Education Week: Texas Schools Paying for Tutors With Mixed Track Record

Education Week: Texas Schools Paying for Tutors With Mixed Track Record

Texas Schools Paying for Tutors With Mixed Track Record

With millions spent, Texas educators question benefits of federal law.

By Ericka Mellon, Houston Chronicle (MCT)

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School districts across Texas are paying tens of millions of taxpayer dollars for private tutoring that has a mixed track record of improving student test scores.

Even districts that want to stop footing the bill to ineffective providers are not allowed. The No Child Left Behind law guarantees free tutoring to low-income students who attend schools that repeatedly miss federal academic targets. Parents get to pick the tutoring provider from a state-approved list that has grown to more than 200 for-profit and nonprofit entities.

Since the law went into effect in 2002, Texas has never removed a provider from its list

Money aplenty, but where are the real turnaround experts? | Philadelphia Public School Notebook

Money aplenty, but where are the real turnaround experts? | Philadelphia Public School Notebook

Money aplenty, but where are the real turnaround experts?

by Erika Owens on Aug 09 2010

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• contracting out
• Obama administration

With billions flowing to school turnaroundefforts, the New York Times finds that numerous companies with little or no experience are going after turnaround contracts.

Tim Cawley, a managing director at the Academy for Urban School Leadership, says that intensive turnaround requires "extreme reset," but many of these companies tinker around the edges. AUSL works in Chicago,

Suit seeks testing of kids at West Virginia school - Boston.com

Suit seeks testing of kids at West Virginia school - Boston.com

Suit seeks testing of kids at West Virginia school

By Vicki Smith

Associated Press Writer / August 9, 2010

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MORGANTOWN, W.Va.—A Raleigh County, W.Va., judge will hold a hearing later this month on a medical monitoring lawsuit claiming hundreds of children were exposed to toxic coal dust from a Massey Energy Co. processing plant and silo next to Marsh Fork Elementary School.

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Williamson attorney Kevin Thompson is suing Virginia-based Massey and three subsidiaries over alleged exposure from the silo that sits about 235 feet from the school near Sundial.

Judge Harry L. Kirkpatrick III granted class-action status to the case in December, but it fell into limbo because his ruling went to an incorrect address and was returned to the courthouse in Beckley.

LATEST EDUCATION NEWS WIRE UPDATES

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LATEST K-12 EDUCATION NEWS

• Suit seeks testing of kids at West Virginia school (AP, 10:54 a.m.)
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• Nun's death rallies anti-immigration forces (AP, 8/8/10)
• MALDEN School not forthright with payroll (Boston Globe, 8/7/10)

LATEST HIGHER EDUCATION NEWS

• Obama on the road to promote higher-ed, raise cash(AP, 2:50 p.m.)
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School Tech Connect: Yong Zhao Explains China's Secret Plan...

School Tech Connect: Yong Zhao Explains China's Secret Plan...

Yong Zhao Explains China's Secret Plan...

by effacethefacade@yahoo.com (Tim)

...which is, they're trying adopt the decentralized education system we're so anxious to shed.

Popout
Yong Zhao: No Child Left Behind and Global Competitiveness from TFT on Vimeo.

National standards, national curriculum, centralization, authoritarianism, emphasis on tests... it's all preparing us

57 schools get money to pilot 'weighted student funding' | Philadelphia Public School Notebook

57 schools get money to pilot 'weighted student funding' | Philadelphia Public School Notebook

57 schools get money to pilot 'weighted student funding'

by Jamie Raver

Sidebar Article:

No

Featured Title:

From the Summer edition

Author:

by Dale Mezzacappa

The School District has begun a pilot project in which 57 schools are testing parts of a system called “weighted student funding” (WSF) that would significantly change how resources are allocated to schools and how spending decisions are made.
Under WSF, funds are allotted to schools based on students’ needs, with weights given to factors such as poverty and English-language proficiency, rather than allocating each school a set number of teachers and other staff based on enrollment. In addition, school teams are actively involved in deciding how the money is spent.
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NYC Public School Parents: The tangled web of influence behind Klein's decision to allow the expansion of Girls Prep charter to go forward

NYC Public School Parents

Independent voices of New York City public school parents

NYC Public School Parents: The tangled web of influence behind Klein's decision to allow the expansion of Girls Prep charter to go forward

The tangled web of influence behind Klein's decision to allow the expansion of Girls Prep charter to go forward

by Leonie Haimson

Last week, Joel Klein disclosed he would invoke “emergency powers” to enable Girls Prep Charter School to expand within PS 94, even as it pushes out a program for autistic kids, contrary to theruling of the NY State Education commissioner, David Steiner.

Steiner had held that Klein's actions violated state law, as Klein had refused to recognize that the autistic program was a school, any change to which required a public process occur beforehand,

Eduwonk � Blog Archive � Show Me The Money

Eduwonk � Blog Archive � Show Me The Money

Show Me The Money

by smead

Guest post by Jim Ryan

Thanks to Andy for inviting me to guest blog. I haven’t blogged much at all, so I apologize in advance if I’m lousy at it. I’m a law professor at the University of Virginia, and I write and teach about law and education. I recently finished a book, which will be published this week by Oxford University Press, which I may talk about later this week. For the first couple of days, though, I want to raise some questions that have puzzled me. I’m hoping readers will have answers.
A front page story in the NYT on July 27 described the recent findings of some education economists regarding the impact of good kindergarten teachers on their students over the long haul. The headline of the article says it all: “The Case for $320,000 Kindergarten Teachers.” The researchers estimated that this was the present value

Ouch! Deceptive Practices Found At Kaplan, Inc., A Washington Post Company - THE DAILY RIFF - Be Smarter. About Education.

Ouch! Deceptive Practices Found At Kaplan, Inc., A Washington Post Company - THE DAILY RIFF - Be Smarter. About Education.

Ouch! Deceptive Practices Found At Kaplan, Inc., A Washington Post Company

Yet another reason to to be smarter about education.

The New York Times reports:

"The Washington Post Company's Kaplan Inc. unit suspended enrollment on Friday at its campuses in Pembroke Pines, Fla., and Riverside, Calif., where undercover investigators for the Government Accountability Office found deceptive practices by admissions officials.

At a Senate hearing on Wednesday on recruitment at for-profit colleges, a G.A.O. report, accompanied by videos, described deceptive or fraudulent

National Journal Online -- Education Experts -- Is Administration Moving The Ball With Innovation?

National Journal Online -- Education Experts -- Is Administration Moving The Ball With Innovation?

Is Administration Moving The Ball With Innovation?

Over the next couple of years, roughly a billion dollars will be spent on innovation in education through federal grants and private initiatives. A significant chunk of that money, $650 million, will be distributed to the 49 winners of the Investing In Innovation (i3) competition announced last week. Some education analysts -- Rick Hess, Tom Vander Ark,Alexander Russo and others -- posit that the competition, as evidenced by the winners, is really rewarding best practices and credibility, as opposed to innovative or transformational education practices.

With the i3 program, has the administration invested enough in proposals that bring truly innovative practices to the education system? Is America doing enough to leverage the benefits of modern technology in the education sector?

-- Eliza Krigman, NationalJournal.com

Frederick M. Hess responded to Is Administration Moving The Ball With Innovation? on August 9, 2010 10:02 AM

It's the Name That's the Problem In terms of execution and track record, the list of i3 winners is a pretty solid lineup-- especially compared to what usually gets funded in eduation. And, pound-for-pound, the $650 million for i3 is likely to do far more good than is the $4.35 billion for Race to the Top or the tens of billions showered upon K-12 through ARRA and edujobs. The problem is really with the branding. i3 should've been called "Nonprofit and District Stuff That Seems to Work." After all, by narrowly drawing rules of evidence, emphasizing models that plug cleanly into conventional classroom-school-district structures, and stiff-arming for-profits, Congress and ED pretty much barred the door against potentially transformational "innovations". This matters because...

Diane Ravitch responded to Is Administration Moving The Ball With Innovation? on August 9, 2010 10:14 AM

The Fruitless Search for Innovation American education has been chasing innovation for over 100 years, when it should have been pursuing systemic improvements that would reshape the essentials of education: curriculum, instruction, and assessment. The first Bush administration, in which I served, launched a competition for "new American schools," which was supposed to jumpstart innovation. Nothing got a jumpstart except for various winners' bank accounts. That was almost 20 years ago. The history of education-in-search-of-innovation is a story of big ideas, big egos, and no results. We are looking for change in all the wrong places. It...

Chester E. Finn, Jr. responded to Is Administration Moving The Ball With Innovation? on August 9, 2010 10:15 AM

New American Schools All Over Again This week I'm quoting Mike Petrilli (in part quoting me!) from Fordham's Flypaper blog a few days back: Alexander Russo nailed it this morning* when he wrote that “old school reforms win big in i3.” Indeed. What hit me when I saw the list of winners–especially the groups that brought home the big bucks–was that this is New American Schools all over again. "Can you have a revolution via an RFP process?" Remember that initiative from the 1990s? (If not, read this excellent Jeffrey Mirel history, published by Fordham in 2001.) Here’s what Checker...

Tom Vander Ark responded to Is Administration Moving The Ball With Innovation? on August 9, 2010 12:17 PM

iPad more innovation than i3 The i3 program funded credible scaling efforts that will make incremental improvements to traditional schools—solid investments but not innovation. Optimizing the current system will not reach all students; it won’t close the achievement, teacher, or funding gap; and will cost more money. Innovation is more likely to come from outside the system—from gaming, social networking, informal learning, tutoring, or military training—than through grants to school districts. We’re more likely to spot the potential for innovation watching developments with iPad than i3; watching TechCrunch more than Ed.gov; watching NEA.com more than NEA.org. Other than Ed.gov, every other...

Mike Klonsky's SmallTalk Blog: Look Ma, I'm a turnaround expert!

Mike Klonsky's SmallTalk Blog: Look Ma, I'm a turnaround expert!

Look Ma, I'm a turnaround expert!

by Mike Klonsky

With the Obama administration pouring billions into its nationwide campaign to overhaul failing schools, dozens of companies with little or no experience are portraying themselves as school turnaround experts as they compete for the money.(NY Times)

Mr. Duncan helped trigger the stampede in a June 2009 speech, saying that only