Sign the Petition to Save the Library in Chicago

dianeravitch posted: "I posted yesterday that the Chicago Public Schools' board of education, appointed by Mayor Rahm Emanuel, had voted to close the last high school library in Bronzeville.   The librarian who was terminated wrote a comment asking if readers of the blo" Respond to this post by replying above this line New post on Diane Ravitch's blog Sign the Petition to Save the Library in Chicago by dianeravitch I posted yesterday that the Chicago Public Schools' board of education, appointed by Mayor Rahm Emanuel, had voted to close the last high school library in Bronzeville.

E is for Explore!

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Sparky's Brain Busters Trivia App by NFPA Posted: 18 Sep 2015 01:26 PM PDT National Fire Prevention Week is October 4-10. "Fire Prevention Week was established to commemorate the Great Chicago Fire, the tragic 1871 conflagration that killed more than 250 people, left 100,000 homeless, destroyed more than 17,400 structures and burned more than 2,000 acres." - NFPA The National Fire Protection Association has put out another great (free) app to encourage your students to get involved while practicing school content through a fun trivia game! Sparky's Brain Busters Trivia app is targeted at 3rd-5th graders. The game has different levels to represent each grade and is great for differentiation. Rookies - 3rd grade Stars - 4th grade Legends - 5th grade The game can be projected on to your smartboard (class mode) or students can play on their own or with a friend (multiplayer mode) on an ipad. Click here for a mini trailer about the game. Trivia questions are common core aligned (science, math, social studies and literature). There are questions about animal adaptations, erosion, solar energy, fractions, basic algebra and government (just to name a few themes). I tried the app out on third graders and they had a blast earning badges for answering questions correctly. Students earn badges that represent different content areas: 1. Math: Mrs. O'Leary's Cow  (Farm animal accused of kicking over a lantern and starting the Great Chicago Fire) 2. Science: Caveman (Inventor of fire) 3. Social Studies: Molly Williams (African-American cook for NYC Fire Company 11 / first female firefighter) 4. Fire Safety: Benjamin Franklin ("Father of Firefighting" / co-founded first volunteer fire department) 5. Sparky's Choice Useful links: SparkySchoolHouse for teachers: http://ow.ly/S6wMm The site has music and videos, plus fun (FREE) lessons for preschool to fifth grade (including character traits and punctuation)! There is a great video by Laura Tarshis to teach your students about The Chicago Fire of 1871 Download for free: The app on iTunes: http://ow.ly/S6jTk The app on Amazon for Android: http://ow.ly/S6lHJ

Sweden and the Perils of Privatization

New post on Diane Ravitch's blog Sweden and the Perils of Privatization by dianeravitch Sweden decided to open the floodgates of school privatization in 1992. Twenty-three years is a good long time to see the effects of vouchers and for-profit corporations running schools.   As this article in The Daily Kos shows, the results are not pretty. Test scores have fallen, segregation of all kinds has increased, one of the private corporations running schools went bankrupt, stranding students and wasting millions. The gains are hard to discern. dianeravitch | June 29, 2015 at 1:00 pm | Categories: International, Privatization, Vouchers | URL: http://wp.me/p2odLa-aE5 Comment    See all comments

Peter Greene: Stop Saying That Music Raises Test Scores

New post on Diane Ravitch's blog Peter Greene: Stop Saying That Music Raises Test Scores by dianeravitch It is a universal truth, well known, that when budget cuts are imposed by the state, teachers of the arts are the first to go. I recently met with a leader of the arts community in Houston who told me that she wanted to make a gift of art supplies but could not few elementary schools with art teachers. Some advocates for the arts--music education, especially, claim that the study of music increases test scores. Peter Greene says: Don't do that! See here too. There so many important reasons to treasure music, and the pursuit of higher test scores is not one of them. "Music is universal. It's a gabillion dollar industry, and it is omnipresent. How many hours in a row do you ever go without listening to music? Everywhere you go, everything you watch-- music. Always music. We are surrounded in it, bathe in it, soak in it. Why would we not want to know more about something constantly present in our lives? Would you want to live in a world without music? Then why would you want to have a school without music? Listening to music is profoundly human. It lets us touch and understand some of our most complicated feelings. It helps us know who we are, what we want, how to be ourselves in the world. And because we live in an age of vast musical riches from both past and present, we all have access to exactly the music that suits our personality and mood. Music makes the fingers we can use to reach into our own hearts. Making music is even more so. With all that music can do just for us as listeners, why would we not want to unlock the secrets of expressing ourselves through it? We human beings are driven to make music as surely as we are driven to speak, to touch, to come closer to other humans. Why would we not want to give students the chance to learn how to express themselves in this manner?.... "In music, everyone's a winner. In sports, when two teams try their hardest and give everything they've got, there's just one winner. When a group of bands or choirs give their all, everybody wins. Regrettably, the growth of musical "competitions" has led to many programs that have forgotten this -- but music is the opposite of a zero-sum game. The better some folks do, the better everybody does. In music, you can pursue excellence and awesomeness without having to worry that you might get beat or defeated or humiliated. Everybody can be awesome.... "Do not defend a music program because it's good for other things. That's like defending kissing because it gives you stronger lip muscles for eating soup neatly. Defend it because music is awesome in ways that no other field is awesome. Defend it because it is music, and that's all the reason it needs. As Emerson wrote, "Beauty is its own excuse for being." A school without music is less whole, less human, less valuable, less complete. Stand up for music as itself, and stop making excuses." dianeravitch | June 27, 2015 at 12:00 pm | Categories: Arts Education, Budget Cuts, Funding, Joy, Standardized Testing | URL: http://wp.me/p2odLa-axy Comment    See all comments

EL PATIO DEL COLEGIO ALGO MÁS QUE EDUCACIÓN

El fotógrafo James Mollison ha retratado las diferentes maneras en las que los niños se divierten en el recreo y con esas fotografías ha editado un libro al que acompaña una exposición, titulada Playground (Patio de juegos). Mollison recorrió Argentina, Bután, India, Italia, Japón y Nepal para capturar esos instantes. (Hay un libro muy interesante que el autor TIENE A LA VENTA)