Judge bans webcam spying on Philly students - Boston.com

Judge bans webcam spying on Philly students - Boston.com

Judge bans webcam spying on Philly students

May 14, 2010

PHILADELPHIA—A judge has permanently banned a suburban Philadelphia school district from secretly monitoring students with webcams on their school-issued laptops.

	Discuss
	COMMENTS (1)

U.S. District Judge Jan DuBois' ruling Friday was similar to a temporary injunction the judge imposed in February after a student sued the district over privacy concerns. The Lower Merion School District acknowledged capturing 56,000 screen shots and webcam images so it could locate missing laptops.

The new ruling says Lower Merion can use other kinds of technology to find laptops but only if parents and students agree to it. The order requires school

Illegal immigrant student hopes case helps reform

by Kate Brumback, Associated Press Writer

When Jessica Colotl, an illegal immigrant college student, got arrested for a minor traffic violation at her suburban Atlanta campus, she became an accidental poster child for immigration reform.

Harvard College dismisses hacker student

Harvard College has dismissed an undergraduate student who allegedly hacked into online accounts of his instructors and gained unauthorized access to the Registrar's Office's grading portal.

Student’s Arrest Tests Immigration Policy - NYTimes.com

Student’s Arrest Tests Immigration Policy - NYTimes.com

Student’s Arrest Tests Immigration Policy

By ROBBIE BROWN

Published: May 14, 2010

ATLANTA — Jessica Colotl, a 21-year-old college student and illegal Mexican immigrant at the center of a contentious immigration case, surrendered to a Georgia sheriff on Friday but continued to deny wrongdoing.

Enlarge This Image

Kate Brumback/Associated Press

Jessica Colotl speaking Friday at a news conference in Atlanta after being released on bail.

Ms. Colotl was arrested in March for driving without a license and could face deportation next year. On Wednesday the sheriff filed a felony charge against her for providing a false address to the police.

The case has become a flash point in the national debate over whether federal immigration laws should be enforced by local and state officials. And like Arizona’s tough new immigration law, it has highlighted a rift between the federal government and local politicians over how illegal immigrants should be detected and prosecuted.

“I never thought that I’d be caught up in this messed-up system,” Ms. Colotl said Friday at a news conference after being released on $2,500 bail. “I was treated like a criminal, like a threat to the nation.”

Civil rights groups say Ms. Colotl should be spared deportation because she was brought to the United States without legal documents by her parents at age 11. They also note that she has excelled academically and was discovered to be here illegally only after a routine traffic violation.

Supporters of immigration laws and the sheriff’s office in Cobb County say she violated

Portland 'priority zone' would give seven schools special treatment | OregonLive.com

Portland 'priority zone' would give seven schools special treatment | OregonLive.com

Portland 'priority zone' would give seven schools special treatment

By Betsy Hammond, The Oregonian

May 14, 2010, 5:28PM

View full sizeBenjamin Brink/The OregonianJimmy Vang, a sixth-grader at George Middle School, gets help from teacher Kirsti Neidig to solve a math problem during an intensive “math camp” class, his third math class of the day. Superintendent Carole Smith has proposed that schools including George, which has high academic needs and a concentration of low-income and immigrant students, be placed in an Academic Priority Zone that guarantees them special treatment.Tucked in Portland Superintendent Carole Smith's high school redesign blueprint is a companion plan to give unprecedented help and protection to a handful of high-poverty elementary and middle schools along with the city's two longest-struggling high schools.

Among the promises: better principals, a longer school year, more hands on deck and the right to reject teachers offloaded from other schools.

The hope is that Jefferson, Roosevelt and Franklin high schools -- which would receive students who move up from the five elementary and middle schools slated to receive special treatment -- will see a burst of success as more of their incoming freshmen arrive prepared. Jefferson and Roosevelt would also get extra resources and special treatment to help them keep students on a strong trajectory.

The other five schools, from the district's northernmost reaches to its southeastern corner, are George Middle School, Bridger and King K-8 schools, and Kelly and Sitton elementaries. Minority and low-income students make up the bulk of enrollment at all seven.

View full sizeDan Aguayo/The OregonianThe pledge to those schools, laid out in Smith's 88-page high school plan now before the Portland School Board, is that they'll be ushered into an Academic Priority Zone. They would be guaranteed extra help, such as instructional coaches, after-school or summer school sessions; more power to choose their own teachers; and case managers to help troubled students and families.

Even as other schools see cuts in the next few years -- somethingPortland Public Schools expects unless state funding forecasts improve -- schools in the priority zone would get to keep their extras, Smith and school board members say.

Why? Getting students to arrive prepared for freshman year requires more time, coordination

Schwarzenegger proposes elimination of state's main welfare program - ContraCostaTimes.com

Schwarzenegger proposes elimination of state's main welfare program - ContraCostaTimes.com

Schwarzenegger proposes elimination of state's main welfare program

James Rufus Koren and Sandra Emerson, Staff Writers

Posted: 05/14/2010 06:42:17 PM PDT

Updated: 05/14/2010 08:01:52 PM PDT

Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger's latest budget proposal calls for eliminating the state's main welfare program, making other deep cuts and not raising taxes - ideas that will surely force a showdown between Democrats and Repubilicans over the state's priorities.
After days of promising unpalatable cuts, Schwarzenegger on Friday called for eliminating CalWORKs, a program that provides money to poor families with children. Schwarzenegger said the program must be eliminated because federal judges have prevented the state from making incremental cuts.
"They have prevented us from using a scalpel," he said, "so we now have to use the ax and eliminate some of those programs."
Democrats in the state Legislature were quick to say they would not allow CalWORKs - which stands for California Work Opportunities and Responsibility to Kids - to be scrapped.
"If, God forbid, this budget became a reality, California would be the only state in the union to not have a safety net for children," said state Senate President Pro Tem Darrell Steinberg, D-Sacramento. "It's a non-starter."
In San Bernardino County, about 47,000 families - more than 111,000 people - receive monthly assistance from

Education

Protests against male undergraduate students grabbed national attention 1990 student strike kept the Oakland women's college from admitting men to its undergraduate programs and thrust women's issues into the spotlight. Pink slips issued to 130 in Alameda district Pinole Valley High teacher finds way to connect with students creatively Livermore teachers accuse district of contract violation San Ramon Valley high school students provide corsages and boutonnieres for Richmond school's senior prom. Acalanes High student newspaper named best in the nation School Notes Hundreds of teens witness DUI trial on Brentwood campus

NorthJersey.com: Clifton school officials use reverse-911 to prevent student walkout

NorthJersey.com: Clifton school officials use reverse-911 to prevent student walkout

Clifton school officials use reverse-911 to prevent student walkout

Friday, May 14, 2010

BY ALBINA SPORTELLI

NORTHJERSEY.COM

STAFF WRITER

CLIFTON — Thousands of students might have walked out of Clifton High School on Friday morning in protest of state education funding cuts — but school administrators appear to have pulled the plug on the plan even before it gained momentum.
When school officials got word of the protest plan, they told kids they would be banned from the prom if they participated, a high-ranking police official said.
A student who learned on the social networking site Facebook of a plan to stage a massive 8 a.m. walkout tipped off school administrators, who immediately began working to stop it, said schools Superintendent Richard Tardalo.
When district computer technicians identified the Clifton High student who was organizing the protest, her parents were called and the teenager was warned to cancel the event and tell all other students through Facebook that the walkout was called off, the superintendent said.
And a reverse emergency-call-system message was sent out Thursday night to all parents of high school students warning of serious consequences should any student participate in the walkout. School officials would not specify the consequences students would have been faced with had they not complied.
But Detective Capt. Robert Rowan said students were told that if they were caught in the walkout, the

EDUCATION NEWS

• Clifton school officials use reverse-911 to prevent student walkoutNORTHJERSEY.COM

• Becton Regional board will determine Tuesday how much to cut from budgetNORTHJERSEY.COM

• Teaneck auditor finds $8.4 million in potential cuts THE RECORD

Students were serious about making a statementAIM JEFFERSON

• Ridgewood school district receives accolades THE RIDGEWOOD NEWS

• Passaic Valley to trim school budget by $80,000 THE RECORD

Student show sets sights on sustainability

Student show sets sights on sustainability

Student show sets sights on sustainability

In an industry where the lines between seasons and trends are so blurred and often repeated, it's...

Academy of Art students' fashions impress pros

With decades of runway shows under her belt, it takes a lot on the catwalk to impress Suzy Menkes, the...

• Photos

• Teacher apologizes for recorded beating of student 4:46 PM
• Schwarzenegger lays out bleak California budget 4:43 PM
• 3 killed, 1 injured in Richmond shooting 2:44 PM
• Calif. students' test scores up almost 2 percent 1:56 PM
• Crowe is gladiator again as he visit Colosseum 1:39 PM

30 years after Mount St. Helens blew, the volcano reveals its secrets | OregonLive.com

30 years after Mount St. Helens blew, the volcano reveals its secrets | OregonLive.com

30 years after Mount St. Helens blew, the volcano reveals its secrets

By Joe Rojas-Burke, The Oregonian

May 14, 2010, 4:42PM

Torsten Kjellstrand/The OregonianHundreds of people crowded the Coldwater Ridge Visitor Center on a Sunday afternoon in early May, 2010. Emily Dehne of Portland and her friend Casey Levin of St. Louis played a card game while waiting for an eruption of Mount St. Helens. Levin was in Portland to visit Dehne, when the two decided to drive up to the visitor center.A sudden series of earthquakes at Mount St. Helens caught scientists by surprise in March 1980. Less than a week after the quakes began, a blast of steam and ash opened a small crater at the summit of the reawakening volcano.

Geologists didn't know enough to give public safety officials a clear picture of the danger.

"They wanted us to tell them what the earthquakes meant, and I had no idea," says Steve Malone, the University of Washington professor who led the seismic monitoring. "All I could tell them was there's a lot of earthquakes, and something's coming."

Photos: Mount St. Helens

Photos from the Oregonian archive


Mount St. Helens 2010

At 8:32 a.m. May 18, 1980, a magnitude 5.1 earthquake triggered an enormous landslide. The entire north side of the mountain collapsed, releasing a

Bad, Bad Budget Cuts | California Progress Report

Bad, Bad Budget Cuts | California Progress Report

Bad, Bad Budget Cuts

Posted on 14 May 2010

Printer-friendly versionSend to friend

By Anthony Wright

Today, Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger proposed a new California budget that eliminated or eviscerated health and human services.

In a tough budget situation, Governor Schwarzenegger’s revised budget represents the worst possible choice for California families, for our health system, and for our economy. At a time when millions are looking for relief, the Governor has proposed cuts that will deny medically necessary care, place greater financial strain on families, and turn back hundreds of millions of dollars in federal matching funds for our economy.

THE SPECIFIC HEALTH IMPACT: California children and families, seniors and people with disabilities will find their prescriptions and doctors visits limited, their coverage for certain treatments capped, and significant costs for getting doctor and hospital care. Some of these cuts will not just delay and deny care, but will have life and death impacts.

BETTER CHOICES FOR CALIFORNIA: There are better choices for California—ones that balance cuts with revenues, preserves the health system we all rely on, and fosters our economic recovery. In contrast, Governor Schwarzenegger’s budget undermines our ability to create jobs and our health infrastructure--the foundation on which we need to take advantage of the new opportunities under health reform.

NO NEW TAXES?: Governor Schwarzenegger says there are no new taxes in his proposal, and that’s true for corporations. For eight million in low-income California families, there are significant increased costs to have and access basic medical care.

Boehner Says No to Teacher’s Jobs, Children’s Future

Boehner Says No to Teacher’s Jobs, Children’s Future

Posted in: NEA Today, Top StoryTags:

• Comments [0]
• Digg it!
• Facebook

By Rene’ Carter and Cynthia McCabe

When 300,000 educators’ jobs are on the line, something has to be done to protect the children they teach, right? Not so, said Congressman John Boehner (R-Ohio) this evening, calling an effort to save teachers’ an attempt to “pad the education bureaucracy.”

Unfortunately Congressman Boehner is playing politics with our children’s and nation’s future. Keeping teachers in the classroom instead of the unemployment line will not ‘pad the education bureaucracy.’ The only thing worse than the Congressman’s deliberate mischaracterization of the bill and his political posturing is his credibility on what makes for responsible action by Congress in a time of crisis.

And just in case Congressman Boehner thinks there is not a problem in his home state of Ohio — where more than 1,000 teachers now face layoffs and where in Cleveland alone class size are projected to jump from 20 to 45 students — we share this story from an Ohio teacher recently posted on http://educationvotes.nea.org. Joanne of Canton, Ohio, writes: “I am a dedicated teacher of 35 years, a National Board Certified Language Arts teacher with an M.Ed. and many, many hours of additional certification. I worry about keeping my teaching job — a job I love. Aid to our school district has been cut by over $1.9 million. We have 1930s buildings with drinking fountains and toilets that don’t work…If you think teachers are at the source of our students’ failures, visit me or any teacher. Spend the day. I guarantee that you will be exhausted, frustrated, yet amazingly satisfied with your experience. But I still love my job. Don’t blame my union. Don’t blame my colleagues. See for yourselves how it is.”

It’s very doubtful that Congressman Boehner will accept Joanne’s offer. But we challenge him to go to her class before the end of the school year and tell her students why he’s not supporting a bill to save more than 300,000 education jobs and why he’s not trying to help ensure that they get the best education possible.

And since he won’t go to Joanne’s class, we have to call Congressman Boehner — and all our members of Congress at (202) 224-3121 – and tell them to stop playing politics with the future of our children – include the Education Jobs Fund in the supplemental funding bills now moving through Congress!

The California Majority Report // Steinberg: Budget is a "Nonstarter"

The California Majority Report // Welcome

STEVEN MAVIGLIO

Steinberg: Budget is a "Nonstarter"

May 14, 2010 @ 5:12 PM

Here's the transcript of Senate President pro Tem Darrell Steinberg from the Democratic press conference this afternoon in reaction to the last Schwarzenegger budget proposal that slashes state services.

"I could speak for a long time about the past and where to point the finger. I could talk about sledgehammers, and automobiles and torn up credit cards.

I could talk about blowing up boxes. I could talk about one of many silly metaphors. But I will leave it at this: I am disappointed that the Governor has chosen to surrender. That he sees California as unfixable and that he proposes a budget that kills the economy and harms so many. It is a non-starter.

If God forbid this budget became a reality, California would be the only state in the union to not have a safety net for children. Leadership is not about blaming others. It's about finding solutions to tough problems to preserve the state and its people.

In their comments throughout the day the Governor's representatives have described the cuts he proposes as quote "terrible." I believe him ...but his actions say it would be more terrible to delay $2.1 billion in corporate tax breaks than to save children, the elderly, and the most vulnerable. His actions say it is more terrible to impose a tax on oil profits than complete elimination of county mental health services and child care. He appears to have decided that the solutions are too difficult to achieve so he will accept these "terrible" cuts.

We refuse to wave the white flag.

California's elected leaders- including myself- and the governor and the others need to stand up. Given the choice between enacting $6 billion in cuts to services for the elderly, children and the disabled, or delaying corporate tax breaks, I'm for delaying corporate tax breaks.

Given the choice between cutting education by nearly $3 billion or seeking revenues from oil companies extracting oil in California, I'm for getting revenues from oil companies profiting handsomely in this state.

SJUSD's New Superintendent Vincent Matthews - Year 2010 (CA Dept of Education)

SJUSD's New Superintendent Vincent Matthews - Year 2010 (CA Dept of Education)

Schools Chief Jack O'Connell Applauds San Jose Unified
School District Selection of Superintendent Vincent Matthews

SACRAMENTO — State Superintendent of Public Instruction Jack O'Connell today commended the San Jose Unified School District for selecting Vincent Matthews as the district's new superintendent.

"Vince Matthews is an excellent choice to lead the San Jose Unified School District," O'Connell said. "He has provided steady leadership and kept a focus on improving achievement for all students over the past four years while serving as the state administrator and later as the trustee for the Oakland Unified School District. Vince is a passionate and talented educator who is deeply committed to closing the achievement gap. In his new position as the San Jose Unified School District Superintendent, Vince will do a great job on behalf of the students, parents, and educators in that community.

"The Oakland Unified School District has made great strides academically and fiscally under the leadership of both Vince Matthews and the current Oakland Unified Superintendent Tony Smith. I am committed to finding an equally talented and qualified replacement for Vince to serve as trustee of Oakland Unified while the district continues its progress in repaying its state loan."

Acalanes High student newspaper named best in the nation Education - ContraCostaTimes.com

Education - ContraCostaTimes.com

Acalanes High student newspaper named best in the nation

By Michelle Maitre
Contra Costa Times

Posted: 05/14/2010 03:21:42 PM PDT

Updated: 05/14/2010 03:28:33 PM PDT

PLEASANT HILL — The Acalanes High School Blueprint has been named best high school newspaper in the nation by the American Scholastic Press Association.

The Blueprint, which was rated against 59 other newspapers nationwide, also received the "Most Outstanding High School Newspaper" honor in 1999. The paper was evaluated on content, design, editing and creativity, among other categories. The Blueprint also earned a special merit rating for earning a 955 score out of a possible 1,000.
Earlier this month, Blueprint writer Tara Yarlagadda received top honors for feature writing from the Quill and Scroll International Honorary Society for High School Journalists.
"It's one thing to think you're a top performing high school newspaper, but it's another

Friday, May 14, 2010 Education

Livermore teachers accuse district of contract violation Grievances are filed after faculty training days are eliminated. San Ramon Valley high school students provide corsages and boutonnieres for Richmond school's senior prom. Acalanes High student newspaper named best in the nation School Notes Hundreds of teens witness DUI trial on Brentwood campus Protests against male undergraduate students grabbed national attention Oakland administrator is new superintendent of SJUSD Poorest Berkeley students to lose campus child care Mt. Diablo district school music groups to perform at Sleep Train Pavilion Pleasanton school district to lay off 61 employees

Embracing a Successful Anarchic Institution | Lefty Parent

Embracing a Successful Anarchic Institution | Lefty Parent

Embracing a Successful Anarchic Institution

by Cooper Zale

I recently read a May 7 article in Education Week, “Embracing Wikipedia”, where author and science teacher Matthew Shapiro makes the case for Wikipedia as a research tool, particularly for students (and therefore I guess for any casual life-long learner), competing favorably (at least in Shapiro’s opinion) with the “Gold Standard” Encyclopedia Britannica.

Heads up folks… you might even want to sit down! Wikipedia uses an anarchic form of governance. In fact, though it may be a long time until “brick and mortar” institutions adopt it, this portable, adaptable and minimalist governance model, may well be one of the biggest trends of the 21st Century, particularly in cyberspace.

Anticipating some knee-jerk reactions, there is a perhaps subtle yet profound difference between the commonly used word “anarchy”, which most people use to describe chaos and confusion, and the governance model by the same root with the “y” removed and an “ism” added.

The Merriam-Webster online dictionary describes “anarchism” as…

A political theory holding all forms of governmental authority to be unnecessary and undesirable