Thursday, March 20, 2014

Something for K12 and something for Higher Education today March 20 2014


These articles speak for themselves and make for a great conversation, so please chime in!

K12:

“California Groups Urge Schools to Spend on Student Support Staff, Not Police”

“Two California groups released a policy brief today that asks school districts in the state to use new funding to lessen the gap in spending between school security and student support and engagement initiatives.”

 

“An overreliance on school-based police in many districts, including many that serve large numbers of poor and minority students, has led to overly harsh discipline and too many referrals of students to the justice system, the Los Angeles-based Labor/Community Strategy Center's Community Rights Campaign and the Oakland-based Black Organizing Project said in the report.”

 

“"We have watched our school budgets be increasingly devoted to law-enforcement-based school security strategies at the expense of vital support and educational services that students need," said the report, called "The New Separate and Unequal: Using California's Local Control Funding Formula to Dismantle the School-to-Prison Pipeline."”

 


 

Children are not the enemy!

 

HigheEd:

“The Adjunct Is In. But Is She Getting Paid?”

“Earlier this semester, Betsy Smith asked students in her intermediate ESL course at Cape Cod Community College to read Bridge to Terabithia, the children’s-lit classic. The request came with an assignment: Everyone in the class was to hold a presentation exploring one cultural aspect of the book.”

“One student, a guitar player from Brazil, wanted to present on Bob Dylan’s “Blowin’ in the Wind,” which figures briefly in the novel. At the start of a class session—the course is held every Wednesday night from 6:30 to 9:30—he told Smith he could use some help with the musical portion of his presentation. He asked the professor: Can we meet during your office hours to go over some ideas?”

“For many professors, that’d be a standard request. But Smith is an adjunct, and she shares her office with as many as 18 other part-time professors.”

““I don’t have office hours,” she told the student. He gave her a puzzled look. “­­

“Students still tend to assume that there are set hours each week when they can count on finding their professors seated at their desks, ready to help all comers. But the push and pull over office hours is a daily challenge for adjuncts, who make up the majority of faculty in academe. For one thing, there’s the fact that most part-time faculty, like Smith, don’t have their own private office spaces. Adjuncts are also often pressed for time, especially if they’re cobbling together multiple gigs at different institutions to make ends meet. On top of that, there’s the money issue: Most adjuncts are not compensated for the hours they put in helping students outside the classroom.”

“For Smith, compensation (or lack thereof) is the key factor. She would be happy to meet with her students during set office hours, she says, if her college agreed to pay her for holding them.”


This one will be an interesting debate.

I hope your week is going well and please remember to keep all discussions productive and respectful.

Dr Flavius A B Akerele III

The ETeam


No comments:

Post a Comment

Please be respectful, thoughtful, and relevant with your comments:))