Sunday, January 2, 2011

Rhee taking agenda for D.C.-style education reform to national stage | Washington Examiner

Rhee taking agenda for D.C.-style education reform to national stage

By: Lisa Gartner 01/01/11 8:05 PM
Examiner Staff Writer

Michelle Rhee, the former city schools chancellor whose reforms polarized the District, is set to release her legislative agenda for education reform.-Andrew Harnik/Examiner

Michelle Rhee plans to release her legislative agenda for education reform early this week, but whether legislators will embrace the platform remains to be seen, analysts say.

"Whatever she releases will get attention," said Neal McCluskey, associate director of the Cato Institute's Center for Educational Freedom. "It's a lot harder to say whether it will have any on-the-ground traction as far as legislation passed."

Rhee, the former city schools chancellor whose reforms polarized the District, told

The Washington Examiner of her plans to create a national education platform through the nonprofit advocacy group she started earlier this month, StudentsFirst.

She described the agenda as "the gold standard of what the [educational] environment should look like, the laws that should be in existence, to really focus on the kids."

Rhee said she had spoken with governors -- some of whom had already indicated interest in adopting the platform -- as well as mayors and

School choice, but few real options

A lesson on the solar system at the Arts and Technology charter school in Northeast. (Jahi Chikwendiu/the Washington Post)

Naomi Rubin DeVeaux and Mark Schneider

Sunday, January 2, 2011

Every summer, an increasingly common event occurs across the nation - parents open a letter telling them that their child's school failed to meet benchmarks set by the federal No Child Left Behind law. As a result, the letter explains, they have the right to send their child to another public school if space is available.

The District is no stranger to this event. Some 39 percent of D.C. public school children attend independently run but publicly financed charter schools. About 30 percent more reject their neighborhood school to participate in the out-of-boundary program operated by D.C. public schools. So when parents with children in about 100 D.C. schools received this letter last year, you would think that they had plenty of good alternatives to their failing

Bad schools weaken national security - Press-Telegram

Bad schools weaken national security

Scripps Howard News Service

Posted: 01/01/2011 06:22:47 PM PST

Updated: 01/01/2011 09:54:19 PM PST

With the enactment of No Child Left Behind and the prevalence of accountability testing, the nation's public schools have been faulted for concentrating too much on basic skills. If so, this hasn't shown up in the quality of would-be military recruits.

A five-year study by an education advocacy group of 350,000 applicants who took the Army's entrance exam found that nearly one-fourth of them, all high school graduates ages 17-24, failed.

The test, the Armed Services Vocational Aptitude Battery, measures basic math, science and reading skills. The results are even more worrisome when you consider that 75 percent of those who applied to join the military didn't even qualify to take the test because they are physically

RSD schools expect little of students, and they get it: James Gill | NOLA.com

RSD schools expect little of students, and they get it: James Gill

Published: Sunday, January 02, 2011, 7:10 AM

By James Gill
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Public education in New Orleans may be much improved following the post-Katrina rush to charters, but a way will always be found to give poor black kids the shaft.

Lance Hill, director of the Southern Institute at Tulane, has been perhaps the most vociferous in denouncing the injustice done to students abandoned to the city's lousiest schools, while charters bask in plaudits.

G.W. Carver High would be high on any list of lousy schools, but that does not mean the kids there lack the will to succeed. Last year one third of them signed up for the advanced placement classes that provide college credits for those who pass the year-end exam.

Your heart must ache for the Carver kids, all of whom failed the exam, but educators quoted in the paper are made of sterner stuff. They pronounce advanced placement classes a success because they have apparently raised the kids' self-esteem. In case you don't understand how failure can do that, Carver Assistant Principal Toyia Washington explains, "They realized they were capable of

NYC Educator: Andy Cuomo Asserts His Values

Andy Cuomo Asserts His Values

by NYC Educator

Who's important in NY State? Millionaires, of course. Newly-placed Governor Andrew Cuomo has laid down the gauntlet. 900 people can lose their jobs, and that's OK with him. But it would be unacceptable to continue a tax on those making more than 200K per year. Apparently, it's alright for people to have no income whatsoever. But top earners aren't making enough for our new governor.

Incredibly, the 900 layoffs are said to face opposition from "special interests." The special interest, in this case, is working people interested in continuing as working people. Unions, says the article, refused to contribute 250 million

NYC Public School Parents: Be Like Shanghai? (Sorry, Mike)

Be Like Shanghai? (Sorry, Mike)

by Steve Koss

Nick Kristof does it, as does Thomas Friedman. So in his own uncritical way does Arne Duncan. And so do the many other media alarmists who accept at face value Shanghai city schools’ recent PISA results and use those scores to forecast a coming American apocalypse. They all see China as the world’s great education success story, the “model” for American education. But they really don’t have a clue.

The latest insult to American education just arrived this week in the form of a NY Times piece describing how those Shanghai schools are so successful because of their classroom discipline, thereby managing to conflate bad teaching, institutionalized fear of public shaming, and educational rigidity with good classroom management. Based on what I saw while teaching several years ago at the high school level in a

2010 in review « My Island View

2010 in review

by tomwhitby

The stats helper monkeys at WordPress.com mulled over how this blog did in 2010, and here’s a high level summary of its overall blog health:

Healthy blog!

The Blog-Health-o-Meter™ reads Wow.

Crunchy numbers

About 3 million people visit the Taj Mahal every year. This blog was viewed about 30,000 times in 2010. If it were the Taj Mahal, it would take about 4 days for that many people to see it.

In 2010, there were 48 new posts, not bad for the first year! There were 17

Thoughts on Teaching, 2001 | Larry Cuban on School Reform and Classroom Practice

Thoughts on Teaching, 2001

by larrycuban

In 2001, I retired from fulltime teaching and research at Stanford. The Dean invited me to give a talk to the graduates and their families that June. Here is an abridged version of what I said.

“I have thought a lot about the past 46 years I have spent in education. I have taught in urban high schools and Stanford for many years [in addition to being an administrator]. It is teaching–not administration or scholarship [however]–that has defined me as an adult….

Teaching has permitted me to be a lover of ideas, a performer, a lifelong learner, a historian, a writer, and a friend to former students and colleagues. For these reasons and because at this moment in our nation’s history teachers have moved to the top of the nation’s school reform agenda, I want to comment today on both the

Queens Teacher: Klein's True Accomplishments

Klein's True Accomplishments

by Queens Teacher

Great comment from nypost.com on Klein's accomplishments

Well let's look at this clown's true accomplishments.

1. The appointment of his first Deputy Chancellor for Instruction and then allowing her to impose discredited literacy and math programs and the fights over the requests of schools to be exempted from this madness.

2. The importation of Australian "experts" to try to work with American teachers on literacy.

3. The importation of English "experts" to impose asinine quality reviews on schools not having any idea of what makes an American

My blog: 2010 in review. « Fred Klonsky's blog

My blog: 2010 in review.

by Fred Klonsky

The stats helper monkeys at WordPress.com mulled over how this blog did in 2010, and here’s a high level summary of its overall blog health:

Healthy blog!

The Blog-Health-o-Meter™ reads Wow.

Crunchy numbers

The Louvre Museum has 8.5 million visitors per year. This blog was viewed

Saturday, January 1, 2011

Update: New Posts on Parents 4 democratic Schools

New Posts on Parents 4 democratic Schools

Parents 4 democratic Schools

From Principals, Ideas for New City Schools Chief - NYTimes.com

Chancellor Black: Please Consider This

Eric Michael Johnson for The New York Times

Clockwise from top left: Edward Tom, Bronx Center for Science and Mathematics; Maxine Nodel, Millennium Art Academy; Philip Weinberg, High School of Telecommunication Arts and Technology; Dr. Samona Tait, Bronx Preparatory Charter School; Dr. Gregory Hodge, Frederick Douglass Academy; Lisa Ripperger, Public School 234.

By ELISSA GOOTMAN

Published: December 31, 2010

REPRINTS

MONDAY is Cathleen P. Black’s first day of school — running them, that is. As Ms. Black, a longtime magazine executive, takes over as chancellor of the New York City school system, we asked some of the city’s most respected principals to give her some advice.

Times Topic: Cathleen P. Black

Many of those interviewed were sharply critical of the city’s formula for grading schools on a scale of A through F, and expressed hope that Ms. Black might steer the focus away from standardized tests. Others begged her to do more listening to parents, teachers and principals. One warning sign: several principals said they were afraid to be quoted. “She’s going to be

The Texas Tribune: Universities Are Challenged as Demographics Shift

by By REEVE HAMILTON and JON MARCUS

As the University of Texas has enrolled more minority students, pressure has emerged to make sure the college culture adjusts and to ensure they graduate on time.

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Sunday, January 2, 2011