Teach Like You | Blue Cereal Education

Teach Like You | Blue Cereal Education:

Teach Like You

I’m a fairly narcissistic fellow. I don’t mean to be, it’s just that I’m vain and self-absorbed. At least I have the skills, style, and cojones to make it work for me. I make no apologies; every rose has it’s - oh, are you still here? I hadn’t noticed.

There’ve been a slew of books and workshops in recent years promising to help you teach like a pirate, like a rockstar, like a hero… I received something rather spammy recently promising to help me become a more exciting presenter and unlock a fabulous career leading teacher workshops. Just call Robert in Wisconsin at ###-###-####!

I’m not knocking any of these books or workshops. I haven’t read or attended any of them, but I see happy teachers carrying on about them on Twitter and such… they sound great.

Except the one with Robert in Wisconsin. WTF, Bob?

It’s just that I don’t want to be a pirate, or a rockstar, or a hero. I want my kids to learn a little history, ask some better questions, and maybe learn to like reading a little. And I want to do it as… me. 

I’m pretty entertaining, and I have a degree. That should buy me some leeway, yes?

Of course, you don’t need to buy books or go to conferences to hear how you should be doing everything differently. There are no shortage of researchers scolding us for forcing our kids to recite from their McGuffey’s Readers and practice multiplication tables on their chalk slates, or whatever it is they think we do.

Seriously, if I read one more heavily-footnoted interview with yet another person who’s discovered that worksheets have limited effectiveness and some people are boring when they lecture, I may become violent. Can we steer some of the funding for these redundant studies into something more useful – maybe fresh blue ink for the mimeograph machine or another History Channel Documentary on VHS?

They’re not all bad, of course. Many make some fascinating observations and connections. They challenge us to reconsider some of our assumptions about kids and how they learn, or ourselves and how we teach. 

I’m a huge fan of rethinking what we do in our classrooms. I make a decent living leading workshops and peddling my teaching philosophy, sometimes for edu-entities and sometimes just as lil’ ol’ me. We should ABSOLUTELY step out of our comfort zones from time to time. It’s unforgiveable to plan our class time around what we have saved from LAST year rather than what might work best with THESE kids THIS year.

And there are some GREAT teacher books! That ‘Weird Teacher’ one and that 'Zen' fellow and even one by a TFA teacher recounting her entire first year in the most IMPOSSIBLE situation. Occasionally I’m even inspired by something shared by state edu-staff, or my own district superiors. Turns out there are a bunch of really smart, experienced educators around who love helping the rest of us impact our evasive darlings.

Sometimes their ideas are better than mine. And sometimes research is right about stuff. Teach Like You | Blue Cereal Education:

Educators Told to Intern at Local Businesses To Renew Teacher Licenses

Educators Told to Intern at Local Businesses To Renew Teacher Licenses:
Educators Told to Intern at Local Businesses To Renew Teacher Licenses

Rachael Seibert is a teacher in her eighth year in Columbus City Schools in Ohio. She has a bachelor’s and master’s degree and welcomes professional development opportunities that improve her teaching. She usually works about 55 hours a week and teaches classes with sometimes as many as 35 students. In short, Seibert is a dedicated professional.

But as far as Ohio Governor John Kasich is concerned, it’s just not enough, which is why he has proposed that every classroom teacher take on a mandatory internship or “externship” at a local business in order to renew their teaching licenses.

The proposal can be found in Kasich’s 2017-18 budget outline, released in February – one of  many that seek to infuse the business world with the state’s public schools. Here’s what it says:

“Beginning September 1, 2018, the state board of education’s rules for the renewal of educator licenses shall require each applicant for renewal of a license to complete an on-site work experience with a local business or chamber of commerce as a condition of renewal.”

Ryan Burgess, who heads up the Governor’s Office of Workforce Transformation that designed these and other similar proposals, says this requirement is necessary for educators to learn more about today’s businesses – information and ideas that they can then take back to their students and help prepare them for the 21st economy.

It’s not that schools and educators shouldn’t always find more ways to cultivate more “real world” learning in the classroom, says Seibert. The problem is with Kasich’s specific proposal, which she calls “ludicrous.”

“I consider myself a highly-educated educator. I know how business works. My husband is small business owner and I integrate real-word topics in the classroom every day. The assumption that we don’t know how to this and that we need to ‘job-shadow’  is insulting,” says Seibert.

The Ohio Education Association (OEA) is strongly opposed to tying licensure renewal with on-site work experience with local businesses. “This is another needless hoop for teachers to jump through that was created by those who are not part of the profession,” said OEA President Becky Higgins.

Acquiring a better understanding of the kinds of skills employers are seeking is a Educators Told to Intern at Local Businesses To Renew Teacher Licenses:

Vouchers may harm student learning + Welcome to new Congress | Parents Across America

Vouchers may harm student learning | Parents Across America:
Vouchers may harm student learning 

We included the following message in today’s fax message to Congress. A pdf version of this information is here: voucherstudies3-17:

Parents Across America (PAA) is very concerned that, in his speech to Congress last night, President Trump renewed his call to spend millions of federal education dollars on school vouchers. His Education Secretary, Betsy DeVos, is also a strong voucher proponent.

PAA opposes voucher programs because they redirect scarce money away from our public school system, may cross constitutional lines separating church and state, and – most importantly – have a poor-to-mixed overall academic track record.

A number of new studies paint an especially dismal picture of voucher programs. According to a recent LA Times article, multiple studies of Louisiana’s voucher program found that

• Students lost ground in their first two years in the program. Those performing at average levels in math and reading — that is, at about the 50th percentile — fell 24 percentile points in math and eight points in reading after their first year in the program.
• Participation in the program “substantially reduces academic achievement.”
• Voucher students “have fared worse academically compared to their closely matched peers attending public schools…. Such impacts also appear to persist over time, suggesting that the results are not driven simply by the setbacks that typically accompany any change of school.”

The Times also reports on the voucher program in Indiana, which former governor, now Vice President, Mike Pence, strongly promoted:

• Two researchers from Notre Dame have found that “voucher students who transfer to private schools experiencesignificant losses in mathematics achievement” and no improvement in English compared to their records at their former public schools.

One researcher summed things up in this way, “In (DeVos’s) rhetoric, it’s the creation of market mechanisms that are the important thing to promote. This research does not support that view. In fact, it may support the idea that that approach is harmful to student learning.”Vouchers may harm student learning | Parents Across America:

Save the date: Next book club meeting March 26

by Julie Woestehoff / 11min

Next PAA Book Club meeting set Save the date – March 26 – for PAA’s next book club meeting in our series on “The Impact of Poverty and Race on Educational Opportunity.” We’re going to discuss antiracist author Tim Wise’s “White Like 

 Welcome to new Congress

by Julie Woestehoff / 47min

PAA traditionally sends a letter to every new Congress to introduce ourselves and share our vision for public education. We’re finally getting around to it this year, a bit late but certainly in time to address the debacle of the Trump-DeVos “parent town hall” a week ago, to which only one public school parent was 

After 146 years, the Ringling Bros and Barnum & Bailey circus is to close Blames Trump

After 146 years, the Ringling Bros and Barnum & Bailey circus is to close | US news | The Guardian:
After 146 years, the Ringling Bros and Barnum & Bailey circus is to close, Blames Trump
The self-styled greatest show on earth has been hit by the enforced loss of its elephants and declining ticket sales

The American circus, Ringling Brothers and Barnum & Bailey, has said it will cease performances after 146 years because of declining tickets sales and high operating costs.

“After much evaluation and deliberation, my family and I have made the difficult business decision that Ringling Bros and Barnum & Bailey will hold its final performances in May,” Kenneth Feld, chairman and chief executive of Feld Entertainment, the circus producer, said on the circus’ web site.

In May last year, the circus retired its elephant act, years after legal action by activists. It admitted no wrongdoing, but agreed to a six-figure fine several years before ending the elephant performances.

In his statement on Saturday, Feld noted that declining sales had fallen off even more dramatically following what he called “the transition of the elephants off the road”.

Animal rights group Peta said it the decision heralded “the end of what has been the saddest show on earth for wild animals, and asks all other animal circuses to follow suit, as this is a sign of changing times”.

Peta president Ingrid Newkirk also said in its statement that 36 years of protests had “awoken the world to the plight of animals in captivity.“

Activists often appeared outside venues with fliers, protesting against the use of elephants, and pictures of animals they said were abused.

After Feld Entertainment sued, claiming malicious prosecution, more than a dozen animal welfare groups agreed in 2012 and 2014 to pay settlements totalling about $25m to end 14 years of litigation.

The circus went by the slogan “The greatest show on earth”, a catchphrase that was so ubiquitous it was employed for the title of the 1952 Cecil B DeMille best picture Oscar-winning film starring Charlton Heston and Betty Hutton.

The circus will end it long run with performances in Providence on 7 May and in Uniondale, New York, on 21 May. Other Feld productions, including Marvel Universe LIVE!, Monster Jam, Monster Energy Supercross, AMSOIL Arenacross, Disney On Ice and Disney Live!, will continue, and the company said it will continue to develop new shows.

Employees were told of the decision to close down following performances on Saturday in Florida.

Since you’re here …

… we’ve got a small favour to ask. More people are reading the Guardian than ever, but far fewer are paying for it. Advertising revenues across the media are falling fast. And unlike some other news organisations, we haven’t put up a paywall – we want to keep our journalism open to all. So you can see why we need to ask for your help. The Guardian’s independent, investigative journalism takes a lot of time, money and hard work to produce. But we do it because we believe our perspective matters – because it might well be your perspective, too.

If everyone who reads our reporting, who likes it, helps to support it, our future would be much more secure.After 146 years, the Ringling Bros and Barnum & Bailey circus is to close | US news | The Guardian:

 

Common Core Has Disappeared from Trump's Remarks | The Weekly Standard

Common Core Has Disappeared from Trump's Remarks | The Weekly Standard:
Common Core Has Disappeared from Trump's Remarks

What happened to Common Core—that is, abolishing it? President Trump's promise to get rid of the controversial program of standards for elementary and secondary schools is gone from his speeches.

He didn't mention it Tuesday night in his hour-long speech to a joint session of Congress. He didn't repeat his promise to end it in his inaugural address a month ago. And he neglected to cite it in his rousing talk at the Conservative Political Action Conference last week.

In Trump's campaign, however, the anti-Common Core message was a staple in his speeches at rallies. He emphasized it regularly in interviews and criticized his Republican primary opponents, particularly Jeb Bush, for supporting it. His promise to get rid of it drew loud cheers.

His position was that Common Core took control of education from local communities. It set standards for what students should learn in "English language arts" and mathematics at the end of each grade, K-thru-12.

It was created by education specialists, school officials, and governors, and was imposed on school systems across after little discussion in public. In some states, its adoption was a surprise. Common Core was sold as a pathway to success in college and careers.

Trump joined opponents of Common Core who saw it as a raid on states' rights and local control of schools and as the epitome of the top-down approach to education reform. "I am totally against Common Core," he said at the South Carolina Tea Party Convention two years ago.

"Thumbs down for Common Core," he said in Tulsa, Oklahoma, in January 2016. "We're gonna bring education back to the states and back to the people and the parents." In Cleveland in September, Trump said, "We spend more by far [on schools] and we're doing very poorly. So obviously Common Core doesn't work."

Trump's omission of Common Core from his speeches has raised the question of whether abolishing it remains part of his agenda. Nor is it clear how Education Secretary Betsy Devos intends to handle the issue.Common Core Has Disappeared from Trump's Remarks | The Weekly Standard:

Tax Credit Scholarships Are Different From Vouchers : NPR Ed : NPR

Tax Credit Scholarships Are Different From Vouchers : NPR Ed : NPR:

Trump Highlighted This Unusual School Choice Idea Last Night

In his speech last night, President Trump asked Congress to pass a broad school choice initiative.

"I am calling upon members of both parties to pass an education bill that funds school choice for disadvantaged youth, including millions of African-American and Latino children. ...

"These families should be free to choose the public, private, charter, magnet, religious or home school that is right for them."

It's not clear yet exactly how a program like this could be funded. "There isn't that much money that is fungible from the federal education budget," points out Samuel Abrams, an expert in education policy at Teachers College, Columbia University.

There is currently a bill in the House that would replace the major federal education law with block grants, including for vouchers. However, that law was reauthorized with broad bipartisan support in 2015, making such a reversal difficult.

But Trump's speech did contain a clue as to how school choice might expand without major reappropriation of federal funds. He spoke about one of his invited guests, a young Florida woman named Denisha Merriweather:

"As a young girl, Denisha struggled in school and failed third grade twice. But then she was able to enroll in a private center for learning, great learning center, with the help of a tax credit, and a scholarship program."

What he was actually talking about was Florida's tax credit scholarship program. And it's worth looking at the details if you're curious about exactly how expanded school choice might work under this administration.

Most people are familiar with voucher programs, where state dollars go to pay for Tax Credit Scholarships Are Different From Vouchers : NPR Ed : NPR:

Trump and DeVos Harp on School Choice, a Lifeboat Strategy to Save a Few Students | janresseger

Trump and DeVos Harp on School Choice, a Lifeboat Strategy to Save a Few Students | janresseger:

Trump and DeVos Harp on School Choice, a Lifeboat Strategy to Save a Few Students

Chalkbeat describes President Donald Trump’s Congressional speech Tuesday night, an address in which the President reprised Arne Duncan and called education “the civil rights issue of our time.”  Then President Trump made a leap to school choice—basically calling school choice the civil rights issue of our time: “Education is the civil rights issue of our time. I am calling upon Members of both parties to pass an education bill that funds school choice for disadvantaged youth, including millions of African-American and Latino children. These families should be free to choose the public, private, charter, magnet, religious or home school that is right for them.”  It’s an interesting definition of educational civil rights, to say the least.

In his speech to Congress, Trump then hinted at the type of school choice he is likely to propose, though there was no indication when he and his Secretary of Education are likely to move forward with such a plan. Trump had brought a young, Florida woman to the gallery, a young woman who participated years ago in Florida’s tuition tax credit program—a program Secretary of Education Betsy DeVos has said she admires.  DeVos has served on the board of Jeb Bush’s Foundation for Excellence in Education, which developed the model for this program.

Here is what Trump said about his guest last night: “Joining us tonight in the gallery is a remarkable woman, Denisha Merriweather.  As a young girl, Denisha struggled in school and failed third grade twice. But then she was able to enroll in a private center for learning, with the help of a tax credit scholarship program. Today, she is the first in her family to graduate, not just from high school, but from college. Later this year she will get her masters degree in Trump and DeVos Harp on School Choice, a Lifeboat Strategy to Save a Few Students | janresseger:

Choosing Democracy: A Message from Rethinking Schools - Re LGBTQ students

Choosing Democracy: A Message from Rethinking Schools - Re LGBTQ students:

A Message from Rethinking Schools - Re LGBTQ students

Rethinking Schools joins civil rights and LGBTQ organizations in their opposition to Trump’s scrapping of protections for transgender students under Title IX. 

Transgender students should have the right to use locker rooms and bathrooms in alignment with their gender identity. 

White House Press Secretary Sean Spicer declared, "The president has maintained for a long time that this is a states-rights issue.” Secretary of Education Betsy DeVos claimed, “This is an issue best solved at the state and local level.” 

Calls for “local control” and “states’ rights” echo the white supremacist rationales of the 1950s and '60s when segregationists used the same language to defend Jim Crow practices and to derail federal civil rights legislation. 

Trump’s action, authorized by both the Justice and the Education Departments, offers a scary preview of the future of Title IX and its enforcement. Parents, students, and educators need to stand together to defend the rights of transgender students.

Our recently published book Rethinking Sexism, Gender, and Sexuality is one resource that people can turn to for guidance and inspiration. Winner of the 2017 American Library Association Stonewall Honor book in the Israel Fishman Non-Fiction Award category, this book is a collection of stories about how to integrate feminist and LGBTQ content into our curriculum, to make it part of a vision for social justice, and create classrooms and schools that nurture all children and their families.

A few articles from the book to read on our website:
It's OK to Be Neither
Queering Our Schools
Standing Up for Tocarra

Choosing Democracy: A Message from Rethinking Schools - Re LGBTQ students:

Stop Trump’s Privatization Agenda

Stop Trump’s Privatization Agenda:

Stop Trump’s Privatization Agenda

President Trump is said to be preparing to privatize key public services, including the Veterans Administration (VA), public schools, and public broadcasting, expanding private prisons and launching a privatized infrastructure program.

Republicans in Congress want to go even further, to privatize Medicare, the Postal Service, National Parks, air traffic control and other functions of our government. This is on top of previous privatizations of military contracts, and even the Senate cafeteria.

What exactly is privatization, and why is it such a priority for the Trump administration?

Public Investment, Common Ownership, Public Gain

Back when our government was run by ‘We the People’, the people would make a public investment and share gains from that investment. If we built a road or a bridge, we could all use it, and our economy as a whole would benefit from this increase in transportation capacity.

Over time, as a nation we built up a wealth of “public structures,” both physical, such as roads, and institutional, such as courts and schools. These were the envy of the world. And We the People, theoretically, shared the benefits of this public wealth, and access to it.

Our public schools we open to all children. Our parks were enjoyed by millions. Everyone could drive on the highways and bridges. Public water systems brought good, safe drinking water to our homes. The list goes on.

Our businesses also benefitted from these public structures. Our transportation infrastructure let companies move raw materials and goods. Our courts protected their interests. Our financial regulations protected their investment. Our public wealth was the fertile ground of American prosperity. You could say that prosperity was the fruit of democracy.

Privatization = Public Loss For All, Private Gain For A Few

In the 1970s, corporations and conservatives launched a campaign to grab public wealth for the already-wealthy few. Drawing on the works of ideologically-driven economists like Friedrich von Hayek and Milton Friedman, they began to propagandize about the evils of government, with slogans like “government is inefficient,” “businesses do everything better than government,” “taxes are theft” and “government spending is bad.”

Of course, they were really talking about democracy, where We the People make decisions about how to use government. In a democracy, government spends money to try and make all of our lives better.

“Privatization” means taking public wealth and assets that benefit us all, and turning them Stop Trump’s Privatization Agenda:

One Day After DeVos Calls Jim Crow “Choice,” Trump Moves HBCU Assistance from USED to WH | deutsch29

One Day After DeVos Calls Jim Crow “Choice,” Trump Moves HBCU Assistance from USED to WH | deutsch29:

One Day After DeVos Calls Jim Crow “Choice,” Trump Moves HBCU Assistance from USED to WH

During her January 17, 2017, Senate confirmation hearing, Betsy DeVos said that the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA) should be left up to the states and then admit that the “confused” the fact that IDEA is a federal law.

I watched in disbelief at her publicly displayed ignorance of an education law that is part of Teacher Training 101.

Such a moment clearly illustrates that DeVos has lived her life in a Michigan-billionaire, Dutch Reformed Church bubble, effectively divorced from even basic knowledge of a public school system that she is now in charge of on a federal level.

Add to that her well-established ideological drive for school choice, particularly vouchers, but also charter school expansion. Moreover, since her position is ideologically driven, DeVos has both directly and indirectly financed school choice without being touched by the fact that both charter schools and vouchers are fraught with problems, including failing to consistently outperform the traditional public schools to which they are supposed to be superior.

When she flubbed IDEA, I didn’t think DeVos could do worse.

I take it back.

On Monday, February 27, 2017, DeVos issued a statement in which she attempted to spin the Jim Crow origins of Historically Black Colleges and Universities (HBCUs) into a “pioneer[ing] of school choice.”

On February 28, 2017, Greg Toppo of USA Today notes that DeVos’ combined One Day After DeVos Calls Jim Crow “Choice,” Trump Moves HBCU Assistance from USED to WH | deutsch29:

DeVos and False Claims of Failed Schools: How School Reform Hurts Children

DeVos and False Claims of Failed Schools: How School Reform Hurts Children:

DeVos and False Claims of Failed Schools: How School Reform Hurts Children

The conviction that the best way to prepare children for a harsh, rapidly changing world is to introduce formal instruction at an early age is wrong. There is simply no evidence to support it, and considerable evidence against it. Starting children early academically has not worked in the past and is not working now.

—David Elkind, Professor of Child Development and author of Reinventing Childhood and The Hurried Child   

School reform, the underhanded drive to privatize education into free market, choice schools (many profitmaking), has had a negative effect on children and their development.

Here is the most recent research by Stanford researcher Martin Carnoy who analyzed 25 years of research and found that voucher programs do not significantly improve test scores. Carnoy says vouchers distract from proven policies and DeVos and False Claims of Failed Schools: How School Reform Hurts Children:

How to Get Trump to Support Public Education: A Military Proposal | gadflyonthewallblog

How to Get Trump to Support Public Education: A Military Proposal | gadflyonthewallblog:

How to Get Trump to Support Public Education: A Military Proposal

Donald Trump is dead set on destroying public education.

He and his mega-donor Education Secretary Betsy DeVos want to flood the market with vouchers to divert tax dollars to private and parochial schools thereby starving traditional public schools into closing.

But watching the orange one speaking to Congress last night, I got an idea. I know how to get this dimwitted blowhard to support public schools. And every conservative lawmaker will back him up.

Sound impossible? Not really. But the best part is we don’t need the Democrats to do a darn thing. As if they could. Their thumbs are planted so firmly up their own asses it would take an army of proctologists to save the party.

We don’t need them. All we need is language. Just rename things.

It’s the same tactic Nazis have used to take over the Republican Party. They’re no longer called Nazis. Now they’re “white nationalists,” or just members of the “Alt-Right.”

So we can use the same ploy: Conservatives won’t support “public schools” so let’s call them something else – something they will support no matter what.

Here’s the plan: Trump wants to increase military spending by $54 billion. So we reclassify education as a branch of the military.

Defense spending already tops $600 billion a year. Federal education spending is only about $70 billion.

We could combine them and call it an increase in the military!

I know what you’re thinking. If we do that, the armed forces are going to gobble up How to Get Trump to Support Public Education: A Military Proposal | gadflyonthewallblog: