EducationNewsToday
S.D. district won’t cut back on ‘minimum days’
San Diego schools will not cut back on “minimum days” to make up for the lost instruction time that will come with five furlough days during each of the next two years.
Phoebe Prince's suicide raises questions about Massachusetts schools' role in preventing harassment. Forty-one other states, including Washington, have anti-bullying laws of varying strength.

Phoebe Prince, 15
Phoebe Prince's family had moved recently to Massachusetts from a small town in Ireland. She entered high school last fall.
Prosecutors and classmates say the taunting started when the 15-year-old freshman had a brief relationship with a popular senior boy. Some students reportedly called her an "Irish slut," knocked books out of her hands and sent her threatening text messages, day after day.
Prince hanged herself from a stairwell at her home in January, leading to charges Monday against nine teenagers, including two boys charged with statutory rape and a clique of girls charged with stalking, criminal harassment and violating Prince's civil rights.
The charges are an unusually sharp legal response to the problem of adolescent bullying, which increasingly is conducted in cyberspace as well as in the schoolyard and has raised questions about educators' role in prevention.
South Hadley High School officials won't be charged, even though the district attorney determined the girl's
By Kristen A. Graham
Inquirer Staff Writer
Every day, about 12,000 Philadelphia students are out of school with no excuse.
Every year, the Philadelphia School District, city courts, and the Department of Human Services spend $15 million on truancy-prevention programs.
Historically, a lack of coordination among the three means that many students still slip through the cracks - leading not just to truants, but also to dropouts. There are about 95,000 children under DHS care in city schools and in out-of-school programs.
"When you try to get two really large institutions to work together at a kid level, it's really difficult," said Lori Shorr, Mayor Nutter's chief education officer.
To try to fix that, two new, privately funded initiatives will focus on supporting at-risk students in school. They will be announced today by the Department of Human Services.
A new Education Support Center will track the educational progress of students in DHS's care, watching for early warning signs and helping smooth communications between the city agency and the district. The center will be funded by a $600,000, two-year grant from the William Penn
Controversy erupted recently in the world of educational reform when a school decided to fire all of its teachers due to the low academic performance of their students. The Central Falls High School firings laid direct blame on the teachers for perpetrating a culture of underachievement. Many nouveaux ed-reformers applauded this action, calling it bold and brave, with even the President stating “if a school continues to fail its students year after year after year, if it doesn’t show any sign of improvement, then there’s got to be a sense of accountability…and that’s what happened in Rhode Island.” In other words, I approve and support this action.
Firing entire faculties may or may not be a step forward in improving educational communities. But it does bring a key issue to mind: to what extent are teachers responsible for their students’ accomplishments? If teachers refuse to accept 100% of the responsibility, is it because they are against our nation’s capitalistic values of work and competition, and want lifetime employment without ever bearing the blame for the faulty products they are alleged to produce? This avenue of thought led me to think about other professions and situations where leaders or mentors were
UC Berkeley’s Haas School of Business Rejoins The Consortium for Graduate Study in Management to Foster Diversity
03/30/2010
The Consortium, an alliance of leading American business schools and corporations aimed at fostering diversity among graduate business students and corporate leaders, has made changes to its mission that have allowed the Haas School to become a member once again after a seven-year hiatus.
Being part of The Consortium is another way to show that UC Berkeley and the Haas School of Business are welcoming of all forms of diversity,” says Dean Lyons. “We want to reflect the diversity of business today at our school.”
iversity is a key goal of the Haas School of Business. Participation in The Consortium is one of several ongoing Haas School efforts in this area, including an annual diversity conference, diversity workshops for prospective students, and the Women in Leadership club and conference, among others.
he Haas School of Business originally joined The Consortium in 1993, but withdrew in 2003 as a consequence of Proposition 209, which prohibits public institutions from participating in programs that give preferential treatment on the basis of race, sex, color, ethnicity, or national origin. At that time, The Consortium awarded fellowships to African Americans, Hispanic Americans, and Native Americans. But it expanded its mission in 2005 to include all US citizens and permanent residents who demonstrate

Mar 29, 2010, By Matt Williams, Associate Editor
California CIO Teri Takai, one of the highest-profile leaders in state and local government IT, has been nominated by President Barack Obama to become CIO of the U.S. Department of Defense (DoD), according to a White House statementMonday, March 29.
Takai's expertise on IT consolidations -- she led statewide efforts in California and Michigan -- appears to be a good fit for her new role at the DoD, which has several consolidation initiatives planned, including the deployment of a single e-mail system and network for the U.S. Army. Takai's official title at the Defense Department will be Assistant Secretary for Networks and Information Integration.
Over the past few months, Takai's future plans had become an open question. California Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger is in his final year in office because of term limits. Takai, serving as a gubernatorial appointee, could've been replaced in early 2011 by a new administration.
Steve Fletcher, the CIO of Utah and president of the National Association of State Chief Information Officers, applauded
7:16 PM BY BIANCALAUREANO · UNCATEGORIZED
30Mar2010At the age of 79, the man who inspired Latino youth in California to reach their full potential through mathematics and science, has died. Radical teacher and educator, Escalante was first introduced to many of us in the 1988 film Stand and Deliver.
An immigrant from La Paz, Boliva his first stop was Puerto Rico before settling in California. He died in Reno, Nevada after batteling cancer. Please take the time toread about Escalante’s life and efforts to encourage and support Latino youth and their/our education.
In the spirit of radical and revolutionary teachers, I encourage each of us to take some time and remember a teacher/educator/tutor who has shaped our identity
If only life were like the elementary school on the "South Park" cartoon.
On the TV show, the wacky adults mess up, only to have life bounce back with the magic of animation.

But fixing education for children in Orange County and the rest of California is far more challenging. It's time for adults to get real.
Some 1,500 teaching positions were eliminated last year in Orange County. In March, an additional 2,219 layoff notices went out to local teachers and other educators in an effort to meet a combined $365.3 million projected deficit for the 2010-11 school year.
It's as if we expect life to somehow just get better in the next episode.
If you doubt we may be heading into a crisis consider California had the second highest student-teacher ratio (20.8 to 1) in the nation in 2007, the latest report by the federal National Center for Education Statistics. And that was before the layoffs.
We're also seeing cuts in music, art, PE and vocational education. Even our legislators agree we've cut to the bone.
Looking for solutions – or at least some hope – I'm visiting with teachers, legislators, school boards and parents. Today, we're hearing from teachers. Why are teachers first? Because they're in the trenches. Legislators are next.
In past years, unions claimed they had solutions. This year is different.
To be sure, the educators had a few suggestions. Take money out of cash reserves, for one. But they admitted the sum wasn't much when compared with what is needed to restore education to what it was just