Tuesday, June 14, 2011

Tanya McDowell, homeless mom charged with "stealing" education for son, arrested on drug charges - Crimesider - CBS News

Tanya McDowell, homeless mom charged with "stealing" education for son, arrested on drug charges

By: Camille Mann
Topics: Daily Blotter

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Tanya McDowell, homeless mom charged with "stealing" and education son, arrested on drug charges

Tanya McDowell, left, with Conn. NAACP Conference President Scott X. Exdaile, outside state superior court in Norwalk, Conn., Wednesday, April 27, 2011.

(Credit: AP Photo)

(CBS/WFSB/AP) HARTFORD, Conn. - Tanya McDowell, a homeless single mother accused of illegally enrolling her son in the wrong school district, appeared in court Monday after being arrested Friday for allegedly selling crack cocaine and marijuana to undercover officers near another school in Norwalk.

Norwalk investigators picked up McDowell on three drug warrants and then found more drugs on her during the arrest, police said, according to CBS affiliate WFSB.

In court on Monday, McDowell's attorney said the drug cases are in retaliation to all of the negative publicity the city has received after she enrolled her son, now 6, in kindergarten last fall under her babysitter's address.

"If this is a way to respond to her fighting back, this is a bad way to do it. It's a terrible message,"

Searching the Globe for Answers | The Forum for Education and Democracy

Searching the Globe for Answers

by The Forum

Forum Convener Linda Darling-Hammond talks about what the world’s top- performing school systems do – and why the U.S. does not do the same.

WASHINGTON, D.C. -- When it comes to looking for what works, the United States seems to be looking the other way.

That was the conclusion of a report released last month, which contends that many current school-reform efforts in this country run counter to the best practices in the world’s top-performing school systems, such as Finland, Canada, and Singapore.

Department of Education: Make It Clear You're Not Going to SWAT Team Students | Change.org News

Department of Education: Make It Clear You're Not Going to SWAT Team Students

The student loan crisis is huge, says Kyle McCarthy, part of the team behind the film Default: The Student Loan Documentary. With one in five students now defaulting on their school loans and student loan debt surpassing credit card debt, the problem isn't going away anytime soon.

But there's one thing he's asking for - one thing that could make the situation better, almost with a stroke of the pen.

United States Department of Education, could you make one thing clear, to Kyle and to all American students: you're not going to SWAT team our homes if we can't pay our student loans, right? McCarthy and the team at

The Principal Principle: PreK-3rd «

The Principal Principle: PreK-3rd

June 14, 2011 by Irene Sege

Photo: Kate Samp for Strategies for Children

Instructional leadership is a critical component of a successful education system, and two recent publications look at the role of the elementary school principal in early childhood. Policy analyst Sara Mead looks at ways to improve principals’ support of early education and the primary grades in a recent brief from the Foundation for Child Development. And the National Association of Elementary School Principals devotes the May-June issue of its Principal magazine to early childhood. I’ll write about Mead’s brief today and Principal magazine in my next post.

“Educational improvement strategies that focus on the early years – preventing children from falling behind in the first place – have a much better chance of long-term success than those that emphasize remediation later on,” Mead writes in “PreK-3^rd: Principals as Crucial Instructional Leaders.” “But in an era of test-based accountability, principals face pervasive systemic incentives to direct resources and energy away from the early grades and into later, tested grades.”

Mead also notes that principal preparation programs are often weak in building

How Socrates would fare on new teacher evaluation plan - The Answer Sheet - The Washington Post

How Socrates would fare on new teacher evaluation plan

by Valerie Strauss

This was written by Diana Senechal, a former New York City public school teacher, who has written for Education Week, American Educator, Educational Leadership, The Answer Sheet, and numerous other blogs. Her book, “Republic of Noise: The Loss of Solitude in Schools and Culture,” will be published by Rowman & Littlefield Education in November 2011. She can be reached at dsenechal@earthlink.net.

Read full article >>

A speech I’d like to hear | Taking Note

A speech I’d like to hear

by TED on 14. JUN, 2011 in 2012 PRESIDENTIAL RACE, ARNE DUNCAN, EARLY CHILDHOOD EDUCATION, LAST IN FIRST OUT, PRE-K EDUCATION, PRESCHOOL, PRESIDENT OBAMA, STANDARIZED TESTS, CHARTER SCHOOLS, RACE, READING, SCHOOL REFORM,TEACHERS UNIONS, TEACHING

As always, remember that John’s book The Influence of Teachers is for sale at Amazon.

This is a speech I hope Arne Duncan will give one day. I don’t necessarily expect you to write a FULL SPEECH back in the comments, but I’d love to know the issues you hope the Secretary will touch on in major future addresses.

With my basketball playing limited recently because of my schedule and a nagging injury, I have been thinking about the sport and its similarities to education. That’s what I want to talk about today.

Some of you may know that I am comfortable on the court. I played a lot as a kid, was team co-captain at Harvard and then competed in an Australian pro league. I still play regularly and have been on the team

Education Meets GOOD

ASCD Inservice: Education Meets GOOD

Education Meets GOOD

by David Snyder

What is GOOD? GOOD is "the integrated media platform for people who want to live well and do good," and their online education coverage, formatted somewhere between blog and online magazine, is pretty . . . enjoyable. Education editor Liz...

Keeping Literate in the Internet Age

by ASCD Bloggers

The web gives students access to unlimited amounts of information that grows exponentially, so reading well is more important than ever. But how is the practice of teaching reading faring during the Internet ascendancy? How are reading, thinking, and writing...

"Waivers" Are Fine...Back-Door Legislating Via "Strings"? Not So Much :: Frederick M. Hess

"Waivers" Are Fine...Back-Door Legislating Via "Strings"? Not So Much

by Frederick M. Hess • Jun 14, 2011 at 9:04 am
Cross-posted from Education Week

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There seems to be some confusion about the problem with our earnest Secretary of Education's chest-thumping promise to take things into his own hands if Congress doesn't fix NCLB by August. The problem is not that he's pledging to waive some of the law's goofy provisions. No one is disputing that he's empowered to do so (see, for instance, Mike Petrilli's take here).

So, what is the problem? It's that Duncan has said that he plans to attach "strings" to those waivers, so that states will have to adopt his priorities in order to gain flexibility. He has clearly signaled that he regards this as a back-door opportunity to promote his preferred approach to teacher evaluation, the Common Core, and such with or without Congressional permission. This is what has so infuriated observers (see Alexander Russo's roundup here).

Duncan wrote yesterday in POLITICO, that, "Our children get only one shot at an education. They cannot wait

No Child Left Behind Act of 2001 | Federal Education Policy History

No Child Left Behind Act of 2001

President George W. Bush signed the No Child Left Behind Act (NCLB; P.L 107-110; 115 Stat. 1425) on January 8, 2002. NCLB is a reauthorization of the Elementary and Secondary Education Act of 1965 (ESEA). The original ESEA was 32 pages long; NCLB is 670 pages long.

The full text of the No Child Left Behind Act is accessible in the window below, and you also can see and download it at http://www.scribd.com/doc/49332318/No-Child-Left-Behind-Act-of-2001.

Dusty & Gay: Thru History and Nature, toward the Future

by NancyFlanagan

June 12, 2011

McPhee Lake to Sunshine Campground (just outside Telluride)
In one day we have followed the course of a major Colorado River, the Dolores. It will lead us into the heart of the Rockies and to its source, Lizard Head Pass (10,222 ft). This night we camp just outside the famous Telluride, which used to be a boom town right out of a Brett Harte local color American story.

#2sirchat: New education chat on Twitter « Happy Teacher LA

#2SIRCHAT: NEW EDUCATION CHAT ON TWITTER

Posted by 1635school on June 14, 2011 · Leave a Comment

#2sitchat is a new chat on Twitter about teaching in economically oppressed communities. The name was chosen to honor the 1967 film “To Sir, With Love” and all the school teacher who believe that a fair and equitable society is possible.

#2sirchat is a conversation for school teachers in inner cities, rural towns, reservations, exburbs, or schools with populations of children who have been historically discriminated against owing to racial, national origin, or socio-economic class reasons.

We’ll discuss such topics as:

Class
Race
Gender
Language
Your race as it relates to your students

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Tuesday, June 14, 2011