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Friday, July 9, 2010

In case you missed it: Funding, study time, internships, dropout rates | Philadelphia Public School Notebook

In case you missed it: Funding, study time, internships, dropout rates | Philadelphia Public School Notebook

In case you missed it: Funding, study time, internships, dropout rates

by Jamie Raver on Jul 09 2010 Posted in In case you missed it
Obama's edcucation program faces $500M cut despite veto threat The Washington Post
House Democrats passed the bill to cut funding to Obama's "Race to the Top" program last Thursday. Despite a veto threat from the White House, the representatives believe the bill will preserve education jobs in areas where budgets are floundering.
See also: Edujobs: Three Card Monte Eduwonk
Edujobs or Race to Top: What's Worth More to States? Education Week
Teachers' jobs vs. Race to the Top? The Notebook blog
What happened to studying? The Boston Globe
Studies reveal that college students are studying significantly less than they did 50 years ago. But instead of pointing fingers at the Internet and technology, University of California professors Philip Babcock and Mindy Marks suggest that students arrive with underprepared study skills and anticipate entering a job market that is
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The Best Resources For Learning About Effective Student & Teacher Assessments | Larry Ferlazzo's Websites of the Day...

The Best Resources For Learning About Effective Student & Teacher Assessments | Larry Ferlazzo's Websites of the Day...

The Best Resources For Learning About Effective Student & Teacher Assessments

by Larry Ferlazzo
As I’ve mentioned, I’m part of a group of teachers working with The Center For Teaching Quality that’s preparing a policy report on Teacher Working Conditions and how they relate to student learning.
I’ve previously shared some of the materials I’ve found useful in my research — see The Best Resources For Learning About The “Value-Added” Approach Towards Teacher Evaluation.
I thought I’d share some more resources in this new list. My hope is that not only will readers find them useful, but that you’ll be able to suggest more. I’ll be working on a report covering this topic next week, so thanks in advance for your recommendations.
Here are my choices for The Best Resources For Learning About Effective Student & Teacher Assessments:


Two Very Fun World Cup Resources

by Larry Ferlazzo
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The Answer Sheet - The story behind ‘To Kill a Mockingbird’

The Answer Sheet - The story behind ‘To Kill a Mockingbird’

The story behind ‘To Kill a Mockingbird’

For those who somehow missed it, Sunday is the 50th anniversary of the publication of Harper Lee’s classic novel “To Kill a Mockingbird,” and dozens of events -- readings, mock trials, silent auctions, birthday parties -- are being held across the country to celebrate. In a country with an attention span of about 10 seconds, this is quite an achievement. And for those who somehow never read it, or who never watched the great movie adaptation with Gregory Peck, or who never listened to a discussion in English class, or who never listened to Sissy Spacek’s pleasurable reading on tape (or CD), Mockingbird is a novel of racism and redemption. It tells the story of a Southern lawyer, Atticus Finch, who defends a black man falsely accused of raping a white woman, and the related tale of his young children -- Scout and Jem -- and their fascination with a
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CHARTER SCHOOL SCANDALS: King/Chavez Arts Academy

CHARTER SCHOOL SCANDALS: King/Chavez Arts Academy

King/Chavez Arts Academy CHARTER TEACHERS, FEARFUL OF FIRINGS, PUSH TO UNIONIZE A SHAKEN SCHOOL, March 13, 2009, Voice of San Diego (CA) Less than a year after a Barrio Logan charter school discarded its director and cut loose nearly all of its teachers with little warning, ...
Urban Prep Academy Charter High School IT'S A MIRACLE! URBAN PREP LOSES MORE STUDENTS, STILL HAS 100% COLLEGE-GOING RATE!, July 9, 2010, Chicago K-12 Examiner Today's Sun-Times print edition reports on what must now be called the Miracle in Englewood. Urban Prep Charter School still has a ...
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Progressive education’s vibrant past and uncertain future | GothamSchools

Progressive education’s vibrant past and uncertain future | GothamSchools

Progressive education’s vibrant past and uncertain future

by Philissa Cramer
The city is full of teachers and principals who consider themselves progressive educators. But their unorthodox ideas are constrained by policies that put test scores first.
That’s the conclusion that Jessica Siegel, a former high school teacher who now teaches journalism and education at Brooklyn College, made after attending a 600-attendee-strong conference about progressive education in April. In the GothamSchools community section, Siegel writes about encountering intrepid educators who try, with mixed success, to blend the alternative approaches for which New York City schools were once famous with the accountability-oriented policies that are currently in vogue.
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Schools Matter: Another Texas "Miracle!"

Schools Matter: Another Texas "Miracle!"

Another Texas "Miracle!"

by Kenneth Libby
Here's what happens when you let Pearson come up with growth models to evaluate schools:

How schools get credit for a TAKS zero

By RICK CASEY
HOUSTON CHRONICLE

July 6, 2010, 10:54PM

Houston state Rep. Scott Hochberg isn't your normal glad-handing politician.
Known as perhaps the only elected official in Texas who really understands the state's byzantine

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Adulation Not Unanimous, Ravitch Attacks Ed Week Reporter | Intercepts

Adulation Not Unanimous, Ravitch Attacks Ed Week Reporter | Intercepts

Adulation Not Unanimous, Ravitch Attacks Ed Week Reporter

by Mike Antonucci
Apparently a best-selling book, the NEA Friend of Education award and the fawning acclaim of 8,174 delegates weren’t enough for Diane Ravitch. Today Valerie Strauss of the Washington Post handed her column over to Ravitch so she could take potshots at Stephen Sawchuk of Education Week for daring to write that some “contend that Ravitch is selective in the research she cites to support her views.”
I would have added, ”sometimes she’s just wrong.”
I don’t blame Ravitch for taking the opportunity to again pitch her views and her book in one of America’s most prestigious daily newspapers. I blame Strauss and the Post for using that prestige to undermine a reporter from


Where to Go for AFT Convention Coverage

by Mike Antonucci
I’m not at the AFT Convention. Why not? A lot of reasons. But you needn’t miss out. Ed Week‘s Stephen Sawchuk has got the news covered, and Norm Scott of Education Notes Online ably fills the smart-ass commentary gap. He’s already got a couple of gems:
* “This is going to be pretty funny considering how just about everyone you talk to in Unity trashes Randi as they gush, ‘Mulgrew is so different. He is a real teacher.’ Sure. A year ago they would be telling you how smart Randi was. If Jack the Ripper ran the union they would talk about how clean and shiny he keeps his knives.”
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Today's Big Education Ape Posts on Parents 4 democratic Schools #education

Parents 4 democratic Schools

Today's Big Education Ape Posts on Parents 4 democratic Schools

Recent Post

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'Truth' Oscar winner takes on public schools

'Truth' Oscar winner takes on public schools

'Truth' Oscar winner takes on public schools

Jill Tucker, Chronicle Staff Writer
Tuesday, July 6, 2010
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Lacy Atkins / The Chronicle
Davis Guggenheim tries to address the factors keeping public schools down in his documentary "Waiting for Superman."
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The last time documentary film director Davis Guggenheim was in the San Francisco Ritz-Carlton, he was asking Al Gore to be in his new movie about global warming.
"An Inconvenient Truth" won Guggenheim an Academy Award and put Gore on the fast track for the Nobel Peace Prize.
Guggenheim, 46, now had the Hollywood clout to pursue any project he wanted. He chose to take on the country's public school system.
Back at the Ritz-Carlton, the director was just starting the promotional tour of his new film, "Waiting for Superman," a documentary that follows five families who reject the assigned path into an inferior public school and embark on a quest to gain admission into quality public schools - all public charter schools, including Summit Preparatory Charter High School in Redwood City.
Guggenheim, who sends his own children to private school, takes on the teachers unions,


Read more: http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2010/07/06/BALF1E6NJ7.DTL&type=education#ixzz0tCKHpHXP


Sacramento student who died had head trauma

Sacramento student who died had head trauma
A Sacramento State University student found mortally wounded near the UC Berkeley campus suffered head...





Transparency a must for state's university systems

University of California and California State University administrators have taken strong positions on...


Latest AP Education Headlines

More AP Education Headlines »
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NEA and AFT leaders walk a tightrope. � Fred Klonsky's blog #aftconvention #edu

NEA and AFT leaders walk a tightrope. � Fred Klonsky's blog


NEA and AFT leaders walk a tightrope.

by preaprez

In a weird way, it was so much easier when W was President and Rod Paige and then Margaret Spellings ran the Department of Education. While many Democrats supported NCLB, the two teacher unions were in opposition. And said so.
But an historic electoral victory in 2008, Democratic Party control of the White House and Congress and control of the USDE ironically made things, not easier, but more complicated.
It can’t have been an easy two years for AFT President Randi Weingarten and NEA President Dennis Van Roekel. Although many progressive critics think they were silent too long, negotiating through the land mines of
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Feinstein objects to cuts in K-12 jobs bill The Educated Guess

The Educated Guess

Feinstein objects to cuts in K-12 jobs bill

Posted in Race to the Top, State Budget
California stands to get $1.2 billion for K-12 schools, enabling 13,300 teachers to keep their jobs, according to calculations by the Education Commission of the States, if the U.S. Senate approves – and President Obama signs – a $10 billion education jobs bill that the House a week ago.
But the president is threatening to veto it, even though it once backed a jobs bill three times as large, because the “Keep Our Educators Working Act” also contains $800 million in cuts to his reform initiatives, including a whack out of the $4.35 billion Race to the Top fund.
Last week, California Sen. Dianne Feinstein joined a dozen other senators in aletter objecting to the bill as well , which she and the others criticized for creating “a false choice between supporting teachers and supporting these critical reform efforts.” Senators must now come up with alternative cuts in federal spending for the K-12 jobs bill to have any chance of passage before school starts.
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By John Fensterwald on July 9th, 2010

Schools pursuing SIG money identified

Posted in Turning around failing schools
The Dept. of Education has now posted a list of all schools that are applying for School Improvement Grant money. These include 113 of the 188 schools identified as the persistently lowest performing schools in the state, which must commit to substantial reforms for the money, and 51 other schools seeking federal money for school improvements.
Among districts applying for up to $6 million per school are Los Angeles Unified, with 13 schools, San Bernadino Unified with 11 schools, and San Francisco Unified, with nine. Nine charter schools also are seeking grants. The State Board of Education will decide on Aug. 2 which schools get how much money.
By John Fensterwald on July 9th, 2010

Most on ‘worst’ schools list pursue fed grants

Posted in Turning around failing schools
Sixty percent of the state’s 188 “worst” schools ended up applying for federal money to turn their schools around this fall.
The 113 schools – among the persistently lowest performing 5 percent of schools statewide – are more than some predicted would apply, given districts’ anger and frustration over the selection and application process, the tight deadlines, and restrictions on using the money. Many schools could get far less than the amount they’re requesting. Nonetheless, the possibility of getting as much as $2 million per year for the next three years ultimately was enough to lure many cash-strapped districts to apply by last Friday’s deadline.
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Hochberg unmasks TEA's controversial rule EducationNews.org

EducationNews.org

Teacher union chief raps Obama in Seattle
7.9.10 - American Federation of Teachers President Randi Weingarten told her members meeting in Seattle on Thursday that the past two years have been "tougher

Minnesota will cover expensive autism treatment and therapy
7.9.10 - Leaders leave Oklahoma and the push for insurance coverage for autism treatment. After years of

Hochberg unmasks TEA's controversial rule
7.9.10 - RICK CASEY - Criss Cloudt understandably grew defensive last week as she tried to explain to a group of legislators how a student who got absolutely every question wrong on a TAKS writing test could be scored as passing it.

Utah re-examines 12th grade
7.9.10 - Kallyn Austin could have graduated at the end of 11th grade. But the Clearfield High student didn't want to give up drill team, Key Club and other activities. She wasn't ready to leave her friends. ... ...

English spelling 'too difficult for children'
7.9.10 - The complexity of the English spelling system is to blame for soaring levels of illiteracy among teenagers, according to a researcher. A high number of "inconsistencies" in the way basic words are spelt makes it much harder for children to read and write at a young age, it is claimed. ...

New 'animal studies' courses look at culture, not biology
7.9.10 - In his first year as an assistant professor in the University of Iowa's archaeology department, Matthew E. Hill made a move that many other junior faculty would have considered risky: he said he wanted to teach an undergraduate seminar on animals and culture. ...

Goal for High School Smoking Is Unmet
7.9.10 - DUFF WILSON - A report calls for a resurgence of antismoking advertising to counter a marketing campaign by the tobacco industry. The nation has failed to reach its 2010 health goal of reducing high school smoking to 16 percent, federal officials said Thursday in a report calling for a resurgence of antismoking advertising to counter the tobacco industry's $12 billion marketing campaign. ...

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