Friday, June 17, 2011

Billions v. Millions: New 501(c)(4) goes on the air against the NJEA | Strictly Politics

Billions v. Millions: New 501(c)(4) goes on the air against the NJEA

Posted on June 16, 2011 by Jane Roh

Updated.

The school choice movement in New Jersey is going pro.

Better Education for Kids (B4K), a new 501(c)(4), went on the air today with a $1 million Philly and NYC market TV ad campaign to counter the NJEA’s air war against Gov. Chris Christie’s reform agenda.

“President Obama supports education reform. Gov. Christie too,” the announcer says. “So why is the teachers union spending millions attacking Christie and bipartisan reformers?”

Hedge fund managers David Tepper, a Livingston Democrat, and Alan Fournier, a Republican, are the money behind B4K. The brains — and public education advocates aren’t going to like this — is Derrell Bradford, who left Newark-based E3 (Excellent Education for Everyone) last week to become B4K’s executive director.

“A day,” Bradford laughed when I asked how long B4K had been up and running.

Tepper and Fournier have given generously to a number of causes over the years. Asked what their interest in

The Executive Viewpoint: Department of Education says welcome back waivers - TheHill.com

The Executive Viewpoint: Department of Education says welcome back waivers

By Margaret Spellings - 06/16/11 06:28 PM ET

In the 1970s sitcom “Welcome Back, Kotter,” about a teacher who returns to his old high school to teach a group of kids who call themselves “sweat hogs,” character Vinnie Barbarino routinely brought in excuses for his absences. Read aloud by Mr. Kotter, they always concluded with: “Signed, Vinnie’s mother.”

With the Obama administration suggesting they will consider waiver requests if Congress doesn’t pass a reauthorization of the No Child Left Behind Act, I guarantee Vinnie’s mother will be signing a lot of notes to the Education Department this fall.

During my tenure at the helm of the Education Department, I received countless requests for waivers, many bordering on the ridiculous. Despite the law’s requirement that each state set targets and educate all of its students to grade level in reading and math by 2014 — a 12-year window in which to

U.S. Kids Not Making Grade For Physical Education: New CDC Report

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Main Category: Public Health
Article Date: 17 Jun 2011 - 8:00 PDT

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Did you know that there were actual physical activity guidelines? Well there is and in a new report this week released by the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), only a small percentage of youth have met the objective for aerobic and muscle-strengthening activities outlined in the Healthy People 2020 (HP 2020) physical activity guidelines.

The CDC evaluated data from the 2010 National Youth Physical Activity and Nutrition Study (NYPANS), a school-based study conducted by the CDC that included height and weight measurements, and a survey that measured physical activity and dietary behaviors among a nationally representative sample of students in grades nine to 12 to determine the proportion of U.S. youths who meet the HP 2020 objectives. The data revealed that 15.3% of students met the aerobic objective, 51% met the muscle-strengthening objective, and 12.2% met the objective for both. The data also

The Party Line - June 17, 2011
Noble Savages | MyFDL #nn11

The Party Line - June 17, 2011<br/>Noble Savages | MyFDL

The Party Line – June 17, 2011Noble Savages

by Gregg Levine

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Watch this episode at YouTube

This week, I am at Netroots Nation #6 in Minneapolis, and I had planned to bring you a video all about one of the themes I saw running through the first day of panels, speeches and briefings. . . I had planned to bring you video, but I am only here through Sunday and that is probably not enough time to upload my usual eight-or-so minutes because the speed of the internet connection here is pre-millennial. . . again.

This is actually another common theme, one that runs through pretty much every one of the NetNats I have attended. The internet is either not free, not fast, or both. I can remember running down to a lobby to get a

Retired Portland teacher Bill Bigelow gets Scholastic to stop sending schools a pro-coal industry pamphlet | OregonLive.com

Retired Portland teacher Bill Bigelow gets Scholastic to stop sending schools a pro-coal industry pamphlet

by Anne Laufe, Special to The Oregonian

Bill Bigelow is a soft-spoken man, most often dressed in blue jeans and a ball cap. He looks as if he'd be more at home bouncing a baby on his knee than battling the heads of a multinational corporation. But Bigelow, a retired Portland high school teacher and longtime Northeast Portland resident, is the man behind a movement that successfully lobbied Scholastic, the world's largest publisher of children's books, to stop distributing a pamphlet it had created for the American Coal Foundation.

Not Your Father’s EDU Conference « My Island View

Not Your Father’s EDU Conference

by tomwhitby

With a premiere Technology-in-Education Conference, ISTE11, coming in a matter of days, I find myself comparing the Education conferences of old to the social media-influenced Education conferences of today. There is a world of differences, but, unfortunately, many of these differences have yet to be discovered by educators who have failed to recognize the juggernaut of social media. For many years I was a board member of NYSCATE, an educational technology group for New York educators. A primary purpose of this group is to conduct an annual conference that draws thousands of educators in order to discuss technology in education. In addition to my participation in this conference, I have over the years presented in many others, both large and small.

A huge difference about today’s conferences is the connectedness of the participants. Educators through social media have been able to connect with other educators without regard to geographical boundaries. Many productive online relationships have continued over a period of time without actual face to face meetings. These conferences are an opportunity for face to face connections. That translates to more time for socialization for the participants. Plans and discussions have taken place weeks before the conference about who to see and what to do. The conference provides a place for people, who have never met face to face, to meet as long-lost best

School Tech Connect: A New Season Begins

A New Season Begins

by effacethefacade@yahoo.com (Tim)

Ok, first day of summer. I've been working in schools for a long time, and the school year that just ended was the first time I was neither a teacher nor administrator. I'm a school-year tech now.

fishermen at sunrise on Lake Michigan

I can only tell you that it's a pleasure not to be exhausted to the bone and feeling like a crime victim. I feel like a person with a regular stressful job, instead of the official scapegoat for everything wrong with America.

I taught 7-9 English for twenty-two years, and toward the end of that run, a principal told me that she was going to hold a "come to Jesus" meeting about my English department's seeming inability to push more kids over into "meets and exceeds." She was a nice person, so I didn't point out the administration's seeming inability to get control of the campus. But that was enough for me--I was tired, and I had already had the privilege of serving in an independent school, where none of this

Arne Duncan's NCLB "flexiblity" strategy is risky | The Education Front Blog | dallasnews.com

Arne Duncan's NCLB "flexiblity" strategy is risky

by William McKenzie/ Editorial Columnist

Education Secretary Arne Duncan told reporters on a conference call this week that the administration will start giving states more flexibility to administer the rules of No Child Left Behind, if Congress does not soon overhaul the federal law.

As I interpreted his remarks, he wanted to do this because he thought NCLB was about to "mislabel" an overwhelming number of schools as failing. Duncan did not think we have a large number of underperformers partly because the law does not sufficiently consider the growth that some schools are making.

By all means, let's measure growth. Bush Education Secretary Margaret Spellings encouraged states to do so when she administered the law.

But let us also be clear: NCLB set the goal of having all students learning at grade level by 2014. And NCLB set out to measure schools to determine whether they are on track to meet that goal.

If it is true that a large number of campuses are falling behind, let's not attack the law, as the administration is

On the new Rhee-lite DC Chancellor

by admin

This was originally posted by ‘DrDemocracy’, in response to Bill Turque’s coverage of the confirmation hearings of Kaya Henderson, often dubbed “Rhee-lite”.

“Recently, The Post published a hire-Kaya-Henderson-piece by Michael Casserly, executive director of the Council of Great City Schools. Casserly wrote that “Henderson’s recent four years in the top ranks of the school system’s leadership have placed her front and center” in reform efforts. Those “four years in the top ranks of the school system’s leadership” also place Henderson “front and center” in the still-unfolding cheating scandal in the D.C. public schools, a scandal that Henderson seems loathe to investigate.

The Post plug for Henderson fails to mention the cheating scandal, and previously, Jo-Ann Armao, Post education editorial writer, tried to explain it away as “innocent mistakes.” However, the Michelle Rhee-Henderson-era cheating scandal is not “innocent” or mere suspicion. A USA Today examination of D.C. schools test scores reported the details. Surely Henderson must know that:

(1) D.C. school officials were very reluctant to have any kind of investigation, and

‘No Knock Raid’ - E.D. Kain - American Times - Forbes

‘No Knock Raid’

by E.D. Kain

This is a pretty disturbing, powerful video:

Popout Via Radley Balko

The After-School Program on an Extraordinary Mission voiceofsandiego.org: Education

voiceofsandiego.org: Education

Extra, Extra: The Results of our High School Journalism AwardsComments | 5:30 pm

Journalists of San Diego, watch out for these teens.

We've got winners in the first-ever voiceofsandiego.org Awards for Excellence in High School Journalism. We aim to celebrate excellence in student news and promote online platforms for high school journalism. Moving student newspapers online brings the advantages of lower cost, more frequency and relevance, and offers a learning environment that prepares students for the real world.

The contest was highly competitive, with 100 entries representing 14 schools in San Diego County.

We are honored to announce the winners:

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16Jun

The After-School Program on an Extraordinary MissionComments | 2:00 pm

In a narrow room in the industrial flats of Barrio Logan, Julio Valenzuela held up a wilting plant to a cluster of sixth graders. "Why do you think this plant looks like this?"

The children guessed. No sun. Not enough water. "It's dying," one boy said solemnly.

"This is an example of what can happen if you're not focused. If you don't feed your plant. If you don't feed your grades!" Valenzuela said, drawing a sudden connection. "Let's do a project. Can we make this plant survive?"

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Homework: The useful and the useless - The Answer Sheet - The Washington Post

Homework: The useful and the useless

by Valerie Strauss

We’ve come a long way from the 1930s, when the American Child Health Association put homework next to child labor as a leading cause of child deaths from tuberculosis and heart disease.

Yet the value — or lack thereof — of homework never seems to go away. The issue has been raised anew by a story on the front page of the New York Times about a number of school systems around the country that are either reevaluating their homework policies or have already found new, less stressful ways of giving kids work to do after school.

Read full article >>

The 12 qualities great teachers share

by Valerie Strauss

It’s the question of the year: What makes a great teacher?

Here’s one effort to sort out the qualities that all great teachers have. I suspect that any effort to create a definitive list is doomed to fail because great teachers are as different as the students they teach.

But here’s a list to start, and please write what you think is missing. This was written by Chris Lehmann, the founding principal of the Science Leadership Academy in Philadelphia. A version of this appeared on his website, Practical Theory. He wrote this some years ago when he was teaching at Beacon School, a progressive public high school in Manhattan.

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This Week In Education: AM News: Expansion/Backlash Continues For Charter Schools

AM News: Expansion/Backlash Continues For Charter Schools

by Alexander Russo

New Charter School Laws In Maine, North Carolina, Tennessee HuffED: Despite these new laws, charter schools face sustained backlash, the most prominent of which came in the form of a Georgia Supreme Court decision... House GOP Seeks to Bolster Charters in ESEA Rewrite EdWeek: Even though charters have fans on both sides of the aisle, the bill doesn't have a bipartisan stamp of approval just yet... Henderson has council support Washington Post: Acting Schools Chancellor Kaya Henderson coasted through her D.C. Council confirmation hearing Thursday with seven of 13 council members pledging support. She should be approved next week... Maintaining Pre-K Day, via Tuition Texas Tribune: Faced with the loss of grants for full-day pre-kindergarten programs, some schools plan

Howard Dean: The Tea Party Of Hate

UpTakeVideo on Jun 16, 2011

Former Vermont Governor Howard Dean says the future doesn't belong to the Tea Party. He says the Republican Tea Party is rolling us back to the 50s. The 1850s. He calls the Tea Party a desperate minority that is growing more desperate as they shrink. Dean says the hate and anger of the Tea Party will never win.

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Friday, June 17, 2011