Wednesday, January 12, 2011

Education Board Investigating Bobb Complaints - Education News Story - WDIV Detroit

Education Board Investigating Bobb Complaints

POSTED: Wednesday, January 12, 2011

UPDATED: 5:36 pm EST January 12, 2011

Robert Bobb

DETROIT -- The Michigan Department of Education says it is investigating complaints from parents that Detroit Public Schools emergency financial manager Robert Bobb is mishandling the needs of some special education students.

"Initially, we have 1,160 complaints," said Chris White, a parent of an autistic son and member of the Coalition to Restore Hope to DPS.

He said he and 50 others recently dropped off bus attendant requests directly to the Education Board in Lansing after Bobb announced that 88 attendants had been terminated district-wide because of budget needs.

White said not having attendants on buses with special needs children violates the Individualized

Schools Matter: Review of U.S. Math Performance in Global Perspective: How Well Does Each State Do at Producing High-Achieving Students?

Review of U.S. Math Performance in Global Perspective: How Well Does Each State Do at Producing High-Achieving Students?

by Kenneth Libby

Jeremy Kilpatrick of the University of Georgia recently reviewed U.S. Math Performance in Global Perspective: How Well Does Each State Do at Producing High-Achieving Students? by Eric Hanushek, Paul Peterson, and Ludger Woessmann. Their original piece was covered quite extensively by media outlets. Below is a summary of the review. You can read the full review here.

A report from Harvard’s Program on Education Policy and Governance and the journal Education Next finds that only 6% of U.S. students in the high school graduating class of 2009 achieved at an advanced level in mathematics compared with 28% of Taiwanese students and more than 20% of students in Hong Kong, Korea, and Finland. Overall, the United States ranked behind most of its industrialized competitors. The report compares the mathematics performance of high achievers not only across countries but also across

Classroom Superheroes Promo Spot

For more information, please visit http://classroomsuperheroes.com

Gov. Christie brings teacher tenure into focus with Michelle Rhee at State of the State Address | State | NewJerseyNewsroom.com -- Your State. Your News.

Gov. Christie brings teacher tenure into focus with Michelle Rhee at State of the State Address

WEDNESDAY, 12 JANUARY 2011 14:58

Secretary Duncan on Early Learning and Parent and Community Involvement – ED.gov Blog

Secretary Duncan on Early Learning and Parent and Community Involvement

Secretary Arne Duncan talks about the importance of early childhood education, and he calls on parents and citizens to get involved and “be part of the solution” in this January 7, 2011, video.

Click here for an accessible version of the video.

See all the topics or all videos in the playlist.

Queens Teacher: The "Situation"

The "Situation"

by Queens Teacher

I think Jersey Shore is starting to rub off on me...

Unions must be broken.

If you notice there is rhetoric all over the country that the cause of all of our problems is our unions. I guess it wouldn't be that politicians gave the wealthiest Americans HUGE tax breaks. It wouldn't be the endless wars overseas costing taxpayers billions. It wouldn't be the enormous financial stress illegal immigrants put on our infrastructure. It wouldn't be any of THOSE things. Nah.

Unions. It must be the unions.

Administrators have been given unprecedented power in their schools. Principals will always be given the benefit

Naomi Wolf Admits Errors in Her Assange “Dating Police” Op-Ed. So Why Hasn’t She Corrected Them? « Student Activism

Naomi Wolf Admits Errors in Her Assange “Dating Police” Op-Ed. So Why Hasn’t She Corrected Them?

by Angus Johnston

On December 7, Naomi Wolf posted an op-ed at the Huffington Post entitled “Julian Assange Captured By World’s Dating Police.” In it, she declared as fact that Assange stood “accused of having consensual sex with two women,” and that “both alleged victims are … upset that he began dating a second woman while still being in a relationship with the first.”

Wolf’s ostensible source for these claims was an article in Britain’s Daily Mail newspaper. That article, however, made it clear that its characterization of the accusers’ motives was only surmise:

“How must Sarah have felt to discover that the man she’d taken to her bed three days before had already taken up with another woman? Furious? Jealous? Out for revenge? Perhaps she merely felt aggrieved for a

The Answer Sheet - The big 5: A teacher's translation guide for policymakers

The big 5: A teacher's translation guide for policymakers

This was written by Roxanna Elden, the author of See Me After Class: Advice for Teachers by Teachers. She teaches high-school English in Miami and is a National Board Certified Teacher. This first appeared on Rick Hess’s blog, Straight Up, on the Education Week website. By Roxanna Elden It often seems that edu-decision makers and teachers have trouble communicating. Maybe it’s because sometimes we really do speak different languages. At the very least, there are a few phrases in the policymaker-reformer-researcher dialect whose meanings change when filtered through everyday teaching reality. Those hoping for educator buy-in on the next big idea should first consult the translation guide below, which explains some catchphrases and buzzwords that set off warning bells for teachers.

Framing education as a business

The public education system is a civic institution, the most important in the United States, but that sort of thinking isn't popular today among school reformers. Buzzwords in education have for some time been "innovation," "effectiveness," "value-added," etc., but expect them to be overtaken by "return on investment" and, of course, the tried but true "bloated bureaucracy." If you have any doubt that business thinking has taken over the education policy debate, take a look at these invitations from two nonprofit organizations in Washington D.C., the CATO Institute and the Center for American Progress.

Wednesday, January 12, 2011