The Mighty Journolist � The Quick and the Ed

The Mighty Journolist � The Quick and the Ed

The Mighty Journolist

by Kevin Carey

Some guy who appears to be living his life as a decades-long piece of performance art titled “Bloated Jackass” is offering $100,000 for the complete archives of a private email listserv called “Journolist” that I used to belong to. I had assumed that Yglesias and Chait had put this issue to rest but apparently not. Fine. I, along with select other members of the liberal media / think tank / university / banking / Hollywood establishment secretly rule the world by sending emails to one another about stuff we think is interesting or annoying, like World Cup soccer. The best thing for you to do is check this site

QUICK Hits

by Kris Amundson

Quick Hits is a short compilation of question-raising news stories, blog posts, and video clips that Education Sector team members are reading and viewing each day.
How could RttT inform ESEA reauthorization? (Education Week)
Is this year the annus horribilis for state budgets? And how will that affect the schools that educate our poorest children? (Washington Independent)
Can school districts require minimum grade for students regardless of their achievement on report cards, class assignments and homework? Not in Texas. (Dallas Morning News)
Can coherent state policy improve college attainment? (National Center for Public Policy, Southern Regional Education Board)

After a call from Rikers, a principal wonders how to stay in touch | GothamSchools

After a call from Rikers, a principal wonders how to stay in touch | GothamSchools

After a call from Rikers, a principal wonders how to stay in touch

by Philissa Cramer

Evangelista

As inspiring as success stories can be, all too often city students struggle and then fall through the cracks.
Harlem Link Charter School principal Steven Evangelista saw this reality up close recently when he heard from a student he had tried, and failed, to locate since 2001. The student, Tom, was calling from Rikers Island.
In the community section, Evangelista argues that making it easier for teachers to stay in touch with students like Tom could change the students’ lives. He writes:

Each year, through various public and private agencies, our educational and correctional systems have spent tens of thousands of public dollars on Tom’s education and rehabilitation. Talking with him on that phone call from jail, I learned that the pattern I first observed with him in 2001 — when well-meaning social workers, psychologists and teachers based both at his school and the Administration for Children’s Services disappeared from his life with the stroke of a pen and a

Remainders: Bill Gates heaps praise on charter school leaders

by Maura Walz

• Here’s a round-up of education advocates’ response to Paterson’s budget veto. (Gotham Gazette)
• One teacher says her “last goodbyes” to this year’s crop of students. (Miss Brave Teaches NYC)
• While the teacher who goes by “Mildly Melancholy” is leaving the classroom forever. (Mildly Melancholy)
• The rubber rooms: just like “The Breakfast Club” but with teachers and less group bonding? (Daily Intel)
• A “charter-curious” district school teacher offers her take on “The Lottery.” (Charter Curious)
• Listen to Bill Gates’ full, unedited speech at a national charter schools conference. (WBEZ)
• Gates told charter leaders he thinks they are starting a “revolution.” (Seattle P-I)
• Gates also wishes “the world had one [education] agenda…embraced by teachers.” (District Dossier)
• If desirable school districts outside of D.C. test more, then maybe the city should too. (Class Struggle)

A musical experiment’s Regents results show promise

by Maura Walz

Last week, I wrote about a test prep program at New Design High School that aimed to boost Regents exam scores through original hip-hop songs.
So did it work? According to the school’s unofficial results on the three exams the program prepared students to 

Pew Report: Options are growing, but parents want still more | Philadelphia Public School Notebook

Pew Report: Options are growing, but parents want still more | Philadelphia Public School Notebook

Pew Report: Options are growing, but parents want still more

by Dale Mezzacappa

Those of us who have been following the education world in Philadelphia for any length of time know that it has changed drastically just in the past decade. Catholic schools are on the wane. Charter schools are on the rise. And the public school system itself has undergone huge upheavals -- a state takeover, the advent of private

Mike Klonsky's SmallTalk Blog: Research only confuses them

Mike Klonsky's SmallTalk Blog: Research only confuses them

Research only confuses them

by Mike Klonsky

Taken together, latest studies conclude, small schools in N.Y. & Philly making a difference. Charters, not so much. But as far as Bill Gates and Cheerleaders Inc. is

The Educated Reporter: Salary databases: Lots of data, lots of interest ... except from me.

The Educated Reporter: Salary databases: Lots of data, lots of interest ... except from me.

Salary databases: Lots of data, lots of interest ... except from me.

by Linda Perlstein

Several times a year, a reporter contacts me and asks what to do with the database of teacher salaries they just acquired. When a journalist asks me whether or not to write about a piece of research that just arrived on his desk, if I don’t think there is a story there, I feel comfortable saying no. When the reporter has FOIA’d his tail off and massaged the ensuing data to the nth degree and then some, “I don’t think there is a story there” is not a very useful response.

Yet. I look at these Excel spreadsheets and too often say to myself, “So what?” Don’t get me wrong: I think

As principals prepare to submit budgets, excessing begins | GothamSchools

As principals prepare to submit budgets, excessing begins | GothamSchools

As principals prepare to submit budgets, excessing begins

by Anna Phillips

Friday is the deadline for principals to decide how to spend their budgets next year, but many have already made one tough call: To cut teachers.
A high school teacher who is being excessed sent GothamSchools the letter her principal gave her, which advises her to seek positions at other schools by attending job fairs that took place in the past.
She’ll have the summer to try to land a job at another school before being added to the Absent Teacher Reserve,

More than 300 aim to be 'Promise Neighborhoods' - Boston.com

More than 300 aim to be 'Promise Neighborhoods' - Boston.com

More than 300 aim to be 'Promise Neighborhoods'

June 29, 2010

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WASHINGTON—More than 300 communities around the U.S. have submitted applications to the Department of Education to receive grants under a federal program designed to revitalize troubled neighborhoods.

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The "Promise Neighborhoods" program will award grants to 20 organizations and institutions of higher education to plan for a range of academic, health and career programs in distressed neighborhoods.

The idea is modeled after the Harlem Children's Zone in New York City, where services to support children and their families have led to strong gains in

LATEST EDUCATION NEWS WIRE UPDATES

• More than 300 aim to be 'Promise Neighborhoods' (AP, 2:59 p.m.)
• Dept. of Labor awards $125M in job training grants (AP, 2:39 p.m.)
• House, Senate prepare to debate final NC budget (AP, 1:52 p.m.)
• La. ed chief asked gov to veto salary stipends (AP, 12:18 p.m.)
• State board tours NH school in danger of closing (AP, 11:28 a.m.)

LATEST K-12 EDUCATION NEWS

• Charter schools seeking to expand (Boston Globe, 12 a.m.)
• NY Legislature to pass budget, gov readies veto (AP, 6/28/10)
• Disney dials up nostalgia, revives radio serial (AP, 6/28/10)
• Double diplomas: 2 NY schools, 19 sets of twins (AP, 6/28/10)
• Malloy wants universal pre-kindergarten in Conn. (AP, 6/28/10)

LATEST HIGHER EDUCATION NEWS

• Analysis: La. legislative leaders lose own bills (AP, 6/28/10)
• Primer on senators judging would-be Justice Kagan(AP, 6/28/10)
• 100 percent of school's first class college-bound (AP, 6/28/10)
• Primer on senators judging would-be Justice Kagan(AP, 6/27/10)
• Kagan's life an undeviating course to high court (AP, 6/27/10)

The Answer Sheet - Bill to ban corporal punishment in schools introduced in Congress

The Answer Sheet - Bill to ban corporal punishment in schools introduced in Congress

Bill to ban corporal punishment in schools introduced in Congress

Legislation to ban corporal punishment in most public and private schools was introduced in Congress Tuesday. Rep. Carolyn McCarthy (D-NY) introduced the “Ending Corporal Punishment in Schools Act,” which would impose the ban on all public and private schools with students that receive federal services. Though there is no evidence that corporal punishment has any beneficial effect on students, and much evidence that it harms kids, 20 states still allow it. School districts generally have their own rules for administering corporal punishment, or, in layman’s terms, whacking a kid. Sometimes the rules specify the number of times a kid can be hit, and usually they identify which part of the body can be struck (usually the buttocks but sometimes the hands, too). You can see some of the rules in a recent post here.

Tomorrow at GothamSchools, meet students who beat the odds | GothamSchools

Tomorrow at GothamSchools, meet students who beat the odds | GothamSchools

Tomorrow at GothamSchools, meet students who beat the odds

by Philissa Cramer

Sharmin Mollick

GothamSchools readers might remember reading about Sharmin Mollick and Karina Melendez, two top high school students who overcame great odds to graduate this week. Now you can meet them.
Mollick and Melendez received sizable scholarships through their high schools, which are part of the nonprofit

Philadelphia youth groups come together for 2nd nonviolent flash mob | Philadelphia Public School Notebook

Philadelphia youth groups come together for 2nd nonviolent flash mob | Philadelphia Public School Notebook

Philadelphia youth groups come together for 2nd nonviolent flash mob

by Brad Gibson

Speaking only through their T-shirts, which read “We Are Not A Flash Mob,” a group of over 30 students descended quietly and purposefully around the fountain at Love Park on Monday at 4:30 p.m.

Image:

Image Caption:

Students rally at Love Park.

Parents have praise for charters but want better oversight

by Kate Nelson

Sidebar Article:

No

Sub Title:

Despite recent scandals and some clashes with parents, these schools remain a popular option.

Featured Title:

From the Summer edition

Author:

by Daniel Denvir

Author Bio:

Daniel Denvir is a freelance writer based in Philadelphia.

When Irene Bowie’s grandson attended New Media Technology Charter School, he did not come home with

Bill Gates: Charters Should Lead Innovation - District Dossier - Education Week

Bill Gates: Charters Should Lead Innovation - District Dossier - Education Week

Bill Gates: Charters Should Lead Innovation

By Dakarai Aarons on June 29, 2010 2:16 PM | No Comments | No TrackBacks

The nation's charter schools should use their freedoms to boldly innovate and create promising strategies and practices that can be used by all schools, Bill Gates said to an audience of thousands of charter school operators and supporters this morning.

Gates, the founder of Microsoft, is the co-chair of the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, which gives more funding to education than any other philanthropy in the nation. He expanded on his remarks and answered questions about a few more subjects in an interview with me after his public remarks.

"The fact is the majority of children in the country are attending schools that don't work for them. So it's imperative that we take the risk to make change," Gates said to the audience at the National Charter Schools Conference in Chicago. "Not just small change at the margin, but dramatic changes that are centered around the student. I believe the seeds of that new approach are

Fight over charter school funding freeze pushed to next year | GothamSchools

Fight over charter school funding freeze pushed to next year | GothamSchools

Fight over charter school funding freeze pushed to next year

by Maura Walz

After repeatedly lobbying the mayor to find more funding for charter schools, charter school leaders believe the battle in Albany is over for this year.
The state’s education spending for next year is still in limbo: Yesterday, Paterson vetoed a budget that included $419 million in education aid, and the legislature may or may not override the veto. But with no players — neither the governor nor the legislature — showing interest in unfreezing charter school funds, advocates are giving up for now.
“People are already lining up for the 2012 budget,” said James Merriman, head of the city’s Charter School Center.
One last hope for charter school supporters is that Mayor Bloomberg might himself un-do the funding freeze with

A special journal issue honors NCSE's Scott | NCSE

A special journal issue honors NCSE's Scott | NCSE

A special journal issue honors NCSE's Scott

• June 29th, 2010

• NCSE
• 2010

The latest issue of Evolution: Education and Outreach(volume 3, number 2) is in honor of — if a few months in advance of — the sixty-fifth birthday of NCSE's executive director Eugenie C. Scott. Edited by NCSE's deputy director Glenn Branch (who contributed "Three wishes for Genie" by way of introduction), it contains essays by Nicholas J. Matzke, Robert T. Pennock, Barbara Forrest, Raymond Arthur Eve with Susan Carol Losh and Brandon Nzekwe, Lawrence M. Krauss, Robert M. Hazen, Kevin Padian, Jay D. Wexler, Kenneth R. Miller, Brian Alters, and Carl Zimmer. Plus there's a biographical appreciation by Andrew J. Petto, a bibliography compiled by Adam M. Goldstein and Glenn Branch, and a reflection on the importance of "Listening to Teachers" by Scott herself.

Additionally, NCSE's Louise S. Mead and Scott offered a further installment in Overcoming Obstacles to Evolution Education, NCSE's regular feature inEvolution: Education and Outreach. Entitled "Problem Concepts in Evolution Part II: Cause and Chance," their column discusses how the concepts of cause and chance are often confusing to students and suggests "how to address these specific challenges to understanding evolution in light of recent research." And NCSE's Steven Newton reviewed Ralph O'Connor's The Earth on Show: Fossils and the Poetics of Popular Science, 1802-1856(University of Chicago Press, 2007), which, he writes, "presents a wide-ranging view of how geology, in its earliest days, appealed through drama and spectacle to an exclusive portion of the public."

Originally, Evolution: Education and Outreach was freely available on-line. Now, as Niles Eldredge and Gregory Eldredge explain in their editorial, "After a temporary hiatus, ... we are poised to come back free online — the better to serve our educational outreach mission." Past issues will soon begin to

Hechinger Report | NYC’s strategy for shutting schools leaves some students lost in transition

Hechinger Report | NYC’s strategy for shutting schools leaves some students lost in transition

NYC’s strategy for shutting schools leaves some students lost in transition

by Liz Willen

Tilden High School

An eerie silence pervades the cavernous hallways as Samuel J. Tilden High School prepares to graduate its final class. After 80 years, the hulking Brooklyn institution that once graduated a thousand seniors a year will host a scaled down ceremony on Friday, handing out diplomas to about 65 survivors.
Years of plunging graduating rates and increasing violence spelled the end for Tilden, one of five failing New Yo