Big Education Ape

Monday, February 22, 2010

Revamped elementary schools, high school academies part of 'bold' Cleveland schools reform plan | Metro - cleveland.com - cleveland.com

Revamped elementary schools, high school academies part of 'bold' Cleveland schools reform plan | Metro - cleveland.com - cleveland.com:

"CLEVELAND, Ohio -- Cleveland schools chief Eugene Sanders wishes people would get past the gristle in his proposed academic-reform plan and chew on the meat.
OK, let's bite. If and when the furor over the closing of 13 schools and the moving of five others fades, what would remain? Sanders and his aides say it would be a 'transformation' that they call one of the most aggressive in the nation.

At its core is a building-by-building outline for improving Cleveland's many failing schools and nurturing the successes.

The plan could still be amended before the school board votes, probably in March. But here's what the public would see if the reforms sail through undiluted: big high schools divided into intimate academies; an expanded portfolio of innovative schools, like one planned for the Cleveland State University campus; elementary schools emphasizing science and the arts; and, perhaps, select district buildings run by charter-school managers.

Less visible would be a teacher force evaluated and assigned to jobs based on their students' achievement. The district also would have a"

The Diamondback - Degrees: Not worth the paper they're printed on

The Diamondback - Degrees: Not worth the paper they're printed on:

"A report released last week by Public Agenda and the National Center for Public Policy and Higher Education revealed what I would call disturbing news, except all it did was tell us what we already think about college costs. According to its results, 55 percent of Americans believe a college education is necessary to succeed in the work world, and 60 percent believe “colleges today are like most businesses and care mainly about the bottom line.” Most of us agree contemporary institutions of higher education care more about money than education (60 vs. 32 percent in this poll), but if a diploma is a commodity, then it’s the worst kind: a mandatory purchase.

Any economics graduate student or smarter-than-average fifth grader can tell you the more inelastic consumer demand for a product is (e.g. young people feel they need to get college degrees to be successful in life), the more the price can increase without a drop-off in buyers. We’ve not only seen steady tuition and fee growth nationally, but The Chronicle of Higher Education reported last month that university and college administrator salaries also increased 10 percent between 2007 and 2009. At this university, there is money to build a glorified shopping mall on East Campus, but tuition has to increase 3 percent."

Community colleges must share in higher education recovery - latimes.com

Community colleges must share in higher education recovery - latimes.com:

"Schwarzenegger's education plan does nothing to help the 110 California community colleges, which provide workforce training and are the practical option for most low-income students."

Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger wants California to get its priorities straight. Over the last three decades, the state's investment in universities has eroded while prison spending has shot through the roof. It's "out of whack," says Schwarzenegger.

To remedy that, he would guarantee that no less than 10% of the state's general fund budget go to the universities by 2014, a doubling of their current share. He also wants the deal written into the state Constitution -- both to show he's serious and to commit future governors to the plan.

Unfortunately, the governor's higher education recovery plan does nothing to help the 110 California community colleges, which serve nearly 3 million students -- nearly 70% of those in public higher education each year.

They don't get as much attention as the University of California or the California State University systems. But more than half of the graduates from the Cal States and 30% from the UCs start out in community colleges, allowing the four-year institutions to focus more on research and upper-division course work. This saves the state and its students millions of dollars.

The community colleges also are the state's main provider of workforce training, creating pathways into hundreds of occupations that require special training but not necessarily a four-year degree. Community colleges are the only practical option for most low-income young people, not to mention laid-off workers, returning vets and adults who need to work or raise a family while they go to school.

Sacramento school districts used stimulus funds to pay teachers - Sacramento News - Local and Breaking Sacramento News | Sacramento Bee

Kwame Dwumfuoh started classes at Elk Grove Unified School District's new Eagle Academy in August in silence. The 7-year-old didn't talk or socialize with his classmates, and he didn't eat most foods.

Now Kwame speaks and plays with his friends, and he has a newfound affinity for tortilla chips,cereal and the occasional chicken burger.

He is flourishing in a school for students withautism spectrum disorders that Elk GroveUnified started with $1.8 million in federal stimulus dollars. The money also paid for programs for emotionally disturbed students at three other campuses.

Nearly $300 million has poured into five Sacramento-area districts since President Barack Obama authorized $100 billion in American Recovery and Reinvestment Act funds for the nation's schools last year.

Sunday, February 21, 2010

The Perimeter Primate: The "Parent Trigger" and its connections to the phoney LA Parents Union, Green Dot, Steve Barr, and Eli Broad

The "Parent Trigger" and its connections to the phoney LA Parents Union, Green Dot, Steve Barr, and Eli Broad

Originally conceived in Los Angeles by Steve Barr’s (of Green Dot) Los Angeles Parents Union, and largely funded by the Broad Foundation,the "Parent Trigger" has spread east, and here. This is an initiative where if enough parents can be convinced to sign a petition, a school will be closed down and replaced with a charter. On each Form 990 from 2005 to 2008, Steve Barr is listed as the CEO/President of the LAPU board.

Broad contributed nearly 50% of the funding for the launch of the LAPU (formerly the Small Schools Alliance, aka the Parent Revolution). The money he supplied helped pay for the propaganda to make it seem like the movement is being generated by "the people," when in fact it is a carefully planned, targeted marketing campaign to wipe out the public schools.

An absolute lie is being spread that it was "developed by the grass-roots group Parent Revolution in the Los Angeles Unified School

Obama Gives Govs. Another Reason to Adopt Common Core - Politics K-12 - Education Week

The state-led effort to adopt a common core of academic standards is getting a lot of back-up from the feds.

And President Obama is expected to give the movement another shot in the arm tomorrow. Lesli Maxwell over at State EdWatch has the scoop.

A Modest Proposal for NCLB Reauthorization � The Quick and the Ed

Senior House Republicans and Democrats recently announced a new bi-partisan effort to re-authorize the Elementary and Secondary Education Act. It’s a good sign for some real progress, both for education specifically and Washington in general, but there’s been no word on whether the Senate is so inclined. The “proposals” put forward so far by the Department of Education and at yesterday’s announcement are light on details, so this post is my attempt at rectifying some of the major issues around No Child Left Behind.

No More Pass/ Fail

One of the more frequent criticisms of the law concerns its binary pass/ fail system. If a school fails to meet a single academic benchmarks in a single grade in a single subject by a single sub-group of students, it is said to not meet “adequate yearly progress,” or AYP. If it does not meet AYP for multiple years in a row, the school is subject to a series of consequences that become more punitive the more years it misses targets.

The strengths of this arrangement came from protecting under-served populations. Because a school would be held accountable for all groups of students, it focused much more attention on achievement gaps and did not let a school hide its problems educating important sub-groups behind school-wide averages.

The focus on sub-groups should not go away, but a better system would allow states to create a multi-tiered ranking of schools with different consequences for different types of schools. They could give each school an A-F grade, for example,

Sacramento region's week ahead: Issues shaping the news - Sacramento News - Local and Breaking Sacramento News | Sacramento Bee

Sacramento region's week ahead: Issues shaping the news - Sacramento News - Local and Breaking Sacramento News | Sacramento Bee:

TUESDAY & WEDNESDAY

Sac City Unified outlines $30 million deficit, seeks public advice

What: The Sacramento City Unified School District will host a community forums at two high schools this week to discuss the district's $30 million budget deficit and to solicit public comment.

When: 6:30 p.m. to 8:30 p.m.

Where:

Rosemont High High, 9594 Kiefer Blvd., Sacramento, on Tuesday;

Luther Burbank High,3500 Florin Road, Sacramento, on Wednesday.

March Forth On Thursday, March 4th!

March Forth On Thursday, March 4^th!

Protest! March! Rally!

Rally: Frank Ogawa Plaza, Noon to 4

(in front of Oakland City Hall -- 14^th & Broadway)

March to the Ogawa Plaza rally from:

¨ UC Berkeley

o Noon rally at Bancroft & Telegraph, followed by march

¨ Laney College

o 11 AM rally, followed by 1 PM march

¨ Fruitvale BART

o Assemble at 11 AM, march at 11:30 AM

HERE’S WHAT WE NEED!

Fully funded, free, QUALITY PUBLIC EDUCATION!

· Pre-school thru graduate school and adult education

· Open Admissions

· No union-busting, no privatization, no charters

· End NCLB and Race to the Top

· Student/staff/parent/working class community control

Full Funding for Vital Services; Jobs for All!

· Restore all cuts and expand public services

· No foreclosures

Defend Immigrants’ Rights!

· Full citizenship rights for immigrants

· No ICE raids, no deportations

Bail Out Schools and Jobs, not Banks, Bombs and Prisons!

· Jobs and education, not war and incarceration

· Make the rich pay

Endorsers (partial list): October 24 Mobilizing Conference to Save Public Education; East Bay March 4^th Organizing Committee; Northern California March 4^th Organizing Committee; UC Berkeley General Assembly; UC Berkeley Solidarity Alliance; University Professional and Technical Workers Local 1 UPTE / CWA; Oakland Education Association (OEA); Oakland AFT 771; Peralta Federation of Teachers; AFSCME 444

For more information: eastbay_march_4^th_strike_group@yahoo.com

Get Involved

Teacher house calls - STLtoday.com

Heather, a kindergartner at Stix Early Childhood Center, got an unusual visit on a snowy Friday earlier this month.

Her teacher, Karen Pittinger, came to talk to her and her grandmother about schools, her friends and the year so far.

Pittinger brought a gift bag, with notebooks, mechanical pencils and a book about tropical birds. "Since you're one of my best readers, I have a feeling you'll grow into it," Pittinger said.

A new program in the region is sending hundreds of teachers to their students' doorsteps.

MORE EDUCATION COVERAGE

Get schooled on schools at STLtoday's education page, the definitive site for education news in St. Louis

Keep up with The Grade, St. Louis's premier blog on education.

The concept of home visits isn't a new one. A federal study has found that teachers rate such visits as effective. Yet, the concept has been stymied by a lack of training and — more critically — funding to cover overtime pay.

Now, with the support of a philanthropic foundation, three St. Louis districts have started home visits in a program being tracked by researchers. The Teacher Home Visit Program has been in place at Valley Park Elementary for three years, at Maplewood-Richmond Heights for two years and will be expanding in the St. Louis Public Schools. Already, city schools have conducted nearly 600 first visits.

BlackYouthLeadershipProject.org -- Welcome

The Black Youth Leadership Project

Black Youth Leadership Project, Inc.

presents

LEGISLATIVE OPEN HOUSE

FOR AFRICAN-AMERICAN YOUTH

FRIDAY, FEBRUARY 26, 2010
8:30 AM TO 5:00 PM
STATE CAPITOL
SACRAMENTO, CALIFORNIA

The Black Youth Leadership Project, Inc. is hosting a one-day Open House geared

toward African-American high school students interested in California politics,

public policy, civics, governmental service, and/or community service. Students

will participate with Capitol staff in mock committee hearings and a legislative

floor session, passing laws that are important to them. The purpose of the Open

House is to encourage African-American students in grades 9-12 to regularly

interact with their state's political and community leaders and to use this

opportunity to discuss the legislative process, timely policy concerns, and the role

of democracy and advocacy within our communities.

Contact Lorreen Pryor at (916)319-3822 or LORREEN.PRYOR@ASM.CA.GOV

Christian Jacobs at (916) 256-4286 or CHRISTIAN.JACOBS@ASM.CA.GOV

for an application.

The Black Youth Leadership Project

600 pink slips may be issued Elk Grove Citizen : News

Elk Grove Citizen : News

600 pink slips may be issued

By Citizen staff

Published: Friday, February 19, 2010 1:23 PM PST

Elk Grove Unified School District (EGUSD) Superintendent Dr. Steven Ladd announced at last Tuesday’s board meeting that he and the district’s six associate superintendents will take two furlough days this school year, five furlough days in the 2010-2011 school year, and a freeze in step and column salary increases in 2010-2011.

In addition to Ladd, the six affected are: Associate Superintendent of Elementary Education Donna Cherry, Associate Superintendent of Human Resources Glen De Graw, Associate Superintendent of Education Services Nancy Lucia, Associate Superintendent of Finance and School Support Richard Odegaard, Associate Superintendent of Secondary Education Christina Penna, and Associate Superintendent of Facilities Robert Pierce.

The action represents the conversation taking place in negotiations with the district’s labor associations. The district has asked them to consider seven furlough days, a freeze in step and column salary increases, and a temporary cessation of the lottery check paid to employees each fall.

The superintendent and associate superintendents do not receive a lottery check. They are also not represented by a labor association.

Following Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger’s January budget proposal, EGUSD will need to cut $60.5 million to submit a balanced budget for the 2010-2011 school year to the Sacramento County Office of Education by July 1, as required by law.

Odegaard said the district in November took action to cut $42 million from the budget. Now they have identified another $13.5 million cut in the governor’s 2010-11 budget proposal and found another $5 million in reductions due to changes in the tax laws.

Ladd wrote a letter to all the district’s employees and said, “while many things may change as California’s budget moves through the legislative process, we must act on the best information available prior to the March 15 deadline. In light of the need to cut $60.5 million

Read the Tier III Committee's Report SCUSD Observer

SCUSD Observer

Read the Tier III Committee's Report SCUSD Observer

SCUSD Tier III Committee –Budget Adjustment Suggestions -

School Spying Students At-Home Via Computer? - THE DAILY RIFF - Be Smarter. About Education.

An Example Of Big Brother At Home

Or Much Ado About Nothing?

CBS & CNN Report. FBI Is On The Case.

See (2) Short Videos Below.

Premise is as follows:

A school in Pennsylvania gave students laptops.
School could allegedly watch students at home via camera which is embedded in all laptops given to students.
A family claimed school spied on their son at home without cause by using the webcam as a "peeping Tom technology". Concerns were brought up whether schools could watch/monitor kids under any circumstance; who has access to monitoring; plus the extreme ramifications of being taped in compromising situations such as getting dressed. Some accounts claimed this boy was caught taking drugs when he was eating candy.
School countered by saying they only utilize the webcam monitoring in the laptop when there is theft of a laptop, according to one account. Another said it was disabled.
FBI is investigating.

Whether this is another "balloon boy" hoax is yet to be seen, but but it again brings up the importance of our collective diligence about the issue of privacy. Admittedly, the whole concept of the webcam that is embedded in our laptops could be used as a "peeping Tom" unknowinglyis very creepy. The Daily Riff has been covering this topic, such as here and here.

Student Motivation & Dropout Prevention: The School Archive Project

The School Archive Project -

Students seeing their future

Student Motivation & Dropout Prevention

Home Dropout Statistics Why Archive Projects Work Project Blog

The best dropout prevention is a focus on the future. The School Archive Project does that with a 10-year time-capsule and class-reunion plan designed to provide a physical connection to each student's future. The goal is to help students understand their own natural ability to make the differences they want in their lives and communities, and the world as a whole, through their planning and work.

The first School Archive was a 350-pound vault, bolted to the floor of the Quintanilla Middle School lobby in the Oak Cliff area of Dallas in 2005. The Archive has 10 shelves to hold letters from 8th grade classes until their 10-year class reunion. Students write these letters to themselves before leaving the 8th grade. The letter is about their achievements and stories from their life. It will document their efforts toward personal growth and their goals. They seal the finished letter into a self-addressed envelope. They then pose for a photo with their Language Arts Class in front of the School Archive holding their letters. After the photo they each place their letter into the Archive themselves.

Bill Betzen said...

The first step in curing the US dropout crisis is to have a simple and accurate report on dropout numbers in every school and school district. An annually updated 10+ year enrollment by grade spreadsheet, with annual graduation numbers, will provide this. Such spreadsheets should be on every school and school district web site. While not as technically correct as the “experts” want, they will eliminate the manipulations common in dropout number reporting and expose our deadly dropout patterns. They will also track progress as dropout rate numbers go down from step two.

Second: bolt a 500-pound vault to the floor in every secondary school lobby to function as a 10-year time-capsule. Each new class will write their first letter to themselves for the vault as they enter the school. They will write about their history and plans for the future. Parents are also invited to write a letter to be placed with it with their own dreams for their child. Then, as they are about to graduate from that school, students retrieve those letters. They use them in writing a final letter with a clearer focus 10 years into their future. They place the final letter, possibly with another from their parents, into the vault, and plan for a 10-year class reunion to retrieve them. At that reunion they will be able to speak to the then current students in the school about their recommendations for success. They prepare for questions such as: "What would you do differently if you were 13 again?"

The first School Archive Project started in 2005 in a Dallas middle school with an 8th grade class that was the Graduation Class of 2009. Both of these old, inner-city high schools who received these students had the largest graduation classes on record with the Class of 2009!

The 11th and 12th grade enrollments in the 32 high schools in Dallas ISD went up 5% from 2005/2006 to 2009/2010. This is in spite of total district enrollment going down 2.5% during the same years! However 55% of this gain is from only two of the 32 high schools in the district, the two who received the 700+ students who had placed a letter into a vault in 2006 and 2007. See the details for this $2 per student dropout prevention project at www.studentmotivation.org

AFT Policy Talk ... and Walk? Eduflack

Eduflack

AFT Policy Talk ... and Walk?

About a month ago, Eduflack wrote about AFT President Randi Weingarten's teacher quality treatises nailed upon the schoolhouse door, where the head of the nation's second largest teachers' union laid a vision for how AFT could get on board the new ed reform/school improvement train. At the time, I wrote that she was talking a good talk, but the real challenge would be how AFT, and Weingarten in particular, would be able to walk the walk.

The first stroll of such a challenge took place deep in the heart of Texas earlier this month, when Houston ISD Superintendent Terry Grier tried to use Weingarten's rhetoric to get his teachers' backing for a new teacher quality initiative that allows the school district to remove teachers with lagging student test scores. Grier's Houston experiment was unanimously supported by the Houston ISD School Board, but was loudly opposed by local teachers and by the national AFT. Eduflack reflects on the Houston showdown here, while the National Journal's Education Experts Blog provides some terrific insights and views here.

Coming out of Houston, there were many an education agitator wondering if AFT is indeed serious about being part of the reform agenda. After all, AFT is in the business of promoting teachers' jobs and boosting their benefits. The reform agenda is now focusing on teacher incentives and so-called quality issues, which leads quickly to a discussion of bonuses for some (but not all) teachers and the removal of teachers who are deemed ineffective. (Though Eduflack recognizes the rubric for effectiveness is one of the biggest sticking points in the game right now). So while AFT may be for reform and for teacher quality, can it ever really get behind any plan that will call for the removal of educators from the classroom or the professional entirely, particularly when they are dues-paying members protected under an AFT-negotiated collective bargaining agreement? How does the reform rhetoric translate into action?

While I'm not sure if AFT has figured out how it truly positions the union on the teacher quality issue (other than knowing that there are few in DC with the knowledge and experience on the issue with the ability to take real action like the AFT's Rob Weil), it is clear that AFT is not content in simply serving as the "loyal opposition" to the current education reform wave. Yes, AFT is going to do its share of criticism on policies such as Race to the Top, proposed budget cuts, and the expected ESEA reauthorization, but recent actions signal that AFT may also be looking for some common ground where it can move the needle, make a difference, and be a part of real reforms.

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