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Do note that the download did take quite a while. I'm not sure whether it was their server that was busy or my connection, but it took an hour to complete the download. Related Links: • San Francisco Chronicle: Online textbooks offered free to students by Jill Tucker The Disposable Teacher I'd started to post a couple of really sad stories last week about a one teacher switching schools and another totally leaving education. Sarah Fine's Schools Need Teachers Like Me, I Just Can't Stay really touched me, as I've linked to her articles here before and found them revealing of a teacher who really cared. Voting with my Feet by Maria Fenwick was equally poignant. Both teachers were simply worn down, not by their students, but by a system that tends to eat up new teachers. After talking to a neighbor who is just entering her third year of teaching, I decided not to post the two stories linked above, as they're real downers, and her enthusiasm for the new school year raised my spirits a bit. But a piece today on Eduwonk by Neema Avashia, Teachers as a Sustainable Resource: Supporting Mid-Career and Veteran Teachers, compelled me to post the links and one to her article. The current reform effort in education places a lot of emphasis on attracting talented, new teachers. But the track record for retaining the new recruits from various alternative certification programs is not very good. And retention of talented older teachers is a real problem as well. Avashia addresses both in her posting. On Education Degrees The New York Times has assembled a number of viewpoints on its Room for Debate, Do Teachers Need Education Degrees? It's a fair question that deserves consideration in the school reform discussion. Odds 'n' Ends My wife, who doesn't have an education or any other degree, but is considerably more well read than I, is currently reading Lynn Truss's delightful Eats, Shoots & Leaves
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. I won't spoil the title story for you, although you can find it on Amazon's Look Inside feature. From the sections she's read to me, I can't wait until she's done, and I can read it! |
Free Minerals Education Workshop The Indiana Division of Reclamation will be holding its annual Minerals Education Workshop on November 5-6, 2009. The free workshop is open to K-8 educators and will focus on mining and reclamation, geology, energy, coal, and the use of minerals in everyday life. The first day of the workshop will be held at Rose-Hulman Institute of Technology in Terre Haute, Indiana. It will be devoted to hands-on activities for the classroom, including:
The second day includes tours of the Black Beauty Farmersburg Mine and Solar Sources’s Lewis Mine. You may download the program announcement and registration form here. Questions about the workshop should be directed to either or at the Division of Reclamation at (812) 665-2207, or toll-free within Indiana at 1-800-772-6463. Shuttle Launch Date Set
At right, NASA technicians are shown checking "the clearance of the payload bay door as it closes around the multi-purpose logistics module Leonardo and the lightweight multi-purpose experiment support structure carrier inside space shuttle Discovery's payload bay." School Lunches Kim Severson writes about possible changes to school lunches in Stars Aligning on School Lunches in the New York Times. With reauthorization of the Child Nutrition Act due this fall, some school districts are finally looking to "wean themselves from packaged, heavily processed food and begin cooking mostly local food from scratch." Vermont TOYs Speak Out Peter Hirschfeld's State's top teachers offer advice on education policy tells of a group of previous Vermont Teacher of the Year award winners gathering to make public their views on the future of the No Child Left Behind act. The Barre Montpelier Times Argus article quotes 2007 Vermont Teacher of the Year, Katie Sullivan, as saying, "Our expertise and our experience matter. We need a seat at the table. Not to complain and criticize, but to communicate our hopes and dreams for the future of public education." Karen Heath, the 2005 winner added, "It's about being a voice, having a sense of leadership, and most importantly having people in high places hear from the people that are doing the work." She related that "most educators feel disconnected from decision-makers in Montpelier, let alone Washington, D.C." I'm glad to see a group like the Vermont Teachers of the Year speak out on education. The education reform movement has been dominated of late by folks who aren't in the classroom. Some spent a few years there before moving on to instruct the rest of us on how to teach effectively. I'd hope other groups of teachers, beyond the usual NEA and AFT voices, would join the conversation in a big way. Gates Foundation Silver Bullet for Education Reform The AP's Donna Gordon Blankinship writes in Gates Foundation seeks education's magic pill about the foundation now focusing on teacher quality. She tells of a new, five-year project "to develop and test methods to rate teachers and experiments at a handful of school districts around the nation to try out new ways of recruiting, training, assigning and assessing teachers."
Charters eSchool News reports that the economic Stimulus could spur more virtual charter schools. And while the results were based mostly on higher ed data, Study Finds That Online Education Beats the Classroom tells that a blend of face-to-face and online instruction can improve learning outcomes. It's a charter year and new future for Birmingham High by Mitchell Landsberg tells of the transition of Birmingham High School in Los Angeles from a regular public school to an independent charter school. On Science@NASA Chandra Turns Ten is Dr. Tony Phillips's latest posting on Science@NASA. It tells of the ten years of accomplishments of the Chandra X-Ray Observatory. Odds 'n' Ends Marcus A. Winters and Jay Greene, senior fellows at the Manhattan Institute, have authored a new report, How Special-Ed Vouchers Keep Kids From Being Mislabeled as Disabled. Special-Education Stigmatization tells the short version of their study that recommends issuing vouchers for LD students to keep schools and school psychologists honest in making such diagnoses. In many states, Indiana included, schools can make money by labeling low achieving students as LD. It swamps the system, and the kids often don't get the help they need. I'm just not sure Winters and Greene's voucher solution is one I'd endorse! And totally off the subject of K-12 education, coal miners at the Vectren Black Panther Mine just a few miles south of here found the remains of a mastodon!
Proposed "Reforms" in California Jason Song and Jason Felch tell in Schwarzenegger's plan would reshape education in California in the Los Angeles Times of Schwarzenegger's proposed reforms:
Indiana Licensing After a failed attempt to bluster their way past the Indiana Professional Standards Board with major changes to Indiana's teacher certification requirements, Governor Mitch Daniels and Superintendent of Public Instruction Tony Bennett have decided to listen to someone other than their ultraconservative buddies on the issue. Teacher training plan gets adjusted tells that Bennett has sat down with the Board and made revisions in the planned changes based on the Board's recommendations. Andy Gammill of the Indianapolis Star notes that the board will now "vote next month to formally propose the new measures and will then spend several months taking public testimony before deciding whether they should become law." He quotes Board member Carrie Cate-Clements as saying, "I'm very hopeful because the department seems to be more receptive to the feedback of the stakeholders. I think we're getting there, but we're not there yet."
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©2009 Steven L. Wood