Friday, December 3, 2010

Mayor and Sac City schools target parent engagement in new project - Sacramento City News - sacbee.com

Mayor and Sac City schools target parent engagement in new project

By Melody Gutierrez
mgutierrez@sacbee.com

Published: Friday, Dec. 3, 2010 - 9:49 am

Sacramento City Unified School District is partnering with Mayor Kevin Johnson's education nonprofit to promote parent engagement in city schools.

Stand Up for Sacramento Schools will focus on six schools identified by Sacramento City Unified as "priority schools." Those include Oak Ridge Elementary, Father Keith B. Kenny Elementary, Jedediah Smith Elementary, Fern Bacon Basic Middle, Will C. Wood Middle and Hiram W. Johnson High.

Stand Up Deputy Director Andrea Corso said many of the district's most successful schools require parent involvement. The partnership with the district will help encourage parents to become

The Answer Sheet - What is Michelle Rhee up to in Florida?

What is Michelle Rhee up to in Florida?

Michelle Rhee is the most nationally prominent figure to join Florida Gov.-elect Rick Scott’s education transition team, but she and the other 17 have something in common: They could all be on Jeb Bush’s Christmas card list. Bush has ties to virtually all members of the team, which is no surprise, since he has dominated Florida's politics for more than a decade, even after two terms as governor, which ended in 2007. Rhee, the former D.C. schools chancellor who became the national symbol for business-driven school reform, has now provided some details about her tenure on the transition team.

Schools Matter: Don't Miss...

Don't Miss...

by Kenneth Libby

"Reframing the Education Debate," by Pedro Noguera (via The Nation):

After two years, it has become clear that the education policies pursued by the Obama administration too closely resemble those of the Bush administration. They are leading us in the wrong direction and not producing the changes we need.

The vast number of parents and children throughout the country who rely on public schools are a natural constituency for the Democratic Party. So, too, are the 2.1 million teachers and administrators who draw their livelihoods from public education. Both groups are more likely to understand and support the need to direct public dollars not only to education but to healthcare and social welfare. They are also less likely to embrace the intolerance and fiscal conservatism of

Teachers’ Letters to Obama. Parents 4 democratic Schools

Parents 4 democratic Schools

Facebook | Teachers’ Letters to Obama.

Raising the Stakes

In a speech to the American Enterprise Institute last week Arne Duncan called for us to adjust to the “new normal” – larger class sizes, fewer resources, elimination of seniority protections. Last Spring our conversation with him went nowhere. We need to up the ante. Writing letters was not enough. A conference call with Duncan himself was not enough. Online teach-ins and roundtable discussions among ourselves were not enough. We need to raise the stakes. We need to show up in person, and raise our voices in the largest numbers we can muster.

One of the first letters I got last year was from Jesse Turner, who wrote about his mother would have him and his siblings walk around in their unheated apartment to stay warm. Jesse walked from Connecticut to Washington, DC, last summer, to protest NCLB and Race to the Top. When he got there, he met with others – and now plans are in the works to return to DC – in much larger numbers.

We are forming an alliance with other groups to mobilize the largest number of teachers possible for a march and conference in Washington, DC, from July 28 to 31. Please visit the discussion forum at Teachers’ Letters to Obama and share your thoughts and ideas as we begin to get ourselves organized.http://www.facebook.com/group.php?gid=166176941518&v=app_2373072738&ref=ts

Anthony Cody

Friday Reading List: TFA in Tenn., Rhee's New Gig, Mich. Evaluations - Teacher Beat - Education Week

Friday Reading List: TFA in Tenn., Rhee's New Gig, Mich. Evaluations

by Stephen Sawchuk

Some important stories for you to check out on this chilly winter Friday (here in the D.C. area, anyway):

•Tennessee officials have released a state report card on teacher preparation, the Memphis Commerical Appealreports. It finds that teachers trained and placed through the Teach For America program outperform every other training program in the state, with the exception of math teachers prepared at Vanderbilt University.

• EdWeek's Sean Cavanagh reports on former District of Columbia schools Chancellor Michelle Rhee's new gig: Helping to lead Fla. Gov.-elect Rick Scott's transition team for education.

• Though it's post-Race to the Top, Michigan legislators are now working on

A Twisted “History of Political Correctness” « Student Activism

A Twisted “History of Political Correctness”

by Angus Johnston

So yesterday on Twitter someone sent me a link to a video, and asked me whether I’d seen it. The video turned out to be The History of Political Correctness.

“The History of Political Correctness” is an oddity, even on its surface. It’s a cheaply produced 23-minute documentary hosted by a guy named William Lind. The video is festooned with stock footage of marching Nazis and long-haired hippies, and is dedicated to the theory that every left-liberal cultural development of the last half century — from political correctness and the student movements of the sixties to afrocentrism, gay pride, environmentalism, and sexual promiscuity — can be laid at the feet of the social theorists of the Frankfurt School.

This charmingly paranoid thesis is presented in over-the-top terms, as when Lind offers an introduction to the

The Answer Sheet - Was achievement gap understated?

Was achievement gap understated?

This post was written by Richard Innes, education analyst for the Bluegrass Institute for Public Policy Solutions. By Richard Innes I’m used to getting bad data from Kentucky’s educators, but this time it’s the National Center for Education Statistics that messed up. In a new set of web pages that accompanied the recent release of 12th grade National Assessment of Educational Progress reading and math scores from 2009, the NCES included a graph supposedly showing the proficiency gaps between whites, blacks and Hispanics for fourth grade math. The only problem is that NCES officials used the wrong numbers!

Michelle Rhee, Controversial Education Reformer, to Advise New Florida Governor

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No one thought former Washington, D.C., schools chancellor Michelle Rhee would be out of work for long. Rhee, who could not come to terms with the District's new mayor, has signed on with the education transition team of Florida Gov.-elect Rick Scott, a Republican.

Scott's office said the nationally "recognized education reformer" would help him find innovative ways to "create a new education system for a new economy," the Washington Post reported. Tall task, and the transition office did not spell out Rhee's responsibilities beyond advising. But she certainly ruffled feathers in Washington in her drive to improve one of the nation's worst school systems.

Education reformer Michelle Rhee to aid Florida governor-elect's transition

Education reformer Michelle Rhee to aid Florida governor-elect's transition

Rhee closed many schools and fired or laid off hundreds of teachers, but she also presided over rising test scores and won respect for her fearlessness in pursuing reform and rooting out deadwood in the system. Her impolitic

Boy in school beating sues for right to education - Florida AP - MiamiHerald.com

Boy in school beating sues for right to education

Wayne Treacy was charged with attempted murder.

NAACP: NC county is example of US school problem

By Tom Breen

Associated Press / December 3, 2010

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RALEIGH, N.C.—The country's most prominent civil rights group has come to Raleigh to draw attention to what it calls a growing erosion of the gains made since a 1954 Supreme Court decision made segregated schools illegal.

Using Wake County's ongoing debate over school diversity as a backdrop, the NAACP is holding a national conference on education in Raleigh to argue that schools around the country are, in essence, returning to Jim Crow-era patterns of segregation.

"Resegregation is on the rise," said the Rev. William Barber, chairman of the state NAACP chapter. "The rates now are worse than in the 1970s."

Wake County has been the scene of acrimonious dispute since the school board voted to scrap a decade-old policy that used busing to achieve socio-economic

4LAKids - some of the news that doesn't fit: THE ‘HIGHLY QUALIFED’ GAP+ Report: NOT PREPARED FOR CLASS + Letters + smf’s 2¢

THE ‘HIGHLY QUALIFED’ GAP+ Report: NOT PREPARED FOR CLASS + Letters + smf’s 2¢

The 'highly qualified' gap: No Child Left Behind mandates such teachers in all U.S. schools. A new study shows that little progress has been made in meeting that requirement.

LA TIMES EDITORIAL

November 26, 2010 - While states and school districts hotly debate the issue of whether student test scores should be used to evaluate teachers, the nation has been virtually ignoring a more basic question: whether those teachers are even qualified in the first place. Too many of them aren't.

The No Child Left Behind Act mandated that all students be taught by "highly qualified" teachers. And although we disagree with many elements of that 2001 federal school reform act — its rigidity, its use of the wrong measurements to assess student progress — this provision always made more sense.

Among other things, a highly qualified teacher in the secondary schools is supposed to have expertise in the subject he or she teaches, whether that means having majored in the subject in college or having a credential to teach it. Ample research has found that students learn better when their teachers have such formal expertise. Yet a new report by the Education Trust, a nonprofit organization devoted to improving the

NYC Public School Parents: Patrick Sullivan on the core principle of the Bloomberg administration

Patrick Sullivan on the core principle of the Bloomberg administration

by Leonie Haimson

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"I represent the borough of Manhattan on what the mayor calls the Panel for Educational Policy but what is in the law the Board of Education of the City of New York. I see here today parents and their elected leaders and I see teachers from every borough. I see them from every race and I see them from every income level and from every political party. Why is that?

Because I've learned from talking to people is that every parent wants to the same thing for their kids: they want

Shanker Blog » A Matter Of Time

A Matter Of Time

by Matthew Di Carlo

Extended school time is an education reform option that seems to be gaining in popularity. President Obama gave his endorsement earlier this year, while districts such as DCPS have extended time legislation under consideration.

The idea is fairly simple: Make the school day and/or year longer, so kids will have more time to learn. Unlikemany of the policy proposals flying around these days, it’s an idea that actually has some basis in research. While, by itself, more time yields negligible improvements in achievement, there is some evidence (albeit mixed evidence) that additional time devoted to “academic learning” can have a positive effect, especially for students with low initial test scores. So, more time might have potential benefits (at least in terms of test scores), but the time must be used wisely.

Still, extending schools days/years, like all policy options, must of course be evaluated in terms of cost effectiveness. Small increases, such as adding a few days to the school calendar, are inconsistently and minimally effective, while larger increases in school time are an expensive intervention that must be weighed

» Gov. Christie to NJ Teachers Union: ‘You Punch Them, I Punch You’ - Big Government

Gov. Christie to NJ Teachers Union: ‘You Punch Them, I Punch You’

by Kyle Olson

It’s not every day you hear a governor laying the smack down on a group of thugs like the New Jersey Education Association, but that’s precisely what Gov. Chris Christie did before a stuffy crowd of education reformers recently.

Christie didn’t mince words. He said when he was elected and “arrived on the playground,” he found the administrators and school board laying on the ground bleeding. “That meant there was a bully,” he said.

So his message was simple:

“You walk onto the school yard and you say punch them, I punch you.”

Here’s a governor who is impatient with awful schools and the snail’s pace the Education Establishment travels because adults’ perks and comfort may be disrupted.

But he’s on a mission to explain to his citizens the state of the education system. He’s telling them about

Arizona’s death panels. Where’s the outrage now? « Fred Klonsky's blog

Arizona’s death panels. Where’s the outrage now?

by Fred Klonsky

This morning’s NY Times has a very disturbing story about poor people in Arizona being unable to receive live-saving organ transplants because of cuts to the state’s version of Medicaid.

Hundred have needlessly died already. Others will follow.

Francisco Felix, 32, a father of four who has hepatitis C and is in need of a liver, received news a few weeks ago that a family friend was dying and wanted to donate her liver to him. But the budget cuts meant he no longer qualified for a

Latest News and Comment from Education

Friday, December 3, 2010

Mayor and Sac City schools target parent engagement in new project

Michelle Rhee, Controversial Education Reformer, to Advise New Florida Governor

Boy in school beating sues for right to education

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THE ‘HIGHLY QUALIFED’ GAP+ Report: NOT PREPARED FOR CLASS + Letters + smf’s 2¢

The 'highly qualified' gap: No Child Left Behind mandates such teachers in all U.S. schools. A new study shows that little progress has been made in meeting that requirement.

LA TIMES EDITORIAL

Francisco Felix, 32, a father of four who has hepatitis C and is in need of a liver, received news a few weeks ago that a family friend was dying and wanted to donate her liver to him. But the budget cuts meant he no longer qualified for a