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Thursday, February 10, 2011

The Media Bullpen

The Media Bullpen

FEATUREDIN THE BULLPEN

  • AP COVERAGE CHALLENGE

    6:40 PM:

    WaPo identifies the top AP scoring states, with MD leading -- having more than others and highest number of black students passing exams. Is it instruction or the gene pool? Knowing what that means and its impact on college completion are vital points the public should know.

    Missing The Point On Vouchers
    1/6

    11:41 AM:

    Attack of NJ Gov's voucher program based solely on financial considerations. No mention that kids pay highest price for lousy education. No talk about how to re-distribute current public school $s to target quality instruction. >

    Ready-Or-Not After Graduation
    2/6

    9:23 AM:

    New York students who graduate high school aren't all college or career-ready according to exam scores. Let's talk about what's being done to prepare students for next steps -- article neglects discussing school quality. >

    Sizeable Achievement In Tiny State
    3/6

    11:20 AM:

    Three schools use different methods to lift proficiency scores and decrease number of students scoring at bottom. Techniques reported could serve as model for other struggling schools, but bigger picture missing- unknown how state's >

    NY High Schoolers Get Virtual - Sort of
    3/6

    11:11 AM:

    Watertown High School is developing some online components in class, in an effort to increase proficiency with technology for both teacher and student. Proponents say it gives control over learning. But is the problem really not >

    Reform Bill = Better Teachers?
    6/6

    7:55 AM:

    Teacher dismissal based on "ineffectiveness," parent trigger and charters hiring based solely on mutual consent introduced in MD Senate. Quality scores in initial debate.

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The Media Bullpen

Because Education is No Longer a Spectator Sport

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Why Parents Across America? and the New Orleans Nightmare « Parents Across America

Why Parents Across America? and the New Orleans Nightmare « Parents Across America
Feb 10, 2011 No Comments ›› admin

Leonie Haimson of Class Size Matters explains why parents need a voice in educational policy. She introduces Karran Royal Harper of the Pyramid Resource Center in New Orleans, where soon, 85 percent of the students will be in charters.

Karran explains how the rapid charter expansion has meant more instability for children, who no longer have a right to attend a neighborhood school, and are often pushed out by charters, especially those with special needs.

“Schools choose [students] and parents and children lose. We really don’t have choice….Charter schools’ solution to school improvement is to change our students….The principal became a CEO and her salary went from about $80,000 to $250 thousand.”

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Seattle Public Schools community blog: First, Some Good News

Seattle Public Schools community blog: First, Some Good News

First, Some Good News

by Melissa Westbrook
A little of Michelle Rhee's firebreathing style got quenched yesterday when an arbitrator ruled that the first 75 teachers she fired must be hired back and given about $7.5M in back wages. Here's the story from The Washington Examiner. You'll note some familiar sounding language:

"The [termination] process used in this case was so devoid of due process as to be arbitrary and capricious," arbitrator Charles Feigenbaum said in his verdict favoring the Washington Teachers' Union, which has been fighting D.C. Public Schools officials over the July 2008 dismissals for more than two years.

Rhee had gotten rid of mostly first and second-year teachers. They had been told they couldn't appeal because they didn't have tenure but were given no reason for their dismissal.

The arbitrator, picked jointed by the union and the district, ordered the district to try to find the teachers, offer
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Virginia House Moves to Bar Undocumented Immigrants from Higher Ed « Student Activism

Virginia House Moves to Bar Undocumented Immigrants from Higher Ed « Student Activism

Virginia House Moves to Bar Undocumented Immigrants from Higher Ed

by Angus Johnston

Virginia’s House of Delegates this week passed a bill that would block all undocumented immigrants from attending the state’s public colleges and universities. To my knowledge, only one state — South Carolina — currently imposes such a ban.

Virginia’s bill, House Bill 1465, was one of about a dozen bills recently passed by the Republican-controlled

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School Tech Connect: Pants on Fire

School Tech Connect: Pants on Fire

Pants on Fire

by effacethefacade@yahoo.com (Tim)
Image lifted from here.
I've been working like a pack animal for a few days here-- I completely missed Michelle Rhee's unmasking as a serial liar. Every single time you hear about some (fill-in-the-blank) "miracle" with test scores, subsequent analysis proves it to be hogwash.

I never personally heard Rhee tell the whopper, and if it turns out that she never did, I'll certainly clarify that on these pages. But for now, I'm just glad
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This Week In Education: Thompson: What's A Turnaround Worth -- & Can We Afford It?

This Week In Education: Thompson: What's A Turnaround Worth -- & Can We Afford It?

Thompson: What's A Turnaround Worth -- & Can We Afford It?

by john thompson

image from a6.sphotos.ak.fbcdn.netGreen Dot CEO Marco Petruzzi’s letter to the New York Review of Booksmade several good points regarding the progress achieved by Locke High School in Los Angeles. The school turnaround produced modest increases in test scores while, more importantly, increasing student retention, safety, and the school’s academic climate. He did not, however, fully address Diane Ravitch’s larger point that the Locke success says little about whether


Quote: "Far Harder Than Fighting Crime"

by Alexander Russo

Quotes2More than anything else, America’s cities desperately need world-class schools that will keep parents within city borders, and that remains the great urban challenge facing 21st century America...Fixing urban school systems throughout the country has proved to be far harder than fighting crime. - Economist Edward L. Glaeser in the New York Times

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University of Puerto Rico Faculty Strike In Support of Students « Student Activism

University of Puerto Rico Faculty Strike In Support of Students « Student Activism

University of Puerto Rico Faculty Strike In Support of Students

by Angus Johnston

Professors at the University of Puerto Rico have called a 24-hour strike in support of student activists who have been subjected to harsh discipline by university officials and police.

Students at UPR have been engaging in actions for a year in opposition to tuition hikes, and the university has moved in recent months to squelch the protests. This week a judge lifted a ban on demonstrations on campus and re-instated a suspended student leader, but new clashes with police followed. Yesterday police

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Schools Matter: For-Profits Draining Federal Education Funds and Leaving Students Broke and Empty-Handed

Schools Matter: For-Profits Draining Federal Education Funds and Leaving Students Broke and Empty-Handed

For-Profits Draining Federal Education Funds and Leaving Students Broke and Empty-Handed

by Jim Horn
Tamar Lewin at the NYTimes calls these predatory corporate diploma mills "commercial colleges." How quaint.

Think Progess has the real story:
The Education Department today released new data on the rate at which higher education students default on their student loans, which showed that students at for-profit colleges — schools like the University of Phoenix or Strayer University — are defaulting at rates far above those at other institutions. In fact, 25 percent of students who attend for profit colleges default within three years. Here’s a chart comparing default rates at different types of schools (the green bar represents defaults at private, for-profit schools).

Here are some more key facts about for-profit colleges:
– Just 11 percent of higher education students in the country attend for-profit schools, yet they account for 26 percent of federal student loans and 44 percent of student loan defaults.
– Many of the schools make up to ninety percent of their revenue from U.S.
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McCarthyism redux. « Fred Klonsky's blog

McCarthyism redux. « Fred Klonsky's blog

McCarthyism redux.

by Fred Klonsky

A visit from my superintendent this morning brought the news that some punks from an anti-union outfit called the Education Action Group had filed a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request on all my district emails.

Why?

They’re fishing for evidence that I’m a pro-union, politically active, progressive teacher.

Hey. They could have just asked my colleagues. It’s not a secret. That’s why they elected me president of their union local for ten years.

I write openly about my views on my blog.

And I don’t use work email to do it.

Of course that’s only part of their intent. They also want to intimidate others.

This is an old story. They tried it back in the 1950s when they followed the lead of

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FAQs on New Teacher-Preparation Program Rankings - Morse Code: Inside the College Rankings (usnews.com)

FAQs on New Teacher-Preparation Program Rankings - Morse Code: Inside the College Rankings (usnews.com)

FAQs on New Teacher-Preparation Program Rankings

February 10, 2011 10:20 AM ET | Robert Morse | Permanent Link | Print

U.S.News & World Report and the National Council on Teacher Quality (NCTQ) recently announced a partnership to produce a rating of teacher preparation programs at more than 1,000 education schools across the U.S. Since the announcement, some key questions have been raised about the project. Here are answers to some of the most frequently asked questions:

Why are U.S. News and NCTQ rating teacher preparation programs? U.S. News believes that teacher education programs are very important and have not been scrutinized in the past. There is a big push nationwide to improve teacher quality and the quality of schools at the K-12 level. These new rankings will be part of the national movement to hold teacher preparation programs accountable for their graduates. We hope these new rankings will help lead to improvements in teacher quality and better schools.

When will the rankings be published? The new rankings will not be published until sometime in the second half of 2012. NCTQ is all ready working on data collection and has sent surveys

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