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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
Sixth
grader interviews the president
Damon Weaver, a 11 year old student from Palm
Beach County, Florida (a CUBE district) held an
interview with President Obama last week. After
interviewing Vice President Biden earlier this year,
the tenacious student had told everyone he could
that he would eventually interview the president,
and he did. Dressed as a professional and
acting the same way, he talked about some
challenging issues including education, nutrition,
school lunches, and life as the
president.
Link to AP story 8/14/09
Link
to video of interview
Four guidelines for a unique time in education
Thomas Payzant, a professor, former
superintendent, and Department of Education assistant
secretary offers school districts some advice on how
to utilize the money from the stimulus plan in what
he says is an opportunity that we may never see
again. In the Edutopia article, he discusses a
brief history of education funding, starting in the
1960s and going through NCLB. With each
increase in spending, the results on the National Assessment
of Education Progress (NAEP), showed only slight
increases. Payzant outlines his four key
strategies for districts to avoid maintaining the
status quo, and seize the opportunity to use the
stimulus money wisely.
Link
to Edutopia September
edition
Houston high school renews hope
Sam Houston High School in Houston has made
improvements that would make any district
proud. The school, which was ordered to be
closed by the state, was re-configured and given a
clean slate to start over. What came out of
the re-building process was a ninth grade preparatory
academy, and a tenth through twelve math, science,
and technology school. Although they have a
new staff and leadership, the demographics of the
student population remains the same. The
progress has been meaningful to the community,
especially to the editors of the Houston Chronicle
who wrote the article.
Link to Houston Chronicle 8/6/09
Longer school
year for some students starts now
Like many CUBE districts, Chicago is
experiencing success with making the school year
longer. In reality, students attend school the
same number of days, but rather than having a long
summer break and the infamous "summer
slide," they started last week and will have
several shorter breaks over the school year.
As there continues to be more emphasis from the
leadership at the Department of Education and
President Obama on more time in school, this trend
is likely to be a theme in many districts. The
test results for Chicago's Track E students improved
last year, making 3.1 percent gains over the rest of
the district (2 percent). Chicago is using
this calendar in 132 schools this year, and has one
year round high school.
Link
to Chicago Sun Times 8/11/09
Link
to ABC News story 8/9/09
Managing data may
get easier
School districts nationwide are going to hear
more about data collection, decision making, and
cost saving measures by improving technology in the
coming year. One problem that districts face
is the lack of "talking" software, which
enables some software systems to connect with other
software systems. In other words, systems that
"talk" to others help costs come down and
make accountability easier. Schools
Interoperability Framework (SIF) is starting to take
hold in many districts, and it may make sense for
CUBE districts to think about how to work with data
collection, reporting to the state, and saving
money. In one example in the article, a large
district said, "now we can gather data
across multiple systems very quickly and use those
data in applying for and receiving stimulus
funding."
Link
to eSchool News 8/13/09
(free registration) CUBE
News
CUBE
announces finalists and special recognition
districts for the CUBE Annual Award for Urban School
Board Excellence. This year, Atlanta, Georgia,
and Broward County, Florida were named finalists for
the CUBE award, while Baltimore City, Maryland,
Jefferson County (Louisville), Kentucky, and Wake
County (Raleigh), North Carolina will receive
special recognition awards for their governance
progress and commitment to diversity,
respectively. To see NSBA's full press release
about the awards, click here.
Are
you in an NFL (National Football League)
market? The NFL is accepting applications to
revitalize and create football fields in urban
markets across the country, including many CUBE
districts. If you would like more information
about these grants, contact Kevin Scott (kscott@nsba.org)
for the details. The deadline for proposals is
October 29, 2009.
Meetings
Minute
CUBE's
Annual Conference is coming October 8-11 to Austin,
Texas. Registration is now open and the full
brochure is available on CUBE's
web site. Highlights include the CUBE
Annual Award presentation and best practices
session, looking at the Latino achievement gap, ways
to improve urban graduation rates, and
more. The hotel cutoff date is September
9th.
NSBA's
Technology and
Learning Conference (T+L) takes place in Denver,
Colorado October 28-30, 2009. Among the
presentations and honors, three
districts are recognized with a video salute
showcasing technology initiatives across their
districts during the T+L Conference General Sessions,
including a CUBE district, Newport News, Virginia.
Join thousands of educators at T+L to learn more
about what Newport News has done to make technology work
well for students.
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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