Monday, May 24, 2010

Colorado Education Law's National Implications

Eliza Krigman writes in Colorado education law may mark a national shift that the new law there that ties teacher evaluations to student test scores "could help build momentum for a national movement that seeks to overhaul how instructors' tenure and pay is earned." Krigman quotes a number of education "reformers" as describing the bill as "significant," "a wholesale change in attitudes toward evaluating teachers," and as showing "leadership in this important reform area." The California Teachers Association, facing pressure to support similar legislation, issued a statement saying, "Rather than focusing on the real problems facing our schools, like larger class sizes and cuts to student programs, this bill simply blames teachers." The CTA argues such legislation "would gut due-process rights and scapegoat teachers during bad economic times."

The Need for a Federal Education Bailout

Walt Gardner's Outrage Over Teacher Unemployment is a good commentary about the need for the federal Keep Our Educators Working Act now pending in the Senate. Writing in response to the market oriented reformers who believe "that at last teachers are facing what others face in the 'real world,'" he writes:

I don't believe that teachers will be more effective when they live in fear of losing their job. Those who choose teaching as a lifetime career do so because they see it as a calling. They are not doing less than they are capable of doing. As a result, threats of firing cannot and will not motivate them to be better. It's a cynical strategy.

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Wednesday, May 26, 2010

Hawaii Furlough Days Over

After shortening this school year by 17 days because of budget shortfalls, Hawaii teachers and the Governor have reached an agreement to end the furlough days next year. A $10 million interest-free line of credit from local banks will cover a gap between what funds Hawaii Governor Linda Lingle was willing to release and what was needed to eliminate the no school days. Although the full $67 million needed to end the furlough days had been approved by the state legislature, Lingle refused to release the full amount, saying the schools could run school without some non-teaching employees.

• The Honolulu Advertiser: Hawaii's school furloughs are over by Loren Moreno
• The Honolulu Star-Bulletin: Schools' furlough days are pau by B.J. Reyes
• The Associated Press: Deal reached to end Hawaii school furloughs by Herbert A. Sample

Just Say No to the Race to the Top

Diane Ravitch's Just Say No to the Race to the Top on the Bridging Differences blog lists her top ten reasons for rejecting the Race to the Top initiative. It may be her strongest indictment yet of the administration's flawed approach to school reform. She concludes her piece:

I hope I am wrong, but I believe that 10 years from now, we will look back with regret and even shame on this misuse of federal power. Books will be written analyzing where these ideas came from and why they were foisted on the nation's public schools at a time of fiscal distress. And we will be left to wonder why so much money and energy was spent promoting so many dubious ideas.

Protests Over NJ Budget Cuts

Ed Harris alerted me to Record crowds flood Trenton to protest against N.J. Gov. Chris Christie, budget cuts. Over 30,000 protesters rallied against Governor Christie's proposed budget cuts to school districts, meal programs, libraries, and welfare. Ed sent along another link that may add some perspective to the mindset of the governor, Gov. Chris Christie accuses N.J. teachers' union of 'using students like drug mules' in school elections:

Gov. Chris Christie today escalated his war of words with the state teachers' union, accusing union representatives of "using the students like drug mules" to carry information about whether their parents planned to vote.

Ed commented, "These 'reformers' seem to be imbued with some weird, perverted sickness." I agree.

Odds 'n' Ends

We're just getting back to "normal" today after the wedding of one of our adult daughters over the weekend. As with many later marriages, Jen and Hutch included their kids in the ceremony. (When Annie and I got married sixteen years ago, our kids, including Jen, stood up with us and were the witnesses for the event!) After weeks of rain, the skies were mostly clear for the ceremony on Sunday, held outside at The Landing in Terre Haute, Indiana, along the banks of the Wabash River. The bride was beautiful and the groom was dashing. The proud father-of-the-bride is showing a few miles, though.

Thursday, May 27, 2010

Fair Use Help

The Library of Congress has a new online professional development interactive, Copyright and Library of Congress Primary Sources. It's an excellent introduction to the fair use doctrine that can allow teachers to use copyrighted material on web pages, printouts, and in other ways without payment of royalties.

The 20 minute tutorial provides an excellent framework for teachers to evaluate their use of LOC and other published materials. I liked that it provides several specific examples of how teachers may or may not use copyrighted material.

Fair use is obviously a sticky wicket for teachers. I've written about it several times over the last year. The LOC interactive is one of the easiest and most understandable tutorials I've seen on the subject. Other LOC online modules currently available include Introduction to the Library of Congress, Analyzing Primary Sources: Photographs and Prints, and Analyzing Primary Sources: Maps.

Talking Points

I sometimes feel like I'm trapped in an episode of The West Wing when I'm writing posts for Educators' News. But the Broader, Bolder, Approach to Education (BBA) has released a set of "talking points" for folks to use when talking or writing members of Congress about the reauthorization of the Elementary and Secondary Education Act. (Don't bother writing the President or Secretary of Education unless you need practice on your writing skills. They're Not Listening!) Along with Diane Ravitch's The Death and Life of the Great American School System, the BPA's list of of talking points is one of the best I've seen. It's brief with just six points addressing competitive grants, accountability, tests, growth models and their abuses, common standards, and the biggie that no politician wants to address:

...the most powerful impediment to higher achievement of disadvantaged children is the lack of social, economic and community conditions that permit them to come to school ready to learn...it makes no sense to hold schools accountable for producing success irrespective of whether those schools have access to these supporting services.

The entire list is a free download (650K PDF document) from the BPA.

Our Courts Now iCivics.org

An eSchool News posting alerted me to the rebranding of the Our Courts site inspired by former Supreme Court justice Sandra Day O'Connor to an expanded version now called iCivics. Free, online role-playing games on iCivics include “Do I Have A Right,” in which the player runs a virtual firm specializing in constitutional law; “Executive Command,” which offers a chance to play president; “Supreme Decision,” about the Supreme Court; “Branches of Power,” which gives the player control of all three branches of government; and “LawCraft,” in which the player is a member of Congress.

From the eSchool News report:

Ted McConnell, executive director of the Campaign for the Civic Mission of Schools, of which O’Connor is co-chairwoman, said that the decline in civics education started before No Child Left Behind, but “studies have shown that the emphasis on raising reading and math scores has had an effect in narrowing the curriculum further.”

Odds 'n' Ends

Nick Anderson's 100,000 teachers nationwide face layoffs isn't much fun to read, but...

Anderson and Rosalind S. Helderman report that Virginia Governor Robert F. McDonnell has "pulled Virginia out of President Obama's Race to the Top school reform derby" because of its mandate to adopt common core standards. McDonnell said, "We can't go back. We've been working on this for 15 years. Our standards are much superior."

The AP's Christine Armario report that the Percentage of high-poverty schools rises over the last decade.

Walt Gardner has joining a growing and welcome chorus of voices decrying union bashing in Teacher Unions in the Dock.

And I'm going to go stick some plants in the ground this afternoon.

Friday, May 28, 2010

Postcard Campaign Starts This Weekend

Get your postcards ready. The Answer Sheet guest blogger Lisa Guisbond of Fair Test relates in Postcards to Mrs. Obama: End high-stakes testing that the point of the campaign is to stress to the Obama Administration that "public school children deserve schools that offer rich, engaging and well-rounded curricula with a full menu of academic subjects as well as art, music, phys ed and recess." She notes that "many public school students are losing access to this kind of education" due to high-stakes NCLB testing and budget crises.

The campaign highlights Michelle Obama's campaign statements:

No Child Left Behind is strangling the life out of most schools.

If my future were determined by my performance on a standardized test I wouldn't be here. I guarantee that.

Guisbond adds, "President Obama could be doing something to address these problems. We hope that by reminding Mrs. Obama of what she said, she will talk to her husband about what needs to be changed."

OLPC to Move to Tablet Computers

One Laptop Per Child’s next move: $100 tablet on eSchool News relates that the organization plans to switch to the Moby tablet. Having been unable to achieve the volume to drop their OLPC laptops to the desired $100 level per machine, the organization that tries to provide computers to third world users hopes "to unveil the tablet device at the annual International Consumer Electronics Show in January."

Odds 'n' Ends

Towns Challenge New Jersey Voters’ Wishes by Winnie Hu tells of New Jersey town councils refusing to make drastic cuts in education budgets after voters rejected those budgets.

And Ed Harris sent a link for the story, Fairfax teacher found not guilty of molesting girl. It's good the teacher was exonerated, but sad that his life will be forever changed by the events described.

Salad for Supper

After uploading the initial posting of Educators' News today, it was time to head for the garden for a truly enjoyable job. Our weather has turned quite warm, so it was time to pick (actually cut) as much lettuce as possible before it bolts (goes to seed and becomes quite bitter tasting). I cut five plants, leaving just two nearly mature plants in the row. That's a lot of lettuce, but we have family close by to share with. Since I still had lettuce transplants on hand, I filled the empty spots with yet more lettuce (in case the weather moderates a bit).

Cleaning lettuce could be an interesting science lesson. All sorts of slugs, bugs, and slime can be found as one strips away the outer leaves of the plant. Our gardens aren't true organic gardens, but we don't spray our lettuce with any chemicals for pest control, so we reveal quite an ecosystem as we clean the plants.

Our lettuce salad for supper tonight will have two kinds of romaine lettuce, some Red Lollo leaf lettuce, and some loosehead iceberg lettuce a well. We're not into all the designer lettuce varieties, but I find that our salads do taste better with several lettuce varieties mixed.

When I took early retirement several years ago, one of the first things I did, after resuscitating a nearly dead Educators' News site, was to open a new site that combines my passions for photography and gardening, Senior Gardening. The site currently carries my garden blog, feature stories about growing various plants, some "how-to" articles such as Building a Raised Garden Bed, and an odd recipe or two. During gardening season, Senior Gardening actually draws about twice the audience Educators' News does!

When I set up the site, I chose a rather large font size as the default to make reading easier for seniors (and composing easier for me). Photos on the site usually link to a much larger version of the same shot.

After recording my lettuce picking and cleaning routine for the site today, I noticed how nice my three-year-old begonia looked (down from its usual hanging spot for a good bottom watering), so I snapped a shot of it as well. For a Wal-Mart end-of-the-season sale plant, it's given me a lot of pleasure.

Gardening is great exercise for seniors, especially rotund, retired schoolteachers like me.

Have a great holiday weekend!