Wednesday, March 10, 2010

The Perimeter Primate: “The Broad Effect”: Part Two

“The Broad Effect”: Part Two

Because of his immense wealth and interest, billionaire Eli Broad is one member in a very small set of non-elected, extremely wealthy individuals who have acquired the power to determine U.S. public education policy and the future of our public education system. Most of the masses are not aware that public schools are being dismantled by the coup. For those who have caught on and are reading this, I offer you some information about him, all easily accessible on the internet. Just consider "The Broad Effect": Part Two my variation of the popular TV show, ""Lifestyles of the Rich and Famous."

The Inauguration Party thrown by Broad for President Obama

Broad, a longtime Democratic supporter, was so thrilled at the election of Barack Obama that he threw what was described as “the most exclusive dinner of the week” to salute his friends who are members of

Calling All Teachers: Your Voice Wanted on Common Standards - Teacher Beat - Education Week

Calling All Teachers: Your Voice Wanted on Common Standards

By Stephen Sawchuk on March 10, 2010 4:29 PM | No Comments | No TrackBacks

So reports Catherine Gewertz over at Curriculum Matters. Apparently, the groups leading the common-standards effort particularly want input into whether the new grade-level standards, which will be released this week, are "teachable."

Catherine makes a good point, however, in noting that teachers' comments on the proposals will be summarized rather than made broadly accessible, as they are for the federal-regulatory process. Why is that? Good question.

Education Research Report: Emotional Computer Tutor Improves Girls’ Math Scores

Emotional Computer Tutor Improves Girls’ Math Scores

As schools gear up for statewide testing of mathematics skills this spring, some students will be helping to fine-tune a computer-based, emotionally perceptive math tutoring software developed by University of Massachusetts Amherst computer scientist Beverly Woolf, Ivon Arroyo and colleagues, which can help certain students improve standardized test scores.

In earlier studies, the software has improved student math test scores by 10 percent, a critical difference for those who are struggling to pass. As Woolf explains, “Our original work was to find out where girls needed extra attention and how to give it to them. According to our studies, the extra support they need compared to boys is more about emotion than information.”

In April, in another round of studies supported by the National Science Foundation, Woolf and colleagues will offer the tutorials to students in study groups of about 100. They’ll be offered either a white, black or Hispanic learning coach by the software to enhance attractiveness. “We want to improve students’ relationship with math early, which can be so important to their career choices. Once you close off math, you close off most of the sciences, as well,” says Woolf. To prevent that, the program virtually assigns an individual aide to each student.

Woolf and Arroyo know from previous work that girls in fifth grade thrive on extra attention, and respond well to supportive characters and positive feedback. So they developed computer-based tutorials that use such techniques. Most recently, they’ve added sensors and cameras so the computer can recognize when students are happy or stressed, fidgeting, frustrated or feeling confident. Guided by such cues, the “learning companion” character reaches out with encouraging words to praise a student’s effort, offer a hint or suggest that trying again is an important aspect of learning.

As the computer scientist explains, “Girls get equally good grades and express interest in math and science at the same level as boys in elementar

Local students, teachers join large protest Elk Grove Citizen : News

Elk Grove Citizen : News

Local students, teachers join large protest

Photo by Keri Wood - During the Stand Up for Schools Day on March 4, Monterey Trail High School students concerned about the impending budget cuts stand out front with coffins representing the cuts proposed by the school district.

By Cameron Macdonald - Citizen News Editor

Published: Wednesday, March 10, 2010 9:49 AM PST

WITH VIDEO | A funeral was held on the Monterey Trail High School campus before school began on March 4.

Black-clad students planted wooden tombstones for teachers, librarians, counselors and athletic programs on a traffic island for parents to see while dropping off their children. Students also silently held up caskets for the same occupations and stood by the school entrance for drivers on Power Inn Road and television news cameras to view.

“Save our Schools,” was chanted to those passing by. Some protestors handed out fliers that asked onlookers to tell their state legislators to cease slashing education funding.

Student Cavina Vo expects she will lose many teachers and counselors next year. She held a sign that encouraged people to write to their legislators about the education issue.

“Where are we going to get help for colleges and our future if nobody is here to help us?” Vo said. “We need to do something before it’s too late.”

Vo and her classmates joined a nationwide protest against shrinking funding for public education that day.

A few thousand college students rallied outside the California state capitol while demonstrators blocked an Oakland freeway and attempted to enter one outside the

How teachers and unions feel about turnaround Philadelphia Public School Notebook

Philadelphia Public School Notebook

How teachers and unions feel about turnaround

by Ron Whitehorne and Tricia Fussaro Posted in February 2010 | Permalink

School turnarounds often result in the dismissal of teachers, if not the entire faculty. It is no surprise that those who work in classrooms every day are highly skeptical of this strategy for improving low-performing schools.

“Blaming teachers for poor-performing schools is a solution in search of a problem,” said Sara Turley, a second grade teacher at Spring Garden Elementary. Instead, she said, “the District needs to rethink the way that it attracts, hires, and maintains a staff of high-quality teachers.”

How Not to Complain About March 4 � Student Activism

How Not to Complain About March 4

March 10, 2010 in Students

The growth of the student protest movement has sparked a series of debates about strategy and tactics, and those debates have gotten more intense in the wake of the March 4 Day of Action. Activists and their critics have legitimate disagreements about methods and goals, and those disagreements are now being aired in public with growing frequency.

I’m going to be talking a bit about those disagreements soon, but first I want to clear away some of the straw men that have popped up recently. If there’s going to be a debate, and there should be, let’s have it in good faith, with a coherent approach.

I read an essay this morning that suffers from all of the weaknesses that I’ve got in mind. In an opinion piece in the online journal Politics Daily, Muskingum College senior Joshua Chaney argues that March 4 represented a missed opportunity because “participants’ messages were mixed, their disruptions turned away other students and members of the public, and their voices often fell on the wrong ears.” That’s a legitimate argument, though it’s one I mostly disagree with. But unfortunately Chaney gets the specifics of it completely wrong.

Here are four things to bear in mind when writing, talking, or thinking about contemporary student protest:

1. Mixed messages come with the territory.

Chaney complains of the March 4 protesters’ “lack of a common voice and purpose,” calling for “clearer messaging.” That’s all fine nad dandy, but it avoids the central question: clearer messaging from whom?

The contemporary American student movement isn’t an organization or a political party. Nobody was screening March 4 actions and giving out credentials. There was no seal of approval. This was a grassroots event. Nobody was in charge. Nobody had the power to impose a common agenda on the events, because the events weren’t coordinated or conceived by a central body. Anybody could mount an action on March 4, and just about everybody did. That’s how social movements roll.

“Student activists are now taking divergent paths in determining what steps are next,” Chaney says. Well, of course they are. They weren’t all on one path to begin with. That diversity is a reflection of the vigor and vitality of the movement, but even if it wasn’t, it would be an inevitable result of the

More Misleading Student Loan Commentary � The Quick and the Ed

More Misleading Student Loan Commentary

by Ben Miller

Diane Auer Jones seems to have gotten the memo. Over at the Chronicle of Higher Education’s Brainstorm blog, Jones, a former assistant secretary for postsecondary education, continues the trend of poor commentary on student loans from former Republican education officials kicked off by Tennessee Lamar Alexander earlier this week. And the intentionally misleading twisting of the facts makes for one heck of a read. Take a sec and pop over there and then we’ll get down to some fact-checking.
Because the piece has a lot going on, let’s go through it one step at a time.
Jones writes:

On one hand the Administration is trying to garner support for another jobs bill, yet on the other, it wants to eliminate an entire industry.

No matter how you run the numbers, the entire student loan industry will NOT be eliminated. In the doomsday scenario, about one-third of the 35,000 jobs–about 11,550–could be lost, but it’s also possible that jobs could be gained. No one knows for sure. If there are losses, they are going to be in two areas: marketing and origination. Traditionally, loan origination means just moving the funds from the lender to the recipient. The student loan companies have twisted this a bit to include a series of amorphous functions that do not have a level of cost or

CNSNews.com - Education Secretary Arne Duncan Says Some Public Schools Discriminate

Education Secretary Arne Duncan Says Some Public Schools Discriminate
Wednesday, March 10, 2010
By Penny Starr, Senior Staff Writer

U.S. Department of Education Secretary Arne Duncan talks with high school student D'Wan Lewis before making a speech stressing civil rights at the Edmund Pettus Bridge in Selma, Ala. (Jamie Martin/AP Photo)
(CNSNews.com) – In a speech commemorating the 1965 “Bloody Sunday” civil rights protest in Selma, Ala., Education Secretary Arne Duncan referred to certain failing public schools in America as “dropout factories” and places that “seem to suspend and discipline only young African-American boys.”

“The achievement gap in our country is shameful,” Duncan said on Monday. He said some public schools are discriminating against students because of their race, gender, or disability by limiting their access to advanced and college preparatory classes. “Fifty-six years after Brown v. Board of Education, 45 years after Bloody Sunday, the achievement gap is still a cancer that imperils our national progress.”

“America’s school children cannot wait six years, or eight years, for pervasive educational inequities to fade,” Duncan said.

The National Education Association (NEA), the nation’s largest teachers’ union, issued a statement supporting the Obama administration's push to make sure schools are adhering to Title VI of the 1964 Civil Rights Act, which is overseen by the Education Department.

“NEA applauds the Department of Education’s decision to step up the enforcement of civil rights laws in education to ensure that school districts across the country know their responsibilities to fairness and equal opportunity,” NEA President Dennis Van Roekel said in a statement.

NEA - NEA President to Congress: 'Economic recovery starts in the classroom'

NEA President to Congress: 'Economic recovery starts in the classroom'

Investing in education will preserve jobs, reduce unemployment

WASHINGTON - March 09, 2010 - Recovery of the American economy will not be possible unless education becomes a higher priority, said the president of the nation’s largest labor union while testifying before a Senate committee today.

Dennis Van Roekel, president of the National Education Association which represents 3.2 million educators, told members of the Senate Committee on Health Education Labor and Pensions that there is an inextricable link between investing in education and building a strong, competitive nation.

“An investment in education is the long-term answer to solving America’s economic woes,” said Van Roekel. “Higher earnings of educated workers mean higher tax payments at the local, state and federal levels. Investing in education will help prevent harmful cuts in programs, preserve jobs and reduce soaring unemployment rates.”

Van Roekel’s testimony comes as Congress gets ready to revise the Elementary and Secondary Education Act (ESEA), more commonly known as the No Child Left Behind Act. NEA has developed guidelines for changing the law so it helps schools improve education and close achievement gaps and can renew the promise to America’s children.

“Today’s students are tomorrow’s workforce,” said Van Roekel. “We must address the opportunity gaps to strengthen our economy and build the educated workforce necessary to compete in the global economy of the 21st century. We cannot leave a generation of students behind by continuing to deny them the best education this country has to offer.”

“Children are not experiments,” added Van Roekel. “Policies on accountability, assessments and transforming low performing schools into great public schools should follow research—not dogma.”

For more information about NEA’s position on ESEA, visithttp://www.nea.org/esea.

Notes from the news, Mar. 10 | Philadelphia Public School Notebook

Notes from the news, Mar. 10

by Erika Owens

Making progress, West. Phila. High wary of district move The Inquirer
West's application to be an Innovation School, where a team of current school lealders would run it as a Renaissance School, was rejected. But the District may manage it as a Promise Academy, run out of central office.
Save the National Writing Project Practical Theory blog
The project lost federal funding, so now SLA Principal Chris Lehmann is suggesting NWP supports write to their federal representatives.
Benchmark time again The Notebook blog
How do you use the results from benchmark tests in your classroom?
Attn. South Philly High: You Are Probably Screwed And The Rest Of Us Are Probably Psyched Philebrity
The federal Dept. of Education moved to reinvigorate the civil rights office. The move involves opening 38 cases, one being about “’major urban school district’ and its treatment of students who speak English as a second language.”
Shame on You, Newsweek Philly Teacher blog
Teacher quality is big in the news right now and this week's cover story "appalled" Philly Teacher.
National Coming Out Day for Undocumented Youth Young Philly Politics
Phila. School Children Learn Laws of Motion Through Septa KYW
Please email us if we missed anything today or if you have any suggestions of publications, email lists, or other places for us to check for news.
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Duncan and Bennett Share Same Forked Tongue Schools Matter

Schools Matter

Duncan and Bennett Share Same Forked Tongue

by Jim Horn

Seated alongside America's lead virtuecrat and reformed serial gambler, Bill Bennett, Arne Duncan was on CNN yesterday to declare that education is "the civil rights issue of our generation." While Duncan blamed some states for choosing the adjustable rate plan to failure and the mythical 100% proficiency target set by NCLB in 2014, he had nothing negative to say to about the NCLB plan itself, which is now publicly recognized as a thinly-veiled privatization scheme that cynicially used and still uses children for political and financial gain.

If you look at the video (keep barf bag handy), you will see the old white walrus, Bennett, playing bad cop to Duncan's clueless cop. While Duncan whines about states yielding to political pressure and "dummied down" standards, Bennett puts his fat fist straight to the solar plexus of the teaching profession. Smash! While Duncan focuses on "rewarding excellence," Bennett offers the old bloviator's approval for Duncan's support of the Central Falls Massacre last week as a way to crush the teachers' unions. Apparently, Duncan now has to carry his own gray-muzzled police dog to bark that point across, since the Massacre has galvanized the nation's teachers against such bare-knuckled stupidity.

At heart, Duncan is a coward, and there is plenty of reason for him to have that big-eyed, pasty glare all over his

The Common Core: The New Black Hole Where Social Studies and Science Disappeared

by Jim Horn

(Click to enlarge and get sick)
Perhaps it should be called "Rotten to the Common Core."

Here is the Contents Page for the new national curriculum (unless you decide otherwise). And when the new national test is designed to go with the new national curriculum, no doubt it will be all about readin', writin', and 'rithmatic, too.

SCUSD Observer: Fairytale Towns

Fairytale Towns

The Washington Post offers up a story on Michelle Rhee and Kevin Johnson's romance in today's Style section.

According to the article, Rhee is going to save D.C.'s schoolchildren and Johnson is going to save Sacramento. Johnson attests that their relationship is based on their mutual love of political and social reform.

The best part of the online story, however, are the web comments that follow it -- many people, both in Sacramento and D.C. don't quite believe the fairy tale as it is portrayed.

Kevin Johnson's winning streak: NBA, Sacramento City Hall, Michelle Rhee's heart - washingtonpost.com

Kevin Johnson's winning streak: NBA, Sacramento City Hall, Michelle Rhee's heart - washingtonpost.com:

"SACRAMENTO -- For months, Kevin Johnson walked around with an engagement ring wrapped in tissue. He wanted a sweet movielike moment to give it to his Michelle."

He and Michelle Rhee were in Seattle together, but the timing felt off. On another day in Sacramento, "I'd just gotten off a long flight," Rhee recalls. "Maybe he saw I was exhausted. Anyway, he didn't give me the ring then, either."
Johnson drew it out for so long that Rhee's daughters -- Starr, 11, and Olivia, 8 -- began asking him what that suspicious lump was.
Then on Oct. 30, after the couple saw "A Streetcar Named Desire" at the Kennedy Center, Johnson suggested they catch some night air and visit the Capitol.
"I said, 'It's cold! What do you want to go over to the Capitol for?' " Rhee recalls.
I just want to go, Johnson answered. And there they were, two souls shivering, when Johnson dug into his pocket and popped the question.
But truth is, this is about as romantic as it gets between Johnson, a former NBA all-star and hard-charging first-term mayor of this Northern California city, and Rhee, the take-no-prisoners chancellor of the D.C. public school system.

The Perimeter Primate: “The Broad Effect”

“The Broad Effect”

“The Broad Effect” is behind the recent events in Rhode Island (the Central Falls firings ), and in Detroit, where the Detroit Public School Board has just unanimously voted to file a second lawsuit against Emergency Financial Manager Robert Bobb, saying the extra $145,000 in private foundation support he receives is an unlawful conflict of interest. The Detroit News reports:

“Bobb's supplemental income from private foundations increased from $84,000 last year to $145,000 this year, under a one-year contract extension signed by the governor and state superintendent this month. The only philanthropic donor publicly identified is the Broad Foundation, whose support of charter schools has stirred controversy among some members of the DPS community.”

Naturally, Robert Bobb (or Bob Bobb, as he was know in Oakland when served as the City Manager under former Mayor Jerry Brown) is a

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

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

Govs proposed national core school standards

Effort has backing of Obama, which seeks to raise standards across states

MORE ON EDUCATION

President Obama. (AP)

The problem(s) with the Common Core standards

There is not a thing wrong with wanting young people in every state of the country to know how to do the same important skills and understand the same key concepts.

If knowing the Pythagorean theorem is important for kids in Florida, it should be important for kids in Hawaii, too.

That is the reasoning behind the Common Core Standards, which as my colleague Nick
Anderson, wrote today, are being released today in a blueprint for what all students should learn in English and math, in each grade, from kindergarten through high school.

Continue reading this post »

Protesting trumps learning in California

San Francisco Chronicle columnist Debra J. Saunders quotes an email she received from Ian Glazman-Schillinger, a freshman at Oceana High School, a nice drive over the Coast Range from my alma mater, Hillsdale High, in San Mateo. His parents, like the others at the school, received a message from school principal Caro Pemberton Feb. 23 saying that instead of having class March 4, the school would participate in a "day of action" to "show support for public education and to demand an end to the deep cuts in funding for education."

The student told Saunders that he would not take part in the protest---including forming a human SOS on the nearby beach--because he saw "no solutions being offered that will give schools more money...It appears to me as if the schools are throwing a temper tantrum instead of protesting." He said he was not opposed to protests, but "there is no money in the already overstretched state budget to meet the needs of California schools."

That is a smart kid, one hopeful sign that good teachers are getting students to listen to and read carefully what is happening. California is my home state; I plan to return before long. My son Joe Mathews and

First Lady to speak at Anacostia commencement

The White House announced Tuesday afternoon that First Lady Michelle Obama will address Anacostia High School's commencement on June 11. This will be her second trip to the school, renamed The Academies at Anacostia since its takeover by Friendship Public Charter School last year.She visited last March in connection with her Women of Excellence event. Obama also spoke last spring at the graduation ceremony for Washington Math and Science Tech Public Charter High School.

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Brother, sister from Shenandoah U. return to Haiti

Two students at Shenandoah University in Virginia, brother and sister, returned to their native Haiti last weekend for the first time since the earthquake.

Shenandoah president Tracy Fitzsimmons, a political scientist by training who has spent years in Haiti on academic research, brought the students back to reunite them with their parents, according to university officials. She also brought a structural engineer, recruited from SU's Winchester community, to assess earthquake damage to a school run by the parents.

Cindy Saint-Ford and Shenandoah University President Tracy Fitzsimmons in Haiti. Fitzsimmons embraces Rachel Saint-Ford. (photo courtesy Shenandoah)