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Saturday, April 24, 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 8:00 AM ET, 04/24/2010

Straight talk about charter schools

A hearing held in New York City this week about sounded more like a brawl than the information-gathering session it was intended to be. Read some of the testimony given by education historian Diane Ravitch, which was received by charter advocates as heresy.
Posted by Valerie Strauss | Permalink | Comments (0)
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JAY MATHEWS
Class Struggle
What's Right and Wrong With Our Schools

Posted at 5:30 AM ET, 04/23/2010

The irksome myth about Garfield after Escalante

There is a widespread myth that Garfield High School in East Los Angeles went downhill academically after its superstar math teacher Jaime Escalante left the school in 1991. It is important to understand why this is false. Galvanizing school cultures are maintained by many people, not just hero teachers. Great teachers like Escalante can create such cultures, but the test of their validity is what happens after that teacher leaves.
Posted by Jay Mathews | Permalink | Comments (11)
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Ed Buzz: The Nation

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EducationNews.org - EducationNewsToday

EducationNews.org - EducationNewsToday

EducationNewsToday

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BREAKING: SEIU Names a New Leader, Against Stern’s Wishes Anna Burger is Out

4.24.10 - “After a great amount of my own thought, hearing opinions from many of you, and holding them up against my own criteria—I recommend that Anna Burger not only temporarily—but then permanently—become the 10th President and first woman to lead our union.”
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Further pay cuts looming for teachers

EAST PROVIDENCE — On the heels of major unilateral cuts in teacher pay and benefits last year, the School Committee intends to reduce teachers’ salaries by another 3 percent to help close an anticipated $2.5-million budget gap for the current fiscal year. ...
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Departing education secretary pleased with end-of-year exams, changes in curriculum

While state education secretary Gerald Zahorchak is headed to a new job as superintendent of the Allentown School District, he believes Pennsylvania is well positioned to carry on many of the changes made during the Rendell years...
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Rendell campaigns in area for more school aid

As New Jersey and other states make drastic cuts in education programs and staff, Gov. Rendell stopped by several schools in the Philadelphia suburbs on Friday to rally support for continued increases in state school spending. ...
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LAUSD teacher fired in harassment case after two years

Thomas Shelden got his $73,500 annual salary but had no duties while the district investigated. ...
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Washington, D.C., Schools: Beyond Repair?

A merit-pay plan for teachers in the nation's capital is being dragged down by its costs. More choice would give families what they need — and would be a whole lot ... ...
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Pre-K Rules for ELLs Would Break Ground Nationally

Proposed regulations in Illinois would require that districts offer English-learners in preschool the same support as in K-12. ...
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Tensions Flare in Race to Top's Second Round

States and teachers' unions clash over policy changes aimed at securing some of the $3.4 billion in stimulus grants still left ...
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His pen is mightier than his peers’

Technology has not been kind to the art of penmanship. But seated in a second-grade classroom at Hibbard Elementary School in Chicago, fashioning a butterfly from peach-colored paper towels, is its most unlikely of champions. ...
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Five more schools in TUSD are targeted for closure

In an effort to close a deficit of as much as $28.6 million, TUSD is recommending five elementary schools for closure next school year....
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Why Are We Still Funding Abstinence-Only Sex Ed?

With its absence from the president's budget, you might have thought "Just Say No" sex ed was dead -- but the health-care bill gave it new life...
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New video game academy won't be child's play

The Willowridge High School student is hoping to be accepted into the school's new Academy of Game Design and Development where he'll study video games through 2D and 3D animation, graphics, conceptual art, lighting and sound mixing....
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Special-ed lawyer didn't have a license

Into this close-knit world entered Howard D. Deiner, 53. He worked his way into the inner circle by listing himself as a lawyer on a number of Web sites that cater to special education parents...
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For Charter School Company, Issues of Money and Control

4.25.10 - School boards and state regulators are questioning how public money is being spent by a commercial manager of charter schools. ...
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A Top High School’s Move From a College Campus Prompts Anger

University Heights High School has been ejected from its leafy home on the Bronx Community College campus, and students and parents are upset about its new South Bronx location. ...
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Schools Matter: Hearings on Charter Schools in NY Focus on Corruption

Schools Matter: Hearings on Charter Schools in NY Focus on Corruption

Hearings on Charter Schools in NY Focus on Corruption

by Jim Horn
Valerie Strauss at WaPo has posted Diane Ravitch's testimony yesterday before the hearing called by State Senator, Bill Perkins. And while Ravitch provides good facts within her thumbnail history, she misses three crucial points that have to be considered in assessing any program receiving public dollars:

1) Charter schools operate without public oversight and are anti-democratic. Teachers, parents, and children are subjected to the will of a corporate CEO (non-profit or for-profit) and a hand-picked Board that is chosen for its capacity to rubber stamp CEO decisions.

2) Charter schools have a documented segregative effect on communities, a fact that has been documented by two recent studies (press release page here and here) and thoroughly ignored by everyone from Diane Ravitch to Arne Duncan.

3) Charter schools seek to destroy public education and replace it with a deregulated form of corporate welfare that will make our schools worse than they are now (see Wall Street).

With that, here's a clip from Ravitch's comments:
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Florida & Tampa Bay schools blog - The Gradebook

Florida & Tampa Bay schools blog - The Gradebook

April 23, 2010

Things change fast in last days of Florida legislative session

The mad dash to the end of the Florida legislative session is on. It seems sometimes as if it's hardly worth reporting ideas, as they change almost as fast as they get posted. Here are a couple of updates that might just stick to the end.
School recognition funds -- The Senate toyed with the idea of defunding the program, which rewards schools for their FCAT results. When the House wouldn't agree, senators gave up the fight and accepted the House proposal to pay out $75 per student.
Class size count -- At the urging of school districts, the House and Senate had agreed to delay the 2010 class by class counts for the class size amendment to February 2011, after voters have their say on whether to keep the rules intact. Apparently, some district leaders started saying they would rather take the fine than meet the rules, which angered some lawmakers. So now they've bumped the count back to the fall and toughened the penalties.
Things remain fluid until the final budget agreement. So no promises these are the final rulings. But for now, at least, they are.
April 23, 2010 in Funding |
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NorthJersey.com: 13,000 students sign up for walkout over aid cuts

NorthJersey.com: 13,000 students sign up for walkout over aid cuts

NJ students plan statewide walkout Tuesday
Saturday, April 24, 2010
LAST UPDATED: SATURDAY APRIL 24, 2010, 9:48 AM
BY LESLIE BRODY
THE RECORD
STAFF WRITER
A Facebook page encouraging New Jersey students to cut class Tuesday to rally against state aid reductions has more than 13,000 signed up to participate.
The page, called "Protest NJ Education Cuts – State Wide School Walk Out," exhorts students – with incorrect spelling at times — to express their outrage against state funding cuts. The event was launched before voters rejected most school budgets on Tuesday, but after Governor Christie announced he was freezing aid promised to districts this year and cutting $820 million for fiscal 2011. Christie says the cuts are necessary to close an $11 billion state budget gap.
"This is one of the most serious things to ever happen in the state of New Jersey," the Facebook page says. "The only potential for change lies in the students. The youth who will be effected [sic] by all these cuts need to rise up and do something."
Students from Hackensack High School, Dwight Morrow High School in Englewood, Academies@Englewood and Rutgers University are among those who pledged to join the 8 a.m. to 4 p.m. walkout.
The Christie administration has insisted students belong in class and accused teachers of staging a recent
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Larry Ferlazzo's Websites of the Day...

Larry Ferlazzo's Websites of the Day...
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Charter school spared a move to avoid chemicals | Philadelphia Inquirer | 04/23/2010

Charter school spared a move to avoid chemicals | Philadelphia Inquirer | 04/23/2010

Charter school spared a move to avoid chemicals

By Martha Woodall
Inquirer Staff Writer
Discovery Charter School, an elementary school with 589 students in West Philadelphia, had a scare when a city inspection found hazardous chemicals in the building next door.
The charter school was spared having to consider relocating when the company agreed to remove all the chemicals within 48 hours.
"I'm just glad everyone was in a cooperative spirit," said Jaquelyn Kelley, the school's chief executive officer.
Information letters were sent to parents Thursday, she said.
Officials from the Philadelphia School District are scheduled to inspect the building Friday to make sure the chemicals are gone.
Discovery, which opened in 2003, leases 55,000 square feet at the Philadelphia Business and Technology Center at 5070 Parkside Ave. Kelley said city inspectors had become concerned when they found what they characterized as a large amount of hazardous material stored at EMSCO Scientific Enterprises Inc.
A fire wall separates the school and the company, she said.
Students and staff were never in any immediate danger, Kelly said, but the School District was so concerned that officials asked the school to consider moving.
"We have been neighbors for seven years, and they have been here for 30 years," Kelley said. "There has never been an issue prior to this."
Three weeks ago, the city's Code Enforcement Unit cited EMSCO for storing a large amount of hazardous material
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L.A. NOW | Education | Los Angeles Times

L.A. NOW | Education | Los Angeles Times

College in three years? Why some students are hopping on the fast track



Kayla Bortolazzo is about to finish college in just three years, a rare accomplishment that some educators around the country hope to make more common.
A resident of Redding, Calif., Bortolazzo is enrolled in a special program at Southern Oregon University that waives some introductory classes for academically gifted students and gives them first dibs at course registration.
So in the fall, the 20-year-old English education major will head to graduate school and then, she hopes, a teaching career -- with a year's worth of unspent tuition dollars still in her family's pocket. Bortolazzo said she knows that finishing college in three years won't work for most students and that many are not rushing to graduate into a depressed economy.
But she recommends a fast track "to anybody who is really motivated, feels they have the time to commit to it and really wants to get out in the job market."
Students like Bortolazzo are drawing attention these days as families look to reduce tuition bills and colleges try to stretch limited budgets and classroom space. About a dozen, mostly small, U.S. 

Calexico schools will remain closed for a third week

April 23, 2010 |  5:44 pm
Public schools in the Imperial Valley border town of Calexico will remain closed for at least a third week because of earthquake damage, officials announced Friday.
The 11 schools with 9,400 students have been closed since the magnitude 7.2 quake April 4 and a series of aftershocks. School officials are seeking a waiver from the state so that the school year does not have to be extended beyond the scheduled closing June 8.
Officials have estimated the damage at more than $10 million. Inspectors are examining older schools to see if asbestos has been shaken loose. Officials hope repair work can begin next week.
Calexico is directly across the international border from Mexicali. The quake was centered in the farming villages south of the border.
--Tony Perry in San Diego

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