After a parent screamed at her, this first-grade teacher called the police What should educators do when they are unfairly penalized for something they said? This is what has happened to Rafe Esquith, a nationally celebrated Los Angeles fifth-grade teacher. He is still banned from his classroom because he told a joke in class that few people would consider the least bit offensive. Teachers are threatened with administrative punishments far more often than we know. They often react as we would if our bosses came after us. They are frightened, confused and ready to take the easiest way out. Jay Mathews is an education columnist and blogger for the Washington Post, his employer for 40 years. What happens if they reject those instincts and instead get tough? [L.A. district continues to persecute one of the nation’s best teachers] Linda Johnson, a retired California teacher who frequently contributes to the washingtonpost.com comments page for this column, told me what happened when she decided not to bow her head and take unfair criticism from her supervisors.
L.A. district continues to persecute one of the nation’s best teachers In this 2003 file photo, Rafe Esquith, a fifth-grade teacher at Hobart Elementary School in Los Angeles, leads an innovative after-school group in his classroom. (Jonathan Alcorn/For The Washington Post) Fifth-grade teacher Rafe Esquith’s worst nightmare began March 19, during a puzzling meeting in his principal’s office. That was wrong. Fortunately, his attorneys have prepared a detailed account of the administrative incompetence and wrong-headedness that created this situation as Los Angeles Unified School District investigators continue to search for anything they can use against their most-celebrated teacher. At that March meeting, according to their account, the principal told Esquith: “You have nothing to worry about. Three weeks later, Esquith learned that the district had forwarded a complaint to the California Commission on Teacher Credentialing, but the teacher still didn’t have details. Esquith was told that the district was pressuring him for an apology.
Schools as Punishing Factories: The Handcuffing of Public Education By Henry A. Giroux, Truthout This piece first appeared at Truthout. The Nobel Prize-winning author Ngugi wa Thiong’o has insisted rightfully that “Children are the future of any society,” adding, “If you want to maim the future of any society, you simply maim the children.” As we move into the second Gilded Age, young people are viewed more as a threat than as a social investment. If one important measure of a democracy is how a society treats its children - especially children of color, poor and working-class youth, and those with disabilities - there can be little doubt that the United States is failing. To read more articles by Henry A. The National Center on Family Homelessness reports that “One in 45 children experience homelessness in America each year. Teachable Moment or Criminal Offense? Every age has its approach to identifying and handling problems. Children are being punished instead of educated in US schools. If you have trouble leaving a comment, review this help page.
Sewing, cooking, woodwork... IT? Why Government must urgently fix the curriculum to get kids into computing When Ian McCrae’s teenage son took digital technologies as one of his NCEA subjects, the Orion Health boss was pleased. With a serious IT skills shortage affecting businesses like his, one more student heading towards computer science at university was a bonus. A few months down the track, McCrae’s view changed. He was shocked to find that instead of learning coding and working on algorithms, his son seemed to be spending his time writing reports - part of a curriculum which sees ICT lumped in with woodwork and sewing, not science and maths. “I suspect you can do the entire digital tech course without writing a line of code,” McCrae says – correctly, as it turns out. McCrae says instead of studying topics like coding, algorithms and logical reasoning, his son’s high school digital technology curriculum shares modules with the other tech subjects like hard tech (woodwork and metalwork), soft tech (sewing) and food tech (cooking). "We are a poor cousin at the moment." Ian McCrae OMGTech
Recent Teacher Of The Year Resigns In Alabama Over Certification Issues Oliver Elementary School in Birgmingham, Ala., where Ann Marie Corgill taught until Friday. The recent Alabama Teacher of the Year says she quit her job after being told she wasn't highly qualified to teach fifth grade. Google Maps hide caption itoggle caption Google Maps Oliver Elementary School in Birgmingham, Ala., where Ann Marie Corgill taught until Friday. The recent Alabama Teacher of the Year says she quit her job after being told she wasn't highly qualified to teach fifth grade. Google Maps Less than two years after being named Alabama's Teacher of the Year, Ann Marie Corgill resigned her post this week, citing her frustration with bureaucracy. In January, Corgill was named one of four finalists for the National Teacher of the Year award. After running into a "wall of bureaucracy," Corgill said in a statement to AL.com, "When the news came that I was not considered highly qualified, my frustration boiled over." Update at 2:58 p.m. Our original post continues: Corgill concludes:
Some Study That I Used to Know ~ What Do You Remember from High School? Author Note: This is the first YouTube video I've tried "flipping" into a TEDed lesson, as I work to learn how to make best use of the new TEDed platform for making videos into interactive lessons. I'd welcome encouragement, feedback and questions from others trying it out. An idea for an extension project: Goyte's song, "Somebody I used to Know" has been covered and parodied by several other artists. For example, Walk of the Earth, created their one-cut video showing the 5 band members playing the whole song on one guitar. Then Key of Awesome made a popular parody of WOTE's video. Songs are often more memorable than spoken language. Additional resources for meta-learning and learning assessment at learninghabits.wordpress.com
Teach Your Teachers Well LAST month, at the urging of Gov. , New York’s Board of Regents suspended the use of state tests to evaluate teachers. This is a wise first step, but it won’t improve our schools unless we go further and build a professionalized system of support that views teachers as learners and challenges them to improve their classroom practices. The national push over the last decade to strengthen how we evaluate teachers was rooted in studies that suggested that consecutive years with an ineffective teacher did lasting damage to a child’s life chances. In response, many teachers’ evaluations have been tied to how their students perform on state tests. In 2010, New York began to develop a new teacher evaluation system, new tests and curriculums aligned with the Common Core standards. Photo This created a crisis of confidence for parents, teachers and principals. Teachers don’t trust the data being used to evaluate them. In schools, the way adults learn always defines the way the students learn.
Success Academy undercover video shows no-excuses discipline at its ugliest. Dario Cantatore/Getty Images for Tribeca Film Festival Today, the New York Times published undercover video taken at a Success Academy elementary school in Brooklyn that’s part of the controversial charter network known for “no excuses” discipline. It shows a first grade teacher berating and humiliating a girl who stumbles when solving a math problem. The teacher, Charlotte Dial, rips up the student’s paper and barks, “Go to the calm-down chair and sit!,” though by all indications, the girl was already sitting calmly. Michelle Goldberg is a columnist for Slate and the author, most recently, of The Goddess Pose. According to reporter Kate Taylor, an assistant teacher who was concerned by Dial’s “daily harsh treatment of the children” filmed the scene surreptitiously. As it happens, the Success Academy where the video was filmed is a few blocks from my apartment in the hyper-gentrifying neighborhood of Cobble Hill, Brooklyn.
Texan who called Obama a gay prostitute wants to control textbooks Mary Lou Bruner (Mary Lou Bruner for State Board of Education) Mary Lou Bruner stood before the Texas State Board of Education in 2010 to talk about textbooks. She was concerned, she said during her testimony, that the state’s curriculum was being controlled by outside forces. Her statements were introduced by board member Lawrence Allen (D): “You believe…people from the Middle East are buying, using their dollars, to persuade textbook publishers to put more —” “I think the Middle Easterners are buying the textbooks!” “So, they’re buying the, the morality of the —” “I think they’re using their influence to get what they want in the textbooks,” Bruner nodded. That was more than five years ago, and the tables have since turned for the 68-year-old retired schoolteacher from Smith County. Bruner received 48 percent of the vote in a three-person GOP primary for a seat on the Texas State Board of Education this Tuesday, falling just short of the 50 percent needed to claim victory.
Donald Trump Doesn’t Understand Common Core (and Neither Do His Rivals) ’s presidential campaign has not been driven by detailed policy papers. But on one issue at least, his position is clear: He hates the Common Core State Standards. They are, he says, a “total disaster,” and he promises to abolish them upon assuming the presidency, because education “has to be at a local level.” This is revealing, and not just because it shows Mr. The president can’t end the Common Core, because the federal government didn’t create the Common Core. Mr. Jimmy Carter elevated the Department of Education to a Cabinet-level agency. President George H.W. Photo Educational improvement over that time period was steady, if not fast enough for anyone’s liking. Mr. But states and localities, in a sense, don’t actually have the ability to set educational standards, even if they choose to. The only choice local schools have is whether they will try to meet those expectations. Indeed, while Mr. Why, then, does he hate the Common Core? In fairness, Mr. But Mr.