Posts from the "Headlines" Category
October 15, 2008
by Philissa Cramer
- A new generation of academic vocational schools will open next fall. (Times)
- Military recruiters can now get student information straight from the DOE. (Post)
- Broad Prize-winning Brownsville, Tex., is failing under NCLB. (Times)
- The DOE made MS 61 remove a poster of Barack Obama and other black leaders. (Post)
- The way the city tests for “giftedness” doesn’t make total sense. (Education Week)
- A California policymaker wants more schools to try New York’s incentives programs. (LA Times)
October 13, 2008
by Kelly Vaughan
- The United Federation of Teachers is suing over the ban on teachers wearing campaign buttons in school. (Times, Washington Post)
- New York is creating more in-state residential schools for children with severe special needs. (Times)
- Several new charter schools in New York City will have a theme, such as environmentalism or Hebrew language and culture. (Post)
- City lawyers have advised that board members of the nonprofit Fund for Public Schools should not have to disclose their finances under a 2006 law designed to make government more transparent. (Times)
- Despite a lawsuit last year, students at Frederick Douglass Academy IV are still not receiving mandated special ed services. (Daily News)
- Problems abound in the new, limited distribution of teacher parking permits. (Daily News)
- Queens’ Francis Lewis and Benjamin Cardozo High Schools received the most applications in last year’s high school admissions process. (Post)
- Schools in states that required small test score gains in the first few years of NCLB must now make much larger gains if they are to reach 100 percent proficiency by 2014. (Times)
- In Connecticut, 40 percent of schools did not make Annual Yearly Progress this year under NCLB. (Times)
- The economic downturn is making it tougher to open new charter schools and run existing ones, in D.C. and nationally. (Washington Post)
- Jay Mathews suspects Prince George’s County superintendent John Deasy’s departure for the Gates Foundation might reflect tension with the school board. (Washington Post)
October 10, 2008
by Philissa Cramer
- For the first time, the DOE is asking Community Education Councils, which have budgets of only $20,000 to foot the bill for increases to the benefits of their administrative assistants. (Post)
- With the economy in decline, more families might pick already overcrowded public schools. (Daily News)
- Because of overcrowding, some children in Riverdale now must attend schools that are not their zoned school. (Riverdale Press)
- At a public hearing in Queens, parents railed against mayoral control. (Queens Chronicle)
- Giving rewards to students who pass state tests could violate federal privacy rules, the Texas education commissioner has advised his superintendents. (Dallas News)
- Girls living in cities start sports later and continue less often than boys and suburban girls. (AP)
- Girls in the United States who are exceptional at math are rarely nurtured, a new study finds. (Times)
- One year after starting its charter school experiment, Georgia has lifted its cap on the number of charters. (Atlanta Journal-Constitution)
- New Orleans’ school board is now majority white and stacked with supporters of the state’s post-Katrina takeover of the city’s schools. (Times-Picayune)
- Reports arguing that schools should teach “21st-century skills” never explain how to do it, Jay Mathews complains. (Washington Post)
October 9, 2008
by Kelly Vaughan
- A letter from the NY Civil Liberties Union to Police Commissioner Ray Kelly says that more than 300 students were illegally arrested in city schools between 2005 and 2007. (Daily News, Times)
- Budget cuts to school transportation programs may cause resegregation and force some children to stay at failing local schools despite NCLB’s transfer option. (Wall Street Journal)
- Minority college enrollment has increased, but not enough for this generation’s educational attainment to exceed the previous generation’s. (AP)
- Yesterday, 1300 teachers across the country received boxes of school supplies worth $1,000 thanks to Adopt-A-Classroom and OfficeMax. (Washington Post)
- One of 20 new schools planned for Chicago is the gay-friendly Pride School. (Chicago Sun-Times)
October 8, 2008
by Philissa Cramer
- More than 100 city middle schools are using “Dimension M,” an algebra-focused computer game, in their math classes, the first result of a new partnership between educators and gamemakers. (Times)
- Parents are keeping up the pressure for a middle school on Morton Street, but the DOE says there is no longer a plan for one. (Daily News)
- Juan Gonzalez asks why the DOE’s accountability and legal divisions continue to grow, despite a department-wide hiring freeze. (Daily News)
- More than 6,000 seats are still available in the city’s pre-K classrooms; if they aren’t filled by Oct. 31, the city loses funding for them. (WNYC, AP)
- Brooklyn schools are worried about impending budget cuts. (YourNabe.com)
- Chicago schools chief Arne Duncan turned down an award for his anti-violence efforts as gun deaths of Chicago students continue. (Chicago Sun-Times)
- Two new programs for kids with special needs will help the D.C. public schools meet its legal mandate to provide special education services. (Washington Post)
- A study of Colorado high schools suggests that arts education might help students do better in other subjects. (Denver Post)
October 7, 2008
by Kelly Vaughan
- Australian Education Minister Julia Gillard has invited Chancellor Klein to speak in Australia. (Post)
- A new wrestling center in the Bronx opened by afterschool organization Beat the Streets hopes to help students get and stay on track for college. (Daily News)
- The study of Latin is on the upswing nationwide, both as a choice and as a requirement. (Times)
- The Noble Charter School Network in Chicago may be the latest example of successful “no excuses schools.” (NPR)
- Connecticut is grading schools on how well they promoted nutrition and health. (Medical News Today)
- All Things Considered asks how each of the candidates would fix NCLB. (NPR)
October 6, 2008
by Philissa Cramer
- Now that Mayor Bloomberg is pushing for a third term, it will be difficult for lawmakers not to think about him as they debate the future of mayoral control of the city’s schools. (Times)
- Chancellor Klein will visit Australia next month, where education leaders are trying to replicate New York’s reforms. (The West Australian)
- Merit pay for individual teachers could undermine all-important teamwork in schools, Jay Mathews argues. (Washington Post)
- Construction at a new school building in Downtown Brooklyn isn’t finished yet, even though three schools have moved in. (Daily News)
- Hundreds of laptops have already been stolen from city schools this year. (Post)
- One of the schools where students will receive XO laptops is also providing home internet access for families. (Post)
- City high schools are urging eligible students to register to vote. (Daily News)
- Long Island City High School junior Irene Gjoka is one of only half a dozen female students in the city’s history to play PSAL football. (Daily News)
- A 20-year principal on Staten Island uses yoga to help her students, who all have special needs. (Post)
- In Hartford, Conn., every student wears a uniform. (Times)
- Ed in ‘08 might be dead, but other groups are still pushing for education to receive campaign attention. (Time)
October 3, 2008
by Kelly Vaughan
- Parents and community leaders will urge the DOE to address school overcrowding with a rally at City Hall and the launch of A Better Capital Plan campaign. (Daily News)
- UFT president Randi Weingarten says she will ask the DOE to reconsider its ban on teachers wearing political buttons in class. (Post)
- Pepperdine University’s Graduate School of Education and Psychology’s new Urban Initiative aims to prepare students to work in underserved urban communities. (MarketWatch)
- Students from poor families have narrowed the achievement gap in the Washington, D.C. area since the start of No Child Left Behind. (Washington Post)
- An estimated half million readers all read the same book in Jumpstart’s effort to break the world record and encourage early childhood literacy. (NY Times)
- One add-on to the bailout bill passed by the Senate is an expansion of a program that helps rural schools. (NY Times)
October 2, 2008
by Philissa Cramer
- The DOE will rate teachers based on their students’ test scores, but an agreement with the UFT prevents the ratings from being used in tenure decisions or evaluations. (Times)
- A new charter middle school in Brooklyn’s District 15 will focus on the arts. (Brooklyn Paper)
- The DOE is telling teachers to take off their Obama buttons. (Post)
- To make sure he retains mayoral control of schools, Mayor Bloomberg is helping state Republicans try to retain a majority in the State Assembly. (Post)
- Schools in the Washington, D.C., area appear to be closing the achievement gap. (Washington Post)
- Boston’s new superintendent is planning a major reorganization of the city’s schools. (Boston Globe)
- An 1,500-person education protest outside the Cubs-Dodgers playoff game attracted little attention. (Chicago Sun-Times)
- Chester Finn of the Fordham Institute argues that the city’s progress reports are “so obvious, so sensible and so gutsy.” (Forbes)
- UCLA management professor William Ouchi praises the “dynamic innovation” in New York’s schools under Mayor Bloomberg’s leadership. (Post)
October 1, 2008
by Kelly Vaughan
- The $200 XO laptop, designed for use in developing countries, is coming to the NYC schools. (Post, NY1)
- Fewer New York youth are smoking, says the state department of health. (Post)
- Washington, D.C. teachers union head George Parker must decide whether to bring Chancellor Michelle Rhee’s controversial teacher pay proposal to a vote this week. (Washington Post)
- John E. Deasy, superintendent of the Prince George’s County, Maryland Public Schools, is leaving to head the education division of the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation. (Washington Post)
- The Inner City Education Foundation, a charter school group, plans to expand from 13 to 35 schools in South Los Angeles in the next eight years. (LA Times)
- A group of scientists warned the Texas Board of Education to keep religion and politics out of the state’s new science standards. (Houston Chronicle)