1-8-14 The Answer Sheet

The Answer Sheet:

Should principals stop visiting classrooms?

Principals are  above all supposed to be “instructional leaders” but exactly what that means — or how to be effective in that role —  isn’t entirely clear. Cognitive scientist Daniel Willingham looks at the research on what makes for an effective instructional leader in the post below. Willingham is a professor and director of graduate […]    

3 by Valerie Strauss / 5h 

 

1-7-14 The Answer Sheet

The Answer Sheet: A sobering way to start 2014In the current issue of The American Prospect, Richard Rothstein reviews Patrick Sharkey’s “Stuck in Place,” a 2013 book that helps explain the persistent failure of educational policy to spur the upward mobility of low-income African American youth. Here’s a piece on the findings in the book by Rothstein, research associate at the Economic Policy Inst

by mike simpson / 7h 

1-8-14 Seattle Schools Community Forum

Seattle Schools Community Forum:

Seattle Schools Confirms Sports Change

Yes, all our comprehensive high schools will be moving to the Metro league (including Roosevelt, Ballard and Garfield).  Roosevelt will be the second-largest in the league but keep in mind, they count ONLY the numbers of 10,11and 12th graders to decide school size.  That's why Roosevelt will fit into the Metro league.Boy, that will save transportation dollars AND be one less reason to change to la

by Melissa Westbrook / 23min 

OSPI Terminates Agreement w/Seattle Times

I have just received word from OSPI that the data sharing agreement with the Seattle Times has been terminated.  Don't get too excited as apparently a new one is being written.Details to follow.

by Melissa Westbrook / 1h hide  //  save

NW School Unveils Rooftop

Here's how a downtown school for SPS might work.  Good job, Northwest School.

by Melissa Westbrook / 1h 

Seattle Schools with Possible Bell Time Changes for 2014-2015

Readers had been asking about possible changes to bell times previously discussed by Transportation.  I could not find a link at the SPS website so I scanned it in.  I had to handwrite in "old" and "new" (for start times) as it had not been noted that way on the original.As previously mentioned, most of these are 5-10 minutes with a few, like Laurelhurst being about 20 minutes.

by Melissa Westbrook / 7h hide  //  save

Math Adoption Update

From reader Rick B:Re: the K-5 Math Adoption. Here's a quick process overview and status update from the trenches:The Math Adoption Committee (MAC) has met three times so far. The SSD website has some basic info and minutes of the first meeting, but not for meeting #2 or meeting #3:In these meetings, the committee laid the typical process groundwork, developed selection criteria and weighting form

by Melissa Westbrook / 8h 

1-7-14 Seattle Schools Community Forum

Seattle Schools Community Forum: Tuesday Open ThreadAn event perhaps of interest to you when we think about privacy and data - Town Hall is hosting Joshua Klein and his talk, Reputation and Your Online Footprint.  It's this Thursday the 9th at 7:30 pm.  Cost is $5.  Got old electronics?  Windermere in Ballard is having an electronics recylcing day on Saturday the 11th from 10 am to 2 pm.  A good t

by mike simpson / 3h 

1-8-14 Scathing Purple Musings | Color me purple in Florida

Scathing Purple Musings | Color me purple in Florida, red in Washington, dark sky-blue in Israel and public school in Education:

PARCC, Common Core, and Moving the Bar Again After Everyone’s Jumped

From Catherine Gewertz in Education Week: If you’re paying close attention to every twist and turn of the state assessment chronicles, you could be forgiven for concluding that Florida has finally, officially, dumped the PARCC assessment consortium. New details have emerged suggesting that this is the case, but no one’s calling the gravediggers just yet. In a Jan. 7 story, the Bradenton Herald quo

by Bob Sikes / 3h  

1-7-14 Scathing Purple Musings | Color me purple in Florida

Scathing Purple Musings | Color me purple in Florida, red in Washington, dark sky-blue in Israel and public school in Education: The Republican Bill to Stop Common Core in FloridaThe Orlando Sentinel‘s  Leslie Postal reports that opponents of Common Core are beginning an advertising campaign in southwest Florida: Opponents of Common Core in Florida today launched radio ads they hope will spread th

by mike simpson / 8h 

1-8-14 Larry Ferlazzo’s Websites of the Day… | …For Teaching ELL, ESL, & EFL

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

From The Archives: “Why schools should not grade character traits”

I’ve recently re-started an effort I’ve tried to do previously by regularly highlighting previous posts and articles I’ve shared in previous years that I think might be worth a second look. I wrote Why schools should not grade character traits for The Washington Post nearly three years ago. Here’s an excerpt:

by Larry Ferlazzo / 1h 

“Universal preschool may help parents more than children — and that’s okay”

I think the evidence is more clearly positive in favor of the advantages of pre-school education for children than the author of the Reuters piece, Universal preschool may help parents more than children — and that’s okay, suggests. And, I’m not entirely comfortable with his somewhat condescending attitude towards poor parents. Nevertheless, I think he does make a good point that we proponents of

by Larry Ferlazzo / 24min

Starting Off The New Year With Even More Excellent Classroom Advice

A few days ago, I some excellent classroom advice from Marvin Marshall for the New Year. Here are a couple of more posts from him that are definitely worth reading: 3 Ways to Promote Responsibility 3 Practices that Enhance Learning

by Larry Ferlazzo / 9h 

Pandas, Pandas, Pandas!

Here are some new additions to The Best Sites To Learn About Pandas: National Zoo Panda Cub Makes Her Adorable Media Debut is a TIME slideshow. I don’t think this next short video of the panda at the Toronto Zoo can be seen in an RSS Reader but, believe me, it’s worth clicking through to watch: Post by The Toronto Zoo.

by Larry Ferlazzo / 9h hide  //  save

Anyone Teaching A Class In Africa Where Students Would Like To Answer Our Questions?

I’ve previously posted about the series of videos my English Language Learner Geography class has been creating with questions for English classes in countries we’ve been studying. So far, we’ve done this short-and-simple process (we create a video, post them on our class blog, and then the other class creates videos responding to them — of course, we’re also open to answering questions ourselves

by Larry Ferlazzo / 10h 

From The Archives: “Five Questions That Will Improve Your Teaching”

I’ve recently re-started an effort I’ve tried to do previously by regularly highlighting previous posts and articles I’ve shared in previous years that I think might be worth a second look. I wrote Five Questions That Will Improve Your Teaching for Education Week Teacher nearly three years ago. Here’s an excerpt:

by Larry Ferlazzo / 10h 

1-7-14 Larry Ferlazzo’s Websites of the Day… | …For Teaching ELL, ESL, & EFL

Larry Ferlazzo’s Websites of the Day… | …For Teaching ELL, ESL, & EFL: Infographics About The World’s Different CulturesHere are new additions to The Best Sites For Learning About The World’s Different Cultures: Are you middle class? Defining the middle class around the world is from The Christian Science Monitor. by Lemon.ly. Explore more infographics like this one on the web’s largest inform

by mike simpson / 8h 

1-8-14 Fred Klonsky | Daily posts from a retired public school teacher

Fred Klonsky | Daily posts from a retired public school teacher who is just looking at the data.:

Will pension theft be Quinn’s Achilles’ heel.

Weeks before the Illinois General Assembly passed Senate Bill 1, stripping state retirees of crucial benefit benefits, they passed a similar bill raising the retirement age of Chicago Park District employees and reduced retiree COLAs. The workers are represented by SEIU local 73. Yesterday was the last day Squeezy could sign the bill. While the We Are One coalition of state public employees that r

by Fred Klonsky / 1h 

Ralph Martire at de Paul. Save the date.

by Fred Klonsky / 2h 

Fishing in November.

Count of Bruce Rahmer to stir it up. With his own millions to spend on union-bashing ads and with deep-pocket contributors like Democrats Glen Tullman and Ken Griffin (Illinois’ richest man), he gets a lot of attention. Last week he ran a TV ad attacking public schools and praising charters, ignoring the irony that he bought a condo in the city for the expressed purpose of getting his own kid into

by Fred Klonsky / 25min 

Ten minute drawing. Whatever happened to Paul Vallas?

by Fred Klonsky / 8min 

Alert: Representative Robyn Gabel preys on seniors.

  Retired folks in the north Chicago suburbs should be on the alert for a scam that targets seniors. The scams seem to be the work of a local gang known as the Democratic Party. I can share with you the names of at least two of these gang members: Dan Biss and Robyn Gabel. Here is how the scam goes down: The gang meets at their headquarters down state where they have figured out how to get into t

by Fred Klonsky / 51min 

Standardized testing.

. A few weeks ago I registered to take the online qualifying test for Jeopardy. Maybe like you, I have watched Jeopardy for years. Maybe like you, members of my family have said, “You should be on this show.” I was foolish enough to believe them. I was scheduled for last night at 6PM. I had written the entry password down somewhere, so the first job was to remember where I had put that slip of pa

by Fred Klonsky / 5min

1-7-14 Fred Klonsky | Daily posts from a retired public school teacher

Fred Klonsky | Daily posts from a retired public school teacher who is just looking at the data.: Weingarten trashes value added measures. What do we do now?Good news. Diane Ravitch’s blog yesterday reported that AFT President Randi Weingarten has changed her mind about value added measures in teacher evaluation. VAM uses test student test scores to measure teacher effectiveness. It is junk scienc

by mike simpson / 8h 

1-8-14 Wait What?

Wait What?:

Vallas demands taxpayers cover his $1,700 a month health insurance till July.

Yes it is true; Paul Vallas announced his intention to resign as Bridgeport’s Superintendent on November 8, 2013.  He affirmed that decision at Bridgeport Board of Education meetings in November and December. Vallas even sat there nodding his head when the Board of Education adopted a resolution setting February 7, 2014 as his final day […]The post Vallas demands taxpayers cover his $1,700 a month

2 by jonpelto / 33min 

Malloy calls his “educational reform” initiative “part of this grand experiment.”

In the United States you can’t take medicine unless it has been fully tested and determined to be safe and effective by the Food and Drug Administration.  Heck, you can’t even sell or buy genetically modified salmon without it going through a compressive independent assessment process. But for reasons that are extremely hard to comprehend […]The post Malloy calls his “educational reform” initiativ

by jonpelto / 11min 

Connecticut Democratic Party hit with campaign finance complaint

For months questions have been swirling around State Party Chair Nancy DiNardo, Governor Malloy and the Connecticut Democratic State Central Committee about the role they played during the September 2013 Bridgeport Board of Education Democratic Primary The Democratic State Central Committee diverted an unprecedented $40,000 in state party funds to support Mayor Bill Finch’s pro-corporate […]The po

2 by jonpelto / 56min 

1-7-14 Wait What?

Wait What?: Vallas resigns as Bridgeport School Superintendent… Again!It is all pretty simple.  The contract between Paul Vallas and the Bridgeport Board of Education states that if the Bridgeport Board of Education fires Vallas, they must pay him a full year’s salary of $234,000 plus benefits.  If on the other hand Vallas decides to leave his position all he need to is provide […]The post Vallas

by mike simpson / 8h

The Educated Reporter: Expanded Learning Time: Three Stories To Steal

The Educated Reporter: Expanded Learning Time: Three Stories To Steal:

Expanded Learning Time: Three Stories To Steal

Earlier I shared “10 Questions to Ask” about expanded learning time. Today, I’m giving you three story ideas to steal. As with any education topic, it’s a good idea to start with the definition. The Glossary of Education Reform has a helpful explanationof expanded (sometimes called “extended”) learning time, and the different forms it can take. Sometimes it means a longer school day; in other cases it’s delivered before or after the traditional academic calendar ends – in early mornings, evenings, weekends or in the summer.

You should also familiarize yourself with the research. One thing to keep in mind: While the outcomes for expanded learning time programs are something of a mixed bag, we know that when it comes to effectiveness, the quality of the program is paramount. (Take a look at a 2012 report by Child Trends, which examined the evidence base and drew some valuable conclusions.)

The Education Commission of the States can help you determine how your district compares against others nationally when it comes to instructional time. The National Center on Time and Learning also tracks the latest research. If you’re looking for examples of expanded learning time initiatives that appear to be fruitful, check out The Wallace Foundation’s 2013 report, which profiled five programs gaining ground