Saturday, October 30, 2010
The Answer Sheet - Dear Jon: Let George speak
Outside help for education raises hackles | IndyStar.com | The Indianapolis Star
Outside help for education raises hackles
IPS wants the freedom to try to improve subpar schools itself
1:11 AM, Oct 30, 2010 | 8 Comments
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The proposed rule
If the state Board of Education found intervention would improve a failing school, it would have to implement one or more of these options:
Merge the school with one in a higher improvement category.
Assign a person or organization to run all or part of a school.
Implement its own recommendations for improvement.
Implement other options expressed in a public hearing, including closing the school.
Revise the school's procedures or operations plan; professional development; or intervention for teachers or administrators.
IPS schools affected
Arlington Community High School.
Broad Ripple High School.
Manual High School.
Northwest High School.
Donnan Middle School.
Gambold Middle School.
Howe Community High School.
Washington Community High School.
The superintendent of Indianapolis Public Schools on Friday outlined with passion how he thinks the state could improve chronically low-performing schools: Let the district create and implement its own improvement plan.
In particular, he and others at a state school board meeting said Friday, don't immediately hand management of those schools over to outside individuals or organizations -- one of five options the state has proposed.
"Across the country, these outside companies have taken over school districts to great fanfare," IPS Superintendent Eugene White said. "They fail, and they
Teachers Under Attack Once Again
Teachers Under Attack Once Again
This article from the Akron Beacon Journal is titled, “Teacher Salaries Draw Scrutiny.” The article goes on to describe how a group in a wealthy Akron suburb, Bath Township, is opposing a levy because most of the revenue will be used to pay teacher salaries. The irony here is on several levels. The school system, Revere, is highly-rated. This is not about performance. The average income in the district is $131,000. Teachers at Revere average $68,300. Houses in the district average $323,000, so most teachers live outside the district. Here’s a kicker - when a previous levy failed, teachers agreed to extend their current contract by a year and average out the negotiated raise for this year over the new two year extension.
It seems to me this is another case of teacher-bashing. Here is a highly paid
Interview Of The Month: Lydia Breiseth From Color�n Colorado | Larry Ferlazzo's Websites of the Day...
4LAKids - some of the news that doesn't fit: OVERCOMING BULLYING IN LAUSD SCHOOLS: Superintendent Cortines Discusses a National Epidemic--BULLYING
Christie names education task force members; NJEA not represented | Philadelphia Inquirer | 10/29/2010
Christie names education task force members; NJEA not represented
By Rita Giordano
Inquirer Staff Writer
Absent from the group was a representative of the state's largest teachers union, the New Jersey Education Association.
The findings of the Education Effectiveness Task Force will help lead to "needed reforms that ensure every New Jersey child has access to a quality education with effective, accountable teachers at every step along the way," Christie said in a statement.
Asked about the lack of participation by the union, Christie spokesman Kevin Roberts said, "The governor's feelings and beliefs about the NJEA are well known. They have not shown themselves to be a real partner for reform."
An NJEA representative said the union's leadership was disappointed but not surprised.
"It's unfortunate the governor continues this agenda of placing politics before policy," said spokesman Steve Baker, who questioned the panelists' credentials for making recommendations. Few have classroom experience or are
Read more: http://www.philly.com/inquirer/education/20101029_Christie_names_education_task_force_members__NJEA_not_represented.html#ixzz13r8SUOZc
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Schools Matter: Responses to Bonnie Reiss, Calif Sec of Education
Responses to Bonnie Reiss, Calif Sec of Education
Bonnie Reiss, California Secretary of Education, published a commentary in the Sacramento Bee, reproduced below.
Here are two letters published in the Sacramento Bee on Oct. 29, responding to Ms. Reiss' commentary:
Re: ("To fix our schools …," Oct 27)
It is offensive that people continue to attack teachers (and unions… aka... teachers collectively) for the issues in education. In addition to being a teacher, I am actively involved in my teachers’ union. Let me share some information with those who don’t seem to “get it.”
Unions are made up of teachers. We are the ones that are in the classrooms doing the work everyday. Teachers
Weekend Roundup: Big-Girl Pants, Parent Trigger, & the Charterfest Comes to Town (Oh my!) | Seattle Education 2010
Weekend Roundup: Big-Girl Pants, Parent Trigger, & the Charterfest Comes to Town (Oh my!)
Boy, I have some catching up to do. Some interesting discussions are going on in Seattle right now regarding education. It’s hard to keep up.
In brief: I’m voting NO on the school levy, despite running the risk of being called a “hater” and a “doubter” by the League of Education Voters’ apparently sometimes small-girl-pants-wearing Chris Korsmo.
Here’s why. Also listen to Dorothy Neville make a convincing, sensible argument for demanding more accountability from our renegade school superintendentt and school board by voting against the levy, on KUOW. The pro-levy side was represented by Schools First’s Sharon Rodgers.
By the way, what is the definition of “grassroots”? I noticed Schools First was introduced this way on KUOW,
Noticings and Wonderings from the Fringe � Failing Schools
Noticings and Wonderings from the Fringe
It appears that central administration groups have been coaching administrators to use a certain language of nebulous buzz-phrases in their interactions with teachers. Maybe such language was adopted to soften the perception of criticism. I decided to ironically borrow the touchy-feely language in vogue with many districts to pose some of my own noticings and wonderings. I speak, of course, more specifically with regards to urban districts. The ‘you’ I am speaking to is more likely an admin type, but, hey, if the shoe fits feel free to walk in it a bit.
- I notice that when I write “noticings” and “wonderings” that the spell check goes on alert. I wonder why a school district would so enthusiastically adopt words that might not really exist in the dictionary, yet.
- I noticed there is an inverse relationship between a person’s salary and said person’s direct
Biddle me this? (or Flunkout Nation) � School Finance 101
Biddle me this? (or Flunkout Nation)
While I suspect few people have read or seen this post by RiShawn Biddle of Dropout Nation, I felt that it was worth mentioning because it presents such egregiously flawed logic coupled with flat-out factually incorrect and unsubstantiated claims. Sadly, this is what we have come to all too often in the current education reform debate. And this isn’t really about RiShawn Biddle as an individual or his blog and tweets, but rather about the propensity to argue important and complex issues in such crude terms and with so little knowledge or understanding of context and history.
In a recent post, Biddle argues that the NAACP is and has been heading up a misguided public policy agenda on behalf of black America (my characterization – perhaps not right on target). Biddle argues that Jealous should
Friday, October 29, 2010
Rahm, Penny and the IEA. � Fred Klonsky's blog
Rahm, Penny and the IEA.
The IEA’s state convention, which is held in March, usually takes place at the Hyatt Regency O’Hare.
That property is managed and owned by the Pritzker family, including Penny Pritzker, who was Obama’s fund-raising chair in 2008.
Pritzker’s Hyatt Hotel Corporation is the target of Unite Here. The union wants a fair and decent contract for
D.C. teachers hit dead end in court challenge to layoffs
D.C. teachers hit dead end in court challenge to layoffs
Friday, October 29, 2010; 9:06 PM
The Washington Teachers' Union's legal challenge tothe layoff of 266 educators in October 2009 effectively ended Friday, when a union attorney told a D.C. Superior Court judge that it could find no evidence that Schools Chancellor Michelle A. Rhee contrived a budget crunch to justify the job cuts.
"We didn't find anything that would warrant further briefing," attorney Brenda C. Zwack told Judge Judith Bartnoff.
Last November, Bartnoff denied the union's bid for a preliminary injunction barring the District from firing the 266 educators. She said the union had failed to
Police arrest civil rights leaders after school board takeover
- Education - NewsObserver.com
Police arrest civil rights leaders after school board takeover

RALEIGH -- Police arrested four civil rights protesters, including state NAACP head Rev. William Barber and author Tim Tyson, after they refused to leave tonight's Wake County school board meeting. The arrests started about an hour-and-a-half after the biracial group disrupted the meeting, speaking and singing to empty seats when the board recessed, then taking over the elective body's own seats.
Read more: http://www.newsobserver.com/2010/06/15/534690/police-arrest-civil-rights-leaders.html#ixzz13njUjcmW
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