8-22-14 Seattle Schools Community Forum Week

Seattle Schools Community Forum:

Critical Incident Response Plan

I'm sorry to report that the Critical Incident Response Plan referenced in Dr. Nyland's letter to the community is total bunk. It is, at best, a PR plan. It is designed to respond to potential sources of bad press.It basically calls for district officials to gather information, comply with policies, procedures, regulations and laws, and to inform stakeholders. I can't believe that executives at th

by Charlie Mas / 1h 

Friday Open Thread

Feel like your child does not return your phone calls/texts in a timely manner?  One mom was frustrated with the low/no response of her own children and created, Ignore No More.  If your child doesn't answer, you have a code so that you can block incoming calls/texts and disable gaming on their cell phone.  That'll get their attention.Did you get a phone call from School Messenger with a message f

by Melissa Westbrook / 46min 

8-21-14 Seattle Schools Community Forum Week

Seattle Schools Community Forum: Common Core; Slip Slidin' AwayPoll results on public education including Common Core from two sources.Education Next - No Common Opinion on Common CoreFor example, the share of the public that say it favors the Common Core State Standards slipped noticeably between 2013 and 2014. Establishing a common set of standards across states is a new policy proposal that eme

by mike simpson / 18h 

4LAKids - some of the news that doesn't fit 8-22-14

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

Doing the ‘done deal’: INTERNAL EMAILS SHOW LA SCHOOL OFFICIALS STARTED iPAD TALKS WITH SOFTWARE SUPPLIER A YEAR BEFORE BIDS

Annie Gilbertson | 89.3 KPCC | http://bit.ly/1q6hJCx Los Angeles schools Supt. John Deasy speaks during a press conference at South Region High School #2 in Los Angeles, California February 6, 2012. Krista Kennell/AFP/Getty Images 22 Aug 2014  ::  Emails obtained by KPCC show Los Angeles Unified School District Superintendent John Deasy personally began meeting with Pearson and Apple to

by smf / 1min 

LAUSD REPORT FAULTS iPAD BIDDING, PLANNING & PROCUREMENT

by Howard Blume, - LA Times http://lat.ms/1qxfCVW STUDENTS explore the possibilities with their new LAUSD-provided IPads. A new report says the district inadequately planned the distribution of an iPad to each student. (Bob Chamberlin, Los Angeles Times) Aug 22 2014  5AM  ::  The groundbreaking effort to provide an iPad to every Los Angeles student, teacher and school administrator was beset

by smf / 28min hide  //  save

COUNTY EDUCATION OFFICIALS QUESTION LA SCHOOLS’ FINANCIAL PLANS + smf’s 2¢

Annie Gilbertson | 89.3 KPCC | http://bit.ly/1sZYWwh Pete/ Flickr Creative Commons 20 August, 2014  ::  The Los Angeles County Office of Education is questioning the L.A. Unified school district's report on how it plans to spend new state funds targeted at disadvantaged youth - asking whether administrators are accurately accounting for past expenses. "The district asserts $700 million

by smf / 37min 

4LAKids - some of the news that doesn't fit 8-21-14

4LAKids - some of the news that doesn't fit: L.A. Unified Teachers Decry New Student Tracking SystemSome L.A. Unified schools face packed classes, roaming students as new $20-million student database falters By Stephen Ceasar, LA Times | LA Times http://lat.ms/1ljiKbJ "We don't have anything to gain from exaggerating -- we want the problem fixed," says teachers union President Alex Caput

by mike simpson / 15min 

Peter Greene: Why Teachers are Breaking Up with Common Core | deutsch29

Peter Greene: Why Teachers are Breaking Up with Common Core | deutsch29:

Peter Greene: Why Teachers are Breaking Up with Common Core

August 22, 2014

Pennsylvania teacher Peter Greene has written a fine post on why he believes that the Common Core State Standards (CCSS) are going down the toilet in supposed “teacher popularity.”

What I appreciate about Greene’s post is that he became aware of the CCSS facade of “teacher created, state-led” several months following my own revelation (which was sealed with education historian Diane Ravitch’s February 2013 post, Why I Cannot Support the Common Core Standards). Now, several months might not sound like much of a time difference, but I had already been actively involved in confronting issues of punitive, test-driven “reform” in Louisiana for almost a year, beginning in March 2012 with Louisiana’s Act 1 and Act 2. So, in May 2013, when Greene was still unaware of the CCSS fraud, my pump had already been primed regarding the CCSS sales job, and my realizing that teachers were once again being sold off– now via CCSS– was a done deal for sure once I began examining supposed CCSS-teacher-endorsing survey results beginning with the suspect AFT survey “finding” of “75 percent of teachers overwhelmingly approving of CCSS” (see this link and this link and this link– all written in May 2013).

Even in this spring 2013 survey, the truth was that teachers did not “overwhelmingly” support CCSS. They did so with reservation– a finding that continues to be slighted in 2014 survey reporting on CCSS regarding both teacher and general public opinion.

In any case, Greene’s post entitled How the Common Core Lost Teacher Support is a fine read. I offer part of it here and the link to Greene’s Huffington Post printing at the end of the excerpt:

Today’s big headline from the new Education Next poll is “Teachers No Longer Love CCSS.”

Support for the Core among teachers dropped like a stone, from 76% in 2013 to 46% in 2014. That’s a lot of love lost. Now, as we move from the “Holy schneikies!” phase into the “Got some splainin’ to do” phase, we’ll start to ask the big question.

Why?

Over at The Fordham, Mike Petrilli hopes he knows why — Note the phrase, “they will be used to hold public schools accountable for their performance.” Perhaps these words triggered the more negative response. I think Petrilli is 

Peter Greene: Why Teachers are Breaking Up with Common Core | deutsch29:

Exclusive: Students Tear Gassed Ferguson-style By Police While Protesting School “Choice” | Cloaking Inequity

Exclusive: Students Tear Gassed Ferguson-style By Police While Protesting School “Choice” | Cloaking Inequity:

Exclusive: Students Tear Gassed Ferguson-style By Police While Protesting School “Choice”

Are you ready for more protests and Furguson-style draconian police responses? If school “choice” supporters get their wish, it just might happen. Why? After 30 years of school “choice,” that is what is happening in Chile. Supporters of school “choice” want you to believe that school vouchers “work” and promote Civil Rights. I wrote in the post Billionaires co-opt minority groups into campaign for education reform that the reality is just the opposite. Vouchers foment segregation and help the few at the expense of the many. Evidence? Our research team from the University of Texas at Austin read and written about failure of vouchers and the predominance of the research literature on vouchers in the US and in Chile.

Considering the protests in Chile and a potential turn of events in the country against vouchers, we thought it was a good idea to travel to Chile to ask Chileans directly about their 30 years of experience with universal school choice (See Dear Cloaking Inequity Readers! Thank you!). We also recently published a peer reviewed paper on the segregation and ill effects of a universal vouchers system this summer in the journal of Educational Policy Analysis Archives. I profiled the paper in the post New Research: Vouchers Increase Segregation and Offer Benefits to the Few.

Wednesday, the Chilean police responded to ongoing student protests Ferguson-style by tear gassing students protesting school choice 3 decades of universal school choice that has CREATED inequality. Our UT voucher research team was caught in the middle of the police response to the students. Here are the email reports from Sarah Ishmael (former TFAer and UT-Austin Policy Masters student) and Lourdes Perez (from HispanaEducation).

We have been in the middle of a student demonstration; got tear gas; were hidden by a business woman so we did not get wet with water cannons.

and,

Students were occupying the Ministry of Education on Wednesday August 20 (we almost we didn’t get in to see our contact) and the protest today was relatively peaceful (the part we observed) but we all got 

Exclusive: Students Tear Gassed Ferguson-style By Police While Protesting School “Choice” | Cloaking Inequity:

Accountability - ChangeTheLAUSD

Accountability - ChangeTheLAUSD:

 Accountability

Bored of Education? Then Step Aside

A Letter to Tamar Galatzan:

It is readily apparent to anyone who has attended a LAUSD board meeting over the last few months that you have lost your passion for the job. You fulfill the requirements for receiving your second government paycheck by physically showing up for these meetings, but show little interest in the proceedings. Instead, you pass the time on your iPad oblivious to the stakeholders who are trying to plead their cases to the board.

Early in your tenure, it was clear that the LAUSD board seat was only supposed to be a starting point to a bigger political career. After raising more than $2 million to win your first term in 2007, you ran for city council just two years later. (1) Sure, you still listed “improving our schools” as one of your priorities, but the city council does not oversee education. (2) If schools were your real priority, you would have concentrated on the job on the board rather than run in another election. Your planned career path was disrupted and you are now stuck in a job that you find “frustrating.” (3)

The unfolding MiSiS crisis shows how disengaged from your job you have become. Your fellow “board member Bennett Kayser warned Superintendent John Deasy in a July 21 letter that the system was ‘causing major disruptions.’” (4) When you claimed that “because until it happened, the board had no inkling that the system wasn’t ready to go live," you not only showed that you were ignorant of what was happening with the  $20 million system, but that you were not communicating with the other board members. (5) (6) Furthermore, you do not seem to understand your responsponsibilities when you say that “we don’t supervise anyone who works for the Superintendent.” (7) In fact, the Superintendent reports to the board. This is made worse by the revelation that the person in charge of the MiSiS system was actually a contractor and, as a report by the district’s Inspector General in 2013 stated, her “proposed rate of $135 per hour...’is not supported and not reasonable.’” (8)

It was nice to actually see some passion when you delivered playground equipment to Kittridge Elementary School. As happy as I am that these children will get to use this new equipment, I take serious issue with your statement that “this is the best $12,000 I’ve spent in my seven years as a board member.” (9) The board you sit on oversees the EDUCATION of 640,000 students. (10) Someone who still had a passion for the job would recognize that every dollar saved from wasteful programs and actually spent on education is "the best money spent". If you can not provide this passion, you owe it to these children to step aside. Their futures depend on it.

Accountability - ChangeTheLAUSD:

NEA Back to School Tour Spotlights College Affordability Crisis | NEA Today

NEA Back to School Tour Spotlights College Affordability Crisis | NEA Today:

NEA Back to School Tour Spotlights College Affordability Crisis

Calling college affordability “the universal cause that will unite educators, students, parents and communities,” NEA President-Elect Lily Eskelsen García spent the second day of NEA’s Back-to-School Tour shining the spotlight on Degrees Not Debt, the national campaign to reduce crushing student loan debt and make college more affordable to all.

Eskelsen García spent the morning at California State University Northridge hearing from student, higher ed and K-12 members as they shared stories of student debt.

CSU Northridge history professor Erik Goldner spoke of being $30,000 in debt seven years after completing graduate studies, finding an academic position, and making payments that have only covered the loan’s interest. Together with his wite’s $50,000 student loan debt, Goldner faces years of ongoing financial stress

.Jess Sanchez, President of Student California Teachers Association (CTA) and a graduate student at CSU San Bernadino left a well-paying job because he believed in the promise and opportunity of higher education. “Today, I am struggling with more than $65,00 in debt, I cannot afford to buy a home to share with my wife and 9-year-old son and I’m still a year away from finishing,” said Sanchez. “I never thought that in trying to create a better future for myself and my family by pursuing my goal to become a teacher I would actually jeopardize our future.”

“What kind of country have we become when people like Jesse Sanchez think they made a mistake going to college?” said Eskelsen García. “What kind of society do we have when a grandparent has his social security payments garnered to pay for his grandson’s student loan debt?”

Mario E. Castaneda, asst. professor of Secondary Education at CSU Los Angeles agrees. “College education should be a vision for every child,” said Castaneda, who is himself paying off $60,000 in student loans, “Sadly, the crisis of college affordability is affecting the most challenged of communities. Students are being steered away from teacher education programs, parents, worried about mounting debt figures are sending the message to their children that they don’t need college, K-12 and higher ed members are burdened by their loans. The consequences on education, the economy and society is devastating.”

At CSU Northridge and during a meeting with Oakland where she was joined by CTA President Dean Vogel and State Superintendent of Public Instruction Tom Torlakson, Eskelsen Garcia pointed to the Degrees not NEA Back to School Tour Spotlights College Affordability Crisis | NEA Today:

I KNOW GREAT TEACHING WHEN I SEE IT: A Book Excerpt | DCGEducator: Doing The Right Thing

I KNOW GREAT TEACHING WHEN I SEE IT: A Book Excerpt | DCGEducator: Doing The Right Thing:



I KNOW GREAT TEACHING WHEN I SEE IT: A Book Excerpt

http://www.amazon.com/Doing-Right-Thing-Teacher-Speaks/dp/1460225481

Who remembers their favorite test from school? You know, the one that inspired you to become who you are now, or saved you from the wrong part of yourself? Who remembers the test that made you want to come out of your shell? Which test gave you the courage to try new things and challenge yourself? For me, it was the 1966 Regents Comprehensive Examination in Social Studies.

Ok, only kidding. We all know that it is teachers who inspire and challenge us to be our best. It isn’t testing, or much of what is now being called teaching. We also know which teachers did that. We might remember some incidents in their classes, or things they said or wrote to us. Do we remember the everyday things? The attitude they brought to the room? Their techniques?

When I see former students (from the Bronx to Scarsdale), they don’t tell me about the Goals or Aim or Motivation from October 23rd, 2002. They will tell me about my energy, my excitement, my caring, and my prodding them to do their best, not to settle for mediocrity. They tell me about a particular project that inspired or challenged them to think critically, or do things they never thought they could. They even remember what they learned while doing those things. What they don’t know is how all of that was planned.

            “Great teaching is an art.” Of course, there are great techniques that have been used by great teachers, but it isn’t the technique that makes the teacher great. It is what the great teacher brings to the technique. I have watched these techniques used perfectly in perfectly horrible lessons and marginally well in absolutely magnificent lessons, because of who the teacher is as much as what the teacher does. This is true, whatever the teacher’s age or experience level. Teaching is as much talent as it is skill.

Great teachers plan objectives, then matching assessments and activities. What is also important is the quality of the activities and the probing, challenging, written, and oral questions accompanying those activities. It is all one big package. How does that lesson or activity, as simple or complex as it may be, get your kids to learn and understand those objectives and succeed on the assessments?

So, what is a good teacher? The sum of all those things. Each and every day a good teacher is a motivator, planner, questioner, assessor, mother or father, even entertainer. Plan accordingly. It is the key. Your kids rely on that. But don’t make it look too planned.

            So many so-called educational reformers believe that given their version of the right tools, techniques, and tests, any top college student can I KNOW GREAT TEACHING WHEN I SEE IT: A Book Excerpt | DCGEducator: Doing The Right Thing:

Mike Klonsky's SmallTalk Blog: Public support for Obama's school policies is plunging

Mike Klonsky's SmallTalk Blog: Public support for Obama's school policies is plunging:

Public support for Obama's school policies is plunging

That's the good news.

If you combine Bush and Obama, which is easy to do when it comes to education policy, we're coming up on 15 years of No Child Left Behind/Race To The Top (with waivers).

That will make 15 straight years of corporate-style, top-down, metrics-driven, test-based reform. That includes more than 6 years of Arne Duncan's unfettered, single-handed use of federal dollars to impose a system which promotes  mayoral control of   the schools, coupled with the closing thousands of public schools and replacing them with privately-run charters. This strategy, based on the notion of a speedy "radical disruption," has steamrolled along like the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, with no need for a bipartisan consensus and with token opposition from Republicans.

It's likely that, in upcoming mid-term elections, it will be the Republicans who benefit from the growing public disenchantment with current education policies. (This despite the fact that mainline Republicans like Bush and Christie have been strong supporters of Duncan-ism.)

The Hill reports that Obama/Duncan school reform is faring poorly in the arena of public opinion -- meaning among the folks who use and pay for the nation's public schools and the folks who vote. Public support for President Obama’s education policies is plunging, according to the latest Gallup/PDK survey.

Only 27 percent of people give Obama an “A” or “B” for his support of public schools, down 9 percent from last year, in a new poll from PDK/Gallup that Mike Klonsky's SmallTalk Blog: Public support for Obama's school policies is plunging:

8-22-14 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.:

RUN KAREN RUN

Glen Brown. IRTA asks judge for summary judgement based on ISC Kanerva v. Weems.

- From the Illinois Retired Teachers Association (IRTA): This motion filed in Sangamon County asks Judge Belz to make a summary judgment on the lawsuit in lieu of a trial due to the Illinois Supreme Court ruling on state employees’ health insurance. - Glen Brown blogs at Teacher/Poet/Musician Glen Brown ISEA, RSEA, HEATON AND HARRISON PLAINTIFFS’ JOINT MOTION FOR JUDGMENT ON THE PLEADINGS AS TO T

1 by Fred Klonsky / 24min hide  //  save

If you love this city…

When I read that the Karen Lewis mayoral campaign committee filed papers with the State Board of Elections Wednesday morning it just added to what we all know. Karen is running for Mayor of Chicago. “If you love this city, write a check,” I wrote on Facebook. When I read my own words I kind of surprised myself. Do I really love this city? I don’t love Rahm’s Chicago. Or Penny Pritzker’s Chicago.

2 by Fred Klonsky / 38min 

8-21-14 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.: Jersey Jazzman. The myth of the burned-out older veteran teacher. We get better with age.- Jersey Jazzman is a teacher and education blogger. Non-teacher David Boies is absolutely convinced that we are plagued by old, bad, burned-out teachers; that’s why we need to get rid of tenure, see, and replace

by mike simpson / 12min 

8-22-14 @ The Chalk Face

@ THE CHALK FACE:

About the radio show

Join Drs. Shaun Johnson and Tim Slekar 

LIVE Sundays at 6PM EST and Wednesdays at 7PM EST 

on Blog Talk Radio for progressive, pro-public education talk radio. 

Call in to speak live with Tim and Shaun during the show, (805) 727-7111. 

You can also listen to our Monday "Sunday-Replay" at 7PM EST, and re-broadcasts of the archives every Tuesday and Thursday at 7PM EST.

Visit the @ the Chalk Face radio main page for more information on the show and syndication.

“Reframing” California Common Core for a Better Public Sale

The Frameworks Institute is a nonprofit dedicated to promoting the images of other nonprofits with the goal of hooking the public regarding the target nonprofit’s agenda: Changing the conversation on social issues FrameWorks designs, conducts and publishes communications research to prepare nonprofit organizations to expand their constituency base, to build public will, and to further public under

by deutsch29 / 50min 

Elizabeth Green’s Portrait of the Potential Benefits of Academic Teacher Education Programs

Elizabeth Green, author of the outstanding Building a Better Teacher, recalls that she attended affluent high schools but she didn’t have a surplus of engaging teachers. She still must have had far better teachers than I had in the 1950s and 1960s. I’m also likely to look differently at the question of whether we now […]

1 by John Thompson / 36min 

8-20-14 @ The Chalk Face

@ THE CHALK FACE: About the radio showJoin Drs. Shaun Johnson and Tim Slekar LIVE Sundays at 6PM EST and Wednesdays at 7PM EST on Blog Talk Radio for progressive, pro-public education talk radio. Call in to speak live with Tim and Shaun during the show, (805) 727-7111. You can also listen to our Monday "Sunday-Replay" at 7PM EST, and re-broadcasts of the archives every Tuesday and Thursd

by mike simpson / 19h 

JUSTICE FOR ROUSEMARY AND JESUS!! - Badass Teachers Association

Badass Teachers Association:

JUSTICE FOR ROUSEMARY AND JESUS!! 

Office of the Mayor

121 N LaSalle Street

Chicago City Hall 4th Floor

Chicago, IL 60602

Dear Rahm Emanuel and Chicago Public School Board of Education:

It has come to our attention that an active and involved parent, Ms. Rousemary Vega, has been banned from attending school board meetings and can only meet with members during office hours. By enforcing this ban, the Chicago Board of Education is violating her right to free speech and her parental right to act on behalf of her children. This ban comes after the shameful, inexcusable and violent response representatives of CPS unleashed on her husband Jesus Ramos-  in front of their children - at the last Chicago public school board meeting. We have seen footage of the treatment of Rousemary Vega and Jesus Ramos via video link and also on Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8E0zctQfdYI.

Mr. Emanuel, as you well know, the role of public school boards is to execute the business of educating all of the children under its jurisdiction. School boards are responsible for making decisions that benefit the students that attend the schools under its purview. School boards are accountable to the public, they serve the society that depends on them to fairly and professionally manage institutions of education. The public includes parents. Actions taken by the school board are silencing them. The suppression of the voices of parents of students in Chicago Public Schools has happened often enough to be a pattern, and often enough to be construed as deliberate policy.

The  Chicago Public School Board has demonstrated  an alarming pattern of silencing the voices of parents of color. The Board’s unwarranted actions have worked to marginalize  and disenfranchise  parents across the city. The Board also has a reputation for enacting unwanted school reform policies harmful to these same communities of color. 

Rousemary Vega’s  attempt to  educate people about the impact of limited screened enrollment,  school takeovers, and  charter school preferences have made on her community, her family, and her neighborhood schools is protected under the First Amendment. When the voices of hundreds of parents are ignored and plans proceed without taking into consideration the feelings of the stakeholders, there is no choice but to make oneself heard through acts of civil disobedience.

The letter sent to Rousemary characterizes her behavior without context. She spoke out as a means of protest  against reforms that many contend have aided in the gentrification of neighborhoods whose schools were neglected for years then labeled failures in a convenient time for privatization efforts.

By denying her the opportunity to participate, the board is not only denying her right to free speech but also cultivating a climate of fear and mistrust that treats parents, specifically parents of color,  as enemies rather than as involved community stakeholders. CPS officials frightened and emotionally traumatized the Vega/Ramos children, physically harmed their father, and caused Rousemary Vegas intense mental and emotional distress. The deliberate physical attack during a public BOE meeting, against a vocal activist family that dares to speak truth to power,  is a bullying tactic that speaks volumes about the integrity, or lack thereof, CPS has toward invested families. It is bad enough that Chicago uses strong-arm tactics to gentrify communities by force, take over and shut down schools, and give preference to charters over public schools, but add those efforts to the racism and bullying of the Ramos/Vega family, and the truly sadistic nature of the Chicago Public Schools and BOE is revealed.

Please be aware that we have carefully read the letter sent to Rousemary Vega. We also carefully screened the video footage from the BOE meeting. It is evident that the letter does NOT correlate to the events in the video. We are not intimidated by the Chicago Public School district or the BOE and we have lawyers looking into this matter. In the interim, we are writing not only to make you aware of the fact that the case is being investigated by several civil liberties organizations, but also to give you the opportunity to address the situation in a fair and equitable manner. Copies of this letter are being sent in defense of Rousemary Vega, Jesus Ramos, and every other family the CPSB has attacked. It is our hope that this letter will encourage the CPS BOE to address the wrongs done to Rousemary Vega and her family.

In the name of participatory democracy,  transparency, and equity, we, the Badass Teachers Association, demand that Rousemary be given her rights back, and not only that, we demand that she be given a public role, as a concerned parent, in shaping education policy in Chicago. We are watching and we are waiting. Make no mistake, if Rousemary Vega is not sent a letter encouraging her participation at the next Chicago BOE meeting, there will be ramifications and blowback from teachers and parents across the country in support of Chicago public school parents and children.

In Solidarity with the unheard parents of Chicago,

^0^ The Badass Teachers Association Badass Teachers Association: