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Tuesday, June 7, 2011

Big Education Ape: 6-7-11 AM School Policy Roadkill Edition

Big Education Ape: Ed News Now
Big Education Ape: Ed News Now

Published by Coopmike48 – 6 contributors today

School Tech Connect: School Policy Roadkill

bigeducationape.blogspot.com - School Tech Connect: School Policy RoadkillSchool Policy Roadkillby effacethefacade@yahoo.com (Tim)I keep meaning to write something about this beautiful post written from the trenches of a school ...

coopmike48

NYC Educator: In Good Company

nyceducator.com - Jonathan Alter of Newsweek, recently sold for a dollar, is now writing for Bloomberg. Unsurprisingly, he's written a hatchet job on Diane Ravitch. Ravitch, for the unforgivable offense of examinin...

fklonsky

Chicago Shopping

chicagotribune.com - By Dawn Rhodes Tribune reporter 7:07 p.m. CDT, June 5, 2011 Chicago Public Schools parents will receive a letter from CEO Jean-Claude Brizard on Monday that outlines his administration's plans to a...

coopmike48

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coopmike48 Supremes Rule Against Stanford- Inside Higher Ed -http://goo.gl/COKyGabout 1 minute ago · reply · retweet · favorite

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coopmike48 Des Moines Education Association: Iowa Education Summit - Look Who the Governor Just Invited! -http://goo.gl/2by6832 seconds ago · reply · retweet · favorite

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coopmike48 Schools Matter: Giving Up RttT Bribes to Maintain a Real Teacher Evaluation Plan http://bit.ly/jMgMl3 #Edu7 minutes ago · reply · retweet · favorite

EducationSee all

The return of Velderman. « Fred Klonsky's blog

preaprez.wordpress.com - Ben Velderman, my stalker, is back. Fred, If it’s any comfort, a colleague and fellow AFT union steward (NOT a teacher, he works in the Wisconsin Department of Workforce Development, Equal Rights D...

fklonsky

In NYC Tomorrow: It's Broke So Fix It

earlyed.newamerica.net - How can we finally bring outstanding teaching to scale? What's at stake if we don't? And where do early childhood teachers -- those in preschool and the early grades of elementary schools -- fit in...

leoniehaimson

New Gates palace opens in Seattle

schoolingintheownershipsociety.blogspot.com - Symbol of unchecked foundation powerNew Gates 900,000 sq. ft. "campus" cost $.5 billion in tax-exempt dollars.In order to keep its tax-exempt status, the Gates foundation has to give away about $3 ...

mikeklonsky

LivingSee all

Too slow. « Fred Klonsky's blog

preaprez.wordpress.com - A memo from HR brought back a memory from 9 years ago. I was on our Local’s negotiating team, sitting at the table with representatives of the board and their lawyer. We have language in our contra...

fklonsky

Why Don\'t They Just Come the Legal Way?, immigration news,

hispanicallyspeakingnews.com - Todays contribution is from UnDocumented.tv. Undocumented.tv is a media-driven, culture-shaping movement seeking to inspire and mobilize young Evangelical Christians towards championing the needs o...

coopmike48

PoliticsSee all

To Endorse Or Not Endorse

schooltechconnect.com - As we lurch closer to July, I see more people are taking up the question of whether or not the NEA should vote to endorse President Obama at its Representative Assembly here in bucolic Chicago. I c...

tbfurman

The Roundup for June 6, 2011

news.firedoglake.com - Today is the anniversary of D-Day, which back in my previous blogospheric life would cause a surge of traffic on my website, to the extent that I would have to put up a disclaimer about how this wa...

coopmike48

Today's Teamster News 06.07.11

teamsternation.blogspot.com - Connecticut Passes First-in-the-Nation Sick Days Bill Public News Service ...It requires certain businesses with 50 or more employees to allow workers to earn up to five sick days a year... Wisc...

coopmike48

StoriesSee all

Women Atop Their Fields Dissect the Scientific Life

nytimes.com - Elena Aprile, Joy Hirsch, Mary-Claire King and Tal Rabin are members of a rare breed — women scientists at the top of their fields. Dr. Aprile, a professor of physics at Columbia Univer...

coopmike48

BusinessSee all

Business tax break worth $128.7 million included in budget

defendwisconsin.org - Manufacturers and agricultural businesses would be allowed to shave as much as 7.5% off what they pay in state income taxes under a motion passed by a joint legislative committee Friday night. The ...

coopmike48

China stole $48B, 923K jobs from US in 2009

teamsternation.blogspot.com - "How stupid is the U.S.?" asks Robert Oak in a recent Economic Populist post. Pretty damn stupid. Oak cites a new U.S. government report that shows China brazenly stole $48 billion and 923,000 jo...

coopmike48

SportsSee all

li na is china's first grand slam winner

blog.angryasianman.com - It was a historic moment in tennis. Over the weekend at the French Open, 29-year-old Li Na became the first Chinese player to win a Grand Slam singles title, beating defending champion Francesca Sc...

coopmike48

#eduRead this paperSee all

Mike Klonsky's SmallTalk Blog: Is the tide really turning?

bigeducationape.blogspot.com - Mike Klonsky's SmallTalk Blog: Is the tide really turning?Is the tide really turning?by Mike KlonskyThanks to Lady Wonk Dana Goldstein for pulling together a summary of a glut of new reports raisi...

coopmike48

#1Read this paperSee all

Media6

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    Special education advocates press OUSD to hire more experienced teachers | The Education Report

    Special education advocates press OUSD to hire more experienced teachers | The Education Report

    Special education advocates press OUSD to hire more experienced teachers

    By Katy Murphy
    Monday, June 6th, 2011 at 5:13 pm in special education, students, teachers.

    In the last two years, teaching candidates from Oakland Teaching Fellows and Teach for America pretty much had a lock on all open special education positions in the Oakland school district.

    All but three of the 70 new hires during that time period were teachers placed in Oakland schools through one of those two programs, according to a report the school district released today.

    But district staff say in the report that is about to change:

    This year, we made no job guarantees with OTF or TFA, so we’ll group partner program teachers and all external hires in same pool, so principals and program coordinators will be able to make the selection they deem the best fit.

    The report (posted in full, below) was issued in response to a public records

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    Schools Matter: Giving Up RttT Bribes to Maintain a Real Teacher Evaluation Plan

    Schools Matter: Giving Up RttT Bribes to Maintain a Real Teacher Evaluation Plan

    Giving Up RttT Bribes to Maintain a Real Teacher Evaluation Plan

    by Jim Horn
    From Michael Winerip for the New York Times:
    By
    ROCKVILLE, Md. — The Montgomery County Public Schools system here has a highly regarded program for evaluating teachers, providing them extra support if they are performing poorly and getting rid of those who do not improve.

    The program, Peer Assistance and Review — known as PAR — uses several hundred senior teachers to mentor both newcomers and struggling veterans. If the mentoring does not work, the PAR panel — made up of eight teachers and eight principals — can vote to fire the teacher.

    Sitting in on two cases last week, I could not tell from the comments which of the panel members were teachers and which were principals. In one of the cases, 11 of the 12 panel members present voted to follow a principal’s recommendation and discipline the teacher; in the other, they decided in a 10-to-2 vote to reject a principal’s recommendation and support the teacher.
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    Low-income students and KIPP charter schools - The Answer Sheet - The Washington Post

    Low-income students and KIPP charter schools - The Answer Sheet - The Washington Post

    Low-income students and KIPP charter schools

    By Valerie Strauss

    --

    This was written by Richard D. Kahlenberg, a senior fellow at The Century Foundation, a nonprofit public policy research organization, writes about education, equal opportunity and civil rights. This appearedon the foundation’s blog.

    By Richard D. Kahlenberg

    Over at Think Progress, Matthew Yglesias raises an interesting issue about charter school skeptics. On the one hand, he says, successful charter schools, such as those that are part of the Knowledge is Power Program (KIPP), are accused of skimming the most motivated students. On the other hand, KIPP is also accused of segregating students by race and class with an authoritarian No Excuses approach that is

    How to prevent summer reading loss

    by Valerie Strauss

    --

    This was written by Linda B. Gambrell, Distinguished Professor of Education in the Eugene T. Moore School of Education at Clemson University, and former president of the International Reading Association. This was first published in 2008.

    Read full article >>

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    Charter Schools Tied to Turkey’s Gulen Movement Grow in Texas - NYTimes.com

    Charter Schools Tied to Turkey’s Gulen Movement Grow in Texas - NYTimes.com

    Charter Schools Tied to Turkey Grow in Texas

    By
    Published: June 6, 2011

    Enlarge This ImageTDM Contracting was only a month old when it won its first job, an $8.2 million contract to build the Harmony School of Innovation, a publicly financed charter school that opened last fall in San Antonio.

    Michael Stravato for The New York Times

    Levent Sakar tested a homemade hovercraft in his physics class at Harmony Science Academy High School. The larger point of the project was developing excitement about science for his students, he said.

    Multimedia
    Graphic
    The Harmony Schools Network
    Enlarge This Image
    Michael Stravato for The New York Times

    Soner Tarim, Harmony's superintendent, said the schools are separate from the Gulen movement, a Turkish religious group.

    Readers' Comments

    Share your thoughts.

    It was one of six big charter school contracts TDM and another upstart company have shared since January 2009, a total of $50 million in construction business. Other companies scrambling for work in a poor economy wondered: How had they qualified for such big jobs so fast?

    The secret lay in the meteoric rise and financial clout of the Cosmos Foundation, a charter school operator founded a decade ago by a group of professors and businessmen from Turkey. Operating under the name

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    “The 15 Greatest Movie Car Chases of All Time” | Larry Ferlazzo's Websites of the Day...

    “The 15 Greatest Movie Car Chases of All Time” | Larry Ferlazzo's Websites of the Day...
    “The 15 Greatest Movie Car Chases of All Time” “The 15 Greatest Movie Car Chases of All Time” is a great slideshow of video clips from TIME Magazine. I’m adding it to The Best Movie Scenes To Use For English-Language Development, where I also explain how I use these kinds of clips in the ...
    “Movie Sheets” Movie Sheets has a fairly extensive of worksheets teachers have created for many theatrical (and non-theatrical) movies. The site is divided into all subject areas. I’m adding it to The Best Places To Find Theatrical Movies On Science, Math, & ...
    Research Studies Of The Week I often write about research studies from various field and how they can be applied to the classroom. I write individual posts about ones that I think are especially significant, and will continue to do so. However, so many studies are published that ...
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    Just Who Does New York State Governor Andrew Cuomo Work For? - ParentAdvocates.org

    Parent Advocates - ParentAdvocates.org
    | Posted 6/6/2011 at 12:59 PM
    A coalition of business leaders supportive of Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo spent nearly $5 million in the past two months lobbying in favor of the governor’s budget and his proposal to limit local property taxes, according to a new filing with the state ethics commission. The group, the Committee to Save New York, which registered as a lobbying group in January after facing criticism from good-government groups, has now spent $7.4 million since Mr. Cuomo took office in January, including more than $5.8 million in advertising expenditures.
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    Big changes for better teachers | Thoughts on Public Education

    Big changes for better teachers | Thoughts on Public Education

    Big changes for better teachers - by John Fensterwald - Educated Guess

    by John Fensterwald - Educated Guess
    A report commissioned by the United Way of Greater Los Angeles and civil rights groups is recommending sweeping changes in the way Los Angeles Unified recruits, hires, evaluates, and pays teachers, as well as substantial changes in state laws in areas such as tenure and seniority rights that obstruct teacher effectiveness. The report will prove [...]

    In-state fees for the undocumented - by Kathryn Baron

    by Kathryn Baron
    When David and Carlos walk at UCLA’s graduation this Friday, they’ll be thanking their parents, their professors, and AB 540 – the 2001 law that lets some undocumented students pay in-state fees at California’s public colleges. On Monday, more than five years after the first lob in a legal challenge to the California law, the [...]

    It’s time for lawmakers to call ‘Olly Olly Oxen Free’ and pass the budget - by Jo A.S. Loss

    by Jo A.S. Loss
    California’s Legislature is playing children’s games with unbelievably high stakes – the very future of our state. The players, adults who really should know better, have turned the budget process into a game of “Hot Potato,” tossing decisions back and forth, avoiding the tough choices that must be made. The apparent goal of the game is [...]
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    Report urges DPS to slow charter push | EdNewsColorado

    Report urges DPS to slow charter push | EdNewsColorado

    Report urges DPS to slow charter push

    by Charlie Brennan

    A council that advises Denver Public Schools on charter school applications is recommending the process for reviewing them be slowed down pending a broad-based discussion on the district’s future.

    Logo for Denver Public SchoolsThe district’s School Improvement and Accountability Council presented its non-binding recommendations to the DPS Board of Education at a special session Monday night. (Read report.)

    Despite calling for a reconsideration of the district’s process, the council supported five of the seven charter

    What to do after high school? The annual “Diplomas Count” report has joined the growing discussion about the value of a college degree. [image: Report cover image]The 2011 version of the yearly graduation study from Education Week is titled “Beyond High School, Before ...
    DPS’ response to the credit recovery controversy *Editor’s note: This post was submitted to *Education News Colorado *by Antwan Wilson, Denver Public Schools’ assistant superintendent, office of post-secondary readiness. It offers the district’s response to *this blog post *from *EdNews *Publisher ...
    The graduation-proficiency gap in DPS *Alexander Ooms is a member of the board of the Charter School Institute, the West Denver Preparatory Charter School and the Colorado chapter of Stand for Children*. The recent Westword article on Denver North High School’s manipulation of its ...
    National ed blog highlights: June 2 Here is an unscientific sampling of education blog highlights from the past several days: - Charter schools and low-SES kids: Damned if they do, damned if they don’t? Matthew Yglesias - Seven obvious things in education that are ignored. ...
    Might Colorado’s school funding picture change? *Paul Teske is Dean and University of Colorado Distinguished Professor at the School of Public Affairs at the University of Colorado Denver.* *(These views represent the personal opinions of the author and may not reflect the position of the ...


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    NYC Educator: Educators 4 QuashingDissent

    NYC Educator: Educators 4 QuashingDissent

    Educators 4 QuashingDissent

    by Miss Eyre
    While it was nice to seean administrator pointing out the obvious flaws in E4E's public relations approach at GothamSchools yesterday, what was far more telling, in GS's coverage of the administrator's letter, was Sydney Morris's response. Morris responded, "E4E is, and always has been, a membership organization and some[emphasis mine] events are for members only...[W]e sometimes[emphasis also mine] have to limit the numbers of attendees we have..."

    I call shenanigans. As I mentioned in the E4E pieces in GS last week, I and other bloggers have tried, a number
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    The return of Velderman. « Fred Klonsky's blog

    The return of Velderman. « Fred Klonsky's blog

    The return of Velderman.

    by Fred Klonsky

    Ben Velderman, my stalker, is back.

    Fred,

    If it’s any comfort, a colleague and fellow AFT union steward (NOT a teacher, he works in the Wisconsin Department of Workforce Development, Equal Rights Division) also got one of these Open Records shotgun blasts. Since we as state employees are a bit far afield from Ed Action Group’s alleged “pro-parental choice” mission, I thought there might be a case of misrepresentation by an organization seeking 501(c)(3) status from the IRS. Apparently, the IRS

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    Mike Klonsky's SmallTalk Blog: Is the tide really turning?

    Mike Klonsky's SmallTalk Blog: Is the tide really turning?

    Is the tide really turning?

    by Mike Klonsky
    Thanks to Lady Wonk Dana Goldstein for pulling together a summary of a glut of new reports raising doubt about current administration ed policies.

    Goldstein writes:
    Although much of the Obama administration's education reform agenda promotes test score-based teacher evaluation and pay, the tide seems to be significantly turning against such policies, at least among wonks and academics.
    Included in Goldstein's collection is her own excellent piece, The Test Generation in the April, 2011 American Prospect.

    Is the tide really turning? Maybe However, I'm not sure Arne Duncan's crowd pays much attention to the
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