Hands On Sacramento Day Renovates Non Profit's Urban Farm for Healthy Communities

Hands On Sacramento Day Renovates Non Profit's Urban Farm for Healthy Communities:

"'Unlike many places around the world, we still have the unique capacity to feed ourselves and create sustainability around good, locally grown food,' explains Shawn Harrison, Executive Director & Co-Founder of Soil Born Farms Urban Agriculture Project. 'Preserving and nourishing this rare opportunity now may be the most important long term health decision we make as a community.'

Community leaders including Mayor Kevin Johnson, Karen Baker with CaliforniaVolunteers, corporate leaders and employees across the Sacramento region came together for this important cause to help support healthy communities and low-cost food sources in our local area."

Sacramento Press / Johnson talks to residents about strong mayor issue

Sacramento Press / Johnson talks to residents about strong mayor issue:

"Kathi Windheim of the Greenhaven / Pocket neighborhood asked the mayor to address controversial legal issues with the strong mayor initiative. The initiative, which will go on the ballot in June 2010, proposes to change the city’s current system of government to a strong mayor system. “It’s alarming -- the problems with the initiative,” Windheim said."

Sacramento Press / Charter Review Committee hold Town Hall Meeting

Sacramento Press / Charter Review Committee hold Town Hall Meeting:

"Sacramento residents voiced their opinions to Charter Review Committee members about the strong-mayor proposal during a Town Hall Meeting in Ben Ali Shrine Temple Thursday evening.

Committee members attentively listened to the responses of the community regarding the possible changes to the mayor position in Sacramento."

Will iMayor be a boon or a bust? | Joe Sacramento

Will iMayor be a boon or a bust? Joe Sacramento:

"After months of delays, cryptic press releases, teaser ads and endless speculation, CH7 Inc.’s wildly anticipated iMayor product launched in November of 2008 in the city of Omastenarc (pronounced: Oh-mass-ten-ark). Since that time the robotics community and investors have monitored its progress with great skepticism in the face of several setbacks, OS updates, and even a few reboots that took it out of commission for weeks at a time. Now the tide might finally be turning."

Education News & Comment

Education News & Comment:

"Revenues for Schools
Limits and Options in California

Throughout the chaos that has characterized California’s budget
process in recent years, education funding has been a central
issue. K–12 schools represent the single largest expenditure in the
state budget. As a result, they are seen by some as a major drain
on state coffers and by others as the hardest hit victims of the
state’s fiscal meltdown."

CNN Political Ticker: All politics, all the time Blog Archive - Fiorina’s new Web site bashed by Democrats, Republicans « - Blogs from CNN.com

CNN Political Ticker: All politics, all the time Blog Archive - Fiorina’s new Web site bashed by Democrats, Republicans « - Blogs from CNN.com:

"The left leaning Huffington Post called the site 'really the most insufferable thing she's ever done in her life.' Democrats on Twitter bashed the site as 'embarrassingly awful' and told Fiorina to scale back her use of exclamation points. And a YouTube video mocking the site has so far eclipsed 15,000 views.
But several Web-savvy Republicans are also taking aim."

Reader's View: Tenure necessary and functional in schools - The Saratogian Opinion: Serving the Saratoga Springs, N.Y. region (Saratogian.com)

Reader's View: Tenure necessary and functional in schools - The Saratogian Opinion: Serving the Saratoga Springs, N.Y. region (Saratogian.com):

"This then begs the question: If after an administrator, over a period of nearly three years of supervision, has declared a teacher competent, why should another administrator not have to prove incompetence? Granted, proving incompetence results in chasing a moving target. So does granting tenure."

America's Teacher

America's Teacher: "

400 years from now: 'Look at these people back then. They thought they were free. They called themselves a democracy, but they spent ten hours of every day in a totalitarian situation and they allowed the richest 1 percent to have more financial wealth than the bottom 95 percent combined.'"

17 Pinellas principals run pilot program on decentralized decisionmaking - St. Petersburg Times

17 Pinellas principals run pilot program on decentralized decisionmaking - St. Petersburg Times:

"Teacher participation is crucial to school-based decisionmaking, Nelson said. The trick will be to get everyone involved in the new plan without putting more on anyone's already crowded plate.
Research indicates that achievement improves when those closest to the students — principals, teachers, parents — are making the decisions.
It's a philosophy the Pinellas Education Foundation embraces, along with the idea that the business community can teach educators a thing or two about how to run schools."

N.Y. could lose chance at school funding, educator says | pressconnects.com | Press & Sun-Bulletin

N.Y. could lose chance at school funding, educator says pressconnects.com Press & Sun-Bulletin:

"Kremer said he's concerned New York could be at a disadvantage because Obama and Duncan have warned they will not dole out the stimulus dollars to states that don't allow the use of student test data in evaluating teachers.While Krenner's warning has gone mostly unheard, he is receiving support from Assemblyman Sam Hoyt, D-Buffalo. Hoyt said he plans to submit legislation to make New York more competitive in applying for 'Race to the Top.'"

Valley middle school on list for takeover - LA Daily News

Valley middle school on list for takeover - LA Daily News:

"United Teachers Los Angeles President A.J. Duffy said he also believes politics influenced the selection process.

'We should be focusing solely on failing schools. That is where we should spend our time and efforts and four of these have not been (failing) for more than four years.'
Duffy said the union plans to legally challenge the district's decision to include new schools in the bidding process, because the current teacher contract guarantees jobs to educators who move to new schools that relieve overcrowding."

COMMENTARY: Are some in our society losing their minds? | NevadaAppeal.com

COMMENTARY: Are some in our society losing their minds? NevadaAppeal.com:

"Allegations of “socialist brain washing” and (some) parents' refusal to allow President Obama (presumably because he is a Democrat) to talk with our children about personal responsibility, hard work and staying healthy, are alarming. These are strong conservative values (all critical to school success) with which most all agree. How could any reasonable person disagree?

President Obama delivered the speech; the students listened; and the vast population of parents and school officials were pleased with the message. The Congressional Republicans who led the attack ran for cover. Their National Republican Committee Chair claimed it was a wonderful speech. Several other Congressi-onal Republican leaders joined in the praise."

Acorn and the media | The Stump - - OregonLive.com

Acorn and the media The Stump - - OregonLive.com:

"What's been obscured amid all the polemics, or the polemics passing as news reports, is what Acorn is and does. Founded in Little Rock, Ark., in 1970 as an organization agitating for free school lunches, Vietnam veterans' rights and more hospital emergency rooms, Acorn has grown in the past four decades into the nation's largest community-organizing group. Based in low-income neighborhoods, it has nearly 500,000 dues-paying members, recruited by door-to-door canvassers, with chapters in 110 cities in 40 states. Nationwide, it has more than 1,000 staffers."

ANDERSON BILL ON GOVERNOR’S DESK WOULD MAKE WORK PERMITS EASIER FOR HOME-SCHOOLED AND CHARTER SCHOOL STUDENTS TO OBTAIN | East County Magazine

ANDERSON BILL ON GOVERNOR’S DESK WOULD MAKE WORK PERMITS EASIER FOR HOME-SCHOOLED AND CHARTER SCHOOL STUDENTS TO OBTAIN East County Magazine:

"“The current system is a perfect example of what happens when Sacramento takes away local control,” said Anderson. “Rather than protecting our children’s education, the State damages it.”
AB 66 fixes this flaw by creating a flexible, locally-controlled system for issuing work permits. It gives every school the authority to issue permits to their own students.

“This bill protects the welfare of students and ensures those educators that know the students best are making these important decisions – plus it removes an unnecessary layer of bureaucracy in the education system,” said Rob Shield, President of the Grossmont Union High School District Board of Trustees."

San Mateo Daily Journal

San Mateo Daily Journal:

"Monetary support for candidates hoping to lead local school districts is starting to pile up with campaign financial forms for those running for office due Thursday."

United States - The Ultra-Right Pot Boils Over

United States - The Ultra-Right Pot Boils Over:

"This is another feature of the rise of fascism in Europe in the 1920s and 1930s, a mass gutter press, the 'boulevard papers' in France, and the 'Blaetter' (rags) in Germany. The rightists claim that the great majority of the mass media have a liberal bias, and therefore this right-wing constellation is needed to restore the balance. But the fact is that the big press is all controlled by the corporations and serves their interest. The so-called liberal newspapers have to maintain some credibility for thinking people. That is not true of the right-wing media. They simply reinforce the prejudices of bigots and are now whipping them into a frenzy."

Schools look for balance after race-based decisions banned -- chicagotribune.com

Schools look for balance after race-based decisions banned -- chicagotribune.com:

"The district, which welcomed the ruling, is now leaning toward basing admissions on socioeconomic factors, such as median income of students' neighborhoods. That is similar to what San Francisco did when a consent decree on integration was lifted there in 2005.

The impact of U.S. District Judge Charles Kocoras' opinion on Thursday will mostly be felt in Chicago's roughly 75 magnet and selective schools, where racial quotas until this week meant a minimum of 65 percent of seats in a given school were reserved for minorities. Up to 35 percent were set aside for whites, even though they now are down to 8 percent of the student population."

The case began nearly 29 years ago, when the U.S. government sued the Chicago Public Schools for discriminating against black and Hispanic students. The district agreed to follow a racial integration plan overseen by the courts.

High school dropouts cost California more than $1 billion - 9/25/09 - San Francisco News - abc7news.com

High school dropouts cost California more than $1 billion - 9/25/09 - San Francisco News - abc7news.com:

"California's drop-out statistics vary. The state says it is about 20 percent; other universities studies show it is as much as double that. The Sacramento School District says it was nearly able to cut its dropout rate in half in just two years. 'We've done it through offering choices for students and families; we've got online curriculum, we've got independent study, we've got options at our high schools that offer career-embedded themes,' Associate Superintendent Mary Shelton said"