By Moriah Balingit April 2 at 6:00 AM DUNCAN, Okla. — On Easter morning, at the nearby Baptist church, Kenita Self closed her eyes and bowed her head in prayer. The teacher prayed for her third-grade students, who face a high-stakes reading test this year that will determine whether they advance to fourth grade. She prayed for…
Tag: School Choice
Oklahoma teachers say they’re going on strike next week {#iBelieve}
Tax cuts and budget cuts forced 20 percent of public schools in the state to switch to four-day weeks. By Alexia Fernández Campbell Mar 29, 2018, 9:26am EDT Time is running out for Oklahoma lawmakers. They have until April 2 to reach a spending deal or teachers will strike en masse. Oklahoma’s teachers are rebelling against years…
Kentucky teachers’ strike closes schools across the state
BY JOHN BOWDEN – 03/30/18 09:48 AM EDT Schools in eight Kentucky school districts were closed Friday as teachers across the state protested Republican changes to their pension system, CBS News reports. In Lexington and Louisville — the state’s two largest school districts — hundreds of teachers took sick days or refused to show up for work after state lawmakers…
N.H. Public School Officials Decry ‘Education Savings Accounts’ Bill
By JASON MOON • 6 HOURS AGO Superintendents, school board members, teachers, and parents held a press conference Thursday morning to voice their concerns about a bill that would create “education freedom savings accounts.” The bill, known as Senate Bill 193, would allow parents to use public money to educate their kids outside of public schools, including…
In Arizona, teachers can now be hired with absolutely no training in how to teach
By Valerie Strauss May 14, 2017 New legislation signed into law in Arizona by Republican Gov. Doug Ducey (R) will allow teachers to be hired with no formal teaching training, as long as they have five years of experience in fields “relevant” to the subject they are teaching. What’s “relevant” isn’t clear. The Arizona law…
Arizona teachers, among the nation’s lowest paid, threaten to strike {#iBelieve}
By Moriah Balingit March 29 at 2:35 PM Arizona teachers, among the lowest paid in the country, are threatening to strike if state lawmakers do not raise their salaries and restore dramatic funding cuts that schools have endured. Teachers, who organized a grassroots campaign on social media, are demanding a 20 percent raise and restoration of…
Oklahoma teachers dismiss proposed pay raise, plan to hold walkout {#iBelieve}
BY JACQUELINE THOMSEN – 03/29/18 07:04 PM EDT Teachers in Oklahoma are planning to hold a state-wide walkout on Monday, saying a pay raise passed by the state isn’t enough. The Oklahoma Education Association (OEA), the states’ largest teachers union, said that the wage hike is “a truly historic moment” but that it is “incomplete,” CNN reported. OEA President Alicia Priest said…
A QUICK LOOK AT STANDARDIZED TESTING AND STEREOTYPE THREAT {#iBelieve}
A QUICK LOOK AT STANDARDIZED TESTING AND STEREOTYPE THREAT Tom Rudd March 2011 “Stereotype threat” is a very complex and nuanced concept. In simple terms, it is an unconscious response to a prevailing negative stereotype about an identifiable group by a member of that group. For example: the statistical fact that Afri can American students…
Trump and DeVos Continue to Undermine Public Education with Their Proposed Fiscal Year 2019 Budget
By Stephenie Johnson, Neil Campbell, and Scott Sargrad Posted on February 12, 2018, 2:50 pm Today, President Donald Trump and Secretary of Education Betsy DeVos released their proposed budget for the 2019 fiscal year. The Trump administration’s budget proposal for this year makes strikingly similar drastic cuts to the administration’s fiscal year 2018 proposal, which represented the most devastating funding cuts to…
Standing Strong for Public Education! 