Tuesday, September 4, 2001

"Did the mouse droppings you saw on the floor affect your ability to learn in U.S. history at all?"

That's just one of the quotes from a weekend San Francisco Chronicle column by Nanette Asimov and Lance Williams. Gov. Davis vs. schoolkids: High-priced legal team browbeats youths about shoddy schools tells the story of the questioning of "...13 witnesses, trying to topple their testimony that California students don't have enough textbooks and that too many classrooms are vermin-infested, overcrowded, sweltering or cold."

Washington Post Staff Writers Brigid Schulte and Dan Keating have authored an excellent two-part series on Montgomery County's (MD) struggle to maintain excellence in education in the face of economic and cultural diversity. Pupils' Poverty Drives Achievement Gap and Closing Student Gap Opens Door to Conflict tell of the educational effects of population shifts in Montgomery County and "inner-ring suburbs across the nation."

The Washington Post analyzed the test scores and economic status of 50,000 Montgomery County students in the third through eighth grades.

 

The analysis found that poverty was the most influential factor in predicting a student's performance. [my emphasis] It also showed that the performance gap between schools with high levels of poverty and more affluent schools has continued to widen, even as the amount targeted to help troubled schools doubled to $60 million in the last five years.

 

The data indicated that the performance of individual students differed dramatically depending upon the overall level of poverty in the school they attend.

Once upon a time, in an administration long, long ago, a President proposed rebuilding America's crumbling public school facilities. Others have strongly suggested economic and social remedies must be effected to improve education. And currently in our nation's capital, Lawmakers Struggle to Define Failing Schools and Bush Urges Education Deal as Kids Go Back to School.

Jaime O'Neill's strongly titled editorial in the Sunday San Francisco Chronicle, Dum...and Dummer: Can George W. Bush match wits with a typical community college student? actually is a good discussion about the lack of adequate funding for community and junior colleges. He does, however, have some fun with George W. towards the end of the column.

The Quaker Valley School District, first mentioned here on EdNews in June, is in the news again. My thanks to Marilyn Petruska, who sent along a link to a Pittsburgh Post-Gazette column, Back to School 2001: All digital, all the time.

Quaker Valley School District will begin a school year tomorrow that promises laptops for all teachers and students in third through 12th grades, free access at home to the district's computer network, and other technical wonders.

This column gives more in depth coverage than any other I've seen so far about what the lucky folks in Quaker Valley are going to do with all those brand new Macs.

Scienceman.com is active once again. Joe Martha has returned from a brief summer break to begin another excellent year of science coverage. Joe has been busy "revamping the whole site," so expect a new look, some new features, but with the same solid science content as always.

Sam Kremer wrote to say a third party CD driver solved his problems with moving his external Yamaha CD burner inside his Mac (see the Saturday, 9/1/01 posting). Thanks to those of you who sent Sam suggestions.

Kathy Seal, co-author of Motivated Minds: Raising Children to Love Learning, spoke out against the rising tide of homework for elementary students in yesterday's New York Times in Too Much Homework, Too Little Play (free registration required). Also in the New York Times, Joyce Purnick speaks out against the "jock mentality" in schools in For Fame, Try Pitching, Not Debating (free registration required).

In case you haven't already heard about it, Hewlett-Packard and Compaq announced yesterday that HP will buy Compaq in an all-stock purchase valued at $25 billion. ComputerWorld has a good article describing the sale, while CNET has a series of news articles and commentary pieces posted.

Wednesday, September 5, 2001

Once again, there seems to be a dearth of new educational freeware and shareware releases. While I can't conjure up an all-purpose, cross-platform, K-12 software answer to all educational needs, let me offer an "oldie, but goodie" for the Macintosh crowd.

Over the weekend, I had upgraded an older Mac from System 7.5.3 to System 7.6.1, but somewhere along the line, the Control Strip control panel and modules didn't get installed. Rather than repeat the install with a custom installation of the items, I simply opened the installation tome with TomeViewer and expanded the necessary items to the desired locations.

TomeViewer allows you to pull just one or more items from an installation tome without doing a complete or custom installation. The standard tome display shows the item, along with its type and creator codes, compressed and expanded size, and its version number.

From its "Read Me" file: "TomeViewer is brought to you by the Apple Installer engineers with a lot of help from the moonlighting SCM guy and at the prodding of DTS."

Obviously, TomeViewer is for use with Mac OS classic installers, but wouldn't it be nice if something approaching the same ease of use might become available at some point for Mac OS X (shhh, or even Windows).

Currently, TomeViewer is available at the MacResource Page Software Mirror and Version Tracker.

The Philadelphia Daily News yesterday had an interesting column by Ronnie Polaneczky about how a principal's special kind of cynicism may prove to be an asset with the state set to possibly take over Philadelphia's schools in November. Ms. Polaneczky quotes veteran Thomas Decatur Elementary School Principal Chuck Connors as saying:

If we weren't cynical, if we didn't take a 'been there, done that' attitude about some of this stuff, how could we keep on going? It's cynicism that makes you say, "Bad times come and go, miracle solutions come and go, we've been under the microscope before, we'll be under the microscope again. So let's just do our jobs already."

Rick Barrett's Education, future on the line from the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel tells of a successful alternative school program in Waukesha, Wisconsin. Generac Power Systems combines classes with on-the-factory-floor work experience to give students a second chance at high school that includes firm rules and a pay check at the end of the week.

While I regularly read and enjoy Paul Shield's The Business Mac column, I rarely get to post a link to his stuff, as it generally isn't directly applicable to the classroom. This week Paul has served up a column I just can't resist, Putting old machines to work for your business. One of the uses Paul suggests is employing either a Mac SE or SE/30 as a fax server. As I read his column, I began to wonder about the possibilities of an SE with voice/fax recognition software and an old printer in the classroom.

The Boston Globe editorial, Education for all, takes a look at "children in the developing world -- especially girls -- who are still denied this most basic opportunity." In a similar vein, The Christian Science Monitor considers testing for tracking in the other countries in Where in the world is that No. 2 pencil?

Another Boston Globe offering, School software tracks books, describes efforts by the Boston public school system to keep better track of textbooks and charge families for those that are lost. A pilot program this year will involve 12 of the system's 130 schools in an attempt "to avoid the embarrassments of the past spring when community groups publicly documented shortages of textbooks and other classroom materials."

The SchwabLearning.org's new offerings for for parents and educators this week include:

• An Expert Answers On Reading: Susan Hall Speaks with SchwabLearning.org about Assessment Issues.
• A Mother's Progress Report about helping her son with AD/HD make his way through school.
• Some advice from 4th and 5th graders to other kids about changing grades in school
• Learning to Read - Research Informs Us
• Understand how to manage the challenges of parenting a child with LD.
• One mother's account of how she became an active participant in her son's educational planning

Joe Taylor and I were trading emails over the holiday weekend, comparing experiences with Mac OS X. I complained that OS X was painfully slow on my G3/300 MHz minitower in comparison to System 9.1. That produced the following response from Joe:

Okay, you're going at this the wrong way. This is your perfect opportunity to upgrade to a G4 with an LCD monitor.

 

Your conversation with your wife should go something along the lines, "But honey, it's not that I want to get a new computer. I need it to be more productive at school, on the web, with the kid's homework, or whatever other pathetic excuse you can muster ;-)

 

P.S. Let me know if that works, so I can try it myself.

Beyond a few good freewares, a fresh bag of Cheetos, some Mountain Dew, and possibly that new G4, what we need around EdNews are more folks like Joe. He's now been an administrator, a special ed director at that, for three whole weeks, but still talks and thinks like a teacher! I suspect he's becoming a "teachers' (and students') administrator" at a very fortunate school corporation in Ohio.

Thursday, September 6, 2001

The Philadelphia Inquirer's Marc Schogol reports that first-grade teacher Kathleen Kearney, whose winning share of last week's Powerball jackpot was $15 million, is playing hooky this week. In Lottery winner absent from school Schogol quotes Christina School District spokeswoman Lisa McVey as saying, "She's taking a little bit of a vacation this week after all that excitement." Both Kearney and her brother Michael, who shared the after-tax $30 million, have remained out of sight since presenting their winning ticket.

Bob Herbert paints a stark picture in his column, On the Way to Nowhere (free registration required), in the New York Times. Herbert points out that "there are nearly five million people in the 16-to-24 age group who are both out of school and out of work" at a time when the government seems less than interested in this group. He notes:

Programs that used to provide support in the form of training and job placement for teenagers and young adults have fallen out of favor and been drastically cut over the past several years. And federal money for summer jobs for disadvantaged kids -- an important and well-regarded initiative -- is all but a memory.

Herbert's column also appears in yesterday's San Jose Mercury News under the title "Have-not" kids need our help (no registration required:-).

While certainly not a mainline educational issue, Byte.org broke the news Tuesday that Imagine Media, publishers of MacAddict, PC Gamer, MaximumPC, and Official Xbox Magazine, is going to begin charging authors for inclusion of their software on the CDs that accompany their magazines. The MacAddict Disc Info and Disc Submissions pages do not at this writing reflect the change. The Byte posting quoted an email from Matt Firme, Vice President and Editorial Director of Imagine Media, as saying:

Effective with the November issues of PC Gamer, MaximumPC, MacAddict, and Official Xbox Magazine, we'll be assessing a flat-rate Distribution and Handling fee for each demo we distribute. This fee ã $5,000 per commercial demo and $500 per shareware demo ã will apply to all software selected by our editors for inclusion on our discs.

I first read this news with dismay on a MacObserver posting by Bryan Chaffin, MacAddict To Charge Developers For Including Software On CD. On the MacAddict 62 CD (October) that arrived in today's mail, 29 of the 143 softwares included were listed as freewares. While larger entities such as Bare Bones Software (BBEdit Lite) and Aladdin (Aladdin Expander) might continue to have MacAddict carry their software as advertising for their full versions, I can't help but think that this change in policy will end publication by MacAddict of most freewares and sharewares produced by individuals. This will represent a loss to the Macintosh community, although those same freewares and sharewares will certainly remain available elsewhere.

I attempted to confirm the Byte.org posting with a brief email to Imagine's Matt Firme. I received an immediate response to my query that said, "Give me a call, and we can go over it." While I appreciated the swift response, Educators' News doesn't support long distance investigative reporting. I suggested Mr. Firme call or email me in response to my questions. At this point, there has been no response, but Mr. Firme also did not disavow the email posted on Byte.

Come on, say it ain't so, Matt!

Friday, September 7, 2001

The Justice Department announced yesterday it would not continue to seek the breakup of Microsoft. It also said that it was dropping the issue of "tying" Internet Explorer to Windows. Justice will instead rely on court-ordered sanctions to prevent future illegal monopolistic behaviors by the software giant. Speculation across the internet about the ramifications of the announcement is rampant. As the Apple Turns has about as good a write-up on the story as anyone. Other postings include:

• ComputerWorld -- DOJ drops breakup effort against Microsoft
• New York Times -- Pendulum Swings to Microsoft, but How Far? (free registration required)
• CNET -- Justice Dept. downshifts in Microsoft case
• CNNfn -- No Microsoft breakup: U.S. Justice Department says it is open to an alternative remedy

The Ohio Supreme Court has approved the state's new system of funding schools, as long as the legislature agrees to increase funding of the schools. The Toledo Blade quoted Chief Justice Thomas Moyer, writing for the 4-3 majority: "Despite the extensive efforts of the [state] to produce a plan that meets the requirements announced by this court, changes to the formula are required to make the new plan constitutional." If the state legislature complies with the ruling, this decision will end a ten-year series of legal actions concerning equalizing and increasing funding of Ohio's public schools.

Nanette Asimov of the San Francisco Chronicle continues her reports on the questionable tactics used by attorneys representing the state of California in the Williams vs. California lawsuit. In Davis feels heat over student depositions: Critics say state's lawyers bully kids, it appears backlash against the tactics used by Governor Davis's lawyer is spreading.

Two widely used periodic table programs for Macs received updates this week. Black Cat Systems' The Atomic Mac ($25) went to version 5.2, and Synergy Creations' Periodic Table ($15) went to version 3.0. While not updated this week, StimpSoft's Smell-O-Mints 1.2 is free.

The Atomic Mac (v3.7.1 shown)	Periodic Table	Smell-O-Mints

For Windows, The Atomic PC ($25) and Taftan Data's freeware Periodic Table are available.

Soporific Software has updated Life to version 3.0. From the Read Me file: "Life a small application which displays a simulation of cells which live & die by simple rules." Soporific packages their small freeware apps as one download for OS 9 (384K) or OS X (504K) which includes BinCalc 2.1, Calculator 2.0, Calendar 2.0, Life 3.0, Slideshow 2.0, Ticker 1.0, InfoEdit 2.0, and some documentation and patterns for the apps.

If you went, "Huh?" after reading yesterday's posting about the Ohio Supreme Court's decision on that state's school funding formula, don't feel too bad. I had a tough time writing any posting, as the information at that point seemed vague beyond belief for a court decision. The Cleveland Plain Dealer has fortunately posted an excellent analysis with commentary on the decision. The column is a very good read of a very unusual decision.

The state has not met all of the requirements of a constitutional education system, the court ruled, but this time officials came really, really close. The effort was near enough to constitutional, in fact, that a four-vote majority agreed to release the state from judicial control in the case: Chief Justice Thomas Moyer's majority opinion noted that the state must still address two final items, but the court believes so strongly that it will that it sees "no reason to retain jurisdiction." Talk about a leap of faith.

After the announcement Thursday by the Justice Department that it would not pursue breaking up Microsoft as a remedy in the Microsoft antitrust case, it appeared the software giant might be getting off easy. Among other items, it appeared Microsoft was home free on the coming release of their new Windows XP operating system. Yesterday, in a New York Times column, States Press U.S. to Take Tough Stand on Microsoft (free registration required), Steve Lohr reported that several of the various states involved in the case will be taking a tougher stance than the Department of Justice and may even be willing to break away from the DOJ in pursuing the case. Lohr wrote, "The message from the states that they plan to take a harder line in the next phase of the Microsoft case promises to make reaching an out-of-court settlement more difficult."

Tristan Harris has released Bibliographer 1.0 for Macintosh. Bibliographer makes creating a bibliography in proper MLA format a breeze. It includes support for book, encyclopedia, URL, magazine, personal interview, radio-TV, speech, and video entries. Bibliographer presents a simple entry form for each entry type with examples available and then automatically creates the information into the proper bibiography entry.

Associated Press writer Lawrence L. Knutson posted the following on today's weekly radio address by President Bush:

Lawmakers should stop stalling final action on the White House's education plan in their bid to increase school spending, President Bush said Saturday. Such efforts, he said, are a fruitless "tactic of the past."

In Bush urges Congress to pass education spending plan without adding more spending, Knutson also quotes National Education Association President Bob Chase as saying, "President Bush can best advance public education and reading by funding the programs that make a real difference in student learning."

Editorial comment: Amen, Bob!