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A group of 50 new teachers in Massachussetts are getting some extra support in their first year in the classroom, according to the the Boston Globe.

Before ever setting foot in their new classrooms this fall, the teachers attended a two-day “New Teacher Academy” in which veteran educators gave them advice on what to expect during their first year.

The academy is part of a three-part program run by Bridgewater State College and Boston College that is funded by a multimillion dollar grant from the Carnegie Foundation. The program, named the Teachers for a New Era Partnership, also includes seven two-hour mentoring opportunities throughout a teacher’s first year of teaching, and subsidizes a three-credit graduate course for veteran teachers aimed at improving their abilities as mentors.

The academy was led by David Almeida.

“In their first year, teachers are expected to work like veterans, but they don’t send someone in to hold your hand,” said Almeida, an associate dean and professor in Bridgewater State Collge’s School of Education. “In school, they’ve learned in class, passed tests, and written papers, but now they must put it all into practice.’’

One of the attendees of the seminar, 24-year-old P.E. teacher Ryan J. King of Pembroke, hopes to bring the lessons he learned about classroom management and productive parent/teacher conferences to his own classroom.

“Here, they tell you to think about the student first, but you’re so focused on your first day and nervous that you forget,” King said. “I will try to lay out what I expect, the things I want to accomplish, and tell them how I look forward to a good year.’’

Posted by Bryan Toporek at 5:23 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Parents in Durham, N.C., are voicing concern that a new reading curriculum being implemented in the district’s elementary schools this year is overly test-driven and may dampen kids’ enthusiasm for reading, according to The News & Observer.

The curriculum, called “Reading Street,” was created by the publisher Scott Foresman in 2005 to help schools reach NLCB goals. According the News & Observer, it uses stories from workbooks and sets time limits for completion of tasks.

Some parents, particularly those at magnet school in the district, say the program is overly prescriptive and smacks of teaching to the test.

“I don’t feel that a top-down, corporate, admin-heavy approach is what’s going to improve learning for our children,” said one mother. “I feel that our children learn from qualified, inspired teachers.

District officials say the program, decided on after a literacy audit showed sub-par results, is intended to bring equity and consistency to reader instruction across the district. They contend, however, that it can be modified to reflect the reading programs of particular schools.

Teachers reportedly were notified about the new curriculum only last week.

Posted by Anthony Rebora, teachermagazine.org at 9:51 AM | Permalink | Comments (2)

A high school teacher in San Mateo, Calif., is being credited with preventing a Columbine-style massacre yesterday. Kenneth Santana, an English-language development teacher at Hillsdale High School, subdued a student who came to school with 10 armed pipe bombs, a sword, and a chainsaw, as reported by local news station KTVU.

After leaving his classroom to make copies yesterday morning, Santana heard two loud crashes while in the school office and, as teachers and students fled from the scene, he headed to investigate the source.

He then saw a student wearing a military-style vest emerge from some nearby glass doors. Santana instinctively dove at the boy, tackling him to the ground.

“It was a reaction, it was really quick,” Santana said. “After I had my hands on him, I made decisions about what I wanted to do. But closing the distance and grabbing the young man, there wasn’t a lot thinking involved in that.”

Once Santana had the student on the ground, he saw that the teen had a pipe bomb in his pocket.

“I put him in a bear hug and then I decided to flip him and put him on the ground,” he continued. “That’s when the thinking came in -- I thought -- ’If I'm wrong, I’ll apologize to his parents later and if I’m right I’m going to hold this kid down.’”

The 17-year-old student is currently in police custody, pending charges.

“I definitely feel like I did the right thing,” Santana told KTVU. “When I think about the risk, I never really looked at his hands, so thinking back, if he had something in his hands that would have been bad for me.”

Posted by Bryan Toporek at 3:23 PM | Permalink | Comments (1)

Ever since the inception of homework, teachers have heard just about every excuse in the book from ill-prepared students. While many students have used variations on the tried-and-true “my dog ate my homework,” a high school senior in Michigan is putting a new twist on the old classic, according to the Wall Street Journal’s Digits blog.

Justin D. Gawronski purchased a Kindle earlier this summer for his upcoming AP English class and downloaded George Orwell’s 1984 as part of his summer homework. However, on July 20, the WSJ reported that Gawronski “watched his copy of ‘Nineteen Eighty-Four’ disappear right before his eyes.” He noted the irony of the situation.

Amazon deleted Orwell’s 1984 and Animal Farm from all users’ Kindles after discovering that the self-service platform who added the books to Amazon’s catalog did not have the rights to distribute the books. “When we were notified of this by the rights holder, we removed the illegal copies from our systems and from customers’ devices, and refunded customers,” said Amazon spokesman Drew Herdener.

According to Gawronski, the notes he had been taking about the book on his Kindle were also rendered useless. While Amazon didn’t delete the file on his Kindle containing his notes, since the book text “no longer exists, all my notes refer back to nothing,” Gawronski said.

Gawronski recently filed a law suit which seeks class action status against Amazon in federal court, aiming to prevent Amazon from deleting books from Kindles in the same fashion. Given the public backlash that stemmed from Amazon’s actions, Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos promised that the company would not fall into the same trap again, calling the move “stupid, thoughtless, and painfully out of line with our principles.”

Posted by Bryan Toporek at 5:04 PM | Permalink | Comments (1)

Tony Danza, best known as the star of the 1980s T.V. show ”Who’s The Boss?”, will be embracing a new role this fall as a teacher at Northeast High School in Philadelphia, as part of a new A&E reality show called “Teach,” according to the Philadelphia Inquirer.

In the show, Danza will co-teach a sophomore class alongside a certified teacher. The cameras will be invisible to the students.

"[I am] humbled, honored and so grateful that the City of Philadelphia has decided to let us try this,” said Danza. “I have always wanted to teach, so this is a gift for me. I will work hard to make sure I don't let anyone down, especially the kids."

Both Philadelphia schools Superintendent Arlene Ackerman and Mayor John Nutter signed off on the show, believing it could shine a much needed light on urban education, according to People.com’s report on the show.

“This important project will help illuminate the joy, rewards and challenges of one of the most gratifying professions available, a first-year teacher in the city of Philadelphia,” Ackerman said in a released statement.

Update: Veteran educator Nancy Flanagan thinks this is a really bad idea. ...

Posted by Bryan Toporek at 12:10 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

This spring, the New York City school district imposed a hiring freeze of sorts. Faced with a pool of 1,700 teachers who collect a salary but aren't in the classroom because of declining school enrollment, school closings, or poor student performance, Chancellor Joel I. Klein announced that only teachers already on the payroll could be considered for teaching jobs, according to the New York Times. Translation: New graduates of the city's Teaching Fellows program—which recruits career changers for high-need subject areas—need not apply.

One of those teachers, Arah Lewis, 28, reports the Times’ City Room blog, did apply for a job and was almost hired. That is, until the principal of the school that wanted to hire the prospective math teacher explained the freeze prevented her from doing so.

At the annual new-teacher orientation held at a high school on Wednesday, Lewis, who had left her job at Goldman Sachs and turned down a teaching job in Philadelphia in order to join the Teaching Fellows program confronted Chancellor Joel I. Klein.

“I don’t know an organization that would go out and recruit people and expect them to change their lives and then say you can’t work here...There are people here who want to teach and we can’t. It doesn’t make any sense,” she said. Lewis explained she could return to the corporate world, but her calling to teach was greater.

Klein responded sympathetically minus a job offer. “I know the problems and I agree—we have to find a way to fix it.” He asked Lewis to e-mail him and gave her a hug.

This fall, Arah Lewis will be working as a full-time substitute teacher in the city with a reduced salary and no health benefits.

Posted by Elizabeth Rich at 4:23 PM | Permalink | Comments (1)

In his column this week, Washington Post education writer Jay Mathews admits that he tends to avoid writing about school-parent conflicts over special education services. The issues involved, he says, are usually “so complicated” and the stories all seem to end in the same dead end of “frustrated parents and ill-equipped educators trying but failing to find common ground, calling in lawyers while the children sit in class, bored and confused.”

A persistent local mother, however, has managed to prod him into telling the story of her struggles to get special services for her son. By Mathews’ account, 12-year-old Miguel Landeros has been clinically diagnosed as severely learning disabled, but his mother, Kelli Castellino, has been repeatedly rebuffed in her attempts to get him the school services that she believes he needs.

When Miguel was in elementary school in Howard County, Md., though he struggled to learn to read, she was informed (after requesting to have him tested) that he didn’t qualify for an Individual Education Plan. In middle school last year in Stafford County, Vir., Mathews reports, Miguel was kept in regular classes despite an evaluation by a clinical psychologist identifying significant learning disabilities. Somewhat enigmatically, the district recently agreed to give him some special services in a class for “mentally disabled or emotionally disturbed children,” a placement that is apparently at odds with what psychologists recommend for him.

Castellino now plans to seek a court order for the district to place Miguel in a private school. “I am selling my car and will be riding my bike to work, selling anything I can in my house to come up with the money to place my child,” she says.

Mathews, getting that déjà vu feeling, asks: “Is there an alternative, some innovative way to help kids like Miguel? …” Seems like a good question.

Posted by Anthony Rebora, teachermagazine.org at 1:44 PM | Permalink | Comments (1)

An 11-year-old student-journalist fulfilled his dream to interview President Barack Obama yesterday, speaking to the president about education, bullying, and basketball.

Damon Weaver from Canal Point Elementary School in Pahokee, Fla., is making waves across the country with his interview, in which he and the president eventually become “homeboys.”

Brian Zimmerman, Damon's broadcasting teacher, received an e-mail earlier this week inviting Weaver, his mother, and Zimmerman to the White House on Thursday for the interview.

In the interview, Damon asks what can be done to improve schools with little funding, and inquires what can be done to make school lunches more delicious. He suggests a diet of French fries and mangoes.

Weaver had been trying to land an interview with the president since he covered the inauguration for his elementary school’s TV station. He interviewed Vice President Joe Biden on the election trail last year and gained national prominence for his work. Since then, Weaver has interviewed Miami Heat star Dwayne Wade, director Spike Lee, actor Samuel L. Jackson, and Oprah.

President Obama plans on using footage from the interview as part of an education program that will be broadcast to schools around the nation next month.

As for Weaver? He hopes to become a journalist/anchorman some day, already having received a full scholarship to Albany State University to pursue journalism... when he gets a little older.

Here's the interview:

Posted by Bryan Toporek at 5:04 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Educators predict that textbooks will eventually become a thing of the past — although opinions vary on when this transformation will take place, according to the New York Times. William M. Habermehl, superintendent of the 500,000-student Orange County schools, believe this change could occur within the next five years, claiming, “[digital textbooks] can be better than traditional textbooks.”

“[Kids] don’t engage with textbooks that are finite, linear, and rote,” said Sheryl R. Abshire, chief technology officer for the Calcasieu Parish Public Schools in Lake Charles, La. “Teachers need digital resources to find those documents, those blogs, those wikis that get them beyond the plain vanilla curriculum in the textbooks.”

California Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger capitalized on the potential for change this summer, as he announced an initiative that would replace some high school science and math textbooks with free, “open source” digital versions. Gov. Schwarzenegger hopes the free textbooks will save the state money and will free kids from carrying around heavy, outdated, beaten-up books.

Yet educators remain wary of sweeping digital reform, as a number of students in many school districts across the country do not have personal access to a computer, Blackberry, Kindle, or other technological reading devices. These educators believe a technological revolution would only deepen the digital divide.

“A large portion of our kids don’t have computers at home, and it would be way too costly to print out the digital textbooks,” said Tim Ward, assistant superintendent for instruction in California’s 24,000-student Chaffey Joint Union High School District, where nearly half of the students are from low-income families.

Given the current state of the economy, many educators and technology experts believe the widespread K-12 digital revolution is coming — in due time.

“There’s a lot of stalled purchasing and decision making right now,” said Mark Schneiderman, director of federal education policy at the Software & Information Industry Association. “But it’s going to happen.”

Posted by Bryan Toporek at 4:00 PM | Permalink | Comments (1)

The first known online high school for gay and lesbian students in the United States is set to open in January, reports the Pioneer Press .

Officials with the GLBTQ Online High School, based in Maplewood, Minn., are currently sorting through student and faculty applications from all over the country.

GLBTQ Online High School is the brainchild of David Glick, the first online learning coordinator at the Minnesota Department of Education. The school will cater specifically to gay, bisexual, and transgender students (although students of any age and sexuality can enroll), using a GLBTQ-friendly curriculum focused on “abolishing negative messages and highlighting gay, bisexual, and transgender people in history.”

"We may not bring people closer physically—but we will in every other way," Glick said. "We want to make them feel more confident about who they are."

While GLBTQ Online High School hopes to place students in a “safe and welcoming educational community” instead of a potentially intimidating school environment, some fear the school will only further their separation from society.

“The danger of the online high school is that kids will stay isolated and feel uncared for,” said David Johnson, a social-psychology professor at the University of Minnesota. “It would be much better to have these kids in a regular high school.”

Posted by Bryan Toporek at 3:48 PM | Permalink | Comments (1)

A highly regarded Florida school district said that 70 percent of its teachers are ineffective in a proposal for a $120 million grant from the Gates Foundation, reports the Palm Beach Post.

The Palm Beach County school district is the only urban district in Florida to receive an A-rating from the state five years in a row. Even so, in its proposal to the Gates Foundation, district officials also revealed that half of the students in the system’s highest-rated schools were performing below grade level, and that less than 25 percent of their high school graduates were college-ready.

"It's been a real eye-opening experience to look at data and to look at all the places where there's lot of room for improvement," said Bill Graham, the school board chairman.

Palm Beach County was one of 10 school districts nationwide invited to apply for the Gates grant, which it hopes will help to create an extensive “teacher effectiveness system.” The district has promised to contribute another $210 million of its own money toward the system.

Palm Beach’s proposal outlines plans for changing the way teachers are evaluated, paid, and positioned to meet student needs. Under the plan, teachers would be grouped in four different categories based on performance and responsibilities. Those at the highest level would be able to make as much as administrators, according to the Post.

Posted by Rebecca Kern at 12:43 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)