Sunday, May 9, 2010

Parent Political Picks by the Big Education Ape



Patrick Kennedy Sacramento City Council 5


Ray Tretheway Sacramento City Council 1


State Superintendent of Public Instruction

The California Master Plan at 50: The Big Picture � The Quick and the Ed

The California Master Plan at 50: The Big Picture � The Quick and the Ed

The California Master Plan at 50: The Big Picture

On April 26, 1960 the California Legislature signed into law the California Master Plan for Higher Education. Read a brief history of the Plan, how it intersects with the SAT and affirmative action, how the transfer function is failing, and how better coordination is needed.
California is a state of extremes when it comes to educational attainment. It ranks near the top of the states in the percentage of adults with bachelor’s degree or higher, but it is also the state with the highest proportion of adults with less than an eighth-grade education.
In the middle part of the 1900s, up until about 1970, California’s growth was driven by migration from other states. Many of these immigrants were well-educated. In 1960, 66 percent of all college graduates living in the state of California had earned their degrees in other American states. By 2005, that percentage had fallen in halfand the net domestic migration of college graduates fell below zero for the first time in decades.
Meanwhile, foreign-born college graduates filled up nearly all of this slack. Contrary to popular belief, immigrants to California, both foreign and domestic, have actually helped make the state more educated. This has been improving over time. The percentage of recent international immigrants with college degrees increased from 18 percent in 1985-1990 to 33 percent by 2000-2005.
Still, projections on California’s workforce needs in 2020 predict that the state will need to increase college graduates by 15-20 percent, on top of in-migration and existing educational opportunities, in order to meet

"The Facebook Privacy War: What Is Personal Data?" - THE DAILY RIFF - Be Smarter. About Education.

"The Facebook Privacy War: What Is Personal Data?" - THE DAILY RIFF - Be Smarter. About Education.


Two Minute Video Below "Data 101"
What Is Data? What Is Private?

On the heels of The Daily Riff''s recent posts, "Get Off Facebook: Middle School Principal Takes On Cyberbullying" and "Is The New Facebook A Deal With The Devil?", you would think we might have a problem with Facebook. Well, we do.

Technology has MUCH to offer our society. However, as with everything (especially thesedays!), you have to keep a watchful eye on those companies and or individuals that may take advantage of a situation.

Regarding technology and social network sites in particular, when you have privacy policies that are changed mid-stream and where the customer has to actively monitor (!) the site's privacy settings, this is the time to let these companies know "we, the customer, won't buy into" this "kind of misrepresentation". Especially when you have a behemoth like Facebook operating so cavalierly, it makes one think of Goldman Sachs with their arrogance and disregard for the customer. Recently adding to Facebook's woes related to customers' outcry against its privacy changes, the company just encountered yet another too-big, too-fast incident with a tech glitch that jeopardized their standing with customers even further: private

Schools Matter: The Imagine Schools "Death Spiral"

Schools Matter: The Imagine Schools "Death Spiral"

The Imagine Schools "Death Spiral"

Guess which charter school chain is behind this little scheme:

An F-rated St. Petersburg charter school stands on the verge of collapse, mired in debt and losing enrollment. And most of those debts — around $1 million in public tax dollars — are owed to the same private company that founded it.
No, this isn't Chris Whittle's newest invention, this is the corrupt fools at Imagine. It's not a surprise - heck, this is practically the blueprint for Imagine's business plan. The snippet above is from Tom Marshall's article on Imagine that appeared in today's St. Petersburg Times. Do check it out.

I can't even tell you how many reporters are either a) too lazy or b) too dense to fully understand the corrupt practices of Imagine despite being sent ample evidence of their ways. Instead, they simply buy the sales pitch

Schools Matter: Rhee Hires More Chiefs for Bloated Central Office

Schools Matter: Rhee Hires More Chiefs for Bloated Central Office

Rhee Hires More Chiefs for Bloated Central Office

Never mind that the District's CFO has found overspending at Rhee's Central Office as one of the reasons she has come up short on money to fund a new teacher contract. And never mind that Rhee's new covey of TFA alums will be hired even if they have never been school administrators--@ $120k to $150k. It's all a part of the new top heavy order for running corporate schools--a house full of scraping sycophants and a bare-knuckled megalomaniac at the top. From Bill Turque at WaPo:

By Bill Turque
Sunday, May 9, 2010; C01

Schools Chancellor Michelle A. Rhee is more than doubling the number of senior managers who oversee the District's 123 public schools, a move intended to put more muscle behind her efforts to raise teacher quality and student achievement.
Openings for 13 "instructional superintendents," with annual salaries of $120,000 to $150,000, were posted on the D.C. schools Web site late last month. Instructional superintendents directly

Happy Mother's Day, Mom....

Dear Mom when I was young
I sat at your knee
You would tell me great stories
Ones that I could see

Stories of old
Stories of the Wild West
Stories of grandpa
I loved best

You told me stories
Peeling apples in your lap
You told me stories
Then lay down for a nap

You told me of peace
How to be a friend
And of love
Close to the end

You never doubted me
You told me the truth
You let me feel older
I (was) but a youth

You made me feel wanted
You did it all the time
Even when you scolded me
You did it in a rhyme

You play games with me
That I didn’t know were games
Telling me all people
Wanted and needed the same

You would brush your hair at night
And put on a little cap
Then ask for a kiss on your head
From this little chap

You did these things over and over again

Then one day you were no more
But my visits to you would not end
For even after all these years
I come to see you
My friend
Happy Mother’s Day Mom



Mother

The sweet smell of death floated
Across the funeral parlor room
As life went on outside the tomb
The smile on the face was faded and pale
As a choir of people cried and wailed
Tears of the child rolled down a cold powdered cheek
The wooden floor moaned and creaked
The confusion of the child longed to speak
What is death…when life is no more?
As patiently the choir filed out the door
Then reassembled in a place barren and cold
Upon the rocks there stories are told
Good-bye Mother
As they lowered her down
The child was lost
As the choir stood around
Back at home the child told to play
Don’t be lonely on this cold-cold day
The child grew
And remembered that time
His mother lived on
Inside his mind
And he remembered for such a long time

Mass. panel to hold forum on Latino education - Boston.com

Mass. panel to hold forum on Latino education - Boston.com

Mass. panel to hold forum on Latino education


May 9, 2010
Text size +
LAWRENCE, Mass.—A governor's panel focusing on Latino education is scheduled to hold a series of hearings.
Discuss
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The Latino-American Advisory Commission is slated Wednesday to hold its next public forum at Northern Essex Community College in Lawrence.
The hearings are aimed at educators, Latino families, and community groups who seek to improve Latino student performance in Massachusetts.
Another hearing is scheduled for May 20 in Holyoke.
After a series of statewide hearings, the panel plans to produce a report with a list

Obama: Education a responsibility of all Americans

President Barack Obama, addressing graduates at historically black Hampton University on Sunday, said that it is the responsibility of all Americans to offer every child the type of education that will make them competitive in an economy in which a high school diploma alone is no longer enough.

Obama delivers speech on education at Hampton University | News10.net | Sacramento, California | Education

Obama delivers speech on education at Hampton University | News10.net | Sacramento, California | Education

Obama delivers speech on education at Hampton University

Lesha Ruffin Last updated 1 hr ago

HAMPTON, Va. (AP) -- President Barack Obama said all Americans have a responsibility to offer every child an education that will help them compete in an economy in which a high school diploma is no longer enough.
Obama delivered the message Sunday during commencement ceremonies at Hampton University, a historically black college at the mouth of the Chesapeake Bay in southeastern Virginia.
The president told the university's more than 1,000 graduates that they also have the added

Mothers Day 2010 Esther and Helen. � Fred Klonsky's blog

Esther and Helen. � Fred Klonsky's blog

Esther and Helen.

MAY 9, 2010
by preaprez
Some of the following may not be accurate, but all of it is true.
My maternal grandmother Esther was born to a middle-class Jewish family in Russia over 120 years ago. Her parents held traditional view about girls. Esther did not.
She was the first in a long line of women in my family who would not be told what women could do or what they could not do.
Against her father’s wishes, she left home to study in Germany where she met my grandfather. He was studying dentistry in Heidleberg.
They fell in love. They married. They came to America and became tobacco farmers in Connecticut.
They had five children. Among the four girls was my mother Helen.
Esther did not believe a woman’s place was in the home. She had no particular interest in domestic skills. It was a gift she passed on to my mother. Neither were particularly good cooks, although Esther could make knishes filled with potato, kasha or pieces of brisket that I loved as a child.
And butter cookies with a little jelly in the center.
When our family moved to L.A. we lived for a while with my grandparents in the Jewish neighborhood of City Terrace in East Los Angeles. To a nine year old it seemed as if all the neighbors knew Esther and all seemed to be members of The Arbeter Ring, The Workmen’s Circle, which was then a Yiddish language socialist organization.
Esther lived a long life. She died in 1975 at the age of 92.
My mother, Helen, died young. In 1977 at the age of 62 her heart gave out after

Fifty Years Ago Today: The FDA Okays The Pill � Student Activism

Fifty Years Ago Today: The FDA Okays The Pill � Student Activism

Fifty Years Ago Today: The FDA Okays The Pill

On May 9, 1960, fifty years ago today, the Food and Drug Administration announced that it would be granting approval to the birth control pill. As the sixties progressed, sex and gender relations in the United States were irrevocably transformed.
It would be an exaggeration to suggest that the Pill created that transformation on its own. As historian Elaine Tyler May notes, it was women’s activism that unlocked “the revolutionary potential of the Pill” — feminism and

EducationNews.org - Does RttT violate Federal Code section 3403?

EducationNews.org - Does RttT violate Federal Code section 3403?

image
5.9.10 - Race to the Top as written is not in compliance with U.S. Code. The American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009 (ARRA) had no provisions that allowed Sec. Duncan to create a program in which state and school districts are bribed to comply with his direction.

Does RttT violate Federal Code section 3403?
Is Secretary Arne Duncan violating U.S. Code - Title 20 section 3403: Education (January 2004)?

Race to the Top as written is not in compliance with U.S. Code. The American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009 (ARRA) had no provisions that allowed Sec.
Duncan to create a program in which state and school districts are bribed to comply with his direction.

Read the legislation; the ARRA hardly gives Duncan the power and control he has seized through Race to the Top … The ARRA does not allow his RttT bastardization of the original education legislation as RttT violates Federal Code.
Federal Code 3403 includes: It is the intention of the Congress in the establishment of the Department to protect the rights of State and local governments and public and private educational institutions... The establishment of the Department of Education shall not increase the authority of the Federal Government over education
No provision of a program administered by the Secretary or by any other officer of the Department shall be construed to authorize the Secretary or any such officer to exercise any direction, supervision, or control over the curriculum, program of instruction, administration, or ......
A brief history of this situation follows and “Billionaires” play major roles:
1998: NewSchools Venture Fund was created in 1998 by social entrepreneur Kim Smith and venture capitalists John Doerr and Brook Byers, each of whom had witnessed the power of entrepreneurs to create change in other sectors, such as technology.
NewSchools’ first fund (1998-2002) was designed to build a new type of capital market that could support the development of innovative entrepreneurial ventures serving high-need students within public education. The fund was intended to test the hypothesis that entrepreneurs can act as agents for change, capable of influencing and possibly even transforming large public bureaucracies. In our first fund, NewSchools supported nine entrepreneurial nonprofit and for-profit ventures.

EducationNews.org

EducationNews.org

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Strauss: Race to Top winner failed on standards

5.7.10 - One of the two states chosen by Education Secretary Arne Duncan as a winner in the first round of

Colleges with more graduates will get more money

5.9.10 - After years of stressing the importance of getting into college, policy-makers are starting to pay...
Full story

KC schools will attempt a new way of learning

5.9.10 - Dump the traditional grade levels. Group students according to the skills they’ve achieved. Let each student...
Full story

Imposing Islam in Your Public School in Six Easy Steps

5.9.10 - If this guide shows us anything, it's what idiots they take us for. This is, of course, an...
Full story

Valley High hosts health and fitness expo Education - Sacramento News - Local and Breaking Sacramento News | Sacramento Bee

Education - Sacramento News - Local and Breaking Sacramento News | Sacramento Bee

Valley High hosts health and fitness expo

Published: Sunday, May. 9, 2010 - 7:00 am
Valley High School will host a Health and Fitness Expo for the community from 9 a.m. to 1:45 p.m. Wednesday.
The event will provide information on how to improve the health of participants and their families.
"The Health Expo has been a tremendous success over the past three years," said Principal Keven MacDonald. "Through this event, the Valley High School Health TECH Academy has made a name for itself as a community leader in health advocacy. As a result, the Health Expo has continued to bring more opportunities for our


Read more: http://www.sacbee.com/2010/05/06/2732438/valley-high-hosts-health-and-fitness.html#ixzz0nRXaIUmA