Latest News and Comment from Education
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Steady Education Privatization Advancing in California - By Thomas Ultican 9/9/2026 This post looks at the state of public education in California. It is important to be clear that charter schools are not public ...1 day ago
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Trump’s Latest: The State of New Mexico or New America? - First came the Gulf of America. Then Lake America. Trump can alter the map today and AI can teach it tomorrow. Trump is now floating the idea of changing N...2 days ago
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Five Great Questions For "Evidence-Based" Programs - At EdWeek, Larry Ferlazzo ran a guest post by Rene Grimes that focused on the “science of math” and the programs that are supposed to be based on it.2 days ago
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Five Great Questions For "Evidence-Based" Programs - At EdWeek, Larry Ferlazzo ran a guest post by Rene Grimes that focused on the "science of math" and the programs that are supposed to be based on it. Bet...2 days ago
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Federal Vouchers Mean Federal Control - Peter Greene explores the impact of federal vouchers on public and private schools2 days ago
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U.S. Students Above OECD Average in Science, Reading, and Computational Problem Solving - The National Center for Education Statistics (NCES) today released the U.S. results from the 2025 Program for International Student Assessment (PISA), ...2 days ago
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Cognitive Resonance: Why is Claude for Teachers? - Cognitive Resonance: Why is Claude for Teachers? *Anthropic bumbles its way into education* [image: Why?] Everything about AI right now is weird. I took...2 days ago
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SCHOOL FUNDING IS NO FUN — BUT IS IT FAIR? - *SCHOOL FUNDING IS NO FUN — BUT IS IT FAIR?**How "Reform" Became a Polite Word for Pulling the Rug Out From Under Public Education* Welcome to the gre...2 days ago
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The REPULSICANS - Admit it: The DUMBOCRATS is a fitting and appropriate moniker for one of the two mainstream capitalist political parties in the US—one of the greatest war-...2 days ago
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Celebrating our power this Labor Day - Every Labor Day, I stop to reflect on the history of our union and what lessons we can apply to continue to build a movement that meets the aspirations of ...2 days ago
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Gary Rubinstein: Eva Moskowitz Sues NYSED for Inadvertently Exposing that They Have Been Gaming the U.S. News Rankings for Years - Eva Moskowitz, founder of Success Academy charter chain, has been everywhere recently, promoting her brand. She has written op-Ed’s for major newspapers, s...2 days ago
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That Feeling of Understanding - Years ago, a friend involved in the business of "up cycling" wound up with a collection of junk with which even he couldn't figure out what to do, so he...2 days ago
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He Is Truly "Unhinged" - Since yesterday, Donald J. Trump has been posting on social media at a frantic pace, showing AI images of himself with President George Washington on ...2 days ago
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Buy Low, Rent High: The Charter School Real Estate Playbook - Charter school facilities financing produces two distinct, well-documented, and fixable problems: districts selling public buildings to charter operators f...2 days ago
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Charters As Well As Vouchers Continue to Threaten Public Education in Ohio - School privatization poses enormous problems for Ohio’s system of traditional public schools. In June of 2025, Ohio’s legislature failed fully to fund a we...2 days ago
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‘Literally a lifesaver’: SWODA driving health outcomes through rural mobility program - [image: rural mobility program]COMANCHE COUNTY — With critical access hospitals at risk of closure and recent funding cuts to the federal Centers for Med...2 days ago
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Success Academy Sues NYSED For Inadvertently Exposing That They Have Been Gaming The US News & World Report Rankings For Years - No matter where you go in New York City, you are forced to ponder the Success Academy charter network. On bus stops, in your mailbox, even as a commercial ...2 days ago
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Budgeting Propositions; t’ain’t no more – Prop 2, Prop 38 & Prop 44 - This last set of Propositions (follow these hyperlinks for the first four posts on billionaires, kid-critical, housing and election reform… The post Budg...3 days ago
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Following Up on "The Decade of Decline in Seattle Public Schools" - I posted a link to this article written by Sandeep Kaushik earlier but here it is again. It is a lengthy piece but a worthy one for anyone wondering how...3 days ago
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Labor Day. Happy Birthday to Me. - So—I just had a birthday. A big, round-number birthday. All my life, my birthday has taken place in and around Labor Day weekend, and—fairly often—happened...3 days ago
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To the Holiday Workers on Standby - I was fortunate enough to have Labor Day off. It was for me a relaxing day. I spent most of it quietly at home, doing nothing particularly taxing, which I ...3 days ago
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Mulgrew's Para Pay Gambit in Conflict with Mamdani Who Gets Praise from the Right: Is This War? - *EONYC, The WIRE:* *don’t confuse a temporary check with a raise.* *don’t confuse a political campaign with collective bargaining.* *Arthur Goldstein, ...3 days ago
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Around The Web In ESL/EFL/ELL - Ten years ago I began this regular feature where I share a few posts and resources from around the Web related to ESL/EFL or to language in general that ...3 days ago
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To Stop Cheating in School, Address the Root Cause (Adam Grant) - Adam Grant is an organizational psychologist at the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania. This article appeared in The New York Times, August 3...3 days ago
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Educators Resist - View this email in your browser [image: Logo] *TL;DR* *What We’ve Done* Understanding that voting in November in numbers that cannot be ignored is ...4 days ago
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Day 1 for the New Congress - If Dems don't do this, they will have failed us entirely. [image or embed] — unpersoned.bsky.social (@unpersoned.bsky.social) September 5, 2026 at 5:5...5 days ago
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Recommended: Lesson Planning and Literacy Narratives - “Today’s preservice teachers (PTs) enter a field in which content and curriculum are increasingly standardized and controlled by voices outside of their sc...5 days ago
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The Disappearing Activist - Unity wants us to be utterly dependent on them. That’s not how a union stays strong.5 days ago
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BREAKING: More than 1 in 10 Ohio Charter Schools suspected of “testing anomalies” - Add this to the fact that 1 in 5 Ohio Charter Schools have been on the state’s lowedt-performing-schools-in-the-state list since 2018 and you can see that ...6 days ago
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Why Does Teacher Pay Matter? - A recent story on America’s growing teacher shortage indicates a real problem – nearly half a million teaching positions unfilled or filled with temporary ...6 days ago
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No One Was Blaming Parents - Today I had a column published in The Orlando Sentinel. It was a response to Nathan Hoffman’s August...1 week ago
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Common Core and Science of Reading’s Troubling Disregard for Student Writing and Voice - Critics slam teachers and public schools for low reading scores. Much of that criticism is wrong and misses the real problem. The Common Core State Stand...1 week ago
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SPI Celebrates 1 Million CalKIDS Accounts - California State Superintendent of Public Instruction Tony Thurmond celebrates 1 million CalKIDS accounts, highlights financial literacy in Monterey County.1 week ago
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New Book: Manufactured Outrage: The Conservative Industrial Complex’s War on Education and How to Fight Back - A new book by four education professors uncovers a coordinated effort by conservative groups to reshape Public Education. The post New Book: Manufacture...1 week ago
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A Child’s Citizenship Does Not Depend on a Parent’s Paperwork - After losing its effort to restrict birthright citizenship at the Supreme Court, the Trump Administration is seeking to restrict passports to children and ...1 week ago
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DOE presentation on their AI guidance - The following slides were presented to the AI Moratorium Coalition steering commitee on Sept. 1, 2026. The last slide has bullet points made up of response...1 week ago
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Guest column: Republican education policies have left Indiana’s children behind - Guest column: Republican education policies have left Indiana’s children behind The post Guest column: Republican education policies have left Indiana’s ...1 week ago
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At Substack: On Aging, Writing, and the Past: Baumgartner by Paul Auster - On Aging, Writing, and the Past: Baumgartner by Paul Auster1 week ago
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The Light She Left Behind - “Those we love don’t go away, they sit beside us every day.” — Liane Moriarty, Big Little Lies Forgive us if we are a little sad here in Tennessee. We lost...1 week ago
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Bookstore Romance Day, Fat Liberation & an Unofficial Guide to the Oregon Coast - Nothing clears your head better than salty sea air... and like, four bowls of clam chowder.1 week ago
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The Great and Irreplaceable Dolly Parton - If the state of the world has you down, here’s a reprieve, two interviews with the great Dolly Parton. The first is my extended interview with her, 13 yea...2 weeks ago
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Who Wants a Raise? - And why do the people who need raises the most actually get the least?2 weeks ago
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Who Wants a Raise? - Everyone. And if you are a UFTer (and not a retiree), you are getting one. But get this. A new paraprofessional is getting a raise of $803/year. Man, do th...2 weeks ago
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I Heart Mom Populism - Support for public education turns out to be a surprisingly potent issue in 20262 weeks ago
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This year’s drop in NYC state test scores: sound and fury, signifying nothing - When the state test scores were released a couple of weeks ago, they showed sharp drops in proficiency for NYC students, particularly in reading.2 weeks ago
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This year's drop in NYC state test scores: sound and fury, signifying nothing - When the state test scores were released a couple of weeks ago, they showed sharp drops in proficiency for NYC students, particularly in reading. This...2 weeks ago
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SQ 844: How is this better? - In plain terms, the new language gives the Legislature the authority to establish both the amount and methodology for distributing ad valorem reimbursement...3 weeks ago
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A Wake-up Call for the Country - As a nation we can do so much better for young children and families.3 weeks ago
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The end of a run. - I have decided to end my substack column after more than 25 years of blogging about schools, teaching, art and politics.3 weeks ago
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Time to change our Nation’s Diaper - It’s time to change our nation’s diaper. Our national identity now reeks due to our inability to clean out the mess caused by the Orange Turd. Corruption i...4 weeks ago
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And Suddenly, There’s a Math Book (You Already Know) - Note: This is a reminder that, if you became a paid subscriber to this blog, you’ll get a signed copy of You Already Know from ... Read More The post An...4 weeks ago
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And Suddenly, There’s a Math Book (You Already Know) - Note: This is a reminder that, if you became a paid subscriber to this blog, you’ll get a signed copy of You Already Know from ... Read More The post An...4 weeks ago
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Regarding Trump’s Utter Defeat and Surrender in the Middle East: Iran gets to charge fees, too! - Many analysts have explained how the recent MOU between Trump and Iran is a humiliating and deep failure for the current regimes of both the USA and Israel...2 months ago
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May’s Parent Engagement Resources - San Diego Unified Created a System to ‘Empower’ Parents. It Unraveled is from The Voice of San Diego. Why Those Disengaged Parents in Your School Deserve a...3 months ago
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Donald Patton Resigns From Christina Board of Education - The word on the street is Donald Patton resigned from the Christina School District Board of Education less than two months before his term was set to expi...3 months ago
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500-Year-Old Slave Revolt of 1526 Redefines Freedom as US Turns 250 - In 1526 — long before the more renowned dates that anchor the nation’s story of 1619 and 1776 — enslaved Africans rose up and freed themselves on the land ...3 months ago
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Statement on the NYS Comptroller’s audit of NYC’s Privacy and Security of Student Data - Statement on the NYS Comptroller’s audit of NYC’s Privacy and Security of Student Data May 4, 2025 The audit from the State Comptroller’s office released t...4 months ago
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Reflections on America, the world, and life - I acknowledge that I rarely post here anymore. Folks should remember that I am approaching my 80th birthday in less than 9 weeks, I am still teaching ful...5 months ago
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Peace Treaty: Why Schools Don’t Change (Even When Everyone Knows They Should) - People love to say “schools resist change.” It sounds like a personality flaw—lazy, stubborn, old-fashioned. But schools aren’t hard to change because educ...5 months ago
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The Problem with "the Science of Reading" - The problem with “the science of reading” is that it’s not new.7 months ago
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Dear NJ Teachers and Their Families: You MUST Not Vote For Jack Ciattarelli - To all NJ public school staff and their families: *You must not vote for Jack Ciattarelli. He will do serious, lasting damage to you personally, and the ...10 months ago
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"Didn't do *that*," part 1: new Schofield case developments reveal crucial 10th Circuit/Ledger lie - The record is clear. Jeremy Scott confessed at least 40 times in a 2017 hearing. He never recanted. The Ledger must retract its lie to force Judge Kevin Ab...1 year ago
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Il Papa è Morto - Francis brought a distinct pastoral outlook to his papacy. A simple man, he lived in a small apartment in the guesthouse. He sought to make the church acce...1 year ago
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Whose Opinions Matter in Education World? - It's hard to identify education heroes and sheroes. And perhaps even harder to pinpoint just whose work is slanted, paid-for and dishonest.7 years ago
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March is nearly over and I didn't do anything for WOMEN'S HISTORY MONTH - I was inspired when I saw this meme I guess it can be called of WOMEN IN STEM and "IT'S OKAY TO BE SMART" And I began thinking about how the only subjec...9 years ago
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Prison Gerrymandering: Incarceration Weakens Vulnerable Voting Communities - One person equals one vote: seems simple enough. Unfortunately, that hasn’t worked out for many Americans throughout history, specifically women and peop...10 years ago
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I am Retiring - I have some news: I am retiring from the PBS NewsHour and Learning Matters. [[ This is a content summary only. Visit my website for full links, other conte...11 years ago
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Friday, February 24, 2012
Today's Big Education Ape - PostRank Top Mid Day Posts 2-24 #edreform #soschat
First Interim Status Report for 2011-12 - Year 2012 (CA Dept of Education)
State Schools Chief Tom Torlakson: One Student in
Three Attends a School District in Financial Jeopardy
SACRAMENTO—State Superintendent of Public Instruction Tom Torlakson warned today that the latest review of school district budgets shows that one-third of public school students in California attend a district in financial jeopardy.
The state's First Interim Status Report for fiscal year 2011-12 indicates that 127 districts are either in negative or qualified financial status, totaling 17 more than at this point last year. Combined, nearly 2 million students attend school in a district with serious financial challenges.
"The financial emergency facing our schools remains both wide and deep," Torlakson said. "The deep cuts made to school funding—and looming uncertainties about the future—are driving school districts to the brink of insolvency. Plain and simple, our schools need new revenues to get back on solid financial ground."
The California Department of Education semiannually receives Interim Status Reports on the financial status of the state's 1,037 local educational agencies (LEA), comprised of school districts, county offices of education, and joint powers agencies. The certifications are classified as positive, qualified, or negative. The new report shows seven districts in negative certification and 120 as qualified.
A negative certification—the most serious of the classifications—is assigned when a district will be unable to meet its financial obligations for the remainder of the current year or for the subsequent fiscal year. This certification means the LEA's county office of education may intervene in the LEA's finances.
A qualified certification is assigned when the district may not meet its financial obligations for the current or two subsequent fiscal years. This certification allows the LEA's county office of education to provide assistance to the LEA.
A positive certification is assigned when the district will meet its financial obligations for the current and two subsequent fiscal years.
The number of districts in qualified or negative status declined slightly from last June when the Second Interim Status Report for FY 2010-11 was issued, but overall remain at historic highs. As late as 2006-07, only 22 districts were in negative or qualified status at any time during the fiscal year.
This new list is a compilation of the certifications of First Interim Status Reports by LEAs that were due December 15, 2011, and cover the financial and budgetary status of the districts for the period ending October 31, 2011. The certifications reflect whether the LEA is able to meet its financial obligations for the remainder of the current fiscal year and subsequent two fiscal years, based on projections at that point in time.
These certifications predate the Governor's budget proposal in January. Because these Interim Status Reports are snapshots in time, the LEAs' financial status may have changed since these certifications were collected.
For more information and a list of LEAs on the first Interim Status Report, please visit the Interim Status - Fiscal Status.
Related Content
- School Financial Emergency - Reports to the education community and the public on the impact of California's state budget crisis on education funding.
# # # #
Tom Torlakson — State Superintendent of Public Instruction
Communications Division, Room 5206, 916-319-0818, Fax 916-319-0100
Hyper-accountability, Burnout and Blame: A TFA Corps Member Speaks Out - Living in Dialogue
Hyper-accountability, Burnout and Blame: A TFA Corps Member Speaks Out
Guest post by Jameson Brewer.
The rhetoric of educational policy is an ever swaying pendulum from the conservative right to the progressive left. However, in reality, in the decades leading up to and the ten years following the passing of No Child Left Behind, it has been neoliberal policies and practices that have dramatically shaped the American education landscape. Perhaps this claim is best characterized by the onslaught of hyper accountability that traces its most recent roots to NCLB. The neoliberal practice of hyper accountability, specifically that of teacher accountability, has led to an increase of labeling (e.g., failing schools), cheating (Atlanta Public Schools), and burnout.
As a traditionally trained educator who graduated from college at the beginning of what is now being called the "Great Recession," I, like many other graduates, found landing a teaching job very difficult. In fact, over the
Obama Administration Announces Together for Tomorrow | U.S. Department of Education
Obama Administration Announces Together for Tomorrow
Contact:
The White House Office of Faith-based and Neighborhood Partnerships, the U.S. Department of Education and the Corporation for National and Community Service (CNCS) announced today Together for Tomorrow, a new initiative to spotlight existing and spur new community engagement in turning around persistently low-performing schools.
"Together for Tomorrow is aimed at changing the relationship between schools and community partners so everyone feels a shared responsibility to improve low-performing schools," said Joshua DuBois, special assistant to the President and executive director of the White House Office of Faith-based and Neighborhood Partnerships. "Every child deserves an education that will enable them to succeed in a global economy. Faith and community groups are critical partners in this all-hands on deck moment."
U.S. Secretary of Education Arne Duncan announced the initiative during a town hall meeting at Memorial Middle School in Orlando, Fla.
"Community and family involvement can be the make or break factor in successfully turning around low-performing schools," said Duncan. "Together for Tomorrow will provide real-life examples of how to effectively transform our struggling schools, and build a community-to-community support system that can help take this critical work to scale."
Duncan was joined by fellow Administration officials including, DuBois, Robert Velasco, II, acting chief executive officer of the Corporation for National and Community Service, and Roberto Rodriguez, special assistant to the President for Education Policy. Also in attendance were U.S. Sen. Bill Nelson, U.S. Rep. Corrine Brown, and Brian Gallagher, chief executive officer and president of United Way Worldwide and Orlando Mayor Buddy Dyer.
"Harnessing the power of national service to help improve schools across the nation is a great example of community driven solutions at work," said Velasco. "The partnership of schools to their local communities is a natural marriage and the clearest pathway to provide these schools with the tools and resources necessary for success."
The initiative will promote a community culture where education improvement is viewed as everyone's responsibility. The work of skilled principals, teachers and school staff, in concert with dedicated parents, community organizations and volunteers will achieve positive results with the support of Together for Tomorrow.
The community surrounding Orlando's Memorial Middle School is one of six demonstration sites, acting as examples for effective community participation in school intervention efforts. The site is led locally by the Heart of Florida United Way in cooperation with Orange County Public Schools and Orlando Mayor Buddy Dyer's Cities of Service initiative. Additional sites include communities in Center and Denver, Colo.; New Haven, Conn.; New Orleans, La; and Memphis, Tenn.
In the coming weeks, the U.S. Department of Education will officially launch the initiative with a series of partnership events and a national challenge through Challenge.gov. The initiative's efforts will focus on community and family partnerships' ability to boost key measurable student outcomes—Attendance, Behavior, Course performance, and College access, the ABCs of improving low-performing schools. Together for Tomorrow will also spotlight exemplary programs underway that have strong capacity to manage school-community partnerships and demonstrate progress in the ABCs. Supporting services will involve providing guidance on how to harness existing federal, private and nonprofit funding streams in addition to connecting local programs with technical assistance opportunities.
Following the official launch, regional Together for Tomorrow events will be held in demonstration site locations and other areas across the country in urban, suburban, rural and tribal communities.
Communities interested in details and updates on the Together for Tomorrow challenge should emailedpartners@ed.gov or visit www.ed.gov/edpartners. Press inquiries should be sent to the U.S. Department of Education at press@ed.gov. For national service inquiries, please contact Sara Albright at salbright@cns.gov.
NYC Public School Parents: Why you should not believe a word in the teacher data reports, due to be released today
Why you should not believe a word in the teacher data reports, due to be released today
Blue Jersey:: Dysfunctional School Aid
Dysfunctional School Aid
Here in Jersey, "Daddy" is none other then Chris Christie, and the "gifts" he hands out are school aid. Yesterday, superintendents, school boards, educators and parents perused spreadsheets released by the NJDOE, anxiously peering to see what presents Chris Chringle left under their schools' tree.
Apparently, the governor thinks some districts have been naughty: 97 districts are losing aid. Among them is Newark, which is losing population to charter schools, despite the fact that ACTING Commissioner Cerf still
Mike Klonsky's SmallTalk Blog: Looking back to '09: Boy was I wrong!
Looking back to '09: Boy was I wrong!
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| Three years ago today, opponents of Renaissance 2010 protest Chicago school board decision to close or "turnaround" 16 schools. |
My response back then: "What a joke! Obama has done more to save public education in one month than the entire Bush regime did in 12 years."
Well it turned out, the joke was on me. Obama's early positives -- including his rejection of school vouchers (pushed on him by DFER hedge-fund reformers, his 2009 stimulus package which looked then like a new deal for
City Teacher Data Reports Are Released – SchoolBook
City Teacher Data Reports Are Released
12:00 p.m. | Updated After a long legal battle and amid much anguish by teachers and other educators, the city Department of Education released individual performance rankings of 18,000 New York City public school teachers to the public on Friday, after admonishing the news media not to use the scores to label or pillory teachers.
The reports, which name teachers as well as their schools, rank teachers based on their students’ gains on the state’s math and English exams over five years and up until the 2009-2010 school year. The reports place teachers on a curve that leaves 521 of them performing in the bottom fifth percentile on both math and English citywide and 696 consistently in the top fifth among their peers.
Citing both the wide margin of error — on average, a teacher’s math score could be 35 percentage points off, or 53 points on the English exam ––as well as the limited sample size — some teachers are being judged on as few as 10 students — city education officials said their confidence in the data varied widely from case to case.
“The purpose of these reports is not to look at any individual score in isolation ever,” said the city Education Department’s Chief Academic Officer Shael Polakow-Suransky. “No principal would ever make a decision on this score alone and we would never invite anyone, parents, reporters, principals, teachers, to draw a conclusion based on this score alone.”
The data was handed to the news media on CD-ROMs, which contain spreadsheets listing teachers’ scores for the 2007-2008, 2008-2009 and 2009-2010 school years. Roughly 12,000 teachers were given teacher data reports each year.
The teacher rankings began as a pilot program four years ago to improve instruction in 140 city schools. It has turned into the most controversial set of public school statistics to be released by the Bloomberg administration:individual rankings for roughly 18,000 math and English public school teachers from fourth through eighth grades.
Getting everyone to the table. « Fred Klonsky
Getting everyone to the table.
I was not reassured by Governor Quinn’s budget speech.
Luckily he only has two sides of his mouth.
That seems to have created a limit on the number of different positions on pension reform that the governor could take.
On one side said he supported pension reform that is constitutional and fair to pension members.
On the other side he said that when it came to public employee pensions, everything is on the table.
IEA President Cinda Klickna was more sanguine.
We are glad the governor reiterated his commitment to a constitutional solution
War on teachers continues: Publication of Teacher “Data” Reports « JD2718
War on teachers continues: Publication of Teacher “Data” Reports
The court forced NYC to hand over the reports? That’s what Bloomberg claimed on the John Gambling Show on WOR: “I think what people miss is the courts have ordered us to release the data.” Typical of that weasel. The media filed FOI requests because the City told them that, in violation of the agreement Klein signed with Weingarten, that the City would not contest the order. Please make me! Bloomberg begged. And they did. (that a union official would expect the City NOT to try to violate an agreement… that is an issue for another day).
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InsideSchools refuses to publish the reports. Their statement (written by Meredith Kolodner) is first rate:
Here are our top five reasons they won’t help and why you won’t be seeing them on
This Week In Education: Media: NYT & WNYC Publishing Old, Inaccurate Teacher Scores
Media: NYT & WNYC Publishing Old, Inaccurate Teacher Scores
You'd think it would be the small, scrappy, online-only publication that would do something rash and regrettable, not the venerable legacy media outlet. But that's not how it's playing out in New York City, where everything is upside down right now. Tiny GothamSchools has declined to publish individual teacher ratings and the massive New York Times has come up with a fancy app to celebrate their arrival.
Click below for more about why the Times is going ahead --





