Chance to share your ideas for Banned Websites Awareness Day!

Wednesday October 3rd is the American Association of School Librarians' (AASL) Banned Websites Awareness Day (#BWAD on Twitter), which provides policy makers, educators, parents, and students with an opportunity to talk about the impact of arbitrary filtering and overly restrictive policy in K-12 learning environments.  

The librarian community is championing the initiative, and they're engaged in a conversation about it with authors, policy-makers, bloggers, educators and students and they want to hear from you! 

There's a call for all innovative educators, parents, and students to be a part of the bigger conversation by contributing to the Banned Websites Awareness Day collaborative presentation. 

Participating is easy!

Share your testimonials and pictures that respond to this question:
"How does filtering constrain your learning, and your personal and professional growth?" 

Here's how to contribute:

Check out what's in the presentation below then go add your voice to the conversation. Just click this link to visit the instruction page where you will learn how easy it is to add your testimonial and picture.  Can't wait to see what you write!

Read More

The hottest posts that everyone's reading.

Here’s the roundup of what's been popular on The Innovative Educator blog this week. Below you’ll see the top weekly posts along with the number of pageviews. I hope there's something that looks of interest to you.  If it does, check it out. If you’re inspired, share it with others and/or leave a comment.

Article	Views
Romney Promises Teen He Won't Back Down from High ... Sep 26, 2012, 4 comments	2391
3 ways to measure students, teachers, & schools wi... Sep 26, 2012, 1 comment	1832
Cure ADHD without Drugs with These Resources from ... Feb 5, 2011, 23 comments	1533
8 Real Ways Facebook Enriched Ms. Schoening’s Firs... Jul 15, 2010, 23 comments	1449
A Friendly Guide to Deploying iPads at Your School... Jun 24, 2012, 6 comments	1444
Big news! Turns out it is okay if you don’t go to ... Sep 27, 2012	1432

Read More

Big news! Turns out it is okay if you don’t go to college.

Didja hear it?  If you were able to catch any of NBC’s Education Nation conversation, It was ever so subtle, but it was there. The part of the conversation that disturbingly has been the banned from the Common Core College and Career Readiness mantra.

If you heard it you noticed that the language is changing, slowly but surely, from the lips of the politicians, corporate funders, and even from the administrators who feel they must not deviate from the party line (even when they know it's wrong) lest they lose their jobs.

So, what's the big idea that is ever so softly slipping through the lips of those engaged in the politically correct education conversation?

The new and improved stats and facts have arrived, and....

College AND career readiness is OUTTA HERE!

In its place is an important conjunction that many of us were shut down and smacked down if we dared to utter those two ugly letters.

So what are the two little letters that could change everything?
I want more »

Read More

3 ways to assess students, teachers, & schools without standardized tests

A theme at this week’s Education Nation was the failure of standardized tests as a measurement of student achievement and teacher effectiveness. Those who know better know that standardized tests tell us more about a student’s language acquisition, parental involvement, poverty level, and developmental level than they do about teacher effectiveness or student ability. But, it is hard for anyone to imagine how we would possible assess student, teacher, and school effectiveness without the mindless drill, kill, bubblefill that forces students to memorize and regurgitate on demand.  Yet we all know these are not the skills that our students need for success in life.  

So how might we measure students, teachers, and schools if there were no tests? There are countless ways besides the mega-billion testing industry model, but here are three ideas for our policy makers like Mitt Romney who admit they don't know a better model than a testing system.
I want more »

Read More

Romney Promises Teen He Won't Back Down from High Stakes Tests

Nikhyl Goyal: Considering standardized testing has increased to historic levels causing a lot of teaching to the test, billions of dollars spent, and killing creativity, how would you as president change this trend? 

Mitt Romney: I don't have a better model than a testing system.
-------
And there ya have it.

Nikhil Goyal, the teenage author of One Size Does Not Fit All, presented Mitt Romney with a hard-hitting question during NBC’s Education Nation exposing the presidential hopeful’s extreme ignorance when it comes to education policy.


Romney made a patronizing attempt at schooling the younger and wiser student but as he uttered each word of his response his ignorance on the topic became uncomfortably clear.

Romney explained it this way...

Lie
First he said...
“You will find throughout your life there are tests.”

Really?  For most Americans, tests (including the one for driving) occur while we are in school. Many of us have not had another test after high school.  Yes, some people choose to take a one-time certification test, but...
1) They are extremely rare in “life.”
2) They are taken by choice, not forced upon us.  

Ignorance
Then he said...
“I don’t know a way to evaluate progress without tests.” Yikes!!!! So Romney’s ignorance on more effective measures of assessment should guide our nation????

I wished the audience had chanted:

“Ask the kid!!! Ask the kid!!!!.” 

Hell, Mitt had an expert right in front of him and it didn’t occur to him to ask for advice.  But if asking the kid or reading his book is too much for Mitt, he could just think about how we evaluate progress in life? Spoiler alert: It almost never involves tests!!!!

Lie and Ignorance
And after that he said...
“There is no other way that we’ve found out to determine if a student is succeeding or not and no other way to find out if the teacher is succeeding or not.”
Really? Is he telling the teen (who’s much more knowledgable than him on the topic) that this is it?  This is the only way?  Of course, it’s a lie, but is Romney too stupid to know he is lying or is he lying and just thinking the rest of us are too stupid to figure it out?  

Lie
Then he explained that...
“When I was governor of Massachusetts I took the graduation exam which assesses basic math and everyone should know basic math.”
As he explained the tests he goes on to describe geometry, algebra, calculus as BASIC math!  Really? Many of us Americans get through life mighty fine without those fancy basic maths known as geometry, algebra, or calculus.  It's basic for those who wants to follow pursuits that require these subjects, but this is not basic and it is not necessary for success in life for their entire population.  

Ignorance
Romney explains that he passed the graduation test with an, “If I can do it, anyone can” grin.  
Within that grin is held complete ignorance of the realities that many of our students have.  No, they don’t have tutors.  No, they may not speak English.  Yes, they may have learning disabilities.  No, they may not have basic health care. Yes, they may not have parents. And...No, they may not have spent their lives in elite private schools or being homeschooled!

Avoidance / Ignorance
Romney completely ignored the part of Nikhil’s question about the billions of dollars being allocated toward testing.  Feh.  Billion, shmillion! Let’s move on.

Teacher Bashing Finale
Romney wanted to drive his point home to the questioning teen about his fear behind no having tests.  You know what that was????

We can’t trust dem teacher folk.

He said this:
“I was afraid before the tests that teachers would go off on a different tangent than the basic math, english, and science that our kids need to succeed.”

We need these tests or those teachers are gonna go off teaching some crazy irrelevant crap.  

But, wait! There’s more.
Romney concluded with his promise to the people.  There’s more where this came from!
He explained, that we won’t stop here! “I’ve added science so people will get tested in biology and geology and so forth.”

And, he concluded...
“Let’s make our testing more effective and expand it ways that haven’t even been thought of!”

Wink Wink to the mega-billion dollar testing industry that more is headed their way.
The sentence
Then he admitted...
“I don’t have a better model than to say we’re going to evaluate our kids through some kind of a testing system.”

So there ya have it folks.  Parents, your kids are gonna get tested and test prepped to death.  The presidential hopeful doesn’t have a better model and gosh dang it, reading Nikhil’s book or those blogs educator’s write just ain’t on his agenda.  

You can watch the video here.

Visit NBCNews.com for breaking news, world news, and news about the economy

Read More

Back to school reveals that we need to refocus on what matters for success

This American Life episode of Back to School questions what really matters when it comes to helping students find success and looks at what teachers can truly be responsible for.  Host Ira Glass asks are we really measuring the right thing and takes a look at if test scores really matter or do they just tell us what we already know.

Not surprisingly what Glass uncovers is that when we focus on test scores not only are we focusing on the wrong thing, but we are completely missing the boat when it comes to helping our students succeed who need it most. Need translates into youth living in poverty who do not have support at home and are being raised in an unstable and chaotic setting. Glass looks at how poverty-related stress affects brain development and provides a birds eye view from the perspective of a teenager who had this experience growing up. 

Experts like Paul Tough, author of the new book How Children Succeed, economist James Heckman, and doctor Nadine Burke Harris discuss more effective ways to meet the needs of school children and it doesn't have anything to do with test prep or scores.  Instead of viewing students as data points what we need is to help young people with the development of non-cognitive skills like tenacity, resilience, and impulse control.  Tough discusses research that suggest these skills can be learned and points to the success of various programs that revolve around early interventions both in the home and in school. Economist James Heckman then discusses they ways in which this shift in emphasis could change the way we practice education and the way we think about learning.

This is an important program for all those accountability, high-stakes testing nuts to pay attention to.  If you know one of them, send them a link to this show.

Read More