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Welcome!
What is
Urban Edge?
Urban Edge is a service that provides CUBE districts
with relevant information to help your awareness of education issues around the
country. We will glean news sources, blogs, research studies, and NSBA's wide range of expertise for timely information that guides CUBE districts in making sound decisions. Around
the nation
Kansas
City (MO) school board closes 26 schools
In a move that has gained national attention,
the Kansas City School Board voted 5-4 last week to
close 40 percent of its schools as a cost saving
measure. Dr. John Covington, the district's
superintendent, pushed for the change to save $50
million in a $300 million budget, and the decision
will also impact thousands of district employees,
many of whom will lose their jobs. In the wake
of the Central Falls, Rhode Island, School Board's
decision to fire all of its high school's teachers
(which was also praised by President Obama),
governance and difficult decisions by school boards
are becoming reported on more frequently in recent
weeks.
Link
to Kansas City Star
3/10/10
Urban Prep sends every student to college
In Chicago, 100 percent of the students at
Urban Prep High School have been accepted to four
year colleges. The school is Chicago's only
all male, all African-American high school and is a
charter school within the Chicago Public School
system. When these same seniors entered as
freshman, only four percent read at grade
level. "Poverty, gangs, drugs, crime, low
graduation rates, teen pregnancy — you name it,
Englewood has it," said Kenneth Hutchinson, the
school's director of college counseling. As an
added bonus, the school gave the seniors a free prom
to celebrate their accomplishment. [Urban Prep is
one of the schools CUBE is scheduled to visit in
Chicago as part of our NSBA Annual Conference
programming.]
Link
to Chicago Tribune
3/5/10
Soft drink sales drop in America's schools
A new report from the American Beverage Association
(ABA) says that sales from bottlers to schools
dropped 72 percent in the last five years, including
a 95 percent drop in full calorie soft drinks.
The ABA made the changes voluntarily, but it also
made an agreement in 2006 with the William J.
Clinton Foundation and the American Heart Association
to battle childhood obesity. After Michelle
Obama's recent efforts in the new "Let's
Move" campaign, the news from the ABA is
welcome to school districts nationwide.
Link
to Wall Street Journal 3/8/10
Are national standards a step closer?
The National Governors Association and the
Council of Chief State School Officers have drafted
math and English standards that may become national
models for curriculum in those two subjects.
There is a desire for national standards to replace
the system of each state having their own curriculum
standards, and the two groups hope that their plans
can gain approval in May, after a public comment
period. Two states opted out of the process,
Alaska and Texas, but the other 48 are supporting
the measure. Writers of the draft standards
considered many factors and feel that they addressed
many of the contentious issues, such as learning
math via a discovery method versus computation, and
hope that standards will help America compete
globally.
Link to Associated Press 3/10/10
Link
to Common Standards site (includes link for
public comment) Huge
teacher survey reveals important data
Scholastic and the Bill and Melinda Gates
Foundation teamed up to survey over 40,000 teachers
nationwide to find out how teachers feel about a
variety of topics in education. Every state
and grade level was represented in the survey and
salary was not as big of a factor as many
predicted. The issues they found more
important than money (to most teachers) was
collaboration time and good leadership. They
also voiced their opinions on having multiple
opportunities for assessment for students so
progress can be demonstrated, especially if teachers
will be paid based on how students perform on a test
one day of the year.
AP
News story
3/2/10
Full
survey results Policy
Watch
Over
the weekend, the Department of Education released
the much-anticipated blueprint
for the re-authorization of the Elementary and
Secondary Education Act (ESEA). NSBA has
issued a press release in response to the blueprint,
which can be found here.
NSBA is calling for the Department of Education and
the administration to consider stopping the idea of
putting Title I funds conditional on adopting common
standards, local control of schools for
"turnaround" solutions, and considering
multiple factors in student assessment, to name a
few of the comments. More information will be
coming this week, and be sure to check with NSBA's
Advocacy web page for more details as they
unfold.
CUBE
News
CUBE's
Annual Business Meeting will be held on April
9th as part of
CUBE programming with the NSBA Annual Conference in
Chicago, Illinois. An email was sent out to
all of CUBE's members last week and an agenda for
the meeting can be found here.
CUBE elects its new Steering Committee members at
this meeting, as well as gaining important
information about CUBE's concerns and direction for
the coming year. In addition,
NSBA's Delegate Assembly members will be meeting
about proposed changes to NSBA's
Policies and Resolutions and the issues they
will be voting on at the annual meeting.
CUBE
is on Twitter-Follow CUBE_Edge (CUBE_Edge)
for daily updates on what's happening in urban
education around the country.
Contest
opportunity
NASA and USA Today announced a new
contest for students titled "No Boundaries,"
to help 7-12th graders explore STEM careers.
This cross-curricular free project includes cash
awards up to $2,000 and a NASA VIP experience for
students. For more information, check their web
site. Deadline for applications
is April 15,
2010.
Program
Note
Did
you know that all previous editions of the Urban
Edge are available on CUBE's web site? If
you missed an issue, wanted to go back to find a
link to a research study we referenced, or need some
information about what other districts are doing,
click here.
Disclaimer
Links
on the Urban Edge are subject to change or
become inactive after a period of time. Please
be aware that CUBE has no control over links to
other organizations or entities.
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