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Monday, May 26, 2014

School librarians a rare find in California public schools | EdSource Today

School librarians a rare find in California public schools | EdSource Today:



May 2014
School librarian Shannon Englebrecht reminds Tori Reese, 8, that she has several books overdue.Englebrecht allows students at Charles Drew Preparatory Academy, a public school in San Francisco, to check out as many books as they want. Credit: LillianMongeauEdSource
Shannon Englebrecht, who works for the San Francisco Unified School District, is poised to become one of a rare breed in California when her hours are increased next year: a full-time public school librarian.
California employed 804 school librarians in 2012-13, which translates to one certified school librarian for every 7,784 students in 2012-13, according to data from the California Department of EducationThat is the lowest per-student ratio of any state in the country. The national average in the fall of 2011, the most recent year for which data is available, was one school librarian for every 1,022 students, according to The National Center for Education Statistics.
The lack of certified librarians has led to a decrease in student access to books, a decline in student research skills and the loss of an important resource for teachers, said Janice See-Gilmore, president of the California School Library Association.
“It’s actually pretty dreadful,” See-Gilmore said. “In 1999 we had 1,300 teacher librarians. We’re just going in the wrong direction.”
There are fewer school librarians in California today than there were in 1988. (Note: Data for years 1989-1997, 1999 and 2009 is approximate.) Sources: California Department of Education, National Center for Education Statistics
(Click to enlarge.) There are fewer school librarians in California today than there were in 1988. (Note: Data for years 1989-1997, 1999 and 2009 is approximate.) Sources: California Department of Education, National Center for Education Statistics
State funding for school libraries has never been steady. Prior to 1994, there was no money specifically set aside for them. Between 1994 and 2009, various statewide initiatives – from a check-off on income tax forms to a block grant program for districts – funneled vastly varying amounts of money to public school libraries. Those amounts ranged from $266,000 to $158.5 million annually.
Beginning in 2009, the funding set aside for libraries became “flexible,” meaning it could be spent on other priorities as districts scrambled to slash their budgets during the recessiSchool librarians a rare find in California public schools | EdSource Today:

Unlikely Allies Uniting to Fight School Changes - NYTimes.com

Unlikely Allies Uniting to Fight School Changes - NYTimes.com:



Unlikely Allies Uniting to Fight School Changes

Rick Womick, a Republican lawmaker, and Emily Mitchell, a teacher,
both oppose changes in education policy in
 Tennessee.
 CreditJoe Buglewicz for The New York Times

SMYRNA, Tenn. — She is a fan of MSNBC, supports abortion rights and increased government spending in schools, and believes unions should have the right to strike. He watches Fox News, opposes abortion and is a fiscal conservative who voted three years ago to strip teachers unions of collective bargaining rights.

Yet Emily Mitchell, a wiry, 4-foot-9-inch Democrat and first-grade teacher at David Youree Elementary School here, sees State Representative Rick Womick, a 6-foot-2-inch conservative Republican, as an important ally. Their common cause: battling new high-stakes standardized tests and some other hot-button policies in public education.

“I always viewed him as the enemy, the guy that would never see our side,” said Ms. Mitchell, who is president of the Rutherford County chapter of the Tennessee Education Association, the state’s largest teachers union. But after she met Mr. Womick at a church function in February of last year, she said, “I realized that even though he’s polar opposite politically from what I believe in, we both agreed on a lot of things on education.”

With tensions running high over issues surrounding academic benchmarks, standardized testing and performance evaluations for educators, unlikely coalitions of teachers, lawmakers and parents from the left and right are increasingly banding together to push back against what they see as onerous changes in education policy. Some have Tea Party Republicans and teachers unions on the same side.

In Oklahoma, teachers unions gave strong support to a bill, sponsored by Republicans, that would overturn a law requiring third graders to be held back simply on the basis of the results of one standardized test. (Last week, that coalition helped the Legislature overturn Gov. Mary Fallin’s veto.)

In New Jersey, a bill that would slow down the introduction of the Common Core education standards and the use of test scores in teacher evaluations passed the Assembly Education Committee with rare unanimous support. And in New York, grass-roots opposition on the left and the right to testing and the Common Core, a set of national reading and math standards for elementary, middle and high school students that have been adopted by 45 Unlikely Allies Uniting to Fight School Changes - NYTimes.com:

Marie Corfield: Rigor: The death of public education (no really)

Marie Corfield: Rigor: The death of public education (no really):



Rigor: The death of public education (no really)

Photo Credit
What's worse than education 'reform'? Educators who drink the reformy Kool-Aid.

As a product of 12 years of Catholic education in New Jersey the 60s and 70s I learned a thing or two about the roots of the English language. While I didn't have any art, music, science, PE or health classes until high school, I learned a great deal about phonics and diagramming sentences, and just enough about Latin to allow me to pass in freshman year.

I didn't want to take Latin, but Principal Sr. Anne Williams, told me that since I was smart enough to take French, I was smart enough to take Latin, too. Wait... what?!?! I didn't sign up for two languages! I signed up for French l and Intro to Physical Science, the basic freshman science class. Idid not want to take Latin! I needed that science class! I didn't care that my sister—God bless her— was president of the Latin Club for four years; I was not looking to be a legacy! And besides, what kind of cockamamie logic says that a person is any smarter because of the language they choose to study? But that was a time when educators were respected. One did not argue with teachers or principals, especially habit-wearing ones with a man's name. I guess enrollment numbers in Latin class were down and they needed to keep Sr. James Eileen busy.

Latin is a clumsy language. It doesn't roll off the tongue like Spanish, French or Italian. Because I was forced to take it, I hated it. I dug my heels in and did just enough to pass the class. I was not going to put one extra ounce of effort into something I didn't want to study. And I did not want to sing the Latin Declension Song!

Ohhhhhh... are we having a 'Slowly I turned/Niagara Falls' moment? Yeeees... you remember the Declension song, don't you? That snappy little ditty invented to help Latin learners remember verb tenses and such. Are your eyes glazing over? On a whim I 
Marie Corfield: Rigor: The death of public education (no really):

UFT Rank and File Needs Gene Hackman.southbronxschool.com

http://www.southbronxschool.com:



UFT Rank and File Needs Gene Hackman

My son had a baseball tournament upstate this weekend and while enjoying the free pre-made, formerly frozen free breakfast at the Quality Inn of Fishkill yesterday morning I decided against Poughkeepsie Journal in favor of my Sunday true and tried Daily News.
reading the

After reading the sports section I turned to the op-ed page to read El Presidenté Mulgrew's fascinating story on how teacher's, but in his reality the UFT, are the real reformers. As I was reading, my wife said that she had never seen someone's jaw actually hit the table before.

I am not going to rehash or add my two cents. It's been done. Others have done it. I shan't. But just two thoughts.

One, we wouldn't be in this predicament if in 2002 we had some cojones and didn't cave into the pressure of mayoral control. Yes, the money seemed great at the time, but that was the beginning.

Secondly, the final nail was put in the coffin in 2005. So, please, spare us the "I found religion" spiel now. It is too late. WE, THE TEACHERS, THE RANK AND FILE, THE FRONT LINE, have been bullied, beaten, abused, and bruised up too long. So forgive us if we are not buying the hard sell. Forgive us if we say we heard this all before. It's too late. You can't be the tough guy on the playground now when the bully is nowhere to be found. The time to be the tough guy to fight for us and unions came and went. WHY SHOULD WE TRUST THE UFT?

We need Gene Hackman.


In the 1972 movie "The Poseidon Adventure," Gene Hackman played Rev. Frank Scott. When the ship http://www.southbronxschool.com:

Kimble's Corner: University of Western Topeka Spring 2014 Commencement

Kimble's Corner: University of Western Topeka Spring 2014 Commencement:



University of Western Topeka Spring 2014 Commencement











 On Saturday, I was lucky enough to be invited to speak at the University of Western Topeka's 2014 graduation. This is a great school and there's a reason that it's known as the University of Michigan of Kansas. You can visit the UWT web page athttp://www.uwesterntopeka.org/

Anti-Common Core Link Banned by Facebook: We Must be Winning the War | Missouri Education Watchdog

Anti-Common Core Link Banned by Facebook: We Must be Winning the War | Missouri Education Watchdog:



Anti-Common Core Link Banned by Facebook: We Must be Winning the War

stotsky facebook
See this notice? Plans to eliminate common core and adopt common core standards are detected to be “unsafe” by Facebook security standards.
Dr. Sandra Stotsky refused to sign off on the ELA Common Core Standards.  She published a plan (in Breitbart) for school districts to stop CCSS implementation in their districts.  When folks tried to share it on Facebook, the above notice appeared.

Oklahoma is the most recent state to try to eliminate the Common Core standards. Many Oklahomans deserve credit for the bill Gov. Mary Fallin (R) may sign this week. The truth, however, is there will be no end to the Gates Foundation effort to eliminate “white privilege” in K-12 with deliberately weak secondary school standards, rather than to strengthen secondary school coursework for all students with academically rigorous and internationally benchmarked standards.



Perhaps the following steps could be taken at the local level to make sure that state boards of education, commissioners, or departments of education don’t select people for drafting a new set of state standards who are committed to Common Core. Despite any legislative oversight that may be built into bills to eliminate Common Core, states trying to extricate themselves from Common Core may yet experience a version of Gov. Mike Anti-Common Core Link Banned by Facebook: We Must be Winning the War | Missouri Education Watchdog:

Nite Cap 5-26-14 #BATsACT #RealEdTalk #EDCHAT #P2


James Baldwin said it best: 

"For these are all our children, and we will profit by or pay for whatever they become."


A BIG EDUCATION APE NITE CAP



If no one is looking at your Twitter account, it could be for a couple of reasons. | Connected Principals
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empathyeducates – For the First Time, Public Education Revenue Decreases in 2012, Census Bureau Reports
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Education in the Age of Globalization » Blog Archive » “Not Interested in Being #1:” Shanghai May Ditch PISA
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Labor and English Language Teaching | Dissident Voice
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The Answer Sheet 5-26-14
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John White’s Journey: Why he decided to ask his Louisiana Department of Education to alter student test scores | Crazy Crawfish's Blog
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5-26-14 Larry Ferlazzo’s Websites of the Day… | …For Teaching ELL, ESL, & EFL
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“Warning: The Literary Canon Could Make Students Squirm” NYT, May 18, 2014 | Bill Ayers
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4LAKids - some of the news that doesn't fit 5-26-14
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UCLA Professor Emeritus Jim Popham: His Testing and Teacher Evaluation Infomercial |
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Marie Corfield: In honor of retiring educators everywhere
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Morning Wink 5-26-14 AM Posts #BATsACT #RealEdTalk #EDCHAT #P2
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5-26-14 Engaging Parents In School… | Going Beyond Parent "Involvement"
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NYC Educator: The UFT and the Inability to Admit Wrongdoing
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YESTERDAY

Hope Makes Teaching More Than A Job - The Jose Vilson
Hope Makes Teaching More Than A Job - The Jose Vilson: Hope Makes Teaching More Than A Jobby JOSE VILSON on MAY 25, 2014in MR. VILSONI Love LucyGoodness, that last EduShyster’s interview was epic. There’s a whole piece that we didn’t even get to share with you because, well, it would hurt some people’s favorite bloggers / heroes / activists’ feelings. Really, the biggest difference between Audrey
Nite Cap 5-25-14 #BATsACT #RealEdTalk #EDCHAT #P2
James Baldwin said it best: "For these are all our children, and we will profit by or pay for whatever they become."A BIG EDUCATION APE NITE CAPWhy did so many sacrifice their lives? | Reclaim ReformWhy did so many sacrifice their lives? | Reclaim Reform: Why did so many sacrifice their lives?Posted on May 25, 2014by Ken PrevitiWhy did so many sacrifice their lives?For us. For American i