Commenters in a Silly Tizzy Over Testing Topic Ban – SchoolBook

Commenters in a Silly Tizzy Over Testing Topic Ban – SchoolBook:

Commenters in a Silly Tizzy Over Testing Topic Ban

 By MARY ANN GIORDANO

With all that there is to be outraged about when it comes to public education and the fate of American children, the Internet is having a silly fit about a clause in a request for proposals sent out by the New York City Department of Education, listing 50 topics it wants the companies that make student tests to avoid.

The New York Post reported earlier this week that the city has submitted a list of subject areas from which it wants to protect students. Among them: space creatures, vermin, dinosaurs, birthdays.

According to The Associated Press:

The Department of Education included the list in a recently issued request for proposals to create the tes

Education Research Report: CDC estimates 1 in 88 children (11.3 per 1,000) has been identified with an autism spectrum disorder (ASD)

Education Research Report: CDC estimates 1 in 88 children (11.3 per 1,000) has been identified with an autism spectrum disorder (ASD):

CDC estimates 1 in 88 children (11.3 per 1,000) has been identified with an autism spectrum disorder (ASD)

by Jonathan Kantrowitz

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Complete report

This marks a 23% increase since the last report in 2009 and a 78% increase since CDC's first report in 2007. Some of the increase is due to the way children are identified, diagnosed and served in their local communities, although exactly how much is due to these factors in unknown.

The number of children identified with ASDs varied widely across the 14 Autism and Developmental Disabilities Monitoring (ADDM) Network sites, from 1 in 47 (21.2 per 1,000) to 1 in 210 (4.8 per 1,000).

ASDs are almost 5 times more common among boys (1 in 54) than among girls (1 in 252).

The largest increases over time were among Hispanic children (110%) and black children (91%). Some of this 

California Distinguished Schools for 2012 - Year 2012 (CA Dept of Education)

California Distinguished Schools for 2012 - Year 2012 (CA Dept of Education):

State Schools Chief Tom Torlakson Announces
2012 California Distinguished Schools

SACRAMENTO—State Superintendent of Public Instruction Tom Torlakson today announced that 387 exemplary California public elementary schools were named 2012 California Distinguished Schools for their innovative education programs that encourage students to learn and help close the achievement gap.

"The schools we are recognizing today demonstrate the incredible commitment of California's teachers, administrators, and school employees to provide a world-class education to every student, in spite of the financial hardships facing our state and our schools," Torlakson said. "Their dedication is inspiring, and I applaud and admire their passion and persistence."

The list of schools may be found on the California Department of Education Web site at 2012 Distinguished Elementary Schools - California Distinguished Schools Program.

The 2012 California Distinguished Schools Program focuses on California's students and their entitlement to an equitable and rigorous education. The program identifies and honors those schools that have demonstrated educational excellence for all students and progress in narrowing the achievement gap.

To be invited to apply for Distinguished School honors, schools must meet a variety of eligibility criteria including designated federal and state accountability measures based on the Elementary and Secondary Education Act and the Academic Performance Index requirements.

Once schools are deemed eligible, the CDE invites them to apply to be recognized as a California Distinguished School. The application process consists of a written application, which includes a comprehensive description of two of the school's signature practices, and a county-led site validation review process, which validates the implementation of those signature practices.

Elementary and secondary schools (middle and high schools) are recognized in alternate years. This year focuses on elementary schools.

Schools earning the Distinguished School title agree to share their signature practices with other schools and serve as mentors to other educators who want to replicate their work. An updated searchable database of these Signature Practices will be available later this spring by the California Department of Education.

Schools selected for recognition will be honored as Distinguished Schools at award ceremonies where Torlakson will present each school with a 2012 Distinguished School plaque and flag. The event and awards are funded by donations from many of California's most prominent corporations and statewide educational organizations.

Related Content

• California Distinguished School Awards Program - Honors some of California's most exemplary and inspiring public schools. Schools selected for the Distinguished School Award demonstrate academic success and exemplary programmatic offering.

# # # #

Tom Torlakson — State Superintendent of Public Instruction

Communications Division, Room 5206, 916-319-0818, Fax 916-319-0100

This Week In Education: Ideas: Please Stop Talking About Banning Private School

This Week In Education: Ideas: Please Stop Talking About Banning Private School:

Ideas: Please Stop Talking About Banning Private School

by Alexander Russo

It's become somewhat popular among reformy types over the past couple of years to float the idea of "banning" private school and making everyone go to a public school.  (Counter-reformers have their favorite stories, too, but we'll save those for another time.)
Warren Buffet, Joel Klein, Michelle Rhee, Steve Barr, and most recentlyJason Kamras are those I've seen or read deliver a version of the same story (often without attributing it to Buffet, whom I understand to be its originator).  Some propose banning homeschooling, too.  Others point out that we'd have to assign kids randomly rather than by neighborhood.
I'm not sure anyone's decided what would happen to charter schools under this scenario, but it doesn't matter.  Things would get better, fast, is the point.  And indeed they might.  So too if we eliminated local school districts (as Matt Miller proposed a few years ago) or lowered any number of other 

Why colleges (and Latinos) need Latino student organizations:

Why colleges (and Latinos) need Latino student organizations

03/29/2012 By Cristopher Rubio Leave a Comment

 “Your community needs you,” said the stranger I’d just met at a party my freshman year. As a kid that had come to college from a part of the country where almost everyone was Latino, I was initially apprehensive about joining a culturally based organization.

A part of me knew she was right, but another part of me wanted to branch out and experience different cultures. I decided to give a couple organizations a chance, and it didn’t take long to realize exactly what she was talking about.

Latino Student Organizations provide a place for college students to build social networks, develop leadership skills, promote the Latino culture, and a family away from the familia that Latinos so greatly cherish.

Organizations range from political, professional, social, and Greek. There are many organizations that only exist at their respective campuses, but there are also national organizations like Movimiento Estudiantil Chican@ de Aztlán, Society of Hispanic Professional Engineers, and the Association of Latino Professionals 

Student Loans For Kindergarten, High School On The Rise:

Student Loans For Kindergarten, High School On The Rise

The Huffington Post  |  By Loren Berlin  |  Posted: 03/29/2012 10:51 am Updated: 03/29/2012 10:57 am

As if the student loan debt burden wasn't troubling enough, some parents are saying, "Bring on the debt!"... even though their kids haven't even learned to read.

That's right: cash-strapped parents who want to send their young ones to private schools are taking out loans to pay for grade school, according to SmartMoney. And demand is growing.

Your Tuition Solution, one of the largest providers of loans for K-12 education, reported that the amount of money parents requested is up 10 percent from last year, and that the company is on track to finance $20 million in loans for the 2012-2013 school year, SmartMoney reports. Demand is increasing fast enough that First Marblehead, another pre-college lender, has returned to the market after exiting it in 2008, according to SmartMoney.

As more parents turn to loans to finance private education, school tuition is increasing, furthering the demand for the loans. Over the past 10 years, the median price of first grade at private schools has increased 35 percent nationally, as compared 

STRIKE BEGINS ! « Teachers Fight Back

STRIKE BEGINS ! « Teachers Fight Back:

STRIKE BEGINS !

by alkleen

Here we go!  The Rockford teachers’ strike is officially under way.  Late night negotiations failed to reach any settlement.  The television news last night showed the Rockford teachers holding a candlelight vigil outside of the negotiation headquarters. Several teachers were interviewed and they expressed how determined they were to get a fair contract. Now we need parents, community leaders and union supporters to put pressure on the Board to reach a fair settlement.
I believe that this strike will lead to an acceptable contract for the teachers. If the Rockford teachers do achieve their goals, I hope it will serve as an inspiration for all other teachers in Illinois and the Nation. Let the Rockford teachers lead the way and show all teachers everywhere that the time has come for teachers to stop accepting contract violations, give backs, lowered benefits, increased class time, and increased stress levels without being adequately compensated. Let this be the first victory in a new revolution where teachers stand up and loudly shout, “we’re mad as hell and we’re not going to take it anymore”!
I hope this strike also causes some State legislators to finally get serious about finding alternative ways to fund education. We can no longer depend on property taxes to be the primary way to fund our schools. We must find alternative sources of revenue. I have previously suggested many ways of alternative funding, and I hope

District responds to commissioners questions on school closings | Philadelphia Public School Notebook

District responds to commissioners questions on school closings | Philadelphia Public School Notebook:

District responds to commissioners questions on school closings

by Benjamin Herold

Just hours before tonight’s long-awaited vote on the proposed closure of nine schools, the District has released awealth of information about each of its recommendations.
A detailed spreadsheet projects that closing all nine schools would save the District just over $8 million for next school year. The two most hotly contested closures, E.M. Stanton Elementary in South Philadelphia and Sheppard Elementary in West Kensington, would save the District a projected $850,000 and $1.2 million, respectively.

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America's rich/poor education gap | The Education Front Blog | dallasnews.com

America's rich/poor education gap | The Education Front Blog | dallasnews.com:

America's rich/poor education gap

by William McKenzie/ Editorial Columnist

The premise of Charles Murray's new book, Coming Apart, is that the upper- middle class and lower-middle class are becoming more distinct culturally as well as economically. He focuses his research primarily on white America because he contends the unhealthy gaps in our society are fueled primarily by class, not race.
A new Stanford University study offers one additional evidence about the gap being increasingly about rich and poor. Stanford researcher Sean Reardon found that the education differences between rich and poor are more acute than between races. In fact, the gap in test scores between the children of wealthier families and those of poorer families is almost twice that of the gap between Anglo and black students.
In pointing this out, I am not trying to minimize racial polarities. We regularly discuss on this blog the academic achievement differences between Anglos and minority students, especially Latinos. We will continue to spend time discussing that gap, but there is evidence that shows the divides in America are not solely because of race.
If that is the case, how do we as Americans, Texans and Dallasites respond t

Stanford study finds widening gap between rich and poor students

Analysis of standardized tests over a 50-year period shows the achievement gap between rich and poor has grown steadily.

L.A. Cicero

'It's harder to be poor in America than it used to be,' says Stanford researcher Sean Reardon.

BY BROOKE DONALD

It's long been known that the better off your family is, the better you tend to do in school.

Yet despite this knowledge – and programs to help level the playing field – the classroom achievement gap between rich and poor students has grown steadily over the past half-century, according to research by Sean Reardon, associate professor of education at Stanford.

"We had expected the relationship between family income and children's test scores to be pretty stable over time. It's a well-known fact that the two are related," Reardon said. "But the fact that the gap has grown substantially, 

Flipping the Script on Turnarounds: Why not Retain Teachers instead of Reject Them? - Living in Dialogue - Education Week Teacher

Flipping the Script on Turnarounds: Why not Retain Teachers instead of Reject Them? - Living in Dialogue - Education Week Teacher:

Anthony Cody

Anthony Cody spent 24 years working in Oakland schools, 18 of them as a science teacher at a high needs middle school. He is National Board certified, and now leads workshops with teachers focused on Project Based Learning. With education at a crossroads, he invites you to join him in a dialogue on education reform and teaching for change and deep learning. For additional information on Cody's work, visit his Web site, Teachers Lead. Or follow him on Twitter.

Flipping the Script on Turnarounds: Why not Retain Teachers instead of Reject Them?

By Anthony Cody on March 29, 2012 10:46 AM

Follow me on Twitter at @AnthonyCody

At the Education Writers Association conference on School Improvement last Saturday, I was a bit of a contrarian. Many speakers suggested we need to "break the culture" at failing schools. A number suggested that the reason federal policies were not working was because too many schools were choosing the least disruptive option from the four allowed, and therefore were not firing enough of their lackluster staff. I asked one speaker if perhaps we might rethink the need to fire so many teachers given the recent research on the negative effects turnover has on student achievement. "That depends," he replied, "on whether you think old dogs can learn new tricks."

As I described in my post Monday, the data emerging from the current generation of turnarounds, many of which have embodied this "fire and replace" approach, have been disappointing. Even defenders are backpedaling, saying we must "recalibrate expectations." Perhaps we need to do a bit more than recalibrate.

When it came to my presentation, I took a different approach from most of the turnaround experts. I started with the story of the high poverty Oakland middle school where I taught for 

From Corporate Watchdogs to Corporate Reformers | Dissident Voice

From Corporate Watchdogs to Corporate Reformers | Dissident Voice:

From Corporate Watchdogs to Corporate Reformers

by Gary Brumback

Corporate America along with its three pawns, the executive, legislative, and judicial branches of our government, are slowly driving our nation to ruination. The signs of the rot and ruin are everywhere, not just from sea to shining sea across our land but on foreign land as well. Corporate America and its pawns for self-serving purposes are directly responsible for murderous imperialism on foreign land, for America among industrialized nations having the worst socio-economic conditions, and for harming Americans sometimes fatally through the services and products they buy, the air they breathe, and the water they drink.
Government reforms would go a long way toward slowing our decline and even reversing it eventually. Government reform could take away the enormous favors it bestows on corporate America, favors sometimes so large that they keep otherwise drowning corporations afloat. But government is intransigent and will continue to be corruptible at the hands of corporate America. More attention therefore needs to be turned toward corporate reform.
Furthermore, while corporate America may be too obtuse or complacent to realize it, their own reform may be

On The Nature Of Self-Defeating Convictions

by Phil Rockstroh

Although I have resided in New York City for many years, I was born in the Deep South. On a daily basis, I negotiate Manhattan’s gridded streets and avenues, yet, in many ways, the terrain of my heart still winds like an Indian trail through a pine forest. I visit the south on a regular basis; the stain of red clay will never be scoured from my soul.
To this day, I retain close ties to a number of southern friends and contacts who did not venture far from home. As the years trundled on, I’ve witnessed the quality of life and emotional wellbeing of these friends, hailing from

The Great “What Ifs?”

by Phillip Faruggio

What if Trayvon Martin was a born again Christian white kid, and Zimmerman was a “black as the ace of spades” neighborhood watch captain? Does anyone out there think that the chain of events would have been the same? For all those white neighbors of mine who commented on the overactive crowds that rallied recently in Sanford, Florida: What if a sea of evangelist Christians and angry white folks marched and rallied over that same terrain? On the subject of  “born again Christians”?
What if Tim Tebow was a Muslim, and he, instead of Tebowing (kneeling in prayer during and before and after

Education: Seeing Through the Racket

by Joseph Grosso

Some years ago one could still hear the mirthful laughter and pitying disgust when Frank Barone (played by the late Peter Boyle), the curmudgeon father of Raymond in the sitcom Everybody Loves Raymond, having been accused of not caring about his children’s education responded in his usual cynical manner ‘Let me tell you something: Education is the biggest scam going today’. Fast forward some years later and one may be forgiven for actually giving the old man some credit for insight.
What should one think when several weeks ago officials at Claremont McKenna College admitted that for years a senior administrator had been reporting inflated SAT scores in order to boost the school’s ranking in the U.S. News & World Report annual ranking issue? Or that tuition at public college and universities has skyrocketed 40% from 2001-2006 and that a typical American college graduate leaves school with a debt of $17,500 to go with their degree?
And it’s not just at the university level. About a year ago parents of a four-year-old sued York Avenue Preschool