Wednesday, December 22, 2010

Damn Good Education Daily

Parent 'Trigger' Law Draws Attention, Controversy

edweek.org - Published Online: December 21, 2010 Ismenia Guzman, right, a parent at McKinley Elementary school delivers petitions on Dec. 7 to Compton Unified School District Superintendent Karen Frison, to fil...

Larryferlazzo

My PLN Blueprint in 5 parts « My Island View

tomwhitby.wordpress.com - Shelly Terrell and Ken Royal are two friends who encouraged me to blog. Both are bloggers and saw something in me and my ability to communicate that I didn’t recognize. Through their encouragement,...

tomwhitby

We Live and Breathe Testing « InterACT

accomplishedcaliforniateachers.wordpress.com - What follows in this blog post is a series of emails I exchanged with a friend who teaches in Los Angeles. I’ve edited the content to eliminate extraneous material, and to protect this person’s id...

CohenD

Gates and Weingarten: Fixing Our Nation's Schools

newsweek.com - Weingarten: What we’re seeing is that the United States, instead of moving ahead, is actually stagnating. We’re basically in the same place we’ve been, and these countries have moved forward. They’...

mikeklonsky

Boston union to embrace use of student test scores in teacher evaluations

boston.com - The state’s largest teachers’ union, embracing a concept shunned by many educators, plans to offer a proposal today to use student test scores to help judge which teachers deserve promotions and wh...

EDPressSec

2010 Education In Review Part 2: City Hall, Teachers' Union Maintain Uneasy Relationship - NY1.com

2010 Education In Review Part 2: City Hall, Teachers' Union Maintain Uneasy Relationship

By: Lindsey Christ

The city and the teachers' union joined together in 2010 to end the practice of rubber rooms, but ended the year still divided over several major lawsuits. NY1's Education reporter Lindsey Christ filed the following report.

The relationship between the city and the powerful United Federation of Teachers remained rocky throughout 2010. Mayor Michael Bloomberg received a mixed reaction when he spoke at a party celebrating the 50th anniversary of the teachers' union's in March.

"Some of you cheer, some of you boo," said the mayor.

A month later, both sides came together to end the infamous "rubber rooms," the holding pens for

Charters get first dibs to buy city school | The Columbus Dispatch

Charters get first dibs to buy city school

But $5.23 million price tag for old Northwest Career Center is steep

Wednesday, December 22, 2010 02:51 AM

BY BILL BUSH

THE COLUMBUS DISPATCH

Charter schools have long complained that they can't buy any of Columbus City Schools' vacant buildings. Now, their wait is over.

The only catch: $5.23 million, which the district says is the appraised, fair-market value of the 70,500-square-foot former Northwest Career Center.

The Columbus Board of Education voted last night to begin the process of selling the building at 2960 Cranston Dr. Built in 1976 near Dublin, it was declared surplus earlier this year, one of three vocational schools shuttered by the district in favor of two Downtown career centers.

By state law, charter schools will get first dibs on the property, which sits on 15 acres in a residential area west of Don Scott Field.

In early January, every charter school in Columbus will receive a certified letter giving them 60 days to accept the price. If no charter school submits an

School District Probed in Walsh Suicide | News | The Advocate

School District Probed in Walsh Suicide

By Advocate.com Editors

Federal education officials have launched a probe into the Central California school district where Seth Walsh, who was 13 years old, took his own life after suffering antigay bullying from classmates.

According to theAssociated Press, a spokesman for Education Secretary Arne Duncan confirmed the investigation.

“The probe was launched in response to a complaint from Seth Walsh's mother that Tehachapi Unified School District employees failed to adequately address the years of bullying that preceded her son's death last Sept. 28, spokesman Justin Hamilton said,” the AP reported.

Wendy Walsh said that investigators from the Education Department spent two days in

State education commissioner resigns - Connecticut Post

State education commissioner resigns

GLASTONBURY -- Connecticut Education Commissioner Mark McQuillan told state leaders he will resign his post, citing the stress of the high-profile position.

McQuillan sent a letter Tuesday to state Board of Education members about his plan to leave the position effective Jan. 5. He has been state education commissioner since April 2007.

The decision came one day after McQuillan heatedly cut short a meeting with an advisory committee appointed to explore the state's funding of schools. The panel members had wanted to discuss their final recommendations, which McQuillan wanted to table. As tempers rose, he adjourned the meeting promptly and left the building.

"I realized," McQuillan wrote in his resignation letter Tuesday, "that I no longer wanted to do this work and saw all too plainly that the stresses of my job are more

NYC Educator: Not My Fault, Man

Not My Fault, Man

by NYC Educator

That's what the city now says about the inaccuracies in the value-added data it wants to release. Of course, the city agreed not to release the data in the first place and is now doing precisely the opposite. That's not their fault either. Newspapers are filing FOILs for the data so they can't help going back on their word.

It's largely the UFT's fault for trusting them. You can't make a deal with a snake and not expect to be bitten.

And now they're closing dozens of schools they deem failing. That's not their fault either. If the kids don't get the scores, the schools need to be closed. It's entirely the teachers' fault. By shuffling kids all over the city

Hub union urged to accept use of MCAS scores in teacher rating - The Boston Globe

Hub union is urged to accept use of MCAS scores in teacher rating

School leader lauds decision of state association

PUSHES FOR CHANGE
Carol Johnson, the head of the Boston school system, told the union the current evaluation system is inadequate.

By Akilah Johnson

Globe Staff / December 22, 2010

Text size – +

The Boston Teachers Union should join other educators throughout Massachusetts and endorse plans to use student test scores to help determine teacher effectiveness, Superintendent Carol Johnson told union leaders yesterday.

In a letter to the Boston union, Johnson praised the decision by the Massachusetts Teachers Association to tackle one of the most divisive issues in today’s education-reform debate. The suggestion by the state’s largest union to include MCAS scores in teacher evaluations validates what the School Department said during contract negotiations that began last spring, she said.

“It is past time to implement a complete and fair evaluation process that uses this information to affirm the complex work that our dedicated teachers undertake every day in thousands of classrooms,’’ Johnson wrote. “The current evaluation

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Stealth charter school campaign draws criticism | California Watch

Stealth charter school campaign draws criticism

by Louis Freedberg

Louis Freedberg

The first attempt to use a controversial "parent trigger" law to convert a regular public school into a charter school has raised at least one key question: just how public should the petition drive be to gather the majority of parent signatures needed to trigger the change?

On Dec. 7 a majority of parents at McKinley Elementary School in Compton Unified School District filed a petition demanding that their school be turned into a charter school, and naming the charter school company

George Miller defends vote on interns | Thoughts on Public Education

George Miller defends vote on interns
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Opponents insist there was no need to rush

Posted on 12/22/10 • Categorized as Teacher Development, UC and CSU, Uncategorized

By John Fensterwald - Educated Guess

Congress on Tuesday broadened the definition of a “highly qualified teacher” to include the 10,000 novice or intern teachers in California who are working toward their teaching credential. The clause was inserted into the Continuing Resolution to temporarily fund the federal government. It passed, as expected, last night.

Critics assailed the new definition as a retreat from higher standards of the No Child Left Behind law. Proponents of internship programs said it was necessary for second-career professionals and others to be able to afford a credentialing program while working as a teacher.

Democratic U.S. Rep. George Miller of California, the chairman of the House Education and

The Answer Sheet - The lowdown on standardized tests and how they are scored

The lowdown on standardized tests and how they are scored

You wouldn’t be alone if you thought that the companies that score standardized tests have machines that can whip out the results in no time. But they don’t, at least not for tests with questions that require a written response. Instead, they hire tens of thousands of temporary workers, who are paid by the hour (often about $11 to $13 per), to decipher the answers of millions of kids from third to twelfth grade. They are often poorly trained and overworked.

Rap News: Wikileaks & Cablegate. « Guerrilla Think

Rap News: Wikileaks & Cablegate.

by guerrillathink

Popout

from thejuicemedia‘s Rap News:

Juice Media Rap News, with Robert Foster. Episode 6 of the Investigative Rap Journalism has dropped: December 2010 and Cablegate has burst open. With a steady trickle of Diplomatic

Mike Klonsky's SmallTalk Blog: What the new year will bring

What the new year will bring

by Mike Klonsky

Sociologists are worried about the Republican takeover of the House. They damn well ought to be.

The new majority in the House believes that the election provided a mandate to change the course of policy from extending the Bush-era tax cuts, repealing health care reform, and cutting federal spending. Another concern is the capacity of the new majority to attack science it doesn’t like from climate change to social and behavioral research.

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Can someone please explain why it will "take months" for the Pentagon to