Big Education Ape: Jan 29, 2010

Friday, January 29, 2010

Duncan on Katrina: 'Best Thing' for New Orleans Schools - Politics K-12 - Education Week

Duncan on Katrina: 'Best Thing' for New Orleans Schools - Politics K-12 - Education Week:

"Did the usually smooth-tongued U.S. Secretary of Education really say that Hurricane Katrina was the best thing to happen to the education system in New Orleans? Oh yes, he did.

In an interview to be broadcast this weekend on Washington Watch With Roland Martin, Arne Duncan says, 'I think the best thing that happened to the education system in New Orleans was Hurricane Katrina. That education system was a disaster, and it took Hurricane Katrina to wake up the community to say that 'we have to do better.''"

Arne Duncan does speak frankly when it comes to the shortcomings of urban school districts, but this comment seems unusually callous, even though we know what the secretary is trying to say. The public schools were a wreck before the storm, no real debate there. And, yes, the schooling options for many students are better in the city now, and student achievement is slowly, but surely on the rise.

Friday Reading List: Race to the Top Judges and a New Blog - Politics K-12 - Education Week

Edubloggers, including none other than Secretary of Education Arne Duncan, are having quite the back-and-forth on the issue of whether the list of Race to the Top judges should be kept a secret:

Quick Reacap: Michele brought up the question last week.

Then AEI's resident edu-smartypants Rick Hess gave his take. Duncan didn't respond directly, but addressed the issue here.

Hess shot back, reminding the Education Department what happened when allegations of conflict of interest were raised about Reading First. And Eduwonk engaged in a lively debate... with himself. Hess explained here why one of the debating Eduwonks is wrong and also Bill Clintonesque.

And the Fordham Institute's Mike Petrilli argued that Duncan could be playing with political dynamite, in a post featuring a guest quote from Hypothetical Rahm Emanuel, who doesn't make appearances in edublogs nearly often enough.

Eduwonk comes back this time wondering if the administration's goals (which he can understand) are worth it, giving the political risk of releasing criticism along the lines of what he calls Hess' "jihad." Hess gets this in the final-for-now word.

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

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

AP Courses: How many do colleges want?

I’ve just started researching college admissions in depth and already I'm about to answer a question with the same response that annoys me so much from college admissions directors. (Let me apologize now.)

A reader posed this question: How many Advanced Placement courses should a student take in high school to go to college?

The answer: “It depends.”

On what? On the student, the high school attended, the desired college.

Students can take no AP courses or one or two and find a fine college to attend. Others can take five or six AP courses in their senior year alone and get rejected from Harvard.

Continue reading this post »

Why students fail AP tests

My column last week about how to reveal the secrets of which teacher is getting the best Advanced Placement results received many more comments than I expected. This was, I thought, a topic only for insiders, AP obsessives like me. I forgot, once again, that college-level exams have become a rite of passage for at least a third of American high schoolers, with that proportion increasing every year.

The column provided links to the several local school districts that have posted the subject-by-subject AP results for each school. I was shocked that any were doing it, since five years ago when I asked about this, few school officials had given it much thought. Since the AP tests are written and graded by outside experts, a teacher who does not challenge his students in class is likely to have lots of low scores on that school report, which until now hardly anyone had a chance to see.

Many thought I glossed over the effects of opening up AP courses to anyone who wants to get a useful taste of college trauma, sort of like camping in the back yard before your dad takes you to the Sierras.Enough mediocre students have enrolled in AP, and a similar program International Baccalaureate, to lower average scores even in the classes of the best teachers.

Continue reading this post »

State of the Union: Breaking It Down | The White House

State of the Union: Investing in a World-Class Education

voiceofsandiego.org | News. Investigation. Analysis. Conversation. Intelligence. - 'We Just Keep Walking Through the Fire'

By EMILY ALPERT

Christine Kuglen scoops up a paper cup from the muddy yard where children at Innovations Academy play in the shadow of a thundering highway. Since Innovations moved to this campus -- a beige office building in the middle of Fashion Valley -- the CEO has become the janitor, too.

She is also going without a paycheck, along with the program coordinator. Kuglen and her colleagues started the school just a year ago and have struggled to keep up their labor of love, an eclectic school where there is no homework and children choose what to study. They cut classroom assistants, froze spending and salaries and even cut a phone line to save $5 a month.

"We just keep walking through the fire," Kuglen said as she strolled through the halls, strewn with dirt and litter she hasn't had a chance to clean yet. "We do it because we know this is an amazing school."

Charter schools have touted their freedoms as an edge over traditional public schools. Independently run and publicly funded, they can set their budgets, choose their curricula and hire their staff. But as the state slashes budgets, charters also have headaches that other schools don't.

School change requires in-depth support - The Boston Globe

School change requires in-depth support - The Boston Globe:

"THE NEW education reform law is a modest step forward, mainly because it will help Massachusetts win additional federal funds. It allows for more charter schools and gives superintendents more leeway in dismissing teachers in low-performing schools. By themselves, though, these changes are unlikely to make much difference in the high-poverty schools on which the bill is focused."

Children whose parents have limited education come to school with enormous deficits in vocabulary, background knowledge, language skills, and number sense. Although these problems can be overcome, it isn’t easy. It takes a major shift in the way teachers teach, the way schools use data to assess progress, how the principals lead, and how the staff and school schedule are deployed to help teachers. This can’t be done one teacher at a time, but requires a concerted, school-wide effort lasting three to five years.

The fact that few teachers and principals learned in college the skills they need to deal with these needy students is the single biggest obstacle to better performance. Some day we’ll need to reform teacher preparation; for now, we need to give hands-on help to schools with high concentrations of low-income and minority students.

Certainly there are many principals who care passionately about making sure all kids succeed, who insist that teachers use research-based pedagogy, and who have the complete backing of their superintendent to changes in the way their teachers teach. They do this without charter status and without changes in current union contracts and dismissal procedures.

D.C. school’s lesson for Mass. - The Boston Globe

WASHINGTON - Critics say it cannot be done. A lackluster law school plagued by dismal bar exam passing rates will not be able to attract students good enough to help it gain national accreditation. Add to that a commitment to educate the underprivileged, often students with less than stellar academic records, and it becomes mission impossible.

But as the University of Massachusetts contemplates undertaking this very challenge, a public law school in Washington, D.C., provides the state with a blueprint for how a school in dire straits can, with years of careful attention, vastly improve its quality while maintaining its focus on the underserved.

The city of Washington launched its public law school in 1988 with a lofty goal: to provide a legal education to minorities underrepresented in the field and empower them to serve their own communities and others in need.

But for years, less than a quarter of its graduates were able to pass the bar exam on their first try, a miserable rate that repeatedly thwarted its chances of gaining national accreditation. With the school on the brink of closing little more than a decade ago, officials at the University of the District of Columbia’s law school made a heart-wrenching decision.

Online Learning Gets High Praise From Bill Gates - US News and World Report

Online Learning Gets High Praise From Bill Gates - US News and World Report:

"In hiss 2010 annual letter, recently posted to the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation website, Bill Gates makes a pretty strong case for incorporating different elements of the Internet—specifically, online video and interactive lessons—into both K-12 and higher education. 'A lot of people, including me, think this is the next place where the Internet will surprise people in how it can improve things,' he writes.

It is a fact that 'online learning,' 'educational technology,' and 'distance education' are buzzwords that are practically ubiquitous among today's teachers, education gurus, and even high-profile business executives. The buzz right now centers on the learning implications of Apple's new iPad tablet; last summer, former General Electric CEO Jack Welch made headlines when it was announced that he would be launching an M.B.A. program, the Jack Welch Management Institute, with classes being offered almost entirely online. 'Online education is going nowhere but up. It's for real,' he told BusinessWeek magazine. Using data collected from degree-granting online learning programs nationwide, U.S. News has found that the number of such programs increased by 75 percent between 2001 and 2008."

DISD's Hinojosa vows to fight transfers at 4 struggling high schools | News for Dallas, Texas | Dallas Morning News | Latest News

DISD's Hinojosa vows to fight transfers at 4 struggling high schools | News for Dallas, Texas | Dallas Morning News| Latest News

With four chronically failing high schools under threat of closure in Dallas, Superintendent Michael Hinojosa says he's prepared to go to court to block the state from forcing students to leave their schools.

I know a lot of good lawyers," Hinojosa told parents gathered this week at Seagoville High School, one of the four struggling schools. If the state requires at least 50 percent of students to transfer – a solution available under the law – "I'm gonna fight them on that," Hinojosa said. "We'll do what we gotta do."

Hinojosa's stance comes as pressure mounts over the fate of Seagoville, Kimball, Pinkston and Roosevelt high schools, all of which have repeatedly been labeled "academically unacceptable" by the state and face closure if they don't meet state standards this year.

A plan is due to the Texas Education Agency next month, outlining how the district plans to turn around the four high schools.

Community meetings across the district have revealed intense loyalty among parents who want their children to stay at the schools, whatever the problems.

Thursday, the Dallas Independent School District Board of Trustees unanimously approved a plan that involves creating magnet programs within each of the four schools, in hopes of drawing students who could help boost test scores and graduation rates.

The plan would place a magnet in science, math and engineering at Kimball; a law magnet at Pinkston; an education magnet at Seagoville; and a health and science magnet at Roosevelt.

Tom Luna proposes raid on reserves for Idaho schools | Local News | Idaho Statesman

Tom Luna proposes raid on reserves for Idaho schools | Local News | Idaho Statesman:

"State schools chief Tom Luna's plan to spare deep education cuts next year by tapping funds at the Land Board and in his own office feels like a 'Hail Mary,' said Rep. Maxine Bell, who co-chairs the powerful budget committee.

He tried, she said. But she expects 'he will be somewhat disappointed with the outcome.'

Luna said his plan was realistic.

'I can't imagine managing or building or forecasting how we are going to keep student achievementmoving forward on a 'Hail Mary,'' Luna said.

Luna proposed $83 million in new money and cuts Thursday to help close a $135 million gap between his plan for education spending and Gov. Butch Otter's proposal to"

Parents weigh in on Fayette County school redistricting - Local - Kentucky.com

Parents raised questions about the Fayette County Public Schools' new redistricting proposal Thursday night, but there was little in the way of heavy criticism.

Some parents said during a forum at Picadome Elementary School that proposed new attendance zones would continue to leave their children facing long bus rides in heavy traffic.

Superintendent Stu Silberman replied that the district would consider the points raised, but that some people probably will be disappointed in the end.

"There is no way to please everybody in this situation," he said. "We wish we could."

Thursday night's forum was the first chance for parents to directly comment on the redistricting proposal, which wouldn't take effect until the 2011-12 school year. It is intended to reduce overcrowding at several schools.

On the south side of Lexington, the district plans to build a new elementary school on Keithshire Way. That will mean changing existing attendance zones for nearby Picadome, as well as Stonewall and Garden Springs schools.

N.J. voters deny 7 of 9 school-construction questions | Philadelphia Inquirer | 01/28/2010

N.J. voters deny 7 of 9 school-construction questions | Philadelphia Inquirer | 01/28/2010:

"Voters in seven of nine school-district referendums around the state said no to new taxes Tuesday, rejecting 12 school construction and renovation proposals.

Among those defeated was a $34.7 million proposal in Pennsauken to replace 85-year-old Central Elementary School, closed because of mold and air-quality problems and leaks, with an energy-efficient facility for 600 students.

The plan also would have closed Longfellow Elementary, which district officials say is obsolete and will require substantial repairs in coming years.

It was the second time Pennsauken voters rejected the proposal, which was eligible for $2.4 million in state aid.

Superintendent James Chapman said district officials believed the project would have been good for the community and the students, but 'we understand these are difficult times.'"

San Francisco school truancy program gets grant

San Francisco school truancy program gets grant:

"A day after San Francisco school officials outlined a desperate plan to cut costs that included boosting class sizes and cutting summer school, city leaders on Wednesday countered with an announcement of new federal funds to help chronically truant students get back on track."

The news was some relief for a school system facing a $113 million budget shortfall over two years and the elimination of programs aimed at helping struggling students.

The federal two-year, $238,000 grant might sound like a drop in the bucket by comparison, but it will give 30 more chronically truant high school students at a time the chance to catch up in academic credits through the Center of Academic Re-entry and Empowerment housed in the Bayview Hunters Point YMCA. Enrollment is currently limited to about 23 students.
The 2-year-old program has served 124 formerly truant teens - some of whom hadn't seen the inside of a school for more than a year. So far, 68 percent have finished the nine-week program and re-enrolled in a city high school. Six students have graduated.

The U.S. Department of Children, Youth and Families pays the $250,000 annual costs.

AP Exclusive: States struggle to keep top teachers | National news | Chron.com - Houston Chronicle

AP Exclusive: States struggle to keep top teachers | National news | Chron.com - Houston Chronicle:

"ATLANTA — Most states are holding tight to policies that protect incompetent teachers and poor training programs, shortchanging educators and their students before new teachers even step into the classroom, according to a new national report card.

The study from the National Council on Teacher Quality — which will be released Friday — paints a grim picture of how states handle everything from pay to discipline for public school teachers. States are using 'broken, outdated and inflexible' policies that ultimately hurt how children learn, according to the report.

In fact, even the top scoring state, Florida, received a C, with most states getting Ds or Fs. A handful of states — including Georgia, Texas and Louisiana — got a C-minus.
'We think it's really a blueprint for reform,' council vice president Sandi Jacobs said about the report, called the State Policy Teacher Yearbook. 'Each goal is something we think states could and should be doing to reform teacher quality.'

The National Council on Teacher Quality is a Washington, D.C.-based nonprofit that focuses on teacher policies at the federal, state and local level."

School system in Va. won't teach version of Anne Frank book - washingtonpost.com

School system in Va. won't teach version of Anne Frank book - washingtonpost.com:

"Culpeper County public school officials have decided to stop assigning a version of Anne Frank's diary, one of the most enduring symbols of the atrocities of the Nazi regime, after a parent complained that the book includes sexually explicit material and homosexual themes.

'The Diary of a Young Girl: the Definitive Edition,' which was published on the 50th anniversary of Frank's death in a concentration camp, will not be used in the future, said James Allen, director of instruction for the 7,600-student system. The school system did not follow its own policy for handling complaints about instructional materials, Allen said."

The Educated Guess � Obama: Cut banks out of college loans

Toddlers of America are counting on U.S. senators to take a cue from the president – and the rest of pissed-off America — and stick it to bankers. They’re hoping that Congress restructures the federal college student loan program.
Here’s why: President Obama has asked Congress to end the Federal Family Education Loan program, in which the government has subsidized banks’ loans to college students. Instead, Obama wants the U.S. Treasury to issue the loans directly.
The federal government has been underwriting loans for 45 years in order to encourage banks to make loans they’d consider risky. But the non-partisan Congressional Budget Office estimates the federal government could save $87 billion over a decade if it took over the program. Other experts say that’s too high while acknowledging there would be some savings.
Last September, the House pass the Student Aid and Fiscal Responsibility Act along party lines. But, not surprisingly, banks and the student loan industry have lobbied mightily against the change, and the bill has been stalled in the Senate.

Teachers fume over Mayor Bloomberg's push to chop pay hikes and cut staffs

Teachers feel pitted against their students and parents after the mayor announced Thursday they could get lower raises or face staff cuts.

"He puts us on the chopping block and then we look bad to parents if we fight," said Tricia Gomes, a teacher at Public School 178 in Queens. "They should tighten Tweed's belts. Why tighten the middle-class' belts?"

The mayor wants to give educators a 2% raise this year on their first $70,000 of salary, instead of the 4% hike he'd scheduled. Otherwise, he said, he'd cut 2,500 teachers.

Union groups were outraged.

"This is a false choice, we're at the beginning of a budget process," said teachers union boss Michael Mulgrew.

Peter McNally of the principals union accused the mayor of "trying to negotiate our contract at a press conference."

Possible New York Teacher Layoffs Would Have Big Impact - NYTimes.com

For more than three decades, New York City schools have soldiered on through turmoil, politics, recessions, budget crises and a changing cast of mayors and chancellors. But since 1976, the system has never carried out significant layoffs of teachers.
That may soon change. Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg has said that if the city does not wring pay concessions from the teachers’ union and all of Gov. David A. Paterson’s proposed budget cuts are approved — a worst case — the city may have to get rid of 11,000 of its 79,000 teachers. Last year, about 3,800 were lost through attrition, mostly retirement, so if similar numbers are recorded this year, several thousand could receive pink slips.
Layoffs would hurt schools by increasing class sizes, which have already been inching up. They would also upset parents and students. And they would force the schools chancellor,Joel I. Klein, to retreat from some of his fundamental strategies, including giving principals the prerogative to hire any candidate they wish.

Rush to create charter high schools in New York City is recipe for cash scams

Hours after rebuffing parents and voting to shut 19 public schools, education officials announced plans to end most programs at Alfred E. Smith High in the Bronx and replace them with a charter school.

That charter school, however, has its own troubled history.

It's called the New York City Charter High School for Architecture, Engineering and Construction Industries (AECI), and it has been in operation fewer than two years.

Last June, a Manhattan federal grand jury charged its founder and chairman, Richard Izquierdo Arroyo, with stealing more than $200,000 from a nonprofit South Bronx housing organization.

Prosecutors say Izquierdo spent the money on designer clothes, fancy restaurants and trips to the Caribbean for his grandmother, state Assemblywoman Carmen Arroyo, and his aunt, City Councilwoman Maria del Carmen Arroyo.

Another board member of the school, Margarita Villegas, an employee of the housing group, was indicted with Izquierdo. Both have pleaded not guilty. They immediately resigned from AECI's board and from the board of the South Bronx Charter School, where Izquierdo was chairman.

Virtually all the teachers who began at AECI when it opened its doors in September 2008 resigned within the first year.

This month, 17 of the 19 new staff members at the school filed a state labor petition to have the United Federation of Teachersrepresent them.

State Education Department eyes closure of Newtown High School

More Queens high schools are facing the axe - this time, wielded by the state.

But, students, alumni and community members vowed on Wednesday to fight the possible closure of Newtown High School in Elmhurst - one of 10 Queens high schools the state Education Department has deemed "persistently lowest achieving."

"This is not a done deal," vowed state Sen. Hiram Monserrate (D-East Elmhurst), who rallied the crowd at an impassioned meeting in the 113-year-old school's auditorium.

Those on the state's hit list of 34 schools citywide have four options: They can be turned around by replacing the principal and half of the staff; transformed by rewarding staff who boost student achievement; become charter schools or simply shut down.

"We identified those schools whose performance in English, language arts and mathematics were the lowest in the state and failed to show progress or schools who have had graduation rates below 60%," said Ira Schwartz, the state Education Department's assistant commissioner for accountability.

City school kids are drinking more of the healthier milk variety and cutting down on calories and fat intake - NYPOST.com

City school kids are drinking more of the healthier milk variety and cutting down on calories and fat intake - NYPOST.com:

"Don't cry over skimmed milk.

City public-school students were spared 4.6 billion calories and 422 grams of fat last year by the replacement of whole milk with lower-fat options on school lunch menus, a new study has found.

This means that kids were offered 25 percent fewer calories and 81 percent less fat through school milk in 2009 compared with 2004, according to the federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

The study also put to rest fears that kids would simply drink less milk if they lacked the yummier whole-milk option.

Milk consumption per student rose 1.3 percent in the period."

Experts Say a Rewrite of Nation’s Main Education Law Will Be Hard This Year - News Analysis - NYTimes.com

Experts Say a Rewrite of Nation’s Main Education Law Will Be Hard This Year - News Analysis - NYTimes.com:

"In his State of the Union address, President Obama held out the hope of overhauling the main law outlining the federal role in public schools, a sprawling 45-year-old statute that dates to the Johnson administration."

But experts say it would be a heavy lift for the administration to get the job done this year because the law has produced so much discord, there is so little time and there are so many competing priorities.
In 2001, when Congress completed the law’s most recent rewrite, the effort took a full year, and the bipartisan consensus that made that possible has long since shattered. Today there is wide agreement that the law needs an overhaul, but not on how to fix its flaws.
Since it was recast into its current form by the second Bush administration — and renamed No Child Left Behind — it has generated frequent, divisive debate, partly because it requires schools to administer far more standardized tests and because it labels schools that fail to make progress fast enough each year as “needing improvement.” That category that draws penalties and has grown to include more than 30,000 schools.

Haiti Takes the Measure of the Task of Rebuilding - NYTimes.com

Haiti Takes the Measure of the Task of Rebuilding - NYTimes.com:

"PORT-AU-PRINCE, Haiti — More than two weeks after the earthquake that devastated much of this country’s southern half, the capital remains a city of teetering walls, dangling electrical wires and precariously balanced heaps of jagged cinder block and wrought iron, all rattled daily by aftershocks."

Bulldozers and excavators are few and far between. Even as tent cities here swell, aid groups say an estimated 10 percent of the city’s residents (a number that may be vastly understated) are camping in yards and streets next to their homes, marking off what they hope is a safe distance in case the structures fall in the next aftershock. Others trek by daily to see if their houses are still standing and wonder if they will ever be able to move back in.
“It’s dangerous, but what can we do?” Orpha Brinach, 38, said after a night on a mattress in a narrow street lined by damaged homes. “We can’t go to the tent cities because robbers will steal everything we have.”

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