This article responds to the National Council on Teacher Quality’s newly released ranking of teacher education programs by arguing that teacher educators need to find their voice. As policy-makers continue to search for something to blame for low student achievement in urban schools, they have fixed first on teachers and now on teacher preparation. In response, teachers and educators need to stand their ground and demand a well-deserved seat at the table. To avoid becoming a victim in the education wars, teacher educators need to speak out about what they know and need to ensure that teachers succeed and schoolchildren learn and thrive.
via TCRecord
Let me put this briefly and simply. The government should not be snooping on us. But they started anyway. That was wrong and unconstitutional. When they did, they made their snooping program secret. That was wrong twice over, a cover-up of a wrong. Then they actually lied about the existence of the program to Congress, and the bureaucrat who perjured himself doing so is getting off scot free. Trebly wrong. And now when a low-level contractor, at tremendous risk to himself, courageously blows the whistle on this operation, he is threatened with extradition and very severe prosecution, rather than being pardoned. Quadruply wrong!
1. The Fourth Amendment is clear: the government may not indiscriminately snoop our private things. In the language of the Amendment, American citizens have the right to be “secure” in their “effects” against “unreasonable searches” except “upon probable cause” and a specification of the things to be searched.
2. But indiscriminate snooping is just what PRISM does. A surveillance program that regularly searches private telephone call metadata, as well as private Internet data, of virtually all American citizens seems on its face to vi0late the Fourth Amendment.
3. So PRISM is illegal and wrong. It sure looks unconstitutional.
4. And we had a right to know about it. Why wasn’t the decision to start PRISM put before an open, public Congress? It was a decision with enormous potential consequences; it seems obvious that the American people had a right to decide whether it would be surveilled to this extent.
5. So it is doubly wrong that the PRISM program was hidden from us. We should have been able to voice our concerns to our representatives and the President when this program was started. But because it was implemented in secret, we couldn’t. When it comes to how the entire population of the U.S. is treated–not just terrorism suspects–we have a constitutional republican democracy, not a secret government.
6. James Clapper’s perjury is outrageous. When National Director of Intelligence James Clapper was asked by Sen. Ron Wyden on March 12, 2013, “Does the NSA collect any type of data at all on millions or hundreds of millions of Americans?” and he answered, “No, sir … not wittingly,” he was not merely committing perjury. He was lying about a program that Americans had a right to know about, that it was important that they know about, because it affects all Americans’ constitutional rights, and they have a right to assess and object to just such a program.
7. Edward Snowden is a hero for revealing the facts about PRISM. If it hadn’t have been for the courageous whistleblowing of Mr. Snowden, we would still be ignorant of this massive violation of our constitutional rights. Considering the huge risks to himself, his whistleblowing was simply heroic.
8. It is shockingly and trebly wrong that Edward Snowden is being persecuted for whistleblowing. It is true that, in leaking classified documents, Edward Snowden broke the law. But he did so in order to reveal a much more dangerous sort of official lawbreaking. He arguably had a moral obligation–and, fortunately, the courage–to do so, since he observed that no one else in the government was making the program public. It is outrageous that a person who reveals a wrong perpetrated by a supposedly open and democratic government is persecuted for it by that same government.
9. Instead, those responsible for PRISM–and for making it secret–should be made to answer for their actions. Even if they are not punished, they should be made to answer publicly for their clear abuse of their public trust. They should not have made this unconstitutional program, and just as importantly, it should not have been kept secret from the American people.
10. It will be quadruply wrong if Edward Snowden is not pardoned. “Often the best source of information about waste, fraud, and abuse in government is an existing government employee committed to public integrity and willing to speak out. Such acts of courage and patriotism … should be encouraged rather than stifled.” Who said this, and where? A libertarian defending Edward Snowden in Reason, perhaps? Not exactly. It was on the Obama transition team’s website in 2009, back when Obama was being lauded as a “friend” to whistleblowers.
President Obama should pardon Snowden and, probably, Clapper too–and, on the assumption that they had laudible intentions, everyone involved in the creation of the program.
And then President Obama should actually encourage a public debate, and Congressional vote, on whether PRISM should continue to exist.
Wouldn’t that be something.
In this commentary, the authors examine six assertions made by edTPA advocates about its impact on teaching and teacher education. These claims contradict the authors’ experiences and educational values because the edTPA narrows what it means to teach and undermines the core ideals of their practice.
via TCRecord
This article analyzes the complexities involved in learning to mentor, by considering how role identity and context influence two mentors as they experience the same professional development program.
via TCRecord
This study measures the impact of co-enrollment on community college success outcomes. Results demonstrate co-enrolling significantly increases students’ odds of success.
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This research reframes the roles that low-income African American parents play in their children’s lives and challenges deficit perspectives of parent involvement.
via TCRecord
With the implementation of the Common Core State Standards for Mathematics (CCSSM), there is a shared definition of what it means to know mathematics across most of the United States. This commentary highlights two issues that must be considered and accommodated if we hope to develop meaningful and rich assessments of the contemporary definition of mathematical competence represented in the CCSSM. The first issue is to identify and distinguish among multiple types of mathematical knowledge and the second is to include multi-faceted measures of productive disposition. Assessments that address these issues have the potential not only to refocus implementation on curriculum and instruction rather than on testing and evaluation but also to provide the more nuanced understanding of students’ mathematical competence that is needed to be college and career ready in accordance with the CCSSM.
via TCRecord
We examined admissions and transcript records for first-year students at Georgia Tech from 1999-2009. Patterns of AP exams completed and AP exam performance were evaluated to determine the associations between AP and graduation rates, STEM persistence, and enrollment patterns -- in isolation and in conjunction with traditional predictors (e.g., SAT and High School GPA).
via TCRecord
Drawing on direct experience, the authors, a long-time tribal leader and a non-Native academic, consider the challenges of developing partnerships between Indigenous communities (Native American, Alaska Natives, Native Hawaiians and Pacific Islanders) and U.S. higher education. While the latter gives plenty of press to its commitments to diversity and multiculturalism, the relevant history of tribes and tribal sovereignty since European contact and the epistemological contrasts in the two cultures often go overlooked – omissions that significantly impair the likelihood of successful partnership.
via TCRecord