Afternoon Announcements: July 31, 2012

******SPOILER ALERT******

 Today is the last day of July.

Bet you thought we were going to give you some information about Michael Phelps’s race or the women’s gymnastics performance. We wouldn’t do that to you. What we would (and will) do, however, is give you some afternoon announcements!

The New Teacher Project has released a report titled, “The Irreplaceables: Understanding the Real Retention Crisis in America’s Urban Schools.” According to The Washington Post, the reportt “looked at four urban districts with 90,000 teachers. The researchers discovered that only 47 percent of high-performing teachers said they were praised by their bosses for their good work. Only 26 percent were encouraged to take leadership roles. And just 37 percent were urged to stay when contemplating other assignments.” These numbers are especially concerning considering the high rates of teacher turnover in America.

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Reporting from London and Singapore, Bob and Bill Wise Examine Favorites for the Gold

Now that the opening ceremonies are over and the 2012 Summer Olympics are underway, Alliance President Bob Wise--and his colleague Bill Wise--examine the favorites to win the gold in their latest video.

Reporting from London and Singapore, respectively, Bob and Bill are not concerned with the favorites in track and field or swimming, they're focused on the top contenders for the gold in reading, mathematics, and science.

To watch their report, click on the image to the left or visit http://youtu.be/yLpAZrmpgkE.

To embed this video on your own webpage use the following code:

<iframe width="420" height="315" src="http://www.youtube-nocookie.com/embed/yLpAZrmpgkE" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe>

If you missed Gov. Wise's first two Olympic videos, you can watch them at http://www.all4ed.org/publication_material/2012Olympics.

And stay tuned later this week for Governor Wise’s fourth report, in which he travels back in time to see how training and techniques have changed since the 1948 Olympics, which were also held in London.

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Library Media Specialist Sue Kowalski: How an iStaff Engages Students in Their Learning

The following blog post comes from Sue Kowalski, Library Media Specialist at Pine Grove Middle School in the East Syracuse Minoa School District, East Syracuse, New York.

This summer maybe you travelled, spent time with family, opted for solo jaunts, enjoyed the outdoors, immersed yourself into a house project, or read just for fun.   I just read about a company in Denver paying its employees to go on vacation with a promise that they MUST go on vacation and that they MUST disconnect.  The mission, of course, was that they would come back to work inspired, energized, and rejuvenated to focus on company goals.

I, too, felt the need to step away to recharge and refocus. I’ve achieved a decent balance of connected and away and have found inspiration in both.   I’ve read, I’ve listened, I’ve drifted into random thought and through it all one theme continues to surface.   When opportunities for active engagement are present, a sense of pride and personal investment are prevalent.

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Afternoon Announcements: July 30, 2012

Hello and welcome to today’s Afternoon Announcements! Have you been watching the Olympics? We hope so. In case you’ve missed out on Alliance President Bob Wise’s dispatches from London, you can find them here. Be sure to check them out!

For-profit colleges lead us off today because they’re the subject of two Congressional reports. First, Senator Tom Harkin (D-IA), concludes his two-year investigation with a damning report of for-profit educational institutions. The New York Times notes that “For Profit Higher Education: The Failure to Safeguard the Federal Investment and Ensure Student Success,” reports, “taxpayers spent $32 billion in the most recent year on companies that operate for-profit colleges, but the majority of students they enroll leave without a degree, half of those within four months.”

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Afternoon Announcements: July 27, 2012

FRIDAY! You know what that means! Afternoon announcements!

Today’s top story revolves around the U.S. Department of Education’s No Child Left Behind waivers. The story is spurred by a recent report from the Center for American Progress that examined the second wave of waivers to see what kind of innovations and plans for reform that they contained. The New York Times and Education Week both break down the report’s findings.

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Afternoon Announcements: July 26, 2012

We’re ringing the dinner bell! But we’re not serving up dinner, just education policy announcements. Don’t look so disappointed, it’s the middle of the afternoon, hardly dinner time. Bon appetit!

Big news today revolves around sequestration and “trigger” cuts to the budget that will take place on January 2 unless Congress acts to avert it. The Senate had a hearing yesterday on the impact of the cuts, and Education Week and The Huffington Post have that story. Rep. George Miller (D-CA) discussed the potential impact of the cuts yesterday as well. Miller sent a letter to House Education and the Workforce Committee Chairman John Kline requesting a hearing on the issue, and Education Week has that story as well.

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Stats That Stick: July 26, 2012

These stats were so unbelievably sticky that we couldn’t even get them off of our hands yesterday. We worked all night using all kinds of solvents, and finally, FINALLY, had some success this morning. Here are the numbers we just couldn’t let go of this week!

Percent of domestic spending, including education, that will be cut if sequestration occurs on January 2: 7.8.

At a hearing yesterday in the Senate Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions committee, Senator Tom Harkin discussed the “sequestration” cuts on the slate due to the Budget Control Act of 2011. Senator Harkin said that if Congress strikes a deal that exempts the defense budget from cuts, the amount cut from domestic programs like education could be as high as an estimated 17.6 percent, equal to billions of dollars from the Department of Education’s budget.

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Afternoon Announcements: July 25, 2012

It’s Wednesday! There are announcements! Let’s read them!

Despite spending $15,997 per public school student in 2011 (fifth overall nationally), Wyoming is not getting a lot of academic bang for its buck, according to a study from Harvard research Paul Peterson. The state ranks just 24^th of 41 states in a study of student growth, reports The Associated Press.

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