Guest blogger Susan DuFresne is an experienced teacher in Washington state. (She is not pictured.) This is part of a series called Voices From the Classroom. A teacher’s workload is impossible. Twenty-four hours is not enough. I worked a 15 1/2 hour day yesterday & the to-do list is still ridiculously long. After teaching […]
LA Times Report on Teacher Evaluations Incorrect
Heather Poland (A Teacher’s Perspective) is a teacher in California. This piece is part of a series called Voices From the Classroom. It’s reposted from A Teacher’s Perspective with permission. Recently, the LA Times reported that, “Major California school districts are failing to comply with a state law that requires them to evaluate teachers in […]
Join NPE’s letter writing campaign to Sen. Alexander and the HELP Committee
Friends, I wrote a letter for the Action Network letter campaign “Urge Senator Lamar Alexander and the members of Health, Education, Labor and Pensions (HELP) Committee to put an end to annual standardized testing”. Network for Public Education (NPE) is calling on Congress to support the adoption of Option 1 in Senator Lamar Alexander’s “Every […]
People-Powered Public Education News: K-12 News Network Turns Four!
It’s January, 2015, and K-12 News Network has been doing ground-breaking, people-powered public education news covered from the classroom up for FOUR years now! Thank you, readers, bloggers, and activists, for being folks actively making a new kind of education news. Some highlights from our first four years: In August, 2010, when the LA Times […]
Fix Education Testing and Accountability to Reauthorize No Child Left Behind
Senator Lamar Alexander (R-TN) is now chair of the education committee in the Senate Health, Education, Labor, and Pension committee, and has officially opened the door to reauthorization of No Child Left Behind (NCLB, also known as the ESEA, the Elementary and Secondary Education Act). He’s seeking emails and letters talking about testing and accountability […]
Guest Commentary on Marshall Tuck by Joining Forces for Education’s Ellen Lubic
Joining Forces for Education was formed in response to Ben Austin’s public school bulldozer outfit, the Walton Family Foundation funded Parent Revolution. Ellen Lubic occasionally contributes to Professor Ravitch’s site. The Real Marshall Tuck, and Why He Insures My Vote for Tom Torlakson for California State Superintendent of Public Instruction Now that the billionaires such […]
ICYMI: Video Highlights From the Network For Public Education’s PUBLIC “Education Nation”
MSNBC has a show that is practically a commercial for the privatization of public education called “Education Nation.” Fans of charter schools, “school choice,” and other trendy approaches to education that enrich ed tech companies are all invited. Voices of those who feel the public education system — for all its flaws — is worthwhile […]
Los Angeles Unified Must Refocus: Five Ways Bad Ed Tech Deals in LAUSD Hurt Kids Right Now
Recently released investigative reports by Southern California radio station KPCC have increased public scrutiny of Superintendent John Deasy’s cozy relationships with Apple and Pearson executives in the period 2011 to 2013, before both corporations won the 2013 bid to supply Los Angeles Unified with iPads and software. This is the infamous “$1 billion iPad” deal […]
iPad Watchdog Stuart Magruder’s Re-Appointment: Which Way Will LAUSD Go?
The question for many school districts around the country this spring was this: how are they supposed to give computer-based, end-of-year Common Core State Standards (CCSS) tests? For over a year in Los Angeles Unified, parents, students, teachers, and community members have wrestled with the details of Superintendent John Deasy’s 1:1 iPad program and its […]
Actual SBAC Testing Conditions (California)
K12NN will be posting experiences teachers have as they prepare their students for the SBAC or PARCC Common Core State Standards tests or actually administer them as testing season rolls out across the country. The SBAC and PARCC tests are to be administered by computer and they function as the end-of-year summative assessment for students. […]