mathdittos2.com
...dedicated to...hmmm, we're still figuring that one out... |
|
Texting Sex Ed Hotline When the Cellphone Teaches Sex Education by Jan Hoffman tells about a number of programs that allow teenagers to anonymously text questions about sex and "receive a cautious, nonjudgmental reply, texted directly to their cellphones." Other programs allow "young people to text a number, select from a menu of frequently asked questions ('What 2 do if the condom broke') and receive automated replies." Kindergarten Cram Peggy Orenstein writes about standardized tests and homework for kindergartners in Kindergarten Cram. She writes:
AFT Innovation Grants Jay Mathews has a good article today in Rare Alliance May Signal Ebb In Union's Charter Opposition. He writes about Randi Weingarten, president of the American Federation of Teachers, unveiling a union-led, private foundation-supported effort to provide grants to AFT unions nationwide to develop and implement what Weingarten called "bold education innovations in public schools." The advisory board of the AFT Innovation Fund and the funding sources are real education heavy hitters. Tenure Jason Song's Firing tenured teachers can be a costly and tortuous task in yesterday's Los Angeles Times recounts some horror stories of tenured teachers retaining their jobs after egregious misconduct. Song lays most of the blame on the current teaching master contract in LA. He writes, "When teaching is at issue, years of effort -- and thousands of dollars -- sometimes go into rehabilitating the teacher as students suffer." He eventually gets around to laying some blame at the feet of administrators not trying to help weak teachers improve or properly documenting their deficiencies. He also quotes the president of United Teachers Los Angeles, A.J. Duffy, as saying:
Not suprisingly, Song today has a follow-up column, School officials call for legislation easing firing of teachers. I shared some of my views a month or so ago after the last rant in the LA Times about tenure. Andy Rotherham may best sum up the situation in his The Eduwonk Virus Mutates posting on Eduwonk. Space News NASA has set next Monday, May 11, as the launch date for the space shuttle Atlantis for its repair mission to the Hubble Space Telescope.
In other space news, Space.com tells that folks in the mid-Atlantic region may see a spectacular liftoff tomorrow evening from NASA's Wallops Island Flight Facility in Virginia. Glaring Rocket Launch Could Surprise East Coast Residents Tuesday Evening tells of the launch of a TacSat-3 spy satellite scheduled for Tuesday evening or later (launch window May 5-9). Mother's Day Project...for Next Year If you're looking for an incredible Mother's Day plant project for your class, let me share one I used to use. Gloxinias are a relatively easy-to-grow houseplant. It takes about seven or eight months to grow them from seed to full bloom, just about perfect for a yearlong classroom project.
The gloxinia pictured above is one that was planted last August or so, making the timing just about right for Mother's Day. It has the advantage of the seed coming from my students, years ago, hand pollinating gloxinias in our classroom with Q-tips and saving the seed. We later grew the saved seed out and found a new color combination, the pink on white blooms pictured above, from the crossing. If you're fortunate enough to have plant lights in your classroom or a good, sunny windowsill, you should be in business. We actually grew ours in the classroom in some west facing windows, although our classroom also had lots of fluorescent lights. Growing information is available at Senior-Gardening.com in the continuing feature, Gloxinias.
Odds 'n' Ends If you're just about on overload from news of the A(H1N1) virus, Stephanie Salter's Lower your swine flu risk: Turn off the television from the Sunday Terre Haute Tribune Star may relieve your burden a bit. Salter reached her "optimum level of staying informed about The Virus Formerly Known As Swine Flu" last week when her "level of influenza information was spilling over the banks of my brain like river water after a levee breach. I could have gone on “Jeopardy” with the knowledge I had gained about the deadly global flu strains of 1918, 1957, 1968 and 2003." If you're looking for serious information about the flu, the Department of Education's Information for Schools on H1N1 Flu Outbreak of 2009 is a good source.
Send Feedback to |
|
Teacher Appreciation Week Hey! It's teacher appreciation week!
The teacher was concerned with the current "fire the bad teacher" movement that has seemed to have gained momentum in the last week with a number of columns around the country. But he was more concerned with the relationship between the teachers and administration at his school. He commented that those teachers such as himself that work hard for their kids without playing building politics don't get much support or recognition. Lesser teachers that play the game well with building administrators seem to get more goodies (otherwise known as necessary teaching stuff) and recognition (more positive evaluations). An Associated Press article today by Libby Quaid, White House to seek input on education law, sort of ties in to our discussion. Frequent readers of Educators' News know that I'm a big supporter of President Obama and also think Arne Duncan is a good choice for Secretary of Education. As I survey the current national education scene from my semi-isolated perspective of a semi-retired teacher out in the sticks, I worry that our leaders really don't get how local education works. In the past, that might not have been the problem that it's going to be in the future. With President Obama and Secretary Duncan pushing performance pay or incentives for teachers and schools, it is critical that they "get it" on how teachers are valued at a local level. In my experience in several schools and school corporations, I've found that education at the building level works on the buddy system. If you're a buddy of the school administrator, you get good evaluations, lots of freedom to try different approaches, and often more goodies (computers, smartboards, plant stands, you name it...) than the non-buddies. The problem is that being a buddy (sometimes just a friend of the administrator, but often a suck-up) doesn't necessarily equate with being a good or outstanding teacher. I've also found over the years that building administrators rarely do their job effectively in evaluating teachers and in nurturing new teachers. That sounds a bit like an anti-administrator bias, and I think I'll just have to own up to that being true. But I've witnessed many promising new teachers enter a system only to become average or mediocre career teachers due to a lack of direction from administrators early in their careers. Principals seem to think one or more observations followed up by conferences with vague suggestions (and little tangible support) are an acceptable way to do the "finishing process" needed by fledgling teachers just out of teacher training. Rarely do they actually get into the classroom with the new teachers to model best practices and do a little co-teaching. Secretary Duncan said in a recent interview, "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." While statements such as that one don't sound terribly offensive, Duncan seems to gravitate to using standardized test scores to evaluate teachers: "Data systems are at the heart of this reform effort." I'm worried that we simply don't have a model of a fair, effective evaluation system for teachers in this country that we can generalize to the our national population of teachers. With teacher evaluation a local matter, I wonder if pushing merit and performance pay without first finding a good evaluation system is a wise choice. And I think our President and Secretary of Education simply don't get it on that issue. I wonder if it's even possible to get it without having been a teacher for a good number of years. Many writers have noted that our new President is an excellent listener. He actually listens to input and attempts to hear what is really being said. I hope he and Arne Duncan are really listening to the classroom teachers of America about merit and performance pay and teacher evaluations. Okay, I guess I'm done with my rant. I really do hope someone does something nice this week to make you feel appreciated as a teacher. Something Nice It was nice to read today that students at J.V. Martin Junior High School found new furniture and some new paint when they arrived at school Monday. Run-down SC school featured by Obama gets facelift tells about the school that came to national attention via a student's letter to Congress that was picked up on by President Obama. Furniture supplier Sagus International sent nearly 2,000 pieces of furniture worth an estimated $250,000 to the school. Schools Reopening Schools affected by the H1N1 virus around the country are beginning to reopen "after the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention announced Tuesday that the new flu strain does not appear to be unusually severe." Green Dot Schools Douglas McGray tells of the turnaround of some Los Angeles schools by Steve Barr's Green Dot Schools in The Instigator. "In the past decade, Barr has opened seventeen charter high schools--small, locally managed institutions that aim for a high degree of teacher autonomy and parent involvement--in some of the poorest neighborhoods in Los Angeles, as well as one in the Bronx." The article is a very interesting read about a charter school movement that is producing positive results in difficult schools.
NASA Television will provide live high definition coverage of Monday's scheduled launch of the space shuttle Atlantis on its STS-125 mission to upgrade the Hubble Space Telescope. The high definition feed will be available today at 12 P.M. Launch coverage begins on Monday, May 11, at 8:30 A.M. Liftoff is slated for 2:01 P.M. All times are eastern daylight time (EDT). In a related article Space.com's Clara Moskowitz relates in Hubble Huggers Ecstatic for Telescope's Facelift, "It's hard to tell who's more excited for Hubble's upcoming facelift — the scientists who will benefit from the data the telescope collects, or the public who will enjoy the pretty pictures." Performance Pay Proposals in the New Budget The Washington Post's Maria Glod takes a look at the performance pay and accountability proposals in President Obama's education budget in Budget Outlines Funding for Teacher Merit Pay Programs. The Department of Education "is seeking $517 million for performance pay grants, up from $97 million in last year's budget. In addition, the stimulus law included an additional $200 million for such programs." What's still missing from this article, the budget proposals, and Secretary of Education Arne Duncan's recent statements on the issue is how they plan to fairly implement performance or merit pay. Duncan is currently involved in his 15 state Listening and Learning: A Conversation About Education Reform tour. Its purpose is "to solicit feedback from a broad group of stakeholders around federal education policy in anticipation of the reauthorization of the Elementary and Secondary Education Act."
I've frequently linked to Rothstein's columns in The New York Times and his work at the Economic Policy Institute over the last ten years. The man definitely has his head screwed on straight when it comes to education reform!
Dennis Carter relates in New Kindle is textbook friendly that Amazon's new Kindle DX Dixie Cup Gardening No, I haven't totally lost it and started trying to grow Dixie Cups in my garden.
The whole gory story appears on Senior Gardening. Adult Literacy Stacy Teicher Khadaroo takes a look at a recently released report on adult literacy in Why do millions of Americans struggle with reading and writing? She writes:
Khadaroo notes that federal funding for adult literacy has steadily decreased in recent years. "In the coming months, Congress is expected to retool and reauthorize the Workforce Investment Act (WIA), which includes a section to help fund adult literacy and basic education programs." Have a great weekend!
Ads shown on this site do not represent an endorsement or warranty of any kind of products or companies shown. Ads shown on archive pages may not represent the ads displayed in the original posting on Educators' News. |
I was talking to a young high school teacher on Sunday at a birthday party for one of my grandsons. (Happy 1st birthday, Brady!) We got around to talking about the pounding teachers are currently taking in the press.
Richard Rothstein, former New York Times education columnist and author of 
New Kindle in Schools 
©2009 Steven L. Wood