The Same Old (Jason) Song: Maybe He Should READ The LAUSD Fine Print - Perdaily.com

The Same Old (Jason) Song: Maybe He Should READ The LAUSD Fine Print - Perdaily.com

The Same Old (Jason) Song: Maybe He Should READ The LAUSD Fine Print

by Leonard

I don't know if Thomas Shelden, a teacher who LAUSD put on administrative leave for 2 years because of allegations of sexual harassment of a fellow teacher, is guilty or not, but clearly reporter Jason Song doesn't know either and really doesn't seem to care. Being in a similar situation to Mr. Shelden, I have had 7 hours a day for the last 3 months to not spend "the day napping, watching television, taking walks and lifting weights," but rather researching and writing a minimum of 5 articles a week mostly about the corruption and incompetence that Reporter Jason Song must also be all too aware of, but never seems to get around to reporting.

On Saturday, I went to the 14th LAUSD Parents Summit at the Los Angeles Convention Center to pass out

Teacher Un-Des Moines Her Own Protest | Intercepts

Teacher Un-Des Moines Her Own Protest | Intercepts

Teacher Un-Des Moines Her Own Protest

by Mike Antonucci

This video of an education budget protest at a Des Moines middle school went viral last week after appearing onHotAir.com. Take a look at it and see if you can figure out why.
If you didn’t catch it, one of the students is holding a sign that reads, “Save Are Teachers.”

The protest actually took place before school on March 8. It was organized by teacher Theresa Hoffman with the principal’s permission. You can read the story about it in the March 22 issue of the Iowa State Daily.
Hoffman is the students’ language arts teacher and is retiring after 33 years in the profession. She had the vigor and drive to put the rally together, lead the students in chants and notify the local news media, but evidently

Teaching division to disappear in latest DOE reshuffling | GothamSchools

Teaching division to disappear in latest DOE reshuffling | GothamSchools

Teaching division to disappear in latest DOE reshuffling

by Philissa Cramer

The Division of Teaching and Learning is set to disappear under the latest reorganization at the city’s education department.

The move is part of a slate of changes intended to streamline the department’s organization, according to spokesman David Cantor. He called the changes, which include the creation of a deputy chancellor for community engagement position, “an organic next step” in the series of administrative shifts that have taken place under Schools Chancellor Joel Klein.

The teaching and learning office, which is on its fourth leader since 2007, is getting folded into the Division of School Support, which contains the network structure that currently manages how schools receive administrative assistance. The new office will be called the Division of School Support and Instruction and will be headed by Chief Schools Officer Eric Nadelstern, giving him authority over the central piece of schools’ business for the first time.

“Obviously the aim is to make instruction as effective as can be, but I don’t think anyone’s going to see any kind of sudden shift in the way we go about teaching kids, and nor do we want that,” Cantor said. “The point is

California weighs longshot bid for school funds

California weighs longshot bid for school funds

Jill Tucker, Chronicle Staff Writer

Monday, April 26, 2010

MORE EDUCATION

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After coming in 27th out of 40 states the first time, California would have an uphill climb to win up to $700 million in the next round for federal Race to the Top education funds - an effort state officials could decide this week is a losing battle.
Or California could ignore the odds and decide to go for it.
The governor and education leaders are expected to announce as early as Tuesday whether they'll apply for the second round of federal school reform funding - a $4 billion pot to be spread among states that make the cut.
California failed to make it as a finalist in the first round, falling well shy of the points needed to get funding. Delaware and Tennessee were the only states that won first-round funding, receiving about 450 out of 500 possible points by coming up with plans with broad support to overhaul their school system.
California posted a final score of 336.8.
"There were some major gaps in our application," said David Richey, spokesman for

Senators Reintroduce Professional-Development Bill - Teacher Beat - Education Week

Senators Reintroduce Professional-Development Bill - Teacher Beat - Education Week

Senators Reintroduce Professional-Development Bill

by Stephen Sawchuk

Sens. Jack Reed, D-R.I., George LeMieux, R-Fla., and Sharrod Brown, D-Ohio, last week introduced a bill to overhaul the definition of "professional development" in the current ESEA. This may seem like peanuts compared with all the wrangling going on about school improvement and accountability, but considering that that definition is supposed to guide spending under Title I (disadvantaged students) and II (teacher quality) in the law, it's a potentially significant move.
The new definition would be much more specific than the former one in spelling out that federally funded professional development must take place during the regular school day and must focus on having teams of educators analyze evidence of student learning and teachers' classroom practices.
The bill would also add a new Part E to Title II of ESEA and authorize $1 billion in formula grants to states and districts. In addition to supporting professional development, they could use the funding to institute comprehensive mentoring programs for new teachers; craft new teacher- and principal-evaluation systems; and create new leadership opportunities for teachers.
On the whole, the bill is similar to one that Reed and other senators introduced back in 2007, but there are a few additions. Of these, the most important is that grantees under the new program would now be required to engage

The Educated Guess Capistrano strike enters 2nd week

The Educated Guess

Capistrano strike enters 2nd week

Posted in Revenue and taxes, State Budget, pay

All eyes are on Capistrano Unified, the state’s eighth largest school district, as its teachers’ strike enters into a second week today. Negotiators reported progressover the weekend but not enough forestall a third day of picket lines.
The Orange County Register reported that teachers and school boards have reached an impasse at 100 districts in California, but Captistrano Unified, with 51,000 students, is the only one so far facing a strike. That could change Thursday, when teachers in Oakland Unified go on a one-day strike over the contract that the school board imposed.
(Read more and comment on this post)

American Idol Government � The Quick and the Ed

American Idol Government � The Quick and the Ed

American Idol Government

by Chad Aldeman

First there was the SAVE Award, an Obama Administration initiative to solicit ideas from federal government employees on how to save money. Four finalists were chosen, and then a public voting process determined the winner. Now there’s the Commencement Challenge, a process to determine at which high school President Obama will

Improving Student Success: What the Higher Education Community Can Learn From Minority-Serving Institutions

April 26th, 2010 | Category: Podcasts

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In April 2010, Education Sector hosted an important discussion about the role minority-serving institutions play in improving student success in college, and what the higher education community can learn from from these institutions.

March for California’s Future Strengthens Movement for Change | California Progress Report

March for California’s Future Strengthens Movement for Change | California Progress Report

March for California’s Future Strengthens Movement for Change

by christine

By Rachel Johnson
California Labor Federation
Yesterday marked the end of a long journey for hundreds of devoted teachers, union members and community activists marching for a better future for California. The March for California’s Futurebegan in Bakersfield on March 5, highlighting the need for quality public education and services, an effective and efficient state government and the return of fair and equitable taxes to California.
Organized by the California Federation of Teachers, the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees (AFSCME) and other labor unions and community allies, this 48-day march made headlines and drew attention to damaging budget cuts and the lack of good jobs available to Californians.
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North Penn School District Teachers' Strike Enters Second Week - cbs3.com

North Penn School District Teachers' Strike Enters Second Week - cbs3.com

North Penn Teachers Strike Heads To Court

Students in the North Penn School District are facing their second week without class as teachers continue to strike.

With reports of problems during negotiations between the teachers' union and district officials, the ongoing battle is expected to go to court.

The school board is expected at an injunction hearing at the Montgomery County Courthouse Monday. Officials hope a court order will get teachers back in the classroom by Wednesday as state law says students must have 180 days of instruction before the end of June.

The union said they will ask the judge to order round-the-clock negotiations until the contract dispute is resolved.

The union representing the district's more than 1,000 teachers sought to resume talks over the weekend with the district, but says the school board negotiator did not respond.

Teachers hit the picket lines last week after the district

Strip Miners in Our Schools :: Frederick M. Hess

Strip Miners in Our Schools :: Frederick M. Hess

Frederick M. Hess's Blog

Strip Miners in Our Schools

by Frederick M. Hess • Apr 26, 2010 at 9:19 am
Cross-posted from Education Week

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In a new forum in the quarterly journal Education Next, Education Trust honcho Kati Haycock and Stanford economist Rick Hanushek address the issue of whether and how to more "equitably" distribute teachers (full disclosure: I'm an executive editor of Ed Next). With characteristic passion, Haycock calls for efforts to focus on attracting good teachers to high-poverty, low-performing schools. I strongly support what Haycock has to say in the exchange, but I worry about the possibility that some of her allies may take her suggestions too far.

In Ed Next, Haycock argues, "We know it is possible to bring high-quality teachers into urban schools...Districts can move up timelines for teacher resignations and transfers and give principals in hard-to-staff schools first dibs on new entrants and transfers. States and districts can establish a policy of 'mutual consent' that gives principals the right to choose their own teachers...States and districts can eliminate seniority-based layoffs, which should consider effectiveness instead, and make it easier to transfer or remove ineffective teachers who cannot improve."

Moreover, Haycock cautions, "Nobody thinks forced reassignments are a good solution and nobody is seriously proposing it. Every once in a while, district leaders become frustrated and make noises about the possibility of forced reassignments. But...a better solution lies in a creative combination of targeted incentives for teachers and policies that empower administrators and school leaders to recruit and retain effective educators." What

Your Turn to Weigh In on the Commencement Challenge – ED.gov Blog

Your Turn to Weigh In on the Commencement Challenge – ED.gov Blog

Your Turn to Weigh In on the Commencement Challenge

Cross posted from the White House blog.

The White House and Department of Education are kicking off the final phase of the Race to the Top Commencement Challenge – your input.
Starting today at WhiteHouse.gov/Commencement you can view a three minute video and short essay from each of the six high school finalists and rate them from 1-5. President Obama will choose from one of the top three publicly rated schools to visit and deliver the commencement address this spring.
The Commencement Challenge launched on February 19th, when the White House and Department of Education invited public high schools across the country to submit applications to have President Obama speak at their graduation. Over 1,000 high schools submitted applications, demonstrating how they are making significant strides on personal responsibility, academic excellence and college readiness, and how they are working toward the President’s national goal of having the most college graduates by 2020.
The six finalists, Blue Valley Northwest High School in Overland Park, KS, Clark Montessori in Cincinnati, OH, Denver School of Science and Technology in Denver, Colorado, Environmental Charter High School in Lawndale, CA, Kalamazoo Central High School in Kalamazoo, MI and MAST Academy in Miami, FL, were announced on April 9th. Over the last two weeks, the Get Schooled Foundation, which includes founding partners Viacom and The Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, worked with each school to create short videos highlighting how the school best fulfills the Commencement Challenge’s criteria. Starting today, you can watch the videos, read the essays and submit your ratings. Your top-three rated schools will go to the President and from there he will select one national winner.
The Commencement Challenge highlighted stories of success in schools across the country and I am especially proud of these six finalists for their dedication to producing and promoting academic excellence. Visit WhiteHouse.gov/Commencement anytime between 8 AM EDT on Monday, April 26th through 11:59 PM EDT on Thursday, April 29, and help decide the best high school for the President’s first annual high school commencement address.

This entry was written by jjohnson, posted on April 26, 2010 at 10:00 am, filed under News. Bookmark the permalink. Follow any comments here with theRSS feed for this post. Both comments and trackbacks are currently closed.

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The Educated Reporter: Detoxing college.

The Educated Reporter: Detoxing college.

Detoxing college.

by Linda Perlstein

When I went back to Wesleyan for a reunion a few years ago, I came across flyers urging students to stop using cocaine. Not because cocaine is, you know, dangerous and illegal ... but because it makes its way to American noses by way of oppressive labor practices in the third world. If you knew much about Wesleyan—it was the model for the movie “PCU” and its genius scene with the marchers shouting, “No more protests! No more protests!”—you wouldn’t be surprised.

Given that Wesleyan is a sort of Reed East, I read this Inside Higher Ed piece on drug use at Reed with interest and noted with familiar bemusement the U.S. attorney and county D.A.’s attempt to liberal-guilt students into sobering up. They wrote in a letter to the student body, “The fact is that the drug trade is now fueled by one of the most potent forces in the West: greed.”

The promised crackdown on illegal drugs at Reed does not seem to mention the most prevalent illegal drug of all: alcohol. I suppose on a campus dealing with heroin overdose, focusing on the illegal illegals

This Week In Education Washington: Teachers Of The Year Take Ove

This Week In Education

Washington: Teachers Of The Year Take Over

by Alexander Russo

Only one of the state teachers of the year deigned to respond to my questions about the TOY experience: New Jersey's Maryann Woods-Murphy. Maybe my suggestion that they heckle Arne Duncan had something to do with it. Or maybe they had better things to do. In any case, if you want to know what at least one of the state teachers of they year thinks about merit pay, RTTT, and who's going to be named national teacher of the year, read on. An edited version of our email exchange is below.
What is the biggest issue going on in your classroom or school this year?

MWM: This year's hot topic is the budget and the public perceptions of the teaching profession. Because times are difficult, teachers have been seen in New Jersey by some as overpaid workers. To make matters more

Public Voting Begins Tomorrow for Race to the Top High School Commencement Challenge | The White House

Public Voting Begins Tomorrow for Race to the Top High School Commencement Challenge | The White House

Public Voting Begins Tomorrow for Race to the Top High School Commencement Challenge

by The White House

President Obama to choose national winner from three finalists selected by public
WASHINGTON – The White House and the Department of Education announced today that voting for the top three finalists of the first annual Race to the Top High School Commencement Challenge will begin tomorrow, Monday, April 26.
From 8 a.m. EDT on Monday, April 26th through 11:59 p.m. EDT on Thursday, April 29, 2010, the public will have an opportunity to review and rate a three-minute video and short essay from each of the six high school finalists at http://www.WhiteHouse.gov/Commencement. President Obama will select the national winner from the three high schools with the highest average ratings. The Commencement Challenge winner will be announced on Tuesday, May 4, 2010 and the President will visit the winning high school to deliver the commencement address later this spring.
“It is clear from these videos and essays that each of these schools is doing outstanding work to provide students with the skills and education they need to succeed in college and in their careers,” said President Obama. “I encourage all Americans to review and rate these six finalists to help choose the winner of this competition.”
Each school’s 3-minute video was produced by its students with support from The Get Schooled Foundation, which includes Viacom and The Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation among its founding partners. The schools also submitted a 200-word essay highlighting how they best met the criteria of the Commencement Challenge.
The Commencement Challenge, launched in late February, invited the nation’s public high schools to submit applications showing their dedication to providing students with an excellent education that will prepare them to graduate ready for college and career choices. Applications were judged based on the schools’ performance, four essay questions and supplemental data. The six finalists were selected for their dedication to academic excellence and for showing how they are helping prepare students to graduate college and career ready, and prepared to meet the President’s goal of having the highest proportion of college graduates in the world by 2020.
Finalists:
Blue Valley Northwest High School (Overland Park, Kansas) Clark Montessori Junior High and High School (Cincinnati, Ohio) Denver School of Science and Technology (Denver, Colorado) Environmental Charter High School (Lawndale, California) Kalamazoo Central High School (Kalamazoo, Michigan) MAST Academy (Miami, Florida)
Background on rating and selection process:
Rating the Finalists
On Monday, April 26, 2010 at 8:00 a.m. EDT, public review and rating of the six high school finalists in President Obama’s High School Commencement Challenge will begin on http://www.WhiteHouse.gov/Commencement. A three-minute video and short essay from each school will highlight how it best satisfies the criteria of the Commencement Challenge. Visitors to the website can view each finalist’s video and written submission, presented in random order. For each school, visitors are encouraged to watch the video and read the essay question before deciding on a rating. Visitors will be allowed to rate the finalists on a scale of 1-5 (with 1 as the lowest rating and 5 as the highest). After a rating is submitted, the next school’s video and essay question will be presented for review and rating until all six schools have been viewed. The ability to rate videos will end at 11:59 p.m. EDT on Thursday, April 29, 2010.
Rating Criteria
Voters are encouraged to rank the finalists based on the criteria of the Commencement Challenge including:
Educational success of the school as an example for other high schools around the country; The ability of the school to engage students in learning and to foster personal responsibility and academic excellence; and The success of the school in preparing students to graduate college and career-ready, to help meet the President’s 2020 goal that America have the highest proportion of college graduates of any nation in the world.
Determining the Winner
At the end of the rating period (April 26, 2010 at 8:00 a.m. EDT to April 29, 2010 at 11:59 p.m. EDT), the three schools with the highest average ratings will be submitted to President Obama for final selection. The winner of the Commencement Challenge will be announced on Tuesday, May 4, 2010.

Commencement Challenge | The White House

Commencement Challenge | The White House

Commencement Challenge

It’s your turn to weigh in on the six Commencement Challenge finalists! Watch the three-minute video and read the short essay from each of the six high school finalists, then give each school a rating from 1-5. Learn more about the rating system and criteria.

Start rating below:

Environmental Charter High School

Lawndale, CA

 

ECHS is alive.  We’re blocks from the world’s most congested freeway, yet we step onto campus with fruit trees and a running stream of reclaimed water, which was once asphalt, and we know we’re in an environment designed to envision a better life.  As freshmen evaluate community health, sophomores debate the sustainability of progress, juniors examine the American dream, and we ask, “How are we powerful?” In our urbanite amphitheatre, we showcase art, host composting workshops, and train freshmen for success at ECHS. We give tours and present solutions and best practices, so 98% of us feel comfortable public speaking. With more graduation requirements than schools nationally, we pack our schedules with AP and college courses and exceed service requirements.  ECHS is challenging; but, we thrive – we’ve learned education is empowerment and graduation is a milestone on our journey to a better world. We are 68% Latino, 20% African-American, 78% low income.  Arriving 2.5 grade levels behind peers in math and English, by graduation we outperform national averages. 92% of us were accepted into universities in 2009 and most are first in our families to attend.  We’re prepared to redefine the American Dream, rewrite our futures and heal our planet.

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