Chamber PAC endorses Frerichs, Souza and Wolk for City Council | Davis Enterprise

Chamber PAC endorses Frerichs, Souza and Wolk for City Council | Davis Enterprise:

Chamber PAC endorses Frerichs, Souza and Wolk for City Council

The Davis Chamber of Commerce Political Action Committee has announced that it is endorsing Lucas Frerichs, chairman of the city’s Planning Commission, and incumbent City Council members Stephen Souza and Dan Wolk in the June 5 City Council election.

“Frerichs, Souza and Wolk have the vision and demonstrated commitment to build a more socially, environmentally and economically sustainable community,” a news release said. “They are all collaborative, solution-oriented leaders.”

The choices were made based on PAC interviews, a recent debate, committee discussions and input from liaisons with the Davis Downtown Business Association, the release said.

The PAC also endorsed passage of Measure D, the city’s parks maintenance tax renewal.

“The special amenities provided by the city of Davis improve the quality of life 

Seattle Schools Community Forum: Program Placement Issue Done for the Year

Seattle Schools Community Forum: Program Placement Issue Done for the Year:

Program Placement Issue Done for the Year

by Charlie Mas

As last year, this year the superintendent refused to follow the program placement policy and the board refused to enforce it. I've gotten the message that the Board will not make any effort to encourage the superintendent to reveal her procedure for making program placement decisions. In short, the superintendent doesn't care about policy and neither does the board.

I guess there's always next year.


The program placement process used to be secretive, dishonest, political, and corrupt. It was so secretive that no one on the Board knew how it was done. When the Board discovered how program placement decisions were made, in 2007, they were disgusted by the corruption. So they adopted a policy to govern it and clean it up. The policy required transparency and a performance report. The Board didn't want to put even a toe over the line between governance and management, so they re-affirmed the superintendent's authority to unilaterally decide program placement. They also made sure not to constrain the superintendent in how the decisions were made. They only required that the superintendent disclose the process. The thinking was that if they could end the secrecy, that would end the dishonesty, politics and corruption. They could be right.

Dr. Goodloe-Johnson never really followed the policy. Dr. Enfield never followed it at all.

For all of her high-minded talk about transparency, Dr. Enfield refused to provide the transparency required by 

Bus Schedules May Change

by Melissa Westbrook

Thank goodness for our readers.   I try to go through the Board agendas with a fine-tooth comb but I usually miss something.   The miss this time is the introduction of Revisions to Transportation Service Standards for 2012013 item.

The issue is the district trying to reduce costs and this plan says it would save a little over $1M per year.

The Operations Committee of the Whole approved this measure.  However,

Individual Board members have requested that the district consider later bell times for secondary
schools. Board members have asked staff to review the current bell times and any relevant research and propose any necessary changes to the Board. The Superintendent will review the staff’s recommendation(s) and report back to the Board prior to October 2012. 

Background Info:

District transportation expenses have exceeded budget for each of the past three years. The trend
has continued for the current (2011 – 2012) school year. On December 15, 2011, the Operations 

Testing bill passes easy floor vote | EdNewsColorado

Testing bill passes easy floor vote | EdNewsColorado:

Testing bill passes easy floor vote

by Todd Engdahl

Sen. Mike Johnston trimmed down his already-short Senate Bill 12-172 Tuesday, and the Senate gave it preliminary approval on a voice vote Tuesday.
The bill would require the State Board of Education to become a governing member of a multistate testing group.
One amendment successfully proposed by the Denver Democrat would allow the board to withdraw after Jan. 1, 2014, from whichever group it joins if the board doesn’t like the tests the group develops.
English and math tests based on the Common Core Standards are being created by two national consortia, theSmarter Balanced Assessment Consortium and the Partnership for Assessment of Readiness for College and Careers. Colorado now is participating in both but it isn’t a governing member of either. States that join a group’s

GO TO 

National Resolution on High-Stakes Testing

Washington’s Student-Loan Face-off | The Defenders Online | A Civil Rights Blog

Washington’s Student-Loan Face-off | The Defenders Online | A Civil Rights Blog:

Washington’s Student-Loan Face-off

by The Editors

By Kenneth J. Cooper

For the time being, President Obama has routed the Republicans on the politically-potent issue of college student loans and preventing the interest on them from doubling.

After Obama took his case to college campuses in swing states, the Republican-controlled House backtracked and approved legislation to keep the interest rate on the federally-subsidized loans at 3.4 percent. Without the enactment of a new law, the rate will double to 6.8 percent on July 1. The Senate has yet to act on the issue.

Earlier in April, the same House had backed a budget plan that permits the automatic increase, which would cost the average student about $1,000 more in interest payments. It seems House Republicans were against keeping the rate low before they were for it. Or they started counting potential election losses in North Carolina, Iowa and Colorado, where Obama took his case to college students.

Republican lawmakers retreated but played their own political gambit. The $5.6 billion cost would be covered by diverting money from disease prevention programs authorized in the health care reform law. The White House immediately issued a veto threat.

Even the presumptive Republican nominee for president, Mitt Romney, has come around and endorsed keeping the interest rate low. He had previously advised students to “shop around” for the best deal on loans.

That clueless comment shows how little the former 

New Charter Report Improves Transparency but Leaves Many Questions Unanswered | Edwize

New Charter Report Improves Transparency but Leaves Many Questions Unanswered | Edwize:

New Charter Report Improves Transparency but Leaves Many Questions Unanswered

by Christina Collins

The release of a new “State of the Sector” report by the New York City Charter School Center will hopefully mark a turning point in efforts to have a more substantive conversation about charter schools’ demographics and performance in our city. As local media have noted, the report is one of the first from within the charter sector itself to acknowledge some troubling data on charter schools that we and other analysts have been discussingfor several years.
Specifically, the report found that, compared to the average school in their Community School District in 2010:

• 68% of charters served a lower proportion of students eligible for free or reduced price lunch
• 72% of charters served a lower proportion of students with IEPs
• 96% of charters served a lower proportion of English Language Learners

The report also noted that the charter sector was experiencing significantly higher turnover of principals, teachers, and students than the district:

• 26-33% of charter teachers left each year between 2007 and 2011, compared to 13-16% at district schools
• 18.7% of charter principals left each year between 2005-06 and 2010-11, compared to 3.6% at district schools
• Charter middle school enrollments shrunk by 5.9% from 2010 to 2011, compared to an increase of 3.2% at district middle schools

As researchers have noted, high teacher turnover in New York City has been linked to negative effects on 

Let Our Voices be Heard (Guest Post by SWDFS student Raychel Gafford) « Cooperative Catalyst

Let Our Voices be Heard (Guest Post by SWDFS student Raychel Gafford) « Cooperative Catalyst:

Let Our Voices be Heard (Guest Post by SWDFS student Raychel Gafford)

by dloitz

Reposted with permission from Southwest Detroit Freedom School. Originally posted at Let Our Voices Be Heard! 
Originally recited by Raychel Gafford during a walk out and protest at Western International School in Detroit 
Wednesday April 25, 2012. See video of the speech below! Her speech starts at 3:46!

Hi my name is  Raychel Gafford. I’m 17 years old and I am in the 11^th grade. We are the students of Western International standing in solidarity with the students of southwestern. We are here not only in solidarity with southwestern but to draw the line and take a stand for our education.
We are walking out to fight for quality education and to protect our public school system. We are here demanding better education and that our voices be heard. Our school system should work WITH US not against 

Byrne Creek Is Paving A Way for Success — Whole Child Education

Byrne Creek Is Paving A Way for Success — Whole Child Education:

Byrne Creek Is Paving A Way for Success

by ASCD Whole Child Bloggers

Post submitted by Laida Falsetto and Mirella Gargiulo
Byrne Creek Secondary School has been and continues to becreative and flexible in designing varying programs to meet the needs of our current population. Over 60 percent of our student population does not have English as their first language. As a result, we have worked innovatively to develop programs and activities that pave a way for individual success and celebrate diversity. But what is success? What makes someone successful? How do you know if you or your students have achieved success? These questions help guide our program development and are the building blocks that we use to create our classroom community each year.

One unique program at Byrne Creek that demonstrates this is our English language learner work program Paving A Way for Success (PAWS). This program was designed and implemented to meet the needs of new immigrants, especially refugees, who arrive to our school between the ages of 16 to 19. These students 

PAA Austin TX Affiliate to host State Board of Education Candidates’ Forum « Parents Across America

PAA Austin TX Affiliate to host State Board of Education Candidates’ Forum « Parents Across America:

May 1, 2012
Contact:
Lorie Barzano, Co-Chair
CoalitionSAUS (Strengthen Austin Urban Schools)
coalitionsaus@gmail.com
barzano@flash.net
(512)447-5577

CoalitionSAUS Hosts State Board of Education Candidates Forum

CoalitionSAUS (Strengthen Austin Urban Schools) will host a forum of the candidates running for the TX State Board of Education (SBOE) in Districts #5 and #10.  The state’s recently re-districted electoral maps split the Austin Independent School District (AISD) in half between the two SBOE Districts.  (District #5 runs south from just north of Lady Bird Lake and District #10 runs north from there up past Round Rock and Georgetown.)

The Coalition, a parent led group, has members representing nearly two dozen AISD public school campuses located on the north, south, east and west sides of Austin in both SBOE Districts 5 & 10.  The group has invited candidates from both Districts to share their views on state and local educational issues and answer parent questions about school budgeting and the role to the State Board in setting education public policy.

“CoalitionSAUS, an affiliate of Parents Across America, has serious concerns that the Department of Education, TX Education Agency and School Districts make major decisions about the future of our children without including parents at the table when building the framework and direction of those decisions,” states CoalitionSAUS Co-Chair, Nicole Austin.  “As parents, we recognize that we must make our voices heard initially at the voting booth in order to secure any voice in the decision-making process.”

The State Board of Education (SBOE) consists of 15 elected members with all seats up for re-election this year.  Each seat represents a District with a population of approximately 1.6 million people.  Once elected, the members of the SBOE work with the TX Commissioner of Education, currently Robert Scott, and the Texas Education Agency (TEA) to oversee the governance and operation of the Texas public school system.  Texas has more than 1,200 school districts and charter schools, with 8,200 campuses serving 4.7 million students.  The SBOE adopts rules and establishes policies that govern the educational programs and services provided for those students.

Among its various duties, the State Board of Education oversees the investment of the TX Permanent School Fund; mandates what classroom teachers must teach through state standardized testing; reviews and adopts instructional materials based on curriculum standards; approves the creation or revocation of open-enrollment charter schools; adopts certification and ethics rules for teachers and school administrators; and sets goals for the TX public school system through the adoption of four-year plans.

“Throughout the past year, CoalitionSAUS members have spoken monthly at Austin School Board meetings, repeatedly requesting that the District establish an authentic, transparent, participatory, community-based process for making facility use decisions such as closing a school or re-purposing a campus,” elaborates Lorie Barzano, CoalitionSAUS’ other Co-Chair.   “We think it imperative that local school districts and the State Board of Education include parent voices in the process for making the decisions that impact our campuses and affect the education of our children!”

The CoalitionSAUS Forum of State Board of Education Candidates (Districts #5 and #10) takes place on Wednesday, May 2, at 7pm, at Space 12 (3121 E. 12th St. in Austin.)  The event is free and open to the public.

PAA and the Coalition SAUS do not endorse candidates; this public forum is for informational purposes only.

##########

If You Build a Better Crutch, We’ll Make a Lazier Student | Mr. Teachbad

If You Build a Better Crutch, We’ll Make a Lazier Student | Mr. Teachbad:

If You Build a Better Crutch, We’ll Make a Lazier Student

Isn’t that the truth?

I was talk­ing to a friend from my old school the other day. They had to read the arti­cle from the last post about the kid who went to DC pub­lic char­ter schools and then was unpre­pared for his fresh­man year at Georgetown.

Sur­prise!

You weren’t pre­pared because your teach­ers had to spend most of their time cod­dling and cajol­ing the way-behind, the lazy and the dis­rup­tive in your midst. (If you are poor and your mom is a drunk, that’s sad. But it is sec­ondary. The teacher still has to deal with way-behind, lazy, and dis­rup­tive.) This takes a great deal of time and effort. In DC, pub­lic edu­ca­tion is all about cre­at­ing the appear­ance that the bot­tom is being brought up. Increas­ingly we see that this is a poorly exe­cuted illusion.

Here is how it works at my old school, the Colum­bia Heights Edu­ca­tion Cam­pus, where I taught U.S. Gov­ern­ment and

School Tech Connect: Cry Me A River?

School Tech Connect: Cry Me A River?:

Cry Me A River?

by noreply@blogger.com (Tim Furman)

I have evidently announced my ambulatory status too soon. I'm going to do this one post and then crawl to bed.

In any event, in case you missed it, Rich Miller had this to say today, among other things.

* Listen, folks, when the state is talking about kicking tens (even hundreds) of thousands of some of Illinois’ most vulnerable citizens (elderly and the poor) off Medicaid programs, it’s really tough to totally sympathize with public employees. Senior citizens paid taxes their entire lives, but now health care benefits are about to be snatched away from them. So, this whole idea of how you contributed to your pension and how the state screwed up so you should now be spared any cuts at all just doesn’t pull at my heart strings.

I am opposed to this disgusting national race to the bottom. I cannot stand the argument that just because millions of people are never going to be able to retire at any sort of comfort level that 

PSAT for 5-1-12: Petition day! Support PURE!

Parents United for Responsible Education » Blog Archive » PSAT for 5-1-12: Petition day!:

PSAT for 5-1-12: Petition day!

by admin

Petitions may seem like mere couch potato activism, but they can work.
One that I was going to urge you to sign today has already done the job! Nearly 1000 people signed a petitionasking Kenneth Cole, the clothing designer, to take down a billboard in New York suggesting that teachers’ rights conflict with students’ rights. Within hours, the company tweeted that the billboard is coming down.
Score one for our side.
But there are more battles to be fought, one signature at a time! Don’t let your clicker finger wear out, but here are three digital actions for today’s Public Schools Action Tuesday.
The big drive this week is for more signatures and more groups to sign on to the National Resolution against High-Stakes Testing. So far over 5000 people and 220 organizations have signed.
Please sign on today if you have not already done so, and share it with your networks.
It’s also important for LSCs to put the Resolution on the agenda for your next meeting and vote to sign on, and for PTAs to consider signing, too. The National PTA has sent around an advisory to local PTAs urging them to 

Mike Klonsky's SmallTalk Blog: Daley strikes back with poke at longer school day

Mike Klonsky's SmallTalk Blog: Daley strikes back with poke at longer school day:

Daley strikes back with poke at longer school day

The growing rift between Rahm Emanuel and former Mayor Daley has begun to surface publicly. Daley is punching back (well, maybe slapping is a better word) at Rahm's longer-school-day initiative.

Lengthening the school day at Chicago public schools is a key part of Mayor Rahm Emanuel’s agenda, but his predecessor doesn’t think it’s the answer to providing a better education. “At first I thought it was, but I don’t think so,” former Mayor Richard M. Daley said in an interview Monday night on WLS-Channel 7 News. 

Doing My Part for High School Readiness | The Jose Vilson

Doing My Part for High School Readiness | The Jose Vilson:

Doing My Part for High School Readiness

by Jose

On Sunday, during our walk for the Run for Change, one of my students asked,

“What are we going to do for the rest of the year?”
“You mean in terms of math?”
“Yeah, like what’s going to happen?”
“Well for the next month, I’ll be teaching high school math, and in June, I might even do some calculus if we have time.”
He said, “HA! That’s what you think. I’m going to go to class, sleep, wake up, maybe draw something, then go 

Affordable College is not a Luxury. It´s the Foundation of a Healthy Middle Class - Lily's Blackboard | Lily's Blackboard

Affordable College is not a Luxury. It´s the Foundation of a Healthy Middle Class - Lily's Blackboard | Lily's Blackboard:

Affordable college is not a luxury. It´s the foundation of a healthy middle class

by Lily

Affordable College is not a Luxury. It´s the Foundation of a Healthy Middle Class

May 1st, 2012 

by Lily.

I was lucky that I went to college in 1976. I was working as a secretary but I wanted so much to be a teacher. My husband and I were living paycheck to paycheck and could meet our bills just fine, but we had no extra money to send me to college. My parents were doing just fine, but they were still raising my little brothers and sisters, and they had no extra money to send me to college.

I am a teacher today because the government of the United States of America invested in me. My country gave me money to go to college.

In 1976, I applied for a National Direct Student Loan to pay for my expenses at the University of Utah. There was no expensive middle-man bank. I owed the government the loan. I owed 3% interest. I had ten years to pay it back. And I 

Jim Stergios Hits Common Core on Conflicts of Interest | Truth in American Education

Jim Stergios Hits Common Core on Conflicts of Interest | Truth in American Education:

Jim Stergios Hits Common Core on Conflicts of Interest

by James Bell

Common Core Conflicts of Interest

The erudite Jim Stergios has just released the second in a series of articles highlighting the numerous conflicts of interest that have riddled advocates of the Common Core.  The first article he defines the issue of the Common Core conflicts of interest:

“No man is allowed to be a judge in his own cause, because his interest would certainly bias his judgment, and, not improbably, corrupt his integrity.”
- James Madison, Federalist #10
In this season of US Supreme Court decisions we’re reminded that independent and objective judgment on key legal and public policy matters has been an aspiration in Anglo-America law and justice (not to mention scientific inquiry) for centuries. In America, it was John Adams in Massachusetts and James Madison of Virginia who were best at articulating the importance of 

How to Destroy Education While Making a Trillion Dollars | Common Dreams

How to Destroy Education While Making a Trillion Dollars | Common Dreams:

How to Destroy Education While Making a Trillion Dollars

by Robert Freeman

The Vietnam War produced more than its share of iconic idiocies. Perhaps the most revelatory was the psychotic assertion of an army major explaining the U.S. bombing of the provincial hamlet of Ben Tre: “We had to destroy the village in order to save it.” If only such self-extinguishing claims for intelligence were confined to military war.

The U.S is ratcheting up a societal-level war on public education. At issue is whether we are going to make it better — build it into something estimable, a social asset that undergirds a noble and prosperous society — or whether we’re going to tear it down so that private investors can get their hands on the almost $1 trillion we spend on it every year. The tear-it-down option is the civilian equivalent of Ben Tre, but on a vastly larger scale and with incomparably greater stakes: we must destroy public education in order to save it. It’s still early in the game, but right now the momentum is with the wreckers because that’s where the money is. Whether they succeed or not will be up to you.

Here’s a three-step recipe for how to destroy education. It maps perfectly to how to make a