OK! National Board MAY DAY Time...Re-take Candidate is actually not that bad.

So here we I go... I missed by 18 points after submitting the entire Portfolio. So now I'm a Retake candidate, I decided to take 1 entry over and redo one of the assessments.

Retake candidate is actually way less intimidating than doing the whole thing in one year.

Even though I wish I would of have passed with flying colors. I'm truly glad that I had this "opportunity" to grow as an educator.  I chose literacy to retake and it has made a huge difference in my teaching to hyper focus on this entry.  On a political front, what you understand about students and literacy and how you choose to deliver that is the biggest contribution you can make to your country!

But all that stuff aside right now, back to the business!

The most important things I will take away from this whole process is the need to constantly revisit student's needs and taking that time to reflect with peers (teachers who are actually accomplished teachers) to really hear what they think of my practice as well.

I wish us all luck in MAY..... I wanted to post a couple other helpful things from Stanford.

Please search my blog for other links that I was able to get from Stanford but below are last minute things to remember when writing your entry whether your a retake, Take one, or the whole shubang (is that how you spell shubang????)

See these links:
Helpful Notes from Standford

Overall scoring

NATIONAL BOARD SCORING (according to a judge)

NATIONAL BOARD SCORING

SCORING:

60% ENTRY (1-3 MOST IMPORTANT)

40 % ENTRY (ASSESSMENT)

Panel of past judges:

The process IS fair.

Advice

Use the Rubric, Scoring Guides

There are no secrets its all on-line.

Must show standards in evidence and writing

Constant cross checking

Video is watched only once (does it match your portfolio writing)

NO need to quote famous educators

Technical difficulty is not an issue

Definate Dos and Don'ts

Assessment Center answer every question

ID the problem

Use all the space you have

Show all evidence

NOT ANSWERING THE QUESTION IS HUGE MISTAKE

National Board Notes from Stanford on The Architecture of Accomplished Teaching

The Architecture of Accomplished Teaching

1^st: Your students: Who are they? Where are they now? What do they need and in what order do they need it?  Where should I begin?

Standards:

Understanding Young Children: How to teach younger children, retention, example “squirmy boys”…., gap in ages

2^nd: Set high, worthwhile goals that are approp. for these students at this time and in this setting.

Standards:

Assessment, Knowledge of Integrated Curriculum, Approp. Goals around this entry (Equity, Fairness, and Diversity) How do you still keep it as a group? How do differientiate based on what they need?  Content goal is the same the mode in which you get there varies. Multiple Teaching Strat. For Meaningful Learning.

3^rd: Implement instruction that is designed to attain the goals set for these students.

Bringing family in, Parents at centers, Equity, Fairness, and diversity, Beyond Equity Sticks,

4^th Evaluate student learning in light of the goals and the instruction:

Reflective practice, Assessment, Working with Ms. Franklin (professional partnership), Not just formative assessment, scientists, child development

Equity, Fairness, Diversity,: how you modify the curriculum

5^th Reflect on student learning, the effectiveness of the instructional design, particular concerns, and issues. 

Standards: Understanding young children, assessment, multiple teaching strategies for meaningful learning

6^th: Set new high and worthwhile goals that are approp next steps for these students at this time. 

Standards: Follow the standards throughout each step of the architecture.

Reflections of Union Teacher turn Administrator

Reflections of Union Teacher turn Administrator

Human Resources Management, Mills College Education Leadership Program

EDUC 407 Final Paper

Sunny Dawn

May 6, 2013

‘Are you on crack?’ I asked. Weingarten stormed out. ‘I’m done negotiating,’ I said…..’I think we can you give you both what you need, though,’ he said…It was brilliant. I could implement pay for performance, but because it wasn’t going to be defined specifically in the contract, the union was free to rebuke it, since it had not actually agreed to it. No one said a word, but we all knew it would work. –Excerpts from Michelle Rhee autobiography, Radical: Fighting to Put Students First,  2013.

            I share this very recent 2008 collective bargaining story from a newly released book to show the national issues surrounding human resources in education.  Throughout the semester of this class I have been reading many texts on human capital and how it plays out in the educational setting and the workplace of educational institutions.  In this paper I will address conflicting theories I have been engaging in around teaching and learning in school leadership.  I will also demonstrate my understanding of the course work in Human Resources Management with an emphasis on the polarity of Teacher Unions versus District Administration philosophies and how the two political agendas are impeding student success.

            I would like to emphasize the term ‘political agenda’ when looking at the philosophies of administration versus teacher organizations.  Although both groups would say they have teaching and learning at the center of their concerns I have found, (through the course work in this class my work experience as a union leader, as well a parent) that both parties have long and complicated political and cultural history.  I think it is important for me to share my insight as I have been heavily involved with my union in my urban district at the same time I have been enrolled in a year long program at Mills College to receive my Administrative Credential for a future principalship.  The two conflicting interests have shaped how I will deliver administrative decisions as well as how I will communicate with teachers at a site level.    I pose that districts and teacher unions are asking the same questions but no one is willing to really sit down together (beyond collective bargaining) and answer these questions around curriculum delivery and seek out positive strategies to implementation especially with the new common core standards. 
 

            Throughout this course when we were learning about AI and FRISK.  I was thinking three things;

1.     Too bad AI and FRISK is not listened to by unions and teachers as a serious threat (it can take up to 3 years and sometime longer to get a bad teacher out of a classroom).

2.     Where is FRISK for some of these ineffective Central Office Administrators or mediocre to “F” rated principals?

3.     Why do Unions take on teacher evaluation as its main battle? 

The only real answer I could come up with was “political or cultural agendas”.  When I first started teaching in the public school system I tried to shut my door, keep quiet with internal issues, and just do good teaching.  I didn’t care about political or cultural agendas, I wanted to just be a hard working educator.  As an educator with a child in the same school I quickly realized that was going to be impossible.  I’m glad I didn’t become that “type of teacher” who just tunnel visions on their class because now I am faced with what “type of principal” will I be as I move forward.  I wish I could say I’m just  going to shut my door, keep quiet with internal issues, and just do good administration but that is not the type of good leadership I have displayed in the past nor will it be the type I will display in the future. The beginning of my union leadership came when I saw the horrible teaching that my daughter received at my “low income school”.  I started working with my union and the principal to get this teacher support and then out of the educational system.

Everyone can skew the research to their point of view of why a person deserves to keep their job.  However I must admit that while I have a serious distaste for the way in which Michelle Rhee went about her time as Chancellor in DCPS, I must say her firing of over 400 total educators(including principals and Central office employees) in that failing system seems about right to me.

            I believe that with the wave of education reformers including Michelle Rhee and Arne Duncan, public education is under a mirocscope in a new and critical way.  Not just on the East Coast but all over the country even here in the Bay area.  Obama’s Post NCLB administration is openly putting money and support into charter schools and have created a public education which is now test obsessed pedagogically. And if public schools do not show they can teach to the test the entire school might be shut down. 

My principalship will keep these issues at the forefront: teachers will know that I am very aware of teacher unions philosophies and that I came to educational leadership through my union leadership.   However my teachers will also know that I became a principal because I felt colleagues of mine were failing their students and that I felt the best way to advocate for children beyond being a good teacher and great parent was to be an amazing administrator.

            As I stated before I believe the only common denominator that will glue unions and administration together is to focus on positive outcomes, so I use the words “amazing administrator” with complete consciousness.  What I have learned from this human resources management class from the panels, the required text, as well my own additional inquiry on professional capital (Fullan, 2012) is that at the heart of difficult situations or conversations are feelings.  You ever heard that joke, “So a teacher walks into a party….” No? Yeah, neither have I.  Joke, Party and Teacher are not words people put together too often because we all have deep feelings about teachers for a variety of reasons.  Why is that?  Teachers are supposed to be are “angels” on earth.  They are here for us right? They are in the job for the children, right?

Wrong!  We can not say all teachers are in it for the children.  Maybe they all tried to start out for that but anyone who has tried to teach in a classroom for longer than a year will tell you it so much more than a job that is just about playing with children.  But the Elaine K. McEwan Text: How to Deal With Teachers Who Are Angry, Troubled, Exhausted, or Just Plain Confused has helped me understand challenging teachers and focus on myself as a “character builder”.  Or as she states, “You don’t have to figure out what’s wrong with your troubled teachers. Your only job is to confront their inappropriate behavior when you become aware of it, present options and opportunities for moving forward positively, support them in their efforts to change if they are willing and able, and take steps to protect the students in their classrooms if they can’t.” (p.74)

            If I become an administrator I will also take a keen awareness that not all administrators are “in it for the children” either.  Many administrators were burnt out teachers who knew the system well enough to float easily into an administrative roll.  I will remember that Central Office is actually a very small world and politics are very transparent and no matter who interacts with me they too will know that I was a parent first, teacher second, administrator by default to a calling of conscious leadership.

            I will bring to this “political table” a deep commitment to teaching and learning and open discussions about how true teacher evaluations should be learning conversations.  I do not agree we can fire our way out of the achievement gap as Rhee did in D.C. or as top down administration would have you believe.  However I do believe administrators need to be to become more competent on evaluation practices.  My administration inquiry will be focused on the topics found in the Daresh text: Leading and Supervising Instruction, for the next year before I start to apply to schools as Principal. Specifically issues on a local, state and national  level discussed in Chapter 7: Exploring the How and Why of Teacher Evaluations.
 

            Lastly I want to thank you, Ms. Forrester, for this highly engaging class.  The role plays of difficult conversations were very hands on and reminded me of how easy it is to play or be the angry teacher. However to be on the other end or a diplomatic leader takes a different kind of commitment to goals of communication and problem solving.  I am proud to have taken this class from Mills College and learned these skills from a social justice centered university, thank you for reading and your time. 

Michelle Rhee Points to consider (part 1)

Michelle Rhee:

Youtube

Points to consider....

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RsiLLNzi-cM

Here is the flipside documentry on frontline as well as up to date radio news on results of tough love politics....

Frontline video
http://video.pbs.org/video/2323979463/

Radio News April 2013

http://www.blackagendareport.com/content/school-privatization-fraud-michelle-rhee-may-yet-join-beverly-hall-dock


I'm currently reading her book: Radical review to come... in next blog.

KNOW WHEN TO CELEBRATE IN EDUCATION!!! Post Campaign Yes on 30 Promise and NO on 32 Reflection, Thank you speech

Speech to Field Observation Class For
Educational Leadership MA program
Mills College, Oakland, CA.

2/19/13

This is a Thank you speech.

So many times we have heard numerous speeches about education in which by the end of it, we are left feeling exhausted, overwhelmed, or the opposite inspired or called to action.

Depending on who is talking to you this path is either spiraling downward out of control or upward and onward in the name of democracy.  And since we are on this path together, this terrain we are calling Education Leadership, I want to point out the importance of knowing when it is time to celebrate.

So what am I thanking you for?  Its quite simple, I am literally taking this moment to thank some of you individually and collectively for your support around last semester's Campaign.

First thank you for the time you gave me when I was able to talk to you individually and our classroom on Proposition 30.

This past election was one of the most important elections in California history and education.

WE PASSED THE MOST PROGRESSIVE TAX MEASURE THE NATION HAS EVER SEEN!
AS I SPEAK, IN THIS TAX SEASON, WE ARE TAXING THE RICH!

How many times in your lifetime have heard the cliche tax the rich or tax rich, stop the cuts?  How many of you have walked the picket line, gone to rallies, or worried about your own job because of the cuts to education.  I believe as a collective we were completely and totally sick of it and so we did it.

I want thank those of you in this room who, maybe took a little bit more time than usual to participate in the political process: drive to where your voting booth is in a different county, hang a poster, have a conversation, call a family member.... participate in your democracy.

Because of educators like you in the Bay Area we passed this thing.  I specifically say Bay Area because on the night of the election when I went to bed and most of the Northern California count was in and Prop. 30 was losing.  So I decided to go to bed that night.  When I woke myself up at 5 a.m. the next morning I realized we barely won by appox. 700,000 votes and 2 of 3 counties had over 70% of the population saying yes, tax the rich were San Francisco, and Alameda which had approximately 600,000 of those votes!  Lastly I want to thank all of you in the room who pay Union dues whether you want to or not because without those dues I would not be giving this little thank you speech.

Which brings me to another follow up item and note for celebration.  We defeated Prop. 32.  If 32  would have passed we could easily see our labor  fate in states such as Wisconsin, Virginia, North Carolina, South Carolina, Georgia, Texas or even Michigan which became the 24th "right to work" state on Dec. 11th.  In the campaign and now I want to emphasize we wouldn't even have had Prop. 30 on the ballot had it not been for CFT lobbying Governor Brown to compromise his original middle class tax initiative. If Prop. 32 went into effect deals or moments like that would be made illegal.

So in conclusion I want to say we need to know when to celebrate in education.  This path can be filled with such moments of overwhelming darkness and at times no sign of hope for this living breathing bureaucratic institution known as education and how do we know when we have made strides. Well we are living and breathing too... So let's take some deep breathes of relief  as I say thank you, congratulations, and power to the people!

CFT Delegates! This weekend our UESF ballot came.....

This weekend our UESF ballot came.

I would be honored to have your UESF vote as alternate to the CFT convention.
Below are the candidates I voted for if you need suggestions .
Matt Bello,Darcy Chan Blackburn, Lita Blanc, Tom edmInster ,Jessica Hobbs, Adrian Johnston, Dennis Kelly, Susan Kitchell ,Elaine Meriweather ,Linda plack ,Betty Robinson Harris, Carolyn Samoa ,Susan Solomon, Sunny Dawn ,Cathy Sullivan, Casey Passemore, Ken Tray

Participate, vote, make your voice heard in our union!

"An honor to be endorsed by PLC yet will continue to harmonize with EDU, T4SJ, and CTA as in the Campaign of 2012," as stated on my ballot as to Why I am a candidate.

Teachers Striking AGAIN!!!! Support WA teachers

http://www.democracynow.org/2013/1/29/seattles_teacher_uprising_high_school_faculty

Cell Lesson

Making Playdoh cells tomorrow with Science Class!

Playdoh (1/2 Cup of salt, 1 Cup Flour, 1 Cup H2O, 2 Tbsp of Oil, 2 Tbsp of Cream of tarter)
Mustard Seeds for Ribosomes
Blue Sprinkles for Mitochondria
Flat Marble for Nucleus
Paper for Cell Membrane

This is a great link you don't need to log in for for cell info/video from BrainPop:

http://www.brainpop.com/health/bodysystems/cells/

The Fascist Origins of the SAT Test by Rich Gibson

1 of the scholarships I was applying for asked why I won't take the SAT/GRE or how come I don't have scores... I referenced the 2nd paragraph (from article below) and also said from a teacher's point of view I work very hard to maintain the integrity of education and not teach to the "test"and refused to apply to Grad schools that required the GRE.

The SAT and all tests like it are Facist, click on this link or read below to see why:

A Rouge Forum Broadside The Fascist Origins of the SAT Test Rich Gibson, San Diego State University, April 2001 The frantic rush to high-stakes standardized testing in the US costs one-half billion dollars annually in direct expenditures, probably double that in indirect costs. The chief fetish of the testing movement is the SAT, long known as the Scholastic Aptitude Test but now known, on the insistence of the test's owners, the Educational Testing Service, as just "The SAT."  The SAT measures, above all else, class, sex, and race. (Fairtest, Roney). The SAT, like every similar test, is designed to divide people with razor sharp precision, to enumerate human value and to track people's futures under a veil of objective science. The SAT is a commodity itself, for sale to every student, school, and college in the world. It also commodifies people, attaching worth to individuals, but more pointedly drawing the lines of what can only be called class warfare. The impact of the SAT is to create the logic for a more deeply stratified society, divided primarily by issues of inherited income, sexism, and racism. The fraudulent claims of the SAT to promote a more equitable and meritorious society have been thoroughly revealed elsewhere. (Lemann, Fairtest, Roney). This analysis is a brief history of the SAT, unmasking the politics of the people who designed it, and those who promote the SAT and similar exams today . The genealogy of the SAT is far more authentic than the importance attached to the test's scores. The SAT was born from the initial IQ tests, written by French psychologist Alfred Binet. In the US, Lewis Terman and Robert Yerkes promoted the IQ test and made it a popular instrument to determine who should be an officer, in a segregated military, during WWI . Their IQ test was designed to prove the genetic advantage of races they had already identified as superior. Terman and Yerkes were executives in the American Eugenics Society (Mehler). The AES encouraged the linkage of scientifically quantified intelligence test scores, race, and "race hygiene,"to purify the "race" of "low grade" and "degenerate" groups. In other words, Terman, Yerkes, and many influential scientists in the US, believed they could define exactly what intelligence is. They thought that intelligence is race-based and can be tracked by genes, that intelligence is biologically determined. They believed that to allow those identified as having bad genes to propagate would be to threaten the entire society. Terman and Yerkes believed some people are born superior, and the inferior are a threat to the general welfare (Mehler, Kuhl). In a book called,"Tomorrows Children," the leaders of the American Eugenics Society estimated around 2.5 million people in the US (enfeebled, epileptics, the institutionalized, the genetically inferior) deserved to be sterilized, whether their affliction could be traced to environmental issues or not. The AES also suggested that about another five million people should be segregated from society, based on their poor educational achievements. The AES declared that their project was racially-preventative medicine (Mehler, Kuhl). Social practice and law in the US followed the demands of the AES. Indiana passed the first sterilization law in 1907. Thirty states followed suit. The laws were upheld by the Supreme Court. Thousands of people, mostly women, were sterilized, some voluntarily, most not. Leaders of the AES wrote a laudatory study of the success of the sterilization program in California where, by 1929, more than 6,000 people had been sterilized (Kuhl). The AES did not limit its work to the US. They advanced their work around the world. In 1928, the Swiss passed the first sterilization law in Europe. Nazi German eugenicists relied heavily on research conducted by AES leaders in California in order to reach their conclusion: based on scientific research including intelligence testing, some lives are not worthy of life (Kuhl 44). There is a direct line from the IQ tests, to the American Eugenics Society, to forced sterilization, to Nazi extermination, a line that extends not only in theory, but also in history. Hitler said, "National Socialism is nothing but applied biology." At their trials at Nuremberg, Nazi scientists not only pointed to US research as a scientific basis for the death camps, but also rightly said that after the war US companies continued to try to recruit them. Carl C. Brigham worked with Yerkes on the Army IQ tests. Brigham wrote a book, "A Study of American Intelligence," clearly stating his belief in the biological relationship of race and intelligence, concluding that "race mixture," would pollute the gene bank, making the society dumber and weaker. Brigham then made a few inconsequential changes to the IQ test and called it the Scholastic Aptitude Test. Later, he renounced his own book, and the use of the SAT as a sorting tool for college admissions. Here is an interchange on Carl Brigham from Nicholas Lemann, author of the popular book on the SAT, "The Big Test." (http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/shows/sats/interviews/lemann.html) "You said Carl Brigham wrote the SAT. Was he a racist? Brigham was a reformed racist, basically. You have to be careful about how you use words like racist,... That is, not applying the standards of the present to the past. So it must be said that in 1920 virtually every respectable person in the United States was an unacceptable racist by today's standards. Just as an example, remember, you could not find a man who believed that women should occupy positions of authority in 1920." Lemann does not say that many women, black people, Jews, communists, anarchists, and millions of others were not racists, not sexists, not future fascists. Franz Boaz at Columbia University, working in the same historical period as Brigham, did all he could to fight the onslaught of fascist ideology. People fought back against the IQ test, against the SAT, and against fascism.However, the SAT became a deadly weapon. The rationale of racism, sexism, and class privilege built into the test necessarily means, at its end, not just sterilization, but death. The SAT was used to secure draft deferments during the Korean and Vietnam wars, ensuring the wars were fought by working class youth, especially black youth. Notably, people who might not have done well on the SAT, the Vietnamese, defeated a power led by test-successes, educated at West Pointe.  Nothing significant has changed about the results of the SAT scores, or the outlook of its authors, since it was first written. Underlying the SAT is an equation of lies: Intelligence can be defined and measured, race is a biological-scientific, not social, construct, some people are simply better and deserve more, some lives are not worthy of life. There is nothing untoward about pointing at today's respectable test-promoters, and saying: "Fascist." History is reason enough to say they can be beaten--and they should. The Rouge Forum is the organized body engaged in beating the fascists in schools. You can join the Rouge Forum and help to defeat the tests.  References Fairtest Web Site http://www.fairtest.org Rich Gibson, Teaaching About the Holocaust in the Context of Comprehending Anti-Fascism: http://www.pipeline.com/~rgibson/teachingholocaust.htm Stefan Kuhl, The Nazi Connection, Eugenics, American Racism, and German Nationalism. New York, Oxford University Press 1994 Barry Mehler, "Eliminating the Inferior: American and Nazi SterilizationPrograms," Science for the People (Nov-Dec 1987) pp. 14-18.http://about.ferris.edu/ISAR/archives/mehler/eliminating.htm

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