Schools Matter: Fact Checking the Bill Gates Blog on KIPP

Schools Matter: Fact Checking the Bill Gates Blog on KIPP

Whoa, Mr. Gates blogs! And his Jan. 21 entry does a creditable job of squeezing some more propaganda mileage from the Jay Mathews KIPP celebration that I reviewed last March. The first misleading thing about the post is the photo (above), which shows a Seth-and-Caitlin-looking pair of white children, when, in fact, almost all the children in the KIPP total compliance camps are brown and black. Score one for misleading.

Point 2: Mr. Gates thinks middle school includes grades 5-9: "Great teaching in 5th-9th grade is very hard because it’s challenging to get all of the kids engaged and because dealing with kids who cause trouble or are bored requires special skills." But, yes, Mr. Gates, total containment and force-fed doses of positive psychology requires special skills, indeed. Score one for ignorance.

SCUSD Observer: Here is what's wrong with charter schools...

SCUSD Observer: Here is what's wrong with charter schools...

Here is what's wrong with charter schools...

At last Thursday night's board meeting, the first order of business was to review and recommend action on a new charter school petition for the California Academic Vocational Academy (CAVA). The concept for the school is under legal scrutiny by SAVA (Sacramento Academic and Vocational Academy). SAVA claims that CAVA ripped off their program, word for word.

If you read SCUSD's executive summary of

Education Week: Scholars Identify 5 Keys to Urban School Success

Education Week: Scholars Identify 5 Keys to Urban School Success

Offering a counter-narrative to the school improvement prescriptions that dominate national education debates, a new book based on 15 years of data on public elementary schools in Chicago identifies five tried-and-true ingredients that work, in combination with one another, to spur success in urban schools.

The authors liken their “essential supports” to a recipe for baking a cake: Without the right ingredients, the whole enterprise just falls flat.

“A material weakness in any one ingredient means that a school is very unlikely to improve,” said Anthony S. Bryk, the lead author of Organizing Schools for Improvement: Lessons From Chicago, which was published this month by the University of Chicago Press. “Often what happens in school reform is that we pick just one strand out, and very often that becomes the silver bullet.”

The book is a capstone effort for the Consortium on Chicago School Research, which was founded 20 years ago at the University of Chicago by Mr. Bryk and others to undertake independent research on that city’s 409,000-student school system.

Education Week: Teacher-Dismissal Powers Found to Affect Absences

Education Week: Teacher-Dismissal Powers Found to Affect Absences

Chicago teachers who didn’t have tenure took fewer days off after principals were given more flexibility to dismiss probationary teachers, a new study has found.

The policy reduced teacher absences on an annual basis by about 10 percent and cut the number of teachers with 15 or more annual absences by 20 percent, according to the report by Brian A. Jacob, a professor of education policy and economics at the University of Michigan. It has been published as a working paper by the National Bureau of Economic Research, for which he serves as a research associate.

“We think teacher absence is somewhat correlated with student achievement,” said Mr. Jacob, who is the director of the university’s Center for Local, State, and Urban Policy. “Some of it is hard to measure.”

In Chicago, principals were given the ability to dismiss the probationary teachers—those with five years of experience or less—without completing elaborate documentation or attending a dismissal hearing, under a 2004 collective bargaining agreement between the 409,000-student school district and the Chicago Teachers Union.

SAC City DAC Education News & Comment

Education News & Comment

Unofficial black school board seeks candidates - Sacramento News - Local and Breaking Sacramento News | Sacramento Bee   The Black Parallel School Board is seeking community members to serve on its executive council. The Black Parallel School Board is a community organization that advocates for African American students in the Sacramento City Unified School District. Candidates for the council must be Sacramento residents of African descent and must commit to serving two years on the council, among other criteria, according to a news release from the organization. Applications can be found at www.blackparallelschoolboard.com/17.html. They are due by Jan. 31. For more information, call (916) 484-3729

Elk Grove Citizen : News Elk Grove Unified staff reports dismal future in governor’s budget

Elk Grove Citizen : News

Elk Grove Unified staff reports dismal future in governor’s budget

Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger’s 2010-11 state budget proposal includes a $1.5 billion reduction in California school district administrative and CEO’s costs.

This would apply to all districts, regardless of the current level of administrative spending or cuts, made prior to 2010-11.

This was a topic presented in Associate Superintendent of Finance and School Support Richard Odegaard’s report to the school board at the Jan. 19 Elk Grove Unified School District board meeting.

He said the apparent good news is that the governor’s mid-year report for 2009-10 calls for no additional cuts for the current fiscal year, but cash is still a major problem for California.

“We could still see low funding levels that may require more staffing reductions. This makes collective bargaining difficult,” Odegaard said.

“The governor said ‘protecting education’ was a major theme, but does that mean no cuts? No,” he said. “It means that we will have to convince the governor to revise his plan to target the cuts almost entirely toward administration. So while there is room for improvement, the protection the governor has offered is the best we have had in the past three years.

“While there are signs of recovery, California’s economy will continue to suffer from high unemployment, currently 12.3 percent, compared with last year, 10.0 percent,” Odegaard said.

Initiatives and major report proposals are in the hopper.

Better Know Your City at the Neighborhood Level — The Rancho Cordova Post

Better Know Your City at the Neighborhood Level — The Rancho Cordova Post

Better Know Your City at the Neighborhood Level

by JT LONG on JANUARY 25, 2010 · 4 COMMENTS

in VIEWPOINTS

In the spirit of celebrating the community, Rancho Cordova Post is launching “Better Know a Neighborhood” a look at the places and people who make Rancho Cordova a special place to live and work. To kick off the series of hyper-local features, we thought we would start with a 1,000-foot view of what attracted the diverse mix of residents and businesses who now call the city home.

Rancho Cordova, which was named after a vineyard when the first post office was built in 1955, was home to a largely-Armenian workforce tending vineyards in the area that now belongs to Aerojet. These residents were joined by more immigrants, hoping to hit it rich during the Gold Rush.

Establishment in 1918 of the precursor to Mather Air Force Base changed the face of the rural community forever. The almost 6,000-acre base was a hub for navigational training during both World Wars. Enlisted personnel and their families moved to Rancho Cordova from all over the country. A number of veterans of the Korean War moved back to the area with their new brides and brought a demand for far eastern goods and services.

voiceofsandiego.org | News. Investigation. Analysis. Conversation. Intelligence.

voiceofsandiego.org | News. Investigation. Analysis. Conversation. Intelligence.

Bright and Early: The Education Newsblitz

Sometimes I miss things in Bright and Early. It's true. Find something big that I skipped? Don't hesitate to send it to me at emily.alpert@voiceofsandiego.org. And now for your newsblitz:

• Should lunchtime be brought to schools by Kraft? We blog on a school board discussion over where ads could fit in schools -- if at all. We also blog on how San Diego Unified will seek a superintendent minus a professional headhunter. And if you want more gory details from the meeting, check out my Twitter feed.
• The Union-Tribune reports on early surveys for a parcel tax for San Diego Unified schools, which show that a temporary tax could garner nearly enough support to pass. After we blogged about some of those findings earlier this week, the county Taxpayers Association chief sent us this letter questioning whether the data is solid.
• San Diego Unified leaders have said that the schools still aren't out of Race to the Top, even though they didn't join the California bid for the money. Is that true? Well, mostly. It's the newest from our Fact Check blog.
• My esteemed coworker Adrian Florido looks at where the world champion Chula Vista Little Leaguers are headed now. That is, which high schools they're headed to now. Private schools might suddenly be in reach.

Call it shovel-ready | The Education Report

Call it shovel-ready | The Education Report

After years of promises and let-downs, it’s about to happen: The construction of an actual schoolhouse for La Escuelita Elementary, which is now housed in a bunch of run-down portables on Third Avenue, between 10th and 12th streets. Phase II of the Downtown Educational Complex, slated to begin in the fall of 2011, will include nearby MetWest High School and the Yuk Yau and Central Infantil child care centers.

The project has a dramatic history; these schools are located on the piece of property that was almost sold to condo developers in 2006 to help pay down the state loan.

If you’re curious about the project’s timeline or want to see more pictures, check out the school district’s Every Student Blog. 

The Educated Guess: Like germs, math phobia spreads in 1st grade

The Educated Guess:

"Like germs, math phobia spreads in 1st grade

A study that found that math-anxious female teachers pass on their fears to young girls underscores the need for more teacher training programs like Intel Math and, even better, the hiring of math specialists in early grades.

The Los Angeles Times reported on the study, which was published this week in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. Two University of Chicago psychologists interviewed seven female first and second grade teachers who displayed a discomfort and expressed a lack of confidence in their math abilities. Their students were tested at the start and end of the school year.

By spring, girls in those classes ended up believing the myth that boys are naturally better than girls in math, and their test scores had fallen relative to the boys in their class. Girl students in classes with self-confident female teachers – and most teachers in those grades are women – showed no gap in test scores with boys. (Read more and comment on this post)"

Philadelphia Public School Notebook

Philadelphia Public School Notebook

Notes from the news, Jan. 27

Submitted by Erika Owens on Wed, 01/27/2010 - 10:20 Posted in Notes from the news | Permalink

Activist group sees flaws in teachers' contract The Inquirer
The Effective Teaching for Every Child campaign gave the contract grades averaging a B-, with an A- for standards and evaluations and a D for teacher incentives.

See also: Effective Teaching Campaign grades contract The Notebook blog
Dueling protests fault teacher pact: For different reasons, they have doubts Daily News

Plan for schools coming to a head Metro Philadelphia
Today the District will outline the plans for turning around low-performing schools as Renaissance Schools.

See also: Potential Ren. Schools announced Wed. The Notebook blog

Julia's revolution should measure up | The Australian

Julia's revolution should measure up | The Australian

THERE is a lot of debate over whether the Australian government and Education Minister Julia Gillard should publish school performance data and allow the public to compare results. The only people who should fear more transparency are those who have something to hide.

This is a commonsense and necessary step to ensure that parents can make informed decisions about where to send their children to school, and will enable them to hold schools accountable for helping students achieve.

In New York City, the largest school district in the US, we have taken similar steps over the past several years to evaluate schools and hold them accountable for results. One of the most transformational accountability tools we created is progress reports, which assign an A to F letter grade to schools each year.

These reports incorporate three factors: student performance, as measured by scores on state tests or graduation rates; student progress, as measured by students' improvement on these assessments compared to past years; and school environment, as measured by attendance rates and the results of an annual survey in which parents, teachers, and students evaluate their satisfaction with their schools.

These reports compare school outcomes with those of similar schools citywide, and are posted online so that families can use them to make decisions about their children's education.

Opponents contend that Gillard's My School website will humiliate children by making public a school's shortcomings. This cynical fear tactic ignores the long-term consequences of allowing students to remain in schools that don't provide them with the education they deserve. For many schools in New York City, a low progress report grade has served as a wake-up call, motivating school leaders to make changes that benefit students and to raise their grades the following year. For other schools, a low grade has exposed persistent weaknesses, resulting in leadership change, restructuring, or closure.

City Panel Approves Closing of 19 Schools - NYTimes.com

City Panel Approves Closing of 19 Schools - NYTimes.com

In a contentious meeting that drew more than eight hours of public testimony, a city board voted early Wednesday morning to close 19 schools for poor performance, despite the protests from hundreds of observers who repeatedly drowned out the meeting with cheers, shouts and boos.



More than 300 speakers addressed the board, the Panel for Educational Policy, beginning at 6 p.m. Tuesday atBrooklyn Technical High School in Fort Greene. By the time the panel began voting at 2:40 a.m. they had heard a litany of complaints from hundreds of parents, students, teachers and administrators and just a handful of speakers who said they supported closing the schools.
But as expected, the panel overwhelmingly approved the closures recommended by the Education Department. The votes to close the schools fell along political lines, with the appointees of the Manhattan, Queens, Bronx and Brooklyn borough presidents voting against the closings while each of Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg’s appointees approved them without question. Nearly every school shutdown was approved on a 9 to 4 vote, with the representative for the Staten Island borough president mostly siding with the mayor’s appointees, and the audience shouting “shame on you” and “disgrace.”

Update: Brouhaha in Brooklyn: Live-blogging the PEP’s school closure vote | GothamSchools

Brouhaha in Brooklyn: Live-blogging the PEP’s school closure vote | GothamSchools

Brouhaha in Brooklyn: Live-blogging the PEP’s school closure vote

by Philissa Cramer

Anna and Maura were on the scene of the Panel for Educational Policy’s meeting Tuesday night to decide on proposed school closures. They provided dispatches until the meeting’s bitter end, in the wee hours of Wednesday morning.

4 a.m. After a two-hour protest that closed the streets in Fort Greene; nearly nine hours of testimony by concerned elected officials, parents, teachers, and students; and a series of votes that underscored the divide between Mayor Bloomberg and everyone else on school politics, the Panel for Educational Policy determined early this morning that 20 city schools, both young and old, small and large, will begin to close this fall. We’ll have more about the implications of the panel’s decisions starting sometime tomorrow afternoon.

But for now, with Brooklyn Tech empty, at least for a few hours, and Anna and Maura safely in taxis, we’re closing the blog for the night. Be sure to scroll through all 70+ entries to see exactly how the marathon meeting unfolded.

3:43 a.m. Maura managed to corner mayoral appointee David Chang before he left the building. “These are tough decisions but I think they’re all thoughtful,” he said. “I’m convinced the change is for the better.”

3:42 a.m. City Hall just sent out a press release with statements from Mayor Bloomberg and Chancellor Klein. The release is dated Jan. 26 — the day the PEP meeting began, but not when it ended.

Here’s what Bloomberg had to say:

Public sentiment has turned against Mayor Bloomberg's dictatorial school reforms

Public sentiment has turned against Mayor Bloomberg's dictatorial school reforms

Mayor Bloomberg has ignited a firestorm among parents and teachers with his latest move to shut down 19 more low-performing schools - including many of the city's biggest high schools.

The hundreds who filled Brooklyn Technical High SchoolTuesday night to protest a vote on the closings by the mayor's Panel for Educational Policy sent a clear signal: The tide of public sentiment has turned against Bloomberg's dictatorial school reforms.

Schools Chancellor Joel Klein, those parents say, stacked their schools in recent years with huge numbers of special needs kids - especially English language learners and special education students.

Among the big schools to be shuttered are Christopher Columbus in the Bronx, Norman Thomas in Manhattan, Paul Robeson and W.H. Maxwell in Brooklyn and Jamaica High in Queens.

Klein never provided those schools with smaller class sizes and more resources, the parents say.

At a Jan. 7 hearing on Jamaica High, for instance, more than 800 people turned out. Klein aides admitted Tuesday that of 107 people who submitted official comments, not a single person backed the closing.

The chancellor simply ignores local sentiment. He prefers to spend much of his time promoting new charter schools or small public high schools, both of which enroll far fewer percentages of special needs children.

Read more:http://www.nydailynews.com/ny_local/education/2010/01/27/2010-01-27_school_reform_is_failing_our_kids.html#ixzz0dpSlkKL4

H1N1 Infections Fall, But a New Wave Could Erupt - NAM

H1N1 Infections Fall, But a New Wave Could Erupt - NAM

FRESNO -- Reported cases of the virus, H1N1, also known as swine flu, have declined sharply in California over the last several weeks, causing state health officials to downgrade the status of the pandemic from “widespread” to “sporadic.”

The weekly number of hospitalized and fatal H1N1 influenza cases in California dropped to 46 as of January 16, down from 796 cases during the peak of the pandemic in early November.

However, the same officials warned there is still a possibility of the virus mutating. That could result in a third wave of infections over the next several months, coinciding with the traditional flu season.

“It’s unpredictable,” said Dr. Ben Sun, an epidemiologist at the California Department of Public Health. “We don’t want to spread fear where there doesn’t need to be any, but the flu virus mutates all the time. It may cause more sickness and deaths, which is why we’re still really pushing for vaccinations.”

Sun spoke at a press briefing organized by New America Media and attended by ethnic media representatives in Fresno on January 20.

Joining Sun on the panel of speakers was Edward L. Moreno, director of the Fresno Department of Public Health, and Kevin Hamilton, director of special populations at Clinica Sierra Vista, a local health clinic.

Despite the news of a decline in statewide infections, both Moreno and Hamilton expressed concern that if another H1N1 outbreak were to occur, Fresno residents could again be disproportionately impacted.

Since the H1N1 pandemic began last April, hospitalizations due to the virus in California have occurred at a rate of 22 per 100,000 people. In 

Educational Organization Announces Events Exhibiting Innovative Learning Design

Educational Organization Announces Events Exhibiting Innovative Learning Design With seventy schools in the United States and partnering organizations supporting over forty schools abroad, Big Picture Learning has become an international leader in fighting the dropout crisis, equipping students with twenty first century skills, and reinventing education. In order to expose educators and other interested parties to their innovative learning design, Big Picture Learning is holding a series of events in various U.S. locations that will offer an in-depth and hands-on look at how their schools are run. Sacramento, CA (Vocus/PRWEB ) January 27, 2010 -- Big Picture Learning (BPL) announces a series of events that will be held in various United States locations in order to expose interest parties to the work of the organization and the way its learning design can benefit students, families, schools, and communities. These events are relevant and applicable for classroom teachers, school counselors, administrators, district personnel, policy makers, foundation representatives, community activists, and social innovators. Big Picture Learning Logo  Some problems call for unique solutions. [Big Picture is an idea that works. The first conference in this series of events will be held at the Met Sacramento in Sacramento, CA on February 25 and 26. Additional meetings will be held in Seattle, WA and New York City in March and April, respectively. Visit the Big Picture Learning website for more details. During these events, participants will experience the energy of Big Picture Learning’s school network firsthand. They will work with school staff and students directly, participating in advisory and visiting internships--mirroring the experience of a BPL student. Participants will also have the opportunity to learn from BPL leadership how BPL’s programming can be integrated into a traditional school schedule, can be beneficial for all schools and districts, and is an appropriate program for i3 and Race to the Top funding submissions.

Student Press Law Center - News Flashes Bill to include charter schools in Calif. student free expression law passes State Senate

Student Press Law Center - News Flashes

Bill to include charter schools in Calif. student free expression law passes State Senate

CALIFORNIA -- The California State Senate unanimously passed a bill Monday that extends the rights of student free expression to charter school students, confirmed Adam Keigwin, chief of staff for Sen. Leland Yee, D-San Francisco/San Mateo.

The unanimous vote "speaks volumes for this issue," Keigwin said.

The bill will now go to the State Assembly where Keigwin said it will likely reach a vote by March in either the education committee of the judiciary committee.

Keigwin said a similar outcome is anticipated in the assembly, since the original student speech bill passed and this is simply a "restating" of that bill "clearing up any ambiguity."

The bill, introduced by Yee, amends California Education Code Section 48907 -- the state's student free expression code -- to read "pupils of the public schools, including charter schools, shall have the right to exercise freedom of speech and of the press ..."

This will also amend California Education Code Section 48950, also known as the "Leonard Law," which protects any student action on a public or private campus that would be protected off campus by a student's first amendment rights.