Saturday, November 20, 2010

Economists want to stop teachers' degree bonuses - Boston.com

Economists want to stop teachers' degree bonuses

By Donna Gordon Blankinship

Associated Press / November 20, 2010

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SEATTLE—Every year, American schools pay more than $8.6 billion in bonuses to teachers with master's degrees, even though the idea that a higher degree makes a teacher more effective has been mostly debunked.

Despite more than a decade of research showing the money has little impact on student achievement, state lawmakers and other officials have been reluctant to tackle this popular way for teachers to earn more money.

That could soon change, as local school districts around the country grapple with shrinking budgets.

Just this week, U.S. Education Secretary Arne Duncan said the economy has given the nation an opportunity to make dramatic improvements in the

Saturday coffee. « Fred Klonsky's blog

Saturday coffee.

by Fred Klonsky

At 3:30 yesterday afternoon I drove home after a long two weeks of three twelve-hour days because of parent conferences, battles with administration as well as with my state union leadership.

The Friday afternoon commute on the weekend before Thanksgiving week is brutal. Walking in the front door at 4:30, I let Ulysses out, poured myself a glass of Lillet on the rocks with a twist of lemon (the first of several), put Silvio Rodriquez and Santana on the CD player, lit the fireplace, put my feet up and sat there fairly comatose for

Old School.

by Fred Klonsky

Ben E. King.

NYC Public School Parents: Does the secret meeting of Steiner's waiver committee violate the state Open Meetings law?

Does the secret meeting of Steiner's waiver committee violate the state Open Meetings law?

by Leonie Haimson

The Times points out today that three members out of the eight appointed to a panel to advise Commissioner Steiner on whether to grant a waiver to Cathie Black to become NYC Schools Chancellor used to work for the DOE under Klein; several more are at institutions that receive city funds and/or have benefited from Bloomberg's personal largesse.

Even more troubling, the panel will meet in secret on Tuesday, showing that the rushed and closed process that has marred Black's selection from the beginning continues unabated.

Yet it seems apparent that the meeting of this committee should be subject to the NY State Open Meetings law. See here, from the NY Dept. of State FAQ on the law:

Who is covered by the Law?
The Open Meetings Law applies to "public bodies." That term is defined to include entities consisting of two or more people that conduct public business and perform a governmental

Blog U.: Campus and Community Violence - The Education of Oronte Churm - Inside Higher Ed

BlogU

Campus and Community Violence
By Oronte November 20, 2010 2:00 pm EST
The university held a Town Hall Meeting on Campus Safety here last weekend, which, for better or worse, coincided with Dads Weekend. Parents with distinguished-looking silver hair, wearing New Balance running shoes and the most expensive versions of school-pride parkas, lined up before the meeting to buy pumpkin spice lattes, hot chocolate, and cranberry scones from the coffee shop in the union. Several hundred folding chairs had been set up for them in the small courtyard a few feet away, and the cappuccino steamer loudly hissed and bubbled as technicians tried to do sound checks from the media platform at the back of the room.
The meeting began with a statement by a Vice Chancellor, who introduced a representative from the Office of the Dean of Students, the Director of Housing, and the University Police Chief. A half-dozen of her officers stood around the room.
The occasion for the town hall meeting was the recent rise in the number of assaults and other crimes on campus, especially what’s being called “sport” beatings of young male students by two or more other men, some of them in broad daylight. More specifically, it seems, the meeting was a reaction to news of those crimes, reported in accordance with the federal Clery Act, which requires collection and publication of crime statistics in

Natomas school district, teachers at labor impasse - Sacramento City News - sacbee.com

Natomas school district, teachers at labor impasse

By Queenie Wong
qwong@sacbee.com

Published: Saturday, Nov. 20, 2010 - 10:27 am

The Natomas Teachers Association plan to file opposition papers to bring the school district back to the bargaining table after both failed to reach an agreement this week.

The Natomas Unified School District declared an impasse Thursday, which means they're

Hate to tell you 2 m0rons but if you take a look at the election results in Sac City Unified and Natomas School Board, ESPECIALLY SCUSD, the notion of non-union charter schools was soundly defeated by the voters, Kevin Johnson's candidates for the Sac City School Board were defeated, 2 were thoroughly embarrassed. Voters, especially in Area 2 want and deserve a regular public high school so they can have a CHOICE, just like the parents who send their children to a charter or private school have their choice as well. Voters should also be very concerned about the proposed charter schools that will be coming before the County Board of Education January 18th, this will result in further degradation of our public schools. Voters should really be contacting their elected representatives in oppopsition to this plan. You can deny it all you want, the facts are CLEAR, REFORM DISGUISED AS CHARTER SCHOOLS IS UNWANTED IN SACRAMENTO. NO MAYORAL INVOLVEMENT IN OUR SCHOOLS. PLEASE, JUST GO AWAY. JUNE 2012 YOU WILL BE HISTORY

-- The_Ghost_of_Belle_Cooledge

Regents vote to cut services to special ed students under guise of “cost containment” | United Federation of Teachers

Regents vote to cut services to special ed students under guise of “cost containment”

PUBLISHED NOVEMBER 17, 2010

Despite months of protest, tens of thousands of letters and e-mails and passionate testimony by parents and educators, the New York State Board of Regents voted on Nov. 16 to implement a series of “cost containment” proposals that affect some of the most vulnerable students.

The service cuts will allow schools to place more than 12 students with IEPs in integrated co-teaching (CTT) classes, eliminate minimum frequency and duration requirements for speech therapy services (currently two 30-minute sessions a week) and eliminate certain instructional services for students with autism.

“These changes are being made solely for purposes of saving money, regardless of the widely acknowledged harm they will do to students with disabilities,” said Carmen Alvarez, UFT vice president for special education. “This is a sad day for the children of New York. UFT members and

4LAKids - some of the news that doesn't fit: SUPERINTENDENT CORTINES’ “ALL EMPLOYEES” LETTER OF NOV. 18: ‘As truly harsh as this year has been …2011-2012 will be an even more difficult year.’

4LAKids - some of the news that doesn't fit: SUPERINTENDENT CORTINES’ “ALL EMPLOYEES” LETTER OF NOV. 18: ‘As truly harsh as this year has been …2011-2012 will be an even more difficult year.’

SUPERINTENDENT CORTINES’ “ALL EMPLOYEES” LETTER OF NOV. 18: ‘As truly harsh as this year has been …2011-2012 will be an even more difficult year.’

DENY WAIVER TO CATHLEEN BLACK

No CommentsNews

Mayor Bloomberg has appointed Cathleen Black as the new NYC Schools Chancellor to succeed Joel Klein. Ms. Black is a corporate executive and magazine publisher who has no education experience, did not attend public school herself, and sent her children to private boarding schools in Connecticut. Her background does not qualify her to lead a school system of 1.1 million public school students.

NY state law requires that candidates for school superintendency who do not meet minimal requirements must receive a waiver from Education Commissioner David Steiner. This waiver is to be issued only to persons “whose exceptional training and experiences are the substantial equivalent of such requirements and qualify such persons for the duties of a superintendent of schools.” Ms. Black has no “exceptional

The Answer Sheet - Why teaching experience really matters

Why teaching experience really matters

By Valerie Strauss

Bill Gates, who appears to be running for shadow education secretary,just urged states and school districts to pay teachers according to “value-added based” merit systems that inevitably use standardized test scores to judge how well a teacher is doing, despite criticisms that there is no evidence such systems work.

Experience in teaching doesn’t matter much, nor do advanced education degrees, Gates said in a speech to the Council of Chief State School Officers' annual policy forum in Louisville on Friday.

Education Secretary Arne Duncan made the same argument about advanced education degrees two days earlier in a speech, and many times previously had backed eliminating experience as a criterion for judging and compensating teachers.

(In their speeches this week, both men called for districts to consider raising class size. A coincidence, no doubt.)

Actually, experience in the classroom does matter.

The following was written by Matthew Di Carlo, senior fellow at the non-profit Albert Shanker Institute, located in Washington, D.C. This post

‘We know how to teach black kids’ — Joanne Jacobs

‘We know how to teach black kids’

by Joanne

We know how to teach black kids – and other disadvantaged students — but we don’t do it, writes John McWhorter in The Root.

Starting in 1968, a huge federal study called Project Follow Through compared different methods of teaching at-risk K-3 children: Direct Instruction (DI), a scripted phonics program using repetition and student participation, worked much better than anything else for all students, but especially low-income black students. DI has continued to work where ever it’s been used, McWhorter writes.

In 2001, students in the mostly black Richmond district in Virginia were scoring abysmally in

Seattle Public Schools community blog: The Story isn't the Story

The Story isn't the Story

by Charlie Mas

This past week we saw something I had never seen before, a complaint about Board-adopted materials, Brave New World as a 10th grade Language Arts text.

Dorothy, Mel and I were in the auditorium and heard the presentation by both sides, the Board's questions and the answers. Phyllis Fletcher from KUOW was also there.

I had gone over to Ms Fletcher when she entered the room and congratulated/thanked her for her story on the matter from that morning. The story described the problem at the root of the matter and fairly and accurately represented the perspectives of each side.

That contrasts starkly with other stories written about the situation.

The story in the Times didn't misrepresent the situation, but didn't explain it either. Consequently there were 207 comments about PC or totalitarian efforts to "ban" the book before I posted a comment that stated the actual situation.

The story in the P-I, however, was just plain wrong. The headline read: "Parent seeks to ban 'Brave New Worl

My Skepticism About State Standards | Larry Ferlazzo's Websites of the Day...

Larry Ferlazzo

My Skepticism About State Standards

Filed under school reform

I’ve just written a post in my other blog, Engaging Parents In School, about new state standards Tennessee has approved for parent involvement.

I thought readers here might be interested in one paragraph I wrote sharing my thoughts about them:

I’m personally skeptical about the effect any kind of state standards actually have “on the ground” in schools and in the classroom, but these do sound good. The only way they can hurt, though, is if it leaves people who publish

A Dilemma For Schools Seeking To Reform / Chicago News Cooperative

A Dilemma For Schools Seeking To Reform

By SARAH KARP
November 20, 2010

On the eve of a Board of Education meeting in February where the death knell was to sound for five schools, Ron Huberman, the chief executive of Chicago Public Schools, granted an 11th-hour reprieve.

The low enrollment and poor academic record at Paderewski Elementary had made the South Side school a target for closing, and its students were being sent to Mason Elementary, the only nearby school that had higher test scores. Mr. Huberman said he changed his mind after walking from Paderewski to Mason and discovering that students would have to cross a wide intersection of four streets, a situation he concluded was too dangerous.

Although the pardon for Paderewski might have been a relief for some teachers, parents and students, it did not address the problems at a low-performing, underutilized school. Other poorly performing schools are also being spared as resistance to closing them has grown, confronting the next mayor with a longstanding question: What can be done

New Jersey Senator Introduces Tyler Clementi Campus Harassment Bill « Student Activism

New Jersey Senator Introduces Tyler Clementi Campus Harassment Bill

November 20, 2010 in Students

Senator Frank Lautenberg (D-NJ) this week introduced the Tyler Clementi Higher Education Anti-Harassment Act of 2010, a proposed federal law that would require American colleges and universities to enact rules against the harassment of their students by students, faculty, or staff. The bill is named for a gay Rutgers student who killed himself this September following a campaign of online harassment by his dorm roommate.

The Clementi bill would mandate that all higher education institutions receiving federal funds create policies for the reporting, adjudication, and punishments of acts of harassment, as well as anti-harassment programs on campus. It

National Day of Blogging for Real Education Reform « Cooperative Catalyst

National Day of Blogging for Real Education Reform

Posted on November 18, 2010 by Paula White

November 22, 2010 has been declared the National Day of Blogging for Real Education Reform, promoted by AASA and ASCD. ASCD has gathered 10 articles, in advance of Monday’s Day of National Blogging, in The New Faces of Ed Reform that discuss reforming education with teachers as leaders and partners in meaningful, lasting change.

I can’t wait to see Monday’s collective voices blogging for positive educational reform. Many blog posts have lamented the fact that educator voices are often left out of the conversations about the future of schools. Many state that the future is here and we simply need to embrace it. Others say we need to embrace contemporary tools to help our students learn in school as well as they do out of it. Many see learning and schooling as not equitable, and some examine how we can better support student learning. National organizations are urging us as educators to add our voices to the cacophony and use our passion, our expertise, our visionary leadership to forge the way and be heard as a united group advocating for positive reform for our students–for meaningful learning and for lasting understanding of growth needs for our educational system.

Please share your ideas, then add your blog link on November 22 to the comments here. We’ll compile them into this blog so they will be accessible to all. Join us in sharing your vision, browse the list and come read the Co-op’s posts for even more!

Reader Comment: David Feith: The Radical School Reform Law You’ve Never Heard Of – WSJ.com

The people behind Parent Revolution in California long ago dropped even trying to pretend that they’re actually a parent group — the deception was the original intent, but it was so obvious that they just gave that up. Only a moron would still fall for that. I don’t know who David Feith is, but that would be him.

And by the way, Feith also either cluelessly believes that Ben Austin is a genuine leader of a cause or dishonestly tries to portray him that way. Austin is entirely a hired mouthpiece working for a consortium of charter operators (led by Green Dot) with no other prior involvement in education except what he’s paid to do and say.

Another by the way: Gloria Romero, mother of the so-called Parent Trigger, ran for the office of state Superintendent of Public Instruction. Two other candidates who were both positioned as supporters of public education (as opposed to her position as an opponent of public education) split the vote, yet they STILL demolished her in the primary. And in the general election, the one of those two (Tom Torlakson) who is the strongest supporter of public education and teachers and the sharpest critic of “it’s a miracle!” education reform snake oil won handily. Romero, having given up her state senate seat, has accepted — surprise! — a cushy job in the bounteously funded charter school industry.

Yet another by the way on the so-called Parent Trigger: Those supposedly empowered to demand that a school be dismantled are not limited to current parents. In fact, it’s entirely nebulous who exactly is empowered to sign statements making that demand, not to mention details like how many votes per family. The paid operatives targeting schools they want to dismantle can actually get signatures from pretty much any old body they want — or they can fake signatures with no sweat at all. Luckily, the process is so patently bogus that nobody is really trying it except in one case where an obsessed former mom at an LA-area middle school (Mount Gleason in Sunland) has been working for years on it — and all she wants is to replace a principal against whom she nurses a personal vendetta, not otherwise dismantle the school.

Comment by CarolineSF

http://parents4democraticschools.wordpress.com/2010/11/13/david-feith-the-radical-school-reform-law-youve-never-heard-of-wsj-com/

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Saturday, November 20, 2010