Progress Illinois’ Angela Caputo reports that the legislature’s veto session is done and there’s nothing for schools.
Two weeks ago, state lawmakers wrapped up the fall veto session and headed home with hopes that Illinois’ financial crisis wouldn’t follow them back to their own districts. So far, the bad budget news has trickled in slowly enough that many have been able to distance themselves from the severity of the state’s financial situation. But they won’t be able to dodge blame forever. For example, adding millions in school reimbursements to the growing pile of unpaid bills is weighing heavy on cash-strapped districts. And in places like the Central Illinois town of Pekin, the backlog — coupled with other uncertainties and cutbacks — is growing too big to sweep under the rug.
Talking Heads:
Long work week. Two more to go. Then turkey.
On the other hand, it is a great first weekend of November in the City. The temp may hit 70 degrees. There is still color on the trees.
Ulysses is ready for a long autumn walk.
Sunday we’re meeting up with an old friend from out of town who is staying at a hotel on North Michigan. We’ll stroll down to the new Modern Wing at the Art Institute, show off the wonderful Millennium Park and take in the downtown Lake front.
We have three scheduled evening parent conferences over the next two weeks. They make for long days. On the other hand, we get “comped” for the time, which gives us the whole week of Thanksgiving off.
We’re heading for NY to be with family. Turkey in Brooklyn. Thankfully, no Yankee fans.
Gail Collins is funny this morning.
Meanwhile, there’s nothing but confidence and serenity among the right-wing tea-party types. They cannot get over the triumph in upstate New York, where thanks to their really extraordinary efforts, a completely safe Republican seat went to the Democrats. Think how far their movement has come! Only a few months ago, they barely had the power to disrupt a town meeting. And soon they will be able to destroy anything in their path, including their own party, like conservative locusts.
Double Standard. I’d say so.
“When a white guy shoots up a post office, they call that going postal,” said Victor Benjamin II, 30, a former member of the Army. “But when a Muslim does it, they call it jihad.
While I whole-heartedly agree with my friend Susan Ohanian’s opposition to the so-called skills curriculum pushed in too many pre-k public school programs, I can’t agree with the suggestion that we should oppose federal funding for pre-k because of it.
Agitating for Pre-K legislation is a smokescreen, pretending that a lack of skills is the problem when the real problem is poverty.
More money is a good way of addressing the problem of poverty.
Long work week. Two more to go. Then turkey.
On the other hand, it is a great first weekend of November in the City. The temp may hit 70 degrees. There is still color on the trees.
Ulysses is ready for a long autumn walk.
Sunday we’re meeting up with an old friend from out of town who is staying at a hotel on North Michigan. We’ll stroll down to the new Modern Wing at the Art Institute, show off the wonderful Millennium Park and take in the downtown Lake front.
We have three scheduled evening parent conferences over the next two weeks. They make for long days. On the other hand, we get “comped” for the time, which gives us the whole week of Thanksgiving off.
We’re heading for NY to be with family. Turkey in Brooklyn. Thankfully, no Yankee fans.
Gail Collins is funny this morning.
Meanwhile, there’s nothing but confidence and serenity among the right-wing tea-party types. They cannot get over the triumph in upstate New York, where thanks to their really extraordinary efforts, a completely safe Republican seat went to the Democrats. Think how far their movement has come! Only a few months ago, they barely had the power to disrupt a town meeting. And soon they will be able to destroy anything in their path, including their own party, like conservative locusts.
Double Standard. I’d say so.
“When a white guy shoots up a post office, they call that going postal,” said Victor Benjamin II, 30, a former member of the Army. “But when a Muslim does it, they call it jihad.
While I whole-heartedly agree with my friend Susan Ohanian’s opposition to the so-called skills curriculum pushed in too many pre-k public school programs, I can’t agree with the suggestion that we should oppose federal funding for pre-k because of it.
Agitating for Pre-K legislation is a smokescreen, pretending that a lack of skills is the problem when the real problem is poverty.
More money is a good way of addressing the problem of poverty.
While I’m looking for my Kashi waffle and stolen peanut butter, the CPS is serving kids Fruit Loops and doughnuts for breakfast.
The 10-year-old boy sat grinning at the colorful cellophane wrappers piled in front of him.
Moments earlier they’d held three warm doughnuts. Now the treats were in the fifth-grader’s belly — along with 600 calories, 18 grams of fat and 36 grams of sugar.
Sure, these reduced-fat doughnuts were nutritionally fortified, but they were still doughnuts, and along with a cup of sweet juice, they made up the Chicago public school student’s entire breakfast.
Those who regularly read this blog know that I don’t usually write about my school. Never about my students. Rarely about my colleagues.
Since I don’t blog anonymously, it would be wrong to do it.
Some background: Last May I had my regular check-up with my doctor. As happens as you get older, my weight has become a problem. It doesn’t take much to put it on. It is brutal to try and take it off. I had gained about ten pounds over the course of about three months and it freaked me out.
It was time, not for a diet, but a life-style change: smaller serving sizes, no mindless snacking, five small meals a day, no treats when they’re in the lounge on Fridays, nothing after dinner. I’m trying to stay under 2,000 calories a day.
Over the summer I lost 20 pounds. Five more since the start of school. I have a bowl of instant oatmeal at about 10 AM and a Kashi waffle with a spoonful of peanut butter at about 3 PM.
I love peanut butter. Never tire of it. And Skippy Natural, although heavy on the sodium and saturated fat, is a wonder. And just enough protein to get me to dinner without pangs of hunger.
I keep the peanut butter in the pantry in the teachers’ lounge by the toaster. Yesterday it was gone. Somebody took my peanut butter. Somebody I work with took my peanut butter.
Do not underestimate the impact this has had on my sense of trust. Luckily I keep another jar in my desk drawer.
What would have happened to Mr. DeLong if he had worked at a non-union charter school?
A few days ago I reported on teacher Dan DeLong who was suspended from his southern Illinois high school for including an article on the homosexual practices of animals in his suggested reading list.
Students and parents responded by packing a board of education meeting to support Mr. DeLong and then waited for hours while the board met in closed door session. Finally the board reversed the principals decision to suspend Mr. DeLong who issued a mild apology for using bad judgment in choosing what some might consider age inappropriate material for his students.
Mr. DeLong is an IEA member. When he was suspended, he called his IEA Uniserv Director who then represented Mr. DeLong in his hearing before the board.
When some wonder about the need for a union, collective bargaining rights and tenure, they need look no further than the case of Dan DeLong.
If Mr. DeLong was a teacher in one of Illinois’ non-union charter schools, he would not be in his classroom today.
There are two interesting items in this morning’s news that you might have missed.
I’ve said all along that the actual dollar figure in Arne Duncan’s Race to the Top was pathetically small given what he expects in return, including the demand that teacher evaluation and tenure rights be surrendered to single test scores.
Greg Toppo in today’s USA Today makes the same point.
It’s relatively small by Washington standards, but the Obama administration’s $4.35 billion carrot for schools is already leading states to adopt a handful of key reforms.
Not bad for $87 per kid.
And in today’s Chicago Tribune, the data suggests that the reports a few days ago that the stimulus bill saved thousands of teacher jobs was about as phony as Duncan’s Chicago school reform resume.
More than $4.7 million in federal stimulus aid so far has been funneled to schools in North Chicago, and state and federal officials say that money has saved the jobs of 473 teachers.
Problem is, the district employs only 290 teachers.
“That other number, I don’t know where that came from,” said Lauri Hakanen, superintendent of North Chicago Community Unit Schools District 187.
Dan DeLong is an English teacher at Southwestern High School in southern Illinois.
As part of a classroom assignment, he included some reading that suggested a number of species of animals engage in homosexual activity.
That was enough to get some folks riled up and Dan DeLong was suspended.
Word spread among students, parents and on social networking sites.
Today, Dan is back in the classroom.
Video and more info here.
DeLong’s status was the subject of a special board meeting in Piasa on Monday night. A huge crowd of DeLong’s supporters, most of them students, packed the board meeting.
The board went into executive session at around 6:15 Monday night and remained in closed session for more than six hours, with one brief interruption for public comment on the controversy. Three speakers addressed the board in support of DeLong. There were no speakers advocating additional discipline.
During the marathon closed-door meeting, DeLong was represented by IEA UniServ Director Marcus Albrecht.
Despite the highly unusual length of the closed session, and the late hour, a large crowd was still on hand when, shortly after 12:30 am, the executive session ended and the public meeting began.
In a statement that had been worked out with the board, DeLong apologized for presenting his students with material that was not “age appropriate” and thanked his supporters. The room erupted in cheers and applause when DeLong announced he would be back in his classroom Tuesday morning.
The corruption surrounding Illinois’ state standardized testing results continues this year.
Rich East High School solved their testing problem by simply not giving the test to the students they guessed wouldn’t do well. And they’re not breaking any rules when they do it.
Rich East High School has seen state test scores for its 11th-graders improve by a stunning 37 percent during the last two years — a gain so impressive that regional education officials asked the Park Forest school to host a seminar to help others emulate its success.
There’s only one problem: Rich East did not give the Prairie State Achievement Exam to about 40 percent of its juniors last school year. And it excluded the ones furthest behind academically.
It’s not the only school to keep the most underachieving students off the books, according to a Tribune analysis of new state Report Card test data.
