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Wednesday, April 18, 2012

Big Education Ape: 4-18-12 PM Tonight's Webinar: "May Day 2012 - Activism Across the Country" EDition

Big Education Ape: PARENTS CAN!:
Big Education Ape: PARENTS CAN!

Published by Coopmike48 – 7 news spotters today

I Am Byrne Creek — Whole Child Education

bigeducationape.blogspot.com - I Am Byrne Creek — Whole Child Education: I Am Byrne Creek by ASCD Whole Child Bloggers Byrne Creek Secondary School, located in Burnaby, British Columbia, is the 2012 winner of ASCD's Vision ...
coopmike48

Adopted Board Resolutions

tasanet.org - The following is a list of school districts that have adopted the Resolution Concerning High Stakes, Standardized Testing of Texas Public School Students. As of March 27, 2012, 192 districts have n...
leoniehaimson

Choice Neighborhoods - HUD

portal.hud.gov - Overview Choice Neighborhoods grants transforms distressed neighborhoods and public and assisted projects into viable and sustainable mixed-income neighborhoods by linking housing improvements with...
arneduncan

Promise Neighborhoods

ed.gov - Detailed list of the 2011 High-Scoring Promise Neighborhoods Applicants The list of applicants that scored 80 points or higher in the 2011 competition is organized by grant type (i.e., Implementati...
arneduncan

Agriculture Education Town Hall Meeting

mediasite.uwplatt.edu - Agriculture Education Town Hall Meeting “The purpose of this town hall conversation will be to engage agriculture educators and students who aspire to teach agriculture in a conversation about elev...
arneduncan

Duncan, Vilsack Highlight Need for Rural Ed Investments

governing.com - Jumpstarting the economy of rural America starts with reinvigorating the education system,  Education Secretary Arne Duncan and Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack said during the keynote address Tue...
arneduncan

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coopmike48 Missouri closing six Imagine charter school campuses - The Answer Sheet - The Washington Postwapo.st/J1CKMd5 minutes ago · reply · retweet · favorite
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coopmike48 Unions threatened with layoffs protest Villaraigosa trips out of town - latimes.com lat.ms/JjkZ8I39 minutes ago · reply · retweet · favorite
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coopmike48 Reader photos: Southern California Moments, Day 109 -latimes.com lat.ms/JjkZW839 minutes ago · reply · retweet · favorite
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arneduncan Saddened to see Pat Summitt step down. She has set a gold standard-both on & off the court-for coaches everywhere. go.usa.gov/ybs31 minutes ago · reply · retweet · favorite

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The Kids These Days, Pornography, and Pleasure

danagoldstein.net - Sasha Grey, via her Twitter feed A Cuddle Party would exist in my personal ninth circle of hell. Nevertheless, the sex/relationships guru who came up with the concept, Reid Mihalko, made some inter...
coopmike48

Livin’ like it’s 1650

dangerouslyirrelevant.org - 1650 was closer in spirit to the time we live in now than it was to 1450. The change was so enormous …but what was also clear is that there was never a moment where everybody said, “Oh I get it. Th...
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Levon Helm in 'Final Stages' of Cancer

billboard.com - Family Asks for Prayers for The Band's Last Surviving Vocalist Douglas Mason/Getty Images Levon Helm, a treasured voice in Americana music whose Southern drawl and busy-but-tight drumming brought a...
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Espacio Publicitario: P&G: Gracias, mamá | Zambombazo

zachary-jones.com - 18/04/2012 • 1:58 pmEspacio Publicitario, una actividad en la que vemos anuncios con el objetivo de desarrollar nuestras competencias lingüísticas y mediáticas. En esta edición analizaremos un emot...
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CrimeSee all

Iowa mom blames gay teen son's suicide on bullying

boston.com - PRIMGHAR, Iowa—The mother of a gay Iowa high school freshman who killed himself last weekend said she knew her son was being harassed but that she and the rest of the family didn't realize the exte...
coopmike48

NJ bully's paralyzing punch nets $4.2M settlement

boston.com - RAMSEY, N.J.—A New Jersey school district has agreed to pay $4.2 million to settle a lawsuit by a middle school student who was paralyzed when a known bully punched him in the abdomen.The settlemen...
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Contact Milestone SABIS® Academy of New Orleans

msano.sabis.net - Mailing Address: 5951 Patton Street,New Orleans, LA 70115, USA Tel: (+1 504) 894 0557 Fax: (+1 504) 894 0235     Board Members: Leslie A Ellison:                            President - Orleans Pari...
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Sacramento Press / Earth Day events in Sacramento

sacramentopress.com - This Sunday, April 22 is Earth Day—a day for appreciating and celebrating the planet we live on and meant to encourage people to give back to it. Activities surrounding Earth Day run the gambit fro...
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Schools Matter: Remember AYP? They Still Know What It Is at Fruithurst Elementary

Schools Matter: Remember AYP? They Still Know What It Is at Fruithurst Elementary:


Remember AYP? They Still Know What It Is at Fruithurst Elementary

by Jim Horn
Valerie Strauss shared this.  Hope you do, too:
 
This was written by Larry Lee of Montgomery, Alabama, former executive director of the Covington County Economic Development Commission and the West Central Partnership of Alabama. Lee, who writes often about education, sent the following email to friends and other people whom he thought would be interested. He gave me permission to publish it.

Larry Lee’s email:

Friends,
 
I have long felt that we need to have a statewide conversation about “What is education?” rather than continue to bounce from one “flavor of the month” ed reform notion to the next. And had you been with me [a week ago on] Monday, I think this point would have been made loud and clear.
 
I got up at 5 a.m. to drive 115 miles so I could be at Fruithurst Elementary in Cleburne County by 
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Modern School: The One Laptop Per Child Deception

Modern School: The One Laptop Per Child Deception:


The One Laptop Per Child Deception

by Michael Dunn

Audrey Watters, writing in Hacked Education, provides an interesting critique of the One Laptop Per Child (OLPC) movement, starting with the recent study by the Inter-American Development Bank in rural Peru which indicated that providing laptops does not improve test scores.

This should be no surprise. Test scores and academic success are influenced most significantly by socioeconomic factors that affect children well before they have even started school (see here and here), like malnutrition and poor health; exposure to smoke, lead and other environmental insults; and lack of early exposure to reading.

Nevertheless, one might wonder why anyone would believe that computer technology would provide more bang for the nonprofit buck than investing in nutrition- and poverty-reducing programs or building water treatment plants. These investments would not only save children’s lives but help improve their health and nutrition, thus reducing premature births, cognitive impairment and learning disabilities. Furthermore, when one considers that the laptops were not allowed to be taken home, that many of the families lacked electricity and internet access 
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Miami-Dade Schools to Close Two Charter Schools – Including One Which Held Late Night Adult Parties | Scathing Purple Musings

Miami-Dade Schools to Close Two Charter Schools – Including One Which Held Late Night Adult Parties | Scathing Purple Musings:


Miami-Dade Schools to Close Two Charter Schools – Including One Which Held Late Night Adult Parties

by Bob Sikes
The executive director of the Florida DOE agency which oversees state charter schools bemoans the fact that only the bad charter schools get publicity.  Michael Kooi, who was charter schools chief lobbyist before being hired by Rick Scott to oversee them, told the Tallahassee Democrat “it’s frustrating that the bad ones get the press.”
Well, the Miami-Dade School board voted unanimously to close two more of those bad ones Kooi is talking about. From the Miami Herald:
Miami-Dade School Board unanimously voted to close a charter school accused of holding raunchy late-night parties in its cafeteria.
The school, the Balere Language Academy in South Miami Heights, has the option to appeal to the state Board of Education. The school’s attorney, Marlon Hill, said they had not decided 
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Seattle Schools Community Forum: What Does the Superintendent of Public Instruction Do?

Seattle Schools Community Forum: What Does the Superintendent of Public Instruction Do?:


What Does the Superintendent of Public Instruction Do?

by Charlie Mas
According to the OSPI web page, the superintendent of public instruction:
"is the primary agency charged with overseeing K-12 public education in Washington state. Led by State School Superintendent Randy Dorn, OSPI works with the state’s 295 school districts to administer basic education programs and implement education reform on behalf of more than one million public school students."
Yeah. But what does he do?

What tasks are required by the duty to oversee K-12 public education in Washington State?
What basic education programs does the OSPI administer?
What education reform does the OSPI implement?

Honestly, I've been through the list of stuff that the OSPI is supposed to do and I'd say that about half of it looks redundant and useless and the other half looks mechanical. It looks like a bureaucracy that runs itself for little purpose other than to run itself. I doubt that the Superintendent of Public Instruction, Randy Dorn, has much 

How to Control Student Behavior

by Melissa Westbrook
The wave of stories about bullying since the beginning of the school year in this country shows no signs of stopping. 


One of the latest stories pulls back the curtain on a settlement between the district and the family of a boy who was paralyzed by a punch to the abdomen by a known bully.   (The hit to the abdomen was so severe it caused a blood clot in a major artery to his spine that left him paralyzed.)

The Ramsey Board of Education in New Jersey settled with the family for $4.2M.  The district says the settlement was "the decision" of the insurance company and that they did nothing wrong.

What?

No, the district was told how bad the evidence was against them, was counseled by the insurance company to 
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New Indicators Released to Evaluate High School Performance

New Indicators Released to Evaluate High School Performance:

New Indicators Released to Evaluate High School Performance
by Anne Hyslop


Confession: I’m a sucker for a good infographic. And today, the Strategic Data Project at Harvard (part of the Center for Education Policy Research) released three(!). As Caralee Adams reported in College Bound, the project has developed a set of performance indicators for school districts and high schools – indicators that provide insight into how well they do in preparing and sending their graduates to college. While Harvard has partnered with five specific school districts, the work could expand to more with the help of a free educator toolkit on how to better use data. The project hopes these data points will become as commonly-used (and understood) as price-to-earnings ratios in the business sector.

This is not the first time I’ve cheered (or lamented) the lack of information-sharing between K-12 and postsecondary education. As the K-12 system becomes more and more oriented around college and career readiness – through Common Core academic standards, the related PARCC and Smarter Balanced assessments, and new school accountability systems in ESEA waivers –high schools will have unprecedented



Quick Hits (4.18.12)


by Mandy Zatynski


NCLB waivers lack specifics on ELT. Expanded learning time is often listed as a possible reform strategy among the applications from the 11 first-round states granted waivers last fall to the federal No Child Left Behind law. However, a new report shows that very few, if any, states fully articulate their plans to use the extended time wisely. As Education Sector’s Elena Silva recently pointed out, extended learning time can be beneficial in academic turnaround efforts when implemented thoughtfully and deliberately, and not like a magic wand. (Center for American Progress)
Newsflash: College tuition is not what it was 40 years ago, or even 10. U.S. Rep. Virginia Foxx, R-N.C., told a radio show that she has “very little tolerance” for students who graduate with student loan debt “because 
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I Am Byrne Creek — Whole Child Education

I Am Byrne Creek — Whole Child Education:


I Am Byrne Creek

by ASCD Whole Child Bloggers
Vision in Action: The ASCD Whole Child Award
Byrne Creek Secondary School, located in Burnaby, British Columbia, is the 2012 winner of ASCD's Vision in Action: The ASCD Whole Child Award. At ASCD's Annual Conference in Philadelphia, Principal David Rawnsley accepted the award on behalf of the Byrne Creek community, and shared a student-written poem that represents the rich diversity that is so valued at the school. Here is the "I Am From" poem, in its entirety.




I am from Iran, a country with scorching hot deserts, a rich history,
colourful gardens, of roses covered with unforgiving thorns.
I am from the Pearl of the Orient Seas,
where the Sun rises from the west,
vanishes before the clock strikes—to thick puffs of gray.
I am from Kinshasa:
big city, large population, huge family.
I am simply from a quiet neighbourhood nearby.
I am from Shanghai, China,
where my



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Appeals Court Upholds Conviction of Pensacola Charter School Operator for Misusing $750,000 in State Education Funds | Scathing Purple Musings

Appeals Court Upholds Conviction of Pensacola Charter School Operator for Misusing $750,000 in State Education Funds | Scathing Purple Musings:


Appeals Court Upholds Conviction of Pensacola Charter School Operator for Misusing $750,000 in State Education Funds

by Bob Sikes
Another inconvenient reminder for Florida’s charter school cheerleaders comes in this story from the Pensacola News-Journal:
The First District Court of Appeal has denied a Pensacola businessman’s appeal of his 2010 conviction on money laundering and racketeering charges.
John Wyche was sentenced in 2011 to serve more than six years in prison for defrauding a charter school.
The appeals court didn’t issue an opinion. “They as a whole, as a group, affirmed the judgment and decision of the trial court,” Assistant State Attorney Russ Edgar said Monday.
Wyche was the director of the Life Skills Center, a charter school for underprivileged children, and 
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