Is the Internet Broken?

From: zeebone.com

In the last week, I've seen three of the dumbest opinion pieces I've ever read.

1. It's OK for teachers to have sex with students.
2. There was nothing wrong with Miley Cyrus' VMA performance.
3. It's immoral to send your kids to private schools. 

Oy vey!

Pumpkin Eaters

File this under If It's Too Good to Be True:  over 30 Atlanta Public School employees, including the retired superintendent, get arrested for changing their students' answers on exams.  The payoff for the cheating included receiving big bonuses.

So, how much longer until we see that end-of-grade testing is not a way to evaluate teachers?  Some columnists are actually starting to ask this question.

Why Johnny Can't Write

From: rmc.edu

Good blog in the Washington Post this week about why Johnny can't write.  In the blog, a college professor tells the story of a student so ignorant that he couldn't even cheat write.

This blog was a follow-up to another blog post about how to make assignments plagarism-proof.  That has been something that has bothered me since I was a student.  If you care enough about the assignment to cheat, then just do the assignment.  If you don't care about the assignment, then don't do it (or don't do a good job on it).

As I explained at our summer conference last week, the only way I know how to make assignments cheat-proof is to ask a lot of open-ended questions.  This creates a lot of work on my end after students turn in their assignments, but it is worth it to me if I can get original work from them.

Long-term, I'm not sure what the answer is to stamping out cheating.  When I give out worksheets, the default response of my students is to turn to each other and share answers--before I even finish giving the instructions.  If we're going to fix this culture, it's going to take more than just a few teachers to do so.

Common Core Exposed?

From: wikipedia.org

Our district devoted 3 days (18 hours) of training last year to Common Core standards.  I feel like I got off easy--our elementary teachers had to endure 54 hours of it.

It's not that I'm against Common Core standards per se.  There's always going to be some buzzword that will have administrators chasing their tails, as well as ours.  It's just that, after 18 hours of this training, plus more at our school, I really couldn't tell you what Common Core is all about.  It seems like most of our time was spent talking about how CTE already does the stuff that Common Core requires.  We ended up spending a lot of time working on our classes, which was fine, but it makes me wonder what good all of this does us.

Enter the story in the Washington Post this week:  a good indictment of the whole Common Core program.

Not Even a PhD Helps

From: biosulf.org

A surprising article from the Washington Post, at least for me: people with PhDs in science are struggling to get employment after getting their doctorate.

How much hype have we heard about STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering and Math) in the last few years?  Politicians and administrators alike have funded courses and buildings and encouraged students to pursue careers in these fields.  Now it turns out that we have more scientists than jobs available.

I'm all for students pursuing their dreams, especially when it comes to (theoretically) high-paying, stable career fields.  But what's not cool is when we over-emphasize these occupations at the expense of others.  Those of us in business and marketing say hello!

Making the Case for CTE

From: thevillagenews.com

I love to read the education writers' blogs in the Washington Post.  Many of them are very thought-provoking, even if they aren't always relevant to my situation.

So when I saw the title of this blog post, I dropped my interest in the basketball game on TV and read all of it, including the comments.  Surprisingly, nearly every commenter agreed with the premise of the post: not every student should go to a four year school and vocational education plays an important role in public education.

All I can say is yes, yes, yes!

Now, if only the leaders in DC and at the state level would see the value that we provide all students, four year college-bound or not.

Happy Birthday, Star Wars!

From: traileraddict.com

Friday was the 35th anniversary of the premier of Star Wars--I was wondering why it was on Spike that night!

A blog on the Washington Post's web site describes the cultural impact perfectly: the movie was one of the first summer blockbusters (along with Jaws).  Not only did it make money on ticket sales, the movie generated billions of dollars in merchandise.  I was one of those kids that had the action figures, lunch boxes and Halloween costumes.

Nowadays, it's a given that a summer movie will have a ton of licensing tie-ins, but let's take a moment to salute the pioneering money-making of Star Wars!

Reaching Out to Students Via Twitter

Lots of good stuff in the Washington Post this week.  This time, it's a profile of an assistant principal in Maryland that uses Twitter to reach out to his students.

What I took away from this article:

• I was amazed at the disparity of Twitter use of black students vs. white students.  According to the article, black students use Twitter at about twice the rate of whites.  I hadn't noticed that at my school-maybe it's because most of my students are black.
• I didn't realize that comments on Twitter were being used to provoke fights...although I should have .  I've heard more about Facebook comments getting kids fightin' mad at my school, but I guess it shouldn't surprise me that kids would move on to other technologies to do this.
• It's interesting that the principal can get kids to follow him.  I'm surprised when my students follow me, even though I tweet links of videos and photos of our students in action.  I've pondered creating another Twitter account, one that's more personal and not constrained by the "official-ness" of my current account.

It is encouraging that a principal can engage kids in a conversation using social media.  So many kids use Twitter and Facebook to cause trouble/goof off, so it's nice to see them use it as (some) adults use it.

Breaking News: We're All Racist!

Wow, two posts on suspensions in one week!

Front page news in today's Washington Post:  black and Hispanic students get suspended at much higher rates than white students.  Wait a minute, I thought only my town did that to minority students (and needs an investigation from the Office of Civil Rights to uncover our wrong-doing).

The Post's article lists the usual litany of excuses for the disparity in suspensions:

• poverty
• cultural insensitivity
• poor classroom management
• households with single parents

In short, basically blaming everything except student misbehavior.  I love how the article quotes administrators, parents and activists, but not a single teacher (or even student).  This seems to be the typical mentality regarding public education: everyone's an expert on it, except for those actually in the classroom.  

If a newspaper is going to publish an article on possible racism in school discipline policies, shouldn't they at least talk to the students to ask if they feel discriminated against?  Or talk to teachers who can shed light on why they write the suspension reports that they turn in to the administration.  No, let's continue to get the opinions and eventual policies from people that haven't been in a classroom since they were students 30+ years ago.