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Tuesday, May 11, 2010

Es el momento - Educacion, Becas, Universidades, Aprendizaje

Es el momento - Educacion, Becas, Universidades, Aprendizaje

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The Educated Guess Bricks and clicks: a new hybrid school

The Educated Guess

Bricks and clicks: a new hybrid school

Posted in Uncategorized
There are more than 10,000 traditional public and 800-plus charter schools in California, and there are a handful of virtual or online charter schools, serving primarily home-schooled students.
Soon, there will be a blend of the two: a hybrid school where students will go every day for seminars and labs led by teacher coaches, but will do most of their learning online, at their own pace.
Flex Public Schools, a California nonprofit corporation with ties to K12 Inc., a growing for-profit provider of online education, will open two “bricks and clicks” schools in the Bay Area within the next 15 months.
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By John Fensterwald on May 11th, 2010

Breaking down Meg’s ed numbers

Posted in 2010 elections
Meg Whitman’s gubernatorial campaign never got back to me to explain the candidate’s continued assertion that 40 percent of education dollars are squandered on “administration and overhead.” But a K-12 expert at the Legislative Analyst’s office did pass along a url that’s the likely basis of the claim. Sure enough, it’s in the ed-data section of the Dept. of Education’s website.
So call it up, and let’s go over what it says. Go midway down to “General Fund Expenditures by Activity.” What Whitman is calling money in the classroom is the 50 percent – $26 billion – spent on Instruction (defined as including teacher salaries and benefits, aides and books) and 12 percent on Special Education ($6 billion).
That leaves 38 percent.
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By John Fensterwald on May 11th, 2010

Commercial properties finagle out of property taxes

Posted in Adequacy suit, Revenue and taxes, Student spending
With state funding of K-12 schools stuck on empty for at least several more years, school districts and teachers unions are starting to sound the call for more local authority to raise taxes.
That’s not likely to happen, however, until the Legislature has the fortitude to confront the distortions caused by Proposition 13’s stranglehold on the state’s tax system. A new study by the California Tax Reform Association and the Alliance of Californians for Community Empowerment adds evidence to begin that discussion.
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By John Fensterwald on May 10th, 2010
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Schools Matter: Three Cheers for Three Days of Testing Boycotts By British Teachers

Schools Matter: Three Cheers for Three Days of Testing Boycotts By British Teachers

Three Cheers for Three Days of Testing Boycotts By British Teachers

by Jim Horn
The British love their traditions, but this Spring's naming and shaming ritual based on standardized test scores has finally been interrupted. The infamous "league tables" are being thrown into disarray, and if Brits want to know this year how to avoid schools with the poorest students, they will have to drive around the neighborhoods, rather than flipping through the handy league tables that classify schools based on test scores that reflect, as Alfie Kohn once quipped, the size of the houses in the neighborhoods, rather than the quality of the instruction or curriculum. I say, three cheers ole' boy, for the moral courage of British teachers. From the Telegraph:
Pupils across England are taking alternative exams instead of being entered for government-backed Sats tests for 10 and 11-year-olds.
Senior teachers said it would enable schools to judge pupils’ progress while ensuring results could not be checked against targets or used to publish league tables.
The disclosure came on the first day of a week-long boycott of Sats.
Up to 300,000 children were prevented from sitting an official reading exam on Monday, with tests in spelling, writing and mathematics being targeted later this week.
The action is being led by the National Union of Teachers and the National Association of Head
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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, 05/11/2010

John Lennon and Arne Duncan

The John Lennon Educational Tour Bus is visiting the Department of Education today, and we imagine what it would be like if Education Secretary Arne Duncan fully supported arts education.
Posted by Valerie Strauss | Permalink | Comments (0)
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Breaking: Gandhi blesses teachers contract

District Chief Financial Officer Natwar M. Gandhi is ready to certify the $140 million teachers contract as fiscally sound, ending nearly five weeks of interagency fingerpointing and confusion.
Sources say a financing package that closes a $10.7 million funding gap in the accord is awaiting only sign off from Mayor Adrian M.Fenty. A press conference or formal announcement is expected in the next couple of hours. More to come.
UPDATE 8:20 PM: At an early evening presser on the steps of the Wilson Building, over the din of rush hour traffic, Fenty, Gandhi and Chancellor Michelle A. Rhee offered a somewhat rambling explanation of the financial fix that allowed for certification.
In essence, it gives Gandhi exactly what he has insisted upon for weeks as a necessary condition for fiscal certification: a contract with unconditional public money. The $21 million in private foundation money Rhee wanted to use came with conditions --including no changes in DCPS leadership--that Gandhi found unacceptable.
The package boils down to a series of cuts and reshuffling of funds to close what is now described as a $38.8 million gap (the numbers have shifted a bit in the last couple of weeks). This includes a $10.7 million 


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EducationNews.org District hires law firm for fray

EducationNews.org

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Experts: Home-schooling doesn’t add up

5.11.10 - More than 22,620 Texas secondary students who stopped showing up for class in 2008 were excluded from the state's dropout statistics because
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District hires law firm for fray

5.11.10 - The Clark County School District has retained the nation's largest law firm for representing management in labor disputes as... ...
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Colorado House ready to vote on controversial teacher reform bill

5.11.10 - A controversial teacher bill took another step forward in its legislative journey Monday as it narrowly passed the House appropriations committee to set up a vote today on the...
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IRS reviewing college business income, exec compensation

5.11.10 - In more than 30 reviews the Internal Revenue Service is conducting of individual colleges and universities, it is focusing mostly on issues related to executive
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Finalists named for chancellor spot at San José/Evergreen college district Education - San Jose Mercury News

Education - San Jose Mercury News
Finalists named for chancellor spot at San José/Evergreen college district
A series of public forums to meet the candidates will be held on May 13, 17 and 18 at the District's two community colleges, Evergreen Valley College and San José City College. The new chancellor, who will start in July, will replace retiring chancellor Rosa Pérez.
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