8-16-14 Jersey Jazzman NJ Ed News Round-up Jammin' All Week

Jersey Jazzman:

Jersey Jazzman Jammin' All Week

Book Review: This Is Not a Test, by José Luis Vilson

Let me start with the easiest part of this review:Buy and read José Luis Vilson's This Is Not a Test.@TheJLV is one of the better known teacher-bloggers around, and a prodigious tweeter. He asks hard questions and gives little quarter when it comes to issues of race and education (although I've noticed he also has greater patience with those who are willing to engage in a sincere, respectful dialo

34 by Duke / 2d hide  //  save

AUG 08

EXCLUSIVE: Newark Teachers Union's Joe Del Grosso, In His Own Words

I really didn't think I'd be interviewing Joe Del Grosso yesterday.When I reached out to my contacts in the Newark Teachers Union, I was looking for a response from them regarding the news, first reported by the estimable Bob Braun, that a Newark parent group, PULSE, was pushing a federal investigation of the state-run school district's restructuring plan, One Newark.As I wrote in a series of brie

100+ by Duke / 8d 

The gentrification of Camden's schools Part II: Love is all you need

gentrification—noun 1. the buying and renovation of houses and stores in deteriorated urban neighborhoods by upper- or middle-income families or individuals, thus improving property values but often displacing low-income families and small businesses.In Part I of my interview with Camden educator, Keith Benson we talked about his views on the state takeover, what his students face on a daily basis

by noreply@blogger.c... / 1d hide  //  save

AUG 06

The Gentrification of Camden's Schools Part I

gentrification—noun 1. the buying and renovation of houses and stores in deteriorated urban neighborhoods by upper- or middle-income families or individuals, thus improving property values but often displacing low-income families and small businesses.Since public educators have been largely excluded from the education 'reform' agenda, it's up to bloggers and others on social media to tell our side

5 by noreply@blogger.c... / 9d 

Cami’s Newark school bus plan: Volunteers needed to keep kids safe.

Cami Anderson, the state-imposed administrator of Newark schools, has developed a shuttle bus operation to move children around the city to meet the demands of  her “One Newark” plan to shut down neighborhood schools and launch new charter and other privatized schools. The plan calls for “voluntary” parent and other patrols and relying on businesses, […]

200+ by Bob Braun / 2d 

AUG 11

Manipulating test score release: “First, you’ve got to get mad!”

Why is it important to write about Cami Anderson’s decision to manipulate the release of the latest results of state test scores? Here is why: Imagine your life, your livelihood, is based on a set of numbers over which you have no or, at best, very little control.  Depending on how those numbers go, you […]

300+ by Bob Braun / 5d 

AUG 10

Why is Cami blocking access to test scores?

Results of this year’s administration of the state NJ Assessment of Schools and Knowledge (ASK) tests have been delivered to the central Newark administration–but Cami Anderson, the state-appointed schools superintendent, has blocked school principals and other building administrators from seeing and analyzing them. While building administrators in other school districts–including those in Essex C

200+ by Bob Braun / 5d 

8-16-14 Curmudgucation Week

CURMUDGUCATION:

Curmudgucation Week

A Curmudgucation Birthday

I made my first post here one year ago today (this is post #485). Several, in fact. Do us both a favor and don't go read them; it was a month or so before I started to figure out what the hell I was doing. Still working on it.I was fortunate to find some audience fairly quickly. I joined BATs back when there were around 1600 members, and the responses I garnered there were encouraging. I was fortu

18 by Peter Greene / 42min 

Can We Enter Phase Three?

Reading Paul Thomas always makes me feel smarter (and yet we have also shared some great cyber-conversation about comics). A recent post on his blog is both smart and challenging. In it, he addresses the phases of the current education debates.Phase I goes back to the accountability fever of the 1980s and takes us right up through NCLB and its steroidified sibling, Race to the Top (and waiver-driv

5 by Peter Greene / 24min 

Teachers in Thunderdome

One of the dreams of reformsters is a school system in which teacher employment is shaped by neither tenure nor seniority. When the time comes for cutting staff, administrators will just grab their Big Spreadsheet of Teacher Effectiveness Data, look down at the bottom of list, point at the name next to the lowest rating number and declare, "Okay-- that's who's getting laid off."We've tal

23 by Peter Greene / 1h 

YESTERDAY

Marketing and Mystification for CCSS

Well, we knew this was coming.Launching in winter of 2014, EdReports, a new non-partisan non-profit, will provide "Consumer Reports-style reviews will highlight those instructional materials that are aligned to the higher standards states have adopted so that teachers, principals and district and state officials charged with purchasing materials can make more informed choices."Politico c

23 by Peter Greene / 19h 

Teachers in South Korea

Remember a few years ago there was a repeated talking point about how teachers are treated in other countries? Heck, the 2011 State of the Union address included this bit of cheerleading-Let’s also remember that after parents, the biggest impact on a child’s success comes from the man or woman at the front of the classroom.  In South Korea, teachers are known as “nation builders.”  Here in America

17 by Peter Greene / 21h 

Classroom Lessons for Cops

Are the Saint Louis County police feeling stupid this morning? I hope so. They should be. The difference between Wednesday and Thursday nights in Ferguson was the difference between chaos and community, between war and peace.The difference certainly wasn't in the crowd; Ferguson's population didn't change over night and they had, if anything, more reason to be enraged after Wednesday's mess.Some o

29 by Peter Greene / 22h 

AUG 14

A Big Problem with Ed Research

I've always taken a skeptical view of education research. I was in college in the seventies, and I have memories of repeatedly discovering that the Gortshwingle study of How Students Learn was actually a study of how twenty male college sophomores at a small Midwestern college performed a particular task. Educational research seemed to suffer a experimental subject of opportunity problem. And like

100+ by Peter Greene / 1d 

For (Some of) the Children

Children are the photo prop of choice for conflicts in war zones around the world. Photographic coverage of the Iraqi refugees trapped by Isis activity has been heavy on photographs of children in the camp. Shocking images from Syria have centered on children (upsetting enough that I'm not going to link). And current warfare in Gaza opened with children-centric coverage, to the point that some cov

100+ by Peter Greene / 2d 

AUG 13

Dear Campbell Brown:

Today you made an appearance in Valerie Strauss's blog to respond to your many critics. I want to take a moment to respond to some of your questions.First, let me applaud you for taking the dialogue directly to your critics, rather than simply trashing or dismissing them elsewhere. Direct dialogue between the various sides of the ed debates (there are more than two)  is rare and needed. I'm going

200+ by Peter Greene / 2d 

Duncan Funnels Millions to College Board

This is how it works in our current form of government.Suppose you make left-handed widgets. You are a major player in the market, but you do have competitors. You would like to both cement your role in the market while growing your share of the revenue. What do you do? Well, you could work on marketing, product development, basically making your case to the potential left-handed widget market.Or

56 by Peter Greene / 3d 

Dear Michelle

Dear MichelleWell, we both knew this day would come. I never thought your love affair with education was a forever thing, but it still hurts to see that you've found a new flame. I know you'll still have a hand in education in a small way, but it won't be the same, will it.I stopped using your full name here months ago for a couple of reasons. For one, it seemed like the worst kind of clickbait, l

200+ by Peter Greene / 3d 

AUG 10

The 21st Century Teacher

If reformsters get their full laundry list of school system rewrites, the 21st Century teacher will be a very different animal from her 20th Century counterpart.* She will be paid little. If she sticks around, she will either face stagnant wages or her wage increases will put her in danger of being fired.* Her one real chance to make some extra money (and to keep her job) will be to get her studen

100+ by Peter Greene / 6d 

AUG 09

Zip Codes and Schools

In the Washington Post, Neerav Kingsland writes about The Cost of Neighborhood Schools. Kingsland is specifically addressing the pushback on a DC plan to move away from the neighborhood school model toward something more New Orleans-y (Kingsland is the former chief executive for the New Schools in New Orleans). Advocates, therefore, worry that communities would be weakened if students from across

27 by Peter Greene / 7d 

Unity

Unity is hard.When leaders of a group start by saying, "We need to be sure we have total unity on this," the rest of the sentence is almost never "and so we are going to sit down with you and really listen to your concerns and ideas." No, generally a call for unity within a group comes with some diplomatically-worded version of "so shut up and get in line."It's unders

50 by Peter Greene / 7d 

8-16-14 THE WHOLE WEEK @ The Whole Child Blog — Whole Child Education

The Whole Child Blog — Whole Child Education:

THE WHOLE WEEK @ The Whole Child Blog 

ASCD’s New ED on Ed

Judy Seltz, ASCD's new executive director, outlines her plans for the association and her vision for education in a wide-ranging interview with Education Week blogger Peter Dewitt. In the process, Seltz details some of the association's policy priorities and recent successes. Read on for highlights from the interview. Supporting the Whole Child: "The Whole Child Resolution, cosponsored b

by Melanie Olmstead / 22h 

AUG 13

Bringing Health and Wellness Back to School

This week many schools across the Midwest will flow back into their daily classroom routines and students will start adjusting from the freedom of summer to the structure of study. That means plenty of grab-and-go school breakfasts, packed lunches, coveted afterschool snacks with outdoor recess, and brain breaks in the classroom sure to follow. The school day will soon resume its role as one of t

by Brittany Mascio, ... / 2d 

AUG 11

Learning and Health are Symbiotic (and Global)

This week Education International—the world's largest federation of unions, representing 30 million education employees in 170 countries and territories—signed onto the Global School Health Statement developed by ASCD and the International School Health Network. The Global School Health Statement was developed out of the first Global School Health Symposium, a multi-level, multi-sectorial discus

by Sean Slade / 4d 

AUG 08

How Did You Reflect and Recharge This Summer?

Summer for educators is often a time to look back on the past year—and look forward to the coming one. What worked, what didn't, and what will you change? Educating the whole child and planning for comprehensive, sustainable school improvement requires us to be "whole educators" who take the time to recharge, reflect, and reinvigorate. Last summer the Whole Child Podcast highlighted educ

by Klea Scharberg / 7d