Hawaii teachers reject contract in ‘blow’ to Race to the Top

Public school teachers in Hawaii have rejected a contract that called for a move to a performance-based evaluation and compensation system, as required by the Race to the Top grant that the state won from the Obama administration, the Washington Post reports. The rejection comes shortly after Hawaii was warned by the U.S. Department of Education that its $75 million Race to the Top grant had been put on “high-risk status”—the first state to be so sanctioned — because it had not moved quickly enough to implement specific reforms. Sixty-seven percent of about 9,000 teachers, counselors and others represented by the Hawaii State Teachers Association opposed the contract, which was seen as a way to move Race to the Top efforts forward and improve its status with Washington…

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Obama education reforms advance as Congress falters

President Barack Obama’s administration is moving ahead in reforming U.S. education without the help of the Congress, and will soon announce which states can opt out of the national education law known as “No Child Left Behind,” Reuters reports. There are two bills currently in Congress to re-authorize the decade-old law that radically changed U.S. public schools.

“I don’t think either one of those is going to move forward anytime soon, but I think the waiver process that we’re doing now is going to be the only game in town,” Education Secretary Arne Duncan told a meeting of U.S. mayors in the U.S. capital.

“We hope to say ‘yes’ to the first set of waivers in the next couple of weeks, probably by the end of the month. We’ll just do this on a rolling basis,” he added……Read More

City’s unwanted teachers drift through a life in limbo

Hundreds of city teachers show up at schools they’ve never seen before every Monday morning, DNAinfo.com reports. The lucky ones get assigned to classrooms, maybe to teach the subject in which they were trained. Others do paperwork. And some waste hours doing nothing. On Thursdays, they get a notice from the Department of Education telling them where to report the following week, and the cycle repeats. This is what the DOE calls the Absent Teacher Reserve, a pool of nomadic educators who are paid their full salaries to work as substitutes. Most have been “excessed” by budget cuts or school closings and have been unable to find new jobs. Others have been liberated from the department’s notorious “rubber room,” or have survived “unsatisfactory” ratings, and were deemed fit to keep teaching…

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California school plan to scrap kindergarten program spurs protest

California educators and childcare advocates are protesting Gov. Jerry Brown’s plan to scrap a new program for children who are no longer old enough for kindergarten, the Associated Press reports. In his plan to close the state budget deficit, Brown proposes to cut funding for “transitional kindergarten,” a new grade level created when Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger signed legislation that raised the starting age for kindergarten. Kellie Little, a salon owner who lives in Marin County, said she was planning to send her son, who turns 5 in November, to the new kindergarten program at her local public school…

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Education law’s promise falls short after 10 years

In Washington, much of the political debate over the law centers on how much federal control the government should have.

The No Child Left Behind education law was cast as a symbol of possibility, offering the promise of improved schools for the nation’s poor and minority children and better prepared students in a competitive world.

Yet after a decade on the books, President George W. Bush’s most hyped domestic accomplishment has become a symbol to many of federal overreach and Congress’ inability to fix something that’s clearly flawed.

The law forced schools to confront the uncomfortable reality that many kids simply weren’t learning, but it’s primarily known for its emphasis on standardized tests and the labeling of thousands of schools as “failures.”…Read More

Study: Once-a-year teacher evaluations not enough

College professors have been evaluated by their students for years.

Once-a-year evaluations aren’t enough to help teachers improve, says a report by the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation.

And school districts using infrequent classroom observations to decide who are their best—and their worst—teachers could be making some big mistakes, according to the second part of a multi-year study from the foundation.

Preliminary results were posted online Jan. 6.…Read More

As Digital Learning Day approaches, states pledge support

States are gearing up for the first Digital Learning Day on February 1.

A new report that comes in advance of the first-ever Digital Learning Day argues that digital learning can expand students’ learning opportunities and help schools overcome tough budget situations and boost achievement.

The Digital Learning Imperative: How Teaching and Technology Meet Today’s Educational Challenges, from the Alliance for Excellent Education (AEE), comes just one month before the first-ever Digital Learning Day on Feb. 1, 2012.

The report outlines three challenges that the U.S. education system faces:…Read More

Traditional schools blurring district lines

As school choice becomes a mantra of 21st century education reform, especially for the growing charter school movement, traditional public schools also are embracing free-market competition, the Washington Post reports. Tens of thousands of Washington area children crisscross their districts to attend specialized science, foreign language or performing-arts programs in regular public schools. The mission of these choice programs is changing, though. Magnet schools, offering specialized curriculum to attract students beyond neighborhood boundaries, were created in the 1960s as tools for voluntary desegregation. But as courts dismantled school assignment policies based on race, many school districts have played down—or abandoned—their diversity goals…

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National education reformer to lead Bridgeport

Paul G. Vallas, an education reformer who has led some of the nation’s most troubled school systems, including the New Orleans district after Hurricane Katrina devastated that city, is taking on a new challenge: The Bridgeport school district, ctpost.com reports. Vallas, 58, was named Tuesday as interim superintendent in the state’s largest city, whose district has some of the state’s lowest test scores and deepest poverty. He starts Jan. 1, and will inherit both a $6 million budget gap and a state-appointed school board whose very existence is being weighed by the state Supreme Court. Earlier on Tuesday at the Bridgeport Holiday Inn, Vallas said he is not intimidated.

“I am used to taking on great challenges and going into crisis situations,” he said. “Our plan is to move fast.”

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Virtual schools booming as states mull warnings

iNACOL acknowledges that states need to do a better job overseeing online schools.

More schoolchildren than ever are taking their classes online, using technology to avoid long commutes to school, add courses they wouldn’t otherwise be able to take—and save their school districts money.

But as states pour money into virtual classrooms, with an estimated 200,000 virtual K-12 students in 40 states from Washington to Wisconsin, educators are raising questions about virtual learning. States are taking halting steps to increase oversight, but regulation isn’t moving nearly as fast as the virtual school boom.

The virtual learning debate pits traditional education backers, including teachers’ unions, against lawmakers tempted by the promise of cheaper online schools and school-choice advocates who believe private companies will apply cutting-edge technology to education.…Read More

Report: Half of schools fail to meet federal standards

At least 39 states, plus Washington, D.C. and Puerto Rico, have said they will file waivers.

Nearly half of America’s public schools didn’t meet federal achievement standards this year, marking the largest failure rate since the much-criticized No Child Left Behind law took effect a decade ago, according to a national report released Dec. 15.

The Center on Education Policy report shows more than 43,000 schools—or 48 percent—did not make “adequate yearly progress” this year. The failure rates range from a low of 11 percent in Wisconsin to a high of 89 percent in Florida.

The findings are far below the 82 percent failure rate that Education Secretary Arne Duncan predicted earlier this year but still indicate an alarming trend that Duncan hopes to address by granting states relief from the federal law. The law requires states to have every student performing at grade level in math and reading by 2014, which most educators agree is an impossible goal.…Read More