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Monday, April 16, 2012

This Week In Education: Bruno: Bad District/Union Relations Lead to Bad Policy

This Week In Education: Bruno: Bad District/Union Relations Lead to Bad Policy:


Bruno: Bad District/Union Relations Lead to Bad Policy

Spy_vs_spy_untrusted_handshake_by_jasonsane0908-d2yy014The controversy du jour in the Oakland Unified School District is a plan to replace all of the standard teaching positions at three struggling high schools with "teacher-on-special-assignment" (TSA) positions. Katy Murphy reports:
Superintendent Tony Smith is requiring all teachers at those schools to apply for a new teacher-on-special assignment position if they want to remain on those campuses next year. In exchange for 18 extra days of work, they would earn an additional $4,000 to $6,000. The mandatory school year would remain the same length for students as it is now...
Smith and his staff members hope the challenge, combined with the additional pay, will make the positions more desirable, yielding a team of committed, experienced teachers with a common vision for the schools. 
Ostensibly this is supposed to help reduce turnover, but that seems


AM News: Will Duncan Risk Angering Powerful Hawaii Senator?

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Is Hawaii One Step Closer to Losing Race to Top Grant? Politics K12: With the fate of Hawaii's $75 million Race to the Top grant hanging in the balance, this is not good news for the Aloha State.
New York Teacher Ratings Renew Evaluation Debate NPR: The Obama administration is making some federal funds contingent on schools using student test scores and classroom observations to evaluate teachers. New York City recently sparked a controversy when it rated thousands of teachers with test scores alone — and then released those ratings to the public.
The Posse Foundation Comes to Houston for the 2012-13 School Year NYT:  The Posse Foundation, which sends students from large urban school districts to elite colleges, is coming to Texas in the 2012-13 academic year.
As 'Bully' Opens, the Bullied, Bullies and Bystanders Weigh In PBS: A 12-year-old is harassed on the school bus, a 16-year-old lesbian is ostracized by her community and a young girl brings a gun to school to face her bullies.


Quotes: "Your Children Are Missing All Of That"

Quotes2I would like to take these parents who insist their children go to the best preschools and then Yale, etc, etc, and grab them by the scruff of their necks and take them to the Charles Town poker room and say, ‘These people are really fun and smart, and [your children] are missing all of that.’ -- Charles Murray in Financial Times via Dana Goldstein