Oregon Senate Education committee approves bill to make Oregon governor the state education superintendent

Portland Oregonian - Gov. John Kitzhaber moved one step closer this afternoon to becoming Oregon's top education chief. The Oregon Senate Education Committee, with little discussion, unanimously approved Senate Bill 552, which would make Oregon's governor the state superintendent of schools.

The bill would require the Governor to name a deputy superintendent, who would run the education department and oversee the public school system.

But if approved, Senate Bill 552 would not unseat current superintendent Susan Castillo, who was re-elected to a third term less than year ago. 

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Elwha ecosystem classroom project gets state grant

Peninsula Daily News - A class of young scientists who will gather data while two dams on the Elwha River are removed has received a $10,000 state grant.

The state Office of Superintendent of Public Instruction announced the winners of this year’s Qwest Teachers & Technology grants Tuesday. Nine received grants statewide.

Brenda Manson’s class at Stevens Middle School in the Port Angeles School District was the only North Olympic Peninsula class to receive money.

Her 31 eighth-grade students will take field trips to the Elwha River this fall, taking new probeware devices to collect ecosystem data as the 108-foot Elwha Dam and the 210-foot Glines Canyon Dam are torn down beginning in September.

The dams are coming down to restore salmon habitat in the largest project of its kind in the nation’s history.

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In Fight for Space, Educator Takes On Charter Chain

New York Times - Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg and Joel I. Klein, the former schools chancellor, are strong supporters of charter schools. Mr. Bloomberg and Mr. Klein have repeatedly told principals at New York City’s traditional public schools that a new age of reform has dawned, that charter schools are the cutting edge and that if these principals want traditional public schools to survive, they must learn to compete in the educational marketplace.

And so, last summer, Julie Zuckerman, the principal of a highly regarded public elementary school — Central Park East 1 in East Harlem — applied to open a new elementary school on the other side of Manhattan, in Washington Heights. Her plan was to create something truly rare: an urban school not focused on standardized testing.

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President focuses on needs of Latino students in town hall meeting

CNN - President Barack Obama took to the Spanish-language network airwaves Monday to discuss challenges in educating Hispanics students.

In a Univision-sponsored town hall meeting with Hispanic students and educators at Bell Multicultural High School in Washington, the president said to out-educate and out-innovate the global competition, the Latino community must play a key role in the future.

"Our workforce is going to be more diverse; it is going to be, to a large percentage, Latino. And if our young people are not getting the kind of education they need, we won't succeed as a nation," Obama said.

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Interim Seattle schools superintendent sets priorities

Seattle Times - Susan Enfield, interim superintendent of Seattle Public Schools, announced her top priorities for the rest of the school year Friday, along with a list of opportunities for parents, teachers, principals, students and others in the community to share their views and concerns with her.

Enfield, now in her fourth week in the school district's top job, said she will report what she's learned from all those groups by early May, and how their perspectives might be incorporated into the district's plans.

At the same time, Enfield said, she intends to continue the five-year plan crafted under her predecessor and former boss, Maria Goodloe-Johnson, "although with an eye to making adjustments in light of budget constraints."

"Before taking on significant new initiatives," she said, "we want to closely examine the current work under way and make sure we're doing it well."

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Middle-school principal honored

Seattle Times - Jeff Clark, principal at Denny International Middle School in Seattle, is the winner of this year’s Thomas B. Foster Award for outstanding leadership.

The award, which includes a $50,000 grant, is given each year to a Seattle secondary-school principal by the Alliance for Education, a nonprofit that supports Seattle Public Schools.

Clark, in his sixth year at Denny Middle, led the effort to bring an international program to his school, which includes classes in Mandarin Chinese, Arabic and Spanish. Under his leadership, Denny’s test scores are going up.

Last year, Clark said, Denny improved more than any other middle school or K-8 in the district.

Clark said he plans to use the $50,000 prize to buy one book for every student to recognize their hard work, to purchase musical instruments, and to start an endowment fund that can be used to help pay field-trip or other fees.

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Recent state action on teacher seniority and tenure

Teacher pay-tenure bill passed in Florida Senate, News-Press.com
TALLAHASSEE –– Split nearly along party lines, the Florida Senate voted to abolish teacher tenure and link pay raises to student advancement today.

Sen. Steve Wise, R-Jacksonville, a retired teacher who heads the Senate public education committee, said the schools need serious reform if Florida is to compete. He likened the provisions of his "pay for performance" bill to management of a baseball team, with .205 hitters making less than .300 batters.

NYC Weighs Seniority vs. Merit as Layoffs Loom, Education Week
The jobs of up to 4,600 teachers—about 6 percent of the city’s teaching force—as well as others in districts across the state, hang on the answers.

Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg has said those cuts are necessary to plug a spending gap exacerbated by a proposed reduction of $1.4 billion in state aid to the city in the governor’s budget proposal for the 2012 fiscal year. And the mayor has urged the state legislature to allow the city to let go of teachers with “unsatisfactory” evaluation ratings before other teachers. State law currently requires layoffs by reverse seniority.

“What we’re looking for is an opportunity to lay off teachers based on merit now,” said Jessica Scaperotti, a spokeswoman for the mayor.

State Senate Passes Bill to End Last in, First Out for Teachers, WNYC News
In a win for Mayor Michael Bloomberg, the Republican-led state senate narrowly approved a bill that would end seniority protections for teachers in New York City. But its fate in the Assembly is far less certain.

The bill would do away with the so-called "last in, first out" (LIFO) rule that requires new teachers to be the first to go during layoffs regardless of merit. Seniority could no longer be the sole criteria. Instead, the city could eliminate teachers with unsatisfactory ratings and other performance issues. Mayor Bloomberg plans to layoff more than 4,600 teachers to close a budget gap. Another 1,500 positions would be lost through attrition.


Pressure Mounts To Ax Teacher Seniority Rules, NPR
Last week, the New York state Senate passed a bill that would end the use of seniority as the sole factor for deciding which teachers get laid off. The bill faces long odds in the state Assembly. But the vote is a sign of growing frustration with what's known as "last in, first out" — a rule that says the last teachers hired get dismissed first when there is a layoff.

Like local leaders around the country, New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg says he will soon have to lay off teachers because of shrinking state aid. He says he cannot have his hands tied by a system that judges teachers solely on their years of experience.

"We need a merit-based system for determining layoffs this spring," Bloomberg says. "And anything short of that is just not a solution to the problem we face."


States tangle with teacher tenure, MSNBC.com
New Jersey Governor Chris Christie has been especially outspoken on the issue, leading a handful of states that are seeking to eliminate teacher tenure completely.

“Teaching can no longer be the only profession where you have no rewards for excellence, and no consequences for failure,” Gov. Christie told crowds earlier this year. “Let New Jersey lead the way. The time to eliminate teacher tenure is now.”

Appellate court allows teacher layoffs to go forward under new rules, Los Angeles Times
Though the settlement shields some schools -- and reduces layoffs at others -- it also means that some campuses with veteran staffs could have layoffs for the first time, or more layoffs than under the old rules. And it means that teachers with more seniority could potentially lose jobs before teachers at other campuses with less seniority.

“Kids win,” said Mark Rosenbaum, chief counsel for the American Civil Liberties Union of Southern California, which sued the district along with Morrison & Foerster and the Public Counsel Law Center. With the backing of Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa, attorneys sued on behalf of students at three middle schools that were especially decimated by layoffs during a previous round of budget cuts.