VAM - Value Added Measure

Common Core tests will tell teachers nothing about how they or their students can improve. They will do nothing to inform instruction. They will be used to judge your teaching ability. VAM's are neither reliable nor stable. The best teacher at a school with 95% poverty will likely score lower than the worst teacher at a school with 5% poverty. This is an interesting article about VAM's.

The Cancer Grows

 The new Mayor of New York approved 14 of 17 new charter schools. This insult resulted in the Democratic governor and legislature passing legislation that...

• established a right to space for charter schools within overcrowded public schools up to and including the right to push all public students out, 
• public schools have to pay for private space rented by new charter schools, 
• increased funding for students going to charter schools.

Who wanted this? Hedge fund managers, charter school operators backed by billionaires, politicians in need of campaign dollars, the usual suspects.

Media Coverage

March 24, 2014 State rejects Deficit Elimination Plan
March 24, 2014 5 things to know about the District's finances
March 26, 2014 Teachers / Administration to meet
March 27, 2014 Board sets special meeting
March 28, 2014 Tentative Agreement
March 31, 2014 Live Blogging School board meets
March 31, 2014 We're going in the right direction.
April 11, 2014 Teachers vote to approve contract, Board approves
April 17, 2014 State approves DEP

Use It Or Lose It

We are told by the anti-union forces that unions were needed at one time, but in an era of global competition they are dinosaurs who only get in the way of both companies and workers. As usual the opposite is true. In an era of global competition and billionaire influence we need someone who can stand up for the interests of workers.

400 Data Points Per Child

We ask students to consider the audience when they are writing. What does it say about the Common Core when many of its lower grade standards are not appropriate for those grades? Was the Common Core written to best serve teachers and students or to generate data that can be tracked?

Check it out.

Rise Above the Mark

Diane Ravitch at the Network for Public Education Conference

Diane Ravitch at NPE Conference, March 2, 2014 from Schoolhouse Live on Vimeo.
Start post introductions at 8 minute mark.