voiceofsandiego.org: This Just In...

voiceofsandiego.org: This Just In...:

Bright and Early

The single classiest moment of the school board meeting last night was when Vincent Gumina, one of the student reps on the board, applauded board President Shelia Jackson and Interim Superintendent Bill Kowba for their military service. Happy Veterans Day, folks, and enjoy the newsblitz:

The San Diego Unified school board was pinching pennies left and right at their meeting last night. We blogged that they decided not to be members of a national school boards group (roughly $13,000 saved), decided not to cover the extra costs for a donated China trip for the school board president (about $800), and announced that they would "brown bag it" at meetings instead of having catered meals (priceless.)They also turned down $20,000 for an outside group to analyze uses for the school district headquarters on Normal Street. KPBS also reports on the spending cutbacks.

Continuing the blog roll, we check in on how charter schools have socked money away for a rainy day -- sometimes quite a lot of it. We also report on how the choice to delay school repairs in favor of technology and the schoobrary has angered some parents at Mission Bay High, who say their athletic fields are unsafe and should be replaced first.

Oceanside schools are limiting the number of students who can transfer out to other school districts, the North County Times reports. Keeping kids in the school district can help them save money, but will limit parents' choices.

The hard road of Michelle Rhee's CFOs - D.C. Wire -

The hard road of Michelle Rhee's CFOs - D.C. Wire -:

"D.C. Chief Financial Officer Natwar M. Gandhi named a new interim school system CFO Tuesday. Noel Bravo, a former senior budget adviser to Mayor Anthony A. Williams, replaces Noah Wepman, who resigned or was fired, depending on who you ask.

Bravo is walking into what has become one of District government's most punishing posts. Wepman's departure marks the second time on Chancellor Michelle A. Rhee's watch that the school system's top fiscal officer has left in the wake of questions about the transparency of the agency's budget process.

Wepman and his predecessor, Pamela Graham, took different paths to the exit sign. But both ultimately discovered that trying to keep the numbers straight under Rhee's high-velocity attempt at transformation can be dangerous to your career health."

Autism helper dog allowed in class, judge rules | New Orleans Pets and Animals - - NOLA.com

Autism helper dog allowed in class, judge rules New Orleans Pets and Animals - - NOLA.com:

"A judge has ruled that a first-grader in central Illinois gets to keep his autism helper dog in school.

Associated Press archiveKaleb Drew, 6, and his autism service dog, Chewey, wait to be taken out of the car after Kaleb's first day of school in Villa Grove, Ill. Judge Chris Freese sided Tuesday with the family of Kaleb Drew.

They argued that the boy's yellow Labrador retriever is a service animal allowed in schools under Illinois law, and helps keep him safe and calm in class.
The Villa Grove school district had argued the dog isn't a true service animal.

The case and a separate lawsuit involving an autistic boy in southwestern Illinois are the first challenges to a state law allowing service animals in schools."

t r u t h o u t | Education Reform: Wrong Diagnosis, So Wrong Cure

t r u t h o u t Education Reform: Wrong Diagnosis, So Wrong Cure:

"Sooner or later, a reluctant Congress is going to have to do something about replacing No Child Left Behind. If senators and representatives will listen, they'll learn why Education Secretary Arne Duncan's 'Race to the Top' initiative is a really bad idea, and why thoughtful educators think politicians, business leaders and wealthy philanthropists are bulls in the education china shop.

Back in the 1980's, corporate America, listening to privatizer Milton Friedman, came storming into the shop, not to buy, not to examine or talk about the stock, but to evict educators and take over. With the help of state governors, Congress and the mainstream media, this they did. Professional educators weren't just fired. Convinced that experienced teachers were tainted by 'the soft bigotry of low expectations,' the self-styled 'New Progressives' barred them from the premises."

GETTING PERSONAL: Gates Foundation Invests In Charter Schools - WSJ.com

GETTING PERSONAL: Gates Foundation Invests In Charter Schools - WSJ.com:

"New York (Dow Jones)--Even the country's richest foundation is looking for a way to conserve assets while using them to fulfill its charitable mission.

The Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation on Wednesday announced it is making $30 million in bond guarantees to high-performing charter schools in Houston. It is part of a new two-year, $400 million push in so-called program-related investments, which can consist of direct loans, equity investments, bond guarantees and other non-traditional forms of financial support.

The first bond guarantees are going to the Knowledge Is Power Program, or KIPP, to help its schools in Houston secure funding in tax-exempt bonds. The financing is aimed at expanding student enrollment from 4,500 in 15 schools to 21,000 students in 42 schools in the next decade. It is the first time a private foundation has backed charter school facility bonds at this scale.

Charter schools, which are publicly funded and typically employ nonunion teachers, are granted more freedom by states in curriculum and hiring but often receive nearly 40% less public funding than conventional district public schools, according to the Center for Education Reform, a Washington advocacy nonprofit."

Will a longer school day help close the achievement gap? | csmonitor.com

Will a longer school day help close the achievement gap? csmonitor.com:

"Chicago - Going to school from 8 a.m. until 5 p.m. may sound like a student's nightmare, but Sydney Shaw, a seventh-grader at the Alain Locke Charter Academy on Chicago's West Side, has come to like it – as well as the extra 20 or so days that she's in class a year.

'I'm sure every kid at this school says bad things about the schedule sometimes,' says Sydney, who was at school on Columbus Day, when most Chicago schools had a holiday. 'But deep down, we all know it's for our benefit.'

Finding ways to give kids more classroom time, through longer hours, a longer school year, or both, is getting more attention. President Obama and Education Secretary Arne Duncan support a lengthier timetable. Many education reformers agree that more time at school is a key step."

Video: National PTA and Jamba Juice Join Forces to Raise $1 Million for Schools and PTAs Nationwide

Video: National PTA and Jamba Juice Join Forces to Raise $1 Million for Schools and PTAs Nationwide:

"SAN FRANCISCO, Nov. 11 /PRNewswire-FirstCall/ -- The National PTA and Jamba Inc. announced today a three-year partnership to support parents and teachers in creating school-based programs that encourage healthy lifestyle choices. With the goal of raising $1 million to support these initiatives, the partnership between National PTA and Jamba Juice leverages the strengths of both organizations to improve the health and academic performance of the nation’s students by providing local PTAs with additional funding for their wellness programs. The partnership builds upon Jamba’s longtime commitment to supporting local schools through fundraising efforts at the store level and furthers National PTA’s mission to increase family engagement in their children’s school by providing additional funding for local PTAs to create and execute programs that promote physical activity and encourage healthier eating."

Another view: Err on the side of safety - Opinion - USATODAY.com#more

Another view: Err on the side of safety - Opinion - USATODAY.com#more:

"The recent case of Zachary Christie, the Delaware first-grader who received a 45-day suspension for eating lunch with his Cub Scout-issue Swiss Army-type knife, opened a lot of old wounds for principals who endured the zero-tolerance wars in the early part of this decade.

Our minds go back to cases of students who were expelled for taking a Tylenol or packing a knife to cut a birthday cake. How silly it all seemed then — and even more so seems now. After all, student victimization in school is at an all-time low, and schools, where young people spend large percentages of their waking hours together, provide the venue for less than 1% of youth homicides. Schools are safe. Isn't it time to declare victory and lighten up?"

Round Two In The Fight Over Outsourcing Chicago Schools | Progress Illinois

Round Two In The Fight Over Outsourcing Chicago Schools Progress Illinois:

"With less than a week to go before the Chicago Board of Education votes on whether or not to authorize six new charter schools, Chicago Public Schools (CPS) held a round of public hearings last night. School reform advocates have long complained that CPS handpicks which charters will get the green light long before the hearings begin. And the opaque nature of the process generated a lot of criticism last year. As a result, officials are treading more lightly as they move forward this year.

Unlike in the previous years of Mayor Daley's Renaissance 2010 program, only a handful of new charters are being considered this time around. Still, CPS chief Ron Huberman is recommending that an additional 8,130 charters seats be made available next fall, according to an analysis by the Caucus of Rank and File Educators (CORE). Alexander Russo reports that the established private school operators appear to have a leg-up:"

Tug of war over LA Unified reform models | 89.3 KPCC

Tug of war over LA Unified reform models 89.3 KPCC:


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"Groups that want to take over governance of several dozen Los Angeles Unified schools have less than a week to apply. The process is part of a major policy change approved three months ago to improve education by handing over control of up to 300 low-performing and new campuses to groups that submit reform plans.

A coalition of education-focused nonprofits, including one headed by Veronica Melvyn, staged a press conference outside United Teachers Los Angeles headquarters on busy Wilshire Boulevard. She described how people at dozens of L.A. Unified campuses are trying to sully the name of proposed school reform models."

"It’s essentially that parents are being told, for example, that charter schools are private schools, that charter schools don’t serve special ed kids," said Melvyn. "We’ve heard, for example, that they’ll be deported if they sign a charter school petition. We’ve heard on the Pilot Schools that teachers have no rights when they’re part of a Pilot Schools agreement. We even heard something that went so far as to say that charter schools don’t educate black students."

Melvyn’s group and several others at the press conference support all these models. These groups spoke with reporters at about the same time the teachers union also planned to talk to journalists about their effort to submit reform plans for several dozen schools.

LA group says flier threatened school reformers

LA group says flier threatened school reformers:

"Los Angeles school reform supporters and the teachers' union are condemning a flier that falsely warns immigrant parents they'll be deported for supporting a charter school expansion."

No one has claimed credit for distributing the flier, the latest development in a push to turn a third of the campuses in the nation's second-largest school district over to private operators.

Jarad Sanchez of the pro-reform Alliance for a Better Community said Tuesday that one person recently turned in a Spanish-language flier warning that parents who signed a charter petition would be deported.

Sanchez says it's unclear how many fliers were distributed but notes many illegal immigrants would be afraid to speak up.

The flier also was condemned by the United Teachers Los Angeles, which opposes the reform plan.


Read more: http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/n/a/2009/11/10/state/n101042S35.DTL&type=politics#ixzz0WZ40W7SA

Shift to year-round school calendar | detnews.com | The Detroit News

Shift to year-round school calendar detnews.com The Detroit News:

"Idea 36: Free Michigan's schools to set up a year-round calendar.
Why: The 10-week vacation from mid-June through the end of August hurts learning and doesn't make students competitive globally with counterparts who have a longer school year. Students tend to lose a month's worth of learning during the summer, according to a Duke neuroscience professor. Students from low-income or second-language families can lose even more learning. The practice is an outdated tradition that traces back to when children were needed on the farm in the summer. More schools are embracing the a year-round school calendar -- about 3,000 nationally teaching 2.1 million students in 2006-07, according to the National Association for Year-Round Education."

From Consumers to Critics and Creators | Edutopia

From Consumers to Critics and Creators Edutopia:

"For many students, what happens in the traditional American classroom is boring. Small wonder, when you compare such relatively inanimate stuff as pencil-and-paper-bound reading, writing, and math drills to the media mix of mind-bending imagery and hair-raising sound that consumes most of their waking hours outside school.

A recent study, 'Generation M: Media in the Lives of 8- to 18-Year-Olds,' found that students in grades 3-12 spend an average of six hours and twenty-one minutes plugged in to some type of media each day. Accounting for multitasking, the figure jumps to about eight and a half hours including nearly four hours of TV viewing and forty-nine minutes of video game play. Comparatively, homework gets slightly less than fifty minutes of attention."

VETERANS DAY, 2009

VETERANS DAY, 2009
BY THE PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA

A PROCLAMATION

We have a sacred trust with those who wear the uniform of the United States of America. From the Minutemen who stood watch over Lexington and Concord to the service members who served in Iraq and Afghanistan, American veterans deserve our deepest appreciation and respect. Our Nation’s servicemen and women are our best and brightest, enlisting in times of peace and war, serving with honor under the most difficult circumstances, and making sacrifices that many of us cannot begin to imagine. Today, we reflect upon the invaluable contributions of our country’s veterans and reaffirm our commitment to provide them and their families with the essential support they were promised and have earned.

Caring for our veterans is more than a way of thanking them for their service. It is an obligation to our fellow citizens who have risked their lives to defend our freedom. This selflessness binds our fates with theirs, and recognizing those who were willing to give their last full measure of devotion for us is a debt of honor for every American.

We also pay tribute to all who have worn the uniform and continue to serve their country as civilians. Many veterans act as coaches, teachers, and mentors in their communities, selflessly volunteering their time and expertise. They visit schools to tell our Nation’s students of their experiences and help counsel our troops returning from the theater of war.

These men and women possess an unwavering belief in the idea of America: no matter where you come from, what you look like, or who your parents are, this is a place where anything is possible. Our veterans continue to stand up for those timeless American ideals of liberty, self-determination, and equal opportunity.

On Veterans Day, we honor the heroes we have lost, and we rededicate ourselves to the next generation of veterans by supporting our Soldiers, Sailors, Airmen, Marines, and Coast Guardsmen as they return home from duty. Our grateful Nation must keep our solemn promises to these brave men and women and their families. They have given their unwavering devotion to the American people, and we must keep our covenant with them.

With respect for and in recognition of the contributions our servicemen and women have made to the cause of peace and freedom around the world, the Congress has provided (5 U.S.C. 6103(a)) that November 11 of each year shall be set aside as a legal public holiday to honor our Nation’s veterans.

NOW, THEREFORE, I, BARACK OBAMA, President of the United States of America, do hereby proclaim November 11, 2009, as Veterans Day. I encourage all Americans to recognize the valor and sacrifice of our veterans through appropriate public ceremonies and private prayers. I call upon Federal, State, and local officials to display the flag of the United States and to participate in patriotic activities in their communities. I call on all Americans, including civic and fraternal organizations, places of worship, schools, and communities to support this day with commemorative expressions and programs.

IN WITNESS WHEREOF, I have hereunto set my hand this thirtieth day of October, in the year of our Lord two thousand nine, and of the Independence of the United States of America the two hundred and thirty-fourth.

BARACK OBAMA

Parents, teachers press Lansing to restore education funding | detnews.com | The Detroit News

Parents, teachers press Lansing to restore education funding detnews.com The Detroit News:

"Lansing --Pressure surrounding the largest school cuts ever boiled over in Lansing on Tuesday as lawmakers continued their stalemate on how to fund schools and parents and educators swarmed the capital in anticipation of massive reductions in their December school aid checks.

While lawmakers remain polarized over more than $600 million in cuts to K-12 schools, districts already are dismantling programs in anticipation. Dearborn, for instance, voted Tuesday to cut 200 noninstructional employees on Dec. 1 and 100 teachers in January. The Royal Oak district has said it will use federal stimulus cash to ride out this year, but on Thursday the school board will decide on a possible $780,000 cut to special education programs for the 2010-11 school year."

Duncan's raison d'etre for reform

Duncan's raison d'etre for reform:

"Humans are fallible and have a tendency to repeat past failures. Education is no exception. The pendulum of reform has had its swing back and forth over the decades with minimal progress. Secretary of Education Arne Duncan is taking the bull by the horns, purporting that the very teachers, who have entrusted him as their chief, are not to be trusted to do the proper job without close supervision, re-training, and additional monetary rewards. He calls for scrutiny, an uphauling of current educational institutions by employing a trace back system that will mark the culprit, the raison d'etre for the failure of our children.

Duncan's tough, paternal scolding sends a clear message: teachers beware."

Pittsburgh proposes tuition tax | Philadelphia Inquirer | 11/11/2009

Pittsburgh proposes tuition tax Philadelphia Inquirer 11/11/2009:

"A 1 percent tuition tax proposed Monday by Pittsburgh Mayor Luke Ravenstahl is just a nibble compared with the bite that college fees and tuition hikes take out of student and parent wallets, he argued yesterday.

Ravenstahl's attack on tuition and fee hikes came hours after eight leaders of local postsecondary schools gathered to blast the mayor's higher-education tax plan, saying it was illegal and would hurt the institutions' competitiveness. Ravenstahl said that if there was a competitiveness issue, it was the schools' fault."

Carol Ann Maranto, 1949-2009: Special education teacher, administrator -- chicagotribune.com

Carol Ann Maranto, 1949-2009: Special education teacher, administrator -- chicagotribune.com:

"Carol Ann Maranto worked in the special education program at Proviso East High School in Maywood for 33 years, helping hundreds of developmentally challenged teenagers find jobs and a future.

Ms. Maranto, 60, died of complications from ovarian cancer on Wednesday, Nov. 4, in West Suburban Medical Center in Oak Park, her home town, said her sister Rose Marie Anichini.

With a degree in psychology from Eastern Illinois University, Ms. Maranto started her career at Proviso East in 1971 as a resource teacher, working with small groups of students. She found strong support in the school district for the special education department and enjoyed the work, her sister said."

New Haven Independent | Parents Challenged To Join Reform Drive

New Haven Independent Parents Challenged To Join Reform Drive:

"As parents leaped into New Haven’s ambitious school change campaign, Tesha Todman offered suggestions: Dock students’ grades if their parents don’t show up to report card night. And make the parents learn to use computers.

“There needs to be some kind of consequences” for parents who don’t get involved, she argued. “They make it too easy for parents not to come out.”"

Todman (at left in photo) the suggestion as she joined about 100 other parents at Wilbur Cross High School Thursday night. Two parents from each city school were summoned there by the schools superintendent to revive the Citywide Parent Teacher Organization, which fizzled in the mid-1990s.

Also Thursday, officials announced that two parents, Mary Rosario and Erik Clemons (LEAP’s executive director), have been named to the committee that’s overseeing the mayor’s school reform drive.

Taken together, the two developments marked another front in New Haven’s fast-developing, nationally-watched reform campaign:

Involving, and setting high expectations for, parents.

New York flunks GED: HS equivalency exam pass rate is shameful last in nation

New York flunks GED: HS equivalency exam pass rate is shameful last in nation:

"It is a shame of the Empire State: New York ranks dead last in the percentage of test-takers who pass the exam for a general equivalency diploma.

This is a huge problem in a city where 1.6 million young men and women are no longer in school and lack a high school diploma. For them, as well as for adult learners and immigrants, getting a GED is a crucial milestone on the way to getting a job, entering college or joining the military.

But the state Education Department funnels GED-testing money to schools, libraries and nonprofits with scant or nonexistent quality control."