Saturday, August 13, 2011

Sac City teachers fight 'unilateral' changes to school calendar

Sac City teachers fight 'unilateral' changes to school calendar - Sacramento News - Local and Breaking Sacramento News | Sacramento Bee

Sac City teachers fight 'unilateral' changes to school calendar

By Melody Gutierrez
mgutierrez@sacbee.com

Published: Saturday, Aug. 13, 2011 - 12:00 am | Page 3B

With summer break ending in three weeks for the Sacramento City Unified School District, a squabble over the school calendar has teachers unclear about when they are supposed to return to campus.

Sacramento City Unified students are scheduled to begin classes Sept. 6, but there is a conflict over the start date for staff. A still-tentative calendar calls for teachers to return for faculty workdays on Aug. 31 and Sept. 1, which is two days earlier than in previous years.

The revised calendar also converted some shortened school days to full days and made many of

New York, in Contract With Pearson, Lays Out Rules for State Tests - NYTimes.com

In $32 Million Contract, State Lays Out Some Rules for Its Standardized Tests

By SHARON OTTERMAN

Published: August 12, 2011

REPRINTS

Standardized tests in English and math taken by students in New York State are about to become slightly less tricky.

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Beginning next spring, a new company, Pearson, will write the standardized tests that the Education Department gives to nearly all third through eighth graders. The department switched to Pearson this year after its contract with another company, CTB/McGraw-Hill, expired.

The department has advised the new company that catch-all answer choices known for

More Complex Picture Emerges in Rutgers Student’s Suicide

By RICHARD PÉREZ-PEÑA

Published: August 12, 2011

REPRINTS

Court papers filed this week offer a more complex picture of the Rutgers freshman who jumped to his death from the George Washington Bridge in September and of his roommate, who used a webcam days earlier to spy on him in an intimate encounter with another man.

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Daniel Barry for The New York Times

Dharun Ravi stands accused of crimes related to his spying on Mr. Clementi.

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Follow@NYTMetro for New York breaking news and headlines.

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Agence France-Presse — Getty Images

Tyler Clementi killed himself.

The roommate, Dharun Ravi, who stands accused of several crimes related to his spying on Tyler Clementi, emerges from the documents as a young man who wanted to seem blasé about his roommate’s sexuality but was fixated on it. Mr. Clementi comes across as a teenager who was ill at ease with people and worried a

Judge halts Douglas County school voucher program - The Denver Post

Judge halts Douglas County school voucher program

By Carlos Illescas and Liz Navratil
The Denver Post

POSTED: 08/13/2011 01:00:00 AM MDT

Judge Michael A. Martinez's ruling will be respected, the district says.

A judge on Friday put a stop to Douglas County School District's voucher program — at least for now — leaving hundreds of students who had enrolled in private schools scrambling for alternatives as the new school year is about to begin.

In a 68-page decision, Denver District Judge Michael A. Martinez issued a permanent injunction of the Douglas County district's pilot Choice Scholarship Program.

In June, the American Civil Liberties Union, Americans United for the Separation of Church and State, and other Douglas County residents filed a lawsuit against the district. In it, they said the voucher program violates the state constitution because taxpayer money was going to private and

Read more:Judge halts Douglas County school voucher program - The Denver Post http://www.denverpost.com/news/ci_18673490#ixzz1Uv2Ikodb
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District clears teacher accused of CSAP cheating

The Denver Post

POSTED: 08/13/2011 01:00:00 AM MDT

An award-winning math teacher at Webber Middle School in Fort Collins, who was accused earlier this year of helping her students cheat on the CSAP exam, has been cleared after an internal investigation.

The Colorado Education Association, who was helping her fight the allegations, made the announcement Friday.

Julie Pfeifer, who has taught at Webber for 21 years, denied the charges that she purposely delayed the start of the Colorado Student Assessment Program exam in March to review test subjects with students. Pfeifer was put on paid leave in April, and the district quickly invalidated 23 math test scores.

According to the CEA's news release, "the district found no intentional misconduct."

The spring testing at Webber this year involved a new testing schedule that extended the time teachers kept

Read more:District clears teacher accused of CSAP cheating - The Denver Post http://www.denverpost.com/news/ci_18673598#ixzz1Uv2QTyfN
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Larry Ferlazzo’s Websites of the Day… - This Week’s “Links I Should Have Posted About, But Didn’t”

This Week’s “Links I Should Have Posted About, But Didn’t”

by Larry Ferlazzo

I have a huge backlog of resources that I’ve been planning to post about in this blog but, just because of time constraints, have not gotten around to doing. Instead of letting that backlog grow bigger, I regularly grab a few and list them here with a minimal description. It forces me to look through these older links, and help me organize them for my own use. I hope others will find them helpful, too. These are resources that I didn’t include in my “Best Tweets” feature because I had planned to post about them, or because I didn’t even get around to sending a tweet sharing them.

Here are This Week’s “Links I Should Have Posted About, But Didn’t”:

National Geographic has a special site about animals. I’m adding it to The Best Sites For Learning About

teachers union presidents says chances of a strike "very high" this year - chicagotribune.com

Chicago Teachers Union president says threat of strike "very high"

By Noreen S. Ahmed-Ullah, Tribune reporter

6:21 p.m. CDT, August 12, 2011

Chicago Teachers Union president Karen Lewis says the threat of a teachers strike this year is "very high."

Lewis made the comments during a taping of WLS-890 AM's "Connected to Chicago with Bill Cameron." The radio show airs at 2 p.m. Sunday.

The district's last teachers strike was in 1987. A sweeping set of education reforms signed by the governor in June, though, makes it tougher for teachers to strike. The union now must reach a higher threshold vote of 75 percent of members to strike. And the reforms lengthen the timeline, requiring steps that would take four to six months before

Judge halts Dougco voucher pilot | EdNewsColorado

Judge halts Dougco voucher pilot

by Nancy Mitchell

A Denver judge has granted a motion to halt the Douglas County voucher pilot pending further court action, a ruling that could send hundreds of students back to district schools.

In a 68-page ruling issued late Friday afternoon, District Court Judge Michael Martinez finds merit in six of eight legal challenges raised by attorneys representing a handful of Dougco parents and groups including the American Civil Liberties Union.

“This court is not prepared to mandate that Colorado taxpayers fund private religious education,” the judge wrote,

Schooling in the Ownership Society: Ohio seems to be home to the most charter school scammers

Ohio seems to be home to the most charter school scammers

by Mike Klonsky

Brennan

"The market works in supplying a quality product in the delivery of services because failure is not tolerated by the market. If you fail, you go out of business." -- David Brennan

To get a charter in Ohio, all you need it seems, is lots of money for local Republican campaigns and a white hat.

One of the nation’s largest charter-school operators, White Hat runs more than 30 charter schools across Ohio. The schools are funded by the state like traditional public schools but are privately operated. White Hat is run by David Brennan, the second-biggest Republican campaign donor over the past decade. He founded White Hat in 1998. His lobbyists wrote many of the proposals governing charter

Saturday, August 13, 2011