discovering other blogs is fun

I have been writing about education and policy for almost a year now. I was so excited when I discovered this blog today. Education Policy Blog. I couldn't believe I had never seen it before. It has some really deep posts about education policy, some from the teachers perspective. It is a group blog so it will be like checking out a different blog every time I check it. It will be added to my blog route asap.
Keep up the great work folks.

Head Start plays with State PKs

Head Start is going to have to learn to share and play fair. An article published last week in EdWeek is an excellent summary of where Head Start's place in the national PK movement. Once HEad Start was the only kid on the block, now there are other kids to play with. Though some localities have fought the movement the National agency has taken proactive steps to encourage Head Start and PK collaboration.
The director of my program has done an excellent job in cooperation with Richmond's Virginia Perschool Initiative. Each year we take another step towards providing effective services to preschoolers in Richmond. We are starting joint registration and some training this year. I wonder what we will do next year. As a former teacher for VPI and current teacher for Head Start, I am totally psyched to work collaboratively with both organizations.
I wonder if Richmonders have any suggestions. If you do leave a comment.

Helping our kids, Healing ourselves

http://www.awesomestories.com/ "We want to let educators throughout the country know that we are producing a story about student response to the Virginia Tech tragedy. We will digitize every student-produced picture, essay, story, letter or other creative effort which is sent to us. It doesn'tmatter if it is class-produced or individually created. After we digitize what we receive, we will send the entire archive to the Library of Congress. We will begin production on the story right away. We will place it online as soon as we have enough materials to make it meaningful - hopefully by late next week. If the project catches on, and we continueto receive student creations, we'll keep adding to the story. We will, in short:1. Give teachers a positive way to talk about this week's awful events;2. Give students a place where their expression of support, fear and sadness can be displayed to the rest of the country; and3. Use the student contributions to create an online memorial honoringthe faculty and students who died at Virginia Tech. If you think this is a good idea, please let me know and please start to spread the word. All contributions should be sent to my attention,as follows:

Carole Bos

AwesomeStories

990 Monroe

Grand Rapids, Michigan

49503-1423

cbos@bosglazier.com

Warmest regards,

Carole--

My heart goes out to all of us who experienced this terrible event through real connections to the university. There are several opportunities to participate in the healing process happening across the country. One, which is probably more helpful to parents, teachers, and children is being taken on by Carole Bos of AwesomeStories. AwesomeStories is a website created by Carole Bos, a trial lawyer to provide a forum for teachers and students to access historic narratives and primary source materials on the web. Carole said in an email to a fellow moderator on The Teacher Leaders Network.

Federal Beauracracy -- One, Common Sense -- ZERO

I just read this article on The Washington Post about the testing of English Language Learners in Virginia's schools.
The article had this headline:

Fairfax Schools Concede On Testing
Compromise Made On Limited English

Sometimes David does not bring down Goliath.

I still respect the educators of Fairfax, Arlington, Harrisonburg etc. for trying to fight the US Department of Education. The well written article by Maria Glod, acknowledges the bitter taste in educators mouths but, the headline and sub-head seems give a different impression than the truth presented in the article.
Here is my favorite quote,

"The school system said in a statement that the decision was made after "efforts . . . to advocate on behalf of providing appropriate and necessary instruction and testing for students were rejected by the U.S. Department of Education."

Since I am married to a great writer, who also happened to be a newspaper reporter in a past life, I know that Headlines and sub-heads are written by Editors and copy editors, not the author. In the top of the article Fairfax CONCEDES then it COMPROMISES then it BACKS DOWN, then it does a SHARP TURN-AROUND. So, I ask you
What would have been your headline?
How about: David Beaten by Goliath, US ED

Our Stories, Their Stories

I am just back from a conference in San Antonio.
I wanted to let my readers know that the tragedy at Virginia Tech has been felt very deeply by people all over the country.
I spoke with educators and parents from Michigan, Boston, San Antonio, Indiana, Alabama etc. etc.
Everyone expressed their deepest regret for what occurred last Monday and acknowledged the pain that Virginians, educators, parents and children are feeling now.

My heart goes out to all of us who experienced this terrible event through real connections to the university.
There are several opportunities to participate in the healing process happening across the country. Here are two:

There will be a One Day of Blog Silence on April 30th.

The second is this one which is probably more helpful to parents, teachers, and children.

I recieved this through the Teacher Leaders Network. It seems like it could be an important link in healing of Virginia' children.
AwesomeStories is a website created by Carole Bos, a trial lawyer who created the site to provide a forum for teachers and students to access historic narratives and primary source materials on the web.

http://www.awesomestories.com/

Carole Bos at AwesomeStories wrote this to the moderator of the Teacher Leaders Network and I am posting a portion for you.

"We want to let educators throughout the country know that we are producing a story about student response to the Virginia Tech tragedy. We will digitize every student-produced picture, essay, story, letter or other creative effort which is sent to us. It doesn'tmatter if it is class-produced or individually created. After we digitize what we receive, we will send the entire archive to the Library of Congress. We will begin production on the story right away. We will place it online as soon as we have enough materials to make it meaningful - hopefully by late next week. If the project catches on, and we continueto receive student creations, we'll keep adding to the story. We will, in short:

1. Give teachers a positive way to talk about this week's awful events;

2. Give students a place where their expression of support, fear and sadness can be displayed to the rest of the country; and

3. Use the student contributions to create an online memorial honoringthe faculty and students who died at Virginia Tech. If you think this is a good idea, please let me know and please start to spread the word.

All contributions should be sent to my attention,
as follows:"
Carole Bos
AwesomeStories
990 Monroe
Grand Rapids, Michigan
49503-1423
cbos@bosglazier.com
Warmest regards,
Carole--

Day care is not preschool!

Day care does not equal preschool. There is a big difference, the profit model versus the services model. There are a great many quality day cares but, a day care is not a preschool for one major reason, accountability. As a Head Start teacher I am accountable to congress, as a day care provider I am accountable only to the parent.
The New York Times published an article on a study that links time spent by young children in day care to disruptive behavior in 6th grade. I can totally see the validity in my personal experience. However, I came across a blog that tried to use the report to argue against universal preschool. I couldn't believe it. I guess the part that really made me mad is that the blogger equated the two, preschool and day care. I worked in a day care for two weeks. I couldn't stand it, there was no organization, no curriculum, the ratio was 1 teacher to 12 kids which became 1 - 23. After the 24th kid, then they might pull someone in to help, if there was someone available. I challenge anyone to come to my class and tell me it is like a day care. There is too much learning going on.

English Language and the Keys to the Castle

This quote from a latino mother sums up why I made my speech to the Board of Ed. this week.

"My mother didn't have any kind of education at all, so it was hard for her to read a book even in Spanish." But Gomez has a different routine with Angie. "Every night we read a book," she said. "Now it's normal."

This is from a Washington Post article by Maria Glod. It talks about the inculturation of recent immigrants and how they come to understand the education meritocracy of America.

Helping English Language Learners understand the relationship between reading and economic success is difficult but, if you can get the preschoolers to be excited it is much easier to get the parents on board.

Hopefully more of these articles will surface in favor of preschool for all students.

What is making policy?

What is making education policy? I am begining to think that it is really a frame of mind or a way of being. As a former avant garde artist turned all too mainstream, I understand that performance art is the same way. It can become a way of living. I wonder if I apply myself if I can become a policy "maker" like I am and was an art "maker."

This metaphor has a huge appeal to me because, in times of frustration, I question if I am on the right path, if maybe I should be making more paintings and spending less time trying to make a difference for kids. If I became a policy "artist" then, that would put me in a frame of mind I can live in daily. I am comfortable with the insecurity of the artist who doesn't know exactly where the next "piece" will come from.

I am excited and scared to realize what I am getting into as I step gingerly into education policy making. I recently made some recomendations to the Virginia Board of Ed. The experience was part of the policy making class I am taking through VCU. Getting my comments down to 3 minutes was excrutiaing but a very useful exercise. Actually presenting went well. I was afraid I was going to mess up because my wife has told me that when I read out loud, unless it is a children's story, I am unintelligible. Well, it went well. I didn't connect the way I would have liked to but, I know I made sense because I could tell they were listening.

I have considered associating myself with a an organization but, I just keep finding things that make me pull up short of contacting an advocacy group. Maybe it is my independent spirit. Maybe I am not commited yet. Time will tell.
I have finally begun to find other preschool teachers of the same mind as myself. One is Ms. Pappas at Inside Pre-K
She has some very thoughtful posts and is interested in the bigger issues of preschool.