Sunday, February 21, 2010

A Diploma in 10th Grade? - Room for Debate Blog - NYTimes.com

The Times reported this week that under a program starting next year, some high school sophomores in eight states will have a chance to earn a diploma and head straight to community college. To do so, however, they will have to pass academic tests known as board exams. If they don’t pass the tests in the 10th grade, they can take them again in their junior and senior years.

The National Center on Education and the Economy, the nonprofit group that is organizing the program, says that students will have to meet basic requirements before they go to college and that it hopes this will reduce the need for remedial classes in college.

A fast-track approach, which is focused on “at risk” students, is already in place at 71 North Carolina high schools, and is spreading in New York, California and Texas.

What are the benefits of a fast-track approach through high school? What are the possible problems and risks?

Leon Botstein, president of Bard College
Ze’ev Wurman, former Education Department adviser
Michael Goldstein, founder of charter public school
Marc C. Tucker, National Center on Education and the Economy
Vern Williams, middle school math teacher
Nancy Hoffman, Jobs for the Future
Sandra Stotsky, professor of education reform
Rudy Crew, former chancellor of New York City Schools
Kenneth Bernstein, social studies teacher
Amy Wilkins, Education Trust

Federal marks weigh on some schools as state starts AIMS Testing

Federal marks weigh on some schools as state starts AIMS Testing:

"For some Valley schools, state testing, which starts this week, will have even higher stakes.

If schools don't meet federal testing standards, they can face increased sanctions, including replacement of principals, curriculum overhaul or extension of the school year.

Both state and federal officials use AIMS scores to judge schools, but their assessments can be widely different.

Last year, a record 96 percent of Arizona's 1,896 schools got at least a satisfactory rating in how the state judges schools. But more than a quarter of Arizona schools failed to meet the federal government's standard for making 'adequate yearly progress,' or AYP.

One Mesa junior high reflects the different ways schools are judged."

New Plan on School Selection, but Still Discontent - NYTimes.com

After years of complaints from parents, the San Francisco Unified School District has just taken a serious step toward revamping its well-meaning but labyrinthine student-assignment system, which decides the educational homes for tens of thousands of children.

The current system — designed to meet the terms of a settlement in a long-fought federal desegregation case — involves a complicated computer algorithm that creates student “profiles,” using various economic and educational factors, with the aim of sending students of different backgrounds to the same schools.
It has resulted instead in more segregation and has aggravated parents to a point where efforts to manipulate the system have become endemic.
This month, the school district rolled out a new plan. It is designed to more closely consider proximity between a student’s home and classroom. It is to be applied to every child headed for kindergarten.
And once again, no one seems completely happy.
“I’ll be honest with you; we’re really frustrated,” said Michelle Menegaz, the chairwoman of the Parent

Bush schools wait years for upgrades, facilities: Rural Alaska | adn.com

Bush schools wait years for upgrades, facilities: Rural Alaska | adn.com:

"JUNEAU -- More than a decade after a state judge ruled that Alaska's system of funding for new and renovated schools was unconstitutional, the system remains unchanged and the backlog of projects in the Bush amounts to hundreds of millions of dollars."

Rural lawmakers are railing and legislators from both parties say the issue has festered for far too long. Gov. Sean Parnell says he's working on a solution.

The state now operates a two-pronged system to pay for costly new schools and renovations that Bush legislators say gives unfair advantage to urban districts like Anchorage.

Building the first 10 projects on the state-ranked construction priority list -- four new schools and six expansions -- would cost the state $332 million. All are in the Bush; many are located in villages within the Yukon Delta National Wildlife Refuge.

"If we could tax lichen and moss, we could probably pay for our schools," said state Rep. Bob Herron, a Democrat from Bethel who's on the House budget panel for education. "There is no resource to tax."

Most of the Bush schools that need repair or replacement are seriously overcrowded, with double the students they are meant for, according to state education officials, a situation that the governor and four Bush

Pleasantville to try four-day week | desmoinesregister.com | The Des Moines Register

Pleasantville to try four-day week | desmoinesregister.com | The Des Moines Register:

"Pleasantville, Ia. — Pleasantville schools will be the first in Iowa to hold classes four days a week, a plan supporters say will help cushion the blow of budget cuts and preserve the small district's independence.

Students will take Mondays off for three months in the 2010-11 school year - officials say they aren't ready to alter the whole calendar - and the other four days will be a half hour longer each.
The plan was pitched to spare teaching jobs in the 650-student Marion County district, where a drop in enrollment and a tight state budget mean deep cutbacks lie ahead.

But its approval by state officials marks a major shift in Iowa, where four-day school weeks have been viewed as a gamble despite their growing appeal nationwide."

Statistician's analysis could determine teachers' fates | Houston & Texas News | Chron.com - Houston Chronicle

Statisticians don't often make the news. But William “Bill” Sanders became known among local teachers when the Houston Independent School District decided this month to evaluate — and possibly fire — them based on his statistical analysis of student test scores. HISD has paid Sanders' employer, the SAS Institute in Cary, N.C., more than $1.3 million since 2008 for his analysis, which is the basis of the district's performance bonus system.

Q: Teachers have criticized your formula as being too complicated. In simple terms, can you explain how you calculate a teacher's effectiveness?

A: I can't explain how you calculate it. I can explain the concept. The concept is very simple. You look at the progress rates for the individual student. The way to visualize it is, every student has his own trajectory. If the kid is having a really good year, there will be a positive bubble. If the kid is not having a good year, there will be a negative dent. By mathematically aggregating the dimples and bubbles across all students, that gives you a basis for measuring the effectiveness of the schooling entity — the district, the building or the classroom.

Q: I've heard your formula is a secret or proprietary.

A: That's not true. Sanders has given the Chronicle a paper about the Tennessee Value-Added Assessment System, which he

In grading teachers, value-added test is indispensable | Viewpoints, Outlook | Chron.com - Houston Chronicle

Both research and experience tell us that teachers matter. In fact, they matter more than any other factor that we can control in a student's education — more than dollars spent per student, class size or the type and quality of textbooks. No reform is more critical to closing the nation's shameful achievement gap than boosting the quality of teachers in high-poverty schools. “The single most important factor in determining [student] achievement is not the color of their skin or where they come from,“ says President Barack Obama. “It's not who their parents are or how much money they have — it's who their teacher is.” Without “the right people standing in front of the classroom,” the Hamilton Project at the Brookings Institution concludes, “school reform is a futile exercise.”

The Houston Independent School District is taking a critical step to ensure that all its students are taught by top-notch teachers. Superintendent Terry Grier — who has long been a true warrior in the national fight to close the achievement gap — is making an important move by recommending that the teacher evaluation process include an examination of student achievement data. The data will look at how much learning a student gains over one year. This type of data is called “value-added,” meaning that it analyzes only the change across one year relative to where a student begins, a leveling of the playing field that allows us to isolate teacher impact. Value-added data will be one element in a set of criteria that are used to gauge a teacher's effectiveness in the classroom.

Inner-city students struggle to raise money for tour of Nazi death camps

Inner-city students struggle to raise money for tour of Nazi death camps:

"Jamal McNeil (from left), 14, Amanda Remy, 15, Tasia Sharpe, 18, Diana Cabrera, 15, Serpico Arriaga, 15 and Natasha Flowers, 15. All are from the Global 4 Class at the High School for Law, Advocacy and Community Justice at the Martin Luther King Jr. Educational Complex on the Upper West Side. The class needs funding for an educational trip to Germany."

It's a class trip back in time, a long way from their West Side high school.

Nine black and Latino students are desperately scraping together funds for an 11-day tour of the Nazi death camps, their interest stirred by a class about the Holocaust.

So far, their efforts have fallen short.

But the teens at the High School for Law Advocacy and Community Justice hope to raise almost $17,000 in the next month to pay for the trip.

Sophomore Natasha Flowers, 15, explained that learning about Auschwitz in her global history class changed her view of the world.

She once made fun of Hasidic Jews riding the subway through Brooklyn.

"Kingston Ave. - they'd be on the train," she said. "We would laugh at them. Then I learned about the Holocaust and I know what they went through . . . I never made fun of Jews again."

The ninth- and 10th-grade history buffs, all low-income students at the school on W. 66th St., are $16,919 short of the trip's $24,219 cost.

The money is due March 15 for a tour of sites where the Nazis killed millions of Jews during World War II.

Ten win 'Teacher as Hero' awards | Philadelphia Inquirer | 02/20/2010

Sister Helen Thomas, the "hands-on" principal at St. Laurence Catholic School in Upper Darby, has brought technology to her school in a big way.

Emilia Rastrick, a gym teacher at Lingelbach School in Philadelphia's Germantown section, launched a dragon-boat league to promote healthy lifestyles and cooperation among middle-school students.

And Sherman Denby, a science teacher at the Cherry Street School in Bridgeton, N.J., quietly goes out of his way to help his low-income students and their families.

All are considered champions by their school communities, and all were honored recently in an unusual competition. The National Liberty Museum in Old City named the trio and seven other educators winners of the annual "Teacher as Hero" awards. Sponsored by State Farm Insurance, the program recognizes inspirational teachers in the region with a permanent exhibit at the museum at 321 Chestnut St.

"Our honorees are an excellent representation of heroes that touch the future by teaching our youth," Gwen Borowsky, chief executive officer and vice president of the museum, said in a statement.

Subpoena issued in L. Merion webcam case | Philadelphia Inquirer | 02/20/2010

Federal prosecutors have subpoenaed the Lower Merion School District for documents related to the controversial use of remote-control cameras on students' school-issued computers, The Inquirer has learned.

The grand jury subpoena, delivered yesterday, asked for a broad range of records related to the so-called webcams and the security system that district officials used to activate them, said a lawyer who had been briefed about the matter. He spoke on the condition of anonymity.

School district spokesman Douglas Young said he could not comment last night when asked whether such a subpoena had been received. Philadelphia FBI spokesman J.J. Klaver cited the agency's policy of not confirming or denying any pending investigation.

Word of the subpoena came as the elite suburban school district, through Young, conceded that "notice should have been given" to families that the district's computer system would snap photos of school laptop users - even in children's homes - if the laptops were reported missing or stolen.

California Admissions Ruling Challenged | The Afro-American Newspapers

California Admissions Ruling Challenged

Saturday, February 20th, 2010

By AFRO Staff

(Courtesy Photo)

(February 20, 2010) – A coalition of civil rights groups is bringing a new challenge to a California law that prohibits the state from considering race in state university admissions.
The lawsuit was filed in Oakland on Feb. 16 by the Michigan based Coalition to Defend Affirmative Action, Integration, and Immigrant Rights and Fight for Equality By Any Means Necessary. The suit challenges the constitutionality of the law, which was approved by California voters in 1996 and is known as Proposition 209. A similar measure was passed in Michigan in 2006.
“The plaintiff Latina/o and black students now ask this Court to strike down Proposition 209’s ban on affirmative action at the University of California because Proposition 209 has been the sentry at the gate, denying the plaintiffs the chance for an equal and integrated education as promised by the Fourteenth Amendment, Brown v. Board of Education, and the proudest legal traditions of California and of the nation,” the suit reads in part.
Proposition 209 has drawn many lawsuits in California state courts since its enactment on the grounds that it has curbed minority enrollment at state universities.
In the meantime, the University of California system schools said there’s little they can do to alleviate the problem.
“If this opens up another discussion, that’s well and good, but, as long as Proposition 209 is the law, we’re obliged to follow it,” University of California spokesman Steve Montiel told the Oakland Tribune.
The lawsuit acknowledges the schools’ inability to circumvent the law, but did praise it for attempting to

Four-year degrees at comunity colleges - Press-Telegram

Four-year degrees at comunity colleges - Press-Telegram:

"At long last, there are signs Californians might become a little inventive in the face of financial crisis.

The best example so far of an idea for making lemonade when life has dispensed lemons comes in the higher education field, where state colleges and universities have absorbed large budget cuts, begun charging higher tuition and fees than ever - and will still turn away about 100,000 qualified students next fall.

That situation amounts to a wholesale abandonment of California's 1960 Master Plan for Higher Education, which guarantees a place at either the University of California or a California State University campus for every student who has done enough to qualify.

With some campuses reserving significant numbers of spaces for local residents and others turning away even those students, public universities for the first time are plainly not keeping their 50-year-old promise"

Fighting to Protect Education and Public Services—California Students and Unions Show Way Forward

“There's no question this is extraordinary – the worst situation in 50 years.” That’s how Susan Urahn, director of the Pew Center for the States, described the massive budget deficits facing state governments across the country on ABC News. “We saw a $180 billion cumulative budget gap in 2009 and predict the same for 2010.”
At the forefront lies California – both in terms of the scale of the crisis and the movement developing to resist the cuts in vital public services, particularly higher education. Facing a $62 billion deficit in 2009, Republican Governor Schwarzenegger and the Democratic legislature carried out a massive assault on workers and young people.

Higher education has seen billions in funding cut and thousands of faculty and staff laid off. Those remaining face furloughs, wage cuts, hiring freezes, huge increases in class sizes, reductions in course offerings, and cuts in financial aid.
In November, the University of California (UC) Regents approved a 32% tuition hike. Having no shame, the same regents gave themselves and other top administrators pay and benefit increases of up to 30%, on top of their already bloated salaries.
But what stands out against the background of these dreary facts is the bold struggle that has emerged against these attacks. The UC system, which has been at the head of the struggle, has been rocked by one of its biggest movements since the 1960s.
Determined Struggle
The movement erupted on September 24 with a strike and walkout by UC staff, students, and faculty, with thousands protesting across the state. This was followed by a statewide conference on October 24 with 750 people from all sectors of public education, from K-12 through the university level.
The conference voted to call for statewide actions on November 18-20 and a strike and day of action on March 4.

California's environmental policy starts in kindergarten - San Jose Mercury News

VENTURA — In what officials are calling a landmark move, California public schools now have state-approved environmental curriculum for students all the way from kindergarten through 12th grade.

The state Board of Education this year signed off on 76 sections of curriculum — part of California's Education and the Environment Initiative — and they are expected to be available for teachers online in the spring at no charge.

"This is another example of California leading the nation in environmental policy," said Lindsay VanLaningham, deputy director of communications for the California Environmental Protection Agency. The K-12 curriculum is serving as a model, she said, and other states have requested information about California's efforts.

Legislation written by Fran Pavley, D-Agoura Hills, and signed into law in 2003 called for putting environmental education into public schools, and developing the curriculum was a lengthy process with multiple agencies involved, including the California EPA, state Integrated Waste Management Board and the California Department of Education, VanLaningham said.

It includes 85 sections of science and history-social science with academic standards, and the state board signed off on 76 of them at its January meeting. The remaining nine sections are expected to go to the board this spring.

While many schools already have some environmental education, state officials said much

of it is considered supplemental because lessons are not focused on state academic standards.

Using the environment as the context, the new curriculum teaches standards required in other subjects, such as

Saturday, February 20, 2010

Sacramento Press / SACRAMENTO NEWS & REVIEW HOSTS SACRAMENTO SUSTAINABILITY FORUM

Business owners, members of various organizations and political representatives attended the seventh Sacramento Sustainability Forum on Thursday at the Sacramento News & Review offices at 1124 Del Paso Blvd. Since August 2009 the SSF has been holding these meetings to discuss local solutions to environmental, economic and political problems.

The discussion focused on Senate Bill 375, which calls for lowering greenhouse gas emissions by curbing urban sprawl. The bill would have city and transportation planners achieve this by placing housing, industry, schools and retail in close proximity to each other.

The bill is complex and would pertain to many segments of population and organizations in Sacramento. For more information and to read the bill, visitwww.arb.ca.gov/cc/sb375/sb375.htm.

The speakers Thursday were Shamus Roller, executive director of the

Wake County's Anti-Diversity Board Majority Ponder Superintendent's Resignation Schools Matter

Schools Matter

Wake County's Anti-Diversity Board Majority Ponder Superintendent's Resignation

Photo: TAKAAKI IWABU - tiwabu@newsobserver
What do you get when institutionalized racism at the national level intervenes to buy a school board in order to destroy the nation's most successful school integration and diversity program? Keep an eye on Wake County, NC, and you will see the perfect case study unfolding before our eyes.

One thing you can obviously get is a righteously indignant superintendent who is not afraid to challenge the anti-diversity racist majority on the Wake County School Board. From the News

CALPADS accepting data The Educated Guess

The Educated Guess
CALPADS accepting data
Posted in CALPADS

School districts can continue to upload data to CALPADS, the beleaguered student longitudinal data system.
That’s the word from the Department of Education, which says CALPADS will continue to accept information during the next two months, when the system is being overhauled and fixed.
Superintendent of Public Instruction Jack O’Connell took the unusual step earlier this month of calling in a technical team to find defects in the system that have caused outages, errors and slowness in the system since CALPADS started up in October. As I reported on Friday, a consultant warned of system failure unless comprehensive fixes were made.
Districts have been uploading enrollment and dropout information, known as Fall 1 data. Recognizing that districts have faced headaches with CALPADS, O’Connellhas extended the submission deadline indefinitely

Schools Matter: Rothstein Educates Pay Per Score Advocates

Education - Everything you need to know about the world of education.

Education- Everything you need to know about the world of education.

D.C. teacher accused of impregnating student

Rhee letter sheds light on her comments about laid-off teachers

MORE ON EDUCATION

D.C. Schools Chancellor Michelle A. Rhee. (Photo by Benjamin J. Myers

Did Tiger HAVE to drag in the school kids?

I was hoping he wouldn’t do this in today’s mea culpa speech, but, alas, he did: Tiger Woods HAD to remind the public that he really is a great guy because his foundation helps needy kids get an education.

He doesn’t seem to have learned the one lesson that many other people did from his sordid fall from grace: Nobody--not adults and especially not school-aged children -- should look to a celebrity as a role model for a value system.

Continue reading this post »

Lynn, Worcester charter school bids get backing - The Boston Globe

Lynn, Worcester charter school bids get backing - The Boston Globe:

"Charter school proposals in Lynn and Worcester won endorsement from a top state education official yesterday as part of an annual review process that has come under intense scrutiny in the past year."

The state Board of Elementary and Secondary Education will vote on the recommendations at its monthly meeting Tuesday. The proposed Lynn Preparatory Charter School and the Spirit of Knowledge Charter School in Worcester hope to open this fall.

The way charter schools are reviewed has been a subject of controversy in recent months, after the state’s commissioner of elementary and secondary education, Mitchell Chester, was accused of ulterior motives in recommending approval of a Gloucester charter school last year. Critics have seized upon a 2009 e-mail from Paul Reville, the state’s education secretary, in which he urged Chester to recommend the school to win support among charter school proponents for Governor Deval Patrick’s overall education agenda.

The state board ultimately approved the recommendation, over intense

Fight over school closings dates back many years and many superintendents - KansasCity.com

Fight over school closings dates back many years and many superintendents - KansasCity.com:

"When Bernard Taylor heard about the storm over Kansas City school closings this week, he felt like an old fan tuning in a familiar soap opera.

“It’s like ‘The Young and the Restless,’ ” said Taylor, now a superintendent in Michigan, who tried and mostly failed to close Kansas City schools several years ago.

“You can come back after five years and it’s the same story line and the same characters. The saga never changes.”

Taylor, superintendent from 2001 to 2006, was one in a line of misstepping superintendents walking a perilous road with fainthearted school boards and communities, bearing Kansas City’s own version of a growing real estate bubble on their backs.

With John Covington proposing what would be by far the district’s largest one-time closure of schools, Taylor sees another superintendent standing where he was — under fire."

Mayor Menino, ‘mentors’ meet on new Boston bullying campaign - BostonHerald.com

Mayor Menino, ‘mentors’ meet on new Boston bullying campaign - BostonHerald.com:

"A Boston middle schooler taunted daily with verbal and physical threats prompted a health-care provider to pick up the phone and report the abuse to the Hub’s new anti-cyberbullying hotline, one of several calls the line received this week, just days after being put into service.

“The caller wanted to make sure that the authorities were aware that there was a bullying issue at this school,” said Steven Belec, director of the hotline service, which, after being launched Tuesday - during school vacation week - already has received seven calls.

Belec said he contacted education and police officials to warn them of the problem after the Thursday call. “We want to ensure that there is some level of systemic surveillance,” he said.

Meanwhile, Mayor Thomas M. Menino and Boston Public Schools Superintendent Carol R. Johnson met yesterday with 15 “cyber mentors” - volunteers who teach other students about online privacy and the hazards of the Internet - to brainstorm ways to spread the word on the hotline and the city’s new campaign to combat cyberbullying."

High School Graduation Rates Low Where Most American Indians, Alaska Natives Live, Report Says

High School Graduation Rates Low Where Most American Indians, Alaska Natives Live, Report Says:

"A new national report has found that fewer than 50 percent of Native American Indian and Alaska Native students from the Pacific and Northwest regions of the U. S. graduate from high school. Released on Thursday, “The Dropout/Graduation Crisis Among American Indians and Alaska Native Students: Failure to Respond Places the Future of Native People at Risk” report was conducted by The Civil Rights Project/Proyecto Derechos Civiles at UCLA’s Graduate School of Education and Information Studies.

The report found drastic disparities in graduation rates between American Indian/Alaska Native students and others in the states of Alaska, Arizona, California, Idaho, Montana, New Mexico, North Dakota, Oklahoma, Oregon, South Dakota, Washington and Wyoming. In addition to the most recent graduation data, the report includes discussion of challenges and possibilities specific to the education of this population.

Dr. Susan Faircloth of the Coharie tribe, co-author"

Local News | UW project explores Great Depression's impact on state | Seattle Times Newspaper

Local News | UW project explores Great Depression's impact on state | Seattle Times Newspaper:

"A year ago, University of Washington history professor James Gregory started getting the question: Was our nation and state entering a second Great Depression?

Huge layoffs at Microsoft, Boeing and Starbucks. The end of Washington Mutual, the biggest U.S. bank in history to fail. Home prices falling and bankruptcy filings in Washington reaching 90 per day.

'I started thinking there might be lessons that could be learned from the Great Depression,' Gregory said. 'The 1930s are arguably the most important decade in the building of Washington state as we know it today"

Ackerman: Youth violence a public health issue | Philadelphia Inquirer | 02/19/2010

Ackerman: Youth violence a public health issue | Philadelphia Inquirer | 02/19/2010:

"Philadelphia School District Superintendent Arlene Ackerman says she goes to bed angry every night and wakes up angry every morning.

There were about 15,000 violent and nonviolent incidents in city public schools last year - down 5 percent from the year before, but still far too many, the schools chief said in an interview yesterday.

'Fifteen thousand is not something we should be proud of,' she said.

Occasionally, public outrage bubbles up - in December over the beating of Asian students at South Philadelphia High, this week when a mob of high school students threw punches and damaged property in Center City. But that's not enough, the superintendent said."

Latest News and Comment from Education