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Thursday, April 22, 2010

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

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
















VALERIE STRAUSS
The Answer Sheet
A School Survival Guide for Parents (And Everyone Else)
Posted at 6:30 AM ET, 04/22/2010

Bill Gates's college tour

Bill Gates just finished his three-day 2010 College Tour, during which he went five of the country's most elite schools and urged the brightest minds to work on overcoming the world's biggest problems. In the United States, urban education is one of those problems, but Gates's own record on school reform is hardly stellar.
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JAY MATHEWS
Class Struggle
What's Right and Wrong With Our Schools
Posted at 10:00 PM ET, 04/21/2010

Why waste time on a foreign language?

We tell our children that their Spanish or Russian or Arabic or Japanese studies are important. But we give them high grades for little progress. Most colleges don’t require that applicants have more than two years. And from what I can see, based on what actually happens in high schools, learning a foreign language often is a waste of time.
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Ed Buzz: The Nation

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EducationNews.org - EducationNewsToday

EducationNews.org - EducationNewsToday

EducationNewsToday

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Unions don't learn: Teachers' role in education

Teachers unions need a hug. After all, they're having a really bad year. So bad that their members are...
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Local school districts dismiss class-size reductions

Remember class-size reduction – the push for classes of no more than 20 students per teacher that swept California public schools in the 1990s?...
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Settlement near in Web cam suit?

Attorneys for the Lower Merion School District spent more than four hours Wednesday discussing a possible financial settlement with the Penn Valley parents whose son sued the district over its secret laptop tracking program...
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Phila. School District proposes $3.2B budget

Bucking a national trend of layoffs and deep cuts, the School District of Philadelphia on Wednesday introduced a $3.2 billion 2010-11 budget that contains money for new classroom initiatives. ...
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Union: 95 percent of teachers voting have 'no confidence' in Johnson

If a single moment could capture the drama of the past year in the Palm Beach County School District, it might be this: Union president Robert Dow, resplendent in red and backed by...
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Clark County teachers sweating out the budget crisis

It’s just before 5 p.m. and the cafeteria at Del Sol High School on East Patrick Lane is filling with elementary and secondary school teachers, tired after a long day at work and wondering about their futures....
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LAUSD school in jeopardy of not being accredited

Los Angeles Unified's most expensive campus, touted as the district's crown jewel for the visual and performing arts, might not be accredited unless it addresses "serious concerns" raised by a leading accrediting agency. ...
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Court halts Bobb's Detroit Schools plans

Detroit -- Robert Bobb's plans received a setback Wednesday when a judge upheld an injunction that puts off his school closing strategy and halts his academic vision for Detroit Public Schools. ...
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Should public schools teach gun safety? Virginia schools may

What with the deep concern in the country that too many kids can’t read or write on grade level, and that most kids don’t know anything about financial literacy or can’t name the first five presidents,...
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Schools in New Jersey Plan Heavy Cuts After Voters Reject Most Budgets

Voters rejected school budgets on Tuesday in more than 58 percent of New Jersey districts. ...
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Museums Take Their Lessons to the Schools

To make up for a decline in visits, many museums are going to the classroom, through traveling programs, videoconferencing or computer-based lessons. ...
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Proposed Education Standards Draw Concerns

4.22.10 - FARMINGTON — Educators statewide expressed concern Tuesday about proposed national standards for kindergarten through 12th grade which are too vague or too rigid but don’t provide teachers with guidance on what students need to know at certain grade levels....
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Voices of the Dropout Nation: Doug Herring on Dropout Prevention in Colorado

4.21.10 - As the co-publisher of Charter School Insights, Doug Herring generally focuses on the evolution of charter schools in Denver and across the nation. But another aspect of his focus involves dealing with how Colorado — a pioneer in charter schools and performance pay...
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U.S. tapping S.F. school's recipe for success

A top education official in the Obama administration sat in San Francisco's Marshall Elementary School... ...
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Teachers give up raise for job security

BARRINGTON — The teachers union has agreed to forgo a pay raise in 2011 in exchange for assurances from the school administration that there will be no layoffs this year....
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Rise & Shine: Nepotism fuels hiring at some charter schools | GothamSchools

Rise & Shine: Nepotism fuels hiring at some charter schools | GothamSchools

Rise & Shine: Nepotism fuels hiring at some charter schools

by Philissa Cramer
Charter schools special edition:
  • As politicians argue about charter schools, the schools are busily admitting new students. (NY1)
  • Some charter schools staff up with family members of school officials and board members. (Daily News)
  • The number of children on charter school waiting lists is growing by a third, to 43,000, for next year. (Post)
  • The Post says State Sen. Bill Perkins’ charter school hearings today shows he’s in the union’s pocket.
  • A columnist profiles Democracy Prep, a high-performing charter school in Sen. Perkins’ district. (Post)
  • The Post: Merryl Tisch’s call for equal facilities for charter and district schools shows she hates charters.
  • A mother explains why she entered her third child into every charter school lottery in two boroughs. (Post)
  • A second mother whose son has always attended a charter school describes his success there. (Post)
  • Two school reform fans say opponents of charter schools are pretty much out of arguments. (Post)
In other news:
  • Not everyone likes the way the admissions glitch at Bard High School Early College was resolved. (Post)
  • A teacher at Queens’ PS 15 was arrested after five students said he sexually assaulted them. (Post,NY1)
  • The state’s comptroller says New York could end July in the red for the first time. (BusinessWeek)
  • Some educators hope parents ignore today’s Take Our Daughters and Sons To Work Day. (AP)
  • Students from MS 15 in the Bronx won a national chess tournament held in Minneapolis. (Daily News)
  • A second judge barred Detroit’s emergency financial manager from closing schools. (Detroit News)
  • Museums are sending their exhibits into schools to make up for budget-cut field trips. (Times)
  • N.J. districts face big teacher layoffs after voters declined to raise their taxes to plug budget holes. (Times)
  • A Boston teacher training program is modeled after the way doctors are trained in medical school. (NPR)
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voiceofsandiego.org | News. Investigation. Analysis. Conversation. Intelligence. - The Race to Unseat a Veteran -- And Very Loud -- Voice

voiceofsandiego.org | News. Investigation. Analysis. Conversation. Intelligence. - The Race to Unseat a Veteran -- And Very Loud -- Voice

The Race to Unseat a Veteran -- And Very Loud -- Voice

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Sam HodgsonScott Barnett, a budget analyst who once led the county Taxpayers Association, says he'd keep a closer eye on the business workings of the school district if elected.

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Posted: Wednesday, April 21, 2010 8:20 pm | Updated: 8:29 pm, Wed Apr 21, 2010.
By EMILY ALPERT
John de Beck has the longest memory and the loosest lips on the San Diego Unified school board. He called a new way of budgeting "cockamamie." He dubbed virtual gym classes "ridiculous." Fans who have helped elect him over and over say they love his straight talk, even when it stings.
The retired teacher has spent almost two decades -- nearly one out of every four days of his life -- representing the coastal stretches of the district from La Jolla to Point Loma to downtown. Elections are old hat to him. He has a stack of campaign signs in the trunk of his Prius, a rolling election headquarters.
But this time around, de Beck has earned the enmity of the teachers union, his former ally and a proven force at the ballot box. A new challenger has won the teachers' backing and argues that for all his talk and all his ideas, de Beck has achieved little because of his spats and sharp tongue.
"Anything he raises now is like a lead balloon," said Scott Barnett, a financial consultant and former head of the county Taxpayers Association who argues that he'll make sure the school district runs more efficiently. "He likes to be the violent, vocal minority. It's not productive. It's just throwing bombs."
His personality has become almost as big of an issue as his politics. De Beck is known for floating bold, sometimes radical ideas likesplitting up the school district. Some of his ideas, such as giving more power to parents at the groups of schools that feed into each high school, have slowly gained traction. Others have fizzled. His website is loaded with theories on stopping social promotion and saving historic art. He sees himself as an idea man, whether or not those ideas fly.
"If I raise ideas that don't take hold," de Beck said, "that doesn't mean they're bad ideas."
Barnett is one of two candidates who are taking on de Beck this spring, but the other one is actually a de Beck fan. School psychologist
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