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Friday, March 2, 2012

Beaverton School District is holding 100 meetings to help people understand its budget | OregonLive.com

Beaverton School District is holding 100 meetings to help people understand its budget | OregonLive.com:

Beaverton School District is holding 100 meetings to help people understand its budget

by Wendy Owen, The Oregonian

Beaverton School District is offering a more intimate look at its pending budget woes by opening its school doors to parents, students and community members for budget teaching sessions.

Folks will have their choice of 100 meetings at a variety of schools to attend between March 6 and March 22. Depending on the venue, the meetings begin between 6 p.m. and 7 p.m. The district has provided a list of gatherings on its website.

The meetings will take about an hour and a half, said Maureen Wheeler, district spokeswoman. The first 25 minutes will offer attendees an overview of the school district budget and how it's structured as well as information about the $40 million in budget reductions the district is facing for 2012-13.

The district has not, yet, identified specific cuts, but the meeting will be used to gather feedback
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School Tech Connect: Nobody's Going To Wait Years For Anything

School Tech Connect: Nobody's Going To Wait Years For Anything:

Nobody's Going To Wait Years For Anything

by noreply@blogger.com (Tim)
I've been warning about this phenomenon for centuries.
Heverly is pointing to something important but unmentioned in the Common Core debates that I have read. These new tests in nearly every state will delay, if not stop altogether, the national move towardrating teachers by student score improvements. School districts can’t do that when the tests change so radically. They might have to wait years to work out the kinks in the tests before using them to assess teachers.
That could kill the desire to assess teachers with test results.
Valerie's talking about the age-old difference between a feature and a bug. These new tests? That don't exist yet? They're going to come online at the exact moment when teachers and schools are being graded on the test results. It's a feature.

The only thing that these raw new tests--- that are theoretically based on CCS-based curricula that also don't
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Jeb Bush’s Desperate Attempt to Save Florida’s Parent Trigger Legislation | Scathing Purple Musings

Jeb Bush’s Desperate Attempt to Save Florida’s Parent Trigger Legislation | Scathing Purple Musings:

Jeb Bush’s Desperate Attempt to Save Florida’s Parent Trigger Legislation

by Bob Sikes

Apparently, its not such a sure thing to advocates of Florida’s parent trigger legislation. After Bush ally John Thrasher’s attempt to circumvent the committee process failed this afternoon, Bush sent the following email to followers:

Dear Friend,

Florida’s parents and students need your help. Tomorrow, the Senate Budget Committee is holding a special meeting on a bill to empower parents with the information and tools they need to be actively involved in their child’s education.

Please contact your senator today and ask them to vote YES tomorrow and next week,

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Modern School: San Francisco School Board Waives Seniority

Modern School: San Francisco School Board Waives Seniority:

San Francisco School Board Waives Seniority

by Michael Dunn

The San Francisco School Board voted 5-1 this week to do away with seniority protections in order to save the jobs of 70 low-seniority teachers in 14 low-performing schools in the “Superintendent’s Zone.” They also voted 5-1 to issue 485 layoff notices, including 210 teacher and counselor layoffs, according to the San Francisco Chronicle.

An editorial in the Chron lamented that “low-performing schools won't improve if their most dedicated young teachers are the first to get pink slips.” This commonly believed and parroted delusion is based on the illogical premise that young and inexperienced teachers are somehow better than their more experienced peers. This is like arguing that an eager but inexperienced heart surgeon is better than an experienced veteran. In virtually all endeavors, experience improves one’s performance.

It also ignores the overwhelming causes of low achievement which are primarily
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Parent Opt Out Letter from Colorado | United Opt Out National

Parent Opt Out Letter from Colorado | United Opt Out National:

Parent Opt Out Letter from Colorado

by admin

Dear —————:

The response I received from you via e-mail dated March 1, 2012 is a clear violation of my rights as a parent. It is also a clear indication that ——- is being denied a free, appropriate, public education in the least restrictive environment unless he participates in the TCAP.

I am aware that parental rights are broadly protected by Supreme Court decisions (Meyer and Pierce), especially in the area of education. The Supreme Court has repeatedly held that parents posses the “fundamental right” to “direct the upbringing and education of their children.” Furthermore, the

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Schools Matter: The Gates Solution to Political Deadlock: More Technocrats in Charge from ALEC

Schools Matter: The Gates Solution to Political Deadlock: More Technocrats in Charge from ALEC:

The Gates Solution to Political Deadlock: More Technocrats in Charge from ALEC

by Jim Horn
At the heart of this generation's retread argument for post-partisanship in all things political, there is another, though more dangerous, version of rule by the experts lurking there. Society engineered by scientific managers or "experts" was tried a hundred years ago, but since Bill Gates doesn't read history, apparently we must go down that dollar-strewn road again, this time with Gates playing Andrew Carnegie and Barack Obama playing Woodrow Wilson. We may hope that the first half of this century turns out better than that the first half of the last, when our determination to create a smooth running and perfectible industrial society got rolling with eugenics and then culminated with the Holocaust.

Today the New York Times offered Gates a 6+ minute free infomercial hosted by America's most prominent Readers Digest version of an intellectual, Tom Friedman. It's well worth viewing, for in it we see the enabler role of the New York Times in foisting a patronizing, officious, and saccharine version of political reality, and we see
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Big Education Ape: 3-2-12 PM I Was a Teacher, Not a Number EDition #SOSCHAT #P2

Big Education Ape: PARENTS CAN!:
Big Education Ape: PARENTS CAN!

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Gulen charter school timeline

perimeterprimate.blogspot.com - The largest charter school chain in the U.S. is run by the members of the Gulen movement, a controversial, secretive, religious, and highly nationalistic group out of Turkey that is operating in a ...

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The Wells Point » Blog Archive » Singapore suggests

thewellspoint.com - Singapore suggests In January I spent three weeks in Asia, mostly in Singapore. As always it was a stimulating trip on many levels. The food was great, the company equally good and the workshops we...

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SignOn.org Beta - Repeal an Ill

signon.org - Flag petition as inappropriateBy Joe Knapp (Contact)To be delivered to:The New York State House, The New York State Senate, Governor Andrew Cuomo, The United States House of Representatives, The Un...

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CA Teamsters rally to tax the rich to pay for education

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Gulen charter school timeline

perimeterprimate.blogspot.com - The largest charter school chain in the U.S. is run by the members of the Gulen movement, a controversial, secretive, religious, and highly nationalistic group out of Turkey that is operating in a ...

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Finding Common Ground in Peru « Small Farmers. Big Change.

smallfarmersbigchange.coop - March 2, 2012 by Phyllis Robinson This article first appeared in The Exchange on February 6, 2012. By Jessica Jones-Hughes, Equal Exchange Bananas You may have heard about food co-op general manage...

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bigeducationape.blogspot.com - Education Research Report:Does Shortening the School Week Impact Student Performance?Jonathan Kantrowitz at Education Research Report - 7 minutes agoΩ Public schools face difficult decisions on how...

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