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Friday, March 19, 2010

voiceofsandiego.org | News. Investigation. Analysis. Conversation. Intelligence. - Small Changes Made a Big Difference at One School

voiceofsandiego.org | News. Investigation. Analysis. Conversation. Intelligence. - Small Changes Made a Big Difference at One School

Small Changes Made a Big Difference at One School

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  • Sam Hodgson
    Carol Manivone teaches her fourth grade class about bibliographies at Euclid Elementary.

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    Posted: Thursday, March 18, 2010 5:45 pm | Updated: 5:55 pm, Thu Mar 18, 2010.
    By EMILY ALPERT
    The odds are against Euclid Elementary.
    It has the third poorest student body in all of San Diego Unified. The vast majority of its students are still learning English, going home to chat in Spanish, Vietnamese or Khmer. It isn't a celebrated magnet or a charter school. Its building in eastern City Heights is plain and functional.
    Add all that up and you might expect Euclid to be another sad story in public schooling. But it isn't. Euclid racks up some of the highest test scores in the state for schools with high numbers of English learners and poor students, rivaling schools in middle class areas. Teachers rarely leave and suspensions are rare. Children giddily rattle off vocabulary words to Principal Vickie Jacobson on the playground.
    "If Vickie can do it," said Rupi Boyd, who oversees Jacobson and other principals, "there's not a single school out there that cannot achieve."
    Euclid isn't a miracle. It still falls behind far wealthier schools where kids walk in already ahead.
    But it's clearly doing something right -- and it's hard to pinpoint what at a glance. It doesn't have special programs or unusual freedoms. It
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    Do we need to subject students, teachers to more standardized tests? Schools Matter

    Schools Matter

    Do we need to subject students, teachers to more standardized tests?

    Published in the Washington Post
    Thursday, March 18, 2010; A18
    The No Child Left Behind law, heavily criticized because of the massive amount of testing it involved, required standardized tests in math and reading in the third through eighth grades and one year in high school. According to the March 14 front-page article "Obama calls for 'No Child' remake," we will have standardized tests in every grade, with the strong possibility of tests in other subjects as well, continuing the movement to convert schools into test-prep academies.
    This means billions of dollars will be spent on test construction, validation, revision, etc., at a time when schools are already short of funds. Many science classes have no lab equipment, school 



    Florida Shenanigans

    I sometimes wonder if the conservatives in Florida and the wingnuts in Texas are secretly trying to out-do each other with awful education reforms.

    A lot of attention has been focused on Texas (for good reason), but two potential reforms in Florida deserve a mention.

    Looks like tuition tax credits will expand in Florida:

    Florida voucher expansion 




    Imagine Settles Discrimination Suit

    Imagine will continue to preach about their shared values ofIntegrity, Justice, and Fun, but there sure seems to be a lot of teachers, principals, and parents with an awfully different take on the culture of Imagine.

    From Diane Stafford at KansasCity.com:
    Charter school operator to pay $570,000 to settle pregnancy discrimination suit
    Imagine Schools, a charter school operator in Kansas City, has 








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    News: RI Teacher Fired For Obama Effigy This Week In Education

    This Week In Education

    Update: Latest News, Links, & Tidbits

    Thumb160x_tipsbox300Tidbits and links often show up on Twitter before they make it to the blogosphere. So you should take a peek at my Twitter updates here if you want to know what's going on behind the scenes. Or ignore this and keep reading.

    Media: Education Writing Finalists Announced

    100303_SIGNS_walk_into_townEXHere are some of the finalists for the annual Education Writers Association awards announced last week. Several are stories and bylines you've seen here during the past year: (Libby Quaid, Associated Press, Michael Alison Chandler Washington PostPoor Neighborhoods, Untested Teachers", David McKay Wilson Harvard Education Letter "The Invisible Hand in Education Policy", Mary Wiltenburg Christian Science Monitor "Little Bill Clinton: A School Year in the Life of a New American”, John Merrow Learning Matters Leadership: A Challenging Course.
    There are also a bunch of interesting looking finalist submissions that I don't recall posting here: Helen Zelon and Karen Loew City Limits The Education Business: Teachers 






    News: RI Teacher Fired For Obama Effigy

    Obama effigy hung at RI school with fired teachers AP:  A teacher at a failing school where he and all his colleagues are being fired hung an [in?] effigy of President Barack Obama in his classroom, apparently in reaction to Obama's support of extreme measures to ensure accountability in schools. [Fired.]11111111111news
    Professor Calls For Balance In Textbooks NPR:  Conservatives on the Texas school board argue that changes they've proposed to the social studies curriculum will provide "balance" to a "liberal paradigm." Jonathan Zimmerman says conservatives are correct — many history books lean left. So he proposes a middle ground.
    School board, Polansky agree on resignation deal Boston Globe:  A Connecticut school superintendent facing sexual assault charges and local school board members have agreed to a tentative deal for him to resign.
    Continue reading "News: RI Teacher Fired For Obama Effigy" »

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    Philadelphia Education, Philly Colleges - Philly.com

    Philadelphia Education, Philly Colleges - Philly.com

    Arlene Ackerman (Clem Murray / Staff Photographer)
    Arlene Ackerman (Clem Murray / Staff Photographer)
    Ackerman: Magnet proposal was a surprise
    Arlene Ackerman said Thursday that she did not support changing magnet-school admissions requirements and declared the proposal dead. "Of all the things and priorities we have, this is not one of them," she said in an interview.
    'Webcamgate' figure tries to quash subpoena
    L. Merion parents ask judge for say in Web cam suit
    District clears S. Phila. student of gang charge
    Cherry Hill residents express budget cut fears
    MORE EDUCATION »
    EDUCATION CHATS
    Check out our March 15 chat
    INTERACTIVE

    Pennsylvania Area School Districts
    Posted 3:01am
    Colors on the map compare school districts by specific categories. Roll over districts for name and specific statistics.
    Schools with improving test scores
    Phila. high schools: Points of pride
    New Jersey school districts
    More newspapers
    Temple
    St. Joseph's
    Villanova
    Cabrini College
    West Chester
    Rowan
    MORE HEADLINES
    Cherry Hill residents express budget cut fears
    Posted 3:01am
    One day after school officials across the state expressed shock at cuts in state aid that were far deeper than what they had expected, Cherry Hill residents turned out to hear the school board approve a preliminary budget.
    Federal funding flow to Phila. schools
    An aquatic adventure in learning
    More Education »

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    Education - Everything you need to know about the world of education.

    Education- Everything you need to know about the world of education.

    Charter schools play by own rules on the court

    IDEA Public Charter School junior Ebony Jones says of the struggle her basketball team faces: "We've got to fend for our own selves." (John Mcdonnell/The Washington Post)
















    Everybody: Watch Discovery's new 'Life' series

    Did you ever watch the Discovery Channel’s “Planet Earth,” a series with footage so spectacular that it made cynics I know marvel? Each episode was a great science lesson.
    This weekend begins Discovery's terrific follow-up natural history series, “Life,” an 11-part wonder narrated by Oprah Winfrey.
    Watch killer whales working as a team to hunt seals in Antarctica. See a star-nosed mole hunt underwater using bubbles to smell its prey. Marvel as millions of fruit bats darken the Zambian sky--a huge colony only recently discovered by scientists. Witness the spatule-tail hummingbird courtship display, filmed in super high-speed.
    There is, too, gross stuff kids will like: Giant starfish eating a dead giant Pacific octopus, filmed in time lapse. Polar bears munching on a huge whale carcass.
    Continue reading this post »

    Do schools change? Not much.

    Tom Loveless is a former California public school teacher who has become one of the nation's most contrarian education scholars, always looking for something to upset us conventional thinkers. Maybe you, like me and most people, believe that most schools can be significantly improved if done the right way. Guess again, says Loveless.
    Each year he produces a Report on American Education on behalf of the Brookings Institution's Brown Center on Education Policy, of which he is a senior fellow. He likes to crunch old data in new ways. In thereport he goes back decades in California to see how rare turnaround schools---the much improved campuses that are the goal of the Obama administration and most state governments---really are.
    "The statistics are eye-popping and, in a way, depressing," he concluded. Nearly two thirds of the California public schools in the bottom quartile based on average test scores in 1989 (182 schools) were still in that bottom group in 2009. Only four out of 290 schools rose from the bottom to the top quartile during that time.

    Continue reading this post »

    KIPP, union settle Baltimore dispute

    I have been following with great interest the clash between the Knowledge Is Power Program (KIPP), the nation's most successful charter school network, and the American Federation of Teachers (AFT), the more innovative of our two national teacher unions. A key point of conflict has been at the KIPP Ujima Village Academy, the highest achieving public middle school in Baltimore.
    The AFT local forced the school to cut back the length of its school day and end its Saturday classes because it wasn't paying its teachers an extra 33 percent on top of their regular salaries, as the union said its contract with the city schools demanded. Most KIPP and other charter schools don't have to deal with unions, but Maryland has an unusual provision in its charter law that requires their staffs to be unionized

    Rhee showcases new Hardy principal

    Correction: Claire Murphy Keller, not Ashley Marsh-Coan, was the Hardy student who compared Chancellor Michelle A. Rhee to Dolores Umbridge.
    With a group of parents in full mobilization and the D.C. Council asking questions, Chancellor Michelle A. Rhee is trying to remove any doubt about who will be principal at Hardy Middle School next year. And it isn't Patrick Pope.
    She's dispatched William Wilhoyte, her instructional superintendent for middle schools, to set up a series of meetings for principal-designate Dana Nerenberg with staff, students and parents. In a letter to teachers Wednesday morning, Wilhoyte said:
    "Mr. Pope, Ms Nerenberg and I have met several times to begin the process of developing a comprehensive and transparent Transition Plan for the remainder of this school year. We want to engage everyone in a thoughtful process that will help us to develop a plan that will minimize interruptions to the remainder of the school year while also offering the greatest opportunity for a smooth and informed transition process."
    Wilhoyte set out a series of meetings for Nerenberg, one with Hardy 

    UMW appoints acting president

    Trustees of the University of Mary Washington appointed Richard V. Hurley acting president on Wednesday. He replaces Judy G. Hample, who last month announced her abrupt departure.
    Hurley, the school's executive vice president and chief financial officer, will succeed Hample on April 1 and serve through June 30, as the Board of Visitors searches for a new permanent president.

    Hample announced her resignation in a closed board meeting last month after two years on the job.
    Please follow College Inc. all day, every day atwashingtonpost.com/college-inc.







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