As NYC schools rolled out the welcome mat for Cathie Black, we the peons were back on the job today, greeting students whose attitudes towards the long break were varied, to put it kindly.* I must begin by admitting that my day was blessedly uneventful--dare I even say pleasant? Mondays tend to go quickly for me anyway due to them being the most stacked days, in terms of both instruction and professional activities, in my schedule, and this one happily proved to be no exception.
Watch this video!
Key Drivers of Educational Performance in Finland — Listen in as Pasi Sahlberg describes how Finland created
Faced with growing budget deficits and restive taxpayers, elected officials from Maine to Alabama, Ohio to Arizona, are pushing new legislation to limit the power of labor unions, particularly those representing government workers, in collective bargaining and politics.
State officials from both parties are wrestling with ways to curb the salaries and pensions of government employees, which typically make up a significant percentage of state budgets. On Wednesday, for example, New York’s new Democratic governor, Andrew M. Cuomo, is expected to call for a one-year salary freeze for state workers, a move that would save $200 million to $400 million and challenge labor’s traditional clout in Albany.
But in some cases — mostly in states with Republican governors and Republican statehouse majorities — officials are seeking more far-reaching, structural changes that would weaken the bargaining power and political influence
There have been waves of education reform in the five decades that teacher, superintendent, and emeritus professor at Stanford Larry Cuban has been observing and writing about education. The difference now, he says, is that the cycles have become compressed; reforms come and go, financed by advocates and, increasingly, corporate and foundation leaders, who “shape school reforms based on some combination of ideology, best guesses, and hope.”
In his latest book, Cutting the Hype: The Essential Guide to School Reform, which he co-authored with Jane David, Cuban offers a layman’s guide to 23 reforms, from performance-based pay for teachers to charter schools to small high schools, with tips on
In the Adams 14 school district that includes Commerce City, nearly one in five adult residents – or 17 percent – have less than a 9th-grade education. Altogether, 40 percent of adults over the age of 25 living in the district on Denver’s northeastern edge have yet to achieve a high school degree.
In contrast, more than half of the adults living in the Douglas County School District have graduated from a four-year college or university, including 17 percent with advanced degrees such as doctorates.
Data showing the estimated education levels of adults in each Colorado school district was released last month
Reform Public Education Through The Power Of Your Ideas
Submitted by Frank Murphy, Jan 4, 2011
During the winter break a teacher forwarded to me a post from the Labor Notes. It is an interesting piece that details the author’s claim that Bill Gates, and Eli Broad are leading a group of wealthy individuals who are attempting to eliminate organized opposition to their plans for America’s public schools. According to this article the attention of these billionaires has recently been focused on squashing teacher resistance in Chicago.
On June 12, 20010 the leadership of the Chicago Teacher Union was assumed by candidates from the CORE (Caucus of Rank and File Educators) union slate. CORE was one of five groups that sought control of this union local. In a run off election, they defeated the incumbent United Progressive Caucus headed by Marilyn Stewart. The result of the Chicago teacher election suggests a new direction for teacher unionism.
The Caucus of Rank and File Educators are loudly signaling their dissatisfaction with the free market school reform efforts of nouveau educational experts such as Eli Broad and Bill Gates. The influence exerted by these
Mike,
We are a grassroots group of teachers and parents who use the Facebook Senate Bill 6 site to advocate public education We are looking for a way to raise awareness to the issues. Thus, the Wear Red for Ed day. We are urging people to get involved and informed. Here are some of our objections/positions:
Florida teachers and parents have joined again, as they did last Spring, to let our new Florida Governor know that we do have ideas and suggestions.
We recognize that 2011 offers an opportunity to improve our public schools. We do not, however,
For many Californians, Josiah Royce, whose concept of loyalty Gov. Jerry Brown cited in his January 3 inaugural address as the key to overcoming partisanship, might be almost as familiar a name to most Californians as Thomas Starr King.
Said Brown:
“One of our native sons, Josiah Royce, became for a time one of the most famous of American philosophers. He was born in 1855, in a mining camp that later became the town of Grass Valley. I mention him because his “Philosophy of Loyalty” is exactly what is called for. Loyalty to the community, to what is larger than our individual needs.
Royce was a philosopher of the late 19th and early 20th century who, as the Democratic governor noted, was born in what was later named Grass Valley.
He was the “leading American proponent of absolute idealism,
Chancellor Cathleen P. Black with students at North Queens Community High School. She visited schools with novel approaches.
In the first school Cathleen P. Black visited, students in a fifth-grade classroom had one laptop apiece, from which they received individualized lessons. In the second school, for teenagers who had been on the verge of dropping out, counselors routinely show up at the homes of students if they are absent three days in a row. The third was one of four schools in a building that once housed one; students had violin and dance classes, aside from traditional subjects like history, English and math.
Ms. Black, who officially began her job as New York City schools chancellor on Monday, has been visiting schools for weeks. But the tour on Monday, more than an introduction to the system, was a tightly choreographed showcasing of the Department of Education’s
Some of the best coverage on education that you’ll read in the United States is in The Washington Post, which attacks the subject with reported news and features, as well as via several blogs and columns. Obviously, the outfit had been pretty busy over the last three-and-a-half years, as it bore witness to the lightning-fast reforms in theMichelle Rhee-run D.C. public schools. This week two of its top voices, Jay Mathews and Valerie Strauss had a polite, but firm debate over the value of Teach for America to education reform.
Mathews wrote a book on the KIPP network of charter schools, is a fan of innovations that are brought into school systems, and was a sympathetic observer of Michelle Rhee’s reign. Strauss, on the other hand, is put off by the sudden emergence of so-called “reformers” on the education scene, she finds the obsession with standardized tests
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