Category: Tivo
All things Tivo-licious.
If you're still considering buying that first Tivo, or you're ready to add a second one, I have the deal for you. Tivo is running a special for an 80-hour Series 2 Tivo for $83.40, which includes the Tivo hardware and a year of service. There is also a 80-hour Series 2 dual tuner Tivo for $155.40 including the year of Tivo service. This a great deal!
Find the details and the opportunity to order here. If you do decide to order, be sure to enter my email address dave@sonic.net in the Referral e-mail address box. That way I'll get Tivo points and I can a free Tivo hat or something.
It amazes me that support for the California High School Exit Exam (CAHSEE) is so universal in the press. It seems that everyone realizes it was a good thing for public education except Judge Freedman and those who brought the lawsuit. I know this isn't true, but it just feels that way. Here are a couple items I enjoyed on this topic.
First, here's a post from the LA Times education blog that I thought was great. He watched students involved in studying for and taking the CAHSEE and saw the sense of accomplishment on their faces when they passed it. It gave them a goal to strive for and to study for that goes beyond simply passing the test.
Second, this Sacramento Bee opinion piece, which I think does a great job describing the problem with Judge Freedman's ruling. From the article:
Freedman implied that there's no harm to the state in granting diplomas to students who have not passed the exit exam. But for students who don't walk the stage with their classmates, there could be an "emotional toll," he wrote, and there is "a significant risk of harm" for them to be forced to continue schooling past their senior year just to pass the exit exam.
What a misguided view. The harm is in handing diplomas to students who don't have essential skills in reading and math.
Superintendent of Public Instruction Jack O'Connell says this decision should not be allowed to stand: "It's bad for new California students who have worked hard to pass the exit exam, for employers who want meaning restored to high school diplomas, and for our public schools that have risen to the challenge of preparing students to pass the exam."
The appellate courts will have to fix Judge Freedman's terrible decision - and fast. The clock is ticking for the Class of 2006.
I hope the courts can resolve this issue soon enough that the Class of 2006 can be held accountable to this higher, albeit low standard of scholarship.
Be sure to check out these LA Daily News and LA Times stories about an effort by LA Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa and leaders of several neighboring cities to start a state audit of LAUSD's low academic achievement. They want a joint committee from the Assembly and the Senate "to investigate why the district's dropout rate is so high and its test scores so low."
"We are deeply concerned about the failure of LAUSD's schools to meet the basic educational needs of our children," the mayors wrote in their letter to the Joint Legislative Audit Committee. "Why are these kids not learning and achieving at the levels they should be?"
Not surprisingly, Superintendent Romer isn't in favor of the audit.
Romer said in an interview that the district was preparing for a comprehensive performance audit called for in an agreement with the teachers union.
"It is frustrating, because if you really want to help us educate students better, you would not pile another audit on us," Romer said.
"I'd rather spend our money on students."
Well, unless LAUSD figures out what they need to correct in order for students to actually achieve, just continuing to spend money the same 'ol way isn't going to help anyone except perhaps the district. I applaud the Mayors for taking a stand and look forward to a legislative audit of the district.
I thought this Education Week story about a recent ACT report was very interesting. The report found that:
The reading and math skills needed for success in the workplace are comparable to those needed for success in the first year of college...
So, if we can prepare all of our students with these basic skills by the time they graduate from high school, they'd be ready for whichever direction the head in their lives. That's what the California High School Exam (CAHSEE) should be testing for. Once we have that, then we're on track.
I found this edspresso.com piece to be very interesting. In the article, Michael Strong discusses "Why We Don't Have A Silicon Valley of Education."
He suggests that the innovation which led to Silicon Valley is lacking in public education. He writes:
Until it becomes cost effective for innovative school systems to invest in dedicated teacher training programs tailored to the unique methods and goals of the new schools, with ongoing research and development and quality improvements, the benefits of this type of innovation will remain haphazard. The opportunity cost in terms of lost human capital of not allowing innovative schools to flourish may be larger than the opportunity cost that would have resulted had the computer not been developed. With respect to education, we are the Soviet Union in 1935. In order to create the Silicon Valley of education 65 years hence, we need to free education markets now.
School choice and additional charter schools are required to remove the monopoly of public education in order for real reform to happen!
This Sacramento Bee story discusses a serious problem at Davis High School and other schools with large numbers of students being excused from STAR testing by their parents. Parents think they're protecting their children from stress, but at the same time they're hurting the very school that is trying to teach their children. It is too bad that most parents don't understand the importance of STAR testing and accountability.
I love the line "teachers unions are the worms in the apple of the American education system" from this Wall Street Journal piece. If you've visited this site before, you've probably seen me rant about teachers unions and how them and their compatriots, adminstrators are responsible for many of the problems in public education.
According this article:
On Monday the unions in Tallahassee bullied all but one Democrat and four Republicans in the state senate to kill a school voucher bill that has already had a sterling record of success for thousands of children in districts with failing public schools. If that decision isn't reversed by Friday, one of the most heralded school reform measures anywhere in the country will be dismantled, and 775 school kids, 90% of whom are minorities, will be returned to the warehouses that are failed inner-city schools. A related voucher program that serves 18,000 learning disabled kids is also in jeopardy.
The program at issue is Governor Jeb Bush's seven-year-old "Florida A+ School Accountability and Choice Program." For the first time, schools have been graded on the reading, writing and math progress made by the children they are supposed to be teaching. (Imagine that.) Any school that received an F in two of four years is deemed a failure, and the kids then get a voucher to attend another school, public or private.
One immediate impact -- according to researchers at Harvard, Florida State, and the James Madison Institute -- has been that the mere threat of competition caused many inner-city school districts to improve. The percentage of African Americans who are now performing at or above grade level surged to 66% last year, from 23% in 1999. No union-backed school "reform" has had that rate of success -- not more funding, not higher teacher pay, not smaller class sizes, and so on. Two school districts in the state failed the program and the families were given vouchers. Those children have since made big academic gains.
He concludes with:
We're not sure whom to hold in highest contempt here: the four Republicans who buckled to union pressure, the Democrats who voted en masse against the interests of their own constituents, or the unions that pretend their political actions are in the interests of "the children" -- except when that conflicts with their own economic self interest.
The senate Republican president says he will force one more vote before Friday. The lone Democrat to vote for the measure, state senator Al Lawson, charged that his fellow party representatives, including other black members, put their fealty to the unions ahead of what's best for poor children. "Don't their parents have a right, when they pay taxes, to have their kids get the best education?" he asked.
In Florida, at least for now, the sad answer is no. And what is worse is that this week the unions and their Democratic allies -- who claim to represent these black and Hispanic families -- are celebrating their triumph in relegating another generation of children to their educational ghetto.
So, once again, the unions win and the parents and students lose yet again. This is just another example of the incredible power of teachers unions to twist a situation to their very own view of what is right.
OK, it has been 10 weeks now since my hip replacement. I've been working the last 4 weeks on strengthening my abductor muscles so I can walk normally. These last 4 weeks, I've been on one crutch.
Today, I went to a Doctor appointment and he watched me walk and had me lay on my left side and raise my right leg to see how my abductor muscles are coming.
The good news is that he said he noticed right away that the exercises are working. The bad news is that they're not strong enough to walk normally.
So, I go back in 4 weeks and in the interim, I can use a cane, rather than the crutch. So, I'm getting there, but I'm not there yet.
This item from EduWonk discusses the plans by a group "Save our Schools" to protest a successful DC Charter:
Let me get this straight: Washington DC's SEED School is one of only two non-selective public high schools in all of Washington to make "adequate yearly progress" under No Child Left Behind last year, it's sent all of (100 percent) its first two graduating classes off with acceptances to college, and it's a national model for public schools, the nation's only public boarding school. And yet this clownish group called "Save Our Schools" is organizing a protest of SEED's offices for next week to try to curtail their plans to open a second campus in the city! In a recent letter to DC Superintendent Janey, Save Our Schools claimed that charter schools in DC have "not had any positive effects on DCPS children or on the DCPS system." Righto! That explains why they're oversubscribed and accounts for all those kids heading off to college...Mark Twain was right, apparently few things are as annoying as a good example...
This one cracks me up. They haven't found any positive effects? I'd sure say meeting AYP and get 100% of two graduating classes being accepted to college is pretty dramatic. This is particularly true given that DC spends among the most per student in the country while at the same time have the lowest student academic performance. They need to protest at the other schools.
It was interesting today to see two different editorials in LA papers on the LAUSD reform.
This LA Times editorial discusses the CTA/UTLA efforts to maintain the status quo and defeat the Mayor's reform efforts.
Such sentiments are more fit for the playground than the classroom. State legislators shouldn't confuse the union's bankroll with what's best for the students of Los Angeles, who have suffered long enough.
In this LA Daily News article Tony Strickland, former Assemblymember and candidate for State Controller calls for an immediate audit of LAUSD.
We need action now. The state controller should launch an immediate audit of the LAUSD. It's not the only example of waste in the state, but it may well be the most visible. The controller is the state's chief financial officer. He has a duty to provide oversight, particularly on one of the largest public agencies in California, the second-largest school district in the country. The LAUSD has a budget of over $13 billion dollars, two-thirds of which comes from the state.
A thorough audit would account for the billions of dollars that have been spent over the past few years, identify programs that suffer from the most egregious waste, and create a blueprint for effective governance in the future. An audit would be instrumental in building a system that is responsive and successful.
I have a newborn baby girl. In five years, she'll be ready for public school. It's easier to focus on a problem that affects us personally, but the inescapable fact is that we will all bear the social cost of failed schools. Taxpayers will support schools that work, but it is naive to expect support for a system that refuses to hold itself accountable.
It's time to audit LAUSD.
LAUSD has serious problems. The present leadership of Superintendent Romer, the school board and UTLA have not resolved the district's problems. Year after year, children are receiving a substandard education from their schools. LAUSD seems content to make minimal progress while tens of thousands of children are prepared for failure.
Recent comments
6 days 14 hours ago
6 days 15 hours ago
1 week 1 day ago
2 weeks 6 days ago
2 weeks 6 days ago
3 weeks 8 hours ago
3 weeks 9 hours ago
3 weeks 10 hours ago
3 weeks 11 hours ago
3 weeks 12 hours ago