Sunday, September 12, 2010
Question Time on Charters - Rock The Schoolhouse's blog - Boston.com
Question Time on Charters - Rock The Schoolhouse's blog - Boston.com
Question Time on Charters
Jamie Vaznis of the Globe recently reported that the new education law passed in January has set off feverish activity on the part of charter school proponents. With over 40 letters of intent to start charter schools in urban areas, many questions come to mind. For the charter proponents there are lots of puzzles, such as finding the right facilities, financing the facilities, recruiting great school leaders and teachers, understanding the implications of
D.C. Wire - A Republican Mayor?
D.C. Wire - A Republican Mayor?
A Republican Mayor?
D.C. Council Chairman Vincent C. Gray (D) said Saturday "a lot of people would be disappointed' if Mayor Adrian M. Fenty runs as a Republican in the General Election should he lose the Sept. 14 Democratic primary.
Fenty, however, reiterated Saturday he would never run as a Republican, likely killing speculation that the mayor would accept the GOP nomination if it were offered to him.
"I'm a Democrat, that is why I wouldn't run as a Republican," said Fenty, without hesitation, when asked if he would consider running on the GOP ticket.
With no Republican filing to run as mayor, some GOP leaders say they plan to write in Fenty's name on their party primary ballot. Joe Grano, a longtime city Republican in Ward 3, told the Washington Post's Mike DeBonis Saturday he's going to write in Fenty and is urging his fellow partisans to do the same.
If enough Republicans write-in Fenty on Tuesday, many observers believe the mayor could accept the nomination if he switches parties
Analysis: Fight over education funding is pure Texas
Analysis: Fight over education funding is pure Texas
Governor condemns amendment.
Rick Perry
tg/MBR
Rick Perry
Governor condemns amendment.
By Kate Alexander
AMERICAN-STATESMAN STAFF
Updated: 8:02 a.m. Sunday, Sept. 12, 2010
Published: 7:49 p.m. Saturday, Sept. 11, 2010
Gov. Rick Perry has not been shy about mixing it up with the federal government.
Indeed, he is writing a book on how fed up he is with it.
So the bitter dispute between Perry and U.S. Rep. Lloyd Doggett over $830 million in federal emergency school aid would seem to fit neatly into the governor's Texas vs. Washington political narrative.
But Perry, a Republican facing re-election in November, wasn't necessarily spoiling for another fight. Until Doggett picked one.
Doggett, an Austin Democrat, has been fuming for more than a year over Texas' use of the $3.2 billion in federal stimulus money intended to help public schools in 2009.
He said that money was intended to supplement state education
The Raw Story | Bill Gates, John Legend tout education reform
The Raw Story | Bill Gates, John Legend tout education reform
Bill Gates, John Legend tout education reform
 Published: Sunday September 12, 2010 |
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Harvard University dropout and Microsoft founder Bill Gates and once homeschooled Grammy-winning singer John Legend made a pitch for reforming America's beleaguered public schools.
The pair joined David Guggenheim ("An Inconvenient Truth") for the international premiere at the Toronto film festival of his latest documentary "Waiting for Superman," which follows five students as they try to navigate a broken US public school system.
Gates said he hoped to raise awareness "that the (US) school system is not working well today" and encourage fixes.
"The global economy requires people to be better educated," he said. In the United States, "We need some real reforms."
Gates noted that companies like Microsoft are finding it harder to recruit
Sunday Viewpoint: College in the time of recession - Inside Bay Area
Sunday Viewpoint: College in the time of recession - Inside Bay Area
Sunday Viewpoint: College in the time of recession
Posted: 09/12/2010 12:01:00 AM PDT
IN THESE stormy economic times, the Peralta Community College District is tossing a vital lifeline to local students. The four Peralta Colleges -- College of Alameda, Berkeley City College, Merritt and Laney Colleges in Oakland -- teach 30,000 students each semester, and are finding new and innovative ways to help local students transform their lives through education.
Demand for public higher education has never been higher. Budgets are tight and, increasingly, the cost of private college is not an option.
Meanwhile, workers ravaged by the recession are looking to higher education to retool their job skills or learn a new trade.
Private college tuition can exceed $40,000 annually, while private vocational colleges often charge $17,000 or more.
Even public university prices are rising beyond the ability of many families to pay. For example, annual fees at the University of California Berkeley are $12,460. And tuition alone at California State University East Bay costs $5,091.
The cost of an education at the Peralta Colleges remains remarkably affordable despite recent increases. At only $26 per unit, the annual tuition for a full-time resident student is under $700. This is extraordinarily low and represents an
Oakland on the right track, says Obama schools chief
Education Secretary Arne Duncan also spoke to organizers of a Merritt College program that helps black men get through school.
Education Blog: Alameda County | Contra Costa County
Texas schools better off waiting for federal aid
Texas schools better off waiting for federal aid
Texas schools better off waiting for federal aid
Very soon states will be receiving big checks from the federal government's Education Jobs Fund Program that aims to help public schools keep educators on the payroll during tough economic times. No money is coming to Texas at least not this year. Unfortunate, but if it's a matter of timing and the money is available next year, it might be worth the wait.
Under legislation approved by Congress, states with large populations get larger shares: California receives $1.2 billion, New York gets $607.5 million; and Florida gets $554.8 million. The money, totaling $10 billion, is arriving in states this fall, in time to prevent massive layoffs and help with teacher salaries as school districts struggle with increasing costs and shrinking revenue.
School districts in Texas and across the nation need the money. And even smaller states and U.S. territories — Guam and the Virgin Islands — are getting federal money to keep educators employed.
Texas likely won't be getting its $830 million share this year. Central Texas districts losing out include Austin, Round Rock, Bastrop,
Bill Gates Stirs Up the Education Debate in Toronto - NYTimes.com
Bill Gates Stirs Up the Education Debate in Toronto - NYTimes.com
Bill Gates Stirs Up the Education Debate in Toronto
By MICHAEL CIEPLY
TORONTO—Mild-mannered, soft-spoken, and beaming broadly, the Microsoft chairman Bill Gates looked every bit the benevolent businessman as he took the stage at the Toronto International Film Festival on Saturday evening, to help plug the education-reform documentary “Waiting for ‘Superman.’” Mr. Gates appears in the film, and, with his wife Melinda, heads a foundation that has invested heavily in improvements to education. But his aw-shucks manner couldn’t hide the fact that some of the proposals he tossed off on stage at the Winter Garden theater here were volatile stuff. “We’re investing in building these evaluation systems,” Mr. Gates said. He was referring to systems that would evaluate the performance of public school teachers, with an eye toward ending the current tenure system under which many teachers now work, and providing a way to
New East Harlem charter school Renaissance offers clean slate for its students
New East Harlem charter school Renaissance offers clean slate for its students
Read more: http://www.nydailynews.com/ny_local/education/2010/09/12/2010-09-12_its_a_renaissance_for_these_hs_students.html?r=ny_local/education#ixzz0zK452vkR
New East Harlem charter school Renaissance offers clean slate for its students
Sunday, September 12th 2010, 4:00 AM
Monaster/News
Art Samuels gets learning process going at Renaissance's first college prep class.This is the third in an occasional series about the opening of the first charter high school in East Harlem.
At his old, failing junior high school, Michael Delvalle was late so many times that he racked up the equivalent of 42 absences.
But on the first day of classes at his new school - Renaissance Charter High School for Innovation - the 15-year-old arrived two hours before the doors even opened.
"I wanted a fresh start," said Michael, a special education student from Junior High School 13, which later closed.
He wasn't the only one offered a clean slate on Day One at Renaissance.
One girl was walking into a public school building for the first time in two years after her
Read more: http://www.nydailynews.com/ny_local/education/2010/09/12/2010-09-12_its_a_renaissance_for_these_hs_students.html?r=ny_local/education#ixzz0zK452vkR
We Inhabit One World, Interconnected, Interdependent And Interrelated To The Whole | Dailycensored.com
We Inhabit One World, Interconnected, Interdependent And Interrelated To The Whole | Dailycensored.com
We Inhabit One World, Interconnected, Interdependent And Interrelated To The Whole
By Will Shonbrun
Some of us have been active in political, social justice, civil rights or environmental causes for a good bit of our lives if we’re now in our 60s and 70s. We might have been active in marches, demonstrations and rallies for one cause or another, to some degree of commitment or another. Some have truly put their asses on the line and gotten jailed, beaten or worse, while others have taken a less dedicated but still active engagement in trying to change things.
Those who took action in causes did so because they believed it was the right and just thing to do, that it was an obligation as citizens in a democracy to be engaged in our society and because we thought we could change the world and make it a better place. Now I find myself wondering if any of it, certainly most of it, really mattered and here are the reasons for what in truth is a deep and abiding pessimism.
Taking stock, on the plus side there’s no denying that in the realm of civil rights great progress has been made. It took a hundred years for the Proclamation ending slavery to take hold through the establishment and
Mayoral issue poll. � Fred Klonsky's blog
Mayoral issue poll. � Fred Klonsky's blog
Mayoral issue poll.
Vote for the issue or issues that a Chicago candidate for mayor should support. You can vote for more than one.
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