Tuesday, April 20, 2010

Local News | Gates Foundation boosts aid to community colleges | Seattle Times Newspaper

Gates Foundation boosts aid to community colleges

Melinda French Gates encouraged community-college leaders Tuesday to increase the number of students who complete degrees and certificates, and pledged another $57 million to help them strengthen their remedial courses, saying that's the single most important way to raise their graduation rates.

By Linda Shaw

Seattle Times education reporter

"The line between the haves and the have-nots runs right through your institutions," Melinda French Gates said Tuesday.

ERIKA SCHULTZ / THE SEATTLE TIMES

"The line between the haves and the have-nots runs right through your institutions," Melinda French Gates said Tuesday.

For years, the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation in Seattle has pushed high schools to work harder to graduate more students.

Now it is prodding community colleges, which educate about half of the nation's college students, to pay more attention to their graduation rates, too.

Melinda French Gates, speaking Tuesday at the American Association of Community Colleges conference in Seattle, said the foundation estimates that only 25 percent of students who enter community college leave with a diploma or certificate.

While acknowledging that number is controversial because many community-college students don't intend to earn a degree, she said there's agreement that the number needs to rise.

And at the conference Tuesday, six national organizations representing nearly 1,200 community colleges signed a commitment to increase student-completion rates to 50 percent over the next decade.

"Community colleges led the way with college access," Gates said. "I really think now is the time to have the conversation about college completion."

Gates said she and her husband, Bill Gates, are often moved by the sacrifices many community-college

Strengthening Title IX – ED.gov Blog

Today, Vice President Biden announced that the Administration has issued a Dear Colleague letter that withdraws a 2005 interpretation of Title IX policy.
Enacted in 1972, Title IX mandates that any educational institution receiving federal funding for programs and activities cannot discriminate on the basis of sex. The 2005 policy issued compliance standards that were widely criticized for being inadequate and inconsistent with Title IX’s nondiscrimination goals. Today’s announcement reverses this interpretation and returns to a more thorough test for assessing compliance with Title IX.
See the press release and the Dear Colleague letter.

Lazear Elementary teacher placed on administrative leave - Inside Bay Area

Lazear Elementary teacher placed on administrative leave

By Katy Murphy
Oakland Tribune

Posted: 04/20/2010 06:02:47 PM PDT

Updated: 04/20/2010 06:02:47 PM PDT

OAKLAND — A third-grade teacher at Lazear Elementary School has been placed on paid administrative leave while the Oakland school district investigates a complaint that he grabbed a student by the collar earlier this month, leaving marks on his neck.

Last Thursday, parents boycotted the East Oakland school, calling for the teacher's removal. They said they had made numerous complaints of unprofessional conduct, beginning in fall of 2008, but that he remained at the school. That day, a parent filed a grievance alleging physical abuse. The teacher was placed on leave Monday afternoon.

"We received new allegations," said Oakland school district spokesman Troy Flint. "Because they concerned safety-related issues, it allowed us to place him on administrative leave immediately."

The teacher is a 20-year veteran of the Oakland school district, and parents said he was reassigned to Lazear in fall

KYW Newsradio 1060 Philadelphia - No End In Sight To Teachers' Strike In North Penn School District

Posted: Tuesday, 20 April 2010 9:07PM

No End in Sight to Teachers' Strike in North Penn School District

by KYW's Peter Jaroff

Negotiators for striking teachers and the North Penn School District met on Tuesday night -- but have not yet reached a settlement of their contract dispute.

Teachers walked out on Monday, canceling classes for 13,000 North Penn students (see previous story).

The school district is calling the latest union proposal "negative" and

Capo Board of Trustee Agrees To Resume Negotiations With Teachers Union

Capo Board Agrees To Negotiate

by MISSIONVIEJODISPATCH.COM on APRIL 20, 2010

Today the attorney for the Capo Board of Trustees wrote to the Union’s executive director, Christine Balentine, agreeing to return to negotiations. Following is the text of the letter:

Dear Ms. Balentine:
This letter is sent in response to your letter dated April 19, 2010.
Pre-conditioning a return to the bargaining table upon the acceptance of a negotiation proposal backed up by a threat of a strike constitutes, among other things, an unfair labor practice.
In any event, as previously indicated, the District is willing and prepared to return to the bargaining table to commence negotiations regarding various items, including but not limited to, “restoration language” regarding the recently

Ohio Education Association to Pay $3.75 Million in Damages to Retired Staffers | Intercepts

Ohio Education Association to Pay $3.75 Million in Damages to Retired Staffers

by Mike Antonucci

Click here to read:
1) Ohio Education Association to Pay $3.75 Million in Damages to Retired Staffers
2) The Burden of Proof
3) Recommended Reading: The Beholden State
4) Last Week’s Intercepts
5) Quote of the Week

Oakland Education Association � STRIKE POSTPONED! BREAKING NEWS -- DISTRICT REFUSES TO BARGAIN!

STRIKE POSTPONED! BREAKING NEWS — DISTRICT REFUSES TO BARGAIN!

On Friday, April 16, days after OEA sent a letter requesting to resume bargaining based on the newly-released fact-finding report, the District informed us that they do not intend to return to the table to bargain, and that they want us to accept their last, best, final offer! As you recall, that contained nothing — no compensation, the promise of increased class sizes, no minimum number of Adult Ed employees, etc. This is unacceptable!
As voted at Rep Council on Monday, April 12, the one-day strike set for April 22 was postponed until April 29 to insure that we are "strike legal," allow us time to study the fact-finding report (received April 14), and to go back to the bargaining table in an attempt to reach a fair settlement of our long-standing contract dispute. Remember: the fact-finding report is non-binding and advisory, and any favorable recommendations contained in the report would have to be bargained in order to be part of a tentative agreement. But it appears the District is unwilling to pursue a fair settlement, giving us no choice but to strike.
Download the following reports/letters/flyers and get them to your colleagues:
Fact-finding report
Letter to be distributed to parents and community members about why we are striking April 29th. It will be available in multiple languages next week.
Informational flyer about a special informational meeting for all OEA members on Thursday, April 22 at 4:00pm at Oakland High School, 1023 MacArthur Blvd. to discuss the fact-finding report and prepare for April 29th.
Strike flyer to distribute to parents and the community highlighting our demands for a fair contract! Available in multiple languages at April 22 meeting.
ORGANIZE, ORGANIZE, ORGANIZE!!!

If you're reading this, you probably know that OUSD and its primary teacher union are in the midst of very difficult negotiations and that the threat of a strike is looming. A number of issues at the state, federal, municipal, and district levels have created a challenging environment for collective bargaining. As a result, OUSD has not been able to reach an agreement with the Oakland Education Association (OEA).

The purpose of this section is to encourage understanding of the financial pressures that shape contract negotiations. It's a multifaceted problem, but the essence is this:

We believe Oakland teachers deserve more money and we'd like to pay them more—in fact, we're already working on creative ways to make this happen. Yet, right now, we can't increase compensation without jeopardizing the District's financial stability.

In an era when Districts all across California are laying off teachers, increasing class sizes, implementing furloughs, slashing programs, cutting pay, and shortening the length of the school year, OUSD is keeping teacher pay level while covering the increased cost of benefits. A status quo contract like OUSD has offered its teachers union makes it one of the few large districts in California to not take money back from its teachers in one form or another.

This is not the way things should be, but it is the reality presented by California's economic crisis and cuts to education funding that are unprecedented in scope. Recognizing this, OUSD's other unions have all agreed, either in principle or in total, to status quo contracts that extend current salary levels while covering increased benefits costs. We hope that we can come to similar terms with OEA at this time, while working to secure greater compensation in the future.

It's true that OUSD teachers are underpaid compared to their peers in neighboring districts and this disparity must be addressed, but it also must be addressed in a responsible way. Fresh out of state control, we must live within our means if we wish to avoid a return to insolvency and state administration. We are stretching ourselves thin just to maintain current teacher salaries and there is simply no money in the budget to increase them. That's why we are looking at other ways to fund higher teacher salaries that don't sap our depleted general fund even further. Take a look at how other school districts throughout the state are handling the budget crisis by clicking here.

These web pages provide parents, community members, and employees with the latest information on negotiations with OEA. They also contain information for parents that should prove useful in the event of a strike, background on the District's financial status and perspective on California's economic woes. As developments warrant, we will update this page to keep pace with changing events.

For more information, please contact Troy Flint at troy.flint@ousd.k12.ca.us or (510) 473-5832.

Remainders: Reports from inside a classroom full of test prep | GothamSchools

Remainders: Reports from inside a classroom full of test prep

by Maura Walz

The USDOE is rescinding a 2005 rule on Title IX, but the change is largely symbolic.
More than 2,000 schools, districts and non-profits are planning to apply for federal innovation grants.
A pro-charter group continues its advertising blitz with an upstate radio ad campaign.
John Merrow fondly remembers a star principal who was slain in D.C. this week.
A teacher refuses to use the words “test prep” with his students, but says that’s all he’s doing anyway.
Corey Bunje Bower has mixed feelings on New York’s new teacher certification plans.
A forthcoming report on education schools in Texas is drawing controversy even before its release.
InsideSchools takes a look at the benefits of a “gap year” between high school and college.
An Education Sector blogger dives into the ruthlessly competitive world of bulletin board decorating.
And what can Joel Klein learn from the NFL draft? A blogger has a list of lessons.

Silverton speech students go solo to reach state finals | OregonLive.com

Silverton speech students go solo to reach state finals

By Wendy Owen, The Oregonian

April 20, 2010, 4:45PM

Jamie Francis / The OregonianSilverton High School speech students Jasmine Kim and Gavin Knox, both juniors, practice a duo called Calvin and Hobbes. Both students are headed to the state speech and debate championships. While Kim is competing in Lincoln-Douglas debate and Knox in humorous interpretation, the students qualified for a separate national competition with their duo performance.As teacher Matt Ogle sat with his daughter at Doernbecher Children's Hospital this fall, his Silverton High School speech and debate team did what they thought would help him most -- they practiced their speeches.

Team captains took charge and helped their new teammates, many of whom had never given a speech until this school year. Ogle had been in the midst of teaching them the basics when he had to rush his daughter to Portland.

"The only real help that we could have given was to maintain our work without him having to worry about us." said Gavin Knox, a junior.

With a substitute teacher monitoring, the students practiced and judged each other, giving pointers about voice inflection, tone, body positioning and, in some cases, fine-tuning the speech itself.

OSAA Speech Championships

What: Top high school speakers from district tournaments across Oregon will competeat the state level.

Who: There will be 489 students, representing 66 high schools. Slightly more than last year.

Where: Western Oregon University in Monmouth

When: Starts Thursday with debate at 8:30 a.m.. Individual speeches begin Friday at 8 a.m. with semi-finals and finals for all events on Saturday starting at 8 a.m.

What's next: The winners in each school division are the state champions.

Source: Oregon School Activities Association

The team has won the state 5A division two years in a row, but the students don't expect a third championship this year. It's a rebuilding year, they said.

Still, 15 students qualified for the state tournament, which begins Thursday atWestern Oregon University in Monmouth.

The Silverton team will compete in multiple categories: Lincoln-Douglas debate, public forum debate, humorous interpretation, after dinner speaking, expository, radio commentary, dramatic interpretation, prose reading and student congress.

The school year got off to a rough start for Ogle. He learned in August that he would have a single speech and debate class rather than two, forcing him to cut more than a dozen of the 50 kids who signed up for the class.

Then, in November, his 5-year-old daughter caught the H1N1 virus. It started with a cough and fever and turned into pneumonia and a collapsed lung.

"It was frightening," Ogle said. Even the doctors didn't know if Laura would be OK. The girl's lung wasn't re-expanding as expected.

For 18 days, Ogle and his wife, Ginger, sat with their daughter, a tube in her chest, in an isolation unit at Doernbecher.

"When I was up there with my daughter, I just trusted that things were OK (at school)," Ogle said.

When he called, the substitute told him, "The kids are practicing. The (student) coaches are herding them and making sure they're doing what they need

Student Activism Duke Student Govt Rejects Bias Claim by Ousted College Republican President

Student Activism

Duke Student Govt Rejects Bias Claim by Ousted College Republican President

by Angus Johnston

The recently-dismissed president of the Duke chapter of the College Republicans made national news yesterday when he claimed that his ouster was the result of fellow Duke Republicans learning that he is gay.
Justin Robinette was impeached last Wednesday, just three weeks after he was re-elected as the group’s president, and just days after several members of the group learned of his sexual orientation. He says that members of the group called him “disgusting” and a “faggot,” and that their anti-gay bias led to his dismissal.
Last night the Duke student government’s judiciary took up the case, and this morning, after a ten-hour meeting in which they heard testimony from nearly two dozen people, they rejected his claims in a three-to-one vote.
In its ruling, the committee’s majority found that the College Republicans impeached Robinette because of

Board of Regents Approves Alternative Teaching Master’s Programs - NYTimes.com

Alternative Teaching Master’s Programs Approved

By LISA W. FODERARO

Published: April 20, 2010

RelatedThe New York State Board of Regents voted unanimously on Tuesday to approve a pilot program that would allow educational groups like Teach for America to create their own master’s degree programs, a role long reserved for education schools.

Alternate Path for Teachers Gains Ground (April 19, 2010)

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The Regents move reflects the difficulty of placing teachers in low-income communities, as well as a growing recognition of the effectiveness of alternative paths to teaching. In the federal education grant program called Race to the Top, points are given to states that provide “high-quality pathways for aspiring teachers and principals” including “allowing alternative routes to certification.”

Currently, programs like Teach for America, which recruits heavily among recent college graduates, and New York City Teaching Fellows, which attracts young professionals seeking to change careers, must partner with education schools. Participants begin teaching almost immediately, pursing a master’s degree in their free time at education schools.

In New York, a teacher must earn a master’s degree within five years. Under the pilot, the Regents will invite organizations like Teach for America to create their own master’s degree programs. The programs would need to have a strong emphasis on practical teaching skills, a nod to criticisms that traditional education schools spend too much time

Edumacation Archive Supposed Education Reformers Don’t Do Irony

Edumacation Archive

Supposed Education Reformers Don’t Do Irony

Posted April 20, 2010 by thatsrightnate
Categories: education reform
Tags: ALEC, education reform, Florida, Irony, New York, RTTT, SB6, Thomas Carroll, West Virginia

Following the #RTTT channel on Twitter, I’ve noticed that the neo-liberal education reformers who post on there seem terribly deficient in their ability to notice irony. Maybe that’s why so many people who seem intent on destroying the public education system as we know it and exacerbating the differences between the haves and have nots always have happy fuzzy bunny names like Education Equality Now or something. If you want to understand neo-liberal education reform, you have to follow the money and that means following it into dark alleys. There’s a reason that Goldman-Sachs has been so active in promoting this garbage. There’s a great deal of money at stake here if you know where to look.

New York: Some supporters of New York Charter schools have been fuming at the thought of an open discussion about charter schools. Instead they want to blindly raise the charter cap. In the New York Post today Thomas Carroll cried union conspiracy. I can’t help wondering if it’s his own misdeeds that have him scared. The main villain in this drama is State Senator Bill Perkins who has called for a public hearing. In the hearing notice he says, “The purpose of this hearing is to examine the business of charter schools by reviewing their development as a privatized solution to public education. Towards this end, we will hea

Opinion: Henton: We knew how to invest in education 50 years ago - San Jose Mercury News

Opinion: Henton: We knew how to invest in education 50 years ago

By Doug Henton

Special to the Mercury News

Posted: 04/19/2010 08:00:00 PM PDT

Updated: 04/20/2010 11:00:42 AM PDT

The front-page stories in the April 18 Mercury News on record profits for Silicon Valley companies and the crisis in California higher education suggest that it is time to explore the historic relationship between investment in higher education and our region's leadership in innovation — and what is now at risk.

As a graduate student at UC Berkeley, I had the opportunity to meet Clark Kerr, the former president of the University of California and architect of the Master Plan for Higher Education. Later, I conducted an in-depth interview with Kerr for a chapter on the California economy for a book on the states' role in economic development.

I learned that Kerr was a noted economist who understood the importance of preparing the next generation of knowledge workers and promoting world-class research to generate long-term economic benefits for the California economy.

In fact, that is how he sold the Master Plan to the California Legislature in 1960: California needed to invest in a public university system that delivered both research excellence and access to all.

In his 1963 Godkin Lectures at Harvard, titled "The Uses of the University," Kerr outlined his vision of the how the modern university can make major contributions to the economy through both education and research working

The Perimeter Primate: Message for Vander Ark & the ed deform crowd

Message for Vander Ark & the ed deform crowd

by The Perimeter Primate

Tom Vander Ark is a participant on the National Journal’s Education blog. Recently he posted a comment on Crist's veto of the Florida teacher bill (SB-6) and called it “Putting the Brakes on Progress.” The bill sought to tie 50% of a teacher’s evaluation and pay to test scores, and to make it easier for them to be fired.
As an ed defomer mouthpiece responding to a defeat, here’s Vander Ark description of what happened in Florida:“…despite overwhelming public, philanthropic, and federal support for teacher effectiveness, the brakes have been applied by well organized and funded forces protecting the status quo.” Funny how he can put a negative spin on people in a democracy organizing themselves for a cause they believe in.
Indeed, Florida’s resistance forces became well organized, but the movement didn’t turn into a flood of opposition because of money. This movement was generated at the grassroots level using online social networking tools. Anthony Cody described how it worked in “From Facebook to YouTube: A Teacher Movement is Born.”
The large response in Florida may be an indication that a major pushback to the ed deform movement is finally

Schools Matter: Another Hatchet Job

Another Hatchet Job

by Kenneth Libby

It was roughly a year and a half ago that the conservative forces within the Democratic Party - the hedge fund/corporate-backed education reformers at EEP, DFER, Education Reform Now, TFA, and their many financial and strategic partners - launched a coordinated attack on Linda Darling-Hammond.

Well, the same edu-idiots now have their sights trained on NY State Senator Bill Perkins, a man with the gall to question the privatizers-slash-charterizers and their myriad of financial and real estate dealings, not to mention their lack of transparency and outright desire to turn a profit (often times at the expense of the very children and communities they serve). Perkins will chair a Thursday hearing about charter schools, and the forces behind charter schools in NY (and the country as a whole) are furious that anyone would DARE question their business

Pretty Bulletin Boards: Education’s Stiffest Competition? � The Quick and the Ed

Pretty Bulletin Boards: Education’s Stiffest Competition?

Everyone loves good, fun competition. For many, opportunities to prove one’s greatness, fully display admired talents, and beat out a friend or rival are just irresistible. I can take that shot better than her… His writing is mundane. Let me show him how it’s done… That blueberry pie was tasty, but mine is delectable.

For several decades now, education reformers have tried to design policies that tap into this competitive nature that humans and their institutions are prone to exhibit under the right conditions. Whether it’s through the creation of charter schools,federal grant competitions, or “Teacher of the Year” contests, policymakers have rightly recognized that teachers and principals need systems and incentives that bring out their “I want to win, I can do that better” spirits. (I can hear the booing and moaning of education school professors and Deweyites in the background.)

But during this same period of time, after countless conversations about competition and incentives, teachers and principals haven’t made the drastic gains and improvements that we’re all hoping for. You’ve heard it: Student achievement scores on the National Assessment of Educational Progress are essentially flat(except for small gains from a few subgroups). The U.S. continues to be outrankedby its Asian counterparts in science and mathematics achievement, even though there has been some recent growth. And crime rates remain too high in schools that serve mostly poor, minority students.

Why is this? Well, at the elementary and middle school levels, I partly blame pretty bulletin boards like this one:

Census says women equal to men in advanced degrees, yet they still lag behind men in pay | Oregonlive.com

Census says women equal to men in advanced degrees, yet they still lag behind men in pay

By The Associated Press

April 20, 2010, 2:48PM

WASHINGTON -- Women are now just as likely as men to have completed college and to hold an advanced degree, part of an accelerating trend of educational gains that have shielded women from recent job losses. Yet they continue to lag behind men in pay.

Among adults 25 and older, 29 percent of women in the U.S. have at least a bachelor's degree, compared with 30 percent of men, according to 2009 census figures released Tuesday. Measured by raw numbers, women already surpass men in undergraduate degrees by roughly 1.2 million.

Women also have drawn even with men in holding advanced degrees. Women represented roughly half of those in the U.S. with a master's degree or higher, due largely to years of steady increases in women opting to pursue a medical or law degree.

At current rates, women could pass men in total advanced degrees this year, even though they still trail significantly in several categories such as business, science and engineering.

"It won't be long before women dominate higher education and every degree level up to Ph.D.," said Mark Perry, an economics professor at the University of Michigan-Flint who is a visiting scholar at the American

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