Big Education Ape

Friday, February 12, 2010

Georgia Schools Inquiry Finds Signs of Cheating - NYTimes.com

Georgia Schools Inquiry Finds Signs of Cheating - NYTimes.com:

"ATLANTA — Georgia education officials ordered investigations on Thursday at 191 schools across the state where they had found evidence of tampering on answer sheets for the state’s standardized achievement test."

The order came after an inquiry on cheating by the Governor’s Office of Student Achievement raised red flags regarding one in five of Georgia’s 1,857 public elementary and middle schools. A large proportion of the schools were in Atlanta.
The inquiry flagged any school that had an abnormal number of erasures on answer sheets where the answers were changed from wrong to right, suggesting deliberate interference by teachers, principals or other administrators.
Experts said it could become one of the largest cheating scandals in the era of widespread standardized testing.
“This is the biggest erasure problem I’ve ever seen,” saidGregory J. Cizek, a testing expert at the University of North Carolina who has studied cheating. “This doesn’t suggest that it was just kids randomly changing their answers, it suggests a pattern of unethical behavior on the part of either kids or educators.”
Professor Cizek praised Georgia for conducting the analysis, saying that many states do not monitor erasure rates to check for potential cheating.
Kathleen B. Mathers, the executive director of the state Office of Student Achievement, which is separate from the State Department of Education and is controlled by Gov.Sonny Perdue, a Republican, said the statewide analysis was done after a smaller one — prompted in part by articles in The Atlanta Journal-Constitution — led to an inquiry that found cheating at four schools.

Wi-Fi Turns Arizona Bus Ride Into a Rolling Study Hall - NYTimes.com

Wi-Fi Turns Arizona Bus Ride Into a Rolling Study Hall - NYTimes.com:

"VAIL, Ariz. — Students endure hundreds of hours on yellow buses each year getting to and from school in this desert exurb of Tucson, and stir-crazy teenagers break the monotony by teasing, texting, flirting, shouting, climbing (over seats) and sometimes punching (seats or seatmates)."

But on this chilly morning, as bus No. 92 rolls down a mountain highway just before dawn, high school students are quiet, typing on laptops.
Morning routines have been like this since the fall, when school officials mounted a mobile Internet router to bus No. 92’s sheet-metal frame, enabling students to surf the Web. The students call it the Internet Bus, and what began as a high-tech experiment has had an old-fashioned — and unexpected — result. Wi-Fi access has transformed what was often a boisterous bus ride into a rolling study hall, and behavioral problems have virtually disappeared.
“It’s made a big difference,” said J. J. Johnson, the bus’s driver. “Boys aren’t hitting each other, girls are busy, and there’s not so much jumping around.”
On this morning, John O’Connell, a junior at Empire High School here, is pecking feverishly at his MacBook, touching up an essay on World War I for his American history class. Across the aisle, 16-year-old Jennifer Renner e-mails her friend Patrick to meet her at the bus park in half an hour. Kyle Letarte, a sophomore, peers at his screen, awaiting acknowledgment from a teacher that he has just turned in his biology homework, electronically.
“Got it, thanks,” comes the reply from Michael Frank, Kyle’s teacher.
Internet buses may soon be hauling children to school in many other districts, particularly those with long bus routes. The company marketing the router, Autonet

L.A. Unified schools' chief works for district supplier - latimes.com

L.A. Unified schools' chief works for district supplier - latimes.com:

"Supt. Ramon C. Cortines sits on the board of Scholastic Inc., which supplies a district reading program. Officials say he is not involved in decisions pertaining to the publisher."

Los Angeles schools Supt. Ramon C. Cortines earned more than $150,000 last year for serving on the board of one of the nation's leading educational publishing companies, a firm with more than $16 million in contracts with the school district over the last five years.

Scholastic Inc. provides the main reading intervention curriculum for the Los Angeles Unified School District, a program that is part of the company's fast-growing educational technology business.

Cortines has disclosed his relationship with the New York-based company, and officials say he has avoided any decisions on Scholastic contracts.

Cortines' role, however, has generated criticism among some former senior officials and current employees. They said the corporate tie creates an appearance of impropriety.

"My objection is the perception it creates and the door it opens for others to do the same thing," said former school board member Marlene Canter, who sits on the city ethics commission and who said she admires Cortines.

YourNabe.com > Archives > Queens > Queens reps seek school holiday on Lunar New Year

YourNabe.com Archives Queens Queens reps seek school holiday on Lunar New Year

A group of New York state lawmakers has called for legislation to establish the Asian Lunar New Year as an official school holiday in New Year in recognition of what they called the largest Asian population in America.

State Assemblywoman Grace Meng (D-Flushing) and state Sens. Toby Stavisky (D-Whitestone) and Daniel Squadron (D-Manhattan) were among the elected officials and representatives of more than two dozen Asian-American organizations who gathered last Thursday on the steps of City Hall.

“As the only Asian American in the New York State Legislature, I believe that making Lunar New Year an official school holiday will help recognize the important role that Asian Americans have played in our city and state,” Meng said. “Our city and our country prides itself as a multicultural nation and our children want to be able to celebrate both Rosh Hashanah and Lunar New Year with their families and friends.”

Stavisky agreed.

“Asian Americans play an integral role in our community and

City’s new tenure plan uses test scores, but for few teachers | GothamSchools

Department of Education officials debuted a new tenure process today will affect only one in ten teachers up for tenure this year, but for the city’s teachers union, that’s one too many.

Answering Mayor Bloomberg’s demand that test scores be used in tenure decisions this year, the department has broadened the criteria that principals use in evaluating teachers to include teacher data reports. These reports rank teachers based on their students’ scores on the state’s math and English exams and compare them to others teaching similar students over several years. Department officials say the reports will only be used to alert principals to teachers who are at the top and bottom of the rankings.

When Chancellor Joel Klein first introduced the data reports in 2008, he made an agreement with former United Federation of Teachers president Randi Weingarten that the reports would not affect tenure evaluations or teacher pay. Today Klein doubled back on that agreement, sending a letter to principals that said including the data reports would make tenure more “meaningful.”

Generation 'Text': FB me - CNN.com

Solana Beach, California (CNN) -- I dont tlk on th fone. txt im fb me.

I tried to reach my teenage daughter the other day. I left a voice mail, sent an e-mail message and finally texted her and told her to check both and call me back.

Seconds later, she texted back one letter: "K." She is 19 and has been sending and receiving upwards of 3,000 texts per month. One month, she hit 7,500! She is not unusual at all.

According to Nielsen Mobile, in the first quarter of 2009, the average U.S. teen made and received an average of 191 phone calls and sent and received 2,899 text messages per month. By the third quarter, the number of texts had jumped to a whopping 3,146 messages per month, which equals more than 10 texts per every waking non-school hour. (At the beginning of 2007, those numbers were 255 phone calls and 435 text messages.) Preteens sent and received 1,146 texts per month.

Austin school district dual language proposal raises concerns for some

Austin school district dual language proposal raises concerns for some:

"Proposed reforms to the Austin school district's bilingual education program have threatened what some say is a tenuous relationship between new Superintendent Meria Carstarphen and some members of Austin's Hispanic community.

By moving from a transitional bilingual education model — where students still learning English get an increasingly limited amount of instruction in their native tongues — to what's called a dual language approach — where students are taught in two languages through high school — district officials say their goal has changed from producing graduates who are bilingual to graduating students who are biliterate.

'It's really an incredible opportunity to really lift the overall performance of both English language learners and native English speakers,' said Carstarphen, who can speak Spanish and has used it in speeches.

The dual language program, to be tested with Spanish at seven schools starting in the fall, would benefit English-language learners as well as English-speaking students whose parents want them to"

Religious Indoctrination Presented as Fact: Fresno City College Professor Challenged By the ACLU | ReligionDispatches

The ACLU has requested that Bradley Lopez, a professor at Fresno City College in California, cease and desist from offering his religious views in his health science classroom.
When Inherit the Wind was published in 1955, the Scopes trial upon which it was based was 30 years old, McCarthyism was rife, and intelligent design was not yet the well known (though oxymoronic) phrase it has become. Since then, the play has been filmed four times, with all-star casts. Often thought to be about science and religion, one of the play’s authors, Jerome Lawrence, noted in 1996 that the play was in fact a “parable” about mind control.

Religious Indoctrination Presented as Fact

In the decades since 1955, science and pseudo-science have accounted for a wide array of lawsuits about the place of religion in education at all levels. Meanwhile (though we may rarely use the phrase “mind control”), concerns regarding a new McCarthyism have received a lot of play in recent years—especially as the internal policing of ideas has ratcheted up in the years since 9/11. Many of these cases have related to religion as it has been entangled with violence.

Today’s lawsuits similarly bring together concerns about the relation of science, religion, education, and the state, mixing in more obvious connections to gender and sexuality. The latest potential case is in California, not in Tennessee. And it is not about evolution. It is about whether an employee of Fresno City College may teach his religious beliefs as health science. Thus, the Northern California Branch of the American Civil Liberties Union has written to Fresno City College (in a letter dated February 8, 2010) requesting formally that Professor Bradley Lopez—who through his employment at the community college qualifies as a state employee—cease and desist. Or, perhaps more accurately, ACLU demands that Fresno City College act to ensure that its “Health Science I” courses are accurate and unbiased. As the ACLU Press release puts it:

“The college classroom of a state school should be a welcoming environment for all students, and courses, especially health courses, should be based on objective and

UCI hecklers: 'Speech for me, not for thee' | university, publishingcontact, boston - Opinion - The Orange County Register

Of the many intellectual perversions currently taking root on college campuses, perhaps none is more contradictory to what should be one of higher education’s core values than the suppression of free speech. With alarming regularity, speakers are shouted down, booed, jeered, and barrage with vitriol, all at the hands of groups who give lip service to the notion of academic free speech, and who demand it when their speech is at issue, but have no interest in listening to, or letting others listen to, ideas that contradict their own world view.

Coincidentally, last week two Israeli officials, Deputy Foreign Minister Daniel Ayalon and ambassador to the United States Michael Oren had the unpleasant experience of confronting virulent anti-Israel, pro-Palestinian Muslim students whose ideology on academic debate seems to be “free speech for me, but not for thee.”

Ayalon, who spoke at Oxford University, had his speech interrupted by several audience members, including one who yelled incessantly and called Ayalon a “racist” and “a war criminal” while waving a Palestinian flag. Another student who loudly read passages of the incendiary Goldstone Report. There were calls from one charming scholar to “slaughter the Jews,” and the intrusion of a third student who remained standing for the entire balance of the lecture while she hurled anti-Israel invective. Still another radical brat who threatened to Ayalon with: “We will do to you what we did to Milosevic.”

The genteel, soft-spoken Ambassador Oren did not fare much better during his visit to theUniversity of California at Irvine, a notorious hotbed of radical anti-Israelism by Muslim students. During the aborted speech to some 500 people about U.S.-Israeli relations, which was loudly interrupted 10 times, boorish hecklers screamed over Oren’s talk such profound observations as “Michael Oren, propagating murder is not an expression of free speech,” “I accuse you of murder,” “How many Palestinians have you killed?” and “Israel is a murderer.” Even

Proposed cuts will diminish opportunities The Guardsman

Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger proposed a $10 million cut from the Extended Opportunities Programs and Services budget for the 2010-11 fiscal year, leaving those in need with even fewer resources. During a time when everyone is looking for help and the needy are worse off than usual, slashing the funding for EOPS is like taking crutches away from a one-legged man.

The EOPS program is aimed at individuals affected by varied circumstances. Those new to the country, single parents with low incomes, people dealing with legal trouble, and individuals of low educational levels may all benefit from EOPS services.

The 2009-10 EOPS allocation was an estimated $70 million. While that may sound like a lot of money, it was stretched between 111 California community colleges, including some of the largest in the nation. Los Angeles alone has seven community college campuses with EOPS programs, whose allocations last year added up to just under $6.5 million.

EOPS provides counselors, tutors, child care programs, extra computer labs, assistance for academic planning and assistance buying books.
“It would be devastating,” City College EOPS Director Alvin Jenkins said. “We are not going to let it happen.”

There is no way to look past the obvious truth that almost everyone is in a bad way right now. From faculty to

North state programs complement first lady's childhood obesity campaign Redding Record Searchlight

First lady Michelle Obama launched a national campaign to combat childhood obesity this week, and north state health groups want people to know they're already participating.

Healthy Shasta, in partnership with Shasta County Public Health, the McConnell Foundation, the Shasta Family YMCA and three local elementary schools, has a Healthy Students Initiative in its first year that mirrors the goals of Obama's campaign, spokeswoman Amy Pendergast said.

"A lot of what she talked about in announcing her new initiative overlaps with Healthy Shasta," she said.

The Healthy Students Initiative is a seven-year project to develop and implement solutions to address and prevent childhood obesity in Shasta County. A 2004 study by the California Center for Public Health Advocacy showed 23 percent of children in Shasta County are overweight. A separate study conducted in 2006 showed the cost associated with obesity and physical inactivity was nearly $253 million during that year.

The program has equipped participating schools with kitchen supplies and physical

GUEST OPINION: In defense of school librarians | PressDemocrat.com

I have worked in public schools for 14 years now, just “hanging out in the library,” as one Santa Rosa trustee recently summed it up, with students in grades pre-K through 12.

Unfortunately, the role of a school librarian is frequently misunderstood. Like custodians, cafeteria workers and campus security staff, much of our work takes place behind the scenes. Though school librarians have master's level training in best educational practices, we are not assigned official classes, nor do we test or grade students.

The way I see it, every student is my student. I am responsible for ensuring that every student I serve graduates with highly developed critical thinking skills, an appreciation for literature and the knowledge of how to effectively locate and evaluate information from both print and electronic sources. In a nutshell, I am a specialist in information literacy. School librarians collaborate with teachers, administrators and staff to ensure that students are efficient and effective users of ideas and information.

School Matters: 7,000 Head Start Spots At Risk - NAM

When 3-year-old Aaliah Sandoval began preschool at Good Beginnings Head Start in Los Angeles, she was very shy and did not talk much, even to her mother. But Aaliah quickly made friends, and now she can count up to 10, sings her ABCs every night before bed and understands the daily routine at school – all skills that prepare her to succeed in kindergarten and beyond.

Aaliah is one of 7,000 California children who attended Head Start and Early Head Start programs thanks to American Recovery and Reinvestment Act funds. But even with the new federal stimulus funds, many of our lowest-income children are still waiting – over 70 percent of eligible kids still do not have access to the programs.

The recession has been especially tough on low-income families, many of them families of color. They may be squeezed further by proposed state budget cuts to CalWORKS child care and Proposition 10, which funds First 5 California’s education, health services and other critical programs for young children.

That’s why President Obama’s recent fiscal year 2011 budget proposal, which included significant investments in early learning programs, is such good news. Building upon his earlier commitment to a comprehensive plan for children from birth to age 5, the president proposed a $989 million increase to the Head Start and Early Head Start budget to maintain stimulus funding levels, allowing us to continue serving the 7,000 children in California who started the programs last year. The proposal also included a $1.6 billion increase in the Child Care and Development Block Grant and support for pending legislation that would provide $8.9 billion over 10 years for an Early Learning Challenge Fund.

We have already seen these investments being put to good use in local communities. As with Aaliah, stimulus funds made it possible for 4-year-old Jesus Florez to attend Head Start in South El Monte, where he has learned to sing songs, and play games that teach him alphabet letters, an important skill that will help him learn to read.

Latinos upset at Maldonado rejection - Local - SanLuisObispo.com

Several local Latinos said Thursday that while they may not have agreed with all of state Sen. Abel Maldonado’s political decisions, they would like to see him seated as lieutenant governor, and they expressed disappointment about his rejection in the Assembly.

The Latinos interviewed said they support seeing a Hispanic politician in such a prominent role, noting that Cruz Bustamante also formerly held the second-highest-ranking state office.

Latino Outreach Council member Joe Quiroz, a Paso Robles resident and a Democrat, said he supported the Republican Maldonado’s confirmation.

“I haven’t always agreed with his voting record, but he has been willing more recently to move toward the middle,” Quiroz said. “I think a basis for our whole problem in California is political robots in the Legislature. Too many people blindly follow agendas and, to his credit, Abel hasn’t done that.”

Quiroz added that most Hispanics are Democrats in California because of traditional Republican views on immigration and bilingual education, and that Maldonado is uncommon as a Hispanic Republican.

Torrico unveils gang prevention program - San Jose Mercury News

In an effort to thwart the increase of gang violence on several California high school campuses, Assembly Majority Leader Alberto Torrico, D-Fremont, introduced the "Cops on Campus" program Tuesday morning.

The assemblyman made the announcement at Independence High School in San Jose, a campus that has had its share of gang issues in the past.

He was joined by brothers Cesar Torrico, principal at Franklin Elementary School in San Jose, and Fabian Torrico, a veteran of the San Jose Police Department.

"As I've traveled the state over the last year, I've spoken to hundreds of county sheriffs, local police departments, city council members and high school administrators and students," Assemblyman Torrico said. "And I was astounded to hear that crime clusters around high school campuses. And the reason for that is gangs are using high schools to recruit new members and sell their products drugs."

The assemblyman's Cops on Campus program will put uniformed police officers on 100 California high school campuses.

He said schools will mostly be eligible due to poverty levels around the campus, single parent households in the district, and the population of English as a second language students, among other criteria.

Cuts, layoffs spark teacher protest San Mateo Daily Journal

San Mateo Daily Journal
Cuts, layoffs spark teacher protest

Previously approved salary increases to cabinet-level employees irked teachers when layoffs are part of the plan to cut $4.3 million in South San Francisco, a move protested by many at last night’s Board of Trustees meeting.
South San Francisco Unified School District is facing a $4.3 million budget deficit. Part of the tiered-cut approach includes increasing class sizes through teacher layoffs, losing arts programs and reductions in summer school programs. In January, the Board of Trustees approved salary increases for many higher district positions, a decision many took issue with last night as the district prepares to make large cuts later this year. In closed session last night, officials who were granted the increases agreed to have any increase during this school year returned to the district general fund — a move that caused applause. Despite this, there are concerns from teachers that the district does not have a united front when dealing with budget issues.
“Let the light in; let the sun shine on all the parts of our work together,” said Jan Speller, South San Francisco California Teachers’ Association president. “Come out from behind your PowerPoint slides and engage in a dialogue with us in a genuine, direct manner.”
Speller said the teachers are willing to work with the district to make instructional changes, but will be hesitant to make changes without trust and open dialogue.
South San Francisco is in the second year of program improvement, a designation given to a district under the federal No Child Left Behind program when test scores for some subgroups do not make goals. With this in mind, the district’s focus is education reform and aligning the finances with human resources, explained Ron Little, associate superintendent of business services.
South San Francisco is projecting a $71.3 million budget next year, a 5 percent decrease from last year, said Little.
Among the first $1.78 million in a tiered plan proposed to alleviate cuts includes reducing deferred maintenance contribution, reducing

Thursday, February 11, 2010

Assembly fails to approve Maldonado for lieutenant governor - Latest News - sacbee.com

The state Assembly failed today to approve Sen. Abel Maldonado for the vacant lieutenant governor post, setting the stage for a possible legal fight over his confirmation.

After being confirmed by the Senate this morning, Maldonado ultimately fell four votes short of 41-vote majority needed in theAssembly, where the final tally was 37-35. A rejection leaves Maldonado in his Senate seat, with Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger perhaps looking for a new nominee. Maldonado has said he will run for the office this year no matter what.

But the governor's office challenged the assertion that the Assembly vote counts as a rejection under the state constitution and said that based on the votes taken today, Maldonado would be sworn in to fill the post vacated by DemocratJohn Garamendi's election last fall to Congress.

Schwarzenegger tapped Maldonado for the post in November, starting a 90-day clock for lawmakers to approve or reject the nomination. The nominee also takes office if he is "neither confirmed nor refused confirmation by both houses" within that period, according to the state constitution.

Sacramento Press / Four city schools among state honorees for rigorous academic achievement Closing achievement gap among recognition criteria

By Maria L. Lopez

Four Sacramento City Unified School District campuses are among 238 California schools announced today as recipients of the 2009-10 Title 1 Academic Achievement Award. The SCUSD sites are David Lubin, Earl Warren, Isador Cohen and Theodore Judah elementary schools. Aspire Capitol Heights Academy and St. HOPE Public School 7, both independent charter schools located in the district, are also among the award winners.

“This recognition is a testament to the great work of students, teachers and parents occurring at these schools,” SCUSD Superintendent Jonathan P. Raymond said. “The recognition is especially appreciated because progress towards closing the achievement gap is one of the measures used to single out these campuses,” Raymond stated.

The Title 1 Academic Achievement Award is given only to schools receiving federal Title 1 funds, federal funding that assists schools in meeting the educational needs of students living near or at the poverty level. More than 6,000 of California’s 9,000 campuses participate in the Title I program.

Schools must demonstrate that all students are making significant progress toward proficiency on California’s academic content standards and the schools’ low-income students must have doubled the achievement targets set for them over two consecutive years.

State Superintendent of Public Instruction Jack O’Connell called principals of each of the schools to convey the good news and express

Right on the Money - News Features & Releases

Right on the Money

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Despite repeated efforts to reward teachers based on performance -- both theirs and their students' -- many experts say this incentive doesn't improve education.
By Elaine McArdle

Offering financial incentives to improve education -- providing money rewards to students, teachers, schools, or districts as a way to motivate them to try harder and do better -- is one of the hottest topics in education today.

On the student side, schools in cities like New York, Chicago, and Washington, D.C., are experimenting with financial rewards, including cash payouts to students who make good grades or show other achievement. The new competitive incentive grants from the federal Department of Education -- the so-called "Race to the Top" money -- hand out financial remuneration to states that comply with certain requirements, including improving academic results.

But the greatest focus has been "pay for performance" initiatives for teachers whose students make the most academic progress, typically measured by results of standardized tests. The concept is simple: A series of influential studies in recent years have shown that teacher quality is one of the most important factors in student achievement, so "good" teachers -- as reflected in growth in student test scores -- should be paid more than their less able colleagues. Financial incentives will encourage teachers to try harder in their jobs, the theory goes, and those who don't should leave the field and seek other careers. Pay for performance will rid schools of mediocre teachers, proponents say, leading to higher student achievement, betters schools, and, in the long-run, a more productive workforce in the United States.

In the ongoing effort to address the complicated issue of improving American education, pay for performance seems to make sense, and so the movement has caught on across the country. In the past decade, at least 20 states and a large number of districts have instituted some form of pay for performance for teachers, including California, Florida, Minnesota, Texas, and the cities of Cincinnati, Denver, New York, and