Monday, May 3, 2010

First, Let's Kill All The...

Beatrice Motamedi writes in Replacing the teacher replacements, "There's a Shakespearean echo in the reform-minded pronouncements about education emanating from the media these days." She relates that the "Let's get rid of the teachers" mantra that seems to underlie the current negative press about teachers and "even President Obama's Race to the Top campaign" sounds an awful lot like Jack Cade's famous line in Henry VI, "First, let's kill all the lawyers." She goes on to say that "replacing teachers is trickier than it looks," with an interesting discussion of the recent Oakland teachers' strike. She extends the discussion to include some of the reasons for teacher absenteeism, and winds up the excellent piece with the sage question, "Who will replace the replacements?"

A Big Change at the DOE

Valerie Strauss reports that the Department of Education has made a big change (that we can believe in?). Now when you get put on hold, you'll hear Conjunction Junction from the old ABC Grammar Rock section of Schoolhouse Rock!

Superintendent Bennett's "Proposal deserves an F"

Indiana Superintendent of Public Instruction Tony Bennett's proposed new grading system for Indiana schools hit a snag when "dozens of teachers and school administrators showed up Friday at the Indiana Department of Education to offer their evaluation of a new plan to issue letter grades for their schools." The Indianapolis Star's Andy Gammill relates in Educators: School grading plan is unfair that "In a passionate hearing, educators from around the state implored state officials to scrap a plan to grade each school on an A to F scale based on students' performance on standardized tests." Objectors noted that under the poorly thought out proposal "the difference between an A rating and a C could be how one or two special-education students fare."

Odds 'n' Ends

Trip Gabriel has an interesting article about charter schools in Despite Push, Success at Charter Schools Is Mixed. Walt Gardner's latest on Reality Check, Do High Scores Mean High Quality, is a good read. D.C. lacks funding for teachers raises, CFO tells council pretty well says it.

And if you've been following the sad story of the murder of Shaw Middle School Principal Brian Betts, D.C. woman arrested in connection with Brian Betts killing relates:

A 46-year-old District woman has been charged with using slain principal Brian Betts's credit cards over the past several days and authorities have issued an arrest warrant charging a second person with Betts's murder, police and law enforcement sources said.

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Tuesday, May 4, 2010 - Teacher Appreciation Day

I wonder how many teachers will know that today is National Teacher Appreciation Day? It's part of National Teacher Appreciation Week, as designated by some entity or other. Since I glossed over doing our irregular Looking Ahead section for this month, I missed the day on The Teacher's Corner May Calendar. I stumbled across the info from a link on An Urban Teacher's Education that led to an item about it on The Dark Side of the Chalkboard.

Arrests Made in Betts Case

Two teens charged in death of D.C. principal by Maria Glod and Dan Morse relates that "Two teenagers were charged Monday in the slaying of well-known D.C. principal Brian Betts, and Montgomery County police said Betts met the suspects on a phone-sex chat line in the hours before he was killed." A third suspect is being held in connection with the case and may be charged yet today. The mother of one of the suspects was also arrested for using Betts's credit cards.

Workshop on Attracting More Students to Computer Science

The University of Virginia's Department of Computer Science is again offering its tuition-free, Tapestry Workshop on July 6-8 for middle school and high school computer science teachers. The workshop focuses on how to attract "more and diverse students into your middle and high school Computer Science classes," and offers free lodging and meals along with a honorarium to assist attendees with time and travel costs.

Duncan's Power Unchecked

Sam Dillon and Tamar Lewin make some interesting observations about the role of Secretary of Education Arne Duncan in Education Chief Vies to Expand U.S. Role as Partner on Local Schools. They quote Chester E. Finn Jr., president of the nonprofit Thomas B. Fordham Foundation in Washington, D.C., as saying, "The White House has really delegated education to Arne. He does not have the short rein so many previous secretaries did." They also cite a survey by the Pew Research Center that "found distrust of government at its highest level in 30 years. Of all federal agencies, the department of education’s approval rating had fallen most sharply, to 40 percent from 61 percent in 1998...the lowest rating of any federal agency, including the Internal Revenue Service."

Despite the many outcries over the administration's misguided education reform plans, Dillon and Lewin note that, "Mr. Duncan says he encounters no public opposition." Now I'm sure They're Not Listening!

Friday, May 7, 2010

Polling Tool

Tom Rademaker of Oak Hill High School in Indiana sent me an email and link about a new, "free," online polling tool. Poll Everywhere allows users to set up limited online poll, such as the sample at right that I created this morning. More extensive services are available for a fee, of course.

Tom was looking for "an inexpensive (free?) student response system (clickers)" when he "stumbled" across the Poll Everywhere site. While he concluded the tool probably wouldn't fit his needs, he also saw some interesting possibilities with it. Polls can be embedded in web pages or in PowerPoint presentations. Tom successfully embedded a Poll Everywhere question on one of his Moodle courses. The PowerPoint feature seems pretty cool, as such embedded polls can dynamically update and can be used for audience questions. People may respond by "sending a SMS text message, using a smartphone's web browser, sending a 'tweet' on the Twitter service, or on a computer via the web."

I can see more opportunities for using this audience response system at workshops or conventions than in the classroom. But it's an interesting idea.

Odds 'n' Ends

Deborah Meier and Diane Ravitch's Bridging Differences blog on Education Week remains one of my daily reads. Deborah's What All Kids Need today is a good one. Walt Gardner's Gifted Children Are Stepchildren in School Reform on his Reality Check blog adds some perspective to the school reform discussion. Walt argues that our unrelenting obsession with bringing low-performing students up to proficiency "has hurt gifted students, who deserve at least as much attention."

This has been a "short week" for me on Educators' News. Early in the week while clearing some scrub trees and wild rose bushes that were overtaking a nice volunteer apple tree, I really overdid things. So today is the first time in days that my back will allow me to sit at the computer for any length of time. Hopefully by Monday, I'll be back to normal.

Have a great weekend!

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