Tuesday, March 2, 2010

Quote: RTTT "Gimmicks" This Week In Education

Quote: RTTT "Gimmicks"

"I am struck by how many of these [RTTT] things Texas does... and how little difference it's made in the overall quality of education in this state... They're gimmicks."

- Texas education reporter Kimberly Reeves

Turnarounds: Roundup Of Reactions

Here's a quick roundup of news coverage detailing reactions to the speech from teachers unions and the business community:

Obama angers union officials with remarks in support of R.I. teacher firingsWashington Post

Obama courts Chamber on education POLITICO

Obama cites RI school firings in education speech Associated Press

School Fires Its Teachers In The Name Of Progress NPR

Obama Backs Rewarding Districts That Police Failing Schools NYT

Obama: Controversial Speech Delivered Without Alteration

It must have been tempting to massage the text but President Obama retained the reference to the turnaround in Rhode Island that was in his prepared remarks. [He also, it should be noted, included strong language about the importance of teachers, the use of staff firings as a last resort, etc.] Transcript here.

SCUSD Observer: Pay attention class...

Pay attention class...

In Sunday's Sacramento Bee, columnist Marcos Breton preached that SCUSD teachers need to share the pain, claiming that our teachers haven't "lifted a finger or sacrificed a dime" as the district has made devastating budget cuts.

An effective tactic of editorial writers is to spark controversy by taking a complex issue and distilling it down to one explanation and often, one villain.

And that is why, with permission, we reprint an online comment written (and reader-recommended) by an astute SCUSD government teacher who has no qualms about respectably talking back to power.

No matter the shape of the final budget deal that will be eventually be struck by Sac City teachers and the district, larger issues will continue to drain the life out of this state and nation. And in recognizing those bigger issues is where the writing of so-called opinion leaders like Mr. Breton fail. Continuing to tout give-backs and other slash and burn employment remedies as a way out of this crisis is folly and simply ignores basic macroeconomic concepts. More employee cost-cutting whether through lay-offs or benefit and pension cutting will not save us. Rather it is a

Happy Birthday, Dr. Seuss and Read Across America

Happy Birthday,

Dr. Seuss!

The Theodore Seuss Geisel Stamp was released on

Dr. Seuss's 100th birthday, March 2nd, 2004

Parents in a JAM

ED I am

I am ED

ED I am

That ED-I-am!
That ED-I-am!
I do not like
that ED-I-am!

Do you like
Parents in a JAM?

I do not like them,
ED-I-am.
I do not like
Parents in a JAM.

This an edited version of Dr. Seuss's Copyrighted Classic Green Eggs and a Ham

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

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

Obama angers teachers with comments on firings
President's support for the mass firings at a failing Rhode Island school draws rebuke from union officials
MORE ON EDUCATION
Region slow on college readiness

Margaret Spellings defends NCLB

Student held after fight at MoCo school

McDonnell lobbies for stimulus funds

Once diversity leader, N.C. retrenches

D.C. Insider: My morning at McKinley

Pr. George's schools budget slashed

What did Cuccinelli tell William &Mary?

ISO: Former D.C. public school teachers

Harvard gets first Egyptologist in 68 years

This may not mean much to you, but to an amateur archaeologist such as myself, this news is somewhat shocking: Harvard University is only now getting the first Egyptology professor it has employed since the last person holding the job died -- 68 years ago.

The school’s student newspaper, the Harvard Crimson, is reporting thatPeter Der Manuelian, a lecturer in Egyptology at Tufts University, will take the job. He has spent years studying and trying to publicize the work of the last Harvard Egyptologist, Professor George A. Reisner, a graduate of the Class of 1889.

Continue reading this post »

Why colleges hide mental illness

I'm still thinking about my colleague Jenna Johnson's front page piecelast week on changing college policies toward alcohol abuse. It turns out that a little-noticed amendment in the law in 1998 allows them to notify parents if undergraduate children under 21 have any booze or drug violations. If only they were as generous in letting families know when their children are suffering from mental or emotional illnesses.

The federal Family Educational Rights and Privacy Act of 1974 may be the most frequently misinterpreted law in the land, and the most destructive of family peace of mind. It prevents universities from sharing most student information, but allows them to contact parents if a child's health or safety is at risk.

Isn't that nice. It is a shame that so many university officials have chosen to err on the side of not helping parents who haven't heard from their kid in months and wonder if something is wrong. This is the higher ed version of similarly destructive K-12 practices that deny parents information about abusive teachers, and what their children might have seen them do to other children, creating nightmares for a lifetime.

Continue reading this post »

Spellings: Rhee has "fire in the belly"

My colleague Nick Anderson reports that former education secretary Margaret Spellings touted Chancellor Michelle A. Rhee at a meeting of The Post's editorial board Monday.

Spellings predicted that Rhee would continue her work in the District if Mayor Adrian M. Fenty wins another four-year term later this year.

"I think she's fearless and has the fire in the belly," Spellings said. "If he's re-elected, I think she's here to stay and coming on."

Spellings is a long-time Rhee booster who supported her appointment as chancellor while in the Bush cabinet. Last year, Fenty chose a Spellings lieutenant, former assistant secretary of education Kerri Briggs, to become D.C. State Superintendent of Education.

State on no one’s Race to the Top short list The Educated Guess

The Educated Guess

State on no one’s Race to the Top short list

Posted in Race to the Top

Word in the education blogosphere is that the Department of Education will announce the finalists for Race to the Top competition on Thursday, and none of the handicappers – surprise! – has listed California among them.
The finalists –likely a dozen or fewer states – will be invited to make their pitch in person in Washington on March 15, with Secretary of Education Arne Duncan announcing the winners of the first round in April.
The losers – the large majority of the 40 states and District of Columbia that applied for a piece of the $4.35 billion prize – will each get an eight-to-10 page critique of their applications and an invitation to apply for the second round for whatever money is left over.
That could be as much as $2 billion, because the only big state that appears to have a good shot in the first round is Florida. Education Week reporters Lesli Maxwell and Michele McNeil and Thomas Carroll of the Manhattan Institute’s City Journal all it put high in their Race to the Top brackets. Florida has a model K-20 student data base and a strong charter law. They also named Louisiana and Tennessee as top picks. Louisiana, Carroll pointed out, has a value-added method of tracking student performance and 41 districts are experimenting with paying teachers for performance – a plus in the Race to the Top rating system.
Massachusetts, with its high state standards, top test scores on the nation’s report card or NAEP and clear plans to overhaul its bad schools was high on the Ed Week’s list.
It’s all speculation, because the evaluation process has been secret, which in itself has drawn criticism. The Education Department has not revealed the

Data on Bullying Remains Scant, as City Touts Its Efforts (Gotham Gazette, Mar 2010)

March 8 to 12 is Respect for All Week in the New York City public schools, a chance to intensify efforts around increasing respect for diversity in this incredibly diverse student population. The city, after a concerted effort by advocates, instituted the Respect for All program to combat bullying and has hailed it as a success. But critics say the system has not collected enough data to show whether the campaign has really managed to reduce what almost everyone agrees is a prevalent problem in the city schools.

In September 2008, the chancellor issued anti-bullying regulation A-832, which set up a procedure for filing, investigating and resolving "complaints of student-to-student bias-based harassment, intimidation, and/or bullying." The announcement, made with much fanfare, came after years of delays and the administration's adamant refusal to implement the Dignity in All Schools Act enacted by the City Council over the mayor's veto.

The administration continued to trumpet its achievements a year later. On the eve of the mayoral election in October, Mayor Michael Bloomberg, schools Chancellor Joel Klein and City Council Speaker Christine Quinn held a press conference hailing the "added mandated reporting and investigating guidelines" for the program. In a release, Bloomberg said, "We have set an example nationally in our efforts to combat intolerance and reduce bullying in our schools."

Dearth of Data

Critics, though, charge that the program was slow to get off the ground and that data simply does not exist to back up the administration's claims of success. Bloomberg likes to say that everything he does -- particularly when it comes to the schools -- is data-driven. However, when the anti-harassment program launched, the department did not collect any baseline data on the extent to which bullying was a problem. Since then qualitative data is not being collected on the impact of the regulation, and the numbers that do exist has been called into question.

The department did not issue a report on the results of the first year of the program, and even the second year of the regulation began in September

Local News | Federal government offers grants to overhaul 'worst' schools | Seattle Times Newspaper

Federal government offers grants to overhaul 'worst' schools

Along with the competition for states known as Race to the Top, the federal government is offering "turnaround" grants aimed at overhauling the nation's lowest performing schools. Washington state has about four dozen that will be eligible for those grants, which will range from $50,000 to $2 million a year for three years.

By Linda Shaw

Seattle Times education reporter

Marysville Superintendent Larry Nyland says Tulalip Elementary doesn't deserve to be on a new list of Washington state's lowest-performing schools.

In his view, the school progressed tremendously in the past few years — just not in ways that the federal government measures.

Still, Nyland intends to apply for a share of $50 million in federal grants available to his school and some four dozen others in Washington that are on that list, including three in Seattle.

It's just too much money to pass up, he said.

"Although we might have some angst about the process, we ... want to do well by the kids, and the grant can help us do that."

The grants are part of a $3.5 billion national effort, announced last summer, to overhaul schools judged to be among the lowest 5 percent in terms of student achievement. On Monday, President Obama announced that he wants to add another $900 million to the program.

Schools can receive anywhere from $50,000 to $2 million a year for three years, provided they agree to one of four types of major overhauls, which range from closing the school to introducing a new instructional program and new methods for evaluating and rewarding teachers.

The state Office of Superintendent of Public Instruction has not yet publicly released the names of the schools on Washington's list, saying it's still awaiting final approval from the feds.

In the meantime, eligible districts must apply for a grant by Friday, and the state plans to announce the winners on March 26.

Education cuts fuel wide protest - ContraCostaTimes.com

Solano County schools are in the midst of a downhill race toward $100 million in budget cuts over two years, prompting teachers and education supporters on Thursday to declare they've had enough.

Napa County teachers also will participate in the statewide "Start the Day for Students" protests Thursday.

"We have no money at this point in time for supplies for our school. Anything that we run out of we have to rely upon parents to give us," said Kathy Kerridge, a third-grade teacher at Donaldson Way Elementary School in American Canyon.

Thursday's campaign against education budget cuts extends beyond K-12 education to college students.

Teachers at Kerridge's school plan to protest from 7:45 to 8:15 a.m. in front of the school. Vallejo teachers are to hold a march along the waterfront after school Thursday.

That night, Benicia Unified School District board members are expected to vote on laying off the equivalent of 19.6 full-time certificated -- teaching and management-type -- employees, including more than a dozen elementary teachers.

The night before, the Vallejo City Unified School District board is scheduled to take up its own vote on laying off more than 100 employees.

Vallejo, Benicia and Napa school districts are all proposing increased class sizes in kindergarten through third grade to save money next year.

The Napa Valley Unified School District is looking to increase those classes from 24 to 29 students, after raising them

from 20 to 24 students this year, Napa teachers union representative Natalie Regan said.

Teachers also are expecting four furlough days next year unless the district gets an infusion of cash, which is not expected, Regan said.

The Death of Public School Choice CityWatch - An insider look at City Hall

CityWatch - An insider look at City Hall

The Death of Public School Choice

EDUCATION
By Charles Taylor Kerchner and Dominic J. Brewer (Posted first at HuffingtonPost.com)

T Active Image

he Los Angeles Unified School District board, which in August voted 6-1 for a competition between internal and external education providers, did its best to kill it off on last week. A different policy for change is needed. Here's why. The board's Public School Choice resolution subjected 24 new schools and 12 chronically underperforming ones to a request-for-proposal process. This was thought of as a spirited but fair competition that invited participation from a wide swath of organizations.

In the heat of summer, the hope was that the resolution would spur the district further on the path of becoming a networked organization, "a system of schools" rather than a massive hierarchy designed in the early 20th Century. It is already well on its way.

Of the district's 885 schools, some 155 are charter schools. In addition, 172 magnet schools are freed from some District regulation. Two prototype charter districts are under operation. The Mayor's partnership operates 11 schools. Locke High School is operated by a charter management organization. The public school choice resolution raised the prospect of a rapid acceleration of this approach.

In the space of only a few weeks, wondrous things happened. Seventy-nine proposals were written for these schools, 41 from charter schools and other external operators, 4 from the Mayor's partnership, 34 from internal groups of teachers and administrators.

Alongside the charters, the most innovative LAUSD administrators were suddenly given the green light to innovate within the district. Teacher groups came forward with ideas that had been brewing for years. Principals of some of the failing schools gained cooperation from their faculties when it was known that an external takeover might be possible. Think of it as a jungle where hundreds of leopards were furiously changing their spots. (The rest of the Kerchner/Brewer article .)

UCF rally: Students to protest budget cuts - Orlando Sentinel

Students worried about state-mandated cuts at the nation's third-largest university are hoping to attract a big crowd to catch the attention of lawmakers gearing up for some tough budget deliberations.

The rally at UCF coincides with the first week of the Florida Legislature's annual session.

Lawmakers are used to hearing the collective voices of education supporters during legislative sessions. In Florida in recent years, the PTA has taken a lead role in organizing a Rally in Tally that draws thousands of students, parents and teachers from across the state to Tallahassee.

But the idea to make March 4 a "National Day of Action to Defend Education" grew out of organizing in California, where deep state budget cuts to public higher education and the imposition of tuition and fee hikes have already led to protests. As students in other states heard about the regional and campus-based events planned out West, they began planning their own.

UCF has avoided large-scale program eliminations and other drastic actions by relying on savings and leaving hundreds of job openings unfilled. But the University of Florida and Florida State University have cut or merged several programs and eliminated dozens of jobs to curb costs.

SDSU’s admissions for local students fall by more than 50% - SignOnSanDiego.com

SDSU’s admissions for local students fall by more than 50%

BY KEITH DARCÉ, UNION-TRIBUNE STAFF WRITER

TUESDAY, MARCH 2, 2010 AT 12:02 A.M.

A new admissions policy at San Diego State, which is slashing enrollment, has reduced by more than half the number of high school graduates from the university’s local service area who will join the next freshman class.

Of the 3,534 first-year students expected to start in the fall, 1,484 will come from high schools south of state Route 56 in San Diego County and those in Imperial County, SDSU officials said yesterday.

An additional 1,740 applicants from the service area would have been accepted under the old admissions system, which allowed such applicants to qualify with lower test scores and grade point averages.

The policy change, announced in September, is part of a larger effort to reduce fall enrollment by 2,750 students in the wake of major state budget cuts. SDSU administrators have said they want to emphasize academic quality and maximize admissions flexibility while still maintaining a healthy geographic mix.

Overall, the university’s student population will fall to 28,986 this year, its lowest level since 1995 and down from 31,579 in fall 2009.

For many students who didn’t get accepted, it marks the end of their dreams to earn a four-year university degree, said Isidro Ortiz, an SDSU professor and critic of the policy change.

“The number of students who were denied is very substantial,” Ortiz said. “That’s not acceptable.”

School administrators said the smaller pool of service-area freshmen will be offset by a larger group of juniors and seniors who are transferring from community colleges in the greater San Diego region. About 90 percent of the 2,624 transfer students are coming from those two-year institutions; it was 70 percent last year.

“That’s as high as it has ever been,” said Sandra Cook, who oversees SDSU enrollment services as the assistant vice president for academic affairs.

Trying to put a positive spin on yesterday’s announcement, administrators hailed the incoming class as the most qualified group of first-year enrollees ever admitted by the university.

The new class has an average high school GPA of 3.78 and an average SAT score of 1148. That compares with a 3.62 GPA and a 1110 SAT score for last fall’s freshman class.

“The better the scores, the more likely students are going to graduate (from SDSU),” said university President Stephen Weber. “But when we have to turn away students, it’s not good for the students

The Daily Aztec - LOYAL DISSENTER: Rally defends students’ rights

We are in an education crisis. Budget cuts have forced students to face furloughs, faculty layoffs and tuition hikes.
Students are angry and want to change their situation.
Students, teachers and laborers are uniting for a protest on Thursday because the conventional means they have available — be it voting or contacting someone who is serving in the state legislature — are not working for them.
On Thursday, actions will be taken on the San Diego State campus in defense of education. There will be a student walkout at 11:30 a.m. followed by a rally at noon in front of the Open Air Theatre. Following the rally, students will take public transportation to Balboa Park where they will meet with students of other San Diego colleges and march to the governor’s office downtown.
The rally is not going to be meaningless noise. It is about students coming together not only to express anger at the declining state of education, but also to become more politically aware of the crisis they are now faced with.
Our powerlessness as workers and students is the underlying problem of the education crisis. Our needs are not being met because the few people who can afford to influence the government repeatedly ignore them. That is why students have organized protests on campuses throughout San Diego and at every CSU and UC campus. That is why many teachers and labor unions in California are also endorsing Thursday’s rally.
A protest is not about a few people getting together to yell about what they think of budget cuts. A protest is about everyone who feels some sort of anger about our situation being able to learn more about it. This is about students hearing what others have to say about the education crisis.
Students want to know what is going on. They want to learn why our schools do not have enough teachers or classes, why tuition is through the roof while classes are being cut and what they can do about this situation that leaves them feeling cheated. To get answers, you have to ask questions.
If someone asks you what all of the protesting at SDSU is about, you mig

March 4 Day of Action

Campus community unites March 4 to support higher education funding

March 1, 2010 -- March 4, designated as a state-wide day of action, offers an opportunity to highlight the critical need to fund higher education and restore state funding to the California State University (CSU).

San Francisco State University sign on campus.

March 4 Day of Action activities are planned for SF State .

The impact of the budget decisions made by the state legislature affects the entire campus community. The Education Budget Action Committee (EBAC), comprised of representatives of SF State faculty, students, staff and management, has met regularly to share information and coordinate the campus-wide efforts to influence the state's budget process.

"It is now up to the state legislature to fund the Governor's budget," Derek Aitken, associate director of government relations, said. "We must impress upon our elected officials the need to do so. The March 4 Day of Action is an opportunity to reach out to the campus community and beyond to make the case for supporting higher education."

Through a series of e-mails, phone calls and advertisements, EBAC has encouraged campus-wide advocacy for appropriate budget support for the CSU.

Activities have included working with faculty, alumni, parents and students to contact their legislators, write opinion pieces for their local papers and participate in special action days, reports Aitken. Upcoming actions include activities on March 4, March 22, April 27 and May 24, all of which are designed to focus attention on the legislators in Sacramento.

"Devastating budget cuts to public higher education have raised anxiety and frustration across the state," Shawn Whalen, chair of the academic senate, said. "We are hopeful that activities on March 4 will help channel those reactions into a productive dialogue with legislators over the future of our state, while preventing the kind of disruptive and unproductive reactions that weaken the coalitions that are so important to our success."

March 4 will include a range of activities designed to build unity, raise awareness, entertain and teach the campus community how to communicate effectively about solutions to the budget crisis.

"It is so important for everyone to get on board," said Brigitte Davila, lecturer in Raza Studies and chair of the California Faculty Association's political action committee at SF State. "Faculty and staff can engage in peaceful, non-violent and meaningful protest on March 4."

Schedule of Events for March 4, the SF State Day of Action for Public Higher Education:

10 a.m. to 12:15 p.m.: Informational Picket Line on 19th Ave. and Holloway.

12:15 to 12:30 p.m.: Picket Line march to Malcolm X Plaza

12:30 to 1:30 p.m.: Political Theater and Spoken Word performed by SF State talent, addressing the budget cuts

1:30 to 3 p.m.: Do-It-Yourself Protest signs and T-shirt stenciling (bring a T-shirt, if you can)

2 to 3:30 p.m.: Teach-in scheduled on Malcolm X Plaza

3:30 to 4 p.m.: Board MUNI or shuttle to BART (Anyone boarding at 19th Ave. MUNI with a March 4 T-shirt or protest sign will receive a pass for boarding)

4 to 4:45 p.m.: SF State community will gather and meet at the steps of the Asian Art Museum in the Civic Center before proceeding to the stage area.

5 to 6:30 p.m.: Rally for California’s Future, San Francisco Civic Center. Stand together with Pre-K to Higher Education educators, parents, students and all those who work in the public sector to send a message to Sacramento.

For further information:

Learn about activities planned for March 4 by visiting http://www.takeastand4publiced.org/or contacting Brigitte Davila at lawebjefa@gmail.com or 415-531-9743 (cell).

Learn what you can do to become an advocate for SF State:http://www.sfsu.edu/~news/budgetcentral/

Learn more about CSU-wide budget news and activities:http://blogs.calstate.edu/budgetcentral/

-- University Communications

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