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Wednesday, July 31, 2013

7-31-13 Ed Notes Online

Ed Notes Online:







E4E Gets Another $3 million from Gates Foundation
They just got $3M more from Gateshttp://www.gatesfoundation.org/How-We-Work/Quick-Links/Grants-Database/Grants/2013/07/OPP1089892Great news for NYC teachers. Now you can invite E4E to buy your school lunch and order caviar.Date: July 2013Purpose: to support teachers to be leaders in policy development and implementation.Amount: $3,000,695Term: 36Topic: College-ReadyRegions Served: GLOBAL|NORTH AME
by ed notes online / 1h mark as read  //  save
Principal From Hell Jennifer Rogers: Parents Call for Her Ouster at Press Conf Aug. 1, 11AM
 Press Conference Aug 1st11 amPS 29125-10  23rd AveCollege PointPrincipal : Jennifer Rogers
by ed notes online / 1h 



Unflappable Weiner Press Spokesperson Barbara Morgan Flaps
Back in the summer of 2009 I first met Barbara Morgan at a rally at PS 123 in Harlem protesting the Eva invasion. She introduced herself claiming she was an ed notes reader. She was working at the NYCDOE for Joel Klein chief flack David Cantor. At one point I offered her (and David) jobs representing Ed Notes so they could get the sleaze of repping for Klein off (or most of it.)After repping Klein
by ed notes online / 3min


7-30-13 Ed Notes Online
Ed Notes Online: The Little Theater That Could: Rockaway Cafe: The Comeback - Final perfomances this weekendby ed notes online / 7min mark as read  //  saveAndy Borowitz: Weiner Names New Campaign ManagerNEW YORK (The Borowitz Report)—One day after his campaign manager quit, the mayoral candidate Anthony D. Weiner named his penis to the post, telling reporters, “He was already making most of the m
by mike simpson / 23h 
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Greetings from Choice-o-Rado | EduShyster

Greetings from Choice-o-Rado | EduShyster:

Greetings from Choice-o-Rado


The ‘C’ is for ‘Choice’
Is there such a thing as too much choice? Reader: this is what is known as a rhetorical question—and the rhetorical answer is “no.”But don’t allow me to make up your rhetorical mind for you. I insist that you accompany me on an extra-special field trip, to the choiciest burg in our 50 states: Douglas County, Choice-o-Rado. Regular readers will recall DougCo from ourinaugural visit and a recent return. What brings us back again? In a word: choice. In a matter of weeks the lucky children of DougCo, Choice-o-Rado will resume traversing the global achievement gap and hurtling towards world class outcomes, drawing ever closer to the snowy caps of Prosperity Peak. Now, thanks to the visionaries at the helm of the Douglas County Schools, these young prosperity prospectors have a little extra ballast in their backpacks. Reader: it’s called choice, and no one understands it better than DougCo’s youngest choice makers.
Beginning this fall, DougCo’s students and their parents will have a veritable choice-u-copia of choices from which to choose. In fact, the school district’s new niche model, in 


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What parents want in a renewed NCLB Parents United for Responsible Education

Parents United for Responsible Education » Blog Archive » What parents want in a renewed NCLB:

What parents want in a renewed NCLB

Signing upToday’s Tribune editorial proposed that a renewed No Child Left Behind law be based on Education Secretary Arne Duncan’s “waiver” program, by which they mean more testing and “accountability.”
I wrote this response (though the Tribune has not printed one of my letters in quite a while…):

The Tribune’s editorial proposal that a renewed No Child Left Behind law be based on Education Secretary Arne Duncan’s “waiver” program is not supported by research, best practices, or most U.S. parents.
For example, test-score based teacher evaluation is strongly discouraged by experts at the National Academy of Sciences and elsewhere as unreliable and potentially damaging.
The Tribune’s overall idea of “accountability” is rejected by most Americans. For example, 54 percent polled by Gallup in 2010 agreed that the best thing to do about low-performing schools is to keep the school open with the same staff and give it more support. Only 17 percent wanted to close the school and reopen it with a new principal, and just 13 percent wanted to replace it with a charter school.
These findings are echoed in a July 2013 poll of public school parents by the American
- See more at: http://pureparents.org/?p=20781#sthash.IZ1o4lyE.dpuf
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Morning Read: Walton Funding 700 New Teachers for LA - LA School Report

Morning Read: Walton Funding 700 New Teachers for LA - LA School Report:



Morning Read: Walton Funding 700 New Teachers for LA - LA School Report
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Foundation’s Grant Will Bring 700 New Teachers to LA
The Arkansas-based Walton Family Foundation announced Wednesday that it was donating $20 million to a nonprofit that recruits talented college graduates to teach in public schools for two years. The largest number of instructors, more than 700, is slated for Los Angeles. LA Times
The U.S. Department of Education on Tuesday invited districts nationwide to begin applying for the latest high-profile federal school-reform grants. Individual school districts will be able to seek about $120 million in “Race to the Top” federal funds. The four-year awards will range from $4 million to $30 million, depending on the population of students served. The Department of Education is expecting to make 15 to 25 awards. LA Times 
Coachella Valley at Forefront of iPad Wave in SoCal Schools
The Los Angeles Unified School District may have grabbed national headlines last month when it committed to a pilot program of putting iPads in the hands of every teacher and student at select schools, but the relatively tiny Coachella Valley Unified School District in Riverside county is a year ahead. KPCC 
An overlooked but still key provision of Gov. Jerry Brown’s new funding formula for schools requires districts to maintain average class sizes at no more than 24 students – or risk losing some of their funding. In a new report released Monday by the nonpartisan Legislative Analyst’s Office, researchers pointed out that the newly enacted Local Control Funding Formula provides a grade span differential generally intended to recognize the higher cost of services to older students. SI&A Cabinet Report  
New York Arts Educator Hired as Principal of Downtown School 
Kim Bruno, the longtime leader of a high-profile arts high school in New York, has agreed to become the new principal of the Ramon C. Cortines School for Visual and Performing Arts in Downtown. As the former principal of the lauded LaGuardia High School of Music, Art and Performing Arts in New York City, Bruno represents the kind of high-profile arts administrator that local officials have sought but failed to lure to the school since it opened in 2009. LA Downtown News 
LAUSD Adding Kid-Friendly Options to Cafeteria Fare
Los Angeles Unified plans to introduce more kid-friendly options, such as taco salad and chicken-and-waffles, to its healthful lunch menu this fall, while eliminating mess-making cereal from the Breakfast in the Classroom program, district officials say. LA Daily News
Local Control Funding Formula: Is There a New Rulebook?
Commentary: Now that the state’s new system of funding schools has been signed into law, educators and community groups are trying to get their bearings. At an event recently a colleague from a county office of education said that she was being inundated by calls from the field “wanting to know what the new rulebook is” for transitioning to the new system and ensuring successful implementation. EdSource
U.S. Higher-Education System Perpetuates White Privilege, Report Says
Colleges and universities have succeeded in attracting more underrepresented-minority students, but that increased access for black and Hispanic students has been accompanied by increasing campus polarization on the basis of race and ethnicity, says a report released on Wednesday by Georgetown University’s Center on Education and the Workforce. The Chronicle of Higher Education

To Fill Budget Gap, Chicago to Cut Classroom Spending, Raise Taxes
The news keeps getting worse both for Chicago Public School students and city residents. According to Lauren Fitzpatrick and Mitch Dudek of the Chicago Sun-Times, the latest solution announced by administrators for the district’s persistent financial woes is to raise property tax rates to their maximum level and continue with big cuts to spending in the classroom. Education News
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Lies, Damn Lies, Statistics and RSD AP | Crazy Crawfish's Blog

Lies, Damn Lies, Statistics and RSD AP | Crazy Crawfish's Blog:

Lies, Damn Lies, Statistics and RSD AP

Posted on July 31, 2013
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Sometimes it’s not just what you say, but what you don’t say that tells the true story as one of my contributors from St Tammany recently pointed out. Recently John White and our local media have been proudly crowing from every tower and tree about how well our students have done on AP (Advanced Placement) tests. White downplays the fact that school districts were incentivized to send as many of their students for AP tests as possible to prevent state takeovers. . .
As an incentive to offer AP coursework, high schools now receive points for every student who takes an AP exam, with the most points for students who score 3, 4 or 5. The results are counted in School Performance Scores, which determines whether charters stay open and whether conventional schools are eligible for a state takeover.
. . .or mentioning that a greater percentage of them failed, John White has declared victory of the slice of data he has chosen to present to the public.
That said, the percentage of students passing the exam dropped from 44 percent to 
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Humility: A Lesson Most Needed and Least Often Acknowledged | the becoming radical

Humility: A Lesson Most Needed and Least Often Acknowledged | the becoming radical:

Humility: A Lesson Most Needed and Least Often Acknowledged

Posted on July 31, 2013 by 

I have been a cyclist for almost 30 years now—longer than many of my cycling friends have been alive.
That hobby grew from a life-long quest to be the sort of athlete (and man) my father would respect. My father was a four-sport letterman in high school, captain of the first state championship football team in my home town. He was a small young man, but fierce and the sort of hard worker that made him a coach’s dream. By the time my father graduated high school in the 1950s, he had lost so many of his teeth that his dentist pulled the rest, and my father has had a full set of false teeth since his late teens.
I was never able to be more than a bench warmer on my school basketball teams, a marginally fair golfer, and briefly a triple jumper my senior year of high school. Mostly, though, I joke that I am a “try” athlete—and it is something I cannot let go, despite knowing without qualification that my father loves and respects me in the exact ways I have always wanted. Any perceptions of failure that exist between the two of us are entirely my insecurities.
My cycling life has had three stages—a beginning decade of learning to ride and race at a high level, a middle decade that was interrupted by my doctoral program 
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State readies big down payment on common core SI&A Cabinet Report – News & Resources

SI&A Cabinet Report – News & Resources:

State readies big down payment on common core
By Tom Chorneau
Wednesday, July 31, 2013


State fiscal officers are preparing to distribute $625 million to schools later this month to help bring the new national common standards into California classrooms.
The money comes on the heels of $2.1 billion in new state aid released last week targeting disadvantaged students – part of a bigger $26.7 billion, first-of-the-fiscal-year payment to K-12 districts.
The Common Core State Standards in math and English language arts were adopted in California three years ago, but it is only this year that the Legislature has been able to set aside some of the money needed to pay for transition costs, including new instructional materials, teacher training and updated technology.
The Legislature and Gov. Jerry Brown allocated $1.25 billion for the transition process – money that will be shared by all school districts, county offices of education as well as charter schools.
Half of the money will go out in August; the second installment is scheduled to be released in October.
The authorizing legislation, AB 86, considers $1 billion of that money to be part of the 2012-13 fiscal year and the remaining $250 million earmarked as part of 2013-14.
Regardless of that accounting, the legislation also stipulates that local educational agencies can encumber the funds at any time during 2013-14 or 2014-15, according to new guidance from the California Department of Education.
While the state’s education leaders are anxious to get schools engaged in the new standards, there remains some 
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UPDATE: Seattle Schools Community Forum: Common Core Roundup

Seattle Schools Community Forum: Common Core Roundup:



Roosevelt Teacher Named Finalist for National Language Teacher of the Year
Taeko Tashibu of Roosevelt High School in Seattle, who is a Japanese language teacher.  Congrats to Ms. Tashibu!  From Ed Week:According to the ACTFL, the Language Teacher of the Year takes on the role of spokesperson for the language-teaching profession, promoting the importance of teaching foreign languages and cultures. The current LTY is Noah Geisel, a Spanish teacher at East High School in De
by Melissa Westbrook / 3h mark as read  //  save
Seattle Council PTSA News
Want a job with the SCPTA interfacing with SPS staff?  Here you go.  (I would actually be swell at this job but they would never hire me.)They need folks to represent most areas of the city.Do you have an interest in issues that go beyond your local school and affect children throughout the district? If so, we need you! Transportation, capacity, family engagement and district policies are just a f
by Melissa Westbrook / 3h 


Quarterly Program Placement report due today
Today is July 31st, the due date for the quarterly program placement report.I was recently reminded of an email I sent to the Board at the end of January in which I asked about the status of the program placement process and the equitable access framework - both of which were overdue then. I was reminded of that email because I just saw it among the documents sent to Linda Shaw of the Seattle Time
by Charlie Mas / 12min 

Common Core Roundup


The fight is still on in many states over Common Core.  New wrinkles have emerged like all kinds of products "aligned" to Common Core and being pushed to states.

First (and thanks to Dan Dempsy) is a YouTube video from Ben Swann on the issues around Common Core.   This is the best, most distilled down information on CC I have ever heard.  Recommended.

Think CC isn't linked to DOE money?  I'll let Diane Ravitch tell you what happened to Georgia:

A few days ago, Georgia announced that it was dropping out of PARCC, theCommon Core testing consortium funded by the U.S. Department of Education. State officials said the state could not afford the technology or the cost.

The U.S. Department of Education was swift to respond. It wrote Georgia to warn that it is withholding $10 million from the state’s Race to the Top funding. Maybe the timing was a coincidence. Maybe not. 

The state says it needs more time to fix its educator evaluation system before it can be implemented, but the Feds insist that Georgia must start evaluating teachers and principals based on test scores without further delay.

New York State is the first state to have a real bill against the use of Common 
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Funder puts hold on $3 million donation to HISD | K-12 Zone | a Chron.com blog

Funder puts hold on $3 million donation to HISD | K-12 Zone | a Chron.com blog:

Funder puts hold on $3 million donation to HISD

Wednesday, July 31, 2013
The Houston Endowment has put its remaining $3 million contribution to HISD’s Apollo school reform effort on hold pending more detailed research on the program’s effectiveness.
Below is the letter that the president of the Houston Endowment, Ann Stern, wrote to HISD Superintendent Terry Grier and school board president Anna Eastman this month seeking a meeting with them and Harvard University researcher Roland Fryer.
Stern, in an interview Tuesday, toned down her language, saying she hoped the foundation would be able to make the payment. She also said was fine with a final report from Fryer, who has advised Grier on Apollo, despite the calls from some school board members for a separate third-party study.
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FCMAT » Cali Education Headlines Wednesday, July 31, 2013

FCMAT » Fiscal Crisis & Management Assistance Team:

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Education Headlines

Wednesday, July 31, 2013

Meetings scheduled to discuss Local Control Funding Formula

The California State Board of Education and the California Department of Education have announced the dates and locations of stakeholder meetings for those interested in joining discussions of how the Local Control Funding Formula will be implemented.

Baron: Special trustee Bob Agrella talks about saving City College of San Francisco

Bob Agrella, the special trustee entrusted with saving City College of San Francisco, wants to make one thing clear: City College is fully accredited and open for business, and his intention is to keep it that way.

Tran: Local Control Funding Formula: Is there a new rulebook?

The old rulebook that governed how schools spent their money, which was both stifling and (let’s be honest) comforting at times, has been replaced by the Local Control Funding Formula (LCFF), which now offers an opportunity for communities to take the reins to implement locally tailored approaches, while being held accountable for student outcomes

Desert Sands Unified School District offers teachers $1,100 stipends

The Desert Sands Unified School District has offered a one-time stipend of $1,100 to every teacher, ending months of bitter negotiations with the teachers union. In total, the stipends are estimated to cost about $1.5 million, according to district documents. The teachers union on Tuesday accepted the proposal, which the school board will vote on Wednesday night.

Fresno, Clovis schools make progress on construction projects

The steel beams forming the outer perimeter of the new Rutherford B. Gaston Middle School in southwest Fresno will soon be covered by cement plaster and metal tiles.Construction crews are sweating through summer to complete the new school -- named after Fresno Unified School District's first African-American principal -- by next August, just in time for the 2014-15 school year.

F.V. district seeks consultant to raise profile

Fountain Valley School District trustees are looking to hire a public relations consultant or firm to help the district raise more money.

Bible club, school district settle lawsuit over fees

In a move to settle a lawsuit, the Buena Park School District will no longer charge religious nonprofit groups – so long as they are not worshipping – to use its facilities after school hours.

New grant to expand school yoga program

The group funding a yoga program that has brought national attention to the Encinitas Union School District now wants to more than double its original contribution to expand such classes for the coming school year.

Modesto City Schools' support staff set to vote on new contract next week

Modesto City Schools' 1,300 support staff will vote Aug. 8 on a new three-year contract. The district's deal with the California School Employees Association Modesto Chapter would restore salaries to pre-recession highs and eliminates furlough days except for preschool staff, according to materials prepared by the union.

Brentwood district opens newest school as classes resume

Brentwood Union School District had built the $21.5 million school expecting that it would open in July 2011, but cuts to the state budget coupled with flat enrollment and the corresponding lack of growth in attendance-based revenue both obviated the need for a new school and made the additional operational costs unfeasible.

Rebooted summer programs in Oakland make learning fun to prevent 'summer slide'

While summer classes targeted at struggling students are nearing extinction on many school campuses, school districts such as Oakland Unified are rebooting the traditional summer education model by blending academics with recreational activities intended to prevent students from falling even further behind.

Adelanto school at center of parent trigger controversy opens

Parents used the state law to transform a public elementary school into a charter campus, Desert Trails Preparatory Academy. By June, the director says, students should be a year ahead of their peers.

Trayvon Martin case will drive campus conversations

Somewhere in the chaos of the Trayvon Martin case is a teachable moment for San Diego students. That's the belief of San Diego Unified trustees who adopted a plan Tuesday to foster a forum where middle and high school students can discuss the case that stirred a national debate on racism, guns and vigilantism.

Senior show and tell no longer graduation requirement

High school seniors in San Diego can cross those nerve-wracking end-of-year presentations off their to-do list.

La Jolla High principal abruptly reassigned

The head of San Diego's academic powerhouse - La Jolla High School - was unexpectedly reassigned as a campus construction liaison by Superintendent Cindy Marten late Tuesday.

'More boots on the ground' with Stockton USD proposal

Superintendent Steve Lowder is proposing changes to Stockton Unified's organizational structure that he says would put "more boots on the ground" and improve service to students, parents and teachers at the school district's 50-plus campuses.
Tuesday, July 30, 2013

Adult ed returning to Sonora High

Sonora Union High School District will restart its adult education program after a one-year hiatus that narrowed options for older students seeking high school diplomas.

New Bassett Unified superintendent starts job with 48 years of post-retirement health care

Superintendent Jose Reynoso's contract, approved in a 3-2 vote July 18, includes a stipulation that upon retirement the district will provide two years of health benefits to both Reynoso and his spouse for every year the 54-year-old served as an administrator. Reynoso had 24 years of qualified time before accepting the position.

Irvine schools facing growth pains

When it comes to elementary school student populations, how big is too big? Stonegate Elementary will put this question to the test the next school year when its student body is projected to grow to nearly 1,200 students – up from about 975 students a year ago.
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