The CEA Blog

The blogosphere has been awash recently with posts about the 25th anniversary of “A Nation At Risk” (ANAR). For the uninitiated, ANAR was a report received by President Ronald Reagan that American schools were lacking compared to other nation’s educational systems. Without reform, the report said, American students would be in a race– for the bottom.

The CEA Blog has been fortunate enough to acquire a slightly used Flux Capacitor and retrofit a union-made car for the trip of a lifetime. We asked a number of edu-bloggers the question “What would the American educational landscape be like today if A Nation At Risk were never released?” and loaned them the time machine. Their trips produced interesting posts; they’ll begin popping up next week.

The American Federation of Teachers (AFT) recently released “Sizing Up State Standards 2008″, a report that analyzes the content standards written by individual states. Ohio’s K-12 Math and Science standards were ranked as “model” standards, but English and Social Studies weren’t ranked. You can read what AFT wrote about it on their blog, or download (PDF) the whole report.

Welcome to the Carnival of Education! This is the 167th carnival, and the second time The CEA Blog has hosted this wonderful collection of rantings, musings, quotations, ideas, thoughts, inspirations, realizations and the like. The 168th edition will be hosted by the Education Wonks; email them at owlshome {at} earthlink {dot} net, or use this handy submission form. Yes, for those of you wondering, the picture is a snapshot of our fair city. Without further ado, click on the jump below and…. let’s Carnival!

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The recent campaign launched by the Center For Union Facts (CUF) has wrongly placed the highly qualified and hard-working teachers of the Columbus Education Association in its crosshairs with the release of its anti-teacher smear campaign.

Click on the jump below to read more.

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March 2nd marks what would be the 104th birthday of Theodore Seuss Geisel, known most popularly as Dr. Seuss to children and teachers around the world. Monday, March 3rd marks the National Education Association’s nationwide “Read Across America” day.

Various teachers celebrate this special day differently. NEA-affiliated blogger PREA Prez has his students make “Cat-in-the-hat” hats and read Dr. Seuss’ last book– Diffendoofer Day.

“All schools for miles and miles around
Must take a special test,
To see who’s learning such and such -
To see which school’s the best.
If our small school does not do well,
Then it will be torn down,
And you will have to go to school
In dreary Flobbertown.”

Read more after the jump below. 

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In early September of this year, The CEA Voice reported that the Columbus Education Association Foundation had become certified by the Ohio Department of Education to provide Supplemental Education Services (SES) to Columbus City Schools students under the No Child Left Behind Legislation (NCLB). The CEA Foundation will be completely responsible for managing the hiring, curriculum and federal money that comes with the program. This is the only SES program in the state of Ohio to be run through a local teacher’s union.

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The Ohio Department of Education recently released the first annual report on students’ progress using value-added data for Ohio’s 610 school districts. The students of Columbus City Schools earned the district the highest rating possible from the state, achieving over a year’s worth of academic progress in a single school year. CCS joins other local suburban school districts, such as Bexley, Dublin, Hilliard, New Albany-Plain and Upper Arlington that are ranked in the top category. This rating puts CCS in the top half of all school districts across the state, surpassing Grandview Heights and Worthington City Schools, the only district in Franklin County given the “A” rating by the state of Ohio. 

This data shows the enormous gains that Columbus Public School teachers make with their students. “Our students are growing more academically than anywhere in Central Ohio,” responded Columbus Education Association President Rhonda Johnson. “With the implementation of value-added, the high performance of our students and teachers have truly been documented in a way that has not yet accurately been shown on state report cards.” 

Click on the jump below to continue reading.

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In this edition: National Board Certified Teachers abound, a CCS teacher is a finalist for an NEA award, 8 CCS high schools rank nationally, finances and much more! Click on the jump below to continue.

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