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Friday, January 21, 2011

Queens Teacher: Hypocrite

Queens Teacher: Hypocrite

Hypocrite

by Queens Teacher
After decrying defined pension benefits, ex-chancellor Joel Klein cashes in for 34K per year

BY Meredith Kolodner

Just weeks before former Schools Chancellor Joel Klein slammed teacher pensions as "hollowing out public education," Klein walked into the teacher pension office to collect his own annual windfall, sources told the Daily News.

Klein, who could rake in as much as $4.5 million this year at his new gig with News Corp., also will collect $34,000 annually for his eight years as chancellor.

Accepting the money seems to fly in the face of a harsh editorial he wrote last week, ripping into the guaranteed pensions earned by veteran teachers.
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Shriver's legacy unfolds in a Head Start classroom in Portland | OregonLive.com

Shriver's legacy unfolds in a Head Start classroom in Portland | OregonLive.com

Shriver's legacy unfolds in a Head Start classroom in Portland

Published: Friday, January 21, 2011, 5:07 PM Updated: Friday, January 21, 2011, 5:23 PM
Anne Saker, The Oregonian By Anne Saker, The Oregonian
headstart1.JPGView full sizeBeth Nakamura/The OregonianTatiyana Lewis, left, 4, plays with Brooklynn Keith, 4, during breakfast Friday at Applegate School Head Start in North Portland. R. Sargent Shriver, a founder of Head Start in 1965, died Tuesday; his funeral is today.
A continent away from the halls of power where R. Sargent Shriver gave his life to public service, one of his most significant legacies comes to order in a North Portland classroom.

"All right, friends, time to stop talking and finish up," says teacher Barbara Rhiger to a table of six 4-year-olds in tiny chairs.

The discussants conclude their exchange about food, Play-Doh and rain to bear down on orange slices, a little cereal and milk. Then it's time to engage the brain, for D is the letter of the week.

Head Start, the federal education program begun in 1965, lost a founder Tuesday when Shriver died at age 95; his funeral is today. Since Head Start's creation under President Lyndon B. Johnson, more than 25 million children under age 5 have learned their numbers and colors through
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Modern School: Teachers—They’re Coming After Your Pensions

Modern School: Teachers—They’re Coming After Your Pensions

Teachers—They’re Coming After Your Pensions

by noreply@blogger.com (Michael Dunn)

The majority of states are facing enormous budget deficits. Approximately half of them also have large unfunded liabilities in their public employee pension plans (due in part to their refusal to make the recommended annual payments), including those covering teachers. Currently, teacher pensions are protected by state constitutions and payments guaranteed to pensioners.

Retirement for Public Workers? (Image by Clemson)
However, there is now some movement in Congress toward allowing states to declare bankruptcy, which would allow them to nullify existing contracts, including those between states and public employee unions that had protected their pensions. If successful, it could consign the majority of public employees to a lifetime
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If it doesn’t work, don’t do it! CAP’s ROI « School Finance 101

If it doesn’t work, don’t do it! CAP’s ROI « School Finance 101

If it doesn’t work, don’t do it! CAP’s ROI

by schoolfinance101

The Center for American Progress released its new Return on Investment (ROI) Index for K-12 public school districts of greater than 250 students this week. I should note in advance that I had the opportunity to provide advice on this project early on, and occasionally thereafter and I do believe that at least some involved had and still have the best intentions in coming up with a useful way to represent the information at hand. I’ll get back to the validity of the information at hand in a moment.

First, I need to point out that the policy implications and proposals, or even general findings presented in the report cannot be supported by the analysis (however well or poorly done). The suggestion that billions of dollars might be saved nationally (little more than a back-of-the-napkin extrapolation) at no loss to performance outcomes, based on the models estimated is a huge, unwarranted stretch and quite simply arrogant, ignoran

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Teachers Take Control of a Detroit School | Lefty Parent

Teachers Take Control of a Detroit School | Lefty Parent

Teachers Take Control of a Detroit School

January 21st, 2011 at 17:14

The Palmer Park Preparatory Academy

Just read the Education Weekarticle, “Teacher-Led School Innovates With Student Regrouping”, about some innovative governance and methodological changes happening in a Detroit public school. Detroit, if you are not aware has had a crumbling public school system, even before the current recession has put extra pressure on state budgets and as a result, school spending. What I like about what’s happening at Palmer Park Preparatory Academy is that former worker-bees from the conventional educational hierarchy are demonstrating agency beyond what is expected of people at the bottom of the pecking order. As my mom always said, “The teachers should run the schools”, and that is what’s starting
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Robert Reich (American Competitiveness, and the President's New Relationship with American Business)

Robert Reich (American Competitiveness, and the President's New Relationship with American Business)

American Competitiveness, and the President's New Relationship with American Business

Whenever you hear a business executive or politician use the term “American competitiveness,” watch your wallet. Few terms in public discourse have gone so directly from obscurity to meaninglessness without any intervening period of coherence.

President Obama just appointed Jeffry Immelt, GE’s CEO, to head his outside panel of economic advisors, replacing Paul Volcker. According to White House spokesman Robert Gibbs, Immelt has “agreed to work thorugh what makes our country more competitive.”

In an opinion piece in the Washington Post announcing his acceptance, Immelt wrote “there is nothing inevitable about America’s declining manufacturing competitiveness if we work together to reverse it.”

But what’s American “competitiveness” and how do you measure it? Here are some different definitions:

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Nothing became Nadelstern in the DoE as his leaving it « JD2718

Nothing became Nadelstern in the DoE as his leaving it « JD2718

Nothing became Nadelstern in the DoE as his leaving it

by jd2718

Were he an idiot, his passing would not merit mention. But he was a real educator. Smart. Clever. Rumor made him a good principal, but that was ages ago. And he used his experience – not to help the system, but to tear it down.

His mass-produced mini-disaster schools (or rather, Nadelstern failure academies) captured Gates money for his cronies, while accelerating a downward spiral in the high schools in the Bronx. His role in structuring and restructuring and Empowering bureaucracy (while disempowering parents and educators and whole communities) allowed him to advance his own career by pushing around and punishing those who had the

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Big setback in Robles-Wong lawsuit | Thoughts on Public Education

Big setback in Robles-Wong lawsuit | Thoughts on Public Education

Big setback in Robles-Wong lawsuit

Judge rejects constitutional claims for adequate funding

Posted on 1/21/11 • Categorized as Uncategorized

By John Fensterwald - Educated Guess

An Alameda County Superior Court judge has rejected the main claims in two lawsuits charging that the state’s “insufficient, irrational and unstable” school funding system violated children’s fundamental right to an education.

The ruling strongly restricts whether and how the case might go to trial. It is a setback to a coalition of powerful education groups – the California School Boards Association, the California Teachers Association, the state PTA and the Association of California School Administrators – and attorneys for disadvantaged children. They had hoped the court would

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Bronx principal keeps her job after imperiling the jobs of others | GothamSchools

Bronx principal keeps her job after imperiling the jobs of others | GothamSchools

Bronx principal keeps her job after imperiling the jobs of others

by Anna Phillips

The city is keeping the principal of a Bronx high school in place, despite a report’s conclusion that she instructed her assistant principals to give teachers unsatisfactory ratings without ever watching them teach.

For public school teachers, an unsatisfactory rating on their annual observation can mean the beginning of the termination process. For Iris Blige, the principal of the Fordham High School of the Arts, “U” ratings were to be handed out to teachers she wanted to get rid of, regardless of how good they were in their classrooms.

A report by the Office of Special Investigations found that from 2007 to 2009, Blige told several of her assistant principals to give unsatisfactory ratings to half a dozen teachers before those teachers were formally observed.

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All eyes on Hillsborough schools

All eyes on Hillsborough schools

All eyes on Hillsborough schools

Updated: Wednesday, 19 Jan 2011, 7:40 PM EST
Published : Wednesday, 19 Jan 2011, 7:40 PM EST

    TAMPA - All eyes are on Hillsborough County as educators from across the state gather for a two-day conference on how to make students more successful.

    Superintendents are sitting next to teacher union representatives to tackle education reform.

    "Everybody gets that our schools have to do a better job. None of us are going to be satisfied unless 100 percent of the kids are able to fulfill their God-given potential," said Randi Weingarten, president of the American Federation of Teachers.

    Weingarten says education is taking on a new form: collaboration from administrators and teachers—groups that might have been on opposite sides in the past.

    "We can't get into our little sand box corners and say 'you do it, no you do it.' This is about joint and mutual

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    Afternoon Update: New Posts on Parents 4 democratic Schools 1-21-11 Get Involved- Read Education News

    New Posts on Parents 4 democratic Schools


    Get Involved- Read Education News


    Parents 4 democratic Schools

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    Hechinger Report | Rethinking special education in the U.S.

    Hechinger Report | Rethinking special education in the U.S.

    Rethinking special education in the U.S.

    by Carol Kinlan

    Carol Kinlan

    In “Learning from Finland,” Pasi Sahlberg highlights reasons for the success of Finland’s educational system – noting, in particular, that Finns highly regard and strongly support their teachers, and that local schools are given great independence.

    It turns out that there are additional lessons to be learned from Finland when it comes to special education.

    In a 2010 paper comparing special education in Finland and the U.S., Tiina Itkonen and Markku Jahnukainen

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    More on Rhee’s Move To Sacramento — We’re “Behind The Curve” | Larry Ferlazzo's Websites of the Day...

    More on Rhee’s Move To Sacramento — We’re “Behind The Curve” | Larry Ferlazzo's Websites of the Day...

    More on Rhee’s Move To Sacramento — “We’re Behind The Curve”

    by Larry Ferlazzo

    Today, the Sacramento Bee ran a fairly extensive front page story on Michelle Rhee’s move here. Headlined Former D.C. schools chief to headquarter new education advocacy lobby in Sacramento, it also discusses her local plans:

    Rhee said there are “many local organizations we have talked about working in concert with” and that StudentsFirst likely would partner with Stand Up, another education nonprofit started by Johnson.

    As far as Rhee is concerned, there is much work to be done. “Sacramento is probably behind the curve in terms of some of the progressive work being done around the country,” Rhee said.

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