(For details, see the comments here.)
Still no response from the bored-on-vacation cat-got-his-tongue high official.
Saturday, August 2, 2008
Ask and Ye Shall Receive...
Thanks to the artist. It doesn't have the cachet of a crossed-out-Reithmeyer Stop The School shirt, but I like it!
(For details, see the comments here.)
Still no response from the bored-on-vacation cat-got-his-tongue high official.
(For details, see the comments here.)
Still no response from the bored-on-vacation cat-got-his-tongue high official.
Schools News Around the Blogosphere
Are You a Bully?
A Connecticut school administrator, commenting on his district's decision to include teacher behavior in its anti-bullying policy, complained that it would be difficult to distinguish between bullying behavior and classroom management strategies. What about you? Can you tell the difference between behavior management and bullying?
Standing Up for Average Students
Teacher/coach Tom Krause worries that real learning and the average student's needs are getting lost in the pressures of greater accountability and assessments.
Another Edison Schools achievement claim falls apart under scrutiny
The Examiner
Caroline Grannan
The minor flurry of news about the failed for-profit school manager Edison Schools - and an indignant post here by an Edison supporter or employee - spurred a longtime Edison critic who is an indefatigable number-cruncher to take a close look at Edison's newest claims about achievement in its Philadelphia schools.
Math Scores Show No Gap for Girls, Study Finds
New York Times
By TAMAR LEWIN
A study paid for by the National Science Foundation has found that girls perform as well as boys on standardized math tests.
Math IS harder for girls . . . and also, it seems, for the New York Times.
By Heather MacDonald
The New York Times is determined to show that women are discriminated against in the sciences; too bad the facts say otherwise. A new study has "found that girls perform as well as boys on standardized math tests," claims a July 25 article by Tamar Lewin-thus, the underrepresentation of women on science faculties must result from bias. Actually, the study, summarized in the July 25 issue of Science, shows something quite different: while boys' and girls' average scores are similar, boys outnumber girls among students in both the highest and the lowest score ranges.
People in leadership roles are ubiquitous, but leaders are in short supply.
Hayes Mizell
Guest Columnist EducationNews.org
Introductory remarks of Hayes Mizell on July 14, 2008 before moderating Session B01 at the National Staff Development Council's Summer Conference, held at the Marriott World Center Resort in Orlando, FL.
Is Google Making Us Stupid?
EdNews
by Nicholas Carr
Dave, stop. Stop, will you? Stop, Dave. Will you stop, Dave?" So the supercomputer HAL pleads with the implacable astronaut Dave Bowman in a famous and weirdly poignant scene toward the end of Stanley Kubrick's 2001: A Space Odyssey. Bowman, having nearly been sent to a deep-space death by the malfunctioning machine, is calmly, coldly disconnecting the memory circuits that control its artificial
For Many Student Athletes, Game Over
New York Times
By WINNIE HU
As cash-strapped school districts across the nation scale back sports programs, some fear that the tradition of the scholar athlete is at risk.
Teaching Life Lessons Through Sports
Organized athletics originally were viewed as mechanisms for teaching social values and selflessness, but society has changed and so have sports. Mitch Lyons suggests that athletics still can be a springboard for valuable lessons, if the approach is changed.
A Connecticut school administrator, commenting on his district's decision to include teacher behavior in its anti-bullying policy, complained that it would be difficult to distinguish between bullying behavior and classroom management strategies. What about you? Can you tell the difference between behavior management and bullying?
Standing Up for Average Students
Teacher/coach Tom Krause worries that real learning and the average student's needs are getting lost in the pressures of greater accountability and assessments.
Another Edison Schools achievement claim falls apart under scrutiny
The Examiner
Caroline Grannan
The minor flurry of news about the failed for-profit school manager Edison Schools - and an indignant post here by an Edison supporter or employee - spurred a longtime Edison critic who is an indefatigable number-cruncher to take a close look at Edison's newest claims about achievement in its Philadelphia schools.
Math Scores Show No Gap for Girls, Study Finds
New York Times
By TAMAR LEWIN
A study paid for by the National Science Foundation has found that girls perform as well as boys on standardized math tests.
Math IS harder for girls . . . and also, it seems, for the New York Times.
By Heather MacDonald
The New York Times is determined to show that women are discriminated against in the sciences; too bad the facts say otherwise. A new study has "found that girls perform as well as boys on standardized math tests," claims a July 25 article by Tamar Lewin-thus, the underrepresentation of women on science faculties must result from bias. Actually, the study, summarized in the July 25 issue of Science, shows something quite different: while boys' and girls' average scores are similar, boys outnumber girls among students in both the highest and the lowest score ranges.
People in leadership roles are ubiquitous, but leaders are in short supply.
Hayes Mizell
Guest Columnist EducationNews.org
Introductory remarks of Hayes Mizell on July 14, 2008 before moderating Session B01 at the National Staff Development Council's Summer Conference, held at the Marriott World Center Resort in Orlando, FL.
Is Google Making Us Stupid?
EdNews
by Nicholas Carr
Dave, stop. Stop, will you? Stop, Dave. Will you stop, Dave?" So the supercomputer HAL pleads with the implacable astronaut Dave Bowman in a famous and weirdly poignant scene toward the end of Stanley Kubrick's 2001: A Space Odyssey. Bowman, having nearly been sent to a deep-space death by the malfunctioning machine, is calmly, coldly disconnecting the memory circuits that control its artificial
For Many Student Athletes, Game Over
New York Times
By WINNIE HU
As cash-strapped school districts across the nation scale back sports programs, some fear that the tradition of the scholar athlete is at risk.
Teaching Life Lessons Through Sports
Organized athletics originally were viewed as mechanisms for teaching social values and selflessness, but society has changed and so have sports. Mitch Lyons suggests that athletics still can be a springboard for valuable lessons, if the approach is changed.
Public Records in PA
From the Reading Eagle.
Editorials : Boards still trying to hide open records
Saturday, August 02, 2008
Boards still trying to hide open records
The Issue: A Delaware County judge orders a school district to pay court costs and an attorney’s fee after improperly denying an open-records request.
Our Opinion: If this is any indication, public officials may have a difficult time complying with the new Open Records Act when it goes into effect next year.
One of the reasons Pennsylvania’s outgoing Open Records Act was considered one of the weakest in the nation was that public officials could violate it with impunity knowing there was little likelihood there would be any repercussions.
In most cases when an agency was ruled to have violated the law, it simply had to make available the record it withheld from the public. The instances when fines were imposed or boards were required to pay the court costs and an attorney’s fee for the person requesting the public document were few and far between.
So it is more than a little ironic — but no less satisfying — that a Delaware County Court judge not only ruled that the Radnor School District had to provide former school board member Judy Sherry with the documents she requested but also ordered the district to pay her attorney’s fee of $26,070 and court costs of $2,901.
Judge Robert C. Wright said a salary study prepared by the Pennsylvania School Boards Association clearly was a public record and the school board willfully or with wanton disregard withheld it from Sherry, The Philadelphia Inquirer reported.
Wright ruled that the study directly resulted in increased compensation for four district administrators, making it a public record.
According to the Inquirer, the judge pointed to a comment made by Kathy Fisher, school board president at the time, as one of the reasons he ruled the school board acted willfully or with wanton disregard.
Fisher had said if the board gave Sherry the information she requested, she would ask for more information.
That hardly seems like a reason to deny a resident something that the law says she clearly is entitled to have.
John McMeekin II, current school board president, defended the decision to withhold the study, saying it was prepared for determining labor compensation, the Inquirer reported.
But even the old Open Records Act, which will be replaced by a new one on Jan. 1, indicated that documents used by directors to make a decision should be open to the public.
The school district has asked Wright to reconsider his verdict and his decision to compel the school board to pay court costs and the fee for Sherry’s attorney, but the judge made the right decision. The people have an absolute right to know what their elected representatives are using to make their decisions.
Yet Wright’s decision was unusual. Under the old law, still in effect, all information is presumed to be secret and could be released only if those making requests could prove the documents they were seeking meet the law’s narrow definition of a public record.
The new law reverses that presumption and should eliminate cases such as this one. All information will be considered public unless it falls under specific exemptions, and the burden of proof that the information can be withheld will fall on the official who denies the request.
The new law also establishes an Office of Open Records that will mediate disputes. It has a provision for fines of up to $1,500 per violation, and authorized additional fines of up to $500 for each day an official fails to comply with any court order to produce requested documents.
If the attitude of the members of the Radnor School Board is any indication, public officials in Pennsylvania may have a hard time next year adjusting to the new Open Records Act. But it will be a boon for anyone who wants to know what his elected officials are doing and why.
Editorials : Boards still trying to hide open records
Saturday, August 02, 2008
Boards still trying to hide open records
The Issue: A Delaware County judge orders a school district to pay court costs and an attorney’s fee after improperly denying an open-records request.
Our Opinion: If this is any indication, public officials may have a difficult time complying with the new Open Records Act when it goes into effect next year.
One of the reasons Pennsylvania’s outgoing Open Records Act was considered one of the weakest in the nation was that public officials could violate it with impunity knowing there was little likelihood there would be any repercussions.
In most cases when an agency was ruled to have violated the law, it simply had to make available the record it withheld from the public. The instances when fines were imposed or boards were required to pay the court costs and an attorney’s fee for the person requesting the public document were few and far between.
So it is more than a little ironic — but no less satisfying — that a Delaware County Court judge not only ruled that the Radnor School District had to provide former school board member Judy Sherry with the documents she requested but also ordered the district to pay her attorney’s fee of $26,070 and court costs of $2,901.
Judge Robert C. Wright said a salary study prepared by the Pennsylvania School Boards Association clearly was a public record and the school board willfully or with wanton disregard withheld it from Sherry, The Philadelphia Inquirer reported.
Wright ruled that the study directly resulted in increased compensation for four district administrators, making it a public record.
According to the Inquirer, the judge pointed to a comment made by Kathy Fisher, school board president at the time, as one of the reasons he ruled the school board acted willfully or with wanton disregard.
Fisher had said if the board gave Sherry the information she requested, she would ask for more information.
That hardly seems like a reason to deny a resident something that the law says she clearly is entitled to have.
John McMeekin II, current school board president, defended the decision to withhold the study, saying it was prepared for determining labor compensation, the Inquirer reported.
But even the old Open Records Act, which will be replaced by a new one on Jan. 1, indicated that documents used by directors to make a decision should be open to the public.
The school district has asked Wright to reconsider his verdict and his decision to compel the school board to pay court costs and the fee for Sherry’s attorney, but the judge made the right decision. The people have an absolute right to know what their elected representatives are using to make their decisions.
Yet Wright’s decision was unusual. Under the old law, still in effect, all information is presumed to be secret and could be released only if those making requests could prove the documents they were seeking meet the law’s narrow definition of a public record.
The new law reverses that presumption and should eliminate cases such as this one. All information will be considered public unless it falls under specific exemptions, and the burden of proof that the information can be withheld will fall on the official who denies the request.
The new law also establishes an Office of Open Records that will mediate disputes. It has a provision for fines of up to $1,500 per violation, and authorized additional fines of up to $500 for each day an official fails to comply with any court order to produce requested documents.
If the attitude of the members of the Radnor School Board is any indication, public officials in Pennsylvania may have a hard time next year adjusting to the new Open Records Act. But it will be a boon for anyone who wants to know what his elected officials are doing and why.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)