NBPTS: Grow Great Schools

See how the National Board for Professional Teaching Standards (NBPTS) is redefining its vision and mission at http://growgreatschools.org/.

Opinion: Schools should proceed with caution on e-books

Many schools are abandoning textbooks in favor of e-books and tablet computers, but writer Nicholas Carr urges them to consider research that shows paper books still have some advantages. Traditional books retain the reader's attention, allow greater flexibility and cater to more learning styles, he argues. Carr also cites a study suggesting that college students still prefer print reading. Star Tribune (Minneapolis-St. Paul, Minn.)/Dallas Morning News

Consortia consider computerized accommodations for common core

Testing experts are advising groups developing new common core assessments on technology that can help make the tests accessible to students who are learning English or who have special needs. The open-source Accessible Portable Item Profile Standards allow certain features, such as language translation or read-aloud text to be turned on and off according to individual students' profiles. Some experts stressed the importance of building accommodations into the tests up front, while other officials expressed concerns about potential issues with the computerized accommodations. Education Week/Learning the Language blog

Exciting school year 2011-2012!

I will be working in the new International Baccalaureate program at Jefferson Academy this school year as a special education teacher/ inclusion specialist. I am excited to be part of a new diverse professional learning community and to respond to the different needs of my colleagues and our students to help create a successful learning environment for all of us. I am thrilled to be working and learning with my colleagues and students in an international context, and happy to collaborate with everyone to prepare our students to become globally competitive in this 21st century economy. I'm glad to take part in this great new adventure!

What I have learned from the NBPTS 2011 Conference and the SOS March

I wrote this reflection to the Teacher Leaders Network forum just a few minutes before I drove to the library to meet up with Senora Richardson, my former Spanish teacher at the Catholic University, to help her start a class blog for her students. I want to share this reflection to my blog readers too...

I became a National Board Certified Teacher in November 2009 so it was my first time to attend the NBPTS 2011 Conference. It was great to see hundreds of advocates of teaching excellence who are equally excited about educating our eager students, who are knowledgeable about innovative teaching strategies, and who also speak up against edreform policies that are harmful to our teachers & students.

Tuesday's Hill Day was my first time too, thanks for teaming me up with a great NBCT who works at NEA Teacher Quality, Jennifer Locke, NBCT. She was very caring in coaching me with what to do and what to expect during our visits to our four Congressional Representatives in Maryland and Washington DC. She made me feel relaxed and she empowered me to speak up (hope I did not talk too much!). The Hill Day was overall a positive experience for me, the staff who met with us seemed all very interested and asked several questions that we willingly responded to. I have learned from this experience that the Congress people are not the only people who can influence policy, we need to use our teacher voice.

Friday NBPTS 2011 Conference, I shared the same sentiments with Linda Darling Hammond, NBCT that we need to prepare our students to be globally competitive in the 21st century economy; and Diane Ravitch about harmful education policies like unfair use of standardized tests to evaluate teachers, poverty as a factor for school failure, need for responsible parenting, lack of resources for students which do not only set teachers up to fail but moreso our students. It was great to see hundreds of NBCTs convening to collaborate and learn from each other about innovative instructional practices, education policies, teacher leadership, and education reform. I was able to exchange contact numbers, email addies, Twitter handle, and blog URL with a few NBCTs across the country and with a couple of visitors from Quebec. It was priceless to be able to have truly engaging conversations centered around how to better support our 21st century learners so they can be globally competitive. Thank you Nancy Flanagan, Patrick Ledesma, Anthony Cody, David Cohen (and other NBCTs who presented on education policies) for the knowledge imparted...it was empowering, it was truly amazing! And I felt wonderful to be with hundreds of educators across the nation who have the same burning passion for educating our students to maximize their potentials. I am not alone anymore!

I missed the Saturday sessions of the NBPTS 2011 Conference so I can be at the White House ellipse as early as 10am. My husband and my two children were with me during the SOS March standing up with our International teachers, friends at the Asian Pacific American Labor Alliance (APALA-DC) and thousands others from across the country to save our schools! Saw Nancy F., Anthony C., and a number of our teacher leaders I met at the NBPTS 2011 Conference, this event was very heart warming for me! Some didn't believe me when I told them that Matt Damon was coming and his mom was an educator until they saw him there and heard him speak about his mother. As Nancy Tweeted: "democracy starts early in life!"...we should teach our kids civics lessons and how our choices affect our everyday living. It is important to let our kids understand that we can and must stand and let our voices be heard. My former student was supposed to celebrate her 16th birthday with her friends but chose to be with us with her sister and her mom at the SOS March. They know how a great teacher positively impacted their life until now, they were there to support our great educators from far and wide! 

Thank you! I have learned from NBPTS 2011 Conference and the SOS March that I am so inspired and encouraged to not just speak up but take action. We have jump started a DC NBCT Network when I was in the WTU Executive Board (2007-2010) and will continue the work that we already started with other NBCTs in Washington DC. We have an upcoming post SOS March meeting too with teachers in the DC Area who attended the March.

I am proud to belong to the teacher leaders of this nation. Thanks for the knowledge imparted, the encouragement, the empowerment from our NBCT teacher leaders...I will forever look back to the week of July 26-July 30 with a smile! Sorry for this long post, I couldn't contain the feeling :)

Keep the fire burning!

"Teach Your Children Well" (more SOS March photos)

My good friend, Jon Melegrito, tagged me on Facebook with his note: "Teach Your Children Well" and photos of our kids at the SOS March which touched my heart. Tito Jon, (Tito is a Tagalog word meaning "Uncle" which I prefer to call him as a sign of respect and also because he is a family to me) is an APALA-DC founding member who works at AFSCME. Here's his note:

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Teach Your Children Well by Crosby, Stills and Nash keeps playing in my head as I watch the Filipino teachers of PGCPS and APALA activists gather in the Ellipse, the kids of Katrina Abacar and Maria Angala frolic in the grass, Jo Quiambao gathers petitions, Katrina Dizon and sister Sam ham it up. And I think of my daughter, Desiree, who taught her parents well. Please listen to the song as you look at these pictures: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uQtRsSmU-6k

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You who are on the road
Must have a code that you can live by
And so become yourself
Because the past is just a good bye.
Teach your children well,
Their father's hell did slowly go by,
And feed them on your dreams
The one they picked, the one you'll know by.
.
Don't you ever ask them why, if they told you, you would cry,
So just look at them and sigh and know they love you.
.
And you, of tender years,
Can't know the fears that your elders grew by,
And so please help them with your youth,
They seek the truth before they can die.
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Counter Melody To Above Verse:
Can you hear and do you care and
Cant you see we must be free to
Teach your children what you believe in.
Make a world that we can live in.
.
Teach your parents well,
Their children's hell will slowly go by,
And feed them on your dreams
The one they picked, the one you'll know by.
.
Don't you ever ask them why, if they told you, you would cry,
So just look at them and sigh and know they love you.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uQtRsSmU-6k

Matt Damon's Headliner Speech

APALA Declares Support for PGCPS International Teachers

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
August 1, 2011

Contacts:

Heather Laverty
Vice President of Communications
Email: lavertyhm@gmail.com
Phone: 269-598-2235

Jon Melegrito
Email: jonmele@aol.com
Phone: 202-361-0296

APALA Declares Support for Prince George’s County Public School Teachers
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WASHINGTON, DC- Delegates to the 11th Biennial Convention of the Asian Pacific American Labor Alliance (APALA) unanimously passed a resolution urging the U.S. Dept. of Labor (DOL) to “reconsider making the debarment ruling against the Prince George’s County Public Schools (PGCPS) prospective, instead of retroactive, so it will not affect the teachers who are currently in this country.” The resolution also called for “an immediate remedy that is fair and just to these diligent and dedicated teachers.” The more than 300 Asian Pacific activists, representing major labor unions in the country, further pledged to study ongoing trends and reported abuses by placement agencies in the recruitment of international teachers.

Katrina Dizon, President of the DC Chapter of APALA, who introduced the resolution at the convention, said: “Although we realize that the DOL is upholding the law by debarring PGCPS, we strongly believe that a punishment victimizing the very people it’s supposed to protect is grossly unjust. Workers should not be afraid to speak up against abusive employers due to the fear of retaliation, and that’s exactly what is going on here.”
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“We are truly appreciative of DOL’s decision to have PGCPS pay these teachers back the wages owed to them,” adds Johanna Hester, National President of APALA. “This is just one of the many examples of how immigrant workers are consistently exploited, and we are looking forward to working with other unions and the DOL for steps on how to support immigrant workers, like the PGCPS teachers, without punishing them further.”

This ruling was set forth by DOL to punish PGCPS for illegal deductions made to their teachers’ wages for visa processing fees, which by law, should have been shouldered by them. PGCPS eventually compensated the educators for these wages but is now refusing to process the extension of their visas, due to this ruling.
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At the APALA Convention this past weekend, APALA leaders spoke to U.S. Secretary of Labor Hilda Solis and her staff on behalf of the teachers. “We are very appreciative of the Secretary who found time to meet with us and learn more about the issue,” Dizon said. “We hope a reasonable solution favorable to the teachers will come out of it.” Secretary Solis was a keynote speaker at the convention.

Emmelle Israel, AFL-CIO Media Outreach fellow, took part in the Save Our Schools rally this weekend and sends us this report.

Educators, students and community members from across the nation joined together July 30 for the Save Our Schools March and National Day of Action. The crowd of thousands rallied for two hours in the Washington, D.C., summer sun on the Ellipse Park, just south of the White House. After hearing from speakers such as former U.S. Assistant Secretary of Education and New York University professor Diane Ravitch to actor/activist Matt Damon—whose mother was a teacher and union member—the crowd began a march around the White House. The rally united everyone under the cause of education reform, but the variety of signs and slogans on display (“We Need Teachers Not Tests,” “Equality for English Learning Students,” “Cut Corporations Not Education”) emphasized the variety of issues that need to be addressed to rebuild public education.

One contingent of teachers at the rally, the Pilipino Educators Network of Prince George’s County in Maryland, highlighted how the issues of budget cuts, immigration, labor and standards-driven education reform intersect. After No Child Left Behind was passed in 2001, several school districts were left scrambling to find teachers who met higher certification requirements mandated by the law. In Prince George’s County, school officials turned to hiring from abroad. Since 2005, Prince George’s County Public Schools actively recruited more than 1,000 of the school district’s 9,000 teachers from other countries, mainly the Philippines. These teachers came with special certifications and qualifications to fill positions that schools typically have difficulty finding candidates for—science, math, foreign language and special education. Continue reading AFL CIO Blog