Wednesday, December 1, 2010

Damn Good Education Daily

Report: Education reforms yield higher test scores

californiawatch.org - Arvind Balaraman/freedigitalphotos.net A major squabble between Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger and his adversaries on K-12 funding early in his administration has had a positive outcome: higher test sc...

emilyschoolsyou

The Answer Sheet - Ravitch answers Gates

voices.washingtonpost.com - In a paean to Bill Gates, Newsweek's Jonathan Alter calls Diane Ravitch the Microsoft founder's "chief adversary."It's the world's richest (or second richest) man vs. an education historian and New...

cajacobson

Bill Gates Listens to the Wrong People - Bridging Differences

blogs.edweek.org - Dear Deborah,I hope you and your family had a happy Thanksgiving, and I wish the same to all of our readers and friends.The struggle for control of American education continues to evolve at a dizzy...

mikeklonsky

The Edublog Awards 2010 are GO! – The Edublog Awards

edublogawards.com - Nov 11th, 2010 by Sue Waters. Here’s what you’ve all been waiting for! The Edublogs Awards 2010 is now underway. We’re following the same approach as last two years, namely asking you to: Post your...

tomwhitby

Nominations for Edublog Awards, 2010 « InterACT

accomplishedcaliforniateachers.wordpress.com - Here are my nominations for the The 2010 Edublog Awards. I thought I’d crank this out in half an hour, and it has taken days. I realize I owe a great debt to all of these educators and writers wh...

Black-out on Black's Whereabouts? - WNYC

Black-out on Black's Whereabouts?

Wednesday, December 01, 2010

By Beth Fertig

It's A Free Country
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Incoming chancellor Cathie Black visited two elementary schools in Queens today. But just where she went remained a mystery until late in the afternoon.

The city's Department of Education said Black visited PS 111 and PS 78 with Assemblywoman Catherine Nolan and City Councilman Jimmy Van Bramer, both of Queens.

Outgoing Schools Chancellor Joel Klein allowed reporters to follow him on visits to schools when he first took office in 2002. His schedule was also routinely released by the Department of Education.

But the department has been unusually secretive about Black's schedule. She has not granted any interviews to the media since Mayor Michael Bloomberg announced her appointment on November 9th. She answered a few questions at a press conference that day and then made a brief comment to New York Post columnist Cindy Adams about how her appointment came out of left field.

Black took a few more questions yesterday after visiting PS 109 in the Bronx but didn't talk about policy, noting it was only her first day. A parent interrupted to ask her views on closing failing schools and Black said, "All of these things are very important and challenging questions and we'll come up with what we believe are the right answers."

It was Black's first visit to a public school since the state education commissioner granted her a waiver

The Answer Sheet - Sponsors tell story of Jeb Bush ed convention

Sponsors tell story of Jeb Bush ed convention

If you have any doubt about the direction of where school reform is headed in this country, look at the sponsors of former Florida governor Jeb Bush’s two-day education conference in Washington, D.C. The conference, which ended today, was the work of the Foundation for Education Excellence, Bush’s vehicle for staying at the forefront of school reform efforts not only in Florida but across the country (he says he’s not running for president in 2012 but a lot of people don’t quite believe him).

NYC Public School Parents: Too Good to Be True? WWCBD*?

Too Good to Be True? WWCBD*?

by Steve Koss

“If it looks to good to be true, it’s probably not.”

It’s an adage as old as the hills, but it’s also an excellent reminder to stay skeptical (think Bernie Madoff, for one), and a signal that questions should perhaps be asked or audits conducted.

Which brings us to the latest “too good to be true story” story in NYC public schools and the system’s deeply flawed Progress Report system: the Theater Arts Production Company school in the Bronx. A combined middle school and high school, TAPCo as it is known was this year’s big winner in the high school report card category with an A grade and the city’s highest ranking score of 106.3 points. Last year, TAPCo received an A as well, but its 85.8-point score put it in the 89th percentile of NYC public high schools, or somewhere around 50th – 60th place in the rankings. Its one-year leapfrogging to #1 in the DOE’s measurement of “progress,” is noteworthy, although a bit short of miraculous. Nevertheless, the result was sufficiently notable to merit a

End 6 percent PERS pick-up to help balance Oregon's budget, Gov. Kulongoski says | OregonLive.com

End 6 percent PERS pick-up to help balance Oregon's budget, Gov. Kulongoski says

Published: Wednesday, December 01, 2010, 10:53 AM Updated: Wednesday, December 01, 2010, 11:01 AM

Harry Esteve, The Oregonian
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Michael LloydGov. Ted Kulongoski, in his final weeks at the helm of state government, is recommending some stiff budget cuts to attack a projected $3.5 billion shortfall.

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Outgoing Gov. Ted Kulongoski is calling for an end to one retirement plan for public employees and a cheaper health insurance program for state workers as part of a series of recommendations aimed at saving the state more than $2 billion over the next two years.

The governor, in an update of his "reset" report, issued a set of recommendations this morning that he says would help shrivel the $3.5 billion shortfall that has been projected for the 2011-13 state budget cycle.

The recommendations, however, are sure to cause strife within the unionized ranks of state workers and teachers, because they hit those groups hard in the pocketbook.

"No governor before me has had to hand off a more difficult fiscal challenge to his successor," Kulongoski said in a statement accompanying his recommendations, "but I am able to do so with a roadmap that identifies some next best steps that meet that challenge more than half-way."

The report calls on Gov.-elect John Kitzhaber the Legislature to terminate the PERS Individual Account Program and along with it the state pick-up of the 6 percent employee contributions to