Gov. takes hostages, Democratic Word of the Day!

Well, here we are, celebrating Independence Day, freedom, and democracy.  But, as we attend our barbeques and fireworks, I think it's important to point out that not every deserving Delawarean is free today -- students and families at two of Delaware's charter schools have been taken hostage by the Gov and the DOE. 

Gov. Markell will not share when he plans to sign the latest charter legislation.  His press office has already confirmed that when he does, it will not be a Pencader Charter High School, although that community has generously invited him to return to the school where, just over a year ago, he was a guest a speaker at its graduation.  In fact, intel from teh Gov's office indicates that he will not sign this vital piece of legislation until after the State Board of Education votes on the futures of Reach and Pencader.

Here's the reality - the intention of the original financial legislation sum years back was to include Charter schools as elsewhere in Delaware law, code, and regulations, charter schools are determined to be disticts unto themselves.  Now, some crooked kink is using the lack of foresight of many to indicate that without the newest legislation, Pencader and Reach are not eligible for the same safeguards offered Christina when it had its own financial meltdown.  DOE refuses to respond to contituents regarding this issue.  I know many at Pencader have asked the question - could implementing the finance recovery team allow for their school to continue operating? 

The real raw deal is this:  When Christina was ripped off, the legislature acted quickly to enact the recovery team legislation because Christina was too big to fail, it was signed just as quickly by the state's governor to enable a loan to flow into Christina's coffers so that all due pay received it.  Just as today's bill was written as a reactive measure, so it was five years ago.  The difference is that this Gov. is hiding from his constituents because apparently, EVERYONE IS EQUAL, SOME ARE JUST MORE EQUAL THAN OTHERS. Charter students simple do not have the same right to their education as district students.  That's hostage-taking.  And that's the Democratic Word of the Day.

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Will Sen. David Sokola Stand With Pencader?

Sen. Sokola is the Chair of the Senate Education Committee. From 2005-2006 and for part of 2007 he served on the Newark Charter School Board of Directors.

Sen. Sokola's Response to a Constituent:

XXXXX,
Thank you for your email concerning Pencader Charter High School.

I appreciate your concerns and opinions on this issue, as I have been a long supporter of charter schools. I feel it is important for such schools to have an opportunity to succeed and make an impact in the lives of its students. While I can appreciate that some changes have been made at Pencader Charter School, such as the new leadership, these changes may not be enough to ward off very significant challenges that lie ahead.

You mentioned in your email that the new School Leader had presented a balanced budget for the upcoming school year. I believe that this balanced budget is contingent only upon receiving a loan, which so far has not been granted.

I understand and share your frustrations in that poor planning and bad judgment on the part of the previous administration has caused great hardship for the school. Going forward, we must implement policies to ensure that these schools meet the standards in their Charters, and do so within their budgets.

Thank you again for your email and for contacting me about this issue.
Dave Sokola
State Senator
8th District

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Critics Target Growing Army of Broad Leaders

By Christina A. Samuels


Billionaire businessman Eli Broad, one of the country’s most active philanthropists, founded the Broad Superintendents Academy in 2002 with an extraordinarily optimistic goal: Find leaders from both inside and outside education, train them, and have them occupying the superintendencies in a third of the 75 largest school districts—all in just two years.

Now hosting its 10th class, the Los Angeles-based program hasn’t quite reached that goal, but it’s close. The nation’s three biggest districts have Broad-trained executives in top leadership positions: Shael Polakow-Suransky, the chief academic officer in New York City; John E. Deasy, the superintendent of Los Angeles Unified; and Jean-Claude Brizard, who became the chief executive officer of the Chicago schools last month. In all, 21 of the nation’s 75 largest districts now have superintendents or other highly placed central-office executives who have undergone Broad training...

A Must Read HERE:
http://www.edweek.org/ew/articles/2011/06/08/33broad_ep.h30.html?tkn=VZXFVcxO70QSMSI%2F%2FP2EYDT3bndZTg1xTBRj&cmp=ENL-EU-NEWS1

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Congratulations to UD's Dr. Iva Obrusnikova! Thank You for your dedication to our children!

from the UDaily, http://www.udel.edu/udaily/2011/jan/aahperd-research-consortium-010711.html
Obrusnikova selected Research Consortium Fellow

10:17 a.m., Jan. 7, 2011----Iva Obrusnikova, assistant professor in the Department of Behavioral Health and Nutrition at the University of Delaware, will be among 11 candidates to be inducted as Research Consortium fellows at the American Alliance for Health, Physical Education, Recreation and Dance (AAHPERD) Convention and Exposition in San Diego on March 3.

She will join approximately 375 fellows in the consortium, a member group of over 5,500 research scholars and other members of AAHPERD who have a strong interest in research. Recognition as a fellow signifies the development of a focused research agenda with an accompanying publication track record in an area related to human health and physical activity.

Obrusnikova's research focuses on developing strategies for increasing physical activity and social interaction among children and adolescents with emotional and behavioral disorders, particularly autism spectrum disorders (ASD). During the summer of 2010, she conducted a pilot study on the use of therapy dogs in a physical education class for children between the ages of 9-14 with ASD.

Obrusnikova joined the UD faculty in July 2006. She received her doctorate in kinesiology and adapted physical education from Palacky University in Olomouc, Czech Republic, in 2004.

In nominating Obrusnikova, Susan Hall, deputy dean in the College of Health Sciences and professor in the Department of Kinesiology and Applied Physiology, wrote: “As an assistant professor, Dr. Obrusnikova is early in her career, but I am confident that in time she will become recognized as one of the leaders in the sub-discipline of adapted physical education. I am also confident that with fellow status, Dr. Obrusnikova will be an even more active and contributing member of the Research Consortium.”

AAHPERD is the largest organization of professionals supporting and assisting those involved in physical education, leisure, fitness, dance, and health promotion. The mission of the AAHPERD Research Consortium is to advance, promote, and disseminate quality research within and across the disciplines and the professions served by AAHPERD.

Article by Diane Kukich

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State Announces Partnership Zone Schools

Stubbs, Glasgow among the first four of the 10 promised in Delaware's RTTT application...

http://www.delawareonline.com/article/20100831/NEWS03/100831022/State-targets-four-struggling-schools

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The Turnaround Scramble: Schools stripped of stability with unrealistic timeline

Since late spring, Mr. Look has been overseeing a dramatic shakeup at Shawnee that is meant to turn around years of anemic academic achievement at the school and help fulfill U.S. Secretary of Education Arne Duncan’s $3.5 billion mandate to fix the nation’s most chronically underperforming schools over the next three years. If Mr. Look doesn’t produce improved academic results in the school year that commences Aug. 17, he will lose his job at Shawnee.

“Some days, I’m feeling like I need performance-enhancing drugs to make the kinds of changes that people say will take at least three years to do,” said Mr. Look, a Louisville native who has led Shawnee since August 2008. “Well, I have one year.”

Mr. Look’s superiors in the 98,000-student Jefferson County school district—which includes the city of Louisville—have similar misgivings about what, realistically, can be delivered, especially on such a compressed timeline and using what many educators argue are unproven strategies. Six of the city’s schools, including Shawnee, are undergoing the turnaround interventions.

“We don’t disagree that something has to happen in these schools and that we’ve got a great opportunity with more urgency, funding, and potentially more-focused support,” said Joseph C. Burks Jr., an assistant superintendent who oversees the 21 high schools in the district. He is Mr. Look’s boss.

“But why not give people more than a year to start?” Mr. Burks said. “Very few people, if any, know how to turn a school around dramatically in one year. We are in desperate need of good training on how to do this.”

The most disruptive change—replacing half of Shawnee’s teaching staff—took place last spring, though those teachers who aren’t returning to the school were not fired, and most transferred to another campus in the district. The turnover in faculty was required by the federal rules of the “turnaround” model that Shawnee is using as its method for school improvement. Mr. Look recruited nearly all of the 25 teachers who will be new to Shawnee this fall. Most of them are experienced instructors. He still has few openings left to fill, though, including an instructional assistant and someone to run the school’s ROTC program.

With the teaching team mostly assembled, Mr. Look planned a retreat for them late last month to lay out the school’s priorities for the next 10 months and get the teachers fired up for the high-stakes year that awaits them. But first, they have to learn one another’s names. The entire social studies department is new to Shawnee. Five of six English teachers are new.

Roderick Pack, 28, is Shawnee’s new chairman of the social studies department... “The amount of intensity in how all of us at Shawnee care about the students and what’s at stake is really amazing and has me very optimistic about the school’s prospects,” Mr. Pack said. “At the same time, we can’t just get caught up in the monitoring that will be going on and worrying constantly about what the test scores are. That won’t work. We’ve got to really teach these students and have expectations for them beyond a score on a state test.”

MORE HERE:  http://www.edweek.org/ew/articles/2010/08/04/37kyturnaround_ep.h29.html?tkn=RSWFfDulozUJnCIQKknmKX10UKBkA1x%2F3vhu&cmp=clp-edweek

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Would you send your child to a "Forest Kindergarten?"

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.

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Open Letter to the Residents of the Christina School District

Dear Christina Constituents,

In a few hours C&E 1st will go on hiatus for three days as I hit the wilderness with my girl scout troop.  Before I go, I want to address an article in today's News Journal, Delaware schools: Christina board violated FOIA, AG's Office rules.

In March, I found myself in a difficult place.  The board had convened a public meeting that in my opinion was not properly noticed in accordance Delaware State law.  The night before the meeting, a fellow board member brought the omission of the Agenda from the posting to my attention.  On the morning of March 6th, I attended the board meeting at Sarah Pyle Academy and shared my concerns.  I presented a copy of the state's code on open meetings and Delaware's Freedom of Information Act to our board president.  He briefly considered the documents and determined that the meeting was "legal."

The meeting was called to order.  After the Pledge of Allegiance, I re-iterated my concerns with the appropriateness of the meeting and informed those in attendance that I would not stay and participate.  I have been committed to transparency since I began my campaign more than a year ago.  I was elected to position on that platform and will not deviate from my core values.  Participation in this meeting would have constituted both a personal moral and ethical violation. 

The meeting was conducted at the president's direction after I departed.

At the regularly scheduled March meeting, our president offered comments regarding the departure of a board member at the previous meeting.  It became apparent to me that the culture that sustains our district is one in which transparency is not clearly understood and that deficit is reflected in all of our actions.  I believed that the only place to turn for an accurate interpretation of the state code was the Office of the Attorney General for a Freedom of Information Act finding.

The FOIA reflected two concerns: 1)The proper posting of the March 6th meeting and 2) The lack of minutes for the on-going Agenda Prep meetings held prior to the regularly scheduled monthly board meetings.  In March, I, along with another board member, co-submitted a FOIA petition on behalf of the voters of the Christina School District to the A.G.  The findings were recently released and can be found on the A.G.'s website at  http://attorneygeneral.delaware.gov/office/opinions/2010/10-IB04.pdf

The Attorney General's Opinion supports the FOIA Petition.  Our Board of Education was found to have incorrectly interpreted the code and as a result, has held questionable meetings.  The A.G. does recognize that the board did not vote or take any other action during the meetings that were the subject of the FOIA. 

For many, the above chain of events will evoke anger.  It did for me, for a number of reasons.  But, I am more concerned for the district's constituents, that they have historically been shut out of process and lost their opportunity to have a voice on policy in times when it has been direly needed.  There are some that support the "old guard," who will be angry that I or any other board member rocked the boat.  They will argue that this was not a matter that should have gone before the A.G. and that I am part of a rogue gang of board members who have a secret agenda.  I know this because in recent weeks those rumors have made their way back to me. 

I assure you that I am neither a "rogue" board member nor do I have a "secret" agenda.  My agenda has been very public from day one:  I seek to create transparency and ensure accountability in our best efforts to provide a world class education for all students.  I will go to the ends of earth -- and the A.G.--  to ensure that I have maintained that effort. 

Had the A.G. found for the district, I believe that I would feel the same satisfaction, in knowing that I had engaged process to ensure that we were following both the letter and the spirit of the law.  This was a necessary step to ensure that our actions support our assertions.  I am a passionate advocate for open government and true democracy and as such I have included the FOIA petition submitted to the Attorney General in tab, labeled Pages, to the right of this post.  It is my hope that you will draw your own conclusions about the appropriateness of these meetings, the filing of the petition, and the A.G. Opinion.

Ultimately, I am satisfied with and saddened by the outcome.  I admit to being a part of meetings (Agenda Prep) that were not in compliance with the state code.  I bear that responsibility and have taken the necessary action to rectify it, through this FOIA petition.  I continue to be troubled by what appears to be a history of such meetings and I cannot tell you (having only been on this side of the board for 10 months) how many such meetings have occurred in the last thirty years. 

Accidental as it may seem, it's ultimately a sad chain of events.  It is, however, a necessity, as in my opinion, we as both a district and a board are without the ability to change erroneous behavior if we do not acknowledge it.

Sincerely,

Elizabeth Scheinberg

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LA school board OKs plan to turn over management of 30 schools. In Contrast to recent events in R.I.

In contrast to recent events in Rhode Island, the LA school board voted last night to turn over management of 30 schools to non-profit education groups, including some that are comprised of parents, teachers, and administrators already in place.  Of note, the school board was instrumental in creating a mechanism by which communities could propose plans for the operation of their schools.  And the board resoundingly, with the superintendents recommendation, reaffirmed many of those plans. In a small number of cases, the board chose operaters other than those recommended by administration.

 Here's the latest: from http://www.dailybreeze.com/.  Click on the story to link back.

The Los Angeles school board on Tuesday approved a plan to turn over the operation of 30 campuses to nonprofit educational groups, but most of the groups are led by teachers and administrators already in place.



After a 4 1/2-hour meeting that featured nearly 50 speakers, the board approved most of Superintendent Ramon Cortines' recommendations for 12 of the district's most problematic schools and 18 new ones for the 2010-11 academic year.


The vote represented the first round of Cortines' plan to turn over about a third of the district's schools to nonprofit groups with the goal of boosting student achievement.


The groups were selected from among 85 proposals submitted to the district under the Public School Choice Program adopted last year.


"Today we launch a new era at LAUSD of quality, of leadership and accountability - something that this board had the courage to elevate and make real," said board member Yolie Flores Aguilar, who last year introduced the School Choice Program resolution.


"Today we are no longer the insular institution we once were," she said. "But more important, what today represents is that mediocrity is not OK, and that we place high value first and foremost on quality education for all students."

In most cases, members backed Cortines' recommendations, but at some schools - such as Barack Obama Global Preparatory Academy, Esteban Torres High School and Griffith-Joyner Elementary School - the board selected different operators.


"We need to act now for all our students to succeed," Cortines said at the start of the meeting. "We must ensure our students are successful from pre-K to adult schools."


After several weeks of review, Cortines last week made his recommendations for each of the affected campuses - with the proposed operators including charter school companies; collaborations of parents, teacher and local district administrators; and Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa's Partnership for Los Angeles Schools.


"This has been a process of inclusion, collaboration, transparency and transformation at all levels - within the staff rooms, community centers and living rooms of everyone involved," Cortines said.


The plan to allow outside groups to govern individual campuses angered some education advocates, including the teachers union, United Teachers Los Angeles. On Tuesday, about 200 teachers and parents protested outside the board meeting.


But given the board's approval of the process, UTLA helped some groups of teachers and local school administrators submit management proposals, and those groups make up the bulk of Cortines' recommendations.


UTLA President A.J. Duffy said last week he was pleased that Cortines had recommended that the parent/teacher/administrator teams operate more than three-quarters of the schools up for bid. But he called on the school board to reject the superintendent's recommendation that outside operators, such as charter school companies, be given control of some campuses.


"We want the school board members to review all the teacher/parent plans the superintendent did not recommend," Duffy said. "Local communities wrote plans. Parents made their choice. Both of these should be respected."

The board's vote was preceded by dozens of speakers lobbying for their own particular group. Most were supportive of the concept of allowing different groups to operate schools in hopes of bringing new ideas into the district.


"I always hoped this day would come," teacher Roberta Benjamin told board members.


The school choice program "is the first step to breaking down the wall between charter public schools and non-charter public schools," she said.


Former teacher Yvette King-Berg said that no matter which side you were on, "the bar is being set higher" by allowing outside groups to manage certain campuses.


Former U.S. Rep. Esteban E. Torres, whose name graces an East Los Angeles high school, said the principal goal of the Public School Choice program is to develop the kind of schools "the community wants."


Although there was disagreement among some groups over the operators of particular schools, board member Steven Zimmer said he was impressed with all the proposals that were submitted.


"This is not about politics," he said. "It's not about pressure. It's not about power. It's not about land. It's not about facilities. It's about our children and our families and this could be about hope. Because there was hope in the living rooms and classrooms and community rooms where these plans were being written."

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Delaware Waits.

We do a lot of waiting here. 
For snow removal. 
For schools to reopen. 
For the Gov. to forgive snow days. 
For the State Sec. of Education  to announce the schools that will pilot the Mass Insight Turnaround Zone. 

The News Journal initially pegged last week for the big "announcement," but those who've been around a while know that DOE is more strategic than that, or rather their waters are too muddy for the transparency tax payers deserve.  If they had played the transparency card with Race to the Top, chances are some school boards would not have signed on.  And so, I can't help but hypothesize as to why our turnaround schools have yet to be named.  Perhaps, they are busy lining up their lead partners, partners, DOE employee Dan Cruce earlier speculated, that must be local due to Delawareans' deep trust issues.  (Any wonder why we have trust issues?)

Or perhaps, they are busy aligning to Mass Insight's latest Turnaround Strategy -- Internal Lead Partners.

Or waiting for M.I. to release any of the following reports:

Leveraging Title 1 School Improvement Grants (scheduled for release in February 2010)
Provides recommendations to states on the most effective process to allocate the Title 1 School Improvement grants under the new federal guidelines.
Best practice state policy (scheduled for release in March 2010)
Offers advice on how policy can be created to encourage optimal conditions for school turnaround, drawing on promising practices from existing and forthcoming state legislation.
Building a District Turnaround Office (scheduled for release in May 2010)
Provides guidance on creating a District Turnaround Office, an organizational structure designed specifically to manage turnaround efforts within the district.
Building a State Turnaround Office (scheduled for release in April 2010):
Describes the structure and functions of the State Turnaround Office, an office of the State Education Agency responsible for all turnaround efforts within the state.

It's all conjecture, but in lieu of transparency and hard facts, conjecture is all we have.

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Could Mayoral Control be the future of our City Schools?

(okay, that question may land me in hot water, but it's no secret that there are many in Wilmington who believe that their schools should be run locally, not by the Red Clay, Colonial, or the Christina School Districts.  Therefore, I believe, it deserves to be asked.)

Rochester, NY
Rochester, NY, Mayor Bob Duffy wants control of his cities schools, joining a growing cohort of urban leaders vying for education reform through mayoral control.  In Duffy's view, public safety, economic development and public education would all be better served under a consolidated government.  Though he appears to be gaining the support of both the NY Legislature and Governor Patterson,  the move is not without controversy and opponents, including the education union and some school board members who are mounting a fight.  (The School Board would cease to exist if the state's third largest district falls under Duffy's control.)

According to the http://www.democratandchronicle.com/, Duffy says, "This is about aligning systems that are critically important for the future health of our city and our children," He envisions a district that would integrate social service and nonprofit organizations to provide a comprehensive "kids zone."

By law, the city of Rochester pays $119 million to the school district annually. Savings would come through combining departments, while educational quality would improve in part through a more comprehensive social service net, Duffy said.

Mayoral Control
Arne Duncun has gone so far as to say, he would consider his time as education secretary a "failure" if more mayors didn't take over control of their city schools by the end of his tenure. 

Rochester isn't alone. as reported by Dakarai Aarons efforts "are under way in Detroit and Milwaukee to institute mayoral control, spurred by frustration over sometimes glacial academic progress.

"Wisconsin Gov. Jim Doyle and Milwaukee Mayor Tom Barrett (who is running to replace Doyle) have been unsuccessful so far in their attempts to get the state legislature to pass a mayoral control bill, most recently in a special session two weeks ago. Barrett is still pushing forward, and the state senate's education committee is holding a hearing on the issue Jan. 5.

"In Detroit, Emergency Financial Manager Robert C. Bobb recently asked for academic control of the schools. He and others have expressed support for Mayor Dave Bing having a say in how the schools are run. The Michigan House will take up the issue in a series of hearings starting Jan. 14."

In October, reporter Lesli A. Maxwell produced an examination of Mayoral Control as education reform for the Wallace Foundation's, Leading for Learning Report.  Maxwell cites 18 cities who have explored the change in education leadership.  There are the heavy-hitters -- New York City, Washington D.C. and Chicago -- as well as efforts in smaller cities like Harrisburg, PA; Yonkers, NY; Providence, R.I.; Trenton, NJ; and Hartford, Conn.

Even our neighbor, Philadelphia, developed a model of control in 2001when the school district reverted to the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania. Currently, the Mayor appoints two members of the School Reform Commission and the Governor appoints three others. 

What mayoral control does present is a direct line of accountibility for school performance to one person, the mayor.  If voters don't like the direction of their public education, they have the ability to change leadership every four years.  When Mayor Bloomberg ran last fall in NYC, his education record was a central issue in the election.

"No mayor has exercised such unlimited power over the public schools as Mr. Bloomberg," Diane Ravitch, a professor of education at NYU, former assistant secretary of education and frequent critic of Bloomberg, has written.

In the eyes of some critics, this is simply going too far. "We still think there are reasons to keep mayoral control," United Federation of Teachers president Randi Weingarten said in her introduction to the union's report on school governance. But she continued,"The experience of the last seven years points strongly to a need for a governance system that is more democratic, more accountable and more transparent."

In New Mexico,

The push for mayoral control reflects rising frustration and desperation over poor student achievement, crumbling buildings, bureaucratic wrangling among school officials and revolving-door superintendents.



The districts have standardized their curriculums, ended "social promotion" of kids who fall too far behind, opened new schools to give students more choice and brought in millions of dollars in corporate donations.


But education specialists continue to debate whether kids really get a better education under such arrangements, whether any academic gains will be permanent, and how much credit mayors should get for the successes.

Kenneth Wong, a Brown University education professor, examined test scores of the 100 largest school districts from 1999 to 2003. He found that students in mayor-controlled school systems often perform better than those in other urban systems. Test scores in mayor-run districts are rising "significantly," he says.


However, Wong says in his study that "there is still a long way to go before (mayor-controlled) districts achieve acceptable levels of achievement."

Delaware school boards by contrast are slow moving machines that levy power among seven unpaid individuals with rotating elections of one or two seats per year.  It takes a minimum of five years to replace a board in Delaware and often longer. 

Don't get me wrong -- I'm not trying to advocate my way out of a seat on the CSD BOE.  School Boards provide local accountibility representative of all parts of a district.  Candidates must reside in defined geographic nominating districts and are elected by all voters who choose to hit the polls on election day.  They are both accountible and accessible in ways that a mayor may not be.

In an April article for Edweek.com, former executive director for the New York Commission on School Governence, Joseph P. Viteritti found that:

Mayoral Control produces a mixed bag of results.  Mayoral control of public schools, now found in more than a dozen localities across the nation, has become part of the landscape of American urban education, even as the idea has played out differently from city to city.

Boston and Chicago are prototypes. In Boston, where the governance change was carried out in 1992, the mayor has worked closely with school professionals to implement new programs. In Chicago, where it was enacted in 1995, the mayor, at least initially, worked around school people. Detroit is a case study of mayoral control undone: The plan there went down in a 2005 referendum after six rocky years characterized by racial, partisan, and regional antagonism. The District of Columbia is a recent convert (2007); Los Angeles came close, but never quite got there. And talk about a move to mayoral control has been heard in such diverse places as Albuquerque, N.M.; Dallas; Memphis, Tenn.; Milwaukee; Minneapolis; Newark, N.J.; Rochester, N.Y.; and Seattle.

Veteritti further writes:

In New York City, our Commission on School Governance recommended that responsibility for the analysis and dissemination of performance data be turned over to the Independent Budget Office, which does not report to the mayor or rely on him for funding. Putting city hall in control of the schools increases the risk of politicizing education and the assessment of school performance. If a city is seriously considering mayoral control, education presumably is already a high political priority, so achievement data can be an irresistible temptation around election time.

So, returning to my question of mayoral control and the role it could play in the City of Wilmington:  The Jury is out on whether it works, though it is a favored model U.S. Secretary of Education Arne Duncun.  However, even in Duncun's home town, Chicago, longitudinal data seems to indicate that his own changes to education failed to spurr sustainable progress. 

I certainly don't have the answer.  But, it's a question worth asking ... and especially in light of regulation changes coming from DOE that could open the door for the elimination of local control in schools failing to make AYP.  You can check out those changes in detail at http://transparentchristina.wordpress.com/2010/01/14/delaware-regulation-changes-and-their-potential-impact/ thanks to a fellow blogger who's made that information easily accessible.

Time will tell.

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From the Newark Post: Comp. Training School In Newark forced to close!

http://www.newarkpostonline.com/articles/2010/01/04/news/doc4b42b47f8e54f988059211.txt
Computer training schools shut down


Published: Monday, January 4, 2010 9:49 PM CST

A computer training school was shut down, with a bank being blamed for the action.

According to a notice on its website, ComputerTraining.edu was shut down by BB&T bank and forced to close all schools and corporate offices with no notice to students, creditors, employees, management or shareholders. ComputerTraining.edu operates a campus in Newark.

After seventeen years in business, on Christmas Eve December 24th, 2009 ComputerTraining.edu was sent an email notifying them that their primary financier, BB&T bank, had frozen their line of credit, bank accounts and was seizing all assets immediately, according to the posting. They also instructed Computertraining.edu to lock down all locations and not allow employees access to collect personal belongings. This request stunned the ComputerTraining.edu management team who refused to comply. All employees were allowed access and terminations were made face to face, the posting reported.

Regardless of the fact that there were sufficient funds to do so, BB&T decided not to pay ComputerTraining.edu employees or keep training centers open to allow enrolled students to complete their schooling. Several attempts have been made by ComputerTraining.edu management to remedy the situation without success.

Current students should contact their state's board of education as soon as possible to work through refunds and remedies. ComputerTraining.edu has posted surety bonds and restricted cash deposits with the states which will be used to help students transfer to another school or obtain refunds.

ComputerTraining.edu is working together with Sallie Mae and all State Agencies to ensure that BB&T does the right thing and teaches out the classes and/or guarantees all refunds, the posting claimed.

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Adapted Physical Education for students reviewed through a new lens.

The following article caught my attention this morning for more than one reason.  Yes, it's uplifting.  Yes, it's about special education students.  Yes, it reveals the ingenuity of the human mind when creativity is allowed to flow forth in education, in physical education. 

But, it also spoke to concerns that I heard voiced by Christina's own REACH parents at a recent meeting.  I have submitted the questions about Adapted Physical Education raised by those in attendance and awaiting a response from our own CSD administration.

In the interim, I'd like to share excerpts from today's Edweek.org article, GAO Probes Access of Students With Disabilities to Sports by Lisa Fine.  Click the headline for the whole article.  It's definitely worth reading!

"Last year, Maryland passed a landmark law, the Fitness and Athletics Equity for Students with Disabilities Act, that requires district boards of education to develop policies to include students with disabilities in their physical education classes and athletic activities. The law requires that students be provided reasonable accommodations to participate, have the chance to try out for school teams, and have access to alternative opportunities such as Special Olympics-type teams or events that include students with and without disabilities. It is the only state law of its kind in the nation..."

"The high-profile case of a high school track-and-field athlete who uses a wheelchair and sued in 2006 for the right to race on the same track as her teammates helped inspire the law, proponents say.



Tatyana McFadden, who is a Paralympics medalist and world-record holder, won a lawsuit against the Howard County, Md., district to be able to compete on the same track, at the same time, as her teammates. She had been required to race alone on a separate track, she says, out of concern that her wheelchair would pose safety concerns.

“They would have everyone else run, and then they would stop the meet and have me run by myself, a person in a wheelchair going around alone,” says Ms. McFadden, now a 20-year-old sophomore at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign who is majoring in dietetics and takes part in the university’s adapted-sports program. “Having it like that hurt a little bit. People feel sorry for you when they see you like that. People didn’t see how athletic I was.”


U.S. Rep. Chris Van Hollen, D-Md., says Ms. McFadden’s case made him aware of the need for schools to have guidance on how to offer students with disabilities access to sports..."

"School staff members often lack training and experience in how to adapt physical education classes for students with disabilities—and the quality of services is reduced as a result, says Timothy Davis, an assistant professor of physical education at the State University of New York at Cortland and the chairman of the Adapted Physical Education National Standards, a project established by a professional group to create standards and a certification program for the profession.


Only 13 states suggest additional training for physical educators to teach adapted physical education, according to Mr. Davis. Most states do not require any additional certification.


Teachers in an undergraduate program for physical education are often required to take one three-credit course in adapted physical education in the last year of the program, he notes. “By the time they get interested in adapted physical education, they are done and they are out student-teaching,” Mr. Davis says. “Then because they have had the one course, they get a job in a district teaching adapted physical education..."


"Because of a lack of training, physical education teachers often feel uncomfortable attending individualized-education-program, or IEP, meetings for students with disabilities—and the absence of those educators troubles him.




“Even if we are not invited to the meeting, we have to knock on the door. It’s your student, in your class,” Mr. Davis says. “If the physical education teacher is not at the meeting, somebody else makes the idea for placement. Somebody else is writing the goals and objectives for physical education. We need to be there; we need the representation.”


Sometimes an attitude shift can make a big difference, he says, in how to teach sports to students with disabilities"


“You focus on ability and not disability,” Mr. Davis says. “Focus on what a kid can do, and you can make it work. If you say, ‘He can’t run, he can’t throw,’ I cringe. Tell me what he can do, and now we can start teaching.”


For students with disabilities, too often being in physical education class or sports has meant being left on the sidelines. Such a student might serve as a “coach” or “scorekeeper,” or receive physical therapy instead of physical education, says David Martinez, who was named the 2009 National Adapted Physical Education Teacher of the Year by the American Association for Physical Activity and Recreation.




Mr. Martinez, an adapted physical education specialist in Cherokee County, Ga., says adapted physical educators must think constantly of how to make an activity work for a child, or come up with a piece of equipment or technology that could assist the student.


He researched and built a Frisbee-throwing machine, for instance, that is switch-operated for some of his students. It lets them throw a disc 30 to 40 feet with accuracy.


Talking with students about what they think would be ways to make a sport work for them also can be helpful, Mr. Martinez says...


Noting the reluctance of many students with disabilities to join in sports, he suggests what he says are creative ways to include those students in the athletic culture of high school. The Cherokee County district, for example, created a varsity-letter program for students in Special Olympics. If students complete two seasons of a Special Olympic sport, they can wear a varsity letter in that sport for the school.


“It lets them enjoy a part of high school culture,” Mr. Martinez says. “It lets parents celebrate along with their children. It lets nondisabled peers say, ‘Wow, that’s neat, what did you letter in? What position do you play?’ It creates a true appreciation for individual differences.”

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