What is your tax-tolerance limit? – Daily Republic

Posted on April 15, 2016 by lmreyes

By Barbara Wright

The Fairfield-Suisun School District sent homeowners within the district a community facility survey in January requesting a ranking in importance of conducting routine building maintenance, providing job training for students, providing libraries with space for music and arts, and upgrading classrooms to meet 21st-century learning standards.

This propaganda piece displayed photos of under-sink plumbing, a dirty radiator and a nondescript area of maybe a roof.

The piece touched briefly on the Facilities Master Plan, which addresses school modernization projects. Also mentioned is the need to upgrade the technology aspects of the curriculum.

Source: What is your tax-tolerance limit?

Parent Club schedules auction to benefit school – Daily Republic

Posted on April 7, 2016 by lmreyes

By Daily Republic Staff

The Suisun Valley K-8 Parent Club will host a fiesta and auction rom 6 to 10:30 p.m. April 30 at Wooden Valley Winery.

There will be dinner, dancing, an auction and plenty of fun, according to an announcement for the event. Proceeds will provide supplemental funding for many programs at the school, specifically for technology to use in the classrooms.

Source: Parent Club schedules auction to benefit school

School Climate: Ed. Dept. Provides Free Surveys, Resources to Schools – Education Week

Posted on April 1, 2016 by lmreyes

By Evie Blad

The U.S. Department of Education released a free, web-based survey Thursday that schools can use to track the effectiveness of school climate efforts and resources on how to best improve learning environments for students.

The surveys, developed with input from researchers and the department’s office of safe and healthy students, can be administered to middle and high school students, staff, parents, and guardians, providing real-time data about their perceptions of the school environment.

That data can be stored on state and local data systems, the Education Department said, adding that “the federal government is planning to conduct a sample-based study using the surveys for benchmarking but will not collect or store data generated by schools using the surveys for their own school climate improvement purposes.”

Source: School Climate: Ed. Dept. Provides Free Surveys, Resources to Schools – Rules for Engagement – Education Week

Education Dept. Seeks More Input for Online Teacher-Prep Program Regs – Education Week

Posted on April 1, 2016 by lmreyes

By Andrew Ujifusa

The U.S. Department of Education is inviting additional comment on its long-delayed teacher-preparation proposal—this time, on how to apply the regulations to online teacher-preparation programs.

Although the reopened comment period is limited only to this specific issue, it would seem to further delay the final regulations, which were due out last December. The notice inviting comment will appear in tomorrow’s Federal Register, and comments are due in 30 days.

This might seem like a pretty narrow thing to worry about, but as I reported some years back, online teacher education programs, both for- and non-profit, are among the largest in the country. These big providers include the University of Phoenix and Grand Canyon University, both based out of Arizona; National University, in California; and Walden University, in Minnesota.

Source: Education Dept. Seeks More Input for Online Teacher-Prep Program Regs – Politics K-12 – Education Week

What Artificial Intelligence Could Mean For Education : NPR Ed

Posted on March 24, 2016 by lmreyes

By Anya Kamenetz

An artificially intelligent computer system built by Google has just beaten the world’s best human, Lee Sedol of South Korea, at an ancient strategy game called Go. Go originated in Asia about 2,500 years ago and is considered many, many times more complex than chess, which fell to AI back in 1997.

And here’s what’s really crazy. Google’s programmers didn’t explicitly teach AlphaGo to play the game. Instead, they built a sort of model brain called a neural network that learned how to play Go by itself.

Source: What Artificial Intelligence Could Mean For Education : NPR Ed : NPR

Torlakson Issues Tech Challenge – Year 2016 (CA Dept of Education)

Posted on March 9, 2016 by lmreyes

State Superintendent of Public Instruction Tom Torlakson today announced a “Tech Challenge” to California”s technology industry to help improve access to Local Control Accountability Plans (LCAPs).

Torlakson made the announcement during a presentation to the prestigious South by Southwest® Education conference in Austin, Texas.

“Today, I challenge the tech community – by fall 2016 – to assemble a dream team with one goal. Develop a user-friendly portal and application for the Local Control Accountability Plans.”

The LCAPS are a critical part of California”s new Local Control Funding Formula (LCFF) for schools. Each school district must engage parents, educators, employees, and the community to establish these plans, which describe the school district”s overall vision for students, annual goals, and specific actions.

Source: Torlakson Issues Tech Challenge – Year 2016 (CA Dept of Education)

Renewed call to create statewide teacher database | EdSource

Posted on March 1, 2016 by lmreyes

By John Fensterwald

Revisiting a decade-old contentious issue, the Legislative Analyst’s Office is urging the Legislature to create a teacher database that would help lawmakers address a projected teacher shortage.

A new data system would provide critical information that the state has lacked, which has forced lawmakers to “fly blind” when trying to evaluate how to spend money on recruiting and retaining teachers, said Brad Strong, senior director of education policy for the nonprofit Children Now and a longtime advocate of education data.

The Legislature passed the framework for the teacher database, known as the California Longitudinal Teacher Integrated Data Education System, or CALTIDES, in 2006 as a companion to the better-known statewide database that collects information on students, CALPADS (California Longitudinal Pupil Achievement Data System).

Source: Renewed call to create statewide teacher database | EdSource

Ways to Object to Disclosure of Student Data – Year 2016 (CA Dept of Education)

Posted on February 18, 2016 by lmreyes

State Superintendent of Public Instruction Tom Torlakson reiterated his strong commitment to student privacy today, calling it a top priority of his administration. “We have fought vigorously to protect students privacy rights and will continue that fight,” he said.

As part of that commitment and to comply with a court order, Torlakson reminded parents, guardians, and some former students over 18 that they can object to the release of personally identifiable information to plaintiffs in a court case, Morgan Hill Concerned Parents Association vs. California Department of Education.

Plaintiffs in the case have sought numerous documents and data stored in databases maintained by the California Department of Education (CDE).

The CDE for nearly three years has consistently fought requests by the plaintiffs to produce documents that contain the personally identifiable information of students and has produced documents with that information removed.

via Ways to Object to Disclosure of Student Data – Year 2016 (CA Dept of Education).

Take It To Go: Is Your Students’ Data Portable? – The Edublogger

Posted on February 4, 2016 by lmreyes

By Ronnie Burt

We’ve all been there before.

After investing time, money, and energy into a new web service, it suddenly closes its doors or goes from free to paid only. Or maybe your school will no longer be paying for the subscription.

Your options vary when this happens, and it all depends on how ‘export friendly‘ the tool or app is.

We feel strongly that student work should always be completed on a platform that allows the student to archive their work or take it with them. So, we reviewed many of the most popular services currently being used by students to publish to the web to see just how open and portable they really are.

via Take It To Go: Is Your Students’ Data Portable? – The Edublogger.

Schools rolling in dough, but scary clouds appear on horizon – Times Herald

Posted on February 2, 2016 by lmreyes

By Judy Lin, CALmatters

Vallejo High School teacher Lewis Brown starts his morning government class with a question of the day that takes advantage of newly assigned iPads.

“Today is the one year anniversary of the French magazine terrorist assassination,” Brown says. “What was the name of the magazine?” In seconds, 17-year-old SioFilisi Anitoni answers from the back row, “Mr. Brown, Charlie Hebdo.”

Vallejo City Unified School District is hoping to improve classroom learning by using increased state funds to raise teacher salaries, open new computer labs and assign iPads to each of its roughly 1,000 high school students.

via Schools rolling in dough, but scary clouds appear on horizon.

$1.5 billion helping career pathways take off in California’s high schools | EdSource

Posted on January 27, 2016 by lmreyes

By Fermin Leal

Tenth-grader Ryan Streckfus glanced over the gauges on the control panel as he carefully lifted the steering wheel, hoping to keep his aircraft from stalling in the sky over the Long Beach harbor.

“Heading is now 150. Elevation is climbing back up to 3,000 feet. I’m back in control,” he said, from a flight simulator inside the aviation career pathway at Canyon High School in Anaheim where he’s training to become a pilot.

The program, the only one of its kind in the state, is part of a career technical education boom across California. As record numbers of high school students are applying to state colleges and universities, more are also receiving hands-on training in high-demand technical careers even before they earn their diplomas. The students, many beginning in the 9th grade, are in career pathways learning job skills alongside professionals in fields including aviation, health care, civil engineering, fashion design, tourism and new media.

via $1.5 billion helping career pathways take off in California’s high schools | EdSource.

A first-ever Tech Day – The Reporter

Posted on January 27, 2016 by lmreyes

By Richard Bammer

The step-by-step march toward embracing 21st-century technology continued Tuesday at Fairmont Charter School in Vacaville, where teachers and students kicked off their first-ever Tech Day.

Each room was largely a sea of dark navy blue, as in students sporting T-shirts emblazoned with the words “Got Tech? We Do!!”

Every Tuesday, teachers at the K-6 elementary — where there is one-to-one with electronic devices, meaning each of 545 students has access to either a laptop or tablet computer — will schedule at least 30 minutes for each boy and girl to “do something fun,” said Carolyn Thomas, the digital education specialist at the Marshall Road campus.

via A first-ever Tech Day.

Apples Been Getting Beat Up In The Schoolyard, Its Finally Had Enough – Forbes

Posted on January 12, 2016 by lmreyes

By Mark Rogowsky

Once the most popular kid in the classroom when it came to technology, Apple has seen how fickle tastes can be. The Google Chromebook, an inexpensive laptop which basically runs a sophisticated version of the company’s Chrome web browser, has taken a 51% share of the K-12 market in the latest survey run by Futuresource Consulting. What’s most stunning about that number is Google itself will tell you it was at 1-2% just 3 years ago. With the forthcoming iOS 9.3, Apple hopes to begin reversing the trend. Early indications are that while it has put together a smart offering, it might still be missing the most important piece to win back what it has lost.

via Apples Been Getting Beat Up In The Schoolyard, Its Finally Had Enough – Forbes.

ESSA Passage Draws More Attention to Computer Science – Education News

Posted on December 18, 2015 by lmreyes

By Angela Kaye Mason

President Obama has signed a new education bill that will take the place of the controversial ‘No Child Left Behind Act’ from 2001 — and the Every Student Succeeds Act (ESSA) will also provide a boost to computer science education.

While the thirteen-year-old act connected funding of schools to the scores that students achieved on standardized tests, ESSA reduces some of the control that the federal government has on education. But according to EnGadget’s Sean Buckley, the new act also makes computer science just as important as other “well-rounded” school subjects.

Frank Smith of EdTech feels that the new legislation could close the gap in student achievement. Smith explains:

“The latest update to the U.S. National Education Technology Plan has big plans for addressing unequal access to the powerful technology changing schools today. On Thursday, [December 10th] the U.S. Department of Education laid out a vision for the future of technology at schools. The new plan updates technology guidelines issued in 2010, but doesn’t change direction dramatically. Instead, the latest plan sets up a series of bold calls to action designed to ensure technology helps close the achievement gap.”

via ESSA Passage Draws More Attention to Computer Science.

Engage Kids With Coding By Letting Them Design, Create, and Tell Stories | MindShift

Posted on December 16, 2015 by lmreyes

By Anya Kamenetz

For Computer Science Education Week (Dec. 7-13), the nonprofit Code.org has helped organize nearly 200,000 “Hour of Code” events around the world. It’s advocating for computer coding as a basic literacy and an essential ingredient for jobs of the future, and there’s a lot of momentum behind the idea.

The biggest school systems in the country, New York City and Los Angeles Unified, each announced this fall that computer science will be a required course for all grades within 10 years. Coding is also part of national curricula in the U.K. and soon will be in Australia.

via Engage Kids With Coding By Letting Them Design, Create, and Tell Stories | MindShift | KQED News.

Kairos leaders OK ‘teacher effectiveness’ plan, hear technology update – The Reporter

Posted on November 30, 2015 by lmreyes

By Richard Bammer

Kairos Public School Vacaville Academy leaders mulled over a relatively light agenda Tuesday, approving one action item, a plan to spend money for an educator effectiveness plan.

Meeting in the library/media center room at the Elm Street campus, four of seven directors present unanimously voted to accept $26,837 from the state, a cash outlay made possible this year by Assembly Bill 104 and Senate Bill 103, the latter law part of the Education Trailer Bill signed by Gov. Jerry Brown on Sept. 23.

To some degree, the laws are an effort to encourage and retain teachers during California’s ongoing shortage of educators, which began after the Great Recession and took a toll on teacher ranks, with widespread layoffs, program and pay cuts, all of the related developments leading to increased class sizes. (Brown’s Local Control Funding Formula and an improving state economy have somewhat reversed the worst of the recession, as it affected the state Department of Education.)

via Kairos leaders OK ‘teacher effectiveness’ plan, hear technology update.

Facing The Technological Monsters That Threaten Our Children – Forbes

Posted on October 30, 2015 by lmreyes

By Jordan Shapiro

When it comes to kids and parenting, the conversation around digital media and screen time has become boring and predictable. Folks worry about the impact of video games, apps, tablets, and smartphones.

The most absurd paranoid narratives echo the same ones that seem to accompany all technological shifts: that screens will cause physical damage (in this case, either neurological or ocular) to the natural human body. This monstrous fear is animated by the same Frankenstein story that makes up the essential foundation of films like The Terminator—that our own creations will eventually turn on us.

via Facing The Technological Monsters That Threaten Our Children – Forbes.

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