Before I proceed, dozens of people from various school districts have told me that my site is blocked on their school computers. In the event that it is, you can always get my articles via e-mail by signing up on the right-hand side of this blog or by subscribing via RSS for my savvy readers, also on the right-hand side.  They can block my site’s URL, but they can’t block your e-mails or your RSS reader.

A few notes:

• Michael Brick writes an op-ed on the deleterious effects of grading schools for the sake of grading them. [New York Times]
• Friend Laurie Wasserman and co-teacher Elizabeth Stein write about their experiences co-teaching. [MiddleWeb]
• A group of artists combat the mega-giant Walmart through Tumblr. Intriguing. [Tumblr]
• Michigan’s affirmative action ban was struck down by the federal appeals court this past week. Great fodder for the eugenicists who comment here. [Huffington Post]
• Do you need more writing ideas? Here’s a post that can help with that. [Writing Forward]

Quotable:

“Yesterday, we had a nice conversation on Twitter [with regards to] experience, newbies, and challenges in teaching profession. It’s been a busy semester and what I share online is to try to bridge understanding as to what’s happening on the ground level, the ground zero of education reform, [namely] the school. So I share this: whose fault is it that a rambunctious classroom wreaks havoc on a campus? The teacher, the admin, the school, the system? We have a math/science shortage in the U.S. so we import teachers in these areas from the Philippines where [their education] system is vastly different. They arrive in South Central [Los Angeles], shell-shocked. The district mandates struggling readers to take a prescribed curriculum, READ 180.

Students are grouped together because behavior issues are strongly correlated to reading difficulties. By end of the day, kids are up to no good. The teacher new to the country struggles. [There’s no money] for mentors, no money for appropriate number of admins to supervise teachers adequately, plus a language barrier. Do we expect such students to not throw chairs, not say f**k you to staff members before eight in the morning, or not throw bloody maxi pads around? So, in conclusion, experience matters, but so does a well-funded educational system, community resources to combat poverty and empathy by all.”

– Martha Infante, emphasis and brackets mine

Jose