he wasn't even looking at me and he found me
oozey mess
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Misplaced Lens Cap
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One Nice Bug Per Day
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Lint Roller? I Barely Know Her
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We're Moving! New Hosting Service
We’re Moving! New Hosting Service
We’ve just moved hosting services from wordpress.com to wordpress.org. We would very much appreciate it if anyone experiences any difficulties accessing any part of the site would let us know at [email protected] so we can fix it. Thanks!
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Recruiting Late-Career Professionals to Teaching
Recruiting Late-Career Professionals to Teaching
From the Huffington Post and Memphis Teacher Daniel DeShon (reprinted with his permission):
Over the hill. Past his prime. As someone who came to the teaching profession in my fifties, I have heard all of these comments and more. I, however, see my age as an advantage. Late-career professionals bring with them real-world experience. We bring patience that comes from years of learning the hard way…
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By The Numbers: Middle School Performance in Shelby County
By The Numbers: Middle School Performance in Shelby County #TNedu
TCAP data for the 2013-14 school-year has been released. And, since I’m particularly interested in middle school (transparency: I work for a public charter middle school), I’ve been analyzing trends in 6th-8th grades. But, first, some context.
Post-merger Shelby County Schools (SCS) is a portfolio district that oversees a total of 247 schools across the city of Memphis, six different…
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Just the Facts: A Longitudinal Analysis of ASD Schools Before and After Takeover
Just the Facts: A Longitudinal Analysis of ASD Schools Before and After Takeover #Tnedu
Written by Ezra Howard
Intro
The Achievement School District (ASD) took over its first schools two years ago. Its goal is to move the bottom 5% of schools in Tennessee to the top 25% in five years. All but one of its takeover schools have been in Memphis. ASD has released data on its performance for the past two years, which has been subpar at best even by its own acknowledgement (need link to…
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Should We Pay Kids to Go To School?
Should We Pay Kids to Go To School?
Yesterday a friend from Cincinnati asked me if I’d read a piece in Politico that discussed an innovative new program in Memphis targeting poverty by, as he put it, “paying kids to go to school.” I’d never heard of this program, so of course I had to go check it out.
Turns out this program has been going since 2011. It’s called the Memphis Family Rewards Programand it pays parents and kids to…
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Alternative Teachers Need Alternative Evaluations
Alternative Teachers Need Alternative Evaluations
Teacher evaluations always seemed fairly routine to me. Not much fanfare, not too many problems, even at the alternative school where I teach. However, that changed for me last summer. As I was enjoying my favorite way to wind down before the start of another year, a spa day, I checked my phone only to find numerous calls and texts from my colleagues. I assumed something was terribly wrong so I…
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Memphis KIPP Teacher Honored with National Network Award
As teachers, we often labor under the burden of anonymity, never sure whether or not our tremendous efforts will be truly recognized by anyone but ourselves and our students. We aren’t in it for fame and glory, but at the same time, we need positive feedback to affirm the challenging job we do day in and day out.
This past week Andrea Criollo, a 6th grade teacher at KIPP Memphis Academy Middle,…
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New School Board Makeup (?)
SCS Board winners appear to be Caldwell, King, McCormick, Avant and Austin. Results likely to hold with majority of precincts reporting
I’ve been watching the polls all night and I need to hit the sack so I can be on my A game for school tomorrow. As of 10:27, it appears our school board winners are likely to be the following individuals:
District 1: Chris Caldwell
District 3: Teddy King
District 5: Scott McCormick
District 6: Shante Avant
District 9: Roshun Austin
Here’s a snapshot of the most up to date voting data as of 10:27,
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A Teaching Profession for My Generation #TNedu This post originally appeared in the Commercial Appeal on Sunday, August 3rd 2014. I have a confession: Halfway through my second year of teaching, I was questioning whether teaching was really the right career for me.
ASD vs SCS: Who's Doing Better, and Is It Enough to Close the Achievement Gap?
SCS vs ASD: Who's doing better, and is it enough to close the achievement gap? #TNedu
On Monday this week the state of Tennessee released their system-specific achievement data from this past year. ChalkbeatTNhas already done some excellent infographics over on their site comparing SCS to Tennessee and legacy-MCS/SCS. I wanted to get more specific than they do when it comes to Shelby County Schools and the Achievement School District (ASD) and see if we can answer the following…
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The Difference Between Calculation and Mathematics
What's the Difference Between Calculation and Mathematics? Common Core! #iteachiam
In mid-July last year, I was ready to try something completely different. I had previously taught Algebra I, but I was moving to a new content; geometry. I’d taught it before under the old Tennessee state standards but had left the course feeling like the kids never truly connected to the content. They were great at calculating and finding the right answer, but weren’t connecting to the math.…
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Four Little Tips to Transform Your Classroom
Four Little Tips to Transform Your Classroom from @TNedu #TNBackToSchool #iteachiam
This post was featured on Classroom Chronicle on Wednesday, July 23rd 2014
Another school year is almost upon us! Along with content, systems and management planning, thinking strategically about how you set up your classroom this year will boost student engagement and success all year long. How does classroom set up do this, you ask? Classroom setup directly correlates to classroom management.…
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Supporting Our Future Means Supporting Our Students
Supporting Our Future Means Supporting Our Students #TNedu
This past Sunday was our one year anniversary! In celebration I decided to look back at what I was writing at this time last year when it was only me. This is the piece that ran on July 21st last year, and I think it’s still as relevant as ever, particularly with elections coming up. As you interact with city councilmen, county commissioners, school board candidates and mayoral candidates, make…
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What do the new Special Education Accountability measures mean?
What do the new Special Education Accountability measures mean?
This piece originally appeared on Think Inclusive on July 8th, 2014 and has been reprinted with permission of the author: Millions of students with disabilities (SWD) are receiving substandard educations. So says the Obama administration, which recently announced a major overhaul in special education accountability. Officials in Tennessee applaud the change.
To understand the shift, a little…
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SCS School Board Elections: Damon Morris Policy Positions
SCS School Board Elections: Damon Morris Policy Positions
District 9 Overview: District 9 covers portions of Midtown, East Memphis and Southeast Memphis. District 9 candidates are Roshun Austin, Michael Kernell and Damon Morris. Mr. Morris was the only candidate to submit his positions for publication.
District 9 in yellow, highlighted in yellow for emphasis
Background QuestionsDistrict in which you are running and years lived in the district:
I am…
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Omega 3's and Algebra: The SCS Candidate Forum
Omega 3′s and Algebra: The SCS Candidate Forum
It was a dark and stormy night…but inside First Baptist church on Broad Street dozens of community members and almost a dozen school board members turned out to the BAEO/Students First candidate forum! We were live tweeting the event, check out our twitter recap on storify.com by following the link below to track all the action, what was asked and who said what (yes, the title is related to a…
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Does Overemphasizing Data Corrupt Good People?
Does Overemphasizing Data Corrupt Good People?
The New Yorker just released a comprehensive piece on the data-driven cheating scandal in Atlanta, GA. A lot has has been written about this, but the author, Rachel Aviv, puts a different spin on it by telling the story through the eyes of a dedicated middle school teacher who sincerely believed that in cheating he was doing the best he could for his students.
While I think we can all agree that…
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