Tuesday, October 4, 2011

ACLU Lawsuit Accuses Minn. Charter School of Promoting Islam, Christian News

ACLU Lawsuit Accuses Minn. Charter School of Promoting Islam, Christian News:

ACLU Lawsuit Accuses Minn. Charter School of Promoting Islam

By Joseph Perkins | Christian Post Contributor

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“In many ways this would’ve been a much easier case for the ACLU, bluntly, if, instead of alleging a Muslim religion violates the First Amendment, it was a Catholic religion.”

(Photo: Tarek ibn Ziyad Academy)
Inver Grove Heights, Minn. firefighters show their gear to Tarek ibn Ziyad Academy students.

What is happening to public education? - Your Houston News: Opinion

What is happening to public education? - Your Houston News: Opinion:

What is happening to public education?

Posted: Sunday, October 2, 2011 5:28 pm

0 comments

The Texas legislature’s assault on public school funding last spring came as a surprise to many people. Texas has a budget deficit? I thought our economy was doing well compared to other states?

In the end, the Texas legislature, with an influx of new Tea Party members in the House, cut $4 billion from public education. It could have been worse, but this past legislative session was a humbling indication of how vulnerable public education has become to conservative and corporate schemes to gradually dismantle the public education system.

I fear that the cuts to public education are part of a conservative and corporate assault on education as a public good. The under-funding of public education is part of a circular strategy to create the conditions where schools

The Innovative Educator: 20 Things a Teacher Wants the Nation to Know About Education

The Innovative Educator: 20 Things a Teacher Wants the Nation to Know About Education:

20 Things a Teacher Wants the Nation to Know About Education

by lnielsen.professional@gmail.com (The Innovative Educator)

In response to my post 20 Things Students Want the Nation to Know About Education, Tom, who blogs at Stop Trying to Inspire Me. Just Shut Up and Let Me Teach wrote the 20 things teachers like him want the nation to know about education. Below are his points followed by my reaction.

If we're not going to get rid of standardized testing, we need better tests. We need to ditch multiple choice and make the focus on higher-level critical thinking. If that means that Pearson's evaluators spend more time grading the tests, then so be it. We give them so much money anyway they should start earning it.

We don't need standardized tests and we don't need to hire people to grade assessments. Teachers are paid to do this work and they already have assessments available to them that are

Why public education must be preserved - The Answer Sheet - The Washington Post

Why public education must be preserved - The Answer Sheet - The Washington Post:

Why public education must be preserved

by Valerie Strauss

This was written by Peggy Zugibe, a member of the Haverstraw-Stony Point (N.Y.) Board of Education. She is also a member of the Rockland Board of Cooperative Educational Services and a member of the board of directors of the New York State School Boards Association.

By Peggy Zugibe

People often ask me why I’m a school board member. To be sure, it is an unpaid and largely thankless job. You make decisions that affect people’s wallets and their children, and emotions can run high. No matter what forms of academic progress our students achieve, some will say our schools are failing and call for radical changes.

Read full article >>

More district-charter compacts | Thoughts on Public Education

More district-charter compacts | Thoughts on Public Education:

More district-charter compacts
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Several San Jose districts to follow Sac City's lead

Posted on 10/04/11 • Categorized as Charters

By John Fensterwald - Educated Guess

To create incentives to work together for the sake of all students, the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation is encouraging charter schools and school districts to sign compacts and apply for money to fund their collaborations. Last month, Sacramento City Unified School District followed Los Angeles Unified to become the second California district and 12^thnationwide to reach a deal with their charters. By Dec. 1, three or four districts in San Jose, along with the Santa Clara County Office of Education, are expected to sign on as well, with each receiving $100,000 to continue planning their work.

While charters and districts harbor animosity and suspicions toward one another in many

Mike Klonsky's SmallTalk Blog: Yo-yo Ma brings "Arts strike" to Telpochcalli

Mike Klonsky's SmallTalk Blog: Yo-yo Ma brings "Arts strike" to Telpochcalli:

Yo-yo Ma brings "Arts strike" to Telpochcalli

Telpochcalli is a small neighborhood public school on Chicago's southwest side. It was started by teachers as part of the early small schools movement. The school's mission focuses on arts integration and bi-lingual

Last Stand for Children First: Tailoring an Education Plan to Fit the Student Population

Last Stand for Children First: Tailoring an Education Plan to Fit the Student Population:

Tailoring an Education Plan to Fit the Student Population

by Last Stand for Children

When Chicago's Education Mayor Rahm Emanuel announced plans to add 90 minutes onto the Chicago Public Schools day next year, he was greeted with a lot of skepticism from the Chicago Teachers Union. Long the impediment of serious reform, the teachers union fired back with a ridiculous proposal to have all Chicago Public Schools have a school day that resembled the school day that the mayor had chosen for his own children at the exclusive private University of Chicago Lab School.

Now, growing up I was fortunate to go to an exclusive private school myself and I can tell you that things like a class size of 15 and a well-stocked school library were very important to us and I believe those sorts of things are very important to children from upper class families. During their school day they need to develop the critical thinking skills that they need to be future leaders. Their school day shouldn't extend too far into the afternoon because a long school day would interfere with their myriad

Pension Call Tuesday. Representative Michael P. McAuliffe. « Fred Klonsky's blog

Pension Call Tuesday. Representative Michael P. McAuliffe. « Fred Klonsky's blog:

Pension Call Tuesday. Representative Michael P. McAuliffe.

by Fred Klonsky

McAuliffee , a Republican, serves on the House Pension Committee.
Springfield Office:
218-N Stratton Office Building
Springfield, IL 62706
(217) 782-8182
(217) 558-1073 FAX

District Office:
6650 N. Northwest Hwy.
Chicago, IL 60631
(773) 792-0749
(773) 792-1997 FAX
Cook County

Jersey Jazzman: Top-Secret Reformers!

Jersey Jazzman: Top-Secret Reformers!:

Top-Secret Reformers!

by Duke

The corporate education "reform" movement here in Jersey is hiding more secrets than a James Bond villain. For example: who is approving all these new charters?

The DOE has only a handful of staffers who oversee charter schools and it can’t carefully review every application it gets on its own. This year, a record 58 candidates sought to open charters.
So to help with the painstaking selection effort, the state enlisted more than a dozen unpaid volunteers, experts on charters and education who reviewed the applications

Tragedy Illuminates the Complexity of a Teacher’s Work « City School Stories

Tragedy Illuminates the Complexity of a Teacher’s Work « City School Stories:

Tragedy Illuminates the Complexity of a Teacher’s Work

by fmurphy

Teacher Stories

Submitted by Angela Chan on October 4, 2011

There is so much about teaching that is intellectually challenging and emotionally taxing, but I found myself experiencing the deepest kind of pain I’d ever known just a few days before school was to start. We had lost two students whose lives, according to news sources, were ended by their own mother.

Sam, 8 and Samantha, 12, were about to enter the 4^th and 7^th grades respectively. I had taught Sam in the Extended-Day program the year before. I was a third grade teacher, and Sam was in the other third grade class. However, when my grade partner, Sam’s teacher, suddenly passed away, I had considered Sam and his class to be my own.

I saw the headline in the news the day before school started, but I ignored it at first. Headlines about domestic

The Educated Reporter: Much Left to Learn About Civil Rights

The Educated Reporter: Much Left to Learn About Civil Rights:

Much Left to Learn About Civil Rights

by Emily Richmond

Education about the Civil Rights Movement is "dismal," according a new study by the Southern Poverty Law Center, NPR reports.

Alabama, New York and Florida received the only "A" grades, while 35 states were branded with an "F." On the 2010 National Assessment of Educational Progress, known as "the Nation's Report Card," only 2 percent of high school seniors could identify the relevance of Brown vs. Board of Education, the landmark Supreme Court decision which determined separate school facilities for black and white children were inherently unequal.

That students had little or no knowledge of such a landmark event in the history of American education raises some interesting questions. Is it that they haven't been taught about it? Or is it so far removed from their own

Why Expanding Vouchers is an Unconscionable Act | Scathing Purple Musings

Why Expanding Vouchers is an Unconscionable Act | Scathing Purple Musings:

Why Expanding Vouchers is an Unconscionable Act

by Bob Sikes

Florida House speaker-in waiting told St. Petersburg Times education reporter, Jeffrey Solochek last week that he had plans to expand the corporate tax credit. Jacksonville parent Julie G. Delegal has been an obsever of the state’s reform efforts for some time. She often takes her activism to print and has penned an open letter to Weatherford, who remarkable said he’s never heard from parents who are concerned about what vouchers have cost our public schools. Delegal has given permission to reprint her letter in this space.

Your assertion that Florida’s private school voucher program “saves” Floridians money is iffy, at best, on a couple of fronts. I will limit my comments for the purposes of this letter to the “Step Up for Students” Florida Tax Credit (FTC) voucher. (For the record, however, I also advocate for better accountability for Florida’s direct voucher program for special needs students, the McKay voucher. I disclose that my husband has served as chairman of the board for a McKay voucher school. We

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Tuesday, October 4, 2011