Thursday, June 24, 2010

Rise & Shine: City, union in talks to delay first day of school | GothamSchools

Rise & Shine: City, union in talks to delay first day of school

by Philissa Cramer

The DOE and teachers union are discussing delaying the first day of school to Sept. 13. (Daily News)
The 4-year principal of PS 7 in the Bronx is leaving to be an education consultant. (Riverdale Press)
Nicole Suriel’s death is raising questions about field trip rules. (Times, Post, Daily News, WSJ)
The next step for a long-pending anti-bullying bill is Gov. Paterson’s approval. (Times)
A Bronx principal found to have sexually assaulted staff once has been accused again. (Daily News)
A Bronx student was murdered earlier this month on his way home from school. (Riverdale Press)
Thirty-one states are teaming up to develop shared standardized tests. (USA Today)
School libraries are being hit especially hard by budget cuts nationally. (AP)
Momentum is growing for mayoral control of Detroit’s schools. (Detroit Free Press)
Chicago’s school board agreed to lay off teachers by quality rating, not seniority. (Chicago Sun-Times)

Remainders: Yes, the Harlem space wars are still raging on

by Elizabeth Green

Video of a walkout during a Harlem charter space hearing. (Norm Scott)
The city will investigate the death of Nicole Suriel of Columbia Secondary. (Post)
The DOE is looking for someone to oversee its quality reviews. (Simply Hired)
Staten Island’s famous PS 22 chorus graduates to “Man in the Mirror.” (PS 22)
Assemblyman Gottfried seems to support Education Reform Now. (NYC Public School Parent Blog)
Rank-and-file teachers at odds with AFT President Randi Weingarten. (Eduwonk)
Applications to remake American tests are in. (EdWeek, password-protected)
Who will govern the new assessments once they exist? (Fordham)
An argument that reducing teaching jobs is a good thing. (Big Government)
Chicago’s schools chief wants more than just seniority to determine layoffs. (Catalyst)
“Chasers”: the people who go after truants and dropouts. (Take Part, via Russo)
A slightly hidden, very-high graduation rate in D.C. uncovered. (Jay Greene)

The Answer Sheet - A better way to evaluate students and schools

A better way to evaluate students and schools

My guest is Monty Neill, interim executive director of the National Center for Fair and Open Testing, known as FairTest, a non-profit organization that works to end the flaws and misuse of standardized testing.

By Monty Neill
Polls show that most Americans agree we need a better way to assess students and evaluate schools. The question is, what should we do? Any new system must provide reasonable accountability and use assessments that improve student learning and school quality. It must also get us out of the downward spiral of producing schools that do little more than teach children how to fill in bubbles on multiple-choice tests.

FairTest and our allies propose a robust and effective assessment and evaluation system that would include three key components: limited large-scale standardized testing, extensive school-based evidence of learning, and a school quality review process.

Large-scale tests. Many nations with better and more equal education outcomes test only one to three times before high school graduation and largely avoid multiple-choice questions. The emphasis is on quality, not quantity. Better tests would help U.S. schools, but based on criteria set by the Department of Education, the next batch of tests aren’t likely to be much better than current ones. And we’d still waste time and

The Educated Guess � Online learning to drive charter schools’ innovation and expansion

Online learning to drive charter schools’ innovation and expansion

Tags: Danner, DreamBox Learning, Gates, Hastings, Rocketship, Shalvey
Posted in Charters

Netflix CEO and charter school benefactor Reed Hastings attracted attention two months ago when he bought the education software company DreamBox Learningfor $10 million.
Losing interest in charters and moving on to a new challenge? Hastings said he was asked.
To the contrary, Hastings said this week, technology and charter schools will reinforce each other. Savings from the use of new technology will fuel the expansion of charter schools, and their growth will force hidebound school districts in turn to adapt innovative technologies that will improve learning.

Hastings, who donated ownership of DreamBox to the non-profit Charter School Growth Fund, spoke at a strategy meeting in Palo Alto for Rocketship Education, a San Jose based elementary charter school organization that’s doing what Hastings predicts.
I’ve written about Rocketship and its CEO, John Danner. Its flagship school had 916 API score last year, making it the third highest scoring low-income elementary school in California. Rocketship has incorporated a learning lab into a quarter of the school day; the savings from the hybrid model of online and direct instruction reduces the number of certificated teachers from 21 to 16, saving each school

Libraries fading as school budget crisis deepens - Boston.com

Libraries fading as school budget crisis deepens

Fourth-graders Nick Phan, left, and Marcus Lee, right, visit in the school library at Kennydale, Elementary School, Tuesday, June 22, 2010, in Renton, Wash. The library will be open as usual next year, but at other schools across the country, administrators have started to view school libraries as luxuries that can be cut from school budgets. (AP Photo/Ted S. Warren)

By Donna Gordon Blankinship

Associated Press Writer / June 24, 2010

Text size – +

BELLEVUE, Wash.—Students who wished their school librarians a nice summer on the last day of school may be surprised this fall when they're no longer around to recommend a good book or help with homework.

As the school budget crisis deepens, administrators across the nation have started to view school libraries as luxuries that can be axed rather than places where kids learn to love reading and do research.

No one will know exactly how many jobs are lost until fall, but the American Association of School Administrators projects 19 percent of the nation's school districts will have fewer librarians next year, based on a

GLOBE EDUCATION NEWS

Chief empathy officer

WATERTOWN — With red masks covering their eyes, the executives fumbled for spoons and tried to guess what they were eating. (By Katie Johnston Chase, Globe Staff)

‘Healing place’ in Roxbury reopened

Weeks after James P. Timilty Middle School students faced a second peer death in as many years, the Roxbury community yesterday celebrated the reopening of what one parent described as a “healing place’’ next door, the Clarence “Jeep’’ Jones Park. (By Sydney Lupkin, Globe Correspondent)

Condoms, secrecy for Provincetown pupils

Students in Provincetown — from elementary school to high school — will be able to get free condoms at school under a recently approved policy that takes effect this fall. The rule also requires school officials to keep student requests secret, and ignore parents’ objections. (By Jack Nicas, Globe Correspondent)

Theological schools’ partnership could reshape clergy training

Leaders of Andover Newton Theological School in Newton Centre and Meadville Lombard Theological School in Chicago, which will become partners in a yet-to-be-named interreligious institution next summer, say the new school has the potential to revolutionize the training of clergy by offering a more sustainable financial model that fits a more religiously diverse society. (By Lisa Wangsness, Globe Staff)

At Wentworth, survivors learn to build a stronger Haiti

Charles-Edouard Jean was in the middle of an afternoon shower in his Port-au-Prince home when the floor began to tremble beneath him and his wife let out a scream. The most destructive earthquake in Haiti’s history had struck. (By Alex Katz, Globe Correspondent)

New LA deputy superintendent comes with murky past | California Watch

New LA deputy superintendent comes with murky past

June 24, 2010 | Corey G. Johnson

Flickr photo by Alan Turkus

A top official involved in pushing for new teacher evaluation procedures and other reforms at the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation was appointed Tuesday as second in command at the Los Angeles Unified School District.

After discussing the appointment in closed session, the LA Board of Education approved John E. Deasy to become Superintendent Ramon Cortines' deputy – thereby filling a post vacant since Cortines ascended to the top position in December 2008.

Deasy is deputy director of education at theGates Foundation, responsible for overseeing $200 million in education grants, according to the San Jose Mercury News. Before joining the Gates Foundation, Deasy was superintendent at Prince George’s County Public Schools, Maryland’s second-largest school system and the nation’s 18th largest district with 134,000 students.

His stint in Maryland became tumultous when allegations surfaced that Deasy may have awarded a $125,000 contract to his academic adviser in exchange for favorable consideration toward his doctorate. The adviser, Robert Felner, former dean of the school of education at the University of Louisville, pleaded guilty to 10 federal charges of fraud, tax evasion and money laundering. Deasy's attorney, Scott Cox, insisted his client was innocent and the victim of Felner's bad publicity:

And Dr. Deasy, as far as we can tell, earned legitimately his Ph.D. And there is so much negative publicity associated with Dr. Felner and anything he's connected with, it really is unfortunate that Dr. Deasy got dragged into this. He didn't do anything wrong except get his Ph.D.

Deasy's appointment could put him next in line to assume LAUSD's top spot, if 77-year-old Cortines decides to step down. It also could signal a more intense focus on reforming the

U.S. Department of Education unveils grant-tracking website

by Erica Perez

Erica Perez

The U.S. Department of Education has unveiled a new transparency website that will allow people to view, analyze, map and chart information about applications for federal education programs.
So far, the website has data for one grant program – Investing in Innovation – that provides competitive grants to support innovative ways of improving student achievement, closing achievement gaps, decreasing dropout rates, increasing high school graduation rates, or increasing college enrollment and completion rates.
Users can browse the applications in their region using an interactive map, filter the results by state or applicant and create charts to examine different types of applications.
Or, for data-crunchers, the site provides raw data downloads for your own analysis. A quick look at the data on the Investing in Innovation grant shows that the four largest requests, each for $50 million, came from the San Francisco-based KIPP Foundation, Teach for America, Project Lead the Way and the Wilson County Board of

State officials argue over governing board for struggling school districts | Philadelphia Inquirer | 06/23/2010

TOM GRALISH / Staff Photographer

Chester Upland superintendent Gregory Thornton at the School of the Arts last week. He is leaving for a new job in Wisconsin at the end of the month.

READER FEEDBACK

State officials argue over governing board for struggling school districts

By Dan Hardy

Inquirer Staff Writer

The Chester Upland School District, under state oversight for the last 16 years because of academic and fiscal woes, could be returned to the control of its elected school board on July 1 - and possibly lose $5 million in state funding.
That's because the law allowing for the state takeover of persistently low-achieving districts, and the extra money it provides, expires on that date.
Efforts to fashion a replacement are stalled amid disputes between Republican and Democratic legislators and state officials over how Chester Upland and another troubled district, Harrisburg, would operate under the new, tougher proposal.
Some observers say the legislation might be put on hold until next year.
Adding to the uncertainty, Chester Upland's popular superintendent, Gregory Thornton, is leaving July 1 to take a job in Milwaukee, and because the future of the oversight board has been unclear, no replacement has been selected. Some residents worry about a return to the instability the district had seen for decades, with the turnover of top leadership undercutting efforts to improve schools.
Under Thornton and a governing board appointed by Gov. Rendell in 2007, Chester Upland took the first tentative steps toward academic progress, many residents say. Test scores and the number of seniors graduating and going on to college have gone up; violence is down; and several private-public partnerships brought new money and programs into the district.
Still, many in Chester Upland have long advocated the return to power of the elected board. Since 1994, a series of appointed boards have been in charge. The current three-member group is made up of two educators and a

Education | States join together to create national academic tests | Seattle Times Newspaper

States join together to create national academic tests

Two big coalitions of states, one spearheaded by Washington state, are competing for federal dollars to create a series of new national academic tests.

By Donna Gordon Blankinship

The Associated Press

Information

SMARTER Balanced Assessment Consortium:www.k12.wa.us/SMARTER/default.aspx

Partnership for the Assessment of Readiness for College and Careers: www.fldoe.org/parcc/

Two big coalitions of states are competing for federal dollars to create a series of new national academic tests.

In the current system, every state gives a different test. In some, passing the exam is a high-school graduation requirement.

The federal government has said it will award up to two grants of up to $160 million to create a testing system based on the proposed new national academic standards in language arts and mathematics.

Washington state is submitting the application on behalf of a group of 31 states calling itself the SMARTER Balanced Assessment Consortium.

Florida is submitting an application on behalf of 26 states in the Partnership for the Assessment of Readiness for College and Careers.

Each coalition has a core group and a bigger collection of states supporting the idea. Some states support both groups. The proposals have many similarities and the coalitions are working together on some parts.

A third organization has expressed interest in a separate grant to create just a high-school test.

The Washington coalition's proposal describes testing different from what's used in most states:

• Testing would be online and given at least twice a year to help track student progress.

• Exams would adapt to measure each student's abilities. That's pricey, cutting-edge technology most

The Education Report Red light, green light: Oakland district says no to charter, county says yes

The Education Report

Red light, green light: Oakland district says no to charter, county says yes

By Katy Murphy
Wednesday, June 23rd, 2010 at 3:22 pm in charter schools
1 Comment

The Community School for Creative Education will open in Oakland, after all. The Waldorf-inspired charter school won an appeal last night from the Alameda County Board of Education. In January, the Oakland school board denied the charterupon the recommendation of its charter schools’ office.

It’s the second charter school this year to be rejected by the Oakland school district only to get the green light from the county. The board voted 5-1 to let the Waldorf-inspired school open in Oakland, with Fred Sims voting `no.’ Felix Elizalde wasn’t present.

Last month, the county board also allowed East Oakland’s Cox Academy to remain open next year. In March, the Oakland school boar