Friday, July 15, 2011

APS to teachers in scandal: Resign or be fired | ajc.com

APS to teachers in scandal: Resign or be fired

The Atlanta Journal-Constitution

Atlanta Public Schools interim Superintendent Erroll Davis sent letters home to all 178 employees implicated in an ongoing cheating scandal with a short, pointed message: Resign next week or face termination.

The letter follows several high-profile staffing changes by Davis this week in the wake of a searing state report, which detailed widespread test cheating in 44 APS schools and said ex-schools chief Beverly Hall presided over a culture of cover-ups and obstruction during her 12-year tenure.

Davis on Monday accepted the resignation of APS human resources chief Millicent Few, who the report said "illegally ordered" the destruction or alteration of documents and made false statements. Davis also replaced four area superintendents and two principals -- and promised more to come.

In the letter, which began arriving in mailboxes Friday, Davis said the district will accept resignations Monday through Wednesday during normal office hours. APS spokesman

Atlanta Teachers In Scandal Told To Quit, Or Else : NPR

Atlanta Teachers In Scandal Told To Quit, Or Else

Atlanta Public Schools interim Superintendent Erroll Davis has sent letters home to all 178 employees implicated in the system's cheating scandal, informing them they can resign next week or face being fired.

The Atlanta Journal-Constitution reports that the letters began arriving in mailboxes Friday.

Davis states in the letter that Atlanta Public Schools will accept resignations Monday through Wednesday, and the district will begin termination proceedings against those who decide to try and keep their jobs.

A state investigation released this month found that 178 Atlanta educators cheated on Criterion-

MInority Student Group Pushed CPS to Remove Officers From Schools - Hispanically Speaking News

MInority Student Group Pushed CPS to Remove Officers From Schools, As They’re Only a Detriment

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July 15, 2011 | by Chicago Tribune | Chicago Metro

Chicago Public Schools (CPS) is being asked to move funds over to counselors and prevention strategies, as a student advocacy group says the current zero-tolerance disciplinary policies do not work in the schools.

Thursday, with a cost analysis report in hand, Voices of Youth in Chicago Education (VOYCE) showed that spent $51.4 million on school-based security guards last year, which was roughly 15 times what was spent on college and career coaches.

Each year, CPS spends $25 million for each of its 100 high schools to have two police officers.

Principal Joyce Kenner from Whitney Young told the Chicago Tribune that the police officers in her building keep the campus safe and they ensure the students get to and from the nearby train station

“Those police officers are my additional eyes and ears,” she said. “I absolutely need them both.”

However, the student group’s report “Failed Policies, Broken Futures,” says CPS spends millions

Are Critics of Current Urban Reformers Defenders of the Status Quo? | Larry Cuban on School Reform and Classroom Practice

Are Critics of Current Urban Reformers Defenders of the Status Quo?

by larrycuban

Cropped image of Cabernet Sauvignon grapes fro...

Image via Wikipedia

It won’t be long before shocking reports of incidents erupt from the angry split among contemporary reformers. While this has not yet happened–at least to my knowledge–I can imagine it, given the high temperature of current reform rhetoric. The heated rhetoric on both sides of the reform debate is like one side saying to the other: “I didn’t say it was your fault, I said I was blaming you.”

At a fund-raising soiree for school reform, to make up an example, one attendee accused another of publicly criticizing new state policies that lifted the cap on the number of charter schools and required up to 50 percent of a teacher’s evaluation to be based on student test scores as a “defender of the status quo.” She pointed her finger at the blogging reformer and said: “You are killing a generation of children and youth with your continual jabs at our efforts to expect the very best from teachers and students, to accept ‘no excuses’ from staff, and to fundamentally turnaround a failing system. All you do is support incremental changes here and there while propping up a failing system of schooling.”

The “defender of the status quo” replied angrily that those supposed fundamental reforms have little to no evidence supporting them and, worse, the policies she advocates lay the entire responsibility for success upon teachers and administrators to turn failure into success by ignoring the circumstances in which children come to school. “Incremental reforms,” he said, “can make a difference when they are planned, involve teachers from the

School Tech Connect: It's A Human Right

It's A Human Right

by effacethefacade@yahoo.com (Tim)

Just wanted to point out that recently, a Whittier mom-- Lisa Angonese--- made a very important statement about the right to use a library.

Yes, we're living in a time when public school parents have to assert their basic human rights just to get a library in a school--- and by library, I mean "room to store and circulate donated books," rather than some other

Beyond the Bubble Test: How Will We Measure Learning in the Future? | MindShift

Beyond the Bubble Test: How Will We Measure Learning in the Future?

FILED UNDER: Learning Methods, Tech Tools, Arne Duncan, assessment, PARCC, SMARTER Balanced Assessment Consortium

Flickr: Albertogp123

New technology-based assessments will replace standardized bubble tests.

Last September, Secretary of Education Arne Duncan announced: “Today is a great day! I have looked forward to this day for a long time–and so have America’s teachers, parents, students, and school leaders.”

Duncan was excited about a new way of testing students, one that goes “beyond the bubble test,” the standardized assessments students take every year that have long been criticized as not only useless in measuring any kind of real learning, but actually detrimental to the entire education system.

Ask most teachers, and you’ll hear a litany of reasons why they detest these assessments. They contend the current tests have no bearing on student learning. They waste time that could be better spent in class (the former president of United Teachers Los Angeles, “dismisses the weeks before spring testing as ‘Bubbling-In 101,’” according to a Los Angeles Times article.) They

Can school reformer Joel Klein reform News Corp? | Reuters

Can school reformer Joel Klein reform News Corp?

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Analysis & Opinion

By Joseph Ax and Noeleen Walder

NEW YORK | Fri Jul 15, 2011 6:12pm EDT

(Reuters) - When Joel Klein stepped down from running New York City's schools last year to head the education division at News Corp, he seemed to be trading the glare of government for private sector comforts.

Now he is back in the public eye.

News Corp chairman and CEO Rupert Murdoch has turned to him to "provide important oversight and guidance" as the embattled media group grapples with allegations that reporters at British tabloid News of the World hacked into the cell phones of politicians and other targets.

In response to the growing crisis, News Corp has rushed to create a

Prepping for the Future: Two Black Experiences | The Defenders Online

Prepping for the Future: Two Black Experiences | The Defenders Online | A Civil Rights Blog

Prepping for the Future: Two Black Experiences

Posted By The Editors | July 15th, 2011 (4 hours ago) | Category: Education | No Comments »

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By Kenneth J. Cooper

The only time I’ve interviewed Deval Patrick, after his 2006 election as governor of Massachusetts but before his first inaugural, I began by noting “you and I have a lot in common.” He gave me a puzzled look so I quickly added, “though I haven’t been elected to anything.”

I told the second black governor elected in the country that we both came to Massachusetts in the same year, 1970; at the same age, 14, and “for the same purpose—to go to prep school.”

“Really? Which one?” Patrick inquired, his interest piqued.

“Andover,” I replied, using the informal name of Phillips Academy about 25 miles north of Boston. Patrick attended Milton Academy in a suburb along the city’s southern border.

Though we never met in our youth, the governor and I were on the back side of the first wave of large numbers of black students to attend New England boarding schools, until then the predominant preserve of the sons and daughters of elite white families. Patrick arrived from an impoverished family on Chicago’s South Side; I from a struggling working-class one in Denver. We both won scholarships, his from the nonprofit A Better Chance, mine directly from Andover.

Governor Deval Patrick

So I was most interested in what Patrick says about his Milton Academy experiences in his recent memoir, “A Reason to Believe: Lessons from an Improbable Life.” Fortunately, he writes a lot about Milton, much more than

School-Based Health Centers - Year 2011 (CA Dept of Education)

California Receives $14 Million for School-Based Health Centers

SACRAMENTO — State Superintendent of Public Instruction Tom Torlakson today issued the following statement regarding the $14 million in grant funds issued by the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services to 35 school-based health centers in California:

"These federal grants reinforce what educators know: good health contributes to student success.

"Missed school time is missed learning time. Students who aren’t in school or have trouble concentrating because of illnesses or chronic conditions, such as asthma or diabetes, have greater difficulty staying engaged in their education.

"School-based health centers, especially when paired with a credentialed school nurse, are an effective way to offer quality services in a safe, familiar, accessible, and youth-focused environment.

"I applaud the efforts of the health and education communities working together for the sake of California’s children. Everyone benefits when our students are healthy, in school, and ready to learn."

A complete list of the grantees may be found at: School-Based Health Center Capital Program: July 2011 Grantees (Outside Source).

# # # #

Tom Torlakson — State Superintendent of Public Instruction
Communications Division, Room 5206, 916-319-0818, Fax 916-319-0100

Friday, July 15, 2011