4 reasons educators must get in the game and fight ALEC

We mentioned some of the radical education policies ALEC was seeking to push in up coming legislative sessions, here are 4 reasons educators must get in the game and fight ALEC

1. ALEC puts the profits of corporations before the welfare of students. Virtual schools and for-profit charters do NOT do all that a neighborhood school can do—so why does its Virtual Public Schools Act insist those corporate ventures should receive the same public funding?
2. ALEC thinks its corporate members know better than your community how to run your schools. A common theme throughout ALEC education bills is to reduce local control of parents and democratically elected school boards.
3. ALEC would have you giving more standardized tests. When they say they want to” apply marketplace standards” to education, they mean they want to increase the reliance on standardized testing to judge student and teacher performance.
4. ALEC thinks corporations deserve “a voice and a vote” (their words) more than U.S. citizens do! Although it has disbanded its highly controversial Public Safety and Elections Task Force, the damage has been done: an estimated 5 million eligible voters will have a more difficult time exercising their right to vote in the 2012 election.

For more on how you can get invovled, you can go here.

Straight Talk on Teaching Quality

The Annenberg Institute for School Reform at Brown University recently published a paper titled "Straight Talk on Teaching Quality: Six Game-Changing Ideas and What to Do About Them" , described this guide as being "about game-changing strategies for improving teacher effectiveness".

The six headlines (organized around "The problem, what needs to happen, who is doing something good, and what can I do) are:

• Follow Your Bliss: Career Pathways for Teachers
• Evaluation Nation: Multiple Ways of Measuring Performance
• Support for Teachers, Not Just Rewards and Sanctions: Why Firing Teachers Won't Lead to Large-Scale Improvement
• Environmentally Friendly: Why School Culture and Working Conditions Matter
• No Teacher is an Island: the Importance of In-School Partnerships and Teacher Collaboration
• No School Is an Island: Partnerships with Parents and Community

It's a short read, and worth the time.

Straight Talk on Teaching Quality: Six Game-Changing Ideas and What to Do About Them

Harder to deal than to teach

After we published this story about the hypocrisy of Senate Chief Of Staff Matt Schuler getting an appoinment as the executive director of the Casino Control Commission, we got an email from a reader that we found so hard to believe we had to do some checking.

Our reader pointed out that it requires more training to become a prospective Ohio casino dealer than a Teacher for America teacher.

Right from the Teach for American website

All corps members must attend a five-week training institute in full before they begin teaching. Corps members must attend the institute to which their region is assigned.

A lot of teachers are rightly insulted that a 200 hour training course can now be substitued for years of higher education, professional development and training. It turns out casino's think you need more than 5 weeks just to deal Blackjack and Poker!

The Dispatch

The school hired seasoned dealers to teach blackjack, poker and craps. And it set up a school at the casino to teach the trainees, supported by funding from the state.

"We trained over 400 people to start up the operation, and now we're down to training about 40 people every six weeks," Hubbard said.

6 weeks! We thought we would check that claim out. The Blue Ridge Community and Technical College is a state-supported institution within the West Virginia Community and Technical College system and provides accredited training for prospective casino employees. Here's their curriculum

Introduction to Casino Games: This course covers the general responsibilities of the dealer and is a pre-requisite for other table games training courses. Emphasis is placed on correct chip handling techniques, identifying the value of each color chip, learning to read the total value of a bet, and pit procedures. 40 hours (4 hours per day, 5 days per week, 2 weeks) Cost: $200.00

Blackjack: This course covers the fundamentals of dealing Blackjack. Emphasis is placed on card totaling, chip handling and cutting, card shuffling and card placement. Attention is given to game and accounting procedures, accuracy, and speed. 80 hours (4 hours per day, 5 days per week, 4 weeks) Cost: $400.00

Roulette: This course covers the fundamentals of dealing Roulette. Emphasis is placed on chip handling, table layout, accurate and quick mental multiplication, and accuracy in clearing the table. 80 hours (4 hours per day, 5 days per week, 4 weeks) Cost: $400.00

Poker: This course covers the fundamentals of dealing Poker. Instruction is provided in the fundamentals of rake/antes/blind bets, game rules and regulations, dealer’s responsibilities and game security. 80 hours (4 hours per day, 5 days per week, 4 weeks) Cost: $400.00

Craps: This course covers the fundamentals of dealing craps. Emphasis is placed on the knowledge of the procedures on a variety of bets, accurate and quick mental multiplication and chip handling. Special attention is given to game procedures, accounting procedures, accuracy and speed. 160 hours (4 hours per day, 5 days per week, 8 weeks) Cost: $700.00

Midi Baccarat: This course is designed to train students in all aspects of dealing Midi Baccarat. Students will learn about the equipment used, the rules and object of the game, check handling and odds. Extensive hands on training is used to assist students in mastering all aspects of this exciting game. 80 hours (4 hours per day, 5 days per week, 4 weeks) Cost: $400.00

To take all these casino card game training courses would consume 13 weeks, 6 times longer than TFA thinks it takes to train a classroom ready teacher. If the course were offered for 8 hours a day it would still take 6.5 weeks to complete, and week and a half longer than the TFA training

There's something deeply wrong when we think it takes longer to traing card dealers than teachers.