Daily News Roundup—July 1, 2010

EEP NEWS

The Education Equality Project joins Democrats for Education Reform, the Education Trust, and the National Alliance for Public Charter Schools in opposing the Obey amendment that would swipe hundreds of millions of dollars in already-promised education reform funding.

EEP sends out major congratulations to signatory and friend Peter Groff.  Groff who is currently the director of the Center for Faith‐Based and Neighborhood Partnerships at the U. S. Department of Education will now serve as the president and chief executive officer of the National Alliance for Public Charter Schools. Groff takes the helm from Nelson Smith, also an EEP signatory, who has done an extraordinary job.  Read the Alliance’s press release here and EdWeek's coverage here.

The Washington Post interviews Michelle Rhee, D.C. Schools Chancellor (EEP signatory) who hints that her role as D.C. school chief hinges on Mayor Fenty’s (EEP signatory) reelection.

EEP Signatory Tom Vander Ark gives a high 5 to charters at the end of this year’s National Charter School Conference in Chicago.

National

The top education news of the day continues to be Chairman Obey’s proposal to cut $800M in funds from the Administration’s already-in-place reform programs (Race to the Top, Teacher Incentive Fund, and the Charter Schools Program) to fund the $10B Edujobs bill.  EdWeek has the full story.

EdWeek reports that President Obama has once again voiced the Administration’s opposition to Congressional Democrats’ efforts to cut key education reform funding.

Opposition to Obey’s proposal is fast and furious.  Kati Haycock, Education Trust’s President (and an EEP signatory), speaks out in the Huffington Post, the Center for American Progress’ Cindy Brown takes issue, the New Teacher Project weighs in, the New Republic gets feisty, and the Washington Post editorial page is strongly opposed.

On the Hill, Representative Jared Polis (D-CO and EEP signatory) sent Chairman Obey an impassioned letter criticizing his proposal:  "If we are to meet the President's goal of becoming global leaders in college graduates by 2020, we must rethink and reinvent our approach to education by moving forward with bold reforms. Unfortunately, the proposed cuts represent a major step backward."

Both national teachers unions – NEA and AFT – support Obey’s proposal. Edweek has Randi Weingarten’s position here.

The House Education and Labor Committee introduce bipartisan legislation to improve the nutritional quality of school food, called the “Improving Nutrition for America’s Children Act.”  The bill would dramatically expand access for millions of children to healthy meals year-round in schools, child care, and community based settings and for the first time, establish nutrition standards for foods sold outside of the cafeteria. Rachel Ray was on-hand to endorse the act

USA Today asks whether 2010 is the year that moviegoers will get the concerned urban parent demanding an end to teacher tenure? The article discusses four films:

1. Teached, directed by activist and onetime Teach For America corps member Kelly Amis. It tackles tenure, bureaucracy and "anti-child work rules that permeate every school in America."
2. The Cartel, directed by former TV news anchor and reporter Bob Bowdon. It takes on the "unconscionable failure" of New Jersey's public schools.
3. The Lottery, an intimate look at four families' attempts to get children into an oversubscribed Harlem charter school.
4. Waiting for Superman, the biggest and flashiest of the four, directed by Davis Guggenheim, who won an Oscar for … An Inconvenient Truth.

EdWeek reports that the fast-track effort to overhaul low-performing schools, a centerpiece of Secretary Duncan’s school improvement agenda, has state and local education leaders scrambling to prepare and launch aggressive interventions at their most troubled campuses.

U.S. Secretary of Education Arne Duncan announced the recent presidential appointments of Deborah Loewenberg Ball, Adam Gamoran, Bridget Terry Long and Margaret R. McLeod as members of the National Board of Education Sciences (NBES).

Bill Tucker, from The Quick and the Ed, discusses the importance of the Assessment Consortia, which will ultimately set the standards by which students and teachers are evaluated, and its potential direct impact on teaching and learning over the next decade.  With $320 million of “Race to the Test” funds to be disbursed between two organizations later this year, there are massive implications.

From the States

California

EdWeek reports that in the wake of a costly, much-publicized fiasco, the payroll system of the nation's second-largest school district, Los Angeles, remains dangerously incomplete and inadequately monitored (as found by a Grand Jury investigation).

The Sacramento Bee reports that Senate President Pro Tem Darrell Steinberg's bill to overhaul teacher layoffs and reassignments survived its first legislative test Wednesday despite the opposition of teacher unions.

Minnesota

The Star Tribune reports that although Minnesota students performed slightly better on math and reading tests, the gains won't be enough to prevent more schools from being added to the list of those falling behind under the federal No Child Left Behind law. The large Minnesota achievement gap only showed marginal improvement compared to last year.

New York

A New York Times editorial highlights the recent MDRC study showing small schools are outperforming their larger, more traditional counterparts, and are significantly reducing the achievement gap in the city.

The Wall Street Journal reports that while schools across New York City have been forced to trim their budgets, the number of teachers who get full salaries and benefits even though they've lost their permanent classroom assignments is expected to rise.

Pennsylvania

EdWeek reports that in Philadelphia, small schools that were supposed to transform the large, failing American high school, have shown mixed results, according to national and local research.

Rhode Island

Rhode Island’s commissioner of education (and EEP signatory) Deborah Gist writes in EdWeek that an agreement between the teachers’ union and the school district in that state’s most impoverished city has put its much-publicized Central Falls High School on the fast track to improvement.

Washington, D.C.

A Wall Street Journal editorial posits that Washington, D.C.’s new teacher contract should serve as a national reform model.  The new contract “shatters taboos on teacher tenure, seniority and pay-for-performance,” and was a major triumph for Schools Chancellor (and EEP Signatory) Michelle Rhee.

Tennessee

Commercial Appeal reports that Memphis City Schools is embarking on a $200,000 TV, print, and social-media campaign to recruit top teachers and attract more private funds to the district, after receiving a $90 million grant from the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation last fall.

Public Schedule of U.S. Secretary of Education Arne Duncan

The Week Ahead: Monday-Sunday, June 28-July 4

Information/Schedule Subject to Change

Monday, June 28

No public events

Tuesday, June 29

9 a.m.

Address to the annual conference of the U.S. Department of Education's Institute of Education Sciences.
Gaylord National Resort and Convention Center, 201 Waterfront St. (Convention Center Level/Maryland Ballroom A-D), National Harbor, Md.

Noon

Remarks at the kick off of the Education Department's 2010 Let's Read! Let's Move! summer reading program. Mrs. Arne Duncan will also attend.
Education Department headquarters, 400 Maryland Ave., S.W., Washington.

Wednesday, June 30

10:30 a.m.

Address to the 2010 National Conference on Service and Volunteering.
Hilton New York, 1335 Avenue of the Americas (Grand Ballroom East and West), New York.

Thursday, July 1

11:55 a.m. ET

Address to the 2010 National Alliance for Public Charter Schools Conference via satellite.

Friday, July 2

No public events

Saturday, July 3

No public events

Sunday, July 4

No public events

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