Sunday, August 8, 2010

School not forthright with payroll - The Boston Globe

School not forthright with payroll

Getting Mystic Valley data a lengthy process

Globe Correspondent / August 8, 2010

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The Mystic Valley Regional Charter School says its mission is to provide its students a world-class education that incorporates “selected core virtues and the fundamental ideals of our American culture, which are embodied in the Declaration of Independence and the United States Constitution.’’

But the Malden-based school has provided incomplete responses to the Globe’s requests for payroll records, sought under the state’s public records law beginning on April 21.

The paper’s request for payroll data was made about the time that local residents began to raise questions about Mystic Valley’s finances after the school paid $4.4 million in cash for a vacant car lot in Malden.

Stimulus money helps homeless schoolchildren | McClatchy

Stimulus money helps homeless schoolchildren

ROCKY MOUNT, N.C. — Downtown Rocky Mount in eastern North Carolina offers a horizon of shuttered businesses, along with a stretch of houses with boarded-up windows and vacant porches.
Forbes magazine now ranks Rocky Mount, once a vibrant manufacturing hub, as one of the 10 most impoverished cities in America, with an unemployment rate hovering at a dismal 13 percent and a county crime rate that's almost double the national average.
The area's woes have contributed to another number that's rising: homelessness among children.
The Nash-Rocky Mount Public Schools system had at least 564 homeless students for the 2009-10 school year, up 9 percent from last year. North Carolina ranks as the ninth worst state in the country for the risk of child homelessness, with a 48 percent

Read more: http://www.mcclatchydc.com/2010/08/08/98564/stimulus-money-helps-homeless.html#ixzz0w1vV0tNF

COMMUNITY COMMENT: Parental involvement helps determine child's success � Evansville Courier & Press

COMMUNITY COMMENT: Parental involvement helps determine child's success

BILL STANCZYKIEWICZ SPECIAL TO THE COURIER & PRESS

Indiana's school bells are ready to ring, but to many educators the strongest influence on academic achievement can seem far beyond their control.

That primary factor is parental involvement. While parents are uniquely responsible for raising their children, research confirms parents also are uniquely influential in their children's performance in school.

Studies reveal that parents impact academic achievement far more than school-based factors such as teacher quality or education funding. The 2009 book, "Creating an Opportunity Society," cites decades of research, concluding, "The basic finding has been replicated so many times that the immense influence of the family on child development and school achievement is now a settled issue."

Many parents are involved. The National Center for Education Statistics finds 89 percent of students have a parent who has attended a meeting at school and 94 percent have a

Charter schools learn from past mistakes

BY ELISA CROUCH ecrouch@post-dispatch.com 314-340-8119 | Posted: Sunday, August 8, 2010 12:30 am |(7) Comments

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Aug. 5, 2010 -- "My only challenge is to meet and satisfy expectations," said Cengiz Karatas, principal of the Gateway Science Academy. "There's a question: 'What if you fail? What if you're like other charter schools?' Well, we're coming in and we're not going to fail," said Karatas, who continues to prepare the new school for opening Wednesday morning. (Laurie Skrivan | lskrivan@post-dispatch.com)

If anyone represents the state of St. Louis' charter school movement, it's Patrice Coffin, who walked the halls of a south St. Louis school building recently and surveyed the renovation work.

In 2008, she left the building as principal of Paideia Academy, a school rife with infighting, poor test scores and ordered by the state to close. Now, Coffin is returning to the building as principal of Carondelet Leadership Academy, one of four charter schools opening in the city this year.

As the St. Louis charter school experiment enters its second decade, people such as Coffin are trying to revitalize a movement that in many ways hasn't lived up to lofty expectations. They're starting new schools they hope will have a better chance of success.

At Carondelet, old walls have come down, new ones have gone up. The building, at 7604 Michigan Avenue, which will hold kindergarten through fifth grade this fall, is getting a $1 million overhaul.

"We're opening a brand new school with a clean slate," Coffin said.

If the past is any indication, hundreds will fill the classrooms of Carondelet and the other new charter schools, just like the thousands who have already flocked to the nontraditional public schools.

Almost 10,000 city children attend charter schools — more than a third of the number who attend St. Louis

The Weekend with Fred. � Fred Klonsky's blog

The Wall. � Fred Klonsky's blog

Sunday links.

by preaprez

School Tech Connect explains tenure and seniority. I have news for all the young people barking about the unfairness of seniority– you’re going to spend the majority of your life disagreeing with your current opinion. And I’ve got news for you teachers with a little private list of which colleagues are incompetent– you’re on a few lists, too, around the building.
Death threats against the economics columnist, Paul Krugman, of the NY Times? I’d say that is going a little over the top on the issue of deficits. That isn’t a tea party. That’s a lynch mob.

The Wall.

by preaprez

Old school.

by preaprez

Doc Watson.

Saturday coffee.

by preaprez

The countdown begins this weekend.
A week of hosting visiting offspring and grand kids ends this morning when I drive them all to O’Hare for the flight back to Brooklyn. Having family in another city means seeing my grandchildren grow in fits and jerks. Four months go by. Six months go by. A toddler becomes a little boy. A little girl suddenly seems wiser than you expected.

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Sunday, August 8, 2010