Friday, June 4, 2010

Oregon University System raises tuition 6.2 percent | OregonLive.com

Oregon University System raises tuition 6.2 percent | OregonLive.com

Oregon University System raises tuition 6.2 percent

By Bill Graves, The Oregonian

June 04, 2010, 5:31PM
Tuition will climb an average 6.2 percent for Oregon undergraduate students in the state’s seven public universities next fall, raising average annual tuition and fees to $7,082.
Combine that with room, board, books, supplies and personal expenses and students will be looking at a price tag of about $20,000 a year to attend college in the Oregon University System.
The State Board of Higher Education
on Friday approved tuition increases for undergraduate Oregon students that range from 2.6 percent at Eastern Oregon University in La Grande to 6.2 percent at the Oregon Institute of Technology in Klamath Falls. Tuition climbed an average 6 percent at the three largest universities and 4.4 percent at the four smaller campuses.
Oregon University System 2010 Tuition.jpgView full size Students were pleased to see the big three universities back off on charging the maximum 8 percent allowed by the Legislature, said Emily McLain, legislative director for the Oregon Student Association.
Still, even a 6 percent increase means hundreds of dollars to students at a time when Oregon families are not seeing their incomes climb at that pace, she said.
Jay Kenton, the Oregon University System’s vice chancellor for finance and administration, said the tuition increase is among the lowest in the nation. He said it is far below a 14 percent increase next fall for Washington State University students following a 14 percent increase this year and a 32 percent increase in tuition and fees pending for California public university students next fall.
The state now provides about 32 percent of the higher education

Race to Top Side Deals: Ed. Dept. Reacts - Politics K-12 - Education Week

Race to Top Side Deals: Ed. Dept. Reacts - Politics K-12 - Education Week

Race to Top Side Deals: Ed. Dept. Reacts

Florida's Race to the Top application and the so-called side deals that districts and unions are entering into on their own—outside of the official application—are raising some eyebrows among education policy wonks. It's really unclear just how problematic these side deals might be to the spirit of the Race to the Top competition in Florida, but they sure do raise a lot of questions. Eduwonk, Sherman Dorn, State EdWatch, The Washington Post's Answer Sheet, and this blog have all explored the ramifications of these side deals.
Now, the U.S. Department of Education is weighing in late Friday on such deals. They would not talk about Florida, specifically, because of the ongoing competition, but my guess is some high-level conversations went on to discuss the matter. After all, the last thing the department wants is a bunch of copycat side deals across the

Devil in the Details: An Analysis of State Teacher Dismissal Laws

Devil in the Details: An Analysis of State Teacher Dismissal Laws

Devil in the Details

An Analysis of State Teacher Dismissal Laws

SOURCE: iStockphoto
Districts recognize that an inability to dismiss poor-performing teachers undermines efforts to ensure that every student is taught by a highly effective instructor. As districts begin implementing more effective evaluation systems that better identify both low- and high-performing teachers, changes will have to be made to dismissal processes to exit those teachers in a fair and efficient manner.
The teacher dismissal process, once largely unexamined, is quickly becoming a hotly debated area of education policy. Newspapers across the country regularly publish reports on the expense and time associated with dismissing teachers. Steven Brill’s “The Rubber Room,” an exposé on the seemingly neverending process of terminating teachers in New York City, brought the topic onto the national stage.
Federal and state policymakers have also begun calling for reform. Both President Barack Obama and U.S. Secretary of Education Arne Duncan have discussed the need to make dismissal a more efficient process. American Federation of Teachers President Randi Weingarten has also acknowledged the “glacial” speed of the dismissal process in many

New testing schedule complicates NYC’s summer school plans | GothamSchools

New testing schedule complicates NYC’s summer school plans | GothamSchools

New testing schedule complicates NYC’s summer school plans

When the state announced plans to push back the date of the annual tests, some teachers and administrators bristled. But now the change is complicating a rite of passage: figuring out which students are promoted to the next grade and which are going to summer school.
This year’s delayed testing schedule puts New York City in the awkward position of choosing which students to send to summer school without knowing whether they passed the state’s annual math and English exams. Currently, schools have their students’ raw test scores,but they don’t know whether the scale score passes the official state cut-off for passing, because the state hasn’t set cut-off scores yet.
In response, the city is working with the state to set their own cutoff scores months before the official results come out in August.

In order to qualify for summer school, students have to score very low on the tests — getting a one or a two out of a possible four.
“We will determine based on prior years’ data what we believe a two, three, or four would equate to this year,” said a spokesman for the city’s Department of Education, Daniel Kanner, adding that the cutoffs will be set

Remainders: Mulgrew’s love-hate relationship with the Post

Calif. high school ends 'Beat the Jew' game Education news - Boston Globe - MCAS results - latest education news - Boston.com

Education news - Boston Globe - MCAS results - latest education news - Boston.com

Calif. high school ends 'Beat the Jew' game

By Christina Hoag
Associated Press Writer / June 4, 2010
Text size +
LOS ANGELES—Seven seniors at a Southern California high school were facing disciplinary action for participating in a game called "Beat the Jew" in which losers were subjected to "incineration" or "enslavement," a school administrator said Friday.
Discuss
COMMENTS (0)
The game involved some students playing the role of Nazis who blindfolded and dropped off other students playing Jews who must find their way back to the campus, said Sherry Johnstone, assistant superintendent of personnel for Desert Sands Unified School District.
It was not immediately clear what either punishment comprised for losing players, she said.
Seven seniors at La Quinta High School could be suspended or barred from graduation, among other measures, Johnstone said.
"This is appalling to us," she said. "We want our students to understand the horror of a title like this."
The district about 130 miles east of Los Angeles referred the matter to police

Sacramento Press / Political campaign fliers NOT from The Sacramento Press

Sacramento Press / Political campaign fliers NOT from The Sacramento Press


Political campaign fliers NOT from The Sacramento Press

It was brought to our attention that mailers were sent out by the Sacramento Building Trades Political Action Committee with our name and logo.
The Sacramento Press had no part in it. We did not print the mailers. We did not write those words. The quote " We're being hoodwinked, bamboozeled, led astray, run amok as it appears District One candidate, Angelique Ashby, goes with the Hustle and Flow of dirty politics," came from an opinion piece, written by a community contributor on our site. We did not write or solicit the article.
Our site is a mixture of professional and community reporting. We have a small staff of paid reporters, but the majority of our content comes from the community without any censoring.
We want to make it very clear that we have NO part in this flier.
If you receive these fliers in the mail, they did NOT come from The Sacramento Press.
Thank you to those who called and came to our office to bring this to our attention.



The Perimeter Primate: Your creepy weekend reading and viewing

The Perimeter Primate: Your creepy weekend reading and viewing

Your creepy weekend reading and viewing

Islamist Gülen Movement Runs U.S. Charter Schools, March 29, 2010, American Thinker (FromAmerican Thinker's about page: “There is no limit to the topics appearing on American Thinker. National security in all its dimensions, strategic, economic, diplomatic, and military is emphasized. The right to exist and the survival of the State of Israel are of great importance to us.”)
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Gülen Movement school organizational chart: Unidentified source
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Very fresh news about Fethullah Gülen: Reclusive Turkish Imam Criticizes Gaza Flotilla, June 4, 2010, The Wall Street Journal

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The most recent news about investigations into the recently closed Utah charter school: Islamic links to Utah's Beehive Academy probed, June 1, 2010, The Deseret News

Molalla's Maple Grove Elementary will close after 122 years | OregonLive.com

Molalla's Maple Grove Elementary will close after 122 years | OregonLive.com

Molalla's Maple Grove Elementary will close after 122 years

By Special to The Oregonian

June 04, 2010, 1:08PM
maple-grove.JPGView full sizeMaple Grove Elementary School in Molalla.More than a century of rural Oregon history is coming to an end as Maple Grove Elementary School closes its doors.

maple-grove-staff.JPGView full sizeMaple Grove's staff is (from left) instructional assistant Claire Ferlan, teacher Mike Clarke and teacher Peg Moore.Molalla Mayor Mike Clarke, a teacher at the school, has invited students, families, former students and the rest of the community to a barbecue Sunday to say farewell to 122 years of educating Molalla-area children.

Maple Grove has been in its current building since 1929 and was in the old school up the hill from 1888 to 1928.

In the late 1800s, Clarke said, "when there wasn't enough money to keep the school open, they would go to school for three months, then go work on the farms, save some money, then open it back up again."

Clarke teaches third, fourth and fifth grades; Peg Moore teaches first and second grades. There is one instructional assistant and a secretary. There are 35 students.

"It's a family school," Clarke said. His twin grandsons attend, and several students have siblings or cousins at the school. The instructional assistant, Claire Ferlan, and her husband were students there a generation ago.

"And the neat part of it is that all 35 students line up in the gym to start the day, and if there's a birthday, we all sing 'Happy Birthday.' "

DISD's preliminary good TAKS news | THE EDUCATION FRONT Blog | dallasnews.com

DISD's preliminary good TAKS news | THE EDUCATION FRONT Blog | dallasnews.com

DISD's preliminary good TAKS news

This year's TAKS scores for Dallas schools is aptly summed up in the headline in today's story on the results: "No High School Left Behind."
Each year, after TAKS scores come in, the state hands out one of four rankings -- exemplary, recognized, acceptable and unacceptable - to every school. The fact that every Dallas high school has preliminarily earned at least an acceptable ranking is a terrific achievement. Last year, nine high schools were rated unacceptable.
If these scores hold up over the summer, when a final analysis is done on them, this will be a real feat for the district. Students, teachers, principals, administrators and the superintendent will all deserve our praise.
There are some serious accomplishments when you move beyond high school, too. At the middle school level, Irma Rangel All Girls Middle School and Greiner Middle School were among the schools reaching the exemplary level. That is one hard goal to obtain, especially for middle schools, where students across the country usually fall behind.
Looking at the results as a whole, it's particularly pleasing to see progress in so many schools south of the Trinity. There's Greiner breaking through to the exemplary category. And then there's Sunset, Adamson and

Teacher to Teacher: Effective Reform Efforts at Your School – ED.gov Blog

Teacher to Teacher: Effective Reform Efforts at Your School – ED.gov Blog

Teacher to Teacher: Effective Reform Efforts at Your School

In our second blog post, we asked teachers (and even a few parents too!) to weigh in on how teacher effectiveness should be defined and measured.
There was a wide range of responses. Most commenters agreed that measuring student learning outcomes is complex and difficult. The Department took these issues into account when crafting its current reform and policy initiatives. Race to the Top and the ESEA Blueprint ask states and local districts to establish definitions of teacher effectiveness “that are based in significant part on student growth and also include other measures, such as classroom observations of practice.” No single measure of student learning, standardized test or otherwise, is a complete or fair measure of what students learn or how teachers teach. None of the policies in Race to the Top, the ESEA Blueprint, or any other Department of Education program proposes using a single test to make major decisions regarding teacher evaluation or compensation.
Several of you provided information regarding ongoing work at the state and national level to address the need for developing credible measures of teacher effectiveness and student learning. There is no question that those two issues, while inextricably linked, are distinct. They warrant careful examination as states and local districts build comprehensive systems of teacher evaluation and measurement of student learning. Moreover, most of you believe that professional educators are responsible for student outcomes and want meaningful measurement of what teachers do. As Ben writes in one comment, “Teachers, if we keep falling back on the ‘measuring teacher effectiveness is just too complicated to measure’ position, then the public will rightfully take these decisions into their own hands.”
The level of teacher engagement that Ben’s post calls for—and the type of collaboration between local, state, and national education stakeholders that the Department promotes—was on display at the recent Teacher Union Reform Network’s National Conference. Michelle Bissonnette, a Washington Teacher Ambassador Fellow, was fortunate enough to attend the conference.
She reflects: “I was so impressed with the work that so many of the local teacher leaders are doing as they grapple with what is arguably one of the most challenging times we’ve ever experienced in education. The political, economic, and policy reform climate are really pushing everyone to think outside the box. Despite really huge challenges, these courageous leaders are breaking the status quo and rising to the occasion as teacher leaders in their district reform efforts. If you haven’t had a chance to check out the incredible work happening at the teacher led public school, the Math and Science Leadership Academy in Denver, Colorado, I would highly recommend it.”
As this blog discussion moves forward, we’d like to hear from you about the schools where there have been successful models in turning around low performance. We know they are out there—in fact, ED’s video team has profiled a number of successful turnarounds (seehttp://www.ed.gov/blog/2010/03/whats-possible-turning-around-americas-lowest-achieving-schools/)—and we want to hear about more of them!
In what ways have you been part of effective reform efforts at your school? Where are the examples of teacher led reforms that have been models of collaborative stakeholder engagement?
Teacher Ambassador Fellows

Summer sessions filling up at UC

Summer sessions filling up at UC

Summer sessions filling up at UC

Summer sessions filling up at UC
On a warm afternoon last week, during the first days of summer sessions at UC Berkeley, Taeksoon Kim sat...




Cash-strapped UC adds high-salary positions

Cash-strapped UC adds high-salary positions
It has been a period of austerity at the University of California, with layoffs, across-the-board pay...