Press
June 24, 2010
TN schools outline plans for Race to the Top grants
(From The Tennessean, June 23, 2010)
by JAIME SARRIO
Tennessee school districts will hire new teachers and staff and make technology upgrades that would otherwise be unthinkable in tight budget times after getting a surge of cash this fall from the federal Race to the Top program.
Half of the $500 million in prize money awarded to Tennessee for winning the school reform competition will go to local school districts; the other half will be spent at the state level. Tennessee and Delaware were the first winners in the national contest, created by the Obama administration to encourage radical change in public school policy.
Local school districts get a say in how to spend the money over the next four years, but their plans must line up with what was promised in the state's application.
Continue reading "TN schools outline plans for Race to the Top grants"....
June 16, 2010
Race to Top Buy-In Level Examined
(From Education Week, June 14, 2010)
By MICHELE MCNEIL
States significantly increased buy-in from local teachers' unions in round two of the Race to the Top competition, but made far less progress in enlisting districts or expanding the number of students affected by the states' education reform plans.
Those patterns emerged from an Education Week analysis of applications from 29 states and the District of Columbia, all of which entered both rounds of the $4 billion federal grant contest.
Although the changes made in applications from the first to the second round varied widely from state to state, union buy-in increased on average by 22 percentage points, with states such as Florida, Michigan, and Wisconsin making big leaps.
At the same time, the overall level of district support and students affected in the 30 applications barely budged, mostly owing to California's loss of support from about 500 districts representing nearly 2 million students. That negated progress other states made in improving buy-in.
Even with greater union backing, states didn't appear to garner the additional support by substantially weakening their applications.
Continue Reading "Race to Top Buy-In Level Examined"...
June 13, 2010
For the children
(From The New York Post, June 13, 2010)
Continue reading "For the children"....
June 11, 2010
Hoyt gets special praise on school funding push
(From The Buffalo News, June 11, 2010)
By JOE WILLIAMS
The June 8 editorial, "State lawmakers get more serious in competition for school funding," was right to applaud the collective efforts of the State Legislature, which finally took serious action on New York State's Race to the Top application when it agreed to lift the arbitrary state cap on public charter schools.
However, Buffalo's own Assemblyman Sam Hoyt deserves special recognition for his efforts. He was the first elected official in New York to point out that we desperately needed to come together as a state in order to be competitive in round two of Race to the Top. Indeed, Hoyt's leadership played a big part in increasing New York chance at hundreds of millions of dollars in federal funding for our public schools.
The people of Buffalo should be proud of the hard work and foresight of their assemblyman.
D.C. burbs lead nation in grad rate
(From The Washington Examiner, June 11, 2010)
By LEAH FABEL
Continue reading "D.C. burbs lead nation in grad rate"....
June 10, 2010
Tsunami of pro-charter school opinion in NY dailies
(From The Huffington Post, June 10, 2010)
By LEONIE HAIMSON
Before the state raised its cap on charter schools last month, New Yorkers were inundated with a flood of TV, radio and internet ads from the hedge-fund privateers: Democrats for Education Reform and Education Reform Now, groups who tried to disguise themselves as parents, educators and community members.
We were also overwhelmed by a tsunami of editorials and opeds from the newspapers, all in unison purveying the same flawed statistics and arguments, trying to bully the Legislature into submission.
I had my intern, Ann Fudjinski, count all the editorials and opeds in the NY Post, the Daily News, the NY Times and the Wall Street Journal between March 1 and May 29, when the final vote on the cap occurred.
The resulting tally is quite astonishing.
In the NY Post, there were 21 separate editorials and 21 opeds for raising the cap in less than three months; sometimes several on one day. Nine were written by charter school authorizers, operators or paid lobbyists. (And this doesn't count the slanted coverage of some of the reporters, with the bizarre headlines of "War on Charters".)
Continue reading "Tsunami of pro-charter school opinion in NY dailies"....
June 8, 2010
Dems challenge their own to reform; Super super in Montabella
(From MEA Exposed, June 8, 2010)
Harrison Blackmond has worked on both sides of the education debate.
He spent time as a staff attorney at the Michigan Education Association's East Lansing headquarters, and negotiated labor contracts as a Uniserv director in the field.
That was early in his career.
More recently, Blackmond (pictured at right) has concentrated on improving the state's failing education system as head of the Detroit Regional Chamber of Commerce's education group. He's sharpened his focus on urban school systems like Detroit, Pontiac, Saginaw, Flint and Muskegon Heights, traditionally Democratic areas that seem perpetually plagued by achievement gaps when compared to their suburban counterparts.
Early this year, Blackmond teamed with Joe Williams, executive director of the national Democrats for Education Reform, to launch a state branch of the organization, joining the ranks of education leaders in nine other states that are bucking the teachers unions that have dominated their party for decades.
Since February, the Michigan DFER has swelled to over 1,400 supporters, including several key state lawmakers. DFER is shaking up the Democratic Party in Michigan by questioning the MEA's agenda and supporting Democratic leaders willing to do the same.
"I think that the MEA and the (Michigan Federation of Teachers) have put the interests of adults ahead of those of children," Blackmond, the first state director of Michigan DFER, said in an interview with the Insider. "The union has resisted significant change in the way we provide education to our children.
Continue reading "Dems challenge their own to reform; Super super in Montabella"....
