Latest News and Comment from Education

Thursday, April 25, 2013

Special Late Nite Cap UPDATE 4-25-13 #SOSCHAT #EDCHAT #P2





Nite Cap UPDATE


UPDATE UPDATE UPDATE UPDATE



CORPORATE ED REFORM





Correlation Or Causation?

Here’s a great comic from xkcd:

The Texas Tribune: Considering Free Breakfasts for All Texas Students in Poor Areas

Texas legislators are working to expand the free-breakfast program to all schoolchildren in poor areas, not just those from low-income households.

Protests by Mexican Teachers Continue to Swell

Members of the teachers’ union in Guerrero State showed their anger, and in some cases turned violent, over President Enrique Peña Nieto’s plan to overhaul the education system.

NEA Partners With Teach Plus & Creates Online Rating System For Student Assessments

This looks interesting and may have some potential: The National Education Association and Teach Plus have partnered to create a site where teachers can rate the quality of student assessments being used around the country. It seems like a “Rate Your Teacher” site, but, in this case, it’s for student assessments.
You can read more about it here, and actually enter the site here.
I wrote earlier that I thought it may have potential to be very useful. Right now, it seems like most of the assessments being reviewed are typical standardized tests. I’m assuming that most of those aren’t going to be reviewed very positively by teachers, and I’m not sure how useful it is to spend time rating them that way on a 

Draft Charter Bill Calls for Local Approval, More Reviewers

Bill sponsor -- Assemblyman Diegan -- hopes to build consensus before Legislature tackles NJ's 18-year-old charter law.

The South East School district and a new 5 letter word for apartheid

Some of you may discount this as simply a local issue I urge you to stick with me and ask yourself some of the questions I asked myself while doing this story. While the particulars of this story are locally very specific, the impacts of what happens here will have more far reaching consequences and implications in the education and race relations arenas.
This is an issue that could have a significant impact on me and my family, I’ll admit I was a little ill-informed on the particulars of this issue at first, so I didn’t feel comfortable weighing in until I did some due diligence on the subject. It’s taken me several weeks and community organization meetings and dozens of e-mails but I think I finally have a new perspective, and something worth sharing. I hope you will consider my perspective in your own deliberations when it comes time for you to make a decision in the voting booth. Better yet would be if this piece inspires you to contact your legislators to reverse the current course we as a community, city, and people are on.
First let me outline the situation. East Baton Rouge Parish was in recent memory (until about 2003) 

Indiana’s Common Core Pause Up for a Final Vote

indiana-state-capitol-domeGood news in Indiana the language halting further implementation of the Common Core State Standards has made it out of a conference committee and  will be up for a final vote in each chamber and then hopefully will land on Governor Mike Pence’s desk.
After lawmakers resolved differences between the Indiana House’s and Senate’s respective versions of a lengthy piece of education legislation, language halting implementation of the Common Coreacademic standards in Indiana schools made it through conference committee Thursday.
While House Speaker Brian Bosma’s Wednesday announcement he supported the “pause” 

‘I Think My Teacher Hates Me — Now What?’

‘I Think My Teacher Hates Me — Now What?’ 

By Rachel Holderman Bartlett

As teens, it sometimes feels like the world is against us. It’s easy to believe your friends, family and teachers are going out of their way to make your life difficult. When you think a teacher is out to get you, it can feel like a personal attack.
Communication is key, says Jim English, an English teacher at Whitney Young in Chicago. Sometimes teachers say or do things that are taken the wrong way, but it can easily be resolved through a discussion.
“In all cases, I think the students are mistaken, and I would suggest they talk to the teacher,” English said. “And if they are too nervous talking to the teacher (by themselves), they should bring the counselor in.”
If a student doesn’t talk to the teacher or an administrator, they may be able talk to a fellow student who can