In case you missed it, May 10 - 15
by Erika Owens on May 15 2009 Posted in In case you missed it
Busy, busy week.
Philly schools were front page news on Wednesday's Inquirer and Thursday's Daily News and again on Thursday's Inky. The Daily News story detailed the charter renewal discussion from Wednesday's SRC meeting. Other Daily News stories looked at the apparent suicide of Philly charter school founder Brien Gardner, who was under federal investigation for misuse of charter funds, and at Councilman Kenney's questioning of the renewal of an alternative schools manager with ties to centers where five students died.
The Inquirer had a follow up on its Wednesday piece on New Media Technology Charter School. The District recommended New Media Tech's charter be renewed, with conditions. The SRC will vote on renewals next Wednesday.
Superintendent Ackerman brought the District budget to City Council on Tuesday. The Notebook blogged about what could happen if the state pulled back on its education funding and new developments in the BRT patronage situation--SRC Chair Archie wants them off the payroll, a victory for parent organizers. The Inquirer also has an involved piece about the fight in Harrisburg over education funding.
The Patriot-News reported that the Rendell administration approved a $201M contract to create state graduation tests, even though the legislature has not approved the test.
Top teachers in Philly were honored by the Lindback Foundation this week.
Ever see a KIPP kid in a "Don't Eat the Marshmallow" t-shirt? Well, this week's New Yorker explains what that's all about and that students at Mastery Charter and KIPP schools are involved in psych experiments to evaluate their self control, which is one of KIPP's "character strengths."
In Detroit Sec. of Ed Duncan praised the mayoral control model of schools. Jay Mathews has a post about Delaware teacher's innovative AP class, where she teaches AP and honors students at the same time, but grades their work a little differently. As always, check the Public Education Network for a great list of national stories.
And, over on HuffingtonPost, a video from Stephen Colbert. Have a birthday coming up? Colbert suggests you follow his lead ($1,000+ raised so far) and donate your presents to donorschose.org and help a teacher finance a class project or buy equipment.
Comments (2)
Submitted by Helen Gym on Fri, 05/15/2009 - 19:18.
Thanks Erika: I missed the story on the state tests. You have to wonder why spending $201 million makes any sense in a year when the state is debating whether to manipulate the stimulus money and roll back education spending.
Submitted by Erika Owens on Sat, 05/16/2009 - 14:03.
I missed it in my morning roundup too, Dale pointed it out and I added it.
I wonder if it does tie into stimulus money, not necessarily to manipulate it but maybe they're hoping stimulus will help defray some of this cost and that the tests will be used to make PA look better for some of the competitive race to the top funds.
At the EWA conference someone asked Sec. Duncan what happens to states that have laws that are different from what the stimulus funds require, would those states be out of luck? He answered that there would be two rounds of funding payouts so in the first, earlier (and smaller) round those states may lose out, but the idea is that enough time would elapse so that in the second, later round legilsatures will have fixed the laws and become compliant with the requirements. But apparently, there is a third route--keep on keeping on with your own plans even without the approval of the legislature!
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