You'd think executives at Silicon Valley's top tech firms would be keen to enroll their children in schools chock-full of the latest education technology: one-to-one laptops, iPad programs, digital textbooks, and teachers engaging students using Twitter. But according to The New York Times, some Silicon Valley parents—including the chief technology officer of eBay and execs from Google and Apple—are doing a 180 and
Illinois is Broke is the creation of Ty Fahner’s Civic Committee.
One member of the Civic Committee is former Wall Street deal maker, Mayor Rahm Emanuel.
Other members include the top 1% of Chicago Corporations.
Rahm, acting at their behest, wants a tax cut for the Chicago Board of Trade and the
I've been asked a few times over the past year to recommend books for writers new to education or to social policy more broadly, and I thought it might be fun and useful to share this list on the blog. These are titles I turn back to constantly, both as references and as touchstones for my own thinking about education, public health, gender, race, and class. Interestingly, none of these books were written by policy wonks; rather, they are by journalists, sociologists, and historians with a strong grasp of how public policies operate in the real world.
David Tyack and Larry Cuban, Tinkering Toward Utopia
There are many interesting histories of American education, but this is a history of American education reform--the cyclical churn of philanthropists', politicians', academics', and business leaders' attempts to improve our public schools. From test-driven instruction to merit pay to small schools, what goes around in American education history truly does come around again, often despite poor track records for students. Why do so many American education reforms fail? Because they are deployed with little understanding of how schools and
No wonder Florida Republican wanted to end school board member salaries. Can’t have naysayers out there like the Florida School Board Association when they go public with platforms like this. Here are some of the highlights provided by Ron Matus’ report in Gradebook:
The Florida School Boards Association calls for the Legislature to fulfill its constitutional obligation to make adequate provision for a uniform, efficient, safe, secure, and high quality system of free public schools that allows students to obtain a high quality education. In pursuit of accomplishing this paramount duty to the children of Florida, the Florida School Boards Association urges the
This guest blog post is from David Stovall, associate professor at the University of Illinois at Chicago.
As an educator, I have followed the evolving national debate on charter schools with great interest. But one aspect of this important debate is of particular and growing concern: the obstructionist approach of many charter operators toward the democratic right of teachers to form a union.
In Chicago (where I teach), several charter schools have become unionized, but not without stiff resistance from administrators. Not surprisingly, Philadelphia is the site of similar struggles as charter teachers increasingly assert their right to join a union. Unfortunately, as in Chicago, they face determined resistance from their employers.
Three of the newest members of the overhauled School Reform Commission (SRC) appeared together on WHYY’s Radio Times Monday morning to talk about their new roles and the challenges facing a district running low on both cash and public trust.
From Matt Dixon of Florida Times-Union:
A new lobbying group for charter schools officially launched on Monday. With support from the Walton Family Foundation, the Florida Charter School Alliance will advocate for policies that benefit charter schools.
The alliance notes that there are over 500 charter schools in the state and demand for new charter schools increases ever year. The formation of this group is further evidence of the increasing political potency of charters and the divisions between them and traditional public schools.
The press release announcing the launch says the group will “work to bring high-quality charter schools to all communities in Florida” and “actively advocate for the equitable treatment and
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
A learning disability made school hard for Chantel Cox. But she always stayed on grade level and looked forward to earning a high school diploma. She actually was excited about taking the state graduation tests.
After school every day, Chantel and her mother, Deirdre, logged onto test preparation websites. At Carver High School of Technology in Atlanta, where Chantel was a junior, teachers helped her get ready. They believed, Deirdre Cox said, that Chantel could pass.
But the morning of the high school writing test, in September 2009, school administrators pulled Chantel and several other Carver juniors aside. All stood a good chance of failing — and of lowering the school’s odds of meeting its do-or-die performance targets. While the rest of the 11th grade took the test required for all juniors, Chantel and the others
 Indianapolis Public Schools Superintendent Eugene G. White |
Indianapolis
NYSUT Vice President Kathleen Donahue and NEA Vice President Lily Eskelsen. Photo by El-Wise Noisette.
NYSUT members and other unions must continue to be vigilant against attacks on their professions and the middle class, according to Lily Eskelsen, vice president of the National Education Association, one of NYSUT's national affiliates.
Eskelsen was the keynote speaker at NYSUT's 33rd annual School-Related Professionals Leadership Conference held over the weekend in Saratoga Springs. More than 200 SRPs from across the state attended.
NYSUT Vice President Kathleen Donahue introduced Eskelsen to the podium, noting that the NEA officer, former Utah Teacher of the Year and one of the country's most influential Hispanic educators, began her educational career with a job as a lunch worker in a school cafeteria, much to the delight of the SPRs in the audience.
Speaking of the powerful forces at work - the wealthy who "want to take away the gains"
A professor at the University of California at Irvine has documented the persistent educational disadvantages of U.S. citizen children of undocumented immigrants from Mexico currently in the Los Angeles area of Southland, noting that they are less likely to graduate high school than peers with parents legally in the U.S., and on average, attend two years less of study.
Professor Frank Bean along with other researchers found that of all children born to immigrant parents who faced educational disadvantages, 80 percent of the children were born in the U.S.
The study found that citizen children of undocumented immigrants attend an average of just 11 years of school, compared to
The group’s report suggested that for the benefit of these students, additional measures should
In these troubled economic times, it would take a lot for a school district to turn down a gift of $2.5 million. But that’s just what the Oregon City School District has done.
The 8,100-student district was part of a group of school systems and a non-profit organization that applied to the federal government for a federal grant through the “Teacher Incentive Fund.” That fund awards money to districts that agree to implement performance-based compensation systems in high-needs schools for teachers and principals that include the use of standardized test scores and merit pay.
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