7-24-14 Larry Ferlazzo’s Websites of the Day… | …For Teaching ELL, ESL, & EFL

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

Videos: MacGyver & Transfer Of Learning

© 2007 Charles Williams, Flickr | CC-BY | via Wylio Here are some great MacGyver videos where he demonstrates transfer of learning — he has to remember what he learned in the past and apply that knowledge to entirely new situations in order to save his life. I’m adding these videos to The Best Movie Scenes, Stories, & Quotations About “Transfer Of Learning”:

by Larry Ferlazzo / 7min

Videos: The Karate Kid & Transfer Of Learning

As regular readers know, I’ve been trying to find movie scenes demonstrating transfer of learning (see The Best Movie Scenes, Stories, & Quotations About “Transfer Of Learning” – Help Me Find More!). I happened upon a comment in a paper about transfer saying the Karate Kid was a good example, and they sure were right. Pat Morita having the kid do a variety of tasks like waxing a car and paint

by Larry Ferlazzo / 21min 

Three Good Resources On Metacognition

© 2010 Jon Skilling, Flickr | CC-BY | via Wylio Here are three new additions to The Best Posts On Metacognition: Metacognition is from The Center For Teaching. Promoting Student Metacognition is a very nice chart of questions students can ask themselves. 50 Questions To Help Students Think About What They Think is from Teach Thought.

by Larry Ferlazzo / 33min 

Now Yelp Creates THEIR Own Version Of Google’s Ngram Viewer

Wow, the same day The New York Times announces their own version of Google’s Ngram Viewer (see NY Times Creates Their Own Version Of Google’s Ngram Viewer), the online review site Yelp unveils their own. It’s called Yelp Trends and you can compare how often different words are used in reviews at cities around the world. It’s very easy to use and no registration is required. You can see two example

by Larry Ferlazzo / 52min 

More Online Learning Simulations

© 2011 Army Medicine, Flickr | CC-BY | via Wylio Thanks to a tweet from Amanda Ballard, I realized that I had forgotten to include a number of economics-related links on The Best Online Learning Simulation Games & Interactives list yesterday. So here are some that I’ve previously posted on other “Best” lists that I’m now adding to that one: It All Adds Up has some useful economics interactives

by Larry Ferlazzo / 15min 

NY Times Creates Their Own Version Of Google’s Ngram Viewer

Thanks to the extraordinary Katherine Schulten, today I learned that the New York Times has created the Chronicle. It’s their version of the Google Books Ngram Viewer, which charts word use over the years in the books they’ve indexed (see The Best Posts To Help Understand Google’s New “Books Ngram Viewer”). The Times, though, indexes word usage in its own history. The image at the top of this po

by Larry Ferlazzo / 49min 

This Week’s “Round-Up” Of Useful Posts & Articles On Education Policy

© 2012 Shutter Stutter, Flickr | CC-BY | via Wylio Here are some recent useful posts on educational policy issues: The Teacher Dropout Crisis is from NPR. I’m adding it to The Best Posts & Articles About The Importance Of Teacher (& Student) Working Conditions. I’m adding this infographic to the same list: The Dropouts No One’s Talking About: Teachers is from Ed Week, and I’m adding it t

by Larry Ferlazzo / 4h hide  //  save

NBC’s “30 Seconds To Know” Seems Like A Good “Explainer” Series

NBC News produces an ongoing series of 30 Seconds To Know videos about current events and issues. They’re videos that last…thirty seconds, with an expert who explains a topic. However, it’s not just a talking head — it includes action shots and graphics, and the narrator doesn’t speak too fast. I’m going to add it to The Best Online “Explainer” Tools For Current Events. Here’s an example of one:

by Larry Ferlazzo / 7h 

7-23-14 Larry Ferlazzo’s Websites of the Day… | …For Teaching ELL, ESL, & EFL

Larry Ferlazzo’s Websites of the Day… | …For Teaching ELL, ESL, & EFL: Two Excellent World War One Resources From The GuardianThe British newspaper The Guardian has recently produced two excellent resources about World Ward One that I’m adding to The Best Resources For Learning About World War I: A global guide to the first world war – interactive documentary is an impressive multilingual…inte

by mike simpson / 7h 

7-24-14 the becoming radical | A Place for a Pedagogy of Kindness

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

Evidence Must Trump Idealism: A Reader

Many of us are compelled by idealism, and I certainly entered education as a career over 30 years ago because of my faith in the power of learning (specifically literacy), especially as it has enriched my own life. But evidence must trump idealism, or we are destined to remain trapped in the corrosive patterns of inequity that keep us from achieving the American Dream. As disheartening as the fact

by plthomasedd / 3min 

What ‘No New Federal Spending’ Really Means | Alternet

What ‘No New Federal Spending’ Really Means | Alternet

1 by plthomasedd / 1h hide  //  save

The Charter Sham Formula: Billionaires + Flawed “Reports” + Press Release Media = Misled Public

Late in 2013, I shared my own experience with the disaster capitalism tactics employed by the Walton-funded Department of Education Reform (University of Arkansas), asking: For the Record: Should We Trust Advocates of “No Excuses”? I detailed reasons why the answer is clearly “No”: the funding determines the claims in the so-called reports (see Pulling a Greene: Why Advocacy and Market Forces Fail

7 by plthomasedd / 1h  

7-23-14 the becoming radical | A Place for a Pedagogy of Kindness

the becoming radical | A Place for a Pedagogy of Kindness (the public and scholarly writing by P. L. Thomas, Furman University): The Real “Low Expectations” ProblemI have asked this about the U.S. Secretary of Education: Why Is Arne Duncan Still Pushing the Dangerous Myth of Low Expectations? And a large part of the answer may be because the uncritical mainstream media not only buy that message, b

by mike simpson / 8h

7-24-14 Curmudgucation

CURMUDGUCATION:

Racing to the Bottom: The New School Leadership Challenge

As the assault on public education continues, school leaders face an unprecedented challenge-- how to win the race to the bottom without being too obvious about it.Occasionally, somebody notices that a district is becoming too successful in trashing its own mission. Just this week in Indianapolis, members of the school board noticed that about 200 teachers-- almost 10% of the entire teaching staff

12 by Peter Greene / 2h hide  //  save

Mean What You Say

One of the surreal features of the reformster world is the degree to which words simply don't match actions. It's as if someone sold you a can of pop clearly labeled "cola" and when you opened it up, it was filled with furniture polish.Suppose somebody said, "This is the most important new program we've ever rolled out. It will revolutionize the industry."Imagine what would com

47 by Peter Greene / 3h 

Racing to the Bottom: The New School Leadership Challenge

As the assault on public education continues, school leaders face an unprecedented challenge-- how to win the race to the bottom without being too obvious about it.Occasionally, somebody notices that a district is becoming too successful in trashing its own mission. Just this week in Indianapolis, members of the school board noticed that about 200 teachers-- almost 10% of the entire teaching staff

12 by Peter Greene / 2h hide  //  save

Mean What You Say

One of the surreal features of the reformster world is the degree to which words simply don't match actions. It's as if someone sold you a can of pop clearly labeled "cola" and when you opened it up, it was filled with furniture polish.Suppose somebody said, "This is the most important new program we've ever rolled out. It will revolutionize the industry."Imagine what would com

47 by Peter Greene / 3h 

7-23-14 Curmudgucation

CURMUDGUCATION: My Doctoral ThesisI've been following the problems of Dr. Terrence Carter in Connecticut with some interest. It seems that the Dr., "hand picked by Arne Duncan" might not have an actual PhD. Not even a super-easy PhD, but a PhD he just bought. Faked the whole thing. And he's not remotely alone in this.How can somebody do that, I wondered. Seriously, how do you do that?Tur

by mike simpson / 8h 

7-24-14 Perdido Street School Week

Perdido Street School:

Cuomo Remains In Hiding After NY Times Moreland Story

Governor Cuomo was supposed to appear at a fundraiser last night:Cuomo slated to appear at Bronx County Dems dinner tonight, a public event. Info here: pic.twitter.com/Qxr3DnRFDG— Blake Zeff (@blakezeff) July 23, 2014But after the NY Times ran their Moreland tampering story, this happened: .@NYGovCuomo cancels only public appearance of day. #inhiding— Bill O'Reilly (@wfbor) July 23, 2014State of P

by reality-based edu... / 8min

Bharara Reiterates He's Taking Moreland Investigations Wherever The Evidence Leads

This sounds like a reply from US Attorney Preet Bharara to Governor Cuomo's thinly-veiled message to Bharara that was in the Times yesterday, the 13 page "response" to the Times story about Cuomo's Moreland tampering in which Cuomo restated that he couldn't tamper with what was already his:ALBANY -- U.S. Attorney Preet Bharara vowed that he has the “fearlessness and independence” needed

by reality-based edu... / 53min

Did Cuomo Break The Law By Tampering With The Moreland Commission?

The answer is, maybe:Cuomo's camp contends his office had the right to guide the panel under the language of the 1907 Moreland Act, which allows the governor to investigate any executive branch agency or related entity. While past governors have used the statute to examine the inner workings of government and specific industries, it does not give the governor power to directly investigate the Legi

by reality-based edu... / 1h

7-23-14 Perdido Street School Week

Perdido Street School: Cuomo And His Aides Under Federal Investigation For Moreland Commission MeddlingThat's one of the takeaways from this NY Times extraordinary epose on Cuomo's Moreland Commission meddling that appeared today:The commission developed a list of promising targets, including a lawmaker suspected of using campaign funds to support a girlfriend in another state and pay tanning-salo

by mike simpson / 8h 

Shanker Blog » Not All Discipline Disparities May Be The Result Of Implicit Bias

Shanker Blog » Not All Discipline Disparities May Be The Result Of Implicit Bias:

Not All Discipline Disparities May Be The Result Of Implicit Bias

Posted by Esther Quintero on July 24, 2014

Over the past few months, we have heard a lot about discipline disparities by race/ethnicity and gender — disparities that begin in the earliest years of schooling. According to the Civil Rights Data Collection Project by the U.S. Department of Education’s Office for Civil Rights, “black students represent 18% of preschool enrollment, but 42% of preschool students suspended once and 48% of students suspended more than once.” It also found that “boys receive more than three out of four out-of-school preschool suspensions.”

This focus on student discipline disparities has also drawn attention to the research on implicit bias — the idea that we all harbor unconscious attitudes that tend to favor individuals from some groups (whites, males, those judged to be good looking, etc.), and that disadvantage people from other groups (people of color, women, ethnic minorities, etc.). The concept of implicit bias suggests that good or bad behavior is often in the eye of the beholder, and disparities in disciplinary outcomes (e.g., suspensions and expulsions) may be influenced by unconscious stereotypes.

Part of me is very glad that we are finally having this conversation. Acknowledging the existence and consequences of subtle, implicit forms of prejudice is an important and necessary first step toward mitigating their effects and advancing toward fairness — see my implicit bias series here. But it sometimes seems that the discipline and the implicit bias conversations are one and the same, and this concerns me for two reasons.

First, implicit attitudes of teachers and administrators are likely to affect school-related areas other than discipline. A case can be made for the contribution of implicit bias to many types of decisions about students, aside from the obvious, such as decisions about grading, tracking, evaluations and disciplinary actions. Indeed, all kinds of student behaviors have the potential of being misinterpreted due to biases and stereotypes. For example, a student who keeps to herself in the classroom could be perceived as shy or reserved, but also as sullen, uninterested or disengaged. This is often a subjective call and most likely mediated by the student’s race, ethnicity and gender (among other factors, including context).

Limiting our understanding and application of implicit bias to discipline-related actions and outcomes won’t be Shanker Blog » Not All Discipline Disparities May Be The Result Of Implicit Bias:

Race to the Top, Wasn't :: Frederick M. Hess

Race to the Top, Wasn't :: Frederick M. Hess:

Race to the Top, Wasn't

by Frederick M. Hess  •  Jul 24, 2014 at 8:34 am
Cross-posted from Education Week

We've just marked the fifth anniversary of Race to the Top, the Obama administration's signature education initiative. When launched, the $4.35 billion competition drew bipartisan cheers and was lauded as an example of getting school reform right. Five years on, I see it more as a monument to paper promises, bureaucratic ineptitude, and federal overreach.

The U.S. Department of Education launched Race to the Top in 2009, with funds from that year's big stimulus bill. The legislation called for states to develop plans to improve data systems, adopt "career-and-college ready" standards and tests, hire great teachers and principals, and turn around low-performing schools.

At that point, the Obama administration could have told the states, "Put forward your best ideas, and we'll fund the most promising ones." An approach like that would have taken federalism seriously, funded states that were committed to their proposals, and followed the path the Reagan and Clinton administrations adopted so effectively when it came to welfare reform.

Instead, the administration dreamed up 19 "priorities" that states would be required to address. Most of the priorities were actually a pedantic list of familiar talking points, including professional development, standards, ensuring an "equitable distribution" of good teachers, and so on. Perhaps most tellingly, the administration let states know they'd ace three of the 19 priorities if they promised to adopt the brand-new Common Core and its federally-funded tests.

In practice, Race to the Top was driven by its bureaucratic application process. Applicants produced hundreds of jargon-laden pages in an attempt to convince the Department-selected reviewers that they would do what the administration asked. As one reviewer described it to me, "We knew the states were lying. The trick was figuring out who was lying the least."

Racing to meet the program deadlines and hungry for federal funds, states put forward slapped-together proposals stuffed with empty promises. States promised to adopt "scalable and sustained strategies for turning around clusters of low-performing schools" and "clear, content-rich, sequenced, spiraled, detailed curricular frameworks." Applications included bizarre appendices replete with missing pages, duplicateRace to the Top, Wasn't :: Frederick M. Hess:
 

Guidance shows light at end of teachers’ bleak tunnel :: SI&A Cabinet Report :: The Essential Resource for Superintendents and the Cabinet

Guidance shows light at end of teachers’ bleak tunnel :: SI&A Cabinet Report :: The Essential Resource for Superintendents and the Cabinet:

Guidance shows light at end of teachers’ bleak tunnel

by Alisha Kirby

(District of Columbia) Much of the disproportionally high rate of teacher turnover in hard-to-staff schools serving high-poverty students can be attributed to a lack of quality induction programs for beginning teachers, according to guidance released earlier this month.

Roughly half a million U.S. teachers either move or leave the profession each year – attrition that costs the United States up to $2.2 billion annually – with 40 to 50 percent of new teachers leaving the profession after five years, according to research cited in On the Path to Equity: Improving the Effectiveness of Beginning Teachers.

The findings come as researchers working separately reported that career teachers around the country are struggling with low wages, sometimes even qualifying for state and federal assistance programs. That report,  Mid- and Late Career Teachers Struggle With Paltry Incomes, from the Center for American Progress,  points out that a major difference between the U.S. education system and those in other nations with higher-performing students is lower pay for educators here.

Combined, the two studies offer new insight into problems within the education system that have either been overlooked or ignored.

“Students are not the only ones whose ability to learn suffers in low-performing schools,” says Mariana Haynes, author of On the Path to Equity, issued by the Alliance for Excellent Education, a national policy and advocacy organization focused on underserved students. “Too often, teachers in schools serving students from high-need environments lack access to excellent peers and mentors and have fewer opportunities for collaboration and feedback.”

Collaboration and mentoring are but a couple of tools used for induction –the support and guidance provided to new teachers in the early stages of their careers.

Meanwhile, the Center for American Progress report provided some stunning examples of poor teacher pay in some places.

In Oklahoma, teachers with 15 years of experience and a master’s degree make less than sheet metal workers. In Colorado, teachers with a graduate degree and 10 years of experience make less than a trucker in the state. And teachers in Georgia with 10 years of experience and a graduate Guidance shows light at end of teachers’ bleak tunnel :: SI&A Cabinet Report :: The Essential Resource for Superintendents and the Cabinet:

The Difference Between Johnson and McKenna – redqueeninla

The Difference Between Johnson and McKenna – redqueeninla:



The Difference Between Johnson and McKenna

Written by redqueeninla in Education

Did you know there’s an election in three weeks?

If you do not live in LAUSD’s first district, you might be excused from awareness of it, though not if you drive anywhere within that district. You’d have to be blind (inadvisable if driving) to have overlooked the gigantic – and unethical, according to the COLA elections commission – political propaganda polluting public property in proclaiming the primacy of their favorite son, hand-ordained staff-member of Mark Ridley-Thomas, Alex Johnson.

Ginormous and ubiquitous, these signs represent the might of the political machinery backing Mr Johnson, rather than, say, the size of his public support or job qualifications.

At the age of 33, Mr Johnson has accrued basically zero track record in issues educational, either politically or pedagogically or theoretically or practically. He does, however, nicely reflect his bosses’ readiness to assert opinions educational a propos of no experience or background in the matter at all, asthis account of County Supervisor Ridley-Thomas, his aide Alex Johnson and chief-of staff, attests. All three politicos cheerfully admit to having never read the thoughtfully crafted 29-page opinion regarding a Culver City charter school – before rejecting outright the school board’s denial of this petition.   Without permitting the deliberations of local elected political leaders or education experts to derail their well-buttressed pre-conceived convictions, nary a whiff of public education advocacy was permitted sway. These three officials asserted their right to an unreflective, uninformed support for the rejected petition because of “a philosophical difference [with the Culver City Unified School District board president] about charter schools”.

Just so, this episode accurately encapsulates the arcane board race in LAUSD1 too. It’s about charter schools.

This is a race that has been recapitulated with its underlying distinction over The Difference Between Johnson and McKenna – redqueeninla:

Parsing the Common Core Reform Spin | Missouri Education Watchdog

Parsing the Common Core Reform Spin | Missouri Education Watchdog:

Parsing the Common Core Reform Spin

inShare

Parse the language of the PR spin and you will see the CCSSI and reformers have no clothes. They make assumptions that need to be challenged.  Like CCSS word problems they make no sense.

The Common Core proponents in their PR campaigns have been very clever.  They use language and questions based on presuppositions.  The assumption is that private non-governmental organizations have the authority to set standards and mandates for public schools with no public accountability.  If you don’t challenge that primary assumption of the elites herding the masses, you can find yourself responding to pro CCSS arguments such as:

• Show me a standard you don’t like
• Don’t you want higher standards?
• We need to produce globally competitive students
• You aren’t an expert so your opinion is not valid
• We need to do something

Cut through the noise and don’t waste your energy on these circular arguments.  All of them are based on the power they elites believe they are entitled to have.  Remember, they are making the assumption that private non-governmental organizations have the authority to set standards and mandates for public schools with no public accountability.  It’s a technique that is insulting to those who are compelled to pay for the system and provide their children who are part of this untested initiative.  It’s the circumvention of the political process and allows private companies to use federal money for their plans with no accountability.

When you come across these pro reformer arguments in print or school board meetings, challengeParsing the Common Core Reform Spin | Missouri Education Watchdog: 

Feds Investigating Civil Rights Implications of School Closures in Newark | janresseger

Feds Investigating Civil Rights Implications of School Closures in Newark | janresseger:

Feds Investigating Civil Rights Implications of School Closures in Newark

Posted on July 24, 2014 by janresseger

If you are middle class or rich, you are not likely to discover that anybody is planning to punish your child’s school by closing it.  School “reform” via “turnaround” happens in school districts like Chicago, Detroit, Philadelphia, Cleveland, and Newark, but it doesn’t happen in Winnetka, Grosse Pointe, Bryn Mawr, Chagrin Falls, or Montclair.

That is because the test-and-punish mechanisms of our federal testing law No Child Left Behind and newer policies designed around its philosophy—School Improvement Grants, for example—impose sanctions (like closing the school, turning the school into a charter school, or replacing the principal and the staff) on schools where the students persistently score in the bottom 5 percent of public schools nationwide.  Such schools are virtually always in the neighborhoods of our big cities where poverty is concentrated—which means that virtually all the children are extremely poor.  In our society we blame the test scores on the school without figuring out how to ameliorate the poverty.  As the editorial board of Rethinking Schoolsmagazine has brilliantly stated: school reform based on high-stakes testing “disguises class and race privilege as merit.”

In a situation like Newark, New Jersey, where the school district has been under state control for two decades and where the state overseer school superintendent, Cami Anderson, reports to Governor Chris Christie instead of the locally elected school board, citizens are using every avenue provided by the democratic process to protect and improve their public schools. They elected school principal and strong defender of public education Ras Baraka mayor in May, even though they knew the mayor can’t control school policy, and they filed a complaint about Cami Anderson’s One Newark school reform plan this spring with the U.S. Department of Education’s Office of Civil Rights (OCR). This despite Chris Christie’s rude rebuke: “And I don’t care about the community criticism. We run the school district in Newark, not them.”

New Jersey Spotlight reports that the OCR complaint was “filed in May by parent advocates Feds Investigating Civil Rights Implications of School Closures in Newark | janresseger:

NYC Educator: Land of a Thousand Rubrics

NYC Educator: Land of a Thousand Rubrics:

Land of a Thousand Rubrics

I've been attending curriculum development workshops all week. We're looking at Common Core, without which no sentient being can function, and one of our sub-categories is rubrics. Yesterday we created some of our own.

I'll be frank. I have never liked rubrics. The first time I saw them was when a new, two-day, four-composition English Regents exam came out. I read the grading rubrics and got a general idea of what levels 1-4 meant. From then on I marked more or less holistically. I used to know one teacher who treated the rubrics with great reverence and examined them quite thoroughly. It was very rough partnering because by the time you finished a class set of essays this teacher would be on number 2 or 3, if you were lucky.

I've been teaching for 30 years. I'm pretty good about reading papers. I comment on them and offer advice as needed. One of the most frustrating things, to me, is watching a kid look at the paper, or not, and then crumple and toss it away. More motivated kids tend to reflect a little more. My question is this--after I spend time writing a rubric, who's to say kids wont toss them away too?

I kind of understand the thinking. There's got to be a way to get a good grade. What the hell is this teacher looking for? And it's true there are NYC Educator: Land of a Thousand Rubrics: