Education – Page 6

2013040420131213

Twins prove student performance no good for assessing teachers

Mother Crusader tells why she knows that student performance – as demonstrated by standardized testing – can never be accurately used to determine how good a teacher is: her twin children have been with the same teachers since pre-K and their student performance is radically different. Mother Crusader recommends that parents opt their children out of standardized testing, and cautions that in New Jersey it will be used against teachers beginning next year:

And here is a GREAT reason why to opt your kids out. One of the “high stakes” attached to state tests is teacher accountability. These tests are NOT designed to evaluate teacher performance, yet that is EXACTLY what they will be used for. read more

2013040420131213

How to Stop Your School from Being CLOSED

Saturday, April 6, 2013
10am-1pm
Rutgers University-Newark
Boyden Hall Room 100
195 University Ave.
Newark, NJ 07102
Cost: Free

When the district hands down the list of schools to be closed each year, most of the reactions from parents, staff and students are after the fact. As a result, many of the planned school closings occur, and the people most impacted feel voiceless. Join us for a session that will teach you how to ask questions, examine data, and make sure the school has all it needs, which will both improve student outcomes and take your school off the “closing block”. Protests and Speaking are not enough to keep schools from being closed. Early preparation will work! read more

2013032620131213

What is ALEC and how is it tied to the GOP?

To understand what the American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC) is, you have to look at what this organization does. Since ALEC is becoming bolder by the New York Minute, it’s easier to see exactly what their agenda is.

Common Cause answers the question, “What is the American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC)?”

For almost 40 years now, up to 300 of the largest US corporations—including Koch Industries, Verizon, Bank of America and Exxon—have used ALEC to push model legislation, which is beneficial to their corporate interests, into law in the states. ALEC boasts that a third of all state legislators in the US are members, introducing around 1,000 ALEC bills every year. By using ALEC to pursue their agenda, they are able to hide their fingerprints, avoid lobbying disclosure, and evade the kind of increased scrutiny that comes when citizens know it’s actually corporationsthat draftedsome of their most important laws. Recent ALEC bills have rolled back voting rights, reduced environmental protections and stripped away collective bargaining rights for workers around the country. read more

2013030220221207

A real teacher resigns in protest – on camera

This 2nd grade teacher chose to give up his $70,000 job – “with benefits” – and tutor Connecticut students for free rather than continue fighting the school system over new practices which he is sure are preventing students from acquiring a love of learning. What were the problems he encountered? Breakfast period, recess and talking during lunch time were eliminated. Teaching was required to focus only on test scores and, “any type of fun activity – is gone:” classroom pets, parties to celebrate special events and birthdays, field trips . . . “all gone, gone, gone.” The school system even prohibited Mr. Steven Round from volunteering his personal time after school to help nine dyslexic pupils learn to read, an initiative which was working tremendously well for the students and had enthusiastic support from parents. read more

2013022220131213

Paterson Board of Ed will investigate secret state charter school approval

Mother Crusader shares reactions from Paterson’s Board of Ed members to the news that Christie’s Education Commissioner, Chris Cerf, approved two more charter schools for Paterson without the Board’s consent or knowledge, or knowledge of other city residents. The State is legally required to solicit community feedback regarding new charter applications but as Mother Crusader points out, “from what I heard at that meeting, nothing about this administration’s charter agenda in Paterson was shared with the good people of that community.” read more

2013022120131213

5 articles on why charters are bad for Paterson

Mother Crusader is a new voice in education reform – on the good guy side. This lady didn’t intend to become an advocate for public education. But, she followed the thread of a bit of “education reform” injustice she stumbled across one day which led her to a huge ball of intentional attacks on public education by privatizers who want the money it represents for themselves, and are out to destroy students’ minds, happiness and their communities while they’re at it, in order to get that money. Mother Crusader was disturbed, put aside all of her other tasks for the week and wrote a series of articles explaining in very clear English, why charter schools are bad and exactly why the Paterson Collegiate Charter School in particular, is bad for Paterson. read more

2012112320131213

What is Torah (the Jewish bible)?

There are many misconceptions about what the Jewish Bible is, arising largely from the fact that only the most dedicated Jewish scholars have engaged in the many years of study required to review and learn what Torah contains, and what it actually is. Some people refer to the Torah as a set of laws, but this is not accurate. Torah, or teachings, refers to more than the Torah scrolls kept in Jewish synagogues and the complete body of “written scripture” which Jews call the Tanach and Christians call the Old Testament. It also refers to the Oral, or spoken, teachings. Books on specific topics have been written by prior and modern sages that collate, codify or explain, information that is found woven throughout different parts of the Torah, for example: Maimonides book listing the 613 positive and negative commandments Jews must adhere to and the laws of careful speech, which is another area of Torah study which merits its own, special, space. read more

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Online Learning, Free Classes and MOOCs

Coursera offers free online courses and certificate courses you pay a fee to get

Distance Ed Archive Collection curated by George Brett
Topics related to distance eLearning in academia and other organizations.

EdX
EdX offers interactive online classes and MOOCs from the world’s best universities. Online courses from MITx, HarvardX, BerkeleyX, UTx and many other universities. EdX is a non-profit online initiative created by founding partners Harvard and MIT.

Harvard offers a variety of free online courses.

MIT OpenCourseware. Basically, MIT gives you last year’s course lectures totally for free. If you want this year’s courses and access to professors, you need to attend the school.

Udemy has a variety of free and low cost courses. Offers change so check in once in a while to see if you can catch what you want at a good price or for free.

2012100620131213

Self learning beats a “degrading” educational system

TED features a MOOC project this week

Shimon Schocken and Noam Nisan developed a curriculum for their students to build a computer, piece by piece. When they put the course online — giving away the tools, simulators, chip specifications and other building blocks — they were surprised that thousands jumped at the opportunity to learn, working independently as well as organizing their own classes in the first Massive Open Online Course (MOOC). A call to forget about grades and tap into the self-motivation to learn. read more

2012091920131213

Expanded student demographic data now on ELC website

Over the years, Education Law Center (ELC) has become the “go-to” source where parents, policymakers and advocates can find high quality, in-depth data and other useable information on New Jersey’s public schools. This organization is committed to continuing to provide timely and relevant data in a highly functional and interactive format and is pleased to announce that visitors can now find an expanded range of student data on their website: racial/ethnic composition, poverty rates, limited English proficiency rates, and special education rates of NJ public school students, whether enrolled in district schools or charter schools. read more

2012091320131213

The correct word is . . .

It’s definitely time to start a proper word usage list. I just spotted the third statement about “peek interest” made by a college educated person. This is going to be a running list. I’ll add to it when I spot anything new that belongs here. If you have a suggestion, put in the Talkback section and I’ll add it.

Pique Something may pique your interest, but it cannot peek or peak it.

Apostrophes (‘) – words should only have them to show possession or when the word is a contraction, like can’t or don’t. Plurals don’t get apostrophes. Let’s make a concerted effort not to misplace this bit of punctuation . . because understanding each other is important.
Resources: Apostrophe Catastrophe, Wikibooks read more

2012053020131213

Us or them? Goals for public education

An increasingly corporatized school system wishes to crush students with learning challenges because they are not expected to fulfill the mission being set: that students during the course of their educations should be trained to become willing and obedient servants of large corporations and of wealthy individuals upon graduation. But, is this what the people of the United States want to be? If not, we must begin evaluating what public education means to our families, our children and our overall society. We must ask: what is the purpose of public education? What are the life, moral and academic lessons we want imparted to our children during the course of their public school educations? read more

2012052920160727

What is Cory Booker’s vision for Newark?

Honestly, I don’t know enough about Newark politics to make a judgment call about how well Cory Booker governs. I do have growing questions about how some important city matters are being handled, though. As the Green Drinks Newark founding host, people bring issues and questions to my attention and I feel a moral obligation to look into them. This 21 May article by Josh Benson purports to addresses some of the underlying political reasons things happen the way they do in Newark. Josh quotes State Senator Ronald Rice as saying, “… if people don’t understand it now by … Cory traveling throughout the country, the people he meets with, people he supports and all the stuff happening in Newark with hedge funds and investors, if they don’t understand he’s completely beholden to them, there’s something wrong with them.” read more

2012050320131213

New tracking skews against some NJ students

The intent to harm vulnerable young people inherent in Christie’s new educational initiative begins to reveal itself. We have to look for this in every move Christie makes: even when his PR buzz makes it look like he’s doing something good for low-income students, the reverse is always true. Using the new federal system of tracking high school graduation rates as an excuse, Christie announces plans to expand the number of assessment tests students get in their high school years.

Where’s the harm in that? Athough this tool will clearly make it harder for our state’s highschoolers to graduate, it comes with no thoughtful companion plan on how to improve education. As one poster comments in a Facebook page on education, it’s unfair to wait until students are in high school to start rigorous testing for academic readiness: those evaluations need to start much earlier in their academic careers. read more

2012030720131213

Danger looms for higher ed student diversity

The Supreme Court has agreed to consider if it’s lawful for colleges and universities to take into account the ethnicity of a student who applies for entrance when deciding whether to admit him/her. Most institutions of higher education have been required since 1978 to make room for students who may be lower-achieving academically than other candidates because they’re members of ethnic groups recognized as disadvantaged and need the boost of a handicap to raise their area of the playing field to a level which will statistically provide a similar admission opportunity as students coming from ethnic groups with history of better academic performance. read more