Mercedes Schneider Reviews 20 Amendments to Senate ESEA Proposal

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1. Andrew King says:

   April 24, 2015 at 1:20 pm

   Peripherally related to ESEA… please look into and report on this new development – it is disturbing and distressing. So much for no child being left behind, and screw Lau, Castaneda, ESEA, the 14th Amendment, and good old common decency. (I haven’t done anything with my blog in 2 years … I used to get a few thousand reads a month) otherwise I certainly would have.) Thank you! Keep up the great work!

   Headline: NYCLU, LSCNY Sue Utica School District for Illegally Denying Refugee Youth an Education

   http://www.nyclu.org/news/nyclu-lscny-sue-utica-school-district-illegally-denying-refugee-youth-education

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2. Jim Realini says:

   April 24, 2015 at 1:48 pm

   From Mercedes Schnieder’s review of the emerging ESEA Legislation:

   Casey_TitleIV_Amendment#3 – Signed:

   This single-page amendment to Title IV (“Safe and Healthy Students”) adds the possibility of states using Title IV funds for “designing and implementing a grant process for local entities that wish to use funds to reduce exclusionary discipline practices in elementary schools and secondary schools, in a manner consistent with State or Federally identified best practices on the subject.”

   In other words, states can pass Title IV funds to local districts in order to help the districts cut down on discipline that removes the student from the classroom, such as suspensions and expulsions.

   While Expulsions & Suspensions have dubious individual effects, does this provision along for “Alternative, in-school programs” in lieu of suspensions or expulsions?
   One of the problems of keeping disruptive students in classes is that there is no place where they can go to unlearn their disruption.

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   • retired teacher says:

     April 24, 2015 at 2:05 pm

     One effective alternative that my district did was “in school suspension.” Students had to sit quietly in a room while teachers sent assignments to the students to allow students got to keep up with the class. This practice resulted in better conduct because the students hated the isolation. A different teacher covered the room each period as their duty period. It also avoided the problem of unsupervised students roaming the neighborhood getting into trouble, and the students didn’t get to hang out at home for the day partying.

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3. Andrew King says:

   April 24, 2015 at 2:51 pm

   It has to be handled well, properly staffed, with an attendant who is also a school official who is authorized ot make parent contact, etc… to follow up, track frequent ISS attendees, etc… ISS at the high school in Syracuse where I taught was a joke. It was so common a punishment it was meaningless, and the students, many of them, would RATHER be in there than in class anyway. Students were given ISS as the punishment of choice, because the district was getting so much bad press about their out-of-school suspension numbers. It was a dumping ground. Takeaway: There’s a way to do it wro

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   • Andrew King says:

     April 24, 2015 at 2:52 pm

     Sorry, this was supposed to be a response to “retired teacher”‘s comment.

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     • retired teacher says:

       April 24, 2015 at 3:42 pm

       I worked in a relatively small suburban district so we had no more than seven students on in school suspension. Some days no students were suspended. If you’re going to put thirty troubled students in a room with a teacher that doesn’t really know them, I can see it could be a dumping ground.

4. retired teacher says:

   April 24, 2015 at 5:43 pm

   I see that portfolios are acceptable forms of assessment. How would this work in our data driven world? Portfolio assessment does not lend itself to a scantron sheet.

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