City to study ways to improve food system - Crain's New York Business

City to study ways to improve food system - Crain's New York Business:

"While public officials repeatedly talk about reducing greenhouse gas emissions and creating jobs in New York, the city's public schools spend nearly $300,000 a year on Romaine lettuce trucked in from California and Maryland.

That's one of the many inconsistencies between political rhetoric and reality that City Council Speaker Christine Quinn hopes to eliminate with a comprehensive reform of city food policy. On Monday she announced a six-month effort to examine the local food system and recommend improvements.

In the case of Romaine lettuce, that could involve building a plant in the city to wash, cut and bag lettuce so it is eligible for purchase by the Department of Education. Jobs would be created at the plant and at farms upstate, and emissions from transporting the lettuce would be reduced."

Sacramento business owners, developers back Kerridge - Sacramento City News - sacbee.com

Sacramento business owners, developers back Kerridge - Sacramento City News - sacbee.com:

"Sacramento's business leaders love the job City Manager Ray Kerridge is doing. They aren't so sure about the City Council.

A letter signed by nearly 60 developers and business owners will be delivered today to Mayor Kevin Johnson and the City Council expressing support for Kerridge and concern that 'petty politics' on the council will hinder the city's drive out of economic turmoil.

The letter was the product of a closed-door meeting last week called by members of the business community.

They expressed concerns that a recent city building department scandal and infighting within the City Council would result in the reversal of city development policies designed to streamline development."

Sacramento Press / A Look Back: Mayor Johnson- Transparency and Accountability -- or Propaganda?

Sacramento Press / A Look Back: Mayor Johnson- Transparency and Accountability -- or Propaganda?:

"A Look Back: Year One: Mayor Johnson's First 12 Months of Propaganda

The first of several parts in response to Mayor Johnson's recent evaluation of his first year in office.

Part One — Effective Government and Accountability — or Propaganda?"

Propaganda as described by Wikipedia: Propaganda is a form of communication aimed at influencing the attitude of a community toward some cause or position. As opposed to impartially providing information, propaganda in its most basic sense, presents information primarily to influence an audience. Propaganda often presents facts selectively (thus lying by omission) to encourage a particular synthesis, or uses loaded messages to produce an emotional rather than rational response to the information presented. The desired result is a change of the attitude toward the subject in the target audience to further a political agenda.

Mayor Kevin Johnson has continued to be a disappointment throughout his first year as mayor of Sacramento. While running for office, he promised transparency. Unfortunately the mayor is transparent in the sense we can see right through his propaganda. Sadly the mayor is not appearing accountable to provide the people of Sacramento a mayor of truth and integrity.

As I read the mayor's blog submission "Year One and A Look Back: Mayor Johnson's First 12 Months," I grew greatly disappointed seeing our mayor blatantly omit truth to communicate with us in a manner that insults and underestimates our intelligence. Below are segments from Johnson's blog posting and the obvious propaganda techniques he uses to sway and influence public interest and opinion. It is my hope that Johnson will learn his fastest move is our slowest, and he should pump his brakes, slow his roll and put as much focus and concern into becoming a world-class, first-tier classy mayor prior to attempting to make Sacramento a world-class city. If a city is a reflection of its mayor, Sacramento is in a world of trouble.

State Laws on Family Engagement in Education | PTA

State Laws on Family Engagement in Education PTA

National PTA developed this publication as a tool for State PTAs and other family and child advocates to increase systemic, effective family engagement in all of our nation’s public schools. Family engagement in education is a critical strategy for ensuring students’ academic achievement, graduation from high school, and overall success in life. Low levels of family engagement in schools must be addressed at the federal, state, and local levels through the development of sound public policy and implementation, evaluation, and replication of best practices.

Implementation of state policies at the local school level is among the most critical components of achieving greater family engagement in education by requiring State Education Agencies (SEAs) to develop effective policy that, in turn, governs activities of the Local Education Agencies (LEAs), or school districts.

The purpose of this reference guide is two-fold:

It provides families and advocates with information on family engagement provisions within state education laws so that they can better advocate for their children’s education on the school and district levels.

It guides policymakers’ and advocates’ development of their legislative reform initiatives as well as their efforts to monitor the implementation of laws already in place.

The reference guide provides key facts, background, analysis, noteworthy statutes, and policy recommendations for crafting successful family engagement legislation at the state level. Finally, the reference guide contains a survey of laws including legal citations pertaining to family engagement in education in all fifty states and the District of Columbia.

PTA Resources

State Laws on Family Engagement in Education

Downloadable PDF of PTA's State Laws on Family Engagement Report (full version, 2.5 MB)

The Education Report

The Education Report

Former Oakland school board member dies at 34
By Katy Murphy

Jason Hodge, the youngest person to win a seat on the Oakland school board, died unexpectedly yesterday at age 34. His cause of death was unavailable.

Hodge, a 1992 Skyline High School graduate, was first elected to the board in 1996 at age 21 and served two terms. He later became the public information officer for Vallejo City Unified.

You can read the Tribune story about him here.

"WHAT'S THIS MEDIA WORLD COMING TO?" - THE DAILY RIFF - Be Smarter. About Education.

"WHAT'S THIS MEDIA WORLD COMING TO?" - THE DAILY RIFF - Be Smarter. About Education.:

"WHAT'S THIS MEDIA WORLD COMING TO?"

"Cable & bloggers talking about education? That's supposed to be reserved for me and the "chosen few"! Don't you think? Cheers." - Dr. D.

"The Brookings Institute Spars with Edu-Blogger


The Brookings Institute raised the ire of education blogger and journalist Alexander Russo, about a report released and presented this week offering 'creative solutions to improve education reporting and to promote quality public discourse.'"

Russo pulled the first punch:

"Perhaps it's the fact that, while I admire Russ Whitehurst and EJ Dionne greatly, I don't think of either of them as particularly expert on the topic of education journalism. These are not folks who've thought long and hard about this issue, or whose knowledge is particularly deep.

Or maybe it's that the panelists they've gathered for the event include two esteemed former journalists (Richard Colvin and Dale Mezzacappa) whom I would describe as traditional if not downright reactionary in their views on new media such as blogs, plus a think tank guy (Andy Rotherham) who until recently didn't even allow reader comments on his blog. (Still no response, by the way.)Most problematic of all, there's no one currently in a newsroom involved on the panel, nor anyone with a strong background in new media."

Education Week: Philly Students Plan Walkout in Wake of Attacks

Education Week: Philly Students Plan Walkout in Wake of Attacks:

"Philadelphia

Some Philadelphia high school students say they fear for their safety after a series of assaults last week and won't be attending classes.

The president of the Chinese American Student Association at South Philadelphia High School said Sunday that students will meet elsewhere during school hours this week.
Wei Chen says the group will continue to talk with district officials.

Tensions between black and Asian students at the school erupted in assaults last week. Ten students were suspended and several sought medical treatment."

Education Week: Unproved Early-Reading Program Likely to Prevail

Education Week: Unproved Early-Reading Program Likely to Prevail:

"Early Reading First never attracted the same attention as its cousin, Reading First, and proof of its effectiveness is elusive, but advocates of early-childhood education hope the federal government will continue to build on what participants in the grant program have learned."

When Congress zeroed out funding for Reading First—the program authorized by the No Child Left Behind Act for K-3 pupils primarily in disadvantaged schools—it increased spending for Early Reading First, which targets 3- and 4-year-olds from low-income families. Reading First received $1 billion per year at its peak, but it was plagued by conflict-of-interest charges, and Congress eliminated funding for it in fiscal 2009. That same year, Early Reading First received $112 million. The Obama administration requested $162.5 million, an increase of $50 million, for the 2010 budget for the early-childhood program.

Education Week: Four Flawed Assumptions of School Reform

Education Week: Four Flawed Assumptions of School Reform:

"The good news: Despite the economic downturn, the U.S. Department of Education is stoking the development of a multitude of initiatives that might help improve schools. The bad news: Many of those initiatives still focus on the same flawed assumptions that have undermined education reform efforts for years. These assumptions reflect a simplistic view of what it takes to improve schools, and they contribute to the repeated failure to address the basic conditions needed to sustain long-lasting improvements in schooling."

Education Week: Study Eyes Effect of Extra Learning Time on Scores

Education Week: Study Eyes Effect of Extra Learning Time on Scores:

"The first national database of schools that have added learning time to their schedules, which was set for release this week, suggests that the extra time might play a role in boosting middle and high school achievement.

The National Center on Time & Learning, which assembled and analyzed the database, found a moderate association between increased time and how well students did on their states’ standardized English and mathematics tests compared with their peers in nearby schools on regular schedules"

Harlem's Education Experiment Gone Right - 60 Minutes - CBS News

Harlem's Education Experiment Gone Right - 60 Minutes - CBS News:

"(CBS) For years, educators have tried and failed to get poor kids from the inner city to do just as well in school as kids from America's more affluent suburbs. Black kids still routinely score well below white kids on national standardized tests.

But a man named Geoffrey Canada may have figured out a way to close that racial achievement gap. What he's doing has been called one of the most ambitious social experiments to alleviate poverty of our lifetime. His laboratory is a 97-block neighborhood in Harlem, which he has flooded with a wide array of social, medical and educational services available for free to the 10,000 children who live there. It is called the 'Harlem Children's Zone.'"

Watch CBS News Videos Online

An Important Message About Education from a sixth grader to President Obama

Watch eleven year old Ethan Matsuda tell the president about the horrific cuts to public education and how going to war in Afghanistan will drain resources away from investing in America's children. As Ethan says, "There's nothing left to cut, Mr. President.." Please forward this far and wide.

This video was made by Ethan Matsuda, who won a CTA Peace and Justice Caucus Youth Activism four years ago when he was in second grade, for his book, The North Pole is Melting, about Global Warming. The next year he wrote The Easter Bunny Breaks His Leg (and has no health insurance).

Back to the Land - And the Pursuit of Happiness Blog - NYTimes.com

Back to the Land - And the Pursuit of Happiness Blog - NYTimes.com

To Write About Curriculum, Reporters Need Classroom Access - Curriculum Matters - Education Week

To Write About Curriculum, Reporters Need Classroom Access - Curriculum Matters - Education Week:

"A former reporter at the Philadelphia Inquirer remarked to my colleague Lesli Maxwell that for journalists to better cover classroom issues in schools, they need to have better access to classrooms. Lesli included the views of Dale Mezzacappa in a story about a report by the Brookings Institution that documents a lack of education stories on the front pages of mainstream newspapers nationwide. The report also concludes that education gets scant attention in the top news stories produced by radio and television reporters.

Mezacappa's remarks resonated with me because I've found that the ability I have to provide examples of how a school's curriculum plays out in the classroom depends on whether I'm permitted to spend a lot of time observing in classrooms."

Interests and Assessment Map - Parent Driven Schools

Interests and Assessment Map - Parent Driven Schools:

"The Interests and Abilities Map is a tool that students and their parents can use to better understand the student’s unique profile of interests, skills, challenges, potential and opportunities.
The IAM empowers the student in the setting and achieving of his or her own educational goals.

Shared with a parent, it can provide the basis for nurturing the child's unique gifts, challenges and interests.

Shared with a teacher, it can become the basis for indivdualizing the educational experience to meet the unique needs of the student."

The Educated Guess » State Board to consider regs for revoking charters

The Educated Guess » State Board to consider regs for revoking charters:

"The State Board of Education is the latest to weigh in with a proposal to weed out low-performing charter schools. It joins the Senate and the Assembly, whose Race to the Top bills differ on the right approach.

Even charter school advocates, including the California Charter Schools Association, agree that mediocre charter schools are undermining the case for expanding successful charters. Their low test scores feed arguments of charter opponents, who cite numbers showing that, on average, charters aren’t outperforming district schools."

The issue has gained importance, because U.S. Secretary of Education Arne Duncan is using the $4.3 billion Race to the Top competition as leverage to push the expansion of high-performing charter schools. In response, both Senate and Assembly bills – SBX5-1 and ABX5-8 – would remove California’s limit of 100 new charters per year. While doing so would have no practical effect – the annual cap has never been reached, and unused numbers accumulate – its elimination would earn a few points on California’s Race to the Top application.

Assuming there are no financial irregularities and other problems, charter schools are entitled to have their charters renewed if they satisfy one of several criteria. They include reaching their API targets for the previous year; ranking in the fourth decile or higher for schools with similar demographics; or having API scores that are as high as those of neighborhood district schools. In a district like Los Angeles Unified, that last criteria can be a very low bar.

Chartering authorities – mostly local districts and county offices of education – have the responsibility for renewing and revoking charters. At its Dec. 15 meeting, the State Board of Education will take up proposed regulations would allow the board to intervene and revoke a charter of a school that fails to meet

voiceofsandiego.org

voiceofsandiego.org:

Bright and Early

"Water is falling from the sky. Do not panic. Or if you must, go into your underground bunker and soothe yourself with education news. It's the daily newsblitz!"

•We blog that the people who are helping oversee the $2.1 billion school construction bond for San Diego Unified are going to hold bond auditors to a higher standard after hearing from an outside nonprofit, which alleges that the auditor just hired by the school district has skimped on audits elsewhere.

The Union-Tribune wrote an editorial on it this weekend, too.

•If you missed it on Friday, guest blogger Jim Miller argued that the changes California is trying to make to become more competitive for a second dose of school stimulus dollars are "punitive and ill-considered."

We'll have another viewpoint on the stimulus money today -- stay tuned!

“Guilty As Charged” | Today's Cliche - Marriage, Family, & Work... from BOTH Women's and Men's Perspectives.

“Guilty As Charged” Today's Cliche - Marriage, Family, & Work... from BOTH Women's and Men's Perspectives.:

"Guilty, Guilty, and Guilty

Invincible: What I now admit to thinking when I was as a teenager.

Invincible: What I admit to still be thinking (?) as an adult.

I mean, what ELSE can logically explain how — for some reason — I conceive that there will be no repercussions, each time I text a ‘quick’ response on my iPhone while traveling 75 miles an hour on the beltway?

Don’t you hear the same echo that I do in my head: “C’mon… I just need to look down for one second… one second“?! It’s tempting, isn’t it?"

California Learning Resource Network (CLRN)

California Learning Resource Network (CLRN):

"CLRN makes it easy for you to find the standards-aligned software, video and Internet learning resources you need. CLRN experts have identified, reviewed and organized hundreds of Electronic Learning Resources (ELRs) in a searchable database that allows you to compare key features of selected resources. The Web Information Links (WILs) let you search or browse hundreds of free primary, secondary and reference resources. Electronic Learning Assessment Resources (ELARs) are data management programs that simplify delivery, aggregation and disaggregation of assessment data."

t r u t h o u t | David Bacon | The Human Face of Budget Cuts

t r u t h o u t David Bacon The Human Face of Budget Cuts:

"Oakland, California - Cesar Cota was the first in his family to attend college. 'Now it's hard to achieve my dream,' he says, 'because the state put higher fees on us, and cut services and classes.' Cota, a student at Los Angeles City College, was encouraged by the internship program of the LA College Faculty Guild to describe the human cost of budget cuts in the community college system."
David Robinson, who's worked since he was 14, hoped he'd get automotive mechanic training, and a good job at the end of it. "But by cutting these programs and raising fees," he says, "you're cutting opportunity for a lot of people who need it."


Another endangered student is Tina Vinaja, a mother of three teenagers whose husband took a weekend job to help pay her tuition hikes. Monica Mejia, a single mom, wants to get out of the low-wage trap. "Without community college," she says, "I'll end up getting paid minimum wage. I can't afford the fee hikes. I can barely make ends meet now."