Anti-Semitic student game spurs outrage

Anti-Semitic student game spurs outrage

57 comments by Michelle Mitchell - May. 27, 2010 04:16 PM
(Palm Springs, Calif.) Desert Sun

PALM SPRINGS, Calif. - A game with anti-Semitic elements played by dozens of high school students was offensive but isn't illegal, officials say.

The game, called "Beat the Jew," has caused "extreme disappointment," but the 40 students involved can't be punished because it happened off school property, La Quinta High Principal Donna Salazar said Wednesday.

Some people said something more should be done to teach tolerance.

"We only have three weeks until there's not much you can do about it," said the 18-year-old La Quinta High student who alerted officials to the game and Facebook page promoting it. She has asked to remain anonymous and is staying home from school out of fear of retribution.

"Some of these kids that have joined the group, they're like the cream of the crop of my class," she said. "They're going to be the leaders of our future and they feel this way?"

The chase game involved a runner - called a "Jew" - and groups of people chasing in cars - "Nazis."

"The objective for the Jew is to run down Hwy. 111 to a specified checkpoint before the Nazis can catch up to him, tackle him down and capture him," according to a Facebook page that was taken down Friday.

Read more: http://www.azcentral.com/offbeat/articles/2010/05/27/20100527california-students-play-anti-semitic-game.html#ixzz0pWVj2ZxW

edReformer: Basil Smikle, 38, Bringing Ed Reformers to Table

edReformer: Basil Smikle, 38, Bringing Ed Reformers to Table

Basil Smikle, 38, Bringing Ed Reformers to Table

by Douglas CretsMay 31, 2010

An interview with Basil Smikle, who is running against Bill Perkins in Harlem for a State Senate seat.

eD: Give us a little background about yourself. What were you doing recently, before starting this run against Perkins?

I’ve had my own consulting firm for the last seven years. While I was consluting and being a talking head commenting on government and politics, I was also teaching at Colubmia’s University School of Public Affairs as an adjunct and in the City University of New York system in the School of Professional Studies, also as an adjunct.

eD: What was the catalyst that led you to you to jump into the race to run against Bill Perkins of Harlem?

The catalyst that got me into the race was the pitting of parents and neighbors and schools against one another instead of the honest and sincere search for best education practices in upper Manhattan.

I think the anger and frustration that has been stoked on both sides could be mitigated by bringing everyone to the table and trying to search for really sound ways to improve teaching and learning in this district. Couple that with a number of other lapses in leadership on my opponent’s side specifically, and then the Senate as a body…

I think there is a need for new leadership and I felt strongly I had the talent and energy to really make a difference and be a better advocate in the community.

eD: Do you think the current legislation that effectively bans for-profit growth in New York can be undone?

SCUSD Summer of Service SAC City DAC Education News & Comment

Education News & Comment

SCUSD Summer of Service

SCUSD Summer of Service
For: Space for 500 incoming 9th Graders
Contact:
Zenae Scott, Youth Development Support Services 643-9430
youthdevelopment@sac-city.k12.ca.us

SCUSD Summer School & Summer Programs

Summer School
June 21 -July 30, 2010
(July 5, 2010, Holiday)
Contact:
Mike Crosby, Summer School Office 643-9427

Special Education Summer Programs
Contact:
Vivian Miller, Special Education Services 643-9116

START Summer Programs
For: Specific Elementary Schools
Contact:
START

Memorial Day | Intercepts

Memorial Day | Intercepts

Memorial Day

by Mike Antonucci

Free Technology for Teachers: The Evolution of Television 1926-2010

Free Technology for Teachers: The Evolution of Television 1926-2010

The Evolution of Television 1926-2010

The Evolution of Television is a timeline infographic hosted by Sterling Satellite. The infographic highlights major developments in television technology and highlights in broadcasting history. For example, did you know that JFK's inauguration was the first to be broadcast in color? VisitSterling Satellite to view the full size infographic.

Mike Klonsky's SmallTalk Blog: Why I support teacher seniority rights

Mike Klonsky's SmallTalk Blog: Why I support teacher seniority rights

Why I support teacher seniority rights

by Mike Klonsky

Without them, testing madness rules

Jimmy Kilpatrick's post today on EducationNews.org, highlights the ongoing attack on teacher seniority rights in Cleveland and in other mainly urban school districts. This has become a centerpiece in Arne Ducan's Race To The Top and his so-called "turnaround" strategy.

I favor protecting teacher seniority rights for several reasons. One is that they signify the respect due to professionals in most fields. Secondly, they are the product of democratically negotiated collective bargaining agreements between school boards and teacher unions and should be honored as such. The current three or four-years probation period, during which teachers can be fired at the discretion of the principal, provides plenty of time for any school leader worth their salt, to weed out incompetent teachers.

But maybe even more importantly, without the protection of seniority, teachers and principals, confronted with

In international waters off the coast of Gaza. Memorial Day, 2010. � Fred Klonsky's blog

In international waters off the coast of Gaza. Memorial Day, 2010. � Fred Klonsky's blog

In international waters off the coast of Gaza. Memorial Day, 2010.

by preaprez

Israelis held up a Free Gaza banner on the beach in Ashdod.

It is a sad story to wake up to on this Memorial Day Monday.
In a violation of international law and acceptable humanitarian behavior, Israeli military commandos attacked a flotilla of ships in international waters carrying aid to Gaza, killing many international peace activists.
In Chicago, those who want to protest the attack can gather Tuesday, June 1, 2010 from 4:30pm – 9:00pm in front of Israeli Consulate, 111 E. Wacker Drive.
One question: What will Obama do? Will his administration bow down

UC Riverside Highlander Newspaper - Governor eliminates funding to UC Riverside school of medicine

UC Riverside Highlander Newspaper - Governor eliminates funding to UC Riverside school of medicine

Governor eliminates funding to UC Riverside school of medicine

By Amy Lozano

Published: Monday, May 31, 2010

Updated: Monday, May 31, 2010

As planning for the opening of UC Riverside’s School of Medicine continues, projected funding for the new institution has recently suffered a setback.

According to The Chronicle of Higher Education, the $10 million that the University of California Regents had recommended to help get the medical school off the ground has now been eliminated in Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger’s budget.

Kathy Barton, a member of the School of Medicine Planning Office, said that although the recommended $10 million was not accepted into the 2009 to 2010 California state budget, a request for funding has also been submitted for the 2010 to 2011 school year. Barton said that although the initially recommended $10 million was not approved the school of medicine is hopeful for the upcoming year.

“When the health care reform is enacted, millions of people will have more health care coverage […] we recognize that we will need more doctors for the newly insured,” said Barton.

A fact sheet composed by the UC Riverside School of Medicine states that Riverside and San Bernardino counties currently have 36 and 44 primary care M.D. physicians respectively per 100,000 people, among the lowest ratios of primary care doctors per capita in California.

Furthermore, Latinos and African Americans are vastly underrepresented in the physician workforce. While Hispanics comprise approximately 50 percent of the region’s population, 7 percent comprise the physician workforce.

The subjects of physician understaffing and lack of diversity within the medical field are issues that the UC Riverside School of Medicine plans to alleviate.

“The mission of the UC Riverside School of Medicine is to improve the health of the people of California and to serve

N.J. education commissioner prefers 'educational effectiveness' over seniority when cutting teacher jobs | NJ.com

N.J. education commissioner prefers 'educational effectiveness' over seniority when cutting teacher jobs | NJ.com

N.J. education commissioner prefers 'educational effectiveness' over seniority when cutting teacher jobs

By Bob Braun/Star-Ledger Columnist

May 31, 2010, 7:58AM

Patti Sapone/The Star-LedgerNJ Education Commissioner Bret Schundler speaks to Garden State Coalition of Schools (GSCS) about education reform at the Forsgate Country Club in Monroe Township on 5/26/10.

Bret Schundler is like no education commissioner the state has ever had. He’s not an educator, but a businessman and a politician. He is more of an advocate for private schools than for public schools. He is a true believer in parental choice, something he deems "a human right."

And, in the midst of an ugly fight between his governor and the state’s largest teachers union, his spokesman refers to New Jersey schools as "wretched" — just when they led the nation in a countrywide test of educational achievement.

Okay, so he repudiated the word "wretched" when legislators and educators protested — but what does he really think of the public schools he is constitutionally sworn to support?

That’s not an easy question to answer, even after sitting with Schundler for three hours and talking about the schools.

While he conceded some New Jersey public schools are doing well, he also clearly believes that things have to change and that private schools, without their union rules and bureaucracies, are the models for reform.

But then he suggested veteran teachers should pack it in and retire for the good of the schools.

He said he was concerned about staffing the schools: Education is a "labor intensive service," he said and you need bodies to be there. Thousands of

Political Affairs Magazine - The Otherworldly Attack on Public Education

Political Affairs Magazine - The Otherworldly Attack on Public Education

The Otherworldly Attack on Public Education

By Carl Bloice

Original source: Black Commemtator

The crisis in U.S. public education is beginning to read like something out of the theater of the absurd.

Now they are getting rid of summer school.

The Associated Press reported Sunday: "Across the country, districts are cutting summer school because it's just too expensive to keep. The cuts started when the recession began and have worsened, affecting more children and more essential programs that help struggling students." A survey found that over one third of the school districts in the country are looking at cutting out summer school starting this fall. And who are the students who will be hit hardest by this move? "Experts say studies show summer break tends to widen the achievement gap between poor students and their more affluent peers whose parents can more easily afford things like educational vacations, camps and sports teams," said AP.

"Most people generally think summer is a great time for kids to be kids, a time for something different, a time for all kinds of exploration and enrichment," Ron Fairchild, chief executive officer of the National Summer Learning Association, told the news agency. "Our mythology about summer learning really runs counter to the reality of what this really is like for kids in low-income communities and for their families when this faucet of public support shuts off."

The same day this news was broadcast, the New York Times magazine ran a lengthy front page article about the ongoing efforts to confront the teachers unions and pictured classroom instructors as the impediment to improving the quality of education. At the same time, ironically, the cartoonist Jeff Danziger drew a classroom where two heavies are dragging a teacher out the door while proclaiming: "Good news, we figured out what was costing so much about public education." In the background, someone is hooking up a video monitor.

It remains a mystery to me that an administration that can spend millions of dollars to bribe states into facilitating its quite controversial school "reform" programs can't come up with the resources to stave off the pending mass layoffs of teachers. It can't be that the White House has adopted the reactionaries' tactic of starving public education until it falls to privatization. Education Secretary Arne Duncan appears to be genuinely alarmed at the economic crisis in public education.

"The cuts come even as President Barack Obama and Education Secretary Arne Duncan call for longer school days and shorter summer breaks," observed AP. "But in many states, districts cutting summer school outnumber those using stimulus money to expand their offerings." "At a time when we need to work harder to close achievement gaps and prepare every child for college and career, cutting summer school is the wrong way to go," Duncan told reporters.

Schools can help parents The Brunswick News - Home Page

The Brunswick News - Home Page

Schools can help parents

5/31/2010

By ERIKA CAPEK The Brunswick News

Parent involvement workers don't have to be certified teachers, yet their role in the school system is an important one.

A full-time or part-time parent involvement worker will be at every elementary school this fall, except Oglethorpe Point Elementary School, and at each middle school, said Marihelen Newman, Glynn County family involvement specialist.

Newman said the goal of parent involvement workers is to empower parents and support families.


"We're available to help parents navigate the school system and navigate through the jargon that educators use," Newman said.

Parent involvement efforts are funded through Title 1 federal funds, which schools receive based on the percentage of students from low-income families.

Newman said the majority of parent involvement workers deal with parents but sometimes try to have a parent and child come in together.

Topics they help parents with include test-taking strategies for children, the importance of attendance for children and working with children who have learning disorders.

They focus on more than just academics.

California passes bill to counteract ‘disturbing’ Texas curriculum | Raw Story

California passes bill to counteract ‘disturbing’ Texas curriculum | Raw Story

California passes bill to counteract ‘disturbing’ Texas curriculum

By Sahil Kapur
Sunday, May 30th, 2010 -- 10:23 am

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Measure ensures Texas standards don't 'creep into our textbooks,' senator tells Raw Story

The California Senate on Friday approvedlegislation that sends a clear message to Texas and textbook publishers: don't mess with our kids' minds.

"My bill begins the process of ensuring that California students will not end up being taught with Texas standards," State Senator Leland Yee (D-San Francisco), who authored and sponsored the legislation, said in an interview. Texas standards had better not "creep into our textbooks," he said.

The S.B. 1451 measure – approved on a bipartisan vote of 25-5 – requires California's Board of Education to examine and report any discrepancies between the new Texas standards and California's standards. "At that point," Yee told Raw Story, "we will make it very, very clear that we won't accept textbooks that minimize the contributions of minorities and propagate the close connection between church and state."

Story continues below...

Teachers' seniority rights under assault in Cleveland, across the nation | cleveland.com

Teachers' seniority rights under assault in Cleveland, across the nation | cleveland.com

Teachers' seniority rights under assault in Cleveland, across the nation

By Thomas Ott, The Plain Dealer

May 31, 2010, 6:00AM

View full sizeGus Chan, The Plain DealerCleveland schools Chief Executive Officer Eugene Sanders, shown in a photo from April, wants to weaken teachers' seniority rights through current contract negotiations.

Previous story

The most important book in the Cleveland school district is being rewritten: The union contract

Teachers' seniority rights are under fire from public officials and policy experts who say experience and effectiveness don't always go hand in hand.

The grip seniority holds on schools has gained attention as money runs short and education leaders, including Cleveland's, slash jobs by the hundreds. Its effects also come into play as urban school districts wrestle with how to place the right teachers in schools serving low-income, or so-called "hard to serve," populations.

Cleveland schools Chief Executive Eugene Sanders has acknowledged a desire to dismantle the district's seniority system as part of difficult contract negotiations going on now. Union leaders, wary of giving up seniority rights without a trustworthy alternative, do not deny that the issue could lead to a strike.

Barring an agreement on concessions, Cleveland is set to ax 546 teachers in June. The cuts will sweep out large blocs of staff in 10 popular "innovation schools," where side agreements with the teachers union allow principals to disregard seniority in hiring, reaching outside the system if they think it's necessary. Such newer teachers will be among the first to go.

One of the innovation schools, Warner Girls Leadership Academy, a single-gender elementary school, will say goodbye to 11 of its 18 teachers. The vacancies will have to be filled from within the union.

Principal Lesley Jones Sessler puts a brave face on the situation, saying the school will persevere.

"We can still be successful," she said. "Nowhere was it written that my teachers would be protected from something like this."

But foundations that invested millions of dollars in the innovation schools

Neumann taps public funds for private schools - JSOnline

Neumann taps public funds for private schools - JSOnline

Neumann taps public funds for private schools

Rick Wood

Shawn Vogel (left), Trinidey Brown and Vincent Trentadue color in the K-4 class at the HOPE Christian school at 3601 N. Port Washington Ave. earlier this year.

Republican governor candidate started HOPE Christian Schools

By Lee Bergquist and Erin Richards of the Journal Sentinel

Posted: May 30, 2010 |(30) COMMENTS

Republican businessman Mark Neumann started his first taxpayer-funded school with 49 students, and in eight years enrollment has mushroomed to nearly 1,000 students in four schools.

Neumann, a candidate for governor who preaches smaller government and fiscal conservatism, has used his entrepreneurial skills to tap private and public funds - including federal stimulus dollars - to start schools in poor neighborhoods.

The former member of the U.S. House operates three religious-based schools in Milwaukee, a fourth nonreligious school in Phoenix and has plans to build clusters of schools across the country.

The Nashotah businessman is part of a growing national movement from the private sector that is providing poor neighborhoods an alternative to traditional public schools.

There are signs the schools are achieving one of their primary goals of getting students into post-secondary schools.

HOPE Christian's high school has had two graduating classes before this spring, and has posted acceptance rates at post-secondary schools of 85% in 2008 and 92% in 2009.

By comparison, a Milwaukee Public Schools study of graduating classes in 2005 to 2007 showed a post-secondary enrollment of nearly 46%.

Neumann has used education and his business experience to contrast himself with his two opponents - fellow Republican Milwaukee County Executive Scott Walker and Democratic Milwaukee Mayor Tom

The Answer Sheet - School junk food ban works, study finds

The Answer Sheet- School junk food ban works, study finds

School junk food ban works, study finds

Banning junk food from schools actually does have a beneficial effect on students, a new research study shows.

Schools that eliminated junk food from a la carte lines during school lunch hours have seen an 18 percent reduction in overweight or obese students, according to a new study from the University of Nebraska-Lincoln.

The researchers, Associate Professor of Marketing Patricia Kennedy and Associate Professor of Finance Mary McGarvey, examined nutrition policies as well as survey information from students, parents and administrators at eight Midwestern schools, and then considered a range of other factors to gauge the effect of schools’ food policies on students’ weight.

The study suggests expanding the Agriculture Department’s current ban on selling so-called Foods of Limited Nutritional Value during school