Latest News and Comment from Education

Saturday, January 9, 2010

Educators await Obama's mark on No Child Left Behind - washingtonpost.com

Educators await Obama's mark on No Child Left Behind - washingtonpost.com:


"Eight years after President George W. Bush signed the bill that branded an era of school reform, the education world is wondering when President Obama will seek to rewrite the No Child Left Behind law.


Obama officials, who for months have been on a 'listening and learning' tour, are expected to propose a framework for the successor to a law that is two years overdue for reauthorization. Time is growing short if Obama aims for action before midterm elections, which could weaken Democratic majorities in Congress."



As the anniversary of the law's enactment passed quietly Friday, an occasion Bush marked throughout his presidency as a domestic policy milestone, the regimen of standardized testing and school accountability remains intact.


Every year from grades three to eight, and at least once in high school, students must take reading and math exams. Every year, public schools are rated on the progress they make toward the law's goal of universal proficiency by 2014. And every year, states label more schools as falling short and impose sanctions on them, including shakeups and shutdowns.

Minn. teacher's W.H. moment | POLITICO 44

Minn. teacher's W.H. moment | POLITICO 44



Barbara Stoflet is used to giving math exams to her sixth-graders, but on Monday she was given the most important timed test of her life.

Already in Washington to receive an award from President Barack Obama along with dozens of other math and science teachers, Stoflet was told by the White House press office that she had been chosen to introduce the commander in chief.

She had to write a speech. For the president. In 48 hours.

“I was just so honored,” Stoflet told POLITICO by phone, while ducking out of a meeting with Education Secretary Arne Duncan. “It came from the heart. It really just came to me.”

The teachers being honored had little time in Washington, so Stoflet had to work on an outline for her speech in a 45-minute window Monday night — an outline she would later scrap as she traded drafts with the White House over the next day. They asked her to talk about her experiences as a teacher and said she had just two minutes — just enough to “get the most out of every word,” she said. 

This Week In Education: Blogs: Is STEM Funding Militaristic?


This Week In Education: Blogs: Is STEM Funding Militaristic?


Blogs: Is STEM Funding Militaristic?

Obama's $250 million for math/science Mike Klonsky
Whenever we are at war school funding shifts from humanities to math/science and from small to large schools. This shift has less to do with pedagogy than it does with production.
Earmark Transparency Yglesias
Something that’s long puzzled me is the idea that bringing more transparency to the earmark process would reduce earmarking.
500x_prospectorpleq
Adventures in Pencil Integration Robert Pondiscio 
An entertaining and well-written new blog is setting tongues wagging in the small corner of the Twittersphere that I inhabit.
Studies Find No Effects Education Next Blog
Education Next’s Paul Peterson and Chester E. Finn, Jr. talk about whether randomized field trials in education should be abandoned, since they so rarely find that the treatments have any effects.
Drugging Kids John Merrow

The Washington Teacher: Rhee On Her Soap-Box Again, Shame On Anderson Cooper !

The Washington Teacher: Rhee On Her Soap-Box Again, Shame On Anderson Cooper !



Rhee On Her Soap-Box Again, Shame On Anderson Cooper !


Much to my own discomfort, I forced myself to watch a clip of Anderson Cooper 360. Gag me with a spoon. Here's the video clip link. Just more of the same of Rhee on her soap box with unedited teacher bashing . Many who watched Michelle Rhee on Cooper's Thursday evening show were infuriated about the production of 'What's Next -Education ?' If you were watching, the answer to that question is more of the same. Stay tuned for more firings, more firings and more firings by Chancellor Michelle Rhee . It brings to mind Bill Turque's recent article in which he reported that Rhee vowed not to make teacher cuts despite a budget deficit that extends into 20011. Seems as though the WaPo had to offer a retraction to this mis- characterization as this isn't exactly what Rhee meant. The word 'vow' afterall just isn't in Rhee's vocabulary and gives us a hint of what's up ahead. So don't be surprised if DC teachers are amongst the group to get the axe along with security and central office staff in the upcoming RIF's.


The perpetual theme of Rhee's argument on and off the show seems to continue to be that ineffective teachers are to blame for all that's wrong in urban education. Of course the show infers that ineffective teachers are typically older teachers who stay beyond their time. Even the first snap shop is an adolescent student complaining about older teachers with connections. Bah humbug ! Most students I know consider all of their teachers old even when their teachers are only 26. Seems like this snapshot was intentionally staged by Cooper's producers unfortunately.
What ate at me most is this reference to teachers as 'human capital' as though teachers are something to be disposed of. Rhee's remarks lacked substance and had she been required to be a part of an educational panel, she would have been kicked to the curb quickly by anyone with a miniscule of knowledge about public education. Even a young student featured in a clip recognized the importance of having technology to enhance learning. Rhee quickly dismissed this yet when asked by Cooper what 3 things she neeed most, she commented among them, her email and prized laptop.

Schoolfinance101’s Blog

Schoolfinance101’s Blog


Education Trust is Flat-Out Wrong!!!!!

Sometimes I just get fed up with information spewed in the media which is simply FLAT OUT WRONG!!!! A  major source of FLAT OUT  WRONG information on school funding related issues these days seems to be the Education Trust, an organization which spins itself as an advocate for minority children and children in poverty. Here’s what I read this morning in the New York Times:
On the other hand, Southern politicians are keenly aware of the need for an educated work force. Spurred in part by school financing lawsuits, more than half the 15 states included in the study already provide more state and local financing to heavily poor or minority districts than to affluent or low-minority ones, according to figures compiled by Education Trust, an advocacy group in Washington. But schools often layer programs on top of programs without analyzing which are effective, said Daria Hall, the trust’s director of K-12 policy.
Now, I can’t find the supposed list of 15 states (apparently, the list of fifteen is from this report)  which Education Trust considers “southern” states, but 

The Educated Guess � District offices will see budgets slashed


The Educated Guess � District offices will see budgets slashed

Posted in State Budget
If tumbleweeds weren’t rolling in the aisles of some district offices, they will be. Gov. Schwarzenegger is demanding a $1.5 billion cut in school district administrative costs and $45 million from county offices of education. This, he says, will protect teachers in the classroom.
The administration hasn’t said where it came up with this figure or how the cut will be imposed. Probaly it will say that central office expenses can’t exceed 4 or 5 percent of a district’s total expense. As a safeguard, Schwarzenegger is prohibiting district offices from passing off more work to the schools.


Slashing the budgets may force especially small districts to share services, like payroll, personnel and purchasing, saving some money. And that would be good.


Sixth-Graders Get an Early Crack at High School - City Room Blog - NYTimes.com

Sixth-Graders Get an Early Crack at High School - City Room Blog - NYTimes.com

Sixth-Graders Get an Early Crack at High School
On Friday morning, wind lashed snow down a frigid East 69th Street, where some of the only light in the near-dawn darkness came from a metal food cart.
But the mood was already foreboding enough for hundreds of sixth graders who were there to take the entrance exam for the highly rated Hunter College High School, a public institution that is among the city’s most competitive, with an acceptance rate of about a 10 percent.

“I’m really nervous,” said Nathan Mulady, 11, of Jamaica Estates, Queens, as he waited inside glass doors at Hunter College, one of two locations where the test was being offered to students who had previously scored at top levels on state standardized tests.
The high school, which actually offers grades 7 through 12, is located on East 94th Street, where hundreds of students took the exam on Friday. The rest of the group brought their No. 2 pencils to the campus of Hunter College, on Lexington Avenue at East 69th Street, where they began lining up before 7 a.m. for an exam that began nearly two hours later.
At one of the two entrances at the college, the police guided

Class Struggle - Stop the two-hour snow delays

Class Struggle- Stop the two-hour snow delays:


"Stop the two-hour snow delays

Read the opposite side of this debate, from Answer Sheet blogger Valerie Strauss, by clicking here.

I know I'm not going to get my way on this. The lawyers are against me and others who share this view. Nobody beats the lawyers, or the parents who will worry no matter what the actual risk. But maybe in some future era, when we all walk around in magic padding that reduces chance of injury to zero, the legal profession will see a way to save schools from wasting a lot of precious time.

There were one or two inches of snow in my yard today, and on the street outside. It wasn't plowed. We are usually last on the list. But the car got out of our usually tricky slanted driveway with no trouble. So why were school openings in my district, and most others around here, delayed for two hours?"





Tread carefully when snow flies

Read the opposite side of this debate, from Class Struggle blogger Jay Mathews, by clicking here.

A few words to those parents who are griping because their kid’s school opened late this morning or was closed for the day: Knock it off.
It has become almost a sport among people I know to complain every time the weather turns lousy and school system officials decide that conditions are severe enough to alter the regular school routine.
“The snow barely touched the ground,” you might hear.
“It was only a dusting.”
“They are such wimps. Washington doesn’t know how to handle snow. You should see how they do it in Pittsburgh.”
Or New York. Or any place that is not Washington.
Enough already, folks.

Michelle Rhee on Anderson Cooper 360 :The WE District

Michelle Rhee on Anderson Cooper 360 :The WE District:

"Last night, Chancellor Michelle Rhee appeared on CNN’s Anderson Cooper 360.� Watch the video here and share your thoughts."


Stimulus Spending: A Bright Spot - Politics K-12 - Education Week


Stimulus Spending: A Bright Spot - Politics K-12 - Education Week



Stimulus Spending: A Bright Spot

By Alyson Klein on January 8, 2010 7:31 PM | No Comments | No TrackBacks
Despite the $100 billion unprecedented infusion of federal cash in the stimulus, the budget situation for K-12 in most states and districts remains pretty dismal. One very bright spot? Arkansas, where some superintendents have a difficult, but enviable challenge.
They're trying to figure out how to spend a significant boost in federal funding - millions of dollars in some cases - on a very tight time frame. And because the money is temporary, they can't put it towards anything that can't be sustained once the funds go away. And, of course, it all has to tie back to the goals of raising student achievement.
On top of unprecedented increases for Title I and special education, Arkansas districts got a major boost from the State Fiscal Stabilization Fund, which was supposed to backfill cuts to K-12 and higher education. But the Natural State didn't have any cuts to restore. In fact, it has increased funding for education, in part because of a school finance lawsuit.

Education Notes Online: School Closing Hearings Turning into Perfect Storm

Education Notes Online: School Closing Hearings Turning into Perfect Storm



School Closing Hearings Turning into Perfect Storm



We predicted back in the fall that a 3rd term for Bloomberg would turn out to be his disaster. Hubris will take the Tweedy gang down the road to oblivion.

It didn't take them long to do that thing. Closing 22 schools in one felt swoop and thinking that scheduling all the hearings right on top of each other would be a classic coup of disaster capitalism of the shock doctrine type. Instead it may be turning into a perfect storm of their own making.

The press has been racing around to cover all these events. The poor gals of Gotham are being run ragged. Maura has to schlep to Beach Channel ("you come to all of those meetings in the city from HERE? she asked) and to Jamaica last night. Yoav from the Post and Lindsey from NY 1 was at both 

Flypaper: Education reform ideas that stick, from the Thomas B. Fordham Institute

Flypaper: Education reform ideas that stick, from the Thomas B. Fordham Institute


« If Duncan hosted Race to the Top “show-and-tell” for states, Ohio would be embarrassedNews of the weird: Paranoia and espionage in Ohio urban education »

POSTED ON JANUARY 8, 2010 AT 10:47 AM BY ANDY SMARICK

The real RTT battles


The complexities and challenges of ensuring the Race to the Top’s success are expanding rapidly, and I’m hoping the Department is prepared for what lies ahead.
I’m concerned that, because so many of us have been focussed on the policy changes states have been adopting, two entirely more pressing issues have been given insufficient attention.


The first is the state applications themselves. What are states promising to accomplish—and much, much more importantly—are they actually going to carry them out when they win awards? Several months ago, I warned about “Trojan Horse” applications, proposals that seem welcome until you look inside. Given states’ desperate budget conditions and quotes I’m finding from state leaders, my anxiety has heightened. (In a soon-to-be-released article for Education Next, I revisit this matter.)


The second issue, which materialized recently and has grown like kudzu, relates to the MOUs states are trying to negotiate with education stakeholders, particularly unions.  Ideally, these documents—encouraged by the Department—would be commitments by local leaders to faithfully implement the state’s plans should it win a grant. But the complications here are legion.

Wang, Powers honored in Sacramento – Extra Credit - The Press Democrat - Santa Rosa, CA - Archive




Wang, Powers honored in Sacramento – Extra Credit - The Press Democrat - Santa Rosa, CA - Archive:

"Wang, Powers honored in Sacramento
by Extra.Credit

I have written quite a bit about Montgomery High’s Rena Wang and Healdsburg High’s Ryan Powers being named to the U.S. Senate Youth program as a representative and alternate, respectively.

The two, along with the two other students in California chosen for the prestigious program, were honored Thursday in Sacramento.

Wang sent along these photos of she and Powers standing with California Board of Education president Ted Mitchell and with California Superintendent of Schools Jack O’Connell."

The School to Prison Pipeline Game

The School to Prison Pipeline Game


The School to Prison Pipeline Game

Change.org | January 8th, 2010 at 6:37 pm

Here's a hypothetical:
You're in high school. You keep a cell phone on you for family emergencies even though you know it's against the rules. You're caught and threatened with suspension? What do you do?
A new online game from the ACLU uses situations like this to show that the school-to-prison pipeline is more than a hypothetical. There's a slippery slope that can -- and does -- lead from one institution to another.
See for yourself. Play the game here.
People of color and students from disadvantaged backgrounds are more likely to be suspended or expelled than other students, and suspension is the first step on the path toward incarceration. Manyschools have zero tolerance policies for students who break the rules, even when the rules are subjective. Even the American Bar Association has come down against zero tolerance policies in schools, comparing them to mandatory minimums in our courts.

White Children Now A Minority In California, States Report (UPDATED) - Los Angeles News - LA Daily

White Children Now A Minority In California, States Report (UPDATED) - Los Angeles News - LA Daily


White Children Now A Minority In California, States Report 




(UPDATED with Valley stats after the jump). Don't tell the producers of The Hills or any of the other youth-oriented television shows that seem to portray people of color as background noise in California, but for the Golden State's under-18 population whites are now a minority.
This according to U.S. Census data from 2000 to 2009 analyzed by the New York Times, which attributes the shift, in part, to higher birth rates among immigrants. The Golden State was among the top-ten states that saw increases under-18 populations.
The emergence of a nonwhite majority among children should be no surprise to Angelenos, who live in a city that is nearly 50 percent Latino. And, as LAist reported this week, Latinos have now edged out whites as the largest ethnic group in the once Leave It To Beaver-like San Fernando Valley.

Soaring Costs For California's Failing Prison System | KPBS.org


Soaring Costs For California's Failing Prison System | KPBS.org


GLORIA PENNER (Host): In his ‘State of the State’ speech, Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger also talked about the amount of money California is spending on its prisons. The state’s overcrowded and expensive prison system is the focus of KPBS’s Envision series. And joining me now to talk about our investigation is KPBS reporter, Joanne Faryon. So welcome back, Joanne.
JOANNE FARYON (KPBS news): Thanks, Gloria.
PENNER: And before we begin, lets hear what Governor Schwarzenegger had to say to say about what the state is spending on prisons.
GOVERNOR ARNOLD SCHWARZENEGGER: 30 years ago, 10% of the general fund went to higher education and only 3% went to prisons. Today, almost 11% goes to prisons and only 7.5% goes to higher education. Spending 45% more on prisons than universities is no way to proceed into the future. So I will submit to you a constitutional amendment so that never again do we spend a greater percentage of our money on prisons than on higher education. (Applause)
PENNER: How is the governor going to reverse the rising cost of operating the state prison?
FARYON: Well, in his address he talked about privatizing prisons. He didn’t give a lot of detail. But really, after researching this issue for the past several weeks, I don’t understand how privatization will necessarily fix this problem. According to the numbers that we’ve been crunching, the data that we’ve collected, the issue of rising costs really seems to be the increasing number of inmates. Especially the increasing number of old and sick inmates.
PENNER: Why are old and sick inmates adding to the cost?

Randi Weingarten: Teachers Keep the Lights of Learning Shining

Randi Weingarten: Teachers Keep the Lights of Learning Shining


Teachers Keep the Lights of Learning Shining


I recently posed a question to our members--why do you teach? This seemingly simple question prompted a flood of impassioned, inspiring responses. Teachers' responses echo the literally thousands of conversations I have had with our members about their jobs, about their dedication to the students they teach and to the larger community, and about why they commit their lives to this important work.
When teachers talk about their profession, one thing that becomes clear immediately is how much they care about their students. These educators come to the classroom with a nearly limitless supply of optimism about the transformative capacity of education and a deep commitment to preparing our children for the future.
In describing why she is in the profession, a history teacher in Chicago explained it this way: "I teach for many reasons. I want to help students to love and appreciate history as much as I do. I want to help them learn to solve problems instead of blame others for what happens in their lives. I also teach for selfish reasons. There is no better

Brad Bollinger: Choosing higher education over prisons – North San Francisco Bay Area, Sonoma, Marin, Napa counties - North Bay Business Journal - Archive

Brad Bollinger: Choosing higher education over prisons – North San Francisco Bay Area, Sonoma, Marin, Napa counties - North Bay Business Journal - Archive


Brad Bollinger: Choosing higher education over prisons


Brad BollingerDavid Crane, special adviser to Gov. Schwarzenegger on jobs and the economy, was particularly blunt last October when he spoke to the annual San Rafael Chamber of Commerce Forecasting the Future conference.
The highly successful financial services entrepreneur said he went to the capitol full of idealism about how to build a 21st Century California economy, only to discover it was the public sector unions that really run Sacramento, not free-market economic ideas.
He called pension and benefit promises made with unions during the high-tech boom of the late 1990s and early 2000s a historic theft – his word – committed against the taxpayer.
A few months later sitting around a table of education and business leaders, a highly respected and typically optimistic North Bay community college leader was unusually downbeat.
In the wake of draconian

Turlock Journal - University students have mixed opinions on AB 656

Turlock Journal - University students have mixed opinions on AB 656:


"When a state assemblyman proposes a bill that could mean more than $1.5 billion a year to higher education, students at cash-strapped universities sit up and listen.


About 30 California State University, Stanislaus students from majors as diverse as Biology, Nursing, Criminal Justice, and Jazz Trombone gathered on a misty Friday evening for an open forum to discuss Assembly Bill 656. Student group Socialist Organizer, which has helped to organize some of the recent CSU Stanislaus protests, sponsored the meeting."


Melina Juarez, a political science and anthropology student affiliated with Socialist Organizer, presented information about the bill, which would impose a 12.5 percent producer paid tax on all oil and gas, at the point it is extracted from the state. Oil and gas companies would be prohibited from passing the cost of the tax on to consumers. California, the third-largest oil producer in the country, is the only state in the nation without an oil severance tax.

Money raised through the tax would be used solely to fund higher education classroom instruction. As currently written, 50 percent of revenues would go to the CSU system, 25 percent would go to the University of California, and 25 percent would go to community colleges.


Funding would be used to establish the California Higher Education Endowment Corporation, which would annually allocate the moneys in the California Higher Education Fund, which would also be created by the bill. A 15-member oversight board would govern the CHEEC.

Feinstein, Boxer lash out at governor's demands


Feinstein, Boxer lash out at governor's demands


(01-09) 04:00 PST Washington - -- Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger's demand Friday that the federal government plug a $6.9 billion hole in the state budget, two days after he charged that the federal health care bill is unfair to the state, struck a nerve with California's Washington delegation.

Schwarzenegger is demanding that the administration fix what he calls flawed federal formulas and unfunded federal mandates that short-change the state on Medicaid, foster care, special education and the incarceration of illegal immigrants.



With his demand for federal money to patch nearly one-third of the state's $20 billion budget deficit, the governor "found a soft, sensitive spot" among the state's leaders in Washington, said Joe Mathews, a senior fellow in Los Angeles for the New America Foundation, a center-left think tank.
The office of Democratic Sen. Dianne Feinstein said the governor's budget assumes, for example, that California would get 92 percent of all federal funds for jailing illegal immigrants and that the program will be fully funded, a highly unlikely outcome.
At the same time, Democratic Sen. Barbara Boxer held a conference call with reporters


Read more: http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2010/01/08/MN7M1BFJA4.DTL#ixzz0c7oLr7Wg

Where were the Hispanic votes? / Too many failed to support education reform - SignOnSanDiego.com

Where were the Hispanic votes? / Too many failed to support education reform - SignOnSanDiego.com


Where were the Hispanic votes? / Too many failed to support education reform

SATURDAY, JANUARY 9, 2010 AT 12:04 A.M.
With the resurgence of real education reform this week, California Democrats are experiencing a defining moment. And, as the saying goes, they either define the moment or the moment will define them.
That is especially true for Hispanic Democrats, who rode to power on the assumption that they represent the state’s largest minority, which also happens to be dramatically shortchanged by public schools. Low expectations are the order of the day, and so it’s no wonder that the dropout rate for Hispanic students has hovered at 50 percent for the last two decades.
Unwilling to accept that, state Sen. Gloria Romero, D-Los Angeles, proposed legislation to bring California in line with President Barack Obama’s education reform agenda and make the state eligible for as much as $700 million in grants under the administration’s “Race to the Top” initiative. After extended wrangling, the Legislature passed the bill this week and Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger signed it. In doing so, our leaders threw a life preserver to students drowning in underperforming schools – most of whom are Hispanic.
You would think that Hispanic lawmakers would have jumped at the chance to support this legislation. You’d be wrong. It got only a few votes from Hispanic members of the Assembly.

State's top educator, valley officials meet | mydesert.com | The Desert Sun


State's top educator, valley officials meet | mydesert.com | The Desert Sun:

"Local educators and community members had a chance to speak directly with state officials who have a hand in education reform during a roundtable discussion on Friday.

About 30 people from across the Coachella Valley, including the three school district superintendents, board of education members and representatives from College of the Desert, gathered at Palm Desert High School, 43-570 Phyllis Jackson Lane, to hear from California Superintendent of Schools Jack O'Connell and Assemblyman Brian Nestande, R-Palm Desert.

The state budget, education reform legislation recently signed by Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger and the federal Race to the Top grants were a significant focus of the conversation"