Web Watch

In one New Jersey district, what you do (or don't do) over the weekend will have significant consequences come Monday morning—and we're not talking about acing the big algebra test. Administrators at Pequannock Township High School recently approved a new policy to randomly test students for weekend alcohol use. The sensitive tests, which will be used starting next week, can detect drinks consumed up to 80 hours earlier. School officials assert that the specter of testing will encourage students to make better decisions when offered alcohol at weekend parties. But some students beg to differ: "No one's really taking it seriously," says one senior. And civil liberties advocates are concerned that the tests are an invasion of privacy and can produce false positives if students consume Balsamic vinegar or use mouthwash, for example. "Medical care and treatment issues are between parents and children," says Deborah Jacobs, executive director of the New Jersey branch of the American Civil Liberties Union.

What's your take—should high schools test their students for alcohol use over the weekend? What kind of limits should exist on school districts' involvement in students' private lives?

Posted by at 11:56 AM | Permalink | Comments (3)

Last month, after the National Science Teachers Association declined to hand out free copies of the global warming documentary An Inconvenient Truth, one of the film’s producers announced plans to distribute the copies directly to educators via the Internet. Whether they’ll actually be able show the DVD in class is another matter. After an evangelical Christian parent complained about a planned screening of the Al Gore-narrated film in his daughter’s 7th grade science class, the school board in Federal Way, Washington, first banned and then placed rigorous restrictions on the movie’s classroom use. Among other things, the DVD can only be shown when it’s balanced by alternative perspectives approved by the school principal and district superintendent. But, as several residents pointed out during the board’s public meetings on the issue, opposing views on the science of global warming are seen as increasingly dubious. “The only thing I have found so far is an article in Newsweek called ‘The Cooling World,’” said Kay Walls, the teacher at the center of the controversy. The piece was written almost 40 years ago.

Posted by Anthony Rebora, teachermagazine.org at 2:46 PM | Permalink | Comments (4)

The opportunity for free-running self-expression is one of the big reasons people create their own pages on social networking Web sites. But the recent firing of a Florida teacher over his MySpace page calls into question how free a teacher can ever be to express his or her thoughts.

John Bush, a 52-year-old physical education teacher at Landrum Middle School in Augustine, was terminated after Bush’s page turned up with a photo and text that the school board attorney said were not pornographic, but “inappropriate for school teachers in St. Johns County.”

Bush, who’s fighting for his former job, says he didn’t post the material, hypothesizing that someone hacked into his site. He added that he took down the content in question as soon as he learned about it. His MySpace page currently shows his portrait and identifies him as a divorced teacher looking to date and meet friends.

"I don't think that's inappropriate, personally," said Stephanie Eastman, the parent of a Landrum student. "He is a person, after all, at the end of the school day."

Teachers know they have to set a certain standard of behavior, whether they’re at school or not, but where do you draw the line? How much authority should administrators have over teachers’ personal, non-school-affiliated Web sites?

What do you think?

Posted by Scott J. Cech, Teacher Magazine at 4:15 PM | Permalink | Comments (2)

Four years running, Annapolis High School in Maryland has fallen short of meeting NCLB requirements, scoring particularly low in reading tests and graduating just 50 percent of its male African American students on time. So Superintendent Kevin Maxwell, deciding he’d had enough, announced yesterday that everyone—principal, teachers, secretaries, even cafeteria workers—would have to reapply for their jobs. Although rumors had been swirling, Maxwell’s move was seen as less than diplomatic. While the school’s principal retreated to his office and prayed, Lidia Smithers, an English and French teacher, said of the superintendent, who left no time for discussion, “He raced out of there. I felt very disappointed.” Maxwell later argued, however, that, if the academic record doesn’t improve at AHS—where the students are a mix of wealthy white kids and working-class minorities—the state might intervene. The reapplication process, which will be explained to staff next week, has been tried elsewhere (including in nearby Baltimore). But most districts target specific administrators or educators when reforming a school. Smithers, pointing out the socioeconomic challenges many AHS students face, asked: “Why are teachers being blamed for all of this? Do you blame your doctor if you have cancer? Is it Giant Food’s fault if I’m fat?”

Posted by Rich Shea, Teacher Magazine at 12:38 PM | Permalink | Comments (2)

As we recently reported, performance-pay plans have been gaining popularity around the country. But educators in Houston are learning that the reality doesn’t come without a certain amount of angst. This week, more than half of Houston’s teachers are expected to receive bonuses ranging from $500 to $7,000 under a multipronged formula based on student test results. Some teachers and union leaders in the district are charging that the formula is too complicated to fully decipher and that the payout will breed dissension among teachers who fail to get bonuses—and even some who do receive them. “It’s always nice to get more money,” said one 7th grade teacher. “But the things I hear from teachers, we just kind of think it’s terribly unfair. We do the best we can.” District officials acknowledge the system is complicated, but maintain that the basic premise is both simple and fair: “If [teachers] do a better job of teaching children than most other teachers do, then they’ll get the money,” said district spokesman Terry Abbott.

Posted by Anthony Rebora, teachermagazine.org at 2:18 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

If you’re one of those shocked by the MySpace-posted video of three New York teens pummeling a classmate, you may not be aware of a trend that psychologists have highlighted for years: outrageous behavior among American girls. MySpace was also the place where a clique of Texas cheerleaders posted photos of themselves flashing the camera and imbibing alcohol. And, last May, a brawl erupted after a high school girls’ soccer game in Illinois. According to the most recent federal statistics, the number of assault arrests for girls rose 41 percent between 1992 and 2003, whereas the increase for boys was just 4.3 percent. The Harvard School of Public Health, citing violent and misogynistic images in the media, reports that girls are “increasingly turning to physical violence to solve their problems.” And Howard Spivak, director of the Tufts University Center for Children, adds that such behavior “seems to be related ... to the change in the kinds of role models and behaviors that we’re defining as acceptable for girls.” So, who’s to blame? As usual, the problem starts at home, according to yet another report, stating: “The initial causes of violence are found in the early learning experiences in the family, which includes weak family bonding and ineffective monitoring and supervision.”

Posted by Rich Shea, Teacher Magazine at 2:24 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

The new movie “Freedom Writers” has received critical and popular acclaim for its portrayal of a courageous young teacher who changes the lives of students in a troubled inner city school. But in an opinion article published in the New York Times, a 10th grade history teacher in the Bronx argues that such Hollywood depictions create a distorted and potentially harmful image of the teaching profession. Apart from glossing over the harsh conditions in which teachers in urban schools often work, writes Tom Moore, films like “Freedom Writers” promote the message that “what schools really need are heroes”—or teachers who are more “missionaries than professionals.” In giving the impression that all disadvantaged students need is “love, idealism, and martyrdom,” these movies trivialize “not only the difficulties that many real students must overcome, but also the hard-earned skill and tireless effort real teachers must use to help those students succeed.” Along the way, says Moore, they contribute to a political environment in which hardworking, everyday teachers are blamed for schools’ failures, “while their appeals for better and safer workplaces are systematically ignored.”

Posted by Anthony Rebora, teachermagazine.org at 11:27 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Apparently, some Kansans’ idea of classroom management hasn’t evolved much, either. Propelled by a series of newspaper articles describing teachers’ difficulties in maintaining classroom order, a Kansas state senator plans to propose a bill that would make it less inconvenient for educators to use corporal punishment as a disciplinary tool. Specifically, legislation being by put forth by Republican state Senator Phil Journey would protect teachers who spank students from lawsuits and criminal charges if the local school board allows corporal punishment and parents provide written permission. “When all else fails, time outs and privilege restrictions and things like that, sometimes you need to give them a little swat to get their attention,” observed Journey, who has four children of his own. Currently, 29 states ban corporal punishment, according to the Center for Effective Discipline. Kansas does not have a law on corporal punishment, but most school boards in the state prohibit it. “If we model behavior that is exactly what we don’t want students to do, I don’t see how that would improve the situation,” noted Kelli Mather, head of student and family services for the school district in Kansas City, Kansas.

Posted by Anthony Rebora, teachermagazine.org at 5:31 PM | Permalink | Comments (7)

The author of To Kill a Mockingbird is famously reclusive. She rarely speaks in public, and her novel—about Atticus Finch’s defense of a black man wrongly accused of raping a white woman in the segregated South—is the only work she’s ever had published. But a high-school stage version of Mockingbird, in her home state of Alabama, was evidently enough to bring Harper Lee out of hiding. The play was mounted just across the street from the Montgomery bus stop that made Rosa Parks famous, and Lee had been invited by arts and education officials seeking to honor her work. But the 80-year-old, who simply waved to the audience during a standing O, saved her comments for the students afterward, during a private reception. The cast of 60 comes from two public schools—one in a wealthy, mostly white community, the other in a poorer, mostly black district. The schools’ theater and choir directors thought the show, first staged last August, would be a good way to bridge a cultural divide. And, indeed, a bond between kids who previously knew very little about each other has developed. After the Montgomery performance, Kimberly Agee, who plays the Finches’ maid, put her arm around Regan Stevens, who plays Scout, and said, “These right here—these are friends for life.”

Posted by Rich Shea, Teacher Magazine at 2:00 PM | Permalink | Comments (1)

The No Child Left Behind Act turns five this week, but it appears many teachers won’t be celebrating. Among the ways the NCLB Act has changed schools since its enactment, according to an overview by USA Today, is by “driving teachers crazy.” Teachers have been most frustrated by the curricular constraints the law appears to have fostered and by its emphasis on standardized tests. “I am well on my way to becoming an embittered and mediocre teacher who heretofore considered teaching to be a profession, not a job,” one educator is reported to have written on an online petition calling for NCLB’s repeal. While many observers credit the law with bringing greater attention to poor and minority students, even longtime supporters appear to be having doubts about how well NCLB is playing out in schools. In a move that has created a stir in the education policy world, a former Bush administration education official has posted an article conceding that the “NCLB as enacted is fundamentally flawed and probably beyond repair.” Michael Petrilli, a self-described ‘True Believer” who used to wear an NCLB pin on his lapel, now says the law is rife with “nonsensical provisions” and flaws. Chief among them, he writes, are a “rigid rule-based mechanism” for determining highly qualified teachers and an incentives system that appears to have turned many schools into “test-prep factories.”

Posted by Anthony Rebora, teachermagazine.org at 1:55 PM | Permalink | Comments (8)

In America's ongoing war against obesity, schools are only one battleground. But they're a controversial one, especially as districts adopt the unproven practice of sending home obesity report cards listing students' body mass index. While the practice is mandated in only a few states—in Pennslyvania, for example, the cards are required for K-8 students—many individual districts have embraced it after hearing about positive results from a small number of programs. But there's more to raising healthy kids than simply reporting obesity, critics contend. In many districts that report BMI to parents, children continue to face inadequate PE time and unhealthy cafeteria food. "It would be the height of irony if we successfully identified overweight kids through BMI screening while continuing to feed them atrocious quality meals and snacks," says David Ludwig, a physician at Boston's Children's Hospital. In addition, parents who receive notice that their children are in the 90th percentile for weight based on their height, age, and gender often don't know what to do with the information. And, surrounded by ever-expanding American waistlines, many parents disagree that their children need to slim down. To truly change students' eating habits, says Marlene Schwartz of the Rudd Center for Food Policy and Obesity at Yale University, schools need to provide "really high-quality nutrition and physical activity assessments." That's a bigger bite than many states and districts can afford to chew.

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We already know that kids who stay in school will have better jobs and earn more money. But new research indicates that education actually contributes to longer life. That's right: Stay in school and live longer. And, as a bonus, those extra years will be marked by better health. "If you were to ask me what affects health and longevity, I would put education at the top of my list," says Michael Grossman, a health economist who studies the factors that affect human life expectancy. The question of how education is related to longevity was originally tackled by a graduate student, who tracked how life expectancies increased when states began requiring more years of compulsory schooling back in the early 1900s. Life expectancy at age 35 was extended by as much as 1.5 years simply from going to school for an extra year—even after controlling for other factors, such as wealth and race. In fact, education's effect on lifespan outpaces the influence of geographic location, churchgoing, family background, and health insurance. It's just one more reason to ensure that every child receives an excellent education.

Posted by at 12:16 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)