K-12 schools spared, for now | Thoughts on Public Education

K-12 schools spared, for now | Thoughts on Public Education:

K-12 schools spared, for now

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But automatic $5.5 b cuts if tax initiative fails

Posted on 5/15/12 • Categorized as 2012 election, Student spending

By John Fensterwald - Educated Guess

The state budget for next year has deteriorated by $6 billion since January, but Gov. Jerry Brown is not proposing to cut money for K-12 schools – immediately. But if voters in November reject Brown’s proposed $8.5 billion tax increase, schools will be a $5.5 billion piece of what the governor has called “a day of reckoning.”

In his revised budget, Brown is proposing massive reductions in the budgets for courts, as well as state worker furloughs and punishing Medi-Cal cuts to hospitals and nursing homes. Because state revenues have fallen, Brown also could have cut Proposition 98 

Big changes to weighted formula - by John Fensterwald - Educated Guess

by John Fensterwald - Educated Guess

Responding to criticisms of his plan for school finance reform, Gov. Jerry Brown has significantly revised his weighted student formula, raising the base amount that all districts will receive, reducing the differences between district “winners” and “losers” by reducing extra money for disadvantaged students, assuring districts they will be repaid for past budget cuts, and [...]

ILLINOIS RETIRED TEACHERS ASSOCIATION – YOU ARE PATHETIC « Teachers Fight Back

ILLINOIS RETIRED TEACHERS ASSOCIATION – YOU ARE PATHETIC « Teachers Fight Back:

ILLINOIS RETIRED TEACHERS ASSOCIATION – YOU ARE PATHETIC

by alkleen

Just received an urgent e.mail from the Illinois Retired Teachers Association.  It was entitled, “It Is Time To Act”.  The e.mail went on to say that the General Assembly may soon be considering legislation that changes the promise for active and retired teachers. The Assembly was expected to vote on the bill the same day that it’s proposed. According to news reports, the Assembly could be acting as soon as tomorrow.
“It is time to act” ?  Really ?  Oh, why not wait until the legislation is actually proposed ?  What’s the hurry?  Time to act indeed!  No, IRTA, the time to act was many years ago and every year since the Assembly started stealing funds from the Teachers’ Pension Fund. The time to act was when you saw several years ago that certain political groups were targeting teachers and teacher pensions. The time to act was when the reformers, politicians and the press started making teachers scapegoats for the State’s financial difficulties. The time to act was when the Governor, Speaker of the House and the Mayor of Chicago met months ago to plot the attack on teacher pensions. The time to act was a few years ago when we saw public opinion beginning to agree with the 

Schools Matter: The NAEP Science Results: Inconsistent with American success in science: Are the Achievement Levels too high? And why ELLs scores are low.

Schools Matter: The NAEP Science Results: Inconsistent with American success in science: Are the Achievement Levels too high? And why ELLs scores are low.:

The NAEP Science Results: Inconsistent with American success in science: Are the Achievement Levels too high? And why ELLs scores are low.

by skrashen

State	African American	Hispanic	White	Overall
Texas	4th	6th	8th	29th
California	30th	42nd	43rd	49th
Florida	23rd	9th	34th	39th
Illinois	36th	32nd	33rd	43rd
New York	15th	41st	29th	38th

The NAEP Science Results: Inconsistent with American success in science: Are the Achievement Levels too high? And why ELLs scores are low.
Stephen Krashen

The NAEP Science grade 8 results have been announced, and, as usual, it has stimulated reports about how poorly our students have done, accompanied by pious pronouncements about the need to improve science education.

The problem, we are told, is that only 32% of the students scored at or above the “proficient” level and only 65% performed at or above the “basic” level. This sounds terrible. It has been argued, however, that the NAEP achievement levels are set much too high, giving the impression that our students are doing much worse than 

National Association of Charter School Authorizers Outed as ALEC Funder

by Jim Horn

NACSA is the most visible and well-heeled of the corporate charter front groups posing as a professional organization dedicated to quality and oversight of charter schools.  What they were, and are, is the corporate cadillac of lobbying and pressure charter privateers laser-focused on removing any barrier at the national, state, or local level to expanding school privatization via charter school.  

NACSA also gets millions from cash-starved states, who hand over part of their federal grant money to fund NACSA, where big chunks of the cash have been funneled to ALEC to buy 

Opt-Out Parent in NJ: . . . the "nice" strategy to me nowhere

by Jim Horn

Posted at Opt Out of the State Test:

Jean Schutt McTavishWe are in week 2 of the opt out for my 4th grader in NJ. We met with the Superintendent and the Board of Education last night. The Superintendent seemed embarrassed that he had threatened me with a report of truancy to the child welfare agency in NJ. He avoided me like the plague. My sister tag teamed with me, so she talked to him for a good hour. Everyone seemed to agree with our 

NYC Educator: Where Do Troubled Kids Go in the Summer?

NYC Educator: Where Do Troubled Kids Go in the Summer?:

Where Do Troubled Kids Go in the Summer?

by Miss Eyre

As the school year starts to wind down, I'm getting worried about what will become of one of my students who's struggled with depression.  Because of the sensitive nature of this subject, I hesitate to say anything much about him, except that he seems isolated from his family and his (former) friends, and so I'm concerned about him being on his own for most of the summer.

There are summer programs for kids who need academic help, and jobs programs for kids who need money or resume building.  But I wish there was something for this middle-of-the-road student--or, rather, something he could be legally compelled to attend, since his lack of motivation probably will prevent him from getting out of bed to play basketball or 

Jersey Jazzman: Christie: Against TEACHNJ?

Jersey Jazzman: Christie: Against TEACHNJ?:

Christie: Against TEACHNJ?

by Duke

I came across this trying to find something else from the blog. Chris Christie from April of 2011:

Popout

0:41: First thing is that I think we have to have some form of tenure. Because we don't want folks to be fired for political purposes, retaliatory purposes. Teachers should not have to worry about what they say in a classroom and that they'll be fired because the principal doesn't believe in their political point of view or 

Missouri Education Watchdog: Who are the "Elves" behind Common Core Standards, Longitudinal Data Systems and Workforce Development? ALEC, Bill Gates and Others Revealed.

Missouri Education Watchdog: Who are the "Elves" behind Common Core Standards, Longitudinal Data Systems and Workforce Development? ALEC, Bill Gates and Others Revealed.:

Who are the "Elves" behind Common Core Standards, Longitudinal Data Systems and Workforce Development? ALEC, Bill Gates and Others Revealed.

by stlgretchen

Shh! We're not REALLY lobbyists.

 

The following is from an email (reprinted with permission) I received from Kris Alman, a physician in Oregon, who has been following the educational reform that includes Common Core, charter schools, longitudinal data systems, etc.  She was replying to the  EducationNext piece by Michael Petrelli in which he defends "conservatives" such as Christie, Daniels and Jeb Bush and their support of common core standards. 

Big Education Ape Nite Cap UPDATE 5-14-12 #SOSCHAT #EDCHAT #P2

UPDATE UPDATE UPDATE UPDATE

BIG EDUCATION APE - MORNING WINK  AM POSTS

BEFORE NOON HONEST!

Privilege and My First and Only Meeting with Bobby Seale

by Jose

Not a year goes by without me hearing “These kids have no idea what a privilege it is to …” Usually because I’ve been the one saying it until the last year or so. The problem with having a privilege when you’re so unaccustomed to it is that you outwardly act like it doesn’t matter because you’re inwardly incapable of understanding how to show gratitude without looking subservient.
Let me expound.
College might have been the first time that I had access to people who I normally wouldn’t even get a chance to whiff their air wouldn’t have access to in other circumstances. People on campus talked about these figures like distant relatives: Angela Davis, Amiri Baraka, Kevin Powell, Elaine Brown. I mean, as the guests on campus 

Attacking Teacher Seniority in Court is Misguided Non-Solution (Video #9)

by Leonard Isenberg

(Mensaje se repite en Español)

(For a national view of public education reform see the end of this blog post)

There was a press conference today in a courtyard at 1451 Wilshire Blvd. in front of an LAUSD "rubber room," where the people listed below either naively or maliciously attempted to make the litigation to eliminate teacher seniority the key issue for fixing everything wrong with LAUSD.

Critical issues ignored at the end of this rather one-sided "press conference" (which is the subject of the following video), were:

1. The primacy of no discipline - which is a crucial factor in creating a school environment completely antithetical to the education process irrespective of whether 

Every Day I Discover How Little I Know — Here’s Another Example

by Larry Ferlazzo

I periodically post about examples of my own ignorance, and now have another opportunity to do so….
As a self-styled quasi-expert on intrinsic motivation (see my book “Helping Students Motivate Themselves” and my list, The Best Posts & Articles On “Motivating” Students), one would think that I’d be pretty familiar with research on the topic. And I am, or, at least, I thought I was.
Then, in this week’s New Yorker Magazine, I read a profile of Clayton Christensen, a widely-known business thinker who, among other things, has written a lot on motivation issues. Coincidentally, he himself wrote a short commentary on intrinsic motivation today for Fast Company.
In it, he refers to a well-known article written by Frederick Herzberg for the Harvard Business Review that is the 

Fleeing the country to avoid student loans?

by Cryn Johannsen

There seem to be a lot of people considering this option. Rest assured, if you leave the country, you will find plenty of companions abroad. In fact, there are many indentured educated Americans who have decided this option was the best for them. I call them student loan debt refugees.

I have lived abroad myself, so if folks are interested, I can share what it was like to save money, have a job 

How Did I Get This Way!?!?

by James Boutin

I finished writing my last post, and it hit me: I'm the guy I used to wish I'd never turn into.

When I started teaching, I approached it with the energy of a five-year-old on a recent bowl of frosted flakes. I obsessed over my teaching like a doctor charged with finding the cure to an epidemic.

But here I am, six years later, saying that "I am decidedly unwilling to do everything in my power to ensure every child's success." What the hell happened?

I thought about it for a while, and I realized that my blog is a pretty valuable resource for assessing how and why I've made this transformation.

Check it out.

Example 1: Here is me in June of 2009, having just been hired to teach at Columbia Heights Educational 

Pension call Tuesday. Updated Napkin sketch. Day #2.

by Fred Klonsky

• Today I made my calls to State Rep Toni Berrios and State Senator Iris Martinez.
• I forwarded a message to Franny who sent it out to all the Park Ridge Education Association members to call the We Are One hotline number.
• I put an info sheet into every staff member’s box.
• Posted on Twitter and Facebook.
• Gave a talk at tonight’s PREA retirement recognition.

On to Day #2.

Big Education Ape Nite Cap 5-14-12 #SOSCHAT #EDCHAT #P2

James Baldwin said it best: 

"For these are all our children, and we will profit by or pay for whatever they become."

A Big Education Ape Nite Cap

Big Education Ape Nite Cap UPDATE 5-13-12 #SOSCHAT #EDCHAT #P2

coopmike48 at Big Education Ape - 20 hours ago

*UPDATE UPDATE UPDATE UPDATE* *BIG EDUCATION APE - MORNING WINK AM POSTS* *BEFORE NOON HONEST!* What Do NAEP Scores Mean? by dianerav [image: Click on picture to Listen to Diane Ravitch] Every once in a while, a new set of test scores is released by the National Assessment Governing Board, the federal agency that supervises the National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP). Just a few days ago, the NAEP scores for science were released for 4th and 8th grades, and once again there was woe and gnashing of teeth in the land ( http://www.edweek.org/ew/articles/2012/05/10/31naep_ep...more »