Bob Furst's List: education

• They said anchor institutions, which include community colleges, four-year colleges, healthcare centers and community media outlets, need high-capacity broadband networks to meet the needs of their users.

• creating a “district data warehouse” by June
• working to make sure that the district exceeds state goals for placing students who receive special education services in the least restrictive environment that is appropriate for them by December 2013
• • by June, establishing a process to make sure the district is consistently implementing the curriculum across the district’s schools and classrooms, so all students get the full benefit of it.
   
• seven “meaningful opportunities” for parents and community members to engage with the community or volunteer
• evaluate the ways students, parents and community members interact with the district through technology by June, and come up with a plan to increase those interactions
• replace desktop computers with wireless-enabled mobile devices such as laptops and tablet computers, freeing up physical space and cable capacity in the schools.

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• The laptops come with some restrictions, firewalls and protective software. Students surfing the Internet will not have access to some websites and while they will be able to download word documents and PDF files, students will not be able to download games or programs to the computers, according to Boswell.
• The laptops allow students to participate in the district's "paperless homework" program

• can address people and situations that were considered outliers before technology, and we can give everyone the ability to thrive and gain complete independence in their search for information, communication, socialization and success.

• The Maine Township Special Education Program will cease June 30, 2012, with each school district saying it has different needs and can provide the services on its own
• Brad Voehringer, District 62 assistant superintendent for student services. “A lot of districts have gotten the expertise now. They can control their own resources and budget their own programs and they have enough kids to run the programs.”

• USA Today reported in March that from 2008 to 2010, classrooms in more than 100 D.C. schools registered unusually high rates of erasures on answer sheets; wrong answers were changed to correct ones. A test-security firm the District hired to investigate found evidence of “testing irregularities” at three schools during administration of the 2010 D.C. Comprehensive Assessment System exams. As a result, D.C. officials invalidated test results in three classrooms at Noyes Education Campus and Leckie and C.W. Harris elementary schools and, according to multiple school system and union sources, dismissed at least two teachers.

• In May, for example, the Detroit Regional Workforce Fund released a report claiming many of Detroit’s workers lacked the basic skills necessary to get an entry-level job. Part of their evidence: nearly half of the city’s adults are functionally illiterate, according to the National Institute for Literacy

• Washington gathering on July 30.
• The four “guiding principles” for the march are: equitable funding for all public school communities; an end to high-stakes testing used for the purpose of student, teacher, and school evaluation; curriculum developed for and by local school communities; and teacher, family, and community leadership in forming public education policies.
• believed he was intent on making a significant shift in direction
• they feel that is not happening.
• while he believes standardized tests need to be better and “more authentic,” he sympathizes with policymakers who desire measurable results.

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• will allow every student in one seventh grade class to receive Netbooks (mini laptop computers) for the entire school year.

• Her research led her to a group called Parent Revolution, a nonprofit that was instrumental in the groundbreaking legislation. Now, she works on their next endeavor: helping parents form unions.
• petition still in legal limbo and the ability of parents to actually unionize called into question, the nascent movement is being tested early.
• Parent Revolution began its organizing efforts in March, focusing on some of the 1,334 California schools that are eligible for the parent trigger law. Washington Elementary is not, but the parents wanted to get involved regardless.

• “I think that [the parent trigger] is a desperate strategy with parents that have no other way to express their hopelessness,” Hasan said.

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• o North Carolina’s Charlotte-Mecklenburg
• interested stakeholders can look at the supplemental information that North Carolina collects on school climate, including suspension/expulsions and student access to books and technology (including such measures as the number of students per internet-connected computer and the average age of the media center/library collection).
• with its School Quality Review program.
• it consists of a two-day qualitative investigation of a school’s achievement, learning and teaching, curriculum, leadership and management, learning environment, and parent and community involvement.
• provides meaningful performance information for stakeholders and concrete ideas for how school staff can immediately begin to improve their work.
• promoting positive school culture). And given state capacity issues, RAND suggested the federal government incorporate the development and evaluation of new measures into existing grant programs.

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