Bay Bridge to remain closed until Wednesday - Sacramento News - Local and Breaking Sacramento News | Sacramento Bee

Bay Bridge to remain closed until Wednesday - Sacramento News - Local and Breaking Sacramento News Sacramento Bee:

"The San Francisco-Oakland Bay Bridge will remain closed until Wednesday morning as workers scurry to repair a crack in the bridge's east span near Yerba Buena Island, state highway officials said Monday."

The bridge has been closed in both directions since Thursday night as part of a major seismic repair, and was expected to be reopened for the Tuesday morning commute. That work is near completion.

However, the surprise discovery of a large crack in an "eyebar" this weekend has forced emergency repairs that will require the bridge remain closed longer. Caltrans officials said they now expect to reopen the bridge by 5 a.m. Wednesday.

Commuters traveling into San Francisco can expect delays on other bridges and crowds on BART and bay ferries.

Private sector investing in charter schools - Salon.com

Private sector investing in charter schools - Salon.com:

"'We're not speculators, we're investors, so I have to invest in property making money for me and my customers today,' said Brain, whose trust oversees a $2.6 billion portfolio. 'The charter public schools offer lenders/leaseholders a dependable revenue stream backed by a government payer. It's a very desirable equation.'"

Text of Obama’s Speech to Students

Education News & Comment:

Text of Obama’s Speech to Students

"President Obama’s Address to Students
Across America September 8, 2009"

Watch Live on sacdac.org September 8 At 9 AM PT

“Education Finance Districts” Headed to the Governor at californiascapitol.com

“Education Finance Districts” Headed to the Governor at californiascapitol.com

Awaiting a final vote on the Assembly floor is legislation aimed at making it easier for school districts to raise local revenue.

The measure, AB 267, was sent to the Assembly Sept. 3 by the 40-member Senate, which approved it on a party line 23 to 14 vote. The Assembly is expected to send the bill to Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger before Sept. 11, the end of the 2009 legislative session.

While it does not lower the two-thirds voter approval necessary to raise taxes both at the state and local level, the bill creates “education finance districts” in which three or more contiguous school districts can band together to try to increase local taxes.

After agreeing on how to divide and spend any new tax revenue, the districts could then collectively place a parcel tax on the ballot for voter approval.
Under current law, only individual school districts can attempt to increase parcel taxes within their district boundaries.

“Our schools are being starved for funding, and communities must be able to act to ensure that the education of our children doesn’t suffer,” said Assemblyman Tom Torlakson, an Antioch Democrat, the bill’s author and a candidate for state superintendent of public instruction in 2010.

“This measure brings local communities together so they can take their case for funding directly to their voters.”

Federal stimulus helps special ed, struggling kids in Portland area – OregonLive.com

Federal stimulus helps special ed, struggling kids in Portland area – OregonLive.com:

"More than half a million Oregon students head back to class this week, beginning a recession-tinged school year that will be marked by teacher furloughs and layoffs, fewer electives and extracurriculars, and swollen class sizes.

What's gotten less attention is federal stimulus money that is enabling many schools to add teachers and beef up programs that educators say will pack an instructional punch.
Oregon schools received roughly $150 million from the stimulus to spend this school year on special education and in schools with concentrations of low-income students. Portland-area districts report they have used the money largely to hire instructional coaches and teachers, hundreds of new jobs in all."

Analysis: Furor over speech typifies polarization - Yahoo! News

Analysis: Furor over speech typifies polarization - Yahoo! News:

"WASHINGTON – The furor over President Barack Obama's start-of-school speech to the nation's students — challenging them to work hard, earn good grades and stay in school — typifies the country's widening rift over politics and social issues.

It's certainly an unwelcome distraction as the president prepares to address both houses of Congress and the nation Wednesday about his embattled attempt to overhaul the health care system, which has taken a hammering from Republicans and some middle-of-the-road Democrats."

Dating back to his campaign for president, some Obama opponents have tried to paint him as a "socialist." Since winning the White House, the attacks have continued over his attempts to invigorate the tumbling economy with a $787 billion stimulus.

Far-right critics now charge that Obama would use his back-to-school remarks Tuesday to indoctrinate youngsters into his alleged "socialist" agenda.

Fox News Channel commentators Michelle Malkin and Glenn Beck have been prominent in attacking the speech. Florida Republican party chairman Jim Greer said he was "absolutely appalled that taxpayer dollars are being used to spread President Obama's socialist ideology."

Even Republican Gov. Tim Pawlenty of Minnesota, a moderate and potential presidential contender in 2012, said Obama's speech was "uninvited" and raises questions of content and motive.

Schools going green big-time -- baltimoresun.com

Schools going green big-time -- baltimoresun.com:

"CALIFORNIA, Md. - - Approaching Evergreen Elementary, it's clear right away that there's something different about this new school. A pair of silo-like structures squats in front of the two-story brick building - cisterns storing rainwater for flushing the toilets. Then there are the cactuses and other plants growing atop the entrance canopy - put there to soak up more rain."

Evergreen represents the latest in green school design in Maryland. The $20 million elementary school, which started classes last week in this woodsy, suburban community in St. Mary's County, has been designed and built to save bundles of energy and water, and to reduce the building's impact on nearby streams and wetlands. It's also been planned to hammer environmental consciousness home to its 600 students. It is, contends county School Superintendent Michael Martirano, the greenest school in the state.

He might get some argument on that - Montgomery County has built or rebuilt four schools now with enough energy-saving and environmental features to qualify for the second-highest rating given by the U.S. Green Building Council. But there's no doubt that green schools are starting to spread across the state.

St. Mary's school officials say Evergreen, like the Montgomery schools, is in line to get a "gold" rating under the green building council's Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design, or LEED, rating system. Among other features, it boasts a geothermal heating and cooling system, waterless urinals and low-flow faucets, and a white reflective coating on the flat portions of the roof to keep the building from needing as much air conditioning in warm months.

Changing face of school principals - The Boston Globe

Changing face of school principals - The Boston Globe:

"“It feels like flying a plane while we’re building it,’’ said Kelly Hung, who this week begins her second year as principal at Phineas Bates Elementary School in Roslindale. “This job can completely consume you. It’s never ending."

You wake up at night thinking about it.’’

At 33, and with a new baby at home, Hung, the 10th youngest out of 135 principals in the Boston public schools, in many ways personifies the changing face of today’s school principal.

As aging principals retire, young ones like Hung, who has only a few years of real classroom experience and a brief tenure as an interim principal on her résumé, are being hired to replace them. At issue is whether their enthusiasm and energy outweigh their inexperience to improve their school’s performance.

“There’s no question that there’s a national movement toward hiring younger principals,’’ said William Horwath, acting assistant superintendent for human resources at the Boston School Department.

A new 10-year survey of K-8 principals by the National Association of Elementary School Principals obtained by the Globe shows that almost 60 percent of principals are age 50 or older.

Dan Walters: California workers have little to celebrate on Labor Day - State Columnist: Dan Walters - The Modesto Bee

Dan Walters: California workers have little to celebrate on Labor Day - State Columnist: Dan Walters - The Modesto Bee:

"Even public worker unions are finding the going tough in these recessionary times. Furloughs have become common. The once-impregnable California Correctional Peace Officers Association is losing a battle against sharp cuts in prison spending. The California Teachers Association has been unable to block deep school reductions. Last month, trustees of the giant Los Angeles Unified School District, defying its teachers union, voted to massively expand charter schools.

As the 2009 legislative session comes to a close, unions are engaged on several fronts. While the Service Employees International tries to win ratification of a state worker contract that would limit furloughs, local government unions are pushing a late-blooming bill to make municipal bankruptcy (such as Vallejo's) more difficult and other labor groups are trying to raise long-frozen benefits for injured workers."

Report shows negative effects of dropouts on economy | TimesDaily.com | The Times Daily | Florence, AL

Report shows negative effects of dropouts on economy TimesDaily.com The Times Daily Florence, AL:


"The average annual income for a high school dropout in 2005 was $17,299, compared to $26,933 for a high school graduate.

Nationwide, more than 7,000 students become dropouts every school day. Annually, that adds up to almost 1.3 million students who will not graduate from high school on schedule.
In Alabama alone, an estimated 25,136 students from the class of 2009 failed to graduate on time.

'The state has a 40 percent dropout rate, which is absolutely unacceptable,' said Gary Dan Williams, Muscle Shoals Center for Technology director. 'It's everyone's problem, but with the standards in Alabama, the curriculum is designed strictly for college-bound students, and the bottom line is that many students aren't college-bound. The graduation standards are among the highest in the country, but we're letting those kids who can't handle the pressure get down about school and they're dropping out."

The picket line and America's workforce -- chicagotribune.com

The picket line and America's workforce -- chicagotribune.com:

"I was part of the mob.

Emotions ran high, as we were caught up in a hurricane of rage bearing down on one of the 'scabs.'

Everything that had been building inside me -- the frustration, the anger, the boredom -- came crashing down on me, then a 40-year-old history teacher.

It was 1987 and Chicago Public Schools teachers had launched what would be an almost monthlong strike against the Board of Education.

I had reported for picket-line duty with approximately 50 other Chicago Vocational High School teachers, just when school administrators and other workers who had decided to cross the picket line were filing into the building.

We booed and waved our signs as the principal and vice principal entered. But when two of our own followed, we crowded against the iron fence separating us."

Reeducating unions -- latimes.com

Reeducating unions -- latimes.com:

"Even with signs that the U.S. economy might be stirring, this is a strained Labor Day for the many Americans who are going without raises, and whose hours are being cut at the same time that they are asked to take heavier workloads -- and especially for those who are without employment.

Teachers find themselves in all these categories, across the nation and right here, where the dire financial condition of the Los Angeles Unified School District has led to layoffs or demotions from regular teaching to substitute, and where class sizes will be larger and other cutbacks will reduce salaries. On a bigger scale, the unions that brought teachers better pay, benefits and job security find themselves at a tipping point, their power under threat in ways that seemed barely possible a few years ago."

Face The Nation, 09.06.09

Duncan knocks No Child Left Behind

Education Secretary Arne Duncan knocked President George W. Bush's signature education bill, No Child Left Behind, saying that the bill is "very prescriptive" and discourages innovative teaching and that the state standards it calls for are often watered down and students that meet them are often nonetheless not college-ready.

The law is "desperately underfunded," Duncan said Sunday on CBS's "Face the Nation," and the $100 billion in stimulus funding has "staved off a catastrophe" of teacher and staff layoffs.

The push for national standards was a grass-roots movement, he said. "We are moving in the right direction ... to educate our way to a better economy."

"We have to raise the bar for everyone," he said. "We have to make sure that every student is college-ready."


http://www.politico.com/blogs/politicolive/0909/Duncan_knocks_No_Child_Left_Behind.html?showall

Cash-strapped California schools seek commercial sponsors to raise funds -- latimes.com

Cash-strapped California schools seek commercial sponsors to raise funds -- latimes.com:

"As strapped schools open across California, educators are turning to outside sources like never before in an attempt to ease the effects of multibillion-dollar cuts, giving rise to the new three Rs: retailing, raising money and recouping budgets.

Los Angeles Unified School District officials are courting the city's professional sports teams to blunt cuts to athletics programs. Beverly Hills trustees are considering logo T-shirts, hats and other apparel, counting on teenagers to snap up the merchandise because of the city's celebrity and the popularity of television's 'Beverly Hills, 90210.' San Diego County educators are selling the naming rights to two sixth-grade science camps. South Pasadena officials are wooing Hollywood producers to film TV shows at district headquarters."