What a funny day.
Talk around the lunch room table was focused on Jay Cutler. The guy is so disliked that normally nurturing, loving teachers who would cry at the sight of a puppy dog were shrieking in anger. Even the news of a torn MCL brought no sympathy. This wasn’t just because of yesterday’s game. It came from a wellspring of suspicion
The cost of buying an Illinois appellate court judge must have gone up if Rahm’s $11M couldn’t do it.
SACRAMENTO — State Superintendent of Public Instruction Tom Torlakson today named Jeannie Oropeza, one of the state's leading experts on education finance, to the post of Deputy Superintendent of the Fiscal, Technology, and Administration Branch of the California Department of Education (CDE).
"No one knows the education budget and the fiscal emergency facing our schools after years of painful budget cuts better than Jeannie," Torlakson said. "Her knowledge and experience will be invaluable as we make our case, inside and outside the Capitol, that California must once again make investing in education a top priority."
Oropeza will replace Susan Lange, who is retiring after more than more than 25 years of outstanding service to the California Department of Education. Lange served in a wide variety of roles, including more than 14 years as Deputy Superintendent with CDE's Management Services Branch. She then served as Deputy Superintendent for the Fiscal, Technology, and Administration Branch since 1999.
Oropeza has been at the Department of Finance since 1992 and has worked for both Democratic and Republican administrations. She currently serves as Program Budget Manager of the Education Systems Unit (K–20). Oropeza also spent two years working in the Legislature, where she served as the Education Budget Consultant for K–12, Community Colleges, and Capital Outlay K-20 for the Assembly Budget Committee.
Torlakson also announced that Erin Gabel is joining CDE as Director of the Legislative Affairs and Fiscal Policy Division. Gabel previously served as Legislative Director and District Representative for Torlakson during his service in California's Assembly and Senate. Gabel is a former Deputy Chief of Staff to Contra Costa County Supervisor John Gioia. Gabel also was one of the founding staff members of the Bay Area Partnership for Children and Youth.
Also joining the Department's Legislative Affairs Division are Jeanice Warden-Washington, who formerly served as Legislative Director for Assembly member Wilmer Amina Carter; and Monique Ramos, who previously worked in the Assembly Speaker's Office of Member Services.
DEVELOPING: The Chicago News Cooperative is reporting that an Illinois Appellate Court has overturned a decision regarding Rahm Emanuel's Chicago residency. The court reportedly decided Emanuel is not eligible to run for mayor of Chicago because he has not been a resident of the city for one year.
More to come.
There’s a new book out called Academically Adrift: Limited Learning on College Campuses that got a lot of ink last week. It claims that only 55% of American college students improve their scores on a standardized test of critical thinking ability in their first two years of college, and that only 64% of students improve their scores on that test during their entire time as undergrads.
I haven’t read the book yet, so I can’t speak in too much detail about its contents, but a few things leap out from the coverage.
First, there’s the fact of what the study doesn’t measure. Because it’s based solely on performance on a generalized test, it tells us nothing about what students have learned in their own fields of study, a fact that many news stories on the book have failed to mention, or buried. (That misrepresentation began with the study’
I received an email today from my union Region Chair asking me for my t-shirt size.
I guess she’s ordering something
There's considerable speculation in Florida about whether new Gov. Rick Scott and state lawmakers will make a push for a major new voucher-type program, dubbed education savings accounts.
But even if the GOP-controlled legislature delivers a bill to Scott and he gives it his blessing, a voucher program might not yet be in the clear.
That's because the Florida Supreme Court in 2006 ruled unconstitutional the Opportunity Scholarship Program, which provided taxpayer funding to familes of students in poorly performing public schools to attend private schools. The court found that the program violated the constitution's provision that the state provide a "uniform" system of public education for schools.
Despite that ruling, Florida continues to offer vouchers to families of students with disabilities, and to low-income families through a corporate tax credit program. But the transition team for Scott, a Republican, recommended last month that all Florida families be given access to "education savings accounts," public money roughly equivalent to each student's per-pupil spending, to use as they see fit—including for a host of private school
And in the course of her school week, she knows she may be called on to administer medication to a child having a seizure or determine when it’s too cold outside for an asthmatic child to go out for recess.
That’s in addition to dispensing the usual daily round of prescription medications that a school full of children in varying degrees of ill health bring with them from home.
Oswald is not a nurse. She’s the school secretary at the 100-student Kit Carson School in the town of Kit
It sure looks that way, with news from the Texas Freedom Network reporting that the anti-evolution publisherFoundation for Thought and Ethics (FTE) will be submitting their own special brand of curriculum material to the Texas State Board of Education later this year.
FTE is best-known for their 'intelligent design' science textbook Of Pandas And People, which a federal judge ruled in 2005 could not be taught in public schools because it violated the Constitution. That landmark Dover,
INDIANAPOLIS—Principal Marcus Robinson strides down the hallway of Indianapolis’s Charles A. Tindley Accelerated School, past a wall that proclaims in huge letters “COLLEGE OR DIE.” His maroon polo shirt and khakis match the uniforms of middle-schoolers standing in line for the bathroom, their noses buried in books.
In a booming voice, Robinson praises them for their diligence and then continues with his rounds. He picks up pieces of trash, chastises students who are talking as they switch rooms, and singles out a girl for being too loud, telling her “I need your leadership.” Robinson’s tough-love, no-excuses approach is getting results: The
First Posted: 01/24/11 01:01 PM Updated: 01/24/11 01:01 PM