9-12-14 Larry Ferlazzo’s Websites of the Day… | …For Teaching ELL, ESL, & EFL

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

Video: “What Does Scottish Independence Mean?’

Scotland will be voting on independence in a few days and, though the narration of this two-minute video from Slate is too fast for English Language Learners, it is the best short explanation of what’s going on that I’ve seen on the issue:

9 by Larry Ferlazzo / 2h hide  //  save

A Beginning “Best” List On Domestic Violence Resources

With the Ray Rice video bringing attention to the tragedy of domestic violence, I thought it would be useful to bring together a few related resources. These are particularly accessible to English Language Learners, but can also be useful for all students. I hope readers will contribute more: by obizmedia. by NowSourcing. The Most Brutal Domestic Violence Awareness Ads is from BuzzFeed. H

7 by Larry Ferlazzo / 2h 

YESTERDAY

Around The Web In ESL/EFL/ELL

© 2009 Renato Ganoza, Flickr | CC-BY | via Wylio   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: Urban Districts Develop Common-Core Guide for Teaching ELLs is from Ed Week. I’m adding it to The Best Resources For Learning About Common Core Standards & English Langu

7 by Larry Ferlazzo / 9h 

9-11-14 Larry Ferlazzo’s Websites of the Day… | …For Teaching ELL, ESL, & EFL

Larry Ferlazzo’s Websites of the Day… | …For Teaching ELL, ESL, & EFL: 1,700 Categorized Links For IB Theory Of Knowledge Course© 2012 Chris Potter, Flickr | CC-BY | via Wylio As regular readers know, I’ve been accumulating teaching/learning resources for the International Baccalaureate Theory of Knowledge class ever since I began to teach it a few years ago. The collection is now up to nearly

1 by mike simpson / 8h 

9-12-14 @ The Chalk Face

@ THE CHALK FACE:

About the radio show

Join Drs. Shaun Johnson and Tim Slekar 

LIVE Sundays at 6PM EST and Wednesdays at 7PM EST 

on Blog Talk Radio for progressive, pro-public education talk radio. 

Call in to speak live with Tim and Shaun during the show, (805) 727-7111. 

You can also listen to our Monday "Sunday-Replay" at 7PM EST, and re-broadcasts of the archives every Tuesday and Thursday at 7PM EST.

Visit the @ the Chalk Face radio main page for more information on the show and syndication.

The (NY, DC, LA, and CA) Story of Eureka Math

In Louisiana, there has been a bit of mystery surrounding the only math curriculum “selected” in March 2014 by the Louisiana Board of Elementary and Secondary Education (BESE) and the Louisiana Department of Education (LDOE) and promoted as “LSU-developed Eureka Math.” It sure sounds like… dare I write it… grass roots CCSS math development, huh? Then comes […]

2 by deutsch29 / 10h 

9-10-14 @ The Chalk Face

@ THE CHALK FACE: About the radio showJoin Drs. Shaun Johnson and Tim Slekar LIVE Sundays at 6PM EST and Wednesdays at 7PM EST on Blog Talk Radio for progressive, pro-public education talk radio. Call in to speak live with Tim and Shaun during the show, (805) 727-7111. You can also listen to our Monday "Sunday-Replay" at 7PM EST, and re-broadcasts of the archives every Tuesday and Thursd

1 by mike simpson / 12h 

9-12-14 the becoming radical | A Place for a Pedagogy of Kindness

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

High Noon: “Why Everyone (Almost) Is Wrong about Common Core”

High Noon at the Upcountry History Museum 2014 Fall Schedule All lectures begin at noon on Wednesdays and last one hour. The Upcountry History Museum/Furman University is located at 540 Buncombe Street in downtown Greenville’s Heritage Green area (near the Greenville County Main Library and Greenville Little Theatre). For more information, contact Furman’s Marketing and Public Relations office at

2 by plthomasedd / 2h hide  //  save

remnant 64: ‘Are we that warlike, that childish, that afraid?’

remnant 64: ‘Are we that warlike, that childish, that afraid?’.

1 by plthomasedd / 2h 

9-11-14 the becoming radical | A Place for a Pedagogy of Kindness

the becoming radical | A Place for a Pedagogy of Kindness (the public and scholarly writing by P. L. Thomas, Furman University): Imagine: On Bravado and Humility, 11 September 2014On the eve of 9/11 2014, President Obama admitted, “Still, we continue to face a terrorist threat,” adding: We cannot erase every trace of evil from the world, and small groups of killers have the capacity to do great ha

by mike simpson / 8h 

9-12-14 Hemlock on the Rocks

Hemlock on the Rocks:

Los Angeles Board Votes to Shred Staff Emails, Then Reconsiders | Diane Ravitch's blog

http://dianeravitch.net/2014/09/11/los-angeles-board-votes-to-shred-staff-emails-then-reconsiders/ Los Angeles Board Votes to Shred Staff Emails, Then Reconsiders | Diane Ravitch's blog Talk about bad timing!   The Los Angeles Unified School Board voted 6-0 to adopt a policy to shred most internal emails after one year. The iPad scandal came to light only after reporters gained access to two-year

by Rene Diedrich / 2min 

Channeling Rosemary Woods: LAUSD Board Votes To Expunge One Year Old Emails – redqueeninla

http://redqueeninla.k12newsnetwork.com/2014/09/11/channeling-rosemary-woods-lausd-board-votes-to-expunge-one-year-old-emails/ Channeling Rosemary Woods: LAUSD Board Votes To Expunge One Year Old Emails After just discovering that top ranking district administrators and private vendors effectively fixed a billion-dollar deal ahead of open bidding, this week our school board explicitly voted to thw

by Rene Diedrich / 4min hide  //  save

Shutting Out The LAUSD Stakeholders: Another Affront to LAUSD Parents by Carl Petersen

"I would like to move that we move the remainding [sic] of board meetings that are tentatively scheduled for 4:00 PM to 1:00 PM...Makes it easier for parents, certainly in my district, who might want to come speak to not be here at 11:00 at night when they have kids to put to bed and homework to supervise and it is impossible to get here during rush hour from most parts of the city to pull co

by Rene Diedrich / 17min 

L.A. school board OKs contract to destroy emails, raising concerns - LA Times

http://www.latimes.com/local/lanow/la-me-ln-lausd-emails-20140910-story.html L.A. school board OKs contract to destroy emails, raising concerns The Los Angeles Unified School District took steps this week to enforce rules under which emails are deleted after one year, raising concerns about whether important public records would be destroyed in the process.The action comes two weeks after

by Rene Diedrich / 28min 

Petition | STOP LAUSD FROM ERASING DISTRICT EMAILS NOW & Establish a Public Policy that Assures Transparancy | Change.org

https://www.change.org/p/mayor-garcetti-stop-lausd-from-erasing-district-emails-now-establish-a-public-policy-that-assures-transparancy  Tuesday September 9, 2014, the board voted unanimously ( new member Dr. George McKenna abstained ) to delete their emails from their school district accounts after a year. This initiative will require a Microsoft program that costs taxpayers $1/4 of million While

by Rene Diedrich / 46min 

Harvey Saferstein: Meet LAUSD Superintendent Deasy's Attorney-- HMMMMMM.../Who pays him ?

http://www.mintz.com/professionals/detail/name/harvey-saferstein Harvey Saferstein Harvey is the Managing Member for the firm's Los Angeles office. His practice includes antitrust and intellectual property counseling and litigation, as well as complex commercial and business litigation. With an extensive litigation background, Harvey has experience as trial and appellate counsel in antitrust case

by Rene Diedrich / 6h hide  //  save

LAUSD's Deasy seeks records of board members' tech-firm contacts

http://www.dailynews724.com/local/lausdaposs-deasy-seeks-records-of-board-membersapos-tech-firm-contacts-h236823.html LAUSD's Deasy seeks records of board members' tech-firm contacts 12 September 2014 Friday 00:30This news clip was read 9 times. In a bold challenge to his bosses, L.A. Unified Supt. John Deasy has filed a public records request seeking emails and other documents involving school

by Rene Diedrich / 7h 

9-11-14 Hemlock on the Rocks

Hemlock on the Rocks: Garcetti endorses Torlakson in state superintendent racehttp://laschoolreport.com/garcetti-endorses-torlakson-state-superintendent-race/ Garcetti endorses Torlakson in state superintendent race Mayor Garcetti Los Angeles Mayor Eric Garcetti today endorsed state Superintendent Tom Torlakson in his bid for reelection against Marshall Tuck, a former charter school executive. Cit

by mike simpson / 8h 

9-12-14 Curmudgucation - TNTP Proposes New Tenure Plan

CURMUDGUCATION:

TNTP Proposes New Tenure Plan

TNTP, the Reimagine Teaching people and generators of plenty of fancy-looking reformy nonsense, have some more ideas for the post-Vergara world. They have decided to stake out a middle ground on the tenure wars, claiming that we don't need to eliminate it-- just fix it. And to that end, they have eight proposals to create "a more balanced system." It's all in this very fancy "paper,

3 by Peter Greene / 32min 

Magical CCSS Teachers

Over at EdWeek, the Teaching Ahead roundtable is having a little debate about the Core's burgeoning image problem. I've made my own entry in the argument (feel free to check it out and like it as a way to register your CCSS love).Tucked in among the various points of view, you'll find this piece by Jessica Keigan. "Abandoning the Common Core Would Be a Disservice to Students" belongs to

14 by Peter Greene / 3h 

9-11-14 Curmudgucation - Forever Less Than, Frederick Douglass, and No Excuses

CURMUDGUCATION: Forever Less Than, Frederick Douglass, and No ExcusesMy esteemed colleague and exceptional citizen journalist over at Edushyster has an interview up that is well worth your time to read.She talks to Joan Goodman, director of the TFA program at U Penn, about the no excuse charters of Philadelphia (among other things, the piece is a reminder that we can not knee-jerkingly sort good g

1 by mike simpson / 5h 

9-12-14 Perdido Street School

Perdido Street School:

Financial Genius Mayor Bloomberg Costs NYC Taxpayers $60 Million Extra On WTC Contract

Let us imagine Mayor de Blasio pulled some criminal act like this: In a deal worked out by ex-Mayor Bloomberg, taxpayers will pay nearly $60 million extra to move a city agency seven blocks into expensive office space at Four World Trade Center, a Daily News investigation has found. Back in 2008, Bloomberg signed off on an agreement to move the Human Resources Administration from its longtime head

by reality-based edu... / 2h 

Anti-Teacher Tenure Lawsuit In New York Starts Off Like A Circus

The Murdoch-owned Wall Street Journal:Justice Philip Minardo in Richmond County Supreme Court agreed Thursday to merge two lawsuits seeking to challenge state tenure laws.The state attorney general's office had filed a motion to consolidate the two cases on grounds the issues were so similar, and the United Federation of Teachers had asked to intervene as a defendant.The court granted both request

3 by reality-based edu... / 3h 

9-11-14 Perdido Street School

Perdido Street School: De Blasio Caves To Charter School SectorIf there was ever a time when Mayor de Blasio could tell Governor Cuomo to go @#$% himself, this is the time.Cuomo needed de Blasio's help in securing the Working Families Party ballot line last May, something that was very important to Cuomo since the woman who might have gotten that line had de Blasio not helped Cuomo out - Zephry Te

by mike simpson / 8h 

Gov. Christie — ” I don’t care about the community criticism…”; School Opens in Newark | janresseger

Gov. Christie — ” I don’t care about the community criticism…”; School Opens in Newark | janresseger:

Gov. Christie — ” I don’t care about the community criticism…”; School Opens in Newark

Posted on September 12, 2014 by janresseger

School opened in Newark, New Jersey on Thursday, September 4, in the messy, patched together way that major transformations occur.  The question in this case, as Cami Anderson, the state’s appointed overseer superintendent imposed her controversial “One Newark” school choice plan on the school district, is why the confusion had to happen.  The citizens of Newark overwhelmingly elected a new mayor in the spring, Ras Baraka, a public school educator who ran on a platform of improving the public schools in Newark’s neighborhoods.  But Cami Anderson and Governor Chris Christie—who arrogantly said, “And I don’t care about the community criticism. We run the school district in Newark — not them.”—have persisted in their plans to close public schools and expand school choice.

As school began under “One Newark,” about 190 students were reported by WNYC News not to have been assigned a school yet and only 74 percent of students were reported to have found a place in one of their top five schools.  According to Bob Braun, the blogger and retired reporter from the Newark Star-Ledger, students with disabilities were not provided transportation at all on the first day.  There was considerable confusion as families tried to navigate a new shuttle bus service set up by the school district to support students who were assigned to schools far from home.  Newark’s public schools have not provided transportation in the past.

Braun has been persistent and prophetic in pointing out the racial implications of the Christie/Anderson experiment on Newark’s children.  I urge you to read all of his recent blog posts on the Newark schools, because he is forthright in naming how power politics and racial politics work in the biggest—and majority-African American—city of a wealthy state.

Here is Braun’s reflection on the meaning of a preliminary boycott organized by the Newark Student Union on the day before school started:  “Newark’s political and organizational leaders will, I know, scoff at this but right now, the leaders of the struggle against ‘One Newark’ and the privatization of public education are the hundreds of high school students who early this morning marched from three high schools to Military Park and who, tomorrow, are expected to take even bolder action against the policies of Cami Anderson, her puppet master Chris Christie, and Christie’s privatization guru, Cory Booker.  That doesn’t mean a few hundred high school students from Science Park, Arts, and Central will bring Gov. Christie — ” I don’t care about the community criticism…”; School Opens in Newark | janresseger:

Time to Scale Back School Testing - Lily's Blackboard

Time to Scale Back School Testing - Lily's Blackboard:

Time to Scale Back School Testing

September 12, 2014 by Lily

Categories: Did you see this?, Education, General, Testing

Tags: learning, New Jersey, Testing

Do you remember a teacher or other school employee who made a difference in your life? Perhaps someone who really brought an academic subject to life, or who simply helped you through a difficult time? How about a class or subject that thrilled you and made you want to learn more and more, even after you’d completed your assignments and passed the final exam?

Now think back to all of the standardized tests you’ve ever taken. Remember that one SAT analogy question that set you on the course to your future career? The multiple choice math problem that gave you the courage to try something you’d always been afraid to attempt before?

If you are struggling to come up with something, don’t feel bad. Neither of us can either, because while standardized tests have long been a part of public education, until recently, they’ve never been mistaken for its point and purpose.
Let’s stop pretending that a test score tells us all we need to know about our students, their teachers, or the public schools.

That critical distinction is totally lost in our test-obsessed effort to turn our students into statistics. These tests are not meant to help teachers monitor student progress and tailor lessons to students’ individual needs. Instead, standardized tests are increasingly used as the single measure by which we judge the success of a school, the quality of its staff, and the learning of its students. And that’s just wrong.

We would never tell a doctor that a stethoscope is the only tool she needs to gauge her patients’ health, even if the tool is useful for its limited purpose. And we’d certainly object if a company that manufactures and sells stethoscopes tried to convince us to disregard ultrasounds, CAT scans and blood pressure readings. In medicine, we accept that no single measure can tell us all we need to know about a patient’s health.

We also know that identifying a health problem is only the first step. It’s much more important to find out what is causing the problem and act to remedy it. We rarely blame the doctor who identified the problem for causing it in the first place.

But in education, a single diagnostic tool – the standardized test — is being misused both to measure things it cannot really measure and to punish schools, students, and teachers for circumstances and outcomes they do not control. Class time that should be devoted to learning is now devoted instead to test-taking and test-preparation. Subjects thaTime to Scale Back School Testing - Lily's Blackboard:

What I Did in Texas this Week…

Lily visited several schools, met with superintendents, shared with members, listened to educators and interacted with beautiful children eager to learn. Check out some of the highlights. [View the story "NEA Back to School 2014: Texas" on Storify]

by Lily's Blackboard / 2h