Friday, May 27, 2011

LAUSD tenatively reaches agreement with teachers union on contract - LA Daily News

LAUSD tenatively reaches agreement with teachers union on contract

Posted: 05/27/2011 04:00:05 PM PDT

Updated: 05/27/2011 04:02:40 PM PDT

Capping weeks of negotiations, Los Angeles Unified officials announced Friday they had tentatively reached agreement with the teachers union on a contract that avoids many of the cuts threatened for next year and mandates four furlough days for educators.

Superintendent John Deasy said leaders of the 40,000-strong United Teachers Los Angeles worked with the district "to provide a solution for next year that brings stability - and the majority of our employees - back to the classroom."

The deal, which must still be approved by the school board and by UTLA's members, restores cuts to preschool education, campus libraries and magnet programs and saves the jobs of at least 3,400 teachers, nurses, counselors and librarians, officials said.

Some 1,700 educator jobs are still at risk of elimination, officials said, because of declining enrollment in the nation's second-largest district and the expiration of federal stimulus funding. However district officials though

Week in Lab for May 2011 | Reflections on Teaching

Week in Lab for May 2011

by alicemercer

I am still working in the lab, and have been doing some interesting things…

First Grade

I’m starting to show some of my favorite videos, some no dialogue live-action stories that are available on Discovery Education. This week we looked at A Boy, a Dog, and a Frog. I like using these with the kids to teach about sequencing, prediction, etc. as the stripped-down nature of the video really helps the kids focus, and they are extremely accessible for English learners. The only issue I had was cultural, some of the kids thought the boy was trying to catch the frog to eat it, so I had to explain about keeping frogs as pets (and that people do eat frogs too).

Second Grade

Their unit is Our Country. I went back and did some work with Native American topics. I’m more excited about next week when I bring out Google Maps and start to look at geography.

Schools Matter: National Research Council Rebukes NCLB (Duncan-Gates-Broad) Policies Based on "Primitive Intuition"

National Research Council Rebukes NCLB (Duncan-Gates-Broad) Policies Based on "Primitive Intuition"

by Jim Horn

After ten years of test, punish, and push out policies and hundreds of billions of tax dollars spent for the benefit of the education industry and corporate foundations, American schools have been blown up and children are less educated than their counterparts in countries with sane education policies. Even as measured by their gains on American tests, comparisons show students' scores are just .08 of a standard deviation higher than they were 10 years ago. That amounts to moving from the 50th percentile to the 53rd percentile. Rod, Maggie, Arne, Bill, and Eli: heckuva job.

This last dose of reality therapy comes from another report issued by the National Research Council. Here is a good introduction from HuffPo, even though there is much more to say:

NEW YORK -- Education policies pushing more tests haven't necessarily led to more learning, according to a new National Research Council report.

"We went ahead, implementing this incredibly expensive and elaborate strategy for changing the

Gay Parents Bashed

Modern School: PERB to UTLA: Shut Up and Take It Like a Teacher

PERB to UTLA: Shut Up and Take It Like a Teacher

by Michael Dunn

United Teachers Los Angeles (UTLA), filed a complaint with the Public Employment Relations Board (PERB) last week, seeking a court injunction against Los Angeles Unified (LAUSD), to block implementation of a teacher evaluation system based on student test scores and to prevent the conversion of two more LAUSD schools to charter schools. PERB has denied the union’s request without giving a reason why, according to the Los Angeles Times.

It is a contractual violation to unilaterally impose the new evaluation system on teachers, as teacher evaluation policies are supposed to be negotiated as part of the contract. LAUSD had planned to implement a voluntary pilot version of the program next year. Ostensibly, they may

L.A. School District Tells Librarians: You're Not Teachers : The Two-Way : NPR

L.A. School District Tells Librarians: You're Not Teachers

by BILL CHAPPELL

EnlargeReed Saxon/AP

Teachers and librarians demonstrate against thousands of proposed job cuts in the Los Angeles Unified School District Tuesday.

The Los Angeles Unified School District plans to lay off thousands of employees, as it faces a budget shortfall of more than $640 million. The cuts include 85 school librarians — who have been told that they no longer count as teachers. The change in classification would make it easier for the school district to cut the jobs.

The librarians have been facing questions from the district's

This Week In Education: Five Best Blogs: Have New Orleans Schools Really Been Fixed?

Five Best Blogs: Have New Orleans Schools Really Been Fixed?

by Alexander Russo

School Performance In New Orleans Matthew Yglesias: It’d be better to have NAEP data instead of state test stuff, and it’d be better to look at demographic sub-group... School Reform in New Orleans Kevin Drum: We'll need a considerably more detailed analysis before we can genuinely conclude that their educational reforms have really worked... Money and L.A. Unified LAT: Deasy says he will not "accommodate a funder" and that he'll set the agenda. But those lines can blur all too easily in a cash-strapped school system that must continually plead for money... Meet The Billionaires Who Are Trying To Privatize Our Schools And Kill Public Education Think

Mike Klonsky's SmallTalk Blog: In my mailbox

In my mailbox

by Mike Klonsky

From Javier Lacayo

Hi Mike,

I wanted to send some information your way on our ‘Parent Day of Action’ which kicked off at 7am this morning. By 9am, our volunteers and organizers had already collected over 1,000 petition signatures of New Yorkers opposing Bloomberg's plan to fire 4,100 teachers. Throughout the day, more than 100 volunteers have been talking to parents at schools and subway stops across the City (press release here: http://bit.ly/lqAFvM).

In addition to gathering petitions, we have also been collecting audio and video testimonials from public school parents. You can find them all, uploaded in real time, at parentsforteachers.com

We want to make all of this information and these resources available to local bloggers like you. So

A pull-no-punches commencement speech for teachers - The Answer Sheet - The Washington Post

A pull-no-punches commencement speech for teachers

by Valerie Strauss

Here are excerpts from the commencement speech that renowned educator Linda Darling-Hammond recently gave at Teachers College, Columbia University, where she was awarded an honorary degree.

Darling-Hammond, didn’t pull any punches about how she views today’s school reform movement, which encourages new college graduates to teach in high-poverty schools with little training.

“Our leaders do not talk about these things,” she said. “They simply say of poor children, ‘Let them eat tests.’ ”

Read full article >>

National Testing Push Yielded Few Learning Advances: Report (VIDEO)

First Posted: 05/27/11 02:01 PM ET Updated: 05/27/11 05:27 PM ET

NEW YORK -- Education policies pushing more tests haven't necessarily led to more learning, according to a new National Research Council report.

"We went ahead, implementing this incredibly expensive and elaborate strategy for changing the education system without creating enough ways to test whether what we are doing is useful or not," said Dan Ariely, a professor of behavioral economics at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and member of the committee that produced the report.

Heavily testing students and relying on their scores in order to hold schools -- and in some cases teachers -- accountable has become the norm in education policy. The No Child Left Behind Act, the largest piece of education legislation on the federal level, for example, uses performance on math and reading exams to gauge whether schools are failing or succeeding -- and which schools are closed or phased out.

"Incentives are powerful, which means they don't always do what they want them to do," said Kevin Lang, a committee member who also chairs Boston University's economics department. "As applied so far, they have not registered the type of improvements that everyone has hoped for despite the

Social Engineering and Facilitating an Enriched Environment | Lefty Parent

Social Engineering and Facilitating an Enriched Environment

by Cooper Zale

My first reaction to Newt Gingrich’s statement opposing both “left-wing and right-wing social engineering” was that I agree completely, but I need to be careful what I wish for here and think about what is negative “social engineering” versus what is a societal consensus on an “enriched environment” that facilitates moving our larger community forward.

My own awareness of the dark side of social engineering was catalyzed by reading radical educator John Taylor Gatto’s book, The Underground History of American Education, where he at times bluntly challenges the institutions in our society (including our public education system) dedicated to improving our behavior, for our own good whether we like it or not. Says Gatto in the book’s prologue…

The shocking possibility that dumb people don’t exist in sufficient numbers to warrant the millions

Pick up the phone again. House votes on Friday. « Fred Klonsky's blog

Pick up the phone again. House votes on Friday.

by Fred Klonsky

Don’t stop making the calls.

The Illinois House has postponed the pension vote until tomorrow.

1 888 412 6570

No on SB512

“No reduction in retirement benefits. No increase in costs. We’ve met our obligations. Any change would be unfair and unconstitutional.”

Schools Matter: School Librarians Are Being Interrogated by LAUSD Lawyers

School Librarians Are Being Interrogated by LAUSD Lawyers

by Jim Horn

School librarians, or teacher librarians as they referred to in Canada, must have both teaching certification and library-media certification. Most have Masters in Library and Information Science on top of their teaching credentials.

In urban schools that do not have active middle class parent groups who insist on libraries on librarians, school libraries are being shut down by bean counters and technofools whose virtual brains tell them that poor children in their segregated and computerized testing camps don't deserve a library or a librarian to guide them in research skills and in choosing good literature, either fiction or non-fiction. And thus, the caste system adds a new level of inequality and indignity on top of crippling poverty.

This scary story is from AlterNet:

Last night, the Canadian radio broadcast, "As It Happens," featured a remarkable story about what's going on in Los Angeles public schools, as officials grapple with a budget crisis. Librarians -- more specifically, teacher-librarians, are being escorted to the basement of an administration

John H. Jackson: Protect the American Union by Supporting Public Schools

Protect the American Union by Supporting Public Schools

America's public schools are ground zero in the movement to reframe American politics and public policy from one of common opportunity to individual gains.

Policymaking used to embody the notion that the good of the people was the good of our Union. Today, policymakers seemingly subscribe to the notion that what is good for a few is good enough, even if at the cost of our Union.

It's time to call out these policies and the politicians who promote them for what they really are: modern anti-Unionists.

While arguing for programs and policies that weaken schools, rarely do they mention that most successful Americans of all races, ethnicities, religions and professions were and are products of our American public school system. This vast majority of citizens prove that when we invest in our public systems and employees, they work and produce high outcomes.

But each day seems to bring a new example of leaders undermining our

Will 2012 Become Labor’s Moment of Political Truth? - COLORLINES

Will 2012 Become Labor’s Moment of Political Truth?

Protest inside Wisconsin State Capitol building this winter. Photo: Creative Commons/mrbula

Friday, May 27 2011, 9:09 AM ESTTags: 2012 campaign, afl-cio, labor, richard trumka

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LOBBYISTS GET NAFTA-STYLE TRADE DEALS BACK ON TRACK

Fool me once, shame on you. Fool me twice, well, Richard Trumka is no fool. The president of the largest labor federation in the country—the AFL-CIO boasts of 11 million members—had scathing words for Democrats and President Obama at a speech last week at the National Press Club.

“If leaders aren’t blocking the wrecking ball and advancing working families’ interests, working people will not support them. This is where our focus will be—now, in 2012, and beyond,” Trumka said.

The speech built upon a theme Trumka has been developing for months: Don’t count on labor to blindly support Democrats who aren’t supporting labor. “It’s actually going to be fun,” he told Salon’s Joan Walsh a few weeks ago, speaking of the union’s plan to give “less to party structure, and more to our own structure.” He repeated the point last week. “Our role is not to build the power of a political party or a candidate,” he said. Ouch.

AFL-CIO isn’t the first union to publicly distance itself from Democrats’ electoral fate; the firefighters union declared in April that it would freeze its federal political spending in 2012 and direct money to local campaigns instead. But the support of AFL-CIO is of another scale, both financially and politically. Trumka’s much

Troublemakers School a Hit with Chicago Activists | Labor Notes

Troublemakers School a Hit with Chicago Activists

by Howard Ryan | Fri, 05/27/2011 - 1:37pm

Jenn Johnson from the Chicago Teachers Union and James Thindwa from In These Times address a workshop on labor's political agenda in Chicago. Photo: CTU.

As employers and politicians slash budgets, squeeze workers, and target union rights, labor activists are searching for answers. Two hundred found some in the tactics, strategies, tools, and sources of inspiration shared at the Labor Notes Troublemakers School May 21 in Chicago.

Attendees came heavily from education and other public sector unions—Chicago Teachers Union, AFSCME, University of Illinois graduate employees—but Teamsters, Electrical Workers (IBEW), and worker centers such as ARISE came as well.

The event opened with a “Lessons from Wisconsin” plenary, where Madison teachers union president Peggy Coyne pointed out that students actually ignited the Wisconsin movement.

High school students in Madison and elsewhere walked out en masse when they learned their teachers’ rights were under fire, while graduate teaching assistants from the University of Wisconsin launched the occupation inside the statehouse.

Madison building trades council leader Eric Cobb remarked on another lesson: the powe

How Do Teachers Matter? Not as Cause Agents But as Learning Opportunities | Dailycensored.com

How Do Teachers Matter? Not as Cause Agents But as Learning Opportunities

Written by Paul ThomasEducationMay 27, 2011

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Lost in the exaggerated claims of “bad” teachers being at the core of all that ails education and the concurrent calls for greater teacher accountability, often linked to student test scores, is a careful consideration of why we have universal public education in a free society and what the role of the teacher is within that purpose.

Debates about teacher quality and education reform are doomed to fail if we do not first place both within our purposes for and beliefs about education, human nature, and our culture. Universal public education, in its essence, must rest upon a commitment to human agency and autonomy as well as a full and complex faith in and support for democratic principles.

Once we embrace human agency and autonomy–everyone is born equal,

School Tech Connect: The Trib Is So Gross...

The Trib Is So Gross...

by effacethefacade@yahoo.com (Tim)

I see the Trib has attempted to crucify Poe, May, and Biss, in the dishonest way that is the hallmark of theTrib's editorial page. You know you're doing something right when you get scolded in the Trib, so I congratulate these three for standing up against something that is wrong.

Poor Biss-- he learned a tough lesson with that "present" vote. He's got to figure out if he's fish or fowl, that guy. For the record, his questions were neither "blather-rich" nor "soliloquoy"-like in nature; it's just that theTrib people have trouble with anything remotely nuanced. But seriously-- Note to Biss: unless you are 100% tax-

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