Classroom chaos? Critics blast new Common Core education standards

A full year before students around the nation submit to the new Common Core standardized tests, the federally-backed program is already causing chaos and confusion at local school board meetings, in the classroom and at the dinner table.

As critics fear Washington is poised to take control of what and how local districts teach kids, school administrators are adopting new curriculum in an effort to ensure their students outperform their peers and parents worry that their children are being used as academic guinea pigs. As the program gets closer to full implementation, a full-blown backlash is developing despite assurances from supporters that it is merely a test aimed at establishing a national standard.

“Common Core is forcing districts to re-think math curriculum. And in cases like ours, they are making poor decisions.”

- Kelly Crisp, parent from Fairfield, Conn.

“It’s just now reaching their school districts and their children’s schools and they want to know, ‘What is this, and why is it being forced on us?’” said the Cato Institute’s Neil McCluskey.

When 90 percent of states signed on to subject K-12 students to the Common Core math and English standards being pushed by the federal government, the program looked like an unqualified success. Kids around the nation would be tested once a year in grades 3-8 in math and English language arts, and once in high school, either in the 10th or 11th grades. Finally, students throughout the country could be measured by the same yardstick, long before taking college entrance exams. Local districts that excelled at educating children could be singled out, and ones who lagged could also be identified in order to address problems.

Via: Fox News

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Obama administration offers strategies to promote Obamacare in schools

The Obama administration has posted materials online aimed at promoting the new health-care law in schools.

The materials, offered at the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services’ (CMS) Health Insurance Marketplace website include a resource card directing students to online materials about the Health Insurance Marketplace, as well as “What it means” fact sheets about the Affordable Care Act for school communities, students and parents and teachers, and a document on ways to promote the new health-care options in schools.

Each of the fact sheets, which appear under the “Affordable Care Act series from the Department of Education” category, offer basic information about the new health-care law.

“The US Department of Education is working to make all schools healthier and safe,” the fact sheets explain. “To help states, districts, and schools ensure healthy schools and students, the Department encourages school communities to make use of exciting new provisions of the Affordable Care Act. … To get all of America’s schools covered, the Health Insurance Marketplace begins with YOU.”

The fact sheets in the series were also recently included in the latest Education Department’s bi-weekly newsletter “ED Review.”

In addition to the student, school community, and parent and teacher fact sheets, the Marketplace website also offers a how to guide on promoting the Affordable Care Act in schools, titled “Ten Ways Schools Can Promote New Health Insurance Opportunities” and explaining that “schools can play a vital role in making sure people know how to get coverage.”

The ways the government says schools can “contribute to the outreach effort” include spreading the message about the marketplace through special events, school materials and coaches.

The document also advises schools to help students and their families apply for coverage and make the school’s computer lab available to parents “to sign up for coverage, as well as sharing best practices with statewide training sessions.”

Via: Daily Caller

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VIOLENT CRIME FORCES CHICAGO TO HIRE HUNDREDS OF SECURITY GUARDS TO ESCORT KIDS TO SCHOOL

CHICAGO (AP) — Busy, unfamiliar streets were made a bit friendlier Monday, the first day of school in Chicago, thanks to hundreds of newly hired safety guards. But some parents expressed doubt the effort would protect their children, who now must cross gang boundaries to get to their new classrooms after their old ones closed.

The Safe Passage program guards in neon vests lined city streets in neighborhoods with closed schools, the most visible sign of what’s at stake for the nation’s third-largest school district, which is struggling academically and financially.

Mayor Rahm Emanuel, who called Monday “a new beginning” for the district, planned to join students walking to O’Toole Elementary in the West Englewood neighborhood on the city’s South Side.

(Photo: NBC5/WMAQ-TV)

The Chicago Board of Education — hand-picked by Emanuel — voted in May to close about 50 elementary schools and programs, a move Emanuel and schools CEO Barbara Byrd-Bennett said would allow the district to improve academics and help pay down a $1 billion budget deficit.

Critics of the school closings said minority students were disproportionately affected and that many students would now have to cross dangerous gang boundaries. Some families sued, but a federal judge refused to halt the plan.

On Monday, concerned parents took time off of work or recruited family members to make sure students arrived at their new schools.

Annie Stovall walked her granddaughter, 9-year-old Kayla Porter, to Gresham Elementary School in the Gresham neighborhood, about 4 miles south of O’Toole Elementary.

Stovall said she’s skeptical Chicago’s first-day show of force will last.

“I think it’s just show-and-tell right now,” Stovall said. “Five, six weeks down the road, let’s see what’s going to happen.”

Via: The Blaze

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HUD's New 'Fair Housing' Rule Establishes Diversity Data for Every Neighborhood in U.S.

To ensure that "every American is able to choose to live in a community they feel proud of," HUD has published a new fair-housing regulation intended to give people access to better neighborhoods than the ones they currently live in.

The goal is to help communities understand "fair housing barriers" and "establish clear goals" for "improving integrated living patterns and overcoming historic patterns of segregation."

“This proposed rule represents a 21st century approach to fair housing, a step forward to ensuring that every American is able to choose to live in a community they feel proud of – where they have a fair shot at reaching their full potential in life,” said HUD Secretary Shaun Donovan.

“For the first time ever," Donovan added, "HUD will provide data for every neighborhood in the country, detailing the access African American, Latino, Asian, and other communities have to local assets, including schools, jobs, transportation, and other important neighborhood resources that can play a role in helping people move into the middle class."

Via: CNS News

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Sheriff Arpaio Putting Armed Posse In Schools

In response to a nearby county’s announcement that it will arm teachers and principals to prevent a Newtown, Conn.-style massacre at its schools, America’s most famous sheriff said he will send members of his armed posse to schools around his county.

Maricopa County Sheriff Joe Arpaio said he would send members of his posse to protect the 50 schools that are located in areas that his department is singularly responsible for protecting, according to KTVK-TV in Phoenix.

“I have the authority to mobilize private citizens and fight crime in this county,” Arpaio said. “[Politicians] are going to be talking about the guns now for years. But I have certain resources at my disposal and I'm not going to talk about it. I'm going to do it.”

Arpaio created the 3,000-strong posse during the 1993 holiday season in response to violent incidents at malls. There haven’t been any violent acts in malls there since the volunteer police force was created.

Posse members will be sent to the 50 or so schools that are in areas the Sheriff’s Office patrols, a response to nearby Pinal County officials saying they’d like to arm teachers and principals.

Arpaio said he’s a fan of school resource officers and though funding has been cut in recent years for their presence, he thinks putting them back in schools will make them safer.

“I support arming cops in the schools," Arpaio said. "If you have a cop that's armed you don't need a teacher that's armed."

Via: Newsmax

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Gallup: Americans Rate Public Schools the Worst Place to Educate Children

(CNSNews.com) - A new Gallup pollreleased today indicates that Americans rate public schools the worst place to educate children.

In the national survey conducted Aug. 9-12, private independent schools, parochial and church-related schools, charter schools and home-schooling all rated higher than public schools.

Gallup interviewers asked respondents: "I’m going to read a list of ways in which children are educated in the U.S. today. As I read each one, please indicate--based on what you know or have read and heard--how good an education each provides children--excellent, good, only fair, or poor. How about: public schools, parochial or church-related schools, independent private schools, charter schools, or home-schooling?"

Only 5 percent said they believe public schools give children an excellent eduction.

Another 32 percent said they believe public schools give children a good education. But this combined 37 percent who said public schools give children an excellent or good education was the lowest among the different types of schools Gallup included in its survey.

Via: CNSNews

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Baltimore MD., City school credit, procurement cards show culture of spending

Nearly $500,000 in charges include expensive dinners, extensive travel, and student lunch at Hooter's

Jerome Oberlton, the head of the Information Technology Department, will have to personally reimburse the system $5,000 for charges school officials deemed inappropriate. (Barbara Haddock Taylor, Baltimore Sun / April 26, 2012)

Despite tightening school budgets and a perpetual rallying cry for more funding, Baltimore school administrators spent roughly $500,000 during the past year and a half on expenses such as a $7,300 office retreat at a downtown hotel, $300-per-night stays at hotels, and a $1,000 dinner at an exclusive members-only club, credit card statements show.

City school officials defend the majority of the credit card expenditures — outlined in statements and receipts obtained by The Baltimore Sun through a Maryland Public Information Act request — as "the cost of doing business," saying only a handful of "outliers" show questionable judgment or disregard for taxpayer money.

"We are working around the clock to engage our partners and move our agenda forward," said Tisha Edwards, chief of staff for the school system. "Every transaction has a business purpose in mind."

Among those transactions were a $450-per-person office retreat at the downtown Hilton, during which the 16 employees of the Information Technology Department were also treated to a $500 dinner at Brazilian steakhouse Fogo de Chao; and a $264 lunch for students at Hooter's.

A review of credit card transactions and receipts by The Sun found that the bulk of the expenditures — about $300,000, generated by 16 central office employees — were made under a new procurement-card program that has operated with virtually no controls or oversight since it began in January 2011.

Card statements show that many of the expenditures violated the school system's own protocols and restrictions for use of the cards, such as a prohibition on using them for travel or to buy gifts for employees.

Via: The Baltimore Sun

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Gov. Brown Says Prop 30 Taxes Are All About Schools — Not So

Governor Jerry Brown kicked off his campaign to pass Proposition 30 on August 15, showcasing what Dan Schnur, Director of the USC Jesse Unruh Institute of Politics called “the most expensive ransom note in California political history” – pass the tax increase or the schools get it. The problem is that this tax increase proposal comes with no reforms for school funding, let alone other big-ticket items like pensions, and is likely a band-aid that would lead to more taxes in the future.

The schools are the focus of Brown’s kick-off at a school location but they are not the focus of the funds raised by the initiative.

The schools get no guaranteed new money from Prop 30. That’s not me saying so, that’s a comment from the California School Boards Association quoted in a Sacramento Bee article. “Despite endorsing Brown’s measure, (California School Boards Association) leaders said they ‘want to make it clear to the public that the governor’s initiative does not provide new funding for schools. Instead, it bolsters the General Fund with new revenue.’”

A Wall Street Journal editorial stated that, “The dirty little secret is that the new revenues are needed to backfill the insolvent teachers pension fund.”

Note that the School Boards Association pointed out that the new funding “bolsters the General Fund.” The association is not the only observer to recognize that this tax increase is about the General Fund. The Legislative Analyst Office’s report on Prop 30 stated:  “The new tax revenues would be available to fund programs in the state budget.”

Via: CA Political Review

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