Monday, June 14, 2010

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

How important are school gadgets?

Some educators wonder how much high-tech tools raise achievement.

Summer books for reluctant teen readers

Summer is the best time to entice reluctant readers to enter and learn to love books. It can happen, but there’s a trick: You have to let kids pick out their own books. To help you, the American Library Association has a great 2010 list of books for teens ages 12-18. Here it is.

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The principal who created a wellspring of innovation

Despite the school’s disadvantages, Jackson has produced one of the highest levels of Advanced Placement test participation in the country — top 2 percent. Thirty-seven percent of Wakefield seniors have passing scores on those tests, more than twice the national average. Wakefield has reached its federal achievement targets, unusual for a school with so many impoverished students, but also made itself a national model for imaginative instruction, outdoing even the most affluent public schools.

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Rhee to NYC: Just be like me

There was a time in the fairly recent past when Michelle Rhee was the protege and Joel Klein was the mentor. Rhee was the little-known head of a teacher recruiting non-profit in 2007 when Klein, head of the New York City school system, recommended her to Mayor Adrian M. Fenty for the D.C. chancellor's post. But now, fresh from striking what she describes as a "revolutionary bargain" with the Washington Teachers' Union, she's instructing Klein and New York's United Federation of Teachers (UFT) on how to negotiate a new contract.

In a piece in Sunday's New York Daily News, Rhee urges Klein and UFT president Michael Mulgrew to craft a contract that includes the main features of the D.C. accord. That includes pay for performance, personnel decisions based on quality, not seniority, and allowing principals to decide how to staff their schools. She called for an end to New York's Absent Teacher Reserve Pool, into which the city pays tens of millions of dollars to retain teachers who have lost their posts as a result of declining enrollment or other changes in school programs.

Rhee negotiated a one-year grace period at full pay for District teachers who can't find new spots in the system, with the option of a $25,000

Senior Bertrand Ngampa gives a presentation on an interactive whiteboard at W.T. Woodson High in Fairfax County. (Dayna Smith/Post)

The Educated Guess � Symantec Chairman calls for Prop 13 reform

Symantec Chairman calls for Prop 13 reform

Posted in Revenue and taxes

This was not your typical after-dinner acceptance speech by a corporate honoree.
On receiving the Silicon Valley Education Foundation’s annual Pioneer Business Leader Award last week, Symantec Corp. Board Chairman John Thompson called for reforming Proposition 13 to provide more money for public schools.
“No one wakes up every morning and says, ‘I want to pay more taxes,’” Thompson told 600 people at the Foundation’s annual dinner in San Jose. But the insufficient funding of schools is a “core issue” that needs to be dealt with.

Proposition 13 limits taxes on real estate to 1 percent of a property’s assessed value. Because commercial property owners have found ways to sell their properties without triggering reassessment, there have been repeated calls recently for either raising the tax rates on business properties or assessing them regularly. AB 2492, by San Francisco Assemblyman Tom Ammiano would do the latter, under some conditions.
However, in his brief speech and in an interview the next day, Thompson said he is not advocating any specific changes to Prop 13. Instead, he advocates a general review of its impact and eventually a voter initiative to revise it.
Thompson is certainly not alone in attributing a gradual erosion of financial support to K-12 schools and state colleges and universities to the restrictions on

Grad rate falls 5 percentage points in a decade

Posted in Achievement Gap, Research

Fifteen states saw a decline in their high school graduation rates from 1997 to 2007, and California, with a drop of 4.7 percentage points, from 67.4 to 62.7 percent, was the second worst, behind Nevada, according to Education Week’s latest Diplomas Count.
The national dropout rate of 68.8 percent in 2007 was 3.1 percentage points higher than in 1997, though there was a slight decrease from 2006. Although California’s graduation rate lagged the national average in 2007 by a full 6.1 percentage points, each of its major racial and ethnic subgroups actually outperformed students nationwide in 2007.

Consider:

American Indian: California – 51.5%; U.S. average – 50.7%;
Asian: California – 83.5%; U.S. average – 80.7%;
Hispanic: California – 57%; U.S. average – 55.5%;
African-American: California – 57%; U.S. average – 55.5%;
White: California – 78.2%; U.S. average – 76.6%.

The reason is for the seeming discrepancy is that California has a m

Scrutiny for Group for Students in For-Profit Higher Ed Quick Takes: June 14, 2010 - Inside Higher Ed

Quick Takes: June 14, 2010 - Inside Higher Ed

Scrutiny for Group for Students in For-Profit Higher Ed

A new group, Students for Academic Choice, is trying to become a voice in policy debates, saying that it represents students in for-profit higher education. But an Associated Press article notes its close links to the main lobby for the for-profit institutions, which leads some to question the student group's independence. The Career College Association, the institutional lobby, helped the students establish a website, draft bylaws and hold an election of officers. "I'm skeptical of the organic nature of the group given that it is completely toeing the association's line," Christine Lindstrom, higher education program director at the U.S. Public Interest Research

Court ruling is expected on challenge to N.J. Gov. Christie's school funding executive order | NJ.com

Christie's school funding executive order

Published: Monday, June 14, 2010, 7:28 AM Updated: Monday, June 14, 2010, 7:31 AM

The Associated Press
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Patti Sapone/The Star LedgerIn a file photo, Gov. Chris Christie signs executive orders during his first day of work in Trenton. Kim Guadagno, Lieutenant Governor, right, watches.

TRENTON — An appeals court panel is expected to rule on N.J. Gov. Chris Christie's executive order to force school districts to use surplus money to make up for cuts in state aid.

In February, the Republican governor ordered the freeze of $475 million in school aid payments in 2010 by requiring districts to use their excess surplus instead of state aid. The cuts were made at the time to help plug a more than $1 billion surplus in the current year budget.

The Perth Amboy school district, which lost $15 million in state aid, filed the lawsuit.

National Journal Online -- Education Experts -- Should Congress Delay Reauthorization Of The Elementary And Secondary Ed Act?

Should Congress Delay Reauthorization Of The Elementary And Secondary Ed Act?

The prospects for reauthorizing the Elementary and Secondary Education Act this year are increasingly dim. With climate change, financial regulatory reform, a Supreme Court nominee, November elections and fallout from the BP oil spill on lawmakers' minds, little legislative bandwidth remains to be used elsewhere. Not to mention that congressional leaders with jurisdiction over education are currently focused on finding a way to advance a $23 billion education jobs bill intended to avert hundreds of thousands of teacher layoffs.

To create the best law possible, should Congress delay further work on ESEA reauthorization to 2011, when the legislative agenda will be less crowded? Is there concern that progress made during 2010 ESEA hearings will be lost if the bill isn't acted upon this session?

-- Eliza Krigman, NationalJournal.com

Cool Cat Teacher Blog: Daily Spotlight on Education 06/14/2010

Daily Spotlight on Education 06/14/2010

by coolcatteacher@gmail.com (Victoria A Davis, Cool Cat Teacher)

Amazon Kindle: Highlights and Notes from Vicki Davis (Twitter: coolcatteacher)
Interesting how my quotes from my kindle are aggregated in one place on Amazon's website. This whole tweeting from Kindle thing is fascinating. Love the theme of this site "Read. Review. Remember."
tags: education, kindle
textPlus
This website lets you use the textplus app on a variety of phones or just link with plain sms messaging. The email I received says that some schools are using it to manage announcements such as homerooms, etc. Our school has a twitter account but am thinking perhaps of setting up some sort of sms notification service.
tags: education, learning
Zoodles, Safely Entertain and Educate Kids Online
New service that parents can put on their child's computer that gives you educational games, ad blocking

CORE Wins! � Edumacation Archive

CORE Wins!

by thatsrightnate

After an election on may 21st that saw CORE and UPC each take about 1/3 of the Chicago Teachers Union votes, it all came down to a runoff between CTU and CORE on this past Friday, June 11th. The result was a resounding CORE victory 60% to 40%. For me personally, it means I will be a delegate to the AFT convention and one of 17 elementary school advisers to the union. To the teachers, parents, and students of Chicago I believe it means hope.
The Chicago Public Schools waited until after all the teachers had voted Friday to announce an emergency board meeting for this coming Tuesday. The purpose of that meeting is to clear the way to be able to fire 3,000 teachers in a cost cutting move. The 3,000 teachers won’t find out until the middle of July for the most part, after virtually all teaching jobs are filled. They will then have until September to find a job or lose all seniority, cutting their pay drastically and taking away their tenure. Meanwhile, the children of Chicago can look forward to classes of 35 next year. CORE is taking over in the middle of a crisis and that kind of sucks, but there is nobody

Studying Engineering Before They Can Spell It Education News - The New York Times

Education News - The New York Times

Studying Engineering Before They Can Spell It

By WINNIE HU

Ozier Muhammad/The New York Times

In a Glen Rock, N.J., kindergarten, testing a wolf-proof house.

To compete in a global economy, some school districts are offering engineering lessons to students in kindergarten.

Frank W. Ballard, Who Trained Puppeteers at UConn, Dies at 80

By MARGALIT FOX

Mr. Ballard helped introduce puppetry to the university curriculum.

THE BAY CITIZEN

Nina McMurry, right, and Angie McPhaul have been active in a student group involved in the issue of conflict minerals.

Stanford Considers Guideline for ‘Conflict Minerals’

By KATHARINE MIESZKOWSKI

Stanford has become the focus of a grass-roots effort to pressure the technology industry to crack down on “conflict minerals.”

BIG CITY

Arabic Class Becomes a Popular Choice

By SUSAN DOMINUS

The language course at Friends Seminary, a school in the East Village, is influencing students before and after graduation.

Columnist Page

Mike Klonsky's SmallTalk Blog: WEEKEND QUOTABLES

WEEKEND QUOTABLES

by Mike Klonsky

CTU president-elect Karen Lewis

“Today marks the beginning of the end of scapegoating educators for all the social ills that our children, families and schools struggle against every day. Today marks the beginning of a fight for true transparency in our educational policy -- how to accurately measure learning and teaching, how to truly improve our schools, and how to evaluate the wisdom behind our spending priorities.”(Progress Illinois)

Bloomberg in defense of BP Oil

“The guy that runs BP didn't exactly go down there and blow up the well.” (Politico)

NAACP President Ben Jealous

"Democrats have the biggest majority in the House and the Senate that any party has had in 30

Eighteen community colleges face sanctions from accreditor | California Watch

Eighteen community colleges face sanctions from accreditor

June 14, 2010 | Erica Perez

Some 18 California Community Colleges face sanctions from the system's accrediting agency, the Accrediting Commission for Community and Junior Colleges.

Photo by Harrison Keely

The most frequently cited deficiencies were a lack of program review, inadequate use of assessment results to drive planning, financial management issues, internal governance strife and problems with the roles that governing boards play.

Meanwhile, Inside Higher Ed reports this weekthat discontent over the accreditor's role is brewing among different groups in the community college world. The high number of penalties prompted a task force to scrutinize the accreditor's actions.

The numbers are striking: The accrediting agency, which evaluates two-year colleges in California, Hawaii and a few other locations, placed 37 percent of California community colleges on sanctions from 2003 to 2008. By contrast, other accrediting bodies sanctioned between zero and six percent of their community colleges, the task force found in a study.

While the Accrediting Commission for Community and Junior Colleges only deals in three types of public sanctions – "warning," "probation" and the most aggressive, "show cause" – other accrediting groups nudge colleges with informal warnings before slapping a public

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