8-28-14 Engaging Parents In School… | Going Beyond Parent "Involvement"

Engaging Parents In School… | Going Beyond Parent "Involvement":

“Teacher home visits ease kindergarteners’ fears of first day of school”

Teacher home visits are certainly in the news these days! Here’s the latest article about what’s going on in Tulsa: Teacher home visits ease kindergarteners’ fears of first day of school. Here’s the final sentence in the story: “We’re really trying to focus on family engagement, not just involvement,” Velez said. “We really are trying to let them know how they can keep learning going at home.”

3 by Larry Ferlazzo / 5h hide  //  save

“How to Get Kids to Class: To Keep Poor Kids in School, Provide Social Services”

How to Get Kids to Class: To Keep Poor Kids in School, Provide Social Services is the headline of an op-ed in The New York Times by the president of Communities in Schools. Here’s the last paragraph: Putting social workers in schools is a low-cost way of avoiding bigger problems down the road, analogous to having a social worker in a hospital emergency room. It’s a common-sense solution that will

3 by Larry Ferlazzo / 5h 

Nice Piece For Parents: “12 ways to identify a good school”

Jay Mathews has just published a nice post in The Washington Post titled 12 Ways To Identify A Good School. Here’s how it begins: Fourteen years ago, I wrote a Washington Post magazine piece about a young couple seeking a school for their daughter, including 12 things to look for in a good school. The article survives online. Parents still ask me if I would change any of those recommendations. I w

3 by Larry Ferlazzo / 5h 

Infographic: “Connecting With Parents – Tips & Tricks For Smooth Sailing”

I’m adding this infographic to The Best Infographics About Parent Involvement In Schools:

7 by Larry Ferlazzo / 5h  

8-23-14 Engaging Parents In School… | Going Beyond Parent "Involvement"

Engaging Parents In School… | Going Beyond Parent "Involvement":Nice Post About A Teaching Making A Home VisitGeniene Delahunty writes a nice post describing a visit she made to a student family’s home. It’s worth checking out….by Larry Ferlazzo / 3d AUG 19The Best Advice On Engaging Parents At The Beginning Of The School YearI have a fairly popular post titled The Best Sources Of Parent

by mike simpson / 5h 

Who Owns Your Schools? In Lee County, Florida They Belong to Parents and Children:

Who Owns Your Schools? In Lee County, Florida They Belong to Parents and Children

AUGUST 28, 2014 BY NANCY BAILEY 1 COMMENT

For years now, I’ve wondered who owns school boards. Venture philanthropists come into cash-strapped districts and suddenly parents and citizens find their voices no longer matter. Anyone with the right amount of money, well-meaning or not, can take over how schools in that district will be run and what students will learn. Is that about to change?

With a vote of 3 to 2 the Lee County School Board stunned a lot of people Wednesday night by voting to discontinue state standardized testing.

Political activists were out in force including Libertarians.

Parents with young children sat tight awaiting the vote. A seven-year-old spoke about a test where the computer told her she couldn’t read. I couldn’t help but notice that she seemed to be reading notes on what she was supposed to say. She did a superb job. But she was so tiny her mother had to hold her up to the microphone. I think that alone spoke volumes.

Then there was the mother whose ill child had to take the test though his condition was terminal. I don’t know about you, but I’ve heard enough of that kind of testing ridiculousness and cruelty to last me forever.

The superintendent, who seems like a nice woman, disagreed with the vote along with another board member. I actually sort of understand her predicament. Testing, in and of itself, is rather important, but Florida and most other states have just gone so far with it that there was bound to be a backlash someday. For small children, children with Who Owns Your Schools? In Lee County, Florida They Belong to Parents and Children:

The Answer Sheet 8-28-14

Answer Sheet:

Assistant principal who secretly changed son’s grades gets $7,000 fine

Teachers can lose their jobs if their students don’t do well enough on standardized tests. An assistant principal in New York City who secretly changed 11 of his own son’s test scores and class grades received a $7,000 fine but still remains employed by the Education Department. The New York Daily News explains in this […]

3 by Valerie Strauss / 36min hide  //  save

Florida county opts out of all state-mandated testing in ‘act of civil disobedience’

Florida’s Lee County became  on Wednesday night the first school district in the state to vote to opt out of all state-mandated testing, including exams that are being designed to assess student knowledge of new state standards based on the Common Core. The Board of Education voted 3 to 2 in favor of opting out […]

45 by Valerie Strauss / 1h

The Answer Sheet 8-27-14

Answer Sheet: What new Common Core test scores really showNew York officials recently released the results of the state’s 2014 Common Core State Standards-aligned exams. In this post information award-winning Principal Carol Burris of South Side High School  in the Rockville Centre School District, explains what they mean. Burris has been writing about problems with the controversial school reform

by mike simpson / 8h 

8-28-14 Seattle Schools Community Forum

Seattle Schools Community Forum:

Look What's Arriving at Seattle Schools

by Melissa Westbrook / 27min 

Guest Post on Garfield Field Trip Rape

Please support a much more critical demonstration next Wed, Sept 3rd, at the Seattle School Board meeting.  The District is making decisions about its next step regarding the Garfield HS rape victim. We know the District’s response was outrageous, but the general public must also become educated. The self-serving Seattle Times reporting did nothing to inform the public of the facts. We know the Di

by Melissa Westbrook / 3min 

School District in Florida Votes to Opt-Out of Common Core Testing

In what can only be called unbelievable courage, a school district in Florida, Lee County, has voted to opt the entire district out of Common Core testing. The school board vote was 3-2 with the superintendent warning, "This will hurt children."From News-Press:Throughout the tense three-hour meeting, more than 33 people came forward to share their thoughts on the matter.Emotions came to

by Melissa Westbrook / 9h 

8-27-14 Seattle Schools Community Forum

Seattle Schools Community Forum: Finding Common GroundI have been an education activist for a long time and I have never had any delusions about my effectiveness. After all, the district officials have all of the power and all of the authority, so they don't have to do anything they don't want to do and they are free to do whatever they like. We have seen that there is almost no accountability or

by mike simpson / 7h 

8-28-14 Schools Matter

Schools Matter:

Unseat the Bad Cuomo: Vote Teachout

by Jim Horn / 20min 

Hold Your Booing--Michelle Rhee Has Left the Stadium

One of the employees from Michelle First sent out an email to subscribers that included this observation:"In the end, Michelle’s critics weren’t demonizing her because they were horrible people."How true. The real reason is that Michelle is a horrible person!  A farewell from Salon, with an assessment of Rhee's legacy. 

by Jim Horn / 20min 

Little Eva Moves to Wall Street

from Juan Gonzalez at the Daily News:Eva Moskowitz, the firebrand chief of the city’s fastest growing charter chain, isn’t just backed by Wall Street, she’s officially moved there — with Wall Street-type salaries to boot.Last November, Moskowitz, who for years boasted of opening her Success Academy Charter Schools in the city’s poorest neighborhoods, quietly shifted her corporate headquarters from

by Jim Horn / 12min 

8-27-14 Schools Matter

Schools Matter: "TeacherTown" Now Paying Charters Over $80 Million Per Year in Projected Enrollment CashNot only is Shelby County and the State coughing up over $80 million each year for corporate reform schools whose test scores are, for the most part, the same or worse than the schools they replaced, but almost $20 million of that is for enrollment that never materialized.  In 2013-14,

by mike simpson / 7h 

8-28-14 Larry Ferlazzo’s Websites of the Day… | …For Teaching ELL, ESL, & EFL

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

All My Ed Week Posts On Brain-Based Learning In One Place!

My latest Education Week Teacher column brings together all my posts on brain-based learning — in one place! Here’s an excerpt from one of them:

by Larry Ferlazzo / 29min

USDE Unveils “Teach To Lead”: Do We Really Need Another Online Community To Promote Teacher Leadership?

Education Secretary Arne Duncan today announced a new site that is supposed to promote teacher leadership and develop some kind of online community. It’s called Commit To Lead and is part of Teach To Lead, which in turn is connected to RESPECT program he announced earlier this year (you can read about that program in a post by Barnett Berry and another one by Stephen Lazar). With all the online t

by Larry Ferlazzo / 37min hide  //  save

“If you’re observant about things happening around you, there are insights waiting to be discovered”

Parking Behavior May Reflect Economic Drive is the title of an NPR piece on a new study suggesting that a nation’s economic health can be evaluated by if its drivers back-in or drive-forward into a parking space. The study itself has big enough holes through which you could drive a truck, but that’s not that important for how I envision using it in my International Baccalaureate Theory of Knowledg

by Larry Ferlazzo / 37min 

New Resources On Students & Sleep

© 2011 Pink Sherbet Photography, Flickr | CC-BY | via Wylio Here are some new additions to The Best Resources For Helping Teens Learn About The Importance Of Sleep: Let Them Sleep In: Docs Want Later School Times for Teens is from NBC News. Students Aren’t Getting Enough Sleep—School Starts Too Early is from The Atlantic. High school will keep starting too early. Here’s why. is from Marketplace.

by Larry Ferlazzo / 1h hide  //  save

“Education Is Not ‘Moneyball’: Why Teachers Can’t Trust Value-Added Evaluations Yet”

Education Is Not ‘Moneyball’: Why Teachers Can’t Trust Value-Added Evaluations Yet is an excellent Ed Week piece by William Eger. Here’s an excerpt: I’m adding it to The Best Resources For Learning About The “Value-Added” Approach Towards Teacher Evaluation.

by Larry Ferlazzo / 1h 

YESTERDAY

“The Dos and Don’ts of Classroom Management: Your 25 Best Tips”

Apparently, long ago when, for awhile, I moderated a classroom management forum at Edutopia, I invited readers to share their best classroom management tips. Well, Edutopia just put them all together in a a nice slideshow that I think readers will find useful. I’m adding it to The Best Posts On Classroom Management.

by Larry Ferlazzo / 9h 

September 8th Is International Literacy Day — Here Are Related Resources

© 2013 Stephen Luke, Flickr | CC-BY | via Wylio UNESCO has declared September 8th to be “International Literacy Day” for the past forty years. You might find The Best Resources For International Literacy Day useful. By the way, the International Reading Association is working with NASA on a related project — Story Time From Space.

by Larry Ferlazzo / 9h 

8-27-14 Larry Ferlazzo’s Websites of the Day… | …For Teaching ELL, ESL, & EFL

Larry Ferlazzo’s Websites of the Day… | …For Teaching ELL, ESL, & EFL: This Week’s “Round-Up” Of Useful Posts & Articles On Education Policy© 2010 Dave, Flickr | CC-BY-ND | via Wylio Here are some recent valuable posts and articles on educational policy issues: A Quick Look At The ASA Statement On Value-Added is from The Shanker Blog. I’m adding it to The Best Resources For Learning About

by mike simpson / 8h