California weighs longshot bid for school funds

California weighs longshot bid for school funds

Jill Tucker, Chronicle Staff Writer

Monday, April 26, 2010

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After coming in 27th out of 40 states the first time, California would have an uphill climb to win up to $700 million in the next round for federal Race to the Top education funds - an effort state officials could decide this week is a losing battle.

Or California could ignore the odds and decide to go for it.

The governor and education leaders are expected to announce as early as Tuesday whether they'll apply for the second round of federal school reform funding - a $4 billion pot to be spread among states that make the cut.

California failed to make it as a finalist in the first round, falling well shy of the points needed to get funding. Delaware and Tennessee were the only states that won first-round funding, receiving about 450 out of 500 possible points by coming up with plans with broad support to overhaul their school system.

California posted a final score of 336.8.

"There were some major gaps in our application," said David Richey, spokesman for Secretary of Education Bonnie Reiss. "The state and governor's office are looking at all the pieces to see if it's realistic for us to apply."

States have to declare their intent to apply by May 4 and file an application by June 1.

Indiana announced Thursday it would pull out of the race. Kansas dropped out a week

Read more: http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2010/04/25/BAFI1D41J6.DTL#ixzz0mCpWgncE

California's iconic master plan for higher education is in peril | San Bernardino County | PE.com | Southern California News | News for Inland Southern California

California's iconic master plan for higher education is in peril | San Bernardino County | PE.com | Southern California News | News for Inland Southern California

California's iconic master plan for higher education is in peril

		Download story podcast

11:30 PM PDT on Sunday, April 25, 2010

By DAVID OLSON and MICHELLE L. KLAMPE
The Press-Enterprise

Fifty years ago, California promised its young people a top-notch college education that would be free or cost next to nothing.

Today, annual undergraduate fees are set to top $11,000 at some state-run universities, students are frustrated by fewer course offerings, and employee furloughs and layoffs are continuing. The 1960 master plan that served as a template for the state's higher-education system is in tatters.

As the plan turns 50 Tuesday, legislators, think tanks and academics are debating whether the iconic document remains relevant or whether it should be abandoned and replaced with a blueprint that reflects the state's new realities.

"I think this is a plan whose time has come and gone," said Patrick Callan, president of the San Jose-based National Center for Public Policy and Higher Education. "The message to young people used to be 'if you do your part, there will be a place in college for you.' We've eroded this commitment from top to

Sacramento council race for District 5 seat draws a crowd - Sacramento City News - sacbee.com

Sacramento council race for District 5 seat draws a crowd - Sacramento City News - sacbee.com

Sacramento council race for District 5 seat draws a crowd

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Buzz up!

By Ryan Lillis
rlillis@sacbee.com

Published: Monday, Apr. 26, 2010 - 12:00 am | Page 1B

A crowded field with experienced political candidates and neighborhood leaders is vying for the Sacramento City Council seat being vacated by Assembly candidate Lauren Hammond.

That's not surprising, given how rarely council members in this town give up their seats. The City Council has become a stable political position; every current council member is on at least their second term, and the last time an incumbent council member ran and lost was 1992.

Based on money raised and major endorsements, there appear to be two front-runners for Hammond's seat in District 5: Patrick Kennedy, a city school board member, former city planning commissioner and the former president of neighborhood groups in Oak Park and

Read more: http://www.sacbee.com/2010/04/26/2705007/sacramento-council-race-for-district.html#ixzz0mColjBXX

Schools Matter: Wall Street: Massively Fraudulent Sociopaths

Schools Matter: Wall Street: Massively Fraudulent Sociopaths

Wall Street: Massively Fraudulent Sociopaths

by Jim Horn

Here's the link to the Bill Moyers interview with Bill Black. It runs about 25 minutes. Here is a clip:

. . . BILL MOYERS: Why did it take so long for the Securities and Exchange Commission, the SEC, to kick into gear on this? I mean, have they kicked into gear?

WILLIAM K. BLACK Well, they haven't kicked into gear fully, or they'd be naming Blankfein and other senior leaders of Goldman. And they've, as you just mentioned, they've only gone after a junior person. And there would be, if they were really in gear, there would be criminal charges here. And if they were really in gear, there'd be a broad investigation, not just of Goldman, but of all of these major entities.

In the last three weeks, we have finally done a half-baked investigation, mind you. Not -- nothing like we did in the Savings & Loan days -- of Washington Mutual (WaMu), Citicorp, Lehman, and Goldman. And we have found strong evidence of fraud at all four places.

And we have looked previously at Fannie and Freddie and found the same thing. So the only six

"Is The New Facebook A Deal With The Devil?" - THE DAILY RIFF - Be Smarter. About Education.

"Is The New Facebook A Deal With The Devil?" - THE DAILY RIFF - Be Smarter. About Education.

Technology: The Good, The Bad, The Ugly
Makes you wanna go Hmmm. . . Too Big???

Are your kids on Facebook? Do THEY know?

"At first blush, it's hard from a user's perspective to find anything to criticize Facebook for in today's announcements. Those criticisms will no doubt start to form once people wrap their heads around all the particulars. On principal, though, there's going to be so much more Facebook around the internet that it feels like a real cause for concern. Centralization is a dangerous thing and Facebook is a young company that's proven willing to break its contract with users in the past (see Facebook's Privacy Move Violates Contract With Users)."

---From ReadWriteWeb

From ReadWriteWeb, "Is The New Facebook A deal With The Devil?":

"Facebook blew people's minds today at its F8 developer conference but one sentiment that keeps coming up is: this is scary. The company unveiled simple, powerful plans to offer instant personalization on sites all over the web, it kicked off meaningful adoption of the Semantic Web with the snap of the fingers, it

Capistrano School Board Rejects Teachers’ Proposal - California Teachers Association

Capistrano School Board Rejects Teachers’ Proposal - California Teachers Association

Capistrano School Board Rejects Teachers’ Proposal

Contact: Vicki Soderberg (949) 463-6951 (cell); vsoderberg@cuea.org; Bill Guy (619) 709-0028 (cell); bguy@cta.org

Ambiguous Offer To Negotiate Begins With Veiled Threat

ALISO VIEJO – “If you’re really serious about bargaining, you don’t start out by threatening legal action. Once again the Capistrano Board of Education is attempting to equivocate and obfuscate instead of negotiate,” said CUEA President Vicki Soderberg.

“Despite the board’s vague offer to commence negotiations ‘regarding various issues,’ they are flatly rejecting to bargain CUEA’s specific, unambiguous proposal. We clearly gave them a chance to avert a strike and their refusal leaves teachers no choice. CUEA members will walk the picket lines beginning Thursday, April 22. At the same time, our bargaining team will accept the board’s invitation to talk on Thursday. If we determine that they are serious about reaching a settlement, teachers and students can be back in the schools Friday. It’s up to the board to prove they’re serious about reaching a settlement.”

In a formal request delivered early Monday, April 19, giving the Capistrano board a 5:00 p.m., Tuesday, April 20 deadline to respond, CUEA asked the board to come back to the bargaining table to negotiate based on the following specific proposals:

1. The board will reverse the permanent nature of salary and benefits cuts they imposed March 31 by making them temporary;
2. There will be no increase in class size;
3. The board will restore salary, unpaid work days, and benefits cuts if unforeseen funds are received;
4. The board will implement already agreed to contract language that deals with working conditions, transfer of teachers, and leaves as stipulated to in the fact finding hearing.

“Where in the board’s response is the mention of making the permanent cuts temporary and of being willing to enter into the Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) the board has informally offered in public throughout the last two weeks? Where is a clear, unambiguous offer to restore the cuts if unforeseen

New Jersey Education Association

New Jersey Education Association

State report shows Christie’s
Pay freeze claims are false

$849 million shortfall even with a freeze
Governor Christie’s claim that teacher pay freezes would make teacher layoffs and property tax increases unnecessary are false, according to an April 2010 report by the state’s Office of Legislative Services (OLS). Noting that Christie has cut state aid to school districts by $1.09 billion, the report says that if every teacher took a pay freeze and contributed 1.5% of salary to health premiums, school districts “would still have to address a budget shortfall of at least $849.3 million” – or 77.9 percent of the proposed aid reduction. More>>

NJEA demands Christie apologize for calling students ‘drug mules’

NJEA President Barbara Keshishian, outraged after Governor Chris Christie accused New Jersey teachers of using students as “drug mules” at a State House press conference yesterday, is demanding that the governor apologize to both students and teachers. “Chris Christie’s incessant attacks on teachers and public education are out of control, and now he’s gone too far,” Keshishian said today. More>>

>>NJEA Vice President discusses election,
Christie attack on students Watch video

NJEA warns about Christie's "catastrophic" pension proposals

30,000 teachers could retire this summer
Governor Christie’s plan to enact legislation to force mass retirements of teachers and school employees will have a catastrophic impact on public education and on the state’s already-underfunded pension system, NJEA President Barbara Keshishian warned today. “Whether the governor realizes it or not, his legislation would be an all-out assault on the very future of public education in New Jersey,” Keshishian said. “He is threatening to do irreparable damage to every public school system in the state, and to the 1.4 million students we teach. More>>

Schundler’s figures don’t add up

NJEA challenges Commissioner’s budget testimony
Barbara Keshishian, president of the 200,000-member New Jersey Education Association, today challenged the budget testimony of Education Commissioner Bret Schundler, saying it was misleading and poorly documented. “Despite today’s Monmouth University poll showing the public does not blame teachers for the governor’s impending school budget cuts, Commissioner Schundler’s testimony before the Senate Budget Committee was simply more of the same blame game,” said Keshishian. More>>

Christie takes another swipe at school funding

Governor’s school budget slam a “new low”
NJEA President Barbara Keshishian released the following statement today: "We are shocked and angered that Gov. Christie has taken his attack on public schools to an irresponsible new low. After cutting $1.5 billion from education in the first three months of his administration, he is now calling on local residents to make his cuts even deeper and more harmful to students by voting down their local school budgets." More>>

Members protest Christie’s budget slashing

Several hundred NJEA members protested Friday in Mays Landing outside of a $500-a-plate fundraiser attended by Gov. Christie. The protest was designed to highlight the damage being done by Christie’s deep cuts in education funding. Watch and read coverage of the event.

Capistrano Unified – Corruption Galore

Capistrano Unified – Corruption Galore

April 25, 2010

By Heather Pritchard

There is a path to follow in this series regarding the mess here in South Orange County and the Capistrano Unified School Districts Board of Trustees. The big picture needed to be outlined in one diary, to show how this board was working against the teachers and the bargaining process. It was merely a snapshot, the picture is bigger and it has been going on for years.
The second piece of the puzzle has to do with Education Alliance, a Political Action Committee in Tustin, CA and a number of other political entities hell bent on dismantling public education (And opposing other important political issues such as health care reform and climate change legislation) so that they can privatize and funnel money into charter schools.
The argument of the Charter school people is that Capistrano Unified isn’t working, even though it isranked as 137th in the State out of 870 school districts and it’s the highest ranked school if you consider it’s size by number of students. Capo also has an amazing graduation rate with over 95% of their students graduating high school with the State average at 79%.
The district is working, the teachers are the reason why our schools are competitive and the students are high achievers as well as passionately involved parents. Pacific Research Institute would like you to think otherwise, that communities like Capo are dysfunctional. PRI has been touting their documentary, Not as Good as You Think: The Myth of the Middle Class School which attempts to paint this as an issue of public education, which it is not. It’s an issue of corrupt and ineffective board of trustees. And they were corrupt, it’s why so many parents wanted them gone, so beginning in 2006, recall candidates started to replace the corrupt board and replace it with new slate of

Teachers in LA go on Hunger Strike against budget cuts. | Education School Online

Teachers in LA go on Hunger Strike against budget cuts. | Education School Online

Teachers in LA go on Hunger Strike against budget cuts.

Hungry for a Better Education: Teachers, Parents Lead Hunger Strike Protesting Cuts, Layoffs at LA Schools Teachers, parents and accord members are on a suffer accomplish complaintive cuts and layoffs at Los Angeles schools, which hit become as conception of a statewide try by Calif. Governor traitor Schwarzenegger to turn activity resource by nearly $1 billion. We intercommunicate to LA broad edifice pedagogue and Hungry for a Better Education contestant Sean Leys, today on his ordinal period of the suffer strike. [includes festinate transcript]

PhillyBurbs.com: �School leaders downplay tensions

PhillyBurbs.com: �School leaders downplay tensions

School leaders downplay tensions

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By: THERESA HEGEL

The Intelligencer

Looking at the school districts in Bucks and Montgomery counties, it seems as if the conflict between teachers unions and school boards has reached a boiling point.

North Penn School District is in the midst of a strike. Hatboro-Horsham teachers have been working without a contract for almost a year. And though it was almost two years ago, the 13-day work stoppage in Souderton School District is still fresh in many minds - especially since the strike was followed by a seven-month impasse before a contract agreement was reached.

But state representatives for teachers and school boards don't believe the local situation has larger implications for the rest of Pennsylvania - or the future.

"Ninety-five percent of all collective bargaining is settled without strikes," said Wythe Keever, a spokesman for the Pennsylvania State Education Association.

He added that North Penn is only the sixth district to strike this year. Of the 200 or so unions bargaining for a contract in a given year, only about 10 vote to strike, Keever said.

David Salter, a spokesman for the Pennsylvania School Boards Association, also said he didn't see evidence of mounting tension between unions and boards.

"We've seen a lot of districts in different parts of the state come to agreements," he said.

Local officials, however, paint a different picture.

"I've been (negotiating contracts) for 31 years + and I have not encountered as many obstacles to get to a contract settlement as exist right now," said Jeffrey Sultanik, a lawyer and chief negotiator for Hatboro-Horsham

Schools Matter: "The Cartel" Concludes Public Schools Greater Threat Than Terrorists

Schools Matter: "The Cartel" Concludes Public Schools Greater Threat Than Terrorists

"The Cartel" Concludes Public Schools Greater Threat Than Terrorists

by Jim Horn

If there is any narrative the Boston Globe loves to push more than charter schools and corporate education deform, it would be someone who truly hates public education and public school teachers as much as the Boston Globe. A new corporate propaganda fear film entitled "The Cartel" fills the bill on both counts, and the Globe's drooling hyperbolic review by Brian MacQuarrie reads like Eli Broad playtime fantasy:

When “The Cartel’’ opens Friday in the Boston area, it will take aim at what its creator calls the most important story in the country, one that the last person featured in his 90-minute documentary says is a greater threat to American civilization than terrorism.
It’s not the implosion of the financial system, the runaway national debt, or ideology-driven paralysis in Washington. The threat, instead, is the state of the nation’s public schools, and the powerful teacher unions that “The Cartel’’ believes are sabotaging the future.
It’s a subject that is familiar to countless parents, public officials, and even casual observers of the sausage-making of municipal government. But in “The Cartel,’’ a debut film by former television

Colorado's SB 191

by Kenneth Libby

With lots of attention being paid to the Perkins hearings, the Florida SB6 fiasco, and Duncan's "Race to Nowhere," a merit-pay bill in Colorado is slowly working it's way through the legislature. The Senate Education Committee on Friday passed Senate Bill 191 and will now head to the Senate Appropriations Committee. The bill has support from a number of groups - the Colorado branch of Democrats for Education Reform; the state's branch of Stand For Children; Education Reform Now; Colorado League of Charter Schools; and various other 

NorthJersey.com: School choice measure advancing in N.J. legislature

NorthJersey.com: School choice measure advancing in N.J. legislature

School choice measure advancing in N.J. legislature

Sunday, April 25, 2010

WIRE SERVICE

THE ASSOCIATED PRESS

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TRENTON — Plans to create a permanent public school choice program in New Jersey continue to advance in the state legislature.
The measure would allow parents to move their children to schools across district lines. It would replace a pilot program that expired in 2005, though many participating districts continue to informally honor its arrangements.
The Assembly passed the measure late last month 75-0 and sent it to the Senate, where it has been referred to the Education Committee. That panel, though, has not yet scheduled a hearing on the proposal.
However, the proposal is expected to be discussed Monday when state education officials appear before the Assembly's budget committee to discuss their 2011 fiscal year spending plan.
If the measure becomes law, schools seeking to participate in the program would apply to the state education commissioner, detailing services available to their students. The applications also would include an accounting of fiscal issues that schools could face by taking part in the program.
Students who want to transfer would have to apply to their district of choice, which would decide whether to accept students based in part on their interests in the school's offerings. Schools also would be allowed to hold lotteries if the number of applications outpace the number of available seats.
Students' home districts would have to provide or pay for transportation for elementary school pupils who live more than two miles from the receiving district, and for secondary school students who live more than 2 1/2 miles from their new school. Sending districts would not have to pay these costs if the new school is

Black woman leads former whites-only Philly school | News10.net | Sacramento, California | Education

Black woman leads former whites-only Philly school | News10.net | Sacramento, California | Education

Black woman leads former whites-only Philly school

Lesha Ruffin Last updated 1 hr ago

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PHILADELPHIA (AP) -- A private Philadelphia boarding school for underprivileged children that once excluded blacks and females is now being run by an African-American woman.

Thirty-seven-year-old Autumn Adkins is in her first year as president of Girard College. Despite the school's name, it serves first- through 12th-graders.

The school was founded in 1848 with money from Stephen Girard, a shipping and banking magnate who died in 1831.

Girard's will specified that the school serve only poor, fatherless white boys. Numerous legal challenges eventually forced the school to admit blacks and girls.

But until Adkins arrived, the school had been run exclusively by white