High School Teacher Faces Discipline for Informing Students About Their Rights

High School Teacher Faces Discipline for Informing Students About Their Rights
"A high school social studies teacher in Batavia, Illinois, faces disciplinary action for informing students of their Fifth Amendment rights in connection with a survey asking about illegal drug use."

On textbooks...

Source

Walmart closes, Community builds a giant library

Walmart closes, Community builds a giant library: It appears where retail giants fail, public libraries succeed. McAllen, Texas converted a 124,500 sqft "big box" into the largest single floor library in the US.



The LA Times reports:

McAllen is near the southernmost tip of Texas, on the Mexico border. "In a city like McAllen, with cartel violence across the river (less than 10 miles away from the library), I think it's amazing that the city is devoting resources to a) not only saving a large and conspicuous piece of property from decline and vandalism, but b) diverting those resources into youth and the public trust," Ramirez writes. "It's easy to fall into drugs, drinking, and violence when you live on the border. It's not really easy to find a place to hang out when you're 14 that's not the mall, the movies, or Mexico. And a giant library -- a cool-looking open space devoted to entertaining the imagination? Well, I think that's the best counter-move against violence imaginable. And you don't even have to wait for a computer now."

Los Angeles Times: Where Wal-Mart failed, a library succeeds

School of Fail: Teaching 101: Now Go Thank a Teacher

School of Fail: Teaching 101: Now Go Thank a Teacher:

School of Fail: English Literature 220: Thanks Will!

School of Fail: English Literature 220: Thanks Will!:

School of Fail: Words of Wisdom: Take it Away, Bill

School of Fail: Words of Wisdom: Take it Away, Bill:

Excellent list of reasons to hate standardized, high-stakes testing

Excellent list of reasons to hate standardized, high-stakes testing:

This WashPo column by Marion Brady ("veteran teacher, administrator, curriculum designer and author") enumerates reason after reason to oppose standardized testing, the major educational technique in use in much of the world today. It's such a good (and depressing) list that it's hard not to quote it in its entirety:

Opposition to the present orgy of testing is now wrongly interpreted as unwillingness to be held accountable.

For those who buy that fiction, a list of some of the real reasons for educator opposition may be helpful.

Teachers (at least the ones the public should hope their taxes are supporting) oppose the tests because they focus so narrowly on reading and math that the young are learning to hate reading, math, and school; because they measure only “low level” thinking processes; because they put the wrong people — test manufacturers — in charge of American education; because they allow pass-fail rates to be manipulated by officials for political purposes; because test items simplify and trivialize learning.

Teachers oppose the tests because they provide minimal to no useful feedback; are keyed to a deeply flawed curriculum adopted in 1893; lead to neglect of physical conditioning, music, art, and other, non-verbal ways of learning; unfairly advantage those who can afford test prep; hide problems created by margin-of-error computations in scoring; penalize test-takers who think in non-standard ways.

Teachers oppose the tests because they radically limit their ability to adapt to learner differences; encourage use of threats, bribes, and other extrinsic motivators; wrongly assume that what the young will need to know in the future is already known; emphasize minimum achievement to the neglect of maximum performance; create unreasonable pressures to cheat.

The complete list of problems with high-stakes standardized tests

(via Beth Pratt)