Tuesday, June 15, 2010

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

How important are school gadgets?

Some educators wonder how much high-tech tools raise achievement.

How homicides affect test scores - study

School reformers who say that poverty and family circumstance are only excuses for poor student performance might do well to look at a new study which found African-American children in Chicago scoring a lot lower on reading and vocabulary tests within a week of a homicide in their neighborhood--even if they did not directly witness the violence.

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The principal who created a wellspring of innovation

Despite the school’s disadvantages, Jackson has produced one of the highest levels of Advanced Placement test participation in the country — top 2 percent. Thirty-seven percent of Wakefield seniors have passing scores on those tests, more than twice the national average. Wakefield has reached its federal achievement targets, unusual for a school with so many impoverished students, but also made itself a national model for imaginative instruction, outdoing even the most affluent public schools.

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Rhee shakes up six schools

As expected, Chancellor Michelle A. Rhee brought the "reconstitution" hammer down on six low-performing schools Monday: Ballou High School, Garfield, Stanton and Davis elementary, Hamilton Center and Luke C. Moore Academy. It means that the approximately 150 teachers at those schools must reapply for their jobs if they want to remain.

One of the six, Stanton, will be operated beginning this summer by a Philadelphia-based charter school organization, Scholar Academies.

No Child Left Behind gives Rhee options to address problems at schools that have consistently failed to make what the law describes as "adequate yearly progress" on standardized test scores. Overall, about 90 of DC.'s 123 schools are under some form of federal notice to improve.

The six schools cited Monday, with a combined enrollment of about 2,200, have undergone multiple waves of federally mandated

Senior Bertrand Ngampa gives a presentation on an interactive whiteboard at W.T. Woodson High in Fairfax County. (Dayna Smith/Post)

EducationNews.org School of Future: High on tech, low on basics?

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June 15, 2010

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School of Future: High on tech, low on basics?
6.15.10 - One hundred and six members of the High School of the Future's first senior class will graduate at the school in Fairmount Park this morning.
Seniority system cuts fresh MPS teachers amid budget crunch
6.15.10 - Megan Sampson was named outstanding first-year teacher by the Wisconsin Council of Teachers of English last week. Yet, she is among 482 educators - more than 12% of the full-time teachers in the district - who have received layoff notices from Milwaukee Public Schools ...
Fifth-grader raises $70K to help birds in Gulf oil spill
6.15.10 - Americans nationwide feel helpless when it comes to aiding the birds smothered in oil from the
Most-troubled Memphis City schools to get longer year starting in 2011
6.15.10 - Memphis City Schools will spend most of its federal Race to the Top funds on its most troubled schools, according to MCS officials. ...
Cincinnati Public School: Top teachers at weak schools
6.15.10 - The Cincinnati Public School district is revamping a volunteer career training program for its teachers to ensure the best teachers are working in the lowest-performing schools....
Christian colleges flourish in distance learning environment
6.15.10 - The question facing universities looking to compete in the booming market for online higher education is not so much how to do it, but how to distinguish themselves from the rest. In this, Christian universities appear to have a built-in advantage. And many are seizing the opportunity to expand their footprint.

Commentaries

An Interview with Professor Don Elder: Space History
6.15.10 - Michael F. Shaughnessy - When I was appointed, I received a copy of the mission statement. It reads "The mission of the New Mexico Museum of Space History Commission is to provide direction, advice, and support to the Director of the Museum in the maintenance and operation of the Museum and its activities.
An Interview with Jesse Ray Breedlove: Keep Right- Keep Safe-Keep Cautious
6.15.10 - Michael F.Shaughnessy - Seven years ago I started a public awareness campaign titled "California Keep Right". This was a result of growing frustration with motorists that drive slowly in the passing lanes. I knew there was a better way, a safer way.

EdNews Reports

Professional learning is not a quick fix
6.15.10 - When education leaders talk about turning around persistently low-performing schools, sooner or later the talk tums to what to do about low-performing teachers. Proposals for how to address this problem may include closing schools, dismissing or reassigning teachers and reopening the schools with a new, handpicked faculty.
Implementing common standards requires a commitment to PD
6.15.10 - Hayes Mizell - In this era of dissatisfaction with public education, there are many "big ideas" for reform. Some are intriguing but impractical; others are promising but fail to gain a constituency. And even worthy proposals that education leaders support may not survive the rigors of implementation.

DPS petition tactics decried | freep.com | Detroit Free Press

DPS petition tactics decried | freep.com | Detroit Free Press:

DPS petition tactics decried

Bid for Bing control called misleading

BY LORI HIGGINS
FREE PRESS EDUCATION WRITER

Groups opposed to an attempt to allow the mayor of Detroit to oversee Detroit PublicSchools said Monday that those gathering petitions in favor of the effort are being misleading in their approach.

"This whole endeavor has been a fraud from start to finish," said Shanta Driver, national chairwoman of By Any Means Necessary (BAMN), an activist group.

It is unclear who is heading the petition drive to allow Detroit residents to vote on the issue this year. But Driver said residents are being coerced into signing the petitions by people telling them that the effort will keep Detroit schools open or that the move is supported by a school board member.

BAMN; AFSCME Local 207; Defend Public Education/Save our Students, a caucus of the Detroit Federation of Teachers, and the Detroit Board of Education held a news conference Monday in which Driver pledged to combat the alleged deceptive practices by challenging the petitions and ensuring that people who believe they were misled can have their names removed from the petitions.

Driver said the petition seekers are lying to Detroit residents because they know Detroit

Database: Top to Bottom School Rankings

BY KRISTI TANNER-WHITE AND PEGGY WALSH-SARNECKI
FREE PRESS STAFF WRITERS

Search this database to find statewide achievement and academic growth rankings among Michigan schools. Rankings are based on test results for math and English language arts on the Michigan Educational Assessment Program (MEAP) for elementary/middle school students and the Michigan Merit Examination (MME) for high school students 2007-2009. The ranking gives the percentage of schools in the state that had lower achievement/improvement.

Among the 108 schools eligible to apply for federal School Improvement grants, rankings ranged from the bottom 0.1% - 12.9%, with two exceptions. Kettering West Wing and Cooley North Wing, high schools in the Detroit Public Schools district, had rankings of 99.9%. A graduation rate of less than 60% for three years running qualified them as grant eligible schools.

The state Department of Education will have a revised list out in September, based on 2008-2010 data, of the lowest performing 5% of schools.

More teachers could be cut without "BP bill" | NBC13.com

More teachers could be cut without “BP bill”

Jefferson County, Ala.(WVTM)—-Last week, State Superintendent Dr. Joseph Morton made that pronouncement and this week he is taking that message to national audiences on national networks.

If BP doesn’t reimburse the State Education Department for lost revenues, more cuts may be on the horizon. That’s according to the head of the largest school district in Central Alabama.

Jefferson County School Superintendent, Dr. Phil Hammonds said, “As bad as things have been, this was the last thing we needed.“

Dr. Hammonds reference to “this” - is the oil spill off the gulf coast. It’s having a negative effect on tourism, sending sales tax collections way down for the state. That bottom line will hurt school districts, due to the way public education is funded in Alabama.

Dr. Hammonds said, “If people are going to not be employed because of people not spending money that then that hurts two of our major sources of funding for public education.“

Ten different taxes support the Education Trust Fund or ETF. Sales and income taxes are the two main sources. With just 3-1/2 months left in this fiscal year, if there aren’t enough taxes collected to fund education that poses the risk of further across the board budget cuts or what’s called

Christie's school-aid freeze was legal, court says | Philadelphia Inquirer | 06/15/2010

Christie's school-aid freeze was legal, court says

By Adrienne Lu

Inquirer Trenton Bureau

TRENTON - Gov. Christie acted within his authority when he froze $475 million in state aid to schools to close a $2.2 billion budget deficit, a state appellate court ruled Monday.
The Perth Amboy Board of Education lost more than $15 million as a result of Christie's order to withhold state funding for the remainder of the current fiscal year, which ends June 30. Christie directed the state to withhold an amount equal to the "excess surplus" for each school district.
Excess surplus is defined as surplus exceeding 2 percent of a district's operating budget; by law, districts are supposed to use their excess surplus to provide tax relief.
Christie said that because he cut aid the way he did, no programs would have to be cut in the current fiscal year.
Perth Amboy officials argued that Christie violated the constitutional principle of separation of powers because under the state statutes, excess surplus is to be appropriated to the school district's subsequent fiscal year's budget.
The three-judge panel ruled that under state law, the state education commissioner "is granted broad powers to direct expenditures to meet [thorough and efficient] requirements as well as to address emergency circumstances."
"The Legislature clearly contemplated that situations may arise whereby a district will need to use its excess surplus for matters other than the next year's operating budget," the opinion continues. "In such cases . . . the commissioner has the power to approve the transfer of those funds to operating costs for the current school year to ensure that a school district provides a [thorough and efficient] education."

Read more: http://www.philly.com/inquirer/local/20100615_Christie_s_school-aid_freeze_was_legal__court_says.html#ixzz0qvM2pRpx
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The Associated Press: Microsoft's Philly high school traveled rocky road

Microsoft's Philly high school traveled rocky road

By KATHY MATHESON (AP) – 1 hour ago

PHILADELPHIA — When the Microsoft-designed School of the Future opened, the facility was a paragon of contemporary architecture, with a green roof, light-filled corridors and the latest classroom technology, all housed in a dazzling white modern building.

It might as well have been a fishbowl: Educators and the media from around the world watched to see whether Microsoft could reform public education through innovation in technology.

Although the school's creative ambitions have been frustrated by high principal turnover, curriculum tensions and a student body unfamiliar with laptop computer culture, the school graduates its first senior class Tuesday with every graduate headed for an institution of higher learning.

"The first three years were definitely a challenge," said Mary Cullinane, Microsoft's liaison to the school. "They're hitting they're groove now. I'm excited to see what's in store."

From the beginning, everything about the $63 million School of the Future was designed to be different.

Built in the city's rough Parkside section with district money, the school partnered with Microsoft on new approaches to curriculum, instruction and hiring. It attracted reform-minded teachers and students bent on avoiding older high schools.

The vision was for a paperless, textbook-less school that embodied the motto "Continuous,

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