Recovery.gov Vice President on New Recovery Act Recipient Reports Posted on Recovery.Gov

Recovery.gov

The White House

Office of the Vice President

Statement by the Vice President on New Recovery Act Recipient Reports Posted on Recovery.Gov

Washington, DC – As mandated by statute, the Recovery Accountability and Transparency Board today posted on Recovery.gov quarterly reports required from some recipients of Recovery Act funding. The recipient reports provide more detailed information about a portion of Recovery Act activity during the first quarter of 2010. The Vice President issued the following statement:

“The recipients reporting on this $62 billion portion of the Recovery Act – about 15 percent of Recovery spending and tax relief to-date - tell us they funded about 675,000 workers last quarter with those dollars alone, making it the largest quarterly direct job impact ever reported by recipients of Recovery Act funds. These reports, which provide a snapshot of just a portion of the job impact in the first quarter of this year, are yet another indication that the Recovery Act is a driving force behind the continued economic growth we are seeing and remains on-track to support 3.5 million jobs overall by the end of 2010.”

“This is a partial survey of Recovery Act activity based on real-time information coming directly from the recipients themselves, so we know the information is not perfect or complete. Work will continue on refining and improving the quality of the data in the weeks ahead. But these reports provide the American people with an unprecedented look at how some Recovery Act dollars are being put to work in their neighborhoods and communities through reports directly from the recipients themselves – and we believe that when the final data is in for this quarter, it will show the highest recipient participation rate yet. From the beginning, we committed to provide the public with a level of detail about the Recovery Act never before available with a government program - and with the posting of these reports today, we continue to deliver on that commitment.”

Holding on to Our Principals � InterACT

Holding on to Our Principals � InterACT

Holding on to Our Principals

by David B. Cohen

If you’re unfamiliar with Larry Cuban, I highly recommend a look at his somewhat-too-modest biography page on his blog. His various perspectives on American education combine to give him that rare ability to understand and present issues with breadth and depth.
In a recent blog post, Larry Cuban examines the issue of Principal Turnover: “Burn and Churn” Strategies and Student Academic Achievement. He notes that the pressure on teachers and schools at the moment certainly does not spare principals. His post includes many references, and reminded me of a recent article from the San Francisco Chronicle that detailed how principals are losing their jobs as part of dramatic school turnaround programs.
Cuban writes,

In a number of states and districts, half of all beginning principals leave within five years. Such attrition means that relationships between teachers and students and between teachers and principals, based on competence and confidence in doing the job well, has too little time to ripen into mutual trust . Without those solid relationships, kiss gains in school and classroom achievement goodbye. “Churn and burn” may work in the telecommunications and hospitality

Promise Neighborhoods RFP Released – Building Neighborhoods

Building Neighborhoods

Coverage of Federal Urban Policy from United Neighborhood Centers of America

Promise Neighborhoods RFP Released – Building Neighborhoods

Promise Neighborhoods RFP Released

The Department of Education has released the RFP for $10 million in Promise Neighborhoods planning grants today (Friday, April 30).

We will be reviewing it and posting reactions soon. We also hope to begin holding regular conference calls for members planning to apply. Membership inquiries are welcome.

According to the Department’s press release:

The Department plans to make up to 20 planning grants, ranging between $400,000 and $500,000. It is inviting applications from projects serving urban neighborhoods, rural areas and tribal communities. Applications will be due on June 25.

The grants will be open to both nonprofits and institutions of higher learning. The text of the full press release is below, including a link to a series of webinars to be held May 3, 5 and 10.

DEPARTMENT OF EDUCATION OPENS COMPETITION FOR PROMISE NEIGHBORHOODS

The U.S. Department of Education today launched the Promise Neighborhood program, the first federal initiative to put education at the center of comprehensive efforts to fight poverty in urban and rural areas.

The $10 million available in fiscal 2010 will support up to 20 organizations with one year of funding to plan for the implementation of cradle-to-career services designed to improve educational outcomes for students in distressed neighborhoods.

“We need to take an all-hands-on-deck approach to lifting our families and our

Mike Klonsky's SmallTalk Blog: Condo in Florida still for sale

Mike Klonsky's SmallTalk Blog: Condo in Florida still for sale

Condo in Florida still for sale

by Mike Klonsky

"Model" D.C. contract is a sham

Back in August, 2008 I wrote about "Rhee's cynical tenure-for-pay swap."

But the problem is, technocrat Rhee and Mayor Fenty are in league with Ownership Society privatizers bent on replacing public with privately managed (non-union) charter schools and vouchers for Catholic (non-union) schools. That means that the pay provisions of any new contract won’t be worth the paper they’re written on...

And then a little more than a year ago, when the deal was first officially proposed in D.C., I

At Daroff, outside providers woo community | Philadelphia Public School Notebook

At Daroff, outside providers woo community | Philadelphia Public School Notebook

Community budget hearings coming up

by Paul Socolar on Apr 30 2010 Posted in Eye on the budget

Chief Business Officer Michael Masch gave abudget presentation to the SRC April 21. The District has not yet published its full, voluminous budget book but it has released a shorter, more user-friendly Budget in Brief that includes extensive detail and a six-page news release describing the major initiatives of the plan.The District is holding a series of community meetings in May to discuss its proposed $3.2 billion 2010-11 budget.

Also available online are the budgets for individual schools. The District has created a succinct two-page summary explaining its allotments to schools and how they are determined.

The District began making most of its budget documents available online in response to public outcry over the massive, "surprise" budget deficit in 2006.

The community meetings are scheduled for:

At Daroff, outside providers woo community

by Benjamin Herold

"I think the change is going to be bittersweet," said Assistant Principal Nancy Hatchett, summarizing the mood during Daroff Elementary School's turnaround team public forum.
From the outset, the school auditorium at 56th and Vine felt like a somber family gathering, perhaps to discuss the terms of an unpleasant but necessary divorce.

Featured Title:

Turnaround teams make their pitches this week and next

Image:

Image Caption:

Sisters Doni'a Jackson (right, a 2008 Daroff grad) and Melissa Rice (a prospective Daroff student) listen in during

An experiment in social media

Is School Improvement Becoming a Crazy Beauty Pageant? � The Quick and the Ed

Is School Improvement Becoming a Crazy Beauty Pageant? � The Quick and the Ed

Is School Improvement Becoming a Crazy Beauty Pageant?

by Rob Manwaring

During my college year abroad, I had the unique experience of being asked to be the judge in a local beauty pageant on a remote island off the coast of Scotland. (Disclaimer – this experience in no way reflects the general fondness that I have for Scotland and their wonderful people). The first responsibility as a judge was to select the contestants for the pageant. Now young people on this island generally quickly moved to the mainland or got married, both of which disqualified them from the competition. I had no idea how hard it was to find people to actually compete in this contest, and after spending some time trying to find contestants, I was ready to choose anyone just to get it over with. And those that might have wanted to compete may not have gotten asked. The contest ended in disaster with the festival organizer’s daughter getting chosen as the queen with much speculation that the whole thing was rigged, and my best friend

2:40 PM (30 minutes ago)

Can Florida Race to the Top II Application Fix SB 6?

by Rob Manwaring

Earlier this month, Governor Crist vetoed SB 6, the most far reaching teacher reform bill this country has seen. Among other things, the bill would have eliminated tenure and the salary schedule, replacing them with annual contracts and compensation based on performance and shortage areas (hard to staff schools and subjects). Many others have written in detail on this bill and what it would have meant (See Ed Week, Randi Weingarten, Rich Hess, Foundation for Florida’s Future) While in my opinion this bill went to far in some areas, its existence creates a unique opportunity for the teacher’s union to seriously engage in developing a meaningful but more rational teacher reform package for the Race to the Top II application process. Here is why.
First in the Race to the Top I, Florida came in 4th place losing points for not having teacher buy-in. Given that

1:43 PM (1 hour ago)

QUICK Hits

by Forrest Hinton

Quick Hits is a short compilation of question-raising news stories, blog posts, and video clips that Education Sector team members are reading and viewing each day. The content of these Hits is not necessarily endorsed by the organization or any particular team member.

• If you don’t have the funds to attend college in the United States, the federal government will offer you loans and grants. But what do students from Peru and Cambodia do in similar situations?(Politics Daily)
• Is Teacher Tenure Still Necessary? (NPR)
• Peer Pressure: How can knowledgeable students inspire and motivate their classmates to attend college?(College Summit)
• What makes Cato’s Neal McCluskey so pessimistic about RTT? He even uses the word “unconstitutional!” (Cato@Liberty)
• Speaking of RTT, what’s happening with the teacher evaluation bill, SB 191, out in Colorado? (The Denver Post)
• Happy Birthday, Nancy Drew. Is it 80 now? (Christian Science Monitor)

The Educated Reporter: Fifty percent, and reporters who don’t comment.

The Educated Reporter: Fifty percent, and reporters who don’t comment.

Fifty percent, and reporters who don’t comment.

by Linda Perlstein

After I blogged on the topic, several reporters wrote me personally about how policy makers in their states decided that student test scores should count toward at least 50 percent of teacher evaluations. In some places consultants insisted that would be a do-or-die threshold for Race to the Top money, though it is not clear that is the the case. (Of the winners, Tennessee policy is 50 percent, while it looks like Delaware has not come to an exact figure.) Under Florida law, teacher evaluations have to be based “predominantly” on student achievement. Achievement means test scores, and apparently 50 percent means predominantly. Nothing fancier than that.

You may have noticed that on a blog dedicated to education journalism, education journalists rarely comment,

Fewer children tested for G&T admissions, but more qualify | GothamSchools

Fewer children tested for G&T admissions, but more qualify | GothamSchools

Fewer children tested for G&T admissions, but more qualify

by Anna Phillips

Thousands fewer parents had their preschoolers screened for the city’s gifted kindergartens this year, but the classes could still see enrollment rise.
That’s because the sheer number of children who scored at the 90th percentile or higher on the city’s two standardized tests for gifted programs — the OLSAT and the BRSA — increased by 10 percent, even as 16 percent fewer children took the test.
The families who stayed home this year live largely in low-income areas like Harlem (District 5) and the South Bronx (District 7), which saw a 30 percent and 52 percent drop in test takers, respectively. The only two districts to see an increase in students sitting for the exam were District 2, which includes most of Manhattan below 59th Street and the Upper East Side, and Brooklyn’s District 13.
Last year, far more families chose to have their children screened for gifted programs, and as a result more children qualified. One reason for the jump was that for the first time all districts planned to offer gifted classes in kindergarten. But this year, the number of test takers dropped back down to its level in 2008, when many

Sacramento Press / ACE Mentor Program is Making a Difference for High School Students

Sacramento Press / ACE Mentor Program is Making a Difference for High School Students

ACE Mentor Program is Making a Difference for High School Students

by Noel Cruz

Architecture Construction Engineering (ACE) Mentor Program is a nonprofit organization, formed under Section 501(c) 3 of the District of Columbia in 2002. Prior to that date (1994), the ACE Mentor Program of New York City, the founding affiliate, directed ACE’s leadership. ACE now serves more than eighty cities in America — from New York to Los Angeles, Seattle to Miami, Chicago to Dallas, even Honolulu — and is still growing.
Founded in 2007 with significant support from the Construction Industry Education Foundation (CIEF), the ACE Mentor Program of Greater Sacramento introduces interested high school students to the building industry’s wide range of exciting career opportunities.
The program is open to any student who would like to learn more about a future in architecture, engineering, construction or the building trades.
This year fifteen high schools participated in a pseudo, Intermodal Transportation Hub project built as part of the redevelopment of The Railyards in the City of Sacramento. The project required students to incorporate at least three modes of transportation, such as bus, automobile, regional transit light rail, and Amtrak. In addition, they had to design facilities that included ticket sales, public restrooms, administrative offices, commercial retail space, sales for food and dining, security considerations, parking, public art venue, and waiting areas. The project must obtain LEED (Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design) and meet construction budget of

Texas education schools need to do a better job preparing teachers THE EDUCATION FRONT Blog | The Dallas Morning News

THE EDUCATION FRONT Blog | The Dallas Morning News

Texas education schools need to do a better job preparing teachers 2:33 PM Fri, Apr 30, 2010 | Permalink | Yahoo! Buzz William McKenzie/Editorial Columnist Bio | E-mail | News tips

The National Council on Teacher Quality has come out with an assessment of how Texas' schools of education prepare instructors for the classroom. The bottom line is some of our schools need a lot of work.

In this Viewpoints piece, David Chard, dean of SMU's Annette Caldwell Simmons School of Education and Human Development, is honest about the shortcomings of his program, which actually does okay on this survey. As we talk here about quality teachers, I hope we have more voices like Chard's saying this is what we need to do to improve. Better that, than defensive reactions.

If you have time over the weekend, I encourage you to read Chard's piece and this accompanying DMN story. The way in which teachers are prepared - or not prepared - directly affects the classroom.

This Week In Education Media: Michelle Rhee Book In The Works

This Week In Education

Media: Michelle Rhee Book In The Works

by Alexander Russo

There's a new book about Michelle Rhee in the works, set to be written by former USA editorial writer and longtime journalist Richard Whitmire. From the agent: "Michelle Rhee, DC’s Chancellor of Education, is arguably the most famous Korean-American in the country, and quite possibly its most influential reformer...The Bee Eater is part biography, part prescription for success, and part examination of our educational system. It will chronicle Rhee’s rise from a Midwestern Korean household to Cornell University, a meteoric career in education reform, and her controversial, widely-observed

This Week In Education Thompson: The Discipline Gap

This Week In Education

Thompson: The Discipline Gap

by john thompson

I and others have long believed that the achievement gap is largely a function of a gap in time on task. So I was initially annoyed by Noguera’s repetition in this Education Researcher article (PDF) article of the same old studies from a generation ago placing so much blame for classroom disruptions on teachers’ misperceptions. But Noguera et al also cited newer, more balanced research in their writing, which asks if "the achievement gap and the discipline gap" are "two sides of the same coin?" Maybe we are all saying the same thing, and I’m like most teachers in being sensitive on this issue.
In particular, Noguera's conclusion was excellent, especially the statements that "unfortunately, the discourse on racial and ethnic disproportionality (in assessing discipline) seems to be constrained by simplistic dichotomies," and "little is known about the efficacy or effectiveness of possible ‘gap-reducing’ interventions."
I intially recoiled at the AERA’s description of "an ecological approach" which "deals with school discipline by increasing the strength and the quality of classroom activities." Blaming a complex phenomenon on one factor

Media: Opening School Scenes

by Alexander Russo

Schools are so convenient. I'd forgotten that this (in)famous 1996 Times magazine cover story started out with a schoolhouse anecdote: "AS THEY PUT ON PLASTIC

Thompson: Embracing Tenure

by john thompson

If Secretary Duncan wants moderates in teachers unions to persuade the rank-in-file to make compromises on seniority and using student growth data in evaluations, he should embrace Governor Crist’s veto of Florida’s "reform" legislation. The concessions that Duncan seeks are possible only when built on the rock of tenure.

Media: EWA Editor Praises "Teacherpocalypse" Story

by Alexander Russo

Nice to see Las Vegas' Emily Richmond get some Linda Perlstein love (An education reporter who always delivers) but too bad that the article Perlstein links to is one of those highly speculative "Teacherpocalypse" stories (‘Almost catastrophic’ budget cuts on horizon) going around right now. I'm also a Richmond fan, and am glad that she notes in her story that the

The 2010 White House Correspondents' Dinner: Where Bieber Meets Geithner - Whcd - Gawker

The 2010 White House Correspondents' Dinner: Where Bieber Meets Geithner - Whcd - Gawker

The 2010 White House Correspondents' Dinner: Where Bieber Meets Geithner

Hundreds of celebrities, journalists, and politicos will descend on D.C. tomorrow night to attend the annual White House Correspondents' Association Dinner. Who will be on hand? A long list of the people planning to walk the C-SPAN red carpet below.