Anthony Cody, a National Board-certified teacher in the Bay Area, has launched a project to get teachers to write to President Obama. He’s planning on gathering the letters and mailing them to the White House on November 23rd. Here’s mine:
Dear President Obama,
I’m not a worrywart by nature. I teach 5th grade in a high-poverty school [...]
Posts Tagged ‘teaching’
Resegregation: What I Worry About
Teacher Misconduct?
A few weeks ago the LA Times did an expose on a teachers being kept out of the classroom at full pay because of misconduct or allegations of misconduct. Here’s a new movie coming out on the NY equivalent. While the cases in the LA Times story seemed to show misconduct, there is also the [...]
Teachers & Money
There’s a lot of talk out there to link individual teacher pay to test scores. While I’d be thrilled to get a pay raise (and in an earlier post, I shouted, ‘Bring it on!’), here’s why I don’t think this is a good idea.
First all the usual reasons: teachers will teach to the test and [...]
Kids, Porn, Selling Sex
On Friday several 4th and 5th graders at my school were suspended when they were caught after school watching porn on a PSP. That means 9, 10, and 11 year-olds. One of the boys had downloaded porn onto his flashdrive and was charging other kids a buck a pop to download it onto their PSPs.
Parents [...]
Cuts Hurt Kids!
Yesterday Cuts Hurt Kids emailed asking for support. Here’s what they said about themselves:
The concept behind CutsHurtKids.org is a simple one: help bring unity among the grassroots resisters to budget cuts.
1. See what’s happening at other schools, and
2. if people know of an action to be added, they can submit links of online info/videos/pictures & [...]
Danger!!!!! (More Tales of LAUSD Waste)
This week we had an inspector come by from the safety branch of LAUSD. He had a grim face, a clipboard, and a scratchy pen he wielded with gusto and relish. He scuttled through classroom after classroom and uncovered MANY examples of clear and present DANGER!!!!
Most notably: couches. Yep. That’s right. Couches. Sofas. Cushy chairs. [...]
First DC, Now NY… Hello LA?
Last week Michelle Rhee created new proposals regarding teaching, tenure, and pay to shake up her moribund school district (latest Washington Post update here). NY teachers have also been getting on the newthink bandwagon led by Randi Weingarten who is both the president of the NY Local of the American Federation of Teachers and [...]
Oh I Wish I Were in Washington D.C.!
What a difference a day makes!
Today’s New York Times online included a story on Michelle Rhee, the controversial year-long superintendent for the troubled D.C. school system. She’s one of the many Ivy Leaguers who used a few years of teaching in urban schools via Teach For America to springboard into the forefront of educational policy [...]
