Tea Party support linked to educational segregation, new study shows - Jonathan Kantrowitz

Tea Party support linked to educational segregation, new study shows - Jonathan Kantrowitz:

Tea Party support linked to educational segregation, new study shows

Posted on July 21, 2014 | By Jonathan Kantrowitz

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Source: University of Notre Dame

In January of 2009, Barack Obama assumed the U.S. presidency in the midst of the most severe recession since the great depression of the 1930s. While many Americans hoped the new administration would take an active role in providing relief for those harmed by the economic collapse, a “Tea Party” movement emerged to oppose Obama’s agenda.

University of Notre Dame political sociologist Rory McVeigh, whose study, “Educational Segregation, Tea Party Organizations, and Battles over Distributive Justice,” was recently published in the American Sociological Review, says “The political polarization that we witness today is linked to the way in which Americans live in segregated worlds.”

McVeigh and coauthors, Kraig Beyerlein, Burrel Vann and Priyamvada Trivedi, examine why certain U.S. counties are conducive to the establishment of Tea Party organizations. Their statistical analyses show that even after accounting for many other factors, Tea Party organizations were much more likely to form in counties with high levels of residential segregation based on education levels, and that college graduates were more likely to indicate support for the Tea Party if they resided in a county characterized by high levels of educational segregation.

“Acceptance or rejection of the Tea Party’s views on the government’s role in redistributing wealth is shaped, to a large degree, by the extent to which those who have benefited from higher education are set apart in their daily lives from those who have not,” says McVeigh, who specializes in inequality, social movements, race and ethnicity.

“As the article explains, the commonly held view that individuals and families who are struggling to get by are undeserving of government assistance is reinforced when the highly educated have limited contactTea Party support linked to educational segregation, new study shows - Jonathan Kantrowitz: 

Are First-Year Teachers Ever Proficient? - Teacher in a Strange Land - Education Week Teacher

Are First-Year Teachers Ever Proficient? - Teacher in a Strange Land - Education Week Teacher:

Are First-Year Teachers Ever Proficient?

By Nancy Flanagan on July 21, 2014 4:53 PM

I was enormously impressed with a recent blog by Tim Walker (Taught By Finland), an American teacher currently working in Finland. In this piece--a must-read, especially for novice teachers and policy-makers--Walker confesses to being something of a mess in his first year of teaching:

I would wake up seven or eight times a night, feeling so anxious and dreading the next day. There were several times when I would throw up before school. Teaching a lesson - something that I love to do now - felt like the worst thing I could do, it felt torturous. I saw myself deteriorating and really I just felt: "what is going on?" I had been really interested in teaching and thought I loved the profession - now it was making me sick.

I ended up taking time off, which was so embarrassing, but sealed the deal in hitting rock bottom. I knew that everyone was aware that I was having a hard time, and that enabled me to get the support that I needed. I took a month off and returned in a different capacity as an assistant teacher. Before, I hadn't had a model of a great first grade teacher, I didn't have observation hours or experience. I felt kind of lost.

Walker's realization that he wasn't ready--hadn't been properly trained, and didn't have the support system he needed--was a turning point. Fortunately for Walker, his students, past and present, and the profession, he was able to step back and start over in building a genuine career. His experience should be a revelation for anyone who thinks teaching is simply a matter of being smart and "with-Are First-Year Teachers Ever Proficient? - Teacher in a Strange Land - Education Week Teacher:

Common Core Phrase: Teachers are ‘Guides on the Side’. Can Jibo Perform that Function? | Missouri Education Watchdog

Common Core Phrase: Teachers are ‘Guides on the Side’. Can Jibo Perform that Function? | Missouri Education Watchdog:

Common Core Phrase: Teachers are ‘Guides on the Side’. Can Jibo Perform that Function?

inShare

Common Core State Standards Initiative is dependent on technology for teaching material, assessing the material and then gathering the data from the assessments into state databases which then can be accessed by various federal agencies and private third parties.  The insistence from the CCSS supporters that schools can still ‘choose their curriculum’ is hollow.  The curriculum will need to align so that the data can be compared from state to state.  If the curriculum doesn’t align, then how can the results from the assessments be valid for state by state comparison?

What would make this transition to ‘sameness’ easier?  Teachers have been taught different teaching strategies via CCSS and are now considered ‘guides on the side’.  They don’t write their own assessments and must teach to the script as their evaluations are tied to the assessment scores of their students.  Many veteran teachers are commenting teaching is no longer a profession.  They might be right.  If you are a ‘guide on the side’ then why not use a robot in the classroom that could perform the functions of following scripted lessons?  If direct instruction is passe and the students are leading their learning process, traditional teachers are not needed to impart knowledge and a cheaper robot might just fit the bill.

Let’s meet Jibo, “The World’s First Family’s Robot:Common Core Phrase: Teachers are ‘Guides on the Side’. Can Jibo Perform that Function? | Missouri Education Watchdog:

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Conservative advocacy group pushes for charter funding

by Alisha Kirby

Model legislation aimed at improving the budgets of charter schools was released earlier this month by the American Legislative Exchange Council, which brings state lawmakers together with business groups from across the country to discuss and actually develop policy proposals that could be taken back to individual state houses and presented formally.

“We support vouchers, school scholarship programs, virtual learning, blended learning, course choice and educational savings accounts – anything that drops under the umbrella of school choice, we promote as an organization – including charter schools,” said Lindsay Russell, director of the group’s Education Task Force.

Even in states like California, where charters are heavily supported by Gov. Jerry Brown, funding disparities between them and traditional public schools can be significant.

In fact, charter schools received an average of $395 less per student than traditional public schools in 2011, according to California’s nonpartisan Legislative Analyst's Office.

Included in ALEC’s draft model legislation are three options for how states should distribute funding to charters, be it through school districts, through a charter’s authorizer or directly to each school. Every option calls for charter schools to receive the same per-student funding provided to traditional schools, and for payments to be made in equal installments on a monthly basis.

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Call me Dr. Klonsky, if you please.

What is it with Chicago and Connecticut? Why do we keeping sending them mopes? First we send them Paul Vallas. Now we’ve sent them Terrence P. Carter. Carter went to Hartford after spending time in Chicago where he served as director and chief academic officer of the Academy for Urban School Leadership (AUSL) , a key part of CPS failed turnaround strategy. Carter was director and chief academic o

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