BestEssayHelp | Detroit school board: Academic will progress

DETROIT (AP) — The Detroit Board of Education says it plans to let academic progress continue after winning a court fight with a state-appointed financial overseer over control of the district's curriculum.

Board President Anthony Adams said during a news conference held before Tuesday evening's special meeting that the 11-member board "will not stop academic progress" and urged Robert Bobb not to undertake a costly court appeal.

District spokesman Steven Wasko tells The Detroit News and Detroit Free Press that "Bobb "will most certainly" appeal the ruling.

Gov. Jennifer Granholm appointed Bobb after declaring a financial emergency in the district, which has about 77,000 students. Bobb has closed dozens of schools to help close a deficit exceeding $300 million.

Bobb says he doesn't know how to separate money and curriculum decisions.

BestEssayHelp.com | In Light of Budget Gap, Public Education Faces Cuts

The biennial budget shortfall you’ve heard so much about — estimated to be anywhere from $13 billion to $28 billion — will require the Legislature to take a paring knife and possibly a machete to government agencies and programs. The largest single consumer of state dollars is public education, so it’s hard to imagine a scenario in which funding for teacher salaries, curricular materials and the like isn’t on the chopping block, especially if state lawmakers want to make good on their promises of no new taxes.

Nobody knows for sure how drastic the cuts will be until January, when the comptroller releases her revenue estimate and lawmakers unveil their starting budget. But one educated guess in November suggested school districts may have to prune between $3 billion and $5 billion from the more than $35 billion public ed budget, which represents just under 44 percent of the state’s general revenue spending. Where is that money going to come from?

First, expect fewer teachers in classrooms. For most Texas school districts, personnel costs — employee salaries and benefits — account for 80 percent to 90 percent of total expenses. While the goal for belt-tightening districts will be “to stay as far away from the children” as possible, says Wayne Pierce, the executive director of the Equity Center, which advocates for increased funding to districts, there’s only so much they can do without touching such a large chunk of their budget.

With the specter of the 2011 shortfall looming, many districts have already stripped what they can from administrative and custodial positions, he says. And delaying routine maintenance like fixing leaky roofs until better times can only take them so far. That leaves spending on teachers, which in turn means cutting salaries and, in some cases, eliminating positions. "You have to have electricity, you have to have gasoline for the buses, you have to have teaching supplies,” Pierce says. “So bottom line, you have to cut personnel.”

more on Texas Tribune

BestEssayHelp | Teachers' union target Michelle Rhee to raise $1 billion for education reform

Michelle Rhee made a splash Monday with her announcement of a new organization – Students First – to push her education reform priorities.

The advocacy group will be “a new voice to change the balance of power in public education,” Ms. Rhee promises in a Newsweek cover story that she wrote, which was kept under wraps until after her appearance on "The Oprah Winfrey Show" Monday morning.

And – as was the case when she was chancellor of Washington, D.C., schools – she promises not to “shy away from conflict.”

“When [Rhee] left D.C., she kept saying she recognized that there was a need for a political support and political ground game to support that kind of reform,” says Frederick Hess, the American Enterprise Institute’s director of education policy studies, referring to controversial changes Rhee enacted in Washington, including closing schools, firing teachers, and changing union contracts. “She very explicitly is setting out to be a political answer to the unions.”

Rhee has long been a lightning rod in the education world.

She’s lionized by reform advocates who admire her willingness to take on teachers' unions and push ahead on controversial ideas, and was one of the heroes of the recent education documentary “Waiting for ‘Superman.'”

At the same time, she’s vilified by many in the unions, who say her methods – which tend to shun the consensus-building approach that other districts have tried – are counterproductive and unfairly demonize teachers. She stepped down from her post after former Washington Mayor Adrian Fenty lost his primary – a loss attributable at least in part to his education policy.

“Michelle Rhee likes to say that teachers unions are the problem, but the leading states and countries in educational outcomes – such as Finland, South Korea, and Singapore – are heavily unionized,” the American Federation of Teachers said in a statement Monday. “They focus on building on what works … and they do so through collaboration, not conflict or scapegoating.”

In the Newsweek article, Rhee says that across the country, “the rationale for the decisions [in school districts] mostly rests on which grown-ups will be affected, instead of what will benefit or harm children.” And she takes a swipe at the unions, saying that “I don’t think the unions can or should change. The purpose of the teachers’ union is to protect the privileges, priorities, and pay of their members. And they’re doing a great job of that.”

She acknowledges, however, that in Washington she could have done a better job of communicating and of expressing how much she values good teachers.

Students First will be a membership-driven organization, and Rhee’s goal for the first year is to garner 1 million members and raise $1 billion, a large sum of money that could be spent backing reform-minded candidates and policy changes around the country.

Already, the announcement has gathered outsize attention – largely attributable to Rhee’s recognizable name and popularity with the press. She was a trending topic on Twitter Monday morning.

“Something that’s different about Michelle that isn’t in this space right now is her ability to get attention from people that normally wouldn’t be paying attention to education,” says Joe Williams, president of Democrats for Education Reform, which supports many of the more market- and performance-based reforms that Rhee espouses. “I think she’s going to have the ability to really set the agenda.”

Others say that her willingness to charge directly into conflict – in a very different style than that favored by most policy advocates – sets her apart and may allow her to fill a different niche in the already crowded world of education-reform groups.

“She’s a charismatic, high-profile national leader,” says Andrew Rotherham, cofounder and partner at Bellwether Education, and author of the Eduwonk blog. “And she’s unafraid to break a lot of china.”

Source: The Christian Science Monitor

BestEssayHelp | Fight Gove's big sell-off of public education

This is my 47th and final column. Writing them has been a stimulating assignment but, as a fourth year draws to a close, it is probably time for readers to experience a different point of view.

When I started my career as a London teacher in the early 1960s, the country had not long emerged from postwar gloom. Compared to today, public discussion of education was rare, teachers were less well qualified and relatively poorly paid, and fewer than 7% of the age group went to university (though those who did paid no fees and 70% received a maintenance grant).

Over my years in the education service, I have witnessed the policies of 28 secretaries of state. I have observed the work of scores of local authority education officers, hundreds of heads and thousands of teachers, teacher trainers and pupils in many different countries.

I have seen great progress: British teachers today are amongst the best I have seen anywhere. But the improvements to the system, so obvious in the first half of my career, have not kept pace. Anthony Crosland's request to local authorities to go comprehensive, the raising of the school leaving age from 15 to 16, the Plowden Committee's concern for the disadvantaged, the merging of the GCE and CSE into the GCSE and the abolition of corporal punishment pointed the way to a modern education system.

Regrettably, the influence of the anti-progressive Black Papers, the wasted opportunity of James Callaghan's Great Debate and the systematic rubbishing of the comprehensive ideal by both Tories and New Labour have stymied progress. In addition, the downgrading of local government and the creation of new types of schools – from Kenneth Baker's city technology colleges to Michael Gove's free schools – have fashioned a deeply fragmented English education service. Add to this the haughty control and command of New Labour's classroom diktats, and small wonder that – despite the dedication of those who work in schools – the system is a mess.

Will the coalition move education forward? Much of the wording of the recent white paper is positive – especially its efforts to improve the status of teachers and its recognition of the achievement of Finnish education. Gove even claims that he wants to "ensure that the current two-tier education system ends".

Disappointingly, however, the white paper presents few realistic policies to achieve this. The Finnish system of non-streamed comprehensive schooling – with few tests and no inspection – is not to be emulated. Nor is there mention of curbing the influence of private schools, abolishing selection or outlawing misleading league tables. Instead, Gove proposes ties and blazers, limiting the role of universities in teacher training and – in a starry-eyed option – bringing the military into the classroom.

Free schools are mentioned 36 times, but never explained. The assumption is that they will be run by committed parents. Yet surely Gove must realise how impractical this is? What if parents lose interest, favour their own children or are inept at running complex organisations? Can he not see the private companies waiting in the wings to take over the management of such schools and capture an increasing share of taxpayers' money?

The concept of privatisation is not discussed in the white paper, but can be detected in its subtext – with frequent references to "new providers", "private sector organisations" and "a new market of school improvement services". Yet where is the evidence that a market-led system, run by hedge-fund managers and their ilk, will create an education system to equal Finland's?

This is the moment of truth for those who believe that schools should be integrated into society. Do not allow the coalition government – under cover of the financial crisis – to sell off public education. We have seen the contrast between its treatment of the super rich and those on benefits. Take inspiration from the students. Unite and object – now – before it is too late. Adieu.

Source: Guardian

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Paris tries education charm IIT plan on PM dinner table

Six decades after Charles François Marie Baron, the last French Governor-General in India, proposed a visionary Francophone university in Puducherry, President Nicolas Sarkozy is reviving that vision which was then scuttled by the British.

The Governor-General, whose title changed to Commissaire five days after Independence and remained in his post till May 1949, envisaged what Indians would now call IIT and IIM-style campuses with French characteristics under the umbrella of the university he proposed.

France’s involvement in setting up a new Indian Institute of Technology in Jaipur — and not the nuclear liability bill or the ban on Sikh turbans in French public schools —took up a big slice of the conversation between Sarkozy and Prime Minister Manmohan Singh at a “private” dinner for France’s First Couple at Singh’s residence tonight.

The idea goes back to Sarkozy’s last visit to India as chief guest at the Republic Day in 2008 and Singh’s return visit to Paris in September that year.

Building on its credentials as the first country to actually sign a nuclear deal with India — while the US waited for a list of conditions to be legislated on or ratified — and as the first among the “Big Five” at the UN to endorse India for a permanent seat in the Security Council, France is now looking for a long-term relationship with New Delhi that will go beyond the government corridors and impact directly on the Indian people.

Support from Paris for the new IIT in Rajasthan sprang from this strategy which the Soviet Union used to great effect in helping India by setting up the country’s second IIT in Mumbai in 1958 and through Moscow’s assistance in building the Bhilai steel plant in 1959 and Bokaro in 1965.

The Prime Minister, who taught economics before he joined the government, is unhappy that his initiatives in education, which he personally rolled out a year after assuming office, have produced little result.

The French have told their Indian interlocutors that they could help create a 21st century technological institution in Jaipur with new vistas for the IIT concept, focusing on the study of aeronautical engineering and energy research, areas in which the French are proficient.

Although the French government is reeling from budgetary cuts as a result of the global economic crisis, especially its impact on Europe, Sarkozy has not allowed his country’s support for the new IIT to wane.

His government will not put money into the project, but has mobilised French companies, such as the aeronautics conglomerate EADS into supporting the project.

Indian officials are impressed that although Sarkozy’s is not a state or even an official visit — it is billed a working trip — it has been planned with meticulous care and clear objectives unlike most other similar VIP arrivals in New Delhi.

While Sarkozy and the First Lady provide the photo opportunities and the sound bites, French ministers who travelled with them have fanned out in the country engaged in specific tasks to promote the President’s concept of creating a constituency for France in India for the long run.

The French minister for higher education and research, Valerie Pecresse, is in Calcutta because Sarkozy was insistent that the re-opening the French consulate in the city, which he committed to do in 2008, must be completed before the President departs from Mumbai for Paris on Tuesday.

Officials at the French embassy in New Delhi said that although the new consular premises and a cultural wing are not yet ready for full occupation, the minister was asked to formally inaugurate the post even as it continues to function from its temporary location.

Another cabinet member accompanying Sarkozy, the minister for foreign and European affairs, Michelle Alliot Marie, provided a shot in the arm for Puducherry’s past association with France by inaugurating a reconstructed French government-run high school Lycee Francais.

Similar renovations are now planned in Chandernagore with the aim of reviving its former connections with France.

At a time when Five-Year Plans are looked down upon as relics of socialism and centralised economic planning, France is tailoring its development assistance to India precisely to fit those plans.

During his last visit to New Delhi almost three years ago, the two sides signed an agreement to enable Agence Française de Développement or AFD, the French development aid agency, to operate in India.

During Singh’s return visit, that agreement was operationalised and France is stepping up aid that benefits ordinary Indians at a time when other countries are arguing that New Delhi longer needs such assistance.

By the time Sarkozy returns home, there will be enough to show on foreign policy, defence and strategic matters, but the real impact of his visit will last longer and be based on the pulse of Indians outside the establishment.

Source: The Telegraph