Tuesday, July 27, 2010

On Education - Equity of Test Is Debated as Children Compete for Gifted Kindergarten - NYTimes.com

Equity of Test Is Debated as Children Compete for Gifted Kindergarten

Yana Paskova for The New York Times

From left, Laisha Mendez, 5, Amaya Taylor, 4, and Kellie Pierre, 4, at the Bloomingdale Head Start program in Manhattan.

By MICHAEL WINERIP

Published: July 25, 2010

REPRINTS

Teachers at the Bloomingdale Head Start program in Manhattan tell Alexis Stewart that her 4-year-old son, Chase, is bright.

Room for Debate: The Pitfalls in Identifying a Gifted Child (July 4, 2010)

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“He knows about different fish, different birds, different species,” Ms. Stewart said. “He’s on it.”

Chase took the city test for the public schools’ gifted and talentedkindergarten program, but missed the 90th-percentile cutoff, she said.

Ms. Stewart, a single mom working two jobs, didn’t think the process was fair. She had heard widespread reports of wealthy families preparing their children for the kindergarten gifted test with $90 workbooks, $145-an-hour tutoring and weekend “boot camps.”

The owner of one Manhattan tutoring company, Bright Kids NYC, says the parents

School Chief Dismisses 241 Teachers in Washington

By TAMAR LEWIN

Most of them were fired under a system that held them accountable for students’ standardized test scores.

PAUL SMITHS JOURNAL

Tyler Rothe, a Paul Smith’s College student and a champion lumberjack, taught a tree-climbing class last week at the college’s new Adirondack Woodsmen’s School.

A Summer School That Might Have Pleased Paul Bunyan

By LISA W. FODERARO

A two-week program at Paul Smith’s College in the Adirondacks teaches skills like logrolling, felling trees with axes and making fires without matches.

Economy forces states to scale back scholarships | EdNewsColorado

Economy forces states to scale back scholarships

by Nancy Mitchell

Editor’s note: This Education Week article is one result of a new partnership between EdNews Colorado and the weekly education journal, allowing us to provide in-depth stories from a national perspective.
By Caralee Adams, Education Week
Ever since elementary school, Bonnie Slocum knew that if she kept her grades up, her home state of Nevada would reward her by paying $10,000 toward college tuition.
As a low-income, first-generation college student, Ms. Slocum relied on $960 this year from the Gov. Guinn Millennium Scholarship, along with a federal Pell Grant, to pay for her freshman year at Truckee Meadows Community College in Reno. She’s anticipating $1,920 this fall from the state toward her studies in English and

Schools Matter: NY City Schools Reserving "Gifted" Kindergartens for Those Who Can Buy the Gifts

NY City Schools Reserving "Gifted" Kindergartens for Those Who Can Buy the Gifts

by Jim Horn

There are three levels of insanity at work here. One is derived from the loony concept of a "gifted kindergarten." The second radiates from the craziness of using standardized tests on 4 year olds with any expectation of validity. The third emanates from the first two, and it is a form of social neurosis grounded by class and race.

In the bad old days, NYC teachers and staff interviewed children, observed them, and made selections for kindergartens

The Educated Guess � Not from 90210? Beverly Hills says, ‘Out’

Not from 90210? Beverly Hills says, ‘Out’

Tags: Beverly Hills, open enrollment

Posted in Equity issues, Program innovation

The decision by Beverly Hills Unified School District to kick out many non-resident students, starting this fall, portends trouble for the state’s new open-enrollment law, allowing students in the state’s worst performing schools to transfer to better schools in other districts. Many of the state’s wealthiest districts may end up deciding to steer clear of the program.
The Beverly Hills board voted earlier this year to end its policy of enrolling elementary and eighth grade students from other districts under special circumstances. Current high school students can continue to attend district schools.
(Read more and comment on this post)

By John Fensterwald on July 26th, 2010

Pathways to high schools that work

Tags: AB 2648, Gary Hoachlander
Posted in Career academies, Multiple pathways, Program innovation

Recognizing that today’s high schools are failing to engage many students – or prepare them adequately for college or a career – the Legislature commissioned a study to lay out a long-term plan to expand the most promising development in secondary education. That is the establishment of small career academies within a high school that combine rigorous coursework with internships and real-world experience in various industries and career themes, whether health professions, green technology, building trades, engineering or computer technology.
In a 10-minutes VIDEO INTERVIEW (look left on this page), Gary Hoachlander, the president of California Center for College and Careers and a leading advocate of integrating college and career education, explains the study and its new vision for California high schools. Check it out.

By John Fensterwald on July 26th, 2010

CSBA Scott Plotkin’s troubling resignation

Tags: California School Boards Association, Scott Plotkin
Posted in Adequacy suit, Advocacy organizations

Caught in lies he told the news media last week about questionable credit card expenses and about salary cuts over the past year that he claimed he took – but didn’t, Scott Plotkin resigned Friday as executive director of the California School Boards Association. In a brief statement on CSBA’s web site, Plotkin wrote, “I am sorry if my actions have damaged the reputation of CSBA and the vital work being conducted by the Association. It was certainly not my intent.”
There is no “if” about it. Plotkin, who effectively led the organization for nine years, has scorched it on his way out. And the CSBA officers and board members must go beyond their tight-lipped responses to questions about pay and expenses if it’s to rebuild credibility with the public and the nearly 1,000 school districts whose CSBA dues are funded through tax dollars.
(Read more and comment on this post)

By John Fensterwald on July 26th, 2010

Quick Takes: Union Voted Down at Art Institute of Seattle - Inside Higher Ed

Union Voted Down at Art Institute of Seattle Faculty members at the Art Institute of Seattle have voted down a proposed union,* **The Seattle Post-Intelligencer* reported. Faculty members behind the union drive at the institute had sought to organize with the American Federation of Teachers, ...

Bangalore U. Reserves Slots for Transgender Students India's Bangalore University has decided to reserve one slot in each of 52 academic departments for transgendered students, *The Hindu* reported. Indian universities operate under quota systems for admitting students from various groups that have ...

Policing Plagiarism Abroad A college in New Jersey shuts down M.B.A. program in China due to pervasive cheating – and experts consider the implications.

The Answer Sheet - Good, bad news on U.S. children

Good, bad news on U.S. children

Even before the U.S. economic troubles of the late 1990s, the child poverty rate had increased in this decade, affecting nearly one-fifth of American kids, according to a new report released today on the well-being of American kids. The annual KIDS COUNT Data Book compiled by the nonprofit Annie E. Casey Foundation and released today also shows the following:

Textbooks: Sympathy for the debt-laden - The Boston Globe

Textbooks: Sympathy for the debt-laden

July 27, 2010

Text size – +

At colleges around the country, it’s a ritual at the start of every semester: Professors provide a list, perhaps as long as half a page, of the term’s required reading, often including books written by the professor him- or herself. Students then go about acquiring the small library they’ll need for that course, and often spend a small fortune doing so. Many common textbooks have prices in the hundreds of dollars.

Sometimes, students are forced to buy a sixth

Mike Klonsky's SmallTalk Blog: The impact of IMPACT

The impact of IMPACT

by Mike Klonsky

Here in D.C., Chancellor Rhee is sailing through the floodgates, opened when union leaders signed on to a bogus contract. The agreement allowed pay increases based mainly on the good will of a few private foundations, in exchange for Rhee's ability to fire teachers in mass, using the IMPACT evaluation process. IMPACT is mainly an attempt to link student test scores with individual teachers. It also includes 22 other measurement points which are supposed to be assessed in a 30 minute-observation by a master-teacher.

Valerie Strauss shows why the entire process in suspect in this post on the Answer Sheet.

A number of teachers never got the full five evaluations, apparently because a number of master

Smaller school districts also cutting instructional days | California Watch

Smaller school districts also cutting instructional days

by Louis Freedberg

Louis Freedberg

Smaller districts throughout the state are being forced to shorten their school year in response to the state's budget crisis.
A recent California Watch survey found 16 of the 30 largest districts in the state, with enrollments of 1.4 million students, will be trimming their school year by up to a week of instruction beginning this fall. But there has been no systematic look at what the 1,043 school districts around the states will do. That's in part because changing

California emergency rooms average 274-minute waits

by Joanna Lin

Joanna Lin

Patients visiting California emergency departments waited an average of four hours, 34 minutes last year. That's two minutes longer than they waited in 2008 and 27 minutes longer than the national average.
The figures are part of a recent analysis of time spent in emergency departments by health care consulting firm Press Ganey. Wait times were based on calculations of more than 1.5 million patients treated at 1,893 hospitals in 2009. Overall, wait times increased an average of four minutes last year.

Governance Structure Of City Schools Questioned | KPBS.org

MAUREEN CAVANAUGH (Host): I'm Maureen Cavanaugh, and you're listening to These Days on KPBS. As San Diego Unified School District embarks on a new management style from the grass roots up, one group claims the problems with the district can be found at the top. Calling the district a failing system, the group called San Diegans 4 Great Schools points to the school board structure as part of the reason test scores are lagging for many of the district's students. I’d like to welcome my guest. Scott Himelstein is director of the Center for Education Policy and Law at USD, and one of the organizers of San Diegans 4 Great Schools. And, Scott, welcome. Thanks for coming in.

SCOTT HIMELSTEIN (Organizer, San Diegans 4 Great Schools): Good morning, Maureen. Nice to be here.

CAVANAUGH: What was San Diegans 4 Great Schools, why were they established?

HIMELSTEIN: Well, I think once we took a look at the results of the study, we saw a sustained

Agora Cyber Charter School approved for five more years | Philadelphia Inquirer | 07/26/2010

Agora Cyber Charter School approved for five more years

By Martha Woodall

Inquirer Staff Writer

Agora Cyber Charter School, which almost lost its charter last year, has won state approval to operate for the next five years.
But the Department of Education has imposed academic and financial-management conditions that must be met by March 31.
Sharon Williams, the school's chief executive, said Friday that Agora was "super excited about the renewal" and had begun working on many of the issues before receiving the state's ruling.
"We are trying to address the challenges," she said.
Agora, in Wayne, provides online learning to 5,000 students in their homes across the state.

Latest News and Comment from Education

Tuesday, July 27, 2010

Equity of Test Is Debated as Children Compete for Gifted Kindergarten

By MICHAEL WINERIP

Published: July 25, 2010

Related

Room for Debate: The Pitfalls in Identifying a Gifted Child (July 4, 2010)

Readers' Comments

By TAMAR LEWIN

PAUL SMITHS JOURNAL

By LISA W. FODERARO

Textbooks: Sympathy for the debt-laden

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Governance Structure Of City Schools Questioned

Agora Cyber Charter School approved for five more years