WATCH: It Only Takes a Girl

Republicans will protect your rights if you are:

His list forgets that immortal person known as a “corporation.”

(Source: heardtheworldtoday, via sexymuscledudes)

joshology101:

The back says “BE A CRIMINAL, GET MORE FUNDING”. Powerful.

(via redebbm)

The absurdity of what is being constructed as “education reform” gets called out in Beyond Silver Bullets for American Education, Pedro Noguera and Randi Weingarten’s insightful rendering of the current state of things. More importantly, they offer the following sound recommendations on how we can improve schools, teaching, and learning in America’s future:

1.) Teaching is a combination of art and skill that can take years to master. For this reason we must ensure that new teachers learn their craft through solid training, mentoring and extended induction programs. There must also be a commitment to provide continuing education for all teachers, just as we do for professionals in other sectors where the nature of the work is constantly changing.

2.) The tenure process can be made more rigorous by including evidence of teacher effectiveness based on multiple measures of student learning.

3.) The process for removing teachers who are ineffective must be expedited through agreements with union locals. We must ensure due process in the evaluation of teachers so that the decision to remove a teacher is not arbitrary; but once a determination has been made, the teacher should be promptly removed and replaced. The American Federation of Teachers has proposed ways of fixing the broken evaluation system so it becomes a mechanism to improve instruction, as well as assess how teachers and schools are doing in a fair and comprehensive way. More than fifty districts and their union partners across the country have already begun implementing this new use of teacher evaluation.

4.) We must focus on improving conditions for teaching and learning by keeping class size low, especially for the most disadvantaged students, and providing supplemental support (tutors, mentors and intervention specialists) for children who require more assistance.

5.) We must address disparities in funding between schools and districts, to ensure that all children have access to the resources that maximize their opportunity to learn.

6.) A coherent curriculum that is aligned with state or national standards should be provided in all schools. Such a curriculum should be designed to promote higher-order thinking skills, creativity, problem-solving and opportunities for children to see how knowledge can be applied in the real world.

7.) Whenever practical, teachers should be involved in decision-making processes related to the focus and content of the curriculum, the design of academic programs and the organization and structure of the school day.

According to the law SB0049 (readable at http://capitol.tn.gov/), public school teachers and students from kindergarten through eight are barred from discussing the existence of homosexuals.

Is there a nation-wide race for which state can get the most ass-backwards fastest? Is Tennessee trying to take Arizona’s lead?

Nothing like institutionalized invisibility to keep queer lives second class. And perhaps Tennessee is just trying to catch up with Arizona as the most assbackwards state in the Union.

A bill that would prohibit teachers from discussing homosexuality in the classroom before the ninth grade has advanced in Tennessee’s Senate.

Sponsored by state Sen. Stacey Campfield (R) [above], who unsuccessfully pushed the same measure for six years while serving in the House, the so-called “Don’t Say Gay” bill would make it illegal for educators to discuss any sexual behavior apart from heterosexuality with students in kindergarten up through the eighth grade.

+ here

From The Daily Beast:

Fat Studies scholars say their mission is to promote weight awareness and acceptance among populations of all types. The sociological study of obesity has been creeping into academia for over a decade, often as a subtopic of Women’s Studies or Health Sciences. But only recently has weight become a subject of study in its own right. “There would be no Fat Studies if there were no obesity epidemic,” says Esther Rothblum, a lesbian studies professor at the University of California, San Diego, and one of the earliest to research the psychology of weight bias.

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For the past few years an insert in the absentee voter packet sent out by Atascosa County, Texas, contained an instructional insert with what somebody thought was the state flag of Texas.  No one caught the mistake until a Texan studying in Japan received his packet and noticed something was amiss.

After the mistake was pointed out, the elections administrator in Atascosa County, Janice Ruple, was quick to put the blame on her predecessor.  “I don’t think it’s funny.  It’s a serious thing,” she declared, perhaps chagrined that she hadn’t noticed the mistake either in the three years she had held her office.

Now, I should be kind and point out that Chile’s and Texas’ flags are somewhat similar.  They both share the same coloration: red, white, and blue; both have a red bar on the bottom half of the flag; and both have a white star in the middle of a blue field.  So mistakenly confusing one for the other is understandable.  But in Texas itself?  I know of few other states where the citizenry are so into their flag, so the mistake really is surprising.

State Flag of Texas

Flag of Chile

Since the mistake was caught, the county elections office has corrected the flag issue.

(Source)

[via:klaatu]

This is too precious. In a state that keeps corrupting its text books, just think how much more help their children are going to need.

(Source: earthcurrent.com)

‘Tennessee is 49th in Education Funding’

Editorial cartoon for Knoxville, Tennessee’s Metro Pulse.

©Rick Baldwin. All Rights Reserved.

[via:rickbaldwin]

(via rickbaldwin-deactivated20110702)