Latest News and Comment from Education

Wednesday, September 21, 2011

The Innovative Educator: School redesign as a community project-based learning challenge

The Innovative Educator: School redesign as a community project-based learning challenge:

School redesign as a community project-based learning challenge


Insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results.”
-Albert Einstein


If you’ve ever complained about the way things are in schools today, now’s your chance to stop talking and start acting by participating in the Reinventing School Challenge. The challenge is a program that begins with a simple mission: Encourage life-long learning, promote alternative learning environments and equip learners with 21st Century skills. It takes a fresh and different approach to school reform in the following ways.
  1. Inviting the whole community to get involved.
  2. Giving the community a framework to collaborate and fashion solutions for their own school communities.
  3. Providing a platform to present, share and celebrate what's possible and what really works.
The program uses design, collaboration, technology, play and social media to engage and empower young people to

Big Education Ape - PostRank Today's 10 9-21-11

Big Education Ape - PostRank Today's 10 9-21


Brooklyn College Faculty Condemn NYPD Infiltration of Muslim Student Groups « Student Activism

Brooklyn College Faculty Condemn NYPD Infiltration of Muslim Student Groups « Student Activism:Brooklyn College Faculty Condemn NYPD Infiltration of Muslim Student Groupsby Angus JohnstonThe faculty council of New York City’s Brooklyn College has unanimously condemned NYPD’s spying on their campus’s Muslim student organization, saying it has a “chilling effect” on academic freedom.Documents made public earlier this month indicate that the New York Police Department has been monitoring Muslim student groups at seven local colleges – City, Baruch, Queens, Brooklyn, LaGuardia ... more »

Charlotte-Mecklenburg School District Wins Prestigious Broad Prize - US News and World Report

Charlotte-Mecklenburg School District Wins Prestigious Broad Prize - US News and World Report:Charlotte-Mecklenburg School District Wins Prestigious Broad PrizeThe North Carolina district improved the most over the past three years among large, urban systemsBy JASON KOEBLERSeptember 20, 2011 RSS Feed PrintU.S. Secretary of Education Arne Duncan with officials from the Charlotte-Mecklenburg Schools district at the 2010 Broad Prize event. The district won the 2011 prize.The Charlotte-Mecklenburg public school district won the 2011 Broad Prize for Urban Education today for showing ... more »

Save Seattle Schools Community Blog: School Board Races Getting Tough

Save Seattle Schools Community Blog: School Board Races Getting Tough:School Board Races Getting Toughby Melissa WestbrookIn a hard opening salvo for the School Board elections, the SEA voted no confidence in Board President Steve Sundquist. The word is that it centers around his unwavering support for TFA.In other news, a raft of school board candidate forums have popped up so here's an update (please let me know if I missed anything):Tuesday, September 27th, Special Education PTSA School Board forum, JSCEE, ... more »

Milwaukee Labor Press Article Spells Out Need for Voucher Tax Transparency « Larry Miller's Blog

Milwaukee Labor Press Article Spells Out Need for Voucher Tax Transparency « Larry Miller's Blog:Milwaukee Labor Press Article Spells Out Need for Voucher Tax Transparencyby millerlfPut truth of voucher tax on city bill, MPS asksBy Dominique Paul NothEditor, Labor PressPosted September 18, 2011The Milwaukee Public Schools board is requesting another group of elected officials, the leaders of the city of Milwaukee, to engage in a flagrant act of truth in advertising and transparency in government.They are asking for city property ... more »

Walmart Family Support of Right Wing and Vouchers in Wisconsin « Larry Miller's Blog

Walmart Family Support of Right Wing and Vouchers in Wisconsin « Larry Miller's Blog:Walmart Family Support of Right Wing and Vouchers in WisconsinFiled under: Right Wing Agenda,Vouchers — millerlf @ 11:01 am The selling of school choicePosted on September 18, 2011Walmart family heirs and others are changing the face of education in WisconsinHeirs to the Walmart fortune, including Alice and Jim Walton, have given thousands to Wisconsin political candidates since mid-2008. Photo courtesy of Walmart StoresBy Bill LuedersWisconsin Center for ... more »

Education Research Report: Both social media use and First Amendment appreciation are growing among high school students

Education Research Report: Both social media use and First Amendment appreciation are growing among high school students:Both social media use and First Amendment appreciation are growing among high school studentsby Jonathan KantrowitzWhile social media have been blamed for teen ills from narcissism to cyberbullying, a new study offers an inspiring perspective: as social media use has grown in the United States, so has students’ appreciation for the First Amendment. The national study was released to coincide with the celebration of ... more »

John Thompson: Should Schools Grade Students' Moral Character? - Living in Dialogue - Education Week Teacher

John Thompson: Should Schools Grade Students' Moral Character? - Living in Dialogue - Education Week Teacher:John Thompson: Should Schools Grade Students' Moral Character?by Anthony CodyGuest post by John Thompson. Part two of two.Last week I read Paul Tough's New York Times Magazine article, "What if the Secret to Success is Failure?," about the approach being taken by the KIPP schools and others, inspired by the work of Martin Seligman. Two big issues came up for me. The first were some ... more »

PTA Advocacy: A Legacy in Leadership | PTA

PTA Advocacy: A Legacy in Leadership | PTA:PTA Advocacy: A Legacy in LeadershipNational PTA is proud to announce the release of the video, PTA Advocacy: A Legacy in Leadership. Each PTA state/congress will receive one DVD copy of PTA Advocacy: A Legacy in Leadership by November 2011. In addition, the video has been uploaded here for PTA members to view and share! Options | MAXILAMBAPTA Advocacy: A Legacy in Leadership can be used by state, council, and local PTAs to ...more »

FL DOE recommends Virtual Schools become District of its own-There goes budget $. | StateImpact Florida

Florida Education Board Could Suggest Changing School Ratings | StateImpact Florida:Florida Education Board Could Suggest Changing School RatingsSeptember 19, 2011 | 1:23 PMBy John O'ConnorCommentEmailShareFLORIDA DOEThe Florida Board of Education could recommend lawmakers revise the state school performance system at a meeting tomorrow.School districts have complained the system sets higher standards for the state’s lowest-rated schools. For a low-rated school to pull itself off a watch list the district must improve more rapidly than other state districts.The result is that ... more »

Los Angeles Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa: "Dollars and Cents, & Common Sense" :: Frederick M. Hess

Los Angeles Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa: "Dollars and Cents, Common Sense" :: Frederick M. Hess:Los Angeles Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa: "Dollars and Cents, Common Sense"by Frederick M. Hess • Sep 20, 2011 at 9:09 amCross-posted from Education Week Print Send RSS ShareL.A.'s straight-talking mayor, Antonio Villaraigosa, a former teacher union organizer, one of the nation's most influential Hispanic officials, and very likely a future governor of California, visited AEI yesterday to discuss the challenges of urban school reform. I thought it to ... more »

Meg Whitman funds charter expansion | Thoughts on Public Education

Meg Whitman funds charter expansion | Thoughts on Public Education:

Meg Whitman funds charter expansion

Gives up to $5 million for 10 more Summit high schools
By John Fensterwald - Educated Guess

GOP gubernatorial candidate Meg Whitman vowed to promote the growth of charter schools. Private citizen Whitman made good on the promise Tuesday, donating $2.5 million toSummit Public Schools to start 10 more high-performing charter high schools in low-achieving areas in Silicon Valley, with a promise to double that amount if other tech titans match her $2.5 million.

For Whitman, who spent $144 million of her own money in losing to Jerry Brown in 2010, the donation marks the first sizable gift from The Whitman-Harsh Family Foundation, which she established five years ago with her husband, physician Griffith Harsh. Last week, she also donated $500,000 to Los Angeles Unified to extend web-based math instruction software

California School Funding 101: How the State Funds Your School

California School Funding 101: How the State Funds Your School:

California School Funding 101: How the State Funds Your School

CA State School Funding: What’s Ahead for 2011-2012?

Bios of the panelists:

Jonathan Kaplan, Senior Budget Analyst, California Budget Project
Jonathan Kaplan joined the California Budget Project (CBP) as an educational policy analyst
in 2006. He has authored various studies on educational policy and funding in California,
including analyses of how proposed state policies would impact funding for public K-12 and
postsecondary education and how California’s school funding compares to that in other states.
He has also authored reports on school enrollment trends, the state’s educational funding
system, district-level expenditure patterns, and related topics. Prior to joining the CBP, Jonathan
taught law and United States history for seven years in Martinez, California, where he also
served as chair of Alhambra High School’s Social Science Department. Jonathan holds a
master’s degree in education from the University of California, Santa Cruz, and received his
bachelor’s degree in history from Yale University.

Dr. Jose Moreno, Anaheim City School Board member & Professor, Chicano Studies, CSU-Long Beach
José F. Moreno is an Associate Professor in the Department of Chicano & Latino Studies at California State

LA school's cheating prompts new policy for charter group | California Watch

LA school's cheating prompts new policy for charter group | California Watch:

LA school's cheating prompts new policy for charter group

koratmember/istockphoto.com

All Green Dot charter schools will implement stricter test security procedures in response to the recent disclosure of teacher cheating at one of its Los Angeles-area schools, a district official said.

Fred Navarro, superintendent of the Lennox School District, said Green Dot officials announced last week that the new policy will require all teachers at each of its schools to return testing materials to a secured room within a strict time frame after the exams are over. Representatives of the charter school firm updated Lennox school

Larry Ferlazzo’s Websites of the Day… - Research Studies Of The Week

Larry Ferlazzo’s Websites of the Day… - Research Studies Of The Week:

Chart on “Respecting Teachers” vs “Blaming Teachers” A few hours ago I posted about this week’s column I wrote for Education Week Teacher, but just mentioned it included an “interesting chart.” The chart has received so much interest I thought it would be good for me to explain it in a little more ...

Geaux Teacher!: REAL REFORM for Holding Teachers Accountable

Geaux Teacher!: REAL REFORM for Holding Teachers Accountable:

REAL REFORM for Holding Teachers Accountable

This is my response to the Times-Picayune editorial of September 17 - "Holding Louisiana teachers accountable: An editorial" I have asked for guest editorial space in the newspaper. . .

Every classroom should have well-educated, professional teachers, and school systems should recruit, prepare and retain teachers who are qualified to do the job. These are three sorely lacking practices in Louisiana's current "reform" design for K-12 education.

American public schools generally do a poor job of systematically developing their teachers after placement. On the contrary, our state policymakers hang on to the erroneous belief that teachers will be more motivated to

Jersey Jazzman: More Pilot Error

Jersey Jazzman: More Pilot Error:

More Pilot Error

I'm going to start calling the NJ teacher evaluation "pilot" Code Name: Amelia Earhart. Because this is a program that's totally lost and bound to crash:
Q: How much weight do standardized test scores get in the evaluations?
A: Standardized test scores are not available for every subject or grade. For those that exist (Math and English Language Arts teachers of grades 4-8), Student Growth Percentages (SGPs), which require pre- and post-assessments, will be used. The SGPs should account for 35%-45% of evaluations. The NJDOE will work with pilot districts to determine how student achievement will be measured in non-tested subjects and grades. [emphasis mine]
So you need both a pre- and a post-test , huh? OK, we know the NJASK will be the standard post-test, which

Study Whites More Likely to Gain Grants and Scholarships | The Defenders Online | A Civil Rights Blog

Study Whites More Likely to Gain Grants and Scholarships | The Defenders Online | A Civil Rights Blog:

Study Whites More Likely to Gain Grants and Scholarships

By The Editors

A newly-published study states that, contrary to the conventional belief, students of color, and especially black students, are not favored more than whites in gaining grants and scholarships.

The truth is just the opposite: white students to a significantly disproportionate degree are the beneficiaries of these instruments of financial aid.

“The reality,” according to the report, “The Distribution of Grants and Scholarships by Race,” “is that minority students are less likely to win private scholarships or receive merit-based institutional grants than Caucasian students. … Caucasian students are 40% more likely to win private scholarships” than African-, Latino-, and Asian-American students.

Student diversityThe average amount –about $2,500 to $3,000 – students get from these scholarships and grants may seem small compared to students’ total annual cost of matriculation. But in fact, such funds are often a critical supplement to the financial aid “package” most students and their families must cobble together to meet the costs of a college education.

The report was published earlier this month by Mark Kantrowitz, a prominent expert on

Jersey Jazzman: "But It's Just a PILOT!"

Jersey Jazzman: "But It's Just a PILOT!":

"But It's Just a PILOT!"

More on the "pilot" program to evaluate teachers in New Jersey:
Q: How much weight do standardized test scores get in the evaluations?
A: Standardized test scores are not available for every subject or grade. For those that exist (Math and English Language Arts teachers of grades 4-8), Student Growth Percentages (SGPs), which require pre- and post-assessments, will be used. The SGPs should account for 35%-45% of evaluations. The NJDOE will work with pilot districts to determine how student achievement will be measured in non-tested subjects and grades.
Hey, are those SGPs actually any good at measuring teachers? We could ask the people who designed them...

NYC Educator: In Teacher's Clothing

NYC Educator: In Teacher's Clothing:

In Teacher's Clothing

Bill Gates' front group, Educators4Excellence, has gotten yet another piece into a major publication. This piece, platitudinous and prosaic though it is, is important. Clearly they are trying to represent themselves as a group that speaks for teachers. In fact, their leaders are not teachers. They claim 3,000 members, but that's likely all the people who signed up for free pretzels at their ridiculous get togethers (since attendance entails signing a loyalty oath.)

I myself have not signed the oath, but I know people who have, including prominent UFT members. Anyone who wants to hear what pearls of wisdom emanate from the lips of the Gates-funded ex-teachers has to agree with their "principles," such as they are.

Most offensive is not the article itself, but the description at the bottom. They claim to be:


an organization that works to ensure teachers' voices are included in the creation of policies that affect their

Did Jeb Bush Admit that the Florida Legislature isn’t Funding its Own Merit Pay System? | Scathing Purple Musings

Did Jeb Bush Admit that the Florida Legislature isn’t Funding its Own Merit Pay System? | Scathing Purple Musings:

Did Jeb Bush Admit that the Florida Legislature isn’t Funding its Own Merit Pay System?

While its understandable that Jeb Bush would receive top billing, the fact that he actually appeared on the same stage with opponents of his ed reform measures is nonetheless astonishing. Along with a Tampa middle school teacher and school board member from Orlando, Kathleen Oropeza, founder of school advocacy group Fund Education Now shared concerns with Bush policies and Florida’s current reform path. In moment of rare candor, Bush may have admitted that Florida’s new merit pay law wasn’t being funded:

Florida’s new merit-pay law was mentioned frequently. The law ends tenure-like
job protections for new teachers and creates evaluation systems for all
educators based on student growth on tests. Eventually, pay plans based mostly
on seniority will be phased out.

Bush, who said he supported it, said at
least twice, however, that it would not be successful if the Legislature did not provide money to pay

Teaching World Geography at Las Montanas: Mr. Darcy and Laptops | Larry Cuban on School Reform and Classroom Practice

Teaching World Geography at Las Montanas: Mr. Darcy and Laptops | Larry Cuban on School Reform and Classroom Practice:

Teaching World Geography at Las Montanas: Mr. Darcy and Laptops

Those who have never taught high school have missed the delight of teaching ninth graders at 7:45AM. Twenty-six 14 and 15 year-olds, for the most part, are neither especially alert nor swift moving at that time of day. Mr. Darcy knows that and he is prepared. The agenda for the first period lesson is on the whiteboard. He has wheeled in the cart of laptops from the media center. He says “good morning” to each student, is bouncy, and full of energy in asking questions and listening to students before the bell rings. A veteran teacher, Darcy’s World Geography class is about to begin a two-lesson mini-unit on oil in Southwest Asia.

Students on one side of the room sit in four rows of four desks; they face a teacher’s table in the center of the room upon which rest his laptop and a LCD projector . On the other side of the room another four rows of four desks face the table. Thus, students sit in rows facing one another. In the front of the room is a large whiteboard

Tuesday, September 20, 2011

Schools Matter: Florida Toughens Pre-K Standards

Schools Matter: Florida Toughens Pre-K Standards:

Florida Toughens Pre-K Standards



Florida's State Board of Education is coming down heavy on those 3 and 4-year- olds and the lousy teachers who are not holding these kids accountable for performing on standardized tests.

In fact, the low performing preschools in Florida are in danger of being closed or taken over if they fail to meet the new tough standards.

From the Orlando Sentinel:

The number of pre-K providers who fail their review and are deemed "low