The Echo

Move over N.J. - Delaware ranked No. 4 on corruption list thanks to top forgery, embezzlement rates

Special Thanks to the Newark Post for the Tip:

The Daily Beast website has given Delaware a No. four ranking when it comes to corruption.

Tennessee ranked No. 1 in the listing, followed by Virginia and Mississippi.  Delaware seemed to earn the rating, due to top rankings for embezzlement, fraud and counterfeiting. Pennsylvania came in 8th, and Maryland ranked 23rd. New Jersey, which is often viewed as a center for corruption, was rated 21st.

Cited was the case of Richard and Carlene Lloyd, who are accused of stealing more than $220,000 from New Castle drywall business.
Check out the ranking here:  http://www.thedailybeast.com/galleries/1610/1/?redirectURL=

Released: 5/25/2010


New Castle County Council approved a budget Tuesday night that contains no property tax increase and tightly controls new spending in the next fiscal year, County Executive Chris Coons announced.

The total operating budget for Fiscal Year 2011 is $235.5 million, which reflects a 2.9 percent increase from the current year’s budget of $228.9 million. The additional $6.6 million in fixed costs comes from rising expenses in employee and retiree healthcare, step merit increases, debt service, pension contribution, electricity rates and the county’s wastewater treatment contract with the city of Wilmington.

The new budget also includes a 4 percent sewer rate increase and an 18 percent light tax increase. The money generated from the sewer rate increase will pay for wastewater treatment with Wilmington and ongoing improvements to the system needed to meet stricter federal guidelines. The light tax increase is needed because of a rise in rates from Delmarva Power, and it will be paid only by residents and business owners who voluntarily incur the light tax.

The $73.5 million approved capital budget will push forward projects that will spur job growth and provide residents with much-needed projects, ranging from library improvements to sewer rehabilitation. The county is using federal stimulus bond money to recoup 45 percent of the interest on $51 million worth of debt service on these projects.

“This is a budget that we can afford,” Coons said Tuesday. “We are continuing to do the hard work to get our deficit under control so this government can live within its means. It’s important to pursue budget discipline through good times and bad. Like the constituents we serve, we have to live within our means.”

The budget cuts personnel costs by continuing a 5 percent salary rollback for all employees. Coons planned to begin layoffs after three AFSCME unions initially rejected the rollbacks. However, union leaders and the administration negotiated over the past two months to reach a resolution that avoids layoffs and saves $2.1 million. The total saved from all rollbacks is $4.3 million.

Chief Administrative Officer Rick Gregory, who led the negotiations, said he was pleased at the positive outcome.

“It is imperative that we cut our personnel costs, but laying off employees was the last thing we wanted to do,” he said. “I really want to thank the union leaders and their membership for continuing to sacrifice.”

Council unanimously approved the sewer rate hike, capital budget and operating budget.

“While this budget sets the course for next year, it represents several years of effort to reduce costs while continuing core services,” Council President Paul Clark said. “The tough decisions made over the last couple of years have sustained our AAA bond rating and kept taxes low while continuing to provide citizens with quality services.”

The new fiscal year begins July 1.

http://www.edweek.org/ew/articles/2010/05/27/357614okxgreducationcutbacks_ap.html?tkn=ZSLF7vgOz%2Bqpb2PAC6iz41oenkoNbB9xom21&cmp=clp-edweek

Okla. Lawmakers Suspend School Improvement Initiatives


Oklahoma City
State lawmakers approved a bill Thursday to roll back several initiatives aimed at improving public education across Oklahoma, like required professional development for teachers, to help schools grapple with declining revenue.

Several Democrats in the Senate voiced concern that the measure would eliminate progress in recent years to improve the state's public school system.
"Do we really want to do away with public education in Oklahoma?" asked Sen. Richard Lerblance, D-Hartshorne. "We're dismantling what we've worked so many years for."

The bill passed the Senate 39-7. It now heads to the governor's desk.

Democrats accused GOP leaders of failing to fund education adequately and expressed fear the two-year moratorium on the initiatives could be made permanent.

Among the initiatives rolled back in the bill are requirements for professional development programs for teachers and administrators, and penalties for schools that don't meet media materials requirements. It also exempts schools from appointing a textbook committee for two years and allows districts to spend textbook money for general operations.

The bill also suspends for two years new applications for a state program that offers a $5,000 annual stipend for teachers who attain National Board certification.

A provision that would have allowed districts to temporarily exceed class-size requirements was removed from the bill.

Senate author James Halligan, R-Stillwater, said the bill will give local districts the flexibility they need to address budget shortfalls and retain more teachers.

"I have a lot of confidence in the people I interact with in the local school boards. I think we ought to give them flexibility," said Halligan, the former Oklahoma State University president. "In two years, I will be opposed to extending these provisions."

But Herb Rozell, a former state senator recently appointed to the state Board of Education, said during a board meeting Thursday the plan was shortsighted.

"For an ex-president of a university to come up with this is about as stupid as I've ever seen," Rozell said.

State Superintendent Sandy Garrett said she agrees with the concept of the bill, given the dire financial situation facing schools in the state.

"We do agree that flexibility needs to happen ... for a couple of years here, until we get through this hard time," Garrett said.

http://www.edweek.org/ew/articles/2010/05/24/33linzey.h29.html?tkn=USRFRZIVdwrvvcjxHHPjzsf%2FvoIpzB3pahB4&cmp=clp-edweek

How to Improve Urban High Schools At Scale

By David Linzey

Graduation rates for minority students in urban districts are unacceptably low, hovering around 50 percent in most cities. Yet the Obama administration’s education plans call for high schools not only to increase these rates, but also to be accountable for students’ ability to succeed in postsecondary education—and all in a climate of growing pressure to restructure failing schools.

It may be a good time to ask some fundamental questions: Why has there been so little success in reforming high schools? What have the myriad reform efforts to date done wrong? Can urban high schools be reformed at scale—and if so, what works?

The answer to that last question is yes—but only under a set of very specific conditions.

The Alliance for College-Ready Public Schools, where I served as chief academic officer, has created these conditions in its work with a network of 11 high schools and five middle schools in Los Angeles. These schools, all located in less-affluent sections of the city, have dramatically outperformed demographically similar district schools—despite spending $1,000 less per student.

The alliance’s efforts have demonstrated that schools with a student population that is 100 percent minority and from disadvantaged backgrounds can rise from the lowest-performing to the highest-performing levels in school achievement and successfully compete with middle-class students from the suburbs. Many of the alliance high schools’ scores on the California Academic Performance Index grew by 100 points in a single year, and all of them achieved a high statewide ranking among similar schools.

Moreover, in excess of 96 percent of these students met the strictest college-admissions requirements when they graduated. We realized how successful we’d become, in fact, when parents in upscale Brentwood, one of the richest communities in the country, asked us to establish a secondary school for their students.
Why were we able to succeed at scale in high school reform when so many others have failed? It is a story of what we didn’t do, as well as what we did. First, the don’ts. We avoided the following pitfalls of many well-intentioned reform efforts:

• We did not underestimate the challenge of urban school improvement and focus only on a few popular reforms. Reforms currently in vogue, such as professional-learning communities, collaborative teams, or standards-based instruction, were not the sole emphasis of our improvement strategy. Nor did we try to tweak existing practices. We found that, in reforming urban schools, good ideas are not good enough by themselves.

• We did not try to reform instruction and learning within the confines of a limited school calendar and daily class schedule.

• We did not rely on outside experts to design the instructional system. Despite all the recommendations from great educational reformers, the country still hasn’t found a successful path to urban high school reform. In finding our own, singular way forward, we did, however, borrow ideas on research-based practices from some key reformers, such as Robert J. Marzano, Willard R. Daggett, and Douglas B. Reeves.

• We did not give principals and teachers the responsibility of deciding how to reform their schools and classrooms. This goes against one of the most popular refrains of the school improvement mantra, the importance of bottom-up reform. But the problems are too overwhelming, given that a high percentage of students arrive in urban high schools some three to five years below grade level, to expect even the best principals or teachers to solve them individually or with group collaboration. Teacher buy-in, however, is a key feature of successful reform plans.
Here, on the other hand, is our set of do’s—what worked for us:
• We combined academic rigor with a stress on caring relationships and an insistence on zero tolerance for students’ not succeeding. The comprehensive school reform plan we developed was based on the core belief that all students can achieve at a very high level. To fulfill that goal, the schools required all students to take grade-level courses (all 8th graders took Algebra 1, for example), which were taught at a grade-appropriate level of difficulty and in ways that engaged the students. Everything offered was college-prep.

The students then received relentless support from teachers, who maintained a “whatever it takes” attitude in their support for both academic and emotional student needs. Teachers, counselors, and administrators alike were dedicated to each student’s success. If a student did not learn using traditional classroom instruction, other methods were used, such as one-on-one computer-based interactive learning for math, project-based learning, small-group or individual tutoring with college tutors, and computer-based reading programs.

Our goal was to offer a variety of instructional approaches for a limited set of college-prep courses, as opposed to providing a wide variety of electives.

• We varied instructional time according to need. Our mentality was to produce success no matter how long it took. If students did not learn and weren’t able to demonstrate achievement within the school day, we offered them after-school tutoring. Saturday “academic-achievement academies” were also provided. Most of the students attended school longer in the day and week, and had a longer school year. That was the only way to effectively close the huge achievement gap between these students and their more advantaged peers that existed when they entered high school.
• We instituted common, consistent instructional strategies. It is not enough to align instruction with state standards. It also must include advanced instructional techniques that build on one another and are extended to all subsequent coursework. All classes, for example, were expected to incorporate problem-solving, essay writing, research, and project-based learning. While many students struggled initially, over time the planned, consistent instruction bore fruit, and students became proficient

• We made proactive use of summer school. To begin the gap-reduction process as soon as possible, all entering students were expected to attend a “summer bridges” program before starting their first semester. Then, students who did not need to make up failed coursework in subsequent summers used the summer school experience to get a head start on the following year’s courses, increasing their chances to succeed.
• We provided research-based, comprehensive, and ongoing professional development for all teachers, counselors, and administrators. Annual professional-development planning began in the summer with a review of all data from the prior year—including, but not limited to, test scores. Using this information, we mapped out areas that would be the focus of weeklong professional-development sessions that kicked off the school year. New teachers also attended biweekly training sessions throughout the year. As the alliance’s chief academic officer, I walked the classrooms with school administrators as a way to help them shape teacher practices. The process we used might be called professional development and reflection about instructional practice on steroids.

The fact that these schools accomplished what they did with a budget far less per student than what the district was spending in other schools suggests that it does not take infusions of money to create more effective and responsive high schools. Rather, it requires a clear focus on the most effective instructional strategies—and leaders who have a deep understanding of the learning process and a commitment to ensuring that all students receive the types of instructional support they need.

Turning around secondary schools also requires a commitment to using every minute of the instructional day to improve academic skills, increase students’ motivation for post-high-school planning, and develop instructional skills for teachers.

Not only is this route to high-performing inner-city secondary schools possible, but it is also capable of being implemented at scale. Educators and policymakers alike must be dedicated to doing this. The work requires not just having the right school culture, but also having the right instructional DNA and leaders who consistently build and hone both.

The success of the alliance’s program in Los Angeles demonstrates that inner-city students can and will succeed in college-preparatory schools if they are given the right instruction and the necessary social supports to do it.
David Linzey, a former urban high school and middle school principal, was the chief academic officer of the Alliance for College-Ready Public Schools, in Los Angeles. He currently is a consultant specializing in secondary school reform, and can be reached at dlinzey@hotmail.com.

Cases involving public school districts await separate ruling on Child Victims Act

DOVER -- A Kent County judge on Wednesday halted child sexual abuse lawsuits involving several Delaware school districts pending a state Supreme Court ruling on a challenge to the law that allowed victims to sue over what happened decades ago.

http://www.delawareonline.com/article/20100527/NEWS01/5270353

A Chicago school-turnaround program gets results by working with teachers, not against them.


By Dakarai I. Aarons

Talk of “turning around” troubled schools has become synonymous with firing educators, but a nonprofit in the Windy City is drawing attention for bringing success with a different approach.

In 2006, Strategic Learning Initiatives signed a contract with the Chicago public schools to help 10 schools serving grades K-8. More than 95 percent of the schools’ students were from low-income families. Over a decade, the schools had seen new principals, new teachers, new curricula, and professional development initiatives. Despite the changes, nine were on a list to be restructured or closed.

What Strategic Learning did with the struggling schools, using a process called “Focused Instruction,” was “not rocket science,” says the organization’s chief executive officer, John Simmons. But it worked, according to a recent evaluation by the Washington-based American Institutes for Research. And the approach the group took offers some lessons for teachers and school leaders.

The Focused Instruction Process has four main components: shared leadership, targeted professional development, continuous improvement, and parent engagement. It uses an eight-step process designed to make sure that students master skills by providing focused lessons, formative assessments, re-teaching after assessing where each student stands, and a reassessment to measure student progress.

Facilitators in each school have been trained to monitor the fidelity of the process. Teachers and administrators are expected and encouraged to make changes in the implementation in a way that makes sense for their individual schools. Schools have reorganized the day to allow time both for daily mini-lessons on the skill of the week and for “success time,” in which teachers use differentiated instruction to help students make up or enrich their knowledge of previous skills. And each school also has a leadership team, made up of teachers from each grade level, that meets regularly with administrators.


Each week, students learn about a new skill from a list of 13 that are tied to the state test students take each spring. Those skills include understanding the main idea, characterization, interpreting instructions, drawing conclusions, and summarization.

Supporting Teachers

The U.S. Department of Education’s four models for turning around low-achieving schools using federal stimulus money all require the principal to be fired; one callsfor the school to be closed. But John Simmons argues that it’s less expensive, and often more effective, to invest in the people already in the schools. With the right tools, he says, school staffers can produce different results.

In 2007 and 2008, two schools in the network led the city’s 470-some K-8 schools in gains on the Illinois Standards Achievement Test. By Strategic Learning’s definition, five of the 10 schools were “turned around,” meaning state test scores were improving at a rate at least six times faster than before, and school-level leaders agreed with the progress.


Strategic Learning’s work costs about $150,000 per school, per year, with the Chicago school district and the individual schools contributing about 80 percent; the rest comes from foundations and private donors. Reconstituting a school can cost much more, Simmons said, putting the figure at up to $1 million per school over four years.

Before a school could join the network, SLI requires 80 percent of its faculty members to vote to accept it. This buy-in from teachers has been seen as a key to the program’s success.

A turnaround strategy that supports the needs of teachers and principals is one the Chicago Teachers Union could support, said Rosemaria Genova, a spokeswoman for the affiliate of the American Federation of Teachers.

“We spent all this time and money to attract the best and brightest to Chicago, and then they leave,” Ms. Genova said. “You have to have veteran teachers to support the younger teachers who are hired by the principal, given a key and told ‘Go teach.’ They need mentoring and guidance.”

MORE HERE

http://electionsncc.delaware.gov/Christina/2010/ch_ref10.shtml#results

Unofficial results

For Authority to Increase Taxes

For the Tax Increase  3,049
Against the Tax Increase 3,023

And if you would, I have a backyard for rent!

Preschools in Forests Take Root in the U.S.
Vashon Island, Wash.


When they're outside, the children in Erin Kenny's class don't head for cover if it rains or snows. They stay right where they are — in a private five-acre forest. It's their classroom.

They spend three hours a day, four days a week here, a free-flowing romp through cedar and Douglas fir on Vashon Island in Puget Sound.

The unique "forest kindergarten" at Cedarsong Nature School is among several that have opened in recent years in the U.S., part of movement that originated in Europe to get kids out from in front of televisions and into the natural world.

"American children do not spend much time outdoors anymore," Kenny says. "There's a growing need and an awareness on parents' part that their children really need to do more connecting with nature."

In addition to Kenny's, at least two other schools have been established: one in Portland, Ore., and another in Carbondale, Colo.

Kenny opened Cedarsong's doors in 2008, starting out with five children. She plans to expand the school to five days a week next year. She charges $100 a day, whether it's one day a week or three. Kenny says there's a growing waiting list.

The school is located in the quirky Seattle bedroom community kept artificially rural by the lack of roads, and county land-use policies.

Cedarsong is basically a camp. It has three cabins, one being a library, another for equipment and the last one for a compost bathroom equipped with child seats (although sometimes the kids prefer to just urinate in selected spots in the forest).

The camp also has trails and play spots, such as Fairyhouse Land, where there is a forest hut covered with ferns.


It also has tables to make mud cakes, buckets and rakes to scoop mud, a small drawer to keep the children's discoveries (fiddlehead ferns, feathers, lichen and insect-chewed leaves) and a spot for campfires. A plan for an outdoor kitchen is being drawn as well.

The kids munch on what the forest provides, calling leaf buds "forest candy."

For Kenny, the preschool is a culmination of years of working with children and a love for the outdoors. She used to be a lawyer, but was inspired to start her school after reading Richard Louv's book Last Child in the Woods.

In the book, Louv coined the phrase "nature-deficit disorder" to explain a lack of connection between the country's children and nature. He argues that the decrease in nature dwelling leads to a rise in childhood obesity, attention disorders and depression.

At such a young age, Kenny says, children shouldn't be taught complicated subjects. They shouldn't be force fed math or language. She says she's often asked what children learn at her school. Her reply is that these children are well versed in basic environmental science.

As time goes by, Kenny says, there will be more evidence that these schools are appropriate models for children.

Kenny says children should be left to explore by themselves. She and her assistant teacher use the children's natural curiosity as opportunities to teach. In her school, the children decide what they're going to do each day, not the teachers.

"They tend to retain the information better because they're actually touching and feeling and tasting the lessons," Kenny says.

One of the key lessons taught here however is not for the kids, but for the parents.

To be in this school, parents must know how to appropriately dress their children for all kinds of weather. That's particularly important in this part of Washington, where rain is nearly constant in the winter and showers and sun alternate seemingly minute to minute in the spring.

So, even in May, kids arrive with rain pants, rain coats, mitten, and gloves. If the weather heats up, the layers come off.

Mom Meghan Magonegil says she wasn't sure at first whether an all-outdoor school would work.

"Once we got here, I would pick Finn up and he'd be wet and muddy and smiling and happy and I knew it was perfect," she says of her son.

Since the school opened, only once have the students sought refuge in a small cabin because of the weather, Kenny says proudly. That day, the snow was too deep to walk around.

On a recent schoolday in May, the kids asked questions about leaves and bugs. They already knew which of these leaves were edible. They climbed trees and ran around the property. At one point, they decided to play music and, later in the day, to make cakes out of mud.

In 4-year-old Lorelei Fitterer's opinion, being outdoors is great, especially when it snows.

"Because I get to paint the snow and stick leaves in it, and I used to even taste it. It was so funny," she says.

Warren to put school board meetings on cable TV

Published: Saturday, May 22, 2010
By Norb Franz
Macomb Daily Staff Writer
http://www.macombdaily.com/articles/2010/05/22/news/doc4bf71a9843039662006791.txt

Broadcasts aimed at improving scrutiny of schools

Top decision-makers in six Macomb County school districts will soon get more public exposure and scrutiny.

The city of Warren’s government cable television department plans to record and broadcast meetings of local boards of education. Using city cable crews, Warren will show the elected school officials and top administrators in action, with cable subscribers in the city able to watch from the comfort of home.

“Taxpayers have a right to know what decisions every unit of government is making on their behalf and how their tax dollars are being spent,” said Mayor James Fouts. “Televising school board meetings brings instant transparency and immediate accountability.

“I feel it’s our obligation.”

Fouts said he ordered the city’s Communication Department to begin recording board meetings in response to residents who feel disconnected from board members and school district issues.

The mayor contacted the superintendents in the Fitzgerald, Van Dyke, Warren Woods and Warren Consolidated districts about his plan, hoping for their cooperation. Of the four, only Warren Consolidated televises its board meetings, showing regular sessions live followed by two replays later on the district’s public access channel.

On May 17, a two-person cable crew with one camera recorded the 2 1/2-hour meeting of the Van Dyke school board. The meeting is scheduled to be televised at 8 p.m. Thursday and 10 a.m. May 29 on Warren’s city channels on Comcast and Wide Open West.

Warren Communications Director Lark Samouelian said the production went smoothly.

“My staff felt it was totally unobtrusive,” she said. “They’re used to being like flies on a wall.”

No tapings have been scheduled yet in Fitzgerald, Warren Woods or Warren Consolidated.

City officials say they only intend to record regularly scheduled board meetings, not special sessions or workshops that also are open to the public.

Superintendent Barbara VanSweden said board members in the southwest corner of the city have questioned the timing of the city’s interest in recording meetings and is expected to discuss the issue further.

In Warren Consolidated, board meetings have been televised since 1997 on the school public access channels. That effort has led to the public being better informed on school matters, said Superintendent Robert Livernois. Meetings are shown live and again on a taped basis two days later and one week later.

Fouts is not pleased with the technical quality of the Warren Consolidated broadcast and told Livernois the city will step in and do a better job if the district can’t improve. Livernois acknowledged the tapings are “very simple in nature” and don’t compare to network television, but work just fine.

“One of my concerns is the duplication of effort that might not be in the best interest of the resources of taxpayers” if city production begins, said the district’s top administrator, adding that he would offer a DVD of the district’s own recordings to city officials for playback on city government channels.

School boards are not required by law to televise their sessions, but under the Michigan Open Meetings Act must post a meeting notice publicly.

Fouts hopes to eventually add the school boards in the Center Line Public Schools and East Detroit Public Schools — both of which include small portions of Warren — to the city cable department’s programming.

“We’re looking at it as a long-term relationship and not just barging in,” Samouelian added.

The mayor hopes easier and wider access by the public to school board meetings will help residents learn and understand local school issues; increase public input in district decision-making; spur more people to file as candidates for school board; and increase voter turnout for school elections.

In Macomb County, voter turnout for school board elections historically has been low, even in contested races. In the May 4 election in the Center Line Public Schools, only 7.5 percent of the district’s registered voters showed up at the polls as five candidates competed for two board seats. In the L’Anse Creuse Public Schools — located in most of Harrison Township and parts of Chesterfield, Macomb and Clinton townships — fewer than six out of every 100 registered voters cast ballots to decide which two of six candidates should make personnel decisions, set policy and determine the expense of millions of dollars.

In the Fitzgerald school district, where a proposed tax increase was on the May ballot, less than 11 percent of voters participated while rejecting the $68.6 million bond proposal by a 3-1 ratio.

Fouts, who served as a councilman for 26 years before voters elected him to the top post in city government in 2007, retired years ago as a high school government teacher in Warren Consolidated. He said his career as an educator was not a factor in his directive to the city’s cable department to record school board sessions. However, he feels school boards operate in relative obscurity while the majority of property taxes goes to school operations.

“Right now, it’s a hidden entity,” he said. “When public officials know they face the scrutiny of taxpayers, their decisions are going to be more cautious and more deliberate.”

http://blogs.edweek.org/edweek/campaign-k-12/2010/05/school_improvement_models_face.html
School Improvement Models Face Opposition in Congress


By Alyson Klein on May 20, 2010 2:00 PM
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First it was Race to the Top. Now the school improvement models are running into trouble on Capitol Hill.

Flanked by major players in both the national teachers' unions, Rep. Judy Chu, D-Calif., a member of the House Education and Labor Committee, today announced a framework (not a bill) that would basically ditch the idea of having just four options in favor of a broader array of possible remedies for schools.

Chu wants to use the reauthorization of ESEA to prod schools to promote flexibility and collaboration (such as beefing up mentoring and induction programs), remove barriers to student success (such as increasing community involvement and support), and foster teachers and school leaders (such as increasing the use of support staff like speech therapists and school psychologists). And she wants schools to be given a longer time frame, three to five years, to turn around.

Not surprisingly, Randi Weingarten, the president of the American Federation of Teachers, who showed up at the press conference, is a huge fan of the proposal. She said closing down schools, probably the most controversial of the department's four models, should still be on the list of options, but it should be considered a last resort. And Lily Eskelsen of the NEA, held up Chu's framework saying "I love this paper!"

But reporters wanted to know whether this approach demonstrates too much flexibility. Would this mean, basically, that schools could do whatever they wanted?

Weingarten, for one, doesn't think so. She said she has seen firsthand the impact that the strategies outlined in Chu's framework have had on struggling schools throughout the country.

Chu told me after the hearing that she thinks some of her Democratic colleagues on the education committee share her concerns about the models. And she'll be meeting with Rep. George Miller, D-Calif., the chairman of the House Education and Labor Committee tomorrow to discuss her framework.

Chu's press conference is just the latest bad news development for fans of the four models.

At a hearing yesterday of the House Education and Labor Committee, lawmakers and witnesses, including practioners, expressed skepticism that the four models outlined in the regulations for the School Improvement Grant program have research to back them up, and said that schools may need a broader array of options to help those that are struggling the most, including extended learning time and professional development.

You can get a sense of what committee members are thinking if you read between the lines of this statement, put out by Democratic leaders on the committee yesterday.

Their sentiments echo much of what was said in a hearing of the Senate Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions Committee earlier this spring, during which lawmakers also aired concerns about what they perceive as the rigidity of the models. They said, for instance, that rural schools would have a really hard time implementing them. You can check out a video of that hearing here.

UPDATE: During the House Education and Labor Committee hearing, Rep. Miller was pretty clear that he thinks foundering schools need to think beyond just the four models.

"You can choose to say you're going to turnaround a school you can reconstitute a school, you can close a school," he said. "It won't matter if you don't have [certain] ingredients in place ... [including] collaboration, buy in [from] the community, the empowering and the professional development of teachers. If you don't do these things and you have to more or less do them together you're going not going to turnaround much of anything. .... These four choices are interesting, but they've got to be fleshed out here. There's a portfolio of things you need to bring to this problem."

Not surprising, the NJ ran an editorial today (their own) supporting the removal of SROs from schools and into a to-be-newly-created Highway Patrol while replacing them with "School Resource Agents" with lessor training.    Columnist and Assistant Editorial Editor Ron Williams has thrown his support behind the Highway Patrol pilot, http://www.delawareonline.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=20105050303   My comments in Red.

May 20, 2010

By all accounts, state troopers assigned as school resource officers have been a rousing success. They have been praised by school administrators, parents and students. The troopers who have taken on the assignments have reported high satisfaction. Some have even gone into teaching or counseling after retiring from the state police.

But the 29 statewide SROs are fully trained state police officers, with skills in everything from traffic control to intelligence operations. For the most part, they are overqualified for the SRO positions.

State police Superintendent Col. Robert M. Coupe and Gov. Jack Markell want to establish new criteria for school officers and reclassify them as school resource agents.

While they would have much of the same training at the state police academy as troopers, their curriculum would be geared more toward the school and classroom environment, not traffic control. That makes sense.

The SRAs would be better trained to handle the everyday circumstances likely to arise at schools. Their salaries also would be lower, saving the state and school districts money.

The SROs would be phased out at about five a year, with those trooper positions assigned to a new state highway patrol division. Delaware needs more highway troopers, and this is an excellent way to accomplish that goal.

The Joint Finance Committee should approve the governor's proposal for new SRAs.

http://blogs.delawareonline.com/delawareed/2010/05/17/a-new-face-on-christinas-school-board/

We caught up with Eric M. Anderson, who beat a nearly 30-year incumbent for a seat on the Christina school board.


When did you decided to run for school board and why?

I decided to run for the seat in December. I have been involved with the Christina Community for the past 20 years as a student, substitute, paraprofessional, teacher, and coach. When I left the district in June 2009 to take a job with the Charter School of Wilmington, I left with many sentiments. I moved to Wilmington in August of 2009, and happy with my new job, I still wanted to be a part of the Christina school district. I knew that the seat was up for grabs in 2010 and I made the decision to run. I knew that running for the seat would be a challenge since I was running against a 30 year incumbent, it wasn’t until I had started campaigning and talking to the community that I realized that change wasn’t just needed, but wanted.

You won by a huge margin against a nearly 30-year incumbent. What did you do when you heard the results?

Going into election day I felt good about the amount of support I had behind me in the Christina Community, but the only thing that matters on election day is if your supporters show up at the polls. When the polls closed at 8, I returned home with a group of my closest friends, my father and we waited for the results to come in. I just remember all of us shouting, jumping, and hugging in my living room and immediately our cell phones began to ring. I was truly surprised not only by the huge margin I won by, but also how many people actually came out to vote when compared to previous Christina elections.

You have more than 900 friends on your candidate Facebook page. What made you decide to use social media in your campaign? Do you think it was effective?

It was my plan to use the social media to generate support from the younger members of the Christina, such as former students. The younger generation relies so heavily on social networking, I knew that facebook would be effective in getting an awareness out there that I was running. It was difficult to for me to have the link, due to its length, printed on my personal palm cards, so in the future I think a regular webpage with a simple URL will be more effective social media tool to use.

A couple board members have blogs and twitter accounts that they use to share information with their constituents. Do you plan to do anything like that?

I plan to keep the Facebook page that I had through my campaign, and I also am looking into creating a blog as well, not only to communicate with constituents, but also to keep up-to-date on important community issues and how others feel about those issues.

Some people have noted that you were endorsed by the union. What did the endorsement mean to you?

I was a little disappointed in the direction the News Journal chose to take on reporting the role of the union’s support in the various campaigns. In my race all three candidates were contacted by the union and told if we wanted to be considered for the endorsement to fill out a questionnaire and attend an interview. We all opted to be considered and went through the process. During the process we were aware that the union endorsed candidate would have union support through their desired means in reaching out to their membership. I was fortunate enough to earn the endorsement of the union. I really was a surprised and grateful when I saw their expenses published in the News Journal and glad I won the endorsement. As a teacher myself, it was extremely important for me to earn the endorsement because I believe I wouldn’t have had a leg to stand on if I was not supported by teachers.

What is one of the biggest and/or most important issues facing Christina School District?

I believe the most important issue facing the Christina School District pertains to the retention of students and staff. I believe that once an environment is created where we see the district strongly competing with Charter, private, and other public schools to draw students and staff, that will be the evidence that the district is steering in the right direction.

What’s the biggest challenge in taking on that issue?

The challenges here are unlimited, but the most important are: the creation and retention of diversified learning programs, adequate funding and financial management to up keep these programs, and an on going effort in reaching out to the community to rebuild relationships and instill confidence that Christina schools will consistently, and effectively, provide the necessary resources to educate each student to meet their full potential

Four possible futures regarding education jobs loss...  food for thought...

http://www.edweek.org/ew/articles/2010/05/19/32hanushek.h29.html?tkn=QNWFf5%2FkNVbjkWLcliVeM0sz6T8mysSJ97ly&cmp=clp-edweek

http://www.edweek.org/ew/articles/2010/05/16/355060usentireschoolfired_ap.html?tkn=PPTFz5p1Q5vufJ6og%2BzN1JIqCRNayAf14g00&cmp=clp-edweek

Teachers pay will be restored, now if only I could depend on the state's share of transportation funding to get my kids to school???


http://www.delawareonline.com/article/20100517/NEWS/100517030/Finance-panel-acts-to-boost-state-workers-pay
From the News Journal:

DOVER -- The General Assembly’s Joint Finance Committee voted unanimously today to restore the 2.5 percent state employee pay cut that was implemented last year.
If approved by the full Legislature, the $35 million increase will take effect July 4, the first day of the first pay cycle of the fiscal year that begins July 1.

Restoration of the cut, which was achieved through furlough days, is a top priority of legislators and Gov. Jack Markell alike. It became financially feasible when the Delaware Economic and Financial Advisory Council raised revenue estimates for the current budget year by $39 million, and estimates for the next year by $64.6 million.

DEFAC is meeting this afternoon to approve those estimates. By law, the General Assembly must use the June DEFAC revenue estimate to set its budget.

Under the proposal approved today, merit and merit-comparable employees will see a 2.57 percent “salary restoration” starting July 4. Education employees will get 1.56 percent, plus the restoration of two professional development days that were eliminated last year. That translates to an effective 2.63 percent increase.

Employees at Delaware Technical and Community College will receive 2.57 percent, and the JFC voted to fund the equivalent increase for employees at Delaware State University and the University of Delaware. Those two institutions receive state money, but set their own pay levels

or EDUCATION FUNDING???

http://www.delawareonline.com/article/20100515/NEWS02/5150322

Dover,
All conjecture aside, please restore funding for math and literacy specialists and eliminate proposed education funding cuts for the next fiscal year!  With a 100 mil likely to come in, our legislators have the power and resources to make education the primary priority.  Please put teachers back in the classrooms, first! Delaware, they need to hear from you!

Lawmakers are expected to place rolling back the pay cut high on their agenda when they head into markup next week.

The Legislature adjourned for a two-week break Thursday to allow members of the budget-writing Joint Finance Committee to meet and make revisions to the budget. The General Assembly must complete the budget approval process by June 30. DEFAC will meet one more time in June to approve the final numbers

Thursday, May 13

2010 Operating Referendum
Our Kids - Worth the Investment
7:00 pm
Leasure Elementary School

http://www.christina.k12.de.us/Referendum/

Eric M. Anderson  869
George E. Evans 217
Paul J. Falkowski  104

B
Richard H. Cross, Jr.  479
Martin A. Wilson, Sr.  869


G
William Doolittle 254
Catherine Thompson  1086



http://electionsncc.delaware.gov/Red_Clay/2010/rc_mbr10.shtml