December 2009
4 posts
“Teaching is an ancient craft, and yet we really have had no idea how it affected...”
– Brain Power - Studying Young Minds, and How to Teach Them - Series - NYTimes.com
The problem with all this is it is being increasingly used to justify early drilling of data in children’s brains when they arguably should be engaging in imaginative play.
Doesn’t mean we...
“The data obtained by the Chicago News Cooperative shows that where race was not...”
– City Schools’ New Criteria for Diversity Raise Fears - NYTimes.com
And even the 85% number seems low to me.
“The Chicago public schools’ response to a recent court desegregation ruling — a...”
– City Schools’ New Criteria for Diversity Raise Fears - NYTimes.com
What slow and incremental progress? There is little to no (mostly, no) integration in CPS neighborhood and magnet schools. We are talking pre Brown Vs. Board of Ed conditions!
November 2009
10 posts
Chicago News Cooperative - To Pay for Longer... →
“In short, Mr. Weis’s strategy boiled down to this: launch a concentrated attack...”
– Chicago News Cooperative - Police Struggle to Navigate New Gang Landscape - NYTimes.com
“The experts propose that both conditions should be subsumed under the term...”
– Op-Ed Contributor - The Short Life of a Diagnosis - NYTimes.com
“Segregation is like the elephant in the china shop. No one wants to admit it’s...”
– What’s News Online - Segregation is back in America’s public schools
“Seriously, why would Republicans, who have traditionally opposed big government,...”
– School Monitor - New York Times
“You also suggest that our current system of locally financed schools be...”
– School Monitor - New York Times
“I know that in the past people are concerned, ‘Are we going to have our young...”
– Obama Uses Malia’s Test Scores as a Teaching Example - The Caucus Blog - NYTimes.com
Teachers are being forced to teach to the test. Regardless of creative projects and activities, the content is very test driven. Furthermore, time constraints built into scripted lesson plans do not allow for...
“School districts statewide are using a loophole that allows them to define what...”
– Case of the missing juniors — chicagotribune.com
“CHICAGO - Chicago Public Schools officials say they’re drastically cutting...”
– Budget shortfall slashes CPS after-school tutoring - Chicago Tribune
I’m hearing from my CPS teacher collegues that in some school after-school tutoring has been completely cut but only after children and parents excitedly enrolled their students! In one school, a program has gone from...
October 2009
11 posts
Chicago Public School Rankings →
Community Media Workshop: Newstips - Parents Call... →
“The most dedicated readers in the country are teenagers. I did a study of Y.A....”
– Sherman Alexie - A Native Son With No Borders - NYTimes.com
“My concern was that they would never have been able to find an Indian kid who...”
– Sherman Alexie - A Native Son With No Borders - NYTimes.com
Diary is probs my favorite middle school-early hs book. I hope to teach it…
“Theaters will allow children to watch film clips of their own selection,...”
– Disney Plans Extensive Overhaul of Mall Stores - NYTimes.com
SENSORY OVERLOAD! -Just what the children of America need! I predict many screaming children clamoring to get out. Perhaps I’m projecting?
“Gayle King’s interview with Anjanette Albert (Derrion’s mom) was...”
– Helpless Mayor Blames School Violence On Parents, Feds (Again) - District 299
“What the interview reveals is what no one wants to talk much about and that is the intersection of poverty, violence, problem schools, and some very disturbed youth.”
At the center of this web, is...
“Most people, I suspect, still have in their minds an image of America as the...”
– Op-Ed Columnist - The Uneducated American - NYTimes
Great editorial from Krugman.
“But Chicago teachers, students and youth advocates say there’s only one thing...”
– That video you saw of the high school brawl? Brawls happen every day. | WBEZ / Chicago Public Radio Blog
Yup. Fights on the westside and southside playgrounds every single day.
September 2009
16 posts
“The president, who has a sixth-grader and a third-grader, wants schools to add...”
– More school: Obama would curtail summer vacation - Yahoo! News
THIS WILL NOT SOLVE THE REAL PROBLEMS PLAGUING PUBLIC EDUCATION. GET WITH IT, OBAMA! ARNE IS A MILITANT ARSE WHO WANTS TO SUCK THE LIFE OUT OF EVERY CHILD IN AMERICA IN THE NAME OF INCREASED TEST SCORES.
“The ability of young children to control their emotional and cognitive impulses,...”
– The School Issue - Preschool - Can the Right Kinds of Play Teach Self-Control? - NYTimes.com
Well, really, anything is more accurate than IQ tests.
“Over the last few years, a new buzz phrase has emerged among scholars and...”
– The School Issue - Preschool - Can the Right Kinds of Play Teach Self-Control? - NYTimes.com
“About a week ago, I stumbled across an interesting program at SFMOMA that had...”
– Museumist
Very cool. Click link to read an interview about the project. I’d love to see a user friendly meta map for Chicago. As of right now, it’s very cumbersome to collect information and plan consecutive, and sometimes overlapping, visits to institutions.
City Room™ - Education - Will CPS's Magnet Schools... →
Magnet Schools like Disney mentioned in the article (a school that I desperately tried to get a job at), are the only truly integrated schools in Chicago. Where I teach, and where most people teach, there are no white students. My school is 50 Hispanic/50 Black, which is VERY diverse for a CPS school. Sad, but true.
What this article doesn’t address is why white kids don’t go to...
“You can have your own free school wiki in 30 seconds or less by visiting...”
– Eight Ways To Use School Wikis
Bloom's Taxonomy Blooms Digitally →
Great article on ways to employ the stogy but useful Blooms Taxonomy in modern lesson planning and curriculum building.
“There is no other word to describe with accuracy what’s happening right...”
– K12 Education: Jonathan Kozol Takes on The World
THAT!
“The stereotype about young women is that they’re ungrateful and inactive -...”
– Jezebel: Celebrity, Sex, Fashion for Women. Without Airbrushing.
HOLLA!
“Mortgage lenders like Countrywide and Wells Fargo sought out minority homebuyers...”
– Op-Ed Contributors - The Recession’s Racial Divide - NYTimes.com
“Reconstitution, a concept similar to turnarounds, did not improve performance....”
– At troubled schools, more reform — chicagotribune.com
Because the issues which interfere with adequate instruction and performance are THAT MUCH BIGGER. And few people want to say what’s really going on-There is money in failure, money in keeping the ghettos the way they are, and money...
“We want to combine the power of Harvard with the power of a plaid shirt.”
– Harvard Signs On to a New Line of Upscale Clothing - NYTimes.com
bwah. bwah. bwah.
“Cambridge brows began to furrow last month after word trickled out that Harvard...”
– Harvard Signs On to a New Line of Upscale Clothing - NYTimes.com
Vom.
Wasn’t I just reading about Harvard’s attempt to shed its elitest image?
“These are students for whom the computers are the training wheels of their...”
– Rude behavior in college classrooms is often a matter of course — chicagotribune.com
August 2009
14 posts
“In California, they have 300,000 teachers,” he said. The top 10 percent are the...”
– Dangling Money, Obama Pushes Education Shift - NYTimes.com
Cheers and bravo!
Teaching skill is the highest determinant of student success in the classroom. Curriculum, educational philosophy, and even socioeconomic class are less of a predictor.
“Lawmakers in Illinois, Louisiana, Tennessee and several other states responded...”
– Dangling Money, Obama Pushes Education Shift - NYTimes.com
This is worrisome. While there is much to be learned from the charter school model, this trend severally handicaps neighborhood schools in bridging the achievement gap.