State Education Groups Look to Facebook for Organizing

State Education Groups Look to Facebook for Organizing

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by Felix Perez

Scroll down for a list of state Facebook pages and groups.

The 2010 elections sent a shock wave through Washington, D.C. But the aftershocks for children, public education, teachers and other educators in state after state will be especially harmful and long-lived  unless educators, parents and other supporters of public education join together to keep the pressure on governors and other state elected officials.

Governors are central players in formulating education policy. State and local legislators approve education budgets, and more than 90 cents of every dollar spent on education comes from state and local governments.

The challenges are daunting: School budgets across the country being slashed; shrinking state and local revenues; emergency federal funding coming to an end; and one in five children living in poverty.

Against this troubling backdrop, state lawmakers are expected to take up legislation in the weeks and months ahead that would harm students, teachers and public schools. Under consideration are bills to:

• Fund vouchers, which do nothing to improve public schools.
• Link teacher salaries to student performance on standardized tests, ignoring factors outside a teacher’s control, especially poverty but also medical care, nutrition, exposure to books and other educationally enriching experiences, and school attendance.
• Eliminate or restrict educators’ right to a hearing before being fired, otherwise known as due process.
• Weaken educators’ retirement security by switching to plans tied to the Stock Market’s ups and downs, even though teachers have foregone salary increases for years in exchange for a decent standard of living when they retire.

More than ever, being informed, organized and involved can mean the difference between drastic rollbacks and risky schemes and helping students and teachers avoid becoming budget scapegoats. With that in mind, here are some selected Facebook groups and pages from various states that can keep you up to date and tell you how to help when the time comes to take quick, coordinated action.

Know of a Facebook page or group we missed? Leave a comment on this article and we’ll add it to the list.

This Week In Education: Thompson: Attendance Data Being Left Behind

This Week In Education: Thompson: Attendance Data Being Left Behind

Thompson: Attendance Data Being Left Behind

by john thompson

Before NCLB, I received timely and invaluable information on whether each student's absence was excused due to illness, counseling, legal, or other family matters. Now, a new computer code is created to hide absences whenever there is the need to keep honest information from going up the chain of command. Robert Balfanz' new study "Building a Grad Nation," seeks to use attendance data in early warning systems to help students - as opposed to making accountability numbers look good. But

Do everything — except fixing schools — Joanne Jacobs

Do everything — except fixing schools — Joanne Jacobs

Do everything — except fixing schools

by Joanne

David Kirp’s soon-to-be-published book, Kids First: Five Big Ideas for Transforming Children’s Lives makes the“broader, bolder” case for reforming urban education without changing schools, writes Paul Peterson on Education Next.

According to Kirp, the best way to improve America’s urban schools is to ignore them. Instead, attention should be focused on parents, pre-schooling, reshaping neighborhoods, finding mentors for the kids, and giving kids money to go to college. In other words, do everything except fix the disastrous state of the big city school system, shaped by court decisions, federal regulations, professional bureaucrats, collective bargaining agreements, and a progressive philosophy that

House plans to send child nutrition bill to President Obama

House plans to send child nutrition bill to President Obama

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By Nick Anderson

Washington Post Staff Writer
Thursday, December 2, 2010; 12:01 PM

Congress is heading toward final action Thursday on legislation that would enable more poor children to receive free meals at school, raise the nutritional quality of cafeteria fare, and reduce the junk food and sugary beverages sold in school vending machines.

The bill, which cleared the Senate in the summer, is set for final House approval Thursday afternoon if Democrats can, as expected, overcome proceduralroadblocks thrown up by Republicans.

The bill, a priority for President Obama and first lady Michelle Obama, would boost spending on child nutrition $4.5 billion over 10 years and raise federal reimbursements for school lunches more than the inflation rate for the first time since 1973. It also would require for the first time that free drinking water be available where meals are served.

The bill accelerates the budding healthy-food movement in public education - think whole wheat pizza, with lowfat cheese and low-sodium sauce - but leaves unanswered key questions about whether schools can afford to give tens of millions of students better meals.

Democrats took steps to offset the bill's costs, including a $2.2 billion cut to food stamp

Fake White Student Union Flyers at West Chester University « Student Activism

Fake White Student Union Flyers at West Chester University « Student Activism

Fake White Student Union Flyers at West Chester University

by Angus Johnston

Early this week my Google search results started lighting up with hits on an old post on White Student Unions. It took me a while to track down the source, but I eventually did — it turns out that someone was posting flyersat West Chester University advertising a meeting of a new white student group on campus.

West Chester, outside Philadelphia, is a public university of twelve thousand students. Its student body is about 85% white. As photos of the flyers circulated on Twitter, WCU students were upset and annoyed … but also skeptical.

As it turns out, they were right to be. University administrators have announced that there is no White Student Union forming on the campus, and that the flyers were a hoax. The intent, they say, was “to draw anti-racists

City fills top finance role with veteran of Klein administration | GothamSchools

City fills top finance role with veteran of Klein administration | GothamSchools

City fills top finance role with veteran of Klein administration

by Maura Walz

The Department of Education is filling its top finance role, empty for three weeks, with a veteran of outgoing Chancellor Joel Klein’s central administration.

Vanessa Conforme will serve as the department’s new Chief Financial Officer, city officials announced today.

Conforme is taking over part of the role that was previously filled by Photeine Anagnostopoulos, who served as Deputy Chancellor for Finance and Technology until she resigned the day after Chancellor Joel Klein announced that he was leaving.

Conforme joined the DOE in 2003 and has worked as the Deputy Director of Finance and Administration as well as Chief Operating Officer for the Empowerment Schools network. She’s currently the Deputy Chief Schools Officer for Operations in the Division of School Support and Instruction.

Conforme will not have a “deputy chancellor” title, but she will be part of the Cabinet, the elite group of advisors

Calling All DCPS Teachers

Calling All DCPS Teachers

by FORREST HINTON on DECEMBER 2, 2010

in TEACHER QUALITY

We are interested in talking with D.C. teachers about the implementation of the new IMPACT evaluation system. Now that the program has been in place for a while, what are its strengths and drawbacks? How effectively is it being used? How has it affected your teaching, your curriculum, the atmosphere in your classroom? Are you benefiting from the advice of master teachers? Do you find the evaluations fair?

These are the sorts of questions we’d like to ask some teachers in a group setting that would foster a lively discussion. We would also want to do some follow-up interviews with individual teachers. We are not looking for any particular angle here – just your candid assessments.

If you are a DCPS teacher and are willing to share your experiences with IMPACT, please email Susan Headden at sheadden@educationsector.org or call Susan at 202-552-2852 (office) or 202-253-8403 (cell.) Thanks!

–Susan Headden, Senior Writer/Editor

Truly Uncommon in Newark… « School Finance 101

Truly Uncommon in Newark… « School Finance 101

Truly Uncommon in Newark…

by schoolfinance101

A while back I wrote a post explaining why I felt that while Robert Treat Academy Charter School in Newark is a fine school, it’s hardly a replicable model for large scale reform in Newark, or elsewhere. I have continued over time to write about the extent to which Newark Charter schools in particular have engaged in a relatively extreme pattern of cream skimming. The same is true in Jersey City and Hoboken, but not so in Trenton. But, Trenton also offers us fewer examples of those high-flying charters that we are supposed to view as models for the future of NJ education. When I wrote my earlier post on Treat, I somehow completely bypassed North Star Academy, which I would now argue is even that much less replicable than Robert Treat. That’s not to say that North Star Academy is not a highly successful school for the students that it serves… or at least for those who actually stay there over time. But rather that Star of the North is yet another example of why the “best” New Jersey charter schools provide a very limited path forward for New Jersey urban school reform. Let’s take a look:

So, here’s where North Star fits in my 8th grade performance comparisons of beating the odds, based on thestatistical model I explain in previous posts:

In this figure (ab0ve), we see that North Star certainly beats the odds at 8th grade. Now, we can also already see that North Star has a much lower % free lunch than nearly any other school in Newark, limiting scalability right

NASA Finds New Life

NASA Finds New Life

Hours before their special news conference today, the cat is out of the bag: NASA has discovered a completely new life form that doesn't share the biological building blocks ofanything currently living in planet Earth. This changes everything.

At their conference today, NASA scientist Felisa Wolfe Simon will announce that they have found a bacteria whose DNA is completely alien to what we know today. Instead of using phosphorus, the bacteria uses arsenic. All life on Earth is made of six components: carbon, hydrogen, nitrogen, oxygen, phosphorus and sulfur. Every being, from the smallest amoeba to the largest whale, share the same life stream. Our DNA blocks are all the same.

But not this one. This one is completely different. Discovered in the poisonous Mono Lake, California, this bacteria is made of arsenic, something that was thought to be completely impossible. While she and other scientists theorized that this could be possible, this is the

The Answer Sheet - Rhee, Ackerman and 'cultural competence' in urban reform

The Answer Sheet - Rhee, Ackerman and 'cultural competence' in urban reform

Rhee, Ackerman and 'cultural competence' in urban reform

This post was written by Helen Gym, a founder of Parents United for Public Education in Philadelphia, a citywide parent group focused on school budgets and funding to improve achievement and accountability in the public schools. She is also a board member at Asian Americans United, a community organization active in education and other issues. She was named the Philadelphia Inquirer's "Citizen of the Year" in December 2007 for her work in education, immigration and community activism. This post appeared on the The Notebook blog. Gym discusses cultural sensitivities in urban educational leadership, an issue faced by former Washington D.C. Chancellor Michelle Rhee, a Korean American, as she led the public schools in the predominantly African-American city. By Helen Gym Recently, Schools Superintendent Arlene Ackerman sat down for an interview with Inquirer columnist Annette John-Hall. Ackerman, who had been avoiding local media for months, emerged none-too-shy about her opinions. Her

THE PERIMETER PRIMATE: Teacher effectiveness: the student perspective

THE PERIMETER PRIMATE: Teacher effectiveness: the student perspective

Teacher effectiveness: the student perspective

by The Perimeter Primate

Manny Lopez, an Oakland teacher in his 15^th year of teaching, recently shared this story with members of a local parents’ listserv. Curious about what students in his Fourth Grade (bilingual) class would say, he asked them what made an effective teacher. A ten minute brainstorm produced the following ideas:

QUALITIES OF AN EFFECTIVE TEACHER

- a patient person
- a kind person
- one who is respectful of students
- one who is smart
- multilingual

In California, A Fight For Public Education | Neon Tommy

In California, A Fight For Public Education | Neon Tommy

In California, A Fight For Public Education

Comments (2) | TrackBacks (2)

Callie Schweitzer | December 2, 2010
Editor-in-Chief

(Photo from OccupyCA)

Ricardo Gomez has been arrested twice for standing up for what he believes in.

The 21-year-old University of California, Berkeley senior is part of a growing student movement fighting tuition increases in the 10-campus system.

Gomez, and 12 others, wasarrested Nov. 17 when they attempted to block the entrances to the UC Regents meeting at the University of California, San Francisco. Many congregated in a parking garage leading into the conference center, hoping to enter the meeting. When police kept them from entering the meeting room, theyblockaded the area and tried to keep out the regents themselves. The regents approved an 8 percent fee hike, raising annual tuition from $10,302 to $11,124.

Gomez, who serves as external affairs vice president of the student body, said he was pepper

Education Week: Ed-Tech Advocates Eye Rupert Murdoch's Move Into K-12 Market

Education Week: Ed-Tech Advocates Eye Rupert Murdoch's Move Into K-12 Market

Ed-Tech Advocates Eye Rupert Murdoch's Move Into K-12 Market

News Corporation Chairman and CEO Rupert Murdoch testifies on Capitol Hill earlier this year. While far from a certain success, Murdoch's purchase of a majority stake in Wireless Generation has captured the attention of the K-12 educational technology world.

—Cliff Owen/AP

By Ian Quillen

Educational technology experts say the purchase of ed-tech company Wireless Generation by media mogul Rupert Murdoch’s News Corp. raises questions about how effective the partnership will be over the long haul, but they hope the Nov. 22 announcement inspires further large-scale private investment in the K-12 technology market.

They say the deal—in which News Corp. bought 90 percent of New York City-based Wireless Generation for $360 million—is far from a certain success. While the media

Colbert Considers Hiring Former D.C. Schools Tsar Michelle Rhee (VIDEO)

Colbert Considers Hiring Former D.C. Schools Tsar Michelle Rhee (VIDEO)

by Aimee Deeken, posted Dec 2nd 2010 8:10AM

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Then chancellor of District of Columbia Public Schools, Michelle Rhee featured on the cover of 'Time' about two years ago in a piece on reforming the nation's public schools. Now she's unemployed.

She explains why on 'The Colbert Report' (weeknights, 11:30PM ET on COM). "My boss, Adrian Fenty -- who was the mayor of D.C. -- lost his election, so that means I lost my job."

Rhee is still figuring out her next career move. "You ever thought of being a correspondent?" asks Stephen Colbert. She answers politely, "I'd be very interested in joining the team."