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Internet Access eSchool News ran an article last week, Cable industry floats broadband plan for students, about a plan to provide "discounted broadband service and computers for eligible middle school students. The two-year pilot program would reach up to 3.5 million middle school children who are eligible for the National School Lunch Program, from approximately 1.8 million low-income households that currently do not receive broadband services." A press release over the weekend from The Hispanic Institute and The Joint Center, Legislators of Color Urge Assault on Digital Divide; Say Status Quo is Unacceptable, highlights the problem. Not only is cost a factor in internet access, but also just having a computer and the availability of broadband services. Our area, like many rural areas in the country, does not have broadband internet access other than the expensive satellite internet options. Families struggling to raise children in these depressed economic times are hard pressed to provide a good computer plus pay a monthly satellite internet access fee of $49-99/month for satellite broadband access. And with any of the satellite options, one is at the mercy of the weather on internet outages. Heavy rain and snow produce rain fade which frequently cuts off satellite internet access. (Note: Satellite internet is much more sensitive than TV satellite to rain fade.) Longer School Day Seema Mehta's The school bell rings and students stay to study in the Los Angeles Times tells of De Anza Elementary School where extending the school day is showing positive results. Longer day might be worth a try by Jay Mathews has an apt title, as extending the school day doesn't always produce better test results. But the education truism of "time on task," up to some admittedly undefined reasonable limits, should point the way for we educators. (Note: Just as I was ready to post this update, the title on the Jay Mathews blog posting changed to "Why can't regular schools expand learning time?") Computer Science Education Week
Odds 'n' Ends After lying low for almost a month, Michelle Rhee is once again embroiled in controversy in Rhee to replace Hardy Middle School principal. She's moving a successful principal from a successful school apparently to "retain more of the city's white middle class families, who usually leave the public school system after fourth or fifth grades." The comments on this article and issue appear to have come straight out of a flamethrower! Testing success creates own challenge by Bill Turque talks about the challenge of sustaining initial improvements in testing in the D.C. schools. The Chicago Flame quotes Chicago Schools CEO Ron Huberman as saying, "The state of the state is in a terrible place concerning education," in Illinois education 'terrible,' says school chief. The article relates Huberman's plan to improve the schools by improving and strengthening "performance management, human capital, education funding, and safety and security for students." If you missed my rare Saturday posting over the weekend, Harvard is offering a new leadership in education doctorate degree program. What is really unique is that the program is grant funded and free to participants! Also, NASA has posted its free 2010 International Space Station Calendar for download. Send Feedback to |
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More Education Blogs
The first blog I opened won the prize of the day for visual impact. Social Voice contains postings "created and developed by students" in John Spencer's class in Phoenix, Arizona. My journey turned towards the tech end of teaching when I visited Jane's E-Learning Pick of the Day and her Top 100 Tools for Learning 2009. I found even more tech tips when I visited Michael Zimmer's Educational Technology Integration Blog from Hopkins County Central High School in Madisonville, Kentucky. His most recent posting was on Student and Teacher Webpage Creation Sites, something I get asked about a lot. Moving more to the education policy type blog is the National Journal's Education Experts. It has a lots of contributors and is well written. And if that group hasn't quenched your thirst for good education blogs, Shelly Terrell's listing of her nominations for the 2009 Edublogs Awards on her Teacher Reboot Camp blog covers a lot of sites. Odds 'n' Ends
Today was a bit different, although I did sneak in a space shot, as I'd really wanted to get back to looking at the education blogs listed in the comments section of Valerie Strauss's version of The 2009 Education Blog Contest. There were lots that I didn't write about, but you can only visit so many sites in one morning. One post that just came in this afternoon from eSchool News is one I'd rather not have to post, Racist group targets school newspapers, that tells of an organization called Victory Forever. Assistant Editor Maya Prabhu writes, "The group ran an ad Nov. 20 in HiLite, the student newspaper at Indiana's Carmel High School, promoting free music downloads, but when readers visited the web site, they found anti-Semitic and racially charged information claiming that whites are in danger." Commentary on School Reform
I've obviously been following a number of education blogs fairly closely the last few months. One that I haven't mentioned all that often is the Bridging Differences blog on Education Week. Diane Ravitch and Deborah Meier write the blog as a series of letters to each other. Two recent postings are good reads on the current national school reform effort. School Funding in Los Angeles While the headline to the Associated Press article by Christina Hoag is a bit sensational, it may come true. L.A. schools threaten 5,000 layoffs tells that unless funding shortfalls in the LAUSD budget can be closed with teacher furloughs and a parcel tax, the district may indeed have to lay off up to 5,000 employees over the summer. An older column in the Los Angeles Times by Michael Hiltzik, State's school funding process is failing, gives some perspective to the situation there. Hiltzik writes:
Bundle Up and Head Out to See the Meteor Shower
Postings on Science@NASA are written in vocabulary appropriate for middle through high school students. They also have audio files and other language versions available as well as being available as podcasts on iTunes Math Results The recent release of NAEP (National Assessment of Educational Progress) Math test results has made lots of news lately. Statement by Secretary Duncan on NAEP Math 2009 Trial Urban District Assessment give the official drift of the slightly improved scores nationwide. Odds 'n' Ends The wind is howling outside, and my office is just plain cold. I count myself lucky, as much of the nation is experiencing blizzard conditions today. We live just two miles from a natural formation known as Merom Bluff. The bluff rises several hundred feet above the Wabash River, which at that point is the border between western Indiana and eastern Illinois.
What all this is getting around to is that for years, we didn't have a weather reporting station near us. The closest station would often report rather calm winds when we were having rather strong winds due to the bluff effect. A year ago, someone living a few miles south of us, and as you can see above, 3 miles southeast of the Merom Station electrical generating plant, added a Weather Underground reporting station. When they're online, we now get a fairly accurate readout of the winds that buffet our house and grounds. So, I hope you're warm, safe, and dry where you are. I'm going downstairs to sit by the woodstove for awhile.
Science Nation Online Magazine
Science Nation takes an entertaining look at research and researchers each week across a wide variety of science topics. Each issue includes an online and downloadable movie about the week's topic. Originally developed by two former CNN producers, Science Nation's examination of new breakthroughs "and the possibilities for new discoveries about our planet, our universe and ourselves" provides another quality tool for classroom teachers. Odds 'n' Ends Our weather has moderated a bit today. We still have steady 20 MPH winds with gusts to about 30 MPH, but it's not raining or snowing and the sun is out. It's warm enough that I even let the fireplace insert burn out and let the furnace take over heating the house today. My office is once again toasty! Other than a couple of Space.com postings, "Gem" of a Meteor Shower Underway and New Star Found in Big Dipper, it's a quiet day so far on the education news front. Winners of DOE Video Contest Announced A Department of Education press release yesterday announced the winners of its I Am What I Learn video contest. Rene Harris, Alex Hughes and Jordan Lederman will each receive a cash award of $1,000. The winning entries may be viewed on YouTube.
I really thought this was a good idea when it was announced back in September. I'm not sure how or what DOE can follow it up with, but hope they do. School Budgets Two articles today from different sources emphasize the funding problems schools face today. Sharon Otterman's Cuts Ahead, a Bronx Principal Maps Out What May Have to Go in The New York Times tells of the prioritized cuts Bronx Center for Science and Mathematics Principal Edward Tom may have to make. Each envisioned cut comes with a painful cost in learning and services. Robert King writes in the Indy Star's Compromise may be key to schools' survival that several Indianapolis Catholic schools may be converted to publicly funded charters. He writes, "The move would require the schools to forfeit their Catholic identities -- religious icons, daily instruction in catechism and trips for Mass at their adjacent parish churches during the school day." The Freewares of 2009 The Freewares of 2009 is really a pretty pretentious title for a compilation of the free stuff I've written about this year on Educators' News. But the freewares, open source applications, and web sites for education in the feature are really cool! I think there's probably something in it for everyone involved in education: parents (grandparents, too!); teachers; and students. I hope you enjoy it, and... Have a great weekend! Guion Creek Elementary I'm feeling a bit old this morning. While checking new education news postings, I came across a story in the Indy Star, Pike board moves to replace school, that told of the Guion Creek Elementary School in northwest Indianapolis. The school will be torn down next year, its students moved to a vacant school for a year, with a new building to be erected on the location. I remember Guion Creek fondly, as I used to live in Pike Township. I once toured the building when we were looking at other schools to guide the renovation of our school, the old Grandview Elementary in Washington Township. At that time, Guion Creek was a showplace of new, innovative construction and teaching methods. It employed pods for groups of open concept classrooms. But what impressed me most about Guion Creek was its principal, Cleve Rentschler. While leading our renovation committee on a tour of the building, he had to break off and turn it over to his assistant. It was time for "his reading group," which he taught daily in one of the pods. He explained that it helped keep him close to teaching and that he only missed teaching the class in really dire emergencies. Since I'm taking you down memory lane, let me relate a story I first shared on Educators' News in 2002.
Harcourt was torn down last year, Grandview Elementary was closed and the property sold to an excellent private school years ago, and Cleve and Roy have passed on. Time marches on, but we seem to be missing some of the lessons learned from administrators like Cleve, Roy, and Phyllis. They got into the classroom in a teaching role whenever possible to retain their perspective of what it is like to teach. I wonder what would happen if Michelle Rhee were still teaching at least a reading group regularly in one of the D.C. elementary schools? Can Arne Duncan really empathize with the student needs teachers must meet without ever having taught? And of course, just getting into the classroom for a "cameo appearance" can't convey the full understanding of what it is like to teach day after day, year after year. The rare breakthrough experiences are incredible, but are tempered with the daily sorrows and frustrations so prevalent in education. And I'll bet the new Guion Creek won't be an open concept friendly building. A Great Ad for an Education Product While cleaning up old archive pages for this site earlier this month, I ran across an old ad I'd run from Zoobooks In case they change the feed, the ad shows a pile of elephant poop with a fly hovering over it before the text appears, saying, "Is Elephant POOP THE LARGEST POOP IN THE WORLD??" The ad goes on to say that Zoobooks has the answer and a free elephant book for new subscribers. Maybe Zoobooks' sense of whimsy is something we need to regain in our discussion of reform in education.
I know for a certainty that we need to stop hammering our good teachers with constant negative press. Update: Zoobooks is no longer an Educators' News affiliate advertiser, but their banner is still really cute. Geminid Reminder
If you have to be up early Monday morning for school, you might try watching tonight, as the shower gradually draws to a peak number of meteors on Sunday night and early Monday morning. Sky & Telescope ran a great article in 2004 by Monica Bobra about the Geminids, The Geminids: An Exception to the Rule, that gives a great background on the meteor shower and its origins. Note: I cheated on the photo. It's actually a shot of a Leonid from November available from Ed Sweeney via a Creative Commons license. Thanks, Ed! Odds 'n' Ends Yesterday, I turned loose an end-of-the-year piece, The Freewares of 2009. It's a compilation of the cool, free stuff I've written about all year on Educators' News. When I publish my increasingly rare columns these days, I send out a press release to a few sites which have carried links to my stuff in the past. Without such publicity, "If you build it, they will come," really isn't so. So a big thanks to Heng-Cheong Leong at MyAppleMenu, and the guys at MacSurfer's Headline News. An even bigger thanks goes out to those sites that didn't receive the press release, but posted links anyway: Accelerate Your Macintosh; Ottawaman on ehMac.ca; Tim Merritt's DV for Teachers; and ZiCOS. One interesting thing to me about the column was what it did for my site stats over two days. Since most of the PR went out to Mac-centric sites (I used to be a columnist for a couple of such sites.), the usual Windows-Mac user stats reversed themselves.
Again, have a great weekend!
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