Thursday, October 14, 2010

Obama to visit USC next week - LA Daily News

Obama to visit USC next week

Daily News Wire Services

Posted: 10/14/2010 04:27:16 PM PDT

Updated: 10/14/2010 04:32:59 PM PDT

President Barack Obama speaks in the East Room of the White House in Washington, Monday, Sept. 27, 2010, before signing the Small Business Jobs Act. He spoke about education that morning on NBC's "Today" show. (AP Photo/Susan Walsh)

President Barack Obama will speak to students at USC next week while he is in town on a fundraising visit.

According to the university, Obama will speak at 1:30 p.m. Oct. 22 at McCarthy Quad near the Doheny Library — the site of past speeches by President Gerald R. Ford and then-candidates John F. Kennedy and Richard M. Nixon.

His visit to the campus will be hosted by the USC Political Student

Seattle Education Association bargain with Seattle Public Schools Seattle bargain.flv

A summary of the experience during the summer of 2010 with the Seattle Education Association bargain with Seattle Public Schools.

The Proposition Song 2010

Obama! A Modern U.S. President (musical spoof)

Dallas ISD trustees split on proposal allowing high-level administrators to live outside the school district | News for Dallas, Texas | Dallas Morning News | Latest News

Dallas ISD trustees split on proposal allowing high-level administrators to live outside the school district

05:57 PM CDT on Thursday, October 14, 2010

By TAWNELL D. HOBBS / The Dallas Morning News
thobbs@dallasnews.com

Dallas school trustees were split Thursday on a proposal to allow high-level administrators to live outside the school district.

Also Online

Blog: Dallas ISD

More education news

The change, which is scheduled for vote Oct. 28, would still require the superintendent to live within the district’s boundaries. However, it would allow trustees to make a contract change to allow otherwise.

Trustee Carla Ranger said she opposes the recommendation and believes the district can find talented people willing to live inside its

Dallas ISD blog: Texas Education Agency weighs in on required AP testing

A New View of Tech School And a Drive to Succeed / Chicago News Cooperative

A New View of Tech School And a Drive to Succeed

by MERIBAH KNIGHT

Buzzing with excitement, 72 11th graders sat in the auditorium of Austin Polytechnical Academy recently, waiting to board buses that would take them to the International Manufacturing Technology Show at McCormick Place, the largest show of its kind in the United States.

Carrying clipboards and dressed sharply in khakis and red polo shirts, they listened to Bill Vogal, a school administrator and former factory owner, as he read the questions they were assigned to ask exhibitors about their products and services: “What kind of lubricant do Index machines use?” “How many inserts does it take to make an airplane?” Mr. Vogal hollered over the chatter.

For some of the students, the show would be the first encounter with a globalized industry that many of them hope to enter after graduation.

The academy, which is located in the struggling Austin neighborhood, is the city’s first and only career academy dedicated to occupations in high-skill manufacturing. Dan Swinney, chairman of the Chicago Manufacturing Renaissance Council, founded it in 2007 as a Chicago Public Schools “performance school.” Austin Polytech’s mission is to redefine vocational education and revive the city’s manufacturing industry by educating the next

4LAKids - some of the news that doesn't fit: SUPERINTENDENT TURNOVER/EMPANADA DE SUPERINTENDENTE: follow up to ‘Compton Superintendent Fired D.C. Chancellor Quits’

SUPERINTENDENT TURNOVER/EMPANADA DE SUPERINTENDENTE: follow up to ‘Compton Superintendent Fired + D.C. Chancellor Quits’

BY SMF FOR 4LAKIDSNEWS

14 October 2010 - The Chicago Sun-Times is reporting (in an exclusive, no less) that Arne Duncan’s successor as Chicago Public Schools CEO Ron Huberman has told the city's mayor that he will resign as schools CEO before the end of the school year. Why, when Huberman has been on the job less than two years? The Sun-Times claims he is quitting the top schools job because Mayor Richard Daley is not running for reelection in 2012, and Huberman has no intention of working for another mayor. (from EduFlack)

Ray Cortines is leaving LAUSD after a short stay. Darline Robles has left LACOE after a long one – perhaps to greener (or cardinal-and-golder) pastures at USC –

4LAKids - some of the news that doesn't fit: MICHELLE RHEE, CONTROVERSIAL EDUCATION REFORMER, MAY BE HEADED FOR NEW JERSEY

MICHELLE RHEE, CONTROVERSIAL EDUCATION REFORMER, MAY BE HEADED FOR NEW JERSEY

BY RAJU CHEBIUM • GANNETT WASHINGTON BUREAU• IN THE ASBURY PARK PRESS | HTTP://BIT.LY/8YKO4W

In this July 17, 28 file photo, Washington Schools Chancellor Michelle Rhee testifies on Capitol Hill in Washington. Rhee, the head of the D.C. public school system is expected to announce she is stepping down after a tension-filled, three-year tenure. (AP PHOTO)

14 October 2010 - WASHINGTON — Could the nation's best-known and most controversial education reformer be headed to New Jersey?

Michelle Rhee, who recently resigned as schools chancellor in Washington, D.C., is being talked up as a potential candidate for New Jersey education commissioner or Newark school superintendent after she leaves her current job on Oct. 31.

Gov. Chris Christie is her fan and Newark Mayor Cory Booker is her friend. Both have top education jobs to fill.

Interview With Michelle Rhee, October 13, 2010 � Georgetown Public Policy Review

Interview With Michelle Rhee, October 13, 2010

By Padmini Jambulapati

Michelle Rhee, District of Columbia Public Schools chancellor, is a divisive figure in the education community. She was a Teach for America corps member (Baltimore, 1992) and headed The New Teacher Project before coming to DC in 2007. Appointed by Mayor Adrian Fenty, Rhee has overhauled the troubled DC school system by closing schools, introducing a new teacher evaluation system, holding teachers accountable, and bringing in private funding. Rhee has appeared on

Chancellor Klein: D.C. still wants aggressive school reform | GothamSchools

Chancellor Klein: D.C. still wants aggressive school reform

by Anna Phillips

screen-shot-2010-10-14-at-43825-pm What’s Chancellor Joel Klein’s message about Michelle Rhee’s resignation? He told MSNBC’s Andrea Mitchell yesterday that even though D.C. residents voted out their mayor and their schoolssuperintendent resigned, the city still wants “committed, aggressive reform.”

“I think the message is the following, and I think the D.C. community is sending that message to Mayor

Queens Teacher: BloomKlein Needs to Stop Lecturing Nation on Schools

BloomKlein Needs to Stop Lecturing Nation on Schools

by Queens Teacher

After Failing in the Big Apple, Bloomberg and Klein Should Stop Lecturing the Nation on Schools

Andrew Wolf.
Education Columnist

It's time for New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg and his Chancellor, Joel Klein to stop their pious lecturing to the rest of the nation promoting their vision of how to fix America's schools.

Valerie Strauss of the Washington Post, perhaps America's most perceptive observer of the education scene, puts it this way: "After 8 years as the czar of New York City's public schools, Klein might want to stop blaming other people for his failures."

Klein, a lawyer and not an educator has had his chance. He and Mayor Bloomberg were given absolute, unprecedented powers over the schools by the state legislature in 2002. Now as they begin the 9th school year

The Answer Sheet - Michelle Rhee's greatest hits

Michelle Rhee's greatest hits

D.C. Schools Chancellor Michelle Rhee gave us many reasons to remember her when she is gone. There's the schools she closed. The teachers she fired. The contract she signed with the Washington Teachers Union. Her frequent use of the word “crap.” Here’s some quintessential statements that Rhee made as chancellor. Thanks for many of these to my colleague, Bill Turque, who often stood alone in his strong coverage of Rhee’s tenure. I think my favorite is the one about taping students' mouths shut. Let me know what I’ve missed.

For-profit college stocks tumble on Apollo warning - Boston.com

For-profit college stocks tumble on Apollo warning

By Tali Arbel and Janna Herron

AP Business Writers / October 14, 2010

Text size – +

NEW YORK—Investors fled for-profit college stocks on Thursday after the sector's bellwether predicted a 40-percent drop in student enrollment next quarter and withdrew its forecast for next year. The news chilled an industry facing increased government scrutiny over concerns about soaring student loan defaults.

Enrollments at for-profit schools surged during the recession. Big advertising budgets drew students trying to bolster their resumes as a hedge against high unemployment. But critics claim the schools are not helping students find better jobs and say enrollment counselors sign up many students who are unprepared for higher education. When they drop out, they are still stuck paying back their student loans.

Apollo Group Inc., which runs the University of Phoenix, attributes its expected enrollment decline to changing practices aimed at satisfying new government

“Performance vs. Popularity” � Failing Schools

“Performance vs. Popularity”

OCTOBER 14, 2010

by Sabrina

This short piece comes from a friend and Colorado teacher Veronica. She asks a great question about the role of popularity in evaluations– for too long, favoritism has influenced the kinds of ratings teachers get. Others have been dismissed despite having high ratings. And as Dr. Bruce Baker points out, value-added assessment offers a rather golden opportunity for sneaky school leaders to stack the deck against teachers they’d like to get rid of. I think one way to blunt the influence of popularity over performance would be to require several different people to be part of the evaluation process (peer teachers, an administrator, a trained outside observer, students, and parents). What do you think? How can we improve this situation?

–

Performance vs. Popularity

The age-old issue of popularity – we see it in high school, middle school and even elementary school. It is not the “smart” kids, but the popular kids everyone wants to

University of California Budget Director Floats Possibility of System’s Largest-Ever Fee Hike � Student Activism

University of California Budget Director Floats Possibility of System’s Largest-Ever Fee Hike

by Angus Johnston

My Twitter feed has been buzzing this week with rumors that the University of California Regents may consider a fee hike of as much as 20 percent at their November meeting. No formal announcement of such a proposal has yet been made, but the story does have some meat to it.

As Tess Townsend of the Bay Citizen reports, the 20 percent figure had its origins in a weekend meeting of the University of California Students Association board of directors, where UC Budget Director Patrick Lenz told UCSA that fee hikes on the table in November could “range anywhere from zero to 20 percent.” Asked by

Shanker Blog � Privatization's Dark Side

PRIVATIZATION’S DARK SIDE

by Randall Garton

Privatization advocates argue that private sector workers deliver comparable services more cheaply than their public sector counterparts. The truth is that sometimes they can, but very often they can’t. And, as documented by a recently-released General Accountability Office (GAO) study on federal outsourcing, the savings can sometimes come at a very high price, including employees’ lives.

The GAO reports that contractors have been awarded billions of dollars in federal contracts, despite having histories of federal safety, health and labor law violations. Some of violations have been extensive and serious. One food supplier was cited more than 100 times for health and safety infractions, including one instance in which a worker was “asphyxiated after falling into a pit containing poultry debris.” This same employer was later ordered by a federal court to “properly compensate” more than 3,000 workers.

Another contractor violated fair labor laws when it “coerced employees” and in another incident refused to rehire a

Diane Ravitch Unlikely bedfellows at education speech tonight | School Zone | Chron.com - Houston Chronicle

Unlikely bedfellows at education speech tonight | School Zone | Chron.com - Houston Chronicle

Unlikely bedfellows at education speech tonight

Rice University might want to set up a wrestling ring for an on-campus lecture tonight. Diane Ravitch, a New York University education professor who has flip-flopped her views on the public school reform movement, is speaking at 7 p.m. today in a lecture series sponsored by Teach for America and the KIPP charter network — two entities she doesn't support.

Ravitch

Ravitch, a native Houstonian, worked as an assistant secretary of education under President George H.W. Bush and was a strong proponent of the mandatory testing put in place by the second President Bush's No Child Left Behind Act. But these days, Ravitch has a new book, The Death and Life of the Great American School System: How Testing and Choice are Undermining Education, in which she rejects the concepts she used to laud.

Don't worry — Ravitch is aware of the sponsors of her speech, said Andrea Hodge, the director of the Rice Education Entrepreneurship

A Letter makes a day. � Fred Klonsky's blog

A Letter makes a day.

by preaprez

Mr. Klonsky,

I know this is pretty random but my name is T, I was an art student of yours at Field Elementary from 1990-1996. I wanted to contact you because I’d like to thank you.

The other night I was talking to my husband about you and how there was a single moment in first grade that you gave me the reassurance that I was already an artist. I realized that those words and that moment have stuck with me through out my life. Although I’m not as much of a practicing artist as I’d like to be (I took the

Schools Matter: The problem is poverty: Evidence from Gerald Bracey

The problem is poverty: Evidence from Gerald Bracey

by skrashen

The problem is poverty: Evidence from Gerald Bracey
Stephen Krashen

The entire basis for the national standards/testing movement is our low scores on international tests when compared to other countries. Our scores, however, are only low because we have such a high percentage of children in poverty, compared to other countries that participate in international tests. When we consider only middle-class children who attend well-funded schools, our math scores are near the top of the world (Payne and Biddle, 1999).

Here is another analysis, using reading test scores, that comes to the same conclusion. The PIRLS test was

Guggenheim and Baldwin Learn an Inconvenient Truth | Intercepts

Guggenheim and Baldwin Learn an Inconvenient Truth

by Mike Antonucci

Davis Guggenheim, director of Waiting for Superman, was interviewed by A.V. Club (h/t: Russo) and was asked, “How does it feel to have teachers’ unions attack the film?” He replied:

“It sucks. I mean, when you make An Inconvenient Truth, it’s not difficult to have your enemy be Exxon Mobil or the dirty coal company. In this case, I’m a Democrat, and I believe, I really believe in unions, I’m a member of a good union. So that was an uncomfortable truth for me to have to talk about, but I’ve tried to make a reasonable film. I don’t know where it’s written, but somehow it’s written that you can’t criticize the unions. Otherwise, you hate teachers.”

And we’re hearing the same lament from noted lefty actor Alec Baldwin in his Huffington Post column headlined

Education Secretary Duncan and teachers unions announce summit

By Nick Anderson

Thursday, October 14, 2010; 2:20 PM

Conventional wisdom holds that teachers unions are stuck in the status quo and that there are few examples of labor-management teamwork on education reform.

On Thursday, Education Secretary Arne Duncan and leaders of the two largest teachers unions called for an education summit early next year to disprove those notions.

The announcement highlighted several initiatives across the country, including a teacher peer-review program in Montgomery County and a new labor deal in Baltimore that allows teachers to be get raises based on student performance and other factors, not just

Thursday, October 14, 2010

Obama to visit USC next week

Dallas ISD trustees split on proposal allowing high-level administrators to live outside the school district

05:57 PM CDT on Thursday, October 14, 2010

BY SMF FOR 4LAKIDSNEWS

BY RAJU CHEBIUM • GANNETT WASHINGTON BUREAU• IN THE ASBURY PARK PRESS | HTTP://BIT.LY/8YKO4W

For-profit college stocks tumble on Apollo warning

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“Performance vs. Popularity”

Unlikely bedfellows at education speech tonight

Education Secretary Duncan and teachers unions announce summit