Thursday, December 6, 2012

by jonpelto

Happy Muthers Day

Later today, movers, shakers, lobbyists, the political elite, and anyone else ready to plunk down $750 a person can have a cocktail with Governor Malloy and a host of “featured guests” including Lt. Governor Nancy Wyman, U.S. Senator Richard Blumenthal, U.S. Senator-elect Chris Murphy, Congressman John Larson, Congresswoman-elect Elizabeth Esty and Hartford Mayor Pedro Segarra.

The ticket price will also get you into the upscale home of Alan Lazowski, owner of LAZ Parking. Lazowski is also part of the investment team whose company just received a major contract from the Connecticut Housing Finance Authority to develop more housing and retail space in downtown Hartford.

And while handing over the check may not get you onto Santa’s “good” list, the proceeds go to Governor Malloy’s political action committee, called Prosperity for Connecticut.

Right-to-work legislation introduced in state House as protesters pack Capitol | Michigan news | Detroit Free Press | freep.com

Right-to-work legislation introduced in state House as protesters pack Capitol | Michigan news | Detroit Free Press | freep.com:

Right-to-work legislation introduced in state House as protesters pack Capitol

3:49 PM, December 6, 2012 |
Comments

LANSING -- Right-to-work legislation was introduced in the state House just before 3 p.m., bringing loud protests from Democrats and protesters inside the Capitol building.

Backed by shouts from fellow Democrats, House Minority Floor Leader Kate Segal, D-Battle Creek, insisted that the bill be read aloud in its entirety.

The House clerk, Gary Randall, then read the bill aloud.

Right-to-work legislation makes it illegal to require financial support of a union as a condition of employment.

State Rep. Vicki Barnett, D-Farmington Hills, who spoke against the bill to loud applause from the gallery, said it contains an appropriation of state funds designed to make it referendum-proof. Bills considered appropriation bills can not be repealed through a ballot measure, as happened with the toughened emergency manager law,

Promise of Things to Come to NYC: Florida botches release of new data on teacher evaluations Coalition for Public Education/Coalición por la Educación Pública

Coalition for Public Education/Coalición por la Educación Pública:

Promise of Things to Come to NYC: Florida botches release of new data on teacher evaluations

By Curtis Krueger, Marlene Sokol, Jeffrey S. Solochek and Danny Valentine, Times Staff Writers

Published Wednesday, December 5, 2012

Florida's Department of Education on Wednesday rolled out the results of a sweeping new teacher evaluation system that is designed to be a more accurate, helpful and data-driven measure of how well teachers actually get students to learn.

And then, within hours of releasing the data, the department pulled the numbers off its website and sheepishly admitted that much of it was wrong.

State officials late Wednesday said thousands of teachers were mistakenly double-counted because they had more than one "job code" in computerized records. That skewed the results.
Department spokeswoman Cynthia Sucher acknowledged it was "distressing" for the agency to learn that the information turned out to be incorrect.

The new evaluation system has been stressful for teachers. Even though it appears that the vast majority have been rated as "effective" or "highly effective," many have been downgraded. Critics of the new system said th

Ethics complaint questions legitimacy of BCG reform plan, school closures | Philadelphia Public School Notebook

Ethics complaint questions legitimacy of BCG reform plan, school closures | Philadelphia Public School Notebook:

Ethics complaint questions legitimacy of BCG reform plan, school closures

by thenotebook on Dec 06 2012 Posted in Latest news

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Photo: Bill Hangley, Jr.

J. Whyatt Mondesire, head of the Philadelphia chapter of the NAACP, explains the group's ethics complaint against the William Penn Foundation and the Boston Consulting Group.

by Bill Hangley, Jr.

With the shadow of dozens of possible school closures looming in the background, a group of public school advocates has formally filed an ethics complaint challenging the legitimacy of the dramatic reform plan developed for the School District of Philadelphia by the Boston Consulting Group (BCG) and the William Penn Foundation.

The complaint was filed Wednesday with the Philadelphia Board of Ethics by members of Parents United for Public Education, the Philadelphia Home and School Council, and the Philadelphia branch of the NAACP.

The group alleges that because the William Penn Foundation contracted privately with BCG to develop a reform plan for the District, the two private organizations

Education Research Report: Among low-income schools, traditional public schools show higher achievement scores than charters

Education Research Report: Among low-income schools, traditional public schools show higher achievement scores than charters:

Among low-income schools, traditional public schools show higher achievement scores than charters

by Jonathan Kantrowitz

The Wisconsin Department of Public Instruction (DPI) recently released Report Cards for a majority of public and charter schools in the state. Public schools comprise 95% (1,772 schools) of the total data set, charter schools comprise 5% (101) of the total.

The Report Cards represent a compilation of three years of data intended to provide a standard of measure for school, student, and teacher performance. Forward Institute is conducting an extensive study on the effects of Wisconsin 2011 Act 32 on high poverty vs. low poverty school students, to be completed in January 2013.

Forward Institute used the recent Report Cards to examine the correlations between poverty and educational outcome in Wisconsin charter and public schools. The Report Cards are an appropriate data source as they us

Was 'Brown v. Board' a Failure? - Sarah Garland - The Atlantic

Was 'Brown v. Board' a Failure? - Sarah Garland - The Atlantic:

Was 'Brown v. Board' a Failure?

A new study shows a steady but significant return of racial isolation to America's schools.

Students at Barnard Elementary School in Washington, D.C., one of the first schools to desegregate after Brown. (Library of Congress)

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.

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.

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

Parents: We are losing control of our schools - theoaklandpress.com

Parents: We are losing control of our schools - theoaklandpress.com:

Parents: We are losing control of our schools

Published: Thursday, December 06, 2012

By DIANA DILLABER MURRAY
Of The Oakland Press
diana.dillaber@oakpress.com; Twitter: @DDillybar

Click to enlarge

Close to 2,000 parents and community members have attended meetings around Oakland County called by education leaders who are critical of legislation being pushed in the lame duck session.

Yet another meeting has been added to the series that started last week. A meeting is planned from 7 to 9 p.m. today at Coolidge Intermediate School., 2521 Bermuda, Ferndale.

Vickie Markavitch, Oakland Schools superintendent, said despite opposition, legislators still hope to pass the bills before the session ends.

Markavitch and other educators fear that current proposed

NAEP - The results of the national standardized vocabulary tests are in

NAEP - Overview:

The National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP)is the largest nationally representative and continuing assessment of what America's students know and can do in various subject areas. Learn more...

Vocabulary Results from the 2009 and 2011 NAEP Reading Assessment are here! Learn more about the release and how to view the live webinar.

Join the webinar of the 2011 Vocabulary Report.

In the Spotlight

Get NAEP Results!
Now available for download on mobile devices through Apple App Store and Google Play, the NAEP Results app delivers current results, comparative statistics, and real practice questions from the assessments. Test yourself, your students, or your kids! >>More info

Writing 2011 Tutorials
Writing 2011 was administered for the first time as a computer-based assessment. Explore the tutorials to find out how students at grades 8 and 12 took the test! >>More info
Test Yourself in WritingHow well do you write? Test yourself with questions released with the 2011 Writing results, and see how you fare! >>More info

Evaluation agreement clears union hurdle; teachers endorse Zimmer - latimes.com

Evaluation agreement clears union hurdle; teachers endorse Zimmer - latimes.com:

Evaluation agreement clears union hurdle; teachers endorse Zimmer

The governing body of the Los Angeles teachers union has endorsed a tentative agreement on teacher evaluations that incorporates the results of student standardized test scores. The approval was a key hurdle but rank-and-file members will have the final say when they vote at their schools in January.
The Wednesday evening vote took place at the Koreatown headquarters of United Teachers Los Angeles during a meeting of the union’s House of Representatives. The tally was 123 in support, 42 opposed and 12 abstentions, according to teachers at the meeting.
Proponents emphasized that the deal did not permit a “value-added” calculation for an individual teacher to be a specific part of that teacher’s job evaluation. Value-added formulas gauge a teacher’s role in student growth by attempting to account for past student performance and outside factors that affect test scores. Many teachers

Vote in the StopBullying.gov Video Challenge! | ED.gov Blog

Vote in the StopBullying.gov Video Challenge! | ED.gov Blog:

Vote in the StopBullying.gov Video Challenge!

Posted on December 6, 2012 by Guest Blogger

Youth from around the country and those overseas in U.S. Department of Defense schools, aged 13 to 18 years, took our challenge and submitted almost 900 entries for the 2012 StopBullying.gov Video Challenge!

The Federal Partners in Bullying Prevention have worked our way through all the creative videos and screened them for eligibility based on the challenge rules. We ranked each of the eligible videos according to the published criteria, and considered feedback from our technical advisors:

Filmmaker Lee Hirsch;
Alice Cahn from Cartoon Network’s Stop Bullying, Speak Up! Campaign;
Deborah Leiter from the Ad Council; and
Scott Hannah and Tyler Gregory, previous finalists of The Great American NO BULL Challenge.

We are ready to share the SEVEN finalists for YOU to vote on!

The theme of this year’s contest is “how youth can be more than a bystander and help kids who are involved in bullying.” Contestants were asked to integrate this idea into their entries and show how they are making a difference in their communities by taking action against bullying.

The goal of the contest is to create an impact through accepting videos that demonstrate:

Peer-to-peer communication
Positive messaging
Promotion of the http://www.stopbullying.gov website

These youth are competing for big cash prizes — $2,000 will be awarded to the winning video and $500 for each of the two runners up. Voting will continue until December 10^th.

We encourage you to look over the entries and vote for the video that does the best job of showing how youth can be more than a bystander and truly make a difference in their communities by standing up against bullying.

Vote in the video contest!

When you’re done, you can jump over to Twitter or Facebook and tell your friends to vote, too.

Join the conversation on the StopBullying.gov Facebook page

Kaitlyn Harrington, U.S. Department of Health and Human Services

This post originally appeared at StopBullying.gov.

FCMAT » Cali Education Headlines Thursday, December 6, 2012

FCMAT » Fiscal Crisis & Management Assistance Team:

So When are you going to fix California's Education Mess,
Like a little accountability for the disgusting Charter School Law ?

Education Headlines

Thursday, December 6, 2012

Eureka City Schools, teachers reach tentative contract settlement

The Eureka City Schools and its teachers have agreed on a contract for the 2012-2013 school year, after months of negotiations, Superintendent Fred Van Vleck said Wednesday.

Divided Fresno Unified board gives Hanson positive review

Fresno Unified School District trustees gave Superintendent Michael Hanson a positive end-of-the-year evaluation Wednesday evening, but not without a split vote.

O.C. charter school cleared in state-test misconduct probe

An independently run Capistrano Unified school being investigated for possible misconduct during state standardized testing in the spring has been exonerated of wrongdoing, the school district has announced.

Carlsbad rejects proposed charter school

Trustees in Carlsbad Unified School District unanimously rejected Oxford Preparatory Academy's proposal to start a charter school in the district Wednesday night.

Pop singer Angelina is now an East San Jose teacher after music stardom and tragedy

Angelina Camarillo Ramos, the unlikely pop singer from Union City and Santa Clara University, has come full circle. After a successful run in urban contemporary music and the tragic death of her brother, she's pursuing the teaching career she always wanted. But her students didn't buy it at first.

LAUSD faces 4 new lawsuits in Miramonte case

Attorneys representing victims of alleged lewd acts by a former Los Angeles third-grade teacher filed four lawsuits this week against the school district, after the lawyers refused to participate in negotiations to settle about 175 legal actions stemming from the same case.

Dublin bans new tobacco stores near schools, parks

Enacting one of the East Bay's strictest tobacco ordinances, the City Council gave final approval Tuesday to rules barring new tobacco sellers from opening near schools, parks or day care centers.

Ex-treasurer sentenced to jail, order to repay $37,346 to Sunnyvale PTA

Dawn Saugen, the former PTA treasurer convicted of embezzling more than $35,000 from the Vargas School Parent Teacher Association, was sentenced Wednesday to eight months in county jail and three years of probation.

Fensterwald: Many math students are flailing, repeating courses without success

A big reason California students are pushed to take higher math in high school is to see that they satisfy the admission requirements to a state four-year university. And yet 68 percent of students who haven’t passed one of the required courses, Algebra II, by the end of 11th grade don’t even enroll in math as seniors, giving up on the possibility of applying to a UC or CSU school.

Wednesday, December 5, 2012

Summerville bond loses by 2 votes

Summerville High School’s $8 million bond measure may get a recount after it failed by only two votes, while Sonora High School will begin cashing in on the $23 million Measure J in coming months.

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.

Dallas ISD climate survey results: Employees say they’re positive about district’s direction | Education Blog

Dallas ISD climate survey results: Employees say they’re positive about district’s direction | Education Blog:

Dallas ISD climate survey results: Employees say they’re positive about district’s direction

8 0

comments (8)

By Matthew Haag
mhaag@dallasnews.com
4:45 pm on December 3, 2012 | Permalink

Update | 8:30 a.m. Tuesday Here is the DMN’s story on the climate survey that ran in this morning’s paper. In it, a Stanford University business professor talks about the best practices of conducting such corporate climate surveys and points out some shortcomings of DISD’s survey.

First, professor Jeffrey Pfeffer said, the results are good, especially for an organization undergoing change. “These results are completely inconsistent that the district employees are miserable,” he said.

But he said that only 65 percent of employees would recommend their school as a good place to work was not very good and should be closer to 90 percent. Pfeffer also was concerned about DISD requiring staffers to use their employee ID numbers to complete the surveys. He said that the best climate

Dallas ISD climate survey November 2012

Matthew Haag writes about the Dallas Independent School District. Follow @matthewhaag on Twitter,@DallasISD_News on Twitter and the Education Blog on Facebook.

UPDATE: Pensions, Rhode Island and get your butt to Springfield. « Fred Klonsky

Pensions, Rhode Island and get your butt to Springfield. « Fred Klonsky:

Pensions, Rhode Island and get your butt to Springfield.

by Fred Klonsky

Once again, Glen does a great job of giving us the facts about the Nekritz bill and the other threats to our pensions.
And John explains Cash Balance Plans.
If these two guys didn’t already exist, I would have to create them in my basement laboratory. When there are these two bloggers at your disposal, nobody has an excuse for not understanding what is happening to our pensions in the Bizarro World of Illinois politics.
Then there is Rhode Island.
There is this from the New York Times yesterday.

Rhode Island, the site of a sweeping pension overhaul last year, has brought in a prominent New York lawyer to litigate the question: David Boies, perhaps best

Ten minute drawing. From the US Senate to the Stupid Hall of Fame. A short trip.

by Fred Klonsky

Click on drawing to enlarge.

The Ecole Polytechnique Massacre « Student Activism

The Ecole Polytechnique Massacre « Student Activism:

The Ecole Polytechnique Massacre

by Angus Johnston

Twenty-three years ago today 14 women — 13 students and a staff member — were murdered on the campus of the École Polytechnique in Montreal. Their killer, Marc Lepine, targeted female students in an engineering class and claimed to be “fighting feminism.”
The fourteen who died were Geneviève Bergeron, Hélène Colgan, Nathalie Croteau, Barbara Daigneault, Anne-Marie Edward, Maud Haviernick, Maryse Laganière, Maryse Leclair, Anne-Marie Lemay, Sonia Pelletier, Michèle Richard, Annie St-Arneault, Annie Turcotte, and Barbara Klucznick-Widajewicz.
The 20th anniversary of the killings drew a lot of attention in the Canadian media and blogosphere, and I collected a number of links then:

A look back at the shootings, their aftermath, and the larger struggle against misogynist violence.

How Can We Make Schools a Center of Community Life? - Bridging Differences - Education Week

How Can We Make Schools a Center of Community Life? - Bridging Differences - Education Week:

How Can We Make Schools a Center of Community Life?

by Deborah Meier

Dear Pedro,
I love it! Brockton makes a good story, and while I'm a perennial skeptic about schools that beat the odds so convincingly, I'm willing to suspend belief. I hope I can visit there sometime this coming year. What's your sense of the incoming 9th grade? What are their literacy skills at that point? In order to focus on literacy, did the school do less of something else—and if so, what?
A good 4th grade grader is actually a pretty good reader, as long as the reading matter isn't too sophisticated. They lack often mostly in "subject matter," so to speak.
Anyway, I don't see the polarities as between those at Brockton and those at Mission Hill, etc.
Moving on, I'm thinking about my opponents, who come in varied types. Let me name at least three:

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