Latest News and Comment from Education

Friday, October 19, 2012

L.A. Times Wants To Publicly Rank 14,000 More Teachers | Larry Ferlazzo’s Websites of the Day…

L.A. Times Wants To Publicly Rank 14,000 More Teachers | Larry Ferlazzo’s Websites of the Day…:


L.A. Times Wants To Publicly Rank 14,000 More Teachers

Editors at The Los Angeles Times probably need to read The Best Posts, Articles & Videos About Learning From Mistakes & Failures, since they don’t appear to be very good at it.
Despite having their methodology and their actions roundly criticized by….well, just about everybody you can think of….after publishing teacher ranking previously (see The Best Posts About The LA Times Article On “Value-Added” Teacher Ratings), they are now suing the district to get data on 14,000 more teachers.
What are they thinking down there?


Larry Ferlazzo’s Websites of the Day… 10-13-12 …For Teaching ELL, ESL, & EF

coopmike48 at Big Education Ape - 10 hours ago
Larry Ferlazzo’s Websites of the Day… | …For Teaching ELL, ESL, & EFL *Larry Ferlazzo’s Websites of the Day* [image: Helping Students Motivate Themselves: Practical Answers To Classroom Problems.] Sacramento Bee Calls On CA PTA To Contain Molly Munger Larry Ferlazzo at Engaging Parents In School... - 1 day ago The campaign to fund or, in Molly Munger’s case, de-fund public education in California continues. Here are some excerpts from today’s Sacramento Bee’s editorial: The California PTA and Superintendent of Public Instruction Tom Torlakson are the most prominent supporters of ... more »

A child with autism shines with Katy Perry’s help | Get Schooled

A child with autism shines with Katy Perry’s help | Get Schooled:


A child with autism shines with Katy Perry’s help

My AJC colleague Jay Bookman ends the week with a music video. I want to follow his example today as I think this music video also delivers a message about the power of education to improve kids’ lives. (And it also speaks to the character of singer Katy Perry.)

What Government Does for You | Alternet

What Government Does for You | Alternet:


What Government Does for You

When government works effectively, it becomes an invisible part of everyday life and people start to take it for granted.

“Government, keep your hands off my Medicare!”
Commentators and comedians alike had fun with the cognitive dissonance represented by the statement above, found on more than one hand-scrawled sign at Tea Party rallies. But while opposition to government is more at home on the political right, ignorance about the role of government is a bipartisan malady.
Liberals may shake their heads at the “ignorance” of the Right, but we’ve seen focus groups in San Francisco comprised of liberal Democrats argue about whether or not the Bay Area Rapid Transit system is public transportation. Years of research and polling have shown that there is a broad lack of understanding about the role of government in our everyday lives. Many Americans are unaware of just what’s public and what’s private. Why is that?
Government programs may be victims of their own success. When a public 

Bear Valley Superintendent Named All-Star - Year 2012 (CA Dept of Education)

Bear Valley Superintendent Named All-Star - Year 2012 (CA Dept of Education):


State Schools Chief Tom Torlakson Congratulates Bear Valley
Superintendent and District for Promoting Good Health and Nutrition

State Schools Chief Tom Torlakson



Supt. Kurt Madden to Run 100-Mile Endurance Challenge in South State
SACRAMENTO—State Superintendent of Public Instruction Tom Torlakson today recognized Bear Valley Unified School District Superintendent Kurt Madden for his commitment to promoting student health and fitness, calling him a "Team California for Healthy Kids All-Star."
Madden will run the 100-Mile Endurance Challenge External link opens in new window or tab. this weekend that starts in Corona in western Riverside County and ends on the Santa Monica Pier.
"Congratulations to Superintendent Madden for taking up the inspiring task of running the 100-Mile Endurance Challenge," said Torlakson. "When it comes to promoting student health and fitness, he's an all-star."
"This ultra-distance endurance event will be a true test of my character, tenacity, determination, and persistence to not only finish, but to finish strong," Madden said. "Furthermore, my primary objective is to inspire students and parents to engage in daily exercise and the consumption of healthy foods. We must make a healthy lifestyle a top priority to produce students who will be life-long learners and responsible global citizens."
Bear Valley Unified School District in San Bernardino County actively supports learning by helping students develop healthy habits. The District has a comprehensive Food and Nutrition Services External link opens in new window or tab. Web site that promotes proper nutrition and fitness at school and home, displays its school meal menus, and offers convenient online prepayment options for meals. Bear Valley is also in the process of implementing a Bike to School Program with local organizations and community members donating funds to purchase bikes for students.
Torlakson is a high school coach, an avid runner, and has long been a long-time champion for students' health. His Team California for Healthy Kids initiative promotes healthy eating, drinking plenty of water, being physically active every day in school and at home. Research confirms a clear connection between health, learning, and attendance. Healthy children are more successful in school, miss fewer days, are more attentive and well-behaved, and are more likely to graduate from high school and go to college. Healthy students are more likely to be positively engaged in social, community, and extra-curricular activities.
# # # #
Tom Torlakson — State Superintendent of Public Instruction
Communications Division, Room 5206, 916-319-0818, Fax 916-319-0100

Remarks of U.S. Secretary of Education Arne Duncan at the TIME Higher Education Summit | U.S. Department of Education

Remarks of U.S. Secretary of Education Arne Duncan at the TIME Higher Education Summit | U.S. Department of Education:


Remarks of U.S. Secretary of Education Arne Duncan at the TIME Higher Education Summit


Contact:  
 Press Office, (202) 401-1576, press@ed.gov 



It's great to be at the TIME Summit on Higher Education with such a distinguished group of leaders. All of you have thought long and hard about the future of higher education. And I'll try to be brief before we turn to the panel discussion.
I know we would all agree that the future of higher education is vitally important to America's future. But I would also suggest to you today that higher education is approaching a crossroads, where leaders will be asked to choose between incremental and transformational change.
At the heart of this choice is a paradox. In many ways, America's system of higher education is still the envy of the world. We have some of the top-ranked research universities and liberal arts colleges on the planet. And our networks of state universities and community colleges provide unparalleled access to postsecondary education for students of all socioeconomic backgrounds.
And yet, for all its historic and current successes, our system of higher education must get dramatically better. In the era of the knowledge-based, global economy, America has to rapidly accelerate college attainment and learning to prosper and maintain its global competitiveness.
This is no time to rest on our laurels. In the information age, higher education is no longer a luxury. It's a necessity that every family in America should be able to afford.
That's not just my view and President Obama's view—it's what the American public believes. Polls show that three out of four Americans believe "in order to get ahead in life these days, it is necessary to get a college education." At the same time, three in four Americans also believe that college today is too expensive for most people to afford. That gap—between aspirations and opportunity—is one we must close.
Last month, I went on a two-week cross-country bus tour to promote the importance of education. Everywhere I went, there was both a strong sense of urgency about the importance of getting a college education, and a great deal of anxiety about whether middle-class families are getting priced out of college.
People may not know all the details. They may not know that, in a space of a generation, the U.S. has dropped from leading the world in college attainment to being ranked 14th in the world in college attainment among young adults. That is unacceptable.
But they do worry that other nations are out-educating us. And they do fear that other nations will soon be out-competing us.
To boil it down to its core elements, our higher education system today faces three great challenges. They are:
First, the price of college is too high.
Second, the college completion rate is too low.
And third, there is too little accountability in higher education for improving attainment and achievement.
Why do I believe that higher education is at a crossroads? It is no secret that our current model of student and institutional aid is unsustainable. It is incapable of meeting the bipartisan goal that President Obama articulated four years ago--that America will again lead the world in college attainment by 2020.
In the past generation, state funding per full-time college student has fallen by about 25 percent, and the Great Recession rapidly accelerated that plunge in spending. Some states today are even continuing to cut higher education while running substantial surpluses—that makes no sense to me.
At the federal level, the Pell grant program for low-income students is facing an eight billion dollar shortfall in 2014. And it absolutely must continue to rapidly expand, as it has for the last four years, if America is to achieve the 2020 goal--and if postsecondary education and training are going to remain the engine of national economic growth.
All three of these core challenges to higher education—high prices, low completion rates, and too little accountability—are each difficult problems on their own. But in practice they are that much more difficult, because they are interrelated and cannot be addressed piecemeal or by the federal government alone. They can only be addressed through shared responsibility, tough-minded collaboration, and collective action.
Speaking in broad-brush terms, I believe we will see two ideas take hold in response to these threats to our higher education system.
The first response is that the system of institutional grants and loans will start to shift more toward a performance-based and outcomes-based system than is the case today, where aid to institutions of higher education is based on large measure on what institutions received in the past or the number of students an institution recruits.
We also need a simplified system of student aid where the federal government shares responsibility with states and institutions for keeping down costs, raising completion rates, and improving quality.
The federal government currently provides more than $150 billion a year to postsecondary institutions and students through grants, loans, and direct school support. But effectively none of the aid is awarded based on meaningful institutional performance or improving student outcomes. We must continue to invest, and we must use taxpayer dollars more wisely.
And by the same measure, students and families will need to make better choices about the colleges, universities, and training programs in which they decide to invest their time, energy, and future.
This shift in the direction of performance-based funding is already underway. We have tightened funding for Pell Grants and subsidized loans by limiting how long each student can receive aid. As you know, President Obama has proposed a one billion dollar Race to the Top program for College Affordability and Completion.
He has also proposed a First in the World initiative to fund innovative models to accelerate college completion. The President has warned that if colleges and universities "can't stop tuition from going up, the funding they get from taxpayers will go down."
The Administration has similarly taken a series of far-ranging steps, both to promote basic transparency around college costs and to shift to more of an earnings-based repayment model for student debt.
Finally, a number of states, like Indiana, under Governor Mitch Daniels, and Missouri, under Governor Jay Nixon's leadership, are also moving toward incorporating elements of performance-based funding.
A second remedy for the challenges facing higher education is likely to be a rethinking of the role of educational technology.
We still have a lot to learn and perfect about online learning, adaptive software, analytics, simulations and gaming, and other uses of technology in higher education. But there is no question that a digital revolution is already underway in higher education, and its vast potential has only begun to be tapped.
Through the smart use of technology, higher education now has an extraordinary opportunity to personalize learning, expand access, and bolster productivity. Blended learning empowers educators and enables students in ways that were unimaginable just a few years ago.
I'll close by making the point that the challenges to our higher education system can only be met through a shared partnership with clear responsibilities, involving all levels of government and institutions, as well as the business, education, labor, and philanthropic communities.
It's time to end the buck-passing and blame game, where college leaders blame high schools for sending ill-prepared students, where high school principals blame the elementary schools, where elementary school principals blame the preschool programs, and preschool teachers blame the parents.
I'm not asking for a Kumbaya moment, where everyone joins hands together and sings. Instead, I'm talking about tough-minded partnerships that drive transformational change and deliver a "first-in-the-world" system of higher education opportunities for all Americans.
K-12 schools must become true partners to ensure both that academic standards are truly aligned with expectations for college work, and that many fewer high school graduates need remedial education before they can take college courses. And colleges must become more committed to the success of their local schools, or open their own public schools, as some have.
Colleges also need to partner with other postsecondary institutions to make sure credits are transferable, and that fewer students pile up costly, unneeded credits.
Business leaders need to work more intensively with community colleges and technical training providers, as well as high schools, to make sure that the right skills are taught--and that training is tailored to future labor market needs. The corporate sector should be motivated by a perfect combination of altruism and self-interest in developing real partnerships that lead to real jobs.
And I'm not just talking about the technical skills, but the character, workplace, and critical thinking skills that ensure success in any workplace and the larger society long after graduation.
And all of this has to happen without letting efforts to trim costs and improve efficiency become an excuse for reducing quality.
We need more graduates with high-quality degrees and 21st century knowledge and skills--not more graduates with meaningless paper credentials. And today, several states, like Colorado, West Virginia, and Kentucky, are doing a better job than others of making progress toward their portion of the 2020 goal, of having America regain its place as the best-educated workforce in the world.
So, clearly there are no simple solutions here, there are no silver bullets. But we can't let the scope of the challenges facing higher education become a discussion-ending excuse for inaction. Quite the opposite—it should motivate us to move with a sense of real urgency and mission clarity.
For all of the challenges we face, I am actually optimistic that these battles can be won. Why am I hopeful? Because the skeptics, and the conventional wisdom about higher education reform, have, so often, proved wrong.
Recall that President Lincoln signed the Morrill Act, establishing our nation's land grant universities, in the midst of the Civil War. In the aftermath of World War II, Harry Truman successfully pushed for the creation of our nation's community college system.
More recently, as part of the health care law, we phased out the private sector-lender middlemen who were making literally tens of billions of dollars from subsidized government student loans. Instead, we used those dollars to help millions more low-income students receive Pell Grants and afford the opportunity to pursue their dream of going to college.
Skeptics warned that the government would never accomplish the switch to Direct Lending in a timely and effective way. But the skeptics and the conventional wisdom were wrong.
Today, there are universities, community colleges, and states tackling all of these tough issues, all across the country. We just need now to take transformational change to scale.
Promising innovations, which constrain costs and increase completion, while improving quality, are still the exception today. Collectively—by better aligning incentives and rewarding courage—we must make them the norm.

Agenda October 30 and 31, 2012 - Administration & Support (CA Dept of Education)

Agenda October 30 and 31, 2012 - Administration & Support (CA Dept of Education):


Agenda October 30 and 31, 2012

Advisory Commission on Special Education (ACSE) meeting agenda.

Advisory Commission on Special Education Members
Kristin Wright, Chair
Diane Fazzi, Vice Chair
Feda Almaliti
Janice Brown
Maureen Burness
Kenneth Denman
Morena de Grimaldi
Betty Karnette
Susan Martinez
Tomislav Peraic
Gina Plate
Naomi Rainey
Mariano Sanz
Barbara Schulman
Jaclyn Vincent
Student Members
Matthew Stacy
Timothy Higgins
Legislative Members
Carol Liu, Senate
Joan Buchanan, Assembly
State Board of Education
Carl Cohn, Liaison
State Special Schools
Scott Kerby, Director, State Special Schools & Services Division
California Department of Education
Executive Secretary
Fred Balcom, Director, Special Education Division
California Department of Education
Agenda Times Are Approximate and Are Provided for Convenience Only
All items may be re-ordered to be heard on any day of the noticed meeting. The order of business may be changed without notice.
Advisory Commission on Special Education
Schedule of MeetingLocation

Tuesday, October 30, 2012

10:00 a.m. - 4:00 p.m. Pacific Time ±
California Department of Education
1430 N Street, Room 1101
Sacramento, California
916-445-4602

Wednesday, October 31, 2012

9:00 a.m. - 4:00 p.m. Pacific Time ±
California Department of Education
1430 N Street, Room 1101
Sacramento, California
916-445-4602
Please see the detailed agenda for more information about the items to be considered and acted upon. The public is welcome.
Guidelines for Public Input Sessions
The Commission welcomes public involvement. Opportunities for public comment are provided at every Commission meeting.
Reasonable Accommodation for Any Individual With a Disability
Pursuant to the Rehabilitation Act of 1973 and the Americans with Disabilities Act of 1990, any individual with a disability who requires reasonable accommodation to attend or participate in a meeting or function of the Advisory Commission on Special Education (ACSE), may request assistance by contacting the Special Education Division, 1430 N Street, Suite 2401, Sacramento, CA, 95814; telephone, 916-445-4602; fax, 916-327-3706.

Advisory Commission on Special Education
Agenda, Tuesday, October 30, 2012, 10:00 a.m. Pacific Time
California Department of Education
1430 N Street, Room 1101
Sacramento, California
NOTE: Items not heard or completed on October 30, 2012, may be carried over to October 31, 2012.
10:00 - 10:15 a.m.
Call to Order - Roll Call
Salute to the Flag
Communications and Announcements
New Member Introductions and Welcome
Review of Agenda
10:15 a.m. - Noon
Item 1-Subject: Orientation for members of the California Advisory Commission on Special Education (ACSE) including a review of the Bagely-Keene Open Meeting Act, discussion of the members’ roles and responsibilities, and an overview of special education. Presenters include Jill Rice, Assistant Legal Counsel, State Board of Education and Fred Balcom, Director, Special Education Division, California Department of Education.
Type of Action: Action, Information
Noon - 1:15 p.m. Lunch
1:15 - 1:30 p.m.
Item 2-Subject: Report on Common Core Standards and Post-Secondary Outcomes: Issues and opportunities for students with disabilities not on the traditional High School diploma track presented by Ed Amundson, California Teachers Association liaison to California Community of Practice on Secondary Transition.
Type of Action: Action, Information
1:30 - 2:00 p.m.
Item 3-Subject: Report on strategies and approaches leading toward increased opportunities for gainful employment for individuals with disabilities presented by Paul Hippolitus, Director, Disabled Students Program, University of California at Berkeley.
Type of Action: Action, Information
2:00 - 2:15 p.m.
Item 4-Subject: Report on the promulgation of amendments to Title 5 (Education), California Code of Regulations presented by Fred Balcom, Director, Special Education Division, California Department of Education.
Type of Action: Action, Information
2:15 - 2:30 p.m.
Item 5-Subject: State Board of Education report from Carl Cohn, Member, State Board of Education (SBE) and SBE liaison to the Commission.
Type of Action: Action, Information
2:30 - 2:45 p.m.
Item 6-Subject: Public comment is invited on any matter not included on the printed agenda. The Commission is precluded from discussing matters not included on the meeting agenda; however, questions may be asked for clarification. Issues raised by the public may be referred to a future meeting agenda for Commission discussion. A five minute time limit is allocated for each individual.
Type of Action: Information
2:45 - 3:00 p.m. Break
3:00 - 3:15 p.m.
Item 7-Subject: Report from Joan Buchanan, Chair, California Assembly Education Committee.
Type of Action: Action, Information
3:15 - 3:30 p.m.
Item 8-Subject: Update on SB 1458 (Steinberg. School accountability: Academic Performance Index: graduation rates) presented by Susanna Cooper, Education Policy Consultant, California State Senate Pro Tempore Darrell Steinberg's Office.
Type of Action: Action, Information
3:30 - 4:00 p.m.
Item 9-Subject: Report on current legislative and budget information pertaining to matters of interest to the ACSE. Presenters include Jennifer Moreno and Carol Bingham, Government Affairs Division, California Department of Education.
Type of Action: Action, Information
4:00 - 4:15 p.m.
Item 10-Subject: Report on the Grazer Outstanding Achievement in Learning (GOAL) Award submission and selection process, including adoption of proposed scoring rubric.
Type of Action: Action, Information
Adjournment of day's session.

Advisory Commission on Special Education
Agenda, Wednesday, October 31, 2012, 9:00 a.m. Pacific Time
California Department of Education
1430 N Street, Room 1101
Sacramento, California
9:00 - 9:10 a.m.
Call to Order - Roll Call
Salute to the Flag
Communications and Announcements
Review of Agenda (i.e. unfinished business from prior day’s meeting)
9:10 - 9:15 a.m.
Item 11-Subject: Approval of meeting minutes.
Type of Action: Action, Information
9:15 - 9:45 a.m.
Item 12-Subject: Report on current and future activities pertaining to the implementation of Response to Instruction and Intervention as presented by Phil Lafontain, Director, Professional Learning Support Division, California Department of Education.
Type of Action: Action, Information
9:45 - 10:15 a.m.
Item 13-Subject: Report on current and future activities pertaining to Common Core Standards (CCS) and how the ACSE can support and provide input towards the implementation of CCS in California presented by Nancy S. Brownell, Senior Fellow, Office of the State Board of Education and Barbara Murchison, Common Core Systems Implementation Office, California Department of Education.
Type of Action: Action, Information
10:15 - 10:45 a.m.
Item 14-Subject: Update on activities and outcomes of the Statewide Assessment Reauthorization Work Group (formerly known as the AB 250 Panel) presented by Patrick Traynor, Director, Assessment Development & Administration Division, California Department of Education.
Type of Action: Action, Information
10:45 - 11:00 a.m. Break
11:00 - 11:30 a.m.
Item 15-Subject: Input is invited from organizational representatives including, yet not limited to, the following interested entities: California Association of Resource Specialist Plus, California Teachers Association, California State Employees Association, Parent-Teachers Associations, Special Education Administrators of County Offices, Special Education Local Plan Areas, Family Empowerment Centers, Parent Training and Information Centers, California Charter Schools Association, and California Speech-Language-Hearing Association.
Type of Action: Action, Information
11:30 a.m. - Noon
Item 16-Subject: Update on the Instructional Quality Commission (IQC) and how the ACSE can support and provide input towards adoption of curriculum instruction and frameworks affecting students with disabilities presented by Tom Adams, Director, Curriculum Frameworks and Instructional Resources Division, California Department of Education.
Type of Action: Action, Information
Noon - 1:15 p.m. Lunch
1:15 - 1:45 p.m.
Item 17-Subject: Update on draft report “Special Education Expenditures, Revenues and Provision in CaliforniaExternal link opens in new window or tab. (PDF)”, American Institutes for Research as a Partner in the California Comprehensive Center at WestEd presented by Jannelle Kubinec, Director of National, State, and Special Projects for the Comprehensive School Assistance Program at WestEd.
Type of Action: Action, Information
1:45 - 2:15 p.m.
Item 18-Subject: State Special Schools report by Scott Kerby, Director, State Special Schools & Services Division, California Department of Education.
Type of Action: Action, Information
2:15 - 2:30 p.m.
Item 19-Subject: Public comment is invited on any matter not included on the printed agenda. The Commission is precluded from discussing matters not included on the meeting agenda; however, questions may be asked for clarification. Issues raised by the public may be referred to a future meeting agenda for Commission discussion. A five minute time limit is allocated for each individual.
Type of Action: Information
2:30 - 2:45 p.m. Break
2:45 - 3:15 p.m.
Item 20-Subject: Commissioner reports (limited to three minutes each) on matters of interest to the memberships' appointing bodies and stakeholders.
Type of Action: Action, Information
3:15 - 3:45 p.m.
Item 21-Subject: Report of the Director, Fred Balcom, Special Education Division, California Department of Education.
Type of Action: Action, Information
3:45 - 4:00 p.m.
Item 22-Subject: Unfinished business from prior day's agenda, meeting summary and wrap up, and agenda building for January 2013 ACSE meeting.
Type of Action: Action, Information
Adjournment of day's session.
Adjournment of meeting.

Schools Matter: The College Caste System and Crushing Student Debt

Schools Matter: The College Caste System and Crushing Student Debt:


The College Caste System and Crushing Student Debt

It is not at all surprising that many well-intentioned folks concerned with the costs of higher education today have turned to technology in hopes of reducing costs and limiting tuition increases.  After all, when students are at home in their pajamas and the professor (maybe in his pajamas, too) is connected via the web (in real time or asynchronously) from anywhere in the world, and no one is using physical classroom space with maintenance costs, utility costs, and parking problems, how great could that be?  Pretty great, particularly if you are a large public university dealing with shrinking shares of public funds while trying to compete for top students, pay the football coach, stock libraries, run research facilities, and hire quality faculty.

After all, if you can put a good chunk of classes online for students who can't afford to drive in or live on campus, and hire some of those ultra-cheap academic sharecroppers to teach them at about $3K per class, maybe you can build that new health club just across from Fraternity Row or that new living/seminar center for the gifted 

Tom Latham: Bring Back Control and Power of Education to State and School Districts | Truth in American Education

Tom Latham: Bring Back Control and Power of Education to State and School Districts | Truth in American Education:


Tom Latham: Bring Back Control and Power of Education to State and School Districts

latham-interviewI had the opportunity to recently interview Congressman Tom Latham (R-IA) for Caffeinated Thoughts.  He is running against Congressman Leonard Boswell (D-IA) in Iowa’s newly drawn 3rd Congressional District.  We had a chance to discuss Federal involvement in education.
“No Child Left Behind was an experiment with great intentions that hasn’t worked because of the way it was implemented.”  Latham said he was ok with Federal assistance for disabled children who received Title I, but was concerned about their breadth of involvement:
…to have the federal government try to dictate what curriculum is at that level and what they can or cannot do – local school districts get maybe 5 to 6 percent of their revenue from the federal government but about 70 to 80 percent of the regulations come from the federal government.  It is cumbersome to deal with.
I also asked him about District Race to the Top:
It dramatically expands the role of the Federal government.  They are going to be writing the grant applications based on what the rules that come out of Washington rather than what the needs are 

New York Teacher | Edwize

New York Teacher | Edwize:


New York Teacher

New York Teacher, Oct. 18, 2012Highlights from the October 18 issue of New York Teacher:
Union in high gear for Nov. 6 elections
In addition to its push to help re-elect President Barack Obama, the UFT is working to elect a number of state lawmakers on Nov. 6 who will support public schools, unions and the needs of teachers, parents and children.
Addabbo wins UFT’s backing
With many important state Senate races in November, the UFT on Sept. 24 enthusiastically endorsed Joseph Addabbo Jr. for re-election for a third term representing the 15th Senate District in Queens. The incumbent faces a well-financed GOP challenger.
President’s Perspective: An inspirational trip
The members in Florida with whom I spoke each phrased it differently, but they told me the same thing: The stark differences between the candidates made it a clear and easy choice. Although we have not always agreed with him, President Obama is the candidate who will move our country forward into the future.
Green machine: New Bronx high school gives leg up on growing field of new energy technology
Teachers are excited, parents are thrilled, and “students can’t wait to begin building things,” said Aldrich Crowe, a teacher at the new HS for Energy and Technology in the Bronx. Creating a school focused on careers in green engineering and sustainable building technology is an idea whose time has come.
UFT contract dispute moves to fact-finding
The New York State Public Employment Relations Board on Oct. 3 appointed a three-member fact-finding panel to take testimony, hold hearings and issue a report and recommendations in an effort to resolve the contract dispute between the Department of Education and the UFT. The UFT contract expired on Oct. 31, 2009.
Union blasts city on rising class sizes
Roughly 225,000 — or nearly a quarter of the New York City school system’s students — spent part or all of their first days in school in overcrowded classes, according to a UFT survey released on Sept. 25.
Brooklyn charter teachers ratify innovative first contract
The UFT and the board at the Fahari Academy Charter School have agreed to a first-ever contract at the school. The three-year contract, which was unanimously ratified on June 29 by the staff, will go into effect during the 2012–2013 school year and cover the teachers and teachers’ assistants at the middle school, which is located in the Flatbush section of Brooklyn.
‘A’ giant leap: After getting F last year, UFT-represented charter in Bronx is thriving
Teachers, parents and students were beaming with pride at the UFT-represented Bronx Academy of Promise’s board meeting on Oct. 9 after learning that their school was one of just three schools citywide to move from an F to an A on its annual School Progress Report. The A grade should help the school as it seeks a five-year renewal of its charter.
Double number of guidance counselors, comptroller says
City Comptroller John Liu on Oct. 4 called for more than doubling the number of high school guidance counselors in city schools. He faulted the lack of hands-on academic and college counseling from an overworked and undersized counseling staff for the fact that just one in five city high school graduates finishes college.
‘We’re ready!’: Newest UFT ad stresses dedication of city’s public school educators
“We’re ready,” a cast of five New York City public school teachers told local TV audiences in a 30-second UFT television ad that blanketed prime-time broadcast and cable spots from Sept. 28 to Oct. 7.


Pencil Cases and Fire Drills: Musings on a New Year in a Self-Contained English as a Second Language Classroom

A hard plastic pencil case hits the floor with a resounding thwonk. As pencils and pens clatter across the linoleum, children duck to retrieve them. The abrupt noise momentarily silences the chatter of six-year olds, adding a percussive flourish to the classroom soundtrack that heralds the start of a new school year.
“As if this batch of freshly minted first-graders weren’t noisy enough,” I think, and silently curse the school supply store that prices hard pencil cases so irresistibly to the parents of schoolchildren.

UPDATE: NYC Public School Parents: Warning to district 6 and others considering de-zoning

NYC Public School Parents: Warning to district 6 and others considering de-zoning:


Comments on the proposed New American Academy Charter School


Here are comments submitted today to the State Education Department on the proposed New American Academy charter, opposing the granting of this charter.  The school is based on the model of an existing public school in Brooklyn, that places 60 small children in a room with four teachers, instead of providing them with a class size of 15. 

Click here to download as a pdf.
New American Academy Charter Comments Final

Comments opposed to the authorization of the Great Oaks Charter School


Comments submitted today to the State Education Department.  You can also download the pdf of this document here


Comments on Great Oaks Charter Final 10.19.12


Warning to district 6 and others considering de-zoning



This memo was written for District 6 parents and Community Education Council members,  who with the encouragement of DOE are considering eliminating all school attendance zones in their district.  Apparently there are other districts are considering the same course of action.  I believe this proposal is a Trojan Horse, and has the potential of allowing DOE to close any public school and put a charter in its place.  Click on this link to download the pdf version of the memo below. 



Memorandum

To:   District 6 Parents and Community Education Council
Re:   Proposal to eliminate school attendance zones
From: Leonie Haimson, Class Size Matters
Date: 10/16/12
CC:  Council Member Robert Jackson, Sarah Morgridge

After reading the materials presented by the CEC 6 zoning committee and news clips about this issue, I believe there is an important point that has been left out of the public discussion about the pros and cons of eliminating