Wednesday, October 16, 2013

Nite Cap 10-16-13 #BATsACT #RealEdTalk #EDCHAT #P2

James Baldwin said it best:

"For these are all our children, and we will profit by or pay for whatever they become."

A BIG EDUCATION APE NITE CAP

NYC Public School Parents: Send in your comments on the DOE's C4E plan by Friday 5 PM!

NYC Public School Parents: Send in your comments on the DOE's C4E plan by Friday 5 PM!:

Send in your comments on the DOE's C4E plan by Friday 5 PM!

The deadline for comments on the NYC’s Contracts for Excellence plan (or non-plan) is this Friday, October 18 at 5:00 PM. We have a sample letter you can use with plenty of bullet points about all the violations of law in the public process and deplorable results in terms of class size below; but the reality is that since the court made its decision in the CFE case that NYC children were deprived of their constitutional right to an adequate education in large part because of excessive class sizes, class sizes have instead INCREASED each year in every grade in the city’s schools.

In grades K-3, class sizes are now the largest in 14 years, and the C4E plan that the city has submitted will do nothing to address this critical problem, which is the top priority of NYC parents according to the DOE's own surveys. Please be sure to send in your comments before the deadline at 5 PM Friday to contractsforexcellence@schools.nyc.gov and jking@mail.nysed.gov
And feel free to adapt or change in any way you'd like!
___________________________________

Sample letter to send on DOE’s proposed 2013-2014 C4E plan

Please send by 5 PM, Friday Oct. 18, 2013!

To: contractsforexcellence@schools.nyc.gov

cc: jking@mail.nysed.gov

I am a parent of a x grader at x school. My child’s class size is x this year. This is unacceptable to me, and it should be unacceptable to the NYC Department of Education and the NY State Education Department.

In the CFE decision, the state’s highest court said that NYC children were unfairly denied their constitutional right to an adequate education, in large part because of excessive class sizes. And yet since that decision, class sizes have increased each year. This is contrary to the intent of the Contract for Excellence law passed in 2007 that mandated that NYC measurably reduce class size each year to attain specific annual targets and five-year goals. To this day, DOE officials have refused to allocate a single penny of the more than $500 million they are awarded each year in state C4E funds towards reducing class size, in their targeted allocations to schools or district wide initiatives.

The DOE has refused to hold borough hearings since 2008, as the law requires, and the state has set a timetable for public comment months after the C4E funds have already been allocated to schools and mostly spent, making a mockery of the public input and accountability procedures set out in the law. The DOE also eliminated its early grade class size funding program, even though they promised to retain it as part of their original C4E plan.

This year’s “pre-approved” class size reduction plan requires only that in 75 schools out of more than 1500, class size should not increase more than half of the amount class sizes increase citywide. By no definition and by no reasonable standard does this constitute a class size reduction plan, and by no means will it lead to “measurable progress” in lowering class size. Moreover, even in these 75 schools, DOE has given them no support or extra resources to lower class size; many of them are already being phased out, and others have other schools co-located in their buildings, which will deprive them of the space needed to reduce class size.

Class size reduction one of only four reforms cited by the Institute of Education Sciences, the research arm of the US Department of Education, as proven to work through rigorous evidence. The benefits are especially large for disadvantaged & minority students. Eighty six percent of NYC principals say cannot provide a quality education because of excessive class sizes, and smaller classes have been the top priority of parents on DOE’s learning environment surveys every year.

I urge you to listen to parents, school administrators, and research, and also heed the law, by amending the city’s plan so that it includes “measurable progress” in class size reduction citywide, so that someday soon, NYC students may receive their right to an adequate education.

Yours,

Name, school, district

Asthma Shouldn't Kill – Every School Needs a Nurse | National Opportunity to Learn Campaign | Education Reform for Equity and Opportunity

Asthma Shouldn't Kill – Every School Needs a Nurse | National Opportunity to Learn Campaign | Education Reform for Equity and Opportunity:

Asthma Shouldn't Kill – Every School Needs a Nurse

Posted on: Wednesday October 16th, 2013

By John Jackson, President & CEO of the Schott Foundation, and Susan Gobreski, Executive Director of EdVoters PA

Tell State and Federal Leaders:
Every School Needs
a Full-Time Nurse

Click here to sign the petition!

Each day, parents across the country send their children to school with the expectation that they will be safe and cared for while they learn.

On September 25th, the father of Laporshia Massey, a sixth-grader at Bryant Elementary School in Philadelphia, learned the tragic extent to which his daughter’s school was not equipped to support her: Laporshia died after having an asthma attack at school.

Due to budget cuts, there was no school nurse on duty that day. Instead, her teacher told her to stay calm, and a staff member drove her home after school. Her father immediately recognized how serious her symptoms were and rushed her to the emergency room. Laporshia collapsed on the way there and passed away at the hospital.

Laporshia’s family believes that having a nurse on site that day might very well have saved her life. Trained to recognize when a student is in need of emergency care and to provide it, a health professional is a critical resource that no school should be without.

It’s no surprise then that in the wake of Philadelphia’s school funding crisis, this story took three weeksto break. Laporshia’s death is

How The Federal Government Is Hurting Native American Students

How The Federal Government Is Hurting Native American Students:

How The Federal Government Is Hurting Native American Students

Posted: 10/16/2013 4:40 pm EDT | Updated: 10/16/2013 6:06 pm EDT

As Congress squabbles over ending the federal government shutdown, Jim Gross, the superintendent of Selfridge Public School District #8 in North Dakota, looks on in skepticism.

He grew up on Standing Rock Indian Reservation, where he was adopted by the local Sioux tribe, and moved back there 21 years ago because he wanted to "do good things for the Native kids." But the weak economy, which drove the reservation into an ever-deepening state of poverty, and the federal sequestration cuts and 16-day-old government shutdown, are making it hard for him to do his job.

"Back then, politics was people getting together, something would come out about it if you sit down," he said. "Both sides have gotten so far to the extreme, the radical stage. Our families say, well, okay, here's the government again. They're not doing anything again."

Schools that serve students who live on Native American reservations and military bases generally don't have the same level of property taxes that fund most public

Not Recommended | EduShyster

Not Recommended | EduShyster:

Not Recommended

Researcher, writer and former TFA corps member Catherine Michna.

Catherine Michna’s passionate declaration that she’ll no longer write letters of recommendation for students applying to Teach for America set off a firestorm. But the Tulane University research fellow is not the ivory tower bomb thrower that her critics make her out to be.Michna’s critique of the organization of which she was once a part is deeply grounded in the city where she grew up and attended public schools: New Orleans. In the very first installment of a new series, The Frustrated Alum, EduShyster talks with Michna about her story and why she decided to speak out publicly against TFA.

EduShyster: You really touched a nerve with your recent announcement that you won’t write letters of recommendations for your students who want to apply to Teach for America. But you’ve actually been critical of the organization for a long time, correct?

Michna: I became critical of TFA at a very early stage, back in 1998 when I started teaching in Oakland, CA as a corps member and got to know the veteran teachers who

NYC Educator: Danielson by the Numbers

NYC Educator: Danielson by the Numbers:

Danielson by the Numbers

Danielson doesn't bother me that much. I look at what's required, and I think that looks like good teaching. Of course everyone should be prepared. Of course everyone should enter the classroom with a plan and have a vision of what will happen. Everyone should have goals for the students.

I also believe strongly in student engagement. I put a lot of energy into trying to create or inspire it. I want my kids to be happy and eager. But, and you knew there would be one, I can't guarantee every kid will be jumping up and down with hands raised. I could instruct them to raise hands at every question each time there's an observer. Or I could call on kids at random, which is my preferred M.O. anyway.

Yet when I see these checklists, the ones mandated by the DOE and maybe or maybe not endorsed by the union, I'm not at all encouraged. You rate one in this, two in that. Your questions are superficial and don't scrape the bottom of the cerebral barrel. Your students are not engaged in deep thinking, did not explain Einstein's theory of relativity to my satisfaction, and I still don't understand it. You engaged in the spread of inaccurate information. I'm not going to tell you what

Educator Preparation and the Common Core: A Voice from the Field | LFA: Join The Conversation - Public School Insights

Educator Preparation and the Common Core: A Voice from the Field | LFA: Join The Conversation - Public School Insights:

Educator Preparation and the Common Core: A Voice from the Field

By Anne O'Brien on October 16, 2013

One of the greatest challenges that the education community faces in implementing the Common Core State Standards (CCSS) initiative is ensuring that the education workforce is ready to help students succeed under these new, higher standards.
Facing this challenge requires providing the current workforce with high-quality professional learning opportunities, something we talk about a great deal at the national level. But it also requires preparing new educators to enter classrooms ready to teach under the CCSS, something we talk about very little. How are the higher-education institutions that train the vast majority of our nation’s teachers working to ensure the successful implementation of the Common Core?
To help answer this question, we contacted Linda McKee, Director of the Teacher Preparation and Certification Program at Tulane University. McKee is currently serving as the president of the Louisiana Association of Colleges for Teacher Education and as the president of Louisiana Learning Forward. She collaborated with two of her colleagues at Tulane – Holly Bell,

Early Childhood Education Programs: Play — Whole Child Education

Early Childhood Education Programs: Play — Whole Child Education:

THE WHOLE CHILD BLOG

Early Childhood Education Programs: Play

October 16, 2013 by ASCD Whole Child Bloggers

Thomas Armstrong, education expert, author, and Whole Child Podcast guest, just can't say enough about the importance of play. The chapter "Early Childhood Education Programs: Play" is excerpted from Armstrong's ASCD book Best Schools, which looks at not just best schools, but also best practices for teaching and learning. In this chapter, Armstrong points to early education practices that actually hinder young learners rather than helping them to get ahead.

Cutting out play is one such practice that thwarts child development, says Armstrong. A young child, particularly, needs to be in a safe environment where he can touch, sense, and move in order to learn.

"The incredible plasticity of the child's brain points to the importance of the child's surroundings—a safe and caring social and emotional space coupled with a hands-on interactive environment—in promoting healthy neurological growth. The high metabolic activity in a young child's brain suggests that the child should be exposed to dynamic, creative, and multisensory experiences. Children's play represents the single best way

A Professional At Work | Taking Note

A Professional At Work | Taking Note:

A Professional At Work

by JOHN MERROW on 16. OCT, 2013 in 2013 BLOGS, TEACHING

First I want to tell you about a terrific teacher–and then invite you to watch her at work. When I met Maria Eby, she was wearing a fluorescent green wig and was dressed all in green. As she passed me, I smiled and said something like “You’re either early for Halloween or late for St. Patrick’s Day.” She smiled and said something that I didn’t catch, but it didn’t matter. After all, we were filming in an arts-oriented elementary school, so it was perfectly logical that an arts teacher would appear in a weird costume.

As it happened, the film crew, producer Cat McGrath and I walked into Mrs. Eby’s class shortly afterwards, just as she was telling the first-graders that it was time to hear the story of Jack and the Beanstalk from the point of view of the Beanstalk. The light bulb went on in my head: She was the Beanstalk!

As you will see in the video, once she got into that role, she inhabited it. Not only did she explore the characters and elements of the story from the Beanstalk’s perspective, she also, as a representative of all

Nice guy. Can’t run a school | JD2718

Nice guy. Can’t run a school | JD2718:

Nice guy. Can’t run a school

OCTOBER 16, 2013 PM31 3:12 PM

tags: Learning Environment survey, principals, school administrators

In some schools a staff hates the principal – thinks he’s horrible, doesn’t trust him. Sometimes a staff adores a principal – thinks she does a great job, takes her at her word.

But what would you think if a staff likes the guy in charge, but doesn’t think he can run a school?

At one charter school in Manhattan, three out of four teachers trust the principal. But wait. Only one out of seven think she is an effective manager. At the Leadership Institute in District 9, in the Bronx, over 80% trust their principal, but only a third think she makes the school run smoothly. And at Invictus Prep, a charter school in Brooklyn, 95% of the teachers trust the principal at his word. But only half think he’s competent.

The 2013 Learning Environment surveys reveal this situation to be more common than one might expect. At 96 schools, at least one in five staffers thinks the principal trustworthy, but not competent. And in over 200 more schools at least 10% of the staff makes the same assessment.

These schools are not distributed evenly across the City. Charter schools are over-represented (8% of city schools, but 17% of the top of the list). Fifteen districts have only 0 – 2 schools on the top of the list.

Think about the teachers filling in the survey. They bubbled a negative answer, so they weren’t so scared of retaliation that they were sugarcoating their responses. And they did check off “I trust him at his word,” so they weren’t, in anger, bubbling all bottom scores for their principals. This is

Latest News and Comment from Education

Wednesday, October 16, 2013

Nite Cap 10-16-13 #BATsACT #RealEdTalk #EDCHAT #P2

James Baldwin said it best:

"For these are all our children, and we will profit by or pay for whatever they become."

TODAY

YESTERDAY

Nite Cap 10-9-13

Nite Cap 10-7-13

NYC Public School Parents: Send in your comments on the DOE's C4E plan by Friday 5 PM!

Send in your comments on the DOE's C4E plan by Friday 5 PM!

Asthma Shouldn't Kill – Every School Needs a Nurse | National Opportunity to Learn Campaign | Education Reform for Equity and Opportunity

Asthma Shouldn't Kill – Every School Needs a Nurse

How The Federal Government Is Hurting Native American Students

How The Federal Government Is Hurting Native American Students

Not Recommended | EduShyster

Not Recommended

NYC Educator: Danielson by the Numbers

Danielson by the Numbers

Educator Preparation and the Common Core: A Voice from the Field | LFA: Join The Conversation - Public School Insights

Educator Preparation and the Common Core: A Voice from the Field

Early Childhood Education Programs: Play — Whole Child Education

THE WHOLE CHILD BLOG

Early Childhood Education Programs: Play

A Professional At Work | Taking Note

A Professional At Work

Nice guy. Can’t run a school | JD2718

Nice guy. Can’t run a school

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