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Friday, August 12, 2011

Big Education Ape: 8-12-11 AM The Duncan Precedent EDition

Big Education Ape: Ed News Now
Big Education Ape: Ed News Now
Published by Coopmike48 – 6 news spotters today

The New York Times - Schools For Tomorrow

nytschoolsfortomorrow.com - come back on september 22 to watch a live stream of the conference. Ellie AvishaiDirector, I-Think Initiative, Desautels Centre for Integrative Thinking, Rotman School of Management, University of ...

DianeRavitch

The Duncan Precedent, 2013 Edition :: Frederick M. Hess

frederickhess.org - by Frederick M. Hess • Aug 11, 2011 at 7:59 amCross-posted from Education Weekhttp://www.frederickhess.org/2011/08/the-duncan-precedent-2013-editionThe Obama administration steadfastly refuses to...

DianeRavitch

Judge Weighs Request To Block Indiana Voucher Program

huffingtonpost.com - INDIANAPOLIS -- Students who have signed up for Indiana's broad new school voucher program could be jerked out of private schools midsemester or forced to scramble to re-enroll in public school unl...

mikeklonsky

The Duncan Precedent, 2013 Edition - Rick Hess Straight Up

blogs.edweek.org - The Obama administration steadfastly refuses to acknowledge the problems with ED's "backdoor blueprint" waiver strategy or the ugly precedent that it's trying to set. But those with even a glimmer ...

DianeRavitch

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coopmike48 The Education of E-Textbook Startup Kno - BusinessWeek -http://goo.gl/qkh9X5 minutes ago · reply · retweet · favorite

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coopmike48 Diane Ravitch is The Man | Dropout Nation: Coverage of the Reform of American Public Education Edited by RiShawn Biddle http://goo.gl/4Taau4 minutes ago · reply · retweet · favorite

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coopmike48 Larry Ferlazzo’s Websites of the Day… - “Twtrland” Is A Neat Twitter App -http://goo.gl/7JMWoabout 1 minute ago · reply · retweet · favorite

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coopmike48 Read Damn Good Education Daily on http://t.co/Po2IJqF18 seconds ago · reply · retweet · favorite

EducationSee all

Thomas B. Fordham Institute: Email

support.edexcellence.net - Opinion and News AnalysisOpinion: Indiana is America's Education Reform IdolBy Tony Bennett Editor’s Note: This morning, Fordham hosted Education Reform Idol 2011—an event that pitted Florida, Illi...

mikeklonsky

Whitney Tilson Savagely Attacks Diane Ravitch

southbronxschool.com - I have never been this confused in my entire life. What to do? Do I write in regards to E4E Blog Monkey™ Ruben Brosbe's baffling free ride to the Harvard Graduate School of Education. Do I write ab...

leoniehaimson

SocietySee all

Michele Bachmann is worried about the Renaissance

latimesblogs.latimes.com - It's the Renaissance, stupid. The economy is not what ails us today. No, what ails Americans is what Leonardo da Vinci, Michelangelo and their artistic spawn have wrought in the culture, starting 5...

mikeklonsky

PoliticsSee all

Britain looks to U.S. for anti-gang strategy

cbsnews.com - (CBS/AP) LONDON - Prime Minister David Cameron said Thursday that Britain would look to the United States for solutions to gang violence after nights of riots and looting, and promised authorities...

mikeklonsky

StoriesSee all

NYC Educator: Forgotten, but Not Gone

nyceducator.com - Cathie Black has finally made her stamp on NYC schools. Ms. Black famously asked, when presented with evidence of chronic and systematic overcrowding, why we couldn't have just a little more birth ...

leoniehaimson

Publicola Weighs in on School Board Candidates

saveseattleschools.blogspot.com - The wags over at Publicola did something interesting - rather than "endorse" anyone, they just did interviews and gave reviews (kinda like the Muni League). They had a stunning review of the dist...

coopmike48

BusinessSee all

Firm accused of defrauding 5 Wis. school districts

edweek.org - WASHINGTON (AP) — Federal regulators are accusing brokerage firm Stifel Nicolaus & Co. of civil fraud in its sales of risky complex investments to five Wisconsin school districts that lost all of t...

mikeklonsky

CrimeSee all

SCHOOL COP SHOOTING HOAXER WAIVES JURY TRIAL

4lakidsnews.blogspot.com - By Lindsay William-Ross in LAist.com | http://bit.ly/mPSEUK August 11, 2011 4:27 PM – Former Los Angeles Unified School District police officer Jeffrey Stenroos, the guy who faked being shot outsi...

coopmike48

Former judge sentenced to prison for "kids for cash" scheme

democraticunderground.com - Source: Reuters A former Pennsylvania juvenile court judge was sentenced on Thursday to 28 years in prison for accepting payment to send juveniles to a for-profit detention facility in a scandal du...

coopmike48

#eduRead this paperSee all

Sex, Lies, and Michael Bloomberg | The Nation

bigeducationape.blogspot.com - Sex, Lies, and Michael Bloomberg | The NationSex, Lies, and Michael BloombergNew York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg recently mandated comprehensive sexuality education be taught in all New York City...

coopmike48

#4See all

Short Bus Tour Day #4: Canton, OH

kimbleforcongress.blogspot.com - It had been my fondest wish to take my daughter to see the Hoover Vacuum Cleaner Museum in Canton, OH and possibly visit the McKinley Memorial. Unfortunately, media types had learned that I was on...

coopmike48

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    New dropout formula, same problem - The Education Report - Katy Murphy's blog on Oakland schools

    New dropout formula, same problem - The Education Report - Katy Murphy's blog on Oakland schools

    New dropout formula, same problem

    Thursday, August 11th, 2011 at 6:47 pm in dropoutsNo Comments

    California’s new dropout and graduate estimates are out for the Class of 2010. They are supposed to be more accurate than ever before, as this is the fourth year the state education department has used unique student IDs to track students’ progress through the system.

    With four years of data, it didn’t have to make all kinds of crazy projections and extrapolations to guess how many kids were quitting school. It’s basic division — a calculation simple enough for a fifth-grader (or a journalist


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    LEARNING MUST BE FUN, NOT WORK « Teachers Fight Back

    LEARNING MUST BE FUN, NOT WORK « Teachers Fight Back

    LEARNING MUST BE FUN, NOT WORK

    by alkleen

    My son was telling me of an incident in one of his graduate education classes. The professor was emphasising how important it was that all learning be fun. The students were all in agreement and nodded approvingly as the professor spoke. My son raised his hand and asked a question. He wanted to know why it was wrong to expect hard work to be a part of learning. The class and professor looked at him in disbelief.

    Yes, our elementary and junior highs are now centers of fun and not work. I have mentioned before how many districts have outlawed rote memorization. Teaching styles that actually depended on the students to provide most of the work are long gone. It’s amazing that our current crop of teachers are so talented as to almost always make learning fun. I tip my hat to them, I know how much planning and work it is for the teachers to make sure their lessons are appealing and fun for the students.

    I would suggest we start to rename some of the old and tired terms to meet the new standards of fun in learning.

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    SOUTH BRONX SCHOOL: Whitney Tilson Savagely Attacks Diane Ravitch

    SOUTH BRONX SCHOOL: Whitney Tilson Savagely Attacks Diane Ravitch

    Whitney Tilson Savagely Attacks Diane Ravitch

    by noreply@blogger.com (Bronx Teacher)
    Hey, we can all have wishes??
    I have never been this confused in my entire life. What to do? Do I write in regards to E4E Blog Monkey™ Ruben Brosbe's baffling free ride to the Harvard Graduate School of Education. Do I write about Steve Brill's rudeness towards Diane Ravitch? Do I write about Whitney Tilson's continued rudeness towards Diane Ravitch? Or do I write about my son's baseball tournament this weekend? Mmmmm. I pick Whitney, with a sprinkling of Steve Brill.

    When last we visited Steve Brill, his lips were puckered up to Uncle Mike's tush in a New York Magazine article he wrote concerning teachers in the Rubber
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    How Big Urban Districts Can Succeed, Part III | The Education Front Blog | dallasnews.com

    How Big Urban Districts Can Succeed, Part III | The Education Front Blog | dallasnews.com

    How Big Urban Districts Can Succeed, Part III

    by William McKenzie/ Editorial Columnist

    Here is the third element that big urban districts need to succeed: They must passionately use data to drive their decisions.

    Superintendents, principals, teachers, and, yes, parents need easy access to data that shows them how either a campus, teacher or student is performing. And not just last year, last semester or last month, but now.

    Former Dallas Superintendent Michael Hinojosa was passionate about using data. He would have spreadsheets in his office that guided him about what was going on across the district.

    Dallas also had new data options for parents to use. The district has started rolling out "parent portals" that give families real time data about how their child is doing in a class, and even whether they showed up for school that day.

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    Daily Kos: of lead and poor nutrition and poverty - and schools and students and teachers

    Daily Kos: of lead and poor nutrition and poverty - and schools and students and teachers

    of lead and poor nutrition and poverty - and schools and students and teachers

    by rss@dailykos.com (teacherken)
    Advances in cognitive science have made it possible to pinpoint how these disadvantages hinder children academically. One-fifth of the middle schoolers in Providence, Rhode Island, for example, entered kindergarten in 2003 suffering from some level of lead poisoning, which disproportionately affects the poor and is associated with intellectual delays and behavioral problems such as ADHD. “It is now understood that there is no safe level of lead in the human body,” writes education researcher David Berliner, “and that lead at any level has an impact on IQ.”

    Food insecurity is similarly correlated with cognitive delays, and rising in incidence across the

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    How much do some private school heads earn? A bundle - The Answer Sheet - The Washington Post

    How much do some private school heads earn? A bundle - The Answer Sheet - The Washington Post

    How much do some private school heads earn? A bundle

    by Valerie Strauss

    Some heads of elite private schools in the greater Washington area and elsewhere in the country are earning more than a half-million dollars in combined salary and other perks, according to tax forms the schools file with the federal government. The head of an Alexandria boarding school earned more than $630,000 in 2009-10.

    Most private schools are, of course, not elite and the people who run them don’t make anywhere near these kinds of salaries. Neither, on average, do public school superintendents.

    Read full article >>


    Are 21st century 5-year-olds cognitively ready to read?

    by Valerie Strauss

    This was written by Elfrieda (Freddy) H. Hiebert , president/CEO of TextProject, a not-for-profit aimed at increasing student-reading levels through appropriate texts. She is also a research associate at the University of California, Santa Cruz. Here, Hiebert analyzes the explicit and implicit assumptions within the Common Core State Standards regarding formal reading instruction in kindergarten: the dumbing down of kindergarten texts and the pushing down of reading instruction to kindergarten.

    By Elfrieda H. Hiebert

    Read full article >>
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    New way of counting dropouts; same old rates | Thoughts on Public Education

    New way of counting dropouts; same old rates | Thoughts on Public Education

    New way of counting dropouts; same old rates - by Kathryn Baron There’s not much new in the latest graduation and drop-out rates released yesterday by the California Department of Education (CDE), except for the way they were computed. For the first time since the student data system, known as CALPADS, went online, ...

    No conflict for Patricia Rucker - by John Fensterwald - Educated Guess The California Fair Political Practices Commission has dismissed a complaint filed by a parent activist group against Patricia Rucker, a State Board of Education member who works as a paid lobbyist for the California Teachers Association. In doing so, ...

    Look to experience, not policy, to assess 21st century skills - by Charles Taylor Kerchner Learning to collaborate and to solve ill-defined problems are to the 21st Century what industrial discipline was to the last hundred years, according to those who have studied what employers and society need. They need to be considered basic skills, ...
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    Great Teachers Focus on Education, Not Tests.

    Great Teachers Focus on Education, Not Tests.

    Great Teachers Focus on Education, Not Tests.

    by Rick

    A few years ago I taught a class of fourth- and fifth-graders in order to give the teachers some time to plan together. It was the easiest and best teaching I ever did, and a great example of how a great teacher doesn’t do it themselves but rather creates the conditions for the students to do it.

    Each week the students had to learn nine words. The teacher gave them the words on Monday. They looked them up, learned the definitions, and used them in sentences. They came to know these words—in some cases intimately—as they discussed their different meanings in class and the different roles they can play in a sentence, so that by Thursday, when I taught the class, they had each written a story using all nine words.

    I presided, as they took turns standing in the center of the room—each one poised and proud—reading their

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    Jersey Jazzman: Corporate "Reformers" Get Corporate Salaries

    Jersey Jazzman: Corporate "Reformers" Get Corporate Salaries

    Corporate "Reformers" Get Corporate Salaries

    by Duke
    I asked earlier today what the salaries were for the corporate "reformers" - you know, the ones who want to radically change teacher compensation systems.

    In the comments, Ken pointed me toward guidestar.org. It's a site where you can get IRS forms from a wide variety of non-profits (you have to remember folks: I'm just an amateur, and I'm learning as I go. So any time any of you can send me in the right direction, I really appreciate it - thanks, Ken!).

    Part of IRS reporting includes compensation for top officers. But you can only get this data if the organization has been around long enough to have filed a 990. Michelle Rhee's Students First and Derrell Bradford's B4K haven't had to file yet, so we don't know what they make. However...

    The average yearly teacher salary is around $55,000. So, if we use my previous list, we can figure out how much

    What It's Like To Watch A GOP Debate

    by Duke
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    Thursday, August 11, 2011

    New York Times: Future Schools Don’t Have Many Teachers In Them | The Jose Vilson

    New York Times: Future Schools Don’t Have Many Teachers In Them | The Jose Vilson

    New York Times: Future Schools Don’t Have Many Teachers In Them

    by Jose

    New York Times Headquarters

    Setting the clock back to June 20th, 2011 …

    *** takes a break from ranting about the New York State Math Test, opens e-mail ***

    thinks to self: Hmm, this is interesting. A panel about schools of tomorrow by the New York Times. OK, I’m curious. Maybe I’ll get to go. Wait, on a school day? Who’s going to get to go?

    e-mails this to a set of interest folk.

    looks down the panel of contributors:

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    Sex, Lies, and Michael Bloomberg | The Nation

    Sex, Lies, and Michael Bloomberg | The Nation

    Sex, Lies, and Michael Bloomberg

    New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg recently mandated comprehensive sexuality education be taught in all New York City public schools starting this fall. The mandate extends the usual semester of “health” education in high schools, requiring that one semester of age-appropriate sex education is taught in 6th or 7th grade, and another more mature semester is taught in 9th or 10th grade.

    Mayor Bloomberg’s progressive mandate is inspired by a broader initiative to improve the lives of black and Latino teenagers who are disproportionately affected by unplanned pregnancies and sexually transmitted infections. Research shows that black and Latino teenagers have less access to sexuality education,
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    Alter-ed States Obama Shows Spunk Pushing Brave Education Plan: Jonathan Alter - Bloomberg

    Obama Shows Spunk Pushing Brave Education Plan: Jonathan Alter - Blo omberg

    Obama Shows Spunk Pushing Brave Education Plan: Jonathan Alter

    Although President Barack Obama is on the ropes, with even some Democratic allies describing him as weak and passive, this week he showed boldness and imagination in one vital area: education.

    Obama backed Education Secretary Arne Duncan’s announcement that he will grant waivers to states that want to be excused from the punitive provisions of No Child Left Behind , Washington’s much-maligned 2002 overhaul of elementary and secondary education policy.

    Republican lawmakers complain that the White House waivers run roughshod over the legislative branch -- and they’re right. But gridlock demands more robust use of presidential authority and, at least in this case, we’re getting it. Unless Duncan’s action is challenged and reversed on constitutional grounds, No Child Left Behind will be left behind for good.

    Under Obama, education was supposed to be fertile ground for bipartisan compromise. That’s because Obama has executed a “Nixon to China” maneuver; only a Democratic president can successfull

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    2011-12 SNP Reimbursement Rates - School Nutrition (CA Dept of Education)

    2011-12 SNP Reimbursement Rates - School Nutrition (CA Dept of Education)

    2011-12 SNP Reimbursement Rates

    Nutrition Services Division Management Bulletin

    Purpose: Policy, Beneficial Information

    To: School Nutrition Program Sponsors

    Number: NSD-SNP-11-2011

    Attention: Food Service Director and Business Official

    Date: August 2011

    Subject: Reimbursement Rates for the National School Lunch, School Breakfast, and Special Milk Programs for School Year 2011–12

    Reference: Federal Register, Volume 76, Number 139, July 20, 2011; Fiscal Year 2011–12 California State Budget Act (Assembly Bill 121, Statutes of 2011)

    This Management Bulletin (MB) updates the annual reimbursement rates for School Nutrition Programs (SNPs) for school year (SY) 2011–12.

    Federal Reimbursement

    Included with this MB are the federal reimbursement rates established by the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) for the National School Lunch Program (NSLP), School Breakfast Program (SBP), Special Milk Program (SMP), and Meal Supplements (Snacks) under the NSLP. These rates also apply to the Seamless Summer Feeding Option meals.

    Please note the following increases in federal reimbursements:

    • The national average commodity value per lunch for SY 2011–12 is now $0.2225, which is an increase of $0.02 cents per meal from the $0.2025 rate in SY 2010–11.
    • The SMP “paid” rate for SY 2011–12 is now $0.2050, which is an increase of $0.0275 per half pint from the $0.1775 rate in SY 2010–11.

    The annual federal payments and rate adjustments for the NSLP and SBP reflect changes in the “Food Away From Home” series of the Consumer Price Index for All Urban Consumers. The annual rate adjustment for the SMP reflects changes in the Producer Price Index for Fluid Milk Products. All reimbursement rates (current and prior years) are available on the California Department of Education Rates, Eligibility Scales, and Funding Web page at http://www.cde.ca.gov/ls/nu/rs/.

    State Reimbursement

    The 2011–12 State Budget Act does not provide for a cost of living increase for State Meal reimbursement; therefore, the Proposition (Prop) 98 State Meal rate for school nutrition programs will remain at $0.2195 for each free and reduced-price (F/RP) lunch and breakfast that they serve. The State Budget Act does, however, provide for an increase for growth. With this increase, and based on current projections, the appropriation of $155,232,000 appears sufficient to fund all eligible meals throughout SY 2011–12 without a change [decrease] in rate. The Prop 98 State Meal rate for the Child and Adult Care Food Program will remain at $0.1634.

    The appropriation for State Meal reimbursement for non-LEA child nutrition sponsors (Non-Prop) is $10,422,000. This is the same amount funded in SY 2010–11. Based on current meal projections, the Non-Prop State Meal rate will remain at $0.1562 for each F/RP lunch and breakfast served.

    The current 2011–12 State reimbursement rates apply as follows to each F/RP breakfast and lunch served at the following LEA types (see enclosed rate sheet for details on Prop and Non-Prop LEAs):

    • Prop 98 LEAs participating in federal SNPs, with annual Certification: $0.2195
    • Prop 98 LEAs participating in federal SNPs, without annual Certification: $0.0000
    • Non-Prop LEAs participating in federal SNPs: $0.1562

    If you have any questions regarding this MB, you may obtain contact information for your Field Services Child Nutrition Consultant at 916-445-0850 or 800-952-5609.

    Attachment

    2011–12 Reimbursement Rates (DOC; 84KB; 1p.)

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    NYC Public School Parents: PBS: Are these schools really "drop-out" factories? And what would help?

    NYC Public School Parents: PBS: Are these schools really "drop-out" factories? And what would help?

    PBS: Are these schools really "drop-out" factories? And what would help?

    by Leonie Haimson
    An intelligent, probing video below from last night's PBS' News Hour of several NYC high school struggling to survive. Schools examined include Flushing HS, International HS at Prospect Heights, and Robeson HS, which DOE is phasing out. Full transcript here. Excerpt:

    ROSIE FRASCELLA (teacher): Computers and spending a billion dollars on technology and
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