Is South Dakota Racing to the Top? Seems nobody knows. The education news is full of stories about states competing for the single largest amount of discretionary money ever directed toward education – 4.3 Billion dollars — but things are uncomfortably quiet here.
The Race to the Top [...]
Has the South Dakota legislature failed in its constitutional requirement to adequately fund education in our state? That’s the question at the bottom of a potential appeal to the South Dakota’s Supreme Court.
HISTORY OF THE FUNDING LAWSUITIn January, 2006, a “costing-out study” showed the South Dakota government was underfunding state schools [...]
I’m reading an excellent book, “Catching Up or Leading the Way” by Michigan State’s distinguished Education Professor Yong Zhao. Born and raised in China, Zhao writes that America’s education gap is a myth that’s been fueled by the fears of competition from the Chinese, Indians, and others. [...]
Later this month, representatives from the Associated School Board’s of South Dakota (ASBSD) will gather in Pierre to debate policy positions we believe are important for education in our state. One of the new positions concerns Indian Education. I’ve reprinted the position in full from the ASBSD site:
South Dakota’s [...]
Education Week reports that some high schools in Illinois have found a way to beat the state NCLB accountability exam given to juniors each year. Their technique is to redefine the Juniors who are behind on credits as sophomores and suddenly the lowest achievers don’t take the test! The following [...]
Tear down the wall between K-12 and postsecondary education, writes Bill Maxwell, a correspondent at the St. Petersburg Times:
We have two separate cultures in education: elementary and secondary schools (K-12) and postsecondary schools (undergraduate and graduate institutions). This separation is expensive, wastes human capital and harms the public [...]
Teacher prep programs have been coming under fire lately. I ran across this interesting ditty from Stephen Sawchuk at Education Week’s Teacher Beat:
Two recent news stories illustrate nicely two ways of looking at teacher preparation: an “output”-oriented view of teacher preparation that focuses on student achievement, and an input-oriented [...]
The state board of education just made it harder to graduate from South Dakota high schools. The change is the result of a new law passed by the legislature that eliminates the “basic” curricular option for graduation, and instead mandates a single curriculum designed to prepare all [...]
Seems the blogs are full of dire budget news. Pure Pierre Politics writes:
The news gets worse. The governor’s forecast for state government’s 2011 budget shows a $170 million chasm between revenues and spending. State government has $107 million in reserves. Someplace, somehow, $65 million of savings and revenue needs [...]
Each night before going to bed I read teacher blogs. I’m impressed how technology is transforming the classroom, and I can’t help but wonder how long it will take for technology to impact school board members like it has teachers.
What if school board members, like teachers, used Nings, Personal Learning Networks, and [...]
I ran across this video from Toby Fischer’s blog, Future of Education. The video is his take on education — either where we’re at now, or where we’re going. It all really kind of blows me away.
Your thoughts?
[...]
Superintendent Kimberly Moritz commented about how an “us vs. them” attitude is a big problem for school districts because it permeates through an entire school climate.
I’ve been on the job as superintendent in my current district for a year now. When I interviewed with all of [...]
Check out this brilliant three minute talk from the TED site on the 8 secrets of success.
It’s something we should all watch — and then show our children.
The secrets are Passion, Work, Focus, Push, Ideas, Improve, Serve, and Persist.
But don’t take my word for it, watch the video & enjoy![...]
Today I participated in a webinar with the National School Board Association about what’s happening on Capitol Hill and the Department of Education. These are the notes I took about what’s going on:
HR 3221 – funding for modernization, repair and renovation passed the House last month. It awaits action in the Senate. IDEA [...]On a percentage basis, South Dakota has one of the highest rates of high school 1:1 laptop programs in the country.
If only our internet access was as good.
The other day I emailed our superintendent about the Flat Classroom™ Project — a global collaborative that joins together high school students [...]
Pat, over at Successful Teaching, read my recent post about Education Week taking a slap at school board members, and came up with a list of suggestions about how teachers can develop relationships with their school board members. Pat’s ideas are right-on in my opinion, and I re-print [...]
Last week our country’s premier education newspaper for educators, Education Week, went after School Board Members with it’s “Leading for Learning report.”
The lead article by Lesli Maxwell set the tone. Titled, “An Overlooked Institution Struggles to Remain Relevant,” the article begins with the foundation that ”local school [...]
The week after I was first elected to our school board, a little old couple stopped me at the local café and asked if they could visit. They were concerned the school district was spending more money on paper supplies at their old competitor than the store they used to own [...]
As columnist Bob Mercer points out in his “Domino Theory” post, the Mitchell school district is developing student housing for Mitchell Technical Institute, apparently by working around the law that says:
13-24-9. School board power to erect, acquire, equip and dispose of school and accessory buildings–Dormitories for postsecondary students [...]
With the weather turning cold in South Dakota, I’ve been doing some blog house-cleaning. Awhile ago I received a post that my blog was too “visually noisy.” You know, too much stuff packed into too little a space. Kind of reminded my of my old college dorm room back at [...]
To what extent do schools limit creativity? Anyone involved with education should watch this and then take a minute to reflect. Thanks to Lisa N. at Education Innovation for sharing this.
[...]Liz Wilen at Insideschools.org wrote a great little piece about kids Facebooking instead of doing homework that had me wondering if she was talking about MY daughter:
A typical conversation between concerned parents and their high school students might, theoretically, begin with a casual inquiry about homework. A most unwelcome [...]
It may sound like a geeky task, but writing school policy is all about doing what’s best for our children. Policies establish direction for the school district – they set the goals, assign authority, and establish controls that make school governance and management possible. In a very real [...]
This interesting tidbit came across my edublog reader this morning – Kathleen Kennedy Manzo at Education Week reports on teachers that are experimenting with the popular micro-blogging tool, Twitter, as a way to distribute homework assignments and engage students in collaborative activities.
It would be interesting to learn if the teachers [...]
I received a call from a parent about H1N1 and thought others might be interested in the same information. According to a school board report from Dr. Hanson, our absenteeism numbers this past week ran pretty consistently at 10% until spiking on Friday at 13%. Our typical rate runs between [...]
Blogging is one of the ways I reach out to folks. I look at it a way to connect to people through what I write. I also look at blogging as a way for me to learn.
I use a RSS reader to subscribe to news sites, education experts, and policy makers. The stories [...]
Ed Sec Arne Duncan delivered a speech today to the National Association of State Boards of Education in which he discussed some of the education themes we’ve been hearing from the Administration:
“Now that I am in Washington, it’s even clearer to me that education reform starts locally…. I want to be a partner [...]I know I’ve posted a lot of videos this past week, but I couldn’t resist one more — US Ed Sec Arnie Duncan on Colbert. Both informative and pretty darn funny!
The Colbert Report Mon – Thurs 11:30pm / 10:30c Arne Duncan www.colbertnation.com Colbert Report Full Episodes Political Humor Michael Moore [...]
