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Sunday, April 4, 2010

Latinos outpace whites in grad rates at Western Oregon University | OregonLive.com

Latinos outpace whites in grad rates at Western Oregon University | OregonLive.com

Latinos outpace whites in grad rates at Western Oregon University

By Bill Graves, The Oregonian

April 04, 2010, 8:44PM
CristalSandovalWOU.JPGCristal Sandoval of Woodburn will be the first in her family to get a college degree when she graduates in June 2011 from Western Oregon University.
Cristal Sandoval says she's on course to become the first person in her family to earn a college degree, in part because of the financial support, tutoring and guidance she's received during her years at Western Oregon University.

"They taught me how to prepare with study skills and how to organize my time," said the 21-year-old senior. Western's support programs for Latino students, she said, "are definitely key to my success."

They also help explain why the college completion rate at Western, unlike at most colleges and universities in Oregon and the nation, is higher for Latino students than for their white peers. Nearly 49 percent of the Latino students at Western graduate within six years, compared with 45 percent of white classmates, according to a study last month by the American Enterprise Institute.

The study, which averaged graduation rates from 2005, 2006 and 2007, found that at most colleges and universities, no matter how selective, Latino completion rates lagged those of their non-Latino white peers.

The lag in Oregon ranges from 4 percentage points at the University of Oregon to 15 points at Willamette University, the report found. Those percentages, however, do not account for students who graduate after


Israeli youth spread message of peace with Portland peers

Twenty-one Israeli youths -- 15 girls and six boys primarily in middle-school grades -- are spending roughly two weeks in the Portland area spreading a message of peace. They come from a school in Jerusalem that integrates Israeli Jews and Arabs.

Schools Matter: Broad Alumni Making It Big in Corporate Takeover of American Education

Schools Matter: Broad Alumni Making It Big in Corporate Takeover of American Education

Broad Alumni Making It Big in Corporate Takeover of American Education

Eli Broad's Superintendents Academy is paying big dividends for the corporate takeover of American education and the crushing of the teaching profession. In Kansas City a plan developed byBroad's lawyers and Broad Alum, John Covington, will close half of Kansas City Schools with large numbers of corporate charter replacements. In Delaware Broad Alum, Lillian Lowery, will lead the RTTT funded initiative to use test scores to decide who

Humboldt State may cut entire programs | News10.net | Sacramento, California | Education

Humboldt State may cut entire programs | News10.net | Sacramento, California | Education

Humboldt State may cut entire programs




ARCATA, CA (AP) -- Humboldt State University is preparing to eliminate a number of academic programs as the campus seeks to offset state budget cuts.
After months of discussion, the Academic Senate is expected to make recommendations for program cuts to HSU Provost Bob Snyder by April 20.
Snyder will then make recommendations to President Rollin Richmond, who will make the final decision.
Representatives from the 14 programs targeted for possible elimination are expected to plead their cases to the senate on Saturday.
The senate is expected to vote Tuesday on which programs to recommend to cut, with the goal of saving at least $1.3 million.
Among the programs that could be eliminated are chemistry, computer science, fisheries biology, nursing, philosophy and physics.

Mike Klonsky's SmallTalk Blog: Fremont H.S. teachers say, enough is enough

Mike Klonsky's SmallTalk Blog: Fremont H.S. teachers say, enough is enough

Concerns raised about York prep school's diversity | The Herald - Rock Hill, SC

Concerns raised about York prep school's diversity | The Herald - Rock Hill, SC

Concerns raised about York prep school's diversity

York Prep says it tried to court minorities

- scetrone@heraldonline.com

Local black leaders are concerned that York Preparatory Academy, the first charter school in York County open to any student, will be nearly all white.

The academy's organizers are still compiling information about the student body's demographics. But the several hundred people who attended the school's recent enrollment lottery were mostly white, as was the crowd of several hundred who attended a recent board meeting.

The school's governing board of seven members is all white.

Melvin Poole, president of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People's Rock Hill chapter, sees the makings of a segregated school.

"I don't think they made a real effort to get blacks in," Poole said. "I think this is just a cover-up way to get back to segregated schools ... creating a school of elites on the taxpayer's dime."

That's not true, said York Prep founder Craig Craze. He said organizers targeted black neighborhoods and churches with public information sessions about the school. Craze, who declined to speculate about the school's demographics until that data is available, said 1,588 people applied to send students to the school.

"Nowhere did we ask about gender or race before the lottery," he said.

The debate reflects a growing concern nationally over charter schools, which, with President Barack Obama's blessing, are opening in larger numbers every year.

"The charter school movement has been a major political success, but it has been a civil rights failure," reads the foreword to a recent



Read more: http://www.heraldonline.com/2010/04/04/2064805/diversity-challenged-in-charter.html#ixzz0k9jSTRgP

YouTube - The Evolution of Educators - Part 1 (1600-1900)

YouTube - The Evolution of Educators - Part 1 (1600-1900)
LaLunaFilms  December 02, 2008 — Student-made documentary exploring the history of teachers in America starting in the 1600's

Done as a Foundations of Education project.






Extra funding is one secret of charter schools | jacksonville.com

Extra funding is one secret of charter schools | jacksonville.com

Extra funding is one secret of charter schools


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Ron Littlepage's Blog
I’m hopeful about the Knowledge is Power Program opening a charter school in Jacksonville next August.
It will begin with about 90 fifth-graders, picked by lottery, and the plan is to eventually have two elementary schools, two middle schools and a high school.
The KIPP schools have a solid national track record of preparing low-income, minority students for college, and if that is replicated here, some Jacksonville students will be better off.
I also think it’s a big deal that the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation is giving $100 million to Hillsborough County’s public schools to improve teaching quality and student achievement there.
But here is what I find frustrating: Clearly both programs recognize the need to invest more in our public schools, but the Florida Legislature continues to cut the budgets of the public schools.
The KIPP schools focus on hard work and discipline.
They have longer school days, from 7:30 a.m. to 5 p.m.
They have Saturday school twice a month, and they have three weeks of classes during the summer.
They recruit the best teachers and pay them salaries that are 15 to 20 percent higher than what teachers in other public schools earn.
They push a team-oriented approach for both teachers and administrators.
All are good things, and they all take money.
The KIPP charter schools receive state and federal money as do other public schools, but they also depend on private donations to provide another $1,200 or so per student.
And the KIPP national organization has been supported with more than $100 million from big contributors, such as the Gates Foundation, the Walton Family Foundation and the founders of the GAP clothing chain.
Great, but here’s what damage the Legislature has done to Duval County’s public school budgets in recent years.
Instead of longer school days, the school day for high school students was shortened because of the lack of money.
Summer school has been scaled back and limited to certain students because of budget cuts.
Teachers who want to work with students on Saturdays have to do it on their own time.
They also have to dip into their own pockets for needed supplies.
As for a “team-oriented approach,” the latest meddling by the Legislature — Sen. John Thrasher’s steamroller

Federal grand jury probes real estate and nonprofit deals for Malcolm Smith, other Queens pols

Federal grand jury probes real estate and nonprofit deals for Malcolm Smith, other Queens pols

Federal grand jury probes real estate and nonprofit deals for Malcolm Smith, other Queens pols

Friday, April 2nd 2010, 4:00 AM
Feds are looking into activities of Malcolm Smith (upper left), Helen Marshall (upper right), Rev. Floyd Flake (bottom left) and Gregory Meeks (bottom right).
Benjamin, Pace, Harbus, Florescu for News
Feds are looking into activities of Malcolm Smith (upper left), Helen Marshall (upper right), Rev. Floyd Flake (bottom left) and Gregory Meeks (bottom right).
The Merrick Academy, ties to nonprofit groups and business dealings are at the heart of probe into Queens political figures.
Pace for News
The Merrick Academy, ties to nonprofit groups and business dealings are at the heart of probe into Queens political figures.
A federal grand jury is zeroing in on some of Queens' most powerful political figures - including Senate President Malcolm Smith - the Daily News has learned.
Sources said the feds are investigating whether the Queens pols used a web of nonprofit groups to benefit themselves, their families and their friends.
The raft of documents the Manhattan-based panel wants involve:
- The Merrick Academy charter school - a source of campaign funds and patronage for Smith.
- A lavish home built for Rep. Gregory Meeks in Jamaica.
- A four-family house owned by Queens Borough President Helen Marshall.
One subpoena revealed for the first time that prosecutors are looking at the housing and social service empire built by the Rev. Floyd Flake - Meeks' predecessor in Congress and political mentor to Smith and Meeks.
The grand jury also wants records related to a Springfield Gardens commercial building owned by Joan Flowers, a politically active lawyer who has been campaign treasurer for Smith, Meeks and Gov. Paterson.
Flowers was "terminated" Wednesday from her $145,000-a-year Senate job as Smith's counsel. Although Senate officials said Flowers left of her own volition, sources told The News that Senate Democratic Leader John Sampson made it clear to Smith that it was time for Flowers to go.
The investigation is being conducted by Manhattan U.S. Attorney Preet Bharara's public corruption office, sources say.
Several months ago, Bharara's investigators obtained documents from the state Senate regarding taxpayer money Smith sponsored for several nonprofits.


Read more: http://www.nydailynews.com/news/2010/04/02/2010-04-02_it_is_now_a_federal_case_vs_qns_pols_grand_jury_probes_real_estate__nonprofit_de.html#ixzz0k9V1qMBT

Today we remember our hero Martin Luther King, Jr

Today we remember our hero Martin Luther King, Jr., who was assassinated in Memphis, Tenn., on April 4, 1968. Bobby Kennedy gave one the greatest speeches in American history upon hearing this news. You can listen to that speech by clicking on the link below.


Education - Everything you need to know about the world of education.

Education - Everything you need to know about the world of education.













Obama’s ed reform ignores high-quality Pre-K

My guest is Marci Young, director of Pre-K Now, a project of the non-profit Pew Center on the States that advances high-quality, voluntary pre-kindergarten for all 3 year olds and 4 year olds.

By Marci Young
The Obama administration’s “blueprint” to Congress for rewriting the law commonly known as No Child Left Behind aims to encourage proven reform strategies and policy-making based on data and research. The problem is that it ignores the most rigorously evaluated and effective education reform of the last half-century: high-quality pre-kindergarten.

More than 50 years of research shows that high-quality pre-K is a proven strategy to improve children’s cognitive, social and emotional skills; increase their educational attainment; close the achievement gap; and enhance the quality and productivity of the nation’s workforce.
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Unlike many, Escalante believed in teaching, not sorting

[This is my piece for the Post's Outlook section of April 4, 2010.]
From 1982 to 1987 I stalked Jaime Escalante, his students and his colleagues at Garfield High School, a block from the hamburger-burrito stands, body shops and bars of Atlantic Boulevard in East Los Angeles. I was the Los Angeles bureau chief for The Washington Post, allegedly covering the big political, social and business stories of the Western states, but I found it hard to stay away from that troubled high school.
I would show up unannounced, watch Jaime teach calculus, chat with Principal Henry Gradillas, check in with other Advanced Placement classes and in the early afternoon call my editor in Washington to say I was chasing down the latest medfly outbreak story, or whatever seemed believable at the time.
Escalante, who died Tuesday from cancer at age 79, did not become nationally famous until 1988, when the feature film about him, "Stand and Deliver," was released, and my much-less-noticed book, "Escalante: The Best Teacher in America," also came out. I had been drawn to him, as filmmakers Ramón Menéndez and Tom Musca were, by the story of a 1982 cheating scandal. Eighteen Escalante students had passed the Advanced Placement Calculus AB exam. Fourteen were accused of cheating by the Educational Testing Service, based on similarities in their answers. Twelve took the test again, this time heavily proctored, and passed again.
Whether they cheated was an intriguing mystery, but not the one that kept me hanging around Garfield. I wanted to know how there could be even one student at that school taking and passing AP Calculus, perhaps the hardest course in American secondary education. Garfield offered the worst possible conditions for learning: 85 percent of the students were low income, most of the parents were grade-school dropouts, faculty morale was bad, expectations were low.
Continue reading this post »

Ed Buzz: The Nation