Amicus Brief in Petrilli v. Millot

by Robert Pondiscio
May 19th, 2008

Posted in Education Leadership | 1 Comment »

I was planning to post this afternoon in support of Mike Petrilli, whose post questioning AERA’s embrace of Bill “Guilty as Hell, Free As a Bird” Ayers was unaccountably described as “McCarthyism” by the usually smart and sensible Dean Millot. But I see Diane Ravitch, as is her wont, has settled matters nicely. It’s a bit surprising that otherwise reasonable people seem eager to overlook Ayer’s past. We’re not talking about “youthful indescretions” here. We’re taking about clear, unambiguous criminal behavior which claimed lives–behavior for which Ayers claimed credit and refuses to renounce. “I don’t regret setting bombs, said Ayers. “I feel we didn’t do enough.”

McCarthyism? Please.

The Last Word: It belongs to Matthew K. Tabor, who posts a lengthy backgrounder on Ayers and the Weathermen, and draws Millot into his lair for a few rounds of responses. Well played, sir.

The Golden Age for YA Fiction

by Robert Pondiscio
May 19th, 2008

Posted in Literacy, Research and Reports | No Comments »

Another sign that not all is lost. While the conventional wisdom says teens aren’t readers, they are actually scooping up novels in unprecedented numbers, Newsweek reports. “Young-adult fiction (ages 12-18) is enjoying a bona fide boom with sales up more than 25 percent in the past few years, according to a Children’s Book Council sales survey. Virtually every major publishing house now has a teen imprint, many bookstores and libraries have created teen reading groups and an infusion of talented new authors has energized the genre,” the magazine notes.

While Harry Potter gets all the press, any 4th- to 8th grade teacher can tell you there is an extraordinarily rich body of work currently in print for kids, most of which is virtually unknown outside of schools. Ask someone who’s not a tween, teen or teacher if they’ve heard of Jerry Spinnelli, Katherine Paterson, Kate DiCamillo or Louis Sachar. Be prepared for blank stares.

“This is the second golden age for young-adult books,” author David Levithan tells Newsweek. “Levithan and others cite several reasons for this perfect storm for teen lit, the most obvious two being the increasing sophistication and emotional maturity of teenagers and the accompanying new freedom for writers in the genre to explore virtually any subject. Another is that bookstores and libraries are finally recognizing this niche and separating teen books from children’s books.”

The Newsweek piece follows a report issued two weeks ago, What Kids are Reading: The Book Reading Habits of Students in American Schools, which was touted as the first comprehensive report to provide detailed information about the books school children are actually reading.

Go Big Mo!

by Robert Pondiscio
May 19th, 2008

Tags:
Posted in Teacher Training, Teaching | No Comments »

Speaking of Teach for America (see below), Eduwonk has a guest blog piece by former TFAer Maureen Miller, who looks behind the surge in the organization’s recruitment numbers. I’m kvelling. She was my grad student a few years ago.

Speed Hiring

by Robert Pondiscio
May 19th, 2008

Tags: ,
Posted in Education Practice, Employment, Teacher Training | No Comments »

A 15-minute call might save you 15% on your car insurance, but if the folks from Geico really want to save people time and money they may want to stock their call centers with Baltimore principals—they need just one-third of that time to reach a hiring decision on a teacher. This blog post from a Teach For America recruit hired to teach in the school district offers insight into how little due diligence goes into hiring decisions in some tough city schools. The “idealistic young man” describes attending a school district hiring fair in Baltimore where he is surprised to hear Chancellor Andres Alonzo announce that every school year in Baltimore begins with 850 vacancies.

“This huge demand for teachers resulted in a rather confused, chaotic environment. Some teachers were being hired on the spot after a 5 minute interview at best. The lines for each school were like a meat processing plant, simply looking if you were certified in an area of need, and then moving on.”

That night, the anonymous TFA recruit bunked with a couple of Teach for America Corps Members (CMs) and was surprised by some of the war stories he heard.

“The things we heard about some schools in the district were completely crazy. I should preface this by saying that I am not at all dissatisfied with my decision to join TFA, even after hearing how rough some of these schools can be. But, I think everyone needs to know what they are up against. We heard stories of teachers quitting in their first week. One female CM quit because a gang member she offended the day before fire-bombed her classroom, meaning he threw a bottle full of lighter fluid into her room (molotov cocktail). Her principal merely encouraged her to “put out the fire and call the police”. The other, a male CM, quit after a student pulled a knife on him because he didn’t like his tone!”

Perhaps if they take longer than five minutes, they might give those idealistic TFAers time to change their minds.