Posts from October 26th, 2009
nightcap
October 26, 2009
Remainders: Vaccines, gourmet tacos in store for students
- A veteran teacher believes Race to the Top is built on ten flawed assumptions.
- Michelle Rhee said people should not assume that laid-off teachers are bad teachers.
- There are still more than 5,000 open pre-k spots, but many are in half-day sessions.
- Pissed Off Teacher finds out that one of her freshman students did not pass a single eighth grade class.
- About 600,000 students will be eating Rachel Ray’s chicken taco recipe at school on Thursday.
- School nurses will be giving swine flu vaccinations at 125 elementary schools on Wednesday.
- Jonathan Gyurko remembers when Ted Sizer visited his school in South Africa.
- Columbia Teachers College’s Susan Fuhrman is the new head of the National Academy of Education.
- Teacher Beat wonders if seniority in hiring is on its way out.
- Data systems linking students to teacher prep should be experiments, not policy, writes Aaron Pallas.
- Parents were sweating bullets at last week’s gifted and talented info sessions, reports Michael McCurdy.
- And Jay Mathews wonders what it’s like to be suspended. (He wouldn’t know; he was a goody-goody.)
tuning in
October 26, 2009
Thompson and Cerf debate the next four years for city schools
With little more than a week before the mayoral election, candidate Bill Thompson and Christopher Cerf, an adviser to Mayor Bloomberg’s reelection campaign, touted their future plans for the city’s schools on WNYC today.
Given half an hour each on the Brian Lehrer Show, Thompson and Cerf took questions on school safety, the accountability structure, and what major changes they (or their candidate — Cerf hasn’t said whether he’ll return to the Department of Education after the election) would put in place over the next four years. Throughout the interview, Thompson emphasized his interest in lowering class sizes and shifting school administrators’ focus away from standardized tests. Cerf spoke at length about the importance of using technology to cater to students’ different learning styles. Neither offered clues to how the city would pay for these changes.
Asked by host Brian Lehrer to name the greatest innovation he’d bring to the city’s schools, Thompson had one word: curriculum. (more…)
Gifted Gazette
October 26, 2009
I attended the NYC DOE gifted and talented program session this past Thursday night on the Upper West Side at Brandeis High School (84th and Amsterdam) where hundreds of prospective G&T parents convened. I arrived a bit late due to delays on the 2 train but finally showed up around 7:15 p.m. (the session started at (more…)
The origins of the ATR crisis, from a veteran teacher
Over in the community section, Francis Lewis High School UFT chapter leader Arthur Goldstein offers a long-term, personal perspective on the Absent Teacher Reserve situation.
Because the 2005 teachers union contract ended senior teachers’ ability to claim open positions in the system, any teacher can become an ATR if Chancellor Joel Klein closes his or her school, Goldstein writes:
, at 1:00 pmTeachers would no longer be sent to schools simply because there were open positions. Instead, they’d become ATRs, teaching whatever, wherever, to whomever. From there, we were assured, they’d easily find jobs. Unless, of course, they didn’t. Personally, I’m very glad I transferred when I could. For all I know, they could be closing my former school this very moment. I’d be very unhappy as an ATR teacher, and I’ve met many ATR teachers who feel precisely the same way.
Office Space
October 26, 2009
A lot of people think teaching is somehow a job for life — that no teachers can be fired for any reason, no matter what they do, who they kill, or whether or not they sleep in garbage cans. It’s not true. In fact, the Department of Education tries to take away teacher jobs all (more…)
Eye on Education
October 26, 2009
I missed Secretary of Education Arne Duncan’s speech at Teachers College on Thursday because I was working on his behalf in Washington. I was one of about 17 researchers on a panel evaluating a batch of research proposals on school reform for the Institute of Education Sciences (IES), the research arm of the federal Department of (more…)
Headlines
October 26, 2009
Rise & Shine: A visit to the state’s oldest charter school, age 10
- Celebrity chef Rachel Ray has created lunch recipes for the city schools. (Post, Daily News)
- Joel Klein recently participated in a Wall Street Journal discussion about how to improve schools.
- Klein celebrated his 63rd birthday yesterday by attending the Kushner-Trump nuptials. (Cityfile, Post)
- Tom Carroll lists his priorities for the new UFT contract, and they aren’t straight from New Haven. (Post)
- The state’s first charter school, 10-year-old Sisulu-Walker, had to figure things out on its own. (Post)
- One of Sisulu-Walker’s students appeared for 14 months in “The Lion King” on Broadway. (Post)
- School nurses say overcrowding could make it hard to isolate students with H1N1 flu. (Daily News)
- The Gates Foundation spent about $200 million last year driving its education policies to the top. (AP)
- Scott Stringer is trying to bring healthy eating and green living to East Harlem schools. (NY1)
- In a letter, a city high school teacher says schools are the best place to start teaching creativity. (Times)
- Jay Mathews visits two D.C. schools that are now run by New York City educators. (Washington Post)
- Arne Duncan isn’t happy about Hawaii saving money by reducing school time. (Wall Street Journal)
- Denver is pushing its charter schools to enroll more students with disabilities. (Denver Post)
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