Comcast Begins Program To Offer Inexpensive Internet Access & Computers To Low-Income Families
http://larryferlazzo.edublogs.org/2011/08/03/comcast-begins-program-to-offer-inexpensive-internet-access-computers-to-low-income-familes/
Filed under technology
Comcast has begun a nation-wide program to offer monthly $9.95 Internet access to the students who qualify for free school lunches. In addition, they will sell the family a computer for less than $200. They say the monthly fee comes "with a guarantee of no activation fees, equipment rental fees or price increases. I'm always wary when I hear about a deal that sounds too good to be true, and I'm also wary of the educational value of some well-intentioned home tech programs that have started on smaller scales. Nevertheless, this could be an extraordinary deal.
You can read a newspaper article about the Comcast program here, and go directly to the Comcast program's website here.
You can read about our school's internationally-recognized efforts to get tech into the homes of our families, along with my reflections on it (and other articles about similar programs) at The Best Resources For Learning About Schools Providing Home Computers & Internet Access To Students.

SUSPICIOUS BEHAVIOR
08/04/2011

Can teachers be trusted to use social media appropriately? According to a new Missouri law, apparently not. Missouri Senate Bill 54 specifies that, "No teacher shall establish, maintain, or use a nonwork-related internet site which allows exclusive access with a current or former student." Why does the legislature trust teachers in the classroom, but not over the internet?

The law has some confusing provisions that might easily trip teachers up. For example, a teacher can maintain a facebook page for their class or a book club that students are permitted to "like," but a teacher is not allowed to "friend" those same students. Don't be surprised if Missouri teachers look to avoid the confusion by making their facebook pages a student-free zone.

In a bit of social media jousting, the Missouri State Teachers Association is using facebook to ask teachers to highlight the educational uses of social media. Looking at the feed, it is clear that the law has generated a great deal of concern. MTSA hopes to have the bill amended within the year. In the meantime, Missouri teachers should be asking what other assumptions the legislature has made about their behavior.

Graham Drake

Tags:

The Shared Learning Collaborative is a new, state-led project the Gates foundation is helping to fund. Think of it as a huge app store-just for teachers-with the Netflix and Facebook capabilities we love the most. It's something that enables teachers to communicate with each other, to share applications and tools, and to give their students differentiated instruction-all aligned to the Common Core State Standards.

_As part of the Top 100 Tools activity that I run, I analysed the way people are using their online social networks, and it so much more than just for having fun with friends, people are using them for more significant professional activities. For example
-to ask questions of their colleagues and answer their questions
-to share and receive ideas, resources and experiences
-to solve problems and brainstorm together
-to keep up to date with what their colleagues are doing and thinking
-to learn from them in many different ways - sometimes even without even realising it!
===
And definitely check out the Top 100 Tools page. This is my #1 place to learn about new tools and figure out what will work best for my classes: http://c4lpt.co.uk/recommended/2011.html

Home http://www.praxis-epress.org/availablebooks/ictgeographies.html

Download the Complete Book (3mb):

Information and Communication Technology Geographies: Strategies for Bridging the Digital Divide (2011)


Download the Complete Book (3mb):

Information and Communication Technology Geographies: Strategies for Bridging the Digital Divide (2011)

Information and Communication Technology Geographies: Strategies for Bridging the Digital Divide

Melissa R. Gilbert & Michele Masucci

ISBN 978-0-9865387-6-6

ICT Geographies draws upon 14 years of social action research with poor women in Philadelphia to argue that it is premature to declare the demise of the digital divide. What makes this book unique is that the digital divide is examined from the vantage point of some of the most marginalized people in the U.S.

Most of the discussions of the potential for ICTs to catalyze societal benefits is situated within groups of technologically privileged and literate people and focused on the potential for ICTs as a pathway for achieving greater social and economic participation among the poor.

These discussions assume that the framework for ICT and empowerment is the same for mainstream and marginalized groups and therefore the problem of and solution to the digital divide is one of merely increasing access to ICTs and related information.

Drawing on case studies of women organizing for economic justice, seeking to attain employment, and trying to improve their health, the book argues that an understanding of poor women's frameworks for the use of information and communication technologies necessitates rethinking the policies that seek to address the digital divide. Specifically, we contend that in order to better bridge this divide, policy concerns need to transcend a limited conceptualization based on access to computers and the Internet towards an examination of how ICTs may exacerbate and/or mitigate social, economic, and political disparities in the United States. We further believe that this shift in policy concerns necessitates new institutional arrangements that empower poor people within relevant institutions and decision-making bodies.

Melissa R. Gilbert and Michele Masucci are Associate Professors in the Department of Geography and Urban Studies at Temple University, USA, where they have engaged in an integrated program of social action research, critical pedagogy, and university-community partnerships to effect social change both inside and outside the academy.





Home l Notes to Authors l Editorial Board l Books
Acknowledgements l ACME

http://www.impatientoptimists.org/Posts/2011/04/Grand-Challenges-Explorations-One-Great-Idea-Two-Pages

This is a grant for innovation in health from the Gates Foundation

Big Ideas in Computer Practices


http://csprinciples.org/docs/BigIdeasPracticesJune2011.pdf

there is no full curriculum for the AP CS Principles course yet as it is still under development. You can find all of the current documents at: http://csprinciples.org/in​dex.php

http://benton.org/node/85086
The Federal Communications Commission conducted the first nationwide test of residential wireline broadband service finding that: For most major broadband providers, actual speeds are generally 80%-90% of advertised speeds or better, although performance varies by technology and service provider.

Struggling with information overload
Monday, August 1st, 2011 | Article

http://www.larrysworld.com/2011/08/01/struggling-with-information-overload/




by Larry Magid
This article appeared in the August 1, 2011 edition of the San Jose Mercury News

Like many of you reading this, I have to deal with a constant barrage of emails along with tweets, Facebook messages, text messages and now Google+ updates. And that's on top of my landline and cellphone ringing as well as my dog needing attention and the usual interruptions from family members.

I work at home. People who work in an office often have to deal with colleagues stopping by asking, "Do you have 30 seconds?"

Well, even if that interruption really is only for 30 seconds, recovery time turns out to be between 10 to 20 times the duration of the interruption, according to Jonathan Spira, the chief analyst at Basex and author of "Overload: How Too Much Information Is Hazardous to Your Organization."

Spira, a panelist at a Churchill Club event last week appropriately titled "Information Overload 2.0," said it "takes time for the neurons to fire and it takes time for you to regain your thoughts and recapture the flow of what you were thinking." And sometimes, he added, what's lost cannot be recaptured.

I used to think I could manage my own often-interrupted life by "multitasking." But except for things like walking and chewing gum, multitasking is a myth. When it comes to cognitive tasks, our brains aren't really capable of competently doing more than one thing at a time.

While I'm sitting in front of the two monitors attached to my PC, I have a Twitter feed in the lower right corner of my main screen, my word processing document in the center and a Gmail session on the other monitor. What I'm really doing is switching my attention back and forth between these three information sources. Trouble is, every time we switch our attention back and forth, it takes a little time.

"The studies we have done," said Spira "showed that attempts to multitask slowed people down, while studies other people have done have shown that the brain can't really multitask."

Molecular biologist John Medina agrees. "We are biologically incapable of processing attention-rich inputs simultaneously," he wrote in his book "Brain Rules: 12 Principles for Surviving and Thriving at Work, Home, and School."

A 2007 study (PDF) conducted by Shamsi T. Iqbal of the University of Illinois and Eric Horvitz of Microsoft Research looked at how we handle switching between computer programs. While PC operating systems and processors have evolved to the point that they are very good at multitasking, the processors between our ears aren't so up-to-date. Iqbal and Horvitz found that "participants spent, on average, nearly 10 minutes on switches caused by alerts, and spent on average another 10 to 15 minutes (depending on the type of interruption) before returning to focused activity on the disrupted task."

And just because you got to work clear headed doesn't mean your brain can't become foggy as a result of how you're working. A 2005 University of London study, according to the BBC, found that "Workers distracted by email and phone calls suffer a fall in IQ more than twice that found in a marijuana smoker." And multitasking might actually be more addicting than pot. More than half of the people surveyed in that study said they always responded to an email "immediately" or as soon as possible, with 21 percent admitting they would interrupt a meeting to do so, according to the BBC.

Google Vice President Bradley Horowitz, who is managing the new Google+ project, was also on the Churchill Club panel. Horowitz said Google is trying to encourage what he called "meeting hygiene" to help people better focus. That includes times when laptops are to remain closed. I sit on the board of a couple of nonprofits and at a meeting a couple of years ago it was time to vote on something and I realized I had paid no attention to the discussion because I was reading email instead of listening to the debate.

I now try to keep my laptop closed and my smartphone in my pocket during meetings, though I sometimes slip. At other times I knowingly trade paying close attention to the people around me so that I can connect with people online.

At last week's panel, for example, I was live tweeting and updating Google+ with what the panelists were saying, which meant that potentially thousands of people around the world could learn from the very panel that I was failing to pay full attention to. And it's likely some of the people reading my tweets and posts were in meetings or on deadlines and being overloaded.

The problem of task switching also affects us behind the wheel. Studies have confirmed my intuitive sense that using a hands-free phone doesn't make you safer. I have two hands but only one brain. It's not hard to steer a car with one hand, but as I realized recently after missing a freeway off-ramp, it's awfully hard to carry on an intense conversation and keep my mind on the road.

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Contact:
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206-408-7125
gfletcher@setda.org

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www.setda.org for more information.

About Connected Online Communities of Practice
The Connected Online Communities of Practice project, funded by the U.S. Department of Education's Office of Educational Technology, will expand opportunities for online collaboration toward the improvement of education. Online communities support the National Education Technology Plan's compelling vision of connected educators-professionals who are fully connected with the content, tools, resources, peers and experts, and higher education and community organizations that support professional learning, interaction, and problem solving. To learn more about the project, visit EDCOCP.org.

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Erich Martel describes how a school's leadership can cultivate a cultural of cheating -- and that a better system of checks and balances could help prevent it.

By Erich Martel

The 800-page Investigation Report on the Atlanta Public Schools (APS) cheating scandal involving 178 named school-based principals, teachers and other staff is a riveting and chilling anthology of the "culture of fear, intimidation and retaliation" that teachers face in schools around the country when they report mismanagement and abusive administrative behavior. The Report repeatedly and concretely ties the years-long continuation of this scandal to this culture. Although it exists in many private and charter schools, in our public schools, it has been encouraged by No Child Left Behind and fueled by the top-down, privately-funded, "turn-around" "reforms" that blame teachers, tenure rights and union protections as the causes of educational malaise.

Until reform truly engages teachers as part of the solution, we can expect more Atlantas in our nation's public schools. The Atlanta Investigation Report shows what happens when educational policy makers and governance bodies delegate broad areas of authority to celebrity or savior superintendents and then, believing that school improvement means giving their "reform leader" free rein, abdicate their oversight responsibilities.

In many Atlanta schools, teachers were disempowered and left vulnerable in the face of arbitrary and often abusive authority, including threats to their livelihoods. Teachers who cheated under great duress should not face the further injustice of being treated as if their decisions were free and wanton.

In fact, the Investigation Report holds principals to a higher standard of responsibility, including responsibility for the actions of their teachers, if evidence confirms they knew about the cheating OR would have known, had they followed mandatory protocols. The enormity and scope of the scandal is shocking. In 44 of the 56 schools, the principal was held responsible.

A typical "Analysis of the Evidence" following each individual school Report reads:

"It is our conclusion, from the statistical data and the other evidence secured in this investigation, that Principal X failed to properly monitor the 2009 CRCT [Georgia's Criterion Referenced Competency Test] and adequately supervise testing activities and testing security. This resulted in, and she is responsible for, falsifying, misrepresenting or erroneously reporting the results of the 2009 CRCT to the Georgia Department of Education."

In fact, 90 (86%) of the 107 teachers named in the Report (see Appendix A) were in schools where the principal was also named. The Report documents that some teachers did report cheating as well as the pressure to cheat. While the oversight bodies capable of intervening were asleep or in thrall to their celebrity superintendent, teachers who took the risk to perform their civic responsibilities were ignored as principals and assistant superintendents responded with threats and termination (see Appendix B):

"Throughout this investigation numerous teachers told us they raised concerns about cheating and other misconduct to their principal or SRT [School Reform Team] Exec Director (Assistant Superintendent) only to end up disciplined or terminated."

"In sum, a culture of fear, intimidation and retaliation permeated the APS system from the highest ranks down."

"Almost without exception, teachers and principals said that the single most important factor to this administration is 'data.' They said that 'data is (sic) the driver,' 'data drives instruction,' and 'the data controls everything.'"

"But data can also be used as an abusive and cruel weapon to embarrass and punish classroom teachers and principals or as a pretext to termination. After hundreds of interviews, it has become clear that [APS Supt] Dr. Hall and her staff used data as a way to exert oppressive pressure to meet targets."

"As a result of the APS failure to temper its drive for success with ethical guidelines, the message was: 'Get the scores up by any means necessary;' in Dr. Hall's words, 'No exceptions and no excuses.'"

For many public school teachers, the treatment of teachers in Atlanta is disturbingly familiar (see, for example, Appendix C): Fear, abuse, threats, retaliation, cover-up, nepotism, misappropriated funds, being asked, "Are you a member of my team?" discovering that your grades were arbitrarily changed, and, in each case, facing the anguishing choice that was really no choice at all: "Should I report it and risk retaliation or go along and keep quiet - while it eats away at me?"

For readers who question these experiences, just ask a public school teacher.

Where were Atlanta's oversight bodies to which teachers should have been able to turn (feel free to substitute your city or town for "Atlanta")?

- The Atlanta School Board Members?

- The Atlanta Mayor?

- The Atlanta city Council?

- The Georgia State Superintendent and State Education Agency?

- The U.S. Department of Education?

- The Atlanta media - before 2009?

Those who think our public schools can be improved by weakening teacher tenure and gutting union contracts, so principals can get rid of the bad teachers, need only read about the toxic environments created by unprincipled principals in Atlanta - and which teachers they terminated.

Education policy makers and school governance bodies would be wise to take some advice from James Madison and stop empowering superintendents as if they were angels and begin putting effective checks and remedies in place that are safely accessible to teachers (Federalist 51).

Erich Martel is a social studies teacher in the Washington, DC public school system. He can be reached at ehmartel@starpower.net. This article and its appendices originally appeared in the Nonpartisan Education Review.

Citation: Martel, E. (2011). The Atlanta Scandal: Teaching in "A Culture of Fear, Intimidation and Retaliation". Nonpartisan Education Review / Essays, 7(7). Retrieved [date] from http://npe.educationnews.org/Review/Essays/v7n7.pdf

Access this essay in .pdf format

http://www.slate.com/id/2299642/

Of course running a bookstore is a hard, hard business in the age of the Internet. Still, Borders' decision to liquidate, closing 399 stores and laying off 10,700 employees, seemed shocking. As George Mason economist Tyler Cowen observed poignantly: "Not one single investor, in the whole wide world, thought Borders had a real economic future."

Posted at 02:00 PM ET, 07/29/2011
Kohn: Why we have to save our schools
By Valerie Strauss
http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/answer-sheet/post/kohn-why-we-have-to-save-our-schools/2011/07/29/gIQAvkoLhI_blog.html

These are questions that veteran educator and blogger Anthony Cody put to Alfie Kohn, author of 12 books on education and human behavior. His books include The Schools Our Children Deserve , Punished by Rewards, The Case Against Standardized Testing , and, most recently, Feel-Bad Education . Cody taught science for 18 years in inner-city Oakland and now works with a team of science teacher-coaches that supports novice teachers. He is a National Board-certified teacher and an active member of the Teacher Leaders Network. This post appeared on his Education Week Teacher blog, Living in Dialogue.


From Anthony Cody's blog:

Alfie Kohn has been at the forefront of the resistance to test-based reforms for more than a decade. As we approach the Save Our Schools March this Saturday, I asked him to share some thoughts about the challenges we face.

Q) When many of us point out the narrowing of the curriculum that has been the result of high stakes testing, we are told that the next generation of tests, which the Department of Education has invested $350 million to develop, will be far better at measuring complex thinking. What do you think of this?

A) First, history alone should make us skeptical about the claim that DOE is going to reverse course; as far as I know, there's zero precedent for meaningful assessments sponsored -- or even encouraged -- by federal officials.

Second, the cast of characters currently in Washington makes that claim even less credible. Arne Duncan knows nothing about the nuances of assessment and he's surrounded by Gates Foundation people and others who are at the heart of the corporate "reform" movement that has actively supported the ultra-high-stakes use of lousy tests.

Third, any test that's standardized - one-size-fits-all, created and imposed by distant authorities - is inauthentic and is likely to measure what matters least. If these people were serious about assessing children's thinking, they would be supporting teachers in gathering information over time about the depth of understanding that's reflected in their projects and activities. Do the folks at DOE even realize that you don't need to test in order to assess?

Fourth, there's every indication that whatever assessments are created will continue to be the basis for rating and ranking, for bribes and threats. A high-stakes approach, in which you use your power to compel people below you to move in whatever direction you want is at the heart of the Bush-Obama-Gates sensibility (see NCLB, Race to the Top, etc.). And that will undermine any assessment they come up with. We saw that in Kentucky and Maryland a dozen years ago: "Accountability" systems destroyed performance-based assessments. It's sort of like the economic principle about currency known as Gresham's Law: Bad assessments will drive out good assessments in a high-stakes environment.

Q) Much of your work has focused on student motivation. How do you see high- stakes testing affecting students' motivation to learn?

A) There are two things going on here. First, literally scores of studies have shown that extrinsic inducements tend to undermine intrinsic motivation. The more you reward people for doing something (or threaten them for not doing it), the less interest they tend to have in whatever they were made to do. Dangle money or higher ratings in front of students -- or teachers -- for producing better results, and you may get better results temporarily, particularly if the measure is superficial. But their interest in doing it will likely decline, which means this controlling approach isn't just ineffective -- it's counterproductive.

Second, the problem isn't just with the (manipulative) method; it's with the goal. The high stakes here aren't designed to improve learning, at least in any meaningful sense of the word. They're designed to improve test scores. Those are two completely different things, and they typically pull in opposite directions. Pressure people to raise scores, and the classroom will be turned into a test-prep center. Such an environment will likely make anyone's passion for learning (or teaching) evaporate.

Q) How might we approach enhancing the motivation of teachers to teach well?

A) You can't "motivate" people other than yourself. You can make them do certain things by bribing or threatening them, but you can't make them want to do it. In fact, the more you rely on extrinsic inducements like merit pay or grades, the less interest they're likely to have in doing those things. What we can do is support teachers' intrinsic motivation by bringing them in on decision making, by working with them - so they, in turn, will work with students -- to create a culture, a climate, a curriculum in which a passion for teaching and learning is nourished.

I wrote an article a few years ago called "The Folly of Merit Pay," and I ended it as follows: "So how should we reward teachers? We shouldn't. They're not pets. Rather, teachers should be paid well, freed from misguided mandates, treated with respect, and provided with the support they need to help their students become increasingly proficient and enthusiastic learners."

Q) This week John Merrow said he hoped people would "go to the rally ready to argue for specific changes in schools -- not just 'holistic education' and the like, but specifics." How would you respond to his request?

A) Actually, "holistic" education - along with other adjectives such as "progressive" or "learner-centered" or "constructivist" - isn't just a vague slogan. It denotes very specific and, in my opinion, sensible and research-backed practices. Of course it takes awhile to explain what they are and why they make sense, so we'll always be at a disadvantage compared to people who speak in sound bites about "bold reform," "raising the bar," "accountability," "tougher standards," and so on.

Those are the people we ought to be pushing for specifics: What exactly do you have in mind, pedagogically speaking, beyond bullying teachers and kids to get higher scores on bad tests?

In any case, those of us with a commitment to progressive education are protesting the outrageous policies being foisted on our schools precisely because they make it so difficult to do what makes sense for children. It's precisely because of our desire for meaningful teaching and learning (about which we can be as specific as you'd like) that we oppose the heavy-handed, top-down, test-driven, corporate-styled policies that get in the way.

Incidentally, when ordinary people took to the streets in Cairo and elsewhere in the Middle East, I wonder if John Merrow wagged his finger at them and piously advised them that they ought to have a fully formed plan for democratic government before protesting.


Q) What do you think is the significance of the Save Our Schools March?

A) We are living through what future historians will surely describe as one of the darkest eras in American education - a time when teachers, as well as the very idea of democratic public education, came under attack; when carrots and sticks tied to results on terrible tests were sold to the public as bold "reform;" when politicians who understand nothing about learning relied uncritically on corporate models and metaphors to set education policy; when the goal of schooling was as misconceived as the methods, framed not in terms of what children need but in terms of "global competitiveness" - that is, how U.S. corporations can triumph over their counterparts in other countries.

There will come a time when people will look back at this era and ask, "How the hell could they have let this happen?" By participating in Saturday's march, by speaking out in our communities, we're saying that we need to act before we lose an entire generation to this insanity. The corporate-style school reformers don't have research or logic on their side. All they have is the power to impose their ignorance with the force of law. To challenge their power, therefore, means we need to organize. We must make sure that the conversation about the how's and why's of education is driven by educators.

In short, we have to take back our schools.

-0-

Follow The Answer Sheet every day by bookmarking http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/answer-sheet.


By Valerie Strauss | 02:00 PM ET, 07/29/2011

A few clippings.

The Save Our Schools March
http://www.washingtonpost.com/local
By Valerie Strauss

"I don't know where I would be today if my teachers' job security was based on how I performed on some standardized test."
That was actor Matt Damon talking to thousands of teachers, parents, principals, school board members and other education activists who stood today for hours in 90-plus-degree temperatures near the White House to protest the standardized testing mania that is at the heart of the Obama administration's school reform policies.
He was one of dozens of speakers - including education historian Diane Ravitch; prominent educators Linda Darling-Hammond, Jonathan Kozol, Deb Meier; Jon Stewart (on video); and Florida activist Rita Solnet - who protested the Bush administration's No Child Left Behind, and the current administration's Race to the Top, which, to the disappointment of many Obama supporters, is as punitive and at least as test-centric as NCLB.
If their message has been heard before, this part was new: It was the first time that teachers from across the country have raised their voices publicly in protest of education policies at a Washington rally.
I don't know how members of the audience (the Park Service unofficially estimated as many as 8,000 attended, more than some had predicted and fewer than some had hoped) withstood the heat but they did, and then they marched to the White House, in hopes that someone would let President Obama know about their disappointment in his education policies.
[Note: Some have questioned whether I was an active participant in the Save Our Schools march. I was not. I was invited to be a speaker at a two-day conference that preceded the rally and I declined long ago. Readers of this blog know that I rather obviously have opinions about school reform but I don't participate in advocacy events.]
While U.S. legislators on the other end of Pennsylvania Avenue were embroiled in negotiations to try to stop the country from defaulting on its debts, the rally and march, planned for many months, went on, noting that the health of the public education system is just as key to the country's future as anything else.
Critics of the march had claimed that it was union-inspired but, though some speakers were union members, this wasn't a union-organized or inspired march but actually a grass-roots production organized by teachers, parents and others. (The 15-member executive committee was testament to that.)
Critics also accused participants of supporting "the status quo," which is a phrase commonly used by modern school reform leaders to disparagingly suggest that they would rather keep bad teachers in classrooms than fire them. It's nonsense (the issue is how to give teachers due process). If any of these critics listened, they would have heard people literally desperate for some sense to be returned to education policy.
Ravitch, whose best-selling 2010 "The Life and Death of the Great American School System" helped galvanize teachers to publicly protesting their discontent with former president Bush's No Child Left Behind, and the current administration's Race to the Top, told the crowd that public schools are "not shoe stores" and shouldn't be managed as businesses.
"We are here to stand up for basic American values," she said. "The shame of our nation is that we lead the developed world in childhood poverty," she said, then noting that our best schools, those with the fewest children who live in poverty, rank on international tests at least as high as any other nation.
Her celebrity with people in the crowd was such that when she was done, they began to chant, "Thank you."
Speakers protested policies that evaluate teachers based on standardized tests, and that scapegoat teachers for things over which they have no control (such as whether a student comes to school hungry, tired, sick or entirely disinterested).
Damon, who has spoken before publicly about testing mania, was there because his mother, Carlsson Paige, asked him to come. She is a childhood development expert and a professor at Lesley University in Cambridge and was involved with the march.
It is one of the unfortunate aspects of American culture that celebrities get listened to more than everybody else - even, and maybe especially, in Washington, D.C.
If Washington's policymakers don't want to listen to teachers - and so far, they haven't - just maybe they will take a minute to read Damon's speech. It was smart and powerful. (I will post it separately.)
They could learn from it.
Matt Damon: Stop the War on Teachers (Video)
Zaid Jilani, ThinkProgress: "Actor and activist Matt Damon spoke at the Save Our Schools rally today... We asked him about how teachers unions are being demonized in much of the media and teachers are being blamed as the root of all problems in public education. Damon told us that the attacks on teachers unions are part of a larger 'war on unions over the last decade' and condemned 'punitive policies' that punish teachers without looking at the social factors that lead to student achievement."
Watch the Video

The White House Reacts

Save Our Schools March leaders answer White House invitation
By Valerie Strauss

WASHINGTON -- President Barack Obama was swept into office amid calls for change in the country on issues ranging from the economy to education. Almost three years after his election, those who enthusiastically supported his candidacy are calling for him to fulfill his campaign promises and bring United States public education into the 21st century.
On Saturday the Save Our Schools march took place in Washington, D.C., at the Ellipse just south of the White House. The purpose of the event was to get federal officials to listen to teachers, parents and students -- the people who are closest to the education process.
Speakers included former Assistant Secretary of Education Diane Ravitch, Academy Award-winning actor Matt Damon and Damon's mother, Nancy Carlson Paige, a former Massachusetts public school teacher.
"We need to give students a sense of hope," Ravitch told The Huffington Post. When asked for specific policy proposals Ravitch said, "We need to stop high-stakes testing and we need more funding for early childhood education."
About 4000 people were in attendance and came from all over the country to bring to the light the current state of United States public education.
Kelly Hiegl, a public school teacher from Milwaukee, came to protest the budget cuts in Wisconsin.
"We're losing specialists in classes, we're being laid off -- the detriment is going to be tremendous," Hiegl told The Huffington Post. "We need collective bargaining back, we need to be able negotiate and we need funding so urban and suburban students have equal opportunity

Organizers of Saturday's Save Our Schools March in Washington, D.C., have declined an invitation to meet today at the White House with education advisers to President Obama, saying they would instead be available after the march.http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/answer-sheet/post/save-our-schools-march-leaders-answer-white-house-invitation/2011/07/29/gIQAaCYwgI_blog.html
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/07/30/save-our-schools-march-ca_n_914100.htmlWASHINGTON -- President Barack Obama was swept into office amid calls for change in the country on issues ranging from the economy to education. Almost three years after his election, those who enthusiastically supported his candidacy are calling for him to fulfill his campaign promises and bring United States public education into the 21st century.
On Saturday the Save Our Schools march took place in Washington, D.C., at the Ellipse just south of the White House. The purpose of the event was to get federal officials to listen to teachers, parents and students -- the people who are closest to the education process.
Speakers included former Assistant Secretary of Education Diane Ravitch, Academy Award-winning actor Matt Damon and Damon's mother, Nancy Carlson Paige, a former Massachusetts public school teacher.
"We need to give students a sense of hope," Ravitch told The Huffington Post. When asked for specific policy proposals Ravitch said, "We need to stop high-stakes testing and we need more funding for early childhood education."
About 4000 people were in attendance and came from all over the country to bring to the light the current state of United States public education.
Kelly Hiegl, a public school teacher from Milwaukee, came to protest the budget cuts in Wisconsin.
"We're losing specialists in classes, we're being laid off -- the detriment is going to be tremendous," Hiegl told The Huffington Post. "We need collective bargaining back, we need to be able negotiate and we need funding so urban and suburban students have equal opportunity
Blog from a Tired Teacher
http://www.dailykos.com/story/2011/07/31/1001217/-reflections-from-a-tired-teacher?via=siderecent
Paul Gorski shared this update from being there.

Hanging at the Save Our Schools conference in DC this week. Kozol was a keynote. Cool. But I'm torn about the other keynoter, Diane Ravitch. Yes, she's written some good stuff LATELY and she's got a big, fat platform. But what about all those activists and authors and teachers who spent years fighting to eliminate NCLB and had to fight against Ravitch and her big, fat platform in order to do so? Why not give the air time to somebody who knew from the beginning that NCLB was unjust and part of the corporatocracy? I know folks like the repentant story lines and all, but hell, why give so much air time to somebody who profited mightily for years by arguing on the side of injustice, who scoffed at multiculturalism and social justice for a decade or two, who used a national profile to battle against everything that those committed to social justice and equity were fighting for? I've been surprised that there doesn't seem to be much discussion about this. Perhaps I'm alone in this assessment...
I was thinking some of those thoughts too.

Bonnie

Teachers kick off Save Our Schools rally in Washington, D.C.
A four-day rally known as the Save Our Schools March and National Call to Action is taking place in Washington, D.C., with teachers gathering to share ideas on education reform and send a message to policymakers about their opposition to test-driven accountability for schools and teachers. The event initially was organized by a small group of educators, but it has gained the support of the country's two largest teachers unions and is expected to be attended by many teachers from across the country. Local rallies also will be held in conjunction with Saturday's event nationwide. Education Week/Politics K-12 blog (7/28)