8-24-14 Seattle Schools Community Forum

Seattle Schools Community Forum:

Seattle Schools This Week

Seemingly, the quiet before the storm that is the reopening of school next week. The only item on the district calendar is one I erred about in the Friday Open Thread.  Director Patu's Saturday Community meeting is this Saturday, the 30th from 10 am to noon at Cafe Vita.There is also, on Saturday, September 6th, the first Community meeting with President Peaslee in a very long time.  (She has prev

by Melissa Westbrook / 14min 

Seattle Preschool - Time to Start Thinking about Your Vote

We're seeing a ramping up of the start of campaigns for both preschool measures.  Sort of.I would put a link to the City's Preschool for All campaign but there is none.  (The PDC reports $36K being spent but only $150 in donations. It's hard to know what to make of a campaign that has no website.)  When you put "Seattle Preschool for All" into Google, the first hit you get is to..Teacher

by Melissa Westbrook / 26min 

Garfield Field Trip Rape Case

I need a little help (although I know this info is out there somewhere, I'm trying to find it quickly).Aviva (Garfield parent), you had said you might be able to fill in some info for me.  Something new has come to light and I'm hoping you might be able to tell me about it.

by Melissa Westbrook / 5min 

Fix the omission

Something's missing and we all know what it is.It's the unfulfilled commitment I have been requesting for over ten years. It's the hole at the heart of the district's dysfunction. It is the emptiness at the root of the complaints and protests about the Garfield rape case. It is what was absent from Director Peaslee's understanding of the protests and it was omitted from Dr. Nyland's letter.The Dis

2 by Charlie Mas / 1h 

8-23-14 Seattle Schools Community Forum Week

Seattle Schools Community Forum:Seattle Schools Community ForumCritical Incident Response PlanI'm sorry to report that the Critical Incident Response Plan referenced in Dr. Nyland's letter to the community is total bunk. It is, at best, a PR plan. It is designed to respond to potential sources of bad press.It basically calls for district officials to gather information, comply with policies, proce

by mike simpson / 43min

8-24-14 Ed Notes Online

Ed Notes Online:

Laurel Sturt's "Davonte's Inferno" Blows the Lid on Ed Deform

We are awash in a sea of books on education produced mostly by non-teachers, pseudo-journalists, often with more than a tinge of bias. It seems that everyone covering the education wars spurred by ed deform must write a book. We hear about building better teachers, teacher wars, and how we learn, just to name a few. But books by real teachers who might actually know something always seem to take s

by ed notes online / 0min 

UFT History in a Graphic: Caucuses from 1960-2014

I just finished reading Barbara Tuchman's "Guns of August" about the first month of WWI. Almost every issue we face today can be related back to decisions and outcomes a hundred years ago and beyond that.We need to know some history of the UFT in order to fully understand things in context. I created this flow chart in attempt to get some history on record.I created this for the first MO

by ed notes online / 13min 

8-23-14 Ed Notes Online Week

Ed Notes Online: Ed Notes OnlineInspecting Eva MoskowitzWith admirable restraint, the head of the New York City Charter Center, James Merriman, pronounced the results “remarkable” and attributed the results to Success’ intensive instruction....A lot of schools, including many charter high-fliers, offer high-octane teaching. None come close to matching Success Academy’s results the last two years..

by mike simpson / 45min 

Marie Corfield: The Ten Commandments of Public Education

Marie Corfield: The Ten Commandments of Public Education:

The Ten Commandments of Public Education

I. Public schools are open to everyone. Thou shalt not call charter schools public because they aren't.

• Charter schools do not have elected boards that answer to the public 
• Charter schools are not subject to the same laws and regulations as public schools
• Charter schools can and do cherry pick the best students
• Through convoluted business deals many charter school operators make enormous sums of money but the schools perform on average, no better than public schools 
• Education is a right of every citizen in the US. Closing schools, and denying students access to a thorough and efficient education (New Orleans and Newark are 2 recent examples) takes away that right.
• 'Choice' does not equal 'Access'. A lottery does not guarantee every child who wants to attend a charter will be able to attend—and graduate.

II. Thou shalt not take the name of teachers in vain.

• No bashing, trashing, demoralizing or name calling
• We're not greedy, lazy or selfish
• We're not all inept or incompetent. As in any profession, there are some who are not doing a good job. It's the administrator's job to take all legal steps necessary to help the educator, or file tenure charges.
• We are not sitting around waiting to collect a pension
• We are not responsible for the physical, emotional and psychological baggage our students carry with them to school every dayMarie Corfield: The Ten Commandments of Public Education:

The Answer Sheet 8-24-14

Answer Sheet:

Next: #PayMyTuitionChallenge

There is no end to the ingenuity of Twitter users. After the success of the  #IceBucketChallenge on Twitter to raise awareness for ALS (amyotrophic lateral sclerosis, a neurodegenerative disease that affects nerve cells in the brain and the spinal cord), some enterprising young people decided to challenge people, generally people they don’t know, to pay […]

by Valerie Strauss / 15min 

All Week @ The Answer Sheet 8-23-14

The Answer Sheet:All Week @ The Answer SheetBack-to-school stress: How to recognize it and help kids manage it  Yes, kids get super-stressed, too, but it isn’t always easy to tell what is bothering them because they hide symptoms or explain them in vague ways. As the 2014-15 school year gears up, it’s a good time to learn how to identify stress in children and teens and help them manage it. Here a

by mike simpson / 37min 

8-24-14 Schools Matter

Schools Matter:

Teachers Must Have Parents' Help to Protect Children from Testing Abuse

Read this if you are a parent or grandparent.  And then act.

2 by Jim Horn / 1h 

Bloomberg's Impoverished Poverty Eradication Plan

Since finally leaving his New York mayor's throne to someone far less princely, Mike Bloomberg is spending his time jetting around the world playing big shot with his bags of cash and, like all bullies, an unhealthy disdain for anyone who disagrees with him. These days he claims to be all about giving away all his dough before he dies, but if Forbes is right, Bloomberg obviously plans to live on i

by Jim Horn / 8min 

8-23-14 Schools Matter All Week

Schools Matter:  Schools Matter All WeekMarshall Tuck's staunchest supporters are unabashed Ayn Rand votaries"There are two novels that can change a bookish fourteen-year old's life: The Lord of the Rings and Atlas Shrugged. One is a childish fantasy that often engenders a lifelong obsession with its unbelievable heroes, leading to an emotionally stunted, socially crippled adulthood, unable t

by mike simpson / 1h 

Building Better Teachers—-Mastering the craft demands time to collaborate—just what American schools don’t provide (Sara Mosle) | Larry Cuban on School Reform and Classroom Practice

Building Better Teachers—-Mastering the craft demands time to collaborate—just what American schools don’t provide (Sara Mosle) | Larry Cuban on School Reform and Classroom Practice:

Building Better Teachers—-Mastering the craft demands time to collaborate—just what American schools don’t provide (Sara Mosle)

Sara Mosle, who teaches writing at Philip’s Academy Charter School in Newark, N.J., has written about education for The New York Times, Slate, and other publications. This appeared Aug 13 2014 at: Atlantic Online

 

Teaching dwarfs every other profession that requires a college degree. Nationwide, 3.7 million schoolteachers serve grades K–12—more than all the doctors, lawyers, and engineers in the country combined. Teacher shortages, once chronic, abated during the recession, when layoffs were widespread, but will soon return with a vengeance. Fully half of all teachers are Baby Boomers on the brink of retirement. Among novice teachers, who constitute an increasingly large proportion of the remaining workforce, between 40 and 50 percent typically quit within just five years, citing job dissatisfaction or more-alluring prospects. Given this drain at both ends of the teaching pipeline, schools will likely need to hire more than 3 million new teachers by 2020. That is an enormous talent hole to fill.

Yet the United States has, if anything, too many teacher-training programs. Each year, some 1,400 of them indiscriminately churn out twice as many graduates as schools can use. Program quality varies widely, so many would-be teachers don’t suit schools’ needs. In a scathing 2006 report, Arthur Levine, a former president of Columbia University’s Teachers College, accused many education schools of being little more than a “cash cow” for their hosting institution. Among the problems he highlighted were exceedingly “low admission standards,” a “curriculum in disarray,” and faculties “disconnected” from the realities of the classroom.

Once hired, many teachers are left to sink or swim. In recent years, several states have adopted controversial accountability measures, known as “value added” metrics, with a view toward winnowing out poor performers who haven’t produced student improvement on standardized tests; helping teachers hone their craft has seldom made it onto the agenda. But perhaps we’re finally ready to focus attention on the far bigger and more important question of how to Building Better Teachers—-Mastering the craft demands time to collaborate—just what American schools don’t provide (Sara Mosle) | Larry Cuban on School Reform and Classroom Practice:

The Gates Foundation Education Reform Hype Machine and Bizarre Inequality Theory

The Gates Foundation Education Reform Hype Machine and Bizarre Inequality Theory:

The Gates Foundation Education Reform Hype Machine and Bizarre Inequality Theory

Sunday, 24 August 2014 00:00By Adam Bessie and Dan Carino, Truthout | Graphic Journalism

Truthout readers like you made this story possible. Can you help sustain our work with a tax-deductible donation?

For a more immersive experience, readers will find documentation and links to further reading embedded within in the images.

Special thanks for the scholarship and insight from: Diane Ravitch (Reign of Error: The Hoax of the Privatization Movement and the Danger to America's Public Schools); Anthony Cody (The Educator and The Oligarch: A Teacher Challenges the Gates Foundation, forthcoming); Paul Thomas (Social Context Reform: A Pedagogy of Equity and Opportunity); Mercedes Schneider (A Chronicle of Echoes: Who’s Who in the Implosion of American Public Education); Joanne Barkan (See her must read investigative series in Dissent Magazine).

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This comic accompanies a two-year long Truthout supported series illustrating the education reform debate from an alternative perspective, both ideologically and visually. For previous graphic essays on education by Adam Bessie, see alsoThe Gates Foundation Education Reform Hype Machine and Bizarre Inequality Theory:

Gene V Glass: Education in Two Worlds: One State Has the Courage to Stand for What It Believes

Gene V Glass: Education in Two Worlds: One State Has the Courage to Stand for What It Believes:

One State Has the Courage to Stand for What It Believes

On August 19th, the Vermont State Board of Education issued a remarkable document. Their "Statement and Resolution on Assessment and Accountability" is a remarkable document, and it is essential reading for educators and politicians in all 50 states. Is it too much to hope that it is the bell wether of a trend?The members of the Vermont State Board refused to bow to the pressures of fad and federal coercion. They took courageous stands against useless over testing of children and the unfair evaluation of teachers. Here are a few excerpts from their policy paper:

• Standardized tests "...adequately capture the strengths of all children, nor the growth that can be ascribed to individual teachers."
• "...under high-stakes conditions, when schools feel extraordinary pressure to raise scores, even rising scores may not be a signal that students are actually learning more."
• "At best, a standardized test is an incomplete picture of learning: without additional measures, a single test is inadequate to capture a years’ worth of learning and growth."
• "Unfortunately, the way in which standardized tests have been used under federal law as almost the single measure of school quality has resulted in the frequent misuse of these instruments across the nation."
• "Excessive testing diverts resources and time away from learning while providing little additional value for accountability purposes."
• "Although the federal government is encouraging states to use value added scores for teacher, principal and school evaluations, this policy direction is not appropriate. ... Thus, other than for research or experimental purposes, this technique will not be employed in Vermont schools for any Gene V Glass: Education in Two Worlds: One State Has the Courage to Stand for What It Believes:

Peg with Pen: Parents, I Cannot Protect Your Children

Peg with Pen: Parents, I Cannot Protect Your Children:

Parents, I Cannot Protect Your Children

I will do my best. But my best isn't good enough - and I think that is the point I really want to make it here. 

Across the nation teachers are fighting back hard. Across the nation teachers will shut their doors and do their best to protect children from high stakes testing, test prep, nonstop district and state mandated testing and more. But - the truth is this, our best is not good enough, because in order to attempt to do our best we are jumping through hoops, shutting our door to secretly do what is right for children, spending our own money on resources for our classrooms and on supplies for children who have none, and we are spending hours and hours gaming our way through "teach to the test" curriculum and massive amounts of mandated corporate formative and summative assessment - in order to attempt to "do our best."  

So, I'm going to blunt here. I cannot do my best under these conditions. I can attempt to do my best, but my best under these conditions is not good enough. And my attempts to play the game and resist where I can will not be enough to protect your children from what is happening.

Also - I want to make it clear that by shutting our doors and attempting to do our best, we are able to protect your children a bit more, but shutting our doors and keeping quiet about the harmful practices that have infiltrated our schools is only adding to our problems - if we think long term. Short term, yes - it helps us do what is right for children. Long term, it only promotes a false reality that allows parents to think, it isn't really that bad. Long term, it assists in the dismantling of public education and our profession. Finally, shutting the door doesn't allow teachers to hide from the databases which demand us to enter your child's data on all these assessments. The data mining has begun full force.

So, yes, I'll do my best. I have even refused to administer the common core PARCC assessment this year - I can do that to protect children. But let's be clear on this - even though I have Peg with Pen: Parents, I Cannot Protect Your Children: