Education | New Seattle school to close for rest of school year | Seattle Times Newspaper

Education | New Seattle school to close for rest of school year | Seattle Times Newspaper

New Seattle school to close for rest of school year

South Shore School, which just moved into a brand-new building in September, will be closed for the remainder of the school year as the Seattle School District tries to identify what is causing some students and teachers to become ill.

By Linda Shaw

Seattle Times education reporter

JOHN LOK / THE SEATTLE TIMES

The brand new South Shore K-8 school in Seattle's Rainier Beach neighborhood.

Related

• Dozens absent, even after school's wing was closed
• Wing of new Seattle school is closed over strong odor; kids show symptoms

South Shore School, which just moved into a brand-new building in September, will be closed for the remainder of the school year as the Seattle School District tries to identify what is causing some students and teachers to experience symptoms such as itchy eyes, nausea, rashes and headaches.

There will be no school for South Shore students for at least a week while the district figures out where to move them, according to district spokeswoman Patti Spencer. Students and teachers will finish out the year in one or more alternative locations, which have yet to be determined.

The problems, which first emerged in January, quieted for a while then erupted again this past week after the southeast Seattle school's heating and ventilation system was reportedly turned off over the weekend.

To address the air-quality concerns, the district had been running the system around the clock for months,

The Education Report OUSD administration: no more bargaining

The Education Report

OUSD administration: no more bargaining

By Katy Murphy
Friday, April 16th, 2010 at 6:41 pm in union contract
No Comments

Union leaders were in for a surprise this afternoon when they were told that it wouldn’t be necessary to schedule talks for next week.

OUSD Spokesman said the administration felt the fact-finding report wasn’t a good starting point. “The fact-finding report acknowledged that we have an inability to pay, then asks for a significant financial contribution without indicating a revenue source, which is irresponsible and doesn’t provide the means to bridge the gap between the two parties,” he said.

He said the recommendations would cost about $5 million.

Read the rest of this entry »

Music center in Southeast Portland celebrates being in tune with the community | OregonLive.com

Music center in Southeast Portland celebrates being in tune with the community | OregonLive.com

Music center in Southeast Portland celebrates being in tune with the community

Community Music Center

Becky Anderson  has played violin at the Kennedy Center in Washington, D.C. She's performed with the Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center. She – and her violin –will be featured in an upcoming HBO series on the performing arts. 

Anderson, 19,  grew up in Southwest Portland, graduated from Lincoln High School and attends the Curtis Institute of Music, a prestigious conservatory in Philadelphia. 

But her story as a promising young violinist starts here: a 1912 firehouse tucked into a residential neighborhood of Southeast Portland, where Anderson took her first music class at age 3 and where she continued to perform through high school. This is the Community Music Center, a little gem of a place that draws budding young – and older –musicians from across Portland for lessons, performances and exposure to everything from baroque to bluegrass. 

View full sizeNoelle Crombie/The OregonianA young man heads into the Community Music Center in Southeast Portland. The center celebrates its anniversary on Sunday.Think of it, as director Gregory Dubay  says, as Portland's music room. 

But this is no ordinary music school. Funded with a mix of public and private dollars, the center is aPortland Parks & Recreationfacility, making it one of a handful of 

Why I Worry | LFA: Join The Conversation - Public School Insights

Why I Worry | LFA: Join The Conversation - Public School Insights

Why I Worry

By Claus von Zastrow on April 15, 2010

The reigning rhetoric of school reform has me worried. This is the thrust of what I'm reading in so many blogs and op-eds these days:

1. The bolder, the better.
2. There's no time to wait for more evidence before we act.
3. There's little time for planning.
4. Those who question our reforms defend the status quo.
5. Collaboration with those who must carry out reforms will just slow things down and jeopardize the "boldness" of reform. (See no. 1).
6. Anything new would be better than what we have now.

I don't mean to say that every one of those points is terrible. But in combination, they could be lethal. Bolder can truly be better, but not when the evidence base is so thin. We can't wait for evidence before trying new reforms, but shouldn't a shortage of evidence prevent us from gambling so much on so few strategies? Shouldn't that put us in a more deliberative mood?

Kudos to Community College | Lefty Parent

Kudos to Community College | Lefty Parent

Kudos to Community College

by Cooper Zale

West LA Community College in Culver City, CA

In 1983 at the age of 25, working for essentially minimum wage as a community organizer, five years after graduating “cum laude” (with distinction) from the University of Michigan with a BA in Speech, I decided to take a mulligan of sorts and go to college again. Unlike the minimal planning I had done the first time, I had put much thought this time based on years of real-life experience into what I would study. I had met my life-partner Sally, and we were planning to be married in December, with the likelihood that we would raise a family down the road. My path forward took me to the humble community college, which I have grown to see as perhaps America’s most valuable educational institution.

My goal for college this time was to get through as quickly as possible and come out the other end with a degree in a practical profession (computer science in my case) where there were plenty of relatively interesting, relatively high-paying jobs. Sally and I were both paid organizers for the Los Angeles chapter of the National Organization for Women, but we knew there was no way we could raise a family working some 70 hours a week

TFA vs. UNC teachers � Joanne Jacobs

TFA vs. UNC teachers � Joanne Jacobs

TFA vs. UNC teachers

Published on April 16, 2010 in Education. 6 CommentsTags: education school, teach for america, teacher training, teachers, university of north carolina.By Joanne

Teach for America teachers with six weeks of training outperformed teachers with two years of University of North Carolina education classes, writes Jay Schalin in Ed Schools, Leave Those Teachers Alone! in the Pope Center’s Clarion Call.

UNC studied The Impact of Teacher Preparation on Student Learning in North Carolina Public Schools (pdf) to figure out “what kind of teachers get the most out of their pupils,” as Professor Gary Henry, the lead researcher, put it.

. . . middle school math students with Teach for America teachers tested as if they had an additional 90 days of instruction — when the entire school year is only 180 days of instruction.

The study looked at how much students improved in a year controlled for students’ prior achievement levels, family incomes, teachers’ pre-college preparation, and so on.

. . . in five of nine measureable categories—overall high school, high school math, high school English, high school science, and middle school math, students with Teach for America teachers significantly outperformed students with UNC-trained teachers. In high school social studies, middle school science, elementary school reading and elementary math, their performance was roughly equal to their UNC-trained peers.

TFA teachers do best teaching specific subjects in secondary schools. Schalin suggests

GothamSchools - Breaking News and Analysis of the NYC Public Schools

GothamSchools - Breaking News and Analysis of the NYC Public Schools

Remainders: Fight over surprise D.C. schools surplus deepens

by Maura Walz

• Chancellor Klein discussed the end of the rubber rooms on Good Day NY.
• And the makers of a documentary about the rubber rooms were on Morning Joe.
• D.C.’s CFO and Michelle Rhee are sparring over whether the school system’s surplus exists.
• Randi Weingarten said she’s “really disgusted” by the D.C. situation, and the union is going back to court.
• Letters were sent out to families eligible for gifted and talented programs today.
• Glenn Beck has a suggestion for how to direct education budget cuts: close USDOE.
• Schools whose teachers rated their principals badly tended to also have low report card grades.
• A union member praises his Florida peers and calls on the UFT to be “more radical [and] focused.”
• A teacher posts a list of her favorite books to read aloud to students.

Larry Ferlazzo's Websites of the Day...Iceland Volcano Update

Larry Ferlazzo's Websites of the Day...

Iceland Volcano Update Here are the newest additions to The Best Sites For Learning About The Volcano In Iceland: Volcano erupts in Iceland is a slideshow from the BBC. CBS News also has an impressive interactive called Volcano! Reuters has a video of the volcano ...

More On My Neighborhoods Lesson I’ve posted several times about my two-week series of lessons with students comparing neighborhoods (see A Lesson Highlighting Community Assets — Not Deficits). GOOD Magazine just published an issue on the topic of “neighborhoods.” Though its not ...

Advice On Giving Advice Lifehacker today had a nice post about the art of giving advice. It quoted a Psychology Today article titled “What Is The Best Way To Give Advice?” and has this quote from the article, which says that it’s best to give information and not necessarily ...

Chancellor orders troubled Brooklyn charter school to close | GothamSchools

Chancellor orders troubled Brooklyn charter school to close | GothamSchools

Chancellor orders troubled Brooklyn charter school to close

by Anna Phillips

Chancellor Joel Klein signed an order today to close a Brooklyn charter school that city school officials said had some of the most egregious charter violations they’d ever seen.

In June, East New York Preparatory Charter School will become the fourth charter school to close in the city’s history. In his recommendation to Klein that the school close, Deputy Chancellor John White wrote that although the charter school’s new board members acknowledged prior wrongdoing, many problems remained.

“ENYP has not presented any evidence responding to the findings that lower performing students were being involuntarily transferred from the school or discouraged from attending the school,” White wrote.

Klein’s decision marks an end to a contentious closure process that pitted parents who wanted the school to remain open against city officials charged with making sure the school followed its charter.

That conflict erupted at a public meeting in February, where parents pleaded with the department to keep the school open, saying the neighborhood offered few other viable options and the wait-lists for other charter schools were impossibly long.

Students currently enrolled in East New York Prep will have to transfer to other district or charter schools next year. To ease their transition, the department is offering a new option: a one-year program run out of P.S. 323 that East New York Prep students in grades two through five can opt into. According to DOE charter school

With ‘turnarounds’ coming, new school creation proceeds apace

by Philissa Cramer

Principal hopefuls line up outside Wagner Middle School to enter the city's new school creation fair.

Bronx assistant principal Michelle Vargas wants to open a school where teachers will have ample time to work together and students will benefit from her years of experience in the classroom.
But before she can get started, Vargas must persevere through the city’s new school creation process. She took the first step Thursday night by joining more than 400 other school leader hopefuls at a fair to learn about what the city wants to see in new schools.
Every year, the Department of Education opens new schools — more than 400 since 2002. Director of Portfolio Planning Debra Kurshan told fair attendees that the city intends to keep up the pace in 2011.

Letter to School Board about Talent Transfer Initiative | Reflections on Teaching

Reflections on Teaching

Letter to School Board about Talent Transfer Initiative | Reflections on Teaching

Letter to School Board about Talent Transfer Initiative

by alicemercer

I arrived at my school Monday to a site abuzz. Coworkers had heard from teachers at other school sites in the district sharing that on Friday, they had received an email that was going out to “a select group of teachers” in our district, offering them the chance to work in high needs schools. Recipients were directed to a site for theTalent Transfer Initiative, a project from the Department of Education ARRA (stimulus) funding. More information about the background of the program can be found on the site for Mathematica, who will be evaluating this project. Although “priority schools” are not mentioned in the email, it’s pretty clear that in the district, my school in particular (being identified by the state as bottom performing) and the other five priority schools are the “target” school or schools for the program.
Only the district administration knows who these emails went out to, but based on conversations about this, some of the teachers are currently teaching at Title One schools. I hope this means that the district is not just looking at “high scoring” teachers, but for teachers who have been successful in schools with similar

Red faces at the Oregon Education Association: Why can't teacher advocates spell education? | OregonLive.com

Red faces at the Oregon Education Association: Why can't teacher advocates spell education? | OregonLive.com

Red faces at the Oregon Education Association: Why can't teacher advocates spell education?

By Betsy Hammond, The Oregonian

April 16, 2010, 3:05PM

Each month, Consumer Reports magazine collects some of the most embarrassing and hilarious misspellings, typos and misuses of English from around the country, such as the roofing company that brags it "specializes in rip-offs."

This month, our own teachers union, the Oregon Education Association, topped the consumer magazine's list of "goofs, glitches and gotchas."

It seems that, on one of its checking accounts and in two different ways, employees at the Oregon teachers group misspelled "education." You have to see it for yourself.

Which is funnier? The top of the check, where the group's name is listed in bold as the "Oregon Educaiton Association," or the bottom of the check, near the signature line, where the group is misspelled "Oregon Educaton Association?"

Or maybe none of it is funny. Are Oregon's teachers raising a generation that can't spell, at least without spell check?

Becca Uherbelau, spokeswoman for the OEA (and a woman who's endured her share of misspellings, what with her Palauan last name), says Oregon teachers and their association representatives do know how to spell; they're just subject to an occasional slip-up like the rest of us.

She says this particular mistake was made by the union's accounting

My Book On Teaching Engish Language Learners Is Now Available | Larry Ferlazzo's Websites of the Day...

My Book On Teaching Engish Language Learners Is Now Available | Larry Ferlazzo's Websites of the Day...

My Book On Teaching Engish Language Learners Is Now Available

Filed under teacher resources

My book, English Language Learners: Teaching Strategies That Work, is now available.

You can purchase it directly from the publisher, Linworth Publishing, or you can also buy it at Amazon.

You can learn more about the book, including reading excerpts and reviews, here.

Feedback on the book, including critique, is welcome…

San Francisco children deserve a first-class education - Put Our Children First

Home - Put Our Children First

San Francisco children deserve a first-class education that holds the promise of a bright future.

Unwise and unnecessary budget cuts threaten that promise.

Here in San Francisco, the superintendent and school board have already announced plans to lay off 811 teachers—nearly one out of every five—and 277 teacher aides at the end of this year. If this plan goes through, it will mean a dramatic increase in class sizes in every public school, and a dramatic decrease in staff available to help special needs students and those who would benefit from extra attention and assistance.

There are alternatives to these drastic budget cuts.

The superintendent and school board must make students their top priority when it comes to deciding how school funds are spent. That’s not the case today. The district currently spends nearly one-tenth of its budget on consultants and is sitting on millions of dollars of surplus funds. This is money that should be spent in the classroom helping students succeed. 

We also need lawmakers in Sacramento who are willing to make education the priority it once was in our state. In the past two years, $21 billion in education funding has been cut from the state’s budget. These cuts have been felt in San Francisco, and in every other city and town in California. We need to invest in our children, instead of repeatedly selling out their futures for a short-term budget fix.

Your voice can make a difference.

Click the links below to send a message to the school board and state Legislature supporting the United Educators of San Francisco’s call to Put Our Children First.

 

Click here to sign the petition

 

Click here to write your representative

 

Click here to write a letter to the editor