Friday, April 16, 2010

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

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

















VALERIE STRAUSS
A School Survival Guide for Parents (And Everyone Else)
Posted at 6:30 AM ET, 04/16/2010

Any value to U.S. News rankings?

It's the time of year for more U.S. News & World Report rankings, these of graduate schools around the nation. The methodology is very very complicated, but it's hard to find much meaning in any of this.
Posted by Valerie Strauss | Permalink | Comments (2)
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JAY MATHEWS
What's Right and Wrong With Our Schools
Posted at 5:30 AM ET, 04/16/2010

Five hard truths about charter schools

Charter schools are demanding places to teach and aren't for everybody. Teachers who move from regular to charter public schools "become partners in an enterprise that must sink or swim depending on performance. Hours, assignments, pay, and job security can't be guaranteed by a deep-pocket school district, but are products of collaborative effort at the school level," Paul T. Hill says
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Gandhi says Rhee's surplus does not exist

District Chief Financial Officer Natwar M. Gandhi has told Chancellor Michelle A. Rhee that the $34 million surplus she cited Tuesday as a basis for helping to finance teacher salaries under the proposed new labor contract "does not exist."
Gandhi's finding, conveyed to Rhee in a stinging letter late Thursday, is likely to open up a whole new chapter of contention in the tortured history of the contract, which has been in the works since the end of 2007. While his assessment appears to defuse charges that Rhee opted to sock away money for a new contract rather re-hire teachers laid off in October, it clearly undermines the financial foundation of the $140 million deal.
Gandhi told Rhee that while there is a projected $34 million of under-spending in the school operations sector of the current budget, that is offset by an estimated $30 million in over spending in the system's central office operation. In unusually blunt language, Gandhi also took Rhee to task for what he called a failure to adequately consult his office before revealing the surplus at a meeting with D.C. Council members.
"I was incredulous to learn that in your April 13, 2010 presentation to the Council on the contract you asserted that a surplus is available to fund the proposed salary increases based on preliminary information," he wrote.
In the letter, Gandhi described an e-mail exchange last month between 
Ed Buzz: The Nation





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EducationNews.org - EducationNewsToday

EducationNews.org - EducationNewsToday

EducationNewsToday

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College aid maze

For low-income applicants to U.S. colleges, April remains the cruelest month. By early April, almost all admission decisions are known.
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Sexting scandal at Montgomery County schools

Some female students at Pyle Middle School and Whitman High School in Montgomery County willingly posed for inappropriate pictures and some students sold and bought access to the pictures and videos, resulting in a police investigation, according to a letter sent home to students today. ...
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Third-grader hacks into Fairfax computers

Half-grown hacker hits Superintendent Jack Dale, others ...
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Charter Extension Founded by Linda Darling-Hammond Denied to Low-Scoring Stanford School

4.16.10 - Stanford New School has the best of credentials and focused on academics and students’ emotional and social lives and was persistently a worst-performing school...
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Florida Governor Splits With G.O.P. on Teacher Pay

Gov. Charlie Crist’s decision spurred speculation he would abandon the party to run for Senate as an independent. ...
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Senate effectively kills dropout age bill

FRANKFORT — The Senate dealt a fatal blow Wednesday night to a bill strongly backed by Gov. Steve Beshear and first lady Jane Beshear that would increase the state's dropout age from 16 to 18. ...
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Texas autism program cuts waiting, costs

Children suspected of having autism sometimes had to wait a year to get evaluated and to be able to afford the care they needed....
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Gorman expects worst-case; plan for 1,030 layoffs

The worst-case scenario for Charlotte-Mecklenburg Schools job cuts grew to 1,030 Tuesday, as Superintendent Peter Gorman presented his 2010-11 budget plan to the school board....
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In Hawaii, anger, arrests over shorter school year

Parents angry about Hawaii’s shortest-in-the-nation school year aren’t giving up on a sit-in at Governor Linda Lingle’s office despite two arrests and more than a dozen trespassing tickets. ...
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Does Rhee's $34 million surplus exist?

So does the $34 million surplus Chancellor Michelle A. Rhee described to the D.C. Council Tuesday actually exist?...
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Jay Mathews: Washington area's top education bloggers

Our favorites were a diverse bunch, with many witty teachers, incisive journalists and droll experts ...
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Fund Proposed to Prevent Some Teacher Firings

Senator Tom Harkin, an Iowa Democrat, introduced legislation on Wednesday to create a $23 billion jobs fund to prevent teachers from being fired because of budget shortfalls. ...
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SD school board may ease curbs on promotions

This year could mark then end of a policy that keeps failing students in San Diego from being promoted to the next grade level unless they complete summer intervention classes. ...
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Program that helps kids handle grief honored

An overcast sky underscored the solemnity of a ceremony Tuesday at Oak Crest Intermediate School in the East Central Independent School District, where school officials accepted the first Pacesetter Award from the South Texas Blood and Tissue Center. ...
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Utah students breathe life into resolution

An anti-idling campaign launched by sixth-graders at Morningside Elementary is reaping real-life lessons that extend far beyond the walls of the Millcreek classroom...
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Rise & Shine: Teachers in rubber room skeptical of closure deal | GothamSchools

Rise & Shine: Teachers in rubber room skeptical of closure deal | GothamSchools

Remainders: “Last-in, first-out” bill loses a sponsor

Rise & Shine: Teachers in rubber room skeptical of closure deal

  • The rubber rooms for teachers under investigation will close. (Times, Post, Daily News, NY1, WNYC, AP)
  • The Post and Daily News praise the rubber room agreement and note that it’s a win for the union.
  • Chancellor Klein says the agreement brings needed “sanity” to the teacher discipline process. (Post)
  • A teacher in a Manhattan rubber room says he doesn’t believe the agreement will help him. (Post)
  • A Bronx teacher who’s been in the rubber room for 1.5 years hopes he’ll be back to work soon. (Post)
  • School survey results are accurate because teachers resist pressure, Chancellor Klein said. (Daily News)
  • Despite its intentions, the city is cutting after-school programs with mostly needy children. (Daily News)
  • The city says it plans to replace Paul Robeson High School regardless of whether it’s closed. (Post)
  • In a letter, a former city teacher says city schools could benefit from weeknight proms, too. (Times)
  • Bucking his party, Florida Gov. Charlie Crist vetoed a bill that would have tied pay to test scores. (Times)
  • A local school board deemed a charter school started by Stanford’s education school a failure. (Times)
  • Hawaii parents are lobbying against the state’s budget-shortened school year. (Time Magazine)
  • A judge ruled against a company that charged fees to bring Filipino teachers to the States. (USA Today)

La Ca�ada Valley Sun: La Ca�ada Flintridge, California

La Ca�ada Valley Sun: La Ca�ada Flintridge, California

Feelers out on parcel tax


La Caรฑada Flintridge residents living in the western section of the city may soon be asked to vote on a parcel tax for the Glendale Unified School District.

District officials have hired a survey firm, True North, to issue and analyze a poll to test support for the tax, which would be tied to specific educational programs and expenses. Residents west of Rosebank Drive are served by the Glendale district.

The firm would also determine where the parcel tax funds should be spent. A political consulting group, TBWB Strategies, is working pro-bono to ensure the survey is comprehensive.

“It’s determining the viability of doing a parcel tax,” said Glendale Unified Deputy Supt. Dick Sheehan, slated to become superintendent July 1. “We’ll be looking to put out a survey at some point, probably sooner rather than later.”

Parcel taxes — fees paid by all property owners, with certain exemptions for senior citizens — require a two-thirds majority.


Almost 60% of district revenue from the state has been cut to 2005-06 levels, with 6.2% of district spending coming from non-property-tax funds, such as community contributions, interest income and developer fees, according to a report by EdSource, a nonpartisan nonprofit that tracks education trends in California.

State leaders have since altered funding formulas, lowering the minimum funding guarantee to school districts.

U.S. Education Department puts Forest Grove High School in the spotlight | OregonLive.com

U.S. Education Department puts Forest Grove High School in the spotlight | OregonLive.com


U.S. Education Department puts Forest Grove High School in the spotlight

By Wendy Owen, The Oregonian

April 15, 2010, 8:16PM
FOREST GROVE -- A couple of months from now, the calls will start.

School officials across the nation will want to visit Forest Grove High School and see how the rural school turned itself around over the last six years.

That's the price of fame. One minute you're a 1,900-student school with an agriculture program, 24 Advanced Placement courses, math and reading workshops, student mentors and teachers who dote on their students. The next minute, a U.S. Department of Education film crew is featuring you in a national video as one of America's "turnaround" schools.

During a visit to the school Thursday, Deputy Assistant Secretary John White of the U.S. Department of Education said Forest Grove will be the first rural high school filmed as part of the department's plan to highlight successful schools across the United States.

"It's a terrific day to be a Viking," said Forest Grove Principal John O'Neill.

The U.S. Department of Education already has filmed a handful of urban schools as part of a program called What's Possible: Turning Around American's Lowest-Achieving Schools.

White didn't know how many rural schools would be filmed, but the Forest