Tuesday, January 25, 2011

Melody Barnes predicts bipartisan push on education - Mike Allen and James Hohmann - POLITICO.com

Melody Barnes predicts bipartisan push on education

By MIKE ALLEN & JAMES HOHMANN | 1/25/11 10:04 PM EST

Melody Barnes, the president’s Domestic Policy Adviser, is “very, very hopeful” about the chances for bipartisan cooperation on education this year.

In a Tuesday interview for the POLITICO video series “What Lies Ahead,” the director of the White House Domestic Policy Council said she believes Republicans will go along with some proposed fixes to the controversial “No Child Left Behind” law when it comes time for re-

The Answer Sheet - Obama’s faulty education logic: What he said and failed to say

Obama’s faulty education logic: What he said and failed to say

Someone should have told President Obama that there were important contradictions in the education portion of his State of the Union address before he delivered it to Congress. First, Obama rightly said that a child’s education starts at home: “It’s family that first instills the love of learning in a child. Only parents can make sure the TV is turned off and homework gets done.” Then why is his administration insisting in pushing policies that evaluate and pay teachers based solely on how well they raise the test scores of their children? How can teachers be solely responsible for what happens to a child outside of school?

Immigration fraud: Hundreds of Indian students may be deported from US - The Economic Times

Immigration fraud: Hundreds of Indian students may be deported from US

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WASHINGTON: Hundreds of Indian students , mostly from Andhra Pradesh , face the prospect of deportation from the US after authorities raided and shut down a university in the Silicon Valley on charges of a massive immigration fraud .

The Tri-Valley University in Pleasanton, a major suburb in San Francisco Bay Area, has been charged by federal investigating authorities with being part of an effort to defraud, misuse visa permits and indulge in money laundering and other crimes.

According to a federal complaint filed in a California court, the University, which was raided and shut down last week, helped foreign nationals illegally acquire immigration status.

The university is said to have 1,555 students. As many as 95 per cent of these students are Indian nationals, the complaint said.

(long version)Text of Obama's State of Union address - Boston.com

Text of Obama's State of Union address - Boston.com

Text of Obama's State of Union address

By The Associated Press

January 25, 2011

Text size – +

The text of President Barack Obama's State of the Union address, as prepared for delivery and released by the White House.

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Mr. Speaker, Mr. Vice President, members of Congress, distinguished guests and fellow Americans:

Tonight I want to begin by congratulating the men and women of the 112th Congress, as well as your new speaker, John Boehner. And as we mark this occasion, we are also mindful of the empty chair in this chamber, and pray for the health of our colleague -- and our friend -- Gabby Giffords.

It's no secret that those of us here tonight have had our differences over the last

Yellow Journalism at the Denver Post | DeFENSE

Yellow Journalism at the Denver Post

by admin

by Ed Augden (retired DPS teacher and community activist)

If there is truly to be a civil, honest discussion of educational reform and related issues such as the proposed recall of Nate Easley, Denver Public Schools (DPS) Board of Education president, then the Denver Post must be civil and honest in its news coverage and its editorial commentary. The Denver Post’s editorial on Sunday, Jan. 23, was not civil or fully honest. The editorial writer ridiculed the petition complainants and made the fallacious claim that the recall effort is primarily focused on Easley’s votes as a board member for certain “reform” actions in northeast Denver (his district) and northwest Denver. Certainly, the writer must have read the petition’s language. It states clearly that the primary reason for the recall effort is Easley’s apparent conflicts of interest.

Mr. Easley is the deputy director of the Denver Scholarship Foundation. In his role as board president, he directly oversees the foundation. As an employee of the foundation, he reports to the executive director of the foundation. Both Tom Boasberg, DPS superintendent, and Theresa Pena are board members of the scholars

Compton's "Parent-Trigger" Update: Read the Compton School District's Letter to Parents | Mother Jones

Compton's "Parent-Trigger" Update: Read the Compton School District's Letter to Parents

by Kristina Rizga

Last night, I asked Parent Revolution to send me a copy of the letter that the Compton Unified School District mailed out to parents of students at McKinley Elementary School. Compton Unified printed the letters on Wednesday, Jan. 19th, and sent them to parents who requested that this chronically low-performing school be turned into a charter:

"As part of the District's responsibility to evaluate the Petition, we ask that you come to McKinley Elementary School on January 26 or 27, 2011, between the hours of 7:30am-9am or 3pm-6pm (on either date) to sign a form verifying your signature on the Petition. Please make sure to bring photo identification (such as a California driver's license) as you will be asked to show identification before being provided a signature verification form."

(See full letter below.)

Why such extremely narrow window of time? The Compton District officials know that most Compton residents are low-income parents, often working two jobs. Do they open their mail every day? I don't. Will parents be able

Why Is Kelley Williams-Bolar In Jail For Sending Her Kids To A Better School? | Education | Change.org

Why Is Kelley Williams-Bolar In Jail For Sending Her Kids To A Better School?

by Carol Scott

In 2008, Kelley Williams-Bolar was just another single mom in Akron, Ohio, scrimping and saving to make sure her daughters had a better life. She was putting her kids first. Working for a teaching degree. Relying on the support of her father who lived nearby.

Tonight, she's sleeping in jail, facing three years of probation and the potential loss of her teaching career.

Why? Williams-Bolar simply sent her kids to school in a district where they did not live.

An African-American single mom living in public housing, Williams-Bolar was convicted of a felony for listing her father's address as her daughters' place of residence and sending them to school at nearby Copley-Fairlawn

Obama to Call for End to Non-Existent ROTC Ban in Tonight’s SOTU Address « Student Activism

Obama to Call for End to Non-Existent ROTC Ban in Tonight’s SOTU Address

by Angus Johnston

According to a leaked advance copy of President Obama’s State of the Union speech, the president will, with Don’t Ask Don’t Tell on the way out, ask America’s colleges and universities to let ROTC back in:

Our troops come from every corner of this country – they are black, white, Latino, Asian and Native American. They are Christian and Hindu, Jewish and Muslim. And, yes, we know that some of them are

School Tech Connect: Tell Yourself A Story

Tell Yourself A Story

by effacethefacade@yahoo.com (Tim)

This really is astonishing poverty data.

I taught 8th grade writing at the very same private school where Rahm went to school. I taught 7th and 8th grade writing at a fabulously resourced public school in Northbrook. I started my career in the blistering hot East Valley of Phoenix, where we had large classes of 35-40 eighth graders, half of whom lived in squalor, in shacks and hotels and RV's and in isolated poverty on the reservation. The one thing I can say without a doubt is that if you want to have effective lessons, just eliminate the poverty, shrink the class size, and select the most motivated families.

If you can't do that but you want to feel like you're doing something, then you need to start telling yourself some

DOE: Why big schools fail and closure is the cure is unknown | GothamSchools

DOE: Why big schools fail and closure is the cure is unknown

by Maura Walz

City officials often defend their strategy of replacing large, struggling high schools with smaller ones by arguing that it’s the only proven way to boost student achievement.

Today, a top official in the office that plans and executes the city’s school closure plans said that the reasons for why that strategy works remain a mystery.

At a City Council hearing today called to discuss how the Department of Education monitors students in schools as they phase out, officials argued that as schools closing shrink by a grade each year, students receive more individualized support from remaining staff members.

Josh Thomases, the Deputy Chief Academic Officer of the DOE’s portfolio planning office, cited a 2005 New York

Remainders: Education a centerpiece of SOTU

by Anna Phillips

“Become a teacher,” President Obama says in SOTU address. (Edweek)
70 groups have submitted letters of intent to open charter schools in NYC next year. (Centerpoint)
TFA founder Wendy Kopp doesn’t want teachers’ value-added scores released to the press. (Daily Beast)
Critics of edu doc Waiting for Superman are thrilled it didn’t make the Oscars cut. (NYC Parents)
Most students didn’t meet the proficiency bar on a nationwide science test. (NY Times)
Rahm Emanuel: The choice between an educator and a manager is a false one. (Fox Chicago)
With the Office of School Food taking a budget cut, non-profits are stepping up. (GS Community)
The Bloomberg administration is pushing hard against last-in first-out in the press. (City Room)
An NYC transplant in Beirut describes her school during “The Day of Anger.” (Present Perfect)
The US DOE unveiled an education dashboard that shows the latest edu data. (Eduflack)
Wyoming lawmakers want to monitor teachers with videos in their classrooms. (Flypaper)

Latest Study Validates Testing, Forced Retrieval and SQRRR — Open Education

Latest Study Validates Testing, Forced Retrieval and SQRRR

by Thomas

Good old-fashioned testing and a comprehensive reading theory developed in 1946 remain great learning tools.

It is a practice born of yesteryear and quite frankly appears to be giving way to concept-mapping and other forms of study habits. But yet another new study has confirmed that the practice known as forced retrieval today continues to be one of the best methods for learning new material.
In the latest report, “Retrieval Practice Produces More Learning than Elaborative Studying with Concept Mapping,” researchers Jeffrey D. Karpicke and Janell R. Blunt actually cast a negative light on one of the most popular current

Schools Matter: Obama Offers Same Tired Bromides on Education with Fewer Specifics

Obama Offers Same Tired Bromides on Education with Fewer Specifics

by Jim Horn

Same tired and misleading crap:

Half a century ago, when the Soviets beat us into space with the launch of a satellite called Sputnik¸ we had no idea how we'd beat them to the moon. The science wasn't there yet.

The science was there, but Eisenhower chose not to launch first. In 2009, NOVA presented Sputnik Declassified, which tells the story of how the U. S. could have beaten the Soviets into space, had it not been for military spy priorities that wanted the Soviets to, indeed, be first, thus establishing a precedent for our planned spy satellites that were very soon to map every Soviet ICBM launch site without fanfare or public pronouncement.

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Tuesday, January 25, 2011