No trick! Obamas dole out treats to 2,000 kids - White House

No trick! Obamas dole out treats to 2,000 kids - White House:

"President Barack Obama and first lady Michelle Obama on Saturday doled out presidential M&Ms and dried fruit mixes to more than 2,000 trick-or-treaters, marking their Halloween at a White House event partly aimed at honoring military families.

Dressed as superheroes, pirates, fairies and skeletons, the kids came in with their parents from Maryland, Virginia and Washington, D.C., and lined up on the orange-lit White House driveway.

Standing outside the White House front door, Obamas smiled, chatted and passed out cellophane goody bags that were also filled with a sweet dough butter cookie made by White House pastry chef Bill Yosses and a National Park Foundation Ranger activity book."

Visit msnbc.com for Breaking News, World News, and News about the Economy

European Union funds India studies in Poland

European Union funds India studies in Poland

European Union (EU) has reportedly given 270, 000 Euros to University of Warsaw (Poland) to establish a Contemporary India Studies Centre.

Said to be the first research center of its kind in central Europe, this project reportedly will cover studies of India’s cultural, social, political, and economic issues. Its faculty will include scholars from Europe and India and it will promote cooperation between Europe and India, reports suggest.

Welcoming this gesture, Hindu statesman Rajan Zed, in a statement in Nevada (USA) today, urged EU to also fund research in Sanskrit and Indian religions in various countries of Europe.

Cultural mission of the University of Warsaw (Uniwersytet Warszawski) in Warszawa, formed in 1816, is a synthesis of universal and local values. Rector is Professor Katarzyna Chałasińska-Macukow.

All students should be judged on same criteria | Our Views & Yours - PennLive.com -

All students should be judged on same criteria Our Views & Yours - PennLive.com -:

"Education has been called the great equalizer. No matter what your race, creed or ZIP code, every child is entitled to a quality public education.

Yet as Secretary of Education Arne Duncan explained to an audience of aspiring educators at the University of Virginia, as a nation, “we still have not fully achieved the dream of equal educational opportunity.”

Today, nearly 30 percent of students drop out or fail to complete high school on time. These students can’t afford to lag behind in the competitive and ever-changing workplace. It is predicted that by 2016, four out of every 10 new jobs will require advanced education or training."

Honoring the Legacy of Ryan White | The White House

Honoring the Legacy of Ryan White The White House:

"Today, President Obama signed the Ryan White HIV/AIDS Treatment Extension Act of 2009. It represents our ongoing commitment to ensuring access to needed HIV/AIDS care and treatment. The White House and the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) worked very closely with Congress on this bipartisan legislation, and the consensus document developed by the HIV/AIDS advocacy community was an important part of the process. We were so pleased that Jeanne White-Ginder, Ryan White’s mother, was here at the bill signing."



The Ryan White Program is the largest federal program specifically dedicated to providing HIV care and treatment. It funds heavily impacted metropolitan areas, states, and local community-based organizations to provide life-saving medical care, medications, and support services to more than half a million people each year: the uninsured and underinsured, racial and ethnic minorities, people of all ages.

The President also announced today the elimination of the HIV entry ban. Since 1987, HIV-positive travelers and immigrants have been banned from entering or traveling through the United States without a special waiver. In July 2008, Congress removed all legislative barriers to repealing the ban and paved the way for HHS to repeal the ban. A final rule will be published in the Federal Register on Monday, November 2nd and will take effect in early January 2010. That means that people who have HIV and are not U.S. citizens will be able to enter the U.S. starting in January next year. This is a major step in ending the stigma associated with HIV.

While I have been traveling across the country during the past several weeks for our HIV/AIDS Community Discussions, I am hearing from people living with HIV, nurses, case managers, doctors, community-based service providers, and others about how important the program is to ensure access to care and treatment. As we continue our work on developing the National HIV/AIDS Strategy, we have many important lessons from the Ryan White Program for increasing access to treatment, helping retain people in care, and improving health outcomes. Addressing the epidemic in the U.S. is a priority for President Obama, and we are renewing our focus on prevention as well as treatment.

As we prepare to mark the 20th anniversary of the Ryan White Program next August, the legacy of Ryan White continues to endure.

Participants at the event:

Jeanne White-Ginder, Ryan White's mother
Senator Tom Harkin, D-IA
Senator Mike Enzi, R-WY
Senator Tom Coburn, R-OK, not confirmed
Representative Henry Waxman, D-CA
Representative Frank Pallone, D-NJ
Representative Joe Barton, R-TX
Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-CA, not confirmed
Ernest Hopkins, Policy Chair, Communities Advocating for Emergency AIDS Relief (CAEAR); Federal Affairs Director, San Francisco AIDS Foundation
Frank Oldham, Jr., President and CEO, National Association of People with AIDS (NAPWA)
Julie Scofield, Executive Director, National Alliance of State and Territorial AIDS Directors (NASTAD)
Jeffrey Crowley is the Director of the Office of National AIDS Policy and Senior Advisor on Disability Policy at the White House

A remarkable turnaround at Pasadena's John Muir High School -- latimes.com

A remarkable turnaround at Pasadena's John Muir High School -- latimes.com:

"With each click of his mouse, Sam Picture wondered if John Muir High School was a good career move.

Stories of high dropout rates, low test scores and violence popped on his screen when he researched the 55-acre campus in northwest Pasadena in January 2008.

He didn't see it as a deterrent, but rather, a challenge.

Picture, now the school's athletic director, is one of the many teachers, administrators and counselors hired to turn around the troubled high school, which since 2001 has cycled through five principals. This year is the first in five that the state is not monitoring the school for failing to increase test scores."

Dysfunctional California / Maybe it is time to stop scapegoating legislators

Dysfunctional California / Maybe it is time to stop scapegoating legislators:

"Maybe it's time to call your state legislator to admit 'It's not you, it's me.'

A recent Field Poll, designed by a panel of political scientists from Stanford, Berkeley and yours truly from California State University Sacramento, asked Californians a series of questions about proposed reforms to state government and various constitutional convention scenarios."

The findings reveal a virtually impossible-to-please electorate.


On one hand, majorities in the poll think "fundamental changes" need to be made to the state Constitution. Citizens much prefer a package of revisions done all at once, and they want what is in many ways a radical solution - a new constitutional convention. Indeed, the Bay Area Council and a coalition called California Forward are both actively pursuing a convention, possibly on the 2010 ballot.

This is, of course, a familiar pattern in California politics. If we feel unease, we grasp at the big, bold changes that just might be crazy enough to work. Think of the dramatic tax overhaul that was Proposition 13, or our strict legislative term limits, or the recall of a governor, whoM, naturally, we replaced with an action movie hero.

When we're unhappy, we go big. Yet these changes never seem to fix the problems, and in many cases, they create new ones.

Read more: http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2009/11/01/IN0F1AB8TM.DTL#ixzz0Vd1mySPY

The Golden State isn't worth it -- latimes.com

The Golden State isn't worth it -- latimes.com:

"Today's public benefits fail that test, as urban scholar Joel Kotkin of NewGeography.com and Chapman University told the Los Angeles Times in March: 'Twenty years ago, you could go to Texas, where they had very low taxes, and you would see the difference between there and California. Today, you go to Texas, the roads are no worse, the public schools are not great but are better than or equal to ours, and their universities are good. The bargain between California's government and the middle class is constantly being renegotiated to the disadvantage of the middle class.'

These judgments are not based on drive-by sociology. According to a report issued earlier this year by the consulting firm McKinsey & Co., Texas students 'are, on average, one to two years of learning ahead of California students of the same age,' even though per-pupil expenditures on public school students are 12% higher in California. The details of the Census Bureau data show that Texas not only spends its citizens' dollars more effectively than California but emphasizes priorities that are more broadly beneficial. Per capita spending on transportation was 5.9% lower in California, and highway expenditures in particular were 9.5% lower, a discovery both plausible and infuriating to any Los Angeles commuter losing the will to live while sitting in yet another freeway traffic jam."

In Mayoral Race, a Blitz of Truth-Stretching Ads

In Mayoral Race, a Blitz of Truth-Stretching Ads

As the New York City mayor’s race enters its final, combative stretch, Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg and his opponent, Comptroller William C. Thompson Jr., have unleashed a flood of advertisements that contain distorted, misleading and, in some cases, outright false claims about everything from the creation of jobs to plans for tax increases.

With many New Yorkers just beginning to tune in to what has been a late-blooming campaign, the truth-stretching — in TV commercials, Web advertisements and mailed brochures — could be the primary exposure they have to the two candidates.

Both the mayor and the comptroller have misrepresented each other’s records, but Mr. Bloomberg has taken the biggest liberties. In ads that follow Web users as they move from site to site, the mayor claims that Mr. Thompson “never created a single job” (false) and “fought reform” at the Board of Education (misleading).

The mayor implies, in one commercial, that Mr. Thompson plans to raise income taxes across the board, and he has even bankrolled a Web site, ThompsonTaxHike.com, dedicated to the subject.

But Mr. Thompson has not proposed such a tax increase in his campaign; instead, he favors a higher income tax for the rich.

South Bend Tribune: Bennett's choice: Kids over politics

South Bend Tribune: Bennett's choice: Kids over politics:

"Indiana Superintendent of Public Instruction Tony Bennett is sowing confusion. What he sows is not what he hopes to reap.

Confusion?

Bennett, a Republican, praises the education policies of President Obama and hails Obama's secretary of education, Arne Duncan, as 'the right guy at the right place at the right time.'"

For Pete's sake, or at least for Rush's sake, why isn't a Hoosier Republican education official denouncing all that's Obama, especially on education? Gosh, even Obama's plea for kids to study hard and stay in school was denounced by vocal critics as a sneaky way to promote socialism.

Confusion?

Democrats in the state legislature and their allies in teacher organizations want to write off Bennett as a Bush Leaguer, a George W. Bush Leaguer, as he seeks to shake up the education establishment.And then he cites how Obama and Duncan want to shake up education, too, in similar ways, with similar goals for improvement.

Confusion?

Grant: Education reform next heated debate | thetowntalk.com | The Town Talk

Grant: Education reform next heated debate thetowntalk.com The Town Talk:

"As I listen to the stupefying debate over national health care I can't help but wonder whether we will get as contorted by the coming debate over education in this country."

That debate is inevitable as well. It will surely come next as a consequence of congressional submission to big money and halfway political compromises. When the middle class and states are forced to assume more of the costs of health care the dollar shift will be found in education cuts.

That's always the way of it.

It will be difficult enough to shift more costs to local school districts, but even more so for higher education where the rate of cost increases rival those of health care itself.

I hear opponents of serious health care reform brag that we Americans have the best in the world. But a number of studies don't even rank the U.S. in the top 10 countries in the world for quality of life on factors that include health care, social safety nets, education, crime, etc.

While American universities still stand out as the best in the world, there are challengers.

The asterisk behind our boasts about health care and higher ed leads to the footnote that reads: "This is true but only for those who can afford it."

As a people, we made the decision long ago that public education was a key element in the growth of the country and the success of democracy itself. We have been challenged repeatedly to live up to those goals and we are approaching such a challenge once again.

It would be helpful if the rhetoric over health care would take into account how decisions we make will impact the rest of the economy over time and to education in particular.

Education revolution fails grade

Education revolution fails grade:

"FINNISH students top all international tests, New York's charter schools have helped disadvantaged students succeed and England has brilliant programs that allow specialist schools. But these are not lessons the Rudd Government is heeding. The much-vaunted ''education revolution'' is heading for failure because it has not adopted key strategies that international experience tells us are important for success.

Most of what has been achieved has simply merged state and territory bureaucracies into a single framework of decision-making that may ultimately have no impact on how students learn. Australia may end up with one of the most centralised and bureaucratically organised systems of education in the world, with ministers left flailing for explanations as performance flatlines and expectations are unfulfilled"

A way to improve schools, one instructor at a time - The Boston Globe

A way to improve schools, one instructor at a time - The Boston Globe:

"A good teacher equals a good school year. Not always, but far more often than not. Ask any parents of an elementary-grade child how the school year is going, and it won’t be long before you’ll hear them rave about - or bemoan - the teacher their child has been assigned to. There are teachers who are duds, who can find a way to drain the fun out of a unit on dinosaurs for second-graders. And there those with a gift for reaching the eighth-grader slouched in the back of the classroom with a penchant for eye rolling. These teachers can bring to life to Poe’s fascination with the dead, or deliver just the right contemporary analogy to make sense of the War of 1812."

Nearly everyone can probably recall a teacher who lit their passion for poetry or who was able to help them connect all the dots in a seemingly incomprehensible algebra formula. We know that individual teachers can make a huge difference.

But public schools in America have been bent on ignoring the obvious: Almost nothing about the way we hire, evaluate, pay, or assign teachers to classrooms is designed to operate with that goal in mind. Most teachers receive only cursory performance evaluations, with virtually every teacher graded highly. We use a one-size-for-all salary structure, in which the only factors used in raises are teachers’ higher-education credentials and number of years in the system, neither of which is strongly linked to their effectiveness. And we often let seniority, rather than merit, drive decisions about where a teacher is placed. It is in many ways an industrial model that treats teachers as identical, interchangeable parts, when we know that they are not.

Opinion: Walters: Race for next schools superintendent will shape future of education reform - San Jose Mercury News

Opinion: Walters: Race for next schools superintendent will shape future of education reform - San Jose Mercury News:

"One of the more obscure — and probably more important — of California's many political conflicts pits an organization called EdVoice against the California Teachers Association and other school unions.

It centers on our ever-deepening education crisis, manifested in low test scores and high dropout rates, especially among black and Latino kids.

EdVoice, maintained by some wealthy Californians such as Southern California developer Eli Broad and Silicon Valley tycoon Reed Hastings, advocates charter schools, tougher teaching standards and other aggressive approaches.

The CTA and its allies, meanwhile, say California's chief education issue is money, specifically its below-average level of per-pupil spending.
It's not so much a partisan or even ideological conflict — Broad and many other EdVoice leaders are Democrats — as it is one of pedagogic philosophy, but that doesn't make it any less abrasive."

Thursday's D.C. Council hearing

Thursday's D.C. Council hearing

When Kathy Patterson learned about Thursday's D.C. Council hearing, during which Chairman Vincent C. Gray and Schools Chancellor Michelle A. Rhee pelted each other with accusations of law-breaking and secret meetings, she had one immediate reaction.

"Here we go again," said Patterson, a former council member and chairwoman of its education committee. It looked as if another attempt at public school reform was disintegrating in a hail of recriminations and rhetoric, with Rhee destined to join Franklin L. Smith, Lt. Gen. Julius Becton, Arlene Ackerman, Paul L. Vance and Clifford B. Janey, the school leaders who preceded her in the past two decades.

It was supposed to be different this time. The 2007 legislation that disbanded the old D.C. Board of Education and gave control of the school system to Mayor Adrian M. Fenty (D) was designed to minimize the push-and-pull of ward politics, making a single executive accountable. But Thursday's hearing vividly illustrated that no legislation can completely account for the mix of personalities who come together to execute it.

At the beginning of the last century, urban reformers wrested control of schools from mayors and established independently elected boards as a hedge against corruption. But the pendulum has swung back. Mayors from Boston to San Jose have been taking over school districts since the early 1990s, recognizing that their city's economic growth and their political longevity are inextricably linked to the quality of the local educational system.

EcoKids dive deep into ecology | TheUnion.com

EcoKids dive deep into ecology TheUnion.com:

"“Ecology is science. Deep ecology is ethics. It's the philosophy behind the science,” asserted Marge Kaiser, founder and executive director of the Sierra Nevada Deep Ecology Institute of Nevada City.

It's the difference between “I-it” and “I-thou,” she explained. We are not separate from Nature. We are part of Nature.

“For us to think we're separate from — and better than — Nature is not only an illusion, but dangerous to ourselves and our planet,” she said with her characteristic intensity."

Marriages of convenience: Medical groups join with food companies - KansasCity.com

Marriages of convenience: Medical groups join with food companies - KansasCity.com:

"They may seem like odd couples, partners from opposite poles with a passion to help you lead a healthier life.

Or maybe it’s about money.

Soda-pop makers courting medical groups. Potato-chip producers curling up with dietitians. Beer companies linking arms with traffic-safety advocates.

These marriages of convenience have become an increasingly common part of corporate America. That leaves consumers and government regulators wondering if we can trust all the advice coming from organizations that buddy up with industry."

The latest tryst with a twist involves the American Academy of Family Physicians. The Leawood-based organization represents about 94,000 doctors who struggle to get their patients to shed excess pounds.

From across the room, Coca-Cola bats its eyelashes. The queen of carbonated drinks is fending off attacks that its sugar-sweetened products promote obesity and should be taxed.
The two organizations last month sealed a deal that had Coca-Cola giving the academy a grant in the mid six figures to come up with health messages for the public about beverages and sweeteners.

The academy and Coca-Cola said the information would be based on objective science.

But doctors, nutrition experts and consumer advocates charge that Coca-Cola is proffering the money just to improve its reputation and possibly to buy the academy’s silence.
In various toasts to our health, bedfellows of the strangest kind are everywhere and go back decades. The study of alcoholism owes much to the distilled-spirits industry, which teamed with Cornell University and the National Institute of Health on research as early as the 1940s.

Now an increasingly skeptical and health-conscious public, with so much information at its fingertips, isn’t sure whose advice to trust, said Shelly Rodgers, a University of Missouri researcher of strategic communications: “Consumers instantly see the conflict and go, ‘What? What?’ ”

Our views: Classroom equality | floridatoday.com | FLORIDA TODAY

Our views: Classroom equality floridatoday.com FLORIDA TODAY:

"Separate but equal was inherently unequal and harmful to black students.

That was the U.S. Supreme Court’s finding in the watershed 1954 Brown v. Board of Education decision that mandated school integration and helped trigger the civil rights movement’s crusade for racial equality in public schools in the 1950s and 1960s."

Most Americans rightly view the desegregation order as a triumph over prejudice.

But its legacy is one reason some 120 black students who live closest to University Park Elementary in Melbourne are nonetheless bused to 10 other schools, some more than nine miles away, conforming with a 40-year-old federal order forbidding black- or white-only schools.

Students in three other neighborhoods, one each in Cocoa, Titusville and Rockledge, are also affected by the policy.

Targeting mostly minority kids for busing to achieve diversity seems unfair, and the situation needs review.

California's folly - Prop. 13

California's folly - Prop. 13:

"In November 1978, Harper's magazine published my article on the passage of Proposition 13 under the headline 'Californians Rush for Fool's Gold.'"

At that time, Prop. 13 was getting lots of national media attention. The pundits of type and tube were hyping California as the pacesetter for a post-Watergate America. At the same time, the cultural gurus were proclaiming it to be a proving ground for paradise.

Even George F. Will, the usually cautious Washington Post columnist, declared, "The East Coast, landfall for immigrants of all sorts, once was the laboratory of American politics. Today California, land's end for migrants of all sorts, is the laboratory."

Birthplace of the "less is more" philosophy, the Golden State had become both the cultural fad-fashioner of the nation and a dominant political force. What did this imply for the nation politically? Many observers referred to California trendiness as a hopeful sign of America's greening.

Instead, Prop. 13 was to become California's Folly. I thought then, and am firmly convinced now, that the key elements in the proposition - the taxation formula and the two-thirds legislative requirement - would be responsible for causing a fiscal and social disaster. These two requirements have, in time, helped to lead the state into financial bankruptcy and created a dysfunctional state government.

Read more: http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2009/11/01/INF41AA3BG.DTL#ixzz0VcYIAcO4

USC President Steven B. Sample to step down in August -- latimes.com

USC President Steven B. Sample to step down in August -- latimes.com:

"USC President Steven B. Sample, who dramatically boosted the university's academic prestige, financial resources and civic engagement during nearly 19 years as its leader, says he will step down from the post next summer.

Sample, who turns 69 this month, said he will end his presidency in August, allowing university trustees ample time to choose a new president for the 34,000-student campus near downtown Los Angeles.

'It's a time for fresh leadership. I don't mean to sound self-congratulatory, but we've had a good run. And so, why not quit while you're ahead?' Sample, an electrical engineer who previously headed the State University of New York at Buffalo, said in an interview in his campus office."

California's deficit of common sense -- latimes.com

California's deficit of common sense -- latimes.com:

"California is rich. Even in the midst of a drought, we have lots of water, and in the midst of a recession, we have lots of money. The problem is one of distribution, not of actual scarcity.

This is the usual problem of the United States, which is not just the richest and most powerful nation on Earth now, but on Earth ever, and one of the most blessed in terms of natural resources. We just collectively make loopy decisions about how to distribute the money and water, and we could make other decisions. Whether or not those priorities will change, we could at least have a reality-based conversation about them."

Editorial: Not pretty, but state education bill takes a step - Sacramento Opinion - Sacramento Editorial | Sacramento Bee

Editorial: Not pretty, but state education bill takes a step - Sacramento Opinion - Sacramento Editorial Sacramento Bee:

"This week will be a big test for the California Legislature, which has the lowest approval ratings since the Field Poll started measuring in 1983.
In particular, it marks a critical step for the Senate and its leader, President Pro Tem Darrell Steinberg.

The Pro Tem has called the Senate back into special session Monday to take up legislation to make the state competitive for up to $500 million in federal Race to the Top education grants.

Will California fight President Barack Obama's education agenda for turning around the nation's lowest-performing schools? Or will California be a leading partner?"

NO on SB 5X 1

CONTACT YOUR STATE SENATOR

This is the info you will need to contact Darrell Steinberg.

District office -
telephone - 651-1529
FAX --------- 327-8754

Capital office -
telephone -- 651-4006
FAX ---------- 328-2263

CONTACT YOUR STATE SENATOR

http://www.leginfo.ca.gov/yourleg.html

Senators' Home Pages

Senators' Addresses

Visions In Education K-12 Charter School Video Production Wins Telly Award - PR.com

Visions In Education K-12 Charter School Video Production Wins Telly Award - PR.com:

"Sacramento, CA, November 01, 2009 --(PR.com)-- Visions In Education Charter School, one of California's leading home schooling and independent study programs in grades K-12 is proud to announce that its school informational DVD has won a Bronze Telly. Their production firm, Haven Falls Motion Picture Productions, nominated the DVD for this year’s Telly Awards.

As the Oscars are for feature films, and the Emmys are for broadcast television, so the video production industry sees the Tellys. Production companies only put forward their very best work, and this Bronze Telly was in approximately the top 28 percent of all productions that were considered (about 15,000 entrants). Additionally, the project won in the category of Recruitment, which is validation that compared with other organizations that are using videos for recruiting purposes, this project has been independently judged to be in the top tier."

Viewpoints; Supply, demand, quality: Crisis in teaching - Sacramento Opinion - Sacramento Editorial | Sacramento Bee

Viewpoints; Supply, demand, quality: Crisis in teaching - Sacramento Opinion - Sacramento Editorial Sacramento Bee:

"If confidence in public schools weren't already precarious enough, it was further shaken by remarks made by U.S. Education Secretary Arne Duncan in a speech delivered at Columbia's Teachers College on Oct. 22.

Duncan urged an overhaul of schools of education, calling them cash cows that do a mediocre job of preparing their graduates for the demands of the classroom. His charges made headlines, but they were not new. They echoed many of the points made by Arthur Levine, former president of Teachers College, in 'Educating School Teachers in 2006,' and by David F. Labaree in 'The Trouble With Ed Schools' in 2004."

Sacramento Press / Operation Sellout: How the Sky Box Trumps the Lunch Box

Sacramento Press / Operation Sellout: How the Sky Box Trumps the Lunch Box:

"From the lofty perches of the power players, in their skyboxes and bank towers, the public may look very small, almost antlike. Deal and decision makers are elevated and segregated from the little people, whose lives they influence.

On Thursday, October 29, Mayor Kevin Johnson announced his 'Rules of the Game' plan to build an arena and entertainment complex in Sacramento. The press conference was held 25 floors up, with a hazy overview of the city, extending from the historic rail yards to Cal Expo: two potential sites for a new and lucrative sports/real estate venture."

In that same sweeping view, the mayor could look down on the central city neighborhoods. From Downtown, Midtown, East Sac, all the way east to River Park and southward to College Glen, Tahoe Park and back around to Oak Park -- all of these neighborhoods are being intentionally and systematically deprived of a comprehensive, traditional, public high school.
This mayor has claimed to want to be an education mayor for Sacramento, even though public education is outside the duties and jurisdiction of the mayor.