Will Longer Schoold Days Work?

By Jason Campbell

President Obama thinks that keeping kids in their seats might just be the education reform this country needs.

But at least one Manteca teacher isn’t quite sure that his kids could stand to stay in their seats any longer than they already do.

With that the Commander-in-Chief believes that students today spend too little time in the classroom. Coming this week, those involved in education at the local level who have had to deal with the crippling economic blow that is still digging into coffers, aren’t quite sure that the concept of longer school days and shorter vacations – while maybe a good theoretical idea – is currently feasible.

“We need to prepare our students to be able to compete in a global economy, and that’s just the reality of education in America today,” said Manteca Educators Association President Ken Johnson. “I think that the idea sounds good theoretically, but practically something like that is going to take some serious money and that’s something we just don’t have right now.”

“On the surface it sounds like a good idea, but in reality I’m not so sure that it could immediately work. It might be good rhetoric...

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Newt and Al Making the Rounds

By KATHY MATHESON (AP)

PHILADELPHIA — The Rev. Al Sharpton and former House Speaker Newt Gingrich don't agree on much, but a meeting with a group of inner-city charter school students on Tuesday left them with the same impression: There is hope for improving the U.S. education system.

"We may disagree about other issues, but this is a place where we have a common" goal, Gingrich said outside Mastery Charter School in West Philadelphia. "I take education very, very seriously."

Sharpton, a liberal Democratic, and Gingrich, a conservative Republican, joined Education Secretary Arne Duncan on the first stop of a "listening and learning" tour to find out what school strategies are working and why.

At Mastery, the trio met with about a dozen 11th graders who attended the school four years earlier when it was under district management. At that time, students said, kids ran wild, expectations were low and teachers didn't care about the students — or even about teaching.

"It was horrible," 17-year-old Donnell Clark said.

But since 2006, the school has been run by Mastery Charter Schools, a nonprofit that now has four campuses in Philadelphia serving 2,100 students. The Shoemaker campus visited Tuesday has outperformed some of its more affluent suburban counterparts on state standardized tests.

Clark and others told the education advocates that new teachers and staff made the difference by raising the academic bar, accepting no excuses and simply caring about their students.

"Teachers actually invest their time," Clark said.

Public education in Philadelphia is a mixture of district-run schools, schools operated by private management companies and charter schools, which are public but operate independently from the district.

It is a high-poverty system where only about half the students can read and write at grade level...

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One Person's Opinion: Charter Schools Are not the Answer

By Noel Anderson

"We need more charter schools as a choice for parents". "Charter schools foster innovation!" All we hear is that charter schools are the answer to failing public education. If you recall, charter schools are publicly funded schools that operate outside the governance and policies of a local district in a state.

This charter school hype was literally translated into policy in New Orleans. After Hurricane Katrina in 2005, fewer than 20 of approximately 120 schools in center New Orleans remained usable. Since the hurricane destroyed the state and local tax base, the result was a state takeover of public schools, with more than half of them reopening as charter schools. According to an Urban Institute, New Orleans has become the largest charter school experiment in the country.

But do charter schools live up to the hype? The truth is they don't. Charter schools are given a window of three to five years to produce results or shut down. Yet the results of studies done by the Economic Policy Institute illustrate there is no real distinguishable academic effect on children in charter schools versus ones in traditional public schools.

There are other myths around charters that need dispelling. One myth is that charters foster innovation for public schools. Although there are many charter schools that do innovative things with curricula and have creative names (some are simply strange), they do not help reshape traditional public schools.

In fact, charter schools tend to be in competition with traditional public schools for students rather than becoming conduits for changing the public education system. Ostensibly, public schools should not be competing for students like businesses would compete for customers. Public schools are not businesses, but a fundamental right provided for all....

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Group Asks Parents to Step Up

By Kim Genardo

The group “Parents for Educational Freedom in North Carolina" kicked off a three city tour on the grounds of the State Capitol Monday afternoon.

Group President Darrell Allison said parents will choose the best option for their children and more options will equal student success.

The group is supporting House Bill 856 to modify the cap on charter schools.

A charter school is a publically funded school that parents must find and apply to get in usually through a lottery.

There is no tuition because local, state and federal dollars follow the child to that school.

Charter schools must meet state education guidelines and testing, but often times the schools are themed and have more flexibility with programs.

Representative Marvin Lucas, (D) Cumberland County, who co-sponsored the House bill to expand charter schools, addressed a crowd of 70 parents, students and education advocates.

“We raise the cap by six, but at same time look at existing charter schools, said Lucas. “We place an emphasis on the expansion for those local education associations that don’t have any charter schools,” added Lucas....

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Schools' job starts with what's best for the kids

By B.J. Van Gundy

The charter school movement in the United States started more than 10 years ago but continues to be misunderstood by the general public and even by those that find themselves leading the decision-making processes surrounding them.

The Gwinnett County School Board and administration is no exception, and the misguided approach and posture taken toward Ivy Prep Academy exemplifies their lack of understanding as well as their maligned intentions.

I don't claim to be a neutral party to this discussion. However, my bias, I believe, is well-guided by the question I ask myself concerning all education issues, for my children and others: What is best for the children involved?

There is no other intention that education systems and their administrators should have other than what is best for the children that are put in their care for education and growth on a daily basis.

To be clear, the posture described in the newspaper accounts of the Gwinnett system's lawsuit doesn't appear to me to meet this requirement.

The school board needs to get with the 21st century and understand that charter schools aren't here to compete with, denigrate or hurt the public school system, but are an important piece of the overall education equation. They assure that parents are given the absolute best opportunities to have their children educated in a school that excels rather than just merely exists nearby.

Simply telling parents that their school choices are already made for them based upon local geographical proximity to their house is something that traps parents into sending their kids, in too many cases, to schools that are not ideal or in their children's best interests.

I'm proud of the administrators, teachers and students at Ivy Prep. I have personally spent several hours at the school observing the operations and curriculum - something that I'll bet the five members of the Gwinnett County school board and superintendent couldn't say collectively.

The statement by the superintendent that the money going to Ivy Prep "is the equivalent of the salaries of 20 to 25 teachers" shows that the school board hasn't really thought this through. The fact is the money IS paying for 20 to 25 teachers - those teachers, and the money, just aren't under their control...

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Parents protest outside Harlem Success Academy 2

BY Rachel Monahan AND Meredith Kolodner
DAILY NEWS STAFF WRITERS

Most of the city's 1.1 million students went back to school Wednesday with a mix of excitement and nervousness, but a few hundred kids in Harlem arrived to find protesters outside and furniture stacked inside classrooms.

Frustrated parents at Public School 123 picketed outside the school to protest what they said was preferential treatment for Harlem Success Academy 2 charter school, located in the same building.

"Our school was not ready," said Antoinette Hargrove, the school's Parent Association president. "The same people who got their school ready were supposed to get our school ready. What are we - dogmeat?"

Parents said two classrooms were unusable, after furniture that had been off the third floor to make way for the charter school was shifted down to the floor.

Those classes met in the library, the parents said. One class met in the basement that parents said was overheated and had poor ventilation.

Harlem Success began moving into the 140th Street building in July.

Their floors were waxed, the walls were freshly painted and the bathrooms had been completely renovated in time for opening day.

Eva Moskowitz, who runs Harlem Success, sent out an angry email this morning claiming that "teacher union protesters blocked a group of Harlem 5-year-olds from entering their public school building this morning....

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Understanding President Obama's Speech: A Parent's Guide

CER Press Release
Washington, DC
September 7,2009

Parents should talk to their kids about issues surrounding the President's speech to the nation's school children Tuesday, such the as role of the federal government in education, the state of our nation's education crisis, and how they can elect officials who will make critical changes, according to Making Sense of President Obama's School Speech: 10 Things Parents Should Share with their Kids, released today by the Center for Education Reform.

"Parents are not only the first line of defense when it comes to their family's education, they should be the first line of offense as well," says Jeanne Allen, president of the Center for Education Reform. "Parents can be assertive and effective change agents in improving schools and using this occasion to help their young understand how to right education's wrongs is a big first step to reforming our schools."

The Center for Education Reform has for 16 years helped parents become better advocates for their children, and given policymakers the tools they need to succeed. Thus CER brings its broad and unique expertise to the controversial discussions surrounding the president's speech by offering parents a variety of topics to cover to help educate their children about why President Obama is speaking to them, what his role is, and what other issues this nation faces in bringing excellence to all schools.

"Above all parents should remind their children something that schools often neglect - that they live in the land of opportunity, the best nation on earth, and that along with making sure they receive a great education, they must always seek to learn from history and to advance the principles upon which this country was founded," added Allen.

To download a copy of CER's Making Sense of President Obama's School Speech: 10 Things Parents Should Share with their Kids and to find more valuable resources for parents, click here.

Obama School Address with Lesson Plans

President Obama announced yesterday that at 12:00 p.m. ET. On September 8, 2009 he would address school students across the nation. Since that announcement, controversy has ensued as many parents and school officials wonder if the President is pushing education or politics. The lesson plans found on the Department of Education’s website have also drawn their fair share of controversy.

President Obama has stated that the purpose of the school address is to encourage children to stay in school. President Obama has previously discussed the importance of parents and child care givers in the responsibility of ensuring children set educational goals and are empowered to achieve them. In Tuesday’s school address, he aims at telling children the importance that they play in their own education. Most importantly, setting their own goals and striving to be all that they can be.

Controversy ensued after suggested lesson plan materials, materials on the Department of Education website that would be used to help reinforce the speech, were written as if students would well receive encouragement from President Obama. What became offensive to many was a portion of a lesson plan that read as follows, “Write letters to themselves about what they can do to help the president. These would be collected and redistributed at an appropriate later date by the teacher to make students accountable to their goals.”

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