5-14-14 Larry Ferlazzo’s Websites of the Day… | …For Teaching ELL, ESL, & EFL

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

#BringBackOurGirls Resources

Here are new additions to The Best Resources On The Kidnapped School Girls In Nigeria: Skills and Strategies | Engaging in Causes Via ‘Hashtag Activism’ is a lesson plan from The New York Times Learning Network. The crisis in Nigeria, in 11 maps and charts is from Vox. Boko Haram Says Video Shows Missing Nigerian Girls is from NPR.

by Larry Ferlazzo / 37min hide  //  save

More Resources On Race

Here are new additions to A Collection Of Useful Posts, Articles & Videos On Race & Racism: The 9 Most Influential Works of Scientific Racism, Ranked is from io9. The Ultimate, Crystal-Clear Guide to What Racism Is is from GoKicker.

by Larry Ferlazzo / 37min 

Bunkr Makes Big Improvements In Ability To Create Slideshows, Not Least Of Which Is That It’s Now Free

I posted about Bunkr, a web tool for creating slideshows, last year and was not impressed. I said then that it didn’t appear to make it easy to include image attribution, and that it you had to pay to use it. Today, they unveiled a “new” Bunkr and, though I still didn’t see an easy way to include attribution, the interface does appear a lot smoother and it’s free to use. I wouldn’t say it’s as g

by Larry Ferlazzo / 9min hide  //  save

Another Good Video For ELLs: “Hero Cat Saves California Boy From Dog Attack”

Here’s another great video for English Language Learners to watch and then describe in writing and verbally what happens. You can read more about it here.

by Larry Ferlazzo / 9min 

“How Can We Help Students & Ourselves Stay Organized?”

How Can We Help Students & Ourselves Stay Organized? is the latest “question-of-the-week” at my Education Week Teacher column. Feel free to leave responses here in the comments section or there….

by Larry Ferlazzo / 9min 

My New BAM! Radio Show Is On Making History Curriculum More Engaging

How Can History Teachers Make the Curriculum More Engaging? is the topic of my latest ten-minute BAM! radio show, and that will be the subject of a future Ed Week column, too. My guests are Peter Pappas and Sarah Kirby-Gonzalez.

by Larry Ferlazzo / 9min 

Video: “Around the World in 360° Degrees”

In his own version of “Where The Hell is Matt?”, here’s a guy who took panoramic videos of himself in different places around the world. I don’t think it’s anyway near as interesting as the two “Matt” videos (which are also embedded below), since Matt shows much more interaction with people, but it still could be useful in a Geography class… Matt in 2012: And here’s the original from 2008:

by Larry Ferlazzo / 55min hide  //  save

This Week’s Round-Up Of Useful Posts & Articles About Education Policy

Here are some recent pieces about education policy issues that are worth reading: Newark’s Voters Choose New Mayor and New Path is from The New York Times. This is great news for teachers, parents and students. I’ve written quite a bit at my Engaging Parents In School blog. about the twilight zone that Newark schools have entered over the past few years. The Broad Foundation’s Bruce Reed on educa

by Larry Ferlazzo / 6h 

YESTERDAY

How Popular Is Your Name?

The Best Places For Students To Learn About…Their Names one of my fairly popular lists — learning about one’s name is a high-interest topic for students. Some relatively new and cool interactive sites have recently come online… One is Zato Novo Baby Names, which gives you a time lapse of the popularity of names in the United States over the years. The Name Navigator seems to be a similar tool. I

by Larry Ferlazzo / 8h 

5-13-14 Larry Ferlazzo’s Websites of the Day… | …For Teaching ELL, ESL, & EFL

Larry Ferlazzo’s Websites of the Day… | …For Teaching ELL, ESL, & EFL: Important New Report Questions VAMAn important new report was published today raising major questions about the usefulness of Value-Added Measurement as a teacher evaluation tool. Read about it at The Washington Post’s article, Good teaching, poor test scores: Doubt cast on grading teachers by student performance, and at Ed

by mike simpson / 8h 

5-14-14 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.:

Breaking. Received this at 3:45 from IRTA. Restraining order issued.

On May 14, 2014 Judge Belz granted the motion for a temporary restraining order. Therefore, the pension litigation has been stayed in its entirety until any future court order. This action is a very good sign for the plaintiffs.

by Fred Klonsky / 12min 

Ten minute drawing. Rahm silences principals who object to his reform agenda.

by Fred Klonsky / 11min 

An urban Spring?

by Fred Klonsky / 7min 

Breaking. Pension injunction hearing scheduled for 1:30 PM today, Wednesday.

From public radio station WSIU: A hearing set for Wednesday afternoon could determine if some – or even all – of Illinois’ new pension law will be suspended. The law is supposed to take effect next month. A coalition of unions wants a hold put on the entire law, until a broader lawsuit seeking to have it declared unconstitutional is resolved. Anders Lindall is a spokesman for AFSCME, the state’s l

by Fred Klonsky / 38min 

On the anniversary of Brown v Board of Education, stop “reform” segregation.

On the 60th anniversary of the historic ruling by the Supreme Court that outlawed segregated schools, a national network of community organizations has written to Attorney General Eric Holder and Education Secretary Arne Duncan. “We respectfully request that you open an investigation of the racially discriminatory school closings that are the subject of these complaints.”  The letter is signed by

by Fred Klonsky / 1min 

The power of Ras Baraka’s win in Newark yesterday.

The new Mayor of Newark, New Jersey, Ras Baraka and daughters. To get a feeling for the importance of Ras Baraka’s victory in the Newark Mayor’s race yesterday, don’t read my words. Read from the front page story of the election in this morning’s NY Times: “Mr. Jeffries (who lost to Baraka) enjoyed a sizable financial advantage thanks to outside groups, while Mr. Baraka relied on his family’s nam

by Fred Klonsky / 9min 

5-13-14 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.: NEA and AFT conventions. Looking ahead.I will be back at the NEA Representative Assembly this summer as an elected Retired delegate. With the exception of one year, I have been to every convention since 1998. The one year I didn’t go it was in Los Angeles. The Illinois delegation was put up in a hotel

by mike simpson / 8h 

4LAKids - some of the news that doesn't fit 5-14-14

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

UNPACKING THE MAY REVISE: Proposed pension fund fix, New formula to identify low-income kids, No mention of transitional kindergarten expansion

The State is constitutionally responsible for the CalSTRS program – but Brown proposes to pass almost all the costs of fixing it to school districts and teachers, Some new thinking to identify children-in-poverty, The move to bring all 4-year olds into a universal pre-K program is ignored+unfunded. ALSO SEE: 4LAKids - some of the news that doesn't fit: First impressions: THE GOVERNOR’S MAY

by smf / 5min 

It’s A Small World meets Godzilla v. King Kong: PEARSON CONTRACT FOR COMMON CORE TESTING FACES LEGAL CHALLANGE + smf’s 2¢

By Sean Cavanagh | Education Week | http://bit.ly/1iLDwZw Another blogger reblogged an earlier version of this story with the Godzilla v. King Kong allusion; that headline was, as Teddy Roosevelt said, ‘stolen fair-and-square’ A Beaudry insider – and frequent commenter on the goings-on within the Puzzle Palace -  observes: Pearson, of

by smf / 5min 

First impressions: THE GOVERNOR’S MAY REVISE BUDGET + May Revision Budget Document

via email/in order received from ESEA Cabinet Report May 13, 2014 No major improvements for schools in May Revise by Tom Chorneau (Calif.) Focusing his attention and much of the $2.4 billion in unanticipated state revenue in other directions, Gov. Jerry Brown offered a revised education budget Tuesday with few major changes from what he proposed in January. Brown offered no new

by smf / 8h 

4LAKids - some of the news that doesn't fit 5-13-14

4LAKids - some of the news that doesn't fit: Lausd And The Ritualistic Killing Of SchoolWritten by Odysseus Bostick - THE BOSTIC REPORT in LA CityWatch | http://bit.ly/1jCOx4D 13 May 2014  ::  If the Los Angeles Unified School District were a used car, parents would be reading the fine print of California’s historic lemon law by the end of first grade. The second largest school district in the nat

by mike simpson / 8h 

UPDATE: empathyeducates – New Orleans Teachers and Students Wrestle With Racial Tension

empathyeducates – New Orleans Teachers and Students Wrestle With Racial Tension:


Chicago Principals Say They Operate Under ‘Gag Order’

by empathy / 26min 

• 

New Orleans Teachers and Students Wrestle With Racial Tension

Students at a fundraiser for Liberation Academy in New Orleans March 14, 2014. Some of the students who led protests over the district’s Collegiate Academy charter schools withdrew from those schools and enrolled in Liberation Academy, founded by parents and local activists.
By Jordan Flaherty| Originally Published at The Root. May 13 2014 3:00 AM

Every year hundreds of young, idealistic recent college graduates flood into New Orleans to teach at the city’s public schools. But in a school system where the vast majority of students are African American, the mostly white influx of new teachers has brought complaints of racism and cultural insensitivity, and helped birth a new student-led protest movement.

African Americans are about 60 percent of New Orleans’ population (down from 67 percent before Hurricane Katrina) but make up 88 percent of the city’s public school system. White students are clustered at a handful of high-performing schools, and other ethnicities make up only small portions of the system, so most schools are almost entirely African American. Before Hurricane Katrina, most teachers were black women, mostly from New Orleans and often from the neighborhoods of the schools in which they worked.

But in the weeks after Hurricane Katrina, the entire staff of the school system—about 7,000 teachers and other employees—was laid off, their contract was ignored and their union was powerless to help. Katrena Ndang, who worked for 17 years as a teacher in New Orleans, found out she’d been fired while watching the news after being evacuated. “Even though we had given them forwarding addresses, they never sent us empathyeducates – New Orleans Teachers and Students Wrestle With Racial Tension:

5-14-13 Curmudgucation

CURMUDGUCATION:

Jennifer Rubin Strikes Out

Over at the Washington Post, Jennifer Rubin took her turn at propping up the ever-besieged conservative defense of Common Core. She did not succeed.Strike OneRubin starts out with the old standard "We were getting totes whupped on the PISA by all the other kids on the playground, which was completely a crisis because we're worse than Korea and the Netherlands." She crunches some of the s

by Peter Greene / 27min 

Where Are the Teacher Leaders?

Over at EdWeek, Nancy Flanagan is asking "Is genuine teacher leadership dead in the water?" It's one more way of asking the time-honored question, where the heck are all the teacher leaders?Flanagan has paid her dues on this subject. A Michigan teacher of the year, National Board certified, member of the Teacher Leaders Network and an organizer for the Institute for Democratic Education

by Peter Greene / 11min 

Brookings Whips Up Some Teacher Eval Research

The Brown Center on Education Policy at Brookings has released a new report, "Evaluating Teachers with Classroom Observations,"  a study intended to Tell Us Some Things about teacher evaluation and how to do it best. Is this going to be a trip to the unicorn farm? The very first sentences tell us where this report's heart is:The evidence is clear: better teachers improve student outcomes

by Peter Greene / 6min 

Why Isn't the 21st Century Here Yet?

Technology is awesome and transformative, and will completely change the way we do business in schools and in the classroom. So why hasn't that really happened yet? Why aren't we all working in high-tech, super-duper computer driven schools yet? I think I know, and it has nothing to do with philosophies of education or resistance to change.I'm starting this piece on my laptop. I'm doing that becau

2 by Peter Greene / 2h 

5-13-13 Curmudgucation

CURMUDGUCATION: Better Teacher TrainingThe US DOE recently revived an initiative for improving teacher training in this country. It's a dumb initiative. Pearson offers edTPA, basically a new gateway into the profession, to insure that only the qualified enter the profession. edTPA is a dumb program. TFA is only the most prominent of the many "alternative paths" into teaching. As a means

by mike simpson / 8h 

5-14-14 Perdido Street School

Perdido Street School:

Cuomo's All Class

From State of Politics:The Cuomo administration on Wednesday is denying claims being made by Republican Rob Astorino’s gubernatorial campaign that a top aide sought to move the county executive to a less-than-prominent seat at an event featuring President Obama. Astorino spokeswoman Jessica Proud says the White House had initially offered to seat him in the front row at today’s announcement on the

by reality-based edu... / 12min 

Get Ready For Another Common Core/Civil Rights Speech From NYSED Commissioner John King

NYSED Commissioner King has already compared himself to Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. and said the education reform/Common Core fight is much like the fight for civil rights:Paraphrasing Martin Luther King, Jr., the commissioner said: “In a real sense, this afternoon, we can say that our feet are tired, but our souls are rested. “Change is hard,” he continued. “It is challenging, and it is tiring, bu

by reality-based edu... / 2h 

5-13-14 Perdido Street School

Perdido Street School: Opt-Out Movement Posied To Grow Even BiggerFrom Gary Stern and Randi Weiner at LoHud:More than 3,140 students in the Lower Hudson Valley sat out the recent state math tests, an 84 percent increase over the number who opted out from the ELA tests only four weeks earlier.Overall, 3.4 percent of local students in grades 3-8 were directed by their parents to skip the math tests,

by mike simpson / 9h 

Barbara Kanninen for Arlington County School Board

Barbara Kanninen for Arlington County School Board:

Barbara Kanninen for Arlington County School Board

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Barbara Kanninen - for Arlington County School Board

Perhaps a single seat on a local school board might not seem a matter of sufficient importance for a national political blog such as Daily Kos.

And after all, I am prejudiced.

I live in Arlington Virginia, so my taxes go towards our superb public school system.

I am also a professional educator (although I teach in Maryland), so I take the matter of school governance very seriously.

Besides, we do our elections differently in Arlington, which gives me a chance to explain, or if you prefer, "teach" a bit about how we do things.

Most of all, it gives me a chance to tell about a superb candidate whom I have come to know and whom I am proud to call my friend.

Her name is Barbara Kanninen, she holds a Ph. D. in Economics, she has served as a member of the County Government's Fiscal Affairs Advisory Committee, and has more than twenty years service to our young people as a volunteer in and to the schools.  In fact, rather than list her many accomplishments, I suggest that you read her biographical material.

And if you would be so kind, please continue to read what I have to say.

What is happening on two days this week is that the Arlington Democratic Party is selecting its nominee for the position on the school board that is open as the result of Sally Bai4d's decision Barbara Kanninen for Arlington County School Board:

RAS BARAKA WINS NEWARK MAYORALTY, DEFEAT FOR ED SABOTEURS Coalition for Public Education/Coalición por la Educación Pública:

Coalition for Public Education/Coalición por la Educación Pública: RAS BARAKA WINS NEWARK MAYORALTY, DEFEAT FOR ED SABOTEURS:

RAS BARAKA WINS NEWARK MAYORALTY, DEFEAT FOR ED SABOTEURS

 The New Mayor Will Struggle to Take Back Newark Public Schools for the People

Mayor Ras Baraka with his daughters.

Ras Baraka, a high school principal and the son of a poet, yesterday easily defeated a Wall Street-backed promoter of school privatization to become the next mayor of Newark. Baraka's victory repudiated the policies not just of his rival, Shavar Jeffries, but those of Gov. Chris Christie, former Mayor Cory Booker, and state-appointed superintendent Cami Anderson who is trying to close neighborhood public schools and replace them with privately run charter schools.

"We are the mayor!" declared Baraka, 45. A constant theme of his campaign was that, if he wins, all Newark residents become mayor. Jeffries, 39, a faculty member at Seton Hall Law School, conceded shortly afterward.

Baraka's victory celebration at the downtown Robert Treat Hotel erupted into cheers shortly after 10 pm when it became obvious the son of the late poet and playwright Amiri Baraka, had won with strong backing from his home South Ward—which he serves as a councilman—and the predominantly African-American Central and West Wards. His rival, also an African-American, was strongest in the predominantly white and Latino North and East Wards. Baraka won 54 percent of the vote.

Baraka, an often tough-talking champion of the poorest residents of the city, had been the front runner for most of the race. But, in the last few days, Wall Street financiers and hedge-fund managers—strong supporters of former Mayor Cory Booker—poured $3 million into the Jeffries campaign, including $300,000 in street money that went to young men and women in the city, many of whom apparently took the money and then urged voters to vote for Baraka.

He also won despite an extraordinarily harsh depiction of his campaign by the local newspaper, The Star-Ledger, Coalition for Public Education/Coalición por la Educación Pública: RAS BARAKA WINS NEWARK MAYORALTY, DEFEAT FOR ED SABOTEURS:

NYC Educator: Would You Buy a Yugo from this Man?

NYC Educator: Would You Buy a Yugo from this Man?:

Would You Buy a Yugo from this Man?

My jaw drops at some of the nonsense I'm hearing in defense of the new contract. The first line of defense, of course, is Mulgrew's threat to the DA. If you vote no, you have to wait for 150 unions. Let's be clear. First, there is history here. In 1995, Sandra Feldman told us anyone who thought we'd do better must be "smoking something." Nonetheless, we voted it down. When I hit maximum in my 22nd rather than 25th year, I was very glad we did.

Can I wait for that whopping 2% compensation increase waiting for me, or that thousand-buck pre-tax bribe? Well, yes I can. And even if I wanted it really badly, it would be unacceptable if it cost one of my ATR brothers or sisters a job. And second-tier due process for ATRs, for those of you who don't know what a giveback is, is a giveback.

Isn't due process for one teacher due process for all? Isn't that fundamental to us as unionists? How can Mulgrew call the process fast and fair when he himself now states that arbitrators will set policy? We don't even know what the policy is and we're praising it.

You may have also seen a recent post here trying to organize a free and fair forum so both sides could be heard. A UFT rep got back to me and objected to Geoff Decker of Chalkbeat NY as a moderator. I understand that they may have been upset with Chalkbeat reporting Mulgrew's DA comments. I proposed the names of several other journalists, but the UFT rep expressed concern about UFT inside baseball being reported by the press. This was troubling, as it then became NYC Educator: Would You Buy a Yugo from this Man?: