Web Watch

A Memphis 6th grader returned to her former elementary school a hero last week, after having convinced Hewlitt-Packard to donate 67 computers to her alma mater, according to the Memphis Commercial Appeal.

As part of a persuasive writing assignment for her 5th grade class last year, Kristina White wrote to the executive vice president of HP's $42 billion personal systems division, suggesting that HP could generate community support in Memphis by donating computers to her school, Sherwood Elementary.

HP responded in spades, donating 67 HP Thin Client computers to the school, along with sufficient electrical conduit to allow the school to rewire two classrooms and the school library.

The students haven't taken HP's generosity for granted. They're using the donation to start a school-wide recycling project. They've been collecting boxes of office paper for recycling and tracking the data on their computers.

"What you notice is the enthusiasm and energy of the students," said Brian Becker, head of HP's education division.

When she asked whether or not she would be motivated by her accomplishments with HP, White replied, "I did once; I can do it again."

Posted by Bryan Toporek at 11:51 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

The Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation delivered a $40 million offer to the Pittsburgh Public Schools this week to boost teacher effectiveness, reports the post-gazette.com. According to officials, it is the largest direct grant ever made to the school district. Pittsburgh is one of four "intensive partnership sites" that could soon receive money from the Gates Foundation for their efforts to improve teacher effectiveness.

"For us, it's the perfect partnership at the perfect time," said school Superintendent Mark Roosevelt.

The district, Roosevelt acknowledged, sees the foundation's support as an endorsement of its initiatives to improve teacher effectiveness and school conditions.

Over the past four years, the district has shut the doors on low-performing schools, introduced standardized curricula, and with the support of Pittsburgh Mayor Luke Ravenstahl, helped to launch the Pittsburgh Promise, which offers college scholarships to select graduates of city high schools.

The $40 million grant will go towards financing the district's $85 million-plus plan to overhaul their methods for recruiting, training, and compensating teachers. Under the new plan, the district will implement performance-based pay for faculty members, establish a teachers' academy, renovate the tenure system, and broaden teacher recruitment efforts.

The plan rolled out with the approval of the Pittsburgh Federation of Teachers.

"The PFT is very proud of the efforts made by our members every day, and this recognition by Gates underscores the reasons why we have that pride," PFT President Jack Tarka said.

Posted by Bryan Toporek at 12:15 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

With online trading communities such as Craigslist and eBay facilitating millions of transactions, teachers have entered the online marketplace with personalized lesson plans in hand, according to a much talked-about story in the New York Times.

These "teacher-entrepreneurs" place their own lesson plans for sale online, either on their own blogs or on commercial sites, such as Teachers Pay Teachers or We Are Teachers. (See Teacher Magazine's 2006 profile of Teachers Pay Teachers.)

But school administrators have begun raising questions about whether or not teachers have full ownership of the material.

"To the extent that school district resources are used, then I think it's fair to ask whether the district should share in the proceeds," said Robert N. Lowry, deputy director of the New York State Council of School Superintendents.

Teachers who place their lesson plans online currently take home all of the profits and technically have no responsibility to spend that money on their classrooms. However, some teachers split the profits between school and personal life. For example, Erica Bohrer, an elementary school teacher in New York, says she used the money she earned from selling lesson plans to add books to a reading nook in her first-grade classroom and to help with mortgage payments.

"Teaching can be a thankless job," Bohrer said. "I put my hard-earned time and effort into creating these things, and I just would like credit."

While districts analyze the new online marketplace in an effort to establish guidelines or policies, some educators also fear that the act of selling lesson plans will undermine the ability for educators to create online professional development communities where ideas and lesson plans are traded freely.

"Teachers swapping ideas with one another, that's a great thing," said Joseph McDonald, a professor at the Steinhardt School of Culture, Education and Human Development at New York University. "But somebody asking 75 cents for a word puzzle reduces the power of the learning community and is ultimately destructive to the profession."

Posted by Bryan Toporek at 1:40 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Many struggling students in high schools throughout New Jersey must take test-prep classes in place of electives like music or art, according to The Record.

With all students required in the state to pass the High School Proficiency Assessment in order to graduate, those deemed at risk of failing must often enroll—sometimes semester after semester—in intensive review courses that use workbooks supplied by testing companies and instruct them in test-taking strategies.

While critics of standardized testing decry the trend as yet another example of curriculum narrowing, educators in New Jersey appear to have more mixed feelings.

"It's all about the tests—it's unfortunate, but that's the way it is," said Joseph Mastropietro, a math supervisor in the Hasbrouck Heights district. "The key is we want them to graduate from high school and move on to college."

Mastropietro added that the separate courses have the benefit of allowing teachers in regular core courses to limit the amount of time they have to spend on test preparation.

Others noted that the testing regimen has improved schools' ability to ensure that all kids are at an acceptable skill level before they move on. The focus on tests has "made everyone's job a little more difficult, but I think the kids have these essential skills now, for the most part," said Elmwood Park schools Superintendent Joseph Caspulla.

Posted by Anthony Rebora, teachermagazine.org at 3:10 PM | Permalink | Comments (1)

With policies aimed at separating students based on ability flourishing in schools, educators have noticed a correlation between ability-based grouping and the continuation of the minority achievement gap, according to NPR.

Schools like Columbia High School in Maplewood, N.J., which place struggling students in remedial classes, have created an environment where predominantly minority students continue to end up in the lower-level classes, while their white counterparts succeed in higher-level classes.

"What you're seeing in suburbia and how it is playing out along racial lines is testimony to the fact that race still matters quite a bit in a society and very much so in education," says Amy Stuart Wells, a sociology and education professor at Columbia University's Teachers College.

This racial division can have profound effects upon the minority students' levels of motivation, some educators believe.

"Black children in higher-level classes were ignored, or perceived that they were being ignored, or did not feel comfortable going to the teacher after school to get help," Lovie Lilly, principal of Columbia High School says. "They gave up and decided to go to level three classes where at least there were other black children."

When minority students opt to drop themselves down into lower level classes, the NPR report says, they often opt out of a solid education, as teachers in the remedial classes expect less from their students. A former student of Columbia High, Jerry Mornvil, recalls his time spent in a lower-level class: "Our first day, going to that class, we made a nickname for that class. We called it the retarded class."

District Superintendent Brian Osborne recalls, on his second day on the job, asking a group of students what their teachers' expectations are for them. "The very first thing that one of the students told me was 'It depends what level you're in.' "

Osborne believes all is not lost for students in these remedial classes—he has created a task force to study the technique of separating in Maplewood's schools.

Posted by Bryan Toporek at 11:16 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

In response to the sickening news of gang rape occurring outside a Calif. high school's homecoming dance, a USC professor is calling attention to role of student tips and reports in efforts to stop school violence.

Ron Avi Astor, Ph.D, a professor in USC's Schools of Social Work and Education, writes an opinion piece on CNN.com that says instead of asking questions such as "Why are our kids so messed up?" and "What's happening in our schools?," we should be asking, "What can we do to prevent such heinous acts from happening?"

Astor believes that students themselves hold the power to stopping school violence. He cites research showing that students typically know where and when violence on campus will occur, largely due to the prominence of online social networks, text messaging, and widespread cellphone use.

Since the tragedies of Columbine in 1999 and Virginia Tech in 2007, Astor believes students to have become more vigilant in noticing potential safety threats. Student reports halted a Columbine-style massacre at a high school in Green Bay, Wisc. a few years back; and in August, student tips and an alert teacher stopped a potential tragedy from occurring at Hillside High School in San Mateo, Calif.

"Unfortunately, the public is largely unaware of these frequently heroic acts by high school students and their teachers because they don't often get national media attention," Astor explains. "That lack of information has helped obscure the important roles that students and their responsive teachers play in preventing school violence."

Ultimately, Astor believes school administrators and teachers must answer the call and teach students procedures about how to handle reporting incidents of violence in schools. If the schools provide the backbone, he thinks students will do the rest when it comes to preventing school violence.

Posted by Bryan Toporek at 11:25 AM | Permalink | Comments (1)

The debate continues in the nation's capital over the hiring and firing of hundreds of teachers, according The Washington Post. Why did Chancellor Michele Rhee hire 934 teachers over the summer, only to turn around a few months later and fire 266 teachers when the city was faced with a $20.7 million school budget deficit? Did the chancellor know the budget cuts were coming? And why did she hire almost 25 percent more teachers to the city's 4,000 member teaching force?

On Thursday, Chancellor Rhee faced off with Washington, D.C.'s, City Council to answer those questions and more under oath. According to council members, Rhee ignored their directive to curtail summer school to deal with the budget shortfall and instead turned around and laid off teachers, almost a third of those she hired over the summer. Many suspect she was interested in laying off older teachers, a charge she has repeatedly denied.

Criticized for a lack for transparency and poor communication, Rhee was reproached by the council for her "incredibly cavalier" decision. Her approach to dealing with the budget shortfall was called a violation of the law for manipulating the budget, by Council Chairman Vincent A. Gray. While Rhee claims she did not know about the budget shortfall, her chief financial deputy, Noah Wepman, acknowledged he knew about the budget cuts mid-July while the school system was in the midst of hiring teachers. He said he briefed Rhee and that they discussed layoffs as a means to trimming the budget.

For her turn, Rhee defended her decision, explaining that it was more important to salvage summer school than to save teacher jobs. "I would have not have taken this step had I had not believed that the advantages to going this route, in the long run, far outweigh the short term disadvantages," she said.

The teachers' union, which has denounced the October layoffs as "illegal," claiming Rhee just wanted to get rid of older teachers, has gone to court to reinstate those who were laid off.

Posted by Elizabeth Rich at 4:37 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Edward Vickerman, the head of business at England's Freeston Business and Enterprise College—the equivalent of a high school in America—recently won the British outstanding new teacher of the year award despite suffering from dyslexia.

"I was told I could never be a teacher, so this award is for anyone like me who is dyslexic and wants to teach," he said.

Vickerman keeps his students in the loop about his dyslexia and avoids any issues with writing by incorporating new technologies into his classroom.

Having received a degree in hotel management before switching to teaching, Vickerman hopes to provide his students with what it takes to succeed.

"He is the most talented, exciting and enthusiastic teacher we have ever had, with skills way beyond our expectations," said Vickerman's colleague who recommended him for the award.

Posted by Bryan Toporek at 1:01 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Starting next school year, Pennsylvania will began phasing in Keystone exams—final exams which students could be required to pass in order to graduate, according to the Philadelphia Inquirer.

Starting next year, 11th graders in participating districts will begin taking the exams in biology, literature, and Algebra 1; by 2015, students now in 7th grade would be expected to take six Keystone exams to graduate. The Keystone exams look to replace the state-run Pennsylvania System of School Assessments, of which 50 percent or more 11th graders failed (in math or reading) in 132 of the state's 500 districts last year.

The Keystone exams will be issued by the state, meaning the tests and their curriculum will be state, not district controlled. The issue of state control has raised hackles, despite the fact that districts can opt out of the tests. Thus far, 33 districts have approved the tests for use in their schools, while 70 districts passed resolutions this year to oppose the tests.

Among the individuals who have expressed concern is Joan Duvall-Flyyn, president of a local NAACP chapter, who worries that the tests will "hold children accountable for the failures of the system."

And with the $176 million price tag to implement the Keystone exams, others believe the money could be better spent. Regarding the funding, Lawrence Feinberg, a member of the Haverford School District school board, suggested, "give it to the kids who need it—that's where the money should go."

Posted by Bryan Toporek at 3:34 PM | Permalink | Comments (1)

Theodore Sizer, influential education reformer and author of Horace's Compromise: The Dilemma of the American High School, has died at age 77. Among other traits, Sizer was known for his acute sense of the systemic challenges teachers faced in their work--often amid what he referred to as policy and social "silences." We'll have more on this. ...

Update, 5:15 p.m.: From Teacher's archives, an excellent 1996 profile of Sizer, as well as a 2000 appreciation of Horace's Compromise.

Posted by Anthony Rebora, teachermagazine.org at 4:46 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Students struggling with learning to read are receiving confidence boosts by turning to a new, unlikely reading partner: reading therapy dogs.

By reading to dogs, children can build their confidence and reading skills without facing the risk of judgment by their classmates.

Kathy Klotz, the executive director of a company which runs a program called Reading Education Assistance Dogs, believes that new readers benefit from their canine partners' attentiveness.

"A factor that we never planned for, that turned out to be really important, is that the child feels like they're letting the dog understand the story," Klotz says. "They get to be the teacher, the storyteller, the one who knows more than the dog for a change. ...They just blossom when they get to be the one who knows more than the dog."

Jim Wilmoth owns Bailey, a registered therapy dog who attends reading sessions every week at local libraries as part of the "Sit. Stay. Read." program—a therapy program similar to R.E.A.D.

"The kids come in and read stories to Bailey and other therapy dogs for about 15 or 20 minutes at a time," says Wilmoth. "It encourages them to practice their reading skills ... and it's a good way to involve families with the library system."

While Klotz doesn't have scientific data to prove her program's success, she believes its impact reaches far beyond teaching students how to read.

"It's not just reading scores," she says. "They start to speak up in class, and volunteer, and finish homework. They don't want to miss school when they're going to read to the dog, so it improves attendance. It kind of just flows over onto everything."

Posted by Bryan Toporek at 4:19 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

A new study from the University of Alberta suggests that the epidemic of "chatspeak" probably does not negatively impact students' spelling abilities.

The study's lead author, psychologist Connie Varnhagen, believes that the abbreviated language of text messages and online instant messages should be considered a dialect with proprietary spelling and grammar.

"Young people can compartmentalize their language," Varnhagen said. "They have language that they use on the playground and then school language. They know how to speak in classrooms without sounding like goofballs."

Roughly 40 students, aged 12 to 17, were asked to save their instant messages for a week, and then take a standardized spelling test. The researchers discovered that the students seemed to know the "correct" spelling of abbreviated words— for example, students understood that "probably" was abbreviated as "prolly," and that "shoulda was derived from "should've."

"Kids who are good spellers [academically] are good spellers in instant messaging," she said. "And kids who are poor spellers in English class are poor spellers in instant messaging."

Posted by Bryan Toporek at 3:20 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)