Children's Institute says many Oregon children at risk for poor emotional and social health in critical first years of life | OregonLive.com

Children's Institute says many Oregon children at risk for poor emotional and social health in critical first years of life | OregonLive.com

Children's Institute says many Oregon children at risk for poor emotional and social health in critical first years of life

By Bill Graves, The Oregonian

April 07, 2010, 1:44PM

Stephanie Yao/The OregonianTeacher Heather Mains holds a child in the infant and toddler room at Gracie’s Place, a relief nursery in Salem for children whose families are in crisis. Teachers also make home visits to help parents with their skills. The relief nursery puts an emphasis on emotional development: trust, stability and security, qualities that help form the base for learning in young children.
Oregon offers promising programs to support the social and emotional health of infants and toddlers in the critical first years of life, but those efforts reach only a fraction of the kids who need them, a child advocacy group reported today.

By not investing more in "upstream" prevention programs for infants and toddlers, "Oregon will continue to flood its downstream mental health treatment programs, its alcohol and drug addiction services, and its criminal justice system," writes the Children's Institute of Portland in its report,"From Risk to Resilience: Building the Social and Emotional Health of Oregon's Most Vulnerable Young Children."

"Future generations of Oregonians will enter kindergarten lacking the skills

The Education Report Native American leader, former Oakland activist, dies at 64

The Education Report

Native American leader, former Oakland activist, dies at 64

By Katy Murphy
Wednesday, April 7th, 2010 at 2:17 pm in OUSD central office, people
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Wilma Mankiller, the first woman to be elected chief of a major American Indian tribe — the Cherokee Nation — was once a Bay Area resident and a strong advocate for Native American children in Oakland’s public schools. She died Tuesday in Oklahoma at age 64.

In our library, I found a small envelope stamped “MANKILLER, WILMA/ INDIAN LEADER, OAK.” Inside were several articles, including a Tribune story from January 9, 1977. Susan Shoemaker, then an education writer for the newspaper, reported that Mankiller and other Native Americans “believe the school district simply does not care about their children.”

This Week In Education Roundup: DC Teachers Contract-Free Edition

This Week In Education

Roundup: DC Teachers Contract-Free Edition

by Alexander Russo

$350 Million 'Race to the Common Test' Starts Now EdWeek's Michele McNeil: The USDE will award grants to groups of states to create rigorous common tests to complement the common standards effort already...Prom Regulations Yglesias: The students in violation were allowed to stay at the prom, but the following week, each was given the option of receiving corporal punishment or accepting a three-day suspension from school...Details emerge on educator effectiveness bill EdNews CO Todd Engdahl: The long-awaited educator effectiveness bill would set new baseline standards for the evaluation and tenure of teachers and principals but leave the details to an appointed commission and the State Board of Educationl...Jaime Escalante changed U.S. schools forever Jay Mathews: Whenever I suggested that the great teaching I was seeing at Garfield might be the reason so many students were succeeding in AP, people at parties dismissed me as

Marcus A. Winters: Public schools should experiment like charter schools | Washington Examiner

Marcus A. Winters: Public schools should experiment like charter schools | Washington Examiner

Marcus A. Winters: Public schools should experiment like charter schools

By: Marcus A. Winters
OpEd Contributor

The new line of attack against charter schools is that they have failed to achieve their original mission. In her new book, The Death and Life of the Great American School System, Diane Ravitch joins the chorus lamenting that charters were never meant to compete with public schools or offer alternatives for a large population of students.

When union godfather Albert Shanker first promoted charter schools, the argument goes, he saw them acting as laboratories for new strategies that could then be adopted in the public schools. According to critics like Ravitch, the charter school laboratories have not produced consistent lessons for the public school sector to adopt and thus the experiment has been disappointing.

Of course, we would be justified in embracing charter schools solely on the evidence that in some school systems, such as New York City's, they provide children with a better education while also improving public schools through competition. But the "laboratory" argument fails even on its own terms. Charter schools do experiment with alternative education strategies. The problem is, public schools don't like the results of these experiments.

Nearly two decades of experience with charter schools have yielded some lessons in what works for improving student performance. There are easily perceptible patterns among the few charter school networks -- KIPP, Uncommon Schools, Democracy Prep, Achievement First, and DC Prep among others -- that have systematically yielded impressive (even miraculous) results with the most challenging students. Attributes of these schools include: exceptionally high goals, rigorous standards, frequent analysis of performance data, longer school days and years, firm discipline, willingness and ability to remove ineffective teachers, and

Read more at the Washington Examiner: http://www.washingtonexaminer.com/opinion/columns/Manhattan-Moment/Public-schools-should-experiment-like-charter-schools-90036087.html#ixzz0kS4GzAYq

Where to find a teaching job: How about Unalaska, Alaska? | OregonLive.com

Where to find a teaching job: How about Unalaska, Alaska? | OregonLive.com

Where to find a teaching job: How about Unalaska, Alaska?

By Betsy Hammond, The Oregonian

April 07, 2010, 1:06PM

courtesy of Unalaska schoolsAmong the many interesting and upbeat tidbits I ran across during an an otherwise disheartening daylong job fair at which thousands of aspiring teachers did not get job offers was this:

The school district of Unalaska, Alaska, is hiring. And Superintendent John Conwell was willing to travel 2,000 miles to Portland, Oregon, in hopes of finding a top-notch high school math and science teacher. (He's also fishing for a health and PE teacher, an elementary principal and, like most school districts a lot closer to Portland, a special ed teacher.)

For those who've never heard of Unalaska, it's waaaaaaay out on the Aleutian Arc, about 800 miles southwest of Anchorage. Conwell jokes that, while it's not in the middle of nowhere, you can see nowhere from

Hot for Teachers w/ Megan Fox and Brian Austin Green from Megan Fox and FOD Team - Video

Hot for Teachers w/ Megan Fox and Brian Austin Green from Megan Fox and FOD Team - Video

Hot for Teachers w/ Megan Fox and Brian Austin Green

Megan Fox and Brian Austin Green speak out about the budget cuts affecting teachers and kids in California.

Hot for Teachers w/ Megan Fox and Brian Austin Green from Megan Fox

THE DAILY RIFF - Be Smarter. About Education.

THE DAILY RIFF - Be Smarter. About Education.

RIFFING GOOD STORIES

"Morning Joe" PowWOW: "Great Expectations" In Education

Joe & Mika Brought Out The Big Guns: Mayor Bloomberg, Jeb Bush, John Legend, Al Sharpton, Blair Taylor, Mayor Cory Booker . . . see videos! Read More

Recording Artist & Philanthropist John Legend To Bill Maher: "You're Wrong On Education"

Retaliates Against Maher's "Rule" To "Fire The Parents, Not The Teachers" Read More

What Would Ted Sizer Say About Technology?

Guest Post About Harvard & Phillips Academy Andover Education Legend
"One Of The Great Educational Minds Of Our Time" Read More

Can't You See It? Teachers For Technology. Now, Not Tomorrow.

What's Your School Doing About It? Lip Service or The Real Deal?Read More

Congress Passes New Student Loan Bill: Education Dept. "Flying Solo" Eliminating Banks

Fierce Bank Lobbying Defeated! "Can DOE Handle It Solo?", asks NPR. Goal To Make It Easier For More Kids To Get Loans. Read More

President Obama: Isn't It Time To Listen To The Customer?

Student As Customer? Don't We Want Change That Works For The Student First? Read More

Guilty: Teenage Cyberbullies NOT Protected By Free Speech

Listen Up Parents & Schools: Your Kids Can Found Be Guilty Of Slander & Hate Crimes Read More

Schools Matter: Charter Schools: Duncan's Laboratories of Resegregation

Schools Matter: Charter Schools: Duncan's Laboratories of Resegregation

Charter Schools: Duncan's Laboratories of Resegregation

Not every charter is all African-American or Hispanic with non-stop test prep, penal pedagogy, and hours that run from 7:30 to 5PM. Some, especially in the South and the West, are all white, offer karate and foreign languages, embrace hands-on learning, and run from 8AM to 2:45, except on Monday when they close at 12:45.

Just like York Preparatory Academy just outside Rock Hill, SC, which serves the white families of the new high end Gates subdivision, where lot prices start near $74,000. With an all-white Board, it's just like schools in the South used to be, back when celebrating Confederate History Month was not such a big deal.

From The Herald:

Local black leaders are concerned that York Preparatory

Summa, West Linn students win Best of Fair at Intel Northwest Science Expo | OregonLive.com

Summa, West Linn students win Best of Fair at Intel Northwest Science Expo | OregonLive.com

Summa, West Linn students win Best of Fair at Intel Northwest Science Expo

By Bill Graves, The Oregonian

April 07, 2010, 12:19PM

Top winners in Oregon's state science fair last week along with winners from six regional science fairs will compete as Team Oregon in the Intel International Science and Engineering Fair May 9-14 in San Jose, Calif.

Judges for the Intel Northwest Science Expo staged at Portland Stage University last Friday chose two best of fair winners from each division for both middle school and high school level competition. The fair drew 660 students, 270 in high school and 390 in middle school, exhibiting 525 projects in the sciences, engineering, computer science and mathematics.

High school level winners are eligible for an expenses-paid trip to compete as finalists in the international fair. Four individual and two team projects were chosen from the high school level for the international fair. Best in show winners from the regional fairs also will be finalists in international competition.

Intel Northwest Science Expo announced the following winners and their

Local News | Gregoire asks all school districts to join in Race to the Top | Seattle Times Newspaper

Local News | Gregoire asks all school districts to join in Race to the Top | Seattle Times Newspaper

Gregoire asks all school districts to join in Race to the Top

Gov. Chris Gregoire is asking all 295 school districts in the state to join an effort to win a $250 million Race to the Top grant from the federal government.

By The Associated Press

Gov. Chris Gregoire is asking all 295 school districts in the state to join an effort to seek $250 million from the federal government for education reform.

Gregoire said a news conference at Foster High School in Tukwila on Tuesday that Washington's application for Race to the Top money will get the federal government's attention if everyone in the education community endorses it.

The governor recently signed into law an education reform plan designed to help the state compete for a slice of the Obama Administration's $4.35 billion Race to the Top program. The plan calls for tougher education

School safety agents likely to stay immune to budget cuts | GothamSchools

School safety agents likely to stay immune to budget cuts | GothamSchools

School safety agents likely to stay immune to budget cuts

by Maura Walz

City school officials are scouring the budget for ways to close a budget gap that could be as large as $600 million. But one realm is likely to escape their scrutiny: the city’s force of more than 5,000 school safety agents.
That’s because it’s not clear who controls the $300 million school safety budget, which is set for a $5 million increase next year. The Department of Education says the police department does, but the NYPD claims it just manages the funds the education department sends them.
City Council financial analysts laid this conflict out in a report presented to the council at a DOE budget hearing late last month. According to the report (pdf):

“The refusal of each agency involved in school safety to take accountability for the division’s budget does nothing to assure one that the school safety budget should be left untouched, while other key service areas should be cut.”

Responsibility over budgeting is one of several murky details in the relationship between the DOE and the NYPD over the school safety force. The relationship is governed by a Memorandum of Understanding between the

What to know about the new DC Teacher Contract � The Quick and the Ed

What to know about the new DC Teacher Contract � The Quick and the Ed

What to know about the new DC Teacher Contract

by Elena Silva

Two years in the making, a new agreement has been reached between DCPS and the Washington Teachers’ Union. It’s not a done deal, as it still needs to be ratified by teachers and then approved by the D.C. Council. There are plenty of details to be worked out but the broad strokes are as follows:
• It’s a five-year contract, retroactive to October 2007, with an overall (over the five years, 3 percent, 3 percent, 5 percent, 4 percent and 5 percent respectively) base salary raise of more than 20 percent. Retroactive pay will go to the 250 plus teachers who were RIF’d last fall, too.
• It includes performance pay, but doesn’t include the “red tier, green tier” plan that generated so much controversy last year. All teachers—new and veteran– still work under the same salary structure. And no due process or tenure protections are lost for those who participate. The performance pay plan is voluntary and based on eligibility–if you want to participate you also have to qualify based on measures, which are tbd but not surprisingly will be “collaboratively developed” and include “multiple measures” of teaching practice.
• Teachers can and will still be “excessed”—losing their jobs to school closures or district-wide RIFs but maintaining employment in the district—but there are changes here. There are more hiring options for excessed teachers– a $25,000 buyout, retirement with full benefits if you have 20+ years of experience, or a full additional year to find a placement with help from DCPS (after that, you’re on your own). But these options are limited to

Markham Middle School Highlights the Need for School Turnaround, and Policies to Support Turnaround Efforts

by Rob Manwaring

We released a report yesterday that highlighted Markham middle school, a low performing Los Angeles school serving low income Hispanic and black students. Markham illustrates both the need for school districts and states to take dramatic action to improve the lowest performing schools in this country, and the need to make sure that any school turnaround effort is also supported by district and state policies, especially its human capital policies.
Lesson 1: Our lowest performing schools need dramatic change–not just marginal and piecemeal reforms.
The report highlights the saga of Markham Middle school, a chronically low performing school in Los Angeles Unified. Markham was first identified as a low performing school under federal law in 1997 and has been so ever since ( it was likely low performing long before that).
Prior to the No Child Left Behind Act, states and districts were charged with determining how to identify the lowest performing schools. Given that flexibility, California changed how it determined which schools were low performing as its testing standards and accountability systems developed. Throughout all of these changes in how low performance was measured, one thing stayed consistent. Markham was in the group of schools that were labeled.
The school was charged with developing numerous improvement plans for both state and federal programs. These programs had impressive titles including School Improvement Grants, Immediate Intervention for Underperforming Schools Program, Comprehensive School Reform Demonstrations, High Priority Schools Program, and the Quality Education Investment Act. All of these programs had accompanying planning,

California Progress Report Adult Education's Demise

California Progress Report

Adult Education's Demise

by kaldveer

By Ron Russell
If you think English is a dying language in California, just wait until the last adult education program closes its doors.
Here's the scoop on our state's latest naughty secret. One by one, adult education programs are being eliminated and thousands of adult education teachers, administrators and students anguish as their schools close.
With the focus inevitably on K-12, most people are unfamiliar with the scope, breadth or importance of adult education, so the enrollment numbers might stun some folks: Salinas serves 21,000 students, while Monterey's programs served more than 6,000 last year. Los Angeles caters to tens of thousands.
read more

Wikileaks Reminded Me That Most Teachers Are Cowards - Perdaily.com

Wikileaks Reminded Me That Most Teachers Are Cowards - Perdaily.com

Wikileaks Reminded Me That Most Teachers Are Cowards

by Leonard

Wikileaks has some pretty disturbing footage from Iraq showing an American helicopter gunship murdering many unarmed Iraqi civilians, several of whom were reporters. Beside the shear rage I felt watching human beings being eliminated with the levity that one associates with a violent video game by American military, I also realized the extreme jeopardy other people had taken to make this atrocity public. Julian Assange, one of the mild mannered founders of WikiLeaks described not only the surveillance that people working at WikiLeaks are under, but also the incredible courage it took for either soldiers in the army or person(s) at the Department of Defense in leaking this encrypted footage so that the public might be aware of this atrocity.

Here was a situation where some people were willing to put their lives on the line to blow the whistle on military war crimes in Iraq (and logically Afghanistan and Pakistan) that clearly has become standard operating procedure and shows a clear indifference to human life superceded by a perverse desire to get a high score in this game of death. Those brave people who reported this to WikiLeaks absolutely trusted that WikiLeaks would protect them from FBI, CIA, and a plethora of other governmental spooks that would like in the old Nixon Watergate mentality to plug the leaks.

Then of course...

... their are LAUSD certificated educators and classified staff who sit amongst themselves and bitch about the