Education News Roundup: July 18, 2012

Today’s Top Picks:

KUER previews the School Improvement Innovation Summit.
http://goo.gl/4wsCu (KUER)

President Obama proposes a math and science teachers corps.
http://goo.gl/XVdXi (Bloomberg)
and http://goo.gl/yt1yG (AP)
or http://goo.gl/qcXH0 (White House)

Whiteboard Advisors polls insiders on Smarter Balanced and PARC assessments.
http://goo.gl/SCxF5 (HuffPo)

“Children Are Getting More Expensive” Wanna see the numbers reel on the cost of raising a child calculator (that’s the second link below)? Raise two kids and have both of them be hockey goalies. ENR is fortunate to be able to afford Ramen soup for lunch.
http://goo.gl/csA6t (USN&WR)
or a copy of the report
http://goo.gl/2c3PV (Dept. of Ag)

And The Onion takes on Teach for America.
http://goo.gl/RcHyZ

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TODAY’S HEADLINES
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UTAH

Education Experts Meet in SLC for School Improvement Summit

Girls: there is nothing wrong with playing sports

Hospital becomes classroom for West Jordan Students

Copper Hills students mix physics, fun in gravity lesson Students at Copper Hills High School mix physics and fun to learn about gravity.

Documentary features Madeleine Choir School choristers

Starving for Education fundraiser set Friday

OPINION & COMMENTARY

Educator cited as model for Utah is raided by FBI

Controversial candidate spawns legislation

Common Core not nationalized education

Common Core conspiracies about in Utah, not based in reality

Cut private schools, not public school art and sports programs

More questions on education

Why is whooping cough raging in Utah?

Better Schools, Fewer Dollars

Girls don’t need Obama’s help with math

Stimulus Aid Saved Education Jobs, Research Group Concludes

Examining Principal Turnover

Big Suburban Districts Form Network of Their Own

Grading the President
With Race to the Top, Obama earns a B+ in ed reform

Understanding and Improving Full-Time Virtual Schools

My Year Volunteering As A Teacher Helped Educate A New Generation Of Underprivileged Kids and Can We Please, Just Once, Have A Real Teacher?

NATION

Obama Plans National Teachers Corps to Promote Math, Science

STEM Gender Gap Pronounced in U.S.

South Korea outpaces the U.S. in engineering degrees

Standardized Tests Of Tomorrow Behind Schedule, According To Insider Survey

Superintendent Questions Reform Of Teacher Evals

Wyoming Superintendent of Public Education calls legislators ‘good ol’ boys’

A Fresh Look at What School Menus Can Be

Decision Points: Public or Private High School?

Children Are Getting More Expensive
Despite the economic slump, the smallest Americans are requiring more money

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UTAH NEWS
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Education Experts Meet in SLC for School Improvement Summit

Education experts across the country are meeting with education officials in Utah this week to discuss strategies for improving schools within the framework of what is called the common core curriculum.
The purpose of the annual School Improvement Innovation Summit is to share new strategies for teachers striving to better prepare students for life after high school. Heidi Hayes Jacobs was a keynote speaker this year. She is an internationally recognized education consultant and author of Curriculum21: 21st Century Teaching and Learning within the Common Core. She says the Common Core curriculum isn’t driven by compliance, but opportunity.
“They don’t’ say anything about your schedule,” she says. “They don’t say anything about your kids. What they are, are really terrific proficiencies that schools can shape and reshape to create quality types of learning environments.”
http://goo.gl/4wsCu (KUER)

Girls: there is nothing wrong with playing sports

SALT LAKE CITY — Girls don’t play sports.
At least, that is what gender stereotypes have historically lead people to believe. That is the sentiment behind playground bullies’ taunts and even some parents’ beliefs, and it is even beginning to show up in statistics: after 14, girls are twice as likely to drop out of sports as their male counterparts.
The Women’s Sports Foundation aims to change that, though, with its “Keep Her in the Game” campaign.
The campaign aims, through social media and advertising campaigns, to combat the disadvantages females face in the sports world that may keep them from continued participation in athletics — disadvantages such as lack of access and cost.
Title IX was passed in 1972 in order to prevent sexual discrimination in education. Still, females have 1.3 million fewer opportunities to play high school sports than males have. And even when opportunities are available, the women’s facilities are often lacking, compared to men’s, and their playing times inconvenient.
http://goo.gl/co82j (KSL)

Hospital becomes classroom for West Jordan Students

WEST JORDAN — Ambulances, the emergency room, and the operating room have become classrooms for some students in West Jordan.
When someone has a heart attack, Jordan Valley and Pioneer Valley Medical Centers run what’s called a Stemi, and students saw it first hand, from what happens in the ambulance, to the cardiology team in the OR.
“We put a kid in the back of an ambulance, and we did an EKG, and we transmitted it to the emergency department and we ran a mock code Stemi,” said COO Jon Butterfield “We showed them exactly what we do in the hospital and how this team is activated.”
http://goo.gl/U5cNb (KSL)

Copper Hills students mix physics, fun in gravity lesson
Students at Copper Hills High School mix physics and fun to learn about gravity.

West Jordan » So, does dropping watermelons off a second-story roof onto a contraption inspired by an Indiana Jones movie qualify as a great school project, or the greatest school project ever?
For Bingham seniors Michael Tyler and David Vance it’s likely the latter.
The students designed and built the “Temple of Doom”-inspired fruit-catching apparatus and successfully saved their melon.
They were among 30 students who participated in the physics experiment as part of the Utah Science Technology and Research (USTAR) Physics class they are taking at Copper Hills High this summer.
http://goo.gl/XVMJK (SLT)

Documentary features Madeleine Choir School choristers

SALT LAKE CITY — “The Choir,” a 90-minute documentary about the Madeleine Choir School and choristers, received rave reviews after two private screenings June 7 and June 27 at the Salt Lake City Library.
Bernice Maher Mooney, former Diocese of Salt Lake City archivist, said the film was inspiring and she liked its historical aspect.
Paul Fowler, Utah Opera director of education and community outreach, found the film and camera work elegant and the story and students compelling; “filled with joy and good work,” he said.
http://goo.gl/QOTKa (IC)

Starving for Education fundraiser set Friday

LAYTON — Amir Jackson hopes the way to the public’s heart will be through his stomach.
He and his supporters are willing to forgo food for one or more days to raise funds for Nurture the Creative Mind, a foundation Jackson founded five years ago to help children through the arts.
On Friday, Jackson and at least eight of his supporters will conduct their third annual fundraiser, Starving for Education. They will be stationed in front of the Starbucks at 2011 N. Hill Field Road (the corner of Antelope Drive and Hill Field Road).
They will greet the public, answer questions about the foundation’s work and, if all goes well, will collect donations until they reach their goal of $3,500.
http://goo.gl/XdDA4 (OSE)

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OPINION & COMMENTARY
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Educator cited as model for Utah is raided by FBI
Salt Lake Tribune commentary by columnist Paul Rolly

An expert in cyberspace education who was featured at the pre-legislative conference of the Utah Taxpayers Association was raided by the FBI last week, and is being investigated for allegedly misusing taxpayer money.
Nick Trombetta, who founded the Pennsylvania Cyber Charter School in 2000 and had an enrollment of more than 11,300 students in 2011-12, was the target of FBI raids at his offices in Pennsylvania and at a consulting firm he operates in Ohio.
The Huffington Post, citing reports from Pennsylvania newspapers, said the FBI is investigating whether Trombetta used taxpayer money he received for his school in Pennsylvania to fund private ventures he operated out of state.
The report noted that his school has an annual budget of more than $100 million which, critics say, averages $10,000 per student, a much higher amount than it costs to educate the average student online.
Trombetta has been a darling of conservative lawmakers pushing for alternative ways to educate students.
He was a featured speaker at the Utah Taxpayers Association, one of the leading advocates of Internet education, last January and was introduced by Rep. Greg Hughes, R-Draper, founder of the Utah House Conservative Caucus.
http://goo.gl/7wUkR

http://goo.gl/u8SeR (Philadelphia Inquirer)

Controversial candidate spawns legislation
Salt Lake Tribune commentary by columnist Paul Rolly

Rep. Carol Moss, D-Holladay, has opened a bill file with the Office of Legislative Research and General Counsel that would bar registered sex offenders from running for the state or local school board.
Moss, a retired teacher, says she was prompted to sponsor the legislation after she learned that convicted felon and registered sex offender Richard Jones is one of two candidates on the ballot for a slot on the Granite School Board.
http://goo.gl/7wUkR

Common Core not nationalized education
Salt Lake Tribune op-ed by Richard R. Tolman, who serves on the faculty of the Department of Biology at Utah Valley University

A pamphlet titled “Common Core: Nationalized Education” is being circulated throughout Utah by Eagle Forum President Gayle Ruzicka and others. This pamphlet contains numerous gross exaggerations with no basis in facts. Unfortunately, she and the pamphlet’s authors have entirely misrepresented how Utah’s Core Curriculum Standards are developed, reviewed, field-tested, then approved, based on reactions and experience of Utah’s parents and school teachers.
I was a member of the writing team that developed the current Utah Science Core Curriculum. Scientists and public school teachers from all over Utah were assembled to write the first draft of the Science Core. Utah’s Science Core Curriculum is based on the National Science Education Standards, published by the National Academies Press in 1996. The Utah Science Core was written by Utah teachers and it reflects Utah’s uniqueness throughout.
http://goo.gl/3nR9O

Common Core conspiracies about in Utah, not based in reality
Deseret News op-ed by C.K. Jones, a resident of Heber City and the husband of a Wasatch County School Board member

A simple Internet search on the words “common core” will yield a wealth of information, some of it credible. Add the words “conspiracy” or “FERPA” or the prefix “anti-” and links from Utah fill the screen. What’s going on? The same thing that happens between every legislative session: a few folks latch onto the latest “freedoms-threatened” conspiracy; the Eagle Forum and Sutherland Institute see yet another opening to seize the issue as another opportunity to push for control of curriculum; the battle is engaged to enlist like-minded legislators and intimidate level-headed ones. In the past few years, we’ve seen extremists try to control sex-ed, accuse BYU of socialist leanings, push for Cleon Skousen’s books as texts and enlist Chris Buttars to re-write the state constitution.
This year, the fear-mongers have decided the Common Core Initiative, a state-led effort to establish national educational standards, is the bogeyman they will use. Even though the initiative began years ago, it is, they claim, a federal conspiracy to force a national curriculum on local school boards.
Their evidence? The president and U.S. Department of Education support it.
http://goo.gl/FqXO3

Cut private schools, not public school art and sports programs
Deseret News letter from Eric Green

With respect to W. L. Haynes, the proposition that public schools cut their arts and sports programs by thinking it can lead to higher understanding in academics is a horrible idea (“Reduce cost of public education by cutting school programs,” Readers’ Forum, July 13). Not all teachers are qualified to teach reading, writing and arithmetic exclusively and they probably wouldn’t be able to teach art after school because of other responsibilities.
If one thinks about it all, the arts actually expand things involving basic academics. Art, music and even sports have degrees of history, math and non-vocal understanding.
If we really need to cut something, how about we cut out some of these private schools. If the parents that spend so much to push their kids through those schools put at least half of what they spend yearly into the public school system, then what would the end results be? Think about that.
http://goo.gl/3axdX

More questions on education
(Logan) Herald Journal letter from Steffanie Casperson

I don’t see that anyone’s profession is being threatened or belittled in the current education debate. No one is questioning, yet, what it means to be well educated or IF education can be bestowed from one human being to another.
Somehow we’re back to the tired discussion over money and options, and it is that debate I wish to inform, and ask a few questions of my own.
Did you know that in 2008-09 school year, Utah spent $7,700/pupil K-12? (Recent legislation increased this figure.)
http://goo.gl/ZGGIa

Why is whooping cough raging in Utah?
Examiner.com commentary by columnist Charles Simmins

Asked about whooping cough, Ilene Risk, epidemiology bureau director for the Salt Lake Valley Health Department, told the Salt Lake Tribune “It’s [infecting] record numbers, and it’s raging through the county.” It is an alarming statement from a public health official. Why is pertussis “raging” in Utah?
Utah is one of eighteen states with whooping cough incidence rates higher than the national average. Through July 5, the Centers for Disease Control (CDC) show the state experiencing pertussis cases at a rate of 14.1 per 100,000 of population. The national incidence rate is just 5.2 per 100,000.
Through July 7, Utah has reported 412 cases of whooping cough to the CDC for 2012. For all of 2011, Utah saw 618 confirmed and probable pertussis cases. The incidence rate in 2011 was 21.7 whooping cough cases per 100,000 of population.
Utah requires that children entering kindergarten have received at least four doses of pertussis vaccine. It requires a booster before entering seventh grade. It allows for medical, religious and personal exemptions. Parents can claim an exemption from requirements based on a personal belief opposed to immunization.
In the last school year reported to the CDC, 2010-2011, Utah had 1,770 children in kindergarten and 1,532 seventh graders that had been granted the personal exemption. That represents 3.5 percent of all students in those two grades. Applied at all grade levels, there were over 20,000 school children without immunizations of the 576,245 students enrolled in 2011.
http://goo.gl/jw5jW

Better Schools, Fewer Dollars
Wall Street Journal op-ed by MARCUS A. WINTERS, author of Teachers Matter: Rethinking How Public Schools Identify, Reward, and Retain Great Educators

Here’s what looks like a policy dilemma. To attain the economic growth that it desperately needs, the United States must improve its schools and train a workforce capable of competing in the global economy. Economists Eric Hanushek, Dean Jamison, Eliot Jamison, and Ludger Woessmann estimate that improving student achievement by half of one standard deviation—roughly the current difference between the United States and Finland—would increase U.S. GDP growth by about a full percentage point annually. Yet states and the federal government face severe budgetary constraints these days; how are policymakers supposed to improve student achievement while reducing school funding?
In reality, that task is far from impossible. The story of American education over the last three decades is one not of insufficient funds but of inefficient schools. Billions of new dollars have gone into the system, to little effect. Luckily, Americans are starting to recognize that we can improve schooling without paying an additional dime. In fact, by unleashing the power of educational choice, we might even save money while getting better results and helping the economy’s long-term prospects.
http://goo.gl/NLIzr

Girls don’t need Obama’s help with math
USA Today op-ed by Kirsten Powers, Fox News political analyst

When the White House announced a push to use Title IX— a law best known for increasing female participation in sports — to boost the number of women in the science, technology and math (STEM) fields, there wasn’t much of a reaction. That’s because to most people, there’s not much of a problem. Though the Obama administration claims that girls and women need government help because they are being discriminated against, that might be the opposite of what’s happening.
Women thrive in academia. Fifty-seven percent of college degrees and 60% of graduate degrees go to women. President Obama celebrated this fact on the 40th anniversary of Title IX last month, but ignored the new “problem with no name:” male underachievement. Instead of focusing on addressing this growing problem, the Obama administration is invoking the power of the U.S. government tackle a problem that doesn’t exist. As a woman and an old-school feminist, I want to be the first to say: Thanks, but no thanks.
http://goo.gl/06hHR

Stimulus Aid Saved Education Jobs, Research Group Concludes
Education Week commentary by columnist Alyson Klein

The federal economic-stimulus program’s $100 billion in education aid largely met its goals of preserving or creating K-12 jobs and jump-starting education-redesign efforts at the state level, according to a new study from the Center on Education Policy, a research organization in Washington.
A series of surveys by the CEP looked at the impact of the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act, passed in 2009, which poured emergency aid into the states to help alleviate the effects of the Great Recession and wound up giving K-12 education its biggest windfall ever. The ARRA was followed by the $10 billion Education Jobs Fund, which was created in the summer of 2010.
The CEP surveys found that 52 percent of school districts with funding cuts were able to make up for them using money from the $48.5 billion State Fiscal Stabilization Fund, the part of the stimulus most closely focused on saving jobs and offsetting local reductions. And, in another 45 percent of those districts, the federal dollars helped patch at least some budget holes.
http://goo.gl/m5r06

A copy of the report
http://goo.gl/qOpZP

Examining Principal Turnover
Albert Shanker Institute commentary by Ed Fuller, Associate Professor in the Education Leadership Department at Penn State University.

“No one knows who I am,” exclaimed a senior in a high-poverty, predominantly minority and low-performing high school in the Austin area. She explained, “I have been at this school four years and had four principals and six algebra I teachers.”
Elsewhere in Texas, the first school to be closed by the state for low performance was Johnston High School, which was led by 13 principals in the 11 years preceding closure. The school also had a teacher turnover rate greater than 25 percent for almost all of the years and greater than 30 percent for 7 of the years.
While the above examples are rather extreme cases, they do underscore two interconnected issues – teacher and principal turnover – that often plague low-performing schools and, in the case of principal turnover, afflict a wide range of schools regardless of performance or school demographics.
In recent years, those seeking to improve schooling through efforts to increase teacher effectiveness and build teacher capacity have quickly realized that such efforts rely heavily on principal capacity and stability.
http://shankerblog.org/?p=6196

Big Suburban Districts Form Network of Their Own
Education Week commentary by columnist Christina Samuels

Representatives from several large suburban districts announced today that they are forming a coalition to represent the unique needs of the nation’s large countywide school systems.
Many of these districts are fast-growing, with increasing numbers of minority students and students eligible for free or reduced-price lunches. The 10 districts that form the core of this group—the Large Countywide and Suburban School District Consortium—educate about more than 1 million students, mainly in the southeastern United States. Jack Dale, the superintendent of the 178,000-student Fairfax County, Va., school system, and the chairman of the group, said that the consortium hopes to grow to at least 20 members in the next six months. The group is so new that it doesn’t yet have a website.
In addition to Fairfax, located just outside Washington, the districts involved in the new group include Fulton County schools, Cobb County schools and Gwinnett County schools, all in the Atlanta metropolitan area; Montgomery County Schools and Prince George’s County schools, both located in the Maryland suburbs of Washington, Arlington County schools in Virginia outside Washington; Miami-Dade schools; Greenville County schools in South Carolina; and Charlotte-Mecklenberg schools in North Carolina. Some of the superintendents met today with federal officials in a discussion that was sponsored by the American Association of School Administrators in Alexandria, Va., and EducationCounsel, a consulting firm in Washington.
http://goo.gl/isqOm

Grading the President
With Race to the Top, Obama earns a B+ in ed reform
Education Next book review by Nathan Glazer, professor emeritus of sociology and education at Harvard University

President Obama and Education Reform: The Personal and the Political
By Robert Maranto and Michael Q. McShane
Palgrave Macmillan, 2012, $28; 256 pages.
This book, and this review, will be published while the presidential campaign is in full swing, and whether there will be anything more to be said about President Obama’s efforts at education reform, still fragmentary now, depends on the outcome of the election. President Obama and Education Reform was written when there was really only half a presidential term to evaluate: after the midterm elections of 2010, there was nothing the administration could do that was in any way dependent on Congress, and even the long-delayed effort to reauthorize the primary basis of the federal role in education, the Elementary and Secondary Education Act, it was clear, would have to be delayed further, perhaps to the next administration.
Nevertheless, there is still a story to be told, and the essential part of it is that the program that education reformers have tried to promote now for decades—introduce more choices of schools for students, enable competition among schools, open up paths for preparing teachers and administrators outside schools of education, improve measures of student achievement and teacher competence, enable administrators to act on the basis of such measures, and limit the power of teachers unions—has been advanced under the Obama administration, in the judgment of authors Maranto and McShane.
http://goo.gl/d7mKp

Understanding and Improving Full-Time Virtual Schools
National Education Policy Center analysis

K12 Inc. enrolls more public school students than any other private education management organization in the U.S. Much has been written about K12 Inc. (referred to in this report simply as “K12”) by financial analysts and investigative journalists because it is a large, publicly traded company and is the dominant player in the operation and expansion of full-time virtual schools. This report provides a new perspective on the nation’s largest virtual school provider through a systematic review and analysis of student characteristics, school finance, and school performance of K12-operated schools. Using federal and state data, this report provides a description of the students served by K12 and the public revenues received and spent by the company at the school level. Further, the report presents evidence from a range of school performance measures and strives to understand and explain the overall weak performance of these virtual schools.
While the authors share the excitement of new technologies and the potential these have to improve communication, teacher effectiveness, and learning, they recommend that policymakers move forward cautiously and only after piloting and thoroughly vetting new ideas. The authors express hope that their findings will help inform policymakers and motivate researchers to carefully study various aspects of full-time virtual schools. They conclude that a better understanding of virtual schools can serve to improve this new model and help ensure that full-time virtual schools can better serve students and the public as a whole.
http://goo.gl/dA6He

My Year Volunteering As A Teacher Helped Educate A New Generation Of Underprivileged Kids
and
Can We Please, Just Once, Have A Real Teacher?
Satire from The Onion

My Year Volunteering As A Teacher Helped Educate A New Generation Of Underprivileged Kids
When I graduated college last year, I was certain I wanted to make a real difference in the world. After 17 years of education, I felt an obligation to share my knowledge and skills with those who needed it most.
After this past year, I believe I did just that. Working as a volunteer teacher helped me reach out to a new generation of underprivileged children in dire need of real guidance and care. Most of these kids had been abandoned by the system and, in some cases, even by their families, making me the only person who could really lead them through the turmoil.
Was it always easy? Of course not. But with my spirit and determination, we were all able to move forward.
***
Can We Please, Just Once, Have A Real Teacher?
You’ve got to be kidding me. How does this keep happening? I realize that as a fourth-grader I probably don’t have the best handle on the financial situation of my school district, but dealing with a new fresh-faced college graduate who doesn’t know what he or she is doing year after year is growing just a little bit tiresome. Seriously, can we get an actual teacher in here sometime in the next decade, please? That would be terrific.
Just once, it would be nice to walk into a classroom and see a teacher who has a real, honest-to-God degree in education and not a twentysomething English graduate trying to bolster a middling GPA and a sparse law school application. I don’t think it’s too much to ask for a qualified educator who has experience standing up in front of a classroom and isn’t desperately trying to prove to herself that she’s a good person.
I’m not some sort of stepping stone to a larger career, okay?
http://goo.gl/RcHyZ

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NATIONAL NEWS
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Obama Plans National Teachers Corps to Promote Math, Science
Bloomberg

President Barack Obama today will propose a national “teachers corps” to reward the nation’s best educators in science, technology, engineering and math.
Fifty top teachers in those subjects would get $20,000 stipends on top of their base salaries in exchange for a multiyear commitment to the corps, the administration said in a statement. The White House plans to expand the group to 10,000 teachers over four years. The program would be funded initially with $1 billion from the administration’s fiscal year 2013 budget request, which is subject to approval by Congress.
“If America is going to compete for the jobs and industries of tomorrow, we need to make sure our children are getting the best education possible,” Obama said in the statement. “Teachers matter, and great teachers deserve our support.”
http://goo.gl/XVdXi

http://goo.gl/yt1yG (AP)

http://goo.gl/qcXH0 (White House)

STEM Gender Gap Pronounced in U.S.
Education Week

When the gender gap in STEM education is discussed, it usually centers on the lower proportion of women pursuing college majors and careers in the fields of science, technology, engineering, and math.
But some recent data suggest STEM achievement disparities persist at the K-12 level, based on results from the Advanced Placement program as well as national and global exams.
And yet, what may be true for the United States is not necessarily so around the world. In some instances, international averages on global exams tell a different story, with either no measurable gender difference in math and science scores or girls outpacing boys.
How to interpret the U.S. data is a conundrum, some experts say.
http://goo.gl/cvRPz

South Korea outpaces the U.S. in engineering degrees
Washington Post

DAEJON, South Korea—Any eighth grader who wonders if anyone actually uses algebra should ask Hyungtae Lee, an electrical engineer who writes algorithms to build computers with the power of human sight.
It’s a skill he learned first here in South Korea, where undergraduate students are five times more likely to major in engineering than their counterparts in the United States.
U.S. universities and companies often look abroad for students and workers to fill positions because not enough Americans have the necessary skills or training. To help meet the demand, President Obama has announced a goalto train 1 million more graduates over the next decade in engineering and related fields.
http://goo.gl/w1k0y

Standardized Tests Of Tomorrow Behind Schedule, According To Insider Survey
Huffington Post

When asked about the problems associated with standardized testing — cheating, overtesting, blunt measures of student achievement — U.S. Secretary of Education Arne Duncan often points to a duo of “next-generation assessments” funded by federal money.
But a new survey, which consulting group Whiteboard Advisors plans to publish this week, suggests that “education insiders” aren’t so sure that the one of the new tests will resolve all of the issues with standardized testing. Fifty-eight percent of those surveyed reported that they believe the Smarter, Balanced Assessment Coalition, one of the two state-based consortia developing the tests, is on the wrong track.
“Smarter Balanced seems to have started with a misdiagnosis of the testing program to begin with, and then gone from there,” one respondent wrote.
http://goo.gl/SCxF5

Superintendent Questions Reform Of Teacher Evals
Albuquerque (NM) Journal

Albuquerque Public Schools Superintendent Winston Brooks believes the state’s draft teacher evaluation rule relies too heavily on standardized testing and puts districts on a rushed timetable for developing assessments for subjects other than math and reading.
In a four-page letter to the state Public Education Department, Brooks wrote that he supports the department’s efforts to reform teacher evaluations but believes there are major flaws in the draft rule.
Twice, state education chief Hanna Skandera and Gov. Susana Martinez have unsuccessfully pushed for the Legislature to overturn the state’s current three-tier licensure system and replace it with a system that ties teacher evaluations to student improvement on standardized tests.
After such legislation failed, Skandera began changing the teacher evaluation process through administrative rule.
A public hearing on the rule will be held today in Santa Fe. The New Mexico chapter of the American Federation of Teachers and other unions are planning a protest at the hearing.
http://goo.gl/vGcTi

Wyoming Superintendent of Public Education calls legislators ‘good ol’ boys’
Casper (WY) Star-Tribune

State Superintendent of Public Instruction Cindy Hill characterized two state legislative leaders as “good ol’ boys” working to increase bureaucracy in the Wyoming Education Department and questioned information one cited from the nonpartisan Legislative Service Office.
Hill’s latest battle with state lawmakers erupted when the chairman of the Senate education committee spoke during a radio interview about a new requirement that the governor’s office oversee some of her department’s spending.
On the Cody-based KODI radio show “Speak Your Piece” on Monday, Sen. Hank Coe, R-Cody, cited instances in which he said the department failed to follow state regulations governing spending. Those prompted the legislators to require more oversight of the department, and issues appear to have continued since that legislation was approved, he said.
http://goo.gl/sLdgY

A Fresh Look at What School Menus Can Be
New York Times

DENVER — With the authority of a celebrity chef, Adam Fisher gestured toward the bushels of fresh basil, oregano and parsley sitting on the counter in front of him, as the crowd leaned forward.
“We almost want to treat fresh herbs like we treat fresh flowers,” he commanded, speaking into a microphone clipped to his apron. “You want to snip off the ends, and ideally you want to store them in some water.”
Mr. Fisher may not be some fast-talking TV personality, but he is a chef, a food supervisor for the Denver Public Schools, and he was giving a demonstration on how to whip up cafeteria food — in this case, cucumber and pasta salads — from scratch.
With new federal standards for school meals going into effect this month, and a renewed focus on the issue brought by the first lady, Michelle Obama, thousands of school chefs, food service workers and nutrition experts from around the country gathered in Denver this week at an annual conference put on by the School Nutrition Association, a nonprofit organization of school food professionals.
http://goo.gl/vT0JB

Decision Points: Public or Private High School?
Fox Business

Deciding whether to send your children to private or public school, especially when they reach high school age, can be difficult. Here are some benefits and drawbacks to both institutions.
http://goo.gl/oYsRC

Children Are Getting More Expensive
Despite the economic slump, the smallest Americans are requiring more money
U.S. News & World Report

Here’s some bad news for parents: Even excluding college tuition, children are getting more expensive. The Agriculture Department reports that children born in 2011 will cost their parents $234,900 before they turn 18. That’s 3.5 percent more than what those born in 2010 will cost. The report attributes the increase largely to the rising price of transportation, child care, education (before college), and food.
Even accounting for inflation, the cost of children has risen steeply since the department first started tracking figures in 1960. Back then, children were estimated to cost $191,720 each in 2011 dollars (for middle-income families). Today’s cost estimate represents a 23 percent increase from that figure, largely because of rising healthcare expenses as well as childcare costs.
http://goo.gl/csA6t

A copy of the report
http://goo.gl/2c3PV

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CALENDAR
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USOE Calendar
http://tinyurl.com/5x9oh9

UEN News
http://www.uen.org

August 3:
Utah State Board of Education meeting
250 E. 500 South, Salt Lake City
http://www.schools.utah.gov/board/Meetings/Agenda.aspx

August 9:
Utah State Charter School Board meeting
250 E. 500 South, Salt Lake City
http://1.usa.gov/Axtt5K

August 14:
Executive Appropriations Interim Committee meeting
1 p.m., 445 State Capitol
http://goo.gl/E0hoC

August 15:
Education Interim Committee meeting
2 p.m.
http://goo.gl/8WODJ

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