Neag Center Home Page | News & Views
Playing with the boys—or not: a survey by the National Council for Education Statistics finds that only one in fifty kindergarten teacher is male. A variety of stereotypes, both of the profession and of men in it, may be the cause—unfortunate not least because it deprives young students of positive male role models:
www.jsonline.com/news/metro/sep04/260294.asp
In Boston, community groups are gearing up for a response to proposed changes in the area's school busing system. Although the task force was designed to ameliorate problems with the existing system, parents say the proposed plans don't offer quality schooling options closer to home.
www.boston.com/news/local/massachusetts/articles/2004/09/20/busing_proposals_draw_fire_on_2_sides
Those of us with concerns about curriculum are justified: a new report by the Council for Basic Education found that the "back to basics" focus on reading and math has hurt equally important areas like foreign language and social studies:
www.ascd.org/cms/objectlib/ascdframeset/index.cfm?publication=http://www.ascd.org/publications/ed_lead/200409/perkinsgough.html?reid=sb
In black and white: in Washington state, some schools are leaving behind the traditional chalkboard in favor of whiteboards—not merely dry-erase boards, but computer-supported interactive boards that copy marks to multiple screens. Proponents find them neater, more economical, and say the provide excellent opportunities for students:
seattlepi.nwsource.com/local/191700_ecenter21.html
"Chicago Hope:" as the Chicago school district makes plans to close 60 larger schools and replace them with over 100 smaller schools and charter schools, parents worry that their children may not receive the quality of education they need:
www.csmonitor.com/2004/0921/p11s01-legn.html
Have science, will travel: an Ohio-based company has found a new use for old school buses. By outfitting them as rolling science labs, OBS, Inc. brings science to schools without facilities or with limited science equipment:
www.boston.com/news/education/k_12/articles/2004/09/21/co_converts_buses_into_rolling_labs
In Maine, an education lawsuit brings national attention—and may change the way that schools deals with students who have Asperger's. The parents of a child with Asperger's are suing the local school district for banning their son, whom they home-school, from the school playground:
www.boston.com/news/education/k_12/articles/2004/09/22/boy_with_disability_banned_from_playground
Thinking locally acting globally: NCLB Grassroots, a project of the Civil Society Institute's Results for America campaign, offers education stakeholders around the nation a chance to make their opinions of NCLB heard, and offers important ideas and suggestions for education policy-makers:
www.nclbgrassroots.org
This article also discusses how many children are left behind by NCLB:
www.beacon.org/k-12/june2004/meier-wood_intro.html
And, in Pittsburgh, the Council on Public Education offers this NCLB toolkit for parents:
www.ed4allkids.org/NCLB
Gear up for Halloween—and help support UNICEF's work with children around the world—with new resources for UNICEF's annual Trick-or-Treat campaign, including new service-learning plans and other informative material. Get involved:
www.trickortreatforunicef.org
The price of education: this editorial looks at shortfalls in public education—and asks that we hold our elected officials accountable for the promises they make:
www.boston.com/news/globe/editorial_opinion/oped/articles/2004/09/22/a_broken_promise_to_children
In California, the Board of Regents for the state university are considering boosting the GPA required for admissions from 2.8 to 3.0. The change would help the university meet its mandate to serve the top %12.5 of California students, but critics charge that it would also eliminate students from schools which don't offer AP classes and other options that boost GPA:
www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/news/archive/2004/09/23/state0314EDT0015.DTL
A new use for satellites: in India, EDUSAT, the country's first education-only satellite, was recently launched. The satellite will help to train teachers and provide other education resources:
theaustralian.news.com.au/common/story_page/0,5744,10831058%255E29098,00.html
This week's featured pick from Best of the Best:
The fractal act: This website offers fractal-centric lesson plans for teachers to use with middle-grades students, as well as links to more fractal resources:
www.mcrel.org/lesson-plans/plus/math/fractals.asp
In Virginia, lawmakers are considering lowering standards for the Praxis I exams for new teachers. Virigina's qualifying scores are currently the highest in the nation:
www.timesdispatch.com/servlet/Satellite?pagename=RTD%2FMGArticle%2FRTD_BasicArticle&c=MGArticle&cid=1031778136203&path=%21news&s=1045855934842
Word a Day: you and your students will enjoy the opportunity to expand your vocabulary by "a word a day" with this website, which also includes discussions of language and relevant quotes:
www.wordsmith.org/words/today.html
Enjoy fascinating, and educational, astronomy pictures, as provided by NASA, on this website. The site also features a short discussion of each day's picture written by a professional astronomer:
antwrp.gsfc.nasa.gov/apod/astropix.html
Teaching good citizenship, and more: across the country, a number of groups are working to bring civics education, which saw a recent decline, back into schools:
www.boston.com/news/globe/editorial_opinion/editorials/articles/2004/09/12/a_civics_revival
In Britain, education authorities are working to take the test-pressure off younger students. The "sudden death" style of tests in the "Three R's" may be replaced with new and less intense tests, which are being piloted this year:
education.guardian.co.uk/schools/story/0,5500,1303167,00.html
Twice exceptional may not be exceptional enough: in one north Carolina district, many parents of bright autistic children fear that their children will not receive the services they need:
www.newsobserver.com/news/story/1631655p-7849695c.html
And yet another "chat about charters": this article calls for a reassessment of this costly charter schools:
www.boston.com/news/globe/editorial_opinion/oped/articles/2004/09/13/time_to_reassess_costly_charter_schools
In Arizona, the state superintendent of schools plans to redirect funds in order to pay for extra help for students having difficulty with high school ext exams. The funds to be transferred come from those allocated for tutoring programs:
www.azcentral.com/arizonarepublic/local/articles/0914tutorcash14.html
In Maine, state officials are postponing their NCLB "report cards" by two weeks. The delay will accommodate schools where data had to be compiled by hand:
pressherald.mainetoday.com/news/state/040912nochild.shtml
With suspensions and expulsions on the rise, there's a growing need for alternative programming for students who've fallen outside the traditional education system. Although options such as the GED exist, the rising numbers suggest the need for other alternatives:
www.csmonitor.com/2004/0914/p14s01-legn.html
New data from the international Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) show that the US is the leader in high school completion rates for older adults. However, our younger "late bloomers" (high school students ages 25-34) don't fare as well as those in other countries:
www.detnews.com/2004/schools/0409/14/a08-273177.htm
In Denver, a recent shortage of substitutes may have been the result of a new union contract cutting substitute pay. District officials deny that the pay cuts caused the shortage, but some substitutes warn there may be more in the future:
insidedenver.com/drmn/education/article/0,1299,DRMN_957_3179837,00.html
With national leaders, including the President, focused on improving standards for high schools, much of the focus is also on at-risk students: preventing dropouts and motivating those who do stay:
www.stateline.org/stateline/?pa=story&sa=showStoryInfo&id=398380
And in another note on school reform, the Boston Globe takes a look at Massachusetts' progress in their own program of reform. The key to success: getting it all together:
http://www.boston.com/news/education/k_12/mcas/articles/2004/09/15/school_reform_midpoint
"Caring and sharing" may be a cliche, but at first half of it can be vital for student success: if kids are emotionally engaged in learning, says this article—and if they feel that what they're doing has some importance to their lives—they're more likely to become involved:
seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/opinion/2002034444_raspberry14.html
A virtuous circle: it's conventional wisdom that parents with school-age children will pay top dollar for homes near good schools. CNN takes a look at the relationship between good schools and property values:
money.cnn.com/2004/08/27/real_estate/buying_selling/schools
Studies suggest that as many as one in ten children may have a learning disability—and with many disabilities, early detection can be key in helping children fulfill their potential. This poll takes a look at American attitudes toward LD—and at the public's knowledge of vital "early warning signs":
www.focusonlearning.org/pollingrelease.htm
Most teachers don't begrudge the money they spend on classroom materials—but Uncle Sam does begrudge them a tax cut for their business expenses. The NEA and some lawmakers are working to bring back the "teacher tax cut" introduced in 2002, which expired in 2003:
www.cnn.com/2004/EDUCATION/09/16/school.supplies.ap/index.html
Going beyond zero-tolerance policies: this article looks at the kinds of discipline that best promotes a safe learning environment—and the places were school often fall short of achieving this goal:
www.asbj.com/current/research.html
Another concern in disciplinary policies is the racial gap—the fact that students from minority and low-SES groups may see harsher disciplinary action than others. In Kentucky, policy-makers are taking a close look at this problem:
www.kentucky.com/mld/kentucky/9498485.htm
And yet another disciplinary problem, one that involves teacher conduct as well as that of students, is sexual misconduct. This report examines the scope of the problem:
www.csba.org/csmag/Fall04/csMagStoryTemplate.cfm?id=48
And on a more proactive note, the National Crime Prevention Council, in association with KSA-Plus Communications, is providing a list of 11 tips to help parents make schools safer for their children. This and other parent-leadership sites can be found here:
www.parents.ksaplus.com/framesplpubs.html
Most of us are probably familiar with "dystopian" fiction, but the rise of high-stakes testing and the critiques thereof has spawned a new concept: "testopian" fiction! J. K. Rowling touched on the concept in Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix with the noxious Dolores Umbridge's approach to education, but that's not the end of it! In Story Time, the new novel by Edward Bloor (author of the award-winning YA novels Tangerine and Crusade) the presence of a demon at Whittaker Magnet School is the least of the students' problems, as the school's focus on standardized tests literally to the exclusion of everything else goes to absurd extremes. Like all dystopias, Bloor's Whittaker may seem absurd at first, but its extremes can serve as a cautionary tale or even a wake-up call to readers! The site below has a review of the book and a link to Amazon.com:
www.teenreads.com/reviews/0152046704.asp
Speaking up, and on, the Internet: NetDay, an education non-profit site, is encouraging teachers and students to speak up about the pros and cons of the Internet. The site will be open for comments from October 11-29:
www.netday.org
According to a new study, California public schools are holding their own against the state's charter schools. While students in charter schools showed faster improvements, public-school students' grades were slightly higher:
www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/chronicle/archive/2004/09/16/MNG0T8PNMP1.DTL
Bringing the mountain—or the museum—to your classroom: videoconferencing is making it possible for students in North Carolina to "visit" museums. The "virtual visits" are less costly and time-consuming than the real thing:
www.newsobserver.com/news/education/story/1637648p-7858602c.html
In Massachusetts, more schools are making the federal "watchlist". Around two dozen may face state-imposed restructuring:
www.boston.com/news/education/k_12/mcas/articles/2004/09/15/schools_failing_to_meet_federal_grade
In Oregon, parents are taking action: two mothers have started what will become the sixth West-Coast PTA for parents of special-needs children:
www.oregonlive.com/search/index.ssf?/base/metro_southwest_news/1094903752252140.xml?oregonian?swn
With Election Day fast approaching, make sure you're registered to vote! The ASCD offers a voter registration link and other political news here:
capwiz.com/ascd
You can also register here:
moveonpac.org/vote
Students not yet old enough to vote can also get in on the election action here:
www.nationalmockelection.org
and here:
www.vote-smart.org
In South Africa, teachers joined their fellow public servants in the biggest strike the country has yet seen. The strike protested, among other things, a two-year wage freeze:
www.iol.co.za/index.php?set_id=1&click_id=13&art_id=qw1095337083295B241
In Massachusetts, online learning may serve a social as well as an academic purpose: some teacher find that shyer students form stronger bonds with online teachers and are more willing to share their thoughts:
www.boston.com/news/education/k_12/articles/2004/09/16/at_high_schools_more_students_logging_on_to_learn
In Nevada, the casinos aren't the only ones worried about cheating: the state approved the hiring of a special assistant for school districts, whose role will be to help stem the rising tide of cheating:
www.reviewjournal.com/lvrj_home/2004/Sep-16-Thu-2004/news/24779293.html
A new study by the Trust for Early Education finds that many states are expanding their pre-K education funding. The report offered special praise to Arkansas and Virginia for their efforts:
www.timesdispatch.com/servlet/Satellite?pagename=RTD%2FMGArticle%2FRTD_BasicArticle&c=MGArticle&cid=1031777978506&path=%21news&s=1045855934842
Calling all parents—in Des Moines, district officials plan to go door-to-door, making personal contact with every parent in the district, to encourage their participation in their children's schooling and activities:
desmoinesregister.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20040917/NEWS02/409170341/1004
This week's featured pick from the Best of the Best (www.gifted.uconn.edu/tdsubjec.html)
Sit on top of the world—or just feel like it! NASA's "Destination Earth" features a variety of exciting earth-science pages on topics from meteorology to environmentalism. This site is suitable for all grade levels:
www.earth.nasa.gov/flash_top.html
In England, a gang culture is having a negative impact on school success: researchers found that "charvers", typically from low-SES backgrounds, rejected traditional schooling and exams. However, unlike some similar groups in the US, they did consider college acceptable and many students expect to resit their exams in college:
news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/education/3663916.stm
Calling all authors—want to share your education ideas? The ASCD is looking for a few good books to publish:
www.ascd.org/cms/index.cfm?TheViewID=654&reid=sb