Failed DC Chancellor Michelle Rhee’s husband, Sacramento mayor, fined for ethics violations involving education initiatives:

Failed DC Chancellor Michelle Rhee’s husband, Sacramento mayor, fined for ethics violations involving education initiatives

Posted by Valerie Strauss on December 5, 2012 at 3:45 pm

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(Matthew Staver/Bloomberg via Getty )

Sacramento Mayor Kevin Johnson, husband of school reform leader Michelle Rhee, has agreed to to pay a fine of $37,500 for failing to report $3.5 million in donations, some of which were used for education initiatives, including Teach For America (for which Rhee once served as a teacher).

According to the San Luis Obispo newspaper The Tribune, Johnson was fined $37,500 by the California Fair Political Practices Commission, which said that he had failed in 25 cases to report donations within the required 30 days. The commission’s investigation was started after a Sacramento Bee story in September that said donations to Johnson’s “Think Big” arena task force weren’t reportedly properly. The Tribune said that some of the $3.5 million in donations was used for City Year, a program that places tutors and mentors in schools, as well as Teach For America.

The commission’s investigators said in a report that the mayor had told them the failure to report the donations in a timely fashion was not deliberate, and in a statement, Johnson 

Ed Notes Online: Hearing on the proposed co-location of Citizens of the World Charter School in JHS 126

Ed Notes Online: Hearing on the proposed co-location of Citizens of the World Charter School in JHS 126:

Hearing on the proposed co-location of Citizens of the World Charter School in JHS 126

by ed notes online

I'm trying to make this tonight to tape. This is Eva's husband's school.

Below is a good report on the Gates charter scam from Leonie.

Hearing on the proposed co-location of Citizens of the World Charter School in JHS 126

Wednesday, December 5, 2012  6pm - 8pm (5:30 to sign up to speak) 

JHS 126 • 424 Leonard Street• (across from McCarren Park pool)

Join US Congresswoman Nydia Velazquez, NY State Assemblyman Joe Lentol, NY City Council Member Stephen Levin, NY City Council Member Diana Reyna, NY State Senator Martin Dilan, Brooklyn Borough President Marty Markowitz, Community Board 1, and the District 14 Community Education Council in saying NO to the co-location of Citizens of the World Charter School in District 14!

Citizens of the World Charter School plans a large elementary charter school with enrollment targets of 55% white families.  Citizens of the World intends to open their charter elementary school in the building currently used by JHS 126 and the Believe Northside Charter High School.

Our school district has no need for more elementary schools! All of our elementary schools are under-enrolled. We have 8 magnet schools offering our families a variety of 

Teacher Evaluation as Legal, Political Football « InterACT

Teacher Evaluation as Legal, Political Football « InterACT:

Teacher Evaluation as Legal, Political Football

by David B. Cohen

photo by the author

Los Angeles Unified School District and United Teachers of Los Angeles have reached a tentative agreement on new teacher evaluation practices and policies.  The union will take up the agreement in a meeting of its governing body later today, and I expect that there will be some tough questions for the union leadership regarding compromises on the use of student testing results.  A legal ruling against the district held that, under current law, student growth had to be a factor in teacher evaluation.  That may be the law, but it still doesn’t make sense from an educational measurement or research standpoint.  Judges, lawyers, and legislators cannot change the facts, even though they can ignore them: tests designed and validated for the purpose of measuring student learning cannot be deemed valid for other purposes like teacher evaluation.
The favored approach in policy and politics these days – even though it doesn’t work – is to use “value-added” measures of student learning, trying to isolate the effect of a given teacher on each student.  LAUSD has its own 

Bush-Rhee-Scott SB 736 a Failure of Unprecedented Proportions | Scathing Purple Musings

Bush-Rhee-Scott SB 736 a Failure of Unprecedented Proportions | Scathing Purple Musings:

Bush-Rhee-Scott SB 736 a Failure of Unprecedented Proportions

by Bob Sikes

After alllllll that, alomost 97 perecnt of Florida teachers were rated effective or highly effective under SB 736. Brace for some full frontal cynicism after Jeff Solochek’s post in Gradebook:

Florida’s new teacher evaluation model is far from popular, with teachers complaining loudly that counting student test scores for half their score is unfair and filled with potential for inaccuracy.
 The 2011-12 preliminary evaluation results, however, show little difference from the old evaluation system in which nearly all teachers were rated as “satisfactory.” With the new rankings, 22.2 percent of classroom teachers received a “highly effective” mark, while another 74.5 percent were deemed “effective,” according to a newly released report.

Allow me unload my head:
* Full disclosure (its public anyhow) I was rated effective.
* This thing was never going to be fair, accurate or equitable. Some districts used Marzano and some used 

Teachers Don't Suck !: What Do You Think??

Teachers Don't Suck !: What Do You Think??:

What Do You Think??

by Walt S.

I have received comments about my proposal to ask for your ideas regarding educational questions in my future posts.

I am including them below and also posing a question as I suggested I would.

Here is a prelude to the question.

In Jersee (as we like to call it), we have had over the past decadra of educational schemes instituted and imposed by the State.

The Renaissance Act

The Urban Hope Act

No Child Left Behind  (NCLB)

The Race to the Top

The Quality Education Act  (QEA)

Thorough and Efficient   (T&E)

High School Proficiency   (HSPT),    (HSPT9), (HSTP11)

Grade Eight Proficiency  Assessment   (GEPA)

Quality Single Accountability  Continuum  (QSAC)

ComprehensiveEducation Improvement and 

Child Poverty Will Remain High, Analysis Predicts | First Focus

Child Poverty Will Remain High, Analysis Predicts | First Focus:

Child Poverty Will Remain High, Analysis Predicts
PRESS RELEASE

December 4, 2012

Contact:
Ed Walz
(202) 657-0685 (office)

Washington — A new report released today predicts 2012 national and state child poverty rates 10 months before the U.S. Census Bureau’s official measure, expected in September 2013. The new First Focus analysis, written by Urban Institute researchers Julia Isaacs and Olivia Healy, finds early signs of improvement, though the nation’s child poverty rate will remain high — with nearly one-fourth of all children living in poverty — as the recession continues to take a heavy toll on children and their families.

In The Recession’s Ongoing Impact on Children, 2012: Indicators of Children’s Economic Well-Being, Isaacs and Healy assess three key economic indicators of children’s well-being — the number of children living with an unemployed parent, the number who rely upon the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP, formerly Food Stamps) for food, and the number who live in poverty — and finds that:

• 2.7 million more children lived with an unemployed parent during a typical month in 2012, compared to 2007 (an increase of 71%), bringing the 2012 total to 6.3 million children;
• 2.8 million (44% of those living with an unemployed parent) lived, during a typical 2012 month, with a parent unemployed six months or longer;
• 8.8 million more additional children relied upon SNAP for food in 2012, compared to 2007, bringing the total number of children receiving SNAP to 21.6 million (one in four) nationwide;
• 16 million children (more than one in five) currently live in poverty; and
• The number of states that are high child poverty states (where more than one-in-five children live in poverty) has nearly doubled during the recession, from 14 in 2007 to 27 in 2011

“The numbers tell us two critical things: first, the recession continues to hit America’s children 

How Many Billions Are We REALLY Spending on Testing? - Living in Dialogue - Education Week Teacher

How Many Billions Are We REALLY Spending on Testing? - Living in Dialogue - Education Week Teacher:

How Many Billions Are We REALLY Spending on Testing?

by Anthony Cody

The Brookings Institute released a report last week that purports to calculate the amount of money being spent on standardized tests.
The number researcher Matthew Chingos comes up with is $1.7 billion, which, when we consider that we spend more than $600 billion a year on education, does not sound like all that much. However, it turns out that all he is actually counting is the contract cost that states pay directly to test vendors.
He explains:

This report focuses on the costs of contracts between states and test-making vendors because they constitute the lion's share of state-level expenditures on testing. According to assessment cost data gathered by PARCC from its member states, of 21 states that provided both total assessment cost and contract cost data, 18 states reported contract costs making up more than 85% of total costs. Other state-level costs are surely important, such as the salaries paid to state assessment officials who play a vital role in selecting contractors and overseeing the vendors through test development, administration, and scoring. But such costs are difficult to track consistently across states, and usually represent a small fraction of the testing budget.

The roles played by school and district employees who aid in test administration and scoring are 

No Value in Value Added – SchoolBook

No Value in Value Added – SchoolBook:

No Value in Value Added

by Arthur Goldstein

Editor’s Note: In response to a recent SchoolBook post and other media coverage of negotiations for a teacher evaluation deal, SchoolBook received a number of comments from people who felt that value-added metrics were not only detrimental to teachers but they were an unproven methodology. As one blogger asked: “So where is the space to make the point that this evaluation system is controversial? And unproven? Maybe even harmful?”
Below we include a critique from teacher and contributor Arthur Goldstein. Education historian and writer Diane Ravitch wrote on this topic here, as did Tim Clifford here. SchoolBook had a round-up of reactions to the statewide deal announced back in February. Keep the comments coming. This issue is far from resolved!
The best way to improve education in our schools, I keep reading, is through sorely needed constructive feedback. The latest suggestion sounds something like this: “Your class’s test scores stink. If they aren’t better by next year, you’re fired.”
But there is a problem with this approach. If you read some of the critiques highlighted above or check the 

End of desegregation offers lessons for current education reformers | Hechinger Report

End of desegregation offers lessons for current education reformers | Hechinger Report:

End of desegregation offers lessons for current education reformers

by Sarah Garland

After half a century, America’s efforts to end segregation seem to be winding down. In the years after Brown v. Board of Education, 755 school districts were under desegregation orders. A new Stanford study reports that as of 2009, that number had dropped to as few as 268. (An additional 153 small districts with fewer than 2,000 students weren’t included in the study, and may also still have outstanding desegregation orders.)
The study is the first to take a comprehensive look at whether court-ordered busing successfully ended the legacy of Jim Crow in public education, and it suggests a mission that is far from accomplished. On average, those districts that stopped forcing schools to mix students by race have seen a gradual but steady–and significant–return of racial isolation, especially at the elementary level.

Students at the Charles Drew Charter School in Atlanta, where school officials have sought to create a diverse student body in a city where schools have largely re-segregated. (Photo by Sarah Garland)

It’s unclear what effect school “re-segregation” will have on minority achievement, though a large body of research suggests it certainly won’t help efforts to improve test scores, graduation rates, and college entry levels for blacks and Hispanics, a growing share of the U.S. population. But the retreat from desegregation also 

Bogus school closing hearings = no input, no trust Parents United for Responsible Education

Parents United for Responsible Education » Blog Archive » Bogus school closing hearings = no input, no trust:

Bogus school closing hearings = no input, no trust

by admin

My somewhat inarticulate complaints about the pointless and disrespectful hearings now underway by the CPS- appointed Commission  on School Utilization made it into theSun-Times today:

Julie Woestehoff of Parents United for Responsible Education blasted CPS for starting hearings of a newly formed School Utilization Committee without indicating which schools were in danger of closure or consolidation.
In past years, CPS released a list of proposed closures or school shakeups, and then held 

Seattle Schools Community Forum: Ed News Roundup

Seattle Schools Community Forum: Ed News Roundup:

Ed News Roundup

by Melissa Westbrook

Boy, is there a lot out there.

First up, great news for the students receiving Washington Opportunity Scholarships - their check goes up from $1,000 to $5,000.  From the Times report:

The scholarship is for Washington residents studying at in-state institutions who are majoring in science, technology, engineering, math — often called STEM — and health-care fields, and who meet an income threshold that's considered low- to middle-income — up to $102,200 for a family of four. Its aim is to encourage more students to go into those high-paying, high-demand fields.

It may be especially important to middle-income families, who often don't qualify for financial-aid programs and must rely instead on loans, especially as tuition has risen so dramatically.

Freshmen and sophomore scholarship winners will receive the smaller $1,000 award. Because it's renewable, 

FYI on School-Level Concerns

by Melissa Westbrook

Some of you SPS parents may not be aware but there is a procedure to follow if you have aschool-level concern and if you don't follow it, you may be spinning in circles (without knowing why).

Here's a link to our SPS Ombudsman page that gives many helpful details. 

I put this forth because a parent from one school got up at the most recent Board meeting and said that 22 parents had phoned Superintendent Banda with a concern and he hadn't answered one call. 

Students for a #FreeCooperUnion Occupy To Preserve The Right to Education | OccupyWallSt.org

Students for a #FreeCooperUnion Occupy To Preserve The Right to Education | OccupyWallSt.org:

Students for a #FreeCooperUnion Occupy To Preserve The Right to Education

Posted 33 minutes ago on Dec. 5, 2012, 11:48 a.m. EST by OccupyWallSt
Tags: austerity, education, nyc, occupation, student activism

Students have been occupying the Cooper Union clock tower since Monday and 11 students are still locked-down! Today at 2pm come join OWS, All in The Red, US Uncut, and others to show your support for the right to education.
For more information, you can also see their Facebook page, follow @FreeCooperUnion on Twitter (#CULockIn, #savecooper, #FreeCooperUnion) or go to http://www.cusos.org/.
Students for a Free Cooper Union issued the following communique on Dec. 3rd:

Students for a Free Cooper Union lock-in to Cooper Union’s Foundation Building to preserve free education

We, the Students for a Free Cooper Union, in solidarity with the global student struggle and today’s Day of Action, have locked ourselves into The Peter Cooper Suite on the top floor of Cooper Union’s Foundation Building. This action is in response to the lack of transparency and accountability that has plagued this institution for decades and now threatens the 

The Disability Treaty Debacle and the Republican Education Agenda - Dana Goldstein

The Disability Treaty Debacle and the Republican Education Agenda - Dana Goldstein:

On the Disability Treaty Debacle and the Republican Education Agenda

by Dana Goldstein

Every so often the paranoid rhetoric of the "parental rights" movement surfaces in the Congressional Republican caucus. That's what happened yesterday when 38 senators blocked the United States from adopting the UN Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities, a treaty largely based on the Americans with Disabilities Act. That celebrated piece of legislation was signed into law by George H.W. Bush in 1990. Both former Bush presidents, Bob Dole, and John McCain all back the treaty, which seeks to prevent discrimination on the basis of disability, and which would do nothing to change any exisiting U.S. law or to prevent homeschooling. Yet anti-internationalist conservative interest groups have organized strong opposition to this treaty and others among homeschooling parents and Tea Party activists, telling them it could prevent parents from educating disabled children at home or using corporal punishment. From the Senate floor, Utah's Mike Lee articulated this position:

I and many of my constituents, including those who homeschool their children or send their children to private or religious schools, have justifiable doubts that a foreign UN body, a committee operating out of 

RheeFirst! » The synergy between StudentsFirst and News Corp’s education privatization

RheeFirst! » The synergy between StudentsFirst and News Corp’s education privatization:

The synergy between StudentsFirst and News Corp’s education privatization

Joel Klein is a busy guy.  When he isn’t putting the ole rubber stamp on documents at StudentsFirst board meetings, or advising Rupert Murdoch on how to handle the investigation into phone hacking at News Corp., Joel Klein is running Rupert Murdoch’s education privatization arm. 

A recent presentation by Klein shows how seamlessly you can go from StudentsFirst talking points (pages 7 through 9) to explaining how much of the $673 billion dollar education “market” you plan on siphoning off (page 57).

FCMAT » Cali Education Headlines Wednesday, December 5, 2012

FCMAT » Fiscal Crisis & Management Assistance Team:

Classroom yoga topic packs board meeting

Education Headlines

Wednesday, December 5, 2012

Classroom yoga topic packs board meeting

Trustees in the Encinitas Union School District told a boardroom filled with parents divided over yoga in their schools Tuesday that they hoped they could find some way of satisfying both sides.

Long Beach Unified school board votes to close Monroe K-8 in Lakewood

More than 650 James Monroe K-8 School students will have to find a new place to learn. The Long Beach Unified School District Board of Education voted unanimously Tuesday night to close the Lakewood school at the end of the 2012-2013 school year.

Lawyer: Fresno Unified failed to notify abducted girl's guardians she was missing

A San Francisco lawyer says Fresno Unified School District should have done more to protect the 10-year-old girl who was abducted on her way to school two months ago, sexually assaulted and left bound in a field near Kerman.

Final tally shows one North County school bond passed

After weeks of waiting, and with the final results of the Nov. 6 election to be certified Tuesday, only one of four North County school bond measures achieved victory — and only by a narrow margin.

Teachers’ January furlough day restored

Teachers in the Temecula Valley Unified School District will be working – and getting paid for it - on Jan. 7 after all. The day – the first Monday following the district’s winter break - had been scheduled as an unpaid furlough day for teachers. The decision to rescind the furlough was announced this week by Superintendent Tim Ritter and Temecula Valley Educators Association President Chris Lindberg.

School names can be lessons in recognition

Celebrities? Historical figures? Neighborhoods? As the Los Angeles Unified School District replaces temporary generic campus names with permanent monikers, the process has become political, controversial or just plain wacky.

Riley: Lindsay Unified students blazing their own paths to higher achievement

Those of us who travel in education reform circles hear a lot of skepticism about whether traditional school districts can truly innovate. Yet, more than five years ago, a small rural school district in the Central Valley that serves predominately English language learners from low-income families reimagined its entire strategic approach to education and learning. And now, Lindsay Unified School District may just win a $10 million “Race to the Top-District” grant from the federal government.

Prop. 39 funds eyed for energy projects

California lawmakers want to spend billions of dollars generated from the passage of Proposition 39 in November to pay for energy efficiency projects at as many as half of the state's public schools.

Baron: First sign of better times for schools under Prop 30

Deferred payments to California schools and community colleges will fall to their lowest level in five years this academic year, and repayments for previous deferrals is starting sooner than expected.

California schools boosted by voters, lawmakers

It's beginning to look a lot like Christmas for the state's public schools, after years of what some would call lumps of coal in the stocking.

L.A. Unified says deal on evaluations meets court order

District files brief by judge's deadline, but details remain unresolved in agreement with union on using student test scores to assess teachers.

Tuesday, December 4, 2012

Final days of counting shows Prop. AA winning, Prop EE trailing

Proposition AA, a $449 million bond proposal in the San Dieguito Union High School District, needed support from 55 percent of voters to pass and appears victorious with 55.52 percent as of Monday. Proposition EE, a $497 million bond proposal in the MiraCosta Community College District, also needed 55 percent but received only 54.83 percent in the Monday update from the Registrar of Voters office

Charter school chosen to remake failing Adelanto school has history of fast turnarounds

Once its charter application is approved, the charter school tapped to take over Adelanto's failing Desert Trails Elementary School will have only months to hire a staff and set up a new school before the start of the 2013-14 school year.

Students get more fruit, vegetables for lunch

More apples, squash sticks and whole-grain breads are showing up on school cafeteria trays under new public school nutrition rules that require extra fruit, vegetables and whole grains. But are kids actually eating the healthy stuff? That’s a question school nutrition directors would like to answer.

The Big Money Driving Online Higher Education in Florida | Scathing Purple Musings

The Big Money Driving Online Higher Education in Florida | Scathing Purple Musings:

The Big Money Driving Online Higher Education in Florida

by Bob Sikes

Florida House Speaker Rep.  Will Weatherford (R-Wesley Chapel) tweeted the following message this morning:

I agree with @JebBush: online learning is the future of higher education!

I’ll bet he does indeed. Weatherford linked an op-ed penned by former governor Jeb Bush and education executive Randy Best in the Tampa Bay Times in which they say this:

Numerous articles and commentaries from inside and outside of academia are raising the alarm that American public higher education faces an unprecedented financial crisis.
For years, state legislatures have been disinvesting in public colleges and universities, leaving campus administrators to struggle with how to make do with less. The result: rising debt, deferred maintenance for aging facilities, reductions in programs and course offerings, dismissals, 

Pearson blog starts heated debate about $1.7 billion for standardized testing:

Pearson blog starts heated debate about $1.7 billion for standardized testing

Posted by Valerie Strauss on December 5, 2012 at 10:48 am

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A blog post written by a Pearson psychometrician under the headline “Is $1.7 billion a lot or a little to spend on testing?” has sparked a heated online debate about the costs of standardized testing — monetarily and otherwise.

The $1.7 billion refers to a figure in a new Brookings Institution report on state spending on K-12 assessment systems. Author Matthew Chingos, looking at data from state contracts with testing vendors, concluded that 45 states spend a total of $669 million a year for these assessments, with “a rough estimate” state-level spending $1.7 billion annually across the nation. That, he says, is “one-quarter of one percent of annual K-12 education spending in the United States each year, raising the question of whether the amount is too much, just right or not enough. (The report unfortunately looks at the District  as if it were a state, which it isn’t; it says per-pupil testing costs range from $7 in New York to $114 in Washington, D.C., as if a state and a city are comparable.)

Pearson is the largest for-profit education company in the world. Pearson psychometrician Steve Ferrara wrote in part on the Pearson Web site, referring to the $1.7 billion estimate fo

Teach For Awhile—Then Head Straight to Law School | EduShyster

Teach For Awhile—Then Head Straight to Law School | EduShyster:

Teach For Awhile—Then Head Straight to Law School

by edushyster2012

It is annual rite of almost unimaginable cruelty. Thousands of young hopefuls attempting to beat long odds. For the lucky few who win this life lottery, there awaits a coveted seat at a no excuses school known for high expectations and some of the nation’s best teachers. But only a tiny minority will get a shot at a better future.
I’m talking, of course, about the huge number of Teach for America alumni who are even now applying to the nation’s top law schools. A new study has found that 3/4 of TFA recruits leave their urban classrooms after two years, taking their excellence with them. But inquiring minds want to know: where do the TFA-sters and their