Officials debate the good and bad of school choice at hearing | GothamSchools

Officials debate the good and bad of school choice at hearing | GothamSchools

Officials debate the good and bad of school choice at hearing

by Anna Phillips

A City Council hearing today on public school admissions policies became a debate on school choice as teachers union and city officials clashed on whether more choice had really helped more students.
Defending the current system, which was put in place seven years ago, Deputy Chancellor Marc Sternberg pulled from his own experience of starting the Bronx Lab School, one of several small schools that replaced a Evander Childs High School, a large neighborhood school. Sternberg argued that because students can now apply to high schools all over the city, the fate of their education isn’t tied to the quality of a zoned high school. In his testimony he argued that having school choice is working for most students.

And for the coming year, 52 percent of rising ninth-graders were matched to their first-choice school, and 77 percent were matched to one of their top-three choices-more than triple the figure just six years ago. At the end of the main round, 86 percent of students had been matched to one of their top five choices. And while there is always room for progress, this represents a completely

Coverage of NEA Representative Assembly Begins July 2 | Intercepts

Coverage of NEA Representative Assembly Begins July 2 | Intercepts

Coverage of NEA Representative Assembly Begins July 2

by Mike Antonucci

Click here to read:
1) Coverage of NEA Representative Assembly Begins July 2
2) Lobby for a Bailout, Win an iPod Nano!
3) Last Week’s Intercepts
4) Quote of the Week

Eduflack: Around the Edu-Horn, June 21, 2010

Eduflack: Around the Edu-Horn, June 21, 2010

Around the Edu-Horn, June 21, 2010

by Eduflack

House, Senate Dems call for GAO review of quality, biz model of for-profit colleges -- http://tinyurl.com/2u56dyr

RT @D_Aarons The agony of a girl who just wanted to fit in 1st in series on bullying by The Boston Globehttp://bit.ly/d2GcH8

EdTrust on delivering statewide data systems to Cali -- http://tinyurl.com/262mfhk

Mathews: Should Hispanic students be allowed to take AP Spanish? http://tinyurl.com/247urb3

Attending college full time while in HS in GA -- http://www.ajc.com/news/ga-program-lets-high-551454.html

Chart of the Day: Athletics vs. Academics � The Quick and the Ed

Chart of the Day: Athletics vs. Academics � The Quick and the Ed

Chart of the Day: Athletics vs. Academics

by Chad Aldeman

The Knight Commission has a new report comparing spending on athletics and academics. In only the four year period from 2005 to 2008, the ratio between what schools spend on academics and athletics increased nearly 15 percent. In 2008, schools in the Football Bowl Subdivision (FBS) spent more than six times as much per athlete as they did per student. In the Southeastern Conference (home to sports powerhouses like Florida, Kentucky, Louisiana State, and Georgia), the ratio was almost 11 to

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.

• Can one teacher make a difference? (The Line)
• Haven’t had enough of the World Cup? Then check out this US-vs-the-world infographic. (h/t LearnBoost Education News)
• 7 ways that private student loans are getting better? (U.S. News & World Report)
• Are professors just too intellectual for Facebook? (The Chronicle of Higher Education)

Hechinger Report | A new vision: Students actually want to attend summer school

Hechinger Report | A new vision: Students actually want to attend summer school

A new vision: Students actually want to attend summer school

By Ron Fairchild

Ron Fairchild is the chief executive officer of the National Summer Learning Association in Baltimore

When it comes to closing academic achievement gaps, summer has been the season of lost opportunities.

Mention the words “summer school” to a young person and you’re likely to hear a painful groan. That’s because summer school typically means sitting indoors doing remedial work and feeling punished. Forced to make tough decisions to balance increasingly tight budgets, school districts are no more enthusiastic. A recent survey by the American Association of School Administrators found that 34 percent of respondents are considering eliminating summer school for the 2010‐11 school year – if they haven’t already.

But this summer school malaise obscures an important truth: High-quality summer learning is perhaps the most powerful yet underutilized opportunity to raise achievement in our nation’s education toolkit. When done right – and with the right mix of incentives to ensure attendance – summer learning can help students from low-income families gain ground academically and get on a path to success in school and beyond.

Such programs are more important than ever. Research shows that low-income students lose more than two months in reading achievement each summer while their middle-class peers make slight

Cool Cat Teacher Blog: 7 Ways to SuperCharge Your Blog or News Out to Your Friends and Followers

Cool Cat Teacher Blog: 7 Ways to SuperCharge Your Blog or News Out to Your Friends and Followers

7 Ways to SuperCharge Your Blog or News Out to Your Friends and Followers

by coolcatteacher@gmail.com (Victoria A Davis, Cool Cat Teacher)

Sharing the news from your organization, classroom, or just your personal writing is easier than ever using RSS(Really Simply Syndication.)

There are some very easy tips to make sharing easy.

Remember, in many ways the web is distributed and people are sharing in a wide variety of places everywhere. Many organizations make the mistake of marketing to the principal or the board or the most vocal. Just because your leaders are there doesn't mean everyone else is. It is all about who you're linking with and you should go where they are. That is what these strategies help you do.

1) Set up a Blog
This is the backbone of your sharing strategy and with most blogs like blogger (which I use), wordpress,edublogs, typepad comes RSS. It is an automatically generated "feed" that allows you to send your blog just about everywhere and make your life simple.

More Bush BS - Sponsored by Waltons

More Bush BS - Sponsored by Waltons

Plug your nose before reading this recent Jeb Bush verbal excretion. From 2TheAdvocate:

Wednesday’s talk by the former Florida governor was organized by Baton Rouge Business Report Publisher Rolfe McCollister and sponsored by the Bentonville, Ark.-based Walton Family Foundation.

After leaving office in 2007, Jeb Bush launched his own education organization in Florida, the Foundation for Excellence in Education, on which he serves as president and chairman. From that platform, Bush has continued to advocate across the country for the conservative “free market” education reforms he promoted in Florida.

Bush said changes in public education undertaken by Florida since 1999 have been successful and should serve 

Newark Mayor Booker endorses N.J. Gov. Christie's property tax cap

Newark Mayor Booker endorses N.J. Gov. Christie's property tax cap

Newark Mayor Booker endorses N.J. Gov. Christie's property tax cap

Monday, June 21, 2010

BY CLAIRE HEININGER

State House Bureau

STATE HOUSE BUREAU

NEWARK -- Mayor Cory Booker Monday endorsed Governor Christie's proposed constitutional amendment limiting annual property tax increases to 2.5 percent.
Booker, a Democrat, said he is backing the Republican governor's plan -- along with the rest of Christie's 33-bill "toolkit" to assist local governments -- because "the moment for true reform has finally come."
"We have a historic opportunity here," Booker said, praising Christie's "guts and focus" on New Jersey's persistent struggle with high property taxes.
Christie and Booker rejected a competing proposal being introduced Monday by the Legislature's top Democrat, Senate President Stephen Sweeney (D-Gloucester). Sweeney's plan would cap annual increases at 2.9 percent and do it by law, not through constitutional amendment.
Sweeney says his plan would improve on the state's current 4 percent cap law, passed in 2007 under Democratic Gov. Jon Corzine, without crippling towns and schools through constitutional change. Sweeney would also provide exceptions for some of local governments' most trying costs, including health care, pension payments and energy.
Christie dismissed those as "Corzine Swiss cheese holes" that render the cap ineffective. The governor's cap could only be exceeded for towns' debt payments or if local voters choose to override it.
He also insisted that a statutory fix isn't lasting reform and a constitutional amendment must be put to voters.
"We can no longer count on the politicians to fix the problem," the governor said.
Christie said he is prepared to force action on his plan, which would have to clear legislative committees by July 6 or 7 in time to go on the November ballot. But Sweeney plans to send his proposal to the governor by July 1. Democrats have majorities in both houses of the Legislature, and Assembly Speaker Sheila Oliver (D-Essex) backs Sweeney's plan.

NEWARK -- Mayor Cory Booker Monday endorsed Governor Christie's proposed constitutional amendment limiting annual property tax increases to 2.5 percent.
Booker, a Democrat, said he is backing the Republican governor's plan -- along with the rest of Christie's 33-bill "toolkit" to assist local governments -- because "the moment for true reform has finally come."
"We have a historic opportunity here," Booker said, praising Christie's "guts and focus" on New Jersey's persistent struggle with high property taxes.
Christie and Booker rejected a competing proposal being introduced Monday by the Legislature's top Democrat, Senate President Stephen Sweeney (D-Gloucester). Sweeney's plan would cap annual increases at 2.9 percent and do it by law, not through constitutional amendment.
Sweeney says his plan would improve on the state's current 4 percent cap law, passed in 2007 under Democratic Gov. Jon Corzine, without crippling towns and 

BP Spills Coffee

UCBComedy — June 09, 2010 — This is what happens when BP spills coffee. More comedy videos: http://www.UCBComedy.com Like UCB: http://www.facebook.com/pages/UCBcome...Follow UCB: http://www.twitter.com/UCBcomedy

Get Schooled | ajc.com

Get Schooled | ajc.com

Birthplace of charter schools tightens controls and increases accountability of sponsors

2:20 pm June 21, 2010, by Maureen Downey

One thing that remains murky to me is how accountable the state Charter Schools Commission – which a Fulton County judge recently ruled is constitutional – is for the schools that it approves over the objections of local boards of education. The commission is here in Atlanta, but it is approving schools across the state.

As the authorizer of the schools, how is the commission held accountable if one goes bad or if parents are unhappy and can’t go to the local school board to complain since the local folks had nothing to do with the school’s approval?

At a media briefing earlier this year, Charter Schools Commission member Jennifer Rippner surprised me when I asked whether parents of students in a commission charter school could ultimately turn to the charter commission with complaints that they felt were not being dealt with by the school itself or its board of directors.

Her answer was “yes,” raising the possibility of unhappy parents trying to track down the seven commissioners – most of whom have full-time, high-profile careers — and get them to delve into a problem their child was having in a school in south Georgia. Frankly, I just couldn’t see it happening.

Now comes an interesting development in Minnesota, the birthing ground of the charter school movement.

According to the Star Tribune:

The Education Report New language immersion school, a year later

The Education Report

New language immersion school, a year later

By Katy Murphy
Monday, June 21st, 2010 at 9:08 am in English learners, elementary schools,families, small schools, students
1 Comment

Last fall I visited Oakland’s Melrose Leadership Academy, which had just begun a new Spanish-English immersion program, starting with a kindergarten class of about 35 students. When the teacher said “stand up” in Spanish (90 percent of kindergarten instruction is in Spanish), at least a third of the children — most of the native English-speakers — sat on the rug, looking around in 

Summer Solstice At Stonehenge (PHOTOS): New Agers, Neo-Pagans Celebrate

Summer Solstice At Stonehenge (PHOTOS): New Agers, Neo-Pagans Celebrate

First Posted: 06-21-10 01:34 PM | Updated: 06-21-10 02:11 PM

6

0views

Read More: England, English Heritage, Neo-Paganism, New Age, Pagan Ritual, Paganism, Salisbury,Slidepollajax, Stonehenge, Stonehenge Rituals, Summer Solstice, World News

Some 20,000 revelers -- mainly New Age and neo-pagan types -- gathered to dance, sing and holler as the sun rose over the prehistoric stone circle Stonehenge on June 21 to mark the 2010 summer solstice.

The first rays of orange and gold were detected at about 4:52 a.m. at the Heel Stone, one of the monument's pockmarked pillars that aligns directly with the rising sun. The sight elicited cheers from the festive, if bleary-eyed, throng, many of whom had been partying all night.

Given the monument's location on Salisbury Plain in southern England, the annual event is occasionally marked by clouds and unpredictable weather. Yet those in attendance this year were