Check out the following teacher and student websites that I learned about from Kevin Hunneycutt with the Educational Services & Staff Development Association of Central Kansas (http://ESSDACK.org) in Hutchinson, Kansas.
They are quite creative, safe, and will blow you away!
http://Edupolls.org
http://Plurk.com/Kevinhonneycutt
http://Essdackartsnacks.org
http://Google.com/analytics
http://KsCareers.org
http://presentermatch.com
http://shop.essdack.org/sdsd
http://PD360.com
Wednesday, December 9, 2009
Wednesday, November 18, 2009
Jerry Bracey, Rest in Peace
Brilliant. Blunt. Independent. Truth. Integrity. Iconoclast. Irascible. Uncompromising.
Our colleague and friend Jerry Bracey passed away in his sleep during the night of October 20, 2009 at the age of 69. I am quite sorry that Jerry’s dominant presence as an eloquent and reliable education truth-teller will no longer grace the educational landscape.
I first met Jerry via telephone ( in mid-1980s) while I was headmaster of a Christian elementary school in Wichita, Kansas. I had a statistics question and somehow saw his name associated with the Aurora Public Schools in Coloraodo. I called him and we discussed my thought and he couldn't have been nicer. I followed him later in Education Week and PDK where his first "Bracey Report" captivated me. I was so pleased to find someone that could explain statistics in a meaningful way and make the reading interesting. His bad-apple awards were great fun! I had the pleasure to dine with him in 2002 in Dodge City, Kansas prior to a one day "truth" report he gave to the district's 40 administrators.
The Education and the Public Interest Center (http://epicpolicy.org) at the University of Colorado at Boulder partners with the Education Policy Research Unit (EPRU) at Arizona State University have created a memorial fund that will, if fully funded, provide a doctoral fellowship in Jerry’s name. The thinking is that the "Bracey Memorial Fellowship," would be awarded to a doctoral student with a research-based, hard-nosed commitment to further truth, equity, and social justice.
If interested, visit http://www.cufund.org/giving-opportunities/fund-description/?id=5127 Don’t click the “in memorial of” option since you probably don’t have the info requested about his next of kin (his wife, Iris). Instead, just write “In memory of Jerry Bracey” in the box. You may also mail checks, made out to "CU Foundation" with "EPIC - Jerry Bracey" in the memo line, directly to the School’s Development Officer, Margot Neufeld, at:
University of Colorado at BoulderSchool of EducationMargot Neufeld249 UCB, room 116Boulder, CO 80309 The Foundation has no fees for memorial gifts -- all the money goes to the gift's purpose (student support in Jerry’s name).
Our colleague and friend Jerry Bracey passed away in his sleep during the night of October 20, 2009 at the age of 69. I am quite sorry that Jerry’s dominant presence as an eloquent and reliable education truth-teller will no longer grace the educational landscape.
I first met Jerry via telephone ( in mid-1980s) while I was headmaster of a Christian elementary school in Wichita, Kansas. I had a statistics question and somehow saw his name associated with the Aurora Public Schools in Coloraodo. I called him and we discussed my thought and he couldn't have been nicer. I followed him later in Education Week and PDK where his first "Bracey Report" captivated me. I was so pleased to find someone that could explain statistics in a meaningful way and make the reading interesting. His bad-apple awards were great fun! I had the pleasure to dine with him in 2002 in Dodge City, Kansas prior to a one day "truth" report he gave to the district's 40 administrators.
The Education and the Public Interest Center (http://epicpolicy.org) at the University of Colorado at Boulder partners with the Education Policy Research Unit (EPRU) at Arizona State University have created a memorial fund that will, if fully funded, provide a doctoral fellowship in Jerry’s name. The thinking is that the "Bracey Memorial Fellowship," would be awarded to a doctoral student with a research-based, hard-nosed commitment to further truth, equity, and social justice.
If interested, visit http://www.cufund.org/giving-opportunities/fund-description/?id=5127 Don’t click the “in memorial of” option since you probably don’t have the info requested about his next of kin (his wife, Iris). Instead, just write “In memory of Jerry Bracey” in the box. You may also mail checks, made out to "CU Foundation" with "EPIC - Jerry Bracey" in the memo line, directly to the School’s Development Officer, Margot Neufeld, at:
University of Colorado at BoulderSchool of EducationMargot Neufeld249 UCB, room 116Boulder, CO 80309 The Foundation has no fees for memorial gifts -- all the money goes to the gift's purpose (student support in Jerry’s name).
Monday, November 2, 2009
3Rs 3Ts 3i
I know you’ve heard of the 3Rs, reading, writing, and arithmetic. Now I bring you several other strings of three. What do you think of the following:
3Rs: Reading, Riting, Rithmetic (reading, writing, arithmetic)
Traditional
3Is: Inquiry, Involvement, Independent Study
Accessed October 22, 2009 from http://speedchange.blogspot.com/2009/05/great-schools-1-changing-everything.html
3Rs: Relationships, Relevance, Rigor coined by Willard Daggett (http://www.leadered.com/aboutdaggett.html)
Accessed October 22, 2009 from http://preilly.wordpress.com/2008/06/05/the-three-rs/
3Ts: technology, talents, tolerance
Florida, Richard. (2002). The Rise of the Creative Class.
3Rs: Relating, Representing, Reasoning
from Robert Carkhuff's 3 Rs
Accessed October 22, 2009 from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_three_Rs
3Ts: tools, technique, task
Accessed October 22, 2009 from http://deangroom.wordpress.com/2009/01/24/the-3rs-are-now-the-3ts/
3Rs: Responsibility, Relationships, Respect
Accessed October 22, 2009 from http://www.theother3rs.org/
i3: Investing in Innovation Fund is part of the US Dept of Education’s historic $5 billion investment in school reform through ARRA funds. Accessed November 3, 2009 from http://www.ed.gov/news/pressreleases/2009/10/10062009a.html
How do these terms fit in with 21st Century teaching and learning?
3Rs: Reading, Riting, Rithmetic (reading, writing, arithmetic)
Traditional
3Is: Inquiry, Involvement, Independent Study
Accessed October 22, 2009 from http://speedchange.blogspot.com/2009/05/great-schools-1-changing-everything.html
3Rs: Relationships, Relevance, Rigor coined by Willard Daggett (http://www.leadered.com/aboutdaggett.html)
Accessed October 22, 2009 from http://preilly.wordpress.com/2008/06/05/the-three-rs/
3Ts: technology, talents, tolerance
Florida, Richard. (2002). The Rise of the Creative Class.
3Rs: Relating, Representing, Reasoning
from Robert Carkhuff's 3 Rs
Accessed October 22, 2009 from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_three_Rs
3Ts: tools, technique, task
Accessed October 22, 2009 from http://deangroom.wordpress.com/2009/01/24/the-3rs-are-now-the-3ts/
3Rs: Responsibility, Relationships, Respect
Accessed October 22, 2009 from http://www.theother3rs.org/
i3: Investing in Innovation Fund is part of the US Dept of Education’s historic $5 billion investment in school reform through ARRA funds. Accessed November 3, 2009 from http://www.ed.gov/news/pressreleases/2009/10/10062009a.html
How do these terms fit in with 21st Century teaching and learning?
Friday, October 16, 2009
School Accountability
There is a great deal going on in education involving accountability and finance. There always is! Increased accountability and reduced resources is nothing new, but always unsettling.
In his landmark book, Education and the Cult of Efficiency, Raymond Callahan (1962) exposed the lengths to which school administrators went, particularly in the period from 1910 to 1950, in sacrificing educational goals to the demands of business.
Callahan stated:
I am now convinced that very much of what has happened in American education since 1900 can be explained on the basis of the extreme vulnerability of our schoolmen to public criticism and pressure and that this vulnerability is built into our pattern of local support and control. (p. viii)
In a follow-up to Callahan’s classic, William Eaton included in his 1990 book, Shaping the superintendency: A reexamination of Callahan and the cult of efficiency, a quote, from Edwin O’Connor’s 1956 novel, The Last Hurrah, that says “Reforming education is akin to politics and runs a close second to politics as the nation’s greatest spectator sport” (cited in Eaton, 1990, p. 115).
Eaton goes on to say,
Periodically, the public press, supported by the politicians, seizes upon education as the scapegoat for some national difficulty and demands reform of the public schools. . . .Whatever is the matter with the United States, the public schools may be blamed. (p. 115)
Callahan, R. E. (1962). Education and the cult of efficiency: A study of the social forces that have shaped the administration of the public schools. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.
Eaton, W. E. (Ed.). (1990). Shaping the superintendency: A reexamination of Callahan and the cult of efficiency. New York: Teachers College Press.
In his landmark book, Education and the Cult of Efficiency, Raymond Callahan (1962) exposed the lengths to which school administrators went, particularly in the period from 1910 to 1950, in sacrificing educational goals to the demands of business.
Callahan stated:
I am now convinced that very much of what has happened in American education since 1900 can be explained on the basis of the extreme vulnerability of our schoolmen to public criticism and pressure and that this vulnerability is built into our pattern of local support and control. (p. viii)
In a follow-up to Callahan’s classic, William Eaton included in his 1990 book, Shaping the superintendency: A reexamination of Callahan and the cult of efficiency, a quote, from Edwin O’Connor’s 1956 novel, The Last Hurrah, that says “Reforming education is akin to politics and runs a close second to politics as the nation’s greatest spectator sport” (cited in Eaton, 1990, p. 115).
Eaton goes on to say,
Periodically, the public press, supported by the politicians, seizes upon education as the scapegoat for some national difficulty and demands reform of the public schools. . . .Whatever is the matter with the United States, the public schools may be blamed. (p. 115)
Callahan, R. E. (1962). Education and the cult of efficiency: A study of the social forces that have shaped the administration of the public schools. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.
Eaton, W. E. (Ed.). (1990). Shaping the superintendency: A reexamination of Callahan and the cult of efficiency. New York: Teachers College Press.
Wednesday, March 4, 2009
Mullah embraces iPhone
I saw an article in today’s Denver Post (March 4, 2009, p2A) showing a “former Taliban ambassador to Pakistan” with an iPhone. He spent four years in Guntanamo, but he has an iPhone! “It’ easy, and modern, and I love it,” he said. He lives in Kabul, Afghanistan.
I live in northeast Colorado and I can’t have an iPhone because AT&T, the exclusive dealer for Apple’s ubiquitous iPhone, won’t serve this area. Go to www.wireless.ATT.com and you find that for zip code 80734 “We are expanding our coverage every day but unfortunately this is one of the few areas we haven't reached yet. Please check back soon.” That’s been the message since I started checking when the iPhone was first introduced in January 2007.
What gives? How does Afghanistan and the Taliban get iPhones and we can’t have one? Come on Apple and AT&T, take care of us!
I live in northeast Colorado and I can’t have an iPhone because AT&T, the exclusive dealer for Apple’s ubiquitous iPhone, won’t serve this area. Go to www.wireless.ATT.com and you find that for zip code 80734 “We are expanding our coverage every day but unfortunately this is one of the few areas we haven't reached yet. Please check back soon.” That’s been the message since I started checking when the iPhone was first introduced in January 2007.
What gives? How does Afghanistan and the Taliban get iPhones and we can’t have one? Come on Apple and AT&T, take care of us!
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