Thursday, January 20, 2011

National City teachers picketing before class - SignOnSanDiego.com

National City teachers picketing before class

WEDNESDAY, JANUARY 19, 2011 AT 6:44 P.M.

Union blasts district’s temp-teacher pay offer

National City schools prepare for teacher strike

NATIONAL CITY — The National (City) School District teacher's union is picketing select schools this week, 10 months after an impasse was declared on contract negotiations with the school district.

National City Elementary Teacher’s Association members gathered outside of El Toyon and Las Palmas elementary schoolsTuesday and Wednesday, respectively, where they picketed and distributed fliers to parents.

Picketing is scheduled to take place at 7:30 a.m. Friday at Palmer Way and Ira Harbison elementary schools.

The district imposed working conditions in July after rejecting a nonbinding June compromise

Michelle Rhee: Education is not a Social Issue, but an Economic One | Blue Wave News

Michelle Rhee: Education is not a Social Issue, but an Economic One

On January 19, 2011, at 8:57 pm, In Media, Policy, Politics-States, By Elise

Yesterday on American Public Media’s Marketplace program, Kai Ryssdal asked former D.C. schools Chancellor, Michelle Rhee, what she thought about the controversy over the new book by Amy Chua, Battle Hymn of the Tiger Mother.

Kai Ryssdal: I don’t know if you’ve been following the discussion that’s been out there the past week or so, about a book written by a Chinese-American woman named Amy Chua. It’s about the differences — the very big differences — between western and Asian styles of parenting. Suffice it to say that Amy Chua is a strict mom: A’s are the only grade that’s acceptable, three hours of piano practice every day is barely enough — that kind of thing.
Anyway, I’ve been wracking my brain trying to find a Marketplace angle to the thing. Commentator and educator Michelle Rhee says it’s all Marketplace.

I’ve been observing the controversy over Chua’s book with some amusement because my own mother required me to practice the violin for 2 and a half hours every day, told me that As are the only acceptable grade, and that I could not participate in school sports because I had no talent and it would put my violin playing “at risk.” So, apparently this is not a style of parenting that is left solely to the Chinese. Maybe it’s

The Answer Sheet - Policing the rush to charter schools

Policing the rush to charter schools

By Valerie Strauss

Here is an editorial that was published in the Journal Gazette of Fort Wayne about education policies in Indiana. It specifically refers toreform plans by Gov. Mitch Daniels that include promoting vouchers for students to use to attend private schools, greatly increasing the number of charter schools, and paying teachers according to how well their students do on standardized tests, while limiting collective bargaining between teachers unions and schools. This was written by Tracy Warner, editorial page editor, who has worked at The Journal Gazette since 1981.

---

Knowledge and learning, generally diffused throughout a community, being essential to the preservation of a free government; it shall be the

NJ Spotlight | Spotlight Research: Assessing the Value of Value-Added Models

Spotlight Research: Assessing the Value of Value-Added Models
Judge teachers on how students do on standardized tests? That's the job of the VAM

print |

email |

By John Mooney, January 20 in Education |Post a Comment

It’s better known by its acronym these days and not easy to explain anyway, but get used to the term "value-added model" (VAM) when it comes to how New Jersey and other states determine what makes a good teacher.

VAM, in brief, is a method of judging teachers’ performance by how much their students improve (or not) on standardized tests. And it has been embraced by a number of states, not to mention the federal government, as a central component in any valid teacher evaluation system.

Needless to say, it’s also very controversial. And while New Jersey is not there yet, its leaders are now weighing VAM pros and cons as part of Gov. Chris Christie’s proposals to revamp the teacher

Latest Version of School Voucher Bill Heads for Senate Budget Committee

Backers say it has the votes to clear committee, but tougher battles await the controversial legislation.

Proposal Would Speed Teacher Misconduct Cases - NYTimes.com

Plan Offered to Overhaul Discipline of Teachers

By TRIP GABRIEL

Published: January 19, 2011

REPRINTS

Teachers accused of misconduct should have their cases decided within a speedy 100 days by a special examiner and not be cast into an interminable limbo of waiting, said Kenneth R. Feinberg, the arbitration expert, who investigated teacher discipline at the request of the American Federation of Teachers.

On Thursday, Mr. Feinberg will release his plan for dealing with teacher misconduct like absenteeism, corporal punishment and sexual advances to students. In an interview on Wednesday, he called the 100-day window for resolving cases a “radical” departure from current practice.

Misconduct cases have regularly embarrassed unions and school districts: Exhibit A was New York City’s so-called rubber rooms, where accused teachers idled away months or

Charter school network proposed in Sacramento County worries districts - Sacramento News - Local and Breaking Sacramento News | Sacramento Bee

Charter school network proposed in Sacramento County worries districts

By Melody Gutierrez
[email protected]

Published: Thursday, Jan. 20, 2011 - 12:00 am | Page 1B

Opposition is mounting against a proposal to create a network of charter schools in Sacramento County.

Area school board members and union representatives say their concern is that local control is being thwarted by Margaret Fortune petitioning for 10 charter schools with the Sacramento County Office of Education and not individual school districts.

"These charters will have implications both fiscal and educational on these local districts, so these districts should have the opportunity to consider the charter application," said Patrick Kennedy, a Sacramento City Unified board member.

Sacramento City Unified will vote tonight

New schools chancellor Cathie Black faces taunts, tough Brooklyn crowd at first policy meeting

BY MEREDITH KOLODNER
DAILY NEWS STAFF WRITER

Thursday, January 20th 2011, 4:00 AM

Goldfield, Ken

Cathie Black was put through the wringer at her first education policy meeting.

RELATED NEWS

New schools chancellor Cathie Black got an education in rowdiness at her first education policy meeting.

Black was repeatedly interrupted by boos and catcalls by the roughly 200 parents, students and teachers assembled in the Brooklyn Technical High School Wednesday night.

She managed to plow her way through a four-minute prepared speech but later was taunted by parents waving condoms in the air, in reference to her unpopular joke last week that "birth control" might solvedowntown Manhattan's school overcrowding crisis.

"We know that we need to help those who need it most," Black told Wednesday

Joel Klein cashes in for 34K pension

by MEREDITH KOLODNER, DAILY NEWS STAFF WRITER

Just weeks before former Schools Chancellor Joel Klein slammed teacher pensions as "hollowing out public education," Klein walked into the teacher pension office to collect his own annual windfall, sources told the Daily News.

Despite veto, no CALPADS layoffs, shutdown | Thoughts on Public Education

Despite veto, no CALPADS layoffs, shutdown
Share

More funding tied to interagency review of data system

Posted on 1/20/11 • Categorized as CALPADS

By John Fensterwald - Educated Guess

After a frustrated Gov. Schwarzenegger deleted $6.8 million for the California Longitudinal Pupil Achievement Data System and related operations from the state budget in October, Supt. of Public Instruction Jack O’Connell issued no fewer than five press releases condemning the move and warning of dire consequences. Others were equally critical.

There would be layoffs among those who provide critical CALPADS support, and operations would shut down after Dec. 6, when the veto took effect, O’Connell warned.

“Unless funding is restored quickly for CALPADS, millions of dollars invested in California’s longitudinal education data system will have been wasted, and our state will be at ground

NYC Educator: Why I Will Not Join Educators 4 Excellence

Why I Will Not Join Educators 4 Excellence

by Miss Eyre

Ruben Brosbe at GothamSchools penned a column explaining his motivation for joining Educators 4 Excellence, the "grassroots" (and I'll try to limit my snark after that) organization that supports higher salaries (good), more rigorous teacher evaluation (good, maybe), ending seniority-based retention (possibly not so good), and, it would seem in effect, further diminishing the role of the union in debates over salary, evaluation, and retention (definitely not good). As someone who has long been suspicious of E4E, I'll take his challenge to disagree passionately without, in his words, "vitriol" directed at him personally.

I don't want to join E4E, first of all, because I'm already a dues-paying member of an organization that is supposed to represent my interests and I find that what E4E stands for runs counter to

Daily Kos: Why Great Teachers Quit: And How We Might Stop the Exodus

Why Great Teachers Quit: And How We Might Stop the Exodus

by teacherken

If teachers, parents, school boards, administrators, community members, and lawmakers can listen to each other and work on this problem together, we can lessen the tide of teacher attrition, ultimately improving the learning and working environment in schools for everyone. (p. 156)

Those are the final words of this new book by Katy Farber. Depending on what statistics you use, we lose up to 30% of new teachers in the first three years, up to 50% in the first five. Some clearly should not have been

Latest News and Comment from Education

Thursday, January 20, 2011