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Shocking: AFL-CIO comes out aganist Central Falls superintendent
/1 Comment/in Blog, News, Related Education Blogs /byYeah, I know. That’s. Not. News. The only thing worth pointing out is the title of their press release related to the position taken by the AFL-CIO’s Executive Committee: Supporting the Students, Teachers, Staff and Community of Central Falls High School in Rhode Island So, they’re against the superintendent, but supporting everyone else. Yup. I am not close enough to the situation to know if firing is the end-result that is necessary. But I am plenty close enough through friends, relatives and having grown up next door to know that the only way to get the unions to sit down and think seriously about the city’s 50 percent dropout rate was to do something radical. The super and the unions […]
WSJ: MA not at top of RttT applicant pool
/0 Comments/in Blog, News /byNeil King of The Wall Street Journal puts Massachusetts out of the top echelon of appllicants: Experts said Florida, Tennessee, Louisiana, Delaware, Colorado and Rhode Island put forward particularly strong applications, with Georgia, Illinois and Indiana also mentioned. Some state legislators have also officially started to worry. Fingers still crossed, but, as a Rhode Island native I have to say that if Rhodey’s new commissioner Deb Gist beats out MA some real soul-searching has to go on as to how we regain our leadership role in education. Again, let’s all cross our fingers.
Big dates with the feds
/0 Comments/in Blog, Blog: Common Core, Blog: Education, Jim Stergios, News, Related Education Blogs /byHere they are! – March 4th United States Secretary of Education Arne Duncan will be announcing the roster of Race to the Top awardees. From a friend: Duncan will announce the RTTT Phase I finalists this Thursday. States will know around 11:30 a.m., with a press release coming at about 12. Sharpen your pens, reporters! – March 8th the draft of the “K-12” Common Core Standards will be released by the Common Core Standards Initiative on March 8 . They are being put out for public comment and posted at www.corestandards.org. You’ve got three weeks to make your comments. Fingers crossed on the first item. On the second, well, CCSSI has had its work cut out, because the previous drafts […]
The Governor No One Voted For
/1 Comment/in Blog, Blog: Better Government, News /byI’ve written about New York’s insane political world in the past, and it took another turn this week, when the NY Times finally (after two whiffs) printed its stunning piece on NY Governor David Paterson. To start at the beginning, Eliot Spitzer got elected Governor with a little known LG, David Paterson. Spitzer had to resign after the “Client 9” scandal and Paterson took over. During the fighting over control of the state senate, Paterson appointed Richard Ravitch as LG. To give you a sense of the drama involved, Ravitch was sworn in tableside at Peter Luger’s steakhouse to beat a court injunction. His appointment was invalidated, then allowed up the rungs of the court system in NY, before finally […]
Why soft skills are pernicious
/0 Comments/in Blog, Blog: Common Core, Blog: Education, Jim Stergios, News, Related Education Blogs /by Jim StergiosWay back in February 2009, we criticized a report issued by the 21st century skills task force report produced by an ad hoc committee established by the chair of the board of education. The report pushed for a move away from the state’s focus on rigorous content-based academic standards and objective tests toward soft skills and portfolio assessments. We criticized the report on many fronts, including its focus on skills rather than content, lack of familiarity with existing state standards, lack of facility with empirical evidence, and on and on. One of the key criticisms we had was that the report wanted to focus this effort on underperforming districts. Hold that thought. The Board of Education has never voted to […]