Sunday, February 21, 2010

“You All Took a Stand” | The White House

With Treasury Secretary Tim Geithner and USDA Secretary Tom Vilsack in tow, First Lady Michelle Obama traveled to Philadelphia yesterday as part of the Let’s Move! campaign, a nationwide effort to rally the country around one goal, ending the epidemic of childhood obesity.

During her remarks at Fairhill Elementary School, Mrs. Obama applauded the city of Philadelphia for their “stand” to end childhood obesity:

Six years ago, when this city had fewer supermarkets per person than almost anywhere in America, all right, that was six years ago, when many folks had no access to healthy foods; six years ago many neighborhoods had alarming rates of obesity-related conditions like heart disease and diabetes -- the folks in this city, you all could have decided that you had an unsolvable problems on your hands, right? You could have done that. You could have decided that these problems were just too big and too complicated and too entrenched and thrown your hands up and walked away.
But instead you all took a stand, a really important, collaborative stand. You decided first that no family in this city should be spending a fortune on high-priced, low-quality foods because they have no other options. You decided that no child should be consigned to a life of poor health because of what neighborhood his or her family lives in. And you decided that you weren't going to just talk about the problem or wring your hands about the problems, but you were going to act.
And that's precisely the kind of determination, the kind of commitment that we need to address the epidemic of childhood obesity in this country. And this issue is an issue of great concern to me, and I've said this before, not because I'm First Lady -- or not just because I'm First Lady of this country -- but because I'm a mother, and I care about my kids and I care about all of our kids. And I know that this issue is a great concern to all of you, everyone around this country. We all care about our kids. That's why last week we enthusiastically and proudly launched "Let's Move." (Applause.) "Let's Move" is a nationwide campaign to rally this country around one single but ambitious goal, and that is to end the epidemic of childhood obesity in a generation so that the kids born today grow up with a healthy weight. Simple but ambitious.

Mrs. Obama also announced a new part of Let’s Move! -- the Healthy Food Financing Initiative, a multi-million dollar public and private investment to eliminate food deserts in America within seven years:

So with your success here in Pennsylvania, what you've shown us is that when we provide the right support and incentives, then business leaders like Pat Burns and Jeff Brown, they're going to take the chance to invest in our communities. And when we bring fresh, healthy food to communities, what do we learn? People will buy it, right? People will buy it. These stores are turning a profit. And what's going on is that they're doing well by doing good. Isn't that something? (Applause.)
So it's because of this example that part of "Let's Move" we created this Healthy Food Financing Initiative that's modeled on what's been going on here. And as Secretary Geithner said, with a modest initial investment of about $400 million a year, we're going to use that money to leverage hundreds of millions more from private and non-profit sectors to bring grocery stores and other healthy food retailers to underserved communities all across this country. If you can do it here, we can do it around the country. (Applause.) And our goal is ambitious. It's to eliminate food deserts in America completely in seven years. (Applause.)

Again, we know this is ambitious, but we also know that tackling the issue of accessibility and affordability is key to achieving the overall goal of solving childhood obesity in this generation.

To learn more about what you can do to help solve the childhood obesity epidemic – visit LetsMove.gov and become a fan of Let’s Move! on FaceBook.

Don't blame the teachers - The Reporter

I am concerned about the comments made by the Vacaville Unified School District Board of Education at its Feb. 11 meeting. The board asserted that it was the teachers' fault that the district must consider closing schools.

This is another classic example of the school board trying to pass the blame off on someone else and not taking responsibility for making decisions.

The Vacaville Teachers Association (VTA) has put forth an offer of more than $1.1 million dollars in concessions to the school district. This offer represents an unprecedented give-back from the association and is the largest percentage give-back by any district employee group. In return, all the teachers have asked for is time outside the duty day to help with the increased workload that has resulted with the larger class sizes they are facing.

The district has rejected the offer made by the VTA, an offer based on the options given to the teachers by the district's negotiating team.

None of the options given to the teachers are good for the teachers or the students. But to blame the teachers for the possible closing of schools should not be the school board's response to the financial problems of the school district. If a school needs to be closed because it represents a financial loss to the district, then the board needs to do its job and stop passing the responsibility onto a committee or a group of hard-working employees.

Larry Baker, president
Vacaville Teachers Association

JD-U blames Sibal for collaborating with education mafia in the name of RTE - Oneindia News

JD-U blames Sibal for collaborating with education mafia in the name of RTE - Oneindia News:

"New Delhi, Feb 21 (ANI): Janata Dal-United (JD-U) Delhi unit has blamed Union Human Resource Development (HRD) Minister Kapil Sibal for joining hands with the Education mafia in the name of Right To Education Act (RTE)."

JD-U Delhi unit General Secretary and spokesperson Prabhat Ranjan said, "On one hand Sibal is trying to escape from fixing the salary of the teachers in the private institutions by the Centre. On the other hand, he is giving a free hand to charge unnecessary fees from the students."

"It is a shameful act on the part of the minister to 'commercialise' the education system, added Ranjan.

Taking a dig at Sibal's formula of having a common syllabus programme, Ranjan said the students in the metropolitan cities have access to theinternet facilities, but students putting up in small towns are devoid of such facilities.

Sibal's new formula is an open challenge to the social attributes of an individual, he claimed.

The curriculum of the course is not important, but the need is for quantitative and qualitative education system, said Ranjan.

Sibal has said that he wants to build a consensus with state governments, ahead of the implementation of the central Right To Education Act (RTE) coming into effect from April 1. Private schools

New Plan on School Selection Process and Highlights From Sunday’s Bay Area Pages - Bay Area Blog - NYTimes.com

Discontent Despite New School Plan | The San Francisco Unified School District is taking a serious step toward revamping its well-meaning but complex student-assignment system, which decides where tens of thousands of children will attend school. The current system has aggravated parents to a point where efforts to manipulate the system have become endemic. But even with a new plan, no one seems happy.

A Battle in St. Helena | The fight over an election to recall four of the five members of the school board in this village in the northern Napa Valley has pitted neighbor against neighbor and friend and against friend, writes Daniel Weintraub, driving a wedge through a small school district that has slightly fewer than 1,400 students. The factions have taken to sitting on opposite sides of the high school gym and staking out separate bleachers on the Little League field.

Milestone Year for SF MoMA | The San Francisco Museum of Modern Art is staging a 75th anniversary celebration. With new multimedia tours, inventive collaborations with local and international artists and, most

A Diploma in 10th Grade? - Room for Debate Blog - NYTimes.com

The Times reported this week that under a program starting next year, some high school sophomores in eight states will have a chance to earn a diploma and head straight to community college. To do so, however, they will have to pass academic tests known as board exams. If they don’t pass the tests in the 10th grade, they can take them again in their junior and senior years.

The National Center on Education and the Economy, the nonprofit group that is organizing the program, says that students will have to meet basic requirements before they go to college and that it hopes this will reduce the need for remedial classes in college.

A fast-track approach, which is focused on “at risk” students, is already in place at 71 North Carolina high schools, and is spreading in New York, California and Texas.

What are the benefits of a fast-track approach through high school? What are the possible problems and risks?

Leon Botstein, president of Bard College
Ze’ev Wurman, former Education Department adviser
Michael Goldstein, founder of charter public school
Marc C. Tucker, National Center on Education and the Economy
Vern Williams, middle school math teacher
Nancy Hoffman, Jobs for the Future
Sandra Stotsky, professor of education reform
Rudy Crew, former chancellor of New York City Schools
Kenneth Bernstein, social studies teacher
Amy Wilkins, Education Trust

Federal marks weigh on some schools as state starts AIMS Testing

Federal marks weigh on some schools as state starts AIMS Testing:

"For some Valley schools, state testing, which starts this week, will have even higher stakes.

If schools don't meet federal testing standards, they can face increased sanctions, including replacement of principals, curriculum overhaul or extension of the school year.

Both state and federal officials use AIMS scores to judge schools, but their assessments can be widely different.

Last year, a record 96 percent of Arizona's 1,896 schools got at least a satisfactory rating in how the state judges schools. But more than a quarter of Arizona schools failed to meet the federal government's standard for making 'adequate yearly progress,' or AYP.

One Mesa junior high reflects the different ways schools are judged."

New Plan on School Selection, but Still Discontent - NYTimes.com

After years of complaints from parents, the San Francisco Unified School District has just taken a serious step toward revamping its well-meaning but labyrinthine student-assignment system, which decides the educational homes for tens of thousands of children.

The current system — designed to meet the terms of a settlement in a long-fought federal desegregation case — involves a complicated computer algorithm that creates student “profiles,” using various economic and educational factors, with the aim of sending students of different backgrounds to the same schools.
It has resulted instead in more segregation and has aggravated parents to a point where efforts to manipulate the system have become endemic.
This month, the school district rolled out a new plan. It is designed to more closely consider proximity between a student’s home and classroom. It is to be applied to every child headed for kindergarten.
And once again, no one seems completely happy.
“I’ll be honest with you; we’re really frustrated,” said Michelle Menegaz, the chairwoman of the Parent

Bush schools wait years for upgrades, facilities: Rural Alaska | adn.com

Bush schools wait years for upgrades, facilities: Rural Alaska | adn.com:

"JUNEAU -- More than a decade after a state judge ruled that Alaska's system of funding for new and renovated schools was unconstitutional, the system remains unchanged and the backlog of projects in the Bush amounts to hundreds of millions of dollars."

Rural lawmakers are railing and legislators from both parties say the issue has festered for far too long. Gov. Sean Parnell says he's working on a solution.

The state now operates a two-pronged system to pay for costly new schools and renovations that Bush legislators say gives unfair advantage to urban districts like Anchorage.

Building the first 10 projects on the state-ranked construction priority list -- four new schools and six expansions -- would cost the state $332 million. All are in the Bush; many are located in villages within the Yukon Delta National Wildlife Refuge.

"If we could tax lichen and moss, we could probably pay for our schools," said state Rep. Bob Herron, a Democrat from Bethel who's on the House budget panel for education. "There is no resource to tax."

Most of the Bush schools that need repair or replacement are seriously overcrowded, with double the students they are meant for, according to state education officials, a situation that the governor and four Bush

Pleasantville to try four-day week | desmoinesregister.com | The Des Moines Register

Pleasantville to try four-day week | desmoinesregister.com | The Des Moines Register:

"Pleasantville, Ia. — Pleasantville schools will be the first in Iowa to hold classes four days a week, a plan supporters say will help cushion the blow of budget cuts and preserve the small district's independence.

Students will take Mondays off for three months in the 2010-11 school year - officials say they aren't ready to alter the whole calendar - and the other four days will be a half hour longer each.
The plan was pitched to spare teaching jobs in the 650-student Marion County district, where a drop in enrollment and a tight state budget mean deep cutbacks lie ahead.

But its approval by state officials marks a major shift in Iowa, where four-day school weeks have been viewed as a gamble despite their growing appeal nationwide."

Statistician's analysis could determine teachers' fates | Houston & Texas News | Chron.com - Houston Chronicle

Statisticians don't often make the news. But William “Bill” Sanders became known among local teachers when the Houston Independent School District decided this month to evaluate — and possibly fire — them based on his statistical analysis of student test scores. HISD has paid Sanders' employer, the SAS Institute in Cary, N.C., more than $1.3 million since 2008 for his analysis, which is the basis of the district's performance bonus system.

Q: Teachers have criticized your formula as being too complicated. In simple terms, can you explain how you calculate a teacher's effectiveness?

A: I can't explain how you calculate it. I can explain the concept. The concept is very simple. You look at the progress rates for the individual student. The way to visualize it is, every student has his own trajectory. If the kid is having a really good year, there will be a positive bubble. If the kid is not having a good year, there will be a negative dent. By mathematically aggregating the dimples and bubbles across all students, that gives you a basis for measuring the effectiveness of the schooling entity — the district, the building or the classroom.

Q: I've heard your formula is a secret or proprietary.

A: That's not true. Sanders has given the Chronicle a paper about the Tennessee Value-Added Assessment System, which he

In grading teachers, value-added test is indispensable | Viewpoints, Outlook | Chron.com - Houston Chronicle

Both research and experience tell us that teachers matter. In fact, they matter more than any other factor that we can control in a student's education — more than dollars spent per student, class size or the type and quality of textbooks. No reform is more critical to closing the nation's shameful achievement gap than boosting the quality of teachers in high-poverty schools. “The single most important factor in determining [student] achievement is not the color of their skin or where they come from,“ says President Barack Obama. “It's not who their parents are or how much money they have — it's who their teacher is.” Without “the right people standing in front of the classroom,” the Hamilton Project at the Brookings Institution concludes, “school reform is a futile exercise.”

The Houston Independent School District is taking a critical step to ensure that all its students are taught by top-notch teachers. Superintendent Terry Grier — who has long been a true warrior in the national fight to close the achievement gap — is making an important move by recommending that the teacher evaluation process include an examination of student achievement data. The data will look at how much learning a student gains over one year. This type of data is called “value-added,” meaning that it analyzes only the change across one year relative to where a student begins, a leveling of the playing field that allows us to isolate teacher impact. Value-added data will be one element in a set of criteria that are used to gauge a teacher's effectiveness in the classroom.

Inner-city students struggle to raise money for tour of Nazi death camps

Inner-city students struggle to raise money for tour of Nazi death camps:

"Jamal McNeil (from left), 14, Amanda Remy, 15, Tasia Sharpe, 18, Diana Cabrera, 15, Serpico Arriaga, 15 and Natasha Flowers, 15. All are from the Global 4 Class at the High School for Law, Advocacy and Community Justice at the Martin Luther King Jr. Educational Complex on the Upper West Side. The class needs funding for an educational trip to Germany."

It's a class trip back in time, a long way from their West Side high school.

Nine black and Latino students are desperately scraping together funds for an 11-day tour of the Nazi death camps, their interest stirred by a class about the Holocaust.

So far, their efforts have fallen short.

But the teens at the High School for Law Advocacy and Community Justice hope to raise almost $17,000 in the next month to pay for the trip.

Sophomore Natasha Flowers, 15, explained that learning about Auschwitz in her global history class changed her view of the world.

She once made fun of Hasidic Jews riding the subway through Brooklyn.

"Kingston Ave. - they'd be on the train," she said. "We would laugh at them. Then I learned about the Holocaust and I know what they went through . . . I never made fun of Jews again."

The ninth- and 10th-grade history buffs, all low-income students at the school on W. 66th St., are $16,919 short of the trip's $24,219 cost.

The money is due March 15 for a tour of sites where the Nazis killed millions of Jews during World War II.

Ten win 'Teacher as Hero' awards | Philadelphia Inquirer | 02/20/2010

Sister Helen Thomas, the "hands-on" principal at St. Laurence Catholic School in Upper Darby, has brought technology to her school in a big way.

Emilia Rastrick, a gym teacher at Lingelbach School in Philadelphia's Germantown section, launched a dragon-boat league to promote healthy lifestyles and cooperation among middle-school students.

And Sherman Denby, a science teacher at the Cherry Street School in Bridgeton, N.J., quietly goes out of his way to help his low-income students and their families.

All are considered champions by their school communities, and all were honored recently in an unusual competition. The National Liberty Museum in Old City named the trio and seven other educators winners of the annual "Teacher as Hero" awards. Sponsored by State Farm Insurance, the program recognizes inspirational teachers in the region with a permanent exhibit at the museum at 321 Chestnut St.

"Our honorees are an excellent representation of heroes that touch the future by teaching our youth," Gwen Borowsky, chief executive officer and vice president of the museum, said in a statement.

Subpoena issued in L. Merion webcam case | Philadelphia Inquirer | 02/20/2010

Federal prosecutors have subpoenaed the Lower Merion School District for documents related to the controversial use of remote-control cameras on students' school-issued computers, The Inquirer has learned.

The grand jury subpoena, delivered yesterday, asked for a broad range of records related to the so-called webcams and the security system that district officials used to activate them, said a lawyer who had been briefed about the matter. He spoke on the condition of anonymity.

School district spokesman Douglas Young said he could not comment last night when asked whether such a subpoena had been received. Philadelphia FBI spokesman J.J. Klaver cited the agency's policy of not confirming or denying any pending investigation.

Word of the subpoena came as the elite suburban school district, through Young, conceded that "notice should have been given" to families that the district's computer system would snap photos of school laptop users - even in children's homes - if the laptops were reported missing or stolen.

California Admissions Ruling Challenged | The Afro-American Newspapers

California Admissions Ruling Challenged

Saturday, February 20th, 2010

By AFRO Staff

(Courtesy Photo)

(February 20, 2010) – A coalition of civil rights groups is bringing a new challenge to a California law that prohibits the state from considering race in state university admissions.
The lawsuit was filed in Oakland on Feb. 16 by the Michigan based Coalition to Defend Affirmative Action, Integration, and Immigrant Rights and Fight for Equality By Any Means Necessary. The suit challenges the constitutionality of the law, which was approved by California voters in 1996 and is known as Proposition 209. A similar measure was passed in Michigan in 2006.
“The plaintiff Latina/o and black students now ask this Court to strike down Proposition 209’s ban on affirmative action at the University of California because Proposition 209 has been the sentry at the gate, denying the plaintiffs the chance for an equal and integrated education as promised by the Fourteenth Amendment, Brown v. Board of Education, and the proudest legal traditions of California and of the nation,” the suit reads in part.
Proposition 209 has drawn many lawsuits in California state courts since its enactment on the grounds that it has curbed minority enrollment at state universities.
In the meantime, the University of California system schools said there’s little they can do to alleviate the problem.
“If this opens up another discussion, that’s well and good, but, as long as Proposition 209 is the law, we’re obliged to follow it,” University of California spokesman Steve Montiel told the Oakland Tribune.
The lawsuit acknowledges the schools’ inability to circumvent the law, but did praise it for attempting to

Four-year degrees at comunity colleges - Press-Telegram

Four-year degrees at comunity colleges - Press-Telegram:

"At long last, there are signs Californians might become a little inventive in the face of financial crisis.

The best example so far of an idea for making lemonade when life has dispensed lemons comes in the higher education field, where state colleges and universities have absorbed large budget cuts, begun charging higher tuition and fees than ever - and will still turn away about 100,000 qualified students next fall.

That situation amounts to a wholesale abandonment of California's 1960 Master Plan for Higher Education, which guarantees a place at either the University of California or a California State University campus for every student who has done enough to qualify.

With some campuses reserving significant numbers of spaces for local residents and others turning away even those students, public universities for the first time are plainly not keeping their 50-year-old promise"

Fighting to Protect Education and Public Services—California Students and Unions Show Way Forward

“There's no question this is extraordinary – the worst situation in 50 years.” That’s how Susan Urahn, director of the Pew Center for the States, described the massive budget deficits facing state governments across the country on ABC News. “We saw a $180 billion cumulative budget gap in 2009 and predict the same for 2010.”
At the forefront lies California – both in terms of the scale of the crisis and the movement developing to resist the cuts in vital public services, particularly higher education. Facing a $62 billion deficit in 2009, Republican Governor Schwarzenegger and the Democratic legislature carried out a massive assault on workers and young people.

Higher education has seen billions in funding cut and thousands of faculty and staff laid off. Those remaining face furloughs, wage cuts, hiring freezes, huge increases in class sizes, reductions in course offerings, and cuts in financial aid.
In November, the University of California (UC) Regents approved a 32% tuition hike. Having no shame, the same regents gave themselves and other top administrators pay and benefit increases of up to 30%, on top of their already bloated salaries.
But what stands out against the background of these dreary facts is the bold struggle that has emerged against these attacks. The UC system, which has been at the head of the struggle, has been rocked by one of its biggest movements since the 1960s.
Determined Struggle
The movement erupted on September 24 with a strike and walkout by UC staff, students, and faculty, with thousands protesting across the state. This was followed by a statewide conference on October 24 with 750 people from all sectors of public education, from K-12 through the university level.
The conference voted to call for statewide actions on November 18-20 and a strike and day of action on March 4.

California's environmental policy starts in kindergarten - San Jose Mercury News

VENTURA — In what officials are calling a landmark move, California public schools now have state-approved environmental curriculum for students all the way from kindergarten through 12th grade.

The state Board of Education this year signed off on 76 sections of curriculum — part of California's Education and the Environment Initiative — and they are expected to be available for teachers online in the spring at no charge.

"This is another example of California leading the nation in environmental policy," said Lindsay VanLaningham, deputy director of communications for the California Environmental Protection Agency. The K-12 curriculum is serving as a model, she said, and other states have requested information about California's efforts.

Legislation written by Fran Pavley, D-Agoura Hills, and signed into law in 2003 called for putting environmental education into public schools, and developing the curriculum was a lengthy process with multiple agencies involved, including the California EPA, state Integrated Waste Management Board and the California Department of Education, VanLaningham said.

It includes 85 sections of science and history-social science with academic standards, and the state board signed off on 76 of them at its January meeting. The remaining nine sections are expected to go to the board this spring.

While many schools already have some environmental education, state officials said much

of it is considered supplemental because lessons are not focused on state academic standards.

Using the environment as the context, the new curriculum teaches standards required in other subjects, such as

Saturday, February 20, 2010

Sacramento Press / SACRAMENTO NEWS & REVIEW HOSTS SACRAMENTO SUSTAINABILITY FORUM

Business owners, members of various organizations and political representatives attended the seventh Sacramento Sustainability Forum on Thursday at the Sacramento News & Review offices at 1124 Del Paso Blvd. Since August 2009 the SSF has been holding these meetings to discuss local solutions to environmental, economic and political problems.

The discussion focused on Senate Bill 375, which calls for lowering greenhouse gas emissions by curbing urban sprawl. The bill would have city and transportation planners achieve this by placing housing, industry, schools and retail in close proximity to each other.

The bill is complex and would pertain to many segments of population and organizations in Sacramento. For more information and to read the bill, visitwww.arb.ca.gov/cc/sb375/sb375.htm.

The speakers Thursday were Shamus Roller, executive director of the

Wake County's Anti-Diversity Board Majority Ponder Superintendent's Resignation Schools Matter

Schools Matter

Wake County's Anti-Diversity Board Majority Ponder Superintendent's Resignation

Photo: TAKAAKI IWABU - tiwabu@newsobserver
What do you get when institutionalized racism at the national level intervenes to buy a school board in order to destroy the nation's most successful school integration and diversity program? Keep an eye on Wake County, NC, and you will see the perfect case study unfolding before our eyes.

One thing you can obviously get is a righteously indignant superintendent who is not afraid to challenge the anti-diversity racist majority on the Wake County School Board. From the News

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