Thursday, November 25, 2010

Church-charter school partnerships a growing trend in education - McClatchy Network - Kentucky.com

Church-charter school partnerships a growing trend in education

By JESSICA MEYERS - The Dallas Morning News

DALLAS -- Students at Duncanville's Advantage Academy follow biblical principles, talk openly about faith and receive guidance from a gregarious former pastor who still preaches when he speaks.

But his congregation is a swath of low-income students. And his sermon is an educator's mantra about the opportunities of charter schools.

Advantage's state-funded campuses showcase the latest breed of charter schools, born from faith-based principles and taxpayer funds. More than 20 percent of Texas' charter schools have some kind of religious ties. That's the case for six of the seven approved this year.

http://www.dallasnews.com/

Stuff to know about Thanksgiving The Answer Sheet - A School Survival Guide for Parents (And Everyone Else)

The Answer Sheet - A School Survival Guide for Parents (And Everyone Else)

Stuff to know about Thanksgiving: 242 million turkeys, 1.9 billion pounds of sweet potatoes, etc.

By Valerie Strauss

Here are some facts and figures about Thanksgiving, assembled by our friendly U.S. Census Bureau.

242 million
The number of turkeys expected to be raised in the United States in 2010. That’s down 2 percent from the number raised during 2009. The turkeys produced in 2009 together weighed 7.1 billion pounds and were valued at $3.6 billion.
The source for this and the following food facts is the USDA National Agricultural Statistics Service.

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The Big Education Ape Daily

The Big Education Ape Daily

Gov. David Paterson says schools head pick Cathie Black is no Joel Klein; needs an academic aide

bigeducationape.blogspot.com - Wenig/AP;Wintrow/GettyPaterson, making his most expansive comments to date on Mayor Bloomberg's choice of Black, said Black lacks the educational background that the city's departing Chancellor Joe...

coopmike48

Breaking News | Womens eNews

womensenews.org - New Report Calls for Efforts to Help Low-Income Women Without affordable, reliable child care, the nation’s low-income working mothers, 72 percent with children under six, have little chance of fi...

makeitplain

Hospitals Still Bad for Your Health

motherjones.com - A study set to be published Thursday in the New England Journal of Medicine has found that hospitals are still doing a lousy job of taking care of their patients:The study, conducted from 2002 to 2...

makeitplain

Big Education Ape: Damn Good Education Daily

bigeducationape.blogspot.com - pheedcontent.com - Samuel Casey Carter is, in a way, the Tom Paine of the movement to raise school achievement in low-income neighborhoods. He coined the term "no excuses schools” for those run by ...

coopmike48

This trend of young Muslim girls wearing the hijab is disturbing | Baher Ibrahim | Comment is free

guardian.co.uk - 'Adult Muslim women are expected to dress modestly so that men outside the family cannot see their bodies. But what is the point of a child or pre-pubescent girl wearing a hijab?' Photograph: Moham...

Perfect parents, fragile children — Joanne Jacobs

Perfect parents, fragile children

by Joanne

If parents could engineer the perfect child, would he grow up to be unbearable? Katie Roiphe takes on overparenting — familiar ground but always good for a rant — in Slate.

You know the child I am talking about: precious, wide-eyed, over-cared-for, fussy, in a beautiful sweater, or a carefully hipsterish T-shirt. Have we done him a favor by protecting him from everything, from dirt and dust and violence and sugar and boredom and egg whites and mean children who steal his plastic dinosaurs, from, in short, the everyday banging-up of the universe? The wooden toys that tastefully surround him, the all-sacrificing, well-meaning parents, with a library of books on how to make him turn out correctly— is all of it actually harming or denaturing

Schools Matter: Texas Jury Nails the Hammer: Delay Could Get Life

Texas Jury Nails the Hammer: Delay Could Get Life

by Jim Horn

Makes me warm and fuzzy, too. Happy Thanksgiving!

From WaPo:

. . . .A jury in Austin found DeLay guilty of money laundering and conspiracy to commit money laundering. Punishment for the first ranges from five years to life in prison, but the former congressman from the Houston suburb of Sugar Land could receive probation.

DeLay will remain free until he is sentenced on Dec. 20.
"This case is a message from the people of the state of Texas that they want - and expect -

The Mayor and the Chancellor - NYTimes.com

The Mayor and the Chancellor

Published: November 24, 2010

REPRINTS

Mayor Michael Bloomberg scored a huge victory for New York City public education in 2002 when he won control of the school system, but parents and state officials often complained that outside voices were not heard. On Tuesday, a panel of state educators essentially upbraided him for failing to listen to those who wanted a professional educator as the system’s new chancellor.

Times Topic: Cathleen P. Black

If the mayor wants to retain his choice, Cathleen Black, a media executive, he should accept the compromise being offered by state officials — to appoint a chief academic officer as Ms. Black’s right hand.

Ms. Black has a distinguished record in magazine and newspaper publishing, but she has spent very little time in a public school — her own children went to a private boarding school — and has no professional experience in education. Mr. Bloomberg has dismissed concerns about her résumé by suggesting that all the school system needs is a smart and talented manager.

The message seems to have rung sour. Chancellor Joel Klein, who also had no educationa

Bloomberg and State Seek Compromise on Cathleen Black - NYTimes.com

State and City Had Fruitless Talks on Deputy to Aid the Chancellor Pick

By SHARON OTTERMAN

Published: November 24, 2010

REPRINTS

In the days before an advisory panel and the state’s education commissioner expressed doubts about Cathleen P. Black’s qualifications to become the New York City schools chancellor, state officials and the Bloomberg administration held secret talks about the possibility of appointing an experienced educator to her side, according to people with knowledge of the matter.

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Chad Batka for The New York Times

A Man at Ease With the Classics, Now Torn Over a Schools Decision (November 25, 2010)
Can a Publisher Run Schools? The Experts Debate (November 25, 2010)

Related in Opinion

Editorial: The Mayor and the Chancellor (November 25, 2010)

State officials proposed that City Hall consider the second appointment to settle concerns about Ms. Black’s lack of experience in education, these people said Wednesday. But talks fell apart by Tuesday, and that afternoon David M. Steiner, the education commissioner, hardened the state’s position by saying publicly that he was disinclined to approve Ms. Black unless she had an official with education experience to help her run the system.

Ms. Black needs a waiver from Dr. Steiner because she lacks the educational experience that state law requires of chancellors.

On Tuesday, an advisory panel appointed by Dr. Steiner also expressed reservations about Ms. Black’s fitness for the job, with four of the eight members recommending that

My Post-Thanksgiving Letters To Students | Larry Ferlazzo's Websites of the Day...

My Post-Thanksgiving Letters To Students I’ve previously written about a practice I have of periodically writing personal letters to students — particularly ones that are facing particular challenges. I place it in a sealed envelope with his/her name on it, and just give it to him/her in a ...

“Test Your Hunger IQ – Feed a Child” The UN Food Programme has a simple quiz on world hunger on its website. What makes it stand-out, though, is what happens if you take it: “For every person who takes this short hunger quiz, a child will receive a warm meal thanks to an anonymous donor ...

“Ground Zero — Out Of The Ashes” “Ground Zero — Out Of The Ashes” is the title of a TIME Magazine slideshow. They describe it as “A look at where the towers once stood — ‘then and now’ — by photographer Joel Meyerowitz, who began who began photographing the site shortly after the ...

“Space Slideshows” MSNBC has an excellent feature called “Space Slideshows.” I’m adding the link to The Best Images Taken In Space.

“Cast Your Vote” Game Cast Your Vote is an interactive game on the iCivics site. There are a lot of interactives there, but I think most of them are overly-complicated — even for native English speakers. “Cast Your Vote,” though, puts you in the role of a person at a ...

How One Science Teacher Integrates Laptops into Lessons | Larry Cuban on School Reform and Classroom Practice

How One Science Teacher Integrates Laptops into Lessons

by larrycuban

Carol Donnelly (pseudonym) has taught 13 years, the last six at Las Montanas. She has been using laptops since 2002 when they were introduced at the school. In 2009, when I interviewed her and observed her classes, she was teaching biology to honors students (one class), regular students (one class), and English Language Learners (ELL) in three classes. She used the same basic lesson for all of her biology classes, stretching out the content for ELL classes while going in more depth in the regular and honors classes (e.g., research papers, PowerPoint presentations, Science Fair projects). She integrated laptops into her lessons once a week.

Every Wednesday, she told me, is laptop day. She brings a mobile cart from the Media Center to her classroom. In one lesson I observed, Donnelly began class with a review of yesterday’s material on photosynthesis. Afterwards she had students open their laptops to watch animations of photosynthesis that she had loaded on their machines earlier. A pop-up quiz appeared after the animations. Donnelly walked around and checked student scores on the quiz. She then summarized the concept of photosynthesis by questioning

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Thursday, November 25, 2010