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Poverty and Learning The U.S. Census Bureau released a report last week showing more Americans living in poverty now than any time in the last 15 years. Walt Gardner notes today in Poverty Rate and the Achievement Gap that "the connection between childhood poverty and school performance is well documented." He concludes:
Christine Armario's Lift a community, raise a school tells of the government's Promise Neighborhoods pilot program that is designed "to help blighted neighborhoods provide family, community and school supports, with the hope it will boost student achievement." School Building Sites and Ground Pollution Megan Boldt's Danger below? Schools weigh land risks looks at how two school corporations dealt with what Boldt calls "a growing debate." She asks, "When is it appropriate to construct a school building on or near a contaminated site, and how do you handle the real or perceived threats," and proceeds to tell how the Stillwater school district and St. Croix Preparatory Academy came to different answers to the question. Her topic is one that more and more school districts will face in future school site selection.
Annie and I traveled to Wolcott, Indiana, over the weekend to see one of our daughters perform at Wayne and Cindy Ringer's annual private Blues at the Barn event. Erica now lives in Florida, but still gets together several times a year to perform with Chicago blues legends Mike Wheeler The setting for the event was in an old cattle pavilion that was built for Warren T. McCray years before he became governor of Indiana. McCray has quite a history, but he had a grand cattle pavilion and show barn. The structure was moved to its current location in Wolcott, Indiana, a number of years ago and is now known as the Governor's Barn. I found an interesting old reference to it on Google Books.
Looking out the front door of the barn, one sees three nearby windmills, but when you look from the side of the barn, the windmills stretch as far as the eye can see! At night, their red aircraft warning lights create and unusual sight. Send Feedback to |
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, and Melvin Smith as Rica Jean and the Spread. They did three fantastic sets. 
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Better Internet Service for Rural Schools Edward Wyatt writes in Internet Service Upgrade Coming to Poor and Rural Schools that the FCC is expected to "approve an overhaul of the $2.25 billion E-Rate program...to give schools more options for faster Internet service, allow for community Internet service and to begin pilot programs for digital textbooks." Under the change, schools and libraries would be allowed to use E-Rate funds "to lease unused local communication lines — known as dark fiber — to connect to the Internet, a potentially faster and lower-cost connection than currently offered through many local telecommunications companies." Surprisingly, there were still over 200 schools using dialup for their internet connectivity in 2009. New York Archdiocese to Consolidate Schools Cutbacks Part of Plan to Save Parochial Schools by Paul Vitello tells of plans by Archbishop Timothy M. Dolan "to close or consolidate elementary schools — perhaps as many as 30 of the 216 in the system, according to some priests — and ensure the future of those that remain." Like many parochial systems, the New York archdiocese has experienced declining enrollment for years. The plan also would change from schools being financed mostly by their local parish to centralized financing of schools by the archdiocese. On The Answer Sheet Diane Ravitch wrote last week that Valerie Strauss is "our nation's most indispensable education journalist." Valerie usually has several good posts each day on her The Answer Sheet blog on the Washington Post. She mixes her own articles and commentary with a variety of excellent guest bloggers. While some well known names appear in her list of guests, Valerie also publishes letters and columns from everyday teachers.
Odds 'n' Ends Travis Kaya's Classroom iPad Programs Get Mixed Response tells of several colleges that aren't quite sure of the iPad's place in the classroom, but "seem confident that the device has some future in academe." Catherine Martin's Education leaders mull possible fixes in the Columbia (MO) Daily Tribune quotes a Columbia Board of Education member as saying, "As a parent and board member, I know the most valuable and important person in that child’s life is the parent or adult that’s raising them. I really do believe we have to find a way to make sure all parents or whoever’s raising that child is intimately involved in that child’s education." And Diane Ravitch comments today on her Bridging Differences blog as to Why Michelle Rhee and Adrian Fenty Lost. Merit Pay Study "Rewarding teachers with bonus pay, in the absence of any other support programs, does not raise student test scores." That's how the announcement begins about a new study (1.5 MB PDF document) released yesterday by the National Center on Performance Incentives. The three-year study of 5th through 8th grade math teachers in the Metropolitan Nashville Public Schools is "the first scientific study of performance pay ever conducted in the United States." A survey associated with the study found that more than 80 percent of treatment-group teachers agreed with the statement, "I was already working as effectively as I could before the implementation of POINT, so the experiment will not affect my work."
On the Blogs I like the humanity expressed in teachers' blogs and usually try to run some poignant and/or inspiring postings in this section. But today I lead with a couple of practical ideas. Jenny Orr didn't like all the erasures on students' papers so she replaced pencils with pens in her first grade classroom. She tells about the successful switch in Brilliance (or Laziness) on her Elementary, My Dear, or Far From It blog. Mike Doyle comments in Technology even a Luddite can love on his Science Teacher blog, "I'm cheap. I'm a neo-Luddite. And I like shiny things." He proceeds to tell how he used two cut up 4' x 8' white shower boards to make twelve 24' x 32" individual student white boards. When I was teaching, we used to use chalkboard paint on masonite for individual student chalkboards. Mike writes of the results:
Yeah! The Danger of a Single Story The Danger of a Single Story by David B. Cohen on the InterACT blog is a good discussion about how people may not get the whole story about something, specifically education, in their news. Cohen writes of the public's perception of public education:
Cohen does a good job of explaining that there's more to American education than the "single story" being presented by many education "reformers" and movies such as Waiting for Superman. The Oprah Waiting for Superman Event The Oprah Winfrey show that dealt with the Waiting for Superman movie produced lots of comments from education bloggers. Here are just a few links to such postings:
While John Spencer's comments about the misperceptions today of American education are spot on, I really enjoyed his Five Easy Reforms posting better. I won't steal his thunder by listing them all, but will just tantalize you with his #3 suggestion: "Rename the Woodcock Johnson Test. Does this need an explanation?" And Deborah Meier's piece, White Knights and False Villains in Education, on her Bridging Differences blog, while it doesn't directly deal with the Winfrey show or the Superman movie, talks some real common sense about how parents, students, and teachers should be respected. She writes in part:
And while it's a bit of a jump, Kenneth Bernstein's The problem with NBC's Education Nation - where are the voices of parents and teachers on the Education Policy Blog seems to fit well with the posts above. He writes that "in theory, one might think what NBC is doing is good - it is a focus on education as a national priority." But he found that " there are some serious concerns which have already been expressed publicly as well as in numerous communications to people responsible for organizing the event," mainly that of the thirty speakers announced so far, only "two are from parent organizations" and "one representative from the smaller of the two national teachers unions." He appropriately asks of NBC and its corporate sponsors:
In response to many teacher queries and protests, NBC held a press conference yesterday afternoon "to address educators' concerns about an apparent lack of teacher representation in the network's upcoming Education Nation event," according to Bryan Toporek's Teachers Welcomed in "Education Nation" on Teacher Magazine. NBC News President Steve Capus and NBC President of Strategic Initiatives Lisa Gersh "suggested that reports of teachers being overlooked by event organizers have been exaggerated, or not fully informed." Yeah, right. It would appear that we may be in for another round of public education and teacher bashing, this time from NBC. e-Rate Gets Facelift The FCC yesterday voted to allow schools to make e-Rate funded, internet-enabled computers available to the community after normal school operating hours and let e-Rate participants to connect to the internet in the most cost-effective way possible. A pilot program to support off-campus wireless internet connectivity for mobile learning devices, expanding a school’s wireless internet reach into its surrounding neighborhood, was also approved. Odds 'n' Ends Bill Turque and Tim Craig report in Gray, Rhee talk - about schools, not her future that there were no major announcements after presumptive mayoral winner Vincent C. Gray met with D.C. Schools Chancellor Michelle A. Rhee yesterday. The writers did tuck in an interesting observation:
Indiana and a bunch of other states will receive some big bucks to implement merit pay. It's sort of ironic that the awards were announced just days after a report was released that cast doubt on the efficacy of performance pay for teachers based on student test scores.
The Texas Board of Education is stirring things up again as told in The Upshot's Texas Board of Education takes aim at ‘anti-Christian, pro-Islam’ textbooks by Brett Michael Dykes. 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. |
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