5-29-14 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.:

Maxine Greene, December 23, 1917—May 29, 2014

Maxine Greene was a major influence on my teaching. I had the great fortune to not only come upon her books (Variations on a Blue Guitar, Releasing the Imagination, The Dialectic of Freedom) as an art student and student of education (I have my mentor, Bill Schubert to thank for that), I also had the good fortune to listen her lectures and to have met her on several occasions. A long and fruitful

by Fred Klonsky / 55min

Today was my last teaching day. What?

For the love of the game. Today was my last teaching day for the school year. “What? You retired from teaching two years ago.” True. But every Thursday from January to June I volunteer to teach ukulele to a mixed age class of kindergarten and first graders in Little Village. No assessment to be done. No Common Core to worry about. No accountability. Except the looks on my student faces. Trust me.

2 by Fred Klonsky / 1h 

Dear President Obama. “We are alarmed at the impact of excessive testing,” said Maya Angelou

President Barack Obama The White House Washington, DC 20500 Dear President Obama, We the undersigned children’s book authors and illustrators write to express our concern for our readers, their parents and teachers. We are alarmed at the negative impact of excessive school testing mandates, including your Administration’s own initiatives, on children’s love of reading and literature. Recent polic

by Fred Klonsky / 1h 

5-28-14 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.: Moral Monday in North Carolina. The Tillis 15. “We shall not be moved.”. RALEIGH, NC – Hundreds of North Carolinians showed up yesterday to lobby their state legislators to repent for the harm they have caused, to repeal the flood of extreme policies passed last year and to restore confidence in our e

by mike simpson / 8h 

5-29-14 Wait What? Pelto 2014 Exploratory Committee is up and running!

Wait What?:

Pelto 2014 Exploratory Committee is up and running!

And from Bridgeport – Even more serious questions about the Moales daycare center

Question:     Did the Malloy administration inappropriately aid and abet Moales’ in his successful effort to get a third daycare facility license on his property? Question:   Did Mayor Finch and his top staff help Moales get around zoning and code requirements for his new daycare facility? Question:  Although Moales was caught inappropriately bill taxpayers for more […] The post And from Bridgepor

1 by jonpelto / 4h 

5-28-14 Wait What? Pelto 2014 Exploratory Committee is up and running!

Wait What?: Pelto 2014 Exploratory Committee is up and running!Pelto 2014 Exploratory Committee is up and running!May 28, 2014 Friends, I want to thank all the people who have stepped forward with words of support and encouragement as I explore whether to run for governor in 2014 Your continued help is the vital building block in this developing effort. First, we hope to have the petitioning forms

by mike simpson / 8h 

The Answer Sheet 5-29-14

Answer Sheet:

Winning words in National Spelling Bee going back to 1925

It’s National Spelling Bee time again, and some Post colleagues put together a great graphic that tests your ability to spell, here. Below is a selected list of words that won the bee in various years going back to the first one in 1925. You can see the entire list here. 2013 – knaidel 2012 – guetapens 2011 — […]

by Valerie Strauss / 4min 

Mindy Kaling to Harvard law grads: ‘I’m afraid a couple of you probably are evil. That’s just the odds.’

Here’s yet another in my series of interesting/amusing/surprising commencement speeches that have been given in the 2014 graduation season. This one was delivered at Harvard Law School on Wednesday by Mindy Kaling, creator, producer and star of “The Mindy Project” and who had been a cast member on “The Office.” She was introduced by a student who […]

2 by Valerie Strauss / 32min 

How Maya Angelou touched a young teacher’s life

Years ago, Maya Angelou, who died on Wednesday, made a difference in the life of a young teacher. That teacher, Maja Wilson, explains how in the following post. Wilson is a teacher educator at the University of Maine, Farmington. She taught adult basic education, ESL, and high school in Michigan’s schools for ten years. She […]

by Valerie Strauss / 50min 

Diane Ravitch a candidate for New York governor?

Diane Ravitch a candidate for New York governor? New York newspapers, including The New York Times, are reporting that the Working Families Party, whose New Jersey affiliate just helped get Ras Baraka elected mayor of Newark on the issue of school reform, is considering making her its candidate in this November’s election if it decides […]

3 by Valerie Strauss / 1h 

All students should learn to code. Right? Not so fast.

It’s the newest thing in education, at least for the moment: teaching kids to learn to code computers. In fact, there is a growing chorus in the business and education world for all students to learn to code and program computers. It is the 21st Century, after all, and it’s a computer world. But education […]

by Valerie Strauss / 4min 

Utah high school alters girls’ yearbook photos to cover skin, remove tattoo

Some female students at a high school in Utah apparently broke the “modesty” standards for their yearbook and discovered that their photos had been changed digitally, with sleeves and necklines added to cover their skin, and a tattoo removed. The Salt Lake Tribune reported that some girls at Wasatch High School in Heber City, named […]

2 by Valerie Strauss / 37min hide  //  save

‘I belong to a generation that has fundamentally failed you’ — commencement speaker

In my continuing coverage of interesting 2014 commencement speeches, here’s one that Deborah Bial, president and founder of the Posse Foundation, delivered at Mount Holyoke College in South Hadley in which she bashes her own generation, not the usual focus of such events: I wish I could tell you that we have been a good […]

55 by Valerie Strauss / 5h 

The Answer Sheet 5-28-14

Answer Sheet: Jim Carrey gives commencement speech at Maharishi University of ManagementJim Carrey surprised graduates at the Maharishi University of Management in Fairfield, Iowa, with a funny, emotional commencement speech in which he told them a poignant story about his father and urged them to walk their own path in life and never settle. “The decisions we make in this moment are based in eith

by mike simpson / 8h 

5-29-14 Scathing Purple Musings | Color me purple in Florida ALL Week

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

Segregation, Conflicts of Interest and Dropping Struggling Students Common in Florida Charter Schools

Diane Ravitch links to a Florida League of Women Voters study which detailed much of what readers of this blog already know  about the slimy, corrupt world of Florida’s charter school industry. Approximately one-third of charters are run by for-profit management companies. Many screen students, then drop those who are not successful, which public schools are prohibited from doing. Charters also se

by Bob Sikes / 2h 

5-28-14 Scathing Purple Musings | Color me purple in Florida ALL Week

Scathing Purple Musings | Color me purple in Florida, red in Washington, dark sky-blue in Israel and public school in Education: Surrogates Beginning to Flack for Jeb Bush on Common CoreIts begun. Badly needing to talk about something else than Common Core Standards, Jeb Bush’s surrogates have begun to do it for him. Consider a Lloyd Brown piece in Sunshine State News. Brown is a former speechwrit

by mike simpson / 8h 

'Urban' Schools and Other Euphemisms - Bridging Differences - Education Week

'Urban' Schools and Other Euphemisms - Bridging Differences - Education Week:

'Urban' Schools and Other Euphemisms

By Deborah Meier on May 29, 2014 9:48 AM

Deborah Meier continues her conversation with Mike Klonsky today.

Dear Mike,

Americans (maybe all "high" civilizations) have a special kind of romance with rural life. They look down upon while also "admiring" what are seen as stoic, hard-working (if ignorant, even stupid) ways of life. Maybe the object of humor, but not hate.

Simple. Versus the city life—with its illicit, suspicious sophistication and its lazy, criminal poor. The latter the haven of unwanted diversity. Democratic life was imperiled, it was "argued," by city corruption. My friend, Ann Cook, once did a high school class comparing children's literature re. rural and urban life which carried this implicit message. (I must get hold of her bibliography sometime.)

So it is that our caricatures of bad education are generally urban. The 1955 film, Black Board Jungle, billed as a gritty film about inner-city students, was mostly about white, urban, working-class kids. It might make good re-viewing to see the similarities and differences between a class versus race view of public schooling's "recent" history.

Even the "urban" has switched its meaning. When the 1955 film appeared, it was a word for low-income city kids. It's now a euphemism for the "African American," "Latino" poor. The book The Power of Their Ideas starts with me asking kids what it meant to refer to as "inner city" in preparation for a visit to a largely white college. They got it when I added that Dalton (a rich white school 20 blocks further "into" the city) was not considered inner city. It was a euphemism for another euphemism—ghetto.

They got it, and it made them angry, just as they were when the Brown University campus'Urban' Schools and Other Euphemisms - Bridging Differences - Education Week: 

4LAKids - some of the news that doesn't fit 5-29-14

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

$9 Billion State School Construction Bond Moves Towards November Ballot

By John Fensterwald | EdSource Today http://bit.ly/1nGmMsN The proposed $9 billion bond measure would include $6 billion for K-12 districts to renovate and build new school facilities. Source: Flickr May 28th, 2014 ::  The Assembly Appropriations Committee has finally put a dollar figure to a school construction bond measure that it wants to place on the November ballot: $9 billion. Voter

by smf / 2min 

Frustrated La School Board Members’ Message To Administrators: Provide Detailed Arts Budget

Mary Plummer | Pass / Fail | 89.3 KPCC http://bit.ly/1tqzWtN Mary Plummer/KPCC | School board members Steve Zimmer and Monica Ratliff during an April 29, 2014 school board committee meeting. May 28th, 2014, 3:58pm  ::  Los Angeles Unified School board members on Tuesday repeatedly called for more information on how administrators are providing arts education, saying they've been largely shut

by smf / 10min 

Board District One: SEVEN CANDIDATES VIE FOR LAUSD BOARD SEAT IN WIDE-OPEN CONTEST

Staying power of LAUSD Supt. John Deasy's policies could be affected by who wins seat on Board of Education by Howard Blume, LA Times | http://lat.ms/1kNW1Si May 28, 2014 |  9:59 PM  ::  The Los Angeles teachers union and a powerful group of civic leaders are sitting out Tuesday's key race for a seat on the Board of Education in what has become a spirited, wide-open contest among seven

by smf / 14min hide  //  save

Kayser Introduces Motion To Re-Appoint Stuart Magruder To The Oversight Committee

by email from the office of LAUSD boardmember Bennett Kayser May 28, 2014 4:51 PM  ::  In the name of independence, citizen volunteers and an informed LAUSD bond oversite committee, we have submitted the language below for first hearing at the 6/10 Reg Bd mtg and for action at the 6/17 Special Board Mtg. Mr. Kayser- Reappointment of Mr. Magruder to the School Construction Bond Oversight

by smf / 35min 

4LAKids - some of the news that doesn't fit 5-27-14

4LAKids - some of the news that doesn't fit: School Librarians A Rare Find In California Public SchoolsBy Lillian Mongeau, Ed Source | http://bit.ly/1jXUGt9 School librarian Shannon Englebrecht reminds Tori Reese, 8, that she has several books overdue.Englebrecht allows students at Charles Drew Preparatory Academy, a public school in San Francisco, to check out as many books as they want. Credit:

by mike simpson / 6h 

5-29-14 @ The Chalk Face

@ THE CHALK FACE:

On the “Success” of a 100% Charter Recovery School District

On May 29, 2014, Lindsey Layton of the Washington Post wrote this article on the conversion of the state-run New Orleans Recovery School District’s (RSD) conversion to charters. I would like to clarify a few of Layton’s glossy statements about RSD. Let us begin with this one: The creation of the country’s first all-charter school system has improved […]

1 by deutsch29 / 7min 

SC, Choose OK, Not FL: Failing Students with Failed Policy

SC, Choose OK, Not FL: Failing Students with Failed Policy. via SC, Choose OK, Not FL: Failing Students with Failed Policy.Filed under: PAUL THOMAS: Becoming Radical

1 by plthomasedd / 17min 

Newark’s Failed Experiment Illustrates Reformers’ Overreach

Dale Russakoff’s New Yorker profile, “Schooled,” starts with a description of the dysfunctionality of the Newark Public School System: The ratio of administrators to students—one to six—was almost twice the state average. Clerks made up thirty per cent of the central bureaucracy—about four times the ratio in comparable cities. Even some clerks had clerks, yet […]

2 by John Thompson / 18min 

5-28-14 @ The Chalk Face

@ THE CHALK FACE: If The Onion Gets It … : “when the mist distorts the outline of the cypress trees”If The Onion Gets It … : “when the mist distorts the outline of the cypress trees”. via If The Onion Gets It … : “when the mist distorts the outline of the cypress trees”.1 by plthomasedd / 40min 5-27-14 @ The Chalk Face@ THE CHALK FACE: What’s Really Wrong with Advanced Placement Courses and Colleg

by mike simpson / 8h 

5-29-14 the becoming radical | A Place for a Pedagogy of Kindness by P. L. Thomas, EdD

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

SC, Choose OK, Not FL: Failing Students with Failed Policy

What do third-grade retention policies based on reading tests, charter schools, tracking, and parental choice have in common? First, across the U.S., they all have a great deal of public and political support. Second, the research base on all of these policies (among many other popular policies) have shown repeatedly that they do more to fail students than to achieve any of the lofty goals advocat

9 by plthomasedd / 20min 

5-28-14 the becoming radical | A Place for a Pedagogy of Kindness by P. L. Thomas, EdD

the becoming radical | A Place for a Pedagogy of Kindness (the public and scholarly writing by P. L. Thomas, Furman University): If The Onion Gets It … : “when the mist distorts the outline of the cypress trees”The power of ideology makes me think of those dewy mornings when the mist distorts the outline of the cypress trees and they become shadows of something we know is there but cannot really d

by mike simpson / 8h 

5-29-13 Curmudgucation

CURMUDGUCATION:

Transparency For Reals

Reformsters loves them some transparency. However, "transparency" what they means is "we want to show your school scores and teacher VAM scores and other fun data-ish stuff to the whole world." But if that's transparency, then Phyllis Schafly is a stripper. "Transparency" means that the man behind the curtain will pass out some numbers and we will treat them as revela

4 by Peter Greene / 16min 

What Reformy Thing Most Needs To Die?

It's a fun thought experiment. If you could erase one aspect of the Reformy test-driven high-stakes privatizing Core-loving status quo, which would it be. If you had the political power to eliminate one head of the public-education-crushing hydra, which decapitation would lead your list?Yes, this is like playing "What would you do if you won the lottery," and yes, the various parts of th

14 by Peter Greene / 3h 

5-28-13 Curmudgucation

CURMUDGUCATION: #AskArne: Teach To Lead To Lead The Teaching LeadersBad news: Arne and the US DOE are back with another scrumdiliicious video interview with his royal Arneness.Good news: It's not all completely ridiculous. And as always, I'll watch it so that you don't have to. More times than usual, it turns out. I like to watch with the sound off to get a better non-verbal read, but the only cap

by mike simpson / 8h