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Wednesday, October 19, 2011

Big Education Ape: 10-19-11 PM Koch Brothers And The Battle Over Integration in Wake County's Schools EDition

Big Education Ape: Ed News Now:

Published by Coopmike48 – 7 news spotters today

Elite Club or Catalyst for Change?

edweek.org - Published Online: October 18, 2011Published in Print: October 19, 2011, as Broad Prize: Do the Successes Spread?When the Broad Prize for Urban Education was created in 2002, billionaire philanthrop...

DianeRavitch

Chinese Students Lose as U.S. Schools Exploit Need

bloomberg.com - Enlarge image China Students Paying $52,000 Say Boarding Schools Misled Guan Wang, a freshman at the University of California, Davis, from China, uses a laptop computer as she studies in her dorm r...

DianeRavitch

Tata's choice plan passes 6-2; Hill, Sutton vote no

indyweek.com - Kevin Hill (right, in yellow shirt) at Wake school board work session. Tony Tata is seated at left; James Overman, Tata's task force leader, is standing. Effective in the 2012-13 school year, unles...

DianeRavitch

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coopmike48 VIDEO: Davis Occupier Discusses Media Distortion at Occupy Sacramento - Davis, CA Patch -http://t.co/tpZ3alyo #ows2 minutes ago · reply · retweet · favorite

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coopmike48 Why Occupy Wall Street Is Analogous To The American Revolution | Addicting Info - http://t.co/hKByg0HL#owsabout 1 minute ago · reply · retweet · favorite

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coopmike48 Big Education Ape: Es el momento - Educacion, Becas, Universidades, Aprendizaje -http://t.co/sOq3r9ln #edreform26 minutes ago · reply · retweet · favorite

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Readin’ > ‘Rithmetic | Gary Rubinstein's TFA Blog

garyrubinstein.teachforus.org - Something that nearly every adult has wondered about, but is scared to say it out loud is “Is knowing math really that important?” They don’t say it out loud because they fear that someone, possibl...

DianeRavitch

SocietySee all

Republicans jump into non-partisan school board races

9news.com - JEFFERSON COUNTY - Across Colorado, there is a changing landscape when it comes to school board races. Once thought to be "mom and pop," elections have now turned into coordinated, professional cam...

DianeRavitch

Senate Saves the Potato on School Lunch Menus

nytimes.com - WASHINGTON — The Senate stood up Tuesday for the humble white potato and rebuffed an effort by President Obama to limit its consumption by millions of schoolchildren around the country. ...

mikeklonsky

PoliticsSee all

Burke Questions Emanuel Water Fee Plan

chicagonewscoop.org - As the City Council held its first hearing on Mayor Rahm Emanuel’s proposed 2012 budget Wednesday, its longest-serving member questioned the plan to end water fee exemptions for non-profit institut...

coopmike48

CrimeSee all

Operative Scores in Court - WSJ.com

online.wsj.com - BY MICHAEL HOWARD SAUL A Manhattan judge on Monday dismissed some of the charges against a Queens political worker accused of stealing more than $1 million from Mayor Michael Bloomberg, a victory f...

leoniehaimson

Denise McGregor Armbrister to resign from SRC

thenotebook.org - Another member of the School Reform Commission has resigned. In a statement, Secretary of Education Ronald Tomalis accepted the resignation and thanked Denise McGregor Armbrister for her service. M...

coopmike48

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Zuccotti Park Is Not A Nightclub - National

theatlanticwire.com - Zuccotti Park is not a restaurant, night club, art gallery or fashion show, but that won't stop culture writers from trying to convince us otherwise. In today's New York Times, for instance, nightl...

coopmike48

Home - Inside Higher Ed

insidehighered.com - February 24, 2011 The return of ROTC to some campuses -- seemingly assured by the end of the military's policy against gay service members -- may be hitting a few bumps.More February 24, 2011 City ...

coopmike48

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    Inspired by Wall St. protest, activists vow to ‘Occupy the DOE’ | GothamSchools #ows

    Inspired by Wall St. protest, activists vow to ‘Occupy the DOE’ | GothamSchools:

    Inspired by Wall St. protest, activists vow to ‘Occupy the DOE’

    by , at 5:47 pm

    Since the first protesters arrived at Zuccotti park nearly five weeks ago, the Occupy Wall Street movement has ignited protests from California to the United Kingdom. The city Department of Education could be next.

    Calling Schools Chancellor Dennis Walcott a member of the maligned “1 percent,” city education activists say they are planning to bring hundreds of protesters to next week’s school board meeting for an “Occupy the DOE” action.

    The idea to form ODOE came to organizers, many of whom are city public school teachers, during a Sunday afternoon “grade-in” for educators at Occupy Wall Street, according to Leia Petty, an organizer who works as a guidance counselor in a Bushwick high school and is a long-time activist.

    As the teachers discussed how the OWS movement intersected with public education, she said, they united

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    Missouri Education Watchdog: Teaching Kids To Go Back To Asking "Why"

    Missouri Education Watchdog: Teaching Kids To Go Back To Asking "Why":

    Teaching Kids To Go Back To Asking "Why"



    Those who have children know that period of toddlerhood that causes parents to go through a period of existential angst; that time when their every utterance is met with the response, "Why?" Sometimes the question is sincere. Other times it is simply a very immature attempt to continue the interaction without really having anything of substance to contribute. (Oh boy! Mommy keeps talking to me if I use this word.) The continued "why" device causes us to examine that which we often take for granted to its
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    #ows From a teacher’s perspective: The PTA needs to do their homework on Democracy. Go to an Occupation | Seattle Education

    From a teacher’s perspective: The PTA needs to do their homework on Democracy. Go to an Occupation | Seattle Education:

    From a teacher’s perspective: The PTA needs to do their homework on Democracy. Go to an Occupation

    by seattleducation2011

    Written by Dan Trocolli, a Seattle Teacher and member of Social Equality Educators

    I started my Saturday morning going to the Washington State Parent Teacher Association (PTA) Legislative Assembly to assist parents in Parents Across America-Seattle, an activist group of parents, in opposing charter school legislation in the state of Washington. It wasn’t easy waking up at 6:00 AM on a Saturday, but I knew it was important that people know the negative effect that charter schools can have on our public schools.

    As a teacher, one would think that parents in the PTA would be very interested in hearing from teachers about significant changes to Washington laws on delivering public education to their children, particularly given the fact that teachers are underrepresented in PTA’s around the country. Imagine my shock when approaching a group of parents in the hotel lobby with flyers, one woman tore the flyers out of my hand in a hysterical rage then went up to my colleague, another teacher, and ripped the flyers from her hands as well and then threw them in the trashcan!

    I wanted to let delegates in the PTA know how charters have a higher teacher turnover, unfairly exclude under-performing students and siphon money from other public schools. However, we were unable to continue handin
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    Florida Tea Party Network Wants Rick Scott to Quit Race to the Top | Scathing Purple Musings

    Florida Tea Party Network Wants Rick Scott to Quit Race to the Top | Scathing Purple Musings:

    Florida Tea Party Network Wants Rick Scott to Quit Race to the Top

    by Bob Sikes

    From Kenric Ward of Sunshine State News:

    Citing the Florida Constitution, a statewide tea party group is calling on Gov. Rick Scott to bow out of the “Race to the Top” competition for federal education funding.

    “This grant not only costs Florida taxpayers more in the long-term, it will remove quality control from the legislative process, and it goes against the Florida state Constitution,” Tea Party Network Chairwoman Patricia Sullivan stated in a letter to Scott.

    “It will drive up the cost of child care and Pre-K, forcing many private establishments to close, thus reducing availability for all Florida families. With the new standards in place, and the private facilities terminated, the state will then be compelled to fill the higher-priced void, all on the backs of the taxpayers.

    “No less significantly, it will allow a regulatory agency to have control over family child-care,

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    Report documents charter school growth - The Answer Sheet - The Washington Post

    Report documents charter school growth - The Answer Sheet - The Washington Post:

    Report documents charter school growth

    by Valerie Strauss

    Six school districts across the country now have at least 30 percent of their public school students enrolled in charter schools — with Washington D.C. at No. 2 on the list. And 18 systems have more than 20 percent of their students attending charters, according to a new report.

    The charter demographics report, released by the National Alliance for Public Charter Schools, lists Los Angeles as topping the list (see below) of districts with the highest number of charter school students — 79,385 (which was 12,576 more this school year than last). If those students were in a single school system, it would be in the top 45 of the largest U.S. school districts.

    Read full article >>
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    VIDEO: Parents Protest for PS 256 in Bed-Stuy to be Fixed NOT Closed! « EdVox #EDREFORM

    VIDEO: Parents Protest for PS 256 in Bed-Stuy to be Fixed NOT Closed! « EdVox:

    VIDEO: Parents Protest for PS 256 in Bed-Stuy to be Fixed NOT Closed!

    by edvoxny

    Popout

    Parents argue $427,000 in DOE cuts over last three years real reason for sudden drop in Bed-Stuy school’s performance

    Some say co-located charter school expansion behind DOE move

    The Department of Education placed Bedford-Stuyvesant’s PS 256 on a list of 20 low performing elementary and middle schools last month—a move many in the community saw as the first step toward closing their beloved school next year. Angry parents protested the DOE at a rally, arguing that $427,000 in cuts over the last three years led to the school’s sudden drop in performance, and demanding their resource-starved school get the help

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    ESEA - Show must go on #edreform

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    This Week In Education: Reform: Rhee Organization Dips Toe Into #ESEA Debate

    This Week In Education: Reform: Rhee Organization Dips Toe Into #ESEA Debate:

    Reform: Rhee Organization Dips Toe Into #ESEA Debate

    by Alexander Russo

    British-General-PO-PhonesThe folks at StudentsFirst sent out an email from Michelle Rhee this morning expressing concern about the teacher evaluation provisions in the Harkin-Enzi draft that was supposed to be considered earlier today: "The legislation sets up an unfair, two-tiered system where only some children would have access to teachers who receive meaningful feedback and are held accountable for their work...[and] would move us in the wrong direction." (see full text below). There's some confusion over whether Rhee signed onto the broader accountability letter from the civil

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    Sacramento Press / Education Coalition warns of Impact of further budget cuts

    Sacramento Press / Education Coalition warns of Impact of further budget cuts:

    Education Coalition warns of Impact of further budget cuts

    by Dina Martin

    Like schools around the state, Sacramento public schools continue to suffer from the impact of budget cuts and must get more funding to provide our students with the quality education they deserve, local Education Coalition stakeholders stressed in a news conference here today.

    Speakers explained how California’s K-12 schools have been decimated by more than $18 billion in cuts in the last three years alone, and how this affects a generation of students. They discussed the new California Budget Project report ranking the state 46th in both per-pupil spending and the number of students per administrator (301), and worst in the U.S., in the number of students per teacher (20.5) and per school librarian (5,489).

    The news conference was held at Washington Elementary School in Sacramento, which is struggling to maintain support services including school nurses and teachers’ aides in the face of budget cuts. Despite strong community partnerships in place, the entire staff at the school has agreed to minimize school supplies to fund basic educational programs.

    “This school remains a great place for kids to learn and prepare for the future because the teachers, staff,

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    HechingerEd Blog | New report: Dropout rates five times higher for poor students

    HechingerEd Blog | New report: Dropout rates five times higher for poor students:

    New report: Dropout rates five times higher for poor students

    Graph from the NCES report

    Sen. Tom Harkin’s ( D-Iowa) new proposal to reform No Child Left Behind is the latest attempt by policy makers to fix the country’s “dropout factories,” identified in the bill as schools with lower than a 60-percent graduation rate. But a new report has found a silver lining amid the crisis: The number of dropouts is already on the decline.

    A new National Center for Education Statisticsreport on dropout rates has found that while there has been an overall decline in dropouts since 1972, there are still 3 million students between the ages of 16 and 24 without a high school diploma, a disproportionate number of whom are minority and poor.

    According to the report, the “event dropout rate,” which estimates the percentage of high school
    Posted by at

    Do you want your kids on THAT bus? | Taking Note

    Do you want your kids on THAT bus? | Taking Note:

    Do you want your kids on THAT bus?


    John’s book, The Influence of Teachers, is currently available on Amazon; you can learn more about it at the book’s official website, or, if interested in buying copies for your class or discussion group, you can consult this page.

    Imagine it’s early morning, 20 minutes or so after the school bus was expected. You are waiting with your children when an old yellow clunker — belching smoke, with its rear emergency door hanging open — weaves toward you. The driver, a pint of whiskey in one hand, yells out an apology: “Sorry about being late. The damn thing keeps stalling on me.” Before you can say anything, he adds, “I know this ain’t the prettiest or the safest looking bus, but it’s the best we got. Hop right in, kids.” Then he grins and says, “Don’t worry. You won’t be late for school. I’ll put the pedal to the metal and get this baby rolling.”

    Of course you wouldn’t let your child board the bus. Instead, you would snap photos with your phone, post them on Facebook, and begin organizing a campaign to fire the drunk driver — and the leaders who were so cavalier about your child’s physical safety. You’d probably organize a boycott of that bus and

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    Adnother few hours for ESEA input?

    Parents United for Responsible Education » Blog Archive » Another few hours for ESEA input?:

    Another few hours for ESEA input?

    by admin

    Sen. Rand Paul has given us a few more hours to speak out on ESEA and what federal education law might look like for the next 5-8 years.

    Yes, there will be time to offer input as the proposal works its way through the Senate and, if passed there, in the House, but better to move now before positions get established.

    Parents Across America has posted a letter and position chart on the Senate ESEA proposal that you can use and share. Here are some of the main points:

    • We support eliminating the Adequate Yearly Progress metric and removing the mandated test score
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    Advisory councils proposed for lowest-performing schools | Philadelphia Public School Notebook

    Advisory councils proposed for lowest-performing schools | Philadelphia Public School Notebook:

    Advisory councils proposed for lowest-performing schools

    by thenotebook on Oct 19 2011 Posted in Latest news

    Tags:

    by Paul Jablow

    "We don't want to sacrifice sustainability for speed."

    This will be the reasoning behind the newest plan to phase in School Advisory Councils in more schools in the District, according to the official charged with coordinating that effort.

    Karren Dunkley, chief deputy of the District's Office of Parent, Family, Community Engagement and Faith-Based Partnerships, said on Monday that the District would soon develop a proposal to launch SACs in the 115 lowest-performing schools.

    Dunkley said that she and Acting Superintendent Leroy Nunery had met with members of the SAC working group on Friday and that "Dr. Nunery said he would be very open to us presenting a phase-in plan."

    She said the plan would probably be drawn up after a SAC Summit at Fels High

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    Starving The Schools Of The 99% | OurFuture.org

    Starving The Schools Of The 99% | OurFuture.org:

    Starving The Schools Of The 99%

    by Jeff Bryant

    Last week's release of the report Staving America's Schools: How Budget Cuts and Policy Mandates Are Hurting Our Nation's Students set the stage for this week's chorus line calling for the US Senate to pass a bill to fund teachers' jobs across the country.

    We know school districts are laying-off teachers by the thousands, and we know firing teachers reinforces all the things that are bad for the future of our children and our country: cutting early childhood education, increasing class sizes, narrowing curriculum, and shutting down programs and services that individualize the school experience to different student interests and abilities.

    This week, Media Matters reminded us that Senate is about to vote on the President's plan to "prevent teacher layoffs and get more teachers back in our schools -- 400,000 jobs." Right on cue, Think Progress pointed out that the choice our Senators face is to decide whether they are for "hundreds of thousands of American jobs or are they for letting millionaire and billionaires get away without paying their fair share."
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    Superintendent merry-go-round yields fat severances - Chicago Tribune

    Superintendent merry-go-round yields fat severances - Chicago Tribune:

    Superintendent merry-go-round yields fat severances

    Tribune investigation finds school districts usually pay hefty parting gifts to leaders who leave early, even if they leave under a cloud

    July 16, 2011|By Diane Rado and Duaa Eldeib | Tribune reporters

    Stanley Fields resigned after just a year as superintendent of a suburban Cook County school district where he was put on leave, faced with firing and ultimately required to apologize to the community. Still, he walked away with a $100,000 severance payment.

    He also had prematurely left his prior job, at a Lake County high school district, cashing out $30,426 in unused vacation. The school board waived a $60,000 breach-of-contract payment from Fields, now superintendent in another Chicago-area school district.

    Fields' experience illustrates a statewide phenomenon that is costing the public millions in buyout deals worked out in secret by school boards, a Tribune investigation found.

    The newspaper's review of more than 100 superintendent contracts, financial records and

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