Weingarten Condemns Firing of 241 D.C. Teachers | 
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The announcement today that 241 District of Columbia public school teachers would be fired under the school system’s new evaluation process raises questions about D.C. SchoolChancellor Michelle Rhee’s “penchant for firing teachers rather than providing supports to develop their skills,” AFT President Randi Weingarten said. This brings to almost 600 the number of D.C. teachers Rhee has fired in just over a year.
Weingarten said:
Firing teachers en masse may sound to some like strong action is being taken, but in the absence of real professional supports and valid teacher evaluations systems, it simply perpetuates a destructive and failing strategy.
She said she hopes the recent contract with D.C. teachers, which calls for teachers to
WASHINGTON — The young minister's alarm goes off at 6 a.m., time for his own devotional and the one he will send to the president of the United States.
This particular morning, Joshua DuBois meditates on the disciple Peter's first letter to the early church. The text he prays over and e-mails to Barack Obama half an hour later is about something else.
It's a private start to the day for the president and the pastor, a spiritual BlackBerry session they guard carefully.
Hours later, they meet in a public setting, when the president arrives to give a speech at a community center.
DuBois is wearing an ear bud and carrying a clipboard, standard equipment for a mid-level White House staffer. Obama climbs from his car and greets DuBois and another aide with a casual, "Hey, guys."
A sheen of perspiration glistens at DuBois' hairline as the group heads toward the stage area. He keeps a deferential step behind Obama.
Colleagues say DuBois is entitled to a spot on the platform, as director of the White House Office
if the rev. al sharpton didn’t exist, he would have had to be invented. in fact, the novelist Tom Wolfe has claimed he did invent him, in the character of the Reverend Bacon, a supporting figure in The Bonfire of the Vanities. Each generation of black America gives birth to its own incarnation of the charismatic preacher-activist who confronts the white power structure in the streets and talks circles around it on Meet the Press. Just a few months after the fictional Bacon made his appearance in 1987, the real Sharpton burst onto the national stage as the fiery advocate for Tawana Brawley, a New York teenager who claimed to have been raped by a gang of white men, including a policeman. In that incarnation he still haunts the popular imagination: a bulky, bullhorn-toting figure in a neon-hued tracksuit, topped by a preposterously high, wavy pompadour. About all that remains today is a bare suggestion of the pompadour and roughly two thirds of the 300-pound 1980s-vintage Sharpton himself, now typically clad in an impeccable custom-tailored suit. His erstwhile ally, rival, and adversary, former New York City mayor David Dinkins, maintains that of course Sharpton has “grown
The Massachusetts Teachers Association represents thousands of professional educators working in more than 1,800 schools. When energized, the MTA membership is a potent political force.
Its most important job is providing seasoned contract negotiators to its membership. At contract time, these hardball professionals square off against teams of well-meaning but usually outgunned local officials, lawyers and school administrators. Negotiating a labor contract in almost every school system in Massachusetts consequently disintegrates into an exercise in frustration, anger and outright hostility.
Because of the sour money angle of the MTA’s relationship with the 392 school districts in Massachusetts, voters have unfortunately been reluctant to listen to them when it comes to other important issues, such as school choice, charter schools and the Massachusetts Comprehensive Assessment System standardized testing.
This is too bad, because the MTA is right on all three counts. Long before these programs were put into effect, it warned us they were poorly thought-out, heavily politically influenced and ultimately destined to do more harm than good. A quick visit to the MTA website (massteacher.org) will reinforce the depth of its opposition to all three policies.
School choice allows students, along with the money the state assigns to their education, to flee
hometown schools rather than force anxious parents to make those schools better. Its main effect has been to make
POSTED: 3:53 pm MDT July 23, 2010
UPDATED: 5:39 pm MDT July 23, 2010
LOCAL SCHOOLS INCLUDED ON STATE'S LIST OF 1,000 'LOW-ACHIEVING'
Parents of students at 14 North County schools will be allowed to transfer their children to a higher-performing campus or to a different school district starting this fall, if state officials finalize new rules adopted in January as part of a bid to get more federal grants.
The schools are on a list compiled by the California Department of Education of 1,000 low-achieving campuses that would be required to allow students to transfer to schools with higher standardized test scores. It's the first of what is expected to be an annual list.
The list, approved this month by state educators, includes campuses in Vista, Oceanside, Escondido, San Marcos, Fallbrook and Ramona.
The local schools on the list are: Felicita Elementary, Rose Elementary and Pioneer Elementary in Escondido; Maie Ellis Elementary in Fallbrook; Del Rio Elementary, Laurel Elementary and Mission Elementary in Oceanside; Ramona Elementary in Ramona; Alvin M. Dunn Elementary and San Marcos Elementary in San Marcos; and Bobier Elementary, Crestview Elementary, Maryland Elementary and Washington Middle in Vista.
The list was intended to include schools across the state with the lowest student scores on standardized
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