Web Watch

According to USA Today, a recent report released by the U.S. Department of Education shows that the percentage of homeschooled children has nearly doubled in the last 10 years. In 2007, 2.9 percent or roughly 1.5 million of all school-aged children were homeschooled compared to an estimated 1.7 percent in 1999. The report also indicates an increase in the number of girls being homeschooled over boys, which were almost an even match in 1999. Girls now account for 58.1 percent of homeschoolers compared to boys at 41.9 percent. Findings from the report also reflect the changing demographic of parents who homeschool. They are increasingly white, wealthy, and well-educated.

When parents were asked why they chose to homeschool, 36 percent—the largest proportion—said they wanted to provide religious and moral instruction, while 17 percent said they were not satisfied with the academic instruction offered in schools. Twenty-one percent of parents expressed concern about the school environment in general.

Posted by Keisha Levy-Minzie at 11:28 AM | Permalink | Comments (16)

Physicians and psychologists are becoming concerned about the effects of obsessive text-messaging on teenagers’ well-being, reports The New York Times. According to one recent study, American teens exchange an average of 2,272 text messages per month—or nearly 80 per day. While there are no definitive findings yet on the on the health effects of texting, experts are beginning to suspect that such compulsive activity may be leading to anxiety, repetitive stress injuries, and sleep issues—not to mention all manner of academic difficulties. (Note to teachers: Watch out for the kids who keep their hands under the desks or who frequently seem to be reaching into their backpacks.)

One psychologist quoted in the article contends that texting might even alter normal adolescent developmental patterns, insofar as it can negate the space for social separation that young people need to become autonomous adults. Ironically, some experts point out, part of the problem is that many actual adults are too busy on their cell phones to be aware of their children’s needs or set an effective counter example.

Posted by Anthony Rebora, teachermagazine.org at 1:24 PM | Permalink | Comments (3)

Everyone knows that students are often able to give teachers a hand with technology, but this is probably going above and beyond: A 17-year-old computer whiz in California has launched a new Web-based classroom management software program in hopes of simplifying teachers’ lives, according to the Contra Costa Times.

Now a junior at El Segundo High School, Shahan Khan began working on the program when he was in 7th grade, prompted by teachers’ complaints about their current management system.

“I decided teachers need a program that’s really easy to use,” he said. “That’s what inspired me to make it.” (You probably won’t be surprised to learn, incidentally, that Kahn is a straight-A student.)

The program, called GPA Software, allows teachers to track student grades, attendance, and disciplinary actions. They can also manage their schedules, upload lessons, and analyze statistics. Parents and students can be given controlled access so they can monitor assignments and grades and contact the teacher.

Kahn’s venture has been supported largely by his father, a restaurant employee who works nights as a baggage-loader at Los Angeles’ International Airport. “I’m really trying to make this thing work [so I can] pay my dad back for what he’s invested,” says Kahn, who puts in about 20 hours a week on his company, after school and on weekends.

So far, he has about 100 clients.

Posted by Anthony Rebora, teachermagazine.org at 1:14 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Education Secretary Arne Duncan is soliciting your advice, according to the U.S. Department of Education’s Web site.

In an effort to start an “open, honest conversation about education reform,” Duncan is making 15 stops around the country to talk to educators, parents, and students about what is and isn’t working in the current education system. The “listening tour” will continue online, with Duncan posing questions and seeking answers on pressing education issues, such as standards and teacher quality, through an open forum discussion on the USDOE Web site. You can participate here.

The discussion has received nearly 200 comments in the last week, from what appears to be mostly teachers.

With NCLB reauthorization on the horizon, it might be worthwhile to take a few minutes and contribute your voice.

Posted by Liana Heitin at 2:01 PM | Permalink | Comments (6)

Editor's note: Know a new or prospective teacher who could use some help settling into the classroom? Who doesn't, right? Well, you're in luck. We've just put together a best-of selection of our "Teaching Secrets" series, which features practical advice for new teachers written by the esteemed members of the Teacher Leaders Network. It's a great package of instantly useable information from real-life teachers—available for only $4.95.

We now return to our regularly scheduled blog postings.

Posted by Anthony Rebora, teachermagazine.org at 1:39 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

A study released today by the Government Accountability Office finds that the pervasive use of violent restraining and secluding techniques by teachers with students who have special needs has led to hundreds of deaths and injuries of American school children in the last twenty years, according to ABC.news. Coinciding with the report’s release is a hearing today at the U.S. House Committee of Education and Labor to determine if the seclusion and restraint of students should be against federal law.

Committee chairman Rep. George Miller, D-Calif., called the report "alarming" and "eye opening," in his prepared remarks, quoted by ABC.news. "Recent news reports document appalling stories of teachers tying children to chairs, taping their mouths shut, using handcuffs, denying them food, fracturing bones, locking them in small dark spaces, and sitting on them until they turn blue," said Miller.

One of those victims was Cedric, a 14-year-old foster child from Texas who had been abused by his biological family. In 2002, after Cedric tried to leave his 8th grade classroom and then refused to sit down, his six-foot tall, 200-pound teacher, as described by his foster mother Toni Price, restrained him. "Cedric struggled as he was being held in his chair, so the teacher put him in a face down, or in a prone restraint, and sat on him," Price explained. "He struggled and said repeatedly, 'I can’t breathe.' 'If you can speak, you can breathe,' she snapped at him." Paramedics were called to the school and pronounced Cedric dead.

Not everyone agrees that restraint and seclusion of school children should be banned. Glenn Koocher, the executive director of the Massachusetts Association of School Committees, believes "teachers need to have the ability under clearly outlined protocol to restrain children." As to the risk of abuse, Koocher told ABC.news, it’s "a reasonable risk we have to take."

Posted by Elizabeth Rich at 4:52 PM | Permalink | Comments (2)

Secretary of Education Arne Duncan take note: longer school days and years may not be the key to improving student performance. According to a Miami-Dade County district report, a three-year, $100 million project to extend the school days and school year in the district’s lowest-performing public schools failed to improve student achievement, The Miami Herald reports.

The School Improvement Zone, a "pet-project" of former Superintendent Rudy Crew, added an hour to each school day and increased the length of the school year at 39 elementary, middle, and high schools. The project initially earned strong praise in education circles, including being named one of the "top innovations in government" by Harvard University. But, in a comparison of the Zone schools with a control group, the district’s final report on the project found that Zone students did worse on reading, science, and math exams and only slightly better on writing exams. The long hours and added workload also reportedly left both students and teachers exhausted.

Now some are wondering whether the program was a waste of taxpayer money.

"It was more of a public relations campaign to make the administration look good than anything else," said Marta Pérez, Board Vice Chairwoman. "They used massive amounts of money without testing or piloting it first."

In previous interviews, according to the Herald, Crews has defended the program, saying it brought heightened attention to the district’s lowest performing schools and gave them an opportunity to boost achievement.

Another school board member, Ana Rivas Logan, said the district needs to learn a lesson from the failure of the Zone program. "This shows us that throwing money at the problem is not the solution," she said. "We need to implement programs that have proven results."

Posted by Josh Cohen at 10:23 AM | Permalink | Comments (20)

"The Story of Stuff," a short environmental-activism cartoon, has been making the rounds on the internet since 2007 and evoking the controversy you’d expect from a video about such a heated topic. The New York Times reported recently that teachers from elementary to high school are using the video as a tool in their classroom to spark conversation about the environment.

The video—produced and narrated by activist, independent lecturer, and former Greenpeace employee Annie Leonard—takes an in-depth but accessible look at where our products come from, how they’re procured, how they’re disposed of, and the impact this process, called "the materials economy," has on the environment. Along the way, Leonard takes a few jabs at the military-industrial complex and multi-national corporations.

After the video was posted in 2007, word spread amongst educators that it was a "brief, provocative way of drawing students into a dialogue about how buying a cellphone or jeans could contribute to environmental devastation." According to the Times, 6 million people have viewed the video on the "Stuff" Web site, millions more on YouTube, and over 7,000 schools, churches, and others have purchased the DVD.

Mark Lukach, a college-preparatory teacher in California, admits that the video is edgy, but sees it as a good learning tool. "Compared to An Inconvenient Truth, it is much shorter and easier to compact into a class segment. You can watch it and then segue into a discussion."

Not everyone thinks so highly of Leonard’s video, however. Mark Zuber, a parent in Missoula, Mo., objected to the video noting that, while well done, it didn’t say "one positive thing about capitalism in the whole thing." Zuber took his issue to the local school board citing a violation of the district’s standards of bias. The board voted 4-3 to ban the video.

Posted by Josh Cohen at 3:53 PM | Permalink | Comments (3)

Authorities in South Korea have launched an aggressive new effort to crack down on bribery of teachers, according to the Los Angeles Times.

With parents desperate to give their children any sort of edge in the country's cut-throat college-admissions game, bribes to teachers are apparently commonplace in South Korea. Typically, according to the Times, the payoffs—known as chonji—are provided in cash-filled envelops, but they are also often hidden in candy boxes or other benign-looking packages.

To curb the practice, officials are closing many schools this year on Teacher's Day—a national teacher-appreciation day scheduled for later this week—and asking parents not to visit their children's classrooms for as long as a month afterward. Investigators have also taken to searching teachers' cars for hidden booty, and have placed undercover agents (acting as parents) in schools to monitor suspicious exchanges.

Parental selfishness and over-ambition are commonly blamed for the teacher-bribery phenomenon, but some parents claim that teachers encourage—and have come to expect—the payoffs.

"Across the country, one of five parents says they have given chonji to teachers, and one of three in big cities says so," said the head of the investigative team. "This culture must be fixed and stopped."

Posted by Anthony Rebora, teachermagazine.org at 2:13 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

The age-old student practice of slacking off and generally behaving less than angelically toward the end of senior year could have more serious consequences than usual this year, according to an article by two college-admissions experts published in USA Today.

Because of the economic downturn, colleges are unsure how many of the incoming freshmen they have admitted will be able to accept their offers, and consequently have been admitting more students than usual, write Robin Mamlet and Christine VanDeVelde, who are working on a book about the admissions process. In the event that schools end up over-enrolled, however, they will probably have to invoke the fine print on their admissions letters and revoke some offers. This is where kids who are undergoing serious bouts of senioritis could be in trouble.

“Admission departments will double-check for drops in grades, absenteeism and situations in which, for example, a student's application said he was taking three advanced placement classes, but he later dropped two,” Mamlet and VanDeVelde say. “They also will watch for red flags that arise from lapses in judgment or integrity, such as cheating, plagiarism, drinking or drug use.” In other words, a bad spell of indolence or a particularly ugly prom night could get a kid de-listed from the college of his or her choice.

In cases where there are obvious signs of trouble on a student’s record, the authors advise that the student fess up and notify the college admissions office as soon as possible. “A school often will look more kindly on such news when informed well before viewing the final transcript,” the authors write.

Posted by Anthony Rebora, teachermagazine.org at 12:01 PM | Permalink | Comments (1)

Job-hunting educators have long held New York City as an enticing location because of its historically high need for teachers. But, according to The New York Times, a new city-wide policy requiring schools to hire public school teachers internally may leave many otherwise-qualified candidates out in the cold.

In an effort to cut costs and avoid teacher layoffs, the city department of education recently ordered principals to hire only internally—including from a pool of teachers “whose jobs have been eliminated and many who have earned unsatisfactory ratings.” Hard-to-staff positions like speech therapy and bilingual special education, schools that opened in the past two years, and charter schools are exempt from the hiring restrictions.

The decision is particularly tough for current job applicants, recent education school graduates, Teach for America members, and the New York Teaching Fellows alternative-certification program. In 2008, the city hired 5,725 educators, almost 1800 of which were from TFA or Teaching Fellows. This year they estimate fewer openings, and have made a promise to hire only half as many TFA or Teaching Fellows as last year.

Aida Sanchez, a student at Teachers College at Columbia University who hopes to teach children in Harlem, Washington Heights or the Bronx, found the news discouraging. “I am really eager to go in the teaching direction,” she said. “Now it’s kind of like you really don’t know where you’re going to be.”

Sanchez isn’t alone. Pam Ritchie, a substitute teacher in Brooklyn had hoped to use the connections she’s built up to get a full-time teaching position. “This was a pretty big bomb that dropped … I’m devastated.”

Posted by Josh Cohen at 4:55 PM | Permalink | Comments (2)

Our multi-talented and tireless intern Liana Heitin, a former special education teacher, was featured last week in a local news segment on Teacher Appreciation Week. Have a look:

Teacher Magazine's Liana Heitin in the News from Education Week on Vimeo.

More information on the book The Ultimate Teacher: The Best Experts' Advice for a Noble Profession with Photos and Stories, which includes a couple pieces by Liana, is available here.

Posted by Anthony Rebora, teachermagazine.org at 1:15 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

If you work with students, you may well have thought, or even said, "This job is driving me crazy!" A 27-minute-long video, produced by the U.K.-based Teachers.tv, and presented by The Guardian, suggests you might be on to something.

The lushly produced video presents in-depth interviews with several British teachers who have lost their positions as a result of mental illness. They discuss what led to their diagnoses, and how their lives have changed as a result. One former teacher reports he can no longer "even drive past a primary school" as it makes him physically sick. John Illingworth, former president of the (somewhat unfortunately named) NUT (National Union of Teachers), is another victim. Illingworth has carved out a new career dedicated to raising awareness of teacher mental illness, and what can be done to mitigate teacher stress. He cites a survey— Crazy About Work— of one district’s union members in which 70 percent of teachers surveyed reported increased stress directly related to increased demands for monitoring, data collection, and accountability.

Food for thought.

But does stress really cause mental illness? The interviewees draw a straight line from one to the other, though it's not clear that science would back them up.

Still, props to teachers.tv for shining a spotlight on what just may be the last taboo. In the U.S., discussing burnout is common, but mental illness among teachers? Not so much.

Posted by Jeanne McCann at 11:44 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Researchers at the University of North Carolina may have located an area of the brain that is overdeveloped in children with autism, reports CNN.

Using brain imaging, the researchers scanned 50 toddlers with autism and 33 without, and found that the amygdala, which controls the ability to read facial expressions and emotions, was 13 percent larger in children with the developmental condition.

"We believe that children with autism have normal-sized brains at birth but at some point, in the latter part of the first year of life, it [the amygdala] begins to grow in kids with autism," said the study’s lead author, Dr. Joseph Piven.

Chief of neurology at Cornell Medical Center, Dr. Barry Kosofsky, noted that while other studies have observed enlarged brains in children with autism, "this study finds that by age 2, the amygdala is already bigger and stops growing. . . It now poses the question: Are children born with autism or does it develop in the first two years of life?"

Experts are hopeful the finding will allow for early detection and intervention.

"By tracking the behaviors and brain volume growth from birth in high-risk babies, we can pinpoint when the brain first begins to grow larger than normal and provide therapy or medications to limit the growth or symptoms a lot earlier than we are doing now," said Piven.

Posted by Liana Heitin at 10:19 AM | Permalink | Comments (4)

Secretary of Education Arne Duncan has over $100 billion at his disposal, more than any previous ed secretary, to bring about significant reform to America’s public schools. In the latest episode of PBS’ NOW, host David Brancaccio talks to Duncan and takes a close look at his record of reform as CEO of Chicago Public Schools to get an idea of the things he might have in store for the U.S.

Brancaccio visited one of Duncan’s “turnaround” schools in Chicago’s South Side, Harvard Elementary. The school was in rough shape when Duncan took it over. Of 3000 elementary schools in Illinois, Harvard ranked in the bottom 10; 98 percent of its students lived in poverty; and, in one year alone, the police were called over 100 times to deal with violence in the school. In 2007, Duncan gave pink slips to every member of the faculty and staff, a move the Chicago Teachers Union and many parents protested.

Despite those concerns, Duncan felt that drastic change was necessary. “We’ve put in millions of additional dollars [into Chicago schools], done things around the edges, and at the end of the day 88, 89, 90 percent of students were still not reading at grade level. It was an absolutely dismal failure.”

Control of Harvard Elementary was handed over to The Academy for Urban School Leadership, a not-for profit company. The AUSL hired a new principal, Andre Cowling. He rehired three of the teachers from Harvard Elementary, rehired the cafeteria staff, and hired new janitors. To fill the rest of the teaching positions, Cowling turned to back to the AUSL. According to NOW they have a “pipeline of new teachers” that they train to work in turnaround schools.

A year later, there are signs of improvement at Harvard Elementary.

According to Devondra Barrett, one of the three rehired teachers, the students are “engaged, they’re quiet, they’re learning, they’re happy.” The numbers are looking better as well. Ten percent more students are meeting standards and the police haven’t been called once.

Posted by Josh Cohen at 3:10 PM | Permalink | Comments (1)

This morning Stephen Colbert, host of Comedy Central’s “The Colbert Report,” announced the launch of The Great Give-Back Birthday for DonorsChoose.org, the Web site that enables “citizen philanthropists” to donate online to classrooms around the country. In a brief video posted by the Huffington Post, Colbert, whose birthday is May 13, explained that he created his own “birthday page” on the charity site. In lieu of gifts, he is asking his friends, family, and fans to donate to his favorite classroom projects. To create a birthday page visit the site here.

Last month, the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation and DonorsChoose.org announced a grant that enables DonorsChoose.org to fund up to 50 percent of the cost of individual classroom projects developed by teachers to promote college readiness among students in high-need and underserved urban and rural public schools. Stephen Colbert moderated the event where the announcement was made. The Gates Foundation gave $4.1 million to the project, which is expected to support more than 17,000 classrooms nationwide.

Posted by Elizabeth Rich at 11:43 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

On April 16th, we highlighted a heart-wrenching New York Times story about Tiffany Clay, high school senior and talented violinist from the financially depressed town of Newark, Ohio. Tiffany, the story reported, lived with her boyfriend, a high school dropout, and was working 35-40 hours a week at Sonic, the drive-through chain that is headquartered in—take note—Oklahoma City. Due to financial hardship, Tiffany planned to abandon a promising career in music to pursue the safer path of nursing.

Well, the story subsequently took on a life of its own. According to the Newark Advocate, Tiffany’s school orchestra leader received more than 400 e-mails, including some offering scholarships. And in an editorial in today’s Daily Oklahoman, the paper announced that Sonic and Oklahoma City University have joined to offer Tiffany a full scholarship worth about $100,000. OCU has both a renowned music school (having produced Broadway star Kristin Chenoweth) and a nursing program.

Tiffany has accepted the scholarship and will visit the school on May 4th with her mother and boyfriend. In an interview with the Newark Advocate, she told the paper, “I’m excited. They have wonderful programs in both subjects I want to study.”

Posted by Elizabeth Rich at 2:19 PM | Permalink | Comments (1)