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Monday, August 2, 2010

Eduflack: Testing Throwdown in NYC

Eduflack: Testing Throwdown in NYC

Testing Throwdown in NYC

by Eduflack
When are lower student achievement scores a good thing? That seems to be the question thrown about up in New York City this past week, where Big Apple officials have been grappling with the reality that city students' performance on the state's math and reading proficiency tests fell after a newer (and harder) exam was put into place.

As always, it is most fun to read the evolution of such stories in the New York Post, which first reported on theplunge, and then editotrialized on the issue twice -- first on Thursday praising the new "truth-telling" and then again today, condemning the United Federation of Teachers for jumping on the test score drop to "discredit alleducation standards."

It should be no secret that state standards -- and the tests that measure those standards -- have been a problem
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Today’s Edujobs Marching Orders from NEA | Intercepts

Today’s Edujobs Marching Orders from NEA | Intercepts

Today’s Edujobs Marching Orders from NEA

by Mike Antonucci
The following was sent this morning from NEA headquarters in Washington, DC:
Subject: URGENT REQUEST FOR MEMBER MOBILIZATION TODAY
Message from John Stocks
Deputy Executive Director
National Education Association
Senator Harry Reid has filed for a cloture vote on the Reid / Murray amendment to H.R. 1586 scheduled for today @ 5:30pm. This amendment contains the Ed Jobs and Federal Medical
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Lunch ladies going gourmet as food gets new look

Lunch ladies going gourmet as food gets new look

Lunch ladies going gourmet as food gets new look

By KRISTEN WYATT, Associated Press Writer
Monday, August 2, 2010
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Barry Gutierrez / AP
A photo taken Monday, July 19, 2010 at the Bruce Randolph School In Denver, shows Chef Daniel Young choosing winner fruit salad tray made by Denver Public School food service personnel during a half day of instruction on how to make healthier options with fresher foods for students. The instruction culminated with a competition and feast of what they had made.
(08-02) 04:50 PDT DENVER (AP) --
They still wear sensible shoes, but the nation's lunch ladies are trading in their hair nets for chef toques as they undergo a gourmet makeover.
With the childhood obesity rates creating demand for healthier foods in schools, more attention is being placed on the culinary skills of those charged with preparing it. What good are fresh local produce and grass-fed beef, for example, if the lunchroom employees know how to make only canned vegetables and frozen fish sticks?
"It's more work to cook from scratch, no doubt," said Dawn Cordova, a longtime school cafeteria worker attending Denver Public Schools' first "scratch


Read more: http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/n/a/2010/08/02/national/a024008D35.DTL&type=education#ixzz0vS6nOKFr
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Education Week: Clock Ticking on School Lunch Legislation

Education Week: Clock Ticking on School Lunch Legislation

Clock Ticking on School Lunch Legislation

By Rebecca Jones, Education News Colorado
Premium article access courtesy of Edweek.org.
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As the clock ticks down on the 111th Congress, child and health advocacy groups are lobbying furiously for lawmakers to reauthorize the nation’s school lunch program with an expansion that would provide free, healthy meals to tens of thousands of additional children and tackle the problem of childhood obesity.
One major hurdle was cleared this month when the House Education and Labor Committee passed HR 5504, the “Improving Nutrition for America’s Children’s Act.”
The $8 billion, 10-year package of legislation would expand access to free and reduced-priced school meals, expand summer feeding and other out-of-school meal programs, and boost the quality of
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Commentary: D.C. has stood strong despite the downturn, and education reform is key to meeting future challenges

Commentary: D.C. has stood strong despite the downturn, and education reform is key to meeting future challenges

Commentary: D.C. has stood strong despite the downturn, and education reform is key to meeting future challenges

N


By Adrian M. Fenty
Monday, August 2, 2010

Four years ago, I ran for mayor on a promise to transform the District of Columbia into a world-class city. An exceptional public education system and a skilled workforce are critical to that vision. We've made incredible strides during the last four years, and we are going to double down on those efforts during the next term.
Despite the worst economic conditions since the Great Depression, we've created thousands of jobs, financed 11,000 units of affordable housing and spent more than $1 billion rebuilding our schools, community centers, parks and waterfronts. Ten thousand new residents moved to the District last year, the largest one-year population gain since World War II. We are ranked the top real estate market in the country for foreign investment and top destination for talented young professionals. Investors from Helsinki to Abu Dhabi are lining up to inject capital into our premier development projects.
My job is to ensure this prosperity continues and see that it is shared by residents in every corner of the cit
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The Bellingham Herald / columns_northwest_view / Lesson should be learned from consensus Race to the Top bill

The Bellingham Herald / columns_northwest_view / Lesson should be learned from consensus Race to the Top bill

Lesson should be learned from consensus Race to the Top bill

PETER CALLAGHAN - THE BELLINGHAM HERALD

A wise man who bore many scars from his battles over school reform gently disagreed.
I had suggested to him in March that the state was better off with no Race to the Top bill than with the tepid version presented to the state House and Senate.
The bill, the result of a deal between Gov. Chris Gregoire and the Washington Education Association, was likely not enough to serve its stated purpose: to show the federal government that the state was serious about changing its public schools.
He agreed it was too weak to win a chunk of the competitive Race to the Top sweepstakes created by the Obama Administration.
But it had to pass, he said. If it failed, leaders like Gregoire, WEA President Mary Lindquist and legislative Democrats could assert that the bill would have been enough.
Therefore, only by passing the bill and being slapped down by U.S. Education Secretary


Read more: http://www.bellinghamherald.com/2010/07/29/1547867/lesson-should-be-learned-from.html#ixzz0vS4ZGpR6
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School of Shock #Education News.org

EducationNews.org
Daily EducationNews

School of Shock
8.2.10 - Jennifer Gonnerman - Eight states are sending autistic, mentally retarded, and emotionally troubled kids to a facility that punishes them with painful electric

Finding a path out of the fields
8.2.10 - Agricultural changes, income limits are causing some headaches at Head Start for migrant families. Every summer, migrant and seasonal workers trek to Illinois. As parents take to the fields, the state's migrant Head Start centers embark on the tough task of enrolling the young children in education programs that could lead to a future away from the fields.

One-third of teens with ADHD delay high school degree or drop out
8.2.10 - Teens with attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) are more likely to drop out of high school or delay completing high school than other kids, a new study has found. Researchers analyzed U.S. data and found that nearly one-third of students with the most common type of ADHD either drop out or delay high school graduation. That rate is twice that of students with no psychiatric disorder. ...

Sally Ride Science Academy aims to make kids starry-eyed
8.2.10 - Ask a third-grader to draw a scientist, and you'll probably get a white-haired man dressed in a lab coat. But Sally Ride, America's first woman in space, would like to change that. Once teachers attend her Sally Ride Science Academy, she hopes those third-graders will show men and women hiking, exploring the oceans and flying in space. And maybe the scientists will resemble the young artists themselves. ...

A School District That Takes the Isolation Out of Autism
8.2.10 - MADISON, Wis. - Garner Moss has autism and when he was finishing fifth grade, his classmates made a video about him, so the new students he would meet in the bigger middle school would know what to expect. His friend Sef Vankan summed up Garner this way: "He puts a little twist in our lives we don't usually have without him." The public schools in Madison, Wis., are nationally known for including children with disabilities in regular classes. ...

Commentaries

Why Desegregation Must Be Secondary to Systemic Reform
8.2.10 - RiShawn Biddle - Among the dominant themes in education this year is the debate over the importance of integration and desegregation in school reform. From the Gary Orfield-Richard Kahlenberg crowd launching rhetorical volleys against

"On The Horizon" - Is D.C. Imposing on Texas' Schools?
8.1.10 - AUSTIN, Texas - There is justified outrage sweeping Texas over an attempted Washington, D.C. Power Grab that would give the federal government significant control of Texas' education dollars & school children. Ironically, the move was the initiative of Texas' own Democratic Congressman Lloyd Doggett. ...

Are we losing the magic; Do we really need highly motivated, innovative and resourceful teachers in today's classroom?
8.1.10 - Charles P. Brickman, NBCT - In the not too distant past highly motivated, innovative and resourceful teachers were especially appreciated and valued for their ability to bring the "magic" to the classroom. The "magic" of course, was the ability to motivate students to learn through innovative and resourceful applications of curriculum and subject matter that met the academic and learner readiness needs of their students.

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Eduwonk � Blog Archive � NOLA: Charter Issues 2.0

Eduwonk � Blog Archive � NOLA: Charter Issues 2.0

NOLA: Charter Issues 2.0

by smead
Guest Post by Sarah Newell Usdin and Neerav Kingsland, New Schools New Orleans
Five years ago, New Orleans was perhaps America’s worst schools system. The FBI convicted over twenty district officials for stealing from kids. A valedictorian of a local high school failed the high school exit exam. Five times. Her school had failed her. Her district had failed her. Her school board had failed her. At every level, the system was broken.
Five years later and the results in NOLA are incredible:
  • We’ve out paced the state’s growth by nearly a factor of 4 over the past four (growth of about 12 pts. vs. 3 pts)
  • We’ve halved the percentage of failing schools (about 60% to 30%)
  • Our highest-performing open-enrollment schools are out-performing selective-admission magnet schools.
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Brainchild of MIT scientist is bound for space shuttle - The Boston Globe

Brainchild of MIT scientist is bound for space shuttle - The Boston Globe

A vision born at MIT will ride last space shuttle

One man’s idea comes to fruition

By Carolyn Y. Johnson
Globe Staff / August 2, 2010
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CAMBRIDGE — In 1994, Nobel laureate Samuel C.C. Ting began to plan an ambitious experiment: launching a powerful instrument into space that could detect particles left over from the big bang and bring serious science to the International Space Station.
Now, with 16 countries, $2 billion, and an act of Congress behind the 7.5-ton alpha magnetic spectrometer, the experiment that started with Ting’s bold idea is set to be launched on the final flight of the three-decade-old space shuttle program next February, a month after the soft-spoken but deliberate MIT scientist turns 75.
Large-scale experiments are common in the world of physics, where massive accelerators or detectors are necessary to re- create the conditions of the early



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