CNN special on “fixing” education in the U.S.

November 6, 2011

I get press releases in e-mail:

FIXING EDUCATION is Focus of New “Restoring the American Dream” FAREED ZAKARIA GPS Primetime Special

Restoring the American Dream – FIXING EDUCATION Debuts Sunday at 8:00pm ET and PT

TIME Magazine Companion Story “When Will We Learn?” Hits Newsstands Friday

American primary and secondary education were once envied by much of the world, but over the last few decades U.S. students have fallen behind – while students in other countries have benefitted from improvements to their educational systems.  CNN and TIME magazine’s Fareed Zakaria interviews innovative and creative leaders working on solutions to fix what ails American education in his November primetime special, Restoring the American Dream – FIXING EDUCATION, on Sunday, Nov. 6 at 8:00pm & 11:00pm ET & PT, and for a companion TIME magazine cover article, “When Will We Learn?” that hits newsstands Friday.

Time Magazine cover for November 4, 2011

Time Magazine cover for November 4, 2011, featuring Fareed Zakaria's story on education reform

PISA, the Program for International Student Assessment, ranks 15-year-olds for basic skills achievement in 65 industrialized nations.  In the latest PISA rankings, the U.S. ranks 15th in reading, 23rd in math, and 31st in science.  Zakaria guides viewers through tours of what is working in education in countries with high rankings – to South Korea where students have more classroom time; and Finland , where professionalization of the teacher workforce has improved educators – in order to mine ideas for what could put U.S. education back on the right track.

Featured in the special are:

  • ·Microsoft founder and philanthropist Bill Gates, whose foundation has donated $5 billion dollars to schools, libraries, and scholarships tells Zakaria that the single most important determinant in the quality of a student’s education is the teacher.  The Gates Foundation is the leading source of private money for education in the U.S. .
  • ·Salman Khan,< founder of the Khan Academy , an educational organization that provides free, self-paced tutorials and student assessments online.  Khan’s famous podcasts have delivered more than 83 million free lessons in math, science and other topics, and he tells Zakaria that customizing education can improve learning through leveraging how students learn differently.  He thinks it would not be that difficult to teach all American students this way.
    • NYU Professor, former Assistant U.S. Secretary of Education, and author (The Death and Life of the Great American School System: How Testing and Choice Are Undermining Education, 2010) Diane Ravitch has spent a lifetime in education policy analysis and has seen education reforms come and go – and harm students.  Ravitch supports a rigorous national curriculum and tells Zakaria that standardized testing, charter schools, and modeling public education after business models have politicized American education and degraded schools for a generation.
    • ·Michelle Rhee, former chancellor of D.C. Public Schools, in Washington, now leads StudentsFirst, a nonprofit aimed at education reform through, among other measures, ending teacher tenure and supporting charter school alternatives to traditional public schools.

A FAREED ZAKARIA GPS Special:Restoring the American Dream – FIXING EDUCATION – debuts Sunday, Nov. 6 at 8:00p.m. and 11:00p.m. ET/PT on CNN/U.S.  It will replay on Saturday, Nov. 12 at 8:00p.m. and 11:00p.m. ET/PT on CNN/U.S.  Preview available here: Fareed Zakaria and Brooke Baldwin discuss what makes a great teacher.

Fareed Zakaria’s TIME magazine cover story, When Will We Learn? hits newsstands Friday, Nov. 4.

So the Time story is already out (home delivery has already occurred in many cases).

If you’re interested in this special, you may want to record it yourself — CNN tells me no DVD will be available.

I have AT&T cable, so we don’t get CNN, which is reserved for the high-cost, not-teachers-salary package.  Somebody tell me how it goes.

Zakaria thinks solidly and well on a number of topics, especially where comparison with foreign nations is made.  Ravitch was struck with an epiphany on testing and the No Child Left Behind Act over a year ago, as described in the press release.  She came to see that testing sucks rigor out of classrooms, instead of instilling rigor as we discussed 30 years ago in the education reform movement.

What in the world can Michelle Rhee add to this discussion?  From the press release it looks a lot like the “balance” fallacy makes the show suffer:  Journalists think they need a contrasting view, so when Euclid tells a writer that 2+2=4, the journalist seeks out others who have different opinions, and prints those opinions no matter how stupid, insipid, or dangerous they may be.

Let us keep hope alive.

See also at Millard Fillmore’s Bathtub:

33 Comments | Education, Education reform, Teachers, Teaching, Vouchers | Tagged: , , , , , , , | Permalink
Posted by Ed Darrell

2nd day of school in Dallas: Student asks, “Do you believe in me?”

August 23, 2011

It’s the second day of classes here in the Dallas Independent School District (Dallas ISD, or DISD).  Already we experience great trials from the loss of funding across the board in Texas education, as Gov. Rick Perry encouraged the state legislature to cut more than $4 billion from schools.  Cuts will be larger next fall.

At Molina High School we have about 25% more students, with 10% fewer teachers.  Classes strain the seams of the school — classrooms are crowded, desks and chairs are in short supply.  Computers promised for teachers, supposed to be delivered eight months ago, still are not delivered.  Printers, printing supplies, and paper, stand in conservation mode.  There are so few technical support people that those few new computers delivered often are not set up to operate yet.

Teachers need encouragement.  Here’s a bit of it.

What follows is mostly encore post, from 2008.

_____________

Taylor Mali is one of my usual suspects for inspiring teachers. He does a great job, with just a tinge of profanity (appropriately placed, many teachers argue – if they ask for it, you have to give it to them).

This year’s inspiration for Dallas teachers comes from Dalton Sherman, a fifth grader at Charles Rice Learning Center. Here’s a YouTube video of the presentation about 20,000 of us watched last Wednesday, a small point that redeemed the annual “convocation” exercise, for 2008:

Sherman’s presentation rescued what had been shaping up as another day of rah-rah imprecations to teachers who badly wanted, and in my case needed, to be spending time putting classrooms together.

(By the way, at the start of his presentation, you can see several people leap to their feet in the first row — Mom, Dad, and older brother. Nice built-in cheering section.)

Staff at DISD headquarters put the speech together for Dalton to memorize, and he worked over the summer to get it down. This background is wonderfully encouraging.

First, it makes a statement that DISD officials learn from mistakes. Last year the keynote was given by a speaker out of central casting’s “classic motivational speaker” reserves. As one teacher described it to me before the fete last Wednesday, “It was a real beating.”

Second, DISD’s planning ahead to pull this off suggests someone is looking a little bit down the road. This was a four or five month exercise for a less-than-10 minute presentation. It’s nice to know someone’s looking ahead at all.

Third, the cynical teachers gave Dalton Sherman a warm standing ovation. That it was delivered by a 10-year-old kids from DISD made a strong symbol. But the content was what hooked the teachers. Superintendent Michael Hinojosa provided a death-by-PowerPoint presentation leading up to the speech, one that was probably not designed solely as contrasting lead in. In other words, Dalton Sherman’s speech demonstrated as nothing else the district has done lately that someone downtown understands that the teachers count, the foot soldiers in our war on ignorance and jihad for progress.

The kids came back Monday, bless ’em. School’s in session, to anyone paying attention.

Resources:

Read the rest of this entry »

1 Comment | Education, Education quality, First day, History, Politics, Teaching | Tagged: , , , , , , | Permalink
Posted by Ed Darrell

Quote of the moment: Matt Damon, teachers don’t teach just for the money

August 5, 2011

Matt Damon is now the heartthrob of teachers everywhere — at the Save Our Schools Rally in Washington, a misguided self-described libertarian asked Damon why we shouldn’t fire more teachers  . . .

2 Comments | Education, Politics, Teacher Pay, Teachers, Teaching | Tagged: , , , , , | Permalink
Posted by Ed Darrell

Save Our Schools: Teachers march on Washington, no pitchforks, torches, tar or feathers

July 29, 2011

Save Our Schools and other teacher groups organized a march on Washington, a four-day affair to get attention to problems in schools and gain support for education-favorable solutions.

Will their voices be heard over the debt ceiling hostage crisis?  Is it more than coincidence that many of the politicians attacking education lead the effort to ruin the nation’s credit and sink our economy?

Here’s an explanation from EDWeek’s  Politics K-12 blog:

Teachers Converging on Washington for 4-Day Schools Rally

By Michele McNeil on July 28, 2011 5:54 AM
By guest blogger Nirvi Shah

UPDATED

Today kicks off the four-day Save Our Schools March and National Call to Action, a gathering and rally in Washington, D.C., organized by teachers who say they are fed up with test-driven accountability for public schools—and, increasingly, for teachers.

The group, which maintains that it is a grassroots, from-the-ground-up organization, hopes to send a message to national and state policymakers about their displeasure, as well as highlight a variety of principles for improving public education. The group has developed a series of position papers outlining its views on high-stakes testing, equitable funding for all schools, unions and collective bargaining, and changes to curriculum, among other issues. For the most part, the position papers aren’t yet at the level of detail of formal policy prescriptions, and it remains to be seen whether such proposals will emerge from the gathering.

March organizer Sabrina Stevens Shupe said however that policy proposals aren’t necessarily the goal of the events. “What we’re talking about is creating the right conditions, not prescriptive policies,” she said.sosrally-tmb.gif “There’s no one silver bullet that’s going to save anything,” she added, referring to attempts to craft education reforms for the last 30 years.

The big event happens Saturday, when thousands of teachers and supporters of the cause are expected to rally and march at The Ellipse, near the White House. (About 1,000 people have indicated they’ll attend via the movement’s website, but registration is not required, and organizers believe 5,000 to 10,000 marchers will turn out.) The group will wrap up with a closed-door meeting Sunday at which participants will try to determine how to keep the momentum from the rally going. (Movement organizers haven’t disclosed the meeting’s location, and it is not open to press.)

Watch this blog and our issues page for developments from the movement’s events today and through the weekend.

The movement began with a small group of teachers, including Jesse Turner, who walked from Connecticut to the District of Columbia last August to protest the No Child Left Behind Act and Race to the Top. Their efforts predated actions by state legislatures across the country this spring to curb teachers’ collective bargaining powers and tenure, noted Bess Altwerger, a member of the movement’s organizing committee, who hosted a reception for Mr. Turner last summer. She said the shortcomings of the American public education system do not lie with teachers.

“This has been framed as somebody’s fault—either the parents’ fault or the teachers’ fault,” Ms. Altwerger said. “The fault lies with an education policy that does not work.”

Eventually, both of the nation’s largest teachers unions threw their financial and philosophical support behind the movement.

The American Federation of Teachers and National Education Association have donated about $25,000 each to the effort. The bulk of the rest of the donations have come from one-time gifts provided through the Save Our Schools website. Conference organizers estimated that they’d raised over $125,000. After this weekend, they will have to begin fundraising efforts anew to keep their work going.

Taking Message to Obama Administration

Three organizers of the SOS March met Wednesday for an hour with senior-level Education Department officials, including two press officers and the deputy chief of staff. U.S. Secretary of Education Arne Duncan was in attendance for about 10 minutes, and described the meeting as a “good conversation.” He added that “there is a lot of common ground out there.”

(Read the rest of the story from Politics K-12.)

With some luck, a few thousand teachers will show up.  With greater luck, a few thousand other people, concerned parents, perhaps, will join them.

In much of the nation teachers are still stuck fighting for jobs.  Here in Texas, for example, the Texas Lege didn’t get a budget out until June, including dramatically slashed funding for this coming school year.  In some Texas districts we still face layoffs before school starts in just over two weeks.  Many of us don’t have clear assignments, and many more of us will lose basics of teaching, like preparation time, breaks, classrooms, paper, books, and pencils.

Considering the trouble created by political attacks on education in state legislatures this year, much of the attacks wholly unnecessary, it’s a wonder the teachers don’t show up with pitchforks, torches, and tar and feathers.

It’s a crazy world out there.  Help make some sense somewhere, will you?

Leave a Comment » | Education, Education quality, Education spending, Politics, Teachers, Teaching | Tagged: , , , , , , | Permalink
Posted by Ed Darrell

On the 7th floor of the 6th Floor Museum

July 27, 2011

Posting is slow this week, some of you have noted.

I’m on the 7th floor of the old Texas School Book Depository building.  Teacher training, you know.  A great series of sessions put together by the 6th Floor Museum, with the Library of Congress and Texas Bar, on teaching with original documents using the resources of the 6th Floor Museum, a unique Dallas resource.

I’ll have pictures, and probably more . . . eventually.

Please feel free to comment away.

Leave a Comment » | Administrivia, History, Teaching | Tagged: , , , , | Permalink
Posted by Ed Darrell

Friends of science and evolution: Testify next week in the Texas textbook process?

July 14, 2011

I get important e-mail from the Texas Freedom Network; they’re asking for help next week to fight creationism and other forms of buncombe popular in Texas:

Science and the SBOE: One Week to Go

Next week, the Texas State Board of Education will take a critical vote on science in our public schools. We need people like you to make sure the vote is in favor of sound, well-established science.

Up for board consideration are science instructional materials submitted by a number of publishers and vendors who want their product used in Texas classrooms. Even before the board meets, far-right groups have been hard at work trying to ensure materials approved by the board attack and diminish evolutionary science and include the junk science of “intelligent design”/creationism.

The attacks include one from a little-know firm out of New Mexico, International Databases, which submitted instructional materials rife with creationist propaganda.

It gets worse. Far-right SBOE members last month appointed creationists with questionable scientific credentials to teams tasked with reviewing the materials and making recommendations to the board.

And new board chair Barbara Cargill upped the stakes when in a speech just last week she framed the debate over science as a “spiritual battle.”

The board will hold just ONE public hearing on the science materials. Your participation is crucial.

It is critical that you act now by clicking here to express your interest in testifying before the board on July 21.

Please note: The deadline to sign up to testify is 5 p.m. Monday.

We must insist that the SBOE keep junk science – including “intelligent design”/creationism – out of our children’s classrooms. The board must approve only instructional materials that are accurate, that are in line with sound and well-established science, and that will prepare Texas children to succeed in college and the jobs of the 21st century.

Texas Freedom Network advances a mainstream agenda of religious freedom and individual liberties to counter the radical right. www.tfn.org | www.tfninsider.org | General: tfn@tfn.org
Tell a friend to subscribe to TFN News Clips, Alerts or Rapid Response Teams. Subscribers may choose the issue areas that interest them. To change your TFN subscription preferences – or to unsubscribe – click here.
Copyright 2010, Texas Freedom Network

Trying to carve out time here.  Can you help?

Hearings will be most interesting.  Support for the Texas State Board of Education actually comes, often, from the Texas Education Agency (TEA).  TEA this week laid off just under 200 workers, to deal with the 36% budget chopping done to the agency by the Texas Lege.  Word comes this week that curriculum directors at TEA were let go, including the director of science curriculum.

It’s rather like the first 20 weeks of World War II in the Pacific, with the aggressors advancing on almost all fronts against science.  When is our Battle of Midway?

Information, resources: 

2 Comments | Education, Politics, Regulation, Religious Freedom, Science Education, Separation of church and state, Teach Them Science.org, Teaching, Texas Citizens for Science, Texas Freedom Network, Textbook Selection, Textbooks, War on Education, War on Science, War on Smart | Tagged: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , | Permalink
Posted by Ed Darrell

Teachers, look! Cheaper, fun way to get giant whiteboards

June 30, 2011

It’s a great idea, but I didn’t even dare think it possible

We’ve had blackboard paint for at least a century.  Teachers at our school sometimes paint their closet doors, or part of a wall, to use as a chalkboard.

I prefer whiteboards, though.

Watching Neil deGrasse Tyson on Nova:  Science Now, I caught a reference to a researcher whose lab walls are all painted with “dry-erase” paint.  (The NOVA piece is the episode on how the brain works; this segment deals with researcher David Eagleman.)

Is that even possible?

Vodpod videos no longer available.

Quick answer: Yes!

Check out applications ideas at IdeaPaint’s blog.

Lowe’s carries IdeaPaint, the stuff displayed in the graphic above.  It isn’t as cheap as other paint, but compared to the cost of a whiteboard, it’s pretty good.  RustOleum manufactures a version available at Home Depot and other outlets.  It’s advertised as cheap as $20 per kit online, but runs as high as $40.  One kit covers about 49 square feet (7 feet by 7 feet).  I’ve found at least five different manufacturers of the stuff, with different features.

I haven’t calculated prices (at about $3.25/square foot), but there are also dry-erase skins which can be applied to any wall — with the added advantage that the product claims to be erasable for virtually any marker, including Sharpies® and other permanent markers.   One manufacturer offers skins in clear, to allow underlying paint colors to show through, and white, and says it will match colors on a whole-roll basis (pricey, I’ll wager).

Uses for math and writing should be obvious — think about those mural-sized wall maps in a geography or history class, covered with clear, dry-erase paint . . .

Wouldn’t it be great if school districts had architects, or instruction coaches, who knew about this stuff and could help us keep up in the technology and tool wars/sweepstakes?

More, resources:  

  • Dry-erase painting at Charlestown (state? Massachusetts?) schools:
  • Case study from Milford High, Milford, Massachusetts
  • Case study, Dever-McCormack School, Boston school district
  • Evernote software teams with IdeaPaint . . . look at the video

2 Comments | Classroom management, Classroom technology, Education, Teaching, Technology, Technology in the classroom | Tagged: , , , , , , , , , , | Permalink
Posted by Ed Darrell

Bill Adkins: Art education boosts achievement, but needs administrator support to work

June 24, 2011

One of our very good art teachers at Moises Molina High School, William Adkins,  works with a group called Big  Thoughts.  Big Thoughts interviews teachers who work with the program about how arts education boosts student achievement in core areas, and how to leverage arts to improve the boost.  Adkins had some thoughts about how art really is a core part of education , and on the role of administrators in helping teachers:

You can view 74 videos from about 30 different people on the Big Thoughts menu at Vimeo.

Adkins’ students regularly win awards, often outperforming the many more students at our district’s arts magnets.  One of his students, Moses Ochieng, too the top prize at the state art meet this year for a brilliant sculpture he did.  Moses was my student in U.S. history, too — a great adventure, since he emigrated from Kenya just a few years ago, and he lacks the familiarity with so many American things that we, and the textbooks, and the state tests, take for granted that students know.  Ochieng’s art helped focus him on history.  It supplemented his studies so that he picked up two years of history work in just one year.

More:

3 Comments | Art, Education, Education Administration, Education quality, Education success, Student Achievement, Teachers, Teaching | Tagged: , , , , , , , | Permalink
Posted by Ed Darrell

Fun with Lyndon, George and Bill – and Audie

June 18, 2011

Five days on the road and we hoped to make it home Friday night.

Ed Darrell, presidents on weekends

"I've got the Presidential Seal / I'm up on the Presidential Podium. / My Mama loves me, she loves me . . ."* Playing around with the podium and teleprompter at the George H. W. Bush Presidential Library and Museum in College Station, Texas.

Air conditioning on the bus failed, and then the vacuum system failed and we lost the ability to close the door, and we started to lose brakes.  Fortunately, we were within sight of Dallas when things really came to smash.

So our Teachers Tour of Presidential Libraries came to an interesting end last night.  More good fortune — the bus stalled out in the parking lot of a gas station with a Dickey’s Barbecue attached.  Ross Perot is right, at least about this:  Dickey’s food is worth the stop.

Other stops along the way provided nutrition for our minds, and for our classroom preparation.  Education experts at the 13 National Archives-related Presidential Libraries work together, and work separately, to create classroom friendly and classroom ready materials.   Beyond the museums, we were looking for history to use in our classes.  We got a lot of pointers to documents our students can use in class to learn history and how to write it.

This is the second year of this particular Teaching American History grant, from the U.S. Department of Education to the Dallas Independent School District.  It’s important that you know that, because Republicans in Congress propose to cut this program out.  This is one of the few programs I think has value way beyond the dollars spent on it.  TAH may become just one more victim of the conservatives’ War on Education.

I hope to post more about what we learned.

We toured the George H. W. Bush Presidential Library and Museum in College Station, Texas, the Lyndon Baines Johnson Presidential Library and Museum in Austin, the Audie Murphy and American Cotton Museum in Greenville, Texas, the William J. Clinton Presidential Library and Museum, and the Little Rock Central High School National Historic Site.

It was a rowdy group of teachers, of course, and we closed down every bookstore we found along the way.  The bus driver hopes never again to hear a single verse of  “99 Student Essays to Grade on the Desk.”

How’s your summer been so far?

_____________

*  Paul Simon, of course.

1 Comment | Education, History, Libraries, Little Rock Nine, Lyndon B. Johnson, Museums, Teachers, Teaching, Teaching American History Grant, Texas, Travel, veterans, War on Education, World War II | Tagged: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , | Permalink
Posted by Ed Darrell

Can public schools work? Texas Tribune’s interview with Michael Marder, Part II

June 11, 2011

From my earlier post on the Texas Tribune interview with Michael Marder, in which he questioned the assumptions that monkeying with teacher discipline, accountability, pay, training, vacations, or anything else, can produce better results in educating students, especially students from impoverished backgrounds.

Marder is the director of the University of Texas’s program to encourage much better prepared teachers, UTeach.

Michael Marder’s numbers show that it’s not the teachers’ fault that so many students are not ready for college, and not learning the stuff we think they should know.

Texas Tribune said:

In the popular 2010 documentary Waiting for Superman, former DC schools chancellor Michelle Rhee said, “But even in the toughest of neighborhoods and circumstances, children excel when the right adults are doing the right things for them.”

After looking at the data, Marder has yet to be convinced that any teaching solution has been found that can overcome the detrimental effects of poverty on a large scale — and that we may be looking for solutions in the wrong place.

[Reeve] Hamilton’s interview of Marder takes up three YouTube segments — you should watch all three.

Here’s Part 2:

Read the original introductory article at Texas Tribune.

For the record, Michelle Rhee is probably right:  In the toughest neighborhoods, children excel when the right adults do the right things for them.  But the right adults usually are parents, and the right things include reading to the children from about 12 months on, and pushing them to love learning and love books.  Teachers get the kids too late, generally, to bend those no-longer-twigs back to a proper inclination.  The government interventions required to boost school performance must come outside the classroom.  Michelle Rhee’s great failure — still — is in her tendency not to recognize that classroom performance of a student has its foundations and live roots in the homes and neighborhoods who send the children to school every day.

Leave a Comment » | Education, Education assessment, Education reform, Education success, History, Poverty, Research, Teachers, Teaching, Texas, Texas Lege | Tagged: , , , , , , , , , , | Permalink
Posted by Ed Darrell

Free bus tours to the FDR Library?

June 6, 2011

Franklin Roosevelt voting in Hyde Park, New York

Franklin Roosevelt voting in Hyde Park, New York, November 2, 1937 - FDR LIbrary image

In the Dallas district, and across much of Texas, field trips are being cut out.  Budget restraints, you know.  Rick Perry’s math is atrocious, and the “surplus” he claimed we had in the budget turned out to be a $27 billion deficit.

So, I got quite excited to read this press release from the Franklin D. Roosevelt Presidential Library and Museum in Hyde Park, New York:

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

For information call:
Clifford Laube at (845) 486-7745

YOUR BUS COULD BE ON US!

New funding available for field trips to historic Hyde Park destinations

HYDE PARK – Field trips are back! The National Park Service and FDR Presidential Library and Museum are pleased to offer new transportation grants for 2011 field trips to five renowned Hyde Park destinations – FDR Presidential Library and Museum, Home of FDR National Historic Site, Eleanor Roosevelt National Historic Site, Top Cottage and Vanderbilt Mansion National Historic Site.

The new grants are managed by Teaching the Hudson Valley (THV), a nonprofit that helps educators and students discover and appreciate the natural, historical and cultural treasures of the Hudson Valley. A list of available programs and grant application form are available in the Grants section of THV’s website.

“These sites are brimming with world-class learning opportunities for local students,” said Sarah Olson, superintendant of the Roosevelt-Vanderbilt National Historic Sites. “We recognize that many school districts have cut back or eliminated field trips due to budget constraints. These grants are designed to put great field trips back in reach.”

Educators are free to create their own curriculum, and the sites have a wide variety of prepared curricula, including:

  • Pretend You are the President, grades 4-6
  • Eleanor Roosevelt: First Lady of the World, grades 4-6
  • FDR’s Boyhood Farm, grades 1-3
  • Searching for Salamanders, grades 7-12
  • Podcasts interpreting the many trails that traverse the 5 sites

“To walk in the footsteps of history, to touch and hear nature – these are the experiences that make learning vivid and memorable,” said Lynn Bassanese, director of the FDR Presidential Library & Museum. “Field trips are becoming an endangered species, but the need for them is still great. Together these sites have provided decades of great experiences for educators and students. These new grants will help us continue the tradition.”

K-12 educators in public and private schools may apply for regular, summer or after-school programs. Trips should be related to core curriculum or programs and take place by December 31, 2011. Teachers in the same school or district may apply together.

ABOUT THV

Launched in 2003, Teaching the Hudson Valley (THV) helps educators and students discover and appreciate the natural, historical, and cultural treasures of the Hudson Valley. THV programs foster collaboration between schools and informal learning sites. Our growing collection of free K-12 lessons uses significant Valley sites to teach all subjects. For details, visit http://www.TeachingtheHudsonValley.org.

THV is a program of the Hudson River Valley National Heritage Area and HRV Greenway Conservancy, Inc.; National Park Service – Roosevelt-Vanderbilt National Historic Sites; Hudson River Estuary Program/NY State Dept. of Environmental Conservation; and Hudson River Valley Institute at Marist College.

#   #   #

Alas, it turns out it’s not intended for Texas classrooms.  Drat.

I’ve taken large groups of 14-16 year-olds through those sites.  An halfway interested teenager can get eyes opened seeing how FDR grew up, in the place he grew up.  The library and museum offer spectacular displays on FDR’s presidency and the times.  It’s exactly the sort of experience a lot of my students have never had, but need.

I’ll have to see what we can do with museums and libraries a little bit closer — the George H. W. Bush Library in College Station, Texas, the Lyndon Johnson Library in Austin, and the  Bill Clinton Library in Little Rock.  Possibilities of touring close-by sites make me quiet about the odd situation at the George W. Bush Library and Center for Right-Wing Propaganda planned for Southern Methodist University.   There’s a great chance that the advantages of having the educational resources will outweigh the ignominy of the propaganda activities (though the Hoover Institute makes one appropriately wary).

Look for some reports back, soon.  While you wait, call the Texas Lege and tell them to appropriate enough money to educate the students in the American Way, will you?  The Lege is still meeting in Austin, in emergency, special session.

Leave a Comment » | 1941-1945, Education, Franklin Roosevelt, Great Depression, History, Libraries, Museums, Teaching, World War II, WPA - Works Progress Administration | Tagged: , , , , , , , , , , | Permalink
Posted by Ed Darrell

Blaming the teachers can’t overcome problems of poverty in educational achievement

May 24, 2011

We got the scores from the state yesterday, for the Texas Assessment of Knowledge and Skills (TAKS).  Most of my students are juniors, so this is a big deal.  If they pass these tests, in mathematics, science, English language arts and social studies.

Preliminary results gave me a 100% pass rate with 41% commended, out of  134 students whose scores counted (don’t ask about those formulae).  Considering that our students’ poverty rate, as measured by school lunches, is well north of 85%, that’s good.

It doesn’t mean all these kids are ready for the Ivy League, though.

I know the preliminary results err somewhere.  I can find two students in special education categories who did not muster the scores I had hoped, and to me, it looks like they may need to retake.  Two failures wouldn’t be bad, either.  I’ll let the state and our administrators fight that out.

So, I’ve done an okay job of teaching our kids bubble guessing.   That’ what the TAKS test does, focus teaching on bubble guessing.  Are we getting these kids ready for life and college?  I have more doubts.  The TAKS curriculum is limited, and shallow.  Dallas District has two other tests, but again the curriculum tested is limited and shallow.

Each year I discover most students don’t remember what they studied of Paul Revere, and almost none know the famous Longfellow poem about him.  They don’t know about Joyce Kilmer, either his poem or the sacrifice of his life.

Reading political cartoons proves difficult for many students, because they don’t understand the symbolism, sometimes of easy stuff like, “who does the Statue of  Liberty represent?” or “why is that guy dressed in a star-spangled coat, striped pants and striped top hat?”

They don’t know about Route 66.  They don’t know the National Parks.  They don’t know Broadway, nor Stephen Foster.  They are convinced Utah has some big river that led the Mormons to settle there, “on or near a waterway,” instead of the real reasons the Mormons settled there, for religious freedom in a desert.

Despite their remarkable test achievements, their teachers are all on the chopping block this year.  The Texas Lege still quibbles over whether to lay off 10,000 or 100,000 teachers over the summer.  We leave the academic year knowing only that the legislature as a collective hates teachers and teaching and schools, and they probably don’t like the students much, either, but they can’t say that because they want the students’ parents’ votes.

Jonathan at JD 2718 sent me a note a couple of weeks ago alerting me to a story in the online Texas Tribune, by Reeve Hamilton.  Hamilton interviewed Dr. Michael Marder, a physicist at the University of Texas at Austin who in his spare times runs UT’s UTeach Program, which encourages the best students in science and math to consider teaching elementary and secondary classes.  Marder has a strong case to make that it’s not the teacher’s fault when students in some schools do not measure up to the standards promulgated by the state tests, inadequate and inappropriate as those standards are.

(Personal note:  Reeve Hamilton is a very good reporter who often does great work on otherwise mundane issues; he’s also the son of a woman I met in graduate school at the University of Arizona, the first woman who ever gave me a highly contingent proposal of marriage, which as you see we did not carry out — probably much to the benefit of all of us, with Reeve doing such great work, and all our kids being basically sane and sound.  I smiled when Jonathan said such good things about Reeve’s work, and the subject of the story.  Nice to hear unasked-for compliments about people you know and like.)

Marder knows numbers.  Marder got the statistics on schools and their preparation of students for college, as well as we can get those numbers without an expensive and expansive study.

Michael Marder’s numbers show that it’s not the teachers’ fault that so many students are not ready for college, and not learning the stuff we think they should know.

Texas Tribune said:

In the popular 2010 documentary Waiting for Superman, former DC schools chancellor Michelle Rhee said, “But even in the toughest of neighborhoods and circumstances, children excel when the right adults are doing the right things for them.”

After looking at the data, Marder has yet to be convinced that any teaching solution has been found that can overcome the detrimental effects of poverty on a large scale — and that we may be looking for solutions in the wrong place.

Hamilton’s interview of Marder takes up three YouTube segments — you should watch all three.

Marder indicts those who blame teachers first, with the data.  By implication, he also indicts the state legislatures who appear bent on continuing the daily flogging of teachers until teacher morale improves.

In Part I of the interview with Hamilton, Marder shows the statistics that demonstrate poverty of the student is a greater influence on student achievement than the teacher:

6 Comments | Education, Education assessment, Education reform, History, Teachers, Teaching, Texas, Texas Lege | Tagged: , , , , , , , , , , | Permalink
Posted by Ed Darrell

Case study: How state legislatures and school administrators damage schools, the students they serve, and America

May 17, 2011

The bruises from my broken nose are fading — two black eyes eventually resulted — but the smarting remains.  Especially I’m smarting because we have been unable to move either of the students to places where they can be helped, and get educated.

But I don’t think that colors my view that this example, from JD 2718, demonstrates how much damage unthinking legislatures and administrators can do to a school, to students who attend the school, and our entire education system, quickly, and probably without recourse.  Nor is there much hope for recovery:

Superintendent threatens principal for offering teacher tenure

A good teacher, one we need to have in the classroom, was offered tenure as promised.

President Reagan’s Commission on Excellence in Education wrote about a “rising tide of mediocrity” in education.  They said that our students’ achievement levels were in trouble, and that it was our own fault.  Had a foreign nation done that damage to U.S. education, they wrote, we might consider it an act of war.

And so it is that the war continues on American education, a war conducted by home grown . . . administrators, and state legislators.

We have met the enemy, Pogo said, and he is us.

2 Comments | Education, Education quality, Education reform, Education spending, Quality, Teachers, Teaching, Tenure, War on Education | Tagged: , , , , , , | Permalink
Posted by Ed Darrell

A Seussian fable, about how tests ruin school reform

April 7, 2011

Look, you really need to go to TeacherSabrina’s blog, Failing Schools, where she first posted this, and take a look at many of her posts.

But I can’t resist putting the video here, because I know a few old-timers would be confused by the link, and some people will think they don’t have the time to make two clicks instead of one.

So, here, in its Seussian glory and demand for Flash Animation, is TeacherSabrina’s story of D.C.’s late Queen of the Schools, Michelle Rhee, and her desire to get D.C.’s kids to score well on an increasing battery of tests  [Got a good joke about assault and battery we can insert here?]:  “Rhee the Reformer:  A Cautionary Tale.”

Tip of the old scrub brush to Accountable Talk.

1 Comment | Education, Education blogs, Education quality, Education reform, No Child Left Behind Act, Teaching, Testing | Tagged: , , , , , , , , | Permalink
Posted by Ed Darrell

EDUSolidarity Day

March 22, 2011



From the EDUSolidarity site:

Throughout the day of March 22, teachers will be sharing posts entitled “Why Teachers Like Us Support Unions”.  For those of you here to share, thank you for doing so.  To submit your posts, click here.

For those of you not sharing, we hope you will take the time to read from an extremely varied and wide variety of teachers across the country and world.  We ask that you read with open minds.  You will read many different reasons for support, some of them contradictory.  What all stories will share though is a desire to serve students.  We all feel that teachers unions give us the best shot to give our students the best possible education.

The full list of posts can be found here.

If you’re a blogger and you want to join us, please do.  Send the link to your post to the EDUSolidarity site — and let us know about it here, in comments.

Teachers in New York City are wearing red in support of union teachers (so are some in Dallas).

Of course, this is a part-time activity for those of us who teach.  I don’t have my post up yet, and may not until the school day is over.

We’re professional teachers, not professional lobbyists.  We don’t have billionaires paying for our political speech, only our hearts and minds.

Other bloggers’ contributions

  1. Rachel Levy at All Things Education
  2. Sarah Puglisi at A Day in the Life
  3. Leo Casey at EdWize
  4. Sherman Dorn
  5. f(t)
  6. Gregg Lundahl at Edwize
  7. Doug Noon – Borderland – Fairbanks, AK.
  8. Jamie Josephson – Dontworryteach – Washington, DC.
  9. Kate Nowak – f(t) – Syracuse, NY.
  10. Sabrina Stevens Shupe – Failing Schools – Denver, CO.
  11. Jonathan – jd2718 – Bronx, NY.
  12. Anthony Cody – Living in Dialogue – Oakland, CA.
  13. Stephen Lazar – Outside the Cave – Gotham Schools – Bronx, NY.
  14. Nancy Flanagan – Teacher in a Strange Land – Cedar, MI.
  15. Ken Bernstein aka “teacherken” – teacherken at Daily Kos – Arlington, VA. teacherken
  16. Jose Vilson – The Jose Vilson – New York, NY. thejlv
  17. Sophie Germain – A Brand New Line – Santa Clara, CA. sophgermain
  18. Sarah Puglisi – A Day In the Life – Oxnard, CA.
  19. Jeff Silva-Brown – A Passion for Teaching and Opinions – Ukiah, CA. ukiahcoachbrown
  20. Dan Anderson – A Recursive Process – Saratoga Springs, NY. dandersod
  21. Mr. A. Talk – Accountable Talk – New York, NY.
  22. Frank Noschese – Action-Reaction – Cross River, NY. fnoschese
  23. Lisa Butler – Adventures with Technology – Harrisburg, PA. SrtaLisa
  24. Rachel Levy – All Things Education – Ashland, VA. RachelAnneLevy
  25. Jason Buell – Always Formative – San Jose, CA. jybuell
  26. The Reflective Educator – An Urban Teacher’s Education – New York, NY. urbanteachersed
  27. Apple A Day – Apple A Day Project – Boston, MA. appleadayproj
  28. Amy Valens – August to June: Bringing Life to School – New York, NY. augusttojune
  29. Chana – Blogging at the Edge of Democracy – Durham, NC. democracysedge
  30. Bud Hunt – Bud the Teacher – Fort Collins, CO. budtheteacher
  31. Chaz – Chaz’s School Daze – Queens, NY.
  32. Marc Bousquet – Chronicle of Higher Education – Los Gatos, CA.
  33. David Coffey – Delta Scape – Spring Lake, MI. delta_dc
  34. Leo Casey – Dissent Magazine – New York, NY.
  35. Brent Nycz – Don’t Settle – New York, NY. BNiche
  36. Peter – Ed in the Apple – New York, NY.
  37. Norm Scott – Education Notes – Rockaway Beach, NY.
  38. Deven Black – Education on the Plate – New York City, NY. devenkblack
  39. David Andrade – Educational Technology Guy – Bridgeport, CT. daveandcori
  40. educator4WI – educator4WI – Madison, WI.
  41. Francis S. Midy – EduSolidarity Essays – Bronx, NY.
  42. Suzanne Donahue – EduSolidarity Essays – Rockland County, NY.
  43. Eric Brunsell – Edutopia – STEM Blog – Appleton, WI. Brunsell
  44. Esther Berkson – Edwize – Bronx, NY.
  45. Jason Leibowitz – Edwize – New York, NY.
  46. Jessica Jacobs – Edwize – Staten Island, NY.
  47. Lissette Velazquez – Edwize – New York, NY.
  48. Marc Korashan – Edwize – New York, NY.
  49. Roseanne McCosh – Edwize – Bronx, NY.
  50. Jenny – Elementary, My Dear, or Far From It – Springfield, VA. jenorr
  51. Marie Levey-Pabst – English Teachin’ Vegan – Boston, MA.
  52. Christal Watts – Five Feet of Feisty – Fairfield, CA. christal_watts
  53. Jay Bullock – folkbum’s rambles and rants – Milwaukee, WI. folkbum
  54. Fred Klonsky – Fred Klonsky’s Blog – Chicago, IL. fklonsky
  55. Zeno – Halfway There – Northern CA.
  56. Mimi Yang – I Hope This Old Train Breaks Down… – El Salvador (formerly NYC). untilnextstop
  57. Cathy B – I.M.O. In My Opinion – Detroit, MI. Cathy_Brackett
  58. David B. Cohen – InterACT – Palo Alto, CA. CohenD
  59. Ruben Brosbe – Is Our Children Learning? – New York, NY. blogsbe
  60. Lynne Winderbaum – jd2718 (friend’s blog) – Rockland County, NY.
  61. Larry Ferlazzo – Larry Ferlazzo’s Websites of The Day – Sacramento, CA. larryferlazzo
  62. Julia Tsygan – Learning (by) Teaching – Stockholm, Sweden.
  63. Kathryn Coffey – Literacy Gurl – Spring Lake, MI. literacygurl
  64. Gregg Lundahl – Lundahl – New York, NY.
  65. Brian Cohen – Making the Grade – Philadelphia, PA. bncohen
  66. Mark Anderson – MAnderson’s Bubble – New York, NY. mandercorn
  67. Nick Yates – Maryland Math Madness – Baltimore, MD. nyates314
  68. Curmudgeon – Math Curmudgeon – VT.
  69. Chris Hill – Math is a Shovel – Seattle, WA. hillby258
  70. Sue VanHattum – Math Mama Writes – Richmond, CA.
  71. Owen Thomas – MathEdZineBlog – Columbus, OH. vlorbik
  72. John Golden – mathhombre – Grand Haven, MI. mathhombre
  73. Miss Adventure – Miss Adventure’s Adventures – GA.
  74. Michael Dunn – Modern School – San Francisco, CA. ModSchool
  75. Bill Ivey – My Blog at ISENET.ning.com – Shelburne Falls, MA.
  76. Tricia DiPasquale – My Life – Somerville, MA. PDiPasquale
  77. Kristen Fouss – My Web 2.0 journey – Cincinnati, OH. fouss
  78. Courtney Ferrell – No Teacher Left Behind – New York, NY.
  79. Miss Eyre – NYC Educator – New York, NY.
  80. Christopher Sears – Omega Unlimited – Maysville, KY.
  81. Stephen Lazar – Outside the Cave – Bronx, NY. SLazarOtC
  82. John Mcrann – Outside the Cave (guest post) – Bronx, NY.
  83. Penelope Millar – Outside the Cave (Guest post) – VA. PetiteViking
  84. Alexa – Pas Pour Tout Les Yeux (personal blog, mostly private) – Chicago, IL.
  85. Chris Spiliotis – passing notes – Enterprise, FL. _thelink
  86. Pat Ballew – Pat’s Blog – USA.
  87. Peggy Robertson – Peg with Peg – Centennial, CO. PegwithPen
  88. Brendan Murphy – Philosophy Without A Home – Waukegan IL. dendari
  89. pissedoffteacher – Pissedoffteacher – Queens, NY.
  90. Chris Lehmann – Practical Theory – Philadelphia, PA. chrislehmann
  91. Gamal Sherif – ProgressEd – Philadelphia, PA.
  92. Alice Mercer – Reflections on Teaching – Sacramento, CA. alicemercer
  93. Chuck Olynyk – Remember Fremont – Pomona, CA.
  94. Nancy Cavillones – Se Hace Camino al Andar – Bronx, NY.
  95. Shakespeare’s Sister – Shakespeare’s Sister – CO. shakes_sister
  96. Sherman Dorn – Sherman Dorn – Tampa, FL. shermandorn
  97. Chris Janotta – SOS Million Teacher Blog Site – Tinley Park IL. SOSMTM
  98. Ira David Socol – SpeEdChange – Holland, MI. irasocol
  99. Maria Angala – Teacher Sol – Washington, DC. TeacherSol
  100. Mary Rice-Boothe – The Education Traveler – New York, NY. Edu_Traveler
  101. Jose Vilson – The Jose Vilson – New York, NY. thejlv
  102. Timothy Boyle – The Notebook – Philadelphia, PA.
  103. Samuel Reed – The Philadelphia Public School Notebook – Philadelphia, PA. sriii2000
  104. Kelly Mueller – The Power of Accomplished Teaching – St. Louis, MO. lkelly46
  105. Rich Trash – The Trashman’s Disposable Reader – Queens, NY. RichTrash
  106. David Reber – Topeka K-12 Examiner – Lawrence, KS. David_Reber
  107. Tuba Bauhofer – Tuba Bauhofer – Kent. springrose12
  108. Mary Tedrow – Walking to School – Winchester, VA. mtedrow
  109. Katie Svoboda – What’s on Katie’s Mind? – Sturgis, MI.
  110. Paul Wagner – zenbassoon at Daily Kos – Hebron, IN. BssnistPaul

Leave a Comment » | Education, Education blogs, Education reform, Labor and unions, Politics, Teachers, Teaching | Tagged: , , , , , , | Permalink
Posted by Ed Darrell

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