New York City Schools Chief Moves To Give Principals More Power Over Curriculum. The New York Times (4/27, Medina) reports that New York City schools Chancellor Joel I. Klein “said Monday that he was reshuffling the top jobs at city’s Education Department headquarters and eliminating the division that oversees school curriculum and teacher training programs.” His aim is “to give principals more power to determine what kind of instruction they use at individual schools, rather than using only suggestions developed in central offices.” According to the Times, “The changes underscore a substantial shift that the department has made under Mr. Klein, who early in his tenure focused on centralizing control of the system and developing a uniform citywide curriculum.”

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In the Classroom
E-Curriculums Offer Schools Customized Solutions. Education Week (4/23, Davis) reported, “With a wealth of online courses for school districts to choose from, plus an abundance of interactive activities, videos, and digital information to sift through to design such courses,” many “school leaders are” purchasing “online classes from nonprofit and for-profit providers, making their own from scratch, accessing open-source options, or combining all three approaches.” Education Week details the trends in individualized instructional programs, project-based courses, and custom-built programs created by individual schools.

Florida Virtual School, DOE To Host Virtual STEM Career Fair For Middle, High School Students. The St.

Senator Proposes $23 Billion Fund To Save Teaching Jobs. The Washington Post (4/15, Anderson) reports, “As public schools nationwide face larger class sizes and cuts in programs, the Senate’s leading Democrat on education issues proposed a $23 billion bailout Wednesday to help avert layoffs of tens of thousands of teachers and other school personnel in the coming academic year.” Sen. Tom Harkin (D-Iowa) is sponsoring a bill described by the Post as “a potential sequel to the economic stimulus law enacted last year.”

Bloomberg News (4/15, Staley) reports that at a US Senate Appropriations subcommittee hearing on Wednesday, Harkin told lawmakers that “job losses at public schools and colleges in the US may top 100,000 in the next school year. … The legislation needs to be passed now because school districts are making budget decisions this month, he said.” Medill News Service (4/14, Yadron) reported that according to Harkin, “unless Congress acts, many of the education policy changes currently being weighed by the Obama administration and Congress will be pointless,” as educators are laid off en masse.

Education Week (4/14, Klein) reported that Secretary of Education Arne Duncan on Wednesday “urged Congress to pass” new legislation “to preserve education jobs. He testified before the Senate Appropriations subcommittee that deals with education spending on the same day the panel’s chairman,” Sen.

Please be advised that there is an extremely important Asbury Park Board of Education meeting being held on Tuesday, April 13, 2010, at 6:00pm, at Bradley Elementary School in the Multipurpose room. Many members of the APEA have been RICE’d, which means that their position will be discussed and this notification must be sent out so that the Board has the right to bring up an individual name if the need arises. Many positions will be eliminated this evening so it is imperative that you show up at this meeting to support all our staff members who may be losing their positions. I strongly urge every staff member, parent, and community member to attend this meeting to express their outrage to the Board of Education for these deep cuts.

We look forward to seeing as many people as possible at this meeting.

Today is the four year anniversary of AsburyParkEA.net! Over the past four years during the ups and downs of our schools, association & profession we hope that this website has been a reliable resource for everyone who uses it.

The most recent change has been a slight graphical facelift to the pages that should work better with today’s screen sizes. We have also added a Twitter feed that sends out a tweet everytime the website is updated. We hope you will make use of this.

As always, questions and comments are welcome. Send them to me at: PErricoAsburyParkEAnet  PErricoAsburyParkEAnet   . It’s your website, let us know what you think!

Please be advised for the next 12 days, we will not be updating our website due to the fact that we are presently on Spring Break. Any pertinent information will be sent out via email.

Enjoy your break and we will see you on April 12.

To: All Asbury Park Education Association Members

From: APEA Negotiations Team

Date: March 30, 2010

Re: Negotiations

The APEA Negotiations Team has a meeting scheduled for May 12, 2010, with the fact finder to begin the next process of our contract talks. In an effort to obtain a contract without going through the long and arduous process of fact finding, our team has since met with the Board to try to mediate a resolution to these stalled contract talks.

To begin, we met on Wednesday, March 10 and Monday, March 22, 2010. These discussions lasted over 4 hours and 2 hours respectively. We have managed to cut down the amount of issues that separate our two teams. Our team met last week to discuss several options that we have as an Association.

With the recent headlines from the newly elected governor, he is requesting that ALL local associations take a pay freeze for the 2010/2011 school year. With that in mind, once the budget talks are finished at the Board of Education level, our team will be making a decision on what avenue to approach. Our latest talks were amicable and we are keeping all options open.

In closing, keep in mind, that our team will only present the most viable and equitable contract to our membership. Our goal is to settle this contract before the end of the school year. However, our main focus at this time is going to be the BOE budget and the potential 80 layoffs within our district.

Individual States Show Progress In Closing Gaps On NAEP.
The Washington Post (3/25, Anderson, Turque) reports, “A report from the National Assessment of Educational Progress shows that fourth-grade” reading “scores for the nation’s public schools stagnated after the law took effect in 2002, rose modestly in 2007 and remained unchanged last year. … The national picture for eighth-grade reading was largely the same: a slight uptick in performance since 2007, but no gain in the seven years” when NCLB “was in high gear.” The Christian Science Monitor (3/25, Paulson, Khadaroo) reports that, according to Amy Wilkins, Vice President of the Education Trust, “One glimmer of hope in the nation’s report card…is that individual states have shown progress in closing gaps.” For instance, “among Florida fourth-graders…the black-white gap and the income gap have narrowed.”

The New York Times (3/25, Dillon) reports that some experts attribute “the lagging reading scores…to declines in the amount of reading children do for pleasure as they devote more free time to surfing the Internet, texting, on cellphones or watching television. Others blame undemanding curriculums.”

The AP (3/25, Armario) reports that “the nation’s fourth-grade math scores flattened last year and eighth-grade scores improved two points.” It points out, however, that since 1990, “there has been a 27 point increase overall” in math “for fourth-grade students.” Brookings Institution senior fellow, Tom Loveless, noted, “To the extent that there are gains, they’re found amongst the lowest achievers.” This, “he suspects…is related to the enactment of more accountability systems at the state and federal level that focus attention on the lowest achievers and punish or reward schools based on progress with that group.”

Georgia Achievement Gap Narrowing.

Schools Receive Grants For Anti-Violence Initiatives.
The Baltimore Sun (3/19, Bowie) reported, “The Reginald F. Lewis High School in Baltimore has received a $3.4 million federal grant to support programs aimed at reducing violence at the school. The federal money is being given nationally by the U.S. Labor Department to six high schools that were named ‘persistently dangerous’ under” NCLB. According to the Sun, “In the past two years, 2.5 percent of the high school’s students have been removed or suspended for a serious offense, including having weapons or being violent, according to Principal Sylvia Hall.”

The Philadelphia Inquirer (3/19, Woodall) reported, “The School District of Philadelphia was celebrating a windfall in federal funding this week,” as the Department of Labor “announced Wednesday that it had awarded the district $25 million to reduce violence and improve educational outcomes at four neighborhood high schools on the state’s list of ‘persistently dangerous’ schools, based on the number of violent incidents and assaults reported over several years.” Also, “U.S. Sens. Arlen Specter and Bob Casey announced that the Treasury Department and [ED] had awarded the district $145.4 million in construction bonds that will help it obtain low-cost financing to upgrade and repair facilities.”

Give your primary writers a vision of independence and the desire and confidence to achieve it. No More “I’m Done!” guides teachers in setting up the classroom environment and establishing routines that allow students to move through the writing process at their own pace. Includes a whole year’s worth of mini-lessons. Preview the entire book online!

Last night at the Local President’s meeting a member asked that we send a list to all local presidents of legislators who have been helpful by speaking up in caucus to raise concerns about the pension and benefits bills. The list is below.

Pleas contact thse legislators immediately.

Thank you.

• Assemblywoman Linda Stender – thanks! (lone vote against pension bills in the committee): AswStendernjlegorg  AswStendernjlegorg  
• Assemblyman Nelson Albano: AsmAlbanonjlegorg  AsmAlbanonjlegorg  
• Assemblyman Herb Conaway: AsmConawaynjlegorg  AsmConawaynjlegorg  
• Assemblywoman Linda Greenstein: AswGreensteinnjlegorg  AswGreensteinnjlegorg  
• Assemblyman Wayne DeAngelo: AswGreensteinnjlegorg  AswGreensteinnjlegorg  
• Assemblywoman Bonnie Watson Coleman: AswWatsonColemannjlegorg  AswWatsonColemannjlegorg  
• Assemblyman Pat Diegnan: AsmDiegnannjlegorg  AsmDiegnannjlegorg  
• Assemblyman Joe Cryan: AsmCryannjlegorg  AsmCryannjlegorg  
• Assemblyman John McKeon: AsmMcKeonnjlegorg  AsmMcKeonnjlegorg  
• Assemblyman Al Coutinho: AsmCoutinhonjlegorg  AsmCoutinhonjlegorg  
• Assemblyman Anthony Chiappone: AsmChiapponenjlegorg  AsmChiapponenjlegorg  
• Assemblyman Vincent Prieto: AsmPrietonjlegorg  AsmPrietonjlegorg  
• Assemblyman Tom Giblin: AsmGiblinnjlegorg  AsmGiblinnjlegorg  
• Assemblywoman Elease Evans: AswEvansnjlegorg  AswEvansnjlegorg  
• Assemblyman Gary Schaer: AsmSchaernjlegorg  AsmSchaernjlegorg  
• Assemblywoman Joan Voss: AswVossnjlegorg  AswVossnjlegorg  
• Assemblywoman Connie Wagner: AswWagnernjlegorg  AswWagnernjlegorg  

Pen Ben Bills in Committee March 18
Call Assembly Appropriations Committee Today!
On Thursday, March 18, the four-bill Pensions and Benefits package (A-2459, A-2460, A-2461 & ACR-115) will be heard in the Assembly Appropriations Committee.

When these bills were discussed in the Senate State Government Committee a few short weeks ago, the members of the committee did not ask a single question during the entire two and a half hours of testimony. The bills were quickly voted out of committee and sent to the Senate floor for a 36-0 vote of approval.

Questions about these bills MUST be answered!

There are many questions about these bills that so far have gone unanswered. Choose one from the list below, and call members of the Assembly Appropriations Committee and make sure they know what questions to ask on March 18.

1) A-2461 repeals the “non-forfeitable right” for employees who have reached five years of service. This means that the State can reduce benefits for new employees at any time. Don’t public employees deserve to know how their pension benefits will be calculated? How can they plan for retirement without a formula to rely on?

2) A-2461 allows for workers with fewer than 10 years of service to opt-out of the current defined benefit plan. If the state and local government are not planning on making a full payment for 8 more years, should we really be reducing cash flow into the system? Do you know that once an employee opts-out, this decision is irrevocable? Did you know that if an employee opts-out, they are ineligible for post-retirement medical benefits?