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Friday, March 26, 2010

California Teens Use Facebook to Save School Library - 3/23/2010 - School Library Journal

California Teens Use Facebook to Save School Library - 3/23/2010 - School Library Journal

California Teens Use Facebook to Save School Library

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By Lauren Barack -- School Library Journal, 3/23/2010

High school students in California’s Tracy Unified School District have launched aFacebook fan site, hoping to drum up support for their librarians as the school board considers laying off staff.

‘Save the Tracy Unified School District Libraries’ may not sway school board members, but its 526 fans are still hopeful that other cuts may replace those made to their Northern California school libraries.

“Of all things to cut from a school, they chose a LIBRARY,” says Alina Armour on the Facebook page, and who is herself a student at Merrill F. West High School, where its school librarian is on a list to be cut. “It's ridiculous, so show the district that we want our libraries!”

Attempts to reach Armour were unsuccessful.

At its February 23 meeting, Tracy Unified School District’s Board of Educationproposed cutting 42 principals, assistant principals, and other staffer, including Donna Sonnenburg, Merrill F. West High School’s librarian. The district needs to cut $13.9 million from its 2010-2011 budget and an additional $2.1 million for the 2011-2012 budget.

However, Bill Swenson, president of the board of education, says no specific budget reductions have been approved, as of yet, for the 2010-2011 school year. “The final decision will be made March 30th at a special school board meeting,” he says by email.

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Viewpoints: Protesting students get a C in logic - Sacramento Opinion - Sacramento Editorial | Sacramento Bee

Viewpoints: Protesting students get a C in logic - Sacramento Opinion - Sacramento Editorial | Sacramento Bee

Viewpoints: Protesting students get a C in logic

By Bruce Maiman
Special to The Bee
Published: Friday, Mar. 26, 2010 - 12:00 am | Page 19A
Once again, college students from all over the state flocked to Sacramento on Monday to protest education cuts and tuition hikes.
The system suffered a 20 percent spending cut last year. In response, the colleges raised fees for students, eliminated courses and furloughed workers.
It may surprise you to know that these students, telling taxpayers to spend more money as they struggle to pay their way, are leaving up to $500 million in Pell Grants untouched. They don't apply for them.
About half a million of California's 2.9 million community college students could receive a federal Pell Grant, according to Debbie Cochraneof the nonprofit Institute for College Access and Success in Berkeley.
Why does the money sit there? Because the application process is complicated. "A lot of students do give up," Cochrane says.
One student told the San Francisco Chronicle she thought about applying for financial assistance but when she showed up at the financial aid office, she walked out.
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The Educated Guess Is common core good for California?

The Educated Guess

Is common core good for California?

Posted in Common Core standards, Race to the Top, Standardized tests
Draft common-core standards got a boost this week when the respected Thomas B. Fordham Institute gave it a solid thumbs-up. Fordham’s evaluators standards “a clear, ambitious, and actionable depiction of the essential skills, competencies, and knowledge that our young people should acquire in school and possess by the time they graduate.”
Fordham will be encouraging states to adopt the math and English language arts standards. But interestingly for California was a sentence inserted in a draft of the report earlier this month: “Still, it’s likely that a handful of states—Massachusetts and California come to mind—will decide they’re better off with the standards they’ve got today.”
So now that Fordham has brought the question out into the open — or almost did (the specific references to California and Massachusetts were actually cut from the report’s final version) – it’s time that California’s education community addressed it: Should California go ahead and adopt common core later this summer? A good argument can be made that it shouldn’t. The answer, however, is inextricably tied to decisions related to Race To The Top.
(Read more and comment on this post)
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EducationNews.org - EducationNewsToday

EducationNews.org - EducationNewsToday

EducationNewsToday

Educators, parents to talk about low performing schools in San Bernardino school district

The San Bernardino City Unified School District on Monday will kick off the first of several forums designed to bring educators and parents together to discuss plans for 11 schools that recently made the state's list of lowest performing schools
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At various forums, teens discuss flash mobs

Why are there violent "flash mobs" in Philadelphia? In different settings, different teenagers yesterday offered a variety of views on the furor over flash mobs, including the very term. ...
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Palm Beach County teachers' union threatens work slowdown, plans 'no confidence' vote on superintendent Johnson

The Palm Beach County teachers' union is urging a work slowdown and planning a vote of no confidence in schools Superintendent Art Johnson over a continued "lack of respect" for teachers....
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Anger erupts over school bills in Florida Legislature

Florida's Senate voted to put class size back before the voters; meanwhile, a House committee faced angry educators as it voted to make it easier to fire teachers...
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Rulffes — a legacy of more power for those he led as superintendent of schools

Walt Rulffes’ retirement as superintendent of the Clark County School District will throw the fate of several major initiatives into uncertainty, but he’ll leave a legacy of giving principals more power, students more choices and teachers a boost in teaching math. ...
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Principal-Training Portal Aims for Ease of Use

New Leaders for New Schools offers a range of online professional-development resources through its Effective Practice Incentive Community. ...
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History a Flash Point as States Debate Standards

As Texas, North Carolina, and Ohio rewrite their social studies standards, the expectations around history are stirring controversy. ...
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Dallas ISD trustees' textbook decision sparks uproar

After a debate that ignited passions and racial tensions, a slim majority of Dallas school board members voted Thursday to override the DISD administration and award lucrative textbook deals to publishers preferred by classroom teachers in an online vote....
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Latino leaders call for clearer focus on education

Several Latino elected officials on Thursday night addressed the challenges facing Denver's Latino community, including education, immigration and equal government services....
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Texas Textbook Massacre II: Gubernatorial Candidate Wants Radical Changes Reconsidered

Democratic gubernatorial candidate Bill White on Tuesday said he wants Gov. Rick Perry to ask State Board of Education Chairwoman Gail Lowe to send the controversial social studies curriculum revisions back to the committees where the proposals started. ...
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Students learn teamwork while converting car to run on vegetable oil

DOVER — In outward appearances, the 1990 Mercedes-Benz sedan parked outside Dover-Sherborn High School is just another well-preserved classic. Its white paint is unblemished, its blue leather seats are intact, and its engine purrs like a kitten. ...
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Project channels passion for science

While many kids watched television at home on a rainy Thursday afternoon, about 30 students at Akron's National Inventors Hall of Fame School explored the science of television in the digital age...
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Contest preps students for job market

Dozens of high school students Thursday were a flurry of motion as they folded towels, bused tables, made beds, bagged groceries and tackled kindred tasks at the Junior Achievement building in Wilmington ...
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Jay Mathews: Admissions 101: The 2/2/2 rule

The latest topic for my Admissions 101 discussion group is the 2/2/2 rule for making sure the college campus visits many of you are making, or planning, do not deteriorate into hurtful family squabbles....
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Diane Ravitch didn’t make a U-turn--Senechal

By Diana Senechal. A cliche has arisen in the media about Diane Ravitch: the assertion that she has made an “about-face,” a “U-turn,” or a “180-degree turn,” that she now says she was “wrong about everything.” She didn't, and she wasn't. ...
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Is teacher labor peace finally at hand in D.C.?

Union tells members that deal should be ready for review soon. ...
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HISD wants $12M to transform 5 schools into magnets

Superintendent Terry Grier, who unveiled the proposal Thursday, said the new flagship programs have the potential to revive failing academic programs at Jones High School and Fondren Middle School and to boost student enrollment at Garden Oaks, Whidby and Dodson elementary schools....
Full story

State closing one-campus Kendleton school district

The historically black district, which has one elementary school that serves 78 students this year, will be folded into nearby Lamar Consolidated. Students in Kendleton already attend junior high and high school in Lamar....
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HISD considers mandatory Advanced Placement tests

The Houston Independent School District, like many districts nationwide, currently does not require students enrolled in AP courses to take the standardized exams at the end. ...
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SFUSD Brings Equity to the Table

3.25.10 - Dana Woldow - Seven years ago, low income students at a typical San Francisco high school lined up for a free lunch of corn dogs and canned peaches, while their classmates with a few bucks to spend bought soda and potato chips in a separate snack bar line...
Full story
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Education - Everything you need to know about the world of education.

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


Agreement on teacher raises coming together


D.C. Schools Chancellor Michelle A. Rhee (TWP).




















Why students get rejected from college

My guest is Jerome A. Lucido, vice provost for enrollment policy and management at the University of Southern California.. He is also executive director of USC’s Center for Enrollment Reserach, Policy and Practice.

By Jerome A. Lucido
March Madness is more than a basketball tournament. It also represents life in the admission office as final decisions about the incoming class are made, and it equally applies to life at home for applicants and their families as they eagerly and anxiously await the decisions.

By April 1, applicants across the nation will know the news. With acceptance rates at selective schools, by definition, at 50 % or less, 25% at my own University of Southern California, and with a rare few hovering near 10%, it’s small wonder why students tremble with fear and parents hold candlelight vigils while they await the admission decision.

Step into my office for a brief counseling session on dealing with college rejection. Frankly, it’s like the tried and true break-up line: “It’s not you; it’s me.” Only this time, the line is true. The truth is that there is always a reason that colleges accept a student, but very often there is not a reason that they don’t. It’s truly nothing you did--or even didn’t do.
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What does authentic learning mean, if anything?

Those of us who wallow in educational jargon have all heard the term "authentic." It seems to mean lessons that connect to the real world, like a physics class visiting a nuclear power plant or an English class performing a play by Edward Albee.
But like all fashionable terms, its meaning can evolve, or be distorted, depending on your point of view. I often use it to describe the powerful effect of telling Advanced Placement students in inner city schools that they are preparing for the same exam that kids in the richest school in the suburbs are taking. That makes their studies seem more authentic. Am I misusing the word?
How do you use it? Is it important in schools? Or is it just another buzz word gone bad?
I raise this intriguing issue, which had not occurred to me before, because of an email from Carl Rosin, an English and interdisciplinary/gifted class teacher at Radnor High School, 12 miles west of Philadelphia:
"Could you weigh in on the much-ballyhooed idea of having the classroom attempt to attain authenticity? I don't use ballyhooed to disparage the idea, only to point out that it's a term that is thrown around often, as glittering generalities are in such a politicized age. The idea of the authentic played a prominent role in the 21st-century technology-based initiative "Classrooms for the Future," which swept Pennsylvania two years ago, helping my school and hundreds of others get much-needed technology upgrades."
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Parker: New contract ready after spring break

Washington Teachers' Union president George Parker e-mailed and robo-called members late Wednesday night to say that he hoped details of the long-awaited labor pact with DCPS would be available as early as their return from spring break on April 6. (Break begins Friday).

There have been numerous "peace is at hand" declarations throughout the tortured two-year-plus course of talks between WTU and D.C. Public Schools, but this looks like the real deal. Both sides have been discussing the details of a roll out strategy, and Parker said in the e-mail that informational sessions will be set up for teachers to ask questions about the accord, which is expected to give Chancellor Michelle A. Rhee more latitude to replace ineffective teachers and set up a limited pay-for-performance system.

Ed Buzz: The Nation




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Rise & Shine: A redo one possible fix for HS admissions delay | GothamSchools

Rise & Shine: A redo one possible fix for HS admissions delay | GothamSchools

Rise & Shine: A redo one possible fix for HS admissions delay

by Philissa Cramer
  • NYU says it will give space for a new school sometime in the future. (GothamSchools, Times, Post, NY1)
  • Mayor Bloomberg, President Clinton, and other big names attended the UFT’s 50th birthday party. (NY1)
  • The Post urges the judge in the school closure lawsuit to release high school admissions letters.
  • One possibility is that eighth graders will have to submit high school applications all over again. (Post)
  • Students learn about business by creating virtual ones in a citywide entrepreneurship program. (NY1)
  • Unnamed “educators” say the teachers union is letting charter schools lose more money. (Post)
  • A struggling high school in Savannah, Ga., is the latest to declare it will fire all teachers this year. (AP)
  • D.C. teachers could soon get a long-overdue contract containing a 20 percent raise. (Washington Post)
  • Geoffrey Canada visited Tulsa, Okla., where the Harlem Children’s Zone is being replicated. (News on 6)
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This Week In Education Twitter Friday

This Week In Education


Twitter Friday

by Alexander Russo
500x_good_plentyI'll be at a conference today [#YaleSOMed] so updates and news links are going to come to you via Twitter.
http://www.twitter.com/alexanderrusso
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Mike Klonsky's SmallTalk Blog: Balancing the budget with teachers' pensions

Mike Klonsky's SmallTalk Blog: Balancing the budget with teachers' pensions

Balancing the budget with teachers' pensions

by Mike Klonsky
Like thieves in the night, Illinois Gov. Quinn and machine-boss Mike Madigan, heisted more than $100 billion from the teachers' pension fund Wednesday. Not only that, but theChicago Civic Committee, calling the heist, "reform," wants more.
"This bill is a small step in the right direction but it doesn't begin to solve the state's urgent fiscal problems," said R. Eden Martin, president of the Civic Committee of the Commercial Club of Chicago. "The only way to achieve significant cost reductions now is to reform retirement benefits for current state employees prospectively and new hires moving forward."
Question: Why hardly a peep from the leaders of the state's teacher unions?


More of Rhee's mess to clean up for Anita Dunn

by Mike Klonsky
Is she really worried about firing bad teachers?

Here's another problem for Anita Dunn, Michelle Rhee's new million-dollar PR flack.

Supt. Rhee debased the more than 200 D.C. teachers she fired recently, even implying that many of them were rapists and child molesters. Of course her charges turned out to be fabrications and Rhee was forced to recant. Rhee has also been among those yelling the loudest about how difficult unions have made it is to fire bad teachers.

If that's not a big enough mess for Dunn to clean up, how about the fact that Rhee has, at the same time, pushed hard for a voucher system to pay for Catholic school tuition in the District. She has also helped bail out failed Archdioscese schools by making many of them non-union charter schools.

The front-page story in yesterday's NYT revealed that hundreds and possibly thousands of children have actually 
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