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Wednesday, July 25, 2012

2012 KIDS COUNT Data Book - Data Book 2012 - Data Book - KIDS COUNT Data Center

2012 KIDS COUNT Data Book - Data Book 2012 - Data Book - KIDS COUNT Data Center:


2012 KIDS COUNT Data Book

National and state-by-state data on key indicators of child well-being.

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Download or Order the Data Book

The 2012 KIDS COUNT Data Book introduces a new KIDS COUNT index, which provides a detailed picture of how children are faring in the United States. In addition to ranking states on overall child well-being, the Data Book provides state rankings for four domains: Economic Well-Being, Education, Health, and Family and Community.
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Bronx Educator Grows Organically Engaged Citizens

Bronx Educator Grows Organically Engaged Citizens:


Bronx Educator Grows Organically Engaged Citizens

By Helen Weatherall / July 23, 2012 10:04 pm 
Stephen Ritz, Founder of The Green Bronx Machine
There’s a lot to the Stephen Ritz story. As told in rapid fire by the man himself the whole quickly disperses like an exploding star. He’s a kid from the South Bronx, the world’s oldest 6th grader. As an athlete in a different life he spent time in NBA camps. For a spell he would consume two-dozen eggs a day. Yes, he has had a critical health issue – more than one even. “I would have eaten myself to death,” he says letting the words hang in the air. He is high energy. He is a teacher. He is a parent. He is the originator and driving force behind an agriculture educational project calledThe Green Bronx Machine.
The story of The Green Bronx Machine, an urban agriculture education program that integrates farming and technology into the classroom to yield organic produce and job opportunities for public high school students in the South Bronx, began in 2005 during a 
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School Tech Connect: Jawanza Malone At City Hall

School Tech Connect: Jawanza Malone At City Hall:


Jawanza Malone At City Hall

by noreply@blogger.com (Tim Furman)
"We are done having people make decisions for us that don't care about us."

Jawanza Malone from KOCO spoke this morning at City Hall in support of the elected, representative school board.
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Toward the end there, he says this:
Everybody, everybody wants their children to grow and develop and be strong, right? Is there anyone who looks into their child's face, and says to that child, "I don't want you to be anything?" Is there any parent up here who believes that they can look their child in the eye and condemn 


Colleagues Not Too Happy With Joe Moore

by noreply@blogger.com (Tim Furman)
At the CODE press conference in City Hall this morning, Aldermen John Arena and Robert Fioretti had a few things to say about Alderman Joe Moore's obsequious cave-in to Rahm on the elected school board resolution.
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I know I've become One Topic Tim here, but let me just suggest that the earth has moved underneath the 49th Ward alderman, and he's not aware of it yet. We're assembling a small army of petition-gatherers in Rogers Park 

Things Are Starting To Move In Chicago

by noreply@blogger.com (Tim Furman)
Busy morning tomorrow. The CTU rally outside the Appointed Board of Education starts at 9:00.
Simultaneously, Communities Organized For Democracy in Education is having a press conference at 9:30 over a City Hall. I'll be at that.

I'll post a more specific location inside City Hall when I find out.

Lots going on. 

Meanwhile, last night people were standing in line to sign our petition for an elected, representative school board.  I didn't even get to visit half my friends in the neighborhood yet, so I'll finish up tomorrow night. Of the people who answered the door, not a single one said no, except for a house-sitter. Did I mention we're in a precinct that soon will be moving over to Joe Moore's ward?
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Alyssa Granacki: Until Schools Are No Longer Separate, We Must Strive for Equal

Alyssa Granacki: Until Schools Are No Longer Separate, We Must Strive for Equal:


Until Schools Are No Longer Separate, We Must Strive for Equal

Posted: 07/25/2012 2:02 pm





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As a first-year teacher, I believed the incredibleresults that my charter school produced couldn't be anything but positive. Then, in February, newresearch suggesting charter schools promoted segregation by removing minority students from public schools caused me to reevaluate my thoughts on the charter system I worked for. Was I complicit in, encouraging even, a system of racial injustice?
Although progress has been made since Brown, our schools (public and charter alike) are still separated by socio-economic status, which too often falls along divisions of color. The notion that charter schools, which provide an alternative to public education, support segregation is incorrect and unwarranted. Our country's urban environments are plagued with segregated schools, as socioeconomic disparity separates low-income minorities and middle-class white students. Charter schools, for the most part, seek to serve those students who have been left behind.
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Team Vallas Falsifies Documents to Avoid Competitive Bidding - Wait, What?

Team Vallas Falsifies Documents to Avoid Competitive Bidding - Wait, What?:


Team Vallas Falsifies Documents to Avoid Competitive Bidding

by jonpelto


According to documents provided by City of Bridgeport employees, Paul Vallas, Bridgeport’s $229,000 Part-time Superintendent of Schools, or members of his senior staff, provided false information on official City documents in order to use a technique called “sole-sourcing” to give a major City contract to a company called the Public Consulting Group Inc.  Vallas provided the same company with multi-million-dollars contracts when he was the CEO of the Chicago Schools and again when he was CEO of the Philadelphia Schools.
Up until this year, Bridgeport has been using a software program called Clarity to track and coordinate Bridgeport’s special education program.  But this past March, Team Vallas used a “sole source” acquisition process to drop the Clarity software and sign a multi-year contract for the Public Consulting Group’s EasyIEP software.
After former Governor John Rowland went to prison for his criminal involvement in directing 
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Is the Florida Department of Education Trying to Cover for Mistakes on School Grades? | Scathing Purple Musings

Is the Florida Department of Education Trying to Cover for Mistakes on School Grades? | Scathing Purple Musings:


Is the Florida Department of Education Trying to Cover for Mistakes on School Grades?

by Bob Sikes


Scott Maxwell mocked Florida State University for missing the mistakes in the DOE’s school grades that were released on July 11. But the DOE made no mention of FSU validating the DOE’s calculus in its press release. The involvement of FSU’s role was not made pubic until the DOE’s press release on July 20 when the mistakes and improvements in 213 school grades were announced:
Tallahassee, Fla., July 20, 2012 – Today the Florida Department of Education notified 40 superintendents around the state about preliminary revisions to the initial school grades released earlier this month. The A to F school grades report for Florida’s elementary, middle and combination schools (not including those with high school grades) was calculated by the department, validated independently by Florida State University, and released July 11.
Lets explore possible explanations and some troublesome items.
1. Florida State University’s involvement – and it’s still unclear whom at FSU ran the numbers – was innocent 
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Amid rapid charter school growth, and stunning fraud charges, city leaders consider overhaul of District charter office | Philadelphia Public School Notebook

Amid rapid charter school growth, and stunning fraud charges, city leaders consider overhaul of District charter office | Philadelphia Public School Notebook:


Amid rapid charter school growth, and stunning fraud charges, city leaders consider overhaul of District charter office

by Benjamin Herold


By Benjamin Herold for the Notebook and WHYY/NewsWorks

Even as federal investigators were finalizing a massive fraud indictment against one of Philadelphia’s most prominent charter school operators, the School Reform Commission was moving thousands of students andhundreds of millions of dollars into the city's publicly funded charter sector.
It’s a massive gamble, made riskier by the meager staffing in the School District’s Office of Charter Schools.  Currently, 80 independently managed Philadelphia charters serving more than 50,000 students are monitored by just six people – a number that observers on all sides of the heated charter school debate agree is woefully inadequate.
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tomhayden.com - Peace Exchange Bulletin - An Interview with The Washington Post

tomhayden.com - Peace Exchange Bulletin - An Interview with The Washington Post:


AN INTERVIEW WITH THE WASHINGTON POST

DateMONDAY, JULY 16, 2012 AT 11:12PM | Print ArticlePRINT ARTICLE | | Comment4 COMMENTS

This interview, conducted by Laura Hambleton, was originally published at The Washington Poston July 16, 2012.

TOM HAYDEN, 1960S RADICAL AND EX-HUSBAND OF JANE FONDA, REFLECTS ON LIFE AT AGE 72

Few symbolized 1960s radicalism as boldly as Tom Hayden: co-founder of Students for a Democratic Society, Freedom Rider in the South, member of the Chicago Eight put on trial for disrupting the 1968 Democratic National Convention, Vietnam war protester. Later he earned fame in other ways, by marrying actress and activist Jane Fonda (from whom he is long divorced) and serving in the California legislature. Now in his 70s, Hayden writes every day — newspaper columns, books, tweets — as part of a “moral obligation” that he says he feels to speak out. “I made that commitment after my heart surgery, which was at the time of 9/11, and I have kept that pledge,” he says. Hayden spoke to The Post from his office in Culver City, near Los Angeles.
— Laura Hambleton
How are you?
I just turned 72. Physically, the deterioration is kind of obvious, but I’m on the lucky side of things. I’ve had heart surgery 10 years ago and carotid [artery] 
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Louisiana Educator: BESE Approves Whitewash on Voucher Accountability

Louisiana Educator: BESE Approves Whitewash on Voucher Accountability:


BESE Approves Whitewash on Voucher Accountability

by Michael Deshotels


Yesterday BESE approved the so called “accountability” rules developed by Superintendent White for private schools accepting public school voucher students under the Act 2 legislation. This was just a formality since White had been given sole authority by the legislature to make the rules. As I have pointed out before, BESE has become irrelevant since it has become clear that all but two of the members are firmly under the direction of Jindal and his hand picked superintendent. But the meeting was valuable in that it allowed members of the public and representatives of education organizations to point out the many flaws and areas of non-accountability in the rules. Click here to see the Reuters new story on this issue and compare it to the Advocte support for the Whitewash.

One of the most important criticisms of the accountability rules for voucher schools pointed out by several speakers is that they are not truly rules since the policy allows the state superintendent to waive them or make exceptions to the rules. The only real potential for the accountability rules is that they provide for the continued testing of voucher students and the reporting of results to the state (but that was already in state law). In 
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