'The Last Waltz' for Philly school kids | Philadelphia Public School Notebook

'The Last Waltz' for Philly school kids | Philadelphia Public School Notebook:

'The Last Waltz' for Philly school kids

by thenotebook on Nov 27 2013 Posted in Latest news

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'Last Waltz' for Philly school kids: Philly musician Ali Wadsworth and Andrew Lipke rehearse songs

by Kevin McCorry for NewsWorks

In the wake of the Philadelphia School District's budget crisis, a group of prominent area musicians have banded together to stage a Thanksgiving weekend benefit concert.

They're drawing inspiration from the Martin Scorsese concert film that documented the farewell performance of The Band.

It's "The Last Waltz" for Philadelphia schoolchildren.

In the film, Robbie Robertson, lead guitar player and chief songwriter in The Band, explains to Scorsese that he had to call it quits because of the tremendous strain the group had undergone after a decade-plus of touring on the road.

"It's a goddamned impossible way of life," Robertson told Scorsese.

It's a sentiment that students, parents and teachers in the Philadelphia School District can relate to after a decade-plus of financial volatility.

This year, as the school district closed 24 schools and reduced its staff by 20 percent, Fergus Carey – the owner of Fergie's Pub and Monk's Cafe among other bars and restaurants – was having a revelation.

"I've been dreaming about putting on 'The Last Waltz' Philly-style for years," he said.

When the film -- which features not just The Band, but some of the top artists of 

Energizing Exhausted Teachers | InterACT

Energizing Exhausted Teachers | InterACT:

Energizing Exhausted Teachers

NOVEMBER 27, 2013

tags: advice, Allison Rimm, business, Dan Pink, HBR

by David B. Cohen

Allison Rimm has a recent post at the Harvard Business Review offering some interesting Tips for Energizing Your Exhausted Employees. Rimm speaks of work with IT staff in the medical industry, but see if this sounds like advice that would apply to education.

 It was clear from the rich literature on motivation and from my own experience that employees would need five things:

• A solid understanding of the relevance of their work to the hospital’s mission.
• A chance to use their skills and expertise to make a positive contribution.
• More control over their work environment and their future.
• Opportunities to develop new friendships and interdisciplinary collaboration.
• New tools and the support necessary for their efforts to succeed.

School at the end of the rainbow (photo by the author)

Substitute “school” or “district” for “hospital” and we might have some interesting though imperfect parallels to education. You might think the easy part is seeing the relevance of our work to our mission. For teachers, it seems like it should be so direct. Our mission is to educate our students, and our work is… educating our 

Breaking: Whole Foods strike wins Thanksgiving day off, workers say - Salon.com

Breaking: Whole Foods strike wins Thanksgiving day off, workers say - Salon.com:

Breaking: Whole Foods strike wins Thanksgiving day off, workers say

(UPDATED) “I think it will be disruptive, but that’s kind of the point," says one of Chicago workers striking today

JOSH EIDELSON

(Credit: AP/Steven Senne)

A handful of Whole Foods workers plan to strike today at two stores, joining this month’s wave of non-union low-wage worker strikes and highlighting their opposition to an escalating trend: Employees stuck spending Thanksgiving with throngs of customers rather than in the company of friends and family.

Whole Foods employee Matthew Camp, a member of the Workers Organizing Committee of Chicago (WOCC), told Salon he expects about ten workers to join the walkout, which will include an afternoon rally with fast food and Wal-Mart employees and other supporters. “I think it will be disruptive, but that’s kind of the point: to disrupt the flow of things,” said Camp. He added, “Causing a disruption also provides us with a platform – you know, we have to make some noise to get our point across.”

As I reported yesterday, major retailers have come under criticism for increasing Black Friday’s encroachment into their employees’ holidays by pushing store openings and sales even earlier into Thursday. Blake argued that supermarket employees also deserve a reprieve. “We work hardest for this holiday,” he told Salon, so “everyone can enjoy the holiday,” but “we would like to be able to participate in the holiday ourselves.” He suggested that supermarkets “close the 

11-27-13 Ed Notes Online

Ed Notes Online:

Staten Island Advance: Gene Prisco, liberal lion of Staten Island, educator, and activist for the disenfranchised, dies at 70

Excellent obit on Gene. Though I knew this was coming for the past month - and probably longer than that, I'm still having trouble breathing. Just last January we all celebrated Gene and Loretta's 70th birthday - I have some really bad video and so sorry I didn't bring the good camera -- dumb, dumb, dumb. Glad the old crew got to see him a few times since things went downhill starting in August. W

by ed notes online / 24min 

Frank Bruni Coddles Ed Deformers

I'm not sure where to draw that line. Its my kids. Its all personal... Patrick Sullivan in response to "Let's minimize getting personal just because someone has a an opposing viewpoint" on the NYCEd listserve.So much reaction to another no-nothing NY Times columnist: Are kids too coddled: Op-Ed NY Times Raging Horse took 2 shots at Frank Bruni:Are New York Times Opinion Writers Too Coddl

by ed notes online / 11min 

Fred Smith: Mayor Bloomberg's Education Turkey

Public Education Panel Testing, Testing, Testing Teacher Ratings Consultant Stuffing School Closings Charter Schools      Co-locations           Chancellor Klein Flouting Laws, Rules      and Regs. Overcooked Grad Stats    Phony Test  Bus Drivers Strike         Sco

by ed notes online / 16min 

Democratic Committee of Richmond County Annouces Passing of Gene Prisco

Having been a fellow activist and friend for over 40 years, at this point I am not capable of commenting on Gene's passing. We saw him last Tuesday when we picked up Loretta to drive her back to Staten Island from her daughter's place in Villanover where Gene was in hospice care for the past month. There is the medical story, the political story, the friendship story to tell. Due to Loretta's bein

by ed notes online / 1h

Democratic Committee of Richmond County Annouces Passing of Gene Prisco

Having been a fellow activist and friend for over 40 years, at this point I am not capable of commenting on Gene's passing. We saw him last Tuesday when we picked up Loretta to drive her back to Staten Island from her daughter's place in Villanover where Gene was in hospice care for the past month. There is the medical story, the political story, the friendship story to tell. Due to Loretta's bein

by ed notes online / 1h 

Report on John King/Merryl Tisch Dog and Pony Show in Binghamton

Bearing signs reading “We are human, not machines,” “Oust the King” and “End Fed Ed,” Binghamton area residents let state Education Commissioner John King see — and hear — their discontent with Common Core state standards. “Tell the assembly we’re coming for them. We’re coming for them, we’re angry and we vote,” said Christina Bangel, a seventh-grade social studies teacher at Owego-Apalachin Middl

by ed notes online / 10min

11-26-13 Ed Notes Online

Ed Notes Online: The Opt-Outers: Focus on Change the Stakes in NY MagDespite some inaccuracies, overall a positive article featuring Change the Stakes parents and Jane Hirschman from Time Out From Testing. Here are some comments from the CTS listserve, some focused on one serious factual error in the piece.Article shows opposition NOT driven solely by white suburban moms... Leonie Haimson It was a

by mike simpson / 10min 

Scarecrows Countering Common Core – redqueeninla

Scarecrows Countering Common Core – redqueeninla:

Scarecrows Countering Common Core

 We seem to be caught up in a national hysteria that confuses association with cause.  Everywhere there is talk of “graduation rates” and being “college-ready”.  There is a monochrome drumbeat about moving lock-step through a series of educational steps that equate with career-ladder steps.  And I know well the history of public education as a sine qua non for the inexorable employment demands of the industrial revolution.

But regardless of its potential manifestation as an employment-readier, education ought not to be about training workers to be capitalist cogs.  This approach is backwards, violating the existential right of a child’s development.  We bring life to our babies and want them to develop an understanding and appreciation of the vast possibilities that human intellect and talent and insight has brought to bear on our civilized world.  There are so many ways to be and things to learn and possibilities for contributing to society meaningfully.  Building the tools to be a part of this is the meaning of education:  that is what we parents should want to bring to our child’s educational plate.

But it takes a lot of time to get a good sampling of these possibilities, time and 

inBloom bombs out in Chicago Parents United for Responsible Education

Parents United for Responsible Education » Blog Archive » inBloom bombs out in Chicago:

inBloom bombs out in Chicago

CPS made it official yesterday – they will not participate in inBloom.
Their announcement came at the end of a week of action by PURE and More Than a Score challenging this private company’s threat to Chicago students’ privacy. We had meetings with the Sun-Times and Tribune editorial boards, held a forum with special guest speaker Leonie Haimson from New York City, and testified at the Illinois State Board of Education meeting. A couple of weeks earlier, Cassie Cresswell and I met with Chicago Board vice-president Jesse Ruiz and key staff to share our concerns about potential problems with the inBloom program.
Good decision by CPS.
But there is much more to be concerned about. There are 34 other districts in Illinois where the inBloom threat still looms.
And, as MTAS member Chris Ball has pointed out, on p. 41 of the CPS student code of conduct, CPS assumes the right to share student data without parent notification or consent with “school officials” which “can include contractors, consultants, volunteers or other parties under the Board’s direct control with whom the Board has agreed to

- See more at: http://pureparents.org/?p=21019#sthash.10tRXxrS.dpuf

Pass the Salary | EduShyster

Pass the Salary | EduShyster:

Pass the Salary

 Just in time for the holidays, a reform groaner for the groaning board

Reader: if your holidays are anything like mine then you are looking forward to consuming an entire box of Asti Spumante engaging in a vigorous back-and-forth about education policy with your entire extended family. But with so many great ideas out there for improving our failed and failing public schools, how to settle on just one??? Fortunately our friends at the Teacher Salary Project have done some extensive menu planning for us and have prepared a veritable buffet of topics to discuss at the table. Unfasten your eat belt, reader: it’s time to pass the salary.Teacher turducken
Shall we begin with a canapé of context? The Teacher Salary Project starts with an idea that everyone in the whole family can get behind: 

Choosing Democracy: Fast for Immigration Reform - for Thanksgiving

Choosing Democracy: Fast for Immigration Reform - for Thanksgiving:

Fast for Immigration Reform - for Thanksgiving

Pressure and Passivity on Immigration

By THE EDITORIAL BOARD. NY Times.  November 27, 2013.

President Obama made the case for immigration reform again on Monday, in a speech in San Francisco that seemed mostly directed to Republicans in Congress, who aren’t listening. (see http://antiracismdsa.blogspot.com/2013/11/barack-obama-on-immigration-reform.html)

Noting the Republican resistance to passing a single comprehensive bill, he struck an oddly lighthearted note. “It’s Thanksgiving,” he said. “We can carve that bird into multiple pieces — a drumstick here, breast meat there.” This drew chuckles. By suggesting that large-scale immigration overhaul can be done incrementally, he was retreating from an argument that has guided reform advocates for a decade: fixing the broken system requires three things at once — tighter enforcement, an improved flow of new immigrants and legalization for the 11 million living here outside the law.

A comprehensive bill passed the Senate with a strong bipartisan majority five months ago and could pass the House in a heartbeat. But, as long as the House speaker, John Boehner, refuses to allow a vote, it is going nowhere.

With legislation thus stalled and the Obama administration continuing deportations at an unmatched pace, 

11-27-13 THE WHOLE CHILD BLOG Education Selfies — Whole Child Education

Education Selfies — Whole Child Education:

THE WHOLE CHILD BLOG

Education Selfies

November 27, 2013 by Barry Saide

A friend of mine's daughter took a picture of herself using his phone. She is 18 months old. He should be glad she didn't do something else with it. He captioned it, "Caden's first selfie." We call these pictures "selfies" because it's a picture taken of yourself, by ... yourself. I thought his daughter looked adorable with her big smile. I am not a fan of my own selfies because I think they bring out my worst qualities (too many to list).

As I thought about education today, I reflected on how selfies apply to education. We all know "education selfies." Education selfies have personal agendas. They may promote good learning and teaching strategies, and even have great ideas and concepts. But, the strategies and concepts they offer come at a price. The cost may be as little as an "atta boy," or personal recognition by a respected peer in their school district. Or it may cost more, like a solve-all education program they're peddling. In the end, education selfies are not team players. They may be on a team, but they're rooting for themselves to succeed. If their students do well, it's an opportunity for them to leverage this for their own benefit.

I also thought about those I know who are "education selfless." They share whatever resources they have and don't ask for anything in return. They don't keep score. Selfless educators give their time to those who need it: students who need help but can only come before school or during lunch, novice teachers in crisis mode, and parents who need reassurance. They're too focused on changing the world one student at a time to worry 

11-26-13 THE WHOLE CHILD BLOG Sharing Thanks on Twitter with Educators — Whole Child Education

Sharing Thanks on Twitter with Educators — Whole Child Education: THE WHOLE CHILD BLOGSharing Thanks on Twitter with EducatorsNovember 26, 2013 by Tina BylandLast night, ASCD and an inspiring group of educators dedicated an entire hour to sharing the many things we are all thankful for over Twitter. The chat left me in an incredibly grateful mood. Whether you are thankful for your school community

by mike simpson / 23h 

Rahm Emanuel, Barack Obama & Neo-Liberalism are the Daleys Gifts to Chicago and the Nation. Thanks. | Black Agenda Report

Rahm Emanuel, Barack Obama & Neo-Liberalism are the Daleys' Gifts to Chicago and the Nation. Thanks. | Black Agenda Report:

Rahm Emanuel, Barack Obama & Neo-Liberalism are the Daleys' Gifts to Chicago and the Nation. Thanks.

 Chicago's Daley regime was a half century orgy of arrogance, racism and plunder. Thanks to President Obama, it not only continues with the succession of Rahm Emanuel to the fifth floor office of Chicago's mayor, but with nationwide implementation of diastrous policies toward housing, schools, infrastructure and public workers, all pioneered in Chicago.

Rahm Emanul, Barack Obama & Neo-Liberalism are the Daleys' Gifts to Chicago and the Nation. Thanks.

by BAR managing editor Bruce A. Dixon

“For 43 of the last 56 years, some guy named Richard Daley has occupied the fifth floor office in Chicago's City Hall.”

Last month, at the installation of the new White House chief of staff Bill Daley, President Obama declared the man had “public service in his DNA.” What Obama actually meant was that Daley, a lobbyist and JP Morgan Chase exec who helped write NAFTA, hailed from the predatory family of wolves that have ruled Chicago for two generations and who helped launch his own career.

For 43 of the last 56 years, some guy named Richard Daley has occupied the fifth floor office in Chicago's City Hall. And now Barack Obama has enabled the wolvish Daley clan to elect its own successor, Rahm Emanuel.

In the last two decades, Chicago's property tax levies have been Jim Crowed so that revenue collected in wealthy areas is not shared with poorer ones. When combined with the pervasive residential segregation that is the U.S. norm, the so-called “tax increment financing,” or TIF system pioneered in Chicago, provides an ostensibly color-blind and race-neutral way to achieve this goal, that has been imitated nationwide.

The city's public assets have been looted, leased and privatized, and its once extensive public 

Beyond the So-Called First Thanksgiving: 5 Children's Books That Set the Record Straight - ICTMN.com

Beyond the So-Called First Thanksgiving: 5 Children's Books That Set the Record Straight - ICTMN.com:

Beyond the So-Called First Thanksgiving: 5 Children's Books That Set the Record Straight

Debbie Reese

11/19/13

It’s November, a time of year that many parents, teachers, and librarians look forward to giving children books about what is commonly—and erroneously—called “The First Thanksgiving.” Others seek books that counter the narrative of Pilgrims and Indians warmly sharing a meal together, and still others want to avoid that disingenuous feel-good story altogether and provide children with books that are about indigenous people, books that provide insights and knowledge that are missing from all too many accounts.

Your local bookstore probably has a special shelf this month filled with books about “The First Thanksgiving.” In most of them, Native peoples are stereotyped, and “Indian” instead of “Wampanoag” is used to identify the indigenous people. When the man known as Squanto is part of the stories, his value to the Pilgrims is that he can speak English, and he teaches them how to plant and hunt. The fact that he was kidnapped and sold into slavery in Spain—if mentioned at all—is not addressed in the story because elaborating on it would up-end the feel-good story.

But there is an antidote to these books, and it goes beyond volumes that merely counter the feel-good tale. There are a multitude of works by Native writers who tell stories from their experience and history. While Thanksgiving is a good time to grab people’s attention about Wampanoag-European interactions, it does not need to frame the story. These books give a far more nuanced, and accurate, account of Indigenous Peoples. They will set children and adults alike straight on what really happened around the time of the so-called First Thanksgiving, and what Native life is like today.

1.The People Shall Continue, by Simon Ortiz (Children’s Book Press, 1977)

The starting point for this picture-book poem, illustrated by Sharol Graves, is not 1492, nor is it 1621. The story begins the moment that “all things came to be,” when “the People were born.” This provides an immediate departure

Read more athttp://indiancountrytodaymedianetwork.com/2013/11/19/beyond-so-called-first-thanksgiving-5-childrens-books-set-record-straight-152337

NYC Public School Parents: Chicago parents give thanks as their schools pull out of inBloom Inc., but NY Commissioner KIng remains fully committed; why?

NYC Public School Parents: Chicago parents give thanks as their schools pull out of inBloom Inc., but NY Commissioner KIng remains fully committed; why?:

Chicago parents give thanks as their schools pull out of inBloom Inc., but NY Commissioner KIng remains fully committed; why?

Illinois State Superintendent Chris Koch

As reported in today’s Sun-Times, Chicago is dropping inBloom like a hot potato.  This $100 million project, created by the Gates and Carnegie Foundations, continues to lose adherents. Already, seven other states originally listed as inBloom “partners” have dropped out or put their data-sharing plans on hold.  (See the timeline and list in my testimony here.)  Up to yesterday, Illinois and New York were the only two states still committed to sharing data with inBloom Inc.

Some back story: Last Thursday night, November 21, I was an invited to speak at a forum on student privacy in Chicago, hosted by the Chicago Teachers Union and several activist parent groups, including More than a Score and PURE; see thevideo of my presentation here.  Unknown to me at the time, the Illinois state official who is heading the inBloom project, a man named Brandon Williams, was in the audience. 

Earlier that day, I had been part of a parent and teacher group which had briefed the editors of the Chicago Tribune and the Chicago Sun-Times about inBloom.  At these meetings, both sets of editors appeared seriously concerned about the vast privacy and security implications of the project.  Yet only one article had appeared in the Chicago press about this issue at that point, also in the Sun Times, two days before.

At the forum on Thursday night, Brandon Williams privately told the representative from the CTU that the issue was 

11-27-13 Seattle Schools Community Forum

Seattle Schools Community Forum:

Everyone has a Gift to Share

Here's a video from Night of Too Many Stars (back in October) where we meet Jodi DiPiazza, an 11 year-old with autism.  She and Katy Perry sing "Firework."Jodi's father said:Her father explained: "We were afraid she would never speak. Never dreaming she would sing, or even be able to understand. I've taken off the idea that there is some limit on her, as she continually proves that

by Melissa Westbrook / 32min 

11-26-12 Seattle Schools Community Forum

Seattle Schools Community Forum: Tuesday Open ThreadNews that President Smith-Blum fell on her way to a restaurant and broke her arm.  We wish her a speedy recovery.From The Guardian, kids of today can't run as fast as their parents.On average, it takes children 90 seconds longer to run a mile than their counterparts did 30 years ago. Heart-related fitness has declined 5% each decade since 1975, f

by mike simpson / 23h 

Where are the most economically segregated charter schools? (& why does it matter?) | School Finance 101

Where are the most economically segregated charter schools? (& why does it matter?) | School Finance 101:

Where are the most economically segregated charter schools? (& why does it matter?)

Posted on November 27, 2013

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In this first of several posts, I explore economic variation in charter enrollments in the states of Massachusetts, New Jersey and Connecticut.

I’m taking a fairly simple, easily replicable approach here and encourage any data savvy readers to take their own shot at it. For this analysis I’m using the most recent three years of non-preliminary school level enrollment data from the National Center for Education Statistics Common Core of Data, Public School Universe Survey.

http://nces.ed.gov/ccd/pubschuniv.asp

I’m only using a handful of variables here. I’m using:

• City of location (lcity)
• Total school enrollment (member)
• Total number of free lunch qualified children (frelch)
• Charter school indicator (chartr)

For each year of the data, I sum the enrollment of all schools in the city of location, including charters and district schools and magnets or other special schools. That gives me the total number of all kids enrolled in a city (yeah… it’s a little messy in that some cities include schools that also enroll kids from outside the city – I limit the final lists to large enough enrollment areas where such cases should not substantively distort final numbers). I do the same for kids qualified for free