The Rancho Cordova Post — Vote for Cordova High Girls Group in Contest to Win $1500

The Rancho Cordova Post — Local News, Events, Things to Do

Vote for Cordova High Girls Group in Contest to Win $1500

by ANNE LOWE on APRIL 9, 2010 · 2 COMMENTS

in SCHOOLS

Voting is open until April 23 for an online contest in which Cordova High School is a finalist. If Cordova High wins, the school will be awarded $1,500 to go toward their Girls Group.

The contest is held by Apperson Print Resources, a supplier of educational products and services based out of Washington. Apperson holds the contest six times per year, and Franklin Elementary of Loomis, Calif. was announced the winner of the most recent contest. Cordova High is the only local school nominated for the current contest.

Cordova High Principal Jacky Levy said the Girls Group is a program they started to help support girls who are facing challenges in their lives. “The money will be used for field trips to colleges, volunteer activities, and for an end-of-the-year recognition ceremony,” she said in

Writing and the Relevance of High School � Chalkdust101

Writing and the Relevance of High School � Chalkdust101

Writing and the Relevance of High School

by pjhiggins

In an effort to continue to bridge the gap between how we are preparing our students for future studies and the world beyond, on April 13th our high school will be hosting Dr. Richard Miller, Professor of English and the Director of the Plangere Writing Center at Rutgers University. Dr. Miller is the author of As if Learning Mattered: Reforming Higher Education (1998) and Writing at the End of the World (2005). His articles have appeared in the journals College English, CCC: College Composition and Communication, JAC: A Journal of Advanced Composition, WPA: Writing Program Administration Journal, and Pedagogy, as well as in the collectionsComposition Studies in the 21st Century: Rereading the Past, Rewriting the Future, Teaching/Writing in the Late Age of Print, and Professing in the Contact Zone: Bringing Theory and Practice Together. He is also the co-editor, with Kurt Spellmeyer, of The New Humanities Reader (2nd edition, 2006) and co-author of the web sitenewhum.com.

Several of his presentations have been recorded and viewed by thousands via YouTube, including This is How

This Week In Education RTTT: Which Groups Written Into State Plans

This Week In Education

RTTT: Which Groups Written Into State Plans?

by Alexander Russo

Kudos to TNTP's Liam Goldrick for bothering to disclose what had previously gone unsaid: that LA and RI (and other unnamed states) wrote TNTP into their RTTT applications

Cartoon: Santa Claus, The Easter Bunny, & T. Jefferson

From Slate

Buckling down, measuring up, and bubbling to the finish line. Time for the PSSA. | Philadelphia Public School Notebook

Buckling down, measuring up, and bubbling to the finish line. Time for the PSSA. | Philadelphia Public School Notebook

Buckling down, measuring up, and bubbling to the finish line. Time for the PSSA.

by Timothy Boyle on Apr 12 2010 Posted in Boyle's law

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Tags:

• standardized testing
• science

The PSSA has descended upon Philadelphia. While my fourth graders don't take the science section until the 26th, we've been prepping for over a month now.

The Office of Teaching and Learning suggested we start implementing strategies 60 class days before the test, which was January 22nd. The Meeting the Challenge document provided by Teaching and Learning contains strategies to work on every day in addition to the core curriculum.

Some of the strategies are already part of what I would normal teach such as "having students use their science notebooks to collect and analyze data" or "state Big Ideas frequently." Other strategies like "use the Elimination Strategy to choose the right answer to multiple choice questions" are very difficult to implement in the course of teaching the core curriculum.

The day I was supposed to go over test-taking strategies I was conducting a performance assessment of my students' knowledge of electromagnetism. Students cannot use a multiple-choice test in lieu of a performance assessment. It defeats the purpose FOSS's formative assessment. Having met some of the people who worked on developing the assessments, I trust and agree with their work. So why does this disconnect exist?

The PSSA results makes or breaks your school. As the SPI ratings have shown, a school is as good as its PSSA scores. Schools that don't meet the cut scores receive Empowerment status.

Empowerment, and all its forms of intervention, will not raise my students' science scores. Content knowledge will raise my students' scores. Empowerment status would actually make it next to impossible to implement science instruction with

Schools Matter: Even more testing

Schools Matter: Even more testing

Even more testing

by skrashen

Even More Testing
Sent to the San Bernandino Sun, April 11

If teachers think there was too much testing with No Child Left Behind, wait until they see what is coming next ("Study: Most Teachers Pan No Child Left Behind 'Too Much Teaching to the Test,' They Complain," April 11).

According to the Blueprint for Reform, released by the US Department of Education, the new standards will be enforced with new tests, which will include "interim" tests in addition to those given at the end of year.

No Child Left Behind only required reading and math tests. The Blueprint recommends testing in other subjects as well. The Blueprint also insists we measure growth, which could mean testing in the fall and in the spring,

News10.net | Sacramento, California | Education Home

News10.net | Sacramento, California | Education Home

Education News

Interview: Understanding the benefits and challenges of homeschooling

• Comments

Author and mother Julie Anderson talked to News10 Good Morning about how to prepare for homeschooling and how to make the decision on whether homeschooling is right for your family.

Legislative analyst: State community college fees should rise

• Comments

The California Legislative Analyst's Office is recommending state community colleges can help resolve their budget woes by increasing some student fees by 60 percent.

Megan Fox slams Schwarzenegger, California education

• Comments

Megan Fox and her sometime boyfriend, actor Brian Austin Green, took aim at Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger, protesting California school budget cuts in a new video online.

More Education News

• Humboldt State may cut entire programs
• Left in the 'white room?' Parents question son's 'manhandling' by Olivehurst school staffers
• UC president: Hate acts may prompt policy changes
• West Sacramento mom speaks up about schoolyard bullying
• CHP: Modesto school bus maintenance not making the grade
• Financial crisis strikes three Sacramento-area school districts
• Amador County health: Likely case of TB at junior high
• Superintendent: More school districts face money troubles
• UOP welcomes first woman as school president

Quote of the Day: Justice Stevens on Student Free Speech � Student Activism

Quote of the Day: Justice Stevens on Student Free Speech � Student Activism

Quote of the Day: Justice Stevens on Student Free Speech

by Angus Johnston

Admittedly, some high school students (including those who use drugs) are dumb. Most students, however, do not shed their brains at the schoolhouse gate, and most students know dumb advocacy when they see it. The notion that the message on this banner would actually persuade either the average student or even the dumbest one to change his or her behavior is most implausible.

This quote comes from Justice John Paul Stevens’ dissent in Morse v. Frederick, a student free speech case decided by the Supreme Court in 2007.
In Morse, a five-member Court majority found that a high school principal did not violate the the constitutional rights of student Joseph Frederick when she suspended him for unfurling a banner that read BONG HiTS 4 JESUS near school property.
Justice Stevens disagreed. He argued that the banner’s message was “nonsense,” and that even if Frederick had, as some justices argued — but Frederick himself denied — intended to promote illegal drug use, his suspension would still have been a huge First Amendment violation.
Stevens’ dissent, a ringing endorsement of students’ rights to free expression, was joined by two other justices.

This Week In Education NCLB: A Timely Reminder From The Past

This Week In Education

NCLB: A Timely Reminder From The Past

by Alexander Russo

Reading Testing Limits, Nick Lemann’s 2001 New Yorker story about NCLB (from my Biggest Education Stories Of The NCLB Era entry last week) is like opening a time capsule from the not so distant past. So much optimism. So many early successes. So many problems, known and unknown. So many things (no hearings!?) you may have forgotten. It's an extremely useful reminder of how school reform gets done and a good thing to consider as reform moves forward via RTTT, FY11 appropriations, and – eventually – NCLB reauthorization.Read on for a refresher.

Written while NCLB was still in conference, the Lemann article criticizes Bush I and Clinton for having done little on education despite their grand claims, describes the standards movement as having come out of the South, “America’s Third World,” and slaps hard at upper middle-class parents of Scarsdale and elsewhere who considered their kids “little geniuses” too good to take annual tests.
The piece also predicts accurately the dangers and pitfalls awaiting the law when it came time for implementation: potential dumbing-down of state standards, lack of comparability across states, perceptions

What to Do & Eat Women's Conference

What to Do & Eat

WHAT TO DO & EATTo "Age Optimally"

Health + Fitness

Jonny Bowden, Ph.D., CNS

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As we age, our minds and bodies lose their agility. This can prevent us from living the lives and doing the work that we set out to do. Here, nutrition and anti-aging expert Jonny Bowden tells us what we can do to retain agility and "age optimally."

Is there one exercise or exercise routine that’s most effective for women who want to “age optimally”?

The perfect exercise routine is the one you actually do. That said, weight-bearing exercises should be incorporated into your workout whatever it is.

As you age, you’ll lose half a pound of muscle a year. If you lose a bit of muscle every year, you lose calorie-burning ability, and you’ll gain fat.

Sacramento Press / Dig This! Tahoe Park Community Garden Opens

Sacramento Press / Dig This! Tahoe Park Community Garden Opens

Dig This! Tahoe Park Community Garden Opens

Tahoe Park residents braved wind and cloudy skies Saturday to attend the grand opening of the Tahoe Park Community Garden. Wielding golden scissors, a team including Congresswoman Doris Matsui and Sacramento City Councilmember Kevin McCarty cut the ceremonial red ribbon.

"This will only enhance your neighborhood," Matsui said, "this gives you a gathering place." She went on to say that community gardens reduce crime and vandalism "because everyone now has a stake in the community."

The garden, which is on the campus of Tahoe Park Elementary, was created as a means to fight obesity and promote healthy lifestyle choices and eating habits. "Young people sometimes think food comes from McDonald's, and not from the dirt" said McCarty.

Added Matsui, "It teaches self-reliance. You don't have to rely on supermarkets."

McCarty explained that the $20,000 for the garden came from cell towers. "There is a city fee on all cell phone towers," he said. "We used the proceeds (for the creation of the garden)."

Home Depot donated the flowers that community members planted at the opening and the vegetables were donated by Bill Maynard of the Community Coalition. Maynard also designed the garden.

After brief opening remarks the festivities began. Matsui and McCarty shook hands and answered questions as residents roamed the garden and visited vendor booths. Balloons and a bounce house kept the kids happy.

"This really brings the community together for a place to garden," McCarty said. "Partnering with schools and kids, teaching children about health and nutrition, is so important."

voiceofsandiego.org | News. Investigation. Analysis. Conversation. Intelligence.

voiceofsandiego.org | News. Investigation. Analysis. Conversation. Intelligence.

Bright and Early: The Education Newsblitz

Your nominations for the worst education jargon are coming in fast and furious! Send me more of the eduspeak you love to hate -- and look for a blog post soon. Now for your newsblitz:

• We tell the winding story of what happens when a child is kicked out of a charter school, but the school district doesn't agree that the child should be expelled. Sending them back to district schools has upset school staff and stirred up talk of an uneven playing field.

• The Union-Tribune reports that a soccer team at an alternative school is helping kids get to school on time.

• Also in the U-T: Iraqi immigrants are struggling to find the English classes they need to get a job and keep their welfare benefits.

• In SDNN, San Diego Unified school board member John de Beck questions whether a plan to move around the department that analyzes data will leave nobody guarding the hen house.

This Week In Education Real-Time Roundup [Monday]

This Week In Education

Real-Time Roundup [Monday]

by Alexander Russo

Here's a rolling update of what's going on in educationland right now:

Hit "refresh" to get newer items, or click here to get older items.

New law could give schools a bigger cut of lottery money | California Watch

New law could give schools a bigger cut of lottery money | California Watch

New law could give schools a bigger cut of lottery money

by Corey G. Johnson

Corey G. Johnson

Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger has signed legislation that may provide cash-starved schools a larger share of state's lottery proceeds.
The new law, written by Assemblywoman Mary Hayashi, D-Hayward, shrinks by 3 percent the fees paid to the California State Lottery for administration purposes. At the same time, the amounts paid out in cash prizes and school funding were raised by 3 percent.
This equates to the Lottery receiving 13 percent of the annual revenues; approximately 87 percent would be returned to the public, with no less than 50 percent paid out in prizes and at least 34 percent going to schools. Hayashi said:

California’s budget crisis has had a devastating impact on education. Supporting our schools must

Statement by the President on Holocaust Remembrance Day | The White House

Statement by the President on Holocaust Remembrance Day | The White House

Statement by the President on Holocaust Remembrance Day

I join people here at home, in Israel, and around the world in observing Holocaust Remembrance Day. This year, on the 65th anniversary of the liberation of the Nazi concentration camps, we must recommit ourselves to honoring the memories of all the victims and ensuring that they remain a part of our collective memory. On my visit to Buchenwald last year – and during my visit to Yad Vashem in 2008 – I bore witness to the horrors of anti-Semitism and the capacity for evil represented by the Nazis’ campaign to annihilate the Jewish people and so many others. But even at places like Buchenwald, the dignity and courage of those who endured the horrors of the Holocaust remind us of humanity’s capacity for decency and compassion.

The memories of the victims serve as a constant reminder to honor their legacy by renewing our commitment to prevent genocide, and to confront anti-Semitism and prejudice in all of its forms. We must never tolerate the hateful stereotypes and prejudice against the Jewish people that tragically continues to this day. We must work, instead, on behalf of a world of justice and peace, in which all nations and peoples value the humanity that we share, and the dignity inherent in every human being.