New York City test scores plummet year after officials makes statewide exams tougher

New York City test scores plummet year after officials makes statewide exams tougher

BY RACHEL MONAHAN AND MEREDITH KOLODNER
DAILY NEWS STAFF WRITERS

Wednesday, July 28th 2010, 11:19 AM

Lewin/Getty

Only 54% of NYC third-through eighth graders passed New York State math exams.

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City tests scores released Wednesday plummeted after officials made the year's statewide exams more difficult.

On the math exams, only 54% of third- through eighth-graders passed, compared with 82% the year before, a shocking decline of 28 percentage points.

Reading scores also dropped a whopping 27 percentage points, from 69 % during the 2008-2009 school year to only 42 %.

The disturbing decline comes in the wake of a study commissioned by the state and released last week that found the high-stakes exams had become easier to pass

Read more: http://www.nydailynews.com/ny_local/education/2010/07/28/2010-07-28_new_york_city_test_scores_plummet_year_after_officials_makes_statewide_exams_tou.html?r=ny_local/education#ixzz0uzgAcKmQ

This Week In Education: Media: Sentimental (& Inaccurate) Turnaround Coverage

This Week In Education: Media: Sentimental (& Inaccurate) Turnaround Coverage

Media: Sentimental (& Inaccurate) Turnaround Coverage

by Alexander Russo

Last week it was the nice principal in Vermont. This week it's the nice lunch ladies in Chicago. The vivid but really sentimental story is from Chicago Public Radio and is focused on the lunch ladies at Deneen Elementary School. In the piece, beat reporter Linda Lutton takes a tour around the cafeteria and notes that there are seven lunch ladies at the school, all of whom have to apply for jobs now. Plus a beloved school security guard. I don't mind the story's focus on the disruption and collateral damage that

AM News: Turnarounds Take Lunch, Security Staff - District 299: Chicago Public Schools Blog

AM News: Turnarounds Take Lunch, Security Staff - District 299: Chicago Public Schools Blog

AM News: Turnarounds Take Lunch, Security Staff

by Alexander Russo

Are Lunch Ladies Part of Recipe for Good Schools? WBEZ: Is it necessary to remove lunch ladies, janitors, and security guards to create better schools?...

Students experiment with a career in science Tribune: Sherin Randall-London should have a memorable project for the science fair after spending her summer in a lab at Robert H. Lurie Cancer Center of Northwestern University's medical school... Walgreens clinics offer 40% off back-to-school physicals Sun Times: Take Care Health Systems is offering back-to-school physicals at Take Care Clinics nationwide for $35 -- more than 40 percent off the usual price...Study: Students take what Google gives Give college students an assignment, and the first thing many will do is to Google the subject, according to a Northwestern University study that offers this suggestion... Illinois to Cut Writing Portion from Standardized Tests WBEZ: Standardized tests for elementary- and middle-schoolers in Illinois are getting shorter.

The Answer Sheet - Were some D.C. teachers fired based on flawed calculations?

The Answer Sheet - Were some D.C. teachers fired based on flawed calculations?

Were some D.C. teachers fired based on flawed calculations?

My guest is Aaron Pallas, professor of sociology and education at Teachers College, Columbia University. He writes the Sociological Eye on Education blog for The Hechinger Report, a nonprofit, non-partisan education-news outlet affiliated with the Hechinger Institute on Education and the Media. Pallas has also taught at Johns Hopkins University, Michigan State University, and Northwestern University, and served as a statistician at the National Center for Education Statistics in the U.S. Department of Education.

In this post, Pallas goes into detail about why he believes the D.C. Public Schools botched the calculation of value-added scores for some of the teachers who were among the 241 fired last week by Chancellor Michelle Rhee.

By Aaron Pallas
We live in an age of accountability and transparency – and yet some school districts seem not to be playing by the rules. I recently wroteabout the lack of accountability in the way districts report how they calculate teacher “value-added” measures that are used for medium-stakes and high-stakes personnel decisions (such as granting teachers

Time For Big Oil To Do Its Part for California | California Progress Report

Time For Big Oil To Do Its Part for California | California Progress Report

Californians of Faith Moving to Support Marriage Equality

from California Progress Report by kaldveer

By Andrea D. Shorter
Equality California
Last Wednesday I had the pleasure of attending a press conference held by the Public Religion Research Institute (PRRI) in Los Angeles. Along with clergy, coalition partners and allies including California Faith for Equality, the National Black Justice Coalition and the California Lesbian Project, we welcomed the release of the PRRI's report on their findings of the largest survey on religion and same marriage in California to date, Religion and Same-Sex Marriage in California: A New Look at Attitudes and Values Two Years After Proposition 8.
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Time For Big Oil To Do Its Part for California

by kaldveer

By Marlene Allen
Last week I joined hundreds of other Californians -- college students, school employees, social workers and other community members in a march to Occidental Petroleum’s offices in Los Angeles. We carried a simple message: closing a $1.2 billion tax loophole that giant oil companies take advantage of each year could save our schools and vital social services from deeper cuts.
Rebuilding California requires everyone to do their part, and working families have already sacrificed so much in this economic recession. Now it’s time for Big Oil to do its share. We’re calling on California leaders to close the oil pumping loophole.
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Harry Reid’s Senate: Where Progressive Legislation Goes to Die

by kaldveer

By Paul Hogarth
BeyondChron
Netroots Nation concluded this past weekend in Las Vegas – with appearances by House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, dozens of panels and workshops and a rousing Keynote by Senator Al Franken that renewed hope for liberal bloggers. If there’s one major frustration leading into November, it’s the U.S. Senate – where Republicans have obstructed practically everything that passed the House. Reid came to the Conference on July 24th – right after announcing we “don’t have the votes” for comprehensive climate change reform this year, only adding insult to injury.
One panel on filibuster reform suggested we’re in a constitutional crisis, but Reid himself wouldn’t commit to any specific solution. But rather than give up, Al Franken reminded the netroots that Senators elected in 2006 and 2008 with their help are a “coalition of the impatient” – and represent a new generation of more progressive Democrats. Bloggers are needed this November to add to their ranks, in order to change the Senate.

Invitation to Breitbart Is Another Sign That the GOP Is Lying About Race

by kaldveer

By Earl Ofari Hutchinson
Republican National Committee chair Michael Steele has repeatedly snapped back at the charge that the GOP is racist, harbors racist elements, and plays the race card. On occasion, he has loudly said that the RNC must embrace diversity and be a big tent that includes minorities. Every time he opens his mouth to say these things, he’s called a liar.
Those who call Steele a liar rattle off the litany of racist gaffes, slurs, and acts by GOP officials, politicians, and assorted GOP-connected Tea Party leaders and activists to prove their point. Now they have one more example they can add to the list.
That’s the GOP’s invite to Andrew Breitbart, the right-wing smear-machine engine man, to appear at the RNC’s three-day confab in Los Angeles next month. It’s billed as an “Election Countdown,” a way to raise some money and rev up the GOP troops.
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Stopping the Duncan agenda: The civil rights issue of our time. � Fred Klonsky's blog

Stopping the Duncan agenda: The civil rights issue of our time. � Fred Klonsky's blog

Stopping the Duncan agenda: The civil rights issue of our time.

by preaprez

One of the stock phrases that Arne Duncan uses in his speeches is the that “there is not a day that he doesn’t think about Martin Luther King.”
Duncan will say that his agenda of competitive school funding, school closings, charter schools, the undermining of teacher union contracts and the punitive use of standardized test results (it is becoming harder and harder to come up with a single term to describe his expansive plans for destroying public education) is the “civil rights movement of today”
According to the Civil Rights Movement and organizations of today, apparently not.
In fact, you could say that stopping the Duncan/Obama education agenda is the civil rights movement of today.

Shadowy “Great Schools” Group To Address OB Town Council Meeting – Wed July 28th

Shadowy “Great Schools” Group To Address OB Town Council Meeting – Wed July 28th

by DOUG PORTER on JULY 28, 2010

in EDUCATION, OCEAN BEACH, SAN DIEGO

Scott Himelstein, the spokesman of the newly named “San Diegans 4 Great Schools”, has been visiting various civic groups around the city spreading the word that his group is disappointed with test scores in San Diego Unified schools and that “governance” is the problem.

Tonight, Wednesday, July 28th, at 7 pm, he is slated to address the OB Town Council in a meeting to be held at the OB Masonic Temple (1711 Sunset Cliffs Blvd). (See here for ourearlier report.)

Last week this group held a press conference to announce the results of a consultant’s report that they had commissioned. Although the information in the report was a year behind in reporting test scores, and it failed to acknowledge that the previous Superintendent of Schools had been

Edujobs, ESEA Renewal, and Miller's Latest Take - Politics K-12 - Education Week

Edujobs, ESEA Renewal, and Miller's Latest Take - Politics K-12 - Education Week

Edujobs, ESEA Renewal, and Miller's Latest Take

by Alyson Klein

Yesterday, Congress officially passed an emergency spending bill—without the edujobs money. Right now, there just doesn't seem to be a legislative vehicle for the $10 billion that supporters say is needed to help prevent hundreds of thousands of layoffs around the country. That despite fervent lobbying efforts by education organizations.
As we mentioned earlier, advocates were eyeing legislation giving aid to small businesses as a potential next vehicle for the education jobs funding, but it's not clear if that's going to work out.
The jobs money is stuck partly because of opposition from moderate Republicans and conservative Democrats in the Senate. The reasons include the bill's price tag, not just those controversial offsets involving high-profile Obama administration education priorities.
One of the bill's key House champions explained the situation this way:
"The Senate is completely dysfunctional on these issues," Rep. George Miller, D-Calif., said in an interview

State passes test for 'Race to the Top' funds

State passes test for 'Race to the Top' funds

State passes test for 'Race to the Top' funds

The California Legislature struggled mightily last year to pass important educational reforms. The...

California a Race to the Top grant finalist

California made the list of finalists for a share of $4.35 billion in federal Race to the Top funds...

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How would Perry and White get more Texans to graduate from college? | THE EDUCATION FRONT Blog | dallasnews.com

How would Perry and White get more Texans to graduate from college? | THE EDUCATION FRONT Blog | dallasnews.com

How would Perry and White get more Texans to graduate from college?

by William McKenzie/ Editorial Columnist

The story that broke last week about the U.S. trailing other nations in college graduation rates may seem like one of those pieces you've read before. After all, the New York Times' Thomas Friedman beat the drum hard a few years back about India and China catching up with us in engineering.
Nevertheless, the College Board's report about the U.S. falling to 12th in worldwide graduation rates has tremendous relevance here in Texas. As it turns out, not only is the U.S. behind, but Texas ranks 40th among all states and the District of Columbia when it comes to students between the ages of 25 and 34 who hold an associates degree or higher. In fact, only 27 percent of Texans in that age range have earned a postsecondary degree, while the national average for that group is 41 percent.
Both at the national and state level, this is a real problem. College graduates are the foundation of our economy, driving it with innovation and the ability to solve problems. Without a vast pool of them, we are going to struggle

No Room for PC in School Choice: Being Honest With Yourself Notes from the news, July 28 | Philadelphia Public School Notebook

Notes from the news, July 28 | Philadelphia Public School Notebook

Notes from the news, July 28

by Erika Owens

PA among 19 Race to the Top finalists The Notebook blog
PA is a finalist again in round two. If it wins funds in this round, it could bring in $400 million.
Feds want data on Germantown High lunches Daily News
The U.S. Department of Labor is following up on complaints by a fired worker that teachers were eating lunches meant for students in a summer program.
See also: Woman Insists Teachers Took Kid's Lunches Fox 29
Gathering Resources, Unit Planning: Modern Civil Rights Era Office of Teaching and Unlearning
A whole bunch of resources for lesson planning about the civil rights era.
No Room for PC in School Choice: Being Honest With Yourself Philly School Search blog
Please email us if we missed anything today or if you have any suggestions of publications, email lists, or other places for us to check for news.
Click here to get Notes from the news in your inbox every day.
Notes from the news
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Edu-Heroes And Their "Aha Moments" - THE DAILY RIFF - Be Smarter. About Education.

Edu-Heroes And Their "Aha Moments" - THE DAILY RIFF - Be Smarter. About Education.

Edu-Heroes And Their "Aha Moments"

"My assessments evolved FROM . . . tell me what you know in a factual recall way

TO show me what you can do with the meanings you've made . . ."

-Jay McTighe 

We absolutely love these short videos (below) from ASCD's recent "Critical Transformations" Conference featuring a few greats in the education world sharing their personal answers to the question, "What was your critical transformation?"

The line-up below:

Carol Ann Tomlinson, author "The Differentiated School" who offers us her revelations such as "There was a time when I was a young teacher where I really thought my worth as a teacher was judged by how much I could cover and how much I could transmit to kids . . ."

Grant Wiggins, co-author "Understanding By Design" - on why he didn't want to be a college professor and what makes him tick . . .

John Merrow, venerable education journalist, who brings up an everyday experience and relates it to what changed his perception of education . . .

Jay McTighe, co-author "Understanding By Design" bridging some

Counseling grad student sues for religious right to declare: Gays make "personal choice" of homosexual "lifestyle" [video] - Last Word

Counseling grad student sues for religious right to declare: Gays make "personal choice" of homosexual "lifestyle" [video] - Last Word

Counseling grad student sues for religious right to declare: Gays make "personal choice" of homosexual "lifestyle" [video]

Posted by duy on July 27, 2010 9:05 PM | Permalink

''The Counselor Education Program is grounded in the core principles of the American Counseling Association and the American School Counselor Association, which defines the roles and responsibilities of professional counselors in its code of ethics.... The code is included in the curriculum of the counseling education program, which states that counselors in training have the same responsibility as professional counselors to understand and follow the ACA Code of Ethics.''

Statement from Augusta State University as quoted by FOX News regarding behavior and beliefs of Jennifer Keeton, a counseling grad student who is suing for her right to stay in the program while declaring that LGBT people somehow choose their sexual orientation and gender identity. She does not want to take part in a "remediation" program designed to make her mor

As Race to the Top competition intensifies, so do education reforms #Education News.org #edu

EducationNews.org

EducationNews Today Kaplan University: Blood Bank for the Washington Post 7.28.10 - How the Washington Post is surviving can be found in the fact that the company and thus the paper does not receive the majority of its revenue from either classified advertising or even advertising itself. The real story, that the Washington Post will not publish, is that the paper receives the majority of its revenue stream, its life blood, so to speak, from Kaplan University, a for-profit predatory institution that poses as higher education. As Race to the Top competition intensifies, so do education reforms 7.28.10 - Amanda Paulson - In announcing the Race to the Top finalists Tuesday, Education Secretary Arne Duncan called the program part of 'a quiet revolution' under way in education reform. Eighteen states and the District of Columbia are finalists in the second round of Race to the Top, the influential and controversial competition for federal money to help states overhaul their education systems. ... Employment School 7.28.10 - RiShawn Biddle - Or call them permanent unemployment schools -- because those who attend won't ever acquire the skills work in a modern economy requires. If you want to know one reason why the nation's unemployment rate remains stubbornly high -- and why President Barack Obama is tackling the National Education Association and American Federation of Teachers on reforming public schools... The Case for $320,000 Kindergarten Teachers 7.28.10 - A new study found students with better teachers learned more in kindergarten - and earned more as young adults. ... Commentaries Where Have All the Caring Parents Gone? 7.28.10 - Donna Garner - I feel so sorry for the following 18 states and Washington, D. C. that have sold their souls to the federal government for a few pieces of silver. High School Education: Multiple Pathways and Student Choice 7.28.10 - A two-tiered caste system of college-bound and work-bound education is hardwired in our collective societal consciousness to funnel youth into pathways based on disabilities, race, and class. Invisible Ink in Teacher Contracts 7.28.10 - State policy trumps collective bargaining. When the Cleveland, Ohio, school board had to make radical cuts in its budget last spring, it was forced to

EdNews Reports Steve Peha Offers An Alternate History on the Reading Crisis As the founder of Teaching That Makes Sense, Steve Peha has spent much of the past 15 years working on developing professional development regimens that help teachers improve their own academic instruction. But the former tech manager - who once scored the theme for the 3.1 version of Microsoft's Windows operating system National Education Standards: Still Not a Conservative Idea Lindsey Burke - "The Common Core Curriculum: National Education Standards Even Conservatives Can Love." This is what Chester Finn and Michael Petrilli of the Fordham Institute write about the Obama Administration's push to implement national standards in classrooms across the nation.

Quick Takes: Homeless College Students - Inside Higher Ed

Quick Takes: Homeless College Students - Inside Higher Ed

Homeless College Students A story on NPR examines a "little-known but growing population of financially stressed students, who are facing hunger and sometimes even homelessness." A student at the University of California at Los Angeles describes rotating sleep between the ...

Facing Athletics Deficit - and Sending Athletes on Italy Trip The athletics department at the University of Wisconsin at Milwaukee is facing a deficit of up to $8 million. So student leaders want to know why the university is sending its basketball team on a trip to Italy, at a cost of $160,000, *The Milwaukee ...

Norfolk State Faculty Want Greater Role in Presidential Search Faculty leaders at Norfolk State University want a greater role in a presidential search that is gearing up, *The Virginian-Pilot* reported. A faculty member is slated to serve on an "input" committee that will develop traits that are needed in the ...

Baby Name Voyager Should Peak Student Interest | Larry Ferlazzo's Websites of the Day...

Baby Name Voyager Should Peak Student Interest | Larry Ferlazzo's Websites of the Day...

Baby Name Voyager Should Peak Student Interest Baby Name Voyager is a fascinating data visualization tool that shows you the popularity of specific names during the last thirteen decades. You just type in a name, and an interactive chart appears seconds later. It’s really pretty interesting. But ...

“Portaportal” Is A Nice Link Collection Portaportal is a very impressive and well-organized collection of educational links. It has been created by Kimberly Bedsole. I’m adding it to The Best Collections Of Educational Links. Thanks to mrsalline on Twitter for the tip.

July’s “The Best…” Lists Here’s my monthly round-up of new “The Best…” lists I posted in July: The Best “When I Say Jump” Online Sites For Practicing English — July, 2010 “Part Forty-Eight Of The Best Ways To Create Online Content Easily & Quickly” — July, 2010 The Best ...