{"id":578108,"date":"2010-05-25T16:17:45","date_gmt":"2010-05-25T20:17:45","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/illinoiseducationassociation.org\/?p=8083"},"modified":"2010-05-25T16:17:45","modified_gmt":"2010-05-25T20:17:45","slug":"in-the-news-may-25","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/578108","title":{"rendered":"In the News ~ May 25"},"content":{"rendered":"

Below are<\/strong>\u00a0links to news stories of interest from\u00a0newspapers that came up during a search\u00a0today.\u00a0\u00a0These links were active at the time of this e-mail, but should you want to save a story, printing it or cutting and pasting the entire article and saving it to\u00a0your computer is recommended.<\/strong>\u00a0<\/p>\n

State News \"\"<\/em><\/h2>\n

D300 to vote on 34 more layoffs<\/a>
\nElgin Courier News – Those cuts have been made as the school board slashes its way toward $15 million from its budget for the coming school year to make up for nearly $12 million owed the district and potential cuts to education funding by the state. The June 3 meeting had been scheduled to choose an Algonquin Township resident to replace former school board member John Ryan, who resigned from the board earlier\u00a0<\/p>\n

Illinois gets $11.9M to track student progress<\/a>
\nChicago Defender – The federal education department says the system lets states examine student progress from their early childhoods through their careers. The systems also match students with teachers while protecting confidentiality. Duncan says this type of tracking helps teachers and principals and will help parents “better understand the unique educational needs of their child.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Rochester Board of Education adds \u2018sexting\u2019 policy<\/a>\u00a0 The Rochester Board of Education Monday night approved adding a policy regarding \u201csexting\u201d to the district\u2019s 2010-11 student handbook.\u00a0 \u00a0<\/p>\n

Local teacher is nationally recognized<\/a>
\nSouthern Illinoisan – A Southern Illinois teacher has gained national recognition for her work with students. Betsy Brown, a teacher at Lewis School in Carbondale and a volunteer history fair coordinator at Carbondale Middle School, \u00a0<\/p>\n

Board declines teacher’s second request to join Marine husband<\/a>
\nElmwood Park Elm Leaves –\u00a0 a second request for unpaid leave to join her husband on military duty overseas. Stephanie Henry, a tenured second-grade teacher in Elmwood Park Community Unit School District 401, thanked the school board May 19 while standing at the lectern during its regular meeting for consideration of her second request.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n

Cerro Gordo music program is tops in its class<\/a>
\nDecatur Herald and – Cerro Gordo’s school board meets in the band room at the high school, so on meeting days band director Barb Ozier has to push instruments and chairs around to make room. That’s life in a small school \u00a0<\/p>\n

Palatine High senior sentenced for taking gun to school<\/a>\u00a0 A Palatine High School student was sentenced in Cook County Circuit Court Wednesday to a jail boot camp program for taking a handgun to…\u00a0<\/p>\n

Students fight budget cuts<\/a>\u00a0 Bearing books and band instruments and wearing sports uniforms, more than 250 Chicago high school students on Monday afternoon protested sweeping cuts to public education by \u2026 studying.\u00a0<\/p>\n

CNN: Can Chicago student beat the educational odds?<\/a>\u00a0 (Jen Christensen, News, National)\u00a0 “There isn’t one urban school district in the country — Chicago, L.A., New York, D.C. — you could go right down the list — Philly, Baltimore — there’s not one urban system yet, where the dropout rate is low enough and the graduation rate is high enough,” said U.S. Secretary of Education Arne Duncan in a recent interview with CNN. “There’s been lots of progress, including in Chicago, but no one is satisfied. We have to get better faster.” In Chicago only 37 percent of African-American males graduate from its public schools, according to Elaine Allensworth, the co-director of the Consortium on Chicago School Research at the University of Chicago. “It’s an absolute tragedy that we’re facing right now,” Allensworth said. In Chicago “only 2.5 percent finish college by the time they turn 25 — it’s beyond inexcusable.”\u00a0<\/p>\n

Hogan\u2019s zeroes; $620,000 salary is way too much<\/a>
\nDixon Telegraph – will top $10,000 a year \u2013 also a lot of zeroes, but for people who can\u2019t afford them. In making those decisions, the U of I trustees \u2013 most of whom were selected by Gov. Pat Quinn after last year\u2019s admissions scandal, and all of whom serve at his pleasure \u2013 turned a blind eye to Illinois\u2019 terrible finances.<\/p>\n

Political News <\/em><\/h2>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n

Dems float budget plan with deep education cuts<\/a>\u00a0 The (Bloomington) Pantagraph – With lawmakers gearing up for a final push to craft a state budget, some Democrats are proposing deep spending cuts, including to state universities. A group of mostly Chicago-area Democrats rolled out plans for $100 million in cuts to public higher education and $300 million slashed from local schools. “It’ll probably take us farther down this road of looking at future budget cuts,” said Southern Illinois University spokesman David Gross.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Dems propose insurance increases for state retirees<\/a>\u00a0 Calling it a “tough-love exercise,” a group of Democratic lawmakers have proposed budget reforms that include making retired state employees pay health insurance premiums. More than 90 percent of retirees pay no premiums now.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Democrats consider backup options to get budget OK<\/a>\u00a0 Chicago Tribune –\u00a0 Monday started exploring two backup options on the major obstacle of how to make a $3.7 billion state worker pension payment. A House committee approved a measure that would allow Gov. Pat Quinn to skip the payment next year. That has emerged as an option after Republicans balked at borrowing to cover the pension costs for the second year in a row.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n

Bill to expand video gambling advances<\/a>\u00a0 St. Louis Post-Dispatch – An Illinois House committee on Monday passed a measure that would allow truck stops to legally host paying video gambling machines under Illinois’ controversial new video gaming law. The measure has already passed the Senate, so if the full House approves, it will go to Gov. Pat Quinn.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Daily Herald: Don’t fall for state budget gimmicks<\/a>\u00a0 Daily herald – Are we that dumb? Gov. Pat Quinn and some legislators seem to think we are. They think voters in Illinois will fall for populist budgetary gimmicks that politicians can tout during this election year but that our state cannot afford.<\/p>\n

Register Star: A busy week in Springfield<\/a>\u00a0 Rockford Register Star\u00a0 – The Illinois General Assembly got back to work Monday in the hope that lawmakers would wrap up their work before the end of the week. The budget is the top priority, and we’d like to see a spending plan that makes serious cuts yet preserves vital programs that serve the least among us.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Sweeny: First day\u2019s work on state budget: House meets 1 hour<\/a>\u00a0 Rockford Register Star – Can anyone here drive this train? That’s what lawmakers and average residents wonder as the Illinois House and Senate return to finish the business of passing a state budget that everyone expects will be hopelessly underfunded.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Bill Brady makes another campaign stop in Rockford<\/a>
\nWREX (NBC) 13 –\u00a0 Brady brings his campaign for governor to Rockford again. Brady toured the Woodward Governor Company facilities and met with employees on Monday morning. Brady is up against current Governor Pat Quinn and green party candidate Rich Whitney in the November election. Whitney brought his campaign to Rockford on Friday.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n

Report: Brady voted for bills that benefited him<\/a>\u00a0 CHICAGO \u2014 Republican gubernatorial candidate Bill Brady voted for legislation as an Illinois state senator in 2003 that could have benefited his business interests as a developer, according to a published report.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Brady denies conflict of interest<\/a>
\nPeoria Journal –\u00a0 voted for legislation as an Illinois state senator in 2003 that could have benefited his business interests as a developer, according to a published report. Brady, who faces Democratic Gov. Pat Quinn in November, has worked for more than two decades in his family home construction business in central Illinois. After the state announced plans in 2002 for an Interstate 57 interchange near\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n

Our Opinion: Release of tax returns fosters public trust<\/a>
\nSpringfield State Journal Register – To put it mildly, Illinois\u2019 last two governors did little to inspire public trust in the office of the state\u2019s chief executive where money is concerned. We would expect that anyone who desires to be governor in Illinois would be aware of this, and would do everything within reason to dispel any public suspicion of his or her financial affairs\u00a0<\/p>\n

Our View: Damage estimate from ex-guv still climbing<\/a>
\nPeoria Journal Star –\u00a0 All told, Blagojevich’s office actually picked up the check for a paltry $22,000 of the $7.2 million – less than 1 percent of the total. Gov. Pat Quinn sensibly ordered all these dubious practices to be curtailed shortly after he took over. Nonetheless, it’s both sickening and shocking each time new examples of waste and bad choices\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u00a0National News<\/h2>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u00a0Boston Globe: U.S. education chief Duncan says 300,000 teachers could lose jobs<\/a><\/p>\n

(David Abel, News, National)<\/p>\n

\u201cUS Education Secretary Arne Duncan warned yesterday that as many as 300,000 teachers nationwide, including 4,000 teachers in Massachusetts, could lose their jobs this year if Congress does not provide additional money to aid struggling states and municipalities.\u201d<\/p>\n

Politico: Education debate remains heated<\/a><\/p>\n

(Mike Allen, News, Washington, D.C.)<\/p>\n

\u201cRep. George Miller (D-Calif.), chairman of the House Education and Labor Committee, says the No Child Left Behind law will be updated this year to allow \u2018some additional flexibility at the local level for outcomes, for results. Data that has been released under No Child Left Behind [show] where we\u2019re having success and where we\u2019re not having the success,\u2019 Miller told POLITICO in an interview for the video series \u201cThe Politics of America\u2019s Youth<\/a>.\u201d \u2018We\u2019d really like now to put more emphasis on better teachers, more emphasis on better leadership and then stand back and hold them accountable for results.\u2019 The updates are part of a reauthorization of the Elementary and Secondary Education Act, originally passed in 1965 as part of President Lyndon B. Johnson\u2019s War on Poverty and amended under President George W. Bush as the No Child Left Behind Act.\u201d<\/p>\n

Telluride Daily Planet: Telluride considers a pay- for-performance system<\/a><\/p>\n

(Matthew Beaudin, News, Colorado)<\/p>\n

\u201cThe Telluride R-1 School District is on the cusp of implementing a pilot program that would pay teachers more based on high performance \u2014 not groundbreaking entirely as large districts already use such systems \u2014\u00a0but unheard of in small, high-achieving districts like this one. The system would judge teachers in three areas: leadership, innovation and student growth. A starting teacher earns $38,000 a year here, and if that teacher excelled by district standards then he or she could earn $41,000. The numbers jump up as experience and education do: an expert, or \u201cmaster,\u201d teacher earns up to $73,000, which could jump to $80,000.\u201d<\/p>\n

Sun Sentinel: Research shows teacher merit pay might improve classroom focus and productivity<\/a><\/p>\n

(Dan Goldhaber, Op-Ed, Florida)<\/p>\n

\u201cA growing body of empirical research shows that the most important schooling factor influencing student achievement is teacher quality. These findings suggest that improving the quality of the teacher workforce presents policymakers with a tremendous opportunity to dramatically improve the educational achievement of America’s students. It is the weak relationship between teacher credentials and productivity that has prompted some to call for using more direct measures of performance to determine teacher pay. Had SB 6 bill not been vetoed, it would have tied teacher pay to student performance on standardized tests (and eliminated tenure). Is this the right thing to do?\u201d<\/p>\n

Oregon Public Broadcasting: Oregon Gets $10.5 Million To Track Student Achievement<\/a><\/p>\n

(Rob Manning, News, Oregon)<\/p>\n

\u201cOregon has its third multi-million dollar federal grant in three years to improve the tracking of student achievement.\u201d<\/p>\n

TIME.com Today’s Top Stories<\/a><\/p>\n

The Gulf Oil Spill: A Crisis The White House Can’t Yet Answer<\/a><\/p>\n

Will Sanctions on North Korea Do Any Good?<\/a><\/p>\n

South Korean President Lee Myung Bak made big news by announcing a new slate of sanctions against North Korea, including the cessation of all trade between the two Koreas<\/p>\n

Why Are Hindu Honor Killings Rising in India?<\/a><\/p>\n

Though often associated with the Taliban and other extremist religious Muslims, Hindu honor killings are on the rise in India, exacerbated by the persistence of the caste system<\/p>\n

White House Supports Repeal of “Don’t Ask Don’t Tell” <\/a><\/p>\n

On Monday, the White House fulfilled the hopes of gay rights groups by agreeing to support an effort in the House and Senate to approve a repeal of “Don’t Ask Don’t Tell”<\/p>\n

An Unlikely Outsider in Colombia’s Presidential Race<\/a><\/p>\n

With Uribe disallowed another term, the eccentric but popular mayor of Bogot\u00e1 is suddenly neck and neck with the establishment presidential candidate\u00a0<\/p>\n

Obama backs ‘don’t ask’ compromise that could pave way for repeal<\/a>
\nPresident Obama has endorsed a “don’t ask, don’t tell” compromise between lawmakers and the Defense Department, the White House announced Monday, an agreement that may sidestep a key obstacle to repealing the military’s policy banning gay men and lesbians from serving openly in the armed forces.
\n(By Michael D. Shear and Ed O’Keefe, The Washington Post)<\/p>\n

Administration torn on getting tough with BP<\/a>
\nThe tenuous alliance among the Obama administration, the oil firm BP and Gulf Coast officials was visibly fraying on Monday, with exasperation on all sides mounting as oil from a deep-water gusher began lapping at the region’s environmentally fragile shoreline.
\n(By Karen Tumulty and Steven Mufson, The Washington Post)<\/p>\n

Moran portfolio shows Congress’s leeway in trading<\/a>
\nHe was a stockbroker before he became a politician, and he continued playing the markets during his rise through Congress.
\n(By Robert O’Harrow Jr. and Dan Keating, The Washington Post)<\/p>\n

Worried about market turmoil? You shouldn’t be if you’re investing safely.<\/a>
\nWhat should you do with your investments if you hear that the Dow has suddenly dropped 1,000 points in 20 minutes? Or that euro panic has sent stocks swooning? The right answer should be “nothing.” Because if you have to worry about a thousand-point Dow drop ruining your life, your problem isn’t …
\n(By Allan Sloan, The Washington Post)<\/p>\n

Man admits elderly swindle<\/a>
\nThe scheme got its start, Montgomery County prosecutors said Monday, when an 87-year-old woman pulled into a gas station 3 1\/2 years ago looking for directions home.
\n(By Dan Morse, The Washington Post)<\/p>\n

Word of the Day for Tuesday, May 25, 2010<\/em><\/h1>\n

shivaree<\/strong> \\SHIV-uh-ree\\, noun<\/em>:<\/p>\n

1.<\/strong> A mock serenade with kettles, pans, horns, and other noisemakers given for a newly married couple.
\n2.<\/strong> An elaborate, noisy celebration.<\/p>\n

verb<\/em>:
\n1.<\/strong> To serenade with a shivaree.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Below are\u00a0links to news stories of interest from\u00a0newspapers that came up during a search\u00a0today.\u00a0\u00a0These links were active at the time of this e-mail, but should you want to save a story, printing it or cutting and pasting the entire article and saving it to\u00a0your computer is recommended.\u00a0 State News D300 to vote on 34 more […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4160,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-578108","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/578108","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4160"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=578108"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/578108\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=578108"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=578108"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=578108"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}