Friday, February 26, 2010

California Chronicle | Yee Fights Cuts to Education

Yee Fights Cuts to Education

California Political Desk

February 26, 2010

SAN FRANCISCO – Senator Leland Yee (D-San Francisco/San Mateo) joined California educators in calling on Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger (R-Los Angeles) to protect school funding. Yee, who has consistently voted against all budget cuts to education, said Democrats should be as vigilant against cuts to education as Republicans have been against raising taxes.

This week, Yee again voted against a potential cut to California schools when he was one of only two Senators to vote "no" on AB 8x 5, which included up to $2.5 billion in deferrals to education. Yee is also insisting that the proposed "gas tax swap" provide a guarantee to Proposition 98 – voter-approved minimum funding for education. Over the past two years, Yee has voted against budget cuts to education that have left public schools $17 billion short.

"The state budget should not be balanced on the backs of kids and the most-vulnerable," said Yee. "I will continue to oppose all budgets that put the interests of corporations and the rich before the interests of children and families. If the Governor and his Republican colleagues are going to say taxes are off the table, then Democrats should say cuts to education are off the table. We need to stand by our principles and protect students and teachers."

"We are so proud of Senator Yee for standing up and saying no to more cuts," said Marty Hittelman, President of the California Federation of Teachers. "After all of the carnage inflicted by the governor and the legislature on education, it is a ray of sunshine to have a Senator like Senator Yee stand up for the people of California and say ´enough is enough.´ We, and the students we serve, applaud him."

The Governor´s proposed budget for

Model Middle Grades Schools Named - Year 2010 (CA Dept of Education)

"Schools To Watch™-Taking Center Stage" Model Schools

SACRAMENTO — State Superintendent of Public Instruction Jack O'Connell today designated six California schools as model middle grades schools in the Schools to Watch™–Taking Center Stage (STW™–TCS) program.

"Middle school can be a difficult time for students as they mature socially, physically, and academically. These six model middle grades schools are making great progress in improving academic achievement, meeting the needs of their students, and making changes that are leading to further student success," said O’Connell. "All the hard work of the students, their parents, teachers, and administrators are paying off and I congratulate them all and hope that other middle schools can learn from their successful practices."

The new model middle grades schools in the Schools to Watch™–Taking Center Stage program schools are:

Canyon Middle School (Castro Valley Unified School District, Castro Valley, Alameda County);
Edna Hill Middle School (Brentwood Union School District, Brentwood, Contra Costa County);
Frank M. Wright Middle School (Imperial Unified School District, Imperial, Imperial County);
John Glenn Middle School (Desert Sands Unified School District, Indio, Riverside County);
Medea Creek Middle School (Oak Park Unified School District, Oak Park, Ventura County);
Oliver Wendell Holmes Middle School (Los Angeles Unified School District, Northridge, Los Angeles County).

STW™–TCS is a collaborative effort of 12 education organizations that form the California Middle Grades Alliance. The goal of the program is to identify high-performing school models that demonstrate academic excellence, developmental responsiveness to the needs and interests of young adolescents, social equity, and organizational support. In order to be named a STW™–TCS designee, schools conducted an extensive self-study and completed a narrative application. Each site was reviewed in January by a team of middle grades experts.

The six middle grades schools named today are among 26 others selected in previous cycles since 2003 as STW™–TCS designees. Medea Creek and John Glenn middle schools have been STW™–TCS schools for six years. Despite changes in leadership in many of these schools, the vision and progress continues, as shown by the hard work and dedication of the faculty and support of the district and community.

All six schools will be formally recognized at the California League of Middle Schools annual conference in Sacramento, February 26-28, 2010. At the conference, they will have an opportunity to showcase their accomplishments and network with other middle grades educators from around the state.

For more information about the Schools to Watch™–Taking Center Stage model school program, visit California Schools to Watch - Taking Center Stage - Middle Grades.

SCOTUSblog � Thwarting the First Civil Rights Revolution

Thwarting the First Civil Rights Revolution
The Court's late-nineteenth-century decisions on race

Erin Miller | Wednesday, February 24th, 2010 4:28 pm

The following essay for our Race and the Supreme Court program was written by Robert J. Cottrol, the Harold Paul Green Research Professor of Law and Professor of History and Sociology at the George Washington University. He is the co-author of Brown v. Board of Education: Caste, Culture and the Constitution (University Press of Kansas, 2003). He is currently working on a comparative legal history contrasting the role of law in constructing systems of slavery and racial hierarchy in the Americas.

Chances are if you went to law school sometime in the last half-century you absorbed a certain narrative about race and the Supreme Court. The Court was the hero of that narrative. Its 1954 decision in Brown v. Board of Education cut through the Gordian knot that had long stifled racial progress in the nation. The decision, the first act of the new Warren Court, gave strength and heart to the postwar Civil Rights movement and ultimately courage to the political branches. It helped precipitate a civil rights revolution, one in which the law went from being an active abetter of American-style apartheid, Jim Crow, to being the chief vehicle for attacking racial discrimination. The Court’s school desegregation

Patient Money - Nudging Schools to Help Students With Learning Disabilities - NYTimes.com

Patient Money - Nudging Schools to Help Students With Learning Disabilities - NYTimes.com:

"WHEN it comes to special education, Becky McGee and her 19-year-old son, Kyle, feel as if they’ve seen it all."

And Ms. McGee hopes her hard-won lessons might benefit other parents.

Kyle was born with orthopedic and neurological problems. In elementary school he was found to have several learning disabilities that included severe dyslexia and attention-deficit disorder. Ms. McGee sought for years for her son to get the kinds of therapy and intervention that would help him succeed in his public school system in Yorktown, Va.

Throughout Kyle’s elementary, middle and high school years, Ms. McGee had to fight for the special services, particularly for a reading program for dyslexia that worked well for her son. She even enlisted the help of a lawyer who specializes in learning disability cases.

At one point, Ms. McGee and her husband, Chuck, decided to put Kyle in private school for two years before he went to public high school. They often paid out-of-pocket for reading therapies that schools could not or would not provide.

Philadelphia Public School Notebook

Notes from the news, Feb. 26

Submitted by Erika Owens on Fri, 02/26/2010 - 09:20 Posted in Notes from the news | Permalink

On the origin of lawsuits The Notebook blog
Len Rieser wrote about how lawsuits happen and what can sometimes prevent them, in light of "webcamgate."

See also: Laptop family is no stranger to legal disputes The Inquirer

Nutter Defends Decision to Close Phila. Schools Thursday KYW
Nutter says the forecast warranted the closure. Today the streets are snow covered and schools are closed again.

"Highly Qualified Teachers": Who's Paying for It? Philly Teacher blog
Philly Teacher used her snow day to review her grad school loans. To retain her teaching certificate, and continue to be considered "highly qualified," she had to get a Master's degree.

Please email us if we missed anything today or if you have any suggestions of publications, email lists, or other places for us to check for news.

Click here to get Notes from the news in your inbox every day.

Notes from the news

No resolution on violence at South Philly

Submitted by Helen Gym on Wed, 02/24/2010 - 15:36 | Permalink

It’s hard to look at the findings of the District’s independent investigation into the December 3 violence at South Philadelphia High School without significant shock and outrage. After all, this was an incident in which more than two dozen Asian immigrant students were assaulted throughout the day in multiple attacks, which sent 13 youth to the hospital at a school with a history of violence overall and against Asian immigrant students in particular.

THE DAILY RIFF -The World's Free Virtual School: 10 Minute Tutoring Sessions

THE DAILY RIFF - Be Smarter. About Education.

RIFFING GOOD STORIES

EDUCATION MASH-UP (Humor)

"So much cranky clamoring lately: Three major movies. Joe Scarborough, Seth Godin, even Carl Bernstein getting into the act. Who gave these intruders the stage? Don't "turn over the tables in the temple" in education!" I like the status quo. Cheers!" Dr. D.Read More

Have We Created A Generation Of Followers?

From Over-Praising & Over-Structuring, Have We Created A Young Adult World Fraught With Paralysis and Fear Of Failure? 2 Min. Videos. Read More

Google Buzz Gets Whacked: Why Care?

We Should Know On-Line Privacy Issues To Be Able To Educate Our Kids About Them Read More

Scary Exciting: Will Make Your Hair Stand On End If You Haven't "Met" Milo

Avatar Meets Math, Science & Art. 3 Minute Video. Read More

Why Testing Fails: How Numbers Deceive Us All

By Guest Blogger Joseph Ganem, Ph.D.: "Tests fail because of an effect I call the "Numerical Outcome Principle". . .Our leaders need to look beyond the numbers..." Read More

Education Research Report

Report Calls For Greater Federal Responsiveness To Needs Of Rural High Schools

Despite rural high schools often being shortchanged by current federal education policies, a new report from the Alliance for Excellent Educationfinds that rural schools routinely use practices that could be useful to boosting student performance in their urban and suburban counterparts.

According to the report, Current Challenges and Opportunities in Preparing Rural High School Students for Success in College and Careers, the tight-knit nature of rural communities has resulted in the development of promising practices in meeting the challenge of preparing students for success in the twenty-first century. For example, in the highly personal rural environment, at-risk students are not as likely to be overlooked. Additionally, successful rural high schools have utilized online courses and other distance learning to expand advanced learning opportunities for their students. By using local businesses as “place-based” learning opportunities, schools engage students’ interests, which often creates a college- and career-ready culture.

One third of the nation’s high schools are rural and that number is on the rise, the report finds. Nationally, one in five children attends a rural school. This growth in enrollment brings new challenges such as growing population diversity in the form of English language learners and additional costs for bilingual teachers, new curricula, and other services.

Current Challenges and Opportunities finds that rural high schools receive disproportionately lower amounts of Title I dollars, the largest source of federal funding for low-income school districts. Often characterized by declining local tax bases, rural school districts also encounter difficulty generating sufficient property tax revenues. Furthermore, rural districts have less staff to apply for additional competitive grant funds.

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

Bright and Early: The Education Newsblitz

The feedback on our school funding maps continues to be amazing. I'll try to follow up on all your questions and comments soon -- I promise! Now for the newsblitz:

We blog about the legal questions that cropped up over how San Diego Unified picked a specific brand of interactive whiteboards to install in its classrooms.
The Union-Tribune opines that the San Diego Unified school board is still putting teachers, not students, first as it decides what to cut.
KPBS delves into the race issues that are roiling UCSD.
San Diego Gay & Lesbian News writes about the opening of a Los Angeles charter school tailored to gay, lesbian, transgender and bisexual youth. (Via SDNN.)
Educated Guess blogs about the arguments over how California will come up with a list of its worst schools for the feds. Those schools will have to be restructured if California wins more stimulus money under a competition called Race to the Top.

The Rancho Cordova Post — Local News, Events, Things to Do

Regional Science Bowl Set for March 6

by MICHELLE VENTRESS on FEBRUARY 26, 2010 · 0 COMMENTS

in SCHOOLS

Sacramento’s Mira Loma High School will begin defending its winning Regional and National Science Bowl titles on March 6. Students from Mira Loma, along with other high school teams, will test their knowledge in math and science at the Sacramento Regional Science Bowl in Folsom, to compete for a chance to attend the National Science Bowl this spring in Washington, DC.

Science Bowl is a fast-paced, verbal competition where students answer questions at random from the following subject areas: astronomy, biology, physics, chemistry, mathematics, as well as earth and general sciences. Teams range from those that practice rigorously for this year’s event to those fine-tuning their skills for next year. Science Bowl is a proven tool that

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