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Wednesday, June 2, 2010

D.C. Schools Insider- Welcome to the test factory - Bill Turque chronicles Chancellor Michelle Rhee's effort to transform District public schools.

D.C. Schools Insider - Bill Turque chronicles Chancellor Michelle Rhee's effort to transform District public schools.

Welcome to the test factory


Crystal Sylvia, a social worker at Bruce-Monroe Elementary School at Park View and the parent of two DCPS children, writes:
While many people spent the Friday before Memorial Day weekend thinking about the cookouts and barbecues that they would attend, teachers at my school were working feverishly to finish administering two reading assessments to all our students: DIBELS (Dynamic Indicators of Basic Early Literacy Skills) and TRC (Text and Reading Comprehension). Teachers must use these tests to monitor student progress every two weeks. That's in addition to benchmark tests three times a year.

We're ending a school year in which our students have been inundated with standardized tests like never before.

Here is a brief overview. In addition to the three DIBELS and TRC benchmarks -- which are very time-intensive for teachers because students have to be evaluated individually -- there have been four DC BAS sessions, basically test preps for the DC CAS. Each lasts two days.
Everyone knows that the DC CAS takes up two weeks at the end of April. This year it was followed immediately by two weeks of ACCESS(Accessing Comprehension and Communication in English for English
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Education - Everything you need to know about the world of education.

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

Maryland and the District join Race to the Top


Virginia won't participate in $3.4B education reform competition.
MORE ON EDUCATION




VALERIE STRAUSS
The Answer Sheet
A School Survival Guide for Parents (And Everyone Else)

Posted at 7:00 AM ET, 06/ 2/2010



The most common mispellings, er, misspellings

The National Spelling Bee is being held this week in Washington D.C. to promote perfect spelling. But what about those words that constantly trip us up?
Posted by Valerie Strauss | Permalink | Comments (0)
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JAY MATHEWS
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Posted at 10:00 PM ET, 05/30/2010

Tense time for AP students: grade weighting flunks a test

Like all human beings, educators accept rules and procedures that make sense to them, even when academic types wave data in their faces proving they are wrong. That appears to be the case with one of the most powerful and widespread practices in Washington area high schools---the extra grade point for college-level courses.
President Obama. (AP)
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EducationNews.org Chicago to move to an 8 hour school day

EducationNews.org

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REMEDIAL MATH Carrey may be cool and calculating as a man on the verge, but The Number 23 doesn't add up

More Remedial Math?

6.2.10 - Jerome Dancis - Only one-third of Maryland high school graduates in 2008 completed the minimal math and science coursework that allows them to enroll in
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Chicago to move to an 8 hour school day

6.2.10 ROSALIND ROSSI - An eight-hour school day for kids? It could be headed to your local Chicago public elementary school. In an attempt to extend an unusually short instructional...
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Ethical debates surround U.S. colleges' use of international recruiters

6.2.10 - Two years ago, hiring overseas agencies — paid by the college in the form of per-student commissions — to recruit international students was taboo. Few colleges would publicly...
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National Spelling Bee 'competition is always wide open'

6.2.10 - This year's field of 273 spellers includes a record 266 from the USA, but the number of foreign contestants dropped this year, says Paige Kimble, the bee's
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Rise & Shine: New schools at greater risk of losing teachers | GothamSchools

Rise & Shine: New schools at greater risk of losing teachers | GothamSchools

Rise & Shine: New schools at greater risk of losing teachers

by Philissa Cramer
  • Mayor Bloomberg has proposed cutting nurses from schools with fewer than 300 students. (Times)
  • New schools are likely to suffer more from layoffs because they have more new teachers. (Times)
  • The contaminated water that sickened PS 20 students was sweet and pink. (Daily News, Post, NY1)
  • Thirteen states sat out Race to the Top’s second round entirely. (Wall Street Journal)
  • New York dropped its request for new office furniture from its second-round application. (Post)
  • The state’s bid seems more competitive this time because of recent legislative changes. (Daily News)
  • New Jersey’s application is sure to deepen the rift between the state and teachers union. (Star-Ledger)
  • Some private preschools skirt laws barring them from setting tuition together. (Wall Street Journal)
  • Chicago wants to use technology to extend 100 schools’ days to eight hours. (Chicago Sun-Times)
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Schools Matter: Books in the Courtyard

Schools Matter: Books in the Courtyard

Books in the Courtyard

by Jim Horn
Great story about the work of retired teacher, Shirley Russell--ht to Susan Ohanian.
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Blog U.: ABCs and PhD’s: Time for a recharge - Mama PhD - Inside Higher Ed

Blog U.: ABCs and PhD’s: Time for a recharge - Mama PhD - Inside Higher Ed


  • ABCs and PhD’s: Time for a recharge

    By Liz Stockwell June 2, 2010 6:30 am
    It’s damp. It’s dreary. As I write this, I look out my window and fog obscures the mid-morning light. After a teasing May taste of summer, the sun seems to have disappeared and with it my get-up-and-go. Why should I be in such a slump when I’m thankful for so much in my life? It’s after days like these that my brain thinks the middle of the night is the best time to stir the stew of worries in my head. No concern is too trivial—“The basil plants I paid $1.25 for are shrivelling up! What’s happened to my career? Those wrong notes I sang in choir last night were so embarrassing! I’m a bad parent—am I raising future axe murderers? ” This kind of thinking just makes everything worse, and of course I feel tired the next day.
    The current June-uary weather we’re having here in the Pacific Northwest certainly doesn’t help my mood. And the funny part is I just had a vacation to a warm sunny place! I should be fired up and ready to take on the world. Instead I’m dealing with a case of the blahs. My drained batteries are fortunately rechargeable under the right circumstances. Unless I’m in the right frame of mind, though, tried and true tricks to get me out of my funk don’t work. My rechargeable batteries (apologies for the obvious metaphor) only accept a charge if they’re configured in just the right way. It’s not enough just to find the recharger; I have to be ready to receive the charge. Or sometimes it takes a push to overcome the stiffness to mesh the connections.
    Reading for pleasure often works, but I learned I have to be careful about content. The other
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Six Nobel Peace Prize Elders condemn Gaza flotilla attack. � Fred Klonsky's blog

Six Nobel Peace Prize Elders condemn Gaza flotilla attack. � Fred Klonsky's blog

Six Nobel Peace Prize Elders condemn Gaza flotilla attack.

by preaprez

The Elders group of past and present world leaders, including former South African president Nelson Mandela and Archbishop Desmond Tutu, on Monday condemned as “completely inexcusable” the deadly Israeli attack on a flotilla carrying aid for Gaza.
“The Elders have condemned the reported killing by Israeli forces of more than a dozen people who were attempting to deliver relief supplies to the Gaza Strip by sea,” the 12—member group said in a statement issued in Johannesburg, where it met over the weekend.
The group, which was launched by Mr. Mandela on his birthday in 2007 to try to solve some of the world’s most intractable conflicts, called for a “full investigation” of the incident and urged the UN Security Council “to debate the situation with a view to mandating action to end the closure of the Gaza Strip.” “This tragic incident should
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States requiring PE, but amount varies - Boston.com

States requiring PE, but amount varies - Boston.com

States requiring PE, but amount varies

By Mary Clare Jalonick
Associated Press Writer / June 2, 2010
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WASHINGTON—More states are requiring physical education for elementary, middle and high school students, though few require kids to exercise for a specific amount of time.
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A report released Tuesday by the American Heart Association and the National Association for Sport and Physical Education said exercise for schoolchildren is also threatened by a rising number of waivers and exemptions from PE in school districts around the country.
Nancy Brown, CEO of the heart association, said the group is pleased that more states are requiring physical education but is also concerned that the requirements don't have more teeth.
"We are concerned that the movement has not been more significant," she said. "It's more of a sporadic approach."
Brown said she hopes an increased national focus on health and nutrition will push schools to require more time in the gym with a qualified instructor. The groups recommend 150 minutes a week of instructed physical education for
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Local News | Interlake's gifted program helps phenoms be kids, too | Seattle Times Newspaper

Local News | Interlake's gifted program helps phenoms be kids, too | Seattle Times Newspaper

Interlake's gifted program helps phenoms be kids, too

Interlake High School's innovative program for gifted students will graduate its first class of seniors this year. The Bellevue public school is one of the few schools in the world that allows students to begin the rigorous college-level International Baccalaureate diploma program in 10th grade.
By Katherine Long
Seattle Times Eastside reporter
About the program
The International Baccalaureate diploma program is a two-year program that requires students to take IB classes in six subject areas, write an extended essay, take a class on the theory of knowledge and do community work outside the classroom. It is considered one of the most rigorous high-school programs available, and the diploma is recognized by universities around the world.
Several times a week, Max Racelis goes to work at the University of Washington's radiation biology lab, where he studies how variations of a specific human gene affect instances of cancer.
Nothing extraordinary about that, really — except that Racelis is only 18, a senior at Interlake High School in Bellevue.
While Racelis probes the mysteries of the gene, fellow Interlake student Ankur Dave, 17, leaves school early so he can write computer code to control widgets on a blog for the engineering firm CH2M HILL.
Instead of eating a sandwich in Interlake's lunchroom, Wesley Zhao, 17, has held lunchtime brown-bag sessions at CH2M HILL, persuading engineers many years older to write for the company's new blog, which he and Dave helped develop.
And rather than working on science homework after school, Priyanka Saha, 18, works with prominent scientists at the Institute for Systems Biology, helping to identify, catalog and measure the amounts of every protein found in the human body.
These four students are members of the first graduating class of an innovative program for gifted students


Earlier deadline for UW applicants

The University of Washington is moving forward its freshman-application deadline and changing the way it notifies applicants of their status to try to streamline the process and reduce stress among applicants and their families.


University of Washington - United States - Education - Management Science - Management
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