Schools Matter: Arne Duncan Has Been to the Mountaintop--to See Which Way the Political Winds Are Blowing

Schools Matter: Arne Duncan Has Been to the Mountaintop--to See Which Way the Political Winds Are Blowing

Arne Duncan Has Been to the Mountaintop--to See Which Way the Political Winds Are Blowing

by Jim Horn

With the Washington Post story finally blowing the lid off the racist scheming that is going on in Wake County to turn the social clock back by 50 years to the era of Jim Crow, Arne Duncan has finally come out of his spider hole to make a statement on how much he supports diversity in schools:

Thursday, January 13, 2011; 7:16 PM

America's strength has always been a function of its diversity, so it is troubling to see North Carolina's Wake County School Board taking steps to reverse a long-standing policy to promote racial diversity in its schools ["In N.C., a new battle on school integration," front page, Jan. 12]. The board's action has led to a complaint that has prompted an investigation by our Office for Civil Rights, but it should also prompt a conversation among educators, parents and students across America about our core values.

Those core values, embodied in our founding documents, subsequent amendments and court rulings, include equity and diversity in education and opportunity. In fact, on Monday we

Rachel's Rants, Raves, and Recollections: Publish or Perish

Rachel's Rants, Raves, and Recollections: Publish or Perish

Publish or Perish

by Rachel Levy

(This has been cross-published at All Things Education.)

I got an essay accepted at truthout. Yay! I wrote about the Obamas' decisions regarding the education of their children and President Obama's statements about that decision in the context of his administration's education policies. (A recent excellent and comprehensive review of Obama's promises on education in contrast to his actual policies can be found here.)

"Mr. President, We Want Your Children's Education, Too" went through many, many drafts and I was very pleased when it was accepted by the first place I sent it. (An aside about the writing/publishing process: Almost all of my publications had been submitted to targeted publications I know well.) I submitted the piece back in November 2010, but the editor I corresponded with warned me it would be probably a while. It happened to come out on January 9, 2010. At first, I was ashamed of its publication date, given it was the day after the shootings in

Modern School: SF Schools Rogues Gallery

Modern School: SF Schools Rogues Gallery

SF Schools Rogues Gallery

by noreply@blogger.com (Michael Dunn)

Superintendent of San Francisco Schools, Carlos Garcia, has vowed to reform his administration and make accounting more transparent, in an attempt to clean up the image of SFUSD in the wake of the Trish Bascom embezzlement scandal. (Didn’t Arlene Ackerman do this already?) Garcia plans to tighten district accounting practices, hire an internal auditor and require competitive bids for future contracts with organizations running after school programs.

Bascom and four others in the Student Support Services Department are accused of diverting tens of thousands of dollars to their own personal bank accounts. Garcia continues to play dumb and to deflect all blame onto rogue elements in the district. “We were pretty shocked…” he said. “Our systems were good, but they could never ensure that our system could control someone doing something stupid.”

SFUSD has a long history of corruption and scandal reaching up to its highest echelons. Garcia should not only have been aware of this history, but actively working to destroy its remaining vestiges. Bascom, for example, had been an administrator since the Bill Rojas days. Considering how corrupt Rojas was, it would not be surprising to find out that Bascom picked up a few of her tricks from the expert himself. At the very least, Garcia had a

Classroom Management Tip: Call The House, Not The Dean — The Jose Vilson

Classroom Management Tip: Call The House, Not The Dean — The Jose Vilson

Classroom Management Tip: Call The House, Not The Dean

by JOSE on JANUARY 14, 2011 · 0 COMMENTS

in LIFE

Fire Extinguisher

Yesterday, something occurred to me as the dean walked past my class and our school had a change of period, I hadn’t once called the dean for anything this whole year. The students I’ve had this year are on average the same as most of the other classes I’ve had, behaviorally and academically. They’re still precarious about studying and homework (something else I’ll have to discuss next week), and they’re still learning about the limits I’ve created, a “social” learning environment that sometimes becomes too gossipy. Yet, for some reason, I’ve decided that I wasn’t going to take any grievances

I’m not the only one who thinks the IEA leadership opened the door to Accountabilty Counts. « Fred Klonsky's blog

I’m not the only one who thinks the IEA leadership opened the door to Accountabilty Counts. « Fred Klonsky's blog

I’m not the only one who thinks the IEA leadership opened the door to Accountabilty Counts.

by Fred Klonsky

Stand for Children CEO, Jonah Edelman

Have I been too harsh in making the claim that the willingness of IEA leadership to concede on our local collective bargaining rights last year opened the door to Stand For Children’s assault on collective bargaining now?

When the committee that Governor Quinn created to write the proposals for legislative action in support of the state’s Race to the Top application proposed making every district link individual student performance to teacher

Schools Matter: Behaving like children

Schools Matter: Behaving like children

Behaving like children

by skrashen

Children should not be allowed to behave like children

Sent to the Buffalo News, January 14

It's wonderful to know that kindergarten children in New York schools will be required to attain higher standards in math and know how to "interpret literature from a wide variety of genres and a spectrum of American and world cultures" ("More math required for students in

Mike Klonsky's SmallTalk Blog: That old gang of mine

Mike Klonsky's SmallTalk Blog: That old gang of mine

That old gang of mine

by Mike Klonsky

Ed Burke and Gery Chico are back together again at long last. Ald. Edward "Slow Eddie" Burke, powerful chairman of the City Council’s Finance Committee announced his support for Chico, his longtime friend and protege, in the race for mayor.

Back in the day, Burke and Chico were both part of the infamousVrdolyak 29, the all-white Chicago City Council's majority bloc that tried to thwart the city's first black mayor, Harold Washington. The 29 were led by Alderman Edward “Fast Eddie” Vrdolyak of the 10th Ward and "Slow Eddie" from the 14th. Chico served as a staffer on Burke's committee and learned politics from his mentor, Burke. He later served as Mayor Daley's hand-picked school-board president.

According to today's Sun-Times:

In 1989, Burke dropped out of the mayor’s race and threw his support to Daley. The deal restored Burke to the role of Finance Committee chairman he had held during Council Wars...Chico served

Frustrated Los Angeles teachers now have a progressive voice, NewTLA | Thoughts on Public Education

Frustrated Los Angeles teachers now have a progressive voice, NewTLA | Thoughts on Public Education

Frustrated Los Angeles teachers now have a progressive voice, NewTLA

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Posted on 1/14/11 • Categorized as Pay, Tenure

By Mike Stryer

Like parents and our community, teachers in Los Angeles are frustrated with the current state of education. Frustrated by budget cuts, furloughs, large class sizes, excessive standardized testing, shifting priorities of Los Angeles Unified, and large numbers of layoffs/displacements at virtually every school site. We are also frustrated by something well within our control: our union, UTLA. The positive side of this frustration has been the birth of a fresh, clear voice of Los Angeles teachers both committed to quality education and open to desperately needed reform.

Despite the paramount importance of having a strong teachers’ union committed to excellence in education, most teachers in Los Angeles remain uninvolved in the union and broader educational issues, choosing to focus on their classrooms. Perhaps this is because much of the UTLA leadership appears stuck in a narrowly-focused, oppositional type o

Mike Klonsky's SmallTalk Blog: Racism & resegregation take hold in Wake County, N.C.

Mike Klonsky's SmallTalk Blog: Racism & resegregation take hold in Wake County, N.C.

Racism & resegregation take hold in Wake County, N.C.

by Mike Klonsky

Gen Tata & Palin

"I'm talking about diversity sir," ABC11 I-Team reporter Jon Camp said.

"I'm talking about achievement," Tata replied. -- ABC News

According to the Washington Post, the Wake County School Board is turning back the clock on desegregation. Wake County's new T-Party superintendent, Gen. Tony Tata (Sarah Palin's buddy) looks to continue the school board's emphasis on "neighborhood schools." Tata told WRAL that he believes progress and diversity are two

This Week In Education: Turnarounds: Green Dot Gets Part Of Another High School

This Week In Education: Turnarounds: Green Dot Gets Part Of Another High School

Turnarounds: Green Dot Gets Part Of Another High School

by Alexander Russo

Four long years after Locke High School teachers signed petitions to convert their school (and three years into the Locke turnaround effort), charter operator Green Dot Public Schools is finally moving to expand its efforts on the turnaround front. This time around, however, it's not a teacher petition or even parent signatures that are triggering the process but rather an abbreviated district-level decision process. On Wednesday the district approved a plan for Green Dot and a second charter operator (Alliance for College Ready Public Schools) and Mayor Villaraigosa's Partnership for LA Schools to break Jordan up into three different schools. Read below for more details and links and commentary.

Teachers will have to reapply for their jobs (Los Angeles Times). Less than half of the teachers are expected to

The Answer Sheet - The biggest flaw in Gates value-added study

The Answer Sheet - The biggest flaw in Gates value-added study

The biggest flaw in Gates value-added study

The following was written by Matthew Di Carlo, senior fellow at the non-profit Albert Shanker Institute, located in Washington, D.C. This post originally appeared on the institute’s blog. By Matthew Di Carlo The National Education Policy Center just released a scathing review of last month’s preliminary report from the Gates Foundation-funded Measures of Effective Teaching (MET) project. The critique was written by Jesse Rothstein, a highly respected Berkeley economist and author of an elegant and oft-cited paper demonstrating how non-random classroom assignment biases value-added estimates (also see the follow-up analysis).

The Latest from Tunisia’s Student Revolt « Student Activism

The Latest from Tunisia’s Student Revolt « Student Activism

The Latest from Tunisia’s Student Revolt

by Angus Johnston

Dozens of protesters have been killed and untold thousands have taken to the streets as Tunisia’s young people have begun to stand up to their government in recent weeks. Protests began in December after the suicide by self-immolation of a young college graduate, and have swelled to envelope the entire North African nation.

Here’s the latest:

Tunisia’s president, Zine El Abidine Ben Ali, declared in a speech yesterday that he would step down at the end of his current term in 2014. He also announced new constraints on police action and new internet freedoms while promising lower food prices, but his words were greeted by a deeply skeptical public and had little effect on

Parents not laughing at Schools Chancellor Cathie Black's 'birth control' overcrowding joke

Parents not laughing at Schools Chancellor Cathie Black's 'birth control' overcrowding joke

BY RACHEL MONAHAN
DAILY NEWS STAFF WRITER

Friday, January 14th 2011, 11:51 AM

Xanthos/News

Cathie Black, the future chancellor of the New York City public school system speaking during a NY Daily News Editorial meeting on the 3rd floor of 450 West 33rd Street.

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Schools Chancellor Cathie Black joked that there's a simple solution to overcrowding in lower Manhattan - birth control.

"Could we just have some birth control for a while?" Black said Thursday night. "It would really help us."

Black earned chuckles for the joke at an overcrowding task force meeting, but downtown parents say the growing population of youngsters is no laughing matter.

"I always cringe when I hear that. Joel Klein said it a couple of years ago as well," said Public School 234 parent Tricia Joyce. "I understand the temptation to joke about it. But our situation isn't funny any more."

The problem, parents and advocates charge, is that the city offered incentives to developers to build without also increasing school seats.

Joyce was also upset that Black compared weighing the needs of different

Read more: http://www.nydailynews.com/ny_local/education/2011/01/14/2011-01-14_parents_not_laughing_at_schools_chancellor_cathie_blacks_birth_control_overcrowd.html#ixzz1B1xhWm7a

NYC Teachers, United Federation Of Teachers Union Frustrated With Ruling, Department of Education Orders CBS New York – News, Sports, Weather, Traffic and the Best of NY

NYC Teachers, United Federation Of Teachers Union Frustrated With Ruling, Department of Education Orders CBS New York – News, Sports, Weather, Traffic and the Best of NY

NYC Teachers, Union Frustrated With Ruling, DOE Orders

January 14, 2011 11:49 AM

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(Clipart Photo)

NEW YORK (CBS 2) — Following a controversial ruling Monday which allowed performance ratings for 12,000 New York City school teachers to be released, the United Federation of Teachers sent a memo to members Thursday expressing disagreement and frustration with the decision.

The memo states that the performance ratings, which are based on statistical analysis of student test scores, are “fundamentally flawed” and the Department of Education will “do nothing” to fix the reports.

Instead, the DOE is asking teachers who have taught English or math in grades

The Legacy of Joel Klein: Part Three « EdVox

The Legacy of Joel Klein: Part Three « EdVox

The Legacy of Joel Klein: Part Three

by edvoxny

Public Participation

“I probably could have spent more time, or should have spent more time really engaging people so they really understand the things that drive me.” (Joel Klein, interview with New York Times reporter Javier Hernandez, December 24, 2010.)

In the many interviews he’s conducted since he announced his resignation, Joel Klein has given himself high marks for his eight-year reign as the city’s Schools Chancellor. One of the few performance areas Klein has criticized is his ability to effectively communicate with the city’s public schooling’s constituencies. But as the above quote indicates, Klein seems to think communication is the same as one-way transmission, and that efforts at persuasion are the same as dialogue. Klein and his patron, Mayor Bloomberg, seemed so committed