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July 26, 2005
Service Announcement
There's been an obvious horizon line hiatus recently -- my car was broken into and my laptop was stolen a couple of weeks ago. I'm just now recovering the missing parts of my brain that my old computer contained. Sorry for the absence.
Article Round Up
Schools Set for Building Boom in Maryland
Maryland public schools are entering a mini-building boom, fueled by nearly $250 million in state construction funds announced this month.
Polk County's aspiring homeowners would have to shell out more than five times the current school impact fee if county commissioners adopt a consultant's recommendation. Fees for apartments and mobile homes would also rise dramatically. The consultant's study ordered by commissioners suggested upping the impact fee on new houses from the current $1,607 for a single-family home to $8,767, an increase of $7,160 -or 446 percent. If the consultant's plan is adopted in full, fees for new multi-family homes, such as apartments or duplexes, would go from $832 to $5,831 per unit, an increase of $4,999 -- or 601 percent. Mobile homes' fees would be hiked from $802 to $4,677, an increase of $3,875 -or 483 percent.
All Laptop High School to Open in Vale
At least, that's what they're saying in Vail, where about 350 students will ditch books for laptops this fall as the Southeast Side district opens the state's first all-wireless, all-laptop public high school. Students still will go to class and teachers still will create lesson plans, but textbooks are making way for electronic and online articles. Next door, in the 60,000-student Tucson Unified School District, workers are installing 300 Smart Boards in high-school math and English classrooms before school starts this fall.
What to do with vacant schools?
The Fairfax County School Board is poised to consider a multi-million dollar plan that would transfer 17 vacant school sites and administrative centers to the Board of Supervisors — clearing the way for the sites to be preserved as parks, converted into public facilities and affordable housing, or sold off to real estate developers. In return for the valuable properties, the school system is hoping the Board of Supervisors will increase its annual $130 million spending limit on school construction and renovations.
Photos: Eaves Wedding
Chicago, July 16, 2005
July 08, 2005
Article: McClymond's Health Clinic
Always interesting when the NY Times picks up an article on a local issue here in the Bay Area. McClymonds High School in West Oakland has an on-site health clinic...
Easing Troubled Emotion in a Troubled School
central station, community and housing development, education
July 01, 2005
Article: Ackerman demonized in the Guardian?
The San Francisco Bay Guardian is running a highly critical piece on Arlene Ackerman with a tabloid-like front cover portrayal of the SFUSD superintendent. The article is clearly for a teacher's union audience, but that doesn't necessarily mean the allegations regarding Ackerman's unwillingness to hear out dissenters are unfounded.
Books: Pedagogy of Freedom
Paulo Friere's Pedagogy of the Oppressed is one of the most influential progressive education texts of the 20th century. A Brazilian activist and educator, Friere (1921-1997) spent almost sixteen years in political exile after a military coup in 1964. In 1980 he returned to Brazil and in 1988 became the Municipal Secretary of Education in Sao Paulo when the Workers' Party (PT) he'd help found came into power.
Pedagogy of Freedom is Friere's final work, written as the precursor to a seminar he planned to co-teach at Harvard in 1997.
Continue reading "Books: Pedagogy of Freedom"