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Friday, February 12, 2010

The Educated Guess � Hot off the press

The Educated Guess � Hot off the press


Here’s some provocative reading to ruin  – no, enrich – your long weekend in between watching the Nordic combined and the biathlon.
Texas rules: Size matters when it comes to textbooks. I’m talking about the population of states that buy them, not the tonnage of the tomes that middle schoolers carry on their backs.
California is big enough to push its weight around with textbook publishers and control its autonomy. But pity small states that are prey to the looney dictates of the self-righteous majority  on the Texas State Board of Education.

In “How Christian Were the Founders?” New York Times Magazine writer Russell Shorto details how a fundamentalist Christian bloc on the 15-member board has put its ideological stamp on science, language arts and history textbooks that end up in circulation around the nation. That explains why Phyllis Schlafly, the Moral Majority and the NRA get inserted into the history of the ‘80s, while Ted Kennedy gets rubbed out, and why conservative views get inserted into standards texts.
There’s a larger agenda: In the candid words of Cynthia Dunbar, a Christian activist on the Texas board, “The philosophy of the classroom in one generation will be the philosophy of the government in the next.”
Tales from the crypt: If you’re not yet convinced that the state’s teacher tenure laws need changing, check out the  exhaustive piece “LAUSD’s Dance of the Lemons” in the latest LA Weekly. The subtitle, “why firing the desk-sleepers, burnouts, hotheads and other failed teachers is all but impossible,” says it all.
The Los Angeles Times did a good article in December on the district’s Sisyphean

The DC VOICE Ostrich: Join the Coalition for Community Schools at their 2010 National Forum

The DC VOICE Ostrich: Join the Coalition for Community Schools at their 2010 National Forum


Innovation is the word of the day in education reform, as the U.S. Department of Education rolls out its new education reform strategy. Community schools are an innovation that is turning around student performance as it builds on a fundamental American principle: schools are inextricably connected to their communities and they educate students best when they function as centers of community. Student success is the result that everyone is seeking for young people...enabling them to graduate from high school ready for careers, college, and citizenship. Attaining this goal is vital to the future for our nation.

On April 7-9, 2010 in Philadelphia, PA the Coalition for Community Schools is hosting a national forum, "Building Innovative Partnerships for Student Success: The Key to America's Future."

Join  U.S. Secretary of Health and Human Services Kathleen Sebelius as she delivers the keynote address, sharing how community schools are critical for nurturing healthy students, families, and communities.
Additional featured speakers include:
- Assistant Secretary Jim Shelton, Office of Innovation & Improvement, U.S. Department of Education
- Representative Chaka Fattah, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania
- Dennis Van Roekel, President, National Education Association
- Randi Weingarten, President, American Federation of Teachers
- Secretary of Education Gerald L. Zahorchak, State of Pennsylvania

This year the coalition celebrates partnerships because they are at the heart of the community schools approach—bringing schools, families, community residents, higher education and an array of other community partners together around a common result—student success. 

All are invited to attend: local and national government leaders, teachers, community-based organization leaders, local policymakers, parents and youth.

To join the discussion REGISTER NOW athttp://guest.cvent.com/EVENT/Info/Summary.aspx?e=9adf5e83-08c2-44e9-8117-d55a47e740d0

Remainders: A new lottery for Tribeca kindergarten hopefuls | GothamSchools

Remainders: A new lottery for Tribeca kindergarten hopefuls | GothamSchools


Remainders: A new lottery for Tribeca kindergarten hopefuls




Education Week: With Grants, NEA Fund Paves Its Own Path to Reform

Education Week: With Grants, NEA Fund Paves Its Own Path to Reform

Three urban school districts —Springfield, Mass; Durham, N.C.; and Columbus, Ohio —will receive an equal share of $3.75 million from the foundation of the National Education Association to improve instruction, close achievement gaps, and stimulate parental involvement, the body announced this week.
That additional funding is the first major scaling up of the foundation’s 6-year old, $6 million Closing the Achievement Gaps Initiative.
Specific details of the new districts’ plans differ, but they share common elements, including setting up teams of teachers and administrators in selected schools to review student-achievement data, encouraging teachers to visit students’ homes, and establishing joint labor-management panels to oversee the work.
“The three sites we have picked have shown district capacity to collect data and to look at data in ways that can drive instructional change,” said William Miles, the program director for the NEA Foundation. “We think a kind of rut districts get into is in looking into the same data and drawing the same conclusions from that data. If you put a collaborative process in place, and you ask questions about the sources and analysis of data, you’ll start to see the problem differently, in ways that will move you to some different solutions.”

SCOTUSBlog Examines Brown v. Board of Education - The School Law Blog - Education Week

SCOTUSBlog Examines Brown v. Board of Education - The School Law Blog - Education Week


SCOTUSBlog Examines Brown v. Board of Education

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As part of its "Race and the Court" program during Black History Month,SCOTUSBlog next week has a slate of podcasts and articles examining the legacy of the Brown v. Board of Education of Topeka case striking down racial segregation in the schools.
The blog's goal with the program is "to reflect on the lasting impact the Supreme Court has had on race, both in law and in American society."
The lineup, scheduled for Feb. 15-19, is as follows:
Podcast: "The Unexpected Consequences of Brown v. Board of Education on African American Schools and Education in the South"
-David Cecelski, historian and author of Along Freedom Road: Hyde County, North Carolina, and the Fate of Black Schools in the South
Podcast on Brown v. Board of Education
-Nina Totenberg, legal affairs correspondent for National Public Radio
"The Global Impact of Brown v. Board of Education"
-Mary Dudziak, professor at the University of Southern California Gould School of Law and founder of the Legal History Blog
"What Can Brown Do For You?: The Court's Struggle Over the Meaning of Equal Protection"
-Pamela Karlan, professor at Stanford Law School

USC Center for Enrollment Research, Policy, and Practice - Podcast Series

USC Center for Enrollment Research, Policy, and Practice - Podcast Series

Each month Scott Andrew Schulz, the center’s program director, initiates a conversation with a prominent scholar or practitioner on an important enrollment topic and posts the interview on the center’s website. This Podcast Series is meant to bring together scholars, practitioners, and policymakers to discuss important topics, inform one another, and generate ideas necessary to improve access to higher education and maximize student success.
Want to download CERPP's podcasts?
February 2010: Kevin Carey of Education Sector
Topic: The For-Profit Revolution: What It Means for Higher Education

(runtime 30:56)

 
    

The National Center for Fair & Open Testing | FairTest

The National Center for Fair & Open Testing | FairTest


The National Center for Fair & Open Testing

The National Center for Fair & Open Testing (FairTest) works to end the misuses and flaws of standardized testing and to ensure that evaluation of students, teachers and schools is fair, open, valid and educationally beneficial.

Spotlight

Testing Reform Anniversary!

Seasons Greetings to you and your loved ones.
Here at FairTest, we are already looking beyond the upcoming holidays to 2010, our organization's 25th Anniversary.
In the two and a half decades since leaders of the country's civil rights, education reform, student and feminist organizations founded the National Center for Fair & Open Testing, we have faced incredible challenges and opportunities. Despite the power of the testing industry and the politicians who blindly support it, we have built a track record of success...

FairTest Examiner Newsletter

The November 2009 FairTest Newsletter is avaiable online now. If you haven't subscribed for the free email newsletter please click the link at the top of the page to do so.

"Empowering Schools and Improving Learning" Released

The Forum on Educational Accountability, chaired by FairTest, has released Empowering Schools and Improving Learning, signed by 84 national education, civil rights, religious, disability, parent and civic organizations. It calls for a thorough overhaul of NCLB. 

FairTest comments on US Education Department's "Race to the Top Fund" Guidelines.

FairTest says "Race to the Top" funding guidelines need to be thoroughly overhauled, are inconsistent with President Obama positions, and will worsen NCLB testing consequences.

Time Out From Testing

Time Out From Testing

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Time Out From Testing is a statewide coalition of parent, educator, business, community, and civil rights organizations in New York State committed to a "time-out" from excessive and high stakes exams. We call for a comprehensive review of the Regents exams and state-initiated standardized tests and the impact they have had on our children, our schools, and our communities.

Read all articles from 2009
Read articles from previous years
Help stop K-2 standardized testing in our schools!
Download and copy the parent protest letter and SLT & PTA resolutions, and gather signatures today!
Letter for School Leadership Teams and PTAs
Letter for Parents
Letter for Parents, spanish
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The Alliance for Childhood has issued a report on the need for creative play, not testing or test prep, in kindergarten.
+ Read the flier
+ Read the 8-page summary.

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Stop K-2 standardized testing!
Chancellor Klein and Mayor Bloomberg are considering a policy to bring mandated standardized testing to kindergarten through 2nd grade. We must stop them!

Sign the online petition today, and pass on the link.

NCLB is up for reauthorization NOW!
Read about it in THIS BOOKLET
Then contact your congressperson


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Music Video: "Not on the Test"
Produced by: Public School Test Records and Grammy Award-winner Tom ChapinSchools Cut Back Subjects to Push Reading and Math
Sam Dillon, New York Times
As Test-Taking Grows, Test-Makers Grow Rarer
David M. Herszenhorn, New York Times
Principals Face Review in Education Overhaul
Elissa Gootman, New York Times
"No Child Left Behind: The Test"
Stan Karp, Rethinking Schools
National Education Association:
More information against NCLB.
"Test Question No. 1: Why Have These Tests?"
NYT article on one of Time Out'sstrongest activists: Jane R. Hirschmann
produced by Naava Katz Design
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