9-9-14 Hemlock on the Rocks

Hemlock on the Rocks:

LAUSD School Board Member Monica Ratliff Needs You To Back Her!! You Absolutely Must sign this

Public education and good governance supporters, Thank you all for your support of Bond Oversight Committee member and citizen watchdog Stuart Magruder. We made it to 250 signers on our petition calling for an audit/independent investigation of the iPad deal! Thank you. Here's what you need to know: recently Superintendent Deasy released a 6-page memo doubling down on his actions. Words in his own

by Rene Diedrich / 4h hide  //  save

County approves LA Unified’s accountability plan | EdSource

http://edsource.org/2014/county-approves-la-unifieds-accountability-plan/67218#.VA-Zamt5mK0 County approves LA Unified's accountability planSeptember 9, 2014 | By Louis Freedberg | No Comments City Year/FlickrLAUSD Superintendent Dr. John Deasy addresses the City Year Americorps.After seeking clarification from the Los Angeles Unified School District about how it calculated the funds it said it

by Rene Diedrich / 4h 

LAUSD Codes of Conduct WITH STUDENTS Explicated

by Rene Diedrich / 3min 

Ratliff Meets Ratliff in a Rare Look at Educratic Fashion Statements and the Political Trends Predicted for Next Season

I hope Monica Ratliff is tenacious about the  release of the report on iPad Ethics l she could shed a light in many things if she is thorough and earnest. If  she can usher in true change I will be her biggest advocate . But I have no faith in her now . She has shown herself to be much to prudent and professional to be trusted. But what do I know? For a crackpot , I do pretty well but I am being m

by Rene Diedrich / 1h hide  //  save

Question for LAUSD BOE and Staff: DID YOU EVER Meet Your Apple LA Team?

http://lausd.apple.com/groups/lausd/wiki/2a452/They were installed before the deal was officials, and yet, the training was done by district suits who told teachers to " park " their questions in a metaphorical " parking lot." They simply did nit have the answers to the most basic questions. Notably the training was a waste of teachers' time and taxpayers' money. I am not sure

by Rene Diedrich / 1h 

A Year Ago The Governor Passed A Bill In Deasy'S Honor But Even Lat Tried To Bury It

> > http://www.latimes.com/local/la-me-brown-bills-20130907,0,2732750.story > > So when is the state going to at ? They know what Deasy is and the damage he is causing. So where is the oversight and accountability!? > >

by Rene Diedrich / 5h 

Fair Test Confirms 37 states involved in Cheating on Standardized Tests

www.hemlockontherocks.com

by Rene Diedrich / 6h 

9-8-14 Hemlock on the Rocks

Hemlock on the Rocks: rene diedrich's invitation is awaiting your response                rene diedrich would like to connect on LinkedIn. How would you like to respond?       rene diedrich   writer/poet at Freelance     Confirm you know rene    by Rene Diedrich / 5h 9-7-14 Hemlock on the RocksHemlock on the Rocks: Fwd: Twelve Theses on Education's Future in the Age of Neoliberalism and TerrorismT

by mike simpson / 18min 

Howard Fuller: A civil rights warrior or billionaire’s tool? - The Washington Post

Howard Fuller: A civil rights warrior or billionaire’s tool? - The Washington Post:



Howard Fuller: A civil rights warrior or billionaire’s tool?

Howard Fuller — seen here in 1970 at the Malcolm X Liberation University, which he founded — has had many roles in a lifetime of struggling for civil rights and to promote education. He has a new book about his life: “No Struggle, No Progress.” (Perry Aycock/Associated Press)

By Lyndsey Layton September 9 at 2:43 PM  

He’s been called both a respected voice in the African American community and a tool of billionaire conservatives. He’s a onetime labor activist who says teachers unions are blocking poor children from getting a good education. And he’s a civil rights champion who broke with the NAACP over publicly funded vouchers for private schools.

There’s been plenty written about Howard Fuller. Fourteen books mention some aspect of his lengthy career as a civil rights champion, community organizer, educator and school choice proselytizer. But Fuller says no one really understands him.

So at 73, Fuller has penned a memoir — “No Struggle, No Progress” — which was released Tuesday during an afternoon event at the National Press Club.

“Everyone has their own view about me,” Fuller said in an interview Monday. He wrote the book with Lisa Frazier Page, a former Washington Post reporter. “They have it for their little bit that they think they know about me. But I thought it was time for me to tell my story.

“I wrote it in the hope that young people would read what it’s like to engage and struggle over a long period of time,” Fuller said. “I want them to see that there are twists and turns and ups and downs, personal and political, and that conditions change and lead you in different places.”

 Fuller’s struggles began in childhood. Raised by his mother and grandmother in Milwaukee, he grew up in poverty and spent summers with family in the Jim Crow South. After becoming the first black man to graduate from a small Wisconsin college, Fuller worked for the Urban League trying to integrate previously all-white industries. Next stop was North Carolina, where he was a community organizer in some of the country’s poorest black communities.

Frustrated with the slow pace of some of the more mainstream civil rights groups, Fuller got involved in the Black Power and African Liberation Howard Fuller: A civil rights warrior or billionaire’s tool? - The Washington Post:

An F for Arkansas’ Plan to Grade Schools | EduSanity

An F for Arkansas’ Plan to Grade Schools | EduSanity:

AN F FOR ARKANSAS’ PLAN TO GRADE SCHOOLS

SEPTEMBER 9, 2014 CGOERING 2 COMMENTS

In one of what is surely many of the education policy issues that has escaped my consciousness and cursor until recently is a plan to rank all schools in the state of Arkansas on an A to F rating system. I thought about this for approximately zero seconds before it rang out to me as an awful idea. After all, what parent wants to send their student to a D, F or even a C school? What teacher wants to teach in a C, D, or F school? What first grader wants to attend a C, D, or F school? Who would want to eat at a C, D, or F Bar-B-Que joint or watch an F television show? This is an unconscionable proposition and here’s why.

Our local and national obsession with oversimplification should alarm many Americans and Arkansans, at least any of us still paying attention. While it would be much, much easier to understand any complex entity through incredibly simple markers, doing so lacks an account for the humanity of such acts. Putting people or people-based organizations like schools into narrow categories is an attack on people and the organization of school itself. Is this a thinly veiled attack on the people of Arkansas through their public school system?

In an August 30th Arkansas Democrat Gazette article titled “Letter-Grading Plan for Schools will go on View,” reporter Cynthia Howell tells about this impending policy, one that started with the 2013 legislature passing two bills: 1429 which mandated that schools have a single indicator of performance and 696 which required that indicator be the A through F system. These two bills have created an office at the University of Arkansas where colleagues of mine work and have diligently designed a statistically complex system of An F for Arkansas’ Plan to Grade Schools | EduSanity:

Pearson Tests v. UT Austin’s Associate Professor Stroup |:

Pearson Tests v. UT Austin’s Associate Professor Stroup

 Last week Jason Stanford of the Texas Observer wrote an article, titled “Mute the Messenger,” about University of Texas – Austin’s Associate Professor Walter Stroup, who publicly and quite visibly claimed that Texas’ standardized tests as supported by Pearson were flawed, as per their purposes to measure teachers’ instructional effects. The article is also about how “the testing company [has since] struck back,” purportedly in a very serious way. This article (linked again here) is well worth a full read for many reasons I will leave you all to infer. This article was also covered recently on Diane Ravitch’s blog here, although readers should also see Pearson’s Senior Vice President’s prior response to, and critique of Stroup’s assertions and claims (from August 2, 2014) here.

The main issue? Whether Pearson’s tests are “instructionally sensitive.” That is, whether (as per testing and measurement expert – Professor Emeritus W. James Popham) a test is able to differentiate between well taught and poorly taught students, versus able to differentiate between high and low achievers regardless of how students were taught (i.e., as per that which happens outside of school that students bring with them to the schoolhouse door).

Testing developers like Pearson seem to focus on the prior, that their tests are indeed sensitive to instruction. While testing/measurement academics and especially practitioners seem to focus on the latter, that tests are sensitive to instruction, but such tests are not nearly as “instructionally sensitive” as testing companies might claim. Rather, tests are (as per testing and measurement expert – Regents Professor David Berliner) sensitive to instruction but more importantly sensitive to everything else students bring with them to school from their homes, parents, siblings, and families, all of which are situated in their neighborhoods and communities and related to their social Pearson Tests v. UT Austin’s Associate Professor Stroup |:

Pearson Tests v. UT Austin’s Associate Professor Stroup |:

Pearson Tests v. UT Austin’s Associate Professor Stroup

 Last week Jason Stanford of the Texas Observer wrote an article, titled “Mute the Messenger,” about University of Texas – Austin’s Associate Professor Walter Stroup, who publicly and quite visibly claimed that Texas’ standardized tests as supported by Pearson were flawed, as per their purposes to measure teachers’ instructional effects. The article is also about how “the testing company [has since] struck back,” purportedly in a very serious way. This article (linked again here) is well worth a full read for many reasons I will leave you all to infer. This article was also covered recently on Diane Ravitch’s blog here, although readers should also see Pearson’s Senior Vice President’s prior response to, and critique of Stroup’s assertions and claims (from August 2, 2014) here.

The main issue? Whether Pearson’s tests are “instructionally sensitive.” That is, whether (as per testing and measurement expert – Professor Emeritus W. James Popham) a test is able to differentiate between well taught and poorly taught students, versus able to differentiate between high and low achievers regardless of how students were taught (i.e., as per that which happens outside of school that students bring with them to the schoolhouse door).

Testing developers like Pearson seem to focus on the prior, that their tests are indeed sensitive to instruction. While testing/measurement academics and especially practitioners seem to focus on the latter, that tests are sensitive to instruction, but such tests are not nearly as “instructionally sensitive” as testing companies might claim. Rather, tests are (as per testing and measurement expert – Regents Professor David Berliner) sensitive to instruction but more importantly sensitive to everything else students bring with them to school from their homes, parents, siblings, and families, all of which are situated in their neighborhoods and communities and related to their social Pearson Tests v. UT Austin’s Associate Professor Stroup |:

When Edu Sharks Attack! | EduShyster

When Edu Sharks Attack! | EduShyster:

When Edu Sharks Attack!

 At the intersection of business and education policy lurk the *sharks*…

Reader: have you ever found yourself binge watching Shark Tank and thinking that if anyone has the cure for our failed and failing public school it’s the sharks? Why, just the smoldering gaze of billionaire Mark Cuban is enough to spike achievement rates. And what if the *Queen of QVC,* Lori Greiner, could come up with a way for choosy choosers to order high-performing seats right through their TVs? Well, it turns out that great minds think outside the same box. I give you Ed Shark Tank—an idea so great that you didn’t even know you were waiting for it.

America Succeeds (Successfully)
But who is disruptive, innovative and entrepreneurial enough to unleash the sharks on the schools? Meet America Succeeds—I just did (shout out to local fave Massachusetts Business Alliance for Education for the intro)—which is effectively engaging business leaders in the hard work of improving America’s schools by *building a “balanced portfolio” of affiliates to demonstrate an informed and credible business voice for education.* In other words, I am in love—again. But wait, can you tell me a little bit more about the perfect alignment of business interests When Edu Sharks Attack! | EduShyster:

Student Voice in a Box: Week 5

Student Voice in a Box: Week 5:

Student Voice in a Box: Week 5

Setting up a Student Voice Friendly Classroom Environment

When setting up your classroom to be as conducive to student voices as possible, it’s good to set clear guidelines for what is expected of students and for teachers. Student Voice has put together an example set of guidelines — take a look and adapt these to your classrooms as you see fit!

Check out the Student Expectations.

Check out the Teacher Expectations.

Polling your students

Two weeks ago we interviewed Ryan Heisinger (@RyanHeisinger), who told us about how he surveys his students every quarter. Ryan asks his students to assess his performance as a teacher and give him feedback. He then asks his students to assess their own performance as students and set personal goals for improving themselves in the next quarter.

This method is powerful in encouraging students to share their opinions about the class. By actually taking his students’ advice and setting goals for himself, Ryan demonstrates that students can have an impact in their classrooms and that teachers care about what they think.

This is particularly helpful when the students are critiquing setting goals for themselves. By setting a standard for accepting candid feedback and acting on it, Ryan inspires his students to do the same.

Ryan has been very generous to share with us three documents from his classroom:

1. A survey he gives to his students to get to know a little bit more about their backgrounds and interests: View the PDF
2. A survey his students complete to evaluate their performance during a particular quarter: Download as .DOC orView the PDF
3. A document about creating a strong classroom culture and positive learning environment: Download as .DOC orView the PDF

Click here to check out our interview with Ryan.

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Class Projects This Week

Interconnected Campus

Connections are everything — especially when its across disciplines. An engineer who understands design will be more successful than an engineer who doesn’t. An architect who can build a study and beautiful building will be more successful than the one who can’t make something beautiful. These cross-discipinary connections should start happening in schools to prepare students for the real world.

Take a look at the Interconnected Campus.

Class Project: Stand-Up Comedy

Stand-up comedy is certainly an unorthodox type of project to bring into the classroom, and it certainly is not easy to do! Neverthless, it can be an excellent way to help students build their confidence, and to express their voice by delivering social commentary in an accessible manner. Here’s how.

Check out the full class project description for Comedy Routines.

Class Project: Effective Fundraising

Fundraising events can be the perfect union between raising money and sending a message about a particular cause. Here are 7 ways in which students can express their voices while organizing such an event.

Check out the full class project description for Fundraising Events.

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Join the Student Voice Educator Conversation

The Student Voice community on Blueslips.org is where teachers can discuss Student Voice best practices, exchange lesson plans, and see how other educators plan to use Student Voice in a Box in their classrooms.

See what other Student Voice Educators are doing.

Receive Student Voice in a Box in your email inbox: http://eepurl.com/LRPfH

Author - Adil Majid

Adil Majid is a senior at Carnegie Mellon University. He co-founded Student Voice in the summer of 2012 as a way to combat the exclusion of students from the education reform conversation. He enjoys discussing politics, playing chess, and is an avid reader. You can follow his thoughts on Twitter at @adilmajid.

THIS ENTRY WAS POSTED IN STUDENT VOICE IN A BOX.

9-9-14 Philadelphia Public School Notebook

Philadelphia Public School Notebook:

Pa. Republicans flog Corbett's Common Core call as politics, not policy

Want to boil the blood of some Pennsylvania voters? Utter four words: "Common Core State Standards." For those leery of all things federal, all things Obama, the push to align academic expectations on a consistent, nationwide basis causes heart rates to rise exponentially. This week, Republicans in the Pennsylvania House are accusing Gov. Tom Corbett of preying on those fears in an elect

1 by thenotebook / 40min hide  //  save

See MacArthur winner Angela Duckworth talk about the power of grit

Want to know the recipe for success? University of Pennsylvania’s assistant professor of psychology and MacArthur "genius" award winner Angela Lee Duckworth, will deliver a lecture Thursday about the power of grit in reaching your life goals and aspirations. Author Bio:  Follow Wendy Harris read more

1 by Wendy Harris / 1h 

With city support, District schools offered scaled-back summer programs

The School Reform Commission has given a tip of the hat, so to speak, to the city’s longstanding commitment to in-school programming for children who might otherwise have been disengaged across the long summer break. In a resolution at its August meeting, the SRC accepted “with appreciation” out-of-school time (OST) services from the city with a value of about $11.5 million. The sum represents the

3 by thenotebook / 3h 

Corbett urges review as part of effort to 'roll back' Common Core

Pennsylvania's Gov. Corbett has released a somewhat ambiguous statement about the future of the Common Core State Standards in that state, saying he has asked for a "continued public review" of the standards as part of the "final phase" of a three-year process to "roll back" the standards in the Keystone State. In his Sept. 8 statement, Corbett said that he has asked

4 by thenotebook / 6h 

Why do we do what we do? | My Island View

Why do we do what we do? | My Island View:

Why do we do what we do?

September 9, 2014 by Tom Whitby @tomwhitby

How much of what we do as educators is done because that’s the way it’s always been done? I imagine that whenever these things, that we do out of a respect for history, were originally executed, there was probably a reason for it. My question is with our society and all of the systems within it changing so rapidly over the past few decades, are those original reasons for doing things a certain way still valid? How would we know unless we re-examined the things that we do in education and see if they stand up in today’s technology-driven culture?

I often use my dentist as an example of obsolete practices in a modern setting. It has nothing to do with teeth, but rather information forms. You may have had the same experience with any medical or dental office. Every year at best patients are required to fill out a form to update all of the doctor’s patient information. The office person hands out blank forms to fill out all of the information that already lies within the computer system. When I asked why do I need to fill out all the information that you already have, I was told that this is the way we have always done it.

Of course the method, obvious to me, would be to print out the needed information that the computer already had, so that I could check if it needed any corrections. That is one of the reasons why we have computers, to do those repetitive tasks that waste our time. Apparently, it never occurred to the dentist or the staff to use the technology at hand to make a dull, time-consuming task for a patient a more productive and less tedious experience. Why? Because that’s the way we have always done it. That leads me to ask, how many policies or practices do we have in our schools that only exist, because that’s the way it has always been done.

In many instances in education there is also a research component that affects everything that we do. At least we hear that as educators all of the time. Does the research support this? That question may not apply to some things however. Research tells us that the teenage brain does not function well in the morning hours. Few schools have changed their AM openings to accommodate the research. The overall positive effects of homework continues to be questioned by research, yet there are still schools mandating homework be given at alarming rates. Research tells us that physical activity enhances cognitive thinking and Why do we do what we do? | My Island View:

America’s Unspoken Education Issue: Black Kids Need Black Teachers Coalition for Public Education/Coalición por la Educación Pública

Coalition for Public Education/Coalición por la Educación Pública:

America’s Unspoken Education Issue: Black Kids Need Black Teachers

A new historical account is just the latest reminder that relying on white teachers to save black students has never been enough.

By: Melinda D. Anderson

Posted: Sept. 9 2014 - theroot.com

 

“Hiring more white teachers is not the best way to improve education for students, particularly students of color.” This recent commentary by a black student from New Orleans in the Washington Post predictably aroused the ire of readers who accused the young man of reverse racism, playing the race card and divisiveness.

That’s no surprise. Race is the third rail of education. Touch it and get scorched. But when it comes to the need for more teachers of color—and, conversely, the idea that placing black students with white teachers isn’t a fix-all—overwhelming research and historical evidence say that this is where our attention needs to be.

The idea that racial diversity in classrooms has automatic benefits is a proven myth when it comes to black educational achievement. Sixty years after Brown v. Board of Education, wide disparities exist between students of color and white students across all aspects of public education. According to data from the U.S. Department of Education, black students trail white classmates on every academic criterion and marker of school quality, while black youths far exceed white classmates in suspensions, expulsions and arrests.

The numbers are stark and straightforward: Educational attainment is greatly influenced by race. But thesebleak statistics don’t tell the full story of the impact of race on educational outcomes.

In all the discussion of resources, testing and parental involvement, what we don’t hear enough about is this: Students of color perform better with teachers of color (pdf)—academically, socially and emotionally. According to a Center for American Progress report on retaining teachers of color in public schools, “Teachers of color are more likely to work and remain in high-poverty, hard-to-staff urban schools and districts than their white counterparts. ... What’s more, teachers of color are known to be personally committed to the success of children of color ... ” Yet as our student population grows more diverse, the people standing in front of classrooms remain predominantly white.

For the first time, black children and other students of color are now the majority in public schools, and what was a racial and ethnic gap between students and teachers is becoming a chasm. But a new historical portrait of the teaching profession reveals that the racial composition of the teachers who instruct black children has been a perennial issue since the 19th century, full of highs and lows and fraught with Coalition for Public Education/Coalición por la Educación Pública:

9-8-14 Seattle Schools Community Forum Week

Seattle Schools Community Forum:

Tuesday Open Thread on Wednesday

Ack! Melissa usually does this. Sorry I muffed it.Here is your Tuesday open thread just one day late.Did anyone attend the Curriculum and Instruction Policy Committee meeting? Can we get a report? Has anyone seen the draft policy for Advanced Learning?What else is going on?

by Charlie Mas / 1min 

9-6-14 Seattle Schools Community Forum Week

Seattle Schools Community Forum:Seattle Schools Community ForumSeattle Times, This One's For YouGuess what?  According to a new Brookings study, teachers matter. Principals matter.Superintendents?  Not so much.Findings:In this report, the authors examine the extent to which school district effects on student learning are due to the superintendent in charge, as compared to characteristics of distri

1 by mike simpson / 52min

Poems By and For Teachers: What Teachers Make (Taylor Mali) | Larry Cuban on School Reform and Classroom Practice

Poems By and For Teachers: What Teachers Make (Taylor Mali) | Larry Cuban on School Reform and Classroom Practice:

Poems By and For Teachers: What Teachers Make (Taylor Mali)

The following brief resume is taken from Taylor Mali’s website:

Mali is a vocal advocate of teachers and the nobility of teaching, having himself spent nine years in the classroom teaching everything from English and history to math and S.A.T. test preparation. He has performed and lectured for teachers all over the world, and his 12-year long Quest for One Thousand Teachers, completed in April of 2012, helped create 1,000 new teachers through “poetry, persuasion, and perseverance,” an achievement Mali commemorated by donating 12″ of his hair to the American Cancer Society.

Mali is the author most recently of “What Teachers Make: In Praise of the Greatest Job in the World” (Putnam 2012)….

What Teachers Make

He says the problem with teachers is
What’s a kid going to learn
from someone who decided his best option in life
was to become a teacher?

He reminds the other dinner guests that it’s true
what they say about teachers:
Those who can, do; those who can’t, teach.

I decide to bite my tongue instead of his
and resist the temptation to remind the dinner guests
that it’s also true what they say about lawyers.
Because we’re eating, after all, and this is polite conversation.

I mean, you’re a teacher, Taylor.
Be honest. What do you make?

And I wish he hadn’t done that— asked me to be honest—
because, you see, I have this policy about honesty and ass-­‐kicking:
if you ask for it, then I have to let you have it.
You want to know what I make?

I make kids work harder than they ever thought they could.
I can make a C+ feel like a Congressional Medal of Honor
and an A-­‐ feel like a slap in the face.
How dare you waste my time
with anything less than your very best.
I make kids sit through 40 minutes of study hall
in absolute silence. No, you may not work in groups.
No, you may not ask a question.

Why won’t I let you go to the bathroom?
Because you’re bored.
And you don’t really have to go to the bathroom, do you?

I make parents tremble in fear when I call home:
Hi. This is Mr. Mali. I hope I haven’t called at a bad time,
I just wanted to talk to you about something your son said today.
To the biggest bully in the grade, he said,
“Leave the kid alone. I still cry sometimes, don’t you?
It’s no big deal.”
And that was noblest act of courage I have ever seen.
I make parents see their children for who they are
and what they can be.

You want to know what I make? I make kids wonder,
I make them question.
I make them criticize.
I make them apologize and mean it.
I make them write.
I make them read, read, read.
I make them spell definitely beautiful, definitely beautiful, definitely beautiful
over and over and over again until they will never misspell
either one of those words again.
I make them show all their work in mathPoems By and For Teachers: What Teachers Make (Taylor Mali) | Larry Cuban on School Reform and Classroom Practice: