Word of the Day - Verisimilitude

ver·i·si·mil·i·tude

ˌverəsəˈmiliˌt(y)o͞od/

nounthe appearance of being true or real.
"the detail gives the novel some verisimilitude"

synonyms:

realism, believability, plausibility,authenticity, credibility, lifelikeness "the verisimilitude of her performance is gripping"

Green Dot? In my Back Yard?

Greendot charter schools

• 14 of 15 Green Dot schools are “failing,” by Parent Revolution’s definition
  
• Another charter school scam?… ‘Parent Revolution’ charged with misleading parents about signatures on ‘close this school’ petition
• Ben Austin: The Six Figure Salary Man – Green Dot
• Can Ben Austin Speak for Parent Revolution without Speaking for Green Dot?
• Cheating on state tests found at two Los Angeles schools
• Connections between Eli Broad, the Parent Union (aka Parent Revolution, the creators of the “Parent Trigger”), and Green Dot
• Green Dot revolution targets school that outperforms current Green Dotters
• Green Dot to close Justice Charter High School
• Parent Empowerment or Parent Manipulation?
• Perfidious Petruzzi calls for accurate evaluations of Green Dot Charter Corporation?
• Political Patronage for Green Dot Public Schools’ Chief Propagandist
• Political Patronage for Green Dot Public Schools’ Chief Propagandist
• Powerful “Parent” Trigger operators target vulnerable school; attack misfires
• Say you want a revolution?: Parents Revolution, ‘Astro turf’ organizations and the privatization of public schools

swooped off of Seattle Education

SEATTLE (AP) - Washington's statewide charter schools commission appears poised to
approve two more proposals for charter schools to open in the state in 2015.

According to an analysis by a team of independent evaluators, two of the four proposals for new schools appear to meet the state's standards for approval.

The schools expected to be approved are a Green Dot middle and high school in Seattle and an elementary school in Sunnyside in Central Washington.

K5 News

#FactsNotFox #Seattle #GreenDot #Stub #Incomplete #Research

Not just an Issue - The Issue - Jeffco Kids Inspire

It is kids.

High school mainly. They just wanted their AP US History Class, so they could get college credits, and prepare for college level learning. The curriculums were already decided. The State Board of Education already approved of the AP US History course.

Kids are connected. They are on the Tweeter all the time, sending messages and keeping in touch with people that have moved away. Some out of state, some just to Douglas County. But they keep in touch like they still live next door.

And they hear things. They hear about Texas dropping the whole curriculum state wide and bringing God into the class room. That Moses is the designer and inspiration of the Constitution of the United States. And that George Washington said that this nation was founded and held free by Christians (when he never said that, anywhere). They pick up the falseness.

Closer to home, Douglas county School Board breaks the teacher's union. Begins having closed meetings against the Sunshine law. Things in the schools are getting weird down in Douglas. Weird like the notices for the AP US History classes have been taken down. A new bulletin is up. The bulletin says that the Colorado Christian University is offering College Prep Classes now. That they will be taught at the high school for $200 a credit. That the kids will earn Credits as CCR not AP.

They ask, "Is CCR accepted anywhere else?" and get no answers.

Messages on Facebook, and flashes on the Twitter are getting weird. On her Facebook page Julie Williams, one of the board members is talking about Texas. Says that it was a good thing. Like it is something she admires.

Then, in September, Julie Williams stops the meeting to say that she has concerns about the AP US History course.That it is too Left. That it doesn't project the right message for the kids. She hasn't read it. She doesn't know anything about it. She's never even seen it -- which she will admit the next day to CBS news cameras -- but she has concerns.

The kids know that this is how it starts. This is how it started in Texas. This is what happened in Douglas. It started exactly like this, and no one said anything. No one continues to say anything.

The kids stand up.

They say, "No."

The kids didn't mean to shout it, so that I heard it while I was passing. They didn't know that The American Historical Association (AHA) and the Organization of American Historians (OAH) would hear them all the way in Washington D.C. and send their support. Other people begin to send their support as well. Congressmen, Senators, Governors. Actors.  The kid's voices get Re-Tweeted 

Wonkette: “Colorado Students Ditch Class, Refuse To Love America” 

TPM: “Students Use Civil Disobedience To Protest Removing It From History Curriculum” 

New York Times: “In Colorado, a Student Counter-protest to an Anti-Protest Curriculum”

And all that is well and good, a little heady and a little scary, but then their parents hear them, and tell them they have their support as well... and that's when anyone paying attention knows that the School Board is going down. It's all over the Tweets. It's in their eyes when they are protesting next to their mother, or their father.

The GOP candidates for the coming election say that the teachers are putting them up to it.

Julie Williams and Ken Witt on the District School Board say the kids are just pawns, being played by the teacher' s union. That these kids don't know what they are doing or why.

This angers the kids. And at the Board meeting, they want an apology. They don't get one. They want the board to stop messing with their college readiness courses, and they produce a petition with 40,000+ names. The Board says no, but calls it a compromise. But it isn't a compromise. They are going to do the exact same thing they were going to do before. The Board isn't listening. There are hundreds of parents and teachers and students there, and the Board isn't listening.

The Kids give Julie Williams, Ken Witt and John Newkirk a unanimous vote of no confidence.

The only job the Board really has, the kids reason, is to create and maintain a safe environment where they can get the most out of their school years. For the last year, they only had one job. The kids decide, "Epic Fail".

Now even more people are hearing them. 

It is cool that you are hearing them. And if it brings home to you and makes what is happening in Congress real to you, then that is cool too. But if you want to help, sign the Recall petition. Take back their school. Get the away from the agenda of a few, who listen to no one. They can't vote. They need you.

Stand up.

Common Core Lesson Plan on the Fly

Kids have some serious opponents between them and getting Common Core into their classrooms. Not many strong allies either. The President has helped all he can -- since he is forbidden by Fed Law from interacting with the local school system in any way. They really need all the help they can get. 

Why? Fair enough question. With everything on Fox News and conflicting information on the real news channels, What exactly, does Common Core offer our children and school system that is worth  the fight? 

Just a quick overview of our school systems. Since districts were formed back with Thomas Jefferson, each area has done things there own way. States control the public schools. Fed backed off.There was no need to be involved. 

A Department of Education was created in 1867 but was soon demoted to an Office in 1868. As an agency not represented in the president's cabinet, it quickly became a minor bureau in the Department of the Interior. In 1939, the bureau was transferred to the Federal Security Agency, where it was renamed the Office of Education. In 1953, the Federal Security Agency was upgraded and split into the Cabinet level areas of the Department of Health, Education, and Welfare.

The Elementary and Secondary Education Act (ESEA) was passed as a part of President Lyndon B. Johnson's "War on Poverty" and has been the most far-reaching federal legislation affecting education ever passed by Congress. The act is an extensive statute that funds primary and secondary education, while explicitly forbidding the establishment of a national curriculum. 

So, with no National curriculum, States were empowered to do their own thing, without the worry about what other states were doing. This thinking drifted down into the districts. Minor kingdoms of belief and theory rose up across the nation. Most of them, I would guess 98% honestly guided by men and women who in their heart of hearts wanted the best for the kids. That was April 11, 1965. Our country was punch-drunk and terrified of Nazism, Communism, and Marxism. We were just finished tearing at our own throats with the Communist trials. The vision of a Federal curriculum was overshadowed with the swastikas of Hitler Youth.

At that time, there was no real reason that anyone should share anything, and the guard against indoctrination of our youth curled the fears of every patriot'. Things change though. The world changed. We are connected in ways impossible to imagine then. Fifty years has altered our landscape and created extraordinary variation to the definitions of what classrooms are, what are books, what are lessons.

Imagine that today you are the teacher of a 9th grade class. Ebola is sending panics on waves of Fox News broadcasting across the nation. Everyone has an opinion as to what should be done, and these opinions are given with the implication that they are sessile, and undeniable, like the man who yells across the parking lot, "They have to close the borders! What? Are they stupid?" 

You get to your class early and you know that your kids are going to need some answers. With the adults showing such high levels of fear, the kids are definitely going to be affected. So you need a lesson. A lesson about some of the topics that are coming up. The man in the parking lot was belligerent but ... why weren't we closing the boarders?  A lesson on epidemics then. Something that gives some answers, teaches them skills and calms them down. 

Not five years ago, you would not have had enough time to put together a serious lesson on epidemics before your classes began. But today, you open your laptop, and bring up the National Geographic Teacher's Work Room. You search for epidemics and find a lesson already prepared.  for 5-8 graders. Complete with activites, study guides and Common Core lesson plans.Mapping a London Epidemic. 

National Geographic, PBS Learning, OER (Open Education Resources) The National Archives, are all but a small lsit of departments, agencies, companies and corporations who are adding into the growing resources Common Core has allowed. It is the OpenSource movement of education. The lesson is absolutely free for you to use. No strings. 

Well, then, how good or reliable could it be? Understanding that National Geographic is a fairly solid company when it comes to information, we look at the credits

Researchers were Audrey Mohan, Ph.D. and Lindsey Mohan, Ph.D. 

Educator Reviewer: Lydia Lewis, M.Ed., Grade 5 U.S. History/Geography

Educator; National Cathedral School, Washington, D.C.

Then a mess of writers, editors and historians. 

That's how good and reliable it could be. 

The OpenSource culture loves to share knowledge and schools have always been a place they wanted to help and donate time to. But .. everyone was doing their own thing. Districts in the same State weren't even the same. There was no cross-boarder guide for development and even if you decided that one district was still worth your time and effort, next year a whole know set of standards and teaching requirements could make your project useless. 

With Common Core, we have a stable, and nation wide set of standards. Not a curriculum, just standards for education, and teaching. But that's all the OpenSource people needed. Just something stable to build on. And as a country we have already been through the upstart and blossoming of the OpenSource culture with Linux. So businesses like National Geographic aren't balking like they might have back in 2002 -- scared about all the new logics and how could it make profit if it was free and  the cost.. Who is paying for this?  No. They are all over it this time.

Not just companies, but the teachers themselves. With Common Core, you are all on a familiar ground with each other. Most of the site collections have ratings and comments right there with the lesson. NG doesn't fro some reason, but you are running out of time. Kids are going to be here soon. So -- Tweeter

 - @MrKsTweets @GeoEducators @NatGeoEducation  #ebola  found this lesson on NG Mapping A London Epidemic? Anyone use this? Rating? Hints? Tips?

Instant connection to thousands of other teachers across the nation. By calling out, you are letting them know that you have found something. In answer they are giving you  experience, and insights you couldn't pay enough to receive. 

Next time I'll talk about what is between our kids, and this amazing resource that makes teachers more effective and brings into the classroom what millions of dollars could not accomplish. 

Looking for more Cool Stuff until then? Check out OER OpenSource Education Resources.