Cuts push LA Unified schools to break away from district | 89.3 KPCC

Cuts push LA Unified schools to break away from district | 89.3 KPCC:

Cuts push LA Unified schools to break away from district

6:00 a.m. | By Adolfo Guzman-Lopez | KPCC

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Tony Pierce / KPCC

Hamilton High School is one of several schools in the district considering transitioning to become a charter school.

A few months ago, the Los Angeles Unified school board approved hundreds of thousands of dollars in cuts to the budgets of schools with mixed populations of middle-class and low-income students.

Parents and administrators at many of those schools say that was the straw that broke the camel’s back. In response, many of them want to break away from the school district by filing for independent charter status.

The federal government grants Title One money to school districts with significant numbers of impoverished students – but those grants are in line for cuts. L.A. Unified had distributed Title One money to schools in which at least 40 percent of students live below the federal poverty line. Now

Seattle Schools Community Forum: Write to the Board Over the Next Two Weeks about TFA

Seattle Schools Community Forum: Write to the Board Over the Next Two Weeks about TFA:

Write to the Board Over the Next Two Weeks about TFA

by Melissa Westbrook

At this Wednesday's Board meeting, an Introduction is on the agenda to end the contract with Teach for America. It was brought forth by a majority of Directors who were at the last Curriculum & Instruction meeting.

They need to decide on this issue by March 31st by the terms of the contract. Voting to end the contract means they would not hire any more TFA and the current TFA recruits would finish their contracts.

I don't know who wrote the item on the agenda but it says this:

Fiscal impact to this action will be zero. This is because the Teach for America contract does not include direct costs to the district; the $4000 teacher match requirement is funded by private donors through The Seattle

Partnering with Museums and Libraries is a Must for Public Schools | LFA: Join The Conversation - Public School Insights

Partnering with Museums and Libraries is a Must for Public Schools | LFA: Join The Conversation - Public School Insights:

Partnering with Museums and Libraries is a Must for Public Schools

by Susan Hildreth

Editor’s Note: Our guest blogger today is Susan Hildreth. Susan serves as the director of the Institute of Museum and Library Services, a position to which President Obama appointed her in January 2011.

Museums and libraries are an essential component of any vision of the future of learning. Helping these institutions to create engaging and empowering learning experiences is one of the primary goals of the Institute of Museum and Library Services (IMLS).

The classic field trip to a museum is still a valuable tool for elementary school teachers. But the relationship museums and libraries now have with schools is much more collaborative than that of host and guest for an occasional visit.

read more

Now I Understand Why Bill Gates Didn’t Want The Value-Added Data Made Public « GFBrandenburg's Blog

Now I Understand Why Bill Gates Didn’t Want The Value-Added Data Made Public « GFBrandenburg's Blog:

Now I Understand Why Bill Gates Didn’t Want The Value-Added Data Made Public

It all makes sense now.

At first I was a bit surprised that Bill Gates and Michelle Rhee were opposed to publicizing the value-added data from New York City and other cities.

Could they be experiencing twinges of a bad conscience?

No way.

That’s not it. Nor do these educational Deformers think that value-added mysticism is nonsense. They think it’s wonderful and that teachers’ ability to retain their jobs and earn bonuses or warnings should largely depend on it.

The problem, for them, is that they don’t want the public to see for themselves that it’s a complete and utter crock. Nor to see the

Shanker Blog » Revisiting The "5-10 Percent Solution"

Shanker Blog » Revisiting The "5-10 Percent Solution":

Revisiting The “5-10 Percent Solution”

by Matthew Di Carlo

In a post over a year ago, I discussed the common argument that dismissing the “bottom 5-10 percent” of teachers would increase U.S. test scores to the level of high-performing nations. This argument is based on a calculation by economist Eric Hanushek, which suggests that dismissing the lowest-scoring teachers based on their math value-added scores would, over a period of around ten years (when the first cohort of students would have gone through the schooling system without the “bottom” teachers), increase U.S. math scores dramatically – perhaps to the level of high-performing nations such as Canada or Finland.*

This argument is, to say the least, controversial, and it invokes the full spectrum of reactions. In my opinion, it’s best seen as a policy-relevant illustration of the wide variation in test-based teacher effects, one that mightsuggest a potential of a course of action but can’t really tell us how it will turn out in practice. To highlight this point, I want to take a look at one issue mentioned in that previous post – that is, how the instability of value-added scores over time (which Hanushek’s simulation doesn’t address directly) might affect the projected

In public vs. voucher debate, focus on individual schools - JSOnline

In public vs. voucher debate, focus on individual schools - JSOnline:

In public vs. voucher debate, focus on individual schools

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March 3, 2012 |(22) COMMENTS

Related Coverage

• Our View: Voucher schools made higher gains in reading
• Another View: Study's results are flawed and inconsequential
• Patrick J. Wolf & John F. Witte: Higher attainment in choice
• Jim Bender: Focus on high-performing schools
• Bob Peterson: Just a fig leaf for abandoning public schools
• Caryl Davis: An urgent call to fix schools
• Alan J. Borsuk: In public vs. voucher debate, focus on individual schools
• 18 more schools register for choice program for fall '12

Five years and three dozen reports later, here's the biggest thing I have learned when it comes to comparing how kids are doing in Milwaukee Public Schools and in the publicly funded voucher program for private schools:

We've got some schools that are getting very good results. But we've got a lot of problems, and that's true across the board. You'll find schools where weak outcomes are the dominant reality in MPS, in the voucher program and among the independent charter schools. Three major streams of schools in Milwaukee and not much reason to cheer for any of them, in and of themselves.

What's there to cheer for? Specific high performing schools - voucher, charter and MPS. Specific school leaders, teachers, supporters and kids. Specific people who are pushing to improve the status quo. Specific people who are willing to work together, including across ideological lines, to build up what works and tear down what doesn't.

What's there to cheer for? People who are serious participants in the pursuit of quality and results, regardless of the overarching governing and financial structure of their schools.

Five years and three dozen reports later, we know a lot about comparing the streams of Milwaukee education - and, it seems to me, it's time to move past that. It's time to focus on success school by

Modern School: Mock Test Woes From a Teacher Who Opts Her Own Child Out of State Tests

Modern School: Mock Test Woes From a Teacher Who Opts Her Own Child Out of State Tests:

Mock Test Woes From a Teacher Who Opts Her Own Child Out of State Tests

by Michael Dunn

The following is a letter written by a teacher suddenly confronted with top down mandate from her principal to give a 114 question practice test to her 6^th graders, to be followed by remediation and then the actual high stakes CST test.

Exam Burnout (Image from Flickr, by Jixar)

Help! My principal (new to the school) wants us to give the students a mock test to prepare for the CST. It’s supposed to show us which standards students are struggling with. The tests are the released test questions. The 6th grade Language Arts mock test has 114 questions and is 26 pages, front to back. The 6th grade math mock test has 96 questions and is 12 pages, front to back. The 3rd grade tests each have 96 questions with 13 reading passages on the

ACLU to Support Parents Who Opt Out of Standardized Tests

by Michael Dunn

Opting out of standardized exams is legal in many states and a great way to push for their abolition. However, many parents rightly fear retribution against their children by teachers or administrators worried that too many resisters will nullify their test scores.

The ACLU apparently wants to support parents whose children have been penalized or threatened for opting out of testing. They want to hear peoples’ personal stories and have them join in on the ACLU complaint.

For more on this, go to Grumpy Things blog.

Missouri Education Watchdog: Does the Government Really Believe in "Choice"? When it Comes to Sex, Yes. Food Choices? Not so Much.

Missouri Education Watchdog: Does the Government Really Believe in "Choice"? When it Comes to Sex, Yes. Food Choices? Not so Much.:

Does the Government Really Believe in "Choice"? When it Comes to Sex, Yes. Food Choices? Not so Much.

by stlgretchen

Here is an interesting post on HotAir about the "nudging".

JE Dyer asks, "What if government treated eating the way it treats sex?"

It’s a useful distinction to consider. A particular moral idea governs left-wing views on social and health matters, and the left’s purpose with political advocacy is to put the power of government behind that view. By examining the left’s very different policy approaches to eating and sex, we can discern the features of the morality at work.

.....If government treated obesity the way it treats sex, it would encourage schoolchildren to explore their enjoyment of Twinkies, Oreos, and moon pies; it would employ professionals to devise ways of suiting government policies to the principle that our bodies

Schools Matter: Don't Sue to Keep Scores Out of the Papers: Sue to End This Sham Evaluation Scheme

Schools Matter: Don't Sue to Keep Scores Out of the Papers: Sue to End This Sham Evaluation Scheme:

Don't Sue to Keep Scores Out of the Papers: Sue to End This Sham Evaluation Scheme

by Jim Horn

This morning a Knox County teacher sent me this note and link to a discussion at the Tennessean. Seems as if the ALEC and TFA crowd running education in the state are planning to go public with the state's outrageously-flawed teacher evaluation results:

I can't even begin to describe the morale in Knox County. I can only imagine how it is statewide. Teachers are quitting/retiring in droves. It's hell here, Jim!

My response: They want you to quit and retire in droves. How else can TFA become the other option to real teachers in Tennessee?

Senator Adam Kline: A bad day for the democratic process | Seattle Education

Senator Adam Kline: A bad day for the democratic process | Seattle Education:

Senator Adam Kline: A bad day for the democratic process

by seattleducation2011

Senator Rodney Tom, the League of Education Voters and Nick Hanauer on one side of the aisle. the rest of us on the other.

How can these people on one hand talk about helping the “poor minorities” by pushing charter schools in neighborhoods that none of these folks would live in and on the other hand push for and applaud a budget that would cut food and medical assistance to the same families who need it the most, the same families that Rodney Tom said “we have to do something” for?

Senator Rodney Tom joined the Republicans in the State Senate in voting for a striker amendment to Senate Bill 5967 that makes sweeping budget cuts that jeopardize the lives and well-being of Washington’s children and

Read Across America: I promise to read each day and each night… - Lily's Blackboard – Lily's Blackboard

Read Across America: I promise to read each day and each night… - Lily's Blackboard – Lily's Blackboard:

Read Across America: I promise to read each day and each night…

by LilysBlackboard

Read Across America: I promise to read each day and each night…

Mar 3rd, 2012

by LilysBlackboard.

Lily, and some young readers, take the Read Across America Pledge on WRC-TV in Washington:

shareshareshareshare

Washington Post Opinion: French Parents are “Superior” Because of Government Support | Re:education in Baltimore

Washington Post Opinion: French Parents are “Superior” Because of Government Support | Re:education in Baltimore:

Washington Post Opinion: French Parents are “Superior” Because of Government Support

Remember three weeks ago when I theorized that social supports for the middle class might help explain American parents’ so-called “inferiority”? Brigid Schulte, a Washington Post staff writer and a New America Foundation fellow, gives the theory some substance, here. (Thanks to my friend Giuliana for tipping me off.)

…if French parents are calmer and more confident, it’s not just because their parenting standards aren’t as intense. Another reason is on the corner: In France, that’s where you find the crèche, a government-subsidized child-care center where virtually everyone, after a four- to five-month, state-subsidized, paid parental leave, sends their children — working and at-home mothers alike.

In contrast, the United States is one of only three countries in the world, along with Swaziland and Papua New Guinea, that have no federal paid parental leave policy. After President Richard Nixon vetoed the Comprehensive Childcare Act of 1971, which promised to ensure quality, affordable child care, American