Tuesday, June 22, 2010

Governor orders state agencies to cut budgets by 9 percent | OregonLive.com

Governor orders state agencies to cut budgets by 9 percent

Published: Tuesday, June 22, 2010, 1:30 PM Updated: Tuesday, June 22, 2010, 4:01 PM

Michelle Cole, The Oregonian
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Governor Kulongoski's Final Legislative Session

Michael Lloyd/The OregonianOregon Gov. Ted Kulongoski ordered state agencies to cut their budgets by 9 percent. The reductions are needed to close a $577 million gap in state's 2009-2011 budget.

Oregon Gov. Ted Kulongoski today ordered state agencies to cut their budgets by 9 percent.

The order was expected, though there was some uncertainty whether the governor would opt for phased in cuts or opt for all 9 percent. The reductions became necessary to close a $577 million gap in state's 2009-2011 budget.

"With limited options to balance the budget, and growing uncertainty about federal assistance, the longer we wait to implement these reductions, the deeper the cuts will have to be to bring the budget into balance," Kulongoski said in a news release.

It means school districts must find $250 million in savings. The Department of Human Services must cut $158 million from programs that help the poor, aged and disabled.

The cuts will bring some state worker layoffs, though the exact number is still unclear.

Some state agencies will get away without making deep cuts.

Earlier this month the Department of Corrections proposed closing three state prisons and freeing nearly 1,000 inmates on its cuts list. It doesn't look like that will happen as state leaders are

Your comments: High school redesign, girls and boys, Lukus Glenn lawsuit

By The Oregonian

June 22, 2010, 11:55AM

Opinions? Readers have them on stories as varied as the future plans for Portland high schools to the science behind girls living longer than boys. Full story »

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Merit Pay Studies | Larry Ferlazzo's Websites of the Day...

Merit Pay Studies

by Larry Ferlazzo

1 person liked this

Regular readers know I’m not a supporter of merit pay for teachers. The best piece I’ve seen outlining the reasons why it isn’t a good idea is a short piece titled What’s Wrong With Merit Pay by Diana Ravitch.
A new, short, report has just been published by the Education Commission of the States examining several studies on merit pay. How do they analyze them?

Avoiding Goal-Setting Problems — In The Classroom & In Education Policy

by Larry Ferlazzo

1 person liked this

Goal Setting – Pitfalls and Benefits is a useful post about goal-setting issues. It has a couple of good links within the article itself, as well.
The article, and its links, are primarily focused on goal-setting in a business environment, but a number of the points raised can be useful to educators — both in the classroom and in thinking about broader education policy.
As regular readers know, I use goal-setting a lot with my students, and you can read more about how I do so in

The History Makers Digital Archive Is Pretty Impressive

by Larry Ferlazzo

The History Makers Digital Archive is a collection of video interviews with 400 African Americans, including Barack Obama and other well-known figures.
That’s nice, but how their presented is what makes this site extraordinarily impressive. Here’s how they describe it:
As a registered user of the new web-based archive, you will be able to:
* Search the spoken text of over 900 hours of video divided into

The Quick and the Ed ‘Mixed Results’ on DC Vouchers

The Quick and the Ed

QUICK Hits [image: Quick Hits] *Quick Hits is a short compilation of question-raising news stories, blog posts, and video clips that Education Sector team members are reading and viewing each day.* - Will technology “rebundle” liberal education in ...

‘Mixed Results’ on DC Vouchers At 3:30pm today, IES released results from the final evaluation of the DC Opportunity Scholarship Program, a.k.a DC vouchers. And in the grand tradition of education research, the results are “mixed”. Researchers found no statistically significant ...

Postmodern Bad Journalism Bill Turque’s *Washington Post *write-up of a new study of KIPP begins as follows: Middle school students in the Knowledge Is Power Program, a charter school network with a major footprint in the District and other cities, significantly outperform ...

Contrary to Popular Belief, College Sports Teams Lose Money

Transparency Watch: Fountain of 'i3' Data Now Online - Politics K-12 - Education Week

Transparency Watch: Fountain of 'i3' Data Now Online

by Michele McNeil

The Education Department has made good on promises to disclose more data on the 1,600-plus applicants for the $650 million Investing in Innovation, or i3, fund.
Officials have created a user-friendly Web portral that allows you to splice the information apart in dozens of ways. You can examine the data by geography, and figure out where the biggest—or smallest—concentrations of potential winners are located. You can see who applied for each tier of grants, how much money they want, and who their budget partners are. You can examine the applications by type of applicant, which allows you to see which school districts, nonprofits, and others are vying for this money.
I've complained before about the Education Department's difficult-to-navigate web site, and so I want to be among the first to cheer them on when they make data available in a particularly user-friendly sort of way.
The next question is whether the department has figured out when and how to make the contents of th

Local News | Marysville School Board member asked to resign over e-mail | Seattle Times Newspaper

Marysville School Board member asked to resign over e-mail

To the wild cheers of a packed house, four members of the Marysville School board voted Monday night to request the resignation of the fifth member, Michael Kundu.

By Carly Flandro

Seattle Times staff reporter

Michael Kundu

To the wild cheers of a packed house, four members of the Marysville School Board voted Monday night to request the resignation of the fifth member, Michael Kundu.

Kundu came under fire for a June 3 e-mail that suggested different races have different brains sizes and intellectual capacities.

It was sent to other members of the board after a discussion about how to bridge the achievement gap among different ethnic groups.

In Maryland for his job with the Federal Emergency Management Agency, Kundu missed the meeting.

After the vote, board member Chris Nation said Kundu's remarks were "truly not representative of the board."

The board believes every child can succeed, he said.

Nearly all seats at the meeting were filled, mostly with citizens wanting to voice opinions before the board voted.

Calista Phair, wearing a tiara and a "Miss Black Washington USA 2010" sash, was among the first to speak.

"How dare you insult my race," Phair said, listing achievements by various black individuals. "That doesn't

Houston's willingness to remove teachers in low-performing schools | THE EDUCATION FRONT Blog | dallasnews.com

Houston's willingness to remove teachers in low-performing schools

by William McKenzie/ Editorial Columnist

The Dallas ISD blog has linked to a significant story from KHOU-TV in Houston. According to the report, the Houston ISD has replaced 162 teachers who were in low performing schools. Some will be assigned to other schools, while others will retire.
There are two ways to look at this news. You can look at it through the eyes of the teachers. Or you can view it from the perspective of the students.
I understand why some approach this issue from the viewpoint of the teachers. Some folks may end up retiring early or leave a school they like. And some will argue that it's too complex to evaluate teachers based upon

"Let's Raise Our Kids To Be Entrepreneurs" - THE DAILY RIFF - Be Smarter. About Education.

"Let's Raise Our Kids To Be Entrepreneurs"

"We're Giving Them Ritalin & Saying To Them:
Don't Be An Entrepreneur Type,
Fit Into This Other System And Become A Student"

Video Below

By C.J. Westerberg

Cameron Herold is an entrepreneur and proud of it. He also did not do well in school for a variety of reasons with the main one being how his ADHD manifestations were at odds with the expectations of the school "system".

We really think this TED video has some powerful messages that parents and educators may find both enlightening and disturbing on various levels. Our rush to have kids fit into the increasingly standardized-tested-mold presently heralded by our education system is NOT the best plan for the interests and future success of many of our most talented children. There are unique strengths, interests and talents where one size does not fit all.

Herold points out how entrepreneurship is often viewed by education elites outside the purview of education. He asks parents and teachers to be able to "find these kids with entrepreneurial traits" and to help "foster this talent". If one realizes that our country's economic health is driven by small business owners with the majority share of total jobs and revenue coming from small businesses, we may reconsider the short shrift given to the premise of entrepreneurism. (Small businesses may grow to much bigger ones, some not. Yet most all

Schools Matter: Global Actions Against Commercialism in Education

Global Actions Against Commercialism in Education

by Jim Horn

"Global Wave of Action for Education"

[October – November 2010]

During one of the last international chat meetings [March 7th] of the „International Student Movement“, which was attended by activists in Sierra Leone, the U.S. of A., Italy, Germany,

California Needs a Family Recovery Budget | California Progress Report

California Needs a Family Recovery Budget

by christine

By Leticia Alejandrez
This month, I spoke up for the California Dream. The organization I lead, the California Family Resource Association, joined nearly 120 statewide and local organizations in calling for a Family Recovery Budget to help all families, our economy, and State get back on track after this great recession. We all oppose the Governor’s devastating May Revise budget, which includes only cuts to the very jobs and investments that built California families and communities, while simultaneously failing to provide a balanced, common-sense solution to the state’s multi-billion dollar budget woes.
read more

The Economic Madness Of Cutting Pension Benefits

by christine

By Robert Cruickshank
As pension reform heats up, both here in California and in Congress, it's important to understand the underlying economic context - and why slashing benefits would be a stunning act of madness, likely to prolong our recession and budget problems instead of solving either one, at the expense of our basic standard of living.
We live in an economic era characterized by too much debt, itself a symptom of low wages and high costs of living. Although much of our media discussion of economic policy is still locked in the 1970s, obsessed with an obsolete worry about inflation, the reality is that households are not making enough money to pay the costs of living in 21st century California.
read more

The Education Report Budget breakdown for Oakland schools

The Education Report

Budget breakdown for Oakland schools

By Katy Murphy
Tuesday, June 22nd, 2010 at 7:31 am in School board news, adult education,budget, students, teachers
2 Comments »

Image from batega's photostream at flickr.com/creativecommons

The Oakland school board will be asked on Wednesday to pass a budget with 505 fewer full-time positions (about 10 percent) and deep reductions in almost every department and program, particularly adult education and early childhood education.

Read the rest of this entry »

Puerto Rico Students Approve Strike Settlement � Student Activism

Puerto Rico Students Approve Strike Settlement

by Angus Johnston

Students from the University of Puerto Rico have ratified an agreement to end the strike that shut ten of UPR’s eleven campuses for nearly two months.
Some three thousand students met yesterday to approve the agreement in a mass meeting. They also voted to call another strike in January if the administration fails to keep its end of the deal or attempts to impose new fees.

Cool Cat Teacher Blog: Google Docs Upgrade Hits: 7 Things I Noticed in the First 15 minutes

Google Docs Upgrade Hits: 7 Things I Noticed in the First 15 minutes

by coolcatteacher@gmail.com (Victoria A Davis, Cool Cat Teacher)

1 person liked this

OK, Julie and I have a monstrous deadline tomorrow and I've just given you a sneak peak. Well, not

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Tuesday, June 22, 2010