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After receiving complaints from parents about two books assigned to students, the Wyoming school district in Ohio has decided to implement a review system to evaluate all books (other than textbooks) on teachers' reading lists, according to the Cincinnati Enquirer.

Under the system, a panel made up of school staff will rate each book based on criteria ranging from subject-area relevance to how likely it is to generate controversy.

By reports, principals would be expected to reconsider the assignment of books that receive low scores.

The new policy came in response to complaints from two parents about a pair of books that had been assigned to high school students, The Bookseller of Kabul by Asne Seierstad and The Perks of Being a Wallflower by Stephen Chbosky.

Some teachers and parents have criticized the district for caving into "intellectual bullying" and essentially overriding teachers' judgment in recommending books. They charge the district could be veering uncomfortably close to censorship.

"When a district puts a book on its 'Not Welcome' list, it's censorship and banning," said one parent.

However, Todd Levy, the school board president, stated that the district "will not shy away from controversial books when they have educational merit." (Obvious follow-up question: Then why are you bothering to score books on whether or not they might be controversial?)

Posted by Anthony Rebora, teachermagazine.org at 4:20 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Last week, in the nation's capital, 38-year-old Chancellor Michelle Rhee announced that there would be a reduction in force of the city's 3,800 teachers due to "unanticipated" cuts to the budget by the City Council, according to The Washington Post. A controversial figure locally since her appointment in the spring of 2007 by Mayor Adrian Fenty to head up Washington, D.C.'s troubled school system, Rhee has became something of a media darling outside the Beltway—appearing on the cover of Time magazine in the now-famous picture of her in a classroom, holding a broom; in the pages of The Atlantic Monthly, Newsweek, Harper's, The New York Times; and on the public radio and air waves.

In the wake of the RIF announcement, many—including George Parker, head of the Washington Teachers Union—have questioned why Rhee hired 900 new teachers over the summer and how she could have been blindsided by budget cuts, given the financial stress the city was under.

This week, the Huffington Post ran a blog item, written by a D.C. charter school teacher, which pointed to the possibility that hiring a lot of new teachers over the summer and then blaming the City Council for money problems might just be a ploy by Rhee to fire the ones she'd like to get rid of. The blog item included excerpts from a press release from the City Council chairman's office that blasted Rhee and Fenty as liars. The release states that "[The chairman] is alarmed the Administration informed principals to plan for drastic reductions in their budgets—effectively exploiting the city's fiscal situation to implement its desired reductions in the teacher workforce."

A recent editorial in The Washington Post suggests that even if Rhee is hiding behind the budget in order to fire teachers she has long struggled with the union to get rid of, she's still entitled "to take action against teachers whose hold on their jobs has little to do with their value to their students." But in a city whose teachers are starting year three without a contract, the paper makes a plea for the union to focus on reaching a contract agreement with the chancellor rather than picketing her office, as planned next week, over the RIFs.

Where does this leave teachers? Likely biting their nails until September 30th when pink slips are to be issued.

Update, September 25 Education Week blog District Dossier has the inside scoop on today's The Washington Post magazine story about Michelle Rhee.

Posted by Elizabeth Rich at 12:28 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

A California elementary school with high percentages of low income and minority students has seen dramatic test score gains as a result of an instructional program that combines intensive white board use with choral student responses, according to the Contra Costa Times.

Delta View Elementary's Academic Performance Index scores have jumped 148 points over the past year, reaching 830 this year (on a scale of 200 to 1000, where 800 marks proficiency). It boasts the highest academic-growth rate in its district.

Teachers and administrators attribute the gains to the introduction of basic-skills instructional programs called "BoardMath" and "BoardEnglish." In these programs, teachers present information in a consistent, schematic fashion on a whiteboard, and students are taught to chant problem-solving strategies in unison. (There's a helpful video on the approach here.)

"There's a lot of consistency in language and instruction programs between classrooms," says Dick Nicoll, interim superintendent of the Mt. Diablo school district. "The kids like it because they know they're learning. The teachers like it because it's effective. And the parents like it because the kids are doing better."

Teachers in other schools in the district are now being trained in the technique.

Posted by Anthony Rebora, teachermagazine.org at 1:37 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

A New Hampshire teacher has been disciplined and is being monitored after issuing a (shall we say?) peculiar essay prompt to her 12th grade class, according to local news provider WMUR.

The prompt in question: "If you knocked your brother to the ground, would you urinate in his mouth?"

Jack Robertson, superintendent of the Governor Wentworth Regional School District, claimed that the teacher designed the question to motivate students to think creatively and improve their writing. He noted that the teacher, who previously had a good track record, did not exercise good judgment by assigning the question to the class. (Ya think?)

"While on the one hand, I appreciate her interest in trying to get kids to write, there are other topics and there are more appropriate prompts that could create that same kind of interest," Robertson said.

The question had nothing to do with the book that the class was currently reading. School administrators discovered the questionable question when a student from the class asked another teacher for help with the topic. That teacher quickly informed the principal of the essay prompt.

(See also: a video report on the story from CNN.)

Posted by Bryan Toporek at 11:54 AM | Permalink | Comments (2)

This week, CNN reported that the population of Facebook—now at 300 million members—has neared that of the United States. This is good news for anyone trying to connect via the Internet, except perhaps for teachers in Sioux Falls, South Dakota. The ArgusLeader.com reports that, as of June, the district has a new policy that prevents students and staff who are not related from social-networking with or “friending” each other, unless the site is a professional one.

For Deb Merxbauer, the head of the Sioux Falls Education Association, the decision is an inconvenience for district staff who find sites like Facebook helpful for keeping track of their children’s online activities. No longer allowed to “friend” their children’s friends, staff members could have a more difficult time monitoring their children, according to Merxbauer. “SFEA is definitely very concerned about that piece of it,” she said. “Anything that becomes an infringement on parental rights as an employee is a concern.”

Merxbauer also noted that the policy doesn’t address concerns the district had expressed last year about the appropriateness of what district employees might be posting to social-networking sites. “I would think the intent of the policy is to guide the type of the content,” she said.

For parent Doug Herbert, who defended the district’s decision, social-networking between staff and students could lead to preferential treatment in the classroom. “If it’s personal, it might promote favoritism, and you don’t want that in the schools,” he explained.

Matt Christensen, a 30-year-old high school teacher who teaches in a neighboring district, said social networking has been a help, not a hindrance in the classroom. Christensen has used Facebook to communicate with his students about schoolwork and to give them a glimpse into his life as a father and husband. “Kids these days, more than ever, need positive influences,” he said.

Posted by Elizabeth Rich at 1:03 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Editor’s note: Conquering classroom management can be tough. Whether it’s figuring out how not to make the most of leftover classroom time, dealing with behavior problems, or staying ahead of classroom chaos, classroom management can raise the hackles of even a seasoned educator. A best-of selection of classroom management tips written by the members of the Teacher Leaders Network and staff reporters at Education Week is now available. A package of articles on topics ranging from classroom organization to conflict resolution to the latest management tools are available for only $4.95.

Posted by Elizabeth Rich at 12:41 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

In an op-ed piece published in the Boston Globe, education professor and historian Diane Ravitch argues that the current movement to emphasize “21st Century Skills” in K-12 schools is a potentially harmful rehash of earlier, now discredited pedagogical efforts to teach life skills in the place of content knowledge.

Ravitch writes that the focus on cooperative learning, critical thinking, and employment preparation recommended by advocates of 21st Century Skills has a host of precedents. Throughout the 20th century, she says, progressive pedagogical movements repeatedly called on educators to “abandon their antiquated academic ideals” and teach students relevant practical skills through project methods, hands-on activities, and discovery-learning approaches.

These movements eventually lapsed, Ravitch says, but they succeeded in “insert[ing] into American education a deeply ingrained suspicion of academic studies and subject matter.”

The problem, she warns, is that content knowledge is ultimately fundamental to the development of critical thinking skills.

“What matters most in the use of our brains is our capacity to make generalizations, to see beyond our own immediate experience,” Ravitch writes. “The intelligent person, the one who truly is a practitioner of critical thinking, has the capacity to understand the lessons of history, to grasp the inner logic of science and mathematics, and to realize the meaning of philosophical debates by studying them.”

Posted by Anthony Rebora, teachermagazine.org at 1:48 PM | Permalink | Comments (7)

An 11-year-old student in Alabama came up with an elaborate kidnapping hoax last week in an effort to hide his bad report card from his parents, according to CNN.

The boy claimed that on Friday, a man in a beat-up red car kidnapped him at gunpoint and said, according to the local police department, “I’m going to take you somewhere and kill you.” The boy told police that he jumped from the car at that point, leaving his backpack behind in the car.

The truth was slightly less dramatic. “He got a bad report card,” Sgt. Mark Roberts of the Huntsville Police Department told CNN. “And he couldn’t figure out anyway to say his book bag was lost or stolen.”

Investigators found holes in the boy’s story upon interviewing him. While he reportedly couldn’t grab his backpack, he did retrieve a musical instrument from the car before jumping out.

On Monday, the child’s grandfather called the police department and revealed the details of his grandson’s elaborate hoax, saying the child had confessed to the family.

“I just hope children don’t do this too often because it does put us through quite a lot of man power,” Roberts said. “We gave (the investigation) the whole 9 yards.”

Posted by Bryan Toporek at 4:27 PM | Permalink | Comments (3)

The U.S. Department of Education’s push to get states to link teacher evaluations to student test-score performance is ill-advised and unfair to educators, former Los Angeles teacher Walt Gardner writes in an opinion piece published in the Los Angeles Times.

Under proposed guidelines, the Education Department’s $4 billion “Race to the Top” competitive-grant program would require participating states to use student-performance data in evaluating teachers’ effectiveness. Lawmakers in California are considering changing the current state law on teacher evaluations so it can qualify for the program.

While the idea of linking teacher evaluations with student scoring gains may sound reasonable to taxpayers, Gardner charges, it fails to account for the unique challenges many teachers face in the classroom. The policy would be particularly unfair to teachers in “chronically failing” schools in disadvantaged areas, where many of the students are poor and “come from chaotic backgrounds.” In such schools, out-of-school factors such as poor nutrition and lack of parental involvement hamper students learning. “As a result,” Gardner observes, “teachers are forced to perform triage rather than teach.”

The current recession, he adds, has made the situation worse and more widespread.

Gardner acknowledges that there are examples of schools with large percentages of low-income students that have managed to raise standardized test scores. But he argues that their success is “not sustainable” and exacts “too steep a price from teachers to form the basis of education reform.”

Rather than expecting teachers to be “miracle workers,” he concludes, policymakers should direct their attention to the root causes of poor student performance.

Posted by Anthony Rebora, teachermagazine.org at 11:29 AM | Permalink | Comments (1)

Recent gains by U.S. students on an international-comparison test show that the much-maligned “reform math” is in fact working, a middle school math teacher writes in an opinion piece published in The Seattle Times.

Seattle educator Michael Sparks notes that so-called “discovery-based” math programs, oriented around guided investigation and interaction, emerged in the mid-1990s in response to the “Third World-level” performance of U.S. students on international tests. Despite an “endless stream” of commentary criticizing the “fuzziness” of such programs, Sparks writes, recent data suggests they are dramatically improving students’ traditional math skills.

On the 2007 Trends in International Math and Science Study, he writes, U.S. 8th graders scored 9th among 45 nations tested—up from 28th place in 1995. In real statistical terms, only five countries, all Asian, scored significantly higher on the 2007 test than the U.S.—a gap that Sparks contends is “better explained by equally wide social and cultural differences than by curricular tendencies.”

Sparks acknowledges the legitimate “instructional concerns” of opponents of reform math. “All things considered, however,” he writes, “the critics have failed to fully engage, discern, understand, and appreciate the value and marvelous qualities and outcomes of [discovery-based] programs … when done well.”

Posted by Anthony Rebora, teachermagazine.org at 12:40 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)