http://ppsequity.org Covering the beat of Portland Public Schools Sun, 14 Mar 2010 21:05:22 +0000 http://backend.userland.com/rss092 en The high school redesign process is a mess but I have to wonder if that’s intentional.  Closing the achievement gap isn’t that complicated.  The district has had many opportunities to work towards closing the gap but failed to do so. Here’s a list of some of the opportunities that the district has missed for better ... http://ppsequity.org/2010/03/14/zeke-smith-%e2%80%93-closing-the-gap-then-and-now/ here is the speech i gave Monday, March 8: Good evening. I am Nancy Ellen Rawley, the mother of two students, a 2nd and a 5th grader at North Portland school. I am co-publisher of PPS Equity.org and a PPS employee. I am also a member of PFTCE. But tonight I ... http://ppsequity.org/2010/03/13/starbase-speech-to-the-pps-school-board/ The Portland Public Schools board of education voted 4-3 tonight to approve another year of STARBASE, the Department of Defense's elementary school recruiting program. Principled "no" votes were cast by co-chair Ruth Adkins, Martin Gonzalez and Dilafruz Williams. David Wynde, Bobbie Regan, Pam Knowles and co-chair Trudy Sargent carried the resolution. http://ppsequity.org/2010/03/08/starbase-reauthorized-on-a-4-3-vote/ After a delay to get more information, the school board is once again poised to approve the STARBASE program, which sells the military access to fourth and fifth graders for a couple hundred thousand dollars. The rally is at 6pm Monday at district headquarters, 501 N. Dixon Street. From the event's ... http://ppsequity.org/2010/03/05/starbase-rally-monday-evening/ POWER Academy at Roosevelt had $24,962 in Title I funds remaining at the end of the 2008/09 school year.  So imagine my surprise when reviewing their 2009/10 Course Guide and I read: Under Oregon law, students cannot be required to pay a fee for classes that are part of the regular ... http://ppsequity.org/2010/03/04/free-public-education%e2%80%a6-but-please-donate-at-roosevelt/ The Portland Public School board is scheduled to vote March 8th on a program that would allow military recruitment, under the guise of science education, of PPS kids in grades K-5.  The program (STARBASE) has been in Portland schools since 1993.  PPS receives just over $300,000 per year for providing access to the ... http://ppsequity.org/2010/03/01/did-pps-waste-4964861-on-an-ineffective-math-and-science-program/ It sounds like the district got at least part of what they wanted regarding instructional time. What did teachers get, besides modest cost of living raises for two out of three years? What's the teacher mood? http://ppsequity.org/2010/03/01/teacher-contract-approved-whats-it-mean-for-teachers/ As we blog, march, form coalitions, and community-meeting ourselves into a frenzy over the blatant inequities in education in PPS there is still a population of families that are not being heard in the large public forums and whose issues are invisible to most. These are families of children with ... http://ppsequity.org/2010/02/26/inequities-in-special-education/ Here is the body of a letter to the Superintendent, School Board and Redesign Team.  This version contains a few more points and questions that I wish I had thought to include in the original.  My thanks to others out there whose research helped me write this. First, thank you for the ... http://ppsequity.org/2010/02/26/hs-redesign-resolution-a-few-suggestions/ Who's watching? Who's there? What's going on? http://ppsequity.org/2010/02/22/school-board-meeting-open-thread/