December 1, ed.

I loved the picture of Fernando Chavez on the cover. How cute!

The article "Class--Size Limits Targeted for Cuts" is just another example that if you skew the right data you can make it say anything. I would be willing to say that you would have to be a "complete moron" to honestly believe that class size doesn't matter. Now having said that, it is possible to have a class of 60 successfully taught by 4 full time teachers if it's done right. That still uses the same personnel recourses that four 15 student classes require. I thought it especially counter intuitive for the Japanese and Korean classes of 33 and 36 respectively to be thrown in as some kind of example of large classes are working just fine. Talk about apples and oranges--or more like lizards and chimpanzees! Clearly these are homogeneous classes in cultures that prize self-discipline, conformity and respect for your teachers. And you can bet that they are using a direct instruction model not a cosntstructivist one. That doesn't even remotely resemble classes in this country.
Whenever you have to use completely unrelated examples to try to support an argument--you know it's weak.

The article "Calif. Supreme Court Upholds In-State Tuition Law" is just another example of supporting the unsupportable. If it is illegal to be in this country without documentation, than any argument that supports benefits for such persons are clearly flaunting the law. If a person is discovered to be in this country illegally there is only one legally supportable action--deportation. To somehow suborn illegal acts is morally and ethically wrong. If we decide to change the law that makes them "legal" great that we can proceed to provide them with benefits afforded to "legal residents".

November 17, ed.

The article "Media Leader Tapped to Head N.Y.C. Schools" really got my "goat". The notion that any business leader is somehow magically qualified to run a major city school system is just arrogant. Schools aren't just another business. If you don't have an intimate knowledge of the school system gained through going through the ranks of being a teacher and an administrator, I don't think you have any business running a school system.

This is in response to an advertisement in this issue: Speaking to the issues: Creating remedial tracks for"the Good of the Kids" I think the writer "hit it on the head" when he said that if you are going to eliminate remedial classes that you have to "provide students with intensive intervention and support instead. But just dumping remedial students into a regular classroom without that does a disservice to the teacher, those students, and the rest of the students. Students that are clearly behind the level of other students in a class aren't just going to catch up by "osmosis". And to expect that a teacher is just magically come up with the extra time to service their needs without help is just another recipe for failure.

November 10, ed.

"The Same Thing Over and Over" Laments  that instead of tacking on new solutions to the same old structure like mayoral control, or charter schools, or merit pay, that the whole structure  is antiquated--which it surely is. However, precious little is mentioned  about how reinvent the structure or what it should like. It seems a lot of articles complain about the problems or the solutions without actually offering workable alternatives. That is one of the reasons things never seem to change much.

The "Friends to Teachers at The U.S. Department Of Education" article seemed more about creating PR and not "ruffling feathers" at the Dept. than the kind of insightful investigative reporting I would have liked.
I think it's great that a few teachers get to spend some time at the department but I would think that a whole lot more teachers should be consulted about policy before it is instituted. It's ridiculous that a bunch of non teaching bureaucrats should be making he decisions that effect education in this country.

Ed Week Nov. 3rd

"Obama Plays Cheerleader for STEM" This article focuses on the effort the President is making to keep eduction in the spotlight. It is easy with all the issues facing him, many with much more apparent urgency to push education into the background. It's nice to see Obama not doing that. Of course their are the cynics who say he's only doing it because it's a "soft" issue that can make him look good. I don't believe Obama is that kind of person. Everything he and his wife have said and done make it clear that education and young people in general are very important to them. I just hope that members of both parties wake up and start paying attention to the importance of education in this country. If we just spent 10 percent of the money and effort that we have wasted on stupid and unnecessary wars since World War II we would clearly have the best educational system in the world, with a literacy rate above 90 percent and a high school graduation rate of over 80 percent.

Ed Week Oct. 27 ed.

There was an interesting article on pg. 5 "Teacher Speech Rights on Curriculum Rejected" According to the article a teacher was fired because of some reading selections she made that were controversial. It is interesting that politics as in school boards still control much of what is taught in the classroom. Ironically, books seem to be the source of much of the controversy that develops. In a nation that is reading less and less and with many students who have trouble with reading it seems to me we should be encouraging reading books--even if we don't agree on the content. It's not like the problem has to do with pornography or books that promote hate and violence, as much as it is with what is politically popular in a particular community. Of course objecting to books like Siddhartha or Catcher in the Rye is just plain silly and ignorant; other books like Heather Has Two Mommies are a little more challenging. Books that involve subject matter on the cultural fringe should be included in curriculum--as long as they are age appropriate and serious discussion is encouraged. Unfortunately, many points of view are either suppressed or endorsed by the school system when they should be simply presented and discussed as point of view. This would encourage critical thinking.

"Small Victories, 20 Years Later" on pg. 18 really piqued my interest. It sound like and excellent book and I'm going to check it out at the library as result of reading this article. I like to hear about real people that are busily going about their business trying to do the best that they can. I think we spend way to much time hero worshipping a few super stars--when if fact it's the people in the trenches day in and day out that really deserve our admiration.

October 20, Issue

"Student-Tracking Devices Save Money, Raise Concerns"

I think its interesting that Texas is often the place where things are done that would absolutely not be allowed anywhere else. Any kind of tracking devices that are used on people, who have not been convicted of a crime, are clearly a violation of the right to privacy. If our schools are becoming so large or so lax that they can't keep track of their students by conventional means, that's a problem. One that should not be solved by depriving students of their civil liberties. Also, it is a symptom of a larger problem which is the depersonalization of the school experience. This article claims that the schools are saving attendance money by proving that students are on school grounds, even though they are marked absent by teachers for not being in class where they should be. The school doesn't seem at all concerned by the fact that the students aren't in class where they should be--as long as there somewhere on campus and the school can get money for them being there. That seems to be a violation of the spirit of the law that requires them to be in school getting an education for the school to receive federal funds. After all who knows what their doing when they are supposed to be in class. What a disgrace!

"Superman' and Solidarity" presents and interesting slant on the film and the reality of the options. I would find it hard to believe that anyone can question the quality of education being dispensed in our public schools.
It is also true that one of the problems may be the quality of some of the teachers in the system. But this is by no means the only reason our schools are in the shape their in. It's funny lately I've read some articles that suggest that class size makes no appreciable difference in how well students do in school. I guess you can come up with statistics that will support just about anything.
Personally, I think class size, the variety of demands on schools to be "everything to everyone", the desire that everyone should pass and be made to feel they have done well, are just some of the reasons that are to blame for our schools failures, of just a few bad teachers.

Ed Week Oct. 13 ed.

http://www.nea.org/home/40991.htm
This is a link to an interesting article I read last week in an NEA publication it talks about the success Finland is having with their educational system and why.

This week I will focus on two "Ed Week" articles.
"Raising Expectations is Aim of New Effort" This article talks about how teachers expectations become self-fulfilling prophecies for students. The article refers to it as the "bigotry of low expectations". One of the interesting aspects of this program presented by the Urban Alliance is that teachers and students were involved in professional-development workshops. Definitely, a way for students and teachers to see each other in a different light. One quote that struck me was" Honestly, as teachers, we can shut them(children) out of the learning process".

The second article "School Discipline Inequites Become A Federal Priority",
parades the same tired statistics about how mainorities are unfairly represented in expulsion and suspension rates. This reminds me of the statistics about the criminal justice system. The sad truth is that a large percentage of criminal or bad behavior conduct is perpetrated by the minority populations involved. It has nothing to do with the per centage numbers their members make up in society. It seems so obvious-- that it takes a complete flight from reality to chalk this up to racism and victimhood.

October 6 Issue

Interesting that Chinese money would cause us to add Mandarin to our curriculum. I guess it's probably safe to say that if Iraq, Kuwait, or the UAE gave us money we would add Farsi to our curriculum. I wonder if China's human rights abuses could be discussed in these classes. Never-the-less in these times of shrinking education dollars foreign aid from any where would be welcomed. Funny, that we had the money to destroy and rebuild Iraq but we can't afford to adequately fund our schools.
I liked the quote from Chester E. Finn Jr. "This is not our ally. This is the country on the planet from which The United States faces the largest and most worrisome long-term threats". I totally agree, it is just a matter of time till China flexes its military muscle in South East Asia. Then, because of our defense treaty obligations with places like Taiwan we will be forced to go to war against China. Which could easily become nuclear.
Still better to know the enemy as long as you don't get to cozy with them.

The Districts begin looking harder at abseteeism article seems like a no-brainer. Of course absenteeism starts the road to dropping out. You don't need to be a Rhodes Scholar to figure that out.

Ditto, with effort to revamp Newark schools. Any place that has such an abysmal record with it's schools should be happy to get help from anywhere it can.

As far as the TIF grants go, I guess tainted money is better than no money at all. If the unions can just hold their noses as they take the merit pay money. Ironically, there is an extremely small percentage of teachers that are really incompetent and if the unions hadn't made it so difficult for school districts to get rid of them everyone wouldn't have been made to suffer. The sad part of this is that teachers will be forced even more to teach to the tests. I guess they too will have to hold their noses as they take the money. I think the whole discussion of merit pay and no child left behind policy should be introduced into the curriculum. That way the students will know who to blame for their lousy educations--the politicians.

I liked the Rigorous and Deeper Learning article. It's interesting what coorporations value in education and that some are willing to put their money where their mouth is.

Best of all the articles I thought was the Teaching for Inspiration article. Yeah, I think all teachers, future teachers, students, and parents would applaud this teacher's efforts. Funny, there is no room in national standards and assesments for this type of teaching and it has to be squeezed in there. Seems like this is what teaching is all about.

In a different puublication "Neatoday" October/November edition there was a great article on the educatonal system in Finland. Great reading, too bad the politicians and experts running our educational system will never implement anything like it. After all if the U.S. didn't think of it--it will never work.

Hey, I'm liking this blog thing, a great opportunity to vent!