Protesters block Westwood intersection, snarl traffic - latimes.com

Protesters block Westwood intersection, snarl traffic - latimes.com:

Protesters block Westwood intersection, snarl traffic

November 9, 2011 | 3:12 pm

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Traffic in Westwood was badly snarled Wednesday afternoon because of a student protest and street sit-in against the cost of higher education and the banking industry’s purported role in it.

After a march by about 200 protesters from the UCLA campus, about a dozen of them sat down in the busy intersection of Westwood and Wilshire boulevards and refused to move for about an hour.

The result was traffic chaos in the Westwood neighborhood, which otherwise is clogged because of construction on the 405 Freeway that runs along its western border.

Police were preparing to arrest and remove the protesters, according to the Los Angeles Police

Victory in Wake Co. school board elections & defeat for Tea Party! « Parents Across America

Victory in Wake Co. school board elections & defeat for Tea Party! « Parents Across America:

Victory in Wake Co. school board elections & defeat for Tea Party!

by leoniehaimson

Below see the account of last night’s victory by Patty Williams of Great Schools in Wake Co. NC, an affiliate of Parents Across America. Conservative forces had taken control of the school board with the help of a group called Americans for Prosperity, which is funded in part by the Koch brothers; the conservative majority [...]

Former Miami-Dade Superintendent to Run Failing Imagine Charter Schools in Missouri | Scathing Purple Musings

Former Miami-Dade Superintendent to Run Failing Imagine Charter Schools in Missouri | Scathing Purple Musings:

Former Miami-Dade Superintendent to Run Failing Imagine Charter Schools in Missouri

by Bob Sikes

Earlier this week Missouri’s education commissioner asked Imagine to close its schools at the end of the year. Imagine CEO Dennis Bakke has been in St. Louis this week and has named a new director. From Elisa Crouch writing in the St. Louis Post-Dispatch:

Charter school operator Imagine Schools Inc. on Tuesday named a top executive to oversee its six struggling schools in St. Louis.

Alan Olkes, who managed the company’s charter school operations in Texas and is former superintendent of Miami-Dade County Public Schools, now has the task of leading Imagine’s

Our Children Can’t Wait: New Regulations Increase Accountability and Boost Quality in Head Start | ED.gov Blog

Our Children Can’t Wait: New Regulations Increase Accountability and Boost Quality in Head Start | ED.gov Blog:

Our Children Can’t Wait: New Regulations Increase Accountability and Boost Quality in Head Start

Posted on November 9, 2011 by Guest Blogger

President Barack Obama and Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius, right, talk with students while visiting a classroom at the Yeadon Regional Head Start Center in Yeadon, Pa., Nov. 8, 2011. (Official White House Photo by Pete Souza)

Cross-posted from the White House blog.

We know that the first years of our children’s lives are critical. That’s when the most rapid development happens in their brains and when they pick up the social, emotional, and academic skills that will help them succeed. When children get what they need during these early years, it can lay the foundation for success in school and through every stage of their lives.

President Obama and HHS’s announcement today of historic reforms to the Head Start program will help to ensure that all children in Head Start are attending top-notch programs that will help them reach their full potential. The Department of Health and Human Services will implement new rules that will – for the first time in the program’s history– require all Head Start grantees that fail to meet a new set of rigorous quality benchmarks to compete for continued federal funding.

Under the new rules, programs that fall short of quality benchmarks will have to compete. We will put out a notice to all early education providers in their communities: If you can do better, you’ll get the Head Start funding. And after the initial round of reviews, Head Start providers will continue to be evaluated every five years to make sure they’re maintaining a high standard of performance.

The best Head Start programs do much more than teach kids their ABCs. They help children develop the self-control and critical thinking they need to become successful learners. They connect kids with essential health services like immunizations that they may otherwise go without. They get moms and dads engaged in their children’s education. They put kids on a path to opportunity.

This rule is a key part of the President’s broader agenda to strengthen Head Start. In the last two years, we’ve also improved training for Head Start providers, provided mentors for programs that want to improve, and created 20 Centers of Excellence that are models for the rest of the Head Start community. Combined with this new system of evaluation and competition, Head Start providers today have more tools and more incentives to improve than ever before in the program’s history.

In a world where the jobs follow the best trained workers, America’s capacity to lead the world will depend on our success in educating all of our children, including those most at risk for falling behind. The early years are critical to that success. This Administration will continue to work to make sure our children can grow up with the tools and experience they need to compete.

Today’s Head Start children are tomorrow’s workforce. Today we are taking a historic step toward making sure all children in Head Start get the top notch early education they need to succeed.

Kathleen Sebelius is Secretary of the U. S. Department of Health and Human Services.

We Are All Ohio - Lily's Blackboard – Lily's Blackboard

We Are All Ohio - Lily's Blackboard – Lily's Blackboard:

We Are All Ohio

Nov 9th, 2011

by Lily.

I am Ohio today. Ok, I’m in Ohio, but I didn’t forget the preposition. I am Ohio today. All across the country good people who work for American public schools, colleges and universities are celebrating. Firefighters are celebrating. Police officers are celebrating. This is an historic victory.

It’s historic in many ways – in voter turnout; in the number of volunteers who walked neighborhoods and manned phone banks; in the nastiness of the rhetoric against educators and other public servants as some sort of “privileged” class.

But historic in that this is the first time in the history of our great country that voters have been asked to take a position on the rights of public employees, teachers and support staff, police officers and firefighters, public health nurses

Schools Matter: Parent Trigger charlatan Ben Austin booted off The State Bar of California

Schools Matter: Parent Trigger charlatan Ben Austin booted off The State Bar of California:

Parent Trigger charlatan Ben Austin booted off The State Bar of California

by Robert D. Skeels * rdsathene

"Making students accountable for test scores works well on a bumper sticker and it allows many politicians to look good by saying that they will not tolerate failure. But it represents a hollow promise. Far from improving education, high-stakes testing marks a major retreat from fairness, from accuracy, from quality, and from equity." — Sen. Paul Wellstone (1944-2002) quoted on Alfie Khon's site

Apparently the right wingers at Parent Revolution are immune to cognitive dissonance. How else could we explain an organization that frequently co-hosts meetings with The Heartland Institute calling the National Educators Association (NEA) teabaggers? In their desperate flailing attempt to preserve George W. Bush's fringe right wing legislation No Child Left Behind (NCLB), Parent Revolution

OccupyWallSt.org User Survey | OccupyWallSt.org #OWS

OccupyWallSt.org User Survey | OccupyWallSt.org:

OccupyWallSt.org User Survey

by OccupyWallSt

If you are over 18 years old, please take the time to tell us a little more about yourself and your opinions by completing this voluntary anonymous survey being administered by a researcher at the City University of New York. The purpose of the survey is to better understand the characteristics and opinions of users of the website. The survey will take approximately twenty minutes to complete.

click here to begin . . .

This Week In Education: Thompson: What The CMO Report Means For The Rest Of Us

This Week In Education: Thompson: What The CMO Report Means For The Rest Of Us:

Thompson: What The CMO Report Means For The Rest Of Us

It is to the credit of the Center on Reinventing Public Education that they and Mathematica published another study that provides evidence that the standard data-driven "reforms" are not working and that many of the solutions proposed by teachers and our unions are producing success. "Charter-School Management Organizations: Diverse Strategies and Diverse Student Impacts" concludes that, "Among CMOs, school-wide behavior policies and intensive coaching of new teachers are positively associated with student impacts in both math and reading.” And the study also found, “At the CMO level, we do not find impacts to be

Reports on charter schools expose new problems - The Answer Sheet - The Washington Post

Reports on charter schools expose new problems - The Answer Sheet - The Washington Post:

Reports on charter schools expose new problems

By Valerie Strauss

Two new reports about public charter schools expose serious issues about the way they are run and their effectiveness.

The first was a report in the St. Louis Post-Dispatch about Imagine Schools Inc., the nation’s largest for-profit charter school network, which is based in Arlington, Virginia and which operates more than 71 schools in more than a dozen states — including Maryland — and the District of Columbia.

The story detailed complicated real estate deals through which the six Imagine schools operating in St. Louis with public dollars “are generating millions of dollars” for Imagine and a Kansas City-based rea

Providing Meaningful Family-School Relationships | ED.gov Blog

Providing Meaningful Family-School Relationships | ED.gov Blog:

Providing Meaningful Family-School Relationships

Posted on November 9, 2011 by Guest Blogger

During ED’s back-to-school bus tour, Secretary Duncan stated that, “parents have to be part of the solution. Parental engagement must help increase student achievement.” To accomplish this goal, the department is spanning the country to host parent forums in partnership with states, districts, schools, organizations, associations, colleges, universities and businesses.

Parents Arrive at the Garland Parent Forum

In late October, ED joined the Garland Independent School District in Garland, Texas, and the Garland Area Alliance of Black School Educators for a parent forum to provide parents with information, strategies, and resources to help increase their child’s educational achievement. A few of the tips on how parents can be part of the solution discussed during the forum include:

• Listen to your children. Develop a closer relationship with your children by giving them your full attention. Listen to his/her conversation. They may reveal concerns and fears of which you are not aware.
• Ask for help from the classroom teacher. There may be subject topics you and your child need clarification. Call or write the teacher for an appointment where you both can receive assistance.
• Email your child’s teacher if your child is having a problem. An email provides documentation of contact. Long emails are dreaded and often not read. Keep them concise and clear.
• For teachers, administrators, and school support staff, be sensitive to the needs of the parents. There may be some parents who speak no or very little English. Find ways to reach out to those parents. They, too, wish to be partners in their child’s learning.

Over 500 parents, community and faith-based representatives, and school district personnel attended the forum. One administrator who attended the forum stated that the forum had prompted him “to do more. I need to thank my parents more for the things they do [at school and at home].”

Secretary Duncan is in Mason, Ohio, today to hold discussions with parents and school officials about programs to promote excellence in education, expand job growth and invest in the economy.

Carrie Jasper

Carrie Jasper works in the Office of Communications and Outreach

Modern School: Longer Chicago School Day: Truce or Surrender?

Modern School: Longer Chicago School Day: Truce or Surrender?:

Longer Chicago School Day: Truce or Surrender?

by Michael Dunn

Chicago Mayor Rahm Emanuel and the Chicago Public Schools (CPS) have been trying to unilaterally impose a 90 minute longer school day on teachers in violation of their contract. The Chicago Teachers Union (CTU) sued to halt the contract violation and the Illinois Educational Labor Relations Board ruled that CPS was using unfair labor practices in their attempt to get the longer school day without bargaining and winning an agreement with the teachers.

This, however, is not the end of the story. The Ed Deformers are convinced that a longer school day is just the thing needed to solve the problem of low student achievement—since their other magic bullets, like charter schools, merit pay and high stakes testing have all failed to do this—and they are unwilling to let a selfish and greedy union get in their way. Their goal now is to get

Keeping an eye on Springfield today. Democrats should look at Ohio and think twice. « Fred Klonsky

Keeping an eye on Springfield today. Democrats should look at Ohio and think twice. « Fred Klonsky:

Keeping an eye on Springfield today. Democrats should look at Ohio and think twice.

by Fred Klonsky

You have heard the bad news that the pension killing bill was passed out of committee last night on a 5 to 4 vote.

The bill is only slightly different (I didn’t say improved) from the Cross/Fahner bill last Spring.

Will it get a vote on the floor of the House? If so, will it get a concurrence vote from the Senate by Thursday?

You can find somebody speculating about both of those questions. But it’s all speculation.

Here’s a fact: Every teacher and friend of a teacher and member of a teacher’s family needs to call their representatives again. 888-412-6570.

And here’s another fact. Every Democrat that is thinking about voting for SB512 should take a look at Ohio and Michigan this morning. Every Democrat that thinks state employees will not express their dissatisfaction at the polls and in the streets if they lose their pensions that were promised might want to reassess.