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Monday, October 1, 2012

Fund for Teachers Grants Encourage Teachers to Pursue Learning Around the World and Inspire Students Back Home

Fund for Teachers Grants Encourage Teachers to Pursue Learning Around the World and Inspire Students Back Home:


Fund for Teachers Grants Encourage Teachers to Pursue Learning Around the World and Inspire Students Back Home

Fund for Teachers’ 2013 grant cycle opens today, offering teachers the opportunity to design and experience their idea of professional development. Individuals receive up to $5,000, teaching teams $10,000, to hone skills and seek new knowledge that directly impacts student learning and personal/professional growth.


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Fund for Teachers
Quote startI grew as a teacher and a person...and broadened my perspectives on education, learning and life - all of which continue to shape and influence my classroom.Quote end
Houston, TX (PRWEB) October 01, 2012
Give us your motivated, your curious, your standardized test rebels yearning to learn free – these teachers make ideal candidates for Fund for Teachers fellowships.
A nonprofit dedicated to supporting and respecting teachers, Fund for Teachers awards grants to teachers who design, and during the summer, pursue their ideal professional development. The organization invites preK-12 teachers to consider what’s missing in their teaching, to ask themselves “If I could just learn ______________, I would substantially impact my students’ learning.” By submitting the answers on an online applicationavailable today, teachers’ could receive $5,000 per individual or $10,000 per teaching team to fund their odysseys.
“With my Fund for Teachers grant, I grew as a teacher and person,” said Patricia Greenleaf, teacher at Alief Learning Center in Houston, TX. Patricia used her grant to study the influence of Galilei and Ptolemy on math and science at the Scientific Cultural Organization in Venice, the University of Padua, and in Rome. “I conversed with international curriculum writers, teachers and students, researched Italy’s complex history, rode a subway for the first time, and broadened my perspectives on education, learning, and life – all of which continue to shape and influence my classroom.”
Fund for Teachers puts virtually no limits on what teachers learn or where they learn it with the grants, trusting each teacher to best determine relevant learning gaps and/or student needs. Literacy workshops in one’s hometown, robotics conferences in Tokyo and service learning projects in India merit equal consideration. Since 2001, 5,000 teachers have leveraged $18M in grants into fellowships in 124 countries on every continent.
"There’s no way – with the state’s budget shortfalls – that six of our teachers could have attended a reading/writing seminar in New York City without their Fund for Teachers grant,” said Susanne Smith-Stein, principal at Arroyo West Active Learning Center in Moorpark, CA. “The teaching team’s implementation of learned knowledge and skills they gained during their fellowship changed the lives of our teachers and their students.”
Guidelines, eligibility requirements and tips for crafting a successful Fund for Teachers grant proposal are available at fundforteachers.org. Completed proposals are due by January 31, 2013 and teachers awarded grants will be notified by March 31, 2013. For more information, call 800.681.2667 or visit the organization's Tumblr orFacebook sites.
About Fund for Teachers
Fund for Teachers enriches the personal and professional growth of teachers by recognizing and supporting them as they pursue opportunities around the world that make the greatest impact on their practice, students and school community.

"Tired of ALL the Bullsh*t" Barry Commoner Dies at 95 - NYTimes.com

Barry Commoner Dies at 95 - NYTimes.com:


Scientist, Candidate and Planet Earth’s Lifeguard

Chester Higgins Jr./The New York Times
Last Word: Barry Commoner: Dr. Commoner, an early environmentalist, warned of the dangers of nuclear weapons testing. He was an early champion of recycling, organic food and reducing fossil fuel use.



Barry Commoner, a founder of modern ecology and one of its most provocative thinkers and mobilizers, died Sunday in Manhattan. He was 95 and lived in Brooklyn Heights.
Liz O. Baylen for The New York Times
Barry Commoner, senior scientist at the Center for the Biology of Natural Systems at Queens College, in a portrait made May 16, 2007.

Readers’ Comments

His wife, Lisa Feiner, confirmed his death.
Dr. Commoner was a leader among a generation of scientist-activists who recognized the toxic consequences of America’s post-World War IItechnology boom, and one of the first to stir the national debate over the public’s right to comprehend the risks and make decisions about them.
Raised in Brooklyn during the Depression and trained as a ...


....His own favorite moment of the campaign, he recalled many years later, was when a reporter in Albuquerque asked, “Dr. Commoner, are you a serious candidate, or are you just running on the issues?”

Schools Matter: Empty of Fact: Rachel Brown's Bellwether Propaganda

Schools Matter: Empty of Fact: Rachel Brown's Bellwether Propaganda:


Empty of Fact: Rachel Brown's Bellwether Propaganda

I asked Doug Martin, my colleague at The Common Errant and a dogged investigator of politico-corporate-educational malfeasance, to help us interpret the misleading graphic presentation offered by Rachel Brown for The Atlantic's Reform Pamphlet.  Ms Brown seems to responsible for page 87; I don't think it's appropriate to say she wrote it as it is primarily a presentation of "content" I would compare to what Netflix offers as a selection screen for the under-7 "latch-pc" crowd (this is exemplary of what is actually being learned by children).  That is I would compare both the content and the presentation with "Just for Kids."



Page 87 is called "New Advocates, New Ideas" in the print version but online it's titled "The Education Upstarts."

Let me just say that I applaud the online title as being interesting if not entirely apt.  Perhaps definition number 

'Life isn't always fair', Mayor Bloomberg says of NAACP suit that claims blacks and Latinos are shut out of top city high schools - NY Daily News

'Life isn't always fair', Mayor Bloomberg says of NAACP suit that claims blacks and Latinos are shut out of top city high schools - NY Daily News:


'Life isn't always fair', Mayor Bloomberg says of NAACP suit that claims blacks and Latinos are shut out of top city high schools

He insists tough entry test is fair and that if some can afford tutors and some can't, well, too bad

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 Mayor Mike Bloomberg (c.) announced plans to build the World's Tallest Ferris Wheel in Staten Island in 2014 to be named The Wheel. Here with Staten Island borough president James Molinaro (R.) and Seth Pinsky (L.). I will be built next to the Baseball stadium on Bay street on what is now a parking lot for Staten Island Ferry riders.Thursday September 27, 2012 (Debbie Egan-Chin/New York Daily News photo)

DEBBIE EGAN-CHIN/NEW YORK DAILY NEWS

Mayor Bloomberg said he has no interest in changing the admissions process to the best city high schools, insisting, 'It's done strictly on merit and it's one of the bright lights in our school system.'

GIVING A LESSON about a cruel world, Mayor Bloomberg showed zero sympathy for minority children who are denied entry to the city’s elite high schools.
“Life isn’t always fair,” he snapped on Thursday when asked about an NAACP complaint that slams the schools for admitting few black or Latino students.
He insisted that the entrance process is perfectly fine: Students with the best scores get invited to learn at the top schools.
“We’re not here about equal results. We’re here about equal opportunity,” he said. “Look, an awful


Read more: http://www.nydailynews.com/new-york/education/life-fair-mayor-bloomberg-naacp-suit-claims-blacks-latinos-shut-top-city-high-schools-article-1.1170106#ixzz285DAsch0

"Won't Back Down" Might Make Debate - LA School Report

"Won't Back Down" Might Make Debate - LA School Report:



“Won’t Back Down” Might Make Debate

Reviews of the new release “Won’t Back Down” vary widely and tend to conform with pre-existing views on education reform issues.
Viola Davis and Maggie Gyllenhaal
Critics like The Nation’s Dana Goldstein describe it as a mean-spirited caricature of classroom teachers funded by a conservative millionaire who wants to destroy public schools — a 2012 version of  ”Waiting For Superman.”
Supporters describe it as a heartwarming depiction of parents and teachers getting together to say, “We can do 

Diane in the Evening 10-1-12 Diane Ravitch's blog

Diane Ravitch's blog:

CTU Votes on Contract Tomorrow

Members of the Chicago Teachers Union will vote on October 2 whether to ratify the contact negotiated with the city.
In the press release about the contract, CTU says these are the gains in the new contract for students and teachers:
Should members vote to ratify the contract it will force the Board of Education to:
· Hire over 600 additional teachers in Art, Music, Phys Ed and other subjects – helping to make the school day better not just longer.
· Maintain limits on class size – pushing back Mayor Rahm Emanuel’s attempt to remove all class size limits and threats to crowd 55 students into a class. The CTU also won a small increase in funding to decrease class size and was also able to add a parent Local School Council member to the “Class Size Committee” for every 



My Speak-out in Austin

I spent the last three days in Austin and had a great time. I’ll write about it on the flight home. I’m sitting on the JetBlue flight and the doors will close in 3 minutes.
Thought you might want to see this interview with me and Evan Smith. Only 24 minutes.
More later.


Wall Street Eyes Profit Potential in Public School Budgets

The privatization movement has swung into high gear.
Many people find it hard to understand why so many Wall Street hedge fund managers and equity investors have suddenly become interested in public education.
Here is a good explanation.
No one ever went wrong by



Edushyster Does Charter Math

Edushyster noticed a strange phenomenon.
A charter school received a $1.5 million grant to close the achievement gap.
Edushyster noticed that its first class had 47 students. But 17 eventually 












One answer to “Why are there 42 kids in my child’s class?” | Get Schooled

One answer to “Why are there 42 kids in my child’s class?” | Get Schooled:


One answer to “Why are there 42 kids in my child’s class?”

The AJC had an interesting piece this weekend on the inexact science of predicting school enrollments. I cannot link as the story was limited to AJC subscribers and did not appear online.
The gist of the story: Despite reviews of multiple records — census, birth records, housing, dropout and migration — and mathematical formulas, schools can get enrollments wrong. The predictions become even more difficult in a recession when parents are pulling their children out of private schools. (Public school enrollment is up nationwide.)
Here is an excerpt of the AJC piece:
Cobb County recently spent $2.2 million hiring 30 extra teachers because its projection was low by 1,364 students. Gwinnett’s projection was 2,059 students low. The district is hiring 10 teachers