Video: Youth Violence Prevention Documentary On PBS

Here's the Alex Kotlowitz / Steve James documentary, The Interrupters, which aired on PBS's Frontline Tuesday night after having been screened around the country for the past few months.  

Watch The Interrupters (Graphic Language) on PBS. See more from FRONTLINE.

Though overlooked for an Oscar nomination, the documentary is a good reminder of just how broken -- and how resilient -- are the communities in which schools are located.  See also:  “The Interrupters” Featured on “Fresh Air”, “The Interrupters” Ameena Matthews on The Colbert Report.  

Business: "Super-Sized" Chairs & Desks For Bigger Kids

Obese children outgrowing kids' clothing and furniture CNN:

Hertz Furniture, a company that resells office and school furniture, started offering 19-inch chairs for schools three years ago. The biggest desks available before had a height of 18 inches. The taller chairs have deeper depth and wider seating.

 

AM News: House K-12 Committee Pushes Ahead

Federal Role in K-12 at Heart of ESEA Hearing Politics K12: Anyone following the reauthorization of the Elementary and Secondary Education Act would be able to guess at the big question hanging over a hearing on the House GOP bills to rewrite the law: What's the right role for the federal government in helping to improve K-12 education?

House GOP lawmakers push plan to update ed law AP via Boston.com: House Republicans on Thursday pushed ahead with a plan to update the federal No Child Left Behind education law by shifting more control to states and school districts in determining whether children are learning.

Groups target textbook prices to rein in college costs USA Today: A push to create free or inexpensive textbooks is gaining momentum in nationwide search for new ways to rein in college costs.

Abuse Cases Put Los Angeles Schools Under Fire NYT: The spate of accusations has put an intense spotlight on the way the Los Angeles Unified School District monitors its employees and responds to reports of abuse.

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Five Best Blogs: Don't Call It A Comeback

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:

Thompson: "A Thousand Smaller Sanities" To De-Normalize School Disorder

The Hechinger Institute's Sarah Garland reports on David Demming's research showing that high-risk students who enrolled in schools of their choice in Charlotte Mecklenburg were much less likely to commit crimes.  Deming's "Does School Choice Reduce Crime" showed  that the reduction probably resulted from, "better educational opportunities, economic integration, or a change in their exposure to negative peer influences." This unsurprising conclusion should be read along with Franklin Zimring's The City That Became Safe.  Zimring recently told the New Yorker' s Adam Gopnick that crime has dropped precipitously throughout the continent, but the decline is much greater in New York City, which no longer tolerates the free-for-all public behavior of the 1970s.  "Crime is not the consequence of a set number of criminals; criminals are the consequence of a set number of opportunities to commit crimes."  Whether we're talking about open air drug markets in an era of turnstile-jumping, or the anarchy of inner city secondary schools, violence and disorder flourish after they become routine.  Both are things "that people do when they get used to doing it."   The answer is not the incarceration of millions or spasms of revenge in the name of "zero tolerance."  Rather than miracle cures, we need  "the intercession of a thousand smaller sanities." No Excuses schools and socio-economic integration are both parts of common sense solutions.  For the greatest educational improvements, we must allow neighborhood schools to draw lines and stop the chaos that, too often, is seen as normative.-JT (@drjohnthompson)Image via. 

Video: District-Charter Collaboration In Central Falls

Special correspondent Chelsea Clinton had a segment on last night's NBC's Rock Center highlighting anunusual collaboration between charter and district teachers in Central Falls, RI (yes, Central Falls) where teachers are meeting weekly to share and even adopt each other's techniques and challenges.

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My favorite line:  "In many ways we've kind of been set up to point the finger at one another or to compete with one another, and there's not time or resources to do that."

 

AM News: Waiver Expansion, Waiver Concerns

New Mexico freed from federal school rating law AP: New Mexico is becoming the latest state to free itself from an unpopular federal system of rating public schools.

3rd-Round Waiver Deadline Set, Short-Term NCLB Relief Offered Politics K12: States that need more time to develop their proposal for a waiver under the No Child Left Behind Act can now request a one-year freeze in their annual achievement targets to keep the list of schools not making adequate yearly progress from growing.

Big Changes Ahead For American Schools? NPR: President Obama's 2013 budget calls for a $5 billion competitive grant to get states to overhaul teacher evaluations and training programs. 

In Heartland Institute Leak, a Plan to Discredit Climate Teaching NYT: Disclosed files from the nonprofit Heartland Institute outline a plan to undermine the teaching of global warming in public schools, and they identify some corporate donors.

New analysis makes case for higher ranking for U.S. schools USA Today: New analysis of international data suggests that using rankings to sort global educational winners from losers is often misguided.

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Five Best Blogs: Too Much Chocolate

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:

Cartoon: VAM! BAM! SLAM! WHAM!

"To show teachers that we respect their dignity and professionalism, they get to choose which club we will bash them with." @via modschool #LAUSD

Controversy: "Ticketing" Students For Truancy, Misbehavior

 

There are two related controversies going on surrounding the issue of whether it's fair (or effective) or not to make kids and families pay fines for various forms of misbehavior.  In LA, the issue is $250 tickets that that were being given out by law enforcement to kids who were truant or late to school.  Activists claimed that the fines were unhelpful and unreasonable, and the city has now agreed to narrow its truancy ticketing program.  In Chicago, the issue is "predatory" fines levied against students and their families at the Noble Street charter network for minor infractions like chewing gum in class, a charge (get it?) that has garned enough media attention that Mayor Emanuel recently had to defend the network, considered one of the highest-performing in the city. So far at least, Noble Street has not indicated any interest in modifying its behavior system, though data unearthed by protesters shows that the fines are levied. I wrote a couple of days ago that the system didn't seem like such a big deal or so different from other reward/punishment systems that other charter and district schools use, but as you can see there were many who disagreed vehemently with me about that.  What do you think?  Are fines unique and/or problematic?  

 

Quotes: A Sound Product Delivered Poorly?

@rpondiscio The entire edifice of accountability assumes that American education is essentially a sound product, but it's delivered poorly. I see no evidence to suggest this is true. I see much evidence to suggest it's not. -- Robert Pondiscio (again)

Fixing Broken Schools: The "Don't Mess With Us" Challenge

At nearly every school, no matter how broken it may be over all, there are pockets of teachers, parents and kids who are doing good things -- a program, a department, a classroom, an activity.  What reformers have slowly come to realize -- this is from a Bill Gates talk in 2008 -- is that these pockets of promise represent both an opportunity and a challenge:  how to make things better over all without steamrolling (or being steamrolled by) pockets of excellence?   

“The problem we tend to run into is that the most influential and well-educated people either have their kids in private schools, or they have their kids in an enclave inside the high school that are called honor’s courses, where the teaching is pretty decent and so, if we go to a school and say, let’s change things here, they say, no way, you’re going to mess our little enclave up. All the kids go through the same front door, but really it’s a separate school inside there that’s allowing us not to be part of that insanity, and so don’t mess with the thing that works well for us. And I do think, if you want to stand up to some of the practices that are not focused on the needs of the students, you need a broad set of parents. I think we’re very weak on this point.”

I'm usually more than happy to criticize the Gates Foundation's efforts and approach, but I see this as a pretty honest, reflective assessment of a challenge that reformers are still coming to terms with. 

Media: NYT Editor Leaving SchoolBook In Good Hands

 

It was announced earlier this week that Jodi Rudoren, education editor at the NY Times, was heading to Jerusalem.  The move officially happens in late April but the transition in duties has already begun, she says via email. "I'll stay involved as much as I can in the next couple of months and then cheerlead from afar." No replacement has been named. Mary Ann Giordano will remain head of SchoolBook, which Rudoren says is the thing she's most proud of having been involved in.  "It's an incredible resource, a cool innovative experiment, but we have yet to exploit all its potential."  The education site recently announced changes in its story commenting features intended to allow more open discussion and less directed prompts.

AM News: Duncan Unveils $5B Teacher Proposal

White House Proposes $5 Billion in Grants to Overhaul Teaching NYT: The Obama administration’s proposed program would seek to bring together officials, union leaders and educators to address issues such as tenure and salaries. ALSO Duncan Champions New Teacher Quality Fund Politics K12, Plan Offers $5 Billion to Improve Teaching WSJ

Officials: Bullying debate in Minn. brought change AP via Boston.com: Leaders in Minnesota's largest school district said the long debate over how teachers should handle discussions about sexual orientation probably had a bigger impact than a new policy will.

Third Grade Again The Atlantic: When a child repeats a grade, it reflects positively on the district. But for the individual, it can be an irreversible step backward.  

Home-schooling demographics change, expand USA Today: Though many parents have religious reasons for choosing to home-school their children, the number of secular home schools is growing.

Teacher Proposals in the Fiscal 2013 Budget Teacher Beat: Wondering what the U.S. Department of Education has in mind for teacher-quality programs in its budget request? Here's a cheat sheet of the major themes—though keep in mind that the chances of any of this happening lie in the hands of appropriators.

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Five Best Blogs: Valentines For Everyone

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:

Video: Anderson Cooper Slams Chicago For Making Teen Cry

The CNN host put Chicago on his "RidicuList" segment for telling a Chicago teen that his drawing, which had been selected to be on the city parking permit for 2012-2013, was being replaced due to concerns about possible gang symbols embedded in the image.  Via HuffingtonPost.

Quotes: The Cost-Effectiveness Of Holding Students Back

If you hold them back, you're going to spend roughly another $10,000 per child for an extra year of schooling. If you spread out that $10,000 over the fourth and fifth grades for extra tutoring, in the long run you're going to get a better outcome. -- Davide Berliner on renewed state interest in 3rd grade retention

Bruno: The Kids Are Probably Still Alright

EdWeek teacher blogger Kelly Flynn thinks educators and reformers should be talking more about student behavior and motivation, based in part on a "quick scan" of this report from the National Center for Education Statistics, which she says shows that: "school personnel spend an inordinate amount of time struggling with every single day: insubordination, student and teacher victimization, fighting, weapons, theft, verbal abuse, sexual harassment, gang activity, drugs, alcohol, tardiness, and an astonishing rate of absenteeism."

These are undoubtedly important issues, but I tend to be skeptical about "kids-these-days" sorts of arguments.So is it really the case that there are, as she says, a  "growing number of students who don't learn because they don't want to"?  I think a deeper look at the very same report suggests the answer is "no".  

Thompson: Putting Attendance Ahead Of Accountability

Larry Abramsom began his latest NPR report, "Detroit Schools' No. 1 Mission: Getting Kids to Class," with a truism: "You can't teach kids who don't come to class."   Abramson adds that the average Detroit high school student missed at least 28 days of school last year.  He concludes with the observation that, "sometimes educating parents about the importance of attendance seems more difficult than reaching students who are already in class."  I would add that educating policy makers on the need to systemically address attendance seems to be just as difficult.  A decade after NCLB, we are now just starting to tackle the logical first step in improving urban schools.  We invest billions in data systems for "accountability," and pennies for systems to address absenteeism before it becomes chronic.  Worse, legal coercion tends to be a first intervention.  Abramson's report explains why we must use legal sanctions to concentrate the minds of some parents.  But, many cases "just break your heart." We need more reports on both the efforts of dedicated attendance officers like George Eason, whom Abramson profiles, and the complex and often overwhelming crises faced by the clients he serves.-JT (@drjohnthompson)Image via.     

Quotes: Four Of Five Poor U.S. Kids Remain Poor As Adults

The U.S. is singularly ineffective at lifting poor children into the middle class as adults... Just 17 percent of kids raised in the bottom fifth will make it there. -- The New Republic's Scott Winship

 

AM News: Handful Of NCLB Waiver Holdouts

Maine, New Hampshire Won't Apply for NCLB Waiver Just Yet Politics K12: The education commissioners in Maine and New Hampshire say they refuse to be "rushed" into revamping their K-12 accountability systems and will not apply for a No Child Left Behind waiver from the U.S. Department of Education by the Feb. 28 second round deadline.

Income, More Than Race, Is Driving Achievement Gap NPR: The achievement gap between black and white students has narrowed significantly over the past 50 years. The gulf between rich and poor students, however, has widened dramatically. 

'Shopping Mall Schools' Help Struggling Students NPR: Some students just don't do well in high school — many struggle with bad grades or have discipline problems, and others choose to drop out. But there's also an alternative that some students are taking advantage of: A few school districts are opening up specialized schools inside shopping malls.

Bill aims to censor Ariz. teachers' speech USA Today: A group of GOP state lawmakers is backing a bill that would require teachers to limit their speech to words that comply with FCC standards. 

Most Students Who Should Be Taking AP Exams Aren't HuffPost: While more high school students are taking the Advanced Placement exams -- and succeeding on them -- most students who should be taking the exams aren't.

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Five Best Blogs: Pay No Attention To the President's Budget Proposal

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:

Media: How AP Got Hold Of All Those Waiver Letters

Conventional wisdom has it that FOIA requests are so cumbersom to file and agencies are so slow to respond to FOIA requests that they're almost not worth doing.  (Indeed, it took the USDE until a couple of weeks ago to send me a highly redacted response to a FOIA request I submitted in July 2009.)  There's no reliable way to find out what's already been FOIAd, which journalists consider semi-secret, except through FOIAing others' FOIAs, which seems sort of ridiculous.  But it was just that kind of straightforward work through which Miami-based AP writer Christine Armario scooped pretty much everyone a couple of weeks ago.  When the USDE declined to provide the feedback letters they'd sent to the states applying for NCLB waivers, Armario filed FOIA requests to the states and 10 of 12 responded.  Here's a FOIA letter generator that education writer Cathy Grimes told me about yers ago.  Get to work! 

Previous posts:  FOIA Backlog, SuperSecret™ RTTT Judging,Duncan Doesn't Publish Staff Salaries.
 What Education Journalists Should Be Doing.  

Video: Duncan Speech At Harvard

Here's the video from last week's Duncan speech at Harvard, during which the Secretary again made the case that ideology has come to dominate the education debate.  Link here.

Quotes: "Decent People Trying Their Best And Failing"

@rpondiscio Schools are mainly filled with decent people trying their best and failing. And with depressing regularity, they are failing despite doing exactly what they were trained to do. -- Core Knowledge blogger Robert Pondiscio, in response to DFER's Joe Williams

 

Bruno: How Summative Assessments Help Teachers

Apparently interim (or "formative") assessments are a lot more popular with many educational stakeholders than end-of-unit or end-of-year (i.e., "summative") tests.  Fortunately, Kathleen Porter-Magee takes up the defense of summative assessments, including often-unpopular state tests, in a post that I think is pointed in the right direction.

The distinction between summative and formative assessments is badly overstated.  It's not unusual, for instance, to hear educators describe formative assessments as akin to regular physicals from your doctor while comparing summative assessments to "autopsies."  This analogy emphasizes the uselessness of the summative assessment for the "patient", but obscures the fact that the information gained in an autopsy - whether literal or metaphorical - can actually be quite useful for helping other people.

Contra Kathleen, I do not think it's necessary to concede that the results of summative, end-of-year state tests "typically don’t reach teachers until it’s too late to do anything with them."

AM News: The Return Of "Ending Social Promotion"

Bills Prod Schools to Hold Back Third-Graders WSJ: Lawmakers in at least four states are considering legislation that would make students repeat third grade if they can't pass state reading exams, reviving debates about whether retaining students boosts achievement or increases their odds of dropping out.

States Promise Evaluations for ESEA Waivers Teacher Beat: The U.S. Education Department did ask the 10 states receiving waivers from the Elementary and Secondary Education Act... But in many cases, they remain promises, at best.

SIG Program Promising Despite Bumpy First Year, Urban Districts Say Politics K12: A majority of urban districts think SIG will make a difference in the long-run for schools that are struggling the most, according to a report released today by the Council of the Great City Schools, an organization in Washington which represents 65 of the nation's largest school districts.

Schools Look to Holistic Approach to Improve Attendance NPR: When it comes to lowering the high school dropout rate, many school leaders have found that something fairly basic works: the ABCs -- Attendance, Behavior and Class.  

Arrests shatter recent signs of Miramonte school's progress Los Angeles Times: The school was doing better on test scores, student activities and parental involvement. Charges against two teachers suddenly threaten those gains.

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Quotes: Of Parrots, Paras and Time

Students can work in small groups with the parrot. They can take the parrot on field trips. Students can talk and listen to the parrot to improve their verbal skills and have lunch with the parrot. And if it’s an older parrot, students can learn about the aging process. -- Principal Maxine Nodel writing in SchoolBook

 

Five Best Blogs: Waiver Reaction Rorschach Test

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:

Quotes: Some Reformers Worried About #NCLB Waivers

We remain skeptical of the storyline that says we are a nation filled with states chomping at the bit to do the right thing for children but which are hamstrung from doing so by federal bureaucrats and paperwork. -- DFER's Joe Williams

Video: Rev. Sharpton & Sam Chaltain On "Morning Joe"

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Thompson: New Book Reminds Us To Listen To The Poor

Steve Inskeep's recent NPR  interview with Pulitizer Prize winning author Katherine Boo identifies a key for educators in battling intense poverty (and for policymakers seeking to improve school systems) .  Boo's Behind the Beautiful Forevers tackles the "gradations and nuances" of extreme poverty.  Since she was describing poverty in Mumbai, which is on a different order of magnitude than the poverty in my world, I was surprised when Boo mentioned  her relationships with families in the projects of Oklahoma City.  Boo's final words, however, made the essential point that we must respect the "real intelligence and real moral judgments" of poor people.  The lesson for educators who want to help students get out of "the undercity," and into the "infrastructure of opportunity," is that we must be like Boo and listen to poor children.  We must build on their strengths and not just be preoccupied by their deficits.-JT (@drjohnthompson)Image via.

Bruno: Add NAEP Increases To Debate Over FL Rating System

Matt Di Carlo and Matthew Ladner are having a back-and-forth on the virtues of Florida's state-level accountability system that's fascinating, if wonky, reading.

In a comment here Di Carlo goes so far as to say Florida's system is "the worst I've seen", and Ladner counters that "[g]iven the large improvements in NAEP scores for disadvantaged Florida students [since 1999], if Florida has 'the worst' system, I’m eager to see the best."

They both make some good points, but because Ladner references rising NAEP scores for the Sunshine State's disadvantaged students, this is a good opportunity for me to make one of my favorite points. Namely, any strident criticism about status quo education policy needs to be reconciled with the fact that the last decade or so has actually been really good for the NAEP scores of traditionally disadvantaged groups of students nationwide.

AM News: States' Waiver Reactions Generally Positive

States Hope For Relief With 'No Child' Waivers NPR: How much flexibility is the president really willing to give and what is he asking in return? ALSO AP: Florida Shows Why States Need Relief From 'No Child Left Behind' AP

Kline ESEA Bills Would Squelch the Federal Role in K-12 Politics K12: The federal role in K-12 education would be almost entirely eviscerated under a pair of bills introduced today by Rep. John Kline, R-Minn., the chairman of the House Education and the Workforce Committee.

Education Gap Grows Between Rich and Poor, Studies Show NYT: The widening achievement gap between affluent and low-income students has received less attention than the divide between white and black students, which has narrowed.

Suburban Chicago Schools Lag as Bilingual Needs Grow NYT: Chicago’s suburbs are home to an increasing number of Latino and other immigrant families, but schools there frequently fail to meet state rules to provide bilingual programs.

Google's first employee leaves to join education nonprofit Los Angeles Times: Google Inc.'s first hired employee, Craig Silverstein, is leaving the tech giant where he's worked since its founding to sign on with the rising education start-up Khan Academy.

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Five Best Blogs: So Late In The Week, So Little To Show For It

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:

Quotes: CT Governor Claims Pro-Reform, Pro-Teacher Mantle

I am both.  I'm pro-teacher, as long as that doesn't mean defending the status quo, and I'm pro-reform, as long as that isn't simply an excuse to bash teachers. -- Connecticut Gov. Dannel Malloy via @eduflack

NCLB: How States React Key To Waiver Success

Given how the waiver process has played out, there's little chance that today's announcement will do much to end the civil war that's been going on between so-called school reformers who want to retain as much of NCLB's focus on making schools accountable for educating kids and traditional educators who want a rollback of the focus on standardized testing.  

There's also little chance the announcement  will satisfy conservative-leaning pundits pushing for as much educational de-regulation as possible (and who may be disinclined to give the Obama team much credit for anything in an election year). Indeed, House education committee chair John Kline is rolling out his version of an NCLB rewrite this morning at AEI.

However, the White House announcement could affect how many states decide to go forward with their own waiver applications, however.  Roughly half the states had indicated a desire to apply for them -- anything to get out from under NCLB's AYP rating system -- though a handful are waiting and seeing or have said that it's not worth the expense or they're worried about a Congressional rewrite of NCLB that would require states to start all over again even if they'd received a waiver.  If more states start dropping out of the waiver process, the Administration might have to reconsider the review standards or face charges that it reneged on its promise of regulatory relief for states and districts.

So in the midst of the flurry of coverage and commentary be sure to keep an eye on how governors and state superintendents who were planning to apply react to the deals that have been cut.  That, more than anything else, will indicate the substantive and political success of the initiative.

EDSEC: Duncan Critiques Ideologues On Both Sides

 

You can pass some of  the time until the White House NCLB event checking out coverage of Arne Duncan's speech at Harvard on Monday and the reactions it has generated since then.  Titled "Fighting the Wrong Education Battles," the speech featured Arne's dogged efforts to point out that there's lots of room to compromise and lots to lose if education supporters fight each other rather than fighting for more and better services and results for kids.  Text here.  Video not yet posted will be here. Harvard edcast audio interview here. Harvard Gazette coverage here. Pictured:  Jeremy Lin, the Asian-American NBA sensation who just set the scoring record for Harvard grads in the NBA (NYT). 

AM News: 10 States To Receive So-Called "Waivers"

First 10 States Granted Waivers From 'No Child Left Behind' NPR: The administration announced last year that states can apply to be exempt from some No Child requirements. The first 10, AP says, are Colorado, Florida, Georgia, Indiana, Kentucky, Massachusetts, Minnesota, New Jersey, Oklahoma and Tennessee. ALSO 10 States Receive Waivers From No Child Left Behind Law AP via HuffPost

Silver Lining in Schools Law WSJ: The Obama administration is close to granting several states waivers from the No Child Left Behind law, its strongest move yet to undermine the decade-old education initiative. But while the law has become a target of criticism from both political parties, it has also sown the seeds for school changes spreading nationwide.

Budget Cheat Sheet: What to Watch Politics K12: President Barack Obama is expected to release his fiscal year 2013 budget proposal on Monday. And even before the official release, we already know some of what will be in there.

Detroit Schools' No. 1 Mission: Getting Kids To Class NPR: Dismal attendance rates have put Detroit Public Schools at risk of losing vital state funding, so the city has launched an assault on truancy. Attendance agent George Eason says, "If we see that the parent is willfully ... not sending the child to school, then we will take every means necessary to enforce the law."

SchoolBook: A New Bronx Charter School Seeks Tough Cases NYT: A new Bronx charter school is looking for the children who challenge most other schools: those who are homeless, from low-income single-parent households, English language learners, or suffering from disabilities that put them at a disadvantage to succeed in school. Surprisingly, they are having difficulty attracting them.

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Picture: The President Gets An Idea

As you may already know from my Twitter feed, there's rumored to be a White House education event tomorrow afternoon whose purpose is to announce that 8-10 states have been approved for NCLB waivers.  It's pure coincidence that Republican House education committee chairman John Kline is doing a big NCLB event earlier in the day.  

Five Best Blogs: A Week From Now Valentine's Day Will Be Over

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:

Gangs: Teen Slips Gang Symbols Into City Sticker

Every year the City of Chicago invites children to submit designs for the parking sticker that is required of all residents, hoping to distract from the much-loathed revenue generator. 

This year's selection, designed by a 15 year old student attending an alternative high school, was about to go to the printer when a police officer blogger noticed that there were several gang symbols and signs cleverly embedded in the image, that the teen's father was a well-known gangbanger, etc.  The City Clerk is looking into the situation.  

Street gangs remain an enormous problem in Chicago -- so much so that some political candidates meet with gang representatives hoping to win support for their campaigns -- usually in exchange for jobs or favors -- and school district administrators have to consider gang boundaries and allegiances along with demographics when closing or consolidating schools.  

Video: LAUSD's Aggressive Reponse To School Sex Scandal

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Removing the entire staff at Miramonte Elementary seems to be generating just as much controversy and dismay among parents as the allegations against two of its teachers.

Thompson: Student Assessments Facing Backlash

Morgan's Smith's NYT piece In Texas, a Backlash Against Student Testing provides more great news that the standardized testing craze is cresting.  Robert Scott, the commissioner of the Texas Education Agency, said that student testing  has become a “perversion of its original intent" and that he plans to start “reeling it back.”  For his comments, Scott received a standing ovation from 4,000 educators.  The Smith article also reconrts the courageous resistance of educators, all of the way up to the superintendent level, and how one parent took action after testing stressed out her child. Upon looking at what was happening at the school, she found that her child's class was just a "work sheet distribution center." As we praise this new realism, should we not all do some soul searching?  Very few of us have shown enough guts in resisting the damage that the bubble-in mania has inflicted on kids.-JT (@drjohnthompson)Image via.

Quotes: Feckless Gates Vs. Focused Broad

I think [Gates] and his foundation are feckless and trendy when it comes to education. Which is better than the focused malice of, say, the Broad Foundation. -- Tuttle SVC's Tom Hoffman commenting on recent Dana Goldstein post

 

Video: Science Fair At The White House

President Obama tried out a marshmallow cannon. Looks Photoshopped but it's not.  More coverage here.

AM News: Unanimous AFT Endorsement For Obama

AFT Endorses President Obama for Re-Election Teacher Beat: The American Federation of Teachers' executive council unanimously voted today to endorse Barack Obama for U.S. President.

Obama Calls for More 'Tinkerers and Dreamers' NYT: President Obama announced new federal and private-sector education initiatives to encourage “a nation of tinkerers and dreamers” during a science fair at the White House on Tuesday.

Detroit To Parents: Time To Get Involved In Education NPR: The city's school system is trying to get parents more engaged with their children's education in an effort to boost achievement and stop an exodus of families from the district.

LA district hopes to restore trust with shakeup AP via Boston.com: The move by school district administrators to replace the entire staff at an elementary school rocked by teacher sex abuse claims was a bold step to restore parents' badly shaken confidence at the school, but it has been met with mixed feelings. ALSO:  Transfers from L.A. school in child sex abuse case OK'd USAT

Many With Only High School Degree Laid Off During Weak Recovery HuffPost: For many in the United States, the two years since the end of the recession have been worse than the downturn itself.

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Video Interlude: Sesame Street Meets Indie Rock

Today's viral video is this OK Go! song from Sesame Street on the topic of colors:  

Via GothamSchools

Five Best Blogs: One Week Until The Kline Markup Begins (Maybe)

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:

Choice: From A Parent's Perspective, Both Sides Are Hypocrites

"Many who support the status quo with such ardor vigorously exercise their own choice by sending their children to expensive private institutions gated off from public school hoi polloi," writes Gayle Tzemach Lemmon in How My Mother Beat the Public School System.  

"But I know my mother also would have found it surprising that people who otherwise think little about poor kids today embrace vouchers with the kind of ideological fervor those on the other side once reserved for the gold standard."