NEA's Delegates Vote 'No Confidence' in Race to the Top

From Education Week --

After a protracted debate, delegates to the National Education Association approved a new business item today that takes a position of "no confidence" in the U.S. Department of Education's Race to the Top guidelines and in the use of competitive grants as a basis for the reauthorization of ESEA.

It was a symbolic slam on the Obama administration. But as with NEA President Dennis Van Roekel's keynote speech, it stopped short of actually calling out the U.S. president, a supporter of the program. And the debate over the item provided the clearest picture yet of both the internal and external difficulties the NEA faces pushing against an education agenda promoted by a Democratic administration, rather than a Republican one. . . .

The author of the NBI 2, Phil Rumore, president of the Buffalo, N.Y., affiliate, got applause when he was introducing the resolution: "Some people are going to be mad at us if we pass this. Well let the word get out," he said. The program, he added, would exacerbate policies that "brutalize our students with standardized tests, which in my opinion is like giving someone blood tests until they die."

From another supporter: "The Race to the Top is a gun with bullets in it to take out teachers, public education, and the union itself."

Camille Zombro, the head of the San Diego affiliate, seemed to have the last word. "Teachers would never have put together a program like Race to the Top," she said. "Even in states that are trying to make lemonade, ... you were still given a lemon."

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url link to entire article:
http://blogs.edweek.org/edweek/teacherbeat/2010/07/neas_delegates_vote_no_confide_2.html

Charter Schools - Are they the wave of the future? Obama may like to think so.

Charter schools are on the rise and the Race To The Top may ensure their proliferation. Read the article we recently posted about the "RTTT Winners". Recently, representatives from the U.S. Department of Education made a visit to DeKalb and held a discussion about identifying turnaround schools, closing them and then reopening them possibly as charters. Go to Community Radar to download the Powerpoint used at the meeting to learn about Tier 1, 2 and 3 schools and how they are identified. For further explanation, and videos describing turnaround examples, visit this link at the U.S. DOE.

This is a new era - if you think No Child Left Behind was intense, stand-by for this initiative by Obama and Duncan - part of the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009. They have no tolerance for severely under-performing schools and fully intend to shutter them and start them anew in one way or another. One way ensure your school system meets with Obama's approval is to allow flexibility in charter school creation. (Another is to tie teacher pay to student performance.)

If you're interested in charters, you will want to attend the Emory Lavista Parent Council meeting next Wednesday.

Emory Lavista Parent Council

Join us at 9:15 am

(refreshments begin at 8:45 am)

Wednesday, March 17, 2010

Fernbank Elementary School

157 Heaton Park Drive, NE, Atlanta, Georgia 30307

Charter Schools

Everything you Want and Need to Know

Guest Speakers

Phil Andrews, former executive director of the Georgia Charter School Association, moderator

Gigi Connor, co-founder of Neighborhood Charter School and Atlanta Charter Middle School

Nina Gilbert, founder of Ivy Prep Academy, a GA Commission Charter School

Nicole Knighten, DeKalb County Schools legislative affairs

Final Meeting: April 21^st at Coralwood Elementary: State of the System Revisited

Education Finalists Picked

From the Wall Street Journal Online:

The Obama administration picked 15 states and the District of Columbia as finalists in a heated competition for extra federal education funds to shake up underperforming schools.

The states that made the cut in the $4.35 billion Race to the Top competition were Colorado, Delaware, Florida, Georgia, Illinois, Kentucky, Louisiana, Massachusetts, New York, North Carolina, Ohio, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island, South Carolina and Tennessee.

...

Not allowing student test scores to be tied to teacher evaluations "seemed like a clear no-no under the rules" of the competition, said Joe Williams, executive director of Democrats for Education Reform, a group that favors charter schools and stronger teacher evaluation systems. He said the state legislature now had a short window to enact legislation that would correct New York's shortcomings.

Joel Klein, chancellor of the New York City school system, the largest in the country, failed to win the legislative changes he sought in January, but cheered the announcement nonetheless. "We're within striking distance,'' he said. He wants the legislature to immediately move to lift the charter cap and change state laws regarding teacher evaluations, firings and seniority. "That's the way to win this,'' he said. "We know that these things are hurting us.''

California, which faces a $20 billion state budget crisis, failed to make the finalist list. The state had hoped to qualify for as much as $700 million at a time when many local school districts are slashing their budgets. California had also tried hard to qualify by doing things such as ramming a bill through the legislature over union objections that allowed teachers' pay to be linked to students' test scores.