Wednesday, January 8, 2014

More on digedu...

Guest post by Donald Davidson, a Chicago school parent.

Digedu is in at least six CPS public schools already (Lane Tech AC, LaSalle II, Hayt, Senn, Lincoln Park HS, Goethe) and also being used at Noble St charters. They provide not only their software, but also lease the hardware (tablets) and provide a fast, dedicated broadband connection that is only available to the classrooms using their software/hardware.

It looks like a common set up in that they pay a teacher to write a curriculum for them as part of a "fellowship" and then in exchange provide the teacher with software/tablets/broadband for their classroom. (e.g.http://mountainloopexpress.com/granite-falls-school-district-news/) Internet access is so poor in much of CPS, and technology budgets have been so slashed that this is something that teachers are understandably willing to take advantage of.

It is unclear whether teachers retain any IP for lessons that they write themselves

NYC Educator: Gotham Schools and Danielson Rapidly Plummet Downhill

NYC Educator: Gotham Schools and Danielson Rapidly Plummet Downhill:

Gotham Schools and Danielson Rapidly Plummet Downhill

Now that Gotham Schools has redesigned itself into a super slick website, it's not nearly as user-friendly as it once was. I used to really use the Rise and Shine thing on days when I was at a loss for what to blog. Now you have to click on it to see it, and today's features several iterations of the all-important news that charter folks are worried about Bill de Blasio. Apparently, since de Blasio feels they should pay rent and stop displacing and destroying public schools, the astroturfers fear he may make them pay rent and stop destroying and displacing public schools.

Shocking stuff.

To encourage community participation, Gotham has removed the comments from the sidebar. I suppose when you're giving the charter folks everything they want, you don't want those inconvenient teachers blabbering all over your front page. Actually a lot of comments appeared to be about the perfidy of teachers lately, though for a long time they'd been largely about what an atrocity it was that teachers had pensions.

So here's the thing--today I want to write about Danielson, but I don't have enough info. My UFT contacts can't yet give me the answers I need, but as of today I think that the rules don't mean anything, that supervisors can write any damn thing they feel like, that they can manipulate the system just as much as they did before, and if they hate your guts, they can and will trash you.

I don't actually blame Danielson for that. I still see the framework as having elements worth striving for. Danielson might work in the context for

1-8-14 Jersey Jazzman: The GWB Is Not Chris Christie's Greatest Sin

Jersey Jazzman:

The GWB Is Not Chris Christie's Greatest Sin

UPDATE: Apparently, there was a fatality connected to Bridgegate. Did this woman die directly from the delay? Who can say?I'm no lawyer, but it seems to me these people ought to be brought up on charges.Well, I guess this is one way to boost your national name recognition...We will, of course, be hearing more and more about Chris Christie and the George Washington Bridge scandal for weeks to come.

33 by Duke / 1h

1-7-14 Jersey Jazzman: Teachers: Responsible for EVERYTHING

Jersey Jazzman: Teachers: Responsible for EVERYTHING: Teachers: Responsible for EVERYTHINGI swear to you, I promised I wasn't going to write about another Tom Moran (editorial page editor of the Star-Ledger) column for at least a month. But I just can't let this one go, because it is such a perfect illustration of the double standard that exists today for teachers [all emphases mine]:Tom Moran, 1/

by mike simpson / 10h

Common Core Close Reading Comes to California - Living in Dialogue - Education Week Teacher

Common Core Close Reading Comes to California - Living in Dialogue - Education Week Teacher:

Common Core Close Reading Comes to California

By Anthony Cody on January 8, 2014 2:54 PM

Musings of an Artist's Wife: Flower Power

While some have suggested that Californians may be able to reshape Common Core on their own terms, it has already arrived in force in the state's largest district, Los Angeles Unified. A teacher from Los Angeles shares her perspective.

Guest post by Coleen Bondy

I went to an LAUSD training on the Common Core State Standards in November, and after the training I had many more concerns about the intent of the standards, the educational appropriateness of the implementation of the standards, and the standards themselves than I did before I walked in the door.

The training was for English Language Arts at the secondary level. We were given an introduction to the revamped "periodic assessments" that would purportedly help prepare our students for the new Common Core year-end assessments that some students will be taking as soon as this spring.

Our trainer started the session by apologizing sincerely for all the anxiety and confusion surrounding the rushed implementation of the Common Core State Standards in LAUSD. The first slide in her PowerPoint presentation showed the governance structure of LAUSD. At the top was the elected school board. She was letting us know that if we had issues with the Common Core State Standards, we needed to bring these up with the school board. Everyone else down the line, she implied, was just following marching orders, and it would do no good to call and harass them.

We were lucky. When I returned to school, I found out that the math teachers had had a similar training session. However, theirs started with the trainer telling them that no "negativity" would be tolerated, and that it wasn't a question-and-answer session. In essence, they were told to sit down

Common Core Dollars Spent to Retrain Teachers, But States Still Can’t Identify Failing Teachers | Truth in American Education

Common Core Dollars Spent to Retrain Teachers, But States Still Can’t Identify Failing Teachers | Truth in American Education:

Common Core Dollars Spent to Retrain Teachers, But States Still Can’t Identify Failing Teachers

Filed in Common Core State Standards by Karen Schroeder on January 8, 2014 • 0 Comments

Failing Teachers

Billions of tax dollars have been spent over decades to prepare teachers but have produced little evidence of success. States complain that they can’t identify ineffective teachers. It is time to wake up and smell the burning toast!

The significance of subjecting teachers to failed teacher-training programs is lost on those who influence education. Billions of dollars from the federal Common Core Standards, Bill &Melinda Gates Foundation, and other sources will be spent to prepare quality teachers; but those programs will use recommendations from the same educational theorists who created those “failing” teachers in the first place. It is time to stop spending good money on failed policies. Let’s face some truths.

Research and logic indicate that great teachers know their subject well and can simplify complex concepts so children can understand. To achieve this level of skill, each teacher must master the subject he will teach and be prepared to employ whichever teaching method would be most appropriate and effective for a given situation. Teachers fail when the educational system neglects to provide that teacher with the basic knowledge needed to become an expert in a subject.

Grammar and syntax should be introduced early. Even a five year old child can recognize the difference between a noun and a verb; but few adults today have a clear understanding of grammar and syntax or precise writing. English teachers need to master that knowledge to be effective. Accurate comprehension skills are based on people’s ability to recognize the relationship between basic parts of a sentence and their modifiers.

Math has been the one subject without a language barrier. Discovered thousands of years ago, most efficient mathematical processes allow any person from any country to “talk math” with a person from any other country. As a result, civilizations advanced and evolved with amazing

Attending to the Virtual School Hell in Louisiana | Crazy Crawfish's Blog

Attending to the Virtual School Hell in Louisiana | Crazy Crawfish's Blog:

Attending to the Virtual School Hell in Louisiana

Posted on January 8, 2014

Danielle Dreilinger, a reporter at Nola.com, has recently written a story about virtual charters in Louisiana that brings home a national story appearing Education Week.

Oregon educator Darcy Bedortha spent 15 months in “virtual-charter hell” teaching for K12, an online education company with a foothold in Louisiana. The company runs the 1,795-student Louisiana Virtual Charter Academy for a nonprofit board and offers 21 free-standing classes through the state’s Course Choice mini-voucher program.

While Danielle’s story is a little short on specifics according to several commenters, it does draw attention to one of the many poorly designed and managed programs John White and LDOE have thrust upon the state as a salvation for high risk students and a “choice” that parents and students need. What is made very clear by Darcy’s story (which I strongly encourage you to read to understand the reality behind the hype about virtual schools and in-line learning) is that many of the Virtual schools promoted by LDOE are not valid choices, not supervised, are designed to drive profit to a few at the expense of many poor and already underserved children in our state and across the nation. Even teachers that want to reach children are unable to because of constraints on their time by the enormous workloads, high student turnover rates, lack of controls and terrible medium. Darcy’s story is powerful but sadly not unique. There is a caveat I would like to add about

Education Privatizers Data Mining Students | FDL News Desk

Education Privatizers Data Mining Students | FDL News Desk:

Education Privatizers Data Mining Students
By: DSWright Wednesday January 8, 2014 10:00 am	Tweet3

Thanks to the ever expanding NSA scandal the American people are getting a crash course in how important and revealing even small amounts of personal information can be. Your data matters, has value, and should be protected from those you don’t want to have it or haven’t consented to have it yet.
Enter the private sector and the various public-private partnerships to data mine the population. One recently in the news is AT&T’s collaboration with the CIA for for records of communications, including financial transactions, of suspected terrorists overseas. Who constitutes a “suspected terrorist”? It’s anyone’s guess.
And now the education privatization movement aka “Ed reform” is looking to use spy technology on students. Of course they would only use the data to assist instruction never to sell products and services, that’s not what for-profit schools would do – would they?

US Secretary of Education Arne Duncan believes that there is “power” in data for “school reform”. Indeed there is. The issue isn’t whether there is “power” in data collection and storage, and its potential sharing. There certainly is power. That is precisely why the public is wary of the federal push to develop statewide, longitudinal data systems.
The question is whether state and federal governments (and the privatizing interests nurtured by state and federal governments) should have control of over 400 data points per student.

In the webinar titled “Student Privacy: Lost in the Cloud?” – sponsored by Cisco Systems – assures those concerned with data security that there is nothing to fear in allowing all this data to go to private companies and even hits the familiar ed deformer tone of divide and conquer. First the privatizers pitted parents against teachers, but now it they pitting parents against tech companies promoting the Common Core products.
As the description of the webinar reads:

As more school districts share data with parents and teachers, privacy advocates

Latest News and Comment from Education

Wednesday, January 8, 2014

Nite Cap 1-8-14 #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."

YESTERDAY

Schooling in the Ownership Society: More on digedu...