Sunday, March 7, 2010

Eduflack: Happy Anniversary, Me!

Happy Anniversary, Me!

We pause from our regular missives on education agitation to take a moment to celebrate Eduflack's anniversary. It is hard for me to believe that we launched this blog three years ago. At the time, I anticipated readership in the zero mark (not even my mother or my wife were regular readers in the early days). I started Eduflack because I found the writing cathartic. As originally envisioned, this blog was going to focus on how well we are communicating on key education issues. As these pages have grown, we've also spent a lot of time talking about the policy and the research itself, trying to mix things up, pick fights, and spur some different thinking on the ideas on which we are so focused these days.

In that time, we've written close to 1,000 entries. And, unfortunately for Eduflack readers, my posts are far longer than your average bear blog posts. I'll admit, I can be a little verbose, but I continue to try to provide content that is relevant to readers. I've learned over the years that I really do have readers. Sure, the blog statistics show me who is visiting and how that is increasing, but I am particularly surprised when I hear from real people that they read this site. I know how much content is out there on the Web, so I take it very seriously when people say they read this stuff. It puts the pressure on to continue to write, to continue to be relevant, and to continue to be of some sort of value. You've definitely raised the stakes for me, and push me to do better.

That's one of the reasons why we added the @Eduflack Twitter feed. During a good week, I can turn out four or five essays on the education news of the day. But there is much, much more that I wish I could write about. So each day, I offer up 10-15 Tweets relaying those articles and studies that are catching my eye. And the good think about the @Eduflack Twitter feed is it is relatively opinion free. Just lots and lots of links to the issues and topics of importance to me and, hopefully, Eduflack readers.

As I reflect on the last three years, I have to both start and end with huge thanks to those readers and supporters out there. Everyone who reads it. Everyone who cites Eduflack or links back to it.

PTA CHILDREN CLOTHES CLOSET NEEDS ADULT-SIZE CLOTHING FOR OUR TEENAGED YOUTH

SACRAMENTO COUNCIL

PTA CHILDREN CLOTHES CLOSET NEEDS ADULT-SIZE CLOTHING FOR OUR TEENAGE YOUTH

PTA CLOTHES CLOSET REPORT FOR 2009-10 SCHOOL YEAR:

Clients Served: 621 Families Served: 288

Volunteer Hours: 1,039

We are supported by PTA, SCUSD, SCTA and
volunteers in our schools and community.

SUTTERVILLE STUDENTS GIVE SUPPORT TO THE PTA CHILDREN'S CLOTHES CLOSET

Sutterville second graders Miriam Arch and Christopher Amberg collected over 200 pairs of new socks and underwear for their community service project in Mrs. Leonard's second grade class at Sutterville Elementary School.

They carried the bin full of the socks and underwear to the Clothes Closet and gave their presentation to Clothes Closet Manager Linda De los Reyes. We are so lucky to have the kindness of these wonderful children!

Thank you - Miriam and Christopher - for your excellent community service work and for your generous donation to help the children in the Sacramento City Unified School District.

The PTA Children's Clothes Closet

Open on Tuesdays and Thursdays
between 9:00 a.m. and 2:00 p.m.

We are located at 4701 Joaquin Way

in the Leonardo da Vinci Boy's Locker Room

between Leonardo da Vinci and Hollywood Park schools

Our services are available for all families of SCUSD

Referrals can be obtained from the child's school

For an appointment call - 916-277-4338

Please drop off donations during business hours

or call to arrange pick up or email us at:

saccouncilpta@yahoo.com

Senator Lamar Alexander is Making Things Up The Quick and the Ed

The Quick and the Ed

Senator Lamar Alexander is Making Things Up

With the prospect of President Obama’s student loan bill passing through the budget reconciliation bill fast approaching, Senator Lamar Alexander (R-TN) took to the Washington Post op-ed page to tell some lies about the bill. Alexander, who used to be the Secretary of Education and knows better, said:

Starting in July, all 19 million students who want government-backed loans will line up at offices designated by the U.S. Education Department…the government should disclose that getting your student loan will become about as enjoyable as going to the Department of Motor Vehicles.

That sounds pretty terrible, spending hour upon hour sitting in uncomfortable plastic chairs beneath soul-deadening fluorescent lights, waiting for your number to pop up on a screen so you can shuffle up to a window and listen to a surly civil service worker tell you that you won’t be able to take out a student loan because you still haven’t paid a speeding ticket issued on the Tappan Zee Bridge in November 1993. Why, President Obama, why? Can’t humble college students be spared in your diabolical collectivization plan?

In reality, getting a student loan through the Federal Direct Loan Program isn’t going be any different than it is for the millions of students who are already getting loans through the Federal Direct Loan Program, which involves filling out the same forms you use to get loans under the “give-banks-billions-of-free-taxpayer-dollars” program that Alexander is defending.

Alexander also alleges that the administration has been less than forthcoming about what’s really going on here:

Here is what they haven’t told us: The Education Department will borrow money at 2.8 percent from the Treasury, lend it to you at 6.8 percent and spend the difference on new programs. So you’ll work longer to pay off your student loan to help pay for someone else’s education — and to help your U.S. representative’s reelection.

It’s not a secret that the government will be lending money for more than that money costs. All lending programs work this way. The difference is that currently

Schools Matter: The "Teachers Are Built" Non-School of Thought

The "Teachers Are Built" Non-School of Thought

The New York Times Magazine has a fondness for giving great swaths of paper and ink to the reform schoolers' mission to turn K12 education over to the corporations, and this week's 8,000 word piece by Spencer Foundation fellow, Elizabeth Green (former ed reporter for the right-wing New York Sun), does not disappoint in that regard. The operative metaphor of the piece,"Building a Better Teacher," follows from the ed deformer's core conceit that teachers are like mousetraps, devices that can be designed, re-designed, torn down and tinkered with to produce a more efficient way to capture and confine, er, educate.

And if you don't like the mouse trap metaphor, how about tinker toys or bricks or computer components, all of which may be assembled by curious tinkerers like charter schooler, Doug Lemov, whose quest to fabricate the best teaching tactics by the nation's champion test score producers is matched by another mission to turn his ultimate "taxonomy" for test score production into the bible for teacher training. Lemov's new bible would be composed of 49 commandments that are to be committed to memory and practiced until perfected. That, for Lemov, would be teacher training aplenty.

It is just too bad that author, Green, did not learn something about education before she landed her $75,000 grant to learn how to write about it. If she had, she would not have spent so many of her

The Perimeter Primate: Diane Ravitch: Schedule of Events, Reviews and Other Press

Diane Ravitch: Schedule of Events, Reviews and Other Press

The Death and Life of the Great American School System: How Testing and Choice Are Undermining Education by Diane Ravitch

SCHEDULE OF EVENTS

February 11: Phoenix, American Association of School Administrators, Sheraton Downtown, 2:15-3:15 p.m.

February 27: San Jose, California, California Teachers Association, Urban Issues Conference, Fairmont Hotel, 9 a.m.-12:15 p.m.

March 3: College of Staten Island, 2800 Victory Boulevard, 1P-Williamson Theatre, Staten Island, New York City, 4:30-7:30 p.m.

March 5: Channel 13 Celebration of Teaching and Learning, Hilton New York, Mercury Ballroom, 3rd floor, 2:30-3:30 p.m.

March 10: American Enterprise Institute, Washington, D.C., 4-6 p.m.

March 14: National Conference of State Legislatures, New York Sheraton, (With Deborah Meier), 9-10:30 a.m.

March 15: Economic Policy Institute, with Carmel Martin, Bill Galston, and Randi Weingarten, Paul Wellstone Room, 3rd Floor, East Tower, 1333 H Street NW, Washington, D.C., 2:30 p.m.

March 15: Book reception, American Federation of Teachers, Washington, D.C., 5-6:30 p.m.

March 24: Teachers College, Columbia University, New York City, introduced by Provost Thomas James, with remarks by Professor Henry Levin, 5-7 p.m.

March 31: Manhattan Institute, Harvard Club, with respondent Frederick M. Hess, 12-2 p.m.

April 5: Boston Teachers Union, Boston,

Grannan: Time for Obama to meet with the Central Falls 93, and gain some compassion – and a clue

by The Perimeter Primate

Guest post by Caroline Grannan:
The word “backlash” is actually being used about a so-called school reform maneuver so shortsighted and coldblooded that almost no one is speaking up in support of it – almost no one but President Obama.
Last month, all 93 members of the faculty, administration and support staff of Central Falls High school in Central Falls, R.I., were told that they’re fired as of the end of this school year.
Then, on Monday, President Obama spoke up, according to the New York Times. “Mr. Obama said he supported the school board’s decision to dismiss the faculty and staff members. ‘Our kids get only one chance at an education and we need to get it right,’ he said.”
(Obama’s lightweight, resume-faking Secretary of Education praised the move too, but he’s not really worth devoting blogosphere bandwidth to.)
Despite the current climate in which blaming, bashing and demonizing teachers has become a comfortable and popular theme in all kinds of commentary, Obama’s remark actually seems to have provoked dismay and outrage. In the most current news article showing online as I write this, the Providence Journal uses the term “wildfire.”

“The wildfire of national debate over the mass firings at Central Falls High School spread further Tuesday, when the executive council of the AFL-CIO unanimously condemned the removal of all 93 teachers, support staff and administrators at the city’s only high school.
The executive council said its members were “appalled” that President Obama and U.S. Education Secretary Arne Duncan had endorsed the terminations in recent comments, and said the firings will not help the 800 students at the high school, which is one of the poorest and lowest-performing schools in Rhode Island.”

Well, I have a proposal. Those 93 teachers, support staff and administrators should get together, pull the necessary strings (which are in their reach right now while the story is hot), and request a meeting with the president – all 93 of them. If Obama could have a beer with Henry Louis Gates and that cop whose name I’ve now forgotten, surely he’s willing to spend a little time hearing the viewpoint of 93 people whom he has essentially attacked sight unseen. While it would be hospitable for him to invite them to the White House, it would be a lot classier for him to have a soothing spot of tea catered in at Central Falls High School. (And he desperately needs to show a little class right now; his supply is perilously low.) I’m sure the cafeteria has enough room to seat the Central Falls 93, Obama and his entourage.
Two years ago, it would have been impossible for me to imagine saying this, but I also propose that President Obama emulate something San Francisco Mayor Gavin Newsom has been doing. I’m not normally Newsom’s biggest fan, with the exception of back in February 2004 when his then-revolutionary gay marriages were spreading joy through San Francisco. But lately, my city's mayor has been doing something admirable after being challenged by Patricia Gray, the longtime rock-star principal of San Francisco’s Balboa High School. Newsom has been spending Saturdays calling the homes of students who are chronically truant from their San Francisco public schools. The San Francisco Chronicle’s Matier and Ross political insider column wrote about this in a Jan. 31 column (not available online.)
“It has been a real eye-opener,” Newsom told the Chronicle. “In just about every case,” Matier and Ross wrote, “the family is in crisis.” In other words, truancy isn’t all the fault of inept teachers and uncaring schools after all, Newsom is learning.

Education in Focus: A Moral Imperative | The White House

The White House Blog

Education in Focus: A Moral Imperative

Posted by Secretary Arne Duncan on March 05, 2010 at 05:10 PM EST

This week, we launched “Education in Focus” on Whitehouse.gov to shine a spotlight on what we are doing across the administration to improve our education system. And what a week it was:

You joined Alma and Colin Powell, the President and myself in launching GradNation, an initiative to give more students the opportunity to go to college.
You learned about the Race to the Top High School Commencement Challenge, which gives schools the opportunity to have the President speak at their graduation.
You engaged in a live web chat with Melody Barnes and me about how the Student Aid and Fiscal Responsibility Act (SAFRA) can help students like you go to college.
You heard from Dr. Jill Biden about the importance of community colleges.
You read about Secretary LaHood’s experience as a teacher and his involvement in Teach For America Week.
You joined our web discussion around the question: What does a 21st century education mean to you?
You read along with the First Lady as she commemorated Dr. Seuss’ birthday by reading “The Cat in the Hat” aloud at the Library of Congress.
You learned about the Education Department’s Investment in Innovation as they launched their Open Innovation portal.

Though this feature comes to a close today, our work is not done. The urgency to improve our children’s schools has never been greater.

Whether you’re still a student or your days in the classroom have long been over, we all have a moral and economic imperative that requires us to act. Go to www.ed.gov to learn more about what we are doing, and ways you can get involved.

Arne Duncan is Secretary of Education

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

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

Pr. George's schools fear loss of parent liaisons

Board of Education decision to eliminate 120 slots worries parents and school leaders

MORE ON EDUCATION

Liaison Rosa Lorenzo works with Walter Rivera at Hyattsville Middle School. Lorenzo has been an employee there for eight years. (Linda Davidson-TWP)

Virginia colleges: Just say 'no' to Cuccinelli

Kenneth T. Cuccinelli II, the new attorney general of Virginia, had no actionable legal item that forced him to wade into the issue of sexual orientation on public college campuses.

But he was obviously itching to do it so badly that he sent Virginia's public colleges and universities a letter telling them they could no longer include gays and lesbians in anti-discriminatory employment policies. For schools that have such policies, his March 4 letter said, the language should be removed.

Continue reading this post »

Bill Perkins Opposes Charter Schools Popular in Harlem - NYTimes.com

When hundreds of parents went to Albany last month to rally forcharter schools, they were greeted by a parade of politicians offering encouragement and promises.

Enlarge This Image

Nathaniel Brooks for The New York Times

State Senator Bill Perkins says charter schools may have delivered more hype than results.

But when Bill Perkins, the state senator from Harlem who represents many of the parents, took the stage, they drowned him out with boos.

Some parents confronted him later in the vestibule outside the Senate chamber, demanding that he meet with them that afternoon and chanting “Move Bill, get out the way, get out the way,” before he could even speak.

As advocates of charter schools, including the Bloomberg administration, try to persuade legislators to lift the limit on the number of such schools in the state, no one is as likely to stand in their way as Mr. Perkins, whose district encompasses nearly 20 charter schools. Several more are planned next year.

Over the last decade, as charter schools have multiplied, Mr. Perkins has undergone a dramatic shift and emerged as their most outspoken critic in the Legislature, writing guest columns in newspapers and delivering impassioned speeches criticizing the “privatization” of public schools.

When officials of the city’s Department of Education announced last year that they planned to place a charter school inside the Public School 123 building in Harlem, Mr. Perkins was infuriated. With help from his chief of staff, several parents and teachers’ union representatives staged a protest there on the first day of school, holding signs that labeled charter schools as “separate and unequal.”

Mr. Perkins recently announced plans to hold public hearings on charter schools, to examine, among other things, the sources of their financing and “how much profit there is in not-for-profit” schools.

Why one-size-fits-all education doesn’t work - The Boston Globe

Why one-size-fits-all education doesn’t work - The Boston Globe
MASSACHUSETTS AND Rhode Island were two of the 16 finalists named this week in the Obama administration’s “Race to the Top’’ competition for a share of $4.3 billion in education “stimulus’’ funds. Those that made the cut have agreed to embrace policies favored by the administration, such as higher caps on charter schools and tying teachers’ raises to performance.

Central to the administration’s approach to education is its drive for uniform national standards in reading and mathematics. The White House announced that it intends to “require all states to adopt and certify that they have college- and career-ready standards . . . as a condition of qualifying for Title I funding.’’ Education Secretary Arne Duncan has reserved $350 million to assist states that consent to common curriculum standards; those that don’t will be barred from seeking Race to the Top grants.

The argument for national standards seems straightforward. The No Child Left Behind law enacted in 2002 required states to establish their own academic standards, but most of them - under pressure from teachers’ unions and school administrators’ associations - set the bar quite low. In a 2006 report, the Thomas B. Fordham Foundation concluded that most states’ standards were “mediocre-to-bad . . . They are generally vague, politicized, and awash in wrongheaded fads and nostrums. With a few exceptions, states have been incapable (or unwilling) to set clear, coherent standards.’’ The only way around the states’ aversion to high standards, the Obama administration and others have concluded, is to impose uniform national standards, using the federal purse as leverage.

But if the goal is to have more American students get a successful education, it is far from clear that imposing a single set of benchmarks from above is the best strategy for getting there.

For one thing, the political resistance to rigorous academic standards that has been so effective at the state level is likely to be effective at the national level. The teachers’ unions and administrators’ organizations that oppose higher performance mandates are at least as influential on Capitol Hill as they are in the statehouses. Neal McCluskey of the Cato Institute points out that the National Education Association, the American Federation of Teachers, the American Association of School Administrators, the National Association of Elementary School Principals, and the Council of Chief State School Officers all make their national headquarters in Washington, DC. Whether in the states or in Washington, McCluskey writes, “the political system is stacked against high

School Turnarounds | Philadelphia Public School Notebook

evious edition

February 2010 Focus on School Turnarounds

Vol. 17 No. 4

Photo: Harvey Finkle

Stetson Middle School, at B and Allegheny, is one of seven potential Renaissance Schools that were already turned over to an external manager once before, in 2002.

Waiting for the Renaissance

by Bill Hangley Jr.

It’s nothing new for Janiece Jones to wonder about the future of her child’s school.

“It was supposed to be closed down,” she said as she stood in front of the Paul L. Dunbar Elementary School in North Philadelphia. “[Then] they just said that someone was going to try and change the performance of the school.”

The first rumor didn’t come to pass. But the second just might, in potentially dramatic fashion.

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BUILDING A BETTER TEACHER - THE DAILY RIFF - Be Smarter. About Education.

The New York Times Magazine Cover Story
Plus Extensive Reader Comments To
"Can Teachers Be Taught To Teach Better?"
Our Recommended Week-end Read.

For everyone concerned about the direction of education in this country, Elizabeth Green reports her must-read key findings for increasing teacher effectiveness, which is inarguably one of the most critical factors for student success. Through her interviews with key reformers in the field, Green primarily zeroes in on "technique."

Two of her main featured interviewees are Doug Lemov, former teacher, principal, and currently charter school founder of Uncommon Schools, who focuses on deliberate techniques not necessarily subject to specific content, and Deborah Loewenberg Ball, an assistant professor in Math and former part-time elementary school teacher "whose class was a model for teachers in training" and relates technique to content understanding.

Both illustrate that there is much to do with regard to teacher training in this country with teachers admittedly unprepared in the art of specific techniques and actual apprentice-type training when they enter the real world of school.

Below are a few excerpts with link to full NY Times article here:

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