Wednesday, May 4, 2011

Signature-Gathering Push Begins for Oil Tax to Fund Education - Pulse of the Bay - The Bay Citizen

Signature-Gathering Push Begins for Oil Tax to Fund Education

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By JENNIFER GOLLAN|May 4, 2011 1:09 p.m. |In Education

David McNew/Newsmakers

A winter sunrise surrounds an oil well in the South Cuyama Oil Field Feb. 16, 2001, near New Cuyama, Calif., in Santa Barbara County

A tax on oil companies would supply California's schools with up to $3 billion more a year if a Southern California college professor gets his way.

Peter Mathews got the go-ahead from the California secretary of state late Tuesday to begin gathering signatures to place a measure on the ballot that would impose a 15 percent tax on each barrel of oil extracted in California.

The state's K-12 schools would get 30 percent of the revenue, community colleges would get 48 percent and the California State University and the University of California would each receive 11 percent. The initiative needs signatures from 504,760 registered voters — the equivalent of 5 percent of the votes cast in the 2010 gubernatorial election — to qualify, according the secretary of state's office.

The measure would prohibit producers from passing the tax on to refiners, gas stations or consumers. Nor could the state divert the tax revenue to its battered general fund.

Source: The Bay Citizen (http://s.tt/12mV2)

Schools Matter: A Few of Wall Street's Columbia and Harvard Whores

A Few of Wall Street's Columbia and Harvard Whores

by Jim Horn

The ivy walls of academe have been breached. No, it didn't take any horde of barbarians, just a wheelbarrow of cash, left at the door of university presidents and professors from once-esteemed schools such as the Harvard Business School, Harvard School of Economics, and the Columbia Business School. A couple of clips here from the Oscar-winning documentary, Inside Job.

See below Frederick Mishkin, Professor Columbia Business School and his dean, Glenn Hubbard:

See below John Campbell, Chair of the Harvard Economics Department

Education Evolution

For more information, check us out at http://edevolution.wordpress.com.Special thanks to StrangeZero for their music, and to our parents, friends, teachers, and principals who helped make this project a success!
To reach us on Facebook, search for "Education Evolution."

Shorter Year For California Schools? - Politics News Story - KCRA Sacramento

Shorter Year For California Schools?

California Facing Budget Crisis

POSTED: 8:04 am PDT May 4, 2011
UPDATED: 1:51 pm PDT May 4, 2011

Comments

(24)

SACRAMENTO, Calif. -- Sacramento City Unified Superintendent Jonathan Raymond says he intends to hold the line on shortening the school year, callling the idea "a cop-out"

Raymond responded Wednesday to talk that the state's budget crisis may lead some districts to shorten the school year.

"We intend to tighten the schedule and make other adjustments," Raymond said, in order to keep the district's school year at 180 days.

Some authorities said the year could be shortened by 20 days, which is

School Choice vs. High-Stakes-Testing - E.D. Kain - American Times - Forbes

School Choice vs. High-Stakes-Testing

by E.D. Kain

After exchanging emails with Matt, I’m convinced that I was focusing on an issue that he was not promoting in his initial post: testing. When it comes to the modern education reform movement, I am much more concerned with the testing regime and the top-down approach of many school reformers than I am with the idea of school choice.

I do think proponents of school choice tend to overstate the effectiveness of charter schools, but I am not opposed to giving school choice a chance (though I am veryskeptical of for-profit schools). And frankly skeptics of school choice fall into similar traps as proponents, over-estimating the downsides, etc. School choice is a work in progress, and who knows how it will turn out in the end.

So a few points and clarifications.

1) While teachers unions have plenty of flaws and while teacher compensation schemes could definitely be

Senate GOP Caucus Insists Schools Don’t Need Money « State of Emergency

Senate GOP Caucus Insists Schools Don’t Need Money

by Leonard Feldman

Members of the Senate Republican Caucus today distributed a “briefing report” on schools that argues that public education’s woes have nothing to do with a shortage of funds. In fact, the GOP report calls for removing “bad teachers” and narrowing the scope of collective bargaining as antidotes to educational problems.

The report neglects to mention that schools have already been cut by more than $18 billion….and schools are

Public Education needs you to get involved

by jortiz

Posted in Video

Rethinking the seniority system | The Education Report

Rethinking the seniority system

By Katy Murphy
Wednesday, May 4th, 2011 at 7:00 am in budget, teachers.

Annie Hatch, a first-year humanities teacher at Oakland’s Life Academy, offers her reflections about the last-in, first-out layoff system. Her pink slip has yet to be rescinded.

As more and more layoffs are being rescinded, the fury that was driving a lot of healthy debate has seemed to subside. When the district initially announced that over 500 teachers in Oakland would be receiving pink slips, I heard a lot of people arguing that the district should rescind them all—that no teacher ever deserves a pink slip. But, the unavoidable reality is that some teachers will be laid off—this year, and in the future. And while this remains the case, we desperately need to rethink the seniority system.

Like a fine wine, I believe a good teacher gets better with age. There is a steep learning curve when it comes to the craft of teaching, and, I won’t lie, I am looking forward to not being a first-year teacher. Throughout the course of this first year, I have seen my classroom management skills improve exponentially. I can plan a

The Social Media Conundrum | Connected Principals

The Social Media Conundrum

Posted by Eric Sheninger on 5/04/11 • Categorized as Best Educational Practices,Leadership Essentials,Principal Quality Standard

A slightly altered version of this post entitled “The Social Media Time Debate” can be found at the Huffington Post

There has been a great deal of discussion lately as to the necessity of Administrators utilizing social media as a part of their professional practice. There was even a comment on the Facebook page that I manage for my high school stating that I spend too much time on Twitter. With all of the positives that I feel are associated with social media, and no matter how I utilize various mediums in a professional manner, there seems to always be a large number of skeptics. It is obvious that they do not take the time to read the content that I either create or share, which is quite frustrating. Nor do they care to engage me in a discussion as to why I spend valuable time with Twitter or my blog.

Back to the real topic of my post, which is time allocation. To get a flavor of some views on this, please check out these fantastic posts on the topic by some of my colleagues that I have come to know and respect through Twitter:

Don’t Look at Me: Why Blogging is Not For Self-Promotion by Pernille Ripp
My Principal Doesn’t Need to Blog by Ryan Bretag
Inspired, Selfish, or Both? by Lyn Hilt
Is Blogging Really Worth It? by Justin Tarte
Blog on, Principal, but Relationships Come First: Lessons from RISD’s Maeda by Jonathan Martin

Let’s face it, we can all agree that we could use more time in the day. As an administrator, during the school day I

Civics knowledge that kids are supposed to know - The Answer Sheet - The Washington Post

Civics knowledge that kids are supposed to know

by Valerie Strauss

Here are some of the “skills” in civics that students demonstrate at different levels — basic, proficient and advanced — as measured by the National Assessment for Educational Progress.

NAEP released new scores on the 2010 civics exam given to nationally representative groups of students in 4th, 8th and 12th grades on Wednesday, with little progress shown in the four years since the last civics exam was given.

Following are skills and some sample questions:

Read full article >>

This Week In Education: Best Blogs: More Questions About Value Added & Ending LIFO

Best Blogs: More Questions About Value Added & Ending LIFO

by Alexander Russo

AFT Celebrates Teacher Appreciation Week With Teacher Bashing Yglesias: But when Teacher Appreciation Week comes around then of course teachers and their representatives want to emphasize the fact that one of the many things that makes a difference is the quality of teaching... Value-Added Evaluation & Those Pesky Collateralized Debt Obligations Hess: Even the cleverest of models is only as good as the data... The myth of the superstar novice teacher The Answer Sheet: I have a long way to go to Teacher of the Year, but I have learned from every year, and every year has made me a more competent teacher... Matt Yglesias on Teacher Compensation American Times: Seniority factors into many professions. Very few professions rely as heavily on test-results as edu-reformers would like teaching to rely... Teaching About Terrorism Andrew Sullivan: Photo of Gary Weddle, a middle school teacher who refused to shave after 9/11 until bin Laden was captured or killed... Slow Off the Mark CAP: It is elementary school mathematics and science that lay the foundation for future STEM learning, but it is elementary school teachers who are often unprepared to set students on the path to higher-level success in STEM fields... Gates and Pearson Lay Their Cards on the Table Tom Hoffman: Hopefully people will now start to understand what has been going on here, what Gates' plan has been all along... The New Layoff Formula Project Shanker Blog: But these were voluntary surveys (total response rate was roughly 40 percent), and TNTP makes not a single mention about the non-random nature of these samples, and how this may have distorted their results.

Quotes: Ad Copy Disguised As Fairy Tales

by Alexander Russo

We still tell fairy tales about escapes from the ghetto to the classroom or the short path from graduation to lifelong satisfaction... but these narratives are not inspiring true-life models, they’re advertising copy... "Bad Education" in n+1

School Tech Connect: We Live In CrazyLand

We Live In CrazyLand

by effacethefacade@yahoo.com (Tim)

I'm going to go ahead and pay the $105 for a designation of agent. Not that I plan to use material from the Denver or Las Vegas newspapers, but you never know when this bottom-feeding attorney behavior is going to spread like a cancer around the country. I've tried to start working within copyright laws, but let's face it-- this blog is chock full of borrowed stuff.

source

If you're not aware of the copyright trolling phenomenon, read all about it. In a nutshell, there's a new legal specialty being practiced by one firm at the moment. They partner up with an online newspaper (in this case, the Las Vegas Review-Journal and theDenver Post, and then they go trolling for bloggers who have used materials that are copyrighted by these papers. Then, if I'm understanding it right, they gain ownership of the copyright and sue the blogger for copyright infringement. The bloggers usually settle rather than win an expensive victory in court.

I'm not sure if you have to post the designated agent's name/address on your blog or not. I'm putting the staff

“Who Is Osama Bin Laden?” … Do Teens Really Not Know? « Student Activism

“Who Is Osama Bin Laden?” … Do Teens Really Not Know?

by Angus Johnston

Yesterday Yahoo put up a post on its search blog titled “Teens Don’t Know Who Osama Bin Laden Is, According to Yahoo! Search Trends.”

The story has been picked up by a long list of other outlets — PC Magazine and Gawker both claimed that “many” teens don’t know who Bin Laden was, while one site went so far as to claim that a “majority” are unaware. BoingBoing hedged its bets, claiming that “a non-insignificant number of teenagers in America do not know who Osama bin Laden is.”

But what did Yahoo’s published data actually show?

Not much, it turns out. According to the blogpost, “who is osama bin laden” was the fifth-most searched question relating to Bin Laden on Sunday, which made it more popular than questions about his height, but more popular than questions about his age. How many people searched that question? Yahoo doesn’t say. Could have been millions, could have been a handful. What it does say is that two thirds of those searching were between the

Jersey Jazzman: Masters Bump For Me, Not For Thee!

Masters Bump For Me, Not For Thee!

by Duke

Just to follow up on Chris Christie's proposal to do away with using graduate degrees as a criterion for determining teacher pay:

The idea that corporate reformers such as Christie push is that these degrees do not make for better teachers. His own kids, however, go to Delbarton, a tony private school, where they have a slightly different take:

The course of study offers preparation in all major academic subjects and a number of electives.
The studies are intended to help a boy shape a thought and sentence, to speak clearly about ideas and

Mitch Daniels' Surprising Defense of the Public School System - Dana Goldstein

Mitch Daniels' Surprising Defense of the Public School System

by Dana Goldstein

Now that I've criticized major elements of Mitch Daniels' education agenda, I thought I'd highlight by far the most interesting statement he made at AEI today, because it breaks in a significant way with typical conservative, free-market school reform rhetoric:

"You cannot often enough affirm your commitment to the public schools. As I said, 90 percent of Indiana kids are in public schools today. I think even with the new option that's in place [private school vouchers], it'll always be close to that. I really believe that; I would be surprised if it's not. Therefore, there's a huge responsibility, and we should all share a commitment, to make the public schools better all the time. Semantically, it's probably important to talk about school improvement. Reform means different things to different people."

There's a humility here that is typically lacking among proponents of private school vouchers and other free-

Heading home. « Fred Klonsky's blog

Heading home.

by Fred Klonsky

This is my first post on my iPad2. I’m writing on the bus, heading back to Chicago following a day of lobbying in Springfield.

The IEA leadership wanted us to focus mainly on SB7 and pensions.

There was no way we would lobby for Senate Bill 7. Cheerleading for the bill that limits our ability to strike and which ends seniority as the basis for reductions in staff was met with a smattering of mild applause from about five hundred IEA members who had gathered for a pre-lobbying rally under a tent set up next to IEA offices.

I don’t know how many folks were here today. The IEA wanted 5,000, but I doubt there it was close to that number.

While the concern about pensions is strong, support among the membership for the SB7 sellout is evident by the weak turnout.

The turnout from our local was strong, however.

And when a large group of us met with Senator Kotowski on the lawn in front of the statue of Stephen Dougla

ASCD Inservice: How Can We Support the Whole Teacher?

How Can We Support the Whole Teacher?

In our school, we have devoted much attention to teaching the Whole Child. Now we would also like to look at how we can support the Whole Teacher. What strategies has your school implemented to make sure that teachers are healthy, safe, engaged, supported, and challenged?

--Amy Lockhart, Teacher, Malcolm Price Laboratory School, Cedar Falls, Iowa

Acknowledge What Causes Teachers' Stress

During a half-day inservice, we conducted an exercise to explore what causes stress for staff members. We asked teachers to write down on sticky notes things that cause them daily stress, and then we sorted the notes and displayed them on opposite walls of the room according to school stressors and personal stressors. Outside issues clearly outweighed school issues. This was a powerful visual reminder that educators are often asked to be strong for students

In Case You Missed It

by Matthew Swift

Here are some recent updates from ASCD: The May issue of Education Update looks at how teachers improve through personal and professional learning, teaching in Finland, and increasing student engagement and achievement through peer tutoring. Can multiculturalism and standardization coexist?...

Evaluating Mitch Daniels' Education Agenda - Dana Goldstein

Evaluating Mitch Daniels' Education Agenda

by Dana Goldstein

Potential GOP presidential candidate Mitch Daniels gave a graceful--though, in my view, somewhat misguided--speech on education policy this afternoon at the American Enterprise Institute, the free-market think tank based in Washington.

You don't often hear Republicans use the words "social justice" or praise the Obama administration's domestic policy agenda, but Daniels did both those things today. He supported Race to the Top's focus on national curriculum standards and accountability for teachers, saying, "I salute the President and Secretary Duncan. ... They've had the courage...to irritate their allies." (A veiled reference to teachers' unions.)

Daniels does not appear to be campaigning for the Tea Party's support when it comes to education. Indeed, the Indiana governor was at AEI to promote his accomplishment of signing four sweeping, top-down education reform bills into law over the past several months. "Many of us in Indiana are very uplifted this week," Daniels said, because the reforms "will make a significant difference in the economic prospects of our state if we can

Financial Reporting - Software & Forms (CA Dept of Education)

Financial Reporting

Software used by local educational agencies in preparing budgets, interim reports, and year-end financial reports to the California Department of Education.

SACS2011 Budget Software

On this page you will find links to the Standardized Account Code Structure (SACS) SACS2011 software and to any known problems and fixes. The SACS2011 software contains the components necessary to prepare the 2011–12 budget reports. We anticipate releasing the SACS2011ALL software in early July. At the bottom of this page, there is also a link to the prior year software.

SACS2011setup.exe (EXE; 26MB)

Before beginning the download, identify (or create) a clean subdirectory into which you will download the SACS2011setup.exe zipped file. Right-click on the SACS2011setup.exe link above, select "save link as" (or "save target as" or "copy to folder"), then select the subdirectory into which the SACS2011setup.exe file will be downloaded.

Once the file has been downloaded, use Windows Explorer to find the SACS2011setup.exe file, then double-click on the file and follow the prompts to install the software.

When the SACS software is installed on your computer, the financial reporting calendars and the SACS Software User Guide will be automatically copied into your C:\SACS2011\Calendars and Manuals subdirectory. To find the financial reporting calendars and the SACS2011 Software User Guide, use Windows Explorer and navigate to your C:\SACS2011\Calendars and Manuals subdirectory. In addition, to help make the software easier to use, the SACS Software User Guide is accessible from the Help menu and also from within the forms and processes in the software by pressing F1.

What's New?

Please refer either to the "What's New" section of the SACS2011 Software User Guide or to the readme.txt file installed with the software for a summary of the changes made to the SACS2011 budget forms and process. Also, be sure to check "SACS2011 Software: Known Problems/Fixes" below for any updates subsequent to the SACS2011 software release.

Need to Update Your Validation Tables?

The SACS2011setup.exe file (above) contains the most current validation tables at the time the software was released, dated May 2, 2011. Any subsequent validation table updates will need to be downloaded and added to the software. The Validation Tables page contains software update instructions.

SACS2011 Software: Known Problems/Fixes

The SACS2011setup.exe file (above) will not include fixes made subsequent to the SACS2011 software release. If any problems are found, we will list them on the SACS2011 Software: Known Problems/Fixes page and provide any revised files or workaround instructions. All revised files will need to be applied separately after the software is installed.

Financial Reporting and Fiscal Oversight Calendars

County Office of Education (COE) Calendar 2011
COE Oversight Calendar 2011
District Calendar 2011
Summary Calendar 2011

The SACS2011setup.exe file (above) also downloads these calendars to your C:\SACS2011\Calendars and Manuals subdirectory.

Prior Year Software

The prior year SACS2010ALL Software used to report the 2010–11 budget and interim reports and the 2009–10 unaudited actuals is also available.

The prior year Charter School Alternative Form used to report the 2009–10 unaudited actuals is still available.

Need Assistance?

For assistance with the SACS software or the Charter School Alternative Form, districts should call their county office of education, and charter schools should call their authorizing agency. County offices may contact us using the contact information in the Questions Section of this page.

Questions: Financial Accountability & Information Services | sacsinfo@cde.ca.gov | 916-322-1770

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