Monday, May 10, 2010
Ackerman quizzed about revenue worries | Philadelphia Public School Notebook
Ackerman quizzed about revenue worries
by Paul Socolar on May 10 2010 Posted in Eye on the budget
In sparsely attended City Council hearings on the2010-11 School District budget Monday, Superintendent Arlene Ackerman and Chief Business Officer Michael Masch said that District administrative and operational costs have already been cut by $76 million, but could be cut deeper if Gov. Rendell's proposed education funding increase for school districts is not fully funded.
In response to questioning by Councilman Bill Green, the superintendent said that while the District is currently working with a budget that includes a 6 percent across the board cut in non-instructional costs, her staff has also explored the contingency of an 8 percent cut.
The savings already achieved by the District help cover recently negotiated raises and increased charter school costs, while allowing the funding of more than $60 million in new initiatives from the District's Imagine 2014 strategic plan, including a major expansion of summer school.
Councilman Green, who issued his own white paper on school reform, questioned whether administrative cuts would be adequate to cope with the possible shortfall if the District doesn't get the $95 million increase in basic education funding for Philadelphia embedded in the Rendell budget.
Masch said after the hearing that the additional 2 percent cut to non-instructional expenses would net the District only $15 million. But he emphasized that funding
Oregon State University to construct $50 million business building | OregonLive.com
Oregon State University to construct $50 million business building
By Bill Graves, The Oregonian
May 10, 2010, 6:04PM
Artist rendering shows the exterior of the proposed new $50 million College of Business building at Oregon State University. The five-story brick building, scheduled to be complete in 2015, will be constructed to fit the character of the OSU campus and to meet the U.S. Green Building Council’s gold certification standards for Leadership in Energy & Environmental Design.Oregon State University will open a state-of-the-art, $50 million five-story building for its business school in five years, thanks to substantial donations from key alumni.
The 100,000-square-foot building will double the college's space and provide modern professional meeting rooms where students can work together on projects and presentations, said Ilene Kleinsorge, dean of the college of business. It also will be conveniently across the street for the 290 undergraduates in the Austin Entrepreneurship Program at Weatherford Residential College, which offers hands-on entrepreneurship courses.
"This elevates our ability to address some of the critical needs on campus, and it is part of our vision for being a college of business here," said
Remainders: DOE official: 2/3rds of teachers need improvement | GothamSchools
Remainders: DOE official: 2/3rds of teachers need improvement
- Deputy Chancellor Eric Nadelstern says two-thirds of city teachers need improvement.
- For the second year, parents associations can pay for non-union classroom aides.
- Bloomberg says he’ll stay out of state races, except to support charter-backer Sen. Craig Johnson.
- A son remembers his mother’s extraordinary year teaching a gifted class before they were common.
- Arthur Goldstein wins his case to lower class sizes at Francis Lewis HS and the DOE ignores the decision.
- What’s in a 3? A teacher grades students’ state English tests and finds the standards are too lax.
- PTA fund raisers are becoming more important as city schools’ budgets take a hit.
- Elana Kagan could become Hunter College HS’s second most well-known alumna.
- Miss Brave describes the seven students who are causing all the trouble in her class.
- After watching another teacher’s class, a Bronx teacher argues for required observations.
- Michael Regnier: charter school critics’ talking points are like Yogi-isms.
- On Wednesday mornings, P.S. 29 students bound into school for “cool clusters.”
- Should “reforms” go into the jobs bill? Education experts weigh in.
- The Hechinger Institute launched a new national education news website: Hechinger Report.
- And WNYC’s Beth Fertig is looking for your city school memorabilia.
Florida’s Power Brokers Hate Amendment 4 � Tangerine, Florida
Florida’s Power Brokers Hate Amendment 4 � Tangerine, Florida
Florida’s Power Brokers Hate Amendment 4
Florida’s Power Brokers Hate Amendment 4
One citizen’s view of Amendment 4 as posted on Ocala.com:
Of course, the one resident initiative Florida’s corporate elite really hates – and is terrified of – is Amendment 4, appearing on the upcoming November ballot. Amendment 4 will empower residents to veto any comprehensive land-use changes made by elected officials that the community doesn’t want.
Amendment 4, in fact, may very well give Floridians the power to prevent future development madness that is bound to re-emerge when the recession ends.
This state belongs to all of us, even if it is ruled by the top dogs. One way to fight back against corporate power brokers and their sycophants in Tallahassee is to vote “Yes” on Amendment 4. The fact that architects of the current assault on government public workers and the public – Sen. John Thrasher, Jeb Bush
AllPrep charter school network leaves hundreds in lurch | OregonLive.com
AllPrep charter school network leaves hundreds in lurch
By The Oregonian staff and wire reports
May 10, 2010, 5:38PM
SISTERS --Suzanne Moore spent almost two years teaching at Sisters AllPrep Web Academy, but what she described as the "best job in the whole world" became a precarious one in mid-March.That's when administrators told Moore that the Clackamas-based company that operated the school was struggling to pay her March salary. She was told to expect a paycheck in her bank account by April 5.
The paycheck didn't appear, and on April 9, the school closed.
She is one of hundreds of people affected when a network of at least 10 publicly funded charter schools ran into deep financial troubles this year. Three of them, based in Sisters and Marcola but serving students across the state, shut their doors in March and April.
Teachers have gone unpaid or lost their jobs, students have had to find new schools, and some families have been asked to pay community college tuition after the charter schools failed to make those payments.
Schools in the network mostly offered online instruction or college-credit courses in partnership with local community colleges. Most were calledAllPrep academies and all were founded by educational entrepreneur Tim King, a former North Clackamas School District teacher.
Trail of financial problems
Nearly a decade ago, King founded three charter schools in that district: New Urban High, Clackamas Middle College and Clackamas Web Academy. In 2008, he left to start the AllPrep and other charter schools in a half-dozen small districts across the state, from Sheridan to Estacada to Sisters to Burns.
After he left, serious financial problems were discovered at the Clackamas charters, including hundreds of thousands of dollars in questioned
Twin Rivers votes on teacher layoffs - Sacramento News - Local and Breaking Sacramento News | Sacramento Bee
Twin Rivers votes on teacher layoffs
The Twin Rivers Unified School District school board will vote Tuesday night to issue final layoff notices to 203 teachers.
Hundreds of teachers are expected to attend the school board meeting to encourage the district to rescind as many as possible after the governor unveils his May budget revision, said Twin Rivers United Educators President John Ennis.
"We just think the number is exorbitant," Ennis said. "We really hope half are rescinded by June 1, so they can get their classroom assignments and it's less disruptive."
Hundreds of teachers are expected to attend the school board meeting to encourage the district to rescind as many as possible after the governor unveils his May budget revision, said Twin Rivers United Educators President John Ennis.
"We just think the number is exorbitant," Ennis said. "We really hope half are rescinded by June 1, so they can get their classroom assignments and it's less disruptive."
Sacramento Press / GPA opens camp in Compton
GPA opens camp in Compton
Above: Brent Pottenger with former Sacramento Kings player, Tyus Edney (and his son)
"You have to have a backup plan," shared one student-athlete this past weekend at GPACompton.
Game Plan Academy (GPA) opened camp this past Saturday in Compton, California (Los Angeles). Over the past few months, my brother, Kai Pottenger, and I have worked collaboratively with the Compton Unified School District, Revolution Test Prep, and the University of Southern California to create a small pilot program for male and female basketball players at Dominguez, Centennial, and Compton high schools. The goal of GPA is to provide students (for free) with personalized and professional academic and athletic mentorship services that they may not normally have access to, including SAT/ACT test prep materials and tutoring. The hope is that this coupling of sports and education will help empower and motivate students to pursue their higher education and career goals. Sports are great vehicles for broad human development, but the reality of "life after athletics" means that youth need support and encouragement with their studies too. In the classroom in Compton, students understood this dynamic quite well, expressing their intentions to integrate and balance basketball with their school work in order to go to college and prepare for life after basketball: "I'm going to keep playing basketball as long as possible and see how far that takes me. But, I'm also going to keep going to class so that I can eventually run my own business one day too," said one student perceptively. This is the type of feedback
Colorado education bill narrowly clears committee - The Denver Post
Colorado education bill narrowly clears committee
House postpones vote until Tuesday
POSTED: 05/10/2010 03:14:38 PM MDT
UPDATED: 05/10/2010 05:52:10 PM MDT
RELATED
- 2010 Colorado Education Bill
- May 8:
- Tenure bill hits next hurdle Monday
- May 6:
- Smaller teachers union backs Colo. reform bill
- Apr 30:
- Senate OKs teacher reform bill
The House today delayed a vote on Senate Bill 191, scheduling consideration of the controversial teacher reform bill for Tuesday.
Earlier today, the House Appropriations Committee passed the bill on a 7-6 vote, with the panel's five Republicans and Democrats Mark Ferrandino, D-Denver, and Jim Reisberg, D-Greeley, casting ballots in favor of Senate Bill 191.
SB 191 — offered by Sen. Michael Johnston, D-Denver — seeks to tie student academic growth to teacher evaluations and change the way teachers obtain and keep tenure.
To survive the bill will have to gather 33 votes on the House floor. Bill sponsors say they appear to have the support of all 27 House Republicans, plus bill sponsors Terrance Carroll, D-Denver, Joe Rice, D-Littleton, and Christine Scanlan, D-Dillon, and Karen Middleton, D-Aurora, who
NorthJersey.com: N.J. education commissioner Schundler pitches plan to tie student performance to teacher pay and tenure
N.J. education commissioner Schundler pitches plan to tie student performance to teacher pay and tenure
THE RECORD
STAFF WRITER
Confronting an often skeptical crowd of nearly 400 school leaders and union representatives Monday, Education Commissioner Bret Schundler pitched his plan to make student growth a key factor driving teacher pay, tenure and job retention decisions.
Schundler repeatedly stressed that he wanted to use “data, not ideology” to determine whether teachers, principals and programs were succeeding. Echoing the New Jersey Education Association’s long-held view, some teachers there argued it wasn’t fair to judge them by student test scores because many factors outside the classroom, such as poverty and parental absence, influenced test results, and data can be skewed or misused.
“Assessments are not perfect, but they’re effective enough that if students move from the 20th percentile rank to the 60th percentile rank something spectacular has happened,” Schundler countered. He stressed that many periodic assessments would be used to evaluate student progress, and therefore teachers, rather than a single test.
The Christie administration wants to pass legislation by June 1 requiring that student performance become the yardstick for measuring faculty, curriculum and schools. Schundler wants at least half of a teacher’s evaluation to reflect student academic progress, but he said the details of how that evaluation would be calculated, and what else would be included, would be hammered out by a committee of stakeholders, including teachers and principals.
This proposal is part of New Jersey’s second application for $400 million in federal Race to the Top funds. Local buy-in helps applications, which are due June 1, and Schundler pressed the educators in the audience
Schundler repeatedly stressed that he wanted to use “data, not ideology” to determine whether teachers, principals and programs were succeeding. Echoing the New Jersey Education Association’s long-held view, some teachers there argued it wasn’t fair to judge them by student test scores because many factors outside the classroom, such as poverty and parental absence, influenced test results, and data can be skewed or misused.
“Assessments are not perfect, but they’re effective enough that if students move from the 20th percentile rank to the 60th percentile rank something spectacular has happened,” Schundler countered. He stressed that many periodic assessments would be used to evaluate student progress, and therefore teachers, rather than a single test.
The Christie administration wants to pass legislation by June 1 requiring that student performance become the yardstick for measuring faculty, curriculum and schools. Schundler wants at least half of a teacher’s evaluation to reflect student academic progress, but he said the details of how that evaluation would be calculated, and what else would be included, would be hammered out by a committee of stakeholders, including teachers and principals.
This proposal is part of New Jersey’s second application for $400 million in federal Race to the Top funds. Local buy-in helps applications, which are due June 1, and Schundler pressed the educators in the audience
Harkin Introduces Bill to Keep Educators on the Job
Harkin Introduces Bill to Keep Educators on the Job
April 14, 2010
Harkin Introduces Bill to Keep Educators on the Job
The Keep Our Educators Working Act Will Create an Education Jobs Fund
WASHINGTON, D.C. – Senator Tom Harkin (D-IA), Chairman of the Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee and of the Senate Appropriations panel that funds education initiatives, introduced the Keep Our Educators Working Act today. The bill will create a $23 billion Education Jobs Fund to help keep teachers, principals, librarians and other school personnel on the job as states face crippling budget shortfalls. Cosponsors of the measure so far include: Senators Begich (D-AK), Bingaman (D-NM), Sherrod Brown (D-OH), Burris (D-IL), Dodd (D-CT), Durbin (D-IL), Gillibrand (D-NY), Lautenberg (D-NJ), Merkley (D-OR), Mikulski (D-MD), Murray (D-WA), Schumer (D-NY) and Stabenow (D-MI).
“This country is about to face a massive wave of layoffs in our schools and institutions of higher learning that could weaken our economic recovery and cause serious damage to our education system,” Senator Harkin said. “This bill is an investment in our kids, in our economy and in our future.”
The Keep Our Educators Working Act will create an Education Jobs Fund modeled after the State Fiscal Stabilization Fund (SFSF) that was established in the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act (the ‘Recovery Act’).
The SFSF is currently supporting more than 300,000 education jobs, such as teachers, principals, librarians, and counselors, and is widely credited with mitigating the impact of the recent recession. However, even with the SFSF, schools across the country have laid off workers, and the job outlook is worse for the 2010-2011 school year. Additional resources are needed to help states and districts avoid a “funding cliff” that would result in even more layoffs.
“Recent headlines make the case that two pillars of the American dream – a good job and a good
Cuts could shrink New York’s education department to historic low | GothamSchools
Cuts could shrink New York’s education department to historic low
New York State’s Education Department could shrink to a historically low number of staffers next year, Education Commissioner David Steiner said this weekend.
Speaking at the United Federation of Teachers’ conference on Saturday, Steiner said told an audience of teachers that Governor Paterson’s proposed budget cut would eliminate 5o to 60 staff members if it goes through the legislature unchanged.
“We haven’t had so few colleagues in living memory,” he said.
Those cuts would come at the same time the department takes on more responsibility. Not only has Steiner
Speaking at the United Federation of Teachers’ conference on Saturday, Steiner said told an audience of teachers that Governor Paterson’s proposed budget cut would eliminate 5o to 60 staff members if it goes through the legislature unchanged.
“We haven’t had so few colleagues in living memory,” he said.
Those cuts would come at the same time the department takes on more responsibility. Not only has Steiner
Citrus Heights Herald — LEGUSD Virtual Academy Now Enrolling
The Elk Grove Unified School District’s newest addition in innovative education has arrived. The EGUSD Virtual Academy is now accepting enrollment for students in grades K-12 for the 2010-2011 school year.
The EGUSD Virtual Academy is a part of a free public education system. Any student in grades K-12 in Sacramento County – along with students in the neighboring counties of Amador, Contra Costa, El Dorado, Placer, San Joaquin, Solano, Sutter and Yolo – is eligible to enroll in the EGUSD Virtual Academy. Read more –>
House Appropriations OKs education bill on narrow vote - The Denver Post
House Appropriations OKs education bill on narrow vote05/10/2010The House Appropriations Committee has passed the controversial teacher tenure reform bill on a 7-6 vote, with the panel's five Republicans and Democrats Mark Ferrandino, D-Denver, and Jim Reisberg, D-Greeley, casting ballots in favor of Senate Bill 191. 
CU confers 5,825 degrees in Boulder05/08/2010 - Adelita Mendoza returned to college because she wants to find the cure for cancer.
Panel OKs teacher reform bill05/07/2010 - The House education committee heard more than eight hours of testimony before approving a controversial teacher reform bill today in an emotional meeting that stretched into the morning.
Gun-rights group to drop concealed-weapons lawsuit against CSU05/07/2010 - A gun-rights group plans to drop its lawsuit challenging Colorado State University's prohibition of concealed weapons on campus.
DPS Shakespeare Festival an opportunity for one and all05/07/2010 - Denver Public Schools students from kindergarten through high school performed 400 short scenes, dances, soliloquies and sonnets today at the Denver Performing Arts Complex as part of its 26th annual Shakespeare Festival.