Wednesday, February 24, 2010

America's First Muslim College

WASHINGTON – As interested students race to beat the fast approaching enrolment deadline, Muslims are turning their sights to the Zaytuna College in California to see if America's first ever Muslim college will live up to the high expectations.
"We’ve been waiting for this time," Imam Zaid Shakir, a scholar-in-residence and lecturer at Zaytuna Institute and a co-founded of the college, told IslamOnline.net in an exclusive interview.
"It’s been a long road to get here, Alhamdulillah, and to know that we’re in this final part to getting freshman class set is very exciting."
Zaytuna College, a brainchild of Sheikh Hamza Yusuf, Imam Shakir and Professor Hatem Bazian, will stop accepting applications for its first freshman class of 2010 on March 1.
With the application process coming to a close, a committee is readying to study the applications and admit between 20-25 students as incoming freshmen.
And although the college is seeking Muslim students, it is not exclusive to Muslims.
There will be no gender separation at the college and academic pursuits and freedom will be paramount.
Course subjects have been decided on, but educators are now writing syllabi and mapping out teaching methodology for the subjects.
Currently only two majors are being offered: Arabic language and Islamic law and theology.
As the class size increases and more educators are hired, other majors will be offered, Imam Shakir said.
Zaytuna College is in the rigorous process of seeking accreditation from the Western Association of Schools and Colleges, a process that will take a number of years and one that Imam Shakir hopes will be completed by the time the freshman class graduates.
He noted that they have been able to achieve the goal of raising nearly $4 million needed for its temporary location at Berkeley.
Now they face the challenge of raising upwards of $65 million for an endowment fund that will ensure a consistent monetary support

Read more:http://www.islamonline.net/English/News/2010-02/24/02.shtml#ixzz0gSonTkl2

Gay Calif. student's slaying is spur for bill in Congress | ScrippsNews

WASHINGTON - Two years after he was gunned down in a California classroom, 15-year-old Larry King's tragic death could lead to a new federal law to protect gay and lesbian students from harassment.

King's slaying by a fellow classmate has helped to inspire a bill in Congress that would for the first time make it illegal under federal law for public schools to discriminate against students because of their sexual orientation.

Harassment would be considered a form of discrimination under the proposed law.

King's death, which made national headlines and led to vigils in his honor from coast to coast, was a heartbreaking demonstration of why such a law is needed, said the bill's chief sponsor, Rep. Jared Polis, D-Colo. More than 60 other House lawmakers are co-sponsors.

"I absolutely had Larry King in mind and other kids like him" when writing the bill, said Polis, one of only three openly gay members of Congress.

Charter school leader to speak at D.C. briefing on rough road to approval �| ajc.com

The embattled head of Ivy Preparatory Academy has been invited to speak at a congressional policy briefing in Washington, D.C., Friday to share how she overcame roadblocks to open Georgia’s first charter school for girls.

Nina Gilbert will join a panel of national school reform experts this week for a charter schools presentation.The seminar, hosted by the University of Southern California’s Rossier School of Education, will rally support for multiple charter school authorizers in states and new federal policy to help improve the quality of the campuses.

Gilbert has been asked to talk about her rough road to approval that began with a rejection by Gwinnett CountySchools, which denied her charter petition in 2007. Ivy Prep won Georgia Board of Education approval later on appeal, but it operated on a shoestring budget with only state and federal dollars before the state's newest authorizer, the Georgia Charter Schools Commission, opened for business. Both the commission and the school of 290 girls now face a lawsuit filed in September by Gwinnett Schools officials who argue that the campus was opened and funded illegally.

“Many people in politics and policy are not well-acquainted with charter authorizing; this is really an effort to show folks on the Hill several of the aspects of charter school governance,” explained panelist Nelson Smith, president of the National Alliance for Public Charter Schools, who will also speak before congressional staff and others Friday. “Nina Gilbert’s participation arises out of the history of getting her school started. She has had the experience of trying several routes to get a charter authorized.”

In 2009, Ivy Prep was approved as one of Georgia's first commission charter schools. The designation allowed the campus to receive state and federal funding plus a controversial matching share of local dollars carved from the state allocation of Gwinnett Schools. The bump moved Ivy Prep's per pupil allotment from $3,000 to $7,000.

Quick Takes: Student Government Freezes Funds for Student Media at UC-San Diego - Inside Higher Ed

Quick Takes: Student Government Freezes Funds for Student Media at UC-San Diego - Inside Higher Ed:

"Student Government Freezes Funds for Student Media at UC-San Diego

The student government president at the University of California at San Diego temporarily froze funding for all student-financed media operations on the campus after members of a student media group made racially charged comments on a broadcast, the San Diego Union-Tribune reported. The incident, which was the second involving deragotory comments about black students in a matter of weeks, led the president of the student government to freeze student funding for all media outlets while the campus drafts a new policy on funding student media. The Guardian, the student newspaper, which does not receive student fee support, blasted the decision in an editorial entitled 'Stopping the Presses Won't Heal the Hurt.'"

R.I. School Poised to Fire All 88 Teachers - CBS News

R.I. School Poised to Fire All 88 Teachers - CBS News
(CBS/ AP) Rhode Island Education Commissioner Deborah Gist has approved a school district's plan to fire all its teachers.

All 88 teachers at Central Falls High School are expected to receive their pink slips on Tuesday, reports CBS affiliate WPRI in Providence.

Central Falls, Rhode Island has long been among the state's most troubled school districts - 90 percent of the students live in poverty, reports CBS News correspondent Jim Axelrod. Many struggle with English in this immigrant community - and that's just for starters.

"We lose 52 percent of our students between 9th grade and the 12th grade," Gallo told Axelrod. "They don't graduate."

Central Falls Superintendent Fran Gallo has proposed laying off all teachers at the school as part of a "turnaround" model for the school. That high school and five other schools in Providence have been identified by the state as chronically low-performing and must make major changes to avoid being closed.

The turnaround model requires a new principal and governance structure and allows no more than half the teachers to be rehired.

Gist on Tuesday said she had accepted Gallo's proposal. The superintendent has 120 business days to submit to Gist her proposal for overhauling the school.

The Orion - New bill proposes limits on fee spikes

Senate Bill 969

The days of unexpected fee increases may soon be at an end.

California Senate Bill 969, also known as the California College and University Fee Stabilization Act of 2010, would put an end to large fee increases and cap the amount students are required to pay for education.

If passed, the bill would cap a student’s fees to what they paid upon their first semester enrolled in a degree program, according to the bill. Fee increases would not be greater than 5 percent for a new incoming class.

Under the bill, the California State University system could not hold students responsible for more than 30 percent of the average cost of education for the year, but it does not guarantee the state will fund the remaining 70 percent, said Claudia Keith, assistant vice chancellor for public affairs for the CSU.

“A requirement for the same fee from year to year for students does not recognize the reductions in the state’s funding support for the CSU,” Keith said in an e-mail.

The bill would not limit increases on fees charged by the Associated Students at Chico State, which are voted on by the student population, said Joyce Friedman, A.S. director of Financial Services.

While the bill looks promising for students, Friedman thinks it will have to be further revised before it could be passed, she said.

The bill could be helpful for students and parents who are trying to plan for education costs, said sophomore Addison Larios, a criminal justice major. His parents based his fall 2009 fees on spring fees and were forced to take out more loans when fees increased.

“It sounds good for the students but it seems like it would be harder on budgets,” he said.

The bill could make it difficult for the CSU system to raise necessary funds in crisis situations, Larios said. He wants to learn more about the bill before deciding whether to support it.

Law could aid undocumented students at SJSU - News

A new law currently being debated in Congress will, if enacted, allow college students who are illegal immigrants the ability to attain citizenship upon completion of a degree, an SJSU director said.

"Currently trapped in a legal paradox, undocumented students in the United States have the right to a primary and secondary school education, but then face uncertainty upon graduation from high school," according to a publication by the College Board titled "Young Lives on Hold: The College Dreams of Undocumented Students."

Dennis Lopez, SJSU's Educational Opportunity Program director, who has been involved in education equity programs for more than thirty years, said he believes that the Development, Relief and Dducation for Alien Minors Act, or the DREAM Act, needs to be passed.

"Undocumented students represent a tremendous human resource for this economy, for this state, and for our country, and both the state university system and this campus can benefit from undocumented students being educated in the CSU system and graduating as citizens," he said.

The DREAM Act will provide a conditional path to citizenship in exchange for completion of either a college degree or two years of military service to students that can demonstrate good moral character, according to the act's official Web site.

An estimated 26,000 undocumented youth in California will benefit from the DREAM Act, according to a Pew Foundation study.

California budget hole update

California budget hole update:

"Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger is schmoozing with the federal government again this week as he tries to pry more money. Meanwhile, the state Legislature made its first budget cut for the fiscal year and is still debating the tax system.

Another update on California’s $20 billion budget hole is right here.

$2 billion cut: The State Legislature has made its first decision in budget cuts this fiscal year."

According to The San Jose Mercury News, the cuts to prisons and state worker pay were approved by the State Senate Monday after the State Assembly approved of it last week. It will now go to Gov. Schwarzenegger’s desk for a signature.

“Up against a deadline to close at least part of the state’s $19.9 billion deficit, the California Legislature sent more than $2 billion in cuts to Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger on Monday. But they held off on approving the rest of a package that punts most of the state’s budget pain until later this year.

In low-key votes, lawmakers slashed nearly $1 billion from the state’s prison system, chiefly from inmates’ medical care, and approved a $540 million reduction in state workers’ paychecks. The state Senate had approved those measures last week, and on Monday they passed the Assembly on party-line votes.”

Party blame is still existent in Sacramento as Assembly Minority Leader Martin Garrick (R-Carlsbad) told the paper, “the Democrats seem intent on avoiding tough decisions.”

Controversial taxes: California’s taxing system and any ideas surrounding it remains a hot issue. As of Monday, Democrats are reconsidering their plan to revamp how the gas tax is collected after Schwarzenegger threatened to veto it.

Autism signs appear in babies' first year, but parents don't notice, study finds | Booster Shots | Los Angeles Times

The social disengagement that is the hallmark of autism-spectrum disorders begins to appear in the second half of a baby's first year of life, according to a new study. But California researchers found that parents typically do not notice the decline in their child's behavior until well into his or her second year.

The study, published in the Journal of the American Academy of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry, is among the first to glean the pattern of autism's emergence in very young children by following babies from the age of 6 months. At that age, babies who would go on to be diagnosed as autistic and babies who would develop typically showed no significant differences in social behaviors, including smiling, making eye contact and vocalizing responsively.

The study calls into question the bases on which much early speculation about and research on autism and its causes have been based: parental observation. For starters, the study found little to support the observations of some parents that their baby showed symptoms of extreme social disengagement from birth. But it also cast doubt on the accuracy of parents' reports that their baby's descent into autism was sudden and dramatic.

In its detailed comparison of 50 babies — half of whom would go on to be diagnosed with autism — the researchers found a steady loss of sociability and responsiveness in the babies who would progress to an autism diagnosis. Those babies' loss of social skills looked more like regression and less like a slowing of progress that allowed normally developing babies to pull far ahead of them. And that regression was most marked between 6 and 18 months, though it continued more gradually to the 3-year mark, where the study left off.

But while the reduced rates of face-gazing, vocalizations and

The Lumberjack - Listen Up, Capitol Hill!

March will have students from throughout California pressuring legislators to increase funding for higher education. Humboldt State University has two choices: stay here and get “pissed off,” or join the activists, says HSU Associated Students President Brandon Chapin.

California State Universities and California Community Colleges will rally together on March 22 in front of the State Capitol.

Aarron Wilyer, HSU California State Student Association Representative, is the event coordinator for HSU. Wilyer says the thousands that are expected will meet at Raley Field in Sacramento for the beginning of the demonstration. After an hour rally, students plan to march a mile to the North Steps of the State Capital.

Chapin, a senior and Political Science major adds that he, Wilyer and eight other students from HSU California Higher Education Student Summit (CHESS) will have the opportunity to speak with legislators and staff members after the rally.

The march will “show that everybody’s angry,” says Representative of the College of Professional Studies Courtland Johnson, a sophomore majoring in recreation.
At January’s State of the State Address, Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger proposed to the Legislator to eliminate the 32% student fee increase for UC’s along with the 20% increase the CSU’s faced last year.

Middle school education: Muddle or model? | Get Schooled

I am not a fan of middle school and have irked many proponents with my past complaints that it is the Bermuda triangle of education, where achievement and progress go missing in the mist. I also think there is a lot of fuzzy talk about middle school and too much blaming of underachievement on hormones. (All adolescents in the world go through puberty. Why is it that American kids become too addled to learn?)

So, I was eager to take part in the teleconference Tuesday on the largest study ever – so say the authors — of middle grades education. Released today, the study by Edforce involved a survey of 303 principals, 3,752 English language arts and math teachers in grades 6-8, and 157 superintendents in California. The study compared policies and practices against the spring 2009 scores on California’s standards-based tests of 204,000 students in grades 6, 7, and 8.

“We did not ask opinions,” said Trish Williams, executive director of EdSource and study project director. “We asked what they actually did.”

“This helps us crack the code about what works at the middle school level,” said Robert Balfanz, advising consultant to the study and principal research scientist of Everyone Graduates Center at Johns Hopkins University.

State trims deficit, but key cuts delayed

State trims deficit, but key cuts delayed:

"The California Legislature began chipping away at the state's $20 billion budget deficit, passing $2.8 billion in cuts, fund shifts and other solutions, though political wrangling held up about an additional proposed $2.2 billion Monday evening."

The Legislature was facing a deadline to respond to Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger's call for midyear budget cuts. He asked for about $8.9 billion in cuts and other changes to the budget over the next 16 months, but the Legislature was considering a package of bills worth about $5 billion. Lawmakers will not take up cuts to education and social services until later in the year.
Some of the most significant changes approved by the Legislature included an $811 million reduction in funding for prisoner medical costs, a 5 percent cut in state employee payroll, saving $182 million by turning over illegal immigrants in state jails to the federal government and $228 million by suspending some mandates for local governments and deferring certain payments to them.
Assembly Speaker Karen Bass, D-Baldwin Vista (Los Angeles County), acknowledged that the Legislature is taking up some of the easier proposals while leaving more painful cuts until later in the year.
Read more: http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2010/02/23/BAP51C5FL6.DTL#ixzz0gSabuaJ8

LAUSD's vote keeps it mostly in control - ContraCostaTimes.com

Disappointing many who had hoped Los Angeles public schools were on the brink of bold reform, school board members voted Tuesday to let the operation of most of the 36 schools up for grabs in a bid process remain in district hands.

"We missed an opportunity to make bold change today," said school board member Yolie Flores, who authored the district's School Choice plan. "Clearly, there is a line of board members that are still beholden to unions. I am beholden to children."

The School Choice plan, approved in August, allows teachers and administrators from within LAUSD as well as independent charter school operators and nonprofit groups to bid on new and underperforming district schools.

The plan has been fiercely opposed by all district employee unions, in particular the powerful teachers union, because nondistrict operators selected to run schools are not required to hire union workers and some propose using amended union contracts.

The 36 schools drew more than 200 applications from local and out-of-state groups as well as dozens of proposals from district workers.

In the end, the board voted to let charters, which had bid to operate 18 schools, have full control of three campuses and partial control of another.

A nonprofit organization will be allowed to open a small school within San

L.A. teachers gain control of 22 campuses in reform effort - latimes.com

In an unlikely victory, groups of teachers, rather than outside operators, will run the vast majority of 30 campuses under a controversial school reform effort, the Los Angeles Board of Education decided Tuesday.

It was an ironic twist to a strategy that was designed to allow outsiders to manage new or troubled campuses in the Los Angeles Unified School District. When the board approved the concept in August, it was a stunning acknowledgment that the nation's second-largest school system needed help to improve its schools.

But the result was far different. Acting mostly on recommendations from Supt. Ramon C. Cortines, the board agreed Tuesday to turn over 22 of the schools to teacher-led efforts. Board members also supported Cortines' proposal to have different groups share some campuses. Teachers, for example, were given a role at two other schools along with outside groups.

The teachers competed against Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa's nonprofit school organization and charter schools, independently run public campuses that are mostly nonunion.

In the end, charter schools were given the chance to run four schools and the mayor's Partnership for Los Angeles Schools was given three.

The board's decision directly affects close to 40,000 students -- a number that by itself would represent one of the state's largest school systems. This reform has been characterized as a possible national model as well as a signal of notable progress within L.A. Unified, which is competing for federal grants by claiming leadership status in reform efforts.

Recession Could Push U.S. Further Behind in Educational Goals - International - The Chronicle of Higher Education

Recession Could Push U.S. Further Behind in Educational Goals, Compared With Other Nations

By Karin Fischer

The recent recession could accelerate global shifts in the race to educate more people and produce top-flight research, and, as a result, the United States could lose ground.

That's the conclusion of a new paper by the Center for Studies in Higher Education at the University of California at Berkeley. John Aubrey Douglass, the paper's author and a senior research fellow at the center, examined the impact of the economic downturn on higher-education budgets in several member countries of the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development.

Mr. Douglass found that, outside the United States, most countries have thus far avoided large cuts to college budgets and that, in fact, many nations have used the recession to speed up higher-education reforms. By contrast, some 34 American states have already made major reductions in spending on higher education, in some cases limiting college access.

"Looking over one's shoulder at the rest of the world, there appears to be a different set of national government approaches to funding and supporting higher education during the Great Recession than what we find in the U.S.," Mr. Douglass writes in the paper, "Higher Education Budgets and the Global Recession: Tracking Varied National Responses and Their

Regent to Prioritize Education for CA - Daily Nexus

A UC Regent will assume the post of California’s Secretary of Education, Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger announced yesterday.

Regent Bonnie Reiss, 54, is a Democrat and currently resides in Los Angeles. She will receive $175,000 compensation for her work, and will not need to be confirmed for the position by the state senate.

UC President Mark Yudof applauded the governor’s choice.

“This is terrific news for California,” Yudof said in a press release. “The governor could not have made a better choice. As a University of California regent, Bonnie has demonstrated an unwavering dedication to and passion for the cause of public education. Now more than ever, we need an effective ally in Sacramento, and Bonnie certainly will be all that and more.”

According to a statement from the governor’s office, the Secretary of Education, as the main advisor on educational matters to the governor, is given the mandate to create, promote and support the governor’s policies to provide a respectable education for all Californians.

How TABOR failed Colorado - The Denver Post

It is time and past time for the citizens of Colorado to cowboy up and start behaving like adults. It is time for us to take the responsibility given us by the founding fathers and reclaim our role as true citizens, educated, aware and involved in the process of governance.

We have abdicated our responsibility to manage our elected officials by resorting to the referendum and forsaken our role in a representative democracy. The founders did not establish a direct democracy for a reason. We tamper with this at our peril.

We have foolishly allowed political charlatans to convince us that government in and of itself is evil and should be shrunken to the point that, as famously put by Grover Norquist, the government can be drowned in a bathtub.

Well we are there and the results are ugly indeed. Mandatory furlough days, diminished services, state budgets drenched in red ink. State employees will not receive pay raises and will steadily lose ground to

National Alliance for Public Charter Schools Invited to Testify Before House Committee on Education about Quality... -- WASHINGTON, Feb. 24 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ --

Board Chairman Caprice Young to Represent the Alliance on February 24

WASHINGTON, Feb. 24 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ -- The National Alliance for Public Charter Schools is pleased to announce that their board chairman, Caprice Young, will be testifying before the House Committee on Education and Labor at a hearing today. Young will voice her support for quality charter schools, and also for Representative Jared Polis' (D-Colo.) All Students Achieving through Reform (All-STAR) Act, H.R. 4330. The All-STAR Act supports the replication and expansion of high quality charter schools as a critical component of improving public education in America, and is one of the National Alliance for Public Charter Schools' top federal legislative priorities.

"The Alliance worked in deep collaboration with Rep. Polis' staff on the development of the All-STAR Act," said Nelson Smith, president and CEO, National Alliance for Public Charter Schools. "By increasing the capacity of these 'all star' charter schools to serve more students, parents will be afforded new excellent public school options, more children will have the chance to attend some of the best schools, public or private, in America, and new investments will be made in our nation's public education system that will have both immediate and long-term benefits to our country."

Today's legislative hearing will be the first hearing on any Elementary and Secondary Education Act (ESEA) reauthorization proposals in the 111th Congress, signaling strong bi-partisan support for high quality public charter schools. It is also the

Obama judicial appointee: Alito critic: The Swamp

President Barack Obama will name Berkeley Law Professor Goodwin Liu to serve on the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals, making him the only active Asian-American judge on that court -- or possibly any federal appellate court -- if he navigates the confirmation process with the kind of credentials some conservatives love to hate.

Obama plans to send Liu's nomination to Capitol Hill today, according to a senior administration official, adding Liu's name to the list of seven other appellate court nominees currently awaiting approval from the Senate.

A prolific writer who has supported school choice as a solution to problems in inner-city education, Liu has served as faculty advisor to the California College Prep Academy, a public charter school, and thus came to the White House with the recommendation of some conservatives. At age 39, Liu's confirmation to the appellate court could eventually make him an attractive candidate for a future Supreme Court nomination.

In the political world, though, Liu is sure to be remembered as a past critic of Supreme Court Justice Samuel Alito, co-authoring a report critical of Alito's record on capital cases as a lower court judge- the

City Brights: Dr. Jim Taylor : Public Education Gone (Absurdly) Wrong

Public Education Gone (Absurdly) Wrong

As I described in my recent Race to the Top? series, the need for significant reform of America's public school system is great (Part II), yet the institutional obstacles preventing reform seem even greater (Part III). The challenges of changing a system that is so deeply entrenched came to absurd light from a reader of my RTTT? series who shared with me her frustrations in trying to hold a principal accountable for what the parent believed was incompetence and negligence related to student safety at her children's school in the Bay Area. This parent has provided me with a series of emails documenting her and other parents' attempts to get the Superintendent of Schools to take action against this principal.
Let me begin with a disclaimer that all of my information is from one person and that it may not represent a complete or balanced picture of what happened. Nonetheless, the flagrant ridiculousness of the situation I will describe provides, at a minimum, a glaring illustration of the massive roadblocks, both substantial and laughable, that stand in the way of meaningful education reform. I have also kept all parties and schools anonymous to protect the innocent (and, unfortunately, also protect those who may be guilty). The issue in this case relates to the principal's handling of a series of incidences of bullying and assault by out-of-control students over the past several years. After frequent complaints about safety to her children's teachers and inadequate responses from the principal, the mother reported her concerns to the school district's superintendent.
Though the mother got plenty of lip service and crocodile-teared concern from the principal and district employees, the situation didn't turn absurdly comical (if it wasn't so sad) until an email arrived from the Assistant Superintendent in response to a letter signed by 10 parents asking that the principal be replaced or reassigned to another school because of his/her behavior.
Let's deconstruct the email to demonstrate the complete absence of logic, reason, or concern for

Read more: http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/blogs/jtaylor/detail??blogid=180&entry_id=57822#ixzz0gSU3biGt

Elk Grove Unified to open a virtual school - Sacramento News - Local and Breaking Sacramento News | Sacramento Bee

Elk Grove Unified to open a virtual school - Sacramento News - Local and Breaking Sacramento News | Sacramento Bee:

"This August a few hundred students in the Elk Grove Unified School District will have their school year delivered to their doorstep in a giant UPS box.

The K-12 students will be part of the district's first-ever virtual school.

The box will contain grade-specific supplies – books, globes, maps – that students will need to finish a year of school from home.

Virtual schooling is gaining traction among California school districts looking for ways to increase revenue and decrease spending."

Tuesday, February 23, 2010

Violating Incentives � The Quick and the Ed

Violating Incentives

One of the biggest ongoing fights involving the U.S. Department of Education and for-profit colleges is over what compensation strategies these schools may use to pay their recruiters and admissions counselors for bringing in students. Since 1992, schools that receive federal student aid are banned from offering any compensation based on recruitment incentives, but 2002 regulations provided 12 “safe harbor” conditions in which some form of this payment is allowed. For example, these exemptions permit schools to adjust salaries based on performance so long as changes are not made twice in a year and are not solely based on recruitment targets, are paid through a profit-sharing arrangement, are based on student completion benchmarks, and several other options.

But despite these exemptions, the Department of Education has found 15 schools in violation of the incentive compensation ban from 2002 through December of 2009 and another 17 institutions that fell afoul of this restriction from 1998 through 2002. In addition, another 22 schools reached settlements with the Department over incentive compensation practices.

These figures come from a new report released this afternoon by the U.S. Government Accountability Office (PDF), which provides numbers and specific details on incentive compensation violations from 1998 through December 2009.

Will Schools End up Under the Bus?

from The Quick and the Ed by Rob Manwaring

Governor Schwarzenegger visited Washington DC yesterday as part of the National Governor’s Association (NGA), but he was the only Governor to get a private meeting with the President afterward. Clearly, federal funding/jobs and health care were likely the central issues in the conversation. Schwarzenegger, a moderate Republican is supporting both the Presidents jobs package and his health care proposal. The President certainly needs any help that he can get from Republicans even if it is one who has often bucked his party on the national level.
An additional topic that likely came up is Schwarzenegger’s proposal to reduce K-12 funding below the maintenance-of-effort level to which California committed when it accepted federal stimulus funding. Basically to get stabilization funding, states had to commit to not reduce funding for education below the 2007-08 funding level. But, because California’s budget is in such bad shape – a $21 billion shortfall over the next 18 months – the Governor has proposed spending below the maintenance-of-effort level. John Fensterwald provides some more details on the potentially funny math that California is using to justify the waiver request. For schools in many states facing difficult budget, this maintenance-of-effort requirement is a saving grace that will likely minimize the budget cuts that schools would otherwise face as states balance budgets.

QUICK Hits

from The Quick and the Ed by Kris Amundson

Want to earn a graduate degree by designing a website for a diploma mill? Click here. (The New York Times)
In education it’s pink slip season again. What can teachers do to prepare? (Edutopia)
Need a math refresher? Virtual learning from a former hedge fund analyst is one option. (PBS Newshour)
What does Kevin Carey think about online classes? If you’re in the DC area, you can turn to Channel 5 at 10:00 tonight and find out. (Fox 5)