Web Watch

While high-profile court cases and acrimonious school board debates grab the headlines, the individual classroom battle over teaching evolution is what resonates most. Take the case of Pat New, a 62-year-old middle school science teacher in Georgia. She’s won several outstanding-educator awards and is one of only two teachers in her school to hold national board certification, but during 2004-05, she was barraged with complaints about her Darwin-friendly lessons. After students and parents asked when she’d stop wasting time and end the unit, she politely pointed out that evolution is central to biology as well as featured prominently in the school’s textbooks. Then the principal got involved, pressing upon New his literal interpretation of the Bible. But it was a meeting hosted by the school superintendent, during which New was badgered by parents, that prompted her to consider filing a grievance against the school. She told administrators, not for the first time, that she was a) following the curriculum and b) adhering to Georgia’s science standards. After a call to the state department of ed, the superintendent concurred that, indeed, New was simply doing her job. She was left alone thereafter and did not file the grievance. So why is New sharing her story now? Because after 29 years of teaching, she just retired.

Posted by Rich Shea, Teacher Magazine at 9:39 AM | Permalink | Comments (7)

Could it be that, despite all the talk of a “war against boys” and a generalized “boy crisis,” today’s schools are actually serving the male half pretty well? A new study by Education Sector, a Washington think tank, suggests as much. The study surveys test results and academic achievement over the past 30 years and finds that, on the whole, boys’ scores have improved significantly in that time and that more boys are getting college degrees. However, black and Hispanic boys still lag far behind their white peers academically—a disparity that the report suggests should be the real focus of concern. The report says that the widely reported “boy crisis” in schools has been leveraged by ideological activists on both the left and right as a way to castigate particular learning methods and teaching styles. “Yet there’s not sufficient evidence—or the right kind of evidence—available to draw firm conclusions,” the authors say. But don’t expect the issue to disappear: In response to the Education Sector study, Michael Gurian, author of The Wonder of Boys: Saving Our Sons From Falling Behind in School and Life, observed that boys’ issues range far beyond what test scores can tell.

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They say you never get a second chance to make a first impression, but Boston school officials hope an expensive blitz of image advertising will be enough to win over a public more accustomed to school horror stories than fairy tales. The district is planning an extensive PR campaign for the coming school year, including professional photographs of teachers and students interacting; "ambassadors" to share good news about the school district with the public; and two newly hired communications professionals who will "manage negative stories" and "set the record straight" in the case of unfavorable press. All this comes with price tag of more than $520,000, and both grants and taxpayers will help cover the bill. Advocates of the PR strategy cite the district's diving enrollment numbers and say the plan is simply a way to shine a light on the district's successes. Others, however, are more dubious. "You want people to be cheerleaders for their schools," said city councilor John Tobin. "But this is not Moscow. This is the city of Boston."

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You want to travel the world in style, and not pay a dime for it? All you have to do is be appointed U.S. secretary of education—which, at the moment, is next to impossible, seeing as Margaret Spellings holds that post. Since landing the gig 18 months ago, she’s traveled abroad seven times, which is more than Rod Paige did during his four years as secretary. Among other countries, the Spellings World Tour has stopped in Egypt, Italy, Japan, and Afghanistan, and it’ll touch down in Greece and Spain this month. The ed department has shelled out close to $37,000 thus far for Spellings’ travel, which, according to one critic, amounts to “expensive public relations events to make the [agency] look good.” But supporters argue that a globally competitive world necessitates healthy international relations. Christopher Cross, who served as an assistant ed secretary under George Bush Sr., says of Spellings, “If she were sitting in her office and not doing any of these things, I would be even more concerned."

Posted by Rich Shea, Teacher Magazine at 2:23 PM | Permalink | Comments (3)

Back in the days when 3x5 cards were the standard in research tools, the term paper was the core of secondary education. But now it may be facing the same fate as those index cards. Thanks to the Internet's facilitation of plagiarism, more and more high school teachers are cutting back or eliminating required research papers. Anti-cheating software such as TurnItIn.com finds that about one-third of all K-12 and college papers are at least partially plagiarized. Facing those odds, teachers are leaning toward in-class writing exercises and oral presentations to measure student learning. But these assignments tend to be much shorter than term papers and don't require the same depth of thinking, leading some educators to worry that the next generation of students will head to college lacking rigorous writing and research experience. Many teachers who do still assign term papers, such as Janet Groth of Clovis High School, near Fresno, California, now require elaborate documentation of each step of the research process. Others require companion essays explaining how the student accomplished each part of the assignment. "They knew I'd be checking and that they'd have to explain any wording," Groth said. But, she said, "It took forever to grade them."

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Receiving any teaching award is a boost to a teacher's ego. And a surefire way to make that success even sweeter is to add award money. So things were looking very good this week for Linda Alston of Denver, whose receipt of the Kinder Excellence In Teaching Award came with $100,000— the most money ever awarded to a K-12 educator. The award, which seeks to recognize exceptional teachers in schools where at least half the students receive free or reduced-price meals, required a nominating essay from someone who knew the teacher well, and the award committee visited the 10 finalists in their classrooms. Alston, a 25-year teaching veteran who's spent most of her time teaching kindergarteners using facets of the Montessori method, said her teaching philosophy is simply "...try to create as much beauty, order, and dignity for the learning environment as I possibly can.” Last year, she switched schools, seeking to work with underserved students in full-day kindergarten. So that award money will come in handy in outfitting her classroom. But first, she's got some other ideas in mind: a vacation to Martha's Vineyard and some expensive orange geraniums for her flower garden.

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These days, students are at least as likely to turn to the Internet as a library book when their science project or history report is due. But exactly what goes on inside kids' heads when they’re trolling the Web in search of information about magnetism or Frederick Douglass is still a mystery. Researchers at the University of Connecticut want to change that. In a $1.8 million, three-year study, Professor Donald J. Leu is leading a team that’s investigating exactly how kids learn online. In studying the “new literacies” needed to navigate the Internet, Leu’s team has found that most students have a tough time reading critically and distinguishing legitimate information from the Internet’s vast flotsam and jetsam. So researchers are carefully observing 7th-grader students in Norwich, Connecticut, as they work online to answer questions such as “Why do rainbows form?” The researchers track every keystroke and site visited, while the students verbally explain what they’re doing and why. “I’m still confused. What does ‘refracted’ mean?” one participant asked rhetorically as she worked through the science question. She used the Web site dictionary.com to answer that query before moving on to seek out more details about rainbows and light. Later, the research team will review her and other students’ sessions as they refine an Internet teaching model that will eventually help teachers train students in Internet literacy. “Not a single state evaluates students’ ability to read search engine results,” Leu said. But as the Internet’s reach steadily expands, online research may soon be the fourth R.

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A high school math teacher in Florida has found that using a computerized random-name generator to call on students in class helps improve their preparation and focus. The finding came as part of a graduate school research project in which the teacher, Paige Allison, was originally looking for a way to make sure math teachers called on girls as often as boys. With the help of a programmer, she developed an Excel-based name-generation program that could be used on a handheld computer. She then compared 15 math classes in which the device was used against a control group of 11 classes in which teachers called on students by their own methods. At this particular school, Allison found little evidence of gender bias on the part of teachers in the control group. On the basis of subsequent focus-group discussions, however, she did find that the students whose teachers used the name generator were more likely to be prepared for class and to pay attention to their teachers. “They felt they had to tune in more, because they knew they had a chance of being called on for every question,” Allison said. She also believes the program could help harried educators engage students who might otherwise be overlooked: “It’s easier and faster to let the student who knows the answer respond to you,” she observed. “So the quiet person in the corner who doesn’t raise a hand doesn’t get called on much.”

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From the questionable-career-moves department: Two middle school teachers in Hillsborough County, Florida, have resigned after a couple of students reported seeing them having sex inside a locked classroom. The students told school officials that they observed the educators, a Spanish teacher and a coach, through a hole in a piece of paper covering the classroom window. The teachers originally denied the allegation, but, according to a district report, later admitted that this wasn’t the first time. The district’s report also says that one of the teachers tried to keep the students from reporting the incident, pulling one of them out of her next class. The teachers, both in good standing at the time, resigned after they were interviewed “about unprofessional conduct on campus,” according to a school letter to parents. They now face a state inquiry that could result in their losing certification. “I’m embarrassed by the incident,” one of the teachers said. “Everything is not what it seems.”

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Now’s your chance to finally get that smaller class—and maybe a sweet location to work in, too. In an upmarket twist on home schooling, a growing number of families are hiring teachers to work privately with their children in their own homes. The trend seems to stem mainly from a pair of factors: Parents’ desire for a more individualized form of education for their children and jet-setting lifestyles that make traditional schooling impractical (or, in some cases, just rather inconvenient). Bob Harraka, president of Professional Tutors of America, says he has to turn down many requests for in-home educators each year because they are simply too far afield: “Sailing comes up at least or twice a year,” he notes. While some observers fear the domestic teaching arrangements may undermine the social goals of education—and while even some home schooling advocates say they aren’t “pure” examples of the form—the teachers themselves don’t seem to be complaining. “I love it; it’s a dream come true,” said Rob Cox, a certified teacher who sometimes gives poolside lessons to his private pupil in Marina del Rey, California. “It’s your own individual school that operates according to your needs.”

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International Baccalaureate—or IB—academic programs are gaining recognition nationwide for their rigorous curricular standards and the high-achieving students the classes draw. The program was created in Switzerland in 1968 to provide a common educational framework that would be recognized worldwide, with a focus on putting learning into an international context and encouraging students to develop their own projects. But in Minnesota, there's a growing furor about the IB program. Last month, two separate congressional district Republican conventions approved resolutions denouncing IB, and the classes were also a divisive issue in last fall's school board race in Minnetonka, Minnesota. Opponents charge that the IB curriculum "teaches global citizenship as a priority over American citizenship," in the words of one detractor. But supporters argue that IB imbues education with creativity. "It's giving big ideas to chew on for an extended period of time...not just jumping from one thing to the next," said Paula Palmer, the Minneapolis coordinator of IB programs. Part of the reason IB is so contentious is the cost: While states chip in a portion of IB funding (about $1 million in Minnesota), schools still cover much of the tab, to the tune of more than $100,000 per year in at least one case. With 519 IB schools already recognized in the United States and other schools lining up to apply, the community-support issue will likely come into sharper focus as planning for the next school year intensifies.

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