Tutorservice Daily News forMay 11th

• Campaign 2012: Mitt Romney, Prep School Bully – This week's other big education-related political story is the Washington Post's coverage of Mitt Romney's prep school bullying — for which the Republican candidate apologized last night on Fox:
  "They talk about the fact that I played a lot of pranks in high school," he said. "And they describe some that you just say to yourself, back in high school I just did some dumb things, and if anybody was hurt by that or offended by it, obviously I apologize."
  Slate's John Dickerson discusses why the possibility of Romney having been a bully matters, despite being so far in the past, and reminds us that, fair or not, much the same vetting process has happened to every major political candidate of the past 20 years.  
  The story won't determine Romney's candidacy but in today's world, in which bullying is not just considered an unfortunate rite of childhood and a deadly serious responsibility for educators, the accusation that Romney bullied other kids carries heavier weight.
• Celebrities talk about their most influential teachers – by Sarah Springer, CNN (CNN) During Teacher Appreciation week, the ladies of ABC shows “Grey’s Anatomy” and “Scandal” spoke a little bit about the teachers that impacted their lives the most. Chandra Wilson, who plays Dr. Miranda Bailey on “Grey’s Anatomy”, told CNN her favorite teacher taught her to believe in her abilities, while television [...]
• Campaign 2012: How Vouchers Are Like Same-Sex Marriage – It's not just because Arne Duncan played a role in the President's decision to come out in support of gay marriage that education-watchers should pay attention to the way politicians talk about the issue. The other, much more interesting reason, is that some Democratic politicians favor private school vouchers (with conditions, usually) but, as with same sex marriage, they often are loathe to say so out loud, knowing that the political consequences are high. They signal their support in various ways — pretzeling themselves around rhetorically like Obama's former chief of staff Rahm Emanual did last week in San Francisco.  And yet they know it's increasingly difficult to oppose vouchers, and are waiting for the moment when the conditions are right (by necessity or reduced danger) to make their true feelings known.  
• Technology: Classroom Drones, Playground Drones – What could an educator do with a small, easily controlled, programmable drone?  You could teach with it — kids would love programming it or exploring the neighborhood via videocam from above.  You could keep watch over the campus with it.  No more lunch duty for bored teachers.  Just launch it and watch from above on your laptop.  Parents could use one to make sure their kids aren't getting bullied during recess.  
  Drones are already being used here in the US, and their use is likely to spread quickly.  This New Yorker article explores their possible domestic uses, amazing and frightening.  They are increasingly small and able to perform complex tasks without being directly controlled by a human controller. 
  Excited? Scared?  Me, too.  
• AM News: Mixed News / Reactions On NAEP Science Scores – 8th Grade Students Make Gains in Testing on Science NYT: Eighth graders made modest gains in national science testing, with Hispanics and blacks narrowing the gap between their white and Asian peers, the government reported Thursday. ALSO Report: 8th-grade students still lag in science AP via Boston.com, Science Scores Draw Concern WSJ

  House Passes Bill To Stave Off Cuts, But K-12 Advocates Still Worried Politics K12: Education advocates have been sweating for months over a series of planned cuts that are slated to hit every K-12 program in January – unless Brokedown Congress can figure out a way to stop it.
  Vermont to Reconsider ESEA Waiver Politics K12: Vermont's governor and state board of education are weighing whether to continue with the process of applying for a waiver from the Elementary and Secondary Education Act, after the back-and-forth exchange with the U.S. Department of Education has led the state to stray far from the original proposal it sold to stakeholders.
  Has Higher Ed. Ceded Reponsibility for Teacher Quality Control? Teacher Beat: The dean of the University of Virginia's Curry School of Education, Robert Pianta, pens a provocative piece in the Chronicle of Higher Education that poses what's probably the essential teacher-quality question du jour: Who should be responsible for defining and policing the standards of the teaching profession?
  MORE NEWS ITEMS INSIDE

  Pearson Tells State: We'll Do Better NYT: Once again the state math and English tests created by Pearson are in the news, with a report that the educational company is feeling the pressure stemming from test errors that have caused 29 questions to be struck from the exams so far. Meanwhile, state Board of Regents Chancellor Merryl H. Tisch on Wednesday said Pearson's mistakes were "really disturbing."
  Chicago teachers conduct 'dry run' for strike vote Chicago Tribune: The Chicago Teachers Union polled its 25,000 members Thursday on questions involving the school board as part of what one official called a "dry run" for a potential strike vote.
  Neighborhood admissions preference for charter schools to be studied Washington Post: District officials are moving closer to changes in the law that would allow charter schools–currently open to all eligible students citywide– to grant admissions preference to families in surrounding neighborhoods.
  Tennessee Bill Asks Parents To Grade Themselves On Report Cards AP via HuffPost: Educators exasperated by the need for greater parent involvement have persuaded Tennessee lawmakers to sign off on a novel bit of arm-twisting: Asking parents to grade themselves on report cards.
  SC Senate panel advances private school bill AP via Boston.com: A bill giving tax breaks to parents who send their children to private school or educate them at home advanced Wednesday in the Senate, despite a panel's 3-2 vote against it.

Tutorservice Daily News forMay 17th

• Video Interlude: Teachers "Dance Bomb" Students [Pranks] – Here, MA teachers engage in an elaborate teacher-on-student prank, which is the reverse of the usual practice:
   
  "Dance bombing," like photo bombing, is an Internet fad (sort of like planking was back in 2011). I associate it with Ellen Degeneres. Beware, the music associated with this video is loud and somewhat uncool.  
• "Only in America": Custodian graduates – In this edition of "Only in America," Piers Morgan congratulates one Columbia University custodian on his graduation.
• Media: Ed Reporters Tweeting Up A Storm – Want to know what #ewa12 education reporters think is interesting and important? They're all gathered here at Penn, tweeting like mad.  Check out the stream below:
• Thompson: A Fake Financial Crisis In Philly? – The Philadelphia Schoool Reform Commission (SRC) said that their schools might not even have enough money to open their doors next fall without huge budgetary cuts and additional resources, as it also unveiled a radical education plan. It would close 64 schools in the next five years and divide the rest among “achievement networks” and charter management organizations. The implication, of course, is that the risky plan is necessary because of the district's immense financial challenges. The Philadelphia Inquirer's "Crisis Opens a Window to School Reform," by Patrick Kerkstra, explained that that is not true. He cited the mayor's chief education officer who admitted, "the academic reorganization is completely cost-neutral." Kerkstra , a former reporter for the Inquirer, then explained that reformers, "want to blow the district up."  They would have had a tough time persuading the public that the solution is "closing public schools en masse, enrolling about 40 percent of all students in charters by 2017, and busting the district up into 20 to 30 networks." He then cited a founder of Parents United for Public Education. "We got the bait and switch. We were promised a fiscal plan, and we got a complete academic overhaul."
  Regular readers of the Inquirer and the Philadelphia School Notebook have already been told how the Philadelphia's schools got into this mess. 

  The Inquirer, for instance, earned a Pulitizer Prize for its series, Learning Under Attack which documented the system's "climate of violence," the attacks on teachers and staff, and the damage done to students, as well as the school system's underreporting of violence. But former Superintendent Arlene Ackerman ignored the pleas of bruised and bullied children.  Now, Lorene Cary of School Reform Commission says that what is needed to bring out the "exquisite" in disruptive children is a three-day workshop for principals and a day of consciousness-raising for teachers.
  The Notebook, which just won its second legal battle for the right to access information considered by the reform commission, has been equally effective in explaining the contradictions in the school system's rushed reforms. The Notebook's  Dale Mezzacappa reported that the district wants to implement the SRC plan, even though Chief Academic Officer Penny Nixon could not say if it would result in "better outcomes for children," because the plan isn't complete. 
  Perhaps the best single account of the "dismantling of the school system" is Daniel Denvir's "Who's Killing Philly Public Schools?" in the City Paper.  Denvir, like the Inquirer and the Notebook,made it clear that the city's problems did not start with the disastrous "reform" administration of Arlene Ackerman.  For instance, Philadelphia led the way in contracting out schools to Edison Schools. After posting a record of lackluster performance, for-profit organizations threw in the towel. He then concluded:
   As Philadelphia schools cut past the bone and spin beyond crisis, the movement to privatize them has grown fat. After 15 years of pellmell growth, 82 charter schools now educate 25 percent of district students, and will this year receive $525 million. The flight of children to charters has increased the price of educating those who remain in the district — a key reason the district is now pushing to close under-attended schools. Charters have also siphoned off many Catholic-school students, according to a Pew Foundation study, prompting a similar enrollment crisis for the Archdiocese of Philadelphia.
  Denvir then recounted the authoritarianism and the grandstanding of Superintendent Arlene Ackerman. He recalled the low points of her administration, including:
  Accusations launched against Asian student victims at South Philly High, retaliation against whistleblowers speaking out on improper contracting, tumult following the removal of a popular principal at West Philly High, the persecution of Audenried teacher Hope Moffett, who spoke out against charter conversions, and, of course, the propaganda machine.
  In the wake of the infamous cheating scandal which broke in 2011 and the district's buy-out  Ackerman's contract, the School Reform Commission took only "five weeks of 'intense' work starting immediately to help design a decentralized academic model, identify operational savings, and find new reductions and efficiencies." It paid $1.4 million to the Boston Consulting Group which was hot off its miraculous transformation of Chicago's schools. Denvir cited a former Boston employee who "described the company's approach as merely 'force-fit[ting] analysis to a conclusion.'" Sure enough, Boston produced a "cut and paste" plan
   Denvir suggested that "another goal of Boston could be enriching its allies, or scoring them political victories. Former Boston executives and consultants now hold senior posts at charter-school networks like KIPP — which could well apply to manage a Philly achievement network — and [the]Broad Center."
  Old-fashioned journalism and schools have a lot in common. Both are being battered by the technological, social, and economic forces known as disruptive innovation.  The leaders of Philadelphia schools have not risen to the challenges. As shown by the coverage of the city's schools, Philadelphia journalists have.
  And in a fitting update, the Notebook's Mezzacappa reports that SRC has now redefined the "Blueprint" as a "concept," while its contributer, Ron Whitehorne, explains that the SRC rushed ahead before understanding the definitions of the terms they were using. - JT (@drjohnthompson) image via.

• Doug Kendall: Fighting for Brown v. Board of Education on its 58th Anniversary –

  Fifty-eight years ago today, the Supreme Court handed down its landmark ruling in Brown v. Board of Education, striking down racial segregation in public schools and signaling the beginning of the end of the Jim Crow era. While Brown's status as an iconic victory for civil rights remains unquestioned, there is a darker lining to today's anniversary. In today's Supreme Court, Brown's legacy and meaning is very much at a crossroads. Indeed, the conservative majority on the Roberts Court is weaponizing Brown to attack the very civil rights statutes that are essential for moving the 14th Amendment's guarantee of equal protection toward fruition. Sadly, progressives today need to do more than celebrate Brown: we need to fight for its legacy and true meaning.

  The text of the 14th Amendment commands that "No State shall… deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws." While this text is "colorblind," as conservatives like to claim – every person in this country can invoke the universal guarantee of equality contained in the Equal Protection Clause – this does not mean that the Clause applies identically to different types of legislation. At its core, the fight over Brown is about whether the ruling sets a constitutional minimum floor, or more of a maximum limit, in terms of what federal, state, and local governments can do to redress our nation's long history of racial discrimination and ensure that the Constitution's promise of equal opportunity is a reality for all Americans regardless of race.

  In the decades after Brown, under the leadership of Chief Justices Earl Warren and Warren Burger, the Supreme Court upheld and broadly interpreted civil rights statutes such as the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and the Voting Rights Act of 1965 that built off Brown's central holding that African Americans could not be treated as second-class citizens in this country. While some of the efforts to bring about racial equality were race-conscious, these initial opinions held that their goal of redressing past discrimination brought them clearly under the constitutional aegis of the Equal Protection Clause, not unlike the Freedmen's Bureau Acts and other post-Civil War era statutes that provided special assistance to the newly freed former slaves. As late as the 1980s, the Court rejected the notion that Congress had to act in a purely color-blind fashion, recognizing, in the words of Justice Thurgood Marshall, that Congress and the states could pass race-conscious legislation in order to "mov[e] our society toward a state of meaningful equality of opportunity, not an abstract version of equality in which the effects of past discrimination would be forever frozen into our social fabric."

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Tutorservice Daily News forMay 17th

• Nancy Pine: Longer School Days Not Good for Quality – Every time I head for China, U.S. teachers and parents ask me how we can get our students to be more like the Chinese students. Meanwhile, the Chinese tell me how much they long for American-style education.
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• Gene Marks: How to End the Education Crisis: 10 Classes Every Business School Should Be Teaching – If our students emerged from their universities better prepared for life in the business world, there would be more opportunities awaiting them. So to that end, here are just a few courses I believe every fine business school should offer.
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• AM News: Attendance Averages Hide Absence Problems – Up to 15 Percent of Students Chronically Skip School, Johns Hopkins Finds NYT: A study by researchers at John Hopkins University found that as many as 15 percent of students miss at least one school day in 10, and have gone undetected because of the way attendance is measured. ALSO Chronic Absenteeism Hurts Millions Of Students HuffPost, Study: 7.5 million students miss a month of school each year USAT
  Fla. Students Crash After State Raises Bar On Test NPR: The Florida Board of Education has voted to temporarily lower the passing grade for its state writing test after a dramatic drop in scores on this year's exam. The state had made the test more difficult and raised the passing grade in an attempt to upgrade standards. But education officials were stunned when preliminary results showed the passing rate for 4th graders this year had plummeted from 80 percent to less than 30 percent.
  House Panel Takes A Look at School Choice, Parent Triggers Politics K12: Parent trigger laws have gotten a lot of attention lately—and they're about to get even more when theHollywood version comes out later this year.
  MORE NEWS ITEMS INSIDE

  What Does a First-Grade Journalist Look Like? PBS: When my colleague Mike Fritz and I headed down to St. Petersburg, Fla., recently, we knew we were going to see young journalists at work. It's not too hard to imagine that middle school students with a bit of training can write for a newspaper or even shoot video; plenty of kids have cellphones with cameras these days. But birthing journalists from first grade? I couldn't imagine how it was done — until we arrived at Melrose Elementary, a journalism magnet school.
  CPS plans 60 more charters in 5 years Chicago Tribune: Chicago Public Schools plans to create 60 more charter schools over five years, which would increase the share of privately run charters to about a quarter of all schools in the district.
  OSSE report: District pays at least $10 million to educate non-resident students Washington Post: The District has been trying to save a few dollars by reducing the number of special education students in expensive private schools at public expense.
  Some elementary foreign language programs losing ground as budget cuts take toll Boston Globe: Biting into foreign tongues Traditional foreign language classes have been stripped from Massachusetts elementary schools over the past decade, forced out by tight budgets and high-stakes testing.
  99 Percent of N.Y. School Budgets Meeting Tax Cap Pass NYT: School officials said the high passage rate reflected tight budgets and staff cuts as most districts fought to stay under the new limit.
   

• The Center for Public Integrity: ALEC anti-union push includes key players from Michigan, Arizona think tanks –
  

  By Paul Abowd

  iWatch News

  The American Legislative Exchange Council, which backs free-market legislation in the states, has been controversial in part because its membership includes major corporations as well as state legislators. Largely unnoticed has been the influence wielded by a third group of ALEC members: state-based think tanks. Two of those think tanks took center stage at last weekend's ALEC Task Force Summit in Charlotte.

  The Arizona-based Goldwater Institute and the Michigan-based Mackinac Center between them successfully shepherded five model bills through ALEC's Commerce, Insurance, and Economic Development Task force — all targeting public sector unions.

  Goldwater representative Byron Schlomach introduced two bills, one requiring that public employees approve their state employer's automatic deduction of union dues from paychecks every year. Another would prohibit union officials from taking paid leave from public sector jobs to perform union duties.

  Michigan's Mackinac Center sent labor policy analyst Paul Kersey to introduce three more bills targeting unions. One of those model bills is already Michigan law, requiring public sector unions to make audits of their financial activities public. Another Mackinac proposal would require public sector union members to vote on their union membership every three to five years, and a third would make it easier for public and private employees to decertify their union.

  Members of the commerce task force confirmed that the five union bills were approved in Charlotte and will become ALEC model legislation if ALEC's board of directors does not initiate a formal review of the bills within 30 days. ALEC will then likely encourage its member legislators to introduce the model bills back in their home states. Since its founding in 1973, ALEC has successfully pushed hundreds of state-based laws. According to the ALEC website, legislators introduce nearly 1,000 bills each year that are based on ALEC model legislation, and 20 percent of them become law.

  Documents released by the left-leaning group Common Cause ahead of the Charlotte meeting offered an unprecedented look at the ALEC agenda. Amid heightened scrutiny, ALEC restricted press access and shortened the summit to one day. ALEC did not return calls requesting information.

  A history of influence

  Dozens of state-based think tanks, many of them part of a Heritage Foundation-affiliated umbrella group called the State Policy Network, have long held sway within ALEC.

  "A very large proportion of the bills are sponsored by these think tanks," says Nick Surgey, a legal associate at D.C.-based Common Cause, which claims ALEC is actually a lobbying group, not a charity. "But behind that next layer is another set of unknowns about who is pushing the think tanks' agenda."

  Some, but not all, of Goldwater and Mackinac's financial supporters have been revealed. In 2010, the last year for which information is available, the organizations had budgets of approximately $3.5 million each, which have been supported with grants from the Charles Koch Charitable Foundation, the Walton Family Foundation, and the State Policy Network — groups that also fund ALEC.

  Goldwater and Mackinac are both part of the State Policy Network, which is headquartered in Arlington, Va., and boasts 59 member organizations across all fifty states. The network was founded in 1992 "at the urging of Ronald Reagan," according to its website. The policy group is a sponsor of ALEC events and also made grants to 18 free-market organizations in 2010, including $25,000 to the Mackinac Center. In 2008, it gave $50,000 to Mackinac, and $30,000 to Goldwater.

  Together, Goldwater and Mackinac draw money from twelve of the same conservative foundations, according to analysis by Media Matters Action Network.  

  State laboratories

  Before the union bills were approved at ALEC's conference last weekend, some of them were sponsored in the Arizona and Michigan legislatures by ALEC members.

  "Arizona is a petri dish for extreme legislation," says John Loredo, a former House minority leader there.

  The Arizona legislature has one of the largest contingents of ALEC legislators in the country. The last eight Arizona Senate presidents have carried the ALEC membership card, including former Sen. Russell Pearce, who sponsored the state's SB 1070 on immigration, which later became ALEC model legislation and is currently under review by the U.S. Supreme Court.  

  Phoenix-based Goldwater advocated for a package of bills sponsored by ALEC member Sen. Rick Murphy, R-Glendale, targeting public sector unions in the last legislative session, which ended May 3. The bills included the two introduced by Goldwater at ALEC to prohibit paid union leave and require employees to authorize annually automatic deduction of dues from their paychecks.

  None of the bills, though, became law in Arizona. Unions and Goldwater squared off in testimony while the legislature considered the union bills. The think tank's Nick Dranias said "collective bargaining laws threaten the very foundation of our republic," in the Senate committee's hearing on SB 1485, which would have ended bargaining for public employees. The committee agreed, recommending the bill for passage, but it did not come to a vote before the full legislature.

  "We believe these bills are just a balancing measure," said Goldwater President Darcy Olsen. "It doesn't take away the voice of public employees, it just puts them on a par with the rest of the taxpaying citizens of Arizona."

  A separate bill to restructure hiring and firing practices for public sector workers did become law in May after Gov. Jan Brewer vowed to make it a legislative priority at a Scottsdale ALEC summit in 2011. Sponsored by an ALEC legislator, Rep. Justin Olson, R-Mesa,  the law allows state employers to fire public sector employees "at-will," leaving them no appeals for termination.

  Sheri Van Horsen, President of AFSCME Local 3111, said the state's unions are considering a legal challenge or ballot referendum to overturn the law. Because it exempts public safety unions, Van Horsen argues that it is unconstitutional under the equal protection clause.

  Of the three model bills that Mackinac's Kersey introduced at ALEC, only one has become law in Michigan — a provision requiring every union to post an audit of its financial activity online. The other two bills have not been introduced in the Michigan legislature.

  Kersey says his model bill, the "Election Accountability for Municipal Employees Act," would set up a schedule by which public sector employees vote on unionization every three to five years, and would require a majority of all eligible members — not just voting members — to maintain union representation.

  The other bill Kersey introduced as model legislation would alter the requirement that at least 30 percent of workers in a bargaining unit approve a petition to vote on ending union representation. Kersey's model bill would lower that requirement to 10 percent of a bargaining unit's members and would apply to public- and private-sector unions.

  The Midland-based Mackinac Center has played a central role in pushing the GOP-controlled legislature to outlaw collective bargaining for public unions, supporting Gov. Rick Snyder's year-old "Emergency Manager" law, which has ended public sector bargaining in several cities where the state has appointed a manager. The emergency manager in Pontiac, Mich., a former Mackinac Center adviser, abrogated city contracts with police and firefighters unions last year.

  Mackinac also backed Gov. Snyder's signing of a law in March to prohibit automatic union dues collection for school employees in the state. Four of Michigan's public sector unions filed an April lawsuit in federal court to reverse the law, claiming it unfairly singles out school employees' unions, including the powerful Michigan Education Association. The unions also claim the law is "retribution for political speech." Gov. Snyder signed the law just days after labor's announcement of a ballot initiative to enshrine collective bargaining in the state constitution.

  Lobbying status

  The Mackinac and Goldwater centers have faced challenges from state officials, mirroring liberal groups' national efforts to hold ALEC accountable for lobbying. Common Cause filed a April 20 whistleblower complaint with the IRS, calling on the free-market group, which files as a 501(c)(3) public charity, to register as a lobbyist and disclose how much it spends advocating legislation.  

  The state-based think tanks are also under scrutiny for frequent correspondence with legislators and testimony at state capitols, and for drafting model bills like the ones both groups brought to ALEC last weekend.

  Arizona's secretary of state sent Goldwater letters asking the think tank to register last year. "We believe you're lobbying, you should sign up," Assistant Secretary of State Jim Drake told The Arizona Republic in January.

  "I know people look at us and say this must be coordinated effort," says Goldwater's Olsen, "That is not how we operate. We're not a lobbying organization, we're not doing guerrilla warfare — we're a think tank."

  Following the letters from the state, however, Goldwater did register some of its representatives as lobbyists.

  Olsen notes that the organization wrote the language for a ballot initiative to outlaw card check and institute secret ballot elections for unions — which passed in 2010. Goldwater's lawyers have joined Arizona in defending the law against a lawsuit brought by the National Labor Relations Board.

  Michigan Democratic Congressman Sander Levin asked the IRS in March to review the Mackinac Center's advocacy role, and evaluate whether indeed it should retain its tax-exempt, public-charity status — which, under IRS rules, allows only limited lobbying.  

  Levin referenced a number of e-mails in which Mackinac advisers gave state lawmakers detailed advice on legislation that would cap the state's health care payments to Michigan public sector employees. The e-mails concluded with a message from Mackinac's Senior Legislative Analyst Jack McHugh, who wrote to Republican ALEC legislator Tom McMillin that "Our goal is to outlaw government collective bargaining in Michigan."

  IRS officials told Levin's office they would have a closer look at Mackinac's tax status. In April, the think tank denied wrongdoing. "We are 100 percent confident that we have complied with all laws pertaining to our 501(c)3 status," Mackinac's Michael Jahr told the Lansing-area Daily Press & Argus.  

  Levin's letter notes that Mackinac Center answered "no" to the question of whether it had engaged in lobbying on its 2010 filing with the IRS. "I am concerned about the response to this question," he wrote.

  Continue this story and read more investigations at iWatch News

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• Twitter Thursdays: You Can Do It – I'm on Twitter today — @alexanderrusso.
  You can do it.  It's not too scary.  

Tutorservice Daily News for May 16th through May 17th:

• The high stakes of standardized tests – Listen to CNN Radio's podcast from Steve Kastenbaum about high-stakes standardized testing. by Steve Kastenbaum, CNN (CNN) Standardized tests are nothing new in public schools. Chances are you filled out bubbles on an answer form at some point during your schooling. But for the past few years, scores from statewide tests in English and math [...]
• Education Report: Chronic Absenteeism Undermines Over 5 Million Students –

  Danet Robaina-Cline, an attendance counselor at Chaparral High, considers her school lucky.

  Like other schools in Las Vegas, a city reeling from the worst ravages of the foreclosure crisis, Chaparral serves impoverished children. They live in foster care or homeless shelters. They must watch over their younger siblings or move several times a year. But because Chaparral is in the middle of a well-funded turnaround process, it's one of the very few schools that can afford an attendance counselor.

  It's one of the very few schools that could have picked up on the fact that a certain student was the sole breadwinner for his family.

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• Events: Possible Highlights At The Ed Writers Conferences – You rarely know exactly what's going to make it worthwhile to go to a conference, and occasionally there's nothing much that comes of going.  But often there's at least someone, or something, who emerges as a key contact, or source, or an idea that helps improve your understanding or your thinking.
  At this year's EWA conference, some of the people and events that might prove most helpful to me include a site visit to Mastery, a chance to see New America's Lisa Guernsey on a panel, and Roxanna Elden, and Ted Mitchell (again).  I always love the advocates' sessions (which most reporters avoid like the plague).  I always stay away from the data panel though I'll probably go to the session about new media tools if only to see Joshua Benton do his schpiel. It's always good to see old friends and acquaintances, and make new ones.  I'll try my best to pay attention.  Michael Bennet.  Cory Booker.  Tom Kane.  Jim Shelton.  Steve Brill.  Can we heckle?
  Anyway, you get the idea.  Come up and say hi if you're here.  Tell me what to go to or whom to avoid if I've got it totally wrong.  
• Exercise Levels, Medical Testing, Education Addressed In CDC Health Report –

  More than half of U.S. adults aren't getting enough exercise, according to a sweeping new report on the state of America's health from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

  Older people, ages 75 and older, were the least likely to meet the recommendations, with 70 percent not getting enough regular aerobic and muscle-strengthening exercise. Meanwhile, 39 percent of people ages 18 to 24 didn't get enough exercise.

  The report, called "Health, United States, 2011," examined a range of health data collected up until 2010. It also showed the influences of education on health and income on health insurance, as well as trends for medical testing in the U.S.

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• Tom Allon: Stop and Frisk: Two Inconvenient Truths – Stop and frisk must continue as a tool for the NYPD. It's time we had an honest appraisal: stop and frisk is saving minority men's lives. But jobs and education is a better way to save them. That work must begin now.
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• Quotes: College Board President Once Mocked Personal Writing – Johnson, I need a market analysis by Friday, but before that I need a compelling account of your childhood. – Controversial remarks past from incoming College Board president David Coleman

Tutorservice Daily News forMay 16th

• Todd Starnes, Fox News Radio Host, Blames Public Schools For Rise Of Same-Sex Marriage Support (VIDEO) –

  On the heels of President Obama's public endorsement of gay marriage, Todd Starnes, host of the daily radio show "Fox News & Commentary," has said he blames public schools for the increased support for same-sex marriage in the country.

  "… The reason why is because of the public school system," Starnes said on "FoxNews.com Live" on May 10. "Look at what's happening in public schools, they're indoctrination centers. Boys and girls are having their views formulated on gay marriage through the public school system and that's why it's becoming generational."

  The LGBT blog "Equality Matters" noted that Starnes took to Twitter after making the comments, posting a series of tweets carrying the same message.

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• One high school, 25 valedictorians – by Carl Azuz, CNN (CNN) The iconic Highlander line, “There can be only one” might apply at most other high schools.  But at Vanguard High School in Ocala, Florida, as many as 25 students could be classified as “valedictorian.” What this means is that there are expected to be 25 straight-A students.  Since they have taken [...]
• Reform Update: Unusual Balance Of Praise For Final CT Deal – In the recent past — think IL or FL, DC, or even CO — reforms have been seen as big wins for one side or the other.  Your side either won, or it got blocked or pushed back.  Yay!  Boo!  
  Connecticut is shaping up a little bit differently, at least in how it's been messaged, in that both reformers and education leaders (union presidents, etc.) are generally praising the final deal.  There's Michelle Rhee talking about the deal on Fox (here).  There's a statement from the AFT (here).  There's CEA union president May Loftus Levine attending the bill-signing ceremony (pictured, and here).  
  Of course, sometimes the make nice is just a momentary blip, a minute of exhaustion before the different sides go back to trying to scuttle each other.  And sometimes the make nice is the result of a final package that doesn't do very much — still a concern of mine and others when it comes to some of the state laws have been passed.  But it seems worth noting that both sides had it out during the negotiations and are now singing the praises of the result.  The only ones left out in the cold are those at the far ends of the spectrum for whom it's all or nothing, bashing the compromises and those who made them.  
• Quote: Bringing Back The Idea Of Mixed-Income Education – Poor children can perform well if given the right educational environment, but almost 50 years of research suggests they perform better, on average, in middle-class schools than they do in high poverty schools. – TCF's Richard Kahlenberg on today's NAPCS diverse charter schools report (or whatever they're calling it).
• AM News: Reformers Keeps Pushing In CA, CT – Activist targeting schools, backed by big bucks Reuters:  StudentsFirst has its own political action committee (PAC), its own SuperPAC, and a staff of 75, including a cadre of seasoned lobbyists Rhee sends from state to state. Via GothamSchools

  Calif. Lawsuit Challenges Teacher Tenure, Layoff, Due-Process Statutes Teacher Beat: A handful of California parents have sued the state over five laws that allegedly concentrate poorly performing teachers in schools that primarily serve disadvantaged and minority students. ALSO: Lawsuit takes aim at California's legal protections for teachers LAT

  Exam-Creation Firms Come In For Criticism WSJ: The testing industry is expected to continue to grow as states and school districts begin evaluating all teachers based on student achievement, requiring new tests to evaluate art and physical-education teachers, for example. ALSO:  School Test Backlash Grows 

  Can Stricter Federal Guidelines Fix America's Literacy Crisis? HuffPost: As American students continue to fall behind foreign peers, 45 states and Washington, D.C. have adopted the Common Core State Standards, a new set of academic benchmarks aimed at raising the bar for teaching and learning across the country.

  Conn. to begin rolling out new education law AP via Boston.com: Connecticut officials plan to begin work immediately on some key provisions in the new education overhaul legislation that was signed into law on Tuesday, including a proposal to start introducing the first of 1,000 early childhood education slots in low-income communities.

  Teaching for all levels — in one class Washington Post: In Elise Carter’s second-grade class, some students still write their numbers backward or look at their fingers to add. Others race through multiplication tables or search the Web to teach themselves about negative numbers.
  MORE NEWS ITEMS INSIDE

  Penn to team up with KIPP charters Inquirer: The University of Pennsylvania announces today that it's the KIPP Foundation's first Ivy-League partner.
  Bronx Borough President Calls for Changes in Elite High School AdmissionsNYT: In response to the low number of Bronx students who have been admitted to the city's elite public high schools in recent years, Borough President Rubin Diaz Jr. has recommended a change in the admissions process to place more weight on grade point averages and essays, and less on a standardized exam. City officials said they had no plans to move away from a test-based admissions policy.

  Legal Rulings Favor Teachers' Union NYT: The United Federation of Teachers came away with two legal victories on Monday. One orders the city to go to mediation to establish a teacher evaluation system at 33 struggling schools. The second ends a long-simmering dispute at the Sisulu-Walker Charter School of Harlem by certifying the union as the official bargaining agent for the school.

   

Tutorservice Daily News forMay 15th

• Cartoon: LOLCats Take Over School Reform – Think you can do better?  Probably so.  Make and post your own using the picture below and the LOLcats builder here. So 2007, I know.  
• Parents of special needs students say school district covered up abuse – By Julie Peterson, CNN (CNN) Slammed into lockers, isolated in darkened schoolrooms, vulgar language by a teacher – it was just another day at school for special needs student Alex Williams. Recently released court documents say Alex, who has cerebral palsy, was routinely abused by teacher Melanie Pickens at Atlanta-area Hopewell Middle   School between [...]
• Video: SNL Brings Back "The Culps" For LBGT Prom – Altadena Middle School music teachers Marty and Bobbi Mohan Culp are back on SNL after a long absence, filling in last Saturday night at the LBGT Prom for a Lady Gaga impersonator.  But things haven't gone well for the school budget in recent years, the Culps report:
   
  "It's no Glee, folks," says Mr. Culp. "In fact it's pretty Glame." Video above.  
• Embarrassing Punishments Hurt Kids, Experts Say –

  By: Rachael Rettner
  Published: 05/15/2012 10:47 AM EDT on MyHealthNewsDaily

  Parents and teachers who try to make their kids behave by subjecting them to humiliating punishments are taking the wrong approach to discipline, experts say.

  Just this month, a Florida teacher was suspended for making tardy students wear a wide-brimmed dog collar dubbed the "cone of shame." And parents in Minnesota who were disappointed with their daughter's grades were arrested after they shaved the 12-year old girl's head and forced her to wear a diaper and run around outside.

  While these cases are certainly extreme, experts say that any punishment that shames or embarrasses a child is not an effective way to discipline youngsters, and may cause long-term psychological damage.

  "The research is pretty clear that it's never appropriate to shame a child, or to make a child feel degraded or diminished," said Andy Grogan-Kaylor, an associate professor of social work at the University of Michigan. Such punishments can lead to "all kinds of problems in the future," Grogan-Kaylor said, including increased anxiety, depression and aggression.

  Malicious punishments can also damage a parent's relationship with their child, and lead to a cycle of bad behavior, experts say.

  Instead, parents should use other discipline strategies, such as setting clear rules for kids and taking away privileges. Overall, parents should aim to create a supporting environment for their child.

  "Positive things have a much more powerful effect on shaping behavior than any punishment," Grogan-Kaylor said.

  Damaging punishments

  Out-of-the norm punishments can have social repercussions for children, said Jennifer Lansford, a research professor at Duke Univesity's Center for Child and Family Policy. An odd punishment can make a child stand out, and provoke bullying, Lansford said.

  In addition, children evaluate their own experiences in the context of what they see their peers experiencing, Lansford said. If children are disciplined in ways that are not condoned by society, "it can lead children to perceive they are personally rejected by their parents," Lansford said.

  Humiliating punishments can also disconnect parents from their children, making kids less likely to want to behave and do what their parents say, said Katharine Kersey, a professor of early childhood education at Old Dominion University in Norfolk, Va., and author of the upcoming book "101 Principles for Positive Guidance with Young Children" (Allyn & Bacon, August 2012).

  "Each time we [embarrass children with a punishment] we pay a price, and we drive them away from us, and we lose our ability to be a role model for them," Kersey said.

  "When you disconnect from a child, he no longer wants to please you, he no longer wants to be like you. You've lost your power of influence over him," Kersey said.

  Children who are punished in these ways usually still commit the behavior, but do it behind their parents' backs, Kersey said.

  Better ways to discipline

  To properly discipline a child, experts recommend the following:

  • Focus on the positive — the behaviors you want to see more of — rather than the mistakes, Kersey said. "If a child is running, instead of saying stop running, you say use your walking feet," Kersey said.
  • Be proactive: establish rules you want your kids to follow, and be reasonable in your expectations, Lansford said.
  • Listen to your kids: Often times, bad behavior is a mistake, Grogan-Kaylor said. Parents should listen to why their children did something, and explain why the behavior is inappropriate.
  • Timeouts are appropriate for younger kids. For older kids, taking away privileges such as watching TV may be effective, Lansford said. In a classroom setting, teachers may consider rewarding kids for good behavior, Lansford said.
  • Parent should model the responsible behaviors they want children to repeat, Kersey said.

  Pass it on:  Humiliating punishments don't work to discipline children, and may have long-term consequences.

  Follow MyHealthNewsDaily staff writer Rachael Rettner on Twitter @RachaelRettner. Find us on Facebook.

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• Media: NYT Names New National Education Reporter – Be one of the first to greet (or suck up to) the new national education reporter Motoko Rich. 
  Bio and clips here.  
  Doesn't officially start the beat for a couple of weeks, she says.
  Most recent education-related story here.  
  A former economics and books reporter, Rich is taking congratulations at @motokorich.  
  She seems to be well-admired.  
  Via @gtoppo.

Tutorservice Daily News forMay 15th

• Quotes: Insisting On Action From Friends – Words are important, but we have to insist on action from our friends. – Richard Socarides in The New Yorker 
• Today’s Reading List – Here's what the editors of Schools of Thought are reading today: Los Angeles Japanese Daily News: USC Honors Nisei at Graduation Nine Japanese-American students who were forced into internment camps while they were students at University of Southern California during World War II graduated from USC on Friday. A small group protested the graduation because [...]
• California Budget Deficit 2012: Jerry Brown Challenges Taxpayers To Step Up –

  SACRAMENTO, Calif. — California Gov. Jerry Brown called on state lawmakers to embrace austere cuts and urged voters to approve tax hikes in outlining a revised budget.

  Brown on Monday proposed $8.3 billion in cuts across education, health care and welfare programs in laying out a plan to address the state's $15.7 billion shortfall, an amount equal to 17 percent of the state's discretionary fund. He warned that additional cuts are ahead if voters reject his tax-hike initiative in November.

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• Bruno: The Pros and Cons of Hands-On Science – As a science teacher, I'm certainly partial to hands-on educational activities. For students who have some background knowledge of a topic, the occasional hands-on activity can be a good way for them to apply and develop that knowledge while having a good time. As a science teacher, however, I also try to teach my students not to mistake correlation for causation, which I think is what Andy Rotherham is doing here when he writes:
  "The NAEP data released yesterday shows that students who rarely do hands-on science underperform those who do it almost every day by 16 points on the NAEP’s scale — that’s about a full grade level’s worth of learning. Hands-on science is not only more fun for kids; it helps teach critical thinking and problem solving, valuable skills in an ideas economy."
  The data he's referring to are here. Frankly, I'm not sure why the NAEP thought this was a result worth publishing, but they do find that the 2% of students who "never or hardly ever" engage in hands-on activities in science score 16 points below the 16% of students who do so "every day or almost every day".
  There's almost certainly less to this result than meets the eye.  For starters, it's worth noting that those two extremes each represent a very small fraction of all students; more than four-fifths of students engage in hands-on activities "once or twice a month" (25%) or "once or twice a week" (56%). My experience is that those rare science classrooms engaging in hands-on activities almost every day are populated by extremely well-off students.
  I'd be willing to bet that he top 16% of hands-on classrooms consist disproportionately of students with the privileges of scientifically rich educational backgrounds. Such students are more likely to be able to engage productively in hands-on activities because they are more likely to have the requisite background knowledge. I'd also wager that the 2% of classes at the other end of the spectrum aren't representative, either.
  In fact, it's worth noting that the 16-point gap between the rarely- and very-hands-on classrooms is considerably smaller than the 27-point gap between students eligible and ineligible for free or reduced price lunch. Students scoring in the bottom 25% were also more than three times as likely to be eligible for FRP than students scoring in the top quartile. I think these facts strongly suggest that the "hands-on activities gap" isn't causing a score gap so much as it's reflecting underlying educational inequities.
  Hands-on activities can be valuable in science classrooms, but they presuppose learning as much as they promote it. Educators, then, shouldn't assume that more hands-on activities are going to be much of a solution to our unsatisfactory learning outcomes. – PB (@MrPABruno) (image source)
• Video: Arne Duncan Gets Ambushed – Still not convinced that Duncan's candor on same sex marriage didn't play a role in helping the White House change its mind last week?  Imagine if TMZ or any other camera crew had been able to shout some questions at Secretary Duncan during the long 48 hour time period between his Monday morning appearance on Morning Joe and Obama's Wednesday afternoon announcement on same sex marriage.

  Well, that didn't happen.  This clip is from November — don't know how I missed it — when there was a kerfluffle about a former porn star participating in a school reading program. Luckily Duncan doesn't know who Sasha Grey is (for the record, neither do I).

Tutorservice Daily News for May 14th through May 15th:

• AM News: Third Grade Literacy Gateway Returns – Third Grade A Pivotal Time In Students' Lives NPR: In a growing number of states a single reading test determines which third-grade students advance to fourth grade. Proponents of the rule say that kids learn to read until third grade, and then read to learn. But critics argue that holding students back does more harm than good in the long run.
  Boosting Reading Skills: Will 'Common Core' Experiment Pay Off? PBS: Called the "Common Core," a new set of state guidelines spell out what young students are expected to learn and what books they're expected to read. Forty five states and the District of Colombia have already adopted the standards. Learning Matters' John Merrow reports on the design and the aim of the new guidelines.
  American teacher blasts off to space USA Today:  The former high school teacher is headed to the International Space Station on a Russian Soyuz rocket.
  SLICE Act Would Cut Pizza-as-a-Vegetable Provision Politics K12: In response to congressional action last fall that allows a small amount of tomato paste to count as a serving of vegetables in school meals—and in turn making a slice of pizza the equivalent of a half-cup of broccoli on lunch trays—U.S. Rep. Jared Polis, a Colorado Democrat, introduced a bill Monday that would put an end to the practice.
  MORE NEWS ITEMS INSIDE

  Governor To Announce New State Spending Plans After Huge Budget Shortfall AP via HuffPost: California's sputtering economic recovery is putting a heavier-than-expected drag on state tax revenue, leading Gov. Jerry Brown on Monday to propose deep budget cuts across an array of government services and warn again that even more cuts are ahead if voters reject his tax-hike initiative in November.
  Mapping a Solution to School Zoning Questions NYT: Like many other New Yorkers, Kristi Barlow found herself consumed with the process of finding the right neighborhood and the right school for her child, and when she couldn't find an accurate map showing, block by block, which neighborhoods were zoned for which elementary schools, she made one of her own. Out of that obsession was born a small business.
  At Explore Charter School, a World and a System Divided NYT: One large segment of New York City remains segregated, and that is in the city's schools. As the latest in a New York Times series, "A System Divided," illustrated on Sunday, black children are often taught in schools that are disproportionately black, by teachers who are likely to be white. The article takes a close-up look at one such school, the Explore Charter School in East Flatbush, Brooklyn, and is accompanied by a graphic presentation of the citywide issue.
  DCPS, union reach accord on teacher retirement Washington Post: It took nearly two years, but it appears that DCPS is finally prepared to comply with the early retirement provision ofthe contract it signed with the Washington Teachers’ Union (WTU). The 2010 collective bargaining agreement says that teachers with good evaluations and 20 years of service who lose their jobs in the annual “excessing” process are eligible for early retirement with full benefits.
  In two separate rulings, state’s labor board sides with the UFT GothamSchools: For the second time, the state’s labor relations board has ruled that the city must accept mediation in its teacher evaluation talks with the United Federation of Teachers.
   
   

• Best and worst graduation gifts – CNN's Carl Azuz speaks with Richelle Carey about the good, the bad and the outrageous when it comes to graduation gifts.
• Charter schools: Segregation or choice? – from Starting Point (CNN) More than 2 million kids are enrolled in charter schools, 32% of which are African American – and of that 32%, more that half attend schools comprised mostly of minority students. This morning, CNN education contributor Steve Perry explains the lack of diversity, saying "We had to convince white people to [...]
• Bruno: Why the NAEP Science Scores Are Good News – The NAEP released the grade 8 science test results for 2011 last week, and I've been a little puzzled by the negativity with which they've been greeted. For example:
  "There is no cause for optimism," Gerry Wheeler, interim director of the National Science Teachers Association wrote in a statement, because "the results show miniscule gains in student achievement." He lamented that "the majority of our eighth-grade level students still fall below the proficiency level," calling the scores "simply unacceptable."
  I don't think anybody would deny that we should want our students to be scoring much higher on the NAEP, but we knew that scores were low after the 2009 test administration. The fact that scores are still too low in absolute terms isn't news, then.
  And, yes, average scores for all students increased "only" 2 points since 2009. Just as with the 8th grade math and reading scores, however, that "top-line" number is somewhat misleading because demographic shifts can mask substantial improvements for student subgroups. It turns out that since 2009 we've seen statistically significant score gains for black students, Hispanic students, students of two or more races, and low-income students. (There were also gains that did not rise to the level of statistical significance for American Indian students, students with disabilities, and English learners.) I obviously would have preferred to see, for instance, our Hispanic students gain even more than 5 points, but exactly how much improvement is it reasonable to expect over a two year period?
  Ultimately we knew we were starting from weak position in 2009, but we seem to have made some very real gains since then. Viewed in that light, the 2011 NAEP results seem like generally good news. – PB (@MrPABruno) (image source)
• Quotes: Unemployment As "An Educational Crisis" – Underemployment of parents is not only an economic crisis — it is an educational crisis. You cannot ignore it and be good educators. — EPI's Richard Rothstein, speaking to Loyola Chicago University graduates 

Tutorservice Daily News forMay 14th

• How to Start Paying Off Your Student Loans –

  Long gone are the days when our parents paid their way through college with just a part-time job. Life was good in 1975 — tuition at Duke University, for instance, was $2,780 per year— but times have changed: the Soviet Union collapsed, Snooki’s pregnant, and college tuition is ridiculously expensive. But paying off loans doesn’t have to leave you in a world of financial hurt, as long as you think ahead and find ways to pay them off early. Her Campus has tips to get you started.

  1. Know thyself.
  You’re not expected to have your financial aid plan memorized, but even if you have the world’s most photographic memory, you should double check it before developing a payment plan. “The biggest mistake [students make] is not being aware of how much they have borrowed and not being prepared when the loans go into repayment,” says Kevin Paskvan, senior associate director of financial aid at Kenyon College. The first step is to compile all the personal information you’ll need; Paskvan suggests creating an account with the U.S. Department of Education’s National Student Loan Data SystemSM (NSLDSSM). As for privately funded loans, visit or contact your school’s financial aid office to stay up to date with your payment status. It’s also a good idea to visit FinAid.org [link: www.finaid.org] to see where your school stands with respect to fine print, like no-loan policies and tuition freezes and cuts.

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• How to Start Paying Off Your Student Loans –

  Long gone are the days when our parents paid their way through college with just a part-time job. Life was good in 1975 — tuition at Duke University, for instance, was $2,780 per year– but times have changed: the Soviet Union collapsed, Snooki's pregnant, and college tuition is ridiculously expensive. But paying off loans doesn't have to leave you in a world of financial hurt, as long as you think ahead and find ways to pay them off early. Her Campus has tips to get you started.

  1. Know thyself.
  You're not expected to have your financial aid plan memorized, but even if you have the world's most photographic memory, you should double check it before developing a payment plan. "The biggest mistake [students make] is not being aware of how much they have borrowed and not being prepared when the loans go into repayment," says Kevin Paskvan, senior associate director of financial aid at Kenyon College. The first step is to compile all the personal information you'll need; Paskvan suggests creating an account with the U.S. Department of Education's National Student Loan Data SystemSM (NSLDSSM). As for privately funded loans, visit or contact your school's financial aid office to stay up to date with your payment status. It's also a good idea to visit FinAid.org [link: www.finaid.org] to see where your school stands with respect to fine print, like no-loan policies and tuition freezes and cuts.

  Read More…
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• How to Start Paying Off Your Student Loans –

  Long gone are the days when our parents paid their way through college with just a part-time job. Life was good in 1975 — tuition at Duke University, for instance, was $2,780 per year– but times have changed: the Soviet Union collapsed, Snooki's pregnant, and college tuition is ridiculously expensive. But paying off loans doesn't have to leave you in a world of financial hurt, as long as you think ahead and find ways to pay them off early. Her Campus has tips to get you started.

  1. Know thyself.
  You're not expected to have your financial aid plan memorized, but even if you have the world's most photographic memory, you should double check it before developing a payment plan. "The biggest mistake [students make] is not being aware of how much they have borrowed and not being prepared when the loans go into repayment," says Kevin Paskvan, senior associate director of financial aid at Kenyon College. The first step is to compile all the personal information you'll need; Paskvan suggests creating an account with the U.S. Department of Education's National Student Loan Data SystemSM (NSLDSSM). As for privately funded loans, visit or contact your school's financial aid office to stay up to date with your payment status. It's also a good idea to visit FinAid.org [link: www.finaid.org] to see where your school stands with respect to fine print, like no-loan policies and tuition freezes and cuts.

  Read More…
  More on Student Debt

  
  
  

  

  

• Thompson: Solving Education’s Accountability Problem – Bill Tucker's "Grand Test Auto" is the best contribution to the Washington Monthly's special series on new tests, and it's not just because he gives the best explanation of the failure of test-driven reform that I have ever read. Grocery stores used to close for weeks so they could count their inventory, writes Tucker. The contemporary accountability movement forces schools to do the same, squandering 1/4th of the year. "Every year at a given time, regular instruction stops. Teachers enter something called 'test prep' mode; it lasts for weeks leading up to the big assessment. … Learning stops, evaluation begins." 
  In this and many other areas, Tucker gets it right.  There are just a few spots where I would disagree with him.  

  Tucker cites Zoran Popovic, of the University of Washington, as somone who is "pointing the way to a post-testing world."  Popovic's online, puzzle-based game, "Refractions," sounds awesome. Students would love it and I can't see how data-driven "reformers" could use it to punish or impose rote instruction on kids.
  Tucker also updates the status of new “adaptive” learning platforms that were useless under NCLB-type accountability. In the last decade, our capacity for data collection has grown dramatically, but it has been irrelevent to a system focused on punishment. He supports "collecting large data sets in the classroom [that] can help to confirm or disconfirm hypotheses about how students learn."  Tucker thus seems be describing "data-informed" decision-making, which is the antithesis of the "data-driven" mindlessness of the last decade.
  Tucker promotes Valerie Shute's vision of “stealth assessment,” which is not meant to replace human teachers, but to assist instruction. Stealth assessments are “formative assessments,” or modernized diagnostic assessments like chapter quizzes.  He explains the potential for stealth assessments to become more accurate over time. I'd say that such a system is the opposite of firing teachers now, using prototypes that might or might not become valid over time.
  Even better, Tucker affirms that, "Education, of course, can’t be reduced to a series of online games. More than just a set of concepts to be learned, it’s also a complex set of relationships: between students, teachers, and the environment in which they learn."
  I have no doubt that some will continue to use advanced technology to try to de-professional teachers, replacing them with clerks to oversee online instruction.  I don't see how schools could be nearly as effective in gaming the numbers with these systems, however. In a fair competition, I don't believe that schools that seek to cut corners and misuse those sophisticated tools could compete with schools that use technology to create bonds between adults and students.  And, even better, "reformers" who are comfortable with today's war on teachers would have little incentive to upgrade their bubble-in weaponry, and they would, thus, bring 19th century ammunition to a 21st century battle.
  I wish Tucker had been more explicit in mentioning the most important formative assessments which produce the most reliable data. At least in high school, which is what I know, talking and listening with kids and reading their body language is the most accurate way to to gauge whether students understand the lesson you just taught.
  Tucker hopes that stealth assessments can also replace “summative assessments” or the "weightier, more stress-inducing tests taken at semester’s or year’s end."  Many teachers agree that we need  annual summative testing, and would thus support Tucker's recommendations.  I am in a minority, however, who questions their value.  If I need to attach stakes to a final test, I believe, that is a formative assessment of my performance and I have failed it.  If I need a test to hold my students accountable, my classroom leadership didn't measure up.
  But, that is a minor quibble. Tucker wants too provide teachers with the tools that we really need – tools to help instruction become more engaging and authentic.  And perhaps the ultimate form of transparency will result. Educators and policy people who want to coerce teachers and students will stick with bubble-in accountability, while systems that want to improve teaching and learning will embrace Tucker's vision.  Voters and parents can then choose between the two mindsets.- JT (@drjohnthompson) image via.  

• Media: EdWeek’s Balanced View Of Reform Advocacy – My biggest concern digging into EdWeek's big new package of stories about ed advocacy was that it might be lacking in context, ignoring the long history of unions and other stakeholders (and other movements) using much the same tactics as reformy democrats and their funders now employ.  But that doesn't seem to be a problem, from skimming the opening story.  
  My second concern was that the package would make it seem like these new groups were somehow all-powerful, a juggernaut of wealth and power that cut down all opposition in its wake.  But that doesn't seem to be an issue, either.  The main story notes that this kind of advocacy is growing but has had mixed results so far. Advocacy is no guarantee of anything other than spending a lot of money.  
  The only thing that I didn't see at first glance — I have to complain about something — was any sense of the diminished impact of advocates in the current legislative season, compared to last year's breakout year.  It's been a much tougher year for advocates in 2011-2012 than it was in 2010-2011, and it's not clear that advocates have made changes to the way they're operating (coordinating, reaching out, etc.) that they're going to need to make going forward if they hope to make further inroads.  Then again, only a quick read.  
   
• Math whiz Chad Qian on winning – Eighth grader Chad Qian of Indiana took the top prize in the Raytheon MATHCOUNTS national competition which included an $8000 scholarship.
• Video: Bill Gates On The Importance Of States – Sometimes on Monday mornings I like to have something to listen to or watch in the background while I'm getting going.

   
  This is from last year spring but I don't think I saw it or posted it then.  It's Gates' third TED talk, his first on education.  In a rush?  Transcript is below

  Well, this is about state budgets. This is probably the most boring topic of the whole morning. But I want to tell you, I think it's an important topic that we need to care about. State budgets are big, big money — I'll show you the numbers — and they get very little scrutiny. The understanding is very low. Many of the people involved have special interests or short-term interests that get them not thinking about what the implications of the trends are. And these budgets are the key for our future; they're the key for our kids. Most education funding — whether it's K through 12, or the great universities or community colleges — most of the money for those things is coming out of these state budgets. But we have a problem. Here's the overall picture. U.S. economy is big — 14.7 trillion. Now out of that pie, the government spends 36 percent. So this is combining the federal level, which is the largest, the state level and the local level. And it's really in this combined way that you get an overall sense of what's going on, because there's a lot of complex things like Medicaid and research money that flow across those boundaries. But we're spending 36 percent. Well what are we taking in? Simple business question. Answer is 26 percent. Now this leaves 10 percent deficit, sort of a mind-blowing number. And some of that, in fact, is due to the fact that we've had an economic recession. Receipts go down, some spending programs go up, but most of it is not because of that. Most of it is because of ways that the liabilities are building up and the trends, and that creates a huge challenge. In fact, this is the forecast picture. There are various things in here: I could say we might raise more revenue, or medical innovation will make the spending even higher. It is an increasingly difficult picture, even assuming the economy does quite well — probably better than it will do. This is what you see at this overall level. Now how did we get here? How could you have a problem like this? After all, at least on paper, there's this notion that these state budgets are balanced. Only one state says they don't have to balance the budget. But what this means actually is that there's a pretense. There's no real, true balancing going on, and in a sense, the games they play to hide that actually obscure the topic so much that people don't see things that are actually pretty straight-forward challenges. When Jerry Brown was elected, this was the challenge that was put to him. That is, through various gimmicks and things, a so-called balanced budget had led him to have 25 billion missing out of the 76 billion in proposed spending. Now he's put together some thoughts: About half of that he'll cut, another half, perhaps in a very complex set of steps, taxes will be approved. But even so, as you go out into those future years, various pension costs, health costs go up enough, and the revenue does not go up enough. So you get a big squeeze. What were those things that allowed us to hide this? Well, some really nice little tricks. And these were somewhat noticed. The paper said, "It's not really balanced. It's got holes. It perpetuates deficit spending. It's riddled with gimmicks." And really when you get down to it, the guys at Enron never would have done this. This is so blatant, so extreme. Is anyone paying attention to some of the things these guys do? They borrow money. They're not supposed to, but they figure out a way. They make you pay more in withholding just to help their cash flow out. They sell off the assets. They defer the payments. They sell off the revenues from tobacco. And California's not unique. In fact, there's about five states that are worse and only really four states that don't face this big challenge. So it's systemic across the entire country. It really comes from the fact that certain long-term obligations — health care, where innovation makes it more expensive, early retirement and pension, where the age structure gets worse for you, and just generosity — that these mis-accounting things allow to develop over time, that you've got a problem. This is the retiree health care benefits. Three million set aside, 62 billion dollar liability — much worse than the car companies. And everybody looked at that and knew that that was headed toward a huge problem. The forecast for the medical piece alone is to go from 26 percent of the budget to 42 percent. Well what's going to give? Well in order to accommodate that, you would have to cut education spending in half. It really is this young versus the old to some degree. If you don't change that revenue picture, if you don't solve what you're doing in health care, you're going to be deinvesting in the young. The great University of California university system, the great things that have gone on, won't happen. So far it's meant layoffs, increased class sizes. Within the education community there's this discussion of, "Should it just be the young teachers who get laid off, or the less good teachers who get laid off?" And there's a discussion: if you're going to increase class sizes, where do you do that? How much effect does that have? And unfortunately, as you get into that, people get confused and think, well maybe you think that's okay. In fact, no, education spending should not be cut. There's ways, if it's temporary, to minimize the impact, but it's a problem. It's also really a problem for where we need to go. Technology has a role to play. Well we need money to experiment with that, to get those tools in there. There's the idea of paying teachers for effectiveness, measuring them, giving them feedback, taking videos in the classroom. That's something I think is very, very important. Well you have to allocate dollars for that system and for that incentive pay. In a situation where you have growth, you put the new money into this. Or even if you're flat, you might shift money into it. But with the type of cuts we're talking about, it will be far, far harder to get these incentives for excellence, or to move over to use technology in the new way. So what's going on? Where's the brain trust that's in error here? Well there really is no brain trust. (Laughter) It's sort of the voters. It's sort of us showing up. Just look at this spending. California will spend over 100 billion, Microsoft, 38, Google, about 19. The amount of IQ in good numeric analysis, both inside Google and Microsoft and outside, with analysts and people of various opinions — should they have spent on that? No, they wasted their money on this. What about this thing? — it really is quite phenomenal. Everybody has an opinion. There's great feedback. And the numbers are used to make decisions. If you go over the education spending and the health care spending — particularly these long-term trends — you don't have that type of involvement on a number that's more important in terms of equity, in terms of learning. So what do we need to do? We need better tools. We can get some things out on the Internet. I'm going to use my website to put up some things that will give the basic picture. We need lots more. There's a few good books, one about school spending and where the money comes from — how that's changed over time, and the challenge. We need better accounting. We need to take the fact that the current employees, the future liabilities they create, that should come out of the current budget. We need to understand why they've done the pension accounting the way they have. It should be more like private accounting. It's the gold standard. And finally, we need to really reward politicians. Whenever they say there's these long-term problems, we can't say, "Oh, you're the messenger with bad news? We just shot you." In fact, there are some like these: Erskine Bowles, Alan Simpson and others, who have gone through and given proposals for this overall federal health-spending state-level problem. But in fact, their work was sort of pushed off. In fact, the week afterwards, some tax cuts were done that made the situation even worse than their assumptions. So we need these pieces. Now I think this is a solvable problem. It's a great country with lots of people. But we have to draw those people in, because this is about education. And just look at what happened with the tuitions with the University of California and project that out for another three, four, five years — it's unaffordable. And that's the kind of thing — the investment in the young — that makes us great, allows us to contribute. It allows us to do the art, the biotechnology, the software and all those magic things. And so the bottom line is we need to care about state budgets because they're critical for our kids and our future. Thank you. (Applause)

• AM News: Budget Cuts Threaten Philly Schools – Budget Woes Could Close Philly's Problem Schools NPR: Philadelphia's school district plans to close a quarter of its school buildings in coming years to eliminate a huge budget hole. But parents and activists don't trust the decision-makers. Many of them suspect the plan is a ruse to force charter schools and privatization on the district.
  Students at charter-run Locke do better than nearby peers Los Angeles Times: Locke students were more likely to graduate and to have taken courses needed for a state college, a study says. Still, overall achievement remains low.
  1 in 3 autistic young adults lack jobs, education AP via Boston.com: One in 3 young adults with autism have no paid job experience, college or technical schooling nearly seven years after high school graduation, a study finds. That's a poorer showing than those with other disabilities including those who are mentally disabled, the researchers said.
  Student surveys for children as young as 5 years old may help rate teachers Washington Post: Kindergartners in Georgia — many of whom don’t yet read — could soon play an important role in deciding which teachers get raises or get fired. Under a new pilot program, 5-year-olds will be guided through a survey that includes such statements as “My teacher knows a lot about what he or she teaches” and “My teacher gives me help when I need it.” As the youngsters circle a smiley face, a neutral face or a frowning face, they will be playing their part in new high-stakes teacher evaluations.
  D.C. may give neighborhood families preference in charter school admissions Washington Post: District officials are seriously considering changes in the law that would make at least some public charter schools, currently open to all students citywide, more accessible to families in surrounding neighborhoods.
  Scoring of State Math and Reading Tests Is Almost Complete NYT: More than 5,000 New York City teachers have been assigned to score the state math and reading exams. The work happens at several sites around the city during the school day, which means students are without their regular classroom teachers for several days at a time.

Tutorservice Daily News for May 13th through May 14th:

• Michael Kaiser: Blog 150: My Visit to Skidmore –

  This is my 150th blog for the Huffington Post. I am grateful to Arianna Huffington and the staff of the Huffington Post for the opportunity to write about arts management each week for almost three years. Arts management is still a young field and needs exposure, discussion and debate. Some of the blogs I have written–about cultural diplomacy, arts education, the decline of professional journalism and the future of modern dance–have sparked loud and vigorous dissent. That is not a bad thing in a field that hasn't yet coalesced around a central theory of good arts management.

  My hope lies with the next generation of arts managers to develop theories and approaches that prove effective across a wide range of situations.

  That hope was given a boost by my recent trip to Skidmore College in Saratoga Springs, New York. Skidmore is a relatively small (2,200 students) school with a remarkable focus on the arts. Separate buildings and theaters for music, dance, theater and the visual arts give students amazing resources to learn and experiment. The new Zankel Hall (yes that Zankel) is a gorgeous concert hall with an unusual glass upstage wall that provides a view of the trees and grass that envelop the campus. (It immediately made me want to direct a production of A Midsummer Night's Dream with the court on the stage and the scenes in the forest immediately behind the curtain wall.)

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• My View: Can we educate future physicians to be more human? – By Brooke Holmes, Special to CNN Editor’s note: Brooke Holmes teaches the history of medicine and Greek literature at Princeton University. She writes with The Op-Ed Project . Earlier this month, high school students across the country made their final decisions about where to go to college. For the ones who plan to become doctors—as [...]
• Scott Thompson, Former Yahoo CEO, Reportedly Diagnosed With Thyroid Cancer –

  Scott Thompson, who stepped down as the chief executive officer of Yahoo Inc. over the weekend, has reportedly been diagnosed with thyroid cancer.

  According to The Wall Street Journal, Thompson, 54, told his colleagues about the diagnosis just before tendering his resignation from the search engine giant.

  In recent weeks, the former PayPal president has faced criticism from Daniel Loeb, a Yahoo investor and the founder and CEO of hedge fund Third Point, for allegedly embellishing academic credentials on his resume. On May 7, Thompson issued an apology to employees for the brouhaha.

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• Angela Merkel, Austerity Policies Dealt Blow In Local German Election –

  * Projections show worst post-war result in state for CDU
  * Result could harden opposition to Berlin's austerity policies
  * Centre-left SPD ride popular incumbent Kraft to big victory
  * Upstart Pirates set to enter fourth regional parliament
  By Stephen Brown
  DUESSELDORF, Germany, May 13 (Reuters) – Chancellor Angela Merkel's conservatives suffered a crushing defeat on Sunday in an election in Germany's most populous state, a result which could embolden the left opposition to step up attacks on her European austerity policies.
  The election in North Rhine-Westphalia (NRW), a western German state with a bigger population than the Netherlands and an economy the size of Turkey, was held 18 months before a national vote in which Merkel will be fighting for a third term.
  While she remains popular at home because of the strength of the economy and her steady handling of the euro zone debt crisis, the sheer scale of the defeat in NRW leaves her vulnerable at a time when a backlash against her insistence on fiscal discipline is building across Europe.
  According to first projections, the centre-left Social Democrats (SPD) won 38.9 percent of the vote and will have enough to form a stable majority with the Greens.
  Merkel's Christian Democrats (CDU) saw their support plunge to just 26.3 percent, down from nearly 35 percent in 2010, and the worst result in the state since World War Two.
  "This is not a good evening for Merkel," said Gero Neugebauer, a political scientist at Berlin's Free University. "The SPD is strengthened by this election, which will stir things up in Berlin."
  Elections in NRW have a history of influencing national politics. Seven years ago, a humiliating loss for then-Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder's SPD in the state prompted him to call an early election, which he lost to Merkel.
  For the past two years, the SPD and the Greens have run a fragile minority government under the leadership of the SPD's Hannelore Kraft, a tram-worker's daughter with a common touch whose victory on Sunday could propel her to national prominence.
  Sigmar Gabriel, national leader of the SPD, said the convincing win could prompt speculation that Kraft would take on Merkel in the federal vote next year, even though she has vowed to stay in NRW. The SPD is due to pick a challenger to Merkel by the end of the year.
  "This is a clear signal to Berlin," said Kraft, wiping tears from her eyes in a disco in the state capital Duesseldorf where jubilant SPD supporters held celebrations.
  
  HOLLANDE VISIT
  France's new president, Socialist Francois Hollande, is due to visit Berlin shortly after he is sworn in on Tuesday to press Merkel to shift away from austerity and place more emphasis on growth-oriented measures in Europe.
  Other big countries like Italy also want Merkel to take a more balanced approach to the debt crisis and an election in Greece last week showed massive public resistance to tough austerity that has pushed unemployment close to 25 percent.
  A Socialist victory in France, coupled with the NRW result, will give the SPD, which trails Merkel in national opinion polls, new momentum before the federal vote in September 2013.
  The chancellor needs the support of her centre-left rivals to pass a new "fiscal compact" that is meant to anchor budget discipline across the EU.
  But the SPD is pressing her to delay a parliamentary vote on the pact, keen for the government to commit to new growth measures beforehand.
  NRW, which shares a border with Belgium and the Netherlands, is one of Germany's most diverse states.
  It is home to one third of the country's blue-chip companies but also some of its poorest cities. Coal and steel firms in the Ruhr region where Kraft grew up once fuelled Germany's post-war economic miracle. Now many have been shuttered and unemployment in some areas is double the national average.
  Many in Merkel's party will blame the result on regional leader Norbert Roettgen, Germany's environment minister, who bungled his campaign early on by refusing to commit to staying in the state in the event of a loss.
  NRW is Germany's most indebted state and Roettgen ran on a platform of budget consolidation. Kraft advocated a go-slowly approach to debt reduction, emphasising the need to invest in cities, education and childcare.
  The result will be seen by some as a double defeat for Merkel. Voters in NRW not only rejected her party but also the austerity measures that she has forced on struggling southern states like Greece, Spain and Portugal.
  "The question arising from this election is whether people still follow Merkel's way of doing politics in Germany," said Erik Floegge, 26, a student and SPD supporter, who attended the party rally in Duesseldorf.
  "People don't want us to make hard cuts in social funding, what we want is a 'New Deal' where both the social welfare state and fighting debt will work."
  Opinion polls show, however, that a majority of Germans back Merkel's focus on debt reduction and that many don't want her to soften her stance towards struggling euro partners.
  The Free Democrats (FDP), a pro-business party that rules in coalition with Merkel's conservatives at the federal level, scored 8.3 percent to make it back into the state assembly.
  The party ended a string of humiliating regional performances in a state vote in Schleswig-Holstein last week and it hailed the NRW result as proof of a renaissance after a slide in national polls over the past three years.
  The upstart Pirates, a party that campaigns for internet freedom and shot onto the national stage last year, continued a strong run at regional level, making it into the fourth straight state parliament with 7.8 percent of the vote.
  The Greens scored 11.8 percent.

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• Zaid Jilani: Charter Schools Association Is Using Taxpayer Money to Support ALEC’s Radical Agenda – Following the outcry over the group pushing "Stand Your Ground" laws, at least 15 major corporations, foundations, and other organizations have decided to end their funding commitments to ALEC.
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