tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-87523077726395173042024-02-08T11:05:29.326-08:00EducationBlog Depothttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08310878002526034822noreply@blogger.comBlogger25125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8752307772639517304.post-31773262444730283642016-07-18T09:09:00.001-07:002016-07-18T09:09:36.791-07:00Jury hits U. of C. hospital with $53 million malpractice verdict<span style="color: #999999;">Original Story: chicagotribune.com</span><br />
<br />
A
Cook County jury has awarded $53 million to a 12-year-old Hickory Hills
boy and his mother in a 2013 lawsuit filed against the University of
Chicago Medical Center, where he was born with a serious brain injury. A
<a href="http://www.primerus.com/chicago-il-medical-malpractice-lawyer/lane-lane-llc-chicago-illinois-il.html" target="_blank">Chicago medical malpractice lawyer</a> said this will help to pay for the boy's future healthcare.<br />
<br />
The
jury's award to Lisa and Isaiah Ewing includes $28.8 million for future
caretaking expenses, according to a copy of the jury verdict form
provided by their lawyers, Geoffrey Fieger of suburban Detroit and Jack
Beam of Chicago. Isaiah has severe cerebral palsy, is in a wheelchair,
and needs his mother to feed and clothe him.<br />
<br />
It was the biggest birth injury verdict ever in Cook County, said John Kirkton, editor of Jury Verdict Reporter in Chicago.<br />
<br />
Their
lawsuit outlined about 20 alleged missteps by doctors and nurses after
Ewing arrived about 40 weeks pregnant at the hospital and was
experiencing less movement by her baby. The mistakes, the lawsuit
alleged, included the failures to carefully monitor mother and baby,
perform a timely cesarean section, follow a chain of command, obtain
accurate cord blood gases, and be aware of abnormal fetal heart rate
patterns that indicated distress to the baby, including hypoxia, or a
drop in the supply of oxygen. "The University of Chicago has been, for
the last 12 years, completely unapologetic, and even though the evidence
was overwhelming that they caused Isaiah's brain damage, they refused
to accept responsibility," Fieger said at the news conference Thursday.
Ewing hadn't had any problems during her pregnancy, he added.<br />
<br />
Before the case went to the jury, the hospital filed for a mistrial.<br />
<br />
Fieger's
"closing argument shattered the line between zealous advocacy and
improper prejudicial comments, rendering it impossible for defendant to
receive a fair trial," the hospital's lawyer said in a court filing. "He
also prejudicially argued that the defendant's case was built on a
falsehood and proceeded to equate defendant's conduct and testimony of
its witnesses with the propaganda techniques notoriously and
unmistakably associated with Nazi Germany."<br />
<br />
Hospital
spokeswoman Lorna Wong said the hospital had "great sympathy" for the
family but "strongly" disagrees with the jury's verdict.<br />
<br />
"Judge
Kirby declined to enter judgment on the verdict, as there are pending
motions for mistrial based on assertions of Mr. Fieger's improper
conduct," she said, noting that it wouldn't be the first overturned
verdict involving Fieger.<br />
<br />
She said Isaiah and his
mother were treated for infection, which can cause cerebral palsy.
"Isaiah was born with normal oxygen blood levels," and the "injury
occurred before the care Mr. Fieger criticized."<br />
<br />
After the news conference, Fieger said he expected the judge to confirm the verdict. "The jury has spoken," he said. A <a href="http://www.primerus.com/chicago-il-brain-injury-lawyer/lane-lane-llc-chicago-illinois-il.html" target="_blank">Chicago Brain Injury Lawyer</a> said this is usually how this procedure occurs.<br />
<br />
The
jury decided the case in four hours, Fieger said. A list of the damages
also includes $7.2 million for future medical expenses. The document
was signed by 12 jurors.<br />
<br />
Fieger disputed that Isaiah had an infection.<br />
<br />
"All
of the medical records at the University of Chicago neonatal clinic
showed that Isaiah had been suffocated at birth, that he had suffered
hypoxia, lack of oxygen, yet the University of Chicago and its lawyers
came to court and tried to tell the jury that their own records were
false, that their own records were mistaken and that Isaiah really had a
phantom infection that infected his brain that they could never have
known about," Fieger said during the news conference.<br />
<br />
Ewing
said at the news conference that she has to bathe Isaiah and help him
go to the bathroom. She lives in a two-story town home, so she must
carry him up and down the stairs.<br />
<br />
She said the verdict will help ensure that Isaiah is taken care of after she dies.<br />
<br />
<br />Blog Depothttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08310878002526034822noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8752307772639517304.post-46141414196917762692016-05-25T11:44:00.002-07:002016-05-25T11:44:47.379-07:00College Teacher Who Used Racial Slur In Class Fired<span style="color: #999999;">Original Story: yahoo.com</span><br />
<br />
LAWRENCE,
Kan. (AP) — A white University of Kansas assistant professor who used a
racial slur during a class discussion on race said the school won't
renew her contract after the next academic year. If you have been fired
contact a <a href="http://www.cronelawfirmplc.com/memphis-unlawful-wrongful-termination-lawyer.html">Memphis wrongful termination lawyer</a> for help.<br />
<br />
Andrea
Quenette, who was cleared by a university investigation into complaints
of discrimination, said Monday she was notified last week that she
would not be reappointed to her job after the spring 2017 semester, The
Lawrence Journal-World reported (http://bit.ly/1OTQZ8c ). The decision
came as Quenette, an assistant professor of communication studies, was
undergoing a progress toward tenure review, which is routine for
third-year faculty.<br />
<br />
Quenette, 33, said she would teach
an online communications class this summer and do only research during
the fall semester. She said her duties for the spring 2017 semester have
not been determined.<br />
<br />
A group of graduate students
demanded in November that Quenette be fired after she used the slur in a
class, which was held the day after a contentious forum on race and
discrimination at the university. It also came amid protests at the
University of Missouri over administrators' handling of racial issues,
which led to the resignations of the system president and chancellor of
the Columbia campus.<br />
<br />
Quenette has said diversity in the
classroom was part of the syllabus for the class, which is for graduate
students who teach undergraduate courses. After a student asked how
they could talk about race in their classes, the conversation moved to
how the university should address racial problems. Quenette said she
used the slur when comparing the University of Kansas to other campuses
and did not direct it toward a specific person.<br />
<br />
Quenette
has said she could have apologized "in the moment" if anyone had
responded, but no one did, so she continued the discussion.<br />
<br />
A
letter seeking Quenette's firing included other complaints, describing
her as racially insensitive, confrontational and unprofessional. She
sought and was given an administrative leave until the situation was
resolved.<br />
<br />
After several students, some of whom were not
in the class, filed complaints, the university's Office of
Institutional Opportunity and Access determined in March that Quenette
had not violated the university's nondiscrimination or racial and ethnic
harassment policies. However, Quenette said her administrative leave
from campus wasn't lifted until Friday. A <a href="http://www.cronelawfirmplc.com/memphis-employee-rights-lawyer-memphis-tn.html">Memphis employee rights lawyer</a> may be able to help if you were wrongfully terminated.<br />
<br />
Quenette
said she "absolutely" believes the decision to fire her was based on
race-related events of the past year rather than solely on her
performance.<br />
<br />
"I've been very powerless throughout the
entire situation," she said. "I still believe that I was assumed guilty,
and I had to prove my innocence for all of the issues."<br />
<br />
Kansas
spokesman Andy Hyland declined to discuss Quenette's employment
situation, saying it is a personnel matter and "is not related to the
claims of discrimination raised to the Office of Institutional
Opportunity and Access," the Journal-World reported.Blog Depothttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08310878002526034822noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8752307772639517304.post-38103650879704467102016-01-25T07:18:00.000-08:002016-01-25T07:18:05.438-08:00ILLINOIS BUDGET DEADLOCK HITS COLLEGE ENROLLMENTS<span style="color: #666666;">Original Story: wsj.com</span><br />
<br />
The budget impasse in Illinois is beginning to depress enrollments at the state’s colleges and universities, as state money earmarked for low-income students remains tied up in a political stalemate that shows no signs of easing.<br />
<br />
More than 1,000 students failed to return for the second semester as their schools stopped picking up the tab for the $373 million Monetary Award Program, said Randy Dunn, president of the Southern Illinois University system.<br />
<br />
The program normally provides grants of up to nearly $5,000 to some 128,000 students with mean family incomes of about $30,000, said Lynne Baker, spokeswoman for the Illinois Student Assistance Commission, which administers the program. But with no state budget in place since summer, the program’s funding has stopped. A <a href="http://www.ferris.edu/bachelor-degree-criminal-justice.htm">criminal justice degree</a> provides a combined training and education package to prepare students for future careers.<br />
<br />
“There are a lot of students at risk right now of losing money and dropping out of school,” said Mitch Dickey, student body president at the University of Illinois. “We are at a really critical point.”<br />
<br />
The problem is poised to grow quickly as schools wait for their share of about $1 billion in state funding.<br />
<br />
Chicago State University, where many of the school’s 4,800 students receive money under the program, can’t keep covering the cost of the grants, said Tom Wogan, the school spokesman. “By March, we will be close to not having enough money to operate.”<br />
<br />
Meanwhile schools around the state say they are dipping into reserves, laying off teachers and cutting programs and scholarships. Some college leaders are advocating for permission from the legislature to borrow to pay for operating costs.<br />
<br />
Republican Governor Bruce Rauner and leaders in the Democratic-controlled legislature have failed to bridge ideological differences and craft a state budget for the fiscal year that began July 1. Mr. Rauner has called for broad changes, including curbs on unions he argues would save the state and businesses money. Earn a college <a href="http://www.ferris.edu/bachelor-degree-nursing-professional.htm">nursing degree</a> in a field that traditionally has provided a variety of career opportunities.<br />
<br />
Democrats, who are led by House Speaker Michael Madigan, say those issues are unrelated to the budget. Illinois has the lowest credit rating of any state in the nation and the comptroller estimates the state is on track for a deficit of $5 billion, or nearly 15% of annual spending, this year.<br />
<br />
Democrats last week asked for $168 million to pay the schools back the money they fronted to cover the grants. Mr. Rauner shot back that the state’s public higher education system was filled with cronyism, waste and inefficiencies that need to be rooted out.<br />
<br />
A memo signed by his deputy chief of staff and circulated among Republican lawmakers says university tuition rates have tripled in 14 years, producing $1.5 billion in new revenue over which the general assembly has no control.<br />
<br />
It also highlights administrative bloat, golden parachutes and lobbying costs.<br />
<br />
Mr. Goldberg encouraged lawmakers “to ask Illinois public universities what reforms they are willing to adopt to cut waste, root out cronyism, improve outcomes and achieve savings taxpayers’ money.”<br />
<br />
The memo follows two golden parachutes that came to light at state schools in 2015. In January, trustees at a community college outside Chicago agreed, in a closed-door session, to pay their president $763,000 to retire three years earlier than stipulated in his contract. In August, the chancellor at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign was poised to receive $400,000 to resign, but she was reassigned. A <a href="http://www.ferris.edu/bachelor-degree-accounting.htm">Bachelor degree in accounting</a> provides a solid basis in accounting as well as the computer accounting skills that are most critical to employers.<br />
<br />
Mr. Rauner this fall signed a measure curbing community college severance packages.<br />
<br />
“We all get the theater of Illinois politics,” said Mr. Dunn. “I just hope we don’t lose piece by piece, in this incremental fashion, what just 20 years ago was one of the country’s best systems of higher education.”Blog Depothttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08310878002526034822noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8752307772639517304.post-56122441847804606592015-11-20T10:48:00.001-08:002015-11-23T08:40:49.155-08:00AT A SUCCESS ACADEMY CHARTER SCHOOL, SINGLING OUT PUPILS WHO HAVE ‘GOT TO GO’<span style="color: #666666;">Original Story: nytimes.com</span><br />
<br />
From the time Folake Ogundiran’s daughter started kindergarten at a Success Academy charter school in Fort Greene, Brooklyn, the girl struggled to adjust to its strict rules.<br />
<br />
She racked up demerits for not following directions or not keeping her hands folded in her lap. Sometimes, after being chastised, she threw tantrums. She was repeatedly suspended for screaming, throwing pencils, running away from school staff members or refusing to go to another classroom for a timeout. A <a href="http://www.primerus.com/lexington-ky-education-lawyer/fowler-bell-pllc-lexington-kentucky-ky.html">Lexington education lawyer</a> assists clients with policy development for employment, student health, and disability accommodation.<br />
<br />
One day last December, the school’s principal, Candido Brown, called Ms. Ogundiran and said her daughter, then 6, was having a bad day. Mr. Brown warned that if she continued to do things that were defiant and unsafe — including, he said, pushing or kicking, moving chairs or tables, or refusing to go to another classroom — he would have to call 911, Ms. Ogundiran recalled. Already feeling that her daughter was treated unfairly, she went to the school and withdrew her on the spot.<br />
<br />
Success Academy, the high-performing charter school network in New York City, has long been dogged by accusations that its remarkable accomplishments are due, in part, to a practice of weeding out weak or difficult students. The network has always denied it. But documents obtained by The New York Times and interviews with 10 current and former Success employees at five schools suggest that some administrators in the network have singled out children they would like to see leave.<br />
<br />
At Success Academy Fort Greene, the same day that Ms. Ogundiran heard from the principal, her daughter’s name was one of 16 placed on a list drawn up at his direction and shared by school leaders. A <a href="http://www.primerus.com/harrisonburg-va-education-lawyer/wharton-aldhizer-weaver-plc-harrisonburg-virginia-va.html">Harrisonburg education attorney</a> is following this story closely.<br />
<br />
Nine of the students on the list later withdrew from the school. Some of their parents said in interviews that while their children attended Success, their lives were upended by repeated suspensions and frequent demands that they pick up their children early or meet with school or network staff members. Four of the parents said that school or network employees told them explicitly that the school, whose oldest students are now in the third grade, was not right for their children and that they should go elsewhere.<br />
<br />
The current and former employees said they had observed similar practices at other Success schools. According to those employees, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to protect their jobs or their relationships with people still at the network, school leaders and network staff members explicitly talked about suspending students or calling parents into frequent meetings as ways to force parents to fall in line or prompt them to withdraw their children.<br />
<br />
Last year, for instance, the principal of Success Academy Harlem 2 Upper, Lavinia Mackall, told teachers not to automatically send annual re-enrollment forms home to certain students, because the school did not want those students to come back, two former members of the school’s staff said. Ms. Mackall said that her comments had been misinterpreted and that she was trying to encourage parents to take the school’s requirements seriously, but that she also did not believe the school was right for all students.<br />
<br />
In another example, a current employee said, a network lawyer in a conversation with colleagues described a particularly unruly student’s withdrawal as “a big win” for the school.<br />
<br />
In a written response to questions, Success Academy’s spokeswoman, Ann Powell, said that the “Got to Go” list was a mistake and that the network quickly got wind of it and reprimanded Mr. Brown, the principal. An <a href="http://www.primerus.com/boise-id-education-lawyer/stewart-taylor-morris-pllc-idaho-id.html">Idaho education lawyer</a> provides professional legal counsel and extensive experience in many aspects of education law.<br />
<br />
Ms. Powell said that Success schools did not push children out, and that what might look like an effort to nudge students out the door was actually an attempt to help parents find the right environment for their children. Some on the list required special education settings that Success could not offer them, she said.<br />
<br />
Mr. Brown said in an email that he thought the disruptive behavior of the students on the list was dragging the whole school down, and “I felt I couldn’t turn the school around if these students remained.”<br />
<br />
Once he was reprimanded, though, he and his staff tried to work with those students, he said.<br />
<br />
Even so, five left before the end of the school year, and four more departed over the summer.<br />
<br />
As to the child’s withdrawal being a “big win,” Ms. Powell said, “if we have a parent whose child really needs to be in a different school, which was a better learning environment for him/her to succeed in and the parent had trouble accepting their child’s needs, might that be characterized as a ‘big win?’ Yes.”<br />
<br />
On Thursday, after this article was published online, Eva S. Moskowitz, a former New York City councilwoman who runs Success Academy, was asked by reporters about the “Got to Go” list. Ms. Moskowitz said that given her network’s size, “mistakes are sometimes made.” She declined to answer further questions, saying she would hold a news conference on Friday to discuss “the mistake that was made in that particular case.”<br />
<br />
<b>Frequent Suspensions</b><br />
<br />
Success Academy is the city’s largest charter school network. It has 34 schools, and plans to grow to 70 in five or six years.<br />
<br />
The network serves mostly black and Hispanic students and is known for exacting behavior rules. Even the youngest pupils are expected to sit with their backs straight, their hands clasped and their eyes on the teacher, a posture that the network believes helps children pay attention. Ms. Moskowitz has said she believes children learn better with structure and consistency in the classroom. Good behavior and effort are rewarded with candy and prizes, while infractions and shoddy work are penalized with reprimands, loss of recess time, extra assignments and, in some cases, suspensions as early as kindergarten. An <a href="http://khlawfirm.com/html/atlanta-education-litigation-attorney-lawyer-atlanta-georgia.html">Atlanta education lawyer</a> is following the details of this story.<br />
<br />
Charter schools are privately run but publicly funded and admit children by lottery. Similar to a traditional public school, a charter school must provide a seat to a child who has enrolled unless the student withdraws, is expelled, turns 21 or moves out of the state. Charter schools must follow strict guidelines before formally expelling any student, and Success has done so only once since its first school opened in 2006. But Success’s critics accuse it of pushing children out by making their parents’ lives so difficult that they withdraw.<br />
<br />
Suspensions at Success, which typically last one or two days, are frequent compared with traditional public schools. In the 2012-13 school year, the most recent one for which state data is available, Success schools suspended between 4 percent and 23 percent of their students at least once, with most suspending more than 10 percent. According to the most recent statistics from the city’s Education Department, from 2013-14, traditional public schools suspended 3 percent of students that academic year.<br />
<br />
Ms. Moskowitz has said that suspensions can make parents recognize the seriousness of their children’s misbehavior and that removing students who are acting dangerously from the classroom protects teachers and allows them to do their jobs more effectively.<br />
<br />
Principals at Success, many in their 20s and 30s, frequently consult with a team of lawyers before suspending a student or requiring a parent to pick up a child early every day. It was a member of that team who described a student’s withdrawal from the Success Academy in Union Square to colleagues as a “big win,” the current employee said.<br />
<br />
James D. Merriman, the chief executive officer of the New York City Charter School Center, a group that advocates and supports charter schools, said it was unrealistic to expect any given school to be a good fit for every child. And Mr. Merriman noted that the city had many traditional public schools that required a test or other screening for admission, schools that by definition did not serve all students.<br />
<br />
“I think if you asked most charter leaders they’d say that their goal is to be a fit for as broad an array of children as possible,” he said, “and they’re working very hard to that end.”<br />
<br />
<b>Under Pressure</b><br />
<br />
Mr. Brown arrived at Success Academy Fort Greene, which shares a white-brick building with a public school in the shadow of the Brooklyn-Queens Expressway, in November 2014. He was the school’s third principal since it opened a year earlier, and he said he found the school, with 224 students, out of control. Children behaved violently, he said, and teachers were overwhelmed and starting to feel hopeless.<br />
<br />
“If the school had been better managed from the start, then we could have done better by these students and probably could have kept more of them,” he said in an email. “However, it is also the case that for some of them, Success wasn’t the best place. Some of them needed an alternative setting with highly specialized services. And some parents just didn’t agree with our philosophy.” A <a href="http://www.primerus.com/lexington-ky-education-lawyer/fowler-bell-pllc-louisville-kentucky-ky.html">Louisville education lawyer</a> is reviewing the details of this case.<br />
<br />
Some of the parents whose children were on the “Got to Go” list acknowledged that they did not agree with how the school managed behavior. But several also said that both before and after the list was created, they thought school and network employees were trying to push them out.<br />
<br />
Folake Wimbish said her son, who has attention deficit hyperactivity disorder, was suspended 19 times last year, in first grade, and missed 26 days. Success said her son was intellectually gifted but struggled with behavior, “often hitting, kicking, biting and spitting at other children and adults.”<br />
<br />
In early December, while Ms. Wimbish was pushing the school to evaluate her son for special education services, she was called to a meeting in Lower Manhattan with the network’s assistant general counsel and its associate special education manager, Julie Freese. She said Ms. Freese told her that, because of his suspensions, her son was missing out on his education, and she needed to think about his well-being.<br />
<br />
“She said, ‘Why don’t you just put him in another school, because he’s suffering,’ ” Ms. Wimbish said.<br />
<br />
Ms. Wimbish withdrew her son at the end of the year, because with the suspensions and calls to pick him up, she said, “I started feeling like I was going to have a breakdown.” He now attends Public School 119 in Brooklyn, where Ms. Wimbish said he was very happy and had not been suspended once.<br />
<br />
Monique Jeffrey said her son, who was in kindergarten last year, was suspended so many times she “stopped counting.” In the middle of the year, Ms. Jeffrey said, the school’s education manager, Rebecca Fleischman, told her that her son had emotional and behavioral issues the school could not handle and that she should look for another school. Ms. Jeffrey withdrew him at the end of the year.<br />
<br />
Nicey Givens, the mother of another student on the list, said her son, also a kindergartner last year, was suspended many times, in some cases, the school told her, for fighting. Ms. Fleischman said in an email that a special education committee of the school district recommended that the boy be placed in a type of special education class the school did not offer in his grade. Ms. Givens recalled that Ms. Fleischman told her the school did not have the resources to serve her son and offered to help find him a placement in a regular public school. Her son now attends P.S. 287.<br />
<br />
Ms. Powell, the Success spokeswoman, said the charter network was deeply committed to serving special education students and it was prevented from offering more special education classes because the city had not granted it enough classrooms. “Helping some students find better placements is not wrong,” she added. An <a href="http://www.primerus.com/atlanta-ga-education-lawyer/krevolin-horst-llc-atlanta-georgia-ga.html">Atlanta education lawyer</a> provides professional legal counsel and extensive experience in many aspects of education law.<br />
<br />
Around the time the “Got to Go” list was created, Mr. Brown and the school’s dean spoke with the principal of another Success school in Brooklyn, and the dean shared with her colleagues some notes from that conversation. The notes were part of an email exchange shown to The Times by a former Success employee.<br />
<br />
The notes describe several suggestions for dealing with families who are “not on board” and discussed 911 calls.<br />
<br />
The notes also appear to allude to the possibility of getting one child on the “Got to Go” list classified as a 12:1:1 special education student. Those students are entitled to classrooms limited to 12 students, with one teacher and one aide, so Success Academy, which offers only five such classes in a network serving 11,000 students, might not be able to meet the needs of every 12:1:1 student.<br />
<br />
Ms. Fleischman, the education manager, warned her colleagues in a follow-up email that the goal should not have been put in an email and that, in any case, a 12:1:1 classification “does not guarantee a withdrawal.”<br />
<br />
Asked this month about that remark, she said that she was saying only that the parent of a 12:1:1 student would not be required to take the student out, and was not alluding to any effort to ensure the child would leave.<br />
<br />
<b>Mixed Messages</b><br />
<br />
Some of the parents whose children were on the list said that while some school employees were advising them to leave, others were sending reassuring messages.<br />
<br />
On Feb. 2, a teacher, Hannah Hodari, wrote an email to Ms. Jeffrey about her son’s progress in math. “I can totally tell you have been working with him, he was very enthusiastic today and his work and focus was much improved,” the teacher wrote.<br />
<br />
In June, after Ms. Jeffrey had decided to withdraw her son, Ms. Hodari urged her to reconsider, saying in an email that she would be “so excited” to see him return and “watch him be successful” in first grade.<br />
<br />
“However,” the teacher added, “I also understand where your concerns and doubts come from.”<br />
<br />
Ms. Powell, the spokeswoman, said: “We make tremendous efforts to keep all children. We do this because morally once a child enters our doors, they are ours, and we want them to succeed.”<br />
<br />
She also named three mothers of children on the “Got to Go” list who were still at the school, saying they would be able to describe the efforts that Success had made to keep their students there.<br />
<br />
One of those mothers, Aisha Cooper, said her son, now in second grade, had struggled with his behavior because he was easily distracted, had difficulty keeping his eyes on the teacher and would sometimes call out in class. She said he was suspended once in kindergarten for throwing a snow globe across the room, and she recalled his kindergarten teacher’s once suggesting that maybe Success was not a good fit for him.<br />
<br />
Ms. Cooper said she never felt as if the school wanted him gone. She said she liked the school so much that she was planning to send her daughter there for kindergarten next year.<br />
<br />
But when a reporter asked if she knew that her son had been included last year on the “Got to Go” list, Ms. Cooper said she did not.<br />
<br />
“I’m a little upset about that,” she said after a minute. “They could have let me know he was on a list that he ‘had to go.’ And I would have asked them why, because he’s not a bad child. He just talks too much sometimes.<br />
<br />
“He doesn’t hit kids, he doesn’t knock kids over, he doesn’t scream, he just talks too much. So I don’t understand why he’s on this list.”Blog Depothttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08310878002526034822noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8752307772639517304.post-36175155990422695232015-07-17T07:40:00.003-07:002015-07-17T07:41:11.816-07:00GROUP SUES 13 SCHOOL DISTRICTS FOR NOT USING TEST SCORES IN TEACHER EVALUATIONS<span style="color: #666666;">Original Story: latimes.com</span><br />
<br />
An education advocacy group sued 13 California school districts Thursday, claiming that they have ignored a state law requiring teachers’ performance evaluations to include student standardized test scores. An <a href="http://khlawfirm.com/html/atlanta-education-litigation-attorney-lawyer-atlanta-georgia.html">Atlanta education lawyer</a> is following this story closely.<br />
<br />
The lawsuit targets the largest school systems in the state that have barred such use of test results through collective-bargaining agreements with teachers unions. These contract provisions are illegal under state law, according to the complaint, which was filed in Contra Costa County.<br />
<br />
The litigation represents the latest effort by Students Matter, a Los Angeles-based group that has turned to California courts to make changes in education law that were otherwise blocked at the state and local levels. The organization was founded by tech entrepreneur David F. Welch to build on other attempts to limit teacher job protections and hold them more accountable for student achievement.<br />
<br />
Many states and school systems are using scores in instructors’ performance reviews in part because the Obama administration has offered them incentives, including grants and exemptions from some federal rules and penalties. The practice is among those favored by such influential organizations as the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation and typically opposed by teacher unions. An <a href="http://khlawfirm.com/html/atlanta-education-litigation-attorney-lawyer-atlanta-georgia.html">Atlanta education attorney</a> assists clients with board governance, bylaws, and business-related issues.<br />
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Students Matter scored a victory last year when a Superior Court judge in Los Angeles ruled that several teacher job protections were unconstitutional. That case, Vergara vs. California, was watched nationally and spawned similar litigation in New York. The California ruling is on hold pending appeals.<br />
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If that decision is upheld, teachers would lose the right to earn tenure, and layoffs would no longer be based on seniority. The process for firing instructors also would be streamlined. The Legislature could pass laws restoring some of these job protections in another form, but they would have to survive court scrutiny.<br />
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The goal of the new litigation is to compel change across California. The 13 districts serve about 250,000 students of more than 6 million in the state.<br />
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“School districts are not going to get away with bargaining away their ability to use test scores to evaluate teachers,” said attorney Joshua S. Lipshutz, who is working on behalf of Students Matter. “That’s a direct violation of state law.” A <a href="http://www.primerus.com/columbia-sc-education-lawyer/collins-lacy-pc-columbia-south-carolina-sc.html">Columbia education lawyer</a> represents clients with employment and faculty matters, student discipline, and compliance with Title IX, FERPA, HIPAA, the Clergy Act, and other regulatory regimes.<br />
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The plaintiffs are six California residents, including some parents and teachers, three of whom are participating anonymously.<br />
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The suit doesn’t ask the courts to determine how much weight test scores should be given in a performance review, Lipshutz said. He cited research, however, suggesting that test scores should account for 30% to 40% of an evaluation.<br />
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A union leader called the effort misguided.<br />
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“There’s growing evidence, a ton of research, that shows the kind of evaluation system they would like to see happen is a disaster for public education,” said Joshua Pechthalt, president of the California Federation of Teachers.<br />
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Over-reliance on test scores creates negative incentives that he said contributed to the exam cheating scandal in Atlanta and to “narrowing the curriculum” to material appearing on tests.<br />
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“It distorts what happens in the classroom for students and educators,” he said.<br />
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The case, Doe vs. Antioch, follows earlier litigation involving the Los Angeles Unified School District. In 2012, an L.A. Superior Court judge ruled that the school system had to include student test scores in teacher evaluations. But the judge also allowed wide latitude for negotiation between the union and the district.<br />
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That decision was based on the 1971 Stull Act, which set rules for teacher evaluations. Many districts had for decades failed to comply with it, experts say.<br />
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Advocates initially went after L.A. Unified because it is the largest school system in California. Under a court-imposed deadline, the union and district signed a pact that incorporated the use of test scores; but, later, disagreements arose. The two sides are currently in negotiations over a revised evaluation.<br />
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“All the evidence points to the fact that a majority are not” complying with the law, said Bill Lucia, president of Edvoice, the Sacramento-based organization behind the previous Stull Act lawsuit.<br />
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The districts being sued are: Antioch Unified, Chaffey Joint Union, Chino Valley Unified, El Monte City, Fairfield-Suisun Unified, Fremont Union, Inglewood Unified, Ontario-Montclair, Pittsburg Unified, Saddleback Valley Unified, San Ramon Valley Unified, Upland Unified and Victor Elementary.<br />
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Those districts approved labor deals that don’t allow the consideration of student achievement in evaluations, according to the complaint, which contains excerpts from collective-bargaining agreements. A <a href="http://www.primerus.com/portland-me-collective-bargaining-lawyer/bennett-law-firm-pa-the-maine-me.html">Portland collective bargaining lawyer</a> is reviewing the details of this case.<br />
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The contract for the Fremont district, for example, states that standardized tests “shall not be used in the performance evaluation of a unit member, unless by agreement.”<br />
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Pechthalt defended these pacts.<br />
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“These are districts where management and teachers have developed an evaluation system that works for them,” he said. “The Stull Act doesn’t prescribe in detail how an evaluation system should happen. There is some leeway.”<br />
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The issue has percolated in the state Legislature, which considered four bills this year affecting teacher performance reviews. The most contentious ones have been pushed into next year.<br />
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The California Department of Education was not named in the suit, but could become involved because Inglewood Unified is currently under state control as a condition of a financial bailout.<br />
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A spokeswoman said the department had not reviewed the suit and could not comment.Blog Depothttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08310878002526034822noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8752307772639517304.post-25983445669094588132015-03-13T08:46:00.001-07:002015-03-13T08:46:16.486-07:00A CHARTER SCHOOL RALLY DUELS WITH TEACHERS’ UNIONS IN ALBANY<span style="color: #666666;">Original Story: nytimes.com</span><br />
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ALBANY — With the political winds seemingly at its back, New York City’s charter school movement staged a splashy rally in Albany on Wednesday, with an enthusiastic mix of thousands of students, a raft of state leaders and a pinch-hitting pop star.<br />
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Organizers said the purpose of the event was to call attention to failing schools across the state. But implicitly they also came to offer themselves as an alternative to be developed, and to make their political muscle felt.<br />
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Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo, a Democrat, has asked the Legislature for a range of educational reforms, including one that would allow for an additional 100 charter schools, and another that could open the door for charter organizations to take over regular public schools. An <a href="http://khlawfirm.com/html/atlanta-charter-school-funding-governance-attorney-lawyer-atlanta-georgia.html">Atlanta charter school lawyer</a> has extensive experience in education law and charter school compliance issues.<br />
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“We are here to send a message,” said Kathy Hochul, the lieutenant governor, speaking from the Capitol’s snowy steps with a backdrop of supporters. “A message that failure is not an option.”<br />
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At the same time, supporters of teachers’ unions, who had also traveled to Albany in an armada of buses, gathered at a convention center adjacent to the Capitol. While their numbers were smaller than those supporting charter schools, and their mood less festive, the unions were targeted in their approach. Representatives of the United Federation of Teachers, the New York City union, met with lawmakers, including the heads of education committees from the Assembly and State Senate.<br />
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Teachers’ unions have fought the spread of charter schools, arguing that they take space and resources from regular public schools. Charter schools are privately run, publicly financed and usually not unionized. The unions are also contesting Mr. Cuomo’s proposal to tie teacher evaluations more closely to students’ standardized test scores, and have forcefully pushed back against him with billboards and television ads. An <a href="http://khlawfirm.com/html/atlanta-charter-school-funding-governance-attorney-lawyer-atlanta-georgia.html">Atlanta charter school lawyer</a> is following this story closely.<br />
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As the charter supporters’ rally brought out dance troupes and booming club music, Michael Mulgrew, the New York City union’s president, raised his voice to remind more than 1,000 parents and members in attendance at the convention center that it was their day to fight.<br />
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“It is your job today to take the passion and dedication that you bring each and every day into that classroom and bring them into the halls of the State Capitol,” Mr. Mulgrew said.<br />
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The far flashier of the dueling demonstrations was the charter event, held in a park just outside the Capitol, where video screens and banks of speakers created a rock-concert atmosphere, despite gray skies and thousands of out-of-school children milling on snow-covered lawns.<br />
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A large, boisterous crowd formed just before noon to hear a succession of politicians, including the Republican Senate majority leader, Dean G. Skelos, agree with the charters’ contention that public schools are in “crisis.” (This week, a group of Assembly Democrats sent a letter to their speaker, Carl E. Heastie, criticizing charter schools.)<br />
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Despite the tension between the two groups, there was less high-level drama this year than last. In March 2014, Mr. Cuomo delivered a passionate speech to a similar grouping of charter schools and their supporters, who had gathered in Albany to stave off New York City’s new mayor, Bill de Blasio, who had been critical of some charter schools.<br />
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For all the dire talk, charter schools are not fighting any immediate threats. But the governor’s proposals could help them grow, and some of the largest networks had impressive showings at the rally. KIPP, a large charter organization with schools around the country, recruited parents and graduates to attend. Achievement First, another big network, offered most of its Brooklyn students the chance to go to Albany if their parents came along.<br />
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At Success Academy, a powerful network founded by Eva S. Moskowitz, and a driving force behind the rally, schools were closed. Success held class on buses, and if parents did not want their children to make the trip north, they had to send them elsewhere for the day.<br />
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But many children seemed more than happy to make the trip, including two 9-year-old twins, Kelvin and Kianna Moore, from Williamsburg, Brooklyn, who had woken at dawn to ride to Albany with their mother, Marissa, who works as a security guard at Kennedy International Airport.<br />
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Kianna, who is in second grade at the Success Academy in Williamsburg, said she enjoyed science and recess at her school, and did not want either to be threatened. From under a red stocking cap, she said, “I want everybody to have a great school.”<br />
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Similar sentiments were also being heard at the unions’ event, where hundreds of teachers ate a light lunch before heading off to lobby their legislators. Andrew Silver, 52, a teacher at Public School 145 in Bushwick, Brooklyn, said that Mr. Cuomo was playing “the blame game” with teachers, rather than addressing the underlying problems with failing schools, including poverty, low parent involvement and a lack of resources.<br />
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“Students are not performing well because of issues in their communities,” said Mr. Silver, who teaches physical education and after-school programs. He added that weighting teacher evaluations more heavily on testing was unwise: “It’s insane. Its not pedagogically sound.”<br />
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While very well attended, the charter schools’ rally was not without hiccups: The singer Janelle Monáe had initially been set to perform for the crowd, but was scratched on Wednesday morning “due to scheduling difficulties,” organizers said.<br />
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But another popular singer, Ashanti, was able to step in to entertain. Jeremiah Kittredge, the chief executive of Families for Excellent Schools, the charter advocacy group that financed the entire event, would not comment on whether Ashanti was paid to be there.<br />
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Asked why she had chosen to come to Albany, the singer said she fondly remembered her own education — at Glen Cove High School, a public school — and seemed concerned about the next generation. “The kids,” she said, “are suffering the most.”Blog Depothttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08310878002526034822noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8752307772639517304.post-31053061962722131422014-12-29T09:14:00.000-08:002015-02-13T12:08:23.775-08:00COLLEGE SEES BENEFITS WITH LOAN REIMBURSEMENT PROMISE<span style="color: #666666;">Original Story: detroitnews.com</span><br />
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Adrian — When it came time to pick a college, Abby Slusher leaned toward a private school near her southeastern Michigan home for the small campus and class sizes. Her mother pushed Adrian College for another reason: A new program guaranteeing every graduate would make more than $37,000, or get some or all student loans reimbursed.<br />
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Adrian is among the first colleges to take out insurance policies on every incoming freshman and transfer student who has student loans and at least two years of school remaining.<br />
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"She (her mother) said, 'Look at me, I'm still trying to pay my student loans off — this would be great. I don't want you in this situation,' " said Slusher, 18, who is studying to become a social worker. "And seeing her in this situation, I don't want that."<br />
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The idea has been around for a few decades at Yale Law School and specific programs elsewhere such as seminary and social work degrees. Some small religious schools started offering guarantees to all new students in recent years, but Adrian President Jeffrey Docking is taking it further by framing the program as a solution to skyrocketing tuition costs and student loan defaults.<br />
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His crusade has gotten the attention of U.S. lawmakers and education officials.<br />
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"Obviously, we feel like this is a big solution to a big problem — maybe the biggest problem right now in higher education," Docking said. "We felt like we needed to make a grand statement."<br />
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Adrian paid roughly $575,000 this year, or $1,165 per student, to take out policies on 495 students. For those who graduate and get a job that pays less than $20,000 a year, the college will make full monthly student loan payments until they make $37,000 a year. With a job that pays $20,000 to $37,000, the college makes payments on a sliding scale.<br />
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There's no time limit for the payment plan, but the college caps total loan payments at $70,000 per student. Adrian's annual cost of tuition, room and board is about $40,000 before any forms of financial aid.<br />
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The school has 1,700 students.<br />
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Docking already sees benefits: The entering freshmen class is up about 50 students to 570; to break even, the school determined it needed about two-dozen new students who took out loans.<br />
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He credits the program in part for the enrollment increase but says other efforts, like launching a varsity bass fishing team, have served as a lure. <a href="http://www.ferris.edu/top-rated-best-colleges-and-universities-in-michigan.htm">Top Michigan colleges</a> offer degree programs that align directly with many occupations that are expected to experience growth.<br />
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About 35 miles northwest of Adrian, Spring Arbor University, a small Christian institution, offered a similar guarantee to every incoming freshman in fall 2013. A conversation with Spring Arbor's former president inspired Docking.<br />
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Although Spring Arbor officials see value in the program, they're likely to scale it back next year.<br />
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"For the vast majority of students, it's not a deciding factor in choosing Spring Arbor," said school spokesman Malachi Crane.<br />
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"Is there a way to better tailor it to students who really need it and have the desire to have that option? For us, it makes more fiscal sense not to automatically assign it to each and every student."<br />
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Both programs were made possible by the Loan Repayment Assistance Program Association, a Bloomington, Indiana-based organization that works with U.S. colleges and universities on creating loan repayment programs.<br />
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Peter Samuelson, the organization's president, said some schools "have ramped up, ramped back down and ramped back up again" with loan programs, but overall results are positive.<br />
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"There's much more likelihood they're going to complete college successfully," Samuelson said.<br />
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To get word out about the program, Docking met with other university presidents and testified last year before a U.S. House higher education subcommittee. Retiring U.S. Sen. Carl Levin, D-Mich., made a floor statement in June praising Adrian's program as a model for other colleges.<br />
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Docking said federal education officials told him at a meeting in August that they are exploring ways to promote the program.Blog Depothttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08310878002526034822noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8752307772639517304.post-8786606030492384812014-12-15T07:14:00.000-08:002014-12-15T07:14:02.912-08:00MSU PRESIDENT GETS RAISE, $100K BONUS<span style="color: #666666;">Original Story: freep.com</span><br />
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EAST LANSING – Michigan State University President Lou Anna K. Simon was given a $230,000 raise and $100,000 bonus today at the MSU Board of Trustees meeting.<br />
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Simon has declined to accept raises yearly since 2007, often putting the board in an awkward position, and donating the money back to the university. She has been president for 10 years and is the second longest serving chief executive among the 14 Big Ten presidents. An <a href="http://khlawfirm.com/html/atlanta-college-university-litigation-attorney-lawyer-atlanta-georgia.html">Atlanta University Lawyer</a> specializes in higher education finance and university charters.<br />
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"This has been an ongoing battle," said Joel Ferguson, chair of the university board of trustees with a smile. "But this time we are not going to apologize for compensating you for what you deserve. This is the one time we are going to ignore you."<br />
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The board increased Simon's salary from $520,000 to $750,000, and, gave her a $100,000 retention bonus.<br />
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That puts Simon in the top quartile of her Big Ten peers, according to Mitch Lyons, chair of the board's compensation committee.<br />
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"While we respect the wishes of our president we felt it was important to keep the compensation of the position competitive with our peers," Lyons said. "If and when Simon decides to retire, we want to make sure any new candidates would see that the position is compensated properly." A <a href="http://khlawfirm.com/html/atlanta-education-litigation-attorney-lawyer-atlanta-georgia.html">Georgia Education Lawyer</a> is experienced in assisting clients with board governance, bylaws, and business-related issues.<br />
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Simon said she respects the wishes of the board and understands the need to compensate the position.<br />
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"Even though I can't deny it formally today I still have plans to give it back," she said.<br />
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The compensation committee estimated that Simon and husband Roy have donated at least $1 million to MSU over the years.<br />
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Last year, for example, the board gave Simon a $125,000 bonus, which she donated back to MSU.<br />
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But Duncan Tarr, a junior that is an organizer of the student group MSU Students United, said the fact that Simon was given such a raise is shocking.<br />
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"At that same meeting there were some students from the MSU Sexual Assault Program that said they don't have enough counselors and funding to be able to operate effectively and yet the board gives our president a $230,000 raise," he said. An <a href="http://khlawfirm.com/html/atlanta-college-university-litigation-attorney-lawyer-atlanta-georgia.html">Atlanta College Lawyer</a> is following this story closely.<br />
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Faylene Owen, chair of the board's finance committee, said she is proud of Simon and what she has accomplished for the university.<br />
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"I am astonished and awestruck by this woman," Owen said. "She is amazing and I feel she was also very instrumental in getting the FRIB (Facility for Rare Isotope Beams) here at MSU."<br />
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Simon was also complimented for her service on various public entities. She is the chairperson of the executive committee of the NCAA, vice-chair of the Association of American Universities and chair of the National Security Higher Education Advisory Board among others.Board approves infrastructure, construction projects• MSU trustees approved a $9.5 million project that will provide infrastructure improvements to West Circle Drive. It is the fourth and final phase of a north campus project to replace the 100-year-old arch style steam tunnels.• Trustees authorized the planned construction of permanent restrooms for MSU's 4-H Children's Garden, a popular destination for area K-12 students.• Trustees approved plans to reconstruct the parking lot of the MSU Community Music School at 4930 South Hagadorn Road, which includes demolition of a house on the property. The demolition will provide more space for parking.Blog Depothttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08310878002526034822noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8752307772639517304.post-47561283973425218852014-12-15T07:01:00.002-08:002014-12-15T07:01:59.525-08:00UNIVERSITY TO OPEN CORRECTIONS OFFICERS TRAINING ACADEMY, ON CAMPUS, IN JANUARY 2014<span style="color: #666666;">Original Story: ferris.edu</span><br />
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Ferris State University’s <a href="http://www.ferris.edu/education/cj/">School of Criminal Justice</a> is in the final stages of designing a local Corrections Officers Training Academy that is slated to open in 2014.<br />
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In response to a recommendation by the Michigan Sheriff’s Association’s Training Council, the school plans to open a Corrections Officers Training Academy. Although Ferris will not be responsible for providing certification, the academy will allow two tracks for people interested in working in county jails.<br />
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“This academy experience will allow students to become eligible for certification by the Michigan Sheriff’s Association Training Council to become county jail corrections officers,” said Mischelle Stone, an associate professor in the School of Criminal Justice.<br />
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Students already enrolled in the <a href="http://www.ferris.edu/education/cj/">School of Criminal Justice</a> bachelor’s degree program, on the corrections track, can take “Applied Correctional Strategies” in January 2014, a class that will make them eligible for certification through the MSATC. This class is only open to students who have already completed all of the corrections classes as prerequisites.<br />
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The School of Criminal Justice already allows students to obtain certification to be state prison corrections officers. The course allows students to become eligible for certification as county jail corrections officers.<br />
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“This will open up job opportunities for students graduating from the School of Criminal Justice,” Stone said. “With more than 80 counties in Michigan, this opens students up to a wealth of new opportunities.”<br />
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Besides the offered course, Ferris will open a separate academy in Summer 2014. Consisting of 160 hours of training, the academy is expected to cost $1,200 per person and is open to anyone.<br />
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The academy will take place on the Big Rapids campus in the Southwest Commons and it was designed for sheriffs to be able to send their current, pre-serviced employees that are not certified to be county corrections officers.Blog Depothttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08310878002526034822noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8752307772639517304.post-73640990792047096982014-07-10T08:24:00.000-07:002014-07-10T08:28:37.612-07:00MICHIGAN SCHOOL CHIEF PROMISES TO GET TOUGH WITH CHARTER SCHOOL AUTHORIZERSOriginal Story: Freep.com<br />
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State school Superintendent Mike Flanagan announced Monday he is giving notice to Michigan’s charter school authorizers that he will exercise his “statutory authority” to prevent them from granting new charters if their performance overseeing the schools does not measure up.<br />
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Flanagan said a recent Free Press special report on charter schools led him to make the decision.<br />
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“This series of news articles has prompted me to think differently about whether to suspend an authorizer’s ability to open new charter schools,” Flanagan was quoted in a news release by the Michigan Department of Education. “It’s my authority in state law, and I will be using it.<br />
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“We are getting serious about quality choices for Michigan students. This is not just about getting academic results. It’s about total transparency and accountability.”<br />
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Flanagan’s office said he would not comment beyond the MDE news release, which contained several statements from him.<br />
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An eight-day Free Press series showed that MDE has never suspended an authorizer. Flanagan had said previously that the Legislature needs to provide specific guidelines for shutting down authorizers — the universities, community colleges and school districts that authorize and oversee charter schools’ performance.<br />
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The series, “State of Charter Schools,” found that Michigan charters receive nearly $1 billion per year in taxpayer money, often with little accountability or transparency on how those dollars are spent.<br />
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The series also reported that academic performance is mixed, and charter schools on average fare no better than traditional schools in educating students in poverty. Many poor-performing charter schools are allowed to continue operating for years by their authorizers.<br />
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The Michigan Association of Public School Academies, a professional organization for the state’s charter schools, said the move by Flanagan is good — and is proof Michigan already has tough oversight laws.<br />
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“He has had this authority for a number of years,” MAPSA President Dan Quisenberry said. “This statutory responsibility is part of Michigan’s strong system of charter school oversight, so it’s ironic that this announcement comes following a week of stories about how weak our state oversight is.<br />
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“We urge the state superintendent to base his decisions on academic performance and to work on oversight of all public schools. Charter schools have always been the most accountable of all public schools. What we need now is legislation that holds all public schools to this same level of accountability.”<br />
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MDE said that Flanagan has directed its staff “to establish rigorous principles that measure the transparency, academic and financial practices of the charter schools of each authorizer. The result of these measures will determine which authorizers would lose their chartering capabilities.”<br />
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In a statement, Flanagan also said: “There are many good charter schools in our state, which operate in the best interest of the students they serve and not to the best interest of the adults who run them. The news articles over the past several weeks have heightened attention to the issues that have shrouded charter schools with suspicion and contempt among some in the education community and the public — sometimes deserved, sometimes not.<br />
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“Let’s support what works and change what doesn’t.”<br />
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More than 140,000 students attend state-funded charter schools across Michigan, and in 2013-14 the state had 296 charters operating some 370 schools. In 61% of them, charter school boards have enlisted full-service, for-profit management companies — which contend that the taxpayer money they receive to run a school is private, not subject to public disclosure.<br />
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There are more than three dozen authorizers in Michigan. The largest in number of charters overseen are Central Michigan University with 64 and Grand Valley State University with 47.<br />
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Grand Valley spokeswoman Mary Eilleen Lyon said in an e-mail to the Free Press that the university has no problem with scrutiny:<br />
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“A report released by Supt. Mike Flanagan’s office last year showed that Grand Valley’s charter schools, as a whole, outperform all other authorizers using state tests as the assessment standard. Grand Valley has always acted in the best interest of the charter school students we serve. We believe in accountability ... and that our oversight procedures should be used as a model.”<br />
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Flanagan’s announcement drew praise from critics of the current system.<br />
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“It’s high time and it’s what we should be doing and should have been doing for some time,” said John Austin, president of the State Board of Education. “I welcome that.”<br />
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But Austin, who has been pushing for a stronger charter regulations, said a loophole in the law would need to be fixed. A suspended authorizer would still be able to maintain its existing charters. And nothing in state law would prevent those charters from expanding and opening new campuses.<br />
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Austin said it’s one of many legislative fixes that are needed in the charter law “to ensure transparency and to ensure clarity.”<br />
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The Michigan Council of Charter School Authorizers said it hopes to sit down soon with Flanagan to talk about the changes.<br />
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“Multiple Michigan authorizers have been recognized nationally as model authorizers,” Jared Burkhart said in a statement. “In fact, many of the recommendations mentioned by Superintendent Flanagan are already in state law or are based on best practices already in place in Michigan.”<br />
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Flanagan received a series of letters during the Free Press series from Greg Richmond, the president and CEO of the National Association of Charter School Authorizers. Richmond, who also sent letters to the governor’s office, urged that Michigan toughen its standards — especially in accountability and financial transparency.<br />
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“Our organization believes in accountability in education — for charter schools, traditional public schools, authorizers and school boards,” Richmond said. “No one should get a free pass. We all need to earn and maintain the public’s trust. A good accountability system for authorizers should have clear standards and a fair, transparent process.”<br />
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Flanagan said tougher standards are in authorizers’ best interests, too.<br />
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“All authorizers, especially the boards of trustees of the colleges and universities that authorize most of the charter schools, must pay better and closer attention to how their schools are operated,” Flanagan said. “The integrity of their institutions is at stake here, too.”Blog Depothttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08310878002526034822noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8752307772639517304.post-37501945147628231162014-06-13T09:27:00.001-07:002014-06-13T09:27:21.863-07:00COURT STRIKES BLOW TO TENUREOriginal Story; WSJ.com<br /><br />LOS ANGELES—A California judge declared the state's strong teacher-tenure laws unconstitutional in a rebuke that promises to spur similar challenges around the country.<br /><br />The student plaintiffs in the lawsuit against the state and two teachers unions successfully argued that statutes protecting teacher tenure, dismissal procedures and "last-in, first-out" layoff policies serve more often to keep ineffective instructors in the schools—hurting students' chances to succeed.<br /><br />In Tuesday's decision in Vergara v. California, Los Angeles County Superior Court Judge Rolf M. Treu cited the Supreme Court's 1954 Brown v. Board of Education "separate but equal" ruling, writing that the laws in this case "impose a real and appreciable impact on the students' fundamental right to equality of education."<br /><br />The unions in the case—the California Teachers Association and the California Federation of Teachers—said they planned to appeal the ruling. The laws at issue will remain in effect pending that appeal.<br /><br />The case seems certain to reverberate to other states. U.S. Education Secretary Arne Duncan called the ruling "a mandate" for lawmakers and education leaders to address "practices and systems that fail to identify and support our best teachers and match them with our neediest students."<br /><br />California has some of the strongest teacher-employment protections in the nation, and is one of only 10 states that require seniority be considered in layoff decisions. It also is one of five states where tenure can be earned within two years or less.<br /><br />The court found in Tuesday's decision that as a result of that policy, "teachers are being released who would not have been had more time been provided for the process"—hurting not only students, but also many younger teachers.<br /><br />The ruling also agreed with the plaintiffs' arguments that the poorest-quality teachers tend to end up in economically underprivileged schools and "impose a disproportionate burden on poor and minority students." Judge Treu, who was appointed by Republican Gov. Pete Wilson, found all five of the statutes challenged in the case to be unconstitutional.<br /><br />William Koski, a law professor at Stanford University, said the case will have "ripple effects" nationally. "We are going to see some litigation" in other states, he said, "and it's going to raise some pretty thorny issues about the role of courts and the judiciary in teacher employment policies and more specifically in education policies."<br /><br />Frank Wells, a spokesman for the California Teachers Association, said, "We don't believe the court is the place to be making these kinds of policy decisions," adding that the state legislature is currently working on ways to amend the laws in question.<br /><br />Marcellus McRae, a lawyer representing the student plaintiffs in the California case, called the ruling "an enormous validation and recognition of the fundamental constitutional right of all California students to equal educational opportunity," describing the case as "a catalyst for a discussion at the national level."<br /><br />Dave Welch, a Silicon Valley entrepreneur who funded the nonprofit advocacy group Students Matter, which brought the student plaintiffs together and filed the lawsuit, said after the ruling that it would be "within our realm to look at filing lawsuits in other states." Ted Olson, a U.S. solicitor general under President George W. Bush, leads the legal team.<br /><br />Mr. Welch said Students Matter will "work tirelessly ourselves, as well as with other organizations" to "continue to fight for kids' rights to get what they deserve—a good education—throughout the country."<br /><br />Research has pointed to teacher quality as the biggest in-school determinant for student performance. In recent years, many states have moved to simplify dismissal procedures for ineffective teachers and to encourage districts to consider teacher performance in layoff decisions rather than relying solely on seniority.<br /><br />Such efforts to overhaul dismissal procedures in California failed in the legislature, so students and their advocates took the case to court—a novel way to test the longstanding state policies and one that could now become a template for a broader push. The trial, which ran for more than 30 days, concluded in late March.<br /><br />"This is a huge deal," said Sandi Jacobs, a policy director for the National Council on Teacher Quality, a privately funded group that aims to change states' teacher-employment policies. "This has a huge ripple effect nationally in telling policy makers that policies that harm students can be challenged," said Ms. Jacobs, who testified on behalf of the plaintiffs in the case.<br /><br />Ms. Jacobs's group points to Florida, Indiana and Colorado as having what it considers to be best-practice policies where classroom performance is a "top criterion" to be considered in layoff decisions.<br /><br />Randi Weingarten, president of the American Federation of Teachers called it "a sad day for public education," saying the decision focused on a small number of bad teachers, and "strips the hundreds of thousands of teachers who are doing a good job to any right to a voice."<br /><br />California school districts employ roughly 280,000 full-time equivalent teachers, and the average annual teacher's salary is just under $70,000. One in eight public-school students in the nation attend California public schools.<br /><br />James Ryan, dean of Harvard University's graduate school of education, said the verdict "will likely cause lawyers in other states to think about bringing similar suits." But he pointed out that the decision explicitly called on the state Legislature to fix the unconstitutional statues at issue. As a result, there will likely be "back-and-forth" between the Legislature and courts for many years to come.<br /><br />"This has a long way before it's over in California and it hasn't even started yet in other states," Mr. Ryan said.Blog Depothttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08310878002526034822noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8752307772639517304.post-12396604157128189932013-06-18T08:07:00.001-07:002013-06-18T08:07:37.227-07:00Michigan teens will face job shortages<i><span style="color: #999999;">Story Originally Appeared on The Detroit News </span></i><br />
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<br />
Michigan parents, prepare yourselves: With a 22.9 percent teen unemployment rate heading into the summer of 2013, your jobless kids might be making frequent withdrawals from the Bank of Mom &amp; Dad for their vacation spending cash.<br />
<br />
There are a number of factors at work: More competition from older jobseekers, for instance, has put young and inexperienced applicants at a competitive disadvantage. But also at fault are a series of ill-conceived minimum wage mandates at the state and federal level, which raised the cost to hire and train the teens who fill those jobs.<br />
<br />
Those same teens can only hope that President Obama and Congress won't make it worse by following through on another proposed increase.<br />
<br />
Nationally, teen unemployment has been above 20 percent every summer since 2009. That's four straight summers — soon to be five — of record teen unemployment. And tellingly, they've all occurred during or since the 40 percent hike in the federal minimum wage between 2007 and 2009.<br />
<br />
The timing is more than just coincidence. Writing in 2010, economists at Miami and Trinity Universities estimated that — even accounting for the effects of the recession — at least 114,000 young adults lost job opportunities as a direct result of the federal wage hike. (Other economists have put that figure above 300,000.)<br />
<br />
Percentage-wise, this came out to a 6.9 percent drop in teen employment in the states affected by all three stages of the federal wage hike. For those teens with less than 12 years of schooling, the relative drop in employment was even higher at 12.4 percent.<br />
<br />
One need only look at the businesses where teens are employed to understand why. Nearly 40 percent of the nation's employed teens work in the leisure and hospitality industry (think restaurants, movie theaters, and hotels), while another 25 percent work in retail jobs at grocery stores, service stations and the like.<br />
<br />
These types of businesses aren't exactly rolling in the dough. Their profit margins are generally 2 or 3 cents on every sales dollar. Sudden spikes in labor costs — like a 40 percent jump in the minimum wage in two years — leave these businesses with two options: Raise prices, or reduce costs.<br />
<br />
When raising prices isn't an option — good luck with that in a rough economy — the only other option is to provide the same product with less service. This might mean having waiters or waitresses bus their own tables, or opting for a self-service alternative to young grocery baggers.<br />
<br />
The data bears this trend out: Teens' share of employment in the leisure and hospitality industry dropped by over 20 percent between 200 and 2011. In retail, it's fallen by nearly 30 percent over that period.<br />
<br />
This makes it all the more baffling that wage hike advocates in Congress, seeking to fulfill the president's State of the Union call for higher rates would raise the minimum wage by another 40 percent to $10.10.<br />
<br />
This may be good politics, but it's certainly not good policy. Teens — whether in Michigan or anywhere else — start climbing the employment ladder through their first summer jobs. Further minimum wage hikes only postpone their ability to get these jobs, which research shows hurts their future earnings, employability, and professional development.<br />
<br />
That might not seem pressing to the teens who will just lie on the beach or lounge on the couch for the next three months. But it is much more concerning for their parents, who want nothing more than a good future for their kids — and maybe even some peace and quiet between now and September.<br />
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Michael Saltsman is the research director at the Employment Policies Institute.Blog Depothttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08310878002526034822noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8752307772639517304.post-6956549942579367222013-06-18T07:17:00.002-07:002013-06-18T07:17:41.351-07:00Bankers: College debt bubble mimics housing bubble<i><span style="color: #999999;">Story Appeared On USA TODAY</span></i><br />
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A group of bankers have just dumped two more problems on the Federal Reserve's plate.<br />
The
Federal Advisory Council, made up of 12 bankers who meet quarterly to
advise the central bank, warned that farmland prices are inflating "a
bubble" and growth in student-loan debt has "parallels to the housing
crisis," which was the primary cause of the Great Recession in the U.S.<br />
<br />
Their
alarm comes at a time when financial heavyweights on the Federal Open
Market Committee, the Federal Reserve's policy-making arm, are debating
whether the benefits created by their monthly purchases of $85 billion
in bonds outweigh the risk of financial instability. <br />
<br />
Fed Chairman
Ben Bernanke has argued time and again that the program is essential to
the economic recovery, but others are less convinced. Fed Governor
Jeremy Stein and Kansas City Fed President Esther George have raised
concerns the extended period of low interest rates is increasing the
risk of asset bubbles.<br />
"Agricultural land prices are veering
further from what makes sense," noted the minutes of the FAC's Feb. 8
gathering, according to documents obtained by Bloomberg news service
through Freedom of Information Act requests. "Members believe the run-up
in agriculture land prices is a bubble resulting from persistently low
interest rates."<br />
<br />
As for student loans, recent growth has pushed
debt levels to nearly $1 trillion, meaning it "now exceeds credit-card
outstandings and has parallels to the housing crisis," the council said
after its Feb. 3, 2012, meeting. The bankers told the FOMC that student
lending exhibited characteristics similar to those seen in the housing
crisis, including "significant growth of subsidized lending in pursuit
of a social good" — in this case, higher education rather than expanded
home ownership.<br />
<br />
Just as the mortgage lending boom pushed home
prices upward, student loan lending has put upward pressure on tuition.
The bankers said both examples showed a "lack of underwriting
discipline." <br />
Bernanke has dismissed parallels between student
lending and the subprime mortgage crisis. "I don't think it's a
financial stability issue to the same extent that, say, mortgage debt
was in the last crisis because most of it is held not by financial
institutions but by the federal government," Bernanke told a Bloomberg
reporter on Aug. 7. <br />
<br />
After the Fed first lowered its target
interest rate to near zero in December 2008, the central bank promised
to keep it at that level until the unemployment rate — currently at
7.5%, drops to 6.5% or the annual inflation rate rises above 2%. The Fed
has also launched three rounds of bond purchases, called quantitative
easing, which have pushed its balance sheet to a record $3.3 trillion as
of May 1.<br />
<br />
The QE spending's impact on farmland prices is being
documented by regional Fed banks, particularly across the Midwest's corn
belt. The Chicago Fed said the value of irrigated cropland in its
district rose 16% in 2012, while the Kansas City Fed reported a 30% jump
in the same period.<br />
<br />
"Investors who are seeking a positive return
on their funds have shied away from bond markets," the council said,
according to a Bloomberg story. Instead, they opted for real estate "as
both a hedge against inflation and a means of achieving better than the
negative real return associated with fixed-income securities." <br />
Increases
in land prices have continued even as commodity prices have weakened.
Since hitting a record high in March 2011, the S&P GSCI agriculture
index, a broad measure of price pressures on commodities, has fallen
25%.<br />
<br />
The FAC said it supports the central bank's monetary policy
at their February meeting, noting that the recoveries in the housing and
auto sectors have been "especially encouraging." <br />
<br />
Yet, there have
been "collateral consequences" of the current policy; the low-interest
environment has pushed "many to seek higher returns by accepting greater
interest rate or credit risk," the FAC's minutes said. "As the period
of low rates is extended, these pressures have increased."Blog Depothttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08310878002526034822noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8752307772639517304.post-32533222526732547472013-05-29T09:09:00.001-07:002013-05-29T09:09:20.442-07:00Downward mobility haunts US education<span style="color: #999999;"><i>Story originally appeared on BBC News. </i></span><br />
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An integral part of the American Dream is under threat - as "downward mobility" haunts the education system in the United States.<br /><br />The idea of going to college - and the expectation that the next generation will be better educated and more prosperous than its predecessor - has been hardwired into the ambitions of the middle classes in the United States.<br /><br />But there are deep-seated worries about whether this upward mobility is going into reverse.<br /><br />Andreas Schleicher, special adviser on education at the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD), says the US is now the only major economy in the world where the younger generation is not going to be better educated than the older.<br /><br />"It's something of great significance because much of today's economic power of the United States rests on a very high degree of adult skills - and that is now at risk," says Mr Schleicher.<br /><br />"These skills are the engine of the US economy and the engine is stuttering," says Mr Schleicher, one of the world's most influential experts on international education comparisons.<br /><b><br />Lack of opportunity</b><br />
<br />The annual OECD education statistics show that only about one in five young adults in the US reaches a higher level of education than their parents - among the lowest rates of upward mobility in the developed world.<br /><br />For a country whose self-image is based on optimism and opportunity, the US is now a country where someone with poorly-educated parents is less likely to reach university than in almost any other industrial country.<br /><br />It's the opposite of a Hollywood ending.<br /><br />And about one in five young adults in the US are now defined in educational terms as "downwardly mobile" - such as children who have graduate parents but who don't reach university level themselves.<br /><br />When the global story of higher education is so much about rapid expansion and the race to increase graduates, it's almost counter-intuitive to find a powerhouse such as the United States on the brink of going backwards.<br /><br />It's easy to overlook the dominance of US higher education in the post-war era - or how closely this was linked to its role as an economic, scientific and military superpower.<br /><br />The US had the first great mass participation university system. The GI Bill, which provided subsidies for a generation of World War II veterans, supported three times as many people as are currently in the entire UK university sector.<br /><br />An American born in the 1950s was about twice as likely to become a graduate as someone born in the rest of the industrialised world.<br /><br />As the cars ran off the production lines in Detroit, rising numbers of graduates were leaving universities to become part of an expanding middle class.<br /><br /><b>Overtaken</b><br />
<br />But the US university system is no longer the only skyscraper on the block. It's been overtaken by rivals in Asia and Europe.<br /><br />Today's young Americans have a below-average chance of becoming a graduate, compared with other industrialised economies.<br /><br />The US Education Secretary Arne Duncan, in a speech a few weeks ago, asked how the US had in "the space of a generation" tumbled from first place to 14th in graduation rates.<br /><br />So what's gone wrong?<br /><br />The spiralling cost of higher education in the United States is often cited as a barrier - and the collective student debt has exceeded a trillion dollars.<br /><br />But Andreas Schleicher argues that a deeper problem is rooted in the inequalities of the school system.<br /><br />He says that the level of social segregation and the excessive link between home background and success in school is "cutting off the supply" between secondary school and university.<br /><br />The meritocratic, migrant energy in US culture is no longer operating in the school system.<br /><br />"If you lose the confidence in the idea that effort and investment in education can change life chances, it's a really serious issue," says Mr Schleicher.<br /><br /><b>Middle-class squeeze</b><br /><br />A US Senate committee examined this sense of imperilled optimism, in a hearing called Helping More Young People Achieve the American Dream.<br /><br />The economist Miles Corak was among the expert witnesses - and he says the US education system reflects a wider picture of the "hollowing out" of the middle class.<br /><br />"What you're seeing is the inequality of the labour market being echoed in education."<br /><br />Prof Corak describes a polarising jobs market, with the very rich and very poor diverging - and a collapse in jobs in the middle ground, such as clerical or manufacturing jobs.<br /><br />For such families, sending their children to college had once been a "defining metaphor for the country".<br /><br />But it seems that the education system is no longer holding the door open to the brightest and the best, regardless of background.<br /><br />The Philadelphia-based Pew research group compared the outcomes of young people in 10 western countries, in a project called Does America Promote Mobility as Well as Other Countries?<br /><br />It found the US had the strongest link between family wealth and educational success - and the lowest mobility. Advantage and disadvantage were being further amplified in education.<br /><br />Research manager Diana Elliott says in the US "income has a pervasive hold on mobility".<br /><b><br />Insecurity</b><br />
<br />Another study by Pew, against the backdrop of recession, examined the phenomenon of downward mobility and found that a third of adults classified as middle class would slip out of that status during their adult life.<br /><br />It reflected a modern sense of insecurity, where families could no longer assume their children would be as prosperous. In fact, about a quarter of children born into the middle class were expected to slip downwards.<br /><br />None of this matches the image of the US as a place for fresh starts and self-made millionaires. Modern American history almost assumes an upward incline.<br /><br />But evidence of this downward drift has been gathering in recent years. A study by the University of California, Berkeley, showed that school leavers in California in 1970 were more likely to stay on to higher education than their counterparts in 2000.<br /><br />In terms of international education, that's like finding out that athletes were running faster 40 years ago.<br /><br />Such current difficulties should not be mistaken for any kind of end-of-empire zeitgeist, says Philip Altbach, director of the Center for International Higher Education at Boston College.<br /><br />Instead he says it's a more practical question of money. The rising cost of higher education is a deterrent. And there is a wider question of finance for higher education at state level.<br /><br />He also says there is another "dirty little secret" of US higher education - that too many people who enrol at university fail to graduate - which pushes down the graduation rate in international comparisons.<br /><br /><b>Bouncing back</b><br />
<br />Andreas Schleicher also says there are reasons for optimism. Almost more than any other country, he says the US has the financial resources, the capacity and the flexibility to change course quickly and to catch up.<br /><br />There are already plans to recover lost ground. President Barack Obama has been re-elected with a promise that the US will regain its global first place in graduation rates by 2020.<br /><br />And as part of this drive, the American Association of Community Colleges, in a project called Reclaiming the American Dream, has an ambitious plan to create five million more college places.<br /><br />But it's an aspiration against a gloomy background.<br /><br />"The American dream has stalled," the association's report says, describing a society where typical family incomes having been falling for more than a decade.<br /><br />"A child born poor in the United States today is more likely to remain poor than at any time in our history. Many other nations now outperform us in educational attainment and economic mobility, and the American middle class shrinks before our eyes."<br /><br />It's as if It's A Wonderful Life had been remade - without the happy ending.Blog Depothttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08310878002526034822noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8752307772639517304.post-43994350174072844472013-05-29T09:07:00.001-07:002013-05-29T09:07:35.323-07:00Jimmy Wales: Boring university lectures 'are doomed'<span style="color: #999999;"><i>Story originally appeared on BBC News. </i></span><br />
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The boring university lecture is going to be the first major casualty of the rise in online learning in higher education, says Wikipedia founder Jimmy Wales.<br /><br />The custodian of the world's biggest online encyclopaedia says that unless universities respond to the rising tide of online courses new major players will emerge to displace them, in the way that Microsoft arrived from nowhere alongside the personal computer.<br /><br />"I think that the impact is going to be massive and transformative," says Mr Wales, describing the importance of the MOOCs (massive open online courses) that have signed up millions of students.<br /><br />"It's also been slower than anyone would have anticipated. But I'm not a person who thinks that people will be able to just go online and get a complete education without the guidance of the teacher. That sort of simplistic model shouldn't be our framework."<br /><br />Instead he thinks that universities need to use online technology where it really works.<br /><br />And from his own experience as a student, the traditional university lecture should have been condemned decades ago and replaced with an online video recording that can be stopped and started.<br /><br /><b>Recorded lectures</b><br />
<br />"I was taking an advanced calculus class and my instructor was reputed to be a fabulous researcher, but he barely spoke English. He was a very boring and bad teacher and I was absolutely lost and in despair.<br /><br />"So I went to the campus tutoring centre and they had Betamax tapes of a professor who had won teaching awards. Basically I sat with those tapes and took class there. But I still had to go to the other one and sat there and wanted to kill myself.<br /><br />"I thought at that time, in the future, why wouldn't you have the most entertaining professor, the one with the proven track record of getting knowledge into people's heads?<br /><br />"We're still not quite there. In university you're still likely to be in a large lecture hall with a very boring professor, and everyone knows it's not working very well. It's not even the best use of that professor's time or the audience."<br /><br />Online courses provide such libraries of video lectures, supplemented with interactive information, that can be used at any time on a tablet computer or laptop.<br /><br />And Mr Wales suggests the future model of higher education will be to allow students to use recordings of lectures - and to use the teaching time to discuss and develop what students have been watching.<br /><br />"It seems much more effective and is the direction I think we're going to go."<br /><br />Wikipedia itself is central to this changing landscape in which huge amounts of high-quality information are available free anywhere with an internet connection.<br /><br />The sheer scale of the information and the volume of its consumption has no parallel in history. Wikipedia's latest internet traffic is running at more than 21 billion page impressions per month.<br /><br />But he says it remains uncertain whether universities will be ready to change. "There's a certain inertia in the system."<br /><br /><b>Adapt or die</b><br />
<br />"The really interesting challenge for big-brand universities is whether they are going to move into that space. If we thought of universities as normal businesses we would say, 'Will they be able to adapt to the PC revolution?' It's that kind of question. Will Harvard or MIT, Oxford or Cambridge, be able to adapt? Or will Microsoft come out of nowhere?<br /><br />"It's going to be really fascinating to see it unfold."<br /><br />In terms of technology in education, he says we should look at how it's being driven by interest in home schooling.<br /><br />"In the US, for younger children, the home schooling movement is huge.<br /><br />"There are a load of online educational resources, they're booming. Parents are looking for the best education for their kids, they realise these tools are working. There's a marketplace for it long before the traditional school is going to think about it."<br /><br />Mr Wales himself grew up in a small private school run by his mother and grandmother in Alabama. There were four other children in his grade.<br /><br />"It was like a one-room schoolhouse, the kind of place Abe Lincoln went to school," he says.<br /><br />"Education was our life, something incredibly valued by my family."<br /><br /><b>Developing world</b><br />
<br />An important part of Wikipedia's future focus, he says, is going to reach the modern world's version of isolated school houses in the developing world.<br /><br />In wealthier countries there might be the luxury of a debate about whether Wikipedia is better or worse than printed encyclopaedias. But Mr Wales wants to support languages in Africa where there have never been encyclopaedias in the first place.<br /><br />Wikipedia operates in 286 different languages, but the content is very unevenly spread. There are more than 4 million articles in English, while Xhosa, spoken by almost 8 million people in South Africa, only has 147 articles.<br /><br />"Our role in languages of the developing world is quite different from our role in English.<br /><br />"We've still got a long way to go. I'd say we've increasingly turned our focus to the languages of the developing world. It's really of great importance. Our goal is a free encyclopaedia for everyone in their own language."<br /><br />He rejects the idea that Wikipedia's instant knowledge represents some kind of dumbing down. It has long been accused of being the hidden hand in countless school and university assignments.<br /><br />But Mr Wales says it plays a vital democratic role in allowing ordinary people to become informed in a way that would never have been possible before.<br /><br />If there is a story in the news, people can find out the background for themselves. "We can see it in our traffic. There's a massive spike.<br /><br />"In some rose-coloured view of the past we all went home and read books about it. The truth is that we didn't.<br /><br />"It's remarkable that people now have the opportunity. It's not a Utopian state, but people have the possibility to do their own research."<br /><br /><b>Pub quiz</b><br />
<br />Mr Wales also defends what Wikipedia represents for free speech in countries with censorship and a lack of human rights.<br /><br />"The impact of the knowledge we bring is important, but what is much more deeply political is the concept of Wikipedia, that ordinary people should be able to participate in the grand human dialogue.<br /><br />"It's a very subversive idea in a society that is top-down and 'do as your masters tell you,'" he says.<br /><br />The online encyclopaedia is now 12 years old, launched in the same month as iTunes and when Greece adopted the euro. It has grown to 26 million articles and has more than 500 million individual users a month.<br /><br />Wikipedia's next development will be to make it easier for a wider variety of people to write and edit articles, with an editing tool that is more user-friendly.<br /><br />"For people who aren't computer geeks, it's intimidating. The user base of active editors tend to be computer-savvy. We want to diversify, so they can be geeks but not computer geeks."<br /><br />Of course, there's still a big unanswered question. How would the king of Wikipedia get on in a pub quiz? Would he have to illicitly check his smartphone under the table?<br /><br />"I've declined to go on a TV quiz show. There's no upside for me. Unless I get every single question right I'm going to be subject to mockery. Because I'm meant to be the encyclopaedia guy."Blog Depothttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08310878002526034822noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8752307772639517304.post-82992329732745208542013-05-29T09:05:00.004-07:002013-05-29T09:05:52.893-07:00Lack of sleep blights pupils' education<span style="color: #999999;"><i>Story originally appeared on BBC News. </i></span><br />
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Sleep deprivation is a significant hidden factor in lowering the achievement of school pupils, according to researchers carrying out international education tests.<br /><br />It is a particular problem in more affluent countries, with sleep experts linking it to the use of mobile phones and computers in bedrooms late at night.<br /><br />Sleep deprivation is such a serious disruption that lessons have to be pitched at a lower level to accommodate sleep-starved learners, the study found.<br /><br />The international comparison, carried out by Boston College, found the United States to have the highest number of sleep-deprived students, with 73% of 9 and 10-year-olds and 80% of 13 and 14-year-olds identified by their teachers as being adversely affected.<br /><br />In literacy tests there were 76% of 9 and 10-year-olds lacking sleep.<br /><br />This was much higher than the international average of 47% of primary pupils needing more sleep and 57% among the secondary age group.<br /><br /><b>Achievement gap</b><br />
<br />Other countries with the most sleep-deprived youngsters were New Zealand, Saudi Arabia, Australia, England, Ireland and France. High-performing Finland is also among the most lacking in sleep.<br /><br />Countries with the best records for getting enough sleep include Azerbaijan, Kazakhstan, Portugal, the Czech Republic, Japan and Malta.<br /><br />The analysis was part of the huge data-gathering process for global education rankings - the Trends in International Mathematics and Science Study (TIMSS) and Progress in International Reading Literacy Study (PIRLS).<br /><br />The rankings of results for maths, science and reading were published at the end of last year, with Asian education systems dominating the top of the tables.<br /><br />But the researchers also wanted to find out more about the influence of home life. There has been much analysis of the impact of family wealth and poverty, but the Boston College researchers also wanted to measure factors such as sleep and nutrition.<br /><br />So the tests were accompanied by questionnaires for teachers, pupils and parents about sleep patterns. And this information was compared with pupils' test results, so that the performance in maths, science and literacy could be compared with levels of sleep.<br /><br /><b>Brain food</b><br />
<br />"I think we underestimate the impact of sleep. Our data show that across countries internationally, on average, children who have more sleep achieve higher in maths, science and reading. That is exactly what our data show," says Chad Minnich, of the TIMSS and PIRLS International Study Center.<br /><br />"It's the same link for children who are lacking basic nutrition," says Mr Minnich, based at the Lynch School of Education, Boston College.<br /><br />"If you are unable to concentrate, to attend mentally, you are unable to achieve at your optimal level, because your mind and body are in need of something more basic.<br /><br />"Sleep is a fundamental need for all children. If teachers report such large proportions of children suffering from lack of sleep, it's having a significant impact.<br /><br />"But worse than that, teachers are having to modify their instruction based on those children who are suffering from a lack of sleep.<br /><br />"The children who are suffering from a lack of sleep are driving down instruction."<br /><br />That means that even the children who are getting enough sleep are still suffering from this sleep-related dumbing-down.<br /><br /><b>Cramming school</b><br /><br />
The researchers uncovered regional trends that bucked expectations.<br /><br />Asian countries are the highest-performing in maths tests - and Mr Minnich says this has often been associated with long hours and cramming in after-school classes.<br /><br />"One would assume that they would be extremely tired," he said. "And yet when we look at the sleep factor for them, they don't necessarily seem to be suffering from as much sleep deprivation as the other countries."<br /><br />Getting a good night's sleep isn't going to transform an underperforming country into an education superpower. For instance, the least sleepy pupils seem to be in Azerbaijan, but they are still considerably behind the most sleep-deprived pupils in Finland.<br /><br />But researchers say that it does show how differently individual pupils might be placed on the ability spectrum, with lack of sleep representing the difference between being high-performing and average.<br /><br />There are also big changes as pupils get older. Younger pupils in South Korea have among the lowest levels of sleep deprivation in the world, but in secondary school they have some of the worst problems.<br /><br />There are differences within countries too. At the level of US states, among secondary pupils Colorado has a much worse problem with lack of sleep than Massachusetts.<br /><br />What the study does not show is why young people are missing out on sleep - or why more technologically advanced countries seem to have the biggest difficulties.<br /><br />But sleep experts point to a particular problem due to technology in children's bedroom - specifically the use of screens on smartphones or laptops late at night.<br /><br />Serious barrier to learning<br />It isn't only that young people are kept awake by messaging their friends or using the internet. The light from the screen, held close to the face, is physically disruptive to the natural onset of sleep.<br /><br />"Having a computer screen that is eight inches away from your face is going to expose you to a lot more light than watching a television on the opposite side of the room," says Karrie Fitzpatrick, sleep researcher at Northwestern University in Illinois.<br /><br />"It's going to tell your brain to stay awake," says Dr Fitzpatrick.<br /><br />"That light can reset the whole circadian rhythm system and say, 'Wait a minute, it's not time to go to bed'."<br /><br />Lack of sleep is also a serious physical barrier to learning.<br /><br />"Sleepiness is a problem at all stages that are relevant to learning, memory and academic performance," says Derk-Jan Dijk, director of the Sleep Research Centre at the University of Surrey.<br /><br />Research into sleep disorders and brain function has shown the importance of sleep in memory and consolidating information.<br /><br />Without sleep, the brain struggles to absorb and retain ideas.<br /><br />"There is a growing interest in the associations between adequate sleep and academic performance," says Prof Dijk.<br /><b><br />'Loss can be reversed'</b><br />
<br />Dr Fitzpatrick says lack of sleep is going to leave pupils more emotionally volatile, more potentially disruptive and physically struggling to learn.<br /><br />And she says that the loss of sleep and short-term attempts to catch up can cause further and complex disruptions to the way the brain tries to store information.<br /><br />But there is good news. If you start getting enough sleep on a regular basis, the loss to learning can be reversed.<br /><br />"As long you haven't gone into extreme sleep deprivation, if you go back to seven to nine hours per night, as long as there has been no permanent damage, you can probably restore the functionality of accumulating, processing and being able to recall memories," says Dr Fitzpatrick.<br /><br />"The basis of learning will likely be restored to normal levels."<br /><br />Otherwise trying to study without sleep is going to be tough. "Your brain is running on empty."Blog Depothttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08310878002526034822noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8752307772639517304.post-5305197353117492382013-04-25T06:18:00.002-07:002013-04-25T06:18:51.669-07:00Student debt worries? Options for paying it off<br />
<span style="color: #999999;"><i>Story originally appeared on USA Today.</i></span><br />
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Opening up the mailbox to find those long-awaited college acceptance letters is one of the high points for high school seniors. Incurring student loan debt, however, is the reality for millions of these young students who need a way to finance their education.<br />
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According to a TransUnion study, student loan balances increased a whopping 75% from 2007 to 2012. The average debt per borrower increased by 30% to $23,829.<br />
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There is some good news, however, for those who have taken out federal student loans. The interest rates on those loans are lower than private loan interest rates.Borrowers also have more legal rights with federal loans than they do with private loans. Here are some important rights to be aware of:<br />
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1. <b>The Right to Defer Payment.</b> Say you're in graduate school or the military. You can defer loan payments until you are out. You can also defer payments through a hardship deferment if, for example, you are sick and unable to work.<br />
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2. <b>The Right to Pay Based on What You Earn.</b> One such program is the "pay as you earn" plan that puts the monthly payment at 10% of your discretionary income based on your income and family size.<br />
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3. <b>The Right to Loan Forgiveness.</b> For those who work in areas such as early childhood education, law enforcement, public health, emergency management, the military or government positions, they may be eligible to have their student loan balances forgiven … if they've made 120 payments under the Public Service Loan Forgiveness Program.<br />
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4. <b>The Right to Change the Payment Schedule.</b> For those graduates making less than they thought upon graduation, they can elect to change their payment schedule from the standard schedule of 10 years to an extended repayment plan of up to 25 years. Doing so will, of course, decrease the monthly payment, but increase the overall interest paid on the loan.<br />
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Perhaps one of the best ways for today's students to manage their money wisely is through personal finance classes in high school. Such classes provide students with critical guidance on finances and areas such as how to handle all those tempting credit card offers. Yet, according to research from the Council for Economic Education, just 22 states required a high school course in economics in 2011, and only 14 states required that a course in personal finance be offered.<br />
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By educating themselves on their student loan rights and responsibilities, borrowers can find themselves on more solid financial footing after graduation.<br />
Blog Depothttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08310878002526034822noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8752307772639517304.post-23393463777854471382013-04-25T06:12:00.001-07:002013-04-25T06:12:05.954-07:00Ex-CIA chief David Petraeus to be N.Y. college professor<br />
<span style="color: #999999;"><i>Story originally appeared on USA Today.</i></span><br />
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NEW YORK (AP) — Ex-CIA director David Petraeus is replacing one kind of intelligence work with another.<br />
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Macaulay Honors College at City University of New York said Tuesday the retired four-star general has been named a visiting professor for public policy. He starts Aug. 1.<br />
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Petraeus has a doctorate from Princeton University and has written widely on international relations, military strategy and tactics and national security issues.<br />
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He says in a statement released by Macaulay that he's pleased to teach at the college, where most students are children of immigrants. He says he looks forward to leading a seminar on the global economic slowdown.<br />
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Petraeus was a hero of the Iraq and Afghanistan wars. He left the CIA in scandal last November after it was uncovered he'd had an affair with his biographer.<br />
Blog Depothttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08310878002526034822noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8752307772639517304.post-50419479539703522552013-04-25T06:09:00.001-07:002013-04-25T06:10:19.488-07:00Lawrence teachers file labor complaint against state receiver<br />
<span style="color: #999999;"><i>Story originally appeared on the Boston Globe.</i></span><br />
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The teachers union in Lawrence has filed two labor complaints against the state-run city schools, contending that receiver Jeffrey Riley is violating Massachusetts law by refusing to negotiate the terms of a new contract.<br />
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The state took control of the struggling public school system in 2012 and plans to implement wholesale reforms starting with the next school year, including a new performance-based salary structure and extended school days.<br />
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Education officials say that under the state’s 2010 education reform bill, Riley is authorized to make the changes outside collective bargaining. But Frank McLaughlin, president of the Lawrence Teachers Union, said Riley and the state are overstepping their bounds.<br />
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“The receiver is giving himself absolute power to make all decisions regarding the state of education in Lawrence, power the law does not grant him,” said McLaughlin.<br />
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The takeover followed years of poor academic performance and marked the first time the state had assumed full control over a local school district. Under the 2010 law, the education commissioner can alter contract provisions to “maximize the rapid academic achievement of students,” giving the receiver far more authority than superintendents.<br />
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Mitchell Chester, the state’s commissioner of elementary and secondary education, said the Legislature made a point of giving education officials broad powers to overhaul chronically poor schools.<br />
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“I think the statute is quite clear, and that’s exactly the authority we are exercising here,” he said.<br />
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The labor complaints mark the first time the landmark 2010 law has been challenged, and if upheld could have far-reaching implications in the debate over the role of teacher unions in reforming poor public schools.<br />
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McLaughlin said Lawrence teachers have gone three years without a new contract, and he accused administrators of not bargaining in good faith. Teachers unanimously voted to take legal action at a meeting earlier this month.<br />
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The complaints were filed with the state Labor Relations Board, which will investigate the matter. If an investigator determines there is probable cause of a violation, the case goes to a hearing.<br />
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McLaughlin said teachers have been increasingly discouraged, and they believe that the receiver is effectively dismantling their rights as a union.<br />
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“He’s exceeded his authority,” McLaughlin said Monday. “He’s trying to take away all of our collective bargaining rights, and this was not the intent of the Legislature.”<br />
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Chester said that under the law, the receiver can make changes to the compensation structure without the union’s approval and said he was not surprised by the complaints.<br />
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“I anticipated the changes we’re implementing in Lawrence would make many people uncomfortable, especially those with a vested interest in the status quo,” he said.<br />
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Riley said the education overhaul law was enacted to “make possible the very changes happening in Lawrence today.”<br />
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“This became the first and still the only community in receivership because it failed too many students for too long, and dramatic new approaches are needed,” he said in the statement.<br />
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Riley said administrators have asked the union to work with them on various efforts, but were rebuffed.<br />
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“Not only did leadership refuse to participate, they chose to litigate to preserve a failed system,” he said.<br />
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In the two complaints, the union says the receiver is failing to bargain in good faith and created a new stipend program for teachers without bargaining.<br />
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Chester said the new pay scale will reward the best teachers and will increase pay across the board. On average, salaries will rise $3,000, he said.<br />
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The new merit-based system is a marked departure from the traditional “step and lane” approach, in which raises are largely determined by years of service.<br />
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“A new teacher could be at the top of the scale within five years,” Chester said.<br />
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The state education board will discuss the receivership in Lawrence at its regular meeting Tuesday.<br />
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McLaughlin said teachers broadly support the effort to improve the schools, but said the union needs to retain its rights.<br />
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“We’re open, we’re reasonable,” he said. “But there’s a clear anti-union agenda here.”<br />
Blog Depothttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08310878002526034822noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8752307772639517304.post-31716224161146049092013-04-15T06:54:00.001-07:002013-04-15T06:54:04.128-07:00Investigators uncover financial aid fraud ring at Contra Costa College<br />
<span style="color: #999999;"><i>Story originally appeared on Contra Costa Times.</i></span><br />
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SAN PABLO -- Nearly two dozen people face charges related to a widespread financial aid scam in which they received money to attend Contra Costa College but never went to class, a prosecutor said Thursday.<br />
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About 20 of those phony students -- some charged in the scam, some not -- received As, Bs or Cs in drama classes in which they apparently never set foot, triggering an internal investigation at the college district centering on the drama department.<br />
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Longtime drama department chairman Clay David, who was later placed on leave, filed a claim against the college alleging he was punished for speaking out against homophobia on campus. He no longer works at the college and district officials would not say Thursday what led to his being placed on leave.<br />
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The scheme, known as a "Pell runner" scam, has plagued colleges across the country, with the abuse of financial aid money costing taxpayers untold millions. But it is believed to be the first of its kind in Contra Costa County.<br />
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"I'm sure there are other people who are doing this that are getting away with it," said Contra Costa prosecutor Dodie Katague, who is handling this case. "The scam is easy to commit: you just have to lie on your application that you are broke, get a check and after you get a check you withdraw from the classes. It's very hard to catch because the record-keeping is lax."<br />
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The elaborate fraud ring at the San Pablo community college campus, according to prosecutors, was hatched by a Richmond couple in 2011. Authorities say ringleader Yvette Hummel, 45, and her boyfriend David Murphy, 54, ran the scheme like a business, using fliers and contracts to recruit people for their scam. Hummel would obtain personal information from the recruits and use it to enroll them in college classes and apply for financial aid, court records show.<br />
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In exchange, Hummel asked for a 25 percent slice, about $675 of the $2,775 a student on financial aid receives per semester, and offered a $50 referral fee, records show. None of the alleged scam artists is younger than 30, and many are in their 50s, 60s and 70s.<br />
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The fraud was uncovered after one student came forward, Katague said. Investigators, including the FBI and the Department of Education, realized all 22 people involved were sharing the same two addresses belonging to Hummel.<br />
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Criminal charges were filed in November, but the case remains active, with authorities searching for eight suspects. Four suspects, including Hummel and Murphy, have taken plea deals that include jail time and probation; Hummel must pay $83,740 in restitution to the college. The 10 remaining suspects have court dates this month.<br />
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The fraud was limited to the college district's San Pablo campus, officials said, and did not occur at either Diablo Valley College in Pleasant Hill or Los Medanos College in Pittsburg.<br />
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The scam isn't the first for the college district, however. In 2007, dozens of students in the college district, most of them at DVC, were charged with felonies involving a cash-for-grades scheme. Most pleaded no contest to reduced charges, and some were expelled from school or had degrees rescinded.<br />
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In the "Pell runner" scam, students apply for the aid with a federal agency, which sends reports to the college detailing who is eligible for the money. District spokesman Tim Leong said all the students on paper appeared to be eligible for financial aid, and so were sent checks.<br />
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The investigation found that drama instructors did nothing criminal, Katague said, but raised questions about grading in the department, which resulted in the district-led investigation.<br />
Said prosecutor Katague, "They were good at drama and lousy at bookkeeping."<br />
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During the investigation, the college district placed David on administrative leave based on accusations of misconduct and unprofessional behavior, but did not elaborate on the allegations. The district and David signed a settlement agreement in February in which David resigned but remains eligible to keep his retirement benefits.<br />
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David, a tenured professor who has taught and directed theater on campus for 19 years, declined to comment, citing a clause in the settlement agreement.<br />
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David, who is openly gay, said in his October 2012 claim against the district that the campus has a history of homophobia. The claim seeks an amount in excess of $25,000 from the district, saying he was subject to harassment, including gay slurs and threats by students in class, and that his pleas for help were ignored by administrators.<br />
Blog Depothttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08310878002526034822noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8752307772639517304.post-71714312738875522072013-04-15T06:50:00.000-07:002013-04-15T06:50:01.589-07:00Mich. sea cadets send SOS in wake of federal budget cuts<br />
<span style="color: #999999;"><i>Story originally appeared on the Detroit News.</i></span><br />
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Harrison Township — As a member of the Great Lakes Division of the Navy Sea Cadets, Jon Allen spent thousands of hours during his childhood working aboard the group's training vessel Pride of Michigan. With the cadets, he had the chance to experience things most youngsters never will.<br />
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"I learned to drive the 80 foot long Navy ship at age 13, a year before I learned how to drive a car," said Allen, 20, who rose through the ranks and became the ship's Chief Petty Officer. "That's not something that you normally get to do."<br />
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Allen is now in his third year at the Milwaukee School of Engineering working toward a career in civil engineering, a subject that he first became interested in because of his time on the ship.<br />
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"Just being on board and getting that hands-on experience, that made a difference," said Allen. "The ship is definitely the biggest asset the program has."<br />
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But as a result of federal budget cutbacks, the program that has helped hundreds of youngsters find career paths could be left without the funds to stay afloat.<br />
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It's part of the trickle-down effect of the $1.2 trillion sequestration. The Great Lakes cadet program currently relies on $40,000 to $50,000 in annual funding from the U.S. Navy, which provides money to sea cadet divisions throughout the country.But this year, says Lt. Commander Luke Clyburn, the money never came.<br />
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"We put in a request like we do every year," said Clyburn, who has led the cadets for 40 years. "They said they wouldn't be giving out the money this year."<br />
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Although the program receives donations from various organizations, the immediate absence of the majority of funds has left these cadets in the lurch. Representatives from both the Naval Sea Cadet Corps and the Office of the Chief of Naval Operations did not return requests for comment.<br />
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<b>Parents are concerned</b><br />
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More than 30 youths between ages 11 and 17 work on the ship, used in the 1970s by the Navy for training midshipmen, throughout the year. It's one of three Navy vessels being used by such cadet groups.<br />
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The cadets use Pride of Michigan for everything from practicing ceremonies and repairing engines to diving shipwrecks and conducting research in the Great Lakes, said Clyburn. The goal is to prepare the young men and women for roles in the Navy, the U.S. Coast Guard, the Merchant Marines and for professions in engineering and marine biology. There is no military commitment for cadets in the program.<br />
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Because the program is funded by other sources, parents pay only $350for their child to join the cadets, which in many cases wouldn't even cover the cost of scuba diving certification.<br />
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Currently, the cadets are preparing the ship for dry dock repairs and inspections. But once they get it back in the water, the group's organizers and parents are concerned they may not have the money to keep up the programs and maintain the ship.<br />
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"I don't even want to think about it. It would be devastating," said Amie MacDonaldof Madison Heights, whose son Billy, 14, is in his second year with the cadets. "Their future would look a lot different. I would hope that it would be all positive, but you don't know."<br />
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Funding for the program has come from many sources throughout the years, but over the past decade, it's been primarily federal funds distributed to the Navy for recruiting and research, said Clyburn. He says being forced to find funding closer to home could actually strengthen the program in the long run. But he's concerned about maintaining it for the short term.<br />
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"It's going to be tough to keep up with everything we've been able to provide these years," said Clyburn.<br />
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<b>Fundraisers, lobbying planned</b><br />
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Having the practical experience on a ship helped Commerce Township resident Dennis Moore's son Kyle earn a spot in the U.S. Naval Academy Summer Seminar, a prestigious program for high school students interested in attending the academy in Annapolis, Md.<br />
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Attending the academy has been a lifelong dream for the 17-year-old junior at Lakeland High School in White Lake Township, and the camp could help make that possible.<br />
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"When you submit the application for the summer seminar, they look for what they call demonstrating interest," said the Dennis Moore. "Being in the sea cadets program was a way of demonstrating that interest."<br />
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Another cadet, Nicholas Ratinau, 17, of West Bloomfield, is preparing to begin school at the Webb Institute of Naval Architecture in New York in the fall to study engineering.<br />
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"The more I got involved with the cadets and the more I learned about it, the more I got to like it," said Ratinau, who has been a cadet for five years and is the lead petty officer on the ship. "I wouldn't have taken this path if the cadet program wasn't available."<br />
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To make sure the program will be around for years to come, parents and volunteers are working to put together fundraisers, lobby businesses and organizations for donations and gather items for an auction.<br />
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On Saturday, they found out the cadets would be taking part in the Celebrate the Lake" festival on June 8.<br />
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"We're going to do anything we can do to make this program continue. I promised my son," said MacDonald.<br />
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One of the newest cadet recruits, 13-year-old Gage Dyer, hopes the program can continue because he feels it will help him accomplish his career goal of becoming a marine biologist.<br />
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"To learn scuba diving at 13, that on a resume alone would show them this is what I want to do," said the Milford teen who says he already knows he wants to attend Texas A&M for college. "I'm hoping I can continue in the program until I graduate. This is what I want to do and there's a great opportunity here."<br />
Blog Depothttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08310878002526034822noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8752307772639517304.post-1574435333624578042013-04-15T06:46:00.002-07:002013-04-15T06:46:44.742-07:00Is a mortgage a smart way to pay for college?<br />
<span style="color: #999999;"><i>Story originally appeared on USA Today.</i></span><br />
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Money Watch, a personal finance column that runs every Saturday, features a financial planner from the National Association of Personal Financial Advisors answering reader questions about saving, protecting and growing your money.<br />
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Q: My wife and I have no debt. Our home, cars and credit cards are paid off. We make the maximum contributions into our 401(k) plans, although we don't take advantage of catch-up contributions. But because our kids will be going to college in four years, should we take out a home mortgage now to lock in a low rate and deduct the interest payment? This way we will have some money to pay for college without borrowing from our 401(k) plans.<br />
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A: Congratulations on being debt free! That is a huge accomplishment, and one that you should be proud of.<br />
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I agree that you need to find a way to help pay for your kids' college expenses without tapping your 401(k) plans. Even if you have the best intentions, if you are ever laid off or quit you will have to pay back the 401(k) loan immediately or face stiff taxes and penalties. And it may not be the best time to have to pay back a loan, having just lost your salary.<br />
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MONEY WATCH: Pay down mortgage or save for kids' college?<br />
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I am not sure taking out a home loan to pay for your kids college education is the best decision, either. You would be putting your home at risk, which isn't a good idea. And never let the tax benefits influence your financial decision. You can only deduct the interest on your mortgage if you are itemizing your deductions, and even then you would only benefit from the amount of deductions that are greater than the standard deduction ($11,900 for 2013). This means if you take out a mortgage and then have $13,000 of itemized deductions, you really only benefit from a $1,100 deduction. Multiply this deduction by your tax rate to get the actual tax benefit, and you will find that it really isn't all that much.<br />
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If you decide that using a mortgage is the way to go, one option would be to take out a home equity loan. The interest is still deductible, the upfront costs are typically lower, however the interest rate will probably be higher so you will need to ask your mortgage lender about your options.<br />
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I would start by determining your financial goals. When do you want to retire? How much money do you want to have for living expenses each year? Be sure you take into account health care expenses, car replacement, travel and any other financial goals you have. Determine how much you need to save each year in order to accomplish those goals.<br />
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Next, see what is left over. Although it can be difficult, you must put your own financial goals first. Your child can always take a year off from school to save money, or use student loans to pay for college, but there are no loans for retirement. If you don't save enough, you will put your kids in the position of having to support you later in life. I bet they would rather pay for their own education than have to pay for your retirement!<br />
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If you need to reduce the amount you are saving for retirement, be sure you at least take full advantage of your employer match.<br />
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If after you fully fund your own goals you find that you have some money left over each month, you can use a 529 plan to save for your kids' college expenses. Some states provide an income tax deduction to contribute to a 529 plan; however, there is no federal deduction for contributions. Check with your state-sponsored 529 plan to find out if there is a deduction available. The money in the 529 plan will grow tax-free, and can then be taken out without taxes to fund college expenses. You can even continue to contribute while your child is in college in order to get the tax deduction and some tax-free growth.<br />
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Finally, sit down with your kids today and let them know what they can expect in the way of college funding from you. They may have to take their second choice college, or put in the extra hours so they get a scholarship, but either way, they will be OK! Involve them in the discussion so there are no surprises. This will also be a perfect opportunity to teach them the value of planning for their personal finances.Blog Depothttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08310878002526034822noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8752307772639517304.post-26434826274908001962013-03-25T06:16:00.003-07:002013-03-25T06:16:31.585-07:00CEO Blog: Getting America Back to Work Begins In Our Schools<br />
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In his State of the Union address last night President Obama reminded the nation that education equals employment.</div>
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In the First Lady’s box sat a single mother from North Carolina whose studies at a community college earned her a high-tech position after she had lost a job as a mechanic.</div>
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The President wants states to require students to stay in high school until they graduate or turn 18. Given the global economic challenges we confront it is essential we provide every American with the opportunity for a quality education. But that is not possible if our educational infrastructure is in disrepair.</div>
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Last September the President proposed spending $30 billion dollars as part of his American Jobs Act to modernize and upgrade schools and community colleges. The President should not retreat from this important proposal. Not only would it be a valuable investment in our children, but it also would quickly create more high-paying jobs here in the United States.</div>
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As president of <a class="inline_asset" data-nodeid="4416271" href="http://www.jedunn.com/" style="color: #2d648a; font-weight: bold; outline: none; text-decoration: none;" target="_blank">JE Dunn Construction</a>, a construction company that is a national top 10 builder of educational facilities, I have seen first-hand the need for major renovation in outdated school facilities.</div>
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We are already working on updating many educational facilities around the country, and there are many more badly in need of repair and renovation to improve the learning environment for our children.</div>
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Inner-city schools averaging 60-70 years in age too often have poor heating and inadequate lighting. A child cannot learn well if he is shivering in his classroom while squinting to read his textbook. Other schools have no air conditioning even though the school year in some districts starts during the heat of the summer or extends through the summer. Buildings built for baby boomers are energy inefficient, which causes higher operating and maintenance costs over time. Schools also need state-of-the-art technology to teach students for the 21st century high-tech world.</div>
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Sustainable building practices need to be utilized in renovations, additions and new construction. Parents and students are becoming educated on the energy, environmental, and cost benefits at the local and global levels. The saving in energy provides a payback for the improvements and more. We are seeing many educational facilities convert to green building practices systems. That’s responsible spending that pays off in the long run because of the decrease in energy costs.</div>
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Though I am a fiscal conservative who wants a balanced federal budget, I recognize the need for spending on essential projects now so I encourage Congress to support President Obama's proposed investment in education. The bill would provide a one-time stimulus for our national education infrastructure at a time when it is desperately needed.</div>
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A $30 billion education capital improvements bill could create an economic multiplier impact of three times, resulting in $90 billion back into the economy. It would also create approximately $10 billion in immediate construction payrolls. That’s critical for an industry that is the most depressed sector of the economy right now. Typically every dollar invested in a construction contract results in 30-35 cents reapplied directly into labor. And every dollar spent in take- home money has a positive impact on the economy.</div>
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At JE Dunn Construction, we have witnessed the same trend that many construction companies have seen over the past few years – a drop off in hiring due to an industry that needs additional capital to expand. This stimulus would create opportunity for job creation in an industry that has seen decline, while also serving the needs of school facilities in dire need of updating.</div>
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The president wants an economy that is fair for all, where opportunity and unlimited potential is available to any student, no matter the income bracket of his parents. I want that too. Upgrading our country’s educational infrastructure is a critical step to achieving that goal for our children, while quickly putting many of their parents back to work.</div>
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<em><a class="inline_asset" data-nodeid="4416272" href="http://www.jedunn.com/content/about-us/leadership/" style="color: #2d648a; font-weight: bold; outline: none; text-decoration: none;" target="_blank">Terry Dunn</a> is President & CEO of JE DUNN Construction Group, one of the nation’s leading building companies, where he has worked for 37 years. Among his many business and civic leadership positions Terry has served as Chairman of the Federal Reserve Bank of Kansas City, is a member of the National Executive Committee of the Boy Scouts of America and is Vice Chairman of the Chamber of Commerce of Greater Kansas City. He is Chairman and Trustee of the Kansas University of Medicine and Biosciences, and a board member of the University of Missouri Kansas City Bloch School and the Midwest Research Institute.</em></div>
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Blog Depothttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08310878002526034822noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8752307772639517304.post-13479574996098553402013-03-25T06:15:00.003-07:002013-03-25T06:15:27.591-07:00Chicago Announces Mass Closing of Elementary Schools<br />
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Chicago will close 54 schools and 61 school buildings by the beginning of the next academic year in the country's third-largest public school district, a move that union leaders called the largest mass closing in the nation.</div>
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The district will shutter 53 elementary schools and one high school by August, primarily in Hispanic and African-American neighborhoods. The district, which has a $1 billion annual deficit, has said it needs to close underutilized schools to save money.</div>
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Enrollment in Chicago Public Schools has fallen 20 percent in the last decade, mainly because of population declines in poor neighborhoods. The district said it can accommodate 511,000 students, but only about 403,000 are enrolled. It said that nearly 140 of its schools are more than half empty.</div>
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The controversial decision to close dozens of schools follows a bitter strike by Chicago teachers last September, fought partly over the Chicago Teachers Union's accusation that Mayor Rahm Emanuel was undermining community schools in poor areas of the city.</div>
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The school board must approve the closings and will vote on the matter May 22.</div>
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The 61 closings account for about 10 percent of elementary school facilities, according to the school district.</div>
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"Consolidating schools is the best way to make sure all of our city's students get the resources they need to succeed in the classroom," said Emanuel in a statement.</div>
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The union objects to school closings, saying they destabilize minority neighborhoods.</div>
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"They keep saying that closing schools is going to save money," said Chicago Teachers Union President Karen Lewis. "This will not save money. It's going to cost money and it's going to leave abandoned buildings, which is another recipe for disaster."</div>
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During a news conference at Mahalia Jackson Elementary School, which is marked for closing, Lewis accused Emanuel of being on a ski trip when the announcement was made.</div>
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"Mayor Rahm Emanuel should be ashamed of himself. Shanda!" Lewis said, using the Yiddish word for shame or scandal. Both Lewis and Emanuel are Jewish.</div>
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The staff of the mayor, whose children attend private school, were not immediately available to comment on his whereabouts.</div>
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Several parents don't want to see the schools closed.</div>
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"It took three schools to find the right place for my grandchild," said Menjiwei Latham, a grandparent and guardian of a student at the Mahalia Jackson Elementary School, which serves special-needs students.</div>
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Chicago Public School CEO Barbara Byrd-Bennett said that as a former teacher and principal, she knows school closings aren't easy, "but I also know that in the end this will benefit our children."</div>
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<strong>Declining Enrollment in Urban Schools</strong></div>
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Urban school districts around the country have been grappling with the issue of declining enrollment.</div>
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Over the past decade, 70 large or mid-sized cities have closed schools, averaging 11 per district, according to the National Education Association, a labor union for school teachers. This includes Washington, D.C., which closed 23 schools in 2008 and plans to close 15 more over the next two years. Philadelphia announced earlier this month that it would close 23 schools.</div>
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At the heart of the dispute over school closings in Chicago is the expansion of charter schools, which are publicly funded, but mostly non-unionized. The number of charter schools has risen even as neighborhood public schools are closed.</div>
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The union said 88 percent of students affected by Chicago school closings or other actions in the past decade were African-American and most closed schools have been in poor neighborhoods. The union said 86 Chicago public schools have closed in the past decade. The district has not provided its own number.</div>
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Chicago has promised a five-year moratorium on school closings, following this year.</div>
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Parents and school activists have complained that closing neighborhood schools endanger students because they are exposed to greater gang violence if they cross neighborhood boundaries. Chicago recorded 506 murders largely due to gang violence in 2012.</div>
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Many of the schools being closed are in the same neighborhoods that have seen frequent gun violence.</div>
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"The greatest impact is on the city's most wounded neighborhoods, places already traumatized by violence," Mark Naison, director of the Urban Studies Program at Fordham University wrote on his blog. "Make no mistake about this, this is both a local and a national tragedy."</div>
Blog Depothttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08310878002526034822noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8752307772639517304.post-79587617536262649042013-03-04T08:25:00.000-08:002013-03-04T08:28:27.825-08:00Preschool Debate: Opposing ViewpointsStory first appeared on USA Today -<br />
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<span style="font-size: large;"><b>Preschool debate obscures core problem: </b>Our view</span><br />
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<i>'Fragile families' harm children's development</i><br />
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In the eyes of many parents and most educators, starting a child's schooling before kindergarten is an indisputable virtue. Your kid acquires learning and social skills that give him or her an advantage.<br />
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So it's hardly surprising that President Obama used his State of the Union Address to call for extending that middle- and upper-class habit to all children, at government expense.<br />
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But before the checks go out, it would be wise to consider a broader question: Can the middle-class experience be replicated that easily? The evidence says universal preschool alone won't get the job done.<br />
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A few small, high-quality programs have shown enduring benefits for at-risk kids. But intensive study of Head Start, the nation's largest and oldest preschool program, finds that the beneficial effects, which are real, wear off by third grade.<br />
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The probable reason is not hard to deduce. Children are most likely to succeed in school when pushed by parents who provide stability, help with schooling, and instill an education and work ethic. But for decades now, the American family has been breaking down.<br />
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Two-fifths of children born in the USA are born to unmarried mothers, an eightfold increase since 1960. Many succeed thanks to the heroic efforts of strong, motivated single parents and other relatives. But research shows that children of single parents suffer disproportionately high poverty rates, impaired development and low performance in school.<br />
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Ron Haskins, an expert on children and families at the Brookings Institution, calls single parenthood a "little motor pushing up the poverty rate." In 2011, the rate for children of single mothers was more than four times greater than that for children of married couples.<br />
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Researchers at Princeton and Columbia, following 5,000 children born to married and unmarried parents, have found that the effects of single parenthood seep into every aspect of kids' lives.<br />
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A typical pattern in these "fragile families" looks like this: When a child is born, most fathers and mothers are in a committed relationship. By the time the child reaches 5, though, many fathers have disappeared. As the mothers move on to new relationships, the children face more instability, often with new siblings born to different fathers. Boys without strong male role models are more likely to turn to gangs and crime.<br />
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Single mothers read less to their children, are more likely to use harsh discipline and are less likely to maintain stable routines, such as a regular bedtime. All these behaviors are important predictors of children's health and development.<br />
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It is a tragically familiar pattern. In 1965, Daniel Patrick Moynihan, then a Johnson administration official and later a U.S. senator, warned about an alarming rise — to nearly 24% — in unmarried births in the black community. His prescient warning created a furor among liberals and civil rights leaders, who accused him of blaming the victim. The rates are now 73% for blacks, 53% for Hispanics and 29% for whites.<br />
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Even today, solutions are undermined by ideological warfare. Liberals blame poverty. Conservatives blame the culture. Both are right. The problems are intertwined, and defy easy solutions. Fighting poverty, promoting marriage and stable relationships, intervening with home visits, and improving education all help, but there is no magic answer.<br />
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So, sure, explore Obama's plan to expand quality preschool, and make sure kids aren't then dumped into failing elementary schools. But don't miss the core problem. The primary engine of social advancement has always been the family, and it is breaking down.<br />
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<span style="font-size: large;"><b>Preschool Closes Achievement Gap: </b>Other Views</span><br />
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<i>It takes the right kind of program</i><br />
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<u><b>Brian Resnick, National Journal:</b></u> "At the very least, it can be argued that preschool does no harm to long-term academic achievement and socioeconomic standing (although one study found it can negatively affect a child's social skills). Because preschool is most beneficial to poorer students, increasing access to it could only help close the stubbornly persistent achievement gap between whites and minorities.<br />
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Nevertheless, it will be a tough sell to Republicans who may think the upfront cost of the plan is too much to justify benefits that won't be seen for decades."<br />
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<u><b>Jonathan Cohn, New Republic:</b></u> "My takeaway is that paying attention to early childhood can help at-risk kids, and in some cases help them a lot. But it takes the right kind of program, which means, among other things, experimenting to see what works best. Fortunately, this seems to be what President Obama and his advisers have in mind."<br />
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<u><b>Tony Perkins, Family Research Council:</b></u> "Obama and his Big Government supporters think that starting school at a younger age will help solve society's problems. But a study of the federal preschool program Head Start shows that for all the money spent on the program, it had little effect on educational outcomes after preschool concluded. Children need parental involvement and attention. They need strong families. What a 4-year-old needs more than anything is a loving, secure home with a mom and dad who love each other. There is no better way to start a young life. We cannot have secure, well-prepared, confident children if we continue to sustain a culture where no-fault divorce, cohabitation and out-of-wedlock births are the norm."<br />
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<u><b>Erika Christakis, Time Ideas:</b></u> "The cornerstone of Obama's proposal is a plan to make preschool education available for all 4-year-olds at or below 200% of the poverty line. But the devil is in the details, and in this case, those details may not be developmentally appropriate for young children. If you need a cautionary tale of what goes wrong when politicians and school boards ride roughshod over the developmental needs of children, you need look no further than the dramatic changes to kindergarten over the last decade."<br />
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<u><b>Kevin Glass, Townhall.com:</b></u> "It's important to ... acknowledge the successes and failures of such programs to date. States can and should serve as laboratories of democracy before a heavy-handed federal government turns modest programs into universal mandates. President Obama's early childhood education proposals are incredibly vague, but there's hope on the federal level for targeted early childhood education policy that works. Heavy-handedness and a lack of introspection on previous federal education policy might doom early childhood education reform to failure."Blog Depothttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08310878002526034822noreply@blogger.com0