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Tuesday, April 18, 2017
Torlakson Announces 2017 CA Gold Ribbon Schools - Year 2017 (CA Dept of Education)
Torlakson Announces 2017 CA Gold Ribbon Schools - Year 2017 (CA Dept of Education):
State Schools Chief Tom Torlakson Announces 2017 California Gold Ribbon Schools
SACRAMENTO—State Superintendent of Public Instruction Tom Torlakson today announced that 275 middle schools and high schools are being honored under the Gold Ribbon Schools Awards Program.
The list of recognized schools is attached at the end of this press release.
“These terrific schools are leading the way in embracing our new rigorous academic standards and showing others how to help students succeed on their way to 21st century careers and college,” Torlakson said. “I look forward to travelling the state to honor these schools and to help share the programs, methods, and techniques that are working.”
The California Gold Ribbon Schools Award was created to honor schools in place of the California Distinguished Schools Program, which is on hiatus while California creates new assessment, accountability, and continuous improvement systems. 477 middle schools and high schools applied this year.
Schools applied for the award based on a model program or practice their school has adopted that includes standards-based activities, projects, strategies, and practices that can be replicated by other local educational agencies. The award acknowledged elementary schools last year.
The Gold Ribbon Awards recognize California schools that have made gains in implementing the academic content and performance standards adopted by the State Board of Education. These include the California Standards for English Language Arts and Mathematics, California English Language Development Standards, and Next Generation Science Standards.
These schools represent examples of not just excellent teaching, learning, and collaborating, but also highly successful school climate efforts, ranging from real time conflict resolution to positive behavior intervention. Some examples of this year’s honorees are:
- Bear River High School, Nevada Joint Union High School District: The Bruin Time program at Bear River High School was developed to improve the performance of struggling students. Bruin Time is a 41-minute period built into the school day four days a week for the purpose of providing tutoring and other interventions for struggling students.
- Chico High School, Chico Unified School District: Chico High School has initiated and developed six College and Career Technical Education Pathways: Agriculture Mechanics/Manufacturing; Architecture/Engineering; Health; Information, Communication, Technology; Design, Arts, Media, and Agri-science. These programs are meant to motivate students by providing them with real-life, problem-based learning that will help keep them engaged in their studies and prepare them for their next chapter, whether it's a job, trade school, community college, or a four-year university.
- Downtown Magnets High School, Los Angeles Unified School District: Downtown Magnets High School has implemented an initiative called the Comprehensive Mathematics Achievement Gap plan, which aims to target the mathematics achievement gap that has historically existed between African-American and Latino students and their Caucasian and Asian counterparts. The plan provides assistance and tutoring within and outside of the school day and draws upon the support of teachers, administrators, parents, and community members.
- Middle College High School, West Contra Costa Unified School District: Middle College High School collaborated with Contra Costa College to create an Early College High School program, which helps prepare them for college by increasing their exposure to college. It has helped increase the number of students who graduate from high school and go on to pursue post-secondary education.
- Warm Springs Middle School, Murrieta Valley Unified School District: The AVID (Advancement Via Individual Determination) program was implemented at Warm Springs Middle School to help encourage students whose parents did not attend college to enroll in college. AVID enhances instruction, school-wide systems, culture and climate, and leadership to focus on preparing students for college and career readiness.
Additionally, Gold Ribbon awardees that are also Title I schools were recognized as Academic Achieving Schools and are identified as such on the list. This additional recognition is given only to schools receiving federal Title I funds that assist in meeting the educational needs of students living at or below the poverty line.
The 2017 Gold Ribbon Schools as well as the 2017 Exemplary Program recipients, Title I Academic Achieving Award Schools, 2017 Green Ribbon Schools, 2017 Civic Learning Award Schools, and the National Blue Ribbon Schools from 2016, will be honored in May during regional ceremonies held in Costa Mesa, Santa Clara, Los Angeles, Visalia, and Sacramento.
The Gold Ribbon Schools being recognized for Exemplary Programs in Arts Education and Physical Education and Nutrition will be announced soon.
Please visit the California Gold Ribbon Schools Program on the California Department of Education’s (CDE’s) Web site.
The CDE California School Recognition Program is presented by San Mateo-based California Casualty.
Click Here to see the complete list of 2017 California Gold Ribbon Schools
Schools Matter: Karl Dean Sits on Left Aisle of Corporate Party Jet
Schools Matter: Karl Dean Sits on Left Aisle of Corporate Party Jet:
Karl Dean Sits on Left Aisle of Corporate Party Jet
Former Nashville mayor, Karl Dean, is running to be TN's next governor. He is running as a Democrat, but he is no less a Wall Street corporatist than Michael Bloomberg, Rahm Emanuel, or the Clintons. As mayor, Dean's most visible accomplishments, aside from killing a mass transit effort that was opposed by the auto lobby and Gov. "Pilot Oil" Bill Haslam, were 1) providing incentives and other tax breaks for big business to locate or expand in Nashville and, 2) leading a muscular advocacy for school privatization via corporate charter school expansion.
Take Hospital Corporation of America, for instance. Even though HCA was already headquartered in Nashville, Dean was able to wrangle a deal that gives HCA a $3 million annual tax abatement for 20 years, plus moving expenses to relocate into a new headquarters in West Nashville. The year that Dean provided his corporate welfare deal to HCA, the company brought in over $30 billion and had a net profit of $2.45 billion.
And then there is the Omni Hotel deal, which provided Omni $103 million in tax breaks over 20 years, plus another $25 million to acquire the building site near downtown. And, of course, there are other sweet deals of less impressive proportions.
Dean's generosity with public funds for corporate welfare projects was just as striking when it came the white elites' final solution for schooling the children of the disenfranchised. In 2011, as public school buildings were crumbling and teachers were running around with garbage cans to catch the rain from leaky roofs, Dean ponied up 10 percent of Nashville's four-year school building budget, $10 million, for one KIPP, Inc. school in Nashville.
When Dean left his mayoral post, he joined the board of a national charter school privatization venture bent on spreading the Schools Matter: Karl Dean Sits on Left Aisle of Corporate Party Jet:
Karl Dean Sits on Left Aisle of Corporate Party Jet
Take Hospital Corporation of America, for instance. Even though HCA was already headquartered in Nashville, Dean was able to wrangle a deal that gives HCA a $3 million annual tax abatement for 20 years, plus moving expenses to relocate into a new headquarters in West Nashville. The year that Dean provided his corporate welfare deal to HCA, the company brought in over $30 billion and had a net profit of $2.45 billion.
And then there is the Omni Hotel deal, which provided Omni $103 million in tax breaks over 20 years, plus another $25 million to acquire the building site near downtown. And, of course, there are other sweet deals of less impressive proportions.
Dean's generosity with public funds for corporate welfare projects was just as striking when it came the white elites' final solution for schooling the children of the disenfranchised. In 2011, as public school buildings were crumbling and teachers were running around with garbage cans to catch the rain from leaky roofs, Dean ponied up 10 percent of Nashville's four-year school building budget, $10 million, for one KIPP, Inc. school in Nashville.
When Dean left his mayoral post, he joined the board of a national charter school privatization venture bent on spreading the Schools Matter: Karl Dean Sits on Left Aisle of Corporate Party Jet:
Controversial Gulen Charter Schools Double in Size in New Jersey Under Pro-Privatization GOP Gov. Chris Christie - Network For Public Education
Controversial Gulen Charter Schools Double in Size in New Jersey Under Pro-Privatization GOP Gov. Chris Christie - Network For Public Education:
Controversial Gulen Charter Schools Double in Size in New Jersey Under Pro-Privatization GOP Gov. Chris Christie
On the heels of an explosive investigation of Gulen Charter Schools in New Jersey by The Record newspaper, comes a CBS-TV report claiming that teachers at Gulen charters were forced to turn over up to 40 percent of their salary to the Gulen movement, a controversial religious and social movement with roots in Turkey.
Controversial Gulen Charter Schools Double in Size in New Jersey Under Pro-Privatization GOP Gov. Chris Christie
$115 million price tag from taxpayer funds diverted from local school districts
On the heels of an explosive investigation of Gulen Charter Schools in New Jersey by The Record newspaper, comes a CBS-TV report claiming that teachers at Gulen charters were forced to turn over up to 40 percent of their salary to the Gulen movement, a controversial religious and social movement with roots in Turkey.Leaving aside the insanely complex political issues, I’d like to add to the phenomenal job The Record has done investigating New Jersey’s Gulen charters. Unbeknownst to most of us, New Jersey Governor Chris Christie, the “least popular governor in America,” has exponentially increased the number of Gulen charters in New Jersey. This will, without a doubt, dramatically increase the price tag as well, but by how much?
Let’s find out.
When Christie took office four Gulen affiliated schools existed. They were: Thomas Edison EnergySmart Charter School (TEECS) founded in 2002, Paterson Charter School for Science and Technology (2003), Central Jersey College Prep (2006), and Bergen Arts and Science (2007).
Gov. Christie opened three new Gulen charters and has approved a fourth to open in September, 2017. These are: Passaic Arts and Science Controversial Gulen Charter Schools Double in Size in New Jersey Under Pro-Privatization GOP Gov. Chris Christie - Network For Public Education:
Mike Klonsky's SmallTalk Blog: Whitenizing Chicago
Mike Klonsky's SmallTalk Blog: Whitenizing Chicago:
UNEMPLOYMENT AND DISINVESTMENT by the city and its corporations are destroying neighborhoods and pushing thousands of African-American families out of Chicago and other big cities. Some call it "reverse migration" but the net effect is the whitenizing or gentrification of the cities.
Whitenizing Chicago
UNEMPLOYMENT AND DISINVESTMENT by the city and its corporations are destroying neighborhoods and pushing thousands of African-American families out of Chicago and other big cities. Some call it "reverse migration" but the net effect is the whitenizing or gentrification of the cities.
Another driving force behind this push-out of black and poor from the city, is Mayor Rahm Emanuel's capital investment plan and his closing of schools, mental health facilities, and other city services. While investment-starved neighborhoods suffer, Rahm has pumped millions into ill-conceived projects like the new DePaul basketball arena. Rahm's policies have further isolated, destabilized and blighted south and west-side neighborhoods, creating conditions for more crime and violence. Whole neighborhoods are now marked by boarded-up homes, stores and schools as thousands of families lose homes to foreclosure.
 |
| DePaul's new $200M basketball arena. |
An article in Monday's Reader calls Chicago's South Shore neighborhood, "the eviction capital" of the county. Real estate owners and management companies like Pangea and Kass are doing Mike Klonsky's SmallTalk Blog: Whitenizing Chicago:
Give the White House Your Feedback About the Dept. of Education | Truth in American Education
Give the White House Your Feedback About the Dept. of Education | Truth in American Education:
Give the White House Your Feedback About the Dept. of Education
Give the White House Your Feedback About the Dept. of Education
The Trump Administration is looking for feedback on reorganizing the executive branch, and they have set up a form on the White House website where you can share your input.
Mick Mulvaney, the director of the Office of Management and Budget, makes his appeal so he can submit a plan to President Trump in response to an executive order recently signed to start work on making the executive branch more efficient.
Ideas need to be submitted by June 12. Take this opportunity to share with President Trump ways he could make the U.S. Department of Education more efficient, by, say, eliminating it. (Just a suggestion). President Trump’s first budget cuts the U.S. Department of Education’s budget by $9 Billion, so we can encourage him to go further.
You can find the form here.
Give the White House Your Feedback About the Dept. of Education | Truth in American Education:
Randi & Ed. Secretary DeVos to visit Van Wert schools Thursday - Paulding County Progress
Ed. Secretary DeVos to visit Van Wert schools Thursday - Paulding County Progress:
Ed. Secretary DeVos to visit Van Wert schools Thursday
VAN WERT – On Thursday, April 20, American Federation of Teachers president Randi Weingarten and Education Secretary Betsy DeVos will tour public schools in Van Wert. The visit comes in response to Weingarten’s challenge to DeVos to visit a great public school system and engage with teachers, parents, students and the community about what is working in their public schools and what they need in order to strengthen them.
Weingarten, DeVos, local union leaders and school officials will have roundtable discussions with pre-K, early childhood and special education teachers and staff. They will tour classrooms; hear presentations from students in robotics and engineering classes, as part of the district’s project-based learning focus; and discuss Van Wert’s public schools with teachers, students, parents and the community.
Van Wert, a rural district in northwest Ohio, exemplifies many of the strategies Weingarten outlined in a speech earlier this year on building great neighborhood public school systems, according to the AFT. "These strategies include promoting children’s well-being, engaging in powerful learning, building teacher capacity, and fostering cultures of collaboration; they stand in contrast to the massive budget cuts and privatization efforts being pushed by the Trump administration."
EVENTS
School Visits, Discussions
WHAT: School visits, conversations with teachers, students, parents, school officials
WHO: Randi Weingarten, AFT president
Betsy DeVos, secretary of education
Jeff Hood, Van Wert Federation of Teachers president
Melissa Cropper, Ohio Federation of Teachers president
Paolo DeMaria, Ohio state superintendent
Ken Amstutz, Van Wert superintendent
WHERE: Van Wert schools, Van Wert, Ohio
WHEN: Thursday, April 20 11 a.m.-3 p.m.
Ed. Secretary DeVos to visit Van Wert schools Thursday - Paulding County Progress:
Ed. Secretary DeVos to visit Van Wert schools Thursday
VAN WERT – On Thursday, April 20, American Federation of Teachers president Randi Weingarten and Education Secretary Betsy DeVos will tour public schools in Van Wert. The visit comes in response to Weingarten’s challenge to DeVos to visit a great public school system and engage with teachers, parents, students and the community about what is working in their public schools and what they need in order to strengthen them.
Weingarten, DeVos, local union leaders and school officials will have roundtable discussions with pre-K, early childhood and special education teachers and staff. They will tour classrooms; hear presentations from students in robotics and engineering classes, as part of the district’s project-based learning focus; and discuss Van Wert’s public schools with teachers, students, parents and the community.
Van Wert, a rural district in northwest Ohio, exemplifies many of the strategies Weingarten outlined in a speech earlier this year on building great neighborhood public school systems, according to the AFT. "These strategies include promoting children’s well-being, engaging in powerful learning, building teacher capacity, and fostering cultures of collaboration; they stand in contrast to the massive budget cuts and privatization efforts being pushed by the Trump administration."
EVENTS
School Visits, Discussions
WHAT: School visits, conversations with teachers, students, parents, school officials
WHO: Randi Weingarten, AFT president
Betsy DeVos, secretary of education
Jeff Hood, Van Wert Federation of Teachers president
Melissa Cropper, Ohio Federation of Teachers president
Paolo DeMaria, Ohio state superintendent
Ken Amstutz, Van Wert superintendent
WHERE: Van Wert schools, Van Wert, Ohio
WHEN: Thursday, April 20 11 a.m.-3 p.m.
Ed. Secretary DeVos to visit Van Wert schools Thursday - Paulding County Progress:
Why high school exit exams are a waste of time - The Washington Post
Why high school exit exams are a waste of time - The Washington Post:
Why high school exit exams are a waste of time
Why high school exit exams are a waste of time
Not too long ago more than half of U.S. states required that students pass an exam to graduate from high school. That is changing, with a number of states dropping their exit exams — but a good number still require them, and that, this post explains, is a big and unnecessary problem for many students.
This was written by Stan Karp, a veteran educator and an editor of Rethinking SchoolsMagazine, which is now marking its 30th anniversary. The publication is produced by the Rethinking Schools organization, a nonprofit that began in the Milwaukee area by teachers who wanted to improve education in their own classrooms but also help shape public school reform across the country. Along with the magazine, Rethinking Schools publishes educational materials for use in all 50 states, Canada and other countries. Its focus is on balancing classroom practice and educational theory while addressing current policy issues, such as funding equity, school choice and school-to-work issues.
Karp gave me permission to publish this.
By Stan Karp
High school exit tests are the trapdoors of the education world. These are the tests that tie scores to high school diplomas and push students who miss the mark out of school into the streets, the unemployment lines, and the prisons.
A national uprising has highlighted the many ways the misuse and overuse of standardized testing hurts students. Now the effort to end high school exit testing may be its next step.
In the last few years, 10 states have repealed or delayed high school exit exams. California, Georgia, South Carolina, and Arizona even decided to issue diplomas retroactively to thousands Why high school exit exams are a waste of time - The Washington Post:
Beat Back the Billionaires: Vote Zimmer, Padilla for LAUSD School Board - LA Progressive
Beat Back the Billionaires: Vote Zimmer, Padilla for LAUSD School Board - LA Progressive:
Beat Back the Billionaires: Vote Zimmer, Padilla for LAUSD School Board
Though Election Day isn’t until Tuesday, May 16th, Los Angeles’ epic school drama unfolds now, this minute, in real time, as absentee ballots in the Los Angeles Unified School District (LAUSD) Board race arrive in voters’ mail boxes. The drama stars public school champions – incumbent Board President Steve Zimmer and non-profit founder Imelda Padilla – vs. billionaire barons – Eli Broad and the Waltons of Walmart.
Beat Back the Billionaires: Vote Zimmer, Padilla for LAUSD School Board
Vote Now Absentee or at the Polls May 16th
Though Election Day isn’t until Tuesday, May 16th, Los Angeles’ epic school drama unfolds now, this minute, in real time, as absentee ballots in the Los Angeles Unified School District (LAUSD) Board race arrive in voters’ mail boxes. The drama stars public school champions – incumbent Board President Steve Zimmer and non-profit founder Imelda Padilla – vs. billionaire barons – Eli Broad and the Waltons of Walmart.
With an overwhelming majority of voters expected to vote absentee in this monumental yet little known run-off election, there’s no time to waste for Zimmer and Padilla supporters, those campaigning to protect public education from Big Money bosses pulling the strings on marionette candidates Nick Melvoin and Kelly Gonez while plotting to take over or edge out proud neighborhood schools.
Yes, it’s show time in the $7.5 billion real-estate rich LAUSD, the country’s second largest school district, right behind New York City, where 95 different languages are spoken in a student version of the United Nations.
The antagonists in this drama, billionaires and their class pets, are hiding something from us, the audience. They’re not telling us that Zimmer, an ambassador for arts education, has led the District to restore arts education funding to pre-recession levels, so that Wonderland Elementary – a Blue Ribbon School – can continue its innovative choral program in which students both compose music and play the violin, the cello, the instrument of their choice – or so that Venice HS, where I teach English, can expand its two magnets: Science, Technology, Engineering, Math and Medicine (STEMM) and World Languages, as well as its small learning academies that also include the Academy of Law and Public Policy (ALPS) and Sports Medicine. The antagonists in this drama – the ones jamming neighborhood mailboxes with hateful fliers – do not speak of our Venice HS students who apprentice in our graphic design shop, perform at the LA Music Center or deliver social commentary at Get Lit Poetry slams. No, the antagonists won’t tell you Venice High School is a school on the move.
Venice High School is not the only secret the billionaire boys are keeping from the audience. Zimmer’s District 4 is home to Grand View Elementary’s model language immersion program – one of 20 such LAUSD programs Zimmer champions because research shows that students Beat Back the Billionaires: Vote Zimmer, Padilla for LAUSD School Board - LA Progressive:
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