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Tuesday, October 26, 2010

Colleges got $83.5m in card deals - The Boston Globe

Colleges got $83.5m in card deals - The Boston Globe

Colleges got $83.5m in card deals

Associated Press / October 26, 2010

NEW YORK — Colleges, alumni associations, and related groups were paid $83.5 million last year under 1,004 agreements with credit card companies, according to the Federal Reserve.

Schools and affiliated groups were generally paid for each account opened. Of the agreements reported, about 40 percent were with colleges, 33 percent with alumni associations, and the rest with other organizations.

The agreements resulted in the opening of about 53,200 accounts. The report does not specify how many accounts were opened by students; some may have been opened by faculty.

The three agreements that resulted in the largest number of account openings

GLOBE EDUCATION NEWS

Bomb squad called to Swampscott High

The State Police bomb squad responded yesterday morning to reports of a suspicious package at Swampscott High School, according to State Police and the State Fire Marshal’s office. Police were called about 10:50 a.m. by the school principal, and remained at the scene for hours, said Jennifer Mieth, a spokeswoman for the fire marshal’s office. (Boston Globe)

Colleges got $83.5m in card deals

NEW YORK — Colleges, alumni associations, and related groups were paid $83.5 million last year under 1,004 agreements with credit card companies, according to the Federal Reserve. (Associated Press)

Symposium to seek solutions to campus violence

Law enforcement officials and administrators from local colleges plan to meet today to brainstorm ways to confront violent crime on college campuses, following a recent series of assaults, including a fatal stabbing. (By Milton J. Valencia, Globe Staff)

Norton warns teachers not to ‘friend’ students

In the hazy realm of cyberspace, one school district is drawing a sharp line: Virtual friendships between teachers and their students are a bad idea. (By Peter Schworm, Globe Staff)

Quinsigamond Community College, Assabet Valley Regional Technical High School explore partnership

Aiming to bring more higher education options to the Marlborough region, Quinsigamond Community College and Assabet Valley Regional Technical High School are exploring a partnership to share space and curriculum offerings. (By Erica Noonan, Globe Staff)

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Mike Klonsky's SmallTalk Blog: Gates: "What I've learned about great teachers" --Nothing!

Mike Klonsky's SmallTalk Blog: Gates: "What I've learned about great teachers" --Nothing!

Gates: "What I've learned about great teachers" --Nothing!

by Mike Klonsky
Bill Gates shows he's still a pompous ass and an educational no-nothing in this Parade Magazine interview with Paul Tough. From the headline, "What I've leaned about Great Teachers" (he never tells us) you'd expect Gates to be somewhat contrite and a little less assuming. But he can't help himself. He loves to draw big conclusions based on little or evidence and make big negative public pronouncements about how terrible teachers and public schools are. Remember when he he pitched small schools as the single panacea for public education (we told him it wasn't so). The he flipped,
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U.S. campaign takes on anti-gay bullying in school

U.S. campaign takes on anti-gay bullying in school

U.S. campaign takes on anti-gay bullying in school

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Washington Post Staff Writer
Tuesday, October 26, 2010; 12:10 AM

The Obama administration is launching a campaign to prevent anti-gay bullying and other harassment at school, advising educators that federal law protects students from many forms of discrimination.

THIS STORY

The advisory from the Education Department's Office for Civil Rights, to be made public Tuesday, does not break new legal ground, officials said. But the officials described it as the federal government's most comprehensive guidance to date on how civil rights law applies to the sort of campus situations that in some cases have led persecuted students to commit suicide. President Obama is expected tohelp promote the initiative.

"We've got to dispel this myth that bullying is just a normal rite of passage," Obama said in a video posted last week on the White House Web site.

"Our goal here is to provide school districts, colleges and universities with details about

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Joel Klein sends letter to city teachers, principals, defending controversial teacher ratings

Joel Klein sends letter to city teachers, principals, defending controversial teacher ratings

Joel Klein sends letter to city teachers, principals, defending controversial teacher ratings

BY MEREDITH KOLODNER
DAILY NEWS STAFF WRITER

Tuesday, October 26th 2010, 4:00 AM

Joel Klein sent a letter to teachers and principals on Monday to defend the teacher ratings that the city may make public.
Monaster/News
Joel Klein sent a letter to teachers and principals on Monday to defend the teacher ratings that the city may make public.

Schools Chancellor Joel Klein reached out directly to teachers and principals on Monday to defend the controversial teacher ratings the city may make public.

In a letter to school staff, Klein acknowledged that the rating system doesn't tell the whole story about teacher performance.

But he said it gives parents information that they want and need.

"Parents have been left out of the equation, left to pray each year that the teacher greeting their children on the first day of school is truly great, but with no real knowledge of whether that is the case, and with no recourse if it's not," Klein wrote.

Critics have called the rating system inaccurate, in part because it is based on tests state officials have now said are unreliable indicators of student learning.

Klein said that it is hard "to discern definitive evidence from data alone" in the case of average teachers.

But he said the ratings give a clearer picture of the stars and the dunces in the school system. "(W)here teachers have performed consistently toward the top or the bottom, year after year, these data surely tell us something very important," he wrote.



Read more: http://www.nydailynews.com/ny_local/2010/10/26/2010-10-26_dont_fear_teachers_ratings_pleads_klein.html?r=ny_local/education#ixzz13SxkJbj7
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Lessons from high-performing districts | Thoughts on Public Education

Lessons from high-performing districts | Thoughts on Public Education

Lessons from high-performing districts

They're good at working with data and with teachers
Posted on 10/26/10 • Categorized as Data, Teacher Development
By John Fensterwald - Educated Guess
Impressive things are happening in little known districts like Sanger (10,000 students) and Hawthorne (9,000) as well as in bigger districts like Long Beach (the state’s third largest, with 88,000), Fresno (fourth largest), and Garden Grove (eleventh largest).
Significant numbers of English learners and minority students are becoming proficient on state tests in each of the districts. The progress has been consistent and impressive. And it’s been largely under the radar.
True, two of the districts have won the Broad Prize honoring the best in urban education (Long Beach in 2003 and Garden Grove in 2004), and three (Long Beach, Sanger, and

Whitman plan — school grades, charters, merit pay — is right for us

Posted on 10/26/10 • Categorized as 2010 elections, Charters, Pay
By Jim Russell
Every four years, candidates for governor in California campaign on making our schools better. As a school principal, most recently at a Silicon Valley high school, I pay close attention to what they have to say. To be honest, I’m usually unimpressed by the politicians’ promises or don’t believe they have the independence to deliver on their promises.
This year I feel differently. Meg Whitman understands that there is no one-size-fits-all answer and has a multi-pronged plan that at its core holds all of us accountable – from elected officials to principals to classroom teachers to parents.
I recently retired as principal of Del Mar High School, which we turned from an underperforming school into a California Distinguished School. Meg Whitman believes, as I do, that all children can learn. She also believes that schools are for kids, not for status quo bureaucrats and teachers unions.
First, here are the facts. Despite spending half of our general fund on K-12 and higher 
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Bullying Based on Sexual Orientation May Violate Civil Rights, Ed. Dept. Warns - Politics K-12 - Education Week

Bullying Based on Sexual Orientation May Violate Civil Rights, Ed. Dept. Warns - Politics K-12 - Education Week

Bullying Based on Sexual Orientation May Violate Civil Rights, Ed. Dept. Warns

by Alyson Klein

By guest blogger Christina A. Samuels

Certain types of harassment rooted in sexual orientation or religious differences may be a federal civil rights violation, even though members of those groups are not specifically protected in federal law, according to new guidance released today by the U.S. Department of Education's office of civil rights.

Title VI of the Civil Rights Act already prohibits discrimination on the basis of race, color, or national origin; Title IX prohibits discrimination on the basis of sex; and Section 504 of the Rehabilitation Act of 1973, as well as the Americans with Disabilities Act, prohibit discrimination based on disability status. Many local districts and schools have anti-bullying and harassment policies that go beyond those protected groups, said Russlyn H. Ali, the department's assistant secretary for civil rights.

But even when local agencies do not have such policies, federal law imposes obligations on schools, she said.

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Comprehensive Teacher Induction Study Reveals No Impact on Teacher Retention, Mixed Findings on Student Achievement - Perdaily.com

Comprehensive Teacher Induction Study Reveals No Impact on Teacher Retention, Mixed Findings on Student Achievement - Perdaily.com

Comprehensive Teacher Induction Study Reveals No Impact on Teacher Retention, Mixed Findings on Student Achievement

by Leonard
Domino Theory.jpeg
(Mensaje se repite en Español) At the beginning of the Vietnam War Era I was going to school at UCLA where I had a professor named H. Arthur Steiner. He pointed out one day that although the United States had the greatest authorities on Southeast Asia, they were completely ignored in this country's formulation of policy and ultimately war in Southeast Asia. Because he had been a major in the Marine Corp with extensive experience in Asia, those in Washington thought he would tell them what they wanted to hear about the war they were getting into in Vietnam. When he explained that the Domino Theory as espoused by then Secretary of State Henry Kissinger and others was completely false, because it did not take into consideration the historic animosity between the Chinese and the Vietnamese, he was never called again.

The same form of intransigent militant ignorance is true with those who have power in public education reform in the United States. At perdaily, we have often quoted Diane Ravitch, Charles Kerschner, Lois Weiner, and others who have a clear understanding and historical perspective as to what it would take to truly turn around public education, but those in control of policy continue to ignore their rational approach to fixing our public education
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