The most interesting aspect of this just-postedDOE job description is the extreme emphasis on confidentiality:The Portfolio Data Analyst will be privy to confidential information, as either part of the regular assignment or on a project basis, and will participate in decisions related to the development and implementation of Portfolio Planning policies, plans and initiatives. This work includes suc
BOSTON—A coalition of civil rights groups has scheduled a forum on African Americans in Boston.
The "State of Black Boston" will be held Tuesday at United Way of Mass Bay in Boston. Organizers say the event will be aimed at discussing the causes of racial inequality and disparity in the city of Boston and how to tackle different solutions.
Among those taking part are Darnell Williams, president & chief executive of the Urban League of Eastern Massachusetts, and James Jennings, professor of
JENNIFER S. ALTMAN/The New York Times Students work with numbers in Kerri Gega's fourth grade class, which she teaches using Singapore math, at the Quaker Ridge School in Scarsdale, N.Y. Singapore math, an increasingly popular approach to teaching mathematics, emphasizes visual aids and a slow pace, with kindergartners spending a week on the numbers 1 and 2. |
The New York Times has an interesting article about a new math curriculum making its way to the United States. It's called "Singapore math" or "slow math." By introducing topics slowly and covering them deeply, Singapore has managed to produce consistently top-scoring students.
The pace is so slow, the article says, that teachers spending days teaching children about the number 1. (Here's a little more about the curriculum from the company that makes U.S.
Click on Huffington Post these days, and you are immediately inundated by the presence of Arianna Huffington. Watch Arianna on MSNBC's "Hardball" or "Countdown"! See Arianna on "Meet the Press" or CNN! Laugh as Arianna makes a (very teeny) funny on "Real Time with Bill Maher"! Read about Arianna's new book! See how Arianna sums up the previous week's news! Who cares about politics or the news when there's Arianna and her opinions to read or watch? It's wall-to-wall, 24/7, all-Arianna-all-the-time, in a self-promotional onslaught that would make Donald Trump blush.
I'm sorry, but the "manifesto" published in today's Washington Post really pisses me off because it is built upon a false premise. It is authored by a number of urban school superintendents, including Chicago's Ron Huberman, New York City's Joel Klein, Washington DC's Michelle Rhee, and New Orleans' Paul Vallas. And it -- intentionally? -- misstates educational research."[T]he single most important factor determining whether students succeed in school is not the color of their skin or their ZIP code or even their parents' income -- it is the quality of their teacher."No. That is patently false.
Even in suspending Proposition 98, after hemming and hawing all night long, for only the second time, the Legislature approved Prop 98 spending of $1.2 billion more than Gov. Schwarzenegger proposed in May. And
The deed is done. At 8:26 am, the State Senate passed the last bills connected with the budget and went home. The $87.5 billion budget is headed to Gov. Schwarzenegger for his signature later today. It happened two hours after the Assembly finished its work and only after Republican Sen. Jeff Denham changed sides to vote to suspend Prop. 98, and Sen. Dennis Hollingsworth crossed over on another part of the […]
There has been much concern that somehow the proposed LA Seniority Settlement is eliminating seniority. Lets be clear here – this settlement does not eliminate seniority either at the protected school sites or in the district. This settlement simply means that some schools would be protected from experiencing the mass layoff when budget cuts are required. These schools will not even be protected from cuts. When the district has a cut, say 5 percent of staff in the district, this settlement will mean that only 5 percent of teachers at a protected site can be cut. And, those teachers would be selected based on seniority. What will this mean for other schools at the district? It will mean that more senior teachers will be laid off in the wealthier parts of the district, but isn’t that fair? And how will those layoff decisions be
Logan Square. 10.10.10
“Die-in.” Friday rush hour. Grand Central Station, New York. Homophobia kills.
When LA Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa was first running for the California Assembly he was a wuzza. “I wuzza a labor union organizer. I wuzza union guy.” Blah. Blah. Now when it’s politically expedient and he wants to drive a stake into the heart of teacher union seniority rules to get rid of higher paid teachers, it’s another story.
If this is the Democratic Party strategy for winning, stamp the “L” on their foreheads now.
Argentina.
DESPITE the rosy claims of the Bush administration, the No Child Left Behind Act of 2002 is fundamentally flawed. The latest national tests, released last week, show that academic gains since 2003 have been modest, less even than those posted in the years before the law was put in place. In eighth-grade reading, there have been no gains at all since 1998.
The main goal of the law — that all children in the United States will be proficient in reading and mathematics by 2014 — is simply unattainable. The primary strategy — to test all children in those subjects in grades three through eight every year — has unleashed an unhealthy obsession with standardized testing that has reduced the time available for teaching other important subjects.
A file photo of students protesting outside Newark's Barringer High School during a health scare. This year, the problem is a deteriorating building and a lack of leadership, parents and school officials contend.One month into the school year, Newark’s Barringer High School is in a state of chaos due to scheduling fiascoes, deteriorating building conditions and a lack of leadership, according to parents and a former school leader.
Interviews with parents, school officials, school advisory board members and former Principal Jose Aviles describe a breakdown that is leaving students vulnerable to violence and depriving them of a basic education.
On Thursday, about 50 students expressed their dissatisfaction with the conditions by staging a staggered walkout stretching over several hours.
THERE IS a two-front war being fought by Governor Christie and the New Jersey Education Association, the 200,000-member-strong teachers union that has long held the title of the state’s most formidable lobby. On one front: politics. On the other: policy.
We have supported the governor’s political goal of knocking the wind out of the deep-pockets NJEA. It is in step with a national agenda to improve education and question some of the assumptions that the NJEA holds dear, such as the benefit of tenure and the difficulty of holding teacher performance up to standard measure. A year ago in New Jersey, it would have been difficult to discuss these issues publicly, since anyone doing so would risk the union’s ire.
But we remain critical of the governor’s battle strategy. He has tarred and
We are a nation at war, and if we lose this war, our nation is in grave danger. But we're not talking about the war in Afghanistan, we're talking about the war going on here in our country, the war of education. In the new documentary Waiting for "Superman" we get an up close look at the battleground through the eyes of 5 young kids, who along with their parents, are in a battle to find a school that can offer them a quality education. At first glance, most people would assume that these kids are nothing like them, but the opposite is true. These kids represent you, me, and every kid and parent who is in search of hope and opportunity to make their lives better. That is what America is built on, its what people have sacrificed and died for throughout our history as a nation, the opportunity to reach the elusive "America Dream." Throughout this film
