Wednesday, May 12, 2010

Philadelphia Public School Notebook Notes from the news, May 12

Notes from the news, May 12

Submitted by Erika Owens on Wed, 05/12/2010 - 10:02 Posted in Notes from the news | Permalink

Phila. schools chief defends security cameras The Inquirer
South Philly High now has 149 security cameras. Superintendent Ackerman responded to criticisms about the cameras after testifying to City Council about the District budget.

See also: Ackerman defends school-camera costs Daily News
Ackerman Talks Budget, Cameras at Philly Schools Philly Weekly

Daroff council picks Universal The Notebook blog
The deadline for School Advisory Councils to recommend providers was yesterday. In a surprise pick, Universal was Daroff's first choice.

Beleaguered principal gets a community-service award Daily News
Councilwoman Blackwell said "I had no doubt that [South Philly principal LaGreta Brown] should get" the award.

See also: The Onion Comes to Philadelphia Young Philly Politics

Pennsylvania Kids Deserve School Choice Wall Street Journal (opinion)
Op-ed by gubernatorial candidate and school choice supporter State Sen. Anthony Williams.

an Education Where They Can Learn to be Critical Thinkers."" rel="bookmark" href="http://home.phillystudentunion.org/PSU-Blog/our-young-people-deserve.html" class="ext" target="_blank" style="text-decoration: none; color: rgb(76, 153, 72); ">"Our Young People Deserve an Education Where They Can Learn to be Critical Thinkers." PSU Blog
Text of a speech from Leticie Almiron, the first teacher to get a violence prevention award from Drexel's Center for the Prevention of School-Aged Violence.

Truancy Calls A Very Public Education blog
Why is no one talking about the uptick in truancy calls?

Three generations of family to get degrees together The Inquirer

SRC defiende bono de Ackerman Al Día

Frankford High School – 100th Birthday Party! The Frankford Gazette

Prom Gown Give-A-Way A Very Public Education blog

Tweet and Blog for Ed Tech Philly Teacher blog

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Notes from the news

Mike Klonsky's SmallTalk Blog: Profit in charters? Yes

Profit in charters? Yes

by Mike Klonsky

"There's a very fine line between what all of us do, and fraud..."--Whitney Tilson, hedge-fund school reformer

Skeptical friends continue to ask me: "Is it really possible to make a profit operating a charter school(s)?" I remember the above-mentioned Tilson mocking anyone who suggested such a thing and edu-business experts like Mark Dean Millot saying that running schools, "is a very unprofitable business.: I've offered several explanations to my friends about why profits may be driving much of the charter school business.

Maybe Juan Gonzalez from Democracy Now, can convince them that there's gold in them charters.

AMY GOODMAN: Juan, before we move on to the Gulf, you have a very interesting column in the "New York Daily News" today, an exposé around big banks and charter schools.

JUAN GONZALEZ: Yes, Amy, one of the things I've been trying now for a couple of years is to try

Schools Matter: If You Can Hide the Facts That Don't Fit, Hide Them: If You Can't Hide the Facts, Declare Them Irrelevant

If You Can Hide the Facts That Don't Fit, Hide Them: If You Can't Hide the Facts, Declare Them Irrelevant

by Jim Horn

In the case of the latter reform strategy of declaring the facts irrelevant, New Jersey's (and the Business Roundtable's) Education Commissioner, Bret Schundler, provides a prime example. Because the reality does not fit the "terrible teacher" narrative that Governor Christie has adopted, two days ago Schundler denounced New Jersey Public Schools as a “wretched system” and the state’s #1 national ranking on the NAEP in both 4^th and 8^th grade reading and math as “irrelevant.” Facts don't fit the ideology? Just declare them meaningless.

In the case of the former reform strategy of changing the facts, school turnaround artists in Houston recently have demonstrated an ability to jigger the facts and manipulate the data in ways that would make even the former Superintendent, Rod Paige, blush. In so doing, another Houston Miracle has been realized, no less

The Educated Reporter: Special ed on the decline?

Special ed on the decline?

by Linda Perlstein

My colleague David Hunn, a terrific data-driven reporter at the St. Louis Post-Dispatch, and I have been putting together some materials for new education reporters for the upcoming EWA conference, and David came upon something interesting in federal numbers he crunched from the Data Accountability Center. After many years of increases, the share of Americans ages 3 through 21 with identified disabilities declined, from 8.5 percent in 2006 to 8.3 percent in 2008. This parallels a small decline in disabled children as a percentage of total enrollment in federal programs, according to this NCES table.

I am not sure what the difference is in the two sets of stats, because I have not seen David’s original data set. But in both cases there has been this slight dip. Has anyone written about this? If not, why? A leveling off or even decline in disability identification is a big national story, given how much special education has increased over the years. Schools might be responding to pressure not to disproportionately identify minority students as

The Educated Guess Bricks and clicks: a new hybrid school: part two

The Educated Guess

Bricks and Clicks: part two

Tags: Flex Academy, Flex Public Schools, Mark Kushner

Posted in Charters, Program innovation

California is lagging behind other states, like Florida, in online education, in part because of regulations enacted nearly a decade ago to clamp down on independent study scams masquerading as charter schools. As a result, virtual schools face stifling rules dictating student-teacher ratios, limiting their operations to contiguous counties, and requiring teachers leading virtual courses – they could be living anywhere – to have California credentials.
Flex Public Schools, which will open the state’s first hybrid, “bricks and clicks” online schools, will be able to sidestep regulations governing non-classroom-based online schools and launch a truly innovative approach to education.
(Read more and comment on this post)

By John Fensterwald on May 12th, 2010

Bricks and clicks: a new hybrid school

Posted in Uncategorized

There are more than 10,000 traditional public and 800-plus charter schools in California, and there are a handful of virtual or online charter schools, serving primarily home-schooled students.
Soon, there will be a blend of the two: a hybrid school where students will go every day for seminars and labs led by teacher coaches, but will do most of their learning online, at their own pace.
Flex Public Schools, a California nonprofit corporation with ties to K12 Inc., a growing for-profit provider of online education, will open two “bricks and clicks” schools in the Bay Area within the next 15 months.
(Read more and comment on this post)

By John Fensterwald on May 11th, 2010

Breaking down Meg’s ed numbers

Posted in 2010 elections

Meg Whitman’s gubernatorial campaign never got back to me to explain the candidate’s continued assertion that 40 percent of education dollars are squandered on “administration and overhead.” But a K-12 expert at the Legislative Analyst’s office did pass along a url that’s the likely basis of the claim. Sure enough, it’s in the ed-data section of the Dept. of Education’s website.
So call it up, and let’s go over what it says. Go midway down to “General Fund Expenditures by Activity.” What Whitman is calling money in the classroom is the 50 percent – $26 billion – spent on Instruction (defined as including teacher salaries and benefits, aides and books) and 12 percent on Special Education ($6 billion).
That leaves 38 percent.
(Read more and comment on this post)

By John Fensterwald on May 11th, 2010

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

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

Schools have a role to play in reducing obesity

First lady releases recommendations for reducing child obesity; school lunches on the menu for change

MORE ON EDUCATION

First lady Michelle Obama (AP).

VALERIE STRAUSS

The Answer Sheet

A School Survival Guide for Parents (And Everyone Else)

Posted at 6:30 AM ET, 05/12/2010

Teachers refuse to give standardized tests to kids

Maybe there is a lesson in this for American teachers. Saying that they are sick and tired of forcing kids to take standardized tests, thousands of teachers in England are refusing to administer high-stakes standardized tests in English and math this week.

Continue reading this post »

Posted by Valerie Strauss | Permalink | Comments (1)

Drama at Duke Ellington

Students at Ellington School of the Arts High School were focused on their AP exams Monday when things started to go south in a hurry. First, a power outage in Georgetown left the school without lights for about four hours starting at 12:15 p.m. While some students headed home, others remained in the school auditorium waiting for the power to return.

Then, according to a letter home from head of school and CEO Rory Pullens:

"Another, and probably more disturbing situation, occurred when a man, unassociated with any Ellington student or staff, gained entry into the building during lunch time after signing in and going through security check. Once in the building he began to verbally threaten students and staff loudly, displaying potential for violence."

No one was injured, Pullens said. The police were called, and the man had no weapons. Some students were clearly shaken by the incident, which, coupled with the power outage, generated "much speculation if

EducationNews.org Experts: Home-schooling doesn’t add up

EducationNews.org

EducationNewsToday | Beleaguered principal gets a community-service award

EducationNewsToday | Teachers evaluations will be based on principals' judgment and exams

EducationNewsToday | Charter backers' ads blast seniority-based layoffs

Global | 'Functionally illiterate and innumerate'

EducationNewsToday | Educators want to Race to the Top

EducationNewsToday | Higher school athletic fees rile parents

EducationNewsToday | Phys. Ed. Legislation Generates Mixed Reactions

EducationNewsToday | Memphis school board members worry parents won't support summer reading program

Experts: Home-schooling doesn’t add up

5.11.10 - More than 22,620 Texas secondary students who stopped showing up for class in 2008 were excluded from the state's dropout statistics because

Full story

Joel Klein thinks the new teacher evaluation system is “problematical” and too vague. (Post)
The Post calls the evaluation agreement “dubious” because it leaves much to union negotiations.
Though the deal likely means more testing, it’s not clear what the local tests will look like. (DN)
Commissioner David Steiner: the new evaluations could pave way to individual merit pay. (DN)
Dan Brown, author of “The Great Expectations School,” thinks an evaluation overhaul was overdue. (DN)
A Long Island economist calls on NY school districts to reject budgets calling for tax increases. (Post)
A charter school group is running ads against seniority based layoffs, which charters don’t have. (DN)
Parents at P.S. 15 in Red Hook are still fighting to get PAVE charter school out of the building. (DN)
Gov. Paterson will introduce Rochester’s mayoral control bill into the legislature. (Gannett)
A spate of attacks on school children in China continues with the death of seven students. (NY Times)
A PA state senator and gubernatorial candidate calls for more school choice. (Wall Street Journal)
Michelle Obama rolled out obesity-fighting measures that may include regulation (Washington Post)

Remainders: Gap in charters’ special ed service real, but not huge

by Maura Walz and Anna Phillips

NYC charters enroll fewer special education students, but the gap isn’t as big as the union says.
Today’s evaluation deal got mixed reactions from Paterson, Silver, and the school board association.
Chaz wonders if the teacher evaluation deal will lead to the end of teacher tenure.
The Chicago schools chief says he’s firing bad principals, but he may be exploiting normal turnover.
A Brooklyn teachers union chapter leader calls on parents to get political over school budgets.
The SUNY charter authorizer has already received 22 applications for its remaining 12 school spots.
Suburban school districts in NY are freezing teachers’ salaries or cutting back raises.
But Mike Petrilli at Fordham isn’t impressed by some of their sacrifices.
Students at Buffalo’s Oracle Charter School made a video pitch for Obama to visit them.
Rick Hess says the education bailout bill may be popular, but it’s not financially sound.
New federal funding guidelines mean that Stuyvesant HS qualifies for Title I money.
Diane Ravitch: there’s a double standard for interpreting students’ test scores.
Peter Murphy says union fliers are claiming “big corporations” are behind the charter cap lift.
A DOE official’s comment on teacher quality has Miss Eyre wondering if she would try the ‘burbs.
Why would Duncan tell a reporter his agenda has “no public opposition“? Linda Perlstein asks.
Norm Scott says Mulgrew’s big election win has given him license to make unpopular calls.
Either home schooling is very popular in Houston, or the district is hiding HS drop outs.
And NPR interviews Doug Lemov about the teaching techniques he’s studied.