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Here’s one to think about. Eric Walker, a high school chemistry teacher in Livingston County, Mich., was recently suspended for three days for allegedly striking a student with a pointer. The girl’s mother, in addition to wanting Walker terminated, reported the incident the police but, to her dismay, the county prosecutor decided not to press charges because he determined Walker did not show criminal intent.

In fact, Walker—though he acknowledges poor judgment—claims he was merely trying to wake the student up. “It was certainly not to inflict any pain whatsoever,” he said in a written statement. “I used the pointer to wake the student because it allows me to reach across the large desks in the room that have minimal space between them. I also feel very uncomfortable making contact with a student with my hands; especially if the student is female.”

The girl claimed the contact gave her a lump on her head and that she was ill later that night. Another student said Walker “tapped” him with the pointer that day, while others said the teacher routinely used physical contact or threw small objects (like candy wrappers) at them to get their attention.

While calling the action “inappropriate,” the school’s principal said the district would not fire Walker, because it, too, found he had no intent to harm the student.

Hat tip: Nancy Flanagan, who offers a provocative interpretation.

Posted by Anthony Rebora, teachermagazine.org at 2:39 PM | Permalink | Comments (8)

No one doubts the ability of students to find their way around a computer—sometimes to their advantage, sometimes to their detriment. Teachers can often fall at the other end of the spectrum. Occasionally tripped up or stymied by computer problems in the classroom, teachers are also increasingly objects of cyberbullying courtesy of their students. How to make the most of this odd marriage?

At Maine’s Nokomis Regional High School, tech savvy students are being used to solve teacher tech problems, according to The Christian Science Monitor. “Tech sherpas,” as they are known in the hallways, do everything from recovering computer files to building Web sites. Teachers are enjoying the benefits—“Something that would take me a couple of hours, they can do in five minutes,” says teacher Jim DiFrederico. And the district is enjoying the results—improved communication, greater respect for teachers, the potential for higher test scores, and skills that will translate to the workplace.

Kern Kelley, the district’s technology integrator who channels the requests from teachers to the students, sees success in the sherpas’ future, “…later in life, [the students] won’t be the ones sitting in the cubicle working, they’ll be the boss.”

Posted by Elizabeth Rich at 4:01 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Forget the in-service workshops and the highly qualified teacher requirements. It could be that the best way for schools to improve teachers’ performance is simply to let them talk to each other—at least according to one researcher. In an award-winning study of Pittsburgh public schools, Carrie Leana, a professor of organizations and management, found that the openness of a school’s communication networks was a more important factor to students’ success on math and reading tests than teachers’ credentials or experience levels.

Leana suggests that school leaders spend less time worrying about formal teacher training and performance evaluations and more on “encouraging interaction and connections among the faculty.”

Asked what school administrators had done in response to her findings, she said: “Nothing.”

Posted by Anthony Rebora, teachermagazine.org at 3:33 PM | Permalink | Comments (5)

The release of this month’s New York City school report cards and the threatened teacher witch-hunt, as reported earlier, has principals questioning the system as well, reports the New York Times. The report cards graded schools on how they fared citywide, as well as against schools with similar demographics. To further complicate matters, the grading system focused on rewarding improved student performance, which ironically occurs more often in low-performing schools. After receiving complaints from leaders of top-tier schools who had their own suggestions for equalizing the system, the city decided to factor in bonus points for strong scores on the state's Regents exam.

Randy Asher, principal of B-rated Brooklyn Technical High School, says the decision to add extra points is ridiculous. “I think we all really came to the table saying, let’s find something fair for schools like ours,” he said. “And I don’t think we succeeded.”

Others have complained about the oversimplification of the grading process. “It is reductive to give a school, which is a complex organism, a single letter grade,” said New York City school historian Diane Ravitch.

The schools' chief accountability officer James Liebman sees the grading process as imperfect, but "evolving." Giving schools grades, he says, "does concentrate attention, and that's what this is about."

Posted by Amanda Jones at 1:36 PM | Permalink | Comments (5)

NCLB’s demands that schools perform at certain academic levels may have missed the mark when it comes to what many parents value the most, according to a Brigham Young University co-authored study as reported by The Salt Lake Tribune.

The study found that when given a choice, parents in wealthier schools preferred high-satisfaction teachers who would make their children happy, to high-achieving ones who might raise test scores. Conversely, parents at poorer schools preferred high-achieving teachers to high-satisfaction ones.

Parental preferences come down to differences in schools, where poorer schools often face more academic strife than wealthier ones, the study concludes. Study co-author and BYU economics professor Lars Lefgren says the takeaway for policymakers is that NCLB is not a one-size-fits-all solution.

Posted by Danielle Woods at 4:58 PM | Permalink | Comments (3)

A middle school in Braintree, Mass., that was identified for corrective action under NCLB last year has put itself on the road to "good standing" in part by making wholesale changes to its math curriculum, according to an article in The Boston Globe. Among other changes, students are now grouped according to their math scores on the Massachusetts Comprehensive Assessment System exam (rather than by parental preference), and special education teachers work side-by-side with the math instructors. In addition, teachers have taken to color-coding algebriac equations—"It helps you remember the steps," said one 8th grader—and use a software program to analyze where students need help most on tests. Oh, yeah, and some students now have math a lot—as many as three times a day.

Posted by Anthony Rebora, teachermagazine.org at 10:56 AM | Permalink | Comments (1)

New numbers from New York City's teachers union beg the question of whether the city really needs any help in getting rid of teachers. (See "Targeting Teachers.") The United Federation of Teachers reported yesterday that 4,606 certified teachers resigned last year—the largest number in recent history. The figure includes some 14 percent of teachers who were newly hired, according to the union.

“[L]osing good teachers is the predominant staffing issue that the City Department of Education needs to address,” emphasized Randi Weingarten, the UFT's president.

An education department official countered that the union's numbers were inaccurate and characterized their release as a "media stunt."

Posted by Anthony Rebora, teachermagazine.org at 8:56 AM | Permalink | Comments (1)

New York Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg is taking steps to rid New York City schools of unsatisfactory teachers, including hiring new teams of lawyers and consultants to build cases against tenured teachers, according to a New York Times article.

The new plan, at a cost of $1 million a year, will pair education consultants with principals to help improve the performance of struggling teachers and then, if the efforts fail, work to remove the tenured teachers from the school system.

This new strategy follows last week’s release of the results from Bloomberg’s new, complex A-F grading system aimed at unearthing the city’s failing schools. About 12 percent of schools received an F; more than 60 percent received an A or B.

Randi Weingarten, the head of the United Federation of Teachers, the city’s teachers union, lambasted Bloomberg’s new pack of lawyers, calling them a “teacher gotcha unit.” Weingarten added that it encourages principals to get rid of teachers instead of working to support them.

In a typical year, only about one-hundredth of 1 percent of tenured teachers are removed for ineffective performance. New York City has about 80,000 public school teachers.

Posted by Brian Freedman at 2:26 PM | Permalink | Comments (4)

The introduction of a Harry Potter-based curriculum has reportedly helped a primary school in Nottinghamshire, England, dramatically improve student achievement. Over the past three years, the Robert Mellors Primary and Nursery has risen from the bottom 25 percent to the top five percent of schools in England—a jump that’s being attributed at least in part to the use of themed curricula. This year the students are carrying around wands, the grade levels have been renamed after the houses at Hogwarts, and the teachers are apparently wearing customs suggestive of all manner of witchcraft and wizardry. Among the school’s Harry Potter-inspired lessons are a subtraction method that uses an imaginary “spell” and a play-writing exercise based on sections of J.K. Rowling’s novels. A government report labeling the school as “outstanding” noted that the students seem to benefit from the interconnection between lessons in different subjects.

Posted by Anthony Rebora, teachermagazine.org at 6:49 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

The only real effect of NCLB’s pressured-filled expectations of school-wide improvement, and its emphasis on teacher quality has been to drive away schools’ most valuable resources — highly motivated teachers, says author and education activist Jonathan Kozol in a Chicago Tribune Q&A.

Studies show that school improvement is best achieved through high-quality teaching. But under NCLB, teacher quality and creativity is crushed in an atmosphere that Kozol says turns classrooms into “miserable test-prep factories.”

The former public school teacher argues for less frequent testing, reduced class sizes, and an amendment to the transfer provision that would require states to transfer students in failing schools to high-performing ones.

In the end, Kozol warns against stifling teachers’ spirits, saying “…in the long run the high morale of our teachers is our most precious asset. If they lose their delight in being with the children, they won’t stay, and we’ll lose everything.”

Posted by Danielle Woods at 4:45 PM | Permalink | Comments (4)

The Ankeny school district in Iowa has become the first in the state (or so it is believed) to turn to a software program to help evaluate candidates for teaching and principal positions. The district will use TeacherInsight and PrincipalInsight, multiple-choice assessment tools developed by the Gallup Organization to gauge educators’ interpersonal skills. More specifically (sort of), TeacherInsight “assesses the talents that result in teacher excellence that are difficult or nearly impossible to teach,” according to Gallup’s education Web site.

Ankeny officials point to research reportedly showing that nearly 90 percent of the teachers who performed in the top quartile on TeacherInsight produced significant growth in student achievement, while two-thirds of those scoring in the bottom quartile were less successful.

“This will give us one more piece of research-based, objective data,” says Associate Superintendent Anne Laing, adding that the assessment “measures some things you may not see in a grade-point average … and references aren’t always the best resource.”

Posted by Anthony Rebora, teachermagazine.org at 11:45 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Whatever you may think of NCLB and its focus on test scores, Milwaukee schools can’t seem to get enough of data assessment. And teachers are increasingly the number crunchers, according to the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel.

Gone are the days when teachers were expected just to instruct. More and more are being asked to assess and collect data from student learning in order to target intervention. “It’s a much more systematized and scientific approach [to teaching],” according to Superintendent George Zimmer of Milwaukee's neighboring Richmond School District.

Data-driven decision making, as it is called, is driving school districts, like Milwaukee and neighboring communities, to use additional standardized testing to assess student learning. Since last year, the city’s public schools have used a customized testing program four times a year to assess student performance. The test, which was originally intended for the city’s lowest-performing schools, is now being used more widely by collaborative teaching teams, which include teachers, administrators, and counselors. Together they assess learning difficulties, target intervention, and chart the success of students.

University of Wisconsin-Madison education professor, Rich Halverson, sees a trend. “There’s a shift in what counts as a good teacher," he says, "The ability to collaborate, the ability to take information about student learning…that’s at a premium now.”

Posted by Elizabeth Rich at 5:10 PM | Permalink | Comments (5)

A 25-day-old teacher strike in Israel continues to keep about 500,000 students and 40,000 teachers out of as many as 1,700 junior high and high schools, U.S. and world news sources reported.

The Secondary School Teachers Organization, Israel’s second largest teacher union, began its strike Oct. 10 in response to failed negotiations with the Education Ministry for higher wages and better working conditions.

On Thursday, the Israeli education and finance ministries asked the National Labor Court to force the teachers to return to work. The Court has not yet taken action.

Members of the National Parents Association, in response to the ministry’s request, have threatened to keep their children out of all public schools. The parent organization does not believe teachers should be forced to teach under such poor conditions.

Currently, Israeli teachers make an average of $17,568 per year, as compared to the overall average Israeli salary of $23,616 per year, according to per-month statistics from the Israeli Central Bureau of Statistics in July 2007. In the United States, the average salary for all teachers is $47,602, according to 2004-2005 statistics from the American Federation of Teachers.

Posted by Brian Freedman at 3:09 PM | Permalink | Comments (1)

Schools that do well in math and science tend to pay teachers in those subjects more than other teachers and—perhaps less intuitively—have larger class sizes, according to a study released this week by a conservative Texas think tank. By analyzing scores on a variety of standardized tests, the Texas Public Policy Foundation identified 39 demographically diverse high schools in the state that have been “achieving success” in math and science performance. The study found that, thanks to incentive or stipend programs, math and science teachers in those schools generally made some $3,000 more per year than other teachers at the schools. All of the so-called “best practice” schools, meanwhile, had larger classes in math and science than the average class-size in those subjects—although the extra percentage amounts to only about two or three students more per class.

Other noteworthy findings: The percentages of math and science teachers at the schools who were working out of field were considerably lower than the statewide averages, and—here's the kicker—the schools spent only half as much time as other schools on test preparation.

Posted by at 3:55 PM | Permalink | Comments (2)