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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
President
Obama delivers speech, again
Last year's presidential "Back to
School" speech caused many parents and
community members around the county to question what
he would say, how he would say it, and worried that
it would be a stump speech indoctrinating American
children. This year, the president's speech
was almost off the radar screen to many of the same
critics, and he delivered a similar speech to
schoolchildren in Philadelphia yesterday.
While telling students to "work hard" and
"dream big," he shared more about his
childhood in hoping to inspire students to succeed
this year. His focus on diversity was a little
different than last year's message as he greeted 5th
through 12th grade students at a recently awarded
Blue Ribbon School.
Link
to Associated Press story
9/14/10
Video
of back to school speech
Pittsburgh
looks at racial makeup of its teachers
It is a question CUBE districts have grappled
with for years. Is having a black teacher
important to a black student or group of students,
especially if the majority of the school is
black? With fewer than two percent of teachers
nationwide being black males, it is a struggle for
most districts to attract teachers who are of the
same racial background as the students they
teach. In Pittsburgh, about 85 percent of
teachers are white, while over 50 percent of the
students are black. It creates an interesting
situation for school leaders and policymakers who
want to have a more diverse workforce, and
Pittsburgh is utilizing some experts to help them
with their dilemma.
Link
to Tribune Review 9/8/10
Seattle
helps ninth graders transition
As eighth graders move from middle school to high
school, the transition can be one of the hardest for
a child in their school career. Seattle Public
Schools has tackled that problem with a new
bridge-building program to help those students be as
successful as possible as they enter high
school. The program used a local university to
help with the process and targeted select students
based on grades and attendance for the summer.
Other districts who have tried similar programs have
found that truancy rates improve for the students
who participate. For more details about the
program, the full story is below.
Link
to Seattle Times
9/8/10 Report
looks at suspensions in middle school
The Southern
Poverty Law Center released a report this
month about suspensions in urban districts.
The study focuses on middle schools for a variety of
reasons, including the trends often set at that age
level for future success, and found that middle
school boys of color were suspended at much higher
levels than girls or other ethnic groups. CUBE
has been covering this issue for years, but a new
report always brings more media attention to the
problem. The full report can be found at the
link below.
Link
to Suspended Education report
9/10
Link
to New York Times story 9/13/10 (free
registration)
New
resource
A
new web site has been launched that has a wealth of information about
education in general, including several good sources
for urban issues. Redu (rethink/reform/rebuild
education) is a site that is hoping to bring
together teachers, communities, volunteers, and
others to improve education nationally. The
site was created by Microsoft and is hoping to bring
education into the conversations of Americans
nationwide. Some of the topics we've already
covered in CUBE's Urban Edge, but they include
features like "The Chalk Board," which
looks at current issues in education with news links
and "Roadtrip Nation," which has videos of
leaders, entertainers, and business people
discussing education - this site may be worth looking
at closely for news and trends in education today.
Link
to Redu
Link
to Cnet News story 9/8/10
CUBE
News
LAST
CHANCE!
CUBE's
Annual Conference is coming to Baltimore,
Maryland, September 30- October
2. Although the hotel cut-off date has
passed, you may still register!
Registrations
are accepted and the full brochure can be
found below. We have an exciting lineup of
speakers, sessions, and the CUBE Annual Award for
Urban School Board Excellence, will be awarded to a
winning district. The Benjamin Elijah Mays
Lifetime Achievement Award will also be given to a
deserving individual. Click here
(.pdf file, may take a few moments to download) for
more information.
CUBE
is on Twitter-Follow CUBE_Edge (CUBE_Edge)
for daily updates on what's happening in urban
education around the country.
NSBA
News
Beginning
October 4, 2010, the National School
Boards Association will be modifying our
nsba.org and asbj.com website procedures to require
National Affiliate participants to login using their
email address and a password. Your password will be
either your NSBA I.D. number (printed on the top
line of your American School Board Journal mailing
label, to the right of your subscription expiration
date) or your chosen password if you have logged on
previously and changed your password. If you
cannot remember your password, our “Forget My
Password” functionality will send you an email
with a link that will allow you to change your
password. Once logged in, you will be able to
access information in both the NSBA and ASBJ
password-protected areas of the sites without
logging in again, and make updates to your contact
information. If you have any questions about
this procedure, please contact webmaster@nsba.org.
This change is a first step in a series of
enhancements being made to NSBA’s sites to
streamline access and improve your online experience.
Look for additional enhancements to the site in the
coming months.
NSBA's
Technology Learning Network (TLN) has announced
its 2010 Salute Districts who will be showcased at
the T+L Conference in Phoenix this fall. Among
the three recognized districts, CUBE member
district, Jefferson County (Louisville, KY) was
selected and will share some of the good things
happening in their district regarding executing
technology efforts and implementation. More
information about the conference can be found
below.
Registration
and housing are now open for NSBA’s annual T+L
Conference, the premier technology and learning
conference for school leaders. This year’s event,
to be held Oct. 19 to 21 in Phoenix, will focus on
change and the tools and programming you need. Go here
for more information, or here
to register.
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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