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Wednesday, July 21, 2010

Merrick Academy workers get boot via FedEx amid contract dispute between school, union

Merrick Academy workers get boot via FedEx amid contract dispute between school, union

Merrick Academy workers get boot via FedEx amid contract dispute between school, union

BY CLARE TRAPASSO
DAILY NEWS WRITER

Wednesday, July 21st 2010, 4:00 AM

Merrick Academy fires nine staffers amid bitter contract dispute.
Pace for News
Merrick Academy fires nine staffers amid bitter contract dispute.

RELATED NEWS

A scandal-plagued Queens charter school fired at least nine teachers Tuesday - via FedEx, union officials said.

Some of the Merrick Academy staffers who got the boot are chalking it up to a bitter contract dispute between the school and unionized teachers.

"If the board of the Merrick charter school is firing teachers because of union activity, then we're going to take all legal action against them," said United Federation of Teachers President Michael Mulgrew.

Teachers at the Queens Village school voted to unionize in 2008 but they haven't reached


Read more: http://www.nydailynews.com/ny_local/education/2010/07/21/2010-07-21_disunion_as_9_teachers_fired.html?r=ny_local/education#ixzz0uJqQxfiF

High School teacher, who led kids on field trip to Cuba, wanted to see Fidel Castro one more time

BY MEREDITH KOLODNER
DAILY NEWS STAFF WRITER

RELATED NEWS

The Upper West Side high school teacher who took students on an unauthorized trip to Cuba three years ago wanted to "see Castro one more time before he died," according to a new report.

The office of the commissioner of investigation for city schools concluded that Beacon School history teacher Nathan Turner should remain ineligible to work i



Read more: http://www.nydailynews.com/ny_local/education/2010/07/21/2010-07-21_please_let_me_see_fidel_hs_teach_who_led_trip_to_cuba_a_castro_fan.html?r=ny_local/education#ixzz0uJqbMQU9
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D.C. and Massachusetts to vote on national school standards

D.C. and Massachusetts to vote on national school standards

D.C. and Massachusetts to vote on national school standards

by Nick Anderson

School boards in the District of Columbia and Massachusetts are on the verge of adopting national standards for English and math, adding momentum to a movement that in a few months has swept Maryland and two dozen other states.
The board votes scheduled Wednesday come as a new report finds that the "common core" standards backed by governors and state schools chiefs are more rigorous than what most states have expected from their students.
The report from the Thomas B. Fordham Institute, which advocates raising academic expectations, compared the proposal with the jumble of standards that have been in effect in 50 states and the District. It asserted that the proposed national standards are "clearly superior" to the math standards in 39 states -- including Virginia and Maryland -- and to the English-


Md. math, reading scores up, but unevenly


Test scores are up in Maryland schools, but not by much for those already doing poorly.
MORE ON EDUCATION





JAY MATHEWS
Class Struggle
What's Right and Wrong With Our Schools

Posted at 12:00 AM ET, 07/20/2010

Rare attack on Harlem Children's Zone

President Obama has requested $210 million to create programs similar to the Harlem Children's Zone throughout the country. That’s a lot of money, but how can anyone oppose prenatal care, parenting classes, fitness and nutrition programs for poor families, as well as the thriving charter schools Geoffrey Canada and his team have created? So it is hard to believe what I am seeing---a short paper from the prestigious Brookings Institution taking a shot at the Harlem Children’s Zone and its premier charter school, the Promise Academy.
State Superintendent of Schools Nancy S. Grasmick (Christopher T. Assaf -- AP)
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One in three California teens can't get a job | California Watch

One in three California teens can't get a job | California Watch

One in three California teens can't get a job

by Joanna Lin
Legislation to extend unemployment benefits overcame a Republican filibuster in the Senate yesterday, putting more than 400,000 Californians a step closer to having their benefits checks reinstated.
But suspended checks are only part of the state's unemployment woes: 34.5 percent of teen workers in the state were out of a job in June. That's compared to 25.7 percent of teens nationwide and is nearly three times higher than the state's overall unemployment rate.
Workers 16 to 19 years old face the highest rates of unemployment of any age group. Teen unemployment in

New financial agency could become trove of open records

by Agustin Armendariz
With the financial reform bill out of Congress and ready for President Barack Obama's signature, data nerds and financial watchdogs can look forward to a new source of public financial information – the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau.
The newly minted legislation established the bureau as an executive agency under the umbrella of the Federal
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NASA scientists share analyses of watery moon - San Jose Mercury News

NASA scientists share analyses of watery moon - San Jose Mercury News

NASA scientists share analyses of watery moon

By Lisa M. Krieger
lkrieger@mercurynews.com
Posted: 07/20/2010 09:10:44 PM PDT
Updated: 07/20/2010 09:40:04 PM PDT




From last year's big kerplunk, scientists discovered water on the moon. Now nine months of analyses of our nearest celestial neighbor reveal new insights into where it may have come from — and where else it could be found.
It's in pockets, not vast oceans. It may have arrived via comets or asteroids, or it may have been created there.
At a technical gathering in Mountain View, NASA's LCROSS mission leader Anthony Colaprete and other scientists
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Mike Klonsky's SmallTalk Blog: In my mailbox

Mike Klonsky's SmallTalk Blog: In my mailbox

In my mailbox

by Mike Klonsky
Illinois Coalition for Immigrant and Refugee Rights

We need your help.

Today 20 courageous undocumented youth, including 9 from Chicago, are risking arrest and deportation to stage sit-ins at the Hart Senate Office Building in Washington D.C. in order to urge congressional leadership to win a path to citizenship through the DREAM Act, and to push


When will they stop caving in?

by Mike Klonsky
Shirley Sherrod, civil rights hero

This time around, even the NAACP "got snookered" by the racist FOX T-baggers. They admittedly conceded too much too fast and denouncedShirley Sherrod, who turns out to be a civil rights hero. This should be a lesson for the Obama administration which seems to jump every time right-
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Tuesday, July 20, 2010

States Embrace National Standards for Schools - NYTimes.com

States Embrace National Standards for Schools - NYTimes.com

States Embrace National Standards for Schools


Doug Mills/The New York Times
President Obama with Arne Duncan, the secretary of education, last month in Michigan.

By TAMAR LEWIN

Published: July 21, 2010

RelatedLess than two months after the nation’s governors and state school chiefs released their final recommendations for national education standards, 27 states have adopted them and about a dozen more are expected to do so in the next two weeks.

Will National Standards Improve Schools

The pros and cons of setting a federal norm for what children should know.

Their support has surprised many in education circles, given states’ long





A Leader’s Record at a Brooklyn School: Increased Stability, but Also Controversy

By JENNY ANDERSON
Some families and teachers from the private St. Ann’s School, known for its unconventional approach to academics, said that changing leadership changed its personality.

State’s Exams Became Easier to Pass, Education Officials Say

By JENNIFER MEDINA
Officials said that state standardized exams had become easier to pass and that they would recalibrate scoring.
ON EDUCATION
Joyce Irvine was removed July 1 as principal of Wheeler Elementary in Burlington, Vt., to comply with rules allowing the district to seek stimulus funds.

A Popular Principal, Wounded by Government’s Good Intentions

By MICHAEL WINERIP
At Wheeler Elementary in Burlington, Vt., a highly regarded principal has been removed so the district can qualify for millions in stimulus dollars.


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