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Monday, August 10, 2015

An Open Letter to the Louisiana Standards Review Committee | deutsch29

An Open Letter to the Louisiana Standards Review Committee | deutsch29:

An Open Letter to the Louisiana Standards Review Committee






Dear Louisiana Standards Review Committee Members:
One of my principal concerns with the Common Core State Standards in English language arts (CCSS ELA) is its divorcing of textual understanding from context. (For an excellent explanation of this CCSS quality of isolating texts from their contexts, see this piece written by New York teacher education professor, Daniel Katz.)
The public survey format for CCSS in Louisiana fosters this divorcing of CCSS from context as any commentary on CCSS must be molded to fit the current structure of CCSS ELA and math, and in line-item-response fashion, at that.
No room to step back and consider CCSS context in the survey. And yet, it is beyond time for Louisiana to consider CCSS within some context.
In May 2009, Louisiana Governor Bobby Jindal and then-State Superintendent Paul Pastorek signed a memorandum of understanding (MOU) to commit Louisiana to be “state led” and participate in the Common Core State Standards (CCSS) Initiative.
On June 02, 2010, CCSS was officially completed and released to the public.
Just under one month later, on July 01, 2010, the Louisiana Board of Elementary and Secondary Education (BESE) recorded in its minutes that it had adopted CCSS.
And what would have been sensible– what would have offered context to any consideration of replacing the Louisiana state ELA and math standards with CCSS– never happened:
A deliberate and detailed comparison of the current Louisiana ELA and math standards to CCSS.
It would have been wise for Louisiana to critically weight its adoption of what was An Open Letter to the Louisiana Standards Review Committee | deutsch29:

There's a Teacher Shortage Looming—Is Real Estate to Blame? - Real Estate News and Advice - realtor.com

There's a Teacher Shortage Looming—Is Real Estate to Blame? - Real Estate News and Advice - realtor.com:

There’s a Teacher Shortage Looming—Is Real Estate to Blame?



desperate teacher


We’ve heard about police officers and firefighters priced out of the neighborhoods in which they work. Now a new class of civil servant is facing the same problem:Teachers are having their own housing crisis.
The housing market “hit low-income Americans hardest, but increasingly, it also means middle-income earners who hold key jobs—like teachers—can’t afford to live where they work,” reported Marketplace. “It’s a problem facing all high-cost communities: big cities, wealthy suburbs, and tiny resort towns.”
“Across the country, districts are struggling with shortages of teachers, particularly in math, science and special education—a result of the layoffs of the recession years combined with an improving economy in which fewer people are training to be teachers,” wrote The New York Times.
Bay Area’s KTVU station reported that it was getting harder and harder to find good teachers to fill the open slots. A big reason: “the lack of affordable housing in the city.”
One disabled Sonoma Country teacher was crowned “the face of Healdsburg’s housing crunch,” by a local paper. “After 10 years living there, it looks like a 65 percent jump in rent—from $850 per month to $1,400—is going to force her out,” wrote the Press Democrat.
The average teacher salary hovers around $45,000, though in the Bay Area it’s about $60,000. Not that the jump helps much. As the Press Democrat pointed out, most families pulling in $150,000 a year can’t afford a home in those parts.
The two-fold crisis comes during a larger national debate about education, standardized There's a Teacher Shortage Looming—Is Real Estate to Blame? - Real Estate News and Advice - realtor.com:

Special Nite Cap: Catch Up on Today's Post 8/10/15


SPECIAL NITE CAP 

CORPORATE ED REFORM




Schools Matter: Why Have Some Civil Rights Groups Flipped on Standardized Testing?
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New Orleans Warns Other Cities about Charter Takeover | National Opportunity to Learn Campaign | Education Reform for Equity and Opportunity
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Plan for charter takeover of worst public schools crafted in secret | The Charlotte Observer
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L.A. Unified's 'teacher jail' policy ends up punishing students - LA Times
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State Shifts Regional Achievement Center into Camden School District - NJ Spotlight
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New York experience shows Common Core tests can come at a cost for underprivileged students - The Hechinger Report
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‘I refuse.’ — Teacher rejects Florida’s wacky new program to give bonuses to educators with high SAT/ACT scores - The Washington Post
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Even As States Continue to Leave, PARCC Sets Last Year's Cut Scores | Mercedes Schneider
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YESTERDAY

Alright (My Identity in Passing) | The Jose Vilson
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Teachers Say They Have Too Much Money for Supplies in This Sarcastic Hefty Campaign | Adweek
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New Orleans Recovery District Called a Dismal Failure by the City’s Leading African American Newspaper
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Jersey Jazzman: When You Punch Teachers Unions, You're Punching Teachers
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Special Nite Cap: Catch Up on Today's Post 8/9/15
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