NY Times: Lawmakers Say Needs of Rural Schools Are Overlooked

By SAM DILLON
Published: March 17, 2010

Federal education rules favor big-city school districts over rural systems, some lawmakers complain.
 
"Lawmakers who represent rural areas told Secretary of Education Arne Duncan in a hearing Wednesday that the No Child Left Behind law, as well as the Obama administration’s blueprint for overhauling it, failed to take sufficiently into account the problems of rural schools, and their nine million students....'There are lots of bright people at the Department of Education, and they work very hard,' said John Hill, executive director of the National Rural Education Association, based at Purdue University. 'But because most have not grown up or worked in a rural area, they find it difficult to see how things work in remote districts.'....The administration hopes to shift the focus from credentials to evaluations of teacher effectiveness, based in part on whether their students are learning. Teachers’ colleges could offer special programs to prepare educators for rural challenges.  Mr. Duncan developed some of his ideas last year during a rural tour that took him to the Alaskan village of Hooper Bay on the Bering Sea, a primitive settlement with no flush toilets...."

(To read the complete article, click on the title)

Strong Support in Senate Education for SB 224, But Ambivalence About the Name

The Senate Education Committee heard and held SB 224. Chairman Meyer said the committee would move the bill either Friday or Monday.  Sen. Stevens said he has come to terms with the importance of the bill. They need to move the bill along and figure out the bigger issue of how to pay for the program.  Chairman Meyer said the scholarship program will be a great program, and something he will be proud of voting for and supporting.

At a previous hearing, Legislative Legal Services staff recommended that.....

Senate Finance Working on Capital and Deferred Maintenance All Week

The Senate Finance Committee began hearings on SB 230 and SB 253 this morning. Chairman Stedman announced that the committee will be hearing these two bills in both the morning and the afternoon for the rest of the week. The committee will be hearing one department at a time, beginning with the departments with the largest requests and working down the list. The committee has not heard any Dept. of Education & Early Development projects as of the time of this posting today, and it is unlikely they will get to DEED today, and possibly not even tomorrow. 
Shana

HB 350 - Public School Funding - Required Local Contribution

The House Education Committee heard and moved HB 350 today. The committee did not make any changes to the bill. It moves next to the House Finance Committee.

Chairman Seaton noted that there had been some misunderstanding regarding what HB 350 does. HB 350 does not change basic need. The only thing HB 350 changes is.....

Alaska State House of Representatives Passes HB 360

HB 360 – Youth Academy: Student Records

The House of Representatives passed HB 360 on Friday and it was transmitted to the senate on the same day. The bill passed 34 yeas, 3 nays, and 3 excused. Voting against the bill were Reps. Keller, Neuman, and Stoltze. Excused were Reps. Cissna, Gruenberg, and Harris. HB 360 has not yet been referred to any senate committees.

In floor debate on the bill.....

The House Education Committee Moves HB 297

The House Education Committee moved HB 297 on Friday, March 12.  I'm a little surprised after what seemed like endless discussion.  Perhaps it will get somewhere after all.  But, like several legislators have said, the big issue may be whether or not the program is funded, not whether it is passed. 

Several amendments were adopted during Friday's hearing, including one that requires students in the first eligible graduating class to take three years each of math and science.  Rep. Gardner offered an amendment.....

Operating Budget on House Floor

The operating budget, HB 300 has been scheduled for the house floor tomorrow, Thursday, March 11.  If the House Finance amendment process is any indication, it may be a very short, uncontentious session with no or very few amendments offered. The typical process is the bills will be in second reading tomorrow, third reading on Friday, and up for reconsideration on Saturday. If no one objects, they can advance to third reading on the same day as second reading, If no one gives notice of reconsideration, it will go to the senate the same day as the vote on final passage. So they could do it all tomorrow and send it to the senate the same day, if everyone agrees. Anyway - one to three days and the bills will be in the senate.

Operating Budget Amendments

Wow, I am really impressed with how smoothly the amendments on the operating budget went in the House Finance Committee this afternoon. Most amendments were sponsored by the full committee. Several minority members carried a couple of amendments (sponsored by the full committee). Those included several of Rep. Gara's issues of high concern, including support for foster children and early childhood education. Only a few amendments were sponsored by individual members. Most of the amendments sponsored by individual members failed.

Amendments 1 through 23 were offered by all members of the House Finance Committee, and were adopted unanimous consent.

Amendment 2 was adopted unanimous consent. This amendment changes the “fuel trigger” for appropriations to departments for high fuel prices. The trigger is changed from $36 per barrel to.....

Gastineau Channel, Sunday, March 7, 2010

Winter has returned to Juneau

Gastineau Channel, looking toward Douglas Island

Building a Better Teacher

New York Times Magazine
By ELIZABETH GREEN
Published: March 7, 2010

There are more than three million teachers in the United States, and Doug Lemov is trying to prove that he can teach them to be better.
 
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/03/07/magazine/07Teachers-t.html

When Doug Lemov, who is 42, set out to become a teacher of teachers, he was painfully aware of his own limitations. A large, shy man with a Doogie Howser face, he recalls how he limped through his first year in the classroom, at a private day school in Princeton, N.J. His heartfelt lesson plans — write in your journal while listening to music; analyze Beatles songs like poems — received blank stares. “I still remember thinking: Oh, my God. I still have 45 minutes left to go,” he told me recently. Things improved over time, but very slowly. At the Academy of the Pacific Rim, a Boston charter school he helped found, he was the dean of students, a job title that is school code for chief disciplinarian, and later principal. Lemov fit the bill physically — he’s 6-foot-3 and 215 pounds — but he struggled to get students to follow his directions on the first try.

After his disappointing visit to Syracuse, he decided to seek out the best teachers he could find — as defined partly by their students’ test scores — and learn from them. A self-described data geek, he went about this task methodically, collecting test-score results and demographic information from states around the country. He plotted each school’s poverty level on one axis and its performance on state tests on the other. Each chart had a few outliers blinking in the upper-right-hand corner — schools that managed to squeeze high performance out of the poorest students......