Latinos majority of students in state schools | percent, students, state - News - The Orange County Register

Latinos majority of students in state schools | percent, students, state - News - The Orange County Register

Latinos now majority in state schools

By FERMIN LEAL

THE ORANGE COUNTY REGISTER

Latinos now make up the majority of students in California public schools, according to new figures released by the state Department of Education.

More than 50 percent of all 6.2 million students enrolled in the state's k-12 schools in 2009-10 were Latinos. It's the first time ever the group made up the majority of state public school enrollment.

Armando Gutierrez, assistant principal at Heninger Elementary School in Santa Ana, the district locally with the highest number of Latino students, looks over students as they stand in their lines before heading back to class after in this file photo. Latinos in the state now make up the majority of students in California.

MARK RIGHTMIRE, THE ORANGE COUNTY REGISTER

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In Orange County, about 47 percent of 502,275 students were Latino, while 32 percent were white, 14 percent were Asian and 2 percent were black.

Statewide, 27 percent of students were identified as white, 9 percent were black and 6.9 percent were Asian.

Click here to see data on each O.C. school district, the county total and the state total.

In 2008-09, 49 percent of students statewide were Latino, 28 percent of students were white, 7 percent were black and 8 percent were Asian. Locally last year, 45 percent of students were

Education Week: Eliminating Recess Hurts Kids

Education Week: Eliminating Recess Hurts Kids

Eliminating Recess Hurts Kids

When Testing Pressure is Too Great, We All Lose

By Nicholas Thacher

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The suburban New England town in which I run a small elementary school has just been obliged to eliminate morning recess for its public school children. This has, as one can readily imagine, caused a lot of palaver, dissension, anger, anxiety, and finger-pointing. Our excellent superintendent had the unenviable task of moving from one acrimonious evening meeting to another in the opening weeks of our school year, trying to explain why, since standardized-test scores haven't met the designated benchmarks, the schools have been mandated to eliminate morning recess and force the children to spend their midmorning time swotting up on their academic skills.

This is the "trickle down" of the federal No Child Left Behind Act and a commonwealth that takes occasionally justifiable pride in its challenging standards for its public schools. The thinking is that more minutes in the classroom will enable the youngsters to sharpen their minds and raise their scores on the Massachusetts Comprehensive Assessment System, or MCAS tests.

This is not a new idea, but it's a patently boneheaded one—a virtually perfect example (like the recent anti-bullying legislation cobbled together by the Massachusetts

After A Sit-In, Chicago Moms Got A Library. Now What? | Education | Change.org

After A Sit-In, Chicago Moms Got A Library. Now What? | Education | Change.org

After A Sit-In, Chicago Moms Got A Library. Now What?

by Carol ScottNovember 12, 2010 10:02 AM (PT)Topics: Equal Access, Literacy, School Funding

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For six weeks, a group of Chicago moms sat down to stand up for their children. In Pilsen, a largely Hispanic neighborhood in Chicago's South Side, moms occupied for 43 days a rundown, one-story field house in their fight to have a library for the children of Whittier Elementary.

It was a David vs. Goliath story: A group of parents going to bat for their children against Chicago Public Schools, which had planned to destroy the field house and create a field, not a library. Despite intimidation by the police, fears about retaliation and frustration at bureaucratic inertia, the parents of Whittier prevailed: In late October, the head of CPS announced that Whittier students would get a library after all.

The moms' struggle -- they had been advocating for a library for seven years before they resorted to staging a sit-in -- captured attention nationwide as the group used Facebook and other social networking tools to spread the word. More than 500 Change.org members joined in, sending letters to Chicago officials expressing their support.

But is the story over? Not at all, say the moms in the group. In their meetings with Chicago Public Schools, no specific plans were made about where the library would go, when it would be built and what, exactly, the fate would be of the rundown field house where the sit-in took place. CPS will lease the field

Hip Hop & Radical Resistance | Dailycensored.com

Hip Hop & Radical Resistance | Dailycensored.com

Hip Hop & Radical Resistance

by Solomon Comissiong

Hip Hop: Radical Resistance, Mobilization and Empowerment

By: Solomon Comissiong

“I live, I die, I organize,

Everything I do – revolutionize,

I build what’s good for the whole damn hood,

Study G’s like these, really think you should,

I study Malcolm Garvey Huey, Malcolm Garvey Huey,

Malcolm Garvey Huey, Malcolm Garvey Huey…”

Don’t Get Stuck in the Middle « EdVox

Don’t Get Stuck in the Middle « EdVox

Don’t Get Stuck in the Middle

by edvoxny

By Carol Boyd
A recent EdVox post, Knowing the Score, provided families with a few helpful tips for parent-teacher conferences. This week NYC middle schools will be hosting family conferences and it is essential that families not only know the score but also take affirmative action to avoid having their children stuck in the middle grades.
To realize a whopping savings of less than $3 per student, the Department of Education (DoE) shifted the onus of printing test score results to the individual schools. Regardless of who’s running the Xerox, by now you should have received your child’s test scores in both Math and English Language Arts (ELA). If you don’t have your child’s scores, call the school immediately. If that doesn’t work, then (as has been suggested by the DoE) call 3-1-1!
Test scores should not be the sole indicator of how your child is performing in school, but they do allow parents, students, and teachers to design academic intervention services (AIS) that are prescriptive rather than punitive. Currently, in NYC there are more than 239,000 children left behind by Mayor Bloomberg and Chancellor Klein. Had NYSED involved parents and other school stakeholders in the front end planning of the test score recalibration process, there might be far less need for so much collateral damage and waiver granting.

Queens Teacher: Bloomberg Took Secret Path to a New Schools Chief

Queens Teacher: Bloomberg Took Secret Path to a New Schools Chief

Bloomberg Took Secret Path to a New Schools Chief

by Queens Teacher

Bloomberg Took Secret Path to a New Schools Chief
By DAVID W. CHEN and MICHAEL BARBARO

Shortly after 2 p.m. on Tuesday, Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg circulated through his City Hall offices, introducing a tall, blond woman who looked slightly familiar to his top aides. A foreign dignitary, perhaps? Or maybe an ambitious out-of-state politician hoping to impress the mayor? Somebody’s wife whom they were supposed to recognize?

No, it was Cathleen P. Black, and in less than an hour, Mayor Bloomberg would stun New York’s political, business and education establishments by naming her as the city’s schools chancellor, replacing Joel I. Klein.

To a degree unusual even for an administration that relishes keeping its deliberations as private as possible, hardly anyone knew of Mr. Klein’s departure or Ms. Black’s arrival until minutes before the official announcement. While such posts are typically filled after highly publicized national searches that can last months or even a year, there is little evidence that anyone else was seriously vetted or considered — and few of the usual

The Answer Sheet - A narcissistic approach to education reform

The Answer Sheet - A narcissistic approach to education reform

A narcissistic approach to education reform

This post was written by Mark Phillips, professor emeritus of secondary education at San Francisco State University and author of a monthly column on education for the Marin Independent Journal. By Mark Phillips I haven’t read any Kafka in recent years, but I don’t really need to. I just pick up the newspaper or turn on CNN and catch up with the latest in the worlds of politics and education. The other day it was a scene in New York City with Mayor Michael Bloomberg announcing Joel Klein’s departure as chancellor of the city’s public schools and the appointment of Hearst Magazine Chairman Cathleen Black as his successor. As I listened, the soundtrack from The Twilight Zone emerged from my distant memory. The narrative was out of touch with reality. “It’s a chance to change the world,” said Bloomberg. Does he really believe that?

Pedro Noguera: “Demanding Education That Matters” (VIDEO) | Democratic, Community-Based Education

Pedro Noguera: “Demanding Education That Matters” (VIDEO) | Democratic, Community-Based Education

Pedro Noguera: “Demanding Education That Matters” (VIDEO)

by Democratic Education

"Demanding Education That Matters" Coalition of Essential Schools' Annual Fall Forum

Convened by the Coalition of Essential Schools as their annual “conversation among friends,” the annual Fall Forum provides the essential tools, knowledge, contacts, and vision to create and sustain personalized, equitable, academically challenging schools that prepare all students for successful lives. Fall Forum is the embodiment of more than 25 years of principled and proved educational practices that support all young people

Bloomberg defends his private search and choice for chancellor | GothamSchools

Bloomberg defends his private search and choice for chancellor | GothamSchools

Bloomberg defends his private search and choice for chancellor

by Anna Phillips

Mayor Michael Bloomberg fought against growing opposition to his selection of magazine publisher Cathie Black this morning, saying that he and Chancellor Joel Klein had “spent a lot of time finding the right person.” Bloomberg said he had been discussing Klein’s departure with him “for months” and only began to search for a successor in earnest once he “slowly…became convinced” that Klein truly intended to leave.

His remarks, on the John Gambling radio show this morning, described the search process:

Anybody that comes in wants to have a chance to really get up to speed and make a difference and stick with that difference and implement it and show that it works earlier rather than later. And we’d been talking about it for months, and I’ve been looking — at the beginning I wasn’t sure he [Klein] was serious, but slowly as I became convinced he was, I started looking — and he and I

Mike Klonsky's SmallTalk Blog: Heading into the weekend...

Mike Klonsky's SmallTalk Blog: Heading into the weekend...

Heading into the weekend...

by Mike Klonsky

Think-tanker declares victory over unions


Right-wing think-tanker and professional union-basher (used up my Friday hyphen quota), Jay Greene has declared victory of the nation's teachers unions. Following last week's Republican election victories, Greene blogged, "We won! At least we've won the war of ideas."

The L.A. Times, as expected, took Greene's handoff and ran with it. But their declaration of victory over organized labor may prove to be premature reminiscent of George Bush's infamous aircraft carrier speech.


Yes, these are tough times for union teachers. But let's not forget how many of the important Democratic victories last week, in Illinois, Nevada, and California, to name but a few, couldn't have happened without strong

This Week In Education: People: Who's Next To Abandon Duncan?

This Week In Education: People: Who's Next To Abandon Duncan?

People: Who's Next To Abandon Duncan?

by Alexander Russo

EdWeek's Alyson Klein raises the possibility that the USDE's Thelma Melendez de Santa Ana could leave the Obama administration to head back to California -- possibly even to head LAUSD, the nation's second largest school system (Dept. of Ed.'s Melendez to Los Angeles?). Melendez may well be leaving, and may well go back to California, but it won't be to run LAUSD. According to what I've been hearing she has struggled to find her footing in Duncan's education department, pushed to the side by other much more well-established and sharp-elbowed figures. But if Melendez wants the

U.S. lags in high-level math achievement — Joanne Jacobs

U.S. lags in high-level math achievement — Joanne Jacobs

U.S. lags in high-level math achievement

by Joanne

The U.S. isn’t a high achiever in math education, conclude Eric Hanushek, Paul Peterson and Ludger Woessmann in Education Next.

No fewer than 30 of the 56 other countries that participated in the Program for International Student Assessment (PISA) math test, including most of the world’s industrialized nations, had a larger percentage of students who scored at the international equivalent of the advanced level on our own National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP) tests.

Only 6 percent of U.S. students scored at the advanced level on the PISA 2006 math exam, compared to 28 percent of Taiwanese students and at least 20 percent of students in Hong Kong, Korea, and Finland. Race and poverty don’t explain it: Eight percent of white students in the U.S. and 10.3 of those with a college-graduate parent achieve at the advanced level.

Twelve other countries had more than twice the percentage of advanced students as the United

Schools Matter: Another attempt to show American children are bad at math

Schools Matter: Another attempt to show American children are bad at math

Another attempt to show American children are bad at math

by skrashen

Jay Mathews is worried about math scores. My comment posted below.

Even our best kids lag in math--middle schools to blame

http://voices.washingtonpost.com/class-struggle/2010/11/even_our_best_kids_lag_in_math.html

By Jay Mathews

I am usually among the skeptics when international comparisons make U.S. schoolchildren look as if they spend their class time

NYC Public School Parents: A Black to School Treat

NYC Public School Parents: A Black to School Treat

A Black to School Treat

by Gary Babad

November 12, 2010 (GBN News): While Catherine Black has been exceedingly tight-lipped since Mayor Bloomberg named her to be NY City Schools Chancellor, GBN News has learned that the Chancellor-in-Waiting is already planning her first new initiative to raise attendance and student motivation.

According to a source at the DOE, the new Chancellor plans to utilize one of her recent business innovations, an iPad application designed to offer daily sex tips. “This could entirely revolutionize the Health Education curriculum,” the spokesperson told GBN News. “As Cathie herself has said, the $2.99 app is ‘cheaper than a hooker’. Kids will look forward to coming to school every day. They won’t want to miss a trick, so to speak.”

J. Fredrick Runson, professor of education at Manhattan University, feels that Ms. Black’s initiative should quiet

This Week In Education: AM News: State Using Edujobs Money For Other Purposes

This Week In Education: AM News: State Using Edujobs Money For Other Purposes

AM News: State Using Edujobs Money For Other Purposes

by Alexander Russo

Federal Education Money to Be Used to Offset Cuts AP/Edweek: State Superintendent of Education Paul Pastorek told school superintendents Wednesday that their districts won't receive an expected infusion of $147 million in federal education money... Rape charge against Detroit student dropped after accuser commits suicide Boston Herald: Principal Donovan Rowe said school officials investigated the alleged bullying and found nothing overt. Rowe said on occasion he walked behind Samantha as she went from class to class and witnessed no harassment... Title 9 Advocacy Group Reports Schools In Violation NPR: The National Women's Law Center filed complaints Wednesday against school districts across the country, accusing them of violating Title 9's nearly 40-year-old guarantee of equal athletic opportunities for girls. Some of the districts say the complaints are based on old data but that they'll work to remedy any problems. That might not be easy in a down economy that's forcing many districts to cut teachers and education programs.

Schools Matter: Jay's Missing Footnote for Today's KIPP Ad

Schools Matter: Jay's Missing Footnote for Today's KIPP Ad

Jay's Missing Footnote for Today's KIPP Ad

by Jim Horn

As the oligarchs' leading print media promoter for more tests, more charter chain gangs like KIPP, and more data to back up the data that produces the data, Jay Mathews uses his WaPo column to pump these causes on a daily basis. Today he returns to a snippet from a 2008 SRI California study of KIPP schools to make the case for longer school days:

On the longer-school-day side, we have programs such as KIPP, whose charter middle schools usually have nine-hour school days that last until 5 p.m., plus required three-week summer school and many Saturday sessions. A survey of KIPP students who completed the middle school program showed a 42 percentile gain in math and a 28 percentile gain in reading over four years.

Actually, Jay has chopped off a half hour for some reason (embarrrasing maybe?), since the study he refers to above, “San Francisco Bay Area KIPP Schools: A Study of Early Implementation and Achievement,” clearly notes the 9.5 hour school day (almost half of which is spent on math and reading), the 60 percent increase in

Inside angle on K-12 politics — Joanne Jacobs

Inside angle on K-12 politics — Joanne Jacobs

Inside angle on K-12 politics

by Joanne

What do the insiders think about education politics in the next two years?

Ed Week’s Politics K-12 has the juicy stuff from a subscription-only report by Andrew Rotherham (Bellwether Education Partners and Eduwonk) and John Bailey, a Bush education aide.

Nearly 70 percent think the Republican surge will slow President Obama’s education agenda. Two thirds think the federal role in education will be scaled back.

One person surveyed said: “Next Congress is going to be about cutting spending, repealing Obamacare, and setting the stage for 2012. Noises will be made about how wonderfully bipartisan