Monday, July 26, 2010

Notes from the news, July 26 | Philadelphia Public School Notebook

Notes from the news, July 26

by Erika Owens on Jul 26 2010 Posted in Notes from the news

At Promise Academies, vacancies galore The Notebook blog
The District website shows Clemente has 47 vacancies, Potter-Thomas 22, and Vaux 13. The Notebook is awaiting comment on why the numbers are so high.

Agora Cyber Charter School approved for five more years The Inquirer
It almost lost its charter last year, but the state just approved it for another five.

Undocumented and unafraid: Pushing for the DREAM Act The Notebook blog
Undocumented activists rallied in D.C. to get the DREAM Act passed.

Hidden Homeless Philadelphia Tribune
Covenant House reaches out to homeless teens.

In case you missed it: You gotta have some standards The Notebook blog
The Core Curriculum has everyone talking, plus more on the fighting between the Obama administration and Democrats in Congress.

The Grading and Assessment Conundrum Philly Teacher blog
Philly teacher reflects on last weekend's ntcamp.

Editorial: Best of the Blogs The Inquirer

New research on bullying WHYY

Please email us if we missed anything today or if you have any suggestions of publications, email lists, or other places for us to check for news.

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Notes from the news

Civil Rights Groups Call for New Federal Education Agenda - Politics K-12 - Education Week

Civil Rights Groups Call for New Federal Education Agenda

by Michele McNeil

Seven leading civil rights groups, including the NAACP and the National Urban League, called on U.S. Secretary of Education Arne Duncan today to dismantle core pieces of his education agenda, arguing that his emphases on expanding charter schools, closing low-performing schools, and using competitive rather than formula funding are detrimental to low-income and minority children.
The groups, which today released their own education policy framework and created the National Opportunity to Learn campaign, want Duncan to make big changes to his draft proposal for reauthorization of the Elementary and Secondary Education Act.
What's even more interesting is that a big event planned to release the framework this morning in conjunction with the National Urban League's annual conference was mysteriously cancelled (or postponed, depending on

Michelle Rhee Walks the Walk :: Frederick M. Hess

Frederick M. Hess's Blog

Michelle Rhee Walks the Walk

by Frederick M. Hess • Jul 26, 2010 at 9:42 am
Cross-posted from Education Week

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On Saturday, the Washington Post's Bill Turque reported that D.C. Chancellor Michelle Rhee used the district's IMPACT evaluation system to terminate 165 teachers based on performance and identified another 737 as "minimally effective," giving them one year to improve. The usual carping is already evident and the Washington Teachers Union is grieving the firings.

But, once again, Rhee got it right. As jarring and painful as it may be for those used to the clubby routines of K-12, this is what transformational leadership looks like. And the WaPo editorial board once again got it right too,staunchly backing Rhee in an editorial on Sunday. The WaPo noted that all the lip service "given to not tolerating bad teachers" generally rings hollow. It endorsed Rhee's "unprecedented" move, observed that she inherited a system where 8 percent of eighth-graders were on grade level in math but 95 percent of teachers were rated as excellent, and noted that each termination decision was made only after teachers were

Eduwonk � Blog Archive � Teach For America And The Problem Of Study Laundering

Teach For America And The Problem Of Study Laundering

by arotherham

I mentioned some sloppiness around the the recent report about Teach for America (TFA) that Michael Wineripfeatured in his column from a few weeks ago in an effort to make the point that the research on TFA is mixed. Since we seem to be repeating history now seems a good time to revisit that and the larger issues it raises. The report conveniently highlights two problems: Our field’s pathetic and weaponized approach to research and the problem of “study laundering.”
Pile ‘em up: The two big takeaways of this report from the Great Lakes Center is that retention of TFA teachers is bad and the program’s results are, at best, mixed. There are substantial problems with both findings.
On the retention issue the researchers seem to be focusing on whether Teach For America Teachers leave their schools after two years, not whether they leave teaching. Unfortunately, this is a common mistake in research

This Week In Education: AM News: India Unveils $35 Touch-Screen Computer

AM News: India Unveils $35 Touch-Screen Computer

by Alexander Russo

Education funds out of Senate war bill Politico: Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Cal.) faces growing pressure from the White House and Pentagon to accept the Senate verdict and not prolong the fight any further... Education Commissioner Defends Texas Projection Measure EdWeek: Texas Education Commissioner Robert Scott defended a policy Thursday that has allowed schools to boost their state ratings by counting some failed students as passing...

A $35 Tablet? India Is On The Case NPR: The Indian government unveiled a $35 prototype of a touch-screen tablet for students. If it's produced, it would be the world's cheapest. Inexpensive touch-screen tablets have global appeal because there's no need for language-specific keyboards... Despite states' efforts, measures to protect students from predators sometimes fail Washington Post: For nearly three decades, Kevin Ricks exploited gaps in a system that is supposed to keep sexual predators out of the classroom... Education" target="_blank" style="color: rgb(34, 68, 187); ">Equity of Test Is Debated as Children Compete for Gifted Kindergarten NYT (Winerip): Because test prep “boot camp” and $145-an-hour tutoring is available to those who can pay, children from wealthy families have an advantage, some parents say.

Weblogg-ed � We Need a Test for That

We Need a Test for That

by Will Richardson

Lately, I’ve been finding myself wondering if maybe the best strategy for changing education is to join ‘em, not fight ‘em. I mean, if the only material that we think is important is the stuff that our kids are going to get tested on, well, then let’s have MORE tests! (Play along!)

How about a test that every student has to pass on how to live a more carbon free, planet-friendly life? (Wonder how many of them even know what “carbon free” means.)

How about a test on “managing, analyzing and synthesizing multiple streams of simultaneous information?” (I love the NCTE.)

Or here’s a good one. Let’s make a test for a child’s ability to talk to strangers online, not as in whether or not they should, but as in how they go about doing it. (I want my kids to talk to strangers online, btw.)

What if we made a test to see if every kid knew “20 Easy Ways to Use a Wiki?” (Um, actually, let’s not do that. Too many grownups are doing that already.)

Here’s one: Let’s put together a test to see if our students can “Create, critique, analyze, and evaluate multi-

The Daily Bruin | California’s crippling crisis

The UC Board of Regents has once more confirmed the incompetence of the UC system apropos the Great Californian Fiscal Fiasco. Amid the tourniquets thrown around in this month’s Regents meetings, there are yet no signs of change for the university’s precarious position as it teeters on the brink of financial capsize.

Ours is a conundrum as existential as it is financial (sometimes there is no difference). For if there is one chief function the university serves, it is quality education, for cheap. Sadly, the compatibility of this feeble formula’s two components is being sorely tested as of late.

The state of the University of California is still that of a balancing act – noble aims against ignoble odds – and though the crutches that sustain us may treat symptoms, they are but salt to deeper wounds. Dwindling courses and dilated fees, whilst arguably necessary in these latter days, must give us pause: In a train wreck of priorities, both quality and

LAUSD lost almost $10 million due to inefficient inventory system, audit finds - Los Angeles Times

LAUSD lost almost $10 million due to inefficient inventory system, audit finds

The report says thousands of textbooks are not bar-coded or returned by students and poor communication between schools has led to unnecessary purchases.

July 25, 2010|By Howard Blume, Los Angeles Times

An audit of textbooks at 21 local high schools has found that lost books and excessive purchases at these campuses cost the Los Angeles Unified School District nearly $10 million.

Such problems are pervasive across the system of more than 1,000 schools, auditors concluded, exponentially increasing the potential losses and unnecessary spending.

"The district does not manage or control the textbook inventory process effectively, efficiently or economically," auditors wrote in a June 30 report, which is posted online.

Textbooks represent a huge annual cost for the nation's second-largest school district: $83.3 million last year for texts in required academic courses. Among a sample of reviewed titles, the cost of each book averaged $109.31.

Fremont High's grand experiment begins

The L.A. Unified campus reopens with a mostly new staff as the district attempts to address the campus' historically dismal academic results. But the approach has its critics.

July 07, 2010|By Howard Blume, Los Angeles Times

Al Seib / Los Angeles Times

A revamped Fremont High, which opened its school year Tuesday with a majority of new teachers, has become a local test case for a controversial school makeover approach being tried around the country.

Last December, Los Angeles schools Supt. Ramon C. Cortines announced that he would personally oversee sweeping reforms at Fremont. The most striking was his edict that all staff members — including teachers, counselors, custodians and cafeteria workers — had to reapply for their jobs at the persistently low-performing South Los Angeles campus.

Oakland Schools Struggle, but Emeryville May Point a Way Up - NYTimes.com

Oakland Schools Struggle, but Emeryville May Point a Way Up

Adithya Sambamurthy/The Bay Citizen

College-student aides and high school students administer a cyanide test to water samples at a science program in Emeryville.

By GERRY SHIH

Published: July 22, 2010

REPRINTS

In his five-year plan to turn around the lowest-performing schools in the Oakland Unified School District, Superintendent Tony Smith does not mention teachers, textbooks or test scores.

A nonprofit, nonpartisan news organization providing local coverage of the San Francisco Bay Area for The New York Times. To join the conversation about this article, go tobaycitizen.org.

Instead, Mr. Smith said his students most urgently needed social and health services, engaged parents and activities outside the classroom.

Whether Mr. Smith can overhaul the schools in Oakland is a subject of intense interest among Bay Area educators. Oakland Unified has lost $122 million in financing in the latest cuts to California’s embattled public schools. The city’s endemic problems, particularly poverty and crime, have had a dramatic effect in the classroom.

But Mr. Smith has a record of reform: As a young superintendent in Emeryville in the early 2000s, he enlisted social workers from California State University and nurses from

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Monday, July 26, 2010