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The Share My Lesson Virtual Conference: March 11-13

Virtual Conference

  • Professional development hours.
  • Great new ideas for your classroom.
  • Lesson plans that actually work with kids.
  • Evening entertainment almost as good as Scandal.

 

If you’re looking for any of these things, then join the AFT’s Share My Lesson in their first virtual conference. Teaching & Learning: Ideas & Innovations 2014 is an online festival of professional learning featuring over two dozen free workshops by Share My Lesson’s content partners, educational leaders, and expert teachers.

Held in the afternoons and evenings of March 11-13, 2014, you’ll simply log into your computer to attend these free events. There is no travel, lost class time, or any cost.

The keynote speaker is AFT president, Randi Weingarten, who kicks off the conference at 5:00 PM CST on Tuesday, March 11th with her message on Reclaiming the Promise of Public Education.

To register for sessions, see the complete online agenda here. Register for each workshop separately to ensure you get credit for your attendance. And if you haven’t yet signed up for Share My Lesson, do so today. Participation in the conference is exclusive to registered users.

We reclaim the promise when we support teachers and help them to be as effective as possible in the classroom. Register for Teaching & Learning: Ideas & Innovations today.

 

 

Ideas and Innovations

 

Ideas and Innovations is a virtual festival of professional learning on the evenings of March 11-13 2014. Presented by the content leaders and partners of Share My Lesson, you will enjoy engaging webinars on everything from arts education and civics to the Common Core. With two-dozen webinars to choose from, there’s something for every educator and parent.

 

 

Registration

 

Participation in Ideas and Innovations is limited to subscribers of Share My Lesson. It’s free to sign up for our site and for the workshops, so if you haven’t done so, sign up for Share My Lesson now. Once you’ve joined Share My Lesson, click on the individual workshop registration link to sign up. You will need to register for each workshop individually in order for us to keep attendance records for those seeking professional learning credits.

 

Keynote Address

Reclaiming the Promise of Public Education 
Randi Weingarten, President, American Federation of Teachers

Our public schools represent our nation’s commitment to helping all children dream their dreams and achieve them. A high-quality public education for all children is an economic necessity, an anchor of democracy, a moral imperative and a fundamental civil right, without which none of our other rights can be fully realized.
6:00 – 6:45pm EST/ 3:00 – 3:45pm PST — Register

 

Free Webinars

Choose from two-dozen workshop choices:

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Diane Ravitch: “Time to Halt the Madness, Greed, and Insanity”


 

Diane Ravitch describes herself as a 75-year-old reformed reformer. For her grandchildren and others, she is sounding the alarm about public education and its undoing through testing, accountability, choice and competition. A one-time believer in market forces to achieve reform, the former education official from the first Bush administration now sees that it hasn’t worked.

She is “the conscience of America,” said AFT President Randi Weingarten in introducing Ravitch to a rapt audience of 250 gathered at AFT headquarters on Feb. 4 for a continuing conversation about reclaiming the promise of public education. “Diane Ravitch talks the talk and walks the walk on behalf of kids.”

“The destruction of public education is not progress,” Ravitch warned. “It’s regress.”

She sees the evidence when she looks around the country, she noted—and she’s been looking plenty, both as a researcher and in her travels on a book tour to promote Reign of Error: The Hoax of the Privatization Movement and the Danger to America’s Public Schools.

For example, in Philadelphia, they are cutting budgets, closing schools, firing teachers and increasing class size while the governor gives corporations big tax cuts. “I think it’s a disgrace when we can afford so much as a society but can’t afford to give the children of Detroit, Philadelphia, St. Louis or Indianapolis the schools they deserve,” she declared.

The other disgrace, she said, is the myth that we are a nation of failing schools. She cited National Assessment of Educational Progress scores that refute the myth, as well as the highest high school graduation rates and the lowest dropout rates. Yet in the past 20 years, we’ve labored under a “test-test-test” obsession that has used billions of federal dollars in competitive, punitive ways that have harmed schools and children. She wrote Reign of Error to deconstruct that narrative of “reform,” she said, adding that none of our high-performing competitor nations are privatizing or embracing charter schools or vouchers, as the United States is. The current push for breaking up school systems and relying on testing and data is not working. Her book features facts, data and charts—evidence, not ideology.

 

The good news is that parents are rising up in rebellion against closing schools in Newark, Chicago and Philadelphia. They are opposing a culture of testing that pushes out the arts, science—even recess—and snuffs out children’s natural joy of learning.

Ravitch advocated a “life-care” approach to education to replace the “madness, greed and insanity” of current ideology. This means investments in prenatal care, early childhood education—birth through pre-K—and wraparound services in schools, including healthcare to address poverty, the biggest obstacle to student success.

There are two different paradigms out there, she said. One, the status quo, says measure and rank everyone, and parcel out opportunity. But she and those who would reclaim the promise of education embrace another. “I dream of a world where the purpose of education is human development, where everyone has a pedagogy of kindness, where we respect people who help children.”

We want for all children what parents want for their own, noted Weingarten in closing: “to develop trusting relationships with adults, to learn to solve problems, to develop character, to acquire the persistence—the grit—needed to confront adversity.” That is what reclaiming the promise of public education is all about.

[Barbara McKenna, Jessica Smith/photos by John Harrington]

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Hilton Teacher Treks Program

For more information, Click Here

What is the Hilton Teacher Treks Program?

 

Sponsored by Hilton Worldwide, the Hilton Teacher Treks Program is meant to bring people together and foster greater understanding between the U.S. and other countries. This program allows U.S. primary and secondary level teachers to go abroad for 2-3 weeks to travel, explore and experience culture firsthand. The Institute of International Education (IIE) administers the Hilton Teacher Treks Program on behalf of Hilton Worldwide.

 

Who is eligible to apply?

 

Applicants for the Hilton Worldwide Teacher Treks Program must be U.S. citizens at the time of application, be fluent in English, be a K-12 classroom teacher currently employed full-time at an accredited school in the U.S. and must have taught for at least three years at the time of application.

Learn more about eligibility

 

Apply now

 

The 2014 Hilton Worldwide Teacher Treks Program online application is now open!

Start your application today

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Union Made: Love with a Union Label on Valentine’s Day

hearts

 

Why not give your valentine some union-made sweets this Feb. 14, toast your love with champagne that carries a union label or touch up your pheromones a bit with some smell-good union-made scents.

It turns out there are many union-made treats you can give out on Valentine’s Day. The iconic Necco candy Sweethearts conversation hearts are made by members of the Bakery, Confectionery, Tobacco Workers and Grain Millers (BCTGM). Several familiar sparkling libations such as J. Roget and Tott’s are produced by the United Food and Commercial Workers (UFCW). Here are some more products compiled by our friends at Labor 411, the union business directory from the Los Angeles County Federation of Labor, made by union members.

Want info on more union-made products? Text MADE to 235246 (standard data and message rates may apply). 

Chocolate

  • See’s Candies
  • Russell Stover
  • Ghirardelli Chocolate
  • Hershey’s Kisses and Hugs

Champagne

  • Andre
  • Cook’s
  • Eden Roc
  • J. Roget
  • Jacques Bonet
  • Jacques Reynard
  • JFJ
  • Le Domaine
  • Tott’s
  • Wycliff

Smell Good

  • Hugo Boss
  • Pierre Cardin
  • Avon
  • Old Spice
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Bossier Votes for Pay Raise – Sonja Varnell (Apollo) Represents RRU at Meeting

moneyiyplogo

On February 6, 2014, the Bossier Parish School Board approved across-the-board pay raises for all Bossier Parish teachers and support personnel.

1)      Performance Evaluation Stipends for Teachers (Highly Effective $1000; Effective Proficient $400; Effective Emerging $100) and Educational Leaders (Highly Effective $100; Effective Proficient $100), as well as TAP Stipends (as identified by the TAP process at each school for our TAP schools) based on the employee’s 2012-13 Performance Rating will be issued on February 28, 2014.

2)      The Board approved an across the board 1.5% pay raise for all employees starting with the 2014-15 School Year and an additional across the board 3.5% pay raise for all employees with the 2016-17 School year.

3)      The Board approved changes in the job status of AFJROTC Instructors from 12 month employees to 11 month employees starting with the 2014-15 school year.

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Red River United Packs the Room for the Legislative Dinner

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Mission statement for the event: “We gather here today, as educational professionals and elected leaders, to break bread while discussing the working, teaching, and learning realities of our public school system. We hope to find common ground and a shared purpose of reclaiming the promise of public education in the upcoming legislative session.”  

Over 60 members and potential members from Caddo, Bossier, Red River, and Webster Parishes were in attendance.

MP Wray, Legislative Director of the Louisiana Federation of Teachers led the discussion of solution-driven initiatives and legislation that the union is pursuing this year. Members gave moving testimony and shared personal stories, at times challenging the legislators in attendance to understand the reality of teaching and working in the public school system. The discussion centered around eight policy areas: “standards” and the overuse of standardized test scores (testimony on the importance of planning time); lack of stakeholder inclusion in policy making; compensation and leave policy improvements (testimony on maternity leave, extended sick leave, evaluations, and tenure); student nutrition as a foundation for learning (spirited testimony and debate arose on the importance of seated lunch time for students); local autonomy for local dollars; prioritizing spending in our state budget (testimony on the importance of increasing MFP dollars and making sure our support personnel are not left out!); pensions (testimony on the PBI); and paycheck choice (testimony on the importance of leaving our right to payroll deduction alone).

Red River United urges all members to get involved in our legislative initiatives. Our COPE Committee (Committee on Political Education) is centered around member’s advocating for policy that will preserve public education and advance the health and welfare of our members. Legislators need to hear from you, so get involved with the RRU COPE Committee: https://redriverunited.org/category/ace-legs-cope/

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PARCC Taskforce – Red River United Members Are At The Table

Red River United is At the Table! Princess Hill and Nikki Doughty represent RRU at PARCC. 

The American Federation of Teachers, in conjunction with Red River President Jackie Lansdale and Caddo Parish School Board Chief Academic Officer Keith Burton, have nominated Princess Hill (Summer Grove Elementary) and Nikki Doughty (Keithville Elementary) for a rare opportunity to work with the Partnership for Assessment of Readiness for College and Careers (PARCC).

This opportunity will allow access for Princess and Nikki to the work of the assessment consortia developing Common Core-aligned assessments. Finally educators are at the table! We believe this work will be a tremendous benefit to our union and to all of our local educators in Caddo and Bossier Parishes. The project is being supported by a grant from the Helmsley Charitable Trust, a New York City-based foundation, to PARCC to work with members of both the AFT and the NEA.

PARCC Project Information: Recruiting a total of 36 teachers for the project-18 English Language Arts and 18 mathematics teachers (NATION WIDE).

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Patrick Woolbert joins RRU as the In-House Attorney!

Red River United Adds an In-House Attorney! 

A Shreveport native, Patrick Woolbert, Esq. is the newest addition to the Red River United business attorneys. Mr. Woolbert earned his J.D. from the Paul M. Hebert Law Center at LSU, and his B.A. in Psychology from Centenary College of Louisiana.

While representing members of Red River United in grievance proceedings, Mr. Woolbert is able to analyze issues not only under school policy, but also according to Louisiana and Federal law. Mr. Woolbert is available to meet with you concerning your work-related issues, as well as other legal issues that you may have.

Outside of his duties at Red River United, Mr. Woolbert operates a client-focused law practice, specializing in personal injury, criminal defense, estate planning, and divorce.