Monday-Friday: Thanksgiving break, Hillsborough and Pinellas schools
Wednesday-Friday: Thanksgiving break, Hernando and Pasco schools
Dec. 1: Pasco School Board, 9:30 a.m.
Dec. 2: Commission for Independent Education, 10 a.m., Howey-in-the-Hills
Dec. 3: USF Board of Trustees
Dec. 3-4: The State Advisory Committee for the Education of Exceptional Students, Tallahassee
Dec. 8: Pinellas [...]
Overparenting has sparked a backlash, claims Time, which sees a “revolution under way, one aimed at rolling back the almost comical overprotectiveness and overinvestment of moms and dads.”
The insurgency goes by many names — slow parenting, simplicity parenting, free-range parenting — but the message is the same: Less is [...]
Miami's new business buliding was the venue for Doug Eder's presentation on the Joys of Assessment yesterday. Very nice. The photos show the left-hand third of the room.'WE ARE HUDSON': Hudson High in Pasco has endured its share of detractors, but the school's reality differs quite a bit from the rumors. (Times photo, Keri Wiginton)
A SECOND CHANCE? Hernando should offer teacher Michael Provost another opportunity to teach at the STAR Center, [...]
Better science education wouldn’t fix Star Trek’s bad science, argues John Scalzi. But it doesn’t matter.
. . . even movies with bad science can still inspire the science-minded. Aside from James Kirk, the main characters in Star Trek are a science officer, a linguist, a mathematical whiz kid, a [...]
A burka-clad Barbie will be sold in a charity auction for Save The Children.
Barbie can leave her box only if escorted by Mullah Ken, sold separately, writes Tim Blair.
[...]On Wednesday, a group of parents and parents advocacy groups filed suit against the state, charging that it had not lived up to a constitutional mandate to provide high quality schools. On Tuesday, several members of the group and several of their attorneys met with [...]
Is Northern Virginia’s Thomas Jefferson High, a science-and-tech magnet, too successful, asks The Washingtonian. “Why You Should Hate This School” is the subhead.
The public school admits only 16 percent of applicants. In addition to “whiz-kid scientists, computer jocks, and chess champions . . . there’s also a professional model [...]
To help teens succeed in school, parents’ role starts at home, concludes a new book, Families, Schools and the Adolescent.
For example, while helping with homework makes a difference for elementary students, it has little impact for middle and high schoolers, concludes Nancy Hill, a Harvard researcher.
Visiting the school, [...]
WHO SAYS CAREER ACADEMIES ARE NEW? The Veterinary Sciences Academy at Tarpon Springs High has been around since 1995, this year serving 220 students. (Times photo, Demorris Lee)
CONGRATS: Parrott Middle School ESE paraprofessional Yvette Hart is Hernando's school-related employee of the year.
FREE DEGREE: UF [...]
Two overdue library books have been returned to Camelback High in Phoenix 51 years late. An anonymous former student mailed the two books with a money order for $1,000 and a note.
. . . the sender wrote that the money should cover delinquency fees and a little extra in [...]
In the news this week, the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation awarded several districts and entities grants–a total of $335 million–to explore ways to make teaching more effective. Three members of NSBA’s Council of Urban School Boards—Pittsburgh, Memphis, Tenn., and Hillsborough County, Fla., received grants to experiment with [...]
English-language learners, students in special education, and homeless students took center stage in the U.S. Department of Education's second "stakeholders" forum, held here in Washington today. These events are intended to help lay the groundwork for reauthorization of the Elementary and Secondary Education Act.
This one attracted a much smaller' [...]
When psychologist Steven Kanakis had trouble finding child care for his son with autism, he pushed for a seat on the Pasco-Hernando Early Learning Coalition to help improve the choices for families like his.
His son now attends third grade at Longleaf Elementary School, and Kanakis [...]
College costs keep rising. Navigating these rough waters, should states choose Scylla (raising taxes) or Charybidis (raising tuition)? (Center for College Affordability and Productivity)
Even ESPN calls poker a “sport.” But as more students develop a gambling addiction, should colleges come to the [...]
John Shafchuk, who first joined the Pasco County school district in 1975, is about to serve his final day here.
Shafchuk, principal of Deer Park Elementary on Trouble Creek Road since 2003, caught folks off guard this past week by filing his retirement papers. He leaves at [...]
If the new high-quality-schools lawsuit hinged on Florida science scores alone, it'd probably be a slam dunk.
"Florida students are pretty much last in the nation for science," says a power point presentation that Todd Clark, the Department of Education bureau chief for curriculum and instruction, gave to a statewide education group' [...]
Both the Daily Show and the Colbert Report riffed off the news that an elementary school boy was refusing to recite the pledge of allegiance in school. Just cuz I'm lazy, here's the Daily Show version (the segment starts about 90 seconds in):
The Daily Show With Jon StewartMon -' [...]We’re All Right-Wing Bastards Now, writes teacher Larry Sand of the anti-union California Teachers Empowerment Network in City Journal. Sand is responding to a speech by Bob Chanin, the outgoing general counsel of the National Education Association, who called critics of the union “conservative and right-wing bastards” who [...]
BoardBuzz came across this Washington Post item asking for readers to help select the best education blogs of 2009. As the Post’s Jay Mathews writes:
I have put out a best education blogs list the last two years, but I wasn’t a blogger myself then, and really didn’t know what [...]
Epic Adventures Are Often Uncomfortable is hosting this week’s EduCarnival.
Darren writes about the principal’s classroom visits, which allegedly aren’t about evaluating teachers, but are about checking for student “engagement.” If students are disengaged, wouldn’t the principal form an opinion about the teacher’s ability?
[...]The University of California system is reeling. Crushed by the recession and the total collapse of governance in the Golden State, the UC system just raised student tuition by a mind-boggling 32 percent. A few weeks ago, New York Times Magazine interviewer Deborah Solomon sat down with UC Chanchelor Mark [...]
A Panama City high schooler decided he didn't want to attend his regular school, Mosley High, on Tuesday. But apparently he didn't want to miss out on the experience, either.
So he took a seat in nearby Bay High instead.
Transfers like this aren't allowed, it turns out. So the boy, whose' [...]
I don't know whether to laugh or cry about this. There's a new documentary out called The War On Kids which argues that the current culture of many schools is, in essence, a war on children. But from the trailer, at least, the' [...]
The last Bracey Report should be read and reread in its balanced, jewel-like entirety. Federal accountability schemes, despite their avowed purpose of helping the poor, make no sense unless you also believe that American education as a whole is dangerously in decline. Bracey's last report again debunked that myth along [...]
Congrats and condolences. Word is spreading that Alice Cain, longtime staffer for George Miller, is leaving the Hill and heading to the Hope Street Group. There she'll be focusing on teacher effectiveness and elevating the teaching profession to drive broader reform of our education' [...]
"Schools or districts that are administering more of these alternative assessments may look better than those who are using fewer, and it may not have anything to do with the quality of the program." NCREST director Joan Herman
[...]Read deep into the final regulations for Race to the Top, and you'll see an outline of how the Education Department plans to judge states' applications.
There's the 500-point grading scale, of course.
But for the finalists, there's one last step: Fly to Washington, bring your five best [...]
The $100 million, seven-year grant that Hillsborough schools received from the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation on Thursday has the potential to significantly alter the teaching landscape, both in Hillsborough County and nationally.
Its focus on reforming pay structures, evaluation procedures and other matters related to teaching promises to bring [...]
The major papers each add a bit of key information about the just-announced Gates teaching initiative:
Mini RTTT: Federal officials are pushing in much the same direction with a $4.35 billion school-reform grant competition that stresses teacher effectiveness, tied to student achievement. (Gates Foundation gives [...]
State will soon grade its education schools Orlando Sentinel
Florida already grades its public schools and rates its pre-kindergarten programs based on student test scores.
Its teacher-preparation programs look to be next.
Education">Learning to Teach to Bridge the Achievement Gap NYT
David Whitman writes speeches for Arne Duncan at the Department of Education. He’s written for numerous publications on a range of issues and he examined the ”new paternalism” idea and looked at the issue in his recent book.
But maybe he should be at the Department of the Interior? [...]
IMPROVING TEACHER QUALITY: Hillsborough celebrates winning a $100 million grant to reform teacher evaluations, pay, preparation and other aspects of the job from the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation. (Times photo, Edmund Fountain)
SPEAKING OF TEACHER QUALITY: Someone has to prepare them, and the Florida Department of [...]
The Pledge of Allegiance is un-American, argues Michael Lind on Salon.
In a republic, the people should not pledge allegiance to the government; the government should pledge allegiance to the people.
“We owe each other an obligation to obey the rules that we, directly or through elected representatives, have mutually [...]
Two Kentucky librarians who decided a graphic novel was obscene have been fired for refusing to let an 11-year-old check out the book.
Sharon Cook, an employee of the Jessamine County library, checked out The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen, Volume IV: The Black Dossier in 2008 and kept [...]
This from Mike Thompson at 
