5-21-14 The Answer Sheet

The Answer Sheet:

Mayor says ‘most people’ should ‘grow a pair’ to stop bullying

Cameron Hamilton, the mayor of Porterville, California, has stirred up a ruckus by saying at a City Council meeting that the word “bullying” has become a “mantra” for “the ills of the world” and that “all most people just have to grow a pair.” The issue of bullying came up last week during a discussion […]

by Valerie Strauss / 1h 

Portrait of an underfunded school district

What does it really mean to kids when school districts are underfunded? Here is a portrait of one such district, from the Education Law Center in New Jersey, which advocates for equal educational opportunity and education justice in the United States. Profiled is the Freehold Borough School District  in Monmouth County,  a preschool-8th grade district with a […]

2 by Valerie Strauss / 31min 

Chicago principal publicly slams Mayor Emanuel and says he is ‘insulting’ educators

A scathing letter (see below) by a Chicago school principal charging  Mayor Rahm Emanuel and his administration with ignoring and disrespecting teachers and principals has sparked a discussion in the city about school reform and how it is being implemented. The principal is Troy A. LaRaviere of Blaine Elementary School in Chicago, whose letter published in the […]

100+ by Valerie Strauss / 5h 

5-20-14 The Answer Sheet

The Answer Sheet: Florida legislator: Common Core advocates are trying to make ‘your children’ gayWhether you support the Common Core State Standards or don’t,  it’s important to recognize when critics are going off the rails in their dissent. Here’s a newly publicized example: A Republican Florida state legislator, Charles Van Zant, told an audience at a conference in Orlando that the organizatio

by mike simpson / 8h 

5-21-14 Larry Ferlazzo’s Websites of the Day… | …For Teaching ELL, ESL, & EFL

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

Research Studies Of The Week

I often write about research studies from various fields and how they can be applied to the classroom. I write individual posts about ones that I think are especially significant, and will continue to do so. However, so many studies are published that it’s hard to keep up. So I’ve started writing a “round-up” of some of them each week or every other week as a regular feature. By the way, you mi

by Larry Ferlazzo / 25min hide  //  save

Flag Day Resources

June 14th is celebrated as Flag Day in the United States. You might be interested in The Best Sites For Learning About Flag Day.

by Larry Ferlazzo / 1h 

Father’s Day Resources

Father’s Day is on the third Sunday of June, and you might be interested in The Best Father’s Day Sites. Additional suggestions are always welcome…

by Larry Ferlazzo / 1h 

The Best Resources Discussing The Importance Of Art In Education — Help Me Find More

Michelle Obama highlighted the importance of art education yesterday, I’m working with one of our art teachers on a joint ESL/art activity this week, and I have an upcoming column on the topic over at Education Week. All these events combined to make me think it was time for a “Best” list. However, I’m not that sure what to include. So, I’m starting off with a few links and hope that readers will

by Larry Ferlazzo / 1h 

“What Are the Best Ways for Teachers to Work With School Counselors?”

What Are the Best Ways for Teachers to Work With School Counselors? is the latest question of the week at my Education Week Teacher column. Feel free to leave responses there or here….

by Larry Ferlazzo / 1h 

How We Can Develop a Culture of Success in Schools Is Topic Of My New BAM! Radio Program

What Can We Do to Develop a Culture of Success in Schools? is the title of my latest BAM! Radio program. Heather Wolpert-Gawron, Chris Lehmann, and I have a ten minute conversation about the topic. Look for their written contributions in a future post at my Ed Week blog.

by Larry Ferlazzo / 12min 

Around The Web In ESL/EFL/ELL — Gold Mine Included!

I’ve started a somewhat regular feature where I share a few posts and resources from around the Web related to ESL/EFL or to language in general that have caught my attention: I’m starting off with a goldmine. Check out this tweet and go the link — you won’t regret it: Stanford Ed. School releases trove of #ELL resources online that were previously used for teacher training http://t.co/CA6VJVb5R

by Larry Ferlazzo / 7h hide  //  save

Even More World Cup Resources

Here are even more additions to The Best Sites For Learning About The 2014 World Cup In Brazil: Soccer Fever: Learning About the World Cup in Brazil is from The New York Times Learning Network. The Newest #RioProblem: Olympic Sailing Events to Take Place In Polluted Dump is from The Atlantic. World Cup 2014: technology set for striking role in tournament is from The guardian. This Brazilian graf

by Larry Ferlazzo / 8h 

More Great Commencement Speeches

Here are some new additions to The Best Commencement Speeches: Charlie Day’s Commencement Speech Is the Only One You Need to Hear is from Slate. What We Learned From The Best Commencement Speeches Ever is from NPR and includes a data base of 300 of them. The Greatest Commencement Speech Ever is from The Washington Post.

by Larry Ferlazzo / 10h

5-19-14 Larry Ferlazzo’s Websites of the Day… | …For Teaching ELL, ESL, & EFL

Larry Ferlazzo’s Websites of the Day… | …For Teaching ELL, ESL, & EFL: Learn About Synonyms & The World Cup In My Latest NY Times Post For ELLsLearn about synonyms and the World Cup in my latest New York Times post for English Language Learners. I’m adding it to The Best Sites For Learning About The 2014 World Cup In Brazil. You can see all my previous 40 NY Times posts here.by Larry Ferla

by mike simpson / 8h 

Cursive Writing and Coding (Part 2) | Larry Cuban on School Reform and Classroom Practice

Cursive Writing and Coding (Part 2) | Larry Cuban on School Reform and Classroom Practice:

Cursive Writing and Coding (Part 2)

Here is a recent “Letter to the Editor” in the New York Times.

In the 21st century, every student should learn to program, for three reasons. Computational thinking is an essential capability for just about everyone. Programming is an incredibly useful skill: fields from anthropology to zoology are becoming information fields, and those who can bend the power of the computer to their will have an advantage over those who can’t. Finally, the Bureau of Labor Statistics projects that 71 percent of all new jobs in STEM fields (science, technology, engineering and mathematics) during the next decade will be in computer science.

Computer science is the future. Is your child going to be ready for it?

Written by Ed Lazowska, a University of Washington professor holding the Bill and Melinda Gates Chair in Computer Science and Engineering, was responding to an article about teaching coding in schools. Clearly, a champion of coding, the writer typifies the unharnessed enthusiasm for teaching children to acquire computational thinking through programming. He is a “true believer.”

In Part 1, I pointed out the gradual disappearance of cursive writing from the elementary school curriculum as an instance of reformers abandoning a traditional subject because they see schools as engines of economic, societal, and political change in the nation. They do not see schools as “museums of virtue” where cursive writing would be taught to every second and third grader. Instead, these reformers advocate  that young children and youth be taught programming languages as tools for computational thinking, a 21st century skill is there ever was one. I used the example of Logo, an innovation introduced into schools in the early 1980s as an earlier instance of school reformers as “true Cursive Writing and Coding (Part 2) | Larry Cuban on School Reform and Classroom Practice:

Tennessee’s Education Commissioner Gives “Inspiring” TEDxNashville Talk |:

Tennessee’s Education Commissioner Gives “Inspiring” TEDxNashville Talk

 The purpose of TED talks are, and since their inception in 1984 have been, to share “ideas worth spreading, “in the most innovative and engaging” of ways. It seems that somebody in the state of Tennessee hijacked this idea, however, and put the Tennessee Education Commissioner (Kevin Huffman) on the TEDxNashville stage, to talk about teachers, teacher accountability, and why teachers need to “work harder” and be held more accountable for meeting higher standards if they don’t.

Watch the video here:

And/Or read the accompanying article here. But I have summarized the key points, as I see them, for you all below in case you’d rather not view/read for yourself.

Before we begin, though, I should make explicit that Commissioner Huffman was formerly an executive with Teach for America (TFA), and it was from his “grungy, non-profit cubicle in DC” where the Governor of Tennessee picked him and ultimately placed him into the state Commissioner position. So, as explained by him, he “wasn’t a total novice” in terms of America’s public schools because 1) he was in charge of policy and politics at TFA, 2) he taught in Houston for three years through TFA, and 3) he brought with him to Tennessee prior experience “dealing” with Capitol Hill. All of this (and a law degree) made Tennessee’s Education Commissioner Gives “Inspiring” TEDxNashville Talk |:

Unequal Opportunity the Norm: Ohio, Michigan, Pennsylvania, and New Jersey | janresseger

Unequal Opportunity the Norm: Ohio, Michigan, Pennsylvania, and New Jersey | janresseger:

Unequal Opportunity the Norm: Ohio, Michigan, Pennsylvania, and New Jersey

Posted on May 21, 2014 by janresseger

In my favorite passage from Linda Darling-Hammond’s book, The Flat World and Education, she wonders, “what we might accomplish as a nation if we could finally set aside what appears to be our de facto commitment to inequality, so profoundly at odds with our rhetoric of equity, and put the millions of dollars spent continually arguing and litigating into building a high-quality education system for all children.” (p. 164)

The legislature in my state, Ohio,  has appointed a constitutional modernization commission that is threatening to address the issue of continued school funding litigation another way, by removing the “thorough and efficient” education clause from the state constitution.  Their goal: remove the state’s responsibility for protecting of equity of school investment across Ohio’s 613 school districts.  A new report from Howard Fleeter, Ohio’s expert on school finance, clearly demonstrates why our legislators may be worried about litigation.  Fleeter examines the per-pupil funding set-aside for school districts serving significant populations of children in poverty and documents that while the percentage of students who qualify for disadvantaged pupil aid has increased by 61.8 percent since Fiscal Year 1999, poverty aid has increased only 8.06 percent during the same period.  Fleeter declares, “Ohio’s commitment to providing additional funding to districts with high concentrations of economically disadvantaged students has not even remotely kept pace with the rapid increase in the number of students in poverty across the state.”  Ironically Ohio will be formally assigning letter grades to school districts and schools across the state beginning this fall.  It will not be surprising when a large number of school districts serving extremely poor students receive the low grades.  (Fleeter’s report for On the Money, a Hannah News Service Publication, is dated May 9, 2014 and titled “Eduction Funding for Economically Disadvantaged Students in Ohio.”  This publication is behind a paywall and available only to subscribers.)

Meanwhile in Michigan, the Detroit News reports that public schools in Pontiac recently received a $10 million emergency loan to provide cash flow until the end of the school year.  The Oakland County School District, where Pontiac is located, has accrued a $51.6 million deficit.  Mosaica, a for-profit charter company hired by a state-appointed emergency manager to run the Muskegon Heights School District, is severing  its  five year contract after just two years.  The state recently granted Muskegon Heights a loan of $1.4 million, “which district Emergency Manager Gregory Weatherspoon said will be used partly to pay back $761,000 owed to charter operator Mosaica Education, Inc., which has been fronting some payroll in the tiny west Michigan district.”   Highland Park, another Michigan school district being Unequal Opportunity the Norm: Ohio, Michigan, Pennsylvania, and New Jersey | janresseger:

Cami wanted disruption–and, last night, she got it | Bob Braun's Ledger

Cami wanted disruption–and, last night, she got it | Bob Braun's Ledger:

Cami wanted disruption–and, last night, she got it

Members of the Newark Students Union inside the lobby of school headquarters

Newark’s school superintendent belongs to that tribe of self-proclaimed and irresponsible school reformers who contend public schools must be “disrupted” before they can be improved–and she has done so much disrupting that scores of clergy have warned of “catastrophic” consequences. Last night, she faced  disruption aimed at her, a group of high school students who stopped a board meeting with their non-stop chants and sat in for the night. Maybe longer.

“We’re staying until we see some steps toward meeting our demands,” said Kristin Towkaniuk, president of the Newark Students Union, who led the demonstration. Chief among those demands is the resignation of Cami Anderson.

The nine students who decided to stay the night received some impressive support. School board members, city council members, and civil rights and community activists and even Mayor-elect Ras Baraka joined the students during the evening and into the night. Baraka, whose candidacy gave hope to pro public school forces in  the city, arrived just before midnight to visit with the students.

“I want to make sure they had something to eat, that they were not being mistreated,” said Baraka, who said he supported the students’ demands that Anderson resign and abandon her “One Newark” plan that would replace neighborhood public schools with privately operated charter schools.

Baraka said he would ask acting state education commissioner David Hespe to remove Anderson as a “first step” toward reaching an agreement on how the city can begin to reform education–without disrupting the lives of thousands of children and their parents. Anderson is a state-appointed superintendent because the state took over the school district 19 years ago.

Baraka also endorsed an alternative plan, called “Newark Promise,” that would base school reform in a network of community schools that would offer wrap-around services designed to help children and their families.  The protesting Cami wanted disruption–and, last night, she got it | Bob Braun's Ledger:

Mike Klonsky's SmallTalk Blog: Chicago, a year after the closings

Mike Klonsky's SmallTalk Blog: Chicago, a year after the closings:

Chicago, a year after the closings

“School closings have done nothing to improve the education of CPS students, nor have they saved money, but the same policies that led to massive closures continue to be implemented.” -- CTU Report

Two major reports came out of Chicago this week. The first from the CTU, finds that despite promises, the closing of 50 schools last year made conditions worse for students in both the closed and receiving schools. The union’s report, released Wednesday, contradicts the victory speech CPS CEO Barbara Byrd-Bennett made in March, when she told the Board of Education that the closings made the district stronger. They didn't. The supposed cost savings just meant that millions of dollars were spent elsewhere.

For example, every welcoming school was promised a library, a computer lab, iPads for every third- through eighth-grader. Four new libraries were installed, and several others were upgraded, but only 38 percent of all the welcoming schools have a librarian, compared with 55 percent of elementary schools districtwide, according to the CTU.

Computer labs were upgraded, but only a fifth of these schools have a technology teacher, the report said, and iPads were purchased but without many related training opportunities for teachers. A good deal for Apple. Not so much for students.

Of the $83.5 million spent on transitions in 2013 and 2014, only $9.3 million of that went directly to schools, with the bulk paying for the “web of supports Mike Klonsky's SmallTalk Blog: Chicago, a year after the closings:

solidaridad: Tomorrow Markham MS Community to Protest PLAS Policies started under Marshall Tuck

solidaridad: Tomorrow Markham MS Community to Protest PLAS Policies started under Marshall Tuck:

Tomorrow Markham MS Community to Protest PLAS Policies started under Marshall Tuck

Markham PLAS Protest Marshall Tuck Policies Press Conference Flyer

NYC Educator: The UFT and Learned Helplessness

NYC Educator: The UFT and Learned Helplessness:

The UFT and Learned Helplessness

A colleague of mine told me yesterday about an experiment in which dogs were shocked when they tried to leave their cages. After a while, their cages were left open and the dogs didn't leave anymore. She said it was called "learned helplessness." It sounds like a fair description of the 83% of our colleagues who can't be bothered voting against our autocratic and inept leadership. Why bother? The same people always get elected anyway.

I vote every chance I get, and I can't think like that. But I get the strong impression leadership is fine with it. The very first question at the DA when they were pushing the contract was something like gee, Mike, I love standing here taking in your wonderfulness and by the way, what happens if we vote no? The answer was a straight appeal to fear. We'll have to wait in line behind 150 unions and we won't get anything at all. Scary, huh? Maybe we shouldn't try to get out of this cage. Who knows what lurks out there? They toned it down a bit for last night's post-webcast tweet, but here it is again:

Screw the ATR teachers. Who cares if they get second-tier due process? Who cares if there's some vague agreement about health savings? It doesn't matter to me that UFT leadership has backed down from its promise that costs won't go up, and that my whopping 2% raise could get eaten up in fees in arbitration. I can't think about that. It's too scary!

I want to get my 18%, years and years from now, if a safe doesn't fall on my head between now and retirement, and if some future mayor NYC Educator: The UFT and Learned Helplessness:

Lawmaker: Time to restore support for school nurses :: SI&A Cabinet Report :: The Essential Resource for Superintendents and the Cabinet

Lawmaker: Time to restore support for school nurses :: SI&A Cabinet Report :: The Essential Resource for Superintendents and the Cabinet:



MAY 21, 2014

Lawmaker: Time to restore support for school nurses

by Kimberly Beltran

(Calif.) A student with a severely fractured arm would be lucky in this state to have access to a school nurse who could provide proper intervention and care.

So would a student with a severe hearing loss who might otherwise be placed in special education, or the district where a recent dental screening showed that half of all kindergartners had cavities.

But after years of budget cuts, California has one of the highest student-to-nurse ratios in the nation at 2,700 to one. A fact that diminishes student health – and with it academic performance – as over-burdened teachers and untrained office staff attempt to patch things up as best they can.

Now, with economic conditions improving and revenue on the rise, a California lawmaker wants every school district receiving extra cash for disadvantaged students under the state’s new funding system to hire a nurse.

In addition, Sen. Lois Wolk’s SB 1239 would create a system of cost reimbursement by allowing school nurses to bill a student’s private health plan or Medi-Cal for services.

 “Fifty-seven percent of California’s public school districts do not have even one school nurse, and there is a distinct connection between health and academic difficulty – failure,” Wolk said during a recent hearing on her bill before the Senate Education Committee. “Poor health results in poor attendance, which affects a student’s ability to concentrate and to learn.”

The issue is not unique to California. Nationwide, just an estimated 45 percent of public schools have a full-time on-site school nurse. Another 30 percent, according to the National Association of 

 

Interest grows in schools where teachers run the show

(Minn.) With more than 60 so-called 'teacher-powered' schools operating in 15 states, charter advocates in search of new models of success tout in a new policy brief the growing interest nationally in schools designed and run exclusively by teachers.

by Tom Chorneau / 5h 

MULGREW DROPS THE ATR BALL AGAIN!! VOTE NO ON THE CONTRACT!! southbronxschool.com

http://www.southbronxschool.com:

MULGREW DROPS THE ATR BALL AGAIN!! VOTE NO ON THE CONTRACT!!

I did what I was supposed to do yesterday. I got home about 4:30 ignored my wife and son and went into the office to watch UFT & Friends on the computer.

I made sure that all three modes, Twitter, email, and the phone, were working so that I might share what was on my mind.

Yes, I truly thought of making some far out political statement, like "Give us a good contract or give us death," or something like that, but I thought the better. The ATR's needed what support and I anyone else can give and this was the time to ask hard questions.

Seriously though, I did think that for a moment my phone call and question will be piped in live like"Donahue" and I would be able to question President Mike directly. It was not to be.

I called in at 5:01 and asked a simple question (Though for some reason I had to give my school, district, and license area);

"If an ATR goes on an interview and is not offered the position will that count as a strike against them towards them leading to an expedited 3020-a?"

The person on the other end told me no it wasn't but we both agreed that there are many out there wondering and that it would be good to get the word out there (Though we here at SBSB seemed tohttp://www.southbronxschool.com: