Wednesday, September 5, 2012

Common Core: Feds overreach on ed standards




Listen to Andrew Porter, Dean of the University of Pennsylvania’s Graduate School of Education, discuss the common core standards with Marty Moss-Coane on WHYY’s Radio Times; mp3 runtime 43 minutes.


Daily postings from the Keystone State Education Coalition now reach more than 1650 Pennsylvania education policymakers – school directors, administrators, legislators, legislative and congressional staffers, members of the press and a broad array of education advocacy organizations via emails, website, Facebook and Twitter.

These daily emails are archived at http://keystonestateeducationcoalition.org
Follow us on Twitter at @lfeinberg

Posted at 08:24 PM ET, 09/04/2012

What Democratic platform says on education

Washington Post Answer Sheet Blog By Valerie Strauss
Here are portions of the Democratic Party’s 2012 platform that discuss education and school reform.  The platform was approved Tuesday by convention delegates meeting in Charlotte, N.C., to formally nominate President Obama to seek re-election. You can read the education portion of the Republican Party’s 2012 platform here.
From the Democrat Party’s platform:

Common Core: Feds overreach on ed standards

Boston Herald Opinion By Charles Chieppo and Jamie Gass
Monday, September 3, 2012
Labor Day is a good time to remember that there was no bigger proponent of the central role public schools play in our democratic society than the late president of the American Federation of Teachers, Albert Shanker. “One is not born into something that makes you an American,” Shanker said. “It is by accepting a common set of values and beliefs”
But Shanker would likely be appalled by the mockery supporters of national education standards have made of the democratic processes he held so dear.
The so-called Common Core State Standards in English and math were almost entirely developed inside the Beltway by a small group of D.C.-based education trade organizations.

After pulling the plug on DVHS, district rushes to find new assignments for 500 students

Newsworks By Benjamin Herold September 2, 2012
Delaware Valley High School (DVHS), with campuses at 4333 Kelly Dr. and 6404 Elmwood Ave. in Southwest Philadelphia, is one of several independent operators contracting with the district to run alternative programs for students with social and behavioral problems.  The 500 Philadelphia students who expected to attend one of the two alternative education programs previously run by troubled Delaware Valley High School are in for a big change when school starts.  The school district severed ties with DVHS earlier this month following reports that the for-profit company was under federal investigation and the target of lawsuits from former employees.

The Sustainability Workshop
The mission of the Sustainability Workshop is to create schools that unleash the creative and intellectual potential of young people to solve the world’s toughest problems.

Twitter Bets On Girls Who Code

TechCrunch by Leena Rao September 3, 2012
In 1967, 25-year-old Damyanti Gupta immigrated to Detroit with one goal—to be an Engineer at Ford Motor Company. Only there was one problem: there were no female engineers at the company. When a hiring executive flatly told her that “we don’t have any women on staff”, she mustered her confidence and replied “if you don’t hire me, then you won’t have that benefit.” A few weeks later, Damyanti was hired as Ford’s first-ever female engineer.
Gupta (pictured) and her story are just one of many that inspired Reshma Saujani to found Girls Who Code, a new, New York-based initiative designed to help teach girls how to code so that they can pursue careers in technology and engineering. And what’s especially awesome about Saujani’s organization is that it has the steadfast support of a number of companies, including Google, GE eBay and Twitter.

Yong Zhao is slated to speak at the opening session of the PASA-PSBA School Leadership Conference on October 17th
Read Amazon.com reviews of 'World Class Learners: Educating Creative and Entrepreneurial Students' by Yong Zhao
Yong Zhao is the Presidential Chair of Global Education and Online Learning at the University of Oregon, where he also serves as the Associate Dean for Global Education and Online Learning and the Director of Center for Advanced Technology in Education (CATE). He is also a full professor in the Department of Educational Measurement, Policy, and Leadership (EMPL). He is a fellow of the International Academy for Education.
Before joining the University of Oregon, Zhao was previously University Distinguished Professor at the College of Education, Michigan State University, where he also served as the founding director of the Center for Teaching and Technology, executive director of the Confucius Institute, as well as the US-China Center for Research on Educational Excellence.
Zhao has published over 20 books and 100 articles. His most recent book is Catching Up or Leading the Way: American Education in the Age of Globalization. He has also developed computer software, including the award-winning New Chengo/ZON (http://enterzon.com), the world’s first massively multi-player online role-playing game for studying Chinese.
Zhao is an internationally known education expert. He has been invited to speak on educational issues in nearly 20 countries on six continents over 400 times over the past three years. He has been interviewed as an education expert on global education issues by international media outlets such as USA Today, The New York Times, NPR, China Xinhua News Agency, The Times Education Supplement, and Voice of America. His writings have appeared in The New York Times, Washington Post, Education Week, Educational Leadership, and The Kappan. He maintains an active blog with a large audience at http://zhaolearning.com. One of his blog posts received over 10,000 views within a week of posting.
Zhao was born in China’s Sichuan Province. He received his B.A. in English Language Education from Sichuan Institute of Foreign Languages in Chongqing, China in 1986. After teaching English in China for six years, he came to Linfield College as a visiting scholar in 1992. He then began his graduate studies at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign in 1993. He received his A.M. in Education in 1994 and Ph.D. in 1996. He joined the faculty at MSU in 1996 after working as the Language Center Coordinator at Willamette University and a language specialist at Hamilton College.

Education 2020—September 13th Forum will focus on where we want to go

Published: Tuesday, September 04, 2012, 1:01 AM
Harrisburg Patriot News By Letters to the Editor 
The Patriot-News is holding a community forum focused on education on Sept. 13 at the Grace Milliman Pollock Performing Arts Center in Camp Hill to address these big questions.
Pennsylvania Education Secretary Ron Tomalis will join a panel that includes Mechanicsburg Area School District Superintendent Dr. Mark Leidy, Infinity Charter School founder Nancy Hall and Patriot-News Capitol bureau chief and longtime education reporter Jan Murphy.
We also have interviewed numerous teachers, students, administrators, school board members and parents about what's working and what isn't in our current system. Their voices will play a role in the forum as well.
http://www.pennlive.com/letters/index.ssf/2012/09/education_2020--forum_will_foc.html

Education Voters PA Statewide Advocate Leadership Session Sept. 22nd
Added by Ian Moran
Time: September 22, 2012 from 8:30am to 4:30pm
Location: Temple University Harrisburg, 234 Strawberry Square
Education Voters of Pennsylvania will be holding a day-long summit for public education advocates across the state on Saturday September 22 in Harrisburg, PA. 
With public education coming under attack on multiple levels, the goal of this event is to bring together community members who are standing up for public schools in their own communities for training, planning and coordinating statewide efforts to maximize the impact that we all have.  We'll have a chance to brush up on and learn more about key policy issues, get training on effective advocacy tools and techniques and share stories and idea about local effort and how we bring this work together in a unified way.  Breakfast and lunch will be provided.
Click HERE for more details on parking, directions, etc.

If you have received an absentee ballot it must be postmarked by September 10th
Bios of candidates slated for 2013 PSBA offices 8/15/2012
At its May 19 meeting at PSBA Conference Center, the PSBA Nominating Committee interviewed and selected a slate of candidates for officers of the association in 2013.

Upcoming PSBA Professional Development Opportunities
To register or to learn more about PSBA professional development programs please visit:  www.psba.org/workshops/

2012 PASA-PSBA School Leadership Conference Oct. 16-19, 2012
Registration is Now Open!  Hershey Lodge & Convention Center, Hershey, PA
www.psba.org/workshops/school-leadership-conference/

EPLC’s 2012 Arts and Education Symposium: Save the Date, Thursday, October 11

Education Policy and Leadership Center

Please mark your calendars and plan on joining EPLC, our partners, and guests on October 11 in Harrisburg for a full day of events.  Stay tuned to aei-pa.org for information about our 2nd Arts and Education Symposium.  Scholarships and Act 48 Credit will be available.  Outstanding speakers and panelists from Pennsylvania and beyond will once again come together to address key topics in the arts and arts education and related public policy advocacy initiatives.  This is a networking and learning opportunity not to be missed!

http://www.aei-pa.org/


NSBA Federal Relations Network seeking new members for 2013-14
School directors are invited to advocate for public education at the federal level through the National School Boards Association’s Federal Relations Network. The National School Boards Association is seeking school directors interested in serving on the Federal Relations Network (FRN), its grass roots advocacy program that brings local board members on the front line of pending issues before Congress. If you are a school director and willing to carry the public education message to Washington, D.C., FRN membership is a good place to start. 
Click here for more information.
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