Thursday, September 30, 2010

Are Californians screwed for the long term? | California Watch

Are Californians screwed for the long term?

by Agustin Armendariz

A new report maps out the different scenarios in which California can emerge from its current state of crisis. It also seeks to engage all Californians, hoping citizens of the state will thoughtfully explore the issues and potential solutions to the problems the state faces.

Dubbed "California Dreaming: Imagining New Futures for the State," the full report is available in PDF format.

The Institute for the Future produced the report and map in collaboration with California Institute of Telecommunications and Information Technology and the Center for Information Technology Research in the Interest of Society.

According to the report:

New tools help track money/vote relationships in California

by Chase Davis

Chase Davis

An interest group logs a letter with a legislator in support of a bill. A day before the vote, the same group donates a few thousand bucks to the lawmaker who carries it, then maybe a few other key committee members for good measure. All the lawmakers vote yes. The bill passes.

Seems a little fishy, right?

Quid pro quo in government is rarely so simple,

People: Blondean's Charter Conversion Experience - District 299: Chicago Public Schools Blog

People: Blondean's Charter Conversion Experience

by Alexander Russo

There's an interesting little Q and A with former Vallas deputy Blondean Davis about her conversion to charters and eventual opening of a charter (Blondean Davis, CEO of Southland Prep Charter).As you may recall, she left

Queens kindergartner Hector Ramsammy forced to roam hallways due to school overcrowding

BY RACHEL MONAHAN
DAILY NEWS STAFF WRITER

Thursday, September 30th 2010, 4:00 AM

Lanzilote for News

'They have me walking around the hallway,' kindergartner Hector Ramsammy told his mom of his ordeal at school.

Rise & Shine: Proposed tenure rules boost city’s national profile | GothamSchools

Rise & Shine: Proposed tenure rules boost city’s national profile

by Philissa Cramer

The city’s newest education policy announcements have put it back on the national radar. (NY1)
The principal of International Business and Finance HS was demoted after tackling a student. (Post)
A Riverdale high school still hasn’t worked out its start-of-school scheduling issues. (Riverdale Press)
PS 95 in Queens appears to be keeping one kindergartner out of classes. (Daily News)
A principal under investigation for corporal punishment is retiring mid-year. (Riverdale Press)
Mayor Bloomberg personally suspended the teacher who wrote about her sex-worker past. (Daily News)
Unlike many schools, Manhattan’s Millennium HS wants to share its building. (Downtown Expresss)
A principal under investigation for corporal punishment is retiring mid-year. (Riverdale Press)
Because of the state’s test score changes, it’s hard to know how city students are doing. (WNYC)
Gail Collins: “Waiting for ‘Superman’” has issues, but it’s at least put attention on schools. (Times)
President Obama’s call for a longer school year will be hard for districts to afford. (AP)

Schools Matter: The Rewards of Leafleting

The Rewards of Leafleting

by Jim Horn

I joined some folks from Citizens for Public Education and FairTest who have been out leafleting in West Newton and Brookline, where previews are being held this week in advance of the nationwide release tomorrow, I think, ofWaiting for Superman. Many of the attendees are the well-heeled, but there are many teachers attending, too. And many are grateful for an summary of the main facts to go along with the misleading melodrama in abundance in the film.

Please do use the materials below to craft your own "free facts," which I smile and offer

Christine O’Donnell’s Student Loan Lies � The Quick and the Ed

Christine O’Donnell’s Student Loan Lies

by Kevin Carey

In response to revelations that her LinkedIn profile features false claims about attending Claremont Graduate University and the University of Oxford, Republican candidate for the United State Senate Christine O’Donnell issued a statement through a P.R. firm alleging that other, unknown persons created her false LinkeIn profile back when she was a little-known cable news commentator / ex-anti-masturbation activist , and, moreover:

Perhaps a more important educational issue for Americans is the government takeover of the student loan industry, passed as part of the Obamacare law. This ill-conceived, unconstitutional government monopoly has thrown into jeopardy thousands of jobs in the private student loan

Mike Klonsky's SmallTalk Blog: BBC bailout of mismanaged L.A. charter chain

BBC bailout of mismanaged L.A. charter chain

by Mike Klonsky

The L.A. branch of the Billionaire's Boys Club, led by Eli Broad, Frank Baxter, and former mayor Richard Riordan, came up with a fresh infusion of cash to temporarily save a failed charter school operating company and help it meet payroll. ICEF is one of the nation's largest private operators of charter schools. It operates 15 schools in the city's low-income minority neighborhoods.

ICEF representatives and others said the group's budget problems were caused by insufficient

Vegas board votes for Jones | EdNewsColorado

Vegas board votes for Jones

by Todd Engdahl

Education Commissioner Dwight Jones discussed his status as one of three finalists for the Las Vegas, Nev., schools. Sept. 16, 2010.

The Clark County school board Wednesday evening chose Colorado education Commissioner Dwight Jones as its next superintendent, formally voting 6-1 to open negotiations with him for the Nevada job.

The only no vote was cast by trustee Linda Young, who said she objected to the speed of the selection process, not necessarily to Jones.

Queens Teacher: National Academy of Sciences Says NO to Value-Added Assessments

National Academy of Sciences Says NO to Value-Added Assessments

by Queens Teacher

Education Innovations Funded by 'Race to the Top' Should Be Rigorously Evaluated; Value-Added Methods to Assess Teachers Not Ready for Use in High-Stakes Decisions

WASHINGTON -- The Race to the Top initiative -- a $4.35 billion grant program included in the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act to encourage state-level education reforms -- should require rigorous evaluations of the reform efforts it funds, says a new report from the National Research Council. The initiative should support research based on data that links student test scores with their teachers, but should not prematurely promote the use of value-added approaches -- which evaluate teachers based on gains in their students' performance -- to reward or punish teachers. Too little is known about the accuracy of these methods to base high-stakes

Wednesday, September 29, 2010

School Tech Connect: Whining

Whining

by effacethefacade@yahoo.com (Tim)

Have I not been saying this for a year now? Valerie calls it irony. Fred calls it hypocrisy. Not to be outdone, I'm calling it ironipocracy. I've got to say, it's impressive. It takes some serious brass to stiff-arm your political base in favor of policies that not only don't work, but that actually do harm, and which are embraced by people who think you're not even a citizen of the country where you might have been a two-term President!

Deadline nears for college tuition plans | EdNewsColorado

Deadline nears for college tuition plans

by Todd Engdahl

The discussion about how much tuition Colorado college students will pay next fall kicks off in earnest on Friday, the deadline for state colleges and universities to submit tuition flexibility plans to the Colorado Commission on Higher Education.

A new state law allows colleges to raise resident undergraduate tuition as much as 9 percent a year for each of the next five school years. And, institutions that want larger increases can request permission to do so from CCHE. (Prior to the law the legislature set tuition increase caps every spring when it prepared the annual state

Remainders: Ed school professors favor tenure reform | GothamSchools

Remainders: Ed school professors favor tenure reform

by Elizabeth Green

More than 80% of ed school professors favor making it easier to terminate teachers. (Fordham)
Bloomberg refused to say if he’d sign a contract that included teacher seniority rights. (Daily Politics)
Two charter school backers are among the NYC stars on a “40 under 40″ list. (City Hall News)
What if ed schools only accepted pupils once they’d already tried out teaching? (Goldstein)

As city overhauls school progress reports, release is kept quiet

by Anna Phillips

New York City is releasing its annual report cards for every public elementary and middle school tomorrow, and though this event is usually the focus of the week’s news cycle, city officials are trying to keep the release quiet.

Last year, when 97 percent of elementary and middle schools received an A or B on their progress reports,

Disaster Capitalism Comes to Education | Tran|Script

Disaster Capitalism Comes to Education

There are only a couple of books I’ve read in the past year that have radically changed my way of thinking about things. Fresh on the heels of the co-option of the rhetoric of the open education movement by for-profit interests I read The Shock Doctrine, and it suddenly brought a bunch of things I had been struggling with into clear relief.

Here’s the basic idea — slow

Tyler Clementi left Facebook status 'Jumping off gw bridge sorry' after Rutgers dorm sex hidden video | NJ.com

Tyler Clementi left Facebook status 'Jumping off gw bridge sorry' after Rutgers dorm sex hidden video

Published: Wednesday, September 29, 2010, 6:44 PM Updated: Wednesday, September 29, 2010, 7:12 PM

Star-Ledger Staff
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Facebook.comTyler Clementi apparently posted a Facebook status saying "Jumping off the gw bridge sorry," after his roommate Dharun Ravi and his friend Molly Wei allegedly broadcast a sexual encounter between Clementi and another man. A Facebook tribute page to Clementi, pictured above, has been established.

PISCATAWAY -- Tyler Clementi, the Rutgers University freshman who was allegedly had a sex encounter broadcast via a hidden video by his roommate Dharun Ravi and his friend Molly Wei, changed his Facebook status to "Jumping off the gw bridge sorry" on Sept. 22.

Clementi's car, cell phone and computer were found near the George Washington Bridge and his wallet was found on a bridge walkway, police have said. His body has not been found, but

Mass. schools chief urges probation for charter - BostonHerald.com

Mass. schools chief urges probation for charter

By Associated Press
Wednesday, September 29, 2010 - Added 2 hours ago

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State Education Commissioner Mitchell Chester is recommending the board of education place a Gloucester charter school on probation.

Chester says the trustees of the Gloucester Community Arts Charter School failed to manage the school effectively by not planning for construction delays and opening three weeks late.

Chester acknowledged that the school is open, however, and said

Whoa: Cal Thomas: Politicians allow public education to fail kids | Washington Examiner

Cal Thomas: Politicians allow public education to fail kids | Washington Examiner

Cal Thomas: Politicians allow public education to fail kids

By: CAL THOMAS
Examiner Columnist
September 29, 2010

"Waiting for Superman" is the new film by documentary filmmaker Davis Guggenheim, director of "An Inconvenient Truth," and it should be mandatory viewing for every member of Congress.

As a synopsis on the Fandango movie site says, this film "explores the tragic ways in which the American public education system is failing our nation's children. ..."

Not only do we see children and their parents on the edge of their seats during

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