Web Watch

In PE class, Oregon students are handing in their dodgeballs for hiking boots, compasses, and table tennis paddles, according to The Oregonian. The state is getting serious about gym, making curriculum changes aimed at teaching specific skills, building self esteem, and reducing obesity rates. Traditional team sports leave too many students standing around, and promote competition instead of exercise, according to proponents of the new standards.

The state deparment of education added PE to a list of subjects that must have textbooks, in an effort to provide consistency statewide and prepare districts for a new state law doubling the amount of PE hours in schools by 2017. While critics see the new mandates as ignoring subjects like math, science and reading, PE teachers are hailing the developments as long overdue.

"All of us collectively have to embrace the notion that a well-balanced curriculum including music, the arts and PE is going to contribute more effectively to the kind of citizens we want than just longer stretches of time devoted to math and literacy," Don Zehrun, a 35-year Beaverton PE teacher, told the newspaper. "In the long run, that will provide what we're after -- better students, better citizens who are healthier, happier and more productive."

Posted by Jeff Lambert at 4:08 PM | Permalink | Comments (2)

Education reform has been in the shadows of the economy and foreign wars during this presidential campaign, but, according to Bruce Fuller, University of California, Berkley education and public policy professor and New York Times blogger, education is the key to attracting the Hispanic Vote. More specifically, how the candidates handle the issue of transitional bilingual classrooms, a language-learning technique Fuller advocates, could have a large impact on the outcome of this election.

Barack Obama supports transitional bilingual education, where students transition to English by building on their knowledge of their native language. Fuller supports Obama’s position saying, “Transitional classrooms, as Mr. Obama puts forward, offer a pragmatic alternative [to English immersion].” He writes that it is also the method favored by researchers with the National Literacy Panel on Language-Minority Children and Youth and a Bush administration review. By contrast, John McCain advocates English immersion.

Fuller argues that transitional bilingual education can help close the “huge gaps in achievement levels of Hispanic versus (non-Hispanic) white children,” an important goal, he claims, since, “the nation’s economic future depends especially on the human capital of young Hispanics.” Fuller sees Obama’s support for bilingual education as one that could benefit the candidate by encouraging a “robust” Hispanic voter turnout. “If elected,” writes Fuller, “his press for a more integrated and literate workforce will benefit us all.”

Posted by Josh Cohen at 4:04 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

No one knows what the future of the economy holds—government bailout notwithstanding, times are tough. In New York, Reuters reports, Randi Weingarten, president of the United Federation of Teachers, said on Thursday, “We know the economic situation has to be solved. But we want a responsible rescue, not an opportunistic bailout and that means, just like every single boss says to me, that there should be accountability for teachers, then there should be accountability for Wall Street.” According to Reuters, the UFT was one of many unions protesting the government’s proposed bailout on Wall Street this week—steps from the New York Stock Exchange.

As the week comes to a close and the presidential debates are on, will happy days be here again? Hard to know, but we have been through this territory more than once in the last couple of centuries. One of America's worst financial periods began in 1893 when the market collapsed, banks closed their doors, businesses failed, and railroads went into receivership.

What else happened that year? In Louisville, Kentucky, sisters Mildred and Patty Hill, both teachers, composed a song, “Good Morning to All,” to welcome their students to class. Forty years later that song was copyrighted by a third sister, Jessica, so that the Mill women could profit from it. She changed the lyrics and published it in 1935 as “Happy Birthday”—you know, that song you hear on your birthday. It now generates close to $2 million a year.

Posted by Elizabeth Rich at 3:39 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

With companies spending billions to ensure the health and safety of products before they reach the market, one Harvard economist is puzzled that little is spent on researching educational theories before they reach our kids, according to The New York Times. Instead, says Roland G. Fryer, Jr., too many districts are using the blind approach when it comes to implementing school policies and plans. “If the doctor said to you, ‘You have a cold; here are three pills my buddy in Charlotte uses and he says they work,’ you would run out and find another doctor,” Fryer told the newspaper. “Somehow, in education, that approach is O.K.”

Fryer quit his job as the chief equality officer of the New York City public schools to start the Educational Innovation Laboratory, a $44 million project funded by the Broad Foundation that aims to bring the data-driven business and science approach to education.

Chicago, New York, and Washington D.C. public school districts will participate in the research, beginning by testing the effect of incentives on achievement. According to Education Week, a small study done previously at Stanford University suggests that giving students incentives such as cash or cell phone minutes for good grades may boost achievement in reading.

“We will have the willingness to try new things and be wrong — the type of humbleness to say, ‘I have no idea whether this will work, but I’m going to try,’ ” Fryer says.

Posted by Liana Heitin at 12:55 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Though still apparently dismissed by some administrators as the online equivalent of “faculty bathroom graffiti” (huh?), teacher blogs are becoming increasingly influential in the education community and beyond, according to an article in U.S. News and World Report. Many teacher blogs—there are as many as 6,000, according to Technorati.com—are now being read not just by other teachers but by parents, elected officials, and policy wonks, the article notes.

They “raise important issues and give the rest of us a peek into a world that we see and hear about very rarely or only anecdotally through the media,” said Alexander Russo, an education writer who blogs at This Week in Education.

By nature of their occupation, teacher bloggers often find they have to walk a fine line between freedom of expression and discretion, but most don’t seem deeply bothered by the tradeoff.

Bill Ferriter, a well-respected 6th grade teacher in North Carolina, says he spends four hours every week working on his blog The Tempered Radical, and another hour every morning reading education blogs. For him, blogging is a way to discuss ideas with colleagues across the country and have a voice in education policy. Blogging, he says, is “the great equalizer. ”

Posted by Anthony Rebora, teachermagazine.org at 5:43 PM | Permalink | Comments (2)

A prominent English school is radically cutting the amount of homework assigned to students, the BBC reports. The Tiffin Boy’s School in southwest London was piling on up to four hours of homework a night, but a new rule caps out-of-class work at 40 minutes.

“The more we looked at what was being set, it came over as quite mechanistic and repetitive,” Head Teacher Sean Heslop explained to the news service. “We thought, if there’s one way to put students off learning, that’s the way to do it.”

While some groups, like prominent English educators’ union the Association of Teachers and Lecturers, have called for an end to homework in primary schools, some research suggests that homework is good for students—in moderation. Harris Cooper, a professor of psychology at Duke University, has conducted research showing a positive correlation between homework and achievement.

“The bottom line really is all kids should be doing homework, but the amount and type should vary according to their developmental level and home circumstances,” Cooper said in a Duke press release. “Homework for young students should be short, lead to success without much struggle, occasionally involve parents and, when possible, use out-of-school activities that kids enjoy, such as their sports teams or high-interest reading.”

Posted by Jeff Lambert at 9:40 AM | Permalink | Comments (2)

Earlier this week, 35 Denver public schools launched the Mile High Parents campaign, which asks parents to commit to spending 30 minutes each school day with their children. According to Rocky Mountain News, Mayor John Hickenlooper was among the first to sign the “5280” pledge, vowing to spend what adds up to 5,280 minutes a year with his 6-year-old son.

The campaign was conceived by Marlene De La Rosa, chairwoman of the DPS Parent Empowerment Council and the mother of twin 9th graders, as she was doing homework with her son one evening. "I told him what I was thinking about and he calculated out the amount of time," De La Rosa told the newspaper. "It actually works out to about 30.7 minutes each day."

Parents who sign the pledge are given daily tracking forms and tips on how to spend the time together, with suggestions such as walking the dog, reading the newspaper, or talking about family traditions. By committing to the 5280 pledge, parents are also eligible to win prizes, including gas cards and starter accounts at CollegeInvest to help save for college tuition.

For some, however, finding 30 minutes a day can be difficult, especially for single parents and those who work night jobs or attend classes. Veronica Miera, a working mother who is taking GED classes, said, “I'm lucky if I read even 15 minutes with my kids."

Posted by Liana Heitin at 4:23 PM | Permalink | Comments (2)

As the current financial crisis thickens, teachers are worrying about their pensions. According to Fox Memphis, Tennessee’s Shelby County school district, which recently went to a single retirement plan with American International Group Inc., received a deluge of phone calls last week from teachers concerned about AIG’s massive losses. On Tuesday, David Pickler, president of the local school board, assured teachers that “if the worst happens, and AIG files for bankruptcy, our teachers, our policyholders, are still secure.”

The California State Teachers' Retirement System had up to $216 million exposed to the falls of Lehman and AIG, reports bizjournals.com. Oklahoma’s losses with Lehman, according to TradingMarkets.com, totaled $7.3 million. Executive secretary of Oklahoma Teachers’ Retirement System, Tommy Beavers, explained that even if the state lost its entire Lehman Brothers portfolio, teachers would forfeit only 84 cents for every $1,000 in their retirement fund. The diversified portfolio also has investments in AIG, about which Beaver said, “I know the stock was down [Tuesday], but again we have managers watching that real close.”

Overall, school districts and Wall Street officials are telling teachers not to worry. But as stocks have plunged, some losing as much as 90% of their value in just a few days, it should come as no surprise that educators are questioning the health of their retirement savings.

Posted by Liana Heitin at 3:01 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Schools across Texas’ Gulf Coast are still recovering from Hurricane Ike, which devastated the region when it struck Saturday. The Houston Chronicle reports that Houston’s schools will be closed for a week, due to power outages, but reopening dates for other districts in the area remain unclear.

The Texas Education Agency hasn’t encouraged school districts to start enrolling the thousands of displaced children across the state, as it did in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina, according to the Dallas Morning News. Since it is uncertain when schools that suffered damage from Ike will reopen, the decision to enroll is being left up to evacuated parents.

“We’re asking parents to be the ones to make the decision what to do, based on their own personal situations,” Ms. Culbertson, a spokeswoman for TEA, told the newspaper. “If they know they’ll be in shelter less than a week, then trying to enroll those kids would almost be ineffective.”

So far, communities hosting large amounts of displaced families aren’t reporting enrollment spikes related to the storm. The reasons for this apparent lack of interest is unclear, given the scope of damage to schools. TEA officials contacted 206 school districts and charter schools on Sunday to gauge the damage, but received only about 30 responses by midday Monday, citing power outages and downed phone lines.

Posted by Jeff Lambert at 1:05 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Senators John McCain and Barack Obama need to bring education to the forefront of their campaigns, according to Aleta Margolis, executive director for the Center for Inspired Teaching. Margolis, whose center provides professional development for educators, aired her editorial Monday morning on NPR’s Washington, D.C. affiliate, WAMU.

Margolis offers what change would look like when students are held to a higher standard: Yes, they will do well on standardized tests, but they will also be "prepared to engage fully in civic life.” Margolis wants 21st century skills folded into the classroom. Students should be able to “think critically, demonstrate understanding, solve complex problems, and apply their learning” to today’s challenges, she explains.

How can this happen? Margolis proposes creating a new role for teachers where they “spend more time asking students to stretch and search for information and less time spoon-feeding them the answers.” Assessing teachers on the impact of their instruction--whether their students are able to engage in critical thinking to make well-informed decisions--should be the yardstick for measuring their professional health, not credentials and test scores. “It’s time to redefine the role of the teacher from deliverer to facts to developer of future citizens in our democracy,” says Margolis. This, she charges, is what the presidential candidates should be talking about when they’re talking about education.

Posted by Jeff Lambert at 5:07 PM | Permalink | Comments (1)

A Texas education commissioner has ruled in favor of a dismissed Dallas teacher, who says she was fired because of an unfair rating based on student test scores, according to The Dallas Morning News.

Sharon Toussaint, a math teacher at low-scoring Kimball High School, was terminated when the school’s faculty was reconstituted last year. Toussaint claimed the reason she was let go was because of a low Classroom Effectiveness Index rating, a formula-based system that determines teachers’ success in the classroom. Robert Scott, a Texas Education Agency commissioner, ruled on Tuesday that the rating did not take all conditions into account and that Toussaint’s district must reinstate her with back pay or pay a settlement of one year’s salary.

Although the CEI ratings are supposed to hold teachers blameless for student variables like ethnicity, language skills, and family income when producing ratings, Scott said that it was the school environment, and not Toussaint, that caused a lack of student achievement among her students. The Texas AFT published an excerpt of Scott’s written opinion:

The reason given for proposed termination was the failure of [Toussaint] to demonstrate a pattern of academic achievement by her students. The Findings of Fact establish that the school's environment not [Toussaint] was the cause of the lack of achievement. Because [Toussaint's] actions as a teacher are not found wanting, good cause does not exist to terminate [Toussaint's] contract.

Posted by Jeff Lambert at 2:59 PM | Permalink | Comments (6)

Parents of homeschooled students are bristling at a pending bill in the Michigan legislature that would require families to register with the local school district, according to The Detroit News. Backers say the bill is the best way to calculate the number of students being educated in the state. Critics see it as a slippery slope towards more state involvement and regulations for homeschooling.

Homeschooling is one the rise nationally. The Home School Legal Defense Fund Association told The Detroit News that the number of students being educated at home rose from 1.1 million to 2 million since 2003.

The reasons that parents are pulling students from traditional schools are also changing. Homeschooling has often been associated with religious families, but experts in Michigan are seeing a rise in homeschooled students who have special learning needs, are academically or athletically gifted, suffer from health problems, or just don’t fit the mold of traditional public schools.

Kimberly Fannelli, who homeschools two daughters with celiac disease, told The Detroit News, “it’s scary because their health is in someone else’s hands. At the school they were at they were doing everything they could, but there’s only so much you can do.”

Posted by Jeff Lambert at 3:18 PM | Permalink | Comments (1)

Today’s high school students were in grade school on September 11, 2001. For many of them, the terrorist attacks of 9/11 are a distant memory, informed more by outside sources than their own recollections. Despite the difficulties of teaching the subject as national debates rage on about Iraq and Middle East politics, the Salt Lake Tribune reports that Utah high school teachers have taken it upon themselves—9/11 is not in the state’s social studies curriculum—to teach 9/11 in a historical context.

Bingham High School history teacher Charron Mason not only approaches the subject using student discussion with her history students, but also in her finance classes with a discussion about the state of world finances immediately following 9/11. Others, like West High School’s U.S. history teacher Jose Bernardo Fanjul and Bingham High School history teacher Scott Crump, are teaching several-day lessons and full units, respectively, on terrorism. Crump broadens the discussion of terrorism by including lessons on the Berlin Munich Olympic attacks on Israeli athletes and the conflicts in Northern Ireland, as well as 9/11.

"I really go all out, because for this generation nothing else comes close [to 9/11], even if now most of my students remember it only from grade school … We try to use it as a platform to teach political activity and tolerance," Fanjul said. "It's a great moment to start teaching other issues. We can take it and run with it in almost any direction."

Posted by Josh Cohen at 12:56 PM | Permalink | Comments (1)

In Britain, doctors and psychologists are seeing a significant increase in school phobia, reports London weekly The Observer. Alternately known as "school refusal," the disorder causes students to experience severe anxiety while at school, manifesting itself in physical symptoms like vomiting, headaches, fatigue, and panic attacks. One in every 20 students in the U.K. is estimated to suffer from the disorder.

Similar figures exist for students in the U.S.—between 2 and 5 percent of school-age children are affected by school phobia, according to the Anxiety Disorders Association of America. The disorder is common at times of transition, according to the ADAA, often affecting students between 5 and 6 and 10 an 11. Disorder-inducing stressors include separation anxiety, concerns about academic performance, and fear of a teacher or bully.

“It's like you are just frozen,” a student named Mark told The Observer. “I felt allergic to the building. I didn't want to kill myself or anything, but I didn't want to go to school. It's like you just can't, my legs wouldn't work and it made me sick.”

Allowing students with school phobia to remain home only reinforces the behavior, according to The Houston Chronicle. The Texas paper offers a number of suggestions to help ease a child’s anxiety—morning routines, rewards for attending class, and therapy if the condition persists.

Posted by Jeff Lambert at 3:58 PM | Permalink | Comments (2)

With one-third of their state’s eligible voters still unregistered, according to WSPA News Channel 7, South Carolinians are steering efforts toward getting one group specifically to the polls: teachers.

Former state Teacher of the Year, Tracy Young Cooper, asks “How can we sit by and neglect our civic duty when we stand in front of South Carolina’s most impressionable citizens, our students, each and every day and work with them to instill the values of democracy?”

Earlier this week, the advocate group RISE SC (Reform, Improve, Support, Public Education) launched Goal: 100%, an incentive plan to increase voter registration among educators. Schools that participate in the program and get 100 percent of their certified staff registered to vote in the 2008 general election will be entered into a drawing to win $1,000 for their school. Ten schools will receive prize money, which comes from private donations.

State superintendent Jim Rex stresses that the effort is non-partisan. “I won the statewide election for state superintendent of education by a total of 455 votes out of 1.1 million,” Rex said, “so every vote really does count. And it’s never been more true than this upcoming election.”

Posted by Liana Heitin at 1:55 PM | Permalink | Comments (1)

This June, Susan Romanyszyn, a veteran 4th grade teacher, was convicted of 11 counts of terrorist threats. Alleged to have been angry about her 5th grade classroom assignment, Romanyszyn was accused of making violent threats, which mentioned bombs and death, to her Longstreth Elementary School in Buck’s County, Pennsylvania. Today she is hoping three anonymous notes will persuade the judge to throw out her conviction, according to The Philadelphia Enquirer.

Two of the notes, which were purportedly handwritten by students--complete with spelling and grammatical errors--were sent to Romanyszyn’s attorney’s office. “we were tired of getting yelled at all the time,” the letters state. “we didn’t think they would think a teacher would do it. we are so sorry to Miss Romonison she should not be in trouble for something we did.”

The judge in the case also received a third note--typed with a handwritten envelope-- purportedly from an unnamed juror. That letter stated that “a couple of the jurors…had decided already that she [Romanyszyn] must be guilty because she was arrested and it was all in the news.” Last week a handwriting expert suggested a possible link to a 5th grader, who was initially suspected of the threats.

Battling cancer, Romanyszyn is under house arrest pending a decision from the judge.

Posted by Liana Heitin at 5:37 PM | Permalink | Comments (2)