UPDATE: Silas Takes a Plea Seattle Schools Community Forum: Caroline Kennedy to Promote Poetry at Sanislo Today

Seattle Schools Community Forum: Caroline Kennedy to Promote Poetry at Sanislo Today:

Caroline Kennedy to Promote Poetry at Sanislo Today

by Melissa Westbrook

Caroline Kennedy will be at Sanislo Elementary today, visiting one of their 1st grade classrooms and meeting members of their school poetry club.  Members of the club, as well as students from View Ridge will join her tonight to read from her new poetry anthology, "Poems to Learn by Heart."

She will be the featured guest at an event tonight co-hosted by the Washington Center for the Book at the Seattle Public Library and Seattle First Baptist Church.

Ms. Kennedy has been an avid reader of poetry since childhood and has created several books around poems.

Silas Takes a Plea

by Melissa Westbrook

From KOMO TV:

Silas Potter Jr., one of the central figures in a financial scandal in Seattle Public Schools, pleaded guilty Monday to 36 counts of theft for stealing funds from a Seattle Public School District program designed to assist minority-owned businesses in receiving school district contracts. 

He could get between 3 1/2 to 5 years in prison.  He is to be sentenced in late May.

That leave one final co-conspirator, David Johnson, who is going to stand trial starting May 13th.   The third co-conspirator, Lorrie Kay Sorensen, pleaded guilty and is to be sentenced in June.

Mike Klonsky's SmallTalk Blog: WEEKEND QUOTABLES

Mike Klonsky's SmallTalk Blog: WEEKEND QUOTABLES:

WEEKEND QUOTABLES

by Mike Klonsky

Just in case BBB's hearing problems are ongoing, this weekend's Quotables are all from Lauren Fitzpatrick's excellent reporting on the school-closing hearings in Chicago. 

Alida Diaz, a bilingual teacher at King Elementary School shares her concerns about school closings at the first Chicago Public School hearings for the school, April 6, 2013 at Whitney Young High School. King Elementary School with close into Jensen Elementary. | Jessica Koscielniak ~ Sun-Times

Nikkitoya Roberts one of the mothers who said her special-needs son is better since he got into Buckingham. 

“He’s more acclimated there than he’s been anywhere,” she said. “Those kids are going to have to 

ASCD Forum: How Do We Define and Measure Teacher and Principal Effectiveness? — Whole Child Education

ASCD Forum: How Do We Define and Measure Teacher and Principal Effectiveness? — Whole Child Education:

THE WHOLE CHILD BLOG

ASCD Forum: How Do We Define and Measure Teacher and Principal Effectiveness?

April 8, 2013 by Meg Simpson

Across the globe, nations, districts, schools, and individuals face a timely and complex issue: How do we define and measure teacher and principal effectiveness?

Is there a definitive answer to this challenging question? We're not sure, but since January, ASCD has convened the ASCD Forum to focus educator conversation and insight on this important topic. From now through April 12, ASCD is seeking feedback on the following questions:

• How do we define and measure teacher effectiveness?
• How do we define and measure principal effectiveness?

ASCD invites you to join the ASCD Forum group on the ASCD EDge® social networking platform and write one or more blog posts on educator effectiveness. We ask that blog posts adhere to the following guidelines:

1. Tags: We ask that all ASCD Forum posts be written through your free profile on ASCD EDge and tagged to the ASCD Forum group. In order to tag your post to the group, you need to join the ASCD Forum group. When writing your blog post draft, the bottom of the page has an option called “Add blog post to groups.” Select “ASCD Forum” before selecting “add blog post” to publish your post.
2. Structure: Feel free to structure your blog post any way you like; it can be a personal story, research, tips, an opinion piece, resources, and so forth. If your piece is more than 500 words, we recommend 

FCMAT » Cali Education Headlines Monday, April 8, 2013

FCMAT » Fiscal Crisis & Management Assistance Team:

LAUSD board member seeks overhaul of 'teacher jail' system

Education Headlines

Monday, April 8, 2013

Coast Unified employees thinking about the unthinkable

Cambria schools, students and teachers could be safer now, thanks to a daylong in-service day Monday, April 1, at which Coast Unified School District teachers, administrators, coaches, bus drivers and other staff members were taught how to prepare for, act and react during an attack or an “active shooter” incident.

Read more here:http://www.sanluisobispo.com/2013/04/04/2456498/thinking-about-the-unthinkable.html#storylink=cpy

Fate of New Millennium charter school rests with Fresno Unified

The future of a southwest Fresno charter school that the county grand jury says has "failed miserably" to educate students now rests with Fresno Unified officials who have been criticized for inadequate oversight of the school.

The Public Eye: FPPC reviews teachers union's donation to Twin Rivers trustee Quinn

Twin Rivers Unified School District board President Cortez Quinn was fined once by the state's political watchdog agency. Now he faces additional scrutiny for paying at least part of his initial fine with a donation from the teachers union.

Oakland Unified superintendent Tony Smith resigns to be with family in Chicago

In a move that stunned colleagues and parents, Oakland Unified school Superintendent Tony Smith announced his resignation Friday after nearly four years marked by a fractious school board and precarious finances.

Area makes a grab for Prop. 39 money

The Inland region is in a strong position to tap into some of the $2.5 billion from last year’s Prop. 39 for energy-saving projects over the next five years, speakers testified Friday at a special Senate hearing in Riverside Adult School. Utility bills pack a hit for school districts in Riverside and San Bernardino counties that have a lot of old buildings and the region has hot and cold extremes.

Assembly panel approves teacher dismissal bill

A key Assembly committee has approved legislation that would expedite the dismissal process for California teachers accused of misconduct.

Bennett: Brown’s funding formula must work for all districts

Many of us at School Services of California, Inc., have served in districts that would benefit from one formula or the other, and we feel the urgency to improve conditions for all children by any means possible. But we think that by bifurcating the debate into camps of “haves” and “have-nots” in 2013-14 funding, we fall into the trap of ignoring the fact that under either distribution formula, both groups will continue to be losers relative to other states.

Mongeau: Long Beach has jumpstart on transitional kindergarten

When California school districts were required by state law to start a new early kindergarten class for some 4-year-olds for the first time this year, Long Beach Unified had an easier task than most: to simply expand the existing “preppy kindergarten” program it started five years ago.

LAUSD board member seeks overhaul of 'teacher jail' system

Los Angeles Unified would create a team of professional investigators to handle serious misconduct complaints against teachers as part of a new plan to overhaul the district's disciplinary process, which has been criticized as costly, unwieldy and unfair.

San Fernando Valley's Ivy Academia charter school founders convicted of embezzling public funds

A jury convicted the founders of the San Fernando Valley-based Ivy Academia charter school Friday of embezzling public money and filing false tax returns.

Friday, April 5, 2013

Natomas district bus driver takes autistic boy to wrong school

A Sacramento mother said she felt panic Tuesday after learning that a substitute bus driver for the Natomas Unified School District dropped her 6-year-old autistic son at the wrong elementary school.

Claremont school district could send layoff notices to five classified employees; denies charter school request

Claremont Unified School District board members voted to send notices telling five classified employees that they could be laid off.

Share and Share Alike! | My Island View

Share and Share Alike! | My Island View:

Share and Share Alike!

by tomwhitby

I recently bumped into a friend at an education Conference. This friend is what I consider a thought leader in education. He is a well-known speaker and author and a person who many educators deservingly look up to for both guidance and wisdom. I thought that I would take advantage of the encounter by asking for a guest post for SmartBlog on Education, an education blog with which I am associated. He must have been having a bad day based on his response.
“I am tired of teaching everyone”, he said.
Knowing how much this person always offers to all who listen, this reaction was out of character and a clear indication of a frustrating day. Sharing is a learned behavior. It is not a behavior common to everyone. It can be easily abused and discouraged. If a person shares and gets the feeling that his or her sharing is not appreciated or under-valued, that spigot of sharing may quickly be turned off.
My teaching career started about two days after the last Dinosaur died in the eyes of many. Back in the day 

EduShyster Does Spring Break | EduShyster

EduShyster Does Spring Break | EduShyster:

EduShyster Does Spring Break

by edushyster2012

Thomas Friedman goes down best with a jello shot and other lessons from America’s choice-iest state
Greetings high achievers. While you were administering standardized tests, preparing to administer standardized tests or boldly disrupting our hopelessly stifled public schools, I spent last week chillaxing in America’s choice-iest state. That’s right, reader. EduShyster took the show on the road to Florida, USA in order to enjoy an old-school style spring break. My travels afforded me the opportunity to learn many important lessons, including the following: when it comes to choice, you can never have too much choice, if it sounds too good to be true, you are probably in Florida, and current TSA regulations prohibit taking a winebox aboard a plane. Who knew?
Thomas Friedman goes down best with a jello shot
One highlight of EduShyster Spring Break 2013: savoring the horn-o-plenty of education “reporting” that has been the specialty of the New York Times of late. A typical afternoon, enjoyed beneath the comfort of my tiki hut, 

Shanker Blog » On Teacher Evaluations, Between Myth And Fact Lies Truth

Shanker Blog » On Teacher Evaluations, Between Myth And Fact Lies Truth:

On Teacher Evaluations, Between Myth And Fact Lies Truth

by Matthew Di Carlo

Controversial proposals for new teacher evaluation systems have generated a tremendous amount of misinformation. It has come from both “sides,” ranging from minor misunderstandings to gross inaccuracies. Ostensibly to address some of these misconceptions, the advocacy group Students First (SF) recently released a “myth/fact sheet” on evaluations.
Despite the need for oversimplification inherent in “myth/fact” sheets, the genre can be useful, especially about topics such as evaluation, about which there is much confusion. When advocacy groups produce them, however, the myths and facts sometimes take the form of “arguments we don’t like versus arguments we do like.”
This SF document falls into that trap. In fact, several of its claims are a little shocking. I would still like to discuss the sheet, not because I enjoy picking apart the work of others (I don’t), but rather because I think elements of both the “myths” and “facts” in this sheet could be recast as “dual myths” in a new sheet. That is, this document helps to illustrate how, in many of our most heated education debates, the polar opposite viewpoints that receive the most attention are often both incorrect, or at least severely overstated, and usually serve to preclude more productive, nuanced discussions.
Let’s take all four of SF’s “myth/fact” combinations in turn.

The disturbing language and shallow logic of Ed Reform: Comments on “Relinquishment” & “Sector Agnosticism” | School Finance 101

The disturbing language and shallow logic of Ed Reform: Comments on “Relinquishment” & “Sector Agnosticism” | School Finance 101:

The disturbing language and shallow logic of Ed Reform: Comments on “Relinquishment” & “Sector Agnosticism”

by schoolfinance101

Two buzz phrases have been somewhat quietly floating around reformyland of late, for at least a year or so. I suspect that many have not even picked up on these buzz phrases/words.  They are somewhat inner circleconcepts in reformyland. The first is the notion of the great relinquisher (a seemingly bizarre contradiction indeed… to be great at surrendering… but I believe that’s the point). The second is the idea that we all must learn to be sector agnostics. That is, we all must stand behind the provision of a system of great schools as logical replacement for existing school systems and that this system of great schools might be provided by any sector – public/government, charter, private non-profit, private for profit. After all, it doesn’t matter how we provide them, as long as they are great schools. Who can argue with that?
Linking these two conceptions, the great relinquishers – primarily public officials perceived as otherwise self-interested bureaucrats – must learn to relinquish their self-interested stronghold on publicly financed schooling to alternative providers.  Among inner circle reformers, these ideas are treated as somehow ground breaking, deep intellectual thoughts about re-envisioning schooling. But in reality, they are anything but.

On Relinquishers & Sector Agnosticism

Some abbreviated backdrop on the relinquisher notion.  I converse (constructively) on occasion via e-mail with 

Modern School: Protecting Children by Punishing Whistleblowers

Modern School: Protecting Children by Punishing Whistleblowers:

Protecting Children by Punishing Whistleblowers

by Michael Dunn

Carol Buchanan, a former Moraga School District teacher (in the SF Bay Area) was told by students in the 1990s that science teacher, Dan Witters, had been sexually abusing them. She reported it to school officials, but was ignored and punished, Cheryl Hurd reported last week. While she was never fired, Buchanon claims the district did strongly urge her to take a “leave of absence,” which she ultimately did, retiring after a 25-year career.

Last year, University of California, Berkeley swim coach, Kristen Cunnane, came forward saying she was abused by Witters and another teacher. Cunnane later release the following statement: “I can’t believe how many people at the school knew about the sexual abuse and how many warnings the district ignored. To find out that there was someone at the school actually trying to help us and that she got punished for it is incredible.”

While it is tragic that so many children were thrown to the wolves by administrators who were 

Occupy The Department Of Education Ushers In America’s Angry Spring:

Occupy The Department Of Education Ushers In America’s Angry Spring

No offense, but the Lyndon Baines Johnson Department of Education building in Washington, DC is not a pretty sight.
Crossing the National Mall on 4th street, you pass between the glisteningly modern National Air and Space Museum and the sculpted brown stone of the National Museum of the American Indian to come face to face with what can only be described as a monument to bland austerity.
It was at the base of this concrete and glass slab that a band of public school teachers, university professors, librarians, parents, and students gathered to speak out against the nation’s current regime of testing students, firing teachers, and closing public schools.
For four straight days, speaker after speaker spoke, shouted, and sang into a microphone placed near the entry way of a building bearing the name of an American president who arguably did more to advance the well being of poor people than any other political leader in American history. The group railed at the building and its occupants – especially Secretary of Education Arne Duncan.
The speakers exhorted the audience to chant protestations to the building, turn their backs to it, shake their fists at it, and curse it.
Why so much anger thrown toward a very big, ugly building?
“You’re hurting children!” The crowd shouted. “You’re spreading injustice! You’re harming teachers! You’re ruining schools! You’re shredding democracy! You’re selling out the common good to private corporations!”
These are things, it would seem, worth getting upset about – if it weren’t happening in a capital city where getting upset is viewed as unseemly.
Of course, like most undernon-funded grassroots efforts, the speakers were not vetted through a PR staff that would normally 

LISTEN TO DIANE RAVITCH 4-8-13 Diane Ravitch's blog | A site to discuss better education for all

Diane Ravitch's blog | A site to discuss better education for all:

Who Put the State Education Departments in Charge?

by dianerav

American education has always been characterized by the principle of federalism–until now.
Federalism meant a careful balancing among districts, states, and the federal governments. Schools had a fair amount of autonomy within that framework.
The federal government role was to level the playing field by providing resources for the schools with large number of poor kids. The state set general guidelines and supported the work of the schools. The districts oversaw their schools.
All that changed with NCLB. Now the federal government controls every school, tells it how to “reform,” punishes 

How StudentsFirst Turns Facts into Myths

by dianerav

Matthew Di Carlo dissects the latest effort by Michelle Rhee’s StudentsFirst to sell the idea that evaluating teachers by test scores is accurate, unbiased, and necessary.
Di Carlo analyzes the “myths” and discovers that some of them are facts.
This is embarrassing. Rhee really needs to hire a competent research department.

California Charter Founders Convicted of Embezzlement

by dianerav

The founders of Ivy Academia in the San Fernando Valley in California were convicted of embezzlement and a variety of other charges stemming from their use of $200,000 in school funds for personal expenses.
From the LA Times:
“”This message is going to resonate throughout the charter school community,” said prosecutor Sandi Roth. “You can’t spend the charter school funds for anything you want. It has to be money spent on the kids and the 

A Dallas School Board Member Joins the Honor Roll

by dianerav

When I went to Austin for the Save Texas Schools rally, I also participated in a panel discussion about school reform at the LBJ School of Public Policy at the University of Texas. There I met Carla Ranger, a member of the Dallas school board.
As I listened to her speak, I was overwhelmed with admiration for this independent, smart, wise, courageous, and principled supporter of public education and children. At some point in the discussion, I said out loud, “Carla

Guess Who Knows How to Close the Achievement Gap?

by dianerav

This just arrived in my email. An advertisement for Pearson’s virtual charter business, Connections.

Proven Virtual and Blended Learning Do you need to close achievement gaps within your district?  Do you need to reduce costs on instructional and technology solutions?  Are you searching for a solution to help you meet the Common Core State Standards? CONNECTIONS LEARNING by Pearson can help. Let’s connect at the NSBA Conference so you can learn how Connections Learning can support your blended

The Educational Marketing Game

by dianerav

A reader offers this comment about the education marketplace:
Better and cheaper aren’t even issues in the disruptive Educational marketing game. Only profit matters. Especially if you capture regulatory control, you can degrade quality to reduce cost, then mandate public funding to maximize profits. There’s no public sector, and no free market, to stop you.
I’ll quote again from Farrell:
“Christensen’s theory of innovation showed how “true revolutions occur, creating new markets and wreaking havoc within industries. Think: the PC, the MP3, the transistor radio.”
The wheel is still spinning on applications of internet and satellite “technology” in education. I’m a visionary and 

Why Support Public Schools?

by dianerav

An excerpt from a comment by LG:

“Public schools are the last bastion of our American public culture. Without them, those with the privilege of being born into better economic situations will eventually be the only ones who would be educated. Taken to its end, that kind of trend would set us back to the days where a noble class enjoyed privileges and the peasants were kept ignorant. If you think our schools are broken, please tell me how they are without injecting the rhetoric of individuals vs. communities. We have individual choices in this country. We also have communities to 

New York Teacher: “I Quit”

by dianerav

Gerald J. Conti’s eloquent, passionate letter of resignation ignited public discussion in Syracuse about the toxic, malicious changes now imposed on our public schools by federal and state policy. Private schools treasure dedicated, experienced teachers like Mr. Conti. But reformers insist on taking all autonomy out of their hands; standardizing their work; giving them a script; making sure they are doing precisely what all other teachers in the same classes are doing. He thinks of himself as a professional, and he can no longer bear to work in an environment that demeans and diminishes his professionalism.
New York State cannot afford to lose teachers like Mr. Conti. Let us hope that the tide will turn before we lose more.
Help his letter go viral. Post it on Facebook. Tweet it. Send it to your superintendent. Send it to the Gates 

Diane in the Evening 4-7-13 Diane Ravitch's blog | A site to discuss better education for all

coopmike48 at Big Education Ape - 4 hours ago

Diane Ravitch's blog | A site to discuss better education for all: History Is Written by the Winners by dianerav As the adage goes, history is written by the winners. Today, in the United States, it is written by and for the 1%. Or is it the .0001 percent? How important is it for all fifth-graders in the state of Tennessee to know these names? A reader writes: “Bill Gates & Sam Walton just wrote themselves write Indiana: Stop Voucher Expansion by dianerav In Indiana, new legislation would offer vouchers to children who never attended a public school. This eliminates the ficti... more »

The Chicago Tribune’s Eric Zorn writes: “You are contemptible. You want to be taken seriously?” | Fred Klonsky

The Chicago Tribune’s Eric Zorn writes: “You are contemptible. You want to be taken seriously?” | Fred Klonsky:

The Chicago Tribune’s Eric Zorn writes: “You are contemptible. You want to be taken seriously?”

by Fred Klonsky

A week ago I criticized a recent post by Chicago Tribune writer Eric Zorn. He had written a pretty ugly piece mocking the suggestion that the Mayor’s school closings were racist.
More than 90% of the students affected are African-American in a school district where 42% of the enrollment is African-American.
Zorn responds instead to a post I wrote about his reporting, or lack of it, on the Persepolis book banning issue.

Fred,
Didn’t we straighten this out before, Fred? My daughter told me about this on Thursday night. I thought it sounded like a student rumor but thought I’d check it out the next morning. By that time 

The Florida Children Parent Trigger Leaves Behind | Scathing Purple Musings

The Florida Children Parent Trigger Leaves Behind | Scathing Purple Musings:

The Florida Children Parent Trigger Leaves Behind

by Bob Sikes

Lost amidst all the bloviating by Florida’s republican legislators that Parent Trigger will finally give parents  a seat at the table is the reality that some parents and children won’t. By Parent Trigger’s coercive petition,  they become disenfranchised. No provision in Florida’s Parent Trigger bill address gifted, special needs or children who receive free or reduced meals.
Florida’s for-profit charter school industry – who would be the primary beneficiary of Parent Trigger – haven’t been inclined to serve the most vulnerable of Florida’s students. A December 2011 Miami Herald story revealed “87  of charter schools don’t serve any students with the most intense support needs.” Director of school choice programs at the Florida Department of Education, Michael Kooi explained, “charter schools do not have the infrastructure and economies of scale to provide special programs to meet the needs of those children.
Kooi’s explanation is the simple reason why charter schools don’t get the same per pupil as do public schools. 

UPDATE Ron Paul launches his own home-school curriculum Daily Kos: < 3 %

Daily Kos: <3%:

Ron Paul launches his own home-school curriculum

by rss@dailykos.com (teacherken)

as you can read in this Daily Caller article.  If you want, you can go directly to RonPaulCurriculum.com where you will read

Welcome to the Ron Paul Curriculum
Here, you and your children can get an education in liberty like no other. I invite parents to take courses and participate on forums -- to get the education they never had. Parents do not pay for the individual courses that they purchase for their children.
Here, students learn the basics of Western Civilization and Western liberty -- how it was won, how it is being lost, and how it will be restored. (Not can . . . will.)
Students also learn the basics of American history, the United States Constitution, and American geography.
They get two courses on free market economics. They get two courses on government, including a 

by rss@dailykos.com (teacherken)

In the end of majority rule?, E. J. Dionne's column in today's Washington Post, we read

The filibuster makes matters worse. It’s theoretically possible for 41 senators representing less than 11 percent of the population to block pretty much anything.

 This is a product of the Constitutional provision of equal representation of the states in the U. S. Senate.  Only in theory, each of those Senators could have been elected with just over 50% of those who actually voted.  And the proportion of those age and otherwise elegible to vote is usually less than 60% (even in Presidential years it has rarely topped 60%), that would be less than 60% of 11%, and of that less than 1/2 in each state.In other words, Senators elected by less than 3% of the eligible voters in the United States have the power to prevent things from getting done.
All because of the filibuster.
In theory.
But let's raise the percentage but make it worse, at least in theory.

UPDATE: News Analysis: April taxes could ease passage of Brown’s school funding plan + UC, CSU systems revamping A-G criteria in advance of common core SI&A Cabinet Report – News & Resources

SI&A Cabinet Report – News & Resources:

News Analysis: April taxes could ease passage of Brown’s school funding plan

As has been the practice in recent years, state controller John Chiang has once again opened web access to his office’s daily tally of personal income tax collections.

While always popular – especially for government officials whose fiscal fate is so directly tied to the annual levy – the take this year may also inform developments in  the political arena  when it comes to reshaping how the state supports K-12 education.

So far, the numbers are promising – the controller reports collecting slightly more than $43.3 billion through March this fiscal year, about $10 billion more than this time last year. Gov. Jerry Brown’s administration has projected as part of its January budget that the state would receive a total of $12.75 billion in personal income taxes in April with a year-to-date total of $51.4 billion.

Because income taxes account for about 60 percent of the state’s general fund revenue – these numbers will be watched very carefully over the next few weeks.

One group that might not have always had the same interest in the daily tax numbers are the political advisers in and 

UC, CSU systems revamping A-G criteria in advance of common core
By Kimberly Beltran
Monday, April 08, 2013

As California’s K-12 schools move to new common core curriculum, the state’s public four-year university systems are also revising their entrance course guidelines to provide clearer direction for high schools developing new standards-aligned, college-required classes.

Known as “A-G” requirements, these high school courses that students must pass to be admitted to any of the state’s four-year, post-secondary institutions must meet certain specifications in order to be approved by a panel of collegiate subject-area experts.

“With the common core state standards coming online, schools are creating interesting new courses that don’t necessarily fit into our old A-to-G guidelines,” said George Johnson, a professor of mechanical engineering at UC Berkeley and chair of the UC Board of Admissions and Relations with Schools. “That’s why we’re reviewing our own guidelines and their alignment to common core – so A-to-G isn’t seen as a barrier to creating new courses.”

California’s State Board of Education in 2010 adopted new curriculum standards in English language arts and math