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Craig Willey

New Advocacy Groups Shaking Up Education Field - 1 views

www.edweek.org/...31adv-overview_ep.h31.html

education reform advocacy policy local state

shared by Craig Willey on 14 May 12 - No Cached
  • Craig Willey on 14 May 12
     
    Their sway over policy and politics appears to be growing, especially at the state and local levels. A new generation of education advocacy groups has emerged to play a formidable political role in states and communities across the country.
  • Lauren Dunlap on 14 May 12
     
    Interesting article! I think that advocacy groups pushing for the interests of CHILDREN is something that has been long overdue to the reformation of urban education. Also, I read about Rhee in a different article, for anyone that is interested and wants any more background knowledge. Link is below: http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,1862444-1,00.html
  • Sarah Livengood on 15 May 12
     
    I used the link to Indiana's Democrats for Education Reform and found information about a budget proposal for next year. They are discussing adding additional cost to states and districts that are already under economic stress! Democrats for Education Reform - Indiana: http://www.dfer.org/branches/in/
Sarah Livengood

IPS Reforms and Examples of Success - 4 views

education.iupui.edu/...%20Success%20Final%20Brief.pdf

urban local education reform

shared by Sarah Livengood on 15 May 12 - No Cached
  • Sarah Livengood on 15 May 12
     
    This article contains information about reform efforts in IPS, special education reform initiatives, and examples of success for IPS.
  • kdamiano on 16 May 12
     
    After reading this article, did you find that the implementation and reform initiatives were working? Not having worked in Indianapolis, I cannot be an accurate judge of the influence these ideas of success are having on IPS. I was just wondering what your thoughts were regarding the reality of the changes and the effectiveness?
  • Jordan Perry on 16 May 12
     
    I think looking at the beginning numbers before they changed the schools around is interesting to what they are after. The graduation rate has gone down, but the middle school and elementary testing scores have gone up. This could mean that as these younger students get older the graduation rate will increase.
Sarah Livengood

Key Learning Community - 5 views

www.magnet.ips.k12.in.us/index.php

education local schools

shared by Sarah Livengood on 15 May 12 - No Cached
  • Sarah Livengood on 15 May 12
     
    The Key Learning Community is based upon the Theory of Multiple Intelligences developed by Dr. Howard Gardner of Harvard University. I visited Key during my undergraduate work. I am a huge fan of Howard Gardner.
  • ...2 more comments...
  • Craig Willey on 15 May 12
     
    Are you familiar with the work of Elizabeth Cohen? She builds on Gardner's work, and moves it into the realm of "assigning competencies," acknowledging and developing students' assets that are often overlooked.
  • Sarah Livengood on 15 May 12
     
    More information regarding Elizabeth Cohen. http://www.uvm.edu/complexinstruction/about_ci.html
  • chuxhold on 16 May 12
     
    I am also a fan of Dr. Howard Gardner. With my profession, I think it is so important to realize the whole-child and finding ways where all students can succeed. My high school friend did Teach for America with Kipp Indy. She fell in love with the school's mission and commitment to learning. After her 2 years with TFA, she stayed on and is now a coordinator for collegiate education.
  • kdamiano on 17 May 12
     
    I really appreciated what Ron Smith, the principal, said: "Children are naturally curious about the world and they have many ways of expressing what they know. They have questions of their own that should be taken seriously by the adults who surround them." I think this applies to all levels of learners. Curiosity and intrigue are so important as students grow academically. This is why probing questions were invented! Heuristic thinking and wonderments from our students allow them to explore and discover new meanings and gain new knowledge. I just really found myself connected to this statement and thought about the applications inside my own classroom.
Joanna Miller

Fostering Collaboration between Schools and Urban Communities - 4 views

www.huffingtonpost.com/...school-reform_b_1026075.html

urban school reform huffington post school reform

shared by Joanna Miller on 17 May 12 - No Cached
  • Joanna Miller on 17 May 12
     
    I got ahead of myself and posted before I highlighted or captured...i'll have to experiment more closely with Diigo on my next post! I thought this article was interesting because it adds the community component to urban school reform. "Community-based organizations that deal with issues such as housing, health, and regeneration would profit from partnering with schools and working together to improve the lot and the education of children living in these areas as a means of benefiting both schools and the community." This intrigued me as it is a reminder if a child's basic needs are not being met (shelter, health, etc) then school is going to be on the back burner. This collaboration between school and community seems to be a piece to the reform puzzle.
  • ...2 more comments...
  • Craig Willey on 17 May 12
     
    Glad you brought this up, Joanna. Related to this, I have been trying to track down former Chicago Mayor Harold Washington's plan for school reform in the early 80's. His planned notably elevated the role (and power) of Local School Councils (LSCs), formal committee that are constituted of mostly parents, but also community members and 1-2 teachers, and formally charged with overseeing the direction and administration of the school. It's definitely an under-employed model that challenges traditional top-down styles of management (e.g. Daley and now, Rahm Emanuel) that insinuate that parents and communities don't actually have valuable insights into how to make schools work for them. Remember, Chicago schools are run by the Mayor via a mayoral-appointed school board. This is what is being proposed in the Mind Trust proposal overhaul of IPS (but that I have heard David Harris, the architect of the plan, regrets including). Importantly, turning over control of Milwaukee Public Schools to the Mayor's office was recently voted down.
  • Leah Burton on 18 May 12
     
    I think this article brings up some great ideas and points about urban school reform. Joanna, I think you are absolutely right that the collaboration between school and community seems to be a piece of the reform puzzle. It feels like a lot of the reform attempts are decided at the top and then simply pressed upon the bottom; there is no communication between parties about what would work and be best for the students. Getting the community involved could be a great step towards improving the education in these schools--the more people, groups, organizations, etc. that are on the same page, the better! Craig, the plan you are attempting to find from the 80s sounds quite interesting as well; was the plan actually implemented? If so, I wonder how it affected the schools.
  • Craig Willey on 18 May 12
     
    Yes, it was implemented, but I am not sure how fully. Mayor Washington died while in office, and the plan was quite a radical departure from the way urban schools historically were - and still are - run. So, as you can imagine, it was maintained without fidelity (LSCs still exist, but to varying widely in their effectiveness and with much of their power stripped) and other critical parts of the plan were dismantled.
  • Randy Ebright on 18 May 12
     
    As a teacher in a Title I school, I often find it difficult to contact students' homes since so many students move around during the school year and some parents/guardians tend not to be very receptive. Nonetheless, some of the greatest successes I feel I have had during my two years of teaching have come from parent-teacher conferences that I have called and/or those informal phone calls I do when a student misses five days, begins to fail my class, or is disruptive. The article says "Engaging community groups with schools has the added benefit of helping teachers and other educators to better understand the communities and lifestyles of the children they teach, and thus to better adapt their style to meet their needs." I have formed positive working relationships with many of my students' families, which not only led to an improvement in the students' behavior, but also their academic performance. That old saying "It takes a village to raise a child" also applies to educating them as well.
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