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Wednesday, May 4, 2011

Big Education Ape: 5-4-11 PM Obama Been Readin' Edition

Big Education Ape: Ed News Now

Big Education Ape: Ed News Now



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nycpublicschoolparents.blogspot.com - May 4, 2011 (GBN News): After a firestorm of criticism over the lack of transparency in the coming elections for Community Education Councils (CEC’s), NY City Schools Chancellor Dennis Walcott has ...


leoniehaimson
huffingtonpost.com - It may be Teacher Appreciation Week, but if online comments and blog posts indicate anything, some public school teachers don't feel the love from their employer, the federal government.On Monday, ...


coopmike48
michaelklonsky.blogspot.com - "The data shows that the longer you stay in the classroom learning, you'll learn more..." -- Rahm EmanuelWhile you mull that one over, I want to know who the genius was that told Chicago mayor-ele...


mikeklonsky
online.wsj.com - New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie has selected Cami Anderson, a top New York City schools official, to lead the state-run Newark Public School system, according to several people with knowledge of the...


leoniehaimson
ethanwj.livejournal.com - New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie has selected Cami Anderson, a top New York City schools official, to lead the state-run Newark Public School system, according to several people with knowledge of the...


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coopmike48 Remainders: American students failed a national civics test | GothamSchools -http://goo.gl/eohWx57 minutes ago · reply · retweet · favorite
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coopmike48 Why Big Oil Wins: What Would You Spend to Keep a $4 Billion Check? | FDL Action - http://goo.gl/ZZB1k56 minutes ago · reply · retweet · favorite
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#edu Read this paper52 MORE ARTICLES
bigeducationape.blogspot.com - Signature-Gathering Push Begins for Oil Tax to Fund Education - Pulse of the Bay - The Bay CitizenSignature-Gathering Push Begins for Oil Tax to Fund EducationTEXT SIZE A A ABy JENNIFER GOLLAN|May ...


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bigeducationape.blogspot.com - ASCD Inservice: How Can We Support the Whole Teacher?How Can We Support the Whole Teacher?In our school, we have devoted much attention to teaching the Whole Child. Now we would also like to look a...


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bigeducationape.blogspot.com - Shorter Year For California Schools? - Politics News Story - KCRA SacramentoShorter Year For California Schools?California Facing Budget CrisisPOSTED: 8:04 am PDT May 4, 2011UPDATED: 1:51 pm PDT Ma...


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Education147 MORE ARTICLES
bigeducationape.blogspot.com - Schools Matter: A Few of Wall Street's Columbia and Harvard WhoresA Few of Wall Street's Columbia and Harvard Whoresby Jim HornThe ivy walls of academe have been breached. No, it didn't take any h...


coopmike48
motherjones.com - Is a serious backlash against the ed reform community finally starting to form? Maybe. Here's Exhibit A. Here's Exhibit B. And of course, Diane Ravitch has been Exhibit C for a while now. These are...


DianeRavitch
tuttlesvc.org - NYTimes:The Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, the world’s largest philanthropy, and the foundation associated with Pearson, the giant textbook and school technology company, announced a partnership ...


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Politics26 MORE ARTICLES
cbsnews.com - (Credit: CBS/AP) A new CBS News/New York Times poll shows President Obama's overall approval rating has jumped by an impressive 11 percentage points in the wake of the U.S. military mission which k...


mikeklonsky
nydailynews.com - A top DOE official is under investigation for "potential corruption and conflict of interest" with an owner of a major computer contractor. A top Department of Education official who supervised a m...


leoniehaimson
fdlaction.firedoglake.com - Imagine that, for absolutely no logical reason, the government was about to mail you a check for $4 billion, but some people want to stop you from getting that check. How much would you be willing ...


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Living16 MORE ARTICLES
modeducation.blogspot.com - digg_url="http://modeducation.blogspot.com/2011/05/uae-fires-teachers-union-leaders.html"; The government of the United Arab Emirates has fired the leaders of the Teachers Association and replac...


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theuptake.org - Boisterous crowds of workers, immigrants and union members celebrated International Workers Day on May 1 with a march from the Saint Paul Cathedral to the Minnesota State Capitol. In the United Sta...


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hispanicallyspeakingnews.com - Published at 3:27 pm, May 4, 2011 Photo Credits: ICE continues its investigation of Chipotle hiring practices Roughly 30 Chipotle Mexican Grill locations were visited by U.S. Immigration and Custom...


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Art & Entertainment14 MORE ARTICLES
bigeducationape.blogspot.com - “Who Is Osama Bin Laden?” … Do Teens Really Not Know? « Student Activism“Who Is Osama Bin Laden?” … Do Teens Really Not Know?by Angus JohnstonYesterday Yahoo put up a post on its search blog titled...


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gothamschools.org - by Philissa Cramer Sandra Day O’Connor called students’ failing grades on a civics exam a “crisis.” (Times) For the most important age group — 12th graders — scores have fallen since 2006. (Eduflac...


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dailycensored.com - From Ken Knabb of the Bureau of Public SecretsIn January 1960 the San Francisco Examiner (a Hearst newspaper) offered Kenneth Rexroth a job writing a weekly column. He accepted. By May 1961 the col...


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Business11 MORE ARTICLES
blog.aflcio.org - The Pennsylvania AFL-CIO communications team, Jim Deegan and Karen Gownley, sent us this report. Some 5,000 private- and public-sector union workers came together in Harrisburg, Pa., yesterday to r...


mikeklonsky
businessweek.com - May 04, 2011, 1:05 PM EDT By Henry Goldman (Adds date change for budget in first, second paragraphs.) May 4 (Bloomberg) -- New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg will present a $66 billion fiscal 2012 sp...


leoniehaimson
cappsonline.org - By Hibah YousoufCNN April 21, 2011 It’s no secret that prominent short-seller Steve Eisman has been outspoken against the for-profit education sector, and he has the ear of lawmakers and the Depart...


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Health4 MORE ARTICLES
modeducation.blogspot.com - digg_url="http://modeducation.blogspot.com/2011/05/californias-whooping-cough-epidemic-and.html"; There have already been 733 reported cases of whooping cough (Pertussis) in California this year...


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baycitizen.org - Hundreds of nurses are set to walk off the job at Children's Hospital Oakland Thursday morning, the second nurses' strike at the pediatric hospital in the last seven months. "The issues remain the ...


coopmike48
educationresearchreport.blogspot.com - ΩMale characters, including male animals, leading the fictional packGender in Twentieth-Century Children's Books : Patterns of Disparity in Titles and Central CharactersThe most comprehensive study...


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Signature-Gathering Push Begins for Oil Tax to Fund Education - Pulse of the Bay - The Bay Citizen

Signature-Gathering Push Begins for Oil Tax to Fund Education - Pulse of the Bay - The Bay Citizen

Signature-Gathering Push Begins for Oil Tax to Fund Education

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By JENNIFER GOLLAN|May 4, 2011 1:09 p.m. |In Education

David McNew/Newsmakers
A winter sunrise surrounds an oil well in the South Cuyama Oil Field Feb. 16, 2001, near New Cuyama, Calif., in Santa Barbara County

A tax on oil companies would supply California's schools with up to $3 billion more a year if a Southern California college professor gets his way.

Peter Mathews got the go-ahead from the California secretary of state late Tuesday to begin gathering signatures to place a measure on the ballot that would impose a 15 percent tax on each barrel of oil extracted in California.

The state's K-12 schools would get 30 percent of the revenue, community colleges would get 48 percent and the California State University and the University of California would each receive 11 percent. The initiative needs signatures from 504,760 registered voters — the equivalent of 5 percent of the votes cast in the 2010 gubernatorial election — to qualify, according the secretary of state's office.

The measure would prohibit producers from passing the tax on to refiners, gas stations or consumers. Nor could the state divert the tax revenue to its battered general fund.

Source: The Bay Citizen (http://s.tt/12mV2)

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Schools Matter: A Few of Wall Street's Columbia and Harvard Whores

Schools Matter: A Few of Wall Street's Columbia and Harvard Whores

A Few of Wall Street's Columbia and Harvard Whores

by Jim Horn
The ivy walls of academe have been breached. No, it didn't take any horde of barbarians, just a wheelbarrow of cash, left at the door of university presidents and professors from once-esteemed schools such as the Harvard Business School, Harvard School of Economics, and the Columbia Business School. A couple of clips here from the Oscar-winning documentary, Inside Job.

See below Frederick Mishkin, Professor Columbia Business School and his dean, Glenn Hubbard:



See below John Campbell, Chair of the Harvard Economics Department
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Education Evolution


For more information, check us out at http://edevolution.wordpress.com.Special thanks to StrangeZero for their music, and to our parents, friends, teachers, and principals who helped make this project a success!
To reach us on Facebook, search for "Education Evolution."
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Shorter Year For California Schools? - Politics News Story - KCRA Sacramento

Shorter Year For California Schools? - Politics News Story - KCRA Sacramento

Shorter Year For California Schools?

California Facing Budget Crisis

POSTED: 8:04 am PDT May 4, 2011
UPDATED: 1:51 pm PDT May 4, 2011

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SACRAMENTO, Calif. -- Sacramento City Unified Superintendent Jonathan Raymond says he intends to hold the line on shortening the school year, callling the idea "a cop-out"

Raymond responded Wednesday to talk that the state's budget crisis may lead some districts to shorten the school year.

"We intend to tighten the schedule and make other adjustments," Raymond said, in order to keep the district's school year at 180 days.

Some authorities said the year could be shortened by 20 days, which is


Read more: http://www.kcra.com/politics/27772771/detail.html#ixzz1LQSiHwNs
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School Choice vs. High-Stakes-Testing - E.D. Kain - American Times - Forbes

School Choice vs. High-Stakes-Testing - E.D. Kain - American Times - Forbes

School Choice vs. High-Stakes-Testing

by E.D. Kain

MichelleRheeRickScottAfter exchanging emails with Matt, I’m convinced that I was focusing on an issue that he was not promoting in his initial post: testing. When it comes to the modern education reform movement, I am much more concerned with the testing regime and the top-down approach of many school reformers than I am with the idea of school choice.

I do think proponents of school choice tend to overstate the effectiveness of charter schools, but I am not opposed to giving school choice a chance (though I am veryskeptical of for-profit schools). And frankly skeptics of school choice fall into similar traps as proponents, over-estimating the downsides, etc. School choice is a work in progress, and who knows how it will turn out in the end.

So a few points and clarifications.

1) While teachers unions have plenty of flaws and while teacher compensation schemes could definitely be

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Senate GOP Caucus Insists Schools Don’t Need Money « State of Emergency

Senate GOP Caucus Insists Schools Don’t Need Money « State of Emergency

Senate GOP Caucus Insists Schools Don’t Need Money

by Leonard Feldman

Members of the Senate Republican Caucus today distributed a “briefing report” on schools that argues that public education’s woes have nothing to do with a shortage of funds. In fact, the GOP report calls for removing “bad teachers” and narrowing the scope of collective bargaining as antidotes to educational problems.

The report neglects to mention that schools have already been cut by more than $18 billion….and schools are

Public Education needs you to get involved

by jortiz

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Rethinking the seniority system | The Education Report

Rethinking the seniority system | The Education Report

Rethinking the seniority system

By Katy Murphy
Wednesday, May 4th, 2011 at 7:00 am in budget, teachers.

Annie Hatch, a first-year humanities teacher at Oakland’s Life Academy, offers her reflections about the last-in, first-out layoff system. Her pink slip has yet to be rescinded.

Annie Hatch, Life AcademyAs more and more layoffs are being rescinded, the fury that was driving a lot of healthy debate has seemed to subside. When the district initially announced that over 500 teachers in Oakland would be receiving pink slips, I heard a lot of people arguing that the district should rescind them all—that no teacher ever deserves a pink slip. But, the unavoidable reality is that some teachers will be laid off—this year, and in the future. And while this remains the case, we desperately need to rethink the seniority system.

Like a fine wine, I believe a good teacher gets better with age. There is a steep learning curve when it comes to the craft of teaching, and, I won’t lie, I am looking forward to not being a first-year teacher. Throughout the course of this first year, I have seen my classroom management skills improve exponentially. I can plan a

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The Social Media Conundrum | Connected Principals

The Social Media Conundrum | Connected Principals

The Social Media Conundrum

Posted by Eric Sheninger on 5/04/11 • Categorized as Best Educational Practices,Leadership Essentials,Principal Quality Standard

A slightly altered version of this post entitled “The Social Media Time Debate” can be found at the Huffington Post

There has been a great deal of discussion lately as to the necessity of Administrators utilizing social media as a part of their professional practice. There was even a comment on the Facebook page that I manage for my high school stating that I spend too much time on Twitter. With all of the positives that I feel are associated with social media, and no matter how I utilize various mediums in a professional manner, there seems to always be a large number of skeptics. It is obvious that they do not take the time to read the content that I either create or share, which is quite frustrating. Nor do they care to engage me in a discussion as to why I spend valuable time with Twitter or my blog.

Back to the real topic of my post, which is time allocation. To get a flavor of some views on this, please check out these fantastic posts on the topic by some of my colleagues that I have come to know and respect through Twitter:

Let’s face it, we can all agree that we could use more time in the day. As an administrator, during the school day I

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Civics knowledge that kids are supposed to know - The Answer Sheet - The Washington Post

Civics knowledge that kids are supposed to know - The Answer Sheet - The Washington Post

Civics knowledge that kids are supposed to know

by Valerie Strauss

Here are some of the “skills” in civics that students demonstrate at different levels — basic, proficient and advanced — as measured by the National Assessment for Educational Progress.

NAEP released new scores on the 2010 civics exam given to nationally representative groups of students in 4th, 8th and 12th grades on Wednesday, with little progress shown in the four years since the last civics exam was given.

Following are skills and some sample questions:

Read full article >>
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This Week In Education: Best Blogs: More Questions About Value Added & Ending LIFO

This Week In Education: Best Blogs: More Questions About Value Added & Ending LIFO

Best Blogs: More Questions About Value Added & Ending LIFO

by Alexander Russo

Edamame-beansAFT Celebrates Teacher Appreciation Week With Teacher Bashing Yglesias: But when Teacher Appreciation Week comes around then of course teachers and their representatives want to emphasize the fact that one of the many things that makes a difference is the quality of teaching... Value-Added Evaluation & Those Pesky Collateralized Debt Obligations Hess: Even the cleverest of models is only as good as the data... The myth of the superstar novice teacher The Answer Sheet: I have a long way to go to Teacher of the Year, but I have learned from every year, and every year has made me a more competent teacher... Matt Yglesias on Teacher Compensation American Times: Seniority factors into many professions. Very few professions rely as heavily on test-results as edu-reformers would like teaching to rely... Teaching About Terrorism Andrew Sullivan: Photo of Gary Weddle, a middle school teacher who refused to shave after 9/11 until bin Laden was captured or killed... Slow Off the Mark CAP: It is elementary school mathematics and science that lay the foundation for future STEM learning, but it is elementary school teachers who are often unprepared to set students on the path to higher-level success in STEM fields... Gates and Pearson Lay Their Cards on the Table Tom Hoffman: Hopefully people will now start to understand what has been going on here, what Gates' plan has been all along... The New Layoff Formula Project Shanker Blog: But these were voluntary surveys (total response rate was roughly 40 percent), and TNTP makes not a single mention about the non-random nature of these samples, and how this may have distorted their results.

Quotes: Ad Copy Disguised As Fairy Tales

by Alexander Russo

Quotes2We still tell fairy tales about escapes from the ghetto to the classroom or the short path from graduation to lifelong satisfaction... but these narratives are not inspiring true-life models, they’re advertising copy... "Bad Education" in n+1

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School Tech Connect: We Live In CrazyLand

School Tech Connect: We Live In CrazyLand

We Live In CrazyLand

by effacethefacade@yahoo.com (Tim)
I'm going to go ahead and pay the $105 for a designation of agent. Not that I plan to use material from the Denver or Las Vegas newspapers, but you never know when this bottom-feeding attorney behavior is going to spread like a cancer around the country. I've tried to start working within copyright laws, but let's face it-- this blog is chock full of borrowed stuff.

source
If you're not aware of the copyright trolling phenomenon, read all about it. In a nutshell, there's a new legal specialty being practiced by one firm at the moment. They partner up with an online newspaper (in this case, the Las Vegas Review-Journal and theDenver Post, and then they go trolling for bloggers who have used materials that are copyrighted by these papers. Then, if I'm understanding it right, they gain ownership of the copyright and sue the blogger for copyright infringement. The bloggers usually settle rather than win an expensive victory in court.

I'm not sure if you have to post the designated agent's name/address on your blog or not. I'm putting the staff
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“Who Is Osama Bin Laden?” … Do Teens Really Not Know? « Student Activism

“Who Is Osama Bin Laden?” … Do Teens Really Not Know? « Student Activism

“Who Is Osama Bin Laden?” … Do Teens Really Not Know?

by Angus Johnston

Yesterday Yahoo put up a post on its search blog titled “Teens Don’t Know Who Osama Bin Laden Is, According to Yahoo! Search Trends.”

The story has been picked up by a long list of other outlets — PC Magazine and Gawker both claimed that “many” teens don’t know who Bin Laden was, while one site went so far as to claim that a “majority” are unaware. BoingBoing hedged its bets, claiming that “a non-insignificant number of teenagers in America do not know who Osama bin Laden is.”

But what did Yahoo’s published data actually show?

Not much, it turns out. According to the blogpost, “who is osama bin laden” was the fifth-most searched question relating to Bin Laden on Sunday, which made it more popular than questions about his height, but more popular than questions about his age. How many people searched that question? Yahoo doesn’t say. Could have been millions, could have been a handful. What it does say is that two thirds of those searching were between the

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Jersey Jazzman: Masters Bump For Me, Not For Thee!

Jersey Jazzman: Masters Bump For Me, Not For Thee!

Masters Bump For Me, Not For Thee!

by Duke
Just to follow up on Chris Christie's proposal to do away with using graduate degrees as a criterion for determining teacher pay:

The idea that corporate reformers such as Christie push is that these degrees do not make for better teachers. His own kids, however, go to Delbarton, a tony private school, where they have a slightly different take:
The course of study offers preparation in all major academic subjects and a number of electives.
The studies are intended to help a boy shape a thought and sentence, to speak clearly about ideas and
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Mitch Daniels' Surprising Defense of the Public School System - Dana Goldstein

Mitch Daniels' Surprising Defense of the Public School System - Dana Goldstein

Mitch Daniels' Surprising Defense of the Public School System

by Dana Goldstein

Now that I've criticized major elements of Mitch Daniels' education agenda, I thought I'd highlight by far the most interesting statement he made at AEI today, because it breaks in a significant way with typical conservative, free-market school reform rhetoric:

"You cannot often enough affirm your commitment to the public schools. As I said, 90 percent of Indiana kids are in public schools today. I think even with the new option that's in place [private school vouchers], it'll always be close to that. I really believe that; I would be surprised if it's not. Therefore, there's a huge responsibility, and we should all share a commitment, to make the public schools better all the time. Semantically, it's probably important to talk about school improvement. Reform means different things to different people."

There's a humility here that is typically lacking among proponents of private school vouchers and other free-

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Heading home. « Fred Klonsky's blog

Heading home. « Fred Klonsky's blog

Heading home.

by Fred Klonsky

This is my first post on my iPad2. I’m writing on the bus, heading back to Chicago following a day of lobbying in Springfield.

The IEA leadership wanted us to focus mainly on SB7 and pensions.

There was no way we would lobby for Senate Bill 7. Cheerleading for the bill that limits our ability to strike and which ends seniority as the basis for reductions in staff was met with a smattering of mild applause from about five hundred IEA members who had gathered for a pre-lobbying rally under a tent set up next to IEA offices.

I don’t know how many folks were here today. The IEA wanted 5,000, but I doubt there it was close to that number.

While the concern about pensions is strong, support among the membership for the SB7 sellout is evident by the weak turnout.

The turnout from our local was strong, however.

And when a large group of us met with Senator Kotowski on the lawn in front of the statue of Stephen Dougla

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