New Report Reveals State-by-State Information on Child Hunger #Education : Pictures, Videos, Breaking News Huffington Post

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New Report Reveals State-by-State Information on Child Hunger

Vicki B. Escarra, 07.02.2010

President and CEO of Feeding America

For many children, summer is a time of play and relaxation. But for other children, these months are the most difficult in terms of having access to reliable meals.

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Education: Reform or Transformation? A Report from the 2010 Aspen Institute Ideas Festival

Ellen Galinsky, 07.14.2010

Author: Mind in the Making, President, Families and Work Institute

The United States was once first in the world in college graduation rates, we are now 14th. Many well-known speakers from very diverse fields at see the need for educational change as a societal, economic and moral imperative

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Radical Shopkeeping: Innovation and Entrepreneurship for the People

Scott Ballum, 07.13.2010

Founding Editor of Sheepless.org

I often get asked to comment on entrepreneurship initiatives. Most commonly, the focus tends to be on "innovation", interpreted as hi-tech, and highly...

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Greedy About Life Itself: Solving Our Deficit and Reducing Our Suffering

John Selby, 07.12.2010

Author, counselor, researcher, videographer, and marketing consultant

Must we remain passive victims of the medical-legal-religious establishment when it comes to the end of life, or do we have choice and power concerning the ultimate matter of how and when we die?

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Haiti Rebuild: The Last Responders

Cameron Sinclair, 07.13.2010

Co-founder of Architecture for Humanity and the Open Architecture Network

Today we will hear from many Monday morning quarterbacks over what should have happened and what we should do for Haiti. In fact, expect a whole stadium full of them -- none of whom have spent a night there this year.

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Critical Thinking Roundup - Howard Rheingold, Bing at ISTE

Betsy Aoki, 07.13.2010

Microsoft's "Blog Queen"

Earlier in the year, I put a stake in the ground about Bing's stance vis-à-vis Critical Thinking. Simply put, we are in favor of Internet literacy ...

This Week In Education: Media: Spencer Fellow Gets Big Book Deal

This Week In Education: Media: Spencer Fellow Gets Big Book Deal

Media: Spencer Fellow Gets Big Book Deal

by Alexander Russo

Peg Tyre, Spencer Fellow for 2009-2010, just signed a big fat book deal for a project that is (thankfully) not going to be about KIPP or TFA or the Harlem Children's Zone or Michelle Rhee or Green Dot or Race To The Top. It's a parent-friendly book tentatively called The Good School: How To Get The Children We Love The Education They Deserve, and will be published by

No spring admission to SJSU - San Jose Mercury News

No spring admission to SJSU - San Jose Mercury News

No spring admission to SJSU

By Lisa M. Krieger

lkrieger@mercurynews.com

Posted: 07/13/2010 11:29:08 PM PDT

Updated: 07/13/2010 11:29:09 PM PDT

For the second consecutive year, San Jose State will not accept admissions applications for next spring's semester.

San Jose State is midway through a two-year effort to shrink its base budget to $263 million because of reductions in state funding to the California State University system.

"It is with regret that SJSU moves forward with plans to close spring 2011 admissions, but we must ensure we have the resources needed to serve our students," said SJSU President Jon Whitmore.

"We are sending this message now to provide our prospective students with as much time as possible to consider alternatives, including spring admission to other California State University campuses or fall 2011 admission to San Jose State," he said.

The decision includes spring 2011 applications from all prospective first-time freshmen, community college

Want Turnaround Money? Involve Parents, Duncan Proposes - Politics K-12 - Education Week

Want Turnaround Money? Involve Parents, Duncan Proposes - Politics K-12 - Education Week

Want Turnaround Money? Involve Parents, Duncan Proposes

by Michele McNeil

After getting pushback from local education advocates who have been feeling left out of the school turnaround process, Education Secretary Arne Duncan announced today that districts will be required to involve parents and the community as a condition of receiving school improvement grants.
In a speech to the NAACP in Kansas City, Mo., Duncan said he would change the administration's ESEA draftto acknowledge the key role that communities play in turning around persistently failing schools. Even members of Congress have been critical of the lack of community involvement in the Education Department's four required models that are attached to $4 billion in SIG funding.
According to prepared remarks, Duncan said:

"You also made it crystal clear to us in recent meetings at the department and at the White House that the community must be at the table when decisions are made around how to improve

The Long Reach of Teachers’ Unions | Intercepts

The Long Reach of Teachers’ Unions | Intercepts

The Long Reach of Teachers’ Unions

by Mike Antonucci

I wrote “The Long Reach of Teachers’ Unions: Using money to win friends and influence policy” for the Fall issue of Education Next. It’s posted online now.
The article tallies all of NEA and AFT’s campaign spending during the 2007-08 cycle but focuses on how the political clout of the teachers’ unions extends far beyond their core issues. And because of the unions’ structures, there is no such thing as a “strong union state” or a “weak union state.” The dues money generated

Hidden Transparency � The Quick and the Ed

Hidden Transparency � The Quick and the Ed

Hidden Transparency

by Chad Aldeman

In 2008, the University of Nebraska at Omaha (UNO) sent out a press release boasting that its students made greater learning gains than any school in the country, beating out the likes of Duke, the University of Texas, the University of Michigan, and the University of North Carolina. Its claim rested on the Collegiate Learning Assessment (CLA), a voluntary, nationally administered test that takes the difference between freshmen and senior scores to give the university credit for “value-added.” UNO students scored in the 99th percentile in this measure.
You might think that UNO would want to proudly display these results as much as possible. You would be wrong. The CLA sends each institution a long report documenting the academic accomplishments of their students (see a sample here), but UNO’s report is nowhere to be found.
Unfortunately, this lack of transparency is not particular to UNO or to the CLA. When I was conducting research on the Voluntary System of Accountability last fall, I noticed that a large number of institutions kept their learning outcomes data private. It’s not that they didn’t have the data elements required to be part of the VSA; they simply weren’t prepared to share it. About a quarter of the participating schools had National Survey of Student Engagement data that they could have shared but chose not to. 69 institutions were voluntarily sharing standardized test score results from the CLA or two other options. But another 109 had the data but refused to

Eduflack: Continued Thoughts on Higher Ed ROI

Eduflack: Continued Thoughts on Higher Ed ROI

Continued Thoughts on Higher Ed ROI

Last week, Eduflack opined on Businessweek's efforts to put some meaning around the topic of college degrees and return on investment. The discussion led me to wonder if we are looking at the right roadmarkers in determining ROI (and whether we are even looking at the right institutions when we do it).

So over at edReformer, I have a new post on the need to broaden our view on higher ed ROI. You can read the full post

DC tests scores tank. Live by the sword. Die by the sword. � Fred Klonsky's blog

DC tests scores tank. Live by the sword. Die by the sword. � Fred Klonsky's blog

DC tests scores tank. Live by the sword. Die by the sword.

by preaprez

I teach at a good suburban elementary school. We are one of those rare districts that is not faced with severe cuts, primarily because we were able to get a referendum passed just before the economic crisis hit.
By using the correlation of family income to test scores, we do well on the state ISAT test. It varies a few points from year to year, but not enough to get anybody overly worked up.
I am at a school with a high number of Special Needs students. They make our school special and we take great pride in our work with them and how they do. We also take great pride in our efforts towards the fullest possible

The Educated Guess � Proposal to revoke Decile 1 charter schools

The Educated Guess � Proposal to revoke Decile 1 charter schools

Proposal to revoke Decile 1 charter schools

Posted in Charters

At its monthly meeting today and tomorrow, the State Board of Education will consider new regulations enabling it to shut down poorly performing charter schools.
Under pressure to weed out bad charters, the board has been looking various proposals for months. The latest proposal would be the simplest and clearest: Charter schools whose state API scores the previous year ranked in the bottom 10 percent and that fell in the bottom 20 percent in the similar schools ranking would automatically have their charter at least reviewed, if not yanked, by the State Board.

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Quest for compromise on common core

Tags: California Collaborative on District Reform, Jennifer O'Day
Posted in Common Core standards

In a letter to Gov. Schwarzenegger that it disseminated in the days leading to a critical vote, an influential group of K-12 and university educators, researchers and policymakers has urged the adoption of the Common Core standards in English language arts and math.
“We believe that the Common Core Standards represent the next crucial step in ensuring California’s education system once again leads the way in quality and rigor,” Jennifer O’Day wrote on behalf of the California Collaborative on District Reform.
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Part 3, Putting New Technologies in Schools � Larry Cuban on School Reform and Classroom Practice

Part 3, Putting New Technologies in Schools � Larry Cuban on School Reform and Classroom Practice

Part 3, Putting New Technologies in Schools

by larrycuban

Why do districts keep buying new technologies when the evidence for success is so paltry? The political and psychological explanations offered in Part 2 offer plausible reasons for non-rational behavior. But plausible is a long stretch from being convincing

I doubt very much whether I can persuade readers that “resource dependence” theory and “inattentional blindness”–even in combination–can explain all of those scarce budget dollars flowing to vendors even when little evidence supports such purchases. Behavioral economics combines research on economics and psychological blind spots of individuals (their political and social biases and “rules of thumb”) to show again and again that people have “bounded rationality” in solving problems. Surely, there are other explanations that readers can offer. And some have in their comments to Parts 1 and 2.

Eliminating non-rational decisions in complex organizations is a fool’s errand. Think about the hasty, ideologically-driven decision to invade Iraq because Hussein supposedly had weapons of mass destruction or the greed-driven proliferation of “collateral derivatives” or bundled sub-prime mortgages that triggered financial panic and the Great Recession of 2008. Post-mortem analyses of these decisions can lead to greater understanding among decisionmakers about their hidden beliefs particularly when key evidence-driven questions are asked publicly. Yes, I do believe that policymakers can make better decisions, especially when they examine openly

California Father To Stay Put or Not to Stay Put

California Father

California Father

To Stay Put or Not to Stay Put

June 24th, 2010

Found this interesting post about how a special ed student invoked stay put to end teacher furloughing in Hawaii, claiming that furlough days would deny him services mandated in his IEP. If the teachers aren’t teaching me I am not getting what IDEA guarantees. No, says the Ninth Circuit Court:

In affirming the district court’s decision, the Ninth Circuit reviewed the four legal factors the students must establish in seeking a preliminary injunction: (1) they are likely to suffer irreparable harm; (2) the balance of equities tips in their favor; (3) a preliminary injunction is in the public interest; and (4) they are likely to succeed on the merits. First, the court determined the students would likely suffer irreparable harm as the evidence demonstrated actual regression suffered by the students because of the first few