Friday, October 29, 2010

Students accused of secretly recording Tyler Clementi withdraw from Rutgers | NJ.com

Students accused of secretly recording Tyler Clementi withdraw from Rutgers

Published: Friday, October 29, 2010, 8:40 AM Updated: Friday, October 29, 2010, 8:46 AM

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Yearbook photosDharun Ravi and Molly Wei, both Rutgers students, are charged in connection with broadcasting a sexual encounter involving Ravi's roommate Tyler Clementi. Clementi later killed himself.

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One of the two students accused of secretly using a webcam to watch Tyler Clementi in an intimate encounter with another man has withdrawn from the university because of concerns for her safety, the student’s attorney said tonight.

Rubin Sinins said Molly Wei, 18, wrote to the university and asked to "withdraw without prejudice" after Clementi’s death.

"She is a student in good standing, has not been convicted of anything but had concerns for her safety," he said.

Wei e-mailed professors to get assignments and continued her courses in the days after Clementi committed suicide by jumping off the George Washington Bridge. But the freshman pharmacy major eventually withdrew from Rutgers and may apply to other schools, longtime friends Scott Xu and Sean Yan said.

N.J. college students' tuition bills continue to rise despite increased financial aid

By Kelly Heyboer/ The Star-Ledger

October 28, 2010, 7:55PM

N.J. 2-year colleges charge an average of $322 more than U.S. average Full story »

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Gov. Christie appoints task force to revamp N.J. teacher evaluations

By Rohan Mascarenhas/The Star-Ledger

October 28, 2010, 4:51PM

NJEA, the state's largest teacher union, did not get a seat on the 9-member panel Full story »

Collaborate with charters — Joanne Jacobs

Collaborate with charters

by Joanne

Columbus City Schools (Ohio) is renting an empty school site, but charter schools need not apply, writes Stephanie Groce, vice president of the school board. “The administration explained to me that they do not want to lease that building to any school that might compete for students with Columbus schools.” Learn to collaborate, Groce writes in the Columbus Dispatch.

Tucked away in a church in the Weinland Park neighborhood, just a few blocks from the vacant building, is Columbus Collegiate Academy, a public charter school that outperforms every middle school in Columbus City Schools. On its most recent report card, 100 percent of seventh-grade students scored proficient or better in math, a feat that none of our middle schools can claim. The students served by the academy are 94 percent economically disadvantaged and 81 percent

Another Comment on the School Levy | Seattle Education 2010

Another Comment on the School Levy

by seattleducation2010

Another comment on the levy from an anonymous source. And no, it’s not me!

Dora

Failing. � Fred Klonsky's blog

Failing.

by Fred Klonsky

The email arrived from the superintendent yesterday afternoon.

Our district failed to make Annual Yearly Progress according to No Child Left Behind.

Yes.

We are a failing district.

Our students go on to Maine South in District 207. I hear they didn’t make AYP either.

And New Trier High School on the North Shore, with a college acceptance rate of over 98% and where they spend over $25,000 a year per student: Failure according to NCLB.

Will our school (among the top 50 performing elementary schools in the state) be closed? Will I be fired along with the rest of our staff. Will Arne Duncan and President Obama support our firing explaining that we are teachers who accept low expectations.

Will be featured in a new documentary financed by Bill Gates?

“The Flight of a Butterfly” or “The Flight of a Bullet”: The Impossible Dream of Transforming Teaching into a Science � Larry Cuban on School Reform and Classroom Practice

“The Flight of a Butterfly” or “The Flight of a Bullet”: The Impossible Dream of Transforming Teaching into a Science

by larrycuban

According to many policymakers and researchers, teaching should be more like the “flight of a bullet” rather than the “flight of a butterfly.”* Using the latest social science findings, they are determined to re-engineer teaching to make it more efficient, less wasteful, and far more effective than ever before. Behind the current passion among policymakers and politicians for using test scores to evaluate teacher performance (and pay higher salaries) is the current “science” of value-added measures (VAM) that leans heavily upon the work of William Sanders. But these smart officials have ignored the long march that researchers have slogged through in the past century.

Before William Sanders, there was Franklin Bobbitt in the 1920s, Ralph Tyler and Benjamin Bloom in the 1950s, Nathaniel Gage in the 1970s and 1980s, and many other researchers. These scholars believed that teaching can be rational and predictable through scientifically engineering classrooms; they rejected the notion that teaching can be unpredictable and uncertain–”the flight of a butterfly.”

In How To Make a Curriculum (1924),Franklin Bobbitt listed 160 “educational objectives” that teachers should pursue in teaching children such as “the ability to use language …required for proper and effective participation in

This Week In Education: AM News: "Residency" Programs For New Teachers Growing Up

AM News: "Residency" Programs For New Teachers Growing Up

by Alexander Russo

Chamber of Commerce Backing Anti-Ed. Dept. Candidates Politics K12: My guess? I think education probably is really important to the Chamber, but, after doing a careful calculus, they decided that other things were more important, like revamping the new health care law, which they aren't fans of... In Sharp Rise, 47 City Schools May Close Over Performance NYT: Decisions on closings will be made by mid-December, and closings will be done by phasing out a grade each year... In Long Beach, a promise to help struggling students AP: An innovative system of help centers aims to give students extra support in such courses as math and English to ensure that they stay in college and eventually move on to four-year programs... Michelle Rhee outspoken to the end Washington Post: She is D.C. schools chancellor for just one more day, but that didn't stop Michelle A. Rhee from issuing one last warning Thursday, this one to ineffective teachers and the undergraduate education programs that granted them degrees. [ALSO: Rhee shared her views on CNN.]... Standards for Teacher 'Residency' Programs Teacher Beat: Endorsing the residency approach is one thing, but there are some hefty implications for the larger teacher ed. field, too. Will it be responsive to the idea of less emphasis on coursework, on the collection of things like value-added data and other outcomes-based measures?

Schools Exploit Girls Who Report Sexual Assault | Education | Change.org

Schools Exploit Girls Who Report Sexual Assault

by Rose Garrett

Ah, school. A place to enrich the mind, strengthen the body, and … get used as rape bait by your teachers?

School should be a safe space for all, and victims of sexual assault are certainly no exception. But a rash of stories detailing how girls are not only assaulted by schoolmates, but taken advantage of by their schools, present a troubling truth: some schools are not only failing to keep students safe, they are putting them in harm’s way.

Take the case of a 14-year-old girl who had been repeatedly sexually harassed at her Alabama middle school. A

I'm Shocked, Shocked—Well, a Bit Surprised—That the UCEA's Standing Behind Its "Enemies List" :: Frederick M. Hess

I'm Shocked, Shocked—Well, a Bit Surprised—That the UCEA's Standing Behind Its "Enemies List"

by Frederick M. Hess • Oct 29, 2010 at 8:43 am
Cross-posted from Education Week

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As luck would have it, I'm down here in New Orleans, and the University Council for Educational Administration (UCEA) is holding its annual conference just a few blocks away. I'm even invited to a Saturday breakfast for an advisory board I sit on. This is all mildly ironic because, for those who read Tuesday's post on the "Enemies List" that ran in the most recent UCEA Review, I was deemed the fifth most significant enemy of public school leadership in the U.S. (For those who missed all this, check out Tuesday's RHSU post here and then UNC-Chapel Hill professor Fenwick English's article "The 10 Most Wanted Enemies of American Public Education's School Leadership.")

The significant thing about this is that English is a serious figure in the world of educational leadership. He's a former president of the UCEA and editor of the Encyclopedia of Educational Administration. The UCEA is the leading organization for the study of educational leadership; it includes about 80 university members, including

Christie Formally Offers Rhee Education Commissioner Job

Christie Makes Formal Job Offer To Rhee

Rhee Is Former Chancellor Of D.C. Schools

Updated: Friday, 29 Oct 2010, 6:02 AM EDT

PHILADELPHIA - New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie has made a formal job offer to Michelle Rhee, the former chancellor of schools in Washington, D.C., to become the Garden State's next education commissioner, a radio station is reporting.

New Jersey 101.5-FM News Director Eric Scott spoke on the phone with "Good Day" about the story early Friday morning.

The biggest issue may be that Rhee is engaged to the mayor of Sacramento, Calif., and had previously indicated a desire to move out west.

But they've had a lot of talks, there has been a lot of communication, and high-ranking sources within the administration say Christie has placed a call to tell Rhee the job is hers if she'll take it.

Neither Christie nor Rhee has confirmed the offer was made.

NYC education chancellor: U.S. schools ‘in crisis’ - The Brown Daily Herald

NYC education chancellor: U.S. schools ‘in crisis’

Kat Thornton

Contributing Writer

Published: Friday, October 29, 2010

Hilary Rosenthal / Herald

Joel Klein oversees over 1 million students as chancellor of the New York City Department of Education.

Joel Klein, chancellor of the New York City Department of Education, is not quite sure how he got his job, or how he has kept it for eight years. The nontraditional education reformer spoke Thursday about the problems in the American education system, and the difficult, but necessary, task of improvement.

Klein's speech, delivered to a crowded Salomon 101, was the latest installment of the Noah Krieger '93 Lecture Series. Marion Orr, director of the Taubman Center for Public Policy, introduced Klein as the guy who has the "tough job" of overseeing 1.1 million students, 136,000 employees and a $21 billion budget.

NJ Spotlight | North Brunswick School Superintendent to Head Education Effectiveness Task Force

North Brunswick School Superintendent to Head Education Effectiveness Task Force
Brian Zychowsky to lead team tasked with devising statewide system for evaluating teachers and principals

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By John Mooney, October 29 in Education |1 Comment

Brian Zychowsky was an intriguing choice to lead Gov. Chris Christie’s new task force charged with devising a statewide system for evaluating teachers and principals.

At one point said to have been on Christie’s short list to be state education commissioner, the North Brunswick school superintendent said he’s open to the ideas of merit pay for teachers and better ways of linking teacher performance with student performance.

“I do think there is a value to rewarding teachers who make a difference,” he said yesterday.

Then it gets complicated. North Brunswick uses a hybrid evaluation system that includes teachers documenting their own and their students’ progress.

And for any system like this to work statewide, Zychowsky said the state would need accurate and

Searching for Services for Adult Autistic Children
As adult autistic children age out of the school system, their families are learning there are virtually no day programs for them

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By Bev McCarron, October 29 in Preview |Post a Comment

Cathy Douma’s autistic son has languished for five years on a state priority list for housing for developmentally disabled adults. She got a status letter recently. Jeffrey, 26, is number 2,395.

“When my husband and I die, what will happen?” worries Douma, of Morris Township, who is in her late 50s.

Douma's concerns are shared by many New Jersey parents whose adult autistic children are aging out of the public school system in record numbers, but still need help managing day to day.

Her fears are well-grounded.

Parents say, and the state readily acknowledges, that because of high demand, and the cost of providing such services, there aren’t enough day programs for autistic adults, for whom a rigidly

Shanker Blog � How Deep is the Teacher Bench?

HOW DEEP IS THE TEACHER BENCH?

by Matthew Di Carlo

On most sports teams, coaches assess players in part by considering who is available to replace them. Teams with “deep benches” have more leeway in making personnel changes, because quality replacements are available.

The same goes for teaching. Those who aggressively wish to start firing larger numbers of teachers every year rely on an obvious but critical assumption (often unstated): that schools and districts can find better replacements.

In other words, it is both counterproductive (and very expensive) to fire teachers if you can’t replace them with a more effective alternative. Even those few commentators who have addressed this matter sometimes ignore another important fact: The teacher labor market is about to change dramatically, with a massive wave of

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Friday, October 29, 2010