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K12 Education School ADMINISTRATORS

Computer-use contracts for students, parents and teachers. Teacher, Student, family Rights

Page 1 ---- K-12 Education School Administers Page 2

School Surveillance - Technology Security Hey Teacher! Leave them Kids Alone!!

LAW SUIT - School District uses Webcam Technology to Spy on Students in their own home without permission.

Technology Standards for School Administrators

What Should the School Administrator Know About Technology?

Violation of school rules, or behavior that causes school strife, can result in all parents called, and some kids suspended and administrators fired!!

Student's Free Speech Rights and the Internet
At Issue: the school district's failure to realize the limits of its authority.
12/2009 K-12 School Administrators Responding to Cyber bullying or Sexting Situations Decision
Attorneys and experts said court decisions have been "all over the map," offering little clarity to confused school administrators. The U.S. Supreme Court has yet to take up a case involving student speech online; the governing decision is from the 1969 Tinker vs. Des Moines School District case, which held that student speech could not be limited unless it caused substantial disruption on campus.
California Federal District Court. Students, they say, have a 1st Amendment right to be nasty in cyberspace. "To allow the school to cast this wide a net and suspend a student simply because another student takes offense to their speech, without any evidence that such speech caused a substantial disruption of the school's activities, runs afoul" of the law, U.S. District Judge Stephen V. Wilson wrote in a 60-page opinion." "The mere fact that the Internet may be accessed at school does not authorize school officials to become censors of the World Wide Web," he wrote.
"It's better to have a lawsuit and lose some money than have a situation where a student commits suicide," said Eugene Volokh, a 1st Amendment expert and UCLA law professor who has criticized a bill in Congress that would make cyber-bullying punishable by up to two years in prison."
NOW K-12 SCHOOL ADMINISTRATORS AND IINSURANCE COMPANIES AND SCHOOL ATTORNEYS will advise principals not to suspend students for off-campus cyberbullying / sexting -- but there are other things that they should be doing about student free speech problems and solutions.

K-12 Education School Administrators are required to
provide professional development for teacher achievement.

K-12 COPYRIGHT LAW PRIMER for teachers DO'S AND DON'TS IS VERY IMPORTANT.

 

What is Legal in the K12 Classroom?

 

How healthy are the Vocational Training Schools in your School District?

In many countries, the belief is widely held that this is all a zero-sum game and as the proportion of university graduates increases, graduates will end up doing the kind of jobs that formerly were done by high school leavers. It is the first time that we were able to compile quantitative evidence on this and that is why we highlighted this.
The challenge for higher education will be not to simply produce more academic graduates of the same kind, but to diversify the supply and to retain an adequate balance between academically oriented qualifications and ones that are more closely tied to occupational orientations. Some countries are doing the latter in what we call tertiary-type B programs. But again, the point is that the skill demands have risen across the board, such that education that has previously been provided through apprenticeship routes now requires higher levels of qualification. Take the job of a car mechanic: In 1930, all the coded information for a GM car could be captured in 230 pages. Now a single car involves some 15000 pages of coded knowledge which workers will need to be able to access, manage, integrate and to evaluate.
The employment and earnings prospects of individuals with lower skills have in many countries deteriorated, in some seriously. Continued outsourcing are likely to increase these pressures further. So we have no indicators of a shortage of low-skilled workers. The proportion of low-skilled jobs in Europe has been steadily declining, in response to increased digitization, automatisation and outsourcing. This is reflected both in Education at a Glance 2007 (Indicator A8 (employment differentials) and Indicator A9 (earnings differentials). Indicator B7 suggests that the relationship between spending per student up to the age of 15 years and learning outcomes in education systems at 15 years, as measured by PISA, is at best weak (money invested explains only 15% of the performance variation among countries). So while money is a necessary prerequisite for effective education, it is by no means sufficient.

CHINA TRIES TO HAVE MORE IMAGINATION

 

China has a top-down education system. Local school systems are expected to follow orders from the Education Ministry. School administrators are expected to follow orders from the local education bureaucrats. Teachers are expected to follow orders of school administrators. Students are expected to follow orders of teachers.
A report by the McKinsey consulting from called China’s Looming Talent Shortage China’s education system a “stuffed duck”—one that emphasizes the regurgitation of outdated knowledge and leaves students lacking in language skills and practical experience—attributes employers are look for in a global market place.
Chinese educators are increasingly looking at Western models that emphasize critical, thinking and creativity as models to follow to improve learning and education in China.

It is a bit ironic while China is doing this United States is aiming to improve its education system by taking a more test-centered, math-focused approach like that used in Asia.

 

Salaries of School Administrators go to new heights.

The average superintendent salary in 2009 was $163,000. A 2008 state study found New Jersey’s $154,000 mean to be slightly below the regional average. New York’s average salary was $158,000. NJ 7/10

NY superintendents earn $300,000 salary and benefit package. 56 school administrators in Westchester now make more than $200,000 in total compensation, and 19 of them are assistants or deputies.
American Association of School Administrators also reports Nonsalary items given like car allowances, gasoline reimbursement, big severance payouts, and other expense account items -- allow boards to bump up pay without drawing scrutiny. According to the Educational Research Service, the national average salary for superintendents is just over $134,000, up about 43 percent from a decade ago. Average salaries for central office managers range from about $72,000 for subject area supervisors to $122,000 for deputy superintendents, reports J.D. Solomon. NYT 5/06

EDUCATIONAL ETHICS

 

12 Ethical Commandments for Educational Leaders
The American Association of School Administrators (AASA) has released a new code of ethical conduct for school leaders. The AASA Statement of Ethics for Educational Leaders outlines 12 key standards for school system leaders. The document affirms that the educational leader: (1) Makes the education and well-being of students the fundamental value of all decision making; (2) Fulfills all professional duties with honesty and integrity and always acts in a trustworthy and responsible manner; (3) Supports the principle of due process and protects the civil and human rights of all individuals; (4) Implements local, state and national laws; (5) Advises the school board and implements the board's policies and administrative rules and regulations; (6) Pursues appropriate measures to correct those laws, policies and regulations that are not consistent with sound educational goals or that are not in the best interest of children; (7) Avoids using his or her position for personal gain through political, social, religious, economic or other influences; (8) Accepts academic degrees or professional certification only from accredited institutions; (9) Maintains the standards and seeks to improve the effectiveness of the profession through research and continuing professional development; (10) Honors all contracts until fulfillment, release or dissolution mutually agreed upon by all parties; (11) Accepts responsibility and accountability for ones own actions and behaviors; and (12) Commits to serving others above self.

WHERE ARE THE ETHICS?
Persistently Dangerous Schools No Child Left Behind Act, each state must define a "persistently dangerous" school and allow parents to transfer their children out of them. But the Schools and the State don't report the information. The analysis also found that the dangerous schools provision does little to foster accountability on school safety issues -- and could actually discourage accountability in some schools and states.  In many cases, the schools lose dozens of students to ones that are presumed to be safer.

SILENCE OF SCHOOL OFFICIALS PUT PARENTS AT ARMS LENGTH
Schools nationwide are calling on parents to get involved, reports Jay Mathews in the Washington Post. The Maryland State Board of Education endorsed a broad range of family outreach initiatives in a 2005 report that called public education "a shared responsibility." Yet some Maryland parents and elsewhere have discovered limits on the get-involved policy when they ask questions about individual teachers, whether those queries are about alleged abuse of students or a decision to fire a popular instructor. School officials said they are required to hold back information because of privacy laws, union contracts and potential lawsuits. Some acknowledged that a more open policy would help families handle the repercussions of incidents involving teachers. But the officials said there is little they can do.

School districts must set aside money for future retiree benefits. Districts that fail to comply could see their bond ratings fall, making borrowing more expensive. More than 20 states are considering plans to cap or limit traditional retirement plans in favor of private savings accounts.

Jim Collogan, director of research for the National School Foundation Association has been urging school foundations to think beyond ''candy, calendars, and candles," and cultivate big donors, such as corporations or wealthy residents, whether they have children or not. School foundations should learn from colleges and universities, which tend to get the bulk of donations to education, Collogan said. Public schools are more accustomed to demanding money from state and local governments. [source]

"Common Elements of High Performing, High Poverty Middle Schools" (Middle School Journal, March 2002), Susan Trimble reviews the research and points to some common characteristics among a group of high-poverty high-performing middle schools in southeast Georgia which were the subjects of a three-year case study. During a three-year case study, Trimble found that all the successful schools used a grant writer or a team of grant writers who knew how to generate grant proposals that obtain additional funds to implement reform initiatives; they used teams to do their reform work, and they developed goals and used specific strategies to meet their goals

CHEATING

 

Cheating Politicians make money off of the business of education and get away huge profits from the tax payer without educating anyone.

CULTURE OF CORRUPTION - THE GOVERNMENT PROGRAMS FOR LITERACY AND READING

9/2006 The Inspector General of the Department of Education says the Bush administration's $4.8 billion dollar a year Reading First program ignored the law and ethical standards to steer money how it wanted and the conflicts of interest . BUSH'S FAMILY PROFITS FROM 'NO CHILD' ACT READING FIRST AND VOYAGER EXPANDED LEARNING BUSH'S FAMILY PROFITS FROM 'NO CHILD' ACT READING

Texas - Reading First Program owned by President Bush's brother Neil Bush is a Fraud Scam and Law suit.

Cheating Administrators

N.Y. Teachers Cheating, Records Show
7:20 am PST, 28 October 2003
Cheating in some New York state schools changed scores so much that it invalidated the "school report cards" used by parents, taxpayers and the state to evaluate the performance of schools and educators.
-- Records indicate 21 New York teachers have been caught cheating on behalf of students on standardized testing from 1999 through 2002, though some indicate the practice is more widespread than the record shows.

No Child Left Behind requiring schools to report student data from every state. The efforts are costing taxpayers several billion dollars a year. Building a data system to collect information from all the schools in a state can be extraordinarily daunting, involving the integration of computer systems used in hundreds of districts, each of which may have multiple databases using distinct operating systems and they won't work with each other. State Data managers and State Education Technology Directors do NOT know what they are doing.

Focus/SIS 1.0
A number of open source projects have been developed to help educators and administrators manage student data. With this application, users can utilize the web-based interface to create grade books, submit attendance, generate reports, and so on. This version of Focus/SIS 1.0 is compatible Mac OS X 10.1 and newer.

School crime and safety data

 

National Center for Education Statistics: Crime and Safety Surveys (CSS)
Compilation of school crime and safety data and reports, including the annual Indicators of School Crime and Safety (2002 to the present), and surveys of principals, teachers, and students. Includes reports on student discipline, victimization, gangs, bullying, weapons, drugs, and other school violence and crime topics. From the National Center for Education Statistics, U.S. Department of Education.
URL:

First Amendment Rights

Speech that takes place on a personal Web pages and from home. No school connection, no action taken.

Teachers

School Admin Systems

What is the Schools Interoperability Framework
SIF is an industry initiative to develop a specification for ensuring that K-12 instructional and administrative software applications can share information seamlessly. To date, SIF compliance criteria have not been determined.
How does it Work?
Industry vendors pay dues to belong. Members who have paid the fees get to use the logo and say they PARTICIPATE in the SIF initiative.
"The term PARTICIPATION describes an organization's interest and effort to further the development of the SIF specification. PARTICIPATION does not indicate an organization's level of compliance to the SIF specification. In other words, PARTICIPATION can not be associated with a company's goods or services." SIF compliance criteria have not been determined.

Satellite Streaming Video Broadcasts from Dept. of Ed.

Satellite Town Meetings 1-800-USA-LEARN
Apple Streams these meetings

Government Grants from the big 6

Remarks by Chairman Alan Greenspan ....

Structural Change In The New Economy July 11, 2000
Equally critical to our investment in human capital is the quality of education in our elementary and secondary schools.
Read More...

"An Educated Workforce is an Issue of National Security" -- Secretary of Education Rod Paige 2001

 

SECURITY

Find out how to :

CLEAN INFECTED COMPUTERS, FILTERING SOFTWARE, ABOUT HACKERS, TOOLS, RESOURCES, TROUBLE FINDERS, PRIVACY, CENSORSHIP, COPYRIGHT / COPYLEFT ISSUES, COMPANIES, ARTICLES, HISTORY

ADMINISTRATOR | TEACHER TRAINING

DON'T BUY IT GET IT FOR FREE

Why Use Linux?

The money Admins save will buy online curriculum, professional development and IT help!

Buying Learning Management Systems
Ask if their systems have been designed to be accessible for students with disabilities. None of them were accessible a couple years ago. Now most are working hard to change that. Blackboard is largely compliant with Section 508 but what about WebCT, eCollege, Prometheus,Virtual Ed, Angel, Jones Knowledge, Learning Space, Learning Springs, etc. If a school buys an inaccessible system, in case of a suit, it is the school and not the vendor who gets sued.
Blackboard and Jones are section 508 compliant, but that also comes with a caveat. They may have set their navigation and controls as compliant, but the content that is added by the user may, and most commonly may not be easily read through screen readers. And the content is what the user learns from, not how to navigate through the software. It is also important for those who may be looking at content providers who run on these platforms to make sure that the content is easily read through a screen reader for those with disabilities.

EvaluTech - Evaluation of instructional materials

Interactive School Technology and Readiness (STaR) Chart
A self-assessment tool designed to provide schools with the information they need to better integrate technology into their educational process. Here, you can complete an online, multiple-choice questionnaire that will provide you with instant feedback on how well your school is doing in this process. Provides a model for the integration and innovative use of education technology. The STaR Chart is not intended to be a measure of any particular school’s technology and readiness, but rather to serve a benchmark against which every school can assess and track its own progress.

Find all of these Applications and Tutorials listed below

ORIENTATION PROGRAMMING Mac ASP COLD FUSION (D)HTML & CCS
JavaScript Perl CGI PHP SQL VB XML

Associations

National Association of Elementary School Principals

National Association of Secondary School Principals

BC Principals and Vice Principals Association
The monthly journal of the BCPVPA - Canada
Adminfo is the monthly publication, September through June, of the BC Principals' & Vice-Principals' Association. Adminfo publishes both practical and theoretical stories. Richard Williams, Editor

INTEGRATE THE INTERNET into the
k-12 classroom

Read Textbook Reviews

** Read about the Advantages of DIGITAL Online Curriculum:
Online learners have a multisensory experience, by combining audio, video, text, and graphics where they can control the information they want, and when they want it all through Hypertext.

Virtual Schooling and Online Courses

Palm Applications in Education
Reviews of Palm OS applications are updated monthly on this Website from the Concord Consortium

DO NOT RELY ON TEXTBOOKS

SUCCESSFUL SCHOOLS BUDGET FOR ONLINE DIGITAL CURRICULA

Educational CyberPlayGround Online Curricula

School District Options for Providing Access to Appropriate Internet Content

 

R.I.P. Dr. Gerald Bracey
[In] a longitudinal study of male civil servants in Great Britain, now referred to as the Whitehall Study. . . .Researchers were surprised to find that mortality rates, as well as a range of stress-related illnesses, were inversely related to job status. Top managers were less likely than lower-status employees to suffer from high blood pressure, diabetes, heart disease--and they lived longer......So what explained the result? The researchers concluded that, contrary to popular wisdom, the lower-status workers experienced more stress precisely because they had less control over their work. . . The closer you are to ground level in U.S. schools, the more you become aware of the de-professionalizing power of complex educational systems and programs . . .
"The one person who was most effective nationally in countering the mainstream media contention of poor school performance in relation to other countries --- Dr. Gerald Bracey --- died last week. His annual " Rotten Apple Awards, primarily to those who used statistics selectively to support their prejudices, were wonderfully funny and appropriate.
How ronic that the single most powerful group shaping education reform for the last 20 years has been the Business Roundtable, most members of which long ago accepted, in their own businesses, Joseph M. Juran's and W. Edward Deming's contention that if a system was dysfunctional the fault almost always lay with the system and not the people in it, but refuse to apply that insight to education. Imagine the perversity of simultaneously offering billions for innovation while spending billions on standardization. I, of course, argue that the fundamental system problem in education is a curriculum that ignores the seamless nature of knowledge and how the brain processes it." ~ Marion Brady

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