Natomas Residents to Be Able to Take Advantage of Lower Flood Insurance Rates Beginning Next Year

Natomas Residents to Be Able to Take Advantage of Lower Flood Insurance Rates Beginning Next Year

The Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) announced today that Natomas residents will be eligible in 2011 and 2012 to purchase a preferred risk flood insurance policy. Natomas residents are required this year to purchase Standard Risk Policies, but next year will be able to save from $450 to $1000 annually on their flood insurance policy.

“This is a great decision that will help Natomas families and businesses,” said Councilmember Ray Tretheway. “I applaud Congresswoman Matsui for her diligent effort in successfully advocating for Natomas.”

In April Councilmember Tretheway, who chairs the Sacramento Area Flood Control Agency (SAFCA), traveled to Washington DC to meet with FEMA officials, including FEMA director Craig Fugate, and lobby for flood insurance relief for Natomas residents. 

This decision comes on the heels of SAFCA’s vote last month to allocate $152.4 million to the Natomas Levee Improvement Program.

These funds will include design, environmental permitting, real estate acquisition, and construction of flood control improvements along 5.3 miles of the Natomas Cross Canal south levee and 12.4 miles of the Sacramento River east levee from the cross canal to Powerline Road.

Levee work is well underway throughout the Natomas Basin, and construction will continue now throughout the next year.

“We have made improving our levees a top priority, and I appreciate FEMA recognizing our community’s commitment,” Tretheway concluded.

For more information, please contact Councilmember Tretheway’s Office at (916) 808-7001.

Ray Tretheway
Councilmember, District One
City of Sacramento
(916) 808-7001

Why the mayor can get away with his salary-freeze surprise | GothamSchools

Why the mayor can get away with his salary-freeze surprise | GothamSchools

Why the mayor can get away with his salary-freeze surprise

by Maura Walz

When Mayor Bloomberg announced this morning that he will prevent teacher layoffs by freezing wages, teachers union president Michael Mulgrew shot back that the mayor can’t unilaterally make contract decisions.
Mulgrew is right that Bloomberg can’t make teachers contract decisions on his own. But in this case, he doesn’t have to. All Bloomberg has to do to freeze wages is not sign any contract that includes a raise.
The teachers union is left with a decision: it can either agree to a contract with no raises, or not. If the city and union are unable to come to an agreement, teachers can continue working under the old contract indefinitely.

In a sea of applicants, a $500 bounty for top-tier teachers

by Anna Phillips

Secretary of Education Arne Duncan with students, parents, and teachers from Explore Charter School during a visit to the school in February 2009

Explore Charter School CEO Morty Ballen has hundreds of teachers knocking at the doors of his Brooklyn charter schools, hoping to get a job. Yet to find the right person, Ballen has put out a bounty notice.
For the past several years, Ballen has offered a $500 finder’s fee to anyone who refers a candidate he ends up hiring at either of his two charter schools, Empower and Explore. With over 300 applicants for about two dozen vacancies this year, it may seem like an odd choice to pay people to find more teacher-hopefuls, but Ballen said

Group Commissioned to Examine Chicago TAP Results - Teacher Beat - Education Week

Group Commissioned to Examine Chicago TAP Results - Teacher Beat - Education Week

Group Commissioned to Examine Chicago TAP Results

by Stephen Sawchuk

The National Institute for Excellence in Teaching, which oversees the popular Teacher Advancement Program school-reform model, is commissioning its own study to figure out why its Chicago site had disappointing results, compared to some of its other sites, according to this release.
Interactive, Inc., an Ashland, Va.-based education program evaluator, will try to determine which variables in Chicago might have led to the results, the NIET group said.
The study is being hailed by some in the field as the death knell for performance pay, but that's probably a bit premature for a couple of reasons. As I noted in my story, TAP has lots of other pieces aside from bonus pay, including job-embedded professional development and a career ladder and added responsibilities for "master"

Seventeenth Edition of The ESL/EFL/ELL Blog Carnival Is Up! | Larry Ferlazzo's Websites of the Day...

Seventeenth Edition of The ESL/EFL/ELL Blog Carnival Is Up! | Larry Ferlazzo's Websites of the Day...

Seventeenth Edition of The ESL/EFL/ELL Blog Carnival Is Up!

by Larry Ferlazzo

Mary Ann Zehr at Learning The Language has just posted the Seventeenth Edition of the ESL/EFL/ELL Blog Carnival. It’s a great collection of blog posts from teachers all around the world.
Mary Ann has arranged it as a Question/Answer post, with each post answering a question she lists. It’s a pretty neat idea.
The August 1st edition of the Carnival will be hosted by David Deubelbeiss from EFL Classroom 2.0.
This blog carnival welcomes any blog posts, including examples of student work, that are related to teaching or learning English. I suspect David will create other ways you can submit a post but, for now, you can contribute one by using this easy submission form. If the form does not work for some reason, you can send the link to me via my Contact Form.
You can see all the previous sixteen editions of the ESL/EFL/ELL Blog Carnival here.

Parents: How can schools best connect them to their child's academic development? | THE EDUCATION FRONT Blog | dallasnews.com

Parents: How can schools best connect them to their child's academic development? | THE EDUCATION FRONT Blog | dallasnews.com

Parents: How can schools best connect them to their child's academic development?

by William McKenzie/ Editorial Columnist

So, here's my question for the day:
What would you tell Arne Duncan about school programs that get parents actively involved with their child's education? Not just attending meetings, but being part of their child's academic progress, or struggle, as the case so often is.
I raise this because Education Secretary Duncan said in a speech last month that the Obama administration wants to use about $145 million "for grant programs that support, incentivize, and help expand district-level, evidence-based parental involvement practices. We want districts to think big about family engagement - to

D.C. teachers ratify new contract

D.C. teachers ratify new contract

Network News XPROFILE View More Activity TOOLBOX Resize Print E-mail Yahoo! Buzz Reprints COMMENT 15 Comments | View All » POST A COMMENT You must be logged in to leave a comment.Log in | Register Why Do I Have to Log In Again? Discussion Policy WHO'S BLOGGING » Links to this article

By Bill Turque

Washington Post Staff Writer
Wednesday, June 2, 2010; 1:46 PM

District teachers ratified a new contract Wednesday that dramatically expands Chancellor Michelle A. Rhee's ability to remove poor educators, and places D.C. on a growing list of cities and states that have established classroom results, not seniority, as the standard by which teachers are judged.

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  D.C. teachers ratify new contract
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  New D.C. teachers' contract
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  Copy of the D.C. teachers' contract (pdf)

Members of the Washington Teachers' Union approved the pact by a wide margin after a two-week voting period, according to a ballot count conducted for the union by the American Arbitration Association. The final tally was 1,412 votes to 425. The agreement now goes to the D.C. Council, where it is expected to gain swift approval.
The contract, the product of nearly 2 1/2 years of contentious negotiations that required intervention by a mediator, combines a rich traditional financial package with unorthodox initiatives historically resisted by

Oklahoma: The Stealth State for Teacher Reforms - Teacher Beat - Education Week

Oklahoma: The Stealth State for Teacher Reforms - Teacher Beat - Education Week

Oklahoma: The Stealth State for Teacher Reforms

by Stephen Sawchuk

After getting clobbered in the first round of the Race to the Top, Oklahoma has managed to pass some aggressive pieces of legislation in preparation for round two. Among them is a bill that makes major changes to the state's teacher evaluation and tenure systems.
It's similar to legislation that passed Colorado, in that teachers who score at the "ineffective" level on the new instrument for two years running could be dismissed.
The state also is poised to join the expanding group of states basing 50 percent or more of a teacher's evaluation on student academic progress. (Like many of those states, test scores will only make up part of that 50 percent; the other part will be based on some other academic measure.)
But what's really interesting is how little press this seems to have gotten. The state teachers' unions apparently

This Week In Education: Privates: Death At Dalton

This Week In Education: Privates: Death At Dalton

Privates: Death At Dalton

by Alexander Russo

Did tony New York City private school Dalton cover up the circumstances surrounding the suicide of one of its most gifted (and troubled) students New York magazine examines the short troubled life of the student who died last year and the hurricane of confusion and grief that followed.
"His billionaire father had lost all his money in the stock market, someone said. He had applied to Harvard and not gotten in. He was on drugs or, because he was a fierce three-season athlete, on steroids. He was tortured by a secret gay life. He jumped because he was disturbed, and the proof of his being disturbed was that he jumped...But more frightening than any of that being true was the likelihood that none of it was."
Check it out here

Pictures: The Most-Filmed Lecture Hall In America

by Alexander Russo

The most famous postsecondary classroom in movie history, according to the Times. I wonder what the K12 version looks like?

The Education Report New graduation rates, huge disparities

The Education Report

New graduation rates, huge disparities

By Katy Murphy
Wednesday, June 2nd, 2010 at 1:23 pm in achievement gap, dropouts, high schools, students
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About 71 percent of California’s high school students graduated “on time” in 2008, after four years – 3.7 percentage points below the national average, according to a set of sobering numbers brought to you by the U.S. Department of Education’s National Center for Education Statistics. (Page 5)

If you break the California numbers down by ethnicity, the disparities leap off the page: 57 percent of black students in the Class of 2008 graduated on time, compared to 61 percent of Latino students, 91 percent of Asian students and 80 percent of white students. (Page 7)

The state’s black students left school early at the highest rate: 9 percent dropped out in 2007-08, compared to 6 percent of Latino students, 2 percent of Asian students, and 3 percent of white students that year. (Page 15)

Five-year trends: Read the rest of this entry »

Education — San Francisco Bay Area Schools, Performance, Profiles, News — SFGate

Education — San Francisco Bay Area Schools, Performance, Profiles, News — SFGate

California's dilemma over academic standards

California is poised once again to host a battle, if not a war, over what our students should know and...

Community colleges to get funds for retraining

President Obama's Bay Area visit last week highlighted his support for the green-tech industry, but for...

• Photos

• Ohio elementary school student killed in bus crash 10:28 AM
• States to establish uniform standards for teaching 10:14 AM
• Rams hire Glover to aid in player transition 8:51 AM
• Official: Kilmer to address NM county's concerns 7:48 AM
• 3 Namibian women with HIV say they were sterilized 3:54 AM

More AP Education Headlines »

Klein instructs principals to cut budgets, but not teachers | GothamSchools

Klein instructs principals to cut budgets, but not teachers | GothamSchools

Klein instructs principals to cut budgets, but not teachers

by Philissa Cramer

The city is moving forward with Mayor Bloomberg’s plan to avoid educator layoffs by freezing their salaries by writing it into school budgets for next year.
Neither the teachers union nor the principals union has agreed to Bloomberg’s plan, but budgets that principals are receiving today assume that the plan will become a reality. In an email to principals this morning, Klein said Bloomberg’s plan would save the city $400 million and eliminate the need for teacher layoffs. But the city would still lose about 2,000 teachers through attrition, and schools will still see their budgets cut by about 4 percent, he wrote.
Klein will answer principals’ questions about the budgets during a webcast tomorrow morning.
One question might be how exactly the city calculated its savings. In January, when the teachers and principals

Common Core Standards Initiative - Year 2010 (CA Dept of Education)

Common Core Standards Initiative - Year 2010 (CA Dept of Education)

State Schools Chief Jack O'Connell Urges Support of Common Core State Standards Initiative to Move Student Performance to Higher Level

SACRAMENTO — State Superintendent of Public Instruction Jack O'Connell urged support today of the newly released Common Core State Standards (Outside Source) Initiative in English-language arts and mathematics. The common core standards are the result of a state-led effort to increase rigor and build consensus on what students should know as they advance from kindergarten through high school so they will graduate ready for college and careers.

"The rigorous, internationally competitive common core standards will help better prepare California students for success in the increasingly competitive global economy," O'Connell said.

"These standards unveiled this morning in their finalized version will help us improve instruction and student performance by making more focused and explicit the knowledge and skills students need to know as they move up the grades. This will better prepare students for successful mastery of more complex and advanced concepts and applications required for success in high school and later in college and careers. This clearly defined and well-articulated staircasing of student skills will help accelerate improvement in student performance and close the achievement gap," he said.

"California's current standards were adopted in 1997. Over the past 13 years the world has changed in profound ways. We have made amazing technological advances that connect us to every corner of the globe. The world is indeed flat. By adopting such the common core standards, California can choose to look to the future and build upon what is the best of our own current – and considerable — standards with the best of what other states and high-performing countries offer their students. To provide our students with less only shortchanges their future and that of our state and nation.

"I commend all who worked on the initiative, and I urge California to adopt this new foundation for student learning," O'Connell said.

Bilingualism, The American Advantage - Perdaily.com

Bilingualism, The American Advantage - Perdaily.com

Bilingualism, The American Advantage

by Leonard

In ancient Egypt there were many mutually exclusive myths of creation, because from each of these very different explanations of the beginning of life a unique and valuable lesson could be learned that would enrich life in the present. Within every human culture a battle rages between the conflicting notions that knowledge and truth are static concepts to be achieved and protected against the threat posed by change and the notion that knowledge and truth by their very nature are ideas that one never achieves but rather an endless process of thesis, antithesis, and synthesis as a necessity of maintaining human viability in adaptation to an ever changing reality.

For me, one of the most interesting expressions of the conflicting approach to maintaining American viability as a society, with the knowledge that every other previous society has declined, is what I think of as the inherently American process of cultural co-optation, while at the same time allowing our identify as American to be changed by the different

California School District Closes All K–5 Libraries | American Libraries Magazine

California School District Closes All K–5 Libraries | American Libraries Magazine

California School District Closes All K–5 Libraries

A graphic of books still entices visitors to the website of the now-closed Bannon Creek (Calif.) Elementary School library.

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By Beverly Goldberg

All eight elementary-school libraries in the Natomas Unified School District closed indefinitely as of May 26 to plug $1.6 million of the district’s $17.3-million budget gap by the end of FY2012–13. “These cuts are a last resort,” district spokesperson Heidi Van Zant told American Libraries.“We have deep, deep, deep regret about this action, which speaks nothing to the value we place on libraries.”

Although Van Zant emphasized that the libraries would be reopened once the budget crisis ends, K–5 students will find their school library collections inaccessible behind locked doors for the 2010–11 academic year. “We used to have dance and art,” Bannon Creek Elementary School 4th-grader Ramneek Kaur said in the Bee. “Now, no books. All that is left is PE.” “They should have found a way to keep the libraries open,” asserted Bannon library aide Clara Allen, whose last day on the job was documented by the May 28 Sacramento Bee in aslideshow. “To me, it’s very important to have a book in the kids’ hands.”

Tears were also being shed at the Folsom Cordova Unified School District, where shuttered school libraries were reopened last fall after the teachers union gave contract concessions at the eleventh hour; nonetheless, seven of the district’s 11 full-time library workers have been dismissed as of the end of the school year. At the Elk Grove Unified School District, where 57 elementary school library technicians were laid off in May, two months after Superintendent Steven M. Ladd laid the blame for gutting libraries, as well as counselors, administrators, and others, squarely at the feet of state lawmakers. The decision about who will manage each Elk Grove library is being left to the officials of each respective school.

At least one school library program in the Sacramento area was faring better. “I’m proud of our superintendent and his vision,” said Martha Rowland, district coordinator of library services for the Sacramento City Unified Schools, of the increase in funding for middle-school libraries next year. Still, elementary-school libraries there are staffed only half the week.

Finding the good news

The plight of school library programs in districts serving the state capital area reflects the realities elsewhere in the Golden State. In April, teacher-librarian Jessica Gillis of the Palo Alto Unified School District created a Google document to share her “completely non-scientific survey” of what California’s school librarians were reporting to her. Of the 35 districts that responded (a small sampling of California’s 330 unified school districts), Gillis tallied nine whose funding would remain stable, including Los Angeles Unified School District, which averted massive layoffs through union concessions. All the others anticipated losing credentialed librarians or library aides, or both. Acknowledging that the number of respondents is a small sampling of California’s 330 unified school districts, Gillis told AL, “So many districts don’t even have librarians. They aren’t even in the data-collection loop.”

Determined to document programs that remain healthy, Carolyn Foote, librarian at Westlake High School in Austin, Texas, and Beth Friese of the University of Georgia in