Tuesday, March 30, 2010

Microsoft’s “ESL Assistant” | Larry Ferlazzo's Websites of the Day...

Microsoft’s “ESL Assistant”

Filed under writing

Microsoft Research has created an online “ESL Assistant” that is specifically designed to help English Language Learners find and correct errors in their writing.

After you copy and paste the text into the “box” and click “check,” the application identifies potential errors and provides options to correct them. It shows a pie chart highlighting what percentage each option is used on the Internet to help the writer choose, along with multiple examples of how it is used.

It’s designed to identify and correct common ELL errors that would not

The Education Report DIY mentoring at an Oakland middle school

The Education Report

DIY mentoring at an Oakland middle school

By Katy Murphy
Tuesday, March 30th, 2010 at 7:04 pm in middle schools, students, teachers
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Ryan Hansen and his mentor, Alex Thibeault

Word on the street is that it’s hard to repeat the eighth grade in OUSD, even if your report card is loaded with Ds and Fs. (Remember the retention memo? I’m checking on the exact numbers.)

But teachers at Edna Brewer Middle School have long worried about kids who — because of their bad grades – don’t participate in the eighth-grade promotion

EGUSD placed on state’s fiscal “warning” l Elk Grove Citizen : News

Elk Grove Citizen : News

EGUSD placed on state’s fiscal “warning” list

By Cameron Macdonald - Citizen News Editor

Published: Tuesday, March 30, 2010 5:30 PM PDT

The Elk Grove Unified School District (EGUSD) is among 126 districts across California that may not meet its future financial obligations, the state announced on March 22.

Every year, the state’s education department releases an “early warning” list of school districts that are projected to experience possible financial shortfalls within the next three years.

There has been a 17 percent increase in districts on this list, according to the state education department. These additions come at a time when California is facing a $21 billion budget deficit for the next fiscal year.

Elk Grove Unified made the warning list last year when they had a projected $25 million shortfall. The district now anticipates a $60.5 million shortfall and issued potential layoff notices to more than 1,000 employees this spring.

More than 23,000 teachers and other certificated school employees also received similar notices across the state, according to the state education department. Around 16,000 teachers were laid off last year.

EGUSD Superintendent Dr. Steven Ladd pointed at the state’s continued “draconian” cuts in education funding for public schools in the past two years, totaling $17 billion.

“It is going to take a toll and have a significant negative impact on the financing of the schools, and that’s what happened to us,” he said.

State Superintendent of Public Instruction Jack O’Connell also criticized the education cuts in

School Board considering change to abortion policy

School Board considering change to abortion

policy

Tuesday, the San Diego Unified School Board will consider changing their policy, so that students will have more privacy. The new policy they are considering will require schools nurses, counselors or any other school official to excuse a child from class without notifying a parent. Based on a "confidential medical service" if a student tells a school official they need an abortion or need medical assistance for a sexually transmitted disease or birth control or are dealing with substance abuse or suicidal thoughts, the school will allow the child to excuse themselves from class to get medical treatment and return to school, without letting parents know.

The attorney general has ruled that minors have a right to privacy and the schools have to honor that right and are not allowed to notify the parents, although many schools throughout San Diego have not changed their current policy and are notifying parents.

Public opinion varies, "If your under 18 years old and your my child, you don't get privacy, you just don't," said one parent. "I think a child should have privacy. I think it's their right," said another parent.

The San Juan Unified School District in Sacramento was faced with this law and after much debate decided to put it to vote. The vote was 3 to 2 against the policy change. "We are pleased that the San Juan school board listened to the community and abandoned this disastrous proposal," said Brad Dacus, founder and president of Pacific Justice Institute.

Vista Unified School Board also voted a year ago, and ended up revising their policy, in spite of the state law. They say that parents rights "trump" the rights of minors.

"Concerned parent" on the "Voice of San Diego" forum wrote,

Backlash builds over Palin invite to CSU-Stanislaus - Local - fresnobee.com

Backlash builds over Palin invite to CSU-Stanislaus- Local- fresnobee.com

Backlash builds over Palin invite to CSU-Stanislaus

Critics pan pricey fund-raiser to mark school's 50th year

TURLOCK -- Organizers knew that inviting former vice presidential candidate and ex-Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin to California State University, Stanislaus, would generate talk.

"I didn't know it would be this big, this fast," said Matt Swanson, president of the university foundation, which invited Palin to headline a black-tie fund-raiser June 25.

Some of the fallout:

• State Sen. Leland Yee, D-San Francisco, wants to know how much the foundation is paying Palin, pointing out that very few students could afford the $500 ticket price.

• A student group is organizing a protest and its own event to mark the university's 50th anniversary.

Rob Schumacher

AP - Sen. John McCain background right, and Sarah Palin, former Alaska governor and Republican vice presidential nominee, make a campaign appearance at the Pima County Fairgrounds in Tucson, Ariz. Palin is the latest conservative star to back McCain in his Republican primary race against former U.S. Rep. J.D. Hayworth. (AP Photo/The Arizona Republic, Rob Schumacher) ** MARICOPA COUNTY OUT; MESA TRIBUNE OUT; MAGS OUT; NO SALES **

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• A professor started a Facebook group called "Sarah Palin, Terrible Choice for 50th Anniversary of CSU Stanislaus."

Swanson, who fielded an onslaught of media calls Monday, wasn't second-guessing the decision.

"I think I'm going to have to send Leland Yee a gift basket," he joked. "My advertising budget has gone to zero."

Yee, who has tried to pass legislation requiring foundations to disclose their expenses and contracts, issued a news release about his request that the foundation reveal what it's paying Palin to come to Turlock. She has commanded $100,000 in speaking fees.

Although CSUS President Hamid Shirvani is chairman of the foundation board, it is technically a private, separate entity from the school and not subject to open government laws that compel public schools to disclose information about spending and contracts.

Shirvani declined to comment about Palin's appearance and referred

Cooperative Learning | Larry Ferlazzo's Websites of the Day...

Cooperative Learning

from Larry Ferlazzo's Websites of the Day... by Larry Ferlazzo

I write a bit in my upcoming book on teaching English Language Learners how I use cooperative learning groups in class.
I’ve just read a blog post that provides a good summary of the advantages of cooperative learning. I’d strongly encourage you to go to The Four Essential Drives That Every Creative Needs and read the complete post, and I’m just going to share a small portion here. It provides this summary from a lengthier research paper titledCooperative Learning And Social Interdependence Theory by David W. Johnson and Roger T. Johnson.
Here is Cath Duncan’s summary of the benefits of cooperative learning:
* Willingness to take on difficult tasks and persist, despite difficulties, in working toward goal accomplishment. In addition, there is intrinsic motivation, high expectations for success, high incentive to achieve based on mutual benefit, high epistemic curiosity and continuing interest in learning, and high commitment to achieve.
* Long-term retention of what is learned.
* Higher-level reasoning, critical thinking, and meta-cognitive thought. Cooperative learning promotes a greater use of higher level reasoning strategies, moral reasoning strategies, insight and critical thinking than do competitive or individualistic learning strategies.
* Creative thinking. In cooperative groups, members more frequently generate new ideas, strategies, and

The Scarlet T Outrages (Susan Ohanian Speaks Out)

Outrages (Susan Ohanian Speaks Out)

The Scarlet T

This spring, special education teacher Anthony Mullen -- former New York City police officer --was named the 59th National Teacher of the Year. For the past seven years, Mullen has taught at an alternative high school in Connecticut, where he works with students who are often on their last academic stop. As NTOY, Mullen will be on leave from his classroom for the academic year. He will travel the country, speaking to educators and reformers about what he sees as the greatest threat to American education: this country’s high dropout rate. Mullen blogs about his experiences at Road Diaries/Education Week blog.

by Anthony Mullen

The man wearing a Rolex watch approached me during a break in my son's basketball game. "How's it going?" he asked.

"Fine."

"This must be a crazy year for you," he said.

"Yeah--but speaking on behalf of children and teachers is a privilege." I replied.

The man nodded and glanced at a Blackberry in his right hand. "It must be nice to be a teacher," he remarked.

"Why's that?" I asked.

Mike Klonsky's SmallTalk Blog: Academic freedom "a core principle..."

Academic freedom "a core principle..."

by Mike Klonsky

Unless of course, it causes "controversy"

CHEYENNE, Wyo. -- The University of Wyoming has canceled a speech by former 1960s radical William Ayers after it raised a slew of objections from citizens and politicians. Ayers -- an education professor at the University of Illinois at Chicago-- was scheduled to speak next Monday on the Laramie campus about social justice issues and education. He was invited by the UW Social Justice Research Center.

In a statement released by the university, UW President Tom Buchanan thanked the center for reconsidering

Budget Could Cut Hundreds Per Student - Project Economy News Story - KCRA Sacramento

Budget Could Cut Hundreds Per Student

California Budget Project Looks At District-By-District Cuts

POSTED: 8:59 am PDT March 30, 2010
UPDATED: 11:47 am PDT March 30, 2010

EMAIL: Budget Could Cut Hundreds Per Student

PRINT: Budget Could Cut Hundreds Per Student

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SACRAMENTO, Calif. -- The Sacramento City Unified School District would lose about $304 per student under Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger's proposed budget, according to an analysis by the California Budget Project.

The analysis examines the governor's proposal to reduce K-12 education funding by $2.7 billion in 2010-11. About $1.75 billion of those cuts would come at the district level.

Stockton City schools would lose $305 per student in the district. Modesto City Elementary schools would see a reduction of about $290 per student, while the city's high school district would lose $347 per student.

Complete List: District-By-District Breakdown

Education Research Report: Expecting Rapid Feedback Enhances Performance

Expecting Rapid Feedback Enhances Performance

There are a number of factors that influence how well we do in school, including the amount of time we study and our interest in a subject. Now, according to new findings in Psychological Science, a journal of the Association for Psychological Science, how quickly we expect to receive our grades may also influence how we perform.

Psychological scientists Keri L. Kettle and Gerald Häubl of the University of Alberta in Canada wanted to investigate how the timing of expected feedback impacts individuals' performance. For this experiment, they recruited students enrolled in a class that required each student to give a 4-minute oral presentation. The presentations were rated by classmates on a scale from 0 (poor) to 10 (excellent) and the average of these ratings formed the presenter's grade for that part of the course. Students received an email 1 day, 8 days, or 15 days before their presentation and were invited to participate in this research study. Students agreeing to volunteer in the study were informed when they would receive feedback on their presentation and were asked to predict their grades. Participating students were randomly assigned to a specific amount of anticipated feedback delay, which ranged from 0 (same day) to 17 days.

The results reveal a very interesting relationship between how soon the students expected to receive their grades and their performance: Students who were told they would receive feedback quickly on their performance earned higher grades than students who expected feedback at a later

Formspring Question of the Day � Student Activism

Formspring Question of the Day

by Angus Johnston

Formspring.me is a neat little website that does one simple thing: It lets you ask people questions and read their answers. The questions are anonymous — unless you choose to identify yourself while asking — and they stay private until an answer is submitted.
I set up a Formspring.me account a few weeks ago, and I’ll be posting the questions and answers here on an occasional basis. If you’ve got something you’d like to ask, go right ahead.

If you had to name just one issue as the most important for students, what would it be?
Huh. Tough question. I don’t know that I can speak coherently on what issue IS most important to students, and I don’t know that it’s my place to speak on what issue SHOULD BE most important to students, but I’ll give it a whirl.
Obviously the financial crisis in higher ed is a huge issue right now. That’s clearly at the top of the agenda on a lot of campuses. And what’s particularly interesting there is how many different approaches students are taking to addressing the crisis, both in terms of organizing strategies and tactics and in terms of what they see as the overall goals. That’s the mark of a really vibrant movement, I think — that students coming from radically different

9 Renaissance Schools, 5 Promise Academies announced | Philadelphia Public School Notebook

9 Renaissance Schools, 5 Promise Academies announced

by Dale Mezzacappa on Mar 30 2010

Tags:

Moving on a lightning-fast timeline, the School District plans to turn over nine low-performing schools to outside managers in September – the majority probably as charter schools – while trying to jump-start educational improvement at another five under a model overseen by Superintendent Arlene Ackerman.

The District announced that all 14 schools designated as Renaissance Eligible will go through some kind of turnaround process this year. Officials had said that some might be able to avoid it if a February school review process found progress. In a press release, the District described Renaissance Schools as "a major reform program created to turn around low-performing schools" that "is a key component of the District’s five-year strategic plan, Imagine 2014."

The decision means that the entire faculty of the 14 schools will be force transferred and if they want to stay on, will have to reapply for their jobs. Under the union contract, at Renaissance Schools that continue to operate within the District, including Ackerman’s Promise Academies and so-called “Innovation” schools, no

The Race to Kumbaya :: Frederick M. Hess

The Race to Kumbaya

by Frederick M. Hess • Mar 29, 2010 at 12:16 pm
Cross-posted from Education Week

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Perhaps they should have called it the "Race to Consensus" or the "Race to Stakeholder Buy-In." Upon hearing there were only two round one Race to the Top (RTT) winners, I thought Duncan deserved some credit for recovering his footing after the fiasco of naming 16 round one finalists. Then, when I heard the two were Delaware and Tennessee, I had second thoughts. And they brought to mind my observation from a few months back (and restated this morning) that the numerical marker was a terrific tool for Duncan. All he had to do to get laurels was limit the number of blue ribbons--and now he's done that.

Looking at Delaware and Tennessee leaves me thinking that all the talk about bold reform was window dressing. The states that explicitly set out to blow past conventions, and devil take the hindmost, fell by the wayside. Florida and Louisiana's bold, action-backed plans--which reflected a belief that they could push forward if they did so only with the eager and willing--lost out to states that obtained laughable levels of buy-in from school districts, school boards, and local teachers' unions.

Tennessee boasted that it had obtained signatures of participation from 100% of Local Education Agency (LEA) superintendents, 100% from the presidents of local school boards, and 93% from the local teachers' union leaders. Delaware bragged that it obtained 100% of the signatures in each category. Is this really a good thing?

Spin, Mr. Secretary, Spin!

by Frederick M. Hess • Mar 29, 2010 at 9:20 am
Cross-posted from Education Week

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Like the Energizer Bunny, our earnest Secretary of Education just keeps going. The Race to the Top (RTT) winners are slated to be announced this afternoon, and a rumor from a reliable source has it that there will be just three winners. That would be good news.

Given his unfortunate penchant for talking bigger than he delivers, and all the ink already spilled on RTT, you'd think Duncan might let the results speak for themselves. After all, just about everybody--other than his flacks, love-struck media types, and state officials eager to curry favor--thought his decision to name 16 round one Race to the Top (RTT) finalists a massive let-down, especially after all his tough talk. Even RTT boosters and Duncan allies like DFER honcho Joe Williams and Eduwonk Andy Rotherham were puzzled and disappointed.

But, rather than let the results speak, Duncan's at it again. Our earnest Secretary bragged to columnist David Broder in yesterday's Washington Post that the winning RTT proposals are "so good, and so few." We'll see. I've few doubts the media will play it that way. But I'd advise those not on the Department payroll to give Andy Smarick's new "Education Stimulus Watch" a careful read before reaching any conclusions. If one looks past the shiny exterior of the RTT spin machine and peeks under the hood of the apps, as Smarick has noted, the significance of what all but two or maybe three states are proposing is actually pretty dubious. If the Department names just two or three winners, as rumor has it, then Duncan will have countered some of the damage that resulted from the fiasco of naming 16 round one finalists. Even so, this would have been a terrific case for him to show, not tell.

Noteworthy here, as I've pointed out before, is how easy it is for Duncan to ensure that round one of RTT is

This Week In Education Thompson: The NAEP-NCLB Proficiency Mess

This Week In Education

Thompson: The NAEP-NCLB Proficiency Mess

Mark Schneider, of the American Institutes of Research, tells us that the correlation between NCLB test scores and NAEP scores is .20 which is statistically insignificant.

Schneider cites NAEP scores from the TUDA where students in 18 districts were 67% proficient across state assessments but where only 24% were proficient under NAEP. That is consistent with my state's pattern with 8th grade reading scores. While Oklahoma's AYP for black middle school students has increased by 22% over three years, longterm NAEP reading scores have declined by 4 points.Other places are even worse. Schneider describes the 70 point gap between state and NAEP scores in Baltimore and Detroit, and characterizes NCLB testing as a "mess," a product of its generous exclusion rate among

Feds are checking books from Math, Civics charter school | Philadelphia Daily News | 03/30/2010

Feds are checking books from Math, Civics charter school

By KITTY CAPARELLA
Philadelphia Daily News

caparek@phillynews.com 215-854-5880

The financial records of a highly regarded Philadelphia charter school launched in 1999 by a well-known local education activist have been subpoenaed by federal authorities, according to its founder.

A federal grand jury subpoenaed five years of financial records from the Mathematics, Civics and Sciences Charter School in Center City last week, Veronica Joyner said yesterday.

"We have done nothing wrong," said Joyner, a former teacher who founded the school, at Broad and Buttonwood streets.

"We are not accused of anything," she added. "They explained to us that there is no wrongdoing. They just want to look at the records."

Agents are "looking at a number of charter schools, they told our attorneys," said Joyner, also founder of the advocacy group Parents United for Better Schools.

On March 22, a federal agent delivered the subpoena to the school's certified public accountant, Rhonda Sharif, according to a source familiar with the investigation.

The school's attorney, Matthew H. Haverstick, could not be reached for comment.

It was not immediately clear whether and how the federal subpoena is related to reports last year of a wide-ranging federal investigation into both financial irregularities and possible conflicts of interest at as many as five charter schools in Philadelphia.

Last summer, the Daily News reported that federal agents retrieved records from the Community