New coalition to call for simpler teachers contract EducationNews.org

EducationNews.org

New coalition to call for simpler teachers contract 8.26.10 -Nearly two dozen business, civic, and grassroots organizations will announce a new coalition today to push for dramatic changes in the Boston Teachers Union contract that would permit such initiatives as teacher bonuses and extended days at all schools. LA Times reporters respond to my questions on school ratings 8.26.10 - Jay Mathews - I have been avidly following the Los Angeles Times publication of value-added data from elementary schools in the L.A. district. After Sunday's latest installment, I posted an appreciation of what they were doing, but expressed frustration with some gaps in the story, and what I considered at least slight misrepresentation of some of their data. Here is the LA Times reporters' response. ... USDA grants help plant seeds of good nutrition with school gardens 8.26.10 - Nanci Hellmich - Since first lady Michelle Obama planted a garden at the White House in the spring of 2009 and invited schoolchildren to help tend and harvest the produce, more school gardens have been sprouting up across the country. ... Class sizes are getting bigger, but does it really matter? 8.26.10 - Tamara Henry - Two years of cuts in state support saddled the Natomas Unified School District in Sacramento this spring with what school board president B. Teri Burns calls "horribly painful" choices: fewer teachers and larger classes, or keeping teachers but cutting athletics, counseling and after-school programs. ...

Commentaries

Online Learning Is On the Upswing-In the Public Mind At Least 8.26.10 - Paul E. Peterson - Of all the innovations and policy reform proposals in education, it is online learning that is gathering public support most rapidly. In just one year-from 2009 to 2010-the percentage of Americans who think that high school students should be given credit for courses taken online has jumped from 42 percent to 52 percent. You're a failure - now get over it 8.26.10 - New research suggests our obsession with success is a handicap, says Max Davidson. Overheard in a boulangerie in the Dordogne last week: "If you are always 'appy, you are not truly 'appy. To be truly 'appy, you must first be sad." Don't the French put these things beautifully? And, of course, the Frenchman speaking - waxing philosophical to an English tourist while queuing for his baguettes - was spot-on. ... The Glut of Academic Publishing: A Call for a New Culture 8.24.10 - This article will appear in the forthcoming fall issue of Academic Questions (vol. 23, no. 3). A short version of this paper appeared under the title "We Must Stop the Avalanche of Low-Quality Research" in the June 13, 2010 Chronicle of Higher Education. Buzzwords in winning Race to the Top applications 8.26.10 - Sarah Garland and Sarah Butrymowicz - What does it take to win millions of federal dollars to finance state education reforms? Including some magical words certainly can't hurt. A look at the finalists' applications from the second round of Race to the Top reveals that winners hit on key education buzzwords more frequently than losers did. One exception is that losers Senators Exaggerate Number of Teachers' Jobs in Jeopardy 8.25.10 - In early August, when the U.S. Senate earmarked $10 billion to recover lost jobs in education, supporters of the measure claimed the money would save thousands of teachers' jobs. President Obama put the figure at 160,000 jobs across the country.