4LAKids - some of the news that doesn't fit 7-3-14

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

From the tempestuous teapot: GALATZAN RAISES NEW CONCERNS ABOUT LAUSD UNIFIED BOND COMMITTEE + smf’s 0¢

by Vanessa Romo, LA School Report | http://bit.ly/1lXDyDT Posted on July 3, 2014 10:55 am  ::   For the second time in recent weeks, Tamar Galatzan has turned a critical eye toward LA Unified’s Bond Oversight Committee and the role it plays in monitoring district spending on bond-funded projects. At the board meeting on Tuesday, she objected to the BOC’s wholesale approval of a library

by smf / 32min 

CLASS SIZE: Myth vs. Fact

from the Class Size Counts/Yes on Initiative i-1351 Campaign (WA) | http://classsizecountswa.com/   Myth: Class-size reduction is an unproven reform FACT: Studies from Tennessee, Wisconsin and other states demonstrate that students assigned to smaller classes in K-3 do better in every measurable way. The Institute of Education Sciences, the research arm of the U.S. Department of Education,

by smf / 0min hide  //  save

Putting Class Size On The Ballot In Washington State

from the Politico Morning Education Read for 3July2104  | http://politi.co/1xm12WO PUTTING CLASS SIZE ON THE BALLOT: Educators in Washington state plan to submit more than 340,000 signatures today to qualify a class-size reduction initiative for the fall ballot. The measure would cut class sizes across all grades over the next several years. By 2019, early elementary classes would have no

by smf / 1min 

Finns Beat U.S. With Low Tech Take On School

By: Caitlin Emma – Politico | http://politi.co/1gz6zFe May 27, 2014 11:39 PM EDT  | HELSINKI  ::   At the start of morning assembly in the state-of-the-art Viikki School here, students’ smartphones disappear. In math class, the teacher shuts off the Smartboard and begins drafting perfect circles on a chalkboard. The students — some of the highest-achieving in the world — cut up graphing

by smf / 2min 

Common Core Test Anxiety

By: Stephanie Simon and Caitlin Emma | http://politi.co/VGtkxS July 2, 2014 08:59 PM EDT  :: A new front has opened in the Common Core wars — over testing contracts. The high-stakes battle is undermining one of the Obama administration’s most prized initiatives: its vision, backed by more than $370 million in federal funds, of testing students across the country on a common set of exams in

by smf / 0min 

4LAKids - some of the news that doesn't fit 6-30-14

4LAKids - some of the news that doesn't fit: A LETTER FROM A LOS ANGELES ENGLISH TEACHER TO HIS STUDENTS: “You have been failed.”from Dr. Mark Naison’s blog “With a Brooklyn Accent" | http://bit.ly/1nZhNS3 March 11, 2014 A letter to my students of Los Angeles Unified: You have been failed. You have been failed not by the school or your teachers (or their boogeyman union), but by people far re

by mike simpson / 2h 

7-3-14 @ The Chalk Face

@ THE CHALK FACE:

Some More *Clarity* on BESE’s “Special Counsel,” Contract Limitations, and PARCC

July 03, 2014, has been quite the day for uplifting information in the Roemer/White vs. Jindal battle over Louisiana public education. In this post, I elaborate on three topics: 1) Roemer’s, White’s, and the BESE majority’s attempts to “retain special counsel” in order to sue the governor; 2) further limits placed upon LDOE and BESE regarding contracts, […]

1 by deutsch29 / 7min 

Value-Added Scores Finally Explained by NM Education Department

This summer, an ongoing action by New Mexico teachers is to send in Inspection of Public Records requests (IPRAs, for short), asking the Public Education Department (PED) to send evidence that backs up teacher evaluation reports received this year, and the means used to calculate the scores.  We’ve waited.  We’ve waited some more.  Finally, some of those […]

by Kris Nielsen / 7min 

Attack on “Balanced Literacy” Is Attack on Professional Teachers, Research

Attack on “Balanced Literacy” Is Attack on Professional Teachers, Research. via Attack on “Balanced Literacy” Is Attack on Professional Teachers, Research.

by plthomasedd / 11min 

Said it before and we’ll say it again: #edreform is cheap @rocketshiped

Rocketship Education sputters. I guess they didn’t build that play too well as they flew it. An editorial from the WI Journal Sentinel pretty much sums it up. Rocketship relies on inexperienced teachers, almost one-third of whom quit last year. It saves money by having students as young as kindergarten spend one-quarter of their day […]

by Shaun Johnson / 17min hide  //  save

Can we exchange seats for something else?

It has started to rub me the wrong way when media outlets refer to increasing school enrollment as “seats.” From the NY Daily News: The city will offer 53,000 pre-K seats in the fall, up from about 20,000 this year. Many of the new seats will be in public schools, but the majority will be […]

1 by Shaun Johnson / 1h 

7-2-14 @ The Chalk Face

@ THE CHALK FACE: Fred Klonsky is correct about the #NEARA14Says the retired teacher on his website: Yesterday NEA Board of Director from Illinois, Jim Grimes, told us that the leadership would present two New Business Items (NBIs) to the delegates.   One addresses the issue of the use and misuse of standardized testing.   The other one will call on local and state affiliates […]by Shaun Johnson /

by mike simpson / 8h 

7-3-14 Curmudgucation

CURMUDGUCATION:

Who Would Replace Arne Duncan

This question turned up on twitter again yesterday, and it represents one more popular daydream-- the end of Arne Duncan's tenure as Secretary of Education.I understand the appeal. Duncan has become the poster boy for reformsters, the face of everything teachers hate about this administration's education policy. When the administration has something annoying or distressing to say about education,

16 by Peter Greene / 2h 

7-2-14 Curmudgucation

CURMUDGUCATION: PARCC Is in TroubleThis story has been emerging in bits and pieces and being reported on as parts of other stories, but it deserves to be mentioned many places, because it has the potential to wreak some serious havoc in this coming school year.Last year, Pearson won the contract to develop the PARCC test. This may have been because Pearson was the only bidder, and that may have be

by mike simpson / 8h 

7-3-14 Perdido Street School

Perdido Street School:

NYC Parents Union Files Suit Against City, State Officials Over Tenure/Seniority Rules

From the NY Times:An education advocacy group on Thursday threw down the first challenge to New York’s teacher tenure laws in the wake of a landmark court decision in California last month finding such laws there unconstitutional.A lawsuit filed in State Supreme Court on Staten Island argues that the tenure laws violate the State Constitution’s guarantee of a “sound basic education” by making it d

by reality-based edu... / 36min 

Common Core Proponents Get Nixonian In Their Retaliation Tactics

Jay Greene:The entire Common Core enterprise has been characterized by shocking political naivete and over-reach.  Despite investing a fortune in political operatives and holding weekly conference calls “directed by Stefanie Sanford, who was in charge of policy and advocacy at the Gates Foundation,” the folks pushing Common Core did not anticipate that the Unions would betray them and oppose the i

by reality-based edu... / 29min 

But Isn't The College/Career Readiness Metric All About Test Prep, Chancellor?

Eliza Shapiro at Capital NY got an interview with Carmen Farina in which the NYCDOE chancellor gives more details on her plans to improve the school system.Farina says she plans to focus on the 2nd, 7th and 10th grades as benchmarks for how children are progressing academically, socially and emotionally - how she plans to evaluate social and emotional development is beyond me, though I suspect it

by reality-based edu... / 10min hide  //  save

How Does Eva Moskowitz Not Make The Daily News' "50 Most Powerful Women In NYC" List?

The list is here.Why isn't Eva Moskowitz on it?Hillary Clinton, Kristen Gillibrand, and Chirlane McCray are on it. Carmen Farina is on it.Emma Wolfe, de Blasio's chief aide, is on it.Kathyrn Wilde is on it.I get those names.A bunch of women who run Fortune 500 companies are on the list.I get those.And then there are women listed that make you scratch your head. Reshma Saujani, perennial loser for

1 by reality-based edu... / 2h 

7-2-14 Perdido Street School

Perdido Street School: Michael Rebell On The Irony Of Campbell BrownFrom State of Politics:Michael Rebell, a veteran education advocate, expressed doubt during an interview on CapTon last night that an effort to duplicate the results of a California lawsuit that overturned teacher tenure laws in that state will be equally successful here in New York.... Rebell was co-counsel for the plaintiffs in

by mike simpson / 8h 

NYC Educator: Those Darn Kids in "Failing" Schools

NYC Educator: Those Darn Kids in "Failing" Schools:

Those Darn Kids in "Failing" Schools

Boys and Girls High School is in trouble. For one thing, it's only graduating 40% of those boys and
girls. This makes it look bad, and since there are no excuses for looking bad, there must be steps taken. The step favored by Mike Bloomberg would be to close the school and send all those boys and girls elsewhere.

This was a useful tool to Bloomberg, because once the boys and girls showed up in another building, he could then blame that building and close it too. In fact, he even closed some of the new schools he opened when they failed to produce results. Thus you have an endless stream of failing schools, you close them, open new ones, and nothing whatsoever is your fault. It's a thing of beauty.

Of course when you're closing and opening schools people notice it's not working. It's then necessary to expand the blame. Since nothing whatsoever can ever be your fault, you blame the teachers. Of course you've always blamed the teachers, but now you can take action. You attack their method of layoffs, saying you cannot get rid of the new teachers. They are all wonderful and all the experienced teachers suck. The only way to fairly dismiss teachers is to give you absolute power to fire anyone you like, arbitrarily and capriciously. The good thing about that is if you don't get what you want, you can now blame the law.

And that's what's happening in the Vergara case. Kids can't learn because their teachers suck. It's not that they failed to study. It's not that NYC Educator: Those Darn Kids in "Failing" Schools:

Senators Sherrod Brown (OH) and Jack Reed (RI) and OH Rep. Marcia Fudge Introduce Bill to Equalize School Resources | janresseger

Senators Sherrod Brown (OH) and Jack Reed (RI) and OH Rep. Marcia Fudge Introduce Bill to Equalize School Resources | janresseger:

Senators Sherrod Brown (OH) and Jack Reed (RI) and OH Rep. Marcia Fudge Introduce Bill to Equalize School Resources

Posted on July 3, 2014 by janresseger

As a citizen of Ohio’s 11th Congressional District, I am proud to congratulate and thank our Senator Sherrod Brown and my Congressional Representative Marcia Fudge for stepping out to provide leadership in the struggle to equalize educational opportunity.  For too long Congress has gone along with the conventional wisdom that has demanded accountability for educational outcomes—higher test scores—without demanding that states equalize provision of the resources necessary to support students and teachers in school districts where poverty is concentrated and schools lack adequate programs and support for children.

For too long it has merely been accepted that the public schools in the poorest neighborhoods of our big cities where poverty is highly concentrated must be shaped up not through the kind of investment the rest of us take for granted, but instead by punishing them and their teachers for failure.  The editorial board of the Rethinking Schools magazine has decried this sort of thinking by declaring that school “reform”based on ranking schools by high stakes tests disguises class and race-based privilege as merit.  Wealthy and homogeneous suburban school districts—able to fund themselves by taxing their own property wealth—thrive, while schools in big cities are closed and privatized at the same time they are being starved of funds by their state legislatures.

Ohio Senator Sherrod Brown has joined Rhode Island Senator Jack Reed to co-sponsor the Core Opportunity Resources for Equity and Excellence (CORE) Act in the Senate.  Ohio Representative Marcia Fudge has introduced companion legislation in the House.  Introduction of the CORE Act will require Congress to discuss and consider the necessity of closing opportunity gaps as a first step to closing test-score achievement gaps.  According to the press release describing the bill:  “The bill aims to tackle existing disparities in public education by establishing accountability requirements that compel states and school districts to give all Senators Sherrod Brown (OH) and Jack Reed (RI) and OH Rep. Marcia Fudge Introduce Bill to Equalize School Resources | janresseger:

Education Research Report: Increasing Parent Engagement

Education Research Report: Increasing Parent Engagement:

Increasing Parent Engagement

If we had a road map to what parental involvement in schools should be, what would it look like? Would it be a straight line, or a complicated maze of cross streets going in every direction?

University of Washington researchers studied The Road Map Project, a collaborative effort to dramatically improve student achievement in seven school districts in South Seattle and South King County. In their report after a yearlong study of the initiative, they found that students were most successful when schools and communities found creative and culturally responsive ways of engaging parents.

“The Road Map Project was very clear that parent-community engagement was one of the key mechanisms for achieving its 2020 goal, to double the number of young people who are on track to college and career and to close the opportunity gap,” said Ann Ishimaru, assistant professor in the UW College of Education and co-author of the report.

The UW is also one of many community partners of the project.

The idea of The Road Map Project is to go beyond traditional involvement such as parent-teacher conferences and associations and school open houses to offer parents more relevant ways to help their children succeed.

“We know from decades of research that it makes a difference when parents are involved in their child’s education,” Ishimaru said. “It helps not only students’ test scores, but also their behavior in school, attendance, the coursework they take. They are involved in higher-level programs and they’re more likely to graduate. Our study suggests promising ways to create more meaningful opportunities for family participation, especially in a region of such dramatic cultural and linguistic diversity.”

Districts in the project are Auburn, Federal Way, Highline, Kent, Renton, Seattle (only South Seattle schools) and Tukwila. Of the 119,000 students in that region, 66 percent are students of color, 58 percent come from low-income families and 167 different primary languages are spoken. Ishimaru and colleagues studied two of those districts – Federal Way and Kent – plus a community effort called White Center Promise Initiative.

Each Road Map Project entity is engaging parents in different ways. Federal Way uses family liaisons to help parents cultivate good relationships with school staff, and parents are given a “menu” of choices about how to be involved, from using specific tutorials at Education Research Report: Increasing Parent Engagement:

Russ on Reading: The Reading Wars Continue: Scientific Literacy vs. Balanced Literacy

Russ on Reading: The Reading Wars Continue: Scientific Literacy vs. Balanced Literacy:

The Reading Wars Continue: Scientific Literacy vs. Balanced Literacy

The reading wars are back with us again. Carmen Farina, the new schools chancellor in New York City, said recently that she wants to see more aspects of "balanced literacy" put back into instruction in the city's schools. You can see the New York Times report here. The city moved away from balanced literacy under former Mayor Bloomberg a few years ago citing concerns that the approach was too loosely organized. Balanced literacy did not fit into Bloomberg's or his schools chancellor Joel Klein's corporate model of schooling. Farina, who has actually taught and been the principal of a school believes that balance is best.

Chester Finn, President of the Thomas Fordham Institute, a conservative education think tank and huge booster of the Common Core, is horrified. InThe Balanced Literacy Hoax he says that balanced literacy is neither "balanced" nor "literacy." In fact he becomes a bit unbalanced in his critique. It is truly amusing to see Finn cite what he calls "semantic infiltration" in his criticism of the term balanced literacy. Semantic infiltration can be defined as using a term to mask its real intent (like the "Clear Skies Bill" from the Bush administration that actually would have allowed companies to increase polluting the air).

After condemning "balanced literacy as "semantic infiltration", Finn says that what we need in literacy instruction is "scientific reading instruction." Apparently Finn misses the irony of his replacing one example of semantic infiltration with another. "Scientific reading instruction" is at best quasi-Russ on Reading: The Reading Wars Continue: Scientific Literacy vs. Balanced Literacy:

Our Shameless Elders – redqueeninla

Our Shameless Elders – redqueeninla:



Our Shameless Elders

Written by redqueeninla in Education

What is it with babyboomers and their parents that they should express such shameless contempt for their youngers? The spectacle of protestors old enough to be my parents barring political respite for the destitute and desperate zero-somethings in Murrieta this week is enough to make me want to send up flares of apology to the whole world. Generating refugees can be understood to be an act of war, but one does not mete out punishment among its innocent civilians: take that up with the aggressors. These children and families are the innocent collateral damage. It is the fault of our entangled governments that bear responsibility — and blame — for this situation.

In the meantime, whatever happened to Matthew’s formulation of a BlessedMeek who were slated to inherit the earth?. Oughtn’t America’s Christian righteousness dictate benevolence? What manner of monster would treat children so?

It’s the same sort of savagery evident in our depauperized district school budgets across this entire fair land of ours, as it happens. The disdain is not reserved for foreigners of sepia’d skin. It is dispensed with equal vigor among those of domestic persuasion of any skin hue inhabiting a non-trending, non-”choice” school of the public district variety.

Simply put: In hoarding resources our Elders disavow younger generations. Today’s domestic public district school children face the same slathering denialthat the unfortunate youth trapped in today’s Murrieta-San Ysidro axis Our Shameless Elders – redqueeninla:

Marie Corfield: Robes of oppression: words & pictures on the Hobby Lobby decision

Marie Corfield: Robes of oppression: words & pictures on the Hobby Lobby decision:

Robes of oppression: words & pictures on the Hobby Lobby decision

Hiding behind robes of oppression

A picture is indeed worth a thousand words. I'm still reeling from the Supreme Court's Hobby Lobby decision Monday. I've tried to put words together to express my outrage over this continued assault on women's bodies and reproductive rights, but there are just too many racing through my head. 

As I always say, when all else fails, make art. So, here's my visual reaction. Please feel free to caption this as you see fit. Maybe you will help me find my voice in this mess.

Meantime, here's a report from the LA Times on the ripple effect that has already begun, and includes this quote from Eden Foods owner, Michael Potter, on the real reason he wanted to see this ruling: 

I don’t care if the federal government is telling me to buy my employees Jack Daniel’s or birth control. What gives them the right to tell me that I have to do that? That’s my issue, that’s what I object to, and that’s the beginning and end of the story.

Yea, Michael, it's really all about your religious freedom. Suffice to say I will no longer be purchasing any of your company's products. I do hope that if—God forbid (no punMarie Corfield: Robes of oppression: words & pictures on the Hobby Lobby decision: 

Schooling in the Ownership Society: Tri-Star charter hustlers banned in N.J., welcomed with open arms in Florida

Schooling in the Ownership Society: Tri-Star charter hustlers banned in N.J., welcomed with open arms in Florida:

Tri-Star charter hustlers banned in N.J., welcomed with open arms in Florida

Gallon, Kemp and Kelly in 2010 court hearing where they are banned from operating charters in N.J.

Former Plainfield superintendent and current charter school hustler Steve Gallon III's company, Tri-Star Leadership has been banned in the state of New Jersey. That in itself is no easy task to accomplish in the state where Gov. Christie has never met a corrupt charter operator he didn't adore. But not to worry for old Steve. Five months later, he and his company were welcomed with open arms in Florida where anyone with a pulse, no matter how corrupt or incompetent, can operate a chain of charter schools and receive millions in support from crony-corporatist Tea Party Gov. Rick Scott's regime.

In May 2010, Gallon was arrested and charged with hiring unqualified friends Angela Kemp and Lalelei Kelly and then lying about their residences so their children could attend schools outside their district. The charges brought against Gallon, Kemp and Kelly were dropped in January 2011 after the three agreed to serve probation and to never work in the New Jersey public school system again.

Just over a year after Gallon was hired to operate schools in South Florida, he rehired Kelly to work as a consultant and then hired Kemp to be the principal at Excel Leadership Academy in Palm Beach County.

Gallon then took up where he left off in N.J., making payroll decisions without Schooling in the Ownership Society: Tri-Star charter hustlers banned in N.J., welcomed with open arms in Florida: