bigeducationape.blogspot.com - LAUSD and UTLA Collude to End Collective Bargaining and Civil RIghts for Teachers - Perdaily.comLAUSD and UTLA Collude to End Collective Bargaining and Civil RIghts for Teachersby Leonard Isenberg(...
manhattan.ny1.com - To view our videos, you need toenable JavaScript. Learn how.install Adobe Flash 9 or above. Install now. Then come back here and refresh the page. More people were charged with fraud today in con...
cleveland.com - COLUMBUS, Ohio -- David Brennan has cast a long shadow over this year's state budget. The Akron charter-school magnate who has given more than $5 million to Republican politicians dating back to th...
ed.gov - Official Department of Education Photo by Joshua Hoover Cross-posted from TEACH.gov On Thursday, June 16th Secretary Arne Duncan participated in a lively panel discussion about the importance of te...
bigeducationape.blogspot.com - Text of H.R.1821 as Introduced in House: Family Engagement in Education Act of 2011 - U.S. Congress - OpenCongressMEDIA ADVISORYContact:Binta Cisse 202.296.2002 x129 bdc@ecius.net Raising Readers: ...
bigeducationape.blogspot.com - Van Jones Considers Legal Action Against Fox News, Demands Glenn Beck RetractionVan Jones Considers Legal Action Against Fox News, Demands Glenn Beck RetractionNEW YORK –- After challenging Glenn B...
huffingtonpost.com - A plan revealed Monday to overhaul Detroit's public schools left stakeholders with more questions than answers about the future of education in the Motor City.The lowest performing schools in Detro...
washingtonpost.com - Instructional superintendent Wayne Ryan, the former principal at Noyes Education Campus who drew acclaim from DCPS for dramatic test score gains and then investigative scrutiny for suspicious level...
denverpost.com - The source of Judy Solano's frustration is this vexing trait, one that leaves her on the outside of some legislative circles: She listens to the constituents. Vexing, that is, particularly on educa...
huffingtonpost.com - NEW YORK –- After challenging Glenn Beck to a debate over the weekend at Netroots Nation and in a MoveOn.org-sponsored ad Monday, Van Jones may have taken his beef with Beck a step further.Jones, a...
bigpondnews.com - 21 Jun 2011 - 06:45amLibyan officials showed reporters five bodies, two of them of toddlers, they said were among nine civilians killed in a 'barbaric' NATO air raid, as pressure mounted on the all...
northjersey.com - TRENTON — A new poll says New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie has a gender gap issue. AP FILE PHOTO NJ Gov. Chris Christie The Quinnipiac (kwin-uh-PEE'-ack) University Poll released Tuesday finds disapp...
nytimes.com - TULSA, Okla. — With their guns firing, a mob of white men charged across the train tracks that cut a racial border through this city. A 4-year-old boy named Wess Young fled into the darkness with h...
hispanicallyspeakingnews.com - Bullying’s Scars May Last a Lifetime, Experts SayBecause millions of kids in the United States are affected by bullying, some people may shrug it off as just a part of growing up. But experts warn ...
mediaite.com - Former “green jobs” czar Van Jones sent Fox News a six-page cease and desist letter claiming that Jones has been called, among other things, a Communist, a 9/11 truther, and other “sensational and ...
petloss.com - Just this side of heaven is a place called Rainbow Bridge. When an animal dies that has been especially close to someone here, that pet goes to Rainbow Bridge. There are meadows and hills for all o...
insidebayarea.com - OAKLAND -- After a decade of struggle, Oakland's massive sculpted monument to heroic perseverance, human rights and peace broke ground Monday The "Remember Them: Champions For Humanity" project wil...
bigeducationape.blogspot.com - Daily Kos: My American Dream - part 1My American Dream - part 1by rss@dailykos.com (teacherken)is about my students, and all the students in all the schools in all the cities, towns, villages, and ...
schoolingintheownershipsociety.blogspot.com - Inequality in the U.S. has has grown steadily since the 1970s, following a flat period after World War II. In 2008, the wealthiest 10 percent earned almost the same amount of income as the rest ...
online.wsj.com - BY MICHAEL HOWARD SAUL Fraud permeated "virtually every level" of the development of New York City's long-delayed and over-budget automated payroll system, U.S. Attorney Preet Bharara said Monday a...
nypost.com - It might be the most-scandal plagued project of his administration, but Mayor Bloomberg today pronounced the $722 million CityTime timekeeping project a great success."We actually did a pretty good...
news.firedoglake.com - A few weeks ago, the consulting firm McKinsey released a controversial study claiming that employers would drop coverage in large quantities when the full Affordable Care Act is implemented. The Ob...
hispanicallyspeakingnews.com - Personal independence, autonomy trump money in data from more than 60 countriesPersonal independence and freedom are more important to people’s well-being than wealth, a new study concludes.Researc...
fdlaction.firedoglake.com - I recent found a very interesting Wired article from two months ago, about an extremely cheap and reversible male contraceptive currently under going testing. The story about the lack of commercial...
bigeducationape.blogspot.com - Ex-Noyes principal Wayne Ryan resigns - D.C. Schools Insider - The Washington PostEx-Noyes principal Wayne Ryan resignsBy Bill TurqueInstructional superintendent Wayne Ryan, the former principal at...
bigeducationape.blogspot.com - How Bronx Aerospace earns its top rating « JD2718How Bronx Aerospace earns its top ratingby jd2718I have described Bronx Aerospace High School as a place where you would not want to work. Several t...
bigeducationape.blogspot.com - The Best YouTube Channels For Learning English | Larry Ferlazzo's Websites of the Day...The Best YouTube Channels For Learning English This past year, our district decided to let teachers have acce...
'It's for the children' can't just be words in school reform
On a frigid morning last January, a team of street acrobats performed in front of New York's Metropolitan Museum of Art. "It's for the children," the leader promised slyly, as his teammates held out their caps for cash tributes, winning dollars and laughter from those of us watching at once.
"It's for the children," is the message that Gov. Rick Snyder and new Emergency Manager Roy Roberts utter now, as they unveil a plan to make Detroit's tragically failing schools the focal point of a statewide reform program.
"It's for the children" can be shtick. But this "it" — an education reform plan to revive Detroit's moribund school system — may actually be the real deal.
Yes, it's easier to say you're helping kids than actually do it. And any educational reform effort deserves to be met with skepticism and an insistence on more information. But Snyder's plan is seemingly designed to thwart
Instructional superintendent Wayne Ryan, the former principal at Noyes Education Campus who drew acclaim from DCPS for dramatic test score gains and then investigative scrutiny for suspicious levels of answer sheet erasures, has resigned.
In an e-mail to colleagues Friday evening, Ryan did not specify a reason for his departure, effective Monday.
“I am looking forward to the opportunity to pursue new options and old interests,” he said. He also thanked Acting Chancellor Kaya Henderson for “many years of support, encouragement and friendship.”
Ryan became a literal poster boy for D.C. school reform under former Chancellor Michelle A. Rhee after DC CAS scores spiked dramatically a
I have described Bronx Aerospace High School as a place where you would not want to work. Several times. 1,2. Yet it consistently earns one of the highest Progress Report grades from the Department of Education. Not only As, but very high As. One year, I seem to recall, it had the highest A in the City.
Elsewhere NYS reported on the massive number of papers scored exactly at 65. And as result, teachers are no longer allowed to “reread” papers that fall between 60 and 64. But there are other ways to manipulate test scores.
Stanford report finds good and bad in Pennsylvania charter schools
June 20, 2011|By Martha Woodall, Inquirer Staff Writer
Pennsylvania has a larger percentage of high-performing charter schools than the national average, but it also has more underperforming ones.
As a result, Pennsylvania charter students on average are lagging behind students in regular public schools.
Those are the key findings of Stanford University researchers who recently studied four years of test scores to complete one of the most detailed, independent studies of Pennsylvania charter school performance ever conducted.
Their finding: Though students at more than a quarter of the state's charter schools made greater academic gains than their peers at traditional public schools, those at almost half did worse.
The buzz and grant funding have cooled. The national movement has quieted. What remains locally of the small schools reform effort are five under-enrolled Sacramento City Unified schools.
But for Matt Perry, the district director of high school reform, success is measured by improving graduation rates and the feedback from families whose children are enrolled in the small schools.
"If it wasn't for this school, who knows if he would have graduated," said Ben Martinez, whose son, Matthew, graduated last week with
Local magnet school parents from more than 45 campuses in the district organized the meeting in an effort to gauge the new schools chief's commitment to the special program that serves some 16,000 students a year. (Andy Holzman/Daily News Staff Photographer)
Magnet schools should be allowed to expand and multiply, but more state funding or local revenue efforts like a parcel tax, will be needed to allow that to happen, Los Angeles Unified Superintendent John Deasy told some 300 parents Monday at a meeting at North Hollywood High School.
Local magnet school parents from more than 45 campuses in the district organized the meeting in an effort to gauge the new schools chief's commitment to the special program that serves some 16,000 students a year.
The theme-based schools, which were launched as a way to integrate students in the late 1970s, have become the "jewels" of LAUSD, often boasting better test scores and graduation rates than traditional
The Best YouTube Channels For Learning EnglishThis past year, our district decided to let teachers have access to YouTube, and that’s been very helpful. I talk about some ways I use it at The Best — And Easiest — Ways To Use YouTube If, Like Us, Only Teachers Have Access To It. Our school year ...
“Trapit” Looks Like A Nice Way To Make A Personalized Daily “Newspaper”Trapit is a new web tool that lets you create a regularly updated personalized newspaper (or a “trap”) on any topic you want. It’s very easy to create “traps” and it has a very accessible and attractive interface — my students would be able to easily ...
Next CTA pres foresees attacks on union - by John Fensterwald - Educated GuessLike floods and tornados, the attacks on collective bargaining and the imposition of test-score-based teacher evaluations that have swept through states in the Midwest and South this year have not been seen in California. But the incoming president of ...
CTA’s Dean Vogel on issues facing the union: part I - by admin
CTA’s Dean Vogel on issues facing the union: part II - by admin
Louis Freedberg/California WatchStudents play basketball at John Marshall High School in Los Angeles.
As millions of California schoolchildren embark on a months-long summer vacation, low-income students are likely to lose substantial ground academically during the summer, while higher-income students will gain, according to a new report.
Most disturbing, according to a report titled "Making Summer Count," issued last week by the RAND Corp., is that the losses are cumulative and contribute substantially to the achievement gap that California and other
Protecting children online has been a growing concern since, well, the Internet went mainstream. Predators can easily hide their identities, pretending to be younger and using fake profile pictures. With more than 500 million users worldwide, Facebook is the social network of choice to share photos and information, as well as to connect with people around the world. While it is against Facebook’s policy for children younger than 13 to have accounts, Consumer Reports found that more than 7.5 million do. And, even when a child doesn’t have his or her own account, a study released last year found that 92 percent of U.S. babies have some kind of online presence before age 2.
We asked members of our Public Insight Network to share their thoughts on this issue and whether they approve
is about my students, and all the students in all the schools in all the cities, towns, villages, and rural areas.
It is that they will come to school having eaten - dinner last night, breakfast this morning.
It is that they will have a fixed roof over their heads.
It is that they will have their vision and hearing checked, get the necessary dental care.
It is that their parents will be able to care for them, to have jobs with dignity and decent pay and benefits.
It is that they will be respected and honored: gay, straight, bi- or transgendered; white, black, purple, orange or polka-dot; atheist, devout, of any religion, anti-religion; skinny, fat or in between; tall, medium, or short; born in the US or still hoping to be able to stay.
My American Dream - only part of it. And even for this part, there is more:
Today, federal prosecutors said that nearly all the $600 million taxpayers shelled out for the disastrous CityTime project was stolen; and that the fraud goes back to 2003, shortly after Bloomberg's election. (SeeNYT story)
They concluded that the "corruption on the CityTime project was epic in duration, magnitude and scope," (NBC New York) and that the scandal represents "one of largest frauds ever committed against NYC." (NY1).
Yet here are some quotes from our mayor, even after
In my role of CEO of Last Stand for Children First, I've found myself at the center of several political firestorms recently. People don't understand how we can support 18 separate bills in various state legislatures outlawing collective bargaining while being for protecting collective bargaining rights. With battle lines clearly drawn, I'm reminded of the old Bob Seger song, "Which Side Are You On?"
The answer is I'm not on either side. I'm part of a new generation of young philanthropists whose beliefs cannot be limited to the political platform of one party or one governor. On some issues, we're "conservative." On others, we're "liberal." Personally, I disagree with New York's Governor Cuomo on several important issues, but I salute him for ending the dreaded "millionaires tax" once and for all. Likewise, I'm disturbed to see Wisconsin Governor Scott Walker target my beloved craft beers, but I applaud him on standing up to lazy teachers.
If I told you that there was a politician that would turn a backwards agrarian society into an industrial country and a superpower. He would allow peasants to get an education and he would help defeat the greatest evil the world has ever known, you'd probably be thinking this is a great man. What if I told you his name was Joseph Stalin?
In George Bernard Shaw’s play Major Barbara, a munitions factory owner chides his daughter regarding her work in the Salvation Army, telling her, “It is cheap work converting starving men with a Bible in one hand and a slice of bread in the other.” Federal education policies in times of deep budget cuts at the state level strikes me as an attempt at cheap conversions. That they also seem to disregard teacher voice adds insult to injury.
Obviously it’s a more complex situation than the one presented in Shaw’s play, and there are many stakeholders
(For a national view of public education reform see the end of this blog post)
If you are a teacher for the Los Angeles Unified School District (LAUSD) you have no civil rights and no union rights. LAUSD may target you for removal, because you either refuse to go along with the longstanding and highly profitable financial scam they have been running for generations now called public education, aka minority daycare.
It is being played against predominantly students of color in a school district that Whites abandon long ago (only 6% left in LAUSD), making it more segregated that it was prior to Brown vs. Board of Education in 1954. Or if you are just "guilty" of having a great deal of seniority, which puts you high on the salary scale, you can be removed from teaching with no collective bargaining rights and especially no arbitration as guaranteed by the LAUSD/UTLA Collective Bargaining Agreement, which is now systematically ignored, even if UTLA voted for it. With a $408 million budget shortfall, it's open season on older high-seniority and better paid teachers who either suffer from good teaching or
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