June 23, 2012

Are charter schools useless?

When we started looking around for a new school for our son in San Francisco, we looked at private, charter and other public schools. I went to the Greatschools web site, and saw that test scores at the charter schools were no better, and in some cases worse, that the traditional public elementary schools. What am I missing? Is it unique to San Francisco. Is it because of the students they serve? Are charter schools not living up to the hype? What's going on?

June 23, 2012

How will Penn St. survive this financially?

I suspect they will be nearly broke after they are finished with all the settlements.

June 22, 2012

Donations for bullied bus monitor soar past $500,000

The fund was set up after a 10-minute, profanity-laced video depicting Klein being relentlessly bullied and driven to tears by four middle school boys went viral earlier this week.

Ashley Austell, one of more than 24,000 people who donated to the campaign, said it was the least she could do.

“I couldn’t stop thinking, ‘What if that were my grandma?’” Austell, 24, told msnbc.com in an email after she saw the video. “When she cried, I started bawling because it was so heartbreaking. You felt for this woman. She could be any of our grandmothers.”

Austell, who lives in Arlington, V.A., donated $100 because she “wanted to be part of a whole world showing Karen Klein that people care about her.”

Two of the students and the father of a third implicated in the harassment have issued apologies to Klein via statements to police in Greece, N.Y.


http://usnews.msnbc.msn.com/_news/2012/06/22/12357236-donations-for-bullied-bus-monitor-soar-past-500000?lite

June 21, 2012

Gay activists plan protest during Pride Parade

On Wednesday, crews were still busy completing the last of the fleet of the approximately 20 floats the public will see on Sunday.

But some gay activists are frustrated the event has so many corporate sponsors including Wells Fargo and Bank of America.

Tommi Avicolli Mecca has joined other gay activists -- some from Occupy San Francisco -- who have formed a group called Occu-Pride.

"The foreclosure epidemic in SF...to have banks that are involved with that sponsoring Pride, it is obvious they are trying to buy good will in the community," said Avicolli Mecca.


http://www.ktvu.com/news/news/pride-protest/nPbXx/

June 20, 2012

Test scores indicate improvement for San Francisco schools.

Editorial: The most maddening part of being a parent in Sf is how we have some of the best schools and some of the worst schools in the state. And every year parents fight and claw to get their kids in the better schools.


Seventy-three percent of schools in the San Francisco Unified School District maintained or improved their rankings, according to a statement from the district. Overall, 43 percent of district schools are ranked in the top 40 percent in the state, matched by another 43 percent of schools that rank in the bottom 40 percent.

The schools are ranked in two ways on a scale from 1 to 10, with 10 the highest. The first method ranks a school's test scores with all other schools in the state and the second compares schools that share similar demographic characteristics, including socioeconomic status, class size and percentage of students who are English learners.

Schools no longer with the worst ranking were Bret Harte, Bryant, Junipero Serra, Paul Revere, Rosa Parks, and Sanchez elementary schools; Everett Middle School; and June Jordan School for Equity. Junipero Serra made the biggest move of the group, scoring a 2 statewide and a 3 against similar schools.

Cesar Chavez Elementary School, a school that received 1 in both categories last year, was not ranked this year because an "irregularity in testing procedure occurred during the Spring 2011 testing," the Department of Education's website stated.

Once again, four San Francisco schools earned the highest possible ranking of 10 in both categories, including John Yehall Chin, Sherman, and Ulloa elementary schools; and Lowell High School.



http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2012/06/14/BACF1P232A.DTL#ixzz1yMcKrJn2

June 19, 2012

Texas dad won't face charges for killing man allegedly molesting daughter

SHINER, TEXAS — A young Texas father who beat to death with his fists a man molesting his 5-year-old daughter will not be charged, authorities said Tuesday as they released a dramatic 911 tape of the dad frantically pleading for help before the hired ranch helper died.

A Lavaca County grand jury Tuesday declined to indict the 23-year-old father in the death of Jesus Mora Flores, 47. Prosecutors said the grand jury reached same conclusion as police after reviewing the evidence: The father was authorized to use deadly force to protect his daughter.

Flores was killed June 9 on a family ranch so remote that the father is heard profanely screaming at a dispatcher who couldn't locate the property.

"Come on! This guy is going to die on me!" the father yells. "I don't know what to do!"



http://www.clarionledger.com/article/20120619/NEWS03/120619039/Dad-won-t-face-charges-beating-death-daughter-s-alleged-attacker?odyssey=tab%7Ctopnews%7Ctext%7CHome

June 19, 2012

If there was ever a question that Erin Bunett was an airhead...

she is talking to Jean-Paul Mitchell the hair guy about Dodd-Frank.

June 14, 2012

Bristol Palin being sued for defamation. Called bar patron "homosexual".

Bristol Palin's verbal altercation with a man at a Hollywood bar in her new reality show, "Bristol Palin: Life's a Tripp," created some interesting dramatic fireworks. But now that man has filed a lawsuit against Bristol and A&E Television Networks for defamation, invasion of privacy, emotional distress and more.

In court documents obtained by ET, Stephen Hanks contends that he was approached by Bristol last September at the Saddle Ranch bar in West Hollywood and a camera "recorded an exchange without his knowledge or consent." He claims that after hearing nearby patrons "discussing their general disagreement with the politics of Bristol Palin's mother, Sarah Palin," one of the other patrons yelled something out about Palin's political views. The reality star then chose to confront him and accused him of being "a homosexual" because he did not like her mother, and "by the way he looked."

Hanks claims that after Bristol left the bar he realized that someone had filmed the exchange and no release was obtained, nor were there any signs posted informing patrons that they may be filmed. He adds that Bristol referenced the altercation in a subsequent In Touch magazine interview, for which "she blamed Plaintiff for causing her to leave Los Angeles and move back to Alaska," despite having purchased her new home in Alaska "more than two months before the encounter with the Plaintiff."

Hanks also claims that the defendants in the lawsuit have "repeatedly unlawfully used Plaintiff's image for profit in promotional advertising," and the defendants have refused to "cease using his image for profit."

http://tv.msn.com/reality-tv/bristol-palin-sued-lifes-a-tripp/story/

June 14, 2012

Skip 'Waiting for Superman.' Watch 'The Lottery'.

I'm home sick and just watched 'Waiting for Superman' and 'The Lottery' back-to-back. I think charter school director Eva S. Moskowitz is little known outside of New York, but her record, but she comes across more credibly than the infamous Michelle Rhee when it comes to education. And while 'Superman' throws a lot of statistical manure on the wall (much of which can be easily refuted), 'Lottery' goes to Harlem and paints a very grim, realistic picture of what happens when a school districts fails children and parents and gives them few opportunities to escape their predicament.

June 14, 2012

Racial disparities push schools to overhaul approach to discipline

In recent years, San Francisco Unified School District officials and local youth advocates have grown increasingly concerned by statistics showing that such students are expelled, suspended and disciplined more often than white and Asian classmates. And students subjected to those punishments are less likely to graduate and attend college.

“Race is absolutely a part of the equation, from how the teacher is expected to deal with the students to the resources that are available at the schools these students attend,” said Alize Asberry, an organizer with Coleman Advocates for Children and Youth, which is pressuring the district to address racial disparities.

In March, the U.S. Department of Education’s Office for Civil Rights released data from 2009 that showed such disparities across the country. In San Francisco, black students represented less than 12 percent of enrollment, but more than 42 percent of suspensions. Hispanic students made up 22 percent of enrollment but 29 percent of suspensions. These students are also far less likely to take advanced classes, such as physics or chemistry, or to be enrolled in gifted and talented programs.

District officials say they are aware of the problem, and are moving away from traditional, punishment-based discipline. Their new model, called “restorative practices,” brings students together with teachers and peers to discuss the effects of their misbehavior on the school community and to uncover the emotions that underlie it.



http://www.sfexaminer.com/local/education/2012/06/taking-prejudice-out-punishment#ixzz1xj8NRBHf