All Week 2-16-14 @ THE CHALK FACE

@ THE CHALK FACE:

Some thoughts on #edTPA: Guest Post by Celia Oyler

Celia made the these observations on Facebook in response to the article listed below that appeared in the Times Union. Student teachers in New York face daunting new exams The other fall out is that quite a few excellent beginning teachers are choosing NOT to get certified in the state of New York. Quite a […]

by Timothy D. Slekar / 0min 

My March Speaking Schedule

How cool is it to be able to write such a post title? I have two events in March, both out-of-state (i.e., not in Louisiana). First, I will be a panelist at the first Network for Public Education Conference in Austin, Texas, on Saturday, March 1 and Sunday, March 2.  I am scheduled to be on a […]

2 by deutsch29 / 32min 

#Edreform is Omni Consumer Products #robocop

I’m not too excited about the Robocop reboot. It seems like it lost the original’s wit, humor, and surprisingly serious commentary about a largely predicted dystopian future. All right, enough serious talk about a movie with a car called the 6000 SUX. Although, very close to what soon became a reality: the SUV. But in honor […]

1 by Shaun Johnson / 1h 

All Week 2-15-14 @ THE CHALK FACE

@ THE CHALK FACE knows SCHOOLS MATTER: All Week @ THE CHALK FACE Living and Learning in Perpetual CrisisLiving and Learning in Perpetual Crisis* What do the fiscal cliff and Common Core (CC) have in common? For the answer consider this scenario: An arsonist sets a home on fire, and then risks his life fighting the blaze—but the house eventually succumbs to the flames. The media and the public prai

by mike simpson / 

8h 

2-16-14 V.A.M.: Value Added Measure

V.A.M.: Value Added Measure:

The Michelle Rhee New Teacher Recruitment Video

by Adam Bergstein / 16min 

What Does P.B.S. Really Stand For: The Public Broaccasting Service or Pension B.S.?

by Adam Bergstein / 4h 

2-15-14 V.A.M.: Value Added Measure

V.A.M.: Value Added Measure: Humpty Dumpty Sat On a Wall (Courtesy of a Suburban Mother Goose)Below is an excerpt from one of two poems, referencing Greek mythology on a high-school PARCC Common-Core test (http://www.parcconline.org/computer-based-samples).Ovid's poem (and the subsequent one by Anne Sexton) captivate some audiences, but I doubt the selections will do much for my largely foreign-b

by mike simpson / 

2-16-14 the becoming radical | A Place for a Pedagogy of Kindness by P. L. Thomas, EdD

the becoming radical | A Place for a Pedagogy of Kindness (the public and scholarly writing by P. L. Thomas, Furman University):

The Mistrial of Jordan Davis: More Evidence Problems for Denying Racism

In On the Killing of Jordan Davis by Michael Dunn, Ta-Nehisi Coates confronts the injustice of simply being born an African American son: Jordan Davis had a mother and a father. It did not save him. Trayvon Martin had a mother and a father. They could not save him. My son has a father and mother. We cannot protect him from our country, which is our aegis and our assailant. We cannot protect our ch

13 by plthomasedd / 1h 

2-15-14 the becoming radical | A Place for a Pedagogy of Kindness by P. L. Thomas, EdD

THE BECOMING RADICALRadical ScholarshipEMPATHYEDUCATES!the becoming radical  A Place for a Pedagogy of Kindness by Living and Learning in Perpetual CrisisLiving and Learning in Perpetual Crisis.1 by plthomasedd / 1h No Excuses?: Giving Power a PassNo Excuses?: Giving Power a Pass1 by plthomasedd / 1h remnant 54: “it starts with an earthquake”remnant 54: “it starts with an earthquake”.1 by plthomas

by mike simpson / 

The Lego Movie: Making Education Reform Simple | Connected Principals

The Lego Movie: Making Education Reform Simple | Connected Principals:

The Lego Movie: Making Education Reform Simple

by Sam LeDeaux • February 16, 2014 • 0 Comments

I’m not much of a movie guy, but I did see The Lego Movie last weekend. My son left with a list of new toys he wants, and I left thinking about the educational metaphor I just watched. If you have not seen the movie, don’t fret; I won’t give up any information you haven’t already gotten from reading reviews or hearing others rave about it.

First, movie background:

President Business is the powerful “leader” of Lego Land. He knows exactly how everything should work, and wants everyoneand everything to abide by the instructions. When they don’t, micro-managers are sent to get everyone back on track, and/or punish those who work off script.

Master Builders are imaginative and can create anything when provided basic materials. Instructions serve as a baseline to work off of for these inquiry based explorers. When caught creating new awesomeness off script, micro-managers capture and imprison Master Builders for not following instructions.

The Special is someone who simply needs to believe in himself to achieve and 

Portland Public Schools to present critical new offer today, with threat of Thursday teachers strike looming: PPS News | OregonLive.com

Portland Public Schools to present critical new offer today, with threat of Thursday teachers strike looming: PPS News | OregonLive.com:

Portland Public Schools to present critical new offer today, with threat of Thursday teachers strike looming: PPS News

February 14, 2014 - In preparation for a strike scheduled on Feb. 20, teachers at Grant High School held a symbolic walk-out at 3:20 Friday afternoon, just after students left school for the day. Beth Nakamura/The Oregonian

Portland Public Schools negotiators are set to present their newest contract offer to the teachers union today, in a critical step that could move both sides closer to a deal that could avert the first strike in Portland Public Schools history.

People on both sides said the tone of talks shifted significantly on Thursday, when teachers union negotiators on Thursday revealed concessions on major issues that have long held up a deal.

Negotiators will be under more pressure than ever on Sunday, with the looming threat of a walkout scheduled to start just four days later.

If district and union leaders cannot hammer out a deal by Thursday morning, nearly 2,900 teachers are set to take to the picket lines in Oregon's largest district. About 48,000 students and their families would be affected by the strike.

At the Oregonian, we've been following the situation closely for months. Here are some  more of the latest updates:

* WHAT'S HOLDING UP THE DEAL?Though PPS leaders are cautiously optimistic about a deal, several major issues that have stymied progress for months are still on the table.

We looked into the issues holding up the deal, and the dynamics of what may need to happen with a new contract.

* CLASS SIZES: Class size has become a rallying cry for union leaders as they seek a new contract, but an analysis shows Portland teachers have some of the lowest class sizes among medium- and large-sized districts of the metro area.

* TEACHERS MOVE OUT: In a show of solidarity, teachers at several schools moved their personal belongings out of their classrooms at the same time on Friday.

At Northeast Portland's Grant High, teachers walked out together after cleaning 

PPS CONTRACT TALKS

• Portland Public Schools to present critical new offer today, with threat of Thursday teachers strike looming: PPS News
• Portland teachers strike preparations: Teachers clean out belongings; students describe stress in classroom
• Portland teachers strike: Leaders cautiously optimistic, workload and salary among key unresolved issues
• Portland teachers strike preparations: Woodlawn School teachers in NE Portland rent storage pod
• Portland teachers strike preparations: Cleveland High School students in SE Portland describe stress in classrooms

NYC Educator: Brunch in NYC Schools

NYC Educator: Brunch in NYC Schools:

Brunch in NYC Schools

The NY Daily News has discovered that lunch is served very early in city schools. I'm not particularly sure why, under 20 years of GOP mayors, that this escaped their attention. This is not remotely new. It turns out that, when you overload buildings and fail to create sufficient space, you can't fit kids on a reasonable schedule. When you look at empty space in a building as an opportunity to privatize, and dump new schools into existing buildings, you can't fit kids on a reasonable schedule.

Physics are a factor in this. If you place 5,000 kids in a building, and only 500 fit in a cafeteria at a given time, it follows that to give them all lunch, you need to have ten periods of lunch. In my school, which has run up to 13 periods, we know this very well. In fact, I'd venture that just about any school that needs trailers is overcrowded.

There is a simple solution to this problem. All you need to do, if there are too many kids to offer reasonable lunch times, is:

A. place fewer kids in buildings, or
B. expand the capacity of school cafeterias

However, it's likely that neither of those things, in itself, will solve the issue of rampant overcrowding. That may involve creating more space, and indeed a whole lot more space than Emperor Bloomberg conceived of. In fact, that will cost a great deal of money, and the traditional mode of government obtaining said money, taxes, is viewed as a plague by leaders like Andrew Cuomo.

Mayor Bloomberg said he would get rid of school trailers by 2012. He later clarified, explaining that he would not get rid of school trailers by 2012. 

Are Your Schools Underfunded? Then Organize! | NEA Today

Are Your Schools Underfunded? Then Organize! | NEA Today:

Are Your Schools Underfunded? Then Organize!

February 16, 2014 by twalker  
Filed under Featured News, Top Stories

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By Amy Jordan
On a cold Saturday morning, more than 100 educators, parents and students showed up to school board meeting in Loudoun County, Virginia, a big turnout for a meeting like this. Forty-three people spoke during the public hearing and 2,400 signatures were delivered calling on the school board to fully fund public education in the growing school district, efforts led by the Loudoun Education Association (LEA.)

How did LEA get so many people involved? Through a focused commitment to organizing

.
Step 1: Rally around a single issue
You’d think students in the wealthiest county in the nation would have everything they need to succeed in school, but that’s not the case in Loudoun County, Virginia, which is also one of the fastest growing school systems in the country.
For the past two years, the county’s School Board and Board of Supervisors have chosen not to keep pace with Loudoun’s growth by cutting the superintendent’s spending proposals by millions of dollars.

“The children are in over-crowded classrooms, they are receiving less differentiated instruction due to the amount of students in the classroom, teachers are not being given competitive pay, and the technology is quite sad,” said second grade teacher Erin O’Dore.

And now educators, parents and students themselves have had enough.

“In Loudoun County we’ve had so many years of budget underfunding and people are just fed up,” said Joey Mathews, president of the Loudoun County Education Association.

So LEA officers and the LEA Board of Directors got together on weekends to plan how to organize around a 

John White’s Latest Course Choice Push Equals Large-scale, Free High School Labor | deutsch29

John White’s Latest Course Choice Push Equals Large-scale, Free High School Labor | deutsch29:

John White’s Latest Course Choice Push Equals Large-scale, Free High School Labor

February 15, 2014

Louisiana Governor Bobby Jindal and his hand-selected, anti-public-school sidekick, State Education Superintendent John White, really want their so-termed “online education” dollar siphon, Course Choice, to be the major death drain that it was intended to be to Louisiana public education.

In May 2013, the Louisiana Supreme Court declared use of Minimum Foundation Program (MFP) funding– intended for Louisiana public schools– unconstitutional for either vouchers or Course Choice.

So, White had to go and “find” some money to make these two programs work.  According to this January 2014 Advocate article, Course Choice had been “largely” financed using money from a 1986 federal oil and gas settlement.

However, former Louisiana Department of Education (LDOE) employee and education blogger Jason France questions the sloppy, rushed implementation of the Common Core State Standards (CCSS)– including White and LDOE’s reneging on a promised curriculum–  as a means of freeing up cash in order for LDOE to support vouchers and Course Choice.

And in early 2014, there is some playing with the MFP such that Course Choice might be treated as dual-enrollment (high school courses for which students also 

solidaridad: Deasy says depriving PSO and AAPL of profits violates LAUSD kids' civil rights. I say these things violate them

solidaridad: Deasy says depriving PSO and AAPL of profits violates LAUSD kids' civil rights. I say these things violate them:

Deasy says depriving PSO and AAPL of profits violates LAUSD kids' civil rights. I say these things violate them

Missouri bill to create ‘parental warning’ requirement to teach evolution debated | The Raw Story

Missouri bill to create ‘parental warning’ requirement to teach evolution debated | The Raw Story:

Missouri bill to create ‘parental warning’ requirement to teach evolution debated

By George Chidi
Saturday, February 15, 2014 22:04 EST

 

Education in science will be opt-out in Missouri, if a bill requiring schools to notify parents if “the theory of evolution by natural selection” is being taught at their child’s school passes.

The bill proposed by Republican State Rep. Rick Brattin had its first public hearing Thursday. Brattin has described teaching only evolution in school as “indoctrination” to local TV.

The language of the bill makes little provision separating discussion of the specifics of evolutionary biology from any other element of biology upon which evolutionary theory rests, like anthropology, examination of dinosaur fossils, genetic sciences, disease or modern medicine.

“My fear is that every mention of a fossil, every conversation about the development of organs and vital structures, every single mention about the genetic similarity that we share with other organisms could potentially be systematically whittled out of these student’s education,” wroteMaxton Thoman, a student columnist for the University of Alabama’s Crimson White. “In the end, a lack of an education in this field will put students behind the rest of their class, and the rest of the world for that matter, in a way that they will not be able to recover from – much like leaving out multiplication would severely hinder any further advancement in mathematics.”

The bill also provides for the right of parents to inspect all “curriculum materials used in the district’s or school’s evolution instruction” before they can be used in class.

The National Center for Science Education’s deputy director Glenn Branch said in letter online 

Replacing the 3 R’s With the 3 C’s | My Island View

Replacing the 3 R’s With the 3 C’s | My Island View:

Replacing the 3 R’s With the 3 C’s

February 15, 2014 by tomwhitby

I was very fortunate to recently to meet Richard Peritz at FETC. Richard is a television producer for the EduTech Foundation. Rather than write about my interview conducted by Dr. Cindy Burfield. Much of the interview refers to transferring from 20th century learning to the 21st. It will be like going from Reading, Riting, and Rithmatic to Communicating, Collaborating, and Creation. Here is the interview.

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CalSTRS shortfall will require a shared responsibility | EdSource Today

CalSTRS shortfall will require a shared responsibility | EdSource Today:

CalSTRS shortfall will require a shared responsibility

February 15th, 2014 | Add a Comment | 
By Rob Bonta / commentary

1

Assemblymember Rob Bonta

The California Teachers Retirement System, or CalSTRS, is facing a significant unfunded liability with respect to its Defined Benefit Program. CalSTRS has a shortfall in funding of approximately $71 billion and will run out of funding for the program by 2046 if no changes occur. If this happens, it hurts hard=working teachers in our state as well as taxpayers and our education system.

The best solution to fix the shortfall is one which is fair to all stakeholders involved: school districts, the state, and teachers. I committed along with the Speaker of the Assembly and the Assembly Democratic Caucus to push to implement a permanent ongoing solution to the funding shortfall in CalSTRS this year.

As chair of the Assembly Committee on Public Employees, Retirement and Social Security, I will begin this process next week by having the first of a series of hearings on Wednesday, Feb. 19.

This first hearing – “Addressing the California State Teachers’ Retirement System’s Long-Term funding Needs” – will build upon a joint hearing my committee held last year with the Senate by updating and re-evaluating the information we received and getting the current perspectives on the issue from the various stakeholder groups, including representatives from CalSTRS, the California Teachers Association, and the Association of California School Administrators.

Future hearings will focus on the significant issues that must be resolved before a solution can be reached, such as the impact employer increases will have on Proposition 98 funding and how the 

 

Legislative Data Sheets - CalSTRS.com

Legislative Data Sheets - CalSTRS.com:  Legislative Data SheetsSnapshots of CalSTRS members and benefit recipients sorted by Senate and Assembly districts.CalSTRS membership includes California public school educators from prekindergarten through community college.What’s My District?Search tool provided by the California State Legislature to find your Assembly and Senate districtsSenate DistrictsD

by mike simpson / 15h 

IL Teachers’ Union gives $1/4 Million to ALEC Chairman. Betrayal or Incompetence? | Reclaim Reform

IL Teachers’ Union gives $1/4 Million to ALEC Chairman. Betrayal or Incompetence? | Reclaim Reform:

IL Teachers’ Union gives $1/4 Million to ALEC Chairman. Betrayal or Incompetence?

Posted on February 15, 2014by Ken Previti

Handing the Illinois Chairman of ALEC, Kirk Dillard, a quarter of a million dollars is the single most debilitating blow to active and retired teacher morale that any public employee union could deliver. His Illinois Education Association gubernatorial endorsement is contemptible.

For IEA President Cinda Klickna and the IEA board to do this is unjustifiable and indefensible. (The smirk on Dillard’s face as Klickna endorses him says it all.)

If that same amount of money and proportionate amounts from other state employee unions had been contributed to any other potential candidate earlier than this, public employees would be far better off.

Who could have foreseen that there would be a gubernatorial election in November?Who could have foreseen that there would be a primary election in March? Who could have foreseen that the super-majority Democrats would run an anti-union, anti-pension incumbent who has repeatedly stated that he was “put on God’s Earth” to cut pensions in spite of the Illinois Constitution and contract laws? Who could have foreseen that the major Republican candidates would be a Tea Party billionaire and a mere millionaire who is the IL Chairman of the American Legislative Exchange Council, 

Welcome to Teaching & Learning 2014

Home : Teaching and Learning:

"We are delighted to announce that BILL GATES will be speaking at the Teaching & Learning conference, which opens exactly four weeks from today at the Walter E. Washington Convention Center in Washington, DC. Mr. Gates will be delivering a keynote talk at the 1:00 plenary session on Friday, March 14th.

"Mr. Gates joins an all-star line-up of keynoters including: Doris Kearns Goodwin (interviewed by Dennis Van Roekel), Bobby McFerrin, ARNE DUNCAN, Tony Wagner, and a special opening session featuring Randi Weingarten and Gayle Manchin looking at the ground-breaking work being done by the AFT and partners in McDowell County, WV. Over the two days, these keynoters will be sharing the main stage with: Delaware Governor Jack Markell, National Geographic President Gary Knell, Casey Foundation Sr. VP Ralph Smith, and President of Education International, Susan Hopgood. The National Board is also presenting the James A. Kelly Award to Governor James B. Hunt, Jr., Secretary Richard W. Riley, and Barbara Kelly, the first teacher to chair its Board of Directors."
http://www.nbpts.org/