Thursday, February 17, 2011

SRC juggles hot issues at marathon meeting Notes from the news, Feb. 17 | Philadelphia Public School Notebook

Notes from the news, Feb. 17 | Philadelphia Public School Notebook

Notes from the news, Feb. 17

by Erika Owens

notes from the news image SRC juggles hot issues at marathon meeting The Notebook blog
At yesterday's meeting the SRC voted on a few charter expansions, heard about the budget and Facilities Master Plan, and heard from community members at Audenried about the plans to turn it over to Universal Companies.

See also: Philly SRC hears dire warning on school funding The Inquirer
School panel hears Audenried objections Daily News

Level with the public on Philadelphia school closings! Daily News (opinion)
The Daily News republished an editorial from the Notebook's February edition on school closings.

From a parent to the SRC: An open letter The Notebook blog
If the SRC or Superintendent Ackerman don't give notice by March 1, Ackerman will get an automatic one-year extension on her contract. The SRC Chairman said the issue is a "personnel matter."

Corbett administration backs school vouchers Philadelphia Tribune
In testimony to the state education committee, Gov. Corbett's nominee for education secretary spoke in support of vouchers.

See also: RFA’s Kate Shaw discusses vouchers on Fox News Research for Action blog
On school vouchers, the data isn't encouraging Daily News (opinion)
Corbett OKs tax $ for use in private schools AP via Philly.com
Heated debate in Pa. Senate hearing on school vouchers The Inquirer
SB 1 Hearing Video and Testimony Keystone State Education Coalition

Gaining programs, losing a principal at Pennell Elementary WHYY/NewsWorks
Pennell will be a Promise Academy next year and will receive a new principal.

See also: Promise principals, hiring timeline released The Notebook blog

2nd annual TAG 'Justice in the Classroom' workshop The Notebook blog
The event is this Saturday and is hosted by the Teacher Action Group's Restorative Justice committee.

Lawmaker eyes cap on superintendent salaries Daily News

Notes from the Field-West and Audenried Student Protestors Challenge The Wisdom of The District’s Leadership City School Stories

Active Grade: Create Standards-Based Reports Philly Teacher blog

McCall Embraces Diversity Philly School Search

A final farewell to a Roxborough student WHYY/NewsWorks

School districts set to share sobering news The Inquirer

Temple students rally in Harrisburg for continued state support Temple University

Please email us if we missed anything today or if you have any suggestions of publications, email lists, or other places for us to check for news.

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Notes from the news

Walker to propose $1 billion cut to education: MPS would lose up to 25% of its funding | ThirdCoast Digest

Walker to propose $1 billion cut to education: MPS would lose up to 25% of its funding

A typical Wednesday night. A gym full of parents and citizens ready to discuss possible cuts to the Milwaukee Public School budget and how it will affect their school. MPS School Board President Michael Bonds in attendance to answer their questions.

But instead of answers, Bonds brought bad news for not only the parents and students at La Escuela Fratney Elementary School, but for schools across the state.

“I have no good news for you,” Bonds said. “We were just told that Gov. Walker will propose a $1 billion cut to K12

Urgent: Say ‘No!’ to Wisconsin Governor’s Anti-Teacher Budget Bill Education Votes

Education Votes

Urgent: Say ‘No!’ to Wisconsin Governor’s Anti-Teacher Budget Bill

by cmccabe | Discuss 21

Tags: Scott Walker, teachers budget, Wisconsin

By Cynthia McCabe

UPDATE: We’ve been asking you to take a stand for Wisconsin’s workers this week and you have, by the tens of thousands. But tomorrow and Friday we need you to take a seat. If you’re in Wisconsin, there will be a two-day sit-in around the statehouse. Check the Wisconsin Education Association Council website for up-to-date information.

On Friday, Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker released his budget bill that contained outrageous attacks on the rights of public school teachers.

Their rights to organize a union. To bargain on overtime and salary schedules. To secure

Mike Klonsky's SmallTalk Blog: Reforming Rhee-form

Reforming Rhee-form

by Mike Klonsky

Some good news coming out of D.C. Mayor Gray is standing up to de-funding threats by corporate reformers. He says he's looking to reform Rhee's "reform", collaborate with union & select permanent Rhee-placement.

Gray's education transition team is recommending significant changes to the controversial IMPACT teacher evaluation tool created by interim Schools Chancellor Kaya Henderson as a way to rate teachers and fire them on the basis of student standardized test scores. Henderson was Rhee's assistant. But it's looking more and more likely that she herself will replaced based on recommendations from Gray's transition team which is headed by Katherine Bradley,

Schools Matter: Relay School of Education: The New Test U School of Penal Pedagogy for the Poor

Relay School of Education: The New Test U School of Penal Pedagogy for the Poor

by Jim Horn

re lay: an electromagnetic device for remote or automatic control that is actuated by variation in conditions of an electric circuit and that operates in turn other devices (as switches) in the same or a different circuit.

If you consider it either ridiculous, dangerous, unethical, unscientific, or simply stupid to fire and hire teachers based on gains or losses among invalid and non-reliable student test scores, you ain't seen nothin' yet. Last Fall when the Oligarchs convened the leaders of the lonely hearts club of teacher accreditation outfits known as NCATE (National Council for Accreditation of Teacher Education) to declare that teacher education needed to "incubate a whole new form of teacher education," those of us familiar with NCATE's fealty to the Business Roundtable knew something big was in the warmer.

Now we know. The first hatchling is christenend the Relay School of Education, a creation of political hack,

Update: Mayor's Initiative A Partial Success - District 299: Chicago Public Schools Blog

AM News: Another Urban Prep "Success" Story [image: image from webmedia.newseum.org]All Urban Prep seniors accepted to college Tribune: Of the 107 seniors in 2010--the school's first graduating class--101 enrolled in college, King said. Three went into the military and another three joined the ...

Update: Mayor's Initiative A Partial Success [image: Picture 97] Linda Lutton's WBEZ story about Renaissance 2010 seems to suggest that the initiative is a failure or at least a major disappointment but reading the story I'm not sure the own numbers support that. To be sure, Ren10 didn't save ...

Quote: Sticking To "Actionable Items" *[image: Quotes2] If the conversation strays from the question of what is the responsibility of the person who is talking, then we’re not on solid ground anymore. * -- Balto supe Andres Alonso in Denver via EdNews CO

Call for Applications: NEH Summer Seminar: Varieties of American Feminism, 1830-1930 « Feminist Teacher

Call for Applications: NEH Summer Seminar: Varieties of American Feminism, 1830-1930

by feministteacher

Sojourner Truth

The following is a guest post from Elisabeth Israels Perry, who is the John Francis Bannon, SJ, Professor, Emeritus at Saint Louis University in Saint Louis, MO. A specialist in American women’s history, Perry will be offering an NEH seminar for teachers called Varieties of American Feminism, 1830-1930 this summer. I invited Perry to share more about the scope of the seminar and how to apply. The deadline is March 1.

Hello feminist teachers! My name is Elisabeth Israels Perry, and I’m an Emeritus Professor of History and Women’s Studies at Saint Louis University. This coming summer, I’m directing a seminar for teachers called“Varieties of American Feminism, 1830-1930,” which is sponsored by the National Endowment for the

Wisconsin Senate to vote on anti-union bill | The Daily Caller

Wisconsin Senate to vote on anti-union bill | The Daily Caller - Breaking News, Opinion, Research, and Entertainment

Wisconsin Senate to vote on anti-union bill

By SCOTT BAUER | Published: 5:21 AM 02/17/2011 | Updated: 9:25 AM 02/17/2011

Rep. Jeff Fitzgerald, center, R-Horicon, talks to the media Wednesday, Feb. 16, 2011, at the State Capitol in Madison, Wis., about an upcoming vote if the state Legislature will strip public workers of most of their union rights. At left Rep. Robin Vos, R-Burlington and Sen. Alberta Darling, R-Menomonee Falls. (AP Photo/Andy Manis)

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This Week In Education: Reform: Another Questionable Urban Prep "Success" Story

Reform: Another Questionable Urban Prep "Success" Story

by Alexander Russo

The event was transmitted live online and the Mayor was in attendance along with a throng of media. There were repeated assertions that what was being done was unique nationally. The occasion? The announcement that - for the second year in a row -- all of the senior class at Chicago's Urban Prep had been accepted to a four year university. But the school's graduation rate isn't really 100 percent. Roughly 40 kids of the starting class of 2011 didn't make it through at, an issue raised on my blog and in the WSJ (here) last year.

Wisconsin Budget Protest: Thursday Update « Student Activism

Wisconsin Budget Protest: Thursday Update

by Angus Johnston

The Wisconsin budget bill is moving toward a vote in the state senate this afternoon, having passed in a party-line vote in that body’s budget committee late last night.

University of Wisconsin officials are pledging to keep the system’s campuses open today in the face of a planned walkout by faculty and students.

Public schools in Madison, Wisconsin’s capital, are closed for the second straight day today as teachers stage

Wisconsin protests Gov. Walker's (R) Workers' Rights Repeal Bill

Madison, WI, Feb 15, 2011 - Thousands (3,000 inside the Capitol and 10,000 outside) of WIsconsin civil servants (ie, teachers, nurses, correctional officers, etc.) protest the non-negotiated, expedited Workers' Rights Repeal Bill.

Dice Rolling Activity for New Jersey Teachers « School Finance 101

Dice Rolling Activity for New Jersey Teachers

by schoolfinance101

Yesterday, New Jersey’s Education Commissioner announced his plans for how teachers should be evaluated,what teachers should have to do to achieve tenure, and on what basis a teacher could be relieved of tenure. In short, Commissioner Cerf borrowed from the Colorado teacher tenure and evaluation plan which includes a few key elements (Colorado version outlined at end of post):

1. Evaluations based 50% on teacher effectiveness ratings generated with student assessment data – or Value-added modeling (though not stated in those specific terms)

2. Teachers must receive 3 positive evaluations in a row in order to achieve tenure.

3. Teachers can lose tenure status or be placed at risk of losing tenure status if they receive 2 negative

Area protesters hit the streets this morning | WFRV Green Bay: Northeast Wisconsin News, Weather and Sports | Local

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Area protesters hit the streets this morning

WFRV News

Story Created: Feb 17, 2011 at 7:08 AM CST

Story Updated: Feb 17, 2011 at 7:12 AM CST

NORTHEAST WIS. (WFRV) - Several rallies are going on in our area this morning regarding Governor Walker's proposed budget bill.

During rush hour this morning people will be protesting in Green Bay at the corner of Mason Street and Webster Avenue and also on the corner of Oneida Street and Lombardi Avenue.

Bay Port students are planning a walkout at 9 a.m. this morning to support their teachers. Between 9 a.m. and 9:30 a.m. people will gather

ASCD Inservice: Leveraging Change Where it Matters Most: In the Classrooms

Leveraging Change Where it Matters Most: In the Classrooms Policy matters. Just ask anyone who has endured the consequences of not achieving Annual Yearly Progress in one category of No Child Left Behind. Policy has a long reach. However, when it comes to affecting change in classroom practices, its...

Rebel 6 Ramblings School administrators increasingly use blogs and other similar online platforms to communicate with their many constituencies. One fine example is Rebel 6 Ramblings, the blog of Grand Rapids, Mich., school superintendent David Britten. Shortlisted for the ...

Dignity and Respect in the Classroom - Bridging Differences - Education Week

Dignity and Respect in the Classroom

by Deborah Meier

Dear Diane,

I'll be in Chicago when you get this letter. But I'm writing it a week before—while news from Egypt is still up in the air, but democracy seems a less likely outcome every day.** But those who were involved had an experience, I suspect, that has forever changed them. If they survived, they have a sense of dignity, of having stood up to a bully and spoken their minds.

Somewhere recently I read an article which claimed that a study done across national borders showed that people, when offered liberty, freedom, and dignity as choices, picked dignity as the thing they wanted most. I thought that was interesting. Being treated with dignity is, I suspect, part of our natural aspiration as humans. And while it can be crushed, it can also be restored. My experience in schools that placed faculty, family, and student dignity above all else was reassuring. Students came to us without expecting that this was ever likely to be found in schools; families who had similar experiences at being disregarded, patronized, talked down to, and shut out of their children's school lives responded when schools changed, too. Not immediately, but over time.

The same is true for the adults who work in a school—from custodians to secretaries to paraprofessionals and

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