School Rankings : Daily Beast fails to mention Ridgewood in its top Schools Survey
The Daily Beast had this one,
8.26.14: The Back-to-School issue of Newsline is out. Click here to view the newsletter as a PDF. Please note that this version has the corrected Back-To-School Night schedule.
NEW! 8.26.14: REVISED Back-To-School Night Schedule: Travell School’s Back-To-School Night begins at 6:30 p.m. rather than 6 p.m. The Willard School Back-To-School Night for Grades K-2 has been changed from September 18 to September 23. Please click here for the newly revised schedule. Please note that this change is an update from that which is printed in the Newsline newsletter sent to Ridgewood homes last week.
8.13.14: Click here to read an opinion piece co-authored by Dr. Fishbein and River Dell Superintendent Patrick Fletcher on unfunded mandates, posted on NJ.com on August 8.
8.05.14: Back-To-School Information: Parents and guardians are asked to update emergency contact information and also are required to review various district policies and grant certain permissions. This Mandatory Annual Online Re-registration process takes place through Skyward Family Access between August 11 and September 12. Detailed instructions will be mailed to homes on or about August 11. For details and links, please click here.
8.12.14: The Ridgewood YWCA offers before and after school programs in the Ridgewood elementary schools. Pleaseclick here for information and registration forms.
The next Regular Public Meeting of the Ridgewood Board of Education will be held on Monday, September 8, 2014 at 7:30 p.m.
The public is invited to attend the meeting at the Ed Center, 49 Cottage Place, Floor 3. The meeting will be aired live on FiOS channel 33 and Optimum channel 77. Or it may be viewed live via the district website atwww.ridgewood.k12.nj.us using the “Link in Live” tab.
Click here to view the agenda for the August 25, 2014 Regular Public Meeting.
Click here to view the webcast of the August 25, 2014 Regular Public Meeting.
BOE at the 4th of July Parade
Ridgewood BOE takes on the Ice Bucket Challenge
GUESS WHO TOOK UP THE ICE BUCKET CHALLENGE? The BOE took the challenge on August 25 and put the REA up to the test!
Ridgewood BOE takes on the Ice Bucket Challenge
Ridgewood Public Schools
Published on Aug 25, 2014
Ridgewood NJ, The Ridgewood Board of Education was challenged to participate in the “Ice Bucket Challenge” by Mr. Scerbo to spread ALS awareness. In this video, Board members Sheila Brogan, Vincent Loncto and Christina Krauss challenge the REA to participate.
BOE MEETS TONIGHT MONDAY, AUGUST 25, 2014
The next Regular Public Meeting of the Ridgewood Board of Education will be held on Monday, August 25, 2014 at 5 p.m.
The public is invited to attend the meeting at the Ed Center, 49 Cottage Place, Floor 3. The meeting will be aired live on FiOS channel 33 and Optimum channel 77. Or it may be viewed live via the district website at www.ridgewood.k12.nj.us using the “Link in Live” tab.
Click here to view the agenda for the August 25, 2014 Regular Public Meeting.
Support for Common Core plummets, especially among teachers
August 20, 2014
WASHINGTON, D.C. – Support for the national Common Core education standards is falling like a rock, dropping 30 percentage points among teachers and about 12 percentage points among the public since last year.
Results from a poll released by Education Next, a scholarly education journal, show public support for Common Core slipped from 65 percent in 2013 to 53 percent this year, while the decrease among teachers was even more dramatic. Educators in support of Common Core fell from 76 percent last year to a mere 46 percent in 2014, the survey shows.
It was the same story with opposition to Common Core, which doubled among the public over the last year, going from 13 percent to 26 percent this year. The percent of teachers who oppose, meanwhile, more than tripled, skyrocketing from 12 percent to 40 percent in 2014, according to the poll.
“Especially intriguing is the flip in the opinion gap between teachers and the public as a whole. In 2013, teachers were more positive in their views of the Common Core than the public (76% compared to 65%), but today teachers are less positive (46% compared to 53%),” the Education Next report notes.
“A year ago, only 12% of the teaching force expressed opposition—virtually the same as the public. Today, teacher opposition is nearly twice as high as opposition among the public (40% compared to just 26%).”
That’s likely because more teachers now understand the many pitfalls and restraints imposed by the national learning standards as states have implemented more aspects of Common Core over the last year.
Educators, of course, are more engaged in education policy and see the detrimental effects first hand, and many are obviously realizing the “rigorous” new standards aren’t all they’re cracked up to be.
https://eagnews.org/support-for-common-core-plummets-especially-among-teachers/
Fmr resident George Bush taking the ALS Ice Bucket Challenge
Ridgewood accepts the ALS Ice Bucket Challenge
AUGUST 21, 2014 LAST UPDATED: THURSDAY, AUGUST 21, 2014, 4:41 PM
BY LAURA HERZOG
STAFF WRITER
Ice-cold water has been raining down on Ridgewood this past month, but the drenched are all smiles.
Last Friday, 11 teachers at Sara’s Pre-School on Prospect Street in Ridgewood lined up with buckets in front of the playground. About 50 children, ages 3-7, watched excitedly as their grimacing-but-game teachers poured ice-cold buckets of water on their heads, one by one.
“Do it again!” “Do it again!” “Do it again!” chanted the children.
These teachers are just a few of those in the village who are eagerly participating in the ALS Ice Bucket Challenge, the now-ubiquitous social media campaign that promotes awareness of the progressive neurodegenerative disease amyotrophic lateral sclerosis, commonly referred to as ALS or “Lou Gehrig’s Disease.”
At this point, anyone with a Facebook profile knows that the ALS Ice Bucket Challenge has exploded since it began earlier this summer, thanks to a chain reaction of ice bucket “challengers” who have nominated their Facebook friends to either post Facebook videos of themselves pouring ice water over their heads or donate to the ALS Association (or both).
– See more at: https://www.northjersey.com/community-news/clubs-and-service-organizations/ridgewood-accepts-the-als-ice-bucket-challenge-1.1071114#sthash.G2NelpSI.dpuf
Ridgewood Schools start on September 4!
8.19.14: REVISED Back-To-School Night Schedule: The Willard School Back-To-School Night for Grades K-2 has been changed from September 18 to September 23.
Please click here for the newly revised schedule. Please note that this change is an update from that which is printed in the Newsline newsletter coming to Ridgewood homes this week.
BOE MEETS MONDAY, AUGUST 25, 2014
The next Regular Public Meeting of the Ridgewood Board of Education will be held on Monday, August 25, 2014 at 5 p.m.
The public is invited to attend the meeting at the Ed Center, 49 Cottage Place, Floor 3. The meeting will be aired live on FiOS channel 33 and Optimum channel 77. Or it may be viewed live via the district website at www.ridgewood.k12.nj.us using the “Link in Live” tab.
Click here to view the agenda and addendum for the July 21, 2014 Regular Public Meeting.
Click here to view the webcast of the July 21, 2014 Regular Public Meeting.
Bergen County 2014 Budget – Online
We thought it could be instructive to review the Bergen County Budget which is $507 million + for fiscal 2014.
What are the county’s largest capital expenses? Keep in mind these costs are for projects with a projected completion of 2014-2019. If the projects miss the deadline, costs will increase.
Roads and bridges $88,125,000
Improvements to county buildings $13,937,450
Improvements to vocational schools $11,655,000
Improvements to county parks $11,598,500
Acquisition of equipment $30,183,250
Improvements to county college $8,625,000
Justice Center improvements $41,031,000
Hospital improvements $17,100,000
Total funding capital expenses $222,255,200
Where else does our tax money go? Additional expenses include:
Bergen County Debt Service (interest payments for previous expenses) is $67,566,670
Operations $401,601,228.66
Capital improvement $1,476,068
Deferred charges and statutory expenses (i.e. pension plan payments) $37,034,173
Total Appropriations 2014 – $507,678,139.66
Here’s the link to the document –
College Tuition Costs Soar: Chart of the Day
By Michelle Jamrisko and Ilan Kolet Aug 18, 2014 6:01 AM ET
The cost of higher education has jumped more than 13-fold in records dating to 1978, illustrating bloated tuition costs even as enrollment slows and graduates struggle to land jobs.
The CHART OF THE DAY shows that tuition expenses have ballooned 1,225 percent in the 36-year period, compared with a 634 percent rise in medical costs and a 279 percent increase in the consumer price index.
Some for-profit schools such as Corinthian Colleges Inc. have collapsed amid enhanced federal scrutiny, and three of the nine worst performers in the Russell 3000 index (RAY) are education companies. Yet university degrees are hardly on sale. The student loan debt burden threatens to overwhelm younger Americans, who already are finding a tougher labor market compared with their older counterparts.
“Some schools are effectively limiting cost increases by bigger tuition discounting, but on the whole college presidents have not adjusted to a fundamental shift in attitudes toward the value of a high-cost education,” said Richard Vedder, director of the Center for College Affordability and Productivity in Washington. “Colleges are too slow to reinvent themselves,” particularly as enrollments are waning, said Vedder, who is a Bloomberg View contributor.
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/2014-08-18/college-tuition-costs-soar-chart-of-the-day.html
Maybe Johnny Can’t Read Because These Workers Crowd Out Teachers
Kelsey Harkness / @kelseyjharkness / August 13, 2014
Teachers and other staff hold a ‘back to school’ meeting at K.W. Barrett Elementary School in Arlington, Va. (Photo: K.W. Barrett/Creative Commons)
Half of America’s public school employees aren’t classroom teachers, according to a new study. Instead, they’re non-teaching personnel such as instructional aides, bus drivers, cafeteria workers, secretaries, and librarians.
It hasn’t always been this way.
The study from the Thomas B. Fordham Institute, a nonprofit think tank specializing in education policy, found that the number of non-teaching staff grew by 130 percent from 1970 to 2010. Their salaries and benefits account for one-quarter of current education spending.
To show where each state is on the spectrum between least and most non-teaching personnel per 1,000 students, Fordham created this map:
Chart: Thomas B. Fordham Institute
So why are non-teachers on the rise? The Fordham Institute left that up to school district and state education officials to explain.
By using national, state, and local data, though, “The Hidden Half: School Employees Who Don’t Teach” attempts to draw attention to what some education experts consider an alarming trend.
By a wide margin, Nevada and South Carolina public schools had the fewest non-teaching workers per 1,000 students, at 26 and 28 respectively, the study found. Virginia, Vermont, and Wyoming had the most at 104, as the chart below shows.
Lindsey Burke, the Will Skillman Fellow in education policy at The Heritage Foundation, argues for reducing the number of non-instructional and administrative positions in public schools:
States should consider cutting costs in areas that are long overdue for reform and pursue systemic reform to improve student achievement. Specifically, states should refrain from continuing to increase the number of non-teaching staff in public schools.
Michael Petrilli, president of the Fordham Institute, told The Daily Signal that the results of the study should encourage policymakers to “raise tough questions about whether these trends are helping or hurting children.”
Among the most significant findings of “The Hidden Half’,” the authors say in a release on the study:
Since 1950, school staffing has increased nearly 400 percent, and non-teaching personnel played a major part in that growth. Passage of several pieces of federal legislation — Section 504, the Education for All Handicapped Children Act, and Title IX (Equal Opportunity in Education Act) — likely were instrumental in changing the makeup of schools.
America spends far more on non-teaching staff (as a percentage of education spending) than do most of the nation’s economic peers in the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development. The U.S. spends more than double what Korea, Mexico, Finland, Portugal, Ireland, Luxembourg, Austria, and Spain do. Only Denmark spends more.
States vary in staffing their schools, but much of the variation is because of differences within their borders. States with a large proportion of the population living in cities tend to have fewer workers per student. (See chart below.)
The category of teacher aides has been the largest gainer over the past 40 years. From 1970 to 2010, aides went from nearly non-existent to the largest group of workers other than teachers.
School districts vary greatly in number of employees, but the differences likely stem from staffing decisions made by leaders. Although factors such as location (rural, suburban, urban) and number of students in special education matter, they don’t explain most of the variation across school districts.
Too many regulations are overloading New Jersey’s schools: Opinion
By Patrick J. Fletcher
and Daniel Fishbein
It’s an unsettling question, but we’re obliged to ask it. Has the rapidly accelerating pace of public education-related government mandates now become utterly unsustainable?
In just the past few years, New Jersey legislators have chosen to burden local school districts with the umbrella of AchieveNJ, which includes the recent TeachNJ tenure reform act that imposes upon us a new teacher and administrator evaluation system, with student achievement data included as part of the process.
And as if that weren’t enough, there’s also the new computer-based student evaluation system known as PARCC, as well as updated curriculum programs and textbooks related to the implementation of the Common Core Standards.
https://www.nj.com/opinion/index.ssf/2014/08/too_many_regulations_are_overloading_new_jerseys_schools_opinion.html#incart_river
Obama prepares schools for enrollment of migrant children
By Mario Trujillo
The Obama administration is preparing the nation’s schools to accept thousands of new students who illegally crossed the Southwest border and are now awaiting trials on their possible deportations.
A fact sheet from the Department of Education tweeted out on Tuesday highlights the children’s right to attend public school.
The new back-to-school: Deeper discounts, longer sales
Hadley Malcolm, USA TODAY 11:53 a.m. EDT August 11, 2014
You may be basking in the last few weeks of summer and counting down to Labor Day getaways, but for retailers it was time to go back to school a month ago.
That’s when many of them started promotions for one of the biggest shopping periods of the year — one that’s also become perhaps the most prolonged shopping period of the year, with families buying back-to-school items from practically the fourth of July until after classes start. Deloitte’s annual back-to-school shopping survey out last month found that more than a quarter of parents plan to finish their shopping after the start of the school year.
“We’re seeing it expanded out throughout the season,” says Steve Bratspies, executive vice president of general merchandise for Walmart. He says customers are shopping more frequently and making smaller basket purchases over a longer period of time rather than doing one huge buy.
And that means stores are throwing absurdly cheap prices — think 17-cent notebooks — and price-matching guarantees at customers in an effort to stay relevant and competitive over three months of back-to-school shopping.
• Staples is offering a 110% price-match: If a customer finds a product cheaper somewhere else, Staples will match the price plus give the customer back 10% of the difference. And those 17-cent notebooks are part of a list of items at low prices for the entire shopping season. Rulers, glue, paper, colored pencils, erasers, crayons, ballpoint pens and markers are all on sale for a dollar or less through Labor Day.
• Walmart has 30% more back-to-school items available online than last year and is reducing prices on 10% more back-to-school items than last year both online and in stores. This month, a price-matching pilot program rolled out store-wide. It allows customers to enter an ID code listed on their in-store receipt at Walmart.com and compare the prices of everything they bought to all advertised prices from that week. If Walmart’s prices were more expensive, it will refund the difference in the form of an e-gift card.
Dhimmitude in Europe: How the fear of Muslim rage threatens free speech and democracy
August 9, 2014 By Tim Burton
Our forefathers fought for the freedoms we currently enjoy, including the right to free speech. Now fear of Muslim rage has inspired European governments to crack down on those very freedoms
BIRMINGHAM, UK, 06 August 2014
The concept of “dhimmitude” was introduced into Western discourse by the writer Bat Ye’or in 1983. “Dhimmitude” refers to the phenomenon of non-Muslims appeasing and surrendering to Muslims, and also to discrimination by Muslims against non-Muslims resulting in their eventual subjugation in Muslim majority regions. Over the past forty years or thereabouts, governments throughout Europe have imported large numbers of Muslims into our societies without any thought as to how this might affect the indigenous population.
Any opposition by indigenous Europeans to this huge social experiment was countered with charges of “racism”, “bigotry” and “Islamophobia” – and even when evidence was published of the criminal and anti-social behaviour of Muslims in our societies, such as this report from the Law and Freedom Foundation on the Muslim sexual grooming of young non-Muslim female children, where it was revealed that Muslims were 150-200 times more likely to indulge in such predatory behaviour – the response of those in power was to play down such reports for fear of Muslim rage.
Even when it became clear that Muslims were intentionally trying to subvert many of our institutions – such as with the Trojan Horse allegations concerning Birmingham schools – such allegations were initially ridiculed as being founded on “racism”, “bigotry” and “Islamophobia” but were later found to be not only substantiated, but far, far worse than had been originally thought, with boards of governors conspiring to introduce a hard-line Islamic agenda in several cities around the UK. Despite this, the Deputy Prime Minister, Nick Clegg, said that trying to introduce and reinforce British values in UK schools could upset “moderate” Muslims.
Read more at https://www.brennerbrief.com/dhimmitude-in-europe-how-the-fear-of-muslim-rage-threatens-free-speech-and-democracy-2/#hq1wPa4EFrd2HBOQ.99
Ridgewood Schools Back-To-School Information
Back-To-School Information: Parents and guardians are asked to update emergency contact information and also are required to review various district policies and grant certain permissions. This Mandatory Annual Online Re-registration process takes place through Skyward Family Access between August 11 and September 12. Detailed instructions will be mailed to homes on or about August 11. For more information in advance of the letter, please click here for the press release.
8.06.14: Back-To-School Night Schedule
SCHOOL DATE GRADES TIME
