US Export: Failing Schools | Live Long and Prosper

US Export: Failing Schools | Live Long and Prosper

US Export: Failing Schools

Again with the phrase failing schools!

 
This time it’s in Australia where the New South Wales (NSW) state government has announced that it will intervene in public schools that don’t meet “performance standards.”

Here’s a tweet from Pasi Sahlberg who has been working in Australia for the past few years…

I’ll give you one guess what the “performance standards” are. Yes, they include attendance, well-being (not sure how that’s defined), studying, and employment upon graduation. But check out what’s mentioned first…

The NSW Department of Education will intervene in public schools that fail to meet performance targets in priority areas such as HSC and NAPLAN results, attendance, wellbeing and whether students are studying or can CONTINUE READING: US Export: Failing Schools | Live Long and Prosper

Who Is Doing the Work in the Teaching/Learning Dynamic? – radical eyes for equity

Who Is Doing the Work in the Teaching/Learning Dynamic? – radical eyes for equity

Who Is Doing the Work in the Teaching/Learning Dynamic?

The end of a course often challenges my fundamental beliefs as a teacher.

Once again, in the final days of my courses when students are allowed and encouraged to revise their major essays as often as possible, I have returned several without responding because the resubmitted essays are mostly the same as the last draft I marked or the student is merely dutifully addressing only what I have marked.

Many years ago when I was teaching high school English, my classroom was directly across the courtyard from a math teacher. We could see each other’s desks through our windows.

Part joking and part shade, that math teacher occasionally prodded me with “I wish I could teach while sitting at my desk.”

Some of the tension here is the essential nature of teaching math versus teaching writing as an English teacher, but there is also the more pronounced tension of what it means to teach. [1]

This math teacher ran a very quiet classroom with students focused on the CONTINUE READING: Who Is Doing the Work in the Teaching/Learning Dynamic? – radical eyes for equity

CURMUDGUCATION: Distance Learning and Compliance Culture

CURMUDGUCATION: Distance Learning and Compliance Culture

Distance Learning and Compliance Culture

Compliance culture in the classroom has always, always been a problem.

This is the teacher who demands compliance, in fact, grades on compliance. Most folks have a story about That Teacher--the one who wouldn't accept a paper because it was ten minutes late, or who took off a letter grade because the paper had the "wrong" heading on it. 

For some people, compliance is practically the whole point. No Excuses charter schools are founded on the principle that students need to learn to comply with every action in every moment of the school day. Just this weekend, a USA Today op-ed suggested that if students aren't given zeros for late work, that's a failure to hold those students to standards of excellence. 

Students have to learn compliance, the argument goes (though it rarely uses the term "compliance"), because out in the Real World, students will have to learn to meet deadlines and expectations and basically do as they're told promptly and "correctly," and the longer the argument goes, the more you can see that compliance culture is often meant for Those Peoples' children. But it is also true that life involves deadlines and expectations and most of us don't grow up to live in the world of do-as-you-please. Compliance has its place (like on your face, over your mouth and nose, too, please).

The problem with compliance culture in the classroom is that it loses the plot, falls off the track of CONTINUE READING: CURMUDGUCATION: Distance Learning and Compliance Culture

Actions Last Week Extend the Student Loan Debt Cliff and Protect DACA | janresseger

Actions Last Week Extend the Student Loan Debt Cliff and Protect DACA | janresseger

Actions Last Week Extend the Student Loan Debt Cliff and Protect DACA

There is a lot to worry about right now—an unhinged President who has given up governing, a divided Congress, a raging pandemic, and, so far at least, Congressional failure to pass an economic relief bill as the COVID-19 recession intensifies.

Two developments last week should, however, be seen as hopeful. Both will protect vulnerable young people through the Presidential transition and into the Biden administration, when it is expected that policies will be revised.

Student Loan Debt Cliff Extended until January 31st to Protect 41 Million Borrowers

Last Friday, Betsy DeVos extended a COVID-19 moratorium on the collection of student loan payments, a moratorium that had been expected to expire on New Years Eve. The moratorium on student loan payments began with the CARES Act and last summer had been extended by President Trump’s executive order until December 31.

Politico‘s Michael Stratford reports: “The Trump administration on Friday granted an extra month of student loan relief to the 41 million Americans who have been benefiting from a freeze on monthly payments and interest that was set to expire at the end of the year. The relief was set to expire on Dec. 31, but will now end on January 31. The last-minute extension averts what could have been a potentially chaotic resumption of payments just weeks before President-elect Joe Biden takes office…  Roughly 33 million of those borrowers have had their payments paused, and the Education Department has stopped seeking to collect from the 8 million other borrowers who were in default.”

Back in November, Stratford warned about the chaos that would happen in January if the CONTINUE READING: Actions Last Week Extend the Student Loan Debt Cliff and Protect DACA | janresseger

Lily Eskelsen Garcia Pursues US Ed Sec Post | deutsch29: Mercedes Schneider's Blog

Lily Eskelsen Garcia Pursues US Ed Sec Post | deutsch29: Mercedes Schneider's Blog

Lily Eskelsen Garcia Pursues US Ed Sec Post

As the December 04, 2020, Politico reports, former National Education Association (NEA) president, Lily Eskelsen Garcia, is seriously pursuing President-elect Biden’s nod for next US secretary of education.

Eskelsen Garcia earned her BS in elementary education in 1980 and her MEd in instructional technology in 1985, both from the University of Utah. She taught at Orchard Elementary School (Utah) from 1980-1990, and was selected as the Utah Teacher of the Year in 1989. The next year, in 1990, Eskelsen Garcia ran as a write-in candidate for Utah Education Association (UEA) president and won. She exited the classroom at that time and was UEA president for nine years, until 1999. In 1998, Eskelsen Garcia ran for the Utah House of Representatives and gave a close showing of it, earning 45% of the vote as a Democrat and losing to Republican incumbent, Merrill Cook.

During her time as UEA president, in 1996, Eskelsen Garcia also served at the national level on the National Education Association’s (NEA) executive committee. Her career as NEA leadership contiued with a steady rise, from secretary treasurer (2002-2008), to vice president (2008-2014), to president (2014-2020). Eskelsen Garcia’s time as NEA president officially ended when newly-elected Becky Pringle took office on Septemner 01, 2020. After serving two three-year terms, Eskelsen Garcia did not run in 2020.

As she pursues Biden’s approval for US ed sec nomination, Eskelsen Garcia has several qualities in her favor. First of all, she was a classroom teacher. In July 2020, Biden said he would “make sure the secretary of education… is a teacher.” Eskelsen Garcia spent a decade in the classroom and is a bonafide classroom teacher, and not one who appeared merely for a year or two (or less) with the ulterior motive of padding a politcal or administrative career CONTINUE READING: Lily Eskelsen Garcia Pursues US Ed Sec Post | deutsch29: Mercedes Schneider's Blog

NewBlackMan (in Exile) TODAY #BLM #BLACKLIVESMATTER

NewBlackMan (in Exile)

NewBlackMan (in Exile) TODAY

Big Education Ape: THIS WEEK WITH NEWBLACKMAN (IN EXILE)

http://bigeducationape.blogspot.com/2020/12/this-week-with-newblackman-in-exile.html 

Artist Titus Kaphar on Depicting Loss and Finding Purpose

by Mark Anthony Neal / 14h

'One of the country's hottest artists, Titus Kaphar has long tackled under-representation of minorities in Western art through his plays on classic paintings. He talks with correspondent Rita Braver about his artwork, and about NXTHVN , an arts program he co-founded that aids emerging artists, curators and students.' -- CBS Sunday Morning

Pointe Black: The Uncomfortable Truth of Being a Black Ballerina

by Mark Anthony Neal / 14h

' Marie-Astrid Mence has been a member of Ballet Black since 2014—a seminal dance company formed of Black and Asian performers who astound audiences with displays of balletic beauty and power. Mence’s journey to becoming their Senior Artist, however, had a turbulent beginning in her hometown of Paris. In this documentary profile directed by Rebecca Murray , Mence narrates the uncomfortable truths

Singing on the Land featuring Rissi Palmer at Bentonville Battlefield

by Mark Anthony Neal / 16h

' Singing on the Land is a virtual music project that celebrates the stories of historic sites across North Carolina through the voices of North Carolina musicians. Developed by North Carolina State Historic Sites and Properties in partnership with the North Carolina Arts Council and Come Hear NC, each installment of the series highlights one of North Carolina’s 27 state designated historic sites

'A Most Beautiful Thing': An Unlikely Bond Between Chicago Teens from Rival Neighborhoods

by Mark Anthony Neal / 16h

'In the late 1990s, a group of teens from rival neighborhoods on Chicago’s West Side formed an unlikely bond. They became the first all-Black high school rowing team. Now, their story is at the center of new documentary called A Most Beautiful Thing . It’s based on a memoir by the same name, written by rower turned motivational speaker Arshay Cooper . Matter of Fact 's Soledad O’Brien spoke with

In Conversation: Leslie Uggams

by Mark Anthony Neal / 16h

'Singer and actress Leslie Uggams has been in show business for seven decades, since she was six. From appearances on musical variety shows and hosting her own series, to her roles in Roots , Empire , and the Deadpool movies, she talked with CBS Sunday Morning correspondent Mo Rocca about the responsibility she felt as one of the few African Americans regularly performing on early television, whe

Man of Change: August Wilson’s "Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom" with Colman Domingo, Glynn Turman, Michael Potts, Ruben Santiago-Hudson, and Uri McMillian

by Mark Anthony Neal / 21h

'The new film adaptation of August Wilson ’s play Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom stars the late Chadwick Boseman and Viola Davis . In it, tensions and temperatures rise at a Chicago music studio in 1927 when fiery, fearless “Mother of the Blues” singer Ma Rainey joins her band for a recording session. Cast members Colman Domingo, Glynn Turman, and Michael Potts explore Wilson’s work, their roles, and t

Common: "A Beautiful Revolution" (Part 1) – A Short Film

by Mark Anthony Neal / 21h

“'Beautiful Revolution' Pt. 1. is affirmation. It's recognition. It's elevation. It's music to go with a movement. Because the truth is, there is still so much work to do." -- Common Musicians: Common - vocals Robert Glasper - keys Karriem Riggins - drums Burniss Travis - bass PJ - vocals Isaiah Sharkey - guitar Alejandro Prawl - keys DJ Dummy - DJ

'Small Axe': Steve McQueen Talks 5-Part Anthology

by Mark Anthony Neal / 1d

'NPR's Michel Martin speaks with award-winning director Steve McQuee n about his latest project Small Axe , a set of five stand-alone movies exploring life in the West Indian communities of Britain.'

NewBlackMan (in Exile)