Bipartisan move to rewrite No Child Left Behind
Following Obama's lead, both parties begin tackling education law.
President Obama. (AP).YOUR TURN
Those aren't just cuts. They are mutilations to core services that Virginia is well renown for."
TwoSons, 2:05 P.M. » In private, Virginia governor pushes deep budget cuts | Weigh in
The six standards of school quality
My guest is George Wood, principal of Federal Hocking High School in Stewart, Ohio, and executive director of The Forum for Education and Democracy, a nonprofit organization ithat s a collaboration of educators from around the country
By George Wood
Years ago, I learned that if you want to communicate with people, it’s best to avoid jargon.
It was my fourth year as principal, and I’d decided to add a portfolio requirement for graduation. After two years of study, meetings, and hearings, we were ready to move forward and decided to share the plan with the entire community. Feeling creative, we decided to put the entire proposal in a booklet and mail it to every district resident.
Then, mistakenly, we decided I would write the booklet.
Continue reading this post »By George Wood
Years ago, I learned that if you want to communicate with people, it’s best to avoid jargon.
It was my fourth year as principal, and I’d decided to add a portfolio requirement for graduation. After two years of study, meetings, and hearings, we were ready to move forward and decided to share the plan with the entire community. Feeling creative, we decided to put the entire proposal in a booklet and mail it to every district resident.
Then, mistakenly, we decided I would write the booklet.
Down with parent power
I have been exchanging emails with Gabe Rose, communications director of something called the Parent Revolution in my home state, California. Rose and his organization are part of a movement that has, to my open-mouthed amazement, persuaded the state government to give parents the power to close or change the leadership of low-performing public schools.
It sounds great. It has many parents excited. It could shake up the state educational establishment, including the education department, school boards and teacher unions. They could use some shaking up.
Yet I can't shake my feeling it is a bad idea, a confusing distraction that will bring parents more frustration, not less, and do little to improve their children's educations.
Continue reading this post »
Capitol Hill neighbors wary of proposed charter
One of the 13 groups seeking to open a new public charter school in the fall of 2011 is drawing questions from its prospective Capitol Hill neighbors--both for a lack of candor and the financial backing it is receiving from the International Graduate University (IGU), which has had its license revoked by the District.
University High Public Charter School wants to lease space at IGU, on D Street SE, for a college preparatory program targeted to at-risk youth. It proposes partnering with the Community College of the District of Columbia to give students exposure to college-level courses by their junior year. The D.C. Public Charter School Board, which authorizes the publicly-funded, independently operated schools, will review all the applications at public hearings on March 15 and 16.
Capitol Hill residents have been frustrated by their inability to get information from University High's executive director, Terry Shelton, a former treatment team coordinator at Oak Hill Youth Center and probation officer for D.C. Superior Court.
During a bizarre two-hour meeting at IGU Wednesday evening, Shelton would not disclose the members of the group's founding board, although they are listed in the application on file with the charter board. The founding group includes Virginia Elizabeth Hayes Williams, mother of former mayor Anthony Williams, and William Stancil, managing attorney for Neighbohrood Legal Services.
The application also names Wilma Gaines, a former DCPS principal, as interim principal.
Continue reading this post »
