Mike Klonsky's SmallTalk Blog: Immoral Monday in Chicago

Mike Klonsky's SmallTalk Blog: Immoral Monday in Chicago:

Immoral Monday in Chicago

Streets and Sanitation workers made a gruesome discovery a half-block from a Safe Passage route this morning: 

Mayor cancels walk with students after confronted by protesters 

Mayor Rahm Emanuel was scheduled to lead a group of children from Cather Elementary School on the West Side to a nearby community center for after-school programs after classes let out this afternoon.

But after protesters from the grassroots group Action Now turned up at Cather with a bullhorn and pamphlets, urging a boycott of Chicago Public Schools, Emanuel abruptly dropped that plan, got back in his SUV and left. -- Tribune Live Blog 

Immoral Monday

What else could you call this day in Chicago when thousands of children were made to walk though a cordon of thousands of armed police, deputized city workers, minimum-wage hirelings and community volunteers, just to get to school safely? It was a scene reminiscent of Little Rock in 1957.

All this, the result of immoral policy decisions by an out-of-control mayor, disproportionately affecting the city's poorest and racially isolated communities and putting children in harm's way.

Reports are coming in of scattered protests, boycotts and acts of resistance across the city to the unprecedented mass closing of neighborhood public schools.

A school boycott has been called for Wednesday, the 28th to coincide with the 50th Anniversary of the March on Washington.

Moral Monday

Rev. Barber

I think, what's needed is the kind of mass protests I wrote about recently from North Carolina on Moral Mondays.

A leader of the Moral Monday movement is Rev. 

Anne Gassel’s Common Core Action List | Truth in American Education

Anne Gassel’s Common Core Action List | Truth in American Education:

Anne Gassel’s Common Core Action List

Filed in Common Core State Standards by Shane Vander Hart on August 26, 2013 • 1 Comment

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This weekend I spoke this weekend at an event called “Exposing the Common Core” in Collinsville, IL (outside of St. Louis, MO).  Anne Gassel, the co-editor of Missouri Education Watchdog, also spoke.  I gave an overview of the Common Core and problems I had with it.  She presented an action list which I really liked and learned from.  With her permission I’m publishing it below.

1. Join forces with other like minded people and spread the word as far as you can throughout the state. Most people don’t know about common core, where it came from, what its purpose is and where public education is heading. You will need large visible groups to get your point across that you are not the fringe. You are the average informed person.
2. Recognize that what is going on in education, while new, has also been creeping in for a long time. We have unconsciously assigned our responsibility as parents to teach our children to publicly paid employees. We assumed they were doing a good job and had our children’s best interest at heart. Getting rid of common core will not address many of the problems with public education. This is a long mission. We must be more vigilant of what is happening in our schools and not be afraid to speak up against the little things, because those are often just the first steps towards a radically different public education.
3. Get to know all the other parents in your child’s classroom. If you ever need to go to the administration with a problem, groups of parents will make it harder for the administration to 
   
   
   Upcoming New York Senate Education Committee Hearings on Common Core

   The information below is from Stop Common Core in New York State:Senator John Flanagan (2nd Senate District), Chairman of the New York State Senate Standing Committee on Education, announced that the Education Committee will be holding a series of hearings to review the impact and effectiveness of recent state education reforms.The hearings will primarily focus on several major issues including st

   17 by Shane Vander Hart / 19min 

No Experience Necessary | EduShyster

No Experience Necessary | EduShyster:

No Experience Necessary

 Meet the new Superintendent of the Camden Public Schools: EduShyster

There is only one thing thing tempting enough to rouse me from the vaca coma in which I’ve spent the last 10 days: a handsomely compensated new job with a career trajectory heading up, up and up. Reader: I’ve got excellent news to share. No longer will I be toiling away in unpaid anonymity. Instead I’m taking my disruptive and innovative show on the road—to Camden, New Jersey. Meet the new Superintendent of the Camden Public Schools: Me! Now I’m sure you’ve got lots of questions about my new position and I’d love to pretend to answer them. Shall we get started?

This is a joke, right? I mean you have like no experience leading anything so who in their right mind would chose you to lead the Camden Public Schools?
Silly reader—experience is for status quo lovers! In case you’ve haven’t heard, no experience is the new black, especially when it comes to leading school districts that happen to be almost entirely Black. You see, in the olden days experience was mistakenly believed to be an attribute, or worse, a necessity. Today, nine out of ten reform advocates agree: a lack of experience is the handmaiden of disruption and the first cousin of innovation. In other words, what was your question again?

Correct me if I’m wrong but have you ever actually been to Camden before?

Microsoft’s lesson on what not to do with teachers:

Microsoft’s lesson on what not to do with teachers

By Valerie Strauss, Published: August 26 at 4:02 pmE-mail the writer

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Bill Gates                                         (By Andrew Harrer/Bloomberg)

Microsoft founder Bill Gates has been spending billions of dollars on education reform for years, first with a small-school initiative that he declared had failed after spending $2 billion, and in more recent years with expensive experiments on how to evaluate teachers with the purpose of improving teacher quality. In this 2011 op-ed, Bill and Melinda Gates wrote that Microsoft had some good lessons for schools about how to improve employee quality:

At Microsoft, we believed in giving our employees the best chance to succeed, and then we insisted on success. We measured excellence, rewarded those who achieved it and were candid with those who did not. Teachers don’t work in anything like this kind of environment, and they want a new bargain.

Well, it’s hard to imagine teachers wanting to work in the Microsoft environment.

Gates’ school reform philosophy is influenced by a Microsoft management practice that, according to this story on Slate.com by Will Oremus, has been cited by employees as “poisonous” to the company’s culture. The practice is called “stack racking” (and, it should be noted, wasn’t started at Microsoft). How does it work? Oremus quotes fromthis 2012 Vanity Fair magazine article by Kurt Eichenwald about Microsoft. See if this description sounds familiar in the context of school reform:

At the center of the cultural problems was a management system called “stack 

Architecture 101 Fall and Winter Workshops | Seattle Education

Architecture 101 Fall and Winter Workshops | Seattle Education:

Architecture 101 Fall and Winter Workshops

Besides my activities as an education advocate and architect, I teach introductory classes in Architecture for students from grade three through college and beyond.

This fall I will be offering weekday classes for homeschool students, Saturday classes for grades 3 through high school and some History of Seattle walking tours.

This winter holiday season I will again be offering a Holiday Village class using all edible building materials and featuring my own gingerbread recipe…always a popular workshop.

To follow is the schedule and additional information:

HOMESCHOOL WEEKDAY WORKSHOPS

Pyramids of Giza

Homeschool workshops:

September 10, 17 and 24

Grades 3-5
Egyptian Architecture and Design

Tuesday’s
9:00 AM to Noon

Registration deadline: August 28, 2013

Neuschwanstein Castle

October 8, 15 and 22

Grades 3-5
The Middle Ages: Castles and Kings

Diane in the Evening 8-26-13 Diane Ravitch's blog | A site to discuss better education for all

Diane Ravitch's blog | A site to discuss better education for all:

Churn, Churn, Churn, Is Not Good for Kids or the Teaching Profession

This is one of the most depressing articles I have read lately. It is a straightforward article about high teacher turnover in charter schools. It begins with quotes from a 24-year-old teacher in YES Prep in Houston, who is just starting his third year in the classroom, and he is already planning to move on. The principal of his charter school is 28. The New York Times reporter Motoko Rich points

23 by dianerav / 1h 

The Atlantic: “Why Do Liberals Hate Cory Booker?”

We remember Molly Ball as the writer for The Atlantic who tried to persuade us in 2012 that Michelle Rhee really truly is a liberal and was taking over the Democratic Party. Of course, since then, we have seen StudentsFirst make campaign contributions to rightwing Republicans and to a handful of Democrats who support vouchers. We even saw her select a Tennessee legislator who sponsored notorious a

1 by dianerav / 17min 

Special Education in New Orleans: “Thoroughly Broken”

Lance Hill, a New Orleans civil rights activist, describes the ongoing debacle of special education in that city. The Southern Poverty Law Center sued the state in 2010 for pervasive discrimination against students with special needs. Just recently, SPLC filed another suit against the state department of education, the state board of education, and Commissioner John White for continuing discrimina

5 by dianerav / 1h mark as read  //  save

Pennsylvania: Waivers Arrive, Punishments Follow

Blogger Yinzercation reports that Pennsylvania finally got its waivers from No Child Left Behind’s irrational goals of 100% success, only to face the equally punitive regime crafted by the Obama administration. ATP (Adequate Yearly Progress) will be replaced by SPP (Student Performance Profile). Three of the four new measures are based on standardized tests. No surprise there. Love those tests “

11 by dianerav / 2h 

LISTEN TO DIANE RAVITCH 8-26-13 Diane Ravitch's blog | A site to discuss better education for all

Diane Ravitch's blog | A site to discuss better education for all: Charlotte Danielson Says….DON’T DO IT!This came from a New Jersey administrator who heard Charlotte Danielson speak about how to use her rubric: “At the NJAFPA Conference on May 29, Charlotte Danielson (creator of the Danielson Frameworks for Teaching evaluation system that so many states and districts have adopted) said in her key

by mike simpson / 2h 

CCSS Publications Available - Year 2013 (CA Dept of Education)

CCSS Publications Available - Year 2013 (CA Dept of Education):

State Schools Chief Tom Torlakson Announces Two Publications to
Help Schools and Students Transition to Common Core State Standards

SACRAMENTO—With schools beginning the year deeply engaged in the transition to the Common Core State Standards, State Superintendent of Public Instruction Tom Torlakson today announced that they are available in print for the first time.

           CDE Press, the publishing arm of the California Department of Education, is now offering print versions of the California Common Core State Standards: English Language Arts and Literacy in History/Social Studies, Science and Technical Subjects (CA CCSS for ELA/Literacy) (DOC; 3MB) and California Common Core State Standards: Mathematics (CA CCSSM) (DOC; 6MB)*. Previously, the documents were available only online.

          At the same time, Torlakson released a short video explaining in plain language the importance of California's transition to assessments based on the new Common Core State Standards .

"These standards are the blueprints for remodeling our education system, laying out step-by-step what students need to know and be able to do to graduate ready to start a career or go to college," Torlakson said. "And if we're updating how and what we teach students, then we have to update the way we test as well."

Standards define the knowledge, concepts, and skills students should acquire at each grade level. The Common Core standards are designed so that all students—no matter where they come from or where they live—receive a world-class education that is consistent from school to school, and graduate ready to contribute to the future of the state and the country.

The standards were developed by teachers, principals, parents, education experts, and feedback from the public in an initiative spearheaded by governors and state school chiefs. Almost all 50 states have voluntarily signed on, including California, which formally adopted the standards in 2010.

Implementation decisions remain with local school boards, and the standards establish what students need to learn in English-language arts and mathematics, but they do not tell teachers how to teach. The standards provide a clear understanding of what students are expected to learn at every grade level.

One of the next steps statewide is the transition to new, computer-based assessments aligned to the Common Core. Torlakson's recommendations for this change are incorporated in AB 484, which is making its way through the legislative process.

The publications are available for purchase, with the prices set to offset printing and shipping costs. Details on how to order them, including sales tax and shipping and handling fees, are available on the CDE Press' Catalog Listings of Publications or by calling toll-free, 1-800-995-4099.

# # # #

* Pictures of the delivery of the publications to the CDE Press' Warehouse in West Sacramento are available at Multimedia.

# # # #

Tom Torlakson — State Superintendent of Public Instruction
Communications Division, Room 5206, 916-319-0818, Fax 916-319-0100

We Need More EdTech, But Less Technology In The Classroom | toteachornototeach

We Need More EdTech, But Less Technology In The Classroom | toteachornototeach:

We Need More EdTech, But Less Technology In The Classroom

by Jordan Shapiro

Technology plays a primary role in my teaching, but I rarely turn on the computer that makes the classroom “smart.”

Occasionally, I project the class tweet stream. I am an advocate of Twitter for higher ed. But generally, during class time, I try to avoid mediating my connection with students through technology. Face-to-face time is reserved for facilitating old fashioned conversation and discussion. Outside of class, however, my students are bombarded with digital learning resources.

In Temple University’s Intellectual Heritage Department, I teach Mosaic 1 & 2: a two semester sequence that’s required core curriculum for every Temple University student. These are courses that focus on interpretive reading, critical thinking, and persuasive writing–a course designed to “introduce students to foundational texts from cultural and intellectual traditions worldwide.” It is standard liberal arts fare, what David Brooks referred 

The Takeover of PS 154 by Bronx Classical Charter Has Begun southbronxschool.com

http://www.southbronxschool.com:

The Takeover of PS 154 by Bronx Classical Charter Has Begun

We here at SBSB wish to extend  a laurel and hearty handshake to our new overlords and betters at PS 154, Bronx Classical Charter II. We look forward to years of acquiescence and seeing how the monies flow into BCC II and out of PS 154.

We also have come to realize that as your school expands, 154 will shrink in size as if having spent the entire afternoon in a cold pool. Also, we know that as BCC II counsels out students it deems
unworthy, that PS 154 stands a good chance of getting these students. That, and the fact that PS 154 is a failing school and the new district wide open enrollment starting this year for Kindergarten only assures that PS 154 will certainly have an eclectic array of students with IEP's, ELL's, behavior issues, psychological issues, and a consortium of other issues which should only have the community of PS 154 upset. Sadly, that remains to be seen.

Last week the staff got a preliminary set of rules 

Parents 4 Teachers offers school closing accountability hotline Parents United for Responsible Education

Parents United for Responsible Education » Blog Archive » Parents 4 Teachers offers school closing accountability hotline:

Parents 4 Teachers offers school closing accountability hotline

From Parents 4 Teachers
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE     Aug. 26, 2013
CONTACT:

• Erica Clark, 773-851-6287
• Sarah Simmons, 773-573-9100

CPS parents from closed schools urged to call School Closings Accountability Line to report problems, lack of resources at receiving schools
CPS parents from the 50 closed schools last year are being urged to call the School Closings Accountability Line to report problems, lack of resources, safety concerns and other issues at the new “receiving” schools their children will be attending this year.
The call in number, sponsored by Parents 4 Teachers, is 773-916-P4T4 (7484).
CPS promised facilities upgrades, new programs, I-Pads, air conditioning and other improvements to the receiving schools in a failed effort to win parent, teacher and student support for the largest round of school closings in the nation.
The Accountability Line will track conditions in the receiving schools so that parents, teachers and community members can hold CPS and the mayor accountable for those promises—and for any harm that befalls students because of the school closings.
“CPS is very good at making promises, but they have a horrible track record for keeping them,” Erica Clark, a CPS parent and member of P4T, said.
Parents are urged to call the number and leave a message with any information about their child’s new school.
###

- See more at: http://pureparents.org/?p=20834#sthash.PH3t3xRL.dpuf

Organizing – It’s Contagious! | NEA Today

Organizing – It’s Contagious! | NEA Today:

Organizing – It’s Contagious!

August 26, 2013 by twalker  
Filed under Featured News, Top Stories

Leave a Comment

By Amy Jordan and Nathan Allen

Great things happen when educators, administrators and parents work together to make their community stronger.

Just ask Kristi Smith, a physical science teacher at Hellstern Middle School in Springdale, Arkansas.

Smith was a participant of NEA’s Center for Organizing first Education Summer in New Orleans. She joined 40 other educators from seven states to learn organizing skills through classroom-based instruction and in-the-field practicums. Partnering with the St. Bernard Association of Educators, the Education Summer participants conducted home visits with educators and their neighbors to raise awareness of the Association in a community that is still rebuilding after Hurricane Katrina.

Inspired by those home visits, Smith returned to Springdale and met with her principal, Todd Loftin, to share her experience of getting out in the community and talking about their public schools. Smith suggested the educators at Hellstern do the same thing before the first day of school.

Forty teachers and education support professionals signed up to take part in the community outreach event, visiting incoming 6th graders and their families at home to welcome them to Hellstern.

“Had I not attended the Education Summer program in New Orleans, I wouldn’t have even thought of doing something like this back home,” said Smith.

Video: Hellstern Neighborhood Outreach

With Loftin’s help and support from the Springdale Education Association, the team rounded up five school buses and collected addresses of all the incoming 6th graders. Volunteers in the 7^th and 8^th grades met 

Sabrina Stevens Shupe: 'Bad' Women, Teachers, and Politics

Sabrina Stevens Shupe: 'Bad' Women, Teachers, and Politics:

'Bad' Women, Teachers, and Politics

Sabrina Stevens Shupe: 'Bad' Women, Teachers, and Politics

Just three months into 2012, as the Republican primary season continues, the tenor of the political conversation around contraception and other "women's" issues has grown increasingly alarming (to those of us firmly grounded in the 21st Century, anyway). Though there is a long historical tradition of projecting social anxieties onto women's (especially 'bad' women) behavior, it's still jarring for those of us who've grown up hearing about, thinking about and believing in our equality to be reminded of how tenuous our freedoms really are.

But for those of us who work in education, these gendered frustrations haven't just resurfaced because of primary season. Our field has been under bipartisan attack for a while now, as our feminized profession (76% female) has joined the ranks of all the other "bad" women throughout history who've been accused of threatening society's well-being.

To those with a mind for history, none of this is news. They already recognize the predominantly female teaching profession among the latest in a long tradition of projecting community/societal anxieties onto "bad" women -- from "witches" to bad mothers to feminists and beyond -- of all kinds. But given how much of the field has been placed under political control, in this election season it seems important to offer a reminder (and perhaps 

Shanker Blog » The Great Proficiency Debate

Shanker Blog » The Great Proficiency Debate:

The Great Proficiency Debate

Posted by Matthew Di Carlo on August 26, 2013

A couple of weeks ago, Mike Petrilli of the Fordham Institute made the case that absolute proficiency rates should not be used as measures of school effectiveness, as they are heavily dependent on where students “start out” upon entry to the school. A few days later, Fordham president Checker Finn offered a defense of proficiency rates, noting that how much students know is substantively important, and associated with meaningful outcomes later in life.

They’re both correct. This is not a debate about whether proficiency rates are at all useful (by the way, I don’t read Petrilli as saying that). It’s about how they should be used and how they should not.

Let’s keep this simple. Here is a quick, highly simplified list of how I would recommend interpreting and using absolute proficiency rates, and how I would avoid using them.

Before proceeding, however, a quick clarification: Much of this debate is less about proficiency rates than about absolute performance measures in general – that is, how highly students score (as opposed to growth-oriented measures, which are focused on progress over time). Proficiency rates are a very common example of absolute performance measure, but most of the points below — basically, all but the last bullet — might also apply to other status measures, such as average scale scores. In addition, for the purposes of this discussion, let’s put aside the issue of the choice of “proficient” cutoff score, and how it is to some degree arbitrary (though that is indeed an important issue in any discussion about cutpoint-based rates).

How to use proficiency rates:

• To (carefully) summarize or compare, in an accessible manner, the performance of a group or groups ofstudents, such as those attending the same grade, school, or district, in any given year;
• To target resources, such as additional funding or a tutoring program, at entities (e.g., schools, districts) with