Latest News and Comment from Education
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Seattle School Board Picks Superintendent Search Firm - The highest scoring firm out of three choices was *Hazard Young Attea Associates,* better known as HYA. The Board members almost unanimously felt the t...11 hours ago
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Only 15% of young people believe the US is headed in the right direction under Trump. - So why do Democratic Party leaders fear the other 85%?13 hours ago
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UT: Court Strikes Down Voucher Program - Utah privateers were pretty excited about getting a taxpayer-funded school voucher program through the legislature. HB 215 pulled off that trick in part by...17 hours ago
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RIP, Libraries and Museums - On our way home from the Network for Public Education conference, earlier this month, we jogged to the right and spent a night in Cleveland, so we could vi...17 hours ago
Tuesday, March 16, 2010
Sacramento Press / Local API Coalition Works for a Complete Count
On Saturday a broad coalition of local Sacramento, state and federal elected officials, community leaders and government entities held a press conference to make a call for Asian & Pacific Islander Americans to complete and submit their Census form. Speakers discussed the importance of a complete count of Asian & Pacific Islander community members in the 2010 Census.
Although this coalition’s efforts are targeted at Asian & Pacific Islander Americans, it is critical that all residents of our City and our region complete the Census. Being counted ensures our region receives its fair share of Federal funds. In addition, promptly returning the form, so that the Census does not have to follow up with us can save our Country hundreds of millions of dollars.
The coalition’s efforts are led by Asian Resources. The community organization has been at the forefront of Census outreach since the 2000 Census. They serve as the fiscal manager of 5 funded census partners and other community based organizations to outreach to the very diverse Asian & Pacific Islander community. ARI has partnered with various other organizations on coordinating press conferences, community forums and the 2010 Census Community Rally at the State Capitol. Asian Resources with Census Bureau officials will also be providing questionnaire services with Asian dialect translations throughout the months of March and April.
According to the 2000 Census, the Asian American population represents
Obama’s No Child Left Behind: New Name, Same Sketchy Policies | RaceWire
Obama’s No Child Left Behind: New Name, Same Sketchy Policies | RaceWire
JULIANNE HING
Obama’s No Child Left Behind: New Name, Same Sketchy Policies
This past Saturday the Obama administration released its plan for the reauthorization of No Child Left Behind, which is hereafter to be referred to by its new—well, make that old—name as the Elementary and Secondary Education Act. ESEA was originally passed by Lyndon Johnson in 1965 and has had several face lifts over the years till it became what we know it as today.
But the Obama administration is giving up the No Child Left Behind moniker, ostensibly to distance itself from the Bush version of the law. If only education reform were as simple as giving up a tainted name.
This is what we know right now: the new ESEA proposal is a 41-page blueprint. Much of it is remarkably uncontroversial: Obama wants new academic standards that are more comprehensive. The goal is to have all high school students college-ready by 2020. The new plan would take students’ rate of academic growth and improvement into consideration when measuring school achievement, regardless of the level the student started at. The state will stop offering vouchers to parents to send their children to private schools if their local public school is failing. Hard to argue over, no?
While the new ESEA is still just a proposal, education advocates are voicing concern over already-implemented initiatives that really show Obama’s ideological stance on ed policy and how ESEA will shake out for communities of color. Race to The Top, a national competition for $4.35 billion worth of federal money dangles up to $700 million in front of states that adopt Secretary of Eduation Arne Duncan’s dramatic
Education magic bullets are often blanks - latimes.com
BLOWBACK
Education magic bullets are often blanks
Empowering parents, giving administrators more control over teacher assignments and other reform proposals sound good. But when teachers ask for details, they usually come away empty.
Those who wonder why California was excluded from the first round of federal Race to the Top grants would do well to examine their own commentary for clues. It is typical of editorials and other articles on this topic to speak in general terms -- to throw out noble-sounding phrases that, in the end, don't offer specifics. The Times' March 4 editorial, "Another setback for California schools," reflects this kind of commentary.
Take, for example, The Times' assertion that "district administrators, not union contracts," should determine teacher assignments in the Los Angeles Unified School District. Really? If you were a teacher, would you completely trust administrators to always make good assignment decisions? The same people who inspired the term "dance of the lemons" as incompetent (and sometimes criminal) administrators were transferred from one school to another by their downtown buddies? Would you want to be forced to an overcrowded school terrorized by crime and violence, hobbled by a lack of supplies and a crumbling infrastructure, in a neighborhood beset by a multitude of social ills, with only a district administrator to count on for support and security? Most administrators are talented, committed and fair, but too many are none of those things.
Even district administrators don't have full confidence in district administrators. Here's a passage from the administrators' union newsletter from January: "Lost in the shuffle is the apparent lack of appreciation by district leaders for the role of the men and women who run [schools] on a daily basis. In some cases, when central and local district administrators receive a complaint from a parent or community member, they challenge the principal to respond in writing, exhibiting a 'gotcha' attitude." And they have, like United Teachers Los Angeles, a no-reprisal clause in their contract -- in other words, no real punishments for people who don't follow the agreed-upon rules. Where are the specifics of such a policy would protect all employees from decisions based on politics, personalities or propaganda?
The same goes for questions on teacher evaluation and merit pay. It's easy to say we need better procedures for firing bad teachers as well as retaining and rewarding good ones. I agree. So show me a plan to do so -- a plan that, again, protects teachers from capricious decisions by district administrators. A plan that rewards teachers fairly and that encourages collaboration and teamwork. A plan that takes into account all that teachers have to deal with in order to foster student success. True student success, by the way, is more than just test scores, despite what the educational research eggheads (too many of whom have no teaching experience) would have you believe.
And then there's the "parent trigger" option, by which a majority of a school's parents can initiate change by signing a petition. On the surface, this sounds like a good idea. Anything that gets parents involved in their children's education has merit. But turning staffing over to what is bound to be a popularity contest has its drawbacks as well. Often, parents get mad when they hear things they don't want to hear. "You're picking on my kid!" when you mention there has been no homework for a while
Take, for example, The Times' assertion that "district administrators, not union contracts," should determine teacher assignments in the Los Angeles Unified School District. Really? If you were a teacher, would you completely trust administrators to always make good assignment decisions? The same people who inspired the term "dance of the lemons" as incompetent (and sometimes criminal) administrators were transferred from one school to another by their downtown buddies? Would you want to be forced to an overcrowded school terrorized by crime and violence, hobbled by a lack of supplies and a crumbling infrastructure, in a neighborhood beset by a multitude of social ills, with only a district administrator to count on for support and security? Most administrators are talented, committed and fair, but too many are none of those things.
Even district administrators don't have full confidence in district administrators. Here's a passage from the administrators' union newsletter from January: "Lost in the shuffle is the apparent lack of appreciation by district leaders for the role of the men and women who run [schools] on a daily basis. In some cases, when central and local district administrators receive a complaint from a parent or community member, they challenge the principal to respond in writing, exhibiting a 'gotcha' attitude." And they have, like United Teachers Los Angeles, a no-reprisal clause in their contract -- in other words, no real punishments for people who don't follow the agreed-upon rules. Where are the specifics of such a policy would protect all employees from decisions based on politics, personalities or propaganda?
The same goes for questions on teacher evaluation and merit pay. It's easy to say we need better procedures for firing bad teachers as well as retaining and rewarding good ones. I agree. So show me a plan to do so -- a plan that, again, protects teachers from capricious decisions by district administrators. A plan that rewards teachers fairly and that encourages collaboration and teamwork. A plan that takes into account all that teachers have to deal with in order to foster student success. True student success, by the way, is more than just test scores, despite what the educational research eggheads (too many of whom have no teaching experience) would have you believe.
And then there's the "parent trigger" option, by which a majority of a school's parents can initiate change by signing a petition. On the surface, this sounds like a good idea. Anything that gets parents involved in their children's education has merit. But turning staffing over to what is bound to be a popularity contest has its drawbacks as well. Often, parents get mad when they hear things they don't want to hear. "You're picking on my kid!" when you mention there has been no homework for a while
Sacramento Community Youth Forum
Community Youth Forum:
"COMMUNITY YOUTH FORUM
“Education is the most powerful weapon which you can use to change the world.” - Nelson Mandela
Dr. Ephraim Williams Family Life Center
The Sacramento County District Attorney’s Office"
Saturday March 27, 2010
9:00 a.m. to 1:00 p.m.
Dr. Ephraim Williams
Family Life Center
Sacramento District
Present...
Youth Forum
There is no fee for this event. For more information, please contact
Charles Doss at 916.737.7064, ext. 328 at the DEWFLC
4036 14th Ave, Sacramento, CA 95820
Learn about 10/20/Life Law – Adult Times for Adult Crimes
Special Presentation: Gang/Gun Law
Dr. Ephraim Williams Family Life Center and the Sacramento County District Attorney’s
to gang and gun laws, the criminal justice system, and to family service agencies.
“Education is the most powerful weapon which you can use to change the world.”
- Nelson Mandela
Remainders: Celebrities take up the teacher quality debate | GothamSchools
Remainders: Celebrities take up the teacher quality debate
- “From one man without children to another,” John Legend tells Bill Maher, “you’re off base.”
- Arne Duncan is taking two rounds of questions tomorrow on his blueprint of ESEA.
- Eric Nadelstern makes the case for having the first week of school next year be only one day.
- Democracy Now interviews former Khalil Gibran Academy principal Debbie Almontaser.
- Accountable Talk says the union should tie any rubber room deal to four percent raises.
- Hopeful that Michael Mulgrew would be fresh blood, a UFT member says he’s disappointed.
- Norm enters Grady High School to distribute election fliers and encounters the opposition.
- Flypaper has 10 questions for Race to the Top finalists giving presentations this week.
- A teacher says the flip side of blaming teachers for everything is not giving students enough credit.
- Diane Ravitch calls Newsweek’s education story a “parody of a right-wing rant.”
- For every good idea the Obama admin has on education, they have a bad one, writes Jay Greene.
- American Spectator wonders whether unions running charter schools will end up hating their contracts.
- Parents don’t love a PA state senator’s idea to punish parents if their children commit multiple crimes.
- And learning from Chicago, Cleveland is worried about mixing students from closing schools.
Editorials | Schools' extreme makeover | Seattle Times Newspaper
Schools' extreme makeover
Perennially floundering schools ought to use infusion of federal funds for extreme makeovers from new instructional programs to replacing the principal and at least half of the staff.
JOHN LOK / THE SEATTLE TIMES
Randy Dorn, state schools superintendent
WASHINGTON'S 41 lowest-achieving schools will be notified next week whether they will receive three-year federal grants from $50,000 to $2 million a year.
Help cannot come too soon for the floundering group of schools. They have racked up the lowest reading and math test scores in the state and, for the high schools, graduation rates. Such dismal educational outcomes are unacceptable in our high-tech and literate communities.
Enter the Obama administration, which has turned the lure of federal money in exchange for reforms into an art. This time, it aims $3 billion in one-time money at efforts to improve perennially struggling schools.
In exchange for the federal aid, school districts must agree to dramatically transform their struggling schools in one of four ways: Close the school; replace the principal and half the staff or alter academic programming, for example transforming a conventional high school into one centered on science, math and technology. The fourth would be to convert into a charter school, sadly, illegal in this state.
Wholesale restructuring of poor-performing schools appropriately starts with this group. The guidelines are a reasonable accompaniment to the money. State schools Superintendent Randy Dorn will need to ensure flexibility that allows the money to pay for some interventions already proving successful.
Looking forward, a level of systemic and consistent help for struggling schools goes beyond one-time federal spending. For one, there isn't enough federal money to go around. The schools have asked for $49 million, more than double the $17 million earmarked for this state.
One Day to Prevent Homelessness
On any night in Sacramento: 2800 are homeless, 57% of those are sheltered, 43% are unsheltered, 20% are families (including couples). Over the course of a year in Sacramento up to 4,257 people in Sacramento experience homelessness.
THE NEW FACE OF HOMELESSNESS:
The economic crisis has produced a new face of the homeless: families and individuals displaced by job losses and the rise in foreclosures. These are people that have never been homeless before and are new to the social services system. In this economic climate, these new homeless are not just the chronically homeless, they are our former co-workers who were laid off and our former neighbors that couldn’t make the rent or the mortgage. The new face of homelessness in Sacramento looks like you or me and they need a helping hand.
The economic crisis has produced a new face of the homeless: families and individuals displaced by job losses and the rise in foreclosures. These are people that have never been homeless before and are new to the social services system. In this economic climate, these new homeless are not just the chronically homeless, they are our former co-workers who were laid off and our former neighbors that couldn’t make the rent or the mortgage. The new face of homelessness in Sacramento looks like you or me and they need a helping hand.
FROM SACRAMENTO MAYOR KEVIN JOHNSON:
Please join hundreds of Sacramentans engaged in a region-wide initiative to end homelessness. This campaign—Sacramento Steps Forward—is a call to join together to ensure that all Sacramentans have a place to call home. Sacramento Steps Forward is a united effort to find solutions to the complex and long-standing issues of homelessness. Other cities and counties across the country have tackled this problem. We have studied their lessons and know that Sacramento can become an example of how a region can end homelessness. You can help by contributing just one days rent or mortgage payment to the Sacramento Region Community Foundation for One Day to Prevent Homelessness.
Please join hundreds of Sacramentans engaged in a region-wide initiative to end homelessness. This campaign—Sacramento Steps Forward—is a call to join together to ensure that all Sacramentans have a place to call home. Sacramento Steps Forward is a united effort to find solutions to the complex and long-standing issues of homelessness. Other cities and counties across the country have tackled this problem. We have studied their lessons and know that Sacramento can become an example of how a region can end homelessness. You can help by contributing just one days rent or mortgage payment to the Sacramento Region Community Foundation for One Day to Prevent Homelessness.
Mayor Kevin Johnson is the Chair of the "Policy Board to End Homelessness."
80 Sacramento houses of worship trying to raise $400,000 for homeless housing - Sacramento News - Local and Breaking Sacramento News | Sacramento Bee
80 Sacramento houses of worship trying to raise $400,000 for homeless housing
Published: Tuesday, Mar. 16, 2010 - 2:50 pm
Mayor Kevin Johnson launched a fundraising initiative Tuesday to raise funds to pay for housing for 600 homeless families.
As part of the "One Day to End Homelessness" campaign, parishioners at more than 80 houses of worship will be asked Sunday to donate one days' worth of their rent or mortgage. A telethon will then be held Monday on KCRA. Donations also can be made at www.onedaytopreventhomelessness.org
If at least $400,000 is raised, the regional Homelessness Prevention and Rapid Re-housing Program will be eligible for $1.6 million in matching funds from the federal Department of Housing and Urban Development.
The funds will be targeted for "people that with a little bit of support at the right time can be kept in housing," said Fred Teichert, who is the chair of the funding committee for the homeless prevention program.
Read more: http://www.sacbee.com/2010/03/16/2611683/80-sacramento-houses-of-worship.html#ixzz0iNvEKa8t
Can local genealogists link school lunch burgers and chicken sandwiches to middle-school obesity?
Can local genealogists link school lunch burgers and chicken sandwiches to middle-school obesity?
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When Sacramento genealogists chart genograms, which are family medical histories down through the generations, what do they see as a common link? It's childhood obesity that runs in the family. And what's the link related to? That's where genealogy comes it. It's not only a nutritionist, but also a genealogist that can journal junk food lunches as family habit or tradition. But how healthy, really, are middle-school lunches locally? And do the kids really demand those menus? Or is it all about family habits through the generations? What do the latest studies show as links, but not actual causes of childhood obesity?
Can Sacramento genealogists predict better than nutritionists what local Sacramento schools serve kids for lunch and link the family history records to obesity by middle-school age? By listing traditional foods, parents can find out whether school lunches are linked to childhood obesity or whether it's traditional and familiar foods brought from home.
Look at the school menus online--how many schools daily serve cheeseburgers and chicken sandwiches with fries? How similar is the menu to fast food eateries fare? And how does a family historian keep a record as a genogram to see any links between school lunches locally and obesity in middle-school kids?
Sure, genealogists can keep journals and family history eating records especially when it comes to habits and tradition. It's all about familiarity and tradition before eating habits are formed. And then,
262 school council members come on board | Philadelphia Public School Notebook
262 school council members come on board
by Paul Socolar on Mar 16 2010 Posted in Breaking news
In a reversal, the School District has announced that it is accepting all 262 individuals who applied by the March 9 deadline to serve on the School Advisory Councils at the 14 Renaissance Eligible schools.
The District is continuing to seek parent members for the councils at the eight schools where parents do not yet make up the requisite majority of the membership - Bluford, Daroff, Douglass, Smedley, Stetson, University City, Vaux, and West Philadelphia.
"We're not going to accept any other applications other than parents - to get to 51 percent at each school," said Yvonne Soto, who coordinated recruitment of the councils for the School District.
In total, 40 percent of the 262 council members are parents. Representatives of community-based organizations make up 23 percent of the total, and other community members 18 percent. School staff represent 5 percent of the members and students 2 percent; student participation was allowed only at the three targeted high schools.
The incoming council members will gather Saturday, March 20 at William Penn High School for an all-day training session from 8 a.m. to 3 p.m.
The School Advisory Councils are being created to oversee a "turnaround" process at the 14 schools, which were targeted for transformation because of poor academic performance. Original guidelines said that the councils would have seven to 21 members, a majority of them parents. The District is waiving the maximum council size rule, Soto said.
Membership on the 14 councils currently ranges from a low of 10 to a high of 34 members at West Philadelphia High School.
District documents had originally said that applicants would be screened and had described the primary task of the councils as selecting the best available and approved provider to manage the
Associated Baptist Press - Baptists decry Texas board’s votes on textbook standards
Associated Baptist Press - Baptists decry Texas board’s votes on textbook standards
| Baptists decry Texas board’s votes on textbook standards |  |  |
| By Robert Marus | |||
| Tuesday, March 16, 2010 | |||
| AUSTIN, Texas (ABP) -- A Texas board that sets curriculum standards for the nation’s second-largest textbook market has voted, along party lines, to leave a conservative imprint on history, social studies and economics courses. And the effects won't be felt in the Lone Star State alone. The Texas State Board of Education voted 10-5 March 12 to approve a set of social-studies standards that many textbook publishers use to guide their publication standards. All of the board’s Republican members voted in favor of the guidelines, and all of its Democratic members voted against them. A Religious Right voting bloc on the board had, over the previous two months, won scores of contentious votes inserting more than 100 amendments into a set of standards that a group of professional educators had recommended. Among the amendments was the move to excise Thomas Jefferson from a section on how Enlightenment philosophy influenced the founders, replacing him with 13th-century theologian Thomas Aquinas and 16th-century Reformer John Calvin. And the board’s conservative majority rejected -- again along party lines -- an amendment that would have required textbooks to “examine the reasons the Founding Fathers protected religious freedom in America by barring government from promoting or disfavoring any particular religion over all others.” Several of the board’s conservative members have argued -- both during board meetings and in other public statements -- that church-state separation is a myth or an incorrect interpretation of the First Amendment. The first 15 words of that amendment -- “Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof” -- are generally divided by legal scholars into two halves known as the Establishment Clause and the Free Exercise Clause. Thinkers, politicians and judges dating back to Jefferson have interpreted the two clauses, when taken together, as requiring an institutional separation of religion and government.
“I think what we’d like to say in reaction to that is that it’s unfortunate that such a basic understanding of the First Amendment was victim to the hyper-politicization on the State Board of Education,” said Stephen Reeves, the CLC’s legislative counsel. “But it just reinforces the need for churches -- Baptists and others -- to educate their students about how the First Amendment protects religion in this country.” Reeves emphasized “that the First Amendment -- both the Establishment Clause and the Free Exercise [Clause] -- protect religion, and do so even when the government tries to favor religion.” Other critics were less measured in their reaction to the board’s decisions on the First Amendment as well as other changes to educators’ original recommendation for the standards. “What I’ve been telling people is the Texas State Board of Education obviously can’t remove the First Amendment to the Constitution, but they can do something equally frightening -- they can erase it from kids’ history classes. And that’s what they voted to do last week,” said Ryan Valentine, deputy director of the progressive group Texas Freedom Network and a member of University Baptist Church in Austin.
Other changes to the curriculum include:
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