I just called Washington D.C. pursuing Amy Wilkins. Amy Wilkins is a principal of the Education Trust. All Kids can learn is one of the beliefs that I share with Amy so I am most interested in what other ideas may converge. Amy also shares a belief, that the teachers association or union if you will can voluntarily link teacher evaluation and assessment to student achievement. The recent Innovative Fund grants are indicators of a possible new direction from the AFL-CIO and its leader Randi Weingarten.
3.3 million dollars have been granted to the AFL-CIO's teachers. Parts of these funds are going to two of eight winning affiliates who will work to modify the link between teacher assessment and student attainment. The Obama administrations Race to the Top funding is a catalyst for this reform thinking. The Race to the Top funding includes the accountability premise: that student achievement is indeed linked to the quality of instruction.
New thinking can grow new tools in the educator's tool kit. If Amy and I are correct in our perspectives, the next four years of Obama incentivized reform, may bare sweet fruits for our nation's children. Possibly, this is the beginning of a means for reducing the oppressively high poverty rates among Americans. At the root of prosperity is a sound educational system.
Amy, where are you?
Thursday, October 22, 2009
Educational Innovation and Economic Stimulus
The U.S. Department of Education's 2010 fiscal year budget of $47.6 billion includes an allocation of $517 million dedicated to the Teacher Incentive Fund which rewards principals, teachers, and other school personnel who raise student achievement, close achievement gaps and work hard to staff schools.
School districts across the country will be competing for the billions of dollars on the line. They will showcase their great schools, exemplary teachers and innovative ideas. There's no doubt that the stimulus money will be a boon for school reform. For years, school districts have shown that they have innovative ideas, but without proper funding those ideas never come to fruition.
Innovation and change should be energized with both an incentive and reward to replenish resources of ingenuity, commitment, and creativity. Only in public education is going the extra mile a donation expected of the dedicated few.
It is empowering to be recognized for turning gang infested schools from the strong hold of the socially impaired to havens where students can remediate themselves to academic achievement. Yes, placards and pats on the back feel good; but, they don't buy anything. Why are educators the only missionaries who trek the roadways of the under-achievers --prodding them to the higher places with maybe a brief notation in the annual assessment of their deeds and misdeeds in the educational workplace?
When an inspired teacher or administrator makes the difference in average yearly attainment a reward is more than appropriate. It is fully earned for having the tools to enable the struggling student to complete a toolkit that is in ill repair.
Based on the state funding tables issued by the U.S. Department of Education, Colorado is expected to receive $33,845,209 in Recovery Act funding for schools identified for improvement, corrective action and restructuring under Title I. This money is expected to come into play this fall.
If past history is any indicator the incentive program will be a success. Programs such as the Absence Addiction Approach recognized by the National Interagency Drug Institute and the U.S. Department of Education helped an academically impaired high school move from low attendance and floundering graduation rates to turn around status celebrated by its principal winning recognition as Outstanding Individual In School and feted by the state's governor. This turn around scenario was incentivized by outside funding. This shows what dynamic effects special funding can have.
The rewards reaped from the Teacher Incentive Fund will provide a tremendous opportunity for improving schools with hard work and innovation. The real winners though, will be the children.
Busby is a former Colorado Springs high school principal and school board member and an educational consultant with the Women's Workplace and Educational Initiative.
School districts across the country will be competing for the billions of dollars on the line. They will showcase their great schools, exemplary teachers and innovative ideas. There's no doubt that the stimulus money will be a boon for school reform. For years, school districts have shown that they have innovative ideas, but without proper funding those ideas never come to fruition.
Innovation and change should be energized with both an incentive and reward to replenish resources of ingenuity, commitment, and creativity. Only in public education is going the extra mile a donation expected of the dedicated few.
It is empowering to be recognized for turning gang infested schools from the strong hold of the socially impaired to havens where students can remediate themselves to academic achievement. Yes, placards and pats on the back feel good; but, they don't buy anything. Why are educators the only missionaries who trek the roadways of the under-achievers --prodding them to the higher places with maybe a brief notation in the annual assessment of their deeds and misdeeds in the educational workplace?
When an inspired teacher or administrator makes the difference in average yearly attainment a reward is more than appropriate. It is fully earned for having the tools to enable the struggling student to complete a toolkit that is in ill repair.
Based on the state funding tables issued by the U.S. Department of Education, Colorado is expected to receive $33,845,209 in Recovery Act funding for schools identified for improvement, corrective action and restructuring under Title I. This money is expected to come into play this fall.
If past history is any indicator the incentive program will be a success. Programs such as the Absence Addiction Approach recognized by the National Interagency Drug Institute and the U.S. Department of Education helped an academically impaired high school move from low attendance and floundering graduation rates to turn around status celebrated by its principal winning recognition as Outstanding Individual In School and feted by the state's governor. This turn around scenario was incentivized by outside funding. This shows what dynamic effects special funding can have.
The rewards reaped from the Teacher Incentive Fund will provide a tremendous opportunity for improving schools with hard work and innovation. The real winners though, will be the children.
Busby is a former Colorado Springs high school principal and school board member and an educational consultant with the Women's Workplace and Educational Initiative.
The Grassroots Organizers' Perfect Storm - The Fight For Paid Sick Leave
Grassroots groups stir the pot of human understanding. They fuel the awareness about why forty percent or more of hourly workers nationally are left outside the door of paid sick leave. Social change cannot occur without the inclusion of the disempowered workers who people the realms of the disposable employees are who are cast aside when illness overcomes the will to work.
Collectively, we as a society are no more powerful than the weakest among us. Some studies show that more than sixty percent of Americans workers receive paid sick leave. These of course are the workers who people the union roles or the ranks of the salaried employees. The forty percent or more in the ranks of the unpaid sick days remain dependent on grassroots advocacy groups such as 9-5 Women, Acorn, Citizen's Project, and Youth United for Work, JwJ as well as numerous other in the trenches organizations across the United States.
This state by state organizing is interminably slow with paid medical leave advances most prominently displayed in San Francisco, Milwaukee, and Washington D.C. In the case of Youth United in San Francisco, California, does regional culture influence the paid sick leave legislation which occurred? This legislative change is born in a state with a historic tendency to support paid leave for its workers. On a national state ranking system, California is among the most highly ranked and graded at B with no state earning an A. The ranking results from the quantity of paid leave allocated to workers. States such as Colorado rank at the C/D level due to the dearth of medical leave policy to democratize paid sick leave. Now, the city by city approach to change is moving to a country-wide effort to support the health initiative lead by Senator Kennedy.
Organizations are on board to promote social change legislation for paid sick leave. One such organization whose national office is in Denver, Colorado is 9-5 Women which is part of a broad national network pushing for country-wide paid sick leave relief. Value Families at Work includes this description of 9-5's effort at broad-based reform.
In Colorado, 9 to 5 has built a work-family coalition that is engaged in grassroots organizing, media outreach, and building support for public education and state policy efforts to provide time off work to parents to attend children's school activities; and to guarantee workers paid sick days. The coalition also works to bring Colorado voices into national efforts to protect and expand FMLA, win paid sick days, and to include work-family issues in local community benefits campaigns. Colorado is powerfully positioned in view of its recent victory over the Ward Connerly funded initiative to undermine civil rights.
Acorn is another imminent grassroots organizer. Acorn boasts an extensive national network infrastructure.
With a posted membership of 400,000; the organization identifies 116 chapters through out the United States. The Wall Street Journal included this information about the work of Acorn.
Since 1970, ACORN has been building community organizations that are committed to social and economic justice, and won victories on thousands of issues of concern to our members, through direct action, negotiation, legislative advocacy and voter participation. ACORN helps those who have historically been locked out become powerful players in our democratic system.
With grass roots leaders at work, opponents of paid sick leave may have their hands more than full. The controversial effort continues.
Delia Armstrong Busby is an award winning educator and former school board member. Contact at rubusy1@comcast.net
Collectively, we as a society are no more powerful than the weakest among us. Some studies show that more than sixty percent of Americans workers receive paid sick leave. These of course are the workers who people the union roles or the ranks of the salaried employees. The forty percent or more in the ranks of the unpaid sick days remain dependent on grassroots advocacy groups such as 9-5 Women, Acorn, Citizen's Project, and Youth United for Work, JwJ as well as numerous other in the trenches organizations across the United States.
This state by state organizing is interminably slow with paid medical leave advances most prominently displayed in San Francisco, Milwaukee, and Washington D.C. In the case of Youth United in San Francisco, California, does regional culture influence the paid sick leave legislation which occurred? This legislative change is born in a state with a historic tendency to support paid leave for its workers. On a national state ranking system, California is among the most highly ranked and graded at B with no state earning an A. The ranking results from the quantity of paid leave allocated to workers. States such as Colorado rank at the C/D level due to the dearth of medical leave policy to democratize paid sick leave. Now, the city by city approach to change is moving to a country-wide effort to support the health initiative lead by Senator Kennedy.
Organizations are on board to promote social change legislation for paid sick leave. One such organization whose national office is in Denver, Colorado is 9-5 Women which is part of a broad national network pushing for country-wide paid sick leave relief. Value Families at Work includes this description of 9-5's effort at broad-based reform.
In Colorado, 9 to 5 has built a work-family coalition that is engaged in grassroots organizing, media outreach, and building support for public education and state policy efforts to provide time off work to parents to attend children's school activities; and to guarantee workers paid sick days. The coalition also works to bring Colorado voices into national efforts to protect and expand FMLA, win paid sick days, and to include work-family issues in local community benefits campaigns. Colorado is powerfully positioned in view of its recent victory over the Ward Connerly funded initiative to undermine civil rights.
Acorn is another imminent grassroots organizer. Acorn boasts an extensive national network infrastructure.
With a posted membership of 400,000; the organization identifies 116 chapters through out the United States. The Wall Street Journal included this information about the work of Acorn.
Since 1970, ACORN has been building community organizations that are committed to social and economic justice, and won victories on thousands of issues of concern to our members, through direct action, negotiation, legislative advocacy and voter participation. ACORN helps those who have historically been locked out become powerful players in our democratic system.
With grass roots leaders at work, opponents of paid sick leave may have their hands more than full. The controversial effort continues.
Delia Armstrong Busby is an award winning educator and former school board member. Contact at rubusy1@comcast.net
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