Big Education Ape: Mar 1, 2010

Monday, March 1, 2010

Students prepare for rallies against cuts�|�The Guardsman

Students prepare for rallies against cuts |The Guardsman

A confederation of grass roots organizers, students groups and union representatives will hold a series of actions in the coming weeks to combat cuts to state education and public services funding — a crisis activists blame on the California legislature’s crippled budgeting system.

Teach-in/town hall
A “teach-in/town hall” will be held today, Feb. 24, from 11 a.m. to 2 p.m. at Ocean campus in the Diego Rivera theater to “educate students about the ongoing education and budget crisis in California,” according to the American Federation of Teachers Local 2121 Web site.

“The real message is that no matter what you participate in, it’s important that you inform yourselves and spread the word,” AFT 2121 President Gus Goldstein said.

Unified day of action
The statewide coalition of activists calling for California budget reform are holding a day of action on March 4.

The day of action was decided on Oct. 24, 2009 during a statewide conference that also spawned the City College General Assembly.

“A group of 800 students, teachers and grass roots activists at campuses all over California came together on Oct. 24 and decided that we need to create a grass roots movement to make demands for education,” General Assembly representative Brian Cruz said. “To quote Frederick Douglas, ‘power concedes

Politics K-12 - Education Week

Politics K-12 - Education Week
Senators to Duncan: Don't Forget Rural Schools

Twenty-two Democratic senators from rural states are telling Secretary of Education Arne Duncan that he should make sure rural schools get a fair shot at all that competitive grant money the department is seeking in its fiscal year 2011 budget request.

The senators hail from largely rural states, many of which are considered "red" or "swing" states in presidential elections, including Arkansas, Colorado, Minnesota, Montana, Nebraska, New Mexico, North Dakota, Ohio, South Dakota, Vermont, West Virginia, Washington, and Wisconsin.

You can read the full letter here, but the important point is that the senators appear especially concerned that some of the department's policy prescriptions (like charters and even extended-day programs) just don't work in really remote areas that have trouble supporting even one school. Instead, they're urging the department to check out other options, such as distance learning, that have a better shot of having an impact in rural communities.

Rural districts have often expressed concerns about the department's push for more competitive funding. They say that rural schools just don't have as much capacity as urban and suburban districts to go after competitive grants. The letter suggests that the department provide technical support to help rural

Is Union/Obama Split Related to 2008 Primaries Education Intelligence Agency

Is Union/Obama Split Related to 2008 Primaries? On November 4, 2008, the National Education Association called Barack Obama's election as President of the United States "a major victory for students and educators." To be sure, President Obama has done yeoman work supporting NEA's top priority: protecting teacher jobs. Much of the stimulus package was directed to maintaining the teaching force, and other federal spending was designed for the same end.

But the teachers' unions can't be happy with the policies that accompanied the money. Race to the Top, the call for an end to charter school caps, linking student and teacher performance - the President has embraced and championed ideas that are anathema to NEA and AFT.

The latest rift comes courtesy of the biggest education story of the past few weeks: the firing of the entire staff of Central Falls High School in Rhode Island. NEA and AFT issued a joint statement in support of the fired teachers and promoted a petition to reverse the "now-infamous decision."

President Obama, on the other hand, said:

"So if a school is struggling, we have to work with the principal and the teachers to find a solution. We've got to give them a chance to make meaningful improvements. But if a school continues to fail its students year after year after year, if it doesn't show signs of improvement, then there's got to be a sense of accountability.

And that's what happened in Rhode Island last week at a chronically troubled school, when just 7 percent of 11th graders passed state math tests -- 7 percent. When a school board wasn't able to deliver change by other means, they voted to lay off the faculty and the staff. As my Education Secretary, Arne Duncan, says, our kids get only one chance at an education, and we need to get it right."

How did it come to this, after a crushing victory in November 2008? The rest of organized labor is asking the same question, as card check and health care flounder in legislative limbo. Perhaps the answer for all of them has its roots in campaign politics, rather than domestic policy.

It seems like ages ago now, but in 2007 Hillary Clinton was the heir-apparent to the Democratic nomination, particularly for the labor unions (though John Edwards also boasted some union backing). AFT, with its large New York membership, endorsed Hillary in October 2007. NEA could have immediately followed suit, but through the efforts of then-President Reg Weaver, a semi-secret Obama supporter, the union remained neutral.

The problem with that approach soon became apparent. Individual state affiliates began making their own endorsements, and they

GothamSchools - Breaking News and Analysis of the NYC Public Schools

We read the Moskowitz/Klein e-mails so that you don’t have to

by Elizabeth Green

Joel Klein and Eva Moskowitz at the Harlem Success lottery in April 2009. (GothamSchools)

There’s a lot more than school siting and closures in the 77 pages of e-mails between Chancellor Joel Klein and charter school operator Eva Moskowitz.

The e-mails, obtained by the Daily News, include a little bit of news — such as that Bill Clinton considered weighing in on the charter schools fight — and a lot of insight into the way Klein and Moskowitz think about the politics of education. We’ve read every word of the 150+ e-mails and have collected the highlights below.

A PERSONAL CHALLENGE: Moskowitz puts her expansion goal in personal terms, in an April 2007 e-mail to Klein: “I plan to be educating 8,000 of your children by 2013.”

SHE DIDN’T LIKE THE TWEED WORKFORCE, EITHER. We know that district school leaders and parents often clashed withGarth Harries, the Tweed official who

Obama announces get-tough strategy for struggling schools - washingtonpost.com

Obama announces get-tough strategy for struggling schools - washingtonpost.com:

"President Obama outlined Monday a get-tough strategy for turning around persistently struggling schools, offering an unprecedented increase in federal funding for local school systems that shake up their lowest-achieving campuses."

Speaking before a meeting of America's Promise Alliance, an education group founded by former secretary of state Colin L. Powell and his wife, Alma, Obama called curbing the nation's dropout problem a pressing economic and social imperative.
"This is a problem we cannot afford to accept and we cannot afford to ignore," Obama said at the U.S. Chamber of Commerce headquarters. "The stakes are too high -- for our children, for our economy and for our country."
According to a White House fact sheet, "Every school day, about 7,000 students decide to drop out of school -- a total of 1.2 million students each year -- and only about 70 percent of entering high school freshman graduate every year." As a result of this "dropout crisis," it said, the nation loses $319 billion a year in potential earnings.

The problem is concentrated in the nation's poorest schools and among minority students. Just 2,000 of America' schools -- about 12 percent of the nation's total -- account for half of the nation's dropouts, and more than 50 percent of them are African American or Latino. Boys are also much more likely than girls to be unsuccessful in school.
Obama has sought to combat the dropout problem with an infusion of federal aide for school districts that come up with innovative plans to help students graduate. The president's budget for the fiscal year that begins in October proposes $900 million for school turnaround grants, up from $546 million in fiscal 2010. The economic stimulus

HotSeat Interview: What Next For The Harlem Children's Zone? This Week In Education

This Week In Education

HotSeat Interview: What Next For The Harlem Children's Zone?

The dust is still settling around Helen Zelon's City Limits re-examination of the Harlem Children's Zone, one of the biggest, most critical looks that the program has ever received. It's unclear what happens next for HCZ or the replication efforts that are taking place around the country. Will momentum lag, or program requirements change?

For myself, I came away from reading Zelon's article with deeply mixed feelings. I was reminded of the power of easily graspable phrases ("conveyor belt," "tipping point," "contamination,"), the organizational zigs and zags hidden beneath the surface narrative of many nonprofits, the collateral damage among teachers and kids who function as guinea pigs, the reality that the impact of so many efforts have "eluded measurement" (as Zelon so delicately puts it). But Zelon's article also makes clear that big-sounding ideas and big personalities are, for better or worse, often a key element of what's needed to motivate change. Smaller, perhaps better, more consistently effective ideas may exist, but they fail to capture the imagination needed to motivate action. We want -- we need -- bold risk-taking from our leaders. If that's the case then perhaps we need to be grown-ups about the failures large and small that come from taking big risks.

On the Hot Seat, Zelon describes the "juggernaut" of praise that's surrounded the HCZ effort, the realization that there were lots of unanswered questions about HCZ, the challenges of reporting on the effort, and the uncomfortable experience of digging into a program that everyone seemed to think was a big success. Read Zelon's interview below.

Continue reading "HotSeat Interview: What Next For The Harlem Children's Zone?" »

Schools Matter: America's Broken Promise Alliance, or No Chamber of Commerce Left Behind

America's Broken Promise Alliance, or No Chamber of Commerce Left Behind

The President went to the center for national socialism, the U. S. Chamber of Commerce, today to announce a new take-names-and-kick-ass accountability plan. No, no, no-- don't worry. The new tough measures are not about holding corporations accountable for ruining the economy, and it is not about holding Wall Street accountable for the leeches and banksters who got deliriously wealthy on the backs of American workers and homeowners, and it is not about holding Congress or the White House accountable for letting the insurance and pharmaceutical companies rape sick Americans with impunity, and it is not about holding the credit card companies accountable for blocking consumer protections or fair lending reforms.

Mr. Obama has some REAL accountability in mind for which there is ample bipartisan support: he and the Oligarchs want to fire the principals and teachers in America's poorest public schools for not solving the poverty problem that American corporations and government continue to ignore to the point of not even mentioning it--all the while mouthing cynical bromides about motivating test-choked and impoverished high schoolers to stay in segregated medium security facilities for some more tests and career-building exercises and inventories. It's a grad, grad, grad, grad, grad world.

Title I College- and Career-Ready Standards � The Quick and the Ed

Last week President Obama announced plans to require all states to certify that their standards were “college- and career-ready” in order to obtain their portion of $14.5 billion in federal education funds. This is the single largest pot of education money in the federal budget–it’s previously been called Title I of the Elementary and Secondary Education Act (ESEA)–and it is the promise of this money that led to states following the rules in the ESEA, including those in the latest version, the No Child Left Behind Act of 2002. Theoretically any state could choose to opt out of these funds and their attached restrictions. Many states have threatened to pull out, but none have done so.

Would the college- and career-ready standards requirement be the last straw to push states over the limit? No, it wouldn’t, and the reason is because nothing will stop states from asserting their standards are preparing students for colleges and careers, even if they really are not. That’s federalism, and Obama is not likely to actually try to, nor could he, change it.

Others have pointed out that college- and career-ready is actually a higher standard than what exists now. Under current law, states just have to define a set of standards in math, reading, and science, have a set of assessments to measure student success, and then evaluate schools on whether students are “proficient” on those standards. States have set their standards at a rather low level; forcing those state standards to prepare students to be “college- and career-ready” would be a significantly higher benchmark.

The political opposition to No Child Left Behind has not really been about standards–most people believe it’s a good thing for teachers to have some

Race to the Top Madness - Politics K-12 - Education Week

Race to the Top Madness - Politics K-12 - Education Week:

"My colleague over at State EdWatch, Lesli Maxwell, and I teamed up to put together our Race to the Top Madness bracket. We should know the finalists any day now.

For more about the reasons behind our selections, check out Lesli's blog. In the meantime, here's our bracket predicting the finalists and the winners. Who would you cross off—or who would you add—if you did your own bracket?"

Meeting set to consider vandalism at UC Davis - Sacramento News - Local and Breaking Sacramento News | Sacramento Bee

A community meeting is scheduled for this evening to discuss offensive graffiti sprayed at the University of California, Davis, during the weekend.

The town all meeting is scheduled for 5:30 p.m. at Regan Main community building in the Segundo housing area on campus.

The vandalism at the UC Davis Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender Resource Center was discovered about 12:30 p.m. Saturday. Derogatory words were directed at those who used the center.

The vandalism was present today at the building at the request of center officials.

"As a center we wanted not to immediately remove the vandalism in order to ensure that this hate crime does

Education Week American Education News Site of Record

Peer Reviewers Winnow Race to Top Hopefuls

Expert panels play a key role in determining who makes the cut in the $4 billion stimulus grant competition.

• Rick Hess Straight Up Blog: Of 'Transparency' and Credibility

• On-Demand Webinar: Is the Stimulus Meeting Its K-12 Goals?

• Complete coverage: Schools and the Stimulus

For more stories, visit Education Week's homepage.

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	TODAY'S COMMENTARY

Commentary

The Proficiency Delusion

Letting states set the cut scores for tests used with "common-core standards" would repeat a bad mistake and set back reform, writes Mark Schneider.

View more Commentaries from Education Week.


	MORE HEADLINES

ED Releases Teacher Incentive Fund Regs

(February 26, 2010, Teacher Beat Blog)

Obama Touts School Improvement Plans

(March 1, 2010, Politics K-12 Blog)

GOP Challengers Join Texas Ed Board Battleground

(March 1, 2010, Associated Press)

Senators Unveil Bill to Promote Engineering Education

(February 26, 2010, Curriculum Matters Blog)

Draconian Measures at R.I. High School Are Misconceived

(March 1, 2010, New Blog: Walt Gardner's Reality Check)

The National Security Archive a good resource for teachers

The National Security Archive

New Postings

New - February 12, 2010Project AzorianThe CIA's Declassified History of the Glomar Explorer

New - February 2, 2010Seeing human rights in the "proper manner"The Reagan-Chun Summit of February 1981

January 15, 2010The Air Force versus Hollywood
Documentary on "SAC Command Post" Tried to Rebut "Dr. Strangelove" and "Fail Safe"

December 18, 2009
Kyoto Redux?
Obama's Challenges at Copenhagen Echo Clinton's at Kyoto

Obama Endorses Central Falls Decision This Week In Education

This Week In Education

Turnarounds: Obama Endorses Central Falls Decision

"If a school continues to fail its students year after year after year, if it doesn't show signs of improvement, then there's got to be a sense of accountability. And that's what happened in Rhode Island last week at a chronically troubled school, when just 7 percent of 11th graders passed state math tests -- 7 percent."

- President Obama in prepared remarks (see full text below) first noted by @D_Aarons

Subject: Remarks by the President at the America's Promise Alliance Education Event

Recognizing What Historically Black Colleges and Universities Mean to America | The White House

As I stood watching the Virginia State University drum-line perform in the White House this week (likely the first time an HBCU drum-line has ever perform

ed at the White House), I was reminded of how far we have come as a nation and hopeful about where we are heading. The nation’s Historically Black Colleges and Universities have served our nation since 1837. They educated freed slaves, giving them the priceless gift of a mind filled with world’s possibilities. Today, this noble goal of our HBCUs continues as they unveil for their students the world of possibilities for themselves, their communities and our nation.

Guests attending this White House event left with a glow not unlike that of January 20, 2009, but they also left with a resolve to do the work that will be necessary to ensure all students have access to a high quality education and armed with the tools they need to reach for the American Dream.

Helping America Become a Grad Nation The White House Blog | The White House

The White House Blog | The White House

Helping America Become a Grad Nation

Posted by General Colin Powell on March 1, 2010 at 9:01 AM EST

My wife Alma and I are honored to have President Obama and Secretary of Education Arne Duncan joining us today to announce a new multi-year campaign to mobilize all Americans to help end the high school dropout crisis. We call this work Grad Nation.

For the past two years, America’s Promise Alliance has been traveling the country, raising awareness about how high dropout rates and low readiness for college and work undermine our nation’s future. In nearly all 50 states and 55 cities, we have convened high-level Dropout Prevention Summits that brought together nearly 30,000 mayors and governors, business and community leaders, school administrators, students and parents. They have committed to concrete action plans to improve graduation rates in their states and communities.

To that end, the time for talking and planning has ended. Now we must turn our attention to solutions. This means acting on all the lessons we’ve learned at our summits, and more importantly, making sure all Americans see their stake in this and join us to reach an important goal, which is to see that 90 percent of today’s fourth-graders graduate from high school on time. If we achieve this, we will not only be a more healthy and prosperous nation, but we can also help realize President Obama’s goal of making the United States the global pacesetter of college graduation by 2020.

The simple proposition is this—improving graduation rates is not just an education issue; it’s a community issue. We cannot expect more from our schools and young people until all Americans are prepared to be more involved, because so many of the building blocks that make for success in school involve effort outside of the classroom.

Grad Nation is the way for us to mobilize to win this battle.

Much like the Olympic athletes we’ve been inspired by recently, we all need to push past our comfort levels and make our work benefit something greater than ourselves — our country. Whether it is through City Year’s “In School and On Track” initiative or The First Tee’s National School Program, our nearly 400 national Alliance partners and their local affiliates are stepping up to lead the way. We’re already seeing the impact of this type work in cities like Philadelphia and Tucson, which have improved their graduation rates by more than 20 percentage points in a decade.

So the question remains: What will you do? How can you help? The choice is simple. If we are to remain a great nation, we must be a Grad Nation.

To learn more about America’s Promise Alliance and Grad Nation, visit: www.americaspromise.org.

General Colin Powell is founding chairman of America’s Promise Alliance

Decision to fire all of R.I. school's teachers sad, desperate - washingtonpost.com

Decision to fire all of R.I. school's teachers sad, desperate - washingtonpost.com

Finally, a school system has decided to fire all the educators at an ailing school.

Why didn't we think of this sooner?

Firing some of them hasn't really proven effective in turning around schools, has it? So why not get rid of all of them and start over?

The school committee in Central Falls, Rhode Island's smallest and poorest city, voted to fire every educator at Central Falls High School at the end of the school year. The committee did this because about half of the school's students graduate, and only 7 percent of 11th-graders were proficient in math in 2009.
At the committee meeting Tuesday night, 93 names were called for firing -- 74 classroom teachers, plus reading specialists, guidance counselors, physical education teachers, the school psychologist, the principal and three assistant principals, according to the Providence Journal.
Not one was good enough to stay.

Some of the teachers at the city's only high school cried, but the committee held firm.
It's no wonder that Education Secretary Arne Duncan applauded the move, saying the committee members were "showing courage and doing the right thing for kids."

Courage, indeed.

Now, all they have to do is find 93 excellent professionals to take their places. Recruiting the best educators should be easy, especially when you can offer them life in a very poor town and a job with no security.

And, of course, the powers that be will have to ignore all the other influences on high school students because their poor performance was all about the adults at the high school.

Their elementary and middle school education -- or lack thereof? Not a problem. Their sometimes difficult home lives? Naw. That doesn't affect how a kid does at school.

No Child Left Behind, a federal law that has driven schools to narrow curriculum and use rudimentary standardized tests to