONTRIBUTION LIMITS IN CITY+LAUSD ELECTIONS IN THE WAKE OF McCUTCHEON v. FEC

by email from the Ethics Commission What this means is that individuals can now give up to $1,100 to each and every candidate in an election, rather than a limit of  a total of $1,100 to all candidates in an election. Billionaires, PAC’s, Special Interest Groups  and Scrooge McDuck will still figure out a way to give kazillion$ of dollar$ to whomever they want!   AGGREGATE

by smf / 1h  

4LAKids - some of the news that doesn't fit 4-21-14

4LAKids - some of the news that doesn't fit: DISTRICT ATTORNEY REVIEWS LAUSD INSPECTOR GENERAL REPORT ON iPAD CONTRACT; ELECTS NOT TO PROSECUTEBy Howard Blume, LA Times | http://lat.ms/1lyzF9T Students try out iPads provided by L.A. Unified early in the school year. (Bob Chamberlin / Los Angeles Times) April 21, 2014, 2:27 p.m.  ::  The Los Angeles County District Attorney’s Office has reviewed an

1 by mike simpson / 20h 

4-23-14 the becoming radical | A Place for a Pedagogy of Kindness (the public and scholarly writing by P. L. Thomas, Furman University)

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

Standards May Achieve Equality, But Not Equity

Michelle Morrissey makes a case for Common Core in By ‘Common,’ We Mean Equity: When the Common Core State Standards emerged, it was both a shock and a revelation — for the first time, the dominant model said that my students, who live in low-income neighborhoods and are predominately Hispanic or African American, would have some guarantee of the same kinds of educational experiences that students

13 by plthomasedd / 2h 

4-22-14 the becoming radical | A Place for a Pedagogy of Kindness (the public and scholarly writing by P. L. Thomas, Furman University)

the becoming radical | A Place for a Pedagogy of Kindness (the public and scholarly writing by P. L. Thomas, Furman University): Is There an Alternative to Accountability-Based, Corporate Education Reform? | AlternetIs There an Alternative to Accountability-Based, Corporate Education Reform? | Alternet1 by plthomasedd / 21min hide  //  saveREVIEW: Jimmy’s Blues and Other Poems, James BaldwinFor ma

by mike simpson / 8h 

4-23-13 Curmudgucation

CURMUDGUCATION:

Duncan Breaks Up With WA

In a move that just underlines how deeply bizarre the relationship has become between Arne Duncan, King of All Schools, and the previously-sovereign states, Arne today pulled the rug out from under Washington state, sending them tumbling toward a bureaucratic limbo that...well, at the very least, will be interesting.The Dear John letter is trim and bureaucratic. I'll offer a translation into Plain

by Peter Greene / 32min 

PARCC Is Certifiably Ready

When the folks at PARCC say that their tests will help determine if your child is college and career ready, that's not just rhetoric. As of October 2012 (revised February, 2013), PARCC is ready to officially certify your student, and I've been looking at the document that shows how this will work. If you're wondering what "college ready" means to the PARCC folks, here's the explanation.T

by Peter Greene / 0min 

PARCC Discovers Unicorn Farm!

Over at the Thomas B. Fordham Institute, PARCC CEO Laura McGiffert Slover has breathlessly announced the discovery of a special farm where unicorns dance and sing and give rides to little winged cherubs while singing sonnets in Latin.Okay, not really, but I would have found that more credible than Slover's actual announcement, which is that PARCC heralds the end of test prep.PARCC states are creat

1 by Peter Greene / 27min 

4-22-13 Curmudgucation

CURMUDGUCATION: Trials of the Traveling StudentWhat about the students who move?It's a question often raised in support of the CCSS, or just national standards in general. Don't we need national standards so that students who move won't be thrown for a loop when they change schools, even across state lines? I'm unconvinced by this argument.I'll admit up front that, as both my regular readers know,

by mike simpson / 6h 

4-23-14 Perdido Street School

Perdido Street School:

Cuomo Says You Can't Get More Left Than Him

I checked the calendar, but it's not April Fool's Day.Still, have to assume this is some kind of joke:Gov. Andrew Cuomo gave a defense of his progressive credentials on Wednesday after he was asked about a potential challenge from a liberal gubernatorial candidate this fall. “I don’t know if there’s a lot of space to my left,” Cuomo said. He cited the legalization of same-sex marriage, along with

by reality-based edu... / 18min 

Cuomo Seeks To Pit Unions And Working Familes Party Activists Against Each Other

Blake Zeff at Capital NY with another illuminating column - this one on how Cuomo is working to undercut a WFP challenge from the left by pitting unions and activists in the party against each other.That's why he's gotten a little friendly to the unions lately, including TWU 100 with last week's contract, as well as CWA (killing some deregulation that was in the Senate and his budget bill), 1199 (

1 by reality-based edu... / 2h hide  //  save

Howie Hawkins Says Working Families Party Should Nominate Him To Take On Cuomo In General Election

State of Politics has Howie Hawkins' reaction to the Siena College poll released yesterday showing a third party lefty candidate nominated on the Working Families Party ballot line could do some real damage to Andrew Cuomo in November:“The poll confirms what I heard from voters as I went around the state last week announcing my campaign. Voters are upset with Cuomo’s rich man’s budget that pays fo

by reality-based edu... / 5h

4-22-14 Perdido Street School

Perdido Street School: Siena Poll: Third Party Candidate Cuts 15Poijts Out From Cuomo's TotalsJust like we've been saying all along, a decent third party candidate from the left could throw serioius frights Sheriff Andy Cuomo's way:While the latest poll from the Siena Research Institute shows Gov. Andrew Cuomo maintaining his 2-to-1 lead (58-28 percent) lead over Republican Westchester County Exec

by mike simpson / 8h 

College for Free!? (Mark Cuban is Paying…) | Cloaking Inequity

College for Free!? (Mark Cuban is Paying…) | Cloaking Inequity:

College for Free!? (Mark Cuban is Paying…)

College is expensive nowadays. There are various arguments out there why that is the case, as I previously discussed in the post Dear college student with exorbitant tuition bill: Blame your legislator.

However, there is a new plan on the table by the Sara Goldrick-Rab, University of Wisconsin-Madison professor and 2014 AERA Early Career Awardee (a big deal). There is lots to like in Professor Goldrick-Rab’s proposal. I like the plan as long it doesn’t come with an NCLB-style outcomes based accountability system for higher education. Sara hasn’t suggested this, but you know policymakers… these are the same folks that are currently thinking high-stakes testing for Pre-K is a brilliant idea.

Anyways, Sara sent me the following blog. It is a clever approach that leverages existing resources with some new additional resources as a national strategy. Yes, sorry, Mark Cuban is not actually paying (unless he wants to pick up the tab, he has the resources to do so I believe— I digress). Without further ado.

MAKE THE FIRST TWO YEARS OF COLLEGE FREE

Sara Goldrick-Rab, University of Wisconsin-Madison

Twitter: Saragoldrickrab

Almost half a century ago, the federal government expanded financial aid to college students to make college more affordable – but today the odds of getting a degree are more tightly linked to family income than ever before. Inequality is growing: between 1992 and 2004, the odds that a high school graduate who took at least Algebra II would decide not to go to college went up among all income-groups except the very wealthiest. Students from families of modest means have also become more likely to drop out from public colleges and universities – leaving with debts, not degrees.

This situation is antithetical to the American Dream. That’s why last week my colleague Nancy Kendall and I issued a policy proposal to make the first two years free for all qualified students at community colleges and public universities. This would control rising costs and improve access to higher education for the majority of Americans.

The current financial aid system is messed up. Aid goes to students who choose to pursue degrees at institutions of all kinds, public, private, and for-profit. Over time, costs of attendance in all sectors have 

College for Free!? (Mark Cuban is Paying…) | Cloaking Inequity:

The Law: “What Difference Does it Make”? Are the Elites Wanting to Restructure Public Education? | Missouri Education Watchdog

The Law: “What Difference Does it Make”? Are the Elites Wanting to Restructure Public Education? | Missouri Education Watchdog:

The Law: “What Difference Does it Make”? Are the Elites Wanting to Restructure Public Education?

inShare

Just who decides the role of SEAs? Elites or state legislatures?

Many of  you know Fordham Institute’s stance on Common Core.  It loves it.  Loves it, loves it, loves it.  Michael Petrilli and Michael Brickman of Fordham have flown all the way from Washington DC to appear in legislative hearings to tell us how desperately Missouri needs the Common Core standards because they are so much better than what we had previously and they are extremely worried about Missouri student achievement.

Fordham has supported common standards for quite some time.  It was involved with Achieve (on which Governor Jay Nixon is a Board member) and the American Diploma Project since the early 2000′s working on common standards:

Achieve, Education Trust and Fordham launched ADP to help states restore the diploma’s value by anchoring high school graduation standards to those of jobs and colleges. Toward that end, ADP has moved beyond the kinds of standards that reflect experts’ consensus view of what is desirable for students to learn, to expectations linked directly to the essential demands faced by students preparing for college, work and citizenship.

The project found an unprecedented convergence between the knowledge and skills employers seek in new workers and those that college faculty expect of entering students. Both groups expect that high school graduates can complete a significant research report and apply the higher-level math concepts historically taught in Algebra II, for example.

The ADP benchmarks are ambitious. In math, they reflect content from Algebra I and II, Geometry, Data Analysis and Statistics. In English, they demand strong communication skills, as well as the analytic and reasoning skills typically associated with today’s advanced and The Law: “What Difference Does it Make”? Are the Elites Wanting to Restructure Public Education? | Missouri Education Watchdog:

That Sinking Feeling: The Way We Are Thinking About Teachers Is All Wrong | janresseger

That Sinking Feeling: The Way We Are Thinking About Teachers Is All Wrong | janresseger:

That Sinking Feeling: The Way We Are Thinking About Teachers Is All Wrong

Posted on April 23, 2014 by janresseger

Occasionally I wake in the night with the sinking feeling that maybe I’ve been living my life by all the wrong rules and making bad choices that hurt those I love.  It’s a terrible feeling that makes it hard to go back to sleep, but usually in the morning with some light and reason I can calm down, readjust a bit and move on.  With public policy, the sinking feeling usually comes with the news, as it gets clearer that we are moving in the wrong direction. Then the challenge is to get more information and figure out how to help change the public will.  It isn’t always so easy.

This month important information has been published about the punitive policies our federal government and states are using to evaluate public school teachers and to determine whether they are qualified.  Have we been operating by the wrong rules and making bad choices that hurt those we depend on?  But first a little history…

The public education policies of President Barack Obama’s administration have featured “holding teachers accountable” for their students’ accomplishments at school.  The policies of Race to the Top and School Improvement Grants have required that states impose prescribed turnaround plans for schools with low test scores, including one called “reconstitution” that fires the principal and at least half the staff.

Then in 2012, when it became clear that Congress was unlikely to agree on any kind of reauthorization of  No Child Left Behind (NCLB), the omnibus (and very punitive) 2002 federal law on public education, Obama’s Department of Education began offering states waiversfrom some of NCLB’s deeply flawed and  onerous consequences.  The law had set utopian and unrealistic benchmarks by which all schools would bring their students to tested proficiency That Sinking Feeling: The Way We Are Thinking About Teachers Is All Wrong | janresseger:

NYC Educator: The Gates/ Walton/ Broad Fix for That Nagging Teacher Problem

NYC Educator: The Gates/ Walton/ Broad Fix for That Nagging Teacher Problem:

The Gates/ Walton/ Broad Fix for That Nagging Teacher Problem

-->

A cheery little reverie by special guest blogger Michael Fiorillo

- Proclaim austerity for the public schools, while continuing to expand charters.

- Put non-educators in positions of power, from Assistant Principal on up.

- Maintain a climate of scapegoating and witch hunting for “bad teachers,” who are posited as the cause of poverty and student failure, doing everything possible to keep debate from addressing systemic inequities.

- Neutralize and eventually eliminate teacher unions (the former largely accomplished in the case of the AFT). As part of that process, eliminate tenure, seniority and defined benefit pensions.

- Create and maintain a climate of constant disruption and destabilization, with cascading mandates that are impossible to keep up or comply with.

- Create teacher evaluations based on Common Core-related high stakes tests for which no curriculum has been developed. Arbitrarily impose cut scores on those exams that cast students, teachers and schools as failing, as was done by NYS Education Commissioner John King and Regent Meryl Tisch.

- Get teachers and administrators, whether through extortion (see RttT funding) threats or non-stop propaganda, to accept the premises of “data-driven” everything, NYC Educator: The Gates/ Walton/ Broad Fix for That Nagging Teacher Problem:

The Shriver Report – Is it Time for Schools to Adapt to the Modern Family and Kill the Half-Day?

The Shriver Report – Is it Time for Schools to Adapt to the Modern Family and Kill the Half-Day?:

Is it Time for Schools to Adapt to the Modern Family and Kill the Half-Day?

CAREY GOLDBERG | 04.23.2014

Photo Credit: © pyzata – Fotolia.com

May I share with you the delights of my children’s April school schedule?

They get out at 12:40 p.m. because of parent-teacher conferences on these days sprinkled through the month: Tues., April 1; Weds., April 9; Tues., April 29. Oh, yes, and just when you thought it was safe, one more on May 7. (Plus they’re off April 18 through 25 for spring vacation.)

That’s in addition to our new regular Friday early dismissals at 1:40 p.m. When we got word of that, one mother I know said to the superintendent, “You must really hate parents.”

I don’t think the administration hates us, but I do think that perhaps we haven’t spoken up loudly enough about the logistical stress these half-days create. And they’re common around the state, from year-round half-Tuesdays in Newton to April half-Wednesdays in Westwood.

They’re an old tradition. Many of us remember the joys of occasional half days from our own school years. You know, back when our mothers were mostly housewives. Now, many mothers work, and I venture to say that virtually all working parents wish that all our public schools provided universal, affordable after-school care.

Or at the very least, reliable after-school care on random half-days. At our school, a team of mothers has created a “half-day matinee,” gathering all the children who need looking after for a movie that runs until the normal 2:30 p.m. dismissal time. But their altruistic efforts are in danger of being overwhelmed by demand: More than 200 children have been coming to the movies this month, straining even their heroic volunteer powers.

Our schools face so many huge and complex issues. A few half-days may seem trivial. On the other hand, a small problem should be a more tractable one.
“First-world problems,” you may say, and I’d agree but go a step further: This is specifically a first-world middle-class problem. If The Shriver Report – Is it Time for Schools to Adapt to the Modern Family and Kill the Half-Day?:

‘Just Learning'? In most juvenile prisons, students languish | Education Lab Blog | Seattle Times

‘Just Learning'? In most juvenile prisons, students languish | Education Lab Blog | Seattle Times:

‘Just Learning’? In most juvenile prisons, students languish

Posted by Claudia Rowe

Screen shot from “Just Learning.” Data source: Consolidated State Performance Report, US Department of Education.

In every arena of education, Americans have become relentless in their search for evidence of results. That goes for preschools, colleges, anti-dropout programs — you name it. Except for one long-lingering category: juvenile detention.

The purpose of locking kids up has always been rehabilitation over punishment. Yet no central office in Washington — or nationally — tracks educational outcomes for this group of students, which needs help perhaps more than that any other to get on track. (Only 37 percent of youth in juvenile prisons are there for violent crimes; the rest have drug, property or public-order offenses.)

Last week, the Southern Education Foundation, a nonprofit based in Georgia, released findings from “Just Learning,” its national look at academic outcomes for the 70,000 young peopleincarcerated on any given day in the United States. The results were damning.

Fewer than half of youths earned a single course credit while locked up. Only 9 percent got a GED certificate or high school diploma. As a group, western states showed slightly better results — with 53 percent of incarcerated kids earning a course credit, though only 7 percent completed school.

“By every indicator that we can find — data from federal and state governments, results of scholarly research – these children are being given an education that is far below what is provided to other students who have less needs,” said Steve Suitts, vice-president of the foundation and author of ‘Just Learning'? In most juvenile prisons, students languish | Education Lab Blog | Seattle Times: