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DCGEducator: Doing The Right Thing

~ A Teacher Speaks

DCGEducator: Doing The Right Thing

Monthly Archives: September 2015

William Stroud: The Commercialization of Everything

29 Tuesday Sep 2015

Posted by David Greene in Uncategorized

≈ Leave a comment

Well said by someone I hope to partner with soon.

Diane Ravitch's blog

William Stroud is the principal of Long Beach High School in New York.

“Our lives have become increasingly commercialized in a modern, global society that everywhere promotes consumerism; surrounding us with images that link glamor and status with possessions. The desire to have more, new, “better” things infiltrates our sub-conscious, influences our daily behaviors, and compromises our value system in remarkable ways. What we have, becomes a substitute for who we are. Buy happiness.

“I often refer to the commercialization of public education, i.e. the contemporary takeover of schooling by a corporate elite that imposes its own paradigm rather than a vision of education as liberation; a system which would develop our full potentials as individuals, strengthen our sense of community with each other, define what it means to be a human being in the grandest sense – values, thoughts, and behaviors. Schools can provide a forum for us to…

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Recognition as one of several top Education Bloggers!

28 Monday Sep 2015

Posted by David Greene in Uncategorized

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cropped-9781460225493.jpgSo nice to be recognized by Nancy Bailey. http://nancyebailey.com/2015/09/26/highlighting-websites-blogs-and-books/

DCG Educator: Doing the Right Thing is by David Greene a longtime teacher who blogs on many issues surrounding public schools. He often writes about the struggle of urban schools and New York City, but his blog is relevant to schools around the country. He is also the author of Doing the Right Thing: A Teacher SpeaksEDCURCUIT.

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THE STATE OF THE TEACHING PROFESSION

28 Monday Sep 2015

Posted by David Greene in Uncategorized

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EDCURCUITImportant issues to be discussed, especially why teacher’s are relatively unheard in Major Media.

http://www.edcircuit.com/the-state-of-the-teaching-profession-a-conversation-with-david-greene/

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SOME IDEAS FOR “REFORMISTAS” “DEFORMERS”, “RHEEFORMERS” ET AL

09 Wednesday Sep 2015

Posted by David Greene in Uncategorized

≈ Leave a comment

Tags

education, Educators, politics

How About you take you Money and…..images

1. Collaborate with; stop bullying and insulting teachers.
2. Involve the community and parents.
3. Don’t impose top down decisions
4. Find a way for all schools and teachers to share, not hoard best practices.
5. Stop sacrificing Public Schools to build up your Charter Schools.
6. Before you give loads of money to blindly support Charters and other actions that destroy Public schools, STOP AND THINK OF THE NEGATIVE CONSEQUENCES, BOTH INTENDED AND UNINTENDED.images-1

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ONE OF THE LAST GREAT EDUCATION POLICY MAKERS PASSES: Will education pass with him?

05 Saturday Sep 2015

Posted by David Greene in Uncategorized

≈ 4 Comments

Tags

@anthonycody, @dianeravitch, @valeriestrauss, education, Educators, politics

sobol1Yesterday a truly great educator died. I hope truly great education does not die with him.

The following come from his obituary in the New York Times.

Dr. [Thomas Sobol was the New York State education commissioner for eight years, appointed by Gov. Mario M. Cuomo (the wise father of the tyrannical Governor of NY, Andrew) in 1987.“During Dr. Sobol’s tenure, the percentage of high school graduates going to college increased, as did the number of students passing advanced placement exams.”

“Despite that success, Dr. Sobol resigned in frustration in 1995, accusing Gov. George E. Pataki, a Republican and current candidate for President [if you didn’t know], and lawmakers from both parties of making his department and the policy-making Board of Regents scapegoats for the grinding bureaucracy, violence, family dysfunction, poverty, poorly trained teachers, deficient buildings and inferior learning materials that had plagued public schools.”

“As commissioner, Dr. Sobol had pressed for what he called A New Compact for Learning, a broad manifesto aimed at transferring policy making from sluggish bureaucracies to educators and parents, and at creating grade-specific curriculum standards that local school districts could implement on their own.”

“His first annual report as commissioner painted what he described as an alarming picture of a divided public school system: “one largely suburban, white, affluent and successful; and the other largely urban, of color, poor, and failing.”

Diane Ravitch: ‘Tom Sobol was the last state commissioner who understood that education means something more than test-taking and high scores.’

He was the last great Public Education Policy makers. I have met his wife, Harriet, noted friends, and fellow educators in and around Westchester and Scarsdale where he was Superintendent and I once worked. Anyone who ever met him understood his sincerity in providing the best education for those he served, either at a local or state level. He will be missed. He was one of the true romantics left in education.

How times have changed since he was Commissioner. We are now in the middle of a STEM led, technocratic, career pursuing, data collecting, resume building, computer controlled, and standardizing age of Education. Children and teachers fight constantly to not become cogs in this machine or “ another brick in the wall”.

It seems humanity has been sucked out of education. Tom Sobol and Mario Cuomo, above all, were humanists. What have they been replaced with? David Brooks has written his latest NYT column about the need for a rebirth of “romanticism”. Historians, Philosophers, students of literature and even of science know this has happened before.

The Scientific Revolution and the enlightening Age of Reason emphasized analysis. The Romantic Era that emphasized humanity and liberalism followed the Industrial Revolution’s switch to capitalism and machines that ground up laborers.

Romanticism also highlighted “heroic” individuals whose examples would “raise the quality of society”. It promoted the freedom of individual imagination as a critical authority of the status quo. It led to transcendentalist Henry David Thoreau’s “On Walden Pond” and even Abraham Lincoln’s Gettysburg Address and “with malice towards none and charity towards all” Second Inaugural Address.

We are now in age where the Industrialization of education is grinding up both students and teachers. I believe that our society has reached a point where we too must veer away from the STEM led technocratic, career pursuing, data collecting, resume building, computer controlled age the beginning of the 21st century has bound us to.

Ironically, it may be the technology itself that forces that change. As Brooks notes, Ironically, technological forces may be driving some of the romantic rebirth. As Geoff Colvin points out in his book “Humans Are Underrated,” computers will soon be able to do many of the cognitive tasks taught in places like law schools and finance departments.

Colvin argues that people should now ask, “What are the activities that we humans, driven by our deepest nature or by the realities of daily life, will simply insist be performed by other humans?” rather than ultimately be done by computers.

Brooks goes on to say, “Empathy becomes a more important workplace skill, and the ability to sense what another human being is feeling or thinking.” He also points out, “The ability to function in a group also becomes more important — to know how to tell stories that convey the important points, how to mix people together.”

Mark Edmundson, English professor at the University of Virginia is the author of “Why Teach” and “Self and Soul”. He is convinced that ““culture in the West has become progressively more practical, materially oriented, and skeptical.”

We need more heroes of courage, compassion, and serious thought who will be more Socratic and less Newtonian. We need “those who voice honest perceptions” and do more for the poor and less resume padding.

We need more “heroic” policy makers like Thomas Sobol who will “ground his or her life in purer love that transforms — making him or her more inspired, creative and dedicated, and therefore better able to live as a modern instantiation of some ideal.”

That’s the world I want to live in.

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CHILDREN AND TEACHERS ARE NOT COMMON OBJECTS

05 Saturday Sep 2015

Posted by David Greene in Uncategorized

≈ 2 Comments

images#Standards are not curricula and cannot be measured via #Standardized tests.

A STANDARD IS DEFINED AS:
1. something considered by an authority or by general consent as a basis of comparison; an approved model. A rule or principle that is used as a basis for judgment:
2. an average or normal requirement, quality, quantity, level, grade, etc.
3. those morals, ethics, habits, etc., established by authority, custom, or an individual as acceptable.

HOWEVER Reformers USE only one of these…
#4: an object that is regarded as the usual or most COMMON size or form of its kind,

Notice the only time the word “COMMON” is used in a definition: WHEN IT DESCRIBES OBJECTS….

Standardized is defined as “to bring to or make of an established standard size, weight, quality, strength, or the like: to standardize manufactured parts.”

#Children are not objects or manufactured parts.
#Teachers are not cogs in a machine or widgets.

Those trying to impose their version of standards and standardized tests do NOT live up to the moral and ethical standards of education for human beings.

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Look what political pressure and opting out does:

03 Thursday Sep 2015

Posted by David Greene in Uncategorized

≈ 12 Comments

Tags

@anthonycody, @dianeravitch, @valeriestrauss, children, common core, education, Educators, High Stakes Testing, opt out, Parents, politics, schools, students, teachers

cuomomadnessGovernor Andrew Cuomo says Common Core is not working and now he’s promising a review of its implementation.
In a statement, Gov. Cuomo recognized the growing disapproval from parents, teachers and even education experts on how the standard was implemented.

While Gov. Cuomo says there are problems with the standard, he says he still believes in the concept. He says standards for students are important, but people, especially parents, have faith in them.

“The fact is that the current Common Core program in New York is not working, and must be fixed,” said Gov. Cuomo in a statement. “To that end, the time has come for a comprehensive review of the implementation of the Common Core Standards, curriculum, guidance and tests in order to address local concerns.”

Cuomo says he will have an education commission review the implementation of the standard and make recommendations for changes. He hopes to have the recommendations in time for his State of the State Address in January.

http://www.whec.com/article/stories/s3896627.shtml?cat=565

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FROM DIANE RAVITCH and FairTest. SAT “COLLEGE READINESS” SCORES DECLINE AGAIN DEMONSTRATING FAILURE OF TEST-DRIVEN K-12 SCHOOLING

03 Thursday Sep 2015

Posted by David Greene in Uncategorized

≈ Leave a comment

Tags

@anthonycody, @dianeravitch, @valeriestrauss, achievement gap, children, common core, education, Educators, High Stakes Testing, poverty, SATs, teachers

UnknownAll that CCSS “material” and TEST prep and then this?

SAT “COLLEGE READINESS” SCORES DECLINE AGAIN DEMONSTRATING FAILURE OF TEST-DRIVEN K-12 SCHOOLING

FROM DIANE RAVITCH and FairTest.

SAT scores for high school seniors dropped again this year continuing a ten-year trend, according to data released today.

SAT averages declined by 28 points since 2006 when the “No Child Left Behind” public school testing mandate went into effect.

Again, INCOME is the biggest contributor to success. For example, can you say, hire tutors?

2015 COLLEGE-BOUND SENIORS SAT SCORES BY FAMILY INCOME

READING MATH WRITING TOTAL
$0 – $20,000 433 455 426 1314
$20,000 – $40,000 466 479 454 1399
$40,000 – $60,000 488 597 473 1458
$60,000 – $80,000 503 510 487 1500
$80,000 – $100,000 517 526 501 1544
$100,000 – $120,000 528 539 514 1581
$120,000 – $140,000 531 542 518 1591
$140,000 – $160,000 539 551 526 1616
$160,000 – $200,000 545 557 534 1636
More than $200,000 570 587 563 1720

Score differences between racial groups increased, often significantly, over that period. Average SAT Scores declined since 2006 for every group except Asian-Americans.

READING MATH WRITING TOTAL
ALL TEST-TAKERS 495 (-8) 511 (-7) 484 (-13) 1490 (-28)
Female 493 (-9) 496 (-6) 490 (-12) 1479 (-27)
Male 497 (-8) 527 (-9) 478 (-13) 1503 (-30)
Amer. Indian or Alaskan Native 481 (-6) 482 (-12) 460 (-14) 1423 (-32)
Asian, Asian Amer. or Pacific Islander 525 (+15) 598 (+20) 531 (+19) 1654 (+54)
Black or African American 431 (-3) 428 (-1) 418 (-10) 1277 (-14)
Mexican or Mexican American 448 (-6) 457 (-8) 438 (-14) 1343 (-28)
Puerto Rican 456 (-3) 449 (-7) 442 (-6) 1347 (-16)
Other Hispanic or Latino 449 (-9) 457 (-6) 439 (-11) 1345 (-26)
White 529 (+2) 534 (-2) 513 (-6) 1576 (-6)

Calculated by FairTest from: College Board, College-Bound Seniors 2015: Total Group Profile Report and College-Bound Seniors 2006: Total Group Profile Report

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Blogs I Follow

  • HE COULD MAKE WORDS SING
  • stopcommoncorenys
  • Momentary Lapse Of Sanity
  • Education Opportunity Network
  • deutsch29: Mercedes Schneider's Blog
  • Seattle Education
  • Crazy Normal - the Classroom Exposé
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Profile

David Greene has spent 58 of his 66 years in Public Schools. He taught high school social studies and coached football for 38 years. He was an adjunct and field supervisor for Fordham University mentoring new teachers in the Bronx and formertreasurer of Save Our Schools. He is presently a program consultant for WISE Services. David Greene’s book, DOING THE RIGHT THING: A Teacher Speaks is a result of his experiences and his desire to pay forward what he has learned over the years as he continues to fight for students and quality education in PUBLIC schools. His essays have appeared in Diane Ravitch's website, Education Weekly, US News and World Report, and the Washington Post. He wrote the most responded-to Sunday Dialogue letter in the New York Times entitled, “A Talent For Teaching”. He has appeared on radio, local TV, Lo-Hud newspaper articles, and has given several talks about Common Core, APPR, TFA, teacher preparation, the teaching profession, and other issues regarding education. Most recently he appeared on: The growing movement against Teach For America, December 11, 2014 11:00PM ET, by Lisa Binns & Christof Putzel He is presently a contributor to Ed Circuit: Powering The Global Education Conversation.

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HE COULD MAKE WORDS SING

An Ordinary Man During Extraordinary Times

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Helping parents and teachers end common core.

Momentary Lapse Of Sanity

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deutsch29: Mercedes Schneider's Blog

Mostly Education; a Smattering of Politics & Pinch of Personal

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For the news and views you might have missed

Crazy Normal - the Classroom Exposé

An insider's look at education, teaching, parenting and coming of age.

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hosted by Anthony Cody

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Where Education, Law, Psychology, Politics, Parenting and Sarcasm collide.

Deborah Meier on Education

Views on Education

Teacher Under Construction

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Are schools failing, or are they being failed?

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