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Sunday, March 4, 2012

Big Education Ape: 3-4-12 AM Why Bill Gates Didn’t Want The Value-Added Data Made Public EDition

Big Education Ape: PARENTS CAN!:
Big Education Ape: PARENTS CAN!

Published by Coopmike48 – 7 news spotters today

Confessions of a ‘Bad’ Teacher

nytimes.com - I AM a special education teacher. My students have learning disabilities ranging from autism and attention-deficit disorder to cerebral palsy and emotional disturbances. I love these kids, but they...

DianeRavitch

Across the Board

jsonline.com - To the evaluators of the Milwaukee Parental Choice Program, vouchers are like a vaccine. Once students are "exposed" to the voucher program - even if they subsequently leave - that "exposure" someh...

DianeRavitch

A tax break the GOP opposes

mo.palmbeachpost.com - By The Palm Beach PostUpdated: 8:37 p.m. Friday, March 2, 2012 Posted: 7:28 p.m. Friday, March 2, 2012Just how thoroughly the Florida Legislature disdains traditional public schools is evident from...

DianeRavitch

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coopmike48 Big Education Ape: SOUTH BRONX SCHOOL: Shit About Former AP Corey Prober At PS 154 Bronx -goo.gl/C0FlE4 minutes ago · reply · retweet · favorite

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coopmike48 Getting to the Core: Letting Learning Influence Teaching - The Educator's PLN - goo.gl/UIxoz3 minutes ago · reply · retweet · favorite

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coopmike48 Top Content this Week - The Educator's PLN - goo.gl/u37bx3 minutes ago · reply · retweet · favorite

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coopmike48 Read Damn Good Education Daily ▸ today's top stories via @thejlv@jerseyjazzman @teacherken ▸paper.li/coopmike48/bir… #nclb #soschat19 seconds ago · reply · retweet · favorite

EducationSee all

Following the Charter Dollars - News & Announcements

lsba.com - Following the Dollars Who benefits financially from the pro-market charter school movement? The charter school reform emerged in part out of a progressive effort to promote innovation that ...

DianeRavitch

A critical look at ed reform

journalgazette.net - Northeast Indiana residents who support public education should mark their calendars for two upcoming events: On Sunday and Monday, Cinema Center in Fort Wayne will host a free showing of "The Inco...

leoniehaimson

SocietySee all

A Statement from Rush - The Rush Limbaugh Show

rushlimbaugh.com - March 03, 2012For over 20 years, I have illustrated the absurd with absurdity, three hours a day, five days a week. In this instance, I chose the wrong words in my analogy of the situation. I did ...

leoniehaimson

The Port Huron Statement at 50

nytimes.com - THEY are mostly in their 70s now, those quixotic college students who drafted the Port Huron Statement at a ramshackle A.F.L.-C.I.O. education retreat northeast of Detroit in 1962. Today, their “ag...

mikeklonsky

Between Your Navel and Your Knees « MomsRising Blog

momsrising.org - From Your (Wo)manInWashington blog MOTHERS changing the conversation @ www.MothersOughtToHaveEqualRights.org Let’s take a moment to review the current state of American women’s access to the full ...

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Saturday coffee. « Fred Klonsky

preaprez.wordpress.com - No time to sit and savor the coffee this morning. Ulysses had a grooming appointment at 11:00. I don’t want to say what it costs us to get our dog’s hair cut. But Joe charges me $20 for clippers an...

fklonsky

Daily Kos Action

d1iedujqv0jegh.cloudfront.net - Earlier this week, Rush Limbaugh referred to a very bright, very brave young woman speaking out on the medical need for birth control as a slut. He then doubled down, demanding that she post videos...

leoniehaimson

PoliticsSee all

Rahm's school "reforms" cause problems in ranks of the Dems

michaelklonsky.blogspot.com - Rahm Emanuel is mayor of Chicago for two reasons. One -- he was given a multi-million-dollar campaign war chest by a handful of billionaire Koch Bros. types. Two -- he rode back into town on the go...

mikeklonsky

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Blog posts on this issue

whitehouse.gov - The White House Office of the Press Secretary For Immediate Release March 03, 2012 Today, after receiving a briefing from FEMA Administrator Craig Fugate, President Obama called Indiana Governor Da...

coopmike48

Today in Labor History—March 4

modeducation.blogspot.com - March 4, 1634 – The first American tavern opened on this date in Boston, Massachusetts. (From the Daily Bleed)Union Stockyards, Chicago, 1870s (from Wikipedia) March 4, 1865 - Union Stockyards open...

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WEEKLY ADDRESS: Taking Control of Our Energy Future

whitehouse.gov - The White House Office of the Press Secretary For Immediate Release March 03, 2012 WASHINGTON, DC—In this week’s address, President Obama told the American people that three years after helping the...

coopmike48

#edreformRead this paperSee all

What You Feel Or What You Think

schooltechconnect.com - The more I read about the Common Core Standards--- in fact, the more I read the actual standards--- the more worried I get about what the near term future is going to hold for our nation. The so-ca...

tbfurman

#notgoodenoughSee all

A Statement from Rush - The Rush Limbaugh Show

rushlimbaugh.com - March 03, 2012For over 20 years, I have illustrated the absurd with absurdity, three hours a day, five days a week. In this instance, I chose the wrong words in my analogy of the situation. I did ...

leoniehaimson

VideosSee all


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Grumpy Educators: No Unnecessary Tests (NUT) Report: Parent Right to Opt Out Lawsuit Emerges

Grumpy Educators: No Unnecessary Tests (NUT) Report: Parent Right to Opt Out Lawsuit Emerges:

No Unnecessary Tests (NUT) Report: Parent Right to Opt Out Lawsuit Emerges

by Sandra


Big News!!! (March 2012)
The ACLU is interested in supporting any parents whose children received a penalty/threats for opting out of testing.
If you want to participate in the complaint please share the following:
  • your story
  • permission to join in on the ACLU complaint
  • your return address
  • a signature on a hard copy

Submit to: Nina Bishop, 3065 Windward Way, Colorado Springs, CO 80917
Questions: 719-233-1508

If you want your story published on The Innovative Educator blog, email lnielsen.professional@gmail.com

In a U.S. Supreme Court determination, Troxel v. Granville, the justices relied on the 14th Amendment:

(a) The Fourteenth Amendment’s Due Process Clause has a substantive component that “provides heightened protection against government interference with certain fundamental rights and liberty interests,” Washington v. Glucksberg, 521 U.S. 702, 720, including parents’ fundamental right to make decisions concerning the care, custody, and control of their children, see, e.g., Stanley v. Illinois, 405 U.S. 645, 651. Pp. 5—8.


Opt Out resources and information can be accessed here: http://optoutofstandardizedtests.wikispaces.com/
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Daily Kos: What’s so bad about American parents, anyway?

Daily Kos: What’s so bad about American parents, anyway?:

What’s so bad about American parents, anyway?

by rss@dailykos.com (teacherken)
...the United States is one of only three countries in the world, along with Swaziland and Papua New Guinea, that have no federal paid parental leave policy. After President Richard Nixon vetoed the Comprehensive Childcare Act of 1971, which promised to ensure quality, affordable child care, American parents were left to fend for themselves. In a country that pays its child-care workers less than its janitors, that is a time-consuming, expensive and often fraught search. Child-care costs, which consumed 2 percent of the average family budget in the 1960s, now take up 17 percent, according to the U.S. Department of Agriculture, second only to a mortgage or rent.
That paragraph jumped off the screen at me as I read Brigid Schulte in today's Washington Post, a piece titled as is this column, What’s so bad about American parents, anyway?. It is piece well worth the time to peruse and ponder it.

Let me be clear - I read it not from the standpoint of being parent, for we by choice have no children of our own, freeing us to be loving aunt and uncle to those of our siblings, and also freeing me to devote the time I do to my teaching. But the stress - and the guilt - I see among many of the parents of the children I teach came to mind as I read this piece.

We are in many ways NOT a family-friendly nation, at least not in many of our policies. Our approach to health care is certainly one example. As the words I have quoted from Shulte demonstrate, our approach to child care is certainly another.

But there is more.


Secretary Panetta, pull Limbaugh from Armed Forces Radio now

by rss@dailykos.com (teacherken)

It is not bad enough that he provides partisan blather, that he demeans our President.

He has regularly demeaned women.

His remarks this week were well beyond the pale of what should be broadcast to our military and their families, supported with our tax dollars.

I have a moral objection to my tax dollars being used for such a purpose.

You should move immediately to cancel any further broadcast through government facilities of his venom.

I speak as an honorable discharged United States Marine.

I write as the teacher of students, male and female, now on active duty, including overseas, including in the past Iraq and currently Afghanistan.

There is no excuse for the US Government in any capacity giving this man an audience.

It is an insult to the honorable men and women who serve this nation.

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A rare break from testing madness - The Answer Sheet - The Washington Post

A rare break from testing madness - The Answer Sheet - The Washington Post:

A rare break from testing madness

by Valerie Strauss

This was written by Pamela Grundy, a founding member of Mecklenburg Area Coming Together for Schools (Mecklenburg Acts), a grassroots coalition of parents, citizens and organizations working on behalf of Mecklenburg County’s public schools. This first appeared on the website of Parents Across America, an organization that she also co-founded that connects parents and activists from across the country to improve public education.

Read full article >>

Why school should be funnier

Valerie Strauss at The Answer Sheet - 20 hours ago
This *was written by Mark Phillips, professor emeritus of secondary education at San Francisco State University. This was written for his blog on Edutopia, and he also publishes a monthly column on education for the Marin Independent Journal. * Read full article >> [image: Add to Facebook] [image: Add to Twitter] [image: Add to Reddit] [image: Add to StumbleUpon]

Six things you probably don’t know about Dr. Seuss

Valerie Strauss at The Answer Sheet - 1 day ago
Did you know that the man who called himself Dr. Seuss once wrote ad campaigns for Standard Oil? Or that he started calling himself “Seuss” — not his last name — after he got in trouble at Dartmouth College? Read full article >> [image: Add to Facebook] [image: Add to Twitter] [image: Add to Reddit] [image: Add to StumbleUpon]

Could school prayer bill allow Satanic messages in schools?

Valerie Strauss at The Answer Sheet - 1 day ago
The Florida legislature has approved and sent to the governor legislation that would allow students to deliver “inspirational messages” of their own choosing at school events that, according to critics, could include Satanic messages. Read full article >> [image: Add to Facebook] [image: Add to Twitter] [image: Add to Reddit] [image: Add to StumbleUpon]

Overconfident experts as poor predictors in education

Valerie Strauss at The Answer Sheet - 2 days ago
This *was written by Larry Cuban, a former high school social studies teacher (14 years, including seven at Cardozo and Roosevelt high schools in the District), district superintendent (seven years in Arlington, VA) and professor emeritus of education at Stanford University, where he has taught for 20 years. His latest book is “As Good As It Gets: What School Reform Brought to Austin.” This appeared on his blog *. Read full article >> [image: Add to Facebook] [image: Add to Twitter] [image: Add to Reddit] [image: Add to StumbleUpon]

Why it is easier for a kid to get a gun in Ohio than in many other states

Valerie Strauss at The Answer Sheet - 2 days ago
It is not clear yet how the teenager accused of staging a deadly assault on students at a Ohio high school obtained the weapon he allegedly used, but the state’s gun laws don’t make it hard for young people to get their hands on a gun. Read full article >> [image: Add to Facebook] [image: Add to Twitter] [image: Add to Reddit] [image: Add to StumbleUpon]

Santorum ’s flawed remedy for improving education

Valerie Strauss at The Answer Sheet - 2 days ago
This *was written by Arthur Levine, president of the Woodrow Wilson National Fellowship Foundation and former president of Teachers College, Columbia University.* By Arthur Levine At a recent Ohio campaign stop, Rick Santorum criticized America’s public schools as an artifact of the industrial era and recommended homeschooling as the alternative. He was right about the problem, but wrong about the remedy. Read full article >> [image: Add to Facebook] [image: Add to Twitter] [image: Add to Reddit] [image: Add to StumbleUpon]

What Florida is doing to its public schools

Valerie Strauss at The Answer Sheet - 3 days ago
This *was written by Jean Clements, president of Florida’s Hillsborough County Classroom Teachers Association, representing more than 9,000 teachers and school personnel. * By Jean Clements Horace Mann called public education the “great equalizer.” Quite simply, he believed that without a strong system of public schools in this country, the elite would get an education while the middle class and poor would not. Read full article >> [image: Add to Facebook] [image: Add to Twitter] [image: Add to Reddit] [image: Add to StumbleUpon]

What achievement gap statistics reveal — and what they don’t

Valerie Strauss at The Answer Sheet - 4 days ago
This* was written by Matthew Di Carlo, senior fellow at the non-profit Albert Shanker Institute, located in Washington, D.C. This post originally appeared on the institute’s blog. * By Matthew Di Carlo A recent statement by the New Jersey Department of Education (NJDOE) attempts to provide an empirical justification for that state’s focus on the achievement gap — the difference in testing performance between subgroups, usually defined in terms of race or income. Read full article >> [image: Add to Facebook] [image: Add to Twitter] [image: Add to Reddit] [image: Add to StumbleUpo... more »

College admissions: When high school courses matter most

Valerie Strauss at The Answer Sheet - 4 days ago
This* was written by Martha Allman, dean of admissions at Wake Forest University in Winston-Salem, N.C*. By Martha Allman College admissions officers around the country are submerged in applications. At this time of year, we are faced with the nearly impossible task of finding the best mix of students for our institutions based on some combination of grade point average (GPA), class rank, written essays, personal interviews, extracurricular activities and, at some schools, test scores. Read full article >> [image: Add to Facebook] [image: Add to Twitter] [image: Add to Reddit] ... more »

The one book Warren Buffett praised in latest annual letter

Valerie Strauss at The Answer Sheet - 4 days ago
Superstar investor Warren Buffett releases an annual letter to stockholders of Berkshire Hathaway Inc. — the company he built with stock shares that now cost about $119,000 a share — that explains his financial moves with humor and wisdom. Read full article >> [image: Add to Facebook] [image: Add to Twitter] [image: Add to Reddit] [image: Add to StumbleUpon]

NY principal: Teacher scores inaccurate at my school

Valerie Strauss at The Answer Sheet - 5 days ago
The information below comes from Elizabeth Phillips, principal of P.S. 321 in Park Slope, N.Y., about how badly the newly released rankings of New York City public school teachers reflect the reality at her school. Phillips wrote that she is “absolutely sick” about the public release of the Teacher Data Reports (TDR) of some 18,000 teachers based entirely on student standardized test scores. And, she said, the amount of data that is wrong is “staggering.” This same information was posted earlier on the New York City Publbic School Parents blog. Read full article >> [image: Add to ... more »

The Answer Sheet - 5 days ago

School psychologists: Shortage amid increased need

Valerie Strauss at The Answer Sheet - 5 days ago
This *was written by Mark Phillips, professor emeritus of secondary education at San Francisco State University and author of a monthly column on education for the * *Marin Independent Journal* * . * By Mark Phillips Read full article >> [image: Add to Facebook] [image: Add to Twitter] [image: Add to Reddit] [image: Add to StumbleUpon]

Charter school linked to Scientology

Valerie Strauss at The Answer Sheet - 5 days ago
A public charter school in the Florida city of Clearwater — the headquarters of the Church of Scientology — is being accused of using Scientology study methods with students. The Tampa Bay Times reported that parents and former teachers had complained about Life Force Arts and Technology Academy, which is being run by a management company whose president, Hanan Islam, was executive director of an organization called the World Literacy Crusade which promotes Scientology study methods. Read full article >> [image: Add to Facebook] [image: Add to Twitter] [image: Add to Reddit] [imag... more »
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Thousands of Sacramento-area teachers soon to receive pink slips - Sac Moms Club & Family - The Sacramento Bee

Thousands of Sacramento-area teachers soon to receive pink slips - Sac Moms Club & Family - The Sacramento Bee:

Thousands of Sacramento-area teachers soon to receive pink slips

By Diana Lambert
dlambert@sacbee.com
Published: Sunday, Mar. 4, 2012 - 12:00 am | Page 1B
Last Modified: Sunday, Mar. 4, 2012 - 12:05 am

Thousands of pink slips will be in the hands of area teachers and other school employees by March 15. The notices warn the holder that they are in jeopardy of being laid off at the end of the school year.

Already, Sacramento City Unified's school board has voted to notice 700 positions; San Juan Unified, 616; Elk Grove Unified, 239; and Natomas Unified, 46. Center Unified has targeted 21.5 teachers – more than 10 percent of its teaching staff.

This week, Twin Rivers Unified is expected to put about 45 positions on the pink slip list. River


Read more here: http://www.sacbee.com/2012/03/04/4309617/thousands-of-sacramento-area-HOW LAYOFF NOTICES STACK UP
California school districts have until March 15 to issue preliminary layoff notices to certificated staff - teachers, counselors and nurses - who could be laid off. They have until May 15 to issue final notices.
School boards must only give classified staff - secretaries, bus drivers, cafeteria workers and other support staff - 45 days' notice, but many local districts already are sending out layoff notices for those positions.
Here's how the layoff notices are stacking up locally. The numbers have not been rounded.
• Elk Grove Unified: 146 certificated, 94 classified
• Sacramento City Unified: 397.8 certificated, 301.3 classified
• Twin Rivers Unified: 30 certificated, 15 classified
• Natomas Unified: 26.6 certificated, 19 classified
• San Juan Unified: 498 certificated, 118 classified
• Center Unified Unified: 21.5 certificated, * classified
• Folsom Cordova Unified: 0 certificated, * classified
* Districts are still calculating pink slips in this area.
- Diana Lambert

Read more here: http://www.sacbee.com/2012/03/04/4309617/thousands-of-sacramento-area-teachers.html#mi_rss=Education#storylink=cpy
teachers.html#mi_rss=Education#storylink=cpy

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SOUTH BRONX SCHOOL: Shit About Former AP Corey Prober At PS 154 Bronx

SOUTH BRONX SCHOOL: Shit About Former AP Corey Prober At PS 154 Bronx:

Shit About Former AP Corey Prober At PS 154 Bronx

by noreply@blogger.com (Bronx Teacher)
Sit back, relax, and grab a cold one. I wish to share with all tonight a little story about why tenure is important and why losing our right to grieve letters in our file was so harmful.

Back in September of 2007 we had a new assistant principal at my school, PS 154. His name, Corey Prober. He was one of 4 assistant principals that the then principal at the time had hired, this in a school of 500 students. But I digress.

Back in 2007, it was Corey's 5th year in education. His first year from what I had heard was quite a disaster. He needed a veteran teacher in his class almost every day to help him with management. His 2nd year was better, but it was a CTT class and the burden was not completely on him. In his 3rd year as a teacher
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