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Odds 'n' Ends I don't often lead the page with the Odds 'n' Ends heading, but there really isn't much going on today in education news. The space shuttle Discovery did finally get to launch late Friday evening. Motoko Rich has an interesting article about teaching literature in A New Assignment: Pick Books You Like. The Post's Jay Mathews rambles through a piece on school calendars in Learning Isn't For Nine Months; It's Forever. And the New Yorker's Steven Brill has a long article on the Rubber Rooms for NYC schoolteachers awaiting hearings. Send Feedback to |
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NASA Aeronautics Scholarship Program The NASA Aeronautics Scholarship Program will begin accepting online applications today for undergraduate and graduate scholarships for 2010. "NASA expects to award 20 undergraduate and five graduate scholarships to students in aeronautics or related fields." The deadline for applications is January 11, 2010. The undergraduate scholarships include:
Graduate scholarships provide:
NASA press release: NASA Accepting Applications for Aeronautics Scholarship Awards A Scheduling Nightmare eSchool News reports in SchoolMAX cited in back-to-school nightmare about the scheduling problems the Prince George's County Public Schools (PGCPS) have experienced this year. Thousands of students arrived on the first day of school at PGCPS with no schedule and nowhere to go. School officials claimed malfunctioning software was the source of the problem. The eSchool News report seems to imply that school officials should have known about the problem and taken corrective action long ago.
Wow! Rural Areas Perceive Policy Tilt "If you’re the only math teacher for 100 miles, who’s going to [peer] review you?" asks Michele McNeil in an Education Week article, Urban Bias Seen on Stimulus, But Ed. Dept. Vows Balance. McNeil writes that the Obama Administration's current educational focus doesn't seem "to recognize the distinctive problems facing rural districts." She notes that some Race to the Top criteria such as charter schools simply aren't practical in areas where most of the school districts have less than 500 total students who are geographically dispersed over large areas.
LAUSD Schools Up for Bids Howard Blume has an interesting story today in the Los Angeles Times, L.A. charter schools get a chance to grow, but how big? Blume tells of the plan by Los Angeles Unified Schools to allow "charter groups and other outside operators...to bid to run the new campuses and about 200 of the district's poorest-performing schools." I Love a Price War The Academic Superstore dropped their price on Office 2007 last week to $129.95. When I ran the Journey Education announcement yesterday that they had dropped their price on Office Professional 2007 to $99.98, I wondered what the Academic Superstore would do. Well, today's mail carried news of the Academic Superstores "Back to School Sale" featuring MS Office Pro for only $99.95.
Obama Address to Schools Under Fire President Obama's back to school address next Tuesday has produced a firestorm amongst conservatives. The gist of most of the opposing arguments comes down to alleging the President is trying "to foist a political agenda on children." The AP's Libby Quaid and Linda Stewart Ball give a good picture of the controversy in Obama speech to students draws conservative ire. Eduwonk's Andy Rotherham cuts loose a real rant about the backlash in Never Mind The Grad Rates, Here Come The Chili Peppers! The Washington Post's Michael Alison Chandler and Michael D. Shear note that Some Schools Will Block or Delay Obama's Pep Talk for Students. The DOE press release about the address, President Barack Obama to Make Historic Speech to America’s Students, contains all the pertinent info if you're planning to tune in. It also has links to resource materials for the address. Maine 1:1 Laptop Program Expands (Again)
D.C. Investigation of Test Results The Washington Post's Bill Turque tells in 26-School D.C. Cheating Probe 'Inconclusive' of "possible cheating at 26 public and public charter schools where reading and math proficiency on 2008 standardized tests increased markedly." Then State Superintendent of Education Deborah A. Gist requested the investigation in August, 2008, when 26 schools had "proficiency gains of 20 percent or more on the 2008 test." Fallout from Supreme Court Special Education Decision The Chicago Tribune's Bonnie Miller Rubin reports in Special education: Public schools pressed to pay for private schooling of the problems being faced by Illinois schools in the aftermath of the Supreme Court's June decision in a special education case. The Court ruled that schools must pay "for the cost of special education services when a school district fails to provide a FAPE and the private-school placement is appropriate, regardless of whether the child previously received special education or related services through the public school." Rubin writes that "even with the Supreme Court ruling, don't expect a wave of families to head for the public school exits, experts say. Parents would have to pay up-front costs for tuition and attorneys, which are considerable, then appeal to the state to try to force unwilling districts to pick up the bill." Odds 'n' Ends
I really hadn't been happy with the standard kit lens bundled with my Canon Digital Rebel XSi Getting back to taking pictures out that window, in the space of just a few minutes, the sky began to cloud over, producing the interesting sky shown below.
Have a great holiday weekend! Uglier and Uglier Presidential spokesman Robert Gibbs may have summed up the situation best in his comments to reporters yesterday about the furor over President Obama's upcoming speech to America's schoolchildren:
The AP's Ben Feller reports at the end of Furor over speech pointless, White House says that "The White House plans to release the speech online Monday so parents can read it." I think that's a good move on the part of the Obama Administration, but I also think the situation has gotten to the point that no matter what the President does, conservatives will scream bloody murder. A case in point comes from Tina Griego's excellent article about the backlash to the proposed speech on responsibly in the Denver Post, Obama living proof education opens doors. Griego tells of the reaction from a Douglas County mom:
Pretty ugly stuff, huh? Griego goes on to tell of her experiences seeing minority students ignored by the system. She also writes of the optional lesson plans provided by the DOE: "Some people see Hitler in these questions. I see the prescriptive hand of bureaucrats. It's predictable fare giving little credit to classroom teachers who actually do this kind of thing for a living." Griego nails the purpose of the speech when she writes, "The president hopes to inspire all children in this country to go to class, to do their homework, to believe that if they do the work, education will open doors to worlds they cannot even imagine." In Bustin’ Up The Joint, Eduwonk's Andy Rotherham concludes, "Who is willing to say enough and call BS?" Other articles on the subject:
Commentary Yeah, I know. I sneak a lot of subtle commentary in with my postings. But I thought on this one I'd separate it here. When I first heard of President Obama's plan to address America's schoolchildren, my first reaction was one of wondering how the speech would impact classrooms. I also wondered how appropriate such a speech could be to younger students and especially to disabled students. When I was teaching, school convocations, moments of "silent meditation," pep rallies, announcements and mini-speeches from the office weren't some of my favorite things. They were interruptions in our class day often stealing valuable learning time from my students. And since I finished my teaching career as a special educator, such interruptions always meant more lost time in getting our kids back into the groove of learning. As I thought more about the proposed speech, I came to think of how important the idea of the President addressing the nation's schoolchildren, especially at the middle and high school level, might be. It seems to me that more and more, the teachers in our schools are being excluded from the national discussion on how to improve our schools as the voices of think tank reformers take center stage. And the kids seem to get no voice at all. In that sense, it seems quite appropriate that the President should speak to the students. I do wish the President would listen more to real teachers, not the TFA-ers who teach three years and move into school administration or a think tank and prescribe from on high how the rest of us are supposed to do it. I remember an inservice from years ago when an inspirational speaker lifted the spirits of our school staff and challenged us to renew our efforts in teaching. We spoke of that workshop for years to come, recalling the speaker's humorous characterizations of some teacher types. And privately, we remembered some of those types as we occasionally slipped into bad teaching habits. I think the President's speech on Tuesday could have a similar effect on students who are allowed to listen to it. The controversy about the speech that has been stirred up by talk show commentators and Republicans in general is sickening. It's the usual mistrust, FUD, and falsehoods from a group that lost badly in the last round of national elections. I think part of that overwhelming defeat was America's weariness with their hate tactics. I witnessed another round of that stuff as I watched a couple of talking heads on CNN last week. The Democrat spoke blandly of the upcoming speech in reasonable terms. When it came time for the other side to speak, the new stereotypical attractive blond Republican with black glasses type, the ugliness and venom that poured out of her mouth made me shut off the TV. It was overkill on a rampage. Where has our civility gone? What kind of role models are we for our children when we participate in perpetrating falsehoods, practice constant hyperbole in debating issues, and revel in the polarization that now grips our political debates? Follow-up on SchoolMAX and Prince George's County Public Schools I had an inkling of greater problems when I wrote about the scheduling debacle in Prince George's County Public Schools last Tuesday. An email with a link to the comments of phillipmarlowe from frequent reader Ed Harris added to my questioning of the situation. The Washington Post now tells in Schools' Computer Bugs Not Isolated of other school systems having major issues with the SchoolMAX student information system software. Arne Watch Arne Duncan did a back to school interview with the Associated Press this week. Odds 'n' Ends Wow! Some of this stuff is getting pretty heavy, and I'm supposed to be enjoying my retirement!
So I guess my relief this week, other than not being a school administrator getting calls about whether to watch the President's speech or not, is that I'm out of the classroom and in the garden most of the time. (I still sub a day or two, here and there.) I record our our gardening successes and failures on our my other web site, Senior Gardening. Running two web sites and maintaining several large garden plots pretty well keeps me occupied and out of trouble these days.
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While getting used to a new camera lens yesterday, I took a shot of our main garden from an upstairs window. (Yes, we have another, much larger garden plot in a field east of us. It borders a nature preserve, so we're sharing our melons with the raccoons this year!) 
, so I switched to a 
lens. It's the lens I really wanted in the first place and should have just bought the camera body and the lens separately in the first place. I also didn't miss that with the announcement this week of Canon's new 18 megapixel 
, Canon announced an updated version of my new lens with the 
. Anyway, I'm very happy with my new, but instantly outdated, lens. 
©2009 Steven L. Wood