The Riverdale Press: New charter school arrives with little fanfare

The Riverdale Press: New charter school arrives with little fanfare:

"As the debate over charter schools heats up in the city and state, the Department of Education is quietly planning one for Kingsbridge.

The Kingsbridge Innovative Design School (KIDS) is scheduled to start accepting students in a yet-to-be-completed building at 3120 Corlear Ave. next fall, according to The Department of Ed. It’s all been so quiet, even Assemblyman Jeffrey Dinowitz, who has been outspoken against charter schools and whose office sits nearby the planned site, was unaware the plan was moving forward.

“What I think is unreasonable is that they decide on location without any discussion with anybody,” said Mr. Dinowitz, when a reporter informed him the plan had been solidified. “The DOE does everything in top secret,” he said."

Big Hollywood Blog Archive HOWARD ZINN’S LEGACY: Instructing Teachers to Disobey Education Codes

Big Hollywood Blog Archive HOWARD ZINN’S LEGACY: Instructing Teachers to Disobey Education Codes

“[Howard Zinn] was a treasure and an inspiration. That he was considered radical says way more about this society than it does about him.” -  Bob Herbert 

Public school children are innocent victims of a radical “guerrilla warfare” being waged by the late professor Howard Zinn’s Zinn Education Project (ZEP), Rethinking Schools Magazine, and Teaching for Change. 

These anti-establishment educators’ mission includes curriculum-subversion in order to radically transform schools into centers of social justice wherein  students are trained to become global citizenchange agents. 

Perpetuating Zinn’s revolutionary mission, his surviving business partners proclaimed: 

Howard Zinn, in honor of the marvelous victory of your life, we will act in defiance of all that is bad around us and attempt to spin the world towards justice. 

With the national spotlight on History Channel’s “The People Speak” and its ZEP curriculum — parents, teachers, school boards and administrators should beware of the celebrity-opiate being dealt to their schoolchildren by way of Zinn-doctrination. 

ZEP is the brainchild of the late Boston University professor Howard Zinn and Bill Bigelow, Curriculum Director for Rethinking Schools. 

New Times SLO | Publishing Local News and Entertainment for over 20 years in San Luis Obispo County

New Times SLO | Publishing Local News and Entertainment for over 20 years in San Luis Obispo County:

"Two days after announcing they will scale back summer school this year, Cuesta College officials may have more bad news to report—that’s if accreditation regulators decide the college hasn’t made enough progress in key areas.
“We are a long, long ways away from losing accreditation,” Cuesta College Vice President of Academic Affairs Cathleen Greiner emphasized.

As of press time, though, the school had not received word from the Accrediting Commission for Community and Junior Colleges (ACCJC) as to whether it has made sufficient improvements in response to a warning from the organization in February 2009 that its standing was in jeopardy. A report from evaluators who visited the school in October is imminent.

ACCJC President Barbara Beno issued the warning, asking the college to correct deficiencies noted by an evaluation team
the previous October. A warning is the mildest possible sanction against an institution, and Cuesta remains a fully accredited institution, now and for the immediate future, regardless of the findings in the report."

Widening the class gap in America

Widening the class gap in America:

"There is a continuing debate in this country about just how much help the haves should provide for the have nots. It’s an old discussion, the decibel level of which has been significantly amped up by a lingering recession.

Driving the haves is the notion that, for the most part, they work hard for their money, and can’t find a rationale for giving any of it to people they perceive are not working as hard as they do. That’s the welfare stereotype that has fueled class warfare in America for many generations.

Truthfully, if you examine America one life at a time, there is some justification for that stereotype. There are people who game the system, work all the angles, watch TV all day, living on the public’s dime, and contribute nothing to society."

Online Workshops for Parents and Teachers in Conjunction With 'Digital Nation' Documentary Now Available on Verizon Thinkfinity Web Site

Online Workshops for Parents and Teachers in Conjunction With 'Digital Nation' Documentary Now Available on Verizon Thinkfinity Web Site:

NEW YORK, Feb. 3 /PRNewswire/ -- A series of online workshops for parents and teachers, created by PBS Frontline in conjunction with its innovative documentary, "Digital Nation," are now available at Verizon Thinkfinity.
The documentary – its complete title is "Digital Nation: Life on the Virtual Frontier" – is the centerpiece of a year-long, multiplatform initiative exploring the impact of the Web and digital media on life in the 21^st century. The documentary was funded through a $1 million grant from the Verizon Foundation and premiered Tuesday night (Feb. 2) on Frontline, the PBS award-winning news and public affairs series.
The series of Digital Workshops: Online Resources for Parents and Teachers, as well as a host of additional information on Internet safety, are now available for free online through Verizon Thinkfinity.
Verizon Thinkfinity is a free educational Web site that contains thousands of engaging educational resources, podcasts and videos that make learning fun.

Healthcare Technology and News: Verizon Donates $8 Million to California Non-Profits

Healthcare Technology and News: Verizon Donates $8 Million to California Non-Profits

Verizon, which regularly donates to philanthropic causes, recently donated $8 million from the Verizon Foundation to non-profits. According to officials withVerizon (News - Alert), this will help the recipient organizations enhance literacy skills and improve healthcare through the use of technology.

 

“Verizon invests in the communities where our customers and employees live and work by supporting organizations that strive to build safe, healthy and prosperous communities," said Tim McCallion, president of Verizon's West region.

 

"Thanks to our grant-making and the generous contribution of time and talent from our employees, we are making a difference in our communities.”

 

The organizations that received the donations include: Los Angeles Community College District, Los Angeles, UC Davis, Davis, St. Mary's Medical Center, Apple (News - Alert) Valley, Martha's Village and Kitchen, Indio, and Parent Institute for Quality Education, San Diego. Apart from this, Verizon Wireless' HopeLine phone recycling program is also helping thousands of survivors of domestic violence in California.

 

Stanford ranks first in private donations - latimes.com

Stanford ranks first in private donations - latimes.com:

"The university took in $640.1 million in private donations in 2009 and held on to the top spot for the fifth straight year. USC placed seventh and UCLA ninth."

Stanford University raised more in private donations than any other U.S. college or university last year, even as charitable support for higher education fell steeply nationwide because of the recession, a new survey shows.

Stanford held onto the top spot for the fifth straight year, taking in $640.1 million in donations in 2009, down about 18% from the previous year, according to the report released Wednesday by the Council for Aid to Education. Harvard was second with $601.6 million, followed by Cornell, the University of Pennsylvania and Johns Hopkins.

Four California universities ranked in the top 20 nationally. USC, which received $368.9 million, was seventh; UCLA, ninth, with $351.6 million; UC San Francisco, 15th, with $300.4, and UC Berkeley, 19th, with $255.1 million.

The council, a New York-based nonprofit, estimated that U.S. colleges and universities raised a total of about $27.8 billion in 2009, with alumni and foundations the biggest donors. The 12% decline was the steepest percentage drop since the survey began 40 years ago, said survey director Ann E. Kaplan. That and decreases in the value of endowments and income made fiscal 2009 a tough time 

Stop L.A. Unified's 'charterization' - latimes.com

Stop L.A. Unified's 'charterization' - latimes.com:

 "Handing over L.A. schools to outside operators will turn out to be yet another failed attempt at reform. Expanding vocational education holds more promise."

As The Times continues to lead the parade to charterization of the Los Angeles Unified School District, one of the most overused and misunderstood phrases on the paper's editorial page is "reform." Change is not necessarily reform. Genuine reform produces lasting, beneficial improvements and isn't concocted by editors or frustrated school boards willing to try just about anything.

That was never more evident than during the debate over the current plan to allow outsiders to operate dozens of LAUSD campuses. As The Times notes in its Feb. 1 editorial, "Bidding to run L.A.’s schools," the district's mislabeled Public School Choice initiative has resulted in ugly misinformation campaigns and popularity contests over which organizations should run several L.A. Unified schools. Change, yes; reform, hardly.

Privatizing public education is but one of many elixirs offered over the years as panaceas for whatever ails California's schools. One fad after another has been foisted on children, their parents and teachers by supposed do-gooders, many of whom really wanted to promote a particular ideology or seek financial gain.

The once tried but eventually discarded fads include "new math," single-sex classrooms and the nearly forgotten 6-4-4 plan, under which students spent the final two years of high school on a junior college campus. Other reforms tried over the last century include the look-say approach to reading and integrated English and social studies classes. Today we have vouchers, charters, the No Child Left Behind Act and the Obama administration's misnamed Race to the Top fund.

Plan to Shift Berkeley High's Lab Hours Comes Under Fire - The Daily Californian

Plan to Shift Berkeley High's Lab Hours Comes Under Fire - The Daily Californian:

"The Berkeley Board of Education and more than 100 community members met Wednesday evening in Downtown Berkeley to discuss a controversial proposal to redesign Berkeley High School's schedule.

The plan aims to incorporate some of the science labs currently held before and after school into regular school hours. The move would free up money used to support the labs to fund expanded course offerings.

The plan came under fire from many parents and science teachers who claimed the move would scale back instruction time sufficiently enough to put Advanced Placement and college-bound students at a competitive disadvantage.

Parents like Deborah Moore and Parent Teacher Student Association Vice President Mark van Krieken said there is a lack of data and financial analysis to support the plan, and demanded more concrete explanation of the plan's purpose."

Race to the Top and reality - latimes.com

Race to the Top and reality - latimes.com:

"In applying for the federal funding program, California's proposal on how to rate schools' performance could serve as a national model."

In California's effort to qualify for up to $700 million in federal Race to the Top school funding, there's been a lot of talk about open enrollment and linking teacher evaluations to student performance. As they are framed in the state's new school reform law, however, neither of those provisions is likely to bring dramatic improvement to the schools that need it most. Instead, the most promising idea is contained in the state's application for funding: a request to change the way school improvement is measured.

For years we've railed against the provision in the No Child Left Behind Act that credits schools solely for how many students test as "proficient," one of five levels of achievement. From the bottom, those are: far below basic, below basic, basic, proficient and advanced. A school might bring the majority of its students from the lowest level to basic and still be categorized as failing. Conversely, it might target a small number of students who are slightly below proficient, bring them up a notch and be called a success. The system has encouraged schools to ignore their most troubled students, as well as already proficient students who could reach advanced.

Effectiveness of abstinence-only programs depends on the study

Effectiveness of abstinence-only programs depends on the study:

"How effective are abstinence-only sexual education classes for teens? Apparently it depends on the study. Two conflicting narratives have been buzzing around the Internet based on the publication of two different works of research.

Last week the Guttmacher Institute released data that indicated the nation’s teen pregnancy rate rose 3 percent in 2006 (the most recent year for the collected data) after a decade-long decline. According to the official report, “Recent research concluded that almost all of the decline in the pregnancy rate between 1995 and 2002 among 18-19-year-olds was attributable to increased"

Local: In Alameda : Secretary of Education (Who He?) Resigns

Local: In Alameda : Secretary of Education (Who He?) Resigns:

"On the off chance that you missed it -- actually there's a really good chance that you did -- California's Secretary of Education resigned yesterday.

No -- that's not Jack O'Connell. He's the State Superintendent of Public Instruction, which is a different job. Glen Thomas, who you probably have never heard of, is the Secretary of Education and whoever holds that position allegedly shares responsibility for the governing of the state's public education system with the State Board of Education and the Superintendent of Schools.

Now, I say 'allegedly' because in truth we rarely hear about the Secretary of Education in this state. Case in point: How many of you know how many Secretaries of Education we have had in the last 6 years?"

CN&R > Local Stories > California meltdown > 02.04.10

CN&R  Local Stories California meltdown 02.04.10:

"Did you know that since Jan. 11 the Legislature has been in emergency session to deal with an $8.9 billion shortfall in the current 2009-10 budget? Would you be surprised to learn it’s gotten nowhere? I didn’t think so. Not that there hasn’t been plenty of other action on the meltdown front.

Weds., Jan. 20: Sacramento Bee columnist Dan Walters reports that ProPublica, a public-interest journalism fund, reports that California’s unemployment-insurance fund has gone deeper into debt than any other state’s. It’s borrowed more than $6 billion from the federal government, more than three times as much as New York, the second-biggest borrower of UI funds."

Editorial: President Barack Obama trying to transform education in America - San Jose Mercury News

Editorial: President Barack Obama trying to transform education in America - San Jose Mercury News:

"Although the federal government controls less than 10 percent of public school funding, President Barack Obama is using that lever to transform education in America.

The $4 billion Race to the Top grant program, the largest pool of money ever available for school reform, laid out some of his ideas for fixing failing schools and holding educators accountable. This week's announcement of the Education Department budget — and proposed changes to the controversial No Child Left Behind Act — show that Obama also aims to create a system that will allow the U.S. economy to remain competitive.

Congress should work swiftly to pass this new version of No Child Left Behind before August, when election-year politics will eliminate any chance of an honest debate."

New Bill May Cap Fees - Daily Nexus

New Bill May Cap Fees - Daily Nexus:

"A California state legislator proposed a constitutional amendment Monday to impose a cap on any tuition increases at public universities.

In addition to limiting annual fee increases to 10 percent, the bill would require schools to delay all increases by 180 days before implementing them. Jeff Denham, republican state senator from Merced, authored the legislation, which was introduced to the California State Senate as the Student Protection Act.

Denham’s press secretary, Jann Taber, said the bill is a direct response to tuition increases at the University of California in November, when the school’s Board of Regents approved a 32 percent tuition increase."

The State Hornet - Bill will allow community colleges to offer BA degrees

The State Hornet - Bill will allow community colleges to offer BA degrees:

"Assemblyman Marty Block will present a bill in February that could alter California’s 50-year-old Master Plan for Higher Education by establishing a pilot program that allows community colleges to offer four-year degrees.

According to the master plan, which was signed in 1960 by Gov. Edmund Brown, the public postsecondary education system has three segments: the University of California system, which was designed to provide undergraduate, graduate and doctoral degrees; the California State University system, which was designed to provided undergraduate and graduate degrees; and the California Community Colleges, which were designed to provide academic and vocational instruction through the first two years of undergraduate degrees."

Valley colleges are already addressing LAO report - Community Voices - Modbee.com

Valley colleges are already addressing LAO report - Community Voices - Modbee.com:

"With the precision of a laser beam, California's Legislative Analyst Office focused attention and criticism on the state's three levels of public higher education.

Specific goals and performance standards, improved coordination, independent oversight and predictable funding are needed to bring programs provided by the University of California, the California State University and the state's community colleges in line with the needs of California and its students, according to state analysts.

The state's multibillion-dollar budget deficits and predictions that California soon will have a shortage of educated workers demand that the governor and Legislature reform the system, the report warned."

Viewpoints: Teachers must play role in budget fix - Sacramento Opinion - Sacramento Editorial | Sacramento Bee

Viewpoints: Teachers must play role in budget fix - Sacramento Opinion - Sacramento Editorial | Sacramento Bee:

"How do you know when you're in a family? When you're asked to clean up messes you didn't make and pay for expenses you didn't incur.

That's what it's like to be a parent in most families. Increasingly, it's what it feels like to be a parent in California school districts, which have lost $18 billion in state funds over the past two budget cycles.

Of course, the budget news is not good throughout the entire state. City and county governments are cutting positions, reducing services, furloughing workers, trimming hours. If your city reduces summer programs and library hours, city residents suck it up. But schools are different."

Sacramento Press / Historic Surveys on Public Schools Draw Strong Interest

Sacramento Press / Historic Surveys on Public Schools Draw Strong Interest

SCUSD superintendent urges community to weigh in before surveys close one week from today

The Sacramento school district’s historic public surveys on its budget and strategic planning have drawn more than 11,000 responses so far, and Superintendent Jonathan Raymond Tuesday urged parents, teachers and students to take the surveys before the Feb. 9 deadline in one week.

 This first-of-its-kind effort to involve Sacramento residents in the improvement of their public schools involves a pair of surveys on school improvements and the district’s budget. Every Sacramento community member—including parents, teachers and other employees of the district—is being asked to respond to the surveys that will yield for school board members and the superintendent a treasure trove of information about the community’s needs and priorities for public schools.

Race to the Top grants may be tied to teacher evaluations - ContraCostaTimes.com

Race to the Top grants may be tied to teacher evaluations - ContraCostaTimes.com

One battle over a federal education grant program ended last month in Sacramento. Another will begin this spring in hundreds of school districts across the state.

Lawmakers in January passed legislation to make California eligible for a chunk of the more than $4 billion Race to the Top grant program. But if local districts want to see any of that money, they'll have to reach an agreement with local teachers unions to start judging teachers based, in part, on student test scores.

Teachers' unions have historically opposed any move to link teacher evaluations to student performance and observers are pessimistic that many unions will go along this time.

"We can at least have a conversation about what (an evaluation system) should look like," said Pat Mazzulli, president of the Fontana Teachers Association. "We find it objectionable, but if that's what's going to happen, we want to have that conversation."

The effort to link student achievement and teacher performance comes at a time when school districts nationwide have been battered by budget cuts. Thus, the billions of dollars provided under Race to the Top couldn't come at a better time.

But that money will only be available to districts that make the required changes.

The Fontana Teachers Association is one of the more cooperative unions in the area. It signed onto a memo from the Fontana Unified School District to the state indicating