4-30-14 The Answer Sheet

The Answer Sheet:

Houston teachers sue over controversial teacher evaluation method

Andrew Dewey is an award-winning history teacher at Carnegie Vanguard High School in Houston. In 2011-12, he earned the top merit pay award that his school district gives out and had “most effective” teacher status through a controversial evaluation system that uses student standardized test scores. The next year, after teaching similar students in the […]

by Valerie Strauss / 21min 

2014 National Teacher of the Year: Let’s stop scapegoating teachers

Sean McComb of Maryland was named 2014 National Teacher of the Year on Wednesday. In an interview, McComb, a strong advocate for public education, talked about the complexities of teaching, the challenges that face educators and school reform policies that scapegoat teachers while ignoring many of the powerful factors that affect student performance. The 30-year-old […]

by Valerie Strauss / 5min 

Live online chat today at 1 p.m.

I’ll be doing a live chat on washingtonpost.com at 1 p.m.EDT  today, so if you have any questions or comments about anything in education (or even marginally related), send them in here: http://live.washingtonpost.com/the-answer-sheet-20140430.html Here are transcripts of my first chat,  the second, and the third, and last week’s.

by Valerie Strauss / 35min 

America’s best teachers got a B on this quiz

The 62-year-old National Teacher of the Year Program is the oldest national honors program that focuses on teaching excellence, and this week, the 2014 winners from each state, the District and U.S. territories are in the nation’s capital’s for the annual celebration. The teachers have been touring the capital and meeting with various dignitaries. On Monday, […]

by Valerie Strauss / 1h hide  //  save

Maryland educator named 2014 National Teacher of the Year

The 2014 National Teacher of the Year is 30-year-old Sean McComb of Maryland, an accomplished English teacher who started a program at Patapsco High School & Center for the Arts in Baltimore County Public Schools to help students in the “academic middle” stretch themselves so they can succeed in college. In an all-East Coast finish, […]

100+ by Valerie Strauss / 1h 

4-29-14 The Answer Sheet

The Answer Sheet: The scary way Common Core test ‘cut scores’ are selectedYou may have given no thought to the “cut scores” that are set for various tests, but they make all the difference in who passes and who fails. What exactly are cut scores?  The Educational Testing Service describes them this way: Cut scores are selected points on the score scale of a test. The points […]7 by Valerie Strauss

by mike simpson / 7h 

4-30-14 Schools Matter

Schools Matter:

The Dirt on Bob Behning’s Reelection Money

by Doug Martin In my book Hoosier School Heist, I detail the corporate/theocratic billionaires who are out to destroy Indiana public education, and the same people in my book are behind Bob Behning’s reelection campaign.  In fact, the Amway/Besty Devos/Walmart/Overstock.com/hedge fund group Hoosiers for Economic Growth just gave Behning $45,000, two days ago.  The front group slid him $25,000 at

6 by Doug Martin / 8min

"Withering test prep regimens" Continue in New York Despite New Law

With absolute fealty to Wall Street and the vulture philanthropists who pay for the Governor's allegiance to New York's 21st Century segregated cultural sterilization testing camps, Cuomo dares not touch the urban sprawl of charter school programs for the poor, which are based, of course, on round the clock test prep.  After all, how else, without test scores, could these dehumanizing hellholes pr

by Jim Horn / 24min 

If You Are Going to KIPP's Free Happy Hour Recruiting Sessions, Read This First

Excerpt of interview with former KIPP teacher:INT:  Let me ask you this question:  if I were a friend of yours interested in teaching at a KIPP school and I asked you what was it like there, what would you tell me? R:  I would say honestly, I’ve had that question before.  I would never ever – I told them I wouldn’t wish that experience on my worst enemy.  That’s exactly what I say every time--I

2 by Jim Horn / 1h 

Poetry Month's Last Day Fragment

Poetry Month’s Last Day FragmentOf days marked by verses sung across clocks and rulerssongs to celebrate all our gold variously graded, finely ground against boot marked hardwood desksfor eons of crumpled yellow tablets and shavings of graphite hissing anti-insouciant intensities codedand set loose on verbal metronomes calibrated to cross one another without ever touching, ticks and tocks bending

by Jim Horn / 30min 

Teachers at International HS at Prospect Heights Refuse to Give NYC ELA Test

From Monty Neill: **Media Advisory**  26 Teachers and Staff of International High School at Prospect  Heights refuse to give NYC ELA Performance Assessment Test  WHEN: Thursday, May 1, 2014, 7:45-8:20am,  WHERE: International High School at Prospect Heights, 883 Classon  Ave, Brooklyn, NY 11225  WHAT: Teachers will hold a press conference to announce their  refusal to administer the NYC ELA Perfor

by Jim Horn / 27min hide  //  save

The Gates Foundation's Teach Plus once again trying to undermine United Teachers Los Angeles (UTLA)

"Bill Gates's foundation pays educators to pose alternatives to union orthodoxies regarding seniority and test scores." "Two other Gates-financed groups, Educators for Excellence and Teach Plus, have helped amplify the voices of newer teachers as an alternative to the official views of the unions. Last summer, members of several such groups had a meeting at the foundation’s offices

2 by Robert D. Skeels ... / 5h 

4-29-14 Schools Matter

Schools Matter: Defending the Indefensible in the Late Days of the Testing OrgyThe testing madness is underway this week in Tennessee, where a week of TCAP counts 15-25 percent of a student's grade and 35-50 percent of a teacher's evaluation for the other 195 days of the school year.  Is that reason enough for 3rd graders to be vomiting and having nosebleeds on their test booklets this week? But t

by mike simpson / 5h 

4-30-14 Scathing Purple Musings | Color me purple in Florida

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

Today’s Voucher Expansion Vote Will Forever Define Senate Republicans

A 2013 report from Charity Navigator gives Step Up for Students high marks as administrator of Florida’s voucher system, the misleading named the Florida Tax Credit Program. The report in PR Web quotes CEO Doug Tuthill: We’re doing important work and we’re obsessed with doing this work well,” said Tuthill. “Since we began more than a decade ago, we’ve distributed more than $1.4 billion in scholars

by Bob Sikes / 3h 

4-29-14 Scathing Purple Musings | Color me purple in Florida

Scathing Purple Musings | Color me purple in Florida, red in Washington, dark sky-blue in Israel and public school in Education: Bush Ally Condemns High-Stakes Testing to Justify Different Tests for Florida VouchersThe James Madison Institute, long a reliable parrot for any Jeb Bush education initiative, has trotted out one of its scholars to defend Florida’s voucher program. And resident fellow,

by mike simpson / 7h 

Income Inequality in Milwaukee Among Working Families Unacceptable | Larry Miller's Blog: Educate All Students!

Income Inequality in Milwaukee Among Working Families Unacceptable | Larry Miller's Blog: Educate All Students!:

Income Inequality in Milwaukee Among Working Families Unacceptable

Filed under: Inequality,Wisconsin Class Warfare — millerlf @ 9:08 am 

Report on income inequality among employed families
The annual ETI analysis of state income tax data showed 12 to 1 differences in family income by Milwaukee County neighborhood in 2012. Working-age married and single families in inner city zip code 53206 had average incomes of $20,260 while families in the “North Shore” suburban zip code 53217 had income averaging $253,082.
Educational opportunity and achievement gaps between children of wealth and children of poverty are profoundly influenced by these extreme differences in family resources. The tax data also showed a $17 million reduction in state earned income tax credit support for “working poor” families in the county after the 2011 state legislation cut EIC supports for families with more than one child.

To see the full report go to:

Income inequality in MilwOther2014

Wisconsin leads U.S. in black male incarceration

America lives with the deep shame of slavery and Jim Crow apartheid. There should also be deep shame with the realization of what black men in America face today. This is a “new Jim Crow.” A detailed analysis of state corrections records by the UWM Employment and Training Institute shows incarceration rates at epidemic levels for African American males in Milwaukee County. Over half of black men i

by millerlf / 3min

4-30-13 Engaging Parents In School… | Going Beyond Parent "Involvement"

Engaging Parents In School… | Going Beyond Parent "Involvement":

Georgia School District Is Model On How Schools Should NOT Deal With Parents Who Want To “Opt-Out” Of Tests

Thanks to Bill Ferriter, I’ve learned about a Georgia school district who had a police officer tell parents who were opting out of state tests that they would and their children would be trespassing if they were on school grounds during the testing and then threatened to ban their kids from a field trip because of their actions. And there’s a lot more. Read Area couple battles elementary school ov

2 by Larry Ferlazzo / 8h 

4-29-13 Engaging Parents In School… | Going Beyond Parent "Involvement"

Engaging Parents In School… | Going Beyond Parent "Involvement": “Parental Advice To Education Policy Makers”Parental Advice To Education Policy Makers is a good article by Jeff Bryant. Here’s an excerpt: Instead of empowering parents to feel they are part of their children’s education and engaging them in school governance, we are making parents feel that their input doesn’t matter and

by mike simpson / 4min 

4-30-14 Fred Klonsky | Daily posts from a retired public school teacher

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

Solidarity.

Members of the Early Childhood, Elementary and Literacy Department at Montclair State University stand in solidarity with teachers opting out!

by Fred Klonsky / 33min hide  //  save

Ten minute drawing. What’s the difference between the NBA and SCOTUS?

by Fred Klonsky / 37min 

Rosie is riveting

. Rosie Frascella is an English teacher at the International High School at Prospect Heights in Brooklyn. Nearly the entire staff signed on to boycott the NYC English Language Arts Performance Assessment Exam. 60% of the parents have opted out.

by Fred Klonsky / 0min 

Stand for Children’s poster boy.

by Fred Klonsky / 36min hide  //  save

Teachers at Brooklyn’s International High School at Prospect Heights boycott the NYC English Language Arts Performance Assessment Exam.

This just in: On Thursday, May 1, 2014, we, the teachers and school staff, at the International High School at Prospect Heights are refusing to give the NYC English Language Arts Performance Assessment Exam. We are standing in solidarity with the more than 50% of our parents who have opted their students out of taking the test. Please support the teachers and staff members who have joined togethe

by Fred Klonsky / 1h 

Les Perelman. PARCC, Pearson and robo-graders.

My old friend Les Perelman recently retired as director of undergraduate writing at MIT. He has contributed to this blog and is a major critic of the misuse of standardized testing and robo-graders. The following appears in the Boston Globe. “According to professor of theory of knowledge Leon Trotsky, privacy is the most fundamental report of humankind. Radiation on advocates to an orator transmi

by Fred Klonsky / 2min 

Illinois State Representative Keith Farnham is a child pornographer and molester.

“Keith Farnham? Didn’t he vote for pension theft?” I was asked yesterday. “Apparently that may be the best thing he did,” I responded. From the Chicago Tribune. When he resigned his seat on March 19, Farnham told the Tribune he was stepping down due to serious health concerns. A Navy veteran who ran a painting business in Elgin before running for office in 2009, Farnham said he is receiving treat

1 by Fred Klonsky / 1h hide  //  save

There are two ways the Illinois legislature can screw you: When they do something and when they don’t.

The Illinois General Assembly won’t be voting on a Fair Tax this session. 1,000 people filled the Capitol Rotunda yesterday demanding a progressive income tax. They were ignored. There weren’t enough votes for it in Michael Madigan’s House. Senate Democrats didn’t want to go on record voting for it if it was going to die in the House anyway. Key sponsor Don Harmon decided not to bring it to a vot

4 by Fred Klonsky / 2h

4-29-14 Fred Klonsky | Daily posts from a retired public school teacher

Fred Klonsky | Daily posts from a retired public school teacher who is just looking at the data.: Good luck students. Your professors are heading for the exits.Under provisions of the State University Retirement System’s money purchase option, 10,000 state university employees are eligible to retire by July 1. As a result of the Senate Bill 1 pension theft passed last December 3rd and signed immed

by mike simpson / 7h