6-23-14 Larry Ferlazzo’s Websites of the Day… | …For Teaching ELL, ESL, & EFL

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

Infographic: “Bloom’s Revised Taxonomy With Verbs”

Here’s a nice infographic I’m adding to The Best Resources For Helping Teachers Use Bloom’s Taxonomy In The Classroom. It comes from Mia MacMeekin, who creates lots of great infographics at An Ethical Island. And thanks to MindShift for the tip.

by Larry Ferlazzo / 3min 

Scary Video: Irish Public Service Video On Speeding Good For Language Development & Public Safety

Northern Ireland’s DOE Road Safety has released a public service video on safety that is so disturbing that it can’t be shown until after 9:00 PM at night there. I wouldn’t use it with younger English Language Learners, but showing it to older students and having them describe what they see could be useful on a number of levels:

by Larry Ferlazzo / 19min 

‘Teachers Know A Lot About Scaffolding’ For Complex Texts

‘Teachers Know A Lot About Scaffolding’ For Complex Texts is my latest post over at Education Week Teacher. It’s Part Two in a series on…scaffolding for complex texts. Part One featured responses from three educators: Wendi Pillars, Amy Benjamin, and Christopher Lehman. Today’s post includes three joint commentaries from Nancy Frey and Douglas Fisher; Tammy Mulligan and Clare Landrigan; and Aaron

by Larry Ferlazzo / 2min h

Washington Post Reprints My “Best & Worst” Ed News List

The Washington Post has just republished my The best and worst education news of 2014 — so far piece. Check it out if you missed it when I originally posted it on this blog.

by Larry Ferlazzo / 13min 

Monday’s New World Cup Resources

Here are new additions to The Best Sites For Learning About The 2014 World Cup In Brazil: The Curious History Of The World Cup Soccer Ball is a slideshow from Fast Company. 22 maps that explain the World Cup is from Vox. World Cup 2014 resources and activities is from TES Connect.

by Larry Ferlazzo / 0min hide  //  save

YESTERDAY

My Favorite Posts In 2014 — So Far

Every year I identify my personal favorite posts, and it’s time for my mid-year selection. You can see my choices for each of the past seven years here. Here are My Favorite Posts In 2014 — So Far: Here are some of my favorite “The Best…” lists from this year (by the way, the total lists I’ve published reached 1,300 this year): The Best Posts & Articles Highlighting Why We Need To Be Very Car

by Larry Ferlazzo / 7h 

Tips On Taking Good Photographs

Here are new additions to The Best Sites For Learning Beginning Photography Tips: How to Take Better Pictures with Your Smartphone’s Camera is from Lifehacker. How To Take The Perfect Photo is from Shutterfly (thanks to Richard Byrne for the tip).

by Larry Ferlazzo / 7h  

6-22-14 Larry Ferlazzo’s Websites of the Day… | …For Teaching ELL, ESL, & EFL

Larry Ferlazzo’s Websites of the Day… | …For Teaching ELL, ESL, & EFL: Five Useful Ed Tech Articles & PostsHere are some recent useful pieces on ed tech-related issues: From Apple II to Touchcast, the evolution of computers in the classroom is from The Washington Post. I’m adding it to The Best Sites For Learning About The History Of Technology. Via Tablet or Smartphone, Learning With MOOC

by mike simpson / 8h

6-23-14 Jersey Jazzman Jammin' All Week

Jersey Jazzman:

Why Do We Need Tenure? Ask Belleville's Teachers

In the wake of the truly awful Vergara decision, there have been plenty of reformy types crowing that we just don't need teacher tenure any more. "There are plenty of protections for teachers against vindictive administrators and school boards!" they claim. "Tenure just isn't necessary!"These people need to take a trip up the Garden State Parkway and visit Belleville, NJ -- hom

by Duke / 19min 

Who Gets the Shaft When Schools Are Underfunded? Ask Paterson's Teachers

Paterson is one of the most impoverished cities in New Jersey. In my last post for NJ Spotlight, I gave some detail about how so many of city's children suffer under crushing poverty:According to U.S. Census Bureau data for 2012, nearly 40 percent of Paterson’s children live in poverty. Unemployment is about 15 percent, nearly double the statewide average. Paterson also has the eighth-highest viol

11 by Duke / 2h  

6-22-14 Jersey Jazzman Jammin' All Week

Jersey Jazzman: Charter School Reality: Hoboken, NJ EditionLet's return, once again, to the Northeast's home of charter school segregation denial: Hoboken, NJ.As I've stated before, the local charter school cheerleaders may try to deny the obvious, but the evidence is quite clear: the three charter schools in Hoboken do not serve nearly as many students in economic disadvantage as the public schoo

by mike simpson / 7h 

6-23-14 @ THE CHALK FACE

@ THE CHALK FACE:

The United Way Now Promotes the Common Core

United Way Worldwide offers the following as its mission statement: United Way envisions a world where all individuals and families achieve their human potential through education, income stability and healthy lives. Our mission: To improve lives by mobilizing the caring power of communities around the world to advance the common good. The goal of the United […]

1 by deutsch29 / 28min 

Education Reform as the New Misogyny: A Reader

Education Reform as the New Misogyny: A Reader. via Education Reform as the New Misogyny: A Reader.

by plthomasedd / 32min 

All Week 6-22-14 @ THE CHALK FACE

@ THE CHALK FACE: Sgt. Bowe BergdahlOriginally posted on Bill Ayers:My brother Rick was one of the heroes of the American war against Viet Nam—he helped to organize and articulate war resistance in his unit, refused to kill people or to be killed in pursuit of the rulers’ imperial dreams, and deserted the US Army, spending the next decade on…by Michael Paul Gold... / 16min  All Week 6-21-14 @ THE

by mike simpson / 9h 

6-23-14 the becoming radical | A Place for a Pedagogy of Kindness (the public and scholarly writing by P. L. Thomas, Furman University)

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

Education Reform as the New Misogyny: A Reader

While watching The Wolverine (2013) starring Hugh Jackman, I noticed that along with Wolverine’s adamantium claws, Jackman’s nipples were featured prominently, leading me to search for the film’s promotional poster. And my suspicions were confirmed: The Wolverine (2013) Apparently Eva Green’s thinly-veiled nipples are not only more dangerous than the gun she is holding in the new Sin City sequel, 

by plthomasedd / 37min hide  //  save

Interview At the Chalk Face: Critical Free Press

You can listen to my interview from Sunday 22 June 2014 At the Chalk Face. The topic is the need for a critical free press, specifically in education reform. See my two posts: U.S. and Education Reform Need a Critical Free Press My Open Letter to Journalists: A Critical Free Press, pt. 2 

1 by plthomasedd / 3h 

6-22-14 the becoming radical | A Place for a Pedagogy of Kindness (the public and scholarly writing by P. L. Thomas, Furman University)

the becoming radical | A Place for a Pedagogy of Kindness (the public and scholarly writing by P. L. Thomas, Furman University): Debating the Gates Moratorium, Or Life among the RoadbuildersAs a lifelong fan of science fiction (SF), I want to start by invoking a SF convention that never gets old: time travel (but I’ll spare you the whirlwind prestidigitation mastered by Kurt Vonnegut, who married

by mike simpson / 9h 

6-23-14 Curmudgucation

CURMUDGUCATION:

Feds Bail Out College

Yup. According to a Monday, June 23 press release from the USDOE, the DOE has signed an agreement with Corinthian Colleges, Inc, to keep the large for-profit college chain open long enough to finish the year.Corinthian has a somewhat checkered past. Okay, checkered might be generous. They have grown prodigiously since being founded in 1995, acquiring around twenty other post-secondary institutions

3 by Peter Greene / 52min 

Learning Made Visible

"Thank you for putting into words what I felt, but couldn't say."I've been writing for a long time, though it took the current education situation to make me really prolific (311 posts so far in 2014). But if I had a nickle for every time I've heard the above sentiment, I'd be writing on really fancy, expensive equipment. If I have any writing gifts, one of them seems to be finding a way

8 by Peter Greene / 49min 

Behaving As Expected

"You just didn't react the way you were supposed to."This is another thread that runs through support of the CCSS complex. There's nothing wrong with the policy or program; people just didn't react the way they were supposed to.For instance, Anne Hyslop over at Real Clear Education, called concern over test-and-punish a "state of mind, not state of reality." Policy is not respo

6 by Peter Greene / 1h

6-22-14 Curmudgucation

CURMUDGUCATION: Whole Brain TeachingI had put this out of my whole brain until Diane Ravitch posted a clip this morning from Nashville Prep. Here's the clip:This looks to be an application of Whole Brain Teaching, sometimes called Power Teaching, a techniques that seems to be the brain child of Chris Biffle Biffle is no slacker; he's published an assortment of books with legit publishers, and his

by mike simpson / 8h 

6-23-14 Perdido Street School

Perdido Street School:

No Wonder The Parcc Consortium Has Lost So Many States

A comment left at the Worcester Telegram and Gazette:Why it may not be a great idea to take PARCC this year: 41% of students who took the pilot reported it was hard to type their answers. 46% of students reported technology problems when taking the math test teachers reported that 72% of students needed more time than the test recommended (suggesting a gross misjudgment of the time requirement)

by reality-based edu... / 26min 

The Problem With Education Reform Centers On The Education Reformers Themselves

An editorial in The Worcester Telegram and Gazette:We're all for quality and high standards in public education. But the taxpayers of Massachusetts should be asking some hard questions about the cost of and need for revamping the state's standardized testing system. For the coming year, at least, school districts will be permitted to choose between the familiar Massachusetts Comprehensive Assessme

by reality-based edu... / 3min 

How Crooked Are Andrew Cuomo And Sandra Lee?

From Fred Dicker at the NY Post:State Republicans want to know if Gov. Cuomo’s live-in girlfriend, “Semi-Homemade’’ celebrity chef Sandra Lee, is subsidizing his living expenses with income from companies doing business with the state, a possible “gifts law’’ violation, The Post has learned. Republicans — who recently accused Lee, owner of the $1.2 million, six-bedroom, Westchester home where the

by reality-based edu... / 5min

NYCDOE Should Expand Composting Program To Include Common Core/EngageNY Modules

From the Times:New York City’s school composting program, kicked off just two years ago by parents on the Upper West Side, is now in 230 school buildings in Manhattan, Brooklyn and Staten Island, and is expected to more than double in size and reach all five boroughs in the fall, with an ultimate goal of encompassing all 1,300-plus school buildings. Depending on where the school is, the uneaten an

2 by reality-based edu... / 2h  

6-22-14 Perdido Street School

Perdido Street School: Regents GradingBleary-eyed teachers in different places around the city are grading Regents exams this weekend - including this bleary-eyed teacher at Perdido Street School.That so much is riding for students, teachers and schools on a grading process that has exhausted teachers working through the day, then grading at night and on weekends, really ought to trouble any fair

by mike simpson / 9h 

Our Own Effort Is The Common Thread In Democracy – redqueeninla

Our Own Effort Is The Common Thread In Democracy – redqueeninla:





 Our Own Effort Is The Common Thread In Democracy

Written by redqueeninla in COLA, Education, Local neighborhoods

I think some of those who moan loudest about the dissolution of the social fabric are themselves most complicit in its flimsiness.

At a recent neighborhood potluck frequented by a lot of white-haired, old-time southern Californians there was an awful lot of grousing about the state of families and children today, the lack of discipline among the children or from the parents toward them. The absence of discipline permissible in classrooms and the coddling of students, whether in acquiescing to parents or refraining from applying adequate expectations and rrrrigor.

What on earth does all this mean??? This is the generation that ushered in proposition 13 which starved the public commons and any services associated with it: police, parks, streets, schools. We are to be an ever-urbanized society with increasingly less to spend generally on our over-stuffed cities. Money for private expenditures is un-censured and private sequestration of all of it is fetishized.

These hundreds turnout for a potluck common klatsch whereas those who turnout to elect they who convened the event are fewer than this in number. Free food is fair game but free elections are expendable. Swapping food in kind is worthwhile but sharing one’s labor, or purse, in service of a common good is an entirely different matter.

Whatever has happened since the social upheaval of the 60′s and 70′s culminating in the proposition 13 lockdown of public monies? While some point to chaos in the classrooms as auguring poorly for the future, I wonder whether political isolationism is not more iconic of the disenfranchised we see Our Own Effort Is The Common Thread In Democracy – redqueeninla:

I graded the AP World History exam and all I got was this lousy racist t-shirt

I graded the AP World History exam and all I got was this lousy racist t-shirt:

I GRADED THE AP WORLD HISTORY EXAM AND ALL I GOT WAS THIS LOUSY RACIST T-SHIRT

"Rampant cultural appropriation, cultural insensitivity, and straight up racism" at annual exam reading



Every year, the Education Testing Service (ETS) -- yes, the folks behind the SAT -- invites over a thousand high school and college educators to Salt Lake City to read and score essays from the AP World History exam. Somebody's gotta do it, right? But I've heard from several attendees who say this year's gathering was marred by "rampant cultural appropriation, cultural insensitivity, and straight up racism."

One of this year's essay questions asked students to discuss Chinese Communism. This apparently became an excuse for organizers to run wild with a week filled with all sorts of culturally insensitive jokes and anti-Asian imagery, from inappropriate comments by the Chief Reader to a t-shirt emblazoned with racist caricatures.

Dean Ferguson of Texas A&M-Kingsville, who supervised the entire reading, reportedly made jokes about the Tiananmen Square Massacre "Tank Man" ("You don't want to be that guy.") while wearing a Red Guard cap of the Cultural Revolution. He was reportedly one of many people wearing such a cap that week.

To top it all off, each year, the leadership produces souvenir t-shirt to commemorate the reading. It's available for purchase to participants, and the design usually reflects the subject matter of one of the essay questions. You can probably guess how that turned out for this year's reading. Here are the designs for this year's shirt.

Front:



Back:



These shirts were apparently printed up despite complaints from several Asian American participants that the designs were offensive. Nothing like racial and cultural mockery and some good ol' orientalist I graded the AP World History exam and all I got was this lousy racist t-shirt:

(Thanks, Jennifer.)

Refusing to Educate Other People’s Children: Woes Continue in Philadelphia | janresseger

Refusing to Educate Other People’s Children: Woes Continue in Philadelphia | janresseger:

Refusing to Educate Other People’s Children: Woes Continue in Philadelphia

Posted on June 23, 2014 by janresseger

What does it mean when, in June, the leaders of a school district that serves over 131,000 students are working with city and state governments to locate enough money to open school in August?  In the United States—where provision of K-12 education has for nearly two centuries been provided publicly, where it has been believed essential for the formation of an informed democracy, where all have taken for granted the provision of schooling that is free and universally available—what does Pennsylvania’s seeming incapacity to provide adequately staffed schools for Philadelphia’s children mean?

On June 18, the  Associated Press reported that school superintendent William Hite remained alarmed about a gaping hole in next year’s school budget.  Still needed was “at least an additional $96 million to offer students even a ‘wholly inadequate’ education next year.”

Pennsylvania lacks a working formula to distribute funds to local school districts.  At the same time the School District of Philadelphia has been under state control since 2001, with a state-appointed School Reform Commission making decisions in place of an elected local school board. According to Education Voters of Pennsylvania, under the current system, “City Council is the body that approves local taxes going to the District as well as the transfer of funds from the City budget.”  But all of these bodies in charge of the schools say they are unable to come up with the money to educate Philadelphia’s children.  Philadelphia is today’s poster child for the destruction of a public school system—primarily by a state government unwilling to carry out one of its primary responsibilities.

At the end of May, Valerie Strauss covered the situation in the Washington Post: “One surefire way to wreck a public school system. There are plenty of ways, but right now let’s just focus on one district, the state-run Philadelphia School District, which has been starved for funding by the administration of Republican Gov. Tom Corbett and has been a guinea pig for corporate school reform, with widespread school closures and rapid charter expansion in the past decade.”  As Strauss reported, in late May the state-created School Reform Commission itself staged a protest by refusing to pass the doomsday budget presented by William Hite, the school superintendent.  Hite—explaining that the proposed budget would elevate class size to 41, cut special education, and lay off 800 teachers in addition to the mass of teachers laid off a year 

Hespe offers Cami a contract: Has Baraka been “played” already? | Bob Braun's Ledger

Hespe offers Cami a contract: Has Baraka been “played” already? | Bob Braun's Ledger:

Hespe offers Cami a contract: Has Baraka been “played” already?

Cami Anderson–will she sign?

Ras Baraka–has he been played?

                Cami Anderson, the controversial state-imposed superintendent of Newark schools, has been offered a new one-year-contract, that, despite restrictions on her freedom to act, will allow her to continue imposing the “One Newark” plan that has become a severely divisive issue among residents of the state’s largest city.

                Several sources close to the Newark Public Schools administration and state Education Commissioner David Hespe say they believe she will accept the contract and stay for at least another year. The contract, the sources say, is renewable for another two years.

                The offer of the contract—which had been predicted by Anderson herself two weeks ago—is a direct slap at newly-elected Newark Mayor Ras Baraka who continues to demand her resignation. His successful campaign against Shavar Jeffries–an Anderson supporter–was a referendum on her and her plan to close the city’s neighborhood schools and replace them with charters and other privatized schools. Just last week, he predicted Anderson would leave because he believed “cooler heads will prevail.”

                His reference was to an expectation that Hespe would persuade her to leave. But, apparently, quite the opposite has happened—Hespe is now trying to persuade Newark leaders, including Baraka, to open a “dialogue” with Anderson to resolve the problems her plan has caused.

                “Hespe is shopping around the idea that community leaders should sit with her to open up a dialogue,” said one Newark schools leadership source who asked not to be identified. “He has reached out to a number of community leaders, butHespe offers Cami a contract: Has Baraka been “played” already? | Bob Braun's Ledger: