9-12-14 Curmudgucation - TNTP Proposes New Tenure Plan

CURMUDGUCATION:

TNTP Proposes New Tenure Plan

TNTP, the Reimagine Teaching people and generators of plenty of fancy-looking reformy nonsense, have some more ideas for the post-Vergara world. They have decided to stake out a middle ground on the tenure wars, claiming that we don't need to eliminate it-- just fix it. And to that end, they have eight proposals to create "a more balanced system." It's all in this very fancy "paper,

3 by Peter Greene / 32min 

Magical CCSS Teachers

Over at EdWeek, the Teaching Ahead roundtable is having a little debate about the Core's burgeoning image problem. I've made my own entry in the argument (feel free to check it out and like it as a way to register your CCSS love).Tucked in among the various points of view, you'll find this piece by Jessica Keigan. "Abandoning the Common Core Would Be a Disservice to Students" belongs to

14 by Peter Greene / 3h 

9-11-14 Curmudgucation - Forever Less Than, Frederick Douglass, and No Excuses

CURMUDGUCATION: Forever Less Than, Frederick Douglass, and No ExcusesMy esteemed colleague and exceptional citizen journalist over at Edushyster has an interview up that is well worth your time to read.She talks to Joan Goodman, director of the TFA program at U Penn, about the no excuse charters of Philadelphia (among other things, the piece is a reminder that we can not knee-jerkingly sort good g

1 by mike simpson / 5h 

9-12-14 Perdido Street School

Perdido Street School:

Financial Genius Mayor Bloomberg Costs NYC Taxpayers $60 Million Extra On WTC Contract

Let us imagine Mayor de Blasio pulled some criminal act like this: In a deal worked out by ex-Mayor Bloomberg, taxpayers will pay nearly $60 million extra to move a city agency seven blocks into expensive office space at Four World Trade Center, a Daily News investigation has found. Back in 2008, Bloomberg signed off on an agreement to move the Human Resources Administration from its longtime head

by reality-based edu... / 2h 

Anti-Teacher Tenure Lawsuit In New York Starts Off Like A Circus

The Murdoch-owned Wall Street Journal:Justice Philip Minardo in Richmond County Supreme Court agreed Thursday to merge two lawsuits seeking to challenge state tenure laws.The state attorney general's office had filed a motion to consolidate the two cases on grounds the issues were so similar, and the United Federation of Teachers had asked to intervene as a defendant.The court granted both request

3 by reality-based edu... / 3h 

9-11-14 Perdido Street School

Perdido Street School: De Blasio Caves To Charter School SectorIf there was ever a time when Mayor de Blasio could tell Governor Cuomo to go @#$% himself, this is the time.Cuomo needed de Blasio's help in securing the Working Families Party ballot line last May, something that was very important to Cuomo since the woman who might have gotten that line had de Blasio not helped Cuomo out - Zephry Te

by mike simpson / 8h 

Gov. Christie — ” I don’t care about the community criticism…”; School Opens in Newark | janresseger

Gov. Christie — ” I don’t care about the community criticism…”; School Opens in Newark | janresseger:

Gov. Christie — ” I don’t care about the community criticism…”; School Opens in Newark

Posted on September 12, 2014 by janresseger

School opened in Newark, New Jersey on Thursday, September 4, in the messy, patched together way that major transformations occur.  The question in this case, as Cami Anderson, the state’s appointed overseer superintendent imposed her controversial “One Newark” school choice plan on the school district, is why the confusion had to happen.  The citizens of Newark overwhelmingly elected a new mayor in the spring, Ras Baraka, a public school educator who ran on a platform of improving the public schools in Newark’s neighborhoods.  But Cami Anderson and Governor Chris Christie—who arrogantly said, “And I don’t care about the community criticism. We run the school district in Newark — not them.”—have persisted in their plans to close public schools and expand school choice.

As school began under “One Newark,” about 190 students were reported by WNYC News not to have been assigned a school yet and only 74 percent of students were reported to have found a place in one of their top five schools.  According to Bob Braun, the blogger and retired reporter from the Newark Star-Ledger, students with disabilities were not provided transportation at all on the first day.  There was considerable confusion as families tried to navigate a new shuttle bus service set up by the school district to support students who were assigned to schools far from home.  Newark’s public schools have not provided transportation in the past.

Braun has been persistent and prophetic in pointing out the racial implications of the Christie/Anderson experiment on Newark’s children.  I urge you to read all of his recent blog posts on the Newark schools, because he is forthright in naming how power politics and racial politics work in the biggest—and majority-African American—city of a wealthy state.

Here is Braun’s reflection on the meaning of a preliminary boycott organized by the Newark Student Union on the day before school started:  “Newark’s political and organizational leaders will, I know, scoff at this but right now, the leaders of the struggle against ‘One Newark’ and the privatization of public education are the hundreds of high school students who early this morning marched from three high schools to Military Park and who, tomorrow, are expected to take even bolder action against the policies of Cami Anderson, her puppet master Chris Christie, and Christie’s privatization guru, Cory Booker.  That doesn’t mean a few hundred high school students from Science Park, Arts, and Central will bring Gov. Christie — ” I don’t care about the community criticism…”; School Opens in Newark | janresseger:

Time to Scale Back School Testing - Lily's Blackboard

Time to Scale Back School Testing - Lily's Blackboard:

Time to Scale Back School Testing

September 12, 2014 by Lily

Categories: Did you see this?, Education, General, Testing

Tags: learning, New Jersey, Testing

Do you remember a teacher or other school employee who made a difference in your life? Perhaps someone who really brought an academic subject to life, or who simply helped you through a difficult time? How about a class or subject that thrilled you and made you want to learn more and more, even after you’d completed your assignments and passed the final exam?

Now think back to all of the standardized tests you’ve ever taken. Remember that one SAT analogy question that set you on the course to your future career? The multiple choice math problem that gave you the courage to try something you’d always been afraid to attempt before?

If you are struggling to come up with something, don’t feel bad. Neither of us can either, because while standardized tests have long been a part of public education, until recently, they’ve never been mistaken for its point and purpose.
Let’s stop pretending that a test score tells us all we need to know about our students, their teachers, or the public schools.

That critical distinction is totally lost in our test-obsessed effort to turn our students into statistics. These tests are not meant to help teachers monitor student progress and tailor lessons to students’ individual needs. Instead, standardized tests are increasingly used as the single measure by which we judge the success of a school, the quality of its staff, and the learning of its students. And that’s just wrong.

We would never tell a doctor that a stethoscope is the only tool she needs to gauge her patients’ health, even if the tool is useful for its limited purpose. And we’d certainly object if a company that manufactures and sells stethoscopes tried to convince us to disregard ultrasounds, CAT scans and blood pressure readings. In medicine, we accept that no single measure can tell us all we need to know about a patient’s health.

We also know that identifying a health problem is only the first step. It’s much more important to find out what is causing the problem and act to remedy it. We rarely blame the doctor who identified the problem for causing it in the first place.

But in education, a single diagnostic tool – the standardized test — is being misused both to measure things it cannot really measure and to punish schools, students, and teachers for circumstances and outcomes they do not control. Class time that should be devoted to learning is now devoted instead to test-taking and test-preparation. Subjects thaTime to Scale Back School Testing - Lily's Blackboard:

What I Did in Texas this Week…

Lily visited several schools, met with superintendents, shared with members, listened to educators and interacted with beautiful children eager to learn. Check out some of the highlights. [View the story "NEA Back to School 2014: Texas" on Storify]

by Lily's Blackboard / 2h 

Statement of Pennsylvania Working Families on Council’s Failure to put Local Control on the Ballot | WeArePCAPS

Statement of Pennsylvania Working Families on Council’s Failure to put Local Control on the Ballot | WeArePCAPS:

Statement of Pennsylvania Working Families on Council’s Failure to put Local Control on the Ballot

Posted on September 12, 2014by wearepcaps

Philadelphians Denied the Chance to Vote for Local Control
Coalition demands vote on education charter amendment
For Immediate Release
Thursday, September 11, 2014
Jesse Bacon, 215-298-3923, jbacon@workingfamilies.org
Today, Philadelphia City Council failed to heed the call of 40,000 Philadelphians who have signed a petition to amend the City Charter to demand local control of the School District of Philadelphia. After a PA Working Families press conference this morning, announcing an expected council vote on a ballot measure demanding the General Assembly abolish the School Reform Commission and return Philadelphia schools to local control, Council tabled the resolution, denying Philadelphians the chance to vote on the first-ever citizen-initiated ballot question in November.
“PFT members have been at the forefront of the effort to give Philadelphia’s citizens the power to determine what happens in our children’s schools,” said Philadelphia Federation of Teachers president Jerry Jordan. “We surveyed over 3,000 Philadelphia residents and our members collected over 17,000 signatures to get local control on the ballot in November. City Council’s failure to vote on this measure is a disappointing setback, but we will keep fighting to bring our schools under local control.”
“Philadelphians from all walks of life came together to say they want a chance to have a voice in their schools. Council needs to listen to their voices and vote immediately to place the local control charter amendment on the ballot.” said Pat Eiding, President, Philadelphia Council AFL-CIO
“We went to City Council today to say that Harrisburg should fund our schools—and Philadelphia should run them. City Council put up a responsible vote to add local funding by taxing cigarettes, and Harrisburg hasn’t even scheduled a vote to approve that—it’s time for us to get a vote on taking back local control of our schools,” said Kati Sipp, director of Pennsylvania Working Families
“1199C members support a local voice in Philadelphia’s schools. Health care workers know the importance of dignity and decision-making. We want Council to show some courage in securing the health of our children’s education by approving the local control ballot measure.” said Henry Nicholas, President of District 1199C.
PA Working Families has been part of a historic 10-month long campaign gathering 40,000 signatures in favor of letting the entire city vote on local control of Philadelphia schools. Canvassers with PA Working Families, Fight for Philly, SEIU 32BJ, the Statement of Pennsylvania Working Families on Council’s Failure to put Local Control on the Ballot | WeArePCAPS:

Teacher, Principal, and Superintendent Core Dilemmas That Need to Be Managed | Larry Cuban on School Reform and Classroom Practice

Teacher, Principal, and Superintendent Core Dilemmas That Need to Be Managed | Larry Cuban on School Reform and Classroom Practice:

Teacher, Principal, and Superintendent Core Dilemmas That Need to Be Managed

I have used the word “dilemma” in earlier posts since superintendents, principals, teachers, and, yes, students face situations that call for difficult choices among conflicting values. So for this post, I delve into the two persistent dilemmas at the core of the work teachers and administrators do daily.

By dilemmas, I mean situations where you have to choose between two or more competing and prized values. The choice is often hard because in choosing you end up sacrificing something to gain a bit of satisfaction. That is the compromise that all of us construct to reduce the tension.

There are two core dilemmas that educators face in the classroom, school site, and district office that won’t go away. They are in the air we breathe, the water we drink: the multiple roles we have to perform daily and the personal/professional conflict.

Multiple Roles Dilemmas

Teachers, principals, and superintendents have to perform three different roles in their classrooms and offices.

Instructional role. For teachers, that is obvious. For principals and superintendents, the pressure on these administrators to assume responsibility for instructionally guiding teachers has grown dramatically in the past three decades.

Since the 1980s, mainstream thinking about principals has shifted markedly from managing school-site decisions to re-asserting the importance of  being instructional leaders. Now, principals and superintendents are expected to help teachers in meeting state academic standards, aligning curriculum, textbooks, and tests to those state standards, evaluating teachers, and producing higher student test scores.

Managerial role. Principals and superintendents have always been hired to administer schools. Superintendents expect their principals to set priorities consistent with district goals, use data for decision making, plan and schedule work of the school, oversee the budget and many other managerial tasks—Teacher, Principal, and Superintendent Core Dilemmas That Need to Be Managed | Larry Cuban on School Reform and Classroom Practice:

Schools Not Prisons: #DoTheMath | National Opportunity to Learn Campaign | Education Reform for Equity and Opportunity

Schools Not Prisons: #DoTheMath | National Opportunity to Learn Campaign | Education Reform for Equity and Opportunity:

Schools Not Prisons: #DoTheMath

In California it costs $62,300 per year to imprison someone, but just $9,100 per year to teach a child. A powerful short video from Californians for Safety and Justice challenges us to "do the math" when it comes to expanding the criminal justice system or investing in schools. Watch the video below!

by jocelyn / 19min hide  //  save

Minneapolis Bans Suspensions for Young Students

Minneapolis Superintendent Bernadeia Photo via Star Tribune read more

by jocelyn / 49min 

Gallup: 70% of Americans Want Federally-Funded Universal Pre-K

Pre-k has always played well in public debate – who can argue with spending time and money on adorable young kids? But a new Gallup polls shows just how much people like pre-k and how much they want to see it expanded. According to Gallup, 70% of Americans favor using federal money to fund universal pre-k. read more

by jocelyn / 1h 

Teachers For Social Justice: UWM & City of Milwaukee: End Charter Enrollment Bribes!

Teachers For Social Justice: UWM & City of Milwaukee: End Charter Enrollment Bribes!:

UWM & City of Milwaukee: End Charter Enrollment Bribes!

SEPTEMBER 12, 2014 LEAVE A COMMENT

Please sign this petition from the Milwaukee Teacher Education Association to end the practice of paying parents and community members to enroll or refer students to privately run charter schools in Wisconsin!

Paying parents to sign up for charter schools in Wisconsin

It has come to light this week that several Wisconsin privately-run charter schools have been using $100, $200, and gift cards to bribe parents and community members to refer and enroll children. The schools even specify that to receive a payment, the child referred must be present on Sept. 19. Attendance on this date determines the level of state funding that each school receives.

This bribery scheme to increase enrollment spits in the face of schools that are working hard to increase enrollment the old fashioned way, by providing a quality education. If you think schools shouldn't be able to artificially inflate enrollment through bribes then please sign this petition.

Please share this petition widely!
https://actionnetwork.org/petitions/uwm-city-of-milwaukee-end-charter-enrollment-bribes?source=direct_link&

Bill Gates funds the media then secretly meets with them | Seattle Education

Bill Gates funds the media then secretly meets with them | Seattle Education:

Bill Gates funds the media then secretly meets with them

This post was written by Mercedes Schneider and originally posted on Dr. Rich Swier:

Billionaire Bill Gates funds the media then secretly meets with them to do what?

Billionaire Bill Gates funds the media.

This is no surprise to me.

What did surprise me is the discovery that he meets with the media he funds (and others) regularly behind closed doors.

Yep.

Gates Briefs a Media He Pays For (And Then Some)

In February 2013, journalist Tom Paulson wrote a piece on Gates’ private meetings with the media he funds. Paulson was not invited.

Notice some of the names:

I (Paulson) wasn’t actually allowed behind the scenes at the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation’s recent meeting in Seattle entitled “Strategic Media Partnerships.”

The Gates Foundation funds a lot of media – more than $25 million in media grants for 2012 (but still less than 1% of the budget).  

I’m media but I wasn’t invited. I asked if I could come and report on it, but was told the meeting was off the record. Those attending included representatives from the New York Times, NPR, the Guardian, NBC, Seattle Times and a number of other news organizations, non-profit groups and foundations. Not all were grant recipients, or partners. Some just came to consult. [Emphasis added this paragraph.]

In August 2014, I wrote about the Gates-funded, Seattle Times blog, Education Lab.

Education Lab is trying to offer predominately light, benign stories arguably designed to divert public attention from the increasingly-evident documentation regarding the failure of education privatization.

In Seattle, Gates is paying for the reporting of “positive outcomes.”

What happens if the “outcomes” are not so “positive”?

Just don’t write about that.

And it is easy enough if the funded organization’s politics agree with those of Gates.

(The Gates grants website is clear that Gates actively seeks to pay those organizations Bill Gates funds the media then secretly meets with them | Seattle Education:

The Future Will NOT be Standardized

Join parents, teachers and concerned citizens on:  September 25th at Moonpaper Tent 8503 Roosevelt Way, NE Seattle, 98115 For decades, standardized testing has been a part of public education. Within the last ten years, however, the testing has taken on a more important, and possibly more damaging, role. Test scores, mistakenly viewed as effective assessments […]

by seattleducation20... / 8h 

New schools chief: Oakland “full of opportunity” | EdSource

New schools chief: Oakland “full of opportunity” | EdSource:

New schools chief: Oakland “full of opportunity”

September 11, 2014 | By Louis Freedberg and John Fensterwald | No Comments



•  SHARE THIS ARTICLE

The Oakland Unified School District has begun the school year with a new superintendent, Antwan Wilson, at the helm. The 46,000-student district is the 14th-largest in the state. Unlike the district’s former superintendents in recent years, he comes to Oakland without any prior experience in California public education.

Oakland Unified School District Superintendent Antwan Wilson in his downtown Oakland office.

Wilson, 42, comes to the district after nine years in the Denver public schools, most recently as assistant superintendent for postsecondary readiness. He succeeds former superintendent Tony Smith, who resigned unexpectedly at the end of  the 2012-13 school year. During the transition to a permanent superintendent, the district had been led by interim superintendent Gary Yee. Wilson sat down with EdSource’s Louis Freedberg and John Fensterwald for a wide-ranging discussion on why he came to Oakland, his views on the Common Core, and his goals for the district.

His remarks provide insights into how a superintendent in an urban district at the outset of his term of office is approaching some of the challenges that he will face.

What made you accept the position of superintendent in Oakland?

Oakland is a school district that is full of opportunity, and that got me excited. And the opportunities are to make a difference in the lives of young people, many of whom come from diverse backgrounds, many of whom share similar experiences to those that I had as a child, and also just the history in Oakland. The diversity, the activism, the number of individuals who care about social justice issues — those were all things that attracted me to Oakland, and some of the issues that are here in Oakland to improve education are issues that resonate with me from my work in other places, most recently Denver. And it would have taken a tremendous community in order for me to leave Denver because I love it, and I love Colorado, and Oakland provided those opportunities. So I am excited to be here.

EdSource: Where do you come down in the debate about how much schools can do to improve academic performance, and how much has to do with the environment that kids grow up in, their economic background, or the traumas they might experience in their homes and in their neighborhoods?

I normally don’t debate that issue. I believe that schools have a tremendous responsibility to ensure that our young people have opportunities in their lives, and I believe schools can have a tremendous impact on the opportunities and prospects that students have for their lives. My own personal life is an example of that. I was a young student born to a single mother in poor neighborhoods, where we moved all the time.

Where was that?

In Wichita, Kansas. There I experienced and saw the violence, the drugs, the gangs. One of the things that led to me having an opportunity to do more is that my mother really pushed and helped me get a great education. And getting a great education led to me being here with you now. So I know that education has a tremendous role to play. In playing that role it has to be one where adults are really serious about saying that every child will get a great education and show empathy for the experiences that young people are faced with, help families think through ways in which young people can get the support they need. If they’re hungry, we’ve got to feed them. If they are dealing with abuse, we’ve got to connect them with people and resources to help remove them from those situations and put them on a trajectory so that they can rise above or overcome those situations.

But we must educate them. As a society we need to believe in the power of education because if not, then what? We can’t say, “Well, we’re going to wait till there’s no more poverty, no more violence, there are no more drugs,” all things that I saw on a regular basis as a young person growing up, and then say “After there’s no more of that, we’ll educate them.” We have to educate them, and that’s what’s going to put them in a position to have more success, but recognizing that’s not the only thing. The other social systems in the society have to work as well. But education is key.

“I believe that schools have a tremendous responsibility to ensure that our young people have opportunities in their lives, and I believe schools can have a tremendous impact on the opportunities and prospects that students have for their lives.”

But where do you come down on issues like having school-based health centers and mental health and other wrap-around services that schools can use to help with students with discipline problems and so on?

Having the additional supports are huge to positioning schools to be successful. So the community schools effort in Oakland is in large New schools chief: Oakland “full of opportunity” | EdSource:

The (NY, DC, LA, and CA) Story of Eureka Math | deutsch29

The (NY, DC, LA, and CA) Story of Eureka Math | deutsch29:

The (NY, DC, LA, and CA) Story of Eureka Math

September 11, 2014

In Louisiana, there has been a bit of mystery surrounding the only math curriculum “selected” in March 2014 by the Louisiana Board of Elementary and Secondary Education (BESE) and the Louisiana Department of Education (LDOE) and promoted as

“LSU-developed Eureka Math.”

It sure sounds like… dare I write it… grass roots CCSS math development, huh?

Then comes the fine print.

LDOE’s “Louisiana Believes” website offers this overview of Eureka Math, which includes the following tiny wording regarding its funding and development:

Eureka Math is based on research and development made possible through a partnership with the New York State Education Department. The modules within Eureka Math are available online at engageny.org and commoncore.org

©2014 Common Core, Inc. All rights reserved.

Common Core, Inc., is a non-profit 501(c)3 organization that creates curriculum tools and promotes programs, policies, and initiatives at the local, state, and federal levels that provide students with challenging, rigorous instruction in the full range of liberal arts and sciences. Common Core was established in 2007 and is not affiliated with the Common Core State Standards.

So, where is LSU in all of this? According to this 2013 LDOE Common Core State Standards (CCSS) transitional summary, there is no mention of Common Core, Inc. (the Eureka Math copyright owner) and no mention of New York State/EngageNY:

Curriculum. The state will produce a Louisiana Curriculum Guidebook for English Language Arts and Math in grades Kindergarten through 12 that will include learning standards, a recommended sequence of skills to be taught, recommended units to present, and recommended materials to use in the classroom. The state will also recommend math curricula, including LSU-developed Eureka Math, along with English reading materials. [Emphasis added.]

Much better for business for Louisiana State Superintendent John White to pump up the “LSU-developed” angle and not the rest of the story– including Eureka Math’s connection to New York’s slice of federal Race to the Top (RTTT) funding and the copyright of Eureka Math by an organization that is DC-based, not Louisiana-based.

Commoncore.org offers this funding and development background on its Eureka The (NY, DC, LA, and CA) Story of Eureka Math | deutsch29: