Friday, September 3, 2010

Mass. will lead effort to develop new tests - The Boston Globe

Mass. will lead effort to develop new tests

Impact on MCAS remains uncertain

Globe Staff / September 3, 2010

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In another signal that the future of the MCAS could be in doubt, a consortium of states led by Massachusetts and Florida received a $170 million federal grant yesterday to design a standardized testing system that is intended to replace a patchwork of tests used by individual states.

The new testing system — vehemently opposed by Governor Deval Patrick’s challengers in the gubernatorial race — is expected to be ready by the 2014-15 school year. It will measure how much students are learning under a new set of national academic standards in English and math that Massachusetts adopted in July.

Like the Massachusetts Comprehensive Assessment System, the program would assess students in grades 3-8 and the 10th grade, and would add grades 9 and 11.

Boston University launches its first capital campaign

This summer the Boston University trustees quietly green-lit the university’s first-ever, big-time fund-raising campaign. It sounds like a small thing, but it is a big thing. Unlike almost every other university its size, BU has never clamped a full-court press on all of its alumni for a billion-dollar capital campaign. (By Alex Beam, Globe Columnist)

Mass. school districts reap benefits of federal funding, but some feel short-changed

While some local school officials are welcoming a pair of recent federal funding awards, several are contending that their districts were shortchanged. (By John Laidler, Globe Correspondent)

Magazine ranks Westwood High School 11th best in state

Westwood High School, Dedham High School, and 10 other public high schools in the suburbs south of Boston have made Boston Magazine’s list of the 50 best public high schools. (By Michele Morgan Bolton, Globe Correspondent)

Citing misconduct inquiry, Harvard professor cancels classes

Harvard psychology professor Marc Hauser canceled a Harvard Extension School class on cognitive evolution that he was scheduled to start teaching yesterday and dropped plans to offer a spring class called “The Moral Sense: From Genes to Law.’’ (By Carolyn Y. Johnson, Globe Staff)

Testimony of a charter school mom: Michigan and the National Heritage Educational Management Organization | Dailycensored.com

Testimony of a charter school mom: Michigan and the National Heritage Educational Management Organization

by Danny Weil

ONE PARENT’S TALE OF A CHARTER SCHOOL BETRAYAL: Michigan and the National Heritage Academies EMO

By: Gina Davis

As I am hearing I am just one of millions of parents all across our country who are having their eyes opened to the fight we all need to get on the band wagon of, for the future of our country… the fight for Public education!

This is my story:

I am a single parent, self employed Licensed Daycare Provider, with a bright 13 year old son…

Unfortunately at the Charter School my son attended, Windemere Park Charter Academy, in Lansing, Michigan,

How the World Changed: Symposium of Critical Thinkers Sept. 11-12 | Dailycensored.com

How the World Changed: Symposium of Critical Thinkers Sept. 11-12

by Peter Phillips

Presented by the International News Net.
Worldwide Webcast/ http://howtheworldchanged.org/
WHERE: Walker Stage – 56 Walker Street, New York, NY
WHEN: 12 noon on Sat. Sept. 11th through 6pm Sun. Sept. 12th
This event will be web cast for viewers around the world! Check back soon for further details.
We invite you to join us as we host 8 panel discussions over 2 days which will explore the important changes in our world since the attacks of 9/11 and the ever increasing need to understand its relevance.
Format — Each panelist will make a presentation following a brief topic intro by the moderator, who will then question and challenge each panel member. There will be Q&A for each panel with the studio and online audience.
PANEL 1 — 12:15pm – 2:15pm: The 4th Estate Fails In Its Duty And The Birth Of Alternative Media

Mastery Charter Schools' big test in Philadelphia | Philadelphia Inquirer | 09/02/2010

Mastery Charter Schools' big test in Philadelphia The blacktop playground behind Harrity Elementary School in West Philadelphia Wednesday morning was teeming with parents and children waiting for classroom assignments and a chance to meet the teachers.

Bret Schundler denies he misled Christie TRENTON - Former Education Commissioner Bret Schundler on Wednesday emphatically denied misleading Gov. Christie about an error on the state's application for Race to the Top funds that may have cost the state $400 million.

Asian leaders express doubt on South Phila. High plan The speakers sat before a backdrop of two Chinese screens that bore the characters for "double happiness," but no one looked very cheery.

Rise & Shine: About 2,000 kindergartners still without schools | GothamSchools

Rise & Shine: About 2,000 kindergartners still without schools

by Maura Walz

Families of about 2,000 kindergartners might wait til Tuesday to find out their placements. (Daily News)
State Senator Suzi Oppenheimer plans to hold hearings on the re-calibrated state test scores. (Post)
About 1,700 teachers currently lack full-time teaching positions. (GothamSchools, Daily News, WNYC)
Many of them have not applied for new jobs or attended recruitment fairs. (Post, Wall Street Journal)
The federal government gave states $330 million to develop new tests. (Times, Washington Post, CSM)
An education professor argues that politics, not proven results, drive Obama education policy. (SF Gate)
Staten Island residents rallied against a city plan to reduce bus service for middle schools. (SI Advance)
Opposition is growing to a city plan to help build a new Harlem Childrens Zone building. (Daily News)
Merrick Academy is re-hiring three of the 11 teachers it laid off via FedEx. (Daily News, WNYC)
A Staten Island teacher who sued the city over her suspension for using vulgar slang has settled. (Post)
The L.A. Board of Ed formally asked for test scores to be used in teacher evaluations. (L.A. Times)

School achievement gap endures despite reforms | California Watch

School achievement gap endures despite reforms

by Louis Freedberg

Louis Freedberg

Despite unprecedented national and state reforms over the past decade, the achievement gap between black and white students remains essentially unchanged in California, while the gap between Latino and white students has closed slightly but still remains alarmingly high.

That's the depressing aspect of the state's latest test results which, with some exceptions, got buried when they

Affluent judges skews the law against the poor, says judge

by Ryan Gabrielson

Ryan Gabrielson

Confirmation hearings for federal judges don’t examine how a nominee’s wealth may impact their rulings on constitutional questions.

The chief justice of the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals thinks they should.

“There’s been much talk about diversity on the bench,” Judge Alex Kozinski wrote in a dissenting opinion [PDF] last month, “but there’s one kind of diversity that doesn’t exist: No truly poor people are appointed as

Harlem up in arms over new charter school planned near St. Nicholas Houses

JUAN GONZALEZ - NEWS

Friday, September 3rd 2010, 4:00 AM

RELATED NEWS

Another battle has erupted in Harlem over a charter school.

Hundreds of residents from the St. Nicholas Houses signed petitions in recent days urging the federal government to reject City Hall's plan to start construction this year on a new $100-million home for the Harlem Children's Zone Promise Academy on land that belongs to St. Nicholas.

"We're going to court to seek an injunction against the project," said resident Alexanderia Blair, a leader of the 129th Street Preservation Group, one of two organizations opposing the city's plans.

Opponents say the New York City Housing Authority and Department of Education ignored their concerns that the proposed 130,000-square-foot building, which will serve 1,300 children from K-to-12, would

Teachers axed by Queens charter school, Merrick Academy, via FedEx are rehired

Teachers axed by Queens charter via FedEx rehired Three teachers who were fired from a scandal-plagued Queens charter school via FedEx are getting their jobs back.

Charter school site sparks row in Harlem Hundreds of residents from the St. Nicholas Houses signed petitions in recent days urging the federal government to reject City Hall's plan to start construction this year on a new $100-million home for the Harlem Children's Zone Promise Academy on ...

It's a mystery school for some pre-k's The parents of about 2,000 youngsters might not know if they got the spots they applied for in city schools until the day before classes start.

VAMing and slamming teachers in Los Angeles | Thoughts on Public Education

VAMing and slamming teachers in Los Angeles

Posted by Gary Ravani on 9/02/10 • Categorized as Assessments, Teacher Development

Within the last few days, the Bureau of Land Management, at the encouragement of a group of House members, has asked the National Research Council (NRC) to review its policies for wild horses and burros. If only someone would show the same kind of concern about the nation’s school children and education.

Actually the NRC, the highest scientific body in the nation, developed an unsolicited review of test use in teacher evaluation to include in a letter to Education Secretary Arne Duncan.

The NRC cautioned against an over-reliance on test scores in making high-stakes decisions on teachers. As the NRC put it: “Although the idea has intuitive appeal, a great deal is unknown about the potential and the limitations of alternative statistical models for evaluating teachers.”

The NRC specifically questioned the use of “value added methodology” (VAM), a technique using student test

Mike Klonsky's SmallTalk Blog: Duncan's OK with a Republican sweep

Duncan's OK with a Republican sweep

by Mike Klonsky

But he's "nonpolitical"

Arne Duncan is back on tour in anticipation of a Republican avalanche in the upcoming mid-term elections. This one reminiscent of his first Three Amigos tour with Newt Gingrich and Al Sharpton--a kind of early surrender tour which let the country know that the new administration was fully committed to building on Bush's No Child Left Behind policies--now called Race To The Top. This time around, he's letting letting the public know that he's still on board.

Though Mr. Duncan called his bus trip “a campaign for education,” there was little political edge.

Hyatt workers hit the street. On strike! � Fred Klonsky's blog

Hyatt workers hit the street. On strike!

by preaprez

NBC:

Union workers at an undisclosed Chicago-area Hyatt hotel are

Queens Teacher: If Your School Has Everyday Math

If Your School Has Everyday Math

by Queens Teacher

Parent Pundit
January 25, 2005
If your school has Everyday Math

If your school uses Everyday Math, you should be extremely watchful. Everyday Math is problematic because it is a language-intensive-based program that

•stresses the use of calculators,

•wants the kids to come up with their own ways to solve the problems

•doesn't teach the traditional algorithms (the multiplication and division methods that they teach break down

Thursday, September 2, 2010

Daily Kos: Seattle Teachers' Union Rolls Back Education "Reform" Tide

Seattle Teachers' Union Rolls Back Education "Reform" Tide

by NWTerriD

Thu Sep 02, 2010 at 01:16:47 AM PDT

Wednesday afternoon the Seattle teachers' union (SEA) achieved a huge victory over the proponents of what is popularly (and erroneously) known as "education reform."

After many, many hours of hard negotiations, the SEA negotiators achieved a tentative contract with the district. What is remarkable about this contract is that:

* Teachers' final evaluations will not depend on student test scores.

* Teachers' jobs will not depend on student test scores.

* Teachers' pay will not depend on student test scores.

This tentative agreement was reached despite intensive efforts by the Broad-Foundation-connected superintendent to insert test scores into all three of the above areas.

The contract will not be final unless it is ratified by the SEA general membership Thursday evening, but the SEA Board and the Representative Assembly (building reps) have voted to recommend ratification.

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