Beverly L. Hall Denies Knowledge Of Atlanta Cheating Scandal. After rampant cheating was uncovered in Atlanta schools, former Atlanta schools superintendent Beverly L. Hall is left to to defend her reputation. “I will survive this,” Hall said in her first public interview since the scandal broke. She also maintains that she knew nothing about the cheating and does not condone it. The New York Times Reports: During her reign, scholarship money delivered to Atlanta students jumped to $129 million from $9 million. Read more at the New York Times. Former Head Of Atlanta Schools Denies Knowing About Cheating Atlanta Schools Replace 4 Superintendents Amid Scandal. How Colleges Punish Families Who Choose to Save - Daniel Indiviglio - Business. Schools and the government should focus on income, not savings, when awarding financial aid assistance Throughout the U.S., millions of parents struggle to save for their children's college education.
It isn't easy: in a consumer culture like ours, there's always something new to buy. Driving an older car, using an out-of-date computer, and ignoring cool new gadgets like the iPad aren't easy -- particularly when you've got some income that you could be spending on such luxuries. No wonder seeing the U.S. savings rate as high as 6% is unusual. But those parents who do the responsible thing and save are discriminated against: students whose parents save less often qualify for more financial aid. If you or one of your children has gone to college over the past 15 years, then you're probably familiar with the Free Application for Federal Student Aid ("FAFSA").
FAFSA's influence doesn't begin and end with the government. An Example Let's make this example concrete. Is This Really Unfair? Coming Together to Kill Education Reform. A new consensus is emerging in education politics. But can the center hold? And would reformers even want it to? Bipartisanship is supposed to be a good thing — except for when Republicans and Democrats come together to try to paper over our education problems. That's what worries me about the recent string of seemingly positive events: 1. On Sept. 14, Tennessee Senator Lamar Alexander introduced an ambitious bill to overhaul George W.
Bush's landmark No Child Left Behind Act, which introduced more rigorous school accountability measures but is now four years overdue for a reauthorization (read: revamping) by Congress. 2. 3. Sounds great, right? That sounds pretty radical, but not as much as you might think given what the Obama Administration is proposing. Which brings me to the governors, who are in charge of their states' public school systems. It's not fair to single out Virginia; many other states have similar approaches that mask poor performance. Andrew J. Madfloridian's Journal - Another "false front" education reform group? Keep eye out for their op eds in local papers. The Michigan Education Association writes about the Education Action Group and warns to watch out for their activities. Behind the false front Note the ties to the Mackinac Center and the DeVos family.
EAG isn’t really a group. It’s two very partisan men with ties to the Mackinac Center for Public Policy and Dick DeVos of Amway Corp. fame. EAG bashes the collective bargaining process and school employees’ rights to inform the community and to work to elect leaders who value students and the employees who teach and help them at school. Olson claims to be nonpartisan, but he is a partisan Republican Party activist and an officer in the state party. Olson refuses to disclose his group’s funding sources, making it difficult to discern whose agenda EAG is pushing. This Michigan-based "reformer" group just had an opinion piece published in the Tampa Tribune. Teachers' union seeks to nullify the public's will So much for majority rule. And they speak of Rick Scott: The return of Velderman. Student journalist sue Kan. community college over public records fees.
KANSAS — The Student Press Law Center and a college journalist filed a lawsuit Tuesday against Johnson County Community College in Kansas for excessive fees to release open records, including nearly $10,000 to produce one day’s worth of emails. The college estimated a total of $24,130.72 to fulfill requests by the SPLC and former copy editor Marcus Clem for staff emails and documents related to other open records requests. Attorney Christopher Grenz, of the Kansas City law firm Bryan Cave, who is handling the case pro bono as part of the SPLC’s attorney referral network, said the fees are “facially excessive.” “They’re basically hanging a price tag on what should be public documents in order to keep those documents from being public,” Grenz said. The current requests in the lawsuit have evolved from an original request by Rachel Kimbrough, current editor in chief at The Campus Ledger student newspaper at JCCC.
The school estimates $13,264.76 to produce the emails from December. Department of Ed Lets Schools Off the Hook -- for Now. Secretary of Education Arne Duncan and the Department of Education officially released standards for states to exempt themselves from certain provisions of the No Child Left Behind law. Many states are desperate to avoid the consequences of failing to meet the requirements of the 2001 law, which mandates that all students be 100 percent proficient in reading and math by 2014 or lose federal funding.
Education-reform advocates widely acknowledge that NCLB was a step toward ensuring accountability and achievement in schools -- it also, for the first time, shined a light on the achievement gap between white and minority students. But the law, critics contend, also set unrealistic standards and timetables for achieving its goals. Since there seems little movement in Congress on revamping or changing NCLB, the Education Department is setting forth some ways to allow what it calls "flexibility. " Advertisement 2InstapaperPocketShare on emailEmailShare on printPrint You might like: Recommended by.
Reporting From Outside Party Lines. MEDIA ROOTS- Forty years ago, Finland began transforming its educational system to a more personalized methodology of teacher to student learning as part of the government’s economic recovery plan. Finland’s youth has since shot up to the highest in the world in reading, math and science skills. Conversely, America’s impersonal initiation of marketplace competition into its educational system has caused the US to fall behind. According to AFP: The three-yearly OECD Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA) report, which compares the knowledge and skills of 15-year-olds in 70 countries around the world, ranked the United States 14th out of 34 OECD countries for reading skills, 17th for science and a below-average 25th for mathematics.
Although Obama has slammed his predecessor’s controversial ‘No Child Left Behind’ legislation, he has implemented the same broken concept of a standards based education reform into his administration’s ‘Race to the Top’ policy. Photo by Brett Smith. House Approves a Bill Supporting Expansion of Charter Schools. That Dangerous Dictionary…and Other Books Too Risqué for Texas Students. September 24-October 1 is Banned Books Week, and ACLU staff and volunteers are posting their thoughts about the freedom to read throughout the week. Celebrate your First Amendment rights by attending one of the ACLU's Banned Books events or just by reading whatever you choose. The hottest genre in the publishing world, known as YA for "young adult," is most frequently targeted by those who would tell you and your children what you should NOT read.
During the 2010-2011 school year, the number of books banned in Texas public schools numbered 17, down from 20 the year before. Although that is some progress, we've also found that very few school districts have a procedure to dispute a challenge or petition for reinstatement of a banned book. To support and inspire anti-censorship activism, the ACLU of Texas recently launched a website, www.bannedbookstx.org. As hard as it is to get kids to "look it up," why make it harder by restricting access to the dictionary?
House Republicans Push to Slash Pell Grants, Ed Funding. As part of the program to shrink the national deficit, House Republicans have introduced a proposal that would cut funding to Pell college tuition grants, NPR and 30 other education programs, the San Fransisco Chronicle reports. The House Appropriation committee, whose members authored the legislation, are also seeking to eliminate President Obama’s “Race to the Top” initiative. The Committee is also looking to withdraw funding for programs unrelated to education. The panel proposed slashing the Department of Labor’s budget by one-fifth, slicing funds for the National Labor Relations Board by 17 percent and barring funds to implement Obama’s health-care overhaul. It would also withhold funding for Planned Parenthood unless it says it will stop providing abortions.
The current round of proposals is meant to set up a funding plan to allow the Federal Government to operate at least until November 18th of this year. Fox News expects the fight over the new measure to be arduous. The GOP’s Plan To Take Education Policy Back To The Early 1990s. Everybody hates the No Child Left Behind Act. In the last few weeks, both conservative Republicans and President Obama have announced plans to overhaul George W.
Bush’s signature education law by sending power over K-12 schooling back to the states. On the surface, this might seem like a rare moment of bipartisan consensus. Don’t believe it. The two plans actually represent radically different views of the federal government’s responsibility for helping children learn. To see why, it helps to understand some common misconceptions about NCLB. The law requires schools to administer annual reading and math tests in grades 3-8 and once in high school, and it holds schools accountable for the percentage of students who pass the tests. There are, however, three aspects of NCLB that render this scenario very unlikely. So NCLB has ended up in the worst of all possible worlds—it has the reputation of being a punitive, anti-teacher law without any of the benefits of being so.
Wisconsin | Mark Miller says Wisconsin Republicans enacted the most drastic cuts to K-12 schools of any state in the nation. When Wisconsin’s monthly unemployment numbers for August took another bad turn, both major political parties scrambled to affix blame. Republican Governor Scott Walker pointed at "problems in the national economy" in his weekly radio address on Sept. 22, 2011. Meanwhile, Senate Minority Leader Mark Miller, D-Monona, fingered the Republican agenda of budget cuts and tax breaks for businesses for failing to create family supporting jobs. Miller tucked another element -- the impact on education -- into the Democrats’ weekly radio address the same day: "While voting for over $2.3 billion in tax giveaways, Republicans enacted the most drastic cuts to K-12 public schools of any state in the nation. " We’ve already checked a variation of the tax-break claim -- the liberal group One Wisconsin Now said that Walker’s budget "includes tax breaks for corporations and the rich that will cost the state of Wisconsin taxpayers $2.3 billion over the next decade.
" But what about the education-related cuts? Big Oil: $135 Million -- School Children: 0. When is it not enough to have too much? Apparently, when you're a giant oil corporation. Big Oil's avaricious honchos are always searching for another dime they can slip into their corporate pockets, no matter whom it hurts.
A crude example of their ceaseless money grab is presently unfolding in Texas. Led by Valero Energy Corp., one of the nation's largest petro-dealers, at least 16 huge refiners are trying to poke a lucrative loophole into the state's tax laws. Since 2007, these refiners have been required by the EPA to help cut the deadly air pollution spewing from America's vehicles by installing "hydrotreater" equipment that removes toxic sulfur dioxide from the gasoline they sell. They did — but they're petulantly demanding a retroactive refund on property taxes they've paid since then on the hydrotreaters, claiming that any industrial equipment that reduces on-site pollution is tax-exempt.
Construction firm to ask judge to remove DeKalb schools' lawyers in $100 million suit Madfloridian's Journal - Ed reform group leader showed true colors in ugly note to a Ft. Wayne union teacher. The note is posted at the website of the Ft. Wayne Education Association in all its rudeness. They omit the name of the teacher, and no background is given on the situation. In my mind there is no explanation and no background needed that would excuse such outrageous comments. The True Colors Of EAG From: Steve Gunn (mailto:sgunn@edactiongroup.org )Sent: Friday, June 10, 2011 10:47 AMTo: A FWCS HS Teacher Name withheldSubject: RE: EAG Response to a FWCS Teacher I don’t need to be an “expert.” By the way, what makes you an “expert?”
No more laying off young teachers and cancelling student programs while selfish old teachers get to keep their perks and benefits. Selfish old teachers get to keep their perks and benefits? There's a little more: Schools are for children, not selfish union activists who staff them. Steve Gunn is the communications director of the Education Action Group. At least one blogger has been hounded by them. McCarthyism redux.
Why? Hey. This is an old story. Lobbying, Insider Trading & Censorship at the Washington Post: Kaplan U. The State of Public Libraries in the U.S: This is article and info graphic by Guest Writer Jocelyn Blore There’s something comforting about the public library. It has long been a symbol of knowledge... Israeli Murder by Neglect Israel operates one of the world’s most unconscionable gulags. Thousands of Palestinian political prisoners fill it. Fundamental human rights are denied. The Magazine - Administrators Ate My Tuition. September/October 2011 Administrators Ate My Tuition Want to get college costs in line? Start by cutting the overgrown management ranks. By Benjamin Ginsberg Photo: Mario Lalich N o statistic about higher education commands more attention—and anxiety—among members of the public than the rising price of admission.
Since 1980, inflation- adjusted tuition at public universities has tripled; at private universities it has more than doubled. Compared to all other goods and services in the American economy, including medical care, only “cigarettes and other tobacco products” have seen prices rise faster than the cost of going to college. Between 1975 and 2005, total spending by American higher educational institutions, stated in constant dollars, tripled, to more than $325 billion per year.
Apparently, as colleges and universities have had more money to spend, they have not chosen to spend it on expanding their instructional resources—that is, on paying faculty. The Crisis in the Humanities and the Corporate Attack on the University (Peter Fettner. The "Shock Doctrine" Comes to Your Neighborhood Classroom. Why school reform can’t ignore poverty’s toll - The Answer Sheet.
Vouchers in sheep's clothing in the Ed Reform Movement. ALEC Education Agenda. V For Vendetta: Michigan GOP Singles Out Teachers For Right To Work. Education: Long-Term Contribution Trends. Improve oversight of charter schools: An editorial. Despite Sweeping Scandals, Big States Don’t Check for Cheating by Teachers. Wall Street Goes to School. Dick Armey Wants To Completely Eliminate Any Federal Funding For Higher Education.
How California Schools Turned Struggling Students Into Second-Class Citizens - Education. Richard D. Kahlenberg Reviews Steven Brill's "Class Warfare: Inside The Fight To Fix America’s Schools" Bronx Principal Investigated For Faking Grades. In Public School Reform, What Can Private Money Buy? - City Limits Magazine. Empowering Parents through Quality Charter Schools Act. School ‘Reform’: A Failing Grade by Diane Ravitch. The Magazine - The College For-profits Should Fear. Ohio’s charter schools owe state over $2 million in unpaid audit fees. America’s Most Outrageous Teacher Cheating Scandals. President Obama Kills No Child Left Behind. Susan Ohanian's Testing Outrages (Susan Ohanian Speaks Out)
Who Pays When Public Schools GO PRIVATE? - News & Announcements. Part-time college students face abysmal graduation rates. Mathematicians warn of damage to UK economy from maths funding cuts | Science. TRANSPARENCY TUESDAY: College activity fees add hundreds to tuition bills; state laws may offer a peek under the hood. Michigan Public Schools Privatizing Teachers 'Very Real' Possibility, State Lawmaker Says. Hey kids, want greater First Amendment rights? Try getting arrested! The Magazine - The End of College Admissions As We Know It. New GOP target at EPA: Graduate student interns who are tools of Obama’s 'radical policies' Who’s Running Your School District? Is the Near-Trillion-Dollar Student Loan Bubble About to Pop? Study: 35 states flunk on teaching civil rights history. Koch Lobbyist is ALEC State Co-Chair for Wisconsin; Scholarships Raise Ethics Concerns.
John Danner shoots for the stars with Rocketship charter schools. U.S. universities hit with copyright infringement suit.