Saturday, July 10, 2010

Texas education round up: tests and charters | FRISCO Blog | dallasnews.com

Texas education round up: tests and charters

1:35 PM Fri, Jul 09, 2010 | Permalink
Jessica Meyers/Reporter

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( Life Charter School of Oak Cliff)

A few points of education interest for post-vacationers looking to catch up.

State Education Commissioner Robert Scott told administrators he might cut a provision that permitted schools to boost performance ratings last year by factoring in student's future performance on tests. Critics have questioned the accuracy of the policy, called the Texas Projection Measure. Read more from DMN's Terrence Stutz here.

Charter schools: Why the explosion? When do they work, why do they work and what's produced the controversy over them? DMN's Holly Hacker

Daley gets heat on pick for CPS education post :: CHICAGO SUN-TIMES :: Education

Daley gets heat on pick for CPS education post

Touts top aide, daughter's former principal, for job

Comments

July 10, 2010

BY FRAN SPIELMAN AND ROSALIND ROSSI Staff Reporters

Mayor Daley is encountering some resistance in his effort to make the founder and former principal of his daughter's Catholic elementary school the new chief education officer for the Chicago Public Schools, City Hall sources say.
If Mary Ellen Caron is tapped as chief education officer, she would be the first white and non-CPS educator to assume that post since Daley won control of the city's public schools in 1995.
Over the last 15 years, the top CPS education post has been held by three successive African-American women, all former CPS principals in a system that is 45 percent black, 41 percent Latino and 9 percent white.
Caron is the $147,060-a-year commissioner of the city's new mega-Department of Family and Support Services. Although she worked briefly in CPS as special assistant to then-schools CEO Arne Duncan, one CPS source said "the ideal candidate'' for chief ed officer under schools CEO Ron Huberman would be "a highly respected minority educator from within.''
To resolve the situation, sources said, one scenario is that the chief ed

Texas may eliminate provision that raises school accountability ratings EducationNews.org

EducationNews.org

Global | Science funding plans put on hold

EducationNewsToday | School cuts not 'easy' - Cameron

Wurman-Evers Cascading Plan for a Common Core Pathway to Algebra in 8th Grade

7.10.10 - Ze'ev Wurman & Bill Evers - The California Academic Content Standards Commission is

Full story

Texas may eliminate provision that raises school accountability ratings

7.10.10 - There goes the neighborhood! Soon Texas schools may not be able to use a provision that lets them earn higher accountability ratings than they would on student...

Full story

Daley gets heat on pick for CPS education post

7.10.10 - Mayor Daley is encountering some resistance in his effort to make the founder and former principal of his daughter's Catholic elementary school the new chief education...

Full story

The Medium Is the Medium

7.10.10 - Then the researchers, led by Richard Allington of the University of Tennessee, looked at those students’ test scores. They found that the students who

Transparency law for Texas professors sets off academic freedom debate

7.10.10 - A law requiring Texas' public colleges and universities to post detailed course information online

Texas may eliminate provision that raises school accountability ratings
7.10.10 - There goes the neighborhood! Soon Texas schools may not be able to use a provision that lets them earn higher accountability ratings than they would on student performance alone.

Daley gets heat on pick for CPS education post
7.10.10 - Mayor Daley is encountering some resistance in his effort to make the founder and former principal of his daughter's Catholic elementary school the new chief education officer for the Chicago Public Schools, City Hall sources say. If Mary Ellen Caron is tapped as chief education officer, she would be the first white and non-CPS educator to assume that post since Daley won control of the city's public schools in 1995. ...

The Medium Is the Medium
7.10.10 - Then the researchers, led by Richard Allington of the University of Tennessee, looked at those students' test scores. They found that the students who brought the books home had significantly higher reading scores than other students. These students were less affected by the "summer slide" - ...

What They're Doing After Harvard
7.10.10 - NAOMI SCHAEFER RILEY - Teach for America now attracts 12% of all Ivy League seniors. The program's founder explains why it beats working on Wall Street. In the spring of 1989 Wendy Kopp was a senior at Princeton University who had her sights set on being a New York City school teacher.

Commentaries

Texas Fails High School
As should be obvious, Texas is no place for a liberal education. But, with Thomas Jefferson and evolution in the cross-hairs, policymakers in the Lone Star State have overlooked a far more dangerous trend: the appalling high school dropout rate.

Conferring Privilege: DOJ, Law Schools, and the New Politics of Race
Peter Wood - On the 45th anniversary of affirmative action, a law school association is working against colorblindness. The resignation of career official J. Christian Adams from the Justice Department in protest over the Department's decision to dismiss its charges against the New Black Panther Party has put a spotlight on a legal theory that apparently has considerable support in the Obama administration. The

Encyclopedia of Sustainability, 4th Edition
Ashley Thorne - A 4th edition of the NAS 'sustainapedia' of the key names, terms, books, colleges, and organizations in the campus sustainability movement. ...

The Answer Sheet - College students hitting books less, study shows

College students hitting books less, study shows

Add this to the common lament that things aren’t the same as they used to be: College students are apparently not studying anywhere nearly as much as they used to.

How much less? According to two California economics researchers, a lot. The average college student at a four-year college in 1961 studied about 24 hours a week, while today’s average students studies for about 14 hours a week.

The study, called “Leisure College USA” and accepted to be published in the Review of Economics and Statistics, was conducted by Assistant Professor Philip Babcock of the University of California Santa Barbara, and Assistant Professor Mindy Marks of the University of California Riverside.

Babcock and Marks analyzed time-use surveys and concluded that the decline cuts across every demographic: A student’s gender, race, major, SAT scores, according to a story in the Boston Globe.

But lest you rush to the conclusion that the reason for the decline is connected to the rise of mass media and the many technological gadgets that can attract young people, consider that the researchers

Child Hit by Stray Bullet - Local News - Washington, DC - News - msnbc.com

Child Hit by Stray Bullet

by Tonya LaFleur and Darcy Spencer

NBCWashington.com

updated 1 hour 59 minutes ago

Playtime was interrupted for an 11-year-old D.C. girl Friday night with the graze of a bullet.

The shooting happened at about 9 p.m. in the 4900 block of Meade Street NE.

The girl was playing Wii video games with other children when a bullet whizzed through the home and struck her in the hand, according to the girls grandfather.

Police have no suspects in custody. They are searching for two men who fled the scene in dark clothing.

The girl was rushed to a local hospital. She is expected to survive.

Useful Story About Trying To Force Parents To Participate In Schools | Engaging Parents In School...

Useful Story About Trying To Force Parents To Participate In Schools

July 9th, 2010 by Larry Ferlazzo

With the on-going effort to force parents to be involved with schools or face punitive action, it was interesting today to read about an attempt two years ago in Washington, D.C. to require TANF (welfare) recipients to attend PTA and parent-teacher meetings.

Susie Cambria writes:

Welfare and education advocates alike educated the CM [Council Member] about the real reasons for poor parent engagement (including the failure of schools to make attempts to engage parents) and convinced him there was a better way to achieve the policy and practice goal.

One can only help that advocates can have similar luck in Detroit..

“Providence’s Bailey Elementary School combines education, community outreach”

by Larry Ferlazzo

I’ve previously written several posts about community schools. Typically, community schools are ones that host multiple social services, as well as regular school classes. Some of them, but I suspect not most, work with parents to design and structure their efforts. But even if they’re done through the lens of looking at parents as “clients” instead of “partners,” they are an honest effort at recognizing that schools need to be pro-active at

Update On Proposed Michigan Law To Jail Parents Who Don’t Attend Parent Conferences

by Larry Ferlazzo

Last month, I wrote about a Michigan prosecutor who had the ill-conceived notion of jailing parents who didn’t attend a teacher conference in their child’s school.

“Engaging Immigrant Parents”

How Not To Encourage Parent Engagement

“Shutting Out Parents: Obama’s Disappointing Blueprint for Reform”

Parent Engagement Interview

SUNY Donor Links Bigger Gift to Tuition Flexibility - NYTimes.com

Hiroko Masuike for The New York Times

James Simons wants each SUNY college to be allowed to set its own tuition, without legislative approval.

Major SUNY Donor Links an Even Bigger Gift to Flexibility on Setting Tuition

By NICHOLAS CONFESSORE

Gov. David Paterson has asked the Legislature to allow each college of the State University of New York to set its own charges.

Share of College Spending for Recreation Is Rising

By SAM DILLON

A new study documents a growing stratification of wealth across America’s system of higher education.

Kenneth E. Warner, the dean of the School of Public Health at the University of Michigan.

Goal for High School Smoking Is Unmet

By DUFF WILSON

A report calls for a resurgence of antismoking advertising to counter a marketing campaign by the tobacco industry.

“By the Numbers: Vuvuzela!” | Larry Ferlazzo's Websites of the Day...

“By the Numbers: Vuvuzela!” By the Numbers: Vuvuzela! is a fun infographic about the instrument that we hear blowing constantly during World Cup games. I’m adding it to The Best Sites For Learning About The World Cup.

When & Why Is It Important To Have Silence In The Classroom? I definitely don’t subscribe to the notion that students have to be silent in the classroom most of the time. Part of the reason is because we do lots of partner work. Another reason is because I subscribe to General Douglas McCarthur’s perspective ...

“Immigrant Conversations” Immigrant Conversations is a neat New York Times interactive that lets you leave comments (without having to register, it appears) on various elements of the immigration debate — education, Arizona’s law, border protection, immigration reform, etc. ...

CSUS seeks 10.8% cut in enrollment by fall 2011 - Sacramento News - Local and Breaking Sacramento News | Sacramento Bee

CSUS seeks 10.8% cut in enrollment by fall 2011

Published: 12:00 am

California State University, Sacramento, must reduce its enrollment by 10.8 percent by fall 2011.

County Board of Education elects new officers

Published: 12:00 am

The Sacramento County Board of Education has elected Harold Fong president.

Study: Lower dropout rates could boost local economy

Published: 12:00 am

Lowering the dropout rates of minority students in Sacramento would drive $223 million into the local economy through increased spending and home and car purchases, a study released Wednesday found.

Cool Cat Teacher Blog: The Disappearing (and Thriving) Brands in Education

The Disappearing (and Thriving) Brands in Education

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

Derek T's PhotoStream

A new list of the brands that may disappear in 2011 is circulating. On the list:

24/7 Wall St. has created a new list of brands that may disappear, which includes Readers Digest, Kia Motors, Dollar Thrifty (NYSE: DTG - News), Zale (NYSE: ZLC - News), Blockbuster

Work Flow Software: Clear the Fog of Tech Support with Fogbugz

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

Julie Lindsay and I have been testing a really cool automation tool for the back end of all of the Flat Classroom projects. From the book The 4-Hour Workweek, (a great book - not geared towards education, but many ideas for efficiency in there), I heard ofFogBugz and I must say I'm smitten.

This is a program that Timothy Ferris, author of the 4-Hour work week, uses to track email from his companies

Daily Education & Technology News for Schools 07/08/2010

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

1 person liked this

Blackboard To Buy Elluminate And Wimba For Total $116M - Tech Trader Daily - Barrons.com
Blackboard has bought Elluminate and Wimba. I hope that Blackboard will support the massive free efforts of elluminate to facilitate discussions. They have been a major sponsor of Flat Classroom projects as well. Julie Lindsay and I are meeting in Camilla this week to roll out plans for the year.

NorthJersey.com: Privatization Task force suggestions worry preschool backers

NorthJersey.com: Task force suggestions worry preschool backers

Public preschool advocates worry about N.J. Gov. Christie's task force on privatization recomm

Saturday, July 10, 2010
LAST UPDATED: SATURDAY JULY 10, 2010, 10:59 AM

BY LESLIE BRODY

THE RECORD

STAFF WRITER

Advocates for quality public preschools expressed grave concern and confusion Friday about the governor's new task force recommendations for New Jersey's youngest students.
Preschool advocates are worried that the recommendations, if enacted, would undermine an early childhood education system the state has spent more than a decade building in the wake of a court mandate to help at-risk children get ready for school.
Governor Christie's "privatization task force" released a report Friday urging him to stop building new pre-kindergarten facilities at public expense, allow more students in smaller classrooms, and require public preschools to charge fees that reflect the full cost of running their programs. Now, state-funded preschools don't charge tuition to low-income families.
Cecilia Zalkind, executive director of the Association for Children of New Jersey, said the report was "somewhat confusing" and that "there are some inaccuracies in the assumptions," such as its assertion that publicly funded preschools had no

Free Technology for Teachers: TED Talk - Life Science in Prison

TED Talk - Life Science in Prison

by noreply@blogger.com (Mr. Byrne)

In this short TED Talk Nalini Nadkarni challenges viewers to change the way they think about seemingly static objects like trees and prisons. What I took away from the talk was a reminder of how important physical and visual settings are on a person's psyche.

Applications for Education
I have a colleague who keeps live plants in his classroom. After watching this talk and reflecting on my

Life In A Day - A Cinematic Experiment

by noreply@blogger.com (Mr. Byrne)

Shared by

Life In A Day is an interesting project created by Oscar-winning director Kevin MacDonald and producer Ridley

School Clip Art - Hundreds of Free Files for Students

by noreply@blogger.com (Mr. Byrne)

1 person liked this

Shared by

School Clip Art is, as the name implies, a resource for locating free school-safe clip art. School Clip Art's galleries contain hundreds of files that teachers and students can use in slideshows, videos, and other