Cairo Association of Teachers - Newsletter

CAT Tracks for April 1, 2009 GIANT WORM EATS SCHOOL STIMULUS DOLLARS

Must have been a bookworm...

Of course, if Cairo School District officials "stay the course", it wouldn't make much difference. If they stash this new money away in the First National Bank along with the current $3,116,708.60 and refuse to spend it - even if it is called STIMULUS money - then it doesn't really matter.

Kinda reminds me of the old "If a tree falls in the forest..." story.

If Cairo School District officials refuse to spend the money, does the money really exist???

Anyway...

Couldn't let the day - the APRIL FOOL'S DAY - go by without honorable mention of the "Conflicker Worm" which may or may not take over your computer today.

If it does, have no fear, Channel 12 is here!

How to get rid of the Conficker worm

Heartland News (KFVS) -- Will the Conficker worm be a nightmare for computer users today - or will it turn out to be another deal like the Y2K problem: more talk than action? No one knows for sure, but like Y2K, the best defense - is a good defense.

Computer users who normally don't pay much attention to virus protection have been checking their computers to make sure it's shielded from the bug. There are a number of tools available to rid computers of the infection. And it's relatively easy for people to tell whether their computer might be affected by the bug.

The worm is considered especially dangerous because it spreads without human involvement. It's believed that more of the bugs might become active on April Fools Day, which is why you've been hearing so much about it recently.

Microsoft has a website set up to help you detect if your computer has the Conficker worm. The site can also help you remove it.

Follow this link to get to the Microsoft help site.

Now, about those stimulus dollars...

From Yahoo News

Stimulus dollars to be released for schools

By AP Education Writer Libby Quaid

WASHINGTON – The first round of school dollars from the economic stimulus law is going to states this week.

To mark the occasion, Education Secretary Arne Duncan on Wednesday is visiting first- and fifth-grade classes at Doswell Brooks Elementary School in Capitol Heights in the Maryland suburbs of Washington.

Public schools will get an unprecedented amount of money — double the education budget under President George W. Bush — from the stimulus law over the next two years.

On Wednesday, the administration is making available half of the dollars for federal programs that fund kindergarten through 12th grade and special education. In addition, Duncan will provide applications for states to get money from a special fund to stabilize state and local budgets.

President Barack Obama says the stimulus will save teachers' jobs, although there is no estimate of how many jobs will be rescued. Nationwide, about 294,000 teachers — 9 percent — may face layoffs because of state budget cuts, according to a University of Washington study.

However, loopholes created by Congress could let states and school districts spend the money on other things, such as playground equipment or new construction.

Duncan said last week he will "come down like a ton of bricks" and withhold the second round of funds from anyone who defies Obama's wishes.

At the same time, the administration wants to do more than save teachers' jobs. Obama wants to transform the federal government's role in education. His administration views the stimulus bill as a once-in-a-lifetime chance to put lasting reforms in place.

In their applications, states must show improvement in teacher quality, data systems, academic standards and tests and supporting struggling schools.

States and districts will also have a chance to compete for money from a $5 billion fund solely for these kinds of innovations. Previous education secretaries had a fraction of that, about $16 million a year, to distribute for their own priorities.

From the Washington Post...

$100 Billion to Fix the Public Schools

By Lois Romano
Washington Post Staff Writer

He may have tanked his tryout for the Boston Celtics, but as President Obama's education secretary, Arne Duncan has hit the jackpot: an unprecedented $100 billion at his disposal to try to turn around the nation's public schools. The 44-year-old career education administrator is juggling a lot of balls as he begins to parcel out stimulus money to the states, tackles the much-maligned No Child Left Behind reauthorization legislation, and figures out how to get rid of bad teachers -- and pay the good ones more. The 6-foot-4-inch Duncan met Obama in Chicago, where the two were pickup basketball buddies, and where Duncan headed the 600-school district. He says his family has made a quicker transition to his exalted role in Washington than he expected, and yes, his own children attend public school, in Arlington. But he won't say where he and the president play ball these days.

Romano: Did President Obama give you some specifics that he wanted you to tackle?

Duncan: He wanted the opportunity to drive up college graduation rates.

Romano: The education budget has been doubled, to $100 billion. Where do you start?

Duncan: First and foremost . . . we want to save hundreds of thousands of teaching jobs. . . . Secondly, we want to drive a very strong reform agenda. . . . Simply investing in the status quo isn't going to get us where we need to go.

Romano: Aren't you a little bit powerless, because the states are going to decide how to spend the money?

Duncan: Well, we're going to work very, very closely with those states, and we will give out over the next couple weeks billions of dollars. But we're going to keep billions of dollars here to really watch and monitor how states do in terms of implementing these reforms.

Romano: You are prepared to go around South Carolina Republican Governor Mark Sanford [who has refused stimulus money] to get $700 million into the hands of those school districts?

Duncan: In a state where so many children aren't getting the quality education today and where there's so much unmet need, to turn away money for whatever political reason there might be doesn't make sense.

Romano: How many months a year should children be going to school, in your view?

Duncan: I fundamentally think our children are at a competitive disadvantage. The children in India and China who they are competing [with] for jobs are going to school 25, 30 percent more than we are.

Romano: One of the hottest issues right now is teacher merit raises, and how to get rid of poor teachers.

Duncan: You want to reward those excellent teachers or principals who take on the toughest of assignments. . . . And on the flip side, if teachers aren't -- aren't getting the job done . . . they need to find another profession. In some school districts, they actually have peer review, peer evaluation, and I would tell you where teachers are doing peer review and peer evaluation, they are very, very tough.

Romano: No Child Left Behind. Teachers have soured on [the Bush administration law]. They say that they're teaching to the test, that they have no room for creativity.

Duncan: What didn't work was this idea of 50 states . . . setting their own standards. . . . What they did is they were very loose on the goals, on the benchmarks, but very, very tight in how you get there. I think we need to reverse that. We need to have a tight, clear bar that we are all shooting for . . . but provide much more flexibility and the ability to innovate and be looser in how folks get there.

Go to http://www.washingtonpost.com/voices-of-power to watch the full video interview.

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