Early childhood education: Dumb product division. The Educated Reporter

The Educated Reporter

Early childhood education: Dumb product division.

Does anybody ever read a press release? Is that even a remotely effective way to get your message out to journalists? Do PR people think about whether the recipients of their releases would really, truly be interested in them? Did the person who sent me a release about this have any idea I would only publicize it in order to mock it? (Oh, any press is good press, I know.)

The one lesson I have learned from new motherhood is that 65 percent of the products you think you need are absolutely dispensable, if not totally worthless. From now on I plan to give my newly expecting friends one of those Must Buy Baby checklists, relentlessly annotated: Borrow, Borrow, Don’t Need, Don’t Need, Borrow, See if You Need it Later and Then Borrow, Don’t Need, and so on. A prenatal iPod waistband would go into the Please Don’t Tell Me You Just Bought That category. When you are eight months pregnant, do you really need your belly to be even wider? Can’t you just turn the stereo on?

Here at Educated Reporter we are big on the misuse of research, so the website’s implication (backed with many quotes from experts that may or may not have anything to do with this product) that not buying the Lullabelly shortchanges your child’s 

BallerStatus.com � The Game Slams Education System: ‘School Was a Government Plot To Keep Track of Us’

BallerStatus.com � The Game Slams Education System: ‘School Was a Government Plot To Keep Track of Us’

The Game is not one to bite his tongue, no matter what the topic is. Most recently, the Compton rapper slammed the education system, saying that once you hit a certain grade level, school doesn't help much.

He even adds that school is Uncle Sam's way of keeping tabs on kids on a regular basis.

"After you learned how to read and do addition, what else did we need school for that we use in everyday life as an adult?" Game asked in a tweet (@IHateGame).

"I think school was a government's plot to keep track of us and program our lives. Up at 7, out at 3PM five days a week."

While Game questioned a school's use in life as an adult, he did explain why he thinks it great -- it gives him a break from his kids.

" ... Them two dudes is animals!" he tweeted, regarding his two sons. "I get it, school is a babysitter. Martin Luther King said: 'The reason we in school 13 yrs is because, that's how long it take to DESTROY a child's mind."

Before ended his rant, Game made sure to send a message to the kids following his tweets ... that is to "STAY IN SCHOOL!"

Is Race to Top Fueling Skepticism of Common Standards? - Curriculum Matters - Education Week

Is Race to Top Fueling Skepticism of Common Standards? - Curriculum Matters - Education Week

Is Race to Top Fueling Skepticism of Common Standards?

By Catherine Gewertz on February 8, 2010 12:13 PM | No Comments | No TrackBacks

I'm not telling you anything new when I mention that many people are less than thrilled when federal officials start exerting a broader influence on local schools. This skepticism has long roots, and has cropped up time and time again in education debates.

As I track the development of the common-standards initiative, it's certainly one of the themes I hear. I saw it again while reading my colleague Lesli Maxwell's new blog on state policy. And the message comes across loud and clear in this story, too.

What does this mean for the common-standards initiative? Skepticism toward a large federal government role in shaping education was one of the factors that helped doom recent previous efforts to create national standards. That's why the organizers of the current initiative bent over backwards to let people know that this effort is completely voluntary and "state-led." They avoided the loaded term "national standards" in favor of "common standards."

So what accounts for the persistence of the notion that common standards are being imposed on states by the feds? One hint came from a remark a state school board member made to me during a break in the NASBE meeting in Las Vegas last week. "Race to the Top has co-opted common standards," she said. She was referring to the ardent support federal officials have expressed for common standards and assessments, and the fact that they dangled Race to the Top money in front of states that would commit to them, too. In a similar vein, I heard folks at this meeting grumble that support of common standards doesn't feel wholly voluntary when your state needs money so badly that it pretty much has to apply for Race to the Top funds and has to commit to them in order to improve its chances of winning a slice.

I keep hearing people joke about the "race to the trough," the idea that states 

Feds Asked to Withhold Race to Top Funds From Boston - Learning the Language - Education Week

Feds Asked to Withhold Race to Top Funds From Boston - Learning the Language - Education Week

Latino advocacy groups asked U.S. Secretary of Education Arne Duncan last week to ensure that the Boston school system doesn't get any Race to the Top funds until it brings its programs for English-language learners into compliance with federal laws. The Boston school district would stand to receive federal stimulus funds if Massachusetts gets its application for such funds approved.

Lawyers from Multicultural Education, Training, and Advocacy, Inc., an advocacy group for ELLs based in Somerville, Mass., sent a letter to Secretary Duncan on Feb. 3 expressing "deep concern with the ongoing history of violations of the basic civil rights of Latino and other English-language-learner students in the Boston Public Schools." The letter was also signed by representatives of the Mexican American Legal Defense and Educational Fund, Latino Justice, the League of United Latin American Citizens, and the National Council of La Raza.

The letter asked Secretary Duncan not to transfer Race to the Top money to Boston schools unless it improves its programs for ELLs in several ways, which were spelled out in an attached letter that had been sent to Massachusetts Education Commissioner Mitchell D. Chester on Dec. 30. Among the points for improvement are that the school system would ensure that all ELL students who haven't been receiving special help to learn English would be identified and receive such instruction by a certified English-as-a-second-language teacher by September of this year. Another point is that Boston should hire no fewer than 

California’s Women’s Political Mud Wrestling Squad California Progress Report

California Progress Report

California’s Women’s Political Mud Wrestling Squad

By Peter Schrag

The California Republican Party is still dominated by white males, both in its leadership and in its rank and file. But when it comes to political eye-gouging and no-holds-barred knees-to-the-groin campaign combat, there’s little glass ceiling left. Whatever shards Sarah Palin had missed, Meg Whitman and Carly Fiorina took care of them last week.

Both are also showing that they can be manipulated, suckered and exploited by political consultants as shamefully as the guys. Since both are also multi-millionaires as well as arrogant and eminently pluckable, is it any wonder that voters have nothing but contempt for the people who want to be their leaders?

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SB 918 (Pavley) - Safe, Environmentally Sound Water Supply

By Traci Sheehan
Planning and Conservation League

Last Friday, Senator Fran Pavley introduced SB 918 which is currently co-sponsored by the Planning and Conservation League and Water Reuse California . This bill would help improve the availability of safe recycled drinking water by requiring the Department of Public Health to develop and adopt uniform health standards. If passed, the bill will help California develop a new drought-proof source of safe, clean water.

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Assemblymember Block - Bill Closes Cayman Island Tax Loopholes

By Assemblymember Marty Block

One of my top priorities when I came to the Assembly was to eliminate corporate tax loopholes.

With a grim economy and no-win budget choices, it’s clear that making big business pay their fair share of state tax is more important than ever.

To do this I’ve introduced the Cayman Islands Tax Loophole Bill, AB 1178.

You might have heard about a single building in the Cayman Islands that houses almost 19,000 shell corporations.

Corporations transfer their profits to these fake companies so they don’t have to pay taxes.

Meanwhile, the rest of us get stuck paying more for the services our state needs.

Look at college students and their families.

For too long now they’ve struggled to afford higher education in our state – the higher education needed to attract jobs and keep vital industries here at home in California.

Textbook prices are through the roof.  And students just got hit with yet another fee increase so they pay more now for fewer classes.

That’s not right.

Jindal wants to cut red tape at low-performing schools - NOLA.com

Jindal wants to cut red tape at low-performing schools - NOLA.com:

"BATON ROUGE -- Low-performing public schools that are under threat of state takeover would get new freedom to waive some state regulations under a proposal unveiled Thursday by Gov. Bobby Jindal.


Local school districts would be allowed to seek four-year waivers from curriculum requirements, textbook requirements, teacher tenure rules, salary schedules and other regulations authored by the Board of Elementary and Secondary Education.


In exchange, schools where more than half the students are performing below grade level would have to implement 'turnaround strategies,' such as replacing principals and other key leaders or reopening as a charter school."

School districts would not be allowed to get waivers from federal regulations or those that affect student safety or the state's existing accountability programs.

Each of the waiver requests would be considered individually by BESE.

Jindal said the proposal is aimed at giving school districts the ability to improve struggling campuses before their test scores are so low that they get taken over by the state and become part of the Recovery School District.

"Schools should not have to wait until they are in the RSD to begin their turnaround," Jindal said.

The governor said high-performing schools also would be able to apply for greater autonomy, which Jindal characterized as a way to reward them for strong results.

There are 55 Louisiana public schools designated as "academically unacceptable," and 30 of those are in the state-run recovery district. The rest have either signed agreements with the state to make specific changes or are on a list that makes them vulnerable to a state takeover if they don't show major improvement.

The proposal will be up for debate during the three-month legislative session that kicks off March 29. It already has support from BESE, the Louisiana School Superintendents Association and at least a handful of legislators who were on hand for the announcement.

PBS: Next "Golden Age" Of Arts In America - THE DAILY RIFF - Be Smarter. About Education.

PBS: Next "Golden Age" Of Arts In America - THE DAILY RIFF - Be Smarter. About Education.

Spearheaded By The Surge In New Media, PBS Prez Announces "Major Online Initiative"  Bringing Arts To Wider Audience In An Impassioned Speech In Los Angeles.


"I believe we have an opportunity to usher in another golden age of arts in America. I think in part, it begins with new media. . ."

"Advocates point out that art education boosts students' cognitive development, improves their confidence, and strengthens their problem solving skills. Students with a strong background in the arts tend to have better grade point averages, score better on reading and math tests, and have lower dropout rates."

 ". . .public schools aren't just putting history classes on the back burner;
they're taking them off the stove completely.
This is heartbreaking, and I think this is also a huge issue for us as a country."

              --- Paula A. Kerger, President & CEO, PBS

The following are excerpts of an important speech by Paula A. Kerger, President and CEO of PBS (Public Broadcasting Service.  It was delivered to Town Hall, Los Angeles on January 12, 2010 at the National Center for the Preservation of Democracy in downtown Los Angeles.
 
Kerger shares some thoughts on the importance of arts in public education, the disturbing realities and statistics of U.S. committment to the arts compared to other countries, the ramifications of budget cuts and NCLB (No Child Left Behind), and asks us to rise to the

We want to hear from you! Sacramento City Unified School District

Sacramento City Unified School District

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Whither Professional Development in the Budget? - Teacher Beat - Education Week

Whither Professional Development in the Budget? - Teacher Beat - Education Week

Whither Professional Development in the Budget?

By Stephen Sawchuk on February 8, 2010 10:10 AM | No Comments | No TrackBacks

Here's another teacher-related question on President Obama's budget request: Will it be good or bad for professional development?

If lawmakers go along with cutting the Title II state formula grant program by half a billion dollars, then there'd already be fewer funds for professional development, unless class- size reduction—a large percentage of current spending under the program—is excised as an allowable use of the money. (Expect the teachers' unions to fight that tooth and nail.)

And a few of the funding streams that have been consolidated were focused on professional development, such as the educational technology grants. The National Writing Project, one of the big success stories in professional development, also would be consolidated into the proposed new programs.

On the other hand, the budget names proposed new Title II programs "Excellent Instructional Teams," and says they'd support the collaborative use of data to improve teaching. And to be sure, it was never all that clear in the first place that the professional- development that districts were providing with federal funds was any good. The definition in the NCLB law specifies that the funds can't be used for one-day workshops, but it's hard to know how many of the nation's 14,000 school districts paid attention to that stipulation.

M. Rene Islas, a policy adviser to the National Staff Development Council, a professional-development advocacy group, seems cautiously optimistic about the budget language in this post. (You may remember that Islas headed up teacher-quality issues back at the Education Department between 2002 and 2006.) NSDC 

NEA Priority Schools Campaign - Disrupting the Status Quo

YouTube- NEAABS's Channel

NEA Priority Schools Campaign - Disrupting the Status Quo

From: NEAABS | December 02, 2009 | 704 views

"Plain and simple, the status quo is not acceptable. We cannot continue to do in America what weve been doing to students for the last 20, 30, 50 years. The world has changed and we need a different system."
NEA President Dennis Van Roekel

Valuing Good Teaching � The Quick and the Ed

Valuing Good Teaching � The Quick and the Ed

Research has shown time and again that experience matters in good teaching. What it hasn’t shown is that every experience matters equally. In fact, a teacher’s first few years on the job are by far the most important, and it has been demonstrated repeatedly that the vast majority of teaching improvement comes in the first few years on the job.

Unfortunately, districts have yet to utilize this research in any way. Instead, they set arbitrary teacher salary schedules that are based purely on a teacher’s years of experience and education credentials. They mostly do not reflect actual teacher performance year-to-year, but they don’t even take into consideration the career paths of the typical teacher.

To show what this looks like, I’ve graphed teacher salaries in four DC-area suburban districts (Montgomery and Prince George’s Counties in Maryland and Fairfax and Prince William Counties in Virginia) with average teacher effectiveness scores in mathematics. The effectiveness scores are value-added measures that compute a teacher’s ability to maintain or increase student scores on standardized tests of achievement. They are graphed according to differences from the average teacher, and they come from a recent paper which found effectiveness scores in line with prior research.

The maroon bars represent salaries for fully certified teachers with bachelor’s degrees only, and the blue bars are average salaries for fully certified teachers with Master’s degrees only. As the chart shows, salaries in these four districts increases almost linearly, although they grow much faster after teachers have 14 or 17 years of experience than when they have only a few.

Momentum is building across America in support of the "Strike and National Day of Action to Defend Public Education" on March 4.

Momentum is building across America in support of the "Strike and National Day of Action to Defend Public Education" on March 4.

Ruling on education funding should be game-changer for legislators | Peter Callaghan - The News Tribune | Seattle-Tacoma News, Weather, Sports, Jobs, Homes and Cars | South Puget Sound's Destination

Ruling on education funding should be game-changer for legislators | Peter Callaghan - The News Tribune | Seattle-Tacoma News, Weather, Sports, Jobs, Homes and Cars | South Puget Sound's Destination:

"It took King County Superior Court Judge John Erlick 100 pages to say what everyone has sensed for a long time. But when he says it, it carries a lot more weight.

“This court is left with no doubt that under the state’s current financing system the state is failing in its constitutional duty to make ample provision for the education of all children,” Erlick wrote in McCleary v. State of Washington.

It was the ruling that advocates for public education have been hoping for, and they celebrated. Politicians from the governor to candidates for the Legislature issued statements professing their love of education and commitment to its support.

You probably couldn’t tell from their comments that most of these politicians have had opportunities to follow the constitution and haven’t. They didn’t mention that they knew – or should have known – that each new program created and expanded would compete for dollars with what the constitution calls the state’s paramount duty.

And now, these same politicians who could have acted but didn’t have been given the task by Judge Erlick to fix things. That’s why this seemingly sweeping victory might end up being much less than that."