Wednesday, October 6, 2010

New Orleans Accused of Failing Disabled Students - Newsweek

The Problem With New Orleans’s Charter Schools

A legal complaint alleges that the Big Easy’s schools discriminate against children with disabilities. What good is the charter revolution if it doesn’t reach the students who are most in need?

Michael Democker / Times-Picayune-Landov

Kelly Fisher holds up a photo of her special-needs son at a meeting of the Board of Elementary and Secondary Education in New Orleans on Sept. 14.

New Orleans, where more than 70 percent of public schools will be independently chartered after this school year, has been placed on a pedestal as a shining model by education reformers. The new documentary Waiting for “Superman”, which hopes to serve as a call to arms for education reform, devotes a page of its Web site to touting

Making sure other people's children get a quality education �| accessAtlanta

Making sure other people's children get a quality education

By Gracie Bonds Staples

The Atlanta Journal-Constitution

Imagine your child’s hopes and dreams of getting into a good school were left up to a series of random numbers pulled in a lottery.

Today on accessAtlanta

Impossible? Not for every one.

In "Waiting for ‘Superman' "[], a new documentary that examines public education and opens Friday in Atlanta, we meet five such kids, their parents and the adults who stand in their way.

There is Anthony, a Washington, D.C., fifth-grader who lost his father to drugs and hopes to take another path; Bianca, a Harlem kindergartner whose single mom can no longer afford Catholic school tuition; Daisy, a fifth-grader from Los Angeles who dreams of college, even

Education: Election Issue for Democrats as Republicans Call for End of Education Department - ABC News

Campaigning on Education: Democrats Target GOP, Tea Party

Democrats' Campaign Ads Target Republican Calls to Eliminate the Education Department

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By MARY BRUCE

Oct. 6, 2010

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With the midterm elections just one month away, jobs, health care, the national debt, and the war in Afghanistan are all hot-button issues for voters. But what about education? Across the country Democratic candidates are targeting their opponents' education policies, hoping to sway independent voters away from the GOP.

Eager to take the focus off the strugglingeconomy, Democrats are attacking Republicans in television ads for wanting to cut education funding and, in some cases, abolish the federal Department of Education.

"Who is Ken Buck? And does he speak for Colorado?" Sen. Michael Bennet, D-Colo., asks in a campaign ad. Bennet goes on to show footage of Buck, Bennet's Republican opponent, saying, "We don't need a Department of Education."

Education Report: Who attends California's elite public schools? - Inside Bay Area

Education Report: Who attends California's elite public schools?

By Katy Murphy
Oakland Tribune

Posted: 10/06/2010 01:17:00 PM PDT

Updated: 10/06/2010 02:34:01 PM PDT

This is a sampling of The Education Report, Katy Murphy's Oakland schools blog. Read more atwww.ibabuzz.com/education. Follow her at Twitter.com/katymurphy.

Oct. 5: Today I finally had a chance to look at state-level test score data, something I've been meaning to do since the Academic Performance Index scores were released last month.

Five of Oakland's schools are up in the top 100 -- roughly 1 percent of all public schools in California -- when sorted by API: the three American Indian Model charter schools, and Montclair and Hillcrest elementary schools.

The American Indian Public Charter School in East Oakland's Laurel District was the highest-performing middle school in the state, with an API of 988. (Not including schools with K-8 or 6-12 grade configurations, whose middle school scores aren't broken out here.)

Only nine schools in the top 100 educate a "significant" number of low-income students, as defined by No Child Left

ASCD Inservice: What If Faculty Meetings Were Voluntary?

What If Faculty Meetings Were Voluntary?

Are your faculty meetings run by the same people in the same location? Are they filled with scripted monologues and announcements? Is attendance more important than engagement?

If so, it's time for a meeting makeover, says Tom Hoerr, head of New City School in St. Louis, Mo.

Hoerr proposes several ways to distribute leadership and ownership of faculty meetings, turning them into valuable learning opportunities, not just another hurdle between teachers and the end of their workday.

Try changing meeting locations (for example, asking teachers to host meetings in their classrooms), and use the setting as an opportunity to share practices or identify challenges. Likewise, rotate who facilitates meetings and consider using

'Has special education lost its way?' | Philadelphia Public School Notebook

'Has special education lost its way?'

by thenotebook

by Patrick Gailey

One panel at PILCOP’s Symposium for Equality was called “Has special education lost its way?” Martin Elks, chairman of the advisory group charged with monitoring compliance with a settlement agreement requiring

ACLU sues NC school over student's nose piercing - Boston.com

ACLU sues NC school over student's nose piercing

FILE - In a Sept. 15, 2010 file photo, Ariana Iacono, 14, poses for a photograph in Clayton, N.C. The American Civil Liberties Union filed a lawsuit in federal court in Raleigh, NC on Wednesday, Oct. 6, 2010 on behalf of Iacono, 14, who was suspended from high school over her nose piercing. The lawsuit seeks a court order allowing Iacono to return to Clayton High School immediately. Iacono and her mother belong to a small religious group called the Church of Body Modification. The group believes that piercings, tattoos and other adornments are a way of expressing religious faith. (AP Photo/Jim R. Bounds)

By Tom Breen

Associated Press Writer / October 6, 2010

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RALEIGH, N.C.—The American Civil Liberties Union claims in a lawsuit filed Wednesday that a North Carolina school violated the constitutional rights of a 14-year-old student by suspending her for wearing a nose piercing.

The lawsuit from the state chapter of the ACLU seeks a court order allowing Ariana Iacono to return immediately to Clayton High School, which has kept her on suspension for four weeks since classes started.

The complaint hinges on Iacono's claim that her nose piercing isn't just a matter of fashion, but an article of faith. She and her mother, Nikki, belong to a small religious group called the Church of Body Modification, which sees tattoos,

NYC Public School Parents: The worst schools in NYC?

The worst schools in NYC?

by Leonie Haimson

The only information out of the school progress reports that I would trust is the list of schools that got an “F” for environment, based predominantly on extremely low ratings from parents and teachers on the surveys, and in the case of middle and high schools, from students as well.

Here is a chart of the schools that received the lowest scores and an “F” for environment.

All of these schools should get intensive intervention from DOE, and probably a new principal, though it’s likely they won’t, because all DOE really cares about is test scores.

And since only 15% of the overall school grade comes from the environment score (10% from survey results, and 5% from attendance) most of these schools got progress report grades of B or

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