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On NCLB (ESEA) Reauthorization No, it's not Acronym Monday! A weekend article in the Washington Post by Nick Anderson, Educators await Obama's mark on No Child Left Behind (NCLB), stirred up more online comments than I've seen there before. Anderson suggests that "time is growing short" for reauthorization of the Elementary and Secondary Education Act (ESEA) "if Obama aims for action before midterm elections." Anderson quotes Bob Wise, president of the Washington-based Alliance for Excellent Education, as saying, "In many ways, [No Child Left Behind] is a compact disc in an iPod world. It's still around, but it is in desperate need of an upgrade." Green School Mireya Navarro and Sindya Bhanoo's Teaching Green, Beyond Recycling in the New York Times tells of the Green School in Williamsburg, Brooklyn, "which laces an environmental theme into most of its coursework." Navarro and Bhanoo write that students at the Green School "are encouraged to delve into local issues that may affect them and their families, like contamination in waterways like the Gowanus Canal, water quality or the razing of low-scale housing." They quote school co-director Karali Pitzele as saying, "You can’t have a kid in a violent neighborhood and say, 'Let’s talk about the polar bear.'" Is There Something in the Water in LA? Is there something in the water in LA, or was there a special section in the Los Angeles Times yesterday on charter schools? Five related articles about charters appeared there yesterday! That may not be all that surprising, as today is the day applications are due for groups who wish to take over LAUSD schools as charters.
Odds 'n' Ends Alyson Klein's Stimulus Spending: A Bright Spot tells how Arkansas is using stimulus funds. The state actually increased funding for education this year, in part because of a school finance lawsuit, and is now able to use federal funds to renovate and modernize facilities, purchase technology items for the classroom, and pursue recruitment and retention programs to keep highly qualified teachers. Schools Chancellor Michelle Rhee is cutting out financial support for D.C. educators working to win certification from the National Board for Professional Teaching Standards (NBCT). Bill Turque writes in Teacher certification prestigious but too costly, Rhee says that Rhee found it " difficult to justify the annual expenditure of about $600,000 because so few teachers were making it through the process." Previously, the "school system supplied technical and financial support to board candidates, including video cameras to record classroom lessons and financial support to defray the $2,500 application fee. Those who won certification received a $4,000 stipend." Reader Ed Harris sent along a link related to Rhee's canceling of NBCT support, Honored in February, Sacked in October. It tells of a teacher who had received certification by the National Board for Professional Teaching Standards and was riffed by Rhee last fall. Andy Gammill writes in IPS cites poor performance as 22 pulled from teaching that the Indianapolis Public Schools have begun "an effort to shore up teaching in the state's largest district." Twenty-two teachers "who failed to control the students in their classrooms and others who had not mastered the material they were teaching...will be given additional training this semester and then given a final chance next year to have a classroom while on probation." I've spoken out here many times against the national rhetoric of "getting rid of bad teachers." It's a witch hunt by those outside of education looking for a quick fix. But if done right, efforts such as the one in IPS could help. The biggest problem in letting sub-par teachers attain tenure has always been school administrators not doing their job of mentoring, nurturing, and evaluating beginning teachers. Probably every reader of this page has had the misfortune of having to teach alongside a "bad teacher." When I write those words, faces and names from the past come to mind. But the movement to remove weak teachers, or better yet, to help them attain an acceptable level of competency, needs some definition of what is expected of teachers. Often it's the intangibles that make a teacher great. And when I'm on my high horse mentally judging others, I remember times when a parent or student revealed to me how a supposedly bad teacher changed a child's life for the better.
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American Federation of Teachers President Randi Weingarten delivered a major address this morning at the National Press Club on "New Approaches to Teacher Evaluation and Labor-Management Relationships." Noting early in her speech that some "have chosen...to fixate on the supposed silver bullet of doing away with 'bad teachers,'" Weingarten stated:
Weingarten proposed four approaches she believes will help "develop and support great teachers, and make new progress for our schools and our children." They include:
Speaking of teacher evaluation, Weingarten stated, "The goal is to lift whole schools and systems: to help promising teachers improve, to enable good teachers to become great, and to identify those teachers who shouldn’t be in the classroom at all." She also quoted West Virginia teacher, Melissa Armann, as saying, “I have put my heart and soul into the education of these children daily for over 20 years. I know what works. Just respect me enough to ask.” Notable in the speech was the inclusion of the use of student test scores as one component of constructive teacher evaluations, "NOT by comparing the scores of last year’s students with the scores of this year’s students, but by assessing whether a teacher’s students show real growth while in his classroom."
I'm sure there will be lots of commentary on the speech available later today or tomorrow. But the speech itself is fairly brief, to the point, and a good one for teachers to read. About the only thing that could have made me happier about such a speech was if the NEA's Dennis Van Roekel had joined in support of the proposals. "No Thanks" on Indiana Race to the Top Proposal Sue Loughlin reports in the Terre Haute Tribune-Star that the Vigo County School Board (Terre Haute, Indiana) has chosen not to participate in Indiana's Race to the Top grant proposal. In Partnership Agreement Rejected by School Board, Loughlin writes that "details of the state’s grant proposal have not yet been released," but local corporations' intent to participate had to be in to the state today! "While Indiana Department of Education officials have said that school districts that sign and submit the agreements can later back out if they don’t want to participate, School Board member Guille Cox said that that’s not specified in the agreement." The School Board rejected partnering in the state's proposal by a 6-1 vote. "Too many unknowns about the state’s proposed grant application" and teacher and principal evaluations being tied to ISTEP test scores produced agreement of a majority of the Board, Superintendent Dan Tanoos, and the Vigo County Teachers Association. Odds 'n' Ends Diane Ravitch's The Secrets of Charter School Success on the Bridging Differences blog is an excellent read about recent studies on charter schools. She notes that charters were originally "a sort of R&D program to help public education" not meant to compete with regular public schools. She adds that "the founders' vision has been replaced by a totally different conception of charters. Now they are the leading edge of an effort to replace public schools and to oust teachers' unions." Time Magazine's Michael Lemonick has a couple of interesting, recent space stories online that might prove useful in the classroom:
Despite the sensational and possibly misleading headline for the second story, it's really an interesting update about the search for exoplanets. Flocabulary? A CBS posting, Hip-Hop + Education = Flocabulary, led me this morning to the Flocabulary web site. Reminiscent of the old School House Rock videos, "Flocabulary creates original hip-hop music and standards-based curricular materials to teach academic content for grades 3-12." There are materials for: And, it's available via Amazon While Flocabulary is a commercial program, their site does have a page of Free Teacher Resources. The program looks to be pretty cool! And yes, my spellchecker went nuts on the paragraphs above! Flocabulary, Flocabulary, Flocabulary...ding, ding, ding. Response to Weingarten Speech There really wasn't as much response across the web to AFT President Randi Weingarten's speech as I'd expected. Straight news coverage included:
Articles with commentary included one by Bob Herbert of the New York Times written before the speech was delivered. Herbert had spoken to Weingarten over the weekend. He related that "she told me in an interview over the weekend that she wants to 'stop this notion' that her membership is in favor of keeping bad teachers in the classroom." The Washington Post talked to Segun Eubanks, the NEA's director of teacher quality, and was told, "We have virtually identical policies in many ways. You find a lot of alignment. Clearly, how test scores may or may not be used is a place where many of our affiliates have a significant amount of concern." Andy Rotherham gives an "inside the beltway" take on the speech on Eduwonk in The Weingarten Speech. And Steven Sawchuck's AFT Chief Vows to Revise Teacher-Dismissal Process on Education Week has the basic news coverage with a bit of analysis as well. The Post's Jay Mathews also penned a quick related posting today, Mr. Obama: Kill NCLB, in which he suggests "national standards - with a uniform national test." Odds 'n' Ends Gordon John Stevens has released another update to his new puzzle creator, Magnum Opus. Texas Drops Out of Race to the Top Competition
Houston superintendent Terry Grier wasn't happy with the decision. He said, "I’m disappointed. It was potentially a lot of money for our state. I'm not one to sell my soul for money, but I have 100,000 kids in Houston who don’t read at grade level, and I don't agree with people who say resources don’t make a difference."
Bubbles Are Full of Air Debra Viadero's Experts Urge Earlier Start to Teaching Science on Education Week tells of a group "crafting a 'Young Scientist' curriculum series" to improve preschool science teaching. She tells of preschoolers standing around the sand-and-water table in Barry Hoff’s Head Start classroom "dipping and pouring water through tubes and funnels, squeezing it through turkey basters, and learning, in the process, something of what it’s like to think like scientists." Hoff later may ask, "What did you do with the funnel...or how did you get the water in the tubes? Did you notice any bubbles?" Nancy Clark-Chiarelli, a principal research scientist at the Education Development Center based in Newton, Massachusetts, and her team are creating teaching guides and a professional development program focused "on teaching children about the natural world and developing their knowledge of physical science through building structures and water play." Team member Cindy Hoisington commented, "Kids don’t know bubbles are full of air, and teachers are kind of shocked because they thought their kids knew that." Midwest Moodle Moot
I had to look up this use of "moot" before making this posting:
Educators' News isn't becoming a bulletin board for education conferences, but this one is near and dear to my heart, as my last paying job wound up with me creating and teaching an online course on how to use Moodle in the classroom. Moodle is a free, open source Course Management System (CMS) designed to help educators create effective online learning communities. It's become quite popular with teachers here in Indiana (and elsewhere) who wish to establish public or private online classroom communities. At schools and districts that have a Moodle server, teachers may post assignments, either static or interactive, and have the due date automatically transferred to their community calendar. They may also post entire units or lessons, quizzes, questionnaires and surveys, and web pages. Moodle also includes online forums, discussions, and chats that teachers effectively use for a variety of classroom skills. Moodle is an acronym for Modular Object Oriented Developmental Learning Environment, although the "M" originally stood for "Martin’s", for developer Martin Dougiamas (Martin's Object-Oriented Dynamic Learning Environment). Something related I've written about previously is the Linux for Education site. Moodle users looking for ideas or sample courses they can copy to their own server and play with will find the site a gold mine of information. Odds 'n' Ends U.S.News & World Report asked four experts to offer lessons that can be drawn from eight years of the No Child Left Behind law. Margaret Spellings, Randi Weingarten, Michael Cohen, and Andy Rotherham offer their views in Four Takes: Learning From No Child Left Behind. It's an interesting and informative read, but I wish they'd included at least one career educator, say a Walt Gardner, in the group. Education Week today released its annual Quality Counts report card on American public education. Help for Haiti If you're looking for a link of where to contribute to help victims of the catastrophic earthquake that struck Haiti, the White House Haiti Earthquake Relief page is one place to look. It contains information for making a quick contribution to the Red Cross via a text message and other traditional online contribution links. Doctors Without Borders is another organization that comes to mind. The New York Times Learning Network has a page of Resources for Teaching and Learning About the Earthquake in Haiti. Duncan Speech at N.C.A.A. Convention Secretary of Education Arne Duncan had some harsh words for the N.C.A.A. and professional sports yesterday in a speech at the opening session of the N.C.A.A. convention. Katie Thomas relates in Education Chief Criticizes N.B.A. And the N.C.A.A. that Duncan "called for stricter consequences for college teams that do not graduate their athletes and said the N.B.A.’s age-minimum policy sets up young athletes for failure." Disabled Students Run School Store Kristen Cates has a great story in the Great Falls Tribune, East Middle School students keep stores running. She tells of students with disabilities successfully running the school's two student stores. DC Loses Another Good Teacher The Reflective Educator has an excellent posting, What Makes a Great Teacher, about the realities of teaching on his Filthy Teaching blog. He writes:
Sadly, another posting, Checking Out, tells that he has given up on making a difference in the DC Schools and tendered his resignation mid-year. The kids didn't run him out. A school administration fixated on test scores that ignored the total child got to him. Also see Bill Turque's "Filthy" teacher gives up on DCPS. Odds 'n' Ends I was really disappointed this morning when I sought out Jay Mathews and Valerie Strauss's Best Education Blogs for 2010. Since Jay and this year's partner, Valerie, had allowed nominations for the review in their comments section of previous articles, I had gone through the lists and visited the nominated sites. In November and December, I shared a few comments here about what I found to be some really delightful and informative blogs. But when I found this year's listing, it included just a link (some broken links), and possibly a few words of description of the blog. I expected more, and I think the bloggers deserved better treatment. A New Education Blog on the Washington Post Bill Turque, who has covered the D.C. Schools for some time, began a new education blog on Monday on the Washington Post, D.C. Schools Insider. I didn't pick up on it until I read his posting Thursday about the writer of the Filthy Teaching blog resigning mid-year from DCPS. (Note that "Filthy Teaching" was slang the blogger's students used to mean awesome or great teaching.) Bill seems to do a good job of objectively covering the difficult Washington, D.C., education beat. He doesn't seem to get sucked in by either Chancellor Michelle Rhee or the Washington Teachers Union and brings some pretty impressive writing credentials to the job. Credit Card Companies Profit from Crisis Like many people, I went online recently and made a contribution to a charity helping with Haiti rescue operations. I didn't think about the credit card fee that would be deducted from my contribution until I received an email this morning from the MoveOn organization. They're sponsoring a petition to urge credit card companies to waive their fees on charitable contributions. The Huffington Post raised the issue Thursday in As Wallets Open For Haiti, Credit Card Companies Take A Big Cut. They wrote in part:
Andrew Martin wrote in Some Card Fees Waived for Haiti Aid Thursday:
The word "some" still bothers me in the quote above, so I signed the MoveOn petition! Back On Task I got a little off task above, so I'll get back to education, well, sort of, with a few links below. Students defy odds to earn diplomas by Middletown Journal staff writer Marie Rossiter is a good story about the LifeSkills charter school that helps "students ages 16 to 21 who have dropped out, or are at risk of dropping out, of traditional high school" with a " dropout recovery program." (Note: LifeSkills is a commercial venture operating if five states.) The title of Superintendents say they need resources, flexibility to transform schools from eSchool News pretty well tells its story. Let’s Clean Up College Basketball and Football is a write-up of the central theme of Arne Duncan's blast on college athletics from the Department of Education. Shuttle Sale
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©2010 Steven L. Wood