Group items tagged

A quick view (not the whole book) of educational policy interest groups - tables of number of bills that the groups "testified" for, etc.... if I had extra money, I would totally buy this book.

Advisory group helps create state benchmarks and compare US academic success with other countries

Deals with the struggle of public service professionals that resist changing the occupational norms that would decrease their power even though it would benefit their clients. To examine the relationship between professionalism and change, data were collected from elementary school principals, local school board members, and lay members of community health planning. Principals were slightly less inclined than school board members to accept change. The least professional of the three groups, community health members, were the most negative about change. The mixed findings may result partially from the spurious relationship between professionalism and change. Two additional variables were introduced to test this hypothesis: amount of "turbulence" or dissatisfaction among clients and diversity of viewpoints within groups. Controlling for the former variable yielded little difference; however, there was a strong positive relationship between diversity of viewpoints and change. Consequently, group consensus is seen as a major variable in predicting acceptance of change.

This will be VERY relevant when we discuss the role of special interest groups...

There is no silver bullet...and everyone is looking for just one....money helps, that can't be denied, but until, as the author put it ...there is "hubris", it is all just a power play to be the one who "fixes it" - another addition to a CV or resume. Perhaps folks are looking for a legacy, that I can understand, but the politics of dissent will lead us nowhere.

Goodness gracious- what a mess! Training non-educators in six weekends- throwing money randomly at unresearched projects- coming up with a quick fix to cover up the quick fix that didn't work?!?!? What are they THINKING!?!?

This is an easy to read breakdown of the types of special interest groups in Virginia...was helpful to me!

The study assessed a public school principals in terms of their attraction to the job of district superintendent. The reasearchers assumed "participant self-reported capability to become a superintendent impacts participant attraction to the job, and participant satisfaction with facets of their current jobs and their expected satisfaction with those same job facets in the job of superintendent give an indication of participant likelihood of pursuing the job of superintendent." Method: This was a field survey "designed and implemented according to procedures established by Dillman" (2000). The study was "a combination of the quasi-experimental and correlation designs, as explicated byCampbell and Stanley (1963), and involved three analytical procedures: Winter, Rinehart Keedy, Björk 38 Planning and Changingpaired-samples t-tests, two-group discriminant analysis, and hierarchical multiple regression analysis."   The study shows that the superintendents were on average 46.9 years-old and were fairly even gender, predominantly caucasian, and 85% were married. Most participants were not superintendentcertified (87.7%), and most of those who were not certified did not intend to become certified (79.0%), suggesting relatively low interest in pursuing the job of superintendent. Most of the participants who were superintendent-certified had held their certification for five years or more (65.3%), suggesting a modest degree of intent to transition from the job of principal to the job of superintendent. People tend to see the reality of the workload and time commitment.

Green Dot, the schools group based in Los Angeles that challenged conventional practices by staffing its charter schools with unionized teachers, is going through a divorce with its founder, Steve Barr, who is leaving to build a new national charter group.

An empirical exploring the relationship between special interest groups and policy volatility.

Apparently, this is the first time in 15years that the Feds have "reformed" school lunch rules. All the special interest groups are have their hands in the school lunch kitchens. Our district has made changes in the caf. selections, already. Honestly, I like being able to choose hummus, salads, and soy beans over "deep-fried everything" and pizza. However, I'm not sure if the students agree.

Gerard Robinson (the Secretary of Education in Virginia) joined Chiefs for Change... along with a number of other governors from the south. Oh, yes and Chris Christy.

From the Brown Center on Education Policy at Brookings, a think tank, a group of researchers review the accessibility of data on charter schools and the federal government's recent push towards this growing trend.

Because unions fundamentally fight for teachers' rights to have a say in what a democratic education in America looks like, I stand with teachers' unions.

I could not agree more with the sentiment of this piece. As someone who has chosen NOT to join the VEA, though- Lehmann is correct- I do not join because of HOW it is run, not because of what they are supposed to do. Parenting 101 would tell you that if parents are unable to provide for themselves, they cannot provide for a child- in airplanes you are supposed to put your own oxygen mask on first so you are able to take care of others around you- yet in education, we allow the "good of the children" to burn out or compromise teachers daily. I believe collective action is important, it is just not run the way I believe it could most effectively be run.

Dr. Stager recommends you read this prior to the webinar this week...

How sad that the big beasts just keep getting bigger. Perhaps KIPP schools serve their population well, but what about reaching other populations! Truly David vs Goliath.

Schwartz makes a very VALUED POINT! When will stop debating and really address the issue at HAND. The future of our children are at STAKE here!! He makes 5 points: 1. Stop talking and writing 2. Read and listen to opposing and alternative viewpoints from diverse groups of stakeholders including teachers, students, parents, communities other than your own, union leaders, business leaders, administrators, superintendents, et. al. 3. Process it all in continued silence. This is not about writing comments to a blog post or releasing a study to counter what that other study you read found or even a quick retort with your rehearsed line. Really take it in and think about where it fits within your framework for what it's going to take to help our teachers help our students. 4. Think about how your experiences as a student and perhaps your experiences as a parent of a student have shaped and even biased your views on what our schools need. 5. Resume your writing and speaking being mindful to take time-outs to listen and think.

This fits into our Week 11 --- really thinking. This opinion piece states exactly how I feel right now....and I bet a bunch of others, as well.

So...I guess they are protected by the First Amendment of the Constitution, and there is nothing the school can do about it...