Big Education Ape - Mid Day Banana Break
The cradle-to-prison pipeline
Stand for Children-Dallas is part of the Stand for Children-Texas network. The goal of the organizations is to increase access to quality public schools for Texas children living in poverty.Stand for Children-Dallas recently looked at zip codes with a high number of residents in Texas prisons. It turned out that 10 Dallas zip codes had the largest number within our city.
Then the organization looked at data for the high schools in those zip codes. It wanted to see how many of their students were learning at a level that would qualify them for college.
The result was both astonishing and disturbing. Something like 3,100 people were in prison from those zip codes. But less than one percent of the high school students were on a college-ready track..
Last week, I did an email exchange with Mitchell Savage, executive director of Stand for Children-Dallas. Here’s
San Diego Free Press
The need to push controversy overwhelms any need for fact checking; it's okay to let public officials yell 'fire' in the schoolhouses of our city. So it was with this sense of 'newsworthiness' that the VOSD published an interview on Friday with Stan ...
Closure savings are labor savings
Sub Title:
The District says shuttering 37 schools will lower expenses by $28 million annually. But in the short run there are “substantial” transition costs.
Author:
by Bill Hangley, Jr.
Author Bio:
Bill Hangley, Jr. is a regular freelance contributor to the Notebook.
But a closer look at the numbers shows that the lion’s share of savings will come from eliminating jobs.
Officials have been adamant that their Facilities Master Plan, which would close 37 schools and relocate seven more, is a financial necessity that will ultimately save the District $28 million annually – but less in the first year.
Image:
Image Caption:
Matthew Stanski is the District's new chief financial officer
Photo Credits:
School District of Philadelphia
| Mon Feb. 4, 2013 9:03 AM PST
Anti-right-to-work protest signs wait for protesters to take them before the march to the state capitol in Lansing, Michigan, in December 2012.
A few weeks ago, the Michigan chapter of Americans for Prosperity, the Koch-backed conservative advocacy group, held a "citizen watchdog training" in a suburb of Detroit. The training was billed as a workshop for regular folks to learn "the best tools and techniques in investigative journalism, social media, and opposition research." Featured speakers—including local activists, conservative state legislators, and Scott Hagerstrom, AFP-Michigan's director—would also speak about efforts to "reform" Michigan's schools.
Among the AFP set, reforming public schools usually means converting them into non-union,
Education Opportunity Network
Old McDonald and Mr. Holland Take a Sentimental Journey
I took a media break yesterday. I like football when I'm sitting in the stands and know who's on the field, but overexcited Super Bowl hype holds no allure for me. It snowed all day, so I turned off my phone and the internet and read in front of a crackling fire.
Reconnecting with social media this morning, I found endless re-posts of The Farmer Commercial. It was the Facebook conversation du jour-- I wept, I remembered, I was drawn back into the greatness of our nation, farmers are amazing people, best Super Bowl ad ever, blah, blah, blah.
What the farmer commercial engendered in me was:
#1) A creepy flashback of hanging out in my grandmother's kitchen, where Paul Harvey was a revered radio
Reconnecting with social media this morning, I found endless re-posts of The Farmer Commercial. It was the Facebook conversation du jour-- I wept, I remembered, I was drawn back into the greatness of our nation, farmers are amazing people, best Super Bowl ad ever, blah, blah, blah.
What the farmer commercial engendered in me was:
#1) A creepy flashback of hanging out in my grandmother's kitchen, where Paul Harvey was a revered radio
John Dillon says to call Madigan with “warmest regards.”
John Dillon, who publishes the blog Pension Vocabulary, also asks you to contact Chairman Madigan and reverse his refusal to talk to the We Are One Coalition.
John echoes Madigan churlish “with warm regards” conclusion to his drop dead letter to the state’s public employee unions.
John echoes Madigan churlish “with warm regards” conclusion to his drop dead letter to the state’s public employee unions.
Michael Madigan refuses to meet with the public union coalition We Are One, who have called a summit in Burr Ridge for February 11thto discuss reasonable and constitutional methods of alleviating the crushing debt facing Illinois after nearly a half century of not making payments to the pension funds – a period of
Anti-Common Core Bill Filed in Missouri Senate
From School Reform News:On Jan. 24, state Sen. John Lamping (R-Ladue) introduced Senate Bill 2010, which rescinds the Missouri Board of Education’s decision to adopt the Core, forbids state agencies from implementing it, and requires the Missouri legislature to sign off on state standard shifts. State Rep. Kurt Bahr (R-St. Charles) plans to file companion legislation in the next week.…Missouri legislators’ central concerns are cost and workability, Bahr said. The state has not published an estimate of costs for shifting to
Rosa Parks’ 100th Birthday Today!
10 Things You Didn’t Know About Rosa Parks | |
| Jeanne Theoharis, Posted: 2/4/13 8:14 AM Updated: 2/4/13 11:05 AM | |
(from The Rebellious Life of Mrs. Rosa Parks by Jeanne Theoharis)
1. Parks had been thrown off the bus a decade earlier by the same bus driver – for refusing to pay in the front and go around to the back to board. She had avoided that driver’s bus for twelve years because she knew well the risks of angering drivers, all of whom were white and carried guns. Her own mother had been threatened with physical violence by a bus driver, in front of Parks who was a child at the time. Parks’ neighbor had been
How Are Race to the Top States Doing in Year Two?
In only two years, the 12 states with Race to the Top grants continue to show improvements in teaching and learning in their schools. Last week, the U.S. Department of Education released state-specific reports for the 12 Race to the Top states, providing detailed, transparent summaries of each state’s accomplishments and challenges in year two, which covered the 2011-12 school year.
The 12 states—Delaware, the District of Columbia, Florida, Georgia, Hawaii, Maryland, Massachusetts, New York, North Carolina, Ohio, Rhode Island and Tennessee—reached a number of benchmarks in year two, as they implemented unique plans built around Race to the Top’s
The 12 states—Delaware, the District of Columbia, Florida, Georgia, Hawaii, Maryland, Massachusetts, New York, North Carolina, Ohio, Rhode Island and Tennessee—reached a number of benchmarks in year two, as they implemented unique plans built around Race to the Top’s
UTLA Defends Disclosure and Reporting
Over the weekend, United Teachers Los Angeles (UTLA) Director of Communications Suzanne Spurgeon emailed us a statement about our Friday story on how UTLA has been reporting and spending its money so far in the LAUSD School Board campaign:“To our knowledge PACE has reported expenditures in a timely and proper manner. If there have been any
The election politics of pension reform.
Particularly pension politics.
Miller reports that current polling shows Lisa Madigan trouncing Pat Quinn in a Democratic gubernatorial
L.A. Unified was warned about ex-priest before hiring, church says
The Los Angeles Archdiocese said Monday that it had warned the L.A. Unified School District of concerns it had with a former priest accused of molestation before the school system hired him in 2002 as a community outreach coordinator.
The former priest, Joseph Pina, admitted in internal church documents to a sexual relationship with a minor and to repeated “boundary issues” with women throughout his career in the clergy.
The archdiocese apparently never alerted law enforcement authorities about Pina. But a spokesman on Monday
The former priest, Joseph Pina, admitted in internal church documents to a sexual relationship with a minor and to repeated “boundary issues” with women throughout his career in the clergy.
The archdiocese apparently never alerted law enforcement authorities about Pina. But a spokesman on Monday
On the Growth Model
Yet here's what no one says. Who designs these tests? What sort of pre-test will there be before a Regents exam? What end-term exam will be given if there is no Regents exam? Who will decide what goes on it?
It won't be you, of course. You cannot even be trusted
OK school says ‘zero tolerance’ for bullying after teen shoots self in bathroom
Authorities in Oklahoma on Monday were unable to confirm if bullying was involved after a 15-year-old male killed himself with a gun in a Cowetta school bathroom. Speaking to reporters at press conference, Superintendent Jeff Holmes explained that a “ninth grade student at Cowetta...
Malloy to present proposed Fiscal Year 2014-2015 state budget on Wednesday
Washington counted more than 27,000 homeless students in 2011-12 school year
The numbers of students without homes is up nearly 47 percent from the start of the recession.