Wednesday, May 19, 2010

The Education Newsblitz: Ponying Up for the School Bus voiceofsandiego.org

Education

The Education Newsblitz: Ponying Up for the School Bus
It isn't too late to send us your burning questions for the school board candidates! Remember, our forum is this Thursday from 7 pm to 9 pm at Liberty Station. (Click here for more details.) Now for the newsblitz:
-- EMILY ALPERT

Marcos Breton: Sacramento City teachers union runs the show - Sacramento News - Local and Breaking Sacramento News | Sacramento Bee

Marcos Breton: Sacramento City teachers union runs the show - Sacramento News - Local and Breaking Sacramento News | Sacramento Bee

Marcos Breton: Sacramento City teachers union runs the show

Published: Wednesday, May. 19, 2010 - 12:00 am | Page 1B
As labor relations lurched toward an impasse in the Sacramento City Unified School District this month, the top negotiator for the city teachers union was on vacation in Europe.
Manuel Villareal is clearly not afraid of anything.
To him, schools Superintendent Jonathan Raymond is a pipsqueak. Raymond says the district can soften the blow of a $30 million budget deficit if teachers agree to three furlough days a year and accept doctor visit co-pays of more than a dollar.
Yeah, sure. This union has outlasted much bigger fish.
Years ago, the late Joe Serna – then Sacramento mayor – made a big splash by challenging the power structure of Sacramento's decayed schools system.
It was the battle most people remember about Serna's tenure as mayor more than a decade after his death. In the long run, the union won the war.
It's no wonder "Manny" can jaunt off to the Continent while Raymond looks older by the


Read more: http://www.sacbee.com/2010/05/19/2760654/marcos-breton-sacramento-city.html#ixzz0oNosfU00

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

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

Obama administration finds Head Start fraud


Enrollment rules reportedly bent to help admit less-needy students
MORE ON EDUCATION


VALERIE STRAUSS












Posted at 6:30 AM ET, 05/19/2010

Ravitch on Obama's scary ed reform agenda

What does school reform really mean to the Obama administration? Education historian Diane Ravitch explains how privatization of public schools is high on the agenda.
Posted by Valerie Strauss | Permalink | Comments (2)
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JAY MATHEWS
What's Right and Wrong With Our Schools
Posted at 5:30 AM ET, 05/18/2010

Does journalism's decline help education?

I am not happy about the loss of good people at the Post and other journalistic enterprises in the massive reorganization of the news business, but if schools are getting some talented wordsmiths that way, it may be a net plus.
Posted by Jay Mathews | Permalink | Comments (5)
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President Obama. (AP)

Let’s Make a Deal: How to Help Fading (and Failing) Students at the End of the Year EducationNews.org

EducationNews.org

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Let’s Make a Deal: How to Help Fading (and Failing) Students at the End of the Year

5.19.10 - Matt Amaral - The reason I like the end of the year so much is because it is such a clean break. At no

Bethesda play space in religious controversy

5.19.10 - In the days before three Montgomery County kindergarten classes were slated to go on a field trip to the Be With Me Playseum, an indoor play space in Bethesda, the...
Full story

Education Secretary Steps Into a Minefield in Brooklyn

5.19.10 - Among other changes, states can score points by raising the number of charter schools. The New York Senate has passed a bill to do just that, but the teachers’ unions are fighting...
Full story

Some Head Start workers commit fraud so kids qualify, investigators say

5.19.10 - Undercover investigators trying to enroll a handful of fictitious children in federally funded Head Start child care centers found that in about half of the cases, workers fraudulent

Correction: Bryce Harper Is Actually In College, So He Can Skip College Sooner � The Quick and the Ed

Correction: Bryce Harper Is Actually In College, So He Can Skip College Sooner � The Quick and the Ed

Correction: Bryce Harper Is Actually In College, So He Can Skip College Sooner

Yesterday, in arguing that college isn’t for everyone, I wrote:
Of course college isn’t for everyone. Just last week, the Post profiled 17-year old high school senior Bryce Harper, who definitely shouldn’t go to college. Instead, he should (and will) become a professional baseball player and earn millions of dollars.
I had assumed that because Harper is 17 years old and about to enter the baseball draft, he mush be a high school senior. Wrong! Last night an editor of Baseball America emailed the following:
You mention Bryce Harper and call him a high school senior. This is false. Harper was a sophomore last year at Las Vegas High, but got his GED over the summer and enrolled at the College of Southern Nevada this year, where he’s been taking classes and playing baseball. This

Virginia apologizes

We’re sorry.
In November, in a fit of buyer’s remorse and the change fever that we saw in last night’s elections, Virginians elected Ken Cuccinelli as our Attorney General. Cooch, as he is not-always-affectionately known, has since taking office decided that what he really wanted to be was Chancellor of the Commonwealth’s higher education system.
That’s the only explanation for his announcement that he is investigating a University of Virginia professor for fraud. Professor Michael Mann is a leading researcher in climate change.
And Cooch doesn’t believe in climate change.
The purpose of science is to tell us about the natural world, whether we like the answer or not,” said Alan 

Specter -- Key Research Backer -- Defeated Quick Takes: May 19, 2010 - Inside Higher Ed

Quick Takes: May 19, 2010 - Inside Higher Ed

Specter -- Key Research Backer -- Defeated

Sen. Arlen Specter's defeat in Tuesday's Democratic primary in Pennsylvania will end a political career in which the senator was frequently a key ally of advocates for biomedical research and education. Specter, a Republican until last year, was for many years the ranking Republican on the Senate appropriations subcommittee with jurisdiction over spending on education programs and the National Institutes of Health -- and he backed spending increases in both areas, in particular for the NIH. Joe Sestak, who defeated Specter, doesn't differ from him significantly in views on those issues.

Is Admissions Process Too Trusting?

The Boston Globe explores the case of Adam Wheeler, the former Harvard University senior who used fraudulent materials to gain admission, to ask the question of whether admissions systems are too trusting. The article notes that many leading universities engage in relatively limited verifications of materials.

Historians Want Texas Standards Reconsidered

The officers and board of the American Historical Association on Tuesday issued a statement calling on the Texas State Board of Education to reconsider history standards that have been widely criticized for attempting to put a conservative spin on history by adding and subtracting certain people and ideas. The AHA statement said that the state's standards are inconsistent with national standards and with what Texas school children learn in the early grades. As but one example, the historians said that the Texas standards are "almost entirely discounting the importance of human activity in North America before the British colonization of the Atlantic Coast." Offering a comparison to science, the AHA statement said that "no curriculum in chemistry would be of much value to students if it made arbitrary selections and deletions among the elements to be studied; if the focus were to be on oxygen with hydrogen omitted, then students would be at a considerable disadvantage when it came to understanding water."

UC plans to cut $500 million in admin costs Education — San Francisco Bay Area Schools, Performance, Profiles, News — SFGate

Education — San Francisco Bay Area Schools, Performance, Profiles, News — SFGate

UC plans to cut $500 million in admin costs

UC plans to cut $500 million in admin costs
It's what University of California students have been yelling about in campus protests since last fall...

Judge backs CSU summer school fees

California State University can shift the cost of summer school to its students this year and preserve...