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Grand Prize Winner Says Charter Schools Should be Like Cancer Contact: Boulder, CO (May 31, 2012) -- The National Education Policy Center (NEPC), housed at the University of Colorado Boulder, has announced via online video the winners of the 2011 Bunkum Awards -presented for the most compellingly lousy educational research for the past year.

NEPC might be an organization you are interested in checking out. They provide a unique service to the education community: they arrange careful and timely reviews, by the nation's leading scholars, of foundations' and policy groups' (among other groups) research reports.As can be detected from this headline, they are strategically intervening in the faulty pipeline that puts shoddy "research" results in the hands of policy makers, who often times don't have the background to view these exceedingly complex issues with a nuanced perspective like that we are developing.

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.

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

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/

Take two kids, one from a low-income family, the other middle class. Let them run around and do little-kid things in their respective homes and then, at age 5, enroll them in kindergarten.

I feel this shows how important it is to start educating children at a young age.

This topic/article really strikes home for me. One of my dearest friends works in Mississippi in a Pre-K class. Her effervescent personality, dedication, and perservance would make any child want to come to school. She is in a very high poverty school system but overcomes this obstacle in her teaching and with her students. Preschool children are at an age where money and SES have no baring but influence and change do. Thanks for sharing this article!

The traditional, patronizing view of teachers, that they are to be treated like saints and paid as if they'd taken a vow of poverty, has lately gone through a schizophrenic inversion. Open the newspaper most any day and you'll read about "bad teachers" who are holding children back and, through their unions, conspiring to remain well compensated.

I have to agree that school reform involves a lot of key players inside and outside of the classroom. Kennedy mentioned throughout her text this notion. I liked how she mentioned that teachers feel a lot pressure from within their own schools and by their teammates. During our professional development meetings, I can see the gears going amongst my colleagues as we are listening about RISE, SLO, and even the many other acronyms of RISE. They are feeling the pressure to develop realistic but achieveable objectives. Third-fifth grade teachers are beginning to look combative towards the primary grades as the younger grades don't have the pressure of ISTEP. However, K-2nd grade teachers have the pressure of preparing these students early so they CAN pass ISTEP. It seems like this could be a vicious cycle and it's only in the beginning stages. I think it would be more of a relief for teachers if they had that reassurance and support from districts, government, and other reformers - instead of feeling the pressures and responsibilities within the school walls.

When I read this article it reminds me of Mr. Kimberly from the Kennedy book. Here is a man who I think the public is percieving to be a "bad teacher" because he takes no accountability and still wants to be compensated for his work. I think when public perception is that most people are like him, then it is understandable why there would be anti union movement. If people feel like the union is the only reason why the Mr. Kimberlys are around then I see why they want to disband them. From the other side though, there are a lot of hard working teachers who hold themselves accountable and there is nothing wrong with trying to get as much compensation as they can. Like any profession there is a business aspect to everything. Another issue that builds animosity is that there is a large number of non-teachers who think they know what teaching is like and think it should be easy, but have never dealt with the daily issues that arise from a teacher standpoint. We all think that since we were once students we know what teaching is like, but being a student and being a teacher are two different worlds.

Article abstract: This article explored "the personal and professional changes experienced by a teacher education faculty who embarked on a joint project relating to urban education. The faculty members committed to write book chapters applying their areas of expertise to the challenge of preparing teachers for urban schools." With a qualitative research design, the results showed a detailed description of the staff's "discoveries, thoughts, doubts, and reflections at three points during the project" The study's results revealed "an evolving perspective on urban education focusing upon understanding the lived experiences of the children" as a means of implementing meaningful education for these urban students.

I think what I'm starting to see is that the essence...is not developing recipes, quick fixes and a how-to-do-it book as much as it is to begin to talk about the need for understanding such issues as passion, resilience, compensatory kind of skills...I'm getting more to the point of talking about what a person takes into the environment...So if we try to just give our students a whole lot of tricks saying this will work and that will work I think we're setting them up for failure. So we've got to try to turn some of their attitude into philosophy and understanding of the urban setting. It's more knowledge and attitude than it is a skill. That's a change. That's not the way I was approaching it (ST, 11/6, pp. 1-2).

I agree that a lack of experiences in urban schools causes hesitation and confusion. I remember going to a school-wide urban education training when I first started teaching in my district. Having some experience with attending and student teaching in an urban school setting, I was astounded by the lack of knowledge of some of my peers. Most of them thought they would be able to build relationships with the students right away and demand their respect. As our student population changed and we gained experience, we became less hesitant and started brainstorming ways to involve our ever-changing community in order to develop better relationships.