5-29-14 Perdido Street School

Perdido Street School:

Scott Walker To Fund Raise For Rob Astorino

For teachers flriting with the idea of voting for Rob Astorino, the GOP candidate for governor, as a protest against Andrew Cuomo, take note of this:Gubernatorial hopeful Rob Astorino is getting a boost from Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker at a fundraiser next month, the Republican candidate’s campaign confirmed. Tickets for the June 9 event at Manhattan’s Union League Club start at $500 and run as hi

by reality-based edu... / 27min 

Andrew Cuomo's Tough 48 Hours Ahead

Blake Zeff lays out what is at stake for Andrew Cuomo in the next two days:This is it, folks; years of sparring, speculation and scheming in New York governor Andrew Cuomo’s battle with the left is about to come to a head. Sometime in the next 48 hours, the fiscally conservative governor will learn whether the liberal Working Families Party (WFP) will choose him — or someone else — to run on its b

by reality-based edu... / 23min 

The Plan To Force Charter Co-Locations

Hard to see Cuomo's forcing the city to pick up the tab for charter school rent as aimed at anything other than the eventual return of the charter co-location scheme Bloomberg operated:New York City's move to oust three charter schools from district buildings appears to carry a hefty price tag.The mayor's budget sets aside $5.4 million in the coming fiscal year to lease sites for three Success Aca

3 by reality-based edu... / 1h 

5-28-14 Perdido Street School

Perdido Street School: This News Will Make Bloomberg Very, Very SadBloomberg henchman Deputy Dan Doctoroff is still leading the charge to bring the Olympics to NYC and rectify one of Mayor Bloomberg's biggest setbacks - his failure to turn NYC into an Olympic Village.Mayor de Blasio says he's not interested, however:Mayor Bill de Blasio has ruled out any possibility that New York City will submit

by mike simpson / 8h 

for the love of learning: You can't improve education by disrespecting teachers

for the love of learning: You can't improve education by disrespecting teachers:

You can't improve education by disrespecting teachers

This was written by Greg Neiman who is a retired Red Deer Advocate editor. Follow his blog at readersadvocate.blogspot.ca or email greg.neiman.blog@gmail.com. This post was originally found here.

by Greg Neiman

These days, everyone is agog over Finland’s model for public education, which seemingly produces the brightest students in the world. Likewise, people swoon over the performance of Asian students, particularly in math and science.

Alberta students rank right up there with them, but there’s a Canadian ethos that says anything foreign must be better. So in our eyes, the Finns and the Asians rule the world today.

Except when they don’t. Red Deer educators have told me that Alberta’s public school curriculum is the top-requested program among countries looking to improve their own education systems, and international test results.

Why? Because our students are consistently top-flight, and the curriculum that brings the knowledge to the students is delivered in English.

Both Finnish and Asian languages are difficult adapt to educational policies for most nations. Alberta’s curriculum is far more adaptable to other cultures. As a result, I’m told that Alberta teachers with experience delivering our curriculum find the doors to international teaching opportunities open quickly.

That said, what are the commonalities between the programs in Finland, Asia and Alberta that a layperson can understand?

One that has been related to me — sometimes with pride and sometimes with despair — is that the role of the teacher is highly respected in top-flight programs. It takes a lot of for the love of learning: You can't improve education by disrespecting teachers:

An edited/shortened version of this letter appears in the June 2., 2014 New Yorker | Bill Ayers

An edited/shortened version of this letter appears in the June 2., 2014 New Yorker | Bill Ayers:

An edited/shortened version of this letter appears in the June 2., 2014 New Yorker

Dale Russsakoff’s thorough report on the Newark schools rescue (5/19/2014) contains echoes from social reform efforts a century ago. When Cory Booker, Newark’s “rock-star mayor,” calls for top-down reform because an open political process would be messy and could potentially be “taken captive” by opponents, he sounds eerily like the social reformer John Purroy Mitchell, the wondrous “Boy Mayor” of New York City in 2014. Convinced of his own pure motives and good heart, uniquely capable of wielding “sophisticated data” to transform the lives of the down-trodden and the new immigrants, Mitchell never bothered to consult the folks he was uplifting. Neither mayor thought serious participation could be a positive force in their grand plans, neither encouraged broad participation, neither appeared to believe that the people with the problems are essential to crafting the solutions nor An edited/shortened version of this letter appears in the June 2., 2014 New Yorker | Bill Ayers:

NYC Educator: How About a Working Teachers Political Party?

NYC Educator: How About a Working Teachers Political Party?:

How About a Working Teachers Political Party?

I read yesterday that Diane Ravitch will "have a role at Saturday's (WFP) convention."  The Daily News speculated that the Working Families Party might ask Ravitch to run as its candidate for Governor if they fail to endorse Cuomo.  If Ravitch did run, she would help deflect votes from Cuomo who has been unrelenting in his support for Moskowitz's charters (at the expense of the other 90%+ public-school children in NY).  Cuomo has been pounding De Blasio's liberal agenda to a pulp at the same time as he lowers corporate taxes and defends the use of VAM as a weapon against teachers.

What I think we really need today is a new third party, akin to the Populists of the 1800s.  The Populists represented the farmers.  They never won the really big election, but they made gains and more important than anything else they put their views "out there."  Populists' views resonated with a large portion of voters.  Although some ideas fell by the wayside as overly radical, the major parties could not ignore their demands.  It was some time in coming, but the major parties eventually picked up on their ideas for a progressive income tax, the direct election of U.S. senators, greater government regulation of the economy in the name of protecting the people, an eight-hour work day and a greater political voice for women.

Populist Mary Lease was purported to have said (or at least a newspaperman said it for her), farmers  have to "raise less corn and more hell!"  In the past few years under Bloomberg, amid a backdrop of newly created credit-recovery schemes to magically up graduation rates, some NYC Educator: How About a Working Teachers Political Party?:

Mother Crusader: Maya Angelou: Be The Possible, Be The True, Be The Miracle

Mother Crusader: Maya Angelou: Be The Possible, Be The True, Be The Miracle:

Maya Angelou: Be The Possible, Be The True, Be The Miracle

Please read this. Please.

What might yearly failures on forced college and career readiness assessments have done to a young Maya Angelou? What messages would today's increasingly rote education system, and her likely inability to submit to such a system, have imprinted on her young, developing mind? 

I hope EVERY teacher and EVERY parent will think about her life story before they cede more and more of their student's or their children's education to the assembly line model we are adopting in this country, where we demand children meet certain standards by certain ages or risk being labeled "not proficient" or worse yet, a "failure".

Please remember her story when you look at a child. Always look for their potential, and realize it may not manifest when and how you think it should, or when state and federal education departments insist it should. 

And please understand their potential may not be reflected on a standardized test.

Each and every child has their own path and their own story. Children can not and should not be reduced down to data points to satisfy the accountability needs of administrators and politicians.

Be the person who believes in a child. Be the person who supports a child. Be the person whoencourages a child.

For that child could be the next Maya.

Her own story served as a cautionary tale not to discount the potential of any individual. When she was about nine years old she was raped by her mother’s boyfriend, and became selectively mute after the rapist’s subsequent murder, believing she was responsible for his death because she named him. Living in poverty in rural Arkansas, and selectively mute, she had the odds stacked against her. By the time she was sixteen, she was a single mother in San Francisco. In these situations, there were “rainbows” – people who believed in her, supported and encouraged her.

Angelou closed by calling for educators to recognize their power: "We are the possible. We are the true. We are the miracle."

Maya Angelou at ASCD Conference in Chicago, March 2013
Photo credit David B. Cohen

Mike Klonsky's SmallTalk Blog: In the 'Post-Racial Era': The Pre-school-to-Prison Pipeline

Mike Klonsky's SmallTalk Blog: In the 'Post-Racial Era': The Pre-school-to-Prison Pipeline:

In the 'Post-Racial Era': The Pre-school-to-Prison Pipeline

Manual Arts Senior High School student Damien Valentine, 16, worked with community groups to pass a proposal last year that bans suspensions of defiant students in L.A. Unified. (Christina House / For The Times)

Black children make up 18% of preschoolers (mostly 4-year olds), but make up nearly half of all out-of-school suspensions. -- NPR

Quick-trigger suspensions of African-American students, especially boys, in vastly disproportionate numbers often for the same offense as other students, is a powerful indicator of (well why not call it what it is) institutional racism. It's also a precursor to what is now being called, the "school-to-prison pipeline". Kids who are suspended or expelled from school are more likely to drop out, and those dropouts are more likely to end up with criminal records. In many school districts, especially those with large black and Latino student populations, school discipline policies push kids directly into the juvenile justice system.

A recent report from the U.S. Department of Education Office for Civil Rights, on discipline in the nation's public schools shows just how very early that gap is present. The Washington Postcalls the findings "stark". Students of color, boys and girls, are suspended at three times the rate of white students, and the disparities begin in preschool. Black children make up 18% of preschoolers (mostly 4-year olds), but make up nearly half of all out-of-school suspensions.

Discriminatory suspension policies in Los Angeles schools under Supt. John Deasy's regime, Mike Klonsky's SmallTalk Blog: In the 'Post-Racial Era': The Pre-school-to-Prison Pipeline:

GUEST: Top Newark student says time to speak is now | Bob Braun's Ledger

GUEST: Top Newark student says time to speak is now | Bob Braun's Ledger:

GUEST: Top Newark student says time to speak is now

Jordan Thomas

Today’s guest blog was written by Jordan Thomas, a senior at Newark’s University High School where he is valedictorian and earned a 4.5 GPA. He was admitted to Princeton, Harvard, Yale, and Rutgers and will attend Princeton in the fall. He plans to go to law school and become a Constitutional lawyer. He was  the student member of the Newark School Advisory Board for this school year. He delivered these remarks at Tuesday night’s board meeting.

“Prudence, indeed, will dictate that Governments long established should not be changed for light and transient causes; and accordingly all experience hath shewn, that mankind are more disposed to suffer, while evils are sufferable, than to right themselves by abolishing the forms to which they are accustomed. But when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same Object evinces a design to reduce them under absolute Despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such Government, and to provide new Guards for their future security.” 

This passage, derived from our nation’s founding text, the Declaration of Independence, details an individual’s natural propensity to tolerate, or, in some cases, suffer, rather than to excite disruption, engage in public denunciation, or demand absolute reformation in times of hardship and deficient leadership. Candidly, I admit that I have been one so guilty of remaining reserved and civil in both action and speech through the duration of the struggle that has occurred in the Newark Public Schools system these months past, blinded by a false sense of hope, a chimerical sense of promise, and a foolish belief that my words and GUEST: Top Newark student says time to speak is now | Bob Braun's Ledger:

The Weekly Update: More on the Common Core, push back and opting out of high stakes testing, the FTC steps in to protect student privacy, a gag order on teachers and more | Seattle Education

The Weekly Update: More on the Common Core, push back and opting out of high stakes testing, the FTC steps in to protect student privacy, a gag order on teachers and more | Seattle Education:

The Weekly Update: More on the Common Core, push back and opting out of high stakes testing, the FTC steps in to protect student privacy, a gag order on teachers and more

Let’s start off with this gem:

Annual Kindergarten Show Canceled to Allow Kids to Focus on College

A beloved annual kindergarten show at a New York school was canceled this week by administrators in an apparent effort to prepare the five-year-olds for college, probably by teaching them that you can’t trust anyone.

Administrators at the Harley Avenue Primary School in Elwood, New York, recently sent out a series of letters alerting parents that the annual song-and-dance show their children had been preparing for wasn’t good enough for their looming college applications.

“The reason for eliminating the Kindergarten show is simple. We are responsible for preparing children for college and career with valuable lifelong skills,” the letter says.

The administrators further explain that the five-year-olds would be better off learning to become “strong readers, writers, coworkers, and problem solvers,” all of which, ironically, are skills required to put on a show.

Yep, that’s education today.

Besides cancelling kindergarten performances and placing children in front of computers instead to take their tests, a lot has been happening in the wide world of education.

We’ll start in Chicago:

Chicago Teachers Union joins growing national opposition to deeply flawed Common Core Standards

Today, members of the House of Delegates (HOD) of the Chicago Teachers Union The Weekly Update: More on the Common Core, push back and opting out of high stakes testing, the FTC steps in to protect student privacy, a gag order on teachers and more | Seattle Education:

5-28-14 Larry Ferlazzo’s Websites of the Day… | …For Teaching ELL, ESL, & EFL

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

How Can History Teachers Make the Curriculum More Engaging?

How Can History Teachers Make the Curriculum More Engaging? is the latest “question of the week” at my Education Week Teacher column. Feel free to leave responses there or here…

by Larry Ferlazzo / 2min hide  //  save

Fun Short Video For ELLs: “If It Fits, I Sits”

Here’s a fun short video that English Language Learners could watch and then describe what they saw verbally and in writing:

by Larry Ferlazzo / 2min 

The Best Resources About Maya Angelou

I’m sure we are all saddened by Maya Angelou’s death today. I thought I’d share some useful resources and tweets to help remember her, and that might also help our students develop a connection to her work, if they don’t have one already. Feel free to suggestion your own favorites… [View the story "Good Resources About Maya Angelou" on Storify]

by Larry Ferlazzo / 55min 

The Best Posts & Articles Highlighting Why We Need To Be Very Careful Around Ed Tech

Most readers know that I’m a big proponent of using technology to help students in their learning process. In fact, you can see a collection of applicable articles and related “Best” lists at The Best Advice On Using Education Technology. Most readers also know I’ve got a lot of misgivings about how tech is being used in education, particularly in ways that seem to prioritize profit over learning

by Larry Ferlazzo / 1h hide  //  save

Star Trek “Universal Translator,” Here We Come?

I’ve previously posted about experiments made by Microsoft to create the capacity for simultaneous translation (see The Best Sites For Learning About Google Translate & Other Forms Of Machine Translation) and about Word Lens, an amazing mobile app that translates images of signs (see The Best Sites For Beginning iPhone Users Like Me). Well, there has been big news recently about both tools. M

by Larry Ferlazzo / 1h 

“What Are We Losing By Eliminating Arts From the Curriculum?” Is Topic Of My Latest BAM! Radio Program

What Are We Losing By Eliminating Arts From the Curriculum? is the topic of my latest BAM! Radio program. Virginia McEnerney and David Booth are my guests as we have a ten minute conversation. They have also contributed written comments for an upcoming post at my Ed Week Teacher column….

by Larry Ferlazzo / 34min hide  //  save

Videos: Using Art As A Language-Learning Activity

Creating art can be a great language-learning activity for English Language Learners! We’re lucky to have an extraordinarily talented and caring art teacher — Mr. Johnny Doolittle — at our school. Every year he gives up his free period for many days to lead our English Language Learners in many different activities, including origami when we are studying Japan in Geography class; drawing when we

by Larry Ferlazzo / 1h 

5-27-14 Larry Ferlazzo’s Websites of the Day… | …For Teaching ELL, ESL, & EFL

Larry Ferlazzo’s Websites of the Day… | …For Teaching ELL, ESL, & EFL: “A Teacher-Counselor Partnership Is ‘Essential’ For Student Success”A Teacher-Counselor Partnership Is ‘Essential’ For Student Success is Part Two in my Ed Week Teacher series on teacher-counselor partnerships. Today’s post includes responses from Julie Hartline, the 2009 National Counselor Of The Year; and educator/authors

by mike simpson / 21h 

Charles M. Blow offers a tribute to Maya Angelou

Charles M. Blow offers a tribute to Maya Angelou:

Charles M. Blow offers a tribute to Maya Angelou

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The news of Maya Angelou’s death arrived with the abruptness of a great twister — violent, without warning, tearing things up and flipping things over.

I ached the way the soul aches in the world when a great soul is lost from it.

So begins a magnificent column which describes the ability of Angelou to speak to and inflame the souls of others, and which demonstrates the power of beauty of the writing of Blow.

You need to read Maya & Me & Maya, subtitled "What Maya Angelou Meant to Me" from which I have just shared the opening.

Blow will explain connections - how part of his youth was spent one county over from where Angelou was raised.

He places her in a pantheon of writers whom he calls his literary fathers and mothers, people like Alice Walker and Langston Hughes, and others, and says of them

They helped me to see myself and love myself when I felt least seen and least loved.

They saved me.

By now you have a sense of the power - and yes, beauty - of this column.

You should read it.

Let me add a few observations if I may.

Like too many Americans I was woefully unaware of Angelou's work until January 20, 1993, when Bill Clinton, emulating John F. Kennedy's having had Robert Frost read a poem at his own inaugural some 32 years earlier, had Angelou read a poem for the occasion.

That led me to read more of her work.

Later her life would intersect mine in a different way, when as a teacher I spent several months teaching at a non-profit charter middle school part of a complex dedicated to Maya Angelou, Charles M. Blow offers a tribute to Maya Angelou:

Will Governor Cuomo Come in and Save the UFT Contract? southbronxschool.com

http://www.southbronxschool.com:

Will Governor Cuomo Come in and Save the UFT Contract?

So today is the day all the votes for the new contract must be in. The ballots have been checked, the envelopes licked and sealed, and the UFT telling us the sky will fall if we don't ratify this contract.

Yes, we'll have to get to the back of the line if we fail to ratify this contract. Well, if it means getting behind the NYPD's Sergeants Benevolent Association (Which is claiming the city has a $4.1 billion surplus!) then we here at SBSB are all for being at the end of the line. Seems the SBA has some guts.

But there is another reality that just might be plausible enough if the contract does not get ratified.

Is it possible that if the contract does not get ratified that Governor Andy swoops in and saves the day with the money to pay the retro immediately (or at least a big chunk of it) and to give us that 8% raise now instead of five years from now?

If you think about it this might not seem to far fetched.

Andy has aspirations on becoming president in 2016. For that too happen he needs two things (among many others but most importantly) to get the nomination. One, Hilary mustn't run, and secondly, he needs some sort of a mandate. Pundits have said if he gets 55% or less of the vote this year his dreams are done.

Western New York and Long Island are up in arms about what Andy has done for education and add
to that the economy of upstate and we can see Andy not doing well there. Astorino has been elected twice in Westchester County and that just might take the county off the chart for Andy. Andy will need Albany County and the Five Boroughs which have always gone Democrat, but Queens and Staten http://www.southbronxschool.com:

empathyeducates – Do Drivers Discriminate Against Minorities at Crosswalks?

empathyeducates – Do Drivers Discriminate Against Minorities at Crosswalks?:

Do Drivers Discriminate Against Minorities at Crosswalks?

Perhaps, if we are to truly understand what we see in our schools, we must learn from the streets. We know that societal norms enter the classroom. What is implicit can often be seen. Witness what occurs at crosswalks and ask yourself, is education policy borne out of our biases. We invite your thoughts. What do you think?

Do Drivers Discriminate Against Minorities at Crosswalks?
In an initial study, researchers found a large disparity

By Sarah Goodyear @buttermilk | The Atlantic – CityLab. May 28, 2014 9:25 AM ET
One of the most blatant and insulting manifestations of racism in the days of Jim Crow was the expectation that a black person in the South would have to step off the sidewalk to allow a white person to pass. As documented in the book American Nightmare: The History of Jim Crow, this was just one of many indignities and restrictions, some of them life-threatening, that African Americans had to endure as they used the basic transportation infrastructure of 19th and 20th century America. (You can read many more examples of transportation discrimination in the Jim Crow era on the Federal Highway Administration’s website.)

Jim Crow is in the past. But now a pilot study conducted by researchers in Portland, Oregon, suggests that black people may still be treated unequally by their fellow citizens when crossing the street. The findings are preliminary, but troubling.

The researchers looked at whether drivers treated pedestrians waiting to cross in a crosswalk differently according to their race. Their findings: black men in the study were passed by almost twice as many cars as white men before a driver would yield, and their wait times for safe crossing were nearly a third longer.empathyeducates – Do Drivers Discriminate Against Minorities at Crosswalks?: