A Memorial to a Hero Needs Your support!

A Memorial to a Hero Needs Your Support!

Washington, D.C.Martin Luther King, Jr. National Memorial

The Martin Luther King Jr. National Memorial will be the first on the National Mall to recognize a person of color and a man of peace, not a president or a veteran of war. In 1996 Congress authorized the Memorial Foundation to raise funds to establish a national memorial to honor the legacy of Dr. King on the National Mall. The memorial’s very existence signifies that we as a people believe Dr. King and his legacy deserve this esteemed placement in what can be considered America’s “Hall of Fame.”

Mission

We want to commemorate the life and work of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. by leading a collaborative funding, design, and construction process in the creation of a memorial to honor his national and international contributions to world peace through non-violent social change..

The vision of a memorial in honor of Martin Luther King, Jr. is one that captures the essence of his message, a message in which he so eloquently affirms the commanding tenants of the American Dream — Freedom, Democracy and Opportunity for All; a noble quest that gained him the Nobel Peace Prize and one that continues to influence people and societies throughout the world. Upon reflection, we are reminded that Dr. King's lifelong dedication to the idea of achieving human dignity through global relationships of well being has served to instill a broader and deeper sense of duty within each of us— a duty to be both responsible citizens and conscientious stewards of freedom and democracy.

Dr. King championed a movement that draws fully from the deep well of America's potential for freedom, opportunity, and justice. His vision of America is captured in his message of hope and possibility for a future anchored in dignity, sensitivity, and mutual respect; a message that challenges each of us to recognize that America's true strength lies in its diversity of talents. The vision of a memorial in honor of Martin Luther King, Jr. is one that captures the essence of his message, a message in which he so eloquently affirms the commanding tenants of the American Dream — Freedom, Democracy and Opportunity for All; a noble quest that gained him the Nobel Peace Prize and one that continues to influence people and societies throughout the world. Upon reflection, we are reminded that Dr. King's lifelong dedication to the idea of achieving human dignity through global relationships of well being has served to instill a broader and deeper sense of duty within each of us— a duty to be both responsible citizens and conscientious stewards of freedom and democracy.

As part of our effort to build the Memorial, we invite you to be a part of history by participating in our Kids for King Education Initiative. It’s easy to enter. Just write an essay, create a piece of art, or produce a short video expressing what you have learned about Dr. King’s ideals of Democracy, Justice, Love and Hope as well as how you plan to carry the legacy forward. 

 

Grades 3-5                                                  Grades 6-8                                                Grades 9-12

The end of the Kids for King Education Initiative has been pushed back to April 30, 2010, so get working on writing an essay, creating a work of art, or recording a video about your thoughts on Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.

We encourage you to participate in this great program because 9 of you will be selected for a very special award. We'll fly you and one of your parent's or legal guardians to Washington, D.C. to attend a special press event on the National Mall this fall. We're excited to see, hear, and read about what you and your friends have to say about Dr. King. For more information please check out our website at www.kidsforking.org. We look forward to hearing from you today!

A Letter to Lawmakers - Bridging Differences - Education Week

A Letter to Lawmakers - Bridging Differences - Education Week

A Letter to Lawmakers

By Diane Ravitch on April 6, 2010 8:13 AM | 3 Comments | No TrackBacks

Dear Deborah,

Today I am going to cheat. Well, not really cheat, but just deal with the fact that I am hard pressed to find time to do much more than breathe and sleep (I do not include "eat" because I have been skipping meals, and I should not include "sleep" because I don't do much of that either.) I have been lecturing, writing, and traveling nonstop. I am getting, on average, about 100 emails daily from readers of my book, mainly teachers who either say "thank you" or "help." My book appears at #16 on The New York Times best-seller list for next Sunday.

So many people, especially teachers, feel powerless in the face of an onslaught against their professionalism. Last week, I wrote about the awful legislation in Florida, which will strip teachers of tenure and judge them by student test scores. Teachers in that state asked me to come to Tallahassee and testify, but I

TeachFor.Us � Gary Rubinstein’s TFA Blog � Teaching as leadership critique part IX

TeachFor.Us � Gary Rubinstein’s TFA Blog � Teaching as leadership critique part IX:

Gary Rubinstein’s TFA Blog

By a somewhat frustrated 1991 alum

Teaching as leadership critique part IX

Now that I’ve finished the entire book, including all the appendices, I’d like to make some conclusions and final reflections for any new teachers reading the book and especially for new TFA CMs.

I think that one of the central themes of the book is that effective teachers know how to be efficient with the one resource that nobody ever has enough of – time. There are only so many hours in a day to do all the things teachers need to and no matter how ‘relentless’ you are, that number of hours is a constant defined by physics.

To be an effective new teacher, you have to know how to prioritize your time during the school year. While you are training, this summer, you also have to know how to prioritize your time so that you make the most of the five week institute.

Here is where TFA has been inconsistent. They outline six principles and then they are never that explicit about which ones

Schools Matter: Test Czar Dolores Umbridge: All instruction must be test-prep.

Schools Matter: Test Czar Dolores Umbridge: All instruction must be test-prep.

Test Czar Dolores Umbridge: All instruction must be test-prep.

by skrashen

Newly appointed Testing Czar Dolores Umbridge, with the approval of Secretary Duncan, has issued her first decree, a slight modification of Educational Decree 26, originally covering instruction at the Hogwarts School. The original decree is as follows:

Educational Decree 26: Teachers are hereby banned from giving students information that is not strictly related to the subject they are paid to teach.

The new decree, now official US Department of Education policy, is:

Teachers are hereby banned from giving students information that is not strictly related to the material covered

The hand and glove relationship between LAUSD and UTLA - Perdaily.com

The hand and glove relationship between LAUSD and UTLA - Perdaily.com

The Hand And Glove Relationship Between LAUSD And UTLA

No, the teachers' union and LAUSD have not decided to offer proctological exams at Beaudry or Berendo, but sometimes it just feels that way.

It's been a while since I've updated the readers of perdaily with what has been going on in my own personal war for public education justice with LAUSD. So I thought that I would spend today's post telling you what has transpired since you tuned in last. It has been a little over 2 months since I was removed from my classroom after being handcuffed and searched and, after a brief stay at empty Local District 6 offices at Slauson and Eastern in the lovely City of Commerce. Since then, I havebeen installed in my homebetween the hours of 8AM and 3PM, Monday through Friday -- except school holidays. While seniors are allowed to leave campus for lunch, it was only 3 weeks ago that LAUSD finally conceded that I too could do the same.

While it should be clear to all of you who have either followed my saga in earlier daily postsof perdaily or had the misfortune of suffering a similar fate at the hands of LAUSD Administration Party Members, I have engaged in no word or action that is not consistent with trying to bring excellent public education to the predominantly minority students -- think 73% Latino student population -- who continue to be systematically and consciously pushed through LAUSD without even the bear minimum of what would constitute a good education that might give them a real chance at a productive future as opposed to gangs and criminal justice.

In one sense, I have learned that I am in a no-win situation, because although I am not responsible for my present situation of having to remain at home in lieu of going to a school

16 to Vote in the UK? � Student Activism

16 to Vote in the UK? � Student Activism:

16 to Vote in the UK?

April 6, 2010 in Students

The British newspaper The Guardian is reporting that the country’s Labour Party will endorse a 16-year-old voting age today.

Labour, which is currently in power in Britain, is releasing a new party platform in advance of national elections scheduled for next month. The elections, in which voters will elect the country’s parliament, are expected to be closely fought.

Incumbent prime minister Gordon Brown has endorsed votes for 16-year-olds

No Room for For-Profits in i3 :: Frederick M. Hess

No Room for For-Profits in i3 :: Frederick M. Hess

Frederick M. Hess's Blog

No Room for For-Profits in i3

by Frederick M. Hess • Apr 6, 2010 at 8:56 am
Cross-posted from Education Week

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I favor a more expansive role for for-profits in schooling. Not because I think folks in for-profits are smarter or more capable than people in public agencies or non-profits (hell, I work in a non-profit!), but because for-profits have some unique and useful features. Their selfish pursuit of profit gives them cause to be more aggressive about expansion, more nimble about abandoning failed efforts and seeking new niches, and more energetic about rooting out inefficiency. Anyway, I've more to say on all this in Education Unbound.

Now, believe me, I know for-profits also have their share of unique flaws, and I've no faith in their virtue. This suggests the need for sensible safeguards, smart monitoring, and savvy managers. All this comes to mind because of the Department of Education's unfortunate decision to make it prohibitively difficult for for-profits to participate in the i3 fund--the program where innovative providers with evidence of effectiveness would most seem a natural fit.

The original statute made clear that for-profits would not be able to apply for grants; eligible entities would be LEAs and non-profits. Okay. But the Department's guidance and frequently asked questions now also make

ESEA, NCLB, RTT, SIG, Oh My!! � The Quick and the Ed

ESEA, NCLB, RTT, SIG, Oh My!! � The Quick and the Ed

ESEA, NCLB, RTT, SIG, Oh My!!

by Chad Aldeman

The Obama Administration has a little bit of a timing problem on their hands. While attempting to re-authorize the Elementary and Secondary Education Act (ESEA), it has to simultaneously balance the impending 2014-proficiency-for-all requirement in the last version of ESEA (the law formerly known as No Child Left Behind) with the requirements of the $3.4 billion competitive grant program known as Race to the Top (RTT) and the $3.5 billion in School Improvement Grant (SIG) money. There’s much in common between these three federal reform efforts, but there are also significant differences. The Obama Administration has laid out a smart, balanced blueprint to deal with some of these issues, but it leaves the details to Congress.
I propose another alternative: Let the states figure it out for themselves. At first blush, this sounds more punitive than it is now, but bear with me.
See, NCLB is federal law. If nothing changes and Congress continues to wait on reauthorization, all the current

April Fool | Intercepts

April Fool | Intercepts

April Fool

by Mike Antonucci

Boston Globe columnist Derrick Z. Jackson believes a “lack of money is killing our public schools.”
If we were to be generous, we could call this a bold position to take. Bold, because it flies in the face of every spending statistic and figure for the last 30 years or so. Even Jackson admits that $9,800 per student is “technically high by global standards.”
But why let the numbers stand in the way of a good recitation of talking points, like how some elite private schools cost $35,000, or how we spend more on college students, or how Germany pays starting teachers more, or how five states spend more on corrections than on higher education (well, let’s assign armed guards to the coeds and lock them in their dorms at night surrounded by concertina wire – that should make up the difference).
Jackson misses nary a shibboleth, and small wonder, because he went to the leader of the tribe, Linda Darling-Hammond,

Small Schools by Mike Klonsky and Susan Klonsky � JD2718

Small Schools by Mike Klonsky and Susan Klonsky � JD2718

Small Schools by Mike Klonsky and Susan Klonsky

APRIL 6, 2010 AM30 12:04 AM

tags: Klonsky, Small Schools

by jd2718

Here’s a review I didn’t mean to write. I read most of the book in the summer of 2008, while I was in New Orleans, helping (re)organize school teachers. What happened? I thought the book covered important background about what happened with small schools. It reviews their progressive origins. And it details how the corporations and foundations and government grabbed their banner and turned them into something very different. And I should have reviewed and recommended it. The background matters. The narrative matters. The dark fable matters.

But I didn’t write then. Why not? And why now?

Democratic Schools are good, and it is possible to create small schools that are democratic. YES….

became: Small schools are good. NO.

I didn’t write because I was not ready to share my critical evaluation of the (well-meaning,

Surprisingly, Family Time Has Grown - Well Blog - NYTimes.com

Surprisingly, Family Time Has Grown - Well Blog - NYTimes.com

Surprisingly, Family Time Has Grown

By TARA PARKER-POPE

Stuart Bradford

Working parents perpetually agonize that they don’t see enough of their children. But a surprising new study finds that mothers and fathers alike are doing a better job than they think, spending far more time with their families than did parents of earlier generations.

The study, by two economists at the University of California, San Diego, analyzes a dozen surveys of how Americans say they use their time, taken at different periods from 1965 to 2007. It reports that the amount of child care time spent by parents at all income levels — and especially those with a college education — has risen “dramatically” since the mid-1990s. (The findings by the husband-and-wife economist team of Garey Ramey and Valerie A. Ramey appear in a discussion paper presented in March at a Brookings Institution conference in Washington.)

Before 1995, mothers spent an average of about 12 hours a week attending to the needs of their children. By 2007, that number had risen to 21.2 hours a week for college-educated women and 15.9 hours for those with less education.

Although mothers still do most of the parenting, fathers also registered striking gains: to 9.6 hours a week for college-educated men, more than double the pre-1995 rate of 4.5 hours; and to 6.8 hours for other men, up from 3.7, according to an additional analysis by Betsey Stevenson and Dan

The Educated Reporter: No comment.

The Educated Reporter: No comment.

No comment.

by Linda Perlstein

While I was away, I was glad to see I am not the only one who thinks newspaper online comments are a mess.Leonard Pitts Jr. of the Miami Herald and Connie Schultz of the Cleveland Plain-Dealer last week called for a ban on anonymous comments—though the atmosphere on comments threads is so toxic I am not sure requiring names will truly improve it.

In theory, reader comments further the conversation, bring up different enlightened points of view, and so on. In reality, they are predictable and off-topic at best and racist and vile at worst. The Washington Post ombudsman, Andrew Alexander, wrote recently, “For every noxious comment, many more are astute and stimulating.” I would say the math goes the other way around. Eighty percent of the comments on any story involving struggling

voiceofsandiego.org | News. Investigation. Analysis. Conversation. Intelligence.

voiceofsandiego.org | News. Investigation. Analysis. Conversation. Intelligence.

Bright and Early: The Education Newsblitz

Local school news is thin today, but you can read up on what's happening in schools across California and the rest of the country in your newsblitz:

• Federal judges who evaluated California's bid for Race to the Top, a competition for more stimulus money for schools, said it had a bad relationship with its teachers unionsand weak data systems for tracking student performance, the Sacramento Bee writes. California may not even apply for the second round of the competition.
• Educated Guess blogs about a think tank's report on how Race to the Top scoring should be changed.
• Neighborhood activists in Los Angeles who are blocking the construction of a new schoolhave cost the Los Angeles Unified School District $20 million, the Los Angeles Times reports.
• The superintendent of Santa Clara County schools gets mixed marks, the Mercury News writes. The county schools leader has become a flashpoint for controversy in the county around San Jose.

This Week In Education Thompson: Nashville Cuts Despite $500M Tenn. Win

This Week In Education

Thompson: Nashville Cuts Despite $500M Tenn. Win

by john thompson

Yet another sign that RttT isn't any instant solution for state and district budget woes: NPR reports that one of the "least controversial" ways to make up an education deficit is to cut $5 million from the wages and benefits of 600 Nashville school custodians. The district will also reduce the pay of bus drivers by 1/8th. This

Education Research Report: Middle School Mathematics Professional Development Useless?

Education Research Report: Middle School Mathematics Professional Development Useless?

Middle School Mathematics Professional Development Useless?

Ω
Results after one year of providing teachers math professional development (PD) indicate no improvement on their students' math achievement when compared to teachers who did not receive the study-provided PD. The Middle School Mathematics Professional Development Impact Study: Findings After the First Year of Implementation included 77 schools in 12 districts in 2007-2008. The PD, although purposely designed to be relevant to the curricula that teachers were using in their classrooms, focused primarily on developing teachers' capability to teach positive rational number topics effectively. America's Choice and Pearson Achievement Solutions were the two professional development providers, each operating in half the districts. Teachers who taught the core 7th grade mathematics class in the study schools were assigned by lottery to either receive the professional development or not. Teachers in all of the study schools continued to be eligible for district-provided PD.

Other key findings include:

* Professional development for the teachers produced no statistically significant impact on their students' achievement in the areas covered by the training --ratio, proportion, fractions, percentages, decimals.