Saturday, November 27, 2010

Other school systems unlikely to embrace city's radical teachers' contract - baltimoresun.com

Other school systems unlikely to embrace city's radical teachers contract

Teachers in other districts are represented by a different national unions

By Liz Bowie, The Baltimore Sun

9:28 p.m. EST, November 26, 2010

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Mike McCabe says he has had a "good gig" teaching in Montgomery County schools for the past decade, but the contract that Baltimore teachers approved recently is attracting his attention and making him ponder a move.

"I want the ability to be paid based on how well I do what I do as opposed to how well I survive the school year. It is something I will keep an eye on," he said.

While it is too early to say whether the passage of a radical new teachers' contract in the city will have any effect on how other union contracts are negotiated, or whether teachers from other districts might be attracted to the

Despite Waiver Reports, Opposition To Cathie Black Remains « CBS New York – News, Sports, Weather, Traffic and the Best of NY

Despite Waiver Reports, Opposition To Cathie Black Remains

November 27, 2010 9:12 AM

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Cathie Black and Joel Klein (credit: AP)

NEW YORK (CBS 2) — Just days after a state panel recommended against it, news broke Friday night that Cathie Black, a former executive with Hearst Media with no education experience, will be given a needed waiver to become the next New York City Schools Chancellor. As Derricke Dennis reports, reaction to the news is mixed.

Various community leaders planned to announce their opposition at P.S. 13. in East New York Saturday.

“When the Mayor first approached me about becoming Chancellor, I was immediately enthusiastic,” Cathie Black said. She will be the next chancellor, according to a new report by the Associated Press.

A source told the AP that the state’s education commissioner will announce Monday that Black, even though she lacks the required educational background

Bloomberg and Education Commish Reach Deal: Report | NBC New York

Bloomberg and Education Commish Reach Deal on Black: Report

By HASANI GITTENS

Updated 9:05 AM EST, Sat, Nov 27, 2010

BUZZ UP!

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Black is back.

According to a report in the New York Times, embattled Schools Chancellor-nominee Cathie Black will indeed be able to take her place in charge the city's public school system -- with a catch.

A deal has been reached between the Bloomberg administration and the State Education Commissioner David Steiner to appoint a "Chief Academic Officer" to serve as Black's right hand, The Times reported.

That brand new position would be filled by Shael Polakow-Suransky, a life-long educator who is currently the Deputy Chancellor for

4LAKids - some of the news that doesn't fit: IT'S TIME FOR SCHOOL CHOICE + TROUBLE WITH VOUCHERS + smf's 2¢

IT'S TIME FOR SCHOOL CHOICE + TROUBLE WITH VOUCHERS + smf's 2¢

IT'S TIME FOR SCHOOL CHOICE

BY TERRY PAULSON | VENTURA COUNTY STAR COLUMNIST | HTTP://BIT.LY/EL9GPU

11/22/2010 == Take time to watch Academy Award-winning director Davis Guggenheim’s Waiting for Superman, voted best U.S. documentary at the prestigious Sundance Film Festival, and you’ll be confronted with the sorry state of America’s school system. How can America invent a more innovative and profitable future without a quality education system? In response, experts suggest that the dismissal of 1,000 of the country’s worst teachers would allow our great teachers to build on what’s been learned instead of being stuck teaching students what they should’ve already mastered.

But teacher unions resist any attempts to discipline and fire failing, sub-standard teachers. They also have squashed any attempt to pay for performance—rewarding at a higher level the best teachers and minimizing the pay of the less effective teachers. Instead of being part of the solution, they just keep campaigning for more money. With an exploding deficit at the national and state level, the funds aren’t there.

As President Obama’s team love to say, “A crisis is a terrible thing to waste.” Maybe it’s time “we the people” just blew our educational system wide open, and I don’t mean improve the Department of Education. Improvements are for wimps. I mean abolish it. Deep six it. Eliminate, toss, obliterate it; give it the old heave-ho; force it to

Queens Teacher: Ravitch Gives Black Advice

Ravitch Gives Black Advice

by Queens Teacher

Education expert has suggestions for Black
By Anna Gustafson

Diane Ravitch, a leading educational historian who spoke at St. John’s University this week, had some advice for the woman selected to be the city’s next schools chancellor.

Respect teachers, work closely with parents, do not close schools and do not locate charter schools inside current school buildings were some of the actions Ravitch urged Cathie Black to undertake in her remarks to the St. John’s biannual Carol Gresser Forum Lecture Monday.

“She has to listen beyond the circle of people around the leader who tend to be yes men and women,” Ravitch said, referring to Mayor Michael Bloomberg, who chose Black. “You must listen to these parents and guardians and hear what they have to say. You work for them now, you don’t work for the mayor anymore.”

More than 300 people packed into St. John’s D’Angelo Center to hear Ravitch, whose most recent book, “The

Friday, November 26, 2010

8th-grade retention rate is same as before law required passage of TAKS | News for Dallas, Texas | Dallas Morning News | Latest News

8th-grade retention rate is same as before law required passage of TAKS

11:51 PM CST on Friday, November 26, 2010

By TERRENCE STUTZ / The Dallas Morning News
tstutz@dallasnews.com

AUSTIN – An education law that was designed to cause more eighth-graders who can't pass the TAKS test to be held back is actually having little impact on the percentage of students who are flunking.

Although the retention rate for eighth-graders jumped the first year they were required to pass the TAKS to be promoted to high school, the rate has now dropped back to what it was before the tough new standard was implemented to help stamp out social promotion in middle schools, new data from the Texas Education Agency shows.

The percentage of students retained for the 2009-10 school year – 1.5 percent of all eighth-graders – was identical to the figure from two years earlier when there was no state requirement for those students

Cathleen Black’s No. 2, if She Gets Schools Chancellor Job - NYTimes.com

The Man With Credentials To Complement the New Boss’s

by By FERNANDA SANTOS

Shael Polakow-Suransky, who is being tapped as the top deputy in New York City’s school system, is a former math teacher and a top administrator in the district.

Educator in Chief

A deal between New York City and the state to allow Cathleen P. Black to become city schools chancellor sets up the position of a top deputy.

Deal for Deputy for Academics Clears Way for Schools Chief

by By JAVIER C. HERNANDEZ

Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg reached a deal to save the tottering candidacy of Cathleen P. Black, agreeing to appoint a career educator to serve as her second in command.

This Week In Education: White House: Duncan Escapes Blame For POTUS Injury

White House: Duncan Escapes Blame For POTUS Injury

by Alexander Russo

I was worried / excited that it might have been Arne Duncan who bashed the President in the lip during a holiday basketball game -- and indeed Duncan was there. But it wasn't Duncan who did the deed -- it was some guy who

La ausencia del visado en Ecuador y su relación con la delincuencia « Spanish Readers' Blog

La ausencia del visado en Ecuador y su relación con la delincuencia

by Mr. R

En el 2009 hicimos mención al trabajo de Christian Gallegos Gomez. No hemos sido capaces de seguir el desarrollo y crecimiento de la red que él se propusiera en ese tiempo. Sin embargo, siendo un tema latente y de importancia en Ecuador, y luego de incluso saber del acercamiento entre el gobernador (Alianza Pais) y el alcalde de Guayaquil (Madera de Guerrrero) para luchar en contra de la delincuencia organizada en Guayaquil,

Meet Shael Polakow-Suransky: DOE’s new second-in-command | GothamSchools

Meet Shael Polakow-Suransky: DOE’s new second-in-command

by Maura Walz

State Education Commissioner David Steiner is expected to grant Hearst Magazines executive Cathleen Black the waiver she needs to become schools chancellor on Monday, on one condition: that she appoint current Deputy Chancellor Shael Polakow-Suransky as her Chief Academic Officer.

Suransky, who has worked in the city schools for 16 years, will be responsible for the administration of the city’s education policies and serve as Black’s chief advisor, according to a letter Mayor Michael Bloomberg sent Steiner today.

Here are four things to know about the city’s new educator-in-chief, who will serve as second-in-command to Black’s manager-in-chief:

1. His theory of change revolves around improving “instruction,” which is a different way of thinking

Queens Teacher: The Suransky Connection

The Suransky Connection

by Queens Teacher

SHAEL POLAKOW-SURANSKY

The Broad Superintendents Academy Class of 2008
Deputy Chancellor for Performance and Accountability
New York City Department of Education

“Teachers and principals need to be accountable for student performance and empowered to make the critical decisions that impact their daily work to accelerate student learning.”

Shael Polakow-Suransky serves as deputy chancellor for performance and accountability for the New York City Department of Education (NYCDOE). The NYCDOE is the largest district in the nation, serving over 1 million students. In this role, Polakow-Suransky leads the Department's Division of Accountability and Achievement Resources which evaluates school performance and provides tools that educators and families use to accelerate achievement. Previously, Polakow-Suransky served as chief academic officer for the Empowerment Schools at

Schools Matter: Tax Free Corporate Billions Leveraged to Take Over Social Policy Making

Tax Free Corporate Billions Leveraged to Take Over Social Policy Making

by Jim Horn

The new Gates Foundation financials are out, and things look much improved in 2009 following the 2008 meltdown. When you click on this chart to enlarge it, you will see that the Gates Foundation now has nearly 30,000 millions of dollars (that's 30 billion) to use as it sees fit to bribe, to silence, to shape, to destroy, to seed, to alter, to maintain, to transform, to extort, to buy quiet, to build out of thin air any social policy that the Foundation wants, and all of it is tax-free. Well, not quite. In 2009, th

In Italy, Education Protests Spread - NYTimes.com #demo2010

In Italy, Education Protests Spread - NYTimes.com

In Italy, Education Protests Spread

By GAIA PIANIGIANI

Published: November 26, 2010

REPRINTS

ROME — This week, a group of students broke into the hall of the Italian Senate in Rome, while another occupied the Colosseum; in Pisa, students took over a runway at the airport; in Palermo, they sat on the railway tracks; in Florence and Milan, they clashed with the police, while at a dozen universities, researchers dragged their sleeping bags onto the roofs, where they have been sleeping as a sign of protest.

The demonstrations, which spread to many other Italian cities this month, were aimed at a new bill, currently being discussed in the lower house, to overhaul the Italian university system. If it is approved in upcoming weeks, it will pass to the Senate, as long as Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi’s tottering majority holds and his conservative government remains in power.

Education Minister Mariastella Gelmini’s proposed bill is one of the most far-reaching education overhaul efforts in recent years. It aims to reorganize the governance of institutions and the system of recruiting university teachers, and to change the way funds

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