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• Caroline Kennedy is said to have taken herself out of contention for the Senate.
• InsideSchools gives props to Bronx special needs parents who speak out about their challenges.
• NYC Educator thinks we write too much about charter schools.
• In Oklahoma, a proposal to create a separate agency to run testing and accountability.
• To prepare for the state test, a Florida school held a mock funeral burying their “mistakes.”
• Marcus Winters proposes vouchers as a way for states to save money.
• Kevin Carey highlights the two times now-President Obama mentioned education in his inaugural address.
• A city high school builds on Obama’s call to service with its own community service plan.

Here’s an idea for the new president: Make people happy by giving them pennies. According to a story in triptych form by Miah Mansour, a kindergartner at PS 130 (not sure which borough), that’s what it would take to stave off the foreclosure crisis. Miah sent the story, which you can view in full below the jump, to the state teachers union, NYSUT, after it asked schoolchildren to offer advice to Barack Obama. Other letters suggest insulating schools against budget cuts, reducing class sizes, and providing bigger file cabinets for teachers. (Via Edwize) (more…)

Now that Barack Obama has been president for more than a day, it’s a good time to ask once again what his deal will be on education.

Fortunately, I have a wonderful opportunity to do that tonight, at a panel discussion Bank Street College of Education is putting on. The talk, titled “School Reform: Where have we been and where should we be going?” will feature Linda Darling-Hammond, the lightning rod Stanford professor who advised the new president on education during his campaign.

Given the latest flurry of concern about who’s going to staff the U.S. Department of Education (the going rumor is that Wendy Kopp is being considered for a top spot beneath Arne Duncan), it’ll be particularly interesting to see what Darling-Hammond has to say tonight. So interesting, in fact, that there are absolutely no available tickets for the talk. This may be a first for an education event on a weekday night.

The other panelists are Tom Payzant of Harvard and formerly the Boston public schools; Louis Delgado, a New York City principal, and Alec Gershberg, a professor at the New School.

Please send me questions you’d like me to ask via e-mail, because I need to leave now.

Bored-looking students at yesterday's Harlem Armory celebration

All over the city yesterday, teachers interrupted their lessons so they could watch the inauguration with their students. Last night, a number of them blogged about their experiences, which ranged from exhilarating to disappointing.

At Is Our Children Learning?, elementary school teacher Ruben wrote that his kids didn’t seem to understand why they were watching TV during the school day:

There’s nowhere else I’d rather have been, nor a more special location I can think of, than with my students. …

I wish I had more time last week to prepare my kids for today. While there was a palpable excitement throughout the school, it was clear that much of the real, historical significance was lost on the students. They clapped and cheered at pretty much all the appropriate moments, but when it was time for the important parts, they were just plain bored. As one student said to me when Barack began his inaugural address, “These words is for lawyers.” I myself was pretty moved, but I can imagine how much of the language could be lost on 1,000 K-5 students, most of whom are a couple of grades behind in reading and writing.

Below the jump, reactions from four more teacher-bloggers, whose students ranged from attentive to angry during the inauguration. (more…)

Ms. T. is blogging about her experience working in a Collaborative Team Teaching classroom. CTT classes have a mix of students in general education and special education, and each class has two teachers, one with special education certification. Ms. T is the general education teacher in her classroom.

I made a mistake recently.

Before I go on, I must go back. Meet my student: a young man, low tolerance to frustration, impatient when not given the attention he craves (which is more attention than a teacher can possibly give), funny, smart, an enjoyable student (despite all of the negatives), labeled special education for his emotional/behavioral disorder, and disruptive. His disruptions usually stem from the noises he is constantly making in our classroom. From the moment he walks in at the start of the day to the moment we send him off at the end of the day, he is talking. Sometimes he’s talking to others; most of the time, he’s talking to himself. Almost all the time, he is talking in a voice loud enough to disrupt and distract student learning.

The first week back after the winter vacation was worse than usual for a child who doesn’t deal well with inconsistencies in schedules and is sure to take a few weeks to get back in the swing of things. He talked nonstop, offering a constant play-by-play or yelling out answers during class discussions. By Friday, my patience was running out. Something had to change. (more…)

Teachers have blogs, grad students have blogs, professors have blogs, principals have blogs, and now, in what is the first case I know of, a charter school head has a blog!

The savvy woman is Deborah Kenny, founder and chief executive of the Harlem Village Academies charter schools, who put this post on Huffington Post yesterday. The post compiles seventh-graders’ thoughts on the inauguration.

Here’s one of my favorites:

Cariahnna Cintron:
Spoken like a poet, Obama’s words touched me. Obama said, “Time and time again, these men and women struggled and sacrificed and worked until their hands were raw, so that we might live a better life.” My grandmother cooks and cleans so that her kids and grandkids come home to a safe, healthy home. She works and works, and she never gives up. She doesn’t know how to read or write, but she’s the smartest person I know. She learns from her experiences and from the experiences of others. She works to make everyone that crosses her path happy. She works to make America a better country. This has been her job for sixty-nine years, and it will be her job until the day she dies.

• The Campaign for Fiscal Equity money was at risk long before the economic crisis. (Village Voice)
• The DOE gives special attention to the schools it is closing. (Village Voice)
• Brooklyn’s DUMBO neighborhood debates whether a new school is worth losing a prized view. (Times)
• More inauguration news from the schools. (Post)
• Reading Toni Morrison with today’s teens. (Washington Post)
• Dan Barry watched the inauguration from a school in Kansas. (Times)
• The BBC compares Obama’s education plans to recent education reforms in England.

• At Brooklyn’s PS 29, kids dispersed to nearby apartments and eateries when the Internet went down.
• Joel Klein watched the festivities from his alma mater, PS 205 in Brooklyn.
• Kids at Bronx Lab HS say the inauguration portends better race relations.
• Several future presidents — and their secretaries — crowded into a Harlem church.
• Kids at PS 321 in Park Slope watched from their classmates’ apartments.
• Lindsey at Insideschools interviewed lots of kids at the Harlem Armory.
• A teacher who usually hates losing class time said listening to Obama’s speech was worth it.
• The DOE has a rundown of how a handful of schools marked the special day.
• Those cute Atlanta private school kids are back with a new song, “Dear Obama.”
• Two Teach for America alums (from Baltimore, but still!) got engaged at the inauguration today.

Democracy Prep Charter School students have been studying electoral politics all year. This is how it felt to be among them, and thousands of their peers, at the Harlem Armory today just after CNN announced that Barack Obama had officially became the country’s 44th president.

I reported in our feature today that the Harlem Armory inauguration party included a pre-written postcard to Obama, on which students were supposed to give their advice about how to improve America’s schools. Above Ayanna Mason, a 13-year-old eighth grader at Democracy Prep Charter School, gives me her advice. The video cuts off at the end but what she said is that good schools should get more funding, while bad schools should be shut down.

I also spoke to students at CIS 313, pictured in a video below, who said they hope Obama brings home the troops and ends slavery. (more…)