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Thursday, May 1, 2014

5-1-14 Perdido Street School

Perdido Street School:








At First Glance, A Disastrous Contract Deal Made By Michael Mulgrew, UFT
A few years of zeroes, they threw the ATR's under the bus, they just enshrined merit pay and they are set to allow 200 schools to operate without UFT contractual rules, allowing for longer schools days/years and other "innovations": The new contract would begin, retroactively, on November 1, 2009, and provide retroactive four percent pay raises for 2009 and 2010–comparable to the increas
by reality-based edu... / 25min 

De Blasio, Mulgrew Announce New UFT Contract Deal
And so, we have a deal:Mayor Bill de Blasio, confronting a key challenge of his first year in office, announced what he called a “landmark” labor deal on Thursday with New York City’s largest teachers’ union that officials said would provide a framework for dozens of other outstanding contracts with the municipal work force. The deal, hammered out in marathon negotiations this week, will grant $3.
by reality-based edu... / 1min 


UFT Contract Update - New Work Rules, Including "Expedited Termination Hearings" For ATR's
Not a done deal, but here's an update, via Daily Politics:Details are not final, but three sources briefed on the contract outlined significant changes to work rules and new projects in the city schools that could be covered in the contract, including:-- The city could open dozens of new schools free of some teachers union contract rules and city regulations to help foster innovation. Parent-teach
by reality-based edu... / 18min 


UFT Contract Agreement Has Hitches
Juan Gonzalez details the fissures between the "uniformed" unions and the "civilian" unions over the tentative UFT contract deal:The tentative UFT deal includes two years of 4% retroactive pay increases for teachers, who have been without a contract since November 2009 — longer than nearly all other city unions. Increases in subsequent years would be far smaller — about 1% per
by reality-based edu... / 2h 
4-30-14 Perdido Street School
Perdido Street School: Eva Moskowitz Full Of Crap As UsualEva Moskowitz raised $7.75 million dollars from her Wall Street and corporate backers at the second annual spring fundraiser for Success Academies.Think about that number for a minute - $7.75 million.Then, as she was thanking the governor and the legislature at her spring fundraiser for forcing New York City to either co-locate her schools
by mike simpson / 9h 




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Memo to Barack Obama: The folks who educate teachers would like to share some lessons on positive accountability with you | Hechinger Report

Memo to Barack Obama: The folks who educate teachers would like to share some lessons on positive accountability with you | Hechinger Report:



Memo to Barack Obama: The folks who educate teachers would like to share some lessons on positive accountability with you

Why “value-added metrics” are really just the opposite

By
As the parent of children who attended public schools and an educator who has been a teacher of children, a school leader, and now a teacher-educator and director of a teacher-education program, I welcome the Obama administration’s efforts to ensure that educator preparation programs support their graduates to do the absolute best for the children entrusted to their care.
Beverly Falk
Beverly Falk
How they do this, however, can be helpful or harmful, depending on the kind of information they use to hold programs accountable and on what is done as a result of collecting that information. Examples of this kind of helpful data that can be used for accountability purposes include:
  • Surveys of graduates and their employers about how well-prepared the graduates are for the many different aspects of teaching – this allows faculty to reflect on their strengths and weaknesses and adjust their programs accordingly.
  • Tracking where education-school graduates go and how long they remain in the field of teaching – this could offer insight to how prepared graduates are for the field, as research to date indicates that more poorly prepared teachers drop out more quickly.
  • Statistics about how many teacher education candidates pass performance assessments (used for certification or program completion) that demonstrate how well they can actually teach – this information opens our eyes to new directions for instruction and needs in the classroom. Several such performance assessments have recently been developed and are being used in many states to license beginning teachers – much like the bar exam in law and the medical licensing exam for physicians. Just as passing rates on these tests are reported for professional schools in law and medicine, they could be reported for schools of education, as well.
Data that can be harmful, however, are data that don’t reflect the actual work of teachers and/or programs and that are used punitively rather than for improvement. An example of this kind of accountability practice that is not only unhelpful but also harmful is the Obama administration’s proposal to withhold TEACH grants from students in particular universities on the basis of test scores of students who are taught by their graduates.
The idea of evaluating teacher preparation programs using test scores of students taught by the graduates of those programs, referred to as “value-added measures – VAM,” is fraught with problems, not only for evaluating graduates but also for evaluating individual teachers. The so-called value-added metrics have been found to be both highly unstable – shifting dramatically from year to year, based in large part on who the teachers teach –- and biased against particular groups of teachers, like those who teach new English learners, special education students, and even gifted and talented students who have already hit the ceiling on the grade-level tests (and therefore cannot show growth on those tests). The National Research Council and several research organizations have Memo to Barack Obama: The folks who educate teachers would like to share some lessons on positive accountability with you | Hechinger Report:
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William Rhoden of NY Times writes on Donald Sterling

William Rhoden of NY Times writes on Donald Sterling:





in a piece titled A Verdict on Comments, but the Conversation Isn’t Overand subtitled "Sterling’s Remarks Offer Chance to Examine Racism."
I am not going to offer a great deal of commentary of my own.  The only purpose to this post is to get you to read what Rhoden, an African-American sportswriter, has to offer.  I have seen him commenting on this story on television, and was impressed by his cogency, and thus when I read his column this morning decided if it were not featured in the pundit roundup I would take time to make it more visible.
So if you will, follow below the fold for some sample material and explanation of why I think you should read it.
After the appropriate introductory material, including noting that Silver had to do what he did, given the reaction of both sponsors and players, Rhoden transfers to the main thrust of his article, which can be seen in these two paragraphs:
On one level, the Sterling story is about athletes’ demanding respect from a team owner who does not necessarily want black people at his games or in his “culture.” But more than that, it is a continuing narrative about structural racism in professional sports and beyond. The problem is less about words used in a private conversation and more about institutionalized bigotry expressed in action.
I think about this when I walk into press boxes across the country, with waves of news 
William Rhoden of NY Times writes on Donald Sterling:
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Who Do We Ally With? - Bridging Differences - Education Week

Who Do We Ally With? - Bridging Differences - Education Week:



Who Do We Ally With?

By Deborah Meier on May 1, 2014 9:29 AM

Deborah Meier's conversation with Mike Klonsky continues today.
Dear Mike,
You're right. I'm wrong. Blogs should be short and sweet (or nasty). I see I've corrupted your style with mine. (This refers, readers, to a phone conversation Mike and I had about the proper form of blogging, which I have a hard time with.)
So, I woke up this morning and tossed out my thoughtful original response, and here's an off-the-top-of-my-head alternate reaction, written after reading the latest issue of Education Week (which sponsors this dialogue).
The rapidity with which so-called school reform is moving—without any democratic input, much less input from those who are most affected—is indeed scary! There's not even some phony rhetoric about democracy anymore. And its "job preparation" jargon is completely phony as well. There aren't enough good paying jobs for the currently "well-schooled," regardless of their academic majors. To keep wages from slipping back further (as profits move up) we're watching our democracy slip backward as well. It's truly a "counter-revolution" we're witnessing—with changes undertaken that will be hard to reverse.
Of late, teaching is not a field I'm comfortable seeing my grandchildren or their friends entering. But ... that's too hard for me to acknowledge. But, in fact, more than teaching is at stake. So. How do we fight them?
I'm for making every damned coalition necessary—even if it means switching allies now and then—to slow this down. And that means simultaneously building a movement on behalf of education of, Who Do We Ally With? - Bridging Differences - Education Week:

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The Shriver Report – Raising a Child (and a New Generation) with Autism

The Shriver Report – Raising a Child (and a New Generation) with Autism:



Raising a Child (and a New Generation) with Autism
JACQUELINE KELLY | 05.01.2014
Fotolia_62528455_Mom son field
When asked about the challenges of being a mom to a child with special needs, the first thing that comes to mind is that there is not enough time. Not enough time to laugh, to cry, to teach, to learn, to work, to play. You see, my son Jake is 16, and at 6’2” he seems so capable; he is handsome, intelligent, humorous, loving, and yet he is absolutely not ready to become an adult in 14 months.
Jake is on the autism spectrum. And even now, after years of struggling to form apologies and presentations of the “bright side”, it is still difficult to explain precisely what that means. With the surge of autism awareness in the media, many realize that autism is a spectrum, but what many do not realize is that each person on the spectrum is a kaleidoscope unto their own.
There are vast challenges, not the least of which are schooling and behavior modification. However the biggest challenge by far is not necessarily Jake’s problems fitting into society, but rather society’s problem allowing him to fit in. The daily hurdles in deciding if and when we can take an outing and where we will go and how many people will be there and how much anxiety this might cause is a high-wire algorithm, a decision-making process that vibrates at such a high frequency that it can only be described as a mother’s instinct to protect her young.
It is lonely in our world. Not many welcome Jake into their homes because he can be emotional and because I am “not as fun” when I am looking after him. Along with invitations that ceased were flat-out boycotts where I was told that Jake was not allowed. Of course I was welcome, but only without my child.
Has this been difficult for me? Sure. But even more difficult is his query, “How come I don’t have friends?” Indeed, it is problematic to schedule play-dates with Jake’s classmates because often they do not return messages and being that the apple does not fall far from the autism tree, neither do their parents.
There was a time when I might have written about the incredible The Shriver Report – Raising a Child (and a New Generation) with Autism:
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New Jersey Columnist: Cry for Newark | janresseger

New Jersey Columnist: Cry for Newark | janresseger:



New Jersey Columnist: Cry for Newark

Posted on  by 
Bob Braun was a reporter for 50 years for the Newark Star-Ledger.  These days he blogs about the public school crisis in Newark, New Jersey.  Newark’s public schools have been under state control for two decades.  As in most places, state takeover has never worked in Newark.  Today the strings are being pulled by Governor Chris Christie and Cami Anderson—the state-appointed overseer superintendent, alternatively trained at the Broad Academy and formerly employed by Joel Klein in New York.
Anderson has brought a plan, One Newark, to take over neighborhood schools, bring in KIPP and other charter management companies, and give parents school choice.  Newark has erupted this spring as parents have continued to defend their neighborhood public schools.  This blog has recently covered the school crisis in Newark here, here,  here, and here.
Last week Braun described the botched roll-out of Anderson’s One Newark plan.  By mid-April, Anderson had promised to announce to parents their children’s school choice match assignments for next fall.  But in a letter posted on the school district’s website and notes sent home with children in backpacks, she delayed the assignments until mid-May.  Anderson and her staff have been unable to finalize a transportation plan, there have been problems placing students with special needs, and it turns out many parents did not apply for school choice, which means there must be a second application process.  According to Braun, “One Newarkwas not only unworkable in design but now the state regime running the schools is so incompetent it can’t figure out what to do about the transportation and special education problems it created.”  Anderson “still doesn’t know how to handle the placement of special education students, especially those whose parents might want to go to charter schools that are unprepared to deal with them.”
According to New Jersey Spotlight, just last week in the midst of the school district 
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empathyeducates – My Students Don’t Know How to Have a Conversation

empathyeducates – My Students Don’t Know How to Have a Conversation:







    My Students Don’t Know How to Have a Conversation

    By Paul Barnwell | The Atlantic . april 22, 2014

    “Students’ reliance on screens for communication is detracting—and distracting—from their engagement in real-time talk.”

    Recently I stood in front of my class, observing an all-too-familiar scene. Most of my students were covertly—or so they thought—pecking away at their smartphones under their desks, checking their Facebook feeds and texts.
    As I called their attention, students’ heads slowly lifted, their eyes reluctantly glancing forward. I then cheerfully explained that their next project would practice a skill they all desperately needed: holding a conversation.
    Several students looked perplexed. Others fidgeted in their seats, waiting for me to stop watching the class so they could return to their phones. Finally, one student raised his hand. “How is this going to work?” he asked.
    My junior English class had spent time researching different education issues. We had held whole-class discussions surrounding school reform issues and also practiced one-on-one discussions. Next, they would create podcasts in small groups, demonstrating their ability to communicate about the topics—the project represented a culminating assessment of their ability to speak about the issues in real time.
    Even with plenty of practice, the task proved daunting to students. I watched trial runs of their podcasts frequently fall silent. Unless the student facilitator asked a question, most kids were unable to converse effectively. Instead of chiming in or following up on comments, they conducted rigid interviews. They empathyeducates – My Students Don’t Know How to Have a Conversation:

    My Students Don’t Know How to Have a Conversation
    By Paul Barnwell | The Atlantic . april 22, 2014 Recently I stood in front of my class, observing an all-too-familiar scene. Most of my students were covertly—or so they thought—pecking away at their smartphones under their desks, checking their Facebook feeds and texts. As I called […]
    by empathy / 7h 
    Does the NRA Invite Suicide?
    Police barred the Guardian entry from the room in which the NRA held gun-themed activities for children. Photograph: Karen Bleier/AFP/Getty Images Introductory Essay By Betsy L. Angert | Originally Published at EmpathyEducates. April 27, 2014 Surely, it will not happen to you. The telephone will not ring […]
    by empathy / 18h 
    Girls Do Better Than Boys in School at All Ages and Subjects, Study Finds
    By Maggie Fox | Originally Published at NBCNews April 29, 2014 11:50 am It may come as no surprise to teachers, but girls do better than boys in school, a new study finds. What may be a surprise is that this holds true at all ages, in […]
    by empathy / 19h hide  //  save

    APR 28

    Separate and Unequal: The Charter School Pedestal the Public Can’t Reach
    By Trymaine Lee | Originally Published at MSNBC News. April 25, 2014 06:53 AM—UPDATED April 25, 2014 12:07 PM There are two pathways for children at one of the largest school buildings in Harlem. One route, reserved for a select few, comes with new carpeting, bright paint […]
    by empathy / 2d 

    APR 27

    A Walmart Fortune, Spreading Charter Schools
    Mary Ann Carlson with pupils at a charter school in Washington run by KIPP, an organization aided by the Walton foundation. | Credit Gabriella Demczuk/The New York Times By Motoko Rich | Originally Published at The New York Times. April 25, 2014 WASHINGTON — DC Prep operates […]
    by empathy / 3d 
    The Unbearable Whiteness of the American Left
    (Reuters/Joshua Lott) By Gary Young | Originally Published at The Nation. April 23, 2014 At a panel titled “Grassroots Organizing” at the Network for Public Education conference in Austin in March, an audience member asked the all-white panel for its definition of “grassroots.” The conference had been […]
    by empathy / 3d 
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    West Side erupts. Where’s Cami? | Bob Braun's Ledger

    West Side erupts. Where’s Cami? | Bob Braun's Ledger:



    West Side erupts. Where’s Cami?

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    A screen shot taken of Cami Anderson in San Francisco Wednesday
    A screen shot taken of Cami Anderson in San Francisco Wednesday

      Newark’s West Side High School erupts after a popular teacher is fired. Where is Cami Anderson, the state-appointed superintendent? At yet another education conference, this one in San Francisco, extolling the virtues of charter schools.  
    According to Twitter feeds coming from an individual and a charter school organization, she is in San Francisco at the annual summit of New Schools Venture Fund.  She was conducting a seminar about “re-imagining urban school districts.”  She was reimagining urban school districts while students at West Side High in her district were locked down and, according to some news reports, sprayed with mace.
      Is this why she is paid nearly $300,000 a year by taxpayers from throughout New Jersey? To go to yet another conference?
    The state-appointed superintendent of New Jersey’s largest school district just came back from a conference in Arizona where she managed to offend the people of Newark—again—by belittling their concern about her “One Newark” plan and threatening to unleash her brothers on her critics.
    And Anderson is scheduled to attend yet another conference in July in Colorado at the Aspen Institute where she will make a presentation about a project she is doing for the West Side erupts. Where’s Cami? | Bob Braun's Ledger:
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    Is It Worth Being a Teacher? (Dave Reid) | Larry Cuban on School Reform and Classroom Practice

    Is It Worth Being a Teacher? (Dave Reid) | Larry Cuban on School Reform and Classroom Practice:



    Is It Worth Being a Teacher? (Dave Reid)

    my-career-path-wages

    Dave Reid is a high school mathematics teacher in his third year of teaching.   He received his MA in Education and credential in secondary mathematics and physics from Stanford University in 2011.  Dave spent a quarter of a century in high-tech primarily in the wireless and Global Positioning System (GPS) industries.  He earned a BS degree in electrical engineering from George Mason University, and an MBA in finance and marketing from Santa Clara University.  He also attended the U.S. Military Academy at West Point. He blogs as Mr. Math Teacher and tweets as @mathequality.
    Five years ago, I decided not to continue with my career in high-tech.  After twenty-five years rising, and falling, and rising again, through the ranks in my field, I decided to follow a growing calling to teach.
    Little did I realize, or appreciate in others, that teaching entails great sacrifice.  This from a man whose wife started teaching nearly a decade before him.
    While the sacrifices I detail below are true, and challenging, I still feel that the call to teach outweighs their weight.  The true test will be do I feel the same next week, month, or year, as this job is the most demanding I have ever held, even though I have worked for some demanding high-tech companies, such as Motorola and Qualcomm, and a start-up where I slept on my office floor many nights and weekends.
    A Sacrifice in Income
    As the following graphic illustrates, my compensation dropped precipitously when I elected to follow my calling to teach, and remains much lower than I Is It Worth Being a Teacher? (Dave Reid) | Larry Cuban on School Reform and Classroom Practice:
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    NYC Educator: Eva Moskowitz Collects 7.5 Million, Buys a Governor

    NYC Educator: Eva Moskowitz Collects 7.5 Million, Buys a Governor:



    Eva Moskowitz Collects 7.5 Million, Buys a Governor



    Naturally, I was heartbroken when mean old Bill de Blasio tried to keep his campaign promise and blocked a few Moskowitz academies. After all, if they don't go up, how will all the zillionaires spend their money? What will they invest in? Certainly not public schools that take and keep everyone. Now that Reformy John King has rigged the tests so that 70% of our children will fail, who wants any part of that?

    A much better system is school choice. That's the system in which schools choose their students and send all the others back to those awful public schools. Then you get fabulous test scores and they all look like they suck. Except, of course, when you don't. On those occasions you have to take extreme measure, like dumping an entire cohort. Or two.

    But Eva did very well the other night, thank you very much. After her BFFs spent over 5 million dollars on a television campaign to make sure Bill de Blasio could not do what he elected them to do, they had a big gala, featuring legal expert Campbell Brown, and threw over seven million dollars at her. That's ironic, because these are the very people who say you can't just throw money at a problem.

    But that, of course, refers to lowly public schools. Governor Cuomo, who not only endorsed but spoke at the school-day rally where Eva dragged her hapless kids, can't be bothered to fund them. That's why he so adores the Gap Elimination Adjustment that makes sure we 
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