Tuesday, August 24, 2010

Ed Department to name 'Race to the Top' winners - Boston.com

Ed Department to name 'Race to the Top' winners

August 24, 2010

Text size – +

WASHINGTON—The U.S. Education Department is expected to name the winners of the second round of its $4.35 billion "Race to the Top" school reform grant competition.

Eighteen states and the District of Columbia were named finalists in July.

The competition has instigated a wave of reform across the country, as states enacted new teacher accountability policies and lifted caps on charter schools to boost their chances of winning.

The aim of the historic program is to reward ambitious reforms to improve

Philadelphia schools chief took advance pay for vacation days | Philadelphia Inquirer | 08/23/2010

Philadelphia schools chief took advance pay for vacation days

By Kristen A. Graham

Inquirer Staff Writer

Philadelphia schools chief Arlene Ackerman has collected cash for six days' vacation pay ahead of schedule.

Ackerman's contract gives her nearly seven weeks' vacation annually - 34 days in total. She can trade four of those days for money every year.

But district documents obtained by The Inquirer show that Ackerman, who has headed the district since June 2008, has been paid for 18 days - six more than she had earned.

Ackerman confirmed the payment Friday, saying, "I don't apologize for that. It was within my rights - that was the interpretation of the lawyers."

Ackerman took her first payout of $4,980.84 - for four days - on Feb. 12, 2009, presumably for the 2008-09 school

Judgment day in New York's try for $3.4 billion Race to the Top funds

BY RACHEL MONAHAN AND MEREDITH KOLODNER
DAILY NEWS STAFF WRITERS

Tuesday, August 24th 2010, 4:00 AM

RELATED NEWS

New York finds out today if its flurry of legislative changes this spring was enough to persuade Washington to fork over $700 million in education dollars.

Winners from among 19 finalists competing for a piece of the $3.4 billion Race to the Top funds will be announced in the morning.

If New York wins, the money will go primarily to building a statewide data system to track student progress and developing a statewide curriculum.

The city could get up to $240 million over four years.

Education advocates agree New York has significantly boosted its chances by raising the cap on charter schools to 460 from 200 and linking teacher evaluations to student test

NEA kicks off national tour in Denver | EdNewsColorado

NEA kicks off national tour in Denver

by Nancy Mitchell

NEA President Dennis Van Roekel visited Denver's Math and Science Leadership Academy on Monday.

The head of the nation’s largest teachers union chose Colorado on Monday for the kickoff of a U.S. schools’ tour highlighting reform efforts in which union members play a leading role.

Dennis Van Roekel, a veteran math teacher from Arizona who is in his third year leading the 3.2-million member

The Daily Churn: Tuesday

by Alan Gottlieb

What’s churning:

Colorado will know by 10 a.m. today whether the state has won up to $175 million in education reform funds from the second round of the federal Race to the Top competition. The U.S. Department of Education had been expected to reveal the winners in September, but announced yesterday that today would be the big day. Colorado is jockeying for funds against 17 other states and the District of Columbia, so the competition is stiff.

If Colorado is a winner, and receives the full $175 million, the state would have money to implement some of its long-range reform plans, including the Colorado Achievement Plan for Kids (CAP4K) and the roll-out of new

Proposed kindergarten cutoff date would mean some California kids start school later - Sacramento News - Local and Breaking Sacramento News | Sacramento Bee

Long-awaited Cosumnes River Elementary wows the kids

By Diana Lambert - Published: 12:00 am

Cosumnes River Elementary is a rarity these days – a new school built amid budget cuts and layoffs.

Proposed kindergarten cutoff date would mean some California kids start school later

By Susan Ferriss and Melody Gutierrez - Published: 12:00 am

For decades, millions of Californians with children who have fall birthdays have struggled over whether to pack their 4-year-olds off to kindergarten – or hold them back because they might be too young to start school.

Sacramento schools eligible for federal refugee money

By Stephen Magagnini - Published: 5:21 pm

Sacramento School districts are eligible for federal funding to help 1,801 refugee children in grades K-12 who have arrived in the county in the last three years, the California Department of Social Services announced today.

Del Oro student's essay wins national contest

Updated: Monday, August 23 2010 - 12:43 am

A Del Oro High School student's essay on the sacrifices American men and women serving in the armed forces have made and continue to make was honored in a national contest.

School year starts with bigger classes, reduced resources

By Diana Lambert and Melody Gutierrez - Published: Sunday, August 22 2010 - 12:00 am

School is back in session in most local districts, and students and staff are noticing big changes.

The Answer Sheet - How ed reformers push the wrong theory of learning -- Brady

How ed reformers push the wrong theory of learning -- Brady

My guest is Marion Brady, veteran teacher, administrator, curriculum designer and author. By Marion Brady In alphabetical order: Mike Bloomberg, mayor of New York City. Eli Broad, financier and philanthropist. Jeb Bush, ex-Florida governor and possible 2012 presidential contender. Arne Duncan, U.S. Secretary of Education. Bill Gates, business magnate and philanthropist. Joel Klein, chancellor of New York City schools. In education issues, mainstream media sometimes call these gentlemen, “The New Progressives.” They’re major movers and shakers in the current reform effort. None is, or has ever been, a teacher. Many think that’s a very good, even a necessary thing. It’s widely believed that American education is a mess, that teachers deserve most of the blame, and that they either can’t or won’t clean the mess up. What’s needed, it’s thought, are no-nonsense leaders – CEOs from business, lawyers, politicians, ex-military officers.

ASCD Inservice: What Makes Kids Do Good Work?

What Makes Kids Do Good Work?

Research suggests that purpose, relevance, student choice, and ownership are the keys to making learning meaningful. Any parent who's seen their child really take to an assignment will agree that these are important.

Next week (08/31/10), the September issue of Educational Leadership takes on the topic of Meaningful Work, and discusses questions like

How do you foster a "growth mindset" in students?

How does answering "w

San Diego and San Jose rated reform-resistant The Educated Guess

The Educated Guess

San Diego and San Jose rated reform-resistant

Posted in Advocacy organizations, Charters, Program innovation

San Diego and San Jose are unrivaled as hubs of innovation in high tech, green tech and biotech. But in terms of fostering a climate for education innovation, San Jose is no Silicon Valley, and San Diego is in the Rust Belt with Detroit and Gary, Indiana.

At least that’s view of the Thomas B. Fordham Institute, which ranked those two metropolises near the bottom of 26 major cities in the study “America’s Best (and Worst) Cities for School Reform: Attracting Entrepreneurs and Change Agents,”which was released today.

Los Angeles didn’t fare much better, ranking 18^th, but San Francisco, San Jose’s neighbor up Route 101, grabbed the #10 rank on the strength of its talent pool of social entrepreneurs and non-profit sector.

(Read more and comment on this post)

By John Fensterwald on August 24th, 2010

LAUSD, teachers negotiating use of test scores

Posted in Teacher Development, Tenure, Turning around failing schools, pay

The Los Angeles Times’ impending plan to publish the performance rankings of 6,000 elementary school teachers, based on student test scores, has become the catalyst for sudden negotiations between Los Angeles Unified and its teachers union over teacher evaluations. One likely reason: Incorporating test scores into teachers’ personnel reviews could provide the legal basis in the future to deny releasing the scores, tied to individual teachers, to the public and to the Times.

The Times reported Sunday that United Teachers Los Angeles has accepted Deputy Superintendent John Deasy’s offer to restart talks on performance reviews of teachers. UTLA President A.J. Duffy declined to say whether that should include using test scores, although Duffy, who has flatly ruled out the use of test scores until now, is facing pressure to do so.

(Read more and comment on this post)

By John Fensterwald on August 23rd, 2010

Monday, August 23, 2010

School Tech Connect: We Just Can't Afford It

We Just Can't Afford It

by effacethefacade@yahoo.com (Tim)

One of the best values on the Kindle is a subscription to The Nation. There's a terrific letter to the editor in the August 30th edition, written by Michael Ash, of the University of Massachusetts. He says this thing I've been meaning to say on this blog but can never formulate the words. So I'm just going to steal them here.

There is a pension crisis, but it's not the overgenerosity of public-sector pensions. The

Ambitious School Overhaul Drive Hits Delays - NYTimes.com

Ambitious School Overhaul Drive Hits Delays

Monica Almeida/The New York Times

Officials in San Bernardino, Calif., had to scale back plans for a makeover at Pacific High School.

By SAM DILLON

Published: August 23, 2010

Enlarge This ImageSAN BERNARDINO, Calif. — Secretary of Education Arne Duncanset an ambitious goal last year of overhauling 1,000 schools a year, using billions of dollars in federal stimulus money.

Monica Almeida/The New York Times

Pacific High School was supposed to be converted into a charter school.

But that effort is off to an uneven start. Schools from Maine to California are starting the fall term with their overhaul plans postponed or in doubt because negotiations among federal regulators, state officials and local educators have led to delays and confusion.

In this sprawling district east of Los Angeles, for example,

Scholars Test Web Alternative to Peer Review

Andrew Councill for The New York Times

Dan Cohen, director of the Center for History and New Media at George Mason University, is among the academics who advocate a more open, Web-based approach to reviewing scholarly works.

By PATRICIA COHEN

Published: August 23, 2010

For professors, publishing in elite journals is an unavoidable part of university life. The grueling process of subjecting work to the up-or-down judgment of credentialed scholarly peers has been a cornerstone of academic culture since at least the mid-20th century.

Now some humanities scholars have begun to challenge the monopoly that peer review has on admission to career-making journals and, as a consequence, to the charmed circle of tenured academe. They argue that in an era of digital media there is a better way to assess the quality of work. Instead of relying on a few experts selected by leading publications, they advocate using the Internet to

Sacramento schools eligible for federal refugee money - Sacramento News - Local and Breaking Sacramento News | Sacramento Bee

Sacramento schools eligible for federal refugee money

By Stephen Magagnini
smagagnini@sacbee.com

Published: Monday, Aug. 23, 2010 - 5:22 pm

The department has received a $1 million federal grant to provide summer school and English-learner classes to help new refugees adjust to their new lives here after fleeing persecution or war in their home countries. Districts in several counties with large refugee populations are eligible to

Schools Matter: From Koch Industries to Art Pope to the Tea Party Five of Wake County

From Koch Industries to Art Pope to the Tea Party Five of Wake County

by Jim Horn

Jane Mayer has an important piece of work in the New Yorker on what has to be the richest brotherly team of Obama-hating John Birchers in the world, the Koch Brothers. With limitless billions, they have funded over the years so many corporate socialist initiatives (corporate socialists are fascists without a national loyalty), from sludge tanks to astroturf groups to dirty tricks operations.

Making Movies That Matter Women's Conference

Making Movies That Matter

Making Movies That Matter
Family and Friend

08/23/10 | Penelope Ann Miller | 0 Comments

Penelope Ann Miller

Post to Facebook Post to Twitter Send to a Friend

I feel we need to support films that send powerful messages to kids about courage, values, and being true to yourself.

If we don’t get behind them and support them Hollywood won’t make them.

Last summer I had the incredible opportunity to be a part of Rob Reiner’s new film, Flipped. It’s a story about two 13 year-olds in the early 1960s – Bryce and Juli – who live across the street from each other and how they find themselves and each other through the trials of love and friendship.

The story “flips” between the viewpoints of these young characters and, as they grow, their perceptions of each other “flip” as well.

I play Juli’s mom in the film, alongside a fantastic ensemble of actors: Madeleine Carol &

Alfie Kohn, Data Denier � The Quick and the Ed

Alfie Kohn, Data Denier

by Bill Tucker

There’s a real need for healthy skepticism around our nation’s quest to collect and utilize education data to improve and deepen student learning. Complex formulas, such as those used to calculate value-added scores for teachers, need to be open to examination, testing, and improvement over time. Policymakers and educators need to better understand how to interpret and use assessment data, both from statewide summative tests and their own classroom activities. And we need smart policies, practitioners, and even skeptics to help us use better information about student learning t

Latest News and Comment from Education

Tuesday, August 24, 2010

Ed Department to name 'Race to the Top' winners

LATEST EDUCATION NEWS WIRE UPDATES

LATEST K-12 EDUCATION NEWS

LATEST HIGHER EDUCATION NEWS

Philadelphia schools chief took advance pay for vacation days

Judgment day in New York's try for $3.4 billion Race to the Top funds

RELATED NEWS

What’s churning:

What Makes Kids Do Good Work?

Monday, August 23, 2010

Ambitious School Overhaul Drive Hits Delays

By SAM DILLON

Published: August 23, 2010

Monica Almeida/The New York Times

Scholars Test Web Alternative to Peer Review

By PATRICIA COHEN

Published: August 23, 2010

Sacramento schools eligible for federal refugee money

Making Movies That MatterFamily and Friend

Making Movies That Matter
Family and Friend