Teachers in 3 Pa. school districts go on strike - SFGate

Teachers in 3 Pa. school districts go on strike - SFGate:

Teachers in 3 Pa. school districts go on strike

By MICHAEL RUBINKAM and KEVIN BEGOS, Associated Press

Updated 10:52 am, Tuesday, September 3, 2013

PITTSBURGH (AP) — Teachers in three Pennsylvania school districts went on strike Tuesday, while classes began as scheduled for many more of the state's roughly 1.7 million public school students.

In northeastern Pennsylvania, members of theOld Forge Education Association in Lackawanna County began walking a picket line after negotiations broke down last week. No new talks were held over the weekend.

"When your hand is forced, this is where you end up," said Shawn Nee, the union's vice president, said Tuesday.

Nearby in Luzerne County, Wyoming Area School District teachers also announced plans to strike Tuesday after three years of fruitless bargaining. Union president Melissa Dolmansaid that if there is no progress, teachers will not return to the classroom until Sept. 30.

In western Pennsylvania, union representations and officials in the Shaler Area School District met for about six hours Monday with a state-appointed mediator but were unable to reach agreement. Melissa Ravas, president of the Shaler Area Education Association, said teachers were expecting a new offer Monday but didn't receive one.

Shaler schools Superintendent Wesley Shipley did not immediately respond to a request for comment
.

CCSS Funding and Implementation Guide - Year 2013 (CA Dept of Education)

CCSS Funding and Implementation Guide - Year 2013 (CA Dept of Education):

State Schools Chief Tom Torlakson Directs $622 Million in State Funding to Help School Districts Bring Common Core Standards to Life

SACRAMENTO—Schools opened for the year receiving $622 million in new state funding to support the shift to the Common Core academic standards, State Superintendent of Public Instruction Tom Torlakson announced today.

School districts can decide for themselves how to use their share of the funds to train teachers, buy new materials, and purchase technology to help schools adapt to the new Common Core State Standards (CCSS), which are designed to provide all students with the deeper learning, critical thinking, and other skills they need to prepare for college and a career.

"The start of a school year is always exciting, but this year is something special," Torlakson said. "We're challenging every part of our education system to remodel itself, and, step by step, give students the tools to achieve their dreams. And after years of cuts and turmoil, we're finally able to start making the investments necessary to turn those dreams into a reality."

The funding release represents the first half of $1.25 billion allocated for this purpose, which was included in the state budget by Governor Brown and the Legislature at Torlakson's urging. The second half of the funding will be released in October. The total amounts to $200 per student. A district-by-district list of funding is available on the California Department of Education Web site.

"As a teacher, I'm heartened that our Governor and our lawmakers—amid so many competing needs for resources—made our schools and the children they serve a priority," Torlakson said. "At the Department of Education, we worked hard to honor that commitment by getting these funds to school districts as quickly as possible. Welcome back to school, California—let's show the world what we can do."

California adopted the new standards—which outline what students will be expected to know and be able to do at each grade level—back in 2010.

Torlakson also announced today a new online tool to help school districts develop plans to implement Common Core. Developed by the California Department of Education, the CCSS Systems Implementation Guide includes suggestions and resources for local implementation organized by the seven guiding strategies in the CCSS Systems Implementation Plan for California.

"The Guide takes the guesswork out of implementing a local plan, so teachers and schools can concentrate on their first priority: their students," Torlakson said.

The guiding strategies address:

• High-quality professional development for educators;
• CCSS-aligned instructional resources designed to meet the needs of all students;
• CCSS-aligned assessment systems;
• Working with families and the broader community to integrate Common Core into programs and activities beyond the regular school day;
• Working with higher education and business communities;
• Sharing ideas and resources as CCSS implementation moves forward; and
• Sharing information with all stakeholders.

The Guide also links users to publications, videos, learning modules, and other resources to help districts implement the CCSS and will be updated regularly as new resources become available. For more information on this and other Common Core resources available from the California Department of Education, please visit Common Core State Standards.

# # # #

Tom Torlakson — State Superintendent of Public Instruction
Communications Division, Room 5206, 916-319-0818, Fax 916-319-0100

Charter Schools For Scandals:

Charter Schools For Scandals

There are undoubtedly wonderful charter schools in existence, and Americans generally have a favorable opinion of charters, but hardly a week goes by without news of a scandal or a study tarnishing their image.

With schools reopening everywhere across the country, the past week was no exception in exposing new problems with an idea that was once thought of as a collaborative endeavor between teacher unions and school administrators aimed at serving struggling students, but has now become a heavily funded, well-marketed movement designed to siphon money away from traditional public schools.

Leading off the charter scandal parade was Pennsylvania where an auditor general found that the state’s largest charter school pocketed $1.2 million “in improper lease-reimbursement payments.” The scheme the school was running has become all too familiar to anyone following charter school nefariousness.

First, you take a building, “previously owned by one of the charter school’s founders,” and use municipal bonds to sell it – in this case, for $50.7 million – at very favorable terms to a “related nonprofit organization ‘established for the sole purpose of supporting’ the charter school.” Then “the same individual who was once the charter’s landlord” creates a for-profit management company to run the school. And voila, what was once a public endeavor focused on educating children for the sole purpose of 

CHARTER SCHOOL SCANDALS:

National Association of Charter School Authorizers (NACSA) Group: 1 in 5 charter schools not doing well enough to stay open

A group that oversees more than half of the nation's 5,600 charter schools said
 as many as one in five U.S. charter schools should be shut down because of 
poor academic performance. 
http://seattletimes.com/html/nationworld/2019784379_charterschools29.html

CHARTER SCHOOL SCANDALS WEBSITE

CHARTER SCHOOL SCANDALS

A compilation of news articles about charter schools which have been charged with, or are highly suspected of, tampering with admissions, grades, attendance and testing; misuse of funds and embezzlement; engaging in nepotism and conflicts of interest; engaging in complicated and shady real estate deals; and/or have been engaging in other questionable, unethical, borderline-legal, or illegal activities. This is also a record of charter school instability and other unsavory tidbits.

Search for YOUR OWN SPECIAL CHARTER SCHOOL SCANDAL

  GO TO 

CHARTER SCHOOL SCANDALS Website

If you don't find yours today

Keep checking

CHARTER SCHOOL SCANDALS

Be sure to check out two other Great blogs:

-THE BROAD REPORT (as in Eli) 

-THE PERIMETER PRIMATE

Throughout September: Resilience — Whole Child Education

Throughout September: Resilience — Whole Child Education:

THE WHOLE CHILD BLOG

Throughout September: Resilience

September 3, 2013 by Klea Scharberg

Resilience—the ability of "each of us to bounce back stronger, wiser, and more personally powerful" (Nan Henderson); "not only survive, but also learn to thrive" (Bonnie Benard); or even to "bungee jump through the pitfalls of life" (Andrew Fuller)—is more than a trait: it's a process that can and should be taught, learned, and required. Being resilient helps youth navigate the world around them and schools and classrooms are becoming more attuned to providing the cognitive, emotional, and developmental supports needed for it to prosper and grow in each of us.

"If children are given the chance to believe they're worth something—if they truly believe that—they will insist upon it" (Maya Angelou). With that in mind, what benefits do schools, classrooms, and students gain through increased attention to resilience teaching and development? Join us throughout September as we look at how resilience is best developed and whether it should be taught as a curriculum, integrated across all content areas, or organically developed by each student.

The Whole Child Podcast

Download the Whole Child Podcast Thursday, September 5, for a discussion on resilience and what it looks like in the classroom and how it can be developed across schools. You'll hear from

• Sara Truebridge, an education consultant on resilience who has collaborated on the 2009 documentary film Race to Nowhere and is the author of the forthcoming book, Resilience: It Begins with Beliefs.
• Andrew Fuller, a clinical psychologist and author who has worked with many schools and communities around Australia, specializing in the well-being of young people and their families. He is a Fellow of the Department of Psychiatry and the Department of Learning and Educational Development at the University of Melbourne.

The Whole Child Blog

Check out the Whole Child Blog for contributions from experts and practitioners in the field; whole child partners; and ASCD staff, who will share free resources, provide examples, and answer your questions. Be sure to leave your questions, ideas, and stories in the comments.

Social Networking

Connect (if you haven't already) with the Whole Child Initiative on Facebook and Twitter and be part of changing the conversation about the importance of a whole child approach to education with more than 20,000 people from around the globe.

Send in the SEALs | EduShyster

Send in the SEALs | EduShyster:

Send in the SEALs

 Can a new generation of young, Navy SEAL-like teachers finally club the achievement gap out of existence?

Hedge funder Whitney Tilson argues that a new generation of young Navy SEAL-like teachers can club the achievement gap out of existence.

Can a new generation of young, Navy SEAL-like teachers finally club the achievement gap out of existence? That is today’s fiercely urgent question, reader, and believe it or not, I do not ask it in jest. The call to send in the SEALs comes from hedge fund manager and edu-visionary extraordinaire Whitney Tilson. When Tilson read this recent New York Times story about high turnover among young charter school teachers, he went ballistic, to use a military metaphor. After all, turnover among Navy SEALs is also very high, notes Tilson, and no one complains about that.

Bigger rigor
So how exactly is the young super teacher in an urban No Excuses charter school like a Navy SEAL? Better yet, how are such teachers NOT like SEALs? Both sign onto an all-

The Mis-Education Of My Son Coalition for Public Education/Coalición por la Educación Pública

Coalition for Public Education/Coalición por la Educación Pública:

The Mis-Education Of My Son

Bukola Shonuga 

May 29,2013

Editor's Note  milton@blackstarnews.com: The following Op-Ed article was written by a concerned parent who voiced grievances to the Chief Operating Officer Katie Duffy at Democracy Prep Charter school and some teachers about what she believes is psychological abuse of her son there. This newspaper sent questions to Ms. Duffy to give the school an opportunity to respond. She declined to comment, writing: "Thank you so much for your email. Per our network policy, we do not comment on specific scholars or incidents related to specific scholars. Thank you for understanding."

Mother Says Son Trailed And Videotaped In Charter School To Crush His Spirit
Here is the parent, Ms. Bukola Shonuga's article:

It's time to examine the police state structure of some of the charter schools model in the minority community in New York.

While I was gathering the facts to write this article, the stalemate situation at my son's school, Democracy Prep middle school in Harlem is unraveling faster than I can keep pace. On May 22nd, my son told me that at lunch time, his teachers were directed to video tape him in every classroom. One of the teachers according to him followed him with a camera into the lunch room when he went to pick up his lunch, followed him up the stairs into the hallway and continued videotaping him while he was eating lunch. I was so outraged. I couldn't believe the school would actually break the law by videotaping a scholar without parental consent.

So I emailed the principal and copied all the teachers including the superintendent of the Charter Schools in 

Why teachers are concerned about school reform in New York (Commentary) | syracuse.com

Why teachers are concerned about school reform in New York (Commentary) | syracuse.com:

Why teachers are concerned about school reform in New York (Commentary)

 Christopher Leahey, of Cicero, teaches in the North Syracuse Central School District.

By Christopher Leahey

In the past several months, school personnel, superintendents, and parents have contributed to a lively debate about Federal Race to the Top initiatives and New York state's implementation of the Common Core Curriculum. While much of the debate has centered on test scores and raising student achievement, the larger questions about the way New York is reforming schools have not been addressed.

As a teacher interested in strengthening public schools, my first concern lies with the arbitrary way in which NYSED has determined which students are and which students are not meeting the standards. In 2009, NYSED lowered the cut scores (the score that separates passing and failing) from 59 percent to 44 percent for standardized exams in ELA and Math for grades 3 to 8. This lowering of the cut scores resulted in more students passing the test and, consequently, it created the illusion of a rise in student achievement. One year later, in 2010, NYSED decided to raise the cut scores, pushing more students below the passing rate, resulting in plummeting test scores across the state. This year, NYSED has once again arbitrarily raised the cut scores, pushing close to 69 percent of New York's students below the cut score in grades 3-8 English and math. While I personally agree that we should all demand students to perform at a high level, and strive to meet the most rigorous standards, it is difficult to understand how 

Tell ALEC to stop cashing in on kids « Education Votes

Tell ALEC to stop cashing in on kids « Education Votes:

Tell ALEC to stop cashing in on kids

Posted August 6, 2013

   

 

13 comments

TAGS: ALEC, petition

photo above courtesy of Fibonnaci Blue

At the American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC) big corporations write and sponsor free-market policies alongside state legislators. These bills follow ALEC’s simple formula: Defund. Deregulate. Privatize. Profit.

This week ALEC and its member corporations and legislators meet in Chicago to celebrate ALEC’s  40th anniversary and the vote on their agenda for the upcoming year.

Recently, over 40 public facing corporations have pulled their support from ALEC due to their harmful policies including Stand Your Ground laws and restricting Voting Rights.

The track records for ALEC’s education policies are also shameful. They are not research proven reforms and they have a real negative impact on students.

Privatization is top on their list and it comes in many forms like vouchers and education tax credit, unregulated corporate cyber schools and corporate-backed “parent triggers”.

ALEC members are also playing the long game to clear the way for more privatization with less oversight  by focusing on how to limit the power of educators to collectively bargain and have a voice in working and learning conditions.

Parents and Communities get it. Real conversations about education reform have to address inequities and allow educators to be a voice for their students and the profession. Fill out the form below to pledge to stand up for students and against ALEC and corporate-backed education reform.

FCMAT » Cali Education Headlines Tuesday, September 3, 2013

FCMAT » Fiscal Crisis & Management Assistance Team:

I don't need no stinkin' Keyboard

In school iPad project, L.A. might need to tap funding for keyboards

Education Headlines

Tuesday, September 3, 2013

Family plans lawsuit against Bassett Unified over teacher's suicide

The stepfather of a Bassett High School art teacher who committed suicide in July has announced plans to file a wrongful death suit against the district after claiming his stepdaughter's death resulted from bullying by administrators.

EdSource: Q&A - Flexibility, accountability key to districts’ NCLB waiver

The Hechinger Report talked to CORE Executive Director Rick Miller about what the No Child Left Behind waiver will mean for the nearly 1.2 million students in CORE districts, including Fresno Unified, Long Beach Unified, Los Angeles Unified, Oakland Unified, Sacramento City Unified, San Francisco Unified, Sanger Unified, and Santa Ana Unified.

Parents key partners at Hope Academy Charter School in Palm Desert

As most Coachella Valley students return to class on Tuesday, a new Palm Desert charter school will open its doors for the first time. Hope Academy Charter School has operated its main campus in Yucca Valley for three years, but it will now open new campuses in Beaumont, Bloomington and Palm Desert. The latter campus is at the former site of the St. Margaret’s Episcopal School along Highway 74.

Long Beach's newest high school to open on Sept. 4

McBride is Long Beach's first new public high school since 1995, and the ninth-graders that will march through its doors are the first class to do so.

Fewer Lodi Unified School District employees make more than $100,000

In a three-year span, the number of Lodi Unified School District employees earning a salary of $100,000 or more has been reduced by about a third. Mike McKilligan, Assistant Superintendent of Personnel, said that the drop is mainly a result of compensation reductions that were put in place in 2010.

New school year brings money demands

California guarantees a free public education, but that only goes so far. So parents across the region are being asked for money by a myriad of organizations trying to hold things together as the state emerges from years of dire school funding news.

System called Alice to fight school shooters

If a gunman shows up at a school, teachers know what to do: lock their classroom doors, pull down the shades, turn out the lights and then hunker down with students to wait for the police.

Poll finds Californians remain unhappy about public schools

If California public schools were graded the way students are, the result would be a middling “C” grade, according to a new poll.

Nellie Meyer appointed new Mt. Diablo school superintendent

The Mt. Diablo school board appeared lighthearted and jubilant Wednesday, joining newly appointed Superintendent Nellie Meyer in a ceremonial contract-signing.

Moraga: Police report shows district stonewalled detective investigating molestation allegations

As allegations swirled that a popular science teacher had sexually abused students in the Moraga school district nearly two decades ago, a town police detective sought to investigate the complaints but said school officials thwarted her efforts, this newspaper has learned.

School support staff must back charter under bill

Legislation that cleared the state Assembly on Friday could make it harder to create charter schools in California by requiring supporters to seek consent from at least some lower-level unionized school employees.

State review finds problems in Folsom Cordova special ed program

The Folsom Cordova Unified School District repeatedly violated rules for evaluating special needs students and documenting their status last school year, a California Department of Education analysis has found.

In school iPad project, L.A. might need to tap funding for keyboards

Los Angeles school officials are acknowledging a new looming cost in a $1-billion effort to provide iPads to every student: keyboards.

Friday, August 30, 2013

Camarillo annexes 28-acre site for new high school

The Camarillo City Council on Wednesday unanimously approved the annexation and zoning change for a 28-acre site for a new high school and performing arts center.

Grants help Stockton USD boost API results

Forty-two months, two superintendents and three grant proposals later, Stockton Unified finally has learned whether seven struggling K-8 campuses would benefit if they received federal dollars aimed at improving schools identified by the state as "persistently low-performing."

Stockton USD police chief decision may come today

Board members have given Superintendent Steve Lowder the authority to choose between two undisclosed candidates to serve as the interim replacement for retiring Stockton Unified Police Chief Jim West.