Here are some links to magazines and sites I don't check during the week, in Twitter form, plus whatever else I come across along the way or missed during the week:
Come across something I've missed? Put it in comments or tweet it out using #thisweekined and it will show up above. Links and retweets aren't necessarily endorsements, you ungrateful wretches, just an effort to give you a range of interesting news and opinion with which to challenge your knee-jerk view of the world.
A daily roundup of all the best education blog posts and commentary I can find. Write something interesting or unexpected and yours might make the list:
Scroll down to see the full list. Get on Twitter to get the list in real time.
You'd think it would be the small, scrappy, online-only publication that would do something rash and regrettable, not the venerable legacy media outlet. But that's not how it's playing out in New York City, where everything is upside down right now. Tiny GothamSchools has declined to publish individual teacher ratings and the massive New York Times has come up with a fancy app to celebrate their arrival.
Click below for more about why the Times is going ahead -- and why doing so is a bad call from my perspective -- even though I don't mind tests (or like teachers) nearly as much as everyone else.
You can be sure that the NYT's public editor is already doing warm-up exercises to get ready to write about this one.
Undefeated On Point Tom Ashbrook: "The Manassas High School Tigers were bad, so bad that other football teams paid them to come, play, and get beaten. But a new coach breathed life and hope into this inner city team." Also reviewed in Wall Street Journal, LA Times, Time
Black male teachers becoming extinct CNN: Terris King, 25, a kindergarten teacher at the Bishop John T. Walker School in Washington D.C., believes that for African-American children, having a strong role model in front of them can make a huge difference.
Online Public Schools Gain Popularity, but Quality Questions Persist PBS: Full-time public cyber schools are now an option in 30 states, allowing some 250,000 students in kindergarten through 12th grade to press buttons to raise their hands and message their teachers. John Tulenko of Learning Matters Television reports from Pennsylvania where the demand for online charter schools is high.
A Cautionary Tale on SIG in Colorado Politics K12: Folks following the implementation of the School Improvement Grant program should check out this story inThe Denver Post, which took a look at a handful of SIG schools run by Global Partnership Schools.
Ed. Dept. to Closely Monitor Subgroups in NCLB Waiver States Politics K12: With 11 states now freed from some parts of the No Child Left Behind Act, and another round of states readying their waiver applications, the U.S. Department of Education has turned to perhaps the most important part of the process: holding states to their new accountability promises.
A daily roundup of all the best education blog posts and commentary I can find. Write something interesting or unexpected and yours might make the list:
Scroll down to see the full list. Get on Twitter to get the list in real time.
Megan Rolland of the Daily Oklahoman reports that the Oklahoma City School Board is confused about what it should do to meet the new accountability system prompted by the state's NCLB waiver. Nearly a quarter of the district's schools could be subject to some sort of state intervention. All four of my former neighborhood schools are eligible to be taken over, and now the district is planning to fight back. Like OKC's Board Chair, however, I am struck by the appearance of four charter schools on the preliminary list, if for no other reason than they have not addressed the gap between improvements for the highest and lowest performers. One of the four is the largest alternative school that takes the city's most traumatized kids. Another was praised not too long ago by the Wall Street Journal. A third, an elementary school, was the lowest performing urban school in the state before a hospital transformed it. Before it became a charter, most of my students came from the old failing school, but now its graduates go to the best magnet schools in the city not to where I used to teach. The charter conversion has been listed as one of the nation's top 53 charter schools. And ASTEC, which is 86% Hispanic and 93% low income, may be the best school I have ever seen. One subgroup did not measure up -- just one. When I worked at the Aerospace Academy, there wasn't a good teacher in the building. All were superb.-JT (@drjohnthompson)Image via.
Developing a systematic way to help teachers get better is the most powerful idea in education today. The surest way to weaken it is to twist it into a capricious exercise in public shaming. - Bill Gates in the NYT
There are some predictable swipes at NCLB, central office politics, burned out teachers, and parents demanding special education services for violent children, but the film fits pretty neatly into the troubled teacher / Half Nelson subgenre; don't go in anticipating a pretty story with lots of redeeming turns of events or satisfyingly simple resolutions. It's pretty brutal stuff, despite the cute chalkboard animations and a brooding Adrien Brody (and Lucy Liu hiding behind heavy plastic glasses). The story is about a half-zombie substitute teacher at a constantly near-violent Queens(?) high school. In his off time he visits his grandfather at a pretty awful nursing home and takes in an underage prostitute. There are some pretty disturbed kids and unhappy adults, and lots of violence, verbal and otherwise.
You will feel something watching this movie, which is good, but it won't be pleasant. Featuring a cast that includes James Caan, Marsha Gay Harding, Christina Hendricks.
Being a liberal homeschooler must feel a little strange right now, what with conservative Republican presidential candidate Rick Santorum touting homeschooling as a model for education while at the same time liberal-leaning education writer Dana Goldstein has been calling homeschoolers out for prioritizing short-term individual benefit over longer term collective good. This isn't the only instance where this dynamic is happening, however. Liberal criticism of mainstream school reforms (NCLB waivers, Race to the Top) often parallels criticisms from conservative groups and candidates, while at the same time civil rights groups are working furiously behind the scenes to preserve those very same laws. Tell that to a liberal critic of NCLB or charter schools and watch his or her head explode.
Santorum Would 'Eliminate' No Child Left Behind Act Politics K12: Santorum elaborated that not only does he not want the federal government really involved in schools, but he said that "state government should get out of the state education business" as well... Santorum said he was for "customizing education," "parental control," and "local" control.
'Why I Go to School': An Antidote For Dropping Out PBS: Every year, more than 1.3 million students drop out of high school. That’s 7,000 students a day dropping out for many reasons, most of which are largely personal and reflective of a student’s circumstances at home, school and in the community.
A daily roundup of all the best education blog posts and commentary I can find. Write something interesting or unexpected and yours might make the list:
Scroll down to see the full list. Get on Twitter to get the list in real time.
Recent coverage on excessive disciplinary actions in charter schools in the Chicago Catalyst and the Washington Post should prompt soul searching for educators in both charter and neighborhood schools. One of the original purposes of charter schools was pushing the educational status quo to think anew. Traditionally, attendance and behavior were the third rail of school politics, and urban schools were especially loathe to address disciplinary issues. Poor secondary schools were caught in a Catch 22, where they were not allowed to enforce their codes of conduct because there was no place to put chronic offenders. But districts refused to invest in alternative schools because educators, who were continually complaining about chaos in their buildings, would supposedly kick the difficult students out. My hope was that reality-based policies, such as allowing charters to build respectful learning cultures, could then be extended to neighborhood schools in the inner city. Boy, was I wrong!
Much as I love to make fun of TFA this "internal" self-parody video includes such gems as "We're going to honey badger the achievement gap" and reveals an admirable level of self-awareness. Perhaps they're not all robots after all. Via @coopmike48 and @ess_dog (shaun richman)
The Obama administration has been taking a lot of flak - most recently from Jon Stewart - for criticizing "teaching to the test" while simultaneously pushing policies that are arguably going to encourage exactly that sort of behavior by teachers and school officials.
I think it's fair enough to blame President Obama to the extent that his policies promote ineffective instruction. At the same time, though, the phrase "teaching to the test" masks a lot of variability in what educators are actually doing to improve their scores, and it's not always obvious that when schools "teach to the test" they're helping themselves at all.
Campaign for Adelanto charter school falls short LA Times: School officials in the High Desert community of Adelanto say there weren't enough signatures under the parent trigger law to mandate a charter conversion.
Supreme Court to Hear Affirmative Action Case NYT: The court’s decision in a new case has the potential to undo an accommodation on affirmative action in higher education reached by the court in 2003.
Report Scrutinizes States' Teacher-Induction Policies TeacherBeat: Even as there are more and more novice teachers in the ranks of the profession, states' teacher induction policies are generally piecemeal, contends a new report by the New Teacher Center.
A daily roundup of all the best education blog posts and commentary I can find. Write something interesting or unexpected and yours might make the list:
Scroll down to see the full list. Get on Twitter to get the list in real time.
"It's amazing that so many kids turn out to be fairly normal, considering the weird socialization they get in public schools. In a home school, by contrast, children interact in a rich and complex way with adults and children of other ages all the time." Via Jezebel: Rick Santorum Wants Kids to Get the 'Broad' Home School Experience.
Along with names you already know -- Bill Nye, Rafe Esquith, Aaron Reedy -- are Angie Miller, an 11-year middle school English Language Arts teacher (and the 2011 NH teacher of the year). Her latest blog post is here: Not Done Yet.
Geoff Decker's "Muted Response to Regents' Call for Credit Recovery Comments," in GothamSchools points to both an explicit and an implicit hypocrisy. The big abuse of "Credit Recovery" is the practice of awarding credits to students regardless of whether they attended class or learned the subject matter. As education expert David Bloomfield explains, providing a "fig leaf to cover administrative embarrassment" seems to be a prime purpose. Teachers are outraged by the damage it does to students, as well as the way it cripples efforts to improve test scores. "If you want to hold me accountable," a teacher complained, then you cannot, “go behind my back and pass students that I fail.” The policy wonk in me prompts another objection. The recent study by Chetty, Friedman, and Rockoff, "The Long-Term Impacts of Teachers," excluded classes where more than 25% of students were on IEPs. Ostensibly, the reason was that teachers in those classes get additional support, and thus share responsibility for outcomes. How can a teacher be seen as solely responsible for student performance when authority is divided between the classroom instructor and the person(s) who awards the credit?-JT (@drjohnthompson)Image via.
Over at The Daily Howler, Bob Somerby has been on a tear recently pointing out that pundits of all kinds seem to be stubbornly indifferent to good education news. He emphasizes the shrinking achievement gap between black students and white students on the NAEP as something you rarely see mentioned, and I'd add that to the growing pile of good-but-largely-ignored news that includes rising achievement for disadvantaged groups generally and improving school safety. Bob thinks we can chalk up this news blackout to the fact that commentators have sorted themselves into "tribes", each of which dislikes the other too much to risk inadvertently crediting them with an accomplishment. I think there's definitely a lot to that explanation, but that there's also a real fear on both sides of undermining their preferred narrative. My sense is that "reformers" don't want to talk about the good news because then they'd have to acknowledge that these positive trends mostly began prior to their favorite reforms. This would undermine the narrative that the "status quo" of salary schedules and tenure is an insurmountable obstacle to progress. At the same time, I think the anti-reform crowd is reluctant to discuss the good news because it has continued in the "corporate reform" era. This, in turn, makes the repeal of NCLB-type reforms seem that much less urgent. Whatever the explanation, however, the end result seems to be that we mostly hear about how bad our educational institutions are despite the fact that these same institutions are not only improving, but are arguably the best they've ever been. - PB (@MrPABruno) (Image source)
Like many others I've been enjoying the harmless hullabaloo surrounding Jeremy Lin, which has (with a couple of notable exceptions) been harmless and distracting and blissfully divorced from having anything to do with education (aside from a few Daily Show jokes about Tiger Moms and the "Asian F." And yet, I can't help but note the similarities between the media frenzy surrounding Lin and the over-exuberant treatment of any number of recent education figures (Sal Kahn, Joel Klein, Michelle Rhee, Geoff Canada, Steve Barr, Diane Ravitch, etc.). And I can't help but think about just how modest and preliminary Lin's accomplishments are at this point in his career. So let's enjoy the Linsanity as long as it lasts but remember to exercise a little bit of caution and skepticism the next time a Jeremy Lin shows up in education, has some early successes, and seems poised to be the next education savior. Related: Jeremy Lin And The NBA’s Savior Myth.
Hawaii teachers reach tentative agreement on key Race to the Top promise AP: The union representing Hawaii's public school teachers has reached a tentative agreement on a key element of the state's Race to the Top grant that has recently been put in jeopardy because of unsatisfactory progress on promised reforms.
City, Union Spar Over Evaluations WSJ: One day after Gov. Cuomo heralded a statewide teacher-evaluation agreement, New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg said Friday the city could close "a whole bunch more schools" unless it quickly reaches a final deal with its teachers union.
New Rules Planned on School Vending Machines NYT: The Obama administration, in a continuation of its efforts to curb childhood obesity, plans to set nationwide guidelines to promote healthy choices in schools.
This Newsday story (State teacher evaluation plans) and map of states using or not using student performance data is interesting but misleading in that it lumps together states that are using or "planning" to use student data (dark blue), and treats states where they're considering using student data (light blue) differently from those who've decided against it (red).
I'm planning on giving up bagels and cream cheese, but that's no real guarantee I'll do it. I'm considering going to Spain sometime soon, but again...who knows? The overall effect is to make it seem like there's a lot more actually going on than I think there is. via @karawebley
The Denver Post is running a three-part series on the challenges and flaws of the federal SIG school turnaround program you might want to read. The first installment, from yesterday, explores the money being spent on consultants and the lack of transparency. The second, which runs today, focuses on the limited impact of SIG funding in a high poverty district near Denver. SIG is Race To The Top's lesser-known step-sibling (even though it's sent more money to a broader set of schools than Race ever will). It's NCLB's weak "restructuring" sanctions, pumped up steroids. It's an easy program to beat up on -- the massive spending, the permissive (or limited) turnaround options , the lack of speed and quality of implementation. I've never quite understood how it rose to such prominence and size in the Obama administration, or how Team Duncan and the White House anticipated that school closings and restaffings of SIG would be blamed on NCLB as much as the current Administration.
@heygirlteacher You see them everywhere in schools, starting in January and February -- taking notes in the back of class, administering interim assessments, heading to or from the copy machine. Unsure if you're an administrator or a parent, they smile nervously when you walk by them in the hall. Sometimes they get to teach a lesson or run part of an activity, which serves to remind anyone watching (a) how hard it is to be a good teacher or (b) how crappy the regular teacher is. They're student teachers -- college students finishing up their education degrees with a little bit of classroom time.
They're not all young faceless widgets, however. Some of them stand out. One of them -- let's call her HGT (not pictured) -- is a student teacher in a large Midwestern school district who decided one day to start a blog about being a teacher that is, for education blogs, sort of popular. She hasn't revealed her identity to anyone outside a close circle of friends and I've agreed to help keep her secret. On the Hot Seat (below), she talks about what it's like being a student teacher, where she came up with the idea for "Hey Girl Teacher" and how it took off, and why it's been such a big hit among young teachers and teaching candidates. She also dishes on her ed school preparation, what she thinks about people who go the TFA route, and explains the mysterious appeal of Ryan Gosling.
States Address Problems With Teacher Evaluations NYT: Officials in states like Tennessee who are testing new teacher evaluation systems required by the Obama administration are struggling with problems philosophical and logistical.
Scarred by Cheating Scandal, Atlanta Schools Are on the Mend NYT (Winerip): Less than a year after a state report found that 178 principals and teachers had cheated on test scores, a new school superintendent, Erroll B. Davis Jr., is restoring the system.
More public schools dish up 3 meals a day AP: Too often it is after the fact that teachers discover their students are worrying less about math and reading and more about where the next meal comes from....
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Disclaimer: The opinions expressed in This Week In Education are strictly those of the author and do not reflect the opinions or endorsement of Scholastic, Inc.
