Tuesday, September 21, 2010

Full slate of education issues on tap in D.C. - Washington Times

Full slate of education issues on tap in D.C.

Return of ombudsman sought; parental involvement 'important'

The Washington Times

6:32 p.m., Monday, September 20, 2010

Rhee

The fate of D.C. schools chancellor Michelle Rhee dominated last week's post-mayoral primary debate, but her position isn't the only issue facing city and school officials as voters head back to the polls in November.

Four Board of Education races will be on the ballot, and funding for the lucrative merit-pay deal and other reforms could be in jeopardy.

School officials and activists say that funding is crucial to reform implementation, but that progress can only be sustained by engaging parents. For many, the key to that is reinstating the Office of the Ombudsman, which the Fenty administration created in 2007 but dismantled in 2009.

"We need to bring back the office of the schools ombudsman," said Ward 5 board member Mark Jones.

Is 'Waiting For Superman' An Inspiring Call To Arms -- Or A Convenient Cover For Privatizing Schools? | Crooks and Liars

Is 'Waiting For Superman' An Inspiring Call To Arms -- Or A Convenient Cover For Privatizing Schools?

By Susie Madrak

"I don't know whether to vote for Fenty or Gray," a D.C. friend confided to me last week.

"Which candidate is backed by the white progressives?" I said.

"Fenty."

"Then vote for Gray."

"Why?"

I told him that contrary to what he'd heard, Michelle Rhee wasn't the savior of D.C. schools and it was nothing more than the corporatization of public education. ("If you don't trust Bill Gates to sell you an operating

The Great Giveaway

Want to be a special guest at The Women’s Conference 2010?

It’s our last Great Giveaway before The Women’s Conference 2010 - and it’s our biggest Giveaway yet! This month, we're giving away prizes to three people - one grand prize winner and two runner-ups!

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THE GREAT SEPTEMBER GIVEAWAY:

THE GRAND PRIZE: WHAT YOU WIN

2 complimentary Special Guest Passes to The Women's Conference 2010Main Event & The Grand Finale featuring the Minerva Awards and two Breakout Conversations on October 26, 2010. You also win 2 tickets to A Day of Health, Wellness & Transformation and Night at The Village on October 25. (Transportation, meals and hotel not included. Passes are nontransferable.)

An opportunity to interview actress and activist Sally Field - and have your interview video featured as part of our special online conference coverage

A meet-and-greet and photograph taken with Maria Shriver

A KODAK ESP All-in-One Printer package. (Learn more on the right sidebar of this page.)

TWO RUNNER-UPS: WHAT YOU WIN

The first and second runner-up will each receive a KODAK ESP All-in-One Printer package. (Learn more on the right sidebar of this page.)

HOW YOU WIN

This month, in partnership with Kodak, a Presenting Sponsor of The Women’s Conference 2010, we’re inviting you to share a photograph of your favorite summer moment. Here’s how it works:

First, if you’re not already registered on our site, you must click Join Our Community to register. Only those registered on our site will be eligible.
Go to our special Great Kodak Moments Giveaway atwww.KodakMoments.com/womensconference.
Click ‘Share Your Summer Moment’ & follow the simple instructions to post your photo of your favorite summer moment & a brief message* about why this is your favorite moment. (Messages are limited to 1000 characters.) *PLEASE NOTE: You MUST include your Women’s Conference username at the beginning of your message. (Please be aware, it may take a while for your photo to appear).

The conference team will choose the most interesting and inspiring photo and two runner-up photos posted on www.KodakMoments.com/womensconference between September 9 (9am PST) through September 30 (11:59pm PST). On October 8th, we’ll announce the winners.

Be sure to share this opportunity with your friends and family because the real KODAK MOMENT happens when you share.

Click here for Official Rules for The Great Giveaway.

To find out everything you need to know about The Women’s Conference 2010, visit ourWelcome to The Women’s Conference 2010 page.

Good luck! Our 2010 conference will be the biggest and best one yet!

Teacher bonuses not linked to better student performance, study finds

By Nick Anderson

Washington Post Staff Writer
Tuesday, September 21, 2010; 2:07 PM

A study released Tuesday found that offering teachers annual bonuses of up to $15,000 had no effect on student test scores - a result likely to inflame debate about performance pay programs sprouting in D.C. schools and many others nationwide.

The study suggests that teachers already were working so hard that the lure of extra money failed to induce them to intensify their effort or change methods of instruction. The experiment, in Nashville public schools, calls into question a key aspect of market-driven initiatives to improve schools that have become the vogue in some education circles.

"Pay reform is often thought to be a magic bullet," said Matthew Springer, a Vanderbilt University education professor who led the study. "That doesn't appear to be the case here. We need to develop more thoughtful and comprehensive ways of thinking about compensation. But at the same time, we're not even sure whether incentive pay is an effective strategy for improving the system itself."

With backing from federal and state governments and private foundations, a growing

Hechinger Report | Paying teachers for student performance doesn’t raise test scores in Tennessee study

Paying teachers for student performance doesn’t raise test scores in Tennessee study

by Christopher Connell

Click to enlarge

NASHVILLE – Offering middle-school math teachers bonuses up to $15,000 did not produce gains in student

Students rally for DREAM Act | EdNewsColorado

Students rally for DREAM Act

by Todd Engdahl

Students rallied in support of the DREAM Act in Denver on Sept. 20, 2010.

Students, public officials and other supporters rallied in Denver Monday to urge congressional passage of the DREAM Act, which would allow many undocumented youth to obtain residency to attend college or serve in the military.

The proposal, which has been debated for a decade, is back on the front burner wit

No "Promise Neighborhood" Funding For Chicago - District 299: Chicago Public Schools Blog

No "Promise Neighborhood" Funding For Chicago

by Alexander Russo

The list of 21 Promise Neighborhood grantees is out from the USDE, and none of the Chicago grantees seem to have gotten any federal love:

Abyssinian Development Corporation ( New York)
Amherst H. Wilder Foundation (St. Paul, Minn.)
Athens Clarke County Family Connection, Inc. (Athens, Ga.)
Berea College (Clay, Jackson, and Owsley Counties, Ky.)
Boys & Girls Club of the Northern Cheyenne Nation (Cheyenne Reservation, Mont.)

The Fall of Fenty & Rhee (and more troubling thoughts about ed reform) | Seattle Education 2010

The Fall of Fenty & Rhee (and more troubling thoughts about ed reform)

by seattleducation2010

Here’s an insightful new post by Diane Ravitch on the lessons to be learned from the fall of Mayor Fenty and School Chancellor Michelle Rhee in D.C. “Why Michelle Rhee and Adrian Fenty Lost.”

A striking element of the statistical fallout of the ousting of Mayor Fenty is the wide gap in support between African-American and white D.C. residents for Michelle ‘Machete’ Rhee’s brand of ed reform.

The vast majority of D.C.’s black voters gave Rhee and Fenty (who hired her) the boot. The majority of white voters supported them.

According to Ravitch, only about 5 percent of kids in D.C.’s public schools are white. (This article claims the

Democurmudgeon: Texas State Board of Education Warns Book Publishers! Shouldn't it be the other way around?

Texas State Board of Education Warns Book Publishers! Shouldn't it be the other way around?

by Democurmudgeon

Keep in mind that none of what you are about to read is true from the Texas State Board of Education. It’s more insane ranting from a group of religious zealots. The facts follow.
The Agenda for this week's meeting of the Texas State Board of Education includes a resolution on "Balanced Treatment of Religious Groups in Textbooks." According to the Dallas Morning News last week, the resolution warns textbook publishers not to include "pro-Islamic, anti-Christian distortions, in social study texts." The resolution cites world history texts no longer used in Texas schools, that devoted far more space to Muslim beliefs and practices than Christian ones, and other books that focused on Christian Crusaders' killing of Muslims in 1099, but not Muslim killings of Christians in the 13th century.

The Answer Sheet - RIF study: Access to print materials helps student achievement

RIF study: Access to print materials helps student achievement

This post was written by Carol H. Rasco, president and chief executive of Reading Is Fundamental, Inc., the oldest and largest children’s and family nonprofit literacy organization in the United States. It provided 4.4 million children with 15 million new, free books and literacy resources last year.

Rasco writes about a study commissioned by RIF, so perhaps it is not surprising that its work would be validated by the results. Still, I am publishing this because I believe that these programs are important and that they do, indeed, help improve student achievement. In fact, earlier studies have shown the same thing, but this is a message that never

Race to the Top: Smaller is Better? - Politics K-12 - Education Week

Race to the Top: Smaller is Better?

by Alyson Klein

President Barack Obama proposed extending Race to the Top to school districts in his budget request this year. We still don't know whether Congress is going to take him up on that suggestion, but we don't have to wait until they do to see how the program operates when it's basically just at a district level. Two of the winners, the District of Columbia and Hawaii, include just one school district (not including charters, which sometimes count as their own district.)

And, if you think about it, small may have been an (inadvertent) advantage in the application process. Two of the other winners, Delaware and Rhode Island, are tiny states. A smaller size might make it easier to get buy-in and

Democurmudgeon: Chipping away at History: Texas conservatives Given Pass, Changes no Big Deal.

Chipping away at History: Texas conservatives Given Pass, Changes no Big Deal.

by Democurmudgeon

Professional industry magazine, Education Week, reports a recent study determined the Texas Board of Education conservative activists changes were minor, and overblown in the press.

So…leave the changes in this time? Leave the changes in next time too? They were bad ideological changes, but not that bad, "for the most part." Actual history has a liberal, fact based slant, that needs to be balanced. What a report:
Criticism of Texas Social Studies Standards Overblown, Analyst Says By Erik Robelen: You may recall all the controversy earlier this year over the work by the Texas state school board, led by a bloc of social conservatives, to revamp the state's social studies standards. But if you look at the

Klein talks overcrowding, turnaround strategies in Queens | GothamSchools

Klein talks overcrowding, turnaround strategies in Queens

by Anna Phillips

Chancellor Joel Klein addressed concerns about school overcrowding in Queens yesterday. (Photo via Queens borough president)

Even with new school buildings and thousands of new seats, overcrowding has not abated in Queens schools, city council members complained last night.

At a cabinet meeting of the Queen borough president, where Chancellor Klein dropped by to give a back-to-school update, council members said that the city is only using a tiny fraction of the roughly 4,000 new seats. Meanwhile, some nearby schools are bursting at the seams, they said.

Klein’s questioners included Council members Karen Koslowitz, Danny Dromm, Mark Weprin, and Jimmy Van Bramer, some of whom ran for office as skeptics of the chancellor’s policies.

Dallas ISD blog: Trustee Carla Ranger calls for superintendent succession plan 10:35 AM CT | News for Dallas, Texas | Dallas Morning News | Latest News

Dallas ISD blog: Trustee Carla Ranger calls for superintendent succession plan 10:35 AM CT

11:18 AM CDT on Tuesday, September 21, 2010

By TAWNELL D. HOBBS / The Dallas Morning News
thobbs@dallasnews.com

Editor's note: This item originally appeared on dallasnews.com'sDallas ISD blog.

DISD trustee Carla Ranger writes on her blog that it's clear DISD Superintendent Michael Hinojosa wants to leave Dallas for Las Vegas .

Hinojosa is one of two finalists for the superintendent job in the Clark County School District. Today, he travels to Las Vegas to begin a series of meetings and interviews on Wednesday and Thursday.

Ranger notes in her blog post a statement included in Hinojosa's letter to the search firm: "I am ready, willing and able to lead Clark County,

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Tuesday, September 21, 2010