2 May, 2011
East North East
A Labrador retriever named Leonard works with North East Independent School District police to sniff drugs. Photo by Jennifer R. Lloyd
In the midst of epic budget cuts, sometimes it’s nice to take a break from the board meetings, dollar signs and job losses to focus on something, well, cuter.
In this case, I’m referring to a four-year-old Labrador retriever named Leonard who works with North East Independent School District K9 Patrol Officer Greg Reusink.
Over the past two years, Reusink has trained Leonard to locate marijuana, heroin, cocaine and methamphetamines. The duo is now regularly spotted patrolling North East ISD’s middle and high schools.
Reusink said Leonard has helped with many arrests and gets some of the credit for removing a couple of drug dealers from schools. Once
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28 Apr, 2011
by Connie Matthiessen
Teachers are expected to reach unattainable goals with inadequate tools. The miracle is that at times they accomplish this impossible task.– educator Haim G.Ginott
Ive always enjoyed working at my kids school – helping out in the classroom or the school library — but when I leave the building after an hour or two, its hard to keep from breaking into a run. Its not that I dont love the kids, its just that being surrounded by quick, demanding, little people — all with different questions and moods and levels of understanding — is like being pecked by adorable but persistent chicks.
So I marvel that teachers do it all day every day — and that so manymanage to keep their patience, inspiration, and sense of humor. T
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28 Apr, 2011
So now there is a go-to piece of legislation for the “get the feds out of the buisness of K-12 education” crowd: The A-Plus Act.
Introduced in the Senate last week by Sen. Jim DeMint, R-S.C., the measure would give states way more leeway in using federal funding and building systems for holding schools accountable for student achievement.
In a nutshell, the bill would give states the option of setting their own targets for student performance. The states’ plans would have to be approved by the U.S. Department of Education. Then states could pool money from a few, or all, federal ed programs and spend the funds more or less how they see fit. They could also set up their own accountability system. If states didn’t meet their performance goals, they’d have to revert back to the accountability system prescribed under the No Child Left Behind Act.
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27 Apr, 2011
Students Weigh Weigh
In a letter to University of Texas System regents, student leaders from the systems flagship campus, UT Austin, weighed in on the recent political dustup over the direction of higher education in Texas.
The students professed support for both technical and soft research, a declaration aimed at a cadre of reformers who believe research is overemphasized in academia, and that much of it is a waste of time.
Diluting the role of research in undergraduate education at UT would decrease the value of the degrees, the students wrote.
The letters co-signers include Carisa Nietsche, president of the Senate of College Councils; Natalie Butler, president of the UT Austin student government; and Manuel Gonzalez, president of the graduate student assembly.
The letter also said that students welcomed technology in the classroom, but preferred hybrid classes to fully online classes. That s
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23 Apr, 2011
Furlough Furlough Days
Schools are closed today in San Francisco.
Its not a holiday. Its another furlough day for students inthe cityspublic schools — one of four this year — in response to Californias fiscal crisis.
As a parent, furlough daysdrive me crazy.Myteens arethrilled to have the day off, of course, and their dad works at home so they arent on their own. But I know many working parents, particularly those with young children,who face the choice of finding a babysitter or leaving their kids unsupervised all day.
Meanwhile, ourchildren are already going to school in dilapidated buildings and learning from shabby, outdated books (one of my sonsworks out of atwenty-year-old math textbook), whilemusic, art and other programs are beingslashed. Teachers are forced to do more with less– thenblamed when students dont succeed.
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23 Apr, 2011
Funds
In an era of cuts, cuts, and more cuts, the Obama administration scored a big victory when it secured $700 million for a new version of Race to the Top in the budget deal that funds the government through September.
Education Secretary Arne Duncan & Co. are not spilling the details yet as to what the next iteration of this popular competition will look like. (And we’ve asked!) But that’s not going to stop Politics K-12 from speculating anyway.
First off, it’s important to remember that the law creating Race to the Top—the economic-stimulus package—is the law that governs the new version, too. The stimulus gave Duncan a nearly blank check worth $4.5 billion, and he ran with it and created what we all know now as Race to the Top. Earlier this month, Congress essentially wrote him another $700 million blank check. So
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