Big Education Ape

Monday, February 1, 2010

Act Now To Help Save Education Jobs

In his State of the Union Address, President Obama called on Congress to send him a new jobs bill to sign. He said it should be “our number-one focus in 2010.” The House of Representatives has already passed the NEA-supported Jobs for Main Street Act, which would save or create hundreds of thousands of education jobs, and provide a critical infusion of funds into struggling communities.

Now, it is the Senate’s turn.

The NEA urges the Senate to, at minimum, support the Jobs for Main Street Act as passed by the House. Some points to consider:

Quick action is needed. State budget outlooks for 2010 and 2011 look bleak, and governors and state legislatures have already begun to grapple with this budget crisis. Take a look at how much funding your state will lose once the stimulus legislation expires, unless Congress provides more funding in a jobs bill.
In addition to $4 billion for school construction, the bill includes an Education Jobs Fund — $23 billion that will help states retain or create an estimated 250,000 education jobs over the next two years. This fund will have an immediate impact. Take a look at how many education jobs the House-passed bill will save in your state.
This important legislation represents a critical step in helping stimulate economic recovery. Public education is the best investment—both in the short term and long term—for our economy, our schools, and our students.

Your quick action will make a difference. Contact your senators today and urge them to pass a jobs package that includes, at a minimum, the investments in education provided in the House-passed bill.

The Educated Guess: Model by example: close failing charter schools

The Educated Guess

Model by example: close failing charter schools

Posted in Charters

Russlynn Ali, one of several California expats in key positions in the U.S. Department of Education, praised and chided charter school reformers in a talk in San Jose.
She said that school districts should be partnering with charters as “labs of innovation we all can learn from.” What distinguishes effective charter schools are commonsense strategies – “more time on task, more parental involvement, strong leadership,” she said Saturday. But Ali, the assistant secretary of education for civil rights, also called for authorizers of charter school to be more resolute in shutting down schools that aren’t showing academic success. (Read more and comment on this post)

By John Fensterwald on February 1st, 2010

Equal treatment for special-needs students in short supply at New Orleans public schools | New Orleans Metro Education News - - NOLA.com

A report presented to the state board of education last week shows wide, and stubborn, gaps in the number of students with special needs at the city's public schools -- particularly the independently operated charter schools.

At some Recovery School District charter schools, less than 4 percent of the students have special needs, while at others upwards of 15 percent do. On average, about 8 percent of the Recovery School District's charter students are classified as special-needs, while 12 percent are in that group at the district's non-charter schools. If distributed evenly, each school would have about 10 percent.

"While I strongly support charters, I will not hesitate to recommend non-renewal if a charter has not made significant progress at admitting its fair share of special ed students," said Recovery School District Superintendent Paul Vallas.

Advocates say they still routinely hear stories from families who were discouraged from applying at individual charter schools, or were "counseled out" once there.

"This is just flat-out discrimination, and it flies in the face of the idea of school choice and equal access to education," said Thena Robinson, an attorney at the Southern Poverty Law Center.

But many educators note that because parents can apply to virtually any public school in the city, some degree of variation is inevitable.

"We don't want to send a message that a school has to have X percentage," said Kathy Kilgore, director of the SUNS (Serving the Unique Needs of Students) Center. "Then what does a school do if it doesn't meet its numbers? You can't grow your own kids."

The report, prepared by state education officials, looked only at the Recovery School District charter schools. The district's 33 traditional schools and 37 charter schools must accept any child, regardless of need, from severely autistic children who require a full-time aide to students with speech impairments.

Discrepancies also exist in the percentages of special education students at the RSD's non-charter schools. But only one non-charter, a high-school program in its first year, has fewer than 6 percent special-needs students, compared to 11 charters.

At the Orleans Parish School Board's charter and traditional schools, the numbers range from 16 percent students with special-needs at Bethune Elementary to just over 1 percent at Franklin High School. But unlike the Recovery School District, where all the schools are open enrollment, several of the school board's charter schools, like Franklin, have established admissions criteria making apples-to-apples comparisons difficult.

Caroline Roemer-Shirley, executive director of the Louisiana Association of Public Charter Schools, said schools with low percentages of special-education students are not necessarily behaving inappropriately or turning away students. For various reasons, they might not attract high numbers of children with special needs or, like Crocker Arts and Technology School, are relatively new and serve students only in the youngest grades.

Bonus pay stokes anger �| ajc.com

Bonus pay stokes anger �| ajc.com:

"Top investment staffers at the Georgia Teachers Retirement System received pay increases of up to $108,000 last fiscal year even though the fund they manage lost money and most state employees went without raises amid the state’s fiscal crisis."

The staffers earned “incentive pay” because, while the system’s fund lost 13 percent in fiscal 2009 and 3 percent in fiscal 2008, it beat the market averages. The fund has since recovered part of its losses, and retirement system officials say such “incentive pay” is common in the public and private sectors.

Some state retirement systems around the country have done away with bonuses under political pressure in recent years. And retirees and a teacher group say the incentives suggest system officials are out-of-touch at a time when educators and other state employees are going without raises and being furloughed.

“This issue reminds me of Wall Street financial investors giving themselves outlandish bonuses while the people they are basically working for suffer,” said Carol Brown, a Kennesaw retiree who taught for 30 years in Marietta andCherokee County schools.

In total, 28 investment staffers received $435,000 in incentive pay in fiscal 2009, which ended June 30. The top investment staffers are among the best-paid employees in state government.

A year of living on the edge for CPS boss Huberman :: CHICAGO SUN-TIMES :: Education

A year of living on the edge for CPS boss Huberman :: CHICAGO SUN-TIMES :: Education:

"CPS BOSS | Each day, Ron Huberman gears up for 'unprecedented challenges' as he tries to bring a 'culture of calm,' raise performance and rescue system from budget disaster"

Seated among a circle of kids from Julian High School, Chicago Public Schools CEO Ron Huberman has become the student.

Dressed in crisp business attire amid jeans and gym shoes, Huberman brainstorms how to bring a "culture of calm" to troubled schools -- part of an anti-violence campaign that has brought him national attention.

"Who's got some ideas?" Huberman asks, pen and note paper at the ready.
By the end of the session, Huberman ticks off a string of student names and, like an A student, shares "what I learned today" from each.
Though he hit the one-year mark last week as CEO of the nation's third-largest school system, 38-year-old Ron Huberman is still doing his homework.
The man Mayor Daley tapped as his chief of staff, head of the Office of Emergency Management and CTA president has already tackled some stiff assignments at the Chicago Public Schools. He's still working on others.
But his toughest tasks may still be ahead, including:
• A looming, record budget deficit of up to $900 million -- nearly twice the size of the hole Huberman plugged last year.
• Talking concession with unions, including furlough days -- at $10

AVID classes push students to reach full potential | News | News from Fort Worth, Dallas...

ARLINGTON -- Students can't help but think of college when they step inside the AVID classroom at Carter Junior High in Arlington.

Brightly colored pennants from schools in Texas and beyond decorate the walls. To help students get there, class time is filled with study skills, testing strategies, critical-thinking exercises and tutoring.

The nationally known system, called Advancement Via Individual Determination, takes students who finished elementary school in the middle of the pack and pushes them to excel in more challenging classes. They start taking AVID as an elective in junior high and middle school and continue through high school.

As it has expanded during the last few years, Arlington administrators said they have seen AVID work time and time again. It helps students who might have floated through secondary school without failing but never realizing their potential, they said.

"We can put them on the college track," said Linda Rodgers, coordinator of secondary special populations for Arlington. "It's their choice what they do with it, but it's our job as educators to give them that choice."

AVID was developed by a public school teacher in 1980. It's in more than 4,000 schools nationwide; 75 are in Tarrant County, including in Fort Worth, Crowley, Mansfield and the Birdville school district.

ESCONDIDO: Guys Read, and like it, in middle school literacy program

ESCONDIDO: Guys Read, and like it, in middle school literacy program:

"Boys will be boys, but that doesn't mean they can't appreciate a good read.

At two middle schools in Escondido, boys are taking one lunch break a week to read and discuss books, stories, graphic novels and even song lyrics with one another and two adult volunteers.

'I joined it because I was interested in the articles they had to read,' said Del Dios eighth-grader Jose Agundez. 'It's pretty chill. All my friends are here.'

His eighth-grade friend, Ezequiel Ramirez, said he didn't like reading before joining the group.

'This makes it fun,' he said. 'They make you understand the stories.'"

Phila. teachers jittery over school-overhaul plans | Philadelphia Inquirer | 02/01/2010

Phila. teachers jittery over school-overhaul plans | Philadelphia Inquirer | 02/01/2010:

"Upon learning that University City High School was on the list for radical changes, one teacher described the mood as 'pretty gloomy.'

'It's like someone died,' said Jeffrey Rosenberg, a gym teacher and athletic director who has spent 15 years at the school. 'Our heads are spinning.'

The atmosphere wasn't much better at the Douglass School in North Philadelphia, which has had seven principals in the last seven years.

'Some people are very sad; some are saying maybe it won't happen,' said Betsy Wice, a retired reading specialist who returns every day to volunteer at the elementary school where she taught for 20 years. 'People are sort of clutching at straws.'"

New city school class features black literature

New city school class features black literature:

"Life in late 17th century America wasn't as simple as black or white, slave or free.

Native American servants, indentured Europeans, mail-order brides and free blacks were part of the mix, too.

Nobel laureate Toni Morrison captured the different voices in her 2008 novel 'A Mercy,' one of the works Pittsburgh Public Schools students will study in a new black literature course to debut in the fall.

The course will be offered to seniors at all high schools. Seniors may take the new course, an Advanced Placement English course or the standard 12th-grade English, which includes black authors.

'I think what is different for us is that we're offering it as a core course. Many districts offer it as an elective,' said Diane Carroll, a curriculum specialist who is part of the team writing the new course."

Union officials are disturbingly inflexible toward charter schools - washingtonpost.com

IT IS HARD to square the words of American Federation of Teachers (AFT) President Randi Weingarten with the actions of many of her union's officials. Even as Ms. Weingarten issues stirring calls for new ways of thinking, labor leaders in places such as New York use their political muscle to block important reforms. Perhaps they don't think that she means business, or maybe they don't care; either way, it is the interests of students that are being harmed.

The United Federation of Teachers (UFT), the AFT affiliate that represents teachers in New York City, led the opposition to legislation favored by Gov. David A. Paterson (D) that would have lifted the state's cap on charter schools. Mr. Paterson, backed by New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg, had hoped to better position the state for up to $700 million in federal education dollars. The Obama administration has made clear that states that deny parents choice in where their children go to school by limiting the growth of these increasingly popular independent public schools will be penalized in the national competition for $4.35 billion in Race to the Top funds.
UFT officials were willing to lift the cap but -- saying more accountability and transparency are needed -- insisted on restrictions apt to have discouraged growth. The

States to government: hands off education - Yahoo! News

States to government: hands off education - Yahoo! News:

"WASHINGTON (Reuters) – As the U.S. government discusses reauthorizing a sweeping education law and prepares to distribute billions of stimulus dollars for school reform, state legislatures are sending it a strong message: hands off.

Education policy has always been the territory of state and local governments, but in the last decade the U.S. government has interjected itself into curriculum and school reforms, the National Conference of State Legislatures said on Monday.

The group, which represents state legislatures, suggested using a federal model to fund education akin to that used to build the interstate highway system, whereby money is given to states, which then pass it on to local governments.

It would also like federal funds concentrated in areas where students are the most disadvantaged and not handed out equally to every congressional district.
The education law passed under former President George W. Bush and known as No Child Left Behind created a system of standards by which schools and school districts would be judged and federal funding awarded."

Education - Everything you need to know about the world of education.

Education- Everything you need to know about the world of education.

Kids' sex talk horrifies teachers--Report

America isn’t the only country where there are concerns about kids engaging in sexual activity at ever younger ages. Teachers in Australia are reported to feel “helpless” while listening to fourth and fifth graders boast about their sexual exploits.

In an article in the Australian newspaper The Mercury Australian Education Union official Roz Madsen was reported saying that a recent union forum teachers described the discussions that the kids were having.

"The students are talking about what they have done on the weekend, sexual experiences that they are having," she was reported as saying. "Anecdotally it seems to be happening at earlier ages."

Continue reading this post »

Rhee's bad polls: should she go?

Public officials who try to make big changes to solve crises often risk their popularity. That is why favorability ratings for Ronald Reagan and Barack Obama dropped when they tried to revive devastated economies in the first years of their presidencies. That also explains why D.C. Schools Chancellor Michelle A. Rhee, pushing hard to raise student achievement in her low-performing district, has lost so much public confidence in a new Washington Post survey.
The ratings for both Rhee and her patron, D.C. Mayor Adrian Fenty, have plummeted. This suggests he might lose the next election, and she might be forced to leave sooner to free him of the taint of her reputation for offending parents and teachers.

Continue reading this post »

Schools Matter: The New NCLB's Demand for Highly Unqualified Teachers

Schools Matter: The New NCLB's Demand for Highly Unqualified Teachers

Sam Dillon has a big story on the Oligarch-Obama Plan to make Race to the Trough the new No Child Left Behind. Instead of federal education support based on funding formulas, the Oligarchs are envisioning a system of permanent competition based on the production of test scores as the chief criterion for states and localities to get federal assistance:

“They want to recast the law so that it is as close to Race to the Top as they can get it, making the money conditional on districts’ taking action to improve schools,” said Jack Jennings, president of the Center on Education Policy, who attended a recent meeting at which administration officials outlined their plans in broad strokes. “Right now most federal money goes out in formulas, so schools know how much they’ll get, and then use it to provide services for poor children. The department thinks that’s become too much of an entitlement. They want to upend that scheme by making states and districts pledge to take actions the administration considers reform, before they get the money.”
One section of the current Bush-era law has required states to certify that all teachers are highly qualified, based on their college coursework and state-issued credentials. In the Race to the Top competition, the administration has required participating states to develop the capability to evaluate teachers based on student test data, at least in part, and on

As New York’s Charter Schools Gain Students, Future Growth Is Unclear - NYTimes.com

As New York’s Charter Schools Gain Students, Future Growth Is Unclear - NYTimes.com:

Next year will be the biggest year of growth yet for New York’scharter schools, with 29 due to open in New York City alone. But Seth Andrew, the founder of Democracy Prep, a successful charter middle school in Harlem, is already starting to turn his focus to another state. The political environment in New York, he fears, is shifting.

This month, a bill to double the number of charter schools ended in deadlock in Albany. Political opposition is nothing new for such schools, but this defeat was particularly jarring, coming even as other states have loosened restrictions on charter schools to improve their chances for a share of $4 billion in federal grant funds in the competition known as the Race to the Top. As the Race to the Top deadline came and went, New York did not act.
Mr. Andrew, 31, wants to open five charter schools in the city; his second will open next year. But the current state law limits the number of charter schools to 200, and 182 are already running or have been given permission to open. While Mr. Andrew said he would not abandon his New York schools, he now plans to open three in Rhode Island, which offered him free facilities, and pledged to let him expand without limit as long as his schools show results.
“I was born and raised in New York, so I wanted to commit to New York,” said Mr. Andrew, who graduated from Bronx Science High School before getting degrees from Brown and Harvard.

United Federation of Teachers sues in effort to block closure of 19 city schools

United Federation of Teachers sues in effort to block closure of 19 city schools:

"The city's teachers union will file a lawsuit Monday in a bid to block the closure of 19 schools - ramping up its already antagonistic relationship with City Hall.

The United Federation of Teachers lawsuit accuses the city of violating the state mayoral control law by failing to account for the impact of the shutdowns on the community.

Advocates complained last week that the Education Department did not give proper notice about replacement schools before the Panel for Educational Policy voted Wednesday to approve the closures.

The National Association for the Advancement of Colored People was in talks about joining the lawsuit, sources said. NAACP officials refused to comment yesterday.

A UFT lawsuit last year over the proposed closure of three other schools led the city to abandon its plans. None of those schools is on the closure list this year, having all"

City schools to be graded on a curve for next year’s report cards | GothamSchools

City schools to be graded on a curve for next year’s report cards

by Maura Walz

Many of the city elementary and middle schools who received A’s on last year’s report cards are likely to see their grades drop under a new scoring system for next year, Department of Education officials told principals today.

Next year, only the top-scoring 25 percent of schools will receive A’s, with just under a third of schools each getting B’s and C’s. A tenth of schools will be handed D’s, and 5 percent will receive failing grades, according to the plan outlined today by the city’s accountability chief Shael Polakow-Suransky.

(More than 80 percent of elementary and middle schools took home A’s on their progress reports for last school year.)

The change comes as part of the first step of a gradual recalibration of the way schools are rated in the city’s progress reports system and is also a by-product of the wider state effort to overhaul tests given to New York’s third through eighth graders.

State education officials are redesigning tests this year, both to make them more difficult and to judge a wider set of skills. Students are also taking state test in May this year for the first time, where in the past they’ve sat for exams in January.

Administration Proposals Seek Broad Changes to ‘No Child Left Behind’ - NYTimes.com

Administration Proposals Seek Broad Changes to ‘No Child Left Behind’ - NYTimes.com:

"Now the administration hopes to apply similar conditions to the distribution of the billions of dollars that the Department of Education hands out to states and districts as part of its annual budget."

“They want to recast the law so that it is as close to Race to the Top as they can get it, making the money conditional on districts’ taking action to improve schools,” said Jack Jennings, president of the Center on Education Policy, who attended a recent meeting at which administration officials outlined their plans in broad strokes. “Right now most federal money goes out in formulas, so schools know how much they’ll get, and then use it to provide services for poor children. The department thinks that’s become too much of an entitlement. They want to upend that scheme by making states and districts pledge to take actions the administration considers reform, before they get the money.”
One section of the current Bush-era law has required states to certify that all teachers are highly qualified, based on their college coursework and state-issued credentials. In the Race to the Top competition, the administration has required participating states to develop the capability to evaluate teachers based on student test data, at least in part, and on whether teachers are successful in raising student achievement.

Survey: School lunches, full of processed foods, still fail health test

The health-crazed Bloomberg administration often touts how it has overhauled school lunches and slashed calories - but critics charge the standard cafeteria fare is still far from healthy.

A Daily News survey found lunchrooms routinely serve highly processed foods such as mozzarella sticks and pizza, which critics charge are loaded with preservatives and other unhealthy ingredients.

"It's more window dressing than real change," said nutritionistSusan Rubin, founder of the Westchester-based advocacy group Better School Food. "Just cutting the calories and fat doesn't make this processed food healthy."

The simple-sounding toasted cheese sandwich on oat bread is a case in point: Ingredient lists obtained by The News show the frozen sandwich contains more than 30 ingredients - including high-fructose corn syrup, which officials have vowed to cut out.

"It just looks so greasy, you can tell it's unhealthy," said Schnedie Dorizan, 16, a junior at Clara Barton High School inBrooklyn.

Nutritionists said processing foods, such as turning chicken into nuggets, removes nutrients while adding possibly unhealthy preservatives and fillers. Processed foods also pack more sugar, fat and salt to make up for flavors lost in processing.

Pizza is served regularly in city schools. Bronx high schools were scheduled to offer pizza at least nine times this month.

School creep's detention haul - NYPOST.com

A Queens teacher who collects a $100,000 salary for doing nothing spends time in a Department of Education "rubber room" working on his law practice and managing 12 real-estate properties worth an estimated $7.8 million, The Post found.

Alan Rosenfeld hasn't set foot in a classroom for nearly a decade since he was accused in 2001 of making lewd comments to junior-high girls and "staring at their butts," yet the department still pays him handsomely for sitting on his own butt seven hours a day.

In 2001, six eighth-graders at IS 347 in Queens accused Rosenfeld, a typing teacher who filled in for an absent dean, of making comments like "You have a sexy body," asking one whether she had a boyfriend and making others feel uncomfortable with creepy leers.

J.C. RICE

BIZMAN ON CAMPUS: Typing teacher Alan Rosenfeld outside the Brooklyn “rubber room” where he clocks in every morning with fellow classroom exiles and manages a law practice and real-estate fortune.

TEACHERS GONE WILD!: 'LOVE BOAT' PROM SCANDAL

Because the Department of Education could not produce all the students as witnesses, he was found guilty in only one case. A girl testified that Rosenfeld stopped at her locker, where she was standing with a friend, and "said I love him because I talk to him so much."

A DOE hearing officer gave him a slap on the wrist -- a week off without pay -- for "conduct unbecoming a teacher." He was cleared to return to teaching.

Instead, Schools Chancellor Joel Klein has kept the scruffy 64-year-old in a Brooklyn rubber room, deeming him too dangerous to be near kids, officials said.

The DOE can't fire him.

D.C. Schools Chancellor Rhee's approval rating in deep slide - washingtonpost.com

D.C. Schools Chancellor Rhee's approval rating in deep slide - washingtonpost.com:

"D.C. Schools Chancellor Michelle A. Rhee's job approval rating has dropped precipitously over the past two years, alongside Mayor Adrian M. Fenty's, despite sentiment among District residents that conditions in the city's long-troubled public education system are starting to improve, according to a new Washington Post poll.

Rhee's performance was viewed favorably by 59 percent of residents in January 2008, with 29 percent disapproving. Now, there is a near-even split: 43 percent approve of what she's doing, and 44 percent are dissatisfied. Those with children in D.C. public schools have nearly reversed their opinion of Rhee. Two years ago, 54 percent of those parents approved of her; now, 54 percent disapprove."

Latest News and Comment from Education