Report calls attention to achievement gap between black and white male students

Report calls attention to achievement gap between black and white male students

TOOLBOX Resize Print E-mail Yahoo! Buzz Reprints COMMENT 2 Comments | View All » POST A COMMENT You must be logged in to leave a comment.Log in | Register Why Do I Have to Log In Again? Discussion Policy

By Nick Anderson

Washington Post Staff Writer
Tuesday, November 9, 2010; 10:57 AM

Black male students trail their white counterparts in school by alarming margins and for reasons that often are not well understood, according to a report released Tuesday.

The report from the Council of the Great City Schools, an advocacy organization for urban education, suggests that poverty is not the only factor behind the black-white achievement gap.

Federal test data show that white male students nationwide who come from families poor enough to qualify for free or reduced-price lunches outperform black males from large cities whose families are better off economically, according to the report.

The report analyzed fourth- and eighth-grade reading and math results from the 2009

Questions, answers about idea of Sacramento city-county consolidation - Sacramento City News - sacbee.com

Questions, answers about idea of Sacramento city-county consolidation - Sacramento City News - sacbee.com

Questions, answers about idea of Sacramento city-county consolidation

Share

By Ryan Lillis
rlillis@sacbee.com

Published: Tuesday, Nov. 9, 2010 - 12:00 am | Page 1A

Sacramento Mayor Kevin Johnson touched a nerve last week when he said he'd like to see a conversation take place over whether the city should merge with unincorporated areas of the county.

While stopping short of suggesting Sacramento embark upon its own manifest destiny, the timing of the mayor's remarks played a big role in the reaction.

Just two days earlier, voters in the unincorporated Arden Arcade community soundly defeated a measure proposing cityhood for that area of the county. The mayor said he was relieved with the result and said there could be advantages to having Arden Arcade fold into

Read more: http://www.sacbee.com/2010/11/09/3170198/questions-answers-about-idea-of.html#ixzz14nngZYV9

Your Teacher Training Program Sucks (Probably) - District 299: Chicago Public Schools Blog

Your Teacher Training Program Sucks (Probably) - District 299: Chicago Public Schools Blog

Your Teacher Training Program Sucks (Probably) [image: ScreenHunter_10 Nov. 09 07.51.gif] That's the conclusion of a new report that looked at the curriculum requirements and substance of area teacher preparation programs: Colleges blasted over teacher preparation; deans blast back Tribune: The ...

AM News: Charters And Struggling Students [image: Thumbnail image for Thumbnail image for news2.gif] Chicago charters schools struggle to hold onto weakest students WBEZ: Nobody told Alberto Rodriguez to leave his Noble Street charter school. Nobody had to. By the end of his freshman year, he ...

Schools Matter: Unpacking the Boston Globe's Definition of Charter School

Schools Matter: Unpacking the Boston Globe's Definition of Charter School

Unpacking the Boston Globe's Definition of Charter School

by Jim Horn

Ever since the corporate foundation tax havens and oligarchs like Eli Broad and Bill Gates have been pushing charter schools in Massachusetts, the Boston Globe has maintained its allegiance and dedication to charters in its editorializing and in its version of edu-reporting. As the broke little sister of the NYTimes, which shares the same enthusiasms for the nano-cultural, zero tolerance segregated penal model for schooling the urban poor, theGlobe functions as primary mass media face for what is most often a low-key approach to destroying public schools. Nary or scant the negative word for these bastions of choice, innovation, and freedom for my children, or at least the freedom for my housekeeper's children.


Here is the Globe's definition of charter school in its most recent revision of its revised history of charter schools:

Charter schools are public schools, funded with public tax dollars, which operate under fewer regulatory restrictions and are usually independent of school districts. Most do not have teachers [sic] unions. Admittance may be determined by lottery. Many supporters see charter schools as laboratories for educational innovation.

Let's take that apart and look a little closer at this compact and Cubberley-esque definition.

Charter schools are public schools, funded with public tax dollars, which operate under fewer

Adding a Bit More the Boston Globe's Definition of Charter School

by Jim Horn

Ever since the corporate foundation tax havens and oligarchs like Eli Broad and Bill Gates have been pushing charter schools in Massachusetts, the Boston Globe has maintained its allegiance and dedication to charters in its editorializing and in its version of edu-reporting.  As the broke little sister of the NYTimes, which shares the same enthusiasms for the nano-cultural, zero tolerance segregated penal model for schooling the urban poor, theGlobe functions as primary mass media face for what is most often a low-key approach to destroying public schools.  Nary or scant the negative word for these bastions of choice, innovation, and freedom for my children, or at least the freedom for my housekeeper's children.

Here is the Globe's definition of charter school in its most recent revision of its revised history of charter schools:

Charter schools are public schools, funded with public tax dollars, which operate under fewer regulatory restrictions and are usually independent of school districts. Most do not have teachers [sic] unions. Admittance may be determined by lottery. Many supporters see charter schools as laboratories for educational innovation.

Let's take that apart and look a little closer at this compact and Cubberley-esque definition.

Hard Choices Ahead for Florida over Class Size Limits - State EdWatch - Education Week

Hard Choices Ahead for Florida over Class Size Limits - State EdWatch - Education Week

Hard Choices Ahead for Florida over Class Size Limits

by Sean Cavanagh

A majority of Florida's voters in last Tuesday's election favored easing the state's class-size limits, but it wasn't enough. A proposed amendment to the state's constitution failed to muster the necessary 60 percent vote to win approval, and this will leave state and local officials with some tough decisions, going forward.

Floridians originally approved the class-size limits back in 2002, and they've been popular among teachers and, as the election tallies suggest, among the state's voters. The measure on last Tuesday's ballot—Amendment 8—would have relaxed the mandate, which is scheduled to become tougher this year.

Many of the state's superintendents had hoped to ease the class-size caps. Those rules have posed a major challenge to districts around the state, which have made it difficult in some school systems for students to take the classes they need, and have reportedly forced districts to use teachers to lead classes outside their subject

The Answer Sheet - Schools in a banana republic

The Answer Sheet - Schools in a banana republic

Schools in a banana republic

This was written by educator Anthony Cody. After 18 years as a science teacher in inner-city Oakland, he now works with a team of experienced science teacher-coaches who support the many novice teachers in his school district. He is a National Board-certified teacher and an active member of the Teacher Leaders Network. This appeared on his Teachers Magazine blog, Living in Dialogue. By Anthony Cody Nicholas Kristof of The New York Times this week described the economic state of the nation in rather stark terms. Due to the accelerated concentration of wealth, this country is in danger of becoming what is derisively termed a "banana republic." This term has been used to describe the Central American dictatorships such as Nicaragua and the Honduras, where a handful of families control the wealth, land and economy, while the poor barely get by. Kristof shared [these] statistics...: The richest 1 percent of Americans

What I Learned in New Orleans - Bridging Differences - Education Week

What I Learned in New Orleans - Bridging Differences - Education Week

What I Learned in New Orleans

by Diane Ravitch

Dear Deborah,

The elections brought a barrage of bad news for supporters of public education. A number of governors and legislators were elected who support the corporate reform model. They will promote vouchers, charters, merit pay, more testing, tougher accountability, evaluating teachers by test scores, and anything else that is guaranteed to cause dissension and demoralization among the men and women who work in our nation's public schools. It's sad for teachers and administrators and will be catastrophic for the quality of education. The new superintendent of schools in Oklahoma was the founder of two charter schools; in her campaign, she pledged to defend the rights of homeschooling parents and opposed additional funding for public schools. No nation in the world, at least none that we wish to emulate, is engaged in doing what our "leaders" are doing. I can't say where all this is going, but it doesn't look promising for those who care about our nation's children and the quality of education that we provide them.

As you know, I have been traveling constantly this fall, speaking to teachers, administrators, school board members, parents, and researchers. Wherever I go, I try to learn something new and not just hear myself talk.

Mike Klonsky: Glitter Falling off Mayoral Control of Schools in Chicago

Mike Klonsky: Glitter Falling off Mayoral Control of Schools in Chicago

Mike Klonsky

Education writer, blogger, ed activist

Posted: November 8, 2010 06:11 PM

BIOBecome a Fan

Get Email AlertsBloggers' Index

Glitter Falling off Mayoral Control of Schools in Chicago

What's Your Reaction:

Amazing
Inspiring
Funny
Scary
Hot
Crazy
Important
Weird

Read More: Arne Duncan , Chicago Public Schools , Mayor Daley , Mayoral Control , School Reform , Education News

5

15views

Get Education Alerts

• Email
• Comments 3

Fifteen years ago, Chicago was the first to do it -- turn control of its public schools over to an all-powerful mayor. Now the second city has become the nation's model for mayoral control, a model favored by the business community and the city's power philanthropists as their way of ensuring accountability over this $5 billion/a year enterprise called public schooling.

With mayoral control has come the business model, complete with the appointment of a CEO (what used to be called a superintendent) and a small, politically faithful and compliant school board

They want something? We get something. � Fred Klonsky's blog

They want something? We get something. � Fred Klonsky's blog

They want something? We get something.

NOVEMBER 9, 2010

tags: Alexi Giannoulias, Barack Obama, Bill Gates, Pat Quinn

by Fred Klonsky

There are two good posts I recommend in the education section of Huffington this morning.

The first is my brother’s column on mayoral control and the mess it has left A.D. (after Daley).

The other is by NY teacher Arthur Goldstein. Arthur goes after the usual suspects like Bill Gates and value added evaluations. But he does it from the powerful point of view you only get by working in a classroom.

Arthur ends by warning President Obama not to underestimate the power of the unions in 2012 and links to some electoral data from the election just past.

But I wonder.

The IEA endorsed Governor Quinn and Quinn won by 20,000 votes. The state’s unions spent millions on Quinn and it paid off. Barely.

They couldn’t