Whither Professional Development in the Budget? - Teacher Beat - Education Week

Whither Professional Development in the Budget? - Teacher Beat - Education Week

Whither Professional Development in the Budget?

By Stephen Sawchuk on February 8, 2010 10:10 AM | No Comments | No TrackBacks

Here's another teacher-related question on President Obama's budget request: Will it be good or bad for professional development?

If lawmakers go along with cutting the Title II state formula grant program by half a billion dollars, then there'd already be fewer funds for professional development, unless class- size reduction—a large percentage of current spending under the program—is excised as an allowable use of the money. (Expect the teachers' unions to fight that tooth and nail.)

And a few of the funding streams that have been consolidated were focused on professional development, such as the educational technology grants. The National Writing Project, one of the big success stories in professional development, also would be consolidated into the proposed new programs.

On the other hand, the budget names proposed new Title II programs "Excellent Instructional Teams," and says they'd support the collaborative use of data to improve teaching. And to be sure, it was never all that clear in the first place that the professional- development that districts were providing with federal funds was any good. The definition in the NCLB law specifies that the funds can't be used for one-day workshops, but it's hard to know how many of the nation's 14,000 school districts paid attention to that stipulation.

M. Rene Islas, a policy adviser to the National Staff Development Council, a professional-development advocacy group, seems cautiously optimistic about the budget language in this post. (You may remember that Islas headed up teacher-quality issues back at the Education Department between 2002 and 2006.) NSDC 

NEA Priority Schools Campaign - Disrupting the Status Quo

YouTube- NEAABS's Channel

NEA Priority Schools Campaign - Disrupting the Status Quo

From: NEAABS | December 02, 2009 | 704 views

"Plain and simple, the status quo is not acceptable. We cannot continue to do in America what weve been doing to students for the last 20, 30, 50 years. The world has changed and we need a different system."
NEA President Dennis Van Roekel

Valuing Good Teaching � The Quick and the Ed

Valuing Good Teaching � The Quick and the Ed

Research has shown time and again that experience matters in good teaching. What it hasn’t shown is that every experience matters equally. In fact, a teacher’s first few years on the job are by far the most important, and it has been demonstrated repeatedly that the vast majority of teaching improvement comes in the first few years on the job.

Unfortunately, districts have yet to utilize this research in any way. Instead, they set arbitrary teacher salary schedules that are based purely on a teacher’s years of experience and education credentials. They mostly do not reflect actual teacher performance year-to-year, but they don’t even take into consideration the career paths of the typical teacher.

To show what this looks like, I’ve graphed teacher salaries in four DC-area suburban districts (Montgomery and Prince George’s Counties in Maryland and Fairfax and Prince William Counties in Virginia) with average teacher effectiveness scores in mathematics. The effectiveness scores are value-added measures that compute a teacher’s ability to maintain or increase student scores on standardized tests of achievement. They are graphed according to differences from the average teacher, and they come from a recent paper which found effectiveness scores in line with prior research.

The maroon bars represent salaries for fully certified teachers with bachelor’s degrees only, and the blue bars are average salaries for fully certified teachers with Master’s degrees only. As the chart shows, salaries in these four districts increases almost linearly, although they grow much faster after teachers have 14 or 17 years of experience than when they have only a few.

Momentum is building across America in support of the "Strike and National Day of Action to Defend Public Education" on March 4.

Momentum is building across America in support of the "Strike and National Day of Action to Defend Public Education" on March 4.

Ruling on education funding should be game-changer for legislators | Peter Callaghan - The News Tribune | Seattle-Tacoma News, Weather, Sports, Jobs, Homes and Cars | South Puget Sound's Destination

Ruling on education funding should be game-changer for legislators | Peter Callaghan - The News Tribune | Seattle-Tacoma News, Weather, Sports, Jobs, Homes and Cars | South Puget Sound's Destination:

"It took King County Superior Court Judge John Erlick 100 pages to say what everyone has sensed for a long time. But when he says it, it carries a lot more weight.

“This court is left with no doubt that under the state’s current financing system the state is failing in its constitutional duty to make ample provision for the education of all children,” Erlick wrote in McCleary v. State of Washington.

It was the ruling that advocates for public education have been hoping for, and they celebrated. Politicians from the governor to candidates for the Legislature issued statements professing their love of education and commitment to its support.

You probably couldn’t tell from their comments that most of these politicians have had opportunities to follow the constitution and haven’t. They didn’t mention that they knew – or should have known – that each new program created and expanded would compete for dollars with what the constitution calls the state’s paramount duty.

And now, these same politicians who could have acted but didn’t have been given the task by Judge Erlick to fix things. That’s why this seemingly sweeping victory might end up being much less than that."

Barack Obama No Child Left Behind Education Arne Duncan teachers unions Race to the Top | PressDemocrat.com

Barack Obama No Child Left Behind Education Arne Duncan teachers unions Race to the Top | PressDemocrat.com

President Barack Obama had been getting high marks in his first year in office for what seemed to be an insightful approach to education reform. Too bad he flunked the final.

Related Links:

• A false start in America's race for education reform

Click to enlarge

Ruben Navarrette Jr.

Give Obama credit for what he got right. Somewhere along the line, perhaps during his stint as a community organizer, he figured out the three great truths about our mediocre public schools: They're plagued by low expectations; they exist for the benefit of the adults who work there, not the students; and many teachers will resist, with every fiber of their being, taking responsibility for what students are learning because they know it wouldn't reflect well on them.

Obama's “Race to the Top” initiative, which would evaluate teachers based on student performance and reward those states and school districts that practice innovative approaches to educating students, is a major step in the right direction.

Yet, unfortunately — in light of some of his recent public statements and his administration's plans to water down the Bush administration's No Child Left Behind education reform law — it's clear that Obama still has a lot to learn about what's broken in our public schools and how to fix it.

Real reformers should know better than to pursue incompatible agendas. You can't serve the interests of students and parents by demanding accountability from public schools and then turn around and pander to teachers unions by dismantling NCLB, which holds them accountable.

Philadelphia Public School Notebook

Philadelphia Public School Notebook

Notes from the news, Feb. 8

Submitted by Erika Owens on Mon, 02/08/2010 - 10:06 Posted in Notes from the news | Permalink

Philly Schools Closed Monday NBC Philadelphia
Enjoy the day off. Good luck digging out! 

Pa. bill would expand overhaul of schoolsThe Inquirer
It would not affect Philadelphia, but would expand outside management in struggling districts throughout the state.

Former charter school administrator files whistleblower suit The Inquirer
The former Philadelphia Academy Charter School employee says she was improperly fired.

Ackerman excited about Promise Academies The Notebook blog
Promise Academies are Renaissance Schools that would be managed out of Ackerman's office.

The Next Steps: A Campaign to End Violence in Our Schools Philadelphia Education Justice blog
Next step is the announcement of a campaign at Wednesday's SRC meeting.

Phila. Public Schools Train Science Professionals to Teach KYW

Struggles at School of the Future The Notebook blog

EduCon 2.2 Reflections - What Do You Think? Practical Theory blog

I Love This Job: A Follow Up Philly Teacher blog

More On Language Immersion Philly School Search blog

voiceofsandiego.org | News. Investigation. Analysis. Conversation. Intelligence. - Southwestern College Pushed to the Brink by Brutal Power Struggle

voiceofsandiego.org | News. Investigation. Analysis. Conversation. Intelligence. - Southwestern College Pushed to the Brink by Brutal Power Struggle:

"Andrew Rempt was correcting composition papers at his home when the doorbell rang.

Earlier that day, the Southwestern College English professor had stood with students protesting against class cuts. Now, the college's human resource director was standing on his doorstep alongside an armed campus police officer. Their message: Rempt and three other professors were banned from campus that night.

Three of them later learned they were being investigated for inciting students and not cooperating with campus police.

The incident enflamed the already volatile relationship between the South Bay community college's employees and Superintendent Raj K. Chopra. It has been an almost constant battle since Chopra was hired in August 2007, and there is no sign of letting up, even after the state's accreditation agency put the college on probation on Tuesday."

National Journal Online -- Education Experts -- Are Charter Schools A Civil Rights Failure?

National Journal Online -- Education Experts -- Are Charter Schools A Civil Rights Failure?:

"Are Charter Schools A Civil Rights Failure?

A study released last week by the Civil Rights Project at the University of California, Los Angeles, concluded that although charter schools are a political success, they are a civil rights failure. The report found that charter schools are more racially homogenized than traditional public schools and asserted that those in the western United States are havens for white re-segregation.

Is this a fair characterization of the charter school movement?

-- Eliza Krigman, NationalJournal.com"

RESPONDED ON FEBRUARY 8, 2010 10:05 AM

Strategies of the 1970s have not worked

Greg Richmond

President & CEO, National Association of Charter School Authorizers (NACSA)

RESPONDED ON FEBRUARY 8, 2010 9:35 AM

Disappointing Report

Nelson Smith

President & CEO, National Alliance for Public Charter Schools

RESPONDED ON FEBRUARY 8, 2010 8:59 AM

Equity Doesn't Equal Integration

Eliza Krigman

NationalJournal.com

Closure, reorganization on Modesto school board agenda - Featured Stories - Modbee.com

Closure, reorganization on Modesto school board agenda - Featured Stories - Modbee.com

Monday's Modesto City Schools board meeting is full of compelling items — closing Pearson Elementary School next school year, appointing an associate superintendent of curriculum, reorganizing district office administration and starting a dual-language program.

All are important decisions as the district prepares to slice at least $25 million from it's $250 million budget for next school year.

Modesto City Schools would be the third in Stanislaus County to close a school. Stanislaus Union and Empire Union districts closed one each for this school year.

Modesto Bee - ALISON YIN/ayin@modbee.com Ethel Pearson Elementary School is set to close in Modesto, Calif., Saturday, Feb. 6, 2010.

Next to the district office in west Modesto, Pearson Elementary enrolls 280 students in kindergarten and first grades, according to 2008-09 data. It's one of the district's smallest and oldest campuses.

Students would attend Franklin Elementary School, half a mile away. About 670 students in grades two through six attend Franklin.

Officials have met with parents and staff at both schools and formed a steering committee that will continue to meet as the schools consolidate, according to a staff report.

The cost to combine the schools is about $12,000, the report says, but it does not include an estimate on how much the district would save by closing Pearson.

The average costs of running an elementary school are about $400,000, but Pearson is smaller, so savings likely would be less.

Superintendent Arturo Flores' plan to reorganize the district office to consolidate jobs and save money comes to the board for a second time. When last discussed Jan. 19, employee unions raised some objections to the district's figures.

Read more: http://www.modbee.com/featured/story/1038882.html#ixzz0exQwgFWP

Jerry Large | Learning not to copy China | Seattle Times Newspaper

Jerry Large | Learning not to copy China | Seattle Times Newspaper

Learning not to copy China

Could it be we worry too much about China? I'd say so if that fretting is contributing to an erosion of our own strengths, an argument I'm hearing often.

Jerry Large

Seattle Times staff columnist

Yong Zhao

Related

• Read more of Jerry Large's columns
• Jerry Large's columns via RSS

Could it be we worry too much about China?

I'd say so if that fretting is contributing to an erosion of our own strengths, an argument I'm hearing often.

Yong Zhao, an education professor at Michigan State, will speak about that Wednesday in Seattle. (Visitwww.evergreenschool.org to register.)

He decries efforts to replicate the kind of education kids get in India and China with national standards and an intense focus on math and science at the expense of arts and the humanities.

He has a new book, "Catching up or Leading the Way: American Education in the Age of Globalization."

The Educated Guess Data don’t tell full story in charter ’segregation’ study

The Educated Guess
Data don’t tell full story in charter ’segregation’ study

Posted in Charters

Anti-charter school boards and superintendents no doubt are bookmarking a report that found that charter schools nationwide and in California are more racially and ethnically segregated than traditional public schools. They’ll cite the study, by the Civil Rights Project at UCLA,  as a rationale for denying a charter application or creating new demographic obstacles, under the guise of integration, that many urban charter schools cannot overcome.
That would be terrible for minority families who choose charters as an alternative to their neighborhood failing schools.
(Read more and comment on this post)

Education - Everything you need to know about the world of education.

Education- Everything you need to know about the world of education.

Up to Montgomery County principals to challenge fliers

I asked Montgomery County schools officials to explain who is responsible for vetting the fliers that non-profit groups are allowed to send home with students four times a year.

The issue arose when my colleague Michael Birnbaum reported about fliers that were passed out to some Montgomery County high school students from an organization that insists that therapy can turn gays into heterosexuals.

The fliers, from the group Parents and Friends of Ex-Gays and Gays, were distributed at Churchill High School and other schools last week under a district regulation that allows non-profit groups to distribute information that is not deemed to be hate speech.

Continue reading this post »

U-Va. cheats IB students

Some days when Alexis Robertson was in the heavy-duty International Baccalaureate program at South Lakes High School in Fairfax County, she arrived at 7 a.m. and didn’t leave until 8 p.m. The 4,000-word IB paper she wrote was longer and more detailed than anything she has had so far as freshman at the University of Virginia. She passed six college-level IB exams, did 150 hours of community service and received the IB Diploma, one of the highest honors bestowed by American high schools.

Yet U-Va. gave her only nine college credits. She said a friend who had a similar load of Advanced Placement courses (a similar but older college-level program for high schoolers) received 39 credits, and already started taking classes in her major.

That means AP is a better than IB, right? No.

Continue reading this post »

'What Works' in Education: Vouchers - WSJ.com

'What Works' in Education: Vouchers - WSJ.com

President Obama's fiscal 2011 budget calls for a 9% increase in federal education spending, and he has famously said that the money should go to "what works" in education. So he ought to take another look at Milwaukee, where the nation's oldest and largest publicly funded school voucher program is showing academic gains.

A report released last week by School Choice Wisconsin, an advocacy group, finds that between 2003 and 2008 students in the Milwaukee Parental Choice Program had a significantly higher graduation rate than students in Milwaukee Public Schools.

"Had MPS graduation rates equalled those for MPCP students in the classes of 2003 through 2008, the number of MPS graduates would have been about 18 percent higher," writes John Robert Warren of the University of Minnesota. "That higher rate would have resulted in 3,352 more MPS graduates during the 2003-2008 years."

In 2008 the graduation rate for voucher students was 77% versus 65% for the nonvoucher students, though the latter receives $14,000 per pupil in taxpayer support, or more than double the $6,400 per pupil that voucher students receive in public funding.

The Milwaukee voucher program serves more than 21,000 children in 111 private schools, so nearly 20% more graduates mean a lot fewer kids destined for failure without the credential of a high school diploma. The finding is all the more significant because students who receive 

Report: Racial gap grows in charter schools

Report: Racial gap grows in charter schools:

"The racial gap is widening with the increase in charter schools in Arizona and other states due to a lack of regulation and enforcement of existing civil-rights regulations, a group of researchers based at the University of California-Los Angeles said in a new report.

The UCLA Civil Rights Project report, 'Choice Without Equity,' revealed what researchers deemed a troubling pattern of racial stratification in charter schools across the country."

They said they believe state and federal intervention can turn the trend around.

Gary Orfield, the project's co-director, said the Obama administration's recent grant programs, such as Race to the Top, and charter-school grants that encourage the expansion of charters and development of new ones, are a timely opportunity for regulation.

"We don't want Race to the Top to become a race to the past," Orfield said, referring to the new federal grant program meant to raise school achievement.

Based on data collected from 2000 to 2007 by the National Center for Education Statistics, the researchers found patterns that indicate charter schools in Arizona, California and other Western states have become havens for "White flight."

Of the 98,728 students enrolled in Arizona charter schools in 2007, 52 percent were White, 34 percent Latino, 7 percent Black, 4 percent American Indian and 3 percent Asian.