6-6-14 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.:

Rahm stole this school from the community.

H/T Rousemary Vega.

by Fred Klonsky / 15min

Ten minute drawing. Chicago is not Paris. Fancy lights won’t help.

by Fred Klonsky / 3min 

Massachusetts’ Madeloni is unapologetically adversarial.

  Barbara Madeloni was just elected President of the Massachusetts teachers union. This story appeared in the Boston Globe. Don’t make the mistake of talking about “teacher training” to Barbara Madeloni. “Oh, please don’t use the word training,” she chided a reporter. “We educate teachers. We don’t train them. We train dogs. And I love dogs.” Beacon Hill better get used to that sharply pointed, c

3 by Fred Klonsky / 1h 

Hinsdale board member: Our salary and benefits should be lower than other districts.

As I have been reporting, Hinsdale High School District teachers gave their union leadership full backing last week in the union’s bargaining with their board. With nearly every member voting, a strike authorization vote received 100% of the members support. I can see why. The current board is now controlled by ideologues who are willing to sacrifice Hinsdale’s quality public schools on the altar

by Fred Klonsky / 32min hide  //  save

Rauner’s pension pay-to-play in Pennsylvania.

Bruce Rauner is a non-partisan pension hustler. This morning the Chicago Tribune reports that the Republican gubernatorial candidate gave $300,000 to Pennsylvania Govenor Ed Rendell with the hope of getting pension investment business for his firm GTCR. Rendell, also a former Philadelphia mayor, said it was during his tenure at the DNC that he came to know Rauner, whom he described as having been

by Fred Klonsky / 1h

6-5-14 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.: George Schmidt. SEIU members were told by their union they had to cross CTU picket lines.- George Schmidt publishes Substance News. It’s actually worse about the 2012 strike. SEIU members were told by their union they had to cross CTU picket lines. As you remember, CPS opened more than 100 schools, cl

by mike simpson / 8h 

Notes to a New Teacher (Dana Dunnan) | Larry Cuban on School Reform and Classroom Practice

Notes to a New Teacher (Dana Dunnan) | Larry Cuban on School Reform and Classroom Practice:

Notes to a New Teacher (Dana Dunnan)

I met Dana Dunnan 40 years ago when he was a teaching intern at Stanford University and I visited his classes at a nearby high school. He received his Master’s degree there. We reconnected when his recent book was published. Dunnan began as a high school chemistry teacher and then later taught physics, physical science, English and journalism. He also worked at the Harvard Graduate School of Education as a teaching practitioner, helped Massachusetts develop curriculum frameworks and accompanying assessment, and designed curriculum materials used in chemistry classrooms internationally.

This is an excerpt from Notes to a New Teacher. Details on the book can be found at www.chalkdustmemories.com

On top of the thrill, and abject terror, of newness, is the way schools treat beginning teachers. Since those creating schedules have developed relationships with those who they are scheduling, the classes assigned a new teacher tend to be what no one else wants to, or is willing to, teach.

My first year, when I was exclusively a chemistry teacher, I taught five classes in a seven period day. I was the only newcomer in the department, and everyone else taught four classes. Everyone else had their own classroom, and I taught in three different rooms, in three different wings of the building. Each room “belonged” to someone else, with all the territoriality that implies. Each room had a teaching aide, whom the teacher in that room treated as theirs exclusively.

By that June, I was exhausted. Having failed to leave time for exercise, my back was killing me.[1] It is not hard to see why so many people leave the profession in the first three years.

After seven years in science, I got laid off from that department. I had the option of bumping my way into the English department. I was so pissed off at being bumped out of science that I took a year’s leave of absence.

Having no kids, and a wife who was a public school speech pathologist, I could afford the time off. It rejuvenated me, allowed me to spend months with my Notes to a New Teacher (Dana Dunnan) | Larry Cuban on School Reform and Classroom Practice:

6-6-14 Answer Sheet

Answer Sheet:

Newseum in D.C. to create free 9/11 curriculum for teachers

In an effort to teach current and future generations of young people about what happened to the United States in the terrorist attacks on Sept. 11, 2001, the Newseum in Washington D.C. will create a new interactive online curriculum that will be available for free to teachers and students everywhere. To create the new material, […]

by Valerie Strauss / 20min 

Common Core testing group announces timeline for exam delivery

The Smarter Balanced Assessment Consortium, one of the two multi-state consortia designing Common Core tests, on Friday announced its timeline for delivering key components of its assessment system to states for use in the 2014-15 school year. SBAC and the Partnership for  Assessment of Readiness for College and Careers (PARCC) are, with some $360 million in federal […]

by Valerie Strauss / 0min hide  //  save

Six rules for teaching World War II

The 70th anniversary of the D-Day invasion of Nazi-occupied France during World War II seems like a good time to look at how that war (and all wars) should be taught to young people who know may know close to nothing about these historical events and may not see why what happened decades ago is […]

by Valerie Strauss / 1h 

What happened when George failed his state standardized test

What happens to a young student who fails a mandated standardized test that decides whether he/she can move to the next grade, or to an older student who fails a test that determines if he/she graduates?  Here is a 20-step description of what happened to a boy named George. It was written by educator Kathleen […]

37 by Valerie Strauss / 3h 

6-5-14 Answer Sheet

Answer Sheet: The education question we should be askingOne area of education that doesn’t get enough attention in the loud education reform debate is exactly what is worth learning. In the following post Alfie Kohn explores this problem. Kohn (www.alfiekohn.org) is the author of 13 books about education, parenting, and human behavior, including “The Myth of the Spoiled Child: Challenging the Conv

by mike simpson / 8h 

6-6-14 Schools Matter

Schools Matter:

Arne and the summer slide

Posted on: http://stateimpact.npr.org/ohio/2014/06/05/the-impact-of-the-summer-slide/ Arne Duncan has suggested that year-round school is the solution to the summer slide.  Thanks to the common core, year-round school will make things worse. Research tells us that those living in poverty have the least access to books. Students living in poverty also show the most summer loss, and those who re

by skrashen / 42min

Shelby County to Launch Classroom Camera Project to Collect and Share Video of Kindergarten Students

The Gates Foundation reporter of record, Jane Roberts, has a celebratory piece on how video capture will be used to evaluate kindergarten teachers in 26 Shelby County Schools.  Will they call this ill-advised excuse for more surveillance, "Cameras for Kindergartners?"The State Department of Education should have learned by now that parents and teachers will not allow this kind of third p

by Jim Horn / 2min 

Opt Out Guidance for NY Parents and Pearson Field Tests

from We Love Montessori at GW:The GW Elementary School was selected to participate in the NYS Field Test program in Math on WEDNESDAY, JUNE 11th. GW Elementary School 3rd graders will be given this test that is to be administered over the course of 40 minutes.A field test is an exam that the company PEARSON (READ this article from WNYC’s blog) and other test developers give to “try out” new questi

by Jim Horn / 4min hide  //  save

More Money For On-Line Testing?

Posted as a comment on "Ed. Groups Urge More Federal Spending for Common-Core Tests," at: http://blogs.edweek.org/edweek/DigitalEducation/2014/06/more_federal_funds_for_common-.html?cmp=ENL-EU-NEWS3More money to support the biggest boondoggle in the history of education? There is zero research supporting the value of on-line testing, and no plans to do even small scale studies. The am

by skrashen / 5h 

6-5-14 Schools Matter

Schools Matter: Marshall Tuck's white male friend Dax Shepard 'splains that cultural sterilization isn't "real racism"When I taught in the Los Angeles Unified Schools, I openly opposed the Vietnam War and was critical of the system’s race policies.  Fortunately, I was never threatened with dismissal, I belonged to a union. — Professor Rodolfo F. Acuña Students Protesting Marshall Tuck's

by mike simpson / 8h 

6-6-14 Perdido Street School

Perdido Street School:

Rahm Emanuel's Vulnerability

Kaen Lewis says Rahm Emanuel isn't the "bad-ass" he pretends to be:When Emanuel exited the Beltway in late 2010 to run for Chicago mayor, he had the tacit backing of a current president and the overt support of a former one. He won the race to succeed Richard M. Daley, and expectations ran high that Washington’s supreme enforcer was just the person to tame the Wild Midwest.Now, just nine

by reality-based edu... / 24min 

Politics and Corruption

The Daily News on Mayor de Blasio's wealth: Mayor de Blasio has few liquid assets and a rather meager retirement account, according to his financial disclosure report, which was released Thursday. The limited holdings are in contrast to the fortune of his predecessor, Michael Bloomberg, one of the world’s richest men. While Bloomberg needed more than 100 pages to list his vast holdings, including

by reality-based edu... / 12min 

How's That Deal With Cuomo Working Out?

It took all of a few days before Andrew Cuomo made it quite clear that he does not intend to live up to his end of the bargain he made with Working Families Party for their endorsement: ALBANY -- Republicans Thursday mocked Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo for vowing to help Democrats take over the State Senate, and then, days later, touting his ties with GOP legislators. Republicans called it a "180-deg

by reality-based edu... / 26min 

AFL-CIO President Richard Trumka Pushed For Endorsement Of Cuomo

Those of you paying close attention to the machinations of the union leadership around the Cuomo re-election campaign will not be surprised by this news:Before a deal was made to ensure New York’s leading progressive party endorsed Gov. Andrew Cuomo’s reelection bid, negotiators were in touch with one of the top labor leaders in the country.AFL-CIO President Richard Trumka said Thursday in an inte

1 by reality-based edu... / 49min hide  //  save

Why is Cuomo Hiding?

For a guy who's running for re-election, we see an awful lot of this on his schedule:Gov. Andrew Cuomo is in New York City with no public schedule. It's a little more than 5 months to election day and he is the incumbent with a large campaign war chest and a wide lead in the polls now that the Working Families Party has endorsed him and pledged not to run a candidate against him.So it's not like h

by reality-based edu... / 2h 

Three States Have Dropped Common Core, More To Follow

Common Core supporters say this is no big deal - but of course it is:Oklahoma has officially dropped the polarizing Common Core academic standards — marking a major shift by former supporter Gov. Mary Fallin.In a much-anticipated decision Thursday, Fallin, a Republican, signed legislation repealing the standards Thursday afternoon. She said Oklahoma has the ability to develop superior standards an

by reality-based edu... / 5h 

6-5-14 Perdido Street School

Perdido Street School: The Information The Education Department Wants Collected On StudentsStephanie Simon at Politico:The Education Department’s list of recommended data points, developed with state officials, is exhaustive. It includes what type of dental insurance a student carries, whether she’s allergic to dog dander and whether she belongs to a sorority in college. Each disciplinary incident

by mike simpson / 8h 

Public Schools—the Mortar that Holds the Community Together (Garrison Keillor) | janresseger

Public Schools—the Mortar that Holds the Community Together (Garrison Keillor) | janresseger:

Public Schools—the Mortar that Holds the Community Together (Garrison Keillor)

Posted on June 6, 2014 by janresseger

Jeff Bryant, who writes a weekly column for the Educational Opportunity Network, recently discussed the difference between conceptualizing education reform around inputs and outcomes.  Today our federal testing law, No Child Left Behind, and all the federal competitive grant programs like Race to the Top that prescribe punitive turnarounds for schools that can’t produce high test scores are designed to measure outcomes.  The very concept of achievement gaps is defined by test scores—outcomes.

Outcomes are important surely.  As parents we hope for successful outcomes for our children: a high school diploma—college graduation—a job.  Then there are the intangible outcomes we seek for our children: mental health, contentment, ethical character, the capacity to stick with whatever one undertakes. Parents quickly realize there are too many variables; their children are human and invariably complex.  We do the best we can, but we cannot guarantee outcomes.

Neither can the community guarantee positive outcomes for all of its children, though in 1889, John Dewey, our premier education philosopher challenged us to do our best:  “What the best and wisest parent wants for his own child, that must the community want for all of its children…. Only by being true to the full growth of all the individuals who make it up, can society by any chance be true to itself.”  Dewey’s idea is about inputs, however.  He challenges us to hold ourselves personally responsible for educating all children.  Today there is ample evidence that we are not even coming close to providing adequate educational inputs for our society’s poorest children.

Brand new census data demonstrate that, “Public elementary and secondary education revenue fell in fiscal year 2012 for the first time since 1977, when the U.S. Census Bureau began collecting public education finance data annually.  Public elementary and secondary Public Schools—the Mortar that Holds the Community Together (Garrison Keillor) | janresseger:

Rachel Maddow on Michigan Schools—An Extra This Morning

I regularly follow Michigan’s Eclectablog, because it is a place to learn about the very difficult and complex issues around Michigan’s public schools, now in many cases privatized. This morning Electablog referred me to a video clip from Rachel Maddow on MSNBC covering the story of the closing of a school she has been tracking for several years, Catherine Ferguson Academy, a school that will clos

by janresseger / 38min 

NYC Educator: Make Someone Happy! Blame a Teacher Today!

NYC Educator: Make Someone Happy! Blame a Teacher Today!:

Make Someone Happy! Blame a Teacher Today!

Blame the Teachers!  For many years, the thought never crossed my mind that teachers were the single most important factor complicit in the perpetuity of poverty in the United States.  But I guess it makes sense; poverty has been around since the beginning of time and so, too, have poor teachers.  I just never took the time to consider the connection until I listened to Michelle Rhee.  Since that fateful day when my whole world was turned upside down by this new logic, I began to wonder if teachers might not also be responsible for a whole host of other problems.  I have made a list of the top ten problems which I now believe are caused by teachers.

10.  Teachers are to blame for the long World-Series drought of the Cubs.  I know you heard the rumor that it was the Curse of the Billy Goat, but with new facts brought to bear (or cub), I respectfully beg to differ.  After all, what sense does it make to blame a goat?  Blame teachers!

9.  Have you ever had a nagging headache?  You might be tempted to blame dehydration, loud noise or stress.  Just Blame teachers!  It's that much easier!

8.  Have you ever failed to accomplish anything in your life?  Someone might try to convince you that you didn't work hard enough or that you just gave up.  I'm telling you, your teacher was and still is to blame. 

7.  Your computer's gone "kaflooey" and you're thinking it was the link you clicked on from someone overseas asking you for a few dollars to help free the long lost Aunt (you never knew you had) from a false arrest.  I'm telling you the person to blame is much closer to home.  It would be NYC Educator: Make Someone Happy! Blame a Teacher Today!:

Mike Klonsky's SmallTalk Blog: Rahm's boat springs more leaks

Mike Klonsky's SmallTalk Blog: Rahm's boat springs more leaks:

Rahm's boat springs more leaks

As we head into the weekend, Little Emperor's gold-plated political ship continues to spring leaks. Even with his giant City Hall damage-control battalion working overtime, Rahm can't catch a media break.

‘I’m not an emperor. I do not look good in a toga.’ -- Rahm Emanuel

His latest proposed boondoggle, to spend millions to turn the Windy City into a f*#k-the-environment, Paris-like City of Lights with a parasitic, tourism-based economy, isn't playing well in resource-starved, school-shuttered neighborhoods.

Even the Illinois Coalition for Responsible Outdoor Lighting is ridiculing the mayor for suggesting that Chicago be turned into “North America’s city of lights” at the same time that Paris, the global “City of Light,” has toned it down.

His latest pension-robbing, property tax-gouging initiative isn't going down well, either with the governor or within his own usually compliant City Council. Moody's, who according to the S-T "has already dropped Chicago’s bond rating by four notches in eight months — to just three levels above junk status," has called Rahm's bluff, telling the mayor that there are lots of Mike Klonsky's SmallTalk Blog: Rahm's boat springs more leaks: