Tuesday, June 21, 2011

Newsweek's Annual List: The Best High Schools in America - Newsweek

The Best High Schools in America

NEWSWEEK studied more than 1,000 top schools to determine the best of the best: the ones producing kids ready for college—and life.

Chris Mcpherson for Newsweek

Graduates at University High School in Irvine, CA.

On any given morning, the halls of the School of Science and Engineering in Dallas look like most public high schools—nondescript classrooms packed with bleary-eyed students bent over ponderous textbooks. The difference is the time: this scene plays out each school day at 7:30 a.m., 90 minutes before class officially starts, and it will repeat for a solid hour after the day’s final bell, as students at this magnet school cram in as much daily, organized study as possible.

The discipline is systemic—teachers sit shoulder to shoulder with the students during this extra study time—and it’s nurtured before matriculation. Incoming freshmen spend the last weeks of summer in “boot camp” to learn math and Java programming. Last year, all 86 seniors graduated, had an average SAT score of 1786, and went to college, even though most of them qualify for a subsidized school lunch. Science and Engineering’s system works so well, in fact, that it landed the No. 1 spot on NEWSWEEK’S annual list of the top public high schools in America.

Collaboration and Contract Make a Difference for Students | NEA Priority Schools Campaign

Collaboration and Contract Make a Difference for Students

June 20, 2011 by Amy Buffenbarger
Filed under PSC Featured News, Union-Led Efforts

NYC Public School Parents: Fact-checking Beth Fertig on the charter co-location issue

Fact-checking Beth Fertig on the charter co-location issue

by Leonie Haimson

See Beth Fertig’s story today on WNYC about the UFT/NAACP co-location lawsuit. Here are some problematic assertions in her piece:

Success Academy is a chain of charters run by former City Councilwoman Eva Moskowitz. Recently, her organization used city data to conduct its own study of 81 charters that share space with regular schools. It found average class sizes in the district schools only went up by about one student over four years, which was no more than the citywide average.

This is the wrong comparison to use; charter co-locations tend to occur in the least crowded schools and neighborhoods. For example, in Queens, where the overcrowding is intense, and class sizes are increasing fast, there are very few co-locations. The comparison in class size should NOT be to schools citywide, but with a similar set of schools nearby. Class sizes should not be increasing in any school, but particularly not in struggling schools in communities like Harlem which otherwise would have the space to keep class sizes small.

Genevieve Foster, who has a daughter attending Harlem Success Academy 1 in the same building as PS

NEA Obama endorsement? Probably. But not yet. « Fred Klonsky's blog

NEA Obama endorsement? Probably. But not yet.

by Fred Klonsky

NEA President Dennis Van Roekel keeps having these delegate teleconferences where delegates to the RA are invited to call in with questions.

Except me. I get screened out.

Hey. I understand. I screen unwanted calls myself.

But here it is:

“Dennis, my friend (union presidents love that “my friend” or “my brother” stuff). Never before in our union’s history have we endorsed a presidential candidate two years before the election. What is it about the current administration’s record toward labor or education that would have it deserve this unprecedented action?”

A number of people have told me over the past few days that they thought the NEA had already endorsed Obama.

Not so.

Oh, the leadership has voted to propose it to the RA. And nobody can seriously believe that the leadership would

Protecting Children in Tough Economic Times | First Focus

Home | First Focus


			*June 21, 2011*
	NEW REPORT Protecting Children in Tough Economic Times: What Can the United States Learn from Britain? A few months ago, First Focus chronicled the U.K.’s successful campaign to effectively halve child poverty in ten years. In recent years, though, the U.K. has been hit just as hard as the U.S. by the global economic crisis and subsequent recession, and as a result, their budget – as is ours – is now under serious pressure. Yet, it terms of maintaining budgetary priorities, the two countries are quite different. At a Congressional briefing hosted last Thursday by Senator Bob Casey, First Focus, and the Foundation for Child Development, a new report was released on the divergent responses. The report’s author, Jane Waldfogel documents the concrete steps taken by the U.K. to maintain its commitment to reduce child poverty in the midst of deficit reduction – even following a change in government to a coalition led by the Conservative party. These include a set of income support policies and investments in early childhood and K-12 education. It is important to note that despite these protections, the U.K. is still instituting severe cuts across the public sector – the deepest many have ever seen – and the longer-term effects on child poverty remain to be seen. Indeed, a member of the U.K. media featured at last week’s event cautioned against relying on the government’s rhetoric alone – highlighting the need for advocates, opposition parties, the media, and the public to maintain pressure on the government to keep its commitment. The political and legislative processes in the U.S. tend to treat the cost of spending on children as an economic loss in the present, rather than an economic investment in the future. This needs to change. Whether through an appeal to morality, economic rationale, or even an appeal to national pride (if the U.K. can do it, why can’t we?), we need to build will and build an agenda around protecting and investing in children in our federal budget. · Read the press release. · Download the report. · Read a blog post about this report * First Focus wishes to acknowledge the Foundation for Child Development for their generous support to make this report and briefing possible. *		*RESOURCES FROM OUR BRIEFING:* Last week, First Focus, in conjunction with Senator Bob Casey (D-PA) and the Foundation for Child Development hosted a Congressional Briefing to discuss the findings outlined in this report. Click here to review presentations and resources from the event.
	www.firstfocus.net

What are educators' professional obligations to learn from social media channels? | Dangerously Irrelevant | Big Think

Paul Bogush pushed back (in a nice way) on my recently-popular post, If you were on Twitter. First he wrote about how most educators are too busy to be involved in social media. Then he wrote about all of the wonderful things that happened during the time when he wasn't on Twitter. Because he's a good writer, Paul evoked all the right feelings in my heart and head. Of course I want to spend time with my wife and kids instead of being on Twitter. Of course I want to read books and take walks in the woods and get my job done, all instead of being in front of a screen. But even though there are only so many hours in a day, it's still a false dichotomy. As I said in my comment to Paul's first post,

there are countless educators who are finding ways to tap into the connective and learning power of social media while simultaneously having healthy, balanced personal and professional lives. In other words, you do not have to be superhuman to do this

BAMN - Operation Save Public Education!

BAMN is leading and coordinating resistance in communities to the cynical, deceptive national effort to replace public schools with segregated charter schools. The popular, widely-supported principles of universal public education and of realizing Dr. King's dream of integration ("separate can never be equal") can be defended through mass student/teacher/parent/community organizing.

ESSENTIAL:

Fighting the New Jim Crow in American K-12 education

• ARTICLE by the UCLA Civil Rights Project summarizing research that shows that school integration is essential to closing the school achievement/ opportunity gap for racial minorities
• (NBC4 NEWS STORY + DEBATE)BAMN and L.A. students win right to intervene in court case to defend city's school integration plan against racist lawsuit
• "Operation King's Dream: A Call to Action - Restoring the Promise of Brown v. Board of Education Starting in Michigan" Analysis of the roots of educational inequality in Michigan and perspective of building a united mass, integrated civil rights movement for equal, integrated, quality education for all.
• "The Truth About Segregation in Ferndale Schools" The New Jim Crow in American education—argument against the emerging system of separate, unequal, charter schools in Metro Detroit.

DETROIT:

We are engaged in a historic struggle to save Detroit's public schools, public jobs, and public services. Mayor Bing and Rob Bobb are using the economic crisis as a pretext to make a sweeping attack on the people of this city. Come here to help organize the student/worker/community movement that is needed to win!

BAMN Declaration to Save Dr. King's Vision for America in Detroit

SAVE OUR CITY! -Statement from AFSCME Local 207 laying out the political situation and how we can stop the attack on public services and public education in Detroit and across the country.

LOS ANGELES:

Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa and charter school magnate Eli Broad are trying to give away dozens of LA's public schools to charters over and against the will of students and parents. This is an ORGANIZING CENTER to defend LA's public schools!

• Circulate the citywide "Petition to Defend Public Education in Los Angeles Unified School District (LAUSD)" Download as PDF
• Circulate the "Petition to Oppose Our School from Being Turned into a Charter/Innovation School"!
English: Word PDF
Español: Word PDF

• CALL TO ACTION to UTLA TEACHERS ( English Español )

BERKELEY:

We are fighting the creation of a charter school that would split off from Berkeley's historic and popular school integration plan and provide many of the district's black and Latina/o students a separate, substandard education.

• Call to Action: Save Dr. King's Vision for America in Berkeley
English Español
• Sign & Circulate the Petition!
English Español Online Petition• BAMN's criticism of Berkeley's achievement-gap report: "'2020 Vision': A Cover for Charter Schools"
English Español

RICHMOND:

VICTORY! Richmond teachers succeeded at fending off an effort by their union leadership and the school district to convert the Richmond schools into a CHARTER SCHOOL DISTRICT under the aegis of the Chevron Corporation. The effort to charterize schools CAN be defeated. Read BAMN's flyer to Richmond teachers urging them to hold strong against the attack on public education.

UPDATES:

Public Education / K-12 Integration

6/16/2011

Save Catherine Ferguson Academy!
CFA stays open -- Build the new civil rights movement, defend public education -- Join BAMN!

6/7/2011

ALL OUT to Catherine Ferguson Academy June 16th!
Detroit students, fight back! Defend your right to a quality education!

4/30/2011

The Summer Leadership Project
Leadership training for the youth leaders of the new civil rights movement

4/15/2011

Detroit students occupy Catherine Ferguson HS to stop school closings
Your support needed NOW!

2/11/2011

March 2nd National Day of Action to Defend Public Education!

Defeat Governor Brown's Proposed Budget Cuts of 1.4 Billion Dollars to the UC, CSU, and CC Systems! No privatization of higher education!

Students Don’t Need More Choices . . . « Cooperative Catalyst

Students Don’t Need More Choices . . .

by johntspencer

. . . they need more power.

I’m sitting in my hotel room at a conference. It doesn’t matter how fancy they make things, the art is bland and anticeptic. I suppose people don’t go to a hotel room to listen to a statement or to feel something deeply or to question social norms.

I flip through the cable channels. Half the shows are voyeuristic “reality” shows helping me to see the melodramatic lives of teen moms or mafia wives. The other shows are reruns of sitcoms from decades past (as if cable tv has become the world’s largest fridge to house yesterday’s hit shows) or shouting matches on a twenty-four-seven news cycle.

The hotel art and cable tv both illustrate a flaw in differentiation. More choices do not lead to higher quality (The Paradox of Choice examines this well). The overall quality decreases as executives try to tailor to each person’s tastes while also remaining a broadcast medium.

I experience this when I read most newspapers or check out my latest issue of Time. It’s as if each media

NYC Educator: You Don't Have a Plan; Or, You Do Have a Plan, We Just Like Ours Better

You Don't Have a Plan; Or, You Do Have a Plan, We Just Like Ours Better

by Miss Eyre

The cartoon at left (from Jim Morin, Pulitzer Prize-winning cartoonist for the Miami Herald) made me laugh without laughing, if you know what I mean. "You don't have a plan!" is a popular straw man argument that one side can use against another when one side simply doesn't like the other's plan or finds it to clash with pre-established beliefs (or talking points). Just as Congressional Republicans like to accuse Democrats, including President Obama (who has put forth a deficit reduction plan), of not having a plan, so Mayor Bloomberg seems to think that his opponents don't have a realistic plan for averting teacher layoffs. Well, we here at NYC Educator have some news for the Mayor: We have a plan.

The selected bullet points below come from Class Size Matters:

Cost cuts or freezes:

$23 million: cancel (or do not renew) contracts w/ McGraw Hill and Scantron for Acuity, or interim

Why I Am Marching on July 30 - Bridging Differences - Education Week

Why I Am Marching on July 30

by Diane Ravitch

Dear Deborah,

I will be marching with the Save Our Schools coalition of teachers and parents on July 30 in Washington, D.C. I know you will be, too. I hope we are joined by many thousands of concerned citizens who want to save our schools from the bad ideas and bad policies now harming them.

I am marching to protest the status quo of high-stakes testing, attacks on the education profession, and creeping privatization.

I want to protest the federal government's punitive ideas about school reform, specifically, No Child Left Behind and the Race to the Top. Neither of these programs has any validation in research or practice or evidence. The nation's teachers and parents know that NCLB has been a policy disaster. Race to the Top incorporates the same failed ideas. Why doesn't Congress know?

I want to protest the wave of school closings caused by these cruel federal policies. Public schools are a public

Shanker Blog » Q: Do We Need Teachers' Unions? A: It's Not Up To Us.

Q: Do We Need Teachers’ Unions? A: It’s Not Up To Us.

by Matthew Di Carlo

I sometimes hear people – often very smart and reasonable people – talk about whether “we need teachers’ unions.” These statements frequently take the form of, “We wouldn’t need teachers’ unions if…,” followed by some counterfactual situation such as “teachers were better-paid.” In most cases, these kinds of musings reflect “pro-teacher” sentiments – they point out the things that are wrong with public education, and that without these things unions would be unnecessary.

I’d just like to make a very quick comment about this line of reasoning, one that is intended to be entirely non-hostile. The question of whether or not “we need teachers’ unions,” though often well-intentioned, is inappropriate.

It’s not up to “us.” The choice belongs to teachers.

Laws pertaining to unions and collective bargaining are of course highly complex, and light years outside the realm of my personal expertise, but the right of workers to organize is grounded in the rights to freedom of speech, freedom of association and freedom of assembly. Americans have a Constitutionally-guaranteed right to

Schools Matter: Duncan Supports Snyder's Privatization Plan for Michigan Schools

Duncan Supports Snyder's Privatization Plan for Michigan Schools

by Jim Horn

Dreamed up by the lawyers to the Billionaire Boys' Club, Gov. Rick Snyder's infamous Public Act 4 grants the Governor or his appointed "emergency" managers "power to fire local officials, cancel contracts, privatize municipal services, and even dissolve whole towns."

Yesterday Snyder applied his new powers to take over, charterize, and further segregate Detroit's poorest schools, and Arne Duncan was on the satellite hookup offering his full support for Snyder's bold action, which is being imposed through the Governor's latest emergency lackey, Roy Roberts, former GM exec trained by the same stooges at Harvard who provide instruction at Eli Broad's corporate training camp for urban superintendents just down the street.

From an excellent piece at HuffPo by Joy Resmovits:

The plan mirrors similar efforts in New Orleans and Tennessee that target the lowest-performing

Latest News and Comment from Education