Friday, March 29, 2013

by crazycrawfish

There is an insidious plot unfolding all around us that poses a grave danger to our children, and to many adults. Not many people know about this yet, or understand the implications of what is happening, so I thought you would like to know. I’ve seen a few pieces that show both sides of this issue, the good and the bad, but I really don’t think the “bad” has received nearly enough attention. The bad far outweighs the good that is being touted, but most of the articles I’ve read touch on the bad, and don’t delve into the dirty details or address the scope of just how “bad” things could get. I will attempt to do so, by thinking like the soulless profiteer and ruthless predator, and I will show you what you can do about this. Hopefully I can scare you enough that you will be inspired to do something about this before it is too late. There is still hope for many of you, but you must act now.
For starters, FERPA, the Federal Education Rights and Privacy Act, has been gutted. You can’t tell that from the summarized version that is posted on the US Department of Education website. However under Arne

The Campaign to Save Our Children

by crazycrawfish

You may want to read my previous article before you dive into this:
First you will need to contact your local LEA, or school district, and demand they stop using Social security numbers as your child’s state identifier. I have already taken this step for my own children and can verify it works. This is a little known fact, but SSNs can only be required by federal agencies for federal benefits. States do not have the authority to require SSNs, and school districts are forbidden by law from requiring a SSN to keep a student enrolled or to enroll a student. This information is contained in the Student Information Guide I used to curate when I worked at the Louisiana Department of Education. Our lawyers required me to put this information in our SIS guide, but in an inconspicuous spot.

UPDATE: Patrick J. Buchanan again appears on the scene Daily Kos: Paul Krugman: "Cheating Our Children"

Daily Kos: Paul Krugman: "Cheating Our Children":

Patrick J. Buchanan again appears on the scene

by rss@dailykos.com (teacherken)

He has what I consider to be an outrageous piece in American Conservative of which I am aware only because it was featured among the five best columns of the day in an email I receive from Atlantic Magazine. If you must, you can read Can One Nation Have Two Moralities?.
I past below the comment I offered in response, which I do not know if it will be suppressed - as of my posting this, it is "awaiting moderation"

America has NEVER had one morality, and on this - as on so many other issues - Mr. Buchanan simply does not know American history.Surely as a Catholic of Irish background he should know the history of discrimination against Irish - the signs in Boston that used to say no Irish or dogs need apply - and the forced Protestantization in American public schools that led the Catholic Bishops to establish a separate school system.
Part of our nation saw nothing immoral with enslaving other human beings at the same time we ha

Paul Krugman: "Cheating Our Children"

by rss@dailykos.com (teacherken)

So, about that fiscal crisis — the one that would, any day now, turn us into Greece. Greece, I tell you: Never mind.

By now we know, as Krugman has told us before, and as he uses these words to open this New York Timescolumn, our situation is for lots of reasons totally unlike that of Greece.After referring to the Chicken Little nature of the arguments we have been hearing, we then encounter the following blunt words at the end of the 2nd and beginning of the 3rd paragraphs:

Suddenly, the argument has changed: It’s not about the crisis next month; it’s about the long run, about not cheating our children. The deficit, we’re told, is really a moral issue.There’s just one problem: The new argument is as bad as the old one. Yes, we are cheating our children, but the deficit has nothing to do with it.

Please keep reading.

On this day, March 29

by rss@dailykos.com (teacherken)

Popout
in 1981, at the 54th Academy Awards, "Chariots of Fire" won best picture and three other Oscars, including Best Score.
The composer of that score, and of the theme in the opening scene is known as Vangelis, whose real name was Evangelos Papathanassiou, who was celebrating nis 38th birthday, having been bonr 3/29/1943 near Volos. He was also the composer of the scores for Blade Runner; 1492,The Conquest of Paradise; Alexander; and his music was used for the Carl Sagan TV series Cosmos.
The movie takes some creative license with history, but is largely based on historical fact.
The opening scene, with the theme, is one of the most memorable in film history.
Surely worth this brief remembering on this day.
Peace.

Key education activists protesting in D.C. next week

Key education activists protesting in D.C. next week:

Key education activists protesting in D.C. next week

Posted by Valerie Strauss on March 29, 2013 at 6:00 am

Comments

Education activists opposed to corporate-based school reform are converging on Washington D.C. next week for the second annual United Opt Out National event on the grounds of the U.S. Education Department. Among those who will be speaking at the event are education historian Diane Ravitch, Chicago Teachers Union President Karen Lewis, veteran educator Deborah Meier, and early childhood expert Nancy Carlsson-Paige.

The four-day event — to be attended by teachers, students, parents and others — will start on April 4th and include a march to the White House in an effort to get the attention of President Obama, who has been a big disappointment to people who thought he would push progressive school reform policies. Instead, his Education Department has pushed a corporate-based reform agenda that includes an accountability system based on standardized tests — against the advice of assessment experts — and initiatives that have fueled the privatization of public education and attacks on teachers.

The Opt Out event is part of a growing revolt against standardized test-based school reform. Students have staged protests in different states; school boards across the country have passed resolutions against high-stakes tests; teachers staged a strike in Chicago and in

The Mediterranean Diet and school reform

by Valerie Strauss

What does the Mediterranean Diet tell us about school reform? Martin Blank tells us in the following post. Blank is president of the Institute for Educational Leadership and director of the Coalition for Community Schools, an alliance of organizations in … Continue reading →

Missouri Education Watchdog: DESE States Common Core Effective without Empirical Evidence

Missouri Education Watchdog: DESE States Common Core Effective without Empirical Evidence:

DESE States Common Core Effective without Empirical Evidence

by stlgretchen

Missouri DESE released this statement:

Department of Elementary and Secondary Education Commissioner Chris Nicastro says the new Common Core State Standards are relevant to the real world that would focus on the knowledge and skills in areas such as Mathematics and English Language Arts, that students will need in order to succeed in life after high school.

There is no research/data with this statement and it is interesting DESE (and other state educational agencies) have dropped the claim that these standards are "internationally benchmarked". When pressed to support these claims, DESE took that phrase off their talking point sheets.

Here is a peer reviewed and research based study from Great Lakes Center for Education Research and Practice ,The “Common Core” Standards Initiative: An Effective Reform Tool?, July 2010, which raised questions on the effectiveness and adoption process of common core standards. Some of the findings of

The Educated Reporter: Two Takes on the `Well-Being' of Teachers

The Educated Reporter: Two Takes on the `Well-Being' of Teachers:

Two Takes on the `Well-Being' of Teachers

by Emily Richmond

Teachers rank second only to physicians when it comes to reporting the sense of "well-being" they derive from their chosen profession, a new Gallup Poll has found.

The poll asked more than 170,000 people, more than 9,000 of whom were teachers, to create a "Well-Being Index," based on answers to questions about their physical, emotional and fiscal health.

So how does the new poll stack up against the recent headlines proclaiming that teacher job satisfaction had fallen to a 25-year low in the MetLife Survey of the American Teacher? As New York Times education reporterMotoko Rich noted, the findings really aren't that far apart.

While the percentage of teachers in the Metlife survey who were "very satisfied" dropped to 39 percent from 62 percent in 2008, there were still 43 percent of teachers who described themselves as 'somewhat satisfied." The

Blackboard Wars episodes 5 and 6 | Gary Rubinstein's Blog

Blackboard Wars episodes 5 and 6 | Gary Rubinstein's Blog:

Blackboard Wars episodes 5 and 6

by Gary Rubinstein

So the first season of Blackboard Wars has ended and, as I expected, it reached the conclusion it was created to. Yes, ‘reform’ isn’t easy. The community resists radical change, even when it is what is best for it. The early ‘success’ of this school and its teachers validates the idea that all you need to accomplish a ‘turnaround’ is a $1.5 million dollar SIG grant to use, in part, on a charismatic leader and some new teachers who, despite their inexperience, have high expectations for all kids.
In the last episode, we get our first inklings of ‘early success’ at this school. At one of the board meetings, open to the community, Dr. T says that 63% of their 9th graders have scored above basic on the Read 180 test. Read 180 is a program which may very well be a good one. Students take three tests throughout the year and as this is only four months into the school year, we’re not sure if this was how they did on the first or second test. This is not an ‘official’ state test, but a diagnostic, and since we don’t know what those incoming students’ levels were, it is hard to interpret whether this is good or not.
I don’t see how a school can take much credit for students they have only known for four months, though. I know that this school has a somewhat unusual demographic because when they started the turnaround, they did not give the school any new 9th graders last year. So the current 9th graders are generally all first time 9th graders. As the years progress, however, that won’t be the case in this school and it will be interesting to see

Thursday, March 28, 2013

Special Late Nite Cap UPDATE 3-28-13 #SOSCHAT #EDCHAT #P2

Nite Cap UPDATE

UPDATE UPDATE UPDATE UPDATE

CORPORATE ED REFORM

What to do with Chicago's Abandonned Schools

by Last Stand for Children

Assuming that CPS goes ahead with their planned school actions, there will be nearly 60 abandoned schools located mostly in Chicago's poorest neighborhoods. In previous mass closings, the cities wound up losing a lot of money on the schools, which soon became abandoned and derelict. Even The Chicago Tribune has called for the city to sell these buildings to charter schools, but the city has so far refused. Fortunately, there is a way for the city to re-purpose these buildings.

Let's face it, research shows that students who are involved in actions like these have a much higher rate of dropping out and that is only going to give them a higher rate of incarceration as adults. Since many of these kids are already growing up in a high crime neighborhood, most of them are probably going to wind up in prison.

Chicago has the chance here to become to incarceration what Silicon Valley is to micro chips. Best of all, the private prison industry is growing almost as fast as the charter school movement hence our politicians will still have a steady source of campaign dollars.

Now don't get me wrong, there is going to be some initial costs. Unlike Chicago Public Schools, prisons need

Group Discusses Solutions for Raising the Number of Hispanic Teachers

from Diverse by cmaadmin

A student at Texas State University-San Marcos approached Dr. Jaime Chahin about 20 years ago and asked to borrow 20 dollars. Chahin offered directions to his house and instructed the young man to arrive early one Saturday morning. “I had him pick weeds from my yard and I paid him,” said Chahin, currently dean of the school’s College of Applied Arts. “I figured it was better than just giving him the money.”

Besides teaching a lesson on working for wants and needs, Chahin inspired the student to think beyond an undergraduate degree. The young man continued his studies at Michigan State and eventually earned a Ph.D.

California’s two largest public school teachers unions file to become defendants on a pending lawsuit that would radically change the teaching

by Adolfo Guzman-Lopez

Lawyers for California’s two largest teachers unions filed a motion in L.A. County Superior Court on Wednesday to intervene as defendants in a lawsuit that would radically alter tenure for public school teachers.

The lawsuit, known as Vergara vs. California, was filed in May, 2012 by Students Matter and a top constitutional law firm. The suit seeks to change five laws governing the teaching profession, namely the tenure provisions that give teachers wide job protections after 18 months on the job.

The California Teachers Association and the California Federation of Teachers argued in the filing that existing defendants, including California’s Governor and State Superintendent of Public Instruction and others will not adequately represent teachers interests in the case.

California Federation of Teachers President Joshua Pechthalt does not want to to do away with teacher

N.C. Faculty, Graduate Students Criticize New Laws

by cmaadmin

DURHAM N.C. — A newly formed group of faculty and graduate students from several North Carolina universities is speaking out about new laws that the members believe will harm the state for years to come.

The group will meet Thursday at the Sanford School of Public Policy at Duke University. Its members are from Duke University, the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, N.C. State University, N.C. Central University, UNC Greensboro, and several other colleges and universities.

The members say the GOP-majority Legislature has already passed laws and has others planned that will impede economic recovery, restrict democracy and undercut reforms that promoted the common good.

UNC-Chapel Hill professor Hodding Carter III says participants will outline a better course for the state.

New Report Emphasizes Accountability from Secondary Schools

by cmaadmin

In order to bring about greater postsecondary opportunities and success for students from families of lesser economic means, more time and money should be directed toward high-achieving students who attend high-poverty schools.

That is one of the key points made in a new report titled “A Level Playing Field: How College Readiness Standards Change the Accountability Game.”

“These high-performing kids, particularly in high-poverty settings, are a really important group for us to take care of,” said John Cronin, director of the Kingsbury Center at the Northwest Evaluation Association, or NWEA, the organization that produced the report. “And schools should start thinking about this group as a group they need

The Frustrated Substitute Teacher

by noreply@blogger.com (Bronx Teacher)

My friend The Frustrated Teacher wrote a quite funny, yet sad, FB the other night about a foray of his into substitute teaching. It really hits home at what is happening to our society and to our educational values.

With his permission, I am sharing it here.

Putting the 28 most dysfunctional kids in the same split 4th/5th class is a bad idea.

Today's experience marks the first time I have left a classroom because I couldn't handle the kids. Admittedly, they were running around with scissors threatening to kill each other, and there were 2 fistfights in the room, and 2 kids called their moms on banned cell phones, who then showed up at the door demanding I release their kids, or else....

Split the kids up. Move them to other rooms. Stop giving them boring worksheets (which were my sub plans for the day, and obviously what goes on most days, as the regular teacher can't handle them either, I hear). Stop coming in the class, Principal and her henchmen to tell them it's the African American kids who are shaming the AA adults, and that's why they should behave.

Clean the room; I saw a custodian.

When a parent shows up to pick up their kid, who called them from a phone they weren't supposed to have, only to complain that the sub is trying to teach and in the

Finch aide drops title of Deputy Mayor for Education

by jonpelto

Earlier this month, if you had visited the Council of Urban Professionals’ website you would have read that, “Joshua Thompson is the Director of Education and Youth Policy and the Deputy Mayor for Education for the city of Bridgeport, CT. Prior to this position, he was the Program Analyst and Projects Manager for the Deputy Mayor [...]

(Read more...)

Legislators lower bar to earn HOPE Grant for technical colleges

by Maureen Downey

More technical college students will now receive the HOPE Grant.
The General Assembly passed a bill tonight that lowers the GPA necessary to win the lottery-funded grant, which applies to technical colleges.
House Bill 372 qualifies students for the grant if they maintain a 2.0 grade-point average. The current mandate is 3.0, but the change would reinstate the rule that existed before lawmakers overhauled HOPE two years ago.

Does a parent have a choice when the school tolerates bullying? Was this protective mama bear out of line?

by Maureen Downey

I’ve been watching a subtitled Swedish mystery series, “Annika Bengtzon: Crime Reporter,” in which the feisty protagonist is a crime reporter for a major newspaper. In the episode I watched last night, Annika is upset because her sweet 8-year-old son is being bullied and the school refuses to act even after the bully pushes her son off the monkey bars and seriously injures him.
So, Annika strides onto the school playground, confronts the bully as he terrorizes another child and warns him

Netfix Boss Pushes Anti-Teacher Union Theme in House of Cards

by ed notes online

I've been watching House of Cards and was intending to write something about the anti-teacher union POV so thanks to Randy Shaw at Portside for this. He doesn't mention that Netflix boss Reed Hastings is a noted deformer at the Broad/Gates level. Here are some links to more on Hastings and below the Portside piece another good analysis from Crooks and Liars.

Reed Hastings - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reed_Hastings
Jump to California State Board of Education‎: He became interested in educational reform in ... State Board of Education, and in 2001, Hastings became its ...
Reed Hastings On How To Build A $20 Billion Education Juggernaut ...

www.forbes.com/.../reed-hastings-on-what-it-takes-to-grow-a-20-billi...
May 11, 2012 – REED HASTINGS: About half my work in education is US political reform around school

Idaho state House OKs plan to give school districts more leverage in labor negotiations

by The Associated Press

Another bill would require the teachers union to prove it represents a majority of a district’s educators before it can bargain for them.

Running on Empty? 25 Tricks to Jumpstart Routine Lessons

by Tess Pajaron

Over the years, I’ve noticed how one question can change the dynamics of any situation. Everything might be moving along quite nicely at the dinner table, everyone’s happy and laughing but one question can send those same smiling faces into a frenzy of shouts and upset.
This also holds true in a classroom. Students may be working quietly and the teacher might be content but one question or comment from a student or the teacher can turn that quiet into bubbling sea of chatter.
Beyond textbooks and worksheets, at the core of every basic lesson lies the key to teaching students anything

Why Immigration Is A Women’s Matter

by Elisa Batista

(Photo: In a packed Presbyterian church in D.C., the National Latina Institute for Reproductive Health brought down the house with chants for dignity and respect of all immigrant women. The event, held on March 18, 2013, brought out 500 people, including NLIRH members, Congressional leaders, partner organizations and the media.)

Last week, I had the honor of partaking in a series of events in D.C. to advocate for immigrant women. I attended a rally put on by the National Latina Institute for Reproductive Health. As part of the We Belong Togetherwomen’s coalition, I attended a reception and workshops, listened to the personal stories of immigrant women and visited Congressional offices to ask that they include the needs of immigrant women in any comprehensive

Report: cheating on standardized tests in 75 percent of U.S. states | Pass / Fail | 89.3 KPCC

Report: cheating on standardized tests in 75 percent of U.S. states | Pass / Fail | 89.3 KPCC:

Report: cheating on standardized tests in 75 percent of U.S. states

by Adolfo Guzman-Lopez

The National Center for Fair & Open Testing issued a report Thursday that tallies cases of cheating on standardized tests in 37 states across the country, including notable cases in Southern California.
The manipulation hurts the most needy students, said he center’s president, Bob Shaeffer: “Most of the most significant cases of cheating have occurred in low income communities where students have historically had the lowest test scores.”
Students have been found to take smart-phone photos of tests and forward them to fellow students. A lot of

An Urban Teacher's Education: How Do We Retain Excellent Teachers?

An Urban Teacher's Education: How Do We Retain Excellent Teachers?:

How Do We Retain Excellent Teachers?

from An Urban Teacher's Education by James Boutin

Yesterday, I had the privilege of Skyping with students of Kathleen Nolan (whose book, Police in the Hallways, I reviewed on this blog last summer). They are currently studying education reform and the urban teaching experience. One of the students asked about teacher burnout, and it sparked a need in me to write about it.

You hear the statistic often: Nationally, one-third of teachers leave after three years, and nearly half leave after five. And attrition affects urban schools more than it does suburban or rural schools.

We want excellent teachers to stay in classrooms. So the statistic seems worthy of investigation.

Why do so many teachers leave, and what can be done to prevent the best from going?

Burnout

"Poor working conditions" is among the reasons teachers cite when they leave the profession. But what does that mean?

I can think of a great number of stresses that come with any teaching job, particularly in a struggling school. Students bring trauma and emotional distress from home; administrators and districts sometimes hold expectations that seem unreasonable; dilapidated buildings and lack of equipment make your job more difficult; and, perhaps most challenging, most schools lack the resources to support teachers effectively.

Nearly every district offers a new teacher mentoring program on paper. But in my experience, a "mentoring program" can range from three written comments on a lesson from September by a "mentor" who was also my evaluator to three meetings in a year with another teacher in my building who observed me teach once coupled