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The Bully's at it again - Gov. Markell goes after another board ...

Delaware Gov. Jack Markell, health board at odds over proposed hospital

He supports an $18.5 million Middletown facility, but a review group recommends it be rejected

Good God Jack! 

Let's talk any random market:  Take Housing:  The housing market has a glut of homes that aren't selling.  Builders are still building.  And homeowners are ending up in short sale or foreclosure at record rates.  Real Estate agents are out of work.  Mortgage offices have down-sized or closed.

Now let's talk the healthcare markert:  Delaware has a system that requires that a major medical facility receive a certificate of need before it can be built.  It's pretty straight forward.  If an area doesn't warrant "need" permission for construction/operation is not granted.  What constitutes need?  The Delaware Health Resources Board has been entrusted with the duty of verifying "need."  The committee assigned with assessing a recommendation for the greater board has not verified a need for the proposed facility even though the project would create temporary construction jobs and approx. 80 employment positions.

What happens when facilities are built where there is no discernable need?  Let's see? The type of healthcare facility proposed would likely accept health insurance and medicare/medicaid.  It would draw patients/residents from nearby facilities that already have open beds.  A gluttony of beds creates instability.  When a facility has a low census or patient population, employees work fewer hours. Sometimes employees are laid-off.  Regardless, fewer hours mean less pay per period, meaning less consumerism.  Employees that are under-employed run greater risks of being unable to provide for their families.  Employees would be forced to seek other employment options, perhaps jumping ship into one of those new 80 positions.  Since the census at their previous facilities would be lower, those positions are likely to remain unfilled/unneeded.

Jack - for all the political maneuvering you've injected into the process that you've deeply tainted, you will fail to create 80 new jobs.  In all likelihood, those 80 positions will simply be uprooted and transplanted into the new facility from other previously operating facilities.  That's not job growth.

And lest you are forgetful, in the last two decades, healthcare facilities have closed.  They have been unable to stay afloat financially.  I am reminded of a Wilmington nursing home run by the former-PUMH that closed in 2000.  When the market is diluted, closure happens.  Look at schools across the nation.  You'll find some shells that once housed learning and academics.

Here's an idea:  Jack, stop running your next campaign and start running the state's government.  It's time.
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Main Street Introduces us to One of NY Worst Teachers, What High Stakes Testing Means for Good Teachers

From : http://www.workingamerica.org/blog/2011/03/08/education-deform/

Education Deform


Meet one of the worst teachers in New York (http://www.nytimes.com/2011/03/07/education/07winerip.html?_r=1&pagewanted=1&ref=us&src=me
according to the testing formula by which she’s measured. Stacy Isaacson is at work in the school building from 7am to 5:30pm. According to her students:

“Definitely one of a kind,” said Isabelle St. Clair, now a sophomore at Bard, another selective high school. “I’ve had lots of good teachers, but she stood out — I learned so much from her.”

And

“I really liked how she’d incorporate what we were doing in history with what we did in English,” Marya said. “It was much easier to learn” — which, of course, is what great teachers strive for.

The test scores that landed her in the bottom 10% of teachers:

Her first year teaching, 65 of 66 scored proficient on the state language arts test, meaning they got 3’s or 4’s; only one scored below grade level with a 2. More than two dozen students from her first two years teaching have gone on to Stuyvesant High School or Bronx High School of Science, the city’s most competitive high schools. 

Because of the complicated formula used to calculate her performance, Isaacson can’t exactly understand what the issue is.

In plain English, Ms. Isaacson’s best guess about what the department is trying to tell her is: Even though 65 of her 66 students scored proficient on the state test, more of her 3s should have been 4s.

As a result, she won’t get tenure and could even be in line to be laid off. And mind you, this is because of something that’s supposed to identify and reward the best teachers.

So that’s one way the education “reformers’” passion for learning is playing out in our schools. Meanwhile, budget cuts across the country mean increased class sizes.

Over the past two years, California, Georgia, Nevada, Ohio, Utah and Wisconsin have loosened legal restrictions on class size. And Idaho and Texas are debating whether to fit more students in classrooms.

Los Angeles has increased the average size of its ninth-grade English and math classes to 34 from 20. Eleventh- and 12th-grade classes in those two subjects have risen, on average, to 43 students.

What difference does that make?

In the 1980s, Ms. Bain persuaded Tennessee lawmakers to finance a study comparing classes of 13 to 17 students in kindergarten through third grade with classes of 22 to 25 students. The smaller classes significantly outscored the larger classes on achievement tests.

In the decades since, researchers, including the Princeton economist Alan Krueger, have conducted studies that they say confirm and strengthen the validity of the Tennessee findings.

But hey, the Secretary of Education disagrees. He says what matters is good teachers, even if the classes are big. Which brings us back to Stacy Isaacson and the question of what exactly we mean by “good teachers.”

It sure is comforting to know we have this empirically-minded education “reform” movement, isn’t it? How else would we know that we should ignore both numerous studies on the effects of class size and what experienced teachers say about the difficulties of teaching big classes, and replace bad teachers like Stacy Isaacson with good ones who could effortlessly handle class sizes that rise every time budgets are cut?
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Education Deform - The Glossary

I stumbled upon this little piece of deformist heaven and would be remissed if I didn't share it with you all:
http://www.arthurhu.com/index/edgloss.htm  Thank You Arthur Hu, whoever you are, for taking the time to break the education deform culture down so that it can be understood by non-educrats. 

Here's a sampling.  Really just a sampling.  So many more links and deeper explanations and humor can be found through the link above:

  • Block Schedule : Education Reform: Arthur Hu's Index
    • Another questionable school "reform" program, typically replaces 7 1 hour classes with 4 longer periods on the assumption that you can't learn enough in an hour and too many interruptions.
    • Instead of taking math, english, music and PE throughout the year, you take "4x4", four courses in the first half, and four in the second half, or eight for the entire year. Critics say students get bored after an hour and simply waste time, leads to disasterous reductions in academic performance, and just a bad idea.
    • Music teachers say students drop out because they can't schedule music throught the year, and the SAT and AP people say it has a terrible effect on math scores as well because you go for a half year without doing any math or science.
    • It supposedly is well suited for school to work work assignments, but that makes it even harder to schedule in music or PE.
    • Another variation is to teach groups of up to 70 students
  • Big Anti-Block Schedule Attack Pieces:
    • The Case Against Block Scheduling by Curator: Jeff Lindsay , Studies show students perform worse, and there are problems with retention, attention span, and less time spent teaching.
    • More on Block Scheduling Here (with links) http://www.arthurhu.com/index/block.htm

  • Constructivism The teacher no longer teaches, the students "construct" their own learning
  • Discovery Based Learning Constructivism asks why spend 10 min just teaching kids when they can spend a week "discovering" the pythagorean theorm or that circumf = 2 * Pi r?
  • Drill "Drill and Kill": Constructivists believe that practice is bad.
  • High Performance Organization Marc Tuckers' term for the "new organization" where every worker performs management functions in the 21st century, but Ford of Mexico does will with 9th grade level workers!
  • Higher Order Thinking If you don't get high scores with basic skills, then maybe you should work on higher order thinking instead. If you can figure things out, then you don't actually have to learn or know anything.
  • Higher Standards movement Standards not based on fact-based knowledge, promoting whole language and new new math, throwing out norm-based references for new standards with arbitrary cutoff "proficiency" points based on what people think kids can do, not what real kids can do.
  • Invented Spelling Don't even try to point out incorrect spelling, they will eventually get it right, in fact, encourage them to make up their own spelling. Teachers can now spot classes that are taught whole language when none of them can spell.
  • Job Shadow Spend class time hanging around employees at a real job site instead of spending time learning academic skills.
  • Learning Education and Teaching are Out. Learning is "in".
  • Reconstitution If students don't study, fire the teachers.
  • Standards Based Reform Movement Latest mutation of Outcome Based Education. Led by Marc Tucker's NCEE, a witches brew of OBE, STW, progressivism, constructivism, performance base assessment, and other reforms backed up by blue ribbon commision findings and the best PR money can buy. It covered up to half of children educated in US by mid 1990s.
  • Science is just a social construct Who needs objective facts?
  • Science Integrated Curriculums Whoopee This Stinks! Mix up all kinds of science instead of distinct "real" Biology, Physics or Chem.
  • Site Council Elaborate scam to make it look like your school is making its own decisions, but really a fancy way to insure district policy is rubber stamped at the school level.
  • Social Promotion New policy is to ban social promotion, but the alternative is retention, or pretend that everyone performs or can be made to perform at an acceptable level.
  • Progressive Education The underlying model for most new reforms. Critics say they are based on Marxism and Socialism in setting equality for all at a very low level.
  • Restructuring Our education system is in crisis, and it's not ready for the high-tech 21st century, so lets' toss everything we know about an education system that works, and completely change it with every new fad we can think of. \
  • Natural Learning Style :( Studying hard and memorizing lots of facts isn't natural, so we want to discourage underperformers from emulating the nerds who get high grades and test scores "unnaturally".
  • Core Knowledge E.D. Hirsch system that students actually need to know content, not just "learning skills for lifelong learning". They should know how to add and divide, and spell, not have to figure it out when they'll need it. A top enemy of reform, up there with Saxon.
  • Correct Answer An archaic concept that is damaging to self esteem of students who are judged to have "incorrect" answers. Questions are rated on a "rubric", and often questions which demonstrate mastery of a concept can be given full credit even the the answer is not numerically correct.
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U.S. Reforms Out of Sync With High-Performing Nations

Published Online: May 27, 2011
From Edweek.com
http://www.edweek.org/ew/articles/2011/05/27/33international.h30.html?tkn=ZQXFEjpQurjNXpuKPqFDrgc16E2VSyy8rXRo&cmp=ENL-EU-NEWS1


U.S. Reforms Out of Sync With High-Performing Nations, Report Finds
By Stephen Sawchuk


The United States’ education system is neither coherent nor likely to see great improvements based on its current attempts at reform, a report released this week by the National Center on Education and the Economy concludes.

The NCEE report is the latest salvo in a flurry of national interest in what can be gleaned from education systems in top-performing or rapidly improving countries. It pushes further than other recent reports on the topic by laying out an ambitious agenda for the United States it says reflects the education practices in countries that are among the highest-performing on international assessments.

Among other measures, the report outlines a less-frequent system of standardized student testing; a statewide funding-equity model that prioritizes the neediest students, rather than local distribution of resources; and greater emphasis on the professionalization of teaching that would overhaul most elements of the current model of training, professional development, and compensation.

“I think we have been for a long time caught in a vicious cycle. We’ve been unwilling to do the things that have been needed to have a high-quality teaching force,” including raising the entry standard for teacher preparation and requiring prospective teachers to major in a content area, said Marc S. Tucker, the president of the NCEE.
“We’ve been unwilling to pay teachers at the level of engineers. We’ve been solving our problems of teacher shortages by waiving the very low standards that we have. We have been frustrated by low student performance, and now, we’re blaming our teachers for that, which makes it even harder to get good people,” Mr. Tucker continued.

The paper also states that progress on any one of the reform areas alone is unlikely to result in widespread boosts in student learning. All efforts, it says, are interconnected and should be linked to a coherent vision of what students should know and a system for ascertaining whether they achieve those goals.

The report also praises the United States’ progress on clearer, common academic standards in English/language arts and mathematics as a first step in defining such outcomes. But it notes that the success of that venture will depend on its ability to connect such expectations to the other pieces of the country’s education system.

Major Findings

Once a topic primarily reserved for academics, the “international comparisons” discussion has exploded over the past few years, with policymakers, pundits, and teachers’ unions arguing that better educating students is crucial to the nation’s economic success.

It has also been the subject of considerable federal interest. U.S. Secretary of Education Arne Duncan helped convene a major forum of education leaders from 16 countries in March, and he commissioned the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development, a forum representing a group of industrialized nations, to produce a report about what lessons could be learned from the results of the Program for International Student Assessment, or PISA. ("International Leaders Urge Nations to Raise Status of Teachers," March 30, 2011.)

The NCEE report draws both on qualitative case studies of other countries’ systems and on the quantitative data and extensive background surveys produced as part of PISA. Much of the analysis incorporates information from the OECD report commissioned by Mr. Duncan, which NCEE also produced.

It builds on the former efforts, however, by contrasting the practices of those countries with undertakings in the United States.

For instance, the report notes that no other country has grade-by-grade national testing, pointing out that such countries as Singapore and Japan tend to use such exams sparingly, only at the end of primary and secondary schooling. The tests are closely linked to curricula and carry stakes for students in terms of progressing, rather than being used for school or teacher accountability.

Such countries also have much higher entry standards for teachers and require greater content knowledge, which is better integrated with training in pedagogy. In general, the report states, such efforts have helped to elevate the status of the profession, which is reflected in higher pay, more autonomy, and additional career opportunities as teachers advance.

Finally, teachers’ unions are prevalent in top-performing jurisdictions such as Finland and Ontario, Canada, but work in a “professional” rather than “industrial” mode. The report says that U.S. teachers must give up blue-collar work rules like seniority rights and recognize difference in performance in exchange for being treated as professional partners, who are given autonomy and trusted to diagnose and solve instructional problems on their own.

The report also takes aim at what it deems “myths” of international comparisons, such as the notion that other countries educate only an elite corps of students, or that their scores are higher because of less-diverse student populations.

The report concludes by calling on the federal government to fund a competition, modeled on the Race to the Top program, to help states adopt a comprehensive system of education practices used by other countries.

States, it says, should be the key level of government to help move toward a more coherent education system—as they have been in provinces, such as Ontario, that are part of federated nations.

On Track?

At an event where the report was released this week, panelists outlined different opinions about whether the agenda embodied in the report reflects or diverges from the current education reform efforts in the United States.

In his remarks, Secretary Duncan highlighted similarities between the two. He noted that, for instance, high-performing systems like Singapore use bonuses, scholarships, and salary supplements to reward great teaching and to attract teachers to hard-to-staff schools or shortage areas. The Obama administration has pursued such policies through the Race to the Top and other federal competitions.

“Clearly, our education system is not as far down the track as those of top performers, nor are we anywhere near where we need to be to win the race for the future,” Mr. Duncan said. “But we are not off-track or chugging down an abandoned spur line.”

He also praised the work on the common standards, which was underwritten by experts convened by the National Governors Association and the Council of Chief State School Officers. Forty-four states and the District of Columbia have adopted those standards, which draw heavily on curriculum guidelines used in top-performing countries.

Mr. Duncan stated, however, that the federal government would not prescribe a national curriculum as part of its support of the common-standards agenda. That comment came as an apparent rebuttal to a group of scholars and education advocates who have accused the Education Department of overstepping a federal law prohibiting it from mandating a national curriculum. (" 'Manifesto' Proposing Shared Curriculum Draws Counterattack," May 18, 2011.)

Other commentators, though, outlined perceived differences between international practices on teaching and the United States’ current efforts.

For instance, the Obama administration supports the idea of linking test scores to teacher evaluations. But many international education leaders at the March forum raised concerns about such policies.

“The perception is teacher evaluation based on narrow student test scores, and no country thinks that’s a good idea,” noted Vivien Stewart, the senior adviser for education for the Asia Society, a New York City-based nonprofit that facilitates policy dialogues between the United States and Asian nations, in an interview. “The evaluation systems in these countries tend to be fairly broad,” said Ms. Stewart, who is writing a paper about the issues discussed at the forum.

Singapore, she noted, has 16 domains in which evaluation takes place, including a focus on achievement, professional contribution to the school, community involvement, and relationship with parents.

Data on student performance and teaching are widely used to improve practice, but not disseminated in the public way they are in the United States, she added.

Challenging Views

William H. Schmidt, a professor of statistics and education at Michigan State University who has extensively studied other countries’ curricula, generally praised the NCEE report, especially for its focus on defining a specific body of knowledge students should master. Mr. Schmidt, who has also researched vast differences in the math skills of middle school teachers prepared in the United States, said teacher preparation should be the next frontier. ("U.S. Middle-Grades Teachers Found Ill-Prepared in Math," December 19, 2007.)

“We’re really at a precipice here. We’ve got these common standards, a nationally specified set of clearly focused standards. The problem is what comes next,” he said. “The U.S. has such a short attention span.”

The report’s general principles have been debated by other international scholars, however, who have raised concerns that the movement to common standards and tests could lead to more rigid schooling and lockstep expectations for students.

Many of the report’s recommendations also do not fit neatly within current U.S. debates about the use of assessments or how to upgrade the quality of teaching.

For instance, the national teachers’ unions have been among the strongest proponents of less standardized testing for accountability and more autonomy for classroom teachers. But doing away with seniority, which the report characterizes as a relic from “industrial” unionism, could be challenging.

The American Federation of Teachers has been reluctant to discard seniority as a factor in layoffs, noting that evaluation systems capable of distinguishing teachers by performance are not yet widespread.

At the release event, however, AFT President Randi Weingarten said that the union is open to discarding some work rules as long as teachers are treated fairly and maintain due process rights. She pointed as an example to the “thin” contract signed by AFT-affiliated teachers in a New York City charter school and the Green Dot charter-management organization, which among other provisions does not specify work hours for teachers.

And increasing teacher-preparation quality means tackling the perception of teacher education as an easy route to a diploma, a change that will have consequences, noted Mari Koerner, the dean of the education school at Arizona State University, a top preparer of teachers. She described losing teacher-candidates after the college increased the rigor of its preparation programs.

“These sentimental views of teachers [in the United States] drive me nuts,” Ms. Koerner said at this week’s forum. “[Preparation] is not about whether you love children; it is whether you can teach children.”
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"An Education"

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La Recovery School District to see funding cuts

New Orleans schools are slated to lose voucher, insurance money from state


dvocates for both public and private schools in New Orleans are engaged in a furious lobbying effort at the state Capitol this week, pushing lawmakers to restore education financing that has been stripped from Gov. Bobby Jindal's proposed budget.

As is, the spending plan taking shape in Baton Rouge would slice out part of the operating budget for the Recovery School District, the state body that oversees a majority of public schools in New Orleans. It also would eliminate funding for the state's voucher program, which was supposed to provide private school tuition for about 2,000 students in Orleans Parish this fall.

Combined with other cuts to state Department of Education programs, the loss of financing would have "a crippling impact on our ability to deliver high-quality educational programs to our students, families, local school districts, schools, and educators," Acting State Superintendent Ollie Tyler warned last week.


The cuts were part of $139 million in spending reductions ordered by the budget-writing House Appropriations Committee last Tuesday, which has provoked a well-orchestrated backlash from Jindal's administration. Advocates for parents and schools in New Orleans have joined the fray, scrambling to make their case to lawmakers ahead of the budget debate that will take place in the full House beginning Wednesday.

Legislators have until their June 23 scheduled adjournment to settle their differences with the administration.


As a reminder - Early on in the RTTT application process, the Recovery School District was cited a successful example of the RTTT models by various education deform advocates such as Mass Insight.


From the LaRSD website:
http://www.doe.state.la.us/divisions/rsd/

Overview


With its unique governance model – designed to support autonomy, flexibility and innovation – the Recovery School District (RSD) is a leading reform model for educators around the country and even around the globe as they search for solutions to transform low-performing schools.

Established by the Legislature in 2003, this state-administered school district intervenes when schools are deemed as failing for at least four consecutive years. In the 2009-10 school year, the RSD is providing direct or indirect support to 113 schools in 14 school districts across Louisiana. With its strong focus on recruiting and supporting highly effective teachers and school leaders, the RSD has established a successful track record over the course of just a few years and is garnering national respect for its significant progress.
The expected funding cuts in La will impact the district's ability to provide insurance coverage for its facilities.

Huge hit on insurance


The biggest hit to New Orleans schools would be the loss of state money that normally covers building insurance premiums. The Appropriations Committee stripped the $11 million set aside in the Recovery School District's budget for covering those premiums.

That means RSD schools will have to pay an average of $350 per student every year to cover the premiums themselves, according to an estimate from the state department of education, an expense that would fall on both the independently run charter schools that predominate in the RSD and the district's traditional schools.

That rate is somewhat inflated because Louisiana law requires that state bodies like the Recovery School District buy insurance through the Louisiana Office of Risk Management, rather than looking for the best possible price in the private market.

Everyone from individual school leaders to RSD Superintendent John White and members of the state board of education has mobilized to point this out to lawmakers.
The second area of funding in question is around vouchers.  The voucher program funded tuition for 1700 Louisiana students this year.
Quest to preserve vouchers


At the same time, proponents of private school vouchers are waging their own battle to survive the budget ax.

"We really have our armies out to make sure everyone understands the potential impact on our students and on this state," said Monteic A. Sizer, the top Louisiana official for the Black Alliance of Educational Options.

The alliance is a fervent backer of the New Orleans voucher program. Last year the state put up $8.7 million to pay for the private school tuition of about 1,700 students in New Orleans from kindergarten through fifth grade. With support from Jindal, the program was set to expand into middle school this fall, covering about 2,000 students with state funding of $10 million.
C&E 1st follows the successes and failures of the "model" reform districts touted by the likes of Arne Duncan as they may forecast the future for Delaware's current education reform efforts.  This story brings us back to the question we've been asking for two years:  What happens when RTTT runs out? And districts are still mandated to continue the reforms without the federal-to-state-to-district funding? Will districts be forced to shift local tax dollars to supporting reform efforts? What would that impact feel like?  Are the plans truly sustainable beyond the RTTT funding? And most importantly, what happens if the achievement acceleration that the state is banking on simply never percolates?
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Baltimore MD Charter Schools to receive more funding than traditional schools.

School officials, charter leaders at odds over funding disparity

Charter schools to receive more per-pupil funding than traditional schools in budget set to be adopted Tuesday
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Post-Apocalyptic Life??? Brains...

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See You on the Other Side ...

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60 Minutes ...

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Two Hours and Counting ...

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Three Hours and Counting ...

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Four Hours and Counting

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Count Down to the Rapture

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Can You Name This Place? And Guess the Year?

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Delaware's Para-Educators Need a Livable Wage

Rep. Kowalko has a thoughtful piece in the News Journal Op-Ed today.
Check it out here: Our School Paraprofessionals Deserve Better Wages

At C&E 1st, We wholeheartedly agree. We can only hope that our legislators at-large value our paras as much as we do.  They are critical to many classrooms and programs.  The travesty is these devoted Delaware educators do their job for a pay that puts them below the poverty line. Who would take that job when they can make more at McDonalds?  For the most part, truly dedicated professionals whose desire to give children the support they need to realize success for outweighs the benefits of the job itself. 

My daughter's educational life has been touched by many paras.  She holds a special place in heart for them.  There's a picture of Ms. Rachel and her puppy Daisy in my kitchen.  Another of Ms. Kim and Ms. Fran taped into the collage of family photos on our cabinet doors. She's been fortunate enough to have the same para, Ms. S. for the last three years.  These educators and the love they've shown her have helped her fulfill her potential.  Without them, their instructional help and their emotional support, she would not be the wonderful child that she is today.  Thank You Paras!  I hope the state appreciates you as much as we do!
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Palate Cleanser: Quotes containing the word "illustrious"

The martyr cannot be dishonored. Every lash inflicted is a tongue of fame; every prison a more illustrious abode.  - Ralph Waldo Emerson

It is folly for an eminent man to think of escaping censure, and a weakness to be affected with it. All the illustrious persons of antiquity, and indeed of every age in the world, have passed through this fiery persecution.  - Joseph Addison

It was my care to make my life illustrious not by words more than by deeds.  - Sophocles




Read more: http://www.brainyquote.com/words/il/illustrious176022.html#ixzz1MnuFKlmV
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Delawarean Maurice Pritchett Joins the Joey Wise Outfit

For those who have followed the Broadie Toadie Joe Wise's saga through the years - from the days when he financially sank the Christina School District to his less than glorious time as a Florida superintendent and beyond to his latest education venture, Atlantic Research Partners:  The Prominent Delaware Educator and Community Leader, Mr. Maurice Pritchett, has joined the Wise family.  "Pritch" as he's known locally was even named in Wise's ARP response to the Illinois RFP for a lead partner in that state's education reform movement, http://www.isbe.state.il.us/apl/pdf/ipz/proposals/atlantic_research_lead.pdf :


9. Partner with Randy Sprick's CHAMPS and Delaware-based Maurice Pritchett's community models for improving the support of students from poverty backgrounds, parent supports and training, positive school culture and discipline, and teens with other personal challenges such as pregnancy, drugs and alcohol and other criminal activity.
And here, under the section headed:


"iii. Provide a summary of the qualifications of the staff who would be involved in the project and list their specific experience and success with school intervention efforts. Describe to what degree these staff will be involved in the day-to-day work with the district and school(s). In an appendix include one-page résumés for all individuals involved with the turnaround efforts."

Maurice Pritchett —Community Engagement Coach. Pritchett has a great deal of experience in parent and community outreach. He has served community director positions in many school districts throughout the country.


From the Atlantic Research Partners website: http://atlanticresearchpartners.org/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=2&Itemid=2

Mr. Maurice Pritchett, Faculty, Atlantic Research Partners

Maurice Pritchet, Sr. is a highly-regarded and well-recognized education and community leader who has worked tirelessly for change in the City of Wilmington, Delaware. Reared on the east side of that City, Mr. Pritchett received his Bachelor of Science Degree in Elementary Education from Delaware State University in 1965 and his Master’s Degree in Educational Administration in 1974.

Mr. Pritchett’s distinguished career as an educational leader and change agent includes serving diverse needs in Cecil County School District (Elkton, MD), and ultimately in the urban setting in which he had grown up: Wilmington, Delaware. He taught at the Elbert School there and subsequently served as Community School Director at the Bancroft School of Wilmington—the very school he had attended as an elementary student. Upon earning his M.A. in 1974, Mr. Pritchett assumed the duties of Vice-Principal of Bancroft Elementary and later went on to serve as this urban school’s Principal for over thirty years. While serving as Principal, he developed educational programs and strategies specifically focused on meeting the needs of Wilmington students- often in collaboration with teachers who had taught him during his own childhood years.

Mr. Pritchett attributes much of his success to those who mentored him during his tough childhood in a difficult city. He names for example Nathan “Doc” Hill, a community leader at the local YMCA, as a man instrumental in awakening in him a desire to learn—and to make a difference in the lives of others. He points out that Doc Hill ingrained in him as a child an understanding that it does take a village to change the lives of children, and he stresses that no child achieves academically without the support—and reasoned expectations—of the adults in his or her life.

During his many years of service to urban neighborhoods and schools, Mr. Pritchett has received multiple honors, accolades and civic awards. Notably, he has been honored as the State of Delaware’s National Distinguished Principal, and was nationally recognized by United States Secretary of Education Richard W. Riley while serving as Principal of the Bancroft School.





Congratuations to Mr. Pritchett! Children & Educators First sincerely hope that you enjoy a productive relationship with Wise's Atlantic Research Partners (or as its more commonly refered to: WARPed)!



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How Today's "Reformers" Will Fail (Again)

March 30, 2011

Posted At: 01:15 PM
Author: Alexander Russo
Category: John Thompson , Think Tank Mafia
http://scholasticadministrator.typepad.com/thisweekineducation/2011/03/thompson-how-todays-reformers-will-fail-again.html


Thompson: How Today's "Reformers" Will Fail (Again)

Back when I was an excitable young Teamster, I had the same anger toward my corrupt union leaders as today's "reformers" have towards the educational "status quo." But a union reformer shared the old Okie wisdom of "don't go off rootin' and tootin'..." and, eventually, democracy prevailed in our labor movement. Today, data-driven school "reform" is a two-barreled shotgun blast from the hip. The first target, is bad teachers. Given the harm that the bottom 5 to 10% of teachers cause, the quick-draw approach of the accountability hawks is understandable, even though their scatter-shot aim is bound to destroy the careers of many good educators. But the second shot is directed towards our best educators. Anyone old enough to have an institutional memory, and recall the lessons of earlier unsuccessful reforms, is fair game. Since most of today's "reforms" are recycled quick fixes that have already failed, top-down policy wonks want to make sure that young educators are not exposed to the lessons that veterans learned during previous experiments.

History may not repeat itself, but it rhymes, and David Labaree explains why today's accountability hawks are destined for the ash heap of history. I hate the title of his new book, Someone Has to Fail, when the real message is how to avoid "cuttin' and shootin.'" Labaree explains why good teachers are so adept at derailing the best laid plans of the educational social engineers. He documents the shared characteristics of a century of educational reforms, but he does not paint reformers with a broad brush. Instead, Labaree celebrates great teaching. He then explains why reformers invariably feel the need to defeat the best educators in order impose their will on schools.

For learning to occur, teachers must establish a special type of personal relationship. As much as we try to hide it, children are conscripts, but learning will not occur unless kids are persuaded to be willing participants in their own education. "A surgeon can fix the ailment of the patient who sleeps through the operation, and a lawyer can successfully defend a client who remains mute during the trial," writes Labaree, "But success for a teacher depends heavily on the active cooperation of the student." Teachers must become adept in managing chronic educational dilemmas. Teachers must embrace the ambiguity in the "local ecologies" that are known as classrooms. "As a teacher I'm not applying laws, I'm choosing from an array of overlapping rules of thumb; my primary skill as a teacher is my judgement."

In order to lead a classroom, the teacher must develop a persona that is similar to that of a method actor. In one sense, teaching is a dramatic performance art, but it only works when the teacher draws deeply from his or her own soul. The teacher persona, says Labaree, must be likeable and tough, and it is not something that "a teacher puts on lightly or sheds with ease." Teaching "is a form of method acting that lasts not merely for the duration of the play but for the course of an entire career. It is not just a way of practicing a profession but a way of being."

Once a teacher has learned how to motivate students, she is unlikely to change because some new theory is mandated, and that leads to endless conflict with reformers. "Teachers draw on clinical experience; reformers draw on social scientific theory. Teachers embrace the ambiguity of the class process and practice; reformers pursue the clarity of tables and graphs. Teachers put a premium on professional adaptability; reformers put a premium on uniformity of practices and outcomes."

Today's reformers, like their forefathers, "don't doubt the virtue of their model of reform, so they have little tolerance for teacher resistance ... The reform grid seems to carry the best ideas and highest values of our time, so practitioners of the old ways of doing things just need to get out of the way of progress." Before long, these idealists become obsessed with defeating practitioners, and this is one of the saddest parts of the story. Reformers get so frustrated with teachers that they fail to heed our first rule, "do no harm."

Labaree says that reformers could play a constructive role if they listened to David Tyack and Larry Cuban and not try to implement their policies in a pure form, but allow teachers to "hybridize" them. Labaree adds, however, that "no reformer worth his salt would take the wimpy and self-negating approach to school change that I have suggested here."

On the other hand, Americans are justifiably proud of our independence. It is good that we have rejected five year plans and other forms of social engineering. The "solution" is to embrace our messy, imperfect, non-rational world. And that is another frustrating aspect of today's "reforms." Good-hearted activists have become so angered by the way schools resist their efforts, that they have become blind to the joys of teaching and learning. - JT
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US Vaccine Court Has Been Paying Settlements to Families of Children with Autism as a Confirmed Vaccine Injury

Vaccine Court's own public data support link between Autism and Vaccines despite their (our government's) public denials of a link.  83 Confirmed Cases in 20 years of the 2500 total cases brought before the court.



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Christina Election Results are in...

http://electionsncc.delaware.gov/news/2011/051011apr.pdf

District C
Backus             326
O'Leary Jr        324

District F
Polaski            401
Steadman       318
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Guess What I Found on CRAIGSLIST? Wireless Gen. DATA COACH ad!

Hey DE:  Look for Dufour in the following ad from Craigslist.  Of course, an incompetent company with inside connections to DE ED would advertise in the very best of places for the employees that will guide the future of our children:  Craigslist.  Yup, that about sums it up.  http://delaware.craigslist.org/edu/2370933110.html

delaware craigslist > jobs > education/teaching jobs


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Avoid scams and fraud by dealing locally! Beware any deal involving Western Union, Moneygram, wire transfer, cashier check, money order, shipping, escrow, or any promise of transaction protection/certification/guarantee. More info

Data Coach Team Lead (Dover, DE)
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Date: 2011-05-09, 12:56PM EDT
Reply to: see below [Errors when replying to ads?]

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Wireless Generation creates innovative tools, systems and services that help educators teach with excellence. With its solutions, educators can easily apply research-based, proven practices such as frequent progress monitoring and needs diagnosis, data-informed decision-making, differentiated instruction, and professional collaborations across classrooms, grades, and schools. The company has helped educators address and solve some of the most pressing challenges in teaching and learning. Wireless Generation currently serves more than 200,000 educators and three million students.

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Data Coach Team Lead

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Job Description:
Wireless Generation seeks a dedicated and experienced leader ready to transform Delaware’s schools from “data rich” to “data driven” and to help lead a flagship Race to the Top program. The Data Coach Team Lead will share responsibility for the successful delivery of an intensive two year Data Coaching program for all schools in Delaware based upon Wireless Generation’s Taking Action with Data methodology. The Team Lead will serve as the instructional leader of the program, will be responsible for developing coaching materials, training, evaluation, and people development of approximately 30 Data Coaches, and will work closely with the Project Manager on all aspects of project management and client engagement with the Delaware Department of Education.
Responsibilities of Data Coach Team Lead:

•Inspire and share leadership of a team of 29 employees.
•Work directly with the Delaware Department of Education and Local Education Agencies to ensure successful delivery of the program.
•Provide resources and coaching for Data Coaches who facilitate meetings of teachers in Professional Learning Communities focused on using data to improve student outcomes.
•Develop and lead training of Data Coaches on coaching methodology, professional learning communities, data analysis, and state and local data systems.
•Observe, provide feedback, and evaluate Data Coaches’ direct work with teachers, including observing PLC meetings.
•Supervise and contribute to customization and revisions of curriculum and coaching materials.
•Analyze statewide and project data to support effective utilization of resources.
•Manage day-to-day logistics of service delivery and provide creative troubleshooting.
•Ensure project is managed within scope and budget.
•Provide written status reports regularly.
•Primary office in Dover. Extensive travel across all of Delaware required.
Qualifications of Data Coach Team Lead:
•Minimum 10 years of K-12 experience, five of which has been in a leadership role managing educators and five years of classroom teaching.
•Masters of Education required.
•Cognitive coaching and meeting facilitation experience. Experience with the DuFour model of Professional Learning Communities preferred.
•Demonstrated success using data to drive classroom and school-wide change.
•Mastery of effective instructional strategies and practices, including methods of differentiating instruction and fostering student engagement.
•Significant experience evaluating educators and assessing adult learning needs.
•Exceptional interpersonal and communication skills (both oral and written).
•Passion for education and ongoing personal learning.
Please submit a cover letter and resume to Vladimir Acevedo (vacevedo@wgen.net).



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No Endorsements Here

Hi Folks,

Just examining some blog stats and apparently y'all are looking for information on this year's school board election.  Sad to say, you won't find any endorsements here.  Our Region III PTA did not hold a candidate's forum this year and I've actually received only 1 piece of mail from a candidate.  So while I will vote tomorrow, I'm not offering any hopes and dreams on this one.

Bummer, I know.

Elizabeth
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Breaking News: News Journal Reports Two-year-old Election Results

Let's face it:  In a state the size of Delaware, the News Journal has to do some serious work to fill those column inches.  How about today's story?  Oodles of paid Dover politicians all nicey nice with 'the jack' complaining about the timing of school board elections.  Yes, it's become a perennial battle cry from Dover - those inefficient, low-turnout, non-partisan elections of school board members. (Who do they think they are?)  Delaware's major political parties find the elective process in its simplicity an affront to the money-making schematic of "real" politics.  The need to insert political affiliation is just revolting.

So, here's a story (and I'll use little words for those who need them), of two parents of CSD kids who ran side-by-side for two different school board seats in the same election cycle.  One, god-forbid, was then a Republican, the other Democrat.  Both win.  And today, two-years later, the News Journal reported the election results.  But, only one of those candidates actually made it into the story - the embattled one. (Here's the real scoop- the Democrat is seriously leaning toward changing her political affiliation to "anyone but 'the jack'" and the other is now a card-carrying dem.) BTW, not only were John Young and I elected together, we both voted the same way against RTTT and on the recent CSD PZ vote to retain and retrain teachers. Now, he's "embattled."  Talk about unfair reporting!

So, the Journal missed the point and an opportunity: Profile the candidates, d******, so that the voters who actually care to vote can make a somewhat informed decision tomorrow.  Better yet, call the race and save us non-partisan schmucks a $4.00/gal drive to the polls.

And real BREAKING NEWS:  John Young Way, Exton PA, named for John Young!  DE. Gov. Green with Envy.






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Is Dufour coming to your Professional Learning Community?

Okay, so the word out there is that DeDOE has a preferred model of PLCs.  What? huh? 

Backstory:  As part of the state's RTTT application, DOE promised Professional Learning Communities.  Some Christina schools have been using PLCs for years, dating back to Sec. Lowery's days as Superintendent in Christina.  In the last year, four more Christina Schools have undertaken a PLC pilot - Bayard, Glasgow, Shue and Stubbs.  

I attended a meeting last week between our CEA President, our Superintendent, and a group of our teachers from Keene Elementary School.  The meeting was part of the RTTT unfurling of CSD's district-wide plans.  While forums are planned with Christina Stakeholders of all walks, this one was particular to teachers and the impact of the plan on them.

Big Topic:  PLC or professional learning communities.  In practice, Christina's PLCs tend to vary, both in implementation and in the use of the data reviewed during those sessions. Having never been invited to a PLC meeting, this is an anecdotal statement based upon comment offered by those attending last week.  It appears that State wants to the PLCs to utilize the Dufour model and Christina will be training with this model during the summer months. In September, DOE data coaches will be deployed (4.9 data coaches to be exact, yep, four bodies and a headless horseman) to run diagnostics of the district's PLCs.  That assessment will drive the further development of the PLCs.

So, what is Dufour?
All of the following comes directly from:  http://www.usd450.net/webpages/abeam/resources.cfm?subpage=793900
DuFour PLC Model

My Resources » Professional Learning Communities » DuFour PLC Model

What Is a "Professional Learning Community"?

To create a professional learning community, focus on learning rather than teaching, work collaboratively, and hold yourself accountable for results.

Richard DuFour

The idea of improving schools by developing professional learning communities is currently in vogue. People use this term to describe every imaginable combination of individuals with an interest in education—a grade-level teaching team, a school committee, a high school department, an entire school district, a state department of education, a national professional organization, and so on. In fact, the term has been used so ubiquitously that it is in danger of losing all meaning.

The professional learning community model has now reached a critical juncture, one well known to those who have witnessed the fate of other well-intentioned school reform efforts. In this all-too-familiar cycle, initial enthusiasm gives way to confusion about the fundamental concepts driving the initiative, followed by inevitable implementation problems, the conclusion that the reform has failed to bring about the desired results, abandonment of the reform, and the launch of a new search for the next promising initiative. Another reform movement has come and gone, reinforcing the conventional education wisdom that promises, "This too shall pass."

The movement to develop professional learning communities can avoid this cycle, but only if educators reflect critically on the concept's merits. What are the "big ideas" that represent the core principles of professional learning communities? How do these principles guide schools' efforts to sustain the professional learning community model until it becomes deeply embedded in the culture of the school?

The rest of this article can be found http://pdonline.ascd.org/pd_online/secondary_reading/el200405_dufour.html

My Resources » Professional Learning Communities » Critical Friends Groups What is a PLC? (Provided by National School Reform Faculty)

A PLC is a professional learning community consisting of approximately 8-12 educators who meet on a regular bases.

What are the purposes of a Professional Learning Communities?

PLC are designed to
  • Create a professional learning community
  • Make teaching practice explicit and public by "talking about teaching"
  • Help people involved in schools to work collaboratively in democratic, reflective communities (Bambino)
  • Establish a foundation for sustained professional development based on a spirit of inquiry (Silva)
  • Provide a context to understand our work with students, our relationships with peers, and our thoughts, assumptions, and beliefs about teaching and learning
  • Help educators help each other turn theories into practice and standards into actual student learning
  • Improve teaching and learning
What is the makeup of a DuFour PLC?

The team is composed of the same curriculum educators or ones with common interest.

What are the characteristics of a professional learning community?

Professional learning communities are strong when teachers demonstrate

  • Shared norms and values
  • Collaboration
  • Reflective dialogue
  • Deprivatization of practice
  • Collective focus on student learning
  • Spirit of shared responsibility for the learning of all students
Professional learning communities can develop when there is
  • Time to meet and talk
  • Physical proximity
  • Interdependent teaching roles
  • Active communication structures
  • Teacher empowerment and autonomy
A professional learning community is enhanced when there is
  • Openness to improvement
  • Trust and respect
  • A foundation in the knowledge and skills of teaching
  • Supportive leadership
  • Socialization or school structures that encourage the sharing of the school's vision and mission (Kruse, et al)
Benefits
  • Opportunity for educators of the same curriculum to discuss their curriculum area.
  • Work together to address state assessment indicators
  • Develop common assessments which can be used to discuss instructional practices.
  • Usually curriculum teams have been working for sometime so trust has already been developed.
Possible Drawbacks
  • Focus on curriculum, less on instruction and student learning.
  • One view point (all teachers same curriculum sometimes can't see challenges students face that don't understand the content).
  • Curriculum teams often have worked together in the past and maybe difficult to see the difference between a curriculum team and a learning community.
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More News from Chicago - Little pay-off for AVID

http://www.edweek.org/ew/articles/2011/05/06/30avid_ep.h30.html?tkn=ZXYFQ5X0v8S%2FKtydcVggxVg3kd%2FmxND8KA0R&cmp=clp-edweek
Individual interventions intended to improve academic skills, such as the popular Advancement Via Individual Determination, or AVID, program, may not secure a student’s path to graduation and college without a schoolwide structure to support it, according to a study from the Consortium on Chicago School Research.
In a report set for release in the fall and previewed at the American Educational Research Association convention in New Orleans in April, researchers analyzed how AVID, a study-skills intervention for middle-achieving students, played out in 14 Chicago high schools. They found AVID participants in 9th grade gained little advantage that year over peers not taking part in the program, and remained off track for graduation and college.
The study highlights a potential pitfall for the dozens of student-based interventions aiming to scale up nationwide through private support and programs like the federal Investing in Innovation, or i3, program: As programs move out of the schools for which they were originally developed, their success becomes increasingly dependent on individual schools’ context and capacity.

“We’re not really trying to say, does AVID work or doesn’t it, but what has been its impact in the Chicago context,” said Jenny Nagaoka, the Chicago Consortium’s associate director and postsecondary-studies manager, and a study co-author. “It’s not a transformative experience for the AVID student; it’s not doing enough to change the trajectory of these students for graduation.”

http://www.edweek.org/media/avid-blog.pdf




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What's the difference between a rat and a mouse?


I used to think artistic pursuits of this nature were collegial at best, harking back to my days at UD's student run paper, The Review.  After two intense weeks of propagandizing from the Governor and friends, well... business round table sorts, and the complacent behavior of the NJ editorial board in supporting a terror campaign of lies designed to divide a board, neutralize local control, and breathe doubt into a voting public, I can't help feel compelled to join the Gov's ranks.  If he can purport lies to further his own political agenda, I can distort image to bring home the message about Race to the Top.  There's no data, no empirical evidence, that RTTT reforms will work. 


Education reform is a funny thing - you see, all FORMERS, the mainstream and the opposition, are committed to reforming education. We all see the need to improve student achievement.  Neither supports the status quo of student failure.

At C&E 1st, I've taken the position that mainstream reformers are Ed-deformers and the opposition is committed to real education reform. Ed-deformers support a status quo of unproven, unsuccessful litany of education reform policies.  They pick-up and triumph the reform du jour, such as RTTT.  They are frequently high-powered, well-positioned business men and politicians who benefit substantially through income or election in the implementation of reform practices that lack evidence, but sound damn good!

The Opposition to Deform, however, is committed to reform done in a thoughtful, planned, manner using methodologies that actually have empirical evidence behind them.  They are not scape-goaters like the deformers who have demonized teachers. The Opposition is committed to holistic reforms that address a system in its entirety, not a small subset. We seek long term, sustainable outcomes derived from wholesale change, not a quickie turnaround that will service the immediate needs of the political party at hand. The Opposition is committed to children.  Deformers are committed to politics, specifically those politics that further their own careers.

In the media, ed-deformers have painted the picture of opposition as a supporter of a status quo of failure who anti-reformist.  In fact, the status quo I oppose is the constant spin of reform done fast and furious with little fidelity and ignorance of results.  The status quo is insistence that their methods will work when all early warnings indicate that something is amiss.  And there were and continue to be early indicators in Delaware.

In Delaware, the fact that DOE convened meetings to create an MOU to support its RTTT grant application and specifically excluded school board members and parents is an early indicator.  DOE further presented that MOU to school boards with a very short window of time to review it and a message:  It's all going to be regulated, so sign the MOU and get help with funding or don't sign and fund it yourself locally. And what well-respecting school board would say no to money when their state has been thrust into a recession? States around the nation followed their queue and codified, legislated, and regulated RTTT reforms.  Some never won RTTT monies and have been left on their own to sort it out.  The state misrepresented Delaware to the feds, hyping the 100% buy-in.  Coercion is not synonymous with buy-in. It is an early indicator. While this is now water under the bridge - boards have no choice but to support the reform models - this was also an indicator of something more insidious: an assault on local control that played out very publicly in the last couple weeks.

On one side was Christina, the largest district in the state. The other, the Governor, the Sec. of Ed, and their business round table friends.  Remember, what we all agree on is that our schools need drastic improvement; where we differ is in the methodology of reform.  If we believe that students are in the heart of every party, then we are all altruistic in our endeavours (though the propagandizing via the News Journal leaves me many doubts about the true intentions of mainstream deformers.) 

Because the RTTT reforms are regulated, deform opposition has little recourse.  Despite seeing the writing on the blackboard that 8-10 years down the line, even if initial data is positive, that these reforms are highly unlikely to be successful, the fight is not to rebuke the reforms and buck the mainstreamers. The best course of action for any person who opposes the RTTT reforms is to work mightily to ensure fidelity to the reform plans. This is what Christina's board attempted to do when they voted to retain and retrain their teachers.  The board identified an area that was not implemented with fidelity and hoped to restore it. The state responded with hostility and the board was forced to reverse its vote in order to continue its commitment to the reform plans.   The state was not looking for compromise, only submission. This is another early indicator.

I will likely be long gone from the political sphere when the true results of RTTT becomes known, but my children will be students at Glasgow and they will be living the legacy of RTTT.  As a parent in this situation, I desperately want these reforms to work, the future of 17,000 students depends on it and my children are among them.  As a policy-maker, I am deeply concerned that without fidelity, with the absence of best practices, and the lack of pause button for reflection during the reform process, that we have a charted a course that transforms Delaware's students from students to lab rats.

Are we so desperate to be cutting-edge leaders that we buck empirical, peer-reviewed evidence? Do we ignore the reality of Chicago, New York, Washington D.C. because we think we can do it better?  Must we ignore the early indicators and proceed with fast implementation?  Mainstreamers/Deformers say we can't wait, the urgency is too great.  But, we can't afford failure either. The opposition only continues to ask, Can we do this better, smarter, and more comprehensively? Do we invest where there is a likelihood of success, in teachers? in early education? in tackling a funding formula that hurts kids and ties districts' hands?  

The NJ ended their editorial with these statements: "It is more than childish to play the role of being critical just because my point of view was rejected. The point is that now is the time to begin going forward."

To this I respond: The CBOE only ever wanted to continue forward with decisions founded in fact not point of view. The facts are the facts.  Reviewing, Printing, Understanding the fact is NOT childish (although my graphic art above may be.) And isn't it humorous that the editorial board condemns those whose views are differ from theirs?  No, It's not.

Enjoy the art. Appreciate it for what it is - Satire.

Satire is primarily a literary genre or form, although in practice it can also be found in the graphic and performing arts. In satire, vices, follies, abuses, and shortcomings are held up to ridicule, ideally with the intent of shaming individuals, and society itself, into improvement.[1] Although satire is usually meant to be funny, its greater purpose is often constructive social criticism, using wit as a weapon.


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CSD: New Date for Last Day of School

New Date for Last Day of School

The State Board of Education has approved Christina's application for a waiver to "forgive" one of the days (January 27, 2011) when schools were closed this winter. The waiver was granted because a State of Emergency was called for New Castle County on that day. That means that students will have one less make-up day at the end of the year. The District has determined that the dates for the last day of school for students are as follows:

Tuesday, June 14 will be the last Student Day for students in Grades Pre-Kindergarten and Kindergarten

Wednesday, June 15 will be the last Student Day for students in Grades 1-11

The District traditionally has had an early dismissal on the last day of school for students in grades 1-11. There will be an early dismissal on the last day again this year, but the dismissal times will be modified slightly from what they have been in years past. The last-day dismissal schedule will be communicated to your child's school once it has been finalized



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