No on 1240 | Don't be charter fooled

No on 1240 | Don't be charter fooled:

 No On 1240 Campaign

Contact:                                                                                   

Melissa Westbrook - 206-390-0404, 1240mel@gmail.com

PEEKING UNDER THE TENT:

WHO SUPPORTS I-1240 AND WHO DOESN’T

Seattle, Washington, September 25, 2012

Looking at the lists of group endorsers – for and against I-1240 – makes for a good contrast between the campaigns.

No On 1240

Education Organizations

Association of Washington School Principals

Citizens United for Responsible Education

Educational Service District 113

Onion Creek School Board

Parents and Friends for Tacoma Schools

Tahoma Education Association

Washington State PTA

Washington Association of School Administrators

Washington Education Association

Washington State School Directors Association

Community and Civil Rights Organizations

El Centro de la Raza

Japanese-American Citizens League Board

League of Women Voters of Washington

Minority Executive Directors Coalition (MEDC)

NAACP: Alaska/Oregon/Washington State
Area Conference NAACP

Northwest Progressive Institute

Tacoma-Pierce County Black Collective

UW Alumni Asn. Multicultural Alumni Partnership Board

Washington Community Action Network

Labor Organizations

Aerospace Machinists Industrial District Lodge 751

IUOE Local 609 (Operating Engineers)

Martin Luther King Central Labor Council

Pierce County Central Labor Council

SEIU Healhtcare 775 NW

SEIU State Council

SEIU Local 925

UFCW 21

Teamsters

Washington Federation of State Employees

Washington State Labor Council

Political Organizations

Washington State Democratic Party

King County Democrats

Pierce County Democrats

Pierce County Young Democrats

Metropolitan Democractic Club of Seattle

1^st legislative district Democrats

5th legislative district Democrats

11th legislative district Democrats

22nd legislative district Democrats

23rd legislative district Democrats

27th legislative district Democrats

32nd legislative district Democrats

33rd legislative district Democrats

34th legislative district Democrats

36th legislative district Democrats

37th legislative district Democrats

39th legislative district Democrats

40th legislative district Democrats

41st legislative district Democrats

43rd legislative district Democrats

45th legislative district Democrats

46th legislative district Democrats

48th legislative district Democrats

  

Yes on 1240

LEV
Stand for Children
Democrats for Ed Reform
Washington State Roundtable
Seattle Chamber of Commerce
Association of Washington Business

  

Another interesting facet of this initiative is the financial support. 

 Both the People for our Public Schools campaign and the No On 1240 campaigns are grassroots with parent, teacher and community groups providing funding.

 Over 95% of the Yes on 1240’s  funding comes from 10 families, all associated with Microsoft and Amazon.  Bill Gates being the largest single donor at $1M.  Their donors include a Walmart heiress in Arkansas ($600K) and the head of Netflicks in LA ($100K).  Their latest donor is a hedge fund manager in NYC, Robert Karr of JoHo Capital, LLC.

  

If you would like more information about this topic, or to schedule an interview with Melissa, contact her at info@no1240.org or 206-524-4733. 

No On 1240 – www.no1240.org

Twitter – No_On_1240

Facebook - No on 1240

UPDATE: Hooray! Let’s hear it for more standardized testing! Go Bridgeport! - Wait, What?

Hooray! Let’s hear it for more standardized testing! Go Bridgeport! - Wait, What?:

Hooray! Let’s hear it for more standardized testing! Go Bridgeport!

by jonpelto

It is hard to imagine that Team Paul Vallas could do a better job revealing their true stripes, again.

Yesterday, Sandra Kase, Paul Vallas’ “Chief Administrative Officer,” sent out a memo entitled “prime time for student learning.”

No, the memo was not about expanding instructional time, nor was it about broadening students’ horizons by bringing back some of the missing “specials,” nor was it about enhancing the schools bilingual program, not was it about undoing the damage to the school system’s special education programs.  It was the instructions about the next round of standardized testing.

Kase writes;

“There will be another administration of the benchmark 

$100,000 to the College Board gets “free” SAT testing for all Hartford juniors and seniors.

by jonpelto

Categories: Hartford, Standardized Testing, Steven Adamowski Tags: Hartford, SATs, Standardized Testing A flurry of publicity and news coverage followed the recent decision by the Hartford Board of Education when they rejected Superintendent Christina Kishimoto’s request to renew a contract with the College Board, the organization that conducts the SATs, a standardized test used by many colleges as part of their application process. For $100,000, the College [...]

Former Superintendent Debates Union Head - LA School Report

Former Superintendent Debates Union Head - LA School Report:

Former Superintendent Debates Union Head

by Alexander Russo

Thanks to a kind reader for sending along this PBS NewsHour segment in which former LAUSD superintendent Roy Romer debates American Federation of Teachers president Randi Weingarten:
It’s a couple of weeks old but still might be worth the watch, given the ongoing debate over including student achievement in teacher evaluations and whether unions can or should be involved in reform.  Or read the transcript here.

The post Former Superintendent Debates Union Head appeared first on LA School Report.

Tenure Approval Still +90 Percent

by Hillel Aron

The recent LA Magazine profile of Superintendent John Deasy included a surprising statistic:
“When Deasy arrived, about 98 percent of eligible teachers were granted tenure. Now the approval rate is less than 50 percent.”
That sounded unbelievable to me– it either had to be a mistake, or the result of some little-publicized but

Morning Read: Prop. 38 Debate Heats Up

by Hillel Aron

Leg Analyst: Prop. 38 Won’t Stop $6 Billion in Trigger Cuts to Schools CTA Blog: During a September 24 hearing, a member of the nonpartisan Legislative Analyst Office’s team told members of the Assembly Budget Committee that Proposition 38 would not prevent $6 billion in automatic or trigger cuts to public education in 2011-2012.
TV ads for Prop. 38 start airing SF Chronicle: The 30-second spot hits on the themes that proponents have 

Mike Klonsky's SmallTalk Blog: Rahm's ad campaign fizzles

Mike Klonsky's SmallTalk Blog: Rahm's ad campaign fizzles:

Rahm's ad campaign fizzles

by Mike Klonsky

There's two good letters about Rahm's million-dollar ad campaign in this morning's Sun-Times. The first is from Chicago long-time political analyst Don Rose:

Expect more union-busting tactics from Emanuel

It’s obvious why Mayor Rahm Emanuel is airing boastful commercials that you correctly term “a poke in the eye” of the Chicago Teachers Union. He is trying to rehabilitate himself with the public that overwhelmingly supported the striking union — while a mere 19 percent thought he was 

National Voter Registration Day:

National Voter Registration Day

Submitted by Steve Hanson on Tue, 09/25/2012 - 11:31am

Today is National Voter Registration Day.  In the face of desperate attempts on the part of the GOP to suppress voter turnout, it is more important than ever this year that as many voters as possible of all persuasions register and vote. We're trying to help out with that by bringing you some resources for voter registration, and some places to go for more information.  Help to spread the word.  If each of you can get one more person to register and vote, the outcome of this election could be very different.  Make it so.

National Voter Registration Day web site

Wisconsin Voting Information

Finally -- if you are not registered to vote, fill out this form and you can get a printed voter registration form on-line:

Kurtz: Common Core Could Launch New Tea Party Uprising | Truth in American Education

Kurtz: Common Core Could Launch New Tea Party Uprising | Truth in American Education:

Kurtz: Common Core Could Launch New Tea Party Uprising

by Shane Vander Hart

Stanley Kurtz recognized at National Review that school lunches is just the tip of the iceberg with federal overreach into education.  He brings up the work our partner, Heather Crossin, is doing in Indiana and how Obama could spark a 2nd Tea Party Awakening.

I just came back from a conference where I heard a mom from Indiana named Heather Crossin describe her battle against Obama’s Common Core. Her child happened to attend one of the first schools in the country to use textbooks created to teach Obama’s new national curriculum. Most Americans have no idea that the president has circumvented the legal and constitutional prohibitions and imposed a national school curriculum on the states. Nor will they wake up to this disturbing fact until a second Obama term. The timing, of course, is intentional.

Crossin’s son came home from school one day with a “fuzzy math” problem. The question was, if one bridge is 790 feet, and the other is 730 feet, which bridge is longer? Crossin’s son replied that 

Institutions Commit to Providing Millions of Students with Easy-To-Understand Information About College Costs | ED.gov Blog

Institutions Commit to Providing Millions of Students with Easy-To-Understand Information About College Costs | ED.gov Blog:

Institutions Commit to Providing Millions of Students with Easy-To-Understand Information About College Costs

Posted on September 25, 2012 by Arne Duncan

We know that students and their families face a difficult task in deciding where to enroll for higher education, and understanding the cost of college—and how to pay for it—can be daunting. Too often, students are left without a clear explanation of what the costs mean or how they compare to other colleges they are considering, and as a result, many students leave college with debt that they didn’t fully understand at the time they entered school.

While many financial aid award letters provide understandable information, some can be confusing, lacking clear distinctions between grants (which don’t have to be paid back) and loans (which do), as well as important information about outcomes like graduation rates and default rates. This confusion can make it difficult for students to decide which college is the right fit for them, best suited to their needs, priced affordably, and consistent with their career and educational goals.

In July, I sent a letter to college presidents nationwide, asking them to adopt a new Financial Aid Shopping Sheet clearly showing prospective students what a college education would cost. For prospective students, this model disclosure letter for financial aid offers helps explain the total cost of a program—including tuition and fees, the costs that are covered by federal loans and grants, the type and amount of financial aid they may qualify for, their estimated student loan debt upon graduation, and information about graduation rates. This information can help students easily compare financial aid packages offered by different institutions, and ultimately make an informed decision on where to invest in their higher education.

Our goal is to help students arrive at school each fall less worried about how they will pay for college, and more focused on how they will complete college. Institutions of higher education share that goal, and many have shown their support by adopting the Shopping Sheet for use as part of their financial aid award packages starting for the 2013-14 school year.

To date, 316 institutions serving over 1.9 million undergraduate students, or 10 percent of all undergraduates, have agreed to adopt the Shopping Sheet [MS Excel, 67K]. Of those schools who have signed on, about 43 percent are public institutions, 43 percent are for-profit institutions and 14 percent are private schools. Among the institutions that have voluntarily agreed to adopt the Shopping Sheet are several state college and university systems—including the University System of Maryland, the State University of New York System, the University of Massachusetts System, and the University of Texas System—as well as several institutions with large undergraduate populations, including Arizona State University, Miami Dade College, and the University of Phoenix online campus. All of the systems and institutions that committed to financial aid transparency at the June roundtable with Vice President Biden—including North Carolina Agricultural & Technical State University, Syracuse University, the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, and Vassar College—have also adopted the Financial Aid Shopping Sheet for the 2013-14 school year.

Additionally, to ensure that service members, veterans, spouses and other family members have the information, support and protections they deserve, in April 2012 the President signed an Executive Order establishing Principles of Excellence for Educational Institutions Serving Service Members, Veterans, Spouses, and Other Family Members. This Executive Order requires educational institutions receiving funding from federal military and veterans’ educational benefits to provide prospective students with the financial aid Shopping Sheet to help students understand the total cost of their education. Already, more than 2,900 institutions have agreed to implement the Principles of Excellence.

Students should not have to wait until after graduation to learn the size of their monthly student loan payment. Families choosing a college should have clear and comparable information, in a common format, to guide their choice. And no one should forego college because they think they cannot afford it. We will continue to work with the institutions that have already signed up to use the Financial Aid Shopping Sheet for the next school year, and we look forward to more colleges and universities committing to use this common-sense tool to provide students and parents with clear information about costs.

Reaction to “Won’t Back Down” in New York City by real parents | Seattle Education

Reaction to “Won’t Back Down” in New York City by real parents | Seattle Education:

Reaction to “Won’t Back Down” in New York City by real parents

by seattleducation2011

 

The corporate backed movie Won’t Back Down which is suppose to be a glowing Hollywood style version of theParent Trigger is being shown around the country and is being personally promoted by the edu reform queen of the hour, Michelle Rhee.
Is this movie for real? Of course not, it’s an expensive propaganda. And from what I’ve been reading, it’s also a lousy movie. Real parents are now coming out at showings and providing  the public with what real parent power looks like.
Check out a video of what happened in New York this week at a promotional event for the movie.
From NYC Public School Parents:
http://vimeo.com/50040506#
For details of this event, go to
Education Nation ignores parents but we make our voices heard at the premiere of “Won’t Back Down”
Dora

Des Moines Education Association: DMEA Standing for Something Part 3 - Quality Evaluation and Support

Des Moines Education Association: DMEA Standing for Something Part 3 - Quality Evaluation and Support:

DMEA Standing for Something Part 3 - Quality Evaluation and Support

by Andrew Rasmussen

The evaluation of education professionals is in the spotlight around the country as many states and districts make changes in their systems. These changes are being made by "reformers" who state that they want to ensure a quality teacher for every child. We at DMEA agree that every child deserves a quality teacher and that how you get there is to improve an evaluation system that all too often is one of "drive by" evaluations done by rushed administrators who may not be fully prepared  to provide quality feedback. Where we diverge from the current "reform" crowd is in what a new and improved evaluation system should look like.
The hallmarks of a quality evaluation system should be (1) fairness, (2) quality feedback, (3) support for improvement, and (4) promoting best practices.

FAIRNESS

Fairness is 

Obama: Romney is a teacher-basher – CNN Political Ticker - CNN.com Blogs

Obama: Romney is a teacher-basher – CNN Political Ticker - CNN.com Blogs:

Obama: Romney is a teacher-basher

Posted by

CNN's Ashley Killough

(CNN) – President Barack Obama, who was largely quiet on the recent teachers strike in Chicago, said in an interview that aired Tuesday he was glad the issue had been resolved and took aim at Mitt Romney's approach to the situation.

"Governor Romney and a number of folks try to politicize the issue and do a lot of teacher-bashing. When I meet teachers all across the country, so devoted and dedicated to their kids, and what we've tried to do is actually break through this left-right, conservative – liberal gridlock," Obama said on NBC's "Today."

– Follow the Ticker on Twitter: @PoliticalTicker

– Check out the CNN Electoral Map and Calculator and game out your own strategy for November.

The Chicago Teachers Union last week voted to suspend its strike that delayed the start of the school year in the city's public school system by eight days. Their protest was sparked by objections to a longer 

Education Nation -- starkly different visions from Obama, Romney - First Read #ObamaEdNat #educationnation

Education Nation -- starkly different visions from Obama, Romney - First Read:

Education Nation -- starkly different visions from Obama, Romney

By NBC’s Domenico Montanaro

Education has peeked into the forefront during the 2012 campaign for the White House with President Obama's push for low-interest student loans - and Republican challenger Mitt Romney's contrasting views (“shop around”) on how to pay for college. Obama has also seized on comments Romney made largely dismissing the impact of class sizes, using them for a TV ad running in battleground states.

Margaret Spellings, the former Secretary of Education under George W. Bush, and L.A. Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa join The Daily Rundown's Chuck Todd to talk about teacher unions, charter schools versus public schools, and investing in education and teachers.

‘Double Segregation’: The Deepening Racial Divide in Schools | NEA Today

‘Double Segregation’: The Deepening Racial Divide in Schools | NEA Today:

‘Double Segregation’: The Deepening Racial Divide in Schools

September 25, 2012 by twalker  
Filed under Featured News, Top Stories

Leave a Comment

By Edward Graham

The landmark 1954 Supreme Court decisionBrown v. Board of Education overturned state-sponsored segregation in public schools, but over the last two decades a disturbing trend of re-segregation has emerged across the United States.

In their recently released report, “E Pluribus…Separation: Deepening Double Segregation for More Students,” UCLA’s Civil Rights Project notes the continued dramatic increase in the segregation of American schools by race and poverty, even as minority enrollment has skyrocketed.

“These trends threaten the nation’s success as a multiracial society,” said Professor Gary Orfield, co-

Racial Divide Runs Deep in U.S. Schools, Study Finds A Trend Of Segregation In Charter Schools Sylvia Mendez, School Desegregation Pioneer, Honored at White House

What Do Teachers Deserve? In Idaho, Referendum May Offer Answer Posted: The Chicago teacher strike grabbed the headlines, but in Idaho, a three-part proposition on performance pay, tenure and technology in the classroom is roaring toward Election Day. Source: The New York Times Related posts: Unions Are Striking Back, at Last Bennington, Vermont Strike Ends After Teachers Vote Unanimously to Return to Class Must Reads – Idaho [...] Related posts: Unions Are Striking Back, at Last Bennington, Vermont Strike Ends After Teachers Vote Unanimously to Return to Class Must Reads – Idaho Education Plan

FCMAT » Cali Education Headlines Tuesday, September 25, 2012

FCMAT » Fiscal Crisis & Management Assistance Team:

He's Back?

Education Headlines

Tuesday, September 25, 2012

Schools cooking up healthy, cheap ideas

Lodi Unified School District Food Services Director Warren Sun chopped a California-grown russet potato Monday and slid the chunks into a large pot of what would become a fresh, summer chicken stew, a dish that state leaders in nutrition education hope will become one of many new recipes for millions of children in the coming years.

Coach aided in soccer team sexual hazing, attorney claims

A La Puente High School soccer coach aided in the hazing and sexual assault of four young soccer players and helped lure them into an athletic storage room, an attorney for three of the alleged victims contended.

Fresno Unified candidate disputes police report on '96 meth arrest

Fresno Unified school board candidate Andrew Doris is disputing a police report of a 1996 methamphetamine possession arrest that contains details that are different from his recollection of the incident.

Sweetwater board approves two-year contract for Brand

Sweetwater Union High School District trustees met for hours Monday night to decide whether to name former interim Superintendent Edward Brand as permanent chief, despite discontent expressed by hundreds of parents, teachers and community activists who say Brand has not led with transparency, among other concerns.

School lunches, revamped: Food service employees meet in Oakland to share ideas, recipes

On Monday, food service employees from 21 counties statewide, including Alameda, San Mateo, San Francisco and Marin, shared ideas and recipes at a two-day conference, "Rethinking School Lunch," organized by the Berkeley-based Center for Ecoliteracy.

Fensterwald: Reform by the ounce, unfunded pension debt by the pound

The pension reforms passed in June, paring back the benefits for new teachers and administrators, will knock off $189 million per year from the additional payments taxpayers must make to keep the California State Teachers’ Retirement System solvent over the next 30 years. That’s the good news. The bad news is that this represents only about 6 percent of the extra $3.25 billion annually that CalSTRS actuaries are saying is needed to erase the system’s current $65 billion unfunded liability.

Monday, September 24, 2012

Shrinking pool of future teachers worries state

The number of people in California who are studying to become teachers has fallen by more than a third since the onset of the recession, and that's not good for the state's future, according to state education officials.

Cayucos student shift would drain Coast Union

Cayucos parents who want their kids to attend high school in San Luis Coastal School District instead of in Cambria may have their goal hampered by the financial consequences for Coast Unified School District if the students left.

Opposition growing to making Brand superintendent

The Sweetwater Union High School District board is poised to make former interim Superintendent Ed Brand its permanent chief Monday night, though public opposition is building over that possibility and other names are being mentioned to fill the job temporarily.

Seattle Schools Community Forum: Why Don

Seattle Schools Community Forum: Why Don:

Why Don

by Melissa Westbrook

From the Times, a story about Washington State and the low rate of college attendance. 

More than half of Seattle adults 25 and older hold a bachelor's degree, making it one of the most well-schooled cities in the nation.

So it may come as a surprise that only about one in four public-school students from Washington's high-school class of 2009 will finish college by 2015, according to a Seattle Times analysis of recent trends.

While the percentage of high-school graduates who went to college jumped by nine points in the United States