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Wednesday, June 29, 2011

Big Education Ape: 6-29-11 AM Vice President Biden to address 9,000 educators at #NEARA11

Big Education Ape: Ed News Now
Big Education Ape: Ed News Now
Published by Coopmike48 – 7 contributors today

July 7: Webinar & Fundraiser with Dr. Pedro Noguera!

bigeducationape.blogspot.com - July 7: Webinar & Fundraiser with Dr. Pedro Noguera!July 7: Webinar & Fundraiser with Dr. Pedro Noguera!by TeacherSabrinaAnnouncing Save Our Schools Webinar #9 with Pedro NogueraThe Future of Educa...

coopmike48

Reasons for Hope - Bridging Differences

blogs.edweek.org - Dear Deborah,As the school year draws to a close, it's time to take stock of the current situation in American education.For the past year, the nation's public schools and the educators who work in...

DianeRavitch

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coopmike48 Defriending and you | Being Latino Online Magazine -http://goo.gl/AXWhm12 minutes ago · reply · retweet · favorite

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coopmike48 California tuition increases likely under budget deal - | Sacramento Bee -http://goo.gl/aG4hQ11 minutes ago · reply · retweet · favorite

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coopmike48 Budget Passes with No Taxes, Plenty of Cuts - The Bay Citizen -http://goo.gl/bsjTw10 minutes ago · reply · retweet · favorite

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coopmike48 A costly way to identify intelligence — Joanne Jacobs -http://goo.gl/xmbXL10 minutes ago · reply · retweet · favorite

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PoliticsSee all

Bachmann fact check: Wrong John Wayne

cbsnews.com - (AP) WASHINGTON - Michele Bachmann's claim that she has "never gotten a penny" from a family farm that's been subsidized by the government is at odds with her financial disclosure statements. They...

mikeklonsky

Sinking G.O.P. Poll Numbers May Put Florida in Play

nytimes.com - MIAMI — In the past few weeks, Gov. Rick Scott has traveled around the state extolling the accomplishments of the recent legislative session and promoting his success in pushing Florida down a more...

fklonsky

StoriesSee all

stop the deportation of the choi family

blog.angryasianman.com - I recently heard about the plight of the Choi family, who face deportation to Korea after planting roots in the United States for the past 17 years. Brothers Seul Chan and Seul Ki (also known as Ch...

coopmike48

Site News: A Summer Haircut For D299

chicagonow.com - Starting sometime tomorrow night there are going to be a few hiccups, just to let you know. I'll do my best to make things smooth and keep up the updates, but ChicagoNow is moving to a different s...

coopmike48

LivingSee all

fund this: comfort women documentary within every woman

blog.angryasianman.com - Within Every Woman is a documentary by Tiffany Hsiung about "comfort women," the thousands of women were coerced or kidnapped into sexual slavery by the Japanese military during World War II. This ...

coopmike48

CrimeSee all

Teacher shot at South L.A. elementary school

latimesblogs.latimes.com - Los Angeles police said Tuesday they are investigating an incident at a South Los Angeles elementary school in which a teacher who had just finished a training session with other educators was shot...

coopmike48

Blago “Stunned” | Rahm’s Labor Pains | CTA Job Cuts

chicagonewscoop.org - by HUNTER CLAUSS | Jun 28, 2011TALE OF THE TAPES A federal jury convicted former Gov. Rod Blagojevich on 17 of 20 charges. Jurors said Blagojevich’s own secretly recorded words sealed his fate. ht...

coopmike48

HealthSee all

Chemicals hospitalize 173 Tyson chicken workers

democraticunderground.com - Source: CBS NewsFive workers exposed to chlorine gas at a Tyson Foods Inc. chicken processing plant are in intensive care and about 50 others remain hospitalized after an accident caused by the uni...

coopmike48

Good News for the Whole Family « MomsRising Blog

momsrising.org - Newly introduced Safe Cosmetics Act (HR 2359) addresses the hidden toxic chemicals in your hair products, your tween’s highly fragranced lotion, and your baby’s bubble bathBy now you’ve probably he...

coopmike48

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      Increasing Class Sizes Could Save $6 Billion - High School Notes (usnews.com)

      Increasing Class Sizes Could Save $6 Billion - High School Notes (usnews.com)

      Increasing Class Sizes Could Save $6 Billion

      By JASON KOEBLER

      Posted: June 29, 2011

      Print

      Conventional wisdom suggests that students perform better when they are enrolled in smaller classes. But new research and advocacy groups suggest that targeted resizing of classes—including increasing class sizes in certain subjects—can save districts money while minimally impacting student achievement.

      Education Resource Strategies, a nonprofit organization that researches educational budgeting, estimates that up to $6 billion could be saved nationally by increasing class sizesby just one student. Currently, more than 80 percent of education spending is used on teacher and faculty payroll, according to the organization. A report released in May by the Brookings Institution, a Washington, D.C.-based think tank, states that the same

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      A pending budget deal, but no change to OUSD plan | The Education Report

      A pending budget deal, but no change to OUSD plan | The Education Report

      A pending budget deal, but no change to OUSD plan

      By Katy Murphy
      Tuesday, June 28th, 2011 at 7:50 pm in budget, politics.

      UPDATE: California’s main budget bill has passed both houses of the state Legislature, John Myers of KQED reports. (He’s posting live Twitter updates here.)

      ***********************************************

      This might be the first time in the history of my education reporting that California lawmakers pass a budget before the Oakland school district (or any school district) does.

      The proposal includes flat funding for k-12 schools, but only as long as some rosy state revenue projections — an extra $4 billion — bear out. If not, look for midyear cuts and a shortened school year in district’s throughout the state.

      The OUSD budget proposal, which is up for approval tomorrow night, wasn’t yet posted online as of a few minutes ago, but I understand it will be very similar to recent ones.

      Here’s what spokesman Troy Flint had to say this afternoon: “The announcement of a potential deal wouldn’t affect our budgeting scenario, primarily because it hinges on $4 billion of income, and it’s a pretty dubious assumption that we’ll actually

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      June’s “The Best…” Lists | Larry Ferlazzo's Websites of the Day...

      June’s “The Best…” Lists | Larry Ferlazzo's Websites of the Day...
      This Week’s “Links I Should Have Posted About, But Didn’t” I have a huge backlog of resources that I’ve been planning to post about in this blog but, just because of time constraints, have not gotten around to doing. Instead of letting that backlog grow bigger, I regularly grab a few and list them here with ...
      June’s “The Best…” Lists Here’s my monthly round-up of new “The Best…” lists I posted in June: The Best Posts/Articles On National Research Council Finding That Carrots & Sticks Don’t Work — June, 2011 The Best Posts About Attrition Rates At So-Called “Miracle” Schools — ...
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      Biden. Yes, that’s the ticket. « Fred Klonsky's blog

      Biden. Yes, that’s the ticket. « Fred Klonsky's blog

      Biden. Yes, that’s the ticket.

      by Fred Klonsky

      I’m having my coffee at Peets this morning.

      “So. I hear you’re the chairman of all the teachers in town,” says Laura, the store manager.

      “Huh?” I look up from the New York Times I’m reading on my iPad.

      “You’re the chairman. That’s what I hear.”

      “Hardly,” I say. “I’m lucky when they call on me. I’m not exactly a favorite of the big boys.”

      Laura laughs. “Not surprised,” she says.

      But maybe my opposition to the early no strings endorsement of the Obama administration has gotten NEA President Dennis Van Roekel so rattled that they’re bringing in the big guns.

      It has been announced that Joe Biden is addressing the delegates

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      This Week In Education: Media: "Parent Trigger" Reporter Wins LA Journalism Award

      This Week In Education: Media: "Parent Trigger" Reporter Wins LA Journalism Award
      Media: "Parent Trigger" Reporter Wins LA Journalism Award [image: image from blogs.laweekly.com] Congrats to education reporter Patrick Range McDonald for being named best print journalist of the year by the LA Press Club. McDonald and his publication, the LA Weekly, took home a fistfull of awards (via ...
      AM News: States' Saber-Rattling Over NCLB Compliance [image: image from webmedia.newseum.org] States Threaten To Defy No Child Left Behind NPR: Duncan may have encouraged this reaction by announcing recently he would grant waivers to states that could not meet the law's standards. South Carolina ...
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      Levels of pain if revenues fail | Thoughts on Public Education

      Levels of pain if revenues fail | Thoughts on Public Education

      Levels of pain if revenues fail

      Lawmakers want furloughs instead of more layoffs

      Posted on 6/29/11 • Categorized as State Budget, Taxes

      By John Fensterwald - Educated Guess

      Community college students, already facing a 38 percent increase in course fees, will be among the first to pay the price if state revenues come up short next year. Next will be rural and urban students, who’ll lose their bus rides to school. Then, finally, teachers and staff at K-12 schools, who may be docked as much as 3.5 percent in pay though additional furlough days.

      The state budget that Democrats in the Legislature passed late Tuesday by majority vote – with no Republican support and no votes to spare in the Senate – layers a series of budget cuts if the $4 billion in extra revenue that Democrats built into the budget

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      Cheating on standardized tests and roaches - The Answer Sheet - The Washington Post

      Cheating on standardized tests and roaches - The Answer Sheet - The Washington Post
      Cheating on standardized tests and roaches Every time I hear about a school where there are allegations or proof of cheating on standardized testing, I reflexively think about roaches, or, rather, the adage that if you see one or two of the pests running across the floor, there are probably ...
      How Walton Foundation spent $157 million on ed reform (in D.C. and other places) The city that won the most education grant money from the Walton Family Foundation in 2010 was Washington D.C., according to new figures that showed how $157 million was distributed. The foundation is one of the three big family education ...
      Ravitch: Reasons for hope -- *This was written by education historian Diane Ravitch for her Bridging Differences blog, which she co-authors with Deborah Meier on the Education Week website. Ravitch and Meier exchange letters about what matters most in education. Ravitch, a ...
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      Fighting a Technological Dystopia in Student Participatory Action « Cooperative Catalyst

      Fighting a Technological Dystopia in Student Participatory Action « Cooperative Catalyst

      Fighting a Technological Dystopia in Student Participatory Action

      by Kevin

      Reading John’s post about ISTE catalyzed me to think a bit about the convergence of several of the projects I have been working on. I’m attending the July cPAR Institute in NYC focused on Student Participatory Action Research (altering social studies curriculum and pedagogy to focus on building empowered citizens ready to participate in a Democratic society), in preparation for one of my initial research projects during my Ph.D. program next year in which we will be scaling a current PAR program in New Jersey from 3 to 7 schools in the next year. That project is a collaborative curriculum development between several researchers and the involved teachers.

      Because of the increasing difficulty to coordinate the researchers and teachers in so many schools, we’re looking into applying for a grant to put together a technological collaboration framework. Since we also want the kids in the classrooms to be able to collaborate with each other, we want to encourage as many connections as possible, and as I know a thing or two about available open-source collaborative applications and program

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      NYC Educator: Getting Away With Murder

      NYC Educator: Getting Away With Murder

      Getting Away With Murder

      by NYC Educator
      It must be great to be Dennis Walcott. You ride around the city in a limo and the New York Times writes puff pieces about what a great guy you are. You've changed the tone, apparently. People like you.

      One of the great things about being a New York Times reporter is you need not ask a single teacher about the chancellor, and indeed, this reporter didn't even pretend. The extreme fear and loathing that I see and hear about every day has no place in this piece, and the reporter shows not the remotest awareness of it.

      Walcott, who ran around the city insisting that layoffs were necessary in the face of a 3.2 billion dollar surplus (another little tidbit that escaped this reporter), gets credit for coming to an agreement with the UFT.
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      Bad Teacher, Breast Augmentation, and Merit Pay :: Frederick M. Hess

      Bad Teacher, Breast Augmentation, and Merit Pay :: Frederick M. Hess

      Bad Teacher, Breast Augmentation, and Merit Pay

      by Frederick M. Hess • Jun 29, 2011 at 8:28 am
      Cross-posted from Education Week

      As I wrote Monday, I dug the new film Bad Teacher. This kind of black comedy (think of Billy Bob Thornton'sBad Santa) scrapes away familiar sentiment and can permit funny, unnerving--and frequently revealing--glimpses of human nature. Take the movie's treatment of merit pay. Cameron Diaz's "bad teacher," having been dumped by her fiancée, decides she needs plastic surgery if she's to land a wealthy husband. Lacking the $10k she needs, she pockets cash from an R-rated middle school car wash and bribes from parents at parent-teacher night. When she learns that there's a $5,700 cash bonus for the teacher at John Adams Middle School whose class scores highest on the state test, she turns from a burnout serial-movie-shower into a motivated (if inept, mean-spirited) instructor.

      As my friends at NCTQ have pointed out, the merit pay scheme in question bears little resemblance to what actually exists. Far more interesting, though, are the truths it tells about merit pay. After all, today's vaunted

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      Tuesday, June 28, 2011

      July 7: Webinar & Fundraiser with Dr. Pedro Noguera!

      July 7: Webinar & Fundraiser with Dr. Pedro Noguera!
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      July 7: Webinar & Fundraiser with Dr. Pedro Noguera!

      by TeacherSabrina

      Announcing Save Our Schools Webinar #9 with Pedro Noguera
      The Future of Education Reform: Creating the Schools Our Children Need
      Click here to register

      Dr. Pedro Noguera is one of the nation’s outstanding advocates for civil rights and educational opportunities for all children. His work has focused on the challenges of educating all students, and confronting the effects of poverty in our schools. He has worked with numerous school districts, teachers and parents across the country,

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      Sly & The Family Stone - I Want To Take You Higher

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      Schools Matter: Rhee Finds Respect Among Governors Without Any

      Schools Matter: Rhee Finds Respect Among Governors Without Any

      Rhee Finds Respect Among Governors Without Any

      by Jim Horn
      By Suzy Khimm for the Washington City Paper:
      For those who viewed Michelle Rhee as an anti-union bully, the past few months have offered lots of chances to say “toldya so.” Soon after resigning as the D.C. Public Schools chancellor in October, Rhee began appearing with Republican governors who were busily making war on public-sector unions. But if longtime Rhee critics felt vindicated, another group has been less sanguine: left-leaning education reformers who worry that her moves could help tie education reform to a larger conservative agenda to crush organized labor.

      Since the launch of Rhee’s advocacy organization, StudentsFirst, the optics certainly haven’t been favorable for her fellow Democratic reformers. In October, pugilistic New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie asked her to become his
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      Who’s the most influential educator in America? | Taking Note

      Who’s the most influential educator in America? | Taking Note

      Who’s the most influential educator in America?

      by JOHN MERROW on 28. JUN, 2011 in ARNE DUNCAN, EARLY CHILDHOOD EDUCATION, EDUCATIONAL LANGUAGE, FRED ROGERS,MICHELLE RHEE, POLITICS, PRESIDENT OBAMA, TFA, TESTING, INNOVATION, JOEL KLEIN, MEDIA, SCHOOL REFORM, TEACHING

      As always, remember that John’s book The Influence of Teachers is for sale at Amazon.

      A month or so ago, I speculated about the most influential person in American education — then two weeks ago I expanded upon those musings in a feature for the New York Daily News. In both columns I put forth four nominees — Wendy Kopp, Big Bird, Arne Duncan and Joel Klein — and chose Joel for his remarkable network of eleven protégés now influencing what happens in schools and classrooms around the nation.

      I was attacked for my choice by people who feel that his influence has been negative, or even destructive. Few seemed to notice that I neither praised nor condemned the former Chancellor’s policies. No one challenged that he changed New York City schools in dramatic ways — nor could they. Remember that before mayoral control, New York City had 32 separate districts, quite a few of them known as jobs programs for cronies with little regard for student outcomes. There was little sense of urgency about actually educating large numbers of children, and the central office at 110 Livingston

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