States to feds: Get us out of 'No Child Left Behind'

States to feds: Get us out of 'No Child Left Behind'

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11:57 AM, August 5, 2011 ι Abby W. Schachter

Since the reauthorization of the current education law -- No Child Left Behind -- is being delayed in Congress, more and more states are begging the Obama education department to grant them waivers from what are increasingly difficult standards to achieve . Over time, NCLB standards get more and more rigorous. Every year more and more schools are failing those standards. And rather than admit that public schools around the country are failing to teach reading and math, the state education authorities are asking Education Secretary Arne Duncan to let them out of the law. "States have complained that escalating benchmarks for pupil performance in the current version of the law — described by Duncan as a “slow-motion train wreck” — would force them to classify hundreds of additional schools

Read more: http://www.nypost.com/p/blogs/capitol/states_behind_feds_get_us_out_of_pbwVeecWqF5wYvJypWmA5L#ixzz1UBOpL26j

Can most USA families afford to pay for their children's school lunches?

Can most USA families afford to pay for their children's school lunches?

Sacramento : CA : USA | Aug 04, 2011

BY AnneHart

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US President Barack Obama speaks as First Lady Michelle Obama looks on before signing the Healthy, Hunger-Free Kids Act

Many families can't afford to pay for school lunches & don't take time to pack healthy food for kids. Back-to-school means that the average parent may not be able to afford to pay for school lunches for children, particularly if they have several children. In Sacramento's San Juan school district, if you have a child in elementary school, a child in middle school, and a child in high school, that means each day you pay for each child's lunch $3.25 for your middle school child and $3.25 for your high-school age child. School lunch prices rising but you won't see kids taken on field trips from farm to factory to see how school lunches are processed

Then you have to pay $2.75 for your elementary school child. So, an average family with three kids needs to have a school lunch plan. Either the school has a system where many children in one family can eat cheaper or you pay for each child daily, which the

Education Research Report: Critical Contributions: Philanthropic Investment in Teachers and Teaching

Education Research Report: Critical Contributions: Philanthropic Investment in Teachers and Teaching

Critical Contributions: Philanthropic Investment in Teachers and Teaching

Teacher effectiveness is widely regarded as “what matters most” in fostering improved learning and better student outcomes. Organized philanthropy recognizes this and has made strengthening instruction a priority for years. A prominent effort currently underway is the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation’s Measures of Effective Teaching (MET) initiative. In total, six school districts are participating in the MET initiative, and the Foundation has invested over $335 million in it. Other foundations have also made significant commitments to improving teacher effectiveness recently including the Ford, Joyce, Stuart Foundations, Carnegie Corporation and scores of other funders of all sizes and types across the nation.

Critical Contributions: Philanthropic Investment in Teachers and Teaching, prepared by a team of researchers from Kronley & Associates and the University of Georgia, examines recent foundation activity to improve instruction and offers an in-depth review of grantmaking in the 2000s. A key finding of the report was the magnitude of philanthropic investment in strengthening teacher quality—between 2000 and 2008, $684 million was directed toward teachers and teaching. Half of this funding came from a group of ten foundations. Similarly much of it—60 percent—was directed to just twenty organizations. With $213 million in identified grants, Teach for America captured more than any other organization working on matters related to teachers and teaching.

Testing, cheating, learning and failing

Testing, cheating, learning and failing

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Written by Fannie Flono for the Charlotte Observer. Read the entire article here.
“Recent reports that a whopping 178 Atlanta Public School teachers and principals – 82 of whom have confessed – took part in cheating has grabbed the headlines. Now Philadelphia has taken the spotlight. An investigation is under way after a state study showed 89 schools across the state, including 28 in the city, had been flagged for questionable gains on test scores.

But these high-profile cases are only the tip of the iceberg. For more than a decade, charges of test cheating have dogged cities and states nationwide. Among them? Washington, D.C., Arizona, California, Colorado, Florida, Maryland, Michigan, New Jersey, New York, Ohio and Texas as well as Pennsylvania and Georgia. …

More recently, the tenure of highly-touted reformer Michelle Rhee, former chancellor of Washington, D.C., schools, has been tainted by charges of test fraud. Reports earlier this year said more than half of D.C. elementary schools showed evidence of adult tampering with

This Week In Education: Thompson: There's STILL No Free Lunch

This Week In Education: Thompson: There's STILL No Free Lunch

Thompson: There's STILL No Free Lunch

by john thompson

Sarah Ransdell's recent study, There’s Still No Free Lunch, refutes the claims that "high expectations!" and a focus on instruction can single-handedly erase the effects of poverty and close the achievement gap. Ransdell identified "resilient schools" that have higher reading scores and higher poverty levels than other schools. But she found that resilient

Pen Pals: You Could Be Writing Your Future Husband

by Alexander Russo

Murdoch-Owned Wireless Generation's $27M Contract Should Be Scratched, Teachers' Union Leaders Write

Murdoch-Owned Wireless Generation's $27M Contract Should Be Scratched, Teachers' Union Leaders Write

NEW YORK -- New York should drop a $27 million contract with Wireless Generation, a Rupert Murdoch-owned student data tracking company, in light of News Corporation's alleged wrongdoings, teachers' union leaders wrote in a Thursday evening letter to state officials.

Wireless Generation, a software company that tracks student performance on tests, is an independent subsidiary of News Corporation, the parent company of the Wall Street Journal and theembattled News of the World.

"We have become increasingly concerned with the proposed contract," Michael Mulgrew and Richard Iannuzzi, who respectively head New York City's and

More from Rhee's miracle buster: Grade 6 school scores

More from Rhee's miracle buster: Grade 6 school scores

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Written by Guy Brandenburg for his blog. Read the entire post here.
“In grades 3, 4, 5, and 6, after all of the upheavals and firings and punitive teacher evaluation schemes, and after replacing 50% of the teaching staff in the regular public schools, paying huge fees and salaries to self-described experts, and shipping over one-third of the student population to essentially unregulated charter schools, what do Rhee, Fenty, Henderson, and Gray have to show for it?

Basically, nothing.”

Designs for Change (DFC) seeks to improve the nation’s 50 largest urban public school systems

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Helping Students Get On Track to Graduate Conference Saturday, December 11, 2010

This conference, held at Hope College Prep High School, 5515 S. Lowe, Chicago, from 9:30 a.m. - 3:30 p.m., is essential for parents, LSCs, PACs, teachers, principals, community, and students.
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REGISTER NOW for DFC’s Fall/Winter 2010 workshops and attend important meetings!

Mark your calendar and prepare to attend workshops in October, November, and December! Register for any of DFC’s workshops by calling 312.236.7252, ext. 232. Leave a message with your name, your school, a phone number where you can be reached, and the date and title of the workshop. Or you may email us.

VOTE! In your school’s LSC election—April 21 and April 22, 2010

LSC elections will be held during report card pickup at elementary schools on Wednesday, April 21, and at high schools on Thursday, April 22, 2010.

6,178 LSC Candidates Registered by 1:25 p.m. March 22!

The deadline for registering to run for your LSC has been extended to 3:00 p.m. March 24, 2010. All parents, community members, and

OTL Campaign Blog: Do away with "test-and-punish" for real opportunity to learn

OTL Campaign Blog: Do away with "test-and-punish" for real opportunity to learn

Do away with "test-and-punish" for real opportunity to learn

By Monty Neill, Ed.D.

Executive Director, FairTest

With the teaching profession and public schools under attack as never before, teachers, parents and others rallied in Washington, D.C., at the end of July to “Save Our Schools.” The two most prominent themes at the SOS event were:

1. The nation’s failure to address poverty or to provide every child with a strong opportunity to thrive and learn, and
   
2. The overuse and misuse of standardized tests imposed by No Child Left Behind and made