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Thursday, December 30, 2010

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Latest Posts on Parents 4 democratic Schools



Tallying up 2010's political winners and losers

Tallying up 2010's political winners and losers
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Tallying up 2010's political winners and losers

Washington Post Staff Writer
Thursday, December 30, 2010; 7:33 PM

Time to settle the accounts for 2010. In the zero-sum game of political capital, our region has had its Warren Buffetts and its Bernie Madoffs. Here's how they sort out:

D.C. winner: Michelle Rhee. The schools chancellor once spoke of sticking around for Mayor Adrian M. Fenty's two terms - which would have made her the city's longest-tenured school chief in decades. But a second Fenty term was not to be, and Rhee exited the D.C. Public Schools amid an ill-informed national narrative that she and Fenty were martyrs of teacher union politics. She has now decamped to run a billion-dollar lobbying group, where she gets to remain the darling of the Sun Valley Conference set while eschewing the grittier work of running a school

John Rogers: A Year in the News: California Schools, 2010

John Rogers: A Year in the News: California Schools, 2010

Less money and diminished resources. Fewer instructional days. Summer school and after-school programs eliminated. Libraries and some school campuses closed. Thousands of teachers and classified employees fired. These are some education news stories that dominated 2010.

Political ironies are much overrated these days; however, we can note that the year of cuts was accompanied by a year of raised expectations. The federal government's Race to the Top competition called on states and districts to pledge more action and better results. Perhaps the most attention-grabbing story of the year was the Times publishing the so-called value-added scores of 3rd, 4th, and 5th grade teachers. Disclosure of testing results for teachers in these three grades was promised to improve instruction even as the supports for teaching and learning declined across all 12 grades. Little in the news addressed schools' struggles to accommodate cuts in effective teacher

Impasse in La Habra schools moves to new forums | district, teachers, union - News - The Orange County Register

Impasse in La Habra schools moves to new forums | district, teachers, union - News - The Orange County Register

Impasse in La Habra schools moves to new forums

By LOU PONSI and SCOTT MARTINDALE
THE ORANGE COUNTY REGISTER

LA HABRA A strike by teachers against the La Habra City School District has ended, but differences between the teachers union and the district are far from being settled.

Still to be resolved are a lawsuit by the union against the district, teachers' anger over a decision by the school board to cut pay, and the need to bring the community together in the wake of the strike.

Teachers and students, meanwhile, return to the classroom Jan. 3 after winter recess.

The lawsuit filed by La Habra Education Association, the union representing the teachers, union months before the strike helps to shed light on the origins of teacher unrest in the district, although it does not have a direct bearing on the current impasse.

Union leaders sued the school district in Orange County Superior Court last June, after the district unilaterally imposed a temporary freeze in the automatic pay raises that teachers receive each year, plus automatically began deducting additional funds from teachers' paychecks to help offset a price increase in their health insurance plans. The district maintained tha