Friday, April 30, 2010

Education - Everything you need to know about the world of education.

Education - Everything you need to know about the world of education.














VALERIE STRAUSS
The Answer Sheet
A School Survival Guide for Parents (And Everyone Else)
JAY MATHEWS
Class Struggle
What's Right and Wrong With Our Schools

Posted at 5:30 AM ET, 04/30/2010

Sorting out boys' school problems

Everyone should read "Why Boys Fail." I don't know of a clearer or more balanced examination of this issue. Whitmire is passionate about the need to help boys, but he respectfully presents other points of view, including those of the pro-girl optimists like me. In fact, one of the book's most impressive features is its exposure of the harm done by pro-girl vs. pro-boy polemics.
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Election flap pits Saunders against Parker, AFT

While the Fenty administration searches for a way to finance the proposed teachers' contract, the troubled pact has also spawned a dispute within the WTU leadership over its elections.
The contest, usually held May, has yet to be scheduled. General vice president Nathan Saunders, who is challenging union president George Parker, says Parker and AFT president Randi Weingarten don't want teachers filling out ballots until they ratify the contract and have the pact's fat five-year, 20 percent raise in their pockets. The assumption is that it will make them more favorably disposed to returning Parker to office.
"Without a doubt," said Saunders. "They're stalling."
The dispute involves the union elections committee, the internal panel that runs certain aspects of the contest. It's supposed to have 15 members but currently has only four. Delegate slots to the national AFT convention have also gone wanting, with only 17 of 44 actually filled. As it happens, one of the spots on the elections committee is held by Saunders' wife. And as it also happens, one of Saunders' official duties as vice president is to convene the election committee, which he says he intends to do on Friday.
But in a letter to WTU members Thursday, Weingarten said it will be "necessary to reopen nominations to allow you to exercise your constitutional right to elect representatives" to elections committee and the convention. It's not clear from Weingarten's letter how long this might take.
Weingarten also writes that at Parker's and Saunders's request, "the AFT will provide assistance of very narrow scope, pursuant to our 
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