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Thursday, November 14, 2013

11-14-13 With A Brooklyn Accent

With A Brooklyn Accent:





My Short Program for Improving Public Schools in NYC
Here is my short program for improving public education in NYC which I am presenting at BK nation forum tonight1. Cut testing budget in half and use funds to lower class size2. Stop school gradings and school closings3. Triple the number of portfolio schools in NYC exempt from all state tests4. No testing below grade-3. Exemption of ELL and special needs students from state tests5. Withdraw from C
by Mark Naison / 15min 

School Reform: A Discourse Of Lies Parading Behind Honorable Ideals
I have been fighting since I was an 8 year old growing up in a tough Brooklyn neighborhood and the battle to defend public education in the US may be the hardest one I have ever been in. Never has so much big money been amassed behind an effort to control, discipline and regulate the children of this nation. That money,selectively distributed by those who possess it, paralyzes and demoralizes many
5 by Mark Naison / 1h 
11-13-13 With A Brooklyn Accent
With A Brooklyn Accent: Regents Chair Tisch and Chancellor King give a Lesson on How Not to Be a LeaderLast night's forum at Ward Melville HS in Suffolk County once again revealed why Regents Chair Merryl Tisch and Chancellor John King are poorly equipped to lead the public schools of New York State and why their actions, as well as their policies, have triggered one of the largest parent revolts
by mike simpson / 9h 


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11-14-13 the becoming radical | A Place for a Pedagogy of Kindness (the public and scholarly writing by P. L. Thomas, Furman University)

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




empathyeducates – On Children and Kindness: A Principled Rejection of “No Excuses”
empathyeducates – On Children and Kindness: A Principled Rejection of “No Excuses”
by P. L. Thomas / 0min 

Demanding 'no excuses' of schools and 'grit' of poor children... | Get Schooled | www.ajc.com
Demanding 'no excuses' of schools and 'grit' of poor children... | Get Schooled | www.ajc.com
by P. L. Thomas / 3min 

21st Century Numbers Games
21st Century Numbers Games.
by plthomasedd / 1h 

empathyeducates – The Central Issue at the Heart of America’s Growing Education Gap
empathyeducates – The Central Issue at the Heart of America’s Growing Education Gap
by P. L. Thomas / 3h 

11-13-13 Radical Scholarship
Radical Scholarship: Fahrenheit 451 | filmstvandlifeFahrenheit 451 | filmstvandlifeby P. L. Thomas / 1h empathyeducates – What We Know Nowempathyeducates – What We Know Now (and How It Doesn’t Matter)1 by P. L. Thomas / 3h School ™: Resist the Feed, Feed the Resistance | Automated Teaching MachineSchool ™: Resist the Feed, Feed the Resistance | Automated Teaching Machine1 by P. L. Thomas / 3h 11-1
by mike simpson / 9h 
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11-14-13 Perdido Street School

Perdido Street School:










Time To Make The Politicians Understand That They Willl Pay Politically If They Support King, Tisch And The Reform Agenda
Here's how you know the Common Core reforms are going to end up in the graveyard sooner rather than later.At a State Senate Education Committee meeting yesterday, attending senators said they have been receiving more calls, complaints and emails to their office over the Common Core standards than any other issue.Think about that for a minute.The ACA implementation has been a mess and many people h
by reality-based edu... / 0min mark as read  //  save
NYSED Commissioner King Claims Common Core "Allows Students To Be Joyful In Their Learning"
He says it at the end of this video from last night's Common Core meeting in Mineola.Watch the video at Newsday here. He says this after hearing parent after parent tell him and his boss, Merryl Tisch, that their kids are faking illness so that they don't have to go to school because they hate the Common Core so much, after a union leader told him about a new illness called Common Core syndrome th
by reality-based edu... / 2h 


It's Governor Cuomo's Education Reform Agenda
There's a lot of attention aimed at NYSED Commissioner King and Regents Chancellor Merryl Tisch over the state education reform agenda, but let's remember that while King and Tisch are the people out front selling the agenda, in the end this is Governor Andrew M. Cuomo's education reform agenda.Start making calls to Governor Cuomo and let him know what you think about his agenda, how much you disl
by reality-based edu... / 15min 


NYSED Commissioner King Compares Himself To Martin Luther King Jr.
I bet you're thinking, nah, he didn't do that.Yeah, he did - on Tuesday.Jessica Bakeman had the story at Capital NY.Here's the set-up:ALBANY—In a keynote speech to teachers on Tuesday, education commissioner John King began by describing a cartoon about turkeys who revolt to avoid becoming Thanksgiving dinner, and he ended by comparing the state's adoption of the Common Core standards to the U.S.
11 by reality-based edu... / 5h  
11-13-13 Perdido Street School
Perdido Street School: Good News From Tish JamesGood to hear her get very specific about education and where she would like to see the de Blasio administration go:Over the course of the campaign, de Blasio made some of his own educational priorities clear: universal pre-K, a plan to charge well-financed charter school networks to operate in public space, a moratorium on school closures, and the el
by mike simpson / 9h 


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What can be measured can be managed. Does it apply to... | Get Schooled | www.ajc.com

What can be measured can be managed. Does it apply to... | Get Schooled | www.ajc.com:

What can be measured can be managed. Does it apply to education and can it be managed well?  

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By Maureen Downey
Here is an essay by University of Georgia professer Peter Smagorinsky.
 By Peter Smagorinsky
Catapult is an Australian sports analytics company that is used by a host of athletics teams around the world. Their  client list includes the Dallas Cowboys, North Carolina Tar Heels, Japanese Rowing team, and over 300 other teams and organizations that are looking to maximize their competitors’ performances.
The company uses athlete tracking technology that provides data on athletes’ performances. These small GPS devices can be attached to athletic gear, where they can measure, to a fine degree, such aspects of performance as acceleration, force, speed, and other factors that contribute to an athlete’s movements.
 Data collected through these devices can then identify a specific athlete’s strengths and weaknesses. On their website, Catapult claims, “WHAT CAN BE MEASURED, CAN BE MANAGED.”
They say that coaches may “objectively know players are in optimal condition going in to games by monitoring training load and determining who isn’t working hard enough [and] use the 
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When Parents Yank Their Kids Out of Standardized Tests - Alexander Russo - The Atlantic

When Parents Yank Their Kids Out of Standardized Tests - Alexander Russo - The Atlantic:

When Parents Yank Their Kids Out of Standardized Tests



A small but influential group is protesting the role of testing in education today by refusing to let their children participate.

Joe Raymond/AP Photo
Teachers at Seattle’s Garfield High School voted unanimously earlier this year not to give the district’s required reading and math test. They encountered predictable resistance from district officials and harsh criticism from outside observers. Many students and parents, however, sided with the teachers.
The PTA and student government leaders voted in support of the teachers, and many parents sent in “opt-out” letters to exempt their children from testing that they viewed as an inappropriate measure of teachers’ effectiveness. And so when administrators came to class with lists of kids who needed to take the tests during the spring testing period, many students were exempted and others students simply refused to go with the administrators.
There was “the most incredible sense of solidarity in the building,” recalls Garfield history teacher Jesse Hagopian.
Parents who opt out generally do so out of concern that too much time is being taken with testing (and test preparations), that tests are not reliable or valid 
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Shanker Blog » The Wrong Way To Publish Teacher Prep Value-Added Scores

Shanker Blog » The Wrong Way To Publish Teacher Prep Value-Added Scores:

The Wrong Way To Publish Teacher Prep Value-Added Scores

Posted by  on November 14, 2013



As discussed in a prior post, the research on applying value-added to teacher prep programs is pretty much still in its infancy. Even just a couple of years of would go a long way toward at least partially addressing the many open questions in this area (including, by the way, the evidence suggesting that differences between programs may not be meaningfully large).
Nevertheless, a few states have decided to plow ahead and begin publishing value-added estimates for their teacher preparation programs. Tennessee, which seems to enjoy being first — their Race to the Top program is, a little ridiculously, called “First to the Top” — was ahead of the pack. They have once again published ratings for the few dozen teacher preparation programs that operate within the state. As mentioned in my post, if states are going to do this (and, as I said, my personal opinion is that it would be best to wait), it is absolutely essential that the data be presented along with thorough explanations of how to interpret and use them.
Tennessee fails to meet this standard. 
For example, one of the big issues is separating selection (who applies and gets accepted to programs) from actual program effects (how well the candidates are trained once they get there). That is, a given program’s graduates may have relatively high value-added scores, but that doesn’t necessarily mean that the program they attended was thereason for the high scores. It may be that certain programs, by virtue of their ___location (or,
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Open Congress : Major Bill Actions in Education - OpenCongress

Education - U.S. Congress - OpenCongress:





Bill Introduced: H.R. 3325: Technology-Enabled Education Innovation Partnership Act
To award grants to improve equality of access to technology-enabled education innovations and understanding of how partnerships of educational agencies and research institutions design and implement such innovations in ways that improve student outcomes, and for other purposes.
10h 


Bill Introduced: H.R. 3435: Put School Counselors Where They're Needed Act
To amend the Elementary and Secondary Education Act of 1965 to create a demonstration project to fund additional secondary school counselors in troubled title I schools to reduce the dropout rate.
6h mark as read  //  save
Bill Introduced: H.R. 3322: Eliminating Disparities in Diabetes Prevention, Access, and Care Act of 2013
To amend the Public Health Service Act to prevent and treat diabetes, to promote and improve the care of individuals with diabetes, and to reduce health disparities, relating to diabetes, within racial and ethnic minority groups, including the African-American, Hispanic American, Asian American, Native Hawaiian and Other Pacific Islander, and American Indian and Alaskan Native communities.
6h 

Bill Introduced: H.R. 3435: Put School Counselors Where They're Needed Act
To amend the Elementary and Secondary Education Act of 1965 to create a demonstration project to fund additional secondary school counselors in troubled title I schools to reduce the dropout rate.
7h 
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Teachers Designing Instructional Materials: A Unit on the Assassination of Kennedy (Part 1) | Larry Cuban on School Reform and Classroom Practice

Teachers Designing Instructional Materials: A Unit on the Assassination of Kennedy (Part 1) | Larry Cuban on School Reform and Classroom Practice:

Teachers Designing Instructional Materials: A Unit on the Assassination of Kennedy (Part 1)


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As a novice U.S. history teacher in Cleveland (OH) in the mid-1950s, I began designing lessons that contained sources absent from students’ textbooks. While I used the textbook for most lessons, I developed materials about race in the U.S. that would add to (and eventually replace) textbook lessons. Then called Negro history, these lessons and units largely used primary sources (e.g., letters written by black soldiers serving in the Civil War, accounts by former slaves about pre-Civil War life on plantations).
For most of my students (but clearly not all), these new materials and lessons seemed to work, that is, there was more student participation in class discussions, they asked questions, and many wanted to learn more about events and people in the sources I used. They connected events together and began using evidence to support their interpretations of what occurred in the past. I was pleased.
Designing lessons and units, however, while exhilarating, also exhausted me 
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Special Education Budget Cuts, Sequestration, Hurt America's Most Vulnerable Students

Special Education Budget Cuts, Sequestration, Hurt America's Most Vulnerable Students:

Special Education Budget Cuts, Sequestration, Hurt America's Most Vulnerable Students

special education budget cuts



 For American students with disabilities, class sizes are increasing, services are waning and providers are disappearing. More than half of parents who have children with disabilities and responded to a survey say their schools have altered special education services because of declining funding since last year -- in some cases, because of federal budget cuts known as sequestration, according to survey results released Thursday.
Of the 52.7 percent of parents who indicated services for their children had changed, 29.5 percent said services decreased, 32.2 percent said class sizes grew, 27.4 percent reported service providers dropped, and 13.1 percent said budget cuts had led to a change in a student's placement. The survey results were compiled from answers provided by 1,065 respondents, including 1,007 parents, by the National Center for Learning Disabilities, a Washington-based advocacy group.
A Provo, Utah, mother said her son's class size jumped from eight students to 15. 
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Witness tells how charter's documents were doctored - Philly.com

Witness tells how charter's documents were doctored - Philly.com:

Witness tells how charter's documents were doctored



By Martha Woodall, Inquirer Staff Writer
POSTED: November 13, 2013




















PHILADELPHIA A teacher who was on the boards of two charter schools founded by Dorothy June Brown told a federal court jury Tuesday about how statements and actions came to be attributed to her in meeting minutes even though she had not attended the sessions.
Lisa Cabungcal, who taught at Laboratory Charter School in 2000 and left in 2007, was the fourth former employee and phantom board member to testify in the $6.7 million fraud trial who purportedly approved contracts with management companies Brown controlled.
In sometimes tearful testimony, Cabungcal, who was Agora Cyber Charter School's board president, said she signed many documents in that capacity, including the charter granted by the state Department of Education.
Although she said she had trouble recalling details, Cabungcal said she attended some board meetings, but testified that she never presided over a meeting or voted on any resolutions.
She said she prepared the minutes for the evening meetings, despite not having attended them because she needed to pick up her children by 5 p.m.
When Assistant U.S. Attorney Frank Costello Jr. asked Cabungcal how she could take minutes if she had not been at the 
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Children Psychologically Imprisoned?: Whistleblower Reveals High-States Testing Preparation | Cloaking Inequity

Children Psychologically Imprisoned?: Whistleblower Reveals High-States Testing Preparation | Cloaking Inequity:

Children Psychologically Imprisoned?: Whistleblower Reveals High-States Testing Preparation

AFA 200709
I’ll admit it. When A Terrifying Report about Child Abuse in Texas Schools–and in Your State Too first ran about a month ago on Diane Ravitch’s blog— it flew under my radar. The post detailed the allegations of child abuse for the purposes of high-stakes testing at an high-minority, Title I East Austin elementary school near downtown. ThenAngela Valenzuela, a UT-Austin Professor and longtime crusader against the abuses of high-stakes testing, brought it back into the public discourse via an public email recently (Check out her blog Educational Equity, Politics & Policy in Texas). So what has Austin ISD promoted as test preparation in many of its high-minority, Title I elementary schools? Here are some excerpts from Ravitch’s original blog:
Re: Report of Psychological Abuse in An AISD Elementary School
Dear Senator Nelson & HHS Committee,
I am writing to report my observations of psychological abuse in a public elementary school in AISD. I am providing this report to your committee as my professional responsibility and according to the Texas Family Code. The conditions and methods described in this report can be confirmed by mental health experts as factors which are known to contribute to mental illness and criminality when used for conditioning and shaping behavior in young children…
The New 3 R’s System was designed by a former structural engineer who became a principal in AISD. He designed his own program of behavioral engineering and experimented on the general elementary school population of minority students ages 4 – 11. It was a successful and efficient method of getting high performance on tests, and led to his school receiving an Exemplary performance rating on statewide testing and national recognition for his school. This high performance recognition led to the 
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