9-1-14 Seattle Schools Community Forum

Seattle Schools Community Forum:

Data Privacy Issues; It's Time to Start Protecting Your Kids

I am absolutely amazed that people believe (a) there's nothing that can be done about privacy and (b) it's all for the good so why worry.We're adults and that's okay.  But kids?  How do they defend their privacy?  Right.  That's our job.I want to say in advance, people can take any kind of photo they want on their phone.  (But you might want to warn teenagers of the devastating outcomes if they do

by Melissa Westbrook / 6min hide  //  save

High School Start Times - What Happened?

The majority of high schools, comprehensive and alternative, will start at 7:50 am (ten minutes earlier than last year) and end at 2:20 pm.  This includes Cleveland STEM, World School and South Lake.The outliers are Center School (8:30 am-3:10 pm), Chief Sealth (8:40 am- 3:10 pm), Hale (8:40 am-3:10 pm) and Nova (8:30 am - 3:00 pm). So Center School I get because of its location.  Sealth because i

by Melissa Westbrook / 2h 

Seattle Schools This Week

Tuesday, Sept. 2ndSuperintendent Nyland will have a press conference at JAMS followed by a ribbon-cutting for the renovated school at noon.  He will also be at the ribbon-cutting for Fairmount Park Elementary at 2:45 pm.  (I'm taking ideas for questions to ask Superintendent Nyland.)Wednesday, Sept. 3rd -  First Day of SchoolSuperintendent Nyland will be visiting several schools that day including

by Melissa Westbrook / 56min 

8-30-14 Seattle Schools Community Forum Week

Seattle Schools Community Forum:Seattle Schools Community ForumFriday Open ThreadBoy do I like public disclosure laws because that story out of LA about the iPad debacle only gets better/worse.  I'll have another thread on that soon.Kids and Uzis - I'm not sure there is anything that could better demonstrate a lack of common sense.   Very funny story from the Scary Mommy blog about going back to s

by mike simpson / 1h 

9-1-14 Schools Matter

Schools Matter:

Durham Schools Cutting Ties with Teach for America

A day to celebrate!  From the Herald-Sun:Aug. 30, 2014 @ 05:51 PM Gregory Childress DURHAM —The Durham school district will honor its current contract with Teach For America, but the national teacher training program’s future with Durham Public Schools is up in the air. The school board voted 6-1 last week to honor its commitment to TFA teachers, including five hired to work for DPS this school

by Jim Horn / 41min 

8-31-14 Schools Matter

Schools Matter: Citizen Jack's compendium of teacher reviews of Eva Moskowitz’s Success Academy Empire"They don't tolerate what we tolerate," she said several times. What is it HSA doesn't tolerate? According to my co-worker: disruptive children and parents who don't play an active role in their child's education. — Brian Jones"Jack," a frequent commenter on Professor Diane Rav

1 by mike simpson / 21h 

Idaho Teacher Provides More Information About Common Core | Missouri Education Watchdog

Idaho Teacher Provides More Information About Common Core | Missouri Education Watchdog:

Idaho Teacher Provides More Information About Common Core

inShare

Is excessive testing abusive? Is data mining and disseminating children’s information without your knowledge and/or consent a crime via The CCSS Initiative? Start asking these questions.

We  posted a letter today from a teacher in Idaho which allowed us a peek into a Common Core classroom.  She told how the children had hours upon hours of testing.  She also wrote about how the data was being gathered and disseminated.

 Stephanie Zimmerman from Idahoans for Local Education sent me a follow up post to the teacher’s original letter which you can find here.  If you are interested in finding out additional information on data mining, you won’t want to miss her subsequent article:

The response to my letter last month on the basic facts of Common Core were overwhelming.  Since there were so many who were shocked and amazed at what they read, I am choosing to share a lot more.  The information I share in this letter contains more facts that every parent and teacher and ALL citizens should know.

My aim is to protect the amazing kiddos that come in and out of my classroom each year, the outstanding faculty that I work with day in and day out and the parents that trust me to take care of and teach their children.  Knowledge is power.

Read more here in An Idaho Teacher on Common Core Part 2 — Deeper Facts on Data Mining in our Schools.

EXCLUSIVE: City schools will push for more 'family connections,' parent involvement, Chancellor Carmen Fariña says - NY Daily News

EXCLUSIVE: City schools will push for more 'family connections,' parent involvement, Chancellor Carmen Fariña says - NY Daily News:

EXCLUSIVE: City schools will push for more 'family connections,' parent involvement, Chancellor Carmen Fariña says
Family engagement at schools will be getting an overhaul, the city schools boss tells the Daily News. Changes include longer one-on-one parent-teacher conferences, workshops for parents and support for GED and English as a Second Language classes for moms and dads.

Power to the parents!

Moms and dads will find a new welcome mat awaiting them when they drop off their kids for the first day of class on Thursday, city schools boss Carmen Fariña told the Daily News.

Parent-teacher conferences are just one aspect of family engagement that is about to get a giant overhaul, said Fariña, who has made increasing parent involvement in public schools one of her top priorities.

“We’re going to have a very big push on more family connections,” the veteran educator told the Daily News in an exclusive interview last week. “Workshops for parents: How do parents help in school? How do they continue the work in school at home?”

The week of Sept. 16 will be devoted to that goal — when all public schools will hold open-house parents’ nights.

In November there will be one-on-one parent-teacher conferences — with the student present.

Fariña said the by-appointment, 15-minute meetings on academic progress would be more effective than in previous years, when parents would stand in line for fleeting face time with their kids’ teacher.

It’s all part of a new model — codified in the new teachers contract — that allows teachers to devote at least 40 minutes of every school week to meetings with parents.

“I personally don’t think a PTA meeting is a good measure of whether parents are engaged in schools,” said Fariña, explaining the need for a new approach.

“Many PTA meetings, in my opinion, are boring, and they don’t serve the purposes of parents.”

Fariña will also retrain around 1,800 parent coordinators assigned to city schools, who are charged with getting parents involved in their kids’ education.

She also promised to give support for GED and English as a Second Language classes for parents to be taught in any public school where more than 20 parents request them. That initiative squares with Mayor de Blasio’s beliefs.

“The more parents are involved in their own education the more likely they are to serve as good models for their kids,” she saidEXCLUSIVE: City schools will push for more 'family connections,' parent involvement, Chancellor Carmen Fariña says - NY Daily News:

This School (OFFICIAL TEACHER MUSIC VIDEO) Brachmann and Hein

Brachmann and Hein - This School (OFFICIAL TEACHER MUSIC VIDEO)

 

JK Hein

250

36,778

Published on Aug 27, 2014

Want to help fund some great Brachmann and Hein classroom projects and learning opportunities?
Follow the link! http://gofundme.com/BrachmannAndHein

Interested in becoming a corporate sponsor for construction of a new community fitness center? CONTACT US!! Help us create a fit community!

Mr. Jordan Hein and Mr. Mitchell Brachmann are teachers at Union Grove High School in Wisconsin. Mr. Hein teaches health and physical education and also coaches football and wrestling. Mr. Brachmann teaches science. Every kid in the video and in our school is awesome. Filmed and produced outside of school hours. No public funds were used in the production of this video.

A Jordan and Katie Hein Production
jkheinproductions@gmail.com

Vocals and Lyrics by Jordan Hein, who wishes to thank Mr. Phillip Buch of Wausau West HS for inspiring a lifelong love of music.

Lyrics:
We’re working, so hard.
Ready for school to start.
The teachers, our friends
Fun here just never ends
I’ve got this feeling
Good times are coming around,
There is no ceiling,
To our pride in this town

Now you gotta love school, this school.
Put on your brand new shoes
Please, Louise, feeling pride in UG
Mack, get jacked, because every body’s back
This school rules, everybody loves this school!

You’re playing so cool
Obeying every rule
Deep down in your heart
You’re pumped for school to start
We’re here to tell you
Don’t let these years pass you by
We’re trying to tell you
It will if you don’t even try
Now you gotta love school!

Love school, this school
Put on your brand new shoes,
Oh-wee, Marie, show your pride in UG
Whoa, Broncos, come on come on let’s go
This school rules, everybody loves this school!

Yeah, ooooh-oh-oh
(Love this school)
Yeah, ooooh-oh-oh
(Love this school)
Yeah, ooooh-oh-oh
(Love this school)
Oooooooooh

We are the pride of this town,
Better than ever this round,
Gotta take hold of this fall,
I’m keeping it cool

This school
Put on your brand new shoes,
Please, Louise, feeling pride in UG
Mack, get jacked, because everybody’s back
This school rules, everybody loves this school!
(This School) This School
Put on your brand new shoes,
Oh-wee, Marie, show your pride in UG
Whoa, Broncos, come on come on let’s go
This school rules, Everybody loves, everybody loves
Everybody loves, everybody loves
Everybody loves, everybody loves,
(Everybody) Everybody loves this school!
ody loves, everybody loves,
(Everybody) Everybody loves this school!

L.A. Unified exemplifies the forces that stifle public school reform - LA Times

L.A. Unified exemplifies the forces that stifle public school reform - LA Times:



L.A. Unified exemplifies the forces that stifle public school reform

By  now, Los Angeles Unified was supposed to be the technological model for big-city school systems.

All of its pupils would have iPads, teachers could access student data with the click of a mouse, and parents could check their children's attendance and grades daily online.

But the student data and tracking system stumbled out of the gate three weeks ago when the new school year began. On some campuses teachers had no rosters, student schedules were scrambled and classrooms were either empty or overflowing. The computer system was so overloaded, it couldn't process simple commands.

And the iPad project — the crown jewel of Supt. John Deasy's reform campaign — was bungled so badly in its rollout last year that district-wide expansion was scaled back, then scrapped this week in the midst of concerns that the contracting process was tilted toward companies Deasy favored.

So instead of a groundbreaker, the district has become a national model of the tensions that stifle public school reform. Our technology projects were stranded between high-minded ideals and grass-roots realities; tripped up by jockeying over priorities, politics and power.

Deasy is devoted to reforming the district and he won't apologize for that. He sees education as a social justice issue; his job is to level the playing field for underprivileged kids.

He gets high marks around the country for his passion and his zeal. But inside the district, the superintendent is considered by many to be self-righteous and thin-skinned. Community groups praise his advocacy, but the teachers union considers him an adversary.

Union president Alex Caputo-Pearl blames Deasy's "autocratic style" for the technology missteps. He said Deasy's inner circle minimized early reports of problems and rejected teachers' suggestion that the student tracking system be phased in.

The union leader wants a team of parents, teachers, students and staff to consult with district leaders on future tech projects. But Deasy, he said, wants to limit their power. That battle is likely to play out during negotiations over contracts for teachers, who complain that too little attention is paid to instruction and too much to technology.

The district's technology czar, Ron Chandler, insists the beleaguered new data system will win over its detractors. He admits it may have been rushed and apologized for the problem-plagued rollout. But the problems owed less to lack of input than lack of consensus, he said. "We had really good positive dialogue, but it was hard to get agreement on some things."

That's partly because the computer system is so large and so complex. But it's also emblematic of a district where professional conflicts and personal agendas have outsized influence.

Chandler walked me through the tech project, explaining the need for an interface, the importance of owning the code, the efficacy and functionality of various modules.

I understood none of that. But I do understand the teachers' frustration over error L.A. Unified exemplifies the forces that stifle public school reform - LA Times:

The US has had the same arguments about teachers for 100 years - Vox

The US has had the same arguments about teachers for 100 years - Vox:



The US has had the same arguments about teachers for 100 years

 Should teachers be judged based on their students' test scores? Should they get tenure and job protections that other workers don't? Should education schools recruit the best and the brightest, or change how they teach future teachers entirely?

Those are some of the hottest questions in the education debate. And it turns out that none of them are anything new: Americans have been arguing about teachers and comparing our schools to other countries' for as long as the country has had schools.

In her new book, The Teacher Wars: A History of America's Most Embattled Profession, journalist Dana Goldstein explores the history of teaching in the US from the early 19th century through Teach for America. For more than 100 years, Americans have argued about who should be able to teach, what role teachers play in helping kids escape poverty, and how teachers should be judged on their work.

Goldstein and I talked Friday about teachers' unions, teacher tenure, and the strong sense of déjà vu her book sheds on today's education policy debates.

Libby Nelson: We spend a lot of time talking about who should be a teacher, or why good teachers are important, in a way we don't about other professions — even professions that play critical roles, such as doctors. Why are teachers so central?

Dana Goldstein: The first reason has to do with the role that we expect teachers to play in our inequality debate. We're having this huge national conversation about socioeconomic inequality and to somewhat of a lesser extent about poverty, especially childhood poverty. And really we see teachers held up as people who can help us solve this problem.

AMERICA LOOKS AT TEACHERS AS 'ISLANDS OF PRIVILEGE'

Because we have a relatively weak social safety net, we're really asking them to close these gaps between life outcomes for middle-class kids and life outcomes for poor kids. We are in a way setting ourselves up to be somewhat disappointed. That's not to say that teachers don't make an impact. We know from the latest economic research that teachers dohave a big impact on kids. But as big as the impact is, it is a secondary impact. The home, the parenting, the neighborhood and the socioeconomic status of the family are still the primary impact.

So that's one reason why teaching is controversial and embattled.

The second reason has to do with the fact that teaching is a unionized profession. It really comes down to what [American Federation of Teachers President] Randi Weingarten says to me, that America looks at teachers as "islands of privilege." Only 7 percent of workers are in unions. So the fact that teachers have this strong body representing their interest, they have generous pensions they can look forward to, that The US has had the same arguments about teachers for 100 years - Vox:

What Pope Francis Would Say to Obama: Let Workers Unionize | Perspectives | BillMoyers.com

What Pope Francis Would Say to Obama: Let Workers Unionize | Perspectives | BillMoyers.com:

What Pope Francis Would Say to Obama: Let Workers Unionize

September 1, 2014

by Sister Simone Campbell

• 

US President Barack Obama meets with Pope Francis, Thursday, March 27, 2014 at the Vatican. Obama called himself a 'great admirer' of Pope Francis.(AP Photo/Pablo Martinez Monsivais)

This post first appeared at National Catholic Center.

On March 27 of this year, Pope Francis and President Barack Obama met to discuss, among other topics, their shared concern about the moral and economic crisis of growing income inequality. Pope Francis has deplored “unfair economic structures that create huge inequalities,” and President Obama has called inequality “the defining issue of our time.”

Our Catholic faith teaches that addressing inequality must include just wages and working conditions for those in the labor force. As long ago as 1891, Pope Leo XIII affirmed the right of workers to form associations or unions to seek justice and fair wages. In 1981, St. John Paul II asserted the fundamental “priority of labor over capital” and called for “new movements of solidarity of the workers and with the workers.” And more recently, Pope Francis called on the faithful “to fight for social benefits, a dignified retirement, holidays, rest and freedom for trade unions. All of these issues create social justice.”

In keeping with our faith’s social justice tradition, I strongly support a key element of President Obama’s agenda, which is to raise the minimum wage. Ultimately, the minimum wage should be a living wage, providing low-wage workers with what they need to rise out of poverty and care for their families. That is justice.

Pope Francis understands and connects with the lives of real people, and my life has also been profoundly touched by their stories. People I have spent time with include a minimum-wage worker in Washington, DC, who is homeless because she cannot afford an apartment and a working father in Milwaukee who must turn to church-run facilities to help feed his children. Workers deserve better than this!

The president used his 2014 State of the Union address to announce that he would “lead by example” on the issue of better wages. He then issued an executive order to raise the minimum wage for the federal contracting workforce to $10.10 an hour. His announcement spurred wage hikes throughout the country: states passed higher minimum wage laws, mayors issued executive orders boosting pay for city contractors, and even private companies like Gap Inc. announced a $10.10 starting rate for retail workers.

I hope the president will now go further and allow these federal contract workers the freedom to form a union and bargain collectively with their employers.

Federal contract workers at a McDonald’s in the Pentagon deserve the right to organize in order to move beyond their current $10.10 hourly wage. They deserve retirement plans, health care, paid holidays and sick days and the freedom to form a union.

Marie Ferrier, who works at the Pentagon McDonald’s, recently wrote a letter to What Pope Francis Would Say to Obama: Let Workers Unionize | Perspectives | BillMoyers.com:

9-1-14 Ed Notes Online

Ed Notes Online:

Sept 2, 4:30: Unjust, unfair firing of probationary teachers – give them a second chance

Hey, good news. New Action is taking some action. I will be there to videotape it. Ed Notes has taken up the issue of Discontinued teachers who are blackballed from the system for many years - I'm too lazy to look for the links but if you search for '"the dreaded D" you will find a bunch.Many of us in MORE have worked with people in this situation.MOREista Patrick Walsh, CL of PS 149M, h

1 by ed notes online / 3h 

It's an exhausting enterprise getting rid of a principal, especially when you get NO help from 52 Broadway

Murry Bergtraum has a new principal. MOREista Chapter Leader John Elfrank-Dana helped lead the battle. The principal mis-used the data to target teachers.I know people are impatient and unhappy over the slow pace of replacing the Bloomberg supervisor appointee horror stories. Of course, having our union be pals with the CSA, the bosses' union, doesn't help.Like call Ernie Logan and say "Tell

1 by ed notes online / 0min 

8-31-14 Ed Notes Online

Ed Notes Online: Charter schools making big profits for private companies10 Investigates found new ways charter schools companies are profiting off education: real estate and high rents...http://www.wtsp.com/story/news/investigations/2014/08/21/charter-school-profits-on-real-estate/14420317/Charter schools making big profits for private companies Noah Pransky, WTSP 12:48 p.m. EDT August 22, 2014(P

1 by mike simpson / 21h