Tutorservice Daily News for June 18th through June 19th:

• Morning Video: PBS NewsHour Looks Into Teacher Ed Report – Watch Are Teachers Being Adequately Trained for the Classroom? on PBS. See more from PBS NewsHour.
  Are Teachers Being Adequately Trained for the Classroom? Study Says No
• AM News: "Take Another Year," Duncan Tells Waiver States – Education Chief Lets States Delay Use of Tests in Decisions About Teachers’ Jobs NYT: Responding to complaints, Education Secretary Arne Duncan said states could postpone for a year using more rigorous tests to make career decisions about teachers.
  Arne Duncan: Common Core Transition Will Give States More Time To Make … Huffington Post: In what some see as a tacit recognition of the Obama administration's overreach into nitty-gritty management of America's schools, U.S. Secretary of Education Arne Duncan will give states a reprieve from certain aspects of teacher evaluations
  Consequences for teachers from school testing can wait a year Washington Post: States that are implementing the Common Core academic standards and new standardized tests in public schools can have an additional year before they have to use those student test scores to decide pay and job..
  Education Dept. offers more time to reach goals AP: The Education Department is offering states more time to enact promised reforms in exchange for permission to ignore unworkable parts of No Child Left Behind. Education Secretary Arne Duncan …
  No Child Left Behind Act At Center Of House Hearing, Sparring Philosophies Huffington Post: Under the [Kline] legislation, schools would not have to meet federally prescribed performance goals — a proposal markedly different from current law, the Obama administration's waiver system and a competing bill offered up by Sen. Tom Harkin (D-Iowa). 
  Labor Seeks Influence in New York’s Mayoral Race NYT: After years of low morale, unions across the city are roaring back to life this election season, excited by the prospect of installing a friend in City Hall.
  Board to Vote on Condoms in Boston Schools NYT: A new health policy that would make condoms available in the district’s high schools is up for a vote on Wednesday night.
  Home-Schooled Students Fight To Play On Public School Teams NPR: Roughly half of U.S. states have passed laws making home-schooled students eligible to play for their local school teams. But in Indiana, an attempt to find a middle ground hasn't calmed the debate.
  Panorama City school to be named after Michelle Obama Los Angeles Daily News: West Valley board member Tamar Galatzan said she, too, admired Michelle Obama, but she questioned whether the board was following district policy for naming the school after the first lady.
   
• Girl raised in Mumbai brothel wins U.S. college scholarship – (CNN) – Shweta Katti was raised in Mumbai's largest red-light district – the only place her family could afford to live. Men would sometimes ask her to sleep with them. But her mother always wanted her to learn to read and write, and Kranti, an organization that works with girls from Mumbai's red-light areas, helped […]
• Afternoon Video: Classrooms Of The Future (Again!) – Visit NBCNews.com for breaking news, world news, and news about the economy
  The TODAY show scans the "future" of education, featuring Knewtown, Kahn Academy, and others — without any apparent skepticism about the costs or limitations. 
• Underemployment Widespread Among College Graduates, Worst For Business Majors: Analysis –

  Kathryn Higgins wants to work in museums. But even though she holds a bachelor's degree in literary and cultural studies and a master’s degree in public humanities, she knows that finding a job that fits her education and skills would be like “winning the lottery.”

  “My ultimate goal right now is just to get a full-time job that has benefits; I don’t care if it’s in my field,” she said in an interview.

  Higgins, 29, lives in Seattle and works several part-time jobs, including as a nanny and in a daycare, that don't require a college degree — a “hustle" that she says allows her to just make ends meet.

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Tutorservice Daily News forJune 18th

• Media: Nonprofit Journalism Study Omits Several Education Sites – Wait, what? A new Pew report on nonprofit journalism points out that 172 nonprofit news-gathering operations are growing but still small compared to commercial journalism.  But at least in education the list of outlets is incomplete — listing Catalyst Chicago, gothamschools, Hechinger, and Education News Colorado but omitting the Philadelphia Notebook, Inside Schools, EdSource Today, Great Schools, LA School Report, and others.
  The study methodology says that sites included must be primarily digital — that might disqualify The Notebook — and started after 1987 — when was Inside Schools started?
• Thompson: The Batavia School Board’s Contempt for Students’ and Teachers’ Rights – Alexa Aguilar, in the Tri-Cities Tribune (Batavia Teacher in 5th Amendment Debate Ordered to Curb Remarks) writes that John Dryden, a twenty-year veteran teacher, served a one-day suspension without pay as punishment for words that the district considers "inappropriate and unprofessional."
  Specifically, Dryden was punished for telling students that they had the right to not answer a survey about their illegal drug use. 
  The School Board issued a "notice to remedy" letter to Dryden, ordering him to refrain from making "flippant" remarks or providing "legal advice."   The teacher must not "mischaracterize" or "discredit" any district initiative.
  How should we characterize a survey with the student’s name printed at the top that asks about the student’s illegal drug use? Should anyone believe that such a survey meets professional standards for targeting students in need of social or emotional help?
  Speaking of initiatives that are inappropriate in a constitutional democracy, the Board demanded that Dryden must now repeat any district directive back to his boss and agree to comply. Dryden replied that the new requirements are "demeaning, vague, overly broad and constructed to entrap me in a future infraction for the purpose of termination." I’d say that they sound like the Communist Chinese war against “verbal struggles.”
  On the other hand, wouldn’t advocates of new college ready standards support a classroom assignment such as an analysis that compares and contrasts the practice of “criticism and self-criticism” during Mao’s Cultural Revolution and American schools in the 21st century. Mao said, “So long as a person who has made mistakes does not hide his sickness for fear of treatment or persist in his mistakes until he is beyond cure, so long as he honestly and sincerely wishes to be cured and to mend his ways, we should welcome him and cure his sickness so that he can become a good comrade.” Perhaps students could compare Mao's position with American school systems’ policies on free speech. - JT (@drjohnthompson) Image via.
• Media: Parent Trigger Group Launches "Truth" Site – Doing what it seems like someone on the reform side of the debate has needed to do for many months now, the earnest folks at Parent Revolution have just launched a site they hope will help debunk some of the abundant reform criticism that's out there (especially surrounding the parent trigger).  
  The site is called Truth in Education Reform and its stated aim is “ferreting out and debunking the conspiracy theories and provable lies… that collectively threaten to overcome sensible debate on education policy and ed reform.”
  The site’s initial focus will be on attempting to debunk claims made by Diane Ravitch, who earlier this month quasi-apologized for calling Parent Revolution head Ben Austin “loathsome” and on Friday penned another critique of the parent trigger (which as of Monday afternoon had already attracted 60+ comments).
  For a taste of the challenge TIER faces, check out the comments following a brief post about the new site at LA School Report.  Whether or not Parent Revolution is up to the task of doing daily battle with Ravitch, Valerie Strauss and their allies is not yet clear. My guess is that if StudentsFirst, DFER, and others aren't up to the task of making sure that reform isn't being Swift Boated — so far, none of them has really stepped up on the "rapid response" front — then Parent Revolution won't be able to pull this off either. 
  Previous posts: Rapid Response in Connecticut; Reform Opponents Are Winning Online (For Now). Image via Alex Hiam
• Morning Video: Hillary Clinton’s Preschool Launch – Watch the kickoff video for "Too Small to Fail," featuring Hillary Clinton, and read about the effort and the former Secretary of State's involvement via New America's Lisa Guernsey (Hillary Clinton, the 'Accelerator' and More)
• AM News: Advocacy Group Rates Teacher Prep Programs – University programs that train US teachers get mediocre marks in first-ever … Washington Post: Released Tuesday by the National Council on Teacher Quality, a Washington-based advocacy group, the rankings are part of a $5 million project funded by major U.S. foundations.
  Teacher Preparation Program Rankings Make U.S. News Debut Huffington Post: States are getting in on the action, too: Earlier this month, Delaware Gov. Jack Markell (D) signed legislation that would make it harder to become a teacher… The rankings garnered early, if tepid, support from U.S. Secretary of Education Arne Duncan. 
  Teacher Training's Low Grade WSJ: Fewer than 10% of the programs earned three or more stars. Only four, all for future high-school teachers, received four stars. About 14% got zero stars, and graduate-level programs fared particularly poorly.
  Rookie teachers woefully unprepared, report says Reuters: The US teacher training system is badly broken, turning out rookie educators who have little hands-on experience running …
  Report: Too many teachers, too little quality AP: The nation's teacher-training programs do not adequately prepare would-be educators for the classroom, even as they produce almost triple the 
  Study: Teacher Prep Programs Get Failing Marks NPR:  The first-ever study of more than 1,100 schools of education released Tuesday by the National Council on Teacher Quality shows that teacher preparation is in disarray. The study warns that 163 programs provide only "minimal, substandard training."
  New teacher training study decries California universities LA Times: A controversial policy group singles out teacher training programs at UCLA and Loyola Marymount as hardly worth attending. But the schools say the report is flawed.

Tutorservice Daily News forJune 17th

• Breaking The Paternity Leave Barrier: Gary Ackerman And The Rest Of The Story –

  Some articles require more than just a correction. They call for an explanation. That’s the case with one I wrote last week about the first father to receive paternity leave in the U.S.

  Originally titled “Jerry Cammarata, First Father To Win Legal Right To Paternity Leave, Speaks Out — And He Isn’t Happy,“ the story was both wrong on the legal history and, perhaps more important, incomplete on the players. There is far more to the tale of how men obtained the same right to parental leave as women.

  In my original piece, a Q&A with Cammarata, he recalled asking for leave in the early 1970s, back when he was a young teacher who wanted to spend more time with his newborn daughter. “I was denied and I decided to go to court on the issue,” he said. “Then the federal Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) heard about my case and decided to take on the issue … And that’s how I became the first father in America to receive legal paternity leave.”

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• Alice Korngold: Students: Prepare for a New Era of Design Innovation, Says Qualcomm’s Paul Jacobs – Preparing engineering students for global problem solving is good for business and good for the world — motivating students in STEM education, preparing graduates for employment, advancing women, training people to find solutions to vital issues, and fostering global economic development.
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  More on Girls in STEM
  

  

• LA Board Member Clarifies Views On Test-Score Teacher Payments – When Gates-funded teacher advocacy group Educators 4 Excellence (E4E) announced they were releasing a new report about how to revamp teacher recruitment and retention in LA — including pay bonuses based on student test scores — they might have been pleasantly surprised at the appearance of School Board member-elect Monica Ratliff (pictured) along with reform champions Superintendent John Deasy and Villaraigosa ally Monica Garcia.  
  Ratliff won election to the Board as an underdog, beating Villaraigosa favorite Antonio Sanchez, and is being championed by many as one of a growing number of reform skeptics on the LAUSD School Board. 
  But of course Ratliff's presence at the event seemed to suggest that she was supportive of the E4E report recommendations, which the teachers union and others either refrained from supporting or came out against.  And so she took to Diane Ravitch's blog over the weekend to clarify that she supports revamping teacher recruitment, retention, and evaluation but is opposed to linking things to student test scores.
• Quotes: Challenging Students’ Dreams – Not Denigrating Them – I would not urge you simply to get off the PlayStation. I would urge you to understand who made the game. I would not urge you to take down your King James poster. I would urge you to think about the business that makes him possible. – Ta-Nehisi Coats
• Media: NatJournal’s "New" Education Site – Here's National Journal's updated education experts site, now dubbed Education Insiders, which features a weekly blog post by reporter Fawn Johnson and responses from various luminaries (well, sort of — I'm on the list).  It's been around sicne June 2009 years now — here's the old version — and it's always been a little sleepy for me because of the restrictive format, predictable viewpoints, and the lack of real interactivity among respondendents.  But there's always hope, and I'm glad it's there.  

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

• From career to classroom: 6 things I learned as a student teacher – By Heather Sinclair Wood, CNN Editor’s note: Heather Sinclair Wood is a writer-producer for the CNN Newsroom. She holds a bachelor’s degree in journalism from California State University, Northridge, and a master’s degree in education from Mercer University in Georgia. (CNN) – I’m a newswoman, tried and true. Journalist, news junkie, news hound, call me […]
• Weekend Reading: Can Hillary Save Universal Preschool? – Hillary gives early childhood agenda what it needs: A public boost. | New Republic ow.ly/m4mV8
  Study: Reading novels makes us better thinkers -Salon.com ow.ly/m4krN
  Do Schools Know How to Spend Their Ed Tech Money Wisely? | MindShift ow.ly/m4kbz @MindShift
  How online tools may change classrooms today and forever. ow.ly/m4k74
  After Newtown shooting, mourning parents enter into the lonely quiet – Washington Post ow.ly/m4kMt
  Uh-oh! Inspirational Text Messages Won’t Improve Teens’ Grades, according to Roland Fryer studyow.ly/m4jGY @getschooled
  Sir Ken Robinson, Teachers on Creativity in Schools (Audio) ow.ly/m4k8k
  Big data is not our master -TNR ow.ly/m4mYl
  Trying to make separate equal | Feature | Chicago Reader ow.ly/m5hNB
  From Jay Mathews: School ignores advice from learning disability experts: Stacie Brockman is the Prince George… bit.ly/13RA8qe
  Did Ritalin Make Kids in Quebec Dumber? | New Republic ow.ly/m4mGH
  My little future iPad addicts - Salon.com ow.ly/m4m7QWhy am I still insisting on rules?
  11-year-old mariachi earns roaring ovation from NBA crowd - Salon.com ow.ly/m4ktI
  Student Athlete Named ‘Creepy Smile Kid’ in High School Yearbook | TIME.com ow.ly/m4WBM
• Morning Video: Obama Meets With Chicago Teens – President Obama Invites Hyde Park Academy Boys To 'Check-in' At White House DNAI
• AM News: Slow Internet, Quick IB Expansion – Arne Duncan Calls Slow School Internet 'Morally Unacceptable' U.S. News & World Report: Education Secretary Arne Duncan (L) and HHS Secretary Kathleen Sebelius (R) read the Dr. Seuss book 'Green Eggs and Ham' to students enrolled in a Head Start program. 
  More US Schools Go International Wall Street Journal: An educational curriculum that originally catered to the children of globe-trotting diplomats is making rapid inroads in K-12 public schools across the U.S., boosting test results and academic readiness …
  Has Gov. Pence Just Saved the Common Core in Indiana? State EdWatch: The Associated Press notes that among the governor's six new appointees to the 11-member state board made on June 13, Pence, a Republican. has decided to keep two of the current board members. 
  Budget Cuts Reach Bone for Philadelphia Schools NYT: Deep budget cuts have Philadelphia school officials worrying about how to make do without aides, secretaries, counselors, monitors, coaches or money for new books or paper.
  Chicago Public School System Lays Off 850 in Move to Cut Budget AP: The layoffs included about 550 teachers — from schools that are closing and struggling academically — along with teacher assistants, bus aides, custodians and others.
  Chicago to hire 600 for school safe-passage routes AP:The city of Chicago, which plans to close dozens of schools this summer to save money, has received 11,000 requests for help getting children to their new schools along safe-passage routes….

  New GED tests stir concerns, draw competitors EdWeek: Gone will be the paper-and-pencil tests. Students instead will take the exams on a computer and know the same day if they passed. Content will be more rigorous to align with new common academic standards for most high schools, and test-takers will receive a separate college- and career-readiness score.
  Linking home and classroom, Oakland bets on community schools Hechinger Report: Now, under growing public pressure to improve student safety and achievement, the district is attempting to reinvent itself by turning its 87 schools—including Fremont—into what are known as “full-service community schools,” equipped with staff trained to support students’ social, emotional and health needs as well as their academic growth.

  Graduates from low-performing D.C. schools face tough college road Washington Post: Johnathon Carrington grew up on the sixth floor of a low-income D.C. apartment complex, a building most recently in the news for a drive-by shooting that injured 13.
  New Ads Still Warn A Mind Is A Terrible Thing To Waste NPR: The United Negro College Fund's new campaign shows just how much the way we talk about and around race has changed.

  Video: Elementary students' experiment is space-bound NBC: A science experiment designed by two Texas elementary school students that determines the rate of mold growth, will be replicated in space. KVEO's Marty Watson reports. (NBC News)

• ‘The 2013 Miss USA Pageant’: Miss Utah Gives Incoherent Answer About Workplace Inequality (VIDEO) –

  It would make sense for beauty pageant contestants to look up to contestants from past pageants. They can look to them for inspiration on poise, presentation and even how they handle the question-and-answer portion. That said, they probably shouldn't be looking to Miss Teen South Carolina 2007, Caitlin Upton — she of the infamous "the Iraq everywhere like such as…" And yet, Miss Utah seemed to be channeling Upton when she answered a question on "The 2013 Miss USA Pageant."

  Marissa Powell, 21-years old, was powering her way through the competition when she hit a major roadblock. She was asked about how women are continuing to earn less than men in America, and what she thinks that means for our society.

  "How to create jobs right now, that is the biggest problem right now, and I think especially the men are seen as leaders of this and so we need to figure out how to create education better so we can solve this problem," Powell answered.

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• Dan Cardinali: When Doing Good Isn’t Good Enough – When was the last time you heard someone use that old aphorism, "The perfect is the enemy of the good"? On its face, this sounds like sage advice. At the same time, I think there is a danger in this approach.
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  More on Education Reform
  

  

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

• Chicago Safe Passage Routes: City Hiring 600 To Staff Routes Between Closing, ‘Welcoming’ Schools –

  CHICAGO — The city of Chicago, which plans to close dozens of schools this summer to save money, has received 11,000 requests for help getting children to their new schools along safe-passage routes.

  The Chicago Sun-Times reported Saturday (http://bit.ly/17bnWa2) that 600 adults will be hired next month to work along the routes, which are being established to make sure students from closed schools can get to their new schools safely.

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• CPS Layoffs: More Than 850 Teachers And Staffers Handed Pink Slips By District –

  The worst fears of Chicago Public School teachers and staffers were confirmed Friday when district officials announced it was laying off some 850 employees.

  “Given the historic financial crisis facing our District, next year’s budget will not come without painful decisions, which is why we are making tough choices at central office in order to minimize impacts to our classrooms,” said CPS CEO Barbara Byrd-Bennett in a statement Friday. “We will continue this work over the next several weeks to further identify reductions to central office spending to help close the District’s $1 billion deficit and make sure that every dollar helps protect precious classroom funding.”

  Affected employees are those in the 55 schools closing at the end of the current school year as well as those slated for "turnaround", WBEZ reports. CPS said a portion of those losing their jobs were either probationary teachers or teachers with unsatisfactory performance reviews.

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  More on Education

  

  

• Afternoon Video: Google Glass Teaching –  
  So there's a guy named Andrew Vanden Heuvel (@avheuv) who was among the first to get the Google Glass system, and he's a science teacher, and he's blogging about it and doing videos ("STEMbite!").
• 10 Great Family-Friendly Museums –

  It's easy to add a bit of education to your family vacation. Museums have upped the wow factor in recent years, creating galleries and programs that engage the mind and imagination. "These are cool places where you get to see things that aren't in your everyday life," says Lynn Dierking, a science and math education professor at Oregon State University and co-author of Museum Experience Revisited (Left Coast Press). She shares some favorite places with Larry Bleiberg for USA TODAY.

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• College Degree Rate Rises, But At Pace Well Short Of Needs: Lumina Foundation Study –

  By Brendan O'Brien
  June 13 (Reuters) – The percentage of working-age U.S. adults who hold a college degree has increased incrementally during the last few years but at a pace well short of what is needed to meet future workforce needs, a report released on Thursday said.
  The report, published by the Lumina Foundation, showed that 38.7 percent of Americans held a two- or four-year college degree in 2011, the most current year for which data is available, up from 38.3 percent in 2010 and 38.1 percent in 2009.
  At the current trajectory, the rate for adults ages 25 to 64 will reach 48.1 percent in 2025, the study said. That is well short of a 60 percent goal set by the study's authors.
  The study was based on data from the American Community Survey, a sample of a small percentage of the U.S. population compiled each year by the U.S. Census Bureau.
  The president and chief executive of the Indiana-based Lumina Foundation, Jamie Merisotis, said in the report that gaps in educational achievement are linked to race, income and class and reflect "persistent inequities that have dogged us for decades."
  Merisotis, whose organization promotes higher education, also said first-generation status, military service and current employment have contributed to challenges facing the United States in increasing the percentage of college-educated adults.
  The Lumina Foundation made 70 grants totaling $30 million in 2012, according to its website. (Reporting by Brendan O'Brien in Milwaukee; Editing by Cynthia Johnston and Steve Orlofsky)

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

• Thompson: Stop the Criminalization of Absenteeism / Misconduct – In my experience, the two main causes of educational failure are cancer and heart disease.  Competing for the third spot are diabetes, mental illness, drug and alcohol abuse, and incarceration.  When severe illnesses disrupt families, too many kids fall off the conveyor belt which is k-12 schooling and too few get help in climbing back on.
  Rather than treat the main causes of truancy, which are the key factors that undermine families and schools, we ratcheted the blame game.  Texas has taken the resulting criminalization of absenteeism, tardiness, and school misbehavior to its most brutal conclusion.
  The Huffington Post’s Joy Resmovits, in School Discipline Changes Urged in Federal Complaint Against Dallas Truancy System, reports that Texas filed 113,000 truancy cases in 2012.  Granted, that is more than the number of prosecutions in the other 49 states combined.
  But, it is an admittedly extreme example of the more common tendency to use the legal system to address behaviors that public schools should handle. 

  Resmovits explains that the Texas Appleseed, Disability Rights Texas, and the National Center for Youth Law, representing seven students, filed the federal complaint against four school districts. One student missed school because of a chronic respiratory disability, while another was truant because she was caring for her mother, who had heart disease. A young mother missed too much school due to medical complications after giving birth, while another was summoned to court because her legal guardian didn't call the school to tell them that she was sick.
  Of course, there are students who do not have good reasons for their tardiness and/or absences.  Schools have often done as lousy of a job of enforcing those rules as they have their rules on behavior and academics. Society has a right to be frustrated by the lax enforcement of attendance and disciplinary policies. That frustration does not justify, however, the criminalization of misbehavior. The same applies to the policy of arresting students for fighting or defiance of authority.
  How did we get here? Texas went beyond the bounds of rationality. But, across the nation, when dealing with all types of complicated problems, we have developed a simple regime of letting no child and no adult go unpunished.-  JT (@drjohnthompson) Image via.     
   

• Quotes: What Works In One Classroom… – Things that worked for my fifth graders at the beginning of the year don't work over here. Things that work over here with the third graders didn't work with my fifth graders. And I have a strong feeling that things that worked this year are not going to work next year.
  – First-year Chicago teacher Abby Miller (WTTW Mentoring New Teachers)*
  *Disclosure: I know and have done some consulting in the past for folks at the New Teacher Center
• Morning Video: Eighteen Minutes With EdSec Duncan – Arne Duncan slams No Child Left Behind (diagnoses Congress, etc.) POLITICO
• AM News: Federal Study Questions Tech Impact – Study Gauges Value of Technology in Schools NYT: A review of federal data found that technology investments in schools had not changed the nature of education.
  6 months after Newtown: Rush of gun laws, mixed results USA Today: In the six months since the Sandy Hook Elementary School shootings, lawmakers in four key states have approved significant restrictions on access to firearms. But elsewhere in the USA, the picture is far from clear.
  Obama to meet relatives of shooting victims Education Week News: President Barack Obama and Vice President Joe Biden met Thursday with relatives of the victims of the Connecticut school shooting, who were visiting Washington on the eve of the six-month anniversary of the tragedy 
  Private Preschools See More Public Funds as Classes Grow NYT: Across the country, states and districts are increasingly funneling public funds to religious schools, private nursery schools and a variety of nonprofit organizations that conduct classes.
  Clinton Project Promotes ‘Open Badges’ Online Credentials NYT: Former President Bill Clinton announced a project on Thursday to expand the use of Open Badges — online credentials that employers or universities can use in hiring, admissions, promotions or awarding credit.

  Number of young American adults with college degrees jumps 36 percent Hechinger: Almost half of young Massachusetts adults have a bachelors compared with just 20 percent in Nevada. The Lumina reportdetails graduation rates by metropolitan region and state.
  Unpaid No More: Interns Win Major Court Battle NPR: A federal ruling against a major movie studio's use of unpaid interns could have a wide impact on uncompensated labor, including internships for college credit. Workers' advocates say many interns are preventing workers who can't afford to work free from entering the labor force.
   Spending cuts taking toll on Head Start NBC: Sequester cuts have taken a toll on Head Start programs, leaving families without many good options. NBC's Kristen Welker reports.  (Nightly News)
   Turning graffiti into a public art education program NBC: Graffiti is a common sight on city structures throughout America, but the Mural Arts Program is taking what is commonly a crime and using it to change the face of city art and arts education. NBC’s Craig Melvin reports. (TODAY)
   

• Afternoon Video: Retaining New Teachers In Chicago –  
  Chicago public television profiles teacher mentoring and retention efforts run via the New Teacher Center. (Teacher Mentoring)
• Media: Another Media Outlet Bites The Dust – Nonprofit news outlets seem to be popping up everywhere, but at the same time the commercial ones seem to be all falling by the wayside.
  The latest example is Thompson Media Group, from which plastform Andy Brownstein and Chuck Edwards have been reporting for the past bunch of years.
  I know  Brownstein mostly from the Title I Monitor, a Thompson newsletter that's been around since I was on the Hill, and from Brownstein's more recent blog posts. (Click here if you want to skim Brownstein's appearances on this site.)
  If I understand correctly, Thompson has been bought by LRP, a competitor, and Brownstein and Edwards are unlikely to be retained with the new, merged operation.  I can imagine them writing for another trade publication, or being grabbed up by a smart nonprofit, association, or Hill office looking for deep knowledge of federal policy, regulation, and political mechanics.

Tutorservice Daily News for June 12th through June 13th:

• Fighting for the ‘throwaway’ girls – By Jamie Gumbrecht, CNN CNN Films' "Girl Rising" documents extraordinary girls and the power of education to change the world. Watch it June 16 on CNN. Detroit, Michigan (CNN) – A winter's thicket of weeds still choked the soil outside Catherine Ferguson Academy late last month when the old school's loudspeaker crackled on. "Good morning, […]
• Morning Video: Annapolis High School Fights to Lower Achievement Gap – Visit NBCNews.com for breaking news, world news, and news about the economy
  NBC Nightly News (School rooted in segregation raises students’ expectations)
• AM News: Duncan’s All-Out Effort on "Preschool For All" – Education Secretary Arne Duncan works to sell Obama administration’s preschool initiative Washington Post: He is reaching out to Republican governors, hoping they will help him persuade GOP lawmakers on Capitol Hill to embrace the “Preschool for All” initiative. But it’s a tall order for many Republican governors who are cool to the notion of new taxes.
  Senate Committee Passes Democratic NCLB Renewal Bill EdWeek: On a completely predictable party-line vote, the Senate Education Committee approved a bill to reauthorize the long-stalled renewal of the Elementary and Secondary Education Act.
  Senate committee approves bill updating federal education law Washington Post: On a party line vote, a Senate committee approved a bill Wednesday to update the country’s main federal education law by erasing some of its most punitive aspects.
  No Child Left Behind Bill Passes Senate Committee, But No End In Sight For Recasting Bush Law Huffington Post:  Harkin says he intends to bring his bill to the Senate floor sometime this year — hopefully by the fall — and would allow amendments to be made during that process. But even if the overhaul makes it through the floor vote, it is unlikely to be signed into law because the predominant legislative vision in the House varies significantly. 
  States Seek Flexibility During Common-Test Transition EdWeek: A flurry of education groups are staking out positions on the role tests should play in evaluating teachers and labeling schools.

  New task force on Internet and learning has a controversial name: Bush Hechinger Report: The task force, which plans to report its findings early next year, is notable for its strong Latino representation in particular, as well as a focus on safety. In too many public schools and libraries, the Internet is filtered or restricted altogether and students are stopped from using cell phones because of concerns about security, predation, theft or cyberbullying, so supporting safety and digital citizenship is key to getting a wider range of students access to the benefits of learning with technology.
  Aspen Institute to Look at Online Learning EdWeek: The Aspen Institute has convened a task force to study how children learn online and how to improve online education while safeguarding student privacy.
  Data Reveal a Rise in College Degrees Among Americans NYT: The increase, which follows more than two decades of slow growth in college completion, appears to be driven by the recent recession and the creation of new types of jobs.
  School for disabled accused of running sweatshop AP: The U.S. Justice Department has found that a Providence vocational school ran what amounted to a sweatshop involving developmentally disabled students….
  Playgrounds honoring Newtown victims take shape AP: Six months after the school shooting in Newtown, 26 playgrounds are taking shape around the region, showcasing each of the victim's likes and interests – everything from the moon to flamingos….
  Video: School rooted in segregation raises students’ expectations NBC News: When Principal Donald Lilley arrived nine years ago, Annapolis High School operated like two different schools where minority students failed and white students excelled. But innovative changes helped transform the school, creating a community that thrives on mentoring. NBC’s Rehema Ellis reports. (Nightly News)

• ‘Sesame Street’ Incarceration Kit Helps Families Cope With America’s Prison Epidemic (VIDEO) –

  Sesame Street is no stranger to controversy. From divorce to AIDS to Bert and Ernie's sexual ambiguity, the show has famously pushed the limits on what preschoolers should know.

  Sesame Street's latest hot topic — incarceration — debuted this week as an educational kit titled “Little Children, Big Challenges: Incarceration." The package, which consists of stories, tips and activities for caregivers and kids, is designed to act as “an educational outreach initiative for families with children (ages 3 – who are coping with a parent’s incarceration,” the Sesame Workshop website explains.

  As The Atlantic's J.K. Trotter notes, the package has so far elicited pretty polarized reactions:

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• Politics: Can New LA Mayor Influence School Board Leadership? – On Friday, President Obama flew to Hollywood for a DNC fundraiser, where Mayor-elect Eric Garcetti (left) and LAUSD Superintendent John Deasy (right) were both in attendance.  
  What might they have been talking about?
  According to this new story from LA School Report's Hillel Aron, the next LAUSD Board President — who oversees Deasy's work – seems likely to pass to Deasy critic Richard Vladovic rather than to a Deasy ally or a swing vote.
  However, Garcetti is apparently trying to influence the leadership of the LAUSD School Board, perhaps aiming to find a compromise between the teachers union (who endorsed him) and local reform advocates. Perhaps Deasy was sking Garcetti for help.  
  Image via LA School Report.

Tutorservice Daily News forJune 12th

• Preschoolers graduate with pomp, parents swell with pride – By Daphne Sashin, CNN (CNN) – Sure, the audience at Harvard University's commencement ceremony was treated to a speech from Oprah Winfrey, and grads at other colleges got to hear life lessons from a who's who of politicians, scientists and artists. But those moments could not compare to the preschool graduation performance at the First […]
• Bruno: Teachers Already Use Lots of Real-World Examples – Last week, Gallup put out a survey finding that students "who say they 'often' developed 21st century skills — such as real-world problem-solving and global awareness — in their last year of school are more likely to self-report higher work quality."
  This is the kind of survey that lends itself to misinterpretation. At first blush, for example, you might think that students are reporting higher work quality because their teachers had them do lots of "collaboration" and "knowledge construction".
  More likely, however, is that teachers are more likely to employ those "21st century" strategies with students who are already higher-achieving – and who would thus tend to get higher-quality work anyway. 
  What really jumped out at me, though, was the finding that fewer than 1/3 of students reported applying what they were learning to "real world problems in your community or in the world".
  There's almost certainly less to that result than meets the eye.
  I don't have a survey finding to back this up, but I'm still extremely confident that virtually every student in the country applied their learning to real-world problems not just in their last year of school, but in their last month of school. In fact, in their last year of school they might have done so at least once almost every day.
  The examples are endless. English teachers have students write persuasive essays about current events, math teachers have students use math to optimize resource allocation, and history teachers ask students to apply the lessons of the past to today's dilemmas.
  In the last month of school my 8th grade science students had to apply their knowledge of electricity to evaluate the safety and energy efficiency of their homes. My 7th graders had to use information about sexually transmitted diseases and human body systems to evaluate the safety of their own – and hypothetical – lifestyle decisions.
  These aren't exceptions; they're the norm. As far as I can tell there aren't any teachers who don't tie real world problems into their classes. If students are saying otherwise, it's likely because such activities are so common that they're taken for granted or because the term "real world problem" is too vague. – PB (@MrPABruno) (image source)
• In response to Newtown shootings, some states move to put guns in classrooms – By Lauren Russell, CNN (CNN) – While most of the nation's students are enjoying summer break, teachers in a handful of states are studying – not their fall curriculum, but how to take out an assailant. In Ohio, Buckeye Firearms Association, a gun rights PAC, has launched a program to educate teachers on how to […]
• Morning Video: Reading, Writing — Republicans! – Visit NBCNews.com for breaking news, world news, and news about the economy
  MSNBC's Chuck Todd talks about the conservative attack on the Common Core. Not mentioned: lefty reform critics' attacks.
• AM News: Lawsuit Against "Cruel" Texas Truancy System – Complaint Filed With Justice Dept. in Texas Truancy Cases NYT: Advocacy groups said that school districts were violating the students’ civil rights and that the students, some as young as 12, were prosecuted as adults.

  School Discipline Changes Urged In Federal Complaint Against Dallas Truancy System Huffington Post: Brown is one of 36,000 Dallas students who have faced truancy cases in the last year. In 2012, Texas adult courts prosecuted 113,000 truancy cases, more than twice the number pursued in the other 49 states combined. 

  Texas students to seek federal help to soften 'cruel' truancy policies Reuters: Students as young as 12 can be arrested and handcuffed at school. Once they turn 17, they can be jailed for failing to pay past fines, which can run into thousands of dollars, according to the complaint, which was drafted by the National Center for Youth Law.
  DFER tells everyone to “chill” GothamSchools: Democrats for Education Reform has kept a low profile in New York since it unsuccessfully backed several downstate candidates for state office in the 2010 elections. In the years since, it has continued to expand nationally, establishing chapters in 13 states and cozied up to Gov. Andrew Cuomo. Last year, it took a backseat seat to StudentsFirstNY, a once-emergent rival advocacy group that has since faded after its founding director left.
  A teachers union embraces reform in New Haven, creating a model for others Hechinger Report: Unions in Baltimore, Md., and St. Paul, Minn., have used New Haven as a blueprint for their own labor contracts, and U.S. Secretary of Education Arne Duncan has highlighted New Haven’s work at national conferences on labor-management collaboration.
  State Test Results Released in Texas, Florida EdWeek: In the last few days, two of the five largest states in the United States by student enrollment, Texas and Florida, released results from student assessments in their K-12 accountability systems. 

  Boiler room explosion rattles Calif. school AP: An explosion Tuesday in the boiler room of a high school gymnasium was so powerful it lifted the building's roof and caused heavy damage inside but no serious injuries….

  Coalition Demands Supports-Based Reform EdWeek: Prominent signatories to today's declaration include education historian Diane Ravitch, Stanford education professor Linda Darling-Hammond, American Federation of Teachers President Randi Weingarten, and National Education Association counterpart Dennis Van Roekel. The group also includes parents, city leaders, a former U.S. secretary of labor, researchers, and educators.

  Northeast DC's Educare a preschool model for the nation Washington Post: Located in the Kenilworth-Parkside neighborhood in Northeast Washington, Educare is marking its first anniversary Wednesday with a visit from Education Secretary Arne Duncan and Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius.

  Graduation Rates Hit New High: Good News For Everyone? NPR: National high school graduation rates have reached a 40-year high, according to a new report by Education Week. Host Michel Martin asks if this is good news for every district. She speaks one of the report's authors, Chris Swanson, and Mikala Rahn, who founded a Los Angeles charter school for former dropouts.

  Video: Conservatives place focus on education MSNBC: The Daily Rundown's Chuck Todd takes a deep dive look into Common Core educational standards and the politics behind them. Emmett McGroarty from the American Principles Project joins to discuss. 
   
   

• School Discipline Changes Urged In Federal Complaint Against Dallas Truancy System –

  Ashley Brown, a Dallas high school sophomore, missed four days of school after her grandmother died. Shortly after that, a teacher taking roll missed the short-statured student and accidentally marked Brown absent. Then Brown missed school because she was suspended for an altercation. She missed another day when she was suspended for being late to class, because she was in the restroom.

  The next thing she knew, the county truancy court summoned her. She owed mounting fines. "I was very worried because my family cannot pay those types of tickets," Brown, 16, said in an interview. "I'm on the honor roll. I'm academically prepared. For them to penalize me because of these mistakes — wow."

  Brown is one of 36,000 Dallas students who have faced truancy cases in the last year. In 2012, Texas adult courts prosecuted 113,000 truancy cases, more than twice the number pursued in the other 49 states combined.

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Tutorservice Daily News forJune 11th

• Director Tom Shadyac Raises Eyebrows With Colorful Speech To Malibu Grads – Schools – Malibu, CA Patch –

  Graduations are usually known for their pomp and circumstance, but Director Tom Shadyac's colorful speech to graduates at Malibu High School Monday took an unconventional turn.

  Shadyac, who is known for his films "Liar, Liar" and "Bruce Almighty," started off his speech with an expletive, followed by 10 minutes of lewd jokes that had some raising their eyebrows and others laughing uncontrollably.

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• Gender Wage Gap Heavily Influenced By Occupation Segregation (INFOGRAPHIC) –

  "While much remains to be done to achieve full equality of economic opportunity … this legislation is a significant step forward," President John F. Kennedy said in 1963 when he signed the Equal Pay Act, a bill intended to ensure that women and men are paid equally for the doing the same work for the same employer.

  Fifty years later, the White House's National Equal Pay Task Force has issued a report examining the many advances women have made since 1963 and the economic inequalities that persist.

  Titled "Assessing the Past, Taking Stock of the Future," the document tracks women's gains in education, work force participation, entrepreneurship, military service and tech and examines why all of these changes still haven't resulted in pay parity. One issue that has gotten less attention than the overall 23-cent wage gap is the high percentage of women who still work in traditionally female fields and how much less workers in these fields earn.

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• Closures signal perfect storm for public schools – By Nova Safo, CNN Follow on Twitter: @nova_safo Chicago, Illinois (CNN) – When Chicago students return to school after summer break, they will do so in 48 fewer elementary schools. The city is closing a record number of schools to deal with a $1 billion budget shortfall. The closures are just the latest in a […]
• Advocacy: Turning Times Square Into A Giant [Selfie] Yearbook – As part of their never-ending efforts to make school cool, the @getschooled folks are encouraging high school students to commit to finishing their educations by displaying their Instagram pictures in Times Square  tomorrow.
  I know, I know.  It's what every kid wants — his or her name in lights — "the world's largest yearbook."
  And there's still time left. The best 500 submissions will get displayed and receive an e-mail of their picture in lights in Times Square.  #TimesSquareYearbook
  Selfies aren't encouraged but they're pretty much inevitable, right?
  Photo credit: Kevin Tachman for Times Square Alliance
• Bruno: School Is Part Of The Real World – Last week Valeries Strauss published a post by Penelope Trunk arguing that schools shouldn't be so "uptight" about cheating.
  Cheating, she argued, involves skills – like networking and collaboration – that are valued in the workplace and important for students to learn.
  In a response (also on Strauss' blog), Elaine Power says what needs to be said about the most obvious problems with Trunk's argument.
  In particular, Trunk seems to be confused about what educators mean when they talk about "cheating" and about why they discourage it. (Either that or she's spent time in some extremely unusual and cut-throat workplaces.)
  More generally, I think Trunk is commiting an all-too-common edu-fallacy. The language varies, but oftentimes commentators will propose that schooling would be improved if it were made more like the "real world" and thus more "authentic".
  Trunk makes this argument about cheating, but you can find it being made about all kinds of things in education, from teaching methods to curricular content to student motivation and classroom management. What unites these claims is the assumption that the more school life imitates "real life", the better.
  That assumption is fallacious for at least two reasons.

  First, school is part of the "real world". In practice, schools are the "real world" way that the vast majority of individuals develop many of the academic and social skills that they end up using in their adult lives. School is definitely different from life outside of school, but probably not much more so than various parts of out-of-school life – like work life and home/family life – are different from each other.
  The fact is, we don't normally assume that every area of our lives should function according to the same rules, so there's no obvious reason to single out school as needing to be more like some other part of life.
  Second, even if you want to draw a clear distinction between "school" and "the real world", the purposes of school are rarely the same as the purposes of other parts of life. School is often about learning things or demonstrating that you know them and work, for example, is often about producing something of value to your employer. Those goals are very different, so only rarely will it make sense to accomplish them by using the same methods and following the same rules.
  So it's a mistake to assume that a change that makes school more like the world outside of school is, ipso facto, an improvement. And it's a common-enough fallacy that it probably deserves its own name. I'll take suggestions in the comments. – PB (@MrPABruno) (image source)

Tutorservice Daily News for June 10th through June 11th:

• Quotes: Where’s The Fire? – It’s kind of like having a fire alarm go off in your house, but not knowing where the fire is.  – University of Washington’s College of Education professor Charles Peck. (Hechinger Report)
• Frederick Gray, 97-Year-Old WWII Veteran, Graduates High School And Receives Diploma –

  WATERTOWN, N.Y. — It took nearly eight decades, but Frederick Gray is finally a high school graduate.

  The Watertown Daily Times (http://bit.ly/11sOqdY) reports that the 97-year-old World War II veteran was presented Monday with a diploma from Watertown High School during a ceremony at his northern New York home.

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• Morning Video: MSNBC Juxtaposes Philly Layoffs & Prisons – Visit NBCNews.com for breaking news, world news, and news about the economy
• AM News: Texas Drops Required Tests To Five – Texas Tests for Graduation Cut to 5 From 15 NYT: The measure was promoted as a way to give more flexibility to students who want to focus on career training, not just college-preparatory courses, and was a response to complaints from students, parents and teachers about too much testing.
  High-Tech Cheaters Pose Test WSJ: Major testing companies like CTB/McGraw-Hill MHFI +0.15% and the Graduate Management Admissions Council are developing security packages to sell to schools and licensing boards. 
  Obama Fills Civil Rights, General Counsel Posts in Education Department EdWeek: President Barack Obama today tapped Catherine E. Lhamon, who spent a decade working for the American Civil Liberties Union in California, as the assistant secretary for civil rights at the U.S. Department of Education.
  'I'm Not Satisfied': Family's First Graduate Has Bigger Goals NPR: When Denver teenager Dajina Bell graduated from high school last week, she celebrated a remarkable academic and personal comeback. Bell's high school years were marked early on by her brother's death and a host of other troubles.
  In Hamptons, Ethnicity, Class and Suicide Lead School to Reach Out NYT: An ethnic integration problem that had been festering in the background for years at East Hampton High School has been brought to the forefront by student suicides.
  Video: Money for prisons, not schools, in Philadelphia MSNBC: Nearly a billion dollar in cuts in Pennsylvania's education budget has trickled down to Philadelphia, where 23 schools have been closed and nearly four thousand district workers have received pink slips. Still, the state has $400m for a new prison complex. 
• Tavis Smiley: Sen. Elizabeth Warren on Student Loans – During my exclusive broadcast conversation with Sen. Elizabeth Warren tonight on PBS, she states, "We can't be a country that invests in big banks and won't invest in our students who want an education. Let's not call it postmortem just yet; let's call it we're still in the middle of the fight."
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• Quotes: Ravitch’s Loathsome Non-Apology – I apologize for calling you “loathsome,” though I do think your campaign against a hardworking, dedicated principal working in an inner-city school was indeed loathsome.
  - NYU professor Diane Ravitch (in a post in which she admits she knew nothing about Weigand beyond what she read in the LA Times)