The Associated Press: To defang Taliban, some look to private schools

The Associated Press: To defang Taliban, some look to private schools:

"QUTBAL, Pakistan — The schoolhouse is so tiny that dozens of pupils have to sit outdoors. They're lucky if their teachers have more than a basic education. And the chanting of math equations and Quranic verses gets so loud that the children have a hard time hearing themselves.

Yet the pupils love the Islamia Model School, one of thousands of private schools popping up in Pakistan. Unlike at area public schools, Islamia's seven teachers show up regularly to work. Unlike at religious schools, its curriculum extends well beyond Islam.

Plus, it has desks and chairs — no small thing to the many poor families who enroll their children here."

Pakistan is seeing a surge in private schools, a trend some find hopeful in a country where the government education system is decrepit and the other alternative is religious schools, known here as madrasas, which offer little education beyond memorizing the Quran and are seen as one source of Islamic militancy.

The U.S., for one, says it plans to invest in private schools as part of a multibillion-dollar aid package designed to erode extremism in the nuclear-armed country battered by Taliban attacks.

"The quality of education in the public sector is deteriorating day by day," said T.M. Qureshi, a Ministry of Education official. "When there's a vacuum of quality, someone will fill it."
According to UNESCO figures, Pakistan spends 2.9 percent of its gross domestic product on education, slightly less than India's 3.2 percent and well below the U.S.'s 5.2 percent.

O3b Networks : Mission

O3b Networks : Mission:

"Mission

At O3b Networks, our mission is to make the Internet accessible and affordable to everyone on the planet. We will enrich lives and ensure equal and fair access to information through ubiquitous, high-speed connectivity to the world’s content and applications.

We will accomplish this mission by reducing core transmission costs through innovative solutions for fixed and mobile operators and Internet service providers, enabling them to profitably offer better, faster, and more affordable connectivity to their customers.

The Internet has become the world’s information exchange and everyone should have the opportunity to participate."

“Most economic growth in the developed regions of Europe, North America and the Far East is driven by information and communications technology (ICT). What is less widely understood is that all economies are information economies. The free flow of information lowers the barriers to economic activity and stimulates growth and productivity, even economies that we do not normally regard as fully 'developed.' ... Connectivity is the key enabler of the information flow that defines modern economies. It is also the key enabler of an ongoing economic transformation in many Latin American, Asian and African countries."

-The Connectivity Scorecard

Teacher Incentive Plan a Bust

Teacher Incentive Plan a Bust

Teacher Incentive Plan a Bust
Who needs incentives?

Since when is it necessary to provide teachers with incentives to teach?

I’ve had experience in the two worlds of business and education. In business, I was director of information services in government and the private sector. As a retired teacher, school administrator and university professor, I am insulted by the attempt at the national and state levels to “bribe” professional educators to teach our children “better.”

In fact, all teachers should be insulted and outraged by this latest legislative absurdity. Texas legislators and business leaders determined that teachers should be paid incentives to improve student performance, thereby achieving success in school. It was doomed for failure.

Teaching is NOT an industrial assembly line position in which the more pieces you finish, the more you earn. The whole honorable point of becoming a teacher is that you want to plant a positive educational foundation and a love for learning into each student you teach and then to increase each child’s knowledge in ongoing increments so he or she may move toward a successful future with a positive work ethic.

Furthermore, if the state would provide professional teachers with a professional salary, there would be no need to complement the salary with incentives for additional teacher income.
Follow that up with a more intelligent and productive methodology for improving learning outcomes than the current “pass-the-state-exam” mentality.

Another priority for successful teaching and improving learning outcome must be smaller teacher to student classroom ratios.

The whole idea of incentives for teachers is ludicrous.

Legislators, business leaders and educational administrators had better review their priorities and educational reality before giving teachers an incentive program. Maybe these folks are NOT the ones who should decide how to improve public education, since for the past decade they have been unsuccessful in doing so.

An incentive plan for teachers is irresponsible and inappropriate thinking, and it sends a negative message about the honorable field of teaching.

If we want to start an incentive program, perhaps we should start one by giving legislators incentives for each intelligent proposal they come up with.

###

Peter Stern, a former director of information services, university professor and public school administrator, is a disabled Vietnam veteran who lives in Driftwood.

BofA suspending federal student loan program - Yahoo! News

BofA suspending federal student loan program - Yahoo! News:

"CHARLOTTE, North Carolina (Reuters) – Bank of America Corp will suspend its federally-backed student loan program by December 5, the company said in a letter to colleges and universities on Friday, as the U.S. gets ready to end the program entirely.

A number of becomes banks have said they would exit the Federal Family Education Loan Program, this year.

The Student Aid and Fiscal Responsibility Act of 2009 would replace the FFELP program with direct government loans. It has passed the U.S. House of Representatives and is awaiting a Senate vote, but it strongly supported by President Obama and widely expected to become law."

Supersized classes found in city schools

Supersized classes found in city schools:

"Last year at Aden Bowman Collegiate, 41 kids were in one Grade 10 history class.

In the city's northeast, Centennial Collegiate had 40 kids in a Science 10 class, and across the river at Bishop James Mahoney, one Physics 30 class had 40 students.

Class size is just one of many variables in education, such as the programs a school offers, or the abilities of the teacher."

But within the friendly-looking, class-average sizes in the mid-20s lurk some supersized classes -- and often, those classes are in core subjects such as English, math, social studies and sciences.

The StarPhoenix obtained stacks of class size data from Saskatoon's public and Catholic school divisions that show many high school classes, especially in core subjects, have 30 or more kids in front of one teacher.

'Be There' Campaign Promotes Parental Involvement | Firstcoastnews.com | Local News

'Be There' Campaign Promotes Parental Involvement Firstcoastnews.com Local News:

"JACKSONVILLE, Fla. -- A campaign is under way on the First Coast to remind parents they are an important link in their child's education.

'Be There,' an initiative that promotes child/parent communication, has the backing of Duval, Clay and St. Johns county schools.

'As I often say, if there is nobody home to sort of put the report card on the refrigerator, why bother? You got to have someone involved to make that connection...,' said Joseph Joyner, St. Johns County school superintendent.

Joyner joined Ed Pratt-Dannals, who leads Duval County Schools, and Ben Wortham, Clay County school superintendent, in a news conference Friday to promote the campaign."

For more information on "Be There," CLICK HERE.

Editorial: A new course for charters | Philadelphia Inquirer | 11/07/2009

Editorial: A new course for charters Philadelphia Inquirer 11/07/2009:

"Gee, it only took a federal criminal investigation of at least six charter schools and the jailing of one charter official before the state finally moved to improve financial oversight.

Some of the proposed measures are clearly worthy and long overdue. At the same time, the reforms seem so basic that they should have been in the state charter law when it was written 12 years ago.

For example, the reform legislation aims to limit the hiring of relatives. This seems like a no-brainer concept, except in patronage-laden Pennsylvania, where government work has become a family business for many.

Another measure would give school parents the right to ask the court to remove school board members who fail to follow the law. This is another good idea, considering it shouldn't be too much to ask board members to follow the law."

Blowing up bad Chicago schools did not work for Arne the Duncan

Blowing up bad Chicago schools did not work for Arne the Duncan:

"U.S. Education Secretary Arne Duncan shut down 61 schools in which students failed to perform at a basic academic level and opened 75 new schools while serving as Chicago’s school superintendent for seven years. The University of Chicago has released a study saying most students who moved to other schools following school shutdowns showed no change in performance. Duncan countered by saying, ‘The reason was that the students moved to a similar level of schools, and students who moved to better schools saw their performances improve.’ All right Mr. Duncan, since you seem to understand this problem, why didn’t you prevent it? Were you just the superintendent for the better schools?"

There are 662 schools in the Chicago Public School (CPS) system. Duncan claims he led a successful school reform initiative by shutting down ten percent of its schools and tossing those kids into other schools that probably should have been closed as well. He closed Carver High in Altgeld Gardens and send the refugees to Fenger. Fine. Nothing in Chicago government works as it should; everything is either broken, like our pothole-laden streets, or costs us more than it does other Americans, like our gasoline. So it is incredible that anyone would expect our schools to be anything other than what they are, abysmal. Fine. There is no crime in being Chicago inept and Cook County obtuse, indeed that is what the body politic here expects. But spreading our convoluted and ineffective methodology to other municipalities makes Duncan the sociological equivalent of Typhoid Mary.

Betraying the California dream | PressDemocrat.com | The Press Democrat | Santa Rosa, CA

Betraying the California dream PressDemocrat.com The Press Democrat Santa Rosa, CA:

"For nearly six years, I have served on the Board of Trustees of the California State University system — the last two as its chairman.

This experience has been more than just professional; it has been a deeply personal one. With my term ending soon, I need to share my concern — and personal pain — that California is on the verge of destroying the very system that once made this state great.

I came to California because of the education system. I grew up in Connecticut and attended college back East on partial scholarships and financial aid. I also worked part time, but by my first year of grad school, I’d maxed out my financial aid and was relying on loans that charged 14 percent interest. Being a lawyer had been my dream, but my wife and I could not afford for me to go to any law schools back East."

City Brights: Zennie Abraham : California's education and economic problem; Chevron's aide

City Brights: Zennie Abraham : California's education and economic problem; Chevron's aide:

Aside from jobs, education funding is the most important problem in California. I was surprised to learn that Chevron Oil Company - the company commonly associated for bad things and unfairly so in my view - was behind a $7 million initiative to fund education non-profit organizations in Northern California.

It's called The California Partnership and was developed to help those organizations that were focusing on, and making a difference in, disadvantages neighborhoods, primarily in Northern California.
I was invited to join other media at the San Francisco City Club and frankly learned something shocking. I learned that while other media outlets were invited, at least one organization said they only covered a story involving non-profits if their was something negative, like a staff member stealing funds, for example.

Think about that the next time you see a bad story on a non-profit in the media.

Read more: http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/blogs/abraham/detail??blogid=95&entry_id=51194#ixzz0WBZq8JSt

Students, teachers block traffic over cuts

Students, teachers block traffic over cuts:

"The school system in California was once considered a global model for what a public higher education system should look like. Now it is quickly being dismantled by a political system that values repression over education, prisons over schools. The statewide protests that started last spring, following the passage of severe cuts in the California state education budget, are continuing and growing.

The latest pro-education action in San Diego was called by local affiliates of the American Federation of Teachers and the National Education Association, the San Diego/Imperial County Labor Council, and local community and student groups. On Oct. 29 several hundred angry activists rallied in Balboa Park, marched downtown to the State Office Building and sat down in the street outside the building, blocking traffic. They demanded a hearing from a representative of the governor."