State reported inflated rate of teachers lacking credentials | California Watch

State reported inflated rate of teachers lacking credentials | California Watch:

State reported inflated rate of teachers lacking credentials

Joanna Lin

U.S. Census Bureau

The rate was startling: Nearly six in 10 teachers at California's lowest-performing schools were not properly credentialed for the classes they led. It's a rate California has worked to shrink for the past six years. It's also a rate that was wrong.
The percentage of teachers and other certificated staff lacking proper credentials was actually 29 percent, not the 58 percent the state reported for the 2005-06 school year. The revelation, sparked by errors in state data 

One Teacher's Perspective: One Cent Makes $ense

One Teacher's Perspective: One Cent Makes $ense:

One Cent Makes $ense

by Imagine Wisconsin

Now that Paul Thomas, Anthony Cody, Diane Ravitch, and the others havereframed my thinking about school reform, it is time to begin practicing what these Social Context Reformers preach.

Consequently, I am excited to support A Penny For Kids legislation proposed by the Wisconsin Alliance for Excellent Schools (WAES). A one-cent sales tax for Wisconsin kids is vital and sensible. If passed, the sales tax will raise about $850 million annually to addressing the growing needs of Wisconsin’s children and schools hit hard by the recent state cuts. 

This is not an end-around to bolster public teacher pay. In actuality, a Penny for Kids could bring some healing to our divided state. Pay clos

What is the SAT Good For? Absolutely Nothing | Alternet

What is the SAT Good For? Absolutely Nothing | Alternet:

What is the SAT Good For? Absolutely Nothing

The SAT is a metric that confirms privilege -- not academic achievement or academic readiness for college. So why do we insist on using it?

September 28, 2012  |  

 

Photo Credit: Laurence Gough | Shutterstock.com

 

 

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A certain Groundhog Day quality accompanies fall with the opening of schools and the inevitable release of SAT scores. While the Bill Murray comedy made light of the existential hell of a life lived like Sisyphus, the College Board's data dump each fall leaves little to provoke even a smile.

In 2000, David Grissmer confrontedthe publication and uses of SAT data:

"There is a unique issue in public policy 

Broadie Tata Fired by Wake County School Board | Parents Across America

Broadie Tata Fired by Wake County School Board | Parents Across America:

Broadie Tata Fired by Wake County School Board

by pagrundy

On Tuesday, the Wake County Public School System (WCPSS) Board of Education (BOE) firedSuperintendent Anthony Tata, a Broad Superintendents Academy graduate.  The firing of a local school superintendent wouldn’t usually be major national news, but in this instance, it is.  It proves that at least some school systems will still resist significant influence by big money and market-based deformers when it is in the best interests of families, teachers and the community.

Here is a timeline of key events leading up to the hiring of Tata:

• In December 2009, a newly elected, ultra-conservative majority seized control of the majority of seats on the BOE.

• In February 2010, the superintendent at the time, Del Burns, announced he would resign effective June 

NYC Educator: No Teaching for You!

NYC Educator: No Teaching for You!:

No Teaching for You!

by NYC Educator

 by special guest blogger Suddenly ATR

The principal told me that she wanted me to cover a teacher's classes for two days. I was almost giddy with excitement, strange as that sounds, at the idea of being in a classroom again. "You teach in the same subject area! It will be perfect!" she said.

Today I approached the teacher for whom I'd be covering and asked her (I thought in a friendly manner) if she had any materials or instructions for the class. "What is it you want?" she asked.

"Well, you know, since I'm covering your classes, I want to know 

COMMUNITY TO RESIST LAUSD MOVE TO RECONSTITUTE INNER CITY SCHOOLS - Perdaily.com

COMMUNITY TO RESIST LAUSD MOVE TO RECONSTITUTE INNER CITY SCHOOLS - Perdaily.com:

COMMUNITY TO RESIST LAUSD MOVE TO RECONSTITUTE INNER CITY SCHOOLS

by Leonard Isenberg

(Mensaje se repite en Español)

(For a national view of public education reform see the end of this blog post)

Last night community members from Dorsey and Crenshaw High Schools got together in the Dorsey gymnasium to organize resistance to the planned imminent reconstitution of their schools by Los Angeles Unified School District (LAUSD) Superintendent John Deasy. Deasy plans to reconstitute Dorsey, 

Louisiana Educator: Harmful Salary Schedule Mandate

Louisiana Educator: Harmful Salary Schedule Mandate:

Harmful Salary Schedule Mandate

by Michael Deshotels

Just as teachers and principals begin grappling with the new Value Added Model of teacher evaluation, school boards will be forced by law to develop possibly radical new salary schedules for teachers in all our public school systems. This is another classic case of an effort by those outside the education business to force the practitioners to adopt a solution to a problem that does not exist! School boards according to a provision in Jindal's and ALEC's Act 1 must revise their local teacher salary schedules to add a performance or merit pay component. According to the new law, the revised salary schedules should consider (1) effectiveness as measured by the new evaluation system, (2) job demand/area of certification, and (3) experience, yet no one factor of the three may account for more than 50% of the final formula. This means that results of the new teacher evaluations using VAM data may affect teacher's salaries as a form of merit pay. At the same time some teachers (10% of those evaluated using VAM) will find their salaries frozen based on the new evaluation.

Act I also requires that an new teacher layoff priority list be created for 2013-14 with the teachers that are rated 

Pass / Fail : Large federal grants push use of student test scores to grade teachers | 89.3 KPCC

Pass / Fail : Large federal grants push use of student test scores to grade teachers | 89.3 KPCC:

Large federal grants push use of student test scores to grade teachers

by By Adolfo Guzman-Lopez

The move to factor student test scores into teacher job evaluations in L.A. Unified got a big push Thursday. It came in the form of multi-million dollar grants from the US Department of Education.
The federal agency will give L.A. Unified $16 million to start new teacher and principal training, identify and promote expert educators, and create teacher and principal evaluationa that include multiple measures that include student progress on standardized tests.
Executive Director of L.A. Unified’s Talent and Management division, Drew Furedi, wrote the grant proposal.
“As a former teacher, it was important to me to see how my students were progressing,” he said.
There’s one big roadblock to L.A. Unified’s proposal: its teachers union. United Teachers Los Angeles has opposed using student test scores to grade teachers, saying too many factors beyond their control can affect 

How The NYC DOE and The NFL Are The Same, and Yet Different.southbronxschool.com

http://www.southbronxschool.com:

How The NYC DOE and The NFL Are The Same, and Yet Different

by noreply@blogger.com (Bronx Teacher)

Wow, what a week. We here at SBSB wish to welcome yet another guest blogger and honorary member of The Crack Team to these pages. This guest has guest blogged in the past, here and here. 

I must say this guest blogger is very insightful and intelligent. Qualities in which the DOE sorely lacks.

Anyway, sit back and enjoy the wise words of tonight's guest blogger.


I think there is much to be learned from the NFL Referee fiasco, and that it is quite comparable to the situation in our schools.

Daily Kos: Eugene Robinson: Republicans deluded by ‘skewed’ polls

Daily Kos: Eugene Robinson: Republicans deluded by ‘skewed’ polls:

Eugene Robinson: Republicans deluded by ‘skewed’ polls

byteacherkenFollow

 3  

PERMALINK

2 COMMENTS

Conservative activist circles are abuzz with a new conspiracy theory: Polls showing President Obama with a growing lead over Mitt Romney are deliberately being skewed by the Liberal Mainstream Media so Republicans will be disheartened and stay home on Election Day.

This is denial and self-delusion but not of the harmless kind. It’s a false narrative that encourages the Republican Party to take the wrong lessons from this election, no matter the outcome.

So begins this Washington Post column by the Pulitzer Prize winner. For people here, who have paid attention to both this issue and the nature of polling, most of what Robinson offers in 

The Examiner Examines … Me (On Writing about Education) [Why We Write] | The Jose Vilson

The Examiner Examines … Me (On Writing about Education) [Why We Write] | The Jose Vilson:

The Examiner Examines … Me (On Writing about Education) [Why We Write]

by Jose

Calvin and Hobbes, On Writing

Recently, Wendy Coakley-Thompson interviewed me for the Washington, DC Publishing Industry Examinerabout education, writing, and how my passions intersect:

2. In what ways do both poetry and education writings satisfy your need for creative self-expression?
Poetry satisfies my more creative urges, where I get to play with the more ethereal, the emotional, 

I SEE PROGRESS « Teachers Fight Back

I SEE PROGRESS « Teachers Fight Back:

I SEE PROGRESS

by alkleen

Wow!  More teachers strikes are popping up, more public workers are protesting, more unions in sports and entertainment areas are taking action. Even the Chicago Symphony musicians went on a brief strike. Workers everywhere are starting to fight back and demanding respect. It feels like the start of a new era for the working man. I didn’t see this coming, but I guess you can only push people so far before they start to fight back.
I’m proud of all the Chicago suburban teachers who seem to be using the Chicago teachers’ strike as an inspiration to demand some much-needed respect. That Chicago teachers’ strike was much more than a strike. I think it showed workers everywhere what a truly united body of workers can accomplish and what an old-time 

Washington officials release first report for new school progress system | OregonLive.com

Washington officials release first report for new school progress system | OregonLive.com:

Washington officials release first report for new school progress system

Published: Thursday, September 27, 2012, 5:32 PM     Updated: Thursday, September 27, 2012, 5:40 PM

 By The Associated Press 
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SEATTLE -- State education officials on Thursday released their first report for a new way in looking at how Washington public schools are doing at teaching kids reading and math. 

The new school accountability system is designed to help local officials focus on closing the achievement gaps between kids of different ethnic and economic groups. It is Washington's answer to the federal education law known as "No Child Left Behind." Washington has been granted a waiver to take a different approach to identifying and helping failing schools. 

The old system labeled a school or a district as failing if they did not meet dozens of testing, attendance and graduation rate goals several years in a row. The national goal was to have every kid meet state academic standards in reading and math by 2014. 

The new system sets goals for increasing the number of kids in each group who meet state standards, with a new deadline of the 2017-18 school year. Individual goals have been set in every school for every subgroup, not just for the schools that are struggling. 

In exchange for the longer deadline, parents and concerned community members get several 


 This information is readily available, along with lots of other information about public schools, at theWashington State Report Card online. Click on AMO in the upper right hand section of the page and then choose your school using the dropdown menu on the left side of the page. 

School Tech Connect: In Fact, I Asked...

School Tech Connect: In Fact, I Asked...:

In Fact, I Asked...

by noreply@blogger.com (Tim Furman)

What the heck-- I thought I'd ask Kelly Cassidy a question.

And I'm referring to this.

Seriously, the legislature doesn't have the grapes to tell the voters what it costs to run the state, year after year, and they run up a credit card bill disguised as a pension system, and then they turn around and blame it on out-of-control local boards? All of which have been paying their share and facing voters in a state where the schools lean on the property tax?

Shame on the legislature for puking up this ill-advised amendment to our Constitution. Honestly, they should all 

Fix The Actual Problems (Link Fixed)

by noreply@blogger.com (Tim Furman)

Fix the ramp. Fix the flat tax-created revenue problem.

All of these other little sneaky, fraught-with-peril sideshows are a distraction. 

I'd like to ask my great state representative, Kelly Cassidy, if she would have vote for Amendment 49 if it came up today. It's just such a dumb thing to put in a constitution.

Ixnay on the Arter-Chay

by noreply@blogger.com (Tim Furman)

Look for Heather Steans' state charter commission to overrule the Rockford school board, which has found what basically everyone else has found...

The administration said its approval would turn a private or nonpublic school into a charter school, officials couldn’t ensure the plan was “economically sound,” and officials couldn’t demonstrate that they were willing or able to provide services to students with disabilities or “meaningful, appropriate or adequate education for English-language learners.”

For the record, these concerns have not stopped Rahm Emanuel. I do not know how the economic model makes 

Rahm’s attempt to split teachers from our union fails. But not all union leaders are the same. « Fred Klonsky

Rahm’s attempt to split teachers from our union fails. But not all union leaders are the same. « Fred Klonsky:

Rahm’s attempt to split teachers from our union fails. But not all union leaders are the same.

by Fred Klonsky

Educator and EdWeek blogger Anthony Cody writes about Rahm’s billionaire buddy Bruce Rauner’s attempt to split teachers from their unions.
Cody quotes Rauner,

The critical issue is to separate the union from the teachers. They’re not the same thing. … The union basically is a bunch of politicians elected to do certain things–get more pay, get more benefits, less work hours, more job security. That’s what they’re paid to do. They’re not about the students. They’re not about 

New Insights on the Effects of Migration on Child Well-Being - Hispanically Speaking News

New Insights on the Effects of Migration on Child Well-Being - Hispanically Speaking News:

Princeton Study: New Insights on the Effects of Migration on Child Well-Being

World Leaders Are Called on to Connect These Dots

As world leaders gather in New York for the United Nations General Assembly, women and children are certainly part of the discussions. Leaders routinely fail, however, to address how changing migration patterns have a profound effect on children. New research sheds light on the connection between immigration patterns and child well-being, and should be central to many of the U.N. policy discussions.
“Migrant Youths and Children of Migrants in a Globalized World,” the focus of the September volume of The Annals of the American Academy of Political and Social Science, looks at international child migration through the lens of child development. With the backdrop of changing migration patterns, the researchers seek to identify 

NYC Public School Parents: Attention Parents - Get Ready for Another Surprise: More Field Tests in October

NYC Public School Parents: Attention Parents - Get Ready for Another Surprise: More Field Tests in October:

Attention Parents - Get Ready for Another Surprise: More Field Tests in October

by Leonie Haimson

The following was written by Fred Smith, former testing expert for the NYC Board of Education. The list of 169 NYC schools in which another round of field tests  will be imposed raises more questions, such as how were these schools chosen?  And why do certain districts, like District 1, have nearly twice as many schools required to give them than other districts such as District 2, which is much larger?

Did you know that the New York State Education Department has assigned 169 schools to administer stand-alone field tests next month?  Your child may be in one of these schools and you will not be notified beforehand. 

This is a repeat performance of the way SED handled the field tests that were given in June.  Most parents only learned about them at the last minute. While it was too late for them to ask questions, some of us found out, protested at several schools and boycotted the tests.

Reaction to "Won't Back Down" Shows Critics Have Learned Something - Living in Dialogue - Education Week Teacher

Reaction to "Won't Back Down" Shows Critics Have Learned Something - Living in Dialogue - Education Week Teacher:

Reaction to "Won't Back Down" Shows Critics Have Learned Something

by Anthony Cody

Follow me on Twitter at @AnthonyCody
It is hard sometimes for advocates of public education to see our own movement, when we are active participants in it. But the critical and public reaction to the movie "Won't Back Down" is providing us with some evidence of how far we have come in the past two years.
It was two years ago that documentarian Davis Guggenheim released "Waiting For Superman," heavily loaded with the message that unions protect bad teachers, tenure provides jobs for life, and charter schools are the only hope for our children. The movie was a commercial failure in the theaters, but it was boosted by a $2 million grant from the Gates Foundation to pay for national publicity. It was also the centerpiece for the first Education Nation week hosted by NBC, which prominently featured its heroes, Michelle Rhee and Geoffrey Canada. Oprah even devoted two shows to promoting the movie.
Reviewers were mostly favorable towards "Waiting For Superman." The web site Rotten Tomatoes aggregates reviews, and also collects feedback from ordinary folks who have seen the movies. "Waiting For Superman" got 

Common Core Standards for Learning Supports: Looking for Feedback from All Concerned about Equity of Opportunity — Whole Child Education

Common Core Standards for Learning Supports: Looking for Feedback from All Concerned about Equity of Opportunity — Whole Child Education:

Common Core Standards for Learning Supports: Looking for Feedback from All Concerned about Equity of Opportunity

September 27, 2012 by ASCD Whole Child Bloggers

Post written by Howard Adelman, PhD, and Linda Taylor, PhD, codirectors of the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA) School Mental Health Project/Center for Mental Health in Schools. This post was originally featured on the James B. Hunt Jr. Institute blog, The Intersection.

When policymakers introduce another initiative for education reform, the press to implement the new initiative often draws attention away from other essential facets involved in improving and transforming schools. Currently, this is happening with the Common Core State Standards movement.

Efforts to revamp schools cannot afford to marginalize any primary and essential facet of what must take place at schools every day. As those who have followed the work of the Center for Mental Health in Schools know, we are moving efforts to improve schools from a two to a three component framework (PDF).

The prevailing two component framework mainly stresses (1) instruction (including curriculum and teaching) 

Education leaders - chicagotribune.com

Education leaders - chicagotribune.com:

Education leaders

• 
• 

•  2

September 27, 2012

The strike may be over, but the fight for public education is not.

As a Chicago Public School teacher, I am elated to be back at work educating my students. I thank all the parents, community members and friends who supported us in our fight for a fair contract. By coming together, we were able to negotiate a contract that values arts schools, acknowledges the effects classroom size and conditions have on teaching, and recognizes the limits of standardized test scores as a way to evaluate teachers and assess their worth.

Although I am proud of what we achieved, I worry about what will happen in a few weeks, when the Chicago Teachers Union strike has become old news. Will the public realize that across Chicago, many schools will have to start a fight for their livelihood? As it stands now,