Monday, January 5, 2004

Mars Rover Lands Successfully

The NASA Mars Rover Spirit landed successfully on the surface of Mars Saturday night at around 11:30 P.M. (EST). The lander immediately sent back an "I'm okay" message and has since begun sending initial photographs of itself and its Martian surroundings.

This is one time when I'm really glad I now teach special education, rather than my previous posting as a 6th grade social studies/science teacher. If I'd stayed in the old slot, I'd be on absolute overload right now from all the goodies already available from NASA and others on the probe landing. It even gets better, as a second lander, Opportunity, should land on the Martian surface Saturday, January 24, 2004, at around 6:05 P.M. (EST).

While there's almost too much data to assimilate already, here are some links to relevant pages to get you started exploring what is out there. All images above are courtesy NASA/JPL and/or the Mars Exploration Rover Mission.

• Mars Exploration Rover Mission home page
• Spirit Lands On Mars and Sends Postcards (NASA press release)
• NASA rover lands safely on red planet (CNN)
• Image Gallery
• Video Gallery
• Spirit Raw Images (large page of images downloaded so far)
• Spacecraft Images

While there's no posting as of this writing, be sure to keep an eye on Dr. Tony Phillips's Science@NASA page. He's sure to have some great "canned" lessons coming out in the next few days and weeks.

Some general links from various news sources often add a bit of color and related links on the subject.

• ABC News Science and Technology
• CBS News Science and Technology
• MSNBC Science and Technology
• Yahoo Mars Rover Coverage

Arrest instead of Detention

The New York Times Sara Rimer tells of a new trend in schools in Unruly Students Facing Arrest, Not Detention. Rimer writes that unruly students are being arrested or detained by police in a number of school systems for what previously would have been infractions involving detention, suspension, or some other type of school discipline. I'm not sure if this is one of those columns that bashes schools, when in reality, the situation(s) called for extreme action, or whether Ms. Rimer has uncovered a disturbing trend in schools.

Vallas Gets High Marks

The Washington Post's Michael Dobbs takes a look at Philadelphia School's chief, Paul Vallas, after 18 months on the job. Dobbs writes in An Education 'Dynamo' Recharges Philadelphia Schools that Vallas "has won praise from both left and right."

New School Opens

I've never taught in a brand new school building. I have gone through any number of renovations, one of which had my teaching partner and I teaching sixth grade in a school gymnasium for two months when our school's remodeling didn't get done on time! But some folks in Waltham (MA) have to be happy today as they open a brand new, state-of-the-art school building. The Boston Globe's Emily Sweeney tells the story in Grade school opening is set for tomorrow.

Bush Touts NCLB

Talk about your reality distortion fields, President Bush has Steve Jobs beat all over the place. In his Saturday radio address, the President lauded his No Child Left Behind education bill, again saying, "The time for excuses has passed." I totally agree and invite the President to stop making excuses and admit that NCLB is an underfunded sham to facilitate voucher programs across the country. Well, anyway, AP writer Deb Riechmann tells of the address in Bush Decries Critics of New Education Law.

No Change in Washington State School Lunch Menus

AP education writer Ben Feller reveals that schools closest to where a Holstein infected with mad cow disease was slaughtered will not be removing beef from their menus. In Washington Schools Weigh Beef Scare, Feller writes that "school officials said they are relying on the federal government's message: The food supply remains safe." He also quotes Jean Daniel, a spokeswoman for the Agriculture Department's Food and Nutrition Service, as saying, "We're very pleased to report that none of the affected meat is in the national school lunch program, and we have notified our states of that."

Soft Drinks on the Way Out in Schools?

The American Academy of Pediatrics is taking a stand against soft drinks in schools via a policy statement published today in its January issue of Pediatrics. In Group Seeks to Eliminate Sodas in Schools, AP Medical Writer Lindsey Tanner reports the Academy says " Soft drinks should be eliminated from schools to help tackle the nation's obesity epidemic and pediatricians should work with their local schools to ensure that children are offered healthful alternatives."

Software

I was looking around for something new and different to post here for today, but instead stumbled across an "old" favorite that deserves a mention. Matthew Fahrenbacher's Unscrambler 2.0 is a simple freeware utility that...what else...unscrambles words. We make regular use of Unscrambler for pages included by uninformed authors of educational materials who include answers lists as scrambled words. If you're dyslexic, scrambled is great for eggs, especially with peppers and cheese, but for a list of possible answers, it's idiotic. So, my kids have "standing orders" to get out their iBook and fire up Unscrambler whenever they run into an assignment with scrambled words on it. When you punch in "bulensmarc," it comes out to "unscramble."

Thanks to Matthew for a great educational freeware application!

A Software Word to the Wise

I've been looking for an alternative to ClarisWorks/AppleWorks for my MATH DITTOS 2 series of shareware math workbooks. Having worked with PageMaker years ago, I decided to download the trial version of inDesign from Adobe and see what it was like. I did and was overwhelmed when I opened inDesign the first time. I later tried to use Photoshop Elements 2 (and even AOL for OS X) and found that a bunch of stuff was screwed up. The only thing I'd done that could have caused the damage was installing the inDesign trial version (v. 2.0). Maybe inDesign CS is better, but I'm just sitting tight right now. Maybe Apple will actually release the rumored iWrite software suite at Macworld Expo. And...maybe it will actually correctly import previous AppleWorks and ClarisWorks documents. Yeah, and maybe pigs will fly.

Tuesday, January 6, 2004

Democratic Candidates Agree NCLB Is a Bust

According to Des Moines Register staff writer Jonathan Roos, "Democratic presidential candidates roundly criticized President Bush's education policies Sunday, especially the federal school-reform law that Bush championed." Roos reports in Federal reform has failed, rivals agree that candidates participating in a two-hour televised debate in Des Moines pretty much trashed NCLB as being intrusive, underfunded, unfair to many students, and punitive and disrespectful of teachers.

Oh, my!

Dallas Morning News columnist Ruben Navarrette has penned a particularly naive, anti-teacher editorial that was carried in the Sunday Indianapolis Star, Who is accountable for student progress? Navarrette favors a proposal in Dallas to "tie 25 percent of the educator's annual evaluation directly to student performance on standardized tests."

On the Other Hand

Veteran special educator Shirley L. Stone has contributed a thoughtful editorial in the Rocky Mountain News, Speakout: Some students will be left behind. Ms. Stone writes:

The fact is, there will be children "left behind." In a marathon, not all runners end the same. Variations in their physical and intellectual abilities, their motivation, and their training cause irregular performances. This is true in the mental "marathon" of education.

Maybe we should write a thoughtful editorial for our local papers!

Hmm...

Well, the cat's out of the bag now. According to Minneapolis Star Tribune writer Josephine Marcotty in State's abstinence-only sex education doesn't work any better, report says, the Minnesota Department of Health has posted a report that reveals that "the state's $5 million abstinence-only sex education program isn't working." Marcotty writes, "The study found that sexual activity among junior high kids at three schools where the program was taught doubled between 2001 and 2002 -- a pattern similar to that exhibited by kids statewide."

More Police in New York City Schools

The New York Times's Elissa Gootman reports on a new initiative announced yesterday by Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg to curb school violence that will place 150 police officers in 12 of New York City's most violent schools. In Police Task Force Dispatched to Unruly New York Schools, Gootman quotes Mayor Bloomberg as saying:

For too long, we've slowly found ourselves sinking further and further into a pit where anything is tolerated, where the teachers don't have a safe environment, where the teachers can't do their job and the students can't learn. We brought crime down in the city &emdash; everybody said it couldn't be done. There's no reason why we can't bring crime down in the schools.

Macworld San Francisco Keynote

For those of you who are free at 12 noon (EST) and have a good broadband connection, the Macworld keynote speech will be webcast via QuickTime Streaming Server. Go here for the speech. Ah, but be sure you have QuickTime 6.5 installed.

Science@NASA

Dr. Tony Phillips's Science@NASA site has posted Spirit Hits the Sweet Spot. "NASA's Mars rover Spirit has landed in Gusev Crater, and it is beaming pictures back to Earth."

Wednesday, January 7, 2004

Hopes for Autism Drug Fade

The results of the largest and most definitive clinical trial of the drug secretin have been completed, showing no better effect than a placebo in improving the social interaction of young children with autism. The New York Times's Andrew Pollack chronicles the results and what led up to this round of tests in Trials End Parents' Hopes for Autism Drug. It's an informative, if disappointing, read.

Edwards Education Proposals

Democratic presidential hopeful John Edwards "called his support of the Bush administration's education program a mistake" and made a number of proposals to help America's schools. In Edwards Proposes Bush Education Overhaul, AP writer Amy Lorentzen said Edwards, speaking before supporters in Waterloo and Cedar Rapids suggested programs to help teachers and students meet test criteria and a general review of the whole NCLB law. Also proposed were salary increases for teachers, financial assistance for teachers and those preparing to teach in "underserved areas," building new schools and breaking up larger ones to lower class size, boosting college preparatory curriculum for low-income students, an adopt-a-school program that would form partnerships between universities and schools in high-poverty areas, and creating a voluntary, high-quality after-school system at or near every school.

The proposals above sound great, but this is a political campaign, after all. It sounds very much like "a chicken in every pot."

Macworld Expo San Francisco

Apple Computer announced a number of new products and upgrades yesterday in the Macworld Expo keynote speech by Apple CEO Steve Jobs. Possibly the most relevant product to education probably is the new Xserve G5 rack mount server. Other introductions and upgrades include the iLife '04 suite (upgrades to iPhoto, iMovie, and iDVD, with a new application, GarageBand), mini iPods, and video editing software Final Cut Express 2. (Photo at right Courtesy Apple Computer, Inc.)

We're Outa Here!

Educators' News is no longer an active site. It was regularly published from April 18, 2001, through April 18, 2003. Content from the site (archives and features) will remain available via the current URLs through February 29, 2004.

For those seeking current education news, let me recommend the following links:

For Macintosh specific news, including some education links, let me suggest:

My sincere thanks go out to the regular readers and contributors to this site for their support over the last two years. Please stay in touch. I'm not dying, just closing this part of the site:-).

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