Saturday, May 15, 2010

Month-long student strike at the University of Puerto Rico. � Fred Klonsky's blog

Month-long student strike at the University of Puerto Rico.

by preaprez

Little reported in the North American media, students at the University of Puerto Rico have been on strike for over 25 days.
The issue is budget cuts.
Puerto Rico Daily Sun:

An extraordinary assembly in which about 2,000 people participated on Thursday approved continuing the student strike that has paralyzed the Universidad de Puerto Rico for more than three weeks.
The strike was launched to protest a cut of $100 million in the university’s budget.
The assembly, convened by the General Council of Students to demand from the Negotiating Committee information about the status of the talks, voted to maintain the protest for an indefinite period despite the fear expressed by some participants about the possible loss of the school year.

More on University of Puerto Rico student strike.

by preaprez

In response to the previous post, I received the following:

[The following message from San Juan was sent late Friday by José A. Laguarta Ramírez, a former CUNY Grad Center student and presently member of the Puerto Rican Association of University Professors (APPU). Note: A number of important Puerto Rican unions have called a major workers' strike in support of the UPR strike this coming Tuesday. A solidarity rally has been called here in New York for Tuesday, 5:30 p.m.at the Puerto Rican government office at 135 West 50th Street (between 6th & 7th Aves.) in Manhattan.]
Subject: UPR UNDER SIEGE: SOLIDARITY WITH STRIKING STUDENTS URGENTLY NEEDED!!!
Yesterday, a massive student assembly ratified, with near unanimity, the ongoing 24-day system-wide strike at the University of Puerto Rico.
Events, however, took an ugly turn this morning, when riot police surrounded the breadth and width

Hopes for budget compromise dim amid Calif deficit - Boston.com

Hopes for budget compromise dim amid Calif deficit

By Judy Lin

Associated Press Writer / May 15, 2010

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SACRAMENTO, Calif.—Having already cut billions from state programs and tried tax increases, Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger and legislative leaders from both parties say they are in no mood to compromise as they face California's latest summer of fiscal gloom.

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Schwarzenegger on Friday released his revised spending plan for the fiscal year that begins in July, forcing state leaders to tackle another massive shortfall -- this one estimated at $19.1 billion -- and consider deep cuts. The financial distress has been brought on by a recession that has seen jobs evaporate and tax revenue to state and local governments plunge.

At times somber, the Republican governor called for his deepest cuts to date on social welfare and health programs for the needy. He even proposed eliminating the state's main welfare program, which would affect 1.4 million people.

NH high school to students: Turn in cell phones

A New Hampshire high school is taking away students' cell phones during class time in an effort to improve test scores.

Mass. Ph.D. program explores genocide psychology

by Bob Salsberg, Associated Press Writer

As a clinical psychologist, Cristina Andriani counseled victims of physical and sexual abuse, Vietnam War veterans and cult survivors. As a doctoral candidate, her understanding of trauma is expanding globally as she tries to unravel the psychological underpinnings of genocide.

Book Review - The Death and Life of the Great American School System - By Diane Ravitch - NYTimes.com

The Education of Diane Ravitch

Will and Deni McIntyre/Corbis

By ALAN WOLFE

Published: May 6, 2010

THE DEATH AND LIFE OF THE GREAT AMERICAN SCHOOL SYSTEMAttending high school in Houston in the 1950s, Diane Ravitch came into contact with a teacher named Ruby Ratliff. A passionate lover of literature and a fierce editor of homework, Ratliff, following Tennyson, told Ravitch “to strive, to seek, to find, and not to yield.” The student evidently followed the teacher’s advice. Ravitch, a historian of American education and assistant secretary of education under the first George Bush, has long sought to find out what makes schools work. She has now found what that is, or at least what it isn’t: choice and testing. Her case against both is unyielding.

How Testing and Choice Are Undermining Education

By Diane Ravitch

283 pp. Basic Books. $26.95

Scholar’s School Reform U-Turn Shakes Up Debate (March 3, 2010)

Ravitch was lucky to have Ratliff as her teacher — and we are lucky to have Ravitch as ours. Education was once considered purely a state and local matter. In the past 30 or so years it has become a national political football, with left and right fighting over various proposals, while nothing ever seems to get fixed. Meanwhile, many schools remain essentially segregated; how much you earn has a great deal to do with where you were educated; and even the best and brightest seem to know less geography and grapple with less history than when Ruby Ratliff discussed “Ozymandias” with her Houston class.

Ravitch’s offer to guide us through this mess comes with a catch: she has changed her mind. Once an advocate of choice and testing, in “The Death and Life of the Great

Local Nonprofit Joins Facebook to Boost Awareness of College Affordability — The Rancho Cordova Post

Local Nonprofit Joins Facebook to Boost Awareness of College Affordability

by MARYANNE KELLY on MAY 15, 2010 · 0 COMMENTS

in VIEWPOINTS

With more than 400 million active users and growing daily, Facebook® is today’s most popular social networking site. Because so many high school and college students are there, Fund Your Future: Planning and Paying for College is now there, too, as a resource on all the ways to pay for college.

Fund Your Future is EdFund’s award-winning workbook providing comprehensive information on how to get financial aid for college — including details on California-specific and federal aid programs. This same great content is

Sacramento Press / Complete Guide to Harvey Milk Day Events in Sacramento

Complete Guide to Harvey Milk Day Events in Sacramento

by Ken Pierce

Background Notes
Harvey Milk was a leader in the gay rights movement who was elected to the San Francisco Board of Supervisors in 1977. This made him the nation’s first openly gay man elected to public office in a major U.S. city.

It was on November 27, 1978 when San Francisco Mayor George Moscone and City Supervisor Harvey Milk were shot to death by a former city supervisor, Dan White, who had just recently resigned but changed his mind and wanted his seat back. This sent a shockwave throughout San Francisco, California, and throughout the nation when the major networks carried the story during the evening newscasts.

On October 12, 2009, Arnold Schwarzenegger signed the highly controversial bill (S.B. 572) establishing “Harvey Milk Day” to take place each May 22nd, Milk’s birthday. This makes the slain gay civil rights activist only the second person in state history – in addition to conservationist John Muir – to gain such a designation. The signing came on the heals of President Obama awarding Harvey Milk posthumously, the Presidential Medal of Freedom last August.

NorthJersey.com: Bergen County school board member will lead NJSBA

Bergen County school board member will lead NJSBA

Saturday, May 15, 2010
LAST UPDATED: SATURDAY MAY 15, 2010, 5:15 PM

BY MONSY ALVARADO

WIRE SERVICE

Staff Writer

0 Comments

A long-time school-board member in Bergen County was elected president Saturday of the New Jersey School Boards Association.
Raymond R. Wiss, who has been a member of the Northern Valley Regional Board of Education since 2001, won the two-year term during the organization's semi-annual meeting in Plainsboro, which was attended by about 170 delegates representing the state's 21 counties.
He previously served on the Old Tappan school board for seven years. He was also mayor of the borough from 1996 to 2000.
Wiss said among the challenges he would be facing are the reductions in state aid and its impact on local school districts statewide. He said the organization would continue to advocate for public education and the children it serves.
"Never has there been a time period when there is so much legislation that is directly impacting on children and public education," he said. "The key right now is that as the new leadership is assembled, we assess our priorities, reach out to board members, and take those ideas and be proactive rather than reactive in setting our goals and objectives for public education."

Police Squeeze University of Puerto Rico Student Strikers � Student Activism

Police Squeeze University of Puerto Rico Student Strikers

by Angus Johnston

Police tried to gain access to the University of Puerto Rico, now in its 25th day of student occupation, before dawn on Friday, cutting through the locked gates of the campus’s main entrance.
Students rushed to defend the gates, and the police withdrew, but they later set up a perimeter around the campus, refusing to allow or supplies to be brought in.
The police escalation of the standoff came one day after a mass meeting attended by more than two thousand people voted to continue the strike indefinitely.

Childhood, Disability, and Public Space � Student Activism

Childhood, Disability, and Public Space

by Angus Johnston

There’s been a flareup in the feminist blogosphere in the last couple of days of a long-running argument about childhood misbehavior and the social obligations of parents. In a thread over at Feministe, several people, on both sides of the debate, analogized childhood to disability, arguing about whether and how kids’ behavior in public spaces can be compared to that of adults with disabilities.
So I’d like to talk a little about the relationship between childhood and disability today. It’s a subject that I have some familiarity with, and it’s one that has relevance to both children’s rights and disability activism — two topics this blog has addressed in the past.
People who dislike children (not people who aren’t into having kids of their own, or people who are uninterested in kids, or people who are annoyed by bad parents — people who dislike children) tend to have a recurring constellation of complaints about them. For instance:
They’re dirty. They touch everything. They’ve got no social skills. They’ve got no regard for personal space. They’re loud. They say inappropriate things. They do inappropriate things. They’re creepy. They’re demanding.

NorthJersey.com: Digitally distracted: Hours spent wired changing how kids think and interact

Digitally distracted: Hours spent wired changing how kids think and interact

Saturday, May 15, 2010
LAST UPDATED: SATURDAY MAY 15, 2010, 11:59 AM

BY DENISA R. SUPERVILLE

THE RECORD

STAFF WRITER

Josh Walker has access to a laptop 24-7 as part of the Pascack Valley Regional High School district's one-to-one laptop program.

Dr. Tom J. Kersting spoke to faculty and parents at Holdrum Middle School in River Vale about digital disruption. Kersting stated that youngsters who are constantly texting and playing video games are in danger of not developing the social skills that the generation before did by interacting face to face.

KEVIN R. WEXLER / STAFF PHOTOGRAPHER

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Dr. Tom J. Kersting spoke to faculty and parents at Holdrum Middle School in River Vale about digital disruption. Kersting stated that youngsters who are constantly texting and playing video games are in danger of not developing the social skills that the generation before did by interacting face to face.

"The pluses are that you get to have all your notes in one place — on your computer — where you can access them," the 16-year-old said. "You can Google basically anything — and that's also one of the disadvantages. It could distract you from doing your homework."
For the generation born after 1980 — the so-called Millennial Generation — being wired and connected is second nature.
A study by the Kaiser Family Foundation released in January found that daily media use among young people had risen to seven hours, 38 minutes a day. According to the researchers, that number is more like 10 hours and 45 minutes when the time spent multi-tasking — using more than one medium at the same time, such as texting while listening to an iPod — is included.
"That's more than a full-time job — and that's seven days a week, not five," said Tom Kersting, a student assistance coordinator at Indian Hills High School and a psychotherapist in private practice in Ridgewood. He recently presented a seminar on being "Digitally Distracted" at River Vale public schools. He spoke on the same topic Thursday at Indian Hills High School.
Another study released in February by the Pew Research Center's Internet & American Life Project found that three-quarters of teens have cellphones, including 58 percent of

Schools Matter: Remind Governor Ritter to Be a Real Leader and Not a Follower of Ideology

Remind Governor Ritter to Be a Real Leader and Not a Follower of Ideology

by Jim Horn



136 State Capitol, Denver, CO 80203 \| (303) 866-2471

(Please feel free to copy and paste the letter below).

May 15, 2010

Dear Governor Ritter:

As Governor we know that you have earned the reputation of leading the nation in cutting edge ways. Please be a fearless leader again by choosing to be the first governor to use scientific evidence and the best scientific opinion to "just say no" to the dangerous and undocumented education bill, SB 191, which was passed by the Colorado legislature last week with no evidence or testing to show that the policy therein will do more good than harm.

An important report has just been issued by the National Academy of Education. Please have your staffers read it, and then ask them if SB 191 satisfies the major or minor concerns of the National Academy and the National Research Council regarding the use of value added testing models to make high stake decisions regarding teacher evaluations. If it does not, please veto SB 191. If it does, we encourage you to sign quickly.

Be the first governor in a long time to put science ahead of ideology, while protecting the taxpayers in your state from the lawsuits that are sure to filed in the event that SB 191 becomes law. Now that would be a real leader!

Respectfully,

Jim Horn

Halting Teacher Cuts: Big Victory in Los Angeles

by Jim Horn

Mike Klonsky has links and details.

ED 667: Module One Reflection | Reflections on Teaching

Education Technology: Where Does It Live?

by alicemercer

This post was part of an assignment for my class on being a technology coordinator. Your comments and feedback are welcome.

Where does it live? This question comes from Chris Lehmann, a well know educator in education technology circles. He is principal at Philadelphia’s Science Leadership Academy. After going through the assigned readings, looking at job descriptions, and thinking about my own district, that was the question that popped into my mind.

Educational ideas only have lasting power if they exist within the systems and structures of institutions that claim them. Everything — every system, every policy, every structure — in schools represent a pedagogical choice, and we don’t take advantage of that. The classes we choose to schedule, the length of the classes, the times they meet — every possible permutation privileges certain kinds of learning and 667: Module One Reflection

by alicemercer

How different or similar is the job compared to your previous perceptions of the job?
What do you think is the most challenging aspect of the job?

The thing that struck me is just how differently the responsibilities could be depending on how the position is approached, and how it can exist at different “levels” within a district.
The text, The Technology Coordinators Handbook, described the position for a district at of my size as having fewer IT support responsibilities, more employees under them, a greater focus on curriculum, but they are a team leader, and at a mid-level in the district both developing and implementing policy. In smaller districts, as is true generally, you end up wearing more hats, may have more IT responsibilities, and obviously fewer employees working under you to support what you do.
The Technology Coordinators Handbook from Pinellas County Schools took it from a completely different perspective. Although a very large district (~150,000 students), they appear to have “pushed” the position down to the site level. That means that like at a small district, the person wears many hats, and does not have

Speaker P�rez: Assembly will Focus on How Budget Impacts Jobs | California Progress Report

Speaker Pérez: Assembly will Focus on How Budget Impacts Jobs

by kaldveer

By Assemblyman John Perez
SACRAMENTO – In this Democratic weekly address, Assembly Speaker John A. Pérez (D-Los Angeles) says the Assembly is looking closely at how measures included in the Governor’s May Revise budget proposal would impact jobs for Californians. The Speaker discusses how the Assembly’s budget solutions will be focused on creating and saving jobs and be developed in an open, transparent way that encourages public participation.
Click onto the following link for the English language MP3 file. The running time is 2:05.
http://democrats.assembly.ca.gov/Newsline/Audio/20100514RadioAddressEngl...
Click onto the following link for the Spanish language MP3 file. The running time is 3:12.
http://democrats.assembly.ca.gov/Newsline/Audio/20100514RadioAddressSpan...
Website of Assembly Speaker John A. Pérez: www.asmdc.org/speaker
Transcript:
Hello, this is Assembly Speaker John Pérez.
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Saturday coffee. � Fred Klonsky's blog

Saturday coffee.

by preaprez

Happy Birthday Studs.

Tomorrow, May 16th, is Studs Terkel’s 98th birthday. Studs died in 2008.

Tonight on his radio station, WFMT, his old colleague, Sydney Lewis, has put together a program,Working With Studs.

When I arrived in Chicago in 1973 there were two radio programs that were required listening and both were on WFMT, the classical music station. Ironically, neither program involved classical music.

In the morning, every day, Studs would do a one hour mostly interview show. Although there was rarely an interview. It was definitely a conversation and often Studs was more interesting than the person he was interviewing.

On Saturday nights, Anne and I would listen, often in the dark, to the Midnight Special, a mostly folk music program with some British comedy recordings thrown in. We never understood what was funny about the British comedy bits, even on those rare occasions when we understood what they were saying.

If you haven’t already done it, sign the petition.

The Responsible Budget Coalition

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