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Developing adequate reading skills could have a lifelong pay-off. A study of 3,260 Medicare patients found that those without basic “health literacy,” or the ability to understand patient information and make decisions based on it, were more likely to die sooner than their more-literate counterparts. Even taking into account overall education and other social factors, the study, which took place over more than five years, concluded that inadequate reading skills were the highest factor in determining mortality rates. The authors of the study cited that education levels in general have long been considered important in determining lifespan. As for why schooling seems to be a factor, researchers say that more education tends to lead to better jobs, housing, food, and health care.

Posted by Amanda Jones at 3:07 PM | Permalink | Comments (2)

In the wake of the vast teacher shortages sweeping the country, states are digging in to recruit. To fill vacancies, many are reaching beyond their state lines and others are offering enticing incentive packages. One Washington, DC suburb hopes to lure teachers with student appeals.

Prince George’s County in Maryland is sponsoring a $300,000 national ad campaign, which features a dozen students of all ages and races appealing for teachers. In one ad, 14-year-old Amber, an African American student asks, “Teach me to grow up to be a Pediatrician. Please.” In another, Jordan, a high school freshman asks, “Teach me to be an Electrical Engineer. Please.” John White, spokesman for the PG County school system, explained that the campaign “lets us put a face on the school system to let people know how diverse our students are.”

The county is also offering steep incentive packages, including new laptop computers, loan forgiveness plans, and relocation expenses.

Posted by Elizabeth Rich at 10:48 AM | Permalink | Comments (6)

Low salaries aren’t the only obstacles when it comes to filling teacher vacancies. According to an Arizona Republic story, the No Child Left Behind “highly qualified” requirement could be contributing to local and national teacher shortages. To be eligible for hire, teachers must now have a bachelor’s degree, a state certification or license, and a proven knowledge of their subject. For most, a major in their subject, an advanced certification from the state, or a graduate degree satisfies the “proven knowledge” prerequisite. With NCLB under review, some school leaders and politicians argue that these requirements don’t reflect effective teaching and actually prevent talented teachers from reaching the classroom.

Sens. Norm Coleman, R-Minn, Joe Lieberman, I-Conn, and Mary Landrieu, D-La, are proposing an education bill, All Students Can Achieve Act of 2007, that would grant states greater flexibility for measuring teacher effectiveness. “In our proposal, we ask states to focus for the first time on actual teacher performance, rather than simply on paper qualifications,” Lieberman told AP.

Posted by Stacey Hollenbeck at 12:22 PM | Permalink | Comments (11)

The British school curriculum is getting a makeover. An attempt to translate traditional academics into practical skills is at the heart of the overhaul. Now, citizenship courses will involve a discussion of British values; language courses will include Mandarin and Urdu; and a new course will cover “personal, social, health, and economic well-being.” World history curriculum is also facing a revamp; names like Churchill, Hitler, and Stalin will be noticeably absent.

Some educators, particularly historians, worry that the plan will further erode an already slumping educational system. “We are producing a generation who know little or nothing about the past, and the bits they do know have been carefully selected to manipulate their views of the world,” said Chris McGovern, headmaster at London’s St. Anthony's Preparatory School.

British educator John White disagrees, “For the first time in English history the government is taking very seriously the question of what should education be aimed at.”

Posted by Elizabeth Rich at 3:56 PM | Permalink | Comments (6)

A new study suggests that obesity—or more particularly body image—may be an education issue as well as a health issue. Research from the University of Texas at Austin finds that obese girls are half as likely to go to college than their thinner female peers. Assistant Professor Robert Crosnoe, who conducted the study, says that, in comparison with boys, obese girls are more likely to suffer from a poor body image, which can have a detrimental effect on their educational goals. The study, which tracked 11,000 American adolescents, found that the link between obesity and lower college enrollment was more pronounced among non-white girls and those who attended schools where obesity is uncommon. "How students fit in with or stand out from their peers at school is of the utmost importance to their educational pathways,” Crosnoe said in an article from the Canadian Broadcasting Company.

Posted by Stacey Hollenbeck at 1:50 PM | Permalink | Comments (3)

With Friday’s midnight release date of the final Harry Potter book looming, the world’s abuzz with talk of the main character’s fate—did J.K. Rowling kill him off? Another pressing question—perhaps one more relevant to teachers—is swirling around Rowling’s popular series: Has the book popularized reading for hundreds of millions of children, particularly hard-to-reach teens, the way many experts say it has?

The answer is “no,” according to National Endowment for the Arts chairman, Dana Gioia, who's also a renowned poet and literary critic. "This one series of popular novels has not been enough in itself to reverse the overall decline in reading," said Gioia, referencing studies the NEA will release this fall.

Children’s publishers disagree with the NEA's findings, citing spiking numbers in the sale of books for young readers since Rowling’s series began. At the same time, industry consultant and marketing professor at Fordham University, Albert Greco, notes that sales of children’s books have climbed only about ten percent since the child wizard first landed on the shelves.

Posted by Elizabeth Rich at 12:32 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Elective courses have run the gamut of importance. Once a core part of a student’s course load, then used as a way to boost a GPA, electives are now, in some school districts, being eliminated from GPAs entirely. A Texas school district will vote Monday to determine whether or not to include elective courses in students' GPAs. The reason? Overachieving students are avoiding taking classes that don’t receive as many points toward a weighted GPA. Under the proposed plan, elective grades would be shown on a transcript, but only the four core subjects and two years of a foreign language would be used to calculate a student’s GPA. "It breaks my heart if a student says, 'I'm not going to take band because it will hurt me,'" said T.J. Theisen, a district assistant superintendent. "Then you know you've got to step back and say, 'We really need to think this through.'" Darrell Muncy, a principal in another Texas school district that is already using the new scoring system, found that no-credit electives have helped alleviate student pressure without undermining performance.

Posted by Amanda Jones at 4:50 PM | Permalink | Comments (5)

San Francisco, which has one of the country’s priciest real estate markets, is looking to join cities like New York City, Washington, DC, and Chicago by providing housing incentives to lure and retain teachers. Between the fall of 2005 and the summer of 2007, the city lost 16 percent of its teaching force.

In a recent study, the San Francisco Department of Children Youth and Families disclosed that housing incentives were the number one perk to encourage teacher retention. Responding to his city’s initiative, Mayor Gavin Newsome said, “This is a high priority for us. This [subsidizing teacher housing] is an opportunity to demonstrate the priority in a meaningful and substantive way.”

San Francisco hopes to offer 75 teachers housing support at first, increasing the number to 200 within three years. The San Francisco Unified School District is also speaking to developers about how district property could be used to create affordable teacher housing.

Another city offering incentives to draw teachers to the area is New Orleans. City officials are targeting educators in Houston, Dallas, Pittsburgh, and Minneapolis with a big incentive package, which includes relocation expenses and a year’s worth of housing costs for those willing to make a three-year commitment.

Posted by Elizabeth Rich at 2:05 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Officials at Maryland’s Montgomery County Public Schools are replacing a precursory lesson to the reading of Harper Lee’s To Kill a Mockingbird. An essay and a poem that were used to prepare students for a discussion of the “N-word,” which appears in Lee’s novel, are being scrapped after a ninth grade African American student complained.

According to a Washington Post article, the 15-year-old student was offended when she observed her English teacher, who is white, mimicking stereotypical African American gestures and elocution while reading the assigned Gloria Naylor poem, “The Meaning of the Word.” “She has a different style of teaching things and we knew she was a little over the top on some lessons. But this was not a lesson to be over the top about,” said the student.

As an alternative, Montgomery County educators are suggesting students study segregation photographs from the Jim Crow era and read an essay about a racist white southerner by Henry Louis Gates Jr. Besty Brown, curriculum director for the county said, “What we heard from enough community members and some teachers is that it's [a discussion of the “N-word”] sensitive, it’s emotionally charged. And if we have a lesson that could be misused and cause real hurt to a few or to a whole classroom of kids, then maybe we need to change.”

Earlier this week the NAACP held a symbolic funeral in Detroit for the “N-word” and other racial slurs, according to the Associated Press.

Posted by Elizabeth Rich at 2:19 PM | Permalink | Comments (4)

Extending the academic year by hours, days or months is a question that school districts have been floating for a while. For many, the cost of extending the year must be weighed against the learning benefits.

This week, in her state of education speech, Sandy Garrett, Oklahoma state school superintendent, raised the thorny issue. Dr. Joe Siano, school superintendent for Norman, Okla., said, “My reaction is positive. I think with the challenges in accountability, time is an important issue. I’m very much in favor of looking at those extended time options.” But he notes that there are also financial considerations. “You have to look at extended operation dollars and contractual dollars,” said Siano.

Another concern, of course, is whether students need to have a summer vacation. The Press & Sun-Bulletin in Greater Binghamton, New York, opened the discussion to its readers, “Should local school districts have classes year-round? Or is summer vacation an important part of life for students?” One reader’s response, “Not all learning takes place inside the classroom,” comes as nothing new in the debate over whether children need time off.

For a quick history on the genesis of the summer vacation, check out Slate.com's Explainer.

Posted by Elizabeth Rich at 11:00 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Unhappy with a new curriculum developed by an outside firm, Pittsburgh's school district is diverting money from the company’s contact to hire district teachers and academic coaches as curriculum writers this year. Under the plan, some $2.4 million from the district's $8.4 million contract with Kaplan K12 Learning Services will be divvied up among the teacher-curriculum writers, teachers who provide feedback, and University of Pittsburgh's Institute for Learning, which will provide resources and services to the writers. According to the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, teachers could make $16,000 to $22,000 per course for designing the curriculum—in addition to their regular pay.

Initial installments of the new curriculum introduced by Kaplan last school year triggered a range of complaints from teachers, prompting the district to reconsider the contract. Kaplan Senior Vice President Seppy Basili, however, said it’s normal for school systems to develop more of their own curricula in the second or third years of a contract with Kaplan. "The decision to go in this direction was based on some of the feedback really all through the year from teachers who, I think, wanted a greater voice and greater stake in the process," Basili said.

Posted by Stacey Hollenbeck at 10:46 AM | Permalink | Comments (4)

Pennsylvania is learning the hard way that modernizing math instruction does not always further comprehension. The state’s students are faltering in math placement tests, in spite of demonstrating achievement elsewhere. As a result, colleges and universities are having to rewrite textbooks and add remedial courses so their students can catch-up on math concepts and skills.

The college math professors in the state blame the emphasis placed on student testing combined with introducing higher-level math to increasingly younger students. “Many bright students are hurried through algebra and trigonometry courses on their way toward statistics and calculus,” said Marie Wilde, chairwoman of the mathematical and information sciences program at Cedar Crest College in Allentown, Pennsylavania. Wilde agrees that "teaching to the test" has contributed to the gap in student math skills.

Parents in Pennsylvania's upper Bucks County successfully lobbied their school district to add a traditional math program that focuses on the basics this fall.

Posted by Elizabeth Rich at 12:05 PM | Permalink | Comments (9)

As the debate over evaluating test scores continues, many schools across the country are shifting their method of evaluating student progress. More than two dozen states, including Alaska, Arkansas, Florida, and Ohio, are looking to a new way of analyzing test scores, called a “growth model,” which assesses individual student's progress as they advance from grade to grade instead of comparing them to the previous year’s class.

The model has been helpful in both urban areas where the student population includes at-risk children, as well as affluent communities which tend to attract top-performing children. While tests scores traditionally have been used to focus on low performing students, the growth model considers students at all levels, thereby putting pressure on high-performing schools that have yet to answer to test scores.

The growth model, however, does not have a universal appeal. Some teachers and parents feel the approach still places too much emphasis on test scores and they find the data incomprehensible. Said Aimee Bolender, president of the Alliance-AFT, which represents 9,000 teachers and staff from the Dallas school district, “You have to be a Ph.D. in statistics to even comprehend it.” Teachers’ unions like the growth model, but reject its use for performance reviews and merit pay. Said Bolender, “It’s detrimental for education. It’s pulling apart teams of teachers and it doesn’t look at why test scores are low.”

In response to the growing popularity of the growth model, Margaret Spellings, U.S. Secretary of Education, said in a statement, “We are open to new ideas, but when it comes to accountability, we are not taking our eye off the ball.”

Posted by Elizabeth Rich at 4:00 PM | Permalink | Comments (2)

Illinois Sen. Barack Obama told members of the nation's largest teachers union this week that he supports the idea of merit pay for educators. In the prepared text for his speech at the National Education Association’s annual convention in Philadelphia, the Democratic presidential candidate said that teachers who excel at helping students raise their achievement, as well as those working in hard-to-staff schools and high-needs subject areas, should be rewarded extra. However, he noted that teachers’ performance should not be based “on some arbitrary test score.” “I want to work with teachers,” he assured the 9,000 NEA members gathered at the convention, many of whom are skeptical of the performance-pay initiatives. “I’m not going to do it to you. I’m going to do it with you.” Obama’s proposal reportedly received a smattering of applause.

Posted by Anthony Rebora, teachermagazine.org at 10:54 AM | Permalink | Comments (9)

A school district in Michigan is considering a “pay to plug” program that would require teachers and school employees who use desk lamps, small fans, and mini-fridges to pay a fee. The program, designed to lessen the strain on the system’s shrinking budget, could save Chippewa Valley Public Schools at least $25,000, according to school officials. The plan, similar to one implemented in Grosse Pointe Public Schools, is part of an energy-saving initiative, which, according to business manager Chris Fenton, also includes making sure computers and lights are turned off. “If you take all of those pieces, they all add up and you can get to $100,000 pretty quick, and now you're looking at the cost of a couple of teachers,” said Fenton. Doug Pratt of the Michigan Education Association countered, saying pinching pennies won’t thwart budget cuts. “I have no problem talking about energy conservation, but when we're talking about school districts telling teachers they can't bring a fan from home into the classroom to help make the learning environment more livable for students, that really shows the financial situation of the state,” he said.

Posted by Stacey Hollenbeck at 4:04 PM | Permalink | Comments (1)

They may be only one letter apart, but Parent Teacher Association officials are working to stress the differences between PTAs and the PT0s—or Parent Teacher Organizations—that are increasingly replacing them. According to an article in the St. Louis Post-Dispatch, PTA membership has dropped from 12 million in the 1950s to 5.5 million today, and PTAs now make up less than 25 percent of school-parent groups. The annual PTA convention, which ended yesterday in St. Louis, included a session called "A Instead of O: How to Talk PTA to PTO," which provided attendees with early warning signs that a school is considering switching to PTOs, along with advice on how to prevent it.

So what's the difference? Whereas the PTA is a national organization with representation in Washington and state capitols, PT0s are autonomous local initiatives. Supporters of PTOs, or “PT Others” as PTA advocates refer to them, say the organizations keep funds within the community and do a better job of managing local issues. PTA officials, on the other hand, stress the importance of their organization's political reach and its extensive resources and leadership-training programs. "One of the things we've always said is PTOs stand for 'own,' whereas PTA is for 'all' kids," said Kathy Nevans, president of the Missouri PTA.

Posted by Stacey Hollenbeck at 2:45 PM | Permalink | Comments (3)