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Wednesday, May 12, 2010

The Educated Guess Bricks and clicks: a new hybrid school: part two

The Educated Guess

Bricks and Clicks: part two

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Posted in Charters, Program innovation
California is lagging behind other states, like Florida, in online education, in part because of regulations enacted nearly a decade ago to clamp down on independent study scams masquerading as charter schools. As a result, virtual schools face stifling rules dictating student-teacher ratios, limiting their operations to contiguous counties, and requiring teachers leading virtual courses – they could be living anywhere – to have California credentials.
Flex Public Schools, which will open the state’s first hybrid, “bricks and clicks” online schools, will be able to sidestep regulations governing non-classroom-based online schools and launch a truly innovative approach to education.
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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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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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Education - Everything you need to know about the world of education.

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













VALERIE STRAUSS
A School Survival Guide for Parents (And Everyone Else)

Posted at 6:30 AM ET, 05/12/2010

Teachers refuse to give standardized tests to kids

Maybe there is a lesson in this for American teachers. Saying that they are sick and tired of forcing kids to take standardized tests, thousands of teachers in England are refusing to administer high-stakes standardized tests in English and math this week.
Posted by Valerie Strauss | Permalink | Comments (1)
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Drama at Duke Ellington

Students at Ellington School of the Arts High School were focused on their AP exams Monday when things started to go south in a hurry. First, a power outage in Georgetown left the school without lights for about four hours starting at 12:15 p.m. While some students headed home, others remained in the school auditorium waiting for the power to return.
Then, according to a letter home from head of school and CEO Rory Pullens:
"Another, and probably more disturbing situation, occurred when a man, unassociated with any Ellington student or staff, gained entry into the building during lunch time after signing in and going through security check. Once in the building he began to verbally threaten students and staff loudly, displaying potential for violence."
No one was injured, Pullens said. The police were called, and the man had no weapons. Some students were clearly shaken by the incident, which, coupled with the power outage, generated "much speculation if 

EducationNews.org Experts: Home-schooling doesn’t add up

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

Iraq On Air: Should Girls Study?

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Arizona bill targeting ethnic studies signed into law

5.12.10 - A bill that aims to ban ethnic studies in Arizona schools was signed into law Tuesday by Gov. Jan Brewer, cheering critics who called such classes divisive and alarming others...
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One-third of students need remedial college math, reading

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GothamSchools - Breaking News and Analysis of the NYC Public Schools

GothamSchools - Breaking News and Analysis of the NYC Public Schools:

Rise & Shine: Chancellor Klein skeptical of new teacher evals


  • Joel Klein thinks the new teacher evaluation system is “problematical” and too vague. (Post)
  • The Post calls the evaluation agreement “dubious” because it leaves much to union negotiations.
  • Though the deal likely means more testing, it’s not clear what the local tests will look like. (DN)
  • Commissioner David Steiner: the new evaluations could pave way to individual merit pay. (DN)
  • Dan Brown, author of “The Great Expectations School,” thinks an evaluation overhaul was overdue. (DN)
  • A Long Island economist calls on NY school districts to reject budgets calling for tax increases. (Post)
  • A charter school group is running ads against seniority based layoffs, which charters don’t have. (DN)
  • Parents at P.S. 15 in Red Hook are still fighting to get PAVE charter school out of the building. (DN)
  • Gov. Paterson will introduce Rochester’s mayoral control bill into the legislature. (Gannett)
  • A spate of attacks on school children in China continues with the death of seven students. (NY Times)
  • A PA state senator and gubernatorial candidate calls for more school choice. (Wall Street Journal)
  • Michelle Obama rolled out obesity-fighting measures that may include regulation (Washington Post)

Remainders: Gap in charters’ special ed service real, but not huge


Charter schools gain edge from hours, says study Education news - Boston Globe - MCAS results - latest education news - Boston.com

Education news - Boston Globe - MCAS results - latest education news - Boston.com

GLOBE EDUCATION NEWS

Charter schools gain edge from hours, says study

Students at Boston charter schools appear to have an academic edge over their peers at the city’s traditional schools because of the additional time they spend in school each year, according to a report being released today. (By James Vaznis, Globe Staff)

Stanford team wins MIT clean energy contest

A four-member team from Stanford University that created a film coating for electronic screens won a $200,000 grant and first prize yesterday in MIT’s third Clean Energy Entrepreneurship competition. (By Gal Tziperman Lotan, Globe Correspondent)

In Kagan stance on military, a complex history

As dean of Harvard Law School, Elena Kagan sent an e-mail to students each fall criticizing the military’s ban against gays and lesbians serving openly as “wrong — both unwise and unjust.’’ (By Tracy Jan and Mark Arsenault, Globe Staff)

UMass Lowell bypassed bidding laws, SJC rules

The state’s high court said yesterday that the University of Massachusetts Lowell wrongly bypassed state bidding laws when it cut a deal with a private developer to build a dormitory the school would then lease. (By John R. Ellement, Globe Staff)

Boy, 14, wrote of cost of violence

Last year in class, Jaewon Martin and his fellow seventh-graders began discussing the violence that often tears apart their neighborhoods and takes their friends’ lives.(By Maria Cramer, Globe Staff)

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