Latest News and Comment from Education

Tuesday, April 13, 2010

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

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















VALERIE STRAUSS
A School Survival Guide for Parents (And Everyone Else)

Posted at 6:30 AM ET, 04/13/2010

Tennessee’s Vocabulary Project--Do you know these words?

It has long been known that children from high-poverty families start school at a disadvantage, in large part because they have less than one-third of the vocabulary than better-off children. To try to address this, the state of Tennessee is implementing what it calls the Academic Vocabulary Project.
JAY MATHEWS
What's Right and Wrong With Our Schools

Posted at 10:00 PM ET, 04/11/2010

Should high schoolers read aloud in class?

Recently I visited a history class at a local, low-performing high school where students read in turn from the autobiography of a famous American. The teacher was bright and quick. He interrupted often with comments and questions. The 18 sophomores and juniors seemed to be into it, but it was such an old-fashioned--and I suspect to some educators elementary--approach for that I decided to see what other educators thought of it.

D.C. Schools Insider


Does contract math add up?

Although it's been less than a week since Mayor Adrian M. Fenty and Chancellor Michelle A. Rhee rolled out their tentative contract agreement with the Washington Teachers' Union, bumps are starting to appear on the path to closing the deal. Disputed math, election-year tensions and the complexities of marrying private dollars to public budgets are all part of what's becoming a problematic mix.
Rhee said last week that the total cost of the new contract was $140 million. But at Monday's D.C. Council hearing, where Fenty spent more than three hours at the witness table in front of his September primary opponent, Chairman Vincent C. Gray, a different picture emerged. By Gray's calculations, there's not nearly enough money in Fenty's proposed FY 2011 budget to pay for what the contract promises. Gray puts the price tag for the contract at $161 million, including $100 million for retroactive and current year salary increases.
"It's an enormous amount of money. I can't find it," Gray said.

Fenty said he'd get it for him later.
Gray placed District Chief Financial Officer Natwar M. Gandhi, city administrator Neil Albert, acting DCPS chief financial officer George Dines and Gandhi deputy Gordon McDonald under oath to ask whether there was currently money in the budget to underwrite the contract. Dines said no. Gandhi and McDonald said they didn't know. And Albert said he hadn't looked.
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Ed Buzz: The Nation



EducationNews.org - EducationNewsToday

EducationNews.org - EducationNewsToday

EducationNewsToday

NEW BEDFORD new schools chief promises change

Newly appointed School Superintendent Mary Louise Francis ended the first day in her new role with a calm and orderly School Committee meeting, a sharp contrast to the public recriminations that marked the last week of outgoing...
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SD school board may ease curbs on promotions

This year could mark then end of a policy that keeps failing students in San Diego from being promoted to the next grade level unless they complete summer intervention classes. ...
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Experts: Encourage kids to enter math, science fields

Experts: Encourage kids to enter math, science fields ...
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VISTA: VUSD to layoff 48 support employees

Nearly 50 Vista Unified School District support employees are expected to lose their jobs beginning this summer as part of the district's plan to close an $18.3 million budget shortfall for next year. ...
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State teachers union targets education bill

The Florida Education Association is leading a battle to defeat legislation that would overhaul how teachers are paid. ...
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Ex-MPS leaders speak out at forum

Milwaukee Public Schools can be turned around, but it will need a strong, visionary leader to chart a course of action and stick to it despite the pressures of special interests, the School Board and political forces, several former MPS superintendents said Monday night....
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Author: ‘iGeneration’ requires a different approach to instruction

Today’s middle and high school students learn much differently from students just a few years older—and that's mainly because they’ve never known a world without the internet or cell phones, says psychology professor and author Larry D. Rosen,... ...
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Parental notice rule irks Colorado schools

A proposal requiring all Colorado school districts to notify parents within 24 hours if a school employee has been arrested or charged with a serious crime is drawing fire from education groups....
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Some ISTEP results voided at Parkview Middle School

The social studies section of 88 seventh-graders’ ISTEP exams taken in early March at Parkview Middle School have been invalidated by the Indiana Department of Education because their teacher allegedly coached the students on specific information and vocabulary from the test. ...
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READING PERIOD

4.13.10 - Will Fitzhugh - When I was a student at Cambridge University, I was told that term time was for attending lectures and socializing, at Oxford and Cambridge, and vacation time was for reading lots of books (a reading period)....
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College not mandatory under exam program

4.12.10 - Ze'ev Wurman and Sandra Stotsky, in their opinion piece ("Grade 10 Diploma Not a Wise Idea," Insight, April 4) misrepresented our proposals....
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Grade schools consider cutting foreign language classes

Students in Madame Maria Wells' fifth-grade class at Cynwyd Elementary School were having great fun Thursday morning - while learning French at the same time. ...
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Oklahoma school districts face budget shortfalls

While teachers in Tulsa Public Schools are bracing for hundreds of layoffs before next year, Oklahoma City Superintendent Karl Springer said his district could be in "arguably one of the better financial positions in the state of Oklahoma.”...
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Survey: School budget cuts even worse next year »

Although the economy has begun to rebound, K-12 education leaders say they are still facing serious budget shortfalls for the coming school year that threaten their ability to implement new technologies, raise the quality of instruction in their... ...
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Cyber school program reaches at-risk teens

Many are watching a year-old online school, based in Westwood Community Schools, because state leaders want to reach students in danger of dropping out. ...
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DPS's freezes educator hiring

A change to Denver Public Schools' teacher-hiring process has frozen the system and could result in dozens of veteran teachers being paid even though they are without jobs and not working. ...
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School's 'Wicked Witch' sweeps out the 'no' foods

As her second-grade students take out their lunches, teacher Leticia Moreno quickly spots two with forbidden food - a burrito and quesadilla made with white flour tortillas...
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College Tour '10: Columbia University

Valerie Strauss - At some other schools you got the sense that, ‘Hey, we’re a great school and you probably can’t get in.’ It wasn’t like that at Columbia. ...
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Jay Mathews: Should high schoolers read aloud in class?

Recently I visited a history class at a local, low-performing high school where students read in turn from the autobiography of a famous American. The teacher was bright and quick. He interrupted often with...
Full story

Fewer Students, More Teachers

New York Governor David Paterson wants to reduce state aid to local school districts next year by 5% to address the state's $9.2 billion budget deficit, and state educators are complaining that the cuts could result in teacher layoffs. ...
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Education - San Jose Mercury News

Education - San Jose Mercury News
News > Education

Phoebe Prince's death in Massachusetts has ugly echoes everywhere.

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A look at San Jose State, from its spare beginnings in a San Francisco high school basement 150 years ago to today.

Teachable Moments: Race to the Top winners, video essays and tenure trends

Teachable Moments: Race to the Top winners, video essays and tenure trends

Teachable Moments: Race to the Top winners, video essays and tenure trends

Education Week offers some interesting national news in its April 7 issue.

First is a front-page story on the winners of the first phase of the $4 billion Race to the Top money that the Department of Education is awarding this year. Forty states and the District of Columbia applied, and 16 states were chosen as finalists. California applied but was denied.

Delaware and Tennessee, it was announced, were the top two winners, receiving $100 million and $500 million, respectively. The award money is based on student population. Coming in third, fourth, fifth and sixth were Georgia, Florida, Illinois and South Carolina. About $3.4 billion is still available in the second phase of the competition.

The applications were judged on a 500-point scale by a panel of five reviewers. Delaware received 454.6 points, and Tennessee received 444.2 points. California’s score was 336.8, not in the top 16.

In their applications, states were asked to address how to improve “teacher effectiveness, data systems, low-performing schools, and academic standards and assessments,” according to Education Week.

A 37-page document provides reviewers’ comments on California’s application.

Local buy-in to each state’s application, which detailed plans to implement education reforms, seems to have



Read more: http://www.sdnn.com/sandiego/2010-04-12/blog/teachable-moments/teachable-moments-race-to-the-top-winners-video-essays-and-tenure-trends#ixzz0kysEVhJE

BallerStatus.com � California Educational Hip-Hop Program Terminated Due To Funding Cuts

BallerStatus.com � California Educational Hip-Hop Program Terminated Due To Funding Cuts
California Educational Hip-Hop Program Terminated Due To Funding Cuts
Published 04/13/2010
By Miles Bennett

misc - EducationThe award-winning California-based educational hip-hop program, Global Awareness through Hip Hop Culture, has been shut down, succumbing to the state's plummeting economy.

After running successfully since 2006, the program came to a bitter end just recently. It was offered at a charter school in South Los Angeles, and was one of the only educational hip-hop programs in the nation offered as a regular class to middle and high school students.

The class was created by Sebastien Elkouby to address the educational crisis that affects about 50 percent of inner-city students across the U.S. It uses hip-hop to connect with students in a way other topics can't.

"For a variety of reasons, many students feel completely disconnected from the traditional educational process," Elkouby explains. "This class used hip-hop culture as a medium to develop global awareness and critical thinking while teaching them language arts, social studies, and life skills."

The program has earned Elkouby the title of "Educator of Distinction" by the National Society of High School Scholars for the past two years. However, it wasn't enough to save the program.

He feels the termination of his program is proof that the currently leadership in education is clueless to what students really need.

"You'd think that a program that has impacted students in such a positive way would be safe," Elkouby said. "I do realize that the simple mention of the term 'hip-hop' scares people and may not be at the top of the list when it comes to funding. However, it doesn't seem that students are too high on the list either."

Former student A. Dominguez says, "Taking this class has made me realize how much I have changed as an individual and has given me the hope to pursue my wildest dreams. Everyone