Voters favor limited city role in schools | UTSanDiego.com

Voters favor limited city role in schools | UTSanDiego.com:

Voters favor limited city role in schools

Poll shows little support for mayor taking control of district

Grading public schools

Grade public schools in SD…	A/B	C	D/F
Total	34%	36	22
Party Registration
Democrat	39	38	14
Republican	28	34	32
DTS/Other	33	36	22
Region
West (1, 2)	36	42	16
North Central (5, 6, 7)	34	32	26
South Central (3, 4, 8, 9)	32	36	23
Education
HS or less	41	27	23
Some College	28	43	18
College grad	32	34	26
Post grad	37	38	20
School-Age Children
Yes	48	27	23
No	30	38	22
Top Issue
Economy and Jobs	34	40	16
Reforming city pensions	28	30	32
Education	42	34	18
Mayoral Ballot
DeMaio	23	36	35
Filner	39	38	14
Dumanis	46	24	21
Fletcher	35	37	21
Undecided/DK	34	38	1

By Christopher Cadelago

Originally published March 31, 2012 at 2 p.m., updated April 1, 2012 at 7:51 a.m.

Nearly three-quarters of San Diego voters believe it’s appropriate to use city resources to improve public education, but about two-thirds oppose the next mayor taking control of the San Diego Unified School District, according to the Center for Education Policy and Law/U-T San Diego Poll.
A solid majority of voters say city schools are struggling but still provide a quality education. Voters also rate San Diego campuses higher than schools nationally and they support charter schools, according to the poll.
Teachers are viewed very favorably. And voters assign blame for school problems to state, federal and local education officials and parents before teachers and teachers unions.
To improve education, voters favor spending money more efficiently, encouraging greater parental involvement and reducing class sizes. They put less emphasis on holding schools more accountable for improved student achievement, raising salaries for the best teachers and decreasing reliance on standardized tests.
Voters in the survey ranked education as one of the top issues facing the mayor and city council.
Debate over whether city government should assume more responsibility of schools intensified when two of four major candidates for mayor of San Diego — District Attorney Bonnie Dumanis and Assemblyman Nathan Fletcher — release

Shanker Blog » Measuring Journalist Quality

Shanker Blog » Measuring Journalist Quality:

Measuring Journalist Quality

by Matthew Di Carlo

Journalists play an essential role in our society. They are charged with informing the public, a vital function in a representative democracy. Yet, year after year, large pockets of the electorate remain poorly-informed on both foreign and domestic affairs. For a long time, commentators have blamed any number of different culprits for this problem, including poverty, education, increasing work hours and the rapid proliferation of entertainment media.
There is no doubt that these and other factors matter a great deal. Recently, however, there is growing evidence that the factors shaping the degree to which people are informed about current events include not only social and economic conditions, but journalist quality as well. Put simply, better journalists produce better stories, which in turn attract more readers. On the whole, the U.S. journalist community is world class. But there is, as always, a tremendous amount of underlying variation. It’s likely that improving the overall quality of reporters would not only result in higher quality information, but it would also bring in more readers. Both outcomes would contribute to a better-informed, more active electorate.
We at the Shanker Institute feel that it is time to start a public conversation about this issue. We have requested and received datasets documenting the story-by-story readership of the websites of U.S. newspapers, large and small. We are using these data in statistical models that we call “Readers-Added Models,” or “RAMs.”
Of course, in specifying these models, we had to address many different, often intractable issues.
Perhaps most basically, newspapers vary in terms of their overall readership, which means that a story on the

Evolution of Classroom Technology (Jeff Dunn) | Larry Cuban on School Reform and Classroom Practice

Evolution of Classroom Technology (Jeff Dunn) | Larry Cuban on School Reform and Classroom Practice:

Evolution of Classroom Technology (Jeff Dunn)

by larrycuban

Jeff Dunn is Executive Editor of Edumedia. He posted his version of technological devices that influenced classroom teaching and learning on April 18, 2011. Because of space, I have dropped some of the artifacts he included. There are, of course, many definitions of instructional technology; this one relies on devices and machines. Dunn’s evolution of technology, then, tracks the different devices used in classrooms.  Another definition focuses on teacher use of the devices to advance learning in lessons. Even other definitions frame technology as processes,  ways of organizing classrooms, schools, and districts. And on and on. The following series of devices with Dunn’s commentary, then, is just one way of seeing technology in its narrowest sense.
Classrooms have come a long way. There’s been an exponential growth in educational technology advancement over the past few years. From overhead projectors to iPads, it’s important to understand not only what’s coming next but also where it all started….
c. 1650 – The Horn-Book

Wooden paddles with printed lessons were popular in the colonial era…. On the paper there was usually the