Sunday, December 12, 2010

Your turn to grade Gov. Chris Christie | NJ.com

Your turn to grade Gov. Chris Christie

Published: Sunday, December 12, 2010, 6:40 AM

Letters to the Editor/The Star-Ledger
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Robert Sciarrino/The Star-LedgerStar-Ledger readers give Gov. Chris Christie a grade on his first year in office.

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Last week, Star-Ledger Editorial Page
Editor Tom Moran gave Gov. Chris Christie
a grade of C for the governor’s first year
in office. We asked for your grades, and if
an e-mail box could overflow, ours did.
Here’s a sampling:

****
Overall, I would give Chris Christie a C- grade, downgrading the Star-Ledger’s assessment: On education, an F, because of his demonization of teachers and over-the-top rhetoric regarding the NJEA; on budget, a D, because he’s favored the wealthy to the detriment of the poor.

In addition, I give him an F on his failure to re-appoint state Supreme Court Justice John Wallace for “lifetime tenure” — another 1½ years — sparking a needless controversy.
Eugene Gorrin, Union

****
Concerning the budget, no one would be popular cutting programs, however, he is the only one

Parent Trigger Law Fight Escalates in Compton | FOX 11 News

Parent Trigger Law Fight Escalates in Compton

FOX 11 News video report.

Updated: Saturday, 11 Dec 2010, 3:28 AM PST
Published : Saturday, 11 Dec 2010, 3:28 AM PST

Reporter:
Christine Devine

Posted by: myFOXla.com Web Staff

Compton - Parents who signed a petition to turn their local elementary school into a charter school under a new state law... a first ever the history of the country... knew there'd be a battle among adults, but they didn't expect the battle to spill onto their children.

Script:

ANGEL SANCHEZ USED TO LOVE SOCCER, BUT NOW HE'S ALL ABOUT FOOTBALL. WHEN IT COMES TO EDUCATION, ALL HE WANTS IS...

Impending Compton school closures angers many | abc7.com

Impending Compton school closures angers many

Thursday, December 09, 2010

TAGS:

budget, education, school, economy, los angeles news, carlos granda

Carlos Granda
More: Bio, E-mail, Recent Stories, News Team

COMPTON, Calif. (KABC) -- The closure of some Compton schools could save millions of dollars, but angry parents say the real cost would be to their kids' education.

The Compton Unified School District calls it consolidation and realignment, and it comes down to about a half dozen schools being shut down and merged with other schools.

The district believes it could save almost $3 million per year by 2014.

Atlanta Schools Face Scandal While Searching for Leader - NYTimes.com

Scandal and a Schism Rattle Atlanta’s Schools

By KIM SEVERSON

Published: December 11, 2010

REPRINTS

ATLANTA — Did any school district in the country have a tougher week than the one in Atlanta?

Enlarge This Image

Kendrick Brinson for The New York Times

Dr. Beverly Hall, Atlanta Public Schools Superintendent, in a kindergarten class at Centennial Place Elementary School.

First, criminal investigators began digging anew into accusations of widespread cheating on state standardized tests that had been plaguing the district for two years.

The allegations, which center on dozens of employees who are suspected of changing test answers to improve scores, have already been the focus of investigations by the state and the Atlanta school system that have cost more than $1 million.

The new investigation led an influential group of black pastors to call a news conference to denounce what they say is a “witch hunt” on educators who — however misguided —

Commercial break for LAUSD? - LA Daily News

Commercial break for LAUSD?

SPONSORS: Cash-strapped district weighs advertising, but opponents say it's not appropriate on campuses.

By Connie Llanos, Staff Writer

Posted: 12/12/2010 03:32:20 AM PST

Updated: 12/12/2010 03:34:13 AM PST

Soon, Los Angeles Unified students could be playing football on a Nike Field or punching keyboards in a Dell Computer Lab.

But it's safe to say they won't be dining at a Coca-Cola Cafe.

Faced with crippling budget cuts, L.A. Unified is looking at joining other cash-strapped districts nationwide that have turned to corporate sponsors to raise money.

School board members Tuesday will consider loosening the district's ban on corporate advertising and sponsorship on campuses. The plan could raise $18 million a year - money that would go directly to athletic programs and extracurricular activities that face the chopping block.

"At a time when we're broke, it doesn't make sense to not look at corporate branding and sponsorship as a

Government Establishes Siege Following Successful Strike at UPR « occupy california

Government Establishes Siege Following Successful Strike at UPR

by *

SAN JUAN, Puerto Rico – Having achieved student control over the [University of Puerto Rico, Río Piedras] campus during the early morning on December 7th, the second day of the strike flowed with relative calm. By then, students were not going to wait on the rumors about a potential eviction by police. To spice up the rumor, the police dispersed hundreds of fliers from their helicopter around 6:30 in the morning around the whole campus warning their intervention of the strike. This old military tactic was the beginning of the current siege on the campus.

As part of the coordinated repression, a leaflet was distributed in schools neighboring the UPR: Barbosa, Muñoz

Schools Matter: Compton Parents Charge Barr and Austin's "Parent Revolution" with Deception, Manipulation, and Lies

Compton Parents Charge Barr and Austin's "Parent Revolution" with Deception, Manipulation, and Lies

by Jim Horn

In what will likely go down in corporate ed reform history as the Compton Caper, the otherwise disgustingLATimes is reporting that Compton parents are coming forward with allegations of strong-arming and deception by Parent Revolution to get enough signatures to charterize a public school that has recently demonstrated strong improvement on state test scores.

Sensing an all-out repudiation by the school community of the oligarch-funded front group, Parent Revolution, Austin and Barr called up the Governator and L.A.'s plutocratic mayor to try to get ahead of the story. The spin

Disconnections (Yang) « Outside the Cave

Disconnections (Yang)

by Stephen Lazar

(I am writing two posts on disconnections, which are meant to be read in tandem. The other is here.)

The most jarring experience I have on a regular basis is the trip I take into the virtual world of education bloggers and tweeters.

Most days, I take leave of my physical presence on the 2 train or in my apartment, and enter a conversation with thousands of teachers and other education-minded folks around the world. It’s usually a thought-provoking conversation, but sometimes when I enter back to the reality of my Bronx school and classroom, the distance

Disconnections (Yin)

by Stephen Lazar

(I am writing two posts on disconnections, which are meant to be read in tandem. The other is here.)

The most jarring experience I have on a regular basis is the 70 minute trip I take once a month from my school in the North Bronx down the UFT headquarters in Downtown Manhattan.

I start on the fourth floor of my school, go down a stairwell that, by the end of the day, is often filled with food, condoms, or fresh graffiti, and head out to Gun Hill Rd. Across the street, I see an entire city block of shops that have been boarded up for the five years I’ve been working there, walk about ten minutes past littered filled gutters, past they YB gang that stands daily at the corner of Gun Hill and White Plains to terrorize our students, and take the 2 train.

I emerge from the train nearly an hour later at the Wall St. stop. I walk half a block, only to be met by the stair of

The Washington Teacher: New Beginnings

New Beginnings

by The Wash. Teacher

From the desk of Candi Peterson:

December 1 marked a new beginning for me as the WTU General Vice President. During the past two years as the writer of this blog, I have enjoyed confronting stormy subjects on public education with readers by my side on a weekly basis. Topics here ranged from former DC Schools Chancellor Michelle Rhee, to performance based excessing, unprincipled principals, inside teacher stories, and "holdover" union officials. I have frequently said this blog was never intended to be a permanent dwelling place and first started out with me trying to dispel myths about the red and green teachers contract proposal and later morphed into an online voice for teachers.

I believe you can’t stand still in one place forever or it becomes a comfort zone. Don’t get me wrong, I'm not through with blogging at least not yet but in my new role- more of my time will be spent seeking

Queens Teacher: Teachers: What We Need to Do to Fix Schools

Teachers: What We Need to Do to Fix Schools

by Queens Teacher

Teachers: What we need to do to fix schools
By Valerie Strauss

This is the companion piece to the previous post, in which teachers expressed their frustrations about the attacks on their profession. This piece is about a new report by 14 teachers from high-needs urban schools around the country about how to effectively improve conditions in these schools.

The following was written by Larry Ferlazzo, an English teacher at Luther Burbank High School in Sacramento, Calif. He is the author of several books on education policy and practice, including English Language Learners: Teaching Strategies That Work, and maintains a popular resources blog for teachers. This appeared on the

Saturday, December 11, 2010

Teachers describe administrative failings at Dunbar

By Bill Turque

Washington Post Staff Writer
Saturday, December 11, 2010; 5:45 PM

Geometry teacher Jessica Lilly found the fliers on the walls when she arrived at Dunbar Senior High School early one morning last month. They included a photo of a female student, with her name, phone number and an obscene caption announcing that she was available for oral sex with boys and girls.

"Wanna be next?????"

"Holla at Me!!!!"

It was a vile piece of bullying. Lilly said that as far she knows, there was no response from Friends of Bedford, the team of private consultants who ran the school until they were removed by interim Chancellor Kaya Henderson on Wednesday. It was one of numerous incidents of harassment and violence that

4LAKids - some of the news that doesn't fit: ENRAGEMENT TO ENGEGEMENT: Towards Sustained Parent Power

ENRAGEMENT TO ENGEGEMENT: Towards Sustained Parent Power Themes in the News for the week of Dec. 6-10, 2010 By UCLA IDEA | http://bit.ly/9k0ADx 12-10-2010 - This week, hundreds of parents whose children attend McKinley Elementary School in Compton petitioned the Compton Unified School District to convert ...

NEW DROPOUT RATE IN QUESTION: CALPADS delays complicate districts' work By John Fensterwald - Educated Guess | http://bit.ly/eaEZpA The state Department of Education reported a sizable uptick in the dropout rate this week, leading to speculation that school budget cuts, the high school exit exam, or – choose your speculation ...

CALIFORNIA SCHOOLS MUST FOLLOW PHYS. ED. LAW, COURT RULES Mark Walsh – School Law writer for Ed Week | http://bit.ly/hQVxq5 December 10, 2010 - Usually, there's a kid who will do anything to get out of physical education class. But in California, one elementary student and his father have sued their school ...

Schools Matter: RIMA Charter to Management Org: Goodbye

RIMA Charter to Management Org: Goodbye

by Kenneth Libby

One less charter school for Seth Andrew/Democracy Prep/Democracy Builders. From the Providence Journal:

[O]n Thursday, the school’s board of directors severed its relationship with Andrew and his management organization, Democracy Builders, in a dispute over money.

The school will continue, and Andrew has applied to open another, in Providence. What the split means for either side is only beginning to unfold.

Andrew’s spokeswoman said Friday that Andrew was caught off guard by news that the mayoral academies board had voted his organization out. Spokeswoman Kerri Lyon said that Andrew had planned to come to Rhode Island Friday “in good faith” for a mediation session at the state Department of Education between the groups, but canceled the trip when he learned of the split.

Four Theses on the Invisible University « occupy california

Four Theses on the Invisible University

by *

from reallyopenuniversity:

A radical critique of the university and student activism from the Regents of the Invisible University. Dedicated to our comrades at the University of California.

Thesis 0.1: The University is a Machine in the Network of Capitalism & Empire.

Does anyone still pretend that earning a degree is anything other than job training? Can professors still hide that their knowledge is commodified? Is it not clear that the university is the lap-dog of the state?

Thesis 0.2: There is No Crisis. It is all Business as Usual.

We cry for the loss of a dream that never was. The university was never ours. After shaking off the unessential it

Almost Looping « JD2718

Almost Looping

DECEMBER 11, 2010 PM31 5:05 PM

tags: looping

by jd2718

I hadn’t quite thought about it like this, but I’ve more or less looped with my high school’s current senior class.

Looping is more common in lower grades. By alternating 3rd and 4th grade, a teacher effectively has one class for two years. You need a stable school for that – where a quarter or more of the staff turns over each year, it just doesn’t make sense. My friend almost moved to a 7/8 alternating loop in math in his suburban school a few years ago.

But in high school? Maybe in some mini-schools. But modern Bronx mini-schools are turnover factories, where teachers get permanently slotted into upper-level classes, so no, not at all common. And in big high schools? Could you really pull together the same students for the same

CALL OUT on Public EDUCATION | forimpact.org

CALL OUT on Public EDUCATION

Tom Suddes | December 10, 2010

Five years or so ago, I spoke at a fairly large gathering of ‘Public Educators’, mostly principals of public high schools and some district superintendents. (Nick claims I ranted like Tom Peters on serious medication. He also says they all looked at me as if I were ‘crazy’. Who would have guessed?)

Essence of my message was:

• Change or Die.

• Abandon Almost Everything.

• Re-Imagine… Re-Design… Re-Invent.

Almost every public high school is having FUNDING CHALLENGES. Levies passed or not passed. Cutting budgets. Dropping co-curricular activities. Pay to play, etc.

The Big Idea: PUBLIC education vs. public EDUCATION. It’s all about the

Strong Parenting Is Key to America’s Future | Lefty Parent

Strong Parenting Is Key to America’s Future

December 11th, 2010 at 11:43

My eye caught the above title in an Education Week magazine on-line teaser and couldn’t resist reading the article, by Joseph Gauld, the founder of the Hyde Schools. I certainly wasn’t comfortable with his Cold War “us and them” framing of the need for good parenting…

Not so long ago, we vigorously opposed Russian Communism’s threat to our American beliefs. Now China is projected to replace us as the world’s economic leader… To reaffirm democratic principles for ourselves and other nations, we must meet China’s economic challenge to our leadership… Today, we need the leadership of American mothers, fathers, and all surrogate parents. We need them to begin to develop a standard of excellence in parenting and family, now and for future generations.

Classic hierarchical patriarchal stuff here, framing everything in terms of a high stakes competition between adversaries

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