Tuesday, June 22, 2010

Philadelphia school uses art for fulfillment, profit | Philadelphia Inquirer | 06/21/2010

LIVE CHAT: Today @ noon with Kristen Graham on Philly schools
Shake-up of Ackerman team continues
A test-score milestone for Phila. schools

SPECIAL PROJECTS

The Inquirer's annual survey of education in the region, with a searchable database of school and district information, and multimedia profiles of area students and high schools.

A Doorway Back

With the dropout problem in Philadelphia at crisis proportions, a chance-of-a-lifetime program offers 40 select students a shot at breaking the cycle of failure. But can they take advantage?

Shake-up of Ackerman team continues: A shake-up of Philadelphia Schools Superintendent Arlene Ackerman's central administration continued Friday with the naming of a new crop of central office staff members, and with officials signaling that more changes were on the way.
A test-score milestone for Phila. schools: Philadelphia public schools reached a new milestone this year - the majority of city students met state standards in reading and math for the first time since 2002, when Pennsylvania began administering tests under the No Child Left Behind law.
11 Phila. schools granted new charters: The Philadelphia School Reform Commission said Wednesday that 11 charter schools would receive new, five-year operating charters once they met a series of conditions.

Rise & Shine: City seeking ‘harder to game’ gifted screening test | GothamSchools

Rise & Shine: City seeking ‘harder to game’ gifted screening test

by Philissa Cramer

The city is looking for a new, “harder to game” gifted admissions test. (Times, Daily News, Post)
Students and staff at Metropolitan Corporate Academy say they were set up to fail. (ABC News 1, 2, 3, 4)
The Daily News says a recent study about Harlem Success Academy proves charter schools do better.
A new study says KIPP charter schools boost their students. (Washington Post, Houston Chronicle)
New York City is not alone in ramping up its online credit recovery offerings. (Education Week)
Chicago teachers are still required to live in the city, as one teacher is finding out. (Chicago Tribune)

The Educated Guess Fight brewing over new controls on charter schools

The Educated Guess

Fight brewing over new controls on charter schools

Posted in Charters

The chairwoman of the Assembly Education Committee is citing embezzlement charges against the operators of a Southern California charter school organization as evidence why her two charter school accountability bills should become law.
The bills are sponsored by Democrat Julia Brownley of Santa Monica. They are now in the Senate, which must decide whether new laws could prevent the type of alleged fraud by the husband-wife creators of Ivy Academia charters, and if not, whether additional financial oversight and restrictions on charters are needed anyway.
(Read more and comment on this post)

By John Fensterwald on June 22nd, 2010

Key to Larry Aceves’ win is in the mail

Posted in 2010 elections

A secret to Larry Aceves’ surprise win in the primary election race for superintendent of public instruction? Slate mailers, the pay-to-play election campaign mailings run by political operatives.
Senior reporter Louis Freedberg of California Watch cites an analysis by veteran Republican commentator Tony Quinn in the California Morning Report(subscription-based) that Aceves’ name appeared in a key Democratic- and most Republican-targeted slate mailings. That was a smart move for a largely unknown, sharply outspent candidate running in the one non-partisan race for statewide office.
(Read more and comment on this post)

Union talks are stalled, but Mt. Diablo board to vote on cuts anyway - ContraCostaTimes.com

Union talks are stalled, but Mt. Diablo board to vote on cuts anyway

By Theresa Harrington
Contra Costa Times

Posted: 06/21/2010 03:36:05 PM PDT

Updated: 06/21/2010 05:38:41 PM PDT

CONCORD -- With union talks stalled, the Mt. Diablo school board on Tuesday plans to adopt a 2010-11 budget that includes millions in cuts that have not yet been negotiated.

"I guess I'm moderately optimistic," Deborah Cooksey, lead negotiator for the district, said Monday. "I think it will take a lot of work and give and take on both sides."

But some union officials disagree. A coalition of classified bargaining units, which represents non-credential staff such as secretaries and bus drivers, plans to rally outside the district office at 6 p.m., said Ron Hansen, President of the Local One Maintenance and Operations unit.

He said union members expected the district to come up with a new list of cuts instead of adopting a budget

News10.net | Sacramento, California | Education Home

Can't get a summer school class? Try online

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Budget cuts prompted the Twin Rivers Unified School District to offer virtual summer school classes to anyone willing to pay.

Student Reporting: Bake sale held at Herman Leimbach

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In this video, students from Herman Leimbach report on a fundraiser held by our school site's MESA organization. Watch the video

Student Reporting: Book swap at Herman Leimbach

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In this video, students from Herman Leimbach report on a book swap organized by Mr. Ohama's fifth gra

Schools Matter: They still don't get it

They still don't get it

by skrashen

They still don't get it: A comment on the "Reading for Understanding" Research Initiative
Stephen Krashen
Submitted for publication

Reading the description of the Reading for Understanding Research Initiative (http://ies.ed.gov/ncer/projects/program.asp?ProgID=62), it is clear that the US Department of Education has (finally) recognized the limits of research on decoding skills and is prepared to move on (see age 5).

But they still don't get it.

They now claim that decoding is necessary but is not sufficient for reading comprehension (and, I assume, that

Monday, June 21, 2010

Community Forums Sacramento City Unified School District

Community Forums

Invitation from Superintendent:
English

June 15, 2010

To the friends, families, students and staff of the Sacramento City Unified School
District:

We would like to invite you to learn more about our new Strategic Plan 2010-14 at a
series of meetings hosted by members of our Board of Education and held in each of
our seven trustee areas. These community forums are an opportunity for you to get
information, talk with district representatives, ask questions and share your vision for
our future.

The schedule for the meetings, including specific locations, is as follows:

DATE	TIME	LOCATION
June 22	6:00 p.m.	Hiram Johnson High School
June 24	6:00 p.m.	Rosemont High School
June 28	6:00 p.m.	Sam Brannan Middle School
July 6	6:00 p.m.	Leonardo da Vinci
July 7	6:00 p.m.	John F. Kennedy High School
July 8	6:00 p.m.	Luther Burbank High School
July 13	6:00 p.m.	Serna Center

We look forward to seeing you all at one of these seven community forums.

Judge: UC illegally searched journalist's camera - Boston.com

Judge: UC illegally searched journalist's camera

By Terence Chea

Associated Press Writer / June 21, 2010

Text size – +

BERKELEY, Calif.—A judge has ruled that the University of California police illegally searched the camera of a photojournalist covering a protest outside the chancellor's campus home, attorneys said Monday.

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Alameda County Superior Judge Yolanda Northridge on Friday invalidated the search warrant used by UC Berkeley police to review photographs taken by David Morse at the Dec. 11 demonstration, according to the Oakland-based First Amendment Project, which represented him.

The judge also ordered the university to return all copies of Morse's photos, which campus police were using as part of their investigation into violence and vandalism the night of the protest.

The First Amendment Project called the ruling a "huge and hard-fought victory for freedom of the press," noting that the judge upheld a California law

GLOBE EDUCATION NEWS

Teachers, city reach extra-hour agreement

Boston school officials announced yesterday that they had reached a tentative agreement with the teachers’ union on a plan to overhaul the city’s 12 underperforming schools, in a new state negotiating process that attempted to resolve a divisive battle over compensating teachers for working extra hours. (By James Vaznis, Globe Staff)

NIH to examine payback on research grants

The National Institutes of Health spends more than $21 billion a year on research grants, much of it going to Massachusetts scientists. But it’s unclear how much benefit all this taxpayer spending brings. (By Karen Weintraub, Globe Correspondent)

The agony of a girl who just wanted to fit in

Lexi was new to school and intent on being accepted. Then the pictures surfaced and the torment began. It wasn’t a bullying case where the fault was always obvious, or the school failed to react. It was one that shows the grave complexity of this threat to teen life and how hard it can be to combat. (By Jenna Russell, Globe Staff)

Urban schools are focus of BC gift

Boston College will launch an innovative training program for school principals in January to improve urban education and prepare more low-income students for college, with a $20 million donation from Fidelity vice chairman Peter Lynch and his wife, Carolyn. (By Tracy Jan, Globe Staff)

Case deepens immigration debate

CAMBRIDGE — The memory is a blurry snapshot in his mind. Eric Balderas was 4 years old, curled up under covers on a raft. He could see the sun poking through the sky, hear whispers above him, and feel the swell of the Rio Grande below. (By Maria Sacchetti, Globe Staff)

LATEST EDUCATION NEWS WIRE UPDATES

Judge: UC illegally searched journalist's camera (AP, 9:10 p.m.)
4 charged in Texas videotaped school beating (AP, 6:40 p.m.)
Univ of Okla. regents to mull 4.5 pct tuition hike (AP, 3:14 p.m.)
State nixes raises at Ark. agencies, universities (AP, 8:34 a.m.)
Sexual predator treatment squeezes state budgets (AP, 4:50 p.m.)

LATEST K-12 EDUCATION NEWS

Rock ’n’ roll saved his life (Boston Globe, 6/19/10)
HULL, COHASSET Cohasset rebuffs Hull on school proposal (Boston Globe, 6/19/10)
Enraged to engaged: Tea party backers explain why(AP, 6/19/10)
RI school to reverse ban on boy's toy soldier hat (AP, 6/19/10)
4-day school weeks gain popularity across US (Boston Globe, 6/18/10)

Gulf Oil Spill Will Coat a Million Jobs � Tangerine, Florida

Gulf Oil Spill Will Coat a Million Jobs

by tangerineflorida

One Wall Street analyst has a very dire projection about the economic effects of the BP oil spill. David Kotok, the co-founder and chief investment officer of Cumberland Advisors, a Sarasota, Florida-based investment advistory firm, has projected that the spill will cost 1 million permanent jobs in the next five years. (Hat tip to Politico’s Morning Money.)
The price of real estate properties around the Gulf of Mexico has been projected to fall up to 10 percent — erasing some $4.3 billion in value — Bloomberg noted recently.

California leads other states in number of legal immigrants | California Watch

California leads other states in number of legal immigrants

by Mark S. Luckie

How does California compare to other states when it comes to legal immigrants? Find out with this infographic

Schools Matter: Smarick Eager to Accept Public Position of Power to Privatize New Jersey's Schools

Smarick Eager to Accept Public Position of Power to Privatize New Jersey's Schools

by Jim Horn

His Lardness, Gov. Chris Christie, appointed another ideologue like himself, Bret Schundler, to run what has been up until now one of the best state systems of public education in the country. Highly unionized and highly funded, New Jersey has made a reputation for itself, one that the corporationists want to demolish.

To do their work for them, Christie and Schundler have called upon sludge tank propagandist, Andy Smarick, who offered this summary in 2008 of how to charterize the world. So here's the plan, introduced by Ken Libby:

This is part of an essay written in early 2008 by AEI/Fordham'sAndy Smarick, a former Bush II Domestic Policy Council member tasked with K-12 and higher education issues:

Here, in short, is one roadmap for chartering's way forward: First, commit to drastically increasing the charter market share in a few select communities until it is the dominant system and the district is reduced to asecondary provider. The target should be 75 percent. Second, choose the target communities wisely. Each should begin with a solid charter

Geno Flores Appointed - Year 2010 (CA Dept of Education)

State Schools Chief Jack O'Connell Announces Appointment of Geno Flores as Chief Deputy Superintendent

SACRAMENTO — State Superintendent of Public Instruction Jack O'Connell announced today the appointment of Geno Flores, an administrator with the Los Angeles Unified School District, to the position of Chief Deputy Superintendent of Public Instruction for the California Department of Education (CDE), effective July 1.

The appointment marks the return to CDE by Flores, whom O'Connell previously tapped to serve as a Deputy Superintendent in 2003 at the outset of his administration.

"I am so pleased that Geno has agreed to rejoin the California Department of Education," O'Connell said. "He has outstanding leadership qualities and an extensive background in the field of education. His experience and knowledge about education issues, policies, and challenges make him a perfect choice for this key post in my administration."

Most recently, Flores served as Executive Director of School Improvement for the Los Angeles Unified School District since late 2009. From 2008 to 2009, he was Chief Academic Officer for Prince George's County Public Schools in Maryland, and from 2005 to 2008, served as a Deputy Superintendent for the San Diego Unified School District. Between 1996 and 2003, Flores was Director of Accountability for the Long Beach Unified School District and brought that expertise to CDE where Flores was Deputy Superintendent of the then-Assessment and Accountability Branch from 2003 to 2005, and was responsible for overseeing assessment and accountability programs as well as the collection and reporting of education data.

Flores will replace Gavin Payne, who has been Chief Deputy Superintendent of Public Instruction since O'Connell was elected to office in 2002. Payne is one of O'Connell's most trusted advisors, and served as chief of staff during much of O'Connell's 20-year tenure in the legislature. Payne recently announced he is resigning his position at CDE in order to embark on a new venture serving as a consultant to state and national clients on education and public policy issues.

"Gavin is a great friend to me and a great friend to the students of California," O'Connell said. "I will miss working with him on a daily basis but know that Gavin will remain a staunch advocate for high-quality public education in California. I wish him the very best in the opportunities that await him, and always will count him among my closest friends," said O'Connell.

Immigration issue before Novato City Council is unlawful, city attorney says - Marin Independent Journal

Immigration issue before Novato City Council is unlawful, city attorney says

By Brent Ainsworth

Posted: 06/21/2010 03:37:37 PM PDT

A voter initiative to force the city of Novato and its major contractors and subcontractors to check the legal status of their workers is preempted by federal law and therefore unlawful, according to Novato's chief legal counsel.
City Attorney Jeffrey Walter said the E-Verify system, an online verification process for U.S. citizenship, is already covered by the Immigration Reform Control Act of 1986, which preempts any state or local law imposing civil or criminal sanctions upon those who employ or recruit illegal residents.
The Novato City Council on Tuesday is to discuss the matter that could have national implications. The issue comes two months after Arizona enacted the country's toughest illegal immigration law aimed to prosecute and deport undocumented aliens, sparking boycotts by some companies and protests by human rights groups.
According to a staff report, the City Council has the option to adopt the ordinance as written by the citizen's group, place it before voters at the next general election - or do nothing at all.
"We felt some urgency before, so it's nice that we have three options now," Mayor Jeanne MacLeamy said. "If Jeff's

It's Not What You Say, It's Where You Say It - Perdaily.com

It's Not What You Say, It's Where You Say It

by Leonard

Last Thurday, June 17th, I went to the California Endowment to hear Professor Pedro Noguera speak on the topic The Trouble With Black Boy: Pedro Noguera on Race Equity and the Future of Public Education. While I do not consider myself to be in Professor Noguera's league intellectually, it became clear while he was presenting his ideas that we both saw eye to eye on what it would take to finally reform public education and the aspects of this failed system that he was focusing on in his talk as they related specifically to Black youth and their continued failure in public education. My epiphany came in the realization that if you talk about what Professors Noguera, Diane Ravitch, Charles Kerschner, Alan Singer, and other academics address in universities as respected academicians, you will be given a six-figure salary, book deals, and consulting jobs, while if you say the same things that these erudite teachers are saying at the K-12 level, you will be put on paid administrative leave at best, to make sure you do not infect others with you ideas, or more likely hounded out of