LISTEN TO DIANE RAVITCH 11-17-13 Diane Ravitch's blog | A site to discuss better education for all

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

NY: “We Are Listening but Going Full Steam Ahead Anyway”

New York is not known as a Tea Party state, but it does have large numbers of suburban moms and dads who care about their children and who are well-educated. Here is an account of State Commissioner John King’s public forum in Mineola, Long Island, where hundreds of angry parents and educators turned out to reject the state’s Common Core testing. How many more public beatings will John King subj

6 by dianeravitch / 14min 

Mercedes Schneider Refutes Silly StudentsFirst Blast at Me

Some guy who works for StudentsFirst–the organization that promotes vouchers and charters and wants to strip teacher of all due process–wrote a criticism of me on Huffington Post because he doesn’t like the way I interpret NAEP data. This is silly because I served on the NAEP board for seven years and know its strengths and limitations. NAEP was designed to serve an audit function, never to be use

11 by dianeravitch / 1h 

Bill Mathis On the Vermont Success Story

Remember the song, “Kids! What’s the Matter with Kids Today?” from “Bye, Bye, Birdie?” Watch this. It’s wonderful, and it reminds of how every generation thinks that the younger generation is rotten and declining. Bill Mathis is a former superintendent in Vermont and now serves as a member of the state board of education. He has steadily opposed the Bad News Club, which constantly bashes the schoo

by dianeravitch / 6min 

Chronic Stress Is Not Good for Children

A mother writes: Environments of chronic stress are not exclusive to Title I schools in Texas. My daughter attends 3rd grade an Exemplary school in a university area of highly educated and involved parents. We are beginning to observe the over emphasis on rewarding performance, fear of making mistakes, perfectionism, and a lack of nurturing social and emotional development. Work is mostly independ

5 by dianeravitch / 20min 

Nancy Carlsson-Paige and Randi Weingarten: Stop Testing Little Children!

Nancy Carlsson-Paige and Randi Weingarten have co-authored a terrific article about why little children should not be subjected to standardized testing. They write: Young kids learn actively, through hands-on experiences in the real world. They develop skills over time through a process of building ideas. But this process is not always linear and is not quantifiable; expecting young children to kn

by dianeravitch / 6min 

Note to Arne from an Angry White Suburban Mom

A comment from a reader in response to Arne Duncan’s statement that white suburban moms are angry because the Common Core tests just showed them that their child is not so brilliant and their school is not so good: “This angry, white, suburban mom IS angry–but it’s not because I was delusional that my children are “brilliant” or that our suburban public schools aren’t that good. We have funding is

15 by dianeravitch / 19min mark as read  //  save

Tom Loveless: Be Wary of Ranking States by NAEP Gains

Tom Loveless of the Brookings Institution doesn’t like it when politicians play games with education statistics. In this post, he gives a lesson in the interpretation and misinterpretation of NAEP scores ranking the states.

5 by dianeravitch / 1h 

Arne Duncan to White Suburban Moms: Your Kids Are Not As Smart As You Thought

Secretary of Education Arne Duncan told a meeting of the Council of Chief State School Officers that the suburban revolt against Common Core has a simple explanation: white suburban moms are discovering that their children are not as brilliant as they thought, and their schools are not as good as they thought. Here is a description of his remarks and the rationale behind them. According to blogg

100+ by dianeravitch / 2h 

LISTEN TO DIANE RAVITCH ALL WEEK LONG Diane Ravitch's blog 11-9-13 -13 #thankateacher #EDCHAT #P2

Diane Ravitch's blogLISTEN TO DIANE RAVITCH ALL WEEK LONGDIANE RAVITCH'S BLOG mark as readNew York’s Teacher of the Year Is Not Rated “Highly Effective”New York’s Teacher of the Year testified to the State Senate Education Committee that the education evaluation system made it impossible for her to be rated “highly effective” because of the “dysfunctional implementation” of the Common Core standar

1 by mike simpson / 8h 

11-17-13 Larry Ferlazzo’s Websites of the Day… | …For Teaching ELL, ESL, & EFL

Larry Ferlazzo’s Websites of the Day… | …For Teaching ELL, ESL, & EFL:

“Teachers Should Be Friendly With Students But Not Friends”

Teachers Should Be Friendly With Students But Not Friends is the title of an excerpt that has just been published from my book, Classroom Management Q&As: Expert Strategies for Teaching. It’s been published by Middleweb. The excerpt includes a contribution from Rick Wormeli and my thoughts, too.

5 by Larry Ferlazzo / 28min mark as read  //  save

The Best Sites For Learning About Italy

Later this week, my ELL Geography class will be finishing up our unit on France by videotaping questions we have for our “sister” English classes in that country. Next on our list is Italy. Here’s a very beginning collection of resources I’ve collected (I hope you’ll suggest more!), and I’ll be adding this post to The Best Geography Sites For Beginning & Intermediate English Language Learners

10 by Larry Ferlazzo / 48min 

November’s Infographics & Interactives Galore — Part Three

There are just so many good infographics and interactives out there that I’ve begun a new semi-regular feature called “Infographics & Interactives Galore.” You can see others at A Collection Of “The Best…” Lists On Infographics and by searching “infographics” on this blog. I’ll still be publishing separate posts to individually highlight especially useful infographics and interactives, but you

4 by Larry Ferlazzo / 4min 

Second Week Of Twitter Chat On Classroom Management Begins Today — #classmgmtQA

The second and final week of the Twitter Chat on classroom management and student motivation begins today at the hashtag #classmgmtQA. It’s been quite active, and you can check out the Collection Of Tweets From First Week’s Chat On Classroom Management.

9 by Larry Ferlazzo / 3h 

New Feature: Videos Of The Week

In yet another effort to get at my backlog of resources to share, I’m starting this new regular feature to share useful videos. I’ll still periodically highlight certain ones on their own, but the rest will be found on this regular post: This video shares some good advice to presenters and to teachers: I’m adding this next embedded video from The NY Times on The Future of Storms to The Best Reso

12 by Larry Ferlazzo / 3h 

‘There Is No Such Thing As An Unmotivated Student’

‘There Is No Such Thing As An Unmotivated Student’ is my new post over at Education Week Teacher. Today’s “line-up” of contributors is impressive with guest responses from Cris Tovani, Josh Stumpenhorst and Eric Jensen. It’s the first in a three-part series on the topic.

6 by Larry Ferlazzo / 38min 

YESTERDAY

Professor James Heckman Publishes New Paper On “Non-Cognitive Traits”

Thanks to Matthew Di Carlo at The Shanker Blog, today I learned about a new research paper by Nobel-Prize winner James Heckman. It’s called Fostering and Measuring Skills: Interventions That Improve Character and Cognition. It’s a lengthy one. I’ve copied and pasted a few short excerpts that I thought were particularly important. You can see all my previous posts about Professor Heckman’s work he

12 by Larry Ferlazzo / 8h 

Larry Ferlazzo’s Websites of the Week… 11-16-13 …For Teaching ELL, ESL, & EF

Larry Ferlazzo’s Websites of the Day… | …For Teaching ELL, ESL, & EFLLARRY FERLAZZO’S WEBSITES OF THE DAY mark as readThe Best Online Resources About President John F. KennedyThe fiftieth anniversary of President Kennedy’s assassination is coming up next week, and I’ll certainly be making additions to this list. Here’s a start: JFK in Photos is from The Atlantic. Textbooks Reassess Kennedy, Pu

1 by mike simpson / 8h 

Teachers Designing Instructional Materials: A Unit on the Assassination of Kennedy (Part 2)) | Larry Cuban on School Reform and Classroom Practice

Teachers Designing Instructional Materials: A Unit on the Assassination of Kennedy (Part 2)) | Larry Cuban on School Reform and Classroom Practice:

Teachers Designing Instructional Materials: A Unit on the Assassination of Kennedy (Part 2))

A group of teachers  at Cardozo high school in the mid-1960s created and taught a unit called “Who Killed Kennedy?” Part 1 described the background and purpose of this teacher-designed unit of eight lessons including a test. We taught the unit to 15 classes spread across U.S. history, Civics, and Government at Cardozo during the first few weeks of the semester in 1966.

Nearly all of the student were in the General track. In District of Columbia schools then students were assigned to Basic, General, and Honors tracks based on their IQ scores. General track students could select college prep courses or vocational ones. They ranged in reading skills from some at grade-level to many at two or more years below grade-level. It is these General students, we felt, that had been ignored by recent curriculum materials (then called the “New Social Studies”) and for whom the usual social studies fare was tedious and boring.

The Lessons

On the first day of the unit, we recalled through newspaper headlines, photos, and personal accounts of how the the events in Dallas on November 22, 1963 affected people. We got students to recount what they experienced a few years earlier and answers the central question of the unit: Was Oswald the 

Essay questions for education ‘reformers’ | Dangerously Irrelevant

Essay questions for education ‘reformers’ | Dangerously Irrelevant:

Essay questions for education ‘reformers’

paid associate                                                                member 

 Robert Shepherd says:

As a member of the Billionaire Boys’ Club, or as one of the paid associates of the BBC, you . . .

1. believe that extraordinarily complex skills like reading and writing ability can be validly and reliably measured by simple, objective
tests.

Explain how that could possibly be so. Please draw upon your extensive knowledge of the relevant scientific literature.

2. believe that innovation comes about when free persons conceive of varied goods and services that compete with one another in a free market in which users choose the goods and services that they wish to purchase and use.

Explain how this belief can be reconciled with a) a single set of mandatory national standards for all students, b) a single set of mandatory high-stakes national tests, c) a single national database of all student test scores and responses, and d) scripted literacy lessons that all teachers must follow to the letter.

3. believe that all students should follow the same standards and take the same 

11-17-13 Perdido Street School

Perdido Street School:

Some New Yorkers Plan To Keep Children Home For National Common Core Protest Day

Staten Island Live has an interesting article on National Common Core Protest Day:STATEN ISLAND, N.Y. -- As Staten Island parents vent their frustrations about the state's new Common Core Curriculum standards, parents throughout the state are preparing to keep their children home from school on Monday, in what's being labeled as "National Common Core Protest Day."The grassroots movement

by reality-based edu... / 2min 

Suburbia Is Where Education Reform Comes To Die

There has been a huge backlash come Arne Duncan's way for a speech he gave to a group of state superintendents in which he blamed recent Common Core criticism on white suburban moms who find their child "isn’t as brilliant as they thought."Duncan has faced a storm of criticism on Twitter over the comments, with Carol Burris summing up many of the attacks with her own criticism of Duncan:

by reality-based edu... / 0min 

Mulgrew's Recess From The Tests Petition Went Into My Junkmail

Found this between the junk mail selling Viagra for 70 cents a pill and a plea from a Hong Kong banker telling me he has $300,000 of my own money he found in a bank account at HSBC:New York's youngest students need teaching and learning, not standardized testing. Sign the Recess from Tests petition » Bloomberg-style "drill-and-kill" standardized test prep has sadly become the norm for ou

by reality-based edu... / 3h 

11-16-13 Perdido Street School Week

Perdido Street School: Perdido Street School mark as readArne Duncan - One Of The Best And Brightest Of Our GenerationWe need the best & brightest to #teach. Join the @TEACHorg Thunderclap to recruit the next generation http://t.co/uauAhwfL9V— Arne Duncan (@arneduncan) November 9, 2013The phrase "Best and Brightest" doesn't mean what Arne Duncan seems to think it means.  In modern us

1 by mike simpson / 8h

‘Linked learning’ seems to work for high school students | toteachornototeach

‘Linked learning’ seems to work for high school students | toteachornototeach:

‘Linked learning’ seems to work for high school students

‘Linked learning’ seems to work for high school students

California is making a laudable commitment to vocational programs that provide relevance to students’ studies and set them on a career path.

By George Skelton

SACRAMENTO — It used to be called “shop.” Then educators started using two-bit labels like “vocational education.” And it got worse.

“Career tech,” they renamed it when the dot.com era emerged. Now it goes by “linked learning.” Or is it “career pathways?”

I’m confused.

“Call it shop-plus,” says Senate President Pro Tem Darrell Steinberg (D-Sacramento), the Legislature’s leading proponent of whatever it is.

I’ll roll my eyes and refer to it as “linked learning.” Yuk.

Whatever it’s called, it seems to work for high schoolers where it exists, which isn’t enough places. It provides relevance to their studies and sets them on a career path. So maybe “career pathways” is a better tag after all.

By any name, the state government — thanks largely to Steinberg — is making a major 

Reflections on Teaching » Blog Archive » Just another hysterical female…

Reflections on Teaching » Blog Archive » Just another hysterical female…:


Just another hysterical female…

Female hysteria was a once-common medical diagnosis, made exclusively in women, which is today no longer recognized by medical authorities as a medical disorder. Its diagnosis and treatment were routine for many hundreds of years in Western Europe. Hysteria was widely discussed in the medical literature of the 19th century. Women considered to be suffering from it exhibited a wide array of symptoms including faintness, nervousness, sexual desire, insomnia, fluid retention, heaviness in the abdomen, muscle spasm, shortness of breath, irritability, loss of appetite for food or sex, and  “a tendency to cause trouble”. In extreme cases the woman would be forced into the asylum and under go surgical hysterectomy. - from Wikipedia (emphasis mine)

As the Obama Administration’s education policy rolls on into a second term, I didn’t think that Arne Duncan was in any danger of having to find a new job, but that was before reading this bit on Valerie Strauss’ Answer Sheet blog. Here is the gist:

…opposition to the Common Core State Standards has come from “white suburban moms who — all of a sudden — their child isn’t as brilliant as they thought 

“Skype in the Classroom” Presentation (Updated) | Diary of a Public School Teacher!

“Skype in the Classroom” Presentation (Updated) | Diary of a Public School Teacher!:

“Skype in the Classroom” Presentation (Updated)

Posted November 16, 2013 by Oldschoolteach in Blogging about Education, Education Blog. Tagged: global classrooms, Mystery Skype, Skype education presentation, Skype in the classroom. Leave a Comment

Seeing as how SlideRocket is closing down, and I was presenting Skype in the Classroom at a tech conference, I decided to update my little presentation. Words of wisdom, take advantage of the Skype in the classroom site, it offers amazing opportunities for your students to engage in some “real world” learning!! READ MORE…