Fred Klonsky | Daily posts from a retired public school teacher who is just looking at the data.:
Fred All Week Klonsky | Daily posts from a retired public school teacher
Did you know IEA leadership thought SB7 needed fixing? Me neither.
Former IEA President Ken Swanson lobbied for SB7 in 2011. Now it turns out even the IEA thought it needed fixing. Both the Illinois Federation of Teachers and the Illinois Education Association reported out on their analysis of the General Assembly session that adjourned officially today. One bit of surprising news was that they reported on a fix to Senate Bill 7. In case you forgot, Senate Bill
Keeping retirement weird. Free stuff.
This morning I took this selfie with my new iPhone. I told this story of Facebook yesterday. Since I have drawn a series of cartoons about Mark Zuckerberg, I expect that I will be expelled from Facebook at any moment. Which may be a blessing in disguise. A few years ago Anne and I discussed getting DVR. I wasn’t sure we were missing anything that needed recording, but it seemed as though everyone
YESTERDAY
All hell breaks loose when Illinois charters are told to stop discriminating.
Republican Jim Oberweiss fought hard for the right of charters to discriminate. That’s what he means by providing “choice” for parents. The language in the bill was simple enough. ” … all federal and State laws and rules applicable to public schools that pertain to special education and the instruction of English language learners, referred to in this Code as “children of limited English-speaking
Edward Snowden. The hipster whistle blower?
On this beautiful Friday morning I turn my attention away from the usual topics and turn to the weirdness and cruelty of the right-wing. Salon has a post about the cruelty ofNational Review, the late Willliam Buckley’s version of Rosemary’s Baby, on the passing of Maya Angelou. National Review also attacks Edward Snowden. No surprise there. But it does get weird. National Review writer Christine
Peter Ellertsen. Jeanne Allen and the corporate assault on public schools.
Jeanne Allen is is founder of the Center for Education Reform and the vice president for business development of Hot Chalk Inc., a digital technology firm. - Peter Ellertsen is retired. He taught in a small Catholic liberal arts college, where he worked with standardized testing and accreditation issues. Peter writes: Fred, I think you might be interested in an op-ed piece published recently in
MAY 29
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
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.
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
MAY 28
Carole L. Perlman. Using test scores to evaluate teachers creates problems.
LETTER TO THE EDITOR May 27, 2014 I was director of Chicago Public Schools testing programs for nearly 20 years. I’m all for accountability; I got a great education at CPS and feel strongly that the current students deserve the same. Using test scores to evaluate teachers seems like a great idea on the face of it, but it does not stand up to scrutiny. There are several basic problems, most having
And still we rise.
The night has been long, The wound has been deep, The pit has been dark, And the walls have been steep. Under a dead blue sky on a distant beach, I was dragged by my braids just beyond your reach. Your hands were tied, your mouth was bound, You couldn’t even call out my name. You were helpless and so was I, But unfortunately throughout history You’ve worn a badge of shame. I say, the night has be
The Senate passes SB 16 and Special Education funding is put at risk.
Yesterday the Illinois Senate passed SB16. The bill now goes to the House. It is claimed that SB16 will shift state funding to poor districts. No new funds will be made available in a state with the lowest state funding for education in the nation. The legislature is poised to cut education funding further. The IEA takes no position on SB16. This morning I asked Beverley Holden Jones about SB16. J
One big union.
What would have been the impact of the Chicago Teachers Union and its dynamic militant leadership on a single teacher union the state? In 1998 at the National Education Association Representative Assembly in New Orleans nearly sixty percent of the delegates voted to oppose the leadership’s merger proposal – a proposal that would have united the nation’s two teacher unions: the NEA and the Ameri
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 elected officials. Among them were 15 moral witnesses who visited Speaker Thom Tillis’ office at 3:30 pm yesterday and who staged a sit-in when the speaker chose not to
MAY 27
CPS teachers are evaluated on how well their students support an anti-immigrant policy.
CPS CEO Barbara Byrd Bennett wants teachers evaluated on how anti-immigrant their immigrant students are. Chicago Public School 7th grade students are being given a test that asks them to evaluate two anti-immigration positions and write a defense for one of them. Their teachers are being evaluated on how well their answers are scored. No. I’m not kidding. The district temporarily yanked the co
Zuckerberg, Oprah, Beyonce and Clooney.
Late Saturday and drew a cartoon about Facebook billionaire boys club member Mark Zuckerberg and his $100 million give away to Newark, New Jersey school reformers. As of today it has received over 6,000 page views and reposts. I was amazed. No drawing of mine on this blog has received that kind of response. Ever. “It’s the post title, honey,” said my wife. “What?” “You put “Zuckerberg” and “Oprah
Springfield legislators get summers off. Nobody complains. Will Guzzardi and Michael Madigan.
One of the talking points for teacher bashing is how teachers get paid for summers off. When I try to explain how this isn’t true – that teachers contracts are a per diem – that we are contracted (in my case) for 185 days, the eyes of whomever I was explaining this to would glaze over. It’s just easier to wrap you head around the summers off talking point. And don’t even begin to explain teacher
MAY 26
What was wrong with what Mrs. Obama said?
. Fred, Isn’t that what Mrs. Obama is saying? Did I misread it? Didn’t she say that Arts are critical to an education? Yes, she used test scores in her speech but don’t you think that was a way to drive the point home about Arts? I actually liked what she said. And I often don’t care for what she or her husband say (they’re so disappointing but that’s another story). - BMMB BMMB, I agree wit
Mark Stefanik. Memorial Day.
- Mark Stefanik is a middle school Language Arts teacher, union activist and frequent contributor to this blog. Memorial Day Today, we re-dedicate ourselves to the preservation of the American dream. Today, we remember those who devoted their lives to their country. Today, we honor those who fight to defend our freedoms. Today, that would include the American public school teacher. Does anyone ca
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. Two years ago on Memorial Day Weekend – a very hot Chicago weekend – I threw a retirement party at the Red Line Tap for a couple hundred of my closest friends. Matt Farmer and Steve Doyle played some of their great rock and roll. Three long sets, as I recall I got to sing back-up for them on The Weight. And the Carpenter Ukulele Society - made up of my colleagues – did our first and only public
MAY 25
Sunday reads.
The Spanish Civil War, 1936. Grit. The new Common Core standard. 29 seconds on pensions and the Koch bros. Tax cheaters Hall of Fame. The hypocrisy of the Illinois Policy Institute. Selective promise keeping. Dear Parents and Friends of PISD, Next week, you will be receiving your child’s STAAR/TAKS results for the 2013-2014 school year. I’m writing this letter on behalf of PISD administrators, t
MAY 24
A poem for State Rep Laura Fine.
“The tax increase should be allowed to expire, as the law provides. The state made a promise to the people of Illinois and we need to honor that promise.” — State Rep. Laura Fine, D-Glenview A promise made by State Rep Fine Is not like one of your’s Or mine. Her promises seem to rely On whether your income is Low or High. To those of us in TRS Her promises mean much less. She promised retirees
Bob Peterson. A teacher union movement is rising.
- Bob Peterson is President of the Milwaukee Teachers’ Education Association. A revitalized teacher union movement is bubbling up in the midst of relentless attacks on public schools and the teaching profession. Over the next several years this new movement may well be the most important force to defend and improve public schools, and in so doing, defend our communities and our democracy. The mos
Keeping retirement weird. Memorial Day Weekend, 2014.
The backyard. Saturday morning, May 24th. Logan Square, Chicago, Illinois. Years ago on a trip to Rome, Anne and I spent an hour or so at a table outside a cafe in the Piazza di Spagna near the Bernini fountain. If memory serves me right, every Roman piazza has a Bernini fountain. We had some bar snacks. In Venice they would be called Cichetti. I don’t remember what the word for bar snacks is in
