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Here's a messy situation: Two former teachers at Achievement Academy Charter School in Albany, N.Y, are charging that school officials secretly planted video cameras in their classrooms.

One of the teachers, Ryan Marie Roberts, was fired shortly after the alleged videotaping, reportedly for poor performance; the other, Carol Connelly, resigned after finding a camera in her classroom. Both say they detected a camera hidden behind a sweater hanging in the back of the classroom (not exactly James Bond stuff here).

But here's the thorny part: School officials acknowledge that the classrooms were videotaped, but claim it was done as part of an evaluation system that teachers were informed of. Indeed, according to the Albany Times Union, shortly after the news of the alleged secret videotaping was first reported, the organization that manages the school, Brighter Choice Foundations, put out a press release praising the school for its effective use of videotaping for teacher evaluation.

"We do use videotaping for the betterment of the school. All teachers were made aware of it and reminded," Chris Bender, executive director of Brighter Choice, told the Troy Record.

Roberts and Connelly, however, both indicate they were not notified about the cameras. Roberts reasonably questioned why, if the videotaping was public knowledge, the camera was hidden underneath a sweater.

Connelly noted that her students were disturbed by the camera. "As soon as students saw it, they became really upset," said Connelly. "They said they felt violated and they brought up that their parents didn't sign anything about it."

Connelly has also reportedly claimed that the school systematically allows students to cheat on standardized tests--a charge Bender also denies.

Posted by Anthony Rebora, teachermagazine.org at 2:25 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

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)