Dare I say it? May the floodgates open! There is hope. Grassroots resistance and organizing by the parents, students and teachers in communities actually affected by the corporate hijacking of public education. Don't miss this video about resistance to Renaissance 2010 in Chicago......and check out the links on the side to PURE (Parents United for Responsible Education) and Substance Online.
"The common misconception is that cynics are merely cold and negative, people who always find the worst rather than the good, but the truth is that every cynic is a frustrated idealist. Only someone who holds an ideal in mind can be bothered when they see that ideal undermined and ignored."
Like millions of Americans, I was thrilled and filled with hope over Barack Obama's victory on election night. I have been a supporter of Mr. Obama since his days in the Illinois Senate. And, in a very small way, as past president of the Chicago Teachers Union, I helped him get his first labor union endorsement when he was running for U.S. Senate, that of the Illinois Federation of Teachers.
But though it pains me to have to say this, I cannot support his choice for secretary of education, Arne Duncan.
How can Mr. Duncan be so rewarded for a strategy of giving up on low-performing schools serving primarily low-income children? It is ironic that Duncan is now moving to the Cabinet post when he essentially has admitted that he does not know how to manage low-performing schools. His entire approach has been to close underperforming schools and turn their management over to outside organizations, many with no track records of school reform. Yet during his tenure, the Chicago Public Schools graduation rate remained stubbornly at barely 50 percent.
Read the rest here!The first Item Sampler I looked at was titled "Sample Items Grades 3-5" and was posted on December 2, 2008.Item Samplers
The Item Samplers on this website provide information about ISTEP+ for students, parents, educators, and others. The items in each sampler are examples of the types of items found on ISTEP+. These examples can serve as models when teachers are constructing items for classroom assessment. It should be noted that the samplers are not practice tests.
Sample test items and scoring rubrics are included in the Item Samplers. The items are samples only and not actual items. The samples are representative of the types of items that appear on ISTEP+.
"How does Mrs. Jackson and the other students in the class show kindness towardsI always thought that subject and verb should agree, right? If we substitute the pronoun "they" for the subject, Mrs. Jackson and the other students, the question would read, "How does they show kindness..."
Mei-Win? Use details from the story to support your answer."
