Monday, January 10, 2011

Rhee's New Group Calls for Changes in Education - WSJ.com

Rhee's New Group Calls for Changes in Education

By STEPHANIE BANCHERO

Michelle Rhee, who gained national attention as the chancellor of schools in Washington, D.C., called Monday for giving students government-funded vouchers to attend private schools, rating principals based on student achievement and getting rid of teacher tenure.

The release of the blueprint was the first formal action of Ms. Rhee's new advocacy group, StudentsFirst, which she launched in December, after leaving her job heading D.C. schools in October. Ms. Rhee said she was in discussions with the governors of Florida, New Mexico, New Jersey, Tennessee, Nevada and Indiana to adopt part, if not all, of the agenda.

In an interview Monday, Ms. Rhee said she recognized her platform would be controversial and

Bill Honig drops bid to return to state Board of Education | PolitiCal | Los Angeles Times

Bill Honig drops bid to return to state Board of Education

January 10, 2011 | 1:40 pm

Less than one week after being named to the state Board of Education, Bill Honig has withdrawn his name from consideration, according to the governor's office.

Honig, who served on the state board during Brown's first tenure as first governor and went on to be elected state superintendent of public instruction three times, was among the governor's most controversial early appointments. Honig resigned as state superintendent in 1993 after being convicted in a conflict-of-interest case involving state education payments received by his wife'

Last Stand for Children First: Last Stand for Children First endorses Rahm Emanuel for Chicago Mayor

Last Stand for Children First endorses Rahm Emanuel for Chicago Mayor

by Last Stand for Children

As an organization with a national outreach, it is unusual for LastStand to get involved in local politics. However, a true hero of education reform has arrived in Chicago and he's promising to take Chicago's miracle Renaissance 2010 and make it even Renaissancier in the years to come.

Emanuel returns to Chicago from serving his country in Washington DC, where he deserves much of the credit for taking a vaguely optimistic and undoubtedly historic figure in President Obama and taking him from his election day victory over John McCain to his current popularity.

Rahm has just the attitude to stand up to teacher's unions and he proved it while working for the Obama administration when he let it be clear in no uncertain turns that he wished to "F*** the UAW." This is a man who will not be intimidated by union thuggery.

Chicago faces some very difficult financial times ahead in part because of Mayor Daley's disastrous deal leasing

This Week In Education: Thompson: The Axis Of Accountability, Revealed

Reading: Comic Sans (Font) Will Make You Smarter [image: image from www.identifont.com] "Researchers at Princeton have found evidence that making something more difficult to learn improves long-term learning and information retention. More specifically, *changing the typeface* from something legible ...

Thompson: The Axis Of Accountability, Revealed [image: Michelle_rhee] The Michelle Rhee/Jeb Bush/Rick Scott/Tea Party, /Chris Christie/Joel Klein school of reform are showing their true colors. Their true love - battling other adults - is now unmistakable. These "reformers'" common denominator is ...

Union vows to appeal judge’s teacher rating decision | GothamSchools

Union vows to appeal judge’s teacher rating decision Teachers needn’t check tomorrow’s newspapers for their names and ratings. Fresh off its loss in the State Supreme Court today, the teachers union announced plans to appeal a judge’s decision allowing the city to release the scores and names to ...

Teachers union loses suit to keep teacher ratings anonymous New York City’s teachers union lost its suit to block the city from releasing 12,000 teachers’ ratings and names that, for years, have been kept confidential. State Supreme Court Justice Cynthia Kern ruled today to deny the United Federation of ...

Schools Matter: Legacy Applicants 7 Times More Likely to Get Into Elite Colleges

Legacy Applicants 7 Times More Likely to Get Into Elite Colleges

by Jim Horn

sDespite the dissembling and the public relations spinning by America's elite colleges and universities, we have known for a long time that a student applicant to Harvard has a massive advantage toward getting in if a Winthrop or Caitlin has a parent who went to Harvard. Yes, that's right--knowledge is power, and power gets the knowledge. A recent dissertation study now documents that advantage. From the Times:

A new study of admissions at 30 highly selective colleges found that legacy applicants get a big advantage over those with no family connections to the institution — but the benefit is far greater for those with a parent who earned an undergraduate degree at the college than for those with other family connections.

According to the study, by Michael Hurwitz, a doctoral student at the Harvard Graduate School of

Queens Teacher: Teaching Profession R.I.P.

Teaching Profession R.I.P.

by Queens Teacher

Judge rules Dept. of Education can release names, job rankings of public school teachers

A Manhattan judge ruled Monday that the Department of Education can release the names and job rankings of more than 12,000 public school teachers.

The decision by Justice Cynthia Kern is a blow to the United Federation of Teachers, which tried to block the DOE from making the internal ratings system public.

The union has argued the data is flawed - and releasing wrong information to the public could destroy careers.

In a 10-page decision, Kern noted that the union's concerns over privacy are outweighed by public interest in how

Once Uno Once — Eleven One Eleven — At the University of Puerto Rico « Student Activism

Once Uno Once — Eleven One Eleven — At the University of Puerto Rico

by Angus Johnston

Administrators and students at the University of Puerto Rico have been locked in struggle for weeks now over a planned tuition increase, with a student strike largely bringing operations to a halt before the Christmas break.

Officials have announced that they intend to re-open the university tomorrow, January 11, and student leaders have announced that they intend to resist that attempt.

Activists posted the above video on YouTube yesterday, articulating their vision for UPR. They titled it “Once Uno Once” — Eleven One Eleven — in reference both to tomorrow’s date and to the university’s status as one institution made up of eleven campuses.

The video is in Spanish, but you can follow along with an English-language translation by clicking the Closed

Who Got Layoff Notices Under Washington State's Criteria - Teacher Beat - Education Week

Who Got Layoff Notices Under Washington State's Criteria

by Stephen Sawchuk

Districts in Washington state sent out more than 2,000 layoff notices between 2008-09 and 2009-10, and seniority was by far the greatest determinant of which teachers they prioritized for cuts. But evidence suggests that districts attempted to protect certain teachers, including those in "high needs" subjects and those who held master's degrees, according to a recent analysis of Washington state data.

What's more, had the decision been based on effectiveness, rather than seniority, the teaching force would have been significantly more effective on average, authors Daniel Goldhaber and Roddy Theobold assert in the paper.

The analysis, from a working paper by the Center for Education Data & Research, at the University of Washington in Bothell, provides a glimpse into which teachers under the seniority system are most likely to get the ax in tough budget times. (In Washington, most of these layoffs never came to pass, thanks to the federal

The Answer Sheet - D.C. named most literate U.S. city

D.C. named most literate U.S. city

Washington, D.C., is the country’s most literate city, according to a new study that focuses on a range of key indicators. The annual study by researchers at Central Connecticut State University looked at U.S. cities with at least 250,000 residents and focused on newspaper circulation, number of bookstores, library resources, periodical publishing resources, educational attainment and Internet resources. Here are the rankings for 2010:

Capitol Alert: Brown to ask for deep cuts, five-year extension of taxes

Brown to ask for deep cuts, five-year extension of taxes

Gov. Jerry Brown will propose a budget today that relies on $12.5 billion in spending cuts over the next 18 months and higher taxes over the next five years to solve the state budget deficit, his office announced this morning.

"These cuts will be painful, requiring sacrifice from every sector of the state, but we have no choice," Brown said in a statement. "For 10 years, we've had budget gimmicks and tricks that pushed us deep into debt. We must now return California to fiscal responsibility and get our state on the road to economic recovery and job growth."

Brown's budget will include an 8 to 10 percent cut in state worker pay. According to his press release, Brown wants to save "$308 million for a 10 percent reduction in take-home pay for state employees not currently covered under collective bargaining agreements."

The Democratic governor will ask voters in a June special election to approve higher tax rates on sales, vehicles and income for five years. In his statement today, Brown referred to it as "a five-year extension of several current taxes so that we can restructure in an orderly manner." But critics are sure to call them

Public Employees Paid Less than Private-Sector Workers | AFL-CIO NOW BLOG

Public Employees Paid Less than Private-Sector Workers

by Tula Connell, Jan 7, 2011


18Share

With the barrage of orchestrated extremist attacks on public employees, the Economic Policy Institute (EPI) reminds us today of a study it commissioned last year that disproves one of the biggest lies by anti-workers–that public employee make excessive pay. In short, public employees are paid less than private-sector workers, even when factoring in employer-provided benefits.

The paper by Rutgers University professor Jeffrey Keefe found:

Private-sector workers earned average annual wages of $55,132, $6,061 greater than the $49,072 earned by public-sector workers. When looking at total compensation including employer-provided benefits, this gap narrowed but the private-sector workers still earned $2,001 more per year than public sector workers ($71,109 in total compensation, versus $69,108). This gap was especially large among more educated workers. College-educated workers on averages earned $22,966 less in total compensation.

Read the full report here.

The Answer Sheet - Has American education peaked?

Has American education peaked?

This was written by Marion Brady, veteran teacher, administrator, curriculum designer and author. His latest book is What’s Worth Learning? from Information Age Publishing. By Marion Brady American education has peaked. Accept it. It has serious SYSTEM problems, and the present crop of reformers is making those problems worse. We’re not going to get the schools we need by doing longer and harder what we’ve been doing for the last 150 years. The notion that we’re on the wrong education road is a really tough sell. President Obama doesn’t think so. Neither does Education Secretary Arne Duncan, Congress, the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, the Business Roundtable, the National Governors Association, the think tanks, the mainstream media, most of the general public. Neither, sad to say, do many educators. Maybe selling the need for another road isn’t even possible. The conventional wisdom about how to educate is limited by our imaginations,

Miguel Del Valle -- Editorial board questionnaire -- chicagotribune.com

Editorial board questionnaires

Miguel Del Valle

Candidate for Mayor

59 years old

Responses to our questionnaire

Q.

Previous political experience (elective and appointed positions):

A.

City Clerk of Chicago, 2006-Present Democratic Party State Central Committeeman, 1994-1998 Illinois State Senator, 1987-2006

Q.

Education

A.

Chicago Public Schools Tuley High School (now Clemente) Northeastern Illinois University, BA, MA in Education and Guidance Honorary Degree National Louis University

Q.

The City Council has spent hundreds of millions of dollars in reserve funds to balance the city budget in recent years. How would you balance the budget without relying on one-time revenues? Should the city raise taxes? Please specify three areas in which you would cut city spending and estimate how much money would be saved.

A.

I would make sure that we capture the federal and state dollars we are leaving on the table. Chicago ranks near the bottom of the list of states receiving their share of federal funding, ranking 44th in per capita return on tax dollars for FY09. Additionally, we are leaving TIF revenue on the table. For next year, we could tap $30 - $50 million in TIF funds—which represent a percentage of unobligated and unprogrammed dollars currently available in the TIFs. When we tap these surplus

DFER-Washington Steering Committee « DFER Watch

DFER-Washington Steering Committee

by kennethlibby

From DFER.org: Steering Committee: Gaurab Bansal Shannon Campion Tania de Sa Campos Christopher Eide Laura Kohn Chris Korsmo Robin Lake Fran Lalas Lisa Macfarlane Karen VanderArk Jennifer Vranek Three steering committee members (de Sa Campos, Korsmo, and Macfarlane) work for the League of Education Voters. Kohn is the executive director of the New School Foundation (note: … Read more

Shanker Blog » PISA For Our Time: A Balanced Look

PISA For Our Time: A Balanced Look

by Matthew Di Carlo

Press coverage of the latest PISA results over the past two months has almost been enough to make one want to crawl under the bed and hide. Over and over, we’ve been told that this is a “Sputnik moment,” that the U.S. among the lowest performing nations in the world, and that we’re getting worse.

Thankfully, these claims are largely misleading. Insofar as we’re sure to hear them repeated often over the next few years—at least until the next set of international results come in — it makes sense to try to correct the record (also see here and here).

But, first, I want to make it very clear that U.S. PISA results are not good enough by any stretch of the imagination, and we can and should do a whole lot better. Nevertheless, international comparisons of any kind are very difficult, and if we don’t pay careful attention to what the data are really telling us, it will be more difficult

Any teacher who votes for this fool… « Fred Klonsky's blog

Any teacher who votes for this fool…

by Fred Klonsky

Sun-Times:

Mayoral front-runner Rahm Emanuel supports curtailing teachers’ right to strike. And if they won’t agree to work longer hours for extra pay, he’ll ask state legislators to mandate it, he said.
“As we have [rules against strikes] for police and firefighters, I would have it for

A balancing act between improving some schools or all of them | GothamSchools

A balancing act between improving some schools or all of them

by Philissa Cramer

1 person liked this

Is the current mania around trying to turn around struggling schools and open high-quality new ones the best way to improve school systems? Marc Waxman isn’t sure.

In his latest missive in the “Deepening the Dialogue” exchange in the GothamSchools Community Section, Waxman argues that current policies give rise to an unsettling tension between what’s good for individual schools and what’s good for schools in general. He writes:

I believe our current dialogue about education is narrow in many ways. One way it is narrow is its

School Tech Connect: Emanuel To Teachers: Drop Dead

Emanuel To Teachers: Drop Dead

by effacethefacade@yahoo.com (Tim)

Rahm is basically a right-wing Republican, in my opinion. Torture, the public option, the rights of working people-- it's all on the table with this guy. Via @MikeKlonsky

Contrast that with Miguel del Valle, who wants to build up all of the schools for everyone and increase

What are they doing to us in Springfield? « Fred Klonsky's blog

What are they doing to us in Springfield?

by Fred Klonsky

As I write this early in the morning of Monday, there are only a few more days left in the current session of the Illinois legislature.

The worst always happens in the last days of a legislative session.

It is why I worry about handing over what had previously been negotiated locally to the legislature to decide.

Over the past twenty years our local negotiating team has never come away with a contract that did not improve our living and working conditions.

In Springfield, our lobbyists have rarely come away with anything that didn’t make our situation worse.

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