Monday, April 19, 2010

Philadelphia Public School Notebook

Notes from the news, Apr. 19

Submitted by Erika Owens on Mon, 04/19/2010 - 09:35 Posted in Notes from the news | Permalink

Can Philadelphia learn from Lafayette High?The Inquirer
Lafayette High in New York City experienced a shift in racial demographics similar to South Philly High, and found that a focus on social and emotional learning helped improve things.

Not Just a Philly Thing: Addressing Inequities in School Funding Across Pennsylvania Philly Education Justice blog
PSU has gathered stories about how last year's state funding increase, a first step in addressing the costing out study gap, has helped students and teachers.

Editorial: It takes parents The Inquirer
A positive spin on the influence involved parents can have on a school.

My TEDxNYED Talk - Creating School 2.0 Practical Theory blog
You can watch Chris Lehmann's speech, which was filmed by SLA students.

Protests revived over school land The Inquirer

Computadoras gratis en Clemente Al Día

Students Stand with Temple Nurses on the Picket Line PSU Blog

Please email us if we missed anything today or if you have any suggestions of publications, email lists, or other places for us to check for news.

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Notes from the news

District's Imagine 2014 plan includes focus on dropout prevention

by Ruth Rouff Posted in April 2010 Edition | Permalink

In North Philadelphia, over-age middle graders now have the opportunity to get back on track academically in a new District school called the Crossroads Accelerated Academy.

Across the city this summer, 8th graders will be enrolled in a comprehensive transitional program designed to better prepare them for high school success.

Schools Matter: "Sexy and Noble:" New York Set to Clear the Way for the New MATT (Master of Arts in Temporary Teaching)

"Sexy and Noble:" New York Set to Clear the Way for the New MATT (Master of Arts in Temporary Teaching)

by Jim Horn

In a prime example of Orwellian logic, Arne Duncan's corporate bosses have declared that the best way to getting test results in the poor schools that need the most highly qualified teachers is to lower the standards for teacher education by offering more "alternative certification" programs. By supporting corporate indoctrination programs that are backed by Goldman Sachs and Microsoft like Teach for America, which dumps selectively recruited white female missionaries who have had 6 weeks of teacher training into some of America's poorest schools, corporate education reformers now envision the total containment and segregation of America's poor children within the crumbling urban cores of America.

The fact that the research shows that TFA's Ivy League temps are less effective or equally ineffective in churning out higher test scores than the weakest teachers in America matters not to ideologues like David Steiner,

PhillyBurbs.com: �Teacher strike hits North Penn

Teacher strike hits North Penn

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By: Marty Reddington

phillyBurbs.com

After hours of negotiations Sunday, the two sides failed to reach an agreement.

North Penn School District teachers will strike this morning after eight hours of talks between their union and school board members Sunday failed to resolve their contract dispute.

District and teacher negotiators met from 1 to just before 9 p.m. at the district Educational Services Center in Lansdale, where the union rebuffed several requests to withdraw its strike notice and both sides presented and shot down each other’s new proposals.

Teachers’ most recent contract expired in September.

Their union leaders issued a strike notice after Thursday’s school board meeting, where directors unanimously rejected recommendations for a new labor agreement from a three-member arbitration panel that included advocates for both sides. The more than 1,000 members of the association voted earlier that day to accept the report; they would have had their contract had the school board done the same.

Board member said property taxes would increase by about 25 percent over the course of the five-year

City Brights: Dr. Jim Taylor : Stop Blaming the Teachers!

Dr. Jim Taylor

Ph.D., Psychology, author, speaker

| Read Bio | Website

Stop Blaming the Teachers!

When did teachers become the betes noir of public education? Why are they getting all the blame for America's public education failings? Everywhere you look, people are piling on teachers as if they are at the root of all that is bad in our public education system. Even President Obama has gotten in the act, supporting the mass firing of teachers at a Rhode Island school that has been deemed "failing."
I always thought teachers were the good guys (and girls). They were those incredibly committed, hugely overworked, and vastly underpaid people who chose a career that may be the most fundamentally vital to America's economy and future, namely, the education of our next generation of citizens. They have the second most important job in the world, after parenting, and are only paid slightly more and, sadly, respected even less. My gosh, teachers who teach in poorly performing schools should get Congressional commendations just for showing up every day and trying to teach kids who are so unprepared to learn.
Yet, from all you read these days, teachers seem to be wholly responsible for our students' poor test scores, lagging international education standing, and the achievement gap between the have and have'nots. You'd think that teachers are these slothlike creatures who are setting themselves up for some cushy job in which they can just kick back, live the easy life, pick up a fat paycheck,

Teacher pay veto overshadows other Florida education bills - Legislature - MiamiHerald.com

Teacher pay veto overshadows other Florida education bills

While one of the most controversial education bills in memory went down with a veto, a number of other proposed changes could have a lasting impact on Florida schools.

BY HANNAH SAMPSON

HSAMPSON@MIAMIHERALD.COM

Educators, parents and students cheered and then took a collective sigh of relief when Gov. Charlie Crist vetoed a bill that would have upended the current system of paying and firing teachers.

While that proposed law dominated daily news coverage, a handful of others that could change the state's education landscape significantly moved forward without nearly the same level of public attention.

And those are almost certain to become law -- or, in one case, go to the voters to change existing law.

They are:

• Adding more rigorous math and science classes to graduation requirements and replacing high school FCATs in those subjects with end-of-course exams in algebra, geometry and biology.

• Asking voters in November if they approve of changing the 2002 class size amendment, which meets its final deadline for implementation this year. Instead of requiring each classroom to meet the mandates, the change would allow school-wide averages to be used.

• Expanding the state's voucher program for low-income kids so private schools could eventually collect

Californians Know Better

by kaldveer

By Annie Notthoff
Natural Resources Defense Council
A bunch of the dirtiest oil refiners from Texas are trying to derail landmark California legislation that will cut greenhouse gas pollution and jumpstart the state’s emerging green economy.
The cabal, led by Texas-based Valero Energy Corp., Tesoro Corp., Tower Energy Group and World Oil Corp, is spending millions of dollars to pay professional signature gatherers to circulate petitions to qualify the “California Jobs Initiative” for the November ballot. They’ve already upped the payment to $2 per name – more than 4 times the going rate. That just shows how unpopular their dirty energy proposition is and how determined the polluters are to pay whatever it costs to get it on the ballot.
read more

At the Tea Party: Minutemen and Birchers, yes; Birthers no

by kaldveer

By Peter Schrag
The organizers of last Thursday’s Tea Party event in Pleasanton, one of scores of similar affairs held in connection with this year’s income tax deadline, pointedly dis-invited Orly Taitz, the mother of all birthers. They seem to be working hard to show, and telling anyone who asks, that they’re just traditional American activists, not kooks.
And from the looks of the star-spangled 10,000 or so who showed up Thursday at the Alameda Fairgrounds, the scariest things about them, notwithstanding some of their bizarre 18th century costumes, is their ordinariness. Nice everyday folks. As the national surveys have shown elsewhere – they’re overwhelmingly white, older than average, better educated, as measured in college degrees, and better off. Sixty-three percent, told a New York Times survey that their prime source of news is Fox, nearly triple the national number.
read more

President Directs HHS to Enforce Basic Protections in Hospital Stays for LGBT Families

by christine

By Dan Aiello
California Progress Report
By signing friday a memorandum directing Health and Human Services to ensure the advanced medical directives of a patient are respected and followed, President Obama demonstrated his support for the visitation and healthcare decision-making rights of gay and lesbian Americans who sought the administration's intervention following one Florida couple's tragic experience last year that galvanized the community behind the issue.
Partners Lisa Pond and Janice Langbehn, despite having an advanced healthcare directive in place, found Pond's wishes ignored by the staff of Jackson Memorial Hospital in Miami following Pond's last admission. Langebahn, along with the couple’s children, were refused admission to Pond's room and kept from her bedside as she lay dying.
read more

The Educated Guess Bill would end layoffs by seniority

The Educated Guess

Bill would end layoffs by seniority

Posted in Equity issues, Teacher Development, Tenure

Proposals that Gov. Schwarzenegger made during his budget speech in January to weaken teacher tenure and seniority rights have finally taken bill form.
Republican Sen. Bob Huff introduced SB 955 on the governor’s behalf last week. Its chief provisions would be to give local school boards, instead of the Commission on Professional Competence, final say over firing teachers, and to enable districts to lay off teachers based on a district’s subject needs and teacher effectiveness, instead of by seniority.
(Read more and comment on this post)

By John Fensterwald on April 19th, 2010

Merit-pay bill deserved Crist’s veto

Posted in Race to the Top, Teacher Development, Tenure, Uncategorized, pay

Following up on the veto by Florida Gov. Charlie Crist of a merit-pay plan: The Educated Guess doesn’t know much about the politics of Florida’s U.S. Senate race, in which Crist, a Republican, is apparently trailing. Some, like the editorial page of the Wall Street Journal, speculate that Crist vetoed the merit-pay bill that Republicans jammed through the legislature, because he plans to run as an Independent and wants to cater to teachers.

I know only that Crist showed good judgment.
(Read more and comment on this post)

By John Fensterwald on April 18th, 2010

Push for new kindergarten cutoff

Posted in kindergarten

A Senate bill to move up the cutoff date for enrolling in kindergarten and to fund preschool with half of the savings has sailed through its first committee. But similar attempts have faltered, even though child advocates and developmental psychologists universally agree that it’s an educationally sound and fiscally smart idea.
California is one of only four states that allow some 4-year-olds to attend kindergarten. The cutoff date for turning five in California is Dec. 2.
Sen. Joe Simitian’s SB 1381 would gradually shift the date so that starting in 2014, a child would have to be 5 years old by Sept. 1 to be admitted to kindergarten. Doing so would reduce enrollment by an estimated 100,000 children over the phase-in period and reduce the state’s kindergarten costs by $700 million. (That savings from that initially small class of kindergartners would follow as they went on through high school.)
(Read more and comment on this post)

By John Fensterwald on April 16th, 2010

No renewals for Stanford charter school

Posted in Charters, Turning around failing schools

Stanford New Schools, a K-12 charter school in East Palo Alto, comes with a good pedigree. It’s operated by Stanford’s School of Education.
But last month, as this blog noted, the state named it one of the state’s 188 persistently lowest performing schools, designated for restructuring. Then on Wednesday night, as Palo Alto Online reported, the Ravenswood School Boardvoted not to renew the school’s charter. Unless the trustees relent, the school will shut down in June.
(Read more and comment on this post)

By John Fensterwald on April 15th, 2010

Mike Klonsky's SmallTalk Blog: Weekend Quotables

Weekend Quotables

by Mike Klonsky

D.C. Rhee's disappearing $34 million surplus

Weingarten, leader of the 1 million-member national union, said "three-card monte may be an acceptable game in some places, but it shouldn't be an acceptable principle to guide DCPS."The Chancellor talks a lot about performance. What we're seeing here is a lack of performance."(WaPo)

Pay-for-grades study

“Providing incentives for achievement-test scores has no effect on any form of achievement we can measure.” (Harvard University economist Roland G. Fryer)

Harvard Ed School or Yogi Berra?

“When you are paid to do something you may not know exactly how to accomplish, it’s not clear

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

D.C.-area schools still in running for Race to Top

D.C.'s package is strongest, but Md has made its better for Round 2.

MORE ON EDUCATION

President Obama (Marvin Joseph-TWP).

VALERIE STRAUSS

The Answer Sheet

A School Survival Guide for Parents (And Everyone Else)

Posted at 6:30 AM ET, 04/19/2010

New analysis of violence on campus

Colleges and universities should strategically review their threat assessment capacities because some of the conventional beliefs about these attacks are not accurate, a new report issued by the federal government says. For example, while much attention is given to the “traveling” attacker, such as the student who killed 32 students in a shooting spree at Virginia Tech in 2007, only 3 percent of the attackers acctually move from building to building.

Continue reading this post »

Posted by Valerie Strauss | Permalink | Comments (0)

JAY MATHEWS

Class Struggle

What's Right and Wrong With Our Schools

Posted at 10:00 PM ET, 04/18/2010

Principal tells ninth graders to study, or leave

I was surprised when Charlie Thomas, principal of Crossland High School in Prince George’s County, began sending me emails. His school has been one of the worst in a low-performing district for a long time. But Thomas, who arrived in 2004, was trying to improve his school and was willing even to deal with a fault-finding columnist if it would help. Nearly 66 percent of his students were low-income, but he was not going to let that slow him down. I confess he has gotten my attention with some unusual moves.

Continue reading this post »

Posted by Jay Mathews | Permalink | Comments (2)

Ed Buzz: The Nation

Illinois school fighting cyber-bullying(Chicago Tribune)
Boston teachers asked to work more hours for same pay (Boston Globe)
Advocates weigh Obama's commitment to early ed. (Education Week)
N.Y. bill would allow layoffs of teachers with seniority (New York Times)
Bilingual ed., immersion work equally well (Education Week)
Schools tackle teacher-on-teacher bullying (USA Today)
English-language learners making gains (Education Week)
Researchers argue over Head Start study (Education Week)

Ed Buzz: The Region

MoCo school investigates cyber-bully threats (WUSA)
P.W. dad wins FOIA fight with school board (Potomac News)
Kids at Md. school get tainted milk (Fox 5)
McDonnell signs college lab school legislation (Richmond Times Dispatch)
Schools reduce police presence (The Examiner)
Montgomery College, schools brace for cuts (The Gazette)
P.G. County PTA reinstated (The Gazette)
Md. GOP: Don't raise dropout age (The Gazette)
Birth-control center finds home at T.C. Williams (Alexandria Gazette Packet)
Fairfax teacher quits over embezzlement charges (Examiner)
MoCo teachers say they are overwhelmed (Gazette)
Alex. considers new school boundaries(Examiner)
PG parents fear impact of school cuts(WJLA)
Md. lawmakers favor ed cuts (Baltimore Sun)

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