prison map

Josh Begley collected google images of prisons around the US. From his website:

The United States is the prison capital of the world. This is not news to most people. When discussing the idea of mass incarceration, we often trot out numbers and dates and charts to explain the growth of imprisonment as both a historical phenomenon and a present-day reality. But what does the geography of incarceration in the US actually look like? Prison Map is my attempt to answer that question.

Looking at this reminds me that projections for prison capacity are made based on third-grade reading levels. It also reminds me that even though crime rates have gone down, incarceration rates have gone up.

"tricker" laws

Let's be clear what the so-called parent trigger means. If 51 percent of the parents in a public school sign a petition, they can take control of the school, fire the staff, and hand the school over to a private corporation run by themselves or someone else.

Parent trigger laws are an invitation, as economist Bruce Baker put it, to mob rule.

I wonder how the mayors would react to a similar proposal to allow citizens to seize control of the public housing projects they live in or their local firehouse or police station, if they are dissatisfied with them. Perhaps they should also be permitted to take control of the sanitation trucks and give the jobs to one another.

It is frankly bizarre to pass a law allowing 51 percent of the present users of a public facility or public service to seize control and hand it off to a private corporation. The public paid for it, why should the people who use it this year claim the power to give it away? What about the rights of those who plan to attend the school in years to come? Supposing next year half of those who signed the petition are no longer parents in the school that they privatized? To me, this is akin to saying that those riding on a public bus should have the power to "seize control" and give it to a private bus company.

The national parent organization Parents Across America opposes the parent trigger as a stealth way to privatize public schools. When Florida considered parent trigger legislation this past spring, the law failed because of opposition from every Florida parent organization.

I wonder why parent trigger laws never include the right of charter school parents to "seize control" of their school and give it back to the public system.

 -- Ravitch

physical upkeep, a year in review

I'm a little hesitant to be so personal, but I'm hoping that reflecting on my mistakes will benefit others in some way. Besides, I'm pretty sure only my grammies read this, anyway.

This past year, I destroyed my body. For the first few weeks of school, I brought a (mostly) healthy lunch with me. I was sweating in the 95 degree building and on my feet all day -- and I convinced myself that that was exercise. Then, I made friends with the lunch ladies. Soon, it was a lot easier to eat the (mostly) unhealthy school lunches than it was to pack a lunch. Once and I while, Ryan would make a big batch of tuna salad and that would hold me over for a couple of days, but it didn't make up for the fact that I was consistently missing meals or substituting in unhealthy options. Plus, once a week I would go to class and on my way to class I would purchase dinner-to-go. Add to all of that the fact that teaching would make me work up a pretty big appetite, there were often unhealthy snacks available somewhere in the building, and my colleagues and I sometimes went out for lunch just to escape the building for 20 minutes.

In other words, my intake was entirely thoughtless, reckless, damaging.

Perhaps all of that would not have been so destructive if I had spent any time maintaining my body. After my October fallout, I vowed to go to yoga once a week. And I did. However, that once a week session was all I could to just to maintain -- I did not work through any of the stress or anxiety or damage that I was inflicting on my body past the surface level. Just to demonstrate how truly bad it had gotten: I have been running about every other day or more since school got out. Today was the first day in two weeks that I was able to comfortably run two miles and to find a pace to keep going. When there is so much stress to work through, I feel like I should be working out even more than I do when my life is dandy.

Before school got out, I had images of me finally taking care of my body this summer, of dropping back down to my normal pant size, of being able to see and feel my physical health again. Two weeks out, I am beginning to worry that eight weeks will not be enough. Indeed, I don't think that twelve would be enough. More importantly, I am anxious about how I am going to continue to take care of my body when school starts again. I love how I feel after even a quick run, but some days I just can't muster the energy. At the end of this last year I mastered getting (mostly) enough sleep. For year two, it's going to need to be exercise and healthful food. I just don't know exactly how yet.

Imaginations More Active Despite Less Play Time, Study Shows

Play as Safety Valve

However, while imagination can be developed via other methods, children’s emotional development may be taking a bigger hit from limits on playtime, the Case Western researchers found.

Children in the study showed no change in positive emotions and enjoyment during the play sessions, but over the years they became much less likely to show negative emotion during play. That might seem like a benefit—children are becoming happier in their play—but Ms. Russ finds it troubling that children are less likely to use play as a safety valve for aggression, depression and other bad feelings.

“This may be where the lack of time to play may be starting to hurt,” Ms. Russ said. “Play is safe; it’s pretend, and if they express negative emotions, it’s OK. Children use play to process negative emotion, and if they don’t have as much time to play, they don’t have many other places where they can do it. So as a clinical psychologist, that finding concerns me.”

John J. Ratey, a clinical associate professor of psychiatry at Harvard Medical School in Cambridge, Mass., called play “vital, not only for students’ happiness but their ability to take in new information and learn about failure.”

-EdWeek 

this is what I keep saying

Another example of the importance of poverty, graphically displayed:

just because we can, doesn't mean we should

Apparently the Gates Foundation is supporting research (to the tune of $1.3 million) to create bracelets that measure students brain activity, as a way to evaluate teachers.

Many teachers chimed in with ideas about how they would raise their ratings on the bracelet. One suggested she would pick students at random and scream at them; everyone in the class would have a faster heartbeat, not knowing who would be humiliated next. Another suggested that he would bring in gorgeous teen models to cause the boys to react positively. There were suggestions of soft porn and proposals to animate the class by discussing whose music was best or what happened at the latest sports event. One science teacher saw the bracelet as a wonderful hands-on project, in which students would take them apart and figure out how to re-program them.

-- Diane Ravitch. Read here for links to articles and the most recent information.

debunking in a democracy

Isn't this supposed to be the job of our media?

Debunking schools is not bad because it is difficult.  Finding the incriminating data usually takes less than an hour.  What’s bad about it is that I know some people will misunderstand my intentions.  The reason I need to debunk miracle schools is because lawmakers use them as examples of why it is good education reform practice to close down failing schools and fire their teachers.  My purpose is to show that the good test scores, if they really have them, come at an even greater cost.  The more I can show that the ‘miracle’ schools aren’t any better than the failing schools, maybe people will be more outraged when ‘failing’ schools are shut down.

-- Gary Rubinstein

Why doesn't anyone talk about the attrition of students and teachers at high-performing charters? What happens to those other children?  Look at the decrease in children at this school, Harlem Village Academy Charter.

another shocking revelation

The Government Accountability Office on Tuesday released a report documenting what many special-needs advocates say they have known, or at least strongly suspected, for years: that charter schools tend to serve lower populations of students with disabilities than do traditional public schools. Some of the takeaways from the report—see our full story for more details—come from looking not only at the overall picture, but from a more detailed dissection of where the largest populations of special-needs students tend to be clustered.

-- Ed Week

From my own experience, I absolutely see how this might happen. It's an unspoken thing. No evidence, no proof.

imagine a perfect teaching schedule

The alarm clock rings. Is it 2020 already? I look in the mirror—I've aged well!

I put in my "flex hour" of planning time before school. Some split the hour, some plan after school, and others meet collaboratively. No more clock watching—teachers are trusted to organize their schedules to suit their professional roles.

My 5th graders and I begin the day with our language arts block. Afterwards, they have mandatory recess. This is based on the premise that children learn best in chunks of time, interspersed with opportunities to exercise and socialize. (On the way back to class for our math block, we see a first-year teacher and her veteran co-teacher. Much like a medical resident, she co-teaches with her mentor for a year before being fully certified.)

Then it's lunch hour—which is an actual hour. The administration and instructional assistants conduct family-style meals with the children, followed by some recess time. Meanwhile, teachers eat a duty-free lunch then and participate in collaboration time with colleagues of different grade levels, specialties, and professional roles. Some teams opt to use the entire hour as a collaboration "working lunch."

After lunch—while students are learning about art, dance, music, PE, or technology—grade-level teams meet. We plan lessons, craft common assessments, look at student work together, discuss students of concern, and evaluate the effectiveness of interventions. (On the way to my meeting, I pass the librarian who is meeting by webinar with his district colleagues.)

Next my class studies astronomy—one of a series of interdisciplinary units that integrate listening, speaking, language arts, math, science, and technology skills. We have the time to offer these kinds of units now that the states no longer require high-stakes standardized testing for every student every year. No need to spend valuable instructional time on test preparation and administration. (Furthermore, by changing how we handle standardized testing, we are able to fund more intervention specialists who work in our classrooms and "in the moment" with students.)

My students go home and I take stock of my day. After my hour prep period, I spent 60 percent instructing students, 25 percent collaborating with colleagues, and 15 percent for recess prep time/lunch collaboration. This is a vast improvement from when I started teaching (without a mentor)—85 percent teaching time, 10 percent collaborative time (during lunch with a generous veteran teacher), and 5 percent preparation time.

-- Dedy Fauntleroy

publicizing teacher evaluations

Considering that high stakes testing results are not always released in a timely fashion (which count for 20% of a teacher's evaluation), this whole process will create more chaos than good. Public exposure using these methods may tell who are ineffective but it could potentially classify teachers as ineffective or developing when they really are not. We only need to look at the Value-Added scores being released in the New York Post several months ago to get an example of how scores can be wrong (How to Demoralize Teachers).

The question that I ponder is why is this so important? It feels as though politicians and reformers are looking to slap a scarlet letter on teachers in an effort to shame them out of the teaching profession. Bloomberg says "motivate", but it seems to be more of an effort to force schools into a corner. Will schools fight back instead of making all of these new mandates work?

Teacher evaluations are highly important. All teachers should be observed and appropriately evaluated by competent administrators. One of the reasons why this debate is coming up is that there are administrators who did not do their jobs and there are teachers who are not good at educating students. Once again, that is the exception and not the rule.

-- Ed Week

local barbershops hosts national conversation about being good fathers

Among the buzz of hair clippers, the men at His & Hers chatted about what makes good fathers. But Lopez is boastful of his daughters with good reasons. His eldest just graduated from DePaul University with a masters in child psychology and his two youngest are enrolled in Wright College.

 -- Austin Weekly

on teacher turnover

My school experienced very high turnover this year -- more than 50% of our staff quit or was asked to leave over the course of the school year. Until about February, we had a teacher leaving every time I turned around. In one third-grade classroom this year, there were four teachers.

I can tell you firsthand that teacher turnover is extremely problematic. First of all, the kids always seem to think that it was their fault. Other teachers feel as though they are on a sinking ship. The new teacher has to start all over with routines and management, wasting valuable instructional time. The staff weakens as a community.

Shockingly, researchers have found the same thing:

Now, a significant new study by researchers Susanna Loeb of Stanford University, Matthew Ronfeldt of the University of Michigan and Jim Wyckoff of the University of Virginia upends Hannaway’s assumption. The study, “How Teacher Turnover Hurts Student Achievement,” concludes that, separate from the relative quality of teachers who may be brought in to replace those who leave, teacher turnover itself harms a school. Turnover affects morale and the professional culture at a school. It weakens the knowledge base of the staff about students and the community. It weakens collegiality, professional support and trust that teachers depend on in their efforts to improve achievement.

why do we think this is a good idea?

From an LA Times article about one of the top performing middle schools in CA:

Not many schools in California recruit teachers with language like this: "We are looking for hard working people who believe in free market capitalism. . . . Multicultural specialists, ultra liberal zealots and college-tainted oppression liberators need not apply."

...School administrators take pride in their record of frequently firing teachers they consider to be underperforming. Unions are embraced with the same warmth accorded "self-esteem experts, panhandlers, drug dealers and those snapping turtles who refuse to put forth their best effort," to quote the school's website.

Students, almost all poor, wear uniforms and are subject to disciplinary procedures redolent of military school. One local school district official was horrified to learn that a girl was forced to clean the boys' restroom as punishment.

 Reality, Ravitch-style:

The preliminary findings [of an independent audit] reported:

– $350,000 to Chavis’ wife, who was paid wages as the school’s financial administrator as well as additional fees to her private accounting firm.

– $355,000 to Chavis for administering a summer school program, one that violated state law by requiring students to attend and pay the charter school $50 for each day missed.

– $348,000 in payments to companies owned by Chavis for unauthorized construction projects.

...With so many questions raised about the mismanagement of money, how could anyone trust the schools’ test scores?

nostalgia v. reality

Mr. Broad begins by nostalgically describing the past glories of the public schools that he attended. He tells us that he “is old enough to remember when America’s K-12 public schools were the best in the world.” He tells us how proud he was of the schools in his day, and uses words such as “shameful,” “embarrassment,” and “crisis” to describe today’s public schools.

I do not doubt that Mr. Broad attended a fine public school, but the reality of all public schooling in the late 1940s and 1950s does not square with his remembrance.

Two national reports, “Educational Attainment in the United States: 2009” and “120 Years of American Education: a Statistical Portrait,” provide insight into public schooling in the middle of the past century.

* Far fewer students attended and graduated high school when Eli Broad went to school. In 1950, about 32% of all Americans 25 years and over had earned a high school diploma. For those in Mr. Broad’s age group, there was only about a 50% chance of graduating high school.

* Far fewer students attended college as well. In 1950, only 5% of adults over 25 had a college degree. When Mr. Broad received his college degree, he was in an elite group of less than 10%.

* The good old days of Eli Broad were not so good if you were a black student. In 1950, the percentage of the population over 25 who were black and had a high school diploma was about 10%. That is correct — only one in 10. The high school diploma gap between blacks and whites in 1950 was nearly 20 percentage points.

-- wapo

are teachers too easily caught in the crossfire?

Well, are there ineffective teachers? I'm sure there must be. I've heard stories of ineffective teachers. And I certainly don't think there should be even one ineffective teacher in any school.
And it's the job of the administration, the job of the principal primarily, to make sure that no ineffective teacher ever gets tenure. Once they get tenure, all that means is -- it doesn't mean they have a lifetime job. It doesn't mean they get paid for breathing. It means that they have a right to due process. If, after getting tenure, the principal says, I want to fire you, they have to have evidence. They have to have a hearing before an impartial administrator.

That really is not such a burdensome thing. But it's very clear that this is not the key problem in American education, because the lowest performance is not in union districts. The highest performance in America is Massachusetts, Connecticut and New Jersey. These are three states that are all union states.

They have very strong collective bargaining agreements and the highest-performing states. The weakest performance is in the states that have no collective bargaining and where there's a lot of poverty. I think it's really important in your discussions about education that you recognize that the most -- the biggest single correlate and, very likely, I would say the cause of low performance is not teachers or union contracts. It's poverty and racial isolation.

-- PBS interview with Diane Ravitch

summer

Over the past several days I have finally had a chance to start getting myself life back together and it feels so good -- I've been reading, running, beaching, spending time with friends. Someone saw me on Monday and said, "Wow, you look so relaxed."

Don't worry, though. I'm not going to be just sitting around all summer. I'm taking a class that starts next week and after that I'm homeward bound! I can't wait to spend time with my family and finally put my thesis to rest.

from my awesome teacher friend, mr. s

Five really important things to think about when thinking about education in the US.

1. Education reformers are attempting to privatize education to open a new market.

2. There is no education crisis sweeping the nation. Factor out poverty and US students are near the top of international standings. We need to address poverty issues that hold children back.

3. "Full-Service Community Schools" are a model for addressing poverty issues that affect education. "Community Schools NOT Charter Schools"

4. The charter school experiment is a failure. 20 years of data show that only 17% of charter schools perform better than the neighborhood school and nearly 40% perform worse. Giving 4 in 10 students a worse education is not going to close any gaps if you only give 2 in 10 a better education.

5. 50% of teachers quit before 5 years. This means most of the bad ones leave on their own before tenure. No other sector is as self-selecting as this.

the place of unions in education

Some believe that teachers unions are immovable stumbling blocks to reform, but the international picture tells a different story. Many of the world’s top-performing nations have strong teacher unions that work in tandem with local and national authorities to boost student achievement. In top-performing education systems like Finland, Singapore, and Ontario, Canada, teachers unions engage in reforms as partners in a joint quest to advance and accelerate learning.

-- Uncommon Wisdom on Teaching

After reading this, it occurred to me that whenever I hear about unions in the media it is about protecting bad teachers, not about the good things that unions do. As a matter of fact, I bet that many people can't name one positive thing that unions do for students.

US achievement in the context of poverty

In America, we don't have an education crisis; rather we have a poverty crisis. The latest Program for International Student Assessment (PISA) scores indicate that American schools that serve few low-income students rank higher than the world's top-scoring advanced industrial countries. But when they are averaged with the scores of schools with high poverty rates, the United States sinks to the middle of the pack.

-- Michael Rebel

framing education in the context of poverty

Abstract:

This analysis is about the role of poverty in school reform. Data from a number of sources are used to make five points. First, that poverty in the US is greater and of longer duration than in other rich nations. Second, that poverty, particularly among urban minorities, is associated with academic performance that is well below international means on a number of different international assessments. Scores of poor students are also considerably below the scores achieved by white middle class American students. Third, that poverty restricts the expression of genetic talent at the lower end of the socioeconomic scale. Among the lowest social classes environmental factors, particularly family and neighborhood influences, not genetics, is strongly associated with academic performance. Among middle class students it is genetic factors, not family and neighborhood factors, that most influences academic performance. Fourth, compared to middle-class children, severe medical problems affect impoverished youth. This limits their school achievement as well as their life chances. Data on the negative effect of impoverished neighborhoods on the youth who reside there is also presented. Fifth, and of greatest interest, is that small reductions in family poverty lead to increases in positive school behavior and better academic performance. It is argued that poverty places severe limits on what can be accomplished through school reform efforts, particularly those associated with the federal No Child Left Behind law. The data presented in this study suggest that the most powerful policy for improving our nations school achievement is a reduction in family and youth poverty.  [Bold is mine]

 Excerpt:

The negative income tax was studied 20 years ago and it revealed that increases in family income resulted in increased school attendance and better school achievement for the families that gained in income (Salkind & Haskins, 1982). The work assistance programs of the 90s have also been examined and again there is some evidence that as family income went up the achievement and behavior of children in those families improved (Huston, Duncan, Granger, Bos, McLoyd, Mistry, Crosby, Gibson, Magnuson, Romich, & Ventura, 2001). The evidence of the positive influence on student achievement when families are able to leave poverty is consistent and replicable, suggesting that inside-of-school reform needs to begin with outside-of school reform.

-- Our Impoverished View of Education Reform by David C. Berliner

two alternating views of tfa

From Gary Rubinstein TFA '91: 

Well, my most significant criticism is that their exaggerated claims of success end up, I think, harming the education system in a couple of different ways. For instance, they claim that their first year teachers are doing really well, like on their website, it says that 41 percent of the first years achieve a year and a half worth of progress in one year.

From Heather Harding, TFA Senior VP of Community Engagement:


First, we are recruiting leaders from all across the country and it's a highly selective process. In your intro, you noted we have got 48,000-plus applications for 5,000 slots, so we really are sort of weeding out people or looking for people with strong academic content. That is the first sort of cut at our training.

new orleans: a case study

After Hurricane Katrina, the school system in New Orleans was completely reorganized. A good history and review from Harvard is here. Reformers from all over the country were recruited to come in and support a charter experiment. Many reformers argue that New Orleans is proof that charters are the way to go in the future.

Well, how about you look at this chart. It is a comparison chart of RSD and voucher schools in 2011. You can see from the chart that the majority of schools have 75% or less of their students in 3rd-5th grade meeting the basic skills requirements. Furthermore, as the Harvard article above points out, proficiency is redefined to meet the current political agenda, whatever that may be.

Fun fact: New Orleans was essentially forced to go charter. After Katrina, some public aid was contingent upon the creation of charter schools.

final reading growth

We officially made 1.44 years of growth in reading.

Unofficially, I feel really good about the growth we made outside of the numbers. Although Sunshine made the least growth, he is lately on fire and I feel really good about the momentum that he is gaining. I think that with the right amount of coaching next year, his growth could really soar.

There is one group of students whose growth I am less satisfied with. These are the four students who are leaving Kinder just at grade level.  One of them is N, who joined our class in January. The other three are the ones I'm feeling frustrated about. I think that some of their struggles are developmental, and perhaps they are not yet ready to read. On the other hand, all three of them struggle with short-term memory, attention, and motivation. Even with moderate to high parent involvement, they have not experienced significant growth. I am frustrated that there is a category of children that I have not yet learned how to reach. Challenge for next year, I suppose.

The majority of the class ended the year on D or above; about 90% of children are at or above grade-level. We have a lot to celebrate.

welcome wagon

The 2012 corps members are arriving to officially begin induction on Wednesday. I made their door signs tonight. I have already talked to a couple CMs in my group and I am so excited to meet them.

Also, it's funny in a morbid kind of way how much their fears and questions remind me of where I was one year ago.

Welcome 2012s!

noise versus heat

My strategy for dealing with days like today that are muggy, hot, and heavy, is to pull down the shades and open my windows and doors to entice any kind of cross-breeze possible.

Today, however, they are doing construction in the alley next to my classroom. So, as I read about Wilbur and Charlotte's sweet goodbye, I had to shout over the noise of a machine.

three more days with kids

I'm feeling a lot of feelings.

on violating the dress code

I bought an adorable summer dress for our graduation ceremony on Wednesday, and I can't wait to wear it. It even matches some of my ridiculous pink shoes. And guess what? It is a (tasteful) tank top. No sleeves for Ms. Haley.

(I hope that everyone comes to school on the last day of school so we can get a class picture.)

my teacher friends are just the best

Last night I enjoyed a rooftop BBQ with some of my favorite teachers.

One in particular, also a Ms. H, shared with me a lesson she's planning to teach next week.

You see, on their eighth grade trip some of her female students took pictures of themselves in just their underwear and posted it online. Obviously they were caught, and their eighth grade luncheon was taken away from them. While their peers are toasting juice to their impending graduation to high school, these girls will be reading a work of feminist theory and writing an essay on how it relates to their behavior on the trip.

The best.

summer reading book progress

Only five more sets left to do!

awesome art education resource

Art Resources in Teaching

Residencies

A.R.T. residencies address the Illinois Standards for Visual Arts (Fine Arts) and support the Common Core Standards for Language Arts and Reading.  Programs emphasize core concepts in visual arts and they correlate with the four essential strands for visual arts programming identified in The Chicago Guide for Teaching and Learning in the Arts: Art Making, Arts Integration, Interpretation & Evaluation and Making Connections.
Four classrooms participate in an 8-session program
Topics: Art and Language Arts, Art and Math. Art and Social Studies, Focus on Fine Arts
Participants: Four classrooms in kindergarten-second grade, third-fifth grade or sixth-eighth grade
Number of sessions: 8-sessions
Type of activities: Art-viewing and art-making, discussion, critique
Comments: Teachers learn along side their students

Workshops

Two classrooms participate in a 90-minute workshop.
Topics: Ancient Civilizations Art of Africa Latin American Art Young Artists
Participants: Two classrooms
Number of sessions: One session; 90 minutes per class
Type of activities: Hands-on art-making
Comments: May require work area

not like mrs. b at all

I remember reading Inside Mrs. B's Classroom for one of my classes at the beginning of the year and identifying with so many of her experiences. When I read about the end of the year, I was energized. After months of exhaustion, she spends the end of the year doing special projects, encouraging her kids, and just being with them.

Now, I'm finally to the end of the year and I just don't feel any of that warmth and celebration. Instead I feel impatient. Frustrated when I realize that children are still terrorizing each other after months of socio-emotional instruction. Exhausted by how many arguments I am mediating. There are moments of joy throughout the day, but they are no more than any other time of the year. I am a little confused. I should feel more happy, no?

sometimes you just need a little love

As many of you know, J is sometimes the bane of my existence. She is also one of my favorite students. Based on what I know of her home life, it's not unsurprising that she can be a little ...challenging. 

J is the last person in my line and she is always twirling, climbing, wandering. Most of the time, I would let that frustrate me, give her a warning and call it a day. Then, one day I made her hold my hand as punishment. Rather than punishing it seemed to calm her, so I kept doing it. Eventually, I started giving her hand squeezes and told her that means "I love you." It always gets me one of her rare smiles -- the kind that light up her whole face.

Today we were doing our normal routine and all of the sudden she gave me a hand squeeze and said, "That means I love you."

I wonder about a lot of things

In case you can't read Kindergarten that says, "I wonder about cats."

And it was written by Sunshine. With great humility I asked if I could have it, and with great pride Sunshine gave me one of his best works.

I'm going to work tomorrow for him.

on hugs that stay with you

I just hugged our administrative assistant for her birthday and now I am going to smell her perfume for a year.

an organizational approach to diversity

Last night, prior to the copying incident mentioned below, I was in a training session to be a mentor for new corps members (who arrive next week!). We talked about expectations and framed them within the core values of TFA.

One of the core values is diversity, so we talked about "diversity." In reality, we danced around anything to do with diversity until finally the leader of the group said, "The reality is that educational inequity falls along racial and socioeconomic lines, and we need to acknowledge that... Wow, I feel like it's really tense in here. I didn't mean to make it so serious. Should I do a little dance to lighten things up?"

Nope, that's just you feeling uncomfortable. And even if there is tension, it's our responsibility to work through it, not avoid it. By dancing.

on being a kindergarten teacher

Last night I stayed late at the TFA office to copy the last several packs of books for my kids' summer reading bags.

The copy machine jammed twice -- one of those big copiers that you have to roll apart and then crawl on the floor to get into the burning-hot nooks and crannies where the paper may or may not be lodged. I had already gone through three reams of paper. While waiting I was assembling a packet, so my hands were dry and itchy. Needless to say I was sweating.

Then, someone came into the room. "Whatcha doing there?"

"Making books for my kids for the summer."

"Aww... that's so cute."

Excuse me? Cute? What part of the summer reading drop is cute? What part of this project doesn't come from a place of fear and frustration that my kids will likely drop off over the summer? In other words, what part of this is cute?

to the man on the morning bus

Everyone always opens with that question, "You a teacher?" I don't blame you though. Why else why I be here?, is what you're probably thinking.

Thanks for the morning rant. For feeling invested enough in the community where we both work to say something about it's history. For sharing with me your opinions about why the crime rate stays so high in high-poverty areas.

And for your hopeful, encouraging good-bye, "And TEACH those kids!"

the loss that no one thinks about

I’m National Board Certified, hold 2 MA’s (one from NYU) and was named Social Studies Teacher of the Year for my district last year. I fully expect my final rating to be “Needs Improvement” or “Ineffective” though, when the test scores are added in to my ‘value’, since the state saw fit to raise the bar so high for passing and they made the FCAT test far more difficult this year. My principal actually rated me ‘highly effective’ based upon her numerous formal and informal observations and review of my teaching portfolio but that only counts for half so . . . .

Looks like the writing is on the wall and it’s time to start looking for employment outside the school system. That makes me very sad and sick at heart but I don’t see anything changing for the better any time soon. After 2 years of low ratings in Florida now you lose your professional teaching certificate and can be fired at will. Everyone who can is retiring or has retired. Those of us in the middle or just starting out are just stuck.

Where are our professional organizations and unions? Why aren’t they fighting hard to help us? Inquiring minds would like to know.

- Commenter on the Ravitch blog

should community schools survive?

While federal, state and local authorities maintain a top down strategy of fixing education, some communities are pushing for a different approach.  Parents, teachers and students are demanding a say in how their schools are run. But their efforts in getting leaders to address the institutional problems behind so-called failing schools are meeting resistance.  FSRN’s Jaisal Noor examines these issues in two of the country’s biggest school districts: Chicago and New York.

Listen to this radio documentary, produced by Jaisal Noor. 

yoga

I never realize how much tension has crept into my body and settled in my bones until I go to yoga. Tried Tejas today and it was fantastic. They had a really small class and everything you might need. It was a nice break from bikram.

I wish that I wasn't spending the rest of this day trapped inside doing coursework.

TWO weeks.

sunshine on a cloudy day

Sunshine moved another reading level today! He is officially at a B. I was so proud of him I almost cried. I feel like things are finally coming together for him.

economy v. democracy

The pundits say, over and over, that only a better-educated workforce will save us. People believe it. Actually, it's a lie.

 -- Deborah Meier

An interesting article that contradicts some of my assumptions.

kites

They should be renamed "child exhaustion devices." Whoever invented a toy that children must run in front of in order for it to work, thank you.

from the woman who gave me the flexi

She is releasing a book and now has a website offering worksheets, resources, and ideas.