What's the most revealing movie of the past two years? It's not about high flying special effects, Brad Pit getting old, or Sean Penn playing a gay rights hero. It's not any of these, however, Penn is a part of what I found affecting about movies over the last two years. One movie in particular I dug, which represents the Thoreauvian dystopia that is America now. Into the Wild is Penn's take on John Krakauer's non-fiction book recounting the tale of Christopher McCandless. McCandless leaves his comfortable life and heads off to find himself in the wilds of Alaska. Just like Thoreau did around Walden Pond for two years, two months, and two days, McCandless discovers the essence of an uniquely American philosophy: one's self versus community.
The trailer from "Into the Wild" reveals this most distinct of national traits--Horatio Alger, Abraham Lincoln, George Bailey, Ronald Reagan, Barack Obama, et. al. The American mythos is about humble beginnings, big visions, and open hearts. It's about crackpots and loopy, devoted followers: Log Cabin Republicans, Reagan Democrats, Mr. Martini, Obama Mamas, etc. Who will be following Christopher McCandless into the wild?
Along with his role in the movie "Milk," Sean Penn creates two memorable characters on the edge of society, much in the same way that Robert DeNiro and Martin Scorsese did in the '70s and '80s.
Wednesday, December 24, 2008
Tuesday, December 23, 2008
Teacher sorry for binding girls in slavery lesson: White teacher taped hands and feet of two black girls to enliven discussion
From the AP Wire: updated 4:34 p.m. PT, Mon., Dec. 8, 2008
WHITE PLAINS, N.Y. - A white social studies teacher attempted to enliven a seventh-grade discussion of slavery by binding the hands and feet of two black girls, prompting outrage from one girl's mother and the local chapter of the NAACP.
After the mother complained to Haverstraw Middle School, the superintendent said he was having "conversations with our staff on how to deliver effective lessons."
"If a student was upset, then it was a bad idea," said Superintendent Brian Monahan of the North Rockland School District in New York City's northern suburbs.
The teacher apologized to the mother who complained and her 13-year-old daughter during a meeting Thursday that also included a representative of the local NAACP. But the mother, Christine Shand of Haverstraw, said Friday she thinks the teacher should be removed from the class.
"I think the teacher should have gotten some discipline," Shand said. "I know if that was me, I would be uncomfortable going back to that class. Why should my daughter have to switch?"
Monahan refused to say what, if any, measures were taken against the teacher, Eileen Bernstein, who was still working on Friday. The school district said she was not available for comment.
"We encourage our teachers to deliver the curriculum in a variety of ways, to go beyond just reading the textbook," the superintendent said. "We don't want to discourage creativity. But this obviously went wrong because the student was upset."
On Nov. 18, Bernstein was discussing the conditions under which African captives were taken to America in slave ships. She bound the two students' hands and feet with tape and had them crawl under a desk to simulate the experience, Monahan and Shand said. Monahan said the girls were not the only blacks in the class.
Gabrielle Shand burst into tears at home, her mother said.
"There are other ways to demonstrate slavery," Christine Shand said Friday. "It doesn't matter the color of the kids, it's just not right to tie them up. My daughter is still upset, still embarrassed. She didn't go to school today."
WHITE PLAINS, N.Y. - A white social studies teacher attempted to enliven a seventh-grade discussion of slavery by binding the hands and feet of two black girls, prompting outrage from one girl's mother and the local chapter of the NAACP.
After the mother complained to Haverstraw Middle School, the superintendent said he was having "conversations with our staff on how to deliver effective lessons."
"If a student was upset, then it was a bad idea," said Superintendent Brian Monahan of the North Rockland School District in New York City's northern suburbs.
The teacher apologized to the mother who complained and her 13-year-old daughter during a meeting Thursday that also included a representative of the local NAACP. But the mother, Christine Shand of Haverstraw, said Friday she thinks the teacher should be removed from the class.
"I think the teacher should have gotten some discipline," Shand said. "I know if that was me, I would be uncomfortable going back to that class. Why should my daughter have to switch?"
Monahan refused to say what, if any, measures were taken against the teacher, Eileen Bernstein, who was still working on Friday. The school district said she was not available for comment.
"We encourage our teachers to deliver the curriculum in a variety of ways, to go beyond just reading the textbook," the superintendent said. "We don't want to discourage creativity. But this obviously went wrong because the student was upset."
On Nov. 18, Bernstein was discussing the conditions under which African captives were taken to America in slave ships. She bound the two students' hands and feet with tape and had them crawl under a desk to simulate the experience, Monahan and Shand said. Monahan said the girls were not the only blacks in the class.
Gabrielle Shand burst into tears at home, her mother said.
"There are other ways to demonstrate slavery," Christine Shand said Friday. "It doesn't matter the color of the kids, it's just not right to tie them up. My daughter is still upset, still embarrassed. She didn't go to school today."
Monday, December 22, 2008
CHARITIES WE RECOMMEND: THE HUMANE SOCIETY
It's Day III: What's more humane than the National Humane Society. With YouTube's Project for Awesome to reduce the world suck, you can get involved at the local level.
You can view and later donate to your local humane society or animal rescue agency:
Sunday, December 21, 2008
CHARITIES WE RECOMMEND: THE LUPUS FOUNDATION
Day II: It's one of those diseases that gets the spit end of the stick--lupus. Let's wipe it out!
Saturday, December 20, 2008
CHARITIES WE RECOMMEND: THE HEIFER PROJECT
'Tis the Season: We want to recommend some charities to our readers so that you might share the gift of life and love during this season of giving.
The Heifer Project is number one on our list.
Friday, December 19, 2008
WILL THE REAL SECRETARY OF EDUCATION PLEASE STAND-UP?
So, what will Arne Duncan do as President-elect Barack Obama's Secretary of Education? Like Obama, Duncan has been known to straddle the middle of the road.
George Lucas's Edutopia proclaims::
Arne Duncan has a type of personality that Obama seems to prefer, which is a pragmatist who will bring about change, but he'll do it in a way that will minimize confrontation in conflict," says Jack Jennings, president of the nonpartisan Center on Education Policy. "He's brought about change in Chicago, but it hasn't been a head-on clash with the teachers' union. He's done it in a way that they all walk away from the table congratulating each other."
Even though the Progressives have claimed Obama as their own, Obama's true colors are beginning to slowly seep out. In actuality, Obama is as a hard driving pragmatist. I'm not sure what others will say about him, but the Rev. Jeremiah Wright, Jr. said, "He's (Obama) a politician and I'm a minister. He is anaswerable to the people while I am answerable to God." Perhaps the real world needs a realist these days. In fact, it would be great to have access to Obama as he shifts and changes into Bill Clinton--with or without the libido--who needs to stay firmly left of center, rather than far left, to get his policies past.
Wednesday, December 17, 2008
Tuesday, December 16, 2008
Lost in the Crowd--By David Brooks
from the New York Times--December 16, 2008--http://www.nytimes.com/2008/12/16/opinion/16brooks.html
All day long, you are affected by large forces. Genes influence your intelligence and willingness to take risks. Social dynamics unconsciously shape your choices. Instantaneous perceptions set off neural reactions in your head without you even being aware of them.
Over the past few years, scientists have made a series of exciting discoveries about how these deep patterns influence daily life. Nobody has done more to bring these discoveries to public attention than Malcolm Gladwell.
Gladwell’s important new book, “Outliers,” seems at first glance to be a description of exceptionally talented individuals. But in fact, it’s another book about deep patterns. Exceptionally successful people are not lone pioneers who created their own success, he argues. They are the lucky beneficiaries of social arrangements.
As Gladwell told Jason Zengerle of New York magazine: “The book’s saying, ‘Great people aren’t so great. Their own greatness is not the salient fact about them. It’s the kind of fortunate mix of opportunities they’ve been given.’ ”
Gladwell’s noncontroversial claim is that some people have more opportunities than other people. Bill Gates was lucky to go to a great private school with its own computer at the dawn of the information revolution. Gladwell’s more interesting claim is that social forces largely explain why some people work harder when presented with those opportunities.
Chinese people work hard because they grew up in a culture built around rice farming. Tending a rice paddy required working up to 3,000 hours a year, and it left a cultural legacy that prizes industriousness. Many upper-middle-class American kids are raised in an atmosphere of “concerted cultivation,” which inculcates a fanatical devotion to meritocratic striving.
In Gladwell’s account, individual traits play a smaller role in explaining success while social circumstances play a larger one. As he told Zengerle, “I am explicitly turning my back on, I think, these kind of empty models that say, you know, you can be whatever you want to be. Well, actually, you can’t be whatever you want to be. The world decides what you can and can’t be.”
As usual, Gladwell intelligently captures a larger tendency of thought — the growing appreciation of the power of cultural patterns, social contagions, memes. His book is being received by reviewers as a call to action for the Obama age. It could lead policy makers to finally reject policies built on the assumption that people are coldly rational utility-maximizing individuals. It could cause them to focus more on policies that foster relationships, social bonds and cultures of achievement.
Yet, I can’t help but feel that Gladwell and others who share his emphasis are getting swept away by the coolness of the new discoveries. They’ve lost sight of the point at which the influence of social forces ends and the influence of the self-initiating individual begins.
Most successful people begin with two beliefs: the future can be better than the present, and I have the power to make it so. They were often showered by good fortune, but relied at crucial moments upon achievements of individual will.
Most successful people also have a phenomenal ability to consciously focus their attention. We know from experiments with subjects as diverse as obsessive-compulsive disorder sufferers and Buddhist monks that people who can self-consciously focus attention have the power to rewire their brains.
Control of attention is the ultimate individual power. People who can do that are not prisoners of the stimuli around them. They can choose from the patterns in the world and lengthen their time horizons. This individual power leads to others. It leads to self-control, the ability to formulate strategies in order to resist impulses. If forced to choose, we would all rather our children be poor with self-control than rich without it.
It leads to resilience, the ability to persevere with an idea even when all the influences in the world say it can’t be done. A common story among entrepreneurs is that people told them they were too stupid to do something, and they set out to prove the jerks wrong.
It leads to creativity. Individuals who can focus attention have the ability to hold a subject or problem in their mind long enough to see it anew.
Gladwell’s social determinism is a useful corrective to the Homo economicus view of human nature. It’s also pleasantly egalitarian. The less successful are not less worthy, they’re just less lucky. But it slights the centrality of individual character and individual creativity. And it doesn’t fully explain the genuine greatness of humanity’s outliers. As the classical philosophers understood, examples of individual greatness inspire achievement more reliably than any other form of education. If Gladwell can reduce William Shakespeare to a mere product of social forces, I’ll buy 25 more copies of “Outliers” and give them away in Times Square.
Copyright 2008 The New York Times Company
All day long, you are affected by large forces. Genes influence your intelligence and willingness to take risks. Social dynamics unconsciously shape your choices. Instantaneous perceptions set off neural reactions in your head without you even being aware of them.
Over the past few years, scientists have made a series of exciting discoveries about how these deep patterns influence daily life. Nobody has done more to bring these discoveries to public attention than Malcolm Gladwell.
Gladwell’s important new book, “Outliers,” seems at first glance to be a description of exceptionally talented individuals. But in fact, it’s another book about deep patterns. Exceptionally successful people are not lone pioneers who created their own success, he argues. They are the lucky beneficiaries of social arrangements.
As Gladwell told Jason Zengerle of New York magazine: “The book’s saying, ‘Great people aren’t so great. Their own greatness is not the salient fact about them. It’s the kind of fortunate mix of opportunities they’ve been given.’ ”
Gladwell’s noncontroversial claim is that some people have more opportunities than other people. Bill Gates was lucky to go to a great private school with its own computer at the dawn of the information revolution. Gladwell’s more interesting claim is that social forces largely explain why some people work harder when presented with those opportunities.
Chinese people work hard because they grew up in a culture built around rice farming. Tending a rice paddy required working up to 3,000 hours a year, and it left a cultural legacy that prizes industriousness. Many upper-middle-class American kids are raised in an atmosphere of “concerted cultivation,” which inculcates a fanatical devotion to meritocratic striving.
In Gladwell’s account, individual traits play a smaller role in explaining success while social circumstances play a larger one. As he told Zengerle, “I am explicitly turning my back on, I think, these kind of empty models that say, you know, you can be whatever you want to be. Well, actually, you can’t be whatever you want to be. The world decides what you can and can’t be.”
As usual, Gladwell intelligently captures a larger tendency of thought — the growing appreciation of the power of cultural patterns, social contagions, memes. His book is being received by reviewers as a call to action for the Obama age. It could lead policy makers to finally reject policies built on the assumption that people are coldly rational utility-maximizing individuals. It could cause them to focus more on policies that foster relationships, social bonds and cultures of achievement.
Yet, I can’t help but feel that Gladwell and others who share his emphasis are getting swept away by the coolness of the new discoveries. They’ve lost sight of the point at which the influence of social forces ends and the influence of the self-initiating individual begins.
Most successful people begin with two beliefs: the future can be better than the present, and I have the power to make it so. They were often showered by good fortune, but relied at crucial moments upon achievements of individual will.
Most successful people also have a phenomenal ability to consciously focus their attention. We know from experiments with subjects as diverse as obsessive-compulsive disorder sufferers and Buddhist monks that people who can self-consciously focus attention have the power to rewire their brains.
Control of attention is the ultimate individual power. People who can do that are not prisoners of the stimuli around them. They can choose from the patterns in the world and lengthen their time horizons. This individual power leads to others. It leads to self-control, the ability to formulate strategies in order to resist impulses. If forced to choose, we would all rather our children be poor with self-control than rich without it.
It leads to resilience, the ability to persevere with an idea even when all the influences in the world say it can’t be done. A common story among entrepreneurs is that people told them they were too stupid to do something, and they set out to prove the jerks wrong.
It leads to creativity. Individuals who can focus attention have the ability to hold a subject or problem in their mind long enough to see it anew.
Gladwell’s social determinism is a useful corrective to the Homo economicus view of human nature. It’s also pleasantly egalitarian. The less successful are not less worthy, they’re just less lucky. But it slights the centrality of individual character and individual creativity. And it doesn’t fully explain the genuine greatness of humanity’s outliers. As the classical philosophers understood, examples of individual greatness inspire achievement more reliably than any other form of education. If Gladwell can reduce William Shakespeare to a mere product of social forces, I’ll buy 25 more copies of “Outliers” and give them away in Times Square.
Copyright 2008 The New York Times Company
Improving Public Schools Hearing: Arne Duncan Part 1
Arne Duncan, unvarnished, talking about improving public schools in the City of Chicago, known as the city that works.
Chicago Schools Chief Is Obama’s Education Pick--By SAM DILLON
December 16, 2008--from the New York Times--http://www.nytimes.com/2008/12/16/us/politics/16educ.html?_r=1&hp
Arne Duncan, the Chicago schools superintendent known for taking tough steps to improve schools while maintaining respectful relations with teachers and their unions, is President-elect Barack Obama’s choice as secretary of education, Democratic officials said Monday.
Mr. Duncan, a 44-year-old Harvard graduate, has raised achievement in the nation’s third-largest school district and often faced the ticklish challenge of shuttering failing schools and replacing ineffective teachers, usually with improved results.
He represents a compromise choice in the debate that has divided Democrats in recent months over the proper course for public-school policy after the Bush years.
In June, rival nationwide groups of educators circulated competing educational manifestos, with one group espousing a get-tough policy based on pushing teachers and administrators harder to raise achievement, and another arguing that schools alone could not close the racial achievement gap and urging new investments in school-based health clinics and other social programs to help poor students learn.
Mr. Duncan was the only big-city superintendent to sign both manifestos.
He argued that the nation’s schools needed to be held accountable for student progress, but also needed major new investments, new talent and new teacher-training efforts.
In straddling the two camps, Mr. Duncan seemed to reflect Mr. Obama’s own impatience with what he has called “tired educational debates.”
In his last major educational speech of the campaign, Mr. Obama said: “It’s been Democrat versus Republican, vouchers versus the status quo, more money versus more reform. There’s partisanship and there’s bickering, but no understanding that both sides have good ideas.”
The rival educational camps swamped the Obama transition in recent weeks with recommendations for the post. The National Education Association, the largest teachers’ union, pressed for several current and former governors who had made schools a priority in their states.
Many former members of Teach for America, the program that sends elite-college graduates to teach in low-income schools, weighed in on behalf of Joel I. Klein, the New York City schools chancellor, and Michelle Rhee, the Washington schools chancellor, both of whom have clashed with the teachers’ unions.
“Obama found the sweet spot with Arne Duncan,” said Susan Traiman, director of educational policy at the Business Roundtable. “Both camps will be O.K. with the pick!”
Mr. Duncan’s acquaintance with Mr. Obama began on the basketball court nearly two decades ago but has flowered since he became the chief executive of the Chicago Public Schools in 2001, and Mr. Obama has used him as a frequent sounding board in discussions of education policy.
The two men have visited a number of Chicago schools together. In October 2005, they visited the Dodge Renaissance Academy, a once-failing elementary school that Mr. Duncan closed and reopened, with a new staff, as a working public school and a teacher training academy.
During the visit, Mr. Obama sat down with school staff members in the library for more than an hour and questioned them at length about arcane instructional issues, Mr. Duncan said in an interview.
“I’ve taken lots of political leaders on school visits, and nobody spends the amount of time, asks the depth of questions, or is more engaged and curious than Barack,” Mr. Duncan said in an August interview.
The Obama transition team has scheduled a news conference for Tuesday at the Dodge Renaissance school.
Mr. Duncan’s background includes playing professional basketball in Australia and intermittently tutoring urban youth, but no formal teaching experience. He helped draft Mr. Obama’s extensive education platform, which called for recruiting thousands of new teachers, encouraging local school districts to adopt performance-based teacher pay initiatives, recruiting and training effective principals, and placing new emphasis on science and mathematics education.
The platform also calls for making major federal investments in early childhood education, which Mr. Obama believes is a more effective use of educational dollars than spending them on remedial programs later.
Mr. Duncan has been working for several years to expand the early childhood opportunities in the Chicago Public Schools, increasing enrollment opportunities for 3- and 4-year-olds by 1,000 places or more each year. Mr. Duncan has worked closely in that effort with Barbara T. Bowman, the Chicago Public Schools’ chief officer for early childhood education, who is the mother of Mr. Obama’s senior adviser, Valerie Jarrett.
Allan R. Odden, a professor of education at the University of Wisconsin, heads a project that is studying how school districts recruit, assign and train their principals and teachers. He said Chicago had made considerable progress under Mr. Duncan.
“He’s gotten the job done in Chicago,” Dr. Odden said. “There’s more to be done, but he’s done a great job of reaching out and recruiting and improving the talent of both teachers and principals.”
During Mr. Duncan’s tenure, the Chicago schools, which in the 1970s and 1980s experienced nine teachers’ strikes in 17 years, has had labor stability, and last week, Randi Weingarten, president of the American Federation of Teachers, praised Mr. Duncan.
As secretary of education, one of Mr. Duncan’s major challenges will be to rebuild the bipartisan consensus that helped President Bush win passage of his No Child Left Behind law in 2001.
An effort to rewrite the law, the most important statement of federal policy toward public schools, collapsed last year in the face of opposition from conservative Republicans angered over the law’s intrusion onto states’ educational prerogatives and Democrats upset with the law’s emphasis on standardized testing.
Mr. Obama has called for a thorough rewrite, but has pledged to defend the accountability provisions in the law that require schools to improve.
Joe Williams, executive director of Democrats for Education Reform, said last week that his group would be delighted to see Mr. Klein or Ms. Rhee appointed, but had sent to the transition team a memorandum recommending Mr. Duncan.
“He is the kind of guy who can work with all sorts of people with different viewpoints, and we like his work in Chicago with charter schools,” Mr. Williams said.
Representative George Miller, the California Democrat who as the chairman of the House Education and Labor Committee will lead any reauthorization effort, called Mr. Duncan “a good choice for school reform and our schoolchildren.”
“He is an experienced and accomplished leader who is open to new ideas for improving our schools,” Mr. Miller said.
Copyright 2008 The New York Times Company
Arne Duncan, the Chicago schools superintendent known for taking tough steps to improve schools while maintaining respectful relations with teachers and their unions, is President-elect Barack Obama’s choice as secretary of education, Democratic officials said Monday.
Mr. Duncan, a 44-year-old Harvard graduate, has raised achievement in the nation’s third-largest school district and often faced the ticklish challenge of shuttering failing schools and replacing ineffective teachers, usually with improved results.
He represents a compromise choice in the debate that has divided Democrats in recent months over the proper course for public-school policy after the Bush years.
In June, rival nationwide groups of educators circulated competing educational manifestos, with one group espousing a get-tough policy based on pushing teachers and administrators harder to raise achievement, and another arguing that schools alone could not close the racial achievement gap and urging new investments in school-based health clinics and other social programs to help poor students learn.
Mr. Duncan was the only big-city superintendent to sign both manifestos.
He argued that the nation’s schools needed to be held accountable for student progress, but also needed major new investments, new talent and new teacher-training efforts.
In straddling the two camps, Mr. Duncan seemed to reflect Mr. Obama’s own impatience with what he has called “tired educational debates.”
In his last major educational speech of the campaign, Mr. Obama said: “It’s been Democrat versus Republican, vouchers versus the status quo, more money versus more reform. There’s partisanship and there’s bickering, but no understanding that both sides have good ideas.”
The rival educational camps swamped the Obama transition in recent weeks with recommendations for the post. The National Education Association, the largest teachers’ union, pressed for several current and former governors who had made schools a priority in their states.
Many former members of Teach for America, the program that sends elite-college graduates to teach in low-income schools, weighed in on behalf of Joel I. Klein, the New York City schools chancellor, and Michelle Rhee, the Washington schools chancellor, both of whom have clashed with the teachers’ unions.
“Obama found the sweet spot with Arne Duncan,” said Susan Traiman, director of educational policy at the Business Roundtable. “Both camps will be O.K. with the pick!”
Mr. Duncan’s acquaintance with Mr. Obama began on the basketball court nearly two decades ago but has flowered since he became the chief executive of the Chicago Public Schools in 2001, and Mr. Obama has used him as a frequent sounding board in discussions of education policy.
The two men have visited a number of Chicago schools together. In October 2005, they visited the Dodge Renaissance Academy, a once-failing elementary school that Mr. Duncan closed and reopened, with a new staff, as a working public school and a teacher training academy.
During the visit, Mr. Obama sat down with school staff members in the library for more than an hour and questioned them at length about arcane instructional issues, Mr. Duncan said in an interview.
“I’ve taken lots of political leaders on school visits, and nobody spends the amount of time, asks the depth of questions, or is more engaged and curious than Barack,” Mr. Duncan said in an August interview.
The Obama transition team has scheduled a news conference for Tuesday at the Dodge Renaissance school.
Mr. Duncan’s background includes playing professional basketball in Australia and intermittently tutoring urban youth, but no formal teaching experience. He helped draft Mr. Obama’s extensive education platform, which called for recruiting thousands of new teachers, encouraging local school districts to adopt performance-based teacher pay initiatives, recruiting and training effective principals, and placing new emphasis on science and mathematics education.
The platform also calls for making major federal investments in early childhood education, which Mr. Obama believes is a more effective use of educational dollars than spending them on remedial programs later.
Mr. Duncan has been working for several years to expand the early childhood opportunities in the Chicago Public Schools, increasing enrollment opportunities for 3- and 4-year-olds by 1,000 places or more each year. Mr. Duncan has worked closely in that effort with Barbara T. Bowman, the Chicago Public Schools’ chief officer for early childhood education, who is the mother of Mr. Obama’s senior adviser, Valerie Jarrett.
Allan R. Odden, a professor of education at the University of Wisconsin, heads a project that is studying how school districts recruit, assign and train their principals and teachers. He said Chicago had made considerable progress under Mr. Duncan.
“He’s gotten the job done in Chicago,” Dr. Odden said. “There’s more to be done, but he’s done a great job of reaching out and recruiting and improving the talent of both teachers and principals.”
During Mr. Duncan’s tenure, the Chicago schools, which in the 1970s and 1980s experienced nine teachers’ strikes in 17 years, has had labor stability, and last week, Randi Weingarten, president of the American Federation of Teachers, praised Mr. Duncan.
As secretary of education, one of Mr. Duncan’s major challenges will be to rebuild the bipartisan consensus that helped President Bush win passage of his No Child Left Behind law in 2001.
An effort to rewrite the law, the most important statement of federal policy toward public schools, collapsed last year in the face of opposition from conservative Republicans angered over the law’s intrusion onto states’ educational prerogatives and Democrats upset with the law’s emphasis on standardized testing.
Mr. Obama has called for a thorough rewrite, but has pledged to defend the accountability provisions in the law that require schools to improve.
Joe Williams, executive director of Democrats for Education Reform, said last week that his group would be delighted to see Mr. Klein or Ms. Rhee appointed, but had sent to the transition team a memorandum recommending Mr. Duncan.
“He is the kind of guy who can work with all sorts of people with different viewpoints, and we like his work in Chicago with charter schools,” Mr. Williams said.
Representative George Miller, the California Democrat who as the chairman of the House Education and Labor Committee will lead any reauthorization effort, called Mr. Duncan “a good choice for school reform and our schoolchildren.”
“He is an experienced and accomplished leader who is open to new ideas for improving our schools,” Mr. Miller said.
Copyright 2008 The New York Times Company
Sunday, December 14, 2008
NO PROCESS, NO PEACE: Michelle Rhee and the DC Public Schools
One person's name that has been floated as a possible Secretary of Education is Michelle A. Rhee, the Chancellor of the District of Columbia's Public Schools. Take a look at the News Hour's John Merrow's initial report on Rhee and her "gutsy" moves to shake things up in our nation's capital.
Is Rhee a reformer or just foolish? You be the judge.
Is Rhee a reformer or just foolish? You be the judge.
Why All the Fuss (About the New Secretary of Education)
As the last article that we posted around the selection of the new secretary of education, Barack Obama's choice in a chief of America's educational system will be hotly scrutinized. Obama is playing his true intentions close to the vest largely to see how the media may play out the possible choices.
You can probably rule out all of the front runners, including Linda Darling-Hammond, the Stanford University Professor, Arne Duncan, the City of Chicago's school chief, and Joel I. Klein, who is the Chancellor of New York City public schools. Why would these folks not be considered in the running for this much contested role? Since Barack Obama does not like being second guessed or figured out when it comes to education, he and his team of rivals will pick a relative unknown for the seat.
Picking an unknown for the Secretary of Education would indicate that President-elect Obama wants to break away from the expectations that come with this crucial hire. While Senator Ted Kennedy is still alive, Obama would be unlikely to whole-sale dismantle No Child Left Behind. Kennedy was one of the movers and shakers behind the first NCLB law.
Obama is no idiot. He knows that the law is badly damaged. With all of the talk of accountability, the law is not having the intended effects that people wanted, which was to have all students working at grade level within the next four to five years or else risk having nearly all the nation's schools on the dreaded "watch lists," and eventually taken over by the state governments, which would be worse.
Because lawmakers make laws--rather than educate children--the unintended consequences of having so many of the nation's children in failing schools looms large.
This is why the next education czar will have her hands full. Oops! Did I give it away?
Obama will pick an unknown to lead the nation's K-16 schools because that person can wield her power outside of the glaring eye of the critics in and out of the educational reform movement. The person selected will have a great deal to do with little to no money in which to do it, which makes this position like the Wizard of Oz.
Hey, now that's not a bad idea. Perhaps Rod Blagojevich can pull some strings.
You can probably rule out all of the front runners, including Linda Darling-Hammond, the Stanford University Professor, Arne Duncan, the City of Chicago's school chief, and Joel I. Klein, who is the Chancellor of New York City public schools. Why would these folks not be considered in the running for this much contested role? Since Barack Obama does not like being second guessed or figured out when it comes to education, he and his team of rivals will pick a relative unknown for the seat.
Picking an unknown for the Secretary of Education would indicate that President-elect Obama wants to break away from the expectations that come with this crucial hire. While Senator Ted Kennedy is still alive, Obama would be unlikely to whole-sale dismantle No Child Left Behind. Kennedy was one of the movers and shakers behind the first NCLB law.
Obama is no idiot. He knows that the law is badly damaged. With all of the talk of accountability, the law is not having the intended effects that people wanted, which was to have all students working at grade level within the next four to five years or else risk having nearly all the nation's schools on the dreaded "watch lists," and eventually taken over by the state governments, which would be worse.
Because lawmakers make laws--rather than educate children--the unintended consequences of having so many of the nation's children in failing schools looms large.
This is why the next education czar will have her hands full. Oops! Did I give it away?
Obama will pick an unknown to lead the nation's K-16 schools because that person can wield her power outside of the glaring eye of the critics in and out of the educational reform movement. The person selected will have a great deal to do with little to no money in which to do it, which makes this position like the Wizard of Oz.
Hey, now that's not a bad idea. Perhaps Rod Blagojevich can pull some strings.
Uncertainty on Obama Education Plans--By Sam Dillion
(from The New York Times, Sunday, December 14, 2008)
As President-elect Barack Obama prepares to announce his choice for education secretary, there is mystery not only about the person he will choose, but also about the approach to overhauling the nation’s schools that his selection will reflect.
Despite an 18-month campaign for president and many debates, there remains uncertainty about what Mr. Obama believes is the best way to improve education.
Will he side with those who want to abolish teacher tenure and otherwise curb the power of teachers’ unions? Or with those who want to rewrite the main federal law on elementary and secondary education, the No Child Left Behind Act, and who say the best strategy is to help teachers become more qualified?
The debate has sometimes been nasty.
“People are saying things now that they may regret saying in a couple of months,” said Jack Jennings, a Democrat who is president and chief executive of the Center on Education Policy in Washington. “Unfortunately, they’re all friends of mine, which makes it awkward.”
Some of the toughest criticism has been aimed at the person Mr. Obama appointed to lead his education policy working group, the most important education post of the transition: Linda Darling-Hammond, a professor of education at Stanford University.
Dr. Darling-Hammond is liked by the teachers’ unions, and partly for that reason has been portrayed as an enemy of school reform by detractors. These have included people who have urged Mr. Obama to appoint Joel I. Klein, the New York City schools chancellor, or Michelle Rhee, the schools chancellor in Washington, as education secretary. Both of them have clashed with teachers’ unions.
Editorials and opinion articles in The New York Times, The Washington Post and The Los Angeles Times have described the debate as pitting education reformers against those representing the educational establishment or the status quo. But who the reformers are depends on who is talking.
Bruce Fuller, an education professor at the University of California, Berkeley, used different terms in discussing the debate.
Dr. Fuller said it pitted “professionalization advocates such as Darling-Hammond,” who believe the policy emphasis should be on raising student achievement by helping teachers improve their instruction, against “efficiency hawks like Klein and Rhee.” The efficiency hawks, he said, emphasize standardized testing, cracking down on poor school management and purging bad teachers.
“It’s tough love without any love,” he said.
Dr. Darling-Hammond has become a controversial figure partly because of her longtime criticism of Teach for America, the nonprofit group that recruits college graduates to teach for two years in hard-to-staff schools. She says the group loses too many recruits at the end of their two-year commitments, just when they are learning to teach.
Teach for America has no official preference for or opposition to any candidate, said Kevin Huffman, a spokesman for the group.
But an organization called Leadership for Educational Equity, which was founded to help former members of the Teach for America corps become involved in politics, has photographs of Dr. Darling-Hammond, Mr. Obama and Mr. Klein alongside an article on its Web site with the headline, “Education Secretary Fight Could Affect Teach for America’s Mission.”
The article notes that Dr. Darling-Hammond “has long been a vocal critic of Teach For America,” and it urges the group’s alumni to make their views on the candidates known.
Mr. Obama has given no hint of his own leanings.
Arne Duncan, the chief executive of Chicago Public Schools, may have an edge. Mr. Duncan is a longtime friend of the president-elect and has closed failing schools and improved achievement without alienating the teachers’ union. The superintendent of Denver Public Schools, Michael Bennet, who has enacted a plan to reward effective teachers with higher pay, has also attracted the transition team’s interest.
Mr. Klein and Ms. Rhee, as well as former Secretary of State Colin L. Powell and several current and former governors, have also been considered, a member of the transition team said. Mr. Powell has said publicly that he is not interested.
One former Teach for America official who has been outspoken is Whitney Tilson, a New York mutual fund manager.
In a recent blog entry, Mr. Tilson said of Dr. Darling-Hammond, “She’s influential, clever and (while she does her best to hide it) an enemy of genuine reform.”
Mr. Tilson is on the board of Democrats for Education Reform, a political action committee based in New York.
The group sent the Obama transition team a 43-page memorandum shortly after the election with policy advice and a “wish list” of candidates for secretary that included Mr. Duncan; Wendy Kopp, founder of Teach for America; and Jon Schnur, who started a nonprofit group, New Leaders for New Schools, that trains principals for urban schools, said Joe Williams, the executive director of Democrats for Education Reform.
Mr. Williams said his group also liked Mr. Klein and Ms. Rhee. “We’d be thrilled,” he said, “if either one were named secretary.”
The two national teachers unions have also been active. The National Education Association has not formally endorsed anyone but has discussed candidates with the Obama transition team, indicating some candidates who would have the union’s support, said John Wilson, the executive director.
The American Federation of Teachers presented the Obama team with written evaluations of a string of candidates without endorsing any of them, said Randi Weingarten, the union’s president. “We have no candidate in the race,” Ms. Weingarten said.
But last week she publicly praised Mr. Duncan in an interview with The Associated Press. “Arne Duncan,” she said, “actually reaches out and tries to do things in a collaborative way.”
Copyright 2008 The New York Times Company
As President-elect Barack Obama prepares to announce his choice for education secretary, there is mystery not only about the person he will choose, but also about the approach to overhauling the nation’s schools that his selection will reflect.
Despite an 18-month campaign for president and many debates, there remains uncertainty about what Mr. Obama believes is the best way to improve education.
Will he side with those who want to abolish teacher tenure and otherwise curb the power of teachers’ unions? Or with those who want to rewrite the main federal law on elementary and secondary education, the No Child Left Behind Act, and who say the best strategy is to help teachers become more qualified?
The debate has sometimes been nasty.
“People are saying things now that they may regret saying in a couple of months,” said Jack Jennings, a Democrat who is president and chief executive of the Center on Education Policy in Washington. “Unfortunately, they’re all friends of mine, which makes it awkward.”
Some of the toughest criticism has been aimed at the person Mr. Obama appointed to lead his education policy working group, the most important education post of the transition: Linda Darling-Hammond, a professor of education at Stanford University.
Dr. Darling-Hammond is liked by the teachers’ unions, and partly for that reason has been portrayed as an enemy of school reform by detractors. These have included people who have urged Mr. Obama to appoint Joel I. Klein, the New York City schools chancellor, or Michelle Rhee, the schools chancellor in Washington, as education secretary. Both of them have clashed with teachers’ unions.
Editorials and opinion articles in The New York Times, The Washington Post and The Los Angeles Times have described the debate as pitting education reformers against those representing the educational establishment or the status quo. But who the reformers are depends on who is talking.
Bruce Fuller, an education professor at the University of California, Berkeley, used different terms in discussing the debate.
Dr. Fuller said it pitted “professionalization advocates such as Darling-Hammond,” who believe the policy emphasis should be on raising student achievement by helping teachers improve their instruction, against “efficiency hawks like Klein and Rhee.” The efficiency hawks, he said, emphasize standardized testing, cracking down on poor school management and purging bad teachers.
“It’s tough love without any love,” he said.
Dr. Darling-Hammond has become a controversial figure partly because of her longtime criticism of Teach for America, the nonprofit group that recruits college graduates to teach for two years in hard-to-staff schools. She says the group loses too many recruits at the end of their two-year commitments, just when they are learning to teach.
Teach for America has no official preference for or opposition to any candidate, said Kevin Huffman, a spokesman for the group.
But an organization called Leadership for Educational Equity, which was founded to help former members of the Teach for America corps become involved in politics, has photographs of Dr. Darling-Hammond, Mr. Obama and Mr. Klein alongside an article on its Web site with the headline, “Education Secretary Fight Could Affect Teach for America’s Mission.”
The article notes that Dr. Darling-Hammond “has long been a vocal critic of Teach For America,” and it urges the group’s alumni to make their views on the candidates known.
Mr. Obama has given no hint of his own leanings.
Arne Duncan, the chief executive of Chicago Public Schools, may have an edge. Mr. Duncan is a longtime friend of the president-elect and has closed failing schools and improved achievement without alienating the teachers’ union. The superintendent of Denver Public Schools, Michael Bennet, who has enacted a plan to reward effective teachers with higher pay, has also attracted the transition team’s interest.
Mr. Klein and Ms. Rhee, as well as former Secretary of State Colin L. Powell and several current and former governors, have also been considered, a member of the transition team said. Mr. Powell has said publicly that he is not interested.
One former Teach for America official who has been outspoken is Whitney Tilson, a New York mutual fund manager.
In a recent blog entry, Mr. Tilson said of Dr. Darling-Hammond, “She’s influential, clever and (while she does her best to hide it) an enemy of genuine reform.”
Mr. Tilson is on the board of Democrats for Education Reform, a political action committee based in New York.
The group sent the Obama transition team a 43-page memorandum shortly after the election with policy advice and a “wish list” of candidates for secretary that included Mr. Duncan; Wendy Kopp, founder of Teach for America; and Jon Schnur, who started a nonprofit group, New Leaders for New Schools, that trains principals for urban schools, said Joe Williams, the executive director of Democrats for Education Reform.
Mr. Williams said his group also liked Mr. Klein and Ms. Rhee. “We’d be thrilled,” he said, “if either one were named secretary.”
The two national teachers unions have also been active. The National Education Association has not formally endorsed anyone but has discussed candidates with the Obama transition team, indicating some candidates who would have the union’s support, said John Wilson, the executive director.
The American Federation of Teachers presented the Obama team with written evaluations of a string of candidates without endorsing any of them, said Randi Weingarten, the union’s president. “We have no candidate in the race,” Ms. Weingarten said.
But last week she publicly praised Mr. Duncan in an interview with The Associated Press. “Arne Duncan,” she said, “actually reaches out and tries to do things in a collaborative way.”
Copyright 2008 The New York Times Company
Thursday, December 11, 2008
Who Will He Choose?--By DAVID BROOKS
As in many other areas, the biggest education debates are happening within the Democratic Party. On the one hand, there are the reformers like Joel Klein and Michelle Rhee, who support merit pay for good teachers, charter schools and tough accountability standards. On the other hand, there are the teachers’ unions and the members of the Ed School establishment, who emphasize greater funding, smaller class sizes and superficial reforms.
During the presidential race, Barack Obama straddled the two camps. One campaign adviser, John Schnur, represented the reform view in the internal discussions. Another, Linda Darling-Hammond, was more likely to represent the establishment view. Their disagreements were collegial (this is Obamaland after all), but substantive.
In public, Obama shifted nimbly from camp to camp while education experts studied his intonations with the intensity of Kremlinologists. Sometimes, he flirted with the union positions. At other times, he practiced dog-whistle politics, sending out reassuring signals that only the reformers could hear.
Each camp was secretly convinced that at the end of the day, Obama would come down on their side. The reformers were cheered when Obama praised a Denver performance pay initiative. The unions could take succor from the fact that though Obama would occasionally talk about merit pay, none of his actual proposals contradicted their positions.
Obama never had to pick a side. That is, until now. There is only one education secretary, and if you hang around these circles, the air is thick with speculation, anticipation, anxiety, hope and misinformation. Every day, new rumors are circulated and new front-runners declared. It’s kind of like being in a Trollope novel as Lord So-and-So figures out to whom he’s going to propose.
You can measure the anxiety in the reformist camp by the level of nervous phone chatter each morning. Weeks ago, Obama announced that Darling-Hammond would lead his transition team and reformist cellphones around the country lit up. Darling-Hammond, a professor at Stanford, is a sharp critic of Teach for America and promotes weaker reforms.
Anxieties cooled, but then one morning a few weeks ago, I got a flurry of phone calls from reform leaders nervous that Obama was about to side against them. I interviewed people in the president-elect’s inner circle and was reassured that the reformers had nothing to worry about. Obama had not gone native.
Obama’s aides point to his long record on merit pay, his sympathy for charter schools and his tendency to highlight his commitment to serious education reform.
But the union lobbying efforts are relentless and in the past week prospects for a reforming education secretary are thought to have dimmed. The candidates before Obama apparently include: Joel Klein, the highly successful New York chancellor who has, nonetheless, been blackballed by the unions; Arne Duncan, the reforming Chicago head who is less controversial; Darling-Hammond herself; and some former governor to be named later, with Darling-Hammond as the deputy secretary.
In some sense, the final option would be the biggest setback for reform. Education is one of those areas where implementation and the details are more important than grand pronouncements. If the deputies and assistants in the secretary’s office are not true reformers, nothing will get done.
The stakes are huge. For the first time in decades, there is real momentum for reform. It’s not only Rhee and Klein — the celebrities — but also superintendents in cities across America who are getting better teachers into the classrooms and producing measurable results. There is an unprecedented political coalition building, among liberals as well as conservatives, for radical reform.
No Child Left Behind is about to be reauthorized. Everyone has reservations about that law, but it is the glaring spotlight that reveals and pierces the complacency at mediocre schools. If accountability standards are watered down, as the establishment wants, then real reform will fade.
This will be a tough call for Obama, because it will mean offending people, but he can either galvanize the cause of reform or demoralize it. It’ll be one of the biggest choices of his presidency.
Many of the reformist hopes now hang on Obama’s friend, Arne Duncan. In Chicago, he’s a successful reformer who has produced impressive results in a huge and historically troubled system. He has the political skills necessary to build a coalition on behalf of No Child Left Behind reauthorization. Because he is close to both Obamas, he will ensure that education doesn’t fall, as it usually does, into the ranks of the second-tier issues.
If Obama picks a reformer like Duncan, Klein or one of the others, he will be picking a fight with the status quo. But there’s never been a better time to have that fight than right now.
Copyright 2008 The New York Times Company
During the presidential race, Barack Obama straddled the two camps. One campaign adviser, John Schnur, represented the reform view in the internal discussions. Another, Linda Darling-Hammond, was more likely to represent the establishment view. Their disagreements were collegial (this is Obamaland after all), but substantive.
In public, Obama shifted nimbly from camp to camp while education experts studied his intonations with the intensity of Kremlinologists. Sometimes, he flirted with the union positions. At other times, he practiced dog-whistle politics, sending out reassuring signals that only the reformers could hear.
Each camp was secretly convinced that at the end of the day, Obama would come down on their side. The reformers were cheered when Obama praised a Denver performance pay initiative. The unions could take succor from the fact that though Obama would occasionally talk about merit pay, none of his actual proposals contradicted their positions.
Obama never had to pick a side. That is, until now. There is only one education secretary, and if you hang around these circles, the air is thick with speculation, anticipation, anxiety, hope and misinformation. Every day, new rumors are circulated and new front-runners declared. It’s kind of like being in a Trollope novel as Lord So-and-So figures out to whom he’s going to propose.
You can measure the anxiety in the reformist camp by the level of nervous phone chatter each morning. Weeks ago, Obama announced that Darling-Hammond would lead his transition team and reformist cellphones around the country lit up. Darling-Hammond, a professor at Stanford, is a sharp critic of Teach for America and promotes weaker reforms.
Anxieties cooled, but then one morning a few weeks ago, I got a flurry of phone calls from reform leaders nervous that Obama was about to side against them. I interviewed people in the president-elect’s inner circle and was reassured that the reformers had nothing to worry about. Obama had not gone native.
Obama’s aides point to his long record on merit pay, his sympathy for charter schools and his tendency to highlight his commitment to serious education reform.
But the union lobbying efforts are relentless and in the past week prospects for a reforming education secretary are thought to have dimmed. The candidates before Obama apparently include: Joel Klein, the highly successful New York chancellor who has, nonetheless, been blackballed by the unions; Arne Duncan, the reforming Chicago head who is less controversial; Darling-Hammond herself; and some former governor to be named later, with Darling-Hammond as the deputy secretary.
In some sense, the final option would be the biggest setback for reform. Education is one of those areas where implementation and the details are more important than grand pronouncements. If the deputies and assistants in the secretary’s office are not true reformers, nothing will get done.
The stakes are huge. For the first time in decades, there is real momentum for reform. It’s not only Rhee and Klein — the celebrities — but also superintendents in cities across America who are getting better teachers into the classrooms and producing measurable results. There is an unprecedented political coalition building, among liberals as well as conservatives, for radical reform.
No Child Left Behind is about to be reauthorized. Everyone has reservations about that law, but it is the glaring spotlight that reveals and pierces the complacency at mediocre schools. If accountability standards are watered down, as the establishment wants, then real reform will fade.
This will be a tough call for Obama, because it will mean offending people, but he can either galvanize the cause of reform or demoralize it. It’ll be one of the biggest choices of his presidency.
Many of the reformist hopes now hang on Obama’s friend, Arne Duncan. In Chicago, he’s a successful reformer who has produced impressive results in a huge and historically troubled system. He has the political skills necessary to build a coalition on behalf of No Child Left Behind reauthorization. Because he is close to both Obamas, he will ensure that education doesn’t fall, as it usually does, into the ranks of the second-tier issues.
If Obama picks a reformer like Duncan, Klein or one of the others, he will be picking a fight with the status quo. But there’s never been a better time to have that fight than right now.
Copyright 2008 The New York Times Company
Monday, December 08, 2008
RE-DEFINING SUCCESS: MALCOLM GLADWELL'S NEW BOOK, OUTLIERS
I just had a great discussion this evening with my friend Emily who is the Head of a school in Vermont. We were talking about the nature of success in our industry, education, and generally what it takes to be successful at anything.
Although I haven't read Malcolm Gladwell's new book, Outliers, I am intrigued by the book's premise about what makes people in different endeavors successful. I have been thinking a great deal about this subject since Barack Obama's election and before, really. The premise, or 10,000 hour rule, certainly applies to Obama. Think about it.
Take a look at the video from the London Economic Forum and let me know in the comment section below whether or not you agree with Gladwell's premise. Also, if you're interested in getting the book, go to your nearest library, book store, or just click on the link to your right to order Outliers from Amazon.com.
Finally, check out the video on the Amazon site where Gladwell also talks briefly about success in terms of cultural differences and expectations.
Although I haven't read Malcolm Gladwell's new book, Outliers, I am intrigued by the book's premise about what makes people in different endeavors successful. I have been thinking a great deal about this subject since Barack Obama's election and before, really. The premise, or 10,000 hour rule, certainly applies to Obama. Think about it.
Take a look at the video from the London Economic Forum and let me know in the comment section below whether or not you agree with Gladwell's premise. Also, if you're interested in getting the book, go to your nearest library, book store, or just click on the link to your right to order Outliers from Amazon.com.
Finally, check out the video on the Amazon site where Gladwell also talks briefly about success in terms of cultural differences and expectations.
Friday, December 05, 2008
RESTORING FAITH IN HUMANITY: DOING COMMUNITY SERVICE WORK WITH HABITAT IN NEW ORLEANS AT PoCC
Dateline: New Orleans, December 5, 2008
A contingent of students (6) and staff members (10) from Bentley School arrived three days ago for the annual People of Color Conference sponsored by the National Association of Independent Schools. Our first day was spent in the Upper Ninth Ward doing community service work together with members from other schools across the nation with Habitat for Humanity.
Enjoy!
A contingent of students (6) and staff members (10) from Bentley School arrived three days ago for the annual People of Color Conference sponsored by the National Association of Independent Schools. Our first day was spent in the Upper Ninth Ward doing community service work together with members from other schools across the nation with Habitat for Humanity.
Enjoy!
Monday, December 01, 2008
GUEST POST: BY LIA
As an educator, I know how difficult it is to motivate all students in all subjects. I’m glad formal and research-driven incentive programs are being explored in schools across the country.
Alfie Kohn’s states that “getting them hooked on the rewards” undermines the ultimate goal of loving learning for its own sake. However, research has shown that even after rewards have been removed, the positive effects persist. In a Kenya study, “Incentives to Learn” published in January 2008, the removal of rewards did not impact motivation. “Surveys of students in our Kenyan data provide no evidence that program incentives weakened intrinsic motivation to learn or led to gaming or cheating.”
Also, in an evaluation of the Advanced Placement Incentive Program (APIP) conducted by C. Kirabo Jackson of Cornell University, “A Little Now for a Lot Later; A Look at a Texas Advanced Placement Incentive Program” published December 2007 Kirabo reports that AP course enrollment increased for all AP courses even if rewards were only given for certain subjects.
I was inspired to read that Samantha would save the money for college or donate some to charities. What an excellent use of her hard earned money! Perhaps programs should look into uBoost, a performance-based rewards and recognition program for students. Instead of cash (which seems to draw quite a bit of controversy) students earn points which can be redeemed for rewards or donated to charities. uBoost provides students with an easy way to “give back” based on their achievements.
Alfie Kohn’s states that “getting them hooked on the rewards” undermines the ultimate goal of loving learning for its own sake. However, research has shown that even after rewards have been removed, the positive effects persist. In a Kenya study, “Incentives to Learn” published in January 2008, the removal of rewards did not impact motivation. “Surveys of students in our Kenyan data provide no evidence that program incentives weakened intrinsic motivation to learn or led to gaming or cheating.”
Also, in an evaluation of the Advanced Placement Incentive Program (APIP) conducted by C. Kirabo Jackson of Cornell University, “A Little Now for a Lot Later; A Look at a Texas Advanced Placement Incentive Program” published December 2007 Kirabo reports that AP course enrollment increased for all AP courses even if rewards were only given for certain subjects.
I was inspired to read that Samantha would save the money for college or donate some to charities. What an excellent use of her hard earned money! Perhaps programs should look into uBoost, a performance-based rewards and recognition program for students. Instead of cash (which seems to draw quite a bit of controversy) students earn points which can be redeemed for rewards or donated to charities. uBoost provides students with an easy way to “give back” based on their achievements.
Saturday, November 29, 2008
TONI MORRISON DISCUSSES HER NEW BOOK: A MERCY
Last week at Head-Royce School in Oakland, California, Toni Morrison sat down for an interview with NPR. See part of the interview above.
After the interview and book signing, Morrison allowed a brief meet and greet with a group of African American young men and boys at the Vanguard Conference, the first of its kind in Independent Schools. I was one of the faculty mentors and session leaders for the day.
Since the meet and greet with Morrison was impromptu, meaning most of us didn't know that we we're going to meet the Nobel Laureate that day, we couldn't adequately prep for her visit. One of my colleagues from a San Francisco private high school gamely gave a bit about Morrison's history as we waited for the arrival. After a few halting minutes, I jumped up and attempted to fill in the blanks. I'm happy to say that I'm a Morrison fanatic with a good deal of arcane trivia at my fingertips.
It was surprising to me that less than 1/3 of the boys and young men had ever heard of Toni Morrison, only one of the sixty-five had ever read her work, and only 2/3 admitted to ever reading an African American author in their English classes at all.
Where to begin?
Most of the boys will probably remember their meeting long after the day. Memory is an amazing sleight of hand.
For me, meeting Morrison was like going to my first baseball game with my dad and brother, Michael--circa 1969. I'll never forget the harrowing train and bus rides to Wrigleyville, the long lines stretching blocks to get back on the El, the game in between (a blur), and how Ron Santo clicked his heels following the Cubs' victory over the hated Cardinals.
The boys and young men from grades five to eleven at the Vanguard Conference would remember what the day felt like later when they tell and re-tell their meeting with the Bard from Lorraine, Ohio; they'll remember what they said, what she said, and in an instant, how it was over too soon.
Friday, November 28, 2008
All Kinds of Minds Educator, Mel Levine Accused of Child Molestation
Say it ain't so, Mel!
---
From The new York Times
November 25, 2008
Accused Pediatrician Is Leaving Institute
By TAMAR LEWIN
Dr. Melvin D. Levine, the famed pediatrician who is facing five lawsuits accusing him of molesting young boys during physical examinations, has resigned from All Kinds of Minds, the North Carolina institute he founded in 1995 to train teachers to help children with learning disabilities.
The co-founder of the institute, Charles Schwab, who provided financing and served as co-chairman with Dr. Levine, resigned in September.
The institute, which has teacher-training contracts with two states and dozens of individual schools, said it would continue its work of spreading Dr. Levine’s views on how children learn.
“All Kinds of Minds was formed to create a venue and legacy for his work so the genius of this man wouldn’t die with the individual,” said Mary-Dean Barringer, chief executive of the institute. “Do I think we’ll make it through without him? I do.”
Both Ms. Barringer and Roch Hillenbrand, the new chairman of the board, emphasized that Dr. Levine had not been involved in the day-to-day operations of the institute and that they had been successful, even in the last month, in finding philanthropic support, including a pledge of $2.25 million over three years from the Oak Foundation.
Dr. Levine could not be reached Monday, but he has denied ever touching a patient sexually. No criminal charges have been filed.
Dr. Levine, a Rhodes Scholar who attended Harvard Medical School, has voluntarily suspended his license to practice and is under investigation by the North Carolina Medical Board.
Carmen Durso, the Boston lawyer representing the five plaintiffs, said that more than 50 other former patients or their parents had contacted him with complaints about Dr. Levine.
Until the accusations, Dr. Levine was the unchallenged guru of learning disabilities — or learning differences, as he prefers to call them. Parents flocked to his lectures and lived by his books.
He was seen as a compassionate advocate for children with troubles, insisting that all students could learn and that the job of an educator was to find the approach that worked best for each child.
He gave dozens of lectures a year, holding audiences rapt for hours as he explained the latest findings of neuroscience and how they applied to teaching. Although the lectures were listed on the All Kinds of Minds Web site, he arranged them and was paid for them through a separate company he owned.
Dr. Levine has occupied an unusual public niche, a combination of Dr. Spock, Dr. Phil and Dr. Doolittle. He became a celebrity after his “Misunderstood Minds” ran on PBS in 2002 and he appeared on “The Oprah Winfrey Show,” while living on a farm outside Chapel Hill with hundreds of geese.
Dr. Levine practiced at Children’s Hospital Boston, the pediatric teaching hospital of Harvard Medical School, until 1985, when he moved to the Clinical Center for the Study of Development and Learning at the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill, where he served as director until he retired in 2006.
Through All Kinds of Minds, Dr. Levine’s teacher training program, Schools Attuned, has reached thousands of schools nationwide.
In New York City, the Department of Education awarded the institute a five-year, $12.5 million contract to train 20,000 teachers. It was awarded without competitive bidding, a department spokeswoman said after the arrangement came to light, because no other organization offered comparable services. The New York contract expired in June.
All Kinds of Minds has continuing contracts with the state education departments in North Carolina and Oklahoma, Ms. Barringer said, but is losing one with South Carolina. Since the accusations against Dr. Levine surfaced last spring, she said, the institute has lost 9 of its 80 contracts with individual schools.
In a prepared statement provided by his lawyer, Alan Schneider, Dr. Levine said he was leaving All Kinds of Minds to devote himself to a new program, Bringing Up Minds, that works directly with parents and clinicians to teach them how to help children succeed in school.
Ms. Barringer said Dr. Levine’s consulting contract with All Kinds of Minds, under which he is paid $150,000 a year, expires in June. The institute also pays about $75,000 a year, she said, as a royalty fee for using Dr. Levine’s intellectual property.
Copyright 2008 The New York Times Company
---
From The new York Times
November 25, 2008
Accused Pediatrician Is Leaving Institute
By TAMAR LEWIN
Dr. Melvin D. Levine, the famed pediatrician who is facing five lawsuits accusing him of molesting young boys during physical examinations, has resigned from All Kinds of Minds, the North Carolina institute he founded in 1995 to train teachers to help children with learning disabilities.
The co-founder of the institute, Charles Schwab, who provided financing and served as co-chairman with Dr. Levine, resigned in September.
The institute, which has teacher-training contracts with two states and dozens of individual schools, said it would continue its work of spreading Dr. Levine’s views on how children learn.
“All Kinds of Minds was formed to create a venue and legacy for his work so the genius of this man wouldn’t die with the individual,” said Mary-Dean Barringer, chief executive of the institute. “Do I think we’ll make it through without him? I do.”
Both Ms. Barringer and Roch Hillenbrand, the new chairman of the board, emphasized that Dr. Levine had not been involved in the day-to-day operations of the institute and that they had been successful, even in the last month, in finding philanthropic support, including a pledge of $2.25 million over three years from the Oak Foundation.
Dr. Levine could not be reached Monday, but he has denied ever touching a patient sexually. No criminal charges have been filed.
Dr. Levine, a Rhodes Scholar who attended Harvard Medical School, has voluntarily suspended his license to practice and is under investigation by the North Carolina Medical Board.
Carmen Durso, the Boston lawyer representing the five plaintiffs, said that more than 50 other former patients or their parents had contacted him with complaints about Dr. Levine.
Until the accusations, Dr. Levine was the unchallenged guru of learning disabilities — or learning differences, as he prefers to call them. Parents flocked to his lectures and lived by his books.
He was seen as a compassionate advocate for children with troubles, insisting that all students could learn and that the job of an educator was to find the approach that worked best for each child.
He gave dozens of lectures a year, holding audiences rapt for hours as he explained the latest findings of neuroscience and how they applied to teaching. Although the lectures were listed on the All Kinds of Minds Web site, he arranged them and was paid for them through a separate company he owned.
Dr. Levine has occupied an unusual public niche, a combination of Dr. Spock, Dr. Phil and Dr. Doolittle. He became a celebrity after his “Misunderstood Minds” ran on PBS in 2002 and he appeared on “The Oprah Winfrey Show,” while living on a farm outside Chapel Hill with hundreds of geese.
Dr. Levine practiced at Children’s Hospital Boston, the pediatric teaching hospital of Harvard Medical School, until 1985, when he moved to the Clinical Center for the Study of Development and Learning at the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill, where he served as director until he retired in 2006.
Through All Kinds of Minds, Dr. Levine’s teacher training program, Schools Attuned, has reached thousands of schools nationwide.
In New York City, the Department of Education awarded the institute a five-year, $12.5 million contract to train 20,000 teachers. It was awarded without competitive bidding, a department spokeswoman said after the arrangement came to light, because no other organization offered comparable services. The New York contract expired in June.
All Kinds of Minds has continuing contracts with the state education departments in North Carolina and Oklahoma, Ms. Barringer said, but is losing one with South Carolina. Since the accusations against Dr. Levine surfaced last spring, she said, the institute has lost 9 of its 80 contracts with individual schools.
In a prepared statement provided by his lawyer, Alan Schneider, Dr. Levine said he was leaving All Kinds of Minds to devote himself to a new program, Bringing Up Minds, that works directly with parents and clinicians to teach them how to help children succeed in school.
Ms. Barringer said Dr. Levine’s consulting contract with All Kinds of Minds, under which he is paid $150,000 a year, expires in June. The institute also pays about $75,000 a year, she said, as a royalty fee for using Dr. Levine’s intellectual property.
Copyright 2008 The New York Times Company
Thursday, November 27, 2008
SCHOOL ME: WHAT'S NEW, WHAT'S HOT
The following video came from another blog http://sfjukebox.blogspot.com/. Here's what they wrote
Kwaito is a South African brand of house that combines house beats and sweet basslines with (usually) lyrics rapped or sort of chanted.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)