Sunday, April 4, 2010

FUSD gets tough on summer school - Education and Schools - fresnobee.com

FUSD gets tough on summer school

D as well as F students now required to attend, to help more succeed.

Posted at 11:53 PM on Saturday, Apr. 03, 2010

By Tracy Correa / The Fresno Bee

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D grades no longer are good enough for Fresno Unified School District students. This summer, for the first time, students earning D's -- as well as F's -- will be required to attend summer school.

District officials said it's part of a new emphasis to help all struggling students succeed. Even though a student can pass a class with a D, it doesn't demonstrate proficiency -- the district's goal.

In the past, summer school was optional and primarily focused on students who were flunking class. Under the new rule, the district plans to double the number of students attending summer school at a time when most cash-strapped school districts are cutting summer programs.

The district plans to use some of the millions of dollars received in federal economic stimulus funds to enroll more than 10,000 students.

A state education expert said it's rare to see a school district expand summer school today in

Grade 10 diploma not a wise idea

Ze'ev Wurman,Sandra Stotsky

Sunday, April 4, 2010

MORE EDUCATION

Where's superman for the middle class? 04.04.10
Race to the Top should be left behind 04.04.10
UC Berkeley head tackles cost of athletics 04.01.10

In February, the national press reported on a pilot program that will give high school sophomores in eight states a chance to earn a diploma and head straight to credit-bearing math and English courses at a state college. To do so, they will have to take special course work and can try to pass academic tests known as board exams as early as grade 10.

The idea of a grade 10 diploma is the latest brainchild of the National Center on Education and the Economy, the originator of the unsuccessful school-to-work initiative in the 1990s. The project is funded by the Gates Foundation, which has abandoned its initiative to create small high schools as a way to get more low-achieving students through high school.

The center's so-called fast-track approach ups the ante and aims to get at-risk students out of high school and into college - and supposedly on a quick credit-bearing path to a degree. It also aims to get bright high school students into college sooner for supposedly better course work. However, the center's proposed 10th-grade "diploma" is the wrong answer to the wrong problem for three groups of students: those with a strong academic orientation, those without it but who are willing to stay in school and those who drop out.

It is not the right solution for those capable of academic acceleration. Most parents don't

Demand Student Representation, Assert Your Voice in SGC | Berkeley High Jacket

Demand Student Representation, Assert Your Voice in SGC

By Peggy Scott

Berkleye High Jacket Editorial Board member Chloe Holden writes, “…there is a notable lack of student input into the process, a waste considering that the most acute insights into the [Achievement] gap are most likely to come from students themselves.”

Holden is correct, but the shortage of student input at Berkeley High is an even larger issue, and concerns all areas that fall under the purview of the SGC. The laws of California and the state Education Code specifically state that high school students should comprise 25 percent of the governing structure of their school. Currently, students have only 14 percent, almost half that power, just four out of 28 members on the council. It often feels even worse, because so many alternates and co–lead teachers attend the meetings, which makes the room heavily dominated by teachers.
Further, it is specifically this School Site Council that is tasked with the job of addressing student achievement through the development and annual revision of the school plan. At Berkeley High this plan for student achievement is the WASC plan, but you would be hard pressed to find a revision since 2005, the year it was written. Now read Holden’s quote again; it is astonishing just how right she is.

Currently, the Policy Committee of the School Board is reviewing the governance structure at Berkeley High and we can expect their redesign to be announced this spring. Their charge is to bring the practices of the high school’s governance into compliance with state statutes.

This has been a long battle. The school board has known for at least two years that they needed to overhaul the SGC at Berkeley

Anti-bullying efforts show some progress - SignOnSanDiego.com

Anti-bullying efforts show some progress

BY PETER ROWE, UNION-TRIBUNE STAFF WRITER

SUNDAY, APRIL 4, 2010 AT 12:05 A.M.

BULLYING ON LOCAL CAMPUSES

The California Department of Education has collected data on bullying-related incidents since January 2009; to date, statistics have been compiled only for the first six months of that year.

In San Diego County, a total of 13 suspensions and one expulsion occurred at these schools:

Hidden Valley Middle School, Escondido Union: one suspension

Monte Vista High School, Grossmont Union High: one suspension

Grossmont High School, Grossmont Union High: two suspensions

La Mesa Middle School, La Mesa-Spring Valley: two suspensions

Tierra del Sol Middle School, Lakeside Union Elementary:one suspension

Mt. Carmel High School, Poway Unified: two suspensions

Olive Peirce Middle School, Ramona City Unified: two suspensions and one expulsion

Nubia Leadership Academy, San Diego Unified: two suspensions

Even before the January suicide ofPhoebe Prince, a 15-year-oldMassachusetts girl who had been tormented by classmates, parents in San Diego County feared for the lives of their bullied children.

“My prevailing thought when I wake up in the morning is, ‘I don’t want to find my son hanging from the rafters,’ ” said the mother of a Lakeside middle schooler who has been bullied for three years. She asked that her name not be used for fear of further assaults on her son.

He has been punched, slapped, hit with rocks, called names. Asked about transferring to another campus, he declined. What if the same fate — or worse — awaited him there?

“And why should he have to leave?” his mother asked. (The students and parents interviewed for this story asked that their names not be used for fear of further assaults.)

For bullies, opportunities have never been greater. While some studies show that the American schoolyard is safer than it was just seven years ago, bullies have found new places to ambush kids. With text messaging and social-media sites, they can attack at any time, any place.

And even if physical violence is declining, there’s still no shortage of victims. Just ask David Bristol, a Solana

For Latinos, mixed signals | OregonLive.com

For Latinos, mixed signals

By Syndicated columns

April 04, 2010, 5:15AM

David BroderBy David S. Broder

WASHINGTON -- Census Day was a big day at the office of the National Council of La Raza, not only because it was the final day of the drive to reduce the chronic undercount of Hispanic residents but because it marked a time when Latinos in the United States could obtain the latest measure of their growing political power.

The largest and fastest growing minority group finds itself in an anomalous position this year. In some respects, its stature has never been higher, with the Supreme Court appointment of Sonia Sotomayor signaling that one more historic barrier has fallen to the talent and ambition of the Spanish-speaking community.

But as Janet Murguia, the veteran political organizer and former Clinton White House aide who is president of La Raza reminded me, "As long as the immigration issue is unresolved, we feel under threat."

The mixed signals that Hispanics receive from the larger community, ranging from the accolades for the first Hispanic woman on the high court to the threatening nativist rhetoric of Tom Tancredo at the first tea party convention, have produced an almost schizophrenic reaction among Latino constituencies and leaders.

While celebrating the gains they have recorded on such vital issues as health care, children's welfare and education from their alliance with Barack Obama, they fret about the backlash they see on illegal immigration and the growing gulf between their own community and most Republican officeholders.

It is a distinctly uncomfortable mood, despite the strong sense they share

Community Colleges Like Attention, Need Money - Money News Story - KMGH Denver

Community Colleges Like Attention, Need Money

Promoted As Way To Train Workers, Boost Grad Rates

ERIC GORSKI, AP National Writer

Politicians and policymakers are lavishing unprecedented attention on community colleges, promoting them as engines to train workers in the recession and boost the country's college graduation rates.

Where rhetoric meets reality on campus, you'll find people like Tania DeLeon, a student at Folsom Lake College in California who can't get into the classes she wants, must shuttle between two campuses 45 minutes apart and is spending spring break earning a paycheck so she can pay for gas and graduate on time.
Grappling with soaring enrollment and plummeting state support, community colleges are grateful for the higher profile but disappointed money has yet to materialize to help them keep up with demand, let alone meet ambitious Obama administration goals to make the U.S. the global leader in college graduates again by 2020.

"It's a difficult, challenging time for us," said George Boggs, president and CEO of the American Association of Community Colleges. "But in the longer term view, we've never seen the image of community colleges as high as it is right now. Overall,

Saturday, April 3, 2010

Assemblymember Fuentes: Help Make California Count in 2010 Census | California Progress Report

Assemblymember Fuentes: Help Make California Count in 2010 Census

by kaldveer

By Assemblymember Felibe Fuentes
In this Democratic weekly address, Assemblymember Felipe Fuentes (D-Sylmar), Chair of the Assembly Select Committee on the Census, discusses how census participation helps California receive its fair share of federal funding and congressional representation. Fuentes notes that there is still time to mail in census forms and that because the Census Bureau keeps the information confidential and does not share it with anyone, no California resident should fear participating in the census.
Click onto the following link for the English language MP3 file. The running time is 1:46.
http://democrats.assembly.ca.gov/Newsline/Audio/20100401RadioAddressCens...
Click onto the following link for the Spanish language MP3 file. The running time is 2:28.
http://democrats.assembly.ca.gov/Newsline/Audio/20100401RadioAddressCens...
Website of Assemblymember Felipe Fuentes: www.asm.ca.gov/fuentes
Transcript:
Hello, this is Assemblymember Felipe Fuentes, Chair of the Assembly Select Committee on the Census.
read more

La Salle Catholic College Preparatory taps into solar energy | OregonLive.com

La Salle Catholic College Preparatory taps into solar energy

By Nicole Dungca, The Oregonian

April 03, 2010, 7:00AM

BRENT WOJAHN/THE OREGONIANFacilities manager Bill George was the main force behind La Salle Catholic College Preparatory’s solar panels, the latest project of its kind to hit Portland area schools. The black, thin-film panels could save the school about $10,000 to $15,000 in energy costs when the school purchases the system.
MILWAUKIE -- At La Salle Catholic College Preparatory, it wasn't easy going green.

Former Principal Bill George first explored solar paneling when he picked up his facilities manager title two years ago, but financing shortages and a recession halted two projects in their tracks.

Turns out the third time was the charm for the Milwaukie school. In January,Oregon Electric Group installed a solar photovoltaic system on the roof of the school's 116,400-square-foot building, making it the latest Portland metro school to harness solar energy.

The black, thin-film solar panels were funded and are owned by FutureSource Capital Corp., a subsidiary of the North Dakota-based energy and transportation infrastructure company MDU Resources, but the school will have the option of purchasing the system in six years.

The 98-kilowatt system should provide about 10 to 20 percent of the school's power, according to George. If the school purchases the system from FutureSource, the estimates point to $10,000 to $15,000 in energy savings each year. The school pays about $75,000 for power annually, according to George.

La Salle paid no upfront costs for the project, but purchases the power from FutureSource, according to project manager Matt Saager of Oregon Electric Group, who helped broker the deal. Oregon Electric Group also is affiliated with MDU Resources.

Schools going solar

La Salle's foray into solar energy follows other area schools. Clackamas High installed solar panels on its roof several years ago, and Portland Public Schools undertook

Outrages (Susan Ohanian Speaks Out)

Florida Gubernatorial Candidate Sen. Paula Dockery opposes Senate Bill 6 Gubernatorial candidate Sen. Paula Dockery, one of a few Republicans to vote against the so-called "teacher tenure bill" speaks out against the bill. Note from a Florida teacher:

I spoke to Eddie from speaker Cretul's office. We had a very polite conversation. He had his logic. I had mine. We talked for a half-hour. But what really floored me was toward the end of the conversation when he said the legislation would pass anyway and that it was a "done deal." Yes, why are hundred's of teachers calling? Why is the house even going to bother with a vote?

My Best Posts On How To Prepare For Standardized Tests (And Why They’re Bad) | Larry Ferlazzo's Websites of the Day...

My Best Posts On How To Prepare For Standardized Tests (And Why They’re Bad)

Filed under best of the year, classroom practice, school reform, teacher resources

It’s approaching the time in many states when our students will have to take annual standardized tests.

I’ve written quite a few posts about how I prepare my students to take them, as well as posts writing about how bad the tests are. I thought I’d bring them all together in one “The Best…” list.

I’ve made it quite clear that our school we intentionally do little explicit “test-prep” work with our students. Instead, we believe the work we do during the entire year prepares them to be lifelong learners and that this will show-up in test results. We also do a number of things to help students feel positive on test days.

Huberman has been on hiring binge since he took over CPS in January 2009 - Substance News

CHICAGO'S BUDGET BIG LIE III: Reader article only outlines tip of the iceberg in Daley, Huberman patronage binge... The four most important 'degrees' needed for an executive job at CPS in 2010 are: the CTA, the CPD, the CCH, and the MBA. Educators need not apply

George N. Schmidt - April 03, 2010

The recent article by Ben Joravsky in the Chicago Reader began the long search by Chicagoans for the latest examples of patronage and politics in the city's school budget. But beyond the examples used in the Reader article, any close student of the actions of the Chicago Board of Education during the past 15 months (from roughly January 1, 2009, when Arne Duncan became U.S. Secretary of Education and Ron Huberman was plucked from the Chicago Transit Authority by Mayor Daley to become the third Daley-selected non-educator white guy to save the school system) would have noticed that the Chicago public schools has been on the greatest patronage hiring binge in its history, while the pouring of dollars out the door for crony contracts was continuing to increase, as it has since Daley took control of the city's schools in 1995.

Most of the Chicago press has been ignoring the actual workings of the Board of Education's executive staffs for more than a decade, content to repeat, as nauseum, the carefully crafted Salvation Narrative that says, in what at any other time would be seen as a racist way, that before 1995, when Richard M. Daley was given dictatorial control over the Chicago Public Schools, the school system was "America's Worst" (as the Tribune called the system following the lead of former U.S. Secretary of Education Williams Bennett 22 years ago) and that Daley and his miracle management team saved the school

$154K schools job for ex-Daley aide :: CHICAGO SUN-TIMES :: City Hall

$154K schools job for ex-Daley aide

CPS | Lumpkin gets outreach post despite tax hikes, job cuts

Comments

November 5, 2009

BY FRAN SPIELMAN City Hall Reporter fspielman@suntimes.com

Despite a burgeoning financial crisis that has forced a $43 million property tax increase and hundreds of job cuts, the Chicago Board of Education has found a $154,000-a-year job for an all-purpose mayoral troubleshooter.
Barbara Lumpkin, 59, will serve as deputy CEO for external affairs for the Chicago Public Schools forging partnerships with the business community to support school programs. The job has been vacant for nine months -- ever since Lumpkin's predecessor retired.
"We need to continue to do outreach to major corporations. We cannot function without fulfilling those responsibilities. We have high-level jobs like this that we always intended to fill," said CPS spokeswoman Monique Bond.
Schools CEO Ron Huberman found the job for his former City Hall colleague two years after Lumpkin resigned as Mayor Daley's $169,452-a-year chief procurement officer, leaving behind a department that has struggled to boost black contracting and weed out minority fronts.
Lumpkin is the City Hall equivalent of a utility infielder. She has also served as Daley's city comptroller, budget director and city treasurer following the conviction of Miriam Santos.
In 2005, her name turned up on city documents as one of four official

Schools Matter: Imagine's "Demonstrably Bad" Application in PA

Imagine's "Demonstrably Bad" Application in PA

by Kenneth Libby

Imagine's attempt to expand in Pittsburg continues to progress (or regress?), this time with Pittsburg Public Schools superintendent Mark Roosevelt chiming in. After calling the charter application "demonstrably bad," Roosevelt added this (via Karamagi Rujumba at the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette):

"They did not have a plan for developing a curriculum or how they would hire experienced teachers or a principal. They simply did not pass the standard of what it takes to operate a school," Mr. Roosevelt said.

But there's a bit more to this story, too. Part of this stems from real estate developer Sam Glasser's attempt to purchase real estate for the school (remember, Glasser has a history with Imagine), and part of this stems from a very legitimate concern for improving the education of communities not served by public schools:

After 43 years as a teacher and administrator in the Pittsburgh Public Schools, Sarah Martin says the school system in which she spent her professional life still does a bad job of educating many low-income African-Americans.
Ms. Martin, 69, who retired from the district as a curriculum and instruction supervisor in

The Perimeter Primate: Last night’s stunning Bill Moyers Journal

Last night’s stunning Bill Moyers Journal

by The Perimeter Primate

There were two segments on the April 2^nd program. Please take time to watch them or read the transcripts.
Part One featured Bill Moyers’ interview with Bryan Stevenson and Michelle Alexander. Part Two was Moyers’ essay on the growing income inequality.
Thank you, Bill Moyers.
Excerpts from Part One:

BILL MOYERS: With me now is Bryan Stevenson, one of the country's leading advocates for justice. He lives in Alabama, where he founded and leads the Equal Justice Initiative, whose mission is defending the poor and people of color. He's won wide recognition, including the MacArthur "genius" award, for his efforts to end the death penalty. He teaches clinical law at New York University.
Michelle Alexander is also an expert in civil rights advocacy and litigation. The former director of the civil rights clinics at Stanford Law School in California, she teaches law now at Ohio State University. You're going to hear a lot about her powerful new book, "The New Jim Crow: Mass Incarceration in the Age of Colorblindness.”…
MICHELLE ALEXANDER: …individual black achievement today masks a disturbing, underlying racial reality. You know, to a significant extent, you know, affirmative action, seeing African Americans, you know, go to Harvard and Yale, become CEOs and corporate lawyers, you know,

Census 2010: Time, Become counting - Univision 23

Censo 2010: Llegó la hora, hazte contar

No esperes más y envía tu formulario del Censo 2010 cuanto antes.

Fuente: Miami: WLTV

Census 2010: Time, Become count

Go ahead and submit your 2010 Census form as soon as possible.

Source: Miami: WLTV