Saturday, October 30, 2010

Ousted charter school leader sues education officials | The Salt Lake Tribune

Ousted charter school leader sues education officials

By Brian Maffly

The Salt Lake Tribune

Published Oct 28, 2010 05:06PM
Updated Oct 28, 2010 05:45PM

Charter school founder Kim Coleman has renewed her legal quarrel with Utah education officials in a multimillion-dollar suit alleging that the State Charter School Board violated state and federal law in ousting her last year as director of West Valley City’s Monticello Academy.

The board acted “maliciously” when it barred Coleman from serving Monticello in any capacity, according to Coleman’s suit, filed Tuesday in Salt Lake City’s 3rd District Court. In formal findings issued in early 2009, the board found that Coleman failed to adequately provide special-education services and withheld pertinent information during a compliance review. Coleman, whose husband, Joel Coleman, hopes to be elected to the State Board of Education next week, alleges those findings have no basis in fact or law.

Named as defendants are Marlies Burns, director of charter schools in th

How Charter Schools Affect School Districts - CBS 12 Action News

How Charter Schools Affect School Districts

Last Update: 10/29 6:59 pm

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Administrators and charter school directors agree that more schools means better options for students, but when students leave district schools in favor of charters they take valuable funds with them. Chico Unified Assistant Superintendent Bob Feaster told Action News "everyone of those students takes with them what we call the base revenue limit. Which is something around $5,000 to $5,500 that each student takes with them to that charter school that had that student stayed in Chico Unified would have stayed with us."

With hundreds of students making the move to charter schools those lost funds add up quickly. Feaster says "a significant part of that impact of charter schools, to the extent that a school takes 100 students, we've got to be nimble enough to reduce the next year by 3 teachers." Feaster added that the district has had to release 114 teachers in the last three years, and with the popularity of charter schools growing the district may have to let go of more next year.

CUSD Charter School Liaison John Bohannon told our crews there are other drawbacks to the current charter school system including stability. "Theres studies

Michelle Rhee's Last Day | NBC Washington

Michelle Rhee's Last Day

D.C. Schools Chancellor Ends Three-Year Tenure

By KATHY BANKS

Updated 8:00 PM EDT, Fri, Oct 29, 2010

BUZZ UP!

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Friday marked Michelle Rhee's last official day as chancellor of D.C. public schools.

Rhee served as chancellor for three years. During her tenure, she fired hundreds of teachers and closed schools in an effort to improve education -- moves that triggered both praise and anger among a lot of folks.

The Answer Sheet - Dear Jon: Let George speak

Dear Jon: Let George speak

Dear Jon Stewart: George Wood, a school principal, has traveled from Stewart, Ohio, to attend your Rally to Restore Sanity in Washington, D.C. The least you could do is give him a minute to talk about the insanity in his profession, education. You don’t pay much attention to it on your show, and you could make amends here. Sure, the schedule is tight, but maybe Sam Waterston could cut out a verse of his poem.

Outside help for education raises hackles | IndyStar.com | The Indianapolis Star

Outside help for education raises hackles

IPS wants the freedom to try to improve subpar schools itself

1:11 AM, Oct 30, 2010 |
8 Comments

Written by

Jason Thomas

FILED UNDER
Communities

The proposed rule

If the state Board of Education found intervention would improve a failing school, it would have to implement one or more of these options:

Merge the school with one in a higher improvement category.

Assign a person or organization to run all or part of a school.

Implement its own recommendations for improvement.

Implement other options expressed in a public hearing, including closing the school.

Revise the school's procedures or operations plan; professional development; or intervention for teachers or administrators.

IPS schools affected

Arlington Community High School.
Broad Ripple High School.
Manual High School.
Northwest High School.
Donnan Middle School.
Gambold Middle School.
Howe Community High School.
Washington Community High School.

The superintendent of Indianapolis Public Schools on Friday outlined with passion how he thinks the state could improve chronically low-performing schools: Let the district create and implement its own improvement plan.

In particular, he and others at a state school board meeting said Friday, don't immediately hand management of those schools over to outside individuals or organizations -- one of five options the state has proposed.

"Across the country, these outside companies have taken over school districts to great fanfare," IPS Superintendent Eugene White said. "They fail, and they

Teachers Under Attack Once Again

This article from the Akron Beacon Journal is titled, “Teacher Salaries Draw Scrutiny.” The article goes on to describe how a group in a wealthy Akron suburb, Bath Township, is opposing a levy because most of the revenue will be used to pay teacher salaries. The irony here is on several levels. The school system, Revere, is highly-rated. This is not about performance. The average income in the district is $131,000. Teachers at Revere average $68,300. Houses in the district average $323,000, so most teachers live outside the district. Here’s a kicker - when a previous levy failed, teachers agreed to extend their current contract by a year and average out the negotiated raise for this year over the new two year extension.

It seems to me this is another case of teacher-bashing. Here is a highly paid

Interview Of The Month: Lydia Breiseth From Color�n Colorado | Larry Ferlazzo's Websites of the Day...

Interview Of The Month: Lydia Breiseth From Colorín Colorado Each month I interview people in the education world about whom I want to learn more. You can see read those past interviews here. This month, Lydia Breiseth from Colorín Colorado, the popular resource site for teachers and parents of English ...

PostRank’s Top Posts For October From This Blog I regularly share my picks for the most useful posts of each month. I also publish a list of the month’s most popular posts, based on the number of times they are “clicked-on” (though I’m a bit behind on that one). I also share a list of Post Rank’s ...

Halloween Additions Here are even more additions to The Best Websites For Learning About Halloween: Slate has a slideshow of older Halloween images. Masked politics: Halloween favorites in Washington and elsewhere is the title of a Washington Post slideshow. My ...

“12 upside down houses” 12 upside down houses shows images of…houses that are upside down. I’m adding the link to The Best Images Of Weird, Cool & Neat-Looking Buildings (& Ways To Design Your Own).

Several More Halloween Resources Here are the latest additions to The Best Websites For Learning About Halloween: Animals tuck into Halloween pumpkins at zoos around the world is a slideshow from The Telegraph The Scariest Halloween Party is an infographic The transatlantic ...

4LAKids - some of the news that doesn't fit: OVERCOMING BULLYING IN LAUSD SCHOOLS: Superintendent Cortines Discusses a National Epidemic--BULLYING

OVERCOMING BULLYING IN LAUSD SCHOOLS: Superintendent Cortines Discusses a National Epidemic--BULLYING LAUSD News Release::For Immediate Release | http://bit.ly/bD3ZnL October 28, 2010 - Los Angeles – The special, one-hour On the Record television program with Los Angeles Unified School District (LAUSD) Superintendent Cortines examining the topic of ...

HIGH SCHOOL DROPOUT, GRADUATION, AND COMPLETION RATES: BETTER DATA, BETTER MEASURES, BETTER DECISIONSNational Academies Press | http://bit.ly/dtd4ww High school graduation and dropout rates have long been used as indicators of educational system productivity and effectiveness and of social and economic well being. While determining these rates may ...

48th IS NOT A GOOD PLACE World Economic Forum ranks U.S. 48th out of 133 developed and developing nations in quality of math and science instruction - Source: World Economic Forum, Executive Opinion Survey 2008, 2009: Quality of math and science education |

It’s time for Civic Participation: STUDENTS LEARN HOW IN SCHOOLS Themes in the News for the week of Oct. 25-29, 2010 by UCLA IDEA | http://bit.ly/9k0ADx 10-29-2010 -- To most people the principle of “majority rule” means that a few people should not exercise their power over the will of the general public. But to ...

REPORT: STUDENT LEARNING EXPECATIONS GAP CAN BE TWICE THE SIZE OF NATIONAL ‘BLACK/WHITE ACHIEVEMENT GAP’: What students are expected to know in one state may be up to four grade levels behind the expectations in another state. American Institutes for Research (AIR) Press Relaese |http://bit.ly/bMDKwR Full Report: International Benchmarking: State Education Performance Standards Chart: 2007 State Assessments of 4th Grade Student ...

BROWN’S AND WHITMAN’S PLATFORMS:Notable differences in style and substance By John Fensterwald - Educated Guess | http://bit.ly/99yEvs 10/27/10 • Few voters, other than fighting-mad members of the CTA, will likely cast their ballots for governor based on Meg Whitman’s or Jerry Brown’s views on K-12 education. Education ...

MICHELLE RHEE OUTSPOKEN TO THE END OF HER TENURE AS D.C.SCHOOLS CHANCELLOR: Takes on ineffective teachers and the schools that granted them degrees By Bill Turque - Washington Post Staff Writer | http://wapo.st/aNKzI0 Thursday, October 28, 2010; 11:18 PM - 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 ...

OBAMA PLAYS CHEERLEADING ROLE FOR STEM EDUCATION + video By Erik W. Robelen | EdWeek Vol. 30, Issue 10 | http://bit.ly/dBb9tM October 29, 2010 - Amid a struggling economy, a raft of foreign-policy headaches, and the tail end of a heated campaign season, President Barack Obama carved out time in his schedule ...

IS FEAR OF BILINGUALISM PART OF U.S. CULTURE? By Mary Ann Zehr | EdWEEK | http://bit.ly/du5MRM October 29, 2010 1:01 PM |In the more than 30 years that Kenji Hakuta, an education professor from Stanford University, has been studying English-language learners, he's come to realize that many Americans ...

Christie names education task force members; NJEA not represented | Philadelphia Inquirer | 10/29/2010

Christie names education task force members; NJEA not represented

By Rita Giordano

Inquirer Staff Writer

Gov. Christie named nine members Thursday to a new task force that will look into evaluating public school educators based on student academic performance.

Absent from the group was a representative of the state's largest teachers union, the New Jersey Education Association.

The findings of the Education Effectiveness Task Force will help lead to "needed reforms that ensure every New Jersey child has access to a quality education with effective, accountable teachers at every step along the way," Christie said in a statement.

Asked about the lack of participation by the union, Christie spokesman Kevin Roberts said, "The governor's feelings and beliefs about the NJEA are well known. They have not shown themselves to be a real partner for reform."

An NJEA representative said the union's leadership was disappointed but not surprised.

"It's unfortunate the governor continues this agenda of placing politics before policy," said spokesman Steve Baker, who questioned the panelists' credentials for making recommendations. Few have classroom experience or are

Schools Matter: Responses to Bonnie Reiss, Calif Sec of Education

Responses to Bonnie Reiss, Calif Sec of Education

by skrashen

Bonnie Reiss, California Secretary of Education, published a commentary in the Sacramento Bee, reproduced below.

Here are two letters published in the Sacramento Bee on Oct. 29, responding to Ms. Reiss' commentary:

Re: ("To fix our schools …," Oct 27)

It is offensive that people continue to attack teachers (and unions… aka... teachers collectively) for the issues in education. In addition to being a teacher, I am actively involved in my teachers’ union. Let me share some information with those who don’t seem to “get it.”

Unions are made up of teachers. We are the ones that are in the classrooms doing the work everyday. Teachers

Weekend Roundup: Big-Girl Pants, Parent Trigger, & the Charterfest Comes to Town (Oh my!) | Seattle Education 2010

Weekend Roundup: Big-Girl Pants, Parent Trigger, & the Charterfest Comes to Town (Oh my!)

by seattleducation2010

Boy, I have some catching up to do. Some interesting discussions are going on in Seattle right now regarding education. It’s hard to keep up.

In brief: I’m voting NO on the school levy, despite running the risk of being called a “hater” and a “doubter” by the League of Education Voters’ apparently sometimes small-girl-pants-wearing Chris Korsmo.

Here’s why. Also listen to Dorothy Neville make a convincing, sensible argument for demanding more accountability from our renegade school superintendentt and school board by voting against the levy, on KUOW. The pro-levy side was represented by Schools First’s Sharon Rodgers.

By the way, what is the definition of “grassroots”? I noticed Schools First was introduced this way on KUOW,

Noticings and Wonderings from the Fringe � Failing Schools

Noticings and Wonderings from the Fringe

OCTOBER 30, 2010

by mariasallee

It appears that central administration groups have been coaching administrators to use a certain language of nebulous buzz-phrases in their interactions with teachers. Maybe such language was adopted to soften the perception of criticism. I decided to ironically borrow the touchy-feely language in vogue with many districts to pose some of my own noticings and wonderings. I speak, of course, more specifically with regards to urban districts. The ‘you’ I am speaking to is more likely an admin type, but, hey, if the shoe fits feel free to walk in it a bit.

I notice that when I write “noticings” and “wonderings” that the spell check goes on alert. I wonder why a school district would so enthusiastically adopt words that might not really exist in the dictionary, yet.

I noticed there is an inverse relationship between a person’s salary and said person’s direct

Biddle me this? (or Flunkout Nation) � School Finance 101

Biddle me this? (or Flunkout Nation)

by schoolfinance101

While I suspect few people have read or seen this post by RiShawn Biddle of Dropout Nation, I felt that it was worth mentioning because it presents such egregiously flawed logic coupled with flat-out factually incorrect and unsubstantiated claims. Sadly, this is what we have come to all too often in the current education reform debate. And this isn’t really about RiShawn Biddle as an individual or his blog and tweets, but rather about the propensity to argue important and complex issues in such crude terms and with so little knowledge or understanding of context and history.

In a recent post, Biddle argues that the NAACP is and has been heading up a misguided public policy agenda on behalf of black America (my characterization – perhaps not right on target). Biddle argues that Jealous should

Friday, October 29, 2010

"Wall Street" Meg Whitman $25K a Plate Fundraiser Protest

Rahm, Penny and the IEA. � Fred Klonsky's blog

Rahm, Penny and the IEA.

OCTOBER 29, 2010

tags: Barack Obama, Hyatt, Penny Pritzker, Rahm Emanuel

by Fred Klonsky

Rahm.

The IEA’s state convention, which is held in March, usually takes place at the Hyatt Regency O’Hare.

That property is managed and owned by the Pritzker family, including Penny Pritzker, who was Obama’s fund-raising chair in 2008.

Pritzker’s Hyatt Hotel Corporation is the target of Unite Here. The union wants a fair and decent contract for