Hi, folks. Just wanted to give kudos to our own Kenneth Bernstein for ranking 9th out of 12, 495 diarists on dailykos.com's "impact" rankings:Garnering lots of recommendations and comments isn't everything, and as many have pointed out you can't necessarily count on that to identify a high quality diary, on a diary by diary basis (thus diary rescue).But if a writer repeatedly receives recommendations and encourages comments, they've shown that they are being paid attention, they've had an impact. Maybe that is worth consideri...
A response from NSTA
http://www.nsta.org/pressroom&news_story_ID=52959On November 26, the Washington Post printed an opinion piece from environmental activist Laurie David, a producer of the film "An Inconvenient Truth." In her op-ed Ms. David reports that NSTA rejected the opportunity to distribute 50,000 copies of the DVD to NSTA members.NSTA policy states that the association cannot endorse any outside organization's products and/or messages to its members. Therefore, we do not send any such products and/or messages directly to our members, regardless of the source.What was not mentioned in the op-ed is the...
Did the National Science Teachers Association sell out?
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/11/24/AR2006112400789.html[Washington Post] At hundreds of screenings this year of "An Inconvenient Truth," the first thing many viewers said after the lights came up was that every student in every school in the United States needed to see this movie. . . So the company that made the documentary decided to offer 50,000 free DVDs to the National Science Teachers Association (NSTA) for educators to use in their classrooms. It seemed like a no-brainer.The teachers had a different idea: Thanks but no thanks, they said.In their e-mail rejection,...
Community Organizing and Urban Education II: Why Churches?
[To read the entire series, go here.]In the educational literature, when someone mentions churches or religion they are usually arguing about whether particular aspects of (Christian) religion should be allowed inside schools and in the school curriculum. This argument usually positions progressives on the “anti-church” side. But there are progressive ways that churches and religion can engage with education, and powerful examples exist all around the United States.Why churches? Because across the nation, especially in the impoverished areas of our central...
Partnership Between TFA and Higher Education ?!?
This posting is a response to a piece published today in InsideHigherEd. I have also posted it as a comment in the thread of that article.Dr. Porterfield is certainly correct that TFA should be supported. I think it offers an excellent opportunity for undergraduate students not in the traditional teacher education pipeline to become classroom teachers through a fairly comprehensive, “fast track”, alternative pathway. (And contra Ira and Jeremy, these are not either/or scenarios. There are already not enough “committed” teachers out there; that is why TFA exists. And while UCLA has a great program,...
Nothing to do With Educational Policy, I Think
Given our recent discussions (both amongst ourselves and in this space) about blogging, I wanted to draw attention to Michael Berube's posting for today, which is based on a talk he just gave about blogging. (See also one take on his talk and Berube's comments.) What I found fascinating was that one of Berube's main points was that blogging was, almost by definition and in fact in much better relief than our resumes or syllabi or writings, who we are and what we do (thus his title of "Professors at Work"):For all academic blogs, the big ones that get twenty thousand readers a day and the ones...
Community Organizing and Urban Education, Part I: Introducing MOVE
[To read the entire series, go here.]For the last six years or so, I have worked with a local community organizing group on their Education Committee. MOVE (a pseudonym) is now one of a number of allied organizations in Wisconsin, and operates under the umbrella of the Gamaliel Foundation,which has local chapters in many different states (the other large organizing groups in America are the IAF, PICO, and ACORN). MOVE currently has 37 different congregations as members with a wide range of Christian and even a few non-Christian groups. (image)I didn’t...
Great job opportunity
Speaking of linking foundations to meaningful larger questions and issues, I just saw this job posting at University of Wisconsin, Milwaukee that links educational foundations with community engagement. Since Aaron and Raji (both bloggers on this site) are there and may feel uncomfortable saying it due to conflict of interest, I will say that their department looks like exactly the kind of place where foundations is flourishing and relevant. Their department chair, Ian Harris, wrote a very nice article that positions foundations as deeply linked to community education. And finally, speaking of...
Educational Scholarship and Chiropractic Science
Improving classrooms and schools . . . [is] certainly helpful. But sadly, such activities may also be similar to those of the drunk found on his hands and knees under a street lamp. When asked by a passerby what he was doing, the drunk replied that he was looking for his keys. When asked where he lost them, the drunk replied ‘over there,’ and pointed back up the dark street. When the passerby then asked the drunk why he was[n't] looking for the keys where they were located, the drunk answered ‘the light is better here!’” --David Berliner (2005, p. 2)Chiropractic practice is based on...
The Information Gap on Affirmative Action
Here is an example of a foundations scholar many of us know well, Michele Moses of Colorado, and a graduate student there, engaging an issue (affirmative action in Michigan) of critical importance in a widely read venue, hence I bring it to our bl...
Nothing to Fear but Fear Itself: The Future of Teacher Education
If it wasn’t scary enough to go trick-or-treating last night, then it is certainly scary to read two op-ed pieces which came out yesterday. (Thanks to the eduwonk for always being on top of this one.) One was by Arthur Levine and the other by Jay Mathews. Arthur Levine is pounding the pavement for his recent study; he has published nearly identical articles here and here. The key, argues Levine, is to create higher standards for education schools, accrediting committees, and state boards such that we can tame the “wild west.” This is the standards side of the debate about teacher education, which...
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