mathdittos2.com
...dedicated to...hmmm, we're still figuring that one out... |
|
Howard Blume has an interesting article in the Los Angeles Times about groups of classroom teachers who hope to "take advantage of a reform strategy, approved in August, that envisioned bringing in privately operated charter schools to set the standard for a school system widely seen as dysfunctional." In Teachers seek control at up-for-bid L.A. Unified schools, Blume relates that several groups of teachers, some elementary and some secondary, are preparing to submit proposals by next Monday to take over control of their schools as charter schools. If accepted, some of these school proposals should be interesting to follow, as I think most of us who've been in the classroom any length of time at all have at some time considered what we'd do if we ran a private or charter school. Odds 'n' Ends A New York Times article, Gauging the Dedication of Teacher Corps Grads by Amanda Fairbanks, talks about a study of the civic involvement of Teach for America personnel. I found some of the data in the article interesting: "Teach for America is nearing its 20th anniversary. Of its 17,000 alumni, 63 percent remain in the field of education and 31 percent remain in the classroom." Bill Turque's Rhee vows to shield D.C. teachers, supplies amid budget cuts caught my eye this weekend. An article about Chancellor Rhee saving jobs after just laying off over 200 teachers last October seems a bit incongruous to me. While Turque pretty much gives Rhee a pass in this article, the reader comments indicate folks in the D.C. area aren't fooled a bit by Rhee's statements.
Send Feedback to |
|
Race to Top Viewed as Template for a New ESEA Education Week's Race to Top Viewed as Template for a New ESEA relates that the initiatives in the Race to the Top grant program are going to be much of what is proposed by the Administration for the reauthorization of the Elementary and Secondary Education Act (ESEA). Alyson Klein writes that Carmel Martin, assistant secretary for planning, evaluation, and policy development at the U.S. Department of Education, told Education Week reporters in an interview late last year, “I think some of our big-picture goals are, first, to carry through the reform agenda that we see in Race to the Top and other [recovery act] programs, to carry that forward through ESEA." An email yesterday from the folks who run the Broader, Bolder Approach to Education (BBA) campaign contained the following report on BBA meetings with Secretary of Education "Arne Duncan and his staff, and with Congressional staffers:"
From their email, it appears that Duncan is locked in on more high stakes testing to rank schools and teachers. I shared some of my views last week on where I think Duncan is on school "reform." Teachers I have contact with are appalled at the premise that more testing, ranking teachers pretty much solely on those scores, and adding merit pay to the mix will do much by themselves to improve kids' learning, if at all. It appears that no one in the Obama Administration or the Department of Education is willing to address some of the root causes of lack of learning in some urban and rural school districts. As stated by the BBA: "More than a half century of research has documented a powerful association between social and economic disadvantage and low student achievement." It would appear that President Obama and Secretary Duncan don't appreciate that research. Odds 'n' Ends Diane Ravitch's The New Era of Greed on the Bridging Differences blog gives a good look at what we're getting ourselves into with the Obama/Duncan school "reform" plan. She writes, "It has been my experience that the overwhelming majority of teachers are working as hard as they know how; they will be happy to get more money for their efforts, but they have not been holding back and waiting for a bonus to spur them to greater effort." She quotes Checker Finn and Rick Hess as writing, "The Race to the Top has become a red light district for lusty charlatans and randy peddlers." After I read Andy Gammill's UIndy effort will focus on middle schools in the Indy Star, I still didn't know much more than the University of Indianapolis picked up $7.5 million from the Lilly Endowment. He refers to a plan "to create a middle school network to share their best practices" and "helping schools collaborate and share what they have done, and also providing access to research and national resources that could help schools." I'm really hoping the article is just an example of Andy having a bad reporting day, and not another grant that constructs a web facade while paying for the director's trips to conferences to present "papers" on the program. Although it's way to late to do any good for Annie and I (our kids are grown), Nick Anderson writes in Federal student financial aid application streamlined that a new, online version of FASFA (Free Application for Federal Student Aid) has been streamlined with "fewer questions and a more user-friendly interface." Maya T. Prabhu writes in Open courseware gains momentum on eSchool News that a bill has been introduced in Texas "that provides for the adoption and use of open-source textbooks in the state" beginning next fall. The story tells of large savings to schools that will occur from using online textbooks, but has little in it about the continuing need for some good, old-fashioned hardback textbooks for some. I'm thinking of a first-grade reading group sitting around sounding out words on their Kindle Wow! This has really been a negative posting. But maybe the news on Science@NASA that "NASA's Kepler space telescope, designed to find Earth-size planets in the habitable zone of sun-like stars, has discovered its first five new exoplanets" will brighten your day. Autism Identification in California NPR's Jon Hamilton tells about the results of a University of California, Davis, study that found "Clusters of children diagnosed with autism tend to occur in places where parents are older, more educated, and white." In Autism 'Clusters' Linked to Parents' Education, Hamilton notes that no links to "local pollution or chemical exposures" were found. Researchers believe "that areas in California with apparently high rates of autism spectrum disorders are probably just places where parents are more likely to obtain a diagnosis for their child."
I think I'd jump in a minute for the NPR Radio, but Annie and I just replaced our aging clock radio with an iHome Dual Dock Alarm Clock NASA's New Images NASA is putting out a bit of first of the year razzle dazzle. Spectacular new images were released yesterday from both the Hubble Space Telescope and the Spitzer Space Telescope. The image below captured by the Hubble Space Telescope's new infrared Wide Field Camera 3 "shows a rich tapestry of 7,500 galaxies stretching back through most of the universe's history."
A Spitzer Space Telescope image of the "nearby" Small Magellanic Cloud "gives astronomers an opportunity to study the entire life cycle of stars up close, as well as the different environments in which stars form."
Odds 'n' Ends I'm taking my third try at filling out forms to cash in a TIAA-Cref account today. I've done this stuff before (successfully) with other companies. And I'm not a dummy. But TIAA-Cref seems to delight in making things far more difficult than is really necessary. If you happen to serve on you school's annuity (insurance) committee, you might want to make a mental note that however good a company sounds going in, it's getting your money out that counts. TIAA-Cref doesn't make the grade in my opinion. Another STEM Initiative President Obama announced an initiative yesterday to prepare more than 10,000 new math and science teachers over the next five years. In White House announces $250M effort for science and math teachers, Nick Anderson relates that the $250 million public-private effort will also "provide on-the-job training for an additional 100,000 [teachers] in science, technology, engineering and math." Odds 'n' Ends
A Wall Street Journal article tells about schools diverting "millions of dollars of special-education money" to regular education "to save jobs and valuable programs that benefit a wide range of students." It's a snowy day here in west central Indiana. We have just a few inches of snow on the ground so far, but it's enough that we're back to dial-up internet access for this brief posting. Those glitzy ads on television that push satellite internet don't mention "rain" fade, which is what we're experiencing now.
Friday, January 8, 2010 - TGIF
A posting on the HECC listserv today alerted me to an old, but excellent article by Greg Toppo, iPhone applications can help the autistic. Greg tells about how the Proloquo2Go (web site, app store Teachers Should Be Seen and Not Heard Teacher-of-the-Year Anthony Mullen has a blog posting on the Teacher Magazine site, Teachers Should Be Seen and Not Heard, that pretty well sums up what many of we teachers are feeling about the national reform discussion. Mullen sat through a luncheon meeting "listening to a group of arrogant and condescending non educators disrespect my colleagues and profession." After the "three state governors, one state senator, a Harvard professor and author, and a strange little man who assumes the role of group moderator" were done trashing teachers, Mullen was asked what he thought. He offered the analogy and conclusion:
Way to go, Anthony! It's All Odds 'n' Ends Today Well, that's what I thought this morning when the section below was all I could find that was worth posting. Now, after having cleared the snow drifts from our driveway again, I've found two gems (above) that I think are fantastic! This week winds up with California Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger signing bills that enable tying student test results to teacher evaluations and other "reforms" that will allow the state to compete in the Race to the Top federal grant program. Indiana has moved forward in their teacher certification revisions to require secondary teachers to major in the subject they will teach, along with a minor in education.
Maybe I should just get a beast of a machine like the Poulan Pro Gas Powered 2-Stage Snow Thrower With Electric Start Have a great weekend!
Ads shown on this site do not represent an endorsement or warranty of any kind of products or companies shown. Ads shown on archive pages may not represent the ads displayed in the original posting on Educators' News. |
!
. It's a stand alone internet radio that has "an exclusive NPR menu, allowing users to easily find, search and bookmark NPR stations, podcasts, and content, by topic or by program." It also doubles as an alarm clock.
our kids gave us for Christmas (dual dock for his and hers iPhones). 
pictured at left!
| Previous Week |
©2010 Steven L. Wood